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

Chapter 1: Greenland

That was how SHIELD agent Aviary Light had been roped into her latest mission: combing the barren ice fields for the plane that had become the icy grave of Captain America. The group included four other agents, including two geologists who specialized in the movement and shifting of ice sheets and glaciers. The geologists spent days poring over maps and statistics, arguing about crevasse formation, glacial shifts, compaction, and other things Ava didn't really understand, while she and the other two agents followed their directions, marking off points in the ice and searching for the supposedly reemerged HYDRA plane that Cap sacrificed himself to crash and avoid the bombs carried in it from hitting the eastern seaboard.

Every day was the same: wake up, go out and traverse a never-ending blizzard for thirteen hours, return to base, sleep, repeat. The only time that the agents did anything that wasn't ridiculously boring was early in the mornings, when the resident scientists were warming up their brains with coffee and had not yet mapped out the day's journey, so the three agents on the base could talk or play their fortieth game of Scrabble.

With every day that passed, Ava grew more certain they would never find anything, especially now she had learned how unpredictable glaciers could be. The geologists would argue for hours about single, critical statistics and measurements, but Ava had seen it for herself – ice sheets breaking off to create steep cliffs that hadn't existed only hours before. She liked to imagine how she might have bailed out days ago –except, she knew how much this assignment meant to Coulson.

Ava reflected on this as she pulled herself out of her bed, regretting that decision once again as her feet touched the freezing metal floors, the icy cold bleeding through her thick socks. Trying to seem as awake as possible, she walked out into the small area where the coats and equipment were stored (nicknamed the Launch Pad by the resident scientists) and said a silent 'thank you' as she remembered that it was her final day in this frozen wasteland. Coulson would be sending a plane to pick her up later that night, thank god, and she could get out of this godforsaken place and get back to her actual job.

"You look happy." Agent Tiffany Ire noticed. Ire was the only agent on the team who had no problem dealing with the thick layers and freezing cold, as she was from the Alaska SHIELD outpost, home to SHIELD's biggest formal training facility. She was also the highest-ranking agent on the team: a Level Seven operative, the only one in the Alaska base.

"It's my last day." Ava explained hurriedly as she pulled on her heavy winter gear. Apparently she had slept in, because the rest of the team was already there, pulling on their gear for the day's trek into eternal winter. "I'm heading back to New York tonight. Hopefully."

"Sick of the cold?" Oliver Redd, a SciTech agent who liked cracking jokes, grinned. He was also from Alaska, having been Agent Ire's partner for years before the Greenland assignment. "Personally, I don't blame you. I'm just a−what did you call me, Tiff? A 'freak of nature?'"

"Just because you live in Alaska doesn't make you immune to cold," Agent Ire rolled her eyes. "Yes, it's strange that you actually like this weather."

"Sure, but−"

"We're heading out early," Ava quickly changed the subject. "What did Howard and Li say?" Grace Howard and Han Li were the two geologists working at the base. They hardly ever came out of their lab, keeping their eyes glued to their monitors, looking for new signals of movement.

"We're actually not searching the ice until later today." Tiffany explained. "Right now, we're investigating a report sent in by some oil miners a few miles north. It's probably nothing, but Li got excited when we intercepted the call because..." Tiffany closed her eyes, trying to remember. "What was it? Something about shifting ice," she dismissed the thought, "Anyway, there was some kind of geological event there a few weeks ago and they think we might have found something solid."