A/N: GUESS WHO HAS COVID. So yeah. I guess statistically speaking I could only run around the hospitals and clinics in my area for so long before catching it. Healthcare worker risks, am I right? I'm fine though. I feel shitty, but I'm one of the lucky ones. Minor symptoms (although i did lose my sense of smell this morning and that shit is WILD, -3/10 do not recommend).
Anyways, back to this, here's the update! Again, I'm incorporating Agents of SHIELD but much like the canon of the Marvel movies I'm doing it how i want so be prepared for changes (for one the Avengers know these agents exist smh).
Ok I'm gonna go lie down my head hurts. Next update will probably be before 5 days. I have nothing else to do right now other than sleep, Netflix, and this. Not to use the pity vote, but hey leave me some reviews! Much like laughter is the best medicine, reading y'all's thoughts will bring me only comfort. Forreal tho enjoy the chapter i'll shut up now sorry lolol.
Chapter 15:
Give Me A Hand
"Anger will help you survive for a while, but it'll eat you alive." –Unknown
Clint felt like his entire body was vibrating with barely concealed rage. His self-control was really being put to the test at the moment. He was sitting in his usual seat in the Avengers Conference room. Typically, they only met up here for pre- and post-mission reports, general meetings, and anytime someone from SHIELD or the government needed to talk to them. Clint had called everyone here because he needed to sit down. He needed to sit down, and he knew the others would too. His hands were balled up tightly, his arms crossed over his chest, and he kept his gaze focused across the table on Natasha.
He could read everyone in the room with ease.
Natasha was sitting stock still, there was no emotion on her face that gave her away, but the twitch in her finger, where her hand casually rested on the table, told him that she was boiling with internal fury. An inferno that could, and would, burn down the tower if left unchecked. Bruce sat beside her with his elbows on his table and his face in his hands. There had been the briefest flash of green in his eyes when the news was broken and now the scientist was taking calming breaths. To Clint's left, Steve held his jaw in his hand, one elbow on the table, and kept his eyes closed. His face looked a shade lighter, like the blood had drained from it. Sam was here too, sitting in Thor's usual spot. The man had been in the process of leaving when they got the 'Setting Sun' alert, and he decided to stick around to make sure everything was alright. The look on his face though made him feel like the man had partly wished that he hadn't stuck around. Just to spare himself from hearing the news for a moment longer. The regret was mixed with anger. Tony, who sat across from Sam, was always the easiest to read and it was because in moments where his temper was sparked, the man hid nothing from his features.
Tony shoved himself up from the table and stormed to the door. Steve called out, his voice tight, "Tony." He didn't listen, he didn't hesitate, he just shoved the door open and left. Steve clenched his jaw before speaking again, "JARVIS, make sure Pepper knows where he is. He needs her."
"She has already been notified, Captain Rogers."
The room went back to a painful silence. Clint's eyes went out of focus as he thought about the pale, faintly raised lines etched into Aj's skin. Getting injured in a fight sucked. Feeling your skin break open from a hit, the ache of a bruise after a punch, it was terrible. Getting injured purposely, slowly, painfully from a stable, psychotic hand? That was different. There was something horrifying about having someone use a knife to carve into your skin as punishment. Clint knew all too well. He's been in the torture chair before. Staring back at someone who was genuinely enjoying bringing out his blood.
Half of the trauma of being tortured was the psychological aspect of it. Clint knew that Aj could take a hit, that wasn't the point, the thing that really boiled his blood was that this jackass, this piece of shit, scum of the earth, carved into her skin repeatedly and told her she deserved it. That she deserved this form of punishment. That's what made Clint want to bury an arrow in Eugene's eye.
"I felt it yesterday. She was upset, and when I… I knew it had to be scars." Steve let out an angry scoff. His jaw clenched again as he pulled his hand away from his face and stiffened in his seat. Steve shook his head, "But I had no idea it'd be—"
Steve cut himself off with a sharp breath. It was one thing when a superhero or an agent of SHIELD was put through the ringer like this. It was a risk of the profession. They either had experience or training. Regardless, they knew of this potential hazard. Someone like Aj, an innocent woman hurt and desperate to feel something, shouldn't have to undergo something like this. Terrible things happened to good people, Clint knew that, but when he saw it firsthand in someone he cared about it felt like a staggering blow.
"How is she?" Sam asked, he didn't look up from the spot on the table he was staring at.
"Cried for a good fifteen minutes. Then she…" Clint chuckled, "She laughed. Said, 'Who would've guessed this talking shit actually works?'." He let his arms fall away from his chest and raised a hand to rub his forehead. "I got her into bed after that. Oh, and in case I forgot to mention it amongst all this other shit, her sister wants to talk to her."
A tired groan hung in the air. When it rained, it poured.
"Sam?" Natasha finally spoke. If Clint hadn't known her so long, and so well, he wouldn't have noticed the tension in her voice. She was lightly stroking Bruce's back. He still hadn't moved. "Call it."
