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. I'm only a fan, writing this for my love of this film/television franchise.
A.N.: Just a heads up, I'm sort of fudging the timeline a little and putting everything that happened in Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk and Thor, just as Fury and Carol finding Steve right away at the end of the "What If…?" episode in 2011. It's a different universe where Hope Van Dyne was an Agent of SHIELD, so let's just go with it.
Avengers Initiative: Reset
03. Recovery
Natasha sat up in bed in one of the recovery rooms in the medical ward, looking thoroughly bored and upset at her current situation. She couldn't remember the last time she'd needed so much bedrest. Sure, every mission came with risks and she usually had a few scrapes or broken bones here and there, but nothing that had actually required surgery or extended hospital stay. After the anesthetic had worn off, it had simply left her with too much time in her hands and she hated that prospect.
She'd been gingerly sitting up further, supporting her weight on her arms and angling her legs over the edge of the bed when a brunette young woman dressed in jeans, a striped white and blue shirt with a matching tie and a SHIELD lab coat over the whole ensemble walked into the room with a pad in hands.
"Ah no, no, Agent Romanoff." She told her with a firm shake of the head, motioning her to lay back down, but her tone of voice was bright and shiny, just as her smile. "You see, I'm afraid you need to stay in bed or you'll risk rupturing your sutures. Again."
"Ugh come on, Simmons," Natasha groaned in frustration. "I told you I heal faster than most people. You have to let me start working on my physical therapy so I can get back on my feet already."
"The last time you tried that you had a re-bleed in your liver and a collapsed lung, so forgive me if I'm being more cautious this time," Jemma said, her tone growing more serious now. "I know you hate inactivity, Agent Romanoff. But you're following my timetable from now on as I would hate to rush you into another emergency surgery and I think Agent Coulson and Director Fury might have me fired or court martialed if that happens again."
"Fine, I'll follow your orders, doctor." Natasha sighed in a resigned tone as she leaned back on her pillows. "Two things, though?"
"Yes, what can I do for you?" Jemma asked with a patient smile as she checked on the readout of her monitoring equipment and made notations in her pad.
"Drop the 'Agent'. Romanoff or even Natasha is fine, no need to be so formal around me." She told her with a small smile of her own. It was actually refreshing how the young British scientist didn't seem afraid of her, as too many colleagues at SHIELD had found her intimidating just by knowing she was the infamous Black Widow, but then maybe that's what happened when you developed a doctor-patient relationship as they worked on her recovery and were forced to stay together at this secret base.
"Alright, I can do that, Natasha." Jemma said concedingly still with that smile. "And what is the other thing?"
"At least let me work while I'm bedridden." Natasha said, motioning with her chin at the pad in the doctor's hands. "I'm sure I could be doing some intelligence work if you gave me a pad and access. I can help with whatever it is the team is putting together while I recover."
"I'll check with Agent Coulson if we can arrange that," Jemma said then gave a small sigh. "Although honestly I still don't know much about what this team's mission is other than making sure you and Captain Rogers are fully recovered and building a Life Model Decoy for the Tony Stark AI."
"How is that going? You and Fitz managed any breakthroughs on the project?" Natasha asked, tilting her head a little to look up at her. She'd heard of some of the struggles the two young scientists were having while working with the AI of the genius inventor and honestly she could not blame them ─ she had no idea how she'd managed to stay under for so long as his secretary without killing him until she'd actually, well, sort-of-but-not-really killed him.
"Yes, we were able to go through his specs and SHIELD's old research on LMDs to combine the two into a very promising model." Jemma was happy to report in a more excited tone. "Now we're discussing materials, as Mr. Stark doesn't believe that simply uploading his data into something like one of his suits would work after all."
Natasha considered that, bobbing her head from one side to the other. Loading the AI directly into one of the Iron Man suits would've been faster, but there were possible complications as it would presumably be sent out into combat. "Well, I suppose even if the suit gets damaged we could keep a backup in the system, so the data wouldn't really be lost."
