Hey guys! I really hope you liked Steve's reappearance into Tessa's life! I'm so happy to have him back! There's a couple reviews I wanted to respond to quickly.
kyro232- Yes, Tessa has a love/hate relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D. She wants to trust them, but there's always that part of her that won't, as she's spent so long fearing them. You'll see her question it more and more as time goes on.
northernblader246- Oh, I'm so happy to hear you've read the other fic as well! Rest assured; Tessa's story plays out vastly different than Zezelia's. Her's was always meant to end with the prequal movies, whereas Tessa spans the entire length of the MCU! So no worries about her loosing her powers! :)
I'm going to insert that quick reminder that I have no rights over anything Marvel, which includes all the characters and scenes you find familiar! With that being said….let's get moving into AVENGERS! WHOO! Xoxo-NickyLynn
It had been a few months since Steve had been pulled from the ice and Tessa's life had never been better. She had her brother back and was helping him traverse life in the twenty-first century. She had a job that, on most days, she was proud of. Her relationships with her fellow agents had been growing stronger everyday. Tony had actually managed to keep Pepper from kicking him to the curb yet. She would still butt heads with Fury every once in a while, over an order she didn't agree with, but overall things were great. Tessa was starting to feel happy again…she should have known that something bad was coming to shake everything apart.
She was sitting in her living room, studying the tablet that Fury had handed her….and she was pissed. "Where did you even find this?" she bit out, angry eyes landing on Nick Fury's face.
"Whoa, don't get all mad at me. It was your buddy who pulled it from the ocean when he was searching for your brother." Fury told her, hands help up in defense.
Tessa's eyebrows pinched together as she looked back down at the imaged displayed. "Howard found the Tesseract?" she asked in confusion. "He….he didn't tell me that." She muttered, finding herself upset that her supposed friend would have kept something like that from her. But, she supposed if he had told her, she would have yelled at him to drop it back to the bottom of the ocean. That thing didn't belong in human hands. Hell, that thing didn't belong on this planet. And now, someone had stolen it from right under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s nose.
She swiped her finger across the screen, looking over the sill image of the thief, taken from the security footage. She zoomed the image in on his pale face and dark hair and something stirred inside her. He reminded her of someone, but she just couldn't put her finger on it.
"Was he in any databases?" she asked, turning the tablet to face him.
"None. We've got nothing on him, other than his name. He called himself Loki." Fury told her.
"Loki?" she asked, the name ringing a bell. "Wait, as in Thor's brother, Loki?" she asked, having been told the story of his visit to New Mexico while she had been dealing with Ivan Vanko.
"We assume." Fury said with a shrug.
"So, an Asgardian God just broke into the most heavily fortified location S.H.I.E.L.D. has got and took the single most dangerous weapon known to man." She said, suddenly feeling a headache emerging. "Perfect." She groaned. "Is there any more bad news you'd like to throw on me while you're at it?" she asked.
"He has Agent Hawkeye." Fury said and Tessa's eyes swung over to him, the anger returning.
"What?" she snapped.
"He was able to manipulate him somehow with a staff he's carrying. He's got Clint brainwashed to follow him around like an obedient dog." Fury explained.
Tessa let out a breath as her head fell against the couch. "Wonderful." She said, having not been prepared for the disastrous turn her morning had made.
"I want to bring them all in." Fury said after a moment.
Tessa's eyes slid over to him and the look on his face made her lift her head back up and raise her eyebrow in surprise. "Them, as in the Avenger's Initiative?" she asked. The last she knew, the idea was scraped. Fury just nodded at her.
"The threat this poses is real and it's about time we assembled some people capable of taking it on. Us normal folk are out of our league on this one." Fury told her.
Tessa shook her head, having a hard time believing any of this was happening. "Okay." She finally agreed. "I'll talk to Steve. What about Tony? Are you bringing him in too?"
