Iron Woman - (Fem Iron man X Pepper)

Chapter 30 - Coulson

"Turbine's loose. Mostly intact, but it's impossible to get out there and make repairs while we're in the air." I hear a man say in my comms.

"We lose one more engine, we won't be. Somebody's got to get inside and patch that engine."

"Stark! You copy that?!" Nick asks.

"I'm on it!" I yell, running down the hall with Steve. I slow down, and tie my hair up. "Find engine three. I'll meet you there." I nod, walking into a small room.

I click a small button and my suit comes to view.

"Stark, I'm here!" Cap yells

"Good. See what we got." I fly outside and towards the destroyed Engine. I observe within my viewscreen at the damaged engine and its layouts. "I gotta get this super conducting cooling system back online before I can access the rotors and work on dislodging the debris." I start to pull at the stuck rotors, eventually stopping and looking at Steve. "I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position."
I fly into the giant cooling conductors, waiting for Steve. "What's it look like in there?" I ask.

"It seems to run on some form of electricity."

"Well, you're not wrong." I sigh.

I continuously blast broken debris off the turbine engine. It's bad, but still fixable. "The relays are intact. What's our next move?" Steve asks.

"Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won't re-engage without a jump. I'm gonna have to get in there and push." I sigh.

"Well if that thing gets up to speed, you'll get shredded!"

I sigh, "Then stay in the control unit and reverse polarity long enough to disengage mag..."

"Speak English!"

I roll my eyes, "See that red lever? It'll slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out. Stand by it, wait for my word." I say.

I use a laser to cut a big piece of metal, I jump on it, revealing the rotors. I fly in and take a deep breath, staring to push.

"Stark, we're losing altitude." Nick says.

"Yeah. Noticed." I grunt as I push faster, using all the power I got to make it go faster

After awhile I needed to get out, "Cap, I need the lever!" I yell.

"I need a minute here!"

"Lever. Now!" I yell again. Suddenly I let go of the rotors...not on purpose. "Uh-oh." I scream out as the rotors take me round and round, tearing my suit up. I fall out of a vent, my suit starts to power down as I fly towards the broken Helicarrier and tackle a guard.

I roll over in pain as my suit powers off.

After I get out of the suit I hear Fury's voice, "Agent Coulson is down."

"Paramedics are on their way."

"They're here....They called it." Nick says.

I stand angrily beside the table Steve was sitting at. Coulson was a friend...he didn't deserve this.

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

I angrily walk away, walking down the hall. I couldn't do this.

I roughly pull my hair down as I storm into the empty cell room....his blood was still here.

I didn't know how long I had been staring at the empty cell but....I didn't even notice Steve come in until he spoke up, "Was he married?"

"No. There was a uh...cellist, I think." I mutter.

"I'm sorry. He seemed like a good man."

"He was an idiot." I sigh.

"Why? For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone." I look up, meeting Steve's eyes.

"He was doing his job."

I shake my head, "He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have..."

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Y/N."

"Right. How did that work for him?" I ask as I walk away.

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?"

I turn around angrily, "WE ARE NOT SOLDIERS! I am not marching to Fury's fife!" I yell.

"Neither am I! He's got the same blood on his hands as Loki does. 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." I look at the blood stained wall.

"That's not the point."

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

"To tear us apart."

"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." I nod.

"Right, I caught his act at Stuttengard."

"Yeah. That's just a preview, this is opening night. Loki's a full-tilt diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered..." I pause in shock. "Sonofabitch!"