Thaw

Ten

        "Captain Rogers, I'm here for a twofold reason." Agent Coulson awkwardly shifted in his seat, unsure of how to continue. "The first reason is in an official capacity; to ascertain how you have been adjusting to... all of this, and to ask if there was anything we - that is, S.H.I.E.L.D. - could do to assist you."

         The second reason -" He hesitated again, and Steve nodded wordlessly for him to continue. Phil shifted his now morose gaze from the super solider to the skyline, sighing to himself quietly. "As for the second reason, I speak only for myself. I am deeply sorry for the part I played in detaining you before Ms. Stark brought you here. I don't pretend to be free from guilt regarding your untimely and stressful awakening; as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., I complied with the direction given... but it was not the revival I had hoped you would receive. Please accept my sincerest apologies, Captain." Coulson's face was earnest and lined with concern.

        Steve relaxed his shoulders and gave the man another nod. He rested his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. "You know," he said to the carpet, "it's not the tests I minded. It wasn't that long ago that I was in a hospital every other week with doctors and nurses running me through diagnostics because something or other was wrong with me. I mean, it was that long ago -" he smiled wryly as he looked back up at Phil - "but not for me. And there were always plenty of tests I failed trying to get into the army. Then with Dr. Erskine, many many tests. It's not those. What I minded was the "detainment", as you call it. I woke up and found myself a Prisoner Of War."

        Phil winced and nodded slightly, his eyes cast down in shame. Steve felt himself softening as he watched the man. He's a big fan, Pepper echoed in the back of his mind. He seemed genuinely distressed, and it must have took courage to come here and acknowledge the wrong choices made by his agency. Will he get in trouble with his superiors for what he said?

        "Thank you, Agent. I appreciate your honesty, and your apology."

        On hearing this, the agent in question looked up with a start, his expression changing to one of relief. Rogers smiled somewhat sadly back at him, and sat up straight again. "As for the first portion of your speech, I do have a request of S.H.I.E.L.D., if you would pass the message along."

        "Of course," Coulson replied quickly, attempting and failing to hide his eargerness to have a good rapport with the man out of time. "What can we assist you with?"

        Rogers smirked slightly. "I want my stuff back."

——-

         As Tony descended the stairs to her workshop, she was lost in thought. The meeting with Phil had been a discreet follow-up on their previous conversation in the coffee shop. She'd been surprised at how quickly he'd gathered information - it had only been about a week.

"I have come across a few anomalies in some files."

"What kind of anomalies?," Tony questioned warily.

Phil kept a stoic expression as he replied. "Data signatures show that sensitive information has been accessed and copied without authorization."

She cursed quietly and slumped back in her seat. Tilting her head back, she stared absently up at the ceiling, mind racing. "Where were they copied to?"

"I lost the trail. It's been covered up exceedingly well - after laundering it through several servers, they've disappeared," Coulson answered with a tinge of frustration in his placid voice.

Tony bit back another off-coloured expression and growled. "What was in the files?" He remained silent and she looked at him sharply as she repeated herself. "What was in the files, Phil?"

"You know I can't tell you. As is it, half of them I don't even have access to." Phil rubbed a hand over his face wearily and met her irritated glare with a somewhat regretful eye. "However -" he continued, his voice lowering a few decibels, "whoever it was that copied the data, they used a dummy account. They found a back door, or possibly made one."

Tony's eyes changed from angry to incredulous. "To make a back door, you have to do it from the inside. To find one, you almost always have to have been given directions from someone already with access." Her companion made no attempt to reply, only looked back at her calmly. "Are you trying to say someone inside S.H.I.E.L.D. did this?"

"I'm not trying to say anything of the sort. And I'm definitely not suggesting that to find that backdoor would enable someone to obtain all the information in the stolen files, and possibly even lead her to the culprit." Her facial features shifted slowly into a sly expression as he continued, his personage completely devoid of any inflection or emotion. "I am in no way implying that a person could potentially expose a duality in an organization showing discrepancies in their meting out of justice. And I absolutely, 100 percent do not want to be informed of anything she doesn't find."

        "JARVIS, give me an update on Coulson. Is he still talking to Rogers?"

         "Yes, Sir. He is currently making annotations on something Captain Fly Booty is describing. Shall I pull up a feed for you?"

        "No, no," Tony shook her head, grinning. "Although I appreciate your honourific usage for Rogers, you sassy devil."

         "At your behest, Sir."

        "I didn't think you'd actually do it," she laughed back. Punching a code in at the door, she sallied forth with a suddenly gleeful energy. "Did you address him that way?"

        "I aim to amuse you, Sir. And I informed him it was one of the options you had specified." Tony barked out another laugh and began pulling up holographic programs at her work station.

        She stood straight, her hands moving fluidly and swiftly through the air in front of her. Sending columns this way and that, expanding and contracting moving parts and realigning tiny bits of data, spinning the axis for an abstract angle - she looked like the maestro of a visual orchestra, passionately conducting a masterpiece. To watch her was to watch art in motion.

        "JARVIS, dear?"

         "Sir?"

        "Make a note, would you? I want to take Captain Fly Booty shopping."