∆ {2⁷} {NICHOLAS J. FURY} ∆
ALMOST EVERYTHING AFTER that was a blur. Roxi didn't remember hearing the voices of the agents, or the slamming of the car doors, or even the quiet questions being thrown around in the back of the vehicle. Instead, all she heard was a low, pulsating whine that drowned out the rest of the world, and coupled with her still aching head, hurting stomach and dislocated shoulder, meant that she wasn't paying attention to anything but her thoughts. The stinging on her back had subsided for the moment, and she was resting her head on her fists with her elbows propped up on her knees. She was sure somebody had asked her a question, but she wasn't in the right state of mind to answer. Thoughts were swarming through her head like a hive of wasps that kept stinging every time a new thought struck.
What would happen now?
Who was the Winter Soldier?
Would HYDRA kill them?
Had they really been caught?
Where were they being taken?
At least for a few of those questions, Roxi had answers. HYDRA would take them back to the Triskelion and probably interrogate them before disposing of them accordingly. She clenched her fists so hard that her nails dug into her palm and her whole hand turned white. She was shaking slightly, though she doubted that anyone noticed with the roughness of the journey. The driver clearly wasn't trying to be careful. She'd lost her quarterstaff as well. She'd been working on the prototype for so long, and now it was simply gone, washed away in the tide of blood that lay heavy on HYDRA's shoulders, just as her parents had been, overtaken by the racing waves of crimson red. Just as Coulson had been. Just as Fury had been. Just as she soon would be. Her mind seemed to swirl and flow with all the power of a whirlpool, sucking her downwards, deeper until she drowned under the force of her own thoughts. But then, surprisingly, Steve's voice seemed to lift her up until she broke the surface, and she slowly lifted her head and let her eyes dart around, taking in the interior of the van as best she could.
"It was him," Steve began. He had his hands locked in thick metal braces, welded securely together as he admired the minute details, his mind flashing back and forward in time like a tennis ball bouncing from one court to another.
"He looked like him. He didn't even know me." He continued, still keeping his gaze on the steel as Roxi drew in a long, slow breath. Natasha's skin was pale, and blood was trickling down from the bullet hole. Roxi wanted nothing more than to stop the flow of blood and sew up the injury of herself, but that wouldn't happen; she doubted she'd live past a few days.
"How's that even possible, it was, like, 70 years ago," Sam pointed out, seeming a little pissed. She didn't know who they were talking about, but she did notice how Natasha's eyes were fixed on the ground, just as hers had been a moment before. She was, for some reason, sitting next to the redhead, and felt a need to comfort her. Her restrains weren't as strong as Steve's, and were thick handcuffs. She moved her hands slightly so that her fingers brushed Natasha's, and the redhead blinked, her eyes refocusing on the ground, but not moving, and Roxi knew she was now just keeping up appearances, until Natasha flicked her gaze to Steve as he continued, and Roxi leant back against the metal wall, wincing minutely as her shoulder came in contact with the cold surface.
"Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. He must've found him." Natasha hadn't exactly realised that she'd zoned out. Instead, she'd relived similar experiences she'd had in her life, which were quite a few. Most were from her time with the KGB, but there were a couple with S.H.I.E.L.D, and none of them were pleasant. She felt a sudden, light spark flutter through her body and it took her a moment to realise that Ryder's fingers had lightly touched her own, and it was if she had been pulled out of the dark. As soon as she registered what Steve had said, she looked up at him, sparing the brunette a swift glance. She noticed Ryder slowly piecing together what was going on, and she felt slightly guilty that she hadn't fully explained the situation to the rogue agent.
"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