Coming with Winter

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

*~*~*~*

"I thought you were dead." I hissed through clenched teeth as the man from earlier, apparently a doctor, worked on pulling the bullet from my side.

"Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, and one hell of a headache." Fury listed off his injuries as though they were nothing.

"Don't forget your collapsed lung." The doctor added as he got the bullet out, causing me to give a small gasp of pain. The doctor looked up at me and gave me an apologetic look as he started to clean up the wound before going to bandage it.

"Oh, let's not forget that. Otherwise, I'm good." Fury assured us.

"They cut you open, your heart stopped." Natasha shook her head, glaring at Fury as a second doctor finished up cleaning her shoulder.

"Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it." Fury explained to us.

"Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?" Steve asked as he glanced at me, clearly he still wasn't too thrilled with how he'd learned of my identity.

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful." Hill didn't seem to catch the double meaning of Steve's question.

"Can't kill you if you're already dead. Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust." Fury answered honestly.

"Was that why you lied about Falconeri's death and identity?" Steve scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "The reason that you allowed us to have a funeral for her? What did we bury if it wasn't her?"

"That is a good question." I agreed. Fury had never confirmed that there'd been a funeral for me, I'd always figured that SHIELD had handled my 'body' without any questions asked. If they all buried something though what was it?

"A SHIELD agent that lost her life during the attack on the helicarrier." Hill answered this question.

"As for the reason for Miss Falconeri's survival remaining secret, that was of her and Agent Coulson choosing." Fury twisted the truth. "Prior to joining us on the helicarrier, Agent Coulson and Miss Falconeri agreed that she would join the team as long as she was free to go afterwards. Coulson took it upon himself to find a safe residence for her to stay at and she has been there since."

"So you just decided to let all of us believe that she was dead?" Steve looked around at the three of us, clearly disgusted with this.

"Right now that isn't important." I cut in before the discussion could go any further. "I know that what I decided pissed you off Steve but that can wait until later. Right now we need to find a way to stop Hydra from going and killing thousands of innocent people, that list including friends like Bruce."

"She's right." Natasha agreed.

*~*~*~*

"This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said, "Peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility."" Fury shook his head as we all sat in a large room with dim lighting. He looked at a picture of Pierce with disgust on his face. "See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

"We have to stop the launch." Natasha got to the point, wasting no time.

"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore." Fury scoffed as he picked up a suitcase from the floor and opened it to reveal three compute chips.