2 | ROGUE • BUCKY BARNES [COMPLETED]

VII.

Like so many other parts of her life, she prayed that this was all just a dream, a nightmare that would end when she opened her eyes. Yet, that wasn't the case; it never was. 

No matter how much she blinked, she still found herself standing alongside of Steve and Natasha, staring inside as other doctors surrounded Fury, lying unconscious on the table.

"I should be in there," she told Steve moments ago, her voice nearly cracking. But he held her back. They both knew it was for the best, ever if ever fiber of her mind was fighting herself. She was far too rattled to work.

But she loathed just standing there, doing nothing, when Fury's life faltered. The multiple  surgeons behind the glass panels were working tirelessly to retrieve the bullets in his torso, but there was too much damage.

The noise Gideon feared most, then filled the room.

The heart rate monitor at a once low but beating pattern suddenly flatlined.

"No," she gasped, hands pressed against the glass as she felt another important person in her life part from her once more when it was too far from soon for them to go.

Steve's arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her in for a hug. She buried her head in his shoulder, tearless sobs racked their way through her chest. All time seemed to have stopped, but they then found themselves alone in a cold room of the hospital, just them, Natasha, and Agent Maria Hill with Fury's body. "We need to take him," Agent Hill said solemnly.

As Nat placed her hand on his forehead for one last time, Gideon moved to hug her as tears began to fall, but the woman pushed her grasp away, storming into the hall.

"Natasha," both Gideon and Steve called out to her before following into the bustling hallway. SHIELD agents flew around them, stalking in different directions as the intelligent community she worked so hard to create, to bring from the ground up, to falls to bits right in front of her.

"Why was Fury in your apartment," she suddenly turned to interrogate Steve.

"I don't know," he admitted. Both wanted to explain, but now wasn't the time, not with this many ears around them.

Speaking of, Agent Rumlow interrupted them seconds after. "Captain, they want you back at SHIELD."

"Yeah, give me a second," he returned, his voice heavily short in patience.

"They want you now."

"Okay," he uttered before turning back to Nat.

"You're a terrible liar," she bit before walking away, leaving them both with torn expressions.
Another agent behind them began to speak, grabbing their attention and eyes, "STRIKE team escort Captain Rogers back to SHIELD."

"I told him," Rumlow responded, setting off and leaving them to follow.

"Let's go," Steve motioned, and they set off.

Her stomach and nerves were in constant turmoil. She didn't like any of this; Fury, lying cold on a morgue table, SHIELD corrupted, and agents leading Steve to the very same building. She always felt at home within SHIELD; it was her home. Yet now, with the walls collapsing around her, the sense of security had vanished.

Remembering the flash drive, she noticed Steve was already on it. As a man was restocking a vending machine, he passed it to her, and she disappeared before sneaking it behind a row of bubblegum and returning.

"I'm following you in," she whispered to him.

"Ten feet behind," he already knew.

They were escorted to the headquarters via other agents, and upon arrival, they went straight to Alexander Pierce's office. She remained hidden, standing alongside the window panelled wall, listening into every word. 

For a while, they talked about nothing, a noise filled silence, until it turned to be about Fury. Every thing he said, she couldn't believe to be true. Even Steve called him out on it. It wasn't possible that he was caught up on a bad deal for intelligence. The Winter Soldier, Bucky, shot him through Steve's window, and they both saw it.

Steve turned to leave though, after Pierce ended their conversation on an ominous note.

Following him out, they headed into the elevator. "Operations control," he commanded.
"Confirmed," it responded.

The air around them was quiet, all up until the doors slid open and Agent Rumlow strode inside. Tension, then, filled the air. Gideon remained still and hidden as pleasantries were exchanged. Everything about the entire situation screamed that something was wrong.
And with the door opening again to more STRIKE agents filing in only confirmed it.
One of the agents spoke aloud, "Records."

"Confirmed," the computer answered.

She could practically feel one of the rapid heartbeats of the man standing next to her on her arm, and she followed Steve's eyes to the beads of sweat collecting on his forehead.
With the doors shut and more and more agents surrounding them, the tension immediately intensified.

"Before we get started, does anyone want to get off," Steve asked, his eyes turning to where Gideon stood, squeezed rather uncomfortably and unknowingly between him and another agent.

Then, all hell broke loose. The agent to Steve's side pulled out a long electric rod before slamming it into his abdomen, and Gideon appeared immediately to jump over and kick him to the wall, knocking down others in the process. Expressions of shock and curiosity reflected back at her, but neither of them gave them time to react.

Gideon sprung to kick down another man, but one was able to halfway disarm Steve with a set of magnetic hand cuffs. With one arm immobilized on the wall, Steve managed to break the bond and lodge the cuffs at another agent across from him. Together, they managed to knock every man down until only Rumlow was standing.

She couldn't disarm him in enough time before he lunged back at Steve with the electric rod, striking him in the abdomen once more.

"Wow big guy." Rumlow exhaled. "I just want you to know, Cap, this ain't personal." While Steve was down with Gideon behind him, he turned and swung the rod at her, catching her off guard and in the side.

"It feels kind of personal," Steve uttered as she fell, yet Steve managed to grab him and bring him down unconscious.

Sucking in sharp, uneven breaths, her and Steve locked eyes before he raised his shield and opened the elevator doors. More STRIKE agents surrounded them at the entrance, weapons raised and ready.

"Drop the shield," one shouted, "Put your hands in the air!"

Yet in a quick moment of thinking, Steve welds his shield against the elevator wires, snapping them in one blow. It sent the elevator into a free fall before crashing on an undetermined floor. Prying open the doors, they were met with half a view of agents on a different floor with another set of weapons pointed at them.

"Give it up Rogers and Erskine!" A man shouted at them before commanding his fleet to open the doors more. "You've got nowhere to run."

But they weren't surrendering.

Steve grabbed her and put her protectively behind him before holding up his shield between them and the glass windows. "You ready?" He turned back to look at her, but she responded only by grabbing his waist and pulling herself closer to him. The fall looked steep but they both would heal, and it was their only way out.

She pulled in a deep breath before they charged. The glass shattered around them, and they hit the ground with a hard impact. She felt as if the ground had punched the air out of her lungs, but he was pulling her up. Somehow though, she managed to follow Steve in a sprint to his motorcycle waiting for them in the SHIELD garage.

Without saying anything, she hopped on the back and held him once more. She then put all of her focus on making them unseen. To turn herself invisible had become second nature, yet to turn others and objects as well as herself required strong concentration. But without a doubt and within seconds, they were off unseen, with a manhunt at their back.

YEEAHH IM BACK!!!!! HELLO HI! Long story short, I graduated high school and now I'm j chillin and working! Hopefully updates will be more often??? Yo no sé, ¡lo siento!

But thanks for reading and staying with me!💕
[6/20/17]