Chapter 15 - Rachel Stark

I push the Engine panel back into its container on the wall.

"The relays are intact." I say, "What's our next move?"

"If I clear the rotors, this thing won't re-engage without a jump. I'm gonna have to get in there and push."

"But if that thing speeds up, you'll get shredded!" I yell into my earpiece over the wind.

"Then Rach, stay in the control unit and reverse the polarity long enough to disengage mag..."

"Speak English!" Steve yells.

"Rach, explain it to him."

"Okay. Steve, you see that red lever? It will slow the rotors down long enough for Tony to get out. I am going to stand by it and wait for his word. You are going to have to give me a boost." I say, "Then follow me up. I don't know what could go wrong and I might need your help." He looks up to the small bit of metal sticking out by the red lever, trying to figure out how to get me up there. He sets his hands gently on my hips pulling me forward and lining me up. My stomach erupts into butterflies with his touch and I gently clear my throat, hoping Steve wouldn't notice the heat rising to my cheeks. He sets out his hands in a cradle-like position so that he can boost me. I put my foot in and he throws me to the lever. A few seconds later, he joins me.

"Hey, long time, no see," I say, my voice a little timid. He chuckles. Oh, what a beautiful sound. There is nothing going on for a good, eh, three seconds; then the attackers came. I pull out my shotgun from the holster on my leg and begin firing at the men. They started shooting at us. I shoot one in the head and he drops his gun.

"Steve, the..."

"I see it." He says, jumping down. He grabs the machine gun and jumps back up, trying to help me take out the other six that are behind him.

"Cap, Rach, I need that lever!" Tony comes in over our earpieces.

"Uh, we need a minute!" I say while firing bullets. They shoot back. I feel a stab of pain in my left arm. You have to get through this first.

"Lever, now!" I reach out to get the lever and fall. I grab onto a loose cord and try to climb back up.

"Rachel!" I hear Steve say frantically.

"LEVER!" Tony yells. I finally get a good grip on the cord and start to climb.

"Steve! Pull the lever!" I scream, hanging onto the cord. He quickly does as I ask and runs over to the side of the ship. He begins to pull the cord up, allowing me to just hang on while he does all of the work. When I finally get hoisted up, I see that Tony has taken down the intruders. I take a deep breath. But I don't get to rest for long. A quick shock of pain in my arm causes my balance to falter and I fall into Steve, who is standing behind me. He grabs my sides and stabilizes me, giving me time to look over my arm. Around my bicep area, there is a chunk of fabric taken out of my suit and a large gash dripping blood down my exposed arm. 

"Hey guys, could one of you come to take a look at my arm?" I ask. Tony walks over to me and sees my arm.

"Gosh, you are bleeding you shouldn't be so polite." My brother says, being sarcastic, as always. With his hands still around my sides, he peeks his head around to assess my injury.

"Well it looks okay to me, nothing a few stitches couldn't fix," Steve says, with a comforting smile on his face. "Your arm was just grazed by a bullet, nothing too serious," Steve says. I turn my head to look at him and he quickly drops his hands from my waist, his face turning a shade of red similar to the one in his uniform. 

Our sweet moment unfortunately doesn't last for very long.

"Agent Coulson is down," Fury says. I freeze like a deer in headlights. Tony just stands there, and Steve just looks up to the heavens and then back to me. I still just stand there. I don't say anything. I just stare at the gaping hole in the side of the ship.

"Paramedics are on their way now." An agent says over the intercoms.

"They're here... They called it."

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About an hour after the attack, Fury calls us all into the command center. The only people who show up are Steve, Tony, and me. I see Maria Hill sitting on the steps leading down to the computer banks looking pretty distant. 

After the blast and the news, Steve and Tony took me to the infirmary to get patched up. They were so busy I felt awful going in and trying to get attention for myself. If the injury was worse than a bullet scrape, I wouldn't mind as much. Others needed more medical attention than I did.

Fury snaps us all out of our numbness by tossing some cards out onto the table. Is this really a time for gambling?

"These were in Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them." Fury says, looking somberly over to Steve. He picks one up and sighs. I look over Steve's shoulder to see that he was holding one of Phil's Captain America cards. Grief and regret flood over Steve's face. I put my hand on his shoulder, looking over at him with sadness. He eventually looks up to me and smiles, but not his usual handsome one. 

"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." Fury starts.

"Fury if that is what you call an apology for Coulson's death, that's pretty weak," I say, staring blankly at the table. 

"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." Steve and I look up to Fury. 

"There was an idea, Tony 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." I looked over to Tony who was completely zoned out of this conversation. "Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes." As Fury finishes, Tony walks off.

"Well, it's an old-fashioned notion." Fury finishes. I storm out, taking Tony's lead. Steve gets up shortly after I do and follows me down the halls. I try waving him off, but he continues to come after me anyway. I walk straight to my room and shut the door right on Steve. I lock it and slide down against the door.

"Rach? Please talk to me. Tell me what's going through your head." Steve says softly, trying to help me.

"He's gone." I almost whisper.

Steve's POV

After trying to coax Rachel out of her room without success for about half an hour, I go off to find Tony. I finally find him standing in the empty cell, next to where Coulson was killed.

"Was he married?" I ask, shifting my weight to lean back against one of the railings that lined the room.

"No. There was a... cellist though," Tony explains with a far off expression in his eye, one that I have seen Rachel make many times.

"I'm sorry, he seemed like a good man," I say. We stand there in awkward, suffocating silence for a good five minutes.

"Rachel is pretty shaken up. He seemed pretty important to her."

"Yeah. He was... He was one of the first people that she met here." Tony pauses. 

"He was an idiot." 

"For what, believing?" I ask.

"For taking on Loki alone." He gestures to the wall, blood already beginning to stain. 

"He was doing his job."

"He was out of his league. He should have waited, he should've..."

"Sometimes there isn't a way out," I say, approaching Tony slowly.

"Right, and how did that work for him?"

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

"We are NOT soldiers! I am not marching in Fury's fife!" Tony spits into my face.

"Neither am I! He's got the same blood on his hands as Loki does. But for right now, we have got to put all of that aside and get this mission done. Now Loki needs a power source if we can put together some sort of list...."

"He made this personal.." Tony says, his feelings finally breaking down some wall inside of him.

"That's not the point here." I try to reason with Tony.

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

"To tear us apart," I say, answering his question. 

"He had to conquer his greed, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us and he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

"Right, I caught his act in Stuttgart," I say, attempting to keep up with the breakneck speed that Tony's thoughts move in.

"Yeah. But that's just a preview, this... This is opening night and Loki is the full-tilt diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered......"

"Son of a bitch."