Rewritten 2018

Make You Feel My Love ~Book II~

Disclaimer: I do not own The Winter Soldier movie! All rights go to Marvel. All I own is my own characters and their stories.

~Chapter 13~
Fury's death

Through a huge glass window, Steve and Maria watched grimly as Nick Fury underwent surgery to try and save his life. The small room in which they were standing was quiet and dark. The atmosphere was sullen and sad and Maria couldn't help but feel as though there was a large cocoon of depression surrounding her, wanting to wrap her in and make her life miserable.

Nick Fury was a good man and he had helped her turn her life around. Had it not been for him and SHIELD, she would've never met Steve or the other Avengers. She would still be cleaning toilets over at Stark Tower. Almost all good things she had in her life she had because of him and now she was watching him fight for his life. Still, that wasn't what was bothering her the most.

During her life, she had seen a lot of death and even created even more death. And now that she was watching Fury lying there, dying, she felt nothing. The depression was there, the sadness was there, but not inside of her. It was merely the atmosphere in the room and not the feelings inside of her. If anything, she felt angry because he was there and not beside her. What was the point of a man who did so much good, if all he would get was death?

The door opened and Natasha suddenly appeared next to Maria, an almost scared and devastated look on her face.

"Will he make it?" she asked quietly.

Maria didn't reply knowing that she would only sound angry if she did.

"I don't know," replied Steve.

"Tell me about the shooter," asked Natasha, the surgeons on the other side of the glass continuing with their work.

Maria let out a huff of air before stepping away from Natasha and Steve, turning away from the glass and from the sight of Fury. These were not the feelings she should be feeling. She should be feeling sadness, yes. But not anger.

"He's fast and strong," continued Steve, not looking over at Maria as Natasha did. "Had a metal arm."

The door had silently opened during their quiet conversation and Hill had entered the room as well. She and Maria had curtly given each other a nod before she had walked oved to the glass, worry evident in her eyes as she saw Fury.

"Ballistics?" asked Natasha.

"Three slugs, no rifling. Completely untraceable," reported Hill, causing Maria to turn back towards them, though not walking over to them.

"Soviet made," added Natasha, causing Maria's anger to slowly turn into curiosity as she walked over to them again, her eyes once again landing on Fury.

However, this time, she didn't feel angry when she saw Fury and this did cause her relief. Instead, she felt a sudden weight press against her chest as she watched Fury's still body on the cot with doctors running all around him.

"Yeah," replied Hill, looking at Natasha with a surprised look on her face.

The weight felt heavier as the faint sound of the heartbeat monitor's alarm starting to blare was heard through the glass, the doctors suddenly panicking. His heart had stopped.

Maria closed her eyes, lowering her head.

"Don't do this to me, Nick," whispered Natasha quietly.

When Maria opened her eyes again, hearing Natasha whisper words in Russian to herself, she saw the doctors looking at Fury, saying solemn words to each other. Her heart dropped when she understood what it meant and the familiar pressure behind her eyes appeared, tears filling her eyes in the process. Steve walked away, leaving the three women there. Hill followed suit while Natasha and Maria stayed put.

"I'm sorry," whispered Maria to Natasha who didn't react to her words.

She stayed put for a couple more seconds before copying Steve and Hill and exiting the dark room, leaving Natasha alone. What else was there she could do? Neither of the two women had bonded yet, mostly due to Maria avoiding Nat, and so a hug was out of the question. Besides… Natasha Romanoff was not the hugging type.

She saw Steve standing a little way off, leaning against the wall. As Maria walked over to him, she felt the USB poke her from where it rested in her back pocket.

"I need to talk to you," said Maria as she walked past Steve and into a small, currently empty, office.

Steve entered only seconds later with a confused look on his face. When she closed the door behind him and turned to him, she grabbed the USB from her pocket and showed it to him. In silence, Steve grabbed it from her hand and inspected it. Whether he knew what it was or not didn't matter at the moment.

"He gave it to me," she said. "With the words, don't trust anyone."

Steve glanced over at her, pursing his lips slightly and shifting on his feet. "What's on it?"

"I don't know. Can be anything. Information. Something traceable. Something that can tell whoever's infiltrated SHIELD about where we are; anything," said Maria before sighing. "The point is, he wants us to take care of it. He didn't give it to SHIELD. So-"

"Something's up," he finished for her, nodding his head. "We need a plan."

"Someone's gonna want to talk to you. Fury was found in your apartment," said Maria. "Keeping away from SHIELD is not an option. If that is what they do when they think you've found out whatever secret there is to find out, then we can't risk it – I can't risk losing you."

Steve placed a hand against her upper arm, but it seemed he was, just like she, too upset to truly show anymore feelings. Instead, he clutched the USB in his hand tightly. "And if something happens to us when we do have to visit SHIELD… we can't be carrying this around."

"The apartment is not an option," said Maria, shaking her head. "Someone's already been snooping in there."

Steve shook his head again, looking around the small room, his mind clearly trying to come up with a solution to where they could hide it.

"Can't give it to someone either," said Steve, looking back at her. "Can't trust them yet."

With a sigh Maria took the USB from Steve again, holding it up between them. "We need to keep it somewhere where they wouldn't search for it."

"Somewhere not too safe since they'll search there first," said Steve.

"Stark?" asked Maria, rolling her eyes at the pointed look Steve gave her. "He can be trusted. He doesn't work for SHIELD."

"Yeah, but SHIELD's compromised. He might be working for them," said Steve.

Although Maria didn't believe that at all, she also knew that it wouldn't work shipping it off to Stark since he lived all the way over in New York. It would be too dangerous and, knowing Tony, he'd start snooping, putting himself in harm's way as well. No, what they needed was a place that was open enough for no one to look yet still not open enough for anyone to see it.

