Chapter 15: Greif-eating

Anastasia walked right to the fridge when she was led into the kitchen by Steve. She eagerly opened the door and looked inside, while Steve leaned on the table, watching her. The fridge was half full of delicious food and drink, and Anastasia immediately started grabbing things out and placing them in her arms.

She emerged from the fridge a minute layer with enough food to feed Thor. Steve sent her a half-hearted questioning look as she dumped it all on the table.

"What?" Anastasia asked self-consciously. "I eat when I'm sad. And this isn't just for me, you can have whatever you want." She sat down at the table and grabbed some pasta salad, taking a spoon from the table and scooping it into her mouth.

Steve shrugged and sat down, grabbing an apple and taking a bite. Anastasia noticed that he was a bit off with the fairies right now, but knew that he shouldn't brood over Agent Coulson's unfortunate demise. She had to take his mind off it.

"How is 2012 different to the 1940s?" she asked him between mouthfuls of pasta salad. He looked up from the table, his eyes sad.

"It's much louder than it used to be, and there's so much new technology that I don't know how to use. The towns are more colorful, too. So many bright lights," he answered quietly, trailing off. Apparently she hadn't tried hard enough to keep his attention from his thoughts. Maybe another way would work.

"Hey," Anastasia almost whispered. "It wasn't your fault." She put her hand on his, trying to comfort him. He was quiet for a minute before he voiced an idea.

"Is it alright for me to ask if you could make those colored flames on your hands?" Cap whispered.

Anastasia, sensing it might calm him, put her hands on the table, palms facing the ceiling. Steve put his hands under hers as her palms produced blue flames, the same color as Steve's eyes. He stared at the flames, sort of enchanted by them. They slowly changed color from blue to green, yellow, red, pink, purple, and around again.

The two sat there unmoving for about 10 minutes. Suddenly Steve jumped slightly. Anastasia defused the flames and looked up at him. He pressed his finger to his comm, instantly more alert.

"Miss Romanoff is right here, sir. We'll be down immediately." Steve put his hand back on the table, looking at Anastasia.

"Let's quickly put all of this food back before we go down to the bridge." He stood from the table and picked all the uneaten food up before walking to the fridge and putting it away. Anastasia grabbed the remains of the eaten food and put it in the bin next to the counter.

Once the room was tidy, they walked out of the room, Steve leading the way to the bridge.

Steve and Anastasia walked into the bridge where Fury was waiting for them silently. Maria Hill was standing to the side, waiting to listen to what Fury had to say. Down where the computers were, the remaining unharmed agents were quietly trying to get everything back online. Anastasia clasped her hand around Steve's and led him over to the huge table, where they both took a seat. They both stayed silent, waiting for Tony to turn up as Fury had called on him as well.

Speaking of the devil, Tony walked quietly into the room, looked to Fury, and sat down on the other side of Anastasia. No one said anything for another minute, until Fury decided to speak.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket," he told them gravely, looking down at the object in his hands. "Guess he never did get you to sign them." Fury tossed the object onto the table, making Anastasia gasp quietly when blood splattered on the table.

She watched sadly as Steve reached out to lift one of the blood-speckled trading cards. Anastasia glanced at his face, then around at Tony, then up at Fury, before looking at the card. She felt a silent tear roll down her cheek as she noticed that, on the card, it was a picture of Captain America from the 1940's, saluting. She didn't look up at Fury when he continued.

"We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming." He paused for a moment, sounding the tiniest bit upset, but Anastasia knew the spy was crying inside for his late, longtime best friend and top agent.

"Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract," he continued, finally spilling the truth that the team wasn't meant to find out. "I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark knows this, called The Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could." Fury had moved to stand behind Anastasia's chair, and was talking in a quiet, not authoritative voice, but sounded like he was hinting at something. Anastasia was looking at Tony, who had turned away from everyone. Contrary to how he appeared, she noticed that he was pretty upset over Coulson's death, too.

"Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes." As soon as the word 'heroes' was out of Fury's mouth, Tony was standing. He looked at everyone before walking away from the table and leaving the room.

Fury looked at Tony's abandoned seat. "Well, it's an old fashioned notion."

Steve then decided to leave the room, looking at Anastasia and softly brushing his fingers over her hand before he went. She understood that he was too nice to say that he wanted to be alone so he could let it all out, but Anastasia knew that the alien army was coming whether they were ready or not, and they needed a plan.

She followed him out of the room, after sharing a look with the SHIELD director, and ended up in the room where Loki had been imprisoned before his escape. Anastasia noticed that Tony was also there, silently mourning over Coulson's untimely demise. There was an eerie silence that had been cast over the entire Helicarrier, and not Steve, Anastasia or even Tony was willing enough to break it right now.

Finally, Steve spoke, quietly asking a question that was directed at Tony.

"Was he married?"

Tony looked over at Steve, then looked away. "No. There was a uh...cellist, I think."

Steve nodded gravely, but his voice was still strong. "I'm sorry. He seemed like a good man."

"He was an idiot," Tony told him as he turned walk over to him and Anastasia.

Steve looked questioningly at Tony. "Why? For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone," Tony replied.

"He was doing his job."

"He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have..." Anastasia could tell that Tony was trying to believe that there was another way, even if, deep down, he knew there wasn't.

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony," Steve said sadly. Anastasia noticed that this was the first time that Steve had Tony by his first name.

"Right. How did that work for him?" Tony replied rhetorically, trying to stay strong by being sarcastic.

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?" Steve asked him.

Tony turned to Steve with a look of anger plastered on his face. "We are not soldiers!" He looked away from Steve, mildly ashamed of his outburst. "I'm not marching to Fury's fife."

Anastasia shook her head. "Neither are we," she said, motioning between herself and Steve, who shook his head as well.

"He's got the same blood on his hands that Loki does, but right now we gotta put that behind us and get this done." Tony turned his head to the stain of blood on the wall where Phil Coulson passed. "Now Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list-" Tony cut him off, turning back to look at Cap.

"He made it personal," he said.

"That's not the point," Steve answered.

"That is the point," Tony countered as he began pacing. "That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?" He looked up at the two.

"To tear us apart," Anastasia replied.

"Yeah, divide and conquer is great, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience." You could practically see the cogs turning in Tony's head as he figured out Loki's plan.

Steve nodded in understanding. "Right. I caught his act in Stuttgart."

"Yeah." Tony turned to face them again after making it to the top of the stairs. "That's just previews, this is...this is opening night. And Loki, he's a full-tail diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered-" He stopped in realization of Loki's plan.

"Stark Tower," Anastasia whispered, figuring it out as well. Steve's eyes widened.

"Son of a bitch," Tony muttered audibly as he made his way back down the stairs to get ready for the war.

Anastasia and Steve turned to face each other, nodding in a silent agreement.

"Let's go see who there is," Steve told her, grabbing her hand and dragging her along to build the team that Fury wanted.

That's all for now, guys, but I'll try my hardest to write what's left of the next chapter and the rest of the story so we can finish it! Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later!

For now, XXOO Tigger