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Still in a dazed state, you raise your hands to the part of your abdomen that is in pain and you feel something warm. Focusing, you open your eyes and look down and see a piece of shrapnel sticking out of your torso. This’ll be fun, you thought sarcastically.

You prop yourself up against the wall you were thrown onto as Steve helps Tony up. “Put on the suit!”

“Yup!” Tony replies and quickly leaves the room.

Steve ready to follow him, but he stops when he notices you. “[f/n]!” He crouches down next to you and his looks at you with concern written all over his face.

You lazily wave him off with one of your bloodied hands. “It’s ok…I’ve had worse.” You try to give him a small smile but it comes out as a grimace as you shift slightly. “Go…go help Stark…I’ll catch up.”

He looks hesitant to leave you like this, but once Fury asks Stark to go repair the turbine Steve goes off to help. Now begins your wonderful task of removing this shrapnel and healing up the wound. The latter wouldn’t take long, but this shrapnel looked like it would be a bitch to get out.

Taking a deep breath you braced yourself, wrapping both hands around the metal lodged in your body, and began pulling. It wasn’t until now that you realized that it had managed to partially exit your torso. With an agonized cry you continued pulling, you may have exaggerated a bit when you told Steve you had had worse. You threw your head back, clenching your teeth, and choking down any other screams that tried prying their way through your mouth as you managed to slowly and agonizingly pull the metal from your body.

With tears staining your face, you threw the bloody metal away from you. Taking deep breaths and placing your hands over the wound, you focused on the cut. That section immediately began to burn, but it was less like the pain from earlier, and instead the familiar burn of your powers. Once the burning seemed to be over you moved your hands and smiled as all that was left was the blood that was able to escape and a scar.

Gathering your strength you stood up, stumbling slightly as you did so. The wound may be gone, but it still hurt like hell. With a deep breath you walked out of the lab, working your way towards the turbine that had been damaged. Asking the occasional S.H.I.E.L.D. agent you saw along the way if you were going the right way. You felt you were making good progress, especially when you saw three men who had said that they had been working there before the Captain showed up. However, your progress was halted when you fell into the wall due to the ship expectantly tilting.

Biting your lip to stifle the curses welling up in your throat, you stood back up and continued walking. You were confident you were there when you saw a man with a gun hiding behind a doorway that had sunlight pouring in through it. That and all the gunshots. Your jaw tensed, you needed to sneak up on this man with a gun, but at this point you were just annoyed.

Your annoyance led to your fire consuming your hands, and trickling up your arms to meet with your hairline. This wasn’t the best way to sneak up on this man, but with him focused elsewhere you figured it was a rather good way to rush him. You ran at him, he turned as you got closer, and you gave him a solid punch with your right hand knocking him on his back. As he went to stand back up you brought your foot down on his neck. Once you were sure he was no longer moving you looked up and through the door to come face to face with another man who had been, after you quickly look around, shooting at Steve.

With him no longer shooting at Steve, Steve was able to pull the red lever, and before you and this man finished your small staring contest, Tony flew in tackling the man. No longer in danger Steve was able to catch his breath. You walked through the little door and looked up at him. “Are you ok?”

Steve nodded in response and you felt yourself calm, the flames surrounding your body dissipating. Once you had cooled off some and Steve had his breath he asked you the same question. “Are you ok?”

You brushed your hair out of your face and smiled at him. “Why, because the last time you saw me I was bleeding on the floor?” You moved open the cut part of your suit to show off your now scarred over skin. “I’m all patched up.”

You then hear Fury talking over the headsets. “Agent Coulson is down.”

You turn to Steve with wide eyes as you think about the kind agent who had talked to you earlier. “Paramedics are on their way.” You hear a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent respond.

“They're here.” You didn’t notice when Tony had joined you, but he was here now, listening to the same terrible news you did. “They called it.”

----------------

Tony, Steve, and you had all gathered back at the room with all the computers. It still didn’t feel real, the fact that Coulson was gone. He hadn’t been in your life long, but he had been very kind to you still. Steve and Tony seem just as distraught as you feel, based on the looks on their faces.

Fury breaks you from your thoughts as he begins talking. “These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them.” He then throws Coulson’s trading cards on to the table, they’re covered in blood. Steve picks one up, and you break your eyes from them as thinking about it brings the familiar sting of tears to your eyes. “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. Maybe I had that coming.”

After taking a moment, Fury beings to walk around the table, stopping and resting his hands on the chair next to yours. “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.” He pauses again and then continues moving around the table, this time stopping at the empty chair between Steve and Tony. “There was an idea, Stark knows this, called The Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, 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.”

