Disclaimer: Sadly, I own nothing associated with Marvel, Captain America, the Avengers, etc. Only original characters and ideas are mine.

AN: Okay, here's my version of Avengers: Age of Ultron, with Adena tossed in (of course). Enjoy, and please don't forget to review! Thanks!

Chapter 1: Re-Assembling the Team:

After Anna and Bucky went off to live in a top-secret location, life became much calmer for me and Steve.

For a while, the two of us lived a fairly normal life. We had a nice apartment in a suburb outside of Washington D.C., close to a Stark Industries building where Steve continued to work in security for Tony. Steve's job, however, had changed: he and Sam were now providing physical training to company guards. Both of them liked the challenge of teaching others to defend themselves, and being physically active all day was something Steve enjoyed.

As for me, I was officially hired on as an assistant to Pepper Potts, based in the Washington D.C. location. On the occasion Pepper headed out to visit, I was latched to her side, helping her with anything she needed, and running errands. But when she wasn't here, I had the luxury of sitting in a nice, quiet office, occasionally filing paperwork and sending out documents to whomever Pepper needed me to.

As boring as this life might seem, Steve and I enjoyed it immensely. We traveled to and from work together, and talked about our days during the ride home, or over dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. Best of all, Steve and I kept normal work days and hours, spending our free time with one another, or with Sam.

Then, out of the blue, everything changed.

During a relatively peaceful weekend, Tony called me on JT, asking that Steve and I travel to Stark Tower in New York. Apparently, he had something huge that he wanted to talk to us about, and it was super-important that he had our opinion on it.

Since it had been a long time since we'd hung out together, Steve and I agreed to his request without question. From Washington, Steve and I jumped on a corporate plane to New York, then a company limo to Stark Tower. We then took the elevator up to Tony and Pepper's private floors, where I was surprised to find a group of men in suits leaving as we arrived. After a round of friendly greetings with him and Pepper, Tony sat us down on a set of couches, but refused to talk business with us until after we were served a sumptuous meal that had been waiting for us.

Once we'd eaten a huge lunch from one of the best French restaurants in the city, Tony decided to spill out his idea to us.

"I want to put the Avengers back together," he flat out told us, as he casually leaned back in a chair. "I'm going to make them a sort of police or guard force for the world, one that will go out and stop the bad guys, like HYDRA, from doing some nasty stuff to innocent people."

Needless to say, Steve and I were speechless. Since when had Tony Stark become the guy who wanted to protect the world?

Okay, to be fair, Tony had done a wonderful thing when he saved the planet from the space invasion using a nuclear weapon. But in the time since then, that sort of thing really hadn't been on his mind. I know he'd had some sort of incident years ago with The Mandarin, but other than that, he'd been busy tinkering on a new ARC reactor as part of his 'green energy' initiative. But where had he suddenly gotten the urge to be Iron Man full-time?

"Why the change?" I asked him, both suspicious and curious about his idea.

Tony shrugged. "SHIELD is gone," he simply said, as though that explained everything.

Well, it kind of did. SHIELD had been operating quietly, protecting the world in secret, for a long time. Now that it had been 'disbanded' (at least as far as the public knew), the world needed someone (or something) standing between it and all the nasty bad guys out there.

I wanted to remind him that many countries around the world had secret government agencies that handled that sort of thing, but stopped myself as I really thought about it. It was hard enough to get two different agencies from one country to work together –getting two countries, even friendly ones, to work together to fight bad guys took a lot of political talk and years of organization. Even then, there was no guarantee that the mission itself would even happen.

The Avengers, as Tony was thinking of them, would travel the globe, putting down violent rebellions and preventing needless wars that threatened the lives of innocents. They would also work to counter the actions of terrorists and their organizations, taking them down before they grew too large for anyone to handle.

"We'll also go after HYDRA, of course," Tony said, sipping his scotch. "Since they had their fingers in a lot of SHIELD's scientifically developed pies, HYDRA probably has a lot of stuff that they shouldn't."

He obviously meant weapons and other items that should not be in the hands of crazy, evil people.

"So you want to get the band back together," I said, half teasing. "How are you going to do it?"

Tony grinned at me. "Actually, you're going to do it."

