• Published 26th May 2018
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Infinity Era - JDPrime22



Avengers: Infinity War / Avengers: Endgame crossover. The culmination has arrived. The Mad Titan has waited so long for this moment. Long live the Infinity Era.

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Chapter 29 – Shield

29

Earth

Lake Ontario, USA

The Lighthouse

6:32 p.m.

When the doors to the Lighthouse opened, Daisy Johnson entered the bunker to be met with the disapproving glares from Yo-Yo and Mack.

Daisy halted just as the doors closed behind her with an audible lock following. She stood as still as could be, shifting her eyes quickly from Mack to Yo-Yo, from Yo-Yo to Mack. The strap to her bag was wrapped tightly on her shoulder, her right hand gripping the strap for extra assurance. Her mouth fell slightly, but not a word leaving her. She simply watched in silence as Yo-Yo crossed her robotic arms.

God, Daisy could still hardly believe what happened to her.

Once simply a Colombian freedom fighter who had undergone Terrigenesis, Elena Rodriguez was given her nickname “Yo-Yo” considering the Inhuman abilities she had gained during the Inhuman Outbreak. She was able to travel from one place of her choice and back faster than anyone could have blinked. Faster than a heartbeat. She moved back and forth, faster than the eye could see, like a yo-yo. Hence the name.

It didn’t take long for Yo-Yo to be recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. and fight alongside Daisy, her fellow Inhuman. Together, they fought with S.H.I.E.L.D. through the Watchdogs, Aida, the Framework, and even getting shot forward in time to 2091, to a destroyed Earth alongside the rest of the agents. After freeing the remaining humans from under the Kree rule, they had managed to return to their own time, to prevent the apocalypse that was said to have come from Quake, from Daisy. In the process of learning how to do so, they were ambushed by General Hale, her daughter Ruby slicing off both of Yo-Yo’s arms.

They were able to save her. Daisy’s eyes fell to Elena’s arms, the cybernetic ones still crossed. Mack had managed to save her, Fitz and Simmons giving her replacement arms from a dead robot. They managed to make it work for her. Daisy could have sworn that Fitz and Simmons could do God knows anything. Which meant her plan to save Coulson was guaranteed to work with their help.

But not before she could slip through Yo-Yo and Mack.

Then there was Alphonso Mackenzie. They called him “Mack” for short. During the HYDRA Uprising, Mack stayed loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D. and fought back against the HYDRA sleeper agents. He was under the command of Robert Gonzales alongside Bobbi Morse and joined Phil Coulson’s S.H.I.E.L.D. team to infiltrate and discover the whereabouts of Nick Fury’s Toolbox, a device with the capability to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. from the ground up. Once Gonzales was killed by Daisy’s mother, Mack rejoined S.H.I.E.L.D. to fight in the war against the Inhumans. He would later help Daisy in recruiting newborn Inhumans, which is how he met Yo-Yo Rodriguez, one of his closest allies and lover.

He joined Daisy, Yo-Yo, and the rest of his team in the future where he defeated the Kree leader of the Lighthouse, Kasius. Mack joined the rest of the agents in returning to their own time, where the new threat of General Hale, the Confederacy, and now the Chitauri lingered over their heads. Dangerous times to be alive. Even more dangerous to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Mack found no trouble in fighting for what was right, despite not like fighting at all. He only did what he had to do to protect his team, his friends, and the world.

Despite their frowns, Daisy offered a small smile, descending the steps and meeting them on ground-level. Holding onto her strap with both hands, Daisy said to them, “I don’t think I need to tell you about the giant flying aliens outside, do—?”

“Where the hell have you been?” Mack asked, his voice on edge.

Daisy stopped where she was, mere feet in front of the duo. Already knowing her answer before the silence became any more suspicious, Daisy smiled again. “Little side mission from May,” she said, trying to slip through between them. “You wanna know more? Go ask her about—”

Yo-Yo blocked her path, her shoulder touching Mack’s.

