No sooner had the jet made contact with the ground when the Bartans decided to come out and greet the two of them, save Clint, who was missing from the welcoming party. The youngest must've had his older sister paint the little flags under his eyes, and it appeared that Clint or someone else along the line had bought him one of those Hasbro replicas of the vibranium shield on his back. "You're really him!" He exclaimed, looking at the suit and shield.
"That's Nate," Their mother said. Laura, Sam recalled. She turned and gestured to her other two kids, first her daughter, then her son. "This is Lila, and Cooper."
"Hey," Cooper greeted. Lila just waved. Sam returned the wave, and then extended his hand in a shake to Laura.
"Thank you for hosting us on such short notice. I'm sorry for the inconvenience," Sam apologized. Laura returned the handshake.
"It's no problem. This isn't the first time we've had guests like you drop in, so we're getting used to the company," She explained.
"We'll be out of your hair once we know where we're headed," Bucky added. Laura turned to him, shaking his good hand as well.
"Bucky, right?" She guessed.
"Yeah, that's me."
Laura nodded in recognition. "Clint already told me what happened in Indonesia. He's been working on tracking down Fury ever since."
Sam looked over her shoulder back at the house. "Is he here?"
She shook her head. "No, he went out this morning. He said he'd be back by the time you got here though, so he should be here soon."
"Sounds like he's got it handled then," Bucky remarked, looking around at the view.
"Okay, I just have to know," The older boy said. He looked like he was somewhere in his mid-teens. "What's the arm made out of?"
Bucky chuckled. "Metal from a space rock."
Sam smiled as he watched the older two children start interrogating the old soldier. It appeared that The Winter Soldier was becoming much less of a myth, and more of an idol. Just like he had started to when he became Captain America. But when they wanted to, they could also choose to just be regular guys, not superheroes. Advantages of wearing armored costumes, he supposed.
Just then, he felt a small tug at his leg, and looked down to see the youngest one staring back at him. "You're Captain America!" He exclaimed
"Only most of the time, kid," Sam replied, smiling down at the awestruck little boy. Then, he gestured to the replica shield he was carrying. "Where'd you get that?"
"My dad got it for me after we saw you on the TV!" Nate explained enthusiastically. "How about yours?"
Images of John Walker flashed through his mind. Fighting. Struggling. Ripping the shield free from his grasp. Scrubbing and washing it clean of the blood that it had spilled. He blinked once, and returned to the present, looking down at the kid in front of him. He sighed. "My old friend gave it to me. I almost didn't let him give it to me."
"Why not?"
"Well, that's a really long story. One your father will have to explain," Sam decided, electing not to go into the details of how he had become Captain America. Instead, he took his shield off his back, and crouched down in front of the boy. "Why don't you try mine for a little while?"
His eyes lit up with glee, and he eagerly reached for it. Sam pulled it back. His face turned confused, and he looked back up. "Do you swear to take care of this shield, and use it only for what you believe is right?"
"I swear," He said anxiously. Sam chuckled, and handed him the shield.
"Okay then. Go have fun," He said. The boy dropped the replica, and quickly snatched the real one, running off around the yard like someone had just given him an unlimited supply of candy. Cooper saw this and looked at Bucky, who quickly picked up on what he was thinking.
"Yeah, I don't think so. This one stays with me," Bucky said. Cooper grinned.
"Had to try for it," He replied.
The sound of a car coming up the road interrupted their introductions, and they all turned to see a pickup truck park by the house. "There's Dad," Lila declared, listening as the driver side door closed, and the archer stepped around the hood of the truck. Nate and Lila ran up to greet him, exchanging some quick greeting words and hugs between each other before following Clint back over to the group of people. Behind him, another man stepped out of the passenger door, dark skinned, and dressed in all black. The unmistakable eyepatch covered his left eye.
"I've gotta say, when you called asking if I knew where to find Fury," Clint said to them. "I thought it'd be much harder than it ended up being."
Sam and Bucky exchanged a look. "What do you mean?"
"He knew you were looking for him," Clint explained. "I was going into town to see if I could find anything at an old S.H.I.E.L.D. Safe House, and when I opened the door, he was already there, along with her."
