Dad quickly dragged Fury away from the window and I immediately applied pressure to the wound on his chest, icing my hands over hoping to slow down the bleeding. Furry handed a USB to Dad who quickly placed it into one of his pockets.
"Don't... trust anyone," he wheezed before passing out.
The sound of someone trying to kick the door in made me grab my cosmic staff again, prepared for whatever came through the door. Someone was calling out through the door and I figured out who it was seconds before the door was kicked in.
"Captain Rogers?" Kate said, walking into the apartment with a gun drawn. "Captain, I'm Agent 13 of SHIELD Special Service."
When she said that she was with SHIELD, I finally figured out who she was. She was that agent I remembered glaring at Mum and me at the SHIELD offices in New York just after Dad was rescued from the ice.
"Kate?" Dad asked, not sounding impressed at all.
"I'm assigned to protect you."
"Yeah, by who's orders?" I asked, pointing my cosmic staff at her.
"His," she said looking at Fury on the floor.
I didn't pay any attention to whatever she was calling out on her SHIELD radio, instead I was cautious looking out the window at the man who was still staring into the apartment. A SHIELD agent asked of anyone knew where the shooter was.
"Tell him I'm in pursuit," Dad said, grabbing his shield and jumping out of the window.
With my comic staff in hand, I followed Dad out of the window. Thanking God that I played quidditch, I mounted my comic staff like it was my nimbus 2000 and took off after them. Dad and I chased the assassin through office buildings and over roof tops. We finally caught up to the assassin on one of the rooftops where Dad threw his shield at the man but in one swift movement, the assassin caught it and threw it back at Dad before jumping off the roof and disappearing.
"Elsa, do not tell your mother that you followed me. I think she would kill us both."
"Don't worry, Dad. I wasn't going to."
"Is he gonna make it?" Nat asked, running in to the hospital room as the doctors operated on Fury.
"I don't know," Dad said helplessly.
"Tell me about the shooter," Nat asked.
"He's fast and strong..." Dad began to say.
"And he had a metal arm," I added as Maria Hill walked into the room.
"Ballistics?" Nat asked her, never taking her eyes off Fury.
"Three slugs, no rifling. Completely untraceable," Maria replied.
"Soviet-made," Nat said quietly which Maria confirmed as Fury started to go downhill fast. The doctors started to work on Fury faster, trying to reestablish his heart beat. They started to become more frantic as they charged the defibrillator to use on Fury.
"Don't do this to me, Nick. Don't do this to me," Nat whispered as the doctors tried to revive Fury but were unable to do anything than call the time of death.
The doctors lead us into a room where we could say goodbye to him. Nat looked broken as she walked over to his body with tears running down her face. She gentle put her hand on Fury's head as she tried to control herself. Not being able to stand seeing her so upset, I walked over to Nat and took hold of her hand.
"I need to take him," Maria said softly to Dad.
"Nat," I said, trying to get her attention. Nat quickly gave me a small smile before turning and walking out of the room.
"Natasha!" Dad called out after her as we both ran to catch up with her.
"Why was Fury in your apartment?" she demeaned as she turned to look at Dad.
"I don't know," Dad lied badly to her as Rumlow walked over to us.
"Cap, they want you and your daughter back at SHIELD," he said, interrupting our conversation.
"Yeah, give me a second," Dad snapped at him.
"They want both of you now."
"Yeah, we got that," I snapped at Rumlow, there was just something I didn't like about the man.
"You're a terrible liar," Nat said to Dad walking off.
"You can't bring that USB in to SHIELD, they will take if off you and we'll never see it again" I whispered to Dad, looking over at Rumlow and Jasper Sitwell cautiously.
"Yeah, I know and I think I have an idea," Dad said, looking at a vending machine.
Dad walked in to SHIELD in full stealth uniform and shield making me feel extremely undressed in my jeans and T-shirt. Apparently, the secretary of the security council, Alexander Pierce, wanted to see both of us, which Dad wasn't happy about. He argued with Jasper Sitwell the whole way to SHIELD that I shouldn't be brought into this because I was still a minor but they didn't seem to care.
On our way to the office where Alexander Pierce was waiting for us, we walked past 'Kate' who name turned out to be Sharon Carter and was Peggy's niece which surprised me. How could someone as amazing as Peggy have such a bitch of a niece.
"Captain Rogers," she said, completely ignoring me as usual.
"Neighbor," I said to her sarcastically as Dad smirk at my response.
