I'm not sure how many more chapters I plan on posting on FFN, as I wasn't exactly happy to discover my fics from here had been mirrored along with thousands of others onto a variety of pay-for-read sites at the beginning of the year. My trust in FFN's security is low, and I doubt I'll continue to post here at all once Stars is finished.
The fic in its entirety, and quite a few others I've written lately, are available on Archive of Our Own, where I also go by the handle of ficlicious. You're honestly better off finding me there, as it's my primary hosting site. I also post there first, so you'll get chapters when they're available, not when I get around to uploading them here.
ooooo
From the sea, to the moon
Through the light we shall be free
You and I, as we all come together
From the wind through the rain
Can you feel that we are free
With the world as we
All come together
Cirque du Soleil, "All Come Together" (Amaluna Soundtrack)
oOoOoOo
Stark Tower, Manhattan
May 13, 2012
Bucky expects it to be quieter once Toni and Steve leave for Malibu. More relaxed. It isn't either of their faults, but the tension over the last few days has been thick enough to taste in the air, and it's almost like an immense pressure has lifted off his shoulders with them taking alone time to work their shit out. He should feel guilty about that, but he doesn't. He loves them both, but being their soulmate, their common link, is just fucking exhausting at the moment.
He watches the quinjet leave the landing pad on the roof, standing with Clint and Natasha by the door leading back into the Tower. None of them say a word until the quinjet has disappeared beyond the skyline.
"They'll be fine," Clint says suddenly, drumming his fingers on his thigh. It sounds less like he's reassuring Bucky and Natasha, and more like he's trying to convince himself.
"Yeah," Bucky agrees. "They will be." He looks into the distance again, at the spot the quinjet vanished from sight, and sighs. Part of him still wishes he'd gotten on the plane with them, but this break, this time apart, is something everyone needs right now. And someone's gotta make sure the roof stays on the building. "We got shit to do," he says.
Natasha nods. "Coulson's got new intel on a few things. He's going to want to meet about it at some point. And even though we're down an Avenger, the rest of us are still here. I'll draw up a training schedule, get everyone used to working with everyone else."
"Good idea," Clint says, and hunches into his hoodie, pulling the zipper to his chin. "Can we go do that then and get off the roof? This wind sucks."
"Yeah." He takes a final look at the skyline, gives himself just one more minute to feel worry and concern and frail, fragile hope. Then, with all the ruthlessness gained from his time as the Asset, he starts locking it all down, compartmentalizing, letting it chill and freeze until it's time to thaw it out again. He's aware it's likely not the healthiest coping technique, but he's got nothing else and besides, he's going for efficiency, not style.
He turns on his heel and walks back towards the door, hears the Asset whisper around the edges of his mind, caged and restless. He ignores it, because he can, but there's an edge of it in his stride.
"Lay off the murder walk, Terminator," Clint says, half behind him, half beside him. "They'll be fine."
Bucky side-eyes Clint, arches an eyebrow at him. "Your hand's twitching," he says. "Like you want your bow."
Clint doesn't look down, doesn't look at Bucky or Natasha, just stares straight ahead with a pleasantly neutral smile. "That's because I do. I've been told that reaching for lethal weapons when anxious is antisocial and dangerous, but hey, everyone has to have a security blanket."
Natasha makes an indelicate sound. "It's why you should never go anywhere unarmed," she says disapprovingly. "Your hand wouldn't twitch if you carried your knife everywhere."
Bucky grins a little. He's of the same mind, now that he doesn't feel like he's walking through the world on a hair trigger at all times. But Clint just rolls his eyes and jerks a thumb backwards over his shoulder. "I've also been told that Nat's a dangerous influence to anyone suffering delicacy of their mental state," he adds. "And this is why. She enables me."
"You don't need enabling," Natasha replies. "You have those sorts of ideas all on your own, with no help needed from me."
"It's the soulbond," Clint stage-whispers. "It bleeds Natasha's complete lack of human emotion over to me. It's all her fault that I'm so mal—ow! Hey!" He rubs the back of his head, where Natasha just smacked him, and gives her an arch look. "Honey, I thought we agreed to never bring our sex life into public view."
