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padfootagain · 4 years

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Balaenoptera Bonaerensis (I)

Chapter 1: Security Measures

This is the first chapter for my fic with a Bodyguard AU for our dear Cap! Thank you so much to @marvelcapsicle, who is hosting the writing challenge this fic is made for.

I hope you like this fanfic, please, read the author's note on the masterlist for this series concerning any link with real events!

I did, however, spent more than 8 hours researching different elements for that story so far, and have no doubt it's just the beginning… being a writer is hard…

Word Count: 3400

"Have I ever told any of you how much I hate our job?"

"Just… twenty times today. And hundreds more if you count all the times we had to wake up early to get on a plane."

"Taking a flight at 4 am doesn't make you 'get up early', it makes you not sleep at all!"

"I'm sorry you couldn't get your baby sleep, Bucky. But there were no better flights available on such a short notice."

"Did we really have to take that job?"

By Natasha's side, on the two seats before Steve and Bucky, Sam snorted, waving the newspaper he was reading to make his point.

"In these days, you should consider yourself lucky to have a job at all," Sam replied, shaking his head. "Seven months since that mess happened in Wall Street, and it's not getting any better."

By the window, Steve took a look at the clouds they flew across, cotton-like forms drifting slowly against the blue sky. He didn't react at all as the plane shook with turbulences, too used to flying by now to even truly notice. And if his blue eyes rested on the white puffs of water outside, his mind was set on work already. The file where he had gathered the information he had found - in the little time he had had to prepare their new job - was set open on his laps. He had stopped listening to his colleagues somewhere above the Pacific Ocean. Now that they were en route towards Townsville, having changed their flight in Darwin, he had stopped to act like he was listening altogether. Maybe others would have taken it badly, but his three partners were too used to his working routine to think anything of his behaviour. And as they flew across a cloud, the world turning solely into shades of white and light grey, Steve wondered who could have sent the threats that had pushed the editor of the Townsville Bulletin to hire Steve and his team to protect one of his journalist and three scientists they worked with. Apparently, it had something to do with the scientists' study of whales, although Steve couldn’t possibly imagine why someone would want to kill anyone about a study of the population of whales in Antarctica. That was beyond him.

But the threats were real, and at the thought, his eyes travelled back to the printed letters that were sent in an attempt to stop the research, and he had no doubt that it was a threat to take seriously. The message was, after all, quite explicit. Besides, they were paying for his services, so even if the threat wasn't real, it didn't exactly matter. He wouldn't complain about an easy job for once.

However, he wasn't sure to find who could have sent the threat. In the week he had been given to prepare his departure, he couldn't really find any lead. He reckoned that talking with the people involved would help clarify the situation, or at least, he hoped so.

He went through the file again, memorizing the names and faces of the people he would have to protect for the coming months.

Sofia Longbrook – PhD student

Dr. Rosa Alvarez Santiago – Postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Y/N Y/L/N – Researcher

Luke Savoy – Journalist

Lucy McGreed – Lawyer

Joshua Alexander – Lawyer

If the threats had been pointed towards only the journalist and the research team, chances were that the two lawyers involved in this whale study might get threatened as well soon.

At least three locations for their professions were to be secured, even without taking into account the lawyers for now. Plus each of their homes. And having some of them working on a major campus that held thousands of students would be a challenge to say the least. Adding to that limited resources, So much work to be done…

The voice of the flight attendant cut Steve's thoughts, forcing him back to reality. They would soon be landing. While he folded his papers and fastened his seatbelt, the plane slowly descending under the clouds, he checked the address of the hotel he had booked one more time. After dropping by the hotel, they would meet with the people who had hired them to discuss how the security could be handled, and more importantly, what kind of threats they were truly facing.

In the seats before ad next to him, Sam and Bucky were bickering, as usual, and he chose to ignore them for now.

All he hoped for was a smooth, calm mission for a change.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"This whole ordeal is absolutely ridiculous, Mark."

