Walking in the Wind // Avengers

Hideout

•••

"Thank god you guys are here," Lexie ran up to greet the small group as they arrived to the hideout. She gave Hill and Steve short hugs before looking at Natasha. "What happened to you? You look terrible."

"Well, being shot does that to ya'," Natasha chuckled weakly as Lexie gave her a gentle hug.

"Come on inside, he's waiting for you." The group started walking inside. "Who are you?" she asked the stranger.

"Sam Wilson," he replied and held out his hand. "Who are you, kid?"

"Lexie," she answered simply. 

"GSW," Hill called to the man running towards them. "She's lost at least a pint."

"Maybe two," Sam added.

"Let me take her," the man said.

"She'll want to see him first," Hill said.

Hill and Lexie led the three confused adults to the area Fury was resting in. They stopped at the door in shock.

"About damn time," Fury said. "Williams was about to bounce off the walls waiting for you to show up."

•••

"Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, and one hell of a headache," Fury was listing of everything wrong with him, what was physically wrong with him at least, as the others stood by, or sat in Natashas case, and listened. 

"Don't forget your collapsed lung," the man who was fixing Natashas shoulder reminded him.

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

"They cut you open," Natasha said. "Your heart stopped."

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

"Why all the secrecy?" Steve asked. "Why not just tell us?"

"Any attempt on the Director's life had to look successful," Hill said. "Not even Williams knew he was gonna wake up again.

"Yeah, that was a bit of a surprise," Lexie said lightly.

"Can't kill you if you're already dead," Fury said. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."

•••

The group sat gathered around a table, figuring out what was going on. "This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize," Fury said looking at a picture of Pierce. "He said piece wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility. See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

"We have to stop the launch," Natasha stated.

"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore." He opened a briefcase containing three cards.

"What's that?" Sam asked.

"Once the helicarriers reach 3,000 feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized," Hill said showing them her computer screen. 

"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting cards with our own," Fury explained. 

"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remain operational, a whole lot of people are gonna die."

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA. We have to get past them, insert these server blades. And maybe, just maybe we can salvage what's left..."

"We're not salvaging anything," Steve interrupted loudly. "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick. We're taking down S.H.I.E.L.D."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. had nothing to do with this."

"You gave me this mission. This is how it ends. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been compromised. You said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."

"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed."

"How many paid the price before you did?" 

This made Lexie think of her parents. They'd been killed by HYDRA. Had the people who killed her parents been in some way or another in control of her all these years. She always thought S.H.I.E.L.D. was better than HYDRA, and she still thought that, but how could no one have noticed what was going on. The thought of HYDRA having any form of control over her made her shudder.

"Look I didn't know about Barnes," Fury said, speaking of Steves best friend from the 40's who was now a metal-armed assassin trying to kill them all.

"Even if you had, would you have told me?" Steve asked. "Or would you have compartmentalized that, too? S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA, it all goes."

"He's right," Hill said softly. Fury looked to Lexie who nodded sadly as well, then to Natasha who just leaned back, but didn't speak up to disagree. He then looked at Sam.

"Don't look at me," Sam said. "I do what he does, just slower."

"Well...." Fury sighed. "It looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain."

•••

The next two chapters will be the fight. It makes most sense to me to divide it into two chapters because of Lexies involvement.

Anyway, I saw Black Widow last week, forgot to add that to the last chapter. It was incredible and I really recommend watching it if you haven't. And I'm honestly so proud of Florence, I've been a fan of hers for a few years now and she did an amazing job, Yelena is now one of my favorite MCU characters.

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