"That wasn't foreplay," Natasha returns evenly.
"Hard to tell sometimes," Clint says, and ducks away from another swat. "Jesus, woman. Touchy."
"Maybe take a hint then, Barton," Bucky says with a smirk. "And shut up."
Clint snorts derisively, sticks a hand out sideways to Bucky. "I don't think we've met properly, Sergeant Barnes. I'm Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye. I'm arguably the world's best marksman, I never miss my shots, and I'm genetically incapable of shutting up."
"Starting to get that," Bucky says, then shakes his head in amusement. Wasn't he just thinking he was going to have a quiet week with Steve and Toni gone? Looks like he spoke too soon.
oOoOoOo
May 14, 2012
Natasha
Natasha hasn't decided for sure yet, but she thinks she might have preferred it when Bucky and Clint were glaring at each other from across the room, because the two of them on the same page are aggravating.
One of the nice things about Stark Tower, a feature that the mansion in Malibu and the Manor don't have, is that all the training rooms, ranges, med labs and science workshops have observation lounges built above them. Natasha is positive that Toni is not the one who designed them like that; she thinks Pepper might have had some say, a last-ditch effort to keep some semblance of an eye on Toni's workshop binges, though Toni's workshop never did have its observation lounge constructed.
Natasha stands at the glass wall with her arms folded, watching Clint and Bucky run the obstacle course below. Ostensibly, she's critiquing their form, and observing the new hard-light tech in action for FitzSimmons, but in reality she keeps getting distracted from noting the glitches and areas Clint and Bucky could use some work because Clint and Bucky aren't even remotely interested in running the course as it's meant to be run.
Instead, they've decided on a game of "anything you can do, I can do better". Clint is doing remarkably well, considering he is entirely unaugmented and competing with a supersoldier. She keeps an eye to the scoreboard which, for some ridiculous reason, both Clint and Bucky have insisted on running. She quirks an eyebrow as the numbers tick according to the arcane rules they established prior to heading in.
"Children," she says with a tiny, derisive snort, watching Clint slide under an obstacle only to kick it directly into Bucky's path. Bucky vaults it without missing a beat, but hip-checks the next hard enough to send it sliding at Clint who rolls over it the second it's close enough. "JARVIS, are Rhodey and Carol ready?"
"They are, Natasha."
Her lips curve into a smile. "Good," she says. "Tell them they have a mission: two enemy combatants in the training room. Proceed with caution, both are considered dangerous opponents. Take them alive, with minimal collateral damage. They are green in thirty seconds. Shift the hard-light scenario in fifteen."
"Understood. Would you like to warn sir and Clint about the start of your training program, Natasha?"
Her smile splits into a rare grin, and she sees Clint press a hand to his chest and cast a suddenly worried look up at the observation booth. "What's the fun in that? Go minus fifteen seconds. Shift the scenario… mark."
The hard-light abstracts fade abruptly, and reform into a city neighbourhood, complete with outlines of trash in the alleyways. Clint and Bucky vanish from sight behind an apartment building construct, just as the ceiling access door opens to allow War Machine and Warbird to descend into the room.
"Training scenario Romanoff Alpha, begin," she says, then leans forward to watch the fun.
"You are fucking evil," Clint complains, sprawled across the couch in the den with an ice pack cradled to one cheek. He spears Natasha with a dark, baleful look before letting his head roll back against the cushions.
"Yes," Natasha agrees, shifting more comfortably in her arm chair. "It's one of the things you admire the most."
"Shut up," he mutters, then turns to glare at Carol and Rhodey with the same gimlet eye. "It wasn't a fair fight."
Carol grins cheekily and tosses a kernel of popcorn in the air, catching it in her mouth. "You're only saying that because you lost."
"Of course we lost," Clint retorts. "You're in power armor, for fuck's sake. You fly. That gives you an unbeatable advantage right there, especially against a normal, squishy human."
"Ain't nothing normal about you, Barton," Rhodey says, stretching his legs out to rest his heels on the coffee table, crossing at the ankles. "But remind me again, aren't you supposed to be some kind of marksman?"
