Chapter Text
It seemed that this would be just another small battle-stop the enemy, save the day-as five of the six Avengers went in to fight. Thor was on Asgard, or maybe he was with Jane, either way, he wasn't with them. And thank any gods that may be for that.
All of New York, no, all the world watched in shock as the building came down, with five of their heroes inside of it. Captain America, Iron Man, Bruce Banner, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow were... They were dead.
Fury slammed his fist down upon the table in the little room where he and Hill were watching the feed. This can't be true, This can't be happening, dammit! Fury thought. These were the best of the best, they can't die, they just CANNOT die!
But the fact remained that the building that The Avengers had been fighting in had caught fire and had burnt down.
"Send someone," anyone, "send someone down there to check for survivors." Fury's voice was horse. He had lost many, many good men and women in his time as director for SHIELD, but The Avengers are, were, always able to pull through. So how, just how did this happen?
It wasn't Loki, he was supposedly dead, after all, so they could most likely rule him out. Besides, no alien being was ranting about being an all-powerful god. Perhaps it was HYDRA. Fury wouldn't put it past them to kill their opposition.
"Sir?" an agent, whose name evades him at the moment, said tentatively.
"What?" Fury growled out. He refuses to show weakness, refuses to show that people that he knew-that he may or may not have a soft spot for-are dead.
"We have confirmation that there are no survivors. We were able to get the...bodies...out with no major problems." He showed some reports-meaningless papers, really, at the moment-to Fury, and the agent continues speaking. "We, ah, have estimated the time of death for each of them, and the causes. If you would-"
Fury waved him away. "I would prefer if you would leave us, now." He said in a low voice.
The agent nodded, and backed out of the room, looking slightly nervous. Vaguely, Fury wondered why.
"All of them?" Hill asked him quietly, and he almost jumped-but he didn't, because he is Nicholas freaking Fury, and he doesn't do that-when he realized that she has walked up to him, and is now looking over the papers with him.
"Yes." Fury told her curtly. He shoved the papers towards her. "Read them to me. I just don't want to deal with this, at the moment." Or ever.
"Banner went first. He wasn't The Other Guy at the time. Barton died at almost the exact same time, both were crushed by some falling debris." Fury winced, but did not say a word. "Rogers was stabbed with an unknown weapon, before falling through several floors into the parking garage. Stark suffered a major blow to the head when his face plate was removed for unknown reasons, and Romanov is still undetermined."
Fury massaged the sides of his head. "Alert me when they've found something." He really didn't want to deal with this right now, not with the deaths of his agents-hell, his friends, almost-looming over him. His fault. It's his fault for sending them in there. His fault.
In a New York hospital a few miles from the site of the accident, a young couple is exited to hear, 'It's a boy! Now push, I can see another head! You have two beautiful baby boys!'. They name their young sons Brian and Clifford Barnes. They had not yet seen the disaster on the television.
Within the next three days, three more babies are born. Two girls, and a boy. They are named Stephanie Ryan, Toby Sterling, and Nathan Richards.
Their parents have no idea of the abilities that their babies possess.