#posts by lp

So he sits and swallows his words as Lenalee watches him. For having been through a hell of a night, she still looks incredible. Her hair’s still damp from the cold shower, and the complimentary t-shirt they got with the room is two sizes too big, hanging off her shoulder, but Lavi honestly thinks she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. 

She’s beautiful, and she’s glaring daggers at him from the edge of the tiny bed. Waiting.

“Yeah, I lied,” he whispers at length, head down, damp towel chilling the back of his neck as he scrubs at spots of black hair dye on his skin halfheartedly. Now that the adrenaline’s run its course, his body feels heavy; his face hurts, his chest hurts, his head is killing him and every look Lenalee shoots him is another painful reminder of how badly he’s fucked up.

“Was anything you told me true?” She asks, and it’s not a demand, but he can hear in her tone that she’s begging for something to have mattered.

Lavi breathes out slowly, scrubbing his face with the dingy towel. “We are the same age, I’m pretty sure...I might be a couple of years older...”

“That’s it?” She scoffs, incredulous, and Lavi chances a quick look up to see her drop her face into her hands. “Not even your name? Are you kidding me?”

“I don’t have one.” That, at least, makes her pause, peeking out at him through the slats in her fingers. He shrugs weakly. “I was born into this. I just have my designation. They figured giving us names would make it harder for us to...y’know...get into our roles.”

She drops her hands, and for a second, pity is written clearly across her face before she remembers the situation they’re in. Lenalee frowns, crossing her arms and deliberately looking away from him.

(Lavi’s been stabbed before, and shot and injured in awful ways. He can’t think of anything that hurts more than this, at the moment.)

“What happens now?”

That’s the million dollar question. He sighs again, tossing the towel onto the floor. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course not.” Lenalee raises an eyebrow at him, as if offended he would even ask that. “You just told me you were sent to kill me.”

“I haven’t.” Lavi mutters defensively, standing to pace the small room. “And I’m not gonna. I’m gonna keep you safe.” 

Lenalee watches him, unimpressed. 

“I’m…” Lavi sits on the cheap wooden dresser across from her, holding his hands up pleadingly. “I’m not… I’m compromised, alright? I can’t go back to the Organization, and if I give myself up they’ll kill us both. I know what I’d do in this situation, but…”

Here he stops, swallowing past the thick lump in his throat, wincing as his voice cracks. “I lied to you, a lot, and I don’t want to do it anymore. So… so I guess what I’m saying is, it’s your choice. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. If you want me to just...leave then I’ll do it, and if you want me to stay I will. But I’m not gonna force your hand more than I already have in this shitty situation I put you in.”

“Why?” 

Lavi looks up, offering a weak smile. “You’re gonna laugh.”

“This isn’t really a laughing matter.” She waves her hand to encompass the shitty little room they’re in, then to their borrowed clothes. “So why?”

“Because…” He shrugs, running a hand through his damp hair, staring at the faint black stains left behind on his palm. “Because I’m in love with you.” 

The silence hangs thick between them, but he can’t look at her; his words sound so… inappropriate? Inconsequential? He would have said ‘I love you’ but he knows enough to know this isn’t it. If he had more time to simmer in the thought, maybe he would have said he was in love with the idea of her, with how she feels like a home he’s never had, but there’s no time for philosophizing about how much she means to him.

Lenalee lets out a shaky breath. “Let’s… we’ll come back to that.”

“That’s fine.” It’s better than outright rejection.

Lavi starts at the strangled groan Lenalee makes, patting her cheeks as if she’s bracing herself for something. Ready, she looks up at him, determination in her eyes. “Are they going to hurt my brother?”

“Probably not? They need him.” Komui’s biggest asset to the Organization has always been his brain; the idea behind getting rid of Lenalee would be to make Komui more pliable and easier to manage for members within the Organization. Even with everything up in the air, Lavi’s almost positive the elder Lee will survive the ordeal.

He says as much, in the interest of not lying, and isn’t too surprised when Lenalee kicks out at him. “Ow!”

“Don’t just say it like that?” She sputters back at him, crossing her arms. 

“You asked!” 

They lapse into silence again, and Lavi lets his head drop back against the wall. Dimly he can hear the TV in the next room, and hopes their conversation isn’t loud enough to carry across. “So... like I said… your call.”

“That’s such bullshit.” Lenalee says, and though she’s livid her tone is exhausted. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know.” Lavi swallows past the lump in his throat and ignores the pain in his chest. It’s just guilt. “I’m sorry.”

“How would you get out of this?” Lenalee shifts on the bed, the springs creaking in protest. “What super secret assassin tricks can get us out of this?”

