Rising from the Ashes

Suiting Up

Ash's POV

"Hmmm...?" I slowly peeled my eyes open to find myself on a bed in a white room similar to where Dr. Miller ran the checkup on me. Looking down at myself, I saw that I was wearing a uniform similar to the soldiers, but without the weaponry or protective padding attached.

I quickly sat up remembering all that had happened within the last hour alone when I noticed the leather straps on my wrists.

"Why?!" I growled to myself as I struggled against them, more angry than afraid at that point.

"Because you were thrashing around when they tried to move you." I looked up to see Agent Hill before she made her way over to me to unbuckle the restraints.

"Fury wants you in the conference room now." She stated before turning to leave the room.

"Why should I listen to the one who has been lying to us?" I asked silently seething making her stop and turn to face me,

"Because you might want to hear what he has to say."

Grudgingly I followed, now intrigued by what she meant by that, as I rubbed the red rims on my wrists when we arrived at the conference room where Fury, Steve, and Tony were already waiting inside.

"Nice of ya to join us kid." Steve told me lightly, but I just sat down in the seat farthest from them with a glare on my face.

"Where's Bruce?" I demanded to know before Tony cut off Steve with,

"Apparently Eye-Patch decided to have him blasted off the ship for our 'safety'."

"What?!" I was about to bolt out of my seat when Fury held up a hand and told me,

"Please wait until after before you decide to start barbequing people."

I reluctantly sat back down before Fury pulled out a stack of small pieces of paper as he directed to Steve,

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them."

Steve picked a few of the papers up to reveal that they were pictures of him in his uniform, but crimson stains now blotted the surface.

"We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you." He looked at me as he said that but I looked down at the last healing wounds on my hands, "Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming."

Fury took a deep breath before going on to explain to us as Tony, Steve, and I listened intently.

"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."

Tony got up rapidly after Fury finished and walked off, clearly not wanting to hear anymore.

"Well, it's an old fashioned notion." Fury told us as Tony walked off with Steve following him shortly after, leaving just me, Fury, and Hill.

"Is that why you brought me here? To try and turn me into a hero?" I questioned half unconvinced by his speech.

"I brought you here to see if you had the potential to learn to be a hero."

I stood up and walked away in the direction Tony and Steve went before stopping and saying to them without facing them,

" I couldn't even if I wanted to..."