SHIELD (A Captain America Story, Book 1 of the SHIELD Series) COMPLETE

Chapter 6: The Avengers Initiative

A few months later...

BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP.

​Ava groaned and rolled over in her bed, wanting desperately to ignore the call waiting on her phone but knowing it was probably SHIELD. Who else would call and wake her up at two-thirty in the morning?  She sat up and grabbed the phone off her bedside table. 

"Hello?"

"Ava, we're in a state of emergency," Coulson told her, sounding stressed. "I don't have time to brief you right now, so you'll have to read up on the files I'm sending you."

That doesn't sound good.

Coulson was one of SHIELD's best, always keeping a level head. If he sounded anxious, there was probably a world-destroying catastrophe about to happen.

Then again, wasn't there always?

"What do you need me for?" Ava reached over to grab the tablet sitting by her bed and opened it. Immediately, dozens of files appeared on the screen. Flashes of brief videos of the Hulk destroying buildings, WWII reels of Steve and the Howling Commandoes, and a mysterious blue cube-shaped object appeared and disappeared on the tablet.

​A blinking file on something called a Tesseract opened of its own accord, and Ava quickly scanned the writing. The research they were doing—tracing a portal into space using an ancient Asgardian relic—was incredibly dangerous, and equally secret, as the flashing 'Level Seven Clearance Only' on the top of the file indicated. 

"The Tesseract's been stolen," Coulson told her shortly.

Ava froze. "How?"

"It was an Asgardian."

"Thor? I thought he was one of the good guys!" Ava protested.

"Not Thor. Someone else—Loki."

"So a bad guy?"

"We're guessing. From what we've gathered, he's extremely egotistical and thinks he has a right to rule earth using the Cube's power." Coulson was breathing like he'd been running. She noticed the background noise dipped and got louder again, sounding as if he was walking somewhere.

"So what do you need me for?" Ava asked.

"Fury is creating a team to help retrieve the Tesseract," he explained, "We're getting the best in their fields: Dr. Banner, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers..."

"You're activating The Avengers Initiative," Ava realized.

"Exactly," Coulson replied. "We're sending out agents to recruit them separately, and that is where you come in. We figured Cap might be more willing to listen to you than someone he barely knows. Explain the situation and convince him to help out, and we'll get him a transport to the Helicarrier."

"And what about after that?" Ava pressed. "Am I supposed to just forget there's an ultra-powerful alien who's stolen an extremely dangerous artifact and go back to sleep? No. Fury has to be joking if he's refusing to let me in on this. He needs all the help he can get—and, let's face it, with the Hulk on board the Helicarrier, I'm not going to be the worst of his problems."

Coulson sighed. "Can we worry about that later?"

"Who said anything about we?" Ava countered. "I'll go with Steve to the carrier and talk to Fury myself."

"Do you really think that's a good idea?"

"It can't make him hate me any more than he already does. What have I got to lose?"

Coulson paused. Ava listened to the background noise, certain he was going to say something to try and talk her out of it. Instead he sighed. "I'm sending you an address where you can find Cap. Head over there and report back when you've got him."