Alexander Pierce was standing in the door way waiting for us. He was an older man, but his hair was still blonde and he was dressed in grey pants with a matching vest and a white shirt and tie. When he saw us walking up the hallway, he smiled and walked over towards us.
"Ah, Captain. I'm Alexander Pierce and this must be your daughter, Elsa," he said shaking Dad's hand and smiling at me.
"Sir, it's an honour," Dad said as I smiled and waved at the man.
"The honour is all mine. My father served in the 101st. Come on in," he said, gesturing for us to sit down which I did but Dad stayed standing as he looked at a photo of Fury and Pierce when they were younger. "That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met. When I was at the State Department in Bogota. ELN rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages. Nick was deputy chief for the SHEILD station there. And he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I say 'No, we'll negotiate'. Turned out the ENL didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They storm the basement, and what did they find? They find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct orders and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil. He saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."
"So, you gave him a promotion," Dad said.
"I've never had any cause to regret it. Captain, why was Nick in your apartment last night?"
"I don't know."
"You know it was bugged."
"I did, because Nick told me."
"Yeah, and I'm not too happy about that," I said, Pierce looking at me like he forgot I was there.
"Miss Rogers, why don't you wait outside for a moment. I have something important I need to discuss with your father," he said, smiling at me but something just didn't seem right. I looked at Dad for what he thought I should do. He was a little hesitant but nodded to tell me it was okay.
As I walked out of the room, I looked back over my shoulder at Pierce. Something just didn't seem right, it made me wish that I was seventeen and learnt legilimency so I could know what was going on inside his mind. But considering I was still underage and couldn't use magic outside of school there was nothing I could do.
I figured they would probably be awhile so I pulled out my phone and opened a blank document and started working on my herbology assessment on flitterblooms which was essentially a tamed version of devils snare. It was one of the more boring plants that we had learnt about but at least it wasn't mandrakes, the second years were learning about them and I swear you could hear the plants cries from care of magical creatures.
I had almost finished the assessment by the assessment by the time Dad walked out of the room looking less than impressed with whatever Pierce had said to him. But when he saw me sitting down and waiting for him, he smiled at me.
"You okay, weren't bored waiting out here," he asked as I put my phone away and stood up.
"Nope. I was just finishing off an assessment."
"You know, most teens don't voluntarily do their assessments during school holidays," he laughed.
"But not every teen goes to the school I do."
"Guess you're right. Now, come on. Let's get out of this place," Dad said as we started to walk towards to the elevator.
"Why did he even want me here? I mean, it's not like he asked me any questions," I said as the doors opened and we walked in.
"I don't know but the sooner we out of here the better. I think we should head back to New York or Tennessee. Something just doesn't feel right," Dad said, which was exactly what I was thinking.
"Operation controls," Dad said to the AI running the elevator, which confirmed his identification straight away and started to head down.
The doors opened on the level down and Rumlow walked in with two agents following him.
"Forensics," he said to the AI before turning to Dad. "Cap."
"Rumlow," Dad said, pulling me a little closer to him. Something was definitely up.
"Evidence Response found some fibers on the roof they want us to see. You want me to get the tac-team ready," Rumlow asked.
"No, let's wait and see what it is first," Dad said answered, knowing we were going to be out of here before they were finished with their report.
More agents started to fill the elevator and I couldn't help but notice a lot of them were fully armed which made me start to ice my hands over in case I needed to create an ice dagger. I had my bracelet on that was my cosmic staff in disguise but I wasn't quite ready for SHIELD to know all my secrets even though I has used it the night before. They already knew I was part Asgardian so using my ice powers wouldn't be a surprise considering what my Mum could do. Dad seemed to be thinking the same thing as he tensed up like he was ready for a fight.
"Before we get started, dose anyone want to get out?" Dad asked the agents, but none of them replied.
"Yeah, you really don't want to get your ass handed to you by a 15-year-old girl, " I added as ice daggers formed in both my hands.
One of the agents hits the emergency stop button, stopping the elevator from opening on any other levels. As one of the larger agents grabbed me from behind to stop me from moving, Rumlow and the other agents attacked Dad. Clearly the big agent had no idea who I had been trained by, which was a big mistake on his behalf. Using the moves that Nat taught me I quickly brought the agent to his knees.
"I told you that you would have your ass handed to you but you didn't listen," I said before knocking the man out.
