The Recruitment
Amy closed her eyes as she settled into the car. She was mentally exhausted and couldn't even think about teleporting herself, let alone Nick to the apartment. She felt bad about blinking out on Steve. She didn't even leave a note. Hearing her phone vibrate, she saw Nat's picture pop on the screen and answered it. "Nat..."
"What the hell is going on?! I got a call from Coulson saying that Clint is compromised!"
"He was with Coulson studying the Tesseract. A Norse god came in and brainwashed him and stole the Tesseract. Have you talked to Rebecca yet?"
"No...I couldn't. Where are you?"
"On the way to get Steve. God, I need to call him. I blipped right into the mess in my pajamas, Nat."
"I hoped you had on clean underwear. I gotta go. The plane's getting ready to leave. I'll be in touch once I secured the big guy."
"Good luck. See you soon." Amy hung up and sighed heavily as she dialed Steve's number.
"Hello?"
"Steve? Where are you?" she asked.
"Where are you? I woke up and you were gone? Did you go to work today?"
"Kinda. It's a long story. I need to talk to you. Where are you?"
"Well, I was going to the gym. Ames, are you okay? You sound worried."
"I'll explain it as soon as I get home. I'll be there soon."
"Okay. See you in a bit."
"Yeah." Amy hung up and turned to Nick, who was watching her. This was really happening. She hoped that everything would go according to plan. If not...They were screwed.
In a rural Indian village, Natasha followed the path as she looked at her phone. Moments ago, Amy texted her the latest location of where she thought Bruce Banner was hiding. It was easy to talk to a small girl to lead Banner to her. She paced back and forth as she texted Amy.
AMES: No word on Clint. Talked to Rebecca. She's safe. I told her to move to another location. Bucky's family has a farm they entrusted to me. That's where they are.
NAT: Good. Waiting for Banner to arrive. Talk to the Cap yet?
AMES: Not yet. Fury decided to talk to the council first. Idiot.
Nat smirked. It was weird not seeing Clint in their group text. Since Nat came to America and joined SHIELD, it was the three of them plus Coulson. Hearing footsteps and somebody mumbling to himself, she stepped into the room, smirking as Dr. Bruce Banner looked around the room. She entered the room behind him, seeing his kind eyes stare at her.
"You know, for a man who's supposed to be avoiding stress, you picked a hell of a place to settle," she quirked, arching an eyebrow.
"Avoiding stress isn't the secret," Bruce said, getting a good look at the woman. His first thought was that she was way out of his league. She made him nervous, which wasn't good in his condition. He could feel the green guy inside of him grow nervous and weary of the stranger in front of him.
"Then, what is it? Yoga?"
"You brought me to the edge of the city, smart. I uh... assume the whole place is surrounded?" he questioned, guessing she was from the government.
Natasha shook her head. "Just you and me."
"And your actress buddy, is she a spy too? Do they start that young?"
"I did," Natasha told him honestly, thinking back to her younger days at the Black Widow program.
Bruce narrowed her eyes. "Who are you?"
"Natasha Romanoff."
"Are you here to kill me, Miss Romanoff? Because that's not gonna work out for everyone."
"No. No. Of course not. I'm here on behalf of SHIELD."
Bruce nodded slowly. "SHIELD. How did they find me?"
"We never lost you, doctor. We've kept our distance and even helped keep some other interested parties off your scent."
"Why?"
"Nick Fury seems to trust you. But now I need you to come in."
"What if I said no?"
"I'll persuade you."
"And what if the... other guy says no?"
"You've been more than a year without an incident. I don't think you wanna break that streak."
"I don't always get what I want."
Natasha sighed. "Doctor, we're facing a potential global catastrophe."
"Well, those I actively try to avoid."
"This is the Tesseract. It has the potential energy to wipe out the planet." Taking out her cell phone, she showed him a photo of the Tesseract. Bruce leaned closer, taking a closer look at the blue cube.
"What does Fury want me to do? Swallow it?"
"Well, he wants you to find it. It's been taken. It emits a gamma signature that's too weak for us to trace. There's no one that knows gamma radiation like you do. If there was, that's where I'd be."
Bruce narrowed his eyes in confusion. "So Fury isn't after the monster?"
Natasha shook her head. "Not that he's told me."
