Fire and Ice

•16•

[Warning: Mentions of death.]

"I need an ambulance," Sharon's saying into the phone.

Kate crouches down, hand on Fury's shoulder. "Fury?"

"Kate..." he says, voice barely a whisper. She finds his wounds, trying to inspect them, to see what she should do. She's not this kind of doctor, but she'll do her best.

Footsteps sound at the door, but instead of paramedics, it's Steve, breathless. "I lost the shooter."

"Emergency services are on their way. I'm calling Hill," Sharon says, helping Kate help Fury. "You should call Natasha."

Kate ignores the blood on her hands, grabbing her phone, calling Nat, and holding to it her ear with her shoulder — the same as Sharon. Fury's eyes slip closed, but, mercifully, he's still breathing.

"Hey-"

"Foxtrot has been shot."

Nat sucks in a breath. "Where are you?"

"I'm with him, we're at Eaglefoot's. Sparrow called emergency services."

"I'll meet them there. Go."

The ambulance arrives minutes later, EMTs doing what they can before quickly loading Fury onto a stretcher. Kate and Steve jump in the back of the ambulance while Sharon rushes to the Triskelion.

The EMTs' voices start to blur together as the siren blares and their hands move too fast for Kate to concentrate. Steve wraps an arm around her during the short ride, and then they follow the stretcher out.

The hospital smell hits Kate instantly, but she's so frantic she ignores it, running to keep up with the stretcher. Doctors arrive, and the EMTs describe his injuries. When they make it to double doors at the end of the hall, a nurse stops and holds his hand out. "Miss, you need to wait outside."

"No-!" she protests, trying to get past him, but then someone grabs her arms, and the nurse rushes off, following the stretcher. Kate spins around, looking in Steve's pitiful eyes. Maria Hill rushes past, right into where Kate couldn't go, only glancing at them apologetically. Other agents follow her. None of them are Nat.

Within minutes, Fury is in the operating room. They can see him through an observation window, and they stand there, watching and waiting. The stillness of it, the having nothing to do, forces Kate to stop, to not see everything as a frantic, panicked blur. Anxiety sets in, making itself at home with the slow passage of time.

The door to their right opens, and Nat stops on Steve's right. "Is he gonna make it?"

"I don't know."

Kate touches her hands to the cool glass. Blood has dried to her fingers. "Of course he will. It's Fury." He's always alright. Always. He'll come out of this.

"Tell me about the shooter," Nat suddenly says. Kate's eyes are locked, watching the doctors and nurses work, but she takes in nothing, listening to Steve and Nat.

"He's fast. Strong. Had a metal arm."

Hill walks over, standing on Kate's left. Nat asks, "Ballistics?"

"Three slugs, no rifling. Completely untraceable," Hill replies.

"Soviet-made."

Hill sounds surprised. "Yeah."

In the operating room, something goes wrong. The beeping intensifies, there's an alarm. "He's in V-tach."

"Crash cart coming in."

The doctor speaks up. "Nurse, help me with the drape."

"BP is dropping."

"Defibrillator! I want you to charge him at one hundred."