Author's Note: Again I own nothing except my OC, all rights to Marvel. If you like please review, comment, favorite and follow. Again, whenever I hear from readers it brightens my day. I'm going to delve a little more into Clara's backstory, especially with Coulson and Fury, in this chapter.
Chapter Three
No matter how many times you lose someone you care about, it never gets any easier. The hard part is the waiting. The pacing back and forth for hours, waiting to hear from the doctors about whether you're about to lose someone you care about, again. The movies never show that.
For the first hour I couldn't stay still, not while Fury was fighting for his life just a few rooms over. Kate stayed with me as long as she could just sitting in a chair, watching me walk from the coffee machine and back. Eventually she had to go, debriefing she said, and I was alone.
Every time the door opened to the emergency care unit where they had Fury, I imagined it was the doctor coming to tell me Fury would be okay.
Finally a door opened, this time to the outside and Steve walked through. He was tired and winded, but he didn't stop for a rest before he came up to me and wrapped me in a hug. He didn't say anything, we just comforted each other.
The door to the emergency unit opened and a doctor came through, but not with the news I wanted to hear. "You two should get in here." He said, he was covered in blood and his expression was one of someone ready to give up. "There isn't much time."
Agent Hill, Fury's second command, was already in the room, as were Agent Rumlow and Sitwell who lingered in the back while they observed the doctors operating on Fury. From the frantic gestures of the nurses and the erratic beeping of the machinery, I could tell it wasn't going well.
Steve and I were only in the room for a few seconds before the doors behind us burst open and Natasha ran through and right up the window. "The assailant?" She asked, never taking her eyes off Fury.
Steve answered her. "He was fast, strong…" he paused, "had a metal arm."
That seemed to spark something in Natasha. "Ballistics?"
Hill braced her arms on the sill of the observation window. "Twenty caliber slug, rifling untraceable."
"Soviet make." Natasha said, it wasn't a question.
"Yeah…" Hill answered. However the question of how Natasha knew that died on Hill's lips when the screen monitoring Fury's heart rate suddenly flat lined.
I gasped and slapped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming as the doctors and nurses pulled their hands away while one doctor readied the paddles to try and shock Fury's heart back into working.
"Come on Nick," Natasha whispered, tears pooling in her eyes. "Don't do this."
Natasha was always so tough and strong that seeing her so near crying now was heartbreaking. I took her hand was almost as surprised that she didn't pull away as I was by the fact she gave my hand a comforting squeeze in return.
The doctor's shocked Fury's heart, repeatedly, trying over and over. Finally the doctor with the paddles set them down and felt Fury's neck for a pulse on last time, shaking his head when he found none.
"He called it." Hill said.
I squeezed my eyes shut and hid my face in Steve's shoulder. He put his arms around my shoulders and guided me out of the room with Natasha trailing behind us.
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The morgue was freezing. They had Fury on a metal table completely covered in a white cloth except for his face. Natasha and I stood side by side holding hands at the gurney while Steve and Hill stayed a little farther back.
It was hard for them but neither of them had as great of a connection to Fury that Natasha and I did. Fury has basically saved both of us when we had faced dark times in our lives. Tasha had been hardly a few years older than me when she left the KGB. She was bloodstained, both physically and figuratively, she was lost and on the brink of ending herself when Hawkeye delivered her to Fury. He gave her a mission, trade in the KGB for SHIELD, go on the straight and narrow to make up for all the things she did. She owed Fury for giving her a chance when everyone else wanted to put her down.
And me. After my Uncle Phil died I was placed in the foster system. It wasn't a good place to be alone, and in the foster system you're always alone. Phil had been the only one who understood me. I was a hacker by nature, and Phil had given me a constructive outlet to use my talents by helping out on the occasional mission. And as soon as he was gone it was bye bye computes and I was thrust into one home after the other. I did some bad things, first small, like hacking someone's bank account then, for the thrill of it, I messed around with Hubble Telescope's operating systems. The last straw was when I hacked into one of SHIELD's databases to look up info on Phil's death. Suddenly I was on SHIELD's radar in a bad way. I wasn't just a girl who lost her last family member, I was a threat now. It's not every day that someone breaks through SHIELD's defenses in less than a minute. There were many calling for my arrest and lockup. However, Fury had convinced the higher ups that I could become an asset and that I should be given a chance. He had even taken personal responsibility for me by becoming my legal guardian. He had given me a stable home and a place where my talents could be used to help.
