Captain America

"Do you have any regrets?" Agent Coulson asked, standing nervously as they set up the pods. The last time Steve had seen one, he'd lost the man who'd seen him and seen, not a weakling, not a loser, but a good man. He'd lost his best friend in some foreign country with no body to bury and no ability to go under the table to get rid of him. He'd lost his new best friend, a woman who he loved, with nothing more than a kiss. He'd lost his whole life and world, all he had left was a country he barely recognized. So in a sense, he had a lot of regrets.

"I'd do it again," he said, giving Coulson a pat on the shoulder. "We've all got regrets, but this?" He pointed at the pod, "Not one of them."

"These aliens are really trying to kill the whole human race?"

"That's what they're saying,"

"How do they even know that?"

"Honestly, no idea. Mr. Trent apparently is the one who cracked that. They're certain enough they are going in first though. I'd believe them," he nodded toward Dale Yorkes, who was calmly explaining to his kids by phone that he was going to be undergoing some physiological changes. Steve wondered if that was a normal words for kids to know now and not just library rats like he used to be.

Maria Hill came down the stairs, "They want you upstairs Cap, you too Mr. Stein."

—

Andromeda

The large table on the bridge of the helicarrier was crowded. Tina Minoru, a calm and lean Japanese woman carrying a magic staff, Victor, and Andromeda, formed a party, sitting long form. On the other side, Captain America, James Rhodes, aka Patriot, and Tony Stark. Thor was up and pacing.

"Let me get this straight, you all had a super-science cookbook, a shrink suit, the super-soldier serum, and magic and you all decided to keep that to yourself," Nick Fury said, looking at Andromeda's party.

Tina didn't even flinch before saying, "Director Fury, are you trying to preach to us about transparency? When you're using the Tesseract to build weapons in your world-spanning spy organization's basement?" Andromeda couldn't help but think that Mike was right. Tina would make a fine addition to Hydra.

"Do you people never learn?" Captain America said, his voice full of contempt. He had been a bit of a disappointment, honestly, very straight-laced. "Always a bigger bomb, a bigger bullet, as if the solution to the world's problems was down the barrel of a gun."

"Mike wanted them to launch it into the sun," Victor said. "Pity he isn't here because SHIELD's secret keeping stopped him from being in a safe location."

"This isn't ab-" Fury began.

"Your folly has put the whole earth in danger!" Thor shouted. "At least this pride has been honest with us from the start."

"You've all been very bad boys and girls with very big secrets." Tony said, waving his hand in annoyance. "But Michael Trent, the second smartest man in the world," Andromeda snorted. Did this idiot really think he was smarter than Mike? "Look, I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I'm the smartest person in this room, so I'll make the rankings until there's competition. Anyway, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, Trent is presently in the thrall of some omnicidal megalomaniac and a wanted war criminal from the world of the gods. He knows a dangerous amount about all of us, he wants to put us in the ground."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Victor clenched his jaw. Yes, Mike had said he was arrogant and they'd always plied him with far too many compliments. "If Loki leaves the helicarrier, he'll just hit us with a bevy of missiles and fish the staff out of the wreckage. But since he's on here, I'd assume he'll do his best to deploy as many super soldiers as possible and seize the ship for his own purposes. Unbound by morality, Mike would see a lot of advantage in nuking a few cities to scramble military response."

Andromeda wondered if Victor really thought an amoral Mike would do that or if he was just worried about the nuclear weaponry being used in the conflict. He'd expressed worries about excessive force on the trip while they'd been comparing notes. Mike had been very compartmentalized, a thing they were definitely going to have to discuss now that they were getting married.

"Jesus," Fury cursed and the whole table got abnormally quiet. "I'll order the nuclear weaponry moved. How many people do you think he could deploy?"

"It's hard to say," Andromeda said, shaking her hand, "He was working on a mind-control virus, to immunize himself to this sort of situation, but it's possible he broke it and could deploy it. If that's the case, he could have millions. But if not, Mike is not a trusting person, I'm only just beginning to understand how deep his paranoia runs. If he ends up being listened to strategically, I doubt he'll make too many as long as he can't mind-control his servants. After all, he intends to betray them." The stupid control freak hadn't even begun to inject Hydra agents with the super-soldier, which was the first real proof of a character flaw Andromeda had ever seen in him. Mike could be empathetic, he was a regular guy most of the time, likable, interested in other people. But he could turn it off like a switch and just work without getting caught up in the sentimentality of it all, without becoming afraid or hesitating. Truly the best of all worlds in terms of a personality. It had been irrational to think it would come that clean and perfect, but love makes fools of everyone. Now the first subjects were the PRIDE's more normal members and whichever SHIELD agents were on hand to take the needle.

"Aren't you engaged to this guy?" Rhodes said. Typical normals.

"Mike wants to win and doesn't make excuses when it matters," Andromeda said. Whatever she thought internally, she wasn't going to throw Mike under the bus. They were still getting married, damn it, and no alien gods, no omnicidal quest, no mind control would get between her and that. "That's what America needs in a leader, what I want in a partner. If you settle for less than total victory…." She shrugged. It didn't matter to her. Men like Rhodes were the reason for men like Mike. They needed guidance in order to actually exist and thrive in their station.

"We need to work together," Fury said. "I'm not proud of the secrets I've had to keep. I've had a dream of working with a group of exceptional individuals to try to protect the world for all the threats we couldn't foresee. We called it the Avengers project. This is our chance to do that, to work together for the common good, to save the human race from tyranny and the universe for an apocalypse. Let's focus on that, shall we?"