Chapter 28 - Rachel Stark

"Fury?" I ask from behind Steve. 

"I don't remember giving you a key," Steve says, relaxing. He drops his shield from its defensive position and leans into the wall. "Do you?" he asks, turning his head to me. I shake my head, raising my eyebrows.

"You really think I'd need one?" he looks between us. He quickly drops the tough façade. "My wife kicked me out," 

"I didn't know you were married," I mention, stepping towards Nick slowly. Something seems massively off here. 

"There are a lot of things you guys don't know about me," Nick says.

"I know, Nick. That's the problem." Steve starts to walk towards Fury until he flashes us his phone screen. 

Ears Everywhere

"I'm sorry to have to do this to you but I had nowhere else to crash." Fury holds up his phone again.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Compromised

"Who else knows about your wife?" Steve asks, picking up on the code. He holds up his phone once more, getting up to his feet.

You two

"Just... My friends."

"Is that what we are now?" Steve asks from behind me.

"That's up to you," Fury quips, walking slowly towards us. He doesn't make it much further though, gunfire sounding off around us. In the heat of the moment, Steve grabs me and puts his shield up in front of us, protecting me. Once the gunshots stop, I look up from behind the shield to see Nick lying on the floor. I make my way over to him and feel for his pulse. 

Nothing.

"Nurse! Nurse!" I yell as I quickly run out of the room. I break into a sprint down the stairs, searching for our neighbor. I find her making her way up from the basement and stop her. I frantically explain the situation, telling her about what just happened upstairs. She shoves me aside, taking the steps two at a time, and she makes her way into our apartment before I do. I stumble through the door, trying to assess the situation as tears begin to crowd my vision. 

The nurse is bent over Fury, checking his pulse. Steve says something that I can't hear, the white noise muffling my hearing. Steve sees me and makes his way over, checking me for injuries. I stand there stuck, unable to say anything.  Our neighbor turns to the two of us, breaking me out of my shock.

"Do we have a 20 on the shooter?" she questions with her full attention on Steve. 

"Tell them I'm in pursuit," Steve says, grabbing his shield and running out of the door. I watch him leave, then turn my attention back to the nurse and to Nick. 

"Get your hand here," she says, pointing to one of the bullet holes in Fury's chest. I spring into action, placing my hands where she told me to. I feel his warm blood spread over my palms. My breathing becomes ragged, my mind flashing back to my own experiences. Kate... Kate! That is her name. I couldn't remember it before. Kate notices that I am spiraling. 

"Hey, we are only here until the EMTs get here," she says, trying to calm me down. "Breathe." I follow her instructions, focusing on my breathing until the EMTs come. They enter the apartment quickly, getting to work right away. They push me gently aside and get Fury onto a gurney. 

"Go with him," Kate tells me, pointing down the hall after the EMTs as they walk out of the room. I nod to her, following them out of the building. I get into the ambulance after they put Nick's body in it, sitting on a bench beside his head. The whole ride consists of EMTs flurrying around the back of the ambulance as I focus on my hands. 

My hands are covered in blood. Nick Fury's blood.

As we pull up to the hospital, they take Fury off of the ambulance and one of the EMTs helps me out of the back. I follow him into the hospital and he takes me to the front desk to fill out the paperwork. I get it done relatively quickly because I don't know anything about Nick besides his name. The woman at the desk gives me a look and I am not sure if it is because of the lack of information on the form or because my hands had stained some of the paper. 

I take off down the halls, looking for whatever room they have him in. I look through the doors frantically, trying to find him. Finally, I see Steve through an open door. I take a breath to collect myself, then I walk in slowly. 

The room is dark, the only light source present is from the other side of a large window which allows the occupants of the room visual access to an operating room. I look around the dark room, noting that there are others in the room besides Steve. Maria Hill, Rumlow, and one other man are in here watching Fury's surgery. I walk up to the window slowly, my brain not even allowing me to process that my mentor was lying inches from death in front of me.

"Is he going to make it?" I ask in a whisper.

"I don't know," Steve says. I can feel his eyes on me but my attention doesn't shift away from the operation.

"When did you get here?" I ask Steve, still whispering as if Fury was listening.

"A little while ago," he concedes.

"Tell me about the shooter," I demand in a low voice, my eyes locked on Fury.

"He's fast. Strong." Steve bows his head. "Had a metal arm." I freeze. My body tenses and I have to quickly remind myself to breathe.

"Ballistics?" I ask, my body so stunned in shock I am barely able to get the words out.  

"Three slugs, no rifling. Completely untraceable." Maria answers, looking over at me. 

"Soviet-made," I say, feeling my hands starting to shake.

"Yeah," Maria says, surprised. My mind races into memories, remembering my last encounter with a similar shooter. I didn't have the time to answer the unspoken question of how I knew who this assassin was because one of the monitors behind the glass began a long, steady drone. I look away from Nick's face to the heart monitor, which is now only displaying a flat line. 

The surgeons pull out a defibrillator.

"Don't do this to me, Nick," I whisper to myself. I feel Steve rest his hand gently on top of mine and feel his eyes watch my face. We are just standing there, helpless. I watch the doctors rush around, injecting more things into Nick. 

I hate this hospital. 

The head surgeon asks for a pulse.

"Don't do this to me, Nick. Don't do this to me. Please." I feel my mouth form the words.

"What's the time?" The doctor asks. 

Oh God no. Please no.

"1:03 Doctor."

"Time of death, 1:03 a.m." 

I just stand and watch as the doctors leave and the hospital staff comes to clean up the room. Maria leaves shortly after the time of death was called for some S.H.I.E.L.D. related business, something about reestablishing the chain of command. Rumlow and the other STRIKE member leave with her. The doctor comes in after what feels like an eternity.

