Avengers 1 part 3

I own only my original characters, nothing else.

Max began to walk around the helicarrier, seeing as much as he could. He was beginning to contemplate something, and he needed a second opinion on it so he turned to only person he could talk to about this.

"Hey, Shuri, I need to ask you something and I need you honest opinion," he asked via texting.

"Of course. What's wrong?," she asked.

"Do you think I should tell my parents about my abilities?"

"...I think you should do what you believe you must do. If you want a straight answer though... yes, I think you should. The longer you don't tell the, the more damage you will cause."

"...Okay then. I'll tell them when the time is right. Wish me luck on it, because it's not exactly my dad that I'm scared of."

"Hahaha... good luck then," she said and signed off.

"Hey, kid," Steve said, walking up to him. "What're you doing?"

"Texting a friend," he said.

"What's texting?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot. You're from the Forties. Texting is... I guess like writing a letter over the phone that people can respond to as soon as they get it."

"Well, that makes thing easier. Was that friend of yours this Shuri?"

"It was indeed. Just getting her opinion on something. Maybe when all of this is done, and we have the Tesseract again... I'll tell my parents about my abilities."

"I think you'd be doing the right thing," he said.

"Yeah... I certainly hope so. Why are you still in your suit?"

"You must always be ready for action."

"Well, in that case... I'm gonna go suit up," he said and he walked away to his temporary quarters and got out the bag he had brought from Wakanda and onto the carrier with him.

Some time later, Max walked back out in his Arc suit, which quickly got the attention of Natasha and Fury.

"That's quite the getup you got on, kid," Fury said.

"Jealous?"

"Impressed, more than anything else. Where did you get that?"

"Made it. Not gonna tell you how though."

"...Fair enough," he finally said and went back to work.

"When did you find time to make that?," Natasha asked and Max shrugged.

"I'm amazing," he answered. "Even got a name for me. Arc."

"Arc?"

"Like arc reactor."

"Oh... aren't you worried about your father finding out about you know what?"

"I thought about it for a while and I've decided to tell him when all of this is done."

"...Shuri told you that you should, Didn't she?," Nat said with a smirk and Max just blushed.

"S-Shut up!!," he exclaimed and his sister figure just laughed and got up.

"Well, I've gotta go."

"So do I."

They parted ways and Max went over to the lab and Tony immediately was surprised by his son's new look.

"Whoa... nice suit," he said. "How did you make that without me finding out?"

"There's a lot of things that JARVIS keeps from you for me," he said and left it at that as he turned to Banner. "How go things with that algorithm?"

"We're getting close," he answered. "Your work from earlier helped a lot. Really kickstarted the process."

"I aim to please. While you, Dad... aim to infiltrate and annoy."

"Sorry?"

"You know what I'm talking about. I saw you place a device on a desk so that JARVIS can infiltrate the SHIELD database."

"Hey, I just want to know all of their secrets."

"They might be secrets for a reason, you know?

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?," Fury asked as he entered with a displeased look on his face.

"Uh- kind of been wondering the same thing about you."

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are," Banner said, gesturing towards a screen. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"And you'll get your cube back, no fuss, no muss," Tony said then a new thing appeared on his screen. "What is Phase Two?"

Steve then came in and slammed a large HYDRA gun onto the table behind everyone.

"Phase Two is SHIELD used the Cube to make weapons," Steve accused. "Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me."

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're-."

"I'm sorry, Nick. What were you lying?"

Tony turns the screen towards Fury. It shows a plan for some a missile.

"I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit."

"Are we really doing this right now? Really?," Max asked, shocked they were beginning to argue over all of this as Nat and Thor came in and Banner immediately turned to her.

"Did you know about this?," Banner asked Natasha.

"You want to think removing yourself from this environment, Doc?," she asked.

"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed."

"Loki is manipulating you."

"Loki is attempting to manipulate us all. You're all letting him," Max said, trying to stop the arguing.

"And you've all done what about that?," Bruce asked. "But what I want to knto know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to make weapons of mass destruction," Banner stated.

"Because of him," Fury said, pointing to Thor.

"Me?," he said.

"Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet they had a grudge match that level a small town. We learned that you're not only not alone we are hopelessly, no hilariously outgunned."

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet."

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled."

"Like you controlled the cube!," Steve argued.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war!!"

"A higher form?!"

"You forced our hand! We had to come up with some-," Fury tried to say but was cut off.

