Chapter Text
Chapter One: Intrusion
When Elsa was seven years old, she saw her first dead body.
It was a gruesome sight, unwelcome and chilling, and obviously, unexpected. The body was slumped under a giant weeping willow tree, a man, who was wearing a pink button up shirt and gray slacks with brown loafers. A sky-blue tie hung loosely around his neck, which was bent at an unnatural angle. He almost looked like he was sleeping, but his eyes were open, and his skin was pale. A fly lighted on his blue lips and upon closer inspection, she noticed that the man’s eyes were bulging, and his face was puffy. Her younger sister, Anna, clung to Elsa’s arm as the stared at the body, dismal, disturbing and dead.
Elsa called her parents.
Nineteen years later, she stared at the picture of another dead body, this time with much more experience under her belt. She’d been at the Bureau for a little under six years and in her time, she’d seen more gruesome sights, but each time she came upon a lifeless body, she always remembered that man under the tree.
Elsa blinked the thought away and tried to refocus.
“Male, Caucasian, 52 years old.”
“D.O.A”
“Executive.”
“AetherDyne.”
All around her, agents chattered about the newest, hottest case to break at the FBI headquarters. The details of the very case itself were encased in the file she clutched which she had already read between the time she had been presented with it, and then summoned to Assistant Director Bellwether’s office on the 45th floor. She didn’t need to look at it again, the words were already emblazoned into her brain.
Richard Tremaine, Executive Board Member at AetherDyne Industries and Tech was found dead at 15:04 on June 15th, 2025 in his home at 1709 Main Street Avenue, 15th floor. Cause of death is reported as carbon-dioxide poisoning. Initial reports show a malfunction in the smart home system, causing a glitch in the smart oven and gas detectors.
Elsa had an inkling that Tremaine’s involvement on the Board of Directors at AetherDyne Industries and Tech had everything to do with how the nature of his death might be more malicious than it first appeared due to the nature of his company’s work. AetherDyne was a high-profile company that specialized in surveillance tech. Elsa knew that the Bureau itself contracted them and it wasn’t surprising in the least that they were on the case. What did pique her curiosity, was why she was there. After all, she was an Assistant Special Agent in Charge at the Cybercrime Division. The only thing she could think of, was that the Bureau must have had some reason to believe that someone deliberately tampered with the system, leading to Tremaine’s death. Either way, what interested her the most was the fact that this death occurred at 3pm that afternoon, and she was briefed and summoned to work on it by 10pm that night. And if they were tagging her in, they must have found enough in such a short period of time to determine that something foul was at play.
“Agent Arendelle? Director Bellwether will see you know.” Elsa smiled at Helen, the secretary, and opened the door to the assistant director’s office. Bellwether was a short and smiling lady, well into her 50s, Elsa would guess. Her white hair was coiffed up into a frizzy updo and her eyes were wrinkled with smile lines behind her glasses. She dressed a little old fashioned, wearing a brown pleated skirt and a knitted yellow cardigan over a white shirt that paired pretty comfortably with the oversized horned rimmed glasses that sat on her nose.
Elsa smiled politely, “Nice to see you, Director. How can I help?”
Bellwether’s smiled deepened, which Elsa found a little off-putting, given that they were about to divulge the details of a man’s death (possibly, a murder). Maybe it was the nature of the job, and Elsa was reluctant to admit but being around death and the gruesomeness that the FBI dealt with, she herself was getting less phased by death than she’d like to be. Which was why she constantly reminded herself of that first experience. She shook the thought away.
“I know this is very fast, and as you can imagine, all the details of this case haven’t been revealed yet since we haven’t uncovered most of it. I’m sure you’re wondering why we’ve tagged you in, but I don’t want you to worry too much. We just want to cover all bases.” Elsa nodded politely, “I understand.” Bellwether continued.
“As you know, Mr. Tremaine was on the Board of Directors of AetherDyne, a company that we’re very closely tied with. Even if this turns out to be, essentially, nothing, we need to cover all bases, as you can imagine a lot of sensitive information might be at risk here. AetherDyne does handle an incredible amount of the Bureau’s information and we need to know if this might be a reason why Tremaine has died.” Elsa nodded again, taking this in. This made sense, and she already puzzled it out, but she still knew there was more to it.
“However, there might also be the possibility that this might have been done by a competitor.” Elsa tilted her head, “You think someone hacked into his house and killed him?” Bellwether chuckled nervously, “I don’t know if I’d say that. But, like I said, we need to cover all our bases. Just…make sure that if there should be an instance of foul play, not saying there is one, we flag it. This is very high profile as you can imagine and once the press gets a hold of it, well, you can guess the narratives that will be spun. So, I’m putting you on top of this case.”
