LEGACY: a bucky barnes story

Prelude

"I trust I don't need to impress upon you the seriousness of what you have done."

I lowered my head, eyes counting the insignificant scratches on the floor. My stomach trembled; I couldn't look them in the eyes.

Had I followed orders.

Had I relied on my goddamn training.

I let this happen.

——

I spent years in preparation—enduring grueling physical, mental, and emotional exertion—long before I had been enrolled. I had to prove my worth before even breathing inside the academy.

The highest demands are placed on trainees via combat training, marksmanship, intelligence and technological analytics, in addition to investigative and tactical techniques. Not to mention the mental taxation of survivability and mastering your own stress-response physiology. Nevertheless, it was a relatively easy decision.

This academy produces a valiant number of global heroes—Nicholas J. Fury, Phillip J. Coulson, Maria Hill, to name a few. Phil Coulson was an inspiration to many would-be agents, of which I am no exception. Having served as the Avengers Initiative's primary operative—following the Skrull Invasion of 1995—he was instrumental in the cultivation of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division; or, S.H.I.E.L.D.

Most would know Phil Coulson as Agent Coulson. I knew him as Dad.

It's fair to say Dad influenced my career choice a bit. Mom left this world when we were eight, five, and two months old, respectively. He raised me, my brother, and sister on his own—nursing both my sister and the bud that would bloom into the S.H.I.E.L.D. of today. But he didn't miss a beat—or a baseball game, recital, teacher conference, or otherwise. Heroic doesn't even come close to describing Dad.

I was twenty when I got the phone call.

In the process of moving into the first place of my own, I got a call that changed my world forever. I've memorized the deafening shatter as the box of my dinnerware and coffee mugs hit the pavement, the certainty that my Snoopy mug was irreparable—the words I'll never be able to unhear.

Loki...your dad...too late...a hero...you still there?

Eight years later and my world hasn't healed. The empty gaze in the eyes of my brother and sister threatens to never cease. Maybe it never will. How does one recuperate from losing their parent? How do you assume the parental role yourself?

I don't know. Hell, I still don't know.

I recall wracking my brain—How do I cancel a lease that hasn't even started? Matt's only seventeen. He can't take care of Emily by himself.

Agents across S.H.I.E.L.D. did as Dad would: stepped up and became the guardians we needed. As incredibly demanding as saving the world is, S.H.I.E.L.D agents made time for us. They attended graduations, cheered loudly from the bleachers at baseball and soccer games, and—though Fury would never admit it—shed a tear or two at Emily's dance competitions.

They even paid for us to remain in Dad's house—complements of Tony Stark.

We were decidedly "adopted" by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. "It takes a village" seemed cliché before I appreciated the gravity of it. They weren't kidding; we couldn't have survived without S.H.I.E.L.D.

The urge to become a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was simple yet sound. Though I was met with anxious eyes, cautious words, and blank stares, I started preparations only a few years after his death.

My name is Jennifer Judith Coulson and I devoted years of my life to becoming an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, trying to do father's legacy justice.

Only to have one mop-headed muscleman wreak havoc and leave my life in shambles—