Quintessence || An Avengers FanFiction

Chapter 12: Blood Red

As Kat stormed out of the conference room, her chest heaving from trying to contain her emotions. Her hands fidgeted and shook as she leaned against the wall in a deserted hallway once she felt she was far enough away from Coulson.

If Coulson saw her as a kid and not an agent, she didn't want to give him the ammunition of seeing her cry over this. Even if that wasn't the case at all. It hurt him to not say a word to her as much, if not more, as it hurt her to hear what she believed to be the unspoken ones. But to her, all that mattered now was proving anyone who did wrong.

She put a strong front up back in the room, trying to convince Coulson that she was ready despite what she thought he believed--or she at least tried to. But now she was questioning even herself. Did her performance in the field make Fury question his decision? Did they now think that she wasn't ready? That they had been wrong to believe in her? Were they right in believing that?

Her eyes stung as tears formed, threatening to drip down her cheeks, but she managed swallow them, sucking in a breath through trembling lips. Slowly releasing it, Kat pushed it down. Now was not the time. If she wanted to be seen as the agent she had trained almost her entire life to become, she had to start acting like it. So, she wiped the tears away, furious with herself that she would lose her composure like that. Quickly, she rubbed her hands on her pants, still in her super-suit from earlier, and squeezed them into fists, forcing them to stop shaking. Glancing in the reflection of a dark window, she brushed away any remains of her moment, pushing her stray hairs behind her ears. Rolling her shoulders back, she stepped out, walking through a more crowded passage.

Suddenly, she spots a determined Fury, headed in the opposite way as her. As he passed, she called out to him. "Sir? What's going on?"

Fury didn't respond but nodded for her to follow him. Kat didn't utter a word, unsure of where they were going or why, but she decided to let it play out since Fury did not look like he was in the mood for questions.

Soon enough, they arrived at the lab that Bruce and Tony had claimed as their own for the past few days.

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" Fury abruptly questions.

Tony's head tilted to the side, "Uh- kind of been wondering the same thing about you."

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are. The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now." Banner explained, gesturing to a screen where the sweep's progress was displayed, "When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss." Tony assured him, before turning one of the many screens to face him, "What is Phase Two?"

Kat looked between all of the adults, feeling completely clueless. She had heard Fury talk about Phase Two, but she never heard the details. She wasn't at that level of security clearance. She could only assume it was on a need-to-know basis, and if that was true, then she didn't need to know.

Too distracted by attempting to figure out what was going on, she almost didn't hear the lab doors opposite to her open and Steve enter, slamming a large gun on one of the tables, the Hydra symbol clear as day.

"Phase Two is SHIELD uses to Cube to make weapons." Steve announced staring Fury right in the eye, his anger clear on his face, before he turns to Tony. "Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me."

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're—" Fury tries to assure the man, but Kat could tell he was starting to feel the pressure. He was trying shut the situation down as quick as possible, but now the secret was out.