t w o
*•.*
GENEVA STARED BLANKLY INTO THE OPERATING ROOM. The tears were becoming harder to hold back and no matter how hard she gripped onto Steve's hand, her nerves wouldn't calm. She pulled away from him to put her head in her hands. She didn't notice how his eyes darted to her in worry before returning to the glass.
"Is he gonna make it?" Natasha asked, suddenly appearing beside Gen. The brunette shrugged while Steve replied with a simple 'I don't know'.
Natasha's voice shook. "Tell me about the shooter."
Steve took a breath. "He's fast and strong. Had a metal arm."
"Do you think it's him?" Geneva asked quietly, directing her question to Natasha, though she already knew the answer. Nat's glossy eyes met Geneva's and the look they shared was answer enough.
A moment later, a visibly shaken Maria entered the room. Geneva liked the woman, and seeing her in this state made everything feel so much more real.
"Ballistics?" Natasha questioned, moving closer to the window.
"Three slugs, no rifling. Completely untraceable," Maria answered slowly, her eyes never leaving the operating room.
Geneva's eyes met Natasha's once more, then they both turned back to the glass. "Soviet-made," they said simultaneously. Geneva had worked with Natasha long enough to know where her train of thought was leading. Still, Geneva knew that the man they were thinking of was practically a ghost. She never wanted to have to meet the man who was possibly a better assassin than both she and Natasha combined.
The sudden flatline that began to emit from the room pulled Geneva from her thoughts. The woman's heart dropped as the doctors' attempts to revive Fury continuously failed. Her blood rushed to her ears the moment his time of death was called.
She hadn't experienced a death of anyone close to her in years, and the fact that she was speaking to Nick only hours ago was harder for her to handle than it should've been.
A warm hand touched her faux leather covered shoulder. "Breathe Geneva," Steve commanded softly. She let out a breath she'd wrongly assumed she'd already gotten rid of. "They're gonna let us see the body—"
Gen immediately began shaking her head, hair flying around her face. She could feel her brown skin paling. "I can't go in there. I can't." Considering her past and current job, in this moment she felt extremely weak. She knew her limits and seeing Nick's lifeless body was well beyond what she could handle. "You go." For a moment his cerulean colored eyes gazed into hers. There were so many questions there, but with a simple shake of her head, he let it go. At least for now.
Silently she moved into the semi-crowded hallway, and awaited for her tears to fall but they didn't. Earlier she'd been holding tears back in anticipation, now she couldn't even let them out. She moved closer to the exit of the hospital and away from the man stocking the vending machine.
There was a tap on her shoulder. Rumlow stood behind her, waiting for acknowledgement. "They need you back at SHIELD," he said after a second.
Geneva instinctively wiped at her invisible tears. "Too bad. I'm not going." There was no way she was going back there if Nick Fury wasn't running the organization. He was the only one she trusted to run that place. She noted how Rumlow's jaw ticked at her words.
"Don't make us use force."
Geneva groaned internally. She did not want to deal with this right now. "Please," she drawled, her usual self momentarily surfacing through the waves of sadness. "I know my rights."
The man simply ignored her words and looked over her shoulder. "Cap, they want you back at SHIELD."
"Yeah, give me a second," she heard him reply in a slightly agitated voice. Geneva turned, she hadn't even realized that Natasha and Steve were having a heated conversation a few feet behind her.
"They want you now," Rumlow insisted rudely. Gen couldn't stand pushy or rude people. He tended to be both.
When Steve moved away from Natasha, Geneva attempted to go and comfort her friend, but Rumlow caught her wrist. "You're not going anywhere Blake."
Her eyes darted to the man and back to where Natasha stood, only to find that she was no longer there. Geneva snatched her hand back, shooting him a glare.
"Let's go," Steve said, gently grabbing Geneva's arm and pulling her forward. Rumlow moved ahead of the two.
"Cap," she whispered. "Let's not go back."
"We can either go quietly or they make a scene," he muttered, releasing her arm.
She shrugged. "Personally, I think we can take them." In her peripheral she saw him smile halfheartedly.
"No doubt."
There was a pause, but then Geneva spoke.
"We can't trust anyone."
Steve's next words surprised her immensely. "We can trust each other."
°°°
Geneva's charcoal grey catsuit clung to her body. Her gun had long since been confiscated and the suit felt empty with a lack of weapons. The atmosphere of SHIELD headquarters had noticeably changed with the death of Fury. Yet, it wasn't sadness that she sensed, it was something else; something she couldn't pinpoint.
"Let's make this quick," she said as she met Steve in the hallway.
"Something tells me that this'll be anything but." Briskly, they made their way to Alexander Pierce's office. The older man was speaking with Sharon, but their conversation ended as Steve and Geneva approached.
"Captain Rogers, Agent Blake," she let out as she passed them.
"Neighbor," Steve said coldly. Geneva simply greeted her with a quiet 'hello'.
