https://youtu.be/2SkMUjilx_M

The secret is out.

For decades, your organization stayed in the shadows. Hiding the truth.

But we know – they're among us.

Heroes... and monsters. The world is full of wonders.

We can't explain everything we see. But our eyes are open.

So what now?

There are no more shadows for you to hide in. Something impossible just happened. What are you going to do about it?

One Year Later...

"Come on, Uncle Z!" Jayden smiled as he held Zach's hand towards their home. It had been one year after the Battle of New York, where the Avengers took their first stand against alien forces, and now Zach returned to his normal life.

But really, nothing would ever be normal for him anymore.

He was famous, and had received pictures and signed autographs wherever he went, due to him being an Avenger. But since then, times have changed.

Tony unfortunately was attacked by the Mandarin, who turned out to be a fake, an actor played by Trevor Slattery, and a decoy by Aldrich Killian. Now, Tony had surgery to remove his arc reactor permanently and was living a relatively peaceful life with Pepper.

Steve still traveled, going around to see this brave new world he was in, and had recently found out Peggy Carter was alive, but however not well. Peggy had been diagnosed with dementia, and it hurt Steve whenever Peggy forgot, and saw him again as if she saw him for the first time in 70 years.

Clint was with his family, Banner was doing his scientific research without the United States army on his ass, and Natasha was once again working with SHIELD. She and Zach had ended their "Friends with Benefits," but ultimately remained good friends, with Natasha still worrying for him.

"Alright, alright, little man!" Zach laughed and held on to his hand. "Don't worry, we'll be back in time to see your mom, huh?" The uncle had treated his nephew to a movie, Man of Steel, and headed back to their apartment.

"Mommy won't be mad at us, will she?" Jayden worriedly asked his uncle, who shook his head. "Oh, no, she won't be, kiddo," Zach assured him. "I told her, and she was fine with the plan, she only agreed because I promised to get you to bed on time."

"But I wanna stay up with you and Mama!" Jayden protested.

"I know, buddy," Zach whispered. "But you have school tomorrow, and your mom wants you to get a full night of sleep."

"Fine..." Jayden sighed. "I do feel sleepy."

"See!" Zach joked as they entered the apartment complex and approached the elevator, just as he noticed Jayden rubbing his eyes. "Oh, come on, buddy," Zach said as he kneeled down and picked up the seven-year-old. "Let's get you to bed. Get some Z's."

Zach pressed the button for the 18th floor, and waited for the elevator to reach his destination. The elevator stops, and the bell dings, opening the doors, and he walks down to his apartment, knocking gently on the door.

After a few seconds, the door opened, revealing his sister, Amara, behind it, who smiled and hugged her brother and her son. "Aw, is Jay sleeping?" She whispered as she took her son into her arms, and looked at Zach. "Get his bed open, I'll tuck him in, alright?"

Zach nodded and walked to Jayden's room, filled with Lego's and action figures. He walked towards his Avengers themed bed, opened the blankets and put down his pillows, while Amara slowly put Jayden in, and covered him up.

"Good night, my angel," Amara whispered and kissed her son's forehead.

"Good night, mama," Jayden sleepily droned. "Good night, Uncle Z..."

"Night, buddy," Zach whispered and ruffled his hair, pecking him on the forehead too.

"You know, sometimes I wonder what you'd be like as a father," Amara teased her brother with a nudge as they quietly walked out of Jayden's room. "Like, you're gonna be a protective daddy or a nice, cool, and chill dad?"

Zach laughed as Amara gently pushed him. "Oh, that will be the day," Zach said. "Honestly, I can't imagine. I used to have those talks with Ella, but I completely forgot about them."

"I cannot wait for the day you make me an aunt," Amara laughed and held her brother's cheeks in her hands. "I wanna see how cute and handsome my nieces or nephews are!!"

"But also at the same time, I hope you also have a wonderful family, pequeñin." Amara whispered to him and held him in his arms. "And I want to be the aunt who spoils the hell out of your kids."

"Hey, hey, don't spoil them too much!" Zach joked back.

Amara only laughed and playfully punched her brother. "Oh, I am gonna spoil them so much," She teased. "Just like how you spoil our little Blue-Jay!"

"Fair's fair, I guess," Zach played along, and yawned as well. "Oh, that boy of yours, I love him to death, but he works up a sweat."

"Just like his uncle," Amara smiled and jabbed her finger into his chest. "And helping him become a superhero... you got all the fancy suits now..."

"Hey, I still have my very first suit you helped make," Zach replied. "I incorporated most of it into every new suit!"

"Do you really?"

