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Chapter Text

Chapter 1: The Search

November, 23, 2014

Location; Airborne Mobile Command Station (The Bus)

Agent Phil Colson looked over the documents littering his desk. Stacks of unfinished reports waiting to be filed. The latest Inhuman case had caused an unnecessary amount of damage to the city and Fury wanted a full report. Colson leaned back in his chair, preoccupied with an antique spy camera he had found. It needed some repairs; its hinges were rusted and the lens cloudy, but it could work again with the right attention. He might be procrastinating, but the senior field agent was in no hurry to explain to his superiors that most of the damage had been caused by Skye. The young hacker turned agent was still learning to understand and control her new seismic powers. Skye was just starting to like being superhuman, it wouldn’t do to have her suspended due to previsions in the Sokovia Accords. A knock at his door broke the agent out of his musings. The door opened before he could answer and Jemma Simmons tentatively peered around the opening.

“Sir, I believe we’ve detected an anomaly.” Jemma spoke quickly, clearly excited about her discovery.

Colson stood quickly to follower her to the situation room. “Another Inhuman?”

“No. These readings contain gamma radiation signatures. Fitz is running a comparison against known anomalies and energy fields, but initial findings point towards Infinity Stone activity.” Colson hurried his pace as the agents walk together down the stairs to reach the labs. The Avengers mentioned the stones in a debrief after the incident in Sokovia. To the best of his knowledge Stark has continued his research on the stone in Visions head, and the Aether and the Tesseract was safely locked away on Asgard.

They passed Skye and Bobbi playing cards in the common area. The girls exchanged curious looks before abandoning their game and following.

In the labs, Leo Fitzhugh typed away at a console. The screen above him displayed a map of Americas west coast with readout flashing along the side and a flashing red marker.

Colson strode up beside Fitz and put a hand on his shoulder as he studied the screen. “Jemma says we might have a situation, what do we know?”

Fitz glanced up from his work, “So far, what we have are energy signatures that match readings from S.H.I.E.L.D.s experiments on the Tesseract. The same kind of gamma radiation signatures also appeared in the incident with Thor in London and the Sokovia incident, which all point to a posable infinity stone, or something similar.” The engineer turned in his chair to address the group properly. “Jemma and I were refining our scanners to track another similar energy in Nepal when we got a hit on this reading. It seems to have originated somewhere in the Pacific. Unfortunately, we can’t get an exact location, but if it keeps its current trajectory it should land somewhere on the coast of California.”

Bobbi took a closer look at the map, “It looks like it’s moving slow. Are we looking for a ship? Some kind of transport vessel?”

Jemma stepped forward, “It’s possible, but if it is then the ship, then it's not moving under power. If our readings are correct it seems to be adrift and moving with the tide.”

“Do we have time to intercept?” Asked Colson. The senior agent knew firsthand the destructive power of these artifacts. The last thing they needed was Hydra getting their hands on whatever this was.

Simmons shook her head “It would take us twenty hours to reach California, which would put us five hours behind to intercept it before it reaches the U.S.”

“Hopefully whatever were looking for is still there when we land. Skye, we need to know what we’re walking into, start pulling S.H.I.E.L.D files that reference any unusual activity in the area. Fitz, Simmons, keep monitoring and let us know if whatever that is changes coarse. If you’ll excuse me, I need to update May.”

“Good luck with that, she’s been in a mood since we left D.C.”

“Oh, she’ll love this. May has wanted a beach vacation for years. Too bad it isn’t Tahiti, it’s a magical place.”

The team left Fitz and Simmons to their calculations in the lab; Colson to visit Agent May, Skye and Bobbi to the dorms.

~~~~

Early the next morning, as the team was flying over Utah, Colson went down to the lab to check on his science team. The pressurized glass doors hissed as they slid open. Fitz was asleep in his chair, head rolled to the side and one knee propped against the arm rest. Jemma was typing at a control panel in the corner and looked up when she heard Colson enter.

“Morning Simmons. Do you have an update on our mystery energy?”

“Fitz and I tracked it all night. It made landfall north of Grandview Beach around 2 am and stayed in place for approximately ninety minutes before resuming movement east at an average of fifty-five miles an hour.”

“Someone picked it up. I would guess an arranged drop off or a civilian picked it up on accident. Where is it now?”

“The signal completely vanished before we could get an exact location. We lost the reading in the general vicinity of Reefside. Imaging of the area shows a moderately sized city, it would be a considerable search area.” Jemma worried her lip, frustrated and worried about the sudden disappearance.

“I agree. We’re going to need more information if we’re going to find this anomaly before someone gets hurt.” Colson placed a comforting hand on Jemma’s shoulder “Keep monitoring the area, hopefully it’ll show up again.”
Just as Colson turned to leave, Skye crashed through the door, laptop in hand.

“You guy are not going to believe this!” Fitz startled awake, nearly crashing to the floor as Skye rushed past him. “I’ve been going over any S.H.I.E.L.D. files that mention central California and came across this” Skye’s hand flew across the keyboard as she transferred the files to the main screen. Heavily redacted news articles stamped with “Top Secret” and “Classified” appeared on the screen, one after another, showing blurry images of strange creatures. Some of them gray and humanoid, others fifty stories tall, crushing buildings and fighting massive robots. Intermixed with the articles were photos of people waring brightly colored suits and helmets. “This has got to be a hoax, right? There’s no way these monster things existed and no one knew about it. This would be national news.”

Coulson flipped through the articles and paused on one of the headlines that had escaped being redacted. “Breaking News: Attack Reported in Downtown Angel Grove” Colson flipped back to one of the blurry images of people. On closer inspection it was clear to see the suits were articulated armor, similar to Starks Iron Man suits, but thinner and in an array of colors. “I remember this. Fury and I were sent to investigate supposed alien attacks back in the early 90s. We were part of a larger team tasked with discovery and containment. Standard S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol for extraterrestrial contact. All evidence of the attacks was deemed Classified. The locals considered the armored individuals’ heroes. They called them Power Ranger.”

Skye scoffed “Wow, that sounds silly.”

Colson silently agreed “The way I understand it, it was the local high school that came up with the name. In any case, we never worked out who they were or what organization was behind them. All we know for sure is that they had access to highly advanced technology and were successfully able to stop an alien invasion.”

Jemma leaned closer to the screen, “Extraordinary. This technology is lightyears more advanced than anything on earth. Is there anything in these files related to unexplained energy readings? Could these Rangers be responsible for the energy readings we’ve been tracking?”

Fitz crossed his arms and considered the possibility, “Technology for detecting gamma radiation wasn’t very advanced back then. I doubt we would be able to use their reading to get a lock on the artifact we’re looking for, but if they kept records of the locations we might be able to triangulate a search grid.”

Skye began typing in search parameters for radiation scans, but Colson was skeptical “It’s unlikely they are involved. The Power Rangers haven’t been active for over a decade. The last recorded sighting was in 1998. The civilians who were questioned all describe the same thing; aliens invading and taking hostages, then a shockwave that destroyed their ship and turned all the aliens to dust. There were no reported aftereffects to any humans involved, but S.H.I.E.L.D. continued to monitor the area for a few years after. Even if they are involved, there’s no way to find them for questioning. They were either destroyed in their finale battle, or more likely, have gone into hiding.”

“That might not be the case” Skye said as she brought up another document. “This is a publishing request for a book manuscript. It was written by a Theodore (T.J.) Johnson, who claimed to be a former Ranger. It was flagged by S.H.I.E.L.D. as suspicious and all correspondences were quarantined.”

Colson looked over the request documents. This all seemed like a red herring, but they needed to consider their circumstances “Currently, the anomaly we were tracking has fallen off the radar. We know that similar anomalies have proven to be extremely dangerous, and that this region has been the sight of ongoing extraterrestrial attacks. If this book is the real deal, then Mr. Johnson could be our best lead. Skye, see what you can find on Johnsons location and anything else S.H.I.E.L.D. might have on him. Get Agents Hunter and Morse to help you. Fitz, Simmons, see what you can do about getting a more precise location for us.”

“Sounds like a long day.” Skye sighs as she picks up her laptop and heads off to find the absent members of their crew. Jemma and Leo nodded to their commanding officer and put their heads together, talking quickly about energy waves. Skye was eager to get started on this project. Simple as it was, compiling data on a someone was familiar. She could use a break from all the Inhuman super powers business. Skye glances at the computer and mutters absently as she walks. "So many classified documents, and zero organization. Maybe while I’m at it, I can put together some kind of timeline. It doesn’t look like the agent in charge of this put in any effort to actually getting any answers. Probably someone who worked for Hydra, sounds like something they would do."

Chapter Text

Location: Downtown Los Angeles

It was another bright hot day in LA, no different than any other. Cars sped by, pedestrians crossed streets, and TJ was just getting off work. The recording studio he worked for was a dream job for him; nice and cool in the summer, good people, good music, and best of all a sizable steady paycheck. Today he was able to get some extra work done and clock out early, just in time to join the pick-up game of basketball with some coworkers. He was able to change a work, sporting more comfortable gym shorts and red shirt, his work cloths packed away in a blue and white duffle bag. He was just reaching the fenced in court and could see some of his friends warming up, when he heard his full name off to his left. Nobody but his mom called him Theodore. He turned to see a woman walking towards him. She was dressed like a civilian, in dark jeans long sleeved blue shirt, but carried herself like a cop. TJ could see the outline of a concealed weapon at her hip which put him immediately on edge.

“Hi there,” she greeted, “Theodore Johnson?”

“People usually call me T.J. unless I’m in trouble. I’m not in trouble, am I mama?” T.J. shifted his gym bag on his shoulder, glancing around suspiciously.

“Not yet. I’m from Shield. We have a few questions for you about your book.”

“Shield?” Not good. What’s Shield going poking around? He thought “What book are you talking about? I’ve never published anything.” T.J. tensed, looking towards the basketball court to see if any of his friends would bail him out. He subtlety shifted his weight, ready to drop into a fighting stance at a moment’s notice. He hasn’t had to use any skills from his ranger days in a long time. He prayed that he wasn’t to rusty.

“We confiscated your manuscript. Not very well written, but very interesting plot. My superiors want to talk, so if you’ll just come with me….”

“It was a first draft, and I’m not going anywhere.” At this point T.J. had noticed a man wearing a cap with the shield logo walking up behind him. “I don’t want any trouble. Just walk away.”

“Sorry, can’t do that”

The guy behind him lunged. TJ dropped his gym bag and spun, clocking the attacker with his left elbow, his right fist for a follow-up strike to the jaw. As soon as his back was turned the woman pulled a pistol and shot him once in the side. TJ reeled and clutched his side. He looked groggily down at his hand, absently noticing the blue liquid around where he had been shot before passing out.

