1. Avengers (1)

          The day had started like any other. I trained during the day and started doing schoolwork later. Although, I ended up having to go home to finish my schoolwork because Uncle Nick, Aunt Maria, Uncle Phil, and Uncle Clint were occupied by an issue with the Tesseract, and Aunt Nat was somewhere else in the world. Uncle Nick's house was so secure that I was able to stay home alone without anyone having to worry, but it sometimes sucked not being old enough to do much of anything by yourself. I tried not to worry too much about what could be wrong, but I had a tendency to overthink a little bit in situations like this. After I finished all of my homework, I attempted to go to sleep. But I wasn't super successful, as thoughts of something going horribly wrong kept running through my head.

Eventually, I drifted off, but I was woken up by my phone going off with the alarm that only came when there was an emergency. I quickly got up to go through my practised routine for emergencies and got ready and put on my . I then waited for Uncle Nick to pick me up and got in the car as soon as he pulled up.

"What's the emergency? What happened?" I asked, trying to stay calm and not freak out.

"The Tesseract is some form of a portal, and Loki, of Asgard, came and took it, along with Dr Selvig and Barton."

"What?" I couldn't hide my worry this time and needed answers. I looked over at Uncle Nick with pleading and worry-filled eyes.

"We're calling in the big guns."

"The big guns?"

"The Avengers Initiative."

I was surprised, I had thought the council had shut it down, but apparently, a situation like this was enough to bring it up.

"May I ask where we are headed?"

"To pay a visit to Captain America."

"Captain America? Why am I going with you this late?"

"Because it will be another meeting-mission, and it gives you experience."

"Yes, sir."

Uncle Nick filled me in on what we needed and what the plan was as we drove to see the infamous Steve Rogers.

We arrived at a gym, and I was feeling more nervous about meeting Captain America than I had been about meeting Tony Stark. We walked in and saw Steve Rogers punching all his emotions into a punching bag. Uncle Nick indicated for us to wait a moment as Mr Rogers seemed to be in deep concentration. When I was younger, I studied Steve Rogers, Captain America quite a lot. His past, the war, his experimentation and his "death." Uncle Nick always said that it was important for me to know about him, and I was raised to follow orders. Mr Rogers eventually punched the bag so hard that it tore and flew across the room. I had been able to do that only once with my strength abilities, and it had been when I was very upset during training. He turned to grab another bag and hung it up. Uncle Nick began to speak a moment after Mr Rogers began punching again,

"Trouble sleeping?"

Mr Rogers looked over at us but then continued to punch.

"I slept for seventy years, sir. I think I've had my fill," he replied. Uncle Nick and I began walking toward him.

"Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world."

Mr Rogers looked over at Uncle Nick again and glanced behind him to look at me with a slightly curious look. I gave him a small smile to try and ease his mind. He walked toward his gym bag, taking off the wraps on his hands.

"When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost."

"We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently."

"Are you here with the mission, sir?" Mr Rogers asked, glancing at me again. Probably questioning my age as I was quite small.

"We are."

"Trying to get me back in the world?"

"Trying to save it," I stated, handing him the file that Uncle Nick had given me to hold on to. He took it with a confused look on his face. Looking at the open file, he stated,

"HYDRA's secret weapon."

"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought, what we think," Uncle Nick explained, and I continued,

"The Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. Which is something the world sorely needs."

"Who took it from you?" Mr Rogers asked, handing Uncle Nick the file.

"He's called Loki. He's not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in."

"The world has gotten even stranger than you already know," I said.

"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me."

"Ten bucks says you're wrong," Uncle Nick told him in a serious tone.

"There's a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment, sir," I informed.

"Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?" Uncle Nick asked him, to which he replied,

"You should have left it in the ocean."

I looked at my uncle with a worried face. He placed his hand on my shoulder and said we had to go. We eventually boarded the helicarrier and met up with Aunt Nat, who I stayed with. We were to direct Mr Rogers and Dr Banner inside when they arrived.

Mr Rogers had arrived first. Aunt Nat and I walked up to Uncle Phil and Mr Rogers as they stepped out of the jet. Uncle Phil spoke first,

"Agent Romanoff, Agent Katie, Captain Rogers."

"Ma'am," Mr Rogers said toward Aunt Nat, "Miss Katie," he continued, nodding in my direction.

