Five times things went a little differently and one time they were kind of the same.
This fic was written for a promt on avengerKink that asked for more women heroes without genderbending. I don't think the original poster had a five in one in mind but that's what my head came up with. Meh.
Warnings for mentions of attempted rape and character death.
1:
"Why me?" Steve asked as the doctor sat down on the bed next to his own.
"Well, I suppose that is the only question that matters." Erskine replied and paused, considering his answer. Then he told Steve about his home and his people. He told about Shmit and the serum. "This is why you were chosen." Erskine finally said. "Because a strong man, who has known power all his life, may lose respect for that power; but a weak man knows the value of strength, and knows compassion." He finished with a small smile.
Steve returned the smile but something caught at him. "That's why you don't want just another solder." he said, trying to chase after the thought.
The doctor pursed his lips briefly then nodded.
"You don't want someone who will fight, you want someone who will protect. A shield, not a sword."
"I suppose that is one way to see it." Erskine was more hesitant now, wondering where Steve was going.
"Then, you don't want me."
"What do you mean?" it was clear that Erskine didn't follow, but Steve had the thread now and plowed on.
"I've wanted to be a solder since the war started. The only thing stopping me was this." and he brought a hand up to his chest, indicating his too small frame and everything that came with it. "I do want to protect, but I want to protect and serve."
"What about this afternoon?" the doctor asked. "You threw yourself on that grenade."
Steve shrugged. "I'm the weakest link in any chain. Growing up, when I was strong enough to play, even the kids who would give me a fair shot knew it. Better a self-sacrifice then have everyone else blame me for pulling down the team." Steve looked down then away letting his eyes play over the windows, he shrugged self-mockingly. "Agent Carter leapt forward too, maybe she's the one you need."
Erskine considered him, then seemed to come to a decision. "Agent Carter is a fine woman. I'm not sure even my formula could improve her." his tone was exaggerated and slightly self-mocking.
"Yeah, she is at that, isn't she. You know, Doc-" and here Steve's tone turned joking. "I think you should choose Peggy tomorrow. There's no one kinder then a woman with someone to protect, and that woman's decided to protect the whole world."
"I suppose she has." Erskine said and raised his glass.
The next day, the doctor surprised everyone by leading Peggy to the machine. Steve watched with his heart in his throat as she went through the process, and could have wept with pride as she took down the spy after Erskine's death. It meant he would never get his chance, but he could live with that. It had never really been his in the first place.
Peggy kept in touch, writing letters even when she wasn't supposed to. Steve eventually found a way to the front line as a medic. They met for the second time when Steve was treating the 107th and "Lady Freedom" had been called in to discus the growing threat of Hydra in the area. Steve thought the code name was ridiculous and they had a good laugh about it together before Steve realized Bucky was missing.
Peggy promised to rescue Steve's best friend without a second's thought. When the two came marching up the road leading an army of survivors riding captured tanks Steve knew everything was how it was meant to be. The world may not be perfect, but only because it was their job to make it so. That night, after Steve had checked out his friends and made sure none of them needed anything more then a light bandage, Steve and Peggy sat down with Bucky and Howard and toasted to the end of the war.
With Bucky fighting along side Peggy, Steve knew they would always come back to him. They watched each others backs and even if they got hurt, Steve was there to patch them up. Howard had created a Shield for Peggy, mostly as a joke, but it suited her all the same. Together the four of them were going to take down Hydra and end the war.
When the final battle took them into Hydra's last bace, Steve was there waiting for his friends to return. Only, one of them didn't.
Bucky told him the story. Told him how Peggy had taken the plane up and hadn't come back.
Bucky didn't tell Steve how he had kissed Peggy there at the end and then spoken to her over the radio as she put the plane in the water. Steve would only learn about that later, from Howard. Steve never blamed his best friend, they both had lost someone close to their heart.
Seventy years later, Peggy Carter, code name: Lady Freedom, woke to the sounds of a baseball game. She had never been a huge fan of the sport, but her three American friends had been, and she had been dragged to enough games to know that the one from the radio was false. She fought her way free of the building and it's soldiers only to learn that those she had cared about were gone.
Her world had never been her country, it had always been the people she cared for. Now that was gone. All she had left was a flag that wasn't even really hers and a legacy that her friends had created.
Steve had spent years telling her story through his art. The comic books and trading cards had become so widely spread that her persona had become a legend. She embraced that legend as one last gift from a friend she would never see again.
2:
"No, Bruce. I'm not just going to let you do this." Betty Ross had her hands on her hips and was every inch the generals daughter as she flatly denied her boyfriend.
"Betty," Bruce tried again, "I'm confident about the formula and really..." his argument about funding was cut off when Betty spoke again.