Elsa felt heat rush to her face. Leading a case? She had a lot of experience, and she was good at her job, but usually, there was someone that she reported to, looked to for clearance and made sure that she was abiding by the rules. She also knew that she’d have no trouble leading a case, but to be recognized and called out by the assistant director herself, summoned by name, she couldn’t help but feel a little proud. She worked endless hours, putting her life and soul into this job and it was paying off. Still, something tagged the back of her mind. It sounded like Bellwether was also alluding to some kind of espionage, she was talking about malicious intent and whatnot,
“I understand everything you’re saying ma’am, but the optics of this case makes me feel like I’ll be working alongside someone else.” Bellwether smiled at her and nodded, and Elsa’s heart dropped a little bit. Everything snapped into place, and she knew who she’d be working with. Right on cue, Helen opened the office door behind Elsa, and she didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was.
A very fresh, clean, and expensive scent wafted through the air, and Elsa closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. She knew that smell, and she hated it. She didn’t turn her head when the person pulled up the chair next to her, the sound of the steel legs scratching against the deep blue carpet. Bellwether beamed at her, proud.
“Agent Arendelle, this is Supervisory Special Agent Jack Frost.”
Jack turned to her grinning, and without taking his eyes off her, he said, “She knows who I am, Director. We’re familiar.” Bellwether clapped her hands together and grinned, as if they weren’t about to launch an investigation into a possible murder.
“Wonderful! I want Cybercrime and Counterintelligence coordinating on this case. I’m so glad you two are familiar! No doubt that with you on it this will be wrapped up in no time.” Elsa glance at Jack, who raised an eyebrow at the director, a smile playing on his lips and she suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.
.
“It’s been a long time Arendelle.”
Jack kept pace with Elsa as they both headed towards the elevator. She was practically steaming with anger at both Jack Frost and Assistant Director Bellwether. Everything was going well, she was being recognized by the assistant director, put on a high-profile case that she’d get to lead, only to get stuck with the most insufferable person in the FBI, who outranked her.
They were headed to the Counterintelligence Division, which rubbed Elsa the wrong way. This case was most definitely linked to cybercrime and there was a huge technological aspect to it. Why did they need to discuss things in Jack’s department. Sure, foul play was suspected, but she honestly didn’t even see the necessity for Jack to even be involved, much less for them to plot out how they were going to work the case on his turf.
It felt unfair.
But of course, he always got what he wanted. After all, he was Jack Frost.
Elsa knew he was waiting for her to respond, but it was against her nature to give him what he wanted. He was used to that, and he was not going to get it from her.
Jack tapped his foot as they waited for the elevator.
“I hope you don’t mind us working in my office. It’s just closer.”
“Of course, it is.” Jack raised an eyebrow at her again, and to Elsa’s annoyance, he didn’t seem to take offense to her snark. “I would’ve thought that you remembered me. We trained together.” This time, Elsa raised an eyebrow, “Did we?”
Jack laughed, “Uh, yea? You were second in the class. We were in the same cohort; don’t tell me I was that forgettable?” Ugh. There it was. The signature Jack Frost ego. Of course, he assumed that she would remember him. That’s what he was used to after all, people fawning for him and his attention. Why would anyone forget Jack Frost? With his messy silvery hair, his boyish smile and the undeniable charm that made you want to be the one he directed his attention to. Not that she wanted his attention. She just wasn’t naïve. That’s all.
“I don’t know,” Elsa said, still keeping her eyes off him, “There were a lot of people in my class.” The elevator doors slide open, and they both stepped on. As the doors slid shut, they both stared straight ahead at their reflections. Jack stood about a head taller than her and while she was carrying an armful of folders, his hands were still stuffed into his pockets. He didn’t wear a tie, just a green collared shirt and grey pants, and while her badge was clipped onto the front pocket of her grey blazer, his hung carelessly around his neck. He didn’t look like an agent at the FBI, he looked like a frat boy who was on a job interview.
As the elevator started to move, Elsa felt his cyan blue eyes on her. “You’re right. I must have someone else. There was probably another girl with white hair that came second in my division.”
She snorted, “Are those the stellar observation skills that made you come first in your year?”
“I thought you didn’t remember me.”
“Yeah, well, you slipped my mind.”
“Ouch. Are those the stellar recollection skills that made you beat me on the theory exams?”
She flushed. How did he remember that? Why did he remember that? The elevator doors finally slid open and they got out, him first, waiting for her. As Elsa stepped off the elevator, she took in her surroundings. This floor was new to her, she’d never been here before. It was bright an airy, with clean glass walls encasing offices. As they walked through the floor, she took notice of the large conference rooms, with frosted walls and all-natural light and open air.