"Mr Rogers, sir," I said, giving him a nod and smile.

"Hi," Aunt Natasha began, then turned to Uncle Phil, "They need you on the bridge. They're starting the face trace."

"See you there," Uncle Phil said as he walked away, and Aunt Nat, Mr Rogers, and I walked in the opposite direction.

"It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice. I thought Coulson was going to swoon."

I giggled at Aunt Nat's comment and asked,

"Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?"

"Trading cards?" Mr Rogers looked down at me with a smile.

"They're vintage, he's very proud."

We then spotted Dr Banner, and Mr Rogers stepped up to shake his hand.

"Dr Banner!"

"Oh yeah, hi. They told me you would be coming."

"Word is, you can find the cube."

"Is that the only word on me?"

"Only word I care about."

I smiled and appreciated Mr Rogers' kindness towards Dr Banner.

"It must be strange for you, all of this."

"Well, this is, actually, kind of familiar."

I stepped up closer behind the two men and politely cleared my throat,

"Gentlemen, you might want to step inside in a minute."

"It's going to get a little harder to breathe," Aunt Nat finished for me. Mr Rogers and Dr Banner looked at us both quizzically. The ship started to prepare for flight, and the men looked around at what was going on. Mr Rogers guessed, "Is this a submarine?"

"Really," Dr Banner started, "They want me in a submerged, pressurized, metal container?"

They both started to walk towards the edge of the ship, and Aunt Nat and I looked at each other with smirks on our faces. We both watched as Dr Banner and Mr Rogers watched the ship go into action with either shock or amazement on their faces. Natasha and I guided the men inside and into the main control room toward Uncle Nick. Everyone was doing their checkups. I brought Dr Banner and Mr Rogers toward the table that was placed behind Uncle Nick's screen area. They both continued to look around while I took a seat.

"Gentlemen," Uncle Nick stated as he turned to walk toward us. I watched as Mr Rogers pulled out a ten-dollar bill from his pocket and laughed to myself, remembering the bet Nick had made. Mr Rogers continued to look around as Dr Banner and Uncle Nick had a discussion. I didn't bother to pay attention to them, as I was too busy keeping an eye on Mr Rogers. I was very curious about him and, strangely, felt drawn to him. Perhaps it was all the learning I had done about him. When I began listening again, Uncle Phil was explaining how far we were with finding the Tesseract. Dr Banner asked how many spectrometers we had access to and told Uncle Nick to call every lab he knew and tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays.

"I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

Uncle Nick nodded,

"Agent Romanoff, could you show Dr Banner to his laboratory, please?"

Aunt Nat stood up and began to walk in the direction of the lab, with Dr Banner following closely.

"You're going to love it, Doc. We got all the toys," she told him. Uncle Nick walked over to me and asked how I was doing.

"Very well, sir. Anything you need from me?" I responded.

"Not at the moment, no, but don't get too comfortable."

I smiled at him,

"Of course not."

I continued to wait patiently and kept my eye on Captain Rogers. I made sure to listen to anything Uncle Nick said that sounded important but didn't do much else. I decided to read up on the Tesseract a little more. I had already studied it, considering Captain Rogers had stopped HYDRA from using it but needed a refresher. The alarms started sounding.

"We got a hit, 67% match. Wait. Crossmatch, 79%."

Uncle Phil then asked the agent for a location.

"Stuttgart, Germany. 28 Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding."

I stood up and walked toward Uncle Nick.

"Captain," Uncle Nick said as Mr Rogers turned to look back at him, "You're up. Agent Katie, could you please show Captain Rogers where he can find his suit."

"Yes, sir. Captain, if you will, please follow me."

Mr Rogers followed me, allowing me to direct him without question. We arrived, and the door opened to reveal his new suit. "Here you are, Captain."

Mr Rogers had a serious look on his face as he walked up to the suit.

"Thank you, Miss Katie."

I smiled and shook my head,

"Please, Mr Rogers, just Katie."

Mr Rogers looked down at me with a smile.

"Please, Katie, just Steve," he said, politely mocking me.

"Then I will see you on the jet, Steve." I gave him a nod and walked back out the door toward the Quinjet that was being prepared. Once everyone was ready, we left for Germany to put a stop to Loki.