~~~

TJ woke up in a gray room, thoughts fuzzy and head pounding. He was lying on a military cot. In the middle of the room was a steel table and uncomfortable looking metal chairs. As his head cleared, slowly, he took in the textured hexagon walls. The door was textured too, with a smooth metal lock. He couldn’t see any kind of observation window, but the former ranger had a feeling of being watched. His only consolation was that he wasn’t being restrained. The room was obviously used for interrogation, and he didn’t see how he was getting out of this.

~~~

In the observation room, Coulson, May, and Bobbi watched as Mr. Johnson returns to consciousness. He was younger than Coulson expected, much younger. “We spent years trying to pin down the Power Rangers. The organization has been extremely careful about covering up their operatives’ identities for years. Crazy to think one of them might be sitting in our interrogation room.”  

Agent Morse wasn’t as shue, “He’s not our guy. He would have still been in his teens during the time of the attacks.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” May countered “A lot of agents start right out of school.”

“There’s one was to find out,” Coulson taped a stack of papers against the table before heading toward the interrogation room. “Let’s go introduce ourselves.” Agent Morse followed while May stayed behind to watch the security feed.

~~~

TJ didn’t have to wait long, however, before the door opened. The woman who stopped him on the street and an older man came into the room.

“Sorry about the headache, the ICERs can pack a punch. I’m Agent Coulson, I believe you’re already acquainted with Agent Morse.” The agents sat down on the opposite side of the table from their guest and Agent Coulson Gestured for TJ to join them. TJ considered being petulant and staying where he was, but figured it wouldn’t get him out of this room any faster. Hesitantly he took a seat across from the agents as the man called Coulson dropped a stack of papers in front of him.

TJ glanced at the title glaring up at him from the first page, ‘It’s Morphing Time’ by Theodore (T.J.) Johnson, and back to the two agents in front of him. “Is that what all this is about? Look man, I went to high school in Angle Grove. Everybody there tried to figure out their identities at some point. Hell, these guys, Bulk and Skull, practically made a career out of it. It was kind of a running class competition. I figured I could try making some money off it, you know?”

The woman grimaced, “In the service, we called that stolen valor.” TJ held her gaze, trying not to give anything away.

“I’m inclined to believe you.” said Colson, drawing TJ’s attention back to him, “Your personal records from that time frame show no indication you were involved with any organizations or after school programs. There are no Army or National Guard applications, no contact or team sports. It’s a resume that is missing all the indicators we typically look for in someone who wants to join a world saving organization.”

TJ looked back and forth between the agents, “So… that means I can leave, right?

“Not exactly.” Coulson leaned across the table conspiratorially, “Here’s the thing, we just picked up a massive amount of gamma radiation linked to a very powerful artifact. It passing right by this area late last night. An area with a history of extraterrestrial activity, and an individual who claimed to be involved with planetary defense. I don’t believe in coincidences, and I don’t believe you made it up.”

TJ started to sweat a little. These guys were smart and this was starting to sound like real consequences were on the line. “Radiation?! Like what turned that guy into the Hulk? I don’t know anything about any radiation or weird artifacts or anything like that.” TJ looked back and forth between the agent, eyes wide. This is not how he wanted his day to go, he sure as hell didn’t want to get involved with world saving again. Looking down at the table, considering his options he only had one question, “This thing you’re looking for, how dangerous is it?”

“Last time we detected this kind of anomaly, Sokovia dropped out of the sky.”

TJ felt the blood drain from his face. He had seen the footage on tv. He thought of something like that happening to LA and the lives that could be lost. He was a Red, damn it, he couldn’t turn away from a potential threat like this. No matter the cost. “I haven’t… if you read the book, you’d know that I’ve been out of the ranger business for a long time! I don’t even keep in touch with my old team. Hell, some of them aren’t even on earth anymore.”