"Look, for the last time, Y/N: you've received threats. I will not sit down and wait to see if they were serious or not. You don't want to stop your research, and for some unknown reason, my reporter also refuses to drop the story, so all we are left with as alternative is to hire professionals who will keep you safe."

You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms before your chest.

"Look, we're talking about a trade. About something that involves money," Mark continued to argue. "And just like everything else that involves money, it is not so surprising to find people ready to go to extreme ways to deal with whatever goes in the way of their profit."

"I know, but…"

"No 'but'. By the way, Richard, I could use some help."

The director of your lab turned to you, but could only shrug.

"Honestly, I don't know what to say."

"You don't agree that it was the right decision to hire professional security?" the editor of Townsville newspaper asked with a frown.

"No, no, I think you were right to propose that," Richard replied, shaking his large moustache as he spoke. "All I'm saying is that Y/N is so stubborn, I really don't know what you want me to say."

You rolled your eyes again, but the ghost of a smile appeared on your lips this time.

"I just think that we're overreacting. Opinion with which you disagree, so I have to follow your and Richard's lead anyway."

"Exactly! Thank you!"

"I have to admit that I'll feel safer with a bodyguard around," Sofia, your PhD student, added. "Plus, if the one in charge of us at the lab could be a very sexy American wearing a tuxedo and dark sunglasses, that would be even better."

"They've hired bodyguards, Sofia," you replied. "Not Agent J."

"Aren't bodyguards supposed to dress up like that all the time? Kevin Costner was all dressed up too in that movie with the singer!"

"I don't know, honestly. I have to admit that I have never asked myself that question."

"I feel like the conversation has drifted…" Mark tried to bring your attention to the matter at hand, but he had already lost you and your colleagues.

"You have to admit that it's a rather good question!" Richard jumped in.

"Maybe they'll even have this kind of earpiece, you know, with the wire and everything," Sofia went on, a dreamy expression on her face as she tried to picture in her mind how her bodyguard would look like.

"They've hired only four of them," you replied. "I don't think they'll need any earpiece."

"Which, by the way, doesn't sound like much security," Joshua added. "I mean, shouldn't we all have one personal bodyguard?"

"There were no threats against you and Lucy, so…" Mark replied with a shrug.

"Of course, let the lawyers defenceless, as usual."

"What do you mean 'as usual'?"

"Ha… nevermind. I guess it's just my fate to die like this. You know, according to my astral theme I'm supposed to die a violent death."

"If you mention astrology again today, I can guarantee that you will die a violent death," you replied, pinching the sides of your nose.

"Sorry, but I'm nervous. And I always ask the stars when I'm nervous."

"Are they more talkative than Jesus? Or is the line busy for them as well?" Richard mocked, earning a kick from under the table.

Mark let himself fall down on a chair, heaving a dramatically tired sigh.

"You know, working with you guys, who are supposed to have brilliant minds and all that, kind of brought down my expectations on life."

None of you bothered to reply to his comment, too busy discussing the bodyguards who would soon arrive.

Indeed, you waited now for their arrival, all of you gathered in a meeting room in your lab. The Marine and Aquaculture labs at the James Cook University formed a large ensemble of buildings, from the tanks used for experiments and research to the offices where you were now. The buildings were often referred as MARFU for Marine and Aquaculture Research Facilities Units. They were not the most impressive buildings of the campus, and yet their research was among the most advanced in the world in terms of understanding marine life. The studied topics were vast, and your own little team was but a fraction of the people devoting their lives to understand and protect sea life.

On the north-east coast of Australia, Townsville held one of the four campuses of the James Cook University, one of the main institutions in the country. Hidden behind the large medical centre, on the south tip of the town, the university stretched to the edge of the wilder areas of Mount Stuart, the town stuck between its slope and the ocean. The white buildings for Marine Sciences research were all gathered on the eastern part of the campus, in an ensemble of about 20 separate buildings.

