Nervously, the man rolls onto the balls of his feet, displaying his ever-present anxiety. 'There are too many people,' he thinks to himself, his blue slits for eyes darting back and forth as he begins to walk across the platform.

Though his hands are shoved deep in his pant pockets, he still picks at the rough skin around his thumbnails and then—only for a moment—removes his now clammy palms to bite the loose skin around the nail as sort of a nervous habit.

He's only dressed in a grey t-shirt and black jeans whose color was being slowly rubbed off. His casual attire contrasts with that of the workers around him, further singling him out as a foreigner.

Quickly, but unexcitedly, he follows a man in a suit down the hall. He sneezes as the man turns to tell him something.

"What?" the first man asks, wiping his nose on his wrist and then snorting unintentionally.

"Just making sure you're still following," the man in the suit replies with a sigh, turning away from the tall—out of place—man to continue down the hall.

The fluorescent lights beat down on the two men as they weave and navigate through a crew of workers. The end of the hall opens up into a huge lobby or sorts; the floor below lined with row after row of computers.

He yawns and scratches the back of his head, still anxious but also completely uninterested.

The man in the suit opens his mouth as if to speak, but is interrupted by a greater presence in the room.

"Mr. Knox," the man turns; black trench coat waving in dark contrast to the nearly blinding sunlight cascading in from the wall of windows behind him. His voice is powerful.

"Adam," the other man replies, no real change in his voice. "I'm not a professor, you know that. I still go by Adam."

"Mr. Knox," the black-trench coat man continues, completely ignoring Adam's request to be addressed by his first name, "I wish we had time for idle chit-chat, but you were brought here to do a job which, I'm very certain, you're quite capable of handling."

Though not trying to be disrespectful, Adam snorts. "Your men shoved their badges in my face first thing in the morning. The sun had barely come up. You haven't even told me what job I'm supposed to be doing."

"Mr. Knox, are you not an engineer? Are you not capable of handling a job handed to you on a moments notice?" the trench-coat man continues in an intimidating tone, approaching Adam with his hands firmly behind his back.

Adam doesn't blink.

Faces twisted into a scowl, the two proceed to have a staring contest.

"Sorry, Fury," Adam begins laughing in an unexpected twist. "I can't look you in the eye. You know that."

Director Fury squints his one eye at Adam, who's trying desperately not to laugh. "You know why you're aboard this aircraft, though."

"I've got a hunch," Adam rolls his eyes, slowly ceasing his laughter. "I'm just not all that thrilled to be sticking around. Last time I was aboard, you almost got me killed, if I remember correctly."

Fury turns back to his post, staring out the great window in front of them. "You just had to learn the hard way, Knox."

Adam sighs and gives up the futile fighting. "What'll I be fixing for you today, Director Fury."

"There's a cooling agent stationed near each of the ships rotors," Fury begins to explain something Adam already knew, bringing up a diagram on one of his monitors. "The one stationed near engine two spontaneously ruptured the other day, and the man we'd usually call to fix these sorts of problems is… not available at the moment."

"Stark?" Adam sneers.

Fury acknowledges Adam's displeasure, but makes no gesture in response. "You helped build this ship; we need you to fix her. If we don't fix it—"

"The engine will overheat. Yeah, I know," Adam rudely cuts Fury off. "People only seem to remember me when they need a favor. Stark, Richards and Forge designed the helicarrier and left the grunt work to me. But you know what, I like it better this way. After the disaster with the Titans Initiative, I'm glad no one tries to contact me."

"Still sore about the Titans, of all things," Fury gives him the privilege of receiving a solid glare from his one good eye.

"Oh no, I hear you've already replaced us with something new. The Avengers? Is that what you're gonna call them?" Adam mocks bitterly. "I bet no one even remembers the Titans, let alone knows we existed to start with."

"Mr. Knox, I called you aboard this ship to fix a problem and then promptly leave. While I'm exceedingly fascinated with how unpleasant your presence continues to be, I would like for this ship to stay in the air and will put up with you as long as it takes for that task to be accomplished."

Adam squints, a bad taste forming in his mouth. He wants to say something else to Fury, but doesn't think he can manage without losing his temper. "I can find it on my own," Adam finally says, turning away from the spy and exiting the big room.


'This is dumb,' Adam think to himself as he trudges his way through a small crowd. He looks ahead at the halls teeming with researchers and agents and tries to remember a time when this place was ever so full. Never during his stay at S.H.I.E.L.D had so many people been aboard at one time, but he guesses that's because he was on board before S.H.I.E.L.D really had a foothold in the security and enforcement business just a few years back. Sure, they'd been around for years, but Adam guesses that they'd only recently begun to take a supreme interest in affairs otherwise considered 'superhuman.'

For a moment, Adam loses himself in the whitewashed walls and, though he knows where he's going, he can't seem to remember what he's doing.

