Guardian Angel | Steve Rogers

8

As soon as Hill parked, they all piled out, noticing they were near a dam. Sam holding on to Nat as she held her shoulder covering it with gauze. 

"GSW in the shoulder. She's lost at least a pint." Hill informed the man running towards them. 

"Maybe two." Arden added, recognizing the man as one of Fury's, Dr. Fine. 

"Let me take her." He responded. 

"She'll want to see him first." Hill insisted. 

They didn't say a word, just following them into the back room of where they were. Hill pulling back the curtain, revealing Fury in a hospital bed, completely alive. 

"About damn time." Fury greeted them weakly. 

They settled around him while Natasha was getting her wound looked at. 

"Well?" Arden spoke up first, looking at him struggling to get comfortable in bed. 

"Lacerated spinal column, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, and one hell of a headache." Fury informed them of his long list of injuries. 

"Don't forget your collapsed lung." Dr. Fine reminded him. 

"Let's not forget that." Fury played along. "Otherwise, I'm good."

"They cut you open. Your heart stopped." Nat remembered.

"You used Tetradotoxin B, didn't you?" Arden mentioned, and he nodded, winking at her for getting it right. 

"Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great on him, but we found a use for it." Fury informed the rest of them. 

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

"Any attempt on the Director's life had to look successful." Hill answered. 

Arden scoffed, shaking her head as she took a seat beside him, looking at the floor. 

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

After managing to get Fury up into a chair, they informed him of their findings about Pierce, but it seemed like Fury already knew. 

"This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility. See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues." Fury brought up, looking at a photo of Pierce, throwing it back onto the table. 

"We gotta stop that launch." Natasha mentioned, looking around at everyone. 

"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore." Fury seriously joked, opening a briefcase with three memory drives. 

"What's that?" Sam asked.

"Once the helicarriers reach 3,000 feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites becoming fully weaponized." Hill answered, turning her laptop around with the blueprints. 

"So we need to get to those helicarriers and replace their targeting blades with these ones." Arden caught on, pointing at the briefcase. 

"Yes, but 1 or 2 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 lot of people will die." Hill informed them.

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA. We have to get past them, insert these server blades. Maybe, just maybe salvage-"

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