Steve followed Rumlow all the way to SHIELD dead silent, not having anything to say despite Rumlow's subtle attempts to get him talking. Knowing what he knew now, Steve knew that SHIELD was not the place to be honest. It was infested with liars and moles and double intentions and the worst part is that he didn't know who was who. He couldn't take the chance right now. Chloe was on the verge of a mental breakdown and Seren was only just escaping death now. Natasha was still in the gray area, truthfully.

He got into his stealth suit, his intuition just telling him it was better to be prepared in case anything happened. He was led to Alexander Pierce himself who was talking to a very familiar agent (just another reminder of the lies).

Sharon turned to leave Pierce and regarded Steve politely, even asking him how Seren was doing. Only out of gratitude for helping him save Seren, he answered her. He still kept his tone short and he did not look at her. Luckily, Sharon took the hint and continued on her way.

"How is Agent Soul?" Pierce asked once they were alone.

"Doing better now," Steve replied. She was practically kicking to get out of bed and back to work; she was back to her normal self. Still, he didn't add anything extra. He remembered Seren mentioning that the World Council wasn't exactly fond of her and her work.

"Good, that's good," Pierce nodded, leaving behind the subject soon after. "Well, I know introductions aren't very well needed from your end but I'm Alexander Pierce." He shook hands with Steve.

"It's an honor," Steve said quietly. What else could he say?

"The honor is mine, Captain. My father served in the 101st. Come on in." He led Steve inside his office and soon showed him a photo of himself with Fury. "That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met. When I was at the State Department in Bogota. ELN rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages. Nick was deputy chief for the SHIELD 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 ELN didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement, and what did they find? They find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil. He saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."

Not telling someone what he was going to actually do sounded exactly like something Nick Fury would do. "So you gave him a promotion."

"I've never had any cause to regret it. Captain, why was Nick in your apartment last night?"

Well, at least Pierce was direct. Steve would give him that.

"I don't know," Steve replied.

"You know he had the apartment bugged at one point?" Pierce saw the horrified look on Steve's face and took it as the answer. "Agent Winters made him take it down but Fury only allowed it on the condition that special Agent 13 take up an undercover post next door."

"That I knew," Steve said, "Because Agent Soul informed me once she found out."

"Mm…" Pierce didn't seem that surprised. Steve suspected that Seren's inability to fall in line with the lying part of the job is what made her undesirable in Pierce's mind. "I want you to see something." Pierce picked up a tablet on his desk and showed Steve footage of Batroc in an interrogation room.

"Is that live?" Steve asked, genuinely curious as he watched a SHIELD agent painlessly try to get information out of the man.

"Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not-so-safe house in Algiers."

"Are you saying he's a suspect? Assassination isn't Batroc's line."

"No, it's more complicated than that. Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star and he was contacted by e-mail and paid by wire transfer. And then the money was run through seventeen fictitious accounts, the last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech."

"Am I supposed to know who that is?" Steve said just as Pierce handed him a file.

"Not likely. Veech died six years ago. His last address was 14-35 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick, his mother lived at 14-37."

It took only a second for Steve to realize what Pierce was getting at. "Are you…are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?"

"The prevailing theory was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nick's death."

And as much as Steve was irritated with Fury, he just couldn't see that being the reason. Fury was everything you believed, except a traitor. "If you really knew Nick Fury you'd know that's not true."

"Why do you think we're talking? See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies. Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today, makes me really, really angry. Captain, you were the last one to see Nick alive. I don't think that's an accident, and I don't think you do either. So I'm gonna ask again, why was he there?"

"He told me not to trust anyone," Steve said, "As well as Agent Winters."

"Mm, I wonder if that included them both," Pierce said with a small frown. "Agent Winters was also asked to make herself present." Steve started noting the growing irritation in the man's voice. "She takes too much liberty just because she's under — was under — Fury's direct orders."

"I asked her to stay with Agent Soul," Steve said, now really patting himself on the back for making Chloe stay behind. Something wasn't sitting right anymore and the further away they were from SHIELD, the better. "I'm sorry. Those were his last words. Excuse me." Something in his mind was yelling at him to get back to the hospital as fast as possible.

"Captain," Pierce's call stopped Steve by the door. "Somebody murdered my friend and I'm gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they're gonna regret it. Anyone. Tell Agent Winters to report herself immediately."

Steve nodded. "Understood." Not in this lifetime. He picked up his pace down the hall to leave.

