You think you can live in a world that can never love you? You think you can exist in a reality where you can't function without a mission? You think you can keep going with all the blood on your hands? You think you can get by?
That's the biggest lie you've ever told, and it was to yourself.
Another jolt from my sleeping body wakes me up, the words that snaked through my unconscious mind leaving. Sweat rolls down my forehead as my muscles ache under my skin. My pulse is rampant and wild. My hair sticks to my hot neck as my dream leaves me.
I swallow, checking the clock. 11:03 PM. Not that late actually.
I shut my eyes, breathing a sigh to calm myself from the night terror. I'm shaking, my heads clutching my sheets not still. I blink, laying back down on my pillow in hopes of finding sleep again. I don't let myself close my eyes again, my anxious state not aiding my hyper vigilance. I've become wary, even if the enemy is only in my head, and I don't intend to drop my guard down so easily.
So I watch the darkness and the slow beeps around me from the hospital equipment, trying to keep my mind off the words I heard earlier in my mind. The scariest part was that they were said in my own voice.
~~~~~~~~
Music from an older age wafts throughout the apartment, sparking Steve Roger's interest immediately. He'd hadn't left the record on, that he knew for a fact. The other thing he certainly knew was that many people were out to get him, and one might have located his apartment.
He passes by the kitchen, grabbing his shield on the way by. The tune gets louder as he approaches the living room, and the soldier cautiously steps toward it. He thinks of his reaction plan, trying to calculate the intruder's next move once he knows he's in the apartment.
He goes for the wall, taking a second before peeking beyond it. A black clothed man lays sprawled on his couch, seemingly humming to the music. He straightens up as he realizes Rogers' presence, groaning from the pain on his chest. The eyepatch comes in sight, immediately giving him away.
Steve relaxes against the wall, dropping his guard once he identifies the man as Fury. He slumps down, shaking his head and wondering why the director chose to use his living space as a harbor, "I don't remember giving you a key."
Nick groans in pain again while fully sitting up, replying to the statement, "You really think I'd need one?"
He pauses before speaking once more, words carefully chosen, "My wife kicked me out."
Steve's eyebrows furrow at this, but he's been on enough ops to know when to follow Fury's lead, "Didn't know you were married."
Music still overlays the conversation as the director reaches inside his coat, "Lot of things you don't know about me."
Rogers sighs, getting up from his spot near the wall and going to turn the lights on, "I know. That's the problem Nick-"
He stops short of his sentence as he sees the full extent of Fury's injuries. Blood covers his black uniform, which is missing his signature jacket. The older man (or younger really), brings a finger to his lips as a sign to be quiet, and he turns the light back off. He pulls out his phone, showing Steve the message EARS EVERYWHERE, "I'm sorry to do this, but I had no place else to crash."
Rogers watches as Nick types out another message. SHIELD COMPROMISED.
"Who else knows about your wife?" He keeps the charade going, facial expression concerned and somewhat worried, setting his jaw to the side as the director sends more audio less information.
Fury stands up in obvious pain, showing JUST YOU AND ME while giving a small smirk, "Just my friends."
"Is that what we are?" Steve inquires more, confused and feeling in the dark once again as the director walks towards him.
"That's up to you."
Suddenly, a bullet rips through the wall. Fury gives a cry of pain as Rogers reacts as quick as he can. More shots are fired as he drops to the floor, Steve grabbing his shield and kneeling over him. He looks through the windows, trying to identify the attacker from across the street.
Red blood seeps onto the dark hardwood floor. Fury struggles for breath as he reaches out to Roger's. The soldier gaze is torn away from the figure running from the window across the street as the dying man places something in his hands. He glances down to recognize the hard drive Natasha had taken from the Lumerian Star weeks ago.
Fury coughs, choking out his last words to try and tell Rogers something, "Don't trust......anyone."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It has always been odd to me how a normal life existed.
I sat on my bed, giving up the fruitless idea of sleep after a half hour of laying awake while the words of the dream ran around in my head. Instead I now faced towards the window, pulling the blinds away for the first time in weeks.
