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ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴇʟᴠᴇ: ᴀɴᴛɪᴄɪᴘᴀᴛɪᴏɴ's ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ʟɪɴᴇ

❝ ɪ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴋɴᴇᴡ ᴍʏ ғᴀᴛʜᴇʀ. ❞

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   YOUR FINGERS DANCED LIGHTLY ALONG THE COVER OF THE BLACK, LEATHER-BOUND JOURNAL RESTING IN YOUR LAP, grazing over the edge of the cover once or twice, wanting to open it but being too afraid to actually do it.

"My God," Brendon groaned loudly. "You've been staring at it for five hours. Just open the damn thing."

You lifted your head up, glancing over at him and narrowing your eyes as you folded your arms. "Just for that, I'm not opening it for another five hours."

If you were living in a cartoon world, you were sure that you would've been able to see steam blowing out of Brendon's ears, and his face turning a deep shade of magenta. His knuckles were white from grasping the back of the desk chair with such force, and his chest rose and fell heavily as he tried his best to keep his cool; you just barely managed to suppress a smirk at the sight.

"Open it," he commanded, voice calm and cool – a direct contrast to his body language.

"No."

"Open it now. Or else."

"Or else what?" you scoffed, rising from the chair and walking over to him. "You gonna make me?"

You took another few steps towards him, raising an eyebrow in expectance of his response. You saw a flash of fire in his eyes and you swallowed hard, mouth suddenly gone dry. The next moment, his hands were gripping you tight and you let out a gasp when your back was pushed up against the cold wall. Brendon placed both of his hands on either side of your head and pressed himself against you; you were so close, your noses were brushing against each other. Thank God you were in one of the only rooms that weren't glass, or else somebody might've seen the two of you... Seen the two of you what? What exactly were you doing? You weren't sure. You weren't sure of anything other than the fact that you and your bodyguard were kissing distance away from one another. One simple movement from either of you and that was it.

But... you didn't want to kiss him, did you?

Just a few minutes ago, you would've answered that question simply and in a heartbeat: No. Never. But now, being this close to him, your judgement was clouded and you felt yourself slowly become more and more open to the idea.

"Open. It," he growled lowly, barely even an inch away from your lips.

Aaannnddd the feeling was gone. You didn't want to kiss him. He was a narcissistic, cocky bastard with a huge temper and very big anger issues and you hated him. Him and his obnoxiously kissable lips.

"No," you stood your ground.

"(Y/N)..."

"Brendon..."

"I did not risk almost getting turned into one of Hydra's playthings just so that you can sit around doing nothing like a moron!" he spat. "Open it!"

"No one asked you to risk your life by fighting against him," you retorted. "You could've just come back with the rest of us."

"You're right, I could've," he nodded, a frown on his face and his voice still laced with anger. "But I didn't. I stayed and I fought. For you!"

You opened your mouth to say something, but he continued.

"And now the guy who's trying to get to you is locked up in a cell under constant surveillance. So the least you can do to repay me is stop messing around and open the fucking book!"

You stared into his eyes for a second, watching the flecks of anger disappear from them before looking down at the ground, where the journal lay at your feet.

"I'm not trying to be difficult," you whispered with a sigh. "But this belonged to my father. If you were in my position, wouldn't you be hesitant to open it too? Wouldn't you be afraid of what secrets it holds? Wouldn't you be terrified that it might change the way you've always seen him?"

"No."

"No?" you gaped. "How could you not?"

"Because I never knew my father," he stated simply, face and voice void of all emotion.

You stared at him, totally dumbfounded. He never knew his father. God, you couldn't imagine never having known your father. You felt like you needed to say something, but you couldn't think of what to say. He didn't seem at all bothered by it, but surely he had to be?

Then again, he did have a remarkable way of avoiding any kind of human emotion – besides anger – unless the situation deemed it absolutely necessary, so it wasn't too hard to believe that he felt nothing about it.

"But I knew yours," he continued, picking up the journal and handing it to you; you reluctantly accepted it. "Open it. You have to."

"Because S.H.I.E.L.D needs me to?" you cheeked.

