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Chapter Text

 Washington, D.C.
June 25, 1993

The birth certificate read Brittany Susan Pierce, daughter of Alexander and Deborah Pierce.  The name had been chosen two months earlier.  Alex and Deb had come to an agreement: Deb would choose the first name so long as the middle name would be Susan, after Alex’s late mother.

Alex was 48 years old when he held his first child in his arms for the first time.  Deb, at 33, lay in the hospital bed completely drained but beaming at them nonetheless.  Starting a family this late in life hadn’t been Alex’s plan. But sometimes plans changed for the better.

Brittany was small.  So small. The doctors and nurses said she was a healthy size for a newborn but it seemed wrong for a person to exist like this.  His daughter had ten tiny fingers and ten even tinier toes. Her entire head, her entire brain, could fit into his hands. It felt like she weighed barely anything.

It shouldn’t have been surprising.  Alex had held babies before: his five nieces and nephews, children of friends, children of political rivals, even his own baby brother so many years ago.

But this was different.  This was his daughter, small and unable to defend herself.

“Hello, Brittany,” he whispered.

The baby shifted again, made the slightest noise.

Eventually he passed her back to Deb.  Alex left the room to call his father, who congratulated him and even got a little choked up.  It was Ray Pierce’s sixth grandchild, the first after his wife had passed. They talked for a long time, and when they hung up Alex knew he should be calling his brother and sisters.  But instead he just sat down in the nearest chair and closed his eyes.

His daughter was small and everything meant so much more now.

Soon there would be a different world, a world where he could keep her safe.

(When Brittany S. Pierce entered the world she was of average height and weight.  It would be the last time she was considered average of anything.

Brittany’s parents knew it from the beginning.  Of course Brittany’s life was going to be different; her father was the Secretary of Defense.  Brittany would grow up watching clips of her father on television and occasionally being dragged along to political events.  She would have a unique perspective it would separate her from her peers.

And when it came to developmental stages, well, it’s not like that was very important.  So what if Brittany took longer than other kids to start talking, and then to start talking coherently?  So what if she didn’t remember things easily? As far as Alex and Deb were concerned, that just meant Brittany wouldn’t be one of those child prodigies playing Mozart perfectly at 5.  Neither of them cared. Brittany was curious and imaginative and their perfect little girl. They loved her and they were certain she would grow up to be someone special. They didn’t want her to be average.)

Bogotá, Colombia
August 1999

Mr. Miller wasn’t fun.  At all.  He didn’t want to listen to Brittany tell him why cats and dogs were different, or draw pictures with her.  He just looked at some screen and frowned his mouth. So boring.

Brittany hoped Daddy’s important meeting was over soon, because she didn’t want to stay with Mr. Miller anymore.  Brittany wanted to be with Daddy, and ask him more questions, and look at more of the city.

For now, Brittany drew pictures on construction paper.  She drew pictures of dogs and cats in different crayon colors.  Cats were better than dogs, so she spent more time on her cat drawings than dog drawings.

Brittany drew a green cat, and gave it orange whiskers.  And that’s when the world turned upside down.

(Being held hostage at the age of six wasn’t average.

When it was all over, her parents would wish that, at least in this instance, Brittany had been like everybody else.)

“-doesn’t exactly have a long history of negotiation, there’s no reason to believe-”

“What are their demands?”

“There’s no reason to believe that storming the building-”

“SHIELD special ops are trained for this exact kind of-”

“It’s the E.L.N., it doesn’t matter-”

“-isn’t even within SHIELD jurisdiction-”

“Stop.  Talking.”

The room fell silent at Alex’s words, thankfully, and Nick Fury took a silent, deep breath.  He could not allow himself to get into a shouting match with political fools who didn’t know anything.  This wasn’t the time.

He took another deep breath.  Silent. Nick had given his plan and advice, and now had to wait for Alex’s opinion.

“We are going to negotiate with them,” Alex said forcefully, and Nick didn’t raise his eyebrow at that because he was a professional, but shit.  Alex had stood up and was looking them in the eyes, and some of the peons here may not have been able to see his fear, but Nick definitely could.  “We are going to negotiate, calmly, humanely. I refuse to do anything that could endanger the lives of the thirteen people being held captive. Do I make myself clear?”

There were scattered ‘yessir’s across the room.  Except for Nick and Agent Gutierrez, also SHIELD, who silently glanced at each other.  It was the wrong move and they both knew it. Gutierrez only knew Alexander Pierce, Secretary of Defense, former Congressman.  But Nick knew Alex, and he knew that any decision he made right now was with clouded judgement.

His daughter was there.  Nick had never met her. Alex had shown him a few pictures of her though, a little blonde girl.

“Do I make myself clear?” Alex said again, this time looking directly at Nick and Gutierrez.

“Yes sir,” Nick said.

He could feel the heat of Gutierrez’s stare before he followed Nick’s example half a second later.  “Yes sir.”

Alex closed his eyes and sank back down into the chair.  “I need phone numbers. Now.”

Everyone snapped into motion.  Some aide ran to get Alex’s cell, another went to contact so-and-so.  Nick and Gutierrez left the room quietly. Their plan had already been dismissed and they were no longer needed.

They walked in silence to a deserted hallway.  Gutierrez leaned against the wall and didn’t say a word.  He didn’t have to. They both knew the consequences of inaction.  So he stood there, waiting, until Nick spoke.

“Agent?”

“Sir?”

“You can tell them I ordered you to do it.”

Gutierrez only reached into his jacket.  “I was planning on it, sir,” he said, and pulled out his phone.

This was why he was Nick’s number two.  Didn’t cause a fuss, didn’t say anything Nick didn’t already know.  Just did what needed to be done.

They started walking again.  “Get Agent Parton,” Fury said.  “Tell her I need a team, and I need it five minutes ago.  Preferably one that’s comfortable with illegal military ops on foreign soil.  No chickens allowed.”

This shouldn’t have happened.

Alex clutched at the phone in his hand, trying to breathe, trying not to imagine his daughter’s face.

He had no weapons, he had no plan.  He had no Hydra operatives with him to make things happen.  The Asset was in an ice tank a thousand miles away.

Six years ago Alex had held that newborn girl in his arms and vowed to protect her, vowed to make the world safe for her.  This shouldn’t have happened.

Whatever Hydra had been doing, it hadn’t been enough.  Nothing short of controlling every variable would ever be enough.

The sewers smelled like - well, they were sewers, they smelled god-awful.  There was nothing Fury could do about that. He had more important things to worry about.

There had been thirteen hostages.  All thirteen of them had been rescued from the basement.  All thirteen of them now had to be delivered to safety. They only had minor injuries, bruises and sprains, except for Alex’s P.A. who probably had a broken arm.  But they were terrified political operatives, most of whom had no military training whatsoever, some of whom had sweated through their clothes or pissed themselves in fear, and were struggling to walk in the dark sewers without making too much noise.

That didn’t even include the sobbing six-year-old.

“She’s trying,” Gutierrez whispered, only just loud enough for Fury to hear.  He didn’t have to say anything else because Fury already knew it was a problem.  Crying wasn’t exactly stealth.

Thirteen hostages, plus the SHIELD team leading them to safety; there were lives to protect.  Something needed to be done. “Take point,” Fury told Gutierrez, who stepped up and raised his firearm just a little, leading the way.

Fury fell back and went to Brittany.  Two agents were walking on either side of her, trying to make her feel safe.  Not a bad idea, and clearly not enough. The girl was stumbling and frantically clutching at her own shirt.  Her little ponytail was all messed up and her face was red.

The E.L.N. had gone after political officials, people who worked in the embassy.  Fury was pretty sure Brittany wasn’t an actual target. It wasn’t common knowledge that Secretary Pierce had brought his daughter along on the trip.  The girl had just been caught up in the crossfire. Wrong place, wrong time. Fucking unfortunate.

Fury knew he was not cut out to be the one who comforted her, but someone had to.  “What’s your name?” Nick asked her, although he already knew.

Brittany hiccuped.  He doubted she could even really see him, the sewers were dark and she had been crying a lot.  “I’m Brittany.”

“Your father is Alex Pierce, right?”

She looked up, hopeful.  “Daddy?”

“We’re taking you to him, okay?”

The little girl reached up for his hand, and that hadn’t been in the plan, but Nick took it without a thought.

“Daddy,” she cried.  “I want Daddy.”

“We’re gonna get you to your dad,” Nick said.  “Just a little further now.”

Brittany squeezed onto his hand.  Her sniffles still echoed in the sewers but she was a little calmer now.  She really was trying to be quiet.

Alexander Pierce was an unrelenting politician who made deadpan jokes about Clinton and Gingrich’s sex scandals when the press couldn’t hear.  His daughter was the type of little girl who was trying to stop crying in the sewers. Nick wondered what kind of person Brittany would grow up to be.  Assuming she and everyone else got out of this alive.

She was six .  She wouldn’t remember everything about this, maybe not even a lot of it.  But it will have always happened for her. She was always going to be someone who was held hostage before the first grade.

Nick had thought he’d wanted to be a father, once upon a time.  Plans change. Watching children fall apart was tough enough when they weren’t his own.

The thought of going home without his daughter-

Alex found out what Nick and SHIELD had done, and he was never once angry.

There had been thirteen hostages, and all thirteen of them had gotten to safety.

The job wasn’t over.  It was time for the clean up: the freed captives needed clothes, showers, phones, food, water, blankets.  Miller needed medical. Nick needed security updates. Eventually there would be hell to pay for insubordination.

Insubordination, way to understate it.

Nick didn’t regret his decision.  The hostages all got out alive. He had made the right call.  It was just that the right call had been illegal.

Gutierrez started directing and delegating, thankfully; he was good at that, and Nick was busy holding a six-year-old’s hand.  Miller was sitting down with Agent Parker, good, Parker was good with immediate first aid. Two of the hostages were embracing each other.  One was demanding a phone. Another fell to the floor in relief.

Brittany hadn’t stopped squeezing Nick’s hand.  “Where’s Daddy?”

“He’ll be here soon,” Nick told her.

“I want Daddy.”

“You’re safe now,” he said.  “Everything is fine now. You’re safe.”

It wasn’t long before the room was flooded with non-SHIELD security agents, with other embassy workers slipping past and going to their freed friends.  At least one photographer was trying to get into the room. Nick hadn’t even begun to think of the press circus, how much would be public knowledge and how much would be covered up.

“I want Daddy,” Brittany cried.

And just as Nick wondered if there was anything else he could actually say-

“Daddy!”

It wasn’t until Brittany dropped his hand that Nick realized he had been holding onto her just as tight.

She was sobbing all over again, practically screaming, as she sprinted towards Alex.  He picked her up and clutched her body close.

“Brittany, Brittany-”

Fury turned away.  Alex had his daughter back, his job was done.  There was no reason to stare at their reunion.

“We were right,” Gutierrez said, stepping up to him.  “The P.A. broke his arm. He’s about to be transferred to the hospital.  Medical is still checking over the others, but I don’t think anyone else will need the hospital, unless maybe for some sedatives.”

“Good.”

“The girl.  Pierce’s kid.  She gonna be okay?”

Fury didn’t look back to where the father and daughter were probably still holding onto each other.  They probably wouldn’t let go for a long time. It wasn’t his business. “She’s a Pierce,” he said evenly.  “She’ll be okay.”

Gutierrez nodded.  “And you, sir? Are you gonna be okay?”

Fury let out a long sigh.  “That remains to be seen, agent.”

Washington, D.C
September 1999

“Her teacher is worried,” Deb said quietly.  “Brittany cried every day this week.”

Alex kept his eyes on the television.  The news coverage of the bomb that went off in Moscow wasn’t giving any information Alex didn’t already have.  He didn’t know why he couldn’t just change the channel.

A month out from Bogotá and Brittany was in the kitchen, having an in-depth conversation with her Beanie Babies about her favorite kinds of cake.

“What are we supposed to do?” Deb asked.

The solution was to go back in time and bomb Colombia.

Or maybe just leave Brittany at home.

“It’s a mess,” Alex said quietly.  He wasn’t sure if he was talking about the situation in Russia or their hurt daughter.

Deb wiped her eyes.  “We’ll figure it out,” she said, mostly to herself.  “We’ll…we can go back to the doctor. He helped with the nightmares.  I’ll ask if there’s something I can do to help her at school.”

Alex nodded, trying to listen to Brittany’s voice in the kitchen talking about chocolate.

“She’s safe, she’s alive, she’ll keep getting better.  We’ll all figure it out.” Deb nodded to herself and took a few deep breaths.

“We’ll all get better,” Alex said.  Deb laid her head on his shoulder, continuing to breathe deeply.  And Alex kept looking at the TV.

Lima, Ohio
April 2008

The next time Nick saw Brittany, the world was very much the same.  Tony Stark was still building weapons for the military. Captain America was still presumed dead.  The Tesseract and the G.H. subject were both locked up in secure vaults.  For most people, the Hulk only existed in rumors and word of mouth, and aliens had never visited earth.

Nick Fury’s life, however, had changed drastically.  Instead of being fired or executed for his actions in Bogotá he had gotten a promotion.  And now nearly nine years later, he had become the Director of SHIELD.

Another organization had also gotten a new leader.

The Head of Hydra’s oldest child was tall and thin and sitting on the couch.  Brittany was trying to put her sister’s hair in a ponytail, but Clara kept moving, distracted by the Disney Channel.

Alex introduced Nick to the girls, and they said hi before quickly turning back to the TV.  There was no indication that Brittany remembered Nick at all.

Alex and Nick sat down in the kitchen.  “My first kid at 48, my second at 55,” Alex was saying.  “I don’t think I really planned it well. I’m an old man now, and Clara hasn’t even started grade school.”

“Plans change,” Nick said.

“No kidding.  When I first met Deb she said she was going to have a nice, quiet life.”

Nick chuckled a little.  “So, how old is Brittany now, fifteen?”

He didn’t have to ask; Nick knew she was fourteen.  His job was to get information, retain it, and know if and when to use it.  But sometimes people got uncomfortable out if you knew too much about their children.  Nick still remembered the look on Alex’s face in that room eight years ago, demanding that no one do anything to put the hostages in danger.

“Fourteen, but she’ll be fifteen in a few months,” Alex said.  “She’s starting high school in the fall. Got into a very prestigious cheerleading program too, the coach said she might even make the varsity team.  Varsity as a freshman, that’s going to be great for her.”

(Alex’s summary of his eldest daughter left many things out.  Her interests in dance and biology, for instance. He did not mention the deals he had struck with officials in the Lima public school system over the years to allow Brittany to move on to the next grade despite her abysmal academic performance.  He also neglected to share her continued belief in Santa Claus. Those were family matters. Alex did not have an average daughter, but he got to choose which outliers to share with friends and colleagues.)

(Alex didn’t talk about his daughter’s sub-literacy because he hadn’t noticed it existed.)

“Impressive,” Nick said evenly.  “And Clara is…”

“Seven next month.  Going to be in the second grade.  Deb was kind of worried about the age gap between them, some dumb story in a newspaper talking about siblings not bonding well.  But Brittany’s a great older sister to her, they’re great together. Do you want some coffee?”

“Sure.”

Alex stood up to plug in the coffee machine, and Nick allowed himself to stop dancing around the question.  “Does Brittany remember Bogotá?” he asked.

“...I don’t know,” Alex said.  He stole a quick look toward the living room.  Brittany and Clara sat silently, all their attention on the episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.  “It doesn’t look like she remembers you.”

“She was young,” Nick said.  “I didn’t expect her to.”

“True,” Alex said, frowning.  “She doesn’t even remember Miller, and he’d been my assistant for years.  Stayed around for a while after, too. And I doubt she remembers any of the other SHIELD agents who were there.”

“I don’t think any of them would take it personally,” Nick replied.  “Especially the dead ones.”

Alex didn’t offer sympathy; too many people died in this business to waste sympathy on strangers you didn’t remember.  “What happened to your right-hand man at the time? He still alive?”

“Gutierrez retired.  Got a leg blown off in Canada.”

“Canada, the bastards,” Alex said, smiling.  “Nowhere’s safe anymore, huh?”

Nick wasn’t so sure that anywhere had ever been safe to begin with.  He didn’t say so. Alex didn’t need to be told this; he had his daughters in the next room.

Gutierrez had known the risks when he took that op in Canada.  After it he retired somewhere out west to spend time with his sister and coach little league softball.  He could continue to do that so long as people like Nick and Alex continued to do their jobs. That was the whole point: so that people could live even when the world was so unsafe.

“She had nightmares, right after,” Alex said, staring at the coffee maker. “She was okay while she was awake, but I don’t think any of us slept through the night for weeks until they stopped.  None of us really talk about it now. Clara doesn’t even know.”

“Brittany doesn’t bring it up herself?” Nick asked.

“It seems like she moved on.”  Alex took two cups of fresh coffee to the table, and sat back down across from Nick.  “I keep thinking that I should have known,” he said quietly. “That I should have seen something bad coming, and left Brittany at home with her mother.  But she had wanted to come with. And I made the wrong choice.”

“She survived,” Nick said.  “She got out.”

“True,” Alex acknowledged.  “She got out, she moved on, she doesn’t remember.”  He smiled bitterly. “I’m a little jealous, actually.  Because I, on the other hand, remember everything.”

And maybe Nick should have known then, known the thoughts and ideas that Alex was hiding.  But everyone has their blind spots.

“I want you to take the position on the World Security Council,” Nick said, and Alex’s smile didn’t waver.

Chapter Text

Lima, Ohio
July 2000

“Are we ever going back to our old home?”

Alex set the glass of water on Brittany’s nightstand and tried very, very hard not to sigh.  He and Deb had spent months trying to explain and prepare their daughter for the move. Deb had read Little Duck’s Moving Day to Brittany every night for the past two weeks.  And still, when they were setting up Brittany’s bed in her new bedroom, she had asked when they were going home.

She had cried herself nearly hysterical when they told her this was home now.

It had been a very long week.

“We live here now,” Alex said, for maybe the thirtieth time in the past six days.

“But are we ever going back?” Brittany asked, holding onto a stuffed animal in bed.  “Or are we staying here forever?”

Alex tried to figure out what would best placate her.  He loved that his daughter was so curious, but he didn’t love it when it interfered with bedtime.  “We still have the old house,” he said. “We’ll visit it sometimes. But this is where we live now, and we’re going to be here for a long time.”

“When are we coming to visit?” Brittany asked.

“We’ll visit a lot.  Remember when I told you that I’m still working at my job in D.C. until January?  I’ll be at the old house. Sometimes you and your mom will come spend the weekend with me.”

“But what happens when you finish your job?  Are we still going to visit the old house?”

The job would never be finished, Alex thought.  True, he would cease to be the United States Secretary of Defense when the new president was sworn in.  (God willing it would not be Al Gore; he looked like an ugly Matthew Broderick and was infinitely annoying.)  And he had no official job lined up for after inauguration day. But he would still need to work. After all, the world was still a mess.  SHIELD was in crisis mode over some drama in Russia, John Garrett was recruiting juvenile felons, and Alex was on the phone once a week trying to calm NASA down about a damn rock.  The job wouldn’t be finished until Hydra had built its new world.

Alex took a deep breath, willing himself to be patient.  “It will still be our house. We’re keeping it forever. We just live here now.”

“And we’ll go and visit the old house?”

“Yes,” Alex said, and that finally seemed to satisfy the kid.  They said goodnight and Alex shut the light off and left her room.  He doubted that the conversation would actually stay in Brittany’s mind long-term, though.  Nothing he or Deb told her about the move and their situation seemed to stick.

Brittany was seven years old now.  Was it normal at her age for everything to go in one ear and out the other?

Children were so stupid, Alex thought, and went back downstairs.

Washington, D.C.
June 2001

Dr. Daniel Whitehall, as he was now known, smiled at Alex from across the conference table.  “I don’t know whether to offer you my congratulations or condolences.”

Whitehall’s comment wasn’t particularly funny, but Alex allowed himself a chuckle anyway.  “News gets around fast,” he said.

“There’s only so much you can keep secret in a secret organization,” Whitehall said.  “To lose your father and gain a child within three days...”

The problem was, Whitehall was the last person Alex wanted to discuss this with.  He knew Whitehall’s history, sure, but Alex didn’t exactly have his travel logs from the 1940s.  For all he knew, Alex’s father and the man sitting across from him had shot bullets at each other.

Alex liked Whitehall.  Truly. He was capable and intelligent and one of Alex’s best allies.  But it was weird to face him now, after the last month of Alex’s life being surrounded by birth and death.  Whitehall would be dead by now without intervention. Ray Pierce had gotten intervention and still passed.

It had been an awkward funeral, full of people not understanding the military presence and making forced words about how touching it was for the baby’s middle name to be her grandfather’s.  Clara Ray Pierce, only a week old, wouldn’t stop crying unless she was in Deb’s arms. Deb herself looked on the verge of a breakdown; she had always gotten along well with Ray. And Brittany kept asking about the flowers, and if the flowers would die, and if that’s why they had flowers at funerals, because of death-

And Whitehall was alive, through impossible powers and procedures, and pure goddamn luck.

Luck wasn’t something Alex had figured out how to control.  At least not yet.

(If Alex had been able to, he would have stopped Whitehall from using that woman, and kept her for himself.)

“Such is the way of life,” Alex said.  “It doesn’t stop me from doing what needs to be done.”

Whitehall smiled at him again.  “I knew it wouldn’t. Have you contacted the senator?”

And just like that, they were back to business.  “Stern will provide the research funds,” Alex said.  “But it will take time to set up laboratory, and the security.”

“Those sorts of things always take time,” Whitehall said.  “I’d like to visit Zola soon, if possible. And I’m meeting with Strucker next week to discuss other possible developments.  One of them is actually thanks to you.”

Alex was surprised.  He wasn’t a scientist or researcher or engineer; his role in Hydra was getting things done.  “I don’t know how I could have inspired you.”

Whitehall pulled something out of his briefcase.  “You appeared in a couple articles at the end of Clinton’s term,” he said, and handed over a few pieces of newspaper.  Alex’s mention in the article had been circled. “Naturally, everyone made sure to include your nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

He looked like he was about to start laughing, and Alex couldn’t fault him.  If Alex was honest, part of the reason he declined the prize was because he wouldn’t have been able to take the endless ribbing from his colleagues.

“I worked with the ICBL because landmines are a stupid, outdated technology,” Alex said, looking at the article without actually reading it.  He didn’t want to kill people without a reason .

Whitehall snapped his fingers.  “Exactly,” he said. “You’ve said it before.  And I thought, maybe it’s time to update that technology.”

Alex looked up.  “Tell me more.”

Lima, Ohio
April 2002

“You’ve been on the phone a lot,” Brittany said.  “Is there something bad happening?”

Dad sat down with her at the kitchen table and smiled.  “No, actually. Something good is happening.”

“What?”

Dad thought for a second.  “Have you ever heard of a man called Erskine?”

“No,” Brittany said.  She took another sip of her fruit juice.  Mom had gotten the cool straws that changed colors.

“A long time ago, he made something.  And he didn’t want to share it with anyone.”

“Sharing is important,” Brittany said obediently.

Dad grinned at her.  “Yeah. This man didn’t want to share it what he had made, even though it could have changed the world.  But now we’re going to try to make it again.”

That seemed nice.  “What are you making?”

“It’s...it’s a formula.  Helps people get stronger.  And technically, I won’t be making it.  Other people smarter than your dad are going to make it, I’m just helping out on the sidelines.”

“You’ve been on the phone a lot,” Brittany said again.  “Seems like you’re helping a lot.”

“We need it to be done right,” Dad said importantly.  But all of a sudden, he was frowning at her. “You didn’t notice.”

“Huh?”

Dad held up a small glass of water.  “I put water in your juice.”

Brittany frowned.  It was the game again, where Brittany was supposed to stop Dad before he put water in her drink.  Brittany hadn’t won since they started playing, and Dad was mad at her again. “I didn’t know we were playing the game right now,” she mumbled.

“We’re always playing the game,” Dad said, his face frowning, and he went on to explain the rules again while Brittany looked at the table.

August 2003

Sometimes Deb was certain signing Brittany up for dance classes was the best parenting decision she’d ever made.  Brittany loved dance, she looked forward to each and every class, and worked hard on her routines at home.

She was a natural.  When they first moved to Lima the teacher had been impressed with Brittany’s skill and moved her up a level.  And still she was one of the best in her class.

And to think, it had all started because 5-year-old Brittany wouldn’t stop twirling around the living room.

Deb watched the girls trying to follow their teacher’s arm movements.  Clara, sitting in Deb’s lap, was also trying to emulate the teacher. Deb had already decided Clara would get dance lessons as well one day, once she was a little older.  It was possible Clara wouldn’t like it, but for all the good dancing had done for Brittany, Deb at least wanted her second daughter to give it a try.

Alex kept making strange faces whenever she brought this up, though.  “Is it really necessary?” he kept asking. Instead, Alex talked about self-defense classes for both the girls, and tried to teach Brittany how to keep herself safe in an emergency.

Deb couldn’t blame him.  Every single time she thought about Bogotá, her chest squeezed in on itself.  If Brittany…

Well, it wasn’t going to help, thinking like that.  They were living in the middle of Ohio now. Ohio was free from military operations and federal spies and anything of the sort.  The worst they had to worry about was annoying presidential candidates pretending they cared about their state every four years. Deb’s family was safe here.

Self-defense classes weren’t a wholly bad idea, but Deb wouldn’t do it at the expense of dance.  If her husband wanted to be vague and pessimistic about the whole thing, that was up to him.

The class ended a few minutes late.  The girls said goodbye to their teacher as they ran out of the studio to their families.  Brittany waved goodbye to a brown-haired girl and hurried up to Deb and Clara, her face flushed and hair out of place.

“I know the new song by heart now,” Brittany announced, beaming.  She held up her hand to her sister. “High-five?” Clara reached out and clumsily put her hand on Brittany’s.  Deb held up her own hand for a high-five as well.

December 2004

“Let’s go!” Clara said excitedly, her voice ringing up from downstairs.

“Mom, come on!” Brittany called.

Deb knew they needed to get going, the mall was always insanely crowded this time of year.  But she circled the bedroom, again, and still couldn’t find her cell phone. She just had it, she could have sworn-

“Here.”  Alex entered the room, holding out her phone.  “You left it in the bathroom.”

Deb sighed.  “Thank you.” She immediately put it in her purse.  “Ready to go?”

“I need to put on shoes,” Alex said, smirking a little.

“Better be quick about it,” Deb commented.  “I think your daughters are about to stage a riot.”

“My daughters, huh?”  Alex pulled his winter jacket out of the closet.  “Pretty sure you had a different opinion about that yesterday.”

Deb frowned.  “Are you still upset?” she asked, making sure to keep her voice low so the girls downstairs couldn’t hear.  “I thought you said it was okay that we didn’t tell Brittany.”

“She’s eleven.”  Alex’s mouth was a tense straight line.  “Brittany’s the only eleven-year-old girl in the world who still believes in Santa.”

“She’ll figure it out eventually,” Deb argued, the same words she said the day before.

Yesterday Alex had followed it up with worries about being made fun of at school.  But today he looked at her and asked, “What if she doesn’t? What if she goes through her whole life believing there really is a fat guy in a red suit who lives at the North Pole?”

Deb opened her mouth to protest that could never happen.  But then again...maybe it could. Brittany was already an outlier in this; a lot of the parenting magazines Deb got claimed that most if not all kids Brittany’s age knew the truth.  What if Brittany still believed in Santa in another twenty years?

A weird jolt of wrongness went through Deb as she imagined Brittany believing right along with her own children.

They could tell her.  Alex and Deb could sit Brittany down right now on the couch and explain that Santa wasn’t real.  That it was important to keep the secret for Clara, and Santa was a wonderful fantasy, but that’s all he was.

But Brittany was even more excited than Clara to go see him.  Brittany had sat with her sister at breakfast and told her all about sitting on Santa’s lap, and asking for what you want for Christmas.

Deb thought about squashing that magic for her, and watching Brittany realize that it was all a lie.

“Mom, Dad!” Brittany called from downstairs.

“Let’s go!” Clara repeated.

Alex stood up and frowned.  “I told them to stop shouting inside the house,” he muttered.

“It doesn’t hurt anyone,” Deb said.  “I mean, the shouting is bad,” she clarified at Alex’s clear disagreement.  “We’ll tell them to stop doing that. But Brittany believing in Santa, that doesn’t hurt anyone, right?  It doesn’t even hurt her.”

Alex stared at her for a long while.  “I don’t think this is a truth we should protect her from,” he said slowly.

It shouldn’t have been a big deal, thinking that an eleven-year-old should know the truth about Santa.  But it was. “It makes her happy,” Deb said, crossing her arms over her stomach. “There’s no harm in that.”

She watched as Alex slowly, slowly, relaxed his shoulders in defeat.

“I guess one more year won’t hurt her,” he finally conceded.

Deb barely had time to sigh in relief before the girls were yelling again.

“Come on!”

“Santa!”

“The shouting has to go, though,” Alex said, rolling his eyes.

“I don’t disagree there,” Deb said, following him out of the bedroom.

February 2005

“Brittany, you let me put water in your drink again.”

Dad wouldn’t stop staring at her, and it made Brittany annoyed

“I’m drinking water,” Brittany said.  “How am I supposed to tell?”

Naperville, Illinois
July 2006

“Check it out.”  Brittany’s cousin Brett handed her news articles printed out from his computer.  “The descriptions from the different newspapers line up.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Ashley said, glaring at her brother.  “Look, if it was real, would it have such a ridiculous name? They call it a ‘Green Sasquatch’ for crying out loud.”

The articles seemed pretty convincing to Brittany.  And she wanted Brett to like her. Brett was really cool, he was in high school and had his driver’s permit.  But as impressed as Brittany was with him, she was even more impressed with her cousin Ashley. She was in college, and doing really well in college because she was smart.  And she could even drink legally.

Brittany decided to side with Ashley.  “Bigfoot is brown,” she said. “Everyone knows that.”

Ashley laughed, and Brett rolled his eyes.  “You guys just believe what everyone tells you,” he muttered, taking back his papers.

“And you’re just a conspiracy theorist,” Ashley argued.  “You want to tell me again how they faked the moon landing?”

Brett looked ready to go on an hour-long rant about it, but Aunt Pat stuck her head in the door.  “We’re leaving for the restaurant in three minutes, any stragglers will be left behind!”

Brittany heard her mom laughing as Aunt Pat grinned and disappeared.  Mom had been looking forward to this trip for months. She hadn’t left Aunt Pat’s side once since they got to the house.  Mom really loved her sister.

Brittany followed Ashley and Brett downstairs.  Dad was talking with Grandma Helen about the baseball game on TV, and Clara and Uncle Tim were playing with tiny model cars.

“Look, just because it’s weird doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Brett told his sister as they put on their shoes.

“Doesn’t mean it is true, either,” Ashley replied.  “People lie all the time.”

“That’s true,” Uncle Tim said.  “Look at your Uncle Alex, he was a politician!”  He laughed at his own joke, and Clara frowned at him, clearly unhappy about sharing his attention.

Dad just smiled, like he always did.  Mom’s side of the family always made fun of him for his job, even though Brittany knew it was very important.

“People do lie,” Dad said.  “It’s a matter of making people believe you when you’re telling the truth.  You have to have evidence to support your argument.”

“Two newspaper articles about a giant green monster are not evidence,” Ashley said.  “Especially when other newspapers are denying that it happened.”

Dad considered them for a long moment.  “So, how do you figure out which side is the liar?” he asked.

Brett started saying something about “the man”, but then the whole family was shuffling outside into the summer heat.

Brittany caught her Dad as they approached the car.  “Do you think there is a green monster out there?” she asked.  Because both Ashley and Brett seemed right. Dad would be able to tell her who was actually right.

Dad poked her on the nose.  “That’s classified,” he said, and before Brittany could ask what ‘classified’ meant he was opening the car door and telling her to get in.

Lima, Ohio
October 2007

“Do you know why we play this game?” Dad said sternly.

Brittany considered her glass of soda.

“We play this game so you can protect yourself.  So you can notice if somebody puts something in your drink.  So you can actually pay attention to the world around you, and be strong, and keep yourself safe.”

Brittany rolled her lips together in shame.  “I was thinking,” she said, trying to defend herself.

“You have to think and play at the same time,” Dad said, like that was so easy or whatever.

“I can’t do that,” Brittany said, staring at her straw.

“Yes you can,” Dad said.

But Dad was lying, probably.

William McKinley High School
Sue Sylvester’s office
March 2008

“My daughter is really looking forward to being on your cheerleading squad,” Alexander Pierce was saying.

“She’s strong enough to handle it,” Sue replied absently, mixing her protein shake.  All the other parents she had met with this week had said the same thing. Yes, the Pierce girl was particularly talented.  Yes, when Sue had searched the middle schools for her new Cheerios, that blonde girl had stuck out in the crowd. Yes, she’d be on varsity in the fall.  But that didn’t mean Sue Sylvester wanted to sit around listening to her father brag. Former Secretary of Defense or not, she had a summer cheerleading camp to organize.

“I took the liberty of looking into some of your press,” Pierce continued.  “You certainly work your girls hard.”

“I believe in being the very best, and getting the very best.”  Sue considered the merits of faking a gas leak to get the man out.

“Forgive me, but in one article it mentions that your parents are Nazi hunters?”

The comment seemed so out of place that it had to be important.  Pierce was suddenly looking at her with a strange edge, and Sue immediately knew she was on thin ice.  She didn’t know exactly how, though.

Carefully, she twisted the cap back onto her bottle and stared Pierce down.  “I only mentioned that in one interview a few years ago,” she said. “You researched me a lot.”

“I care about my daughter.”  Pierce sounded like any other parent, worrying and whining about their child’s feelings and physical health and the risk for infection when Sue sent them out into the woods.  But he kept staring at her.

“I come from a specific background,” Sue said.  She put on her glasses and pulled out her journal; regardless of how this meeting ended, she would have to write it down.  “And from that background I learned this: someone can be affiliated with this or that group, or be for or against some idea.  But you can’t declare someone a good person just because they agree with you on something.”

And miraculously, that was the right thing to say.

Pierce smiled genuinely and turned to study the trophies in her office.  “Right you are,” he said. “Truly knowing a person requires more than just one out-of-context factoid.”

“It’s why the Cheerios go on to be the very best,” Sue said.  “It helps them in all aspects of their lives.”

“Then I’m very glad Brittany has made it onto your squad.”  They both stood up and shook hands. “I look forward to watching your performances.”

“Thank you.  Good day.”

Alex opened the office door and allowed himself to be escorted to the exit by one of Sue’s Cheerios.  Sue slowly sat back down in her chair and pulled out a pen.

Dear Journal, she wrote, and then realized she didn’t know what to say.

Washington, DC
July 2008

Working for the World Security Council wasn’t much different from working for the government.  People fought over stupid things, different agencies tried to screw each other over, and one wrong word could cause a diplomatic nightmare.  And through it all, Alex worked toward changing the world.

He had known he’d be recommended for the Council position eventually and he was glad for it.  This way he and Hydra had the power and influence needed to make real changes, the kind that truly usher in a new age.

There were also benefits like working more directly with Nick Fury.  Talking with him felt like a miracle after too many years of posturing with Congress.  Nick was by all accounts an amazing director: he was strategic, capable of long-term planning, a natural leader, and not concerned with random rich assholes who thought they owned the world.  Between his competency and the Council’s rotating schedule, allowing Alex to be home often, Alex’s work life was falling into place.

Except for one part:  Alex didn’t like Gideon Malick.  It was problematic. Malick was currently the only other Hydra member on the World Security Council.  And truly, Malick was a good man and leader. Technically Alex was the true head, yes, but Hydra wasn’t one of those organizations that couldn’t find its own feet without its leader.  Hydra was everywhere, Hydra was a perception of the world, Hydra was truth.

So Alex and Malick worked together.  Personal feelings aside, it wasn’t about them.  It was about the world.

But Malick was one of those Originals.

Alex wasn’t some Level Two lackey.  Like Malick, like Strucker, he had held one of those boxes with his hands, watched that black monstrosity turn to liquid and then reassemble itself into a stone.  He knew its power, about the portal, about the god on the other side of the universe. He just thought it was a bunch of bullshit.

It wasn’t worth trying to convince Malick against his obsession, to get him on the right track.  He had been brought up with his ideas since birth, had come from a family of believers. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, as the saying went.

It didn’t make working with him easier, though.  Malick actively drove divisions within Hydra’s higher ranks.  Anyone who knew about the god was vulnerable to Malick’s dumbass speeches about history and dedication.  Not to mention that Whitehall and Malick apparently had some dramatic history and refused to talk to each other.  It was like working with middle school girls.

Well, middle school girls usually had less declarations of intent to murder each other.

At least Whitehall acknowledged that killing Malick was pointless.  Malick had money, political clout, and endless connections. Crazy cult religion or not, he was still Hydra, working for many of the same goals.  He was worth more dead than alive.

So Alex didn’t kill him.

At least, not yet.

Lima, Ohio
August 2008

When Brittany came home from cheerleading camp, there were two big changes.

One, Brittany started talking about aliens.

Two, a girl named Santana Lopez started hanging around.

The alien thing was a little weird, and Deb had no clue where the sudden obsession came from.  But she didn’t have a problem with Santana. It was nice for Brittany to have a new friend. Santana came into the Pierce household genuinely happy to see Brittany.  They played and talked and walked around together, pinkies linked and laughing about something or another. Soon the girls were staying over at each other’s houses for sleepovers.

“Santana’s my best friend,” Brittany said at the store, only three weeks after they had gotten back from camp.  “I want to make her a friendship bracelet.”

Clara jumped up.  “I want a friendship bracelet!”

“But you’re not my best friend,” Brittany said.  “You’re my sister. We would need sister bracelets.”

“So you’re saying you want me to buy the jewelry kit,” Deb interrupted.

Brittany turned to her mother and flashed a smile.  “Please?”

Deb didn’t see the moment Brittany gave Santana the friendship bracelet.  But she did see the actual bracelet that appeared on Brittany’s wrist a few days later.

“Santana said this was classier,” Brittany said, smiling.

Lima, Ohio
September 2008

Brittany came downstairs on her first day of high school wearing her Cheerios uniform.  Red and white polyester, gym shoes, a perfect ponytail. Clara followed, wearing a new purple shirt and light-up gym shoes for her first day of second grade.

“I’m so proud of you both,” Deb said, sniffling audibly.  She gave both her daughters quick hugs before running off to get her camera.

“Do we have to take a picture?” Clara asked, frowning.

“Let your mother be a mother,” Alex said, smiling at his girls.  “Parents are allowed to get emotional.” Clara wouldn’t stop frowning though.

“Are you okay?” Brittany asked her sister.  Clara shrugged.

“The first day is always scary,” Alex said.  “But don’t worry, you’re going to be great.”

“Yeah?” Clara asked, sounding skeptical.

Alex struggled to think of something else to say, but Brittany beat him to it.  She knelt down and said, “The first day isn’t hard. No one ever does anything on the first day of school.”

Clara perked up.  “Yeah?”

“First day is always easy,” Brittany said.  “Promise.”

Clara quirked a little smile.  “Okay.”

It bothered Alex, for some reason, but then Deb came running back in.  The girls stood together by the front door and smiled for the camera.

The first day of school was no time to worry, Alex thought.  They were Pierces. They’d be fine.

Chapter Text

Springfield, Ohio
June 2009

“You remember Benji,” Mom said, gesturing toward the guy in front of them.

Brittany was pretty sure she had never seen him before in her life.

“Benji, your cousin,” Mom said.  She sounded frustrated.  Brittany was familiar with the feeling, as she was being expected to remember a complete stranger.

“Technically, cousin first-removed,” announced the guy who was supposedly Benji.

“We were just at his 15th birthday party last month,” Mom said.  That sounded fake.

“It’s fine,” apparently-Benji guy said, and focused his eyes away from Brittany.  “How are you Aunt Deb?”

“I’m good,” Mom said, which was a lie, because she was just angry at Brittany for not remembering.  Brittany rolled her eyes and walked over to the snack table.

She had been looking forward to the Pierce Family Reunion.  But now they were in a huge backyard overflowing with cousins and numbered cousins and removed cousins that Brittany was expected to know and remember.  Plus other family members of Dad’s that Brittany actually hadn’t met before. How was she supposed to tell them apart?

She wished she could just go home and play with the cat.  Lord Tubbington needed to be watched, after all, he kept sneaking out at night.

Brittany stood at the snack table for a little bit, shoveling potato chips into her mouth, until she noticed the goat.

The goat noticed her.

Well, at least the goat wouldn’t be mad if Brittany had forgotten it.

Henry Pierce watched his niece slowly approach the fence where Sean the Goat was.  Brittany hadn’t changed since the last time he saw her: tall and blonde, with a perfect smile and a mind full of big ideas.  In a lot of ways, she was a lot like her dad. In other ways, she was nothing like him at all.

When Henry was a kid he had looked at Alex as someone undeniably above him, but that idol-worship had gone away sometime in the 60s.  It wasn’t that Alex was a bad person. He was a great person: he had gone to college, served in a President’s Cabinet, and gotten himself a family.

Meanwhile, Henry had a goat.

Their parents had been dead for years, and Henry still felt a little bitter about being the family disappointment.  It was ridiculous and petty, he knew, but it still wasn’t going away.

Which was why he worried about Brittany.  Henry didn’t know what was up with his niece.  He tried to tell himself it wasn’t any of his business but it was hard not to pay attention.  Brittany forgot what half the family looked like every time she saw them, she mixed up obvious words, she needed help reading the tags on Christmas presents.  Henry didn’t know the right words for whatever it was. And he couldn’t ask, because half the family remained oblivious, and the other half seemed dead set on the unspoken rule to never speak of it.

Silence didn’t change anything, though.  Brittany was turning sixteen in a couple weeks.  Alex was going to be disappointed in his daughter soon if it hadn’t happened already, and there would be no covering that up.  The least Henry could do was provide her another family failure to talk to.

Sean the Goat was still cautious of Brittany, so Henry adjusted his cowboy hat and walked toward her.  He’d reintroduce himself, watch when Brittany finally recognized him only because of his cowboy hat, and tell her basic goat etiquette.  Maybe he’d even let her inside the fence.

Lima, Ohio
July 2010

Dad had put trackers into their clothes, and sent them to conquer the sewers.

That was days ago.

Clara was sitting in silence, clearly still mad at her, and fine, Brittany was still mad at her too.  They had been working on the sewer map, and Brittany kept mixing up what to put on the left and what to put on the right, and Clara yelled at her.  Brittany yelled back.

Brittany couldn’t remember yelling at her sister before.  She couldn’t remember her sister ever yelling at her before.  Clara was nine now, and the eight-year difference between them had never felt so huge.

Brittany wiped her nose on her shirt and asked, quietly, “Do you think I’m stupid?”

Everyone else in the world had called her that by now.  Clara would too, eventually. It might as well be now.

“Well, I don’t think you’re smart,” Clara said immediately.  She was fiddling with her Pokemon t-shirt. “Smart people don’t mix up their rights and lefts.  But you were right about the manholes, so I don’t think you’re stupid, either.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Brittany said.

“You’re not smart or stupid,” Clara said.  “You’re weird. That’s different.”

Brittany knew Clara wasn’t right, exactly.  But she dropped the issue, because they needed to figure out how to get back to their base camp.  She took Clara’s hand and led the way.

(Above ground, Deb was sleeping in a hotel, very close to pulling the trigger on a divorce.

By the time the girls returned home, Deb was sleeping in the master bedroom again, and Tony Stark had finally been found in Afghanistan.)

Lima, Ohio
December 2010

Artie Abrams was an immediate and obvious outlier of the boys Brittany had invited over to the house.  First, obviously, was because of the wheelchair. Second, he was the first of Brittany’s dates to realize her dad was a former Secretary of Defense.  The biggest thing, though, was how he seemed to actually care about Alex’s daughter.

Well, Brittany was seventeen now.  Alex supposed she was at the point of dating semi-seriously.  He wasn’t dumb enough to think that Artie was going to be around forever, but for the time being he wasn’t a bad choice.  He got good grades, he was involved with clubs, he was respectful to both Alex and Deb. Artie was a perfectly acceptable high school boyfriend.

Artie was like other boys Brittany had dated in one way: he was on the football team.  It gave Alex an easy conversation starter when the kid came over. Alex would ask about football, Artie would talk about their coach, and Brittany would talk about different cheers they were doing now that the team was actually scoring.

Brittany was talking about normal things now, like the school football team.  Meanwhile Clara was in fourth grade, part of a kid’s soccer team. And Debbie was still a part-time worker.  Alex had a family, a home in Lima, a home in the capitol, and a housekeeper named Renata. Even if the world was spinning out of control, even if a billionaire flew around the globe fighting terrorists, Alex’s world would be safe.  He was sure it.

Washington, D.C.
February 2011

Maria Hill was only 29 and already a force to be reckoned with, if only judging by her willingness to fight with Nick Fury.