"World's greatest, he keeps saying," Carol says to Rhodey, crunching more popcorn. "I wasn't very impressed though."
"I didn't have my bow," Clint says through his teeth.
Clint's frustration and aggravation are a tight, roiling ball in Natasha's chest, clenched hard enough that she's concerned the teasing is going a bit far. Normally, she wouldn't worry, but it's been a stressful few months, and he's always taken awhile to come back down off the edge. This, at least, she knows how to handle. She stands and moves to the couch, settles against his side. Abruptly, the ball shifts to pleased surprise, and he only hesitates for a moment before dropping his arm around her shoulders.
"You're all sloppy," Natasha says, tucking her feet up onto the cushion beside her. "Carol and Rhodey might have won, but it was by a very slim margin. And Clint's right, it was an unfair setup. You two," she says with a nod, to indicate Carol and Rhodey, "are used to working together. You and Bucky," she shifts her glance to Clint, "aren't, though you learned pretty quickly. I'm going to keep changing things around, get different combinations used to working together."
"I understand what you're saying," Rhodey says, then circles his ear with a forefinger, "but all I hear is Warbird and War Machine totally kicked Hawkeye and Winter Soldier's asses."
"Yup," Carol chimes in. "That's what I hear too."
"Who's kicking my ass now?" comes Bucky's voice from the direction of the elevator, as he steps through the doors, still toweling his hair. Carol raises her hand, and Bucky snorts. "Old news. Besides—" He moves to the armchair Natasha left and plops down into it. "—it wasn't a fair fight."
Natasha really wants to roll her eyes, finding it especially difficult to resist doing so when Clint chimes in with, "That's what I said."
"Repeatedly," Rhodey says, laughing at Clint's scowl.
"Doesn't take a genius to see how a fight's most likely to go when it's two fellas in flying, laser-shooting Stark-tech dropping in on two other fellas who have no weapons, no armor and no warning." Bucky shrugs, glancing at Natasha with an amused smirk. "Balance it out with everyone in power armor, or even just fully geared and armed, different story."
"You can't have my armor," Rhodey says, because Clint is now looking at him speculatively. "Won't fit you anyway. Go get your own."
Bucky perks up at that. "I've been wondering, Barton. How come you don't have armor? Seems to be that your ass should have been piloting one years ago."
Natasha's wondered that too, over the years, but never found an appropriate time to ask. She leans over Clint to steal Carol's popcorn bowl from the table, while Carol is distracted, and settles back to eat and listen.
"Short version is that Toni's never offered and I never asked," Clint says. "It'd screw with my ability to see shit coming and going. There's a reason I don't wear a mask beyond vanity." He shrugs and fishes a beer out of the cooler between him and Carol, tosses it to Bucky and snags another for himself. "Toni's probably got an Iron Hawk or something tucked away in a folder for a rainy day, though. She does shit like that."
Natasha smiles a small smile, but says nothing. She's seen the Iron Hawk specs. She's seen the Iron Widow specs too, and appreciates every sleek line and deadly weapon Toni stockpiled onto it. One day, she might even ask Toni to let her have it.
"If you're lucky," Rhodey grumbles, "you won't have to brawl with Toni to get it, like I did."
"You're just special, Jim," Carol says sweetly, twisting to pat his cheek. "I was just given mine, no strings, no fist-fight." She scrunches her face when he just kisses her on the forehead in reply, and settles back around again. "Are these training scenarios going to be a regular thing?" She blinks. "Hey, that's my popcorn!"
"They should be," Natasha says, smirking as she pops a few kernels in her mouth. "Once we get a few more hard-light projectors installed around the upper levels, I'll be instituting randomized spontaneous events. And yes, it is your popcorn."
In the next moment, she feels the bowl slide out of her lap as someone yanks it away, and turns to glare at Bucky, who is unapologetically setting it in his own lap. "You snooze, you lose, Romanoff," he says, digging out a handful. "So these 'randomized spontaneous events'..."
