It was never supposed to see the light of day. No one was supposed to find out about it. But one would think, in all his years of service, that Agent Phil Coulson would know that anything could be dug up...
ANYTHING.
"Um, Coulson?" He heard Maria Hill call from the other side of the plane. Coulson walked over to find his whole team and Maria gathered around Skye and her laptop. They were all trying to stifle their laughter, some (*cough* Ward *cough*) more successfully than others (*cough* Fitz *cough*). "What's going on?" Coulson asked. "Well, Skye was hacking into Fury's files..." May said.
"Why?"
"She was bored. Anyway, she happened on a folder on you. And there was this one file titled "Darkest Secret"." Simmons continued. "And, naturally, she read it?" "Yes. We're all reading it..." Ward replied, maintaining his poker face. Coulson raised an eyebrow. What could this secret be?
Skye laughed. "Coulson, you never told us you wrote fanfiction!"
All the blood drained from Coulson's face. He SWORE he deleted and burned all that a long time ago. He KNEW it was gone as soon as they announced Cap was thawing. It was like they were never on his secret Tumblr. He tried to maintain his composure. "...What?"
"This whole thing is filled with fanfics by you! We've just started reading the one called "Captain America's New Sidekick"... Coulson cringed internally. "Loki, why couldn't you kill me?" he thought, wanting to be swallowed by a mysterious void. (They had found those, they pop up all the time in this desert town they were monitoring.)
Skye looked to the other agents. "Want me to continue?" Everyone but Coulson nodded. Coulson decided that he needed something to get through this and went to the bar onboard the plane. The team and Maria ignored him as Skye continued reading from where they left off:
"Captain America held his hand out to the strange boy. "Hi, I'm Captain..."
"...Jack Harkness and who are you?" Simmons threw in, giggling. "Stop it..." Fitz snickered, understanding her reference.
"...America. And you are?" The boy smiled mysteriously. "My name is Bill Paulson. I'm from the future, Mr. America..."
"Bill Paulson? Seriously?" Maria asked, raising an eyebrow to Coulson. "Hey! He wasn't based on me!"
""Why are you here, Bill Paulson?" Cap asked. "I'm here to save you from a terrible fate, Captain! I can help you!" "No, it's too dangerous! This is war, Bill! My friend DIED! I work alone, now." "You don't have to work alone, Cap." Bill said, putting his hand on Cap's shoulder. "Okay!" Cap said.
"Besides, Cap! I have superpowers!" Paulson added with a smile. "Really?" Captain America said amazed by how cool Bill Paulson was. "Do you want to be my sidekick?" Captain America asked eagerly. "Yes." Bill said coolly. So they went to fight the nazis."
"Coulson, you should have been an author." May said, laughing. "Wait, there's more! That's just part one!" Skye replied with a mischievous grin. "Ward was right. We shouldn't have recruited her..." Coulson noted to himself. He poured some more alcohol in his glass.
"Part Two: "Hail Hydra!" Captain America and his new sidekick Bill Paulson were busy punching Hitler in the face again..."
"Like you do..." Ward said.
"When suddenly Hitler's head fell off when Bill punched him."
"COULSON, DID YOU JUST KILL HITLER!?" Fitz asked, incredulous. "He's. Not. Me." Coulson insisted. He inspected his glass. The scotch wasn't working. He should've gone with the brandy. But he couldn't bring himself to waste the already-poured drink, so he settled for what he had.
" "HITLER IS A ROBOT!?" Captain America yelled with shock. Then The Red Skull stepped out from behind a curtain. "YES! HE WAS A ROBOT ALL ALONG! AND HE WORKED FOR HYDRA!" He laughed evilly.""
"This is the best story EVER." Ward stated.
""Then Hitler-Bot started ticking. Then Hitler-Bot exploded! Cap hid behind his shield. "BILL!" He yelled.""
Skye paused. "I ship it." She continued:
"He looked for his sidekick and saw he was okay. "It's okay Captain I'm indestructible!" They laughed. But The Red Skull disappeared! So our heroes went to find him.""
