Ash's POV

"Hmmm...?" I slowly peeled my eyes open to find myself on a bed in a white room similar to where Dr. Miller ran the checkup on me. Looking down at myself, I saw that I was wearing a uniform similar to the soldiers, but without the weaponry or protective padding attached.

I quickly sat up remembering all that had happened within the last hour alone when I noticed the leather straps on my wrists.

"Why?!" I growled to myself as I struggled against them, more angry than afraid at that point.

"Because you were thrashing around when they tried to move you." I looked up to see Agent Hill before she made her way over to me to unbuckle the restraints.

"Fury wants you in the conference room now." She stated before turning to leave the room.

"Why should I listen to the one who has been lying to us?" I asked silently seething making her stop and turn to face me,

"Because you might want to hear what he has to say."

Grudgingly I followed, now intrigued by what she meant by that, as I rubbed the red rims on my wrists when we arrived at the conference room where Fury, Steve, and Tony were already waiting inside.

"Nice of ya to join us kid." Steve told me lightly, but I just sat down in the seat farthest from them with a glare on my face.

"Where's Bruce?" I demanded to know before Tony cut off Steve with,

"Apparently Eye-Patch decided to have him blasted off the ship for our 'safety'."

"What?!" I was about to bolt out of my seat when Fury held up a hand and told me,

"Please wait until after before you decide to start barbequing people."

I reluctantly sat back down before Fury pulled out a stack of small pieces of paper as he directed to Steve,

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

Steve picked a few of the papers up to reveal that they were pictures of him in his uniform, but crimson stains now blotted the surface.

"We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you." He looked at me as he said that but I looked down at the last healing wounds on my hands, "Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming."

Fury took a deep breath before going on to explain to us as Tony, Steve, and I listened intently.

"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. There was an idea, Stark 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. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes."

Tony got up rapidly after Fury finished and walked off, clearly not wanting to hear anymore.

"Well, it's an old fashioned notion." Fury told us as Tony walked off with Steve following him shortly after, leaving just me, Fury, and Hill.

"Is that why you brought me here? To try and turn me into a hero?" I questioned half unconvinced by his speech.

"I brought you here to see if you had the potential to learn to be a hero."

I stood up and walked away in the direction Tony and Steve went before stopping and saying to them without facing them,

" I couldn't even if I wanted to..."

I continued walking back into the containment center where Coulson was killed where Tony and Steve were arguing once again,

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?" Steve questioned before Tony retorted with,

"We are not soldiers! I am not marching to Fury's fife! And neither is the kid." Tony acknowledged my presence as I walked forward and asked,

"Do you two do anything besides argue?"

"He's right though, you may not be a soldier, but if you want to help protect this planet like you couldn't your own, then you might have to learn to be a hero." Steve directed to me before turning to Tony and saying, "Right now we've got to put that aside and get this done. Now Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list..."

"He made it personal." Tony noted out loud.

"That's not the point."

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

"In order to drive us apart, but..." I suggested but sensed that there was more to it than that, as acknowledged by Tony as he continued with,

"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 at Stuttengard."

"Yeah. That's just a preview, this is opening night. Loki's a full-tilt diva." Tony emphasized his point with waving hand gestures, "He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered..." Tony froze right in the middle of his sentence making Steve ask,

"What is it?"

"Sonofabitch!" Before he ran off to get to a computer, me following him from behind since he was the closest one I could trust at the moment.

When he did get to a console, he began rapidly typing before he told me without removing his gaze from the screen,

"Hey Lil' Red, I think you might want to suit up because that outfit won't do you any good in battle."

"With what?" I started to question before a space in the wall opened up to reveal a bright orange jumpsuit with dark red outlines on the legs of the pants and bright yellow trimming on the collar and on the sleeve and pant cuffs and a silver armband similar to my bracelet around the upper left sleeve.

"Yeah I may have tweaked it a bit and that armband should work better, for now anyway." Tony commented as I walked closer to the suit to get a closer look at it.

Closing my eyes thinking about how I could finally do something after I failed to save my home, Bruce, and Coulson, I reopened my eyes with a new light in them as I pulled the suit down from its stand with determination burning within me.

A few minutes later I was fully suited up with the jumpsuit over the clothes I was wearing before, my injector bracelet abandoned for the temporary armband, my uncombed hair loose around my shoulders, and a pair of black boots laced on.

"Nice suit." I heard someone comment from behind me and turned to see Nat, Steve, and the man from the screen behind me.

"Who are you?" I asked the man and he grinned at me in a wry manner before responding,

"Clint Barton, you can call me Hawkeye. And you are?"

"This is Ash she's-" I cut Nat off by stating,

"Going to be helping you fight."

"Well damn, didn't think you'd be one to fight." Nat told me with slight amusement in her tone.

"I'll do what I can to help your planet."

"Then let's move out." Steve directed us and we all walked together to the hangar where the three of them boarded an aircraft

"You are not authorized to be here..." The pilot inside tried to discourage them but Steve interrupted him with,

"Son... just don't." Before forcing him out and starting up the ship to fly out of the Helicarrier.

"You can let me out here." I pushed a button to open the back door, wind rushing into the small space when Clint yelled to me,

"What're you doin' kid!"

"Taking a chance!" I yelled back before falling backward out of the ship, leaving them to watch me fall.

Cold air blew past me as I fell through the empty air, focusing and willing all my power to converge at my hands.

In a mass of heat, my hands became engulfed in flames that propelled me through the air, positioning me to fly right beside the ship. Inside the ship, I could see Steve and Clint gaping at me while Nat sent a smiling smirk to me as we made our way to the battle ahead of us.

1442 Words