Disclaimer: The Avengers, its characters and The Marvel Cinematic Universe belong to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. Marvel's Agents of SHIELD and its characters belong to ABC Studios, Marvel Television, Mutant Enemy Productions, among many others. What If…? belongs to Marvel Studies and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. I'm only a fan, writing this for my love of this film/television franchise.
A.N.: I'm sort of making this up as I go and it's very unprecedented for me as I usually have a whole detailed outline and a few chapters written before posting anything, but I just felt really inspired. This one is a bit of a rewind before the first chapter, actually, to build a little more of the setup.
Avengers Initiative: Reset
02. Restart
After they had located him in the ice in the arctic, Carol Danvers had used her powers to defrost Steve Rogers, who was then quickly treated to high doses of glucose and sedatives so that he could battle the hypothermia and regain consciousness in a more controlled environment. She'd initially thought he would be transferred to HQ in Manhattan or to the helicarrier base, but Fury had surprised her by instead taking him to an unregistered, secret base in Washington DC, saying they didn't need anyone else knowing that Captain America had been found alive for the moment. Official channels meant informing the White House and the Director of SHIELD didn't want them involved considering how Loki was quickly taking over everything.
"Look, Fury," Carol said as she walked down the hallways of the Playground with him after they had settled Steve in the medical ward and left Billy Koenig overseeing his recovery. "I can take this guy. Remember how I destroyed a Kree warship all on my own?"
"Yeah," Nick Fury said with a curt nod. "Then we had to go and build a whole new agency to keep track of space threats and now we just got invaded by some people who can actually build portals directly into our planet, rendering that entire agency a waste of everyone's time and money."
"One, Maria and Monica would be deeply offended by that," Carol replied without breaking stride as she lifted one finger up then another. "Two, what does that have to do with anything? We need to get rid of this Loki guy, right? Well, I doubt he's a match to my powers." She punctuated her words by punching a closed fist into an open palm, light from her photon blast shining through and sparkling in the air.
"We don't know that yet." Fury retorted though the beginnings of a smirk were pulling at the corners of his mouth as he glanced back at her. He would really like to see Carol take down Loki and he had no doubt she could do it, but they needed to tread carefully. "That guy has somehow convinced several world leaders to hand their power over to him in one day."
"Somehow?" Carol snorted lightly. "He brought a freaking army over and stationed them at key locations all over the globe. You try that and see if people won't hand power over to you."
"Exactly. It's not just him, he's got a full-on army and a whole planet backing him up. So before you go and blast his head off with your laser hands, we need to understand if we'll be able to get back to the previous status quo or if by doing that we're actually making things worse."
"You have become no fun since taking over as the actual boss of this whole thing," she commented in a dry tone, looking at him askance. Even if it had been almost a decade now since he'd stepped up and taken over from Director Carter, Carol still wasn't used to the differences between Field Agent Fury that she'd first met and Director Fury who was now in charge of the whole organization. Well, granted, she didn't spend a lot of time on Earth to get used to it and time passed in a very different way for her since she'd been used to traveling through space so much, plus the Kree blood in her veins that made her age way more slowly.
"Look, I know you can't wait to go in and throw out some punches," Fury countered with a conceding hand gesture. "I just don't think we want to set a precedent and have these Asgardians as our enemies. They were literally gods once to our people."
"If they were gods, how did you manage to kill Thor?" She interjected with a raised eyebrow. "Isn't he supposed to be the god of thunder?"
"That's something I still need to understand," Fury replied with a frown. "We don't even know what the hell he was doing here in the first place and no one's been able to remove that damn hammer from the middle of the desert either, not even His Majesty, our so-called-ruler."
"Want me to take a look at it?" She asked, tilting her head a little, eager to take on a challenge.
"Feel free if you want to, but that's not a pressing concern at the moment." He drawled out. "We still have a full mobile lab surrounding it and people working on it nonstop, and it's not like that thing is going anywhere."
"Okay, so what do you want me to do?" She asked with a frown. If he didn't want her to fight, then why had she been called over?
"Gather allies." He told her with a nod. "Pop over to a visit to Talos and see if he's up to lending us a hand. If we're fighting ancient gods who turned out to be nothing more than aliens from another planet, then I want some aliens of our own on our side. And it wouldn't hurt if they have any intel on Asgard, either."
"Got it." She nodded back at him and the two stopped as they'd reached the hangar of the base, the roof just now opening up so she could fly out. "What are you gonna do in the meantime?"