"And he tells you everything?"
"Talk to Fury, he needs you on this.:
"He needs me in a cage?"
"No one's gonna put you in a..."
"STOP LYING TO ME!" Bruce shouted, slamming his fists on the table. Natasha's heart stuttered as reached for the hidden gun under the table and pointed it at him. Bruce stayed still, grinning. "I'm sorry, that was mean. I just wanted to see what you'd do. Why don't we do this the easy way, where you don't use that, and the other guy doesn't make a mess? Okay? Natasha..."
Natasha's heart was still pounding, and reluctantly lowered her gun, speaking into her earpiece. "Stand down. We're good here."
"Just you and me?" Bruce smiled at her lie.
"Precaution," Natasha said. "The other part was all true. No cages. The world needs you, Dr. Banner."
"When do we leave?" Bruce asked.
Amy walked into the gym with Nick behind her, her mind still reeling from the council meeting she just attended. She hated those things. It was the last place she wanted to be.
"This is out of line, Director. You're dealing with forces you can't control," a council member said as Amy and Nick stood in front of the monitors. It made her feel small...Like back then when Philips and the others made her feel small about being a woman.
"You ever been in a war, Councilman? In a firefight? Did you feel an overabundance of control?" Nick asked.
"You saying that this Asgard has declared war on our planet?"
"Not Asgard, Loki," Amy corrected.
"He can't be working alone. What about the other one? His brother."
"Our intelligence says, Thor is not a hostile. But he's worlds away, we can't depend on him to help. It's up to us," Nick explained to the people on the monitors.
"Which is why you should be focusing on phase 2, it was designed for exactly..." another council member said.
"PHASE 2 isn't ready, our enemy is. We need a response team."
"The Avengers Initiative was shut down."
"This isn't about The Avengers."
"We're running the world's greatest covert security network and you're gonna leave the fate of the human race to a handful of freaks," the first council member said.
"Excuse me?" Amy asked, stepping closer to glare at the screen.
"I'm not leaving anything to anyone. We need a response team. These people may be isolated, unbalanced even, but I believe with the right push they can be exactly what we need."
"You believe?" the second council member said.
"War isn't won by sentiment, Director," the first one said.
"No, it's won by soldiers. And I have two of the very best ones."
Amy walked into the gym seeing Steve punch the crap out of the punching back. She recognized the hazy look in his eyes. He was remembering everything. It was a look that often occupied her when she hit a trigger. Things that reminded her of Bucky or trains or even an airplane.
The bag went flying with one final punch, snapping from the chain and pummeling it back a dozen feet. Amy put a foot out stopping it as he grabbed another bag. "Ames?" he asked, resuming his routine.
"I hope you're gonna pay for that," she quirked.
"I will...Where have you been?"
"It's a long story. I brought a friend."
"Friend?" Steve asked, stiffening as Nick Fury walked in behind her.
"Trouble sleeping?" Nick asked.
"I slept for seventy years, sir. I think I've had my fill."
"Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world. I trust that your sister has been showing you the world."
Steve stopped punching and stared at his sister. He unraveled the tape off his hands and went over to sit down on the bench. "I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost."
Nick sighed heavily. "We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently."
"You two here with a mission, sir?" Steve asked, looking at the man and then at his sister.
"We are."
"Trying to get me back in the world?"
"Trying to save it."
Amy handed her brother a file, guilt eating up at her. "Steve...It's the Tesseract."
Steve's eyes bore into hers. "Hydra's secret weapon."
"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think, the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. Your sister is proof of that. That's something the world sorely needs," Nick explained.
"Who took it from you?" Steve asked.
"He's called Loki. He's not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."
"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me."
"Ten bucks says you're wrong. There's a debriefing package waiting for you back at your apartment. Lt. Rogers, I'll see you soon." Nick walked out of the gym as Steve turned to pick up a punching bag. "Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"
"Ask Amy...She's the expert. You should have left it in the ocean."
As Nick walked away, Amy sat on the bench as her brother stared her down. She hated that look. It was the same look that he gave her when he found out about her and Bucky. She felt like the small girl getting scolded by her big brother. "Steve..."
"You lied to me...Again!"
"I didn't lie to you! I just didn't tell you."
