｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆
CHAPTER THREE— DON'T TRUST ANYONE

          When you're an immortal creature, you have to deal with everyone dying around you all the time. Even though Hope hadn't triggered her vampire side yet, she knew what was going to happen considering that it had been already occurring through most of her life. She just hadn't expected it to be so soon.

It had started off as an okay day. After Hope and Steve had been told about Project Insight, the two went their separate ways. Hope met up with Lizzie, who had only had morning classes, and spent the day de-stressing by shopping and just hanging out. Then they went back to the apartment and Hope started doing some chores.

Lizzie hated any sort of chore-like work. Hope learned this back when she went to the Salvatore Boarding School when Lizzie started a fight with the Mystic Falls football team after a game which made all of them have to clean up around Mystic Falls as a community service punishment. Lizzie complained the entire time despite being the one that got them into the situation in the first place.

Hope had taken their clothes down to the laundry room and put them in the wash, reading a copy of The Scarlett Letter that her uncle Elijah had gotten as a gift from Hawthorne himself back in the day, and moved the clothes to the drier before she continued to read.

Hope had heard Steve's footsteps quite a bit before he even arrived. She had also already been on high alert due to paranoia so she noticed him coming right away.

"You know, for a super-soldier, you're not very sneaky" Hope teased as Steve finally entered the washer room. Nobody else was in there so she could talk freely without worrying about disturbing anyone or having to sensor herself.

"Wasn't trying to be" Steve corrected, the hint of playfulness in his blue eyes washed away into a somber look. "What are you going to do?" The 'about SHIELD' part wasn't spoken but was understood by both.

The two were at a loss for what to do. More so Hope than Steve considering that she had been apart of SHIELD since she was fifteen years old. Hope wished she could just ignore all these questionable actions and continue being a good little agent, but the Mikaelson and Labonair inside of her refused to do so.

"Both of our contracts with SHIELD end at the end of this month, they've already constructed new ones... but I don't know if I'm gonna sign" She admitted hesitantly.

"I don't think I will" Steve also admitted, though Hope had already guessed that. She would've been shocked if he had chosen to stay with SHIELD.

"What do you want to do then?" Hope asked the same question that his friend Sam also asked earlier that day. "I'm not sure yet" The drier that Hope was using beeped in an indication that it was done.

"What about you? What'll you do if you don't stay with SHIELD?" Steve posed the question that Hope had been pondering silently in her mind all day. Steve went to help Hope get and fold her laundry(luckily it was just the new clothes they had bought and nothing too embarrassing) as they continued to talk.

"Move to New York and spend time with Tony and Bruce" A smile crept onto her lips as she thought of the two who dubbed themselves, 'the science bros'. "Tony reminds me all the time that I can stay there as long as I want—" She met Steve's gaze.

"You know, he has rooms for you and the others if you ever need somewhere to crash. The others use them once in a while whenever they need someone to stay for a bit, I'm pretty certain that the offers open for you too" She reminded him, not wanting Steve to feel like he was stuck with SHIELD forever.

"I'll keep that in mind" Steve smile made Hope do the same. The two continued to chat, Steve accompanied her up to her apartment since they were only a few doors down.

Once they got on their floor, however, they both could hear music coming from Steve's apartment with their enhanced hearing. Hope shot Steve a confused look.

"Please tell me you left your music on this morning" Steve shook his head. They both tensed at the thought of someone breaking into Steve's apartment.

"You got a plan?" Hope asked him, wondering what was going on in Captain America's mind. "Enter through the balcony? My shield's closer to it than the front door" The apartments on their side had balconies that weren't too far apart. Due to what Lizzie referred to as their 'inhuman parkour skills', they could easily get to the other's balconies.

Hope unlocked her own door with one hand while holding her laundry basket in the other. The two walked into the apartment to find Lizzie on her laptop.

"Where the hell have you—" Lizzie's slight panic stopped when she saw that Steve was with Hope. "Oh" That explained it, Hope had taken a bit longer in the laundry room because she ran into Steve.