And now he was gone.
"We have to take him soon." Hill called out from the back of the room, but it might as well have been from across an ocean for as much as Natasha and I paid attention to her.
When neither of us moved, Steve came up behind us. "Natasha, Clara."
Natasha nodded faintly and placed her hand on Fury's forehead in a farewell. Then she turned on her heel and stormed out, followed shortly by Steve.
I didn't know what to do. My eyes went back and forth between the door, Hill, and Fury.
"It's okay," Hill approached me and put her arm on my shoulder, "We'll take care of him."
Tears were forming in my eyes again, "Thank you." I said before heading out the door.
Once I was outside I saw Steve running to catch up with Natasha. "Natasha!" He shouted, but she whirled on him before he could say anything more.
"What was Fury doing on your apartment?" She demanded.
He glanced back at me just as I caught up, silently asking me how much he should tell her. I looked around at all the people and potential listeners. If SHEILD really was compromised, this wasn't the place to have this conversation. I shook my head almost imperceptibly at Steve but he got the message.
Steve turned his eyes back to Natasha and shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know."
"Cap!" A deep male voice boomed from down the hall. Rumlow was walking up to the three of us. "Cap, command wants you and Clara back at headquarters."
Steve wrapped his arm protectively around my shoulders and pulled me closer, clearly unsure of who he could trust at the moment. "We'll be there in a minute." And he looked to Natasha.
"They want you now!" Rumlow snapped in a tone that no one had ever dared use to Steve, especially a subordinate.
Steve, completely shocked at Rumlow's outburst, nearly snared his reply, "Alright."
Natasha, who had been watching this exchange very closely leaned in close when Rumlow was out of earshot. "You know, you two are terrible liars." And she strode away.
When I took another look around the hall, something caught my eye. "Quick, give me the flash drive." I whispered to Steve, he told me earlier what it was Fury had given him.
"What are you doing?" He asked as he handed it to me.
"Trust me." I slipped out from under his arm and walked to where a maintenance man was refilling a snack machine, and when he wasn't looking I slipped the flash drive behind a row of bubblegum. "Ok," I said, "let's go."
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No sooner had Steve and I gotten back to the Triskelion than Secretary Peirce had summoned me to his office. The high ranking SHIELD official, as always in a crisp clean suit, offered me a seat when I first came in which I declined. Truthfully, I had never like the man. Something about him had always seemed a bit off to me. Never the less I tolerated Peirce because for some reason Fury trusted him. Now with the warning Fury had given Steve and I, I couldn't help but wonder if I was stepping into lion's den.
"What can I do for you Mr. Secretary?" I said in the tight, all business tone I used when speaking to higher ranking agents.
"Please, please call me Alexander." Peirce spoke with warmth in his voice. As he continued speaking he got up from his desk and walked around until he was half leaning, half sitting on the edge. "With your connection to Nick it's almost like your part of the family."
"With all due respect sir, Director Fury is dead. If there's a lead on the assailant, I would like to get started right away." The last thing I wanted to discuss with the secretary was personal matters.
"You know Clara," Peirce continued like I hadn't even spoken. "When your uncle Agent Coulson took you in after you parents died; good agents, both of them; he made Fury promise that if anything happened to him…"
"Sir, please." I pleaded with him not to go down this road. My parents died on a mission scouting a rogue SHIELD outpost. I hadn't even known they worked for SHIELD until my uncle had delivered the news that they had been killed in action.
"Agent Coulson made Fury promise that he would take care of you. And he did." Peirce hung his head and took in a deep breath like he had a huge weight on his chest. "Now that Fury is gone, I feel I have the same responsibility to you. If there's anything you need, you let me know."
"Do you mean that?" I asked.
"Of course."
"Then sir, what I know I don't need is someone to take care of me. I'm almost eighteen, I can take of myself. In the meantime I could do with some answers. Like how someone could have intel on the whereabouts of the director, as that is supposed to be classified information. And how the assailant was able to outrun and elude Captain Rogers of all people."