“Are you insane?” Yo-Yo said. Her Colombian accent was heavier than normal, and for a second, Daisy thought she would start cursing at her in Spanish with how fuming she looked. “With the entire world hanging in the balance, with you apparently to blame for the apocalypse, what made you think it was a good idea to go out there by yourself? What if something had happened to you and we wouldn’t have known?”

“Guys, I can perfectly take care of myse—”

“What if you kicked off the apocalypse and we were too late to know?” Mack questioned her.

Daisy appeared shocked at Mack’s accusation. Making her shock clearly evident by her facial features, Daisy scoffed, “Okay, we don’t even know if I’m the cause or no—”

Yo-Yo interrupted her again, Daisy breathing heavily through her pursed lips. “And with those… things out there, Daisy?!”

“Will you let me talk?!” she screamed. Yo-Yo dropped her arms, letting them rest by her sides. Mack still kept his crossed, still holding his frown with Johnson. She steadied her breathing, looking away and gripping her strap even tighter to ease the anger. “Jesus…”

Staring at her long, black hair, Mack’s eyes slowly fell down to where her attention was settled, where her anger was directed. “What’s in the bag?” he asked. It wasn’t calm by any means. The tone in his voice hadn’t changed. Just as threatening.

Bringing her head back up, Daisy just pursed her lips, shrugging to them and offering her best poker face. Mack already knew something was up. Daisy said, “Again, mission from May. Not allowed to say anything, so you can try to ask her.”

“Daisy,” Mack stated firmly, asserting his position in front of her, refusing to move like the brick wall he was built like. Daisy lifted her eyes and tried to meet her steel-cold gaze with his. They faced off, both refusing to back down. “What’s… in… the bag? We really don’t have time for this.”

“Don’t make me take it from you,” Yo-Yo threatened, Daisy knowing full well she could do just that, faster than Daisy could even breathe.

“Hey!”

The voice broke the tension, eased the conflict, and brought everyone’s attention off of Daisy’s bag and back towards the hallway. Right where Melinda May stood. She frowned at Mack and Elena, nodding them away and back into the hall. “Coulson wants everyone in the control room! That means you two! I’ll deal with Daisy and her mission.”

Casting Johnson one last look, Mack eventually retreated with Yo-Yo by his side into the hallway, taking a turn and making their way to the control room. They didn’t see May waiting for them to leave. They didn’t see her rush over to Daisy and give her a breathless hug, crushing the young woman with her strength. Daisy didn’t care. She returned it.

Breaking away, May gripped Daisy’s shoulders and asked, “Did you get it?”

Daisy nodded with a smirk. “Centipede Serum,” she said, knowing to keep her voice down. She reached into her bag and pulled out the appropriate contents, the large vial of orange liquid. “Check.”

Melinda appeared well relieved to see it safe and sound. She knew she could trust Daisy with such an important mission. The next step was keeping it a secret until the time to save Coulson was needed. “Keep it somewhere safe for now,” May told her. “We have other issues to deal with. Get to the control room as soon as possible.”

Daisy replied with a nod, placing the serum back in her bag—near the bones of her mother—and zipped it back up. She watched as Melinda was already at the end of the hallway, taking the turn Mack and Yo-Yo had. That just left Daisy as the last agent not in the control room. No longer in the hallway, as well. She dropped her bag off in her room, being sure to lock the door as she ran for the control room.


The Lighthouse, Control Room

6:35 p.m.

Phil Coulson could finally breathe steadily again when Daisy ran into the room, the door closing behind her, ensuring the room that she was the last agent inside. With that, they could finally begin the full rundown of the situation at hand.

His eyes fell across the room, at the complete lack thereof. The entire control room was nearly filled with agents, the ones that had managed to make it through the worst S.H.I.E.L.D. had ever experienced and were ready to fight another day. Brave souls like Piper and Davis, two of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most trusted and loyal agents. Phil was proud to have them with him when they enacted his plan. Then… his eyes fell to them…

The men and women who had been with him nearly at the beginning of it all.