I had wanted to punch him in the face for telling me that, but after a strong drink or two, I was willing to hear the man out.

"Okay, the main reason I want you to call them: because everyone in the group likes you," Tony said, as he tried buttering me up. "You're friends with them because you've spent time with them. Plus, you've earned their respect, and because of that, they'll be willing to listen to what you have to say."

He paused a second in thought. "The only exception might be Thor, since we've only seen him on missions to rescue you from Loki, but I think you can win him over pretty fast."

I shivered at the thought of Loki, and was glad when Steve put an arm around me. My encounters with Thor's evil brother may have been a couple years ago, but that didn't mean I liked thinking about it. Stuff like that tends to linger, no matter how much time passes.

Nevertheless, I knew Tony was right about my being friends (or at least acquaintances) with almost everyone in the Avengers group.

Natasha was someone I considered a best friend (along with Pepper), and as a favor to me, she'd always done her best to look after Steve during their missions for SHIELD. Before the downfall of SHIELD and Steve's search for Bucky, Natasha and I would hang out together once or twice a week. It was fun, and she often told me that she liked spending time together. Natasha also confessed that, as a spy and assassin, she'd never really allowed herself to form connections with anyone. Only now was she allowing herself the luxury of being around someone she considered a trusted female friend.

I wasn't so sure about calling the others 'friends,' though. I didn't know Clint Barton too well, but he was a nice guy, and had even given me his number, in case I needed anything. Bruce was like a teddy bear (when he wasn't angry, huge and green), and counted me as a friend he could turn to if he needed to talk with someone. Thor had been nice to me after the Battle of New York, as well as the other times he'd had to save me from Loki, but I wasn't ready to call us 'buddies' yet.

After a long talk with Steve and Pepper, I agreed that it might be best for me to contact everybody via JT, and convince them to travel to Stark Tower.

For the most part, it wasn't hard. I had almost everyone's contact info already, and within 24-hours, I had them agreeing to meet. Thor was the only one I'd had no idea how to contact, so I asked Natasha to pull a few strings and see if she could figure out a way to get him on the phone to talk with me.

It took a little while, but Natasha was very efficient. She soon sent me the number of a woman, Dr. Jane Foster, and a minute after that, I had Dr. Foster on the phone with me. Once she found out I was Captain America's wife, Dr. Foster was more than willing to let me talk with Thor.

I can honestly say that it was one of the strangest conversations I'd ever had. Apparently they don't have cell phones on Asgard, so it took a bit of coaching from Jane (as she asked me to call her) to get Thor to figure out how to use the phone right.

After about half an hour, I had Thor reluctantly agreeing to meet with us in New York. He didn't want to leave Jane, but since I told him it was rather important, he was willing to come to Stark Tower for just a few days. By then, I had figured out that he was smitten with Jane, and promised to get him back to her as soon as possible.

He appreciated that, but it was a little nerve-wracking, since I knew he was going to hold me to that promise –probably with the business end of his lightning-hammer aimed at my head.

When Earth's Mightiest Heroes get together, it's a huge thing –almost literally. And for this, Tony had spared no expense.

But first, a few major details about how things currently were with the Tower, which Tony spent a full day giving me and Steve a tour of while we waited for the other Avengers to show up.

After the Battle of New York, Tony had drastically reconstructed Stark Tower, changing the layout of the building entirely. Instead of just rooms for him and Pepper at the top of the building, with the usual sorts of offices and departments below, anything having to do with Stark Industries had been taken out and moved to another Stark building several blocks away.

Now, most of the Tower was absolutely dedicated to everything having to do with the Avengers. At least seven levels of the building were now living suites, with each suite taking up an entire floor. The layouts of the suites were nearly identical: each had their own living room, kitchen, two bathrooms, a huge master bedroom, plenty of closet space, and laundry rooms. They also had the best electronics and finest furniture materials on the market.

Far above the bedrooms was a hangar for several good-sized aircrafts. As a result, the levels above and below it had been made with soundproof materials, so that people wouldn't be bothered by the comings and goings from the hangar.

In addition to living space and the hangar, there was a large gym; three levels that were laboratories exclusively for Bruce and Tony to play in and develop Avengers gear; and a huge open area that could be used as either a living room (that happened to be the size of a house), or a fantastic party area, with a great view of New York City right out the immense floor-to-ceiling windows.