"That, and you and I both know that your incredibly nosy mind is dying to know what's inside."

You snapped your head up, glaring at him.

"What?" he mocked, tilting his head to one side. "Don't act like you haven't been trying to figure out how I feel about my father since I brought him up."

What? How did he know that?!

"I wasn't," you lied, trying your hardest to keep your voice steady and maintain eye contact, so that he couldn't tell that you were lying.

"You're lying."

Ah! He did it again! Could he read your mind?

"No, I can't read your mind."

REALLY? THEN HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW WHAT I'M THINKING?

"You're easy to read," he spoke. "You can't lie to me (Y/N)."

You clicked your tongue. "I can be a very convincing liar if I want to be," you defended.

"I highly doubt it."

"How would you know? You don't know anything about me other than my tragic life story."

"Don't be so sure."

You frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Open." He nodded to the journal in your hand.

Heaving a heavy sigh, you collapsed back into the chair, well aware of the fact that the conversation was now over, and there was no way you were going to get another word out of him.

Tracing the cover one last time, you opened the journal.

~

You absentmindedly chewed on your lip, eyebrows furrowed as your eyes darted across page after page of the enigma you held in your hands.

"And?" Brendon asked, his cold voice cutting through the silence in the room. "Is there anything useful in there?"

You nodded, eyes not lifting from the writing on the slightly discoloured pages.

"Care to share any of it?" he sighed, annoyed.

"Yes. But only when The Director is present; I think he'd want to hear this."

"I most definitely do," The Director confirmed, striding into the room, securing the door and instructing the PA system to soundproof the room as an extra precaution before moving to stand next to Brendon. "Let's hear it."

You took a deep breath before you began reading the information jotted down in the journal. "The Tesseract – also called the Cube – is a crystalline cube-shaped containment vessel for the Space Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones that predate the universe and possesses unlimited energy. It was used by various ancient civilizations before coming into hands that brought it to Earth. The Stone within the Tesseract is a remnant of one of the six singularities that existed before the universe's creation. After the universe came into existence, four cosmic beings known as the Cosmic Entities forged the energies of these singularities into six immensely powerful objects called the Infinity Stones. The Stone within the Tesseract represented the fabric of space. The Tesseract was used by various civilizations to achieve their ends. Over the eons since its creation, the Tesseract came to be kept in the care of the God of Motivation, Vili, during King Odin's rule. The Tesseract fell to during the battle between the Asgardians and the Frost Giants and after being left on the planet for unexplained reasons, it ended up being kept safe in a church in the village of Tønsberg. In March 1942, during World War II, the commander of the Nazi special weapons division: Hydra, invaded Tønsberg. There, he found the Tesseract in a box hidden behind a sculptured mural of Yggdrasil, the world tree. Schmidt took the Tesseract back to to be experimented on by Hydra. After experimenting on the Tesseract, Schmidt and Zola were able to harness the object's power to create highly advanced weaponry, fueling Schmidt's plans for world domination. With the power of the Tesseract, Schmidt felt strong enough to turn his back on Hitler and the Third Reich. He intended to destroy both the Axis and Allied powers and make himself ruler of the world."

"Except that that plan was foiled by Captain America," Brendon commented, shifting his weight from one foot to another.

"I was getting there," you sneered.

"Let her finish, Agent," The Director spoke, eyes narrowed as he kept them trained on you.

"Thank you, Director," you tossed your bodyguard a glare. "In November 1943, Schmidt brought the Tesseract into Hydra's top secret weapons facility in the Austrian Alps, located halfway between Kitzbühel and Klagenfurt. During the facility's operation, Allied Prisoners of War were forced to serve in the large-scale assembly of Tesseract based energy weapons including development of the super-bomber, and a set of nuclear-scale Tesseract energy bombs. When the Allied super soldier, Captain America, infiltrated the facility to free the four hundred Allied POWs, a large confrontation began. Seeing that his men wouldn't be able to defeat the freed prisoners, Schmidt took the Tesseract and set the base to self-destruct. In March 1945, with his gigantic super bomber called the Valkyrie – which was powered by the Tesseract – finally finished, Schmidt was prepared to launch an offensive that would shake the entire planet. With this, Schmidt intended to destroy several world-wide strategic points, including the entire East Coast of the United States. However, he was attacked by Captain America, the Howling Commandos, and a US Army detachment led by Colonel Chester Phillips and Peggy Carter of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. Schmidt's men were defeated, but he managed to take the Tesseract and launched the Valkyrie. However, Captain America managed to board the plane and attacked Schmidt, damaging the machine that was using the Tesseract to power the Valkyrie and its flying nuclear bombs. Angered, Schmidt physically handled the Tesseract, only for the object to open a portal, which consumed Schmidt before closing. The Tesseract fell burning through the floors, causing it to plunge into the sea below."

