Standing there, in her housedress, Dawn Fury almost dropped the
phone. “Nick? Uh...Nick? Why...why are you...”
“I need somebody to talk to, Dawn. Somebody family. Is it
okay?”
Feeling as though she needed to sit down and have a drink as stiff as a
murder rap, Dawn Fury leaned against the wall of her apartment.
“When did you intend to come by?”
“Around 6 or so. Thought we might have dinner. It is okay,
ain’t it? I won’t...”
“Nick.” She put a hand to her head. “You know how long it’s
been since we’ve seen each other?”
“Too damn long.”
She paused. “Jake,” she said. “Is it...well, is it true?”
“It’s true, honey. Wish it wasn’t. But it’s true.”
Dear God. Then, her brother Jake was really dead. She’d
figured the report was true, but his body had never been found.
That gave her hope. Nick, her older brother, had just knocked it
down.
“Give me time. I’ll get something ready.”
“Don’t have to. I’ll take you out. My Diner’s Club’s still
good.”
“Nick,” she said, shaking her head. “Nick...I...”
“I’ll see ya,” he said, and hung up.
-F-
As she looked in the mirror, Dawn had to admit that she wished Nick
could give her some of that stuff he used to keep himself
younger. She was in her Sixties, her hair was gray, her old
figure couldn’t be sustained by any exercises known to Man (or Woman,
for that matter), and she felt like she imagined her Mom had felt a few
years before her death. Still, she fixed a few clasps in her
hair, applied some rouge, and decided mentally which dress to wear that
night. After all, whether she wanted to or not, a woman only has
so many chances to go out to dinner.
What will they think of me?, she wondered, looking at herself in the
vanity mirror. What will they think of a 64-year-old woman with a
man who looks 20 years younger, even though he’s older than I am?
Well, hell. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t gotten used to unusual
things happening in her family.
Her dad, Jack Fury, had been an Army pilot in the First World
War. He came back on leave with time enough to father her, Nick,
and Jake. Dad had even once fought the Red Baron, or so he’d
claimed. But he died after the war, and Mom had been hard-pressed
to keep the family together in Hell’s Kitchen. She managed, one
way or the other, even during those damned Depression years. Nick
wasn’t any help when he was a boy, always running off with his street
corner gang, boosting pop bottles to watch the latest Tom Mix movie or
getting into a brawl with the Yancy Streeters a few blocks away.
Once, Nick brought a guy named Ben Grimm to meet her, and she figured
that he was from Nick’s bunch or some other gang. He was kind of
nice, but they didn’t hit it off. The next she heard of Ben, he
was a fighter pilot in the Pacific. The next time after that she
heard of him...well, forget it. Things were weird enough just in
the family.
Jake wasn’t made of the same stuff Nick was. He was smaller,
weaker, more intellectual but less athletically built. His
jealousy over Nick was more or less a given. Jake tried catching
up with his brother a couple of times, tried acting tough on the
streets, tried bluffing his way out of a gang situation. They
almost handed him his head. Nick arrived in time to save his
brother, and then, in private, cuffed him and told him never to try
that crap again. He couldn’t be there for him every time, even if
Jake was his little brother. Jake didn’t say a word of reply, but
the look he gave Nick was enough to make Dawn fear for his soul when
she saw it.
Dawn took stenography in high school and became good enough at it to
land a part-time office job after class. That brought in a few
bucks. When it didn’t, she worked in a burger place, taking
orders and doing dishes. As soon as he could get out of school,
Nick left home and wound up with a guy named Red Hargrove. After
that, the Japs hit Hawaii, and, somehow, Nick ended up in the service,
with sergeant’s stripes, in charge of a crack outfit called the Howling
Commandoes. Jake got out of duty on a hardship clause, but that
didn’t stop him from getting into more trouble than Nick ever did, and
having to spend a couple of weekends in jail for it.
It seemed incredible, but, one day in 1943, Dawn and her mother were
reading Life Magazine, and there in living black and white was Nick
Fury in uniform. He was in a spread the magazine was running
about the Howlers, one of the most decorated units in the entire
E.T.O. She didn’t know how well Nick had been doing in the war,
but that two-page spread and the couple of pages of photos afterward
had brought the matter back home. She made sure to show it to
Nick when he came back on leave, but he just smiled and threw it on top
of the radio. That wasn’t what he had come home for.