"Of course!" Zach answered. "I'm always gonna give you credit for helping me become a superhero." Amara smiled again and tightly hugged her brother, even though she was shorter than him, she placed her head on top of his, making him kneel a little.

"Oh, I love you so much, my little brother," Amara cooed and kissed his cheek. "You're always gonna remember me!"

—--------------------

Classified SHIELD Location.

"What does SHIELD stand for, Agent Ward?"

Agent Grant Ward sat in a boardroom office in front of Fury's second-in-command, Maria Hill, borderline bored out of his mind having been extracted from a mission in France.

"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division," Ward rattled off.

"And what does that mean to you?"

"It means..." Ward answered. "Someone really wanted our initials to spell out SHIELD."

Hill gave him a "are-you-serious" look, as Ward rethought his answer. "It means we're the line between the world and the... much-weirder world. We protect people from news they aren't ready to hear." Ward answered again. "And when we can't do that, we keep them safe."

"Something turns up..." He said as he dug into his pocket, and showed the device to Hill. "Like this Chitauri neural link." He slid it across the table to Hill. "We get to it before someone bad does."

"Any idea who Vanchat was planning to sell it to?" Hill asked as she stood up and walked to a nearby agent, placing the neural link inside a silver lined box.

"I'm more interested in how this... Rising Tide group found out about it." Ward said. "I thought they were just hackers. What changed?"

"Everything's changing. A little while ago, most people went to bed thinking that the craziest thing in the world was a billionaire in a flying suit." Hill answered. "Then aliens invaded New York and were beaten back, among others, a giant green monster, a costumed hero from the 40s, and a god."

"I don't think Thor's technically a god."

"He is." Another voice spoke up. "Seen him in person myself, good old blondie with the unmovable hammer."

"Hello there... Agent Ward," Zach spoke up as he stepped into the office. "Heard a lot about you from Hill."

"An Avenger's here?" Ward asked her, as he turned from Zach to Hill. "Was Paris that bad?"

"You'll have to ask Agent Coulson." Hill cryptically answered, earning confused looks from the both of them. Zach looked at Hill with a weird look. "Hill, Phil's dead." He whispered. 

"Uh, yeah, I'm clearance level 6. Agent Coulson was killed in action before the Battle of New York. Got the full report."

"Welcome to Level Seven." Another voice spoke up as none other than Phil Coulson stepped out of the shadows and into the light.

And very not-stabbed-through-the-heart.

"Sorry, that corner was really dark," Coulson explained. "And I couldn't help myself, think there's a bulb out." He turned to Zach, visibly confused. "Zach! Hello again!" Coulson joyfully spoke up and held out his hand for him. "Long time, how have you been?"

Zach was still very confused, and said, "What the fu-"

—-------------

Coulson had explained that his supposed death was actually an attempt by Fury to motivate the Avengers, which had very much worked. Coulson was actually dead for a mere eight seconds.

"Yeah, well, you get shanked by the Asgardian Mussolini, you can tell it your way," Coulson stated as he recalled the events of his death. "I was looking at the big white light, and it felt a lot longer than eight seconds."

"Do any of the other Avengers know?" Zach asked Coulson. "That you're not dead, or Fury played us all?" "They're not level seven." Hill responded.

"Got out of the ICU, Fury stuck me in a grass shack in Tahiti," Coulson explained. "Rough gig, Mai Tais, Travis McGee novels, and a physical therapist whose command of English was... irrelevant."

The four walked back into a control room full of screens, where video footage came on of a man scaling a burning building, and rescuing an unconscious woman from it, but this man had superhuman strength, and was seemingly unharmed.

"That's a superhero, Agent Ward." Coulson told him. "An unregistered Gifted." Hill briefed. "Identity unknown."

The secret's out. For decades, your organization...

"So when we get to them, Shield's going to register them on the Index?" Zach asked. "Suggesting that we get to him before anyone else."

"That may be the case, given he wasn't hostile afterwards." Coulson answered. "But it's another present from the Rising Tide."

"How are they getting this stuff before us?" Ward asked, earning an eye roll from Zach.

"It's really simple, they just cracked out RSA implementation, I guess," Zach answered. "And for a government organization based on security and otherwise, we need much better software."

"Agent Coulson has requisitioned a mobile command unit," Hill told the agent and the Avenger. "To which the two of you are assigned."

"The Rising Tide is drawing us out," Coulson said as he picked up a binder adorned with the Shield crest. "I think it's time they succeeded."

Ward then argued with Hill how he was a specialist, not a welcoming attendant, and then Hill privately spoke to Coulson about how his whole roster was sketchy, clearly having her reservations about a few, but Coulson assured her they were cleared.