Sam hummed in thought, "Steve, did you mention the scars to her last night?"
"No. She was drunk, talking about Bucky." Steve shook his head. "I wasn't even positive if they were scars. Just had a hunch."
Sam nodded once, still looking at the table, "Clint, how'd the conversation start?"
Clint knew what Sam was trying to gauge, "We were talking about her sister. Then she said she needed to ask for help. I had no idea what she was even doing. She just turned around and asked me to lift up her shirt."
"Afterwards, did you ask if you could tell us, or did she ask you to tell us?"
"She asked me to." Clint replied. "Aj said she didn't want to have the initial talk about it multiple times and she also didn't want to talk about it in front of everyone. Figured it'd be easier if I shared."
Sam nodded again and paused to think. He finally looked up from the table and glanced around the room, "This is…good." He let out a sigh. "What she went through is… but the fact that she decided to talk about it, bring it up on her own, is really good. It means she knows that she can't just let these things simmer inside. That she needs to talk about it to heal."
"So how do we respond to it?" Steve questioned. He crossed his arms.
"Don't treat her any differently. Let her know you're there if she wants to talk more about it, but don't overdo it. Aj isn't the kind that likes to be treated like she's fragile." Sam replied with a raise of his eyebrows. Nobody could argue against that. His face scrunched up in worry and the others waited until he spoke again. "As good as it is that she spoke up, this is also very bad."
Steve narrowed his gaze, "What do you mean?"
Sam stood up and rubbed the back of his neck. He walked a few steps away, silent, before turning back around and leaning his hands on the table, "Aj is working down a path. She started with touch and then in her mind this was the next logical step. The next issue, hurdle, she needed to deal with. Most people work through these things gradually. Baby steps."
Bruce slowly lifted his head to look at Sam. In fact, all eyes were on Sam as his words settled in their minds. They knew exactly what he meant, and it was a terrifying thought.
"You're saying…" Steve let out a humorless chuckle, his eyebrows furrowed in pain, "That for Aj, her scars were the easiest thing to deal with next? That if healing was a—a twenty step plan we're only on step two and it's going to get worse?"
Sam nodded sadly, and Clint buried his face into his hands. What does it say if being carved up by some demented asshole was the least of her nightmares?
The weekend went by in a non-eventful blur, and the Avengers hadn't been overly weird about anything. They were still weird, very much so, but I could tell they were trying very, very hard not to be and I appreciated that. After sharing with Clint, I really had felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. By no means were all my problems solved, that wasn't how that worked, but I felt…okay? Good? I wasn't curled up in a ball sobbing in bed so honestly that was a huge win.
Again, though, everyone had tried to be normal. Each of them took a small moment to discreetly let me know that they were there for me if I wanted to talk, and by time I got that statement for the third time I had to resist chuckling. This was a powerful, arguably dangerous, group of superheroes but they were all acting like mother hens. It was little things. Bruce bringing me a spare cup of tea anytime he made something for himself, Clint and Natasha being more cuddly than usual, and Steve would stare at me with his "worried" eyebrows anytime he thought I wasn't paying attention. I should've felt smothered, but I didn't. Their actions weren't born of pity, but of love, and that meant a lot to me.
Oddly, the only person who hadn't smothered me was Tony, but I figured that was due to his lack of presence. He had taken Pepper somewhere for the weekend, a billionaire vacation I assumed, and I hadn't really seen or spoke to him. Nothing beyond a text he shot me on Saturday morning telling me to call him if I needed him.
When I woke up to get ready for work on Monday, it was well needed. As fun as the holiday was, it would be nice to get back on a schedule. I dressed in skinny style dress pants and a long sleeve button up shirt because I figured I'd be running outside a good bit today. Errands had stacked up the past week. Quickly, I pulled a scarf off a hanger and let it hang around my neck then grabbed Bucky's jacket before rushing out the door.
"J, is Tony awake?"
"He is, Ms. Bradshaw. Sir is currently in his lab."
Ah, it was nice to be back to normal. I chuckled to myself and tried to log into Tony's email on my Pad. I spent six days ignoring the inbox, and I knew for a fact that he had ignored it too, so that probably left me with hundreds of emails to work through this morning. As the elevator reached the penthouse I was still struggling to log into the email.
"What the hell?" I mumbled and stepped out while still trying to get my username and passcode in. It usually gave me full access to anything Tony or SI related. It could be a technological error, but this would be the first one I ever ran into one with a Stark produced item. I tucked the Pad under my arm and moved up to the lab.
The moment I stepped in, I knew something was very wrong. Tony was at his lab table, focused on something, but his shoulders were stiff. His entire form was his 'stressed' look, but usually when he was like that he had music blasting loudly all around him. We were alike in that way. Can't think of shitty things if your music was loud enough. Right now though, it was painfully silent in the lab.