"I would agree, but he said he wants something as close to a real body as he could get," Jemma explained in a soft voice. It was the strangest thing, having to consider the living wishes of a dead man as to his preferences on his body. There was no precedent for this, as usually an LMD would be built prior to a person dying, exactly to prevent that very thing. Here they were working on it backwards and it was a very confusing, gray area. Jemma shook her head a little, getting back to the conversation with her patient. "But I'm afraid we simply don't have the technology for that yet."
"Maybe you don't, but I think I know someone who does." Natasha murmured, narrowing her eyes in thought. "When I was undercover at Stark Industries, I saw something very interesting in one of the collaboration research efforts they were doing with some place in South Korea. If you give me a laptop, I could see about getting that info for you."
"Or we could just ask Ms. Potts to share the research data with us." Jemma proposed instead. She knew how much Natasha wanted to be involved and just do something, but she still thought full rest was the best option at the moment.
"I thought you told me she was still stonewalling SHIELD after Tony's death." Natasha countered with a raised eyebrow.
"She is." Jemma admitted, biting down on her lower lip then she gave in with a soft sigh. "Oh you're right. I'll get Agent Coulson to give you clearance to work on it while you recover. But you have to promise me you won't leave this bed until I tell you so." She turned to her with a stern look in her eyes.
"I can do that, as long as you don't keep me here for longer than what is absolutely necessary." Natasha replied easily, holding her hand out.
"Agreed." Jemma nodded, taking her hand and the two of them shook on it.
Upstairs, in a room that had been remodeled as the Playground's gym/training room, Steve was dressed in a SHIELD t-shirt and sweatpants, his hands wrapped around with gauze and tape as he aimed swift hits at the punching bag. Coulson for once had shed his usual suits and was similarly dressed in training clothes, walking around him while holding a pad and assessing his condition.
"I gotta say, It's great to see you up and about." Coulson said with an enthusiasm that was just shy of going overboard. He'd been trying his hardest to maintain professionalism when dealing with the famous Captain America as he was the leader of this team and wanted to cause a good impression. Of course, he was still itching to get him to sign his card collection, but he thought it would be in very bad taste to do that just yet, considering everything that had happened.
"You said that before." Steve replied, looking at him out of the corner of his eyes.
"I know, it's just that you got us really worried there, while we were watching you sleep." Coulson explained, then cringed at his words and started rambling out. "I mean, monitoring your recovery. Not watching you sleep in a creepy way or anything. Just doing my job."
Steve gave him a somewhat confused look with just a hint of amusement as he continued throwing out punches and Coulson firmly shut his mouth and looked down at the data on the pad, checking on the readout for Steve's vitals through the small, wireless electrodes that were attached to his chest.
"It almost looks like the time in the ice made no difference to your physical condition," Coulson said in admiration then he swiftly avoided the swinging bag after Steve had launched an uppercut with considerably more strength.
"Sorry," Steve said with a grimace when Coulson looked at him with raised eyebrows. Jumping a little on his toes and loosening his arms, he focused on the training exercise and got back to delivering consistent, controlled blows.
"No harm done," Coulson assured him with a wave of the hand and also got back to his assessment. "I'm sorry we can't give you any time off. Ordinarily you'd be put in a SHIELD rehabilitation facility and take it easy getting back to your feet, but current circumstances have us pressed for time."
"I understand," Steve grunted back as he continued punching at the bag.
He tried to maintain control of his actions by focusing on the physical activity right at hand, but spending almost 70 years encased in ice really hadn't seemed to take any of his strength away, diminish his muscle tone or even affect his memories. It was almost as if he'd been plucked away from 1945 straight into 2011, the same as he ever was, but the world around him was vastly different. Everyone he'd known was gone and he'd left the final stages of a devastating war to wake up to what was shaping up to be the beginning of another major war, this time with people who had at one point been considered gods. And he was supposed to be one of the key soldiers in this fight.
It was all too much and for a minute Steve got so lost in his thoughts and memories that he didn't hear Coulson calling him or even notice that he had steadily increased the strength and speed of his blows until he'd actually managed to clear the punching bag off its hinges, causing it to fly out and bang against the farther wall, the seams ripped open and sand spilling on the ground.
Steve stood there for a moment just staring at what he'd done, his chest rising and falling with his rapid breathing then he turned to Coulson with something of a sheepish look in his face. "Okay," Coulson said, raising his eyebrows as he also stared at the scene. "That was… good, I think."