"I put Coulson on it. Natasha is going after the big guy and you are to handle your brother." He said, reaching out to take the tablet back from her and Tessa let it slide from her fingers. "Stay on standby. This guy's gonna show himself again and when he does, I need you ready to intercept him." He told her as he stood up and walked out of her apartment, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
Tessa let out a groan, as she had been looking forward to finally enjoying a day off. She pushed off the couch and moved into her closet, pulling out the skin-tight suit she had been given as an official 'uniform'. It looked much like Natasha's own suit, but while her's was black, Tessa's was a lighter gray with lines running across where the fabric was sewn, the same blue shade of her powers. It wasn't Tessa's first choice when it came to work unforms, but the lack of loose clothing did come in handy when it came to hand-on-hand combat, something she was getting better at. She had even managed to subdue Natasha twice now.
Tessa slipped the tight fabric over her body and zipped it into place. She strapped on her boots, pulled her white hair, which she had grown down to her shoulders, into a ponytail and left the apartment. She made her way down to the small gym that Steve had been spending the majority of his time lately. Tessa had paid the owner of the old boxing ring a handsome amount to close down his doors, giving Steve a place he could come and be alone whenever he needed. He had been adjusting well, given the circumstances, but she knew he still was dealing with things that she had long-ago healed from. The pain of loosing everything was still fresh for him, so Tessa had been doing her best to give him space to work through that. Which included keeping Fury at bay the best she could.
She pulled open the door to the gym and walked into the old, musty building, the smell of mildew filling her nose. She could hear the sound of Steve throwing punches against a punching bag and when she came out into the main opening, she watched as the bag he had been hitting, broke off the chain it was suspended from and flew across the room. Sand went spraying out across the floor as it split open on impact.
"Another one?" she asked, stepping closer. "You know, that's the seventh one you've gone through this week." She told him, looking over at the stack of dwindling bags.
Steve looked over at Tessa, surprised by her appearance. He then took in what she was wearing, and his face dropped down. "Going out on a mission?" he asked her, still trying to get used to her willingly being in the line of danger.
"We." She told him in correction. "Fury wants me to bring you in." she told him, coming to a stop and crossing her arms.
"Trying to get me back into the world?" Steve asked her as he undid the bindings around his knuckles.
"Trying to save it." She said instead. "It's the Tesseract Steve, S.H.I.E.L.D. had it and someone has stolen it. I don't think I need to explain to you the dangers that poses." She told him.
"Why did S.H.I.E.L.D. have it to begin with?" Steve asked her, clearly upset by the news.
"Look, I didn't even know they had it until they didn't." she defended. "Howard fished it out the sea when he was looking for you. He kept that information from me. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s good at keeping secrets it seems, even from those who are supposed to be a part of it." She bit out, still upset that this had been kept form her.
Steve looked at her, before deciding she was telling the truth. "Who took it?" he asked.
"He's called Loki." She told him. "He's….well he's not from around here. There's a lot I'll have to bring you up to speed on." She told him. "The world is about to get even stranger than it already is for you." She told him, hoping that he would take this new revelation in stride the same he had taken everything else.
"At this point I doubt anything would surprise me." Steve said with a sigh.
The corner of Tessa's mouth pulled up in a smirk. "Ten bucks says you're wrong." She told him, knowing there was still a lot that he would find surprising. "So, are you in?" she asked. "Because I will always be happy to tell Fury to shove it up his-" she was saying before Steve cut her off, finding it difficult to get used to the vulgarity she seemed to develop over the years.
"Yeah, yeah I get it. Not necessary though." He told her. "Tell Fury I'll help. Not like I have anything better to do anyways."
"I'll get the jet ready and debrief you on the way." She said, not sure if she was relived or upset that he was joining this fight.
After Steve had gone home, showered and changed, Tessa drove them to the hanger and fired up the jet she had been preauthorized to take. When she had pulled back the door to reveal the craft Steve had raised an eyebrow, impressed by the design. The two of them loaded in and Tessa fired it up. She lifted them into the air and flew them towards the hellicarrier that was currently sitting off the coast in the ocean. It took them less than an hour to arrive, and when Tessa brought them down on the air strip, Steve was looking around, like he was missing something.
"An aircraft carrier?" he asked her as she powered down the jet and slid the headphones off. "I was expecting something a little more…." He began, looking back outside.