—---------------------

Coulson had retrieved and convinced his first-hand agent, Agent Melinda May, to join his team, which she reluctantly agreed to, but she did for reasons obvious to them. With her skills as a pilot, she would be driving "The Bus" or the codename for a very, very nice plane.

On the other hand, both Zach and Ward had prepared themselves to go to the Bus, ready to join the team and find this superhero. However, they were met with songs of old-married-couple bickering from two individuals with an Scottish and British accents.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, watch it! That's the Night-Night gun!"

"Well, it's on my stuff and it doesn't work, and there's no way we're calling it the Night-Night gun!"

"The bullets work! Nonlethal, heavy stopping power, break up under the subcutaneous tissue–"

"Oh, with a dose of only point one microliters of dendrotoxin! I'm not Hermione, I can't create instant paralysis with that! You should have run the specs by me before building the molds!"

"The bullets are hollow! It's a marvel I can keep them from breaking apart!"

In front of the agents were a man and woman arguing at each other about a whole of sciencey stuff, which Ward thought boring, yet Zach thought interesting. From the two's expressions of science, he thought he would like the both of them very much.

However, Ward rudely dropped his bag on the ground, interrupting their rants, turning to them. "Fitz-Simmons?" He asked them both in an annoyed voice.

"Fitz." the woman pointed to the man.

"Simmons." The man introduced the woman. "I'm engineering, she's biochem. Agent Ward?" Fitz asked as his eyes turned to Zach, who simply waved. "And Agent Danvers-Stark -– bloody hell, an Avenger's here."

"Coulson said we'd need our comm receiver encoded," Ward explained as the two handed their comms to Fitz, who eagerly took them to his station. "I don't know if you've worked with that model before. It's –"

Before Ward could continue, Fitz took a hammer and smashed the receiver into bits, shocking both Ward and Zach, but not Simmons. "Oh, I like him." Zach said. "Bit aggressive, but he's got the spirit."

"Yeah, he knows what he's doing," Simmons responded. "He's going to repurpose the I.D.I.S chip."

"Don't need the external receiver for the inner ear comms anymore," Fitz said as he used a pair of tweezers to hold a component up.

"So, how does it—" Ward asked again, but he and Zach were greeted with a cotton swab in his mouth by Simmons.

"Embedded sensory-neural silicone matched to your DNA," Simmons explained as she adjusted it in their mouths. "It's very posh." She took out the swab and put it into a container. "So, are you both excited to be coming on our journey into mystery?"

"It's like Christmas," Ward answered sarcastically, to which Simmons smiled like the angel she is.

"Well, unlike Ward's super-sarcastic ass, I'm really excited," Zach answered. "You both sound like my kind of people! Now, what's this about a Night-Night gun?"

"Well, I'll be," another voice spoke up as the four turned back to find another person on the hangar bay. He was a tall man with shades and brownish hair. "Is that the pain-in-the-ass Grant Ward?"

"You're in on this op, Sawyer?" Ward responded with a chuckle. "Didn't know it was open to basket-cases like you."

"Funny you're saying that, who has the most successful ops between the two of us? And didn't fuck it up like how you did with Paris?"

"Oh, wow," Fitz smiled as he observed the new agent. "Is that Nick Sawyer? Son of Shield Legend Peyton Sawyer?"

"Legend?" Zach asked him, who eagerly nodded. "Why's she a legend?"

"They say that she's one of Shield's best, even before Romanoff," Simmons answered. "Could shoot anything from a very far distance, and an uncanny ability to hit her target from any angle."

Just as the two's rivalry kept their bickering, a solid red vintage car pulled into the hangar, and honked at the two to move.

"Ooo, and one of Coulson's old SHIELD collectibles!" Fitz eagerly spoke as he saw the car roll up. "Flamethrowers, world's first GPS..."

"I heard its wheels can make the car fly!" Zach responded. "That thing is like James Bond's Aston Martin, but with a whole lot of gadgets."

Coulson got out of the Corvette, as a technician made his way towards the car, Coulson immediately looked to him and commanded, "Don't touch Lola."

"And he calls it a girl's name." Fitz laughed and slapped Zach's back.

—----------

"Lola's not just a collectible, you know?" Coulson explained to the agents as they advanced up to the upper level of the Bus. "People tend to confuse the words new and improved."

"This mobile command unit," He continued, like the history geek he was. "They were in heavy rotation back in the 90s, but then we got a Heli-carrier." He turned to everyone. "Hey, you ever hear the one about the guy who's afraid of flying?"

"I've done a night jump into a drop zone under heavy fire, sir," Ward said. "I can handle it."

"Sure, he can," Nick whispered to Zach. "He's a total showoff, loves to gloat about everything."

