I own nothing

Chapter 2: …Agent Phil Coulson

The Avengers stood shocked AT the entrance, watching, as their friends comforted the strange girl. She had been sobbing uncontrollably for what seemed like an hour, and she had finally quietened down, and seemed to have collapsed from exhaustion. Rhodey had come closer to the three holding on each other for dear life. Patting his best friend on the shoulder to grab his attention, Tony looked up and seemed to notice his team mates staring at him. He gave Pepper a quick nudge and she nodded once meeting his gaze.

Tony got to his feet lifting the girl in his arms, surprising his friends considering his current stat. His face was covered in relief and worry all at the same time. He strode past the team, without a word, returning once again to his private quarters. Leaving everybody else behind.

Pepper slowly rose to her feet with the help of Rhodey, who had been staring at the agent who was standing silently watching the scene with a smile on his face. Everyone's attention turned to him and the agent's smile fell from his face. He gave them an awkward wave.

"Hi", his voice was but a whisper and the shame he felt was clearly heard in it.

"Hi!"
"Hi!"
Natasha and Clint yelled in unison. The two master assassins glowered at their former handler.
"That is all you have to say for yourself? Hi?" Clint's voice raised in anger. Whilst Natasha stood there with a stony expression on her face, as she pulled a knife from seemingly nowhere. Phil gave them an apologetic smile.

"What else could I say? I'm sorry?" he sighed rubbing the bridge of his nose, „I'm not going to insult any of you by asking for forgiveness." His gaze fell on Steve, who looked just pleased to see him alive. He, then, turned to the other Avengers once again. Bruce seemed to be trying to figure out how this was possible, whilst Thor was just smiling his jolly smile, clearly relived that he had survived the encounter with his brother.

"How about an explanation?" this time it was Pepper who spoke. Her eyes were still red but much brighter than they were in the past months. Arms crossed, foot tapping with impatience, the inhabitants of Avengers Tower knew that look well. They cowered from it often enough.

Phil smiled sheepishly. "I would have explained myself, but the explanation you are looking for is not going to be coming from me." He said with a knowing look at both Pepper and Rhodey. "And I think, you might be needed elsewhere right now, Pepper. She can be as stubborn as him sometimes. Maybe, you should try and convince Tony to take her to a hospital." Rhodey let out a snort whilst Pepper rolled her eyes.

"That's never going to happen" Rhodey grumbled.
Never the less, Pepper excused herself to go after her boyfriend. Although, not before she gave Rhodey strict instructions not to come to their room until he got some answers out of the agent.

"Come on, Coulson" Steve spoke up from the back of the group, "I think you owe us an explanation." He looked at his team and added, "And you better make it a good one."

Phil sighed, before he nodded. "Can we at least sit down?"

Once the group was seated, Coulson began to explain himself to the team. He told them how Fury thought it was best to pretend to be dead so the team could gel. And how he left for a while and lived in Tahiti (he revered it as a magical place) for a couple of months before Fury had gotten in contact with him again. How he had recruited more agents and what he did when he found out about what happen in DC, London and what happened to Tony. How he had lost and regained contact with Fury and had taken on another job with a different secret service as a liaisons officer and how he had reunited with his former girlfriend, and as he mentioned this, he smiled a little brighter.

"But you see, my new employers are interested in working with you. This is why they approached me. They thought, it would be better if somebody you knew would deal with the correspondence." Phil finished.
As he looked around the room, he was meet with similar expressions of anger, confusion and disdain. Before every one could explode, Steve took charge of the conversation.

"We do not work for anybody and we won't turn back into SHIELD agents. It doesn't matter what they are called, we won't do it."

"These people aren't SHIELD, they don't work for anyone either they are very similar to the Avengers actually. They, however, are specialist in other fields." He smiled a little, "Besides, they don't want you to work for them. They want you to work with them."

Steve was about to question them further, when Rhodey interrupted him.
"So what, you're working with the Order now? How did you get involved with Hermione's kind anyway?"
Phil raised an eyebrow. The others looked confused. What where they talking about? Did Rhodey know something they didn't?

"You shouldn't know about the Order or her kind." Phil questioned.

Rhodey shrugged, "I shouldn't have known about the Avengers either but here we are."

"I should really but put a gag on Tony, shouldn't I? Although, I should be grateful that he hasn't told this to the entire team. Or broadcasted it on live air." He sighed. "Well Rhodey, people with my heritagefind it very easy to fall back into their crowd."

The other man tilted his head. "So…you're like Hermione then?"

Phil smiled, "More like the opposite to her situation."

Now it was Rhode's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"Is there anyone who is going to fill us in on the little secret!" Clint exclaimed who had, obviously, had enough of their cryptic conversation and slammed his hand on the table. "If you want us on board, you're going to have to give some explanations as to what the hell everybody's talking about." He looked at Natasha for support. She was still fiddling with her knife but also wore the same expression. Steve and Bruce merely nodded.

Phil began wringing his hand, looking at them with pleading eyes. "I can't! You have to agree to a meeting with Kingsley first. He is authorised to tell you more. Look, you don't have to decide now but he is coming over at three tomorrow to debrief Tony on what happened. If Tony allows it and you agree to a meeting with him, you can listen to what he has to say without any strings attached."

Steve furrowed his brow. "What does Tony know about this?"

"You should ask him. It's not my story to tell." Coulson replied.