Natasha had never liked Stark from the very beginning. She actually hated everything he represented, the sheltered and yet dissolute life of the rich and famous. Those people knew nothing of real life. They had never been through real hardships. She wasn't even comparing them against what had happened to her in the red room. Her own childhood had been special in all the wrong ways. She understood that it wasn't normal in any stretch of the imagination. More than that, Stark didn't know how hard it was for the common people. He would never be able to understand that much.
Stark's debauchery had been on the front page of any newspaper or magazine all around the world for years. It wasn't pretty. The man had been bored with too much free time on his hands and way too much money. Howard should have forced his son to do some hard work, maybe that would have taught him a lesson or two on life. Unfortunately, Stark's parents had died too early for that and at sixteen, Tony had just gone wilder than ever. Stane had not managed to rain him in. He had not tried to.
Fury had thought the kidnapping and what had happened during those three months in Afghanistan had changed the man for the best. Natasha knew that it wasn't the case. She could just feel it in her bones. Fury was her boss so when he sent her to SI to make a psychological assessment, she went. Getting a position within the company had been easy. Climbing up the ladder had not been that hard either. Men were easy to manipulate.
But Agatha Harkness had been in her way at each step. Natasha had tried to be friends with her, even flirting a little. It didn't work. Perhaps Agatha could be like a mentor to her, playing on her ego. People like to be seen as the teacher, the most knowledgeable person in the room. For a minute, it seemed that it was the way to go. That didn't last long. If the easy way would not be working, Natasha had no qualms in going the hard way.
Shield had an impressive collection of poisons and illness inducing vials. No tastes, no odours. A lot of different ways to get people out of the way. A little drop in their cup of coffee or a little sting of a needle and they would get a nasty bug, not life threatening but that would last long enough for the agent to do what they had to do. Natasha didn't like using those. She felt like she was better than that at her job. The black widow didn't use those kinds of subterfuge. She could manipulate people quite easily. Sometimes, rarely though, it had to be used just to make things go down faster.
Even though Natasha tried a lot of different ways, something always came to save Agatha Harkness at the last minute. Her coffee cup would fall down suddenly. When about to be struck by a needle, Agatha would move swiftly away. Natasha had always been a distrustful person. She never believed anyone, not even Clint. The training of the Red Room was too ingrained into her soul for that. Agatha was suspicious anyway. Natasha had to investigate her.
"What do you mean nothing?" Asked the red hair surprised.
"Shield does not keep files on normal people. We have nothing on her more than the basics."
"And she's squeaky clean I bet."
Shield had nothing on Agatha. Strictly nothing. Of course, the agency only kept on special people, agents, spies or metahuman. Harkness might have been good enough to stay under their radar. A person like that had the potential to be really useful to Shield, perhaps more than Stark would ever be. Shield was already receiving money from SI. The company never found out about it. Peggy Carter had arranged some very clever fundings.
Of course, Stark could give a lot more money and he should do so. Shield should maybe play that game a little differently. No amount of money was worth having the so-called genius permanently around. He would be a liability pretty quickly if you would ask her. He didn't want to join anyway. They were spies after all and the man was not discreet at all in anything he did. It was just not in his nature.
The report was really just an excuse. They already knew what they wanted her to write. Fury knew full on well that she didn't like Stark, that she was compromised, but he had sent her anyway. The message was clear. Shield would play with Stark's insecurities and need to belong so they would get whatever they wanted. Not only that but Tony would be too glad to help, eager to please them at every turn. Apparently the man had pushed everybody close to him away, knowing he was dying. He would make an easy target.
But he didn't. Not really. The only person he seemed to be parting with was Pepper Potts. And that wasn't helping Shield at all. Potts would not be close to Stark any more on a daily basis. The agency had an agreement with the PA. She should have been helpful for a while longer at least. Colonel Rhodes was as close to the genius as ever, getting his own suit of armour and with him came the support of the military. An agency would be getting all the genius wonders that Stark was able to provide just not the right one.
Fury was a stubborn bastard who thought he knew better than anybody else. An ego even bigger than Stark and that was a lot to say. Natasha didn't even try to male him change his mind. She would just waste her time. This time though, Fury had everything wrong. Stark wasn't dying from Palladium poisoning, he wasn't alone. Worse than that, the genius was fighting back. That little miscalculation would cost them a lot.
"The Valkyrie had been located, Sir."