"Which is worse! You're always hiding things from me!"
"Not true! Yes, I didn't tell you that we recovered the Tesseract. But you didn't exactly ask."
"So, what is this mission that Fury's recruiting me for? And how are you a part of it."
"He's putting together a team to recover the Tesseract from a Norse God-slash-alien who brainwashed some SHIELD agents and a scientist."
"A team..." he deadpanned.
"Yeah. A team. You don't have to join, Steve. But it's kinda personal... The Tesseract is part of our past."
"How are you involved?"
"My powers are still unknown, Steve. Howard couldn't figure me out. Nobody can. I was in my bed last night and I tossed and turned as I heard a voice call my name. It was like it was calling me to come to it...Across the stars and through space. I got up instantly and arrived too late. Loki used the Tesseract as a doorway and entered our world. He brainwashed good people...good agents...and stole the thing that can destroy the world. You saw what I did on that train after Buck-" Amy took a cleansing breath. "Anyway...I tried to stop it but I couldn't. I should've told Howard to chuck that thing back where it belongs but I wanted to know more about it and about my powers. He wanted to help me." Amy leaned against her knees. "One of those agents...is one of my best friends. After you and Bucky died, I pushed everybody away. One thing about being immortal is that everybody you love eventually dies. So I learned to build walls around myself to ease the ache. But over the years, I learned to put down some walls and let a few people in."
"And you let one of these agents in."
"Well...A couple. There's Coulson, Fury, and Nat, and then there's Clint...He's one of the brainwashed. He's a good person. He's a good agent. He always knows how to make me laugh on my sad days. It's my fault that he's been hijacked. It's my fault that the Tesseract was taken. I have to do this."
Steve nodded, grabbing his gym bag. "Let's go home."
"What? Why?" Amy asked.
"We have to pack. And I have to get briefed. It's you and me, right?" Steve asked, offering his hand to his sister.
Amy smiled, grabbing it as he pulled her up and wrapped a sweaty arm around her shoulders. "You stink," she whined, wrapping an arm around his waist. "You and me. Lord, give me strength..."
Deep in the Atlantic Ocean, Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit, cut a laser cutter that came from his hand. It was a big moment for him...For him and Pepper. He couldn't have done this without her. He placed the Stark Energy Reactor on the pipeline, and it lit up. Skyrocketing out of the water, he flew towards his home in New York, Stark Tower. "You're good on this end. The rest is up to you."
Pepper was feeling pride as she looked at the computer monitor. "You disconnected the transition lines? Are we off the grid?"
"Stark Tower is about to become a beacon of self-sustaining clean energy."
"Wow. So maybe our reactor takes over, and it actually works?"
Inside the suit, Pepper's beautiful face appeared on his hud monitor, smiling. "I assume. Light her up." Tony flew to Stark Tower, the power switching the Stark sign on. Tony beamed at his hard work. If only Amy was here to see this.
"How does it look?" Pepper asked.
"Like Christmas, but with more...me."
"Gotta go wider on the public awareness campaign. You need to do some press. I'm in DC tomorrow. I'm working on the zoning for the next three buildings."
Tony groaned. Just as he thought this day was going well, she had to go and say that. All he wanted is to fly back inside and spend the next couple of days with the love of his life, in a bed...naked. "Pepper, you're killing me. Remember the moment? Enjoy the moment."
Pepper smirked, a blush creeping up her pale neck and cheeks. "Then get in here and I will."
That was all the invitation he needed. He flew back into the skyscraper and began the process of disengaging his Iron Man suit. "Sir, Agent Coulson of SHIELD is on the line."
"I'm not in. I'm actually out."
"Sir, I'm afraid he's insisting."
"Grow a spine, Jarvis. I got a date." He was finally free of the suit and strutted towards Pepper, who was still staring up at the monitors of the reactor device.
"Levels are holding steady... I think."
"Of course they are, I was directly involved. Which brings me to my next question: how does it feel to be a genius?" Tony asked, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind.
Pepper smirked, leaning back into him. "Well, ha, I really wouldn't know now, would I?"
"What do you mean? All this came from you," Tony protested as she turned around.
"No. All this came from that," Pepper said, pointing to the arc reactor in his chest plate.
"Give yourself some credit, please. Stark Tower is your baby. Give yourself... twelve percent of the credit."
