Music is "Deep End" by Ruelle.

Picture is Tatiana Maslany as Emma Barnes.

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CHAPTER NINE: Time of Death

Steve and I backtrack down the stairs of the apartment building. On the second floor, we find a window that's on the side of the building. Steve opens it, crawls out onto the fire escape on the back side of the building, and we climb up the metal ladder until we get outside our window. I can still hear the song "It's Been A Long, Long Time" by Harry James and Kitty Kallen playing inside.

Steve quietly opens the window into our apartment. We slip inside, sheltered by the darkness and bookshelves directly to our left. Steve slips past one shelf, looking around for the intruder, and grabs his shield as we pass a second set of shelves. We continue forward. He takes point, holding up the shield for both our protections. I keep my glock raised, protecting our backs.

When we get to the end of the hallway made of shelves, I can see the living room to our left and the kitchen and hallway that leads to the bedrooms to our right. Steve peaks around the corner, looking at the armchair that's in the far left corner. I brace myself for what he will find. But his body instantly relaxes. He turns over his shoulder, jerking his chin towards the living room as if to tell me the coast is clear.

When I round the corner, I see none other than Director Nick Fury seated in the armchair, quite at home by the record player. I sigh, not saying a word as I turn towards the door to let Grant in and to tell him it was a false alarm.

"I don't remember giving you a key," I hear Steve say in a low voice.

"You really think I'd need one?" is Fury's response as I open the front door.

I look around the corner and see Grant. I wave him in. "False alarm, it's just Fury," I tell him.

"Why is he here?" Grant asks, still confused.

I shrug, annoyed. "Who the bloody hell knows."

When I come back to Steve's side, Grant heading for the table so he can place his backpack down, I hear Fury telling Steve something about how his wife kicked him out.

"You were able to find someone to marry you and all your secrets?" I ask, surprised.

Fury glares at me, exhaustion written all over his face. "There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Sergeant Barnes."

Steve sighs, moving for the light switch. "I know Nick. That's the problem."

When he flips it on, I nearly gasp. The Director is covered in abrasions and cuts. He looks as if he's been in a fight for his life, and recently. Fury raises a hand, as if to tell us to be silent, and turns off the light nearest him. He pulls out his phone as Steve moves closer. He turns the phone to us so we can read the message.

EARS EVERYWHERE.

Once I process this message, I want to scream at him. Or beat him up some more. Or both. But I know I can't do either because SHIELD, or whoever is behind his beating, is still listening. Our house has been bugged, and who knows how long it has been that way.

"I'm sorry to have to do this," Fury continues, keeping up the charade. "I had no place else to crash." He moves his fingers again, typing another message.

SHIELD COMPROMISED.

I inch closer to Steve, waving my hand for Grant to move closer to me. I want both of them within arms reach.

"Who else knows about your wife?" Steve asks, using code.

Fury stands, holding out another message.

YOU THREE AND ME.

"Just...my friends."

Steve grips his shield tighter. "Is that what we are?"

Fury halts a meter away, holding his stomach. "That's up to you."

Before anyone can say anything else, I hear three echoing shots. Holes burst through the wall behind Fury. He screams in pain, falling to the ground. Dust and debris go everywhere from the holes in the wall.

Behind me, I hear the trembling voice of my son. "M...Mom?"

When I turn, I can't help but let out terrified cry. Grant is holding chest, scarlet blood oozing from the wound in his chest. One of the bullets cut straight through Fury and hit Grant his rib cage area. He stumbles, and I catch him before he falls. "Grant! No!"

Steve grabs Fury and pulls him behind the nearest wall, out of the line of possible fire. Immediately, he's back with me, doing the same with Grant. "Keep pressure on the wound!" he tells me, placing my hands over Grant's chest. He looks directly at Grant. "It's gonna be okay, kid. I promise."

Grant sputters, unable to speak. Blood pools at his mouth. From the corner of my eye, I see Fury grab Steve's hand, handing over a hard drive of sorts. He tells him to not trust anyone, but my eyes don't leave Grant's. I place my hands on his chest, like I was told, but I can't help the frantic cries that escape my lips.

"Call for help!" I shout at Steve.

Before he can, we hear the door literally being knocked down. Oddly enough, it's Kate's voice we hear. "Captain Rogers? Sergeant Barnes?" A few seconds later, she says, "Captain, I'm Agent 13 of SHIELD Special Service."

"Kate?" Steve asks in confusion.

Kate rushes over to Grant and Fury. "I'm assigned to protect you both."

"On whose order?"

"His." She kneels beside Fury, checking his pulse and pulling out an old-fashioned walkie. "Foxtrot is down, he's unresponsive. I need EMTs." She moves over to Grant, checking for his pulse. "Grant Barnes was also hit. I need a bus. Now!" She stresses her words, despite her quick pace.

From here, both Steve and I can hear the dispatcher. "Do we have a twenty on the shooter?"

"Tell him I'm in pursuit."

The next thing I hear is shattering glass, and Steve's gone, throwing himself from our apartment to the adjacent to trail after the shooter.

I hold my hands desperately to Grant's chest, trying in a hopeless attempt to stop the bleeding. Tears stream down my face, and my breathing is shallow and erratic. I look to Kate. "Do something, anything!"

Kate shakes her head, her eyes glistening with guilt. "There's nothing I can do until the bus gets here. Just keep your hands there. They'll be here in seconds."

True to her word, only a few more seconds pass before I hear sirens and footsteps thundering up the stairs. Agents surround us in a matter of seconds. They pull Fury onto a stretcher, moving him from the room and onto an ambulance. They do the same to Grant, but I hold his chilled hand the entire way. "Get in!" the paramedic shouts. I hop into the vehicle, the door shutting on my heels.