“Sir,” Hill said, her voice tight, “it’s worth it.”

“No, it’s not.”  Nick took a sip of water before turning his single eye on her.  “The investigation is already closed.”

“Reopening it would take up too many resources,” Alex said.

Hill looked at him for only two seconds, her face utterly blank, before turning back to Nick.  It was unsurprising; Hill made no secret that she answered to Nick Fury, not to the World Security Council.  It was a shame that Hill had already put her unfailing loyalty into one man, otherwise Alex would have considered recruiting her.

“The report argues that Peters must have blown their cover somehow,” Hill said.  “But you and I both know Peters was one of the best undercover agents we had.”

“Even the best of the best make mistakes,” Nick said.

“But there’s nothing to support they did,” Hill insisted.  “It’s speculation without any basis in fact. Peters was doing their job for two weeks, nothing amiss, not a single hint of being made, and then suddenly they’re shot from an impossible angle in broad daylight.”

“You think we have a double agent,” Nick said.

Alex held his face carefully.

“Sir, we always have double agents.  It’s one of the risks of running the largest espionage agency in the world.”

It wasn’t just SHIELD’s size, Alex mentally corrected, it was the combination of size and resources.  The sheer scope of the organization enabled Hydra to hide in plain sight, true, but the technology enabled Hydra to get things done.

Like finding an undercover agent.  Like getting an asset on and off site within minutes.

Nick and Hill finally ended their staring match; Nick looked down at his glass of water.  “You’re not wrong,” he said after a long pause. “The circumstances of Peters’ death are too suspicious, and I don’t agree with the conclusions of the report either.”

It was the first time Nick had mentioned any misgivings about this around him.  Alex hid his surprise. Either Hill was also hiding her surprise or simply didn’t have any, because her face remained blank.

“You’re still not reopening the investigation,” she stated, not a question.

“We’re not going to be able to find out more than we already have,” Nick said.  “We’ve already looked into everyone Peters interacted with in the last four months of their life, and everyone who interacted with them .  There were so many interviews we should have been on late night TV.”  He shook his head. “Reopening the case won’t accomplish anything. Except alerting double agents that we know there’s something rotten.”

Hill clearly knew Fury was right; her shoulders slowly lost their strain.  “You’ve done this before.”

“Since the beginning of time,” Nick said, deadpan.

Hill’s mouth quirked up just a little.  “You’re not quite that old, sir.”

“My age is classified.”  He looked back at her again, no hint of humor in his face.  “I have the file marked, along with a pile of others I have my eye on.  I’ve got a man on it; if he finds anything, we’ll act. But until then, that’s the best we can do.”

“I know,” Hill said, voice carefully even.

Nick stood up from the table.  “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I give you my condolences.  I know Peters was a friend of yours.”

Hill nodded, saying nothing, and Nick left the room.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions in this business,” Alex said, and Hill’s eyebrows raised just a little.  “It’s hard when the mysteries involve your friend. I’m sorry.”

Hill considered him for a long moment, clearly surprised at that bit of comfort from him.  Then she stood, gathered her files, and tried to smile.

“Thank you,” she said.  “And happy birthday, councilman.”

Alex smiled back.

Lima, Ohio
William McKinley High School
April Rhodes Civic Pavilion Auditorium
April 2011

Brittany loved dancing.

Santana wasn’t dancing or singing with them today, even though Brittany made her the lesbanese shirt.  It hurt and it made her angry, but still she danced.

Dad had been in D.C. for the past two months, but still she danced.

Mom didn’t smile much anymore, but still she danced.

Finn beside her didn’t know how to hold his arms, and Clara could spell better than her, and Artie just looked at her sometimes, and she danced better than anyone else on that stage.

Brittany didn’t care that she was singing for an empty auditorium.  She had an 'I’m With Stoopid' shirt and magic inside of her.

There was magic in this club, and magic in the noise and her body and her veins.  She was the most magical girl in the world.

She twirled and sang “I’m on the right track, baby, I was born this way.”

Washington, D.C.
May 2011

The past month had been busy.  Culver University had student protests, parts of the Stark Expo were probably still literally on fire, and footage of the Harlem battle had gone viral.

All of that was nothing compared to a wrecked small town in New Mexico.

Agent Coulson filed his report to the World Security Council, Singh and Hawley got into a shouting match, Nick would simply not listen to reason, and Malick looked both scared and determined, which was never good.

“The Avengers Initiative is a child’s dream,” Hawley said.  “We need substantial action and power, and Phase Two will supply that.”

“Phase Two won’t happen overnight,” Nick said, for probably the third time in the past ten minutes.  “What do we do in the interim?”

“Exactly,” Singh said, raising his hand and leaning back in his chair.

Nick had an impressive poker face, but he wasn’t bothering with it right now.  He was frowning, clearly in thought.

“Phase Two is happening,” Malick declared.  All eyes turned to him, even the ones who were only video conferencing in, and Malick drew himself up.  “We’ll come to an official vote, yes, but from what our members have said so far, it’s clear that Phase Two will be passed, probably unanimously.  So the issue is whether we want the Avengers Initiative to coexist alongside Phase Two, or not.”

Multiple voices began at that, but Alex had had enough.  “Director Fury,” he said loudly, cutting everyone off.

Nick turned to him, posture straight and attentive.  They weren’t friends in these meetings, not really.

“When you came to us with this Initiative,” Alex said, “you had a vision.  A team of extraordinary people, who could work together to fight massive threats.  They would protect us.”

Nick nodded his head.  “That was the idea.”

“And it was a good one.”  He charged along with his words, to make sure he wasn’t interrupted.  “The Council voted in favor of putting the Avengers Initiative into place.  But that was years ago.”

Nick breathed out through his nose.  He already knew he had lost.

“Thor will return,” Alex said.  “If not Thor, then one of his friends, or one of his enemies, or some other creature from the far ends of the universe.  Someone else will come to Earth, and that is not a prediction. That is a statement of fact. If they come tomorrow, would this years-old Initiative be ready, Director Fury?  Would you be able to guarantee a team ready to protect us?”

Nick looked him in the eye.  “No, Councilman, I would not be able to guarantee it.”

And that was that.

Lima, Ohio
October 2011

Sue Sylvester was running for Congress and she was going to win.  That was a give in.

At least, until she made her stand on disability benefits public.  She got a phone call from Alexander Pierce the next day, informing her he was not donating to her campaign after all, and also not endorsing her.

“I think we may have misunderstood each other,” he said.

For some reason, Sue found herself surprised.  She hadn’t known she could still feel that emotion.

“I think we did,” Sue replied, and hung up the phone.  She called for Becky to get her finance sheets, as she was going to have to readjust some spending.

Sue vowed to never say a word to Brittany.

November 2011

Clara didn’t know what was up with her sister.  At all.

When they were younger they understood each other perfectly.  But now Brittany was talking nonsense about double dip recessions and the luck of the Irish, and Clara couldn’t understand a word coming out of her mouth.

Clara was good.  Fifth grade had brought her a new friend and a nice teacher.  She got good grades, especially in gym class and math, and was rocking on her soccer team.  Life was good and it made sense so long as she didn’t bring her family into it.

Clara kept waiting for Mom to announce that they were getting a divorce, but she was still pretending like it was normal for a dad to not live with his family.  Mom said over and over that it was okay, it was his job, he was trying to protect people, whatever .  He still wasn’t home.

Except, apparently, when Brittany ran for senior class president.  Then he started living under the same roof again.

It was really hard to not be angry.  It was also really hard to pretend like this made sense.  Why on earth would being class president be enough to bring Dad back from D.C.?  Brittany would make a terrible president anyway. But Dad seemed to think it was a sign of her potential and her grand future at college, as if Brittany wasn’t failing her classes?

It was crazy.  Everything was crazy.  Mom had decided to sponsor a foreign exchange student for some reason.  “We thought it would be a good opportunity for all of us,” Mom said, but Clara knew Mom made this decision, and not Dad.  Rory was okay, if a little quiet, but she wished he would go back to Ireland already and get out of her house.

She wanted Dad to stop pretending he cared and get out of her house too.  Talking to her father face to face had become stilted and weird, and he kept trying to teach her how to tell if someone poisoned her drink, and it was all just crazy.

Clara kind of hated her family sometimes.

She tried to tell herself it would be okay.  Eventually Dad would go back to D.C., and Mom wouldn’t have a reason to keep a foreign exchange student around to piss him off.  Eventually they’d all wake up and realize Brittany couldn’t go to college next year when she couldn’t pass a class, so Brittany would repeat senior year, and it would just be Clara and her mother and her sister again.

Everything would go back to normal after the stupid election was over.

And it did.  Dad went back to D.C.

But then Brittany stopped talking.

Santa Fe, New Mexico
December 2011

“Why don’t you tell us what’s going on?” Mom said softly, and Brittany had a small desire to shout at her, because she shouldn’t be saying us .  She was the only one asking, Dad wasn’t even around.  He came on family vacation for like two seconds before going someplace else for work.

Brittany didn’t know why he bothered coming home at all, when he so obviously didn’t want to see them.

“Brittany, honey,” Mom said.

Brittany was tired.  She didn’t want to be on vacation.  She wanted to go back home and go driving with Santana.  They’d turn on the radio and stop at a drive through or something, and Santana wouldn’t make her talk.

“What’s wrong?”

Magic exists, but it can go away.

Washington, D.C.
May 2012

The Council operated on rotations.

Alex was not on rotation when Loki came to Earth

“You made the right decision.”

Malick looked surprised.  “Are you affording me a compliment?”

“We were facing an alien invasion,” Alex said.  “They were contained in Manhattan and we were obligated to use the weapons we had against them.  It was the best one choice available to us.”

Malick sat back in his chair, huffing.  “If I had known sending the nuke through the portal would have solved the problem, I would have ordered that.”

“We had no way of knowing.  You do your best with what you got.  You made the right choice.”

Malick looked out to window.  “And to think, a week ago we were just worried about Captain America coming back to life.”

Alex almost wanted to laugh, but Manhattan was still a war zone.

“It’s horrifying,” Malick said.  “It’s horrifying to know what’s out there.”

Alex glanced at him.  The next minute could change everything.  If Malick was reconsidering his alliances-

“The thing is,” Alex said, “we don’t actually know anything about what’s out there.”

Malick breathed deep.  “You’re right. We know so much about Earth, and nothing beyond.”  He took a long gulp of water. “This can’t happen again.”

Alex remained quiet.

“We need protection,” Malick declared.

Alex closed his eyes.  No, Malick wasn’t reconsidering the alien god.  Fine.

Except, Malick wasn’t exactly wrong.

“You’re right,” Alex said.  “We need protection.”

In a better world the Avengers would have been the perfect candidates.  They stopped an alien invasion. Should the inevitable happen, and look at the world, it would, they would stop another.

Except the Avengers were nothing like the initiative Fury put forth to the Council years ago.  They weren’t going to play ball.

Barton and Romanoff answered to Fury, not to SHIELD, which Alex could live with.  But while Fury was doing fine work, he still rejected important parts of Hydra philosophy.  Barton and Romanoff couldn’t be counted on. Stark was operating 100% on Daddy Issues. And the Hulk didn’t operate on any policy other than destruction.  (If they had gotten Blonsky, dammit, things might have been different.)  Thor was an alien himself. He couldn’t be trusted.  Rogers...

It was just so unfortunate that Rogers would never be able to see past the Hydra name.

Maybe he would still do what needed to be done, though.

Chicago, Illinois
May 2012

Magic exists, but it can go away.

Confetti rained from the ceiling, and Brittany hugged Santana as close as she could, screaming with the rest of the New Directions.

But magic can also come back.

Lima, Ohio
May 2012

“Brittany, look at me.”

The problem with not talking with Dad on the phone was not knowing he was coming into town for Brittany’s graduation.  Except the graduation wasn’t happening.

Brittany sank further back into the couch, eyes on her lap.  Dad was standing in the middle of the living room, staring at her, and she just.  Didn’t want to look at him. She was supposed to, he was her dad and he told her to, but she didn’t want to.

“Brittany.”

Dad shifted on his feet.  Mom was in the kitchen, spying on their conversation.  The leprechaun was upstairs in the guest room. Brittany didn’t know where Clara was.

“Brittany, answer me.”

“I’ll graduate next year.”  There, that was the way to fix it.

But Dad still wasn’t happy.  “You were supposed to graduate this year,” he said.  “If you were having academic troubles, you should have asked for help.  We could have gotten you a tutor.”

Brittany had already had tutors and driven them all away.  “I’ll graduate next year,” she repeated.

“Brittany, enough.”

“It’s the rules!” Brittany yelled at her lap.  She didn’t get why Dad was so insistent on talking about it, it wasn’t like it was going to change.  “I didn’t pass the classes, and that’s what happens. I couldn’t graduate, I’m too stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” Dad said, but he was lying.  Everyone had called her stupid, Dad himself probably had at some point, literally everyone had.

“I can’t get good grades-”

“You are not stupid! ”

“How do you know!” Brittany shouted, matching her father’s voice in volume.  If he wanted to be loud, she could be loud right back. “You’re never home! You don’t know anything!”

Dad sighed, but it kind of sounded like a growl.  “If you’re telling me you failed these classes on purpose-”

“No-”

“-as a way of getting back at me-”

“It doesn’t matter!” Brittany shouted at the ceiling.  She still couldn’t look at her dad. “Santana is leaving and I’m not graduating and aliens invaded us!  That’s how it is!”

When Dad spoke again, his voice was softer.  “Aliens invaded us,” he repeated.

Brittany looked back down at her lap again.  “Yeah.”

“What does that have to do with you not graduating?”

Nothing, but this talk wasn’t just about Brittany having to repeat senior year.  It was about a whole lot of things, and Brittany couldn’t keep track of all of it.

Her chest really hurt, so she opened it up, closed her eyes, and let out the words she had.

“Aliens invaded.  I told you they were real.  I told you about alien invasions and you didn’t believe me.  You didn’t listen to me.”

The room was silent for a long, long time.

And then it was loud, and Brittany did not open her eyes.

Rory heard the lamp break, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Pierce shouting at each other.

There was a bang, maybe a chair being pushed over, and more shouting.

And then Mr. Pierce was slamming the door and driving away in his car.

He didn’t come back for two days.

Rory didn’t know what happened, and he didn’t want to know.  He called his mother and told her he was coming back to Ireland.

Alex believed in this: never have an asset do what you should do yourself.

July 2012

It was a hot summer and they should have just gone inside in the air conditioning.  But Brittany didn’t want to be at home, because of whatever had happened that she wasn’t talking about.  And Santana didn’t want to be at home, because the house was filling up with college supplies she didn’t want to look at or think about.  So instead they wandered around Lima together. Sometimes they would go to a movie or ice cream, and sometimes they would just walk without a destination.

Not a lot of glee club was around.  Whether it was L.A. or New York or Yale or wherever, most of the graduates had already left Lima; only Kurt and Santana herself were left.  Kurt was the idiot who had Allen County Community College as his backup plan, and Santana…

Santana just didn’t want to leave.

It was amazing.  For years she dreamed of getting out of Lima, and now that she was, she could only think about leaving Brittany.

“You know, Louisville isn’t that far,” Santana said, wiping the sweat off her forehead.  Brittany looked at her. “Three and a half hour drive. That’s not so bad. That’s like, two movies.  Or just one of Lord of the Rings.”

“It’s far enough,” Brittany said.

Santana shook her head.  “I’ll be visiting all the time,” she promised.  “I’ll have lots of time to see you.”

Brittany nodded, not very convincingly, and reached out for Santana’s hand.  Both their hands were sweaty from the heat, but they both held on anyway.

Whatever had happened at home, Brittany was lost, and Santana couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her behind like this.  Mrs. Pierce was fine, even if she was annoying, but Brittany’s dad was a giant dick who clearly wasn’t happy Brittany was seriously dating another girl.  He was rarely around, but when he was, he always frowned when Santana came by. He also frowned when Brittany started on her theories on robot riots, when Brittany wanted to watch cartoons, when Brittany blanked on somebody’s name.  He never said anything, but his face was getting more wrinkled with how much he expressed his disapproval.

Clara was annoying, too, but she was eleven.  That was sort of to be expected. At least the irish kid was gone now.

“I’m getting my own car,” Santana said.  “And whenever you need me to go Lima Heights on somebody, I’ll drive back up in a second, and bite them.”

Brittany laughed, a rare thing these days.  “You’ll yell at them, too.”

“Oh, definitely,” Santana said casually.  Yelling at people was easy. And unlike fixing whatever was wrong at Brittany’s home, it was something she could actually do.

November 2012

Becky wanted Brittany to join the superhero club with her and Artie and it sounded fun.  Superheroes were all the rage after what happened with the aliens. Everyone wanted to be heroes.  Brittany agreed, and they set to work on their costumes, and that’s when Brittany realized she didn’t know what kind of superhero she wanted to be.

Brittany couldn’t turn green or fly or travel through time.  (Her time machine was busted, she really needed to replace the battery.)  But that was fine; the club was for pretend. Brittany could be whatever she wanted.  She just didn’t know what she wanted.

She thought about a dancing ninja, about being a motocross competitor, about being invisible.  She thought about maybe being a superhero who could never have her heart broken, so the breakup with Santana wouldn’t hurt as much.  And she thought about flying, too, but that seemed too boring.

“The club’s for fun,” Artie said when she asked for advice.  “Do something that will be really exciting.”

Becky had a different idea.  “Make yourself powerful,” she said.  “I’m going to sting all of you.”

Brittany didn’t like the idea of being stung, so for a moment she considered being a hero who could fend off bees.  But then she thought about being both powerful and exciting.

The Human Brain had a powerful brain, obviously.  And she guessed she could have made herself super smart.  But instead she gave herself psychic powers. Being able to do all sorts of cool imaginary things, what was more exciting and powerful than that?

Some superheroes were super smart, like Iron Man, but maybe it was time for a stupid one.

December 2012
A collection of voice messages left on Alexander Pierce’s personal cell phone

“Hey, Dad, it’s Brittany.  Um, I know we haven’t talked in awhile.  But I found out the world is ending in a couple days.  I know after we all die we’ll be together and happy in the afterlife, but I’m not really sure what that’s going to look like.  Maybe we won’t be able to talk. So I thought I should talk to you now.

“So, uh.  I’m sorry.  I should have told you about the student class president election, even though I’m kinda glad I’m not president this year.  I should have answered the phone when you called last week.

“And I guess I’m sorry that you weren’t happy.  Even with me.

“It’s okay, I’ll probably be smart in the afterlife.  And I have an apocalypse husband, his name is Sam, I think you’ll like him.  Or I hope you’ll like him.

“Okay, so, I don’t know if you’ll still be going to the afterlife if you get bombed by the Mandolin, so be careful.  Don’t die until you have to die.

“I’ll see you soon, Dad.”

“Hi, it’s me again, I forgot to say I love you.  And I do love you. It’s just hard to sometimes.

“So there.  I love you, and I’ll see you after the world ends.”

“Hi Dad, it’s Brittany, and I guess the world didn’t end.  It’s really, really confusing. Also apparently Iron Man died?  And I still have my apocalypse husband, even though there was no apocalypse, so I guess he’s my regular husband?  I know you’re probably busy but maybe you could help me fix all this? Okay, bye.”

“Dad, why won’t you call me back?  They kidnapped the President, did they kidnap you too?  I hope they didn’t. Are you still mad at me? …I hope you’re okay.  Bye Dad.”

“Hey, it’s me again.  Mom said you called her, so I guess you’re fine.  I just thought I should tell you that I’m not actually married.  Sam’s my boyfriend, not my husband. The marriage was a sham. I guess that’s okay.  I like Sam, and when the world was ending I was happy he was my husband. But if the world’s not ending, I think I’m happier not being married yet.

“Oh, and Iron Man didn’t die, and the President didn’t die.  But you probably already knew that.

“Maybe you could have told me.  Maybe you could have come home for Christmas.

“I know the Mandolin freaked everyone out and you had to be at work.  I know you were just trying to help people. I just wish you were home more often.

“I’ll see you when you come home in a few days.

“Merry Christmas, Dad.”

Washington, D.C.
January 3, 2013

Things were wildly out of control.

“Agent Coulson recovered,” Nick said, again.  “We’ve put him through a lot of physical therapy and medical exams.  We’re certain he’s good to go back into the field.”

“The man was stabbed through the chest,” Alex said, again .

“It was an alien weapon.  We don’t really know how they work.”

He was hiding something.  Nick was a good spy but even he couldn’t erase suspicions on something like this.  The agent had been stabbed through the chest , he shouldn’t have even been alive.  To supposedly be fully healed and ready to take on the world again...it wasn’t possible.  Something was up, and Alex didn’t know what it was. He hated not knowing what was going on.  And he hated being lied to.

Alex knew this business, everyone had perpetual trust issues, fine.  But Alex couldn’t count anymore, the number of times he had been sure Nick was lying to him.  Maria Hill, Natasha Romanoff, all of Nick’s top agents refused to answer to anyone but him. And Alex’s daughter was a super senior, and Tony Stark saved the world again even though he shouldn’t have even been involved with the Mandarin business…

There were too many things outside of Alex’s control, and he was starting to get angry.

But that would all change within the year.

“I didn’t even remember we had a medical center in Tahiti.”  Alex tried to smile amicably, like they were sharing a joke. “To help Agent Coulson with such severe wounds, the doctors there must be amazing.”

“It’s a magical place,” Nick said evenly, and Alex smiled against the lie.

Lima, Ohio
January 6, 2013

“The reservation’s at 7,” Alex said, sticking his head into the bathroom.

“And it’s my birthday,” Deb said, applying mascara.  “I’ll take as long as I want.”

Alex figured it was not the time to argue so he went downstairs.  The girls were in the living room with the TV on, but neither of them were watching it.  Brittany was on her laptop, looking at clothes online, and Clara was reading one of her books for school.

“Don’t burn the house down,” Alex told them.  It was an old joke that started when Brittany put tin foil in the microwave years ago.

“We won’t,” the girls chorused, not even looking up.

Alex fondly shook his head and left the living room.  He meant to go to the front door, put his shoes on, maybe start warming up the car.  Instead, he saw that the door to Deb’s craft room was open.

When they first bought the house, the room was going to be Deb’s study, where she could do work for her part-time job at the employment agency.  It had mostly turned into a storage room that Deb herself only used when she was crafting. She liked making personalized photo frames. With the Christmas season over it was a surprise to see the craft room door open - and to see that there were books and papers on the desk.

It shouldn’t have set off warning bells in Alex’s head.  Deb was perfectly allowed to read in her personal room. But Alex knew, instantly, she was hiding something.

He hated secrets.

Quietly he walked into the room and to the desk.  The papers had been printed out from the internet, containing the url at the bottom of the page.  Some passages had notes written in the margins near them, others had been highlighted. Deb had been researching something.  That wasn’t so out of the ordinary, was it?

He picked up a page, hoping to see information on employment statistics and funding for the new year.  Instead, he read a highlighted sentence: These children and young adults are likely to struggle with self-management across different aspects of life, including personal care, socialization, and schooling.  Deb had underlined the word ‘schooling’ twice, and scribbled ‘getting dressed, brushing teeth, etc.’ in the margin.

The book on the desk was a copy of the DSM-V.

Alex squeezed his eyes shut, and carefully put the paper in the same place he had found it.  Then he left the study, closed the door, and put on his shoes.

Deb was researching their daughter.  Alex could feel it in his throat.

Deb thought Brittany-

Alex didn’t know what Deb thought Brittany was.  But he knew she was wrong. Brittany was far from average, but she wasn’t…

Brittany was just different.  She didn’t do well in school, but lots of kids didn’t.  She got distracted by things, sure, so did everyone else in the world these days, with their damn cell phones and high-speed internet.  His daughter was fine, she was a cheerleader, she was normal, how dare -

Alex unclenched his fists.

If Deb thought Brittany was...something, anyone else in the world could think the same.  Including a computer program calculating a million variables into who would and would not be chosen for sacrifice.

Something had to change.

He could hear the footsteps of Deb hurrying down the stairs.  “Okay girls, we’ll be home in a couple hours, be good!”

“We will,” the girls said distractedly.

Alex put on his best smile when Deb appeared around the corner.  “Ready to go?”

“Let’s do it,” Deb said, putting on her coat.

Something had to change.

Well.  Alex had connections in all sorts of places.

Chapter Text

Cambridge, Massachusetts
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Office of Donald Langdon
March 2013

“Donald-”

“I’m eating lunch,” Langdon said automatically, not even looking up to the door.

“Don, Alexander Pierce is here.”

That got his attention.  Langdon lifted his head and stared at Halpman.  “Is this a joke?”

“He wants to have a meeting with you as soon as possible.  As in, right now.”

Langdon squeezed his eyes shut.  First the sandwich shop got his order wrong, and now this.  What a bloody awful day. “What on earth is he doing here?”

Halpman took a seat in front of Langdon’s desk.  “He wants to know about Project Numeral, doesn’t he?”

“Of course not.  We’ve barely begun testing, he knows there’s nothing to report yet.”

“You think he cares?  Everyone’s so impatient now.”  Halpman didn’t elaborate; he didn’t need to.  With Project Insight scheduled to launch within the year, all the higher-ups within Hydra were becoming more jumpy, less willing to listen to explanation.

There was no point in delaying.  Langdon was about to tell Halpman to go get their guest, but said guest appeared at the doorway, smiling.  Mr. Secretary,” Langdon said, standing. Halpman followed suit.

“I’m sorry to drop by unannounced,” Pierce said, slowly walking into the office.  “But my business in Europe ended sooner than expected, and I’m not due back in Washington for a few hours.  I thought I’d say hello.”

They shook hands.  “You’re always welcome,” Langdon said.

“Not always,” Pierce said with a shrug.  “I certainly wasn’t welcome in the wife’s craft room last week.  Oh, you don’t have to leave,” he said to Halpman, who was making for the door.  “I was actually hoping you’d stay for this.”

Halpman’s smile was so obviously nervous.  The man needed to work on hiding his emotions.  “Of course, sir,” he said, closing the door.

“There’s no need to worry,” Pierce said as they all sat down.  “I realize my showing up unexpected can cause, well, discomfort, but this isn’t urgent.  Well, maybe a little urgent, but nothing to rewrite your wills over.”

Langdon chuckled in spite of himself.  “I always forget your wit.”

“I don’t see why,” Pierce said.  “I’ve always hated that people assume power and humor are mutually exclusive.  How are you, Donald?”

“Eating sub-par sandwiches,” Langdon said.  “And you?”

“I have a bit of a problem,” Pierce admitted.  “Should we go straight to business, or do we want to exchange more pleasantries?”

Langdon looked at his watch.  “I have a meeting in half an hour.”

“To business, then.”  Pierce pulled out his phone and handed it to Langdon.  “I don’t believe you’ve met my daughter. Her name is Brittany.”

The girl in the picture was smiling and posing for the camera.  She was wearing a cheerleading uniform with her blonde hair in a perfect ponytail; Langdon wasn’t at all surprised that this was Pierce’s daughter.  He was a little surprised that Pierce was showing him a picture, though. Generally Pierce didn’t talk about his family except among his most trusted circle of people.  Langdon knew for a fact he was not in that circle. He was a random academic that Pierce only knew and talked to because he had to.

“No sir, I haven’t,” Langdon said.  “How old is she?”

“19,” Pierce said.  He took the phone back and handed it to Halpman, who just looked confused.  “She recently scored a 2340 on the SAT.”

Langdon raised his eyebrows.  “Wow.  That’s incredible.”

“19?” Halpman asked.  “Did she start school late?”

“That’s where it gets complicated,” Pierce said.  “Technically she was supposed to graduate last year.  But she...didn’t have a grade point average to speak of.”

Langdon and Halpman exchanged looks.  “What did she get on last year’s SAT?” Langdon asked carefully.  “She should have taken one last year if she was a senior.”

“She didn’t,” Pierce said, taking his phone and putting it back inside his suit jacket.  “She claimed that she got lost on her way to the testing room.”

“...She what?” Halpman asked.

“She didn’t actually get lost,” Pierce explained.  “She does that; she pretends she isn’t smart to get out of things.”

Langdon sat back.  “So you’re saying that her daughter has a genius-level intellect, but pretends not to.  To the point of not having a GPA.”

“Technically her GPA is currently 0.2,” Pierce clarified.

“...Is that a joke?” Halpman asked.

“If only,” Pierce said.

“Councilman Pierce,” Langdon said.  “I apologize, but I’m not sure what it is you want.  Do you want us to tutor your daughter?”

“Don’t apologize, I’m being cryptic again,” Pierce said, smiling.  “No, what I want is for you to accept Brittany into MIT. Specifically, I’d like for her to work with you on Project Numeral.”

Halpman stared, opened his mouth, closed it.

Langdon went for the speaking approach.  “A 2340 on the SAT, a 0.2 GPA. How is that even possible?”

“You don’t believe me?” Pierce joked.  But he wasn’t really joking.

“Forgive me for being a little skeptical,” Langdon joked back.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Pierce said.  “But, as I said, Brittany pretends to not be smart.  Personally I think she just doesn’t work well in public education.  She finds it boring and pointless. When faced with something that is actually a bit of a challenge, she works hard to succeed.”

“I’m surprised you put your daughter in public school,” Halpman said.  “Certainly you could afford private school.”

“Long story,” Pierce said, waving his hand.  “To make it short, it was my wife’s idea. Brittany was already the daughter of a Secretary of State; Deb wanted to give her normalcy and a relaxed education.  Obviously we made the wrong move. Brittany needs to be challenged more. I think MIT is the perfect fit for her.”

“And Project Numeral?” Langdon asked.

Pierce just smiled.  “Keep her in the family business,” he said simply.

Langdon considered that for a moment, before he nodded.  “Well, she has your stamp of approval, that’s of course worth a check over.  Have her schedule a campus visit. We’ll interview her, have her see our facilities, make sure she’s a good fit for the program.”

Halpman frowned, just for a second.

“That sounds like a great plan,” Pierce said.  “I’ll let her know tonight.”

“If she got a near-perfect score on the SAT, our admissions department has probably already contacted her.” Langdon said, shaking the mouse for his computer.  “But we should make sure to contact her directly. Do you want me to send you my work phone?”

“Could you?”

Langdon sent off an email with his name and work phone number in the subject line, and nothing in the body.  Pierce would remember the conversation. “Is there anything else to discuss?”

“No, that’s it.  Let’s go back to the pleasantries.  How’s the wife?”

Halpman waited until everyone was heading home for the night before approaching Langdon.  “Are you sure about this? Pierce’s daughter in MIT?”

“You’re free to call him up and tell him no,” Langdon said.  “Personally, I’d avoid incurring his wrath.”

“He’s the head of HYDRA, he’s not a devil,” Halpman said with a roll of his eyes.

“You do a terrible job of acting you’re not scared of him,” Langdon replied.  “I only agreed to meet with the girl. I have not promised accepting her yet. One thing at a time.”

“You’re kidding yourself if you think there’s any chance you won’t accept her.”

“Then why are you even fighting, Leonard?  If it is a lost cause, then why waste your breath?”  Well, he was wasting his breath because Halpman was a contrary dick who always argued against everything, but Halpman had yet to discover this about himself. “You are so terrible at being stoic,” Langdon said.  He stood up from his desk and started clearing up the office.

“Someone in this organization needs to actually feel something,” Halpman said, which just proved he wasn’t cut out for this.  He stood at the noise-cancelling machine and said, “Hail Hydra.”

“Hail Hydra,” Langdon repeated, and Halpman turned the machine off.  “I do know what I’m doing, Leonard.”

“I’d like to believe so,” Halpman said.  “Goodnight.”

When Brittany Susan Pierce visited the campus weeks later, she came with her mother and sister.  It was unbelievably weird to see Alexander Pierce’s wholesome little family wearing casual clothes and sunglasses, pretending they were normal.

Deborah Pierce looked considerably more youthful than her husband; Langdon guessed she had to be at least ten years younger than Alexander, maybe even twenty.  The younger daughter was playing a game on her phone, not taking any interest in the campus. Brittany herself mostly just looked around nervously.

Deborah had a short conversation with Langdon about Brittany, wished her daughter luck and told her to call her when everything was done, and left with the younger daughter.  Jill, one of the admissions counselors, gave Brittany the test. Langdon went back to his office to work while he waited for the results.

It was a long test.

Brittany tried hard to concentrate, but there were so many words and numbers jumbled together.  They didn’t make any sense. How was she supposed to concentrate with that teacher staring at her the whole time, anyway?  And she was hungry, she wanted lunch. Maybe there was a taco stand somewhere close.

Brittany fiddled with her green crayon.  She had to work hard. Dad had called her on a Monday night and talked about this.  He kept saying over and over to not get distracted or discouraged. It was a really good opportunity, he said.  If she could get into this program, it would mean really good things for her.

Brittany wanted to prove herself.  She wanted to move on and accomplish things and be an adult.  She wanted to make Dad proud, too. So she tried on every single question.

“Please tell me we’ll be able to fix the Scantron machine,” Langdon said.

“I’ll get somebody on it,” Jill promised, because Hydra had a finger in every major institution in the United States but their Scantron machines couldn’t handle crayons.

“I guess I’m grading it by hand,” Halpman mumbled.

Jill took Brittany on a tour of the campus while they were grading her test.  It was a big campus so they didn’t see the whole thing. Brittany did, however, get to see the Pierce Laboratory.

Dad had called her on a Monday night and talked about how someone way back in their family donated money to the college.  He had been a president or a governor or something, Brittany had kind of blanked out once she realized how important the test was to Dad.  But he talked about the family legacy of MIT, even though they had like what, two people in the family who had gone there? Even Dad hadn’t gone to there.

Maybe Brittany was going to be the third Pierce at MIT.

Maybe she was about to let Dad down again.

She remembered being in that bathroom at school when the gun went off.  She had been washing her hands. There were two gunshots, the other girl in the bathroom screamed, and Brittany suddenly remembered being six years old in Bogotá.

Not that she remembered much about it.  She remembered guns and being scared. She remembered Dad.  She remembered someone holding her hand.

Brittany hadn’t thought about Bogotá in a really long time.

A boy, scared, had run into the girl’s bathroom, and somehow Brittany remembered what she was supposed to do.  She and the girl and the boy all stood on top of the toilets inside the stalls, hiding, and waiting. They waited for a long time.  The boy breathed shakily, the other girl was completely silent, and Brittany desperately tried to stop crying.

When it was all over, after Mr. Schue had found her and everyone was safe and Brittany was home, Dad called and told her he was proud of her.  Brittany couldn’t remember him ever saying that before.

“Any relation?” Jill asked, gesturing toward the Pierce Laboratory.

“No,” Brittany lied.

Pierce Lab mostly just did hippie stuff now, Dad said.  The mathematics department, that’s where Brittany needed to be.  That’s where she could make a real difference.

Brittany pulled out her phone.  “Kiki,” she asked it, “why am I nervous?”

“You have a nervous system,” Kiki responded.  Which actually made a lot of sense.

Jill gave her a very weird look.

“Kiki, why is she staring at me?”

“Because you are hot as hell,” Kiki answered.  That made a lot of sense too.

“This is a joke.”

“It’s not,” Halpman said.  “I graded it, I double-checked, I triple-checked it.  She scored a zero. She did not get a single question correct.”

“That’s impossible,” Langdon said.  “I mean, statistically impossible. If she was just guessing at answers, she must have gotten at least one right, that’s just probability.”

“I don’t think she was guessing,” Halpman said.  He pulled out the test pages.  “Look at this; she wrote out all her work.  In crayon, mind you, but she was trying to work through the problems.  And she got every single one of them wrong. She can’t even add double digit numbers.”

Langdon looked over the work, trying to find something, some hint of Brittany understanding any mathematical concept.  He couldn’t find any. “Was she was overwhelmed by the pressure?” he wondered aloud. “Maybe she has an extreme case of test anxiety.  Maybe she’s worried about living up to expectations.”

“Then how did she get such a high score on the SAT?”

“I don’t know, ADD drugs?  Weed?”

“You want to know the more likely scenario?” Halpman said.  “The SAT score was a fluke. She’s failed every other math test in her entire high school career, the SAT is the clear outlier here.  I don’t know, maybe she cheated, maybe she got lucky, stranger things have happened. But she’s just an idiot, and Pierce doesn’t know anything about his daughter.”

Langdon flipped through the pages.  In one corner Brittany had written “Tacos??” in green crayon. In this case, Halpman was probably right.  “I guess it’s not that surprising. Pierce is rarely home, maybe he doesn’t spend a lot of time with her.”

“I’m more worried about how we’re going to break the news to him,” Halpman said.  “What are we supposed to do, point out his daughter can’t do simple addition?”

“Relax.  We’ll just make up something about Brittany having test anxiety, say doesn’t fit the bill for the project.  Wait, what’s this?”

The last page of the test was filled with numbers, written in crayon.

“Just something else she wrote,” Halpman said, disinterested.

“No, look at this.”  He pointed to the picture of the animal.  “This is a mole.”

“So?”

“It’s right by Avogadro's constant.”

Halpman leaned over and looked at it.  “Huh, it is. I guess she knows something .”

Langdon stared over the page again, taking his time, and then he found another.  “Check it out: Plank’s constant.”

“So she memorized a few numbers.  She doesn’t know how to use them.”

“That’s okay,” Langdon said.  Ideas were settling, and he was mostly relieved that he knew what to do now.  “She doesn’t need to use them. She just needs to have them in her head.”

Halpman stopped.  “Are you...no. No, please tell me you’re joking.”

“She’s not going to be working on Project Numeral,” Langdon decided.  “She is going to be Project Numeral.”

Halpman gaped at him.  And then he straight-out laughed at him.  “You’re an idiot,” he said darkly. “You’re dumber than she is.  The second Pierce finds out that we turned his daughter into a subject, he’ll kill us.”

“Pierce understands the importance of the big picture,” Langdon said.  “He knows that sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Halpman’s voice had lost any humor.  Now he was panicked and angry. “He won’t just kill us, he will have us destroyed by the asset, we will be unrecognizable by the end of it.  Hell, we might as well finalize our wills now, he probably has this office bugged!  I can’t believe you!”

“I can’t believe you,” Langdon said.  “We have needed exactly someone like this to begin testing, she’s perfect.  You think Pierce loves his daughter? He’s been in Hydra longer than she’s been alive.  He’ll be proud that his daughter was the first Numeral.”

“Well then, call him up!” Halpman said.  “Tell him right now, we’re turning her into a subject, see what he has to say!”

...Perhaps Halpman had a point.

But Brittany was the perfect subject.

“Are you able to keep a secret?” Langdon asked.  Halpman glared at him. “I mean, from Pierce. If we get Brittany as a test subject, will you be able to keep it a secret from him?”

“I’ve met the man four times,” Halpman replied.  “I don’t exactly call him up on the weekends. But he will find out eventually, and when he does-”

“When he sees the results, he will be happy his daughter is serving Hydra,” Langdon said.  “But we have to have the results first.” 

“Don-”

“Are you questioning a direct order?”

Halpman stopped for a very long moment before sitting back in his chair.  He gritted his teeth. “I can’t believe this,” he said, but he stopped fighting.

Langdon sighed, letting the silence take over for a few moments.  When they were both calm again, he stood up. “Let’s tell her the good news.”

Halpman glanced at him.  “That she’s about to be an experiment?”

“That she’s a genius,” Langdon corrected.  Halpman stared at him incredulously. “What, you think we were just going to tell her that she’s going to be a Numeral?  We need to convince her to come to MIT before anything else.”

“Ah.”  Halpman’s voice was dry as he stood up from his chair.  “Well, lies have gotten us this far.”

The MIT teachers explained to her how smart she was, that they wanted her to work on the Project with them.  She should start immediately, they said, and help them change the world.

Then they sat there and waited for her to accept.

Brittany wasn’t sure why they were pretending she would ever say no, that she ever could say no.  Maybe it was just one of those official things that everyone had to play along with even if it wasn’t true.  People were weird.

Brittany could play along, though.  She took another look at the Brittany Code, still projected on the screen.  Then she drew herself up in her chair and smiled. “I accept.” The MIT teachers grinned at her.  “I’m so excited to be here. I’m going to work really hard on Project New Mural, you can count on it.”

The teachers stopped, looked at each other, and then back at her.  The old guy with the ugly bowtie cleared his throat and said, “The first thing you need to understand, Brittany, is that it’s Project Numeral, not Project New Mural.”

Brittany blinked.  “...Well then I’m confused.”

Lima, Ohio
March 2013

Brittany knew, deep inside, something was wrong.  Maybe it was the shock on Mom and Clara’s faces when she announced the news.  Maybe it was how her crayons broke MIT’s machine.

(But that was probably a good thing.  It meant she could protect people from the robot uprising, which was totally going to happen eventually.  The world didn’t end by alien invasion, the Mayan Apocalypse, a comet/asteroid/meteor/meteorite, or school shooting, so maybe the world was going to end by the robots rising up and taking down their human masters.  Brittany could fight them with crayons, apparently, so she would be able to save people when the time came. Not many, but enough to repopulate the earth. So that was good.)

Whatever it was, there was something about MIT that Brittany didn’t like.  It felt weird and creepy. Even back in Ohio it still felt like there was something tingly inside.

But it was probably fine.  Mom was super excited, and kept saying it was a big opportunity.  Dad called and said he was really happy and proud of her, too. And Dad had been the one to set this all up in the first place, so it must have been really important to him.  He really wanted this.

And Brittany wanted it too.  For the first time in her life, she was smart.

Mom and Dad had insisted that Brittany was smart, and Santana had called her a genius.  But Brittany had been sure they were wrong, or just trying to be nice or whatever. People had called Brittany stupid her entire life.  Even Santana had called her dumb when they first met. She hadn’t since they had become best friends, but still. Everyone had called her dumb or a dolt or stupid or an idiot.  She knew.

Or, she thought she knew.  Because now, the people telling her she was smart were other really smart people.  Not that Santana and Mom and Dad were stupid, except when they were, but they weren’t geniuses.  The MIT guys were geniuses. They wore glasses and said she knew Avocados and Blank constants. That she was like Albert Einstein.  That she should start immediately.

And okay, she went a little nuts.  She burned her Cheerios uniform and basically went on a rampage.  And she broke up with Sam. She didn’t want to break up with Sam, she really liked him and kind of wished he could go be smart with her at MIT.  But she knew he couldn’t.

Brittany had a chance to get out now.  She wasn’t going to let it go.

Not that the week back was a total loss; she had solved the mystery of who Coach Sylvester’s baby daddy was, and the Glee club won Regionals, and she got to attend a wedding.  Mr. Schue and Ms. Pillsbury got married in the choir room, and there was a party at Breadstix, and then Brittany drove home and started packing. Clara stayed up past her bedtime to help.

“I shouldn’t even have a bedtime,” Clara said, gathering up school supplies.  “I turn 12 next month, I’m practically a teenager. Teenagers shouldn’t have bedtimes.”

“Tell that to Mom,” Brittany said, staring into her drawers.  She was trying to decide which shirts to bring to MIT. “Hey, what kinds of shirts are geniuses supposed wear?”

“Duh, I wouldn’t know.”  Clara zipped up Brittany’s backpack.  “You’re the genius, apparently.”

Brittany pulled out a few tank tops.  Geniuses probably didn’t have to look smart all the time, right?

If she was a genius, wouldn’t she already know this?

“Do you think the MIT professors are right?” Brittany asked Clara.  “Do you believe that I’m a genius?”

“Of course I’m going to believe them.  They’re MIT professors. They know better than me.”

“But you’re my sister,” Brittany said.  “You know me better than they do, right?”

Clara smiled at her.  “Yeah, but I’m normal.  Maybe it takes a genius to know a genius.  It’s just, I never really understood it. You freak out over breakfast, but you know everything there is to know about cats.  Maybe your brain is so full of really advanced stuff that it doesn’t have time for the simple stuff.” She shrugged, and started packing up Brittany’s laptop and other tech stuff.  “I never believed that you were like, out of it. You always knew what you were doing, even if it was completely nuts. Why the heck did you put a bird in your locker again?”

“Because it was small, and the lockers are supposed to be safe.”

They continued for a while longer before going to bed.  Mom made pancakes in the morning for breakfast, and then did stuff to confirm Brittany’s flight.  Brittany and Clara went back to packing. They got into a few arguments over who actually owned certain things, but by the end of the day they had suitcases and bags filled to the brim with everything Brittany was taking with her.

Lord and Lady Tubbington looked really confused at the enormous piles of stuff.  Brittany didn’t know how to explain it to them. She hoped Lord Tubbington didn’t take up heroin again in her absence.

She was really going to miss them.  Lady Tubbington, she had only met her a few weeks ago, but Lord Tubbington had been with her for years.  She couldn’t believe the MIT dorms wouldn’t allow her to bring her cats. It was almost, almost, enough to make her second guess all this, but not quite enough.

“It’s okay,” Clara said.  “Mom and I are going to take good care of the cats.”

