I heard the window open as Steve came through the screen, rather loudly. His footsteps were heavy, and I could hear his shield rubbing against his hands as he picked it up. His head peeked around the corner of the wall to his living room, but he relaxed when he saw Fury and me.

"I don't remember giving either of you a key," Steve said.

"You really think we'd need one," I asked.

"My wife kicked me out," Fury said.

"Didn't know you were married," Steve said moving close to the two of us.

"There's a lot of things you don't know about me," Nick replied, leaning back in the chair slightly.

"I know, Nick. That's the problem." Steve turned on a lamp besides us, widening his eyes at our injuries: the dried blood on my lips, Fury's limp arm, the black eyes we had, a large slit on my thigh and more. I put my hands up for Steve to stay silent as Fury turned the lights off. He grabbed his phone and wrote a message for Steve to read. 'Ears everywhere.'

Steve nodded as Fury spoke up again. "I'm sorry to have to do this, but I had no place else to crash."

'S.H.I.E.L.D compromised.'

"Who else knows about your wife?" Steve asked, going along with our little game.

'Us three.'

"Just...my friends." Fury let out a heavy sigh, standing up while I sat.

"Is that what we are?" Steve asked untrustingly.

"That's up to you."

Suddenly, there were three shot wounds in Fury's chest, and he was in the ground.

"Nick!" I exclaimed, limping over to his body and dragging him behind a wall for cover.

"Don't....trust anyone," Fury choked out as Steve looked for the shooter. As Fury passed out, he pressed a flash drive into my hand. I looked at it questioningly, but said nothing keeping it secret from Steve.

"Captain Rogers?" Sharon Carter busted into the apartment, gun at the ready. "Captain, I'm Agent 13 of S.H.I.E.L.D's Special Service."

"Kate?" Steve asked confused.

"I'm assigned to protect you," she explained.

"On whose order?" Steve asked irritated.

"His," she breathed running to Fury's body. "oxtrot is down, he's unresponsive. I need EMTs."

"Do you have a 20 on the shooter?" someone from the other side of the line asked.

"Tell them I'm in pursuit," I said, noticing the shooter outside the window.

"Luna your-" I flickered away to where I last saw the man on the roof of an office building before Steve could finish his sentence. I have made a terrible mistake, I thought as I limp ran after the man.

Remembering my guns, I pulled one out and aimed at the man, quickly pulling the trigger, but he blocked it with his left arm. His metal arm.

The man who attacked me earlier this week was back, and now he was going to die. I starting limp running towards him, but with no more roof left, the man jumped off the building.

I looked over the edge but saw nothing.

~~~~~~

Natasha burst through the doors of the hospital room door and ran up to the window where Steve and I were situated. She watched in horror as the doctors operated in Fury, trying to remove the billets from his system.

"Is he going to make it?" She asked fearfully.

"I don't know," Steve said, lowering his head.

"Tell me about the shooter," Natasha said without taking her eyes off Nick.

"He was fast. Strong. Had a metal arm." Just then, Maria Hill walked in.

"Ballistics?" Natasha asked quickly.

"Three slugs. No rifling and completely untraceable." Maria said in a flat voice.

"Soviet made?" I guessed.

"Yeah."

Suddenly, Fury's heart rate began to drop rapidly, and each of our mouths opened slightly as the doctors brought in a defibrillator.

"He's dropping," I heard a doctor say from the other side of the glass.

"Crash cart coming in," a nurse said.

"Nurse, help me with the gauzes, please. BP is dropping. Defibrillator!" A second doctor called. The charged pads were placed on Fury's chest.

"Don't do this to me, Nick," I heard Natasha mutter in despair.

"Three, two, one. Clear!" The doctor flipped a switch and Fury was given a shock. "Pulse?"

"No pulse," another doctor stated.

"Okay. Charge to two hundred, please. Stand back! Three, two, one. Clear!" The doctor said again. Fury was shocked again. "Give me epinephrine! Pulse?"

"Negative."

"Don't do this to me Nick. Don't do this to me." Natasha's muttering sounded desperate now. I turned my back to the window as the doctors tried once more to revive Fury with no avail.

"What's the time?" A doctor asked.

"1:03 doctor," said the nurse.

"Time of death 1:03 am," a second doctor reported.

I looked down at the flash drive in my hand that Fury had given me. It was somewhat concealed by the jacket I was wearing that Steve had so kindly given me, but I could still see the silvery paint on it, masking the body of the secret contained in ones and zeros in the small plug.