You were for now waiting in one of the meeting rooms on the first floor of the main building for Marine and Aquaculture, looking around you at the blank white walls and wooden tables and chairs. A poster for the defence of sharks was hung on one wall, the light of the sun falling partially on its dark blue shades, causing the colours to wane after years of exposure to the too bright rays of the Australian sun. In the corner of the room, up to the ceiling, a spider had threaded its web, but it was only a little one, and none of you could be bothered chasing the arachnid away.

While your colleagues kept on bickering, your own mind wandered off, drifting back towards the element that had caused all this to happen.

You remembered getting the letter at your office, opening it without worry, thinking it was merely linked to your research. You were expecting some documents for a field trip with your students after all.

Instead, you found a letter reading that if you didn't stop your surveys on whales, you would pay for the consequences of your actions. If the word 'killing' was not explicit, the meaning hiding behind their phrasing was evident, and whoever had sent you this letter was ready to use violent ends to shush your voice.

Clearly, whoever they were, they had never met you in person, or they would have known that threats would be far from enough to make you back down.

Nevertheless, Mark and Richard had decided that it was best to call professionals. Apparently, Richard had a friend in the security business, who had recommended the team he and Mark had hired. Why did they have to go to all the trouble to hire Americans, that was another mystery in this crazy story, but you simply accepted whoever they chose, as your complaints were dismissed.

You doubted heavily that anything would actually happen. You were a researcher, and none of your work was secret. If it had turned into a political stance over the past few years, it was still not a secret. All your colleagues in the lab knew about your research. You had asked for help from the press and a law firm when you realized that your research might have more impact that you had thought of on an international scale; yet, here again, you were not trying to keep any secret. What were they going to do? Destroy the entire university? If whaling held a lot of potential money, it was still no reason to make so much damage, at least, not in your mind.

When you started to investigate the migrations of whales in Antarctica, nothing could have made you think that you would come to discover that a Japanese research program was misused. If your accusation that it was merely a cover story for killing whales and selling their meat had always been denied by the Japanese authority, over the course of the past years, it had become your crusade to shut down the whole program. One could not, after all, excuse the killing of hundreds of animals and call it 'science', not in our day and age, at least.

You knew you had made enemies by taking a stand. You had never tried to hide your purpose. It didn't seem to you that it was a game people would play with death and threats. Maybe you were wrong, though.

And now you were up to get a bodyguard follow you everywhere. That was probably the most ridiculous position you had ever found yourself into.

Who would be your guardian angel though? Your mind started to play a game, trying to picture features and hair and clothes, and you found it funny to imagine a rather large sixty-year-old bald man wearing a cowboy hat and a heavy Texan accent as your protector for the coming weeks.

Just as you settled on an image, Richard was called by the reception as the four bodyguards had arrived. And when the four of them stepped into the room minutes later, Sofia gave you a look that meant I told you so.

And indeed, they were all wearing suits, which you imagined was not that comfortable considering it was a warm 27°C outside and quite humid after the strong rains of the day before.

And well, they were all pretty… attractive people, you guessed. As you introduced yourself to each of them, you kept on thinking about how much your two female colleagues would make your life annoying for the whole duration of this nonsense, gushing about their bodyguards.

Everyone took place around the circle of tables at the centre of the room. A little bit of small talk went on for a moment while they were all served coffee, about their flight, and their accommodation here in Townsville, but the man in charge, Steve, soon became more serious.

"We've started to research suspects, but for now I have to admit that we couldn't pinpoint any individual as being a threat in your direct acquaintances."

"To be completely honest, we highly doubt that it's coming from anyone we are close to," Richard answered.

"Not any colleagues, or a rival from another paper?"

"No, no one comes to mind. The only suspects for us would be someone linked to the whaling industry, as Dr. Y/L/N's research could have negative impact on their business, if we manage to give it a proper exposure."

