The Zone (Avengersx Male!OC)

"Daddy's gotta go to work" (Avengers 2012)

After Coulson's death was announced, the entirety of the Helicarrier's occupants were in a state of mourning.

Fury gathered John, Tony and Steve back into the briefing room.

A look of numb shock is shown on their devastated faces.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them," Fury throws Coulson's Captain America trading cards on the table towards Steve.

The super soldier picks them up, even if they were stained in blood.

"We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you," Nick begins, "Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming," a beat passes and Fury looks to John now, "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract...but I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier."

John folds his arms and looks to Fury, eagerly interested in what the man had to say now.

"There was an idea, called THE AVENGERS INITIATIVE." Nick looks down now, "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."

Tony gets up and walks off, not wanting to hear it anymore.

Nick sees this and nods absentmindedly before tapping his knuckle on the glass table that Steve sat at, "Well, it's an old fashioned notion."

Fury walks out...heartbroken that his old friend was no longer with them.

Steve then looks to John, whom was flexing his jaw, his thoughts unknown.

The World War II veteran was lost, "What now...?"

"I don't know," John simply responds, as a beat of silence passes, the former assassin then narrows his eyes, looking towards the door, "...But...I've got an idea..."

"What's the plan?" Steve asks as he stands up.

"Haven't got it all figured out yet," John sighs, "But first...we have to gather up the team."

"Team?" Steve asks as he watches John begin to exit the room, "What Team?"

John stops at the door and looks back at Steve with a smirk, "The Avengers. You go get Stark...I've got someone else that needs a little motivation right now."

...

Shadow is currently seen sitting alone as several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents around him are working on repairing whatever damages they sustained in the attack from Loki's men.

The former assassin still has Coulson's blood on his hands and a lost expression as he tunes out the rest of the commotion going on around him.

He then feels someone's presence sitting next to him and he does nothing as he already knows whom it is.

"Hey," John's voice addresses him, "...The Paramedics told me you didn't want to get checked up."

Shadow says nothing as the noise of the surrounding work going on drowns their silence.

"...He was just a normal man," Shadow finally finds, "With nothing but a dream.."

John says nothing as he allows Shadow to continue.

"Loki was right there...I could've gone after him...I should've...so why didn't I?" Shadow asks, his lost voice sounding like that of an innocent child's, "Why..?"