~ 0 ~

Seren was done lying down. As much as Chloe told her not to, Seren pushed herself into a sitting position on the bed. She wasn't stupid. She took the opportunity as soon as Natasha stepped out of the room for a moment.

"Alright Chloe, whatever you need to say, say it now or I swear to God that I'm gonna get out of this bed right now!"

"Seren, please don't over-exert yourself," Chloe came around Seren's bedside to get her to lie back down but unfortunately, she was no Steve Rogers and so Seren easily shoved her away.

"Enough with that!" Seren practically yelled. "I am not lying back down, I am not just going to stay here and do nothing while God knows what is happening out there!"

Chloe panicked when Seren started swinging her legs to the side of the bed with all the intentions of getting up. "Okay, okay, okay!" Chloe threw her hands in front of her. "I'll talk but just — put your — please stay in bed!"

"Then talk," Seren said through gritted teeth. "Who the hell killed Nick?"

"I-I'm pretty sure it was the Ghost—"

"I don't know who the hell this 'Ghost' is!" snapped Seren. "But I'm willing to bet that you already told Steve because he had this look on his face that I..." She shook her head. "And I'm trying not to feel offended because we've known each other longer than you've known him."

Chloe sighed and started pacing in front of the bed. "It's not good, Seren. It's really not good."

"I can tell," Seren said, gesturing to Chloe's current act. "What is going on?"

Chloe stopped pacing for a moment to meet Seren's waiting eyes. Her stomach was in knots. Steve was right, she had to tell Seren everything but how? Years worth of secrets were about to come to the surface and all of them were going to hurt her best friend. "You know that I'm very grateful with you, right?"

Seren sighed. She knew a tactic when she saw one. "Yes..."

Chloe licked her upper lip nervously. "Then you know that no matter what, I do not regret meeting you."

Seren raised an eyebrow at Chloe. "Why do you say that?"

"You have to understand that if I didn't say anything before is because I truly thought — I truly believed — that keeping you in the dark was the better option. I didn't want to put you in more danger and I just didn't want to disillusion you with something that has been your entire life."

"'Disillusion'?" Seren frowned. "Why-why do you say that? What didn't you tell me about?"

"Just remember that no matter what, it wasn't all fake and that there are people who truly adore you and appreciate all your work," Chloe said, stopping her pacing to face Seren. "Like me—"

"Chloe—"

"—and Natasha, Fury, definitely Steve—"

"CHLOE!"

"There's moles in SHIELD!" Chloe blurted and for a long while, there was nothing but silence.

Seren's lips parted as she gasped with Chloe's words. Very slowly, but surely, her eyebrows pinched together and her nose scrunched. "What the hell did you just say?"

Chloe passed her hands through her hair, hoping that she wasn't going to sound as crazy as the story was. "There are moles in SHIELD. Too many to count and we don't know who's one and who's not except for me, obviously you and Steve, then Natasha and Maria. Fury, of course is a given."

"What?" Seren glanced at her monitoring machine and wondered if the meds had affected her hearing.

"It's true, I swear," Chloe said once she realized what Seren was thinking. "There's moles within SHIELD and some of them, or maybe all of them, have been trying to hurt me ever since I joined."

Seren's eyes flickered to Chloe. "Excuse me?"

Chloe sighed. "Ever since I joined S.H.I.E.L.D., somebody—people—have been stalking me. In the beginning, they tried to kill me but then they stopped. They just...watched. I knew they were there, no matter how much I traveled. They wanted to kidnap me, I knew it. There were subtle attempts but they hadn't tried to kill me anymore until today."

"Oh my God, I am going insane..." Seren went to rip out her monitors from her fingers when Chloe pushed her hands away.

"No, stop! I'm telling you the truth!"

"What!?" Seren exclaimed. "You're telling me that the place I have worked for since I was a kid, basically, is filled with liars and murderers!? Stalkers!?" There was absolutely no way to describe what she felt and Chloe was conscious enough of the fact to not be offended that for a split moment, Seren didn't believe her. "I-I have worked there my entire life. I have—"

"I know," Chloe sighed. "You have given so much to...to people who didn't deserve it. And you have no idea how sorry I am—"

"No," Seren gritted her teeth. "This isn't...this isn't happening, no." She shook her head.

"I would have told you but...Fury thought it would be best to keep the circle between just us."

"Fury?" Seren frowned. "He did this?"

"He helped me, Seren," Chloe said before Seren started throwing any accusations around. "He made sure that only he knew the exact locations of my missions. It's why they were always spontaneous and all over the world. He had to keep the moles out my business."