And those were only the parts that were completed. Tony had a bunch of other ideas for the Tower, and once the others had decided to go along with his endeavors, he was going to start construction on those ideas immediately.

Right now, his main plan was for the lower two-thirds of the Tower to consist of a bustling hub of operatives, working with the Avengers to protect the world. These people would function under the watchful eye of Maria Hill. I had suggested to Tony that, given her past experience with SHIELD, Maria could best act as our head of operations and chief liaison with world governments.

As we waited for the other Avengers to arrive, I called up Maria and explained Tony's ideas over the phone, as well as my own thought of her being the center of our own version of SHIELD. She was intrigued, of course, and after thinking about it for a few minutes, she agreed to take on the task.

Maria then explained to me that she had many connections to former SHIELD agents, most of whom had lost their jobs and been blacklisted, making them impossible to be considered as potential employees for other government agents. Maria knew that we needed people, and she knew some of the best in the business.

Tony and Steve weren't sure about having actual SHIELD agents (even former ones) in the Tower, but I felt that, if they were vetted by Maria, that was good enough for me.

"Besides," I told them, "they already know how to do all this stuff. It would save a huge amount of time doing background checks, training, and swearing everyone to secrecy over and over again."

They agreed, and we began discussing the different things these people would do. Tony decided that, under Maria, these specialists in intelligence, weapons and technology would gather information on potential missions, as well as work on research-and-development, mostly for weaponry and other tools the Avengers could use when out in the field.

I guess, when you really thought about it, we were, ironically, forming our own SHIELD-type team, using former SHIELD agents. It might have been funny, if the need for them wasn't so serious.

While Tony, Steve and I talked, I realized that Tony had probably wanted to put The Avengers together for a long time, but hadn't had the right moment to do so. Now that SHIELD was gone, he had his chance.

For the arrival of his fellow Avengers, Tony wanted to go all-out to get the best of everything, from food to bedsheets, so that everyone could be comfortable during their stay at his place. The problem was: he needed my help to do it (again).

Fortunately, after being an assistant to Pepper, as well as having JT and Jarvis along to help, I was able to obtain everything Tony wanted, and in a short amount of time. It also helped that I had Tony's credit card in my hand, to pay for all of it.

Within five days, the other Avengers had gathered at Stark Tower, courtesy of Tony's private jets. Everyone looked a bit puzzled, though for some reason, Barton looked grumpy at having been pulled away from something he felt was important.

"So, what's the deal?" Barton asked, leaning back in a chair with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

Standing up, Tony took a deep breath, but was stopped by Natasha. "No, Adena called us here. I want to hear from her what this is about."

Tony looked upset at being robbed of the spotlight, but he motioned for me to go ahead. Steve gave me an encouraging look as I rose to my feet and took a shaky breath.

"Okay, here goes," I said, clasping my hands together before me. "Tony wants to put the Avengers together as a kind of world task force, somewhat taking the place of SHIELD. For the most part, you'll be dealing with terrorists, extremely dangerous weapons dealers, and other potentially deadly individuals that the usual government agents can't handle."

I took another deep breath. "You'll also be dealing with HYDRA. Since SHIELD fell and everyone found out that not only does HYDRA exist, but it's been working inside of SHIELD all along, Tony figured out that HYDRA probably has a lot of stuff that it shouldn't."

"Namely stuff that SHIELD came up with to fight bad guys," Tony chimed in, getting up from his seat and motioning for me to sit down. "I had a chat just this morning with Maria Hill, who now works as our public liaison, and she believes that HYDRA has a bunch of alien weapons leftover from their attack on New York –mostly stuff that SHIELD gathered after the battle."

He paused. "She also thinks that they might have Loki's scepter."

That certainly shocked everyone, including me. I hadn't really thought about the scepter since Thor had hauled Loki away to Asgard after the Invasion, and part of me thought it was there, locked away someplace safe, not still on Earth.

"So, what do you say?" Tony pressed, when the air had been silent for several minutes. "I'm not asking you guys to do this full-time. It'll mostly be an on-call thing –we'll go wherever we're needed, kick butt, then head back to our lives. We'll also only handle large stuff, like HYDRA bases and whatever government agencies can't deal with on their own."