I cleared my throat, "Morning, Tony." He hummed back a response, but that was all I got. Had his weekend with Pepper not gone well? She was back in California by now, and I hoped they hadn't fought or anything. Trying to steer us both into clear water, I sucked in a breath and spoke up again, "So, weird thing, I can't access the SI database or even your email this morning. I don't know if I messed something up on my Stark Pad or whatever, but…"
Tony grabbed a rag to wipe something off his hand, but he still didn't turn to me. His voice was tight and nonchalant as he spoke, "That's because you're not an SI employee anymore."
You could've heard a pin drop in that moment. Fuck, if there was a witness in the room with us, they probably could've heard my heart crack. Panic clouded my brain as I tried to assess the situation. What had I done? The gala had gone well, Thanksgiving had gone well. Those were the two big projects I had. I tried to think further back to tasks I was doing before the holiday. No huge mistake stood out in my head though. I was scrambling now though. What had I done? What did I fuck up?
"I—I'm sorry." I swallowed the awful taste in my mouth and tried to keep my voice firm, "I don't know what I did wrong, but—but if you tell me, I swear I can do better, Tony. I promise if you just—"
Tony finally turned around and his eyes were blown wide in surprise. For a moment we just stared at each other. Despite having gone on vacation, he looked tired. He slowly shook his head, "Wait, wait I—Aj, did you think I was firing you?"
I opened my mouth to reply, but I didn't know what to say. Apparently, I read the room very wrong, and that was embarrassing as hell. Plus, it left me in a spot where I didn't know where to go from here. I just shrugged instead, and Tony mumbled a curse under his breath before rubbing at his face in exhaustion.
"No, sunshine, I'm not—" Tony sighed, he was still rubbing the eyebrow above his right eye like he was nursing a headache, "I'm technically not an SI employee anymore either. I gave Pepper full control. Me and you are focusing on Avenger work now."
I blinked in surprise, "Am I still your PA?"
"More like the PA for all of us. A Public Relations Specialist, if you will." Tony finally opened his eyes, but he wasn't meeting my gaze anymore, "Run our PR campaign, clean up our image, schedule interviews, all that bullshit we gotta do."
"I thought…" I tried to find a way to word this right, "I thought you were trying to separate yourself from the Avengers. Go more into SI."
Tony nodded, "Yeah, that had been the plan."
I knew for a fact that Pepper wanted him further away from the superhero line of work. Tony had vented about it to me a few different times over the last two months. It made sense in my head. Pepper loved Tony and having to watch the person you love constantly throw themselves on a live wire had to be the most stressful thing in the world. Tony had been making good strides toward separating himself too. This 'U-turn' was odd.
"How does Pepper feel ab—"
"Pepper doesn't like it." Tony interrupted me sharply. "But she gets it. She says she gets it. She drew a line in the sand, said this is where she wants to stand—this is what she can live with, but of course, I have to push it." He let out a cold, angry laugh. "Because that's what I do. I push those boundaries; I take and take—can't even compromise for her sake."
Oh, he was spiraling. I had seen Tony in a bad mood before, but those bad moods were easily cured with a cancelled meeting, an Irish cup of coffee, and listening to him vent. This didn't seem like the kind of bad mood I could fix. I had no idea what to do.
"Tony—"
"But I have to keep fighting." Tony shrugged. He moved around his lab, shifting through the work he had been doing, but now his movements were sharp and sloppy, "How can I step down as Iron Man when the world is still so Goddamn shitty? When there's still fucking evil men doing whatever the fuck they please. Just because they think they have the right." He threw something in his hand across the tabletop and kept looking for whatever he was looking for. "What does it say about me—me, if I throw in the towel when terrible things are still happening?! People are fucking suffering and I'm just flipping them off to sit in some boardroom in a—"
I lunged forward and grabbed his arm. His entire body was still tense, but at least the contact had stopped the flow of his self-depreciating words. I tossed the Pad in my other hand on the table and then moved that hand to join the other on his forearm.
"Tony, you're a good man. The things you've done, the people you've saved, and the things you will do." I shook my head, "Even in a boardroom, you do more for this world than any other person I can think of. Whether you use the suit or your money, you're always helping someone."
Tony's jaw clenched and unclenched as he kept his gaze focused on something in front of him. I squeezed his arm once, and he finally looked over to me. He scoffed, "Why the hell aren't you angry? Aj, you should be angry. You deserve to be angry." I narrowed my eyes in confusion. Why would I be angry about— "What he did to you? The shit he put you through, you—"
It clicked in my brain then. Tony had stopped his own words, to silently fume, and I pressed my lips together. This was about the scars. This was about Boss. I should've guessed, but I thought he had moved onto the same page as the others.
"I am angry. Realistically, I'm always angry about something." I said quietly. "I hate him, Tony. The kind of hate that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth and a gaping hole in your chest. I hate him. I hate what he did to me. I hate—" I forced myself to stop and circle back to my point, "But I'm also tired. I'm tired of giving him any piece of my mind. I don't want that. I don't want him to take up another thought of mine. I want him to fade into obscurity and if that means I have to keep calm and not lash out then… it's worth it."
