Phil Coulson always thought he'd die in his sleep. He was never one to think of himself dying in the line of duty, he was too efficient, too intelligent. He was the example that led the wannabes and he was invincible. Miss Lewis had called him a ninja and secretly, he had agreed. He knew he was going to live to a ripe old age, still on top. It was a given.
Until he looked down at himself and saw something sticking out of him and well, may have passed out from shock.
PDPDPDPD
The Avengers were told of Coulson's death, they rallied, they fought, they won. In time, they rebuilt New York and the Tower. But they couldn't say that everything was back to normal. They'd lost one of their own and it hurt. Even after a year, they were a bit more subdued whenever anyone mentioned his name. Especially Tony, though he'd cover by saying he was annoyed that anyone had thought he'd needed a babysitter who couldn't even save himself.
The Tower was quickly becoming a hang out for the Avengers, never planned, of course. But the others seemed to gravitate to the one place they knew they could find others who understood all they'd lost. And what they still had. Tony had built labs for Bruce and Jane, but hadn't told them yet. He wasn't ready to admit he needed anyone that much, besides Pepper. And while she knew about the labs, Pepper pretended that she didn't.
Pepper walked briskly down the newly installed hallway, a slight smirk on her face as she noticed Tony had hung a large photo of Ironman at the end of the hall - right outside her office. His way of warning the male employees just who her boyfriend was. Nice touch, really.
As she entered her office, she stopped mid stride and stared. Nick Fury was sitting behind her desk, calmly looking through her computer files. He glanced up, his good eye staring her down.
"Director Fury," she said softly.
"Miss Potts," he answered. "Let me tell you a story. It's about life and death and a little thing called Project Lazarus."
PDPDPDPD
"Are you trying to tell me that he's not dead?" Tony asked, hands on his hips. "You mean to tell me that I got all syrupy sweet compassionate over a man who is not dead? I'll kill him." Pepper let her boyfriend rant and rave and kick a few things until finally she stood up and pushed him down onto the large sofa in her office.
"Tony, please. Everyone knows you've missed the man. Now, do you want to hear the rest or not?"
"Missed him? Missed him? He's been alive and not once has he let anyone know? Not even Captain Amazing? Not very teamish of him."
"Teamish is not a word," Fury said from the doorway. Tony jumped off the sofa and glared.
"You, you knew about this the whole time? Of course you did, manipulative bastard that you are." Tony waved his arms around and used swear words Fury hadn't heard since Howard Stark had been alive.
"Thank you," Fury said, sitting down. "But I'm fairly certain I'd remember intercourse with a tire iron." Pepper hid a smirk and Tony glared at them both. Finally, he sat back down and folded his arms across his chest, staring down at the floor.
"Fine," he muttered. "Tell me what the hell is going on and make it fast. I have an agent to smack."
Fury sighed. "Your father didn't lose the entire tesseract. He'd managed to save a tiny piece, unknown to myself for some time. We found it after his death and have been using it to track the larger piece and locate Asgard - for national security of course. The smaller piece has a few...unusual attributes. Coulson benefited from them."
"And you are telling us this now because?" Tony asked.
"Because the tiny piece of tesseract is now permanently embedded into Coulson's brain, effectively making him a sort of tracking unit. With him, we can find the larger piece before Hydra can." He glared at them both. "Unfortunately, Howard's notes are a bit, sketchy, on the properties of the piece we put in Agent Coulson. We aren't sure how stable it will remain. We need someone who understand's your father's work."
"This is getting weird," Tony said to Pepper. She smiled.
"Right up your alley, dear."