Disclaimer: The Avengers, its characters and The Marvel Cinematic Universe belong to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. Marvel's Agents of SHIELD and its characters belong to ABC Studios, Marvel Television, Mutant Enemy Productions, among many others. What If...? belongs to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. I'm only a fan, writing this for my love of this film/television franchise.
A.N.: So this is the direct result of "What If… The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes" and my overactive brain on a long car ride to and back from getting my second shot of the COVID vaccine.
Avengers Initiative: Reset
01. Rebirth
Steve Rogers slowly recovered his consciousness. For quite a few moments he only blinked his eyes and looked around at his surroundings, trying to see if there was anything he could recognize. He could see he was lying down on a bed, dressed in a simple white t-shirt with some logo on the front that he couldn't quite make out yet from his vantage point, cargo pants and military-standard boots. The room was mostly dark, a soft lamp on a nightstand barely illuminating it, but he could see there were brick walls and a faded green door to his left. There was a dresser in dark wood propped against the wall to his left and a writing table with a chair on the same wall just beyond the door. Other than that, there wasn't much else.
The last thing he remembered was being on board the Valkyrie, talking to Peggy through the radio as he aimed the gigantic aeroplane down to a glacier to avoid the detonation of the eastern seaboard. Now he was apparently alive and well, recovering somewhere. Maybe Howard and Peggy had managed to find him?
As he sat up, he looked down and saw the logo on the t-shirt was for the SSR, something that gave him hope that he had been rescued right after the crash. But then where was everybody? He stood up and observed the room for a moment longer, before opening the door and venturing out.
As he seemed to reach one of the main hallways, there was a huge SSR symbol painted on the wall. However there was something wrong, as the furniture he could see inside some of the rooms was not consistent with what he'd known of SSR bases. As he continued walking, his eyes suddenly went wide open as he saw through glass windows what looked like a lab, yet it was something way beyond the level of things even Howard had been working on for the war. It wasn't even the type of technology he'd seen HYDRA handle in their battles. This had to be decades ahead of anything he'd seen before.
A sudden thought crossed his mind and he wondered how long he'd been in recovery or how long had they been searching for him.
"Oh shit," he heard someone mutter down the hallway and turned his head abruptly to watch a short man dressed in a dark suit, light blue shirt and a dark blue tie head his way in a mildly agitated manner. "Captain, I'm so sorry. I should've been there when you woke up to ease you in, but there was an emergency and they needed my help downstairs. Argh, I can't believe I fucked this up already."
"What?" Steve said rather dumbly, blinking his eyes at him before he recovered himself somewhat. "Who are you? And what is this place?"
"Right, sorry about that," the man said, slapping a hand to his forehead before stretching it out and vigorously shaking his hand. "I'm Billy Koenig and it is an honor to meet you, sir. This is the Playground," he said, dropping his hand and gesturing at the hallway and the rooms surrounding them. "Although technically it doesn't really have a name, seeing as it is a secret base and all."
"Secret base?" Steve repeated, looking up and down the hallway. "SSR?"
"Yes. Well, actually, SHIELD," Billy said, bobbing his head left and right. "It was originally SSR, but it was decommissioned a long time ago and now it's one of Director Fury's secret bases."
"Decommissioned?" Steve turned back to him with a frown. The Strategic Scientific Reserve had been established specifically to fight the threat of HYDRA in World War II. If they were decommissioning bases, did it mean they'd won the war?
"Yes. I'll explain everything you need to know, but let me just..." he trailed off, holding up one finger as he got hold of some gadget Steve did not recognize and spoke into it, holding it to his ear after hitting the screen a few times. "Uh, sir? Captain Rogers is awake. Yes, sir. No, I was actually downstairs lending a hand to─ No, sir. Of course, sir." Billy pocketed the device and gestured with a hand up the hallway. "If you'll follow me, I'll take you upstairs to the office and we'll explain everything to you."
As they made their way through a lounge area and up some stone stairs with metal railings, Billy was succinctly explaining how, after they'd won the war, the Strategic Scientific Reserve was remodeled into the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Department, or SHIELD, and they acted as a worldwide intelligence agency to protect Earth.
"And this Director Fury you mentioned, he's the head of the agency?" Steve asked as he followed Billy up the stairs and onto a narrow corridor. "That's who I'm about to meet?"
"Not exactly," Billy said as he rapped on the glass panel and twisted the knob, opening the door and holding it open for him.
Steve walked in, noticing this was one of the few rooms that had actual windows with sunlight streaming in, which somehow brought the clutter all around more into evidence. There were several boxes on the floor and on top of a long conference table to his right, beyond which he could see some sort of panel taking up the whole wall. To the left there was a desk with more boxes and files on top of it and stepping out from behind it another man in a suit outstretched his hand towards him.
"Captain Rogers, it's a true honor to officially meet you," he said, shaking his hand heartily. "I'm glad to see you're up and about. I'm Agent Phil Coulson. Director Fury's put me in charge of this base and overseeing your recovery."
A few hours later, Coulson ventured out of his office and down the base towards the lower level medical rooms. All things considered, Steve Rogers was taking the fact that he'd been encased in ice for almost seven decades way better than anyone could've expected. After the initial shock and dismay, he now seemed more worried that after sacrificing his life to end a war and a megalomaniac hell-bent on world domination, he'd woken up to a future where they'd somehow fallen under the rule of another megalomaniac ─ this one from another planet!