"Nuclear deterrent! 'Cause that always calms everything right down," Tony said

Everyone becomes hostile and begin cutting each other off. It was at this moment that Max finally gave up arguing as he could see that tensions were too high for them to listen.

"You speak of control and yet you court chaos!!," Thor said.

"It's his MO, isn't it?," Banner said. "I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're... we're a time bomb."

"You need to step away," Fury said.

"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?," Tony asked, placing a hand on Steve's shoulder who immediately pushed it off.

"You know damn well why! Back off!," Steve yelled.

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."

"Yeah, big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," Tony said and Max and Natasha shrugged slightly and tipped theirs to the side for a moment at this statement.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire."

"...Always a way out," he said. "You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero, like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

"Alright, that's enough!!," Max exclaimed, getting between his father and Steve. "We've all proven our points. Now can we please move on and find the Tesseract. Besides, this is what Loki wants anyway, to divide us."

"I think I'd be more than happy to be divided," Tony said. "As long as it means I don't have to deal with the star spangled man there."

"...Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds," Steve said and Thor just laughed slightly.

"You people are so petty, and tiny," Thor stared and Max glared at him.

"Yeah, this is a team," Bruce said.

"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his-," Fury began to say but was interrupted

"Where? You rented my room out."

"The cell was just-."

"In case you needed to kill me. But you can't, I know, I tried!!"

He stops once he realized what he had just said, and now everyone was staring at him in shock and disbelief.

"I got low. I didn't see an end so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on, I focused on helping other people. I was good until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk," Banner said, getting upset and unknowingly grabbed the scepter. "You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

Everyone began to see just how aggravated Banner was starting to get and almost immediately, Fury and Natasha began to reach for their guns.

"Doctor Banner... put down the scepter," Captain America said and Banner looked down to see that he was indeed holding the scepter.

"Did you even notice?," Max asked.

"No. No, I did not."

The monitor next to Banner then began blinking and they saw that it had tracked down the cube.

"Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my party trick after all," Banner said and Max actually looked a little disappointed.

"Located the Tesseract?," Thor asked.

"Possibly," Max said as the others continued to go at each other's throats. Then he and Banner noticed where the signal was coming from.

"I'm not afraid to hit an old man," Tony threatened.

"Put on the suit," Steve practically demanded.

"Oh my God," Banner said and then a turbine went down and the floor began to give way.

Then all of a sudden, everything slowed down, at least to Max. He quickly ran off and got his helmet on and came back. He saw Thor, Nat and Banner all going down and knew that they'd be fine. So, using his speed, he pushed his father and Steve to the side and they fell down one floor below as Max grabbed Fury and jumped through the window and back into the control room.

"You good?," Max asked as he got Fury back up.

"I'm good. Now go help your father," he said.

Max nodded and sped off as Steve and Tony scrambled to their feet.

"Put on the suit," Steve said.

"Yup," Tony agreed and began to run towards the lab.

"Nope. We have no time!!"

Max grabbed his father and then sped to where his armor was being held in storage. Once they got there, Tony just stared at him in shock.

"Not even close to how I wanted to break it to you and mom, but better now than never. I'll explain after all of this."

He then sped off back towards the control room. People are running around, yelling and grabbing guns as the monitors are beeping wildly. SHIELD techs are panicing. SHIELD agents are gearing up and running to their stations.

Hill is standing at her command area, looking at a screen.

"I'm back. What's the situation?"

"Number Three engine is down," Hill said and went over to a tech as Max did as well. "Did we get a run in? Talk to me."

"The line looks mostly intact," the tech said.

"Can we send someone out to make repairs?"

"No. Now while we're in the air."

"We lose one more engine, we won't be," Hill said.

"Then we need to head over the water, now," Max said. "Make it happen!!"

"Yes, sir," the tech said.

"Right. In the meantime, we do need to send someone outside to get the turbine back online. Dad, Steve, do you copy?"

"Yeah. We copy. We're on our way," Steve said over coms.

"Coulson, initiate defensive lock down in the contingent center. Then get to the armory," Fury said over his coms then he turned to Max. "Max, go find Agent Romanoff and Doctor Banner."

He nodded and sped off to the lower levels.

"Nat!!," he called out.

"Oh... Max!! We're over here!!," Natasha called out.