There was one memorable visit in which Jake had tried to pick a fight
with Nick, even punching him. Nick didn’t hit him back. But
he did have to come to Jake’s aid a short time later, and got captured
by a Nazi agent named something like Col. Claw. Before that was
out, Dawn got to meet all the Howlers and Claw himself, and she learned
something of what her brother had been facing while he was out of
town. Jake ran away from home not long after that. Dawn
never saw him again.
But Nick came home again, thank God, and spent awhile stateside, though
he still stayed in the Army. Dawn got married to Davey Slade, a
guy she’d been dating since high school, who worked as a Frigidaire
salesman after he got out of the service. He got along okay with
Nick, and he gave Dawn a son and a daughter, both of whom grew up and
moved out. Ten years ago, Davey, who’d taken up smoking cigars
after seeing Nick with one, died of throat cancer. She never
mentioned it to Nick, but she wouldn’t let him smoke in her presence
after that.
Dawn herself had become a schoolteacher, retired, and enjoyed her
retirement. More or less. Every now and then over the
years, some reporter or other had wanted to interview her about being
the sister of Col. Nick Fury of SHIELD. She refused, as Nick had
told her to refuse, a long time ago. There was, after all, no
telling who was a Hydra agent and who wasn’t.
Nick.
She saw him so infrequently over the years. Maybe once a year, if
she was lucky. She knew he was busy. She knew he’d been in
some kind of super-secret thing for the government after he left the
Army post-Korea. Then, in ‘65, he’d become the head of
SHIELD. The only reports that were released to the newspapers
were the barest facts. What went on inside SHIELD, and even how
they saved the world twice from Hydra, were largely unknown.
Even to Dawn.
Now the Fire had gone, and the world was so, so different from what had
gone before. She’d lived through changes, of course, like the
Depression, the War, the death of JFK, the moon landing. But
nothing like that. Nothing compared.
She finished putting on her lipstick. Well, not everybody could
look as good as Nick did in his sixties.
There was a knock on her door. Dawn got up, went into the front
room, and answered it. A young man in a business suit was
there. “Ms. Fury?”
“Mrs., if you please,” said Dawn.
“The Director is ready, if you are.”
“Tell him I’ll be there in a minute.” She shut the door on
him. Then she went to collect her purse and sanity, and came back.
-D-
The restaurant was tasteful and exclusive. It had to be, because
Nick Fury still had enemies. But Dawn saw that there was nobody
except Nick at the corner table, surrounded by a circle of backing,
where he sat. He was wearing a suit, he had his characteristic
eyepatch on, and he didn’t look a day over 45. The trademarked
cheroot was in one hand, and a menu was in his other. But he
looked up as soon as she arrived in the room.
“Dawn!” Nick was up like a shot, both arms spread wide.
“Come over here. And that’s an order, soldier!”
Despite herself, she smiled. “Yes, sir!” she said, snapping off a
salute, then crossed the floor so quickly her escort had to trot to
keep up. Nick enfolded her in his arms, waving the guard to
another table. There were three tables round about, all of them
festooned with SHIELD agents. Lord only knew what else was in the
restaurant that she couldn’t see.
“Nick,” she said. “How many years since we’ve been face-to-face?”
“Too many,” he said. That was about all he could say, as he
showed her to the circular seat.
She composed herself, set her purse near her ankles, and studied her
brother’s face. She never got used to the eyepatch, and probably
never would. But all the rest was, well, almost the way she
remembered him. He was shaving more than he used to.
But there was something in his eyes...
Dawn put out a hand. “Nick. What is it?”
He shifted the cigar to the other side of his mouth. “Never could
put anything past you, sis. Even when I was sneakin’ cookies
outta Mom’s jar. You been watchin’ the news, readin’ the papers?”
She knew. “The Fire.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Nick.” What else could she say?
“Sorry, yeah.” He looked off into a hundred miles of
nothing. “I’m sorry I’ve got a guy named Quatermain who’s
recouping after almost gettin’ his arm cut off. I’m sorry there
ain’t no L.A. anymore. I’m sorry I wasn’t smart enough to find
out who was what, and where to stop him in time. I’m the sorriest
bastard you’ll ever see in your life, Dawn. And I’m sorry about
that.”
“Nick, I, well, I’m glad to see you. Can’t we talk about
something else?”
He smiled again. “Yeah. Let’s talk about you.”
She exhaled. “Can we order first?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, we can order.”
*****
“And so that’s how it went.”
“More or less,” said Nick, finishing up his sirloin. “The big men
of SHIELD. Saved the world from the Betatron Bomb, from the
Overkill Horn, from the Death Spore and a buncha other things.
