I don't own Avengers or anything Marvel related!
Evelyn looked at him dead on, "If I do this, I'm not doing it for you, and I'm sure as hell not doing it for Fury, I'm doing this because it's the right thing."
Phil paused for a moment and nodded at her, "If you say yes, we're leaving now."
"I need to send in a letter requesting an emergency leave of absence. The hospital needs to rearrange my surgeries."
"Ok."
"Did you bring Lola?"
"Did I bring Lola?" He chuckled, "What kind of question is that?" He pulled out the keys and shook them in front of her.
"Fine."
"Fine?"
"Let's go."
"Alright, let's go."
Evelyn smiled as the wind whipped her hair around her face, she shot an amused look at Phil, who was clearly enjoying himself behind the wheel. Even in the dead of the night, Phil insisted on putting the hood down. He'd spent the last fifteen minutes alternating between filling her in on the events of the past few months; specifically the days since Loki stole the Tesseract, and showing her the upgrades he's made to Lola.
The car had been his pride and joy since they met almost 15 years prior and not once during the span of their relationship had Phil even considered letting her drive Lola.
She'd jokingly asked before they left her house, just to see what his reaction would be.
He had dropped her duffel bag and marched toward her. Gently grasping her shoulders, he stated without a hint of a smile, "I'd trust you with my life, Evie. But not with Lola's."
As Phil turned back to put her bag in the trunk, Evelyn tried to swallow her laughter at the dramatic, un-Coulson-like response.
The moment she decided to go with him, Phil had smoothly and very quickly gotten them on their way. From the car she made the two necessary phone calls, one to work and one to her aunt, briefly explaining the cover story Phil gave her.
Glancing toward him she asked, "we're meeting a Quinjet out here?"
"Yeah, I left it in a field about 30 minutes away from your house. We're going to drop by New York then we'll head straight to the S.H.I.E.L.D. base"
She nodded and turned toward the window to gaze into the pitch black of the night. She could already feel dread and mistrust coiling around in the pit of her stomach. Her thoughts kept flashing back to the funeral and redacted mission reports about Jackson's death.
"Should I really be doing this," she thought. "Nothing good had ever come from working for these people. I could just tell Phil I can't help him and make him turn around. It's not too la-."
"Also, I've never pushed this green button, not really sure how it works" Phil suddenly flipped up a panel and pointed itout. His voice jarring her out of her thoughts.
"What, you just put it in there to look pretty or something?" She blinked at him, not understanding what he meant.
"No, I mean-, I know what it's supposed to do but I'm not entirely sure how it does it,"
"Um, right…" She responded, giving the button an unsure glance as she snapped the panel back into place. "..that seems completely safe."
"Alright so," Phil exhaled forcefully flipping the conversation back to what was going on, "Barton's turned; Loki has the Cube and Selvig- and he's clearly not trying to negotiate at all. This whole thing came out of nowhere. We didn't plan on pulling the Captain back in so soon, or bringing Dr. Banner back at all, but we've had to reevaluate because they're the best chance we've got to find the Cube," Phil paused, trying to put his thoughts into words. "We knew the Cube was powerful, but it looks like all the research we've done and everything we've learnt since Howard Stark pulled it out of the ice didn't even scratch the surface."
Catching the strands of hair streaming across her face and tucking them behind her ear, Evelyn tilted her head toward him, "So it's bad then," She remarked staring out of the windshield.
The darkness outside seemed almost infinite. the only brightness came from the headlights illuminating the road directly in front of them.
"When Loki took the Cube, it brought down an entire building," Phil told her. "It's a ton of unstable energy in the hands of an even more unstable guy. He said he's 'burdened with glorious purpose'. The guy even has this weapon that brought a helicopter out of the sky in one shot.
"Clearly he's not worried about a body count."
"Apparently not."
"Why do you need Stark?"
"Howard did all sorts of experiments on the Cube, even tried using it to find Captain America, but you know how hard it can be to consolidate information- not all of the data from his research was stored at S.H.I.E.L.D. Howard left all of his personal research to Tony which makes him one of the most knowledgable people in the world when it comes to this.