"Her?" Sam asked. Clint gestured to where Fury was standing by the car, and he now had a woman standing next to him, who he had only met once, just before S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. Maria Hill. "Ah. I see."
Clint nodded. "So then it was just a matter of getting them back here so you and them could hash this stuff out, and…"
"...here we are," Bucky finished for him. "We should get to it though. We don't know how bad this thing is, and now that at least one party knows we know, they might be after us."
"Better safe than sorry, I agree. You're talking to an ex-secret agent here, you know," Clint said, turning and starting to walk towards the house. "Let's head inside. I'm sure you guys have questions, and if anyone is after you, they'll at least have to go through a couple layers of Cedar and drywall."
The three superheroes and the rest of the Bartan family made their way up to the door of the house, continuing to catch up and explain what they had all been up to the whole way. At the door, Fury and Maria joined them in walking inside, but stayed eerily silent, as they all knew those two tended to do. They were just as tight-lipped as Romanoff more often than not, perhaps the reason that Maria had been selected to be Fury's right hand when S.H.I.E.L.D. had been going strong. However, Sam also knew that Maria had a lighthearted side, though these days, it rarely showed itself. The two vigilanties, for lack of a better term, were still sorting through the aftermath of the Blip for themselves. For Fury, who's defining characteristic was knowing everything, knowing nothing for a change would certainly put him in a no-nonsense mood.
After they were all inside, Clint sat them around the table, and brought a few sodas in from the garage for them to converse over. Clint put himself up against the doorframe, preferring to watch the discussion from a distance, like he always had. "I'm glad you guys decided to reach out," Fury began, taking a sip of his cola. "I've been looking all over for you."
"Yeah, why is that?" Bucky asked immediately. "Of all the people in the world, I'd think you'd know where everyone was the moment they were snapped back into existence."
"Well, being legally dead, no longer part of any government organization, and being snapped back into existence myself threw more than a few wrenches into my getup. Hill and I have been playing catch-up ever since," Fury explained.
"You saw the news on what was going on across Europe a few weeks ago?" Maria chimed in.
"On and off," Bucky replied. "We know that it all shook out in Peter Parker going into hiding."
"That was never part of the plan," Fury said. "After Stark's funeral, everyone went their separate ways, and the Avengers vanished from the face of the planet. I couldn't figure out where anyone was for more than a day or two, and by the time I finally caught up to someone that looked like he could be an Avenger, he ended up finding me, not the other way around."
"'Mysterio' is what he called himself, right?" Sam asked.
"Yes."
"That seems like a bit of a dead giveaway."
"I had zero resources, options, or explanations. I was trying to put the team back together when no one else was," The man defended himself. "I found Beck with hopes that he was the start of that. But I needed more than a one-man show, so I kept looking, and eventually, I was able to find Parker. He was, at the time, probably the easiest one of you all to find. But everything sort of fell apart from there, and Beck got the last laugh. Parker contacted me once after that, saying that he was going to lay low for a while, and to only contact him again if I had no other choice or if he returned to the scene in New York. I haven't heard from him since."
"So you started looking for others again," Clint guessed.
"I did, and when Hill got word you were looking for me, we let ourselves get found," Fury responded. "Now, we've answered your question quite thoroughly. If you don't mind, I have a couple of my own I'd like answered. Starting with: Why reach out now?"
Sam and Bucky exchanged a quick glance. Go ahead. Show them. Sam tried to say to his partner. Bucky sighed, reaching down to his pocket and pulling out the broken Centipede implant. He slid it out onto the table for everyone to see, and it drew multiple looks of confused curiosity. Even Clint got interested, moving from his spot at the back of the room up to the table with everyone else. "It's a bio-cybernetic blood filter, called a Centipede. What you're looking at is one that I managed to rip off the guy that was wearing it," Bucky began. Fury made a move to pick it up, examining it carefully out in front of him. "It's broken, but we don't know if it's still dangerous or not. It might still have some juice in it, and whatever it is, it killed the other guy when I took it off."
Fury set it back down, and everyone but Bucky shrank back slightly. "So why bring it to us?"
