Daybreak | Steve Rogers

Chapter One: SHIELD

I joined SHIELD when I was eighteen, barely out of high school. They took me in, taught me how to survive, how to fight. Not only did they train me, but they assigned Agent Natasha Romanoff to be my Supervising Officer. She was the best of the best, a former Russian spy with years of experience under her belt. 

I was still a child when I joined, knowing nothing of the world except for its coldness and cruelty. I had been alone for too long, losing everyone I had ever cared for. For six years, I planned my revenge alone, until SHIELD took me in. 

When you lose those close to you and are left alone for long enough, you become distant from the world around you. I had spent years building up my walls, reinforcing them with concrete and solid steel until they were impenetrable. Nothing could break them down, I knew that better than anyone, but people kept trying. I had a few lapses of judgement, of course, making connections with people even though I knew how it would end. My skin was poison, anyone who touched me would surely die and I would have to watch it unfold, completely powerless.

——————

The wind howled outside the quinjet, angrily crashing against the metal as it fought to get inside. I scoffed quietly, reading through the files on my tablet. "Sir, permission to speak freely?" I asked the man, whose image was gently flickering on the screen in front of me.

He sighed and nodded, absentmindedly scratching at the skin around his eyepatch, "Permission granted"

"With all due respect, I think this is insane. A group of individuals, some of whom we know are narcissistic or unstable, forced together to fight opposing forces? It'll never work, they'll go out of line, it'll descend into chaos"

"That's why I need you, Mitchells. You and Agents Romanoff and Barton will be there to keep them in check" he shrugged.

"So you need me to... what, exactly? Babysit?"

He let out a loud huff and shook his head, "I need you to help protect this world. The Tesseract has been acquired by Loki and we have to form a line of defence, should he choose to attack. This decision is ultimately yours to make, but I think you'll regret it if you don't"

There was a pause and I held my breath, trying to ignore the tilting of the aircraft as it began to descend. "I'll do it, but I won't be using some cheesy superhero name" I spoke hesitantly, anxiously drumming my fingers against the armrest.

"Why not use your usual codename like Agent Romanoff?" the man suggested.

"Dawn? A little odd, isn't it?"

"Look, are you in or not?"

Letting out a small chuckle, I nodded, "I'm in. The quinjet's about to land, so I should probably sign off. Thank you for this opportunity, Director"

He watched me closely before speaking, "Good luck, Agent"

A/n:
And that was the first chapter of my new book. I've only written with tv shows before and wrote each episode as a chapter, so I'm not entirely sure how long these chapters should be. Let me know what your first impressions are, I'd love to hear your feedback throughout this book!