Although she worked in Cyber, this department surprised her with how sleep and high-tech everything seemed to be, for some reason she was picturing something a little older fashioned and darker. She could definitely tell that they had generous funding, everything was sleek and up to date. The walls were lined with maps and clocks showing the time in different parts of the world.
Jack led her through a hallway and swiped his badge to unlock the door which opened into another larger hall, that housed more offices and a bullpen. In here, there pictures of various high-profile personnel that Elsa assumed the Bureau had interest in. There were more maps in this room, this time, they had markers on them, but Jack was striding so fast that she couldn’t read too much into them. He led her past various rooms, most of which she noticed required bio-metric access to get into, holding finger-print touchpads and retinal scanners and some rooms even had guards standing in front of them.
Elsa tried not to take notice of the eyes following her, everyone who they passed nodded politely to Jack, who was a high ranking official and likely their superior, but she could also feel their eyes following, assessing, judging her. It was vastly different from her own department, where things were a little darker and shadowy. Everything her was brightly lit by the overhead lights reflecting off the blue and gray walls. Elsa guessed that there wasn’t much here that would go unnoticed. And she also guessed that everyone she had passed, had immediately made their own judgement on her.
The air in Jack’s department felt heavy with paranoia. Elsa could tell that these were people trained to sniff out even the slightest red flag and could pick out a threat very easily. This made sense. From what she remembered about her days at Quantico, Jack had been extremely good at perception and reading people. It made sense that he ended up here. Partially. She, along with everyone else knew why Jack held such a high rank at such a prestigious department, but she also couldn’t deny that he was likely very good at his job.
They finally got to his office, which he unlocked with a touchpad and a retinal scanner, and she noticed that even he seemed to breathe a little lighter once the door was closed.
His office was more meticulously decorated than she had imagined, he seemed to have no personal photos, just huge, framed certificates of achievements lining the wall behind the huge, black leather chair that sat at his desk. She couldn’t see outside, just as she couldn’t see inside behind the frosted glass walls that surrounded his office. To the right of his sprawling dark wood desk stood a bookshelf which she glanced over, her eyes landing on a few titles, before settling to one that he had on his desk, a worn copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. There wasn’t much on his desk aside from a few silver rings, his FBI issued laptop, a landline phone, and oddly enough, an analog clock.
To the left of his desk, there was a giant magnetic whiteboard that had a few names, locations and mappings scrawled onto them, near the whiteboard, there was another desk and two rolling chairs where a few files lay scattered. The whole space was lit, a little dimly, by a white overhead bulb hanging from a blue lamp.
Elsa took a deep breath, breathing in the scent that filled the room, his cologne, that also followed him wherever he went and waited from him to sit down. Just to be difficult, she stood by the door, unmoving, filed still clutched in her arms. Jack plopped down into his chair and stared at her.
“What? Are you waiting for permission to sit down?” She shrugged, “I wouldn’t want to offend someone who outranks me.” He chuckled, seemingly amused by her difficulty, much to her annoyance. “Fair enough. Have a seat Arendelle, make yourself at home.”
She waited for him to speak. And he did.
“So. What are your first impressions? I want to know your thoughts going into this. We both have all the information that the Bureau has found and since we’re working together on this, I want to know where your head is at.” Elsa nodded, a little miffed. From the time she heard that CI was working on the case, her meeting Jack, hearing Bellwether speak and walking from the elevator to Jack’s office, she managed to decipher what was being played at here and it annoyed the heck out of her. She didn’t like being toyed with and she felt like that was exactly was Jack was doing to her.
“You were the first person they contacted. They wanted CI on this case. You brought me on. Not Bellwether. You asked for me. Why? What am I doing here?” Jack raised his eyebrows, and she could tell that she got him there. What she didn’t like, was how unfazed he looked. Like he was expecting her to puzzle that out. Elsa continued, “You wanted Cybercrime involved. Here I am. Instead of asking me what my impressions are, how about you just tell me what you’re expecting my department to find that Counterintelligence doesn’t already know?”
Jack folded his arms, “Alright. That’s fair. I want to know why Richard Tremaine’s smart home system deleted its firmware, minutes before his body was discovered.” Elsa’s face flushed. The system erased its firmware. She didn’t know that. This was embarrassing. This wasn’t in any of her notes or files, she was certain of this, after all, she read everything she was provided front to back multiple times before she met with Bellwether. She cleared her throat.
“I-I wasn’t provided that information.” Jack nodded slowly, “That’s fine. I just learned.”
“That’s why you were late meeting with Bellwether.”
