And here we go moving into Winter Solider! (Yay!) I'm glad you guys liked that little Coney Island treat! :) And now here comes the drama of Bucky! DUN DUN DAAAA! Of course, I hold no rights or ownership over anything Marvel, which included characters and scenes you'll find familiar! With that being said, hope you enjoy! Xoxo-NickyLynn
Tessa's muscles were tensed and her senses on over-drive. Fury had given the code word, which meant that they were not safe. Her heartrate started so go erratic as she strained her ears and tried to focus her senses around her, trying to pick up anything out of the ordinary. Tessa licked her lips as she drew in a breath. "What did you do this time to piss her off?" Tessa said back to him, hoping he would give her some sort of hint back. Steve went to turn the large overhead light on, but Tessa shot an arm out, stopping him. She locked eyes with him and gave him a small shake of her head. Steve got the hint as his eyes narrowed down in alert as well.
"Well, you know how marriage can be. If there's no trust, it doesn't work." Fury said, pulling out his phone and typing on it. He turned it around and the words SHIELD COMPROMISED were written out on its screen.
Tessa's eyes took in that information and then went back up to Fury. And this was exactually the reason she had been hesitant on joining the government organization from the beginning. "Have you told anyone else about the problems you've been having?" she asked Fury, needing to know just how far the compromise went.
"I wanted to come to you first, seeing as you're the one who didn't trust her from the beginning." Fury said, pushing up from the chair and taking a step towards her, holding his side like he was in pain. "I could really use a friend I can trust right now."
"Is that what we are?" Steve asked from behind Tessa's shoulder. "Friends?"
Fury looked from Tessa, over to Steve. "That's up to you."
Suddenly a blast tore through the wall behind Fury, causing everyone to duck down in fear. Fury let out a yell of pain as the bullets that had come tearing through the walls of their apartment slammed into his back, sending him falling to the ground. "FURY!" Tessa yelled out, dropping down over him as the drywall dust filled the air, massive holes letting light shine through the new holes. Tessa's head whipped around from Fury to the wall, then up to Steve. "You go after the gunman!" She yelled at her brother. "I've got Fury!" she told him.
Steve gave her a nod before taking off over to his room. He grabbed his shield and ran out of the apartment as Tessa teleported herself and Fury into her bathroom. She ripped a handful of towels off the shelf, sending a pile of them falling to the floor before dropping down next to him. She quickly pressed the fabric into the bleeding wounds littering his chest, eliciting a groan from him. She pressed down as hard as she could to try to stop the blood flow while she dug out her phone with her other hand. She pressed the few buttons she needed before she dropped the phone next to her, bringing her hand back down onto his chest for compression. "This is Agent Tessa Rogers. Foxtrot is down and is in critical condition. I need full EMT response force sent to my location immediately!" she yelled down to the S.H.I.E.L.D. operator who answered her call.
"Roger that, sending medical assistance now." Came a male's voice in response.
"You hold on, Fury!" she yelled down at him as she watched him struggling to breathe under her.
Fury lifted a shaky hand up towards Tessa. She looked down and saw the shine of a metal flash drive in his palm. He held it out to her, and she took it from him. He held onto her hand for a brief moment, his eyes searching hers as he did. "You w-were right." He breathed out in a whisper. "Don't trust….anyone." he said before his hand slipped from hers and his eyes drooped shut.
"FURY!" she yelled out, briging her hand back down to his chest. "Hey, come on, stay with me!" she ordered. "What's the ETA on that medical response?!" she hollered down to the phone, it still being connected.
"ETA less than five minutes." The voice responded.
"Shit." She seethed, knowing every moment was critical. "You just hang on Fury!" she told him again, knowing he could not hear her. And suddenly, Tessa really wished she had never left the amusement park tonight. In a matter of a few minutes, things had managed to go so incredibly sideways.
By the time Steve made it back to the apartment, the EMTs had arrived and were busy loading Fury onto the stretcher. Tessa was standing in the living room, out of the way, when Steve walked back in and when she noticed him, she rushed up to him. "Did you stop the shooter?" she asked him.
Steve shook his head at her. "He got away." He told her as the EMTs pulled Fury out of the bathroom and he was brought past them as they pulled him out of the apartment. Tessa's eyes were glued onto Fury's slack face before Steve pulled her attention back to him. "Rose…" he began quietly, careful to keep his voice down. "He was enhanced."