“Well…” Lavi shrugs. “If it was just me, I’d disappear. I don’t have any real documents, and I know enough people that I could just get new ones made. Just lay low until things die down.”

“So you’d just run? What about my brother? There are still people after him!” Lenalee sits up, and looks just about ready to throttle him, which would be justified on her part, considering everything. 

“You asked what I would do!” If the situation wasn’t so dire, this would almost be like the nights they would spend watching movies, arguing the pros and cons of ridiculous scenarios, instead of the very real possibility they might just die.

“Okay, then, what would you do if you had to fix things? Save my brother from assassins?” Lenalee presses, fisting her hands into the hem of her shirt. 

Lavi slides off the dresser to the floor, looking up at her helplessly. “I don’t know! I don’t even know what I’m doing here! I don’t know how to help, that’s not what we do!”

The groan of frustration from Lenalee gets them a thump from next door, and they fall into silence again. 

“What if we just expose them all? The Organization, all of it? It’ll be a media storm, and if anything happens to Komui then everyone will know who’s behind it.” Lenalee says slowly, drumming her fingers against her thighs, her eyes distant. 

The idea is so ludicrous that it makes Lavi choke on a laugh. “Are you kidding me? There’s hundreds of thousands of people involved, there’s no way!”

Lenalee waves her hand like that’s the least of their worries, the distant look fading into something brighter. Plotting. “If they wanted to get Komui under their thumb, that means he has to know something, right? Otherwise why bother? I can get into my brother’s files, and you can help me blow everything open.”

“You’ll be putting yourself in more danger if you do!” Every second that ticks by, he can see the idea coalescing in her head, and he knows her enough to know that look on her face means business. He’d have better luck trying to stop a moving train with his bare hands. “Lenalee, please…”

She raises an eyebrow at him, sharp and unamused. “You’re going to fix this one way or another. You said it was my choice. This is my choice.”

It doesn’t mean he doesn’t try, raising an eyebrow at the agents as if he doesn’t know why they’re riled up. “Is this any way to greet a friend?”

“You assume we’re friends,” Thompson says, though after a minute he waves the agents down. Stark is a nut, but he’s proven he’s on their side.

“I wasn’t talking about you.” Stark snaps back, breezing through the entryway towards Carter. She gives him a bemused look, but seems as resigned as Thompson when Stark takes her hand and hauls her out of her desk. “I'm borrowing Peg, if anyone has any complaints feel free to send them to my secretary.”

“Howard, leave the poor girl alone, she has enough to deal with as is,” Carter admonishes, but lets herself be carted away. There’s not a doubt in anyone’s mind that she could get out of it if she wanted to, but she probably knows better than to fight Stark when he’s in one of his moods.

Just as fast as he came in, he’s gone with Carter in tow, leaving behind the faint waft of too-expensive cologne and motor oil.

“Should we have tried to stop him?” Sousa asks. The agents all turn to stare at Thompson, and not for the first time he regrets being the guy in charge.

“If you wanna have a go at him, be my guest.” 

Carter returns just as half the agents are getting ready to leave, not a hair out of place with a shiner right on her jaw. She sets a file down on Thompson’s desk and grins, though it looks more like a grimace with the swelling on her face.

“You might want to look into that,” she says, all smiles as she breezes by a startled Sousa to gather her things. “Have a good night, gentlemen.”

The file’s perfect, ‘cause Marge ain’t a slouch when it comes to her reports, and all Thompson can do is toss it on someone’s desk to handle in the morning.

“I’m not getting paid enough for this,” he tells Sousa, who has the gall to laugh.

                                                            *

It becomes a habit after that, Stark marching through the office like he owns the damn place, taking Carter and leaving. Jack’s tempted to step in multiple times; Marge is one of his best, if he has to reluctantly admit it, and losing her means losing one of the good ones whenever there’s a stumper out in the bullpen.

She must have seen something though, or heard something from someone, because the next time Stark shows up he does so with full catering and the promise of more if it gets them to quit their bitching.

“Why don’t we have this guy working for us again?” Sousa asks, tucking into a steak for lunch while his deli order remains uneaten at his desk.

“Because he’s an ass and we don’t want his dirty money,” Thompson says, though without feeling, because Stark may be an ass, but he has damn good taste. He hasn’t had dinner so good since he was still living with his folks, and he can’t say he doesn’t miss it.

Rodriguez pauses from his meal mid-chew, turning to look at Thompson. “Is this a bribe, boss?”

“It’s not a bribe,” Thompson hisses, though now more agents are looking less enamored with their food. “It’s payment for stealing Carter all the damn time.”

“Maybe he should do it more often,” Chang, one of the newbies, says, and gets a roll chucked at his head for saying what they’re all thinking.

It really is a damn good steak, and even as the chief of the SSR his salary isn’t that good.