"You can see him now." 

I pull my hand out from under Steve's and follow the doctor down the hall. His pace is too slow. My body begins to quiver in anticipation as we reach the door. The doctor pushes one of the large double doors open with one arm, allowing me inside. 

I push myself to walk in, feeling my body straining against me. I keep my eyes pinned to the ground, unable to look at the body. I make my way very slowly over to the bed and only look at him as I come face-to-face with Nick Fury. I take a shaky breath in, letting my hair fall around my face. I stand next to his body for several minutes, just staring in disbelief with my arms across my chest. My mind races through questions, trying to piece together the situation in my mind. There is only one question that sticks out in my mind. 

What was Nick doing in our apartment?  

"I need to take him," Maria informs Steve. I hear his footfalls as he slowly makes his way towards me. 

"Rachel," he whispers. I take another long deep breath in as I move my hand to rest gently on Nick's forehead. I take a moment, silently thanking him for all that he has done for me and telling him all that I wish I said to him while he was alive. A tear falls slowly down my cheek. I exhale, taking my hand off of his head, and walk quickly out of the room.   

"Rachel!" Steve calls after me, following me out into the hallway.

"Why was Fury in our apartment?" I ask.

Steve's POV

"Why was Fury in our apartment?" she asks, her eyes cold and calculating.

"I don't... I don't know." I say, which isn't a complete lie. When she ran out of the apartment, Fury gave me a hard drive that looked similar to the one that Rachel had on the Lemurian Star. He passed it off to me with a warning not to trust anyone. I don't know if that included Rachel. I don't want to lie to her, but something is going on here and I'd like to get to the bottom of it. 

"Cap, they want you back at S.H.I.E.L.D," Rumlow says from down the hall. I take a deep breath in, turning towards him.

"Yeah, give me a second," I say and turn back towards Rachel.

"They want you now." He says. I turn towards him once again, this time with a very obvious look of irritation written on my face.

"Okay." I look back to Rachel, whose eyes are still ice cold. I see the tears form in her eyes and brush my eyes quickly over her face, looking for some sort of signal. 

"You, Steve Rogers, are a terrible liar," she says, a tear falling from her eye. She turns her back to me and walks off, leaving me in the hands of the STRIKE team. I sigh, feeling the guilt form and the dread kick in of knowing that I am in trouble with Rachel.  I slowly turn on my heel and follow Rumlow out of the building. 

Rachel's POV

I grit my teeth as I walk away, my anger bubbling up inside of me. Steve isn't telling me the whole truth, and I need to find out why. 

I make my way through the halls hoping to find someplace where I can collect my thoughts privately. I end up wandering down endless loops of hallways, eventually ending up back in the same place where I confronted Steve. I look around, hoping there is a seat somewhere when I come across a vending machine. 

"I didn't notice this before," I mumble to myself. I look through the snack options, feeling my stomach grumble with the sight of food. I do a quick pass over the first row of snacks. I zero in on the gum, hoping there are some good options. I run my eyes down the line, noticing something is off with one of the ones in pink packaging. The last one in the row is darker. I look closer, hoping maybe it is a different flavor when I notice that it isn't bubble gum at all. I turn my head a little, allowing the light to reflect a little S.H.I.E.L.D. logo back to me. I look both ways down the hall, making sure no one is approaching me as I fish my wallet out of my pocket.

"This better be worth seven bucks, Rogers."

Steve's POV

As I walk down the hall to Fury's old office, I see that our neighbor Kate is talking to Alexander Pierce, the only man at S.H.I.E.L.D. who has a higher clearance than Nick Fury.

Had.

She notices me coming and quickly wraps up her conversation with Pierce. Kate walks down the hall towards me and I tense up, not really wanting to have a conversation with her right now. 

"Captain Rogers," she says, nodding her head in my direction.

"Neighbour," I say, keeping my eyes on Pierce. As I walk up to Pierce, I reach my hand out. He takes it.

"I'm Alexander Pierce," he states, shaking my hand.

"Sir, it's an honor."

"The honor is mine, Captain. My father served in the 101st. Come on in." Pierce says. I follow him into the office, taking a seat as he opens an old file. Inside, an old picture of him and Nick. 

"That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met when I was in the State Department in Bogota. E.L.N. rebels took hostages. Nick was Deputy Chief of the S.H.I.E.L.D. station there, and he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, 'No, we'll negotiate.' Turned out, the E.L.N. so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement, and what did they find? They find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct order, and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil, and saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."

"So you gave him a promotion," I say, trying to sum up the story in my head. 

"I've never had any cause to regret it," he pauses. "Captain, why was Nick in your apartment?"

"I don't know," I say, not hesitating. Again, not a lie.

"Did you know it was bugged?" Pierce asks, turning his body towards mine.

"I did because Nick told me," I say.

"Did he tell you that he was the one who bugged it?"

Rachel's POV

Rumlow took Steve back to S.H.I.E.L.D. hours ago. I'm starting to get worried that something happened. I found a seat down the hall that was across from the vending machine. I sat, waiting for Steve to return, having a feeling that he was the one who put classified S.H.I.E.L.D. intel into a public vending machine. It just sounds like something he would have the brains to do. I open one of the five packs of gum I bought, popping one into my mouth as I wait. I watch as a tall figure in a hoodie walks up to the vending machine. After a few seconds of the person not buying anything, I figure it is Steve. I walk up behind him, staying as quiet as I can. When I know he can see my reflection in the glass, I slowly blow a bubble.