Yo-Yo Rodriguez, standing tall alongside Mack. On Mack’s left stood both Fitz and Simmons, their grandson Deke Shaw remaining silent by his grandmother’s side, keeping his eyes focused on Director Coulson. Melinda May stood by Deke, Daisy Johnson finishing it off by standing on May’s left, all their eyes on him, their mentor, their leader, their friend. Their family.

Phil sighed through his nostrils. Leopold James “Leo” Fitz. What a name, what a guy. Quite possibly the best brains that S.H.I.E.L.D. had to offer, easily the best engineer currently on their roster, coming up pretty evenly with his lovely wife Jemma Simmons. He had been with Coulson since the beginning, since Phil was brought back to life and put back in the field. They had been through hell and heaven together, against HYDRA, the Inhumans, Hive, facing his own creation Aida, the Framework, the future, and now what inevitably lied ahead.

Unlike the others, Fitz wasn’t taken to the future. He went into suspended animation for 74 years in order to help save his team and the woman he loved. Together, with help from the grandson he never knew he had, they had succeeded in returning to their own time to try and prevent the apocalypse that was soon to fall upon the Earth. Their efforts so far had been fruitless. No matter what they did, Fitz believed they were taking more and more steps closer to doomsday. They were caught in a loop. And now they had the Chitauri to deal with.

At least he wouldn’t be alone.

Alongside his fellow agents, there was no one else Fitz trusted more than Jemma Simmons. His beloved, the love of his life, his equal and his partner. Jemma and Fitz and been in S.H.I.E.L.D. together for as long as when they had first joined. She was a genius biochemist and one of the youngest S.H.I.E.L.D. had to offer. She was bright, witty, and with Fitz by her side, nearly an unstoppable force. All of that changed when she was sucked into the future, leaving Fitz behind.

Under the control of Kasius for the majority of her time in 2091, it was only until Fitz came to them did he manage to set her free, and in turn, helped them all escape back to their present time. He proposed to her in the future, and they were engaged and married back in the present. Joining them was their grandson Deke Shaw, attending their wedding without even knowing they were his grandparents. Together, Fitz and Simmons worked to prevent the destruction of Earth, helping to devise the plan of sending the Gravitonium—of what was used to destroy the Earth in the future—straight into the sun. Their plan, unfortunately, was put on hold at the moment.

Then Phil turned to her. Melinda Qiaolian May.

She had been by Phil’s side forever. An experienced pilot and soldier, May had only retried from duty after a traumatic experience in Manama, Bahrain involving an Inhuman child she was forced to kill, lest she cause even more damage—of which May had witnessed personally and knew… it had to be done. The warm woman that day completely fell apart, replaced only with the cold, heartless May that lived for years afterwards. And Coulson never knew why for so long.

When she was brought back into action, May joined Coulson’s team as a pilot, desperately not wanting to go out into the field. But after the HYDRA Uprising, she simply had no choice any longer. After learning of Coulson’s resurrection, May helped Phil rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. from the ground up, with help from the Toolbox Fury had given them. After Daisy had gotten her Inhuman powers, May took it upon herself to help Daisy train and harness her new strength, taught her to fight, to live as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Phil didn’t know what would have happened to Daisy had May not done that.

She had fought with Phil, led S.H.I.E.L.D. with him, became his most trusted friend… that Phil was starting to feel for something else. That they could be something else. Against Aida, traveling to the future, trying to prevent the apocalypse, there was ever a dull moment. But sometimes Phil wished for those dull moments… so he could spark something with May. That they could finally be something together… instead of just soldiers.

All thoughts that could be saved for later. They had to get back to the war, like the soldiers they were.

“Unless you didn’t get the message earlier,” Director Coulson began, using the remote in his robotic hand to flip the screens back on. They ignited to life behind him, showcasing a world under siege, desperately fighting back against the alien invaders. Daisy’s mouth fell open, her eyes staring in horror to the chaos erupting worldwide. Several agents whispered amongst themselves, some not even bothering to hide their concern from Coulson.