The agents exchange surprised looks. Neither one of them thought the former ranger would fold so quickly. Coulson could see the fear in the young man’s expression Agent Morse asked, “Do you know anyone who might be involved? Are there any rangers still active?”

TJ shook his head, “The old powers were either destroyed or drained. Can’t think of anyone on our team who would get involved again, well, except maybe our red ranger. I have no idea where he is, or how to contact him.”

“If you’re going to cooperate, you’re going to have to give us names,” says Colson, “I understand not naming names in your book, but we’re not going to get very far if you keep referring to people with colors. We are the good guys, and we’re trying to keep everyone safe.”

TJ hesitated. There were only a few rules a ranger needed to follow, not reveling your identity was one of them. His own identity might be compromised, but he couldn’t imagine the hate that would come from outing other rangers. “Look, I’m not going to tell you who all the rangers are. They are good people, with families. Keeping their identities secret keeps them safe.” TJ was quiet for a long pause. Uncertainly he said “I can tell you the red space ranger was is named Andros. He’s not coming back to earth any time soon anyway.”

Agent Coulson thought that was an odd phrasing and it peaked his curiosity, “Any particular reason why?”

“Andros killed Zordon, the mentor of the original rangers. He was the one who brought the morphers to earth and chose the first team. If Andros ever shows his face around here again, I doubt it will be a live and let live reunion.” TJ shuddered. He could think of at least three former ranger who would want a piece of Andros. “My whole teams been blacklisted.”

“Original rangers? You mean there’s more than one team?” Agent Morse asked, partly out of curiosity, but mostly to keep him talking. The more they could get out of him the better their chances were of obtaining real information.

“Morphers?” Coulson had seen some interesting technology working in shield, he always had an interest in anything new.

 “Ya, the tech that made us rangers.” TJ shook his head, remembering Dimitria trying to explain the origins of the ranger tech, “And of course there were other teams. Don’t you guys have all the news and stuff from the attacks? It’s pretty obvious it’s not just my team out there.”

“All of our intel suggests that the rangers were only active for five years. How many teams have there been?”

TJ was starting to regret not adding more into his book, these guys had a lot of questions. Most of which he really didn’t want to answer. “There were 4 teams and 20 rangers, I think. I might be forgetting someone.”

Coulson decided to get the conversation back on track, they still had a loose artifact to find. “It sounds like there’s quite a few people who might have an interest in the gamma energy were looking for. Can you point us to anyone who might try to get their hands on it?”

“Like I said, my teams not exactly welcome.” TJ thought for a moment, trying to think of a way to help that would also get Shield to let him go. “I can give you one of the originals, the first Red. If anyone knows about your missing gamma artifact thing he would, or at least know if the rangers are involved at all. The guy’s name is Jason Lee Scott, so far as I know, he still lives in the Grove.”

“Angle Grove? That’s a start” Coulson happily slapped his hands together and rose from the table, “Let’s get going then.”

“Whoa, hold on. I’m not going.”

“Why not? I thought you were going to introduce us?”

“I gave you a name and location. You’re Shield, one of the biggest spy organizations in the world, you figure it out.”

“I take it you’re not on great terms.” Morse let her statement hang in the air as a question.

“Fairly sure Jason would kick my ass if I showed up. It diffidently wouldn’t help you get any information.” TJ had only met the original leader once, after Zordons’ death. He was lucky to get one free pass because he wasn’t directly involved.

Coulson nodded “All right. We’ll let you off near the Kenneth Hahn park, and we’ll be in touch.” Without a glance bake he left the room.

“Here.” Agent Morse handed TJ a nondescript phone, “This phone is secure. It will connect you with the Quinjet if you see anything unusual or have more information for us.”

“Thanks. Hey, since I have your number now, do you have a first name?”

That at least he got a laugh from the agent, “How about we get you off this plane before I hit you with another ICER.”

Chapter Text

Location: Angel Grove, California

After dropping off the former ranger Coulson immediately set a course for Angle Grove, which luckily wasn’t far south of LA. They were already more than 24 hours behind their discovery, and had no way to trace its location. Skye had started searching for information on their new lead as soon as TJ had given up a name and easily found their target.

“Jason Lee Scott, age 35. Married to Mrs. Trini Scott, age 34, no children. Lives in Angel Grove, California.” Again, Coulson was surprised by the age of the potential ranger. Scott was almost 20 years his junior, almost the same age as some of his younger agents. Coulson wondered if all the rangers had been this young. He listened as Skye continues “He has a fairly extensive martial arts record. Second-degree black belt in taekwondo, first-degree black belt in judo. He has a bunch of local championships and currently owns and operates a small dojo near the city youth center. He is also a volunteer medical technician for the Angle Grove fire department. So far, I’ve found nothing suspicious in his history and finances. There’s nothing to suggest a connection to the Power Rangers.”

Coulson studied the information. “Sounds like our guy. There wasn’t anything suspicious about Mr, Johnson, either. Skye and Agent Hunter are with me. Let’s roll out the welcome wagon.” Mr. Scott seemed like someone who could handle himself in a fight, plus any hidden ranger tech he might carry. He would need backup on this one, but he was ready to meet the supposed leader of the Power Rangers.

Lance Hunter looked less than thrilled. “I’ll go, but he better not swing at me like the last guy. My jaw still hurts. If I didn’t know any better I’d think the guy was enhanced.” Skye rolled her eyes at him. “What? We’ve been dealing with Inhumans for months. How do we know he wasn’t one of them?”

Skye laughed, “If he was an Inhuman you would have hit the ground harder. You’re just losing your touch.” The two kept bickering as they followed their teammates to the hanger to suit up.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents left the plane on the outskirts of the city and unloaded a SUV branded with a gray S.H.I.E.L.D logo. The neighborhood they came to was simple with medium sized two story or ranch style houses. The tree lined streets were quiet, doted here and there with pedestrians and dog walkers. It was the kind of quiet region outside the city where people would raise family’s or find retirement. The Scotts’ home was a simple, one story ranch house in a light suburban area. Close enough to the city center without the traffic and noise. The three agents were the most out of place thing on the whole street.

When Coulson knocked on the door a dog inside barked loudly and a chocolate lab jumped up on the door. The could hear a man’s voice inside calling off the dog “Down Rex. Down. It’s probably just Alex.”

Jason came to the door and looked shocked to see them. He opened the inner door to the house, but left the storm door shut, “Can I help you?” Jason Lee Scott was a tall, dark haired man, with a rounder clean-shaven face. He clearly kept active and had a build for marital arts, but the signs of ageing were starting to show in flecks of gray in his hair and a bit of extra weight around his middle.

“Hello Mr. Scott. My name is Phil Coulson, I’m an Agent with S.H.I.E.L.D.. An associate of yours told us you might be able to answer some questions about a recent anomaly.”

Jason did not look any less confused and even more suspicious. “Who? And how about you show me some I.D.”

All three agents quickly flashed their badges as Coulson answered “A mister Theodore Johnson.”

Jason cursed under his breath and opened the storm door. “Might as well come in.” Jason turned back into the house and called to the other room, “Honey, we have company. Some spies want to ask us about our ranger days”

Skye and Lance exchanged surprised looks as they followed Coulson into the well-lit home. A slender Asian woman who must be Trini Scott joined them. Skye had to ask, “Were you a ranger too?”

“Yes. I was the yellow ranger back in the day.” Trini put a hand on her pregnant belly and sat down heavily on the living room sofa.

