The Tale of Two Coulsons

4.

Chapter Four:

It had been a year since the New Mexico Incident, and to say it had been eventful would be an understatement.

Tony had sorted his palladium problem and stopped Justin Hammer and Vanko from wreaking too much havoc at the Stark Expo, along with the efforts of War Machine, Pepper Potts, his girlfriend and Natasha Romanoff, an ex-Black Widow Red Room operative. She had been recruited a year before I was born, and had become one of the most famous and impressive agents in SHIELD history. She was something of a sister figure to me, and later became my S.O during my training at Operations. Currently, she was undercover in Russia.

Bruce Banner, a scientist known across the world for his leading research on Gamma Radiation, had been involved in an accident while carrying out an experiment, and now possessed the ability to turn into the Hulk, a big, green rage monster. Following the destruction of Harlem while fighting the creature dubbed the Abomination, he seemed to have dropped off the face of the Earth, retreating to remote communities, far from modern civilisation. Although SHIELD had been keeping tracker on his whereabouts, we had left him alone.

And most recently, a few months ago, 'The Valkyrie' had been discovered in the Arctic, and Captain America was found. Even more astonishingly, he was still alive, somehow preserved in a block of ice. And given the fact that my father practically idolised the soldier, you could guess how he reacted. The poor soldier had not taken the news well, and had been using the last few weeks to catch up on recent history and how to live in the 21st Century.

As for me, I had climbed the ranks and was now a fully-fledged Level Six Agent. I had begun to garner quite the reputation after my successful run of missions. My father had stayed true to his word, and sent me regular updates on his missions; and I kept my promise by not acting so impulsively, and found that missions were a lot easier with a cool head. It also kept my father's stress levels down, which was an added bonus, or so I was told.

I hadn't heard word from Thor since New Mexico, but kept in contact with Darcy, who reached out to me a few weeks after the incident. We were pretty close friends now, and would occasionally meet up for coffee if I was in the area.

Recently, I hadn't had much time to myself as SHIELD had begun to trial using the Tesseract as a means of unlimited power. My father and I had been placed in charge of Project Pegasus, overseeing the facility, while Agent Barton was assigned to watch over the scientists conducting experiments on the Tesseract, a potential source of unlimited power, which had sat dormant.

Until four hours ago, when it began to produce energy levels that were fluctuating by the second.

Evacuation protocols had been put into place, and across the base, agents hurriedly packed equipment and people into vans, driving them to safety.

Dad and I stood on the helipad, having alerted the Director to the situation, and watched as the helicopter touched down. The door slid open and Director Fury and Agent Hill - his second-in-command, emerged from the helicopter.

"How bad is it?" Fury asked.

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

We made our way to the lift, which descended into the lower levels of the base - where the Tesseract was being held.

"Doctor Selvig read an energy surge from the Tesseract four hours ago." I reported.

"NASA didn't authorise Selvig to go to test phase."

"He wasn't testing it. He wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous event."

"It just turned itself on?"

"Where are the energy levels now?"