And then something struck Seren's mind, something that she had dismissed because she felt compeltely awful for ever doubting in the first place...

"Do you realize that you've been working here for years and you didn't even know that your Agent Winters has little, almost nothing, to prove that she actually works for S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"That's impossible," Seren said flatly. "I've written reports about Chloe over her time here. In fact, I was the one who brought her to S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place. I've seen her grow up from a teenager into a young woman."

"Yeah? Well there's nothing to show for it."

"Stark knew..." Seren mumbled. Her hands fell one either side of her and gripped the bed. "Stark told me this the first time we met. He told me...he told me that your record had very little to show that...that you worked for SHIELD." She raised her head to see Chloe's guilt-riddened face. "And then I went—" she pointed at herself, "—and got your file out and it was—"

Chloe nodded. "It was filled with all your reports about me." Seren was shell-shocked. "Yeah, I...I knew that would happen. Fury, he...he—"

"He fixed it," Seren said sharp enough to make Chloe wince. "He lied. Oh my God..." She brought her hands up to her hair. "I hate liars and you...you have been lying to me for years?"

"Seren, I didn't want to, I was...I was scared. I'm sorry!" Chloe swallowed hard. "I truly thought that this was the only way to keep you and everyone else safe. It's why I never contacted my parents again, why I kept my visits to my aunt and cousin very short. But I never thought that...that they would try to hurt you."

"What?"

"It was a mistake of targets. Seren, the cyanide poison was meant for me, not you. My chocolates were poisoned, I know they were. They had to be. Cyanide kills humans. You just got lucky you're not entirely human."

"Cyanide poisoning can be reversed if treated on time," Seren recited by memory. "SHIELD is very thorough with training. That's the training I was taking as a frikin teenager. Because that's where my life has been..." She didn't want them but tears were pooling in her eyes. "They were trying to kill you...or kidnap you..."

"It's the tech piece and the Hive Mind," Chloe said quietly, her own eyes glistening with tears. "It's gotta be. I touched something I shouldn't have and the people who owned the tech want it back. There's always been something wrong but we never had the evidence to support it."

"You could have said something," Seren gritted her teeth. "I have always defended S.H.I.E.L.D. from everyone, including my own family! And now they may actually be right!?"

"I'm really sorry Seren—"

Seren raised a finger to stop Chloe. "You have been lying to me for years?" Chloe nodded silently. Seren brought her hands to her forehead, pulling back her hair as she took in a deep breath. "I brought you in...I wanted you to be safe. But instead I brought you into more danger…"

"Seren, it's not your fault," Chloe quickly said. "You are the least culpable party in this. Whatever has happened at S.H.I.E.L.D….you have always been the best of it. You...you're Stardust. You saved my life—"

"Oh, really?"

"Yes!" Chloe exclaimed. "Because if you hadn't found me, those people might have kidnapped me a long time ago. I may not have made it."

Seren stayed quiet. Chloe looked close to crumbling. She looked far younger today, almost like the 17 year old she found in the abandoned building. But she was also furious. She was furious at everything around her.

"I'm sorry, Seren," Chloe sniffed. "I know I shouldn't beg you not to be angry with me because I deserve it. I deserve your anger but you're the only person I have who I can really trust. My family hates me and I can't imagine where I'll be if you end up hating me too!" She got down on her knees in front of Seren and grabbed both her hands. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Seren was gently pulled with Chloe's sobs but she didn't say anything. She was speechless, and yet her mind was spiraling with so many different thoughts and feelings. The whole time she thought she was doing something good for the world, she could have been doing someone's dirty work instead. She gave up so many years of her life — some would say her entire life — and now she comes to learn that it was all for nothing?

"Chloe, get up," she ordered. "First of all, it's a hospital, the floors are disgusting — get up." She shook her hands until it forced Chloe to get back up.

Chloe's entire face was stained with tears. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. You have every right to hate me."

"I don't..." Seren let out a heavy breath. "I don't hate you, Chloe. I can't. But that doesn't mean that I'm happy with you right now. Or anyone else for that matter."

Chloe wiped her tears with the backs of her hands. "You should only be mad at me. Nobody else knew, except for Fury of course."

"And Natasha? What about Steve? I mean, that is why you two were acting so strange before he left."

"Oh God no!" Chloe panicked when she saw new ire flash across Seren's eyes. "Neither of them knew! I just told Steve the truth and that was only because he and Natasha basically cornered me. But I swear that Steve didn't lie to you. He told me that...that I had to tell you. Either I did, or he would. Don't get mad at him because of what I did."