Coulson regarded the couple and their calm acceptance that their secret identities had been compromised. “Your both taking this very well. Mr. Johnson assaulted one of my agents when we confronted him.” Lance raised his hand in the air and waved a bit.

“TJ knows where he stands with the rest of the rangers. If he told you who we are, then there’s something out there that scares him more than I do. So, what’s the emergency?” Calm, collected, and steadfast, with an ability to adapt to new information. Coulson was struck by how much Jason Lee Scott reminded him of Steve Rogers.

“Skye, why don’t you get them up to speed? Coulson stepped aside and Skye placed her laptop on the coffee table. She quickly went over the intel from the last few days, explained their concerns about the missing artifact, and filled in some of the background information on what they knew about the Infinity Stones. When she finished, the Scotts were sitting together on the couch, fingers laced together, looking thoughtful and concerned. Trini was the first to speak, asking where the S.H.I.E.L.D. scanners had lost the signal.

“Our last reading put the artifact in the vicinity of Reefside, California.”

Jason could have sworn he’d heard of the town before “Reefside? Reefside. Why does that sound familiar? Do we know anyone in Reefside?”

“Aisha lives there” Trini volunteered, “Last time I talked to her, she was working in the city clerk’s office. I can give her a call and ask if she’s seen anything.”

“That would be great, thank you.” Colson smiled. This meeting was going better than he could have expected.

Trini left to get her phone. Jason asked the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents if they wanted anything to drink. They declined, but he fetched himself a beer anyway. The agents made themselves comfortable on the chairs and available space of the sofa.

Jason relaxed back on the couch, scratching his dogs’ ears as it leaning against his leg. “So, what made you think the Power Rangers were involved with your artifact?” He was curious. The former Red wanted to know if there was something he could do to cover their tracks better.

“Honesty, nothing. When we lost track of the signal we started searching for another angle. Skye came across old files that S.H.I.E.L.D. forgot about ages ago and it was the only lead we had.”

“So, S.H.I.E.L.D. has known about us all along?”

“Our information is limited to what was in the press and eyewitness accounts. We didn’t even have a solid lead on any of your identities. The only thing linking TJ to the rangers was an old publishing application.” Said Skye. She had combed through the S.H.I.E.L.D archive for hours. Anything useful had been redacted.

Jason stopped with his drink halfway to his lips. “He was going to go public? And profit off his time as a ranger? That son-a-bitch. There’re only three rules and they’re not that hard! If he starts going around starting fights, I might have to go up there and kick his ass on principle.” He shook his head and took a long drink.

 He lowered it just in time to see Trini rounding the corner to the living room. “Any luck getting a hold of Aisha?”

“Yes, but she hasn’t seen anything unusual either. Nothing that would indicate a powerful artifact anyway. She did tell me something interesting though; apparently Tommy lives in Reefside. She said he built a house on the edge of town about two years ago.”

“Really? Well, shit.” Jason turned to the agents, “There’s your culprit right there. If there’s something powerful and dangerous within fifty miles of that guy he is involved somehow.”

Trini gave her husband a disproving look, “That’s a little uncalled-for. He has really settled down after he retired.”

“Are you kidding me. You know if he found a weird, glowing object he would be the first one to pick it up, and it would probably turn him into the world’s first orange ranger or something.” Trini shrugged, conceding the point. After all, Tommy was undeniably a magnet for the strange and unusual.

Coulson was amused, and relieved. He was starting to feel like they were running in circles. “Do you have a phone number for him? Or maybe an address?”

“Aisha gave me the address, but I haven’t talked to him in years. Jase, do you have his number?”

“Nope. Looks like I’m just going to have to go with you.”

Trini grinned, her husband was starting to get bored with the day-to-day of running a business. “I’ll go with you. It’s been forever since Aisha and I had a girl’s day.”

Jason stood and walked over to put his hands on her shoulders, “Trini, honey, I think you should stay here.” Trini immediately tensed up and started to argue, “Hear me out. We don’t know how long this is going to take, and if Tom’s really gotten himself into trouble, again, I’m going help get him out of it. Please, think of the baby.”

Agent Hunter, worried about bringing along a civilian, decided to put his two cents in, “You should both stay. Your right that this might be dangerous. You’ve been out of the game for a while, and admit it, you’re not exactly in fighting shape.”

“What can I say, home cooked meals agree with me.” He chuckled, “You’re going to want me to introduce you to Tommy, though. He’s… a little paranoid.” Jason knew his old friend well enough to know Tom took the rangers oath seriously, and keeping their identities secret was a top priority. He would probably kill the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents if he thought they were a threat.

Coulson glared at Lance, silently telling him not to alienate their best lead, “Thank you. Your help is appreciated.”

Jason nodded and went to pack a bag. He was most likely going to be gone for a few days at least. He grabbed his old, faded red and black duffel and started throwing clothes in. He also dug through his sock drawer for his old communicator and Red morpher. Rocky had sent it through the mail when the team switched to the Zeo morphers. The power coin had been completely drained years ago, but it might still come in handy. He came back into the front room and was met by Trini with a kiss. He knew his wife was scared for him, frustrated, and anxious. “Pleases stay safe. I hate that the past couldn’t stay in the past.” He hugged her tight, then left with the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who were already outside.

Chapter Text

Location: Airborne Mobile Command Station (The Bus) 

Jason sighed as he leaned back in the soft chair. Maybe I should think about applying to S.H.I.E.L.D.. These guys travel in style. When Coulson told him they were flying to Reefside he’d imagined a small, cramped quinjet with hard bench seats. The Bus on the other hand had all the amenities of home. The agents had told him to make himself comfortable while the got ready to take off. Now, he was relaxing, gazing out the window, as they flew over the central California valley.

He absently thought about the upcoming meeting with his old friend. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Tommy in years. He knew the long-standing ranger hadn’t left by choice. Dimitria had forced all of the Turbo Rangers to choose their own replacements and retire. He has a suspicion that his former teammate left earth for a few years after that. Jason occasionally heard from Billy on Aquitar. The blue ranger helped him keep tabs on some intergalactic chatter, and someone had been taking out the remnants of the Machine Empire. After the whole mind-wipe thing, Jason couldn’t blame Tommy for cleaning up loose ends. However, it did make him worried about his friend’s state of mind. He wished he had kept in touch with his fellow red ranger more.

His musings were interrupted when a beautiful blond woman came up to him. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Bobbi.”

“Jason.” He shook Bobbi’s hand as she sat in the chair across from him. “So how long is the flight going to be?”

“Not long. We have about an hour to kill before we land.” Bobbi leaned over the table and spoke softly as if she knew a secret, “So, you were the first Power Ranger. You must have been, what, 17? What was that like?”

“It was damn hard to get to class on time, that’s for sure. I swear, Rita always knew when we were going to have a pop quiz and would send down twice as many monsters. We never had time to study. If Blue hadn’t offered to tutor us, we would have all failed. I think most of our teachers figured out who we were. They never gave us extra work or detention for being late.”

“Did your parents know?”

“If they knew, they never said anything.” Jason tried to remember if his folks had ever been suspicious of his after school ‘training sessions’. “I guess it helped that some of us were already participating in karate tournaments. People just assumed we were training for that. Ernie, the guy who owned the Youth Center, definitely knew.”