“Make sure to keep my window closed,” Brittany said.  “I’m pretty sure that’s how Lord Tubbington’s been getting out at night to participate in the drug wars.”

“Window closed, got it.”  Clara leaned against Brittany’s shoulder.  “You know, it’s going to be weird without you around.  It’ll just be me and mom, now. And the cats.”

“Dad still drops by sometimes,” Brittany pointed out, but she frowned when she said it.

“Yeah, when he feels like it.  Which isn’t a hell of a lot.”

“Language,” Brittany said.

“I’m almost 12, I can say hell!  People in church say hell all the time!”

“But I’m still your older sister, so I can tell you not to.”

Clara snorted.  “I was going to say I was going to miss you, but now I can’t wait until you’re gone.”

Brittany put her arm around Clara’s shoulders.

“I’m really going to miss you,” Clara said.

Brittany hugged her.  That was almost enough to make her second-guess it, too.

But she remembered watching Rachel getting out, she was sobbing her eyes out and couldn’t stop.  Maybe that’s what getting out meant. Maybe it was for the best, but it still hurt. And this definitely hurt.

Cambridge, Massachusetts
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Baker House, Room 337
March 2013

Victoria’s roommate had switched rooms at the beginning of the semester.  Victoria had been told someone would take her place soon. But the other bed in the dorm room had remained empty for about two months now, and she had assumed it would stay that way.

It did not.  Victoria was going to miss having her own room.

Brittany S. Pierce was okay, though.  She was quiet when she arrived, mostly just unpacking her stuff and asking a few questions.  As bitter as she was having a roommate again, Victoria knew that taking it out on the new kid was a dick move.  So Victoria helped Brittany unpack and then took her out to the local frozen yogurt place. They talked and laughed and even flirted a little bit.  Maybe having a new roommate wasn’t so bad.

Simons Building
March 2013

It was Brittany’s first day as an MIT student.  She was going to be good.

Brittany tried to arrive on time to the Simons Building, and wound up being 15 minutes late.

“Good morning, Brittany,” said Dr. Langdon, who had been waiting for her in the lobby.  He was smiling blankly at her.

Brittany took a deep breath.  “Good morning Dr. Langdon,” she said calmly.  She was a genius now, she had to act like it.

“Have you settled into campus all right?”

“Yeah, everything’s great.”  Getting frozen yogurt with her roommate was great, at least.  She wasn’t sure if she should mention that. Maybe it wasn’t mature enough for MIT.

“Then let’s get you introduced to the rest of the team,” Dr. Langdon said, and started leading her through the building, pointing out bathrooms and the front desk.

Brittany kept her mouth shut and paid close attention.  No more stupid mistakes. No more mixing up words, or people.  The world had no use for people like the old Brittany. MIT wanted her to be like the students around her.  They were walking and talking with one another, probably about really smart things, numbers and computers and big ideas.  Brittany had to make sure that she belonged with them.

Dr. Langdon finally led her to the elevator.  The building was big, but he only pressed the button for the third floor.

“Aren’t important things supposed to be higher up?” Brittany asked.  “I thought Project Numeral was a super important, highly-classified, bourgeois thing.”

Dr. Langdon raised his eyebrow at her.  “Sometimes it’s best to hide things in plain sight.  People won’t look closely at something if you don’t give them a reason to.”

She was already learning things.

And that was the last thing she remembered before the world tilted off balance.

Brittany came back from her first day of classes in a haze.  She walked through the door and immediately collapsed on the bed and went to sleep.  Victoria didn’t blame her; she remembered her own first day at MIT.

Brittany blinked, and two weeks had gone by.

“The square root of 2,” she said, answering a question she couldn’t remember.

The teachers grinned.

Brittany knew she was exactly 12.4 feet away from the door.

Victoria asked Brittany out to froyo three more times.  Brittany declined every invitation.

The world was out of focus.  The world was numbers.

Brittany knew things, now.  She saw numbers. She saw people, things, places, all as numbers.  She didn’t understand them, but she could use them and connect them.

It was wrong.  Brittany felt tired and energetic at the same time.  She couldn’t think about anything that wasn’t the numbers.

But she wanted it anyway.  She wanted the knowledge. She wanted to be something.

And then Finn died.

Cambridge, Massachusetts
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Simons Building
April 2013

“The wake is on Sunday, the funeral is on Monday,” Brittany said, repeating what Artie told her on the phone.  Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. She didn’t know if it was because of the numbers or because of her heart.  “I’m leaving on Friday and coming back on Tuesday.”

The teachers didn’t like that.

They talked a lot about numbers and progress and all the things she was supposed to do.  It was strange, Brittany didn’t think they talked so much.

Don’t go to the funeral, they said.

Before Brittany realized it, she was shouting.  She was crying, too; she hadn’t done that in a while.  But mostly she was shouting that Finn died, and she was going to the funeral, and if they didn’t like it then maybe she just wouldn’t come back.

Dr. Langdon said she could go.

“This isn’t a good idea,” Halpman said, because he was still a contrary dick.  “Her programming isn’t stable. We’ll have to start from scratch once she gets back.”

“We’re going to have to start her from scratch anyway,” Langdon said.  “The death of her friend is affecting her a lot. I’m not surprised that strong emotions like that, grief, will affect things.  Let her go.”

Brittany was their Numeral, but she was also their boss’s daughter.  She had been so angry, full of flaming fury. She knew they needed her and used it to get what she wanted.  Langdon hadn’t realized someone could be an idiot and manipulative at the same time.

337.2’s programming has been disrupted.  It is possible that strong emotions interfere with Project Numeral’s technology.

Subject 337.2’s programming was still preliminary.  Further studies are needed to see if strong emotions only interfere in the beginning stages, or if they can continue to disrupt even in later programming stages.

337.2’s programming has been reinstalled.

“We’re doing a thing,” Artie said weeks later, on the phone.  “We’ve all been having trouble singing. So we’re going to...say goodbye in song, basically.  We wanted to know if you can come.”

Brittany didn’t feel like singing.  She didn’t feel like saying goodbye to Finn; she already did, at the funeral.  She didn’t want to yell at all the professors again.

She didn’t feel much like doing anything anymore.

“Brittany?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, really soft.

“It’s okay,” Artie said.  “Everyone understands.”

Except Brittany didn’t really understand it herself.

Brittany could understand numbers and equations and physics and graphs.  She could do different things now.

The professors still followed her.  They hooked her up to machines and asked her questions.  They gave her things to do, projects to work on.

Brittany was smart, but she couldn’t breathe sometimes.  She wasn’t sure if it was worth it.

“I need a break,” Brittany said, standing in front of the whiteboard.  She said it quietly so none of the teachers could hear her.

Then she got the email about glee club ending.

Brittany was a student.  There was a week in between the end of spring semester and summer classes.  She could have a break.

But she didn’t mention she was leaving to any of the teachers, just in case.

She danced and it didn’t feel like it used to.

She sang and it didn’t feel like it used to.

But then Santana was singing and dancing for her, and the world started to make sense again.

She breathed, she ate, she kissed Santana on the mouth.

That night she went home and watched Sleeping Beauty on DVD.  She had woken up.

Lima, Ohio
The Pierce home
June 6, 2013

“Thank you for coming, I need your help.”

Lord and Lady Tubbington stared at her from their spot on her bed.  Brittany knew it was mean to wake the cats up, it was like 2 in the morning.  But she couldn’t sleep. She was still trying to figure things out, and she needed help.

Brittany had written down a list of things she knew, using construction paper and crayons.  She pulled out her list and started to read off of it.

“I don’t want to go back to MIT.”

The cats were surprised.  They were probably also pissed she was keeping them up in the middle of the night.

“People will be mad at me.  Mom and Dad will be upset. And the professors will be mad.  But I’m not going back to MIT. I don’t want to go back to sleep, and I don’t want numbers anymore.  So there.”

Brittany took a deep breath in the nighttime silence.  She almost expected someone to come into her room right then and try to talk her out of it.  But Dad was in D.C., and Mom and Clara were in bed. The only people awake to hear her were the cats.

“So I’m not going back to MIT,” Brittany repeated, because she could, and looked back at her list.  “But I can’t stay here. I know MIT will make me come back. So I have to go someplace else, where they can’t get me.”

Lord Tubbington closed his eyes, swishing his tail a little.  Lady Tubbington jumped off the bed.

“I want to be with Santana, but she didn’t say yes today, so I have to convince her to run away with me.  I need to find a place where Santana will want to go. And that’s where I need your help. Do either of you have any ideas?”

Lady Tubbington was at Brittany’s bedroom door, pawing at it and whining.  She clearly didn’t want to help. Brittany sighed and opened the door, and both cats ran out of room.

Brittany flopped on her bed.  Well, if she couldn’t find an answer, that’s what the internet was for.

William McKinley High School
June 9, 2013

Brittany was still wearing her graduation robes when Santana came back around the corner.  “We’ve got a reservation for four at Breadstix,” Santana announced happily. “I thought we could invite your mom and your sister.  They’ll want to your graduation.”

Brittany grinned.  “We’re celebrating us getting back together, too.”

“Well, that celebration we shouldn’t do in public.”

They laughed and took each other’s hands.  The school was mostly empty now. The graduation ceremony was long over and people were done taking pictures, so they were alone as they made their way through the halls.

The numbers had fallen away days ago, and Brittany still felt a little light-headed sometimes.  But she felt like herself again, too.

“I have to tell them I graduated,” Brittany said.  “And that I’m leaving MIT. And that we’re back together and going on vacation and then going to New York.  There’s a lot of things I have to tell them.”

“That’s why we’re going out to dinner.”

They walked past the empty choir room and stopped to gaze inside.  Only for a moment, though; they already said goodbye to glee club. It just felt wrong to walk by the choir room without honoring it in someway.  Brittany tried to imagine what she would be like without glee club. She couldn’t. Her life and her future were too tied up in memories of that room.

They started walking toward the exit again.  “I don’t think Mom’s going to be happy,” Brittany said.

“What, does she not like me?” Santana asked.

“No, I meant that about me leaving MIT.  She was really excited I got in. She really wanted me to go.”

Santana shook her head.  “She’s your mom, of course she wanted you there.  But you weren’t happy at MIT. I think that will be more important to her.”

“Dad’s going to be disappointed in me.”

Saying it felt like a confession.  Leaving MIT meant she was going against Dad’s wishes.  She was letting him down again.

“What you told me applies to you, too,” Santana said.  “Stepping away from something you don’t want is okay. That’s a win.”

“I know.  But it doesn’t mean they won’t be unhappy.”

“...Yeah.”  Santana frowned.  “That’s true.”

They walked out the front doors and toward Santana’s car.  Brittany wondered if she would ever step inside the school again.

“I’m happy for you,” Santana said.  “Even if no one else is, I am.”

The smile that bloomed on Brittany’s face almost took her by surprise.  “I’m happy for me, too.”

June 9, 2013
Phone call between Alexander Pierce and Deborah Pierce

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Hey Deb, you’re usually in bed by now.”

“Yeah.  Um, we went out to Breadstix for dinner and didn’t come home until late.”

“Did the staff have to kick you out?”

“No, no, we left before closing.”

“...Deb, that was a joke.”

“Oh.  Sorry, I’m a little out of it.”

“What’s going on?”

“Well.  Well, uh, the high school had its graduation ceremony today.  And Brittany got her diploma. I guess they surprised her with it.  Even though she technically already graduated she got to go up on stage with everyone.”

“That was nice of them.  That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I.  I know they were surprising her with it, but I wasn’t there.”

“Ah.”

“If I had known she was going to walk across the stage and everything, I would have been there.  I know it’s a year late, but my daughter graduated. I wish I had been there.”

“Did anyone take pictures?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, Brittany’s friends took pictures and video.  Santana said she’d make sure I got them all.”

“That’s good.  Send them along to me, too.”

“Of course, Alex.”

“You’re still upset, though.”

“It’s not the same as being there in person.  I should have been there for my daughter’s graduation.”

“But you said it was a surprise, right?  Brittany couldn’t have invited you, she didn’t know herself.”

“But Brittany’s friends knew.  They should have invited me. Well...Santana is the one who organized it, she should have invited me.”

“Santana?”

“...Brittany says they’re back together.”

“When did that happen?”

“Just in the past few days, apparently.  They told me at dinner tonight, Santana was there.”

“And you’re not happy about that either, are you?”

“I don’t know.  I know it’s none of my business, but Santana’s kind of…”

“I know.”

“It’s not that she’s a girl, it’s just that she’s so abrasive.”

“Listen, Deb, I wouldn’t worry about it.  It’s not uncommon for kids to get back together with their high school boyfriends and girlfriends while they’re in college.  Right? They’re just back together, not buying rings or anything. Let them have their fun.”

“Rings might not be so far off.”

“I think you’re overreacting.”

“They’re going on vacation together.  To Europe. Or Hawaii. Or maybe it was both, they didn’t explain it very well.”

“Vacation isn’t-”

“Brittany says she’s moving to New York with her in the fall.”

“Deb, calm down.  Brittany can’t live in New York while going to school in Cambridge.”

“...Alex.  Brittany quit MIT.”

“...What?”

“She and Santana were talking about maybe going to school in New York together.  Brittany seems to think this move is a definite thing.”

“Brittany quit MIT?”

“Yeah.  She said she didn’t like it and doesn’t want to stay there.  Not that I blame her, but it was such a great opportunity for her.  I guess it’s on her transcript, though, she should be able to transfer to any school she wants.  And if the New York thing is happening, well, there are a lot of good schools in New York, right?  She can do whatever she wants.”

“Brittany quit MIT.  Way to bury the lead there, Deb.”

“...It’s not that big a deal, is it?  I mean, she’s still on the east coast.  Can’t say I’m excited about her moving to NYC, it’s so crowded and full of crime.”

“Christ.”

“Brittany’s going to turn 20 soon.  She’s an adult now, she gets to have her own life.  If she wants to transfer schools and move to New York and live in a shoe-box apartment with her high school girlfriend who got a boob job, that’s her choice.  She gets to make those decisions. But I don’t agree with them, Alex, you know?  I wish she chose differently.  How do I support my child when I don’t completely agree with her decisions?  How do I not worry constantly about her living in New York of all places? You’ve been there, you know what it’s like, and Brittany gets so distracted-”

“Deb, I have to go.”

“Alex?”

“I have some calls I need to make.  I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Alex, it’s nearly 11 at night.  Who could you need to call? ...Alex?  Hello? ...Dammit. ”

Chapter Text

Lima, Ohio
Dairy Queen
June 10, 2013

“Can I ask you something?”  Santana was still flipping through emails on her phone as she talked.  “Why did you buy our tickets to Lesbos for July 5th?”

“It was when I thought we were going to run away and never come back,” Brittany explained.  “I wanted to celebrate a last birthday with Mom and Clara. And I thought that America might be mad if we left before July 4th.  ...Is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”  Santana set her phone down on the table and went back to drinking her milkshake.  “I was just thinking we probably could have gotten cheaper tickets for a different day.”

“Do you want to change them?”

“Nah, July 5th is good.  But it means we’ve got a couple weeks until we leave.  Anything you really want to do?”

Brittany swallowed a bite of ice cream.  “Not really. Maybe go to the movies? Channing Tatum is going to save the president.  Oh, I want to spend time with Lord and Lady Tubbington. They can’t come with us on vacation, Lady Tubbington doesn’t like to fly.  What about you?”

“My parents’ anniversary is next week,” Santana said, shrugging.  “I suppose I should spend time with them. And maybe go shopping for new clothes to wear on vacation.  I don’t think I’ve bought a new swimsuit in like four years, and it might still be in New York anyway.”  She suddenly snapped her fingers. “That’s what we should do; we need to go to MIT and get your stuff.”

Brittany frowned down at her hot fudge sundae.  “My stuff?”

“Yeah, all the shit you didn’t bring home.  We need to go get it before it gets repurposed by a dirty incoming freshman.”

“Oh.”  Brittany shoved another spoonful of ice cream in her mouth.  “Maybe I should just leave it there?”

“Why would you do that?”

“I don’t want to go back.”

It sounded scary admitting it out loud, but Santana didn’t get it.  “You’re not going back,” she said. “You’re just dropping by to pick up your clothes.”

Brittany shook her head.  “They’ll see me on campus, and tell me I have to come back to the project.  They’ll say I’m not allowed to leave.”

Santana frowned.  “Brittany,” she said, her voice low, “what happened there?”

“Nothing happened,” Brittany said, lying without much thought.  “But they didn’t want me to come home for Finn’s funeral.” Santana’s face did a weird thing at the mention of Finn.  “They won’t want me to quit and I don’t want to fight with them.” Especially if it wasn’t a fight Brittany could win, she thought.

“Then I’ll fight with them,” Santana said.  “I’ll come with you.”

“No.”

Santana was surprised by the hardness in Brittany’s voice.  So was Brittany. For a while they just sat there, staring at each other.  Brittany wondered what Santana was seeing.

But she wasn’t going back, and she wasn’t going to allow Santana to go either.  Even if it meant she lost all her stuff.

Eventually Santana dropped her eyes and nodded.  “Okay,” she said.

“Okay,” Brittany echoed.  She was going to miss her cat blanket.

Cambridge, Massachusetts
MIT Campus
June 12, 2013

Last night Santana had told Brittany she was going to be shopping for her parents’ anniversary present today.  What she actually did was down some crime against nature posing as an energy drink and made the drive to Cambridge herself.

They had just gotten back together, and Santana probably shouldn’t be starting things off by lying.  But she wasn’t going to let Brittany’s stuff be infected with lice, and Brittany would have freaked out if she knew Santana was coming here, so lying was easier.  She’d tell her everything when she got back.

Brittany was hiding something.

And, okay, maybe Brittany’s silence on whatever happened here was worrying Santana a little.  But worrying about Brittany was a constant. Santana worried about her getting hit by a car crossing the street, and her unfortunate attraction to boys (and not even hot boys, like, Artie?  Sure, she and Artie were friends now, but that didn’t change the fact Artie wouldn’t have been in the same solar system as attractive even if he did have working legs), and if Lord Tubbington was going to keel over of a heart attack, and a thousand other little things that apparently went hand-in-hand with being in love with someone.

Irrelevant, for the moment.  Santana had a mission. She had to find Brittany’s room, pack all her stuff, throw it all in the truck Santana borrowed from her dad, and then high-tail it outta there like she was in a car chase movie.

First she had to get to the damn dorm.  The University of Louisville’s campus was bigger than MIT’s, technically, but Santana had actually been there before.  Finding her way here was proving to be a fucking nightmare, even with her phone GPS guiding her. And the tall buildings were giving the campus a major creep factor that was not helping Santana soothe her worries about what exactly happened in the two months Britt was enrolled here.

But it was pointless to think about.  And really, she thought, it’s not as if Brittany couldn’t defend herself.  Brittany knew about poison darts. She was on Coach Sylvester’s cheer team for crying out loud.

Focus, Lopez.

As long as she could actually get to the damn dorm. 

The Baker House, when she finally found it, was near the river.  Santana entered the building like she owned it. As long as she acted like she belonged, no one would have any reason to doubt it.  The person at the front desk didn’t pay her any attention as she went immediately to the first staircase she saw. She needed to get to the third floor, which she was only now realizing was going to be a fucking pain dragging all of Brittany’s stuff down from.

When Santana arrived at room 337, she could immediately pick out Brittany’s side of the room.  The cat blanket was a dead giveaway. Santana allowed herself a smile before setting to work, pulling out suitcases from under the bed and opening drawers at random.  She wasn’t going to bother fitting everything in perfectly. The objective was to stuff it all in as fast as humanly possible and then run before anyone even knew she was there.

In less than fifteen minutes Santana had already jammed two drawers of clothes and the entirety of Brittany’s closet into suitcases and duffle bags.  Blasting Nicki Minaj in her ears was apparently a good motivator. Santana was on the third drawer (for someone who didn’t wear underwear that much, Brittany had an obnoxious amount of the stuff) when the door opened, revealing a black-haired girl with glasses, looking very confused.  Santana froze.

“I don’t know you,” the girl said bluntly.  She was Victoria, probably. Victoria, Brittany’s ‘really pretty’ roommate.  Somehow in all her planning Santana hadn’t prepared for this.

She had two seconds to decide on the best tactic, and with the adrenaline from an unexpected visitor Santana couldn’t even think of a lie.  So she took out her earphones and said, “I’m Brittany’s girlfriend.”

Victoria blinked.  “Um, okay? And you’re stealing her stuff?”

Santana jumped up and closed the door behind Victoria.  “I’m not stealing,” she said. “I’m just getting Brittany’s stuff for her.”

“Brittany said she was single.”

“Brittany and I recently got back together,” Santana said, because she was apparently a possessive loser.

Victoria frowned.  “...You’re not here to like.  Beat me up because I flirted with her, right?”

Santana paused; she hadn’t known that had happened.  She briefly considered the idea, and then said “No.” She was trying not to be that person anymore.

“Thank god,” Victoria said, visibly relaxing.  “Because the last thing I need is to be involved in another lesbian love triangle.  So, um, hi, I’m Victoria Paul, and I still don’t know why you’re here.”

“I’m just packing up her stuff,” Santana said, getting a little annoyed with the questions.  “No big deal, I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

“Is she moving to another dorm?  Or did she drop out?” Victoria asked.

“That’s like, zero of your business.”

“Dropping out then.”

“Either shut up, or help me pack,” Santana said.  “I’m on a deadline here.”

Victoria shrugged.  “Okay,” she said, and opened one of Brittany’s drawers.

“...You’re actually going to help me pack?”

“Why not?”  Victoria grabbed a duffel bag and started loading in shirts.  “I’m not gonna lie, I’m excited to have my own room again. No offense to Brittany, but once you get used to having your own room, it’s hard to adjust back.”

“Well, thanks,” Santana said awkwardly.  She went to Brittany’s desk and started stacking books into a box.

“And I’m glad Brittany dropped out,” Victoria said.  Santana turned to glare at her, but Victoria looked serious.  “I don’t know what happened, but something wasn’t right.”

Santana forgot all her worries, about the 12-hour drive back to Lima ahead of her and wanting to get on the road.  She stopped packing and turned back to Victoria. “What do you mean?”

“Like I said, I don’t know what happened.”  Victoria zipped up the duffle bag and looked Santana in the eye.  “But it was weird. She came and was friendly and fun and weird, and then the next day she turned into a completely different person.  I asked about her class schedule, and she didn’t have one. She only went to the Simons Building, and was there all day. ”  She shook her head.  “She wasn’t a normal student.”

“That makes no sense,” Santana said, mostly to herself.

“She needed to get out,” Victoria said.  “I’m glad she did. She doing okay?”

“Better.  Not the best,” Santana admitted, “but better.”

“Good.”  Victoria smiled.  “Now let’s get you out.”

Before Santana could worry about the stairs, Victoria recruited friends to load Brittany’s stuff onto carts and take it down on the service elevator.  They even helped put it all in Santana’s truck.

“Thank you,” Santana told Victoria.  “You were a big help.”

“Of course,” Victoria said.  “Tell Brittany I said hi, okay?”

“I will,” Santana promised.

“Good luck.  To both of you.”

Victoria left with her friends, who were already talking about other things.  Santana got into the truck and got off campus immediately. She watched the buildings disappear from her rear view mirror, hoping she’d never be back.

Donald Langdon’s office
June 13, 2013

“Dr. Lingenfelter,” Alex said, breathing harshly, “would you be so kind as to get someone to clean this up?”

“Of course,” Lingenfelter said.  She immediately left the room.

On reflection, maybe Alex should have gotten someone else to carry this out.  But he was perfectly capable of firing a gun himself.

While Hydra agents removed the bodies of Donald Langdon and Leonard Halpman, Alex and Lingenfelter went to a conference room

“They were good scientists,” Lingenfelter said.

“They turned my daughter into a Numeral without my permission,” Alex spat.

Lingenfelter blinked.  “Then they got what was coming to them.  We were all under the impression this was on your orders.”

“I wanted Brittany working at Numeral,” Alex said.  “Working with you.”

“Then I apologize,” Lingenfelter said.  “I suppose I am now the head scientist on Numeral, so I will guarantee that this will never happen again.”

Alex nodded stiffly.  “Any updates from other universities?”

“There’s been a lot of progress.  Once we have our first Numeral, they’ll be able to replicate our processes fairly quickly.”

“And how long will it take to get a working Numeral?”

Lingenfelter paused for a moment.  “It’s difficult to say,” she said slowly.  “We’ll be starting from scratch with a new candidate.  Unfortunately, I think we’re looking at spring 2014, maybe summer, before a Numeral is functional.  And that’s barring any further setbacks.”

Alex processed, took a deep breath.  “Was Brittany really that advanced in Numeral?”

She hesitated again.  “She took exceptionally well to the programming,” Lingenfelter said carefully.  “We don’t know why.”

He nodded again, finally letting the tension out of his shoulders, and made the decision.

“I want to see her file.”

Lima, Ohio
June 13, 2013

Deb couldn’t park her car in the driveway when she got home.  The driveway was currently being occupied by an overflowing pickup truck, and Brittany and Santana shouting at each other.

Well, that didn’t take long.  Maybe Alex was right that their relationship wasn’t going to last.

Deb parked on the street.  Stepping out of the car allowed her to actually understand what the girls were shouting.

“You didn’t listen to me!” Brittany said.

“Everything went fine!” Santana argued.  “I literally only talked to Victoria and her friends, nobody else even looked at me-”

“I told you no!”

“-and I don’t know why I was supposed to be afraid anyway, you didn’t bother telling me-”

“You said okay, you said you wouldn’t go-”

“Girls.”

They both seemed shocked to see Deb there.  Santana awkwardly cleared her throat, and Brittany looked at the ground.

“Is everything alright?”  Deb asked.

“Everything’s fine,” Santana said.

“Santana lied to me,” Brittany retorted.

Santana looked away, taking a deep breath.

“...Well there’s no reason to cause a panic in the streets,” Deb said. She walked past them.  “I’ll be inside.”

Neither of the girls responded, or talked at all until Deb was inside the house.  She could just barely hear Santana’s voice, but it was none of her business. She had no interest in spying on whatever fight they were having.

Deb changed out of her work clothes and set herself on the couch to read.  Nearly half an hour later, Santana and Brittany finally came in, hauling in boxes and suitcases.

“Is everything alright?” Deb asked again.

“Santana lied to me,” Brittany said again, “but she got my cat blanket back, so I forgive her.”

Deb wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but the girls gently smiled at each other, and started up the stairs to Brittany’s room.

June 14, 2013

“Do you want to tell me why you quit MIT?” Dad asked over the phone.

Brittany bit her lip.

“Brittany.”

“No,” she said.  “I don’t want to tell you.”

Dad sighed, big and heavy.  “Brittany, you need to go back.”

So Brittany hung up.

June 25, 2013

Clara answered the door when Santana knocked.  “It’s going to be a while. You should probably come back later.”

Before Santana could ask what that meant, she heard Brittany and Mr. Pierce’s voices arguing inside.

“Seriously, you can come back later,” Clara said with a shrug.  She was twelve now and desperately trying to pretend she wasn’t bothered by hearing her family argue.

“I can hang out with the cats,” Santana said, and walked into the house.  She went to the living room where Lord and Lady Tubbington were laying on the couch, wearing party hats.  Santana sat down next to them and put Brittany’s birthday present on the floor.

“But I didn’t like it there,” came Brittany’s voice from the kitchen.  It sounded like she had said that sentence multiple times already. “They didn’t even let me bring my cats.”

“There are other dorms on campus that are pet-friendly,” came Mr. Pierce’s voice, but Brittany cut him off.

“That’s not the point!”

“Brittany, it’s rude to interrupt people.”

“How long have they been at it?” Santana asked Lord Tubbington in a low voice.  The cat didn’t even look at her; fair enough, it’s not like she was expecting an answer.

Mr. Pierce was saying something about commitment, when suddenly Mrs. Pierce walked downstairs and into the kitchen.

“Alex, she made her decision.”

“Deb-”

“Brittany turns twenty today.  You don’t have to like Brittany’s decision to not go back to MIT, and you don’t have to support it.  But you have to live with it. That’s that.”

No one in the kitchen said anything for a long time.  Santana leaned back against the couch and waited.

“You’re right,” Mr. Pierce finally said.  “I’m sorry.”

“Good,” said Mrs. Pierce.  “Now maybe we can try to celebrate Brittany’s birthday.  Let’s get going, shall we?”

“Santana’s not here yet,” Brittany said.

“Santana’s in the living room,” Mrs. Pierce corrected her.

In just a couple seconds Brittany appeared in the living room, smiling.  “Hi. Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” Santana said, waving her off.  She picked the birthday present off the floor.  “So, do you want to open your present before or after dinner?”

“We usually do it after dinner,” Brittany said, but she eyed the wrapped box with excitement.

“It’ll still be here when we get back,” Mrs. Pierce said.  “Where’s Clara? Clara, it’s time to go!”

Mr. Pierce followed her out of the kitchen, looking solemn and tense.  He kept up that look throughout dinner, when Brittany closed her eyes and made a wish on the candles, when Brittany opened her present from Santana.

“Just decorative lights,” Santana said with a shrug.  “I thought we could hang them in our apartment in New York.”

Brittany beamed at her, and Mr. Pierce looked at the ground.

The Island of Lesbos, Greece
Petrified Forest of Lesbos
July 10, 2013

“It’s kind of like fossils,” Santana explained.  “You know how we have fossils of dinosaurs, even though they’re long dead?”

“But fossils are in the ground,” Brittany said.  “And they’re like carvings.” And the things surrounding them were definitely neither of those things.  They sprouted up like trees; really weird trees, but still.

“The pamphlet says that petrification is like fossilization, but above ground.”

“The trees are dead,” Brittany said, looking for confirmation.

“Yeah, but they’re not like the dead trees we usually see.  Apparently it takes over 10,000 years for petrification to happen.  And to have all these petrified trees here in one spot makes it a big deal.”

But Brittany was stuck on that middle sentence.  “10,000 years.”

Santana nodded and went further up the hill, but Brittany stayed where she stood.  She looked at the petrified trees in wonder. The trees had been here for practically forever, but they were still dead, unmoving.

And still people were coming over to the forest to look at them.

She began to wonder if Lesbos was far enough away from MIT.  She wondered if anywhere was far enough away.

“It’s a cool view up here,” Santana said.  “Wanna come up and take pictures?”

“I’m good,” Brittany said, looking down at the sand and dirt covering her sneakers.

The Island of Lesbos, Greece
July 16, 2013

“Did you get my text?” Brittany asked.

“I did,” Dad said.  It was an international call, but Dad promised to pay for it, so Brittany didn’t care.  “It was a very nice picture of you and Santana.”

“Santana and I could totally live in a castle,” Brittany said.  “I’d want to live in a nicer one, though, that had couches and stuff.  The castles here in Lesbos don’t have TVs, either. Did Mom and Clara get my text?”

“We all got it,” Dad promised.  “We’re all glad you’re having a nice vacation.”

“It has been nice,” Brittany said, smiling.  Their hotel room was nice and had a ton of pillows, and Santana was out getting them some more delicious Greek food.  “We’re going to the beach later. We didn’t want to spend a lot of time at the beach, because we’ll be doing that in Hawaii a lot.  But we still want to go.”

“Then go you shall,” Dad said.  “You’re on vacation, you should enjoy it while it lasts.”

“I kind of don’t want it to end,” Brittany admitted, flopping onto the hotel bed.  “But I kind of am looking forward to going home, too. I miss the cats.”

Dad hesitated before he said, “Well, vacations don’t last forever.  We all need to take breaks, but eventually we get back to the real world.”

“Right.”  Brittany wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking about, but she could tell when she was supposed to agree.

“And your plans for when you come home are still the same?” Dad asked.

“Yup.  Move to New York, live in the city, make a life there.  Make fun of Rachel’s clothes again.”

Dad was silent again.  Brittany wondered if she should say she was only half-serious about making fun of Rachel’s clothes.  But then Dad said, “I want you to reconsider going back to MIT.”

“No.”

The word had left Brittany’s mouth before she even realized it.

“Brittany, you won’t even consider it?”

“Mom told you to stop.”  Brittany closed her eyes and put her hand over her face.  “Mom told you to stop telling me to go back.”

“Your mom doesn’t understand what’s at stake,” Dad said.  “Brittany, the world is changing. Exponentially. The internet barely existed when you were born, and now it’s at the center of our lives.  The first iPhone came out six years ago, and they’re everywhere.  This world is going to leave people behind in the blink of an eye, and you need to be somewhere with big opportunities.”

“Mom told you to stop,” Brittany repeated.

“I know you don’t want to talk about this-”

“No.  I’m not going back.”

“Brittany, you’re making a big mistake.”

Brittany hung up.

Island of Hawai’i
Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park
August 9, 2013

But Dad kept calling.

They went snorkeling and Dad had called twice.  They came back from horseback riding to find texts.  They went to the beach and he emailed her. He sent her private messages on Facebook.

That was what had been wrong, Brittany realized.  She thought she had just needed to run away from MIT.  But she had forgotten Dad was the one who wanted her to go in the first place.

“I know this makes me a nerd,” Santana said, “but volcanoes are cool.  We’re literally standing on volcanoes, how hardcore is that? Hey, take my picture?”

Brittany took tons of pictures of Santana on the volcanoes.  Cool ones, silly ones. Santana was the one who had really wanted to come here.  Brittany thought the volcanoes were cool, but not like Santana did.

Santana knelt near lava and pointed to it.  It was a cute picture. Brittany wasn’t sure how everything was going to end, but Santana deserved to have a nice vacation.

The tour guide said that the volcanoes were safe, but Brittany knew better.  Something was about to erupt.

Honolulu, Hawai’i
August 16, 2013

The phone rang, and Brittany knew without looking at it that it was Dad.

Santana was out, buying food for a quiet night at the hotel.  She wouldn’t have to listen to whatever they said. Maybe it was time to stop running, Brittany thought, and picked up the phone.

“Hi, Dad.”

There was a short pause before Dad said, “Hello, Brittany.”

Brittany waited.

“I’m glad you answered,” Dad said, after another pause.  “It’s really important that we talk.”

She started slowly pacing around the room.  “I’m not going back to school, Dad. Not at MIT.”

“Brittany-”

“I know you care,” she said.  She didn’t want to be interrupted.  “You want me to succeed and all that.  You want me to be safe and strong, you always have.”  For some reason, she remembered Bogotá again. She pushed it out of her mind for now.  “You think that MIT is best for me, so of course you want me there. But Dad, it’s not good.  MIT was...I don’t know what happened. It was scary there, Dad. I know it’s not your fault but you keep trying to get me to go back and it hurts.  Going back to MIT isn’t what’s best for me. I don’t want to go back. I won’t do it again.”

Brittany blinked tears away and waited for Dad to respond.  But he was quiet for what felt like a long time.

“Dad?”

“I didn’t want to do this, Brittany.”

“Do what?”

“You won’t listen,” Dad said.  His voice was quiet. “This is one of those things that a father needs from his daughter, but you won’t listen to me.  And I do what I have to do, Brittany. I do what’s necessary because it’s necessary, not because I want to hurt you, but because it’s for the best.”

“I don’t understand,” Brittany said.

“I know how important Santana is to you.  And I want to assure you she’s not hurt. There were very specific orders given.”

The room felt cold.

Brittany stopped walking.

“Dad.”  Brittany didn’t recognize her own voice.  “Where’s Santana.”

“I want you to understand that this was a last resort.  I only gave the order out because she-”

“Where is Santana.”  Her chest was shaking.  “Where is she, where is Santana.”

“Now-”

“Tell me where Santana is!” she screamed.

“She’s on a jet,” Dad said, and his voice didn’t rise at all.  “She is being escorted back to the mainland, to Massachusetts.”

Her gut had disappeared.  She couldn’t breathe. The paint in the hotel room was an off-white.

“No.”

“I’m going to emphasize to you, again, that Santana was not hurt.  She’s perfectly safe and well. When she arrives at MIT there’s a room waiting for her.”

“No! ” Brittany shouted.  “Give Santana back!”

“I can’t,” Dad said, and he almost sounded sad.

Brittany wanted to scream.  She stayed frozen in place.

“There will be agents coming to your door in about an hour.  I’d advise you to pack all your things and be ready to go with them when the time comes.  Or,” Dad said, his voice still quiet, “you can run. The agents won’t follow you.”

And then he hung up.

For ten minutes Brittany stood frozen in the hotel room, making wordless noises over and over.

And then she packed.

She threw everything she could find into the suitcases and bags.  She didn’t know what was Santana’s and what was hers and what was the hotel’s.  She took everything. Every pen, every shirt, everything that she could fit.

And then the agents arrived.

And then Brittany went with them.

Somewhere over the ocean
August 16, 2013

There were two agents that came to get her.  They were both working on flying the jet.

Brittany was seated in the back.  She had put the seat straps on, but she felt like she was shaking out of her body.  She still couldn’t breathe.

She tried not to cry, praying that Santana would be all right until she got there.

She should have known that Dad wouldn’t have left this just between them.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
August 17, 2013

They arrived at MIT in the morning; Kiki said it was 6:48 a.m.

Brittany hadn’t slept on the jet.  Even if she had wanted to, she couldn’t, not with the world spinning around her.  She tried to pay attention, to memorize where the jet was parked and how long it took to drive from the jet to campus, but all her thoughts were on Santana.

They didn’t go to the Simons Building.  They parked at the Pierce Laboratory. Brittany didn’t understand but she wasn’t going to ask.

They led her inside the building, to the elevator.  One of the agents put a key into the slot, and the elevator went down.  The doors opened to a floor underground; it didn’t look particularly special, just like other floors in campus buildings.  But it was hidden, and Brittany knew enough to know that it was dangerous.

The agents led her to a conference room.  There, at the table, was Dad.

“Hi, Brittany,” he said.

It was weird, and wrong, the way Brittany immediately relaxed around him.  Dad kidnapped Santana.  He hurt her.  And yet, being around him, after the whirlwind that started last night, Brittany felt like she could breathe.

It was her dad.  Dad had always worked to keep her safe.  Dad wouldn’t hurt her. And yet he had hurt Santana.

So she started with that.  “I’m pretty sure dads aren’t supposed to kidnap their daughter’s girlfriends.”

Dad smiled just a tiny bit.  “The sad thing is, I’m pretty sure you got that from me.  The smart remarks, you learned that from me.” He sat back in his chair.  “I’ll say it again, Brittany. I didn’t want to do this. I needed you to listen to me, and this was the only way.”

“You weren’t listening to me either,” Brittany said.

Dad sighed, big.  “Well, I guess we have a lot to discuss.”

“No,” Brittany said immediately, crossing her arms.  She wasn’t about to forget what she was here for. “I won’t listen to you until I see Santana.”

Dad looked at her, and then to the agents.  “Would you go get Miss Lopez?”

The agents left and closed the door behind them.

“I’m proud of you, Brittany.  You know how to get what you want.  You can keep yourself focused in a stressful situation.  It’s good to know that you remember some of the things I taught you.”

Brittany kept her arms crossed and didn’t respond.

“Why don’t you sit down?”

“No,” Brittany said.  She kind of wanted to sit down, but she wasn’t going to do anything that he said.

So Dad just folded his hands on his lap.  “After you left, Project Numeral was relocated to this building.  More privacy. More security.”

Less ways to escape.

Brittany waited, her legs trembling.

Finally, the door opened, and in stepped-

“Santana- ” Brittany gasped.

“Oh god, no, Brittany,” and that was all Santana got out before they were hanging onto each other for life.  It was so tight in the embrace that Brittany couldn’t breathe very well, but she couldn’t let go.

“I’m so sorry,” Brittany said.  “I’m really sorry.”

“What happened, why...”

Santana trailed off, and Brittany figured that’s when she saw who was sitting at the table.

“I’m sorry,” Brittany whispered.

Santana didn’t say anything, her fingernails digging into Brittany’s back.

“He didn’t hurt me,” Brittany said.  She broke out of the hug so she could keep her eye on Dad, waiting to see if he was going to do anything.  She hoped Santana wouldn’t make him mad. “I went with him so I could come get you.”

Santana didn’t say anything.  She looked tired, still in the same clothes Brittany last saw her in, when she left the hotel room to get food.  She looked scared and angry.  But she didn’t look hurt, so Dad must have been telling the truth.

“I understand that you two are upset with me,” Dad said.  “That’s okay. But I want you to know that we’re all on the same side here.  This was a last resort option which will not happen again. So why don’t I explain what I need to?”

“Santana stays,” Brittany said immediately.

“All right,” Dad said.  “Miss Lopez is happy to stay.”

Santana looked at Brittany, then at Dad, then got a vice-grip on Brittany’s hand.  They sat down at the table together, on the opposite side of Dad, holding onto each other.

“Do you remember what you last posted on twitter?” Dad asked them.

Neither of them answered.

“The last thing Brittany tweeted,” Dad said, not seeming to care about the silence, “was a comment about hotel pillows.  Miss Lopez, however, you retweeted an article about the Supreme Court decision on DOMA. And before you ask, this isn’t about your romantic leanings,” Dad added, even though both of them hadn’t made any move to speak.  “You’ve actually retweeted a lot of things regarding the marriage equality fight. And the Dream Act, less than favorable comments on John Boehner's orange skin tone, and opinions on Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Look a little further down on Brittany’s twitter page, she talks about cats and music and overthrowing the patriarchy.”

Brittany didn’t understand what Dad was trying to say at all.  “Everyone uses twitter,” she said.

“Pretty much,” Dad agreed.  “Hundreds of millions of people are on twitter.  And on Facebook. People have shared everything about their lives on the internet; their birthdays, their political leanings, their lifestyles.”

“It’s what people talk about in real life, too,” Santana said.  She didn’t sound right. She was trying to be careful with her words and her voice.  “It’s the same thing.”

“You’re wrong,” Dad said.  “There is a major difference; when you say something on the internet, it becomes data.  And that data gets spread. Everyone from governments to private organizations is gathering untold amounts of data for advertising, market research.  Intelligence gathering. If you have enough information, if you know what it means, you understand people.

“And that is what Brittany was working on here at MIT.”

“No I wasn’t,” Brittany said immediately.  “I was working with numbers.”  Numbers were all she did and all she had during that time.  She would know.

But Dad was shaking his head.  “Numbers always have a context,” he said.  “You just weren’t told what the context was for your work.  Langdon and Halpman were under the impression that if you knew everything about Project Numeral, it would impact the results.”

Brittany looked at the table and struggled to wrap her mind around it.  She knew she hadn’t known everything about what was going on at the project, but how did Dad know more than her?  He hadn’t been there.

“I don’t understand,” she told the table.  “What was I doing with the numbers?”

“You were becoming one with them.”

Brittany stared at him.  Dad stared back. Everything seemed strange.

“There’s something called Zola’s Algorithm.  It’s a mathematical program of the highest caliber.  It analyzes data from twitter, from your grades, from everything, and determines what a person’s future is going to look like.  What we wanted, Brittany, was people who would have the Algorithm inside of them. They would be able to identify a person’s future on the spot.  You could look at a person and the numbers inside you would know, instantly, if they were good or bad. These people would be called Numerals.”

Dad’s face spun in her vision.

“I was a math program?”

“You weren’t supposed to be the first Numeral,” Dad said.  “You were supposed to work on the project with your colleagues.  Your professors changed my orders and experimented on you without my knowledge.  They are no longer a part of Project Numeral. Dr. Lingenfelter has taken over as head of the project.”

“They made me a computer?” Brittany asked outside of herself.  “I was a machine?”

Dad sighed.  Like he was getting impatient.  Brittany wanted to scream at him, but the world was off-focus and Santana was silent and nothing made sense.

“Dad,” Brittany said.  Quietly, because that’s all she could manage.  “Dad, I don’t understand.”

He frowned.  “I know you don’t, honey.  But everything’s going to be okay.”

Brittany didn’t believe him.

Dad stood up.  “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

They walked through the hallways.  Dad led.  Brittany followed behind and did not let go of Santana’s hand.  Santana did not let go of her.

They arrived outside a door.  Dad opened it. Inside was a large chair and tons of things that Brittany recognized from a few months ago; screens, blinking lights, things that went on your forehead, and a large machine in the corner of the room.

Brittany thought, No.

Before she could say anything, Dad started to explain.  “Zola’s Algorithm was designed for Project Insight,” he said.  Talking like they were at home or something. “And Project Insight is my life’s work.  We’re using it to build a new world.”

Dad had never even spoken of it before.  Was this why he was never home? Was this what his job was?”

“Insight allows us to find any identify threats and stop them before they happen.  But it has a large weakness: technology. It isn’t foolproof - we see that every time the phone lines go down.  So we knew we needed a backup plan. That’s why we created Project Numeral. Even if Insight goes down, Numerals with Zola’s Algorithm will still be able to identify threats.”

“‘Threats,’” Santana repeated.  It was the first thing she had spoken in a long time.  She was glaring at Dad and Brittany could feel her hand was shaking.  “You said Zola’s Algorithm was about people.”

Dad nodded a little.  “People can be threats.”