"We don't know where this one came from, but I know of the project from when I was the Winter Soldier. It's Hydra in origin, a project that was developed while Hydra was inside S.H.I.E.L.D.."
"And because you were the director of all things S.H.I.E.L.D., we figured-," Sam began, but Fury interrupted, finishing his thoughts for him.
"-that I might know something about the project," The dark man said. "A good assumption to make."
"So you know something?" Bucky asked.
Fury looked away from the two of them and out the window. "No. I don't."
"Then why do you have the look on your face that means you do know something? Or are you just messing with me, because I'm under the impression that you know something?" Clint called out. Fury looked back at him knowingly.
"I don't know anything about the project," He restated, then looked back at Sam and Bucky. "But that doesn't mean that I don't know who does."
"Wait, you do or you don't know someone that does?" Sam inquired sarcastically.
"Sam…" Bucky sighed in disappointment. Then he looked back at Fury. "Who's you contact?"
"One of my men assembled a special field operations team following the Battle of New York. I don't know the details, but they were the ones that originally discovered and chased down Centipede," Fury said factually. "They survived the Hydra takeover, even fought back and cut off a few heads. But after that, they went dark, and I only heard from them twice since, just before the Battle of Sokovia, and when they told us you were looking for me."
Clint's interest was now thoroughly peaked. "I've never heard this story before," He realized. "They were the ones that gave you the Helicarrier?"
Fury nodded. "They were also the ones who have been fighting in the shadows while you fight in the spotlight. You remember back in 2016 when S.H.I.E.L.D. re-legitimized for about 6 months during the Inhuman pandemic?"
"Vaguely," Sam recalled.
"That was them."
"Do you have names?" Bucky suddenly asked. "Locations?"
"I do. I can't guarantee that they are all alive after all this time, but at least one of them should know a thing or two about a thing or two."
A beat of silence passed. Sam blinked, looking around at all of them before he spurred the conversation further. "Well, get on with it. Who are these guys?"
Fury nodded. "These are just the ones I know of. Their names are Leopold Fitz, Jemma Simmons, Melinda May, Alfonso Mackinzie, Daisy Johnson, Elena Rodriguez, and…"
"Wait, why does that name sound familiar?" Clint interjected.
"Elena Rodriguez?"
"No, Daisy Johnson. I've heard that name before," Clint said firmly.
"Well, if you Avenger types kept up with the news between your various world-peril events, you should know her. But the press usually refers to her as Quake," Fury explained.
"She has powers?" Sam asked.
"If you watched TV every now and then, or maybe tried using Google, you'd know this," Fury accused. "Yes, she had powers. Some of the strongest I've seen."
"Then why haven't you tracked her down by now?" Sam jabbed.
"She's a damn spy, for god sake. If Parker is the easiest to find, Daisy Johnson is certainly the hardest," He returned easily. "They are only found when they want to be found. They're harder to find than me, and I'm nearly impossible to track down."
"You were about to mention another person," Bucky pointed out, bringing the conversation back on track. "Who?"
"His name is Phillip J. Coulson. A name at least one person in this room should be very familiar with," Fury stated. Clint's expression suddenly changed to one of shock.
"Coulson was killed by Loki, right before the battle of New York," The ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent corrected. "I saw the body myself. He was stabbed right through the heart. No way he could live through that."
"Then you clearly haven't met me," Fury said.
"Fury commissioned the use of a top-secret project that was supposed to be used in the case of the death of an Avenger to repair the damage that Loki did. A few months of recovery, and Coulson was back on the job. But for the sake of keeping the Avengers on the same page, he wasn't allowed to tell you that," Maria explained.
"Why the hell not?" Clint accused. "Phil was my friend. I deserved to know he was alive."
"Coulson's death was arguably what brought the Avengers together. Telling you he was alive could have just as easily done the opposite," Fury said. "It wasn't a personal decision. It was a necessity, especially because they had only just started to get along."
"I still deserved to know," Clint said, though Sam knew that he could see why Fury did what he did. "We all did."
"I'm sorry, but I did what I had to do for the good of everyone. Which, unless I'm mistaken, is the same reason we're here, now. Sorting this out," Fury reminded them all, once again bringing the conversation back around to relevance.