Bobbi tried to imagine dealing with grades and parents while trying to save the world. “What about this friend of yours were going to meet? Was he in your class too?

Jason scoffed and gave her an exasperated look, “You ask that like you didn’t pull his records as soon as we got on the plane. I should probably be asking you what you were able to find. It’s been a while since he and I were able to catch up.”

Agent Morse was a bit taken aback. It wasn’t often people surprised her, so she might as well indulge him. “Well, his resume is a bit more interesting than yours” she said, pulling a phone from her pocket. “Dr. Tomas Oliver, 36, Attended Angele Grove High from 1995 to 1997. Attended the University of California, Berkeley. He double majored and graduated with a bachelor's degree in engineering and a PhD in Paleontology in 2010. Seems like an odd choice of career path. Especially for someone who has more black belts than all the agents on this plane combined. 8^th dan in Shotokan, black belts in wado-ryu, taekwondo, and judo. Most guys with that kind of commitment go pro, but the only tournament records I could find were charity events in Angel Grove.”

“When we became rangers, Zordon had us take an oath to never use the ranger power for personal gain. Tommy always took that oath seriously.” Jason remembered when Tommy joined the team. He was so terrified that Rita would turn him again that he had latched onto the ranger’s oath like a lifeline. “The engineering degree isn’t really of a surprise, he was one of the few who could keep up with Blue when it came to understanding the ranger tech. Not really surprised he ended up studying dinosaurs either.” Jason remembered his friend animatedly talking about the dino skeletons that attacked the rangers on Phaedos.

“You’re going to keep referring to people by armor color, aren’t you? asked Bobbi. She hadn’t been able to get TJ to give any more names than necessary ether.

“Yep. It’s partly for security, but mostly out of habit.”

“What about Oliver? We already know he was a ranger. What color did he wear?”

Jason thought about it, “Depended on the day.”  He thought back to his earlier musings, “Just so you know, it might be a bit of a tense meeting when we get to Reefside.”

“I heard through Coulson that you think he’s paranoid.”

“Well, a little. To be fair, he has pretty good reason. He was abducted by aliens at least two or three times that I know of.” He didn’t think it was a good idea to tell her about the whole ‘being turned evil’ part of those abductions. “Tom’s usually really chill, but a bunch of agents showing up is going to put him on edge a bit. Speaking of, how about telling me about your team? Is there anyone else on board I haven’t met?”

Bobbie recognized the deflection, but didn’t have a good reason to avoid it, “Well, there’s May, our pilot. I doubt she’d appreciate us bothering her though. I could introduce you to FitzSimmons down in the lab.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Jason followed Bobbi through the halls and down a spiral staircase to a lower level. There was a thick glass wall with an all-glass door, behind which were computer arrays and a couple more people; A petite young lady in a lab coat, a younger curly haired man, and the female agent that came to his house. They were looking at a large screen display that showed pictures of rangers in morph, different images from each team. When Jason and Bobbi arrived, they turned and smiled welcomingly.

Bobbi gestured to the former ranger, “Look who I found! Jason, this is Leo Fitz, Jemma Simmons, and I think you met Skye already.” She gave a conspiratorial look to her team, “Jason here has agreed to help us sort out the archives.”

I did? When? Jason looked nervously at the eager faces of the young scientists. “Umm, I guess. What are you working on?”

“We’re working on a timeline of Ranger activity. The last agent to work on this didn’t bother to put anything in order, and the articles are so redacted they’re about useless.” Said Skye. She was still convinced that the agent in charge had done it on purpose. She flipped her laptop around to show an almost entirely blacked out document that had been signed off by the team lead. “Whoever this Agent Adam Park is I’d like to give him a piece of my mind.” Jason struggled to keep a straight face. He hadn’t known the former Ninjetti ranger was with S.H.I.E.L.D, and was apparently covering for them. Once a ranger, always a ranger.

“Well, it looks like your off to a good start. The first team and the last team are right anyway.”

Jemma explained “When we interi… um, interviewed TJ, he told us there were four teams of five rangers.” Jason smirked at her change in word choice.

Jason looked at how the images were arranged. It looked like the agents had counted them by armor type, which made sense. “I always counted the teams by Zord changes, those are the big robot things.” Jason started counting off on his fingers “Let’s see, there was the original team, then we got up graded to the Thunder Zords. When those were destroyed, the rangers found a new set of powers on the planet Phaedos. After that, it was Zeo. The Turbo Rangers had two teams, that’s where TJ started. And lastly, there were the Space rangers. Lots of people stayed on the team for one or two power changes.”

“Why so many?”

“The morphers burn out after a year or so, it takes a hell of a lot of energy to power all the Zords and weapons. Burns out the people too.”

“What exactly is a morpher?” Asked Fitz “You and Theodor keep referring to morphers and powers when referring to your armor, why? Isn’t your armor a lightweight version of Starks Iron Man suits?”

Jason laughed, “Not even a little bit.” He pulled his old Red Ranger morpher out of his pocket and set it on the table. “This is a morpher. It created and controlled all the armor, weapons, and Zords.” Fitz reached out to pick it up, but hesitated and looked to Jason for permission, “Go ahead, it’s out of power, completely dead.”

Fitz turned the tech over in his hands, admiring the simplicity of the craftsmanship “Incredible. All those elements were created by the morpher itself?”

 “If I understood our Blue right, the morphers shaped raw power into physical objects using preprogramed templates. When we activated the program, the templets would shape the armor around us, so it always fit.” Billy always understood the technology behind the scenes better than anyone else. Jason often had a hard time keeping up with his techno babble. “Inside it is something we called a power coin. That’s the core energy source that powered the morphers. Different morhers had different core power sources, but they all had the same function.”

Jason took a breath. As much as he worried about revealing too much, these agents needed to know what they were walking into. “The biggest difference between the Rangers and Iron Man, is that the Power Rangers are enhanced. It happened as soon as we touched the energy sources. Nothing extreme. Just increased strength, speed, agility, that sort of thing. It’s how a bunch of kids with minimal training could stop the threats that we did.”

“I knew it!” Everyone turned to Lance standing by the doorway, “TJ decked me when we picked him up. Guy was stronger than he looked.”

“Wait, if the enhancement came from the core power source wouldn’t it ware off if you didn’t have contact with it, or once it was drained?” From a thermal dynamic perspective, it was fascinating to Jemma.

“It does, but not all of it. Rangers still keep a little bit of enhancement and some kind of lingering energy. I’m stronger than I should be, but I’m nowhere near as strong as I was as an active ranger. Zordon even taught the originals how to channel that leftover energy and use it for a short time, you know, for emergencies.”

The agents all shared curious glances. Skye called his bluff. “So, what, you could randomly get stronger any second? I’m calling bullshit, unless you can prove it.”

“Ya, how about a demonstration? You and me, let’s go.” Lance sat on a stool and propped his arm on the table, his raised hand set for an arm-wrestling match.

“Not on your life. A… I could beat you without tapping into it. B… It’s for emergency use only. It’s not exactly something that can be turned off and on without costs. Without an active morpher, the power is tied directly to the person’s life force. I’m not draining myself to prove a point.” Jason had only used the technique once, when he and Trini were in a car accident. He was exhausted and out of commission for two days, but they both survived the crash.