Santana took a harsh breath.  “And what,” she ground out, “happens with those threats are identified?”

Dad smiled.

A creeping horror was gaining on Brittany but she couldn’t name it.  “Santana?” she asked.

“You eliminate the threat.”  Santana was squeezing her hand.  “You put the Algorithm into people’s heads and get them to eliminate other people.”

“And we will save the world,” Dad said.

Santana’s entire body was shaking.

Brittany wasn’t here.  She couldn’t be here. This wasn’t real.  She already knew how this ended.

“You’re going to put the numbers back in me,” she said.

“Brittany, you are the best Numeral we have.”  Dad was strangely close and it made Brittany’s skin crawl.  The relief she had felt when seeing him had disappeared, leaving a huge gap.  “Your contributions have allowed us to set up Numerals at other campuses across the country.  But none of them have taken to the programming like you did. So you need to come back. You need to help us save the world.”

Brittany shook her head, but Dad’s voice turned sharp.

“This is not a negotiation.  You’re staying at MIT and being put back on the Project.  That’s final.”

“No,” Brittany said.

“You can’t leave,” Dad said.  “You can’t escape. You won’t leave this building until you are a full-fledged Numeral.”

“No!” Brittany screamed.  She screamed it again. “No, no, no-”

“Brittany!” Dad snapped.  “You are a threat!”

Brittany stopped and finally, finally looked up at her Dad.  He was staring at her, and Brittany couldn’t tell what he was thinking.  He almost looked sad. It didn’t make sense.

“Zola’s Algorithm has identified you as a threat,” Dad said.  “You’re not strong enough to handle the new world.”

And suddenly Brittany understood.

Being strong had never been Brittany’s problem.  Everything in her life had come down to one thing.

“You mean I’m not smart enough.”

Dad stared at her for a long time.

“Right?” Brittany asked.

In the end all he said was, “The Algorithm won’t target you if you’re a Numeral.  You’ll be safe.”

“No I won’t,” Brittany said, her voice cracking.

“You’ll understand someday,” Dad promised.  He shook his head and walked to the door. “You and Santana are going to be taken care of here.  I’ll come visit you soon.”

And then he was gone, leaving Brittany and Santana to stare at the machine.

At some point they had taken Brittany and Santana’s things and put them in one of the rooms underground.  There was a large bed and a mini-fridge. There was an attached bathroom, shower included.

There was no handle on the inside of the door.  There was no TV. Santana’s laptop and phone were gone.  When the agents took them to the room, they took Brittany’s phone away too.  There were no windows, because they were underground. They had no way of contacting anyone, and no way of getting any news from the outside.

Santana remembered walking down the street, and then waking up hours later in a jet with duct tape on her mouth.  She remembered panic, praying that Brittany was safe, getting to the MIT campus and sitting in a room with silent men with dark clothing.

She had felt such guilty relief when she saw Brittany was here too.  Now she couldn’t feel much of anything.

“So this is why you didn’t tell me,” Santana said.

Brittany’s face crumpled.

“You weren’t supposed to know.”  Her voice broke. “I knew-I knew something- but you were supposed to be safe, and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry-”

Santana reached out, and Brittany sobbed into her shoulder.  She held her for a long time, trying to wrap her mind around the impossible situation around them.

“We’re going to get out,” Santana promised.  She just didn’t know how yet.

Chapter Text

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Underground
August 17, 2013

Santana more or less turned their room upside down that night.  She examined every inch of floor and wall and ceiling she could.

“There’s not a way out,” Brittany said.  She was sitting on the bed, head on her knees.

“That’s not what I’m looking for,” Santana said.

She couldn’t find a single camera, but that didn’t mean anything.  The room was probably being monitored in some way whether she could see it or not.  Maybe it was cameras, maybe it was microphones, maybe some weird high-tech spying equipment that was invisible.

Santana’s head was still swirling.  She wanted to puke. How on earth was she supposed to fix this?

The new head of Project Numeral, Dr. Lingenfelter, had met with them earlier.  She had explained parts of how the machine worked and their plans for the project, and for Brittany and Santana.  Santana was going to be a Numeral too, Lingenfelter said.

Brittany had gone into a fit until an agent sedated her.

At least, Santana thought it was a sedative.  It reminded her of when she had been kidnapped yesterday: a flash of blue before she had painlessly lost consciousness.  She woke up later with a headache but uninjured. That same happened with Brittany; she went under instantly by a blue bullet, and woke up after they had been taken back to their room.

They didn’t have paper or pencils or anything to write with.  Santana had to commit all this information to memory. She didn’t know what she was going to need to form an escape plan.  But she couldn’t even think coherently right now, with too many bits of facts and emotions overpowering her.

What she stumbled on the most was Brittany’s dad.  Santana had known since last year Mr. Pierce was involved with SHIELD, the mysterious security group that appeared on the public stage after the Manhattan invasion.  Brittany hadn’t elaborated, because she didn’t know much herself. Was SHIELD behind Project Numeral? Or was Mr. Pierce working with somebody else on this? How many organizations did he have jurisdiction over?  Even if Santana and Brittany got above ground, would the local police might find them and bring them back? What would happen if they went to the CIA, or the National Guard? If they found a way back to Lima, would Brittany’s mom be able to convince her husband to let them go?

The only option Santana felt was foolproof was finding a place to hide from everyone.  But how were they supposed to hide from trained military agents?

Brittany lifted her head off her knees and looked at Santana.  “I love you,” she said softly. “I don’t know how long I’ll remember, but I do.  I love you a lot.” It was the most she had said since waking up from the blue bullets.

“I know you do,” Santana replied slowly.  “Why would you forget?”

“The numbers,” Brittany said.  “When they put the numbers in my head it makes it hard to remember things.”

Santana could tell: Brittany had given up.

She looked at the door.  As far as Santana could tell, it was impossible to open from the inside, but she couldn’t lose hope.  She had to keep fighting until Brittany was ready to fight again. She had to get them out.

“You won’t forget,” Santana said.  “And I won’t forget I love you. We’re going to be fine.”

“I don’t think so.”  Brittany’s voice was even.  “But maybe Dad will let us out once we become Numerals.”

“We’re not becoming Numerals.  We’re going to get out,” Santana said, for maybe the twentieth time today.

“I don’t think so,” Brittany repeated.

And yeah, she was probably right.

August 18, 2013

They barely slept that night.  They stayed in bed and held each other and occasionally drifted off, only to jolt awake again not long after.

In the secret part of Santana’s brain she was hoping someone would come save them during the night.  She didn’t know who - maybe Iron Man would come flying down the halls. Maybe some not-terrible federal agents would put everyone under arrest and take them home.  Maybe Mr. Hummel was doing something in D.C. right now.

But when morning came, there was only a knock on the door and a sharp voice telling them to get dressed.  They did.

Then Brittany hugged Santana so close, too close, and started whispering “I love you, I love you” over and over.  Santana wanted to comfort her, tell her everything was going to be okay, but how could she say that? No one knew where they were.  No one was coming to help them. They could do nothing to stop what was about to happen. They were just two normal people trapped away below ground.

Brittany didn’t stop saying it until agents opened their door and separated them.  One agent took Santana, the other took Brittany. They led them out of the room and into the hallway, starting off in different directions.

Santana dug in her heels.  “Where are you-” she started, trying to pull herself away, towards Brittany.

But the agent tightened his grip on her arm.  “You have different training to attend. The doctor explained this.”

“Brittany!” Santana called, because she could not let Brittany be alone, but she couldn’t get away, couldn’t reach her, couldn’t do anything-

Brittany turned her head.

“You won’t forget!” Santana said.  “I love you too, and you won’t forget, I promise!”

Brittany’s eyes were full of something, and then she turned a corner and was gone.

At first it was like a medical exam.  Santana stood still and silent while they weighed her.  They measured her heart rate, took a blood sample. They hooked her brain up to some kind of machine, who knew if it was legitimate medical equipment or some evil government invention.  They also tested her hearing and vision. She wanted to lie and fuck up their plans somehow, but she couldn’t see how that might help her and Brittany get out.  And it was hard to lie when all she wanted to do was scream.

Then they hooked her up to the machine.

It did nothing.

The scientists were really interested in why Santana wasn’t responding to the programming.  They weren’t even upset or angry about it, just curious. They spent hours making adjustments and trying different things.  By the end of the day they were no closer to making Santana their pawn.

A part of her felt guilty.  Brittany had been easily brainwashed before, apparently.  It felt like it was only fair for Santana to suffer through the same thing.

But mostly she felt a rush of defiance.  They didn’t break her. And that meant there was still a chance for Santana to get her and Brittany out.

She tried to hold onto the feeling at the end of the day as she was led back to her room.  But when she stepped inside, Brittany was already there, sitting on the bed, staring at the wall.

“Brittany?”

Brittany turned her head and looked at Santana blankly.

“Are you okay?” Santana asked.

Brittany did not respond.

A gaping horror opened in Santana’s chest.  She hadn’t known what Brittany meant before, about the numbers, about forgetting things.  This was what she had meant. This was being a Numeral was.

Still, Santana tried to fight it.  She knelt on the floor in front of Brittany and took her hands.  “Britt, baby?” Santana searched Brittany’s eyes. “Honey, you remember me?”

“You’re Santana,” Brittany answered, which was something, but-

“You okay, Britt?”

She didn’t answer that one.

“Brittany please talk to me, please-”

Santana found herself sobbing into Brittany’s lap, begging her to come back, not to leave her alone like this.

Brittany said nothing.

August 19, 2013

She had been too exhausted and heartbroken to do much last night.  But in the morning, Santana looked into Brittany’s dead eyes and said, “It’s going to be okay.”

Brittany didn’t respond.  Santana hadn’t been expecting her to.  She had dealt with Brittany not speaking before, she could do it again, no matter how much worse it was this time.

“You don’t have to say anything yet,” Santana told her.   “But I know you’re still there and you’re listening. All you have to do is live, okay?  You can trust me to take care of the rest. Remember that.”

When the agents came that morning, Santana didn’t fight.  She followed their instructions.

She wouldn’t break.  She would hold it together until they got out of here.

August 21, 2013

A routine developed.

In the morning, Santana and Brittany would eat breakfast out of the mini-fridge.  They were escorted out of their room. They went through Numeral programming. They were given lunch.  They went through more Numeral programming. When they were returned to their room in the evening, the fridge was restocked, their laundry from the previous day was on the bed, and any empty hygiene items were replaced.  They ate dinner. Brittany stared at the wall, Santana tried to figure out an escape plan or get Brittany to respond to something. They went to bed.

They followed the same schedule, but Brittany responded to the Numeral program and Santana did not.  She was constantly torn between the guilt and the relief of it.

More than anything, Santana felt alone.  Brittany was only half-there.

August 22, 2013

Until Santana started to sing.

“For you, there’ll be no more crying
For you, the sun will be shining”

She watched Brittany’s eyes slowly focus.

“I love you,” Brittany whispered when Santana finished.

Santana couldn’t hide her relief or her tears.  “See?” She gripped Brittany’s hands. “You remembered.”

“Santana,” Brittany started, but Santana shook her head.

“No.  You don’t have to worry about it.  I told you, all you have to do is live through this.  I’ll take care of the rest. I promise.”

They fell asleep holding each other.  Santana listened to their heartbeats.

August 29, 2013

Santana didn’t stop singing.  She expanded to old glee club songs, dumb songs from the radio, songs Brittany used to sing to her cat, anything.

It helped.  Brittany wasn’t okay, but she was better, holding onto Santana’s hands.

Santana started to dance too.  Brittany stayed sitting down, but she watched.

Washington, D.C.
September 3, 2013

Deb wouldn’t stop calling him.  It was the same conversation every time.  Deb worrying about Brittany, saying she should have come back by now, Alex telling her that Brittany was in contact with him and everything was fine.

He didn’t have time for this constant reassurance.  Project Insight was going to launch soon.

Alex didn’t go back to visit Brittany at MIT.  He was going to wait until the world was as it should be.  Maybe by then she would understand.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Underground
September 4, 2013

In week three, they started working with guns.  Santana tried not to think about why the scientists wanted them to be trained with guns.  She tried not to think about Brittany, in another room, getting better as they adjusted her Numeral programming.

It was too much to carry.  She tried to just focus on the target.

“It’s a waste of resources,” one of the scientists said as they finished.  The scientists all worked at putting the equipment away and talked among themselves, as if Santana wasn’t even there.  “We should just stop trying to program 337.9 into a Numeral. It’s not working.”

“We can find a way,” Lingenfelter said, shaking her head.  “There will be others who won’t accept Numeral at first. We find out how to work it here, we can work it for anyone.”

“Any word on correlations yet?” another scientist asked.

“None.  Sex, race, IQ score, age, height, weight, any factor we can think of.  There’s still no correlation to be found on who responds to Numeral the best.”

“We need a bigger sample size.”

“We’re opening up more programs.  I’d like to have more recruits ourselves, but we simply don’t have the room.”

Santana followed them out of the room into the long hallways.  She tried not to think about what would change if she ever responded to Numeral.  She tried not to think of the other people going through the same things she was. She had been trying not to think of a lot of things, lately.

One of the security agents walked up to Lingenfelter then.  “337.2 had to be incapacitated again.”

Santana clenched her fists.

“What happened?” asked one of the scientists.

The agent grimaced.  “It seemed...Hout and Brown were discussing various components of Numeral, and failed to notice 337.2 was listening.”

“She found out something that upset her,” Lingenfelter surmised.

“That Secretary Pierce directly fabricated her SAT scores.”

“She didn’t figure that out already?” another scientist asked.

“There’s a lot she doesn’t figure out,” Lingenfelter said.

She looked over at Santana, as if she knew she was only just restraining herself from throwing her own fit.  Santana grit her teeth and willed herself to stay silent.

Lingenfelter finally turned away.  “I’m assuming she was brought to the living quarters?”

“Yes.  She’ll awaken in an hour or so.”

“Then I guess we’re done with work for today,” she said, and directed the agent to lead Santana back to their room.

Brittany awoke to the sound of Santana singing “Edge of Glory” by Lady Gaga again.  But even though she was awake she couldn’t bring herself to speak, or sit up. She stayed lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

She had known she was stupid.  But she had kind of hoped that she was still also a genius.

Dad knew.  Dad had lied to her, made her think she was something she wasn’t.

Dad knew she was stupid and that was a threat, that was bad.  So she had to become the numbers.  Otherwise she was nothing.

She was nothing without the numbers.

September 5, 2013

She wanted the numbers today, and it just hurt more.

She didn’t know how much longer she could go on.

“I love you,” Santana told her that night.  She cupped Brittany’s face with her hands.

“But.”

It was the only world she could manage.

“No,” Santana said.  Firm.  “I love you.  There’s no ‘but’ there.”

“I’m a threat,” Brittany said.

“I don’t care,” Santana said.  “I’m gonna love you no matter what.”

September 8, 2013

Santana started singing Funny Girl songs, and then acting and dancing through most of the play.  She was astounded how much she remembered from her limited time as the Fanny Brice understudy. Brittany watched and listened with rapt attention, so Santana did it over and over again.

Within a few days, Brittany started to sing along.

September 14, 2013

If Brittany became a Numeral, she would no longer be a threat.

But she would be something different.  Something bad, she thought.

And Dad still wouldn’t love her.

You can’t love a number.

September 15, 2013

“Told you they’d revive your career, but somebody lied.”

Santana hadn’t heard the song in over a month, and she had spent most of the day trying to remember the lyrics.  Brittany was looking more alive every day now. Santana was certain that Brittany would be able to sing with her tonight.

“Anyway Britney, why they so jealous that you teamed up with me?”

Brittany quirked a little smile at the name and bounced her foot to the beat.  They had no instruments so they had to hear it themselves.

She sang the words “Femme Fatale” along with Santana.  And when Nicki’s verse was done, Santana to pointed Brittany, and she sang.

“I notice that you got it, you notice that I want it.”

Santana grinned, and when it was time to say “It’s Brittany, bitch” she shouted the words.  She couldn’t contain her joy at hearing Brittany singing Britney again.

Brittany was singing and she was here.   And when Santana held out her hand for the chorus, Brittany took it.

They danced together.

“Keep on dancin’ ‘till the world ends.”

September 18, 2013

Santana knew their room had to be under observation, so the scientists had to know about their singing and dancing sessions.  No one tried to get them to stop. It probably didn’t matter to them. Brittany was still progressing ‘well’ through Numeral. Meanwhile, Santana continued to show no difference.

In week five, they were still trying different methods for trying to get Santana to respond to the programming.  They gave her different food, had her run on a treadmill, used the sleep gun on her. Nothing seemed to work.

But everyone had been there for over a month now.  The agents were used to their presence, and got a little sloppy.

In particular; one unintentionally allowed Santana a view inside the storage room.

September 19, 2013

Santana asked for a copy of any notes about herself.  “If I’m honest, I’m just as curious as to why I’m not responding to it,” she said.  It wasn’t even a lie, even though that’s not why she wanted the notes. She just needed paper.

Back in their room that night, Santana pulled out eyeliner from her suitcase and used it as a pen.  The back of her basic information was soon scribbled with the things Santana didn’t want to risk saying out loud.  Santana wrote, and she and Brittany leaned over the paper to try to block its view from any high tech cameras in the room.

Storage room has sleep guns.  We steal 1, put guard to sleep, steal keys, run, get on a train to NYC.

Santana still needed to work out how to get into the storage room.  The room had a weird security system, involving shoving your entire arm into a hole in the wall, Santana hadn’t known how it worked.  And she wasn’t sure how they were going to get themselves safe in NYC. But it was the beginnings of a plan, and that’s more than they had before.

Brittany took her time reading the paper, frowning.  She eventually wrote one word with the eyeliner.

‘Masheen’

It took Santana a few seconds to realize she was trying to say ‘machine’.  Santana looked to her questioningly, and Brittany wrote another word.

‘Destroy’

Santana shook her head.

Brittany glared at her, and pointed to her words again.

Santana pointed to the clock on the wall, trying to tell her it would take too much time.  The elevator and the machine room were on opposite ends of the basement. Taking a detour from the storage room to the elevator would give the agents enough time to send in reinforcements.  And then Brittany and Santana would be outnumbered against evil scientists whose work had just been destroyed.

The machine was terrible.  But Santana didn't care about the machine.  Her job was to get them out.

But Brittany clearly disagreed.  Brittany kept pointing to her words over and over again, while Santana pointed at the clock.  They couldn’t fight about it out loud, and their forceful pointing might have been funny in any other circumstances.

Brittany, Santana realized, probably thought that she would just be brought back if the machine was left standing.

Santana sighed, and finally relented.  She slowly lowered her arm.

Brittany nodded in return, and they flushed the paper down the toilet.

It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Lima, Ohio
September 24, 2013

The cats stared at Clara as if they knew something was wrong, had been wrong for a long time.

“I don’t know if she’s ever coming back,” Clara confessed to them, and knelt down to feed them their dinner.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Underground
September 26, 2013

In week six, Santana finally responded to Numeral.

She didn’t know how, but she woke up in a chair feeling dizzy, and seeing equations in the back of her mind.  There were things that made too much sense. She saw graphs in the scientists’ hair.

The scientists were ecstatic.

Santana didn’t come back to herself until that evening.  She heard Brittany’s voice singing “My Cup” and realized they were back in their room, sitting on the bed.

“I love you,” Santana said.

“I love you, too,” Brittany responded, and cried a little as they pressed their foreheads together.  Santana closed her eyes, trying to get a handle on what happened. She still felt different, everything felt off.

Then she opened her eyes.  “The scientists,” she said.

“What?”

“They were saying something.  When they realized it worked on me, they said-”

“‘Hail Hydra.’”  Brittany’s face twisted.  “That’s what they said. ‘Hail Hydra.’”

Santana stood up.  “Well fuck,” she said flatly, and walked toward the bathroom.

Once Santana was sure she wasn’t going to throw up, they tried to remember the World War II unit from history class.  They hadn’t had a good history teacher even before Mr. Schue stopped teaching Spanish so they hadn’t gotten a lot. Santana could remember some of the highlights, though: Nazis who thought they were even cooler than the Nazis, all around terrible people, taken down by Captain America.

Brittany really wished they had a direct line to Captain America right now.  He could come save them.

She let Santana talk her way through half-remembered details.  Brittany hid her head behind her knees and thought about Dad.

In one hand, she had her Dad.  In the other hand, she had Hydra.

It didn’t make sense.  It didn’t go together.

But she remembered her Dad trying to train her to notice putting water in her drink.  She remembered Dad telling her, “You are a threat.” She remembered that Dad wanted her to be a genius, so she could hurt people.

Maybe it did make sense.

...Yeah.  It really did make sense.

Lima, Ohio
September 30, 2013

Alex stopped answering this phone.

Deb threw her cell on the couch in frustration and cried for a few minutes.  Then she called Clara downstairs and set her a new curfew. Clara fought about it but Deb refused to budge.  She couldn’t say how she knew, but something was going to happen.

Washington, D.C.
Triskelion
October 1, 2013

In nine days, the Lemurian Star would put the Insight satellites online.

“How does it feel?” Rumlow asked.

“I’ll tell you when it’s over,” Alex replied.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Underground
October 2, 2013

Brittany knew things now.  She didn’t understand them, she couldn’t grasp them.  Anytime she tried to explain what she knew, it slipped away.

But she thought about Dad, and what he had wanted for her.  And she thought about numbers and technology. She thought about DNA.

The agents made a mistake; they got a security alert and left Brittany and Santana in the hallway alone.  The storage room was just around the corner, but they had little time.

“Stay here,” she told Santana, and Santana started to protest, but Brittany was already gone.

Normally Santana would have followed anyway.  But Santana had the numbers now. She was different.  They both were.

Brittany jogged to the storage room and stuck her arm into the slot.  She felt something tug a hair out of her arm.

The scanner turned green.  The door clicked open.

There was no time to go in, though.  Brittany stepped away, waited for the scanner to turn red again, and then walked back to Santana.  There was an agent walking up to her, demanding where “337.2” had gone.

“I needed to go to the bathroom,” Brittany lied.

“There are no public bathrooms,” the agent said.

“I didn’t know that.”  And hey, at least that was the truth.

The agent investigated and couldn’t find anything amiss, so he took them back to their room.  Brittany took the eyeliner and scribbled on her arms.

I can get in2 storeige room

Santana’s eyes went wide.

Brittany wrote DNA on a leg, and dad on the other.

It was enough for Santana to understand.  They quickly scrubbed the words off Brittany’s limbs but held onto the hope.

October 3, 2013

At the end of the seventh week, Santana took one of their tote bags from their luggage, one they used to hit the beaches in Hawaii.  She had thought long and hard about anything she needed to take with them when they ran. But the only thing she could think of was cash and IDs to get on the train.

Hydra was everywhere, that much they had gathered.  They might have their IDs pinned, and would know if they were used.  They might have their cash marked. Santana couldn’t know. But they had a way to get into the storage room, and a plan to get out.  They had to try.

She put both their wallets into the tote bag, and one of their smaller towels.  She had only read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy once, but she wanted to believe the towel might actually help somehow.

Now all they needed was a way out of this room.

Washington, D.C.
Triskelion
October 10, 2013

“There’s a problem,” Nick Fury reported.

See, this was why Alex told Rumlow to wait on the celebration.

He wasn’t worried about the Lemurian Star, really.  By the time news of the pirates came in, there was little anyone could do to stop the satellites.  Nick was sending Captain Rogers in, yes, but he was also sending the STRIKE team. If any issues arose, Rumlow and his team could handle it.

No, what worried Alex was this: why the Lemurian Star was the first SHIELD ship in years to be taken hostage.

It was suspicious.  And any suspicion at this stage in the game was something to be taken care of immediately.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Underground
October 11, 2013

The numbers hurt more today.  “I don’t want it,” Brittany said.  The scientists didn’t care.

Washington, D.C.
Triskelion
October 11, 2013

Alex had known all along that Nick Fury would have to die eventually.

Apparently the day had finally come.

“I want you to call for a vote.  Project Insight has to be delayed.”

It was a shame.  They had been friends for years and had worked together for longer than that.  Nick Fury was a good man. But he wasn’t a great man.

Alex had told the Council not thirty seconds ago that he didn’t care about one boat, he cared about the fleet.  If Nick had to go for the greater good, then that was that. Still, it was a tough realization to swallow.

Except then Nick lied to him.

“It could be nothing, it probably is nothing,” Nick said.  But if this was big enough that Insight needed to be delayed, Nick knew there was trouble.

Alex wondered, for maybe the hundredth time, just how many lies Nick had told him over the years.

"Fine.  But you got to get Iron Man to stop by my niece's birthday party."

He had been thinking about his grand-niece, technically.  Rebecca Smith was the granddaughter of Alex’s sister Mary Ann.  She was turning 7 next month, and would not appreciate Iron Man showing up at her birthday party.  Rebecca hated Iron Man. She talked about how the suit was ugly colors and the helmet looked mean.  But Nick Fury would not be alive long enough to actually ask Stark for this ridiculous request, or to realize Alex had lied about his niece’s tastes in superheroes.

Nick had lied to him too many times to count now.  For the last words they would ever speak to each other, Alex thought it was only appropriate to return the favor.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Underground
October 12, 2013
12:23 p.m.

“Well, it’s official.”  The agent walked into the lunch area and tossed a file onto the table.  “Nick Fury’s dead.”

The agents and scientists all started to talk at once.  Over in the corner, Brittany put down her sandwich.

Nick Fury.  She knew that name.

“Brittany?” Santana asked in a low voice.

“We’re being requested to keep it under wraps until Insight launches,” Lingenfelter said, entering the room.  “News of his assassination could cause panic in lower ranks. So don’t text the news to your friends.”

“And Commander Hill?” asked a scientist.

“Has been kept out of leadership,” Lingenfelter confirmed.

The Hydra people all talked about it, caught up in gossip.  Brittany stood up, walked over the table, and peered into the file.

There was a picture of Nick Fury.  She knew him.

Bogotá, Brittany remembered.  He had an eyepatch. He had held her hand.

He had visited them in Ohio, once.  Or maybe more than once. She couldn’t remember exactly, but she knew he had been there.

Brittany sat back down with Santana.  “Nick Fury’s dead.”

Santana put her hand on Brittany’s.  “You knew him?”

Brittany nodded.  “I never told you about Bogotá, did I?”

Santana frowned.  “No. What happened?”

Brittany shrugged.  “I don’t remember a lot of it,” she admitted.  “I got separated from Dad. There were guns. Nick Fury rescued me.”

There was a lot she was leaving out, but she couldn’t bear to think too hard about it right now.

Across the room, Hydra was talking about the hunt for Captain America.

If Captain America and Nick Fury were gone, what could she and Santana do?

Washington, D.C.
Pierce’s D.C. home
October 12, 2013
10:04 p.m.

The asset cleaned up Renata’s body.  Alex sat at the kitchen table.

Sacrifice was worth it.  Eventually they would all understand.  He could make them all understand. Deb, Brittany, Clara, they would see his point of view, and they would be safe .  And then he wouldn’t have to kill friends or housekeepers in the name of secrets.

Project Numeral’s latest report detailed delays and an inability to start field tests, and now Zola was gone.  Brittany would never get to meet the man who had saved her.

Alex kicked back the rest of his glass.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Underground
October 13, 2013
4:07 a.m.

They jerked awake at the sound of sirens.

Brittany cringed against the noise but followed Santana in sitting up.  “You okay?” Santana shouted over the sirens.

Brittany nodded.  “Are you?”

“I’m fine,” Santana said, and then put her hands over her ears.  Brittany did the same.

And then, suddenly, the sirens stopped.  Not only that, the light of the bathroom went off.  They always kept the bathroom light on overnight. It made the room feel less scary, and Santana said she liked wasting their captors’ electricity.  But the light was off now.

“Did we lose power?” Brittany wondered out loud.

They sat in silence for a moment, and then the lights and sirens came back on.  Just as Santana and Brittany covered their ears again, the sirens went back off.

They heard agents running and shouting outside their door.  The sirens flickered on and off, as did the lights in the bathroom, and the lights of the microwave.

“Something’s happening.”  Santana got out of bed. “We have to try.”

Brittany felt adrenaline shoot through her.  “Now?”

“Now.”

Nick was dead.

“Brittany?”

Shrieking noises filled the air, and Santana waited for her word.

She didn’t know if she was ready to try.  Nick was dead. Maybe they would die, too; they had no idea what was outside their door.

When Brittany was a little girl, Nick had risked his life to bring her to safety.  It was too late to save him. It wasn’t too late to save herself.

Brittany took a deep breath.

“Okay.”

Just like that, it was go time.

Brittany stood up and followed Santana’s lead; changing out of sleep shorts and into pants, throwing on a hoodie, shoving feet into shoes.  Brittany grabbed their tote bag out of the corner and Santana went to the door.

It was still closed, and there was still no handle on the inside.  Santana tugged on the edges of the door but it didn’t budge.

“There’s got to be a way out,” Santana muttered to herself.  “The door has to open.”

There was still shouting in the distance.  The noise and lights still came and went. Brittany didn’t know what was happening but she couldn’t let the opportunity go.  She went to the door and tugged on the edges too.

The numbers in Brittany’s head found the pattern to when the lights were on and off.

She tugged at the exact moment the lights reset, and the door pulled open.

For a second, they stared.  How weird, Brittany thought, that a door opening was a miracle right now.

Then Santana grabbed Brittany with one hand, the other still holding the door open.  “Storage room,” she said. “Sleep gun. Keys.”

“Machine,” Brittany insisted.

“Machine,” Santana repeated.  “Then the elevator and run like hell.”

“I love you,” Brittany said, just in case.

“Love you more,” Santana responded.

They bolted out the door.

The lights in the hallway intermittently switched from on to off to red.  Brittany didn’t allow herself to wonder what was happening. She held the tote bag tightly on her shoulder and concentrated on following Santana.

They didn’t pass a single agent on their way to the storage room.  It made Brittany nervous, like it was too easy.

She didn’t waste time handing the tote bag off to Santana and sticking her arm into the storage room slot.  She waited, but nothing happened.

“It worked,” Brittany said.  “I swear, it worked-”

“The electricity is going crazy,” Santana said.  “Maybe the scanner stopped working.”

“Freeze!”

An agent rounded the corner, pointing a gun at them.  This far away Brittany couldn’t tell if it was a sleep gun or not.

“Return to-”

A man in a black mask flew around the corner and kicked him off his feet.

The agent shouted without words and aimed his gun at the masked man.  A shot went off, with no blue; the agent missed.

The scanner came back online, ripping a hair from Brittany’s arm.  It turned green. The door clicked open.

“Go!” Santana shouted.  She shoved the door open and pulled Brittany inside.  Together they slammed the door closed, separating them from the brawl.

There were no sirens inside the storage room.  There were only yellow lights lining the ceiling and piles of boxes around the room.

“What’s going on?” Brittany asked, looking at the door.

“I think that guy in the mask is an intruder.”  Santana dropped the tote bag by the door and walked toward the boxes.  “We need to find the sleep guns.”

“Is he a good guy or another bad guy?”

“No idea, not important.  Sleep guns. And if you find something that might help us to destroy the machine, take that too.”

Brittany went to a box at random.  There were plastic spoons and forks inside it.  The box beneath it had what looked like cell phones.

“I don’t know what half of this stuff is,” Santana said, opening boxes as fast as she could.

The next box had toilet paper, the next had some really scary looking knives.  So did the next one. Then-

“Sleep guns,” Brittany said.  “They’re here, they have the blue bullets.”

Santana rushed over to her.  “Start loading them, now.”

The program had taught them how guns worked, but Brittany still struggled to get the bullets into the gun.  Santana was quicker and soon had hers fully loaded. She made a motion to help Brittany-

And then the door opened.  It was the man in the mask.

Santana turned and aimed, but she wasn’t quick enough.  Something shot out from the man’s hand and scraped Santana on the arm, knocking the sleep gun to the floor, before lodging itself into the wall.

The man pointed a gun at them.

Brittany couldn’t breathe.  They had failed.

She raised her hands, terrified.  Santana raised her hands too.

The man looked at them for a long, long time.

“Where is the veil?” he asked, voice very calm.

They spared a glance at each other.  “We don’t know what that is,” Santana told him.  Her voice shook.

The man kept the gun pointed in their direction, but he started walking around the room.  With one hand he started opening boxes, looking through them, and immediately rejecting them.

Brittany looked at the sleep gun on the floor.

“You’re not fast enough,” the man said, answering the question she hadn’t voiced.  He didn’t look at them, but his gun was still pointed at them.

Santana was looking at her, tilting her head.  Brittany had a feeling she was trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t tell what.

The man suddenly pulled something out of a box.  He walked back over toward them and set it on the floor.  He stood about twenty feet away, not coming any closer. He still had the gun pointed toward them.  He had his eyes on them now too, but he was only watching them.

“Hail Hydra,” the man said.

They stood frozen, waiting.

Finally, the man holstered his gun.  “If you don’t try to shoot me, I won’t try to shoot you.”

They looked at each other before slowly lowering their arms.  Brittany closed the distance between them and Santana took her hands, never looking away from the masked man.  Santana’s hands were sweaty and shaky but Brittany didn’t dare to let go.

He considered them, looked at their tote bag.  “What are your names?”

Brittany wondered if maybe they should lie, but Santana said her own name without hesitation.  So Brittany told the truth too. “Brittany S. Pierce.”

The man took his gun back out of the holster and pointed it directly at her.

Santana shoved herself in front of Brittany, like she was shielding her from him.  “She’s not working with Alexander Pierce,” she said desperately. “She’s not Hydra, neither of us are.”

“Are you gonna be able to provide proof to that?” the man asked.  His gun hadn’t moved. Brittany didn’t want Santana to be in front of her, in the path of the gun, but she knew the man would shoot if she moved.

“We can give you information,” Santana said fast.  “We have files, we’ll tell you anything you want.”

“Then start talking,” the man said, a command.  “How are you related to Alexander Pierce?”

He would shoot them.  Brittany knew it. “He’s my dad,” she said, and waited for the bang.

The man let out a breath of air, but didn’t shoot.  “How long have you been here?”

“Since August 17,” Santana said.

“And what have you been doing here for two months?”

“Project Numeral.”

“Meaning?”

“There’s a machine,” Brittany said.  “It puts numbers in your brain.”

“It’s some kind of mind control device,” Santana said.  “They said it was connected with, uh, Zola’s Algorithm.”

The man closed his eyes.  “They used the machine on you.”

“Both of us,” Santana confirmed.

“Motherfuck,” the man said casually.  He put his gun in his holster again. And then he took off his backpack.  “I fucking hate this job.”

“You believe us?” Santana asked.

“Yeah, I believe you,” the man said.  He dropped to his knees and opened the backpack.  “I believed you when I saw you were barely trained civilians trying to run away from a secret Hydra base.  But with that last name, I had to check.”

Brittany found her body relaxing.  “You’re a good guy?”

The man snorted.  “Something like that,” he said, like he thought it was kind of funny.  “You can call me Barton.”

“Barton,” Santana said, “will you help us get out?”

Barton picked up what he had taken out the box before; Brittany could now see it was some sort of steel case.   “Okay, here’s the deal.  I need to get this-” he held it up and then put it in the backpack “-to some people so we can stop Hydra.  But I’m on this mission alone. There is absolutely no one to provide a damn civilian extraction. So I’m going to be the one to get you out.  You follow my orders, exactly as I tell you. You don’t question them, you don’t hesitate, otherwise the three of us are not getting out alive.  Understood?”

“Yes sir,” Brittany said immediately.

“Yes,” Santana said.

“Good.”  Barton zipped up the backpack and put it back on, standing up.  “We have maybe two minutes before reinforcements show up. And ten minutes before the tech I set up completely fries this place’s power.  Once that happens, everyone left down here will be trapped. So we need to get out as soon as possible. Pick the ICER back up.”

“ICER?” Santana repeated.

“What you tried to shoot me with,” he replied dryly.

“We were calling it the sleep gun,” Brittany said as Santana knelt down and picked it up.

“We are going to leave this room,” Barton said.  “You will follow me. If we run into enemy agents, you run around the corner and wait until I have incapacitated them.  If I tell you to shoot someone with the ICER, you shoot them. If I tell you to give the ICER to me, you give it to me. We go to the elevator, we go above ground.  We walk, we do not run, we walk, outside to the river and get on a boat.  Agreed?”

“Yes,” Santana said.

“No,” Brittany said.

Barton went silent.  Santana stilled, and then whirled around to her.  “Brittany, listen to him,” she said, her voice low and urgent, looking in her eyes.

“What about the machine?” Brittany asked.

“The machine won’t work without power.  We don’t have to destroy it.”

“They can bring it back.”  Brittany knew it in her gut.  “They’ll make it work again. I want it gone.”

“We can’t, we don’t have the time!”

“Excuse me,” Barton said, “we have time to destroy one machine.”

“How?” Santana asked, turning back to him.  “It’s huge, it nearly takes up a whole room.”

“Kid,” Barton said, sounding a little amused.  “Unless they magically found vibranium or something, it’s not going to be able to stand up against a grenade.”

They did what they were told.  Agents came rushing up and Barton knocked them out with his own ICER, one by one, until they arrived at the machine room.

“You might want to stand back,” he said.

Santana took Brittany’s hand again, and they moved back several feet.

Barton threw the grenade inside the room and shut the door quickly.  They waited three long seconds before-

The explosion was loud.  Brittany cringed, feeling the noise in her teeth.

And the numbers fell away.

Back in June, it was a slow process, the numbers leaving her body.  But now it was just like the explosion, quick and overwhelming.

“Shit,” Santana muttered.  Brittany agreed.

When she could open her eyes again, Barton opened the door.  The entire room, the machine included, was in shambles.

“Good?” he asked.

Brittany nodded, wanting to cry from relief.  It was gone. The numbers were gone. She was free.

“Good,” Barton said.  “Then we’re out of here.”

There were two more agents to fight on their way to the elevator.  Barton took both out.  Santana held the ICER in her hands, ready, but didn’t have to use it.  She almost wished she did, so she could enact some sort of revenge on them personally.

When they got to the elevator, though, all Santana cared about getting out.  She made Brittany step in before her. Barton fiddled with some sort of tech, and it made the elevator rise.

“Walk, we don’t run, we walk,” Barton reminded them, and the elevator doors opened to the Pierce Laboratory’s lobby.

They could see the dark, pre-dawn sky outside the windows.

Vibrating out of their skin, Brittany and Santana walked, following him through the lobby, out the doors.

Santana took a gasp as they hit the fall air.

They were free.

They walked, way too slow, down to the river, to a speedboat on the dock.  Brittany wanted to run. She was scared and wanted to get as far away as she could, as fast as she could.  She wanted to believe that Barton was a good guy and he would keep them safe, but what if she was wrong? She had been wrong about Dad.

Brittany and Santana were walking arm in arm.  Neither of them wanted to let go of the other. And they held each other up as they adjusted to being outside, and being free of the numbers.

No one spoke until they arrived at the speedboat.  Barton did a check of the area and then took off his mask.  “Here, give me the bag,” he said, and held out his hand.

Santana didn’t hand it over.  She was staring at him. “Oh my god,” she said.

Barton rolled his eyes and waved his hand.  “Come on, bag.”

Santana finally gave it to him.  Barton put their tote bag next to his backpack on the boat floor.  “We don’t have life jackets, so don’t fall in the water.”

“I know who you are,” Santana said.

“You know him?” Brittany asked.

Barton stepped into the boat and held out his hand.  “Get in the damn boat, then gawk at me.”

Brittany went in first, followed by Santana, who was staring at him all the while.  “Do you know him?” Brittany asked again as they sat down.

“She doesn’t know me,” Barton said at the front of the boat.  It looked like he was getting ready to drive it.

“You’re an Avenger,” Santana said.  Her eyes were still wide. “Aren’t you?  You were the archer from the Battle of New York.”

Brittany looked at Barton, who had a slight frown on his face.  The archer’s real name had never been released to the public, and all the photos of him circling around were blurry.  But Barton had saved them from underground like he knew what he was doing. Like a superhero.

“You’re an Avenger?” Brittany asked.  “You’re the Hawkeye?”

Barton stopped.  “Just Hawkeye,” he said.  “No ‘the’.”

Brittany took a deep breath and found herself, for the first time in weeks, smiling.  “We’re safe,” she said. She turned to Santana, still smiling. “Santana, it’s the Avenger, we’re safe.”

Santana smiled back, laughing lightly.  “We found a superhero.”

Brittany embraced Santana tight, the relief taking over her whole body.  “We’re safe,” Brittany said again. Tears were forming in her eyes. “We’re safe.”

Chapter Text

Boston Harbor
October 13, 2013
5:45 a.m.

They spent the boat ride leaning against each other, breathing.  Water splashed onto them, the sky slowly got brighter, the wind gusted in their faces.

Hawkeye pulled the boat into a dock on a nearby island.

“What is this place?” Santana asked.

“Nowhere important,” Hawkeye answered, picking up his backpack.  “It was the best place to park the helicopter.”

“We’re going on a helicopter?” Brittany asked.  Superheroes had the coolest stuff.

“It’s the quickest way to get where I need to go,” Hawkeye said.  “The safest, too. Taking a car means traffic, and plenty of people who can identify any of us.”

They all left the boat, Hawkeye leading the way, Santana carrying the tote bag.  “Is it really that dangerous for us?” she asked.

“From what we could gather Hydra has a pretty big presence in the area.  If you were in one of their programs, they’ll have your names and faces memorized in case of a security breach.”

“Like you,” Brittany said.  Hawkeye snorted. “So where are we going?”

“I’m too paranoid to say it out loud,” he said stoically.  “Let’s just say it’s where I can drop off the package, and where you’ll be safe.”

Brittany wished she they had more information than that, but she knew the importance of secrets.  Santana didn’t argue and neither did she.

Still, Brittany had questions.  She turned to Santana and said, “Hawkeye said he fried the electricity.  That means they can’t contact people, right?”

“Right.”  But then Santana paused.  “At least, I think so.”

“It’s not a guarantee,” Hawkeye volunteered from feet ahead of them.  Brittany couldn’t tell the exact number of feet anymore; the numbers were gone.  It was weird and a little scary. “I don’t know what kind of technology they had.  But they won’t be able to call or email for back-up.”

“Other people don’t even know to start looking for us yet,” Santana said.

“What about Dad?” Brittany asked.  Santana frowned, looking down at the grass beneath them.  “He’ll find out eventually, right?”

“Eventually,” Santana said lowly.  “Who knows when.”

Brittany looked to Hawkeye.  “You said you knew my dad.”

He kept silent for a moment.  Brittany couldn’t tell what he was thinking.  Nobody knew anything about the archer Avenger; there were blurry pictures and blurrier video from the Battle of New York, but SHIELD had kept everything else about him secret.  They had done the same for the spy woman, too. And they only released a little information about the Hulk and the alien prince. Brittany knew secrets were important, but everyone knew about Iron Man and Captain America, so why couldn’t people know about the others?

She wished she knew more about Hawkeye, now.  She was sure he was a good guy, but she wanted to know more than just that.  Being rescued by a stranger was still scary.

Hawkeye talked clearly when he finally answered.  “I’ve met him a couple times. I wouldn’t say I know him very well.”

“Do you know what he’s been doing?” Brittany asked.  Then she remembered. “He’s working on Project Insight, isn’t he?”

Hawkeye looked back at her.  “You know about Project Insight?”

“Dad said it was connected to the machine somehow,” Brittany said.  She couldn’t remember the other details of that talk, too terrified at the time to memorize all the ins and outs.

“The machine was supposed to be a backup of Insight,” Santana said.  “Like an emergency generator.”

“When one’s down, the other comes up,” Hawkeye said.  His voice sounded very cold.

Brittany wondered if she said something wrong.  “You’re angry.”

“Parents shouldn’t do that sort of shit to their kids.”

He didn’t shout it, but he sounded almost mean.  Brittany bit her lip and looked down, trying to stay quiet.

“Insight is launching soon,” Hawkeye said a moment later.  “Tomorrow.”

Santana’s head shot up.  “Tomorrow?”

“That’s what my sources are saying.  We’re still waiting on the exact time, but tomorrow morning.”

“Twenty-four hours from now.”  Santana sounded scared.

“Probably more like twenty-six.  But yeah. If we don’t stop them.”

Brittany looked up at the sky.  They escaped, but maybe tomorrow she would be dead anyway.

Santana took her hand.  “It’s fine,” she told Brittany.  She was trying to look confident, but it didn’t really work.  “The Avengers are working to stop them. Well, at least one of them is.”  She sighed and looked down at the tote bag. “You know, if I had known a superhero would save us, I might have packed differently.”

“You think we’ll ever get our stuff back?” Brittany asked.  That was easier to think about than Insight.

“No idea.”  Santana’s face twisted.  “I really hope those assholes don’t use my deodorant.”

Washington, D.C.
Tidewater Lock
7:31 a.m.