Lowering the remote, Phil took a step forward to his fellow agents, still higher than them from his elevated position on the concrete podium. “The Chitauri are back, larger than before. Just like in New York six years ago, they’re attacking cities. The only good news that could come from it is that Qovas and his alien goons hanging over the Lighthouse are gone. He just got a taste… or should I say, the Chitauri got a taste of him.”

The control room was deathly silent, save for the screens behind Coulson. “Bad joke, sorry,” Phil apologized, walking across the concrete podium. “Unlike New York six years ago, they’re attacking military complexes, entire aircrafts on our planet’s oceans, doing everything in their power to cripple our chances of fighting back.”

“They’re smarter,” May muttered, a few uneasy glances shifting her way.

Phil stopped directly in the center of the concrete podium. He stared at his fellow agents, tightened his palms into fists, and kept his hardened stare as strong as he could. “And unlike New York six years ago, the Chitauri haven’t dealt with me and my team.”

“What do you suppose we do, sir?” Davis asked.

“What can we do?” Piper piped up, turning to Davis with an incredulous look. “If you haven’t noticed, the entire goddamn world is under attack. These Chitauri outnumber us a thousand to one, and that’s being generous. We can try, but with what we got…”

Piper let the image alone of the number of agents they had—which rounded up to about thirty or less—finish her statement and her argument. A cloud of disappointment and concern hung heavy over the crowd of agents, several looking to one another, counting, trying to see each other as larger in number than they knew they were.

Fitz puffed out his lips, let out a shaky breath. Simmons rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. Deke did the same with his opposite shoulder. Fitz shrugged him off, saying, “This is a job bigger for us, Phil. I know it’s been years, and I know we have the limited resources as well as means of communication, but…”

He caught himself mid-sentence, already knowing the reactions he’ll get to the ridiculousness of the request he was ready to give. The horrifying sounds from the screen behind Coulson urged him on, pushed him forward, gave him the courage to say what probably no one else was thinking.

“… I think it would be in our best interest if we contact Nick Fury.”

Fitz, as well as the rest of the room, caught himself once more when Phil just smiled. Especially when he said, “Oh, I already did.”

May took a step forward, her brow tightening towards Coulson and his announcement. That was his plan all along. He knew they would be outnumbered, outgunned, outmatched. The fact that he was able to contact Fury at all still surprised her. The rest of the room fell silent when Coulson pulled out his phone from his pocket, studied it for a moment, then flipped it open.

He wrinkled his nose, chuckling and holding out his phone for all to see. “Old number. Told me to use it if there was ever a situation we couldn’t handle. I’ve managed to convince him to get back in the game, and he’s given us a mission.”

Pocketing his phone, Phil took a step forward, then another, then rested his hands on the metal railing separating him from the ground below, his agents, and his friends. His family. They could only wait and watch with anticipation as a knowing, slick smile began to grow across the Director’s lips. A childish smile. May could have sworn she saw a sparkle of excitement in his eyes when he said it.

“He wants us to get the Avengers back together.”

And everyone caught their breath. The resounding conversations that were sparked from that filled the entire room, agent turning to agent, whispering the possibilities and the dangers of doing so. Not Coulson’s team. They stood dumbfounded, frozen, unable to speak, but clearly thinking of what Coulson had just told them.

Daisy especially found herself beginning to smile. Not-so-fond memories of her time as Skye, trying to get word on enhanced people, trying to help them, came rushing back. It was a time of superheroes, a time of hope and belief. It was a time that was much simpler for Daisy, back when she didn’t have to worry about whether or not she destroyed the entire Earth. And all people could talk about, all she could really talk about, were the Avengers.

The possibility of finally meeting them, meeting the heroes she looked up to, was something that brought a cheerful smile to her face. She could feel her heart beginning to beat more rapidly than she anticipated, staring upon Phil’s face and finding no deceit in his eyes. He was being positive. They were going to be bring the Avengers back together. And Daisy couldn’t stop smiling. She did eventually when the weight of the situation finally recurred to her once more. She wasn’t meeting her heroes for autograph signing. They needed to get them back together to save the world. No time for games. No time for smiling.

None of Daisy’s mindset stopped Phil from smiling like a little kid.

