Evangeline sat in her office for several minutes, wondering how she was going to tell Fury. She just got the most dreaded call from Jason. She was having trouble believing it. This couldn't be real. I just couldn't be. But Jason was Toni's cousin, he wouldn't lie about this.

She started to pick up the phone, but thought it would be better to talk with him face-to-face.

She walked over to Fury's office and knocked on the door.

"Enter."

She opened the door and softly pushed it shut after she stepped in. Fury was finishing a phone call. He hung up and gave his attention to Evangeline.

"Everything ok?" Fury asked when he saw Evangeline was holding back tears.

"I just got got off the phone with Jason." She said softly.

"What'd he say?"

"It's Toni."

"What about her?" Fury was somewhat hopeful. Maybe she made some improvement, maybe she even came around.

"The doctors tried their best to reverse the symptoms, but...something went wrong. She's not gonna make it." Evangeline choked out.

Fury's face fell. This had been his biggest fear.

"Jason said to come to the hospital to say our goodbyes."

Fury nodded. "Tell him I'll be there in an hour."

"Take your time. The doctors are giving everyone till 7:30 tomorrow morning. That's when...their...gonna...pull her plug." Evangeline burst into tears.

She walked out of Fury's office to go to her car to got to the hospital. She knew the consequences but she wanted to see her best friend before she died.

00

Tony POV

Everyone was crowded around Toni's hospital bed, we only had a few more hours with her.

Nobody said a word. We didn't know what to say.

Evangeline had come by, she was a wreck. She had a major breakdown the minute she saw Toni. It was so bad that her dad had to take her out of the room.

She looked even worst than before. Her skin had turned deathly pale, her hair thinning out. Her heartbeat was gradually slowing down. She was just wasting away.

The doctors were planning to do a c-section to try and save the baby before taking her off life support.

I was glad that the baby would probably survive, but at the same time, I didn't want to lose my daughter.

00

Maria Hill stepped into Fury's office. He was standing up, facing the wall, back to her.

"Director, everyone's left for the hospital." She said.

Fury nodded. But he still remained silent.

Mara stepped closer to him. "Sir?"

Fury sighed "The last promise I made to them, and I broke it."

Maria was confused. "Who?"

"Her parents."

"Who's?"

"Toni's"

"She doesn't have any parents. At least not any biological parents."

"Remember Agents Mr. & Mrs. Cortex?"

"Of course. Two of our best, until..." She didn't need to finish.

"Did you know they had a child?"

"Of course. A girl."

Fury smiled "They loved that little girl. Spoiled her to death, but at the same time were training her to one day go into the field."

"As what?"

"An assassin. Even at such a young age, you could tell, one day she was going to make a great assassin. After they died, I took the little girl and brought her one of S.H.I.E.L.D 's private foster homes. I didn't see her for a long time after that. Until, about four years ago, Capt. Steve Rogers introduced me to Stark 's adopted daughter, Antonia Maria Stark."

Maria's jaw dropped. "You told everybody Castle killed her."

"I had too. To protect her. Castle was not going to give up until he found her. So, I had to tell everyone that she perished along with her parents. But as you see, it wasn't very convincing."

"It's not you're fault. It could have happened to any of us."

"But it happened to her. The one person I was supposed to be protecting." Fury sighed. "Well, I should get to the hospital. As I hear, we don't have long."

"Would you like me to drive you?"

Fury nodded. "That would be fine, Hill."

Maria walked out of the office.

Fury stayed for a few more minutes before leaving.

They pulled up to the hospital and went inside. When they reached the right floor, they turned too see Evangeline, her dad, and every S.H.I.E.L.D agent sitting in the waiting room.

Agent Gomez had his arms around Evangeline. Fury couldn't see her face, but he could hear her sobbing.

Jason had both of the twins on his lap.

"Mommy's not gonna wake up, is she?" Willow said.

"What are you talking about? Of course she's gonna wake up." Jason said.

"Then why is everybody crying if she's just sleeping?" she asked.

Jason couldn't answer.

That made Fury's heart hit the floor. This was really happening.

He walked into the room and saw Steve, Tony, Pepper, Clint, and Natasha surrounding the bed.

Steve was clutching Toni's hand tightly, his expression pained and anguished. Pepper was crying, Tony had his arms around her. Natasha was trying her best to keep it together. Bruce looking down. Clint was trying to keep a brave face.

"Can I have a minute with her? Alone?" He asked cautiously.

Everyone turned towards him.

"I just need to tell her something. I'll be quick, I promise."

Slowly, they cleared the room.

"Tell me if anything happens." Steve said as he left the room.

Fury sat in the seat beside the bed. He slid his hand into Toni's. It hurt to see her like that.

A tear ran from his eye. "I...am so sorry. Sorry I didn't do a better job of keeping you safe. This whole thing is my fault. I never imagined that you would be a victim of the same man who murdered your parents. It was careless of me, to try and keep you a secret, hoping you would be safe. But secrets only last so long. I just want you to know, I tried to keep you safe. I wanted so bad to prevent something like this from happening to you. I'm so sorry."

He sat there for a little while, just staring at the one person he vowed to protect, slowly waste away.

Tony POV

Fury had been in there way too long in my opinion. Steve was a bit on edge as well.

Everyone else was silent. Even the twins. Even though they were too young to understand, they seemed to know what was happening.

Toni looked worse than ever. She was no hooked up to a bunch of machines and on a ventilator.

We kept the twins out in the waiting room so they wouldn't have to see their mom like that. It would no doubt scare them.

There was one thing I couldn't get. Why her? Out of every S.H.I.E.L.D agent. Why her? She was just a normal teenage girl who couldn't have done anything wrong.

"I guess Fury never told you." Hill seemed to sense it.

"Told us what?" Natasha asked, turning to face her.

"About her parents."

"Of course. They were two of S.H.I.E.L.D's best agents according to Fury." Clint said.

"Do you know why?" Hill asked.

Nobody said a word. We could only guess.

"I'll explain this way." Hill began. "Whenever S.H.I.E.L.D is trying to find someone, we always check their profile and go from there. But with Toni's parents, they were able to find anyone. Even those who aren't in the system, or had gone off the grid. Mind you this was before social media."

"That's not possible." Natasha said.

"They found a way. But never told anyone how they did it. They began training Toni the minute she learned to crawl. When word got out about them, they were instant targets of many people, and not just the Punisher."

"Is this how she figured out how to find Eric Castle, even though there was restricted information on him?" I asked.

"There was no information on Eric Castle." Hill said.

The room went silent.

"So she didn't hack into the system?" Steve asked.

"No." Hill said flatly.

"But she told me she did." Steve said.

"Maybe she didn't find the information she needed and looked somewhere else." Hill said.

Just then, Fury came out of the hospital room. Steve jumped up and ran in followed by Pepper and Natasha.

Clint, Bruce and Jason stayed in the waiting room.

I went down to the lobby, I had to get away from this for a while.