Lights of DC still shone past midnight, and cars passing by the hospital three floors down were off to wherever their destination was. Beeping of horns and other busy sounds were audible from behind the glass. I sighed as my tense body didn't relax as I kept watching 'normal' people.
Did those people in their offices feel fear around every corner every night as they stayed up late working? Did those people driving home, perhaps talking on the phone, become uneasy at the idea someone may be tapping their call? How could someone not wear a pistol concealed under their coat incase of attack?
Did these people not understand the battle around them? The corrupt businesses? The agencies out to destroy them? The murder of innocents happening by the millions? The monsters that lurked among them? Did they not realize how many people they passed on the street were so ready to kill? How much danger they were surrounded by?
Did they really not know the world for what it was?
Perhaps they lived in a different one. A world where spilling coffee on yourself was the biggest downside of your day. A world where you could sleep with peace because no one wished you dead. A world where a broken heart was the thing that would tear you up inside, not a knife.
So many of those people weren't murderers. They maybe hadn't even touched a gun. They didn't know overwhelming guilt of things they'd done. They didn't know protocols and kill missions.
You think you can live in a world that can never love you? You think you can exist in a reality where you can't function without a mission? You think you can keep going with all the blood on your hands? You think you can get by?
Those words were so true, and that fact was it was scary. Here I was, trying to ignore my fist griping a blanket tightly in my hand as it shook. My lungs invited in shaky breaths to still my beating pulse that wouldn't slow down.
How many people out there were as scared as me now? If they were, was it because of months gone from their memories? How many were scared of being scared?
A siren sounded from the left of the street. Red and white lights lit up the darkened street, an emergency vehicle pulling up to the hospital a few floors below me. I scoot closer to the window, peeking down as they unload the injured passenger.
Another car comes up, black and sleek. Natasha?
Shadows obstruct the light under my door, and pairs of feet speed past in the hallway. Voices murmur louder and hectic conversations pick up. People start running towards surgery.
I open my pillow up, grabbing three of the ten surgical items I've procured in case emergency. I get up, blinking my eyes as I steady myself on the bed. I take another step, the floor cold and my balance certainly not the best. The lack of physical exercise has made walking feel odd, but I make it to the door just fine. I turn the knob, peeking my head out as I slide another knife into the makeshift pocket I made when bored.
A half a dozen nurses run by towards surgery, each chattering among themselves. I hear a few words 'three bullets', 'clean exit wounds', 'internal bleeding bleeding'. I shut the door to my room, no one taking notice of me as commotion heightens.
If Natasha was here, something was up. Seeing as sleep wasn't going to come easy, walking around due to sheer curiosity seemed a better idea. The mass migration of the staff passed, letting me roam towards the impending crisis.
I made it down the hall towards the next corridor, seeing the last of the nurses disappear behind double doors. Silence commences for a few seconds before a set of heavy moving boots come from behind me.
I spin around, my hand going to my side where one of the knives are. My grip loosens and drops down to me side, trying to mask my sudden surprise. I inhale, releasing how tense my shoulders have become.
Steve stopped running, his breathing rampant from it before he realizes it's me. His whole face seems frozen, morphed in a fear I've never really seen displayed in him. Why is he afraid? Natasha's here, so is he. What's going on?
"Steve?" I echo my thoughts, speaking to him for the first time in weeks, "What's happening?"
He shakes his head, finally slowing his breathing enough to speak, "It's Fury."
My stomach drops and I stand there for a second. My head becomes fuzzy and I remember the words of the nurses before. No, the thought is impossible. Director Nick Fury, head of SHIELD, has been shot. The man who I always thought untouchable has been shot.
Steve comes up as I collect my thoughts, my head again turning towards the surgery room. My partner takes my arm around his neck to help support me and we start moving down the hall.
"Is the shooter identified?" I ask, still trying to digest the news. The man who I always saw as untouchable now had internal bleeding. My mentor was dying.
"No." He responds immediately, "Three slugs came right through my apartment wall, no rifling. Soviet."
"Why was the director at your apartment?"