"So, where did they say to meet?" Bucky asked. Sam and Bucky hadn't been around for the earlier days of the Avengers. A lot of this was new to them, but that also meant they could move past it much quicker than Clint could. Right now, they needed answers.
"They gave me a single set of coordinates," Fury replied, taking out a small sheet of paper and sliding it back across the table. Sam picked it up, and began reading it. "They should put you somewhere off the east coast, in the Atlantic."
Sam took this in as he read the location. Fury was right about it being off the East coast, but it included something beyond Latitude and Longitude. It also included altitude. "Are you sure these coordinates are right? This spot is 35,000 feet above the ocean. Nothing is up that high except airliners and our jet."
"Well, there must be something waiting for you there. I can't think of any other reason to give someone coordinates that precise," Fury said, standing up and finishing his soda. "I've told you everything I know. Now, I have to get back to work on tracking down the rest of the Avengers, and I think my ride is just about here."
Right on que, the sound of another car coming to a stop on the dirt driveway could be heard through the walls of the house. Fury opened the door and allowed Maria to pass through before turning back to look at the three of them one last time. "Good luck. I'll be watching," He said, then began closing the door behind him. And just before it shut, he added, "Tell my man Coulson I said hello."
The door closed. Sam sighed. "He certainly is a character, isn't he," He remarked as they listened to the car pull away. He looked back down at the location on the piece of paper, contemplating.
"You think it's a trap," Bucky said flatly, observing his face, Sam looked at him.
"A random set of coordinates in the middle of nowhere 35,000 feet above the ocean. Yeah, I think it's a trap," Sam replied. "That high up, I can only fight so much, and neither of you two can do much except brace yourselves. We could be flying right into an ambush, and there'd be nothing we could do about it."
"It's not a trap," Clint chimed in. The two of them both turned to the archer. "I know Fury better than that. If he thought it was a trap, he wouldn't even have bothered to give us the location. There's something waiting for us there, yes, but it won't be an ambush."
Sam nodded to himself. That is a good point. He thought. Then he realized what Clint had just said. "Wait a minute, 'us'?" He asked.
Clint nodded in an affirmative. "I'll tag along to see what all the fuss is about. But there's no guarantee I'm sticking around. I'm technically retired right now, remember?"
Bucky chuckled to himself. "Welcome on board, then."
Clint smiled, then turned and started walking up the stairs. "Well, if I'm on board, then we're going to be timely about all this. I'm gonna be ready to go in five. I suggest you track down where that shield got to."
Sam stood up, making his way towards the sound of Nate playing at the other end of the house. As he walked, he took one more glance at the coordinates that Fury had given him. "Whatever is out there," He said to himself, "ready or not, here we come."
"Ten minutes out," Sam warned. Bucky noted that down in his head, but didn't break eye contact with their prisoner. Clint sat next to him, also staring down the dealer intently, trying to get something out of him. Who could intimidate him more first seemed to be the goal of this little game they were playing, and from what he could tell, he was winning. Clint was a formidable spy, yes, but he was also the father of three kids. A lot of your ability to intimidate another person disappears when you're around perky children, or at least, that had been Bucky's experience. But for him, all he needed to do was recall the way he was combat trained as the Winter Soldier, and that was enough to keep him straight faced and unflinching for as long as he needed.
Sometimes it did cross his mind though, the life he could have had if he had never become the Winter Soldier. He could have had a family. Kids. A wife, who loved and cared for him, who helped him through his troubles. It was an opportunity that, thanks to Hydra, he never had. But he had seen the way that Clint's kids looked up to him. Especially the youngest. Just after Sam had gotten his shield back, Nate had asked his dad why he was leaving. Clint got down on his son's eye level, and responded, "Nathaniel Pietro Bartan, you were named for one of the bravest Avengers that there was. The one who saved my life. I need to go be brave like he was, and help save more lives, and someday, you could too." After that, his boy readily embraced him, and Clint said goodbye to the rest of his family. It struck a chord when he watched that happen, not because it made him sad, but because he knew that even if he had a family, if they knew what he had been, then they could never look at him like they did Clint.