"So am I Bruce, but that doesn't mean you get to go through with this alone."
"What?" Bruce started fiddling with his glasses and Betty knew she had him. He only did that when he was fighting with himself about something.
"The procedure takes two people. You're not cutting me out of this one way or the other, so don't try to just block me like this."
"Betty this hasn't been sanctioned. You know we could both lose everything, even if this works, and recreating the formula is only theoretical..."
"You said yourself that you were confident about the formula, Doctor Banner." Betty reminded him, her voice slipping into the cajoling range. "Do I need to list out all the advantages to have me as a test subject instead of you? The only successful test case was a woman after all, not to mention."
"Betty!"
He grabbed her shoulders and she let her voice fall silent for a long minute. Finally he let his head fall forward on his shoulders.
"Fine, We'll flip a coin, fair?"
They agreed.
When Betty won the coin toss, her life changed forever. The green beast of a hulk smashed through the facility like it was cheep cardboard. Bruce blamed himself. He let the world think it was him.
They ran, and sometimes he was able to calm the beast, and sometimes the harshness of the world only made the beast stronger. When Bruce was captured at the bottling plant, Betty knew things had gone from bad to worse. Bruce had been a test subject in enough of their experiments that he wouldn't read as normal. It would take their scientists weeks to learn he wasn't who they were after. In the mean time Betty was a single woman trying to travel through no less then six south and central american countries.
The roads were not kind. She quickly learned to see the leers from groups of men who didn't know about the beast inside her. Bruce had always shielded her from the worst of it; Helped her keep her calm with that awkward little smile of his. Even while traveling north, to his rescue, she realized how empty the world was without him. How low she might have fallen if not for him. She was falling even now. With her own father hunting her and Bruce nothing but a faint hope she reached her lowest point.
When the next group of men came for her, calling her a pretty bird and taunting her with whistles and catcalls, and too friendly touches, she didn't fight it. She gave in to the rage for the first time and let herself go, hoping to never come back.
She did come back, somewhere in the desert of New Mexico. When she was picked up by two astrophysicists and an intern in an RV, her story held enough of the truth to stop the questions. Both women gave her the kind of look that meant they were angry on her behalf and she just shrugged them off. She had enough anger of her own.
Bruce was in New York. The military bace there was apparently the only one with the right equipment. Betty didn't try to hide. She walked in through the front doors, fully prepared to trade Bruce's freedom for her own. At least, until the abomination of science had carved a hole through most of the building and out into the city. They had used her blood, collected from the attack in central america. Something about comparing the reaction to the inactive blood they were getting from Bruce.
Betty saw the city in flames and the world turned green. Two monsters fought amongst the towers and when Bruce tried to pull her out of it, reaching out to her like he had in the past, there were too many lights and guns and people. She never wanted to run from him but when she woke in a forest of ancient old pines, she knew he was better off without her. He deserved a life without her curse hanging over her, and she needed a chance to learn to live with it on her own terms.
She vanished into the backwaters of the world, knowing that no one could ever be allowed to find her.
3:
When Tony comes back to life after being kidnaped Pepper comes back to life as well. She will never admit to how worried she was. How many nights she spent, just sitting on Tony's couch, occasionally talking to Jarvis if she got drunk enough. Playing his music at three in the morning, because that was what he used to do to drive her up the wall.
The first time he died she mourned him.
Then he came back and for three happy weeks he was alive again. They were back to being almost more then friends, but not quite. Things had almost gone back to normal.
She realized things would never really be normal after she found him with the suit, the bullet holes drawing lines over his chest. He pleaded with her trying to explain, but she didn't get it, at least, not until he died the second time.
Agent Coulson cleared the rooms of Tony's house with a brisk efficiency that Pepper would have admired, had she not been so desperate. When they finally found Tony, sprawled limp on the floor of his lab, her heart broke. Jarvis told her what happened; he replayed the events in perfect detail. She saw how he had been trying to go for the replacement arc-reactor, how he had been just a few steps from his goal when the spasms overcame him. He died alone on the floor of his lab, believing she was dead.
Her blood rand cold and hot at the same time. Everything he had said about making things right suddenly made sense to her. The first time he had died she had had no one to blame, it had been a tragic accident but no one person had caused it. The second time he died, he had made sure she knew the truth.
Coulson dealt with the body. When the medical team had carted it away Pepper returned to the lab. She pulled up every file Tony had on his suits, and went over them with methodical detail. She may not have had Tony's genius, but she had worked with him for long enough to understand his work. Jarvis processed her modifications with no small amount of pleasure. Pepper wasn't the only one who wanted righteous vengeance.