"No one else is working on this project, you're all here?" Natasha asked, and you nodded.

"On the research side we are three active scientists on the project, plus our boss Richard. Luke here is our link with the press, and Mark his editor. Lucy and Joshua are advising us on legal issues."

"Why? Does your research break the law?" Bucky asked, lifting his eyes from the notebook where he had been taking notes.

"No, of course not. On the contrary, we think someone else is breaking the law."

"Our final goal is to bring the situation to an international court," Lucy added. "That's why we're helping them."

"And the two of you didn't receive any threat?"

"No, none."

"What about the police?" Sam inquired.

"They have no lead. They asked for the University to strengthen their security," Mark answered. "The investigation is still on-going, but for now they have nothing. And a simple letter is not enough for them to dispatch officers, which is why we called you."

"As we have discussed before, we have made arrangements to stay here for three months. We'll assess the situation again in a few weeks, to see if you would like to extend your contract or not."

Mark and Richard nodded in silent agreement.

"We're going to need to make an inspection of the facilities to determine which areas are the most dangerous. Same for your personal homes. We'll spend a couple of days adjusting to the situation. Do you all work in different buildings at the University?"

"No, all three of us share the same lab, and Sofia and Rosa have the same office, mine is next door to theirs," you answered. "But I teach, and the classes take place on the other side of the campus for the most part."

"Alright," Steve nodded, and he seemed to be thinking hard. "We're going to take a look around, and one of us will be assigned to each of you who has received direct threats. If you want, we can take a look at your workplace tomorrow as well, and give you a few advices on how to lower the risks," he added to the two lawyers, before focusing on the rest of the group again. "Ms. Romanov will be in charge of Mr. Savoy, Mr. Barnes and Wilson will protect Ms. Longbrook and Dr. Alvarez Santiago, and I'll be protecting you, Dr. Y/L/N. We're going to take a look at all the areas where you go here, in these facilities, and tonight we'll check your homes. We'll continue our investigation as well to find who has threatened you. Depending on how large the areas we have to cover are, we might have to use cameras as well."

"We'll show you around, if you want," Richard offered, and you were all soon leaving the meeting room.

Steve had already studied the map of the building, but he did find some interesting details that were worth writing down. Some areas difficult to see from afar, and other hidden corners. He would have thought that the lab would be a challenge, but it was tidy and ended up not being a problem at all. You showed him your office while Natasha was leaving for the newspaper headquarters, and Bucky and Sam were taking a look at your colleagues' office. Steve walked around, checked the windows and what was outside, looking for an angle from which a shooter could fire.

"It would be safer to move your desk a little closer to the door," he advised. "That way, there's no chance anyone outside can see you by the window."

"Okay," you nodded, hiding your annoyance, and helping him move your stuff around the room.

Luckily, none of the piles of files on your desk fell, and in a matter of minutes, Steve seemed satisfied.

You checked the time. It was quite late already, but you still had a couple of things to finish tonight, you hoped to keep on working at the office for a little longer.

Steve exited the room to talk with his colleagues for a moment, and when he came back, he asked you if you could stay at the office for a while, which matched your plans perfectly.

"I need to talk to the security on site, and take a look at the building where you give your classes. Please, don't go home without me, ma'am."

You gave him a smile.

"I was going to ask you if I could have more time before going home, I have still some work to do. And, please, call me Y/N. Anyway, you would have to call me doctor, not madam," you joked. "Let's keep it simple though."

Steve gave you a little, pinched smile, but shook his head.

"It wouldn't be very professional of me, doctor. I'll be back soon. Mr. Barnes will stay in the corridor, if you need anything."

"Alright, thank you then, sir."

He gave you a nod and exited the room, closing the door halfway behind him, probably so that his colleagues could keep an eye on you from the corridor.

You heaved a sigh and unlocked your laptop.