He ran towards her voice and found her on the ground and her leg was trapped under a large pipe. Nearby was Banner, groaning in pain loudly, and this meant only one thing: the Hulk was breaking out.

"...Come on, let's get you out of here."

He quickly went over to her and lifted the pipe up, and Nat pulled her leg out, surprised slightly at how he was able to lift the pipe effortlessly. Max went over and wrapped her arm around his shoulder and picked her up.

"I can't risk running while carrying you in these tight spaces," he explained. "I could hurt while doing so."

"Okay," she said and they both turned to see Bruce was losing control. "Doctor? Bruce, you gotta fight it. This is just what Loki wants. We're gonna be okay. Listen to me."

Meanwhile, a mind controlled Hawkeye and his men landed on the helicarrier and were making their way across the deck and over to an air vent. His men kick in the vent and they quickly moved into it and began to disperse and proceed with the plan.

"You three, keep that engine down," he ordered and three men proceeded to the engine room. "You two, detention. Wait for the camera to go dark."

They leave and Barton makes his way towards the control room. Meanwhile, Max and Natasha continued to try to help Bruce calm down, but soon Max saw that it was useless.

"We're gonna be okay. Right?," Nat said as Max continued to carry her. "I swear to you on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away, and never ever-."

"YOUR LIFE?!!," Bruce yelled, some bitter amusement turning in his voice began to change and it sounded like a threat.

"It's no good, Nat," Max said and he began to slowly run out.

Bruce began to transform more, growling as he did so. Max turned back and saw that the last fragment of Bruce was looking at them, pleasing for them to run. Then his eyes changed and the Hulk took over.

"Go, go... we've gotta get going!!!," Nat yelled and Max ran faster.

As he did, the Hulk slowly got to his feet and roared as the lights go out.

"Okay, I can stand."

Unsure, Max reluctantly put Natasha down and then helped her back up. They quickly began to move again, running up the catwalk stairs nearby as the began to chase them both.

Thry began swinging around the area, rolling underneath things and into small places to stay ahead of the Hulk, who immediately destroyed what they had gone through to try to get to them.

In the cell, Loki hears the Hulk roar... and grins.

Back on the bridge, Fury was beginning to retake control of the situation.

"Bring the carrier to a one-eight-zero south. Take us to the water!!," he ordered.

"We're blind. Navigation recalibrated after the engine failure," an agent said.

"Is the sun coming up?"

"...Yes, sir."

"Then put us on the left. Get us over water. One more turbine goes down then we drop."

As this happened, Captain America finally arrived at Engine Three.

"Stark! Stark, I'm here," he exclaimed over the noise of the wind.

Just then, Tony showed up in his Iron Man suit and flew close to the engine.

Tony, in full Iron Man armor flies close to the engine.

"Good. Let's see what we got," he said as he examined each level of the massive piece of machinery as he spoke to himself. "I gotta get this super conducting cooling system back online before I can access the rotors, work on dislodging the debris."

He pushed the cooling system back into place as he turns back to Steve before flying off to the turbine.

"Rogers, I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position."

Captain Rogers jumps over and swings himself over to the control panel nearby and opens it up while Iron Man works on the engine. The panel was mainly orange in color and wiring all over and red lights flashing and Steve just looked at with no clue as to how it works.

"What's it look like in there?," Tony asked over coms.

"It seems to run on some form of electricity."

"Well... you're not wrong. But tell me, did you know about my son's... condition? I need to know."

"Yeah. Yeah, I did. Found out yesterday, said he was gonna tell you after all of this a few hours ago. Focus now, Tony."

Tony said nothing to and simply began to explain to Rogers how the panel worked.

Back with Max and Natasha, the two were still being chased by the Hulk. They were hiding at the moment, but knew that they had to face it eventually. Without saying a word, Nat looked at Max and he could tell what she was planning. She pulled out her gun as he ejected the claws on his hands and the two of them walk out from behind the pipes they were behind. Max used the training he got from T'Challa and silently climbed to a higher area so as to get a better look. At first, nothing happened, but then the Hulk came out and roared at them. Nat shot at the piping above him and the steam escaping it distracted the Hulk and she ran.

The Hulk began to chase her, destroying all in his path. Suddenly, Max jumped onto his back and began punching at him.

"Go!!! I'll keep him busy!!!," Max yelled.

"I'm not leaving you!!!," Nat yelled.

"GO!!!!!"

This time made her feel something that compelled her to go and she reluctantly did so, though not very far.