“Anyone else get goosebumps?” Coulson asked. The room turned back to him, not a single soul raising their hands. “Just me? All right.”

Deke raised his hand, Phil happy at that. “No,” Deke said, shaking his head and slowly dropping his uninjured hand, “not that. Who the hell are the Avengers?”

Phil’s smile slowly began to fade. His eyes were lost somewhere else, back to a time where he could stand in the open and not get shot at or hunted constantly. Where no one, not even Fury, tried to hide him from the world. Back when he met his heroes, his allies, face to face… for the last time.

Not anymore, that is.

Phil sighed, taking a step back. He turned around and stared at the screens, at the alien invasion and the crumbling cities. At the world’s armies fighting back and defending their nations. At a world in desperate need of heroes. When he spoke, he had never sounded so distant. “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. I’ve seen them since they were first assembled, worked hard to make sure that the idea, that the… ‘old fashioned notion’ as Fury used to put it, worked in the end. And in the end, our end… my end… it worked.”

Phil nodded, smiled softly at the fond memories, all of which he never experienced but was told by Fury. “They became something greater than a team. They became a family. And we’ve helped ever since, in the shadows, always there but never seen. But ever since the Accords, since the Avengers were disbanded, the world’s needed some heroes. We’ve done all we could, but even this…”

Phil pointed at the screens, facing his agents once again. “This is something we can’t face on our own. We need the Avengers.”

Several nods from the crowd, among Coulson’s team, and even Melinda May herself. Phil smiled at that, beginning his approach to the railing.

“But first…” he said, looking about amongst the crowd of agents, “… we’re seriously understaffed. May, get Zephyr One and the Quinjet ready for flight. I want all agents other than my team prep and ready the Lighthouse for anything the Chitauri might throw at us. Fitz, Simmons, Deke, Mack, Yo-Yo, Davis, Piper, and Daisy, you’re all with me.”

Upon those orders given, the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t hesitate to follow through with them. The room shuffled about, leaving only the ones individually called by name standing beneath Phil. He smiled down at them, hands in his pockets, nodding once. “We have a few friends to pick up,” he told them, assured them, caused them to question him.

“What friends, sir?” Simmons asked, tilting her head slightly.

“Some old and welcome ones,” Phil said, still smiling. “Hunter, Morse, Deathlok… and Reyes.”

The name alone froze the team where they stood, all of them exchanging looks, Deke with his especially confused one not knowing any of the people Coulson mentioned. Daisy’s smile quickly shattered when she mentioned that name, her eyes shifting down to Coulson’s chest, to the area where he was slowly but surely dying. And it was all because of him, because of Reyes and what he was.

Jemma cleared her throat. “Um… sir… we don’t even know where Robbie is.”

“Last time we saw him he literally took the Darkhold to Hell,” Daisy said, meeting Coulson’s eyes then shooting back down to his chest.

And all Coulson could do was smile. None of them could tell what it held, not even May. “We don’t know where he is, do we?” he said, stepping aside and pulling his hand out of his pocket. In it, he held the remote, rewinding one screen. Just one. To the time the footage caught something that made each agent have a double take. And Phil just kept smiling. “You can thank WHIH for this.”

An amateur piece of footage, shaky as all hell and barely even audible, was all the agents saw at first. The footage began to focus, and when it did, when they actually saw it, their jaws fell. In the streets, there walked a man with a flaming skull. In his skeletal hands melting with fire, he dragged a burning chain. The hellfire in his eyes, the glowing orange orbs of ancient evil, stared straight ahead. The footage shifted over, straight to the Chitauri warship hovering over the city of Los Angeles in the distance and the chariots flying right for the street.

That’s where the footage ended.

And Phil just couldn’t stop smiling, though with a tad grim look in his eyes. He turned back to his team, almost laughed at their expressions. “I hear it’s really hot in Cali this time of year.”

Author's Note:

Little update. Due to school starting up again tomorrow, probably won't be able to keep to my three day schedule of chapter updates. Updates might be more random, but count on a new chapter coming every weekend... hopefully. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you all next time!

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