Natasha shrugs and settles against Clint a little more comfortably. "Are non-negotiable. Everyone's reflexes need work. Без муки нет науки."
Bucky smirks and digs into the popcorn again. "Without torture, no science, huh?"
Clint blinks. "I thought you said that one meant adversity is a good teacher," he says, faintly accusing.
Natasha shrugs again. "To-may-to, to-mah-to."
Rhodey and Carol stare at her. "Can we get a recount of whatever vote elected Natasha as the training officer?" Rhodey asks plaintively. "I'd rather not get killed by a hologram three steps from my suite."
Natasha arches an eyebrow. "It's cute how you think this is a democracy, Rhodes. It's not my fault you were too slow to grab the opportunity when it rose. Besides, if you're that eager for something constructive to do, FitzSimmons need training. Their basic SHIELD aptitudes aren't going to cut it with this team."
Natasha almost, almost feels sorry for FitzSimmons, because the looks that cross Carol and Rhodey's faces can only be described as "unholy glee".
oOoOoOo
May 15, 2012
Fitz lives under a charmed star. It's the only explanation he has for how he got from tinkering in his basement in Aberdeen to the top of New York City in Stark Tower's bleeding-edge workshops, with state-of-the-art everything and the hands-down best coffee he's ever tasted. He's a kid in a sweets shop. No, better: he's a budding mad scientist in a top-notch lab with an unlimited budget and a partner who slots neatly into his life, one carbon atom to another.
The fact that a very tall, very intimidating blonde woman woke him and Jemma at five and dragged them out of the building to go on a morning run without so much as a by-your-leave is a definite negative. Fitz likes Carol, but not before he's even had a cup of coffee. He huffs and puffs along and just wants to collapse back into bed when he's done, but once he's had some water and caught his breath, he's oddly invigorated.
Jemma has a cup of coffee waiting for him when he gets out of the shower. She's already buried in her Starkpad, but looks up with a brilliant smile as he comes into the room. He kisses her cheek and goes to the counter to make a bagel. "What's on the schedule for today, love?"
"Separation, I'm afraid," Jemma says with regret. She sets down her Starkpad and leans back against the counter. "Doctor Cho left me with a sample of the nanites she used on Doctor Stark. Several of the experiments I started running yesterday are time-critical. I expect I'll be in the biology lab for the majority of the morning." She slides her arms around his waist and links her fingers at the small of his back. "Will you be alright without me, Fitz?"
His bagel pops in the toaster, but he ignores it in favor of looping his arms around her shoulders and kissing her forehead. The bond between them hums with contentment. "I'll muddle along somehow, I suppose," he replies with a smile. "Will you have time for lunch, do you think?"
Jemma's forehead creases in thought, an expression he finds particularly endearing. "I should be able to eat lunch with you, Fitz," she says slowly, "if we eat at one, and stay in the building." She gives him another apologetic smile, and frees a hand to reach for her tablet. "I'm terribly sorry, darling, but I have very narrow windows today. Let me double-check that."
While Jemma's busy with her tablet, Fitz turns to butter his bagel. As he takes his first bite, Jemma says, puzzled, "JARVIS, what's this block about? The one starting at three?"
"I believe, Dr. Simmons, that is your mandatory firearms training with Clint," JARVIS replies promptly. "Shooting Stuff for Beginners." A pause, and Fitz glances at Jemma just as she glances at him.
"I get the feeling," Fitz says quietly, "that the jog this morning with Colonel Danvers was not an anomaly."
"Indeed not," JARVIS replies, and sounds entirely too cheerful for a non-human entity. "Colonel Danvers has scheduled a run every morning this week at five am. Seven, on Saturday and Sunday. Clint has taken charge of your firearms training, and Colonel Rhodes will see to your hand-to-hand combat. Sir, that is to mean Sergeant Barnes, will schedule survival training as his time allows. Natasha has declined to commit to a schedule, but has declared her area of expertise to be in training situational awareness."
Fitz exchanges another long, worried look with Jemma. "Is it just me, or does that sound an awful lot like Black Widow is going to jump at us at odd moments?"