Tessa's eyebrows furrowed down at that. "The shooter?" she asked in him surprise. "Are you sure?"
"Well considering he had a metal arm and threw my shield back at me hard enough to send me skidding across the roof, I'd say yeah, I'm pretty sure." He responded. Tessa blinked in confusion, wondering just what it was that they had just been pulled into. "Did Fury say anything to you?"
"Yeah." Tessa said, letting out a breath as she rubbed her head. "Yeah, he told me not to trust anyone." She told him, looking up at him with serious eyes.
They followed the EMTs down after that and rode in the ambulance to the hospital. Once they were there, and after some heavy persistence from Tessa, they were let back into the observation room while the surgeons had Fury under surgery. They watched in silence as the doctors tried to save his life, both siblings lost in thought. When the door slammed open a few minutes later, she nearly attacked the newcomer, still being on edge, until she noticed it was Natasha.
The red-haired agent rushed into the room, coming to a stand in front of the window between Tessa and Steve. "Is he going to make it?" she asked in a shaky voice, her eyes taking in the sight of Fury being operated on.
"We don't know." Tessa told her honestly. "The bullets hit some major organs and it will still be a while yet until we have a better idea of the severity of the damage. He's already lost a lot of blood." She told her, the surgery having just gone underway not too long ago.
"Tell me about the shooter." Natasha told them sternly.
Tessa looked over at Natasha and Fury's words drifted back to her. Tessa wanted to trust Natasha. She had grown to consider the woman her friend and the pain on her face looked real enough, yet Tessa knew just how skilled of an actress she could be. That's part of the reason why she was so dangerous. She was a spy through and through. "Steve went after him, but he got away." Tessa told her.
"He was fast….and strong…..and he had a metal arm." Steve told her.
"Ballistics?" Natasha asked then, not taking her eyes off of Fury.
"Three slugs. No rifling. Completely untraceable." Tessa told her, having just found the information out for herself no too long ago, and it did not bode well for them.
"Soviet-made?" Natasha nearly whispered.
Tessa looked over at her, having deduced the same hypothesis. "Most likely." She agreed.
Suddenly, Fury's vitals began to go erratic, and his heart rate went unstable. "He's in V-tach!" they heard the surgeon call out as the room broke out in movement. "Nurse, help me with the drape!"
"BPs dropping!" the nurse called back as Fury's vitals began to plumet.
"Defibrillator!" The doctor ordered as Fury began crashing. The nurse began pulling out the crash cart and was ordered to charge the electrical paddles. "I want you to charge him at one hundred!"
"Don't do this to me Nick." Tessa heard Natasha mutter out under her breath, pulling Tessa's eyes over to her. Tessa studied her reaction and knew that the fear she saw in it was real. The sound of the defibrillator going off made Tessa jump, bringing her eyes back over to Fury.
"Pulse?" the doctor called out.
"No pulse." The nurse responded.
"Okay, bring it up to two hundred! Stand back!" the doctor said, charging the paddles again before bringing them down onto Fury's chest. "Three, two, one! Clear!" he shouted, sending another jolt through Fury's body. Still, his heart rate did not respond. "Get me the epinephrine! Pulse?"
"Still nothing!" the nurse called back.
"Don't do this to me Nick." Natasha repeated as she watched helplessly. "Don't do this."
They watched as the doctors did everything they could to bring Fury back, but it wasn't enough. Tessa had never felt considerably close to Fury, but she still found herself watching with blurred vision as the doctors slowly began giving up. When the doctor looked up to the clock to call the time, Tessa spun around, unable to watch anymore.
"Time of death one o three." She heard the doctor call out and the tears dripped from her eyes as she closed them. She swallowed down the lump in her throat before she opened her eyes back up and looked down at the flash drive in her hand. The answers to what was going on lay inside that thing. And whatever they were…..Fury had given his life to get them to her. If she, out of all people, was the only one he felt like he could trust….well, then she had a sinking feeling something very bad was on the horizon. She tightened her grip around the device before looking around her shoulder to catch the eyes of Steve. They shared a look, and she could tell he was on the same train of thought as her.
Natasha stormed out of the room then, and Tessa went after her. "Nat!" Tessa called out to her as she came out into the hall, seeing the other woman walking down the hall in a hurry.
