"You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?" Steve demanded as they walked into the office.
"I expect an outburst like that from your sister, but not from you, Captain," Fury said as he turned around in his chair. "And I didn't lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours."
"Which you didn't feel obliged to share."
"I'm not obliged to do anything."
"Those hostages could have died, Nick."
"I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn't happen," he sat up and crossed his arms on his desk.
"Soldiers trust each other. That's what makes it an army. Not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns."
"Last time I trusted someone," he stood, "I lost an eye. Look, I didn't want you doing anything you weren't comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything."
"Why would getting information back to you make us uncomfortable?" Annabelle spoke up.
"I didn't know if that was in your skill set," he cocked his head as he looked at her.
"I can't lead a mission when the people I'm leading have missions of their own."
"It's called compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all."
Steve smiled. "Except you."
Fury stood up from where he was leaning against his desk. "You're wrong about me. I do share. I'm nice like that. Follow me." The siblings looked at each other before following after him, stepping into an elevator. "Insight Bay."
"Captain Rogers does not have clearance for Project Insight. Miss Annabelle Rogers does not have clearance for Project Insight," the elevator computer told them.
"Director override. Fury, Nicholas J."
"Confirmed." They all stood in silence as the elevator started to go down.
"You know, they used to play music," Steve spoke up.
"Yeah." Fury chuckled. "My grandfather operated one of these things for forty years. My granddad worked in a nice building. Got good tips. He'd walk home every night, a roll of ones stuffed in his lunch bag. He'd say hi. People would say hi back. Time went on, neighborhood got rougher. He'd say hi. They'd say, 'Keep on stepping.' Granddad got to gripping that lunch bag a little tighter."
"Did he ever get mugged?"
Fury laughed. "Every week, some punk would say, 'What's in the bag?'"
"What'd he do?"
"He'd show 'em. Bunch of crumpled ones and a loaded .22 Magnum." He smiled. "Yeah, Granddad loved people."
"But he didn't trust them," Annabelle finished for him and he nodded, walking over to the other side of the elevator and peering through the glass.
"Yeah, I know," he said as he glanced at Steve's face. "They're a little bit bigger than a .22."
"Just a bit," Annabelle let out with wide eyes as they saw the hangar bay full of three advanced helicarriers along with airplanes and weapons.
"This is Project Insight," Fury told them as he led them through the hangar. "Three next generation helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites."
"Launched from Lemurian Star."
"Once we get them in the air," Fury continued after Steve, "they never need to come down."
"How do they work?" Annabelle asked as she marveled at the technology around her.
"Continuous suborbital flight, courtesy of our new repulsor engines."
"Stark?" they both asked.
"He had a few suggestions once he got an up close look at our old turbines."
"Up close is one way to describe it," she mumbled.
"These new long range precision guns can eliminate one thousand hostiles a minute," he said as they walked onto a platform and looked at the lines of guns on the belly of the helicarrier. "The satellites can read a terrorist's DNA before he steps outside his spider hole. We're gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen."
"Thought the punishment usually came after the crime."
"We can't afford to wait that long," he told him.
"So you would be killing people for something they hadn't even done? Innocent people?"
"Innocent is a very generous word," he told her. "And we wouldn't fire unless we were one hundred percent positive of a threat."
"I think your statement is generous too."
"Who's we?" Steve asked, referring to Fury's first answer.
"After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. For once, we're way ahead of the curve."
Steve nodded. "By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection."
"You know, I read those SSR files. Greatest generation? You guys did some nasty stuff."
"Yeah," Steve stood straighter. "We compromised. Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well."
"Still not sleep so well," Annabelle let out quietly.
"But we did it so that people could be free. This isn't freedom. This is fear."
"SHIELD takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be."
"And what if SHIELD sees the world in a different way than it is?" Annabelle asked.
Fury looked at her. "The world isn't the same as it was when you grew up. It's changing. It's getting damn near past time for you two to get with that program."
"Don't hold your breath," Steve told him before turning and walking away.
"What about you?"
"I think I need to see what I think of the world first. It may be a new world, but in some ways it's still the same."
I know it's not the most exciting chapter, but I still hope you guys enjoyed. Sorry it's late. Life's been kinda crazy.
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For Better or For Worse - Book 3 (The Winter Soldier)
Fanfiction"I need to see what I think of the world first. It may be a new world, but in some ways it's still the same." Annabelle woke up in the twenty first century after spending almost seventy years in ice. Not only is she thrust into a new world, she also...
