El!
El has been with the site for nearly two years now and has continued to prove her value. Currently, she is heading up our site event, Battle for Liberterram, on top of keeping up with her own personal plots.
CHARACTER
SPOTLIGHT
Peggy Carter!
Lux's posts are all wonderful to read. She has done a wonderful job of grasping the new universe and incorporating Peggy into it.
CHARACTER
SPOTLIGHT
Peter Parker!
It's good to see Spidey back on the site. Watching him deal with the universe shift in his own snarky way has been nothing short of entertaining.
THREAD
SPOTLIGHT
Eight O'Clock on the Dot!
El and Lux are making magic in this thread. Straight up fireworks, and the way they've played with drawing out the reveal is top class.
"I think you're enjoying this far too much. Yeah I got the package. Understood. Oh, no, I'm sure this won't be awkward at all. I appreciate that. Out." Phil took the phone away from his ear, moving it down to hang it up before he paused, wincing a moment and then flicking it off with his thumb instead of his right hand before he stuck it in the pocket of his jacket. "Jerk..." he muttered, then went back to buttoning his coat with his left hand, picked up the thick envelope on the foot of the hospital bed, and walked out.
Ordinarily, this was the sort of thing Phil would have looked forward to - after all, it wasn't too many people who actually got the chance to meet and work with their childhood hero. But then, most of THOSE people hadn't also let said childhood hero think they were dead for the better part of three years. The fact that he actually HAD been dead for part of that time didn't make the whole thing exactly better, either. And sure, there had been a lot of good reasons for that, at first. Still were, technically, except for the fact that his boss had decided the time was now to let the cat out of the bag.
And now it had been way too long for Phil to pretend he hadn't been keeping it an on-purpose secret all this time, which was something of a terrible pain in the ass. But... Well, he'd faced worse, right? Not that he could think of it at this particular moment. Then again, 'worse' was more or less still in progress, if their projections of the Chitauri returning were correct.
Which was why he had to admit to Captain America that SHIELD had been lying about his death, before the man found out on his own.
Phil made it to the room where the Captain was staying, holding his ID up to the guards, who went from tense to surprised and then back to tense, snapping to attention before he waved them off and knocked on the door. He gave the man inside a few seconds before he turned the knob and stepped in, doing his best to look professional and not at all sheepish. The years hadn't changed much about Phil - still the professional dresser in the not-too-expensive government-employee suit, a touch more gray perhaps - oh, and his right arm was in a sling because the last 30% of it or so, including his hand, was missing.
It didn't get much easier. After making the rounds he just felt more anxious and helpless. Helplessness wasn't exactly new to him. No matter how beefed up and strong he got after the serum, there was always someone stronger. And that didn't even touch up on politics. Decisions got made all the time that he didn't abide by but was expected to put up with anyway, and sometimes it felt like he was grasping for an understanding of a world he'd never belong in.
But at the end of the day, he usually was able to go out there and give it his best and feel like he'd tried. No regrets. This wasn't one of those days. He'd been officially benched, and most of the Avengers seemed to agree that this wasn't worth potentially crippling himself by tearing up his tendon beyond repair. Part of him wanted to argue until he was blue in the face. Like hell this wasn't worth it. He didn't care if they thought they had it covered--he wanted to fight alongside his friends and be damn sure he'd done everything he could for them and the world.
Still, he swallowed his pride. He didn't want to distract the Avengers and be a liability, which, if he was honest with himself, he would. He'd certainly distract them and there was even odds on the liability part, so he worked on managing things how he could. Tactics, defense networks, making sure comms were hooked up so he could keep in contact with everyone. He was busting his ass even more than usual just so he could feel like he was compensating for the lack of active combat.
Flicking through some maps of the modern city, he traced some haphazard circles with his left hand. Even as a fair artist, he never had much in way of legible handwriting, and sure as hell didn't have it as a southpaw. The little lopsided circles had chickenscratch notes next to them in shorthand that would make a doctor blush. Fortifications were already placed, courtesy of Major Danvers, but there were still a few other things that could be done around the city, and places that civilians could be funneled.