They slept on way.  Brittany hadn’t planned on it, she wanted to stay awake and be alert.  But Hawkeye was up front, focused on flying, and it was too loud to do anything but let the helicopter noises lull her to sleep.

Santana shook her awake later, when they were landing in a clearing.  There were trees around them.

“Where are we?” Brittany asked.  Santana shrugged. She took their bag in one hand and Brittany’s arm in another and they exited the plane, once again on Hawkeye’s heels.

Once the helicopter’s blades started to slow, and they were far enough away from the noise, Hawkeye answered her.  “We’re just outside Washington, D.C. There’s a base of sorts set up inside the dam.”

Santana scoffed.  “I went from one underground hell to another.”

“Sorry we couldn’t set you up in a 4-star hotel,” Hawkeye replied.  “Listen, we’re going to meet up with people, and they aren’t expecting me to show up with a couple of freed captives.”

“We’re going to make them nervous,” Santana said.

“We’re all the emotional equivalent of chickens running around with their heads cut off,” Hawkeye said.  Brittany didn’t know what that meant exactly, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t anything good. “So, walk behind me.  When we arrive there will probably-okay, there will be weapons pointed at us.  Put your hands up, stay silent, let me do the talking.”

“Are they going to shoot us?” Brittany asked.

“Probably not.  But a week ago if you had asked if we had Nazis in our ranks, I would have said the same thing.”

Brittany wondered if any of the other Avengers were more comforting.

7:44 a.m.

Santana and Brittany followed Hawkeye closely out of the trees.  Everyone was quiet when they entered the dam. They walked two feet into the dark hallway before a woman with dark hair appeared before them.

As Hawkeye predicted, she pointed a gun at them.

“Agent Barton.”

Hawkeye raised his hands in the air, and Brittany and Santana followed suit.

“Hill,” Hawkeye greeted.

“You have three seconds for an explanation,” Hill said.

“These girls were in captivity for the past two months,” Hawkeye said immediately.

“And you just believed them.”

“There was a mind control machine.  They were used as experiments, and wouldn’t leave until the machine was destroyed.”

“This is Hydra-”

“I’m not an idiot, Hill,” Hawkeye interrupted.  Brittany tried to turn off her brain as they glared at each other.  “And feel free to punch me in the head, because I’m not under anyone’s influence but my own.  Their information lines up with the anomalies we found in researching the lab. And I can tell when someone is lying, I can tell when someone has not been trained by the way they run.  I would not have brought them here if I weren’t absolutely sure they were not Hydra.  They were experimented on, and they were trying to save themselves, and you know as well as I do that I was not going to just fucking leave them there.”

“And you brought them here?!” Hill demanded.

“Where else was I going to bring them!  I had to get you the veil, and leaving them anywhere else was just as big a security risk!  What, should I have pushed them out of the helicopter over New York?!”

“Secret base, Barton!  Secret base, because we have an international terrorist organization gearing up to kill millions of people!  And you brought two unvetted civilians to it!”

“Saving people is the entire point of this!”

The woman clenched her teeth.  “Dammit, Barton.”

“I’m sorry, Hill,” Hawkeye said, finally lowering his voice again.  “I wish I could have brought them somewhere else. But it was the only choice I could make.”

Hill breathed in for two long counts, and then lowered her gun.  “The second they prove to be a threat, I’m shooting all three of you in the head.”

Hawkeye lowered his hands.  “Not like you haven’t shot at me before.”

Hill finally looked at Brittany and Santana as they also lowered their hands.  “Mind control?” she asked.

Brittany wasn’t sure if they were allowed to speak yet, so she nodded.

“And how old are you?”

“19,” Santana said.  “Brittany’s 20.”

Hill blinked.  “Brittany. As in Brittany Pierce, the daughter of Alexander Pierce who mysteriously disappeared from society in the summer.”

“How did you know that?” Brittany asked.

Hill didn’t answer, she just looked at Hawkeye.  “Pierce’s daughter.”

Hawkeye nodded.

Brittany wondered if Hill was going to panic, like Hawkeye did when he found out her last name.  But instead Hill put her gun in her holster. “I need to know everything,” she said.

7:58 a.m.

Hill sat Brittany and Santana down at a table.  Hawkeye left the room as soon as they got there.  It made Brittany nervous that Hawkeye was gone; Hill had wanted to shoot them two minutes ago.

Santana and Brittany sat close to each other.  Hill sat on the opposite side of the table and pulled open a laptop.  “Any information you have on your father, the months you were in captivity, the machine, anything at all could help us.”

Brittany thought that was too much information to say.  Santana seemed to agree; she crossed her arms and asked, “Where do we even start?”

Hill paused, and sighed.  “Why don’t we introduce ourselves first?”  She looked calm when she looked at them. “I’m Maria Hill.”

Santana sat up straight in her chair.  “Santana Lopez.”

“Brittany S. Pierce.”  Hill already knew who she was, but she thought she was supposed to say it anyway.

Hawkeye came back with two glasses of water and set them in front of her and Santana.  Then he stood in the corner and didn’t say anything. Brittany breathed a little better, knowing he was there.  He was still a stranger, but he was less of a stranger than Hill.

It was quiet for a little bit before Hill cleared her throat.  “What can you tell me about the machine?”

“It’s gone,” Brittany said.

“There are others like it,” Santana said.

“That too,” Brittany admitted softly.

“It’s called Project Numeral,” Santana said.  “They said it was happening at places other than just MIT, but I don’t know where.  It was working off of Zola’s Algorithm, the same thing they’re using for Project Insight.”

“Zola’s Algorithm,” Hill repeated.  Santana nodded.

Hawkeye looked at Hill.  “You have any idea what that is?”

“Something terrible, probably.”  Hill started typing things on her laptop.  “Barton, let me know when they invent time travel.  I want to go back to the 1940s and punch the entire military in the face.”

Santana talked for a long time.  She had the better memory, and hadn’t been affected by Numeral as long as Brittany had.  She described the machine and what Dad had told them about Zola and numbers. She mentioned the few other things they found in the storage area, agent and scientist names she remembered, the layout of the underground, how they made their escape plan.

Hawkeye brought out the case from his backpack.  They inspected it, and said it still worked, and Hill hooked it up to a different laptop to “install” it.  Brittany didn’t know what it was, but she didn’t ask. She knew Hill would ask about her dad, and was trying to figure out what to say.

“What was the security on the storage room?” Hill asked.

“DNA scanner,” Hawkeye said.  “It took a hair from your arm.  I just shoved another agent’s arm in the slot.”

“And how were you able to get in?” Hill asked, looking back at Santana and Brittany.

“Brittany’s DNA worked,” Santana answered.  “She was supposed to be working on Numeral at first.  That’s what her dad wanted.”

Brittany took a sip of water.

“What can you tell me about your dad?” Hill asked.

Brittany didn’t know what she was supposed to say, so she said what she felt.  “I thought he cared about me,” she said, looking down at her water. “But he didn’t, not really.  He hurt me. He hurt Santana. He killed Nick Fury, even though he saved me that one time. I thought he was different.”

Hill considered her for a long minute.  Then she looked back at Hawkeye. Then she pushed her chair back from the table and stood up.  “There’s something you should see.”

9:02 a.m.

They walked to a different part of the cave, where there were white curtains.  Hill pulled them back.

There was a doctor, a mini hospital room, and Nick Fury.

Nick wasn’t awake.  His eyepatch was off and he was hooked up to equipment.  But his chest rose up and down, which meant he was breathing, which meant he was alive.

The doctor stepped away from the bed.  Nobody said anything as Brittany stepped forward, only stopping at the foot of the bed.

She just watched the man breathe in and out in his sleep.

In the back of her mind she had a memory of him holding her hand.  She didn’t know if it was true or not, but it felt true.

“I’m glad,” she whispered to him.

9:57 a.m.

After Barton and Hill stopped arguing in hushed voices (Santana didn’t know what about), after Santana could finally pull Brittany away from the hospital bed, after Hill finished her questions about what happened underground, the doctor gave them a basic check-up.

Doctor Fine was, well, fine.  He wore glasses and didn’t try to make any stupid small-talk.  But Santana couldn’t help but compare him to her father. He had never given her physical exams, but he always checked up on her whenever she was sick.  Fine looked and felt nothing like him.

Santana hadn’t really thought about her dad, or her mom, in their weeks underground.  She hadn’t had time to spare for them when she was helping Brittany and trying to find a way out.  Now she could clearly hear her dad’s laughter, see her mother’s smile. She was free, but Santana still didn’t know if she would ever see them again.

“They look healthy,” Fine reported to Hill.  “Healthy as they can be after being in captivity for two months.  But I don’t have the equipment here to check on their brain activity.  I couldn’t tell you what the short-term or long-term effects of the machine could be.”

“But there are no immediate worries?” Hill asked.  Fine shook his head. That was good, Santana thought.  It seemed like all the medical equipment they had here was already dedicated to keeping Fury alive.

Brittany was still overwhelmed by the news.  She kept looking over at the curtains. Maybe once this was all over, Santana would ask her more about him and what happened in Bogotá or whatever.

But, Santana thought, she wasn’t sure what this all being over would even look like.

“So what now?” she asked.  “We’re not about to fall over and die, so what do we do?  What’s the plan?”

“It’s nothing you and Brittany have to worry about,” Hill said.

She was trying to placate her, but tough shit.  Santana spent the last two months cut off from the world, she wanted to have any information available to her.  Judging by the way Brittany glared at Hill, she felt the same way.

Hill sighed and relented.  “There are multiple things that need to get taken care of before Insight launches tomorrow.  I have to try to pull some people out of the inevitable fire that’s going to go down. And Agent Barton needs to get to New York.”

“New York,” Santana repeated, turning to gape at him.  “You’re leaving?”

“I’m not going to the damn bar,” Barton replied.  “I have other stuff to do.”

“But not Insight,” Brittany said, confused.

“If Hill does her job, we’ll have other people to stick around and stop the launch,” Barton explained.  “And we aren’t sure if Insight is the only threat. Right now I have to contact Stark and see what he can do about keeping Hydra out of nuclear launch codes.”

“Tony Stark?” Brittany asked.  “Iron Man?”

“He kind of retired from Iron Man, but yeah.”

“I think he worked with Dad,” Brittany said.  “Are we sure he’s not Hydra?”

“Literally everyone has worked with your dad,” Hill said.  “We can’t play that association game.”

“And Stark has a military contact we trust,” Barton said.  “We need Colonel Rhodes to make sure Hydra isn’t in the Secret Service ready to shoot the president in the head.  From there I have other colleagues to get in touch with, try to find out what’s in immediate danger, see what we can do and try to save as many people as we can.”

“What about us?” Brittany asked.  “Santana and I, what do we do?”

“Nothing,” Barton said.

Brittany frowned at him.  Santana crossed her arms. “We can help,” she said.

“No, you can’t,” Barton replied.  “You are two untrained traumatized teenagers who just escaped from captivity.”

“And we handled it,” Santana argued.  She had more to say, but Hill held up her hand, cutting her off.

“We know you want to help,” Hill said.  “But you are in no situation to step outside this cave.  Hydra may already be looking for you, and we don’t have the manpower to protect you.”  She shook her head. “You shouldn’t be here; this is our fight, not yours.”

“It’s our fight, too,” Brittany said, quiet.  “We were there. He’s my dad.”

Hill frowned, but the doctor spoke up for the first time in a while.  “Can you help me?” he said. “I haven’t slept in over twenty four hours because I’ve been taking care of Fury.  If you could watch him while I nap, I’d appreciate it.”

“Neither of us exactly have medical training,” Santana pointed out.

“You don’t need to,” Fine said.  “Fury’s stable. I just need you to keep an eye on him.  I’ll let you know what the machines should read, you wake me up if something looks wrong.”

“We can do that,” Brittany said immediately.  “We’ll help you take care of Nick.”

Fine actually smiled a little.  “Thanks.”

Part of Santana still felt like she should be doing something else.  But she took a deep breath and came down to earth; her only accomplishment in this whole spy thing was taping a recorder to her underboob.  She would only be in other people’s way. Santana wasn’t used to sitting back and letting other people take care of the job. But she was out of her depth, and exhausted and hungry.  “Okay,” she said.

Hill and Barton walked off to pack or whatever, talking swiftly about items they needed.  Fine led Santana and Brittany back to the bed. He started writing down directions and what the machines did, explaining all the while.

Then they made sandwiches.  “We only have non-perishables for toppings,” Fine said, twisting off the cap of a peanut butter jar.  “We’re not a four-star restaurant, but we won’t die of starvation.”

“We haven’t eaten since dinner last night,” Santana said.  “I would fight you for that peanut butter.”

Brittany and Santana had the best tasting peanut butter sandwiches of their lives, and Fine made two extra ones.  Both Barton and Hill snagged them when they returned.

“Heading out?” Fine asked.  They nodded.

“Take care of yourself,” Barton said, holding out his hand.  Fine shook it, and then Barton turned to Santana and Brittany.  “Same goes for you two. Take care of yourselves.”

“Thank you,” Brittany said quietly.  “For helping us get out.”

Barton smiled at them, for what Santana was pretty sure was the first time.  Then he fist-bumped them both, and walked toward the exit.

“Hold down the fort,” Hill told Fine.  “I should be back tonight.”

“Good luck,” Fine said.

Hill nodded to all of them and followed Barton.

12:01 p.m.

“Good morning.”

Nick opened his one functioning eye.  “Screw you.”

Fine snorted.  “You were so much nicer to me when you were closer to death.”  He sat down next to the bed. “Remember how it’s important to keep your blood pressure down right now?”

Nick closed his eye again, bracing himself.  “What’s wrong?”

“Barton brought the veil,” Fine said.  Well, at least that was good. “But he also brought two teenagers.”  Nick’s immediate thought was that neither of Clint’s kids qualified as teenagers.  So who the hell was here? “Hydra was experimenting on them at MIT. One of them is Alexander Pierce’s daughter.”

Various pieces fell into place; Alex’s even more guarded approach to discussing his family recently, why they couldn’t find a trace of Brittany’s existence in the past few months, why Pierce visited the college multiple times earlier in the year.

Fury took a deep breath.  “She’s here?” he asked.

“And her friend.”  Fine frowned. “Actually, she might be her girlfriend.  I didn’t ask.”

Nick figured the pain in his chest was not a result of the collapsed lung right now.  “Barton got them out.”

“And they’re as healthy as they can be, considering the circumstances.  They’re sleeping right now; Brittany’s shift to watch you starts at 1:30.”

Nick snorted and nodded, distracted.  He thought about that little girl from a lifetime ago, holding onto his hand and crying for her daddy.  He guessed she didn’t cry for her father this time.

Fine lay a laptop next to Nick on the bed.  “Hill typed up notes for you about what was going on at MIT.  Don’t read it all at once, it’ll raise your blood pressure.”

1:32 p.m.

Doctor Fine was gentle when he shook Brittany awake.  “It’s 1:30,” he said.

Brittany nodded and tried to sit up without waking up Santana, who was currently hugging her from behind.  It didn’t work.

“Go back to sleep,” Brittany told her.  Santana nodded and turned over in the cot.  There were maybe ten cots in this area of the cave.  They weren’t very comfortable, and only barely big enough to hold both her and Santana.  But Brittany thought it was better than sleeping on the ground.

She remembered sleeping on the floor of the sewers with Clara years ago, and her stomach twisted.  Dad didn’t mention anything about Clara being a threat, or Mom. Just Brittany.

She hadn’t seen them in so long.

Brittany kissed Santana on the cheek before standing up and following Fine.  They stayed quiet until they were far away from Santana.

“How’s Nick?” she asked.

Fine smiled at her.  “He’s doing well.”

And then they came into view of the hospital bed, where the curtains were open.  Nick was awake. His eyepatch was back on and he was smiling gently.

Brittany stepped forward quickly to the hospital bed.  She didn’t know what to say, but her body moved on its own, and she lay her hand on top of Nick’s.

Fine quietly closed the curtains.  Brittany could hear him walking back toward the cots.

“It’s good to see you, Brittany,” Nick said.

Brittany smiled.  “I’m happy you’re alive.”

Nick’s face relaxed.  “Back at you.”

Brittany sat in the chair and put her other hand on Nick’s.

Nick drifted back to sleep for a while, and Brittany dutifully kept her eye on the machines.  She had to repeatedly look back on the doctor’s notes, but everything looked okay. Nick was going to live, and it was going to be okay.

Nick would fix it.  He would stop Insight, and stop Dad, and save the world, just like he saved Brittany all those years ago.

She had wondered about Insight.  Underground she had lay on the bed with the numbers in her head, wondering if maybe Insight was good, that Dad was right, and she was the one who was wrong.

But if Insight meant that Nick was supposed to die, that she and Santana had to be Numerals, there was no way it could be right.

Nick woke up again a little later.  Brittany talked, staying away from any mention of Dad or her time at MIT.  He was injured, he needed happy news. So she talked about Clara and glee club and Cheerios, about Rachel Berry starring on Broadway, about the movie of Channing Tatum rescuing the president.  And Nick listened.

It was like Brittany had never forgotten about him.  Like she was just catching up with an old friend.

“Thank you,” Brittany said, interrupting her own story about superhero club last year.  “Thank you for saving me when I was little. I never thanked you, did I?”

“You were six,” Nick said.  “I didn’t hold it against you.”

“But you still saved me.  And you sent a superhero to save me again.  I know you didn’t actually know I was there, but Hawkeye rescued us and I don’t think we would have gotten out without him.  You saved us.”

She was holding his hand again.  She hoped he didn’t mind.

“I’m sorry you had to be saved,” Nick said.

Neither of them had mentioned Dad, but Brittany could feel him in the room, hanging around them.  “I’m sorry Dad tried to kill you.”

It wasn’t funny, but Nick chuckled.  “Me too, kid,” he said.

3:07 p.m.

“I appreciate your help,” Fury said.  “Doctor Fine has been overworked because of me.  I’m glad he’s getting a little rest.”

Santana nodded.  Fine had barely moved when Brittany shook Santana awake to take over the next shift.  Brittany herself had fallen back asleep practically the second she lay down on the cot.  They were all exhausted, Santana included.

“When did you meet Brittany?” Fury asked.

Santana frowned.  “What is this, some delayed interrogate-the-girlfriend?”

Fury snorted.  “I can’t exactly move a lot right now,” he said, gesturing to the hospital bed.  “And short of running over plans again, I have nothing to do.”

She guessed she could respect that.  A week ago Fury had been the director of SHIELD; he must be bored.

“We met at cheerleading camp, summer before high school.  Started dating...well, actually dating in our senior year.  Kind of broke up after I went to college, got back together in June.”  Santana curled a little more into the sweatshirt Fine had given her; it was plain black with a stupid SHIELD logo on it, but the cave was cold.  “We planned on moving to New York last month.”

“Didn’t happen that way,” Fury said.

That much was obvious.  But seeing as the guy was only half-alive, Santana stopped herself from rolling her eyes.

“You knew Brittany’s dad?”

Fury sighed a very long sigh.  “Since before Brittany was born.”

“He’s a douchebag.”  He gave her a weird look, and Santana raised her hands.  “Sorry, but he is. He tried to kill you, he kidnapped me and used me as bait to get to Brittany.  You know, I never liked him, but I didn’t think he was a mass murdering Neo-Nazi. I thought he was lame and obviously homophobic about Brittany dating me, and considering he was a rich old white dude who used to be a politician, I figured he was your garden-variety racist.  But I thought that was the extent of it. I didn’t think-...I didn’t think all of this was going to happen.”

Feeling awkward after talking so much, Santana shut her mouth.

Fury considered her for a moment.  “Are you feeling guilty about not noticing he was dangerous?”

“No,” Santana said, even though she was.

Fury shook his head a little.  The guy was a spy; he probably saw right through her.

Fury had known Mr. Pierce for over two decades.  If Santana felt bad, he felt worse.

She looked away.  “I hate that all this happened,” she admitted.  “In my head I keep trying to pin it down to the moment I was kidnapped, but it started before then.  When that douchebag sent Brittany to MIT in the first place. When he decided he’d rather have a murdering robot daughter than a stupid one.”  It still made her stomach boil and her eyes rage. “It’s all a big ball of bullshit, and I hate it.” After months of holding back her anger underground, it felt nice to let it out.

“I know,” Fury said.  “I hate it, too.”

Nothing like good old-fashioned hate to bring two people together.

5:44 p.m.

Protein bars weren’t a very good dinner but Brittany wasn’t in the position to complain.  She and Santana ate side by side at the table, eating the bars and trading a bag of fairly bland trail mix back and forth.

“I like the trail mix with M&Ms,” Brittany said, frowning down at the bag.

“Maybe superheroes can’t have chocolate,” Santana said.

“That sucks.”

“No kidding.”

There were things they needed to talk about.  Brittany needed to ask questions. But she didn’t have a clue where to start.  Numeral, Dad, not being a genius, the future, they all swirled together in her head and left her dizzy.  From the moment Dad’s soldiers took Santana off the street in Hawaii, everything had changed.

Just this morning, Santana had told Brittany she loved her.  Brittany loved her too.  But that didn’t mean things were like they were before.  If they got out of this, if Dad and Insight were stopped and they got to go back to Ohio, what would happen then?  Santana might not want to move to New York anymore. Santana might not want to be with her anymore. Her dad had kidnapped her, after all.

Brittany knew she should talk about it but instead they ate in mostly silence.  Until they heard noises, people’s voices in the distance. “Who’s that?” Brittany asked.  She grabbed for Santana’s hand.

Santana stayed quiet for a second, listening.  “I think we’re fine,” she said eventually. “If Hydra found us, there would be more shouting.  I bet Hill’s back.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Yeah, that’s good.”

They cleaned up their mess from dinner and headed toward the voices.  Around Fury’s bed were Fine and Hill, and three other people. The ones Hill went to help, probably.  One woman was sitting in a chair, with Fine working on her shoulder. Brittany could see blood.

The woman had noticed them the moment they walked into view.  “Who’s this?” she asked.

The two men turned to stare at them, both on their guard.

“This is Brittany and Santana,” Hill said.  “Girls, that’s Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and apparently this guy is Sam Wilson.”

Brittany gaped at the first man Hill gestured to.  “Captain America?”

The man said nothing.  But the longer Brittany stared at him, the more she could imagine him in the red, white and blue suit.

“You went to save Captain America,” Santana said to Hill.

Hill smiled a little.  “Had to save him so he could save us,” she said.

Washington, D.C.
Ideal Federal Savings Bank
6:40 p.m.

The problem with the asset-

No.  There were too many problems with the asset to boil down into one simple sentence.

“Then wipe him, and start over,” Alex said, but he felt ridiculous even as he said it.  One of the problems with the asset was that they couldn’t start over.  They had to leave enough of him to build up from something.  They couldn’t wipe him away completely.

There was no point in sticking around to hear the screaming.  He could hear the agents shifting as he walked away, raising their weapons at the asset again.  It made him angry, that nobody could figure out how to deal with the soldier when he wasn’t around.

But a lot of things were making Alex angry.  They had lost Rogers and his accomplices. The fight on the freeway had been too public; Alex knew that an open fight was their only option at that point, but he still hadn’t liked it.  And a good portion of the public was on Captain America’s side, solely because he was Captain America.  It was infuriating that a damn stars-and-stripes shield could mean more to people than the reality of the world.

And to top it all off, no one from Project Numeral was answering his damn emails.

Alex forced himself to breathe, used the movement of walking to calm himself.  They could do image rehabilitation once Insight launched. Brittany would be with him in due time.  Everything would be taken care of eventually.

Less than fifteen hours.

Chapter Text

Washington, D.C.
Tidewater Lock
October 13, 2013
7:13 p.m.

They weren’t invited to the war council.  Or at least, Santana called it the war council so Brittany called it that too.  It seemed an appropriate name for the group of people at the conference table: Nick Fury, Hill, Captain America, the woman spy Avenger, and a guy with wings.

“Why aren’t you in there?” Brittany asked Doctor Fine.

He shrugged from his place on the cot, playing with a pen.  “I’m a doctor. Not a soldier or a spy or anything. I wouldn’t be much help in there.”

He seemed nervous.  Brittany was nervous, too.  There were two Avengers in the next room, and a man who could fly, and they all had regarded her and Santana with suspicion while Hill had explained Numeral, about Brittany being Dad’s daughter.  Captain America and Natasha, the woman spy, relaxed when they found out Hawkeye had saved them. But the man with wings, Wilson, hadn’t.

Technically his name was Sam, but that was confusing.  Sam was Brittany’s blonde friend and ex-boyfriend, not a black flying superhero.  So she called him Wilson, because she didn’t know anyone else named Wilson.

Wilson didn’t know Hawkeye, Natasha had told Brittany and Santana.  Then she had turned to Wilson and promised him they were safe. It was only then that Wilson seemed okay with them.

But Brittany was still nervous.  Project Insight was scheduled to launch at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.  And there were people at a table talking and making plans and deciding how to stop Dad, and Brittany was here.

Brittany was sure they could stop it.  They had Captain America; he had stopped Hydra before and could stop them again.  But what if something went wrong? What if they didn’t stop Dad in time? Would Brittany die right away, or would other people die first?  Santana, and Nick, and the Avengers-

She didn’t want to think about it, but she couldn’t stop.

Santana put her hand on her shoulder then, looking worried.  “Let’s go to the bathroom.”

“Huh?”

“Girls always go to the bathroom together,” Santana said.  Brittany was pretty sure it was meant to be a joke.

She looked back at Fine; he nodded them off and went back to concentrating on his pen.  And they went to the bathroom.

“You okay?” Santana asked when they were washing their hands.  Brittany didn’t answer but Santana seemed to have expected that.  “Yeah, me neither.” She aggressively dried her hands with too many paper towels.  “You know what sucks? We went from one underground to another. And we’re not ‘trapped’ but we still can’t leave.  And what are we supposed to do?”

Brittany hurt listening to Santana hurt.  She couldn’t find it in her to speak.

“We’re supposed to do nothing.”  Santana balled up the paper towels and threw them away.  “Because we don’t know anything. We’re supposed to just hide and wait for the world to not end.  It’s so stupid.”

That’s what made Brittany find her voice.  Something escaped from her mouth - like a laugh, but not.

“Stupid like me,” she said.

“You’re not stupid,” Santana said immediately, like she always did.

But that wasn’t true and they both knew it now.  “I am, though,” Brittany said back. “I’m so stupid I’m a threat.”

“Stop.”  Santana stepped closer to her.  “That’s not-who gives a shit what Hydra thinks?  They are the bad guys.  You’re a threat to them because you’re a good person.”

Brittany shook her head.  “I don’t think so. I think I’m a threat because I’m stupid.”

“You’re not-”

“I am!” Brittany shouted.

Santana stared at her, and Brittany couldn’t stop her eyes from watering.

“I know what I am!”  Brittany sniffed and wiped her nose with her sleeve.  “I always did. I tried to be something else, I wanted to be, but I can’t.  I’m sorry but I can’t, okay?”

The numbers hadn’t been able to change it, not really.  It had been something else inside her that could do the equations and see everything, not Brittany herself.  She wasn’t smart. She knew now that she never had been. She was stupid and always would be.

Brittany wiped her nose with her sleeve again, until Santana finally stopped staring and instead handed over some paper towels.  Brittany blew her nose.

Santana took a deep, deep breath, and said, “Don’t be sorry.”

Brittany looked up.

“I don’t care if you’re stupid,” Santana said, eyes steady.  “It doesn’t matter to me. I still love you. And you still shouldn’t have been brainwashed by your piece of shit father.  It changes nothing.”

Brittany wiped her eyes with more paper towels.  “But…”

“No.”  Santana put her hands on Brittany’s elbows.  “You can be the dumbest person on the planet and I will still love you.  You got that?”

It was the first time they kissed, really kissed, since Hawaii.  Their bodies pressed together, and the warmth of Santana’s mouth felt like coming home.

The kiss didn’t last too long.  When they pulled apart, Santana patted Brittany’s cheeks dry with a paper towel.  Then she threw it in the garbage and said, “Come on, let’s go spy on the war council.”

Brittany frowned.  “Are we allowed to do that?”

“No,” Santana admitted.  “But we aren’t supposed to be here in the first place.  Might as well find out what they’re planning.”

They walked quietly in the hallway and positioned themselves against the wall nearest to the conference table.  Santana even made sure their shadows didn’t show into the room. The heroes wouldn’t be able to see them. Brittany thought they might know they were there anyway, though, through magic spy powers or something.

“There’s not a lot we can guarantee,” Captain America was saying.  Santana put her finger to her lips. Brittany mirrored the gesture.  “Not everyone at the Triskelion is Hydra, but the loyal SHIELD agents might not help us.  Some might run, some might turn under the pressure of the moment. Those who do fight back might be outnumbered.”

“So chances of us having air support are low,” Hill summarized.  “The Falcon tech is going to be the most important weapon we have.”

“So no pressure,” Wilson said, deadpan.

“Once we upload all the files onto the net, Romanoff and I can get the helicopter flying again,” Nick said.  “But it’s just a regular chopper. No weapons, no high-tech toys.”

“And I don’t know how long it’s going to take to lift the security clearance,” Natasha said.  “I can only work so fast. Maybe you guys will be done before we are.”

“Tell me again who’s on the current council rotation,” Captain America said.

“Hawley, Yen, Singh, and Rockwell,” Nick said.  “And, of course, Pierce.”

The mention of her father made Brittany still, concentrating completely on the conversation.

“And Pierce is the only member of Hydra on the council?” Captain America asked.

“The only one we know of,” Nick said.  “For what it’s worth, I don’t think the other four are Hydra.  I think Pierce wanted to use this as an opportunity to sway other council members to his side.”

“And he might be able to do that,” Hill said.  ”He knows how to convince people.”

“Not to mention that they approved Project Insight in the first place,” Captain America said.  “And they moved up the timeline in response to Fury’s death, despite the evidence that Insight played a part in the hit against him.  I don’t trust them. We can’t guarantee that Pierce won’t turn them.”

“So with Romanoff undercover as Hawley, that still leaves three unknown variables,” Hill said.

“Are there any known variables on this mission?” Wilson asked.

There was a beat of silence before Captain America asked another question.  “So what happens if they are are Hydra?”

“I won’t act until I’m sure of their alliances,” Natasha said.  “Ideally they can be of use to me when I’m dumping the files. But the second they stand with Pierce, I’ll treat them as enemies and take them out.”

The words sent a jolt up through Brittany’s spine.

“So you’ll have to take out three members of the council, plus however many personal guards Pierce has, all while making sure Pierce doesn’t escape,” Captain America said.  “You know, you were shot in the shoulder a few hours ago.”

“That’s funny, coming from you,” Natasha said evenly, but Brittany couldn’t focus.

Take them out.  The words kept repeating inside her head.

Were they going to kill Dad?

She could feel Santana staring at her, but Brittany couldn’t bear to look at her.  She knew Dad was awful, he was going to kill so many people if he wasn’t stopped. And she knew, sometimes, good people had to kill the bad guys.  But she hadn’t connected those thoughts until now.

Tomorrow she might not have a Dad anymore.  She couldn’t understand it.

And she couldn’t take it anymore.  She pushed herself off the wall and walked into the room and looked at all five of them.

“Are you going to kill my dad?”

All five of them turned to stare at her.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

Nick took a breath and opened his mouth, but Natasha spoke first.

“We might kill your dad.”  Natasha looked at Brittany straight on, looking so unhappy.

“Might,” Brittany repeated.  She didn’t understand.

Natasha addressed the others.  “Would you mind giving me a moment alone to talk to Brittany?”

“We’ll get the doctor,” Hill said, standing up from her chair.  “We should go over the plans with everyone anyone.” She left the room, and Wilson and Captain America followed.  None of them looked at Brittany as they passed.

Nick was still in the room, and he did look at her.  He hadn’t listened to Natasha and left them alone. Brittany realized she didn’t care.  She was okay with Nick being here.

Natasha motioned for her to come over.  So Brittany sat in the chair between Nick and Natasha.  It felt safe, with one on each side.

“Your father,” Natasha said slowly, “is a very powerful man.”

“I know,” Brittany said.  “And he needs to be stopped.  But…”

She wasn’t sure what she was objecting to.  Who was Brittany to tell these heroes who they should and should not kill?

Maybe Dad did need to die.  But she couldn’t stop the feeling of wrong the idea caused.

“He does need to be stopped,” Natasha said.  “But even if we succeed tomorrow at destroying Project Insight, it doesn’t erase the other things your father, and Hydra, have created.  There is a long road ahead of us, beyond Project Insight.” Brittany nodded; she guessed that made sense. “Your father is at the center of it all.  Ideally, he would be arrested and interrogated for information.”

“Ideally?” Brittany asked.

“That’s what we want, the best case scenario.  But your father is not just a very powerful man.  He is also very clever. To hide his true intentions for so long, it means he has many resources and backup plans.  And he is very, very dedicated to Project Insight. He wants it to happen no matter what.”

Brittany remembered Dad explaining Insight and Zola and how important it was that she understand it.  More important than herself. “I know,” she said quietly.

Nick was watching her, but he didn’t say anything.

“Nick and I have to stop him,” Natasha’s voice was full and powerful, but she spoke like Brittany was on her side.  “No matter what, I cannot let your father kill so many people. I want to save my friends, and you, and your girlfriend hiding in the hallway, and Doctor Fine, and everyone I can.  If we have to kill him to save others, we will do so. Do you understand?”

Brittany looked down, her throat closing up.

Yes.  She did understand.

She wished she didn’t.  She wished this wasn’t happening.

She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, so she just nodded.

Brittany closed her eyes and pretended that the world was just her and Natasha and Nick, until the others came back.

“Romanoff leaves in one hour,” Captain America said.  “At 0600 tomorrow, Hill, Sam, and I leave for the Triskelion.  We send out a signal to fight back, and then concentrate on taking down the helicarriers.  Once Romanoff is secure in the council room, she’ll send the signal for Fury. He’ll take the helicopter to the Council, disable all security on SHIELD’s files.  Once the helicarriers are destroyed, Fury takes the helicopter back here to Doctor Fine and the girls. The rest of us stay at the Triskelion to focus on cleanup and the cooperation with the FBI.  Are there any questions.”

Brittany had tons of questions, but she knew her job was stay silent right now.  She had already interrupted before. She wasn’t really supposed to be a part of this.

Doctor Fine frowned from his seat; Brittany had given up her chair to him when he came to the room, standing arm-in-arm with Santana instead.  “For the record,” Fine said, “Fury shouldn’t be driving a helicopter on his own.”

“Fury will handle himself just fine,” Nick said.

“I just want the record to know that I was against it.”

“We’re in a damn cave, there is no record.  But hey, assuming I live, you can berate me when I get back.”

“Do you have any supplies you can spare?” Wilson asked the doctor.  “I don’t exactly have a paramedics kit on me.”

Fine nodded.  “I’m not sure I have a lot that’s portable, but I’ll see what I got.”

“Thanks.”

Santana spoke up, looking nervous.  “Assuming everything goes as planned, how long will we be here?”

“It depends on how powerful Hydra is after tomorrow,” Hill said.  “We have to make sure you won’t be hunted down.”

“And we have enough supplies here for an extended stay?” Santana asked.

“Enough for a couple weeks,” Fine told them.  “If we’re still here at that point, we’ll probably have to relocate.  But in the meantime we’re safest here.”

“In a situation like this, we can’t guarantee your safety,” Captain America said.  “But considering we haven’t been stormed here yet, I think Fury’s back-ups are still unknown, and should stay that way.  You’ll be as safe as you possibly can be.”

“In an ideal situation, an agent would be staying with you,” Nick said.  “But we don’t exactly have boots to spare. The good doctor here isn’t an agent, but he’s trained with firearms.  He’ll take care of you. And once everything’s over, we’ll do our best to get you home soon.”

“Home,” Santana repeated.

Brittany thought it sounded weird too.

And she was just supposed to sit and wait while everything happened far away.

The pressure that had been building in her head since she heard the words 'take them out' came to a tipping point, and Brittany spoke up.  “I don’t want to stay here. I want to go with Nick.  I want to go to the council room and see Dad.”

Everyone looked at her.

Santana dropped her arm from hers.  “Brittany, no,” she said.

“I have to,” Brittany said.

“No,” Nick said, shaking his head, “you don’t.”

“I do!” Brittany insisted.  “You said you might kill him, and I have to talk to him.  This is my last chance to talk to him.”

“In the event it is safe to do so, your father will be kept alive,” Hill said.

“But that’s not for sure,” Brittany said.  “I don’t want him to die before I ask him things, tell him things.”

Nick turned to her.  “I know this is hard for you,” he said gently.  “But you’re asking to come along into an active war zone.  It’s not going to happen. You’ll be staying here, where it’s safe.”

“But-”

She stuttered for a second, until a thought occurred to her.

“You want him alive,” Brittany said.  “I can get him to surrender.”

There was an immediate change.  Nick sat back in his chair and studied her with his one eye.  He was actually listening now. “How so.”

“Brittany, no,” Santana hissed.

“I’m his daughter, he’ll listen to me.”  Brittany pressed the only advantage she had.  “If he knows he’s losing, I can make him give up. He’ll surrender, and you can get information.”

“How sure are you of that?” Nick asked.

“Very sure,” Brittany said, even though she wasn’t at all.

“No,” Santana practically shouted at her.

Brittany couldn’t look at her.  She had to look confident and sure of what she was doing.  “Let me in the council room,” she said.

Everyone stared at her until Nick turned to the group.  “Well?”

“If Pierce will give up information-” Natasha started, but Hill interrupted her.

“No,” she said, folding her arms.  “Romanoff, need I remind you, you were shot earlier today.  And Fury, you can barely walk. That’s two people in the Council room who aren’t in the best condition to fight.  And now you want to add the untrained civilian daughter of the Hydra’s leader.”

“Dad trained me,” Brittany said.

“You’re not helping your case,” Hill replied.

“To be fair,” Natasha said, “we’re not planning on a firefight once Nick arrives.  By that time, all enemies should be incapacitated.”

“There’s no guarantee of that,” Hill argued.  “What if someone calls for backup?”

“She’s right,” Nick said, addressing Brittany directly.  “There will be armed guards around, number unknown. It’s a highly dangerous situation.”

“I’ve done it before,” Brittany said.

“Are we really doing this?” Wilson demanded.  “Are we seriously debating whether or not to send a civilian into the Council Room?  No.”

“I’m not a civilian, I’m his daughter,” Brittany said.

“You are not personally a part of any governmental or military organization,” Hill said.  “Therefore, you’re a civilian. And yes, you are his daughter, and we don’t need this situation escalated further.  How would you react if your daughter was used against you?”

“We’re not using her against her father.”  Nick’s voice was louder than Brittany had heard today.  “Brittany requested this on her own terms.”

“That’s not how it’s going to come across,” Wilson said.  “It’s going to be personal.”

“It’s already personal,” Nick growled.  “The guy had me killed.”

“Enough,” Hill said.  “Fury, do not do this.  Do not take this girl with you.”

“Well, it’s not my decision,” Nick said.  “I am not the one giving orders anymore.”

The room turned to Captain America.

It was weird sharing a space with him.  He was a superhero who was born a hundred years ago, and he was quiet and unhappy.  Brittany didn’t know why. Other than the whole Hydra thing, obviously.

Captain American sighed and then stood up tall.  “Hill’s right,” he said, and Brittany’s heart sank.  “We can’t take any unnecessary chances with this, with so many lives at stake.”

“...So that’s a no?” Brittany asked.

“That’s a no,” Captain America said.  “I’m sorry, Brittany. This can’t be about your family.  This is about saving lives.”

“I know that, I’m-”

-not stupid, she was going to say.  But she couldn’t say that anymore.  It was wrong, and everyone else knew it.

“I’m sorry, Brittany,” Captain America said again.  “That’s final.”

It definitely sounded final.

“I understand,” Brittany said.

Santana wouldn’t look at her.  It made Brittany feel bad. She wanted to see Santana’s face.

“Are you mad?” she asked.

Santana finally looked at her, and Brittany wished she didn’t see it after all.

“Yes,” Santana spat, and then stomped away, leaving Brittany in the cot room alone.

She sat down on the cot and stayed still, trying to calm her head down.  It still felt like she was spinning out of control. Santana, Dad, Nick, everything.

After a few minutes Natasha walked into the room, carrying a metal case.

“That’s what Hawkeye took from MIT,” Brittany said.

Natasha smiled a little.  “It was really important he got it, too.  I’m going to need it when I leave. But I have a few minutes, and I thought I might talk to you, if you’ll have me.”

She had said not an hour ago that she might have to kill her father.  But Brittany felt safe around Natasha. It didn’t make sense, but nothing had made sense in a long time, not since Dad had kidnapped Santana.  Maybe not since Dad told her he wanted her at MIT.

“Okay.”

Natasha slowly sat down on the cot across from Brittany, putting the case on the floor.  “I know this is hard for you,” she said. “But I wanted to ask how you are feeling after being away from Project Numeral.”

Brittany had thought Natasha was going to ask about Dad, not about the numbers.  It was hard to answer because she wasn’t sure how she was feeling. Natasha waited while Brittany tried to figure it out.  “I’m tired,” she said finally. “My body feels wrong. But everything does right now.”

Natasha nodded, slowly.  “You only broke free of the programming this morning.  Your body is still trying to find its baseline again.”

“When I was a Numeral before, it took a little bit to feel better,” Brittany said.  “Will it be like that again?”

Natasha quirked her mouth a little, like she was sharing a joke with herself.  “Probably,” she said.

“And dancing will help, like it did underground?”

Natasha leaned forward a little.  “If dancing helps, you should dance,” she said, like it was the most important thing she could say.  Then she added, “Also, I would suggest trying to find a doctor to do some scans of your brain, and Santana’s.  Just to make sure there’s no damage.”

“Okay,” Brittany said.  She wasn’t sure where she would find a doctor for that, though.

Natasha fell quiet for a little bit.  Brittany wondered if they were going to talk about killing Dad again, but instead Natasha just said, “I’m glad Clint was able to save you.  You know, he saved me, too.”

“He did?”

Natasha shrugged one shoulder, the one that didn’t have the bandages.  “It’s what he does. He saves people.”

“That’s what you do, too,” Brittany pointed out.  “You’re both superheroes.”

Natasha stared at her for a long moment.  For the first time, Brittany realized that Natasha was actually shorter than her.

“Thank you,” Natasha said softly.  “But I should get going.”

Brittany watched Natasha stand up and collect the case, realizing she might not see her again.  She could kill Dad, but she could also die herself, trying to make things right.

How was she supposed to say goodbye?

“Good luck, Natasha,” Brittany said.

Natasha smiled.  “Good luck,” she returned, and left the room.

But her words of ‘if dancing helps, you should dance’ stayed with Brittany, so she stood up off the cot.  She didn’t need to hear the song, she could feel it.

I’m out of time and all I got are four minutes
four minutes, ey

The Cheerios did this routine with Kurt and Mercedes.  It was years ago but the movements were still a part of her.  And what she couldn’t remember, she made up on her own.

She might never see Natasha again.  Or Kurt and Mercedes. Or Dad. There were so many people she might never see again.

So instead, she danced.

Time is waiting
We only got four minutes to save the world
No hesitating

She jumped, she spun, she twirled, desperately wishing for some clarity and understanding to come.

tick tock tick tock tick tock

She didn’t get it.  It felt like it had been so long since she had the power to change anything.

But she could dance anyway.

But if I die tonight, at least I can say I did what I wanted to do
Tell me, how ‘bout you?

October 14
12:21 a.m.

Unsurprisingly, considering the events of the day, Santana’s sleep schedule had been shot to fuck.  She was exhausted but wide awake.

She had a feeling she wasn’t the only one.  Fury was back in his hospital bed, and Natasha Romanoff had already left, but everyone else was in the room of cots.  And it was like a village of people constantly shifting under their sheets. Less than nine hours before Insight was scheduled to launch, less than six hours before the team left for the showdown.

Pretty much everyone had seen Santana stalking the halls of the cave alone, crying, trying to work off her anger at Brittany and this whole damn situation.  She was tired of being trapped and tired of worrying and tired of having no control.

It wasn’t Brittany’s fault her father was the scum of the earth, that she wanted to talk to him one last time before he got killed.  And it wasn’t her fault that Santana couldn’t stop worrying about her.

She just wished they could go back in time to Hawaii.

Santana had wound up sitting by Hill at the conference table.  Santana furiously wiped her eyes, and Hill kept typing on her laptops, trying to prepare or something.  They didn’t say a word to each other for over an hour, until Santana finally stood up to leave.

“I’m sorry,” Hill had told her.

The show of sympathy made Santana angry, for reasons she didn’t quite understand.  But she swallowed the rage and said, “Thank you.”

Hill was the only one sleeping near Santana and Brittany’s cot.  She kept rolling from side to side, trying to get comfortable. Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, and the doctor were all on the other side of the room.  Santana wondered if it was force of habit, separating by girls and guys, or if they all did it on purpose to help make her and Brittany feel more safe.

