A/N- I hope you read the last chapter as well, it's important for the storyline! Besides that, enjoy reading ❤

T  O  N  Y

"Mr Stark." Phil Coulson appears at the moment the elevator door opens to my disappointment and I roll my eyes. I did my best to let my moment with Pepper last as long as possible but the SHIELD agent remained stubborn. As much as I'm thankful that he saved my girlfriend four years ago, I certainly don't enjoy his company right now. Generally, SHIELD just annoys me and can kiss my ass since Romanoff's assessment.

"Security breach. That's on you." I comment loudly, directed to Pepper to reason why she'd only receive twelve percent. But she just walks towards the agent with a friendly smile, ignoring my statement.

"Phil! Come in."

"Phil?" I repeat in disbelief and scrunch up my face as an uncomfortable feeling reaches the arc reactor. Since when do they have such a trustworthy relation to call each other by first names? "Uh, his first name is Agent."

"I can't stay." The agent's voice is serious and I'd ask what's wrong if I wasn't me and cared enough. Yet, Pepper stays friendly and invites him into the Stark Tower.

"Come on in, we're celebrating."

"Which is why he can't stay." I insist but she still motions for him to join our very private evening. Seriously, can't anybody read my big ass name on the tower that basically serves as an information to tell everyone who actually owns this building? And still, people walk in and don't care about privacy.

"We need you to look this over." Agent Coulson turns around to my direction and holds out a file towards me. "Soon as possible."

"I don't like being handed things." I shrug half provokingly, reminding him of our last encounter where he threatened to taser me and let me drool on the carpet. And I'm apparently not qualified enough, that's what they said the last time about me.

"That's alright, 'cause I love to be handed things. So, let's trade." Pepper passes her glass of champagne to Coulson, taking the file from him just to pass the file over to me. Then she receives her glass back while I wish I would have something stronger than champagne. "Thank you."

"Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday." I fake a smile, intending to get rid of the file as fast as possible but Coulson remains severe and urgent.

"This isn't a consultation."

"Is this about The Avengers?" Pepper accidentally blurts out and pauses, realizing that she has just revealed the secret I told her about. Coulson raises a brow in the air, questioning her knowledge about one of the most secret initiatives. "Which I... I know nothing about."

"The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought. And I didn't even qualify." I scoff and mentally imagine how to replace the file with some good booze.

"I didn't know that either." She frowns and I roll my eyes, summarizing the evaluation from two years ago.

"Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others."

"That I did know."

"This isn't about personality profiles anymore." They must be really desperate if they decided to involve me in this case.

"Whatever. Miss Potts, got a moment?" I ask in a fake polite tone and motion her to follow me to the other side of the room. The SHIELD agent waits patiently in a stiff position while I lower my voice and tilt my head. "You know, I thought we were having a moment?"

"I was having twelve percent of a moment." She refers sarcastically, and still offended, to our conversation before Coulson walked in, but then concern spreads over her freckle-covered face. "This seems serious, Phil's pretty shaken."

"How did you notice? And why is he Phil?" I groan, disliking their sudden trust with each other.

"What is all this?" She looks down to the file that is still in my hand, ignoring my question and I shrug.

"This is, uh, ..." With a flick of my hand, I spread all the profiles of the possibly qualified Avengers on the different computer screens. Bruce Banner's profile first catches my interest, the way that he turns into a big angry pea is really impressive but then a brunette girl grabs my attention. A girl that produces electricity. But that's impossible, absolutely paradox. "The girl at the bottom... I know her."

"Who is she? One of your many one night stands?" Pepper asks half jokingly but I just shake my head, still processing the news. The girl died in 1945, she can't be alive and neither can the blonde hero next to her profile.

"No, she was an old friend of my father." The old man kept talking about her, telling me so many stories that I could write a whole book. My father basically admired her and couldn't stop mentioning how amazing it was to work with her, even Aunt Peggy brought her up a few times. My whole childhood was made of her heroic actions and filled with her legendary stories. Turning around to Coulson, I point at the profiles of the forties heroes. "How is it possible that Steve Rogers and Evelyn Farrell are considered to be Avengers? They're supposed to be dead."

"We found them in the glacial ice, they've been back and alive for a month." Phil answers. "Their return still remains as a secret though since people didn't know Captain America's and Voltricity's real identity and it should stay like that for a while."

"Why did nobody inform me?" The urge to meet the woman who had worked with my father grows with each second. I don't know why, but it's like I just found out that I still have a living family member left.

"Maybe because you keep ignoring SHIELD's call." He tilts his head, judging me silently. "She's gonna be recruited tomorrow. I'd like to know by then if you're gonna help us or not, we don't really have the time."