"Let me get this straight, you want Stark for his brain and nothing else?" She asked disbelievingly.
"It's a remarkable brain, Evelyn. He's always been brilliant. But of course, there's also the obvious reason. He is Iron Man." Phil finished with a shrug.
"Yeah, Of course. Let's not forget that minor detail. And Banner?"
"There's no one alive who knows gamma radiation better."
"Hmm," Evelyn sat back again to absorb the information he had just thrown at her.
"Fury asked me to bring you back because you know T.A.H.I.T.I.. He wants it as an absolute last resort and I'm not supposed to tell you that." Phil said slowly, carefully weighing his words and watching out of the corner of his eye for her reaction.
She sharply turned her head toward him with narrowed eyes, "The next words you say to me will determine whether I get on that jet with you in a few minutes. So make sure you say the right ones, Agent Coulson. What does Fury know about T.A.H.I.T.I.?"
Phil hesitated before answering honestly, "He knows what the project was about and that there was an 'accident' that destroyed most of the files. He's seen all the reports that were left. but when you shut the project down down, I backed you up; told him it didn't work the way we wanted. And I never told him you're the one who set off the explosion."
She shrugged, "You learn a lot working with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. There's a lot of chemicals in a lab... a lot of explosive ones- it's just a matter of making it look like an accident. Besides, it was a small explosion," she reasoned.
Phil laughed softly, shaking his head, "Well it was big enough to do the job right. The external servers were fried and the paper copies burned- it was like T.A.H.I.T.I. never existed-"
"-Good"
"Fury assumed one of the subjects lost control, I never corrected him. So other than you and me, there's no one alive who knows what happened."
"What does the Council think?"
"They don't care about research, they want results. They chalked it up as another failed project under Fury and moved on. I think they thought it was some kind of project to make a truth serum." His lips twisted up in a wry smile.
Phil slowed the car down as they finally approached the clearing where he had left the jet.
She tilted her chin up and spoke. "I need you to understand something now, Phil. I wouldn't use T.A.H.I.T.I. on anyone, not Captain America; not Iron Man; not anyone," she stressed. "Hell, if I die, I absolutely refuse to let you use it on me. If that's why you needed me to come back, I can't do it. You know I'd do anything else for you, but I can't bring T.A.H.I.T.I. back knowing how destructive it is.
"I understand that, Evie, and I agree. That's why I wanted you to know why Fury asked me to get you. I can't expect you to trust me without telling you the whole story. Fury knows you're the only person who knows how to use T.A.H.I.T.I., but since you no longer work for S.H.I.E.L.D. you can tell him to fuck off if he asks you to do it."
"Phil," she exclaimed, pretending to be shocked, "you're giving me permission to tell your boss to fuck off?"
Ignoring her, Phil stopped the car in the middle of the field and turned in his seat to face her. "I need you because I don't trust anyone other than you to make sure these guys, these Heroes, don't trust the wrong people and don't lose sight of the end goal."
"And what would that be, Phil? To get back the Cube so S.H.I.E.L.D. can have all that power to use at Fury's discretion? Or better yet, the Council's discretion?" She threw the words out casually as she twisted in her seat- looking into the night in confusion. The car was surrounded in inky dark night air and nothing else. " Also, why are we in the middle of an empty field?"
"It's not an empty field," He responded gesturing toward the space in front of the car before turning back to her.
"The end goal is to make sure no one gets hurt." He continued, the fierce tone in his voice snapping her back to attention. "No one. We've all been in this too long, Spies, assassins, heroes and agents. Sometimes we don't remember the the value of every single human life. We're so used to telling ourselves crap like 'the lives of the many outweigh the life of one' or that we're 'making the hard choices others don't want to make'. I want you to remember and remind us that we're fighting for absolute good not 'greater good'. Make us think hard about every single life we put in harm's way. Hold us accountable- hold me accountable." Phil's eyes bored into hers.
