INFERNO │ Marvel

5.5 father

It was evening by the time they reached New Jersey and the sun had just set. Amelia had pulled up the coordinates on a holographic screen from her bracelet, pointing them to a long-abandoned military camp.

"This is it," Steve commented as they all hopped out of the car. The Stark gave a nod to confirm. Natasha was holding up a device of her own, the location also showing up as correct for her.

"The file came from these coordinates," she affirmed.

"So did I," Steve told them as they entered the gate. "This camp is where I trained."

"Changed much?" Amelia asked. Natasha began to wander off, but Steve stopped in his tracks and looked around, lost in his own world.

"A little."

"This is a dead-end," Natasha huffed. "No heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off."

"JARVIS?" Amelia called. Her AI did a digital scan of the area and produced a hologram from the bracelet. Amelia pointed to a stone building. "Bunker under there."

Steve followed her finger to spot where was pointing his eyes narrowed. "Army regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 yards of the barracks. That building's in the wrong place."

"So it's a secret bunker."

Steve had to break the thick chain with his shield to open the door to the bunker. Inside, it was dark and dusty, clearly not having been touched in decades. When they managed to find the generator and light the place up, a large space lined with desks was revealed, the SHIELD logo printed on the wall.

"This is SHIELD," Natasha pointed out.

"Maybe where it started," Steve added.

The three moved around the room, looking at old files on desks and frames on the wall. Eventually, their search led them to a side room: a smaller private office. Three pictures hung on the wall: one of a man Amelia didn't know, one of Peggy Carter and one of her father.

"And there's the Starks' father,"

"Dad," Amelia whispered. She let herself smile a little. "You know, I didn't even know he was a founder of SHIELD until a few years ago. One of his best-kept secrets."

"Who's the girl?" Natasha asked. Steve and Amelia exchanged a look, the former not wanting to say and the latter not saying out of respect for her friend. The subject was dropped and they moved on. They moved further into the room to a section with empty bookshelves. Steve held his hand in front of one of them, feeling a draft.

"If you're already working in a secret office," he started, pulling back the bookshelf to reveal the space behind. "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"

Natasha used her small device to scan the imprints of the keypad and guess the code. The elevator led them deeper underground to another dark room. When the lights flickered on, they were met with a bunch of old computer towers and central monitors. Natasha and Steve just looked confused while Amelia was in awe. She wondered if her father had helped build it.

"This can't be the data point," Nat commented. "This technology is ancient."

"It's not just ancient tech, Tasha," Amelia corrected. "It's a damn supercomputer. Also..."

She moved to the monitor and tapped on a very modern-looking drive adaptor plugged into it. Natasha removed the drive from her pocket and plugged it in. The monitors and surrounding computer towers burst to life, the words 'initiate system?' displayed on the screen. She began to type.