Fury's Grief

In a hospital roughly five minutes' drive from the [Supreme Court].

Brock Rumlow led a group of fully armed [STRIKE Team] members into the hospital, where they supervised the attending physician's entire supposed attempt to save Captain America.

They watched the physician cut open Captain America's chest and remove several shattered, deformed bullet fragments covered in blood. Only after he announced, "The bullet completely destroyed the patient's aorta, causing immediate massive blood loss and cardiac arrest. Resuscitation has failed. He is confirmed dead," did they finally relax.

"Heh." Relief spread across Brock Rumlow's face and those of his men as they quickly exchanged knowing looks.

Their mission was finally complete.

Leaving one team member behind to help the hospital handle the remaining arrangements, Brock Rumlow quickly departed with the others and returned to [S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters] to report to Alexander Pierce.

Meanwhile, the operating room, thick with the smells of blood and disinfectant, had emptied out. Only Sharon Carter remained.

Like a puppet stripped of its soul, she stood numbly beside the operating table, staring at Captain America's body. A white shroud covered him completely, leaving only his blond hair and part of his forehead exposed. Tears streamed down her face like water bursting through a dam, and nothing remained in her eyes but numbing pain and helpless despair.

Even though she had just seen his bullet-shattered heart with her own eyes and heard the doctor pronounce him dead, some corner of her heart still refused to accept that cruel reality.

Had the man who, in her eyes, had always seemed impossible to bring down really left her just like that?

More importantly, how was she supposed to tell her aunt Peggy Carter, who was in a nursing home? Though age often clouded her memories, Captain America had never left her