AN ~ Sorry I've taken so long! UGH MY EMOTIONS. This show is going to kill me, I swear. I will hopefully have another chapter up tonight so you're your eye out but in the mean time here is Chapter 2
Even as the ramp lowered, revealing the same man in the same suit with the same irritating half-smile, Tony Stark couldn't quite believe what he'd just seen.
"You're…"
"Not dead?" Coulson finished as Stark stepped off the ramp. "Like I said, it's a long story and I can't tell you most of it."
"But the cards?"
"I know." Coulson's smile dropped, giving way to a haunted expression that betrayed more than the loss of a handful of playing cards. He sighed and turned his head slightly, beckoning someone from the darkness. A tall, solidly built Chinese woman, dressed all in skin-tight black leather and Kevlar, stepped forward. She held a clipboard-sized PDA under one arm, and offered her free hand to be shaken.
"Melinda May," she introduced herself. Clint stepped past Tony to shake her hand.
"The Cavalry?" he wondered. Her eyes flashed steel and she tightened her grip around his hand ever so slightly.
"Don't call me that," she muttered. Clint opened his mouth to apologise – and hopefully slip his hand free the moment the Romanov-esque grip lessened – but May's attention had been captured by another voice, that had spoken at the same time.
"Don't call her that."
Beneath her sharp hairline, and a healing wound, the way May's eyes locked on Banner's made him freeze for a moment. She exuded rage, and it filled the atmosphere like electricity in a lightning storm. Barton's face was starting to pale as her hand squeezed his tighter. Banner made sure his shoulders stayed down, and offered his best peacekeeping smile.
"I'm sorry," he said, holding out a hand, stepping towards her so that she could decide to accept the gesture or not. "I didn't mean to assume anything…I just know how it feels to have reputation precede me."
May's eyes lost their hard edge. She dropped Barton's hand with a nod to let him know all was forgiven, and took Banner's instead. She shook it briefly but tightly, and then shook Stark's too.
"I apologise, Doctor Banner," May said. "Things are a little on edge right now."
"So I hear."
Above them, a light flickered, and a bulb burst.
The semi-assembled Avengers took a moment to absorb their surroundings: a small hanger, inside a brick-and-concrete bunker, underground. It looked like it hadn't been used in a few years: the lights were dim and dusty, the signage worn. It looked like the beginnings of SHIELD - too small, too empty, to be all that was left.
Tony cleared his throat and turned back to Coulson.
"So why are we here, DC?" he asked. "Need help retiling your bathroom?"
"Actually, yes," Coulson said, "but that's not why you're here either. Like I said earlier, we need your resources to dredge up what's left of Shield, and to start a talent search to rebuild. I've got agents waiting to debrief in my office, but first – Stark, Banner, I have a favour to ask."
May took this as her cue to pass the PDA to Coulson and step out of the conversation. She raised an eyebrow at Barton and he followed her up nearby stairs. When the both of them were out of sight, Coulson pulled up a newspaper article on the screen. He enlarged the main image – a shot of two young scientists speaking up a crowd from the SciTech Academy Forum podium - and showed it to the others.
"Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons," Coulson introduced, as Stark took the device from him and skimmed the article. "Heard of them?"
"FitzSimmons?" Tony recalled. He looked up at Coulson over the screen. "They're here?"
Banner frowned. "I'd have thought the Academy would be one of the first places Hydra would try to rope in or cross off."
"They weren't at the Academy," Coulson said. "They were in the field, with me – but Hydra still tried to cross them off. And very nearly succeeded."
"Brave kids," Stark assessed. Banner nodded.
"Hell yeah they are," Coulson agreed. "But now they need guidance. They need inspiration. They need their heroes. Do you think you could spend a few minutes downstairs, have a chat?"
"Sure."
"Yeah."
"Good. Thanks." Coulson reached inside his jacket and pulled out a packet of pretzels. He tossed it to Tony. "Make sure Fitz gets some of those. The kid used to snack like a lion."
"Will do, Boss," Tony said, saluting Coulson with the pretzels. Coulson's face finally seemed to relax a little as he gestured them toward the elevator and disappeared up the stairs after May and Barton.