Natasha spun around as Tessa caught up to her, swinging around with angry eyes. "Why was Fury in your apartment?" Natasha asked her pointedly.
Tessa's jaw clenched. "I don't know." She told her somewhat honestly. The two woman stared at each other for a minute, neither one of them showing any signs of relent.
"Tessa!" Steve called from down the hall. She turned to find him walking down the hall after them with Agent Rumlow at his side. "They want us back at S.H.I.E.L.D." he told her.
"Yeah, hold on." She called back to him.
"They want you now." Rumlow said, causing Tessa to narrow her eyes down on him. Truthfully, she had never liked the rough-edged agent; he put off a bad vibe, and now Tessa found herself not trusting him even more.
"I said hold on." She said again, putting some edge behind her words. She turned back around to Natasha, who was just shook her head at her.
"You're a terrible liar, you know that?" Natasha bit out at her before turning on her foot and storming back down the hall.
"Nat!" Tessa called again, only to have her keep walking without turning back. Tessa let out a breath, wishing she could put her trust in her friend. But until she figured out what the hell was going on, she had to be careful. And seeing as she had to be careful, she had to be extra careful with S.H.I.E.L.D.. She wasn't dumb enough to bring the flash drive Fury had trusted her with right into enemy hands. She looked down at her hand, which still had the device held securely in it's grasp, before her eyes came up to the vending machine next to her. An idea formed in her head and using her powers, she transported the drive past the glass and deep into the recesses of the candy dispenser, figuring this was the safest spot she could come up with on the incredibly short notice.
"Tessa!" she heard Rumlow call out impatiently, causing her to spin around and walked towards him.
"Yeah, I'm coming." She bit out at him, walking up to him and Steve. "Let's go." She said, not bothering to slow down.
"S.T.R.I.K.E., let's move out." Rumlow ordered the group of agents assembled in the hall.
Tessa and Steve shared a look as they followed the group of agents out of the hospital, both of them knowing that things were about to get bumpy. They were guided out to a helicopter waiting on the roof of the hospital, and from there, brought into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ground headquarters. They were directed to an office where an older man with blonde hair, glasses and a grey suit, was standing outside of the door, waiting for them. Tessa recognized him right away.
"Ah. The infamous Rogers siblings!" the man called out to them as they walked up to him. "Alexander Pierce." He introduced, holding out a hand in their direction.
Tessa just looked down at his hand, not wanting to take it as Steve slid his hand into it. "Sir, it's an honor." Steve told him, giving his hand a firm shake.
"The honor's mine Captain." Peirce responded before dropping his hand. "My father served in the one hundred and first." He told them. "Come on in." He said then, taking a step back into his office, sweeping his hand back for them to enter.
Tessa walked into the office after Steve, her eyes scanning the area, trying to gather as much information on the man as she could. She noticed a framed photo on the wall of what looked like Fury swearing in Alexander and her eyes lingered on it. "That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met, when I was in the State Department in Bogota." Pierce said, noticing what she had been staring at. Tessa pulled her eyes from the photograph, over to Alexander who was pulling off his suit jacket and draping it over the back of his chair.
"E.L.N. rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages." He explained, going through the stack of papers on his desk until her found the bundle he was after. "Nick was Deputy Chief of the S.H.I.E.L.D. station there, and he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, 'No, we'll negotiate.' Turned out the E.L.N. didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. So, they stormed the basement, and what did they find?" he said dropping down into his seat, ushering Steve and Tessa to take a seat with him. "They found it empty." He supplied as Steve took a seat in front of the desk, but Tessa chose to stay standing, not wanting to put herself in a defenseless position. Instead, she stepped up behind the seat, crossing her arms as she listened to him. "Nick had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil, and saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."
"So, you gave him a promotion." Tessa guessed assuming he had been trying to weave them a story to make it seem like he could be trusted.
"And I've never had any cause to regret it." Pierce told them, looking from Steve up to Tessa. "Agent Rogers, why was Nick in your apartment last night?" he asked her, his eyes narrowing down at her.
Tessa was careful not to let any emotion slip through her features. "I don't know, Secretary. I wasn't as close to Fury as you apparently, and our conversation was interrupted before he could tell me anything." She responded.
His eyes watched her in calculation. "Did you know your apartment was bugged?" he asked.