Turning to another map, he heard the door open. Straightening up to attention, he pivoted to face the new arrival and... stilled. His brow furrowed at what he was seeing, mouth parting a bit in shock and disbelief. His first instinct was to think this was some kind of illusion, courtesy of Loki or one of Thanos' many minions. But he'd just walked in from outside and the halls were swarming with Agents. Unless a new illusion was put up just before he opened the door, masquerading around as a dead man wasn't going to get him very far. There'd be all kinds of alarms and alerts.
Which meant... was this actually Phil? Was Phil honest-to-God alive? And if so, did that mean SHIELD knew? Or was he losing his damn mind?
"Looks like it's doing better than yours." Was the first response, which was pretty off the cuff and sure as hell not what you said to a guy that lost his arm and was apparently alive. "Did I miss some kind of major announcement a few years back? Or am I going around the bend, here? Because between this and a desiccated bird-god only me and some other probably crazy guy can see, I'm beginning to question my mental health."
@coulson He'll be happy in a minute... once he's sure he's not crazy. XD end!
Phil hadn't really expected anything less, of course - there was going to be a fairly reasonable (particularly after recent events) thought that he might be an alien impostor, or a Dark Elf in disguise, but if he was either of those things, there probably wasn't much reason for his missing right hand, so on one very small level that was working for him. He wouldn't have anything to replace it for a while, though he understood Fitz was working on something. Kid couldn't be expected to work THAT fast. Even their LMD tech took some heavy modification to interface with human nerves, as he understood it.
Stark probably had something just lying around, but there was no way Phil was going to introduce himself as alive again to Tony and ask for a favor like that. He'd never hear the end of it. Perhaps literally.
"Probably. I hear tendons heal, if you do what the doctor says. This, not so much." he replied, gesturing idly with his mangled arm, though he winced, immediately regretting it. Hand might be gone, but the stump was... tender. He was taking a bit of a leaf out May's book too on his reluctance with painkillers, which wasn't helping, but the narcotics would have done bad things for his focus.
Then again, alien spears through the chest tended not to heal either, and he'd somehow managed to come back from that. Difference was, he was absolutely NOT about to subject himself to any more infusions of Kree blood on the off chance it might bring his hand back. Not after the... rather less pleasant side-effects he'd suffered between then and now. His desk needed a complete resurfacing, as did several walls in his apartment.
Cap's query was part-expected, though the latter section of it certainly wasn't, and he lifted a brow, finally shrugging. "Well... I can't speak for dessicated bird gods, but I can say with certainty that you didn't miss any announcements. After I... got better, Fury needed someone who was off the books. SHIELD's been operating out in the open a lot more than we're used to, ever since the last invasion. While it's done wonders for recruitment, it's made certain operations difficult. I've been running them for the last few years. Sorry I didn't stop by sooner. It was classified at first, then I was worried about Stark demanding three years of back-dated birthday presents, and then things sort of got busy again."
"Considering recent events though, might be time I started working with the Avengers again, at least off and on, assuming you're willing. A lot of my work is still way off-book, but it'd be better not to step on any toes if I can avoid it." That was probably best - stay on mission. He could give mission briefings under any situations, from under enemy fire to speaking with America's greatest living hero. No big deal. Certainly not because he let the guy think he was dead for years, nope.
Steve Rogers --- cover your awkwardness with business, yep, that'll work. Tradecraft.
Well. He sounded like Phil. And he definitely had the Agent Coulson mannerisms and inflections down. Which only made it harder to believe that the guy standing before him was some top-of-the-line infiltrator. Not that many people were good at pinning down every aspect of a three-year-dead secret agent that, for the most part, stayed secret. And again, the whole matter of why. Posing as someone that had kicked the bucket a while back wasn't exactly a sound strategy.
Which still left crazy or the real deal. And while crazy was a possibility, he knew enough about the brain to know that fully aural and visual hallucinations were one of the rarest forms of crazy. So, unless he hit the jackpot and decided to go all at once with only a shared hallucination of a dusty bird beforehand, it was looking a lot like Phil was alive. And no one had bothered to tell him. Or anyone else in the Avengers, for that matter.