"Sorry, it looks like I got a little carried away there," Steve said apologetically, still trying to catch his breath.
"No worries, we have more punching bags in the storage room." Coulson said, making light of it to avoid things getting too awkward. He had no idea what it was like to die and come back to life, or to be suddenly thrown into a completely unfamiliar future to be surrounded by all these people he didn't know, all while being considered a living legend and the hero that was supposed to save the world. He really would've liked if they could give Captain Rogers some rest, but he had his orders and they needed to get battle-ready.
Even so, there was only so much a person could be pushed before they broke, super soldier or not. Clearly the physical aspects weren't the matter here, but mental health was just as important. "Let's take a break," Coulson said after a couple of moments, putting the pad away and motioning with his thumb over his shoulder. "Come on, break room."
Steve nodded and started to unwrap his hands as he followed him out, up the hallway and into the lounge area. They went into the kitchen nook and Coulson brought him a water bottle from the fridge, the two of them sitting down at the wooden table.
"Look, I'm not normally one for heart-to-hearts," Coulson started after a moment. "I have no idea what it is you're going through right now and I won't pretend I do, but I hope you find some comfort in the fact that you're not alone in this."
"Yeah, that helps," Steve replied in a soft tone, looking down at the table as he gripped the bottle between his hands. "It's just been… a little overwhelming."
"I can imagine." Coil said in a soft voice, then continued with a smile. "You know, there's a reason why the SSR was remodeled into SHIELD, and it wasn't so that we could go around saying the mouthful that is Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division."
"Yeah?" Steve turned to him, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh yes." Coulson replied, his smile becoming just a little bigger. "Peggy Carter and Howard Stark were instrumental in establishing this agency and insisted on making a shield its symbol."
Steve just stared back at him, letting the words wash over him and the mixture of emotions that were evoked with the mention of Peggy and Howard. It was almost too much to think that he was in a place where they'd worked together a long time ago and that he was left with their legacy when he had been the one to first leave a legacy of his own.
He nodded after a moment and fiddled with the plastic wrapping on the bottle. "I hear Howard had a son." He said with a smile tugging at his lips, remembering all the women Howard had been involved with and how he'd been so far from settling down and having a family.
"He did." Coulson replied with a smile, wondering what Tony Stark and Steve Rogers would make of each other. "Hopefully you get to meet him soon."
Steve looked up in confusion at that. "I thought he'd died. Don't tell me you actually have ways to get people back from the dead?" That initiated a scary thought trail: What if he'd actually been dead in the ice and they had managed to bring him back somehow?
"Not exactly." Coulson said, his lips forming a thin line. While the test phase of Project TAHITI was technically still operational and the initial results had been promising, the subjects had soon started to deteriorate at a rapid pace and he'd been thinking of recommending Director Fury to shut it down completely due to the side effects when this latest crisis had come. His own concerns were what kept Fury from taking all the fallen would-be-Avengers through TAHITI. Normal agents going through aphasia, hypergraphia, catatonia or full-on psychosis was something already scary enough. Imagine if someone with the Hulk's powers went through it, or Thor, who wasn't even human so they had no way to predict how the treatment would react with his body?
Shaking his head a little and getting back to his present conversation, Coulson continued in a lighter tone. "It's more complicated than that, but I think I'll let Tony himself explain it to you later. Meanwhile let's get back to the training room and work on your sparring."
"Really?" Steve asked with a raised eyebrow as Coulson got up to his feet and gestured for the two of them to get back. "Are you sure? After what you saw me do to that punching bag?"
"Hey, I may not be a specialist, but I'm still a pretty good field agent." Coulson told him easily with a grin. "Besides, if you knock me out too soon, I'll have May take over for me."
Not entirely reassured, Steve nonetheless got up to his feet and followed him back to the training room. Perhaps the focus of interacting with someone else during the exercise would keep him grounded to the moment instead of getting lost in his own head, so it did seem like a better idea to continue with their assessment.
A.N.: There, an explanation as for why the fallen heroes weren't put through TAHITI if that was the whole point of the project in the first place. I may revisit that idea later on, though.