"Yeah, he's also kind of a dick." Zach said. "But with Fitz and Simmons, he's shown himself as more of a douchebag."

"Exactly, man!" Nick answered. "He's always been like that, cause of John Garrett."

"If you plan to unpack, make it quick," May told the group. "Just got our final recruits you asked for, and wheels up in five, we may have a hit on one of the Rising Tide's routing points."

"Final recruits, huh?" Zach asked Coulson. "Who could those be..."

And just as he asked, two people entered the Bus, and two with a lot of history with Zach. As he saw them, his heart skipped a beat, and he nearly went into shock when he saw one of them making direct eye contact with him.

None other than the woman he loved so long ago. Ella Monroe herself, alongside her brother, Eddie Monroe.

"Zachary?" she asked in a new American accent as he stopped himself from going to her.

"Yeah, I'm just gonna go down to the lab," He bluntly said. "See if Fitz or Simmons need anything."

—-------------------------------

After the revelation that was his ex and her brother were on the same team, Zach decided to help Ward, Nick, and Coulson find and capture one of the members of the Rising Tide, a hacker by the name of Skye.

They were successful in abducting her in Los Angeles from her very smelly van she was living out of, and was now placed in an interrogation room with Ward and Coulson for questioning.

However, in a misdirect from big spy films, she wasn't given truth serum.

Instead, Ward was given truth serum in front of her.

On the other hand, Simmons, May, Fitz and Eddie were investigating the site where the superhero was last seen. Leaving both Ella and Zach on the Bus.

Zach was in his cot, checking in daily with Amara and Jayden, while doing his own bit of research on the superpowers of the hero. So far, all he got was super-strength, super-agility & durability.

"Zach?" He heard Ella's voice come from outside, as he sighed to himself and ushered her in. "Come in." He spoke blankly. Ella walked in and sat down on the edge of his quarters, looking at her old lover.

"Look, I know, you must have so, so, so many questions," She began.

"Yeah, that's not even the half of it," Zach grumbled, as he typed in some information on his computer. "I was out to get that thing, whatever you needed from that place, and then next thing I know, our apartment's fucking bare, as if nothing ever happened, and now, you're here!"

"Please, I can explain–"

"Oh, can you! Can you, Ella!" Zach angrily spoke up. "What else have you been hiding? How long have you been a Shield agent?"

"I've been one for a long while, ever since we met, Zach," Ella answered genuinely. "Fury's told you that he's had people looking after you, right? I was one of them. I thought you were just like your dad, but you proved to me that you weren't."

"And what we had? Was that real or fake, huh?" Zach interrogated. "Cause it worked, I fell hard for you."

"Everything we had together was real, Zach, I guarantee it," Ella answered. "It broke my heart when I had to leave, mostly because Eddie was a dick, wanted to leave everything, and Amelia... oh, god, that hurts."

"What-what happened to Amelia?" Zach asked, now much softer. Ella sniffed, and wiped her tears.

"The day we had dinner with them, Amelia was pregnant, and wanted to tell us." She answered. "But Eddie, being the arrogant prick, wanted nothing to do with the baby, but eventually he did, and they were happy."

"But it didn't last," Ella explained. "Amelia went into labor, and... a-and... she died during childbirth. And I found this before I left..."

She reached into her necklace and pulled it out, revealing the engagement ring Zach would have proposed to her with all those years ago.

"I've worn this ring around my neck for five years," Ella told him. "And everytime I look at it, it reminds me of you, all the good times and how much I love you. And then I break down and remember I had to leave you."

Zach couldn't believe she not only found the ring but had worn it for so many years. "I would have said yes, you know?" She chuckled. "But, my life got fucked up, and... now we're here. I know I have to earn your trust again and—"

"Save it." Zach said. "You do have to earn it back, and we will see. But now, we're teammates. But there shouldn't be any bad blood between us both. I just need... time to digest everything now."

Coulson had exited the interrogation room, watching Ward asleep on the table, just as Skye walked around him. "Coulson, you sure she should be out of the containment chamber?" Zach asked him without looking up.

"She's not dangerous," Coulson deemed. "And she agreed to help once I gave her some answers."

"That's why Ward's knocked out?" Nick chuckled. "Wow, and he says he can hold his drink." He turned to Skye with a smile. "Come on, spill the beans, what'd he say?"

"He's said he's been to Paris, but he's never really seen it," Skye answers. "And he really wishes Coulson stayed in Tahiti."

"It's a magical place." Coulson smirked.

"Ward doesn't like your style, but I kind of think I do," Skye answers.

"Oh, shit," Zach remarks as he saw the recent news bulletin. "I think you'd wanna see this." He stood up and pulled the news off his computer and threw it to the main screen, showing everyone what had happened.