~~~~~~

I stood against a wall with Steve, looking down at the floor. Natasha was in the room in front of us looking at Fury's dead body with despair. Maria walked over to me and quietly said,

"We need to take him." I nodded and walked towards Natasha.

"Nat." Natasha didn't respond, and instead touched Nick's head with a loving tenderness before walking out of the room. "Natasha!" I followed after her, Steve hot on my heels.

"What was Fury doing in your apartment?" Natasha asked to Steve behind me.

"I don't know," Steve said obviously lying.

"Captain, Luna, they want you back at S.H.I.E.L.D," Rumlow said appearing behind us.

"Hang on," we said in unison.

"They want you now," Rumlow said, insisting.

"Okay," we both said again with annoyance.

"You're a terrible liar," Natasha said with a smirk before walking away. I sighed and looked once more at the flash drive in my hand, knowing I had to do something with it. Spotting an open vending machine besides me, I slipped it in before running over to Steve who was waiting with Rumlow for me.

"Lets go," I muttered.

"Yeah. STRIKE team, move out!" Rumlow ordered.

~~~~~~

"Ah, Captain. Agent Luna. I'm Alexander Pierce."

"Sir, it's an honor," Steve said shaking the old mans hand.

"The honors mine. My father served in the 101st," Pierce said, showing us into his office. He picked up an old photo and handed it to us. "That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met. When I was at 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," Pierce said with utmost fondness.

"So you gave him a promotion," I worked out, rather quickly.

"I've never had any cause to regret it.

Captain, why was Nick in you apartment last night?" Pierce asked,directing the conversation a bit south.

"I don't know." He was so obviously lying.

"Agent Luna, why were you and Nick Fury in Captain Rogers apartment last night?"

"I don't know," I said convincingly. Lying has been my specialty since I was 5.

"Captain Rogers, did you know it was bugged?" Pierce asked.

"I did, because Nick told me," Steve replied with no emotion.

"Did he tell you he was the one who bugged it?" Pierce asked, arching his eyebrows. Steve seemed a bit shocked at the information he was receiving, and didn't respond. "I want to show you something," Pierce said, taking a remote off the table in his office and clicking a button. It was footage of Batroc being interrogated.

"Who hired you, Batroc," a man off camera asked.

"Is this live,' I questioned.

"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," Steve responded confused.

"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," Pierce explained.

"Are we supposed to know who that is," I asked.

"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." I was beginning to see where Pierce was going with this.

"Are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?" I asked confused.

"Well 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," Pierce stated simply.

"If you really knew Nick Fury, you'd know that's not true," Steve said crossing his arms.

"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." Pierce hesitated a moment before going on. "Captain, Agent Luna, you were the last ones 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?" Steve squinted his eyes and said,

"He told me no to try anybody."

"I wonder if that included him," Pierce said with a raise of his eyes brows.

"I'm sorry," I said covering for Steve's silence. "Those were his last words, now if you'll excuse us." I grabbed Steve by the hand, pulling his shield along with me and led him out of the room, handing the disc to spangles after the door had closed. We walked to the elevator in silence and got in, instructing the computer on where to stop.

"Operations control," Steve said.

"Garage," I added in after him.

Just before the doors could close, Rumlow and two other STRIKE agents got in the elevator with us.

"All STRIKE personal on site," Rumlow instructed to the two men.

"Yes sir," the first one said.

"Understood," the second one said.

"Forensics," Rumlow commanded.

"Confirmed."

The elevator began to move downwards as Rumlow broke he silence.

"Cap, Agent."

"Rumlow," we said in unison.

"Evidence response found some fibers on the roof they want us to see. You want me to get the tac-team ready," he asked after a moment of silence.

"No, let's wait and see what it is first," Steve instructed.

"Right."

There was tension in the air and I could sense something was off. My head began to hurt and my eyes flickered to the only movement in the elevator car, which was an agent grasping and realizing his gun repeatedly. The glass elevator stopped moving and he doors opened to reveal a few S.H.I.E.L.D agents and a few STRIKE agents. Two men entered the elevator and asked for the administrations level as the doors closed and we began moving again. My head still hurt, and now the movement was coming from a black S.H.I.E.L.D agent that had recently entered the elevator. Sweat trickled from his temples to his jaw with little beads dotting his forehead.

The elevator stopped once more, and one more STRIKE agent entered, pushing his way to the back of the lift.

Something was going to happen, and I knew Steve felt it too. We were surrounded by S.H.I.E.L.D and STRIKE agents, and all of them were nervous. I could sense it.

"Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?"