With Tony's first arc-reactor strapped to her chest, Pepper took the last weapon that Tony Stark had ever built and used it to kill his murderer. In the process, she directly saved 19 people and stopped the blowout of the Stark facilities arc-reactor. The papers called her Rescue. The name was sour, but she didn't try to stop it, because this time Tony had rescued her. He had come back to life for three short weeks to save her and give her a purpose. She knew what to do now, and she had Jarvis secretly helping her the whole way.
Later, after the events of the world's fair she was approached by SHIELD. They didn't like that she was acting as a vigilante. The didn't like that her first act had been to kill, even if she hadn't done anything close to that since. They didn't like that after Tony's death Jarvis had hacked half a dozen systems to make sure she was the one who kept running Stark Industries and making her the sole beneficiary of all his possessions. They said she was in shock. They said she needed structure. They told her about the initiative and she very politely told them to fuck off. Coulson had managed to earn her trust, but Barton was a cocky bastard and Fury was worse.
If the call ever did come, though, she knew she would answer it, and so did they.
4:
Thor was a fool when he had been sent to earth. Then he had fallen in love, and that made him a greater fool then all. Jane was all he could have ever wished for, smart, and beautiful, and kind, with a strength in her that had her standing up to him as no woman but the Lady Sif had dared before. She was nothing, just another human, and yet she had set his world spinning in the short time they were together.
"Stop!" Loki cried as Thor raised his hammer again. "If you do this, you'll never see her again!"
And it was true. Thor knew what his actions would bring, but if there was one lesson that had been driven home by his time on earth it was the willingness to protect what he held dear. Yes, that meant Jane, and Darcy and Eric but it also meant his home, the realm he had been raised to rule, and all the wonders and joys therein. To sacrifice a kingdom for love would make a grand story, but with the kingdom's loss there would be no one left to tell it. So, he would settle for another story; the story of the prince who sacrificed all for the good of another, and be content. He would still have his brother and his friends, to share his burden with.
Then Loki had vanished as well, falling into the darkness between realms.
The comfort of friends did little to ease so much loss, especially when they expected him to be the same man as before.
Thor spent more time in his Father's company, trying to learn the cleverness that did not come naturally. The Allfather would not live forever and one day the nine realms would be his to watch over.
Thor felt it when the Tesseract pulsed to life, and he knew he would not be the only one. Of the nine realms, few saw Midguard as anything other then a playground or a field of conquest. Thor spoke with his father and before the day was out messages were sent to all the realms detailing he subtle threats and bargains that would protect the middle realm. Thor had no skill at this game but he knew if earth was to survive he had no choice but to play. Better to meat his enemies at the table then on earth's battlefields.
Thor had been nearly confident of the situation when Loki had returned from worlds unknown, bringing an army at his back.
Thor's heart reached out to Midguard. It seemed to hold all he desired, his lady and his lost brother come back to him. And yet to reach out to them would mean turning his back on the enemies he knew were hungry for conquest. The frost giants and the dark elves and even the dwarfs would not be would not be stalled forever by promises that were never kept and threats that were never carried through. If Thor were to return to earth, he would bring down more armies then Loki and without even the excuse of madness.
With grief at the necessity, Thor turned to his right hand, the finest warrior in his guard and asked for the favor that he could not perform himself. Lady Sif accepted the heart of her prince and vowed she would die before failing in this task. With the rainbow bridge gone her path to earth was marked by shadow and lightning.
5:
Natasha was two steps behind Fury when the cube started behaving. She's there beside Hill, when the director tells her to get the phase 2 prototypes out. Then they're in the largest chamber and the doorway opens from the other side.
Natasha let's Loki get too close. She's always done her work up close and personal but this time it's a mistake.
"You have spirit." he says and the staff touches that spot just above her heart. She is unmade yet again, and he becomes her world.
Hours later Coulson makes a call, and his voice nearly breaks over the line. "Romanov's been compromised." and Clint laughs because that's what he does when he's scared out of his wits.
"Really? Who did it? I want to see their balls before Nat puts them in a vice."
"Loki." and with that Phil is back in agent mode, because hearing Clint joke about something this serious is exactly what should be happening.
"Shit. Like how that guy in new mexico was Thor? Well, I suppose it would take a god to get someone like Nat's attention. So, what's the plan?"
"Fury's calling in the initiative. I need you to pick someone up on the way in."
"Sweet, do I get Rescue? Please tell me I get Rescue, she is smoking."
"I get Rescue, you've got the big guy."
Clint froze, and Phil let himself smile, he was one of the few people who could actually manage to silence the archer and he every time he managed it was a quiet thrill.
