countdown | s. rogers

chapter one

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(before steve rogers was found in ice)

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Everyone assured CADENCE DANIELS that nothing was wrong with her. That her maybe the timezones were different or maybe he was paralyzed so his steps didn't count. They were wrong though. Very wrong.

Cadence Daniels was born into a world where you wear a number on your wrist. The number, or counter, is the exact amount of your footsteps you are away from your soulmate. Your other half. Every day, Cadence sees soulmates meet each other and hears what sappy stories they had.

Her neighbor met her soulmate on a trip to Australia when she was saving a Koala from a raging fire. Her soulmate was doing the same and they met in the middle. She moved to Australia to be with her soulmate and to give back to the Koalas.

Cadence's high school English Lit. teacher loved to talk about meeting her soulmate while waiting in line for the last Harry Potter book releasing at 2 a.m in a little book shop in Toronto. They always go there for their anniversary each year.

One of Cadence's co-ed roommates from college met his soulmate when he walked pass this girl on a ladder and she fell. He caught her and it was one of those Pinterest aesthetic photos of both of their counters' on 0.

The counter beeps and lights up when your counter gets to 1 step away, letting you know that the person right in front of you is the person you're supposed to spend your whole life with. In other situations, such as Julian (the roommate), the counter can be counted to 0. The counter does not to any fractions or decimals, so while you could never really be at 0 (or you would be merged with your soulmate), the counter rounds every so often when needed.

Maybe holding someone or piling on top of them, but it only beeps and lights up once. Making the counter 0 being the most sought after counter number. And even after meeting your soulmate, your counter doesn't stop. It makes it helpful in certain situations to know where your soulmate is. People who have a soulmate older than you, their counters only appear when the other is born. And when your soulmate dies, your counter is at -1. -1 is suspected to be the counter number because even in death your soulmate is near you. Thus, -1.

But, when both soulmates die, the counters on their body become a little digital, pixelated heart.

The problem with Cadence is that her counter has never moved. Well, on her part yes, but not on her soulmate's part. It was like he has never moved, and she was born with a counter so she knows he's alive and existing.

It wasn't until she was six that Cadence realized this. It was on the playground and one of the older kids, the ones that bullied her, pointed it out. He said that Cadence was broken that her soulmate was broken too.

She went home that day, devastated. Waiting, quietly in her car while her parents drove her home. She waited until that night when her parents' tucked in her for bed to ask.

"Mommy? Am I broken?"

Her parents tried to reassure her that night that she wasn't. That there were plenty of reasons that her counter wouldn't move until she took a step. That her soulmate wasn't moving. But, Candence went to sleep that night determined to find a reason. Even in the supernatural world.

There was no case like hers that was actually dubbed true so Cadence went to devote her life to finding an answer. A real answer. That's why she joined the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D. She trained her butt off to become a field agent and deal with national security. Even when the threats were coming from other places, other realms. But that didn't happen often. And even so, Cadence thought it was pretty selfish to ask to interrogate a suspected alien just so she could know if they had some sort of tech to mess with counters.

Especially when that 'alien' turned out to be an extreme cosplayer for Kansas.

Cadence had just come from a long day at work and an even longer trip back from the S.H.I.E.L.D division in Washington, D.C. She was hella tired from working on research for a case that was for sure going nowhere, but that doesn't mean the case lead, an egotistical, arrogant man named Jerald (yes with a J), who was as misogynistic as they come.

He put Cadence, a twenty-five-year-old, who had nearly five years of experience on research duty and organization. She was not a frickin' secretary! She should have been checking out the tip or following the trail, or even a stakeout. Jerald even put a trainee with shaky hands and who joined S.H.I.E.L.D to specifically work behind a desk and save the world that way, to follow a tip.

She groaned again as she turned on her slightly dimmed lights with the flick of her hand to the switch.

"Ah!" Cadence gave a shriek as she spotted the figure sitting, waiting for her in her favorite chair that was a miraculous find at Goodwill.

Cadence set down her apartment keys, "Agent Coulson," She greeted, "What are you doing here?"

Coulson was there, sitting with her cat, Geronimo, purring on his lap.

"Uh, can you get this thing off me first?" He asked.

His hands were cautiously away from the purring cat who was currently rubbing his head against the suited man's shoulder.

Cadence walked over, throwing her jacket onto her dining table and picking up the grey Maine Coon and Munchkin cat mix and cuddling him in her arms.

"Oh, please. Geronimo means no harm," Cadence replied.

Cadence never had a lot of run-ins with Coulson other than him being there when she was in training.

Coulson stood up and brushed the cat hair off of him. Cadence looked at him confused, "What are you doing in my apartment?"

Coulson stood, hands intertwined and in front of him.

"I have a mission for you,"

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I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! I will be updating once this chapter gets five votes! So that is up to you. I'm debating updating this book on my regular weekly schedule because then I would update on Saturday's, but I'll see how this is received first and if we end up exceeding the vote requirements by three every time by the third chapter then I'll put it on my weekly schedule.

If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider voting and or commenting to show your support!

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