State of Grace ; The Avengers

02; a greater being

When Phil Coulson called Lara nowadays, it was for mundane things.

She had taken a desk job from SHIELD for a while after she came into contact with the alien, to sort herself and figure out why the hell she has had a splitting headache for over two weeks now. It felt like something was crushing her brain and every noise would make it worse. He would call about stats being archived, were reports documented and other things but today was not one of those days. "What?" she answered, rubbing her temple to try and soothe the ache.

"Well, hello to you too." he answered with enough sarcasm to roll her eyes at.

"Coulson, what's the problem?"

She could tell he was freaked out about something. She could hear a lot of shuffling and loud machines behind him. "The Tesseract is acting up, and we need all the help we can get." Before she could protest, he continued. "I know that isn't your thing anymore, but a car is already being sent to your location and will not leave your house until you get into it."

Lara groaned, swivelling in her seat, there really wasn't anyway she was getting out of this. She just grunted a "whatever" before hanging up. She blew out a breath, mentally preparing herself for the mission she was about to embark on. This surely wouldn't help her migraine and surely it wouldn't help her fight her want to get back in the field. She was forced into it and she hated that she had no say whatsoever.

The car came quickly after the phone call, barely giving Lara time to change into her uniform. The driver was silent, which made her very uncomfortable. When Phil said that there was a problem, she had thought the tesseract was just play acting and they had to shut it off. She had no idea what was going to happen next. She knew asking the driver was a bust, he looked like he had no idea either, only that he had to collect an agent and that was the extent of his knowledge. She played with the holster of her gun, to keep her mind off the situation she was dragged into as the car ride went on and on.

When they arrived, she exited the car, noticing a helicopter landing while she did so. It made her frown. What the hell was so wrong that Fury had to be called in? Surely the Tesseract couldn't be that dangerous?

Then again, she had no idea what this thing was capable of.

She went to Coulson's side, ready to greet the director. "How bad is it?" he asked over the whirr of the helicopter.

"That's the problem, sir." Coulson replied. "We don't know."

Lara tried to mask her uneasiness but was failing, that did not settle her nerves in the slightest. Director Fury directed his attention to her next. "Agent Griffin, glad you could make it."

She nodded, walking with himself, Coulson and Maria Hill. "The least I could do, sir."

They all entered the NASA facility, hundreds of technicians rushing around in a panic, Coulson weaved them through the commotion, debriefing them all on the situation. "Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from the Tesseract four hours ago."

Fury was puzzled. "NASA didn't authorize Selvig to test phase."

"By the sound of this, Director, I think he wasn't testing." Lara commented.

Coulson nodded. "Agent Griffin is right, he wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous advancement."

"It just turned itself on?" Maria asked in disbelief.

Fury barged in with another question. "What are the energy levels now?"

"Climbing. When Selvig couldn't shut it down, we ordered the evac."

Evac? Lara thought. Then why the hell am I being brought in?

"How long to get everyone out?"

"Campus should be clear in the next half hour."