"What were you doing in Captain Roger's apartment?" Pierce suddenly cut in, much of the warmth that had been present in his voice giving way to suspicion.
I tried to keep my voice even as I answered. "He's my next door neighbor. We got home about the same time and found an intruder in his apartment. He went in to check it out and I was his backup."
"And it was Fury that you found in his apartment." It was a statement, not a question. "Do you know why Fury was there, did he say anything?"
I shook my head. "No sir."
Don't trust anyone. A chill went down my spine as I realized that only someone who was at the same security level as Peirce could know the whereabouts of Fury and have the means to take him out. I crossed my arms over my chest to hide the fact that my hands had started to visibly shake. Never the less, I was never good at hiding my emotions, and my fear and anxiety must have clearly shown on my face.
Peirce narrowed his eyes and stood up from where he was leaning on his desk and began to walk towards me. With each he took towards me my panic increased and it required all my will power to keep from sprinting out the room. Once he was close enough he took my shoulders in his hands and looked me in the eyes. "I'm sorry, this must be extremely hard for you." He said mistaking my fear for grief. I nearly gasped in relief. "If you want to continue talking about this later, just know my office is always open, well… expect for when I have to be in meetings with the other tedious secretaries." His mouth crinkled into a smile reminiscent of the kind of smile you might see on an old grandpa, which made the fact that he might have had something to do with Fury's death all the more horrifying.
"Thank you sir." I barely managed to smile in return before I all but ran from the room and slammed the door behind me.
On the other side was a fully uniformed Steve waiting patiently. Before he had registered that is was me coming through the door his face betrayed no emotion, only the calmness of a well-trained soldier awaiting his turn for questioning. However, as soon as he saw me his expression melted into one of worry and sympathy as he, without waiting for me to say anything, scooping me into a hug.
"Are you ok?" He mumbled into my hair.
"Not really." I shook my head.
"What happened?"
"He brought up my parents."
He stiffened. "Oh, do you need to talk about it."
It wasn't easy, but I wiggled out of his embrace and took a step back. Some tears had escaped unto my cheeks and I quickly brushed them away. "No, I'm fine. Mr. Peirce is waiting for you, you should probably get in there." Steve seemed to think for a moment, like he was going to disregard the Secretary's orders that Steve see him next, which given the circumstances I wouldn't be to surprised if Steve did just that. "Steve, really, I'll be fine."
Steve placed his hand on my shoulder in a comforting gesture, "Ok, but I'm coming to see you right after."
"I'll try to survive until then." Steve started to move towards the door, but I caught his hand where it was still on my shoulder and halted him before he could reach for the door knob. "Steve, something's not right with Pierce. I don't trust him. Take care of yourself."
"Don't I always?" He said with a halfhearted smile and he walked through Pierce's door and closed it behind him.
For some silly reason I felt like I was getting shut out, like I was suddenly alone. That was silly, I shook off the feeling and made my way to my work station. There was work to be done.
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-Two Days Later-
Steve never came to see me after his meeting with Peirce. He had sent me a brief message not to worry before he dropped off the radar and completely disappeared. I had a feeling the upper level agents knew about what had happened, but no one was speaking, at least not to me. I tried to dig up any info I could, but all my searches hit dead ends, whatever this was it went deep.
To distract myself I buried myself in any intel that turned up about Fury's killer (which was nothing). In addition Simmons had just sent me a digital sample of an unknown substance she wanted identified but kept off the books for now. At the moment I was glad that this little distraction she had sent was kicking my butt.
"Clara." A feminine voice called from the entrance to my office. Agent Fisher was standing in the doorway with troubled expression on her face. She was another level six agent, like me, though she was a field agent and I was a specialist. My first official operation as an agent was to give Fisher's team tactical and technical support. Since then we'd become friends of a sort.
She came all the way into the room and perched on the back of the extra chair I kept in the back. I noticed that she had on her full field uniform, like the one Natasha wore on missions. I'd bet she just got back from a mission herself. "What are you computer geeks doing to the communication systems?" She was not happy.
"I'm not doing anything to any systems." I held up my hands in defense.
"Well someone is and it's messing with communications between us and our teams still on the ground."
"Close the door, I'm going to check something out." I ordered and began to type into my computer.