Seren swallowed hard. "He didn't lie?"

"No," Chloe said, quickly bending down in front of Seren again. She took both of Seren's hands in hers. "God, everything is already so wrong, I don't want to ruin anything else for you."

As angry as Seren was, and she was, she couldn't help the heavy feeling that settled in her stomach knowing what she knew now. "That...that's my entire life," she whispered. "My whole life has always been about SHIELD. All the countless arguments with my parents...my mother and my grandmother hate each other because of this. Because of me...because I worked for them..."

Chloe began to shake her head. "N-n-n-no, this isn't on you. It's not even on Atria. Some bad people decided to infiltrate something that was supposed to be good."

"Yeah, but..." Seren's expression began to crack and suddenly the anger that was once there was quickly being replaced with anguish. "Chloe, that's been my life! My—my—!"

Chloe started to hear the monitor beeping and realized Seren's pressure was rising. "Oh God, Seren you have to calm down!"

"I can't!" Seren cried. "SHIELD is a whole lie! You've been — you've been stalked for years, almost killed! Everything I know is a lie!" And then she panicked when she thought about the implications it meant for others. "Oh my God!" Her eyes widened. "My parents! My-my phone! Where's my phone!? I have to tell them what's happening!"

Chloe continued to hear the monitor practically raging at this point. "Seren, I'm begging you to calm down! You're still not completely well—"

"I DON'T CARE!" Seren then looked at her hands and started ripping off any monitors attached to her.

"No! Stop that!" Chloe hurried to put things back on her but she was no match against Seren's strength. Seren would push her hands away every time and rage about her phone and getting to talk with her parents.

Natasha came rushing in with a 'what the hell is going on?' and immediately went to help Chloe put Seren down. "God, Winters, what the hell!?" Natasha couldn't help but blame Chloe just a little bit. "She's supposed to be taking it easy—"

"I know!" Chloe exclaimed, already ridden with guilt about everything else. "But she's—"

"Screw this, and sorry in advance, Seren!" Natasha quit trying and ran out of the room again.

"Get off me! Get off!" Seren continued to yell against Chloe's hands. A few seconds later, her fears returned in full-fledged form as a few nurses came rushing into the room. "N-n-n-n-n-no!" She immediately pulled her hands away from Chloe.

"Wait, wait—" Chloe was shoved to the side by one of the nurses and as she tried moving on them again, Natasha came back inside. "Natasha, what—"

"It's for her own good!" Natasha said, yanking Chloe to her side.

"That's for her own good?" Chloe said incredulously, gesturing towards the chaotic scene of nurses trying to put Seren down.

Seren screamed and thrashed against the nurses, begging for them to leave her alone. One of the nurses managed to inject her with a sedative and little by little, the cries and thrashes slowed. Seren's words slurred and finally, she fell unconscious.

Chloe felt completely awful. As soon as the nurses left, she hurried to Seren's bedside. "I did this...I did this to her...I told her everything..."

"Gave her a crisis," Natasha said, coming up to the foot of the bed. Chloe glared at her. "Don't look at me like that, Winters. She was going to have a whole breakdown and neither you nor I are strong enough to keep her down."

"What are we going to tell Steve when he comes back and he sees this?"

Natasha shrugged. "Exactly what I just said. I'm sure he'd rather have her here then rampaging down the block in her state. Besides, Seren's metabolism runs faster so the sedative won't last as long."

"And if she wakes up in another crisis?"

"Then we'll do the same thing."

Chloe ran a hand from her forehead through her hair. "This isn't how things were supposed to go. What the hell do we do now? I'm supposed to go to SHIELD..."

"No you're not. Not until Steve gets back and we know exactly what's going on. Until then grab a chair and make yourself comfortable." Natasha started making her way out of the room when Chloe called to her.

"What are you going to do?"

"Get a snack," Natasha said, "Maybe some gum," she said before disappearing.

Chloe had no idea what to do so she grabbed the chair in the room and pulled it close to Seren's bedside and sunk down.

~ 0 ~

Lately, Steve felt like he was running faster than ever. He couldn't reach the hospital any sooner and he had done everything to get there as fast as possible. He practically fled SHIELD and to avoid any trackers on him, he abandoned his stealth suit and grabbed some normal clothes. He wanted to appear normal but that was impossible given how he dashed down the corridors. He couldn't help it.

SHIELD was coming after him and no doubt Chloe. And where was Chloe right now? With Seren.