                                                         *

It’s an earlier morning than usual when Stark wanders in, coffee in one hand and a stack of files under one arm. Jack eyes him with a tired acceptance, straightening up in his seat to at least pretend he’s professional. “You’re up early, Stark. What, your dame of the day bail on you?”

“If you didn’t say crap like that, I’d introduce you to some,” Stark shoots back, setting the coffee at Peggy’s desk with a grin before weaving through the office towards… him.

There’s a brief flare of panic that Jack knows Stark can see, but he tamps it down, frowning as the stack of files thump on his desk. “What’s this?”

“Professional courtesy.” He spins on the balls of his feet to slam his office door shut with gusto, and pulls out a little doohickey from his pocket while Jack starts to comb through the files.

Rodriguez. Chang. McCoy, Grimley, Sousa, Carter…Thompson.

Jack leans back in his seat, watching Stark wave his little contraption around the place. “Stark, why the hell do you have personnel files--”

“Ah! Bup, bup, bup!” Stark shuts him up with a dismissive hand gesture, combing the machine in his hands across his lampshade and pulling out a...something in the process. He gleefully opens a compartment in the box and tosses the little thing in. “Had to make sure no one else was listening first.”

It’s too damn early for this kind of nonsense. Jack stares at Stark incomprehensibly even as his hand drifts towards the desk drawer with the booze in it. “Was that a fucking bug in my office?”

“If it makes you feel any better, it’s probably not a bad guy’s bug.” Stark shrugs, and comfortable now that he’s sure they’re not being listened in on, drapes himself dramatically on the chair opposite Jack. “Still, don’t think I’d want them to hear this.”

Jack pours himself more whiskey than he knows he should, and slides a glass to Stark for good measure. “What the fuck is going on?”

Stark straightens up, more serious than Jack has ever seen him. “Like I said. Professional courtesy. The SSR is compromised, we think.”

“Comprom--?” Jack can’t even wrap his head around the thought before his eyes drift to the files. “You think we’re--?”

“Easy, pal, you’re getting ahead of me.” Stark’s mouth quirks into a faint grin as he pats the files on Jack’s desk. “These are the confirmed good eggs, if you wanna call it that. Everyone else out there I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw them, which isn’t very far anyways.”

“You’re joking.” This can’t be happening, not again. Jack had been making sure he wasn’t going to follow into Dooley’s footsteps, he was aware and he was paying attention and keeping an eye out for signs and--

Stark waves a hand in front of Jack’s face, clearly amused. “You’re gonna be such a pain in the ass, Thompson, I can’t wait.”

“Shut up.” Jack snaps, and takes a swig of whiskey before composing himself. “Start talking.”

“It’s pretty simple.” Stark takes a slow drink from his glass, fingers tapping against the side absently. “It’s not just the SSR, but we think this is where they’re gonna take over first. Easiest way to take control is through intelligence, security, this kinda stuff.”

“They?” Jack echoes.

“The Reds. Leviathan. The Council of Nine. Hydra.” Stark shrugs, flipping open Carter’s file towards the end, where the familiar Hydra emblem stands stark against the white paper. “It’s like it’s a secret society of assholes.”

Jack snorts despite himself, feeling a pain being to form at his temples. “Cut one head off, right?”

“Except even Hydra is just one head of the whole damn thing instead of the actual body.” Clearing his throat, Stark shuts the file. “Point is, Peggy’s been helping me track down some of these heads. And before you complain,” he raises a hand even as Jack opens his mouth. “We knew someone in the SSR or with connections was compromised from the get-go.”

“You had to see who was clean before you could share with the rest of the class.” Jack wants to fault it, because if something had gone wrong it would have been his head on the chopping block instead of Carter’s, but he can’t say he wouldn’t do the same thing if he was in their shoes.

Stark seems to realize it too, relaxing in his seat. “While Peg’s been doing her agent thing, I’ve been pulling strings on my end too. I’ve got enough pull in the government now that if I wanted, I could start my own agency. One that we know is clean, meant to actually do some good instead of being beholden to the other alphabet soup agencies.”

Jack lets out a breath he doesn’t realize he was holding, finishing the last of his drink with a hiss. “Professional courtesy… you’re letting the rats know it’s time to jump ship?”

“Only the good ones.” Stark grins, though he seems exhausted at the thought. “It won’t be easy, but Peg trusts you, and the folks in these files, and I trust her.”

“I’m flattered,” Jack drones, but he almost means it.

With a laugh, Stark stands, gathering his files off Jack’s desk. “If you don’t mind working under her? I think you’ll do alright with our little group.”