Santana barely cared.  She had the tote bag, with the ICER stolen from MIT, right under the bed, and she wasn’t worried about superheroes attacking her.  And Brittany was so distracted she probably didn’t even notice the sleeping arrangements.

When Santana had finally returned to the cot room after her hours-long retreat, Brittany was dancing to herself.  “I’m sorry,” Santana had told her, except she wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for.

Brittany had smiled at her sadly and said “okay”, not once stopping in her dancing.

It was hard for her, Santana knew.  She didn’t know how Brittany would be after her dad was dead.  Assuming the small team assembled here actually succeeded at stopping the end of the world tomorrow.

Beside her on the cot, Brittany whispered, “I can’t sleep either.”  It wasn’t a very quiet whisper, and everyone else in the room probably all heard her.

Santana turned onto her side so she could face Brittany.  Her face was just barely visible in the dark, standing out against the black SHIELD sweats they had both claimed as pajamas.

“It’s going to be okay, Brittany,” Santana told her.

Brittany huddled into the lumpy pillow and said, “I miss my cats.”

Santana had never wanted to see those fat freaks of nature more than she did at that moment.  “Yeah, me too. I’m sure your mom and your sister are taking good care of them.” Brittany didn’t respond, so she added, “When we get home, we’ll hug them forever.”

“Okay.”  Brittany closed her eyes.  “Okay.”

5:23 a.m.

For all the suspense of what lay before them, the cave was quiet.  Nobody talked as they got ready. Hill reloaded guns, Wilson did tune-ups on his flying jet pack, Nick Fury slowly put on a long black trench coat the best he could with one arm in a sling.

Santana had to admit, she was jealous of the trench coat.  It was fucking cool.

Steve Rogers had disappeared somewhere.  Santana decided it was none of her business; she was not going to get in the way of Captain America before he tried to destroy the organization he kinda-died to destroy decades ago.

It was a joke.  Hydra, Insight, the entire damn thing, it was all a fucking joke.

Santana and Brittany were helping Doctor Fine make breakfast.  Sam Wilson was the first to come to the designated kitchen area.  “Thanks,” he said, picking up a plate.

“Have you heard from Romanoff?” Fine asked him.

“Fury says she’s in position,” Wilson said.  “I have no idea how they’re communicating, but I’ve learned not to ask.”

“You met them yesterday,” Fine pointed out.

“I’m a quick learner,” Wilson replied dryly.  “And technically I met Natasha when I met Steve.  Of course, that was four days ago.”

Santana stared at him.  “You met him four days ago?”

“Four or five,” Wilson said around a bite of bread.

“And now you’re helping him take down supervillains.”

He paused.  “Yeah, it happened pretty quick.”

Santana couldn’t stop staring at him, and considered telling him just how crazy that was.  But Wilson seemed to notice her incredulousness; he took a drink of water and then talked to her directly.

“I don’t believe in waiting,” he said.  “Not when you’re sure of something. When you know in your gut that something is right or wrong, that someone is a person worth standing beside, you do it.”

Santana looked at Brittany, who was watching Doctor Fine fiddle with the small fire he had managed to get working.  The first day Santana and Brittany met, Santana had thought she was weird and probably crazy. Less than a week later they had been linking pinkies around the camp.

“I get that,” Santana said.

When it came time to say goodbye, Brittany found she didn’t have much to say.  Hill nodded at Nick and promised to see him soon. Captain America and Wilson thanked Fine.  All three of them looked at Brittany and Santana and wished them well.

Brittany looked at them, these three heroes who could shoot and run and fight and fly, and felt really small.

She settled on the words she had said to Natasha.  “Good luck.”

“Good luck,” Santana said, too.

Captain America, the quiet and strong and sad man, smiled for the first time Brittany had ever seen.  “Good luck,” he repeated.

And then they left.

Brittany grasped Santana’s hand, and Santana grasped back.  They wished together.

Triskelion
Ground Floor
6:39 a.m.

"And how was your flight?" Alex asked.

"Lovely,” Hawley replied, not looking at him.  “The ride from the airport, less so."

The best descriptor Alex had for Hawley was ‘sharp’.  She was a force to be reckoned with; smart, determined, focused on results.  She didn’t care for frivolous words or feel-good ideals. Hawley, like Alex, was concerned with action .  He was confident she’d stand by him.

Alex couldn’t guarantee the rest of the Council walking with them.  Yen was so quiet it was hard to get a read on him sometimes. Singh was overly concerned with details, and might get stuck on an unimportant one.  And Rockwell could go either way; he was also focused on the important things, but he didn’t care much for Alex.

For instance, he seemed to think it was Alex’s fault Captain Rogers was still on the run.

Alex was prepared.  He handed them their biometric bombs; if necessary, he could kill them in seconds.  The asset was on standby, ready for the inevitable arrival of Captain America and whoever else was on his side.  He had agents and plans and backup plans. He wouldn’t let this moment go to waste.

His one regret was that Project Numeral wasn’t ready yet.  He had dreamt of Insight for years; he had been dreaming of his daughter fully becoming part of the world for just about as long.  Alex had wanted Brittany standing beside him when he finally changed things for the better.

But, Alex knew, he couldn’t get everything he wanted.  Sacrifices had to be made. And once Numeral was ready, Brittany would be whole.  She would be normal, and when she wasn’t normal, she would be extraordinary.   Brittany would work with him to keep the world safe from harm.  She would finally be celebrated and accomplished.

And Alex would finally have the daughter he deserved.

Agents led the Council members to the elevator.  It was time to start a new world.

Tidewater Lock
7:00 a.m.

After everyone had left, Brittany and Santana had followed Nick to the conference table.  And they waited.

Doctor Fine disappeared for a while, getting Nick’s helicopter ready.  He and Nick talked for a little bit when he came back in the cave, but they were both quiet now.  Fine was writing things down, Brittany didn’t know what.

Nick Fury sat, watching his badge.  It was a SHIELD badge, but it had numbers popping up sometimes.  Nick said it was how Natasha was communicating with him. He had explained to Brittany how it worked, but she had already forgotten.  He also had a communication unit in his ear, so he could hear how things were going with Captain America’s team. There were others in the helicopter, Fine said, for Natasha after she broke her cover.

Once again, Brittany and Santana were out of place.  Santana couldn’t decide what she wanted to do; she sat down at the table, got back up, paced, sat on the table, paced more, experimented with folding and unfolding the towel they had brought with them from MIT.  Brittany danced in a corner a little bit, but mostly she watched everyone else and waited for Nick’s updates.

He had been updating them all morning.  Natasha was securely undercover; she had arrived at the Skeleton (“Triskelion”, Nick had corrected); Captain America’s team had arrived; the team had sent up the alarm.

Now, Nick spoke loudly and clearly: “They bypassed the launch sequence.”

They had said this would probably happen.  It meant that 9 a.m. wasn’t the deadline anymore.  Now people would start dying once the helicarriers were booted up, unless Captain America could stop them.

“Race against the clock,” Fine said, frowning.  He looked at Nick. “And you need to be ready.”

Nick slowly stood up.  “I want to be starting the helicopter the second Romanoff’s signal comes through.”

Fine nodded, also standing up.  “Brittany, Santana, do you want to come see Fury off?”

Santana narrowed her eyes from her place on top of the table.  “I thought we were supposed to stay inside the cave.”

“If someone sees us, you are the least of our problems,” Nick replied.  “Come on, come see the sun.”

It sounded nice.  Brittany and Santana looked at each other, nodded, and stood up together.  But Santana took the sleep gun from the tote bag. “Just in case,” Santana told her.  

“Brittany, a word?”

Brittany forced herself to stop looking around her (a partly cloudy sky, green leaves changing their color, a few birds flying by) and let go of Santana’s hand, the one that wasn’t holding the sleep gun.  Fine fell back from Nick’s side and went to Santana. Brittany jogged ahead to walk with Nick.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“See, that was the question I wanted to ask you,” Nick said.

Brittany didn’t know why he was asking; she wasn’t the one going into the fight.  “I’m okay. I’m safe. Right?”

“You are,” Nick confirmed.  “But there are things that are more important than being safe.”

It felt like...he was calling her out, or something.  Like he was talking about wanting to go with him.

“I’ve been thinking about your dad a lot,” Nick said, and yeah, he was talking about her wanting to come with.  “I really thought I knew him. I considered him a friend.”

“You knew him for a long time,” Brittany said.

“I did, but I didn’t know who he really was.”  He sounded guilty.

“It’s okay.  I lived with him.  He’s my dad. But I didn’t really know him either.”

Nick looked at her, somber and serious.  “Brittany, do you believe in closure?”

“...You mean, like, closing doors?”

“Emotional closure,” Nick said.  “Doing something so you’ll be okay with the things that have happened to you.”

“Oh.”  Brittany tried to imagine being okay with being a Numeral; it seemed unthinkable.  “I don’t know.”

“I don’t.”  Nick’s words were like a declaration.  “People can spend their whole lives looking for it and they always fail.  I don’t believe in closure. But I do believe in regrets.”

He held out his hand to her, and for the first time Brittany noticed he was carrying his badge.  She took it from his hand and saw the new number that had appeared.

“One,” Brittany read.

“It means that all the members of the Council other than your father are on Romanoff’s side.  The only enemy is him.”

“That’s good, right?”

“It means that your father is secure as he can be, and the Council room is as safe as it can be,” Nick told her, staring her right in the face.  “It means I’m willing to take you with.”

Brittany’s mouth fell open, and she took a sharp breath in.

“But Captain America-”

“Rogers is doing his job taking down the helicarriers,” Nick said.  “He’s a good man with a good heart. But he doesn’t have the information I have.”

They were at the clearing, the helicopter standing in wait.  Nick stopped and turned to her, and put his one operating hand on her shoulder.

“I want your father to surrender,” he said.  “Not because I think he deserves to live, but because I need to know what he knows.  And I believe taking you with might help sway him.”

Brittany figured she should tell him she had lied when she said that, but she couldn’t find her voice.  She could just barely see the outlines of Santana and Fine at the side, watching and listening to every word Nick was saying.

“You would be walking into a war zone.  You would be putting your life in danger, and Romanoff and I might not be able to save you.  You could die, painfully. In a heartbeat.

“Or you could stay here.  You would be safe, you would be free from harm, and you might never see your father again.  I know what I would choose for you; you would stay with the doctor and your girlfriend who loves you.

“But this is your choice, not mine.  And I know, more than some people might expect, that there are more important things than safety.  If seeing your father for what may be the last time means more than your safety, you may come. If being in that room means more than death, more than the next seventy years of your life, you can get on this helicopter with me and come with.”

Nick let go of her shoulder and took back his badge.  He held it up so they could both see it. Another number had appeared: 0.

“You have ten seconds to decide.”

He turned and entered the helicopter, starting it up.

Brittany’s mind and heart raced, and yet, she had already decided.

She turned to Santana, who was walking towards her, panic in her face, saying a lot of words.

“I’ll come back,” Brittany said.  “I promise.”

She grabbed the sleep gun from Santana’s hand, turned away and jumped into the helicopter, already spinning its rotor.

She shut her eyes.  She couldn’t hear Santana over the sounds of wind.

The helicopter left the ground.

Brittany was going to see her dad.

Fine had to pull Santana back to the cave.

Santana had screamed and shouted at the disappearing helicopter.  They were supposed to be in hiding, and she was supposed to not draw attention.  But her voice escaped from her.

Fine had gently but firmly took her by the wrist, and Santana tried to fight, but she was tired and her heart was on a helicopter, so she stopped eventually.  Fine pulled and Santana followed him.

When they arrived back at the cave, Santana barely took two steps into the dark hallway before collapsing on the ground, her sobs finally overcoming her.

Brittany’s dad had wanted to keep her alive.  Santana held on to that. Even if the entire world came crashing down, if he won, maybe Brittany would still be alive.

Maybe Brittany would get caught in the crossfire anyway.

There wasn’t anything to do.

Fine disappeared down the hall.  Santana didn't move. She clutched at her chest and sobbed, and sobbed.

Christ, and a few months ago she shamed Rachel Berry for having chin hair.

Brittany was pretty sure they were in the same helicopter Hawkeye had driven to bring them away from MIT.  But she hadn’t been in very many helicopters, maybe they all looked the same.

“Don’t come into the room at the same time I do,” Nick told her.  He had given her one of the ear communication things, and they were wearing headphones that were hooked up to the communication things.  But Nick still had to talk loudly so she could hear him over the rotor. He didn’t look at her, he was too concentrated on flying. Brittany hadn’t known you could drive a helicopter with only one eye, but Nick was a superhero and could do a lot of things.

“Okay,” Brittany said.  “Why not?”

“Emotional and mental impact,” Nick told her.

“Okay,” Brittany said.  She was going to listen to whatever Nick said, even if she didn’t quite understand it.  He knew what he was doing. Nick was going to fix this.

And Brittany would get to see Dad.  She had a question for him.

Dad had told her, more than once, that she asked too many questions.  But she had one more.

Alex had made the mistake of putting down his phone.

Romanoff, the Black Widow herself, had barely looked at him as she started hacking away at SHIELD’s entire mainframe.  He had tried to get her to see reason, even tried to convince her by fear, but she wouldn’t budge.

The Algorithm hadn’t classified her as a threat.

Alex hadn’t expected her.  He did not expect the three other Council members to also be united against him.  Rockwell cursed him, Singh defied him, Yin kept silent with a gun pointed at Alex’s head.  If he made a jump toward his phone, Yin would shoot him.

Alex had made the mistake of putting his phone down, but at least Romanoff had made the mistake of thinking she could dump all the files onto the net by herself.  “Disabling the encryption,” Alex said, “is an executive order, it takes two Alpha level members.”

But Romanoff didn’t look phased in the slightest at the information, or that Alex had clearly not brought up this fact earlier in an effort to buy time.  She looked at him blankly. “Don’t worry, company’s coming.”

It was then that they heard the sound of a chopper.

It seemed there were a lot of things Alex hadn’t expected.

“Did you get my flowers?”

It was the first time Brittany had heard her father’s voice in months.  And it was a bad joke.

Brittany crouched in the helicopter and listened to every single word Dad and Nick said to each other.  She didn’t know when she was supposed to come in. Maybe Nick would tell her. Maybe she had to decide on her own.

“So why make me head of SHIELD?” Nick asked him.

“Because you were the best, and the most ruthless person I ever met,” Dad said.

A ball of anger rose up in her.  ‘Ruthless’ sounded like an insult coming out of Dad’s mouth.

“I did what I did to protect people.”  Brittany nodded along to Nick’s low voice.

Sometimes it wasn’t easy to know who was right and who was wrong.  But sometimes it was. Brittany thought back to her time at Numeral, and wondered how she had ever thought Dad might have been a good guy for doing these things.

But Dad kept talking.  He always talked, on and on.  Dad had never understood quiet.

“Diplomacy?  A holding action, Nick, a band-aid.  And you know where I learned that? Bogotá.  You didn't ask, you just did what had to be done."

There wasn’t a choice to be made.  Brittany took off the headphones and the earpiece.  She grabbed the sleep gun. She jumped out of the helicopter.

"I can bring order to the lives of seven billion people by sacrificing twenty million.  It's the next step, Nick, if you have the courage to take it."

Alex hadn’t expected to change Nick Fury’s mind.  Nick was as stubborn as a tree. He looked Alex right in the eye and said, “No, I have the courage not to.”

And then came the voice he least expected to hear today.

“Nick’s just braver than you, Dad.”

Dad stared at her, wide-eyed.  Brittany couldn’t remember seeing him so shocked before.

“Brittany, what are you doing here?”

Dad wasn’t the only one staring at her.  Nick wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at Dad, but everyone else had their eye on Brittany.  The three men, the Council guys, didn’t move, they just looked really confused and surprised.

Natasha didn’t look surprised at all.  She stood at the screens and watched her, curious.

“I came with Nick,” Brittany said to Dad.

Her heart was beating fast.  She could hear the sounds of guns in the distance.  She clenched the sleep gun.

Dad shifted, no longer looking surprised, but looking angry.  “Now I see why I haven’t gotten an update from Numeral.” He sounded calm, but Dad rarely raised his voice and shouted and yelled.  Even when he was angry, he was steady.

Except when she had told him about the alien invasion.

Dad took a few steps toward her.  One of the Council men kept a gun raised at Dad’s body.  “Tell me,” he said, “when did you get out?”

“No,” Brittany said.  “I have a question for you.”

Dad stopped, raised his eyebrows just a little bit.  “Okay, then ask,” he said, like everything was fine, like they were just at home trying to decide what to have for breakfast.

Everything was not fine.

“When did you know I was stupid?”

Everyone kept looking at her.

“Brittany?”

“When did you know I was stupid?” Brittany asked again.  “That I was a threat. That I was wrong.”

Dad considered her for a long time.  Then he said, “Your mother knew in January.”

It didn’t answer her question, but Brittany was glad for the information.  She wanted to know. She wanted no more secrets.

“I thought she was mistaken,” Dad continued.  “So I got you into MIT. I changed your SAT scores, contacted my colleagues, set up the meeting.  I knew...well, I thought I knew what you were capable of.  It turns out I was mistaken.”

He shook his head.  It felt like he was acting.

“After you left MIT, the scientists told me you were not a worker.  You had been their canvas. You were not the artist, you were the art .”

Something about the words made Brittany flinch.

“That was in June,” Dad said.  “That was when I knew you had to become a Numeral again.”

“June,” Brittany repeated.  She remembered her birthday, and how Dad wouldn’t stop arguing about going back to MIT until Mom told him to stop.  How he wouldn’t smile. “You knew at my birthday I was wrong.” Her breath shook. “And then you sent me back.”

“Brittany, you don’t understand.”

Her one fist clenched, the other one tightened around the sleep gun.  She was really tired of hearing that.

“Zola is not the only one who sees you as a threat,” Dad said.  “The entire world sees you as worthless. You know what happens to mentally challenged adults?”

Brittany felt like she had been punched in the stomach.

“They get put away.  Out of sight, out of mind, in prisons or institutions or workshops, and I was not about to let that happen to you.  I did this for you, Brittany.  I made you a Numeral so you could be better.  I was helping you, fixing you, protecting you.  I was doing my job as a father.”

She knew he was wrong, and bad, but there was a little part of her that was trying to agree with him.  Brittany closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to shake the thought out of her.

She looked out the windows at the helicarriers.

“If I wasn’t your daughter, you would have killed me.”

Brittany looked back at her Dad, and for a second no one else existed.

“How many other people like me were you going to kill today?” she asked.

Dad stared at her as if he had never even thought about it before.  For the first time, he didn’t have an answer to Brittany’s question.

“You’re a bad father,” Brittany declared.

Dad looked hurt.  Good. “Brittany-”

“You hurt me,” Brittany said.  “You kidnapped Santana, you. You spent all that time away from me and Mom and Clara, because you were trying to kill people.”

“Now, Brittany, enough-” 

“You hurt me!” she shouted.  “You put the numbers in my brain!  You would have killed me!”

“Stop,” Dad barked at her, but Brittany wouldn’t back down, because-

“It’s not just me.  You would have killed Finn, wouldn't you.  If he was still alive, and the numbers told you to kill him, you would have.  You would have killed Santana, and Mr. Schue, and Artie and Sam and Becky and Mercedes and everyone, anyone who wasn't good enough for you.”

“You are out of line,” Dad said, his brow furrowed, his face mean.  “I’m not doing this to hurt you, I am taking the necessary steps to make a better world.  Sacrifices have to be made-”

“No!” she shouted, every eye in the room on her.  The World Security Council and Dad and Nick and Natasha, every single one of them was looking at her.  “My entire life, people have told me I was stupid. I know what I am. You did, too. But you didn’t want to see it.”

She felt so angry and heartbroken.  It built and built inside her and Brittany knew she couldn’t stop it.  That was fine; she didn’t want it to stop.

“You didn’t care who I was.  You just wanted me to be someone else.  You wanted the numbers in my head instead of me.”

“Don’t twist my actions!  Is this what Nick-”

“NO!”

Her voice was static and overload.  She was not about to let Dad be mean to Nick, not when he saved her from him.  She would shout and keep shouting if she had to.

“I’m not a genius.  I’m not even smart. I’m stupid.  I’m stupid, and I’m Brittany, and I’m here to stop you.”

Natasha walked around to Dad, raising a gun at him.  Brittany raised the sleep gun at him, too.

“Do it, Dad,” she said.

He hadn’t expected Brittany.  He hadn’t expected his daughter, standing there in blue jeans and a black SHIELD sweatshirt and the angriest eyes he had ever seen her wear, pointing an ICER at him.

He hadn’t expected what was behind Nick’s eyepatch.

He hadn’t expected any of this.

But Alex wasn’t defeated yet.

The file transfer began, and the security alerts of the Triskelion started to kick on.  The emergency evacuation call sent up, but Alex knew the Hydra agents wouldn’t leave. Rumlow, the STRIKE team, the asset, everyone loyal to Hydra would stay and fight, taking down whoever was in their way.  He could count on that.

And he could also count on the distractedness of humanity.

Yin’s gun lowered, slowly, from inattention.  He and everyone else, including his daughter, had their eyes on the screen.  They watched as the file transfer continued.

Alex slowly, slowly made his way to the table.  No one noticed him picking his phone back up.

“Done.  And it’s trending.”

Natasha’s brain was already in action again.  They had dumped the files; half the job was over.  But the helicarriers were still in the air. The three Councilmen could hold Pierce, but Natasha knew more Hydra agents might come to the Council room.  She would stay here and keep guard of Pierce, made sure he didn’t escape. Nick could provide air support, and then he’d-

Her thoughts were abruptly cut off by Singh’s chest exploding.

In seconds all three of the Council members had fallen to the floor, Brittany had screamed, and both Nick and Natasha had guns pointed at Pierce.

He had his thumb barely above his phone.

“Unless you want a two-inch hole in your sternum, I'd put that gun down."

Natasha connected the dots; biometrics, technology, back-up plans, the bomb that was pinned to Hawley’s jacket that she was wearing.  The body’s involuntary reactions to getting shot.

"That was armed the moment you pinned it on."  He sounded smug.

Nick was looking at her, apology in his eyes, as he lowered his gun.

Natasha did not allow herself to think about it.  She put her gun down.

The tables had flipped in an instant, because she had let down her guard.  Now there were three Councilmen dead at their feet, the smell of burning flesh starting to hit her nose.  Pierce was smart; keeping her hostage was more useful than killing her. If Steve failed, Natasha and Nick would be dead anyway.  If Steve succeeded, Pierce still had a bargaining chip.

“Brittany, come here,” Pierce said.

Brittany.  The barely-grown woman who had suffered the worst type of betrayal.  She had escaped only to be trapped again.

She stepped forward on command, looking between Natasha, Nick, and Pierce with an increasingly panicked expression.  Natasha had only been a little surprised Nick had brought her with. Nick believed in choices. But she had expected him to leave her at the cave, in case a situation like this arose.

“Let Natasha go,” Brittany said.

It had been a long time since a girl had asked for Natasha’s life.

Pierce didn’t answer her.  Instead he took the ICER out of Brittany’s hands.  He took Nick and Natasha’s guns and put them on the other side of the room.

“So,” he said, walking back up to them.  He held his phone back up, his finger just off the trigger.  “How exactly were you planning on stopping the helicarriers.”

“Targeting chip replacement,” Nick said.

Pierce just smiled.  “You must have had those manufactured months ago.  You’ve been having doubts about Project Insight for a long time, even before you heard the Hydra name.”

Brittany’s scared breathing was loud against Nick’s silence.

“But you haven’t succeeded, not yet,” Pierce continued.  “How many targeting chips have you succeeded in replacing?  No, don’t bother, I can find out on my own.”

He put his hand on Brittany’s arm, who hunched her shoulders, distress outlining her body.

Natasha had to find a way out.

Dad dragged her over to the large screen, and started typing things in.  At the same he used his phone, on the speaker setting, to talk to other bad men.

“Steady increase in elevation,” said a man on the other side of the line.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Dad said.

“You need to stop,” Brittany said.

Dad didn’t even look at her.  But Brittany had promised to try and get him to surrender.  There were already dead people on the other side of the room.

“Dad, what you’re doing is wrong.”

Dad turned his narrowed eyes on her.  “Brittany, you’ve had your say. Be quiet.”

“Mom and Clara-”

“Are not here,” Dad said.  “And you need to get back to MIT, get your programming reinstalled.”

“Dad. ”

Brittany tried to find a scrap of decency in his face.  She couldn’t find it. It was-

This was the same person who had raised her.  He had tucked her into bed at night. He had helped her make buttons when she was running for president, he had hugged her after she won her first Nationals trophy with the Cheerios.  How was it, that now it felt like all those things were just gone?

“I’m disappointed in you, Brittany,” Dad said.

The hurt twisted inside her, so she just scowled.  “Well I’m disappointed in you, too.”

Dad’s face went blank, and he turned to his phone.  “Lieutenant, how much longer?”

“Sixty-five seconds to satellite link.”

“I hate you,” Brittany declared.

“Be quiet,” Alex snapped.

Nick turned his head to the right.  He could see Natasha planning, trying to get the upper hand back.  Nick’s own brain was buzzing, but he couldn’t think of anything, not without putting Natasha’s life on the line.

Nick wouldn’t sacrifice her just to kill Pierce.  Insight would launch whether Alex was alive or not.

Dammit, the helicarriers would reach elevation soon, where the hell was the team?

“I suspect you remember getting shot,” Alex said to Nick.  “My asset took you down. How well do you think Captain Rogers will stand up to him?”

“About as well as he did on the freeway,” Natasha replied.

Alex hummed.  “We’ll see.”

Nick waited.

“We are go to target,” Dad said, and Brittany stopped breathing.

She didn’t look at Dad, or the map on the screen.  She looked at Nick and Natasha, hoping, praying, feeling sick.

She waited.

And waited.

She didn’t breathe until a man’s voice came from the speaker.

“Where are the targets?  Where are the targets? "

The waves of red on the screen disappeared to three small dots.

Nick let out a breath.  They had done it.

Alex didn’t say anything.  He looked repeatedly between his phone, the screen, and the windows.

They all turned to watch when the first fires went off.  The faint sound of weapons and destruction reached through to Nick’s ears.

Whatever happened next, Insight was over.  That would be enough.

He saw Brittany close her eyes and slump in relief, and Natasha give herself just a small smile of victory.

Alex slowly walked toward the windows, and then stopped himself.

“What a waste.”

“So,” Natasha said, “you still on the fence about Rogers’s chances?”

Nick had a feeling it was less about needling the loser, and more about calling attention to herself.  In the corner of Nick’s eye he saw her fiddle with a piece of metal in her hand.

“They did it,” Brittany said.  “They stopped it, it’s over.”

Dad was still staring out the window, witnessing the ships fire on each other.

“Dad.”  He turned to her quickly, as if he had forgotten she was there.  “Dad, we won,” Brittany said. “You have to stop now.”

Dad took in a breath through his nose.  His face was very still.

“No, I don’t,” he said.

Backup plans, preparation, flexibility.

“You’re coming with me,” Alex told his daughter.  “And the Councilwoman here is going to fly us out.”

Brittany started to protest but he just held up his phone again, and Brittany shut her mouth.

They would go to Europe.  Strucker would help Hydra regroup, come back with a vengeance.  Alex would leave Brittany with one of the Projects, get her back on track.  He would pick up Deb and Clara. He would have his family and his world, even if not today.

Alex grabbed Brittany’s wrist and her face crumpled.  He couldn’t wait for her reprogramming. "Time to go.”

Brittany’s mind got caught on Santana’s face.  She had promised to come back to her. She was going to break that promise.

Alex pushed Natasha in front of them, keeping a steady grip on Brittany’s wrist in one hand, and his phone in the other.

"You know,” Nick said, still staring out the window at the ships, “there was a time I would've taken a bullet for you."

“You already did,” Dad shot back.  “You will again when it's useful."

And then the whole world changed in ten seconds.

Electricity shot through Natasha out of nowhere and she fell to the ground;

Brittany screamed, thinking she was dead, and broke out of Dad’s grip;

she dropped to the ground, panicking, hoping that Natasha was still alive;

and then she heard a gunshot.

Her entire body flinched and she whirled around to see Dad get hit by a second gunshot.  It pushed him through the glass and he fell onto the floor.

Nick lowered his gun.

Less than ten seconds.

Brittany stared, wide-eyed, unable to speak.

Nick came to the ground beside her, but he was looking at Natasha, saying her name.

Brittany stood.

Slowly, slowly, she walked across the broken glass.  Her father was frozen on the ground, two dark red spots blooming on his blue shirt.

“Dad?” Brittany asked.

He shook.  His eyes fluttered a little.  He said, “Hail Hydra.”

And then he stilled.

And didn’t move.

And didn’t move.

And didn’t move.

Brittany dropped to her knees by her father’s head.

“Dad?”

He didn’t move.

“Brittany.”

Nick was helping Natasha up.  Natasha wasn’t dead. Dad was.

“We need to go, Brittany,” Nick said.

Dad was dead.

Then Natasha was moving toward her.  She threw off her jacket, including the dangerous pin, and pulled Brittany to her feet.  “We need to go,” she said, and started pulling her away.

Brittany didn’t fight.  But she kept looking at her dad.  She stared at him and his lifeless body until they turned the corner and she couldn’t see him anymore.

Brittany remembered two things about the day Clara was born.

The first thing was holding her sister in her arms for the first time.  The baby’s skin felt unreal. Her face was small, her eyes were closed, and she smelled weird.  She was the most beautiful thing in the world.

The second thing was Dad driving her home from the hospital.  He said a lot of words about the baby, and how his father was sick and dying and would be gone soon, and how everyone was small when they came into the world.

“We have to protect what we have,” Dad said.

“Okay,” Brittany said, because it seemed like the right thing to say.

And Dad just beamed at her through the rear view mirror.

Brittany finally faced forward as she realized Dad would never smile at her again.

She followed Natasha and Nick outside.

Chapter Text

Lima, Ohio
October 14, 2013
8:22 a.m.

Deb hadn’t slept well last night, but that wasn’t surprising.  She hadn’t slept well in weeks.

Her desk phone was already ringing when she arrived at work.  She downed the coffee in her travel mug while arguing with UPS.  When she finally got off the phone, she went to the break room where there would hopefully be fresh coffee.

Instead, the break room was crowded, everyone looking at the television.  It was the same scene that had greeted her the morning of September 11th and when the aliens invaded Manhattan last year.

“What’s happening?” she blurted.

Lee, one of her friends, stepped over to her.  “Deb,” he said carefully, “there’s something wrong in D.C.”  Lee was one of the few people at the office who knew what Deb’s husband did for a living.

“Is-what-”

Deb stumbled over her words and looked at the screen.  There were guns and bombs going off. The headline screamed the words DESTRUCTION IN D.C.

“Nobody really knows what’s happening yet,” Lee told her, voice low.  “The reporter said something about a SHIELD intelligence leak.”

“Oh my god,” someone else in the room shouted suddenly, and Deb watched as a massive flying vehicle crashed into the Triskelion.

Washington, D.C.
Somewhere in the air
8:35 a.m.

“Shit.”

Brittany turned her head to Nick at the sound of his voice.  He was gritting his teeth and breathing hard.

“Nick?”

“I’m fine,” he said.  “The doctor was right, I shouldn’t be flying a helicopter.”

Nick had looked okay when they left the building.  He didn’t seem to have a problem flying the helicopter around the area, or twisting it around so they could save Wilson.

“Forty-first floor!” Wilson had shouted at them as Natasha helped drag him safely into the chopper.  Then he caught sight of Brittany and shouted “You brought her?!”

Natasha had just shouted to Hill about trying to find Captain America.

It had taken forever.  Hill kept looking at computer screens, Natasha kept repeating over and over that she needed a visual on Rogers, and Wilson stared around the destruction trying to find a flash of red and blue.

“THERE!” Wilson had shouted suddenly.  “At the bank, Cap spotted, get me down there-”

So Nick had flown the helicopter just low enough for Wilson and Natasha to get out.  Brittany watched them run to Captain America’s body and start emergency first aid as the chopper rose in the air again.

“Fury, Brittany, we already got the FBI on the premises, you should get out now,” Hill reported over the communication things.  So they flew away.

And now Nick was having trouble breathing.

“Nick,” Brittany started.

“It’s pain.  I did almost die a few days ago.”  Nick breathed hard and concentrated harder.  “I’ll be fine. Just gotta get back to the doctor.”

“I can help,” Brittany offered.

“You don’t know how to drive a helicopter,” Nick replied.

Oh, right.

“Just help me walk when we get back,” he said.  “I’ll be fine, promise.”

“Okay.”

Brittany looked at Nick for a little while longer, and then back at the destruction they were leaving behind.  Somewhere in that building was Dad’s body. Somewhere on the river bank Captain America was injured, maybe dying.  Maybe he was already dead.

Dad was dead.  It meant...Brittany didn’t know what it meant, exactly.

A funeral.  No more presents from him on Christmas.  Mom would probably stop buying Sprite, because Dad was the only one who drank it.

Dad wouldn’t hurt anyone anymore.  That was good.

Brittany didn’t have a dad anymore.

Was it better to have a bad father or none at all?

Tidewater Lock
9:05 a.m.

Brittany was alive, Santana told herself.  Brittany had to be alive.

Santana had torn apart the cave in search of... she wasn’t sure what she had been searching for, but she had found more blankets and comforters.  She had taken every single one she could carry and placed them all on the cot she and Brittany had claimed.

She had been hoping Doctor Fine would chastise her or something.  Give Santana an excuse to start screaming. But he hadn’t said anything; just sat on his own cot with a gun within arm’s reach.

Time passed slowly.

Santana hugged the tote bag to her body, and waited.

And waited.

And finally, they heard voices and footsteps echoing from the entrance.

Fine stood up immediately, grabbing the gun.  Santana scrambled out of the cot, her mind on only one person, but Fine held up his hand.  “I’m your guard,” he said. “You walk behind me.”

Santana wanted to argue with him but he immediately started down the hall, so she followed.  They walked way slower than she wanted, so they could keep quiet. They walked and Fine held his gun at the ready until they heard:

“Hello?  Doctor Fine, Santana-”

The voice jump-started Santana’s heart; she sprinted ahead of Fine and barrelled into the hall where Brittany was, Nick using her as a support, her ponytail coming out of its holder, her eyes wide-

“You bitch, you horrible mother-”

Brittany walked away from Nick and they collapsed into each other.

“I hate you,” Santana wailed.  Her eyes were exploding from the inside, she could just make out Fine stepping forward to support Nick through her tears.  “You bitch, I hate you, I fucking hate you-”

“I’m sorry,” Brittany whispered in her ear.

“How dare you, I will never ever forgive you for this-”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Fuck, I can’t-”

All the other words died before they left Santana’s mouth.  She desperately wanted to stop throwing a fit, but she was kept sounding like a goddamn ghost splitting apart at the seams.

But Brittany was alive.

“I’m fine,” Nick insisted as Fine and Brittany lowered him into the hospital bed.  His voice sounded a little hoarse. “And I swear, doctor, if you chime in with a goddamn dad joke here-”

“Seriously,” Fine said, “what happened?”  Santana handed over his medical supplies to him.

“I just put too much pressure on my body,” Nick said.

“He started breathing hard on the way back,” Brittany said.  “He was okay before then.”

“Then it probably was just too much exertion,” Fine said.  “But I’m checking you out anyway. What happened?”

“We did it,” Nick said, and Santana figured as much considering they were all still alive, but it was nice to hear.  “Insight’s gone. We leaked the files. Destroyed the helicarriers.”

“Dad’s dead.”

Brittany announced it freely, devoid of feeling or inflection.

Santana stared at her.  “Dead?”

Brittany looked back.  Her face looked almost blank.  “He killed the other Council people,” she said, like she was reading from a book.  “He was going to hurt Natasha. Nick shot him.”

“Twice,” Nick said.

“Good,” Santana said.

She regretted saying it the second the word was out of her mouth.  Even if Santana was happy, Brittany didn’t need to hear it. She still looked out of it, confused and uncertain and overwhelmed.

Santana changed the subject, trying not to concentrate on Brittany’s face, or the endless pit in her own stomach.  “What about everyone else?”

“Captain America’s hurt,” Brittany said.  “He might be dead. Or dying. Natasha hurt herself.”

“What?”

“Romanoff’s fine,” Nick said.  He already was sounding a little better, now that he was lying down again.  “So are Wilson and Hill. It’s just Rogers we don’t know about.”

Fine was frowning as he looked Nick over.  “And Brittany, you weren’t injured.”

“No.  The glass didn’t hurt me.”

Santana didn’t know what Brittany meant by that.  She collapsed onto the nearby chair. She felt like she needed an oxygen mask.  Alternatively, a goddamn drink.

Nick took deep, steady breaths as Fine muttered about pressure on his collarbone.  Brittany sat down on the foot of Nick’s bed and looked at the wall.

“Brittany?” Santana said softly.

Brittany closed her eyes.  “It’s okay. Parents should die first.”

Whatever that meant.

Lima, Ohio
Shawnee Middle School
10:41 a.m.

They had pulled Clara out of gym, which was her favorite part of the school day, so she was really annoyed.  Then she walked into the administrative office and saw Mom there, looking like death.

Clara’s brain went into overdrive.  Brittany’s body had been found in Europe, or the house had burnt down, or Grandma had died in her sleep, or-

“Oh god,” Clara said, “what happened?”

Mom sat up from the chair and wrapped her in her arms.  “We’re going home.”

“Mom, what happened?”

She didn’t answer until she had pulled Clara out into the hallway.  No one was around. Mom put her arms on Clara’s shoulders, took a deep breath, and said, “Clara.  Honey, your father’s gone.”

Clara stared.

“Dad’s.  Dead?”

Mom nodded and started crying.

Washington, D.C.
Tidewater Lock
12:56 p.m.

“Do you have booze here?” Santana asked.

Doctor Fine raised an eyebrow.  “You want to drink alcohol with your soup?”

“No, I want to add alcohol to my soup.”

Fine sighed and shook his head.  “We don’t have alcohol.”

What a bummer.

They carried the soup back out to the hospital bed.  Nick woke up as they returned. Both he and Brittany, sitting at his bedside, took their bowls and starting eating immediately.

“Have we heard from Hill?” Nick asked.

“Not yet,” Fine said.

They all fell silent and listened to the radio Fine had hooked up.  People were already digging up information from the files Natasha had blasted out into the world.  The news talked about Hydra inside the government, Project Insight, and the now-dead Alexander Pierce at the center of it all.

Santana kept looking over to Brittany, but Brittany wasn’t reacting.  At least, not on the outside.

And then Nick’s ear piece went off.  Fine immediately jumped up and handed it to Nick before turning down the radio.  Nick fiddled with the ear pierce before answering. “Here.”

“Fury, you still kicking?” came Hill’s voice, loud and clear, like she was on speaker phone or something.

“Somehow,” Nick answered.  “Rogers?”

“He’s going to be okay,” Hill said, and everyone in the cave let loose a breath.  “Multiple bullet wounds and some head trauma. It’ll take a few days to heal, but he’s a super soldier, he’ll make it.  Sir, I don’t have much time, but I have a few updates.”

“Go for it.”

“The so-called Winter Soldier is MIA.  War Machine is protecting the President, and we have guys he trusts on Capitol Hill.  I’m not sure how many SHIELD stations are safe, but your good eye has control of the Hub.”

“Good eye?” Santana asked.

“Good man,” Nick said.  He looked a little relieved.  “Glad he’s alive. And in charge.”

“Not for long,” Hill replied.  “FBI, CIA, and military are getting ready to take control of all property and personnel, whether they’re SHIELD or Hydra.  Multiple arrests and raids are happening as we speak. And they’re about to hit MIT.”

Santana and Brittany both started.  “MIT?” Santana asked, standing up.

“I’ve got a couple people I moderately trust on that mission.  I’m going to do everything I can to keep Brittany and Santana’s involvement a secret.  I’ll update you tonight. For now I have a check-in with the President, and then a job interview with Pepper Potts.”

Nick took a moment to sigh.  “I’ll be waiting.”

“Don’t die, sir,” Hill said.  She immediately hung up.

Warm and fuzzy, Santana thought sarcastically as she sat back down.  It wasn’t a negative thought; Santana really liked Hill. She was strong and hadn’t tried to bullshit her.  But Santana was sure the woman was about to keel over of a heart attack at any second. Nick Fury’s job was done, but Hill was left trying to make sense of the aftermath.

“Captain America’s going to be okay?” Brittany asked.  Her voice still sounded a little flat.

“Yeah,” Nick said.  “He’ll be fine.”

Fine stirred a little more salt into his remaining soup.  Nick went silent, probably thinking about the catastro-fuck of spy/military shenanigans happening.  And Brittany wasn’t going to really talk for at least a few more hours, probably. Maybe days, maybe months.

So Santana turned the radio back up.  They were talking about Steve Rogers, and no one knew what condition he was in yet.  Clearly these people didn’t have access to Hill. The news went on to mention that the President would be making a short address in the next hour, that overseas military had been warned, that the Capitol Building had been emptied for safety.

All of a sudden, Santana remembered that Mr. Hummel was a Congressman.  Hill had seemed convinced Capitol Hill was safe, though, so that was good.  It was amazing how many people there were to worry about. How many people Insight would have knocked off.

One Hydra-affiliated senator had been arrested, the news announced.  “Rot in prison, douchebag,” Santana said. Fine chuckled, Nick snorted, and amazingly enough, Brittany’s mouth twitched into a little smile.

4:15 p.m.

Santana wanted to be angry.  She wanted to rage and scream and tear apart this entire cave with her bare hands.  But she wasn’t angry.

She wondered if maybe it was Project Numeral’s fault.  The programming was supposed to be gone, but maybe the part of her brain that made emotions was still recovering.

Except that didn’t make sense, because she had been furious last night when Brittany wanted to go.  The second Brittany did go, the anger had vanished.  It had all been replaced with fear.

And the fear wasn’t gone even though Brittany was back, alive and as well as she could be after watching her genocidal father be killed in front of her.  The fear had stuck to Santana’s skin, to the back of her throat, and wouldn’t go away.

At random times throughout the day, she continued to cry.

Santana splashed water on her face, and accepted the towel from Brittany when she handed it over.

“I’m sorry,” Brittany whispered.  “I had to.”

Sorry didn’t change anything, and Brittany didn’t have to.  Apparently her presence hadn’t done anything; her piece of shit father didn’t surrender, and the outcome would have been the same.  They had won.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Brittany asked.

There was no anger, no sadness, just pure exhaustion.  From both of them.

“What the fuck, Brittany,” Santana said blankly.  “No, I’m not breaking up with you.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to be with me.”  Brittany looked at the wall. “Not anymore.”

“I told you I love you,” Santana said.

“I know you do.  But you still might not want to be with me.  I left. My dad kidnapped you. You’re only hurt because of me.”

Tears sprung back to Santana’s eyes like a plague.  She hadn’t cried like this since Finn. What a horrible year 2013 was shaping up to be.

Santana grabbed Brittany’s hand.

“Brittany, you’re stuck with me.”  Her voice rattled out of her throat.  “I’m always going to want to be with you.”

Brittany’s face finally, finally lost its blankness.  It crumbled as she started to cry.

“I want you too,” she said hoarsely.  “Always.”

Santana squeezed Brittany’s body.  “Everything hurts right now, but it won’t forever,” she managed to say.  “We’ll get home. We’ll hug your cats. And we’ll be together.”

“Okay,” Brittany cried against Santana’s shoulder.  “Okay, cool.”

6:58 p.m.

“There’s good news,” Hill reported over the comm line.

“You’re employed?” Nick asked dryly.

“Project Numeral was dismantled at all eight campuses.  All remaining captives are now free. And none of them, including Brittany and Santana, have their names publicly known.”  Hill paused. “And yes, I’m employed.”

“What do you mean, not publicly known?” Santana asked.

“For starters, none of the Numeral files were connected to the SHIELD database,” Hill explained.  “They were all on private servers. And through most of the files, people are only referred to by codes: 337.2 for Brittany, 337.9 for Santana.  The only files that referred to you by name were the subject sheets, and I’ve already destroyed them all.”

“Why?” Brittany asked.

“So no one would track you or any of the other Numerals down, and try to re-implement the program.  Of course, chances of that are already pretty slim. Most of the Hydra agents involved in Numeral, at MIT or otherwise, are no longer alive.  They died fighting or killed themselves rather than surrender. For the few people who have escaped, there’s not much of Numeral to rebuild from.”

“What about Zola’s Algorithm?” Nick asked.

“Stark put his AI on it.  Any instance of the Algorithm found in satellites, on the web, anywhere, is being deleted en masse.  While we’ve apparently taken a stand for freedom of information, I don’t think anyone having access to that program is in anyone’s benefit.  Also, all the Numeral machines have been destroyed.”

Brittany cracked a small smile at that.  “Thank you, Hill.”

There was a short silence before Hill responded.  “You’re welcome, Brittany.”

“Is Dr. Lingenfelter one of the doctors who escaped?” Santana asked.

