T W E N T Y O N E

21. | the attack on the helicarrier.
the villain's always five
steps ahead of the hero

steve.

•

"PHASE TWO is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons."

I answer Tony Stark's question to Fury by slamming down one of the old Hydra guns used back during the war against the table in front of the two and Dr. Banner in his lab.

"Sorry," I tell Stark. "Computer was moving a little too slow for me."

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract," Fury retaliates. "This does not mean we're making—"

"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony shouts. He turns the computer screen around for the Director and myself to see. "What were you lying?"

There is the digital blueprint for a nuclear missile on the screen, clearly incorporated by the use of the Tesseract.

"I was wrong, Director," I growl at him. "The world hasn't changed a bit."

"Did you know about this?" Bruce asks Thor and Agent Romanoff as they walk in.

"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?" Natasha asks.

Bruce scoffs. "I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed."

"Loki is manipulating you," she adds.

"And you've been doing what, exactly?"

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy." Banner spins the screen for Agent Romanoff to see. "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

"Because of him."

Fury points over to Thor, who has kept quiet this whole time. The Asgardian seems shocked, his eyes widening in surprise. "Me?" he asks.

"Last year, Earth has a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town," Fury says. "We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor spits.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled."

"Like you controlled the cube?" I ask him.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies," Thor booms. "It is a signal to all realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A higher form?" I question.

"You forced our hand," Fury growls. "We had to come up with something—"

"A nuclear deterrent." Tony shoves his hands in his pockets, showing little to no emotion on the situation. "'Cause that always calms everything right down."

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark."

I decide to pipe back in. "I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck-deep—"

"Woah woah, hold on. How is this now about me?" Tony asks me, gesturing widely with his hands.

I casually rest my thumbs on the front of my tactical belt, keeping myself as composed as possible. "I'm sorry, isn't everything?"

"I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor mumbles, or at least tries to in his naturally loud voice.

"Excuse me, do we go to your planet and blow stuff up?" Fury asks the Norse god, who shoots something back.

I still argue with Tony, who is the most stubborn person I have ever had the misfortune of meeting in my life. Soon Natasha joins in to Fury and Thor's argument, who is then followed by Bruce as he makes little side comments. Tony and I eventually stop, leaving us only to listen to the other dispute.

"You speak of control, yet you court chaos!" Thor remarks.

"That's his M.O., isn't it?" Bruce says. "I mean, what are we? A team? No, no, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're— we're a time bomb."

"You. Need. To. Step. Away," Fury spits in chopped out individual words.

"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony asks with a smirk. His hand slaps against my shoulder.

I instantly retaliate, swiping his hand away from me. "You know damn well why. Back off!"

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me," Tony mutters.

"Yeah. Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," he states matter-of-factly.

"I know people with none of that worth ten of you." Bucky. Add the genius part back and Gen. If there were ten men like Tony, they wouldn't even come close to equaling either Gen or Bucky no matter how many you add to the combination. Just a few titles don't make you a good person. "And I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lie down on a wire and make the other guy crawl all over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire," he says.

I just grin. Whether or not it's sarcastic to them, they don't need to know it is. My eyes dart to Bruce, then back to Tony. "Always another way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero? Like you?" All I can see in front of me is Howard, not his son, forcing me to have difficulty understanding his next few words. "You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

I just keep smiling. Funny how his father never told him anything about the super-soldier program. Tony thinks he knows everything about a subject he hasn't even studied. "Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds."

Thor's booming laughter starts to fill the room. "You people are so petty, and tiny."

"Yeah, this is a team," Banner mutters.

"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Banner back to his—"

Fury is cut off by Banner.

"Where?" he asks. "You rented my room."

"The cell was just in case—"

"You needed to kill me, but you can't. I know, I've tried!"

Everyone stands there silently for a moment, trying to process what he's said. Dr. Banner has tried to commit suicide.

"I got low. I didn't see an end," Banner explains, "so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good. Until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk. You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

I hear a few hands reach for the guns in their holsters, ready to shoot the man down once he inevitably turns green. Everyone except him eyes the glowing blue stick that Bruce has taken into his hands.

"Dr. Banner, put down the scepter," I tell him.

He looks down at it for a moment, seeming to not have realized that was what he was doing and the reason why everyone in the room was getting defensive. He quickly sets it back on its stand, clenching his jaw.

Then, out of the blue, something starts beeping. Everyone whips their heads towards the sound, leading their eyes to a computer screen.

"Got it," Fury mumbles.

"Sorry, kids," Bruce says, "you don't get to see my party trick after all." And with that, he storms out of the room with Agent Romanoff on his tail.

"You located the Tesseract?" Thor asks.

"I could get there fastest," Stark states.

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard. No human is a match for it."

Before Tony can bolt out of the room to do this himself, I tightly seize his arm to prevent him from going anywhere. "You're not going alone," I spit at him.

Tony just flicks my arm away. "You're gonna stop me?"