"Who'll be paying for all of this?" Barton asked. "I mean, we do have to be paid something for risking our lives."

Tony shrugged. "In case you can't tell, I'm rich." He grinned at me as I rolled my eyes at him. "I've also got living space set up for everyone here, in case you want to stay a bit after each mission, and I'm working on having some super-fast jets made for our use. Fighting gear can be made according to your specifications, too; just give me the specs, and I can have it done for you in a week or two."

Bruce was startled. "That's very generous, Tony. I wasn't expecting that."

Tony shrugged again. "The world is still a mess out there. If there's a way for us to help fix it, or make it a better place, I think we should do it."

The others nodded in agreement, and I knew that Tony would get his wish: The Avengers had assembled once more.

Unfortunately, Tony hadn't really thought the whole thing through, so it was up to me to help organize all of the "non-important stuff" that Tony didn't like thinking about.

First was the living space Tony had talked about. With the exception of Steve and myself, none of the others really wanted to permanently set up shop in Avengers Tower (as we were now calling it), but I still wanted them to choose a suite they could call their own. It would make things easier, so that no one accidentally ended up in a place someone else had claim to.

Somehow, Steve and I were given first pick of the suites. Steve guessed it was because we were the only married couple, but I felt it might be because most of the organizing was being shoved onto my shoulders, so the others felt I deserved first dibs. Either way, it was to our benefit, so we decided on a room with a fantastic view of the city, and far enough away from the aircraft hanger and the top levels to be a nice, quiet haven.

The others took a tour of the rooms, and each chose whichever one they thought best fit their needs. Thor chose one with easy access to the sky, so that he could fly back to Jane whenever he wanted, and Natasha and Barton all claimed suites close to the gym.

Bruce was the only one who had a room entirely without windows; the city was too busy for him, even at night. He wanted peace and quiet when he finally managed to tear himself away from whatever experiment or science thing he was working on with Tony.

With the sleeping arrangements done, I made a few calls to Maria Hill, who I highly suspected had Nick Fury's number. I flat-out told her to inform Fury about our endeavors, so that he'd know what we were up to, but that no one was to let the other Avengers know Fury was still alive. Steve, Natasha and I were, as far as I knew, the only ones Fury had trusted with the truth, and he probably wanted it to stay that way.

I also asked her to place a call to Phil Coulson, to let him know what was happening, too. I knew that he had to be busy patching together an actual SHIELD agency together (or forming a new one from the ground up), but he really needed to know about what we were planning to do. Even though the newly re-forming SHIELD was in its infant stages, it never hurt to have the head of a secret organization on speed-dial, in case we needed back-up or someone to cover-up something the team did on their missions.

Phil was actually nice enough to e-mail me a message, saying that he trusted us to do what was best, but if we needed anything from him, he wanted me or Steve to be the one to contact him. His note said something along the lines of, "you have more common sense than certain members of the Avengers; I trust you to know when to call me."

Once most of the things had been organized, and the team was ready to get the whole venture started, Tony ordered his construction team to Stark Tower, so that it could be made over.

I had to admit, most of Tony's ideas for Avengers Tower were pretty impressive.

Besides the living areas and huge lab for him and Bruce to test and build stuff in, Tony's work crew put in some extremely interesting additions.

One of the first things created was a medical area, fully stocked with the best equipment that could be bought. I immediately felt relieved, knowing that if one of my friends got hurt, we had a way of helping them recover.

Next, Tony put in a conveyor-type building system to construct his Iron Man suits, and to put together a group of robot-type machines he called The Iron Legion. I thought that these were some sort of army, but Tony assured me they were strictly to deal with innocent civilians.

"They'll keep people back from the fight, out of danger, and try to escort people away if they get too close," he said with a proud smile. "And if the robots get broken, no worries –I can build more."

The Quinjets were next. Maria Hill provided the basic plans for the ones that SHIELD had used, but Tony took them to another level. He installed hidden refrigerators for food and drinks, as well as medical supplies that had to be kept at certain temperatures. Hidden in the walls were small TV screens, for in-flight entertainment, and commercial-free radio. Really, they were more like private planes than jets meant to carry superheroes around the world.