"It does, doesn't it?" Jemma chews on her lip. "What if we have delicate experiments underway, JARVIS? Or if we have something time-sensitive that cannot be interrupted?"
"I am monitoring the laboratories, Doctor Simmons," JARVIS says. "I will notify Natasha in those cases."
Satisfaction warms through the bond, and Fitz gapes at Jemma as she nods. "You can't be serious," he says.
She shrugs and smiles. "We wanted to be here, darling. Knowing how to take care of ourselves won't hurt a bit."
Fitz has seen the Avengers in action. He's fairly certain it can and will hurt quite a lot. "We're not Avengers, Jem. It doesn't seem a bit excessive to you?"
"Fitz," Jemma says gently, framing his face in her palms and looking him in the eye with a soft, fond expression, "if you take away the uniforms, what's the difference between us and the Avengers?"
He knows where she's going, and sighs. "Not a thing," he responds, and wraps his hands loosely around her wrists. "I know. Fine. You're right, of course. It will be good for us to know."
Jemma smiles, her whole face bright and happy, and he feels the last of his reticence crumble away. That smile always makes him go weak in the knees. "Don't worry, Fitz. Everything will be fine."
By the time Fitz crawls back to his suite that night, he's a whimpering mass of paranoia and bruises. The hand-to-hand with Colonel Rhodes wasn't terrible, except when he got distracted and ended up flying across the ring. He still doesn't think it was really his fault; he hadn't known Rhodey (as the man said to call him) was a brilliant engineer until their appointment. He can't talk shop and block punches at the same time. Likewise, the firearms training with Barton wasn't bad either, except that Fitz is a rubbish shot, and he could see the vein twitching above Barton's eye with each hole that didn't appear in Fitz's paper target.
Romanoff had been the worst. She stalked Fitz all day, seeming to pop up to scare the bejesus out of him the second his attention wandered. He'd been a nervous wreck by lunchtime, barely able to get any work done all day, and drained to the point where he's wondering why he's even here at all.
Logically, he knows that the tower is not nearly as safe as it seems. It was only a week or two ago that it had been invaded by hostiles in an attack that left Toni nearly dead. He knows he needs to learn better methods of self-defense, but with his whole body a giant ache, it's hard to want to internalize that.
Jemma's side of the bed is empty, still neatly made. She must still be in the lab, overseeing her nanite experiments. Fitz groans as he throws himself face-down into the center of the mattress and lies there, spread-eagled for a little while.
Eventually, a chime dings softly, which Fitz has learned is JARVIS's version of clearing his throat. "Pardon, Dr. Fitz, but an encrypted email has just arrived for you from Malibu. It is flagged as an urgent matter."
With effort, Fitz flips himself onto his back and drags his Starkpad off his bedside table. "Yes, please," he mumbles, then sits up with a startled blink at the request for a retinal scan. "JARVIS, what's this?"
"If you look directly at the camera with your right eye, Dr. Fitz," JARVIS says calmly.
Fitz does so, then gives a thumbprint and voice recognition statement when prompted for those as well. The email opens to a few lines of text, and an attachment.
Fitzstark,
Which is your adopted name, by the way. I told you I was adopting you, right? If I forgot — and let's face it, I might have. It's me, here — surprise! You're totally adopted. Anyway. I need you to start converting one of the storage bays below the labs into … well, I'm sure you can figure it out from the attached files. Just like I'm sure I don't need to tell you how important it is this shit never gets into the wrong hands.
Give Simmons a big ol' sloppy kiss for me, and tell her I'll bring her back souvenirs from California. Helen's got some more samples for her.
See you soon(ish)!
Toni
PS - Don't. Freak. Out. I just… I can't keep doing this by myself, so I'm going to trust you here which, if you knew me, SO not my thing. Anyway. Open the damn attachments already.
Intrigued, Fitz opens the attachments, letting the Starkpad slide onto the mattress as the holographic interface activates, spilling plans for particle colliders and formulae for synthetic vibranium and the schematics for arc reactors, big and small, into the air. His jaw drops open and he feels like a child full of wonder as he raises a shaky hand to turn the three-dimensional particle collider, brush through the elegance of the maths, cradle the arc reactors.
