Sorcerer in the Marvel Universe

As far as everyone else was concerned, the evening had ended beautifully.

Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter had cleared up their misunderstanding, reconciled, and somehow emerged even closer than before. Evenson had even managed to find someone willing to split a cab with him, so he had gone home in a reasonably good mood.

Unfortunately, not everyone had gotten a happy ending.

Dottie Underwood was sitting alone in the rooftop laundry area of Steve’s apartment building, smoking one cigarette after another and stewing in misery.

She couldn’t stay inside.

Steve and Peggy had actually gone through with that ridiculous candlelit dinner, filling the apartment with an atmosphere so sweet and romantic that Dottie had practically tasted it in the air.

The two of them had politely invited her to stay for dinner.

She had politely declined.

What was she supposed to do, sit there and watch them feed each other strawberries?

Their smiles had practically screamed, Thanks for coming. Now please leave.

Dottie had gotten angrier by the second until, without really thinking about it, she shoved one of the laundry poles over the edge of the rooftop.

It fell.

Unfortunately, someone happened to be walking beneath the building at exactly that moment.

A well-dressed man in an expensive suit looked up just in time to receive the laundry pole squarely across the body.

Thump.

He went down with a startled cry and promptly passed out.

Dottie glanced over the edge.

Well.

At least the pole had landed horizontally.

If it had hit him vertically, this would have been a murder investigation.

She went back to smoking.

By the time she had burned through nearly half a pack, a familiar set of footsteps approached.

Dottie turned.

Thankfully, it wasn’t the building superintendent.

It was Sharon Carter, the woman who had just delivered the final and most spectacular blow to Dottie’s carefully constructed plan.

Dottie leaned against the railing, lit another cigarette, and said without looking at her, "What do you want?"

"Don’t play dumb."

Sharon walked over and rested both hands on the railing beside her. She looked down at the street.

Then she paused.

There seemed to be an unusually large crowd gathering below.

And an ambulance.

Sharon’s eyes narrowed.

Dottie calmly took another drag.

"I’ve fulfilled my part of the deal," Sharon said. "Now you owe me."

"Yes, I suppose I do." Dottie smiled sweetly. "Thank you so much for reminding me."

Then her smile vanished.

"But forget it!"

She slammed a hand against the railing.

"You completely ruined my plan!"

"That isn’t my fault."

Sharon glanced sideways at her, the corner of her mouth lifting.

"I followed your instructions exactly. I was supposed to tempt my future uncle just enough to see whether he would take the bait, then storm over to my aunt and make a scene. I did both. Eighty percent of the things I said were practically written by you."

Dottie’s eye twitched.

She flicked her cigarette away.

Before it could hit the ground, it dissolved into a burst of dark shadow.

"My plan was supposed to break them apart!" Dottie hissed. "Instead, they’re even more inseparable than before!"

"Besides, I did something fairly... outrageous for you this time."

"Outrageous?" Dottie scoffed. "Don’t pretend you weren’t enjoying yourself."

Sharon’s expression softened.

"That part is true."

She looked out over the city.

"My aunt raised me. I love her more than anyone. I know how lonely she has been all these years, and now she finally has someone again. I wanted to see what kind of man she’d chosen to trust with her heart."

Her lips curled.

"Unfortunately, Captain America turned out to be a disappointment."

"Disappointment?" Dottie muttered bitterly. "They’re still together."

She ground her teeth.

"This is all because you couldn’t do your job properly. I thought an experienced SHIELD agent, especially one with a number that low, would be more reliable."

Sharon immediately shot back.

"And apparently you have no mistakes to account for?"

Dottie glared at her.

"You moved the operation forward three days without telling me. The original plan involved a chance encounter in the laundry room. Somehow that became a rescue operation. Then we had a SHIELD consultant appear out of nowhere."

Sharon gave her a flat look.

"With planning like that, Leviathan could learn something from you."

"I told you, it was a coincidence!"

Dottie’s voice rose with every word.

