The shadow Hunter

Chapter 40

No words were exchanged in the car. In my mind i pondered things, little hints, the words spoken in the court. I had a sneaking suspicion, and it all at once things dawned on me. My phone flashed with a missed call from Peter. I would have to talk to him at some point but not right now. Finally we arrived at SHIELD head quarters. I had never been here before but it was impressive. A large statue of their symbol sat in the middle of a square of green in front of the large buildings. "This way." Fury stated, getting out of the car and walking towards the building. I looked around in awe as we entered the pristine lobby. "It used to be better, bigger." If this was only half of what it used to be then i would have loved to have seen what it was before. "But when shield collapsed in 2012, we lost funding. I managed to build it back up though." I had heard briefly the story of the collapsing of SHIELD. Of course it had been HYDRA that had bled through the establishment and torn it up from the inside. 

Fury led me through some corridors, up elevators, along more corridors, until finally we arrived at a door with the name 'Nick Fury' on a plaque. Fury opened the door and i stepped in, him following. The office was plain and serious and highly organized. I wandered around looking at everything although there wasn't much to look at. Fury had crossed to his desk, looking for something. "When we first met, you said you knew about me." I said slowly. "Why me? And what did you mean I was important to SHIELD?" I asked, although I think I knew now.

 Instead of answering my questions, Fury said this instead. "You should be proud of yourself, the way you fought in court and the way you fought in Berlin." I furrowed my brows. "I know your mother would be." And just like that, all the puzzle pieces i had been collecting in my head in the car clicked into place. "You knew my mother?" I asked, my face washed with realization. I had recognized Fury's voice when I first heard him because I had heard it before- hushed downstairs as I had lain in bed one night. I recognized his face the first time I saw him because I had caught a glimpse of it in the kitchen when I snuck down the stairs. 'I'll do everything in my power to protect you and Clara' I had heard him say. 'And I miss you Evelyn.'

 Fury looked out the window thoughtfully and nodded. I had questions but i was too shocked to ask. "your mother was a SHIELD agent. One of the best." He walked back around to his desk and picked something off it. A file. "During the late 90s, she spent 3 years investigating Dreykov and the red room." I couldn't think, i couldn't breathe. "She got close, very close, maybe too close to working out what Dreykov was orchestrating and exposing him." 

I remembered the meeting we had had after he found the men who attacked me and Nat. How angry he had got at her when she suggested sending someone to hunt him down. 'Investigating Dreykov is a dangerous thing to do and i will not send another person to do so!' Had he spoken of my mother? Fury passed me a file, i took it but didn't look. "Your mother was a powerful women, she wouldn't let anything interfere with her work, even when she fell in love." Love? With Tony he meant. Had they really been in love? Did they care about each other or had i just been a product of a meaningless night. "Dreykov worked out who she was, he knew she had found out too much." I risked a glance down to the file. I saw a picture, a slightly younger version of the women i had known. I looked away again. "So i helped her out. I set up a safe house for her back in England." Of course that made sense. It had been so far out in the country we never saw anyone.  Fury took a deep breath. "And that's when she told me about you." I stopped staring at the spot on the wall i had been focusing on and i met his eye.

 "She wasn't scared. That was your mother for you, not scared of anything. Much like you i believe." That was wrong. I got scared sometimes. I had been scared today in that court room. "I spent 8 years trying to protect you and your mother. But Dreykov was good." I could see some sadness, some regret in his face, something i had never seen from him before. "He found out where you were." He didn't need to finish the story, i had lived it. "We thought they might have killed you too. A body was found in a river, half a mile from your house. It was too burnt to do a forensic but i knew it was her." They had burnt her and thrown her in a river like she was nothing. Anger raged in me. "But I set up a team, to finish the work your mother had started, to find out what Dreykov was doing and once we worked it out, I knew they had not killed you." The image of my mother's charred body was still swirling around my mind. "An initiate was set up to track you down but we had no information, everything your mother had discovered about Dreykov became null when they discovered she knew"