The aches of his various bumps and bruises are instantly forgotten. Right. This is why he's here. How silly of him to forget.
oOoOoOo
May 16, 2012
Bucky knows the moment Steve and Toni finally get their shit together and let themselves bond.
He's sitting in the boardroom, in yet another interminably boring meeting with Coulson, trying to keep his eyes from crossing. He absolutely does not begrudge Steve and Toni having their time out in Malibu, because if two people ever needed it, it's the two idiots he's attached to by the soul. He just wishes — has wished more than once over the last week — that he went with them instead of staying behind to hold down the fort.
It starts with a buzz under his skin, like a wire buried in his pectorals. It's not an unpleasant feeling, but it's distracting as fuck, which he can't afford to be right now. Not when the shitstorm he pulled onto his own plate is so close to being over and the Avengers Initiative with its affiliated Stark Security division is just about to let out of the cage. So he pushes it down, pushes it away, tries to focus on the points Coulson is making.
And he knows the man's making them. He can see Coulson's mouth moving, hear the rise and fall of his voice, knows that Coulson's speaking at least one language he understands, but Bucky'll be fucked if he can comprehend a single goddamn syllable.
He looks down at the neatly-stapled pages in front of him, staring at them like he's trying to burn holes through to the table with his eyes. He reaches out, drags the document closer, but his eyes slide right past the formal language until the neat lines of text are blurry streaks. Deep in the smeared lines, he can see shadows moving, coming together and breaking apart fluidly. Both soulmarks itch, until he wants to reach into his skin and claw them out. Only iron discipline keeps him from doing so much as twitching.
Sweat pops in chilly beads on his forehead with the effort, and his eyes burn. Hot, tight knots of emotion hammer at him from either mark, fear and panic and arousal and a whole bunch of other things too tangled to name scratching across his suddenly-raw nerves and clenching around his lungs. It's never been this strong before, from either of them. Jesus fucking Christ, have they lost their shit completely and are finally trying to kill each other?
Toni's mark smooths out suddenly, rocky spikes and electric jolts fading into steady waves of hopeful nervousness, even though Steve's sparks hot and agonized with the anger and grief Bucky's been feeling from him since Steve'd come back to himself.
His ears roar with dull noise, and he shoves away from the table violently, suddenly overcome with the need to pace. Heedless of the fact that he's just silenced the discussion, uncaring that all eyes are on him, he stalks towards the window at the other end of the room.
"Sergeant?" comes Coulson's voice behind him. "Is everything alright?"
"No," he says tightly, hands fisting at his sides as he spins on his heel and starts pacing back the way he came, even though it's not doing a damn thing but feeding the restlessness. "Yes. I don't know."
"Is it Toni?" Clint's voice is carefully neutral.
Bucky nods. "And Steve," he says, and gives into the nearly mindless desire to press his hands into his soulmarks. The restlessness vanishes, and now he can feel it more clearly, through the wash of sensations he can't recognize. "Both of 'em. They're... " Hope unfurls, sudden and sharp, in his chest. His own hope, wary but bright. "I gotta go," he says abruptly, lifting his head to stare at them. He isn't exactly sure what they're seeing in his face, because his expression sure as fuck feels wobbly to him, but Coulson looks faintly pleased, and both Rhodey and Carol are grinning widely at him. "Fuck, I gotta go."
Clint and Natasha share a significant look with unreadable expressions, and then Natasha rises from her chair. "I'll get a quinjet ready for you," she says, and slips past Bucky. As she passes, she rests her hand briefly on his shoulder, a reassuring gesture so quick it's gone before he realizes she did it.
"About goddamn time," Clint grumbles, slouching back against his chair and tilting his head towards the ceiling. "JARVIS, mind using some of your frighteningly broad Red Queen autonomy and sliding authorizations on over from Stepdad to Aunt Carol for a few days?"