“Actualy, that’s the reason most people can only handle a couple of powers. Because it attached to the person using it, having that power drained out of you is like being burned from the inside out.” Jason remembered when he transferred the Power to Rocky and shuddered, “It’s not as bad if you can transfer the power, but if the morpher is destroyed, or worse the power is taken by force, it’s crippling.” Jason still had nightmares about the damn candle and failing to stop Rita from draining the Green Ranger powers. He knew a lot of the rangers struggled for the first few months after losing their powers. “The more contact you have with it, the worse it gets, so it’s rare for someone to have more than two sets of power. The guy I transferred my power to ended up with threehe guy we’re going to meet in Reefside holds the record with five.”

“Five? Was he in every team?” Skye asked.

“Tommy led most of the teams. Most rangers consider him to be ‘the’ leader of the Rangers. That’s why I think he might have something to do with your missing energy artifact thing, the guy just can’t quit.”

Lance crossed his arms, looking a bit annoyed “If he’s so involved, why did TJ send us to you? No offence, but it would have saved us a trip.”

“Hell, TJ is even more terrified of Tom than he is of me.” Jason remembered the only time he had met the Space rangers. Jason and Tommy went to let TJ and Andros know where there stood with the rest of the rangers. Tommy did an impressive job of imitating his evil days when he took back the Turbo morpher. “Tommy was TJ’s predecessor. TJ was chosen to lead the team and ended up getting the command center blown up and Zordon killed. If it was just the command center, we would have probably let it go. We all know that he wasn’t directly involved, but TJ may be under the impression that if Tommy saw him again, he’d be a dead man. Andros won’t even come back to the planet for the same reason.”

“The guy digs up dinosaur bones for a living. How scary could he be” Skye already had an image in her head of what Dr. Oliver must be like. Kind of a mix of Fitz and Dr. Grant from ‘Jurassic Park.’ Jason just crossed his arms and gave her a dubious look. You’ve never been thrown out of a fifty story MegaZord he thought. He was about to answer her, but was interrupted by May coming over the planes com system, notifying them that they were about to land.

“I guess you’re just going to meet him yourself.” He smirked and went to strap in for landing.

Chapter Text

Location: Reefside, California- Oliver Residence 

Tommy Oliver crashed heavily into the soft swivel chair. Finally, after days of nonstop exertion and single-minded determination, he was able to sit back and catch his breath. Between morphing to escape the lab explosion, having to swim back to the mainland, and staying up all night editing his resume (He still missed the application deadline for the Reefside High teaching position), he was dead tired. It was like high school all over. After a shower and a hot meal, he was starting to feel a bit human again, but his head still ached and a burn on his back stung any time he moved. He looked over to the pedestal in the center of his home lab. The three Dino Gems he was able to recover were glowing contently, their power contained in the electrical field around the platform. He had designed it specifically to mask the Gems from being discovered. He knew there were two more out there, but it could wait until he had a good night’s sleep, or ten.

A soft beep from his computer alerted him to a new message. He taped a key absently to wake up the monitor. An automated security program displayed a blacked-out SUV turning into his driveway, the gray on black S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem displayed on the side. Tommy let out a string of curses under his breath, running his hands through his black hair, spiking it up. Leaping out of the chair, he rushed to make sure the containment on the Gems was functioning correctly. Everything looks secure. They must have traced them before I could get here. Tommy ran upstairs to head off the unwelcome guests, closing up the lab and sealing the trap door in the hall on the way. He looked around his living room, making sure he didn’t have any pictures of his old team. He took down a few tournament photos with the Zeo rangers and an old picture of him and Kim and shoved them into a drawer. A final glance around and he went to open the door.