He nodded again, his blue eyes piercing her own, “Yes. They felt that I was privy to that information. Why weren’t you made aware of this?” Again, she felt her face heat up. Was he trying to embarrass her? He was such an ass. “I wouldn’t be able to tell you why I wasn’t made aware, but I’m sure it was for a good reason. Regardless, now I know and I’m sure I’ll have an updated report soon.” Again, he chuckled, and it was really starting to piss her off. He was being condescending and she bit her tongue to stop her from telling him off. Instead, she took a breath.
“If you’re looking for Cybercrime to give you the answers just overnight-”
“I’m not,” he cut in, “I’m just hoping that your division won’t be wasting time and resources, looking for the wrong things.” Elsa scoffed at his audacity. This was so typical of someone in CI. They overanalyzed and overcomplicated everything. Everyone here seemed to think that they were the main character of an action movie, and this egotistical bastard was their leader. She narrowed her eyes at him, “Well, I’m hoping that you understand that this isn’t some spy novel. I know how you people here work. You cannot try to find something that isn’t there. This is about the tech and its behavior,” she huffed, “Frankly, I don’t understand why you are on this. This is very clearly a cybercrime, if it is a crime.”
Jack tilted his head, amusement glinting in his eyes. She couldn’t understand why, but him being so unfazed by her snipes was driving her crazy. He so clearly thought that he was better than her. “You know Arendelle, it concerns me that you think things are so black and white. I know we don’t know all the details yet but the more experience you have, the more you’ll start to see that things like this are way more complicated than they seem.”
“I started working here the same time you did Jack,” she snapped, “I have enough experience. What I don’t have is the patience for you to keep talking to me like I’m a child.” He scoffed, “I don’t think you’re a child, I just know how your department operates. You think everything is about the tech and all the answers are in the computer.”
“How do you know that it’s not?”
“How do you know it is?”
“Because it’s a cybercrime. His smart home system was the reason that his stove started leaking gas. That’s why he died. Did we read the same thing?”
He snorted, “Clearly, we didn’t. I was given more than you to go on wasn’t I?” she rolled her eyes. This was expected. Of course, Jack Frost, the cockiest bastard in the universe, was trying to lord his superiority over her. He probably specifically requested her to be on the case so he could boss her around. “Yeah, well if you know so much, why do you need my help?”
That seemed to get him. Silently, he opened his laptop and clicked a few times. “I’ve sent more details and I’ll make sure you have access to all other details as they come. Go through them and send me your impressions. We’ll talk soon. Thanks for coming.”
She stared at him; how exactly did he expect her to find her way out of this maze?
.
It didn’t matter how much she punched her pillow that night, she couldn’t get comfortable.
Elsa’s mind ran through everything she went through that day, from the case to her reluctant partnership with the FBI’s biggest jackass. And for some reason, her mind kept settling on the latter.
She trained with Jack Frost at Quantico when they both were starting out, and of course, she hadn’t forgotten him. How could she? He was always the chattiest, he charmed all their seasoned mentors and instructors, and he made friends with practically everyone in their unit. She also knew for a fact that while she was busting her ass over her notes, studying and practicing, he was goofing with his friends, enjoying life. And he still topped their class. Sure, she came in second and she beat him on the theory exam, but she worked so hard for it and he didn’t even try.
Now, six years later, she scrapped her way up to being an ASAC in Cybercrime. She put in countless hours on the job, made it consume her whole life, which she didn’t mind, because hard work always paid off. She put in the work and was being recognized for it, at least she hoped so. Meanwhile Jack Frost was a higher rank than her and if his days at Quantico were anything to go off of, he just goofed off all the time and things worked out for him. After all, his father was Tsar Lunar XII, the Deputy Director of the Bureau, Jack was guaranteed a high rank from the time he joined.
Elsa turned uncomfortably and sighed. Sure, she’d given up relationships, barely had any time to spend with her friends and often had to cancel plans with her sister, but it would be worth it. Right? It had to be. After all, she was a co-lead on an important case and she was working with Jack Frost, who for all of his faults, was a high ranking official.
Unable to find sleep, Elsa grabbed her phone and against her better judgement, she punched his name into the search engine. A few articles came up about some cases he worked on and interestingly, he was listed in some political magazine as one of the top 20 bachelors of 2025. She snorted. No wonder his ego was the size of Texas.
There were no pictures of him with his father, and there was very little information on his personal life. This made sense, as agents at the FBI they made a conscious effort to not reveal too much of themselves online. Still, as someone who valued research, she didn’t like not knowing anything much about her new partner. All she knew was that he was cocky, important, and that he looked down at her and her division. Thinking about the earlier events of the day made her face heat up when she thought about how he caught her off-guard, one upping her with the information he had that she didn’t know. He was true to his word, and he instructed whoever he needed to keep her update with new findings as they came, but she still didn’t like how he tried to humble her. It wouldn’t happen again.