"...remains in critical condition. Employees could not identify the attacker, but security footage confirms that this man assaulted the factory foreman before damaging thousands of dollars' worth of company property."

"I don't know about you guys, but that looks like our guy," Zach said as he paused the report and zoomed in on the attacker. "This is wrong..." Skye proclaims. "This is not the guy I met... he was... he just needs a break."

"Then give him one," Coulson commanded. "What do we got?"

—-----------------------

Skye placed down an I.D. she pick-pocketed the man when she saw him prior to her kidnapping, and the holotable immediately scanned it and brought up the man's identity, just as the entire team, sans Ward, had come into the briefing room.

"Micheal Peterson," Coulson reported. "Factory worker, married, one kid. Gets injured, gets laid off, Wife jumps ship. Good guy, bad breaks. Best guess is, someone tells him they can make him strong again, make him super."

"Sounds a little Captain America-esque to me," Eddie replied, just as Zach scoffed. "Oh, really?" He answered sarcastically. "I thought it was Santa Claus."

Eddie was about to realitate, but Ella nudged him, and shook her head, wanting Zach to trust her again. "Who has the tech to do that?" May asked. "And why would they want to?"

"Fitz, what do we have from the security footage before the blast?" Coulson asked the engineer, just as he pulled up a grainy image of two men talking to each other. "What are we seeing?" May asked him.

"Well, the man is angry at the other man," Fitz replied in an obvious manner.

Everyone stared blankly at Fitz's statement, as Jemma took a crack at what the data was saying. "The data is very corrupt." She added.

"Yeah, like Cold War Russia corrupt!" Fitz explained. "I-I can't sync the time code without—"

"What if you had the audio?" Skye interrupted the scientists, grabbing everyone's attention. "I was running surveillance in the lab... I had my shotgun mic pointed at the window before the blast. The digital file's in my van, there's too much background noise for me, but you could probably..."

Simmons turned to Fitz. "But you can clean that up, can't you?" She asked. "Find a sync point and use cross-field validation to find—"

"But I can't scrub for expression patterns when the vit-c is all," Fitz spoke more techno-speak. "Can we scrub for them if there's a chrominance subcarrier?" Zach asked.

"Yeah, attached to the back porch," Fitz replied to Zach, before him and Simmons turned to Skye. "We will take that audio, please." The two said at the exact same time.

"God, they really are like two halves of one person." Zach whispered to Skye.

"Skye, your van's here," Coulson instructed. "But you're right, we couldn't decrypt the files."

"The encryption is coupled to the GPS," Skye answered. "Get my van back to that alley, and then I'm in business."

"Agents May, Ella & Eddie will escort you," Coulson explained, while he turned to May. "And on your way out, wake up Ward."

He was still unconscious in the holding cell.

Some time later --- Fitz-Simmons Lab.

"Audio file should be coming through," Skye spoke to Fitz, Nick, and Zach through comms. "It's not compressed, so it might take a minute."

"Uh, yeah–" Fitz said as he and Zach were fixing up the prongs of a device they were assembling in the hangar bay. A nearby computer beeped, grabbing the boys' attention as Fitz sprinted to it. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm getting it."

Fitz clacked on the keyboard. "So, uh, uh, when you get back, I'll show you my thing." Fitz suddenly realized how wrong that sounded, and so did Zach. "A thing. It's not..."

Even worse now.

"It's my hardware," Fitz explained, yet it still sounded wrong. "MY EQUIPMENT! Let's... hang up."

"Were you trying to hit on her?" Zach asked him as he straightened up one of the poles. "No!" Fitz argued. "I-I... uh... I have my eyes on someone else. She is... uh, quite attractive though."

"Oh, she definitely is," Nick answered. "Hard to believe she lives in a van..."

Jemma and Coulson were fortunately too busy investigating the device left at a scene, now dripping with yellow ooze that would give Mutagen a run for it's money. "So, what did that get us?" Ward asked as he barged in, now off the effects of the truth serum.

"Ah, typically Grant Ward," Nick muttered to Zach. "Always barging in, demanding information as if he's the boss."

"Ya know, I'm starting to like you more and more," Zach told him. "Ward's so much like a tryhard."

"Skye's sending us the rest of her decrypted files on Centipede," Fitz answered. "But we have her audio, I've loaded it up." Coulson complimented him as Fitz typed in the last of the parameters he needed.

"Now, using motion estimation, Bayesian inference, a beam splitter, and a little diffraction theory..." Fitz explained as he pressed a couple more buttons. "Our mystery man..."