Tony's gaze softened. I gave him a small smile and shrug. He let out a sigh and suddenly pulled me into his arms. With a chuckle, I wrapped my arms around him as he just tightened his own. His body felt like it was finally beginning to relax. He let out a snort, "Since when were you emotionally stable?"
"I only look emotionally stable right now because you're comparing me to yourself." I replied. Tony scoffed at that and I pinched his side. He flinched and pulled back. Tony's features didn't look so wild anymore. He was settling. I smirked, "You good?"
"Well if you of all people are handling this like a mentally well person than I guess that means I have to try too." He rolled his eyes. Tony paused before setting his hand on my shoulder with a tight grip, "I'm sure you've spent a weekend hearing this, but I'm the genius so it means more from me—" I laughed, and he continued, "I don't care what that fucking shithead said to you. You don't deserve a single one of those marks. Not a damned one, you hear me?"
I had spent a weekend hearing this from the others. It was part of their 'I'm here for you' spiel. Maybe it was just the sheer number of times I was hearing it, or maybe it was because it was coming from Tony, but his words left me warm. I gave him a tight nod, "Thanks, Tony. You really are a good person. You know that, right? You're too good for this stupid world."
Then, finally, in his typical Tony way, he replied, "I'm aware of my greatness, thanks."
"Ok then, Mr. Greatness, let's circle back to this job thing." I pointed at him, "Why do you keep giving me jobs I have no training or experience for?"
"You were a good PA for me, just add like five more people to it."
"That's not how that works. This is a different beast altogether. I just got good at being a normal company PA!"
Tony shrugged, "You'll pick it up quick, I'm sure."
"I am 95% positive people go to college for four years to get a degree in public relations. I don't even have my own social media for my public relation to the world, how am I supposed to control all y'all's public relations? Am I even using that phrase correctly?"
"All y'all's." Tony snickered, mocking my words. I rolled my eyes and he grinned, "Hey, let's go drinking."
"Tony, it's 8 AM on a Monday."
"We just went through emotional turmoil, we deserve a drink."
"That's not how—"
"Say yes or I'll fire you from this new job too."
"Fine, but we're going to my old drinking hole."
"I said I want a drink not bacteria infested swill."
Natasha was still in a shitty mood and being benched for a mission was not helping her in any way, shape, or form. Coulson was claiming he still had a handle on the inhuman issues arising, and she believed and trusted him, but God did she want to get in the field and beat the shit out of someone. Clint was in the same boat as her. Steve could go down to the gym and take his anger and frustration out of a sandbag, but she wasn't the kind to be settled by that. A part of her was tempted to sneak into the prison Eugene was being held at and deal with this herself. Rotten assholes like him died in jail all the time. What's one more death?
"This is a huge job with a lot of responsibility." Aj groaned while she read her Stark Pad. Her head was resting on Natasha's lap and the redhead was lightly running her fingers through the woman's hair while simultaneously going through various methods of committing homicide in a federal prison. She was a multi-tasker. "I think I might need to hire someone to help me. Is it weird for a PA to hire a PA?"
"Not at all." Natasha hummed. "You're representing a large, and growing, team. It would only make sense that you need a team yourself."
Aj lowered her Pad to hold it against her chest, "I could hire someone who actually has a Public Relations degree or whatever."
"That's a good idea but remember that you're in charge." Natasha replied. "We trust you with our image, not someone else. You get final say."
Aj mulled that over in her head and Natasha had a feeling she was going to have to remind her of this again in the future. She trusted Aj's judgement regardless of her having a degree or not. Aj mumbled something under her breath and went back to working on her Pad. Natasha could see her sending a text to Pepper.
Natasha could always pay off someone in prison to off the jackass, but she wanted to do it herself so that idea wasn't ideal. Most of her homicidal tendencies had been curbed over the year, but it was shit like this that really got under her skin. If anyone deserved the wrath of a Black Widow, it was those who thought they could hurt her family and get away with it. Granted, these marks had occurred before Natasha had even met Aj, but the anger was still there so the concept applied.
"Do you think I'll get a decent number of applications if I post this as a job listing?"
She chuckled, "I think you'll be fine. Just remember, they need to be run through the SHIELD database and background check, and I'd rather you do that before you meet them in person." She paused then added. "And one of us should be there with you to meet them."
"Sounds good to me." Aj mumbled back in response while typing another message to Pepper for business advice.
Another ten minutes passed before Clint came rushing into the room out of the elevator. Natasha had been watching her phone for an update, but the look on his face was update enough.
"Hey, sorry to interrupt." Clint said, keeping his voice light, "Tasha, I need you."
She carefully lifted Aj's head to stand up, but before she could put it down on the cushion she sat up herself. Aj glanced at the both of them, "Is everything ok?"
"Yeah, just a small mission." Clint shrugged with a boyish smirk.
Aj nodded once, "Oh, well be careful, ok?"
They both reassured her and were quickly on the move. Clint informed her that their gear was already on the quinjet, so they went straight there rather than to the locker room. Natasha began to change while Clint got the quinjet in the air.