"How was I supposed to know those addicts would suddenly lose their minds? How was I supposed to know they’d pick you out of every apartment in the building? How was I supposed to know Captain America would show up to rescue you? And how was I supposed to know you’d activate the plan early?"

She threw up her hands.

"And most importantly, how was I supposed to know throwing Captain America into the situation would somehow summon Evenson?"

An absurd chain of events.

She’d thrown one lucky bastard into the mess and somehow gotten another walking disaster in return.

"Wait." Sharon frowned. "Those addicts weren’t working for you?"

"Of course not!"

Dottie smacked the railing.

"If they hadn’t gone crazy, my plan might actually have worked."

Sharon considered that.

"Honestly, I’m not sure I wanted your plan to succeed."

Dottie looked at her suspiciously.

Sharon’s expression became strangely thoughtful.

"I don’t particularly like my current uncle. But he’s still preferable to gaining an aunt."

Dottie stared at her.

"Sharon, it’s the twenty-first century. You should be a little more open-minded."

She puffed out her cheeks in irritation.

"Besides, Peggy’s British. You have to be tolerant."

Sharon rolled her eyes.

"Enough. Give me the payment."

"Or?"

"I tell Aunt Peggy everything you did."

Dottie didn’t even blink.

"Is that supposed to scare me? You participated in the entire operation. You even carried out most of it yourself. Peggy isn’t going to be angry only with me."

Sharon’s expression remained calm.

"We’re family. Besides, if Aunt Peggy understands why I did it, she’ll forgive me."

Dottie stared at her for several seconds.

Then she sighed.

"I swear, I’m cursed to cross paths with Carter women."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small stack of documents.

She handed them over.

"This should be worth your trouble."

Sharon took the files.

Dottie Underwood had been one of Leviathan’s original operatives, a veteran spy who had spent years collecting secrets from every corner of the intelligence world. She had accumulated enough information over the decades that even a small bundle from her could be worth a fortune.

That was why Sharon had agreed to participate in the scheme in the first place.

She got to play a role she was secretly quite happy to play, and in exchange, she received valuable intelligence.

A very good deal.

Sharon opened the file.

Her expression changed immediately.

"Alexander Zarakhan?"

She looked up.

"You’re telling me it’s him? The Swedish division’s prized asset?"

"You’ve got to be kidding."

"I’m not."

Dottie leaned back against the railing, her usual composed elegance returning.

"Alexander defected from the Soviet Union to Sweden and claimed to possess a tremendous amount of classified information."

"And your SHIELD division in Sweden, or rather the Strategic Scientific Reserve at the time, believed him."

"They protected him. They even proudly submitted reports claiming credit for everything they’d supposedly accomplished using his intelligence."

Dottie’s smile turned vicious.

"But they made one little mistake."

"Alexander had indeed worked on numerous classified projects. He simply wasn’t one of the people who knew anything important."

"He was security."

"That’s it."

Sharon stared at the documents.

"Then all those results the Swedish division supposedly obtained from his intelligence..."

She stopped.

A terrible possibility had just occurred to her.

Dottie nodded.

"Exactly."

"It was all a performance."

She waved a hand dismissively.

"They were desperate to show results, only to discover they’d bet everything on a fraud. Once they’d started boasting about their success, admitting the truth would have been humiliating."

"So they kept the story alive."

"And from what I know, the Swedish branch eventually created an entire Zarakhan Task Group."

"They’ve been receiving substantial funding from SHIELD every year."

Dottie’s eyes gleamed.

"And that’s not pocket change."

Sharon’s expression hardened.

"You should probably take a very close look at where all that money has gone."

Sharon slowly nodded.

She almost wished the answer were simple embezzlement.

That would be the best possible outcome.

The original incident had happened in the late 1980s, yet the deception had survived all the way to the present.

A regional branch couldn’t have kept something like that buried for decades on its own.

Someone inside SHIELD had protected them.

Someone high enough in the organization to make the truth disappear.

Sharon closed the file.

And for the first time that evening, her expression held no trace of humor.

There was something much bigger hiding behind this.

...

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