Shadow Killer

Four

Third Person Point of View

"GSW. She's lost at least a pint." Maria Hill calls out

"Maybe two." Sam Wilson adds on, looking at Natasha Romanoff with worry etched onto his face, despite meeting the woman less than a few hours ago. There was this unspoken idea that fighting with someone built more of a bond than simply talking. You had to trust the other to have your back.

A doctor comes racing forward, arms outstretched, ready to take her, "let me take her."

"She'll want to see him first." Maria Hill guides the group through a couple of corridors before pulling away a sheer transparent strip curtain to reveal a very much alive Nick Fury lying on a hospital bed.

"About damn time." The four of them walk into the room, followed by the doctor, who encourages Natasha to let him look at her injured shoulder. "Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver and one hell of a headache." Nick fury says, listing off all the damage he had obtained from the HYDRA agents.

"Don't forget your collapsed lung."

"Let's not forget that. Otherwise I'm good."

"They cut you open. Your heart stopped." Natasha said from the other side of the room where the doctor had just taken the bullet out and was now applying pressure to the wound.

"Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress, but it didn't work so great for him, yet we still found a use for it."

"Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?" Steve Rogers steps forward. The man had fallen silent when he first walked into the room, confused as to why Nick Fury was alive when he was there when Fury was shot.

Maria Hill pipes up, answering his question, "any attempt on the Director's life had to look successful."

"Can't kill you if you're already dead," he adds on with a half-hearted chuckle. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."

"Do you know who shot you?" Sam asks, looking at the man in the bed.

"It was The Winter Soldier and The Shadow." Natasha replies with a wince.

"Who now?"

"Most of the intelligence community didn't believe he existed. The ones that did call him The Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years."

"And who's the girl?"

"The Shadow. She's new to the game, but a hell of an assassin. Only been around for a few years, but in all honesty, she's probably worse than him." Everyone raises their eyebrows in shock at Natasha's last statement. "People say The Winter Soldier is a ghost story, but most of the intelligence community know of The Shadow, and they fear her. I heard, a few years after I left the Red Room that a girl was sold to Hydra. If I'm right, then that's her. She has been trained her whole life to be an assassin, it only makes sense."

"What is it with assassins and dumbass names?" Sam asks under his breath, causing Fury to chuckle. "Why is she called The Shadow."

"No one can catch her. Its like trying to catch your own shadow. Its impossible."

"Dude, what in the Peter Pan shit is this." Sam looks away from Natasha to see Steve frowning, deep in thought. "Whats on your mind Rogers?"

"It was him. He looked right at me like he didn't even know me. How is it even possible? It was seventy years ago." Steve says, looking at Fury.

Sam gives a blank look to Natasha, "the Winter Soldier was his best friend from the 1940's; Bucky Barnes." She whispers. Sam's mouth drops as he glances at Steve.