"Someone broke into Steve's apartment, going through the balcony door" Hope quickly explained, setting the laundry basket down before moving to get to their balcony quickly.

Steve waved and smiled politely at Lizzie before trailing behind Hope in an almost adorable way. "He's a puppy, a fucking golden retriever" Lizzie murmured to herself before continuing to chat online with her sister, not even bothered by the fact that someone broke into Captain America's home.

The two agents easily maneuvered over to Steve's balcony as quietly as they could. Hope mumbled a quick and simple spell that made it the balcony door open quietly.

Steve stepped in first, grabbing his shield and firmly grasping it in his right hand. Hope shut the door with magic again once they were inside.

The two inched their way towards the main living area where the music was coming from, the potent smell of blood made her nose scrunch up.

The two peered out from the corner, slightly relaxing their shoulders when they saw that it was Fury who had snuck into Steve's apartment. He was slouched in the chair casually. The two stayed slightly hidden behind the wall, giving each other a look of confusion on what the hell he was doing there.

"I don't remember giving you a key" Steve commented to Fury. Fury grunted as he shifted his posture. "You really think I'd need one?" Fury leaned forward a bit in the chair. "My wife kicked me out" Fury kept a straight face but the smell told Hope that he was injured and, for some reason, came to Steve for help.

"Didn't know you were married, sir" Hope spoke up, giving Fury a knowing look that could only be partially made out in the darkness of the apartment.

"A lot of things you two don't about me" Fury copied the same look. "I know, Nick. That's the problem" Steve turned on the light to see Fury's injuries.

The Director put his hand up in motion for them to stop what they're doing and be silent before he shut the light back off and opened his phone and turned it to face the two. The words "ears everywhere" was printed on his note-taking application.

The two agents tensed up again, both pairs of blue eyes darted around the room quickly to look for any signs of this being true. Neither saw anything but Hope trusted Fury on this and Steve didn't want to risk it in case it was true.

"I'm sorry to have to do this, but I had no place else to crash" Fury turned his phone back around and scrolled down on his note app before facing it back towards the two. The words, "SHIELD compromised" sent ripples of disbelief and hurt through the two.

Fury didn't trust most people, it was a bit of a shock that he was trusting both of them with this. Hope knew that Fury had planned to get both of them in that apartment because they were currently the only two people he could trust inside of SHIELD besides Natasha(who was probably doing whatever she did on her off time), Clint(who was on family leave), Maria Hill (who was somewhere else at the moment).

"Who else knows about your wife?" Steve asked, keeping up with the charade though hunting at the true meaning of his words. "You two and me" Fury's phone displayed as he moved up and out of the chair, grunting slightly in pain as he did so.

"Just...my friends" He walked up closer to them, noticing how Steve looked hesitant to believe him while Hope was stoic with a hint of hurt in her blue eyes.

"Is that what we are?" Steve inquired, feeling unsettled by the way Fury was inching closer to them. "That's up to you" Before anything else could be said, gunshots echoed loudly in the room as they came through the walls and entered directly into Fury.

At the sound of the gunshots, Hope immediately grabbed Steve and made him duck down with her. The cloud of debris from the wall made it hard to see. Hope and Steve were able to see Fury's legs and instantly dragged his half-dead body over to the kitchen area and away from the window.

Hope, after making sure he was in the safe area with Steve, turned to run after the guy but was stopped when a hand wearily reached out and held her own hand. She turned back to see that Fury had done so, an almost somber yet comforting look in his eye as he did so. His hold on her hand loosened as a tiny object, a flash drive, was dropped into her hand.

"Don't...trust anyone" The 'in SHIELD or Government" part was implied but not said as the man's breathing slowed down rapidly. The flash drive was immediately placed into her pocket, stuck inside with a quick and secure spell so it wouldn't fall out.