You finished and looked to the men for their responses. When it didn't come, (they just stood there in silence, staring at you) you frowned.

"Is any of this news to you?" you asked, confused as to why the information hadn't gained a bigger reaction from them. It sure as hell blew your mind.

"Not really, no," The Director confessed, moving around to the other side of the sofa.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," you held up one hand, shaking your head, "So you lied to me when you said that you didn't know what it was?"

"Admittedly, yes. Don't take it to heart, (Y/N). It was merely a precaution," Fury explained, squeezing your shoulder in comfort, "S.H.I.E.L.D already had all the information about history of Snowflake – well, the Tesseract. What we didn't have was the only copy of blueprints for Hydra's aforementioned weapons of mass destruction, which, if I'm not mistaken, should be in that journal."

You began hastily paging through the journal, searching for something that resembled a blueprint and sure enough, most of the rest of the book was full of them. Your eyes widened and your mouth formed an 'o' shape as you skimmed over the information.

"How did you know that these would be in here?" you asked.

"Your father wouldn't have gone through so much trouble to hide a journal that only contained knowledge we had already."

"I never had it."

"Which is why he added it in, I assume." Fury walked over to you and very cautiously extended a hand. "May I?"

You instinctively clutched the book against your chest.

"I just need to make a copy of the blueprints. I'll do it myself and give the journal back right after," he reassured.

Reluctantly, you slowly handed it over and he thanked you. "So Hydra's plan now is to try and accomplish what their ancestors couldn't?"

"Precisely." The Director stuffed the journal into the inside of his black trench coat.

"But if the Tesseract is of Asgardian descent, then can't Asgard send aid?"

"Odin and Asgard are worlds away; we can't rely on them to help. Besides, from what I've heard, they have enough going on at the moment, " he explained. "But like I said, this is the only copy; Hydra has no way of carrying on if they don't have the journal, which is why we need to protect it at all costs. Just like you."

"I'm still that much of a priority?" you questioned, perplexed. "Why? I've served my purpose by retrieving my father's journal. What else could I possibly be useful for?"

Brendon snorted, and you shot him another hateful look.

"Your life's way more valuable than you might think, (Y/N)," The Director said softly; his eyes seemed to gloss over faintly.

Silence fell over the room once again as you let his words sink in. You had no idea what he could be referring to. More valuable than you might think? What was that supposed to mean?

"Uncle Nick?" you whispered, bringing your eyes to meet those of the frontrunner standing in front of you. His body seemed to tense up marginally; you had referred to him as 'Uncle Nick' – something you only did when you were extremely serious, and he knew what was coming next.

"Yes?"

"Is there anything else you're keeping from me?"

This time, Brendon unnoticeably tensed up too, and The Director pressed his lips together tightly; his finger did a small twitching motion behind his back.

"You're aware of everything you should be aware of, (Y/N)."

You screamed internally at the skillful way he dodged your question. Obviously, you didn't expect him to reveal all of S.H.I.E.L.D's top-secret intelligence to you, but a little more insight into what the hell was going on would've been nice.

Oh well. Maybe you could squeeze a little more info out of Brendon.

Your eyes travelled to where your bodyguard stood. Cold and distant as ever, his hard body stood painfully upright while his dark eyes bored holes into yours.

Yeah, there was no way that was going to happen.

But it sure wouldn't hurt to try.

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Thank you for reading x