ASTONISHING AVENGERS #4 By:Stephen Kelley Back at Avengers Tower Captain America was reviewing what went down with Null when Iron Man walked in, "so tell me Steve what other secrets are you hiding from everyone, I get a call to repair Jim Hammond and find out that Bucky's alive and that on top of it he's leading the secret avengers" "if you really want to get technical and go there Tony, Bucky's the field leader fury is the one supervising the team and reporting their actions to me" "oh so now your "secret avengers"are being "supervised" by Nicholas J Fury international super spy and all around snake in the grass". *Iron man mockingly claps "Bravo Steve doing just what fury taught you, keeping a whole bunch of secrets that could potentially endanger everyone and backstab those that trust you the most", "betrayal Tony, you want to speak to me of BETRAYAL, of BACKSTABBING, okay Mr. stark why don't I go down a laundry list of of things you've done that have severely alienated those around you let's start with the simplest the fact that you became an alcoholic destroyed your life and got so bad that you actually had to have Rhodey take your place for a while, you eventually quit you do good for a couple of years and then the serpent attacks, and you decide to become an alcoholic again and I'm not just talking about regular alcoholic Tony I mean drunker than a skunk you couldn't even think straight bumping into walls drunk, and let's not forget about how you chose to side with Maria Hill during the Civil War proving how much of a spineless coward you really are by becoming the "director"of shield forcing heroes AND villains to either register, be imprison, or in the case of Bill Foster and such eliminated". "Hey it wasn't my fault that" "shut up Tony I have the floor and you WILL listen, Thor was gone and you decided to make some reverse engineered garbage clone that you thought you could control but here's the problem Tony, you couldn't control the clone it rebelled against you it started killing people left and right one of its first victims happened to be Bill Foster it wasn't until Herc actually stopped the thing that you realized how badly you messed up". "And to make matters worse Tony you manipulate Spider-man into being your little puppet putting his loved ones in danger and then, and this is the real kicker Tony, Nova comes back after he allegedly saved the galaxy from Annihilus and what did you do to welcome him back to Earth after visiting his family who he probably hadn't seen in ages, you show up with Reed Richards and a half a dozen shield agents effectively scaring his family and then try to force him to register". "Well he's a" "Dammit Tony stop making excuses and trying to justify your BS actions, the man saved the entire galaxy and all you can offer him is hey register or you're going to jail or you can leave the planet forever so you compare me to fury Tony, I think you need to take a good long look in the mirror cause you got more innocent blood on your hands than I do, matter of fact i'll go even further, you have more blood on your hands than I EVER have or will". "I never claimed to be perfect Tony and maybe yeah I keep secrets like fury the difference between me and Fury is that I at least still try to be a good person I want people to look at me for the hero that I am not like Fury or I'm a man of secrets and could at any moment betray people for the greater good that's not me Tony, and never will be me you can go ahead and make your little judgmental statements you can try to "blast me" but unlike you Tony I get up and I look in the mirror in the morning and I'm able to live with myself and the decisions that I've made can you honestly stand here and look in the eyes and say the same". "Honestly Steve I'm learning to look in the mirror little more each day, and while I understand that you have your secrets I still can't respect the fact that you kept Ross being Red Hulk from all of us and I have to ask who did you do that for, was it for Bruce, was it for Betty, wasn't for the man's reputation, his honor" "it was a secret that Bruce wanted And also Betty to a certain extent" "speaking of Ms. Ross she is on the line for you sir" Jarvis chimed in, "great first I'm getting interrogated by you Tony now I get to deal with Betty"Steve said pinching his nose and letting out an exasperated sigh. The video monitor flickered to life and on the screen was Betty Ross also known as the Red She- Hulk who by the looks of it was very unhappy, "so "Cap" I just saw on the news that apparently the world now knows that my father is not only red Hulk but that he's alive as well would you like to explain it to me or should I come to Avengers Tower and make this a much more "intimate"conversation". "one I realize Betty you have an ax to grind with me but your father was possessed by Nuul and two even if we managed to avoid the media coverage there were kids with their flip out cellular phones recording it, who possibly put it on that video sharing site i think they called it YouTube or even that weird social media site where you post all kinds of different things Tony uses it for a lot of stuff", "Facebook Steve the site is called Facebook" "not helping Tony" *Iron Man rolls his eyes. "I don't care what the reason is or why, I may hate my father for what he did to me for what he's done to Bruce, but what I do know is that now a media firestorm is gonna happen because of YOU and the avengers not reacting fast enough however lucky for you i'm not to REALLY show you how badly you messed up" Betty said her eyes narrowing, cap didn't have to imagine the other half of her fists shaking with anger. After the video conference was over Hawkeye walked into the room a look at concern on his face, "Steve I really hate to do this to you and Tony, but I just got this letter"Clint holds up the letter for Steve and Tony to see, "and well I can't tell you the details but I'd like to request a leave of absence to take care of it, it's kinda personal"Hawkeye said with a sense of urgency but regret as well. "You don't need to ask for permission clint" cap said putting a hand on his shoulder "we'll still be here when you get back" "Thanks Cap" Hawkeye said with a reassuring smile as he left to go pack, meanwhile elsewhere in the tower Melissa Gold also known as Songbird was in the front lobby going over the footage of the battle with Nuul as well, something about it bothered her she couldn't place her finger on it but her gut told her that there was more on the surface than what it appeared, though she knew Cap probably already knew this as did Tony "trying to analyze the footage just like Steve and Tony are"Falcon said coming from behind her holding two cups of coffee, Melissa stared at Sam her eyes narrowing "are you actually offering me a cup of coffee as a gesture of goodwill, I thought this morning I didn't DESERVE to be on this team"Songbird spat at Falcon, "look, I ain't gonna deny you got a record, but Steve chose you for a reason and well my reaction was a bit brash, and I trust Steve's decision even if every fiber of my being doesn't. "What I'm saying Songbird is you only get one shot"Falcon said holding up one finger "to prove to me that you deserve to be on this team, we ain't the Thunderbolts you bring your A game or you go home know what I'm saying, look I don't mean to be hard on you I know you're trying to reform I know you're trying to prove to people that your a hero but I'd rather grill you and give you a tough time as I know to bring out the best in you but other than that I got no beef with you that cool with you"Falcon said holding his fist out "no, I'm not COOL with that I don't need to prove myself to you or anyone else on this team other than Iron Man and Cap" Falcon looked away from her with a sense of dejection "okay, I can respect that I don't like it but i'll respect it" "but at the very least falcon can I trust you to have my back as I would yours" "real talk, yeah I got you an you got me, see that's the beautiful part of the avengers we got so many members that never got along, hell Hercules and Namor ran on the same team and those two dudes nearly tore each other apart but when push came to shove, they put aside any of their personal beliefs and they went and did their thing so as far as I'm concerned you and I can do the same"falcon said smirking as he and Songbird both analyzed the footage while sipping on their coffees. To be continued