Coulson clapped his hands. "Well, this was fun, but we have actual agent stuff to do. Thanks for visiting, Maria. You need to..." "But there's one more part!" Skye protested. The team clamored in union. Coulson let out a defeated sigh and went for the brandy. He knew what was coming...
""Part Three: "The Final Showdown!" Captain America and Bill Paulson were chasing The Red Skull. He was shooting lasers from The-"" Skye frowned and looked to Coulson for pronunciation help... "Tesseract." Maria answered.
""Tesseract. The lasers hit Paulson. "Haha! You can't kill me with that! THE TESSERACT ONLY MAKES ME STRONGER!" He declared. The Red Skull laughed. "But can you handle MY HYDRA!?" A Hydra rose up behind the bad guy and ate him. "Oh no!" The Red Skull shouted."
Ward finally broke down and laughed hysterically. "I love this!" he managed to say. Fitz had lost the ability to stand and was practically crying tears of joy by now. Simmons looked over at Coulson. "How old were you when you wrote this? Ten?" "...Yes..." he lied. (It was ten years ago. SHIELD's pain meds did funny things to his head.) "Well, that sunk my ship..." Skye pouted.
"Captain America threw his shield at the hydra and cut its heads off. But it grew MORE HEADS! "Cap, throw me in, I can kill it from the inside!" "PHIL, NO!""
Maria shot Coulson a smug look. Coulson just sighed in defeat, avoiding eye contact.
"Bill insisted he be thrown in. So Cap threw him in. Then the HYDRA Hydra exploded and died."
"You wouldn't have happened to have watched Hercules when you wrote this?" May asked. Coulson just buried his face in his hands and nodded. Simmons tilted her head. "But that came out..." "You're almost done, just finish it..."
"Captain America ran to the exploded hydra and saw Bill lying there dying. "Bill, no..." "It's okay, Captain. We... saved the world." Then Bill died and went to heaven. Cap saluted and went on to fight for America and Bill became his guardian angel. The End."
"Wait, wasn't he indestructible?" Fitz asked. "Really, that's your only critique?" questioned Ward. Fitz shrugged. "I'd just like some continuity..." Skye rolled her eyes sarcastically. "You're all missing the point: Coulson-I mean Paulson died for our sins..." Maria tried not to smile. Oh, how close to the truth that was.
"Well, this was fun. But I think Coulson's had enough. See you later." Maria said, exiting the jet. Skye sighed and went to put her laptop away. Everyone else went about their business. Coulson, however, just sat in his chair, face buried in his palm.
The next day, when Coulson felt most of the alcohol was out of his system, he called up Fury.
"What?"
"How could you!? Skye found your little file..."
Fury swore. "You weren't supposed to find out! Look, you might be questioning my ethics, but it was for everyone's own good that..."
"HOW COULD YOU KEEP MY FANFICTION ON FILE AS BLACKMAIL!?"
"...Wait, she just read the fanfics? That's what this was all about?"
"Of course, what else would it be about? And ALL of them read it..."
"...Aww, that is messed up. But I only kept it as a fake-out. I kept the real blackmail on my personal top secret file. And I kept the worst one in there, too. I think you called it "Fourth of July". You know, the one with the fireworks in... "
Coulson pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, I know..." Unlike "Captain America's New Sidekick", his head had been clear when he wrote it. Coulson smiled. "Really?"
"Yeah, I wouldn't do that to my good eye. Now GET BACK TO WORK!"
"Yes sir! Thank you..."
~0~
Meanwhile, in Stark Tower, Tony was currently hacking Fury's files via Stark Tablet, and stumbled upon a PDF titled "Fourth of July- DO NOT READ". So of course, Tony read it. When he finished, he sat staring at the screen of his tablet for a good five hours. "Sir?" JARVIS inquired, worried. "JARVIS, dial up Steve... No, dial up ALL The Avengers. They... They have to see this..."