"I know," said Maria before sighing and shaking her head. It was a stupid idea. "No, it's stupid."

"Tell me," urged Steve.

"The vending machine out there is broken," said Maria. "Could give us a hiding spot until at least tomorrow."

"It's stupid," agreed Steve before a faint smile appeared on his lips. "But it'll work."

Walking out of the room again, Steve and Maria quickly went through with their plan of hiding the USB when no one was near. It was easy since the man repairing it had simply left the glass door open so that Steve and Maria could hide the USB behind a couple of bubble gum packs.

Only seconds after they had done this, Rumlow walked over to them.

"Captain Rogers, agent Dalton," he said, making the both of them look over at him. "They want you back at SHIELD."

"Okay," said Steve, nodding his head. He made no move to immediately follow Rumlow though and when the agent stayed put, staring straight at Steve and Maria, both felt a little uneasy. Maria figured he wanted them to come with him immediately, but they were not having any other it and just stared back at him.

Finally, Rumlow caved and just nodded his head before leaving them alone.

"What the hell…" mumbled Maria to Steve, grabbing his arm. When he linked his hand with hers, her courage returned to her and she nodded her head, "Suits on."

"We'll get through this."

"Together," she finished, nodding her head and squeezing his hand.

"Together my ass," mumbled Maria as she stood outside of the SHIELD building, impatiently waiting for Steve to finish with the meeting.

In the very last minute, Steve had told her to wait outside and since Steve was being led away by a couple of SHELD agents, seeming to think that Steve couldn't find his way around SHIELD anymore, she hadn't had the opportunity to argue against his decision. Instead, she had simply glared at the back of his head, wondering if this had been his plan all along; to act as though he would let her join him when he went into the belly of the monster until the last minute so that she would have no option but to agree to his plan.

Perhaps he was being protective though… and somewhere deep down inside of her, past her pride, she felt a little flattered.

Sitting down on a park bench, she took out her phone from her pocket. Her mind was still on Fury's last words to her and her heart was still saddened by his passing. Though she had to stay strong for now since something was wrong and they had to figure out what that was first before they could mourn Fury.

Unsure of what else to do, she scrolled through her contact list, passing by Clint's name. She was sure he was okay for the time being… he had to be. Last she had heard from him he had been out on some private time away… surely the compromised SHIELD would leave him be then?

Matt's name was there… but she couldn't bring him into this mess. So she continued scrolling…

And stopped only when, Martin, the Swedish little nerdy hacker, showed up amidst her contacts. Briefly she wondered what people she actually could trust. She knew she could trust Steve and Clint. And although Steve wasn't sure about Natasha at the moment, Maria knew deep down that Natasha was on Fury's side and no one else's. Nat had proven that when she got so emotional at Fury's deathbed.

Well… that was what Maria had deduced and hoped. Natasha was a good fighter and not someone she wanted to have on the opposite team.

With a single press to Martin's name, her phone started to dial his number and she pressed the phone to her ear. With her free hand, she fumbled with the fabric of a hoodie that she had put on over her suit, not wanting to draw too much attention to herself even though she was still showing off the bottom part of her leather suit. To others, it simply looked like leather trousers, though the boots were most likely going to attract attention to her.

In the pocket of her hoodie, she had placed her domino mask along with one of her daggers. That one dagger was the only thing she could carry around out in public without drawing attention to her. Her actual sword was still at Steve's apartment.

"Yeah?" Martin had picked up the phone and immediately, Maria recognized the stressed tone to his voice.

"Martin, it's Dalton," she said. "You okay?"

"No! I can't get back into my SHIELD account! I've tried everything! Changing the password, changing emails… nothing! Hell, I've even turned my computer on and off. It just says that I don't have clearance."

Maria furrowed her brow, "Where are you?"

"At home. Still don't have an office at SHIELD. I have a feeling they don't want me there or something."

"Martin… something's up," said Maria before she could think it through. "I need you to be careful, okay? Fury's dead and… there's something else going on. Something bad."

"Fury's dead!? Oh no… that's not good. That's bad. Like, bad bad."

"Stay at home. Don't let anyone in."

"What about you? Where are you?"

"I'm at SHIELD," replied Maria with a sigh, looking over at the building.

"Wait… You said something bad was going on… what do you mean?"

"I don't know yet. But… Fury said SHIELD's been compromise-"

"SSH!"

Maria cocked an eyebrow at the sudden sound coming from Martin's end of the phone; "What?" she asked with annoyance lashed onto her voice from having been interrupted.

"They could be listening."

Maria widened her eyes. He was right. She stayed silent for a while, cursing herself for her own stupidity.

"Stay with Steve. Stay safe. Oh, and don't do anything stupid."

"Too late," said Maria, standing up. "Be careful."

With that, she hung up and started to walk towards the doors of SHIELD. Steve was up there, probably finding out things about what was going on and Maria did not feel like being the one person that didn't do anything to help solve this problem. She wanted to prove to Steve that she could be in there in the dangerous zone as well without getting hurt.

Right before she entered SHIELD's headquarters, she dropped her phone in the bin that was placed outside of the doors, in case someone had indeed hacked her phone. She knew that Tony listened in on her conversations (e was , but she wasn't sure about who else anymore and she didn't like that. Without her phone, she could at least feel a little safer.

She didn't go inside without a plan and a reason. After all, Steve had been right about the fact that the building was dangerous to be in when everyone knew that she and Steve were most likely on Fury's side and that they were potential opponents to whatever was going on. Though in there, there was one man who might know something about all of this and he could give her intel, something they needed badly at the moment.

In there, Artur was locked up. And if there was one man on the planet that had intel on everything bad, it was him.