The poles in the hangar started up and beamed a holographic image of what could have been another accident. "Appears!" Fitz exclaimed. "It's like magic... but it's – it's science."

"Explosives in the case?" Both Nick and Ward asked at the same time, then looked at each other with a glare.

"... to please calm down. Just let me check your vitals!" The doctor in the hologram begged the man opposite to him.

"I feel fine! I want to feel more." The other man said. "Where's the doctor?! Where is she!?"

"If you don't settle down, I–I'll have you sedated!"

"WHERE IS SHE!?" The man yelled as he picked up a nearby stool and threw it to the ground, breaking it instantly while the agents got a good look at his arm.

Fitz paused the video, and rewound the footage as the stool reassembled and found itself back in the man's hand, but his left arm had a strange device attached to it, a device resembling a centipede.

"It's an intravenous filter for his blood." Simmons explained, then turned to Coulson. "This goo, sir... it's very similar to the serum Dr. Erskine developed in the '40s for the..."

"Super-Soldier Project." Zach finished her sentence. "They want to make another Captain America, but they've made Human-sized Hulks."

"I'm reading alien metal, gamma radiation... the serum," Simmons explained. "Every known source of superpower, thrown in a blender."

"We need to see the origin of the blast." Coulson directed. "Run it back from the last point recorded."

Fitz played back the footage to the moment of the explosion, and rewound it back to find the explosion came from the man himself. His skin began to glow with what looked like his skin cracking apart. All too familiar to both Zach & Coulson.

"Extremis," Coulson announced. "It's new, completely unstable."

"It was originally developed by Maya Hansen & Aldrich Killian," Zach said as he pulled up the Extremis info from the Stark databases. "It grants its user's extreme regenerative abilities, superhuman strength, and even limb regrowth."

"Since this variant is unstable, I don't think this guy is still kicking around." Zach told Coulson.

"Poor man didn't bring an explosive," Simmons sighed. "And Mike has the same stuff in him."

"And judging by his strength level, it's a lot more," Ward continued.

"Wait, so any minute now, Mike's gonna—" Fitz asked, as Zach put his hands together and separated it, mimicking an explosion.

"He'll take anyone out within a two-block radius." Jemma concluded.

Nick huffed and turned to Ward, punching him in the arm. "You wanted a bomb," He muttered. "Now you have your cake and you can eat it too."

—--------------

As Ward began to assemble a sniper on the console table & Nick slid a magazine into his gun, Zach and Coulson were thinking desperately on what to do.

"Sir!" Jemma called out to Coulson as Fitz trailed behind her. "He didn't explode because he was angry, the two are connected." She explained. "It's — it's kind of a chemical surge. But calming him down will buy him a minute at most. But he will detonate within the next few hours."

"Solution?" Coulson asked.

"Isolate him, get him away from people?" Jemma answered.

"Or?" Zach chimed in.

"Put a bullet through his brain." Fitz answered. Zach nodded and pursed his lips. "Yeah, that's a bit too extreme, we don't wanna leave his kid without a dad."

"We need a third option at best." Coulson answered.

"We have a couple hours at most," Jemma said. "There's no way that we could possibly—"

"Don't ever tell me there's no way!" Coulson snapped. "It's on you. Get it done." As Ward shouldered the gun, much to Zach & Nick's dismay, Coulson received a phone call from May. He picked it up and put it to his ear. "May?"

"He took Skye." May huffed through the call, sounding defeated. "He took down all three of us."

"Are you three all right?" Coulson asked frantically.

"We'll deal with that... at length." May coughed. "Right now, we need to figure out where they went."

—-------------------------------------------

Los Angeles Union Station, 2013

Skye's Van

"How long is this going to take?" Mike asked impatiently as Skye rushed her fingers across her keyboard to wipe their identities, while his son, Ace, played along with an action figure.

"This is top speed, trust me," Skye answered. "It's not like I'm deleting a Facebook page. I'm bypassing the license bureau's A.E.S.-protected data stream. So chill..." She added with a sarcastic remark.

"How do I know you can really do this?" Mike questioned her.

"I've done it before." Skye said as she finished, her screen reading "ALL FILES DELETED." However, Mike didn't notice she broadcast the longitude and latitude of their location.

Mike turned to his son. "We'll take the nice lady with us." He tried to explain calmly, even though he didn't know he's a ticking time bomb.

"We—we—we can't go to the airport, so we'll take a train. And there, she'll — she'll help us start over," Mike stumbled on his words. "make a new life... A better life, like I always said."

—-------------------------------------------

Just across the van, a black car pulled up as Ward, Nick, Zach (who had disguised himself), & Coulson (armed with a megaphone) exited out, making their way inside. "Look at this place," Ward said. "You're gonna risk thousands of lives over some nobody."