Now all that was left was how?? He hadn't gone into cryostasis like both Bucky and Steve somehow managed to do. And spear through the chest was a lot different than frozen in a block of ice.
"Yeah, just gotta learn to be compliant." Bed rest wasn't exactly his specialty.
"How? I mean... I saw you." There was no coming back from that. It wasn't like he'd fallen to his death like a Disney villain in those few movies he'd actually seen. He had been actually dead as far as Steve could tell. And being a World War II vet, he'd seen enough death to know what it actually looked like. The rest... was a lot to swallow but he supposed it made sense. Fury was a man with a lot of secrets and loved to keep one hand ignorant of the other. 'Compartmentalization', he called it. Steve was not a fan, and was even less so after this debacle. While it wasn't like he and Coulson were exactly close, he respected the Agent, and would have liked to have known the truth.
Especially since he was technically an Agent himself and already was supposed to keep things under wraps.
Coulson moved on from 'oh, yeah, I'm alive and have been for the last three years' to 'can I help out with Avenging?' pretty quick. Quick enough that Steve was left to stare for a moment and try to gather his shattered composure from the floor. Thankfully, Mission Captain was easy enough to find, and he managed to shift over into a more relaxed, but simultaneously authoritative posture. "I've no problem with you helping us out, but I'm not the only one that gets to decide. I think the rest of the team would appreciate you putting in an appearance for you own back-from-the-dead announcement and party."
And he might appreciate an introduction to their newest recruit.
"What've you even been doing the last while? The declassified bits, I mean?" Smalltalk with a guy you only kinda new who turned out to be alive was pretty hard. But Steve would make a go of it, anyway.
@coulson awkwaaard
Last Edit: May 20, 2016 6:12:04 GMT by Steve Rogers
Cap seemed to need a little time to process all this, and Phil didn't blame him. After all, his condition had seemed more than a little permanent at the time. The problem was how much he could go around giving away about that, and more to the point, how much he didn't actually want to. Learning the secret behind the whole thing had been... disturbing, to say the very least.
Though one thing Steve said did strike a chord, and the Agent couldn't help but quip. "Compliance is overrated. Rest is probably a good thing. Surprised they don't have you in one of these." He nodded toward his sling, much as he disliked the damn thing, but then Rogers had to go asking the obvious question, and Phil looked down for a moment. "Fury wasn't prepared to accept my resignation, it seems. It is me, though, no robot, I've pretty conclusively proved that to myself anyway." He made a light gesture with his mangled arm at that, managing a wry grin. His humor faded, though, as he decided he was going to have to say the next thing.
"Unfortunately the method isn't any good anymore. I doubt you'll be seeing any other agents showing up after getting a KIA, and for good reason." After all, he'd destroyed any chance of that himself, and he was still keeping what had happened from getting beyond the small circle of his own team. He certainly didn't want anyone thinking it was a thing that was available. Even if he explained the cost, the price of his return, he couldn't expect that someone wouldn't try, whatever the cost, if they lost someone dear enough to them.
"Anyway after that it had to be kept fairly need to know, particularly from the people who could vouch for the fact that what I took wasn't just a flesh wound. Now though... well, can't stay dark forever. And I'm not saying you're going to see a lot of me. I'm going to have my own work. But we could help each other out. And if you're going to be helping coordinate from the air, I thought you might like to be up to date on who you've got to work with."
Phil untucked the tablet he'd been carrying from under his arm, and offered it out to the super soldier. "It's a record of the unaffiliated enhanced we've been seeing since the invasion started, as well as some information on teams other than yours. There've been a few getting put together, it seems like. And you know a lot of enhanced tend to keep to themselves until they have a real good reason. It so happens this is good enough for a lot of them. They might not work for SHIELD or anyone else, but most of them would listen to you, if you asked them to."
Steve's question made him pause a moment, and he cracked another crooked smile. "You know the declassified story of my life is pretty short. More so, since the first invasion. I've got a team of my own these days though. Good people. We've been able to do some good, a bit... more quietly than the Avengers, is all."