"Agent, Captain. I'm Alexander Pierce." The man held out his hand to Geneva first and she shook it twice before letting go.
"Sir, it's an honor," Steve said, shaking the man's hand. Geneva definitely admired Cap's ability to be as polite as he was in this situation.
"The honor is mine, Captain. My father served in the 101st," Pierce's eyes moved to Geneva. "I also worked with Louis before he went rogue."
The woman narrowed her eyes slightly. "Is that supposed to mean something." Just hearing that name made Geneva clench up in anger.
Pierce raised his eyebrows. "I suppose not. Come on in," he said gesturing for the two to follow him. He handed Steve a few pictures. The blonde angled the pictures to allow Gen to see. The picture was of a young Pierce and young Nick Fury. Geneva's brow furrowed in confusion. How did this have anything to do with questioning, she thought.
"That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met," Pierce began from across the room, as he put his suit jacket onto the back of a chair. "When I was at State Department in Bogota. ELN rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages." The man gestured for the two Avengers to take a seat in the lounge area of his office. Steve took the offer but Geneva opted to stand. She was too uncomfortable. "Nick was deputy chief for the SHIELD station there. And he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, 'No, we'll negotiate.' Turned out the ELN didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement, and what did they find? They find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil. He saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."
Steve placed the photos on the table. "So you gave him a promotion."
Pierce nodded. "I've never had any cause to regret it." His eyes darted to Geneva then back to Steve. "Captain, why was Nick in your apartment last night?"
"I don't know," Cap replied sternly. Suddenly the memory of the flash drive hit her, still she maintained a blank expression. She'd forgotten about the flash drive in all the commotion, but she knew that there was no way Steve still had it on him. Geneva made a mental note to ask him about it once they were far way from this place.
"What were you doing at his home last night Agent Blake." The question pulled her from her thoughts.
Geneva crossed her arms over her chest protectively. "I was visiting my teammate who got there a few minutes after I did."
The man nodded. "Did either of you know it was bugged?"
"We both did, because Nick said so."
"Did he tell you he was the one who bugged it?" He questioned, but he seemed to already know the answer. When neither of them spoke, he continued. "I want you two to see something." He pulled up footage of, a man Geneva remembered as Batroc, being interrogated.
"Is that live?" Steve asked, pointing at the video.
"Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not-so-safe house in Algiers."
Steve's forehead scrunched up. "Are you saying he's a suspect? Assassination isn't Batroc's line."
Geneva nodded in agreement. "I've met this man a handful of times, and even I can tell that this isn't something he would do."
"No, it's more complicated than that." Pierce pulled a file into his hands. "Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star and he was contacted by e-mail and paid by wire transfer.
And then the money was run through seventeen fictitious accounts, the last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech."
Steve tilted his head. "Are we supposed to know who that is?"
The man handed Cap the file and Geneva proceeded to look over his shoulder. The files were meaningless to her.
"Not likely. Veech died six years ago. His last address was 14-35 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick his mother lived at 14-37."
"Are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?"
"Scandalous," Geneva said underneath her breath, but it wouldn't have surprised her if it was true. As Tony said, Fury's secrets had secrets. That statement held true, even in the spy's dying moments.
"The prevailing theory was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nick's death," Pierce let out, but the way he said it made it sound like he believed something entirely different.
Steve set down the file. "If you really knew Nick Fury you'd know that's not true."
"Why do you think we're talking? See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies.
"Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today, makes me really, really angry." Pierce paused and Geneva narrowed her eyes. She could tell that he was subtly trying to imply something. "Blake, Captain, you were the last to see Nick alive. I don't think that's an accident, and I don't think you do either. So I'm gonna ask again, why was he there?"
It was a coincidence that Geneva was there, but she didn't voice that fact and neither did Steve.
"He told me not to trust anyone," Cap said after a moment, standing up. Geneva had already moved closer to the door.
Pierce smiled not at all happily. "I wonder if that included him."
"I'm sorry. Those were his last words. Excuse us," Steve said quickly. The two were halfway out the door when Pierce began speaking again.
"Somebody murdered my friend and I'm gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they're gonna regret it. Anyone." Geneva inwardly cringed. He seemed to be threatening them.
"Understood."
Once they were fully out of the room, Geneva began to voice her concerns.
"I have a feeling that this is going to go downhill really quickly," she said almost nervously.
As if for some type of reassurance, she reached for her gun, only to be reminded that it was not there.
Steve pressed the button for the elevator and looked to her, a small sigh passing through his lips. "You just might be right."
author's note:
whew! and there's chapter two. it is very heavy in terms of the movie content. don't worry i'm not taking natasha's role out of this in any way because she's my fav. right now steve and gen are just friends and they don't really have those type of romantic feelings for each other, but it's just 2014 and they've got time. i want to develop a deeper friendship between the two and develop her story and character more. anyway, thanks for reading! vote, comment if you'd like.
-syd