Of course, you had to fall on Mr. Serious out of all people, huh?

These were long, long three months awaiting you…

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prstorm-blog1 · 7 years

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Just my own interpretation of a scene from a Loud House fanfiction. ----- For those of you that don't know, Burning Secret is a fanfiction by Samtastic-V3, that I've been reading ever since he posted the first chapter. I remember Sam himself telling me it was partially inspired by the South Park episode Butt Out, but personally, it reminds me more of the King of the Hill episode Revenge of the Lutefisk, due to it having what I consider to be a similar plot. The plot of the fic is, Lincoln accidentally starts a fire that burns down part of Royal Woods Elementary. Although he's hailed a hero for pulling the alarm and getting everyone to safety, everyone believes that the fire was arson, and thus Lincoln feels guilty for it. And to make matters worse, someone knows he started the fire, and has threatened to report Lincoln to the police for the so-called arson if he doesn't do as he says. It's a pretty awesome and intense fanfic, right up there with Requiem for a Loud and Syngenesophobia as one of my favorite Loud House fanfics. And I recommend anyone who hasn't already read it, to read it. And watch Sam for his awesome work. You won't regret it. Anyways, without giving too much spoilers, the seventh and most recent chapter of Burning Secret has the Loud family going off to Lord Tetherby's country club, as Lincoln has been named Guest of Honor for the 'Hero Party'. Before the limo arrives, Lynn Sr. has all the Loud sisters get in line, oldest to youngest, and state the expectations for their behavior at the Hero Party, one by one, as he taps a pool cue on their shoulder. I don't know if I've ever said this, but I'm a sucker for cartoon episodes where the characters are dressed in formal outfits. I don't know why, I just am. So of course with the kids dressed in formal attire (and also having an opportunity to draw Lynn Sr., who I've come to love as a character thanks to Fed Up and Fool's Paradise), I felt the need to draw my own interpretation of the scene, re-reading the seventh chapter several times just to make sure I was drawing the sisters' outfits as Sam had described them. And then my brain basically filled in the blanks as to what their hair and makeup and jewelry would look like. Oh yeah, and I used the scene with Lori dressing and acting like a drill instructor from No Guts No Glori as a reference for this, of course. I'm... somewhat impressed with how this turned out. On one hand... I drew Lisa's ears way too big. I guess I wanted to experiment with what her hair/wig would look like if it was neatly brushed for a formal event, but I fucked up on figuring out how to draw the ears to go with it. That, and I had to do a lot of last-minute editing to this thing in MS Paint, because I missed a lot of color gaps with the paint bucket tool in the ArtStudio app, and Lucy's colors turned out way too... not black, to put it simply, when I saw how the image looked on my laptop. And yes, I know MS Paint is the worst thing ever, but... you probably wouldn't have known I used it here, had I not told you. Besides, I did do like 99% of the rest of the drawing in ArtStudio. And I wanted to draw Lincoln and Rita in there, but because I didn't have enough room to draw them in, I had to omit them. So, to compensate, I'm just gonna say that this drawing is from Lincoln's POV. On the other hand, though, other than Lisa, I like how the sisters and Lynn Sr. turned out in my drawing. Don't know how Sam feels about me swapping Lana and Lola's places (since Lana's the older twin), but I think I managed to fit everyone in pretty well. Also, is it wrong that I think that Luan looks absolutely stunning here? I was so impressed with how I drew her, that I actually decided to draw the final outline and colors on her first. Not to say I don't like how anyone else on here turned out, though. Although I might need a little practice with drawing Lynn with her bangs back and her widow's peak exposed. And yes, Lynn does have a widow's peak under her bangs. You can see it when she's hanging upside-down in Linc or Swim. Anyways, read Burning Secret if you haven't already. It's awesome. ----- The Loud House is owned by Chris Savino. Burning Secret is a fan-derivative work written by Samtastic-V3 that I wish was canon.

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