Fire and Ice

•11•

Fury starts to inform everyone that Coulson is down over comms, so Kate rips Clint's out of her ear, stowing it in her pocket instead of breaking it like she wants to. Her hands are shaking. She'd be in a fog if she weren't so angry and hurt. After everything... She told him everything and then he had to nerve to leave her, too? She chokes on a sob as she enters the control room, not knowing where else to go, what with the lab half destroyed. She sits at the table heavily, staring ahead.

Tony and Cap aren't far behind her. Cap sits next to her, then Tony sits on her other side.

"Are you... alright?" Cap says hesitantly, leaning towards her. Tony and Hill look at her, waiting for an answer.

"I was there," she says quietly, looking at the table. "What do you think?"

"I... I'm sorry." He reaches out like he wants to help but doesn't know how or if she even wants him to. She turns towards him, fighting a breakdown, but she knows if she bottles it, suppresses it, it could explode — literally. Her hands are warming, and she doesn't know what to do, if she should run somewhere else, if she can make it in time. His brows furrow in concern. "Dr. Carson?"

His expression — pity and sadness and concern and a desire to help all at once— hits her where it hurts. She can't explode, so she holds it in, fighting back. For a moment, she considers leaving, going somewhere else where she can let go.

"Kate?" he asks gently, leaning towards her, resting his hand on hers. To her surprise, he doesn't jerk back, as hot as they're getting.

She looks at him for a moment, unable to stop a few tears from escaping, but focuses on him and collects herself, taking deep breaths, wiping her eyes. He grabs her other hand, and it grounds her. She breathes for a moment. "I'm alright... Steve."

He frowns, still concerned. "It's alright not to be."

"I know," she whispers. He moves his hands.

"It's perfectly understandable," Tony adds quietly.

Fury walks in then, something in his hands. He tosses it on the table in between Steve and Kate. Coulson's trading cards. "These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. I guess he never did get you to sign them." Kate sees the blood soaking their corners, pushes down more tears. Fury sighs. "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." He looks at Kate then. "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."

Kate takes in a shaky breath during the silence, the knowledge that it was plan B somehow a bit of comfort as Fury goes on, though plan A doesn't seem great, either.

"There was an idea — Kate and Stark know 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 we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes."

Tony stands, not looking at anyone as he walks out, but Kate looks after him, understanding what he's feeling.

Fury sighs again. "Well, it's an old fashioned notion."

There's silence as he walks towards Hill, leaving Kate and Steve. Her brain feels muddled, but she knows those cards are hers now. She picks them up carefully, and the sight of the blood brings her back. Coulson is dead.

And it's Loki's fault. She lost Coulson because of Loki. She lost her work, she lost her research assistant, she lost her colleague, she lost her friend because of Loki. The latter she has back now, only because she and Nat got him back. She'll get back everything she can manage to from Loki.