At this point, Tony stands up and walks out of the room. “Well, it's an old fashioned notion.” Fury concludes, his back turned towards you and Steve.

-----------------

While you were no longer bleeding, your body still ached like hell, so you had gone to the medical room. You were a little surprised when you saw Natasha in there with another Agent sitting on the bed. Not wanting to interrupt their conversation you stayed out in the hallway waiting for them to finish.

“I didn't need to know. I didn't ask. He's gonna make his play soon though. Today.” You heard the man say.

“We gotta stop him.” Natasha replied calmly.

“Yeah? Who's we?”

“I don't know. Whoever's left.” Natasha then looked over her shoulder at you through the door. “Like her.”

You rubbed your arm awkwardly. “Guess it would be silly to think you wouldn’t have noticed me, huh?” You stepped through the door, if they knew you were here there was no point in hiding. “Sorry, I just didn’t want to interrupt.”

“You’re fine.” Natasha responded.

The other man nodded in agreement before he continued talking. “Well, if I put an arrow in Loki's eye socket, I'd sleep better I suppose.”

“Now you sound like you.” Natasha smiles and goes to sit next to him.

“But you don't. You're a spy, not a soldier. Now you want to wade into a war. Why? What did Loki do to you?”

“He didn't, I just...”

“Natasha.”

“I've been compromised. I got red in my ledger. I'd like to wipe it out.” She responds quietly, almost too quietly to hear. And with that, you feel like you’ve heard something you probably weren’t meant to. “Do you need help?” Natasha has turned to you at this point.

With her question you’re reminded why you even came here in the first place. You move the cut part of your suit to show your scar, still covered in blood. “I got hurt during the explosion, I was hoping for maybe something to dull the pain and to clean it up.”

Natasha nods and gets up getting you what you had asked for, leaving you with the other man. He takes the initiative to break the silence between you two. “That happened during the explosion? And it’s already scarred?”

“Yeah, if I’d had more time I could have done a better job, but I kinda rushed it so I could go help Steve.” You explained, still touching the scarred skin. You caught his eye and by the look on his face you still hadn’t really answered his question. “I-uh, it’s part of my powers. I can heal faster. The faster I heal though, the more damaged the skin is after.”

Natasha then returned with a small paper cup that had some pills in it, a rag, and a black t-shirt. “In case you didn’t want to run around in a damaged top.” She said when she saw you raise your eyebrow.

You walked into the small bathroom to clean up. After you shut the door, you took the pills and wet the towel. Once it was nice and damp you unzipped the top of your suit and pulled out of it, letting it hang from where your belt sat on your hips. With the damp towel you wiped off the now dried blood off, looking in the mirror to get your back. You were pleased to find out that the metal hadn’t come out as far as you originally thought it did when you were removing it.

All cleaned up you put the shirt on over your head and just as you were about to leave the bathroom you heard Natasha. “Oh yeah, that’s [f/n] [l/n].”

“Oh! I didn’t know she had woken up.” The other man responded quickly, recognition in his voice.

“You wouldn’t have, she only woke up yesterday, Clint.”

You decided you had had enough eavesdropping today, and chose now to leave the bathroom. As you did Clint stood up from the bed, giving you a small smile as he switched spots with you, going into the bathroom. You then sit on the bed, taking a small moment to relax, resting your arms on your knees and letting your head hang.

“Long day?” Natasha asks with a small smirk gracing her lips.

You look up at her, a tired smile on your face. “Yeah, something like that.”

The door then slides open and Steve enters the room, causing both of you to look at him. “Time to go.”

“Go where?” Natasha asked, confused.

“I'll tell you on the way. Can you fly one of those jets?”

Clint then opens the bathroom and walks out, looking at Steve. “I can.”

Steve looks to Natasha and she nods her head to confirm Clint’s on our side. “You got a suit?”

“Yeah.”

“Then suit up.” Steve responds and then leaves the room. You look up to Natasha and she tips her head so as to tell you to follow her.

You stand up and the three of you walk out of the room. She takes you to a room that you can only assume is their artillery. Clint goes off and grabs a bow and arrows, while Natasha takes you to get an assault rifle. “This will be a lot more helpful than just running at people with my fists.” You smile at her.

She gives a small smile back. “Thought you might appreciate that.” She then heads off to go and get her own weapons. You grab several clips of ammo and are able to find a bag that clips onto your belt to carry them.

---------------

Once everyone had their weapons and were suited up, the four of you made your way to a quintjet. Upon arriving the pilot of the jet approaches the group. “Hey, you guys aren’t authorized to be here.”

“Son... just don't.” Steve shoots back, bringing a small smile to your face. And once the pilot is off the jet, you take off.