Clint quickly recovered. "You're joking. I know you're joking Phil you sly bastard. Did Sitwell put you up to this? He's got to let that thing with the socks go man. It's nothing personal. I pull that kind of thing with everyone, you know that."
Phil quietly cut the connection, sending Barton the rendezvous information through their private line.
Clint was in Calcutta six hours later. The child had brought Doctor Ross to the edge of town leaving Barton alone in the room with her. It was a nightmare, probably for both of them. Clint was twitchy, being so close to his current target, even if he wasn't supposed to take her out. While Betty Ross was full of a live fluid kind of tension. In a way she reminded him of Nat back in the early days.
"You know, for someone trying to avoid stress you picked a hell of a place to settle." Clint wasn't looking at her, his eyes dancing over the walls picking out all the little odds and ends, stuck into the corners. His words almost seemed to drain some form of tension from her and her shoulders rolled back.
"Avoiding stress isn't the issue." she put the emphasis on the second word as if she was thinking of avoiding something else entirely. "How did you find me?"
"SHIELD never lost you. Just kept tabs and kept our distance."
"Maybe you should have stayed at a distance."
Clint shrugged, "Not my call. I know distance is sometimes preferable, but the director wants you to come in."
Betty's voice turned sour. "And he always gets what he wants?"
"Most times."
"And what if I say no?"
"Take a wild guess."
"And what if my partner says no?"
Hawkeye sighed and leaned back against the wall with his arms tucked down and back against his sides. "Then I end up having a very bad day; but given that I've already had my partner kidnaped by a norse god, and one of the most powerful artifacts in the world stolen my day is already pretty shity. It's up to you."
"Excuse me?"
"We're facing a potential global catastrophe." Clint still wasn't looking at her but his tone took on a more serious note as he pulled out the phone with the data on it. "This is the tesseract. It's an energy source more powerful then anything we can even measure. About seven hours ago it was stolen by a man who calls himself Loki, and before you ask, yes he does seem to be the real deal."
Betty looked down at the image of the blue cube. "No. I'm not going to be made into a weapon. I decided that a long time ago."
"Fine by me. I'm just looking for a target. They say you can track the cube, some kind of gamma signature. Once you find it I honestly don't care what you do."
"Yes because I'll honestly just be allowed to walk away."
"That's the deal."
"Stop lying to me!" Suddenly she was too close, the frame that had looked slender and willowy seeming to fill the space in the room. For the first time Hawkeye looked at her, filled his attention with her.
"Frankly Doctor Ross, I'm a terrible lier."
While Agent Barton was in Calcutta, Agent Coulson was hacking his way into Stark Memorial Tower. Normally such a thing would have been nearly impossible but Jarvis apparently liked him.
"Phil." Pepper didn't greet him as warmly as she once might have, but he took her using his first name as a good sign.
"Pepper, if you could have Rescue look this over." The world didn't know her identity, so Phil made the effort to separate the two personas.
Pepper looked down at the case. "Is this about the Avengers?"
Phil met here eyes. "Director Fury isn't saying, but yes, this could be the biggest thing we've ever faced."
"I'll see what I can do."
1:
When Lady Freedom and Rescue defeated Loki and brought him back the the helicarrier with Sif in tow it became clear just how bad an idea this was. They were a powder keg, they were a chemical mixture that makes chaos. They were a time bomb.
Lady Freedom was proud, and out of touch; trying to be a leader without any idea of where she was, let alone where she was going in this new and so different world. Rescue was cold and analytical, never dropping her armor. She sent Jarvis through the helicarrier systems like a wildfire, all the while making sarcastic comments, taunting the others for the smallest reasons. Doctor Ross was distant and distracted until someone managed to set her off, then she was amazingly focused and more then a little terrifying. Sif was distant following her own orders without putting forth more information then needed. Hawkeye was a smart ass who got in everyone's way, until they needed him, which was when he suddenly vanished.
Natasha's attack was a catalyst that set the mixture boiling. The Hulk rampaged with Sif trying to hold him back. Rescue and Freedom fought to keep the helicarrier in the air; and in the bowels of the ship Hawkeye fought the Black Widow with everything he had.
They were scattered and the first casualty was recorded.
Suddenly all the collected anger and frustration had a target. Oil and vinegar, salt and spice, all came together, and where individually they had been impressive, combined they were magnificent. Loki led an army into Manhattan and a team, newly forged, met his forces and pushed them back.
After the city was safe and the memory of danger faded comments would be made about a sorority being the worlds first line of defense, or how the US was so desperate they had to find a bunch of girls to lead the charge. Others retaliated by saying that fighting like a girl was now a compliment. People talked, people always talked, but when the chips were down, the Avengers would be ready.