"Of course, Clint," JARVIS says pleasantly. "Colonel Danvers' permissions have been updated to reflect her temporary change in status to the Acting Head of the Avengers Initiative, in the absence of both Deputy Directory Stark and Deputy Director Barnes. Welcome, Deputy Director Danvers."
"Thank you, JARVIS," Carol says politely, then grins at Bucky, who just stares at her in complete non-comprehension. "We got together over the last few days," she explains gently, "and figured that this would happen sooner or later. JARVIS has been monitoring the Malibu mansion and keeping us updated. Everything's taken care of, Bucky. You can just go."
"Active-duty Avengers receive seventy-two hours minimum when new soulbonds are formed," Coulson explains, and pulls a thin pamphlet from his folder. He unfolds it, pulls a pen out of his inner pocket and presents both to Bucky. "Sign at the bottom, please. You're on leave starting now."
Bucky reaches for the paperwork slowly, still bewildered. It's a form, with the Avengers logo at the top, and in big block letters just underneath it, "Notice of Soulbond Leave of Absence". All of the pertinent information has been filled out, except for the date and the signature line. "But.."
"Sign the form, Barnes," Rhodey says, coming around to clap him on the back. "I'm going to go pull strings and make sure there's no issue with your flight path."
As Rhodey leaves, Bucky glances at the others, all staring at him with expectant faces. He scrawls something that might be his name across the bottom. "Call me if shit happens," he says.
"Don't worry about anything," Carol says, and her smile is dangerously beatific as she moves to the chair at the head of the table he vacated and settles into it, spreading her hands across the glossy wood. "We've got it handled. I've got you covered. And I will be not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn. All shall love me and despair."
oOoOoOo
Coulson
There are days when Phil wishes he'd taken a different career track. It's not that he has regrets, exactly, but sometimes he thinks it would be nice to not be the one left holding the bag when everything goes pear-shaped.
But okay, it's fine, he can work with that. He's not a man to brag about what he does or what he's accomplished, but he knows he excels at management and he's a half-decent field agent to boot. He can look at the pages, look at the numbers, come up with solutions on the fly. The trick is to remain calm.
A very real, very significant part of him wants to be not-calm at the SHIELD report rerouted by Fury directly to him. It's from the Joint Dark Energy Research Facility, flagged for review, observation and intervention by the Avengers Initiative and Stark Security. The report is currently tucked away in the innocent-looking folder under his hand, but Phil's never been more aware of the flimsy facade in his life. It's too big, sometimes.
It was inevitable, this path, he thinks, smoothing his fingers over the smooth surface of the file folder. He's been in deep with emerging superheroes ever since Toni Stark came back from Afghanistan with shrapnel in her chest and power armor on the brain. Maybe even since he became Barton's handler all those years ago. Maybe even since he fell a little bit in love with Captain America as a little kid, constructing and building his life around the ideals and morals Steve Rogers embodied.
So maybe he was always meant to be here, standing on the front lines of a world about to enter a new age, one about to plunge headlong into evolution and growth and chaos and revolution. He's not a futurist, like Stark. He's not a master tactician, like Rogers. He's not a pessimist, like Romanoff, and he doesn't see the tiniest details like Barton. But what he is, is a pragmatist, and creating framework plans for a broad spectrum of possible outcomes is what he does best.
He stares at the file folder, tapping his thumb against it now. The embossed Avengers symbol gleams at him under the overhead light, and he sighs faintly. However his path started, little Philip Coulson from Manitoc, Wisconson is now in charge of a team of the most powerful people in the world, and these are the decisions he is now responsible for making.
"JARVIS?" he asks, without taking his eyes off the Avengers symbol.
"Yes, Director Coulson?"
The world is changing. This is only the beginning. Best get ahead of it, before it's too late. "Would you ask Agents Barton and Romanoff to join me, please?"
"Of course, Director," JARVIS says pleasantly. "They report they are happy to join you, and will arrive presently." There's a tiny hesitation before he says, "Shall I recall the quinjet, Director? Notify ma'am and the Captain to return?"
Phil considers it, God help him. Barnes, Rogers and Stark are all heavy hitters, and he could really use them right now. "Let's keep that in reserve, JARVIS," he says. "They have seventy-two hours, so let them enjoy as much as they can of it."