But we couldn’t stop the Fire.”
She shook her head. “Why don’t you feel bad about not stopping
cancer, too? Or not overthrowing world Communism?”
“Dawn.”
“Why didn’t you win the Vietnam war, Nick? Why didn’t you go over
there with the Howling Commandoes and finish off Ho Chi Minh?”
“We were there.” Nick glared at Dawn, despite himself. “LBJ
sent the Howlers on a special mission. That sounded dumb as hell,
baby, even to me. But we did it. And we made it back,
without casualties.”
“And that was all you could do?”
“Wasn’t it enough, dammit? Wasn’t it enough?”
She waited.
Nick, halfway standing, stared at her. Then he shook his
head. “Guess you got me.”
Dawn smiled. “I’ve always had you, Nick. As a brother.”
“Yeah. And you know what?”
“Tell me.”
“I’m gettin’ married two weeks from now. Wanna be the maid of
honor?”
“Nick!”
He laughed. She grabbed him by the lapels. “Oh, Nick,
that’s wonderful! Who is it? Anyone I know?”
“The Contessa Valentina Allegro De Fontaine. She’s been workin’
for SHIELD for the past four years. Workin’ directly under me...”
“I can’t believe you said that.” She giggled.
“All right, I didn’t mean it like that! Well...sometimes.
Anyway, we’re tyin’ it up, and if you ain’t there, I’m gonna assign a
hunter squad to drag ya back. Clear?”
“Crystal clear, sir. All the same, congratulations, Nick. I
didn’t know if you were ever going to get married.”
“Hey, neither did I. But now...” He waved his hand, said to
the waiter, “We’ll take dessert in about five minutes.” Then, to
Dawn, he said, “When somethin’ like this happens, you start takin’ the
long view of things.”
“Is it...do you think it’s true about Captain America?”
After a long pause, Nick Fury nodded. “Yeah.”
“I just can’t believe it. The hero of World War II, the man we
looked up to all those years as the symbol of America...”
“He’s still the symbol of America, Dawn. You can knock a man
down, but there’s others to carry on for him. You’ll never forget
that man, either, or what he did. He was...I don’t know how to
say it...we didn’t see eye-to-eye on everything, even when I had more
than one. But...dammit. There’ve been a few guys I really
looked up to. Sam Sawyer. Ike. FDR.
Jesus. But nobody, nobody quite like Cap. Maybe he couldn’t
have run SHIELD. But I could’a never done, or been, what Cap did
and was.” Nick shook his head. “Just the way I felt when I
heard he was gone in ‘49, only it turned out not to be the real
Cap. Or in ‘54. Another fake. I sure as hell hope the
government has enough sense not to make a phony Cap again.”
Dawn nodded. “You must’ve known all the super-heroes. Do
they still call them that?”
“They do,” said Nick. “Up in the boardroom, we used to call ‘em
‘fruits in suits.’” She giggled again. “Most of ‘em made it
through. But a lot of ‘em are gettin’ off the horse.
They’re not young men anymore. Just wanna get married and settle
down. Can’t blame ‘em. It was just what we wanted to do, in
‘45.”
“But you didn’t,” she pointed out.
“Nope.” He regarded his stogie, philosophically. “I knew
I’d found my niche. A soldier. I still am.”
She shook her head. “I could never imagine doing what you do.”
“Be glad.”
“I am. Nick?”
“Uh huh?”
“Don’t you think we’re grateful for what you did?”
“What’d we do? It was Shellhead...I mean, Iron Man took out
Firebrand. If it wasn’t for him, a lot more’n Los Angeles woulda
gone up in smoke. Maybe the whole United States.”
“So because of what he did, only one city was lost. Not a whole
nation.”
“It’s never just one city, Dawn. It’s millions of people.”
“Like Hiroshima?”
Nick stared at her.
“No, don’t worry. I know why we did it, and I agree. But
the people who died there, Nick, the civilians...would they have?”
“It was a war, Dawn. The good guys can’t always do good things.”
“I didn’t say it was, Nick. The point is, innocent people died,
along with some you might call the ‘bad guys’. Can we bring them
back?”
“Come on, Dawn.”
“You haven’t answered my question, Nick.”
“Dammit to hell, woman, you know we can’t! We can’t bring back
the ones in L.A., either. I just...I’ll never forget ‘em.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“And I’ll never forgive myself.”
“You should, and you have to.”
“Like hell.”