The thought of not being in charge actually lifts his mood a bit, and Jack raises an eyebrow before glancing out the window into the bullpen. Peggy’s still at her desk working, but there’s a bounce in her curls. If she was reading his lips, he’s gonna riot.

“You got a name for your secret agent clubhouse yet?” Jack asks instead, stowing away the glasses and the whiskey in his drawer.

“We’re workshopping it, but I think it’s good.” Stark whistles a little tune, grabbing the door handle as he shoots Jack a wink. “We’ll be happy to welcome you to S.H.I.E.L.D when you’re ready, Thompson.”

“Get out of my office, Stark.” 

He watches Stark meander back towards Peggy, and Jack gives her a shrug that might just be a nod if someone were to squint real hard when she glances over at him.

She smiles and raises her coffee mug at him in return before Stark makes motions to drag her away again. If she’s really gonna be in charge, he doesn’t envy her one bit.

He looks better than he did a few nights ago, uniform neatly done up, hair combed, though the haunted look has yet to leave his eyes. He falls into step beside her easily though, reaching out to open the door for her as she makes her way back to her desk. “Got a minute, Agent Carter?”

Frankly, she doesn’t, but she supposes she may as well hear him out now instead of dealing with him dogging her for the rest of the day. “How can I help you, Sergeant?”

Peggy leads him back to her desk and sets the files she was given down, turning to eye him with no small amount of confusion. As far as she’s aware, Sergeant Barnes hasn’t been given orders yet, and she can’t think of a reason why he would need her in particular.

He pauses in front of her desk, not quite at parade rest, and while bashful isn’t the term that comes to mind in regards to the stories she’s heard of Sergeant Barnes, he seems contrite.

He takes a steadying breath, placing a hand at his belt, and clears his throat, staring resolutely at her files instead of her face. “Don’t wanna take up too much of your time, ma’am. I just wanted to apologize.”

“I beg your pardon?” She’s--- not bewildered, though she racks her brain to see what Barnes could possibly have to apologize to her for; something of that must show on her face, however, because he shakes his head. 

“Listen, you don’t owe me anything, much less accepting the apology, but I didn’t feel right not comin’ over and owning up to it.” He clears his throat again, glancing up at her face for a brief moment. “I was real rude to you the other night, and after I slept it off I realized I never got a chance to say sorry.”

“I…” Peggy sets the files on her desk aside, taking a seat slowly to lean her elbows on the wooden surface. She’s never expected much from people, much less the men in the military ranks, but he seems genuine, and for something so insignificant, too. Peggy hasn’t spent much time with the man, but she can begin to see why Steve sings his praises. “Thank you, Sergeant Barnes. I appreciate you taking the time for that.”

“Least I could do, right?” He gives her a humorless little smile, hand drifting to rub the back of his neck. “I know it doesn’t excuse my behavior, but it was a weird night for us all, I think.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” Peggy agrees. “I promise, I wasn’t offended in the least, but I do appreciate your earnestness.”

He swallows, and bright blue eyes cut to her before glancing down at her desk again. “I um. I ain’t usually like that either, alright? It’s not a justification or anything like that, but I don’t want that to be the first impression you have of me, is all. Stevie thinks real highly of you, and I’m sorry I didn’t do him justice.”

Barnes nods to himself and clears his throat, making to salute and step away. “That’s all, ma’am. Thanks for taking the time for me.”

“If we’re on the topic of apologies, I suppose it’s only fair I apologize as well, Sergeant.” Peggy calls out, not quite reaching out for him. He stops, though, and glances back with a truly confused look in his eyes.

“You didn’t do anything, Carter, what’re you apologizing for?” His brows furrow, and she can tell he’s doing what she did not minutes ago, scouring his hazy memories for a reason.

Peggy shrugs, not so proud that she can’t admit she was rude herself. “When I saw you and Captain Rogers that night, I’m afraid I was also dismissive towards you. I should have been more courteous, Sergeant. I apologize.”

“Aw, c’mon,” he mutters, relaxing a smidge. His hand drifts to the back of his neck again, and Peggy can spy a tinge of red at his ears. “It was nothin’, honest. Didn’t even notice.”

“Regardless, it’s only fair.” The smile she gives him is genuine, and she’s pleased to see him return it with one of his own. “I look forward to working with you, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Same here, ma’am.” This time his salute is something proper, though the wink he throws her way makes her raise an eyebrow. “If you need anything and Stevie’s not around, I’m more than happy to pick up the slack for that punk.”

“I’ll certainly keep that in mind.” 

Barnes leaves with a pep in his step, less the swagger she’d seen in other soldiers and more as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Peggy stares after him long after he’s left her line of sight, and feels the same kind of warmth in her chest as she does whenever she’s sent on a mission with Steve. The air of a good man, Doctor Erskine would have said, had he survived.