"Nobody's nobody, Ward," Coulson explained to the arrogant agent. "Fitz-Simmons will come through."

He held up the megaphone in front of the van, and spoke up. "Mr. Peterson, good morning." He spoke loud and clear. "We're not a threat, we're here to help. But you're in danger, and we need to take you in."

However... Mike's not fine. He's the complete opposite of fine. "WHAT DID YOU DO!?" Mike yelled at Skye, as the sides of his jaw glowed an orange hue.

He turned to the door of the van, and with both of his hands, pushed it forward, making the agents duck, but Zach was able to catch the door and throw it to where civilians weren't in harm's way.

He forcefully took Ace and Skye in his arms and ran inside the station, as the agents ran after him. Skye took a few moments to take in what she could use to her advantage to get away from Mike, and found her chance in a group of men.

As one of them was close enough to her, she quickly raised her foot and kicked the man right in his family jewels. "You're right!" Skye yelled to grab more attention. "He is a little bitch!"

As the men started to attack the three, Skye quickly took Ace away from Mike, but Mike was much too focused on the men attacking him. He threw one man into a stack of luggage, smacked away another with his fist, and grabbed one's hand with his own, and broke his wrist instantly.

One man had the absolutely brilliant idea to attack Mike with a piece of metal.

It bent over his shoulder and did absolutely no harm to him. Mike slowly turned around and glared at him, and the next thing the man knew, he was flown into the air like a human pinata.

As the cops arrived, Skye had brought Ace to Coulson, who then handed him off to the police. "Hey, let's get him out of here," Coulson told a nearby cop.

"Help my daddy," Ace muttered before he was taken away. "I promise." Coulson answered the child's pleas.

"Ace!" Mike yelled for his son. "ACE!?" Ward stood behind him, and kicked him to the ground, proceeding to then hold him in a chokehold. "Look, the stuff inside you is unstable." Ward hissed to him. "It'll kill you and everyone in here."

"WHO'S GONNA MISS US?!" Mike hollered, and threw him off. Zach ran to handle Mike, and pinned his arms against the wall. "We're really trying to help you, man!" Zach yelled. "You're literally going to blow up!"

"What's an Avenger like you doing out here?" Mike hissed at him. "I'm the hero now — They don't need you anymore."

"A hero doesn't put people in danger!" Zach explained. "And people don't ruin in fear from them!"

The Centipede serum had made Mike very strong, and with that he was able to push Zach off of him. "I don't want to hurt you!" Zach yelled at him.

However, a cop with a shotgun had aimed at Mike, and shot at him, but Zach quickly took the bullet, as it flattened and dropped to the ground.

"Active shooter on the site," Zach radioed to Coulson. "Someone wants to take the shot at Mike before we want to help."

Coulson copied, and radioed to May, Ella, and Eddie. "May, Agents Monroe, we're at the north entrance." He then stopped to help Ward up. "We told them to hold fire..."

"Mike's gonna head down to the tracks," Coulson told him. "You stay high, Agents Danvers-Stark, Sawyer and I go low. Only take the shot if you have to, Ward."

Ward began to walk towards the stairs, away from the three. "Only take the shot if you have to, Ward." Coulson repeated. "Ward!"

Ward turned back. "If I have to."

—-------------------------------------------

Mike had recaptured Skye and brought her to the tracks. However, the shooter had caught up with them and shot Mike, dropping him to the ground floor of Union Station and through a vendor stall.

May and Ella had arrived in time to take down the shooter, while Eddie went to Skye to take her to safety. In mere moments, the shooter was neutralized and it had all come down to Mike.

Mike had survived the fall, but he was getting more and more angrier. His face started glowing the same hue of orange, and his back was practically steaming from the heat he was generating.

As he stood to his feet, he saw face-to-face with Coulson, with Nick and Zach, ready to take Mike, if god forbid Ward had to take the shot and miss. Coulson, as a sign of goodwill, placed his gun on the floor.

"Think that means anything?!" Mike yelled. "I know you got men everywhere waiting to take me down. I know how this plays out."

"I don't." Coulson explained. "I know you got poison in your system. I know it's burning you up, Mike, the last guy who wore that exploded."

"I'm not like that other guy!" Mike argued "I'm... it matters who I am... inside, if I'm a good person, if I'm strong!"

"Sir, I have a clear shot," Ward advised Coulson. "Do you copy?"

"I know you're strong," Coulson told Mike. "Your boy knows it. He needs you to let us help."

"YOU TOOK HIM!" Mike shouted. "You took my wife, my job, my house! You think this!" He gestured to the Centipede device on his arm. "Is killing me?! All over, there's people being pushed down, being robbed." Mike yelled once more. "One of them tries to stand up, you make an example out of him."