"Catch me up to speed."
"Gonzales is dead." Clint came back from the front after putting the ship onto auto-pilot. He began to change into his own gear. "The inhuman leader, Jiaying killed him to incite a war between SHIELD and the inhumans according to Skye." Clint stripped out of his shirt. "Now Jiaying and her little band of assholes have taken over the Iliad." The Iliad was one of the largest helicarriers SHIELD still had in play. "From what they've gathered, the basic gist of her plan is put the world through terrigenesis. Kills all humans, leaves the inhumans behind."
Natasha finished zipping up her suit, "We should've been part of this from the beginning."
"You're not wrong." Clint agreed. "We're on path to meet up with Coulson's quinjet before heading straight to the Iliad. There are still agents aboard who need evac. That's what we're on."
Natasha paused in her movements, "We're on evac?"
"Coulson was specific. He said alpha team is prepped for the lead." Clint nodded. "We're on stand-by if they need help, but our priority is evac."
"Should we have brought along the others?"
"Trying to move in on this as the full Avengers would've been messy, I think." Clint pulled out his phone and began to look over a message. He glanced up at her, "If for a second we think this is going south though, I'm telling the others to go to the bunker. Message is ready to send."
Natasha nodded and began to look over the case files they already had on what was going on. Between them and Coulson's team, they should be able to handle this. Her eyes darted over Coulson's last message to Clint and realized a few names were missing from the list. She glanced up, "Where are Hunter and Bobbi? I thought Coulson had pulled them in on this."
"They were on mission with May. Going after Ward." Clint sighed.
Natasha narrowed her eyes at him, "Fucking Ward?"
"Yeah, I don't know why we haven't ganked that bastard yet." He rubbed the side of his face. Natasha could see the concern in his eyes and raised an eyebrow at him. He sighed, "Bobbi got hit bad. Ward fucking tortured her and then she took a bullet for Hunter."
"Her condition?" Natasha questioned. She had worked with Bobbi before. She hadn't worked with Hunter, but she'd heard of him from Clint. More than that, she knew he considered both good friends.
"Not good." Clint replied. "They got her stable-ish. Last I heard she's on her way to the Tower. Dr. Cho is on route." Natasha nodded and Clint dropped down on the seat beside her. It was silent a moment before Clint crossed his arms and glanced over at her, "At least we get to punch people now."
Natasha's lips quirked up slightly. Yes, at least there was that.
After posting the job listing, with Pepper's help, I had gotten 97 applications within the first 15 minutes. It was getting to the point where my Stark Pad was dinging with a new application every other moment. So, like a responsible adult, I turned my Pad off and decided to dig through them tomorrow. I still needed to spend tonight trying to figure out exactly what it was I was looking for in this position.
Steve and I were sitting on the penthouse couch quietly. He was sketching in his notebook and I was scrolling through my phone glancing up at the news playing on the TV every once in a while. I had turned it on earlier to see if I could see and guess what disaster Clint and Natasha were working on, but I didn't figure it out. If the issue was big enough to be on the news then I suppose the rest of the Avengers would've been called up too.
I had, however, seen a news clip on some red and blue decorated superhero swinging on some sort of web around the city. The news was referring to him as 'Spider-Man' and I guessed that moniker wasn't too far off. The guy could've been stuck with something worse. Lord knows, his costume was bad enough. Fighting crime in a hoodie just didn't seem like a good idea, and that was coming from me.
Needless to say, I thought seeing a wall crawling, bus catching, new-to-the-scene hero was going to be the weirdest thing I saw tonight, but then a quinjet landed on the deck and a small group of strangers rushed into the penthouse with a bleeding woman on a gurney.
Steve and I both jumped up in alarm at the same time that Bruce ran down the stairs. A woman at the head of the gurney, with short brown hair, called out in a British accent, "Bullet wound to the back, exit wound through the chest. I had to intubate her mid-flight."
"Come back to the lab, it's prepped and Dr. Cho is nearly here to assist." Bruce barked back and led them past the stairs to a different elevator that would lead up into the medical lab which was on the same level as the Avengers conference room.
My eyes landed on a guy who was staring down at the bloody woman with pain in his eyes. He gripped her hand tightly even though she was unconscious and couldn't hold it back. I was stuck in a state of shock, but Steve snapped into 'Captain America' mode immediately. He hurried forward and grabbed the attention of one of the agents pushing the gurney to debrief him. They disappeared into the elevator, large enough to fit a gurney, and I was still stuck in place.
I knew they were the Avengers. I knew I lived in Avengers Tower. This was the first time I was seeing it firsthand though. The realization was settling on me. I finally snapped out of it and jogged up the stairs. Tony had shown me the medical lab and the Avengers Conference room when he gave me the tour, but I hadn't been back to either room since. The lab was a flurry of busy bodies. The woman who had called out to Bruce was working desperately on the woman.