His anxiety calmed for a brief moment when he saw Natasha standing outside Seren's room keeping guard. He gave her a slight nod then stopped at the vending machine just two doors down. He looked down at the choices and...panicked. The USB he'd stuck in there wasn't there anymore. Before he could even think about where it went, he heard footsteps draw behind him followed by the distinct sound of bubblegum popping. He looked up and saw Natasha's reflection on the vending machine. She blew a bright pink bubble with her gum and popped it like nothing.

After everything he'd gone through, everything his friends and girlfriend went through...Steve snapped.

He whirled around and seized Natasha's arm. He dragged her down the end of the hall and shoved her into one of the small break rooms, straight up against the wall. "Where is it!?" He demanded.

Even through all that, Natasha wasn't at all phased. "Safe," she barely uttered when Steve slammed her on the wall again.

"Do better!"

Natasha had never seen him that irate about something, nor that aggressive. "Where'd you get it?" She said curiously. Her mind was working up some plausible reasons for this behavior. "What happened at SHIELD?"

Steve towered over her. "Why would I tell you?" He was well aware that she was studying his new change of clothes.

"Fury gave it to you," she worked it out. "But why?"

"What's on it?"

"I don't know—"

"Stop lying!" Steve snapped through gritted teeth.

"I only act like I know everything, Rogers!"

"I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?" Of course as soon as he asked the question, Steve knew that she didn't.

For a brief moment, Natasha allowed her bewilderment before she reclaimed her coolness. "Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you."

"I'm not gonna ask you again…too many people have been hurt because you all keep lying."

"It's a game, Rogers. We all have to play it in this line of work."

"Not everyone," Steve said, eyeing her until she admitted that the 'game' had not been played by every single employee.

Natasha barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "We get it. You like Soul."

"Natasha, I swear to God—"

"I know who killed Fury." The certainly in Natasha's tone brought Steve to a pause. "So does Winters, she just doesn't know it."

Steve's brows furrowed. "The Ghost?"

Natasha nodded. "Winters told me everything and I realized who she was talking about. Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists, the ones who do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years."

"So he is a ghost. A ghost story," Steve almost rolled his eyes. He needed facts right now, not stories.

"Don't be fooled," Natasha said. "Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff, I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me." Natasha lifted part of her shirt to reveal a scar on the side of her stomach. It couldn't be faked. "Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."

Steve was dead silent. She wasn't a mole. "Yeah..." he stepped back from her, "I bet you look terrible in them now."

Natasha wanted to smile. "Going after him is a dead end. I know, I've tried." She raised the USB for him to take. "Like you said, he's a ghost story."

Steve took the USB from her. "Well, let's find out what the ghost wants. I'm pretty sure it has to involve, at least partly, a scared blonde with an alien tech piece in her head. Stalking her?"

Natasha shrugged. "First step in a long plan."

"Maybe. But I'm not interested in learning what the next step is."

"What happened at SHIELD?" Natasha made a clear point of looking Steve over with his clothes. She heard him sigh. "Not good?"

"Very," Steve said, letting his head hang low. "Chloe can't go back there. I'm going to take her and get out of here before they think to look here."

Natasha raised an eyebrow at him. "What? And leave Seren here?"

"I hate it but I need to keep her safe and out of this."

"I hate to break it to you but Seren know everything and she didn't take it very well..."

Steve looked at Natasha for a moment. "What do you mean...?"

Natasha didn't say anything but her face spoke volumes. Alarmed, Steve bolted from the break room and hurried down the hall to reach Seren's room. He ran inside and found Chloe sitting beside an unconscious Seren in bed.

"What happened!?" He looked at Chloe who quickly stood up. He moved around her to Seren's side, lowering to her level.

"I told her everything," Chloe said behind him. "And she..."

"She had a breakdown," Natasha finished for her.

Steve wasn't surprised by the news. He was almost mad with himself for not being there when it happened to help Seren get through it. He passed a hand through her hair, sighing to himself. "I'm sorry, Seren." It had to be hard finding out the truth about SHIELD.

"We had to sedate her," Natasha explained. "She was freaking out, trying to get out of here."

"And I'm sure the sight of the doctors must have really helped," Steve said, glancing back at the woman with a slight edge in his face.

"We did what we had to," said Natasha while Chloe ducked her head.

"How long has she been out?"

"Couple hours now. If you want to run, we can wake her."

"Run?" Natasha frowned.

Natasha ignored her and told Steve that Seren metabolized sedations quicker. "Waking her up would speed up the process."

