Avengers: New Blood (Peter Parker)/ A.M

46. A Favour

２００７

Nick Fury was in his office at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters in New York.

He stared at the file he was holding with a regretful and frustrated expression all over his features.

He had been staring at it for a long time, trying to comprehend the harsh reality that two of his best agents had been killed in action, just a few days ago.

John Hill and his wife Ashley Hill, née Brown, had been working for S.H.I.E.L.D. for ten years before their demise. That was how long Fury knew them, how long they had been colleagues and friends.

They had always been two of the most promising agents. From the age of twenty two when they joined S.H.I.E.L.D. until the very end, they had always been loyal and committed to the cause and that was what made them stand out in Fury's eyes from the start.

He wasn't the only one that took their deaths that hard. John had a younger sister, another one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s greatest agents, Maria who was crushed by John and Ashley's passing. Moreover, Phil Coulson, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff had all worked closely with the two, which only made it all the harder to them too.

Fury kept on staring at the file. His eyes kept on moving back and forth between John and Ashley's names and the bold red letters across their file that formed the word '𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥'.

He sighed heavily and threw the file in one of his office's drawers, avoiding taking a look at the most heartbreaking of their personal data. That was the fact that John and Ashley had a young daughter who was only six years old at the time being.

The little girl, whose name was Andria, had been adopted by Maria and had just moved from her old house in Brooklyn to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters that would become her new home.

As expected, Fury hadn't been fond of the idea of a six-year-old running around his headquarters, but given the circumstances and the fact that the girl was John and Ashley's daughter and Maria's niece, he had made an exception.

Maria had stayed with Andria in Brooklyn for a couple of days after John and Ashley's deaths, but now she had finally brought Andria to the headquarters.

Fury had asked one of his most trusted men, Phil Coulson, to let him know when the kid would settle down in her room, which had previously been another office, but had now been turned into a bedroom exclusively for her.

He wanted to meet her and talk to her. He didn't know what he was going to say, but he figured that eventually he would have to say something, so the sooner the better.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door and Phil Coulson entered with a gloomy expression.

"She's here," he said and Fury nodded and got up, ready to go talk to Andria for the first time.

Getting to the hallway her room was at, Fury came face-to-face with Maria who had just exited her niece's bedroom.

"She's inside. Just... try to be gentle," Maria mumbled and Nick reassured her, before she left.

He got to the door and was about to knock, before he paused, contemplating how he should start.

With one last sigh, he finally knocked and waited for a bit, but getting no answer, he just slightly opened the door and took a look inside.

The room was small. Just a wardrobe, a small desk and a bed on top of which sat the kid. She was barely even noticeable. Being curled up in the bed's corner, made her look even smaller than she already was.

As Fury got inside the room, she didn't even turn to look at him. She just stayed still, hugging her knees, as her dark brown hair fell to her shoulders gracefully, while her eyes were staring at the ground so intensely, he could not understand what colour they were.