Since I was far more practical, I suggested that some hide-away bedframes be installed on the jets, so that passengers could sleep during flights, or lie down and get medical treatment if they were wounded. Tony liked my idea, and made sure that the 'bunk beds,' as he called them, were added. They would be hidden in the ceiling of the jet, and a simple push of a button would bring down two beds, one on top of the other. Only two sets of beds could fit on each jet, but it would free up a bit of space on the floor, for the unfortunate few who wanted to lie down but couldn't claim a bed.

The biggest change, however, was the training area. All the Avengers, plus Jarvis, got together, and designed a facility where team members could practice all kinds of ways to (as Tony put it) hurt or kill people. There were the usual dummies and punching bags, rope walls, training bars and weights, as well as targets for arrow and guns, but Tony and Bruce took it one step further.

To help their friends, the two tech geniuses somehow managed to design a holographic room in which fake opponents would attack, and the walls would either shoot blunted bullets, or high-pressured air in pin-point precision, so that it felt as though the training Avenger were actually being under attack. Steve wasn't sure he liked it, but Natasha and Barton thought it was pretty fun to practice in. There was also an observation area, where we could watch but not be visible.

The final and most significant thing about Avengers Tower was Jarvis.

Somehow, Tony had expanded his parameters, so Jarvis was much more powerful than he'd ever been before. As Steve put it, Jarvis was now our "first line of defense." If there was an intruder in the Tower, Jarvis would know and block their way, or alert the team. If the Avengers needed backup or intel of some kind during a mission, Jarvis would provide it via a specially created satellite hovering over the planet. I have no idea how the hell Tony managed to build and launch such a huge thing without attracting attention, but given that it was Tony, I shouldn't have wasted time wondering.

Anyway, there was now a Stark satellite orbiting the planet, which now served Jarvis as almost a second home. Using the numerous cameras and other powerful tech Tony had installed, Jarvis was able to hone in and observe the Avengers' missions, and provide any sort of information or aid they needed instantaneously.

Then there was JT, who also got an upgrade, but only for one reason: The Avengers had decided to make me an honorary team member.

If the Avengers had asked me to join them three or four years ago, I'd have freaked out and run screaming out of the room.

But now, after everything Steve and I had been through, it felt sort of right. Besides, I wanted to be useful, and since I couldn't go into the field, everyone decided I would be the one keeping an eye on the team from Avengers Tower. My job would be monitoring them during their more crucial missions, calling in medical or tactical aid when needed, and waiting for them when they came back.

Some would turn up their noses or throw a fit at being the team's 'welcome home' committee, but I didn't mind. As long as there was some way to help them, without actually getting in their way, I was happy.

I wouldn't even be alone, either, because of JT.

Ever since I'd first met the group, my handy little smartphone/computer had always been by my side. JT always had great advice, answers to any questions I had, and he arranged all sorts of things when I was too busy to do them myself. Like Jarvis, JT was my own electronic assistant, and I was always grateful to have him there. I actually considered him my friend, and told him so, which he seemed to appreciate.

Now that I was going to support the Avengers in any way I could, JT was going to be supporting me. To make things easier, Tony had taken what he'd done to Jarvis and passed it on to JT, though in a more limited sense.

"Jarvis is going to be a larger, more global presence," Tony explained, with me hovering anxiously nearby as he tinkered on my pocket-computer companion. "JT is more localized. Your little computer will be entirely yours, and in its own separate server from Jarvis's, but he'll still be able to link in with Jarvis, if needed. In other words, JT will still be based in the portable device I made for him, but he can electronically pop from here to the Tower's systems and back again, like you would enter and leave a room or a building."

I rather liked the idea, as did JT. JT explained to me that he liked being useful, just like I did, and was eager to be more mobile, rather than be confined to one device. He also claimed it would be easier to keep me safe, in the event that Jarvis had to focus on The Avengers and JT had to be the one to keep an eye on me in an emergency.

And so, armed and prepared to fight, the assembled Avengers team was ready to take on whatever it was the world had to throw at them.

AN: Okay, I admit to borrowing the training room idea from the Hunger Games second film. You have to admit that it was pretty cool in that movie, and I figured that the Avengers would have something like that in their training facility, to keep themselves in shape.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and please don't forget to review!