"I'm putting together a new team." He told her with a smile, as overhead a Quinjet was descending towards them. Inside it were Phil Coulson and newly recruited Agents Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz, who joined them at the hangar as the ramp lowered down.
"Welcome to the Playground," Billy Koenig said, as he came out of the base to greet the team. "Although technically it doesn't really have a name, seeing as it is a secret base and all. I'm Agent Billy Koenig."
Handshakes were exchanged and introductions made as the group stood together for a moment.
"Nice to see you again, Captain Marvel." Coulson said with a grin as he shook Carol's hand.
"Please, stop calling me that," she said with an eyeroll in Fury's direction. "It's just Carol, as I've said, repeatedly."
"Yeah, we like codenames here," Fury countered with a sideways smirk. "Speaking of which, I see you're not taking any chances with this team, Coulson. You already had Captain Marvel, Captain America and the Black Widow, and you also calling in the Cavalry to join." He said, looking into the Quinjet and noticing who was in the pilot seat.
'The Cavalry?' Fitz and Simmons turned to each other and silently mouthed the words at same time. They were already thrown to be in the presence of the Director himself, and Fury just casually name-dropping all these heroes (although they had no idea who Captain Marvel was or how she'd earned that name) was enough to get them quite rattled.
"Please, sir." Coulson said with a grimace, suddenly coming to understand Carol's point of view. "You know Agent May dislikes that name."
"For someone who once made a point that everyone only calls him 'Fury', you really have a hard time extending that courtesy to other people," Carol said with a smirk of her own.
"Alright, alright. I apologize," Fury drawled out with a surrending hand gesture and a smile. "Sorry that I can't stay and help around with moving day, but I'm needed for a meeting with Secretary Pierce at the Triskelion."
"I should also get going," Carol said, gesturing up at the sky. "It's gonna take me a few days at least to reach Talos and touch base with him."
"That's okay, we'll take it from here. Thank you for all you've done." Coulson assured them with a nod and received nods in return before they moved out.
With that, Carol promised to come back with reinforcements as soon as possible and then simply shot up into the sky, making Fitz-Simmons and Koenig just gape up at that.
"Sir, did she just...?" Jemma asked, voice trailing off as she couldn't actually find the words.
"Was that a photon emission blast?" Fitz asked in an equally shocked voice.
"I never get tired of seeing it," Fury commented with a smile.
"I think I can see why she's earned herself the name Captain Marvel, despite her disliking it." Billy said in awed tones.
"Well, making my exit now will be so anticlimatic," Fury drawled out as he swished his cape and just started walking away. "Take care, team. I'm counting on you."
As Fury also made his exit, Billy walked in with Agents Fitz and Simmons to get them settled and show them where they would be working and living for the foreseeable future. Coulson then turned back and walked the ramp into the Quinjet, approaching the cockpit. "Look, I know this isn't what you wanted to be doing right now," he said as he neared the pilot. "But I need help and when Director Fury told me he was putting together an off-the-books team to work in the shadows, there was no one else I would trust with this."
"I know," Melinda May said quietly as she removed the Quinjet's headset and turned in her seat to look back at him. She still felt conflicted at being taken out of administration and suddenly thrust into the pilot seat of an unregistered Quinjet to fly Coulson and his new team into a secret base. But even after Bahrain, she could've quit SHIELD altogether if she'd wanted to choose something else, but she never did because she still believed it was a cause worth fighting for and now things had progressed in a way that she was forced out of her self-imposed solitary early retirement.
"I swear, I only need you as a pilot," Coulson told her earnestly. "I know you're not ready to get back in the field. This isn't exactly a combat op, but I can't ignore the possibility that things will get thrown in our way as we go."
"It seems inevitable, really." May commented with a raised eyebrow in her characteristic dry tone. "You're putting together a team to go up against the newest ruler of the world."
"Yeah," Coulson agreed with a dry smile. "But I mean it. That's why while Natasha is out of commission I'm looking at specialist profiles to get someone for backup. Hill is sending me her short list later today."
"Don't bother," May said as she stood up and came to stand beside him. "I mean, if you want to add someone else to the team, then do it. Otherwise, I'm reporting for combat duty, as needed."
Coulson gave her a thankful smile and reached out to gently squeeze her arm. She gave him a tight smile back and they moved out of the Quinjet to get settled at their new base.
After they had put their bags away in the rooms Billy had shown them, Fitz-Simmons were taking a look at the R&D lab where they'd be set to work.