He turns us around the corner where the viewing window for the surgery could be seen, "Don't know. He was already bleeding pretty bad when I got there. The guy must have followed him there. He was fast, strong, Russian star on his arm."
"Tattoo?" I inquire, watching the staff prepare the tools and set up the monitors.
"No. His left arm was completely metal."
I soak in the information, my mind still buzzing in disbelief that muddles my train of thought. A lump in my throat forms as the door down the right hall opens, three doctors surrounding the director as the wheel him into the surgery room. Still, I force words off my tongue, "Well, at least we have distinguishing features, however odd it may be. How'd he lose you?"
Steve leans on the bottom of the window, looking down and away from Fury as they hook him up to ministers on the other side of the glass, "Chased him through the office building across the street. Threw my shield last minute, but he caught it."
My shock is piled on by another surprise, tearing my gaze away from Nick to Rogers, "He caught solid vibranium? Did he take it?"
"No, but throwing it back was enough to steal him a quick getaway."
I bite my lip, taking a deep breath. I close my eyes, trying to calm myself as I comment, "Should've been faster."
It was no use trying to quiet my brain of everything it was drowning me in. I watched as the man who took me in, who gave me a home, was cut open in an attempt to save his life. My body swayed a little and I had to make an effort to keep standing after not being able to for so long.
Fury wasn't one to just be taken down. He was the symbol of SHIELD, a man that appeared more god than human at times. He was a legend, a myth until proven. Legends don't just die.
More quick footsteps approached. Natasha appeared at my side, disheveled and also out of breath. She peers through the window, shaking her head. I meet her eyes, and I find the same emotion that I'm feeling. Disbelief, shock, perhaps sadness.
"Is he going to make it?"
There's a lapse of quiet as we all watch the doctors at work, but Steve eventually answers, "I don't know."
He repeats the information he told me to Natasha. I keep my eyes on the working hands, studying their movements and watching the monitors. I keep gulping, my throats only getting tighter. No, he can't go, not like this. It was all happening to fast.
It didn't stop. It wasn't just another bad dream. It was happening now, in front of me. The man I owe my life to is dying and again, all I can do is watch.
Nick's pulse drops and I let my nails dig into my palm. A few nurses go for the defibrillator and begin to charge what seems to be his last hope. My stomach twists in knots as they send an electrical impulse through his body in an attempt to revive him.
"Don't do this to me Nick." Natasha mutters beside me, gritting her teeth together after saying the statement.
They charge again, still getting no heartbeat.
This can't be happening.
"Don't do this to me." She repeats, this time harsher as the reality of it sets in.
The monitor still shows a straight line.
No.
Steve steps back, Natasha letting her head drop as tears pool in her eyes. I see Maria Hill walk up, realizing what had just happened.
Nick Fury just died.
I stumble back, my hands reaching for a chair, a wall, something to give me some sort of support after I feel like someone has knocked the wind out of me. I stagger back, my brain a mess of frantic images that I try to block out the present with.
I remember meeting him the first time, thinking of him like some sort of pirate at the feeble age of nine. I remember him watching my training at age thirteen, telling them to keep me in the program even though I kept falling down in the ranks. I remember sitting in his office countless times while Clint tried to convince him that one explosion or another clearly was intentional.
And now he's just gone. This man who was seen as so high in power finally has met an abrupt end. It was unbelievable. A startling pain finds a home in my stomach, like a knife had been lodged just below my rib cages. At the same time, it feels as though the temperature in the room skyrockets to an uncomfortable degree that only adds to it all. My mind is still trying to comprehend it all.
Nick Fury is dead.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I feel like all I can do is stare.
Stare at a corpse that I can only wish life inhabited. Watch as the man who I've never really known life without just lays on a slab, his body becoming cold and useless.
To say the director was a good person would be a debate. Yes, he was the head of a organization which only existed to keep people safe. Yes, he probably could be considered a mass murder. Yes, he was not really a nice man, but he was a strong leader and an absolute genius.
Now, he was just a legacy.