"They want me in one but I need as much hand and arm movement as I can get until all this is over. And this wrap does a pretty good job limiting things." Even with zero finger movement, he was able to make use of this arm, and he needed to. If he wasn't going to be out on the field, he was going to bust his ass and be useful some other way so he didn't feel like he was sitting it out while his friends put their lives on the line. Once the situation blew over he'd get a sling and do the bed rest thing. "That's good. Not sure Tony'd ever leave you alone if you were an android." Actually, he was pretty sure. Tony wouldn't.
And joking was still awkward. Hell, this whole situation was still pretty damn awkward.
Steve didn't say anything when Phil announced whatever method brought him back wasn't viable anymore, just nodded. In a way, he was relieved. It was too personal to talk about with Phil, but he didn't feel like Steve Rogers had been pulled from the ice. Just Captain America. And that wasn't to say that he didn't love his friends, believe in the Avengers and didn't appreciate some of the new memories he had... he just didn't know if it was the right call. And he didn't know if other people would think it was the right call, either.
No, not forever. Just a few years, it seemed. But Steve kept that to himself. "Well, I'm glad you decided to show," he said honestly, stuffing his good hand into his pocket in a half-shrug. It was a little awkward reconnecting with the guy he barely knew after finding out he was apparently alive, all in the middle of a cataclysmic event, but hey. Guess there was a certain amount of poetic something or other to the fact that he was turning up in the middle of another Thanos related incident. "Well, the Avengers always had you on timeshare, so par for the course, I guess."
Nope. Wasn't getting any less awkward.
Taking the tablet to rest against the crook of his bad arm, he started flicking through the contents as best he could. Technology still eluded him, but he'd seen these things used enough he had some idea of how to work them. Looked like there were some known X-Men, a random white light, an angel from a rock band, Stephen Strange, the only member of the Fantastic Four he was familiar with, some guy that could apparently shrink and get big, and lots more.
"Thanks." The blonde expressed, sounding a bit surprised that there were so many and that most of their files were so thorough. Hearing that they would listen to him had him look up from the tablet, a somewhat skeptical look playing out over his features. "What, think they're all World War II buffs like Danvers?" Steve asked with amusement, since that was about as well as he took any compliment. Still... "This is definitely something to consider. I'll see about sending people out and maybe meeting a few myself. Thanks again."
"Oh, yeah? Seems like a good fit for you. Anything you can mention, even vaguely?"
@coulson bleeeegh. sorry for meh post. It's just not much of a posting day so far.
"Should have known you'd be arguing with the doctors." Phil said, smirking a little bit as he did. It was just like Captain America, after all. He was always doing that sort of thing - the job, whatever it took, no matter how much of himself he might damage. It was a pretty good thing the reports said that as long as he survived something, there wasn't much the super soldier wouldn't eventually regenerate from. Not that he would have put in any recommendations about losing limbs or anything like that. Erskine's formula wasn't exactly like Wade Wilson's powers, after all. Even if Steve Rodgers probably deserved them more than...
No. No, on second thought, while the sample size of true regenerators was small, all of them were mass murderers. There was a chance those things were linked, so, best leave Captain America alone. He didn't want to even say it lest someone get ideas.
"If I were an android I'd make sure I had enough built-in tasers to keep him away, but no. Flesh and blood." He smiled, just a little, the way he usually did. Phil wasn't exactly given to any sort of exuberance, after all. "Thanks for saying. I know this is awkward, and we didn't actually know one another for very long, but it was sort of important that I let you know first, and... You know, the last time I tried this is came across very wrong, I'm going to stop now."
'I watched you while you slept'. Moron.
"It doesn't have anything to do with them being history buffs, Captain. You've got... the knack for it. People don't have to know who you were to see who you are. Not all of them would be receptive, I'm sure, but when it comes to someone having to give the orders to save the planet, I'm sure you could get anyone to pay attention. Just my opinion, of course. And of course, you're welcome."
He wasn't sure where to go after that, so thankfully Steve asked another question he could divert on to. "There was a human trafficking ring out in Saudi Arabia a few months ago that we broke up. That was fun. I got to go to a party, and literally take the microphone out of the host's hand. Dropped it after. Good times."