"I don't..." Steve rubbed his forehead. He only had two options and neither of them were sitting well with him. He was supposed to help Seren and neither option would be helping her at all.

"If she wakes up and finds out that you ran without her, she'll never forgive you," Natasha said like she'd read the thought off his head. Steve glared at her, but she shrugged and stuck to her stance.

"Wait, running from what? What is going on?" Chloe demanded an answer from either one.

"SHIELD is coming after me because I didn't give Pierce what he wanted," Steve said. "And then I was attacked by Rumlow and his STRIKE crew. They want you too, Chloe. We need to go."

"Oh god..." Chloe pushed down a lump in her throat. "It's started..."

"And if you two run, it's only a matter of time until they reach Seren," Natasha continued to advocate for the unconscious agent. "In her state, they could do so many things to her..."

Steve scowled. Absolutely not. "Natasha, get her some clothes. Chloe, get her things. We don't have a lot of time."

Natasha gave a nod and quickly left the room. Chloe went to Seren's belongings left on a table in the corner of the room. Steve then started taking off the monitors off Seren's hands while gently trying to wake her up.

"C'mon, Seren, just wake up for a little bit, please?" He shook her a bit. "Just a moment, sweetheart, and then I promise you can go back to sleep again." He slid an arm under her neck and another under her legs. "Chloe?"

"Ready!" Chloe rushed to him.

Steve had no choice but to lead the way out with Seren in his arms. They met Natasha halfway down the hallway and then together hurried towards the elevator. Naturally, the sight of them caught various employees' attention.

"Winters, what are you doing?" Natasha muttered as they hurriedly reached the entrance of the hospital. She had already scared off a few employees trying to near them and she was ready to continue it but the fact that Chloe was making time for a text message was a bit over the top.

"Seren may have been frantic about things but she did make a point about her family," Chloe said, briefly meeting Steve's glance. "She wanted to tell them to be careful and I...I think she had a point now. If SHIELD is coming for us, and we have Seren now, what do you think they're going to do to her family in order to get to us?"

Steve didn't have to think too much to know the answer. "Do it. But keep it brief. Let them know that Seren's safe with us." He led them down a small hallway just at the entrance. "And tell Rebeca too. Seren's team might be in danger too." He stopped in front of the women's restroom. "Natasha?"

Natasha had thought just like him and got on it. "Yup. Chloe?"

Chloe quickly sent a brief joint text to Seren's grandmother and parents. She then sent another message to Rebeca and dropped Seren's phone on the phone, stomping on it for good measure. Meanwhile, Steve let Seren's body down between Chloe and Natasha and the two brought her inside the women's restroom for a quick change.

Steve kept looking around for anyone suspicious and thankfully nobody showed up. He was relieved that when the women returned, Seren was semi-conscious. She was blinking in a dazed manner, and tired. He felt awful and that was still an understatement.

"She's not entirely there," Chloe said as Steve helped Seren stay on her feet. He was basically keeping her up by the waist and even then he had to still lift her on their way out of the hospital.

"How'd you get her to wake up in the first place?" He asked curiously.

"Rough..." Seren mumbled the word and leaned her head on his arm. "Natasha..."

Steve sent a look towards Natasha. He thought about asking her what exactly she had done to wake Seren up but he quickly decided that knowing the answer would probably make him feel worse.

"Where exactly are we going now?" Chloe asked once they were on the street.

"We need to figure out what your ghost friend wants," Natasha answered her and ignored Chloe's confused glance.

"You say 'friend' like I had a choice in the matter."

"It's the fact that you weren't killed that worries me," Natasha said and that time, Chloe's head whipped in her direction.

"Uh, thanks?"

"The Winter Soldier murders, so that begs the question as to why you weren't put on the same hit list," Natasha explained. "What do you have that the others didn't?" Chloe didn't need to ponder about it. "And" — Natasha continued before Chloe even opened her mouth — "why was it so special that they didn't just rip it out of you?"

Chloe's eyes widened in horror. Steve didn't blink. Leave it to Natasha to ask the cold hard questions and out loud. He had thought about it too but didn't want to freak Chloe out more than she already was.

A/N:

Poor Seren got the news of a lifetime and it wasn't the good kind :(

On another unrelated note, is anyone else having problems with their email that's linked to their fanfic accounts? It says that my email doesn't accept fanfic messages anymore and I've added it as a contact, I've checked my spam and I still don't get any notifications? It's driving me nuts here

P.S. As always, I have an AO3/Wattpad account under "noblecrescent" and a tumblr account under "saiilorstars" if you'd like to follow :)