The Hulk threw him off and grabbed him again and got near his face as he growled. Max retaliated by scratching at the green monster's face, leaving big cuts. The Hulk released him and placed a hand to his face but then it healed and he glared at the fifteen year old boy.

"...Probably shouldn't have done that," Max said to himself.

Hulk roared and charged at him, hitting him to the ground. He began to punch at him and as he was about to deliver a killing punch, Thor tackled him through a wall and the two were now in a docking area.

Max slowly got up, partially stunned from the attack and he looked to see a horrified Natasha looking at him.

"You alright?"

"Am I alright?! Are you alright?!," she exclaimed and ran over to support him as he began to fall over.

"I don't think I am," Max said and he fell to his knees and pulled off his helmet and coughed up some blood. "I think a rib or two might be cracked. Maybe some internal bleeding."

"We need to get you to med bay."

"Sure, sure. Can we please just... sit here for a moment?," Max asked and she nodded and had hit sit against a wall and she sat next to him. "Do me a favor... and shoot me if I ever do something like that again."

"With pleasure," Natasha said, half joking and half serious. "Never do something like that again. What were you thinking?"

"Thinking about protecting my family. You and Clint are like the brother and sister I never had. I'll do anything to protect you both."

Nat couldn't help but smile at this and it was then that their coms went off.

"It's Barton, he took out our systems. He's headed for the detention lab. Does anybody copy?," Fury said and Natasha looked at Max, who nodded.

"...This is Agent Romanoff. I copy," Nat said and got up. "I'll have a medical team come and pick you up so stay here."

"You got it... sis," Max said and Nat smiled as she ran off to stop Hawkeye. "Like hell, I'm gonna stay here."

Max quickly picked himself up and began heading off down another way to the detention lab. It was a lot faster route and as he arrived, he saw Loki had been freed and Thor was now in the cell. He cracked the glass with Mjolnir and the restraints holding it were released, leaning only for the floor to be opened, something Loki was very tempted to do.

"Move away please," Coulson said and Loki did so. Phil looked to Max, who was leaning against the wall, still in pain, and then looked at the god of mischief again. "Do you like this? We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does. Do you wanna find out?"

As he was about to fire the weapon, Coulson was then impaled by Loki's scepter.

"NO!!!!," Thor and Max yelled, the latter was then thrown a distance by Loki and into a wall near the control console.

The illusion of Loki disappeared and the real one walked back over to the console and after a few more moment... the chute opened and the cell fell with Thor in it.

"No!!," Max yelled and Loki kicked him in the face.

"This is how I back up my 'tough talk,' boy. Now all I have to do now is to finish the job."

"You're gonna lose," Coulson said weakly sndbthey looked back at him, slumping on the floor and the gun in his lap.

"Am I?"

"It's in your nature."

"Your heroes are either scattered or wounded. Your flying fortress falls from the sky. Where is my disadvantage?"

"You lack conviction."

"...I don't think I-," Loki began to say, then, Coulson fired the gun and it shot out a blast similar to that of the Destroyer and sent Loki flying through a wall and Max just looked at Phil, quite impressed by the feat.

"So that's what it does," Phil said and looked to see Max running over to him. "So how's your day been?"

"Haha-ow...," Max said and they looked to see that Loki had run off. "Well, I fought the Hulk and he pretty much used me as a punching back. Thankfully, I heal faster than other people."

Coulson laughed a little at this and Max saw that he was getting weaker.

"Hey. Hey, don't you dare give up. Not on my watch."

It was at that moment that Fury and a few other agents arrived to find them there.

"I'm sorry boss, but he rabbited."

"Just stay awake," Fury said in his usual tone, but Max could tell that he was quite worried. He saw that Coulson head was going down and he moved it back to face him. "Eyes on me."

"Oh, I'm clockin' out here," Phil said.

"Not an option," Max stated.

"It's okay, guys. This was never gonna work... if they didn't have something... to..."

His breathing halted before he could finish and Max and Fury slowly stood up to let the medical team through. Max couldn't help but let some tears fall, but still stood silent as Fury leaned against the railing.

Everything on the helicarrier has calmed down as Iron Man and Captain America were able to get the turbine back up, with immense difficulty. Hill sat at a table while a doctor had a look at the head wound she had received in the fight.

"Agent Coulson is down," Fury said over coms and she immediately swatted the doctor away.

