countdown | s. rogers

chapter eight

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( phil's pov)

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PHIL COULSON, or Phil Son of Coul as one particular person liked to call him, watched Cadence's counter on her arm as she walked away from him as they just finished up their conversation about Merritt and how he got on file duty. Originally, Phil had put Agent Syrome on weapon duty, counting and packing up the weapons that were logged out for the whole team to use.

Cadence was unique in her counter situation from what Phil had heard and talked to her about. He knew this much:

1. Cadence's counter only moved when she did.

2. Her soulmate was apparently somewhere in Greenland or Alaska (just somewhere hella cold in Phil's opinion).

3. She quit S.H.I.E.L.D. to do a study on where her soulmate was. Although her soulmate was only half of the reason. Phil dug a little deeper and put two and two together, he wouldn't exactly be a good agent if he didn't figure this out already, to piece that Agent Syrome was the ex-boyfriend who cheated on Cadence. Drama.

4. Well, there was no number four on this list, but Phil liked things that came in fours because his name had four letters and - you know what? That doesn't matter right now.

And since Phil was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and loved a good mystery, he had started thinking about why Cadence's counter was the way it was.

For people like him, "glitches" was the term (offensive term if you asked him), there was no other explanation for their counters other than they had no soulmates. No recorded case had a 'glitch' ever finding a soulmate or having their counter miraculously fixed.

But in all of Phil's research about people like him, he never came across a single case that was even remotely similar to Cadence's. Yes, some counters have only moved when one person is moving, but usually, that was because their soulmate was in a coma. And even then, nurses would move the comatose patient when needing that room or even just to adjust the patient's position but according to Cadence, her counter has never ever moved.

And Phil would know. He looked into her medical history and apparently when Cadence was a baby and her counter was first legible, her parents took her into a specialty soulmate doctor and even then it never moved.

When Phil first accepted this case, he thought it was crazy. A random tip that Captain America, THE Captain America, might still be alive after nearly 70 years (66 years to be precise)? After all these years, the war hero everyone thought went down and died in a plane crash might be alive. That he was frozen somewhere under some ice and all Phil needed to do was find him and the plane that crashed down with him.

After the shock of the initial news wore off Phil, although he didn't show it he was really giddy inside.

This was the guy that Phil had limited edition trading cards, action figures, ticket stubs, and memorabilia of and the man that was honestly probably the biggest man in his life after his father. But if Captain America was frozen somewhere in the Arctic, wouldn't he be eternally still?

That's when Phil got thinking and started looking back at old photos of Captain Steve Rogers, the man who took down Hydra, and confirmed something he noticed as a child.

Steve Rogers had no counter on his arm.

Everybody's counter was always on their opposite dominant hand and Phil happened to know that Captain Roger's dominant hand was his right hand which meant his counter should be on his left, but it wasn't.

Captain America didn't seem to have a soulmate counter. Phil even found an old article that confirmed that Steve Roger's had no counter on his arm and thus making the old school WWII propaganda "Captain America's soulmate is the U.S! So fight to keep his soulmate safe!"

Honestly, PR was so different and ridiculous back then.

But anyway, if Steve Roger's didn't have a soulmate counter and Cadence Daniels had one that never moved - was it possible that the two were soulmates?

Most people weren't born with soulmate counters. You always had the older person in the relationship so it was pretty common to wait for a certain amount of time before your counter developed or appeared. You couldn't be born with a soulmate counter if your soulmate wasn't even conceived yet.

And that got Phil thinking, Cadence was born with one right off the gate. One that didn't move so that gave the hints to her soulmate being born before her and being frozen in time. Cadence and Captain America were also around the same physical age as of right now, so the age gap (physical and not by birth) wouldn't be too out of the park considering soulmate counters.

All the evidence pegged that one question: Is Cadence Daniels, Steve Roger's soulmate?

Phil snorted as he waved off thoughts, "That's crazy. Impossible really. I really need a vacation." Phil mumbled to himself as he walked away, then going to study his itinerary.

That couldn't possibly be the answer. Could it?

Nah, no way.

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So, I couldn't finish the long, long, long update for 216 and check my second latest conversations to see why, but I did manage to get this update out and good to go! It wasn't that hard to write honestly, I took a lot of creative liberties with Coulson's character (I have to admit I've never seen Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). Also, do you know how annoying it is to spell S.H.I.E.L.D. all the time for this fic? I've resulted to copying and pasting it when I type it the first time. Anyway, the name change debate is still up so here's what I said last chapter which continues on here:

We could: leave it as Every Step Of The Way

Change it to one of the following:

One Step Away; Step Towards You; Countdown; And Counting; One More; Leap and a Bound; or other (comment)

If you enjoyed the chapter, please consider voting and or commenting because reading the sweet and encouraging comments warms my heart! VOTE GOAL FOR NEXT CHAPTER = 12 VOTES

did i mention that the next chapter is the part finale?

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