E V E

I don't know what I should've expected from this world. Maybe nicer people since the war is over, at least that's what I've been told of. Maybe noises like in the forties but louder. Instead, people cling to their mobile phones and barely talk, also the cars that look odd are so quiet that I almost don't hear them coming. The world has become silent.

I spent the month that has passed with nightmares and reading about the new world, trying to catch up which is not as easy as I thought since I missed almost seventy years. Steve keeps repeating that he's fine, so I wouldn't worry about him but he spends nearly all of his  time at the gym where he damages punching bags. To be quite honest, we just see each other in our SHIELD apartment. He's at the gym, I'm at the therapist because of my apparently unstable state.

The therapist pisses me off, she always says "I know what you're going through but I can assure you that everything's gonna be fine again". Liar. She doesn't hear Bucky's screams. She doesn't hear the bombs from the war zone. She didn't wake up seventy years later. She hasn't lost a child.

"Excuse me, miss?" A little girl's voice takes me back to reality and I blink, needing a moment before looking at her. The brunette points at the coffee shop's menu that lays on my table. "Can I borrow this? My mom and I wanna order and we don't have one."

"Sure." I hand it to her with a nod and a strange feeling spreads over my chest, almost tightening at the girl's innocent smile.

"Thank you!" She runs back to her mom as I watch her in her pure white dress. Almost letting out a scoff, I stare in disbelief at the distance. It's like the bloody universe wants to remind me that I lost the last part of Bucky. I take a sip of my coffee and suddenly feel a stare creeping over me.

"What do you want? Making sure that I don't hurt anyone?" I put down the cup and wait for the stranger to come around. Hesitant steps reveal a SHIELD agent in a black suit and I look up, lifting my hands. "Thanks to the uncomfortable security metal bangles around my wrists, I can't produce electricity."

"This wasn't my idea. But I'm sorry for these measures." The man shrugs, removing his sunglasses. "Why are you here?"

"I already served the therapy session this week." I remind him and realize that I haven't met this SHIELD agent yet. He doesn't look as stiff as the others, he seems to be... honest.

"No, I mean this place. Why did you choose this place?" The agent just sits comfortably down and looks around. "An unknown coffee shop in Brooklyn. It's not really safe here. And let's forget those therapy sessions, they're not helpful anyway."

"It's not safe anywhere." I state and glance at him, feeling a bit more comfortable now. He's the first person who doesn't try to convince me to go to the therapy. "I just tried to find a place that may look like... home." The last word leaves my lips as a scoff. Not even I believe my own words. "What do you want?"

"My name is Agent Phil Coulson." He smiles friendly at me and places a folder with the title Avengers Initiative on the table. "And the world is in danger, incredible danger. People like you are needed."

"People like me?" I raise a brow in the air and take the folder, facing a lot of different profiles.

"There are more people like you. Extraordinary with abilities. Do you remember the blue cube from your mission with the Red Skull? It is called the Tesseract and Loki, an Asgardian from another planet, possesses it now, planning to destroy the world."

"From another planet?" I tilt my head and the agent nods. This is what my world looks like now? People from outer space try to act like the Red Skull? I just sigh and keep looking through the profiles as sarcasm runs through my voice. "Alright. Sure, why not fight aliens. Because there's not enough crap to deal with."

"Is there anything important about the Tesseract that you know?"

"It transported the Red Skull into space and killed him. Powerful cube, you should've left it in the ocean. Speaking of experience, I know that humans can't handle power." I stop reading when I see the profile of the Hulk. "He tried to recreate the super-soldier serum?"

"Many did." Coulson confirms. "But he's the only one who survived."

This man, Bruce Banner, must have gone through a lot pain, it hurt like hell for me already and I at least had the right partner to do it with. The result of his experiments is completely different though, it makes him look inhuman. Now green monsters and aliens. This seems to be a bad joke or a horrible nightmare. "What about Steve? Is he gonna join?"

"Fury just recruited him today. He's in." He nods and glances at me. "I don't want to force you into this because that's not my style. It's your choice."

"So you don't think I'm emotionally too unstable for this?" I  ask almost provokingly and to my surprise, he shakes assuringly his head.

"If you could handle so much pain and loss, then I'm sure that you're gonna be able to handle everything. Eve, it is, right? Mr Rogers mentioned that you prefer that name." He gets a nod as an answer and I lighten slowly up. Coulson is sincere and real, realer than most of the people that I have met in this millennium so far. He doesn't treat me like a broken toy.

"I'm in." I agree to the initiative and he smiles contently.

"We're gonna leave tomorrow. But one last question and just if you're really okay with that. Could you get Captain America to sign my vintage cards?"