"A Second American Hero... Well that's a coincidence. What happens now? You just gonna drop her at Rogers' doorstep?"
( steve rogers & oc - deborah murphy)
( post the avengers ➙ avengers: endgame )
*on hiatus
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[ SECURE LOCATION ] — THE CAPTAIN AMERICA EXHIBIT WASHINGTON D.C. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. EARTH.
December, 2013; 13:29 UTC ▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
Ever since Debbie had woken in a cold sweat, and to the mumblings of Harry James from her neighbour's apartment, she had not slept again. Of course, she should have been thankful, she thought as the hearty music lulled her to calm down in the morning sunlight that gazed through her window onto her bedsheets—but those memories would never go away.
Debbie Murphy hadn't slept in days, not that Nick Fury could tell when he spotted her, with arms folded, watching a flickering reel on the first floor of the Smithsonian American History Museum—'The Captain America Exhibit'. She let the black and white tones hit the front of her unwavering face, in such a way that the man approaching her would have mistaken her silhouette for that of a statue—like one of the Grecian ones—if it hadn't of been for the immediate turn of her head when she finally decided to hear Nick Fury stand beside her. Everyone else became silent to them.
Images of frosted mountain tops blurred between her eyes, and she pursed her lips, "Were you going to tell me that Captain America is my neighbour or was I supposed to figure that out myself?" She narrowed her eyes in thought. "Or was it some test for you and all your agents to fantasise over?"
Fury sighed and rolled his eye. "We didn't make bets," he refuted.
Debbie ignored him and continued carefully, "But that can't be the only reason for Kate being placed in the apartment block. Can it?"
Fury didn't show shock on his face, but Debbie did notice how breath stilled. At the same time, the screen in front of them flashed black, darkening the whole room, before it reset and began playing the same reel.
Deborah Murphy was trained with soldiers and spies. She insisted it didn't make her either. NASA and SHIELD agreed to abide by her rule, as long as she continued their regimen. Out of all the sacrifices she had to make by their hands, extra workouts and mind puzzles weren't that much of a big deal, especially if it meant that she was guaranteed more time on sight at Ellington, that guaranteed an ounce of more respect that she was reminded she didn't have with every glare and examination of her body, or inspection of her flight history and qualifications.
An astronaut needs at least a thousand hours of piloting an aircraft. Even if Debbie, in 1963 had double that, it still wasn't in a dog fight or over the Pacific Ocean grazing the trees of the forests of Vietnam, Korea and Europe. The space race was political and patriotically funded. Because as many hours as Debbie Shannon could log, she was still a young civilian, under qualified and an overprivileged politicians daughter working in a programme fuelled by an agency that had undermined government authority on countless other projects and bills. To many, the newly devised SHIELD was no extension of the SSR—the agency that had created Captain America. To many more, SHIELD were backing programmes and simulations that were frightfully suspicious, in a time when neighbours no longer trusted each other because of fear of what secrets they were hiding.