Nat stood on a catwalk with an unconscious Barton nearby and a turbine damaged Iron Man stood with a worn out Captain America, all of whom looked grim at hearing the news.

"A medical team is on its way to your location," a SHIELD worker said.

"They're here. ...They called it."

Sometime later, Max, Tony, Steve and Fury all gathered around the table in the conference room with Hill standing nearby. No one says anything at the moment, still grieving over Coulson's death. Then Fury takes out a handful of trading cards with blood on them.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them," he said and scatters them across the table and Steve picked up one and felt guilty over not signing them. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube. Banner... Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. ...Think I had that coming."

Fury then began to walk around the table as Max and Steve watched him but Tony looked away as he was taking the loss worse than the others.

"Yes... we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number, though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea...Stark knows this... called the Avengers Initiative."

Max immediately gave his full attention to what Fury was saying, as did Steve.

"The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people... to see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to... to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes."

It all became too much for Tony and he quickly gets up and walks out.

"Well... it's an old fashioned notion," Fury said, patting Max on the shoulder and walked back over to the bridge.

Max quickly got up and ran to catch up to his father, as he was now pretty much completely healed, though still sore.

"Dad!!," Max called out and Tony turned around.

"...How could you?," Tony asked angrily. "How could you keep this from me? How did you even get like this?!"

"...The reactor overload."

"...You've had these powers for four years?!!"

"I discovered them the day I came home. I never told because... I just didn't want you to stop me from using them."

"...And you got after me for keeping secrets," he said and walked off and Steve walked up to Max.

"He'll get over it. Don't worry," Steve said.

"My Dad forgives, but he doesn't forget. More times than not, that's even worse. It's gonna take a good long while for this to blow over with him. I just hope my mom takes it better than him."

Max walks off and Steve walks over to where Tony went.

Max walked over to a medical room where Natasha sitting next to Clint.

"...You good now?," he asked, standing at the door.

"Yeah, kid, I'm good now," he said. "Spider lady here had to hit me hard on the head to knock some sense into me."

"Isn't that how everyone does that?"

Natasha snickered but Clint just looked unamused at the joke.

"Heard you didn't stay put," Natasha said.

"Well, I hate sitting on the sidelines. Even when I place myself there. No doubt you heard about Coulson, right?"

"Yeah... I'm gonna miss him."

"If it makes you feel better, he died a hero," Max said, sitting across from them. "...My dad knows now."

"How'd he take it?," Clint asked.

"Bout as well as you'd expect him to take it. Add that with just losing a good friend..."

"I think it might be better for him to know, Max," Natasha said. "At least there are no more secrets between you."

"Yeah... no more secrets," Max said convincingly enough.

Max then walked out and began to wander around. Then he got a message and saw that it was Shuri, and immediately he began to feel better.

"Hey, Max," she said. "How's your day been?"

"...Not very good," he answered. "One of my friends at SHIELD was being mind controlled by Loki, he's fine now thankfully, but he attacked the helicarrier, almost brought it down. My dad almost died stopping that from happening, I was almost killed by the Hulk. Then to top it all off... I lost another friend of mine."

"I'm so sorry, Max. I really am. Wait... you fought the Hulk?!! You idiot!!"

"Oh, tell me about it. If I didn't have accelerated healing and wasn't tougher than I look, I think I'd be dead. Anyway, I had to show my powers to my dad. He didn't take it well especially since that friend of mine was also one of his."

"Don't worry, Max. He'll understand one day. You just have to be patient. What happened to the others?"

"Banner and Thor are missing in action. We're all in grief, Nat and I both were absolutely terrified by the Hulk. We're flying blind as we don't know where the Tesseract is and Loki escaped."

"I know you'll stop him. You're Arc. You can do anything. I believe that and I always will."

"...What would I do without you, Shuri?," Max said as Steve walked over in full getup. "Sorry, I've gotta go. Bye."

"Goodbye, Max," Shuri said and then went offline.

"What's up?," Max asked.

"We've found him. Stark Tower," Steve said and Max's eyes widened and he quickly sped off and got on a quinjet.

"Thank you, Clint, for showing me how to fly this thing."

He got it started and turned on the cloaking device. He flew out and Fury could tell something moved outside.

"...Same old Arc," Fury said to himself. "You'll never change."

Hope this was good. I'll try to have the next part up as soon as I can. Until then, see ya later.