I was sick to my stomach, still in shock from it all. Fury was dead in front of me, with no one to blame for it. The assassin was unidentified and untraceable. No motive had been disclosed, though it wouldn't be easy to not have a reason to kill the director. Yet the whole situation felt heavy and meaningless. He died meaningless.
I wanted to find a solution. I wanted to do something, to stop it all. There was no fixing, no reversal of death itself. I was trapped in a worthless body with a deplorable memory. I was confined and powerless, only a spectator.
I couldn't even look at him without guilt rushing in. The twisting is my stomach and the blurriness of my thoughts were to much. I turned away from the body, moving over to let Natasha pay her respects.
I couldn't due anything now.
I started to walk out of the room, dazed in a dreamlike state as I tried to swallow all this. Steve reached for my forearm when he saw me leaving, "You just going to go back to your room?"
I nodded, all my insides screaming in uneasy pain as I caught another look at Fury, "Yeah, yeah. I just need time. If you get any info on the assassin, could you let me know."
He understood, letting me go after mumbling a yes, maybe a sure, I didn't fully catch it. I started the short walk to my room, a guilt making it all worse. My thoughts just seemed airy and slow.
I made it to the right door after a few halls, turning the knob as I pulled myself into a lonely silence. I shut it behind me, my weight resting on the bed as I sat down. It creaked under me, the sound seemed louder due to the quiet.
I took a few minutes of it all to let reality finally catch up to me. I exhaled once more, than inhaled. I exhaled again, doing the whole process multiple times. Every time it just seemed air buried itself farther in my, only to be met with light-headness instead of relief.
He was dead. I watched it with my own eyes as his heartbeat ceased.
Unwelcome tears fell down into my lap, more following those that ran down my cheeks. I didn't bother to wipe them, not caring if I cried now. Life was falling apart, wasn't it? Wasn't it supposed to be normal to cry in situations like this?
No. Normal people didn't murder their mothers. Normal people didn't fight aliens. Normal people didn't find deadly long lost sisters. Normal people didn't get kidnapped like the little bitch I was and lose their memories. Normal people didn't lose the director of their spy organization.
I balled up my fists, a fresh anger waving over me, one that had grown everyday in confinement. This was all wrong. This was all screwed up and terrible and it all never should've happened. I should have my memories. Fury should be alive. I shouldn't feel trapped in my own body.
I became more infuriated as the fact set in. I was just stuck here and I watched him die.
Hot tears kept coming as more raw rage came.
This was all hell. It was all wrong. It wasn't supposed to be this way.
My chest threatened to burst with the burning that kept my throat caged. Everything that I'd bottled up, the lost memories, the fights with friends and family, the grief, the sadness, the indignation, all of it sat in the back of my throats as my head became filled with everything that had happened that shouldn't have. My breathing came to a halt as all the pressure stuffed in me threatened to explode from the inside.
And it all burst.
An angry scream left my lips as a sign of both pain and hostility. There was no one to fight or punch. There was no enemy to extract vengeance on for ruining my life and taking away yet another person. All there was was me and my hospital room I was sick of seeing.
I was tired of it all. I was exhausted. I was done. I was in pain and my god it hurt like hell.
My knuckles met the window, the sound of glass shattering and the color of my hands bleeding not fazing me as next the lamp fell, followed by the vase of flowers that died a week ago. My prison was soon littered with shards of broken pieces and drops of blood scattered throughout the room. I was sick of being closed in, sick of being weak.
I was scared, too. I was so damn scared and I hated it. I hated it so much and I hated that he was dead and I hated I had no memories of the scars on my body and I hated that I was fighting with someone I cared for and I hated that I had no control and I hated all I could do was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
My room was in shambles by the time I sat on the bed, my head still fuzzy and tears still streaming down my face as I filled for oxygen. My body, the useless thing, was shaking with tremors and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop it.
I couldn't stop any of it.
I'm so sorry my child. You don't deserve this and what I do to you.
So this was her breaking. After swallowing all her emotions, it finally all came out. Oh, it's going to gab such negative effects. I'm so sorry Si.