“Yes,” Hill said, which made Santana grimace.

“But she can’t make us Numerals again,” Brittany said.

“She could always hunt us down for revenge,” Santana replied.

Nick snorted.  “I doubt she has the resources for petty revenge right now.  The other Numeral subjects?” he asked Hill.

“All safe, all being returned home.  Except for a couple who need to fly home, the TSA hasn’t lifted their airport shut down yet.  But once people can fly again, I’ll get Brittany and Santana on a flight back to Ohio.”

“So it’s safe?” Brittany asked.  “We can go home?”

“Yes,” Hill said.  “You can go home.”

Fury gave them very, very specific instructions on what they were allowed to say, and what they had to keep secret.  Then he handed over the phone.

Brittany dialed slowly and put it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Oh my god, Brittany-”

Santana stepped away, figuring she should at least not listen in to Mrs. Pierce’s voice without her knowledge.

Brittany closed her eyes started explaining what she could about what had happened.

Santana held her hand the entire time.

They probably could have left the cave.  They weren’t being hunted anymore. They could go to a hotel or something.

But they stayed.  Doctor Fine set up camp by Nick’s hospital bed, and Brittany and Santana took over the cot village.

Santana hadn’t expected to sleep that night.  But their bodies wrapped around each other’s on their cot and Santana fell asleep almost instantly.  She clung to Brittany through the entire night.

October 15, 2013
1:46 p.m.

The cave didn’t have alcohol, but it did have playing cards.

“Do you have any threes?” Nick asked.

“Go fish,” Brittany said.

“I hate this game,” Fine muttered.

“Well, a few people at the table don’t want to play poker,” Nick replied as he picked a new card from the file.  He was moving around a lot better today. He still had to sit and lie down a lot, but he was clearly on the mend.

“Poker’s boring,” Santana replied.  “Fine, got any jacks?” Fine rolled his eyes and handed one over.

“I don’t know how to play poker,” Brittany said.  “I know how to play war?”

“I guess I can deal with war,” Fine said.

“Okay, we’ll play war after go fish.  Santana, do you have any twos?”

“Go fish,” Santana said.  “This is going to sound terrible, but I wish we could have gone to Vegas while we had Numeral in our heads.  We could have read the cards and made a fortune.”

“I don’t think they offer Go Fish at Vegas,” Fine said.  “Fury, sixes?”

“Go fish.”

“I would have played poker if I had gotten money, though,” Santana said.  She turned to Fury. “When is Natasha scheduled to appear again?”

“She appears before the Intelligence Committee at 2.”  Nick frowned at his watch. “Actually, we should turn on the radio after this game.”

“Do you think she’s going to be in trouble?” Brittany asked.

“I hope not,” Nick said.  “But people like placing blame on others, whether or not it’s deserved.”

“She did release all those files,” Santana said.  “She shouldn’t be punished for it, but she did do it.”

“It wasn’t really her choice,” Fury told Santana.  “She did what Rogers said. And hand over your queen.”

Santana did so, before immediately holding out her hand to Fine.  “Your six, please.”

Fine grumbled as he handed the card over.

“Do you think she would have done something different?” Brittany asked Nick.  “If Captain America didn’t tell her to release the files, would she still have done it?”

Nick shrugged.  “I’d ask her.”

“Well, I think she did the right thing,” Brittany said.  “She let everyone know what was happening. She hurt herself so you could kill Dad.  She’s a hero.”

Santana awkwardly looked down.

“How are you doing with that?” Nick asked softly.

“...I don’t know,” Brittany confessed.  “Nick, do you have any twos?”

Nick smiled sadly at her.  “Go fish.”

8:12 p.m.

“I got Brittany and Santana a flight home,” Hill announced.  “Tomorrow morning, 9:05 departure. It flies right into Allen County Airport.”

“Airplanes can actually fly into there?” Santana asked.  “It’s tiny as fuck.”

Hill ignored that comment, even though Brittany was also curious about it.  They discussed details and made plans for Fine to drive them to the airport tomorrow morning.  Santana asked how much the plane tickets cost, and Hill waved her off. “I work for Stark now,” Hill said.  “He’s the one who paid for it, not me.”

Brittany tried to imagine sending Tony Stark a check.  She couldn’t.

After Hill hung up, Nick gave them another talk about what needed to stay secret.  What had happened at MIT, where Nick’s secret cave was. Brittany was a little disappointed they couldn’t take the SHIELD sweats with them.  They were comfortable.

“The job is done, and you’re safe,” Nick said.  “You can go join the world again.”

“And what are you going to do?” Santana asked.

“Go dark,” Nick said.  “Help friends. Try to find out what’s happening underground.  Maybe eat a donut.”

“Fury likes the ones with sprinkles,” Fine said from across the table.

“That’s classified,” Nick shot back, but then paused.  “I can’t really use that joke anymore, can I?”

It made Brittany sad to watch Nick deflate like that.  “I’ll give you my phone number,” she said.

Nick was still frowning.  He took a deep breath. “I’m not going to be able to keep in contact with you.”

“...Oh.”  Brittany swallowed against the hurt.  “Why not?”

“I don’t want people knowing I’m alive.  I think I can do more good as a dead man.”

“I can keep the secret,” Brittany said.  She was good at keeping secrets, she just didn’t always choose to do so.

“I know.  But you don’t have a secure phone,” Nick explained.  “And I’m going to be doing a lot of dangerous things over the next few months.  Keeping in contact with anyone means information leaks and danger to everyone involved.”

“You’re still acting like you’re in control of SHIELD,” Santana said.  Brittany agreed.

Nick chuckled.  “Maybe I am. But I gotta say, I have earned my paranoia.”  Brittany didn’t want to think about what that meant.

“I’m going to forget you again.”

Nick titled his head a little.  “I won’t be offended,” he said at length.

“I don’t want to forget you,” Brittany said, wrapping her arms around herself.  These SHIELD sweatshirts were really soft, she really wished she could keep them.  “But I forgot about you before, after Bogotá. I didn’t remember you until I thought you were dead.  I don’t want to forget you but I feel like I will.”

Nick considered her for a long time before answering.  “If you do, then you do. I’ll remember you, though.”

Brittany sniffed.  “Yeah?”

“Until I’m actually dead, not just presumed dead.”  Nick smiled a little. “I got a pretty good memory.”

October 16, 2013
1:01 a.m.

Santana snored.  She denied snoring, but she did.  Brittany didn’t mind. She liked listening to Santana’s small noises when she slept.  Sometimes she even found it calming. It was comfortable and familiar.

Brittany disentangled herself from Santana’s embrace to go to the bathroom.  On her way back she noticed that Nick wasn’t in his hospital bed. She wasn’t worried, but she was curious.

She found Nick at the conference table, typing things on a laptop.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep kid?” Nick asked, blinking against the screen’s light.

“I had to pee,” Brittany replied.  “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Got things to iron out.  Plans to make.” He typed slowly.

Brittany paced over to the table and sat down next to him.  “You know, you could come to Lima with me.”

Nick stopped typing and raised his head to her, giving her a very odd look.

“You said that our job was over, and we’re safe now,” Brittany explained.  “Your job is over too, isn’t it? You could come, too. We’ll give you a pretend name.”

Brittany had a vision in her head, of being with Nick in Lima.  Nick could be safe. They could take him to the Lima Bean. Brittany could visit him on weekends.  Maybe they would play more go fish.

But Nick just shook his head.  “Your job is over, but mine isn’t.  I have a lot of things I need to make better.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Brittany argued.

Nick snorted.  “Yeah I did.” He closed his laptop, put all his attention on Brittany.  “This is hard for you to get, because you weren’t really around. You see me as the guy who swooped in and saved you in a cape.  But I made a lot of mistakes. Mistakes that helped Hydra.”

“You’re not Hydra.”

“No.  But they were able to do what they did because of me.”  Nick shook his head. “I can’t pretend that didn’t happen.  I can’t wash my hands of the world I helped to create. That’s not the person I am.”

“You’re not a bad person,” Brittany whispered, even though she was pretty sure she was losing this fight.  Even if it wasn’t really a fight.

Nick huffed out a little laugh.  “I appreciate that. But I got a job to do.  And you have a family to get back to.”

Brittany’s face twisted of its own doing.

“Mom and Clara know about Dad,” she said.  “They know he’s dead. They know he was Hydra, and that he hurt me.”

Nick didn’t reply.  Brittany wished he would.  She didn’t know what she wanted to say, or what she needed from him.

“I don’t know how to help them,” she finally confessed.

“And you’re asking me?” Nick asked.  “Kid, I’ve met your mother twice. And I never really had a conversation with your sister.  You know them better than me.”

“But what am I supposed to do?”  The future was before her, scary and painful.

“I can’t tell you that.  That’s something you have to decide.”

Making decisions was too hard.

They sat in silence for a little bit.  It felt comfortable, not like Santana’s snoring, but a different kind of comfortable.  Nick was safe. Brittany wasn’t sure what kind of mistakes he had made, but none of them could have been that bad.  Nick was a good person, she was sure of it.

“Go back to sleep,” Nick told her.  “You have a plane to catch in the morning.”

Brittany was tired.  She stood up from the table.  “Good night, Nick.”

He nodded in response and opened his laptop back up.  Brittany took a second to watch him in the laptop light before returning to the cot village.

Santana wrapped her arms around Brittany the second she crawled back beside her.

“Okay?” she asked.

“Okay,” Brittany said.

6:58 a.m.

Nick had never had the best eyesight, even before going half-blind.  And there were a lot of things he had missed. Obviously.

But he wasn’t missing what was going on with Brittany.  The girl wanted him as a father.

A couple lifetimes ago Nick had considered having children, but it had never happened.  He didn’t want to have kids when he was in this business. It seemed cosmically unfair to subject a child to his life.  He kept that opinion to himself; plenty of other agents had children, spouses, a family. They managed it. But none of them were him.

To watch this young woman look to him and want him as a replacement dad…

Brittany didn’t have a father because Nick had killed him.  Nick would never regret it, and never apologize for it. Brittany hadn’t asked him to.  But she needed time and space to deal with what had happened. Staying around Nick wouldn’t help her.

Besides, Nick wouldn’t have been good at it anyway.  He knew nothing about being a parent. He wasn’t prepared to father a traumatized twenty-year-old who had just been experimented on.  It was in everyone’s best interest to keep their distance for a little bit.

But Nick still wanted to see them off.

They stood at the entrance of the cave in the cool morning.  Fall was finally starting to really hit D.C., not that any of them would be staying around to enjoy it.  Nick and the doctor would be stripping the whole cave today, before going on their way to Europe and beyond.  And Brittany and Santana were going home.

Doctor Fine twirled the car keys on his finger.  Santana held onto the tote bag with the meager belongings she and Brittany had.  She looked at Nick with a mix of feelings; she probably hated him for bringing Brittany along to the fight.  That was fine. Nick hadn’t done it to gain her approval.

Brittany looked at the ground, clearly struggling with saying goodbye.  Guilt was something Nick had felt a lot in his life. He hadn’t expected to feel it by declining to be someone’s father, even when he hadn’t been officially asked.

Brittany would be fine, once she had time to recover.  She had a loving girlfriend, a mother and a sister who were not evil, and an apparently large assortment of crazy friends who sang together.  And law-breaking cats.

Alexander Pierce’s father had been a kind man and an American soldier in World War II.  It clearly hadn’t helped him any. A person didn’t need a father to be okay.

Still, wanting a father was a very human feeling.

Santana stepped forward and held out her hand.  “Thank you for everything.”

Nick shook it.  “Take care of yourself.”

And finally Brittany seemed to unlock what she wanted.  She turned to Fine. “Doctor?”

“Yes, Brittany?” Fine said.

“Nick’s doing okay, right?” she asked him.  “He’s healing and everything.”

“Fury’s in pretty good physical condition, yes,” Fine confirmed.

“So he’ll be okay if I hug him?”

Fine smiled and turned away.  He had trouble with emotions sometimes.  “Yeah, go for it.”

Brittany stepped forward and hugged Nick around the middle.  There was nothing Nick could do but return it.

“I’ll try to remember you,” Brittany promised.

There was nothing more Nick could give this young woman than he already had.  “Good luck, Brittany,” he said.

“Bye, Nick,” Brittany said.  She stepped away and waved a little, smiling sadly.

Doctor Fine unlocked the van and headed to the driver’s seat, while Brittany and Santana climbed into the middle row of seats.  Brittany waved at Nick again until the van started driving away. Nick watched it until it left his admittedly poor eyesight, and then he turned back into the cave.  It was time to start over.

Allen County Airport
October 16, 2013

After the long flights to Hawaii and Europe, the trip from D.C. to Ohio took barely any time at all.  It was a tiny private plane, and Brittany and Santana were the only passengers, accompanied by the world’s smallest flight crew.  Brittany wasn’t sure how she felt about them. She didn’t feel unsafe but she felt like she should feel unsafe.

She thought back to the sleep gun.  Dad had taken it from her. After Nick shot him, Brittany didn’t think to retrieve it.  She was kind of wishing she had, now. Even though the flight crew was probably safe.

When they landed at the airport, Brittany reached for the tote bag, but Santana waved her off.  “I got it,” she said, picking it up. “You need to have your hands free.”

“Why?”

“Your mom is picking us up.”

Everything had changed since Brittany had last seen her mother months ago.  How was she supposed to act? What was she supposed to say? What would change now that Mom knew Brittany wasn’t a genius, that she was fully and unchangeably stupid?   How was Brittany, partly responsible for Dad’s death, supposed to look Mom in the eye?

A flight attendant led them off the plane and directed them towards the parking lot.  Brittany wanted to stall, but Santana put her free arm around Brittany’s shoulders and walked her on.

Mom was in the parking lot, standing outside the car, but she wasn’t alone.  Clara was there, too.

“Brittany!” Clara called, and started jogging over to her.

Seeing Clara’s face, hearing her voice, everything clicked for Brittany in that moment.

They had all lost someone.  Even if Dad was still alive, they would still be without him, because he wasn’t the man they knew.  That man had never existed.

Clara, like Brittany, had lost a dad.  Mom had lost a husband. They were connected with that.

Brittany knew what she was supposed to do: be with her family.

Her body had started moving on its own, and soon she was holding Clara in her arms for the first time in months.

“I’m so damn happy you’re okay,” Clara said.

“Language,” Brittany corrected her, like a reflex.

Brittany squeezed her sister hard until Mom came up and Brittany squeezed her instead.  Mom didn’t say anything, but she did cry. Clara was crying too.

Brittany didn’t cry.  She would, eventually, but she couldn’t right now.

She was home.  They had made it.

From the car, Lord and Lady Tubbington made loud noises.

Lima, Ohio
October 16, 2013

Fun fact: Santana’s keys were, as far as she knew, still underground at MIT.  She had to ring the doorbell to her own house.

She took a deep breath, steadying herself.  But it all went flying out the window when the door opened.

“Santana!”

She dove into her mother’s arms.

The Pierce home
October 17, 2013

“No.”

“I don’t-”

“No.”  Mom frowned at Mrs. Lopez and drew herself up.  “I am not forcing my mother to stay in a hotel. Not when I have a perfectly acceptable guest room upstairs.”

“You are burying your husband,” Mrs. Lopez said gently.  “You cannot also be a host.”

“I’m not burying my husband,” Mom said.  “They haven’t found a body.”

Clara immediately got up from the table to refill her chocolate milk.  Santana looked down at the list of people they were inviting to the funeral.  Brittany didn’t bother to act busy, she openly stared at the two women.

Mrs. Lopez was small but full of kindness.  When she and Santana had arrived this morning, she hugged all of them and whispered comfort.  Brittany hadn’t wanted to leave the hug; Mrs. Lopez had felt warm.

Brittany’s own mother wasn’t really that comforting right now.  Not that Brittany blamed her. But she had really needed that hug.

Mom had already decided that they would have the funeral at home, away from the public.  Mrs. Lopez had insisted on helping. She obviously knew Dad was dead, but Brittany didn’t know how much else Santana had told her mom.  But it was enough that Mrs. Lopez was already picking up the phone when it rang, claiming to journalists in an exaggerated accent that the Pierces didn’t live here.  Enough that she kept looking at Santana like she was scared Santana would disappear.

“If you are having the funeral here, at your home,” Mrs. Lopez said, “you cannot also host people.  It is too much. You must have space to be alone.”

“What, should I kick out my daughters, too?”

Mrs. Lopez kept her voice steady.  “Deborah, I can pay for your mother’s hotel room.”

“I can pay for my mother’s hotel room,” Mom shot back.  “That’s not the point. Mom always stays in the guest room when she visits.”

“I think she will understand,” Mrs. Lopez replied.

And then Mom started to cry again.

Mrs. Lopez sat down next to her and handed over a box of Kleenex.  It was really nice that she was here. Brittany still didn’t know how she felt, and Mom was a wreck.  And Clara was twelve. None of them really knew what to do about the funeral.

“Fine,” Mom said eventually, blowing her nose.  “She’ll stay in a hotel. I’m sure my sister will stay in the same room as her.”

“Your sister will take good care of your mother,” Mrs. Lopez said.  Brittany was pretty sure Mrs. Lopez had never met Aunt Pat. But it was a nice thing to say.

“Listen,” said Liam White, Alexander Pierce’s nephew.  “I know we should be there. But we also have four kids under the age of nine.  We have school, parent-teacher conferences, I have work. And to be honest, I don’t want to tell my kids what happened.  Have you ever tried to explain the Holocaust to a six-year-old?”

“Do you know what it would do to my reputation to be seen at that man’s funeral?”  Will Pierce, the son of Alex’s cousin, scoffed. “No.”

“I’m sorry, Deb.”  Veronica Smith, Alex’s niece, actually sounded sorry.  “But I just. I can’t. Please don’t ask me to.”

Helen Matthews, Alex’s younger sister, never even picked up the phone.

October 18, 2013

A delivery truck from Maria Hill arrived in the early afternoon.  It had an urn containing Dad’s ashes.

The truck also had all of Brittany and Santana’s stuff from MIT; cell phones, laptops, clothes, makeup, keys, everything.  And there was a box of pictures from Dad’s office at the Triskelion, some of them damaged from the destruction.

But it was the urn that took up everyone’s attention.  Maria Hill explained in a letter that Dad’s body wasn’t really recognizable when they found it, so they cremated it.  They removed Dad’s wedding ring before they cremated him, though. It was in the envelope with Hill’s letter.

Mom hadn’t taken off her wedding ring yet.

“What do we do with the ashes?”  Clara’s voice broke the tense silence.  “Please tell me we’re not keeping them here.”

Brittany stared at the urn.  The urn stared back.

She turned to Santana.  “What can you do with ashes?”

Santana crossed her arms.  “There are a couple different options,” she said slowly.  “You can keep them, scatter them, or bury them.”

“I don’t want them in the house,” Clara declared.

“You can get more creative, too,” Mrs. Lopez volunteered.  “You can turn ashes into trees, or even paint. Some other options are a bit morbid, but-”

“I don’t want them in the house!” Clara said.

“We heard you the first time!” Mom snapped.

Everyone fell silent as Mom turned her angry eyes around the room.  She looked tired, Brittany thought. Mom had been sleeping on the couch, not in her room.  Apparently she was getting a new bed delivered tomorrow.

“We’re scattering the ashes on the day of the funeral,” Mom said.  “Any objections?”

No one said anything.  Dad’s remains went in the garage.

October 19, 2013

It had been a long day.  They weren’t only arranging a funeral, but they were also trying to sort through Douche von Fuckface’s things.  Most of it was going down in the basement for now, but Brittany’s mom didn’t want any of his shit in her bedroom anymore.  Santana couldn’t blame her.

Anyway, it had been a long day, so Santana made the executive decision to put on a movie.  She had thought Tangled would be a good option; Clara wasn’t in the mood to pretend she didn’t like Disney movies, and a quick rundown of the subject matter seemed safe.  Tangled barely had a dad featured, Flynn Rider was funny, and there was a horse.

Somehow it had completely slipped her mind that Rapunzel’s parent figure had locked her away .

Clara stormed upstairs the second Mother Gothel kidnapped the baby.  Mrs. Pierce mumbled an excuse and went to her study once Rapunzel started asking to see the lights.  Brittany stared at the screen, dead-eyed, before Santana finally got her brain in gear and turned off the movie in the middle of Mother Knows Best.

“It was a nice idea,” Santana’s mother said.  “Just-”

“It was a very bad idea,” Santana replied.

Mom frowned and rubbed Brittany’s back.

So Santana went up in Brittany’s room and started researching for safe movies or tv shows to watch.  Santana had dearly missed the internet during their time underground, thinking about twitter and blogs to visit, but now she was just scrolling through IMDB.  Finding anything safe was going to be hard. She had already dismissed a lot of animated movies on account of dead parents (what was it with fairy tales and dead parents?) or focusing too much on father-child relationships (Santana seriously doubted this family would ever watch Despicable Me again).

Santana was in the middle of deciding if any of the Harry Potter films were safe (between the dead parents and incompetent and/or evil government, all signs were pointing to no) when Clara knocked on the door frame.

“Hey,” Santana said, looking up from her laptop.  “You need something?”

Clara frowned and awkwardly mumbled, “Can I ask you something?”

Santana was pretty sure she had nothing to offer this girl, but she shrugged and closed the laptop.  “Yeah, what’s up?”

Clara walked into the room and closed the door behind her, which really just made Santana more nervous.  Clara sat in the desk chair and folded her arms and looked at the bed instead of Santana.

“Clara?” Santana asked.

Clara sighed, still not looking at her.  “Look, I don’t...just, what should I be calling Brittany?”

Santana blinked.  “Uh, her name?”

Clara rolled her eyes.  “Not that. I’m asking what the word is for...what she is.”  Oh. “I don’t know anything about this, okay? But all the words I can think of sound really crappy.  Like, I’m obviously not using the r-word, but ‘special needs’ sounds like it comes from scared adults.  And ‘mentally slow’ or whatever just sounds mean. But I don’t know any words that aren’t awful to describe it.”

The problem was, Santana didn’t know either.  She considered stalling, asking why Clara even cared, but she already knew the answer.  Finding out what to call her sister was a lot easier to think about than anything else was.

“Maybe you should ask Brittany,” Santana said.

“Brittany’s hiding in the basement with the cats,” Clara replied.  “And Mom’s hiding in her study.”

“Then ask your mom later.  I think she’d know better than me.”

“But you’re her girlfriend.  You spend all your time with her.  Aren’t you supposed to know?”

In a way Santana kind of felt like Clara was baiting her, but she didn’t rise to it.  She slumped back against Brittany’s pillows. “I don’t have a good answer for you,” Santana admitted.  “Brittany isn’t like the other people I know. They have, like, labels. Down Syndrome, dyslexic, whatever.  I don’t know what category Britt falls under, if there’s even a name for it at all. I’d have to look it up.”

“That’s helpful.”  Clara’s sarcasm was annoying but Santana didn’t rise to that either.  She just let Clara roll a pen back and forth on the desk. “You know, a long time ago, I told Brittany she wasn’t smart but she wasn’t stupid, she was just weird.  Obviously I was wrong. I mean, she’s totally weird, but that’s not the same thing.”

Santana nodded.  You didn’t make it through glee club without being weird.  “I’d stay away from the word ‘stupid’, for the record,” she said.  “Or ‘idiot’ and stuff.”

“I figured that out already,” Clara growled.

Maybe she needed to get to a therapist to deal with her obvious anger issues.  Maybe Brittany needed to go to a therapist, too. Maybe Santana herself needed to lie on a couch with a shrink and get all this shit out of her head.  Everything was just messed up.

“Brittany’s different,” Santana declared, looking up at the ceiling.  “That’s the best word I got for you right now. She’s different.”

“...Not super descriptive or useful,” Clara murmured.  “But sure. Different.”

October 20, 2013

Brittany had stayed awake for a long time last night, petting the cats, trying to make things in her brain make sense.  She still didn’t know how she felt. But she had an idea of how to figure it out.

“I wanna sing at the funeral,” Brittany said.  “Can I do that?”

Mom paused in going over her to-do list.  She looked at Mrs. Lopez, then back at Brittany.  “Sure, honey,” Mom said. “You can sing.”

“Thanks,” Brittany said, and then turned to Santana and Clara.  “Will you guys sing with me?”

Santana nodded.  “Of course.”

Clara, though, frowned.  “I don’t know how to sing.”

That wasn’t right.  “You sing along to songs,” Brittany said.

“That’s not the same,” Clara said.

“We can help you learn a couple things,” Santana told her.  “It’s easy.”

“Yeah, easy for you to say.  You guys have literally won a national singing competition.”

It was a good point, but Brittany really wanted to sing with her sister.  “Please sing with me?” she asked.

Clara’s frown twisted.  She thought for a moment before mumbling, “Fine, okay.  What song?”

October 21, 2013

“Brett’s busy with school,” Aunt Pat said, bringing Mom a mug of something.  “He wanted to be here, but-”

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Mom said.  “He’s in Seattle, he can’t exactly take a day trip here.  How is he doing?”

Aunt Pat sat next to Mom on the couch, across from where Grandma sat on the rocking chair.  Uncle Tim and cousin Ashley had the other couch. So Brittany and Clara sat on the floor. Guests get first dibs on the couch.  Brittany couldn’t remember if it was Mom or Dad who had taught her that.

“...coming along slowly,” Aunt Pat was saying.  “Or at least, that’s what he says. I don’t understand half of what Brett’s saying these days.”

“It’s terrible when your kids become smarter than you,” Uncle Tim said.

Ashley and Grandma and Aunt Pat laughed.  Brittany looked at the ground.

Mom must have felt awkward too, because she immediately changed the subject.  “Ashley, has that man of yours proposed yet?”

Ashley sighed.  “Will people never stop asking?”

“You’ve been together for four years,” Grandma said.  “It’s time to seal the deal.”

Ashley rolled her eyes.  “For the hundredth time, we’re not in a hurry.  Let’s talk about something else.”

Brittany thought Ashley should put up with being uncomfortable, so they didn’t have to talk about the funeral.  But of course, that’s what the conversation went back to.

“Neither of Alex’s sisters are coming.”  Mom’s voice was quiet, like she was trying to keep it a secret.  “Mary Ann has been having back problems, she might have to have surgery.  She’s not really in the position to take a trip right now. And Helen never responded to my messages.  None of the Matthews family did.”

“Who is coming?” Aunt Pat asked.

“I’ve got a list of fifteen people,” Mom said.  “And that includes me.”

Grandma shook her head, but said nothing.

“Didn’t, um-” Uncle Tim stumbled a little on his words.  “Didn’t he have a brother?”

“Oh, yes, Henry’s coming,” Mom said.  “He’ll be here.”

“Henry,” Uncle Tim repeated.  “Right, that was his name. I remember talking to him at the wedding.  Good guy.”

After a long and awkward silence, Mom asked Grandma about the hotel room for the tenth time.  Clara flopped on the floor and started playing games on her cell phone. Brittany hoped that tomorrow would come and go soon.

October 22, 2013

It felt weird to be wearing black when Santana wasn’t upset about the man’s death.

“You look very nice,” Mom said, buttoning her own black sweater.

“Thanks,” Santana said.  She hadn’t been trying to look especially nice, but she knew her mom was trying to be supportive.

“You’re still staying over there tonight, right?”

“Right.”  They put on their shoes, and Santana took a deep breath.  “Hey, mom? Thank you for helping with the funeral, and cleaning things out, and.  Everything you’ve done in the past week. I know it meant a lot to all of them that they had you as backup.”

Mom smiled a little.  “I wanted to help,” she said.  “You and Brittany have been friends for years, even before you got together.  I wanted to help her and her family. She’s practically my own family at this point.”

Santana didn’t feel an ounce of sadness toward Alexander Pierce’s death, but maybe funerals just made her emotional.  She found herself trying to stave away tears. “Thanks, Mom,” she whispered.

When they arrived at the Pierce house, Brittany immediately took Santana’s hand.  “Come see,” she said, without even saying hello. Of course Santana followed.

Brittany led her to the living room and pointed at bouquets of flowers.  The first one was fairly small, but it had a card attached to it.

Brittany and the Pierce family, I’m sending you all my positive thoughts to you during this difficult time.  Call me if you need anything. -Artie Abrams

“I had forgotten Artie knew who Dad was,” Brittany admitted.

“That was good of him,” Santana said.  “I know he’s busy at film school, and probably broke because he lives in New York.  This is nice.”

“I miss him,” Brittany said.  “I miss all our friends. Look, Quinn sent flowers, too.”

Quinn’s bouquet was larger, but it didn’t have any words.  The card was simply addressed to the Pierces from Quinn Fabray.  Santana didn’t remember Quinn ever talking about knowing who Brittany’s father was, but Quinn knew a lot of things she didn’t say out loud.

“Nobody else from glee club sent flowers,” Brittany said.  “I don’t think they know he’s my dad.”

“You’re not the only family named Pierce,” Santana agreed.  “A lot of them probably just didn’t put it together.”

“But Coach Sylvester knew,” Brittany said.  She pointed at the largest bouquet, which also had a concise card attached to it.  Santana managed to nod in acknowledgement. Leave it to Sue Sylvester to send the biggest one.

“It’s nice of everyone,” Santana said.  “That they’re trying to support you. You need it.  How are you doing?”

Brittany shrugged, still staring at all the flowers.  “I haven’t sung yet, so I still don’t know.”

People started to arrive.  There weren’t that many people, not like there were for the other funerals Brittany had been to.  She could kind of understand why.

There were only a few people that Brittany didn’t know.  One of Mom’s friends from work came, which was nice, Mom needed friends right now.  Then there was a guy called Martin who had gone to college with Dad. He walked with a cane and didn’t look happy to be there, but he was polite to them.

Brittany only barely remembered her cousin Gregory and his wife Hannah.  It had been a while since she had seen them. They weren’t offended by Brittany taking a second to place them, they figured she was just distracted because her dad was dead.  Brittany didn’t remember Dad’s cousin Eric at all, but apparently she hadn’t seen him since the Pierce Family Reunion back in 2009, so he didn’t really care. It was a relief; Brittany really wasn’t in the mood to upset people because her memory was bad.

She and Santana wandered around, keeping an eye on Mom and Clara, and occasionally talking to Ashley about her work.  Then Uncle Henry arrived; he was wearing a black suit but he still had his usual cowboy hat on.

“I brought a friend,” he said, and led Brittany outside.

Sean the goat was in the backyard.

“Thank you,” Brittany said, hugging her uncle.

“Of course,” Uncle Henry replied, and let her go so she could pet Sean.

“I met Alex almost thirty years ago now.”

The group, goat included, were standing in the backyard in a lazy half-circle.  They all had their eyes on Mom.

Mom opened her mouth, then closed it again.  She looked up at the sky as if the words she were trying to say were up there.

“I thought he was a good man,” she said finally.

Brittany looked around.  Mrs. Lopez had her hand on Santana’s shoulder.  Clara had crossed her arms and looked away.

“When my husband died, he was not a good man.  I know that for certain. But when we first met, I thought he was.  I can’t tell you if that was true. But I’d like to believe it was.

“It doesn’t change anything.  My husband was wrong, and now he is dead.  There’s nothing else to that story.

“But I believe that Alex was good once.  I really hope he was.”

Something in Brittany’s stomach twisted and would not let go.

Uncle Henry helped Mom get the urn of ashes from the garage.  They brought it to the corner of the yard, where two lengths of the fence met.  Together they opened the urn and spilled the ashes onto the ground.

Brittany wasn’t sure how long the ashes would stay there.  They might get blown away by the wind. Clara might snap and throw the ashes over the fence onto the sidewalk.  Maybe they’d get covered in the winter by snow.

Uncle Henry put his arms around Mom’s shoulders and they joined the group.  Brittany, Santana, and Clara stepped forward, standing in a line between the ashes and the small group of people.

“Do you know what’s worth fighting for when it’s not worth dying for?”

Brittany sang first, and she instantly knew the answer to the question she had asked.  No, Dad hadn’t known.

Clara sang next.  “Does the pain weigh out the pride, and you look for a place to hide?”

Santana sang third.  “Did someone break your heart inside?  You’re in ruins.”

They sang together.  Dad’s daughter, Dad’s victim, and one person who was both.  Clara’s voice was smaller and weaker, but Brittany didn’t care.  It was enough that she was singing at all.

Uncle Henry patted Sean the goat.  Mrs. Lopez stood tall and gently wiped a tear from her eye with a finger, like Santana would do.  Mom had her head on Aunt Pat’s shoulder.

Brittany’s voice joined her sister’s.  “Did you stand too close to the fire,” they sang, “like a liar looking for forgiveness from the stone?”

Mom had put her head on Dad’s shoulder a lot, when they watched TV.

Brittany sang, “When it's time to live and let die, and you can't get another try, something inside this heart has died.  You’re in ruins.”

He had been her father.  He had raised her and taught her and laughed with her.  Brittany had loved him, and he had destroyed everything.

The three of them all sang together.

“One, twenty-one guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, twenty-one guns
Throw up your arms into the sky
You and I”

All of a sudden, Deb knew what to do.

She had been sitting with her sister on the couch, listening to Tim talk to Henry Pierce about Brett’s college work.  But her eyes had been on Brittany and Santana, standing in a corner, holding hands. She watched the girls - young women, really - for a few moments, until realizing what she wanted.

She stood up.  “You okay, Deb?” Pat asked.  Deb nodded and walked away. She went to the basement.

She had put Alex’s wedding ring in a box containing his clothes they still needed to donate to charity.  She dug the ring out of the box.

There, alone in the basement, Deb took off her own wedding ring for the last time.

Pat was at the top of the stairs when Deb came back up, holding both rings in her hand.  Deb didn’t say anything, but Pat followed her outside to the garage, where Deb got the shovel, and then to the backyard.

Deb chose a patch of grass on the opposite side of the yard from the ashes.  She started digging. Her black funeral clothes and shoes were covered in dirt quickly, but she couldn’t care.  She dug until she was finally satisfied with the depth.

She dropped the wedding rings into the hole, and then shoveled the dirt back on.

Once the hole was filled again, Deb dropped the shovel.  She felt cold. Her hand felt unsteady without her wedding ring.

“He was a good man once,” she found herself sobbing.  “I swear to god, he was-”

Pat embraced her, getting her own funeral clothes dirty, and held her up.

It was dark outside and everyone was gone.  They started to file out after dinner. Brittany had given hugs to her extended family and the goat, shook hands with Dad’s old friend whose name she had already forgotten, and then the house was empty.

Both Mom and Clara went to their rooms, and Santana took over the shower.  Brittany stepped out into the backyard. She stood in the grass and looked at the ashes from a bit away; she didn’t want to get any closer.

She wondered how many feet she was away from the ashes, but the numbers were all gone.  Her mind and her body still felt wrong, but she didn’t know if that was from Project Numeral or just life.

“Excuse me?”

There was a woman at the fence gate.  She was dark blonde, and wearing a black jacket.  Brittany had never seen her before in her life, and really didn’t want to talk to her.

“We’re closed,” Brittany said.

The woman quirked her mouth in a way that seemed a little familiar.  Then she reached up and...she took off her hair. It was a wig? Then she took off her hair net, and started running her fingers through the red hair.  Brittany blinked as the pieces fell into place.

“...Natasha?”

“It’s all right,” Natasha Romanoff said.  “You’re not the first person who didn’t recognize me on sight.”

Brittany walked over to the fence gate, confused.  “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

Natasha put down her hands.  “I’m sorry to startle you. Yes, everything’s okay, I was just in the area.  If you want me to leave, I’ll leave.”

Brittany tilted her head, considered, and opened the gate.

Natasha smiled at her as she stepped inside.  “Thank you.”

“You were really just around?” Brittany asked.

“No,” Natasha admitted.  She put her wig and her hair net into the large purse she was carrying.

Brittany closed the gate and walked to the porch.  She sat down and took off her shoes, so she could feel the grass on her feet.  Natasha sat down on the porch too, but not right next to Brittany. She gave her space.

“I was a little worried,” Natasha said.  “I thought the funeral might bring some unwanted company.”

“People might attack us?” Brittany asked.  She remembered Santana being worried about Doctor Lingenfelter.

“I’m just cautious about that sort of thing,” Natasha said.  “I had my eyes out today. There wasn’t any reason to worry.”

Brittany wondered if maybe Natasha was lying.  She was a spy, and kept a lot of secrets. If there was a reason to worry, Natasha might not admit it.  Brittany didn’t really like it, but she didn’t dislike it either. She accepted it.

“How is everyone?” Brittany asked.

“Steve is having his third existential crisis of the month,” Natasha replied.

“Does that mean he’s healed?”

Natasha quirked her mouth again.  “Yeah. Cap healed up just fine. Hill is on the hill, hoping someone tries to kidnap her.  Wilson’s questioning his life choices. Nick and the doctor are carrying babies out of burning buildings.”

“What about Hawkeye?” Brittany asked.

“Trying and failing to assemble IKEA furniture.”

“So everyone’s okay?”

Natasha shook her head.  “I wouldn’t go that far. But no one’s dead.  I’ll take what I can get.”

Brittany nodded.  “And what about you?”

Natasha looked at her.  “I’m not the one who buried their father today.”

Brittany looked over to where the ashes were again.  She huddled inside the sweatshirt she had put on over her dress; it wasn’t as comfortable as the SHIELD sweatshirts from the cave.

“Do you go to a lot of funerals?” Brittany asked.

“Enough,” Natasha said, whatever that meant.  Brittany was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to know what Natasha meant all the time.  She was a spy.

“This was my second funeral this year,” Brittany said.  “I’ve gone to a few others. I don’t like them.”

“I don’t think anyone does,” Natasha said.  “That’s not the point of them.”

Brittany closed her eyes.  “I understand why Nick shot Dad,” she murmured.  “I understand why you hurt yourself, so Nick could.  But I don’t want to understand. I wish I didn’t have to.”

Natasha considered her for a moment.  “You and I are very different,” she said, like she was mostly just talking to herself.  But then she said, “Brittany, I hope you understand why I won’t say I’m sorry for your loss.  But I am sorry for you, that you are experiencing this.”

“You are?”  It was a lot more than Brittany was expecting.

“What a lot of people don’t understand,” Natasha said, “is that good and evil don’t have anything to do with being attached to someone.  You know your father was a bad person. But he was still your father.”

“He tucked me in at night.”

The tears that Brittany hadn’t cried were finally at her eyes.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.

“It’s a brand new world out here,” Natasha said.  “You might want to be careful with who you trust your secrets to.”

“So I can’t tell you?”

“...Brittany, you can tell me anything you want.”

“I miss my dad.”

It felt like a confession.

“I know,” Natasha said softly.

“I know he was a bad person, but it wasn’t all bad.  I loved him.  I wish he had been a good person and a good dad, that he was alive and hadn’t hurt me.”  Her voice cracked and trembled and broke. “I miss him. Does that make me a bad person?”

“No,” Natasha told her.  “It doesn’t.”

They sat together on the porch for a long while.  Brittany cried and shared stories about her dad, and Natasha listened.

At one point, Brittany mentioned how her parents had signed her up for dance classes.

None of your past is going to remain hidden, Pierce had said.

There wasn’t affirmative proof that Pierce had the Red Room files on his mind when Brittany was a little girl in ballet classes.  And Brittany was now talking about how Dad had wanted her to quit dance and go into self defense classes. So it was very likely he did not.

He had sent his daughter into Project Numeral, though.

Natasha kept her face neutral and her mouth closed.  There wasn’t any reason to tell Brittany. She loved dancing deeply and in a way that Natasha didn’t and couldn’t comprehend.  There was no reason to tell her more ways her dad may have tried to hurt her. It changed nothing.

They were both alive in a brand new world.  They both had long roads ahead of them.

Natasha listened to Brittany talk and cry, but nothing more.  She didn’t say, “I miss my dad, too.” 

Natasha had already put too much of herself out for the world to see.  There were some things she needed to keep for herself.

Chapter Text

Lima, Ohio
The Pierce home
October 23, 2013

Natasha Romanoff walked into the back yard carrying a drink tray.  “I brought coffee.”

Brittany happily accepted her iced coffee, saying “Merci” before taking a sip.  Santana nodded her thanks for the mocha Natasha handed her. The Lima Bean cups weren’t a surprise, since it was the only halfway decent coffee place in podunkville, but Santana didn’t have a clue how Natasha had known what kind of drinks they liked.

She made Santana nervous.  She could kill them with her thighs without blinking and knew things too easily.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t leak my location to the press.”  Natasha took a seat across from them on the patio furniture. “I’m trying to keep to myself for a few days.”  She sipped her own drink. Santana wondered if it was some crazy 5-pump crime against beverages. Or maybe it was just blood.  Who knew.

“Okay,” Brittany said.  “We can keep a secret.”

“Brittany said you had been worried about us being attacked.”  Santana was trying not to sound too suspicious, but it was probably pointless.  She knew Natasha could see right through her.

“A little,” Natasha admitted.  “Alexander Pierce’s funeral would have been the expected time for retaliation.  But I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary, only a couple journalists who don’t understand privacy.”

“Are we safe?” Brittany asked.  “Will they attack us another time?”

Natasha sat back in her chair.  “In my professional opinion, you’re probably fine.  Intelligence of your involvement in Project Numeral is very limited, thanks to Maria Hill.  The only Hydra agent alive who knows you were there is Doctor Lingenfelter, and she’s been spotted in Europe.  Provided you stay out of the international espionage and superhero world, you most likely won’t be targeted.”

“Most likely,” Santana repeated.  “Not a guarantee.”

“Safety can’t be guaranteed,” Natasha said with a shrug.

“But we’re kinda safe?” Brittany asked.  She was obviously looking for confirmation.

“Very,” Natasha said.  “As safe as you can be.  But I would suggest investing in a better home security system.”

Santana wondered if that meant Natasha had already broken in without them knowing.  But Brittany relaxed a little, nodding. “Good. I don’t want Mom or Clara having to worry.”

“Well, you might have to worry about the news media,” Natasha said.  “Unfortunately there’s little you can do about that. Just keep your gates closed and screen your calls.”

“We’ve already been doing that,” Santana said.

Natasha smiled.  “Then you’ll be fine.”

Being ‘fine’ felt like a foreign concept, really.

Santana didn’t have a lot of experience with cooking.  In the past she was a helper and a watcher while her mom or abuela made food.  But Brittany was a terrible cook, Clara was twelve, and Mrs. Pierce shouldn’t have to make dinner the day after her husband’s funeral.  So Santana stepped up.

“It’ll be ready in twenty minutes,” Santana said as Mrs. Pierce entered the kitchen.

Mrs. Pierce smiled.  “It was really nice of you to do this.”

“No problem,” Santana said, wiping her hands on a towel.

Mrs. Pierce sat down at the table.  “If you want to, you can move in with us.”

It was not what she Santana was expecting.  She found herself at a loss for words.

Mrs. Pierce fiddled with her ring finger.  She was probably still adjusting to not wearing a wedding band anymore.  “Brittany says you two will be here for a while.”

Santana nodded slowly.  They had talked about it in hushed voices the night before the funeral; moving to New York had been put on hold.  Brittany didn’t want to leave her mom and sister. And Santana didn’t want to leave Brittany.

“You have been over every day since you got back,” Mrs. Pierce continued.  “I doubt that’s going to change. So you’re free to move in. We have the space, and it wouldn’t be difficult to get a larger bed for Brittany’s room.”

Santana felt like she should be making token protests.  This woman’s husband was a neo-Nazi who was killed mid-world takeover, and maybe it would have been polite to decline the offer.  But Santana didn’t want to.

Still.  “I didn’t think you liked me,” Santana admitted.

Mrs. Pierce looked a little embarrassed.  “I don’t think I really knew you before,” she said.  “I got distracted by unimportant things.”

“It’s fine,” Santana said.  “I mean, I was kind of rude to you sometimes.”

“You were a teenager,” Mrs. Pierce said.  “You’ve grown. We all have.” She looked down at her empty ring finger, and then back up to Santana.  “You’ve been there for Brittany. That’s the important thing. And Clara likes you, and I...I think having you here would be good for all of us.”

Something in the back of Santana’s mind clicked, about families and support, and how she and Brittany were probably going to get married and grow old together in a small house with two dozen cats.

Santana smiled.  “Thank you, Mrs. Pierce.”

She smiled back.  “You know, I think you can probably call me Deb now.”

Columbus, Ohio
October 26, 2013

Brittany had a machine hooked up to her brain again, and she wanted to cry.

“It’s okay,” Santana kept repeating softly.  “It’s okay.”

It didn’t feel okay.  She tried to lie still as tears leaked out of her eyes.

Finally, the doctor turned the machine off.  Brittany stood up and Santana let her bury her head into her shoulder.  Santana had gone first.

Natasha, wearing a black wig, and the doctor talked in a language she didn’t recognize for a minute or two.  Then Natasha handed over an envelope. The doctor shook all of their hands and let the room.

“No damage,” Natasha told them in English, smiling slightly.  “Neither of you will have lasting effects from Project Numeral.”