Shield scientists had found the aeroplane or what was left of it. The weapons the Red Skull had planned on using on New York might have been still there, waiting for them for the taking.
"Bombs are still there and stabble so far."
They had quickly sent a team to recover everything possible before anybody else was aware of the situation. The USA would want their share. The Valkyrie was part of their history. The team had found a lot more than what they had bargained for.
Captain America was still alive. The famous hero from World War Two. The cold of the frozen shores of Greenland had worked like a cryo chamber and the super soldier serum had done the rest. Next to the superhero they found the famous Vibranium shield.
If they were to play their cards right, the loss of Stark would just be a bad memory. With Steve Rogers, they would have the whole country behind Shield for he could do no wrong. Peggy Carter had worked hard on the propaganda, so hard she ended believing in her own lies. She had taken Stark Senior down that road with her. They had to know the real man behind the image. Nobody was that good.
The room for his recovery had been decorated just like in the forties. Shield had thought about everything from the view of the window to the old broadcast on the radio. Agents were undercover everywhere around the facility. Steve would need time to even understand what had happened to him. Fury was good at shifting the narrative their way. After all, they were all good guys fighting for the little man from Brookln or anywhere else. Again everything didn't go as planned. They had forgotten that the forties were yesterday for Rogers, not something to recreate from history books.
"At ease, Soldier." Ordered Fury to Rogers who had escaped his makeshift room to the busy heart of New York.
"Who are you?"
"Colonel Nick Fury. Director of Shield. You would have known us as the Strategic Scientific Reserve. You've been asleep, Cap. For almost seventy years."
"Did we win? The war?"
"Hell, yes. Unconditional surrender. Taking down Hydra was a big part of that. But the world hasn't changed all that much. There's still a lot of work to be done. There's still a lot of work to be done. A soldier's work. The world can still use a man like you, Cap. There's a place here for you."
Fury made it personal after that. If you want a job well done, might as well do it yourself. Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov were introduced to Steve with a sad backstory. Hawkeye had saved the Black Window from the conditioning of the Red Room and from herself. The best lies were always based on the truth. Fury took a lot of pleasure in showing the bad and the worst of Tony Stark. A little revenge of sorts but also a bet on the future. Stark and Rogers would need to stay on the other side of the spectrum.
Since Thor had landed in New Mexico, the agency was on edge. The game had become a lot bigger all of the sudden. It was nothing new to the director. He knew about other worldly beings. Now was the time to do something about it. Fury was in a position of power now. The research on the tesseract had started. It wasn't going as fast as he would have wanted. Nobody knew when another so-called god would drop on them.
Shield didn't have to wait too long and they weren't ready.
Carol had never explained what the cube was and maybe she didn't really know herself. They had thought it to be a power source of some kind, made of alien technology. It was so much more than that. Now that he knew its true power, Fury wanted that blue cube back. The possibilities would be endless. With it, they would be in a position of power here one Earth but also out there in space.
His Avengers would defeat the bad guy. Perhaps Stark would see past his ego and actually join the fight. That's what heroes were for. Natasha had secured Dr Banner, this time managing her mission properly. With a team like that, nothing was impossible.
Thor reappeared, announcing that their enemy was his brother, Loki. For a minute, Fury thought the blond god would fight Shield. Natasha was quick to remind him that the little bro had already killed eighty people. Thor quickly distanced himself and announced that Loki was adopted. On some level, they all found that disturbing but as long as it was going Shield's way, they wouldn't dig too much into that. The drama from an alien family was not of their concerns after all. Unless one was trying to take over the world. They would stop him obviously but they weren't there to play Dr Phil.
Captain America wasn't as strong as expected. He could do that all day apparently and by that, he meant being beaten to a pulp by a more than bored green dressed god who seemed to be waiting for someone else to appear. Probably his brother. Fury was about to send the rest of his team when Stark made a flamboyant entry. That man was so obnoxious. What he was doing was working at least, Fury had to give him that.
Iron Man would be winning against Loki and take the defeated god to Shield's helicarrier. They had cells strong enough to keep the Hulk in so they would hold the god just fine. Romanov would then use all her techniques to learn what was Loki's plan, they would stop him and that would be a mission well done. Fury was almost smiling at the idea. His initial plan had gone bad the hard way but the end result would be the same.
As planned, Iron Man won against the god.
But then they disappeared in a purple mist.