2 | ROGUE • BUCKY BARNES [COMPLETED]

II.

"Director Fury," she nearly snarled, like a wild animal caught in cage. Never before had she been caught, unable to escape.

"Agent Rogue, it's been a long time," Nick Fury said. A new title had been added to his name since the retired agent first met him as he worked for the CIA, but the eye patch and commanding tone remained the same. His voice and demeanor held in mood of a simple meeting between old coworkers, but they both knew that wasn't the case.

The two had seldom met before, but during her 'retirement', she heard about the rise of the new SHIELD director. She had liked him before, respected him for his position and morals [which were respectively better than some of the other directors she had worked with ie those that sent her on missions into the nearest depths of hell]. But now she felt as if she were trapped in a corner with no escape route.

"What do you want," she bit, her voice venom as she felt the loom of an interrogation.

"To talk," he answered simply.

"You could have just told me that with polite wake-up call instead of this," she flicked her raging eyes in the direction of the contraption clamped to her wrists, moving to show him would only activate it.

"This is important."

"What could possibly-"

"Howard and Maria Stark are dead, Dr. Erskine," Fury interrupted her beginnings a rant, his voice hard and solemn, "I'm sorry for your loss."

He deactivated the device as she stilled, the metal cuffs clicking they slid from her limp wrist within the now silent room.

She fell utterly speechless. In fact, she felt her heart fall straight to her feet along with her voice. That can't be true. It couldn't.

Her mind whirled with thoughts, trying to produce words to say, but she could only sit there with her jaw slacked and heart racing.

The questions of how, when, why sprung into her mind. It was all too sudden for the tears to begin prickling in her eyes. Her mind reverted back into the state she developed years into her voyages with SHIELD, back into the state where everything was void and nothing else mattered besides the mission.

"Who else knows," she felt the question fall from her lips, a programmed response.

"You are the first person I've told. Only me, you, and the lone agent who found out," he replied.

"Who did this," her voice softened, near the brink of cracking as the realization finally began to set in.

"That's one of the reasons as to why you are the first to know of this," Fury said, his hands beginning to shuffle through a pile of papers next to him on the metal desk. Once his hand fell on a manila folder though, the red letters reading classified caught her eyes, and he slipped out from beneath all of the others. He set it down in front of him before linking his fingers together and resting them on top of them. "Do you know a Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th infantry for World War II?"

Her heart seemed to stop once more at the mention of his name, one she always thought of yet rarely spoke of as the days grew longer, the years never-ending.

The ring she always kept with her suddenly felt ten pounds heavier on her finger.

Howard and Peggy seldom spoke of him to her; the wounds would still hurt on the worst of days. Yet Director Fury was the last person she could imagine asking about him.

With her astounding speechlessness, he began once more, "Born on March 10, 1917 and best friend to Steven Rogers, known as Captain-"

"Yes," she finally whispered.