“Nick!” Dawn put her hand down on his arm, hard. “You
listen to me, brother. No one is responsible for their deaths
except that man who loaded all that firebombing stuff into that plane
and took it up there. Last I heard, he wasn’t an agent of
SHIELD. No, don’t interrupt me. From what I’ve read, SHIELD
was part of the team that worked on analyzing the threat, helping the
heroes in the wars all over the country, and keeping the peace, as much
as you could. Is that something you’re ashamed of?”
“Is this the place where I can interrupt?”
“As long as you give me a yes or no.”
“No. I ain’t. But in intelligence, Dawn, in G2, when
somethin’ happens that you couldn’t have seen, that you didn’t expect,
the first thing ya ask, once the dust settles, is: why didn’t I see
that comin’? And what can I do to make sure I see it the next
time?”
“Did you have to make a report to the president?”
“Sure as hell did.”
“Did he say you should have seen it coming?”
“‘Cordin’ to the rulin’ of his committee, no. He seemed to think
we did what we could. But he wasn’t happy about losin’ as many
agents as we did, or losin’ the Heli-Carrier.”
She sighed. “I heard about that.”
“No way you could keep from hearin’ that. The government don’t
wanna fund another one. We’re gonna build another ground
installation somewhere. Don’t ask where.”
“I won’t.”
“I lost people in that crash, Dawn. Lost a lot of people.
Good men. Good women.” Nick shook his head. “First
friend I ever lost was Red Hargrove. First man I ever lost in my
squad...Junior Juniper. Those were the hardest. But you
never forget a man, Dawnie. Never.”
“I know, Nick. And I know you, especially, wouldn’t.”
“Thanks. Now, you wanna take your paw off my arm?”
She looked down and saw she was still hanging onto him. Both of
them laughed. Dawn Fury released him.
“What about all the, uh, super-villains that the heroes fought,
Nick? What’ll happen to them?”
“Well, I can’t tell ya all of it, Dawn. Let’s just say that the
government’s kinda subcontracted a friend of ours to put ‘em in a place
where we figure they’ll be a lot happier. Kinda like their own
Australia. Or United States. Hell, I don’t know. I do
know that they ain’t gonna be on our backs anymore.”
“That’s good.”
“Real good,” said Nick. “We’ve been workin’ on roundin’ up AIM,
too. The president really wants them. Don’t blame
him. They sold Gilbert the Inferno 42 he used on L.A. And
they sold the punk the weapon that did a job on my man
Quatermain. I don’t forget things like that.”
“What about Hydra?”
“They’re around, too. Somewhere. We don’t know, but
somewhere.”
“So,” she said. “There’ll still be work for SHIELD?”
“Far as I can tell,” he said. “I’m gettin’ to the point I just
might turn it over, though.”
“You mean, you’re going to quit?” She looked astonished. “I
can’t imagine that.”
“Oh, I can. I’ve just about had my tour of duty, Dawn. I’ll
hang on for awhile longer, hell, might be years. But sooner or
later, I’ll pass it on. Just like everybody else. I ain’t
J. Edgar Hoover, y’know.”
She smiled and shook her head. As she did so, she caught sight of
a waitress, smiling, rolling up a dessert cart.
“Good evening,” said the waitress. “Dessert is served. You
ordered baked Alaska for two?”
“That’s it,” Nick said, fishing a twenty-dollar bill out of his
wallet. “Here, honey. Keep the change.”
The waitress beamed and stashed the money in her pocket. Then she
set out the plates of dessert. Dawn began to dig in, as did
Nick. Her eyes, oddly, stole down towards the floor of the
place. Maybe it was just the position her head had to be in to
eat the stuff. Maybe...
“Nick.”
“What?” He stopped in mid-lift of his fork.
She knocked it out of his hand. “Don’t eat that. Please,
don’t argue, just don’t eat that.”
The waitress’s eyes widened. “Excuse me, ma’am? Is there
some kind of problem?”
Dawn said, “There certainly is, young lady, and you know what it
is. You.”
The woman’s mien changed, immediately. She looked like a fox
facing a batch of hunting dogs. Not, Dawn thought, an unapt
metaphor. Before she could react further, she saw the arms of two
SHIELD agents flanking her head, and pointing guns at the waitress.
Nick jumped up from his chair, ran across the tabletop, scattering
plates and food and stepping in the baked Alaska, and slammed himself
into the dessert cart, bowling the waitress over and scattering SHIELD
men, waiters, and diners in his path. “Clear the way!”, he
shouted.
