Elara forced her way into Steve's apartment and scanned the room looking for him. Seeing him kneeling she got a hand on either of his arms pulling him up with her. "You are okay?" she asked hearing Fury's faint uneven breaths as he lay bleeding beside them.
She was such a sweet docile thing that the ferocity in her hard stare surprised him. He could almost see the assassin Fury said she'd been. "I'm fine," he assured her.
Without hesitation she let him go and dropped heavily to her knees beside Fury. She knew what to do, he'd trained her for it. Hearing Sharon coming through the door to check on her ward Elara tucked the now empty syringe in her pocket as she looked for the source of the bleeding and placed her hands over the seeping wounds applying pressure.
"Foxtrot is down, he's unresponsive. I need EMTs," Sharon said over the walkie she pulled from her pocket. Elara never thought she was a nurse; she was too focused, her eyes watched too heavily.
"Do we have a shooter?" came a staticky voice on the other end.
Steve moved back from the window, his face a stern mask. "Tell him I'm in pursuit," he said before he barreled after the fleeing soldier.
Elara didn't take her eyes off Fury's face, this was her mission now. She traveled with him in the ambulance hearing his breathing and heartbeat grow so faint she had to concentrate to hear it.
She followed him into the ER when they took him. She hugged the multicolored tiled wall creeping after them, and she stayed in the corner watching them closely ready to lunge at any moment. She didn't know any of the words they used or even what they were doing to him, all she knew is they were trying to help.
She held her breath when Natasha got there with Steve not far behind her. He scanned every inch of that room looking for her eyes, it was the only part of her she couldn't camouflage. He sighed when he didn't find them.
When Elara was sure both of them had gone she opened her eyes seeing Fury lying on the table under a white blanket, and beneath that she listened to the imperceptible slow beat of his heart. She didn't like lying to Steve, to not tell him what was going on because she trusted him more than Fury. But Fury was the one in need, Steve would just have to be angry later.
It wasn't long that a message came through over her phone, it was Hill asking after the target SHIELD already knew died hours before. Changing into a pair of scrubs Elara wheeled his body to the elevator under the guise of taking him to the morgue. She didn't know what a morgue was but she hit the button to take her to the basement where she ditched the gurney and carried Fury to the car Hill was waiting with the doctor in.
"You know where to go?" Maria asked as she drove them to the building where a jet was waiting.
Elara nodded as she sat turned in her seat watching the doctor closer than he was comfortable with. "Mr Fury made me memorize the coordinates. You're getting Steve and Natasha?" she asked finally taking her eyes off the man who was something close to scared of her and looked at Maria.
"Yes. But SHIELD is compromised, don't trust anyone unless Nick tells you to," she told her knowing Elara would be the one naive enough to give their location away. "Do you understand?"
Elara nodded again, her hard eyes once more trained on the doctor. "You know the location, no one needs to call or ask."
A wry smirk curled half of Maria's mouth as she parked on the roof beside the jet. "He doesn't give you enough credit." She was naive, gullible even, but she wasn't stupid.
With her arms under him cradling him like a baby she carried Fury to the jet and waved as Maria backed down the garage. Climbing in the pilots chair she turned only enough to see the man behind her and asked, "do I need to tell you what happens if he dies or can you figure it out yourself?"
He swallowed thickly at the heavy weight of her sharp gaze and shook his head. Satisfied Elara set their course and flew them to the safe house.
...
His eyes were slow to open, heavy, feeling like he had to peel them back each time he blinked. Shifting his weight he became suddenly aware of the dull ache in his shoulder and on his side.
"How are you feeling Agent Fury?" Dr Fine asked seeing his glazed eyes were open.
He winced settling back in a more comfortable position. "I've been better, doc." He looked at the bespectacled man to see him straining to see the woman behind him out of the corner of his eye. "Down girl," Fury told Elara chuckling faintly.
"She hasn't left your side," the doctor told him before he stepped out of the room to give the two a moment.
Fury beckoned her closer and waited as she stood with her arms crossed watching him unhappily before she sighed and came over to sit on the edge of his bed. "Thank you," he told her, something he wasn't used to. She could be the most stubborn pain in the ass, but goddamn if she wasn't loyal. "I lied to you," he admitted, not because he thought he'd been wrong but because she needed to hear it. He stared hard at her cautious eyes and told her, "it won't happen again."
She blinked at him several quiet moments, hearing his ragged breathing and seeing his tired eyes, and nodded appreciating his words. "Yes it will," was her honest reply. It surprised him to realize how much she'd been paying attention. Yet her face was gentle as she kept looking at him. "But you don't have to die next time to say you're sorry."
He barked a deeply amused laugh before he curled in on himself with a hand clutching his side. "You're a good girl, kid," he mumbled patting her hand before his mind drifted back into a drug induced dream.
With a heavy sigh her face straightened as she stared at him, this man who she trusted as little as she knew. And look how far she'd come when he needed her. "I'm trying to be," she replied, her voice quiet and broken in such a way she sounded like a child. As she sat back her hand slid down her arm and her fingertips grazed the rough metal encircling her wrist, and she wondered how hard it'd be to fix this so she could go home.
...
