𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{2⁷} {NICHOLAS J. FURY}

"None of that's your fault, Steve," Natasha told him, her eyes trailing back down to the floor as she tried to take her mind off the ice-eyed woman sitting next to her. 

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky," he supplied. By this point, Roxi had figured out that they were talking about James "Bucky" Buchanan Barnes, Steve's best friend form the 70s, who was apparently now the Winter Soldier. Natasha tilted her head back and Roxi noticed the stream of blood running from her gunshot wound thicken as the redhead's skin paled even more. They ran over a pothole and Roxi jolted backwards, slamming her dislocated shoulder off of the wall and bit down on her tongue to stop herself from appearing weak in front of the two HDYRA agents who sat in the car watching over them. Instead, she let her eyes flit around, never settling on one detail, and letting pieces of information flood her brain so she could distract herself. As she did so, she kept most of her concentration on her handcuffs and carefully shifted the metal inside the lock. She felt it click surprisingly quietly, and let her mind buzz with information again.

"We need to get a doctor here, if we don't put pressure on that wound, she's gonna bleed out here in the truck," Sam ordered, his voice firm as he saw Natasha's blood spilling down her leather jacket, and the way the red of her hair and blood seemed so bright against her whitening skin. One of the HYDRA agents fired up their electric baton, the strange buzz tearing the air and cutting Sam off, as well as causing him to jolt backwards. Swiftly, the person flipped the baton in their hand and stabbed it into the chest of the other agent before kicking him into the side of the truck, making him let out a yell and fell limp against the floor. Roxi's eyes snapped to the person, her ice blue gaze scanning their face as they removed their black helmet. The action revealed none other than Maria Hill, the deputy head of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Ugh, that thing was squeezing my brain," she sighed, brushing her wild hair out of her face and her eyes fixing on Roxi slightly longer than anyone else, her brown ones meeting Roxi's ice cold ones, before Roxi looked away, her gaze finding Natasha, who'd momentarily opened her eyes to see what was going on, before closing them again. 

"Who's this guy?"  Hill continued, gesturing to Sam, who was staring at her, equally confused. Roxi took the awkward silence as an opportunity, and chimed in with the conversation, her voice slightly hoarse.

"It's been a while." 

{~}

Their journey ended about half an hour later, when they pulled up beside a dam. Roxi got out first, followed by Natasha, who she helped out, then Steve and Sam. Hill lead them through a barred gate into the dam, and down a dark corridor.

"GSW, she's lost at least a pint," She called down the corridor to an approaching figure, informing them of Natasha's injury. 

"Maybe two," Sam added.

"Let me take her," the man commanded.

"She'll want to see him first," Hill told him. Roxi's eyes flicked around again as she wondered who 'him' was, and as she registered that the man coming towards them was fully dressed in a suit, so it was likely that there was some kind of bunker at the end of the tunnel. When they arrived and turned a corner, Hill pulled aside some plastic curtains and revealed the man inside the room.

Nick Fury lay in a hospital bed, drips taped to his hands and his eyepatch still over his left eye. He pulled his head up, surveyed them for a few seconds, before saying

"About damn time." Roxi felt as if the words were directed straight at her, and the hunch was backed up when Fury kept his gaze on her longer than the others, just as Hill had done. A few minutes later, Natasha was sat down on a chair next to Roxi, who had waved off the medic and had begun to apply pressure to the redhead's gunshot wound herself, and though her focus was mainly on what Fury was saying, her eyes flitted from Natasha's shoulder to her face quite a few times, her ice blue gaze meeting the pair of forest green ones once or twice.

"Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, and one hell of a headache," Fury listed his injuries. Everyone else was standing around the room, though Roxi could feel Hill's gaze on her, and occasionally, Fury's.

"Don't forget your collapsed lung," the medic supplied.

"Yeah let's not forget that. But otherwise, I'm good."

"They cut you open, your heart stopped," Natasha stated to him, sounding more than a little pissed. Fury had essentially saved her by letting her join S.H.I.E.L.D, and a couple of days ago, Natasha had been told that he's died. But now here he sat, perfectly happy to explain everything - or at least, some things.

"Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse down to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. It didn't work so great for him, but we found it useful," he explained. Roxi didn't really know how to feel about Fury being alive. It didn't exactly shock her, but when she had found out about his 'death', it felt as though someone had betrayed her, like someone had stabbed her in the back, and now, finding out that he was alive, it was as if someone had tried to fix it with a band-aid, slapped on as if it would fix everything she had felt.

"Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?" Steve asked, seeming surprisingly calm.

"Any attempt on the Director's life had to look successful." Hill chimed in.

"Can't kill you if you're already dead." Fury added. It made sense, and Roxi had done something similar once on a mission, but it didn't take away the pain that she hid so well. 

"Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust." He finished. Natasha looked away from Fury, no doubt feeling betrayed and overlooked, instead, her gaze landed on Roxi, who had just realigned her shoulder and let out a short, quiet breath as pain jolted through her body. It was at that point that Natasha remembered the agent's other injury, and she cursed herself slightly for forgetting Roxi's burnt back. As the woman began to put pressure on Natasha's injury again, the redhead put her hand on Roxi's and took it off of her shoulder, turning around in her chair and muttering to the brunette

"Turn around."

"What?" Roxi asked quietly.

"Your back. It hasn't been dealt with properly; turn around," Natasha ordered and the brunette let out a light sigh before turning around until she was facing the wall. Roxi slid Natasha's jacket (that she was still wearing) off of her shoulders and set it on her lap. She felt the redhead slide up her t-shirt slightly and involuntarily shivered, but she brushed it off as the cold. Fury got out of his hospital bed as Natasha began to clean the burn. It stung, but Roxi wasn't focusing on it. Natasha was being gentle, but thorough while she cleaned the injury on her back, and Roxi couldn't help but wonder if all the small moments and looks between the two women meant something, before she dismissed the notion and refocused on the conversations floating around the room.

{A/N:} The ending's not fantastic but this chapter went pretty well. It's on the shorter side again so sorry about that xD. See you next week,

JabberJay11

2070 Words

Written: 26 / 09 / 2020

Published: 26 / 09 / 2020