That shield that Sam now had was the only thing he had left that gave him that same feeling. A reminder of the life he had been given, and also the life he never had. He didn't have a family to fight for like Clint, or Sam. Instead, he was fighting to live up to what Steve had believed him to be. That's all he had left to fight for.
"Do you think he's gonna break if we keep staring at him?" Clint asked him, but kept his eyes on the prisoner.
"We're just softening him up right now," Bucky replied. The prisoner darted his eyes back and forth between the two of them, from the bow on Clint's back and the gun at his side to the vibranium arm. Seeing this, Bucky popped his neck side to side, and drummed the metal fingers on his thigh. The Prisoner gulped.
"Five minutes out," Sam warned again. Bucky saw Clint give up on the staring contest and look out the windshield, Bucky smirked to himself. He had won again. He then looked out the window along with the rest of them, but was confused.
"If we're five minutes out from our destination and we're this high up, we should be able to see it by now," He commented.
"Yeah, I agree. Something's up," Clint responded. Bucky looked back to the aft of the jet, double checking to make sure the chutes were there if they needed them.
"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm not seeing a whole lot of any-" Sam began, but just as he was about to finish that sentence, the proximity alarm started going off, and two unidentified aircraft appeared on the radar behind them, flanking right and left. "-thing," The Captain finished, reducing their speed slightly.
"Attention, unidentified vessel. This is restricted airspace. Identify yourself," A voice said over the comm. One of the pilots. Bucky guessed. He looked out the side of the cockpit and behind them, catching sight of one of the other aircraft as it pulled up on their wing. Something about the model looked familiar.
"This is Avengers Quinjet One. How do we proceed?" Sam responded on the radio.
"Submit authorization codes immediately, or return to ground. If you fail to comply, we will open fire," The pilot responded. Bucky studied the form of the jet outside the window. The twin propellers in the wings, the arched cockpit, and the and the powerful jets located in the vertical stabilizers. He knew that model. He had seen it many times before.
"Authorization codes?" Sam asked the two of them. Bucky ignored it, and Clint shook his head. Sam turned the radio back on. "We don't have clearance codes, but we have been sent here by Nick Fury. Does that name mean anything to you?"
"Avengers Quinjet One, if you do not send clearance codes immediately, we will not hesitate to-" The pilot began, but stopped. Bucky looked to the communications panel, which indicated the jets flanking them were receiving a secure communication on another channel from another source. He turned his gaze quickly back to the wing of the jet had been studying, searching it for a specific detail. Suddenly, a new voice came through on the radio.
"This is Director Alphonso Mackinze. Avengers Quinjet one, you are cleared to board. Quinjets S-3 and S-17, escort them to the landing pad. Route Delta."
"Roger that, Director," The pilot replied. "Avengers Quinjet One, please fall in line and proceed to the landing pad."
The two jets pulled in front of them, banking right and climbing quickly. As they turned, Bucky finally caught sight of the symbol he had been looking for. An eagle logo, circular in shape, printed on the end of the right wing. "I know these jets," Bucky suddenly said. "These are S.H.I.E.L.D. models."
Just as he said it, the jets lead them in a large loop bringing them above the last layer of clouds they had been under. And looming out below them now, was the same logo that was on the jet, painted massively across a floating runway. "This is Director Mackinzie. Avengers Quinjet One, it's good to see you."
Every single one of them was speechless. "Son of a bitch," Sam finally said. "What have we been missing?"
Hey everyone! There's chapter 2 of Avengers Tectonic. What do you think? I know, it was a bit slower, but I feel like it was an important chapter nonetheless. I hope you enjoyed it.
There is something that you should be aware of though. I'm going on a summer trip for the next three weeks or so, and I won't be able to keep writing in that time. So there is going to be a bit of a gap between this chapter and the next one, so you're all aware. Either way, if you like the fiction so far and want to see more, consider favoriting and/or following, I always appreciate the support for the work to continue. If you'd like to leave your thoughts on what I could do better, or what you liked about the story, the reviews section is always open. And if you'd like more of my writing, check out The Hunt for Project Stardust, my Star Wars Rebels fanfiction. Thank you all, and I'll see you in the next one!