Coulson just didn't know what he could do. He'd tried probing her with tasks, ones that would appeal to her interests and talents: working on the firewalls, hacking into FBI, CIA, and Hydra servers... nothing drew her interest anymore. Grant Ward, for all of his troubles, had managed to break the fiercest spirit on the plane, the one that Coulson believed could never be broken.

And now? Now that she had these powers that they couldn't control? Now that she had Tripp's death weighing on her mind? There was only one option left, the last resort. He sighed, picking up his phone and dialing the familiar number, waiting as it rang before the silky-smooth voice came through the phone. "Romanov." Coulson shook his head. "I know it's been a while..." There was silence on the other end of the phone for a couple of seconds, hesitation in her voice.

"Phil?" There wasn't a tone of surprise, at least not to the extent there probably should have been. She knew, of course she knew. She had been on of SHIELD's best spies. She'd been there to take down SHIELD from a computer that had access to the TAHITI project... and that meant Clint knew as well. "So you finally decided to reach out? Took you long enough."

She didn't need to see Coulson to know that he was smirking. "Yeah, well, it was for the best... but now I have an 0-8-4 I'm not equipped to deal with. I was hoping you and the gang could help me out." She could hear the pain and tension in his voice. Whatever it was, it bothered him... why was the question that hung on her lips. She glanced at Clint, who had stopped his shooting once he'd heard the name of his old handler. She was signing Phil's side of the conversation to him to keep him updated.

"What's the object?" She asked cautiously.

"It's not an object... it's a person. One of my team... she's a brilliant hacker and not too shabby in the field, but during a mission she got caught in a bad situation... it changed her, and we aren't equipped to handle her newfound powers." He figured a team that held the hulk was probably better suited for the destructive nature of her new abilities.

"I'll have to tell the rest of the team you're alive... some might not take it too well." She cautioned him, Clint signing back to her that they had to help. This was, after all, Coulson. He wouldn't ask unless it was important. Natasha nodded.

"I'll bring it up to Cap and Stark, calm them down a bit... and then I'll tell you when to bring her by." Natasha was confident that Cap's moral compass would lead him to accept the case, regardless of what he might have to think about Coulson keeping his alive status secret. She hung up without another word, and Coulson knew it was nothing personal. She and Clint were spies, and they knew him well enough to know that if he'd kept the fake nature of his death a secret, it was for a damn good reason.

Natasha sighed, walking through the halls of the Tower, heading towards the movie theatre where she knew Steve was trying to catch up on his pop culture references, Clint following behind as a shadow. He wanted to hear how this conversation turned out as well. He turned his hearing aids up, watching form the doorframe as she plopped down next to Steve on the couch.

"So Cap... I've got a confession to make." He paused the movie, looking at her with a look of confusion, waiting for her to elaborate.

"When we took down SHIELD... released secrets... I found one that I kept from you and the rest of the team." Steve's brow furrowed.

"Explain, please." Despite the politeness in his tone, there was something hard and dark behind it.

"It's about Coulson... when SHIELD went down I found a file on a project called TAHITI. It was a SHIELD project that uses alien DNA to bring people back from the dead... and Phil was one of the participants... he's alive, and he needs our help." She explained a very brief synopsis of what the story, leaving out some of the gory details she'd looked into after things had settled down after DC.

The news, to say the least, was shocking. Steve remained quiet for more than one minute, processing the information. Natasha and Clint watched the different emotions pass through his face: confusion, anger, frustration, defiance, denial... and finally a sense of relief and happiness knowing it was one less life that had to weigh on his conscious. Natasha waited patiently.

"Why didn't he tell us he's alive?" He demanded quickly, a question which Natasha had anticipated.

"He wasn't allowed to. Fury had him running a ghost unit, and the less people who knew he was alive, the better." She was quick to respond, standing up. "But he needs our help now... and it's big... and we need to talk to Stark about it." That was going to be a more daunting task. He wasn't as rational or understanding as the captain, and he'd be upset, especially with how hard Pepper had taken Coulson's death after the Battle of New York.

"What does he need?" Steve inquired as he rose, figuring Natasha could fill him in on the way.

"One of his team... she was exposed to something on a mission. I don't have the full details, but she's developed powers, and his team isn't equipped to handle them. He wanted to know if we could help her learn to control them, maybe train her up a bit. She's a hacker, and she does some decent field work, but with Coulson trying to rebuild SHIELD with limited funds, he doesn't have the means to support and train her in a field he himself isn't experienced with. He promised full details if he could bring her here for some training." She responded as they walked, arriving at the elevator just in time to finish up. Steve simply nodded.

"JARVIS, take us to Tony's lab please."

It was, after all, Tony's tower. It was Tony's money that funded the Avengers, and those that they agreed to help...

They braced themselves for the emotional range of Tony Stark, who was not particularly fond of secrets. They stepped off the elevator, Clint staying behind to return to the shooting range. Natasha stood there, her hands folded behind her back, shoulders squared as Cap stood beside her, Tony glancing up a few moments after they had stopped.

"JARVIS said you needed to talk to me? What could be so busy that you interrupt my work?" He asked as he wiped some of the grease off his hands, glaring between the two of them. There was one rule in the Tower: you never interrupted Tony and Bruce while they were working in their labs, but he figured this would be an exception.

"Coulson's alive... and he needs our help." Natasha said, knowing the full story wasn't the best way to get things through the Stark. She'd learned about his ability to cope with things during her time undercover in Stark Industries. He seemed confused, then angry.

"Coulson's alive and he didn't bother to tell us until NOW?" He demanded, setting down his prototype on the table. "And he has the nerve to tell us by asking us for HELP?" Natasha didn't even flinch as he approached, rolling her eyes. "It's a complicated story, but yes, he's alive, and he needs our help. He wouldn't ask if it weren't important."

Despite his anger, the words struck a chord, as well as his interest. "And what is so important that a ghost had to beg and plead for our help."

It was the good Captain's turn now. "He has a girl on his team, brilliant hacker who I hear can go toe-to-toe with you... she's developed some powers... he called us because we have a little more experience with powered individuals than him, and he's out of his depth." He responded, adding a line about a brilliant hacker to challenge Tony to interest him even more. He knew he was a hacker, but he didn't know if she was that good. It was enough to get her in the door at least.

Sure enough, Tony took the bait. He huffed, glancing between the two of them with narrowed eyes. "Fine... have him bring her here... I can't work on a floor for her until I know the dangers of her powers, nor any specific training equipment." Natasha smiled as she turned, and Cap raised an eyebrow at him. "I know you're mad at Coulson, but he really did have a good reason to keep it a secret." He offered before turning to follow Natasha, who was already back on the phone with her old handler.

"We're in. Bring her to the tower, and we'll figure everything else out... and Coulson? It's damn good to hear your voice again." She offered before the call dropped from being in the elevator.

It was perhaps an hour, maybe two before Natasha had called back... sooner than he'd expected. He expected the team to put up more of a fight after learning he'd kept his secret from them for so long. It'd been years, and he hadn't even reached out after the fall of SHIELD... but then again, it'd been Natasha who'd done the convincing, and she could be very persuasive when she wanted to be.

He'd been sitting next to May when he got the call, and he nodded to her as she started to turn the plane towards New York. The sooner they got Skye the help she needed, the better equipped she'd be, the safer she'd be, and the safer the rest of the team would be. Some of their members were already on edge from how unpredictable she and her abilities had been.

The Avengers could help... he had to believe they could, because he knew that as badly as he wanted to, he couldn't.