"Put on the suit; let's find out," I growl.

He takes a fighting stance in front of me, straightening his back and clenching his fists by his sides, as the tension boils between us. "I'm not afraid to hit an old man."

Between gritted teeth, I repeat, "put on the suit."

Then something strange happens. The whole helicarrier shakes, then I feel myself being flung to the wall of the lab by an explosion. Glass shatters, flames ignite, smoke flies into my face. Once I peel my eyes open again, I swiftly move to my feet alongside Tony.

"Put on the suit," I say in a more relaxed tone than last time.

"Yeah," he replies, getting off the floor too. He wobbles on his feet, struggling to get through the doorway. I shove him to get him to move  and go down the left part of the hallway. We make our way through the chaos-stricken helicarrier; there are agents scrambling everywhere, trying to get to their locations, screaming and barks echoing from commanders and comms.

"Engine three, meet you there," Tony tells me.

I nod quickly, taking a sharp left turn through the dark room. Red lights flash from the walls, signaling that whatever's happening is far from good. I come across a door that locks me inside the helicarrier, the metal banging from the other side. I pry it open to see an agent on the other side, who quickly thanks me and shoves his way in in front of two others who seem to be injured. As I step through the door, strong wind hits my face, swirling through my messy hair. Holding on to a broken rail, I look over the side. There's a gaping hole in the helicarrier. Something hit us.

"Stark!" I call over the howling wind.

Nothing.

"Stark, I'm here!" I try again through the comms, but it's no use.

I finally see him in his suit flying through the air. "Good. Let's see what we've got." He starts muttering under his breath, pulling at wires and metal on the side of the broken wall. "I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position."

I nod, even though I have no clue what the hell he's talking about. Regardless, I leap across to where he pointed and find something in the wall. I pull it out, and it stores lights and red wires and buttons and all sorts of things I don't get.

"What's it look like in there?" Tony asks me through my comm.

"It seems to run on some form of electricity," I mutter, allowing my hand to fall to my side after gesturing to it.

"Well, you're not wrong," Tony replies.

After a few moments of him explaining what this thing is in front of me, I'm able to tell him the relays are in tact. "What's our next move?" I ask him, closing the small door that had all the blinking lights.

"Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won't re-engage without a jump," Tony says. "I'm going to have to get in there and push."

What kind of suicide mission is that? "If that thing gets up to speed, you'll get shredded."

"That stator control unit can reverse the polarity long enough to disengage Maglev and—"

"Speak English," I sigh.

Tony pauses. "You see that red lever? It'll slow the rotors long enough for me to get out. Stand by it, wait for my word."

I jerk my head to the side to see what he's talking about. Sure enough, there's a red lever on the wall across from me. I leap over the gaping hole in the helicarrier and land on the metal flooring on the opposite side. I follow Stark's orders, just standing by the lever and waiting for him to tell him what to do next. Before he does though, I hear the footsteps of men coming from the doorway leading out here. I crane my neck to see past the metal ladder and spot a SHIELD agent in full armor and heavily loaded with weapons. Before he can see me, I jump across the hole to a higher level on the other side to get to him.

When I get there, there are two armed agents waiting for me. I throw a few swings at them, resulting in one falling off the side and another retreating for a gun inside. That's when I see a machine gun lying on the ground. I shrug, expecting the worse to happen, and shoot. I spot the agent making his way through the hallways to find open areas so he can shoot at me. I duck a few bullets of his, backing away slowly to get out of his field of sight. As I take one last step back, I feel my foot fall from underneath me, causing my whole body to follow as I collapse from the helicarrier. Just as the strong winds start howling in my ears, my eyes dart to the closest thing to grab onto to stop me from falling all the way to the ground, that being a flimsy cord flailing in the wind off the side of the helicarrier.

And the helicarrier's falling.

Falling, plummeting towards the earth.

The cool wind blows in my hair. I can hear the clamoring agents from my comms, or am I imagining it? My brain just swims in old memories as I hang off the side, completely disregarding the whole situation. The blue skies and torn apart helicarrier fade into a memory, one that will forever haunt me.

"Grab my hand!"

I hear myself screaming over the wind at Gen. Through the wind and snow pelting at our faces, she, Bucky, and I hold on to the metal railing on the side of the train. My arm is outstretched towards Gen, who is held up by Bucky. Her skin is almost completely white and her green eyes are wide with terror. Her hand slowly moves towards mine, like we're in slow motion. Just as her fingertips graze mine, the rail creaks and groans at the weight it's holding up, and then one side of it breaks.

"Steve!" Gen screams. She yelps as the broken railing scrapes her arm, tearing her thick jacket as it falls. She looks down at the moving valley below, then tearing her eyes up at me.

It seems like I stare down at her for centuries, just watching fear overtake her usual strong and courageous figure. Her life is in my hands; if I let her go, she's gone. I can't wrap my mind around that. But my whole body feels numb, and I can't move an inch. I just feel my hand tightly grasping on to her, staring at her as she dangles over the edge, like Death is teasing her. Just hanging there by a mere thread that can break any second.

