Music is "Skipping Stones" by Claire Guerreso.

Picture is from Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

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CHAPTER FIVE: Insight

Steve is silent the entire flight back to Washington. He remains in his seat, eyes glued to the floor, not speaking a word. Natasha sits beside me on the other side of the Quinjet, just out of hearing range.

"Just when I got him to start trusting me," she mumbles to herself, low enough so that I can hear but Steve can't over the sound of the plane.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Tasha," I reply, looking at the solemn redhead. "Steve just plays by the old rules, even after being out of the ice for nearly two years. I...I know what it's like to have to play by more complicated rules."

She turns to give me a small look of gratitude. "I was following orders," she tells me, eyes flickering over to Steve to ensure he can't hear us. "Fury gave me a direct order. I had to follow it. It might be complicated, but it is compartmentalization."

I nod. "I know. No one can know everything so no one can give everything up. Trust me, the Cold War taught me that much."

When the Quinjet lands, Steve leaves as silently as he was on the entire trip. He marches past the locker rooms, towards the lift, and hits the button that I assume will take him to Director Nick Fury.

I walk beside my friend and colleague to the locker rooms. We change out of our uniforms, sending them off to be cleaned, and get a well-needed shower. I wash the blood and grime from my body, just glad to be home.

Natasha finishes before me and wraps a towel around herself as I finish. She stands outside my stall, turned away to give me privacy as she says, "I know what this weekend is for you."

I grip my towel and dry off, looking at the shower stall in front of me. Two days from now is April 4th, Bucky and my anniversary. To be honest, I had pushed it from my mind for a while now, focusing on work, friends, and family. "Do you?"

She nods. "I'm sorry about what happened," she tells me, sincerely. "I had a lover once, after I left the Red Room. She was one of the trainees. We escaped together. Every year, we celebrated the anniversary of the day we left. And now...now that she's dead? It's one of the hardest days of the year." She turns and walks towards the locker, where new clothes are kept. "How long?"

Though it's a somewhat vague question, I know exactly what she means. How long has it been since your wedding? "This year is the big seventy," I admit, drying my hair with a second towel. "But it's been almost that long since I saw Bucky, too, so I'm not sure it really counts."

When I come into the locker room, Natasha is already in mundane clothes. She gives me a small smile as she places a hand on my shoulder. "Trust me, it counts."

Both of our coms start to buzz. I pick up mine and press the answer button. "This is Emma."

"Fury wants to show us something," Steve says over the channel. "Something important. Meet us at the elevator."

"On my way." I turn to Natasha, hearing her conversation over her com. Something about an old mission. She drops her com, her face a little paler. "Are you all right?"

She shakily nods her head, turning for the door. "Got something to take care of. See you later, Emma."

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"Insight Bay."

"Sergeant Barnes does not have clearance for Project Insight."

"Director override: Fury, Nicholas J."

"Confirmed."

The lift ride with Steve and Fury is a short, uneventful one. Director Fury spends the short trip to the lower levels of the Triskellion telling us about his grandfather, someone whom he clearly admired.

When the lift exits the tube and opens up to the area below the Potomac River, my eyes move past Steve across from me in the small, glass box to the three, enormous helicarriers in the underground bay. But these aren't like the helicarrier my sister-in-law Rose engineered. They're not sleek and simple, with planes on the top. They don't look like any conventional helicarrier I've ever seen.

These project Insight ships are twice as large, with five times the weaponry, that I can see. Guns the size of buses shoot from each side and front of the carriers. Smaller ones, around the size of a car, line the underside, aiming at the floor. State of the art engines line the underside, and on the back is a glass dome with walkways inside. Brand new Quinjets and other flying craft are being loaded onto the top of each Insight helicarrier. And to top the entire beast off, an energy canon that's as large as my entire apartment building sits on the top, guarding the bridge.

"Granddad loved people, but he didn't trust them very much," Fury concludes, turning his eyes toward the expansive room.

Steve catches my gaze and turns to see what I'm staring at. His eyes widen, and he almost freezes.

"Yeah, I know," Fury shrugs. "They're a little bigger than a .22."

Fury exits the lift, followed by Steve and I. Our eyes go everywhere. The sheer amount of SHIELD agents assigned to this project is extensive. There must be thousands of people in this very room.

We walk through the hurrying groups of people, towards one of the ships.  "This is Project Insight," Fury explains along the way. "Three next generation helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites."

"Satellites that were launched from the Lemurian Star," I conclude, looking up at the massive piece of machinery before us.

Fury's silence confirms my assumption. "Once we get them in the air, they never need to come down. Continuous sub-orbital flight, courtesy of our new repulsor engines." Above our heads, Fury motions to the large circular shapes that, when powered up, will lift the Insight craft into the air.

"Stark?" Steve inquires.

"He had a few suggestions once he got an up-close look at our old turbines."

I chuckle at the Director's dry humor. "By up-close, you mean when he tried to save a falling helicarrier and almost got blended by the old turbines?"

Fury smirks, then points to the weapons on the underside of the ship. He shows us to a staircase where we climb up to become level with the guns on the Insight carrier. "These new long-range precision guns can eliminate a thousand hostiles a minute. The satellites can read a terrorist's DNA before he steps outside his spider hole."

Steve and I look around us in both awe and concern as the deck we're standing on starts moving closer to the helicarrier.

"We're gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen," Fury concludes.

I can instantly tell that those words don't sit right with Steve. "Thought the punishment usually came after the crime."

Fury looks at him in surprise. "We can't afford to wait that long."

"Who's 'we'?" I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.

Fury's eye flickers to me. "After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis." His eye turns towards the ship above us, almost as if he's admiring it. "For once, we're way ahead of the curve."

"By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection," Steve says, almost sarcastically but true.

"Everyone including those who have done nothing wrong," I add. "This violates at least half of their rights, whether American or not."

Fury turns to Steve and I with newfound determination. "You know, I read those SSR files. 'Greatest Generation'? You guys did some nasty stuff."

"Yeah," Steve says, standing taller. "We compromised. Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so people could be free." He motions to the carriers. "This isn't freedom. This is fear."

Fury turns to me with the same dark look in his eye. "And you? You've done just about every illegal thing I can think of: false imprisonment, kidnapping, murder, theft, armed robbery, false identity. I've put away people just like you. Your morals are...questionable, at best. What makes Insight different than your Lady Justice crusade?"

"You assume I don't realize all that." My brow furrows in anger, but I push those feelings away to focus on a coherent and collected response. "But there's a flaw in your logic, Director Fury."

"Enlighten me, Sergeant Barnes?"

I let my arms drop. "I know what I did was wrong. Lady Justice was wrong."

My reply causes Fury to be silent for half a second, then he turns back to talk to both Steve and I. "SHIELD takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be." He steps closer to us both, not backing down. "And it's getting damn near past time for you to get with that program, Cap."

Steve's cold blue eyes shoot daggers at our Director. "Don't hold your breath."

END CHAPTER FIVE: Insight.