Liberty Is Mine |2| The Liberty Saga

Chapter Eleven: The Martyr

Fury rushed into the detention section to find it almost empty, except for Coulson. He was still alive, just about, his breaths coming short and ragged as Fury knelt by him. "Sorry, boss," he managed. "They got rabbited."

"Just stay awake," Fury ordered. "Eyes on me."

"No." Coulson shook his head, sighing. "I'm clocked out here."

"Not an option," Fury insisted.

Coulson smiled weakly. "It's okay, boss. This was never going to work... if they didn't have something... to..." He went still, the light fading from his eyes.

A long, terrible moment passed before the medics arrived, and Fury stepped away to let them do their work. Part of him knew what the outcome would be, but he had to let them try. If there was even the slightest possibility...

Turning away, he closed his eyes and raised a hand to his earpiece, communicating with all agents. "Agent Coulson is down. Paramedics are here."

***

Scattered all around the Helicarrier, the team were listening in on the comms system. Steve and Tony just inside from the engines, Natasha in the bowels of the ship where the Hulk had almost killed her, Elke nearby as other agents dragged Barton's unconscious body away. And each of them closed their eyes with regret as the final verdict came through.

"They called it."

Agent Phil Coulson, the one man who had believed in each and every one of them...

... was dead.

***

Later, Steve, Tony and Elke had gathered around the briefing table on the bridge, each of them staring with an expression of numb shock.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket," Fury said, addressing Steve. "Guess he never did get you to sign them." He threw Coulson's bloodstained trading cards onto the tabletop, scattering them before the three heroes. Elke's gaze landed on one in particular, drying blood almost masking the face she'd longed to see for all these years. She closed her eyes, repulsed.

"We're dead in the air up here," Fury confessed. "Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor... I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye... Maybe I had that coming." He heaved a heavy sigh. "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 to 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."

Abruptly, Tony got up and walked away, his jaw tight with emotion. For once, Elke agreed with him entirely.

Fury looked down at the bloodied trading cards sadly. "Well... it's an old fashioned notion."

***

In the meadow, Thor staggered to his feet, walking over to where Mjölnir had landed. He opened his hand towards it, but stopped. Phil Coulson had been his ally, his friend. And now, because of Loki, he was dead.

How could he call himself worthy if he couldn't even protect his friends from his brother's wrath?

***

In a pile of rubble in an abandoned warehouse, with sunlight streaming through the broken roof above him, Bruce Banner stirred. He shifted, realising quickly that he was A) buck naked and B) being stared at by an amazed security guard.