Steve was in the room, standing behind the man who had been holding the woman's hand, and he had a hand over the man's chest. Holding him back while Simmons and Bruce worked. The agent Steve had been talking to had disappeared.
There was a crisis to deal with, and I felt useless.
It took nearly an hour for Simmons and an Asian woman named Dr. Cho to stabilize Bobbi Morse. Bobbi being the woman lying on the medical bed fighting for her life. I knew about the gunshot, it had been announced, but her injuries went beyond that. Steve hadn't gone into details with me when he checked on me, but now I knew that she had been tortured. Tortured. God.
I tried to focus my eyes back on the words in front of me. I was going through applications at the moment. Despite planning on not touching them until tomorrow, I didn't know what else I could do. I wanted to help, but I didn't want to be in the way, and I wasn't even sure how much I was allowed to know about this stuff. So instead, I just sat at the dining room table reading the same line on the same application over and over and over again.
"You're Aj, right?"
I glanced up to see the woman from earlier. She looked tired, her hazel eyes filled with a worry and sadness, and the hand she used to run through her short, wavy brown hair shook with a tremor. Her name was Simmons and I assumed that was her last name.
"Oh, yeah." I sat up a little. "Simmons?"
"Jemma Simmons." She nodded, forcing a small smile. She motioned to the chair beside me and I quickly nodded. Simmons straightened her dress shirt and sat down, her hands wringing in her laps, "Coulson mentioned you a few times before."
I chuckled, "I didn't realize I left that much of an impression." Though she was here with me physically, I could see that her mind was miles away. "I heard your friend is…stable."
"She is. Thank God." Simmons let out a relieved sigh. "She still needs surgery on her knee and a lot of rest and rehab, but she'll be ok. I'm glad I had Dr. Cho and Dr. Banner there."
I bobbed my head, thankful for their sake, "Was she… I know Clint and Nat left for a mission. Is that what she was doing?"
"Oh, no." Simmons shook her head, "No, no. They're with Coulson and Skye right now trying to stop, well… Trying to stop an inhuman from slaughtering every human on Earth."
I blinked in shock and an awkward beat of silence settled between us. This was real. This was my reality now. My adopted family routinely went out and saved the world. I took in a shaky breath and glanced back at Simmons. She was still a jittery mess. Bobbi Morse was officially stable and going to live, but her hands were still wringing against one another and the worry in her eyes hadn't changed at all.
"You're nervous for them. Is it a really bad mission?" I asked, my own nerves starting to fray.
Simmons' eyes widened slightly and then she forced a smile, "I have faith in the team. I always do. That doesn't ever stop my worries, of course, but… Someone I care about is on the mission and I always worry more when he's in the field." She took noticed of her words and shook her head, "Not that I don't care about them all. They're all my family I just—"
"You love him?" I chuckled. Simmons blushed a bright pink and averted her gaze. In an attempt to smooth the air between us, I leaned forward, "I'm sure he'll be fine. Clint and Nat are indestructible. Coulson came back from the dead once, or something like that—I only got the spark notes version, but… I'm sure the rest of your team is just as amazing. They'll bring him back."
"Thank you." Simmons replied softly. I was a stranger to her but reassurances were comforting regardless of who they were from.
Clint held the door open and motioned for the last remaining crew members he found to hurry through it. Coulson, Mac, and Fitz were taking care of an inhuman in the vent room who was trying to break the lethal terrigenesis crystals. Through the comms it sounded like they were not having fun with it, but they sounded not dead. Natasha was with May last he checked.
Once the last crew member was in a safe zone, he hurried down the hall looking for a familiar face. The sound of a familiar voice is what caused him to screech to a stop and sprint in the opposite direction though. He arrived in the room just in time to see the back of a woman running out the other door. Skye stood in the middle and glanced back at him.
"Clint?"
"Hey, kid." Clint replied and raised his bow when he saw an unfamiliar and unfriendly face step into the room where the other woman had run off. Her hair was a pale red and her grin looked way too excited for this.
"Don't shoot." Skye threw her hand up to him, "She's not bad, she's just being misled by my mom."
Clint lowered his bow. It was two versus one anyways. They had the advantage. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, she watched as the redhead's body shimmered and copies of herself stepped away from. Now it was two versus six.
"Aw, man." Clint groaned. He snapped his bow out turning it into a staff. The redheads lunged at them and the fight began. He ducked under the punch of one and swiped her legs out from under her with the staff. Skye was handling herself well, and if he had a moment to spare he'd use it being proud of how far she's come. The little hacker was a full-fledged agent these days. He dodged a swiping arm, threw an elbow in her face, and then flipped her over only to get tackled by another copy.
Clint hit the ground and before he could shake off the first copy another was on top of him. For fuck's sake, wasn't he just telling Aj not to get taken to the ground during a fight against multiple assailants? He heard Skye cry out and threw off one of the copies. The air filled with the crackle of lighting and briefly he wondered if Thor had just dropped out of the sky to watch him get his ass kicked by the human version of a photo copier.