Pepper balked. "Twelve percent?"
"An argument can be made for fifteen."
"Twelve percent? For my baby?"
"Well, I did do all the heavy lifting. Literally, I lifted the heavy things. And sorry, but the security snafu? That was on you."
"Oooooh."
"My private elevator..."
"You mean our elevator?"
"Was steaming with sweaty workmen. I'm going to pay for that comment about percentages in some subtle way later, aren't I?"
Pepper responded by pouring herself and Tony each a glass of champagne. "Not gonna be that subtle."
"I'll tell you what. The next building's gonna say 'Potts' on the tower."
"On the lease."
"Call your mom, can you bunk over?" Tony joked, leaning in to kiss Pepper to begin their celebration.
"Sir, the telephone. I'm afraid my protocols are being overwritten."
"Stark, we need to talk," Couslon's voice said through the speaker.
Tony groaned and grabbed his phone. He looked at Coulson, annoyed at being interrupted. "You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark, please leave a message."
"This is urgent."
"Then leave it urgently." As soon as the words left his mouth, the elevator door opened and Coulson appeared, hanging up the phone. "Security breach! That's on you."
Pepper rolled her eyes at his accusation and smiled at Coulson. "Mr. Stark," Coulson greeted.
"Phil! Come in!" Pepper smiled, allowing Coulson into the penthouse.
Tony didn't like that...at all. "Phil? Uh, his first name is Agent."
"Come on in, we're celebrating."
"I can't stay."
Tony nodded. "Which is why he can't stay."
Coulson ignored his statement and held a file toward Tony. "We need you to look this over. Soon as possible."
"I don't like being handed things."
"That's alright, 'cause I love to be handed things. So, let's trade," Pepper said, handing her glass of champagne to Coulson and took the file. She then turned to Tony, grabbed his glass, and handed him the file. "Thank you."
Tony glared at her as he gripped the file. "Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday."
"This isn't a consultation."
"Is this about The Avengers?" Pepper asked, blinking as Coulson and Tony looked at her. "Which I...I know nothing about?"
"The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought. And I didn't even qualify," Tony said, turning back to Coulson.
"I didn't know that either."
"Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, and don't play well with others."
Pepper smirked, nodding. It was all true. "That I did know."
"This isn't about personality profiles anymore."
"Whatever. Miss Potts, got a minute?" Tony called. Pepper walked over to him as he placed the files onto his own databases. "You know, I thought we were having a moment."
"I was having twelve percent of a moment. This seems serious, Phil's pretty shaken."
"How did you notice? Why is he Phil?"
"What is all of this?"
Tony sighed, expanding his arms as different profiles appeared in holographic form, floating in the air in front of the couple. "This is, uh...This." The screens showcased Captain America in action, the Hulk roaring as he attacked Culver University, Thor fighting the Destroyer in New Mexico, Amy Rogers a couple of years ago as she helped Tony and Rhodey at the Stark Expo, and then Loki and the Tesseract.
Pepper swallowed, knowing that this was bigger than her. Her eyes were on her friend. "Is that Amy?"
"Yeah," Tony said, spotting his godmother and one of his best friends. Probably his only friend other than Rhodey. Tony knew that her powers came from the Tesseract. After his breakthrough with his self-worth and his father, he began to study the files that dear, old dad had on her.
Pepper nodded, squeezing his arm. The world needed Tony. It needed Iron Man. Most importantly, Amy needed him. "I'm going to take the jet to DC tonight."
"Tomorrow," Tony protested, as he stared at the screen.
"You've got homework. You've got a lot of homework."
"Well, what if I didn't?"
"If you didn't?"
"Yeah."
"You mean if you finished?" Tony nodded his head. "Well, um...then." Smirking, she brought her lips closed to his ear, whispering the dirty promises to him. Tony gasped as Coulson looked away in embarrassment. "Square deal. It's the last date."
Pepper smiled and kissed him, her eyes closing. Pulling away, she brought a hand to the center of his chest over his arc reactor. "Work hard."
Tony turned back to the screen as Pepper left with Coulson, grabbing the Tesseract in the holograph form, worried. His eyes went to Amy again on the screen, seeing her eyes glow blue and her hair stark white. And so it began.