The last thing he expected to see was the original Red standing on his door step.

~~~

Coulson exited the SUV, surveying the property they had arrived at. The long dirt driveway had let out to a clean open yard. The rustic, two story, house stood alone in the middle of the woods. His agents and the Mr. Scott followed suit. Scott had convinced him to only bring along two agents, not wanting Oliver to feel cornered. Coulson chose Fitz and Skye for this; both had the technical knowledge to deal with anything contaminated by gamma radiation, and if things turned south the former rangers didn’t know Skye was enhanced.

Jason started walking towards the door “You guys hang back for a minute. Let me talk to him first.” Skye leaned back against the car, arms and legs crossed, the image of relaxed boredom. Coulson waited with his hands in pockets while Fitz fiddled with the hem of his shirt.

Before Mr. Scott reached the first step of the porch the door opened, revealing a tall man in his mid-thirties’. Oliver was not what Coulson was expecting of a paleontologist. He was built like an MMA fighter, with tattooed sleeves and pierced ears, and scowling at Jason. Coulson barely suppressed an eye roll when he heard a low whistle from Skye behind him.

Jason stopped with on foot on the porch, “Hey Tom, how’ve you bee- “

“There better be a damn good reason there’s S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in my driveway.”

Coulson flinched, OK, not friendly.

“It’s ok, they’re with me” said Jason trying to calm the situation down a bit. “These guys thought they found something around here and they just had a couple questions.”

Oliver didn’t look convinced, his stony expression giving away nothing as he glared at his friend, so Coulson decided to give it a try. He stepped forward, drawing the former rangers’ attention. Oliver’s gaze snapped to him and the senior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent swore the rangers’ eyes flashed green. Faster than Coulson could follow the former ranger drew a red and white weapon and leveled it at center mass. Coulson threw his hands up, subtly gesturing for his agents to stay back.

“Whoa, whoa, cool it!” Jason quickly stepped between Oliver and Coulson, “Stand down! They’re on our side. Just put the blaster away and let’s talk about this.”

Oliver kept his stance for a long minute before relaxing slightly and lowering his weapon. Coulson watch in amazement as the strange weapon shimmered and disappeared into thin air. Oliver turned to go back inside, calling over his shoulder for them to leave.

Jason looked back at the agents, raising his hands in defeat. Coulson wasn’t ready to give up so easily. He took a few running strides towards the house and asked, “What do you know about Infinity Stones?” Oliver hesitated, turning back to Coulson and regarding him with suspicion.

“We picked up gamma radiation signatures similar to every incident where an Infinity Stone was present. We’re here to make sure nothing dangerous falls into the wrong hands.”

Oliver’s suspicion turned to curiosity, then acceptance. “You should have led with that.” He walked back into the house, but left the door open. Coulson looked to Jason who shrugged, it was the best invitation they were going to get.

Fitz let out the tense breath he was holding “That could have gone better.”

Jason glanced back at him, “It could have gone worse, too.” Jason strode into the house. Coulson nodded to his team to follow.

Inside was just as rustic as the exterior, with natural wood paneling and built in shelves. They walked past a simple open office to the living room, furnished with soft dark green sofas and an entertainment center. Across from them was a tall counter dividing the living room from the kitchen, where Oliver was leaning into the fridge.

Coulson figured this was as good a time as any to try clearing the air “I apologize for the unannounced intrusion. You’re a bit hard to reach.”

“You ever think it was for a good reason?” Tommy closed the fridge door with an energy drink hand. Coulson saw for the first time how tired the former ranger looked. “So, you’re here to talk about Infinity Stones. What do you already know about them?” Coulson was confused. Oliver’s question sounded like he knew more than they did.

Before Coulson could answer he was interrupted by Jason, who looked curious and mildly angry, “Hey, before you two start talking science, I’ve got a question. Where the Hell did you get the blaster from?” He has never seen anyone materialize a weapon un-morphed. It shouldn’t even be possible without an active morpher.

“I would like to know that too, please” Fitz piped up from the corner, the engineer engrossed by the advanced technology.

Instead of answering Tommy tapped his wrist and the watch he was wearing flickered, revealing the silver-gray cuff of his Turbo morpher.

“You-” now Jason was furious, “Are you crazy? Do you know what using that thing is going to do to you? How are you not in a coma right now?”

Tommy didn’t flinch, just opened the can with a hiss and took a drink, looking even more tired than he did a moment ago. “You didn’t listen really well when Zordon was explaining how the Power works, did you? It magnifies the more you use it. I’ll be fine.” He said nonchalantly. He didn’t need to tell the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that he didn’t do it on purpose, just reacted. The fact he could draw that much power un-morphed was a bit of a surprise to him, too. He idlily wondered if he could do the same thing with the dragon dagger.

Jason wasn’t about to let that go. He was gearing up to give his friend a piece of his mind when the ground shook, vibrations rattling the windows and knocking books off the shelves.

“Would you stop arguing! We didn’t come here for this. Where is the Infinity Stone? What’s really going on here?” Skye's' quake stopped as soon as she was done. Everyone stood still in shock at the outburst.

“Seismic manipulation. Interesting,” Tommy said, studying Skye carefully. She looked embarrassed by her lost control. “Do you think you could tell the difference between sedimentary rock and focalized material?”

“Umm, I don’t know. I’ve never tried.” She was a bit taken aback by the shift from mad ranger to curious scientist, and remembered that Oliver had a PhD in dinosaur bones.

Tommy saw how Skye shrank back after the quake, her hesitance immediately bringing out the teacher/ leader side of him. “Well, if this spy agent deal doesn’t work out, I would recommend a career in paleontology. We use seismic scanners to detect potential dig sights, but they’re not very accurate. Having someone on a dig who could do 3D mapping of a sight would save a lot of time.” He gave her a serious look “Powers can be intimidating, but if you only use destructive powers for destructive purposes, you’ll never find their full potential. Experiment with it, see what you can do.”

Skye gave a small smile “You’re not mad about the quake?” she said, looking at some broken dishes that fell off the table.

“I live in California. I’m sure you’ll have a handle on it soon enough. Until then,” he pointed a mock accusatory finger her way, “that little 4.0 better not have wrecked my lab.” Tommy pushed off the counter he was leaning on and walked over to a low bookshelf with a model T-rex  skeleton. Tommy gently pressed down on the jaw bone and a hidden trap door opened in the hall. Without looking back, he descended into the lower level.

Fitz hurried over to the opening. Looking over the edge he could see what looked like the ruins of some lost civilization. He glanced back at Coulson quickly then shadowed Tommy down the stairs. With no point standing around the living room, Jason and the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents followed.

Chapter Text

Location: Dino Thunder Command Center.

Jason let out a low whistle as he descended the winding staircase. This is either a mad scientist lair or a command center. The ancient looking rough, stone slabs and pillars contrasted with the high-tech equipment and computers around the large room. Large boxes and crates half full of more machinery and electronics littered the space, some of it looked vaguely familiar. Jason stopped to look at one of the pillars. He grinned when he recognized the green dragon coin carved into the side. Yup, definitely a command center. Behind him he could hear Skye saying she wanted her room to look like this, and Coulson muttering something about Fury not even letting them have a fish tank.

Jason looked around for the mad scientist running the command center and found Tommy inspecting some kind of pedestal in the center of the lab. There were red, yellow, and blue glowing stones resting on top of it. Fitz was with him leaning over to see what he was doing, the two scientists discussing equipment and electrical engineering. Jason couldn’t begin to understand what they were up to. He wished he could introduce Fitz to Billy.

Jason called across the room, “Hey, is this stuff from the old command center?”

“Some of it.” Tommy called back, “Unfortunately, there was a lot of damage. I’d have liked to get my hands on the transporter tech. What was left was so degraded I had to call Aquitar to figure out what half of it was. Billy’s been amazing with helping me get this lab set up.”

Jason prayed for strength, “Tom, S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t know all the identities.”

“Oh. I thought they knew already since, you know, you brought them here.” Tommy stopped what he was doing and looked at Jason, “How did they get you anyway?”

“TJ wrote a book.”

Tommy didn’t say anything, just turned back to his work, but not before Jason saw the hint of green in his eyes. Twice in one day. He must be exhausted; he usually has better control than this. Jason almost felt sorry for TJ. Almost.

Jason shook his head and walked closer, inspecting the stones. Jason recognized ranger tech when he saw it, “Looks like you’re missing a couple.”

Tommy glanced up from the fuse panel he was working on, “Ya, there should be two more, but I haven’t been able to get a lock on them.”

“What are they?” Asked Skye as she crept forward.

“I’ve been calling them Dino Gems. This is what your scans picked up. I found them on a dig in the Yucatán. If my suspension is correct, they were on the asteroid that hit 66 million years ago.”

Coulson circled the pedestal to get a better look, “The one that killed the dinosaurs? Are you sure they’re not Infinity Stones?” As far as Coulson could tell they looked they could be.

Tommy chuckled “I’m sure. They’re similar because they were made with energy from Infinity Stones.” After he finished recalibrating the containment field, Tommy worked his way around the lab, picking up random items that fell over during the quake.

Jason took in the information thoughtfully, “Secret command center, advanced alien tech, magic glowing rocks… you’re trying to make new Rangers. Why am I not surprised.”