The copies on top of him were blown off and when he rolled up his eyes landed on May first. She raised an eyebrow at him, "Why is it anytime we run into each other, you're getting your ass handed to you?"
"It's my charm." Clint shrugged, his eyes drifted over to a random inhuman with lighting bouncing off his hands, "Who the fuck are you?"
"Lincoln." Skye breathed from beside him.
"Oh." Clint replied. "May, where's Tasha?"
"With Coulson." May said before turning to Skye, "Where is Jiaying?"
Skye glanced over her shoulder, "Outside. She's moving crystals into a quinjet." Lincoln passed Clint and grabbed Skye's arms. Clint glanced over in concern, but it looked like he was just shocking the metal rings off her arms. They must have been blocking her powers. "Hurry. There will be more red heads here soon. I'll go after my mom."
May stepped forward, "Skye, I'll do it. I've done it before."
"No." Skye said sharply. The binding that was holding back her powers fell to the floor. Clint clenched his jaw. The first person you kill on a mission was always the hardest. It didn't matter how evil the person was. It was still hard. And this was Skye's mom. A psycho inhuman that needed to be stopped, but still…
"I won't hesitate." Skye nodded. May nodded and the young woman turned and ran out of the room. Clint turned and watched five more redheads walk out from the other doorway. Clint rolled his shoulders. He had said he wanted to punch someone.
Talking to Simmons was keeping me sane. It also cleared up a lot of confusion. Thanks to her, I learned that inhumans were descendants of aliens, because in my new life that was a sane sentence to say, and that through a process called terrigenesis the alien gene in them could become active and give the descendant a unique ability. Simmons didn't use the word 'superpower', but I very much did. Apparently, the leader of this band of inhumans was really mad at normal humans, honestly it was understandable humans really suck sometimes, but she had taken it a step further and planned on annihilating all 'non alien descendant' humans. SHIELD wasn't happy about that plan so now they were trying to stop her. Simmons didn't go into detail on why or who tortured Bobbi Morse, but that seemed like the kind of story that was told over multiple stiff drinks.
"Y'all go through some shit, huh?" I scoffed.
Simmons grinned with a nod, "Quite the understatement."
She was in the middle of telling me more about the members of her team when her words trailed off and her gaze drifted past me. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to watch a quinjet land on the deck. Simmons jumped up and ran out to the deck. I slowly stood up and watched as a group hurried off the jet. I noticed the bright red flash of Natasha's hair, she was leading the group in, and the next thing I noticed was that Coulson was being dragged in with a bleeding stump where his hand should be.
"Bruce!" I called out, knowing he was in the kitchen.
Bruce poked his head out in concern just as the group swept into the room. Natasha spoke loudly, "Coulson's lost a lot of blood."
"He lost a lot more than just blood." I mumbled to myself. They passed me, Simmons following closely, and I knew they were all going straight to the medical lab. I turned at the sound of the deck doors opening again, and this time Clint walked in with two unfamiliar faces.
"I need to be back at the Playground. Lincoln and my dad were taken there." A dark-haired woman said firmly. She had on a black leather jacket over an equally black outfit. Her face was battered, but I couldn't see how bad the injuries were under the dried blood. If I was following Simmons' descriptions right, this must have been Skye. "Clint—"
"You need to be looked over, Skye." Clint replied firmly. "You hit your head pretty hard."
"It doesn't matter—"
"Oh right, of course, doesn't matter! It could just be a concussion!" The other guy cried in a Scottish accent. This guy, who was definitely Fitz because Simmons spared no details about him, was fussing over Skye. His dirty blonde hair was cut short and though he didn't look hurt, he was covered in a layer of grime and sweat.
"I'm fine." Skye said firmly.
Clint stopped and spun around to face Skye. I began to cross the room to greet them while Clint slipped into full on 'dad' mode, "While Coulson is out cold, I'm responsible for his people. You are not leaving this Tower until you've had a full checkup."
Skye pressed her lips together in defiance, but Clint turned back around to look at me. His left eye was bruising, his lip was busted, and it looked like the entire right side of his jawline was going to bruise as well.
"Hey, kid." He nodded, then motioned to the others, "This is Fitz and Skye. Guys, this is Aj."
"Nice to, uh, meet y'all." I greeted awkwardly. "What the hell happened out there? Simmons caught me up to speed, I don't know if I was supposed to know any of that information, but—I mean, Coulson! What happened to Coulson?"
Clint waved me off, "Mac cut his hand off with an axe."
I blinked at him in shock. Leave it to Clint to give me an answer that left me more confused than I had started. There was a beat of silence where I tried to piece together the answers I did have. Before I could ask more, Skye spoke up, "I'm taking the quinjet and going back to the Playground."
I assume when she said 'The Playground' it wasn't a literal place with swings and slides.
"I already told you, Skye." Clint huffed. "You're getting looked at first."