“Nick, what?” Dawn asked, futilely.
“Don’t move, ma’am,” said one of the agents. “Kirby, go after
him. Springer, get the cuffs on her.”
From her vantage point, Dawn could see Nick madly pushing the cart of
desserts towards the restroom area. He shoved it past the barrier
on the men’s side. A few seconds later, she saw him emerge,
holding by the coat collar a man who had his pants down by his
ankles. Fury ripped his SHIELD Special out of his shoulder
holster and displayed it to everybody in the room. Just about all
the occupants seemed to gasp, in unison.
“Everybody hit the floor, face down! NOW!”
And as everybody hastened to obey him, Nick obeyed his own order,
shoving the man he’d rescued from the men’s john down before him.
A few seconds later, from her position on the floor, Dawn heard an
explosion. A strong hand was on her neck. “Keep down,
ma’am,” said the agent who held her there.
She didn’t have any problem with that order.
Small particles of wood, metal, and other building material flew
through the air. A fire alarm went off. So did the
sprinklers. There was a sound of running feet, of verbal
commands. She heard the sound of a fire extinguisher being
used. One voice rose over the Babel, then, a voice of
command. One with which she was intimately familiar.
“Get these people outta here. Check for injuries. See if
anyone was in the ladies’. Get a gag in her mouth. She
might have a poison pill. Move, dammit!”
Dawn said, “Can I get up now?”
“I believe it’s okay, ma’am,” said the agent.
She arose, feeling shaky. But overriding that, she felt an
adrenalin rush. My God, she thought. Is this what he feels
when he does this sort of thing?
There was smoke and dust in the air. The bathrooms were burning,
and there was debris all over half the dining area and a large part of
the rest. Apparently, nobody had been badly injured, and thank
God for that. Nick Fury was standing in the center of the room,
dust from the blast on his tux and in his hair, giving orders and
coordinating things. She looked at the waitress. The woman,
a gag already in her mouth and her wrists already cuffed, gave Dawn a
look of venom.
Dawn smiled, slightly, wondered what kind of one-liner a movie heroine
might give an enemy, and then gave up on it. “So much for you,
dearie.”
And Nick Fury was by her side. “How about for you, Dawn?
You okay?”
She brushed a hand through her hair. “Shaky, but here.
Lord, Nick, they would have killed us all. Just to get to you.”
“Yep. And guess who stopped ‘em? You.”
“I just kept you from eating that dessert. You were the one who
shoved that cart away.”
He smiled. “Wouldn’t ‘a known about it if you hadn’t picked up on
what you did. Think it was poison?”
“I don’t know. But I do know that she wasn’t who she was
pretending to be. Is she a Hydra agent, do you think?”
“Could be. We’ll find out down at HQ. What tipped you,
honey? Why’d you know she wasn’t for real?”
Dawn pointed down. “Look, Nick. Look at her shoes.”
“What about ‘em?”
“Oh, Nick. It’s obvious you’ve never worked in a
restaurant. Sure, she’s wearing flats. But any real
waitress wears special flats, ones you can walk in for a whole day and
not wear out your feet. They’re special shoes. This woman
wouldn’t last a day in those. I know. I used to waitress,
back in the War. Even then, we used better shoes than that.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. Then he motioned to the agents.
“Get her outta here.” They took the woman off between them.
Dawn Fury felt dazed for a second. Nick put his arm around
her. “See what I mean about bein’ able to see what’s comin’
before it hits ya?”
“I...guess so, Nick.”
“I oughtta have you teach a class in SHIELD Academy. How to tell
enemy agents from restaurant staff. I tell ya, don’t repeat it,
but some o’ these guys are dense enough to need it.”
Despite it all, she laughed.
“Now. You wanna walk across the street, and see if we can get
dessert somewhere else?”
“There might be Hydra agents there, too, Nick.”
“I know it. Why d’ya think I’m takin’ you along?”
She slipped her arm through his. Fury made a motion with his free
hand. A younger man in glasses came up and saluted. “Sir!”
“Sitwell, take over operations,” he said. “The lady and I are
goin’ elsewhere to finish our meal.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and give my compliments to the chef. Except, y’know, for the
last part.”
“Affirmative, sir.”
And Dawn and Nick saw no more of Hydra agents or bombs for the rest of
the night.
********
Characters are property of Marvel Comics. No money’s being made
from this story, no infringement is intended. This is a birthday
fic for Stacy. Happy birthday, kid!
