Everlife Medical Center
Soren barely had time to seal Fury's wounds when the space shimmered again.
A ripple, like light bending over heat, passed through the room, and something slammed into the floor with a heavy thud.
Soren blinked.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
He turned, not in alarm, but with the tired look of a man who had seen far too much weirdness in one afternoon.
There, crumpled on the polished marble floor and covered in blood, was Phil Coulson.
His S.H.I.E.L.D suit was scorched at the shoulder, torn at the side, and soaked in crimson.
One of Soren's enchanted business cards, a discreet lifeline embedded with a trace locator, still glowed faintly, fused to the inside of his jacket collar.
"The one man who actually uses the card like it's a rewards membership." Soren sighed.
He dropped to one knee, hands already glowing. Two gunshot wounds, bruised ribs, internal bleeding… but no spine or cranial damage.
Fixable.
"I should start charging you people by the body." He muttered as threads of golden energy wove through Coulson's torn skin.
"At this rate, I'll need to start a loyalty program."
Fury stirred behind him, propped up on one arm. His one good eye narrowed at the familiar face now lying unconscious in front of him.
"What is today? A S.H.I.E.L.D reunion? You bring appetizers, Fury?"
Fury didn't smile. "If Coulson's down, then it's worse than I thought."
Minutes Later
Coulson groaned, eyes fluttering open. He looked around, groggy but lucid.
"…Why does my chest feel like I lost a fight with a gorilla in riot gear?"
Soren waved a hand over him. "Because you did. Probably with bullets. And bad life choices."
Coulson's gaze slowly focused. "Soren… I keep ending up in your care."
"This is becoming a habit."
Soren scowled and pointed at him with a glowing finger. "And I keep telling you, I'm not your personal resurrection service."
"Retire, Coulson. Go to Tahiti. I hear it's magical."
A faint smile crossed Coulson's lips.
Then he saw Fury slumped, bloodstained, his coat riddled with holes despite the wounds being gone.
He sat up, wincing. "Director?! You too?"
Fury gave him a long, tired look. "Yeah. I took the scenic route through a firing squad. You?"
"Same tour." Coulson said grimly.
"Got a tip, partial leak from one of the Insight engineers. Thought I could follow the trail. Turns out, it was bait."
He paused, swallowed. "Friendly fire. Except it wasn't friendly."
Soren stood between them, arms crossed. "You two want to tell me why my floors are stained today?"
Fury didn't answer right away. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
There was weight in his silence, a gravity that pulled the room still.
"HYDRA." He said at last.
"They're not just inside S.H.I.E.L.D. They are S.H.I.E.L.D now. Pierce, Insight, the whole damn thing was built to execute their agenda."
Coulson's face paled.
"You're serious."
"I had data." Fury growled. "Webbed links. Hidden substructures in the targeting algorithm."
"How… could this be?" Phil's fingers curled into fists. "S.H.I.E.L.D. has protocols."
"Background checks, psych evals, loyalty scoring. We trained every agent like family. How could HYDRA have slipped through all that?"
The disbelief wasn't just professional… it was personal.
Every agent he'd trusted, every mission he'd cleared, now carried a question mark.
Across the room, Soren's eyes narrowed slightly, arms crossed over his chest.
"Maybe because your 'family' was built on a graveyard of secrets." He said.
"HYDRA didn't slip through the cracks, Coulson. They were the foundation."
Phil's throat tightened.
Soren turned to the glowing wards on the wall, adjusting them with a flick of his fingers. "I was attacked yesterday too, in my own medical hall."
"Some synthetic freaks with extremis tried to vaporize me. Claimed to be HYDRA."
He paused.
But it didn't sit right. If HYDRA is busy gutting their agency, why waste resources on me?
Fury, now seated but no longer slouched, rubbed the bridge of his nose. His expression was stormy, but controlled.
"Doctor Macaluso."
"HYDRA's goal has never changed: destabilize, conquer, rebuild. If they own S.H.I.E.L.D., it's just a matter of time before they go global. Infiltration, regime shifts, puppet leaders. The United States could fall within~"
"I'm not American." Soren interrupted coldly. He turned around.
"I don't care if the stars on your flag catch fire. Your internal collapse is your own fault. You built an empire of secrets and called it protection."
"Now the house is burning down, and you're asking me to hold the hose?"
There was silence.
"You want me to help? Be honest about why. Don't wrap it in speeches about democracy or national crisis."
Fury opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Coulson sighed under his breath. He could feel the conversation slipping away like water through cracked glass.
He looked toward Fury, eyes pleading, don't push him.
But it was too late.
"If there's nothing else," Soren said, already turning his back. "You know the way out."
The air turned cold.
Fury hesitated for just a beat, then gave a sharp nod. "You're right. I overstepped."
With a stiff motion, he stood. "Thank you for saving my life."
He didn't wait for a reply.
Coulson lingered, offering a silent, apologetic glance to Soren before following his boss through the arched doorway.
As the portal shimmered shut behind them, the only sound left in the chamber was the hum of the medical wards.
On the Road, Fury's Van
Rain tapped against the windshield like quiet static.
Phil Coulson finally broke the silence. "We lost him."
Fury said nothing, eyes fixed on the road ahead. His hands were steady on the wheel, but his knuckles were pale.
"Director." Phil tried again, "What now? Without Soren, without the helicarriers, without our networks…"
Fury didn't speak. He reached into his coat and pulled out a weathered hard drive
The encrypted core of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Black Vault Cube. The encrypted core of S.H.I.E.L.D.
He placed both in Coulson's lap without ceremony.
"Give that drive to Steve Rogers. It has everything he needs to bury Insight and expose HYDRA."
Coulson stared at him. "And the cube?"
"That." Fury said quietly. "is S.H.I.E.L.D."
Coulson looked up, confused.
Fury finally glanced over, and in his eyes was something Phil rarely saw, defeat.
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s done. Corroded from the inside. I built it on ideals I thought we could protect. But I let it rot."
"That cube holds every black file, every directive, every buried decision I ever made. If anyone can rebuild something better from its ashes…"
He trailed off.
"…it's you."
Phil's heart skipped a beat. "Sir… I~"
But Fury was already looking away, eyes distant, his jaw clenched.
"This isn't about chains of command anymore."
"It's about fixing what we broke."
As they drove deeper into the night, Nick Fury's tall frame slumped slightly in the seat, the weight of betrayal and decades of sacrifice dragging at his shoulders.
And for the first time, Coulson saw the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D not as the unbreakable spymaster…
…but as a man standing in the ruins of his life's work.
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
PhantomDream