She's always known he fought for the little guy, but in the years since she'd last seen him, she had somehow forgotten this side of Phil. This side of Phil was the reason Jackson joined S.H.I.E.L.D., and also why Evelyn was willing to give up her career and ambitions to work with S.H.I.E.L.D..
In front of them, the jet was slowly disabling it's retro-reflective panels, squares of darkness suddenly shifting to varying shades of silver and grey. Neither of them noticed.
Phil continued, impassioned, "If you get on this jet, Dr. Hunter, I need you to be a hundred percent in this. I know you don't like S.H.I.E.L.D. and you don't trust Fury but I need you to put that aside because there are bigger problems. You have more important things to be concerned about than your anger at what happened to Jackson. You need to keep your head clear and think logically. Be wary of everyone, but don't be combative. You can say anything to me or Maria, we know what happened in the past. But the rest of these guys, Captain America, Dr. Banner, they'll trust you because you're not one of us- don't let them get caught up in your anger," Phil hugged her hard and held on. "There's more to fight for than fight against. Be our voice of reason in this chaos," he whispered in her ear.
He let her go and drove the car up the ramp into the jet, his words carving their way into her mind.
"A truth serum? That's the best you could come up with?" She scoffed, shaking her head. "I thought the Council was supposed to be a bunch of brilliant people,"
The ramp had pulled shut and they were enveloped in the dim light of the jet as Phil parked the car. The hood whirred to life and creeped up the car as they both got out.
"They saw what what they wanted to see," Phil shrugged. "They expected a failure and didn't question us when we gave them one."
The pilot at the front of the jet turned slightly to speak to Phil, "Sir, we're about 10 minutes from New York City."
Phil turned to Evelyn, excitement evident in his eyes, "It's Captain America," he said in a tightly controlled tone. She had known him long enough to know his voice was hiding either extreme pain or happiness. She assumed it was the latter.
"Please don't throw yourself at him, Phil. I think a handshake will do," she replied, putting down the tablet she was reading. Phil had loaded it with background information he thought would be important for her to know about the so-called 'Avengers'.
"I think I know how to handle myself in front of a superhero at this point," Phil retorted, clearing his throat and standing to button his SHIELD issue suit as the jet descended slowly.
"Mhmmm, I'm sure."
The door of the jet swung down to create a ramp in one fluid movement. The bright, early morning sunlight was almost blinding to Evelyn, who had only gotten a few hours of sleep on the way to New York. A few paces away from the foot of the ramp, two men stood silhouetted by the sun behind them. Their bodies were angled toward one another as they discussed something in hushed tones.
Phil strode down the metal ramp to approach the men, Evelyn trailing several steps behind. As they stepped out in the light, she could recognize the two men as Captain America and Brock Rumlow.
"Captain Rogers, thank you for meeting us here so early in the morning. I'm Phil Coulson," He reached out his hand.
Taking it, Steve responded "No problem at all, Sir. Thank you for sending Agent Rumlow to meet me."
"Agent Rumlow, good to see you again," Phil nodded at the man standing next to Steve.
"Agent Coulson," He replied, handing an tablet to Phil. "Updates from the Boss."
Phil stepped away to skim over the screen, quickly assessing the damage Loki had caused over the past few hours.
"Rumlow," Evelyn leaned forward to shake his hand with a smile.
"Dr. Hunter, glad you're back with us," he responded.
"Of course," she nodded at him, turning to Steve.
"Captain," she said, taking his outstretched hand to introduce herself, "Evelyn Hunter. I'll be working with you and S.H.I.E.L.D. until the Cube is located."
His warm palm and strong grip shocked her. She had half been expecting an old man, despite what Phil told her about his youth being preserved in the ice. The soldier in front of her was clearly still a man in his prime, albeit a 90 year-old one.
"Doctor." He responded respectfully.
Phil turned back to them, tension visible in his features. "If everyone's ready, we have to head out. Agent Rumlow, thanks again for showing Captain Rogers here. We'll need you and your guys running support from the ground."
