Nick Fury is my Uncle -COMPLETED-

Chapter Nine: Secrets

Chapter Nine: Secrets

[Nick Fury arrives at a remote research facility during an evacuation]

Nick Fury: How bad is it?

Agent Phil Coulson: That's the problem, sir. We don't know.

*********

The drive to Agent Rhodes house was quiet. It wasn’t far from HQ.

It was strange to me that I was going to stay with a complete stranger when my family wasn’t more than twenty-five miles away.

I remembered Ryder saying my real, biological parents were dead. But the parents who had raised me felt more real than anything. And they’d never even hinted that I was adopted.

“Do you know what’s happened to Ryder?” I can’t help but break the silence. This is a shot in the dark, but I have to ask. “Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

Rhodes took a deep breath and let it out, her eyes still on the road. “I only know very little, what I had to know.”

“Which is…?” I prompted, my heart beating hard in my chest.

“Very little,” repeated Rhodes. “I was told when we went to fetch you two that Ryder was prone to violent outbursts and hallucinations.”

I shook my head. The Ryder I knew before this all happened wouldn’t think of hurting anyone. As for hallucinations? The last thing Ryder had seemed was crazy. After the episode in the woods, though, I was more inclined to believe it.

“Also, Hastings told me to wear this,” Rhodes shook the sleeve on her right arm back, keeping her left hand on the wheel, a flash of silver glints around her wrist, almost like a bracelet.

“What’s that?” I asked. “And who is Hastings?”

“Hastings is my SO, my supervising officer. He’s very high up on S.H.I.E.L.D’s totem pole, so to speak. You may meet him tomorrow,” said Rhodes.

“Meet him?” I asked. “Why would I meet him?”

“Fury meant it when he said he would debrief you, but don’t think you’ll be alone with him. No, you and me both will be sitting in the back of the room, listening while the big-boys ask questions. Hastings is one of the big boys,” said Rhodes. I thought I detected a sting of bitterness in her tone.

Anger rose up in my gut, unquenchable by my exhaustion or my hunger. How dare he? How dare he yank me out of my old life? How dare he try and keep me at arm’s length when everything I knew was gone and my friend – maybe more than friend – was missing?

“I am going to kill him,” I said, sitting back in my seat with my arms crossed.

“Good luck,” snorted Rhodes, pulling into her driveway. “Fury gets what he wants, and he doesn’t care who he steps on to get it.”

We climbed out of the car. Rhodes’ house was modest and normal, not the house of an agent to a top-secret government agency.

Rhodes went ahead of me and disarmed the extensive security system. The one blip in the normal appearance was the slim black security camera above her door.

I followed behind her into the hall. There was a flight of stairs going up to our left and to my right was the living room, with a couch, a beanbag chair, and an old television set.

“This way,” said Rhodes, “The kitchen is through here. I’m guessing you’re hungry.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks so much for letting me stay, especially with everything that’s going on.”