It was dark before Steve and Connie returned back to their apartment. Both of them were in a considerably good mood compared to everything that had happened earlier, but that was solely because of Steve. He took Connie out to her favorite restaurant where they sat and talked about life for close to two hours, and then the rest of the day was spent visiting old friends, such as Peggy Carter and Steve's new friend, Sam Wilson. Everything that had been done was solely to distract Connie from the pain, and it worked.

The two laughed at complete nonsense as they started up the stairs to their floor. It was days like this Connie was exceedingly grateful to have Steve. Of course, she definitely wouldn't mind having Bucky there with the two of them, but Steve helped ease the pain inside her knowing that he wasn't there. It scared her to think about what would have happened to her earlier had Steve not been with her, let alone been around to be with her.

"I'm glad to see you've stopped wearing loafers all the time," Connie snickered as she glanced down at Steve's boots.

Steve scoffed and pushed her shoulder slightly, earning another laugh from the brunette. "I had no choice but to stop after you threw mine out and replaced them all with boots."

"It was actually Natasha," Connie informed him as the two stepped onto their floor. "It's okay, though, because now you're conforming to the times."

Steve only shook his head at her and began a slow walk to his door as he caught sight of Kate coming out of her apartment with a basket of clothes in hand. Connie smirked and maneuvered herself behind Steve, nudging him slightly in Kate's direction. He glared at her, but didn't make a move against her. Instead, he stood there and waited until she hung up her phone.

"My aunt," Kate laughed as she tossed her phone into the basket. "She's kind of an insomniac."

Connie continued nudging Steve, and he glanced down at her before looking to Kate. "Hey, if you want—if you want, you're welcome to use our machine. It might be cheaper than the one in the basement."

Kate smiled. "Oh, yeah? What's it cost?"

"A cup of coffee?"

"Thank you, but I already have a load in downstairs, and you really don't want my scrubs in your machine," Kate told him. "I just finished a rotation in the infectious disease ward, so. . ."

Steve held his hands out in front of him. "Well, I'll keep my distance."

"Hopefully not too far," Kate chimed before heading towards the stairs.

Connie looked up at Steve with a grin on her face, but wasn't allowed a chance to speak to him before Kate turned back around again.

"Oh, and I think you left your stereo on," she told the duo before disappearing.

Connie and Steve exchanged cautious looks with one another. Connie gestured him towards Kate's apartment while she inched toward their front door. "Come in through the window, I'm gonna make my way in quietly through the front."

"You sure?" Steve breathed out.

"Yep," Connie answered as she pulled two, black, pocket-sized batons from her jacket pockets.

Steve raised a brow at her. "What the hell are you gonna do with those?"

Connie answered him by flicking the batons downward, revealing that they were, in fact, two of her electroshock batons. What bothered Steve was the fact that they actually made pocket-sized electroshock batons. Connie was prepared, though, just as she always was, and for that Steve was quite thankful.

"Go," Connie ordered him as she very quietly opened the door to her's and Steve's apartment.

The moment she was inside, she closed the door behind her and locked it, careful not to allow any potential threat easy access into her home. She walked cautiously through the apartment, her eyes scanning for any threat. She soon met Steve's eyes from the opposite side of the apartment, and he gave her a nod before the two continued on.

Connie took a few more steps into the living room, while Steve remained slow in his haste. She stopped, however, when she took notice of Nick sitting in the chair in the corner. Steve stopped as well, appearing around the corner to look at Nick.

"I don't remember us giving you a key," Steve said.

Nick grunted and sat up in his seat, glancing between the two super-soldiers. "You really think I'd need one? My wife kicked me out."

Connie furrowed her eyebrows in concentration as she made her way over to stand by Steve. She placed her batons back into the pockets inside her jacket and looked at Nick. "Didn't know you were married," Connie said to the Director.

"There's a lot of things you don't know about me."

"We know, Nick," Steve said as he moved to switch on the light. "That's the problem."

The moment Steve switched on the light, the two were met with a sight they hadn't been prepared for. Nick's face was covered in bruises, lacerations, and blood, and this shocked them tremendously.

Nick took notice of their expressions and turned the light back off before typing away on his phone. He showed the screen to the two; the words read "ears everywhere," which upped the super-soldiers' suspicion levels tenfold.

"I'm sorry to have to do this, but I had no place else to crash," Nick told the two of them. He typed another message, informing the two of them that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been compromised.

Connie was slightly startled by this information. "Who else knows about your wife?"

"Just my friends," Nick answered her as he stood up, his phone in hand. The message on the screen revealed that only Steve, Connie, and Nick knew about S.H.I.E.L.D. being compromised, which meant that the situation was more serious than Connie or Steve originally thought it to be.

"Is that what we are?" Steve asked Nick as the Director moved to stand in front of Connie.

"That's up to you."

Before anyone could say anything else, gunshots sounded. Steve quickly pulled Connie from her spot in front of Nick to protect her from the gunfire. Nick fell victim to it, however, much to the super-soldiers' fear. Nick cried out in pain as he fell to the floor, and Steve moved quickly to pull him away from further harm.

Connie looked out the window to find Nick's shooter on the roof, and her face fell as she took notice of the familiar metal glint of the shooter's arm. She quickly swallowed the lump in her throat and turned back to Nick, kneeling down beside him to tend to his wounds.

"Don't trust anyone," Nick coughed out as he grabbed Steve's hand, placing the familiar USB drive into his palm.

"C'mon, Nick. Stay with me," Connie spoke frantically as the apartment door burst open. Nick was the equivalent to an uncle to Connie, and to think that there was a possibility his injuries would not allow him to live nauseated her.

"Captain Rogers, Agent Jones," Kate's voice could be heard inside the apartment, attracting Connie's attention. "I'm Agent 13 of S.H.I.E.L.D. Special Service."

Steve looked at the blonde with wide blue eyes filled with disbelief. "Kate?"

The blonde then rounded the corner, putting her gun away as she did. "I'm assigned to protect you two."

"On whose order?" Connie exclaimed with slight annoyance in her tone.

Kate stopped when she noticed Connie beside a downed Nick Fury on the floor and she let out a breath before answering her. "His."

She knelt down beside him as well and brought her hand up to his neck to check for a pulse. Connie watched her with furrowed brows, disbelief and shock etched into the expression on her face. She wasn't quite sure what the hell was going on, but she knew she didn't like it.

"Foxtrot is down, he's unresponsive," Kate spoke into a radio. "I need EMT's."

"Do we have a twenty on the shooter?" a voice responded.

Connie looked up at Steve, her brown eyes pleading with him not to do what it was she knew he was thinking, but just like her, Steve was stubborn, too.

"Tell 'em I'm in pursuit."

Connie didn't have the time to protest before Steve took off, leaving her alone with Kate and Nick. She ran a hand through her dark hair, her brown eyes meeting Kate's own.

"I should probably be angry with you for this undercover bullshit, but I'm more annoyed with the fact that you spent all that time flirting with Steve and acting like you liked him just to gain his trust," Connie said as she pulled her phone from her back pocket. "A word of advice: don't start something with someone if you know you can't finish it."

Connie took off into her bedroom without another word and unlocked her phone, pressing it to her ear the moment she had the familiar number dialed.

The voice on the other end answered after only two rings, and Connie let out a shaky breath before speaking.

"Natasha. . .we have a problem."