Making sure the agent couldn't get back up by creating ice bonds on his wrists and ankles, I turned to see that Rumlow and his lackeys had managed to secure Dad's hands to the wall of the elevator using magnetic cuffs. I distracted Rumlow but throwing an icicle at him that sliced his face, which gave Dad enough time to pull one of the cuffs away from the wall.
Between the two of us, Dad and I managed to take down almost all the agents apart from Rumlow who was holding two electric rods, ready to attack us.
"Who, big guy. I just want you to know, Cap, this ain't personal," he said to Dad, holding his hands out as if he was trying to apologise.
But Rumlow's big mistake was letting his team attack me. The one thing that Dad cared about more than anything in the world was his family and Rumlow had just put his daughter in danger. It didnt take Dad long before he knocked Rumlow out cold.
"It kind of feels personal, and no one hurts my daughter," Dad said, steeping on his shield that had ended up on the ground and slipping his hand through the grip. Opening the doors of the lift with his bare hands, we saw more agents heading our way. He shut the door and turned towards me.
"Your cosmic staff can fly right?" he asked me, worry clear in his voice.
"Yeah, why?" I asked him as he smashed the outside wall of the glass elevator.
"I want you to go over to the hospital where we hid the USB and wait for me," he told me.
"I don't want to leave you, Dad. I don't want you to get hurt."
"I know snowflake, but I need to make sure that you're okay. Not just for me, but your Mum. I love you and I'll see you soon," he said, kissing me on my head.
Turning my staff back into its original form, I hugged Dad one last time before flying out of the elevator and heading towards the hospital. I just hoped Dad was going to be ok.
I made sure that I pulled my hoodie up over my head when I walked into the hospital. Something told me that Dad and I were now considered fugitives and I really didn't feel like getting hauled back down to SHIELD after just escaping them.
I wished that I had Harry's invisibility cloak as I made my way through the hallways of the hospital. I felt like every person I passed was looking at me but I knew I was just being paranoid. When I reached the vending machine where the USB was hidden my heart skipped a beat when it wasn't there. Who would have thought to look there? It was behind like, ten packets of gum. I knew we should have found a better place to hide it.
"Looking for this," a voice said behind me. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it was Nat who was blowing a bubble with the gum she bought to get to the USB.
"Thank god it's you, Nat. You will not believe what I had to go through to get here," I said as I let her pull me into a side room and lock the door.
"I think I have an idea. Where's your dad? I didn't think he would let you out of his sight."
"He told me to go off head of him and that he would meet me here. I had an easier out of the elevator that we were stuck in than he did."
"I didn't think you could use magic outside of school," Nat asked sounding shocked.
"I didn't. I used this," I told her, turning my comic staff back into its original form.
"I'm guessing that's Asgardian?" she asked before we heard someone outside the door. "Wait here and don't open the door."
I watched her as she unlocked the door to see who was outside the door. A few seconds later, Dad pulled her into the room.
"Elsa. Thank god, you're okay," he said, hugging me.
"It takes more than a few SHIELD agents to bring me down," I joked.
"Where is it?" Dad asked, turning back to Nat.
"Safe," she replied, which was not smart on her behalf.
"Do better!"
"Where did you get it."
"Okay! That's enough!" I said, using my powers to create a wind to separate them. "We are all on the same side here. Nat, just give Dad the USB. Dad, stop yelling at Nat otherwise everyone is going to know were in here!"
"When did Elsa become smarter than us," Nat asked, smiling at me.
"When she started spending more time with her uncle Loki," I joked, making Dad finally smile.
"Who would have thought spending time with the god of Mischief would have such a good outcome," Dad said before, turning back to Nat and speaking in a much softer tone. "What's on it?"
"I don't know."
"Stop lying!"
"I only act like I know everything, Rogers."
I had to hold back my smirk when Nat spoke to Dad, she was so much like Loki sometimes it wasn't funny. No wonder they ended up together, even if they didn't want to admit to anyone.
"I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates," Dad snapped, surprising me. What did he mean Fury hired the pirates?
"Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you."
"I'm not gonna ask you again."
"I know who killed Fury," Nat said, getting both dad's and my attention. "Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists, the one who do call him the Winter Solider. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years."
"So... he's a ghost story," I said.
"He's no ghost story, Elsa. He's very real. Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff, I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was coving my engineer, so he shot him straight through me," Nat said lifting up her shirt to show us a scar on her stomach. "Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."
"Oh, don't be stupid Nat. You can wear anything," I laughed.
"Going after him is a dead end. I know, I've tried," Nat said holding up the USB for Dad to take. "Like Elsa said, he's a ghost story."