"I had suspicions." She told him with a shrug. "I know S.H.I.E.L.D.'s never really fully trusted me so it seemed only logical that they would want to keep tabs on me."
"Did you know it was Nick who was the one who bugged it?" he asked her then.
"Like I said, me and Fury have never exactually been what you would call close." She responded.
His eyes studied her for a moment before he swept his gaze over to the wall where he pulled up a display on the clear glass. "I want you to see something." He told them, pressing down on the button to start the footage.
A bald man Tessa didn't recognize was on the screen and she could hear a voice off screen interrogating him. "Who hired you, Batroc?" the voice asked.
"Is that live?" Steve asked, looking over at Alexander in question.
"Yeah, they picked him up last night." He responded, taking his eyes off the screen for a moment to look over at Steve. "They picked him up in a not-so-safe house in Algiers."
"Is he a suspect?" Tessa asked in confusion, not sure what the man had to do with this.
"Assassination isn't really Batroc's line." Steve said then, obviously having recognized him for himself.
"No, no. It's more complicated than that. Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star." Pierce said and Tessa finally started to understand how Steve recognized him, having heard the name of the vessel before when Steve had given her a run down of his last mission with Natasha. Fury had tried to get her to go, but she had turned him down, which meant that Steve had been recruited in her stead. "He was contacted by email and paid by wire transfer, and then the money was ran through seventeen fictitious accounts." He explained, opening up the papers on his desk, showing the paper trail they had traced down. "The last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech." He explained, handing the stack of papers over to Steve to look through for himself.
"Am I supposed to know who that is?" Steve asked in confusion, looking down at the papers in his hands.
"Not likely. He died six years ago." Alexander said with a sigh. "His last address was fourteen thirty-five Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick, his mother lived at fourteen thirty-seven." He revealed.
"Are you saying that Fury hired him?" Tessa asked, equally confused. "Why?"
"The prevailing theory is that the hijacking of that vessel was used as a cover up for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence." Pierce told them. "We think the sale went sour and it resulted in Nick's death."
"You're calling Nick Fury a traitor?" she asked in bafflement, finding it hard to believe.
"If you really knew him, you'd know that's not true." Steve said, shaking his head.
"You said it yourself that you were never that close." Alexander directed up at Tessa. "Maybe we just didn't know Fury as well as we all thought."
"I'm sorry, that just doesn't make sense." Tessa said, refusing to buy it. "Nick isn't a traitor."
"I'd like to believe that too." Alexander said, standing up and walking over to the large window behind him, leaning an arm against it. "See, I first took a seat on the Council, not because I wanted to, but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists." He said, looking outside in thought. "We knew that despite all the diplomacy, the handshaking, and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world….sometimes means having to tear the old one down." He said before looking back at them as Steve came to a stand again. "And that makes enemies. Those people who call you dirty because you have the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to make something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today…well, that makes me really, really angry." He said, pausing to look over at Tessa. "Ms. Rogers you were the last person to see Nick Fury alive. I don't think that's an accident….and I don't think you do either." He said, raising his brows at her, obviously not buying her ignorance. "So, I'm going to ask you again. Why was he there?" he asked again.
Tessa's eyes were locked onto his and the look in his eyes was…..dangerous. She could hear her heart beating in her ears and she had to lick her suddenly dry lips. "He told me not to trust anyone." She finally said, her shoulder set in defiance.
"Hmm." He said, letting out an unamused laugh. "I wonder if that included him."
Tessa looked from him, over her shoulder to Steve. She knew that he didn't buy any of this bullshit either. Tessa brought her eyes back over to Alexander. "Fury knew that I never fully trusted S.H.I.E.L.D., which included him." She told him with a raised eyebrow. "I'm sorry, Secretary, but if I didn't trust Fury, then what makes you think I would trust you?" she challenged him before turning to Steve. "You'll have to excuse us." She called back to Alexander as the two of them began walking out of his office, towards the door.
"Rogers." Alexander called out, causing both Tessa and Steve to pause and look back at him. "Somebody murdered my friend and I'm going to find out why. Anyone gets in my way, and they're going to regret it." He told them with a raised brow. "Anyone."
Tessa felt a hot wave roll through her stomach. "I think, Secretary, that you'll come to find that I don't respond well to threats." She called back to him, letting her eyes burn with power dangerously before spiing back around and storming out of his office with Steve.