Baby Barton

Chapter 41 Chloe Barton

The tension in the room is thick and dense, Steves breathing is fast and deep. You study his face, trying to read his emotions, but for once he is keeping his cards close to his chest, sweat marks are becoming visible on his white t-shirt, being the only give away.
Fury groans on the sofa, as he shuffles again. Without a though you slide a cushion under his elbow to take the strain off his arm as he clutches his ribs, he nods thankfully at you, Steve grabs your arm pulling you back protectively.
"Who else knows about your wife?" Steve asks cautiously,
Fury struggles to stand, but he powers through and manages to take to his feet, he holds out his cell again, "Just my friends." He nods at you and Steve both, flashing you a little smile through the pain. You feel sorry for him, he is wounded yet still managing to maintain his commanding presence.
Your mind goes a mile a minute, as you try to come up with the right question. The information filtering through your brain as quickly as you can process it.
"What happens now?" Simple, the only thing you can come up with. Looking at Steves face, he is concentrating, strategising.
Fury stumbles, tired and weak you both lunge forward to grab him before he falls to the ground.
Anxiety builds up inside you, you begin to grind your teeth, Steve flashes you a worrisome look, mouthing 'are you okay?', you give him a simple nod. At this point is anyone okay?
Steve tilts Fury's head to the side, screwing his face up at the sight of a wide gash seeping blood, "you need to see a doctor, you are badly injured."
Fury's head whips to the side eye glaring at you, "NO." He grits through his teeth.
The way he glared at you and not Steve gives you the impression that he trusts you more, you look back at him, adjusting his patch that has slipped slightly. He thanks you with a nod, squeezing your hand tightly. He's frightened, but too stubborn to let it be known.
"I'll patch you up here." You give his hand a small squeeze in return, as though Steve preempted this, he hands you a damp towel and you wipe the blood away, cleaning his head wound.  Looks pretty superficial to you, but you're no doctor. You lift his shirt, exposing his large muscles, its difficult to see the bruising on his rich dark skin, especially in such dim light, pressingly lightly on his ribs you can feel the fractures, you shiver as feeling the bones and knowing they are broken makes you nauseous.
Head wound is superficial and everyone knows nothing can be done for broken ribs unless one has punctured his lung, which you don't think he has, his breath sounds are a little ragged but not shallow. Fuck. You. Are. Not. A. Doctor.
You look up at Steve, his blue eyes wide with information, almost like he could read your mind he helps you lift Fury up, "I think he should lay on your bed Steve," Steve nods. He has been annoyingly quiet the last while, "Steve!" You shout as you begin to raise Fury off the floor.  "I'm thinking," replying bluntly, giving you a little pat on the back of the hand.
"Well fucking think out loud! You're pissing me off." You snap back.
Fury's eyes flit between your mini domestic argument, "whose having a lovers tiff now?" He laughs weakly.
Steves brows furrow with irritation, but you smile at him.
"Not the time Nick, Steves got his serious pants on now." Fury looks at you like you just shit in his dinner,
"Nick?" He scowls.
"Don't look at me like that, I just felt your side boob. I get to call you Nick, okay?"
He laughs, which you take as a yes.
Steve shakes his head, glaring at you again. If looks could fucking kill, you'd be six feet under by now.
You wink at him, and his grimace disappears instantly, and the softest smile appears from the corner of his perfect mouth.
Fury is able to stand on his own, regaining a iota of strength. He turns to Steve assertively, ready to give orders "Captain, you need to..."  the three of you fall to the floor, Steves shield in front of your body. You never realised how huge it is, it completely covers you. Your ears ring from the sound of gun shots, heart pounding and eyes stinging with the debris floating around the apartment. 
Fury lies on the deck with three colossal holes in his chest. Fuck.
Unable to think clearly your instincts take over, and you commando crawl to him, sliding your way along the floor. Putting your head to his chest you listen for a moment, he's barely breathing.
BANG!
Another shot is fired skimming right over your head. Steve grabs you as you hold on to Fury, dragging you both into the kitchen area, to keep you away from any visibility.
You sit up trying to put pressure on Fury's wounds. 
Tears building in the back of your eyes, your heart isn't pounding any more, or maybe it's going so fast you cant feel it.
Another bullet whizzes passed your face, missing you by less than a millimetre, "stay down!!" Steve covers you both with his shield.
Reaching for dish cloths you try to plug Fury's wounds, this is bad. Really, really bad.
As you push one deep into his chest, he groans in pain. You wish you didn't have to do this. Your hand shakes uncontrollably, all you can think is he needs drugs, you need drugs, he needs drugs but you REALLY need a hit right about now.
"Steve, we are sitting ducks here," you cry out, trying to control the fear in your voice, completely failing to do so.
The dust of the gunshots settles, and everything is eerily quiet and unsettlingly calm.
A groan comes from the kitchen floor, Fury reaches out his hand towards Steve, a small silver USB device peeks out as he slips it into Steves hand. "Don't. Trust. Anyone." He stresses the word 'anyone', great. Fucking great.
He falls unconscious, you slap his face trying to rouse him, unsuccessfully. Steve stares at the device in his hand before tucking it inside his jacket.
Whatever is on that device must be worth dying for.
Fucking marvellous, thank you so much Nicholas for passing the baton of burden to us.
Before you can get another minute to think you hear rustling outside the door, and the familiar sound of fucking Agent Sharon Carter, as if this night couldn't get any worse, she has to stick her nose in. She kicks down the door, gun pointed readily.
You are both invisible to her right at this very moment, you could throw your knife right through her skull and end this now.
Steve nudges you waking you out of your murdering Sharon daydream, "Here she comes to wreck the day!" You whisper, Steves eyes rage at you, clearly he doesn't have patience for your jokes. And to be fair to him, they tend to be ill timed.
Sharon turns the corner and finds the three of you on the kitchen floor, gasping as she sees Fury.
"Shots fired!" She calls down her radio,
"No shit Sherlock!!" You shout back at her, fucking asshole. 'Shots fired' well DUH! The whole block knows that shots have been fired.
Steve rolls his eyes at you, helping you off the floor.  Sharon leans down assessing Fury's injuries, shaking her head at the blood soaked dish cloths pushed inside each wound.
Cracking your neck and knuckles you ready yourself to leave, a small hand grabs your shoulder. She better get her fucking hand off you before you kick seven shades of shit out of her. You knock her hand off and glower at her, she stands hand on hip "Where are you going?" She commands an answer.
Who does she think she is?
"To find the shooter!" You tower above her intimidatingly.