A/N: This one-shot is in coordination with my fan fiction 'What it?' This was written for CausticCottonballs, who gave me the idea and requested a story about Fury's eye or rather lack there of. I hope this is corny, dramatic and fun enough for you Caustic Cottonballs.
Back In My Day: An Avenger One Shot
Setting: Natasha was captured by a retired SHIELD agent who didn't care for SHIELD's retirement plan. Drugged, Natasha is unable to move or speak and is forced to listen to the Ex-Agent share stories of his youth while driving her to an airplane.
The Ex-Agent would not shut up. Natasha longed for silence. He had been complaining for the past hour about how the retirement policy was horrible. She wanted to point out to him that everyone was told the retirement procedure upon joining SHIELD, but she couldn't talk. So she was stuck listening to the bastard. He was bored. He missed the thrill of field work. He hated the maintenance work of owning property. His backstory was lame. He did have a cute cat though named Fluffy. What Natasha wouldn't do for the ability to move and crush his windpipe and so stop his endless ramblings and pointless life.
Natasha had been visualizing such possibilities when something the man said caught her attention, "… of course, that was back when Fury was not director and he had two eyes not one." This, Natasha felt may be interesting, "God, I hate that man. Before his promotion, field workers were valued more. He kept putting more and more emphasis on the lab. That and he is a god damn asshole. Everyone hated him because he played favorites. Like that boy toy of his Agent Coulson and his squeeze Agent Hill." Natasha wanted to kill him at that moment for insulting Coulson and Hill that way. Unfortunately, looks couldn't kill nor did he notice as he continued, "I glad I retired before she became his second. Worse mistake made, second to him becoming director. He was actually made director by Pierce shortly after the eye incident. Do you know that story?" He asked her glancing over at her.
Natasha just narrowed her eyes. Oh right you can't talk." He gave an annoying vindictive sounding laugh. "Well, it was about twenty years ago. Fury had been sent into the field. No one knew what for. I mean no one. The director had called him into his office. After 10 minutes Fury came out, took a jet and left. He came back wearing an eye patch. No one, but he and the director knew what happened. My friend, a level 7 agent, tried hacking into the mission report. Within a minute he had a gun pointed to his head by that bastard Fury… I never saw him after that day..." The Ex-Agent stopped talking for a moment, as if remembering his friend, before continuing.
"Rumors flew of course. Some said it was a 4-0-8. Others said it was the Red Room. One day, I was in the mess hall. A little girl was there, some Agent's daughter, and Fury came in. The little girl stared at him while Fury grabbed his food and sat down at a table. She waited a moment before going up to him and asking him something quietly. His face was emotionless, but she looked terrified at what he said and ran back to her mom. The girl's mom was sitting at the table behind me so I heard the conversation. She pointed to Fury and said 'Momma, that man said a rabbit ate his eye!'" The look on the Ex-Agent's face was ridiculous. He actually believed the story. Natasha rolled her eyes. While she didn't know what happened to Fury's eye, she had a clue. He had once called a target a RABIT: a Rancorous Assassin, Basically an Inconceivable Threat. Meaning it was probably a personal vendetta that cost Fury his eye. Well, Natasha thought on for a moment, there was the rumor about him sleeping with a council member's sister…