Hope then immediately started to ramble off any healing spells she could think of, memories of what happened to Coulson flashing in her mind, but was stopped when the door was broken down. Steve immediately got into a defensive stance, peering over to the living room again where the entrance was right near.

"Captain Rogers? Agent Kenner?" Hope knew she couldn't blow her cover, not after Fury worked so hard to create a new life for her, so she stopped and instead stood up from her kneeling position and moved away as 'Kate' entered the room with a gun in her hand, the agent that Fury had assigned to look after the two.

"Captain, I'm Agent 13 of SHIELD Special Service" She quickly introduced herself. "Kate?" Steve managed to sputter out, feeling even more betrayed when the nurse across the hall from him turned out to be a SHIELD agent as well.

"I'm assigned to protect you both" She stated, deciding to make her way to the kitchen when she spotted the familiar auburn hair of the fellow agent. "On whose order?" 'Kate' finally got to the kitchen, a look of shock filling her when she saw her boss on the ground, dying.

"His", Hope looked to Steve who was still in shock like her. "She's got this, she's a good agent. I see the shooter, he's leaving now. Ready?" Steve looked back at Fury and the agent before nodding. They both knew that Lizzie would be over in a bit and would supervise whatever was happening while they were gone.

The two Avengers started their pursuit of the unknown shooter. While Steve jumped through his window and was able to crash into the window of the office on the next building, Hope went the same way as the shooter by jumping from the roofs.

Hope's wolf instincts called out to her to phase and tear this person apart with her teeth but Hope knew better than to accidentally out herself to the shooter or any of the cameras around the area, she'd just have to rely on her magic for this.

"Invisique" She muttered as she ran to catch up with the shooter, thinking it would give her an advantage. She quickly noticed that she was wrong and that the shooter could still hear her(super-hearing, she assumed) as she got closer to them, about to attack, when they somehow maneuvered around her invisible form. The only other human who was able to still hear her when she was invisible was Steve, that's it, so she was extremely frustrated.

"Fine" She uncloaked herself, realizing that it was a waste of time. The person continued to leap over the rooftops of the buildings with an ease that reminded her of Natasha, a highly trained assassin.

"Corporis impetu!" Hope was taken back when nothing happened to the shooter. They turned around to face her for a split second with a deadly glare before continuing their journey to hop over building rooftops.

Hope wouldn't have noticed if she wasn't looking for it, but there was a magical aura around the shooter. A temporary spell that blocks witches' magic. It wasn't cast by the shooter, she could tell that he wasn't a witch, but someone else did.

"Are you kidding me" She hissed lowly, focusing now on catching up with the shooter instead of attacking. She hated the fact that they were able to block her magic.

Hope finally managed to catch up with them on the same rooftop that Steve finally showed up at. Hope stopped chasing after the shooter and chose to stay at Steve's side.

If the shooter couldn't be directly attacked by magic, she could indirectly have him affected by magic. Remembering the spell her father taught her to create a fire circle around someone, she smirked slightly as she cleared her mind quickly from anything other than that true intention.

While Steve through his shield at the person, Hope started to target them with the nonverbal spell. Her fingertips had tiny flames dancing on it as the spell started to happen.

Hope's concentration broke, however, when the shooter caught the shield without even looking, intending to jump off the building, and turned around to face them.

It appeared to be a male with dark, long hair. He had a mask over his mouth and some sort of dark paint or makeup surrounding his eyes as if it were a mask. But the biggest shocker was his arm that caught the shield, it was a silver-colored metal arm with a red star on his shoulder.

Hope realizes that the shooter was going to throw the shield at them seconds before he did. "Projectium deflecto" She voiced loudly, glaring at the shield that was heading right towards them at a damaging speed.

The shield fell to the ground in the middle of them and the man. They had looked away for just a moment, looking at the shield and each other to make sure they were okay and looked back to see that the man with the metal arm was gone.

Hope rushed over to the edge of the building where he had been, Steve following right behind her, and looked down and around to try and spot the man. But he wasn't there, he had disappeared. The man who shot Fury was gone.