Clara Lewis: S.H.I.E.L.D agent, New Yorker, accidental time traveller- wait what?!
Clara thought being a S.H.I.E.L.D agent made her life as crazy as it would get. Ever since her accident in the field, she'd become a desk agent but working as Phil C...
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"So he was just lying there stuck in the ice? Like an ice lolly you leave too long in the freezer? What did you do to warm him up, stick him under the hot tap?" She joked as she wheeled her desk chair around, propelling herself around the edge of her desk with the heels of her boots, to sit at Phil's desk.
"He's a very important American figure, you should take this more seriously." Phil said stiffly and mechanically. Clara thought he must have practised saying it so he sounded serious when he said it to her.
"Is that why you've moved your vintage Captain America trading cards out of storage and onto your desk?" Clara teased and came over to perch on the edge of Phil's desk. She picked up the nearest trading card, "Who's this?" She asked, holding out the card under Phil's nose so he had no choice but to answer her.
"It says right on the top. 'Bucky Barnes'."
"Is that even a real name? 'Bucky'? That's a stupid thing to call your child!"
Clara carelessly put the card back on the desk as Phil gave her a skathing look. She rolled her eyes and asked:"What are you going to do with him now?"
"Actually, I had been meaning to talk to you about that." Coulson said seriously, snapping Clara out of her half trance. "As your boss and, I hope, friend, I am drafting you to a project that I think you'll enjoy working on. We're calling it, the Welcome Committee. You'll need to report downstairs for briefing. Oh and you'll need a costume. You don't happen to know anything about 1940's women's military uniform do you? No, didn't think so."
*
"This'll never work." Clara whispered pessimistically from behind the partition wall. The Welcome Committee had been a fairly rushed project as even the best S.H.I.E.L.D scientists available had no idea how long it would be before Captain Rogers woke up or how much he would remember about what happened to him. They had transferred him to S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters and designed a unit for him that looked like a 1940's style hospital room to try and help him adjust. S.H.I.E.L.D had consulted historians in order to get this right but there was always a chance they had missed something crucial.
The air was thick with anticipation as Roger's eyelids fluttered open. Every breath Clara drew came out involuntarily shaky. Her dull, grey eyes narrowed as she watched Rogers' eyes darted around the room to fixate on the radio standing innocently on a chest of draws. Clara couldn't tell what about a radio broadcast of a baseball game had Rogers so transfixed. Although he tried to hide it, Clara could see his apprehension in the way his chest tightened when the bubbly agent entered the room. Something had gone wrong, she could tell. She could see it in those pale eyes, those eyes so pale it was like you could see through them but Rogers' eyes hid something. Being an agent who specialised in communications, Clara recognised suspicion when she heard it.
"Something's wrong." Clara said simply to the person who had been placed in charge. He was a strict looking agent with a clearance level the same as hers. His strict facade was just that, a facade. "You don't see it?" She said calmly, with as little condescension as she could manage.
"Nothing is wrong. Continue with the plan." He dismissed. Clara went back to watching the screen. Part of her hoped he was right, after all, a smooth reentry into society was what Rogers deserved after everything he had done for the country.
Sure enough Rogers stood up, abruptly, squaring his shoulders at the now withdrawn S.H.I.E.L.D agent posing as 1940's nurse. Through the audio channels, they heard what they had done wrong. The baseball match they'd broadcast through the radio was from a game Rogers had attended himself. It gave the whole ruse away and there was no way of salvaging it.
Before anyone could react, Rogers had barrelled his way through the partition wall into the actual S.H.I.E.L.D rehabilitation unit. Clara didn't need to wait for the agent in charge to give her any sort of orders, she knew what she needed to do.
"Code 13. We have a code 13. We need back up on the ground floor."
Clara barrelled through the doors and turned to run down the corridor that headed back to the rehabilitation unit to head off Rogers. But the super soldier was miles faster than the barely 5 foot 5 Clara who hadn't enough time to cut him off, Rogers was already a matter of meters away. She didn't have time to run any further toward him or they would collide.
"Captain!" Clara called out but the unphased Rogers ran straight past her. "Rogers!" She called again, spinning on her heels to face him as he reached dangerously close to the doors. His head turned back to make a split second of eye contact. That split second was just long enough for Clara to notice a change in his expression. Those empty, crystal clear blue eyes that she had thought held nothing sparked with recognition as his eyes thinned. Impossible, he couldn't know her. This was the first time they had met.