Coulson had filled Steve in on the most important aspects of their current situation and now he'd left him with Billy, some files and footage to go over more details as he needed to personally check on some things. Just as he rounded a corner, he saw Dr. Fine exited the nearest surgical operating room into its adjoining apparatus room and walked in to join him. "Dr. Fine, how is she?"
"It was touch and go there for a moment, Coulson." The doctor said, removing his scrub cap and mask and throwing it into a waste bin, along with the surgical scrubs and stepping up to a sink to wash out his hands and arms. "But your girl is a fighter. She's going to be alright now, but I'm afraid she'll need several days to recover completely. Ruptured liver, collapsed lung, a tear to the superior mesenteric artery and four broken ribs are enough to put anyone out of commission for a long while."
"Clearly you've never treated her before," Coulson replied with a slight smile. "I give it two days, tops and she'll be out of this bed, ordering me around the base."
"That may be," Dr. Fine actually chuckled as he dried his hands. "I had never met her before, but I know the Black Widow's reputation."
"Thank you for coming in so quickly," Coulson extended a hand and gave him a firm handshake. This was the latest in a series of surgeries that were performed to aid Natasha Romanoff after her ambush a few days ago. Earlier that morning, she'd suffered a collapsed lung and re-bleed in her liver and Coulson truly hoped this was the last one she would need to get back to her feet.
"It was a good thing she gave herself that shot of tetrodotoxin B that Fury slipped her," the doctor said, shaking his head a little. "Otherwise Hank Pym might actually have killed her."
"I've known Natasha for a while now," Coulson said, putting his hands in his pockets. "If anything, she's a survivor."
"That she is," Dr. Fine concurred with a nod. "Dr. Simmons is settling her in the recovery room now. I expect she'll be able to follow up on Agent Romanoff's recovery, but in case you need me to jump in again, you know where to find me."
"I do," Coulson said, turning to walk him out. "I'll let Director Fury know the operation went well and the good outcome. Thanks, again."
After walking Dr. Fine out of the base, Coulson circled back to the R&D labs and saw that one of his new team members was in it, tinkering from one workbench to another and seemingly in the middle of an argument.
"Yeah well, I haven't had the time yet to put it together and I need Simmons here for that," the young man grumbled in annoyance. "Getting called out to jump into surgery of all things. You know, she's not actually a medical doctor."
"No, but she is this team's medic and the only other person here with the know-how to assist Dr. Fine in an emergency and that was an emergency," Coulson said as he walked into the lab. "What's happening, Agent Fitz?"
Leo Fitz heaved a sigh, one hand going up to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. "As I've been saying, I haven't actually had the time to work through the LMD specifications yet ─"
"Coulson, this is ridiculous," the disembodied voice of Tony Stark sounded in the room all around them, causing Fitz to throw his arms up in an annoyed gesture. "This kid is supposed to help me? He doesn't look old enough to drink. Seriously, I think I have scotch bottles older than him."
"How do you even know how old he looks? You don't have eyes," Coulson said with a confused frown.
"No thanks to you guys," Tony's voice retorted again. "Look, I uploaded my memories and my basic conscience inside this JARVIS AI-lookalike for insurance because I was dying and then you guys came in and actually finished the job─"
"As we've explained, that was actually Hank Pym," Coulson interrupted in a tired voice, as if they'd had this argument many times before.
"Whatever," Tony grumbled, muttering something under his breath about how his father had never trusted Hank Pym and that was one thing he could agree on with his old man. "Now in order to help out and do some good, like you and Fury have been insisting I do, I need you to build me a body. Or at the very least load my systems into one of my suits, then I can take it from there."
"And that's what we're going to do and it's exactly why Agent Fitz here was assigned to this team," Coulson explained in a patient voice. "He was one of the few SHIELD scientists up to this task, I can assure you that."
"Huh, more like the only one," Fitz huffed, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Are you sure he's going to be able to keep up with me?" Tony insisted in a somewhat derisive tone. "You know, I've never actually met anyone who could measure up to my own brain and I really don't want to take any chances with this."
"He is right here and hearing you and more than capable to understand your schematics and thought process, thank you very much," Fitz interjected in exasperation. "I just need actual time to go through everything and start working on it."
"Mr. Stark, your file said you graduated summa cum laude from MIT by the time you were seventeen, correct?" Coulson said quickly, as he could sense some sort of objection was about to come from the disembodied voice.
"You know it," Tony replied instantly with his usual aplomb and arrogance.
"Well, Agent Fitz here had a doctorate in engineering by the time he was sixteen and joined the SHIELD Academy," Coulson continued with a simple shrug. "I think you'll be in good hands."
"Okay, fine," Tony said with an exaggerated sigh. "Alright, Dr. Fitz. Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"
Fitz threw a grateful smile at Coulson, who nodded back at him and turned on his heels to head out of the lab and leave the two geniuses to do their thing. As leader of this newest and most secret team of Director Fury's, Coulson still had a lot of work of his own to do before they could set out to free the world from the rule of Loki.
A.N.: I know, I just couldn't resist keeping Natasha alive with some subterfuge and Tony as an AI is a move he's pulled in the comics before, so it made sense. Carol will be around in a little bit, too.