Unexpected

Bonus Chapter: The Ones Left Behind

Steve had shoved the envelopes with his and Natasha's names written out in Penny's handwriting that had been displayed on his table in his back pocket when he'd noticed that he wasn't alone in his apartment. He knew for a fact that he hadn't left one of his records playing. He knew something was up. He just hadn't been expecting Fury to be sitting there in the dark, nor was he expecting to find that his apartment was bugged and that Fury had been in some sort of an accident.

Then the shot had been fired. Fury was hit. The neighboring nurse, a lady he'd thought to be really rather cute, rushed into his apartment calling herself Agent 13. She'd been an agent... apparently S.H.I.E.LD. had never truly trusted him, thought that he needed a babysitter. His privacy and his neighbor had been a lie.

Steve had sprinted off in pursuit of the shooter, a mysterious man in a mask that covered his lower face and, more importantly, an arm made of metal. The shooter caught Steve's shield when he threw it, and then disappeared into the night, his task done.

Fury was rushed to the hospital, going straight in for an emergency surgery. Steve had been following just behind the ambulance on his motorcycle and now as the procedure started he stood on the other side of the glass of the operation theatre. Nurses and doctors hurriedly tried to save the S.H.I.E.L.D. director's life, trying to pluck out the bullets from Fury's wounds and sew up what had been damaged. It wasn't looking too good though. Steve leaned on the ledge in front of the two-way window, standing perfectly still until Natasha burst into the room.

Steve knew how much Fry meant to Natasha. She viewed S.H.I.E.LD. as a major part of her personal redemption and she admired and respected and looked up to Fury. Her eyes latched onto Fury's unconscious body on the table as she approached the glass, coming to stand beside Rogers.

Maria strode into the room silently coming up on Natasha's other side, watching her boss.

Suddenly the energy in the surgery ramped up. Voices raised, people ran about. They were losing him; the heartbeat monitor's beeping flat-lining into one continuous note. The surgeons and nurses tried to revive him.

"Don't do this to me, Nick." Nat muttered under her quickening breath. She wanted to do something to save him, anything, but there was nothing she could do besides watch and repeatedly mouthing her words like a mantra, asking, no... pleading for Fury to come back.

In the end he didn't. One of the doctors took note of Nicholas J. Fury's time of death. Steve turned away first, unable to watch the proceedings anymore. He went out into the hall, grasping the USB stick that Fury had given to him before the very end. What was on this device that was so important that a man... that Fury had to die? Who wanted it? Maria Hill followed Steve soon after, leaving the dim room on the other side of the surgery wiping at her eyes as her shoes clacked down the hallway, leaving only Natasha to watch as the doctors started their preparations for the newly deceased director.

Nat stayed by Fury's side, standing over his body that was covered in a white sheet a while later. Steve leaned against the wall of the room, watching the redheaded assassin in her grief. It was a new side of her that he wasn't familiar with.

"I need to take him." Maria said, swallowing, refusing to look directly at Fury it seemed.

Steve stepped forward, speaking lowly and carefully to Nat, like one would to a cornered wild cat. "Natasha."

She placed her hand on Fury's forehead, noting the chill that was already seeping into his skin. No matter how she wanted it to be, it seemed like there was no lie here. She'd thought through every possibility that she could, but she just couldn't figure out a way that Fury could be alive. Yet... she couldn't believe he was gone. Her disbelief and grief were mixed with anger. She spun around and strode out of the room like a woman on a mission, her brow and expression set darkly.