white flag, steve rogers

006. flower vase

chapter six
006. flower vase

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    ONE TIME, on a mission in Belfast, Pamela Daniels found this flower vase. It was a beautiful▬moulded and shaped by an intricate hand, and then pained by the hand even more; the result from an artist that valued structure, paid attention to the fine details and could paint little swirls and interlocking lines that seemed to draw Agent Daniels in like a fly to a spider-web. She had stopped in the street and turned to look at it through the window, and she could remember how much she had wanted to buy it. To go into that shop, buy that vase (and maybe the apartment being advertised for sale in the window of the realestate beside it, and just leave her life at S.H.I.E.L.D. behind ... just like that. 

    Sometimes, Agent Daniels wondered what might have happened if she had chosen to buy that vase▬how her life would have changed; where she would be now. Would have she enjoyed it? That simple life. A life away from guns, and missions, and lies and masks ... would have she felt at peace? Or would have she fallen into the same traps she always falls in? 

    Daniels will never know. 

   She walked past a vase in a bath and bed shop now, and her gaze was caught momentarily. She took a sharp breath and looked away before she would get distracted. Daniels didn't have the time to ponder what-if's and maybes. She had a mission to complete▬and she will complete it. 

    For Fury, for Coulson▬for those agents that the Winter Solider killed; and she couldn't save. 

    The mall was busy▬which, while it made Rogers nervous, it was something that was better off in their favour. A face can get lost in a crowd of hundreds▬even a face like Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff. First, even if S.H.I.E.L.D. had access to the security cameras and social media off phone devices all around Washington▬which would be their first objective, meaning they already did▬, even the slightest recognition to Captain America would have to go through identification before they even gave the green light for a nearby agent to advance. They would be receiving many possible sightings, many out-of-the-blue tweets and Instagram posts. And even if the identification process came back a match, even that was flawed (even though none of them would admit it), and they wouldn't rely on a single agent against a super soldier. So, there was a buffer of time between the green light of identification, and agents arriving▬and they wouldn't exactly be those of stealth. 

    But first, to even receive a possible sighting, they relied on not just terrible security cameras, but the average person. And within a busy mall, the oblivious eye going about their day wouldn't take a moment to think of anything else than their agendas to stop and consider ... Is that man walking over there Captain America? And the average eye is perhaps the most deceiving thing of all. 

    Agent Daniels held the art of being very good at pretending to be someone she wasn't. Even with the overbearing threat, she dragged her feet every now and then to window shop▬eyeing nice clothes and jewellery on their way to the Apple store inside the mall. 

    "What are you doing?" Steve would ask her each time in a hushed, annoyed whisper. 

    This time, she was eyeing a jewelled bracelet. Nonchalant, she tugged his sleeve so he turned to face the display, too▬as if showing her partner something she wanted. Beside them, Romanoff briefly glanced at the set of rings. "There is a security camera behind us," murmured Daniels to Rogers. "Tilting our heads down like this stops the reflection from seeing our faces▬that way, our best friends in the Communications offices can't track us just yet. Also, this is a nice bracelet."