I raised my hand slightly to interrupt their soon to be full blown argument, "I think I can help with that." Eyes snapped to me in surprise, and I shrugged. "Dr. Cho is focused on Bobbi, Simmons is probably working on Coulson with Bruce being her assist." I motioned to Skye, "Concussions, bruises, and cuts are kind of my forte. Wouldn't have survived if I didn't know how to deal with those."
Skye looked to Clint. He groaned, but finally consented with a nod. She turned back to me with a tight smile, "Thank you."
Skye followed me up the stairs and I noticed her become more jittery as we got to the lab. Her eyes were blown wide with worry when she spotted Coulson through the glass wall lying on a bed with Simmons setting up an IV while Bruce looked him over. Her eyes dragged over to where Bobbi was laying. Dr. Cho was standing by her bed reading something on her Stark Pad. Next to the bed, the same guy still sat beside her. His hand in hers.
Off to the side, Natasha and the other two people who dragged Coulson in were talking to Steve. One was a tall, broad black man who still had an axe strapped to his back. I guess that was Mac. The other was an Asian woman with a resting bitch face that was even scarier than Natasha's. Maybe that was just because I knew Natasha better now.
Eyes glanced our way as we stepped in, but I motioned for Skye to take a seat on the edge of the bed on the other side of the room from Coulson and Bobbi. I grabbed the first aid kit under a sink in the corner, a bottle of water from the mini fridge, and a couple granola bars before heading back to her.
"Here." I said and handed her the food and water.
She mumbled a thanks and I popped open the kit and started to work. Her injuries really weren't too bad. It just looked bad because it bled a lot, but that's what head wounds were known for. Annoying as shit, they were. I cleaned up the blood from her skin and then cleaned the wounds themselves. None would need stitches based on the size and depth.
"Coulson mentioned you a few times. He wanted to introduce us, but some…things came up." Skye said after finishing with the first granola bar. Her features were still tired and melancholy. It was the kind of look someone wore after going through a shit day.
I nodded and gave her a small smile, "Hey better late than never, right? I'm just sorry it's happening like this." Skye chuckled and I went back to working on the gash she had at the edge of her eyebrow. "Can you tell me what happened to Coulson? I don't know him well, but he seemed like a good guy. I don't see why anyone would chop his hand off for kicks."
Skye chuckled, "How much do you now about what happened?"
"An inhuman wanted to break crystals and kill all non-inhuman humans?"
"That's a good summary of it." Skye chuckled sadly. "The crystals were lethal to anyone without the inhuman gene. If they were broken and you inhaled the mist or if you touched it, you would go through terrigenesis. Coulson caught a crystal to save them, but he started to turn to stone."
With everything that was happening today, you'd think news like this wouldn't faze me, but oof. Turning to stone? I let out a sigh, "Turning to stone, huh? So only inhumans avoid that nasty side effect?"
"Inhumans turn to stone too, but it's more of a…cocoon. They emerge as something new. Without the gene though, you just turn to dust."
There was no penlight in the first aid kit, so I just pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight feature. Skye looked straight ahead as I passed the light over her eyes. Usually, I was doing this test on myself which was a lot harder. Both her pupils reacted how they should to the light. If she did have a concussion it was a minor one.
"Here." I pulled out a few pain pills for her to take. She didn't hesitate in throwing them back and washing it down with water. "Any other sore spots?"
"My entire body is sore." Skye replied dryly.
I noticed her flexing her hands open and close, and motioned if I could look at them. She nodded and held them out. Just like I did with my own hands after a night of fighting, I took her hands and felt for fractures. I started with the left first and used my fingers to try and feel each bone and joint. She flinched when I pressed along her palm and a spot on her wrist. I did the same to her right and she had two more tender spots in odd locations. With the way she moved and flinched, I had assumed she had some hand fractures, but they weren't in the usual spot.
"I'm no doctor so take this with a grain of salt", I said, "But you might have a few fractures in your hands."
Skye nodded, "Oh, I know I do. Curse of my gift." I tilted my head in confusion and she raised her eyebrows in surprise before continuing, "Oh, sorry, most people just know—um, my ability is vibration manipulation. I basically make things shake. Downside is, if I overdo it, my bones take the brunt of it." She lifted her hands a little. "Usually, I have these fancy gloves that absorb the shock, but I didn't have them on me when…"
Her voice trailed off, and I could see in her eyes that she was slipping into a memory. Probably of what she had just gone through. I cleared my throat and quickly changed the subject, "That's a kickass superpower though."
"Thanks." Skye chuckled, coming back to reality. "From what I hear, yours is probably pretty cool too."
I let out a small laugh and then actually realized what she said. From what she heard, mine was pretty cool too? Who was she hearing this from and what the fuck were they actually talking about? Skye noticed my distress and raised a confused eyebrow, but I never got the chance to ask her what she meant by her words because the lab doors swung open loudly.
Everyone in the room, minus the doctors working, turned to see who it was. Tony, who I was just remembering had been out of the Tower all day today with Rhodey, stood in the doorway, still wearing the band shirt and jeans he had worn to the bar with me this morning, and just glanced around in pure confusion.
"What the fuck is going on?"