Once Fisher had closed and locked my door she came back and braced her forearms on the back of my chair so she could watch me work from over my shoulder. "What are you doing?"
"I'm illegally hacking into SHEILD's communication mainframe. With everything that's happing this can't be a coincidence." I said offhandedly.
By now Fisher was used to my unusual tactics, so she didn't even try to stop me. "You'll get in trouble if you get caught."
"If," that was the operative word, "if I get caught. Hmm" Once I accessed the communication mainframe my screen was over taken by strings and strings of numbers covering very channel of communication. "This is impossible." I mumbled.
Fisher squinted at the screen, clearly as baffled as I was. "What is it?"
I typed in some commands to hopefully decode whatever we were seeing. "It's some kind of symantic encoding, I just need to find the mnemonic key to decode the message. It's blanketing every SHIELD communication outlet. When did you first start to detect this inference?"
"Around twenty-three hundred hours two nights ago." She answered.
A small gasp escaped my lips. "The same time Fury was pronounce dead."
"Look." Fisher tapped on my computer's screen, bringing me back to reality. "Whatever you did, it's working."
She was right. The numbers began to clump together and fall out of the string pattern to form letters. My elation was short lived as with each letter that popped into the sequence my heart filled with just that much more dread.
The final message, the one that was being sent out to every SHIELD agent on the planet at this very moment, was earthshattering.
Out of the dark into the light
Hail Hydra
"My God." I breathed out as I read those works. Fury was right, he was always right.
"Shit." Fisher growled out as she drew her gun and took up position by the door. "Can you trace the origin?"
I nodded numbly. "I think so, just give me a moment." My tone was pleasant, like this was any other day at the office. I knew I was going into shock. It was a funny feeling, to feel yourself lose control of your reactions a watch as the rest of the world seemed more and more like a movie being watched from afar.
My cell ringed in my pocket and withdrawing it, I answered. "This is Agent Coulson."
"Clara is that you?" The voice of Jemma Simmons, the last person I expected to hear from at this moment, spoke from the other end.
"Jemma!" This jolted my back to reality and I practically jumped out of my seat, thus knocking over my chair. Tears of stress, grief, anger, betrayal, you name it I felt it, sprung into my eyes. "What's happening?" I couldn't help the waver that crept into my voice.
"Thank God you're still alive. Where are you?" she asked, sounding equally shaken.
"The triskelion."
Jemma practically yelled her response. "You have to get out of there right now. Don't trust anyone!"
"What's going on?"
"They're everywhere. The academy was attacked," her voice choked up, "Agent Weaver is dead. I've been trying to contact everyone I could, you're the only one I've been able to get through to."
"I'm with Fisher, we'll get out now. Where are you?" I reached for my computer bag, then thought better of it. There were any number of things that SHIELD or Hydra could track.
"I'm at the Hub. I'm with..." There was fear in Jemma's voice was evident, then the call cut out.
I looked at my phone's screen, no, I hadn't accidently hung up on her. "Jemma?" Nothing from the other end. "She's not answering."
"Your call was intercepted." Fisher hissed. "It's time to leave." She pulled out her extra hand gun and shoved it into my hands, not waiting for me to protest.
My computer beeped, the source seeking program was done. I bent over to read the results and my blood ran cold. "The origin, it here's at the triskelion… from Secretary Peirce's office."
I heard the lock on my office door break and the door blew open sending Fisher and I ducking for cover, "You really shouldn't have gone snooping around."
There was no time for me to even turn and confirm that it was Peirce at the door before my office was swarmed with STRIKE team members. The gun was wrenched from my grasp and I was forced to my knees. A battered and bruised Rumlow kicked Fisher's gun out of her hand and punched her to the ground.
Once both Fisher and I were on our knees with our hands firmly held behind our backs Pierce entered the room. Fisher glared daggers at him and tried once more to surge to her feet which only earned her a kick to the gut. She gasped in pain and fell back to the ground.
Pierce took our expressions of betrayal in stride. He just shrugged and spoke the damming words, "Hail Hydra."
Those not holding Fisher and me down clicked their heels together and threw their arms up in a double handed Hitler salute. "Hail Hydra."
Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed. :) Did you catch some of the little Easter eggs? :) Review, comment, don't worry I don't bite.