"You bring this building down on us, will that help them?"

"That's a lie!" Mike argued as he grabbed a piece of debris. "All you do is LIE!" He threw the debris down on the ground. "You said if we worked hard... if we did right..." Ward tightened his finger on the trigger, ready to pull it if need be.

"...we'd have a place. You said it was enough to be a man. But there's better than man. There's gods, and the rest of us... what are we? They're giants. We're what they step on."

"I know. I've seen giants... up close," Coulson said, recalling his experience from the sentient Destroyer armor and most recently, Loki. All the other agents rushed behind Coulson.

"And that privilege cost me... nearly everything. But the good ones — the real deal — they're not heroes because of what they have that we don't." 

"It's what they do with it." Coulson finished. "You're right, Mike. It matters who you are."

"I could, y'know?" Mike pleaded. "Be a hero?"

"I'm counting on it." Coulson answered.

Mike went quiet. He was about to say something, but his head jerked back as the sound of a weapon being discharged was heard through the station. Mike feel hard to the ground as all the agents looked up to Ward.

Ward shouldered his weapon, revealing it was the Night-Night Gun Fitz was working on. A perfect shot of dendrotoxin had made Mike safe.

Mike Peterson was still alive.

Simmons sighed in relief as Fitz gave a thumbs-up, and all the agents celebrated with each other. Their first mission as a team was a complete success.

"Subject is in a stable condition." Coulson reported to Maria Hill, who was in the HUB, a secure S.H.I.E.l.D. base, much like the Triskelion in Washington, D.C. "All clear in Union Station."

—-------------------------------------------

Peterson Household --- Chicago, Illinois.

Ace was in the custody of his aunt, at a very lovely home just outside the city of Chicago. Skye had come by to visit them, and see how Ace was doing, just as Zach and Coulson were standing by with Lola.

"I told him his father is coming home," Skye told the two. "He will," Zach affirmed. "We have some experience with this."

"He almost blew. We almost died." Skye rebuttaled.

"We have some experience with that, too," Coulson added. "Basic Thursday for me, man," Zach said.

"Don't have it all mapped out," Skye chuckled. "True, we didn't cut off the head of Centipede." Coulson said. "Whoever sponsored that little experiment is still out there, among other things."

"It's a brave, new world," Skye exclaimed. "And a really old car." Zach turned to her in fake despair.

"You take that back about Lola!" Zach laughed. "They don't make 'em like this any more! Especially with all the added features she's got under the hood..."

"Thanks for defending Lola like that, Zach," Coulson smiled. "You're still not going to add anything to her."

"Damn! Worth a shot." Zach joked.

"What about you?" Coulson asked Skye as the three took their seats in Lola. "Have you thought about the offer?"

"Hitching a ride on the crazy plane?" Skye said. "Not exactly a team player..."

"Not exactly a team just yet," Zach chimed in. "Sawyer and I still think Ward's a tryhard."

"But we're in a position to do some good," Coulson continued. "You'd be a great help. And you'd be front-row-center at the strangest show on Earth. Which is, after all, what you wanted."

"Things here are weirder than P.T. Barnum's stuff." Zach added.

"I was able to hack S.H.I.E.L.D. from my van," Skye laughed. "You're gonna show me something new?" Suddenly, Coulson's phone rang, and he picked it up through Lola's speakers.

"Sir?" Ward's voice rang through as Fitz feasted on Chinese food, Ward, Nick and Jemma with a couple beers were around. "We have an 0-8-4."

Zach's eyes perked up. "My favorite S.H.I.E.L.D. term!" He excitedly said. "Is that confirmed?" Coulson asked.

"They want US to go in and confirm it."

"What's an oh-eight-four?" Skye asked the two, as Coulson switched on the engine. "You've got exactly 10 minutes if you really want to know."

Skye laughed. "There's no way we can make it to the airfield in—" her thoughts were interrupted as Coulson flipped a couple more switches. The spokes on the wheels whirred up and the wheels turned 90 degrees, making the car hover.

"Hey, Coulson?" Zach said as he quickly got out of Lola, and levitated next to them. "Race 'ya." He thrust his arms back and sped off.

Coulson turned back to Skye with a smirk. "The tide is rising. Let's see if we can beat an Avenger at a race." He pulled the stick back, and Lola took off towards the airfield.

(a/n): alright, I finally updated! this is the first of a two-parter we have for the first episode of Agents of Shield. I won't be able to update as frequently though, as I do have prior commitments, but I will update when I can. That is all for me for now, and I hope you all have/had a wonderful day/night!