"You got it," Rumlow nodded at the three of them and turned to walk to his massive black vehicle, quietly speaking into his earpiece.
"Captain, I'll fill you in on the way." Phil turned on his heel and briskly walked up the ramp, melting into the shadows in the jet. His voice bounced off the metal walls, echoing with a tinny quality, as he gave orders to the pilot.
"After you, Ma'am." Steve gestured with an arm, indicating that Evelyn should precede him into the jet.
"Thank you, Captain."
Phil stood up from one of the seats lining the wall of the jet and approached the cockpit to check on their progress.
"We're about forty minutes out from home base, Sir." The pilot updated him.
Steve, who had been swiping though articles on the tablet since they took off paused to look up at him, "So, this Doctor Banner was trying to replicate the serum they used on me?"
Phil turned toward him as Steve approached, "A lot of people were. You were the world's first superhero. Banner thought Gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."
Steve glanced back down at the tablet which was now playing footage from Harlem, when the mild-mannered doctor had turned into the Hulk. "Didn't really go his way, did it?"
"Not so much. When he's not that thing though, guy's like a Stephen Hawking."
Steve furrowed his brow, trying to recall if he'd ever heard the name Hawking before. He shook his head and looked confused, not understanding the reference.
"He's like a- a smart person. I gotta say- it's an honor to meet you, officially. I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping. I mean, I was, I was present, while you were unconscious from-the-ice."Phil stumbled over his words, knowing he sounded borderline insane.
He glanced toward the cockpit where Evelyn was leaning against the wall next to the pilot, looking out the large windows. Although he could only see a profile of her face, he saw her smile and shake her head as he started speaking again.
Attempting to make his first statement sound less creepy, he continued, " You know it's really- it's just a- just a huge honor to have you on board- it's…" he trailed off.
"Well, I hope I'm the man for the job," Steve said with a half smile as he stepped toward the cockpit. Ducking his head to avoid hitting the roof of the jet.
"Oh you are, absolutely," Phil reassured him, almost unnecessarily.
Both men stood next to Evelyn, each had one hand braced against the metal beam above their heads. She shot Phil a look behind Steve's back and rolled her eyes as she gestured toward the wall where Captain America's shield and uniform were hanging.
"Ah- we made some modifications to the uniform. I had a little design input," Phil turned back around to lead Steve toward the wall.
Steve followed him and surveyed the uniform, taking in the overall effect, "The uniform? Aren't the stars and stripes a little...old-fashioned?"
Phil shook his head slightly and shrugged, "Everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old-fashioned."
Steve nodded and took in his words as his gaze drop to the shield, his fingers flexing as if he missed the weight of it on his arm.
"Sir, we're about to land in a moment," the pilot said, cutting off the conversation as all three of them looked toward the cockpit window to see Helicarrier coming into view.
Hello All!
Lots of news below for you lovely people!
1. Project T.A.H.I.T.I. is never specifically referenced in MCU movies, but it's a huge part of Season 1 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
It's basically a chemical that can bring people back to life if they haven't been dead for a long time. Fury started the project in case any of the Avengers ever died but then he stopped it when the test subjects went insane.
2. I just started a Captain America/OC story so you should definitely check it out! It's called Some Kind of Wonderful, rated M and happens to be awesome ;)
3. I have a Thor/OC one-shot coming out soon because so many of you said there's not enough Thor/OC fics! It's also going to be rated M because who doesn't want to daydream about sex with Thor? It's going to be called Lightning in a Bottle.
4. Also, I'm thinking of starting a Maria Hill story because she's one of my favorite original Avengers characters. Would you want to see her paired up with Rhodey or Sam Wilson? I'm currently thinking Sam because he's a little more of a jokester and he'd balance out her seriousness. But I'm definitely open to suggestions!
5. And finally, I'm almost done with chapters 5 and 6 of Bring Me Back to Life so look forward to an update for that next week!
As always, please review with any critiques, input or ideas about this story or any others!
-Mo-