Just hanging over the edge.

Then Bucky falls.

Is that what it felt like to them? Having yourself there just waiting at death's door? Just waiting to be engulfed by darkness........

"Cap, hit the lever."

Tony's voice shoots me out of my mind and back into dreadful reality. I curse under my breath. I had completely forgotten why I was separated from him in the first place.

"I need a minute here!" I shout into my comm as I try to pull myself up the cord.

"Lever. Now," Stark wheezes.

I gasp as I feel my hand enclose around the metal flooring of the helicarrier. I made it. I lie flat on my stomach and continue pulling myself up as bullets shoot at me. My feet then do everything else for me, taking back to the lever and my hand pulling it down. I hear the bullets stop after doing so, allowing me to just sit against the wall and catch my breath. Sweat trickles down my forehead and my hair is an absolute mess in front on me.

I hear Tony's suit a few steps away from me, signaling me to get up. I do so, pulling myself up and making my way towards him. He stands over the agent who was trying to kill me earlier. Stark seems almost as shaken up as me, only worse. His usual smirk has faded and the color of his skin went along with it. Before either of us could do anything, even make eye contact, Fury's low voice echoes through my comm.

"Coulson is down," he says.

Coulson.

That was the guy with the trading cards. That was the lighthearted agent who had a kind smile pretty much the whole time I was with him. This was the man who seemed to look up to me. He called me a hero.

And he's gone.

Much later, after taking off my suit and replacing it with a blue shirt and pants and fix my hair, I sit with Stark at a table with Fury standing near the end inside the helicarrier once everything had died down. The whole atmosphere has changed; all the buzz has died down to a melancholic silence. It's eerie.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket," Fury says in a lower voice than usual. "Guess he never did get you to sign them." The director tosses over small pieces of paper that fly across the table. They're old and yellowed, but still quite preserved considering how long they've been here. I pick up one of the cards that has bloodstains on it, peeling it up off the blood splatters on the glass table.

I ignore what else Fury's saying that is probably important, just looking down at the trading card. I see myself on it, wearing vibrant blue tights and giving the camera a salute with a smirk on my face. I looked so young, so innocent........ I guess that's what happens after war. I went from a knit spangly outfit to head to toe armor in the span of a few months on my body's clock. I used to travel the country, promoting and selling war bonds with Gen waiting for me behind the curtain. I used to quickly make my way past the few dozen showgirls just to see her sweet smile, telling me that I did great out there on the stage. That was the only thing that kept me sane on those long expeditions — her presence.

I gently set the card down on the table, not looking up from it as I listen to Fury.

"Yes," he says, "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.

"There was an idea, as Stark knows this," he continues, stepping around the table slowly, "called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together if we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea — in heroes."

Stark quickly rises from his seat, just standing there for a moment. Then, without saying anything, he takes off in the other direction towards the door.

"Well," Fury mumbles, "it's and old fashioned notion."

A little while later, I decide to reluctantly take off after Tony. I find him in the room where Loki was held captive, in the cell that dropped out of the sky with Thor in it. Stark just stares down at the empty spot in the floor, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly agape. The blue light in his chest, his "arc reactor", has died down too since Coulson died. It's like he's blaming himself for all this.

I lean against the railing and cross my arms, looking down at the crater in the floor. I try to think of something, anything to get that man to speak. Unfortunately, I return to my old attitude from the war, asking a question people asked me about Bucky after he fell.

"Was he married?" I ask Stark from across the room.

"No," he replies softly. "There was a, uh, cellist, I think."

"I'm sorry," I tell him. My apology echoes through the room, repeating itself back and back again to him. "He seemed like a good man."

Stark scoffs. "He was an idiot."

I knit my eyebrows together in question. "Why? For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone."

"He was doing his job."

Stark tuts. "He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have....."

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony," I tell him. I start stepping towards him, both of us taking the steps to meet to each other.

"Right, I've heard that before."

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?"

Tony, in the middle of striding past me, angrily spins around to face me again, raising his voice and spitting, "We are not soldiers!"

I clench my jaw, not exactly expecting his outburst. His mouth closes for a moment, then he starts speaking again.

"I'm not marching to Fury's fife," he says.

"Neither am I," I tell him. "He's got the same blood on his hands that Loki does. But right now we got to put that behind us and get this done. Now Loki needs a power source. If we could get together a list—"

"He made it personal," Stark interrupts.

"That's not the point."

"That is the point. That's Loki's point. He hit us all where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart."

"Yeah, divide and conquer is great, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience." Tony steps around me, wagging his finger as he rambles to himself.

"Right. I caught his act in Stuttgart."

"Yeah, that's just previews. This is opening night. And Loki, he's a full-tilt diva, right? He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered—"

Tony pauses for a second, but then he seems to be hit with a moment of realization. "Son of a bitch."