Apartment Building, 2014
Steve and Aurora walked into the apartment building, where Aurora moved to unlock the apartment door across from Steve's.
"Thanks for the ride," she told him with a smile.
Steve smiled back. "Anytime. Maybe we should carpool more often."
Aurora smiled a little wider. "Maybe we should."
Steve moved to unlock the door when Aurora paused.
"Steve," she said softly, "did you leave your stereo on?"
He frowned deeply. "No."
Aurora frowned herself and stepped toward the door, standing just behind Steve, like she was ready to leap in front of him or toss up an energy shield at any moment.
Steve hesitated, and changed his plan.
He slid in through the window, helping Aurora in behind him. and stepped inside quietly, picking up a shield that was resting against the wall by the door.
They both inched toward the living room of his apartment, toward the sound of the playing stereo. Steve was still protectively in front of Aurora, despite her ability to protect the both of them with a much larger shield than his overly large frisbee. It didn't change the fact that she knew he still had the roaring twenties on the brain. Able to hold her own or not, it was his place to make sure nothing happened to her.
His broad shoulders blocked her view for a moment and she tried reaching out with her mind before Steve abruptly stood down, still tense, but he let the shield drop to his side with a faint sigh.
Fury looked up from the chair he had commandeered.
"I don't remember giving you a key," Steve said with a small huff.
Fury snorted. "You really think I'd need one?"
"No disrespect, Director," Aurora spoke up quickly. "But what are you doing here?"
"My wife kicked me out," he answered calmly, shifting in the chair with a small groan of pain.
"Didn't know you were married," Steve said with another frown.
"There's a lot of things you don't know about me."
"I know, Nick." Steve reached to turned on the lamp near Fury's chair. "That's the problem."
He switched the light on, and Steve and Aurora both looked at the injured Director in shock when the lamp revealed his injuries.
Fury pressed a finger over his lips to indicate silence from them as he leaned over at an achingly slow speed, flicking the light back off. He turned his phone around, a message typed in it. Ears everywhere.
He spoke again, then, at Aurora and Steve's concerned and confused looks. "I'm sorry to have to do this, but I had no place else to crash." He typed another message. S.H.I.E.L.D. compromised.
The confusion dissipated into pure concern.
"Who else knows about your wife?" Steve asked quickly.
The three of us. "Just… my friends."
"Sure thing, boss," Aurora said with a disbelievingly raised eyebrow.
Steve raised his own eyebrow. "Is that what we are? Friends?"
Fury stood stiffly. "That's up to you."
Aurora tensed all over when everything went all wrong, freezing as things escalated in the following moments. Suddenly she sensed everything—the traffic, the thoughts of every person in a six block radius, and even the simple thoughts of the birds in the trees and the squirrels in the parks. One set of thoughts was different, though. Obviously human, but no more simple than the squirrel's with its one apparent thought—his mission.
Three bullets collided with Fury's chest and he collapsed before them.
Steve reacted first. He looked outside for the shooter. He knelt then and slid Fury into the other room.
Fury reached up and pressed a flash drive into Steve's hand with enough pressure to make the Captain's fingers curl around it reflexively. "Don't… trust anyone… but h-her."
Aurora finally reacted again. She pulled her phone from her pocket and called S.H.I.E.L.D. "This is Agent Borealis from mine and Captain Rogers's apartment building. Foxtrot is down, I repeat, Foxtrot is down. He is unresponsive. I need EMTs."
The S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent didn't hesitate to respond. "Do you have a twenty on the shooter?"
She and Steve traded knowing glances, and she nodded once. "We're in pursuit."
She hung up, and they took off.
Steve rushed through halls so fast he had to use his shield to bounce off corners and keep going.
Aurora was hot on his heels, skidding around corners a little more gracefully than the Captain, though unable to keep the same speed. She nearly lost him before he burst out onto a neighboring roof shouting for the black clad assassin to stop before hurling his shield at the fleeing figure's back.
He caught it.
Aurora's mismatched eyes widened, and she caught the gleam of a chrome plated metal arm, a red star high on the bicep, near the shoulder.
The assassin hurled the shield back, and it collided with Steve's gut, and knocking him backward.
Aurora shot teal energy toward the assassin, invading his mind enough to find the feralness and simplicity of his thoughts. His objective was not only the only thing he cared about, it was the only thing on his mind at all.
The assassin escaped.
Aurora turned toward Steve.
The Captain was breathless as he held his shield at his ribcage where it had hit, straightening stiffly. "What the hell was that?"
"I don't know," Aurora said quietly, breathing heavily herself. More from fear of the assassin, of his unchecked and erratic mind, than of exertion. "But I bet this isn't the last we'll see of him."