They try desperately to keep him stable the short ride to the hospital. Terms like "cardiac arrest," "torn atria," and "extensive blood loss" are thrown around the cabin. My eyes stay glued to Grant's as they haze over. I can't breathe. I can't think. I can't move. All I can do is grip his hand and pray to God that he makes it through.

At the hospital, they refuse to let me into the operating room. I try to fight them, but I'm too weak from shock and crying to do so for long. One of the nurses pushes me back, telling me that they need to focus on my son. I relent, falling back against the wall as they take him to the operating room with a glass wall so people can watch. How sick is that: I can watch my son die.

In the room on the opposite wall, I can see Fury being prepped for surgery. He lies almost as still as the dead, breath of life barely slipping in and out of his lungs.

I'm not alone for long before the door opens with a thud, Steve hurrying inside. He turns to Fury, seeing what I stare at, then turns to Grant in the other room. I can't turn around again. I can't see my little boy broken and bleeding, dying on that table. I hear the doctors shout about his torn heart, that he's bled too much, that his heart is basically in pieces. That's enough to make anyone cry. But the fact that my reflection in the glass shows Grant's blood on my clothes, that sends me into sobs.

Steve wraps me in his strong arms, holding me as tight as he can. I turn around to bury my face into his shoulder, hands gripping desperately at his dark blue jacket. Steve rests his chin on my hair, hands clasped around my back, rubbing soothing circles there. The combination of his musky cologne, rough hands on my spine, and soothing whispers might be able to fix any problem. Any problem other than a dying child.

"He's gonna be okay," Steve mumbles into my dark locks. "You gotta believe that."

"What if he's not?" I cry.

Steve doesn't respond, just holds me close.

Moments later, Natasha storms into the room. She's out of breath, her face showing just as much concern as Steve's. Not as much as mine, but neither of them are a mother. She gives one look to me, then to Grant, then back to me as she rushes for me. Steve lets me go just long enough for Natasha to embrace me.

"He'll make it," she tells me as if it's a fact. "He's strong."

I nod, wordless, and pull back. I wipe my tears from my eyes, trying to contain my sobs. For the first time, I look at Grant again. They have him on the table, surgeons operating. Tubes and wires are hooked up to his body, monitoring his failing heart.

Natasha turns to Fury with hazy eyes. "Is he going to make it?" she asks Steve, referring to Fury.

"I don't know," he mumbles to her under his breath.

She clears her throat of emotion. "Tell me about the shooter."

"He's fast, strong. Had a metal arm."

Something in my brain clicks on at the mention of the metal arm. Something from my dark past, from the years I hunted down Zelma's killer. His alias echoes throughout my mind, bumping into dangerous memories that I have prayed never surface again.

I still remember the first time Peggy told me his name: the Winter Soldier. Zimniy Soldat. The man who killed my oldest student, the girl I loved as a daughter. In all my years of research and hunting, I found very little about this man. However, I still remember the single defining feature I discovered: his metal arm.

I turn to look over my shoulder at Natasha. I can see her face in the reflection of the glass. Her eyes look just as vacant as mine do. While I took down Red Rooms, she lived in one. She, if anyone, would have known of the Winter Soldier. From her facial expression and trembling lip, I'd say I was right.

Maria Hill enters the room, giving me a deeply apologetic expression. She turns to look at Fury, standing beside Natasha. Steve turns back towards Grant and I, although not much has changed. He walks over to me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and pulling my back against his chest. I lean into him, placing my hands over his.

"Ballistics?" Natasha asks, her voice quivering.

"Three slugs," Maria replies. "No rifling. Completely untraceable."

"Soviet made."

Maria looks to Natasha in mild surprise. "Yeah."

I tense up again, another memory coming to mind. Although at the time of Zelma's murder I had no idea if the Winter Soldier had a metal arm, I knew only what Peggy had told me.

"They were shot at point-blank range by someone with military training," she told me in 1960, after I had just come back to life. "Years of it, it appears. Eight slugs, Soviet-made, no riffling. Completely untraceable."

The next moments are a blur. Fury goes into cardiac arrest. The doctor brings the crash cart in. Steve and I turn our attention to our boss, fearing the worst. They try to revive him, but the crash cart doesn't work. They up the voltage and try again. Still no response.

Natasha mumbles, "Don't do this to me, Nick."

Her pleas to the dying man do nothing to change his fate. The epinephrine doesn't work, neither does anything else. The only thing I can hear above the shouting and panic in the emergency room is Natasha's mutters in Russian begging Nick to not leave her.

But nothing works. After waiting a moment, I see the defeat cover the doctor's bloodied face. "What's the time?" he asks the nurse.

"It's 1:03," he replies softly.

"Time of death: 1:03 a.m."

In Grant's room, I hear the noise pick up. The doctor starts shouting at the nurses to get the crash cart, and I feel Fury's fate start happening all over again.

I turn on my heel, pushing myself up against he glass that shows me Grant's operating room. He's seizing on the table, shaking with his eyes rolling back into his head.

I slam my fist against the glass, tears falling even harder than before. "No, damn it! No, you can't die!"

Natasha and Maria are still in shock from Fury's passing, but Steve pulls himself out of it long enough to move to my side. He doesn't try to comfort me or reach for me, which is smart. All I care about is the dying boy on the other side of the glass.

His seizing stops, and for a second I have hope. But then his heart-rate monitor goes crazy, showing his heat has stopped. They pull the crash cart over, attempting to revive him.

Again. And again. And again.

Nothing works. His eyes are still rolled back into his head. His body is covered in his own blood. His chest is open from the surgery and his lungs refuse to move.

They haven't called it yet, but I know in my heart that my worst nightmare has come true.

My little boy is dead.

END CHAPTER NINE: Time of Death.