The streetlights of DC flickered past the tinted windows of the SUV as Nick Fury sat in the back, his mind a whirlwind of tactical variables. Stark was too close to Aryan.
"Hill," Fury rumbled into his comms. "Pull the file on Sharon Carter. Cross-reference her private employment history with the Umbrella Corporation."
"Sir?" Maria Hill's voice crackled through the secure line. "Agent 13? She spent a year at Umbrella as a Senior Legal Liaison before returning to active duty. The connection goes deep, Sir—Aryan's grandfather personally saved her during a mission. Sharon has considered herself in that man's debt for decades. Why do you ask?
"Because Stark just told me he has a 'team,'" Fury said, staring at his dead phone. "And I want to know if one of my best agents was standing in the room when that team was built and didn't bother to tell me."
An hour later, Sharon Carter stood in the center of Fury's dimly lit office. She remained perfectly composed, the "Soldier's Mask" she had worn since training firmly in place.
"You worked for him, Sharon," Fury began. "A whole year at Umbrella. You saw the blueprints. You saw the code. Why is it that my satellites are hitting a digital wall every time I try to look at their umbrella facility?"
"With all due respect, Director, when I was at Umbrella, it was strictly a high-end software firm. Aryan was obsessed with refining operating systems and data architecture. There was no 'digital wall' or 'Google' at the time. If he's built an ecosystem that can blind S.H.I.E.L.D., he must have coded the foundation in secret after I left. Or," she paused, her voice steady, "despite our history, I simply wasn't part of the inner circle when the real architecture was being laid down.
Fury looked up, his one eye boring into hers. "You're Carter, Sharon. My data shows you've spent more time at that family estate than at your own apartment. That old man didn't just save you from that wreckage; he treats you like his own granddaughter. Your relationship with Aryan isn't just professional—it's deep, it's friendly, some might even say intimate. And you're telling me that despite all that, he kept you in the foyer while he was building a digital empire? That doesn't add up, Agent."
"I was a legal liaison, Director. I handled contracts, not the core source code," she lied smoothly. "If you want to know what's happening inside Umbrella, you need a pair of eyes back on the ground."
Fury leaned back. "That's exactly what I was thinking. I'm assigning you to Project: Sentinel. Re-establish contact. Use the family connection. I don't want reports on his coffee habits, Agent 13. I want the backdoors to his ecosystem and the names of every member of this 'team' Stark mentioned."
"Understood, Director," Sharon said, her voice a professional clip. She turned and walked out, her footsteps echoing with a finality that hid the chaos in her heart.
———-
As the elevator doors closed, Sharon leaned against the cold metal wall, her breath hitching. Her hands, usually steady enough to pick a lock in a hurricane, were trembling.
The dilemma was tearing her in two. On one side was S.H.I.E.L.D.—the legacy of her Aunt Peggy, the oath she had taken to protect the world. On the other was Aryan. The man who had looked at her not as an "Agent," but as Sharon. Her mind flashed back to the moment that had forged her absolute loyalty: a failed mission years ago where she should have died, only to be pulled from the wreckage by Aryan's grandfather. He had risked everything to save her when her own agency couldn't reach her, binding her to the Aryan bloodline by a debt of life.
She wasn't just "monitoring" a target. She was being asked to betray the legacy of the man who gave her a second chance at life.
If I say no, Fury sends Natasha, she reasoned, her mind racing. Natasha won't hesitate. She'll find the cracks. She'll see the things I've deliberately ignored. By accepting, Sharon realized she had become a human shield. She was the filter. Every report she wrote from this moment on would be a work of fiction. She would have to sit across from Aryan, look into the eyes of the man she loved, and pretend she wasn't carrying a S.H.I.E.L.D. dagger in her sleeve—all while knowing her true allegiance was to the man who saved her, and the grandson who now held her heart.
But there was a darker fear. Wanda. She had seen that woman around Aryan more and more lately, standing in the spaces she used to occupy. There was something unsettling about her—a stillness that felt like the eye of a storm, and a gaze that seemed to peel back layers of a person's soul. Sharon didn't know about the magic or the awakening power, but her instincts as a top-tier agent were screaming.
Wanda will know, Sharon realized. She has that raw, feminine intuition that sees through every mask I've ever worn, and she's protective of him in a way that defies logic. Sharon knew that if she walked into that office with a lie in her heart, Wanda wouldn't need a polygraph to catch her; she would feel the shift in the air. She was walking into a lion's den to protect the lion, and the lioness was already watching the door.
She pulled out her pager—the one Aryan had gifted her a year ago, the one that ran on a frequency S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't even detect.
"I'm coming back," she typed, her thumb hovering over the send button. "Fury is watching. Be ready."
She hasn't sent yet. She had to play the part of the loyal soldier for just a few hours more. As the elevator hit the ground floor, Sharon Carter straightened her jacket and wiped her eyes. She had a mission. But for the first time in her life, she wasn't working for the government. She was working for the man who was her entire world.
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