That is, until a shock of red hair jolts him from his stupor.

She walks past briskly, moving confidently but also elegantly. For a moment, he can only see the hair and it's like someone set fire to the whole ship. He drifts towards her on accident and the two bump into each others arms. He was surprised by how much power she put into her stride; he's not a small guy and she managed to give him a good nudge.

"Sorry," he apologizes half-heartedly, get a better look at her face and not just her hair. He shoots her an investigative look, which she quickly recognizes.

"Do I know you?" she states simply, her face expressionless.

"Hmm? No," he stutters, suddenly taken aback for no particular reason. "Sorry, your uh… your hair reminded me of someone I know, er, knew."

Adam very rarely gets choked up. It's not in his nature to be startled; he just hadn't seen red hair like that in a long time.

"Well enough then," she nods, perhaps a hint of confusion in the shake of her head. She turns and leaves, not batting another eye in his direction.

Almost immediately after, Adam forgets the girl and continues down the hall; hands clenched tightly in his pockets.

After some maneuvering, he finally retreats into the deeper crevices of the helicarrier to a set of halls that hadn't been accessed in maybe months, maybe more. The walls are lined with piping and wiring; steam jettisoning from varying holes and gaps in valves. The grating beneath his feet groans as he shuffles across.

Near the end of the hall is where Adam finds the problem. A piece of the cooler had ruptured nearly fifteen feet above him and was covering the better half of the hall with steam, leaking fluid everywhere.

"Any old mechanic could have fixed this," Adam grumbles to himself, slightly pissed that he'd been dragged aboard the ship for such a trivial repair.

"Well, it's not that simple," a voice echoes from behind him.

Adam turns slowly, a sigh escaping him. He's not unnerved. "Why's that, Coulson?"

The man in the suit smiles—slightly off-kilter—and then takes another step towards Adam, but remains bounds away from him. "That steam is at more than at boiling temperature. Any other mechanic we could call couldn't take a step closer to that stuff than where I'm standing know, which is a good twenty feet away from the actual cooler; more if you count the distance from the ground."

Adam sneers again. He could guess he'd be doing a lot of that during his stay. "I shoulda known Fury needed somethin' from the Titan."

"Had Stark been available, we wouldn't need your assistance but…."

"Yeah, I get it," Adam grumbles. If there's one that he hates, it's being used, especially when it involves the Titan. He slurs his speech slightly when he's pissed. "Jus' lemme do my work so I can leave."

Adam turns back to the cooler and the powerful spray of steam pouring out of it. He cracks his neck and tries to imagine "the good old times," but the memory comes out slightly bitter. With a deep breath seated in his chest, he focuses on his ability he hadn't utilized in ages, almost since he'd left S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place.

From his palms, dark enamel—a shell of sorts—begins to cover his skin. He's raising the levels of carbon in his body, careful not to let it run wild like all those times before. The carbon coating is a dark grey, rising up his arms, across his chest, and then over his face until his entire body is covered.

He exhales and takes a step forward; his carbon coated body now unaffected by the boiling temperatures. He swipes a tool case from the corner of the grated floor and then effortlessly leaps up to the rupture; grabbing hold of the pipe in one hand, wrench in the other, with the tool case carefully balanced on his propped up knee.

"So you've met Agent Romanoff?" Coulson continues to make small talk to keep Adam entertained.

"The red-head?" he assumes. "I wouldn't say we met, we just brushed into each other in the hall."

"Hmm, alright then. I thought you'd had more of an encounter; she wants to see the files from the Titan project."

"Does she now?" Adam grunts, shoving his arm deep into a crevice in the wall to feel around for a set of wires. "I wonder where she even heard of the Titan initiative."

"She's a spy, Adam. It' her job to figure these sorts of things out."

"And I'm sure now the rest of the Avengers'll be digging into my story now huh?"

"You think you'll be on the ship long enough for them to take an interest?"

"I sure as hell hope not," he grunts, ramming his shoulder into the pipe that was projecting from the rest of the pipes.

Steam stops spurting from the pipe seconds later, leaving Adam relieved, though he'd never exhibit such an emotion. He drops to his feet and waits a second for the carbon coating to recede. It takes a moment, which forces his heart to jump a beat faster, but it eventually fades. Lucky, he guesses.

Coulson approaches him, the steam now clear, most likely to congratulate him on a job well done, when the ship rears to the side; a loud explosion can be heard from across the ship.

"You got be shittin' me," Adam shouts, exasperated. "I'm gonna have to fix that too, aren't I?"


AN: So i'm pretty nervous about this fic because the first chapter mainly centers around my OC, but I promise that the Avengers will be in a LOT more to come. I appreciate all readers and reviewers, because the length and continuity of this story depend on you. I've added tidbits of information from the comics, but it's mostly centered around the movie. Also, I have this awful tendency to throw grammar and spelling out the window after 11 o'clock, so i apologize for that now.