Brittany and Santana both sighed in relief, still holding onto each other.

“Thank you for this,” Brittany said quietly.

“I have a lot of connections,” Natasha said in reply.

She had been coming over every day.  Mom went to work, Clara went to school, and Natasha jumped over the fence into the backyard.  She brought a laptop and spent time researching all the files she had dumped; she said she had only barely scratched the surface of what was hiding in them.  She also would bring coffee or donuts or sandwiches and stuff. Except today, when she told them she had gotten them an appointment with ‘a guy she knew’ who would look at their brains and keep it a secret.

Santana didn’t seem to like Natasha being around all the time, or surprising them with a doctor’s visit.  But Brittany liked it. Natasha answered Brittany’s questions and was nice to Lord Tubbington. It was nice to have the company.  And it was nice to now know they were both okay.

“Let’s get ice cream before we head home,” Natasha said, and led them out of the room.

“Don’t we have to pay?” Santana asked.

“Already did,” Natasha said.  She seemed to have a lot of money.  Brittany wondered if she was staying in a hotel in Lima, and if she should be offering her the guest room.

But Natasha always left before Mom came back from work.  She didn’t seem to want to talk to anyone else.

They stopped for ice cream cones before getting back on the highway.  Brittany, in the back seat with Santana, listened to the soft radio and watched Natasha.  She kept her black wig on as she drove, eyes steady on the road, not saying a word.

Lima, Ohio
Spirit Halloween pop-up store
October 29, 2013

Santana took one look at the serial killer costume Clara was carrying and said, “No.”

Clara glared at her.  “Why not?”

“Halloween is on a school day,” Santana said.

“We’re allowed to dress up for Halloween,” Clara insisted.  “As long as we follow the school dress code, we can wear whatever we want.”

“They’re going to let you dress up with all that fake blood?” Santana asked pointedly.

“Sure.”

Santana raised an eyebrow.

“Fine, no,” Clara grumbled.  “School’s dumb.”

“Middle school was dumb,” Santana confirmed, “but I think not wanting students dressing up as serial killers on school grounds is probably reasonable.  Any particular reason why you went with that option?”

“Most of the costumes here are stupid,” Clara said.  “It’s all superheroes or animals. I want to be something cool.”

“And serial killers are cool?”

Clara looked at the ground.  “I want to be something scary,” she admitted.  “Everyone at school knows I have a dead dad, and they keep looking at me like I’m a sad movie or something.  They don’t know anything. I want them to get off my back.”

Santana sighed.  “Think of it this way: one of your classmates has a newly dead dad.  You feel bad for her. Then she comes to school looking like a serial killer.  What would you think?”

Clara silence was response enough.

“Look.  Speaking as someone who got outed in a political ad, you can’t make people stop thinking about you or looking at you.  Eventually it just dies down.”

“But what am I supposed to do now?” Clara asked.

“Keep living your life.  Live normal, and everyone will adapt back to being normal around you.”

Clara didn’t look happy with the answer, but looked down at the costume.  “Well if I’m not going to be a crazy serial killer, I have no ideas.”

Santana looked up, trying to think of a good idea for her.  But instead she saw a certain redhead in the middle of the store.  Natasha was spinning a rack of costume sunglasses while wearing one of those headbands that made it look like an arrow was stuck through her head.

“Why don’t you go take another look around,” Santana said.  “I’m going to, uh, check out the face paint.”

Clara shrugged, not noticing, and the second she turned away Santana marched over to Natasha.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Buying a hat,” Natasha replied immediately, not even pretending like this was a coincidence.  “I think it looks cute.”

“It’s not cute, and it’s not even a hat.  It’s an arrow-through-the-head-band.”

“My friend is an archer, he’d find it hilarious.”

Santana crossed her arms.  “You know, following us around town is starting to get creepy.”  Brittany might not have noticed Natasha at the grocery store or the pharmacy, but Santana sure had.

Natasha took a pair of sunglasses off the rack and put them on, for what seemed to be the sole purpose of looking at Santana over the top of them.  “Are you asking me to stop?”

“Would you listen if I did?” Santana challenged.

“I wouldn’t,” Natasha said, not ashamed at all.  “I’d just make sure you didn’t see me.”

Santana knew she was a hero and everything, but Natasha Romanoff was a pain in the ass.  “Why are you still here?”

Natasha put the sunglasses back on the rack, and then put on a different pair, actually keeping them on her face.  It felt like she was hiding her eyes this time. “I’m on surveillance duty. Making sure no one attacks a vulnerable family.”

“You told us we were safe.”

“You are.”

“Then why protect us?”

“I don’t have a lot else to do.  I’m currently unemployed.” She frowned.  “For the record, I don’t recommend quitting your job by destroying your place of employment.  It looks really bad on your resume.”

For some reason, that dumb joke was the reason it clicked.  Santana let the fight leave her and slumped against the counter.  “You’re not okay, are you?” she asked in a whisper.

Natasha shrugged, still wearing the stupid headband and sunglasses.  “We all have our own ways with dealing with things outside our control.”

“And this is yours?”

“For now.  Maybe I’ll get a new coping mechanism tomorrow.”

Santana let it be quiet for a moment.  Then she put on a pair of sunglasses herself, mirroring Natasha.

“The reason I don’t like you is because Brittany went into the helicopter,” Santana admitted.  “She said you were the reason why she knew what choice to make. It’s not your fault, but Brittany’s my everything, so I’m mad at you so I don’t have to be mad at her.”

Funny, how having a staring match while wearing sunglasses didn’t even rank on the strangest things that Santana had experienced anymore.

“That’s fair,” Natasha said finally.

“Really?”

“I’ll be what you want me to be.  I did encourage Brittany to go on that chopper.  I also kick puppies in my spare time.”

Santana snorted.  “You’re kind of an asshole.”

Natasha shrugged.  “Sometimes. I figured you’d respond best to an asshole.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’ll be what you want me to be.  Looks like your sister-in-law is coming back.”

Clara was indeed walking toward her, carrying a Pikachu costume.  Santana smiled and put the sunglasses back on the rack. She didn’t even feel like arguing the ‘sister-in-law’ point; it wasn’t technically true, but it certainly felt like Santana had a little sister now.

“See ya,” she muttered to Natasha, and didn’t wait for a response.  She met with Clara and smirked. “Pikachu, huh? How old are you?”

“Oh shut up,” Clara said.  “They didn’t have a Charizard costume.”

The Pierce home
October 31, 2013

When they got up that morning, Brittany didn’t hesitate; she immediately got dressed in her Human Brain costume.  It was obviously something she had planned ahead of time, something that was important to her. Santana didn’t comment on it, just let Brittany glide around the house in her cape.

Deb had decided they weren’t up for dealing with trick-or-treating, so after dinner the Pierce girls watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! on television.  Santana wandered around the house.  She felt jittery and uncomfortable, and kept reorganizing her newly moved-in stuff.

Then some dick junior high kids, who really should have been home by now, started throwing eggs at the house.  The welcome and familiar sensation of rage took over, and Santana marched to the door and slammed it open. But before she could start shouting, or run to the little assholes and rip their eyes out, a certain redhead jumped out of a tree wearing a hockey mask and holding a fake chainsaw.

Santana managed to get out her phone in time to take video of Natasha lifting the chainsaw above her head, and the kids screaming as she began to chase them.

“I suppose you don’t want this video posted to the internet,” Santana said when the kids had all run away.

“Not with my name attached, no,” Natasha said.  “And granted, without my name, it’s probably not going to get that many hits.”  Then she climbed back up the tree, seemingly waiting for the next asshole.

It was kind of nice to have a superhero on guard duty.

Santana went back inside and sat next to Brittany on the couch.

November 6, 2013

“Where’s your better half?” Natasha asked, placing a box of pastries on the patio table.

Brittany scrunched up her face.  “I’m whole.”

Natasha smiled like she was laughing.  “I was asking where Santana is.”

“Oh, Santana’s at the grocery store.”

“And you didn’t go with?”

“Of course not,” Brittany said.  “I knew you would be coming over.”  Natasha smiled and sat down in the chair next to her.  Brittany took a pastry out of the box; it was a cheese danish.  Score.

“I’m leaving today,” Natasha said.  “I have plane tickets for a 4:25 flight.”

Brittany stopped in the middle of chewing her danish.  “Oh.”

“You’re not surprised,” Natasha observed.

“You’ve been here for like two weeks, right?”  Brittany frowned to herself. “You probably want to go home.”

“I’m not going home.”

“You’re not?”

Natasha shook her head.  “I’m going someplace else.”  But she didn’t say anything else, so Brittany figured she shouldn’t ask.

“I’m staying here,” Brittany said, even though Natasha probably already knew.  “Santana and I are going to be here for a little while. I’m going to pick Clara up from basketball practice and stuff.  Santana’s learning how to cook. And we enrolled in a dance class. It’s a little far away but the teacher’s really good.”

Natasha smiled at her.  “Good. You should be doing things that keep you active and happy.”

“We’re trying.”  Brittany shrugged.  “I don’t know how long we’ll be here.”

“That’s okay.”

“Is it?”  Brittany found herself frowning.  “Aren’t we supposed to, like, get back to how things were?  Before everything bad happened?”

Natasha studied her.  “Are you?” It felt like some trick spy question.  Brittany didn’t know how to answer it.

“It feels like it should be over,” she said.  “We got out, we stopped Insight, Dad’s dead, our brains are okay.  That means it should be over, but it’s not. Everything still hurts.”

“Brittany,” Natasha murmured.

“Dad’s ashes are still there,” Brittany said, nodding in the direction of them, but not really looking at them.  “Everything still happened, even if it’s over.  And I don’t know how to handle it.  I don’t know how to move on.”

Natasha leaned toward her and talked quietly.  “Brittany. Can I tell you a secret?”

She had repeated the same words Brittany asked her the night of the funeral.  Brittany looked at Natasha’s face and nodded.

“I’ve never moved on from anything,” Natasha said.  “Ever. I’ve only figured out how to carry it.”

Brittany felt like crying, but she couldn’t.  She had cried too much. There weren’t any tears left.

“You’ll learn how to carry it,” Natasha continued.  “It will take much too long, but you will. I promise.”

Brittany took a steadying breath.  “I’m really going to miss you,” she said, and leaned over her chair to hug Natasha tight.

Natasha stiffened.

“I’m sorry,” Brittany said, “is this a spy fur paw?”

“...I think you mean faux pas,” Natasha said.  “And no.” She rubbed Brittany’s back.

November 7, 2013

A package came in the mail that afternoon, addressed to Brittany and Santana from a Natasha Laptop.  They took the package upstairs to open it. The first thing in the box was a letter, written in alternating colored crayons.

Brittany: Your father was unable to believe he had faults.  You accept your limitations. You will become a better person.

Santana: You were pulled into a world you don’t belong in.  The fact that you’re still here speaks to your devotion to Brittany.

Keep yourselves safe.

Natasha

The second thing in the box was an ICER gun and some blue bullets.

November 10, 2013

They started to get more texts from Quinn.  It was all casual stuff, talking about her life or memories from high school or sending pictures from the Yale campus.  She didn’t say anything about the flowers she sent to the funeral.

But then texts started to come from the other glee club kids.  Rachel talked about rehearsals and Mercedes talked about L.A. Artie sent links to funny youtube videos.  Kurt went to the Central Park Zoo and texted Brittany pictures of the animals.

They didn’t say that Quinn was behind it but they didn’t need to.  Santana just watched Brittany smile at her phone and felt fucking grateful.  She had missed having friends.

November 14th, 2013

One month after Nick killed Dad, Brittany texted Becky.  Becky seemed to like college so far. She was at classes, learning and doing stuff, and not being brainwashed by bad guys.

Brittany asked if Becky was happy.  Becky said she was. Brittany was honestly a little jealous of that.  But if Becky was happy and learning and doing stuff, then maybe Brittany would be too one day, once she learned how to carry it like Natasha told her.

Brittany sat with it all for a couple hours and then asked Becky for the names of her doctors.

November 22, 2013

The Friday before Thanksgiving, Brittany asked Santana on a date, as if they weren’t living together.  So they dressed up and went out, just the two of them.

The original plan included a movie, but they didn’t want to take a chance on anything showing in theaters right now.  So they went bowling instead. It shouldn’t have been fun, they both sucked at it and the bowling alley smelled like smoke.  But they shit-talked each other and celebrated their spares. It was mindless and fun, like they hadn’t had in forever.

And then they had sex in the car.  It didn’t feel sleazy at all even though it probably should have.  And it wasn’t maybe wasn’t the smartest idea, but there was an ICER gun in the glove box, and Santana was past the point of caring.  They hadn’t touched each other, had barely even kissed, in the past three months. Making a dumb decision to have uncomfortable sex in the back seat of a car felt like the universe coming back into place.

“I missed you,” Brittany whispered after.

Santana smiled and whispered back, “You too.”

December 1, 2013

In addition to dance classes, Brittany also started taking a Spanish class, as she clearly hadn’t retained anything from high school.  One of the first things she learned in the class was the happy birthday song.

“Feliz cumpleaños a Santana, feliz cumpleaños a ti!”

It wasn’t much of a party, but Santana smiled bright anyway.  Her parents, her girlfriend, and her girlfriend’s family were all gathered the Pierces’s kitchen to wish her a happy birthday.  That was pretty great.

Abuela wasn’t here, but Abuela hadn’t been at the last two birthdays either.  And so many of Santana’s friends weren’t here but text messages from them had been coming in all day.

“Make a wish!” Brittany said, jumping up and down a little.

Santana bent over the store-bought cake, decorated with balloons, and wished for safety for Brittany before blowing out the candles.

The room clapped.  “All twenty at once,” Clara said, sounding impressed.

“Singing gives you great breath control,” Santana said.  “Let’s eat.”

“First piece for the birthday girl,” Mom said and began to cut the cake.  Deb went to the cabinet to bring out forks and plates. Brittany leaned forward and kissed Santana on the cheek.  So far her twenties weren’t so bad.

December 31, 2013
11:58 p.m.

“Thank god this year is over,” Santana said.

There wasn’t much to say to that, so Brittany took her hand instead.

They stood at the back of Mom’s friend’s basement.  Everyone else crowded around the TV to watch the ball drop in Times Square, but Brittany didn’t think it was that exciting.  She and Santana were going to be making out in a minute anyway.

Brittany thought about Finn never leaving 2013.  She thought about Dad deciding who did and did not get to see 2014.  She thought about Lord and Lady Tubbington probably hosting a kegger back at home.

The group counted down the last seconds.  “3...2...1...Happy New Year!” everyone shouted.

Mom didn’t have Dad to kiss at midnight anymore, so instead she leaned down and kissed Clara on the cheek.  Clara squirmed and tried to hide her smile.

Brittany kissed Santana hard on the mouth, and even dipped her.

“To a hopefully better year,” Santana said against Brittany’s lips.

“It will be better,” Brittany said.  “I have a feeling.”

Santana snorted and kissed her again.

January 6, 2014

Deb came home late on her birthday, having chopped off her shoulder-length hair to a close crop pixie cut.

“Wow,” Clara commented.  Santana agreed. Brittany looked nervous, but she was probably just worried about recognizing her mom with a new haircut.

“I wanted something different,” Deb said with a shrug.  “Do you like it?”

“It looks great,” Santana said, because Deb looked uncomfortable and needed encouragement.

“You look nice, Mom,” Clara said.

“Happy birthday, Mom,” Brittany said.

Deb smiled at them all.  “My girls,” she said happily.

February 1, 2014

Nobody knew what to do with DoucheFuck’s first birthday after.  They tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, but the man’s presence lingered in the house.

“When we first moved, he showed me pictures of the old house in D.C. so I wouldn’t forget it.”  Brittany’s voice was quiet in the darkness of her bedroom. Their bedroom. “But after a while he stopped.”

There were a thousand other stories Brittany and Santana weren’t telling today.

“He can’t hurt you again,” Brittany said.

Santana shook her head.  “He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

“It still hurts,” Brittany replied.

Well.  That was true.

March 2014

The doorbell rang.  “I got it,” Brittany called to the kitchen.

“If it’s another reporter, I’ll get them arrested again,” Santana called back.

Brittany grinned to herself and opened the front door, and stopped.

“Nick.”

“I’m sorry to bother you at home,” Nick Fury said, eyes hidden by sunglasses.  “Is this a good time?”

Brittany stared up at him in wonder and joy.  “I remembered you,” she said, “I didn’t forget you, I know who you are.”

Nick smiled down at her.

Nick Fury wouldn’t have visited to just say hi.  He came with an offer.

“A contact of mine found files on Project Numeral in Italy,” he explained, sipping at the tea Santana had made for him at the kitchen table.  “There’s reason to believe something is happening with the Hydra contingent there.  It might be related to Numeral, it might not. So we’re going to pour over the files and investigate.  Having someone there who has been through the programming might be of help. If either of you wanted to come.”

Santana wasn’t thrilled with Nick’s appearance but she wasn’t surprised by it.  In a way it felt like a natural extension of things. Her and Brittany were stable, together and individually.  They were getting on with life. Nick’s visit was like a sign that it was time to leave Lima.

And Santana was ready to leave.  But not to go to Italy. Not to throw herself back into what she fought so hard to escape.

But Santana didn’t even have to look at Brittany to know her answer was different.

“What do you think?” Brittany asked as Nick sat in the living room and pretended he wasn’t listening to them.

Santana thought about Deb laughing at the tv last week, and Clara finally inviting friends over again, and the skyscrapers of New York City.  She thought about screaming at a disappearing helicopter.

“I think it’s time I learn how to be without you,” Santana said.

New York City, New York
JFK International Airport
March 2014

Truthfully, it was hard to look at Brittany.  She was blonde and determined and had a bright smile.  In some ways, she represented the best of her father.

Nick and his people had been over the Hydra files, combed over them, and Nick could not find the moment when Alexander turned.  Maybe he had been Hydra since before the day they met. Nick would have to come to peace with never knowing.

Easier than it sounded.

Nick was too far away to hear what Brittany and Santana were saying to each other.  When they embraced, he turned away.. He gave them their time and waited until Brittany walked up to him alone.

“Okay, I’m ready,” she said.  She sniffled a little but Nick knew she was telling the truth.  She was a temporary agent now, and it didn’t look too bad on her.  Brittany’s strength didn’t just come from her father. It came from inside herself.

“The rest of the crew will be excited to meet you,” Nick told her.  Brittany smiled.

New York City, New York
April 2014

It felt almost too easy to fall back into her old life.  Santana gave Rachel a much-needed pep talk, danced, watched Sue Sylvester get taken down a peg, and got her job at the diner back.  Like it was all meant to be or something.

But it didn’t feel the same, and not only because she was carrying a secret phone in her bra that Brittany messaged a couple times a day.  Nothing felt the same anymore. It took a couple weeks until Santana realized that New York hadn’t changed, but she definitely had.

She barely even noticed she was different until Rachel asked what she wanted in return for having her back at the musical.  It wasn’t surprising, Santana had tried to ruin her life last year, but that felt like a lifetime ago. That was before she started having nightmares about being a Numeral or Asshole Pierce shooting her mother.

“I’ve learned that the world is even crueler than I am,” Santana told Rachel.

She wanted to be better.  And she was. Apparently the singing and dancing underground had gotten Funny Girl to stick in Santana’s goddamn head, so she was able to spend exactly one night as the star of a Broadway show, when her friend needed her most.  Santana never wanted to do it again, but she was glad Kurt illegally recorded it, because she was definitely showing it to Brittany once her secret mission is over.

It felt good to help Rachel.  It felt good to sing with Mercedes, to complain with Sam about their respective jobs, to bleach her hair blonde for no real reason other than she could.  To dance in a diner full of puppies.

“I get frightened in all this darkness,” Santana sang, “I get nightmares, I hate to sleep alone.”

Being weak didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world anymore.

Santana walked on busy streets and fell back in love with New York City.

Rome, Italy
May 2014

The Project Numeral files were confusing.

“It goes very in depth on how the programming works,” Doctor Fine said, glancing over his laptop screen.  “But it’s also mixed with theory and propaganda. Who the hell wrote this?”

“I’m guessing someone terrible,” Nick said.

The quinjet they had was a little crowded.  Nick, Doctor Fine, and Brittany were there, but so were three other people.  There was a guy named Cameron, who Nick apparently recruited right after Dad died.  There was a guy named Gutierrez, who had a metal leg, and had been in Bogotá all those years ago.  Brittany didn’t remember him, but Gutierrez didn’t care and always shared his potato chips. Then there was a woman named Isabella, who always had some scary story from a previous mission.  Brittany liked all of them. They all worked together.

It hurt to think about Numeral, though.  There were a lot of things Brittany had to explain to the others.  Remembering everything hurt.

But Brittany wanted to do it.  She wanted to close the chapter on something that had started over a year ago.  She wanted to help Nick and his friends make sure it didn’t happen again.

Brittany didn’t feel responsible for what her dad had done.  But she thought about the other people who had gone through Numeral, the people she had never met, and felt angry.  She wanted to fix it. So she did.

Italy was good, even if she couldn’t speak the language and Italian food was super overrated.  Italy was full of explanations and making things better. But when the job was finished Brittany didn’t want to stick around for another one.

“I had a feeling,” Nick said.

“I want to go back to my family,” Brittany explained.  “I want to live in New York with Santana. I’m really glad I came here, but I don’t want to be a secret agent forever.”

“I know,” Nick said.  “We’ll get you back to the States.”

She didn’t know if it was allowed, but Brittany put her hand on his.  “I won’t forget you. I promise.”

Nick looked at her for a long time, quiet.  Brittany knew he wouldn’t initiate a hug. She didn’t mind doing it for him.

Lima, Ohio
May 2014

“Brittany!”

Clara ran to her in record time and Brittany felt the full force of her sister tackle-hugging her.  Clara’s friends, all gathered in the living room, openly stared at the scene.

“Hey birthday girl!” Brittany said.

“I didn’t know you were coming!” Clara said excitedly.  “I’m so glad you’re here!”

“I wasn’t going to miss my little sister’s thirteenth birthday!”  They let go of each other and Brittany frowned. “You’re not wearing a party hat.”

“Party hats are super uncool,” one of Clara’s friends said.

“What Gina said,” Clara said.

Brittany shook her head.  “Well, you at least have to wear this .”  She pulled out a sparkly plastic crown with the number ‘13’ on top it.

Clara rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.  “Fine, I guess,” she said, and put it on her head.

“I know I missed your last birthday,” Brittany said, “but I’m here for this one.  I want to be there for all your birthdays.”

They only silently acknowledged that Dad hadn’t come to all their birthdays.

Clara hugged Brittany again before pulling her to the couch.  “Come on, we’re watching 13 Going On 30. ”

New York City, New York
May 2014

Everyone except Artie seemed to think Brittany had been in Lesbos for the past year, so Brittany played along.  She could totally keep a secret.

New York City was just as full of life as Brittany remembered from glee club Nationals.  It felt nothing like Lima, and nothing like MIT. It was someplace all its own. Brittany knew she would like living here.

But first they’d be going on tour.  Brittany had been underground for months, and then she stayed in Lima for more months.  She didn’t regret the time at home, but she liked how she was moving around now. First with Nick Fury, now with Mercedes.  She would get to see a lot of places this summer.

Brittany danced, talked with her friends, and had sex with Blaine in an alternate universe.  The magic of New York enveloped her. Dad had thought she wouldn’t be a part of the world but Brittany felt like she was in the exact center of it.

Reno, Nevada
May 2014

There was no reason to worry.  Brittany had been updating her throughout the secret mission.  Nick had promised to watch over her.

But the second Santana spotted Brittany, an ocean of worries let go of her.  Brittany was running toward her and beaming like she was finally free of some of her ghosts.

They squeezed each other way too tight, and Santana loved it.

“You look good,” she whispered.

“I figured out how to carry it,” Brittany whispered back.

Schaumburg, Illinois
June 25, 2014

After Woodfield Mall closed Mercedes took all the backup singers and dancers out to celebrate Brittany’s birthday.  Brittany got her first legal drinks and Santana watched to make sure Brittany didn’t take off enough clothes to get them kicked out.

One of the guys asked Brittany to dance.  Brittany grinned, but looked to Santana first.  Santana smiled and waved her off. Santana was watching them start off with the robot on the dance floor when Mercedes sat down next to her.  “You two are doing good, huh?”

“I’m fine,” Santana said, “but Britt’s going to have a hangover in the morning.”

Mercedes laughed.  “I meant your relationship.  It’s going good.”

“How do you figure?”

“You used to want to take a guy’s arm off if he danced with her.”  Mercedes took a drink of soda; she was staying away from alcohol on tour so her voice wouldn’t be affected.  “You don’t seem so scared of losing her now.”

Santana eyed her.  “Isn’t this a birthday party?” she joked.  “Why are you being so serious?”

“Hey, I can’t look out for my friends?”

Santana shook her head, smiling.  “I’m still scared of losing her,” she admitted, “but not of her leaving me for some guy.”  It was amazing how many things Santana didn’t care about anymore. Last year she watched Brittany fly away to near-certain death; Brittany being bi couldn’t compare to that.

“Well good,” Mercedes said, patting Santana on the shoulder.  “I want you guys to be happy.”

Santana smiled at her, trying to think of a joke to get the sappy away, but then she noticed Brittany had taken off her outer shirt and was going for her last layer.  “Hold that thought,” she said, and could hear Mercedes laughing as Santana dashed toward the dance floor.

Nashville, Tennessee
July 2014

Mercedes got a call from her mother in the morning.  Mercedes’s cousin had died.

It felt weird to be watching another family’s tragedy from the outside.  Tour stops had to be changed and pushed back and switched around so Mercedes could go to the funeral.  Flight tickets had to be purchased. And there at the center was Mercedes, mourning her cousin.

Brittany sat next to Mercedes on the hotel bed, on her left, so Santana sat on Mercedes’s right.

“I hadn’t talked to him in forever,” Mercedes said quietly, wiping her eyes again.  “We got along well, just, we were both so busy. I can’t remember the last time we talked, and now I’ll never-”

“Hey,” Santana interrupted, gently as she could.  “You and your cousin loved each other, right? I’m sure he knew that.”

Mercedes nodded and breathed in, shaky.  “He did. But I would have liked to talk to him one last time.”

Once again, Brittany proved better at people than Santana.  She lay head on Mercedes’s shoulder and said, “I’m so sorry.  Do you want to tell us about him?”

Mercedes took another shaky breath, considering.  After a long pause, she began, “Antoine could always make me laugh.”

They sat with Mercedes for a long time, until her taxi arrived to take her to the airport.  They hugged her goodbye and went back to their own hotel room and lay in bed for a while, their arms around each other.

“I think you really helped,” Santana said quietly.  “Letting her talk about him.”

“It’s how you carry it,” Brittany said.  She closed her eyes. “Death sucks.”

Wasn’t that the truth.

Washington, D.C.
August 2014

“I try to play my favorite songs, but I can’t sing along, the words don’t feel the same…”

Because it was a mall tour, Mercedes wanted the set list to be upbeat and energetic.  She only sang one slow song on tour. It was the same after she got back from her cousin’s funeral, but the sad song sounded sadder.

Brittany didn’t remember this mall, but she may have been here before.  Mom and Dad might have taken her here before they moved to Lima, back when she was a little girl.  Maybe Brittany would call Mom tonight and ask. Even mentioning Dad was still hard for Mom, though.  Maybe she shouldn’t.

“I wait for roses to be red again.”

Santana hooked her arm around Brittany’s.  They couldn’t say anything, because they had to be quiet backstage, but that was fine.  Sometimes they didn’t need to talk.

“How long will I be broken?”

Brittany took a deep breath and leaned against Santana, keeping her eyes on Mercedes.  The stress of being on tour had been getting to her before, and then the tour bus crossed into D.C. and it felt like there were ghosts around.  Dad had flown back here after kidnapping them a year ago. Dad had died here a couple months later.

Dad would never hurt anyone again.  At least there was that.

Mercedes finished her song and the audience applauded.  The dancers backstage stood up, getting ready to go back out on stage.  Santana kissed Brittany on the cheek and grabbed her water bottle off the floor.

Brittany took another deep breath and jumped up and down to warm herself back up.  Dad couldn’t touch her when she was dancing. He never could.

Lima, Ohio
September 2014

“We’re not having roommates in New York,” Santana declared.  “Between us and the cats, it’s going to be crowded enough.”

“I’ll put Lord Tubbington on a diet,” Brittany promised.

“Okay, but we’re still not having roommates.”

“No.  Just us.”

They had already lived together when Santana moved into the Pierce house last year, but this would be the first time they were living alone.  Except if they counted by held captive underground. Which Santana didn’t.

She wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable arguments, but it would nice to come home to Brittany every day.  And the cats, Santana reminded herself. Crap, she would definitely have to invest in lint rollers.

They talked for a long time about New York.  They discussed going back to school, looked up application deadlines, started researching apartment prices.  They also worked on their number for glee club. So they were both tired when they finally lay down for bed.

“I’m glad the glee club is back,” Brittany said, pulling the covers up.  “I need to convince Clara to join when she goes to high school next year.  I talked to her about it today and she didn’t say yes.”

“Why doesn’t she want to join?” Santana asked.

“She keeps saying that she can’t sing,” Brittany said with a shrug.  “I keep telling her I couldn’t either.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t want to commit to something that’s not a sure thing,” Santana pointed out.  “Glee club might not be around next year. We’re gonna try, but it might fail again.”

“Nah, it will be around,” Brittany said.  “I have a feeling.”

That was something Brittany was good at: believing that something could be definite.  Feeling like something good could stay and endure and continue to grow.

Santana wanted to be good at that, too.  So the next day she bought a ring.

New York City, New York
Avengers Tower
Natasha Romanoff’s personal quarters
October 2014

The envelope came addressed to “Natasha”, no last name or other signifier, written in crayon.  Natasha wasn’t entirely sure how it got past the mail screening.

Inside was a wedding invite to the union of Brittany S. Pierce and Santana Lopez.  The invitation was simple; the date, the time, the place, and a picture of the two of them hugging and smiling at the camera.  There was also a letter inside the envelope.

Dear Natasha ,

Santana and I have been watching you on TV.  We’ve seen Hawkeye and Captain America too. We haven’t seen Nick or Wilson or Hill because they’re not on TV.  We don’t know how to write to them, so we figured we would just sent the invitation to you and you could show it to everyone else.

Santana and I are alive and happy becuz of all of you.  We know your too busy to come to the wedding, but we wanted to invite you anyway.  We’ll be thinking of you. Keep saving the world and stuff.

Brittany and Santana had both signed the letter in crayon, Santana with red and Brittany with multiple colors.

Natasha looked at the invitation for a long time before finally handing it to Clint.  He looked it over, silent, until he finally said, “November 8th isn’t going to work.”

“No, it’s not,” Natasha said.  “We have an Avenging date in Europe.”

“Europe is so demanding,” Clint said, shaking his head theatrically.

“I think this is the first time I’ve honestly been invited to a wedding,” Natasha said.

Clint considered her.  “Really?”

“First time I’ve been invited as Natasha,” she clarified.  She wasn’t going to count the invites sent to her various covers.  “Not that I’ll be going. Our orders are to ‘keep saving the world and stuff’ after all.”

“Yes sir.”  Clint hesitated, then added, “You know you’ll be invited to my wedding, right?  You’re going to be my best man and everything.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows.  “You honestly think you’re going to have a wedding?”  The man had already been married for over thirteen years.  Clint and Laura had apparently gotten hitched in Vegas and then tried to rob a bank.

“Sure, eventually.  Probably. Maybe.” Clint frowned, seeming to realize he wasn’t making his case very well.  “In any case, you can send them a wedding gift. If you wanted.”

Natasha blinked at him.  “Maybe you can let me know what an appropriate wedding gift is in this situation.”

“Well, we could always steal one of Stark’s credit cards and buy them a boat or something.”

They didn’t buy a boat.  They bought a blender, and a simple ‘congratulations on your marriage’ card from Walgreens.  It was the only card that was gender-neutral enough for a wedding of two brides.  Clint signed his name in small capital letters.  Natasha broke out some crayons for her signature, and added a smiley face after it.

“You’re really just here to make me sign a card?” Sam Wilson asked at his back door.

Natasha grinned at him.  “Not everyone I know is trying to kill me this time.”

Sam looked at the wedding invitation, the letter, the card Natasha had bought.  His gaze lingered on the invite’s photo, two young women hugging and smiling. “They’re okay?”

“They’re okay,” Natasha confirmed.

Sam nodded.  Natasha didn’t tell him that she had spent those weeks in Ohio watching over them.  She didn’t tell him how she had gone to Russia after. She didn’t tell him how she spent the weekend after that with the Bartons, watching Lila and Cooper trying to wrestle their dad, and Clint letting them win, and wishing things had been different.

Secrets upon secrets.  Old habits died hard.

“I hate that she was there,” Sam said, looking at Brittany’s picture.  “She shouldn’t have been.”

“No,” Natasha said.  “She shouldn’t have been.”

Sam looked at her, apparently decided he didn’t have anything to say, and signed the card.

Natasha knew Steve was going to be upset upon seeing the invitation, and he would deny being upset about it, because he wouldn’t even know why he was upset, and wouldn’t take the necessary self-reflection to discover why.

He was, indeed, upset.  Steve looked at the invite and forced a smile.  He probably thought it didn’t look forced. That man needed a better poker face.

He signed his name on the card.  “It would have been nice to go,” he said.

“Yes, but we’re sending a gift,” Natasha said.

“What did we buy them?”

“A blender.”

“A blender,” Steve repeated, wide-eyed.  “What’s that?”

Natasha rolled her eyes.  “Blenders were developed in the 1920s.  Try Stark if you want to troll somebody.”

Steve sighed.  “I thought you said you only acted like you know everything.”

“I didn’t lie.  But I do know everything about kitchen appliances.”

“I don’t know where Fury is,” Maria Hill said as she signed the card.

“Maybe not, but you are in contact with him,” Natasha said.

Maria raised an eyebrow, saying nothing.  Natasha stared back. There wasn’t a reason to get into a staring contest with her former boss, but watching Maria struggle to win was always a delight.

It had been over a year since Maria last spoke to Natasha in orders and commands.  They were supposed to be colleagues now, equals. They managed it most days, but could never get any further.  There was too much in the way. Especially when they were so incredibly uneven when it came to staring contests.

“I’m not asking for information,” Natasha finally said after Maria blinked.  “Just send the card along to him, okay?”

The corners of Maria’s mouth tilted up, and Natasha knew she would.

“I’m sorry you can’t go to the wedding,” Maria said.

Natasha wondered if they would ever be friends.  Probably not. But it was still nice to sit across from Maria Hill and remember why Natasha liked her in the first place, when she first came to SHIELD.  “We bought them a blender,” Natasha said.

Hill chuckled.  “Look at that. The Black Widow is capable of being a little normal after all.”

Natasha smiled.  “Maybe a little.”

Lima, Ohio
October 14, 2014

Brittany thought it was maybe a good thing they had wedding planning to do.  It was fun and a lot of hard work, so it took up time. They could think about something else other than the time of year.

But today there were no distractions.  Dad had died a year ago today. Nick had shot him twice in the heart.

Dad’s ashes had scattered.  Rain, wind, and snow had chipped away at the pile of white they had dumped in the yard last year.  But Brittany still felt like this patch of ground was Dad’s grave, so it was where she stood.

Clara was in her room, and Mom had gone out ‘for a drive’.  Santana had gone to visit her own mom, so she could give the family space.  Brittany stared down at the grass and tried to figure out how she felt.

Sad.  Hurt. Angry.  Relieved. It was all things she had already felt.  There was nothing new.

How could she be glad he was gone and miss him at the same time?

“I guess you’re not invited to my wedding,” Brittany told the grass.  “But you wouldn’t have wanted to come anyway.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest.  “Santana’s abuela isn’t coming either. I tried…”

Dad wasn’t actually listening.  He wouldn’t have even if he were alive.  But Brittany thought it was okay to talk anyway.

“I wanted Santana to have everyone she wanted at the wedding.  Santana deserves to be happy, after everything. I tried to get her abuela to come but it didn’t work.  Abuela is stubborn like you. She never tried to kill people though so she’s better than you. She’s still not coming to the wedding, though.  And you’re not either. I guess that’s fair.”

Mom and Dad’s wedding rings were buried in this yard.  Brittany had an engagement ring on her finger.

She thought about the facts over and over, trying to make sense of everything.  She decided what things meant on her own, now. She didn’t just take Dad’s word for it.  She used to think Dad knew everything, and now she thought he had known nothing.

Well, he had known Brittany liked hot fudge sundaes.  But he had also known Brittany didn’t deserve to be alive.  So whatever.

“The thing with Santana’s abuela is that she has to choose to change.  You never did, but she’s better than you, so maybe she will one day. In the meantime I’m not going to wait.  I’m marrying Santana. And Kurt and Blaine are getting married too, even though they don’t know it yet.”

She wiped her eyes.  She didn’t know when she had started crying.

“I’m doing good though,” Brittany said, as if Dad would want to hear.  “I went on tour with Mercedes. I helped Nick in Italy with some stuff.  Hydra really sucks, by the way. The Avengers are wiping it all out. Hydra’s gonna be gone forever and I’m still gonna be here.  I know you would have wanted it the other way but I’m not sorry.”

She hadn’t expected today to hurt so much.  But Brittany’s chest hurt, and she cried and huddled in on herself.  Santana would be back later. They would hug the cats together and maybe eat some ice cream.  Maybe Mom and Clara would eat ice cream with them too.

“Natasha said it’s okay to miss you even though you hurt me.  So I’m gonna miss you, and do all the things you didn’t want me to do, and be who you didn’t want me to be, all at the same time.”

The green grass looked up at her and didn’t say a word.

Brittany nodded to herself and wiped her face on her sleeve.

“I wish things had been different, Daddy.”

She went back inside.

Barn house in rural northeast Indiana
November 8, 2014

Nick entered the barn house as everyone began to sit down, and not a single person turned an eye to him.  He stashed the gift, card attached, with the others before taking a seat in the back row.

It had only been a happy coincidence that allowed Nick to come to the wedding.  The crew had finished cleaning something up in Texas yesterday, and Nick took the executive decision to take a day off.

“You’re a sap,” Gutierrez had told him.

“Bite me,” Nick had replied.

Looking around, he noticed the absences.  He knew that the Pierce family was bigger than who had shown; some of Alex’s relatives had apparently not decided to come.  He wondered if it was because they didn’t want to catch the gay, or because they were distancing themselves from Alex.

There would be no father to walk Brittany down the aisle today.  He wondered if Brittany would have her mother take over the honors, or another family member.  Perhaps a lesbian wedding didn’t have anyone walking the brides down the aisle; Nick hadn’t been to any weddings in a long time, he didn’t know traditions anymore.

But Nick did know names and faces.  When the music started he saw one of the singers was Mercedes Jones, granddaughter of Gabe Jones.  Standing to the side was Congressman Burt Hummel, apparently ready to officiate the ceremony. Nick couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on his face.  Brittany had the family of politicians and Howling Commandos as friends. She may not have been an agent, but she had always been a part of the world she inherited from her father.  Only her world was full of light.

Light and weirdness, judging by the woman who sat next to him, wearing a black track suit to a wedding.  But weirdness felt appropriate for Brittany. Besides, Nick was the weirdo wearing sunglasses inside a barn.

The crowd stood together as Brittany entered.

She was twenty-one now, Nick realized.  It had been fifteen years since she had been the panicked little girl who held his hand.  Now she was a bride, wearing a long white dress and veil, holding a bouquet of white flowers.  She was arm in arm with a man around her age, and she looked bright in every sense of the word.

Nick was not a father, and Brittany was not his daughter.  But he felt a sense of pride and joy deep in him anyway.

Santana, arm in arm with another young man, followed into the barn.  She walked with a smile and her eyes on Brittany.

This was why Nick did what he did: so others could experience all that life had to offer.

Brittany and Santana (Brittany’s wife, because they had gotten married, they were married now) were jamming to the song Artie was singing when a man approached them.

“Mind if I cut in?” Nick Fury asked.

Brittany immediately hugged him.  “Oh my god, Nick! I didn’t think you were coming!”

“I was invited,” Nick said, and Brittany grinned up at him.  She knew Natasha would send along the invitation.

“How are you doing, Nick?” Santana asked.

Nick shook her hand.  “All right. Busy as ever.”

“Found an opening in your schedule?” Santana joked.

“Something like that,” Nick responded.  “I can’t stay too much longer, but I wanted to get a dance with the bride.  If the other bride is okay with it.”

Santana smiled.  “She’s all yours.  Babe, meet me when you’re done, I’ll grab the husbands.”

“Okay,” Brittany said.

“Good to see you, Nick,” Santana said, and walked off.  Artie’s song changed into something a little slower, so Brittany took Nick’s hands and started to dance with him.

“I’m really happy you’re here,” Brittany said.  “I won’t tell anyone who you are.”

“I appreciate that.”  Nick almost seemed a little uncomfortable, like he didn’t know how to dance.  That was fine, Brittany was good enough for the both of them. “Your wife seemed genuinely pleased to see me.  I think that time apart helped you both.”

“I think so too,” Brittany said.  “How is everyone on the crew?”

“They send their congratulations,” Nick replied.  “They all signed the card.”

They took a moment to listen to Artie’s voice.

“I’m sorry your father isn’t here,” Nick said softly.

Brittany nodded.  “I’m sorry, too. But you’re here.  And so is everyone else I care about.  Uncle Henry even brought the goat.”

“I saw the goat,” Nick said.  “I also saw your mom singing and dancing with you.”

“Clara had to help me convince her,” Brittany said.  “But she did it! And it was a lot of fun. And we’re taking lots of pictures and video so I can remember everything.”  She frowned. “Um, someone might be taking pictures of you right now. Is that bad?”

“I don’t think anyone’s paying attention to us,” Nick said.  “I’ll be long gone before anyone notices I’m here.”

“You should stay for a little bit longer.  After Artie’s done, Santana and I are going to sing with our husbands.”

Nick snorted.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

Brittany smiled and let go of his hands, hugging him again instead.  They swayed back and forth for a little bit, until Artie’s song was done.  Everyone started to clap.

“Thank you for coming,” Brittany told him.

“Congratulations, Brittany,” Nick said.  “I’m proud of you.”

When she sang ‘Our Day Will Come’, Brittany spotted Nick out in the crowd by himself, smiling at her.  Brittany turned to smile at Santana and show her Nick was still here, but when she turned back, he was gone.

That was okay.  She’d see him again.  She knew it.

The barn house itself had been warm, but stepping outside meant subjecting themselves to the November chill.  Brittany pulled one of her horse sweatshirts on over her dress, and Santana shrugged on her black jacket.

Mike patted them both on the shoulder before heading off to the car.  Santana had elected him to drive them back to the hotel, because he was the least likely to get into an accident.

“I can drive us,” Brittany had said.

“We’re the brides,” Santana had argued.  “I want to be chauffeured.”

Brittany had a wedding ring on her finger now, not just an engagement ring.  She looked over to Santana, and Santana smiled at her.

Having a wife seemed different.  It felt like balance. It made it easier to talk about things.

“We never talked about our names,” Brittany said.

Santana stopped smiling, but she didn’t look mad or angry or anything.  “No, we didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t know if...well, I didn’t want to upset you.”

“I can’t change my last name,” Brittany said.  Santana raised her eyebrows. “I mean, I can be a Lopez, but I can’t only be a Lopez.”

Santana didn’t look surprised.  She looped their arms together, and it helped Brittany talk more.

“I’ve been thinking about what Natasha said last year, about carrying things.  And I have to carry my last name. I’m a Pierce. And I know it came from Dad, and I know men’s names being passed down is a symbol of the patriarchy, but I can’t not be a Pierce.  I want to carry it.”

“You are a Pierce,” Santana said.  “Whatever that means, it’s yours.”

“It’s yours, too,” Brittany said.  That, Santana looked surprised about.  “We’re married now so we share everything.  You could be a Pierce if you want to. But I figured you wouldn’t want to.”

Santana pressed her forehead against Brittany’s.  “I’m not going to drop my last name either. I’m Hispanic and I’m a Lopez, that’s that.  But I would take Pierce.”

“Really?”

“Your dad’s dead,” Santana said.  “We get to decide what the name means now.  And I can carry it with you.”

They wrapped each other up in their arms and kissed again.  Brittany would kiss Santana for the rest of her life.

“So we’re both keeping our last names.  Are we also taking each other’s? Are we adding a hypher?”

“Hyphen,” Santana corrected.  “I don’t know yet. We’ll get to it.”

“Okay.  We’ll figure it out together.”

Brittany held Santana close to her as she listened to the last music and laughter coming from inside.  Light from the barn house spilled out into the dark and stars shone above them.

The world was so big, Brittany thought.  There was so much ahead of them.

The car pulled up, headlights bright in the night.  Brittany took Santana’s hand and together they ran toward the car, toward the lights, toward the world.