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Chapter 6 – Pride
"-evere blunt force trauma on her back, multiple rib fractures, a moderate concussion and internal bleeding." Ophelia heard a disembodied voice say as she slowly came back from being knocked out cold for several hours. Her armour in a pile at the foot of her bed.
A croaky groan escaped the bedridden hero's mouth, drawing the attention of the doctor charged with her care and Fury who stood over her.
"What happened?" Ophelia tried to sit up but her back ached in protest. The doctor tried to get her to relax back but she waved off his concern, focusing on the battered SHIELD Director.
"You got your ass kicked Delacour, that's what happened." Fury took a seat next to her hospital bed while the doctor left the room, looking drained from the earlier chaos. "We all got our asses kicked."
"Loki?" She asked, struggling to recall what happened after she got knocked out.
He sighed to himself in exhaustion before pouring a glass of water for Ophelia and himself, his eye fixed on the wall in front of them.
"Gone. And he took the sceptre. We're dead in the air with no clue how to move forward." Fury grimly said, for the first time he lost the edge of intimidation that Ophelia always associated with the hardened spy. She just saw a tired man.
"Coulson's down." Fury uttered, lost in memory of the many years spent with Phil Coulson at his back.
Ophelia never knew the man, in fact her first meeting with him was at that detention level. Both their bodies writhing in anguish as their eyes met in the middle of battle. But his death still left an impression on her.
In his last moments he tried to comfort her with a smile.
Ophelia couldn't think of many people who would show that much sincerity, let alone when faced with the possibility of their imminent death. And now he was gone.
She didn't even get to say thank you.
"He seemed kind." She whispered, having difficulty with finding the right words to say.
"I don't know if you're still up for this Delacour, if you still want to take a risk and fight." Fury rose from his seat, turning his head to look steadily at Ophelia's face and patted his hand on her shoulder, "But good work trying today."
With those parting words, the eye patch wearing spy left the room, leaving a dumbfounded Ophelia in his wake. She never imagined hearing Nick Fury say anything even vaguely resembling praise in any context, let alone to her.
Maybe it really was the end times.
She was broken out of her thoughts by a timid knock on her room door, an abashed Steve Rogers peeking his head through the open door.
"May I come in, Ma'am?" Steve politely asked, his neck slightly reddening in embarrassment.
"Of course, and no need to be so formal Rogers. Just call me Ophelia." She encouraged from the 90-year-old super soldier, waving her hand flippantly.
