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

Chapter 12: An Old Friend (Reprise)

This chapter is dedicated to KesseiKeo. I sincerely apologize for making you wait so long (because I said I'd update soon but that kinda fell through) but this chapter went through like five revisions. And I'm in the middle of sorting out a plot hole in another story, so that's taking up time as well. 

Also, I'm a bit of a perfectionist about this story, as it's been my brainchild for about five years now, so when I realized that I needed to add this chapter to explain some things... well... it took a while to plan from scratch and then revise over and over again.

Thank you all for your patience. Hopefully I'll finish this soon and the next book, FIGHT, will be up by the end of the summer.

-EmeraldIsleEyes

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When Ava showed up at the foot of Stark Tower, she was surprised to see how little things had changed, despite the fact that only days earlier the building was the center of an alien invasion. The outside of the tower—or at least what she could see through the steadily growing towers of scaffolding surrounding it—was scorched and ashen, but it didn't seem as though much structural damage had occurred.

The most striking damage, in fact, was that the word "STARK", which was emblazoned on the side of the tower in blue lettering, had been blown up and reduced to only the letter "A."

Apparently the rest of the world found this as amusing as she did, because as she rounded the corner a block away, she could see the huge crowd of Avengers fans wearing shirts emblazoned with "I AM IRON MAN" or swinging plastic Captain America shields swarming at the foot of the tower.

As she tried to take in the volume of people and calculate any feasible way of getting to the tower without being trampled, she bumped into a couple taking a selfie with the tower in the back.

She apologized rapidly and tried to push past them, but one of them grabbed her sleeve and held her fast.

"Oh my gosh—" The woman, who seemed as though she couldn't be more than sixteen, squealed. "You're her, aren't you?"

"I'm sorry?" Ava's lips twitched into a nervous smile.

"You're that lady—the one who fought with Captain America!" The woman stared up at Ava with wide, admiring eyes. "Right?"

"You must be mistaking me for someone else," Ava said firmly, tugging her arm away from the woman. "Have a good day." She whirled around and pulled her collar up to cover her face, despite the fact that it was nearly seventy degrees out. 

Have to make sure I don't get recognized. This sort of exposure is the last thing I need—if Coulson were here he'd have been at the hospital scolding me before I even woke up.

That thought—"if Coulson were here"—still stung. Ava pulled her collar up further and tried to keep walking toward the tower, even though it was ridiculously difficult with the ever-thickening crowds of people wearing Hulk fists and bearing replicas of Mjolnir crowding the streets.

Apparently, Stark Tower had become the new gathering point for Avengers fans.

Great.

Slowly, Ava managed to pick her way through the growing crowd toward the main entrance. The security guards stationed around the building, both at the lobby doors and the work entrance, looked as though they were from the military stock (and not exactly happy about being forced to stand guard for Tony Stark) so they were very effective at keeping most of the fans and their screaming at a safe distance.