Ember- Steve Rogers

Old Fashion Notion

I only have flashes of how I got to the briefing room that I'm currently sitting in.

I know that as the tears began running down my face from the news of Coulson's death that rage filled my body. Steve had wrapped his arms around my torso as the tears racked through me for a few minutes, and it felt as if I was no longer present in my own body. 

I pushed my face into Steve's shoulder, letting his suit muffle my cries until I settled down a little. 

I felt him turn me around after a few minutes, the paramedics had arrived at the hanger as well and my wound was cleaned up, no stitches needed just a bandage placed on my upper arm where I had been grazed. 

Steve didn't leave my side, he sat next to me our feet dangling over the railing as the paramedics finished up and I sat there numbly. 

After what felt like an eternity but was probably only minutes in hindsight I felt him give my hand a squeeze. I hadn't even noticed that I had been holding it while the paramedics were there. 

He didn't say anything, just nodded his head towards the hole in the wall, motioning for us to go inside. 

I followed him quietly to the rooms where our uniforms were kept, he found a set of spare plain clothes I kept in the room and put them in my arms, turning me towards the bathroom where I walked over and changed robotically. 

Now as I said before I'm sitting in the briefing room, in a pair of black jeans and an old grey t-shirt that ironically has the Stark logo on it. 

Steve is next to me, a light blue long sleeve shirt clinging to his body as Tony is across from us, out of his Iron Man suit and in a plain black t-shirt. Agent Hill is stationed to the side of the room, arms crossed and a somber expression on her face. 

Fury is standing at one end of the table as we all sit in silence for a few minutes, an unbearably numb feeling consumes me.

That is until Fury speaks up, and it's like my body is alert just by the sound of the director's voice cutting through the room. And despite my anger towards him for keeping my past a secret, I feel a sense of comfort in knowing that he is still alive.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them.".

Fury scatters the set of Captain America trading cards that Coulson kept in his jacket pocket earlier today. Blood was smeared across the table as it covered the cards. I turned away unable to stare at the reminder of my guardian. 

Fury continues as he makes his way around the table, "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.".

I turn back to look at Fury, "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips in on that though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Blackwood and Stark know this, called the Avengers Initiative.".

He looks at me for a second, my mind flashes to my first time hearing of this initiative, I had been spending a day at SHIELD after some mission Coulson went on when I snuck into Fury's office. I saw a file on the table in there with the title Avengers Initiative on it. It wasn't until a few years later that Fury filled in the blanks for me. 

"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..".

The air stops in my throat. Coulson believed in me. He believed in me joining this team and making a difference. Despite the circumstances and the differences.