"You know, for a secret base this looks like a pretty state-of-the-art lab," Jemma commented as she perused through the workbenches, checking the equipment available to them and already taking a mental inventory.
"I know. Look at this beauty of a holo-engineering-table," Fitz nodded in agreement as he practically sighed in happiness, his hands moving about and disassembling the specs of a machine in the air in front of him. "It looks like a newer version of the one we had at Sci-Ops."
"Director Fury spared no expenses to put this together," Billy said from the doorway, where he stood and observed the two young scientists. "If there's anything you need that isn't here, put it on a list and I'll get it for you."
They both replied at the same time, looking back at him. "That sounds great." / "Yes, thank you very much."
"Alright, I'll let you kids get settled in and see if Dr. Fine needs any help down at the medical floor," Billy said, gesturing with a thumb over his shoulder, but then he doubled back and walked towards them, taking something out of his pocket. "Oh right, before I forget, here are your lanyards. I understand Coulson's already programmed your phones, so give me a call in case you need anything. I'll be downstairs checking on Agent Romanoff and Captain Rogers."
The duo took the proffered lanyards and nodded back at him, watching silently as he turned around and walked out of the lab, then they turned in unison to look at one another.
"Agent Romanoff and Captain Rogers," Fitz repeated with a soft huff. "That's Black Widow and Captain America. Simmons, what the hell did we get ourselves into?"
"Well Fitz, it's not like we had a choice," Jemma rolled her eyes a little at him. "When Director Fury orders you to be in his new team, you don't exactly have a say unless you want to be out of a job."
"I just don't understand why they'd want the two of us to be part of this," Fitz insisted, shaking his head a little. "I mean, we're not even cleared for field duty. We've always just supported the ops from our lab at HQ."
"Clearly we've caught their attention with our recent contributions to their investigations," Jemma said, moving away once more and looking into cabinets and drawers now. "They said they needed someone with medical knowledge for support in recovery and someone who could understand Mr. Stark's specs from the data Agent Romanoff managed to retrieve when she was undercover. That and the fact that we were providing backup support and analysis to Agent Coulson's last three missions must have put us on the short list. It's way faster to have us here instead of getting other people up to speed on what was going on."
"You're probably right," Fitz said with a sigh. "But aren't you just a little bit concerned with all of this? I mean, we'll be living in a secret base and working on an off-the-books black ops team with the Black Widow, Captain America and the Calvary. Not to mention what the hell was going on with that Captain Marvel out there and her photon emissions blasts."
"Of course I'm concerned," Jemma said with a frown as she turned around to look at him. "But honestly I'm more concerned about a self-proclaimed god suddenly taking over and subjugating an entire planet with an army of aliens." She paused and just looked across at him for a moment, where he was standing in front of the holo-engineering-table with his arms crossed and a frown between his eyebrows. "Look Fitz, if we manage to stay here at the base I doubt we'll ever see any combat."
"You think so?" He looked up at her, biting his bottom lip.
"Yeah," she said with a smile, not as bright as the ones she sometimes gave that looked like they were powered by her own mini-sun, but looking into her eyes Fitz could see she did believe that. "Besides, working with the Calvary, Black Widow and Captain America pretty much means we're in the most capable hands, ever. There's no better team out there to guarantee our protection."
"Either that or they'll be a magnet for trouble wherever they go," Fitz muttered, but gave her a soft smile, too.
She rolled her eyes good-naturedly this time and added in a lighter tone. "Besides, isn't this exactly the sort of thing we joined the SHIELD Academy in the first place? Work to protect the world?"
"Of course," he said, nodding firmly back at her. "You're right, Simmons. I just hope the two of us or Director Fury don't regret the decision to have us in this team."
"Trust me, we won't," Coulson said as he walked into the lab. "You're here because we need someone with your specific knowledge of biomechanics. Those forensic drones you put together last year is the basis for the sort of work you'll do here."
"Right," Jemma said as she nodded back at him. "Do you want us replicating Mr. Stark's work on his Iron Man suits, sir?"
"Not exactly," Coulson replied with a smile, hand going into his pocket and coming out with a thumb drive. "We found not only the specs for his suit, but something way more interesting on the data Agent Romanoff recovered." He extended his hand and Fitz took the thumb drive, going around the holotable to plug it in. "Tell me, how is your AI knowledge so far?"
Fitz and Jemma turned to each other with raised eyebrows, very intrigued at the prospect and already itching to get to work on whatever it was that Agent Coulson had just given them.