"Kinda built up a reputation for not listening to the doctor's orders. Wouldn't wanna let the medics down by not being true to form." Steve offered a small grin. It didn't have to do with being intentionally spiteful or even wanting to live up to anyone's expectations. His long history of disobeying bed rest orders had more to do with him being a stubborn ass that didn't know how to quit even when it was probably the smartest thing he could do. Though honestly, that stubborn streak went beyond just bed rest. He'd endangered more than his fair share of friendships when matters went beyond personal and he was asked to ignore something that didn't sit right with his conscience.
The veteran laughed at that, which pulled at some of the stitches he had across his torso where he'd gotten real friendly with Chitauri talons. He did a good job at hiding the grimace from pulling at the seams, though. "If SHIELD's got face-changing tech, I'm sure you can get some kind of full-body, electrical rebuffing system bodysuit or something." He could flick it on every time Tony or any other undesirable showed up and refused to take a hint. Not that it'd work more than once on the guy. Tony was almost as stubborn as he was, and ten times as spiteful, so he'd probably draft up something to negate the suit the second time around.
"Doesn't help much that I'm kind of awkward." The blonde grinned self-deprecatingly at that, sponging up some of the blame. Socializing in casual situations had never been his strong suit, and while he was better at engaging strange men than strange women, he wasn't exactly the best at it. Years of being an introvert and social reject, after all. The adoring fan stuff of the modern era didn't help. And Coulson certainly fell into that. "Yeah, that was a little bit..." he agreed, trailing off before he scratched at his cheek. Okay, he wasn't helping. "Point is, it's appreciated. And hopefully this time you'll stick around long enough for us to get some kind of rapport going." Or at least not awkward-ness.
Not awkward-ness would be nice.
And then the compliments came. Oh, boy. So much for the not awkward-ness. Looking toward the floor for a minute, Steve had to press his lips into a line to not brush off the flattery. Clearing his throat, he would've rubbed at the back of his neck or folded his arms or something if he wasn't holding the tablet. Instead he tapped it against his leg and met Coulson's eyes so he could talk to the agent instead of the floor. "I'll try not to let anyone down, and do what I can."
Christ. He really wasn't helping at all where getting rid of the awkwardness was concerned.
Thankfully the focus on Coulson's team helped, and the mention of human trafficking immediately drew in Steve's attention. Like most sane and not-horrible people of the world, he wasn't a fan of the practice, and hearing that the Agent got to take down a major operation was a significant win. "Glad you knocked that down." His voice wasn't as stilted as it was before. Not getting the 'drop the mic' reference, he focused more on his curiosity. "What'd you say? And did anyone even understand you?" He'd no idea how many languages Coulson spoke, after all.
"Of course. Hate to disappoint." Phil agreed, nodding with a crooked smile at that notion. He had a feeling there was a lot more to it, of course. A lot of it probably coming from that sense of responsibility for which the Captain was famous. Phil knew he and most of the others of course wouldn't have it any other way. Captain America was going to have to be Captain America.
Of course there were the jokes about Stark, and Phil smiled again. "I'm sure I could get the lab to fix something up, but I don't think it'll be overly necessary just now. Then again, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to tell him, and how I'm going to avoid being held to those birthday presents."
"And yeah - I'm hoping for that, too." Hoping, trying not to fanboy, that sort of thing. It hadn't gotten a great deal easier, either, which was somewhat frustrating. "But you're not the only one awkward, at least." he admitted... that was definitely not going to be something that went away easily, he had to imagine. There was the old saying about not meeting your heroes, well, this was a concentrated form of that problem, to be sure.
Of course, it seemed the awkwardness came right back with Phil's complimentary speech. The agent wasn't sure if he felt bad about that or not, so he just shook his head a little, swallowing once while the silence dragged on - thank god Steve broke it, and Phil managed a reply. "I'm sure you'll, um, be fine."
He smiled a bit at the comment about the slavers, and nodded in agreement. At the question though, Phil shrugged. "The rich people over there pretty much all speak English. They have to, to get at their phenomenal overseas bank accounts... which we also captured, So it was a good day." He glanced at his watch, then back to the Captain.
"I should be getting back - we've got some other defenses to plan, figure out where to put people... but it's good to see you. Have to not leave it so long, next time."