"Hidden?" she asked him, having thought the same thing the first time Fury had brought her in.
"Yeah." He said with a nod.
"Oh don't worry, it gets better." She said, not bothering to hide the look that said she knew something he didn't.
Tessa dropped the back hatch and they both walked out of the craft down onto the ship. As they walked out into the salty ocean air, Agent Romanoff made her way over to them. "Steve, this is Agent Romanoff." Tessa said, motioning over to the woman who came to a stop in front of them. "Natasha this is Steve."
"Ma'am." Steve said, giving her a nod.
"Hi." Natasha said back to him before looking over to Tessa. "Fury wants you on the bridge. They're starting a face-trace on Loki." She told her.
Tessa looked from Natasha, over to Steve. "You got this, while I deal with that?" she asked Natasha, motioning over to Steve.
"Of course." The other woman replied.
"I'll see you inside." She then said to Steve before leaving the two of them together and transporting herself inside. It took her two jumps to make it up to the bridge, landing behind Fury when she did.
Her sudden appearances had stopped catching Fury off guard months ago, so she wasn't surprised when he greeted her arrival without even so much as turning to look at her. "I see you've managed to convince Captain America to join the cause." He said as she stepped up beside him.
"What about the others?" she asked.
"Everyone is on board with the mission. Dr. Banner is on the helicarrier as we speak, and Tony Stark will be joining us when he feels like it." He said, turning his head to look at her.
"And Loki?" she asked, crossing her arms as she looked down at the agents below her.
"Still no sign, but we've got every accessible camera in the world looking for him. It's only a matter of time." He said before turning back to face the large windows. "Alright! Let's get this baby in the air!" he ordered, and the agents all moved into gear. They began flipping switches and pressing buttons, relaying information back and forth to each other as the turbines were started and the large craft slowly began rising out of the air.
Once the water was far below them, Tessa turned her head to find Natasha leading both Steve and Dr. Banner out into the open area. Both of the men were looking around the place in wonder, pacing around the room. As Hill gave the all clear and let Fury know that all systems were functioning properly, he in turn gave the order to initiate the cloaking mechanisms. More buttons were pressed, and they ship quickly vanished from the view of anyone who would chance look up into the sky at them.
Tessa turned and walked over to Steve and a smile lit up her face as she seen him pull out his wallet and hand over a ten-dollar bill. "Thank you." She said cheerily, pulling the money from his hand, as Fury turned and greeted them as well.
"Gentlemen." He said, brushing past her and Steve and moving over to Dr. Banner. "Thank you for coming, Doctor." He said, reaching out his hand.
"Thanks for asking nicely." Bruce said, shaking his extended hand. "So, uh, how long am I staying?" he asked nervously.
"As soon as we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the wind." Fury promised.
"Where are you with that?" Bruce asked.
"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet." Coulson said from his spot down below, watching over the agents working on it. "Cell phones, laptops….if it's connected to a satellite we have eyes and ears on it." He explained.
Tessa watched as Natasha dropped down near a screen that had the image of Clint pulled up on it. "That's still not going to find them in time." She said, despondently.
"You have to narrow your field." Banner told them. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"
"How many do you need?" Fury asked, crossing his arms.
"Call every lab you know and tell them you need access to their spectrometers. We need to give them something to look for though, do we have the gamma readings from the Tesseract stored on file?" Banner asked.
"No, but we have something better." Fury said, turning to Tessa with a raised eyebrow.
Tessa took a step forward, getting the idea. "My power is derived from the Tesseract. I should emit the same readings as it." She said, drawing Bruce's attention to her.
"That should work." He said, looking between Fury and Tessa. "With your permission, I'll get to work at taking a reading and rough out a tracking algorithm. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"
"Permission granted." Fury told him with a nod. "Tessa will take you down to the laboratory."
Tessa stepped forward, nodding her head back when she locked eyes with Bruce. "Come on Doctor, I'll show you the way." She said as she passed him, and he turned to follow her. "You're going to love it." She told him with a smile. "We have all the toys."