She was sitting in a chair next to Fury listening to Dr Fine as he told her of his first surgery. It took some time as he stopped to explain the words, the equipment, why humans were such frail fleeting things. She loved stories, she warmed to him quickly.
But she paused sitting upright before she stood and made her way out of the room they were in. The doctor came up behind her and she held him back listening hard to the number of footsteps, there was one too many, then she heard a faint voice she recognized and released a breath as she relaxed. "They're here," she told him.
It took him a few seconds to understand, because he himself could hear nothing, but as he ran to greet them Elara returned to Fury's side. That's where they found her when they came in; Steve, Nat, Sam and Maria. But their eyes were on Fury, having seen him dead.
Fury looked at the two wide eyed kids in front of the bed he lay and grumbled, "It's about damn time."
Dr Fine ushered Natasha into a chair so he could assess the damage done to her shoulder, which thankfully wasn't much. Fury explained to the two watching him closest how close to death he'd come while Fine stitched up Natasha, whose relief had been replaced with hurt.
"Why all the secrecy, why not just tell us?" Steve asked glancing briefly at Elara. After Fury had been shot, in the heat of the chase Steve hadn't noticed how odd it was she stayed behind, but he noticed she was gone when he got back. She'd been with Fury from the beginning, with all his lies, and now she wouldn't look at him.
Maria answered quickly in Furys defense. "The attempt on the director's life had to look successful."
"They can't kill you if you're already dead," Fury told them himself, not caring to make excuses. "Besides, I didn't know who to trust."
Steve's eyes fell to Natasha seeing her tight-lipped frown knowing that hurt her. Then he looked to Elara, who Fury had decided to trust, and he jerked his head beckoning her to follow him.
She followed slowly, her head bowed and her face forlorn. "Hi Sam Wilson," she bid him as she shuffled past.
"Good to see you again," he said with a nod, his arms crossed over his chest still not trusting the situation.
Clearing his throat Elara sighed walking out of the room so they could talk. "Fury's made his trust issues clear, but you," Steve said looking at her disappointed and wounded. Almost every step she'd made her time on Earth he'd made with her. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Her head was still bowed, her gaze set on his shoe and even that looked angry with her. "I wasn't supposed to tell anyone." Steve hunched forward lowering his head until he found her eyes, and from how close she was to tears he didn't buy that this was just about orders. "He needed me more than you," she offered in a small voice.
"Fury's the only thing that's been keeping you here, he was finally incapacitated enough you could run." From the way her face fell apart Steve knew that'd been her first thought, get Fury here and leave. But Maria was bringing Steve, and he knew he was really the only reason she stayed this long. With his hands on his hips he thought long and hard until he finally released a heavy breath and looked at her. "Tell you what: you help me finish this, I'll help you leave."
Her face smoothed with surprise, not just that he knew she wasn't happy here because he was the only one who cared to notice, but because he would help. She never thought anyone would. And it made her chest ache. She always knew leaving him would hurt. "What do you need?"
A breath of a laugh left him as a faint sad smiled twitched on his mouth. She really was a good girl. "HYDRA has my oldest friend, my best friend," he clarified and even then it didn't feel like enough. "He doesn't remember me, but I want him back. Now he's a lot stronger than I remember, and he's gonna try to fight you, but that's not who he used to be."
"Does he have a metal arm?" she asked having seen old pictures Steve had shown her, she knew the face of the man he was talking about. He'd been so hard the night before she hadn't recognized him.
Steve's brows drew together. "How did y-" his face smoothed in understanding. "He's the one who shot you, Fury was hoping you'd take him out."
Elara looked at his deeply unhappy face, angry and sad and longing. "His eyes hurt," she told him knowing he'd understand.
And he did, he was glad to hear she'd seen that - she'd go easier on Bucky when she saw he was trying to hurt other people. There wasn't much that'd make her turn on someone, but that did it every time. "We have a deal?" he asked holding his hand out to her with a smile he tried to make less strained.
Even her own smile was half of what it normally was as she shook his hand agreeing to those terms. "Just so you know," she started as they made their way back to where the others were moving to the main room, "I don't want to leave you."
His gaze fell from hers and he nodded finding he didn't want her to go either. "I have one condition." He watched her expression turn in on itself knowing how often she'd been lied to and manipulated. "Don't go back to your father." She'd lost her faith in good here, but if her time on earth did anything he hoped it stoked her need to be free.
Not once in her time knowing him had he ever stopped amazing her. These humans, such strange creatures. "Who knows, maybe you'll convince me to stay."
"You know I have to try," he said raising a hand to her back as they stepped into the main room.
Fury looked between them having never liked how close they were, she followed him almost blindly. And as he explained the plan to retake the helicarriers and take out HYDRA, which Steve then turned on its head to wipe out SHIELD as well, Fury didn't even need to look at Elara to know who she was siding with. They were all in agreement with Captain America as their leader.
"What does she do?" Sam asked jerking his chin to where Elara stood to the left of Fury. He knew Steve Rogers and he'd seen both Natasha and Maria, but the young woman seemed too wide eyed for this.
Steve turned from him to Elara and considered the answer a moment before he spoke, harking back to Sam's own words. "She does what I do, only harder." He met her eye across the table and the two shared a heavy look and a knowing nod.