"Understood, sir."
oOoOoOo
May 16, 2012
Stark Mansion, Malibu CA
Metal slides against metal, gears whir and lock, and Toni is completely engulfed. The Mark VIII armor, fresh off the fabricator, is her best work to date, and there's something indescribably settling about the feeling that washes through her when the HUD lights up with pre-flight systems checks. While JARVIS is running his boot-up checks, she performs basic motor tests, moving her arms and legs and head, rolling her shoulders, checking to make sure that the joints allow her the full range of motion.
The armor's always been heavy, and she expects that it might have been more difficult than she's used to, with being out of commission for so long. But it feels barely more than a set of clothing as she gradually goes through the mental checklist of movements. The new alloy performs like a dream, light and flexible and sturdy, and she doesn't resist the urge to dance a little.
"Gross motor function tests are green, JARVIS," she says with a grin. "Bright, neon, shiny green."
"Basic operations are functioning acceptably," JARVIS replies. "Shall I begin the higher function diagnostics?"
"Knock yourself out, kiddo."
The HUD begins streaming data, lines of code flickering almost faster than she can follow. She keeps an eye on it as she shifts her focus to the fine motor stuff, checking the flexibility of the finger joints and the gestures they afford her. Christ almighty, this alloy is amazing. Even with only a three percent blend of vibranium, it's outperforming all of its predecessors, and she hasn't even left the ground yet.
One by one, the items on the digital checklist JARVIS helpfully displayed turn green, and Toni's grin just gets ewider. Anticipation builds in her gut, nervous energy that makes her feet want to jitter, her stomach tie in knots. She all but bounces in place, watching impatiently as the final few items run through their tests.
"Steve still out?" she asks absently, hyperfocused on the three still-red items. The tertiary weapons guidance systems she might be able to skate without for the suit's first flight, but the redundant flight stabilizers and the secondary communications functions are too important for her to half-ass. Knowing her luck, if she blasted off without them, she'd stall out somewhere over the Pacific and have no way to flag down a ride home.
"Yes, ma'am. Captain Rogers texted ten minutes ago to inform you he was making an additional stop on the way back from the market. He estimates that it should add no more than an additional 45 minutes to his outing."
"I still don't understand why he had to go shopping," Toni grumbles, flexing her fingers in a wave, and watching the light play off the metal of her gauntlets. "The cupboards are still full of food. I checked. Even with my increased intake, we shouldn't be low on anything yet."
JARVIS's silence is suspicious.
Toni peers at the ceiling with narrowed eyes. "J, you wanna share with the class?"
"Regrettably, I cannot. Captain Rogers wished to keep the purpose of his outing in confidence."
Toni eyes the ceiling for another minute, considering. She could force JARVIS to tell her, because Steve doesn't have the kind of access Bucky does, can't keep her from anything, can't lock her out of anywhere. "Okay, kiddo. You two have your secrets. I can wait."
"Captain Rogers and sir are indeed good for you," JARVIS says dryly, "if at the age of thirty-two you have finally learned the fine art of patience."
"You're a brat, kid." Toni smiles fondly, then grins in vicious triumph when the last of the checks shade green. "Alright, time to take this baby out for a spin."
"I take after my mother that way," JARVIS says pleasantly, as the reinforced double doors on the far side of the fab-lab start sliding back. "Control towers have been notified of your non-mission flight status, ma'am. No restrictions are in place today."
"Good to know," she says, and throws her arms out, palms down. "Do me a favor while I'm out, J. Go ahead and copy all of Bucky's permissions, and overwrite them on Steve's access. Skynet it."
"Yes, ma'am. Shall I also upgrade the others' permissions to levels more appropriate to their new roles as Avengers?"
"Yeah, just like we were discussing. Okay, that's enough business for now. I'm going to go play with my toys"
"Enjoy your flight, ma'am," JARVIS replies, as though he's not going to be with her every step of the way.
Toni grins, whoops as the jet boots kick in, and rockets through the bay doors and into the sky.