Tessa led him through the hellicarrier until she walked him into the large lab on the lower level. "There should be everything you need in here." She told him as they walked into the room full of every gadget and gizmo S.H.I.E.L.D. could get ahold of, some of which Tessa helped create. Tessa walked over to the main computer, giving it a tap on the large clear screen. It began glowing, a login screen pulling up. "I'll get you put into the system and then from there you can take over." She said, typing away on the screen, putting in her access codes. Once she was in the system, she turned and found Bruce looking around the area.
"Tell me what you need, and we can get to work." She told him, causing him to stop and look up at her.
"Right. Well, I need a radioscopic gamma reader." He told her. "Is the system designed to take readings, or will I need to manually input them?" he asked her, moving closer.
"The system should serve whatever purpose you need." She said with a shrug. She moved about the room, gathering what she thought he might need. She laid the devices down on the table as Bruce began looking over the computer system, figuring out its analytical capacities.
Tessa sat down behind him as she watched him work. After a moment he turned back around and pulled one of the readers off of the table. "Okay, I just need to do a reading over you and then I should be able to take it from there." He said, coming to a stand over her.
He set up the reader and aimed it over her body, moving it across the length of her body. His eyebrows pinched together as he looked up at her over the rim of his glasses. "The readings are too low, I don't think-" he began before he stopped as Tessa took reign of the power inside her and let her skin glow with its energy. The device in Bruce's hand began reading off the charts and his eyebrows shot up in surprise. "That'll work." He said as he began to make adjustments to the device and plugged the numbers he was getting into the computer beside him.
"Okay, I think I got what I needed." He told her, setting the device back down on the table. "You can….you don't have to do that anymore." He said, motioning around her still glowing body. Tessa retracted the power back into herself, and the glow faded away. Bruce began typing away on the computer, working on creating the tracking program, his eyes flitting over to Tessa every so often. "So, you're her huh? Rose Rogers?" he asked after a few minutes of silence.
"I go by Tessa now." She told him, crossing her arms. "Let me guess, you're a fan of my brother." She said, seeing the look on his face as he watched her.
"Uh, no. Of yours, actually." He said, causing Tessa to sit up higher.
"Of me?" she asked, wondering if she had heard him wrong.
"Your work with the super-soldier formula is what drove me to wanting to be a doctor. Did you know that you are the first woman and the youngest person in history to be awarded an honorary noble prize for your research in molecular regeneration?" he asked.
Tessa's mouth dropped opened. She had known that. But the fact that anyone else knew that flabbergasted her. "Uh..yeah." she said, suddenly feeling self-conscious. "But you know it wasn't fully my research right, Dr. Erskine was the one who actually put the theory into reality."
"I know. I just don't think anyone gave you enough credit for the part you played in changing history. It's your notes on the subject that I used as my basis…" he told her before trailing off as he realized what he was saying.
Tessa's face dropped down, unhappily. "It was my research that you based your own serum on, wasn't it?" she asked him, knowing about his failed serum and the consequences that came from it. Tessa suddenly felt immensely guilty for the part she played in the creation of his alter-ego.
Bruce gave her a tight-lipped smile, looking back over at his screen. Tessa was about to apologize for what happened to him before Fury's voice came through the earpiece, pressed snugly into her ear. "If the Doctor is finished getting what he needs from you, we could use you back up on bridge." He said. "We've got a facial match on Loki."
Tessa shot up, pulling Bruce's attention back on her. "Sorry, Doc. They've found Loki." She explained. "You okay here? You have everything you need?" she asked him.
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I've got the base laid for the program. It shouldn't take me too much longer to finalize the algorithm." He responded.
"Perfect." She told him. "See you." She said before transporting herself out of the lab and back up onto the bridge. She looked over to see Fury standing over one of the agent's screens, an image of Loki's face pulled up on it. "Where is he?" she asked, walking up behind him.
"Stuttgart, Germany." Fury told her, turning around to face her. "I want you, Romanoff and the Captain after him." He said. "Take him down and bring him in." he ordered.
"Yes, sir." She responded.