“If it makes you feel better, the morphers are still a work in progress. Most of my schematics got caught in a lab explosion a couple days ago.”

Fitz contemplated the timeline of events that had brought them there, “Your lab wasn’t in the Pacific somewhere, was it? That’s where we first picked up the gamma signature.”

“Ya, it was a small research facility on Santa Barbara. I had a similar containment system there so I could work with the Gems undetected. I was working on an amplifier for the morphers so they would be compatible with the Gems, and it didn’t end well. I tried to get them here before they were detected, but…” He trailed off and shrugged. “I don’t recommend trying to swim in the Pacific this time of year, it’s cold.”

Skye figured that explained why the anomaly was moving so slow when they detected it. She tried to calculate the distance in her head.

“I think you need to start at the beginning. What do you know about the Infinity Stones?” Coulson asked.

Tommy sighed and rubbed his hand down his face, thinking about where to start. He turned to the large computer monitor at the far end of the lab, “I went back to the command center years ago and I found some records. Most of it was a history of the planet Eltar, Zordons home world. It described how the Eltarian scientists were experimenting with harnessing energy from ancient, powerful relics.”

“That sounds a lot like what Dr. Selvig tried doing with the Tesseract, harnessing energy from space.” Said Coulson. He had seen the experiments up close. The sheer amount of power was staggering.

Sitting at the controls, Tommy started typing in login information. He brought up a digital star map model. “The Infinity Stones aren’t just powerful artifacts, they are the physical embodiments of the elements that make up the universe; Space, Reality, Power, Soul, Mind, and Time.” With the push of a button, six glowing stones appeared on the screen.

“Six?!” Fitz exclaimed, tearing his gaze away from the Dino Gems. As the engineer walked over to join them, he walked directly past the blue Dino Gem. Tommy’s eyes widened in curiosity as the stone glowed slightly brighter as Fitz passed.

 “You’re already familiar with three of them. The Tesseract was the Space stone, Aether the Reality stone, and there’s the Mind stone with Vision.” Said Tommy looking directly at the Dino Gems. Blue, Red, and Yellow. He doubted it was a coincidence.

“How do you know that?” Jason asked curiously, he hadn’t known all that until S.H.I.E.L.D. showed up at his house.

“I’ve been following the attacks in the news. You haven’t been keeping up?”

“It’s called Retirement. You should try it some time.”

Tommy ignored him and continued. “The Time stone is somewhere on Earth, too. Somewhere in Nepal maybe. It keeps moving around.” He could feel the green rangers power reaching out for the Time stone every few months when it got closer. He almost considered tracking it down. He turned back to the screen “The stones were created in the Big Bang and scattered across the universe. When they relics were scattered, their power reached through space and time, forming universal Lay Lines throughout the galaxies and creating balance in the universe.” Another tap of the keys and the stones scattered across the screen, brilliant trails of color following them, crisscrossing the map. The more the lines flowed over the map, the more they started to resemble a grid.

Jason leaned on the back of Tommy’s’ chair to get a better look. “Is that the Morphing Gird?”

Tommy nodded, “The Eltarian civilization is ancient and highly advanced. Not only were they able to map the Grid but also tap into the Power. When they started collecting the Infinity Stones and experimenting with them, they discovered that the artifacts they created to harness the Power stayed connected to the Infinity Stones. All of the core power sources became part of the Grid, strengthening the connection between the Infinity Stones, and protecting the balance of the universe. Powers become more active whenever that balance is threatened, and Ranger teams are assembled. Each ranger that encounters the Power becomes permanently connected to the Infinity Stones, too.” Fitz and Skye share a look with Jason, recalling their pervious discussion about the ranger enhancements. “The closer the Infinity stones are, the easier it is to connect with. Even subconsciously.” He turned to Jason, “You could probably feel when the Aether was taken from Earth, even if you didn’t know what it was.”

“Is that what that was? I felt sick for weeks, worse than I have since becoming a ranger.”

“They don’t match up perfectly, though,” said Fitz, noticing a discrepancy in the colors. “Red, blue, green, and yellow make sense, but the Power stone is more purple than pink, and there is no black or white Infinity Stones.”

“The Power stone was used to make both the black and the pink rangers’ powers. It was the Eltarians first attempt at manipulating the power of the Infinity Stones. They tried to see how much they could condense the energy, making it more powerful, but less stable, and made the black rangers. They tried the opposite with the pink ranger powers, diluting the power with fusion energy to make it more stable and easier to contain.

“Zordon made the white ranger morpher. He somehow condensed pure fusion energy into a new power coin.” Zordon and Alpha had let him observe the process. It was amazing to watch, even though he didn’t understand all the science that when into it. “The Eltarians experimented with all kinds of materials to harness the Powers.” He gestured back towards the Dino Gems “I think those Gems were an early attempt. Our Power Coins were much more advanced and held a lot more energy. According to Zordons’ records there are hundreds of different core powers and morphers across the galaxy, hidden or lost ages ago.”

“So, there could be more Rangers out there somewhere?” Asked Fitz

“We met a few in the 90’s. The Aquitian Rangers and the Triforians.” Said Tommy. Jason nodded, remembering the visitors.

Skye looked over the lab, well, Command Center “Why make new rangers, then? I mean, this is cool and all, but The Avengers have been handling all the major threats just fine.”

Tommy’s expression hardened, “The Avengers haven’t exactly been a united team lately, and they don’t know what’s out there.” Jason didn’t like the look on his friends’ face. He looked worried and anxious, and this was a guy who stared down Lord Zedd.

Tommy looked Coulson in the eye and asked, “Have you ever heard a Titan called Thanos?”

Chapter Text

Location: Dino Thunder Command Center 

“Thanos, the Mad Titan. He’s a world ender. He committed genocide on his home world. The planet was on the verge of famine and war because of over population, and his solution was to kill half the population. He’s been traveling across the universe, finding worlds he believes are too crowded or advanced, and decimating entire populations. Thanos believes he’s doing a service to the universe, creating balance, but in reality, he only brings death and chaos.” Tommy paces around the lab. The thought of what they were up against keying up an anxiety that had been plaguing him for years

Jason tensed, his face turning red, “How? Zordon sacrificed himself to end all that, to erase evil from the galexy.” The rangers voice rose in anger, “What was the point if there’s still that kind of malicious son of a bitch out there.”

Tommy understood his anger, Zordon was like a father to all the original rangers. “I don’t know. Maybe the wave didn’t reach as far as we thought? Or, there were specific qualities it was programed to target? As far as I know it didn’t affect any humans, and we have some evil bastards here. We might never know. In any case, our job’s not done, Earth is still in danger.”

“You think this guy Thanos is coming here?” asked Coulson as Fitz and Skye looked nervously between their leader and the rangers.

“I know he is.” Tommy told them with conviction. “He’s after the Infinity Stones, and there are still two of them here. If Thanos gets his hands on all six… were done. He’ll uses the stones to wipe out half of all life in the universe There would be no stopping him.”

Jason stood off to the side, arms crossed, “We’ve taken down plenty of want-to-be Warlords before.”

“Not one like this. His lieutenants are the best trained soldiers and assassins in the galaxy. He commands the entire Chitauri army, hundreds of platoons and siege machines. What the Avengers faced in New York just the tip of the spear.”

“How do you know all this?” Coulson asked, “What’s your source?”

Tommy glanced at Jason, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer. “I know Thanos is coming for the Infinity Stones because he told me himself.” Shocked wouldn’t begin to describe the group in the lab. Tommy glanced around the crowd, gauging their reactions, “Back when we were facing the Machine Empire. One of Gaskets generals did a number on my head, made me think I worked with them.” He only remembers bits and pieces of being strapped to a metal chair and having his memories stripped away. Gazing of into the middle distant he continued, “I wasn’t under their control long, but… long enough to earn one hell of an infamous reputation. Especially on some of the outer rim planets. It was enough to get Thanos’ attention.

“After I turned over my morpher, I went on a… sabbatical off planet for a couple years, travelling across the galaxy and hunting down the remaining generals from the Machine Empire.” Jason gave him a disapproving look. “What? You know how I feel about mind control.” He would have gone after Rita too if Zordons wave hadn’t deprived her of her magic. “Anyway. Thanos found me out there and approached me with a job proposition, a place in his army. He thought getting a Terran Ranger under his command would help him get the stones on Earth. I got the whole recruitment speech, even had a tour of his command ship.”

“How’d you get out of that?” Skye asked “This guy doesn’t seem like type to take ‘No’ for an answer.”  

 “I wasn’t stupid enough to turn him down. I have… experience with being on the other side, it was pretty easy to fake being interested in the offer. I told him I was busy, but he could contact me before he moved on Earth.” Tommy shrugged, “Hopefully he does, it’ll give us some warning before he attacks.”

Jason shook his head with a sigh “All right. So, we have an extremely powerful, extremely insane Warlord heading our way. What’s the plan then?” He watched Tommy fiddle with a gold chain around his neck, a nervous habit the green ranger had since high school, “You do have a plan, right?”

Tommy sank down into an old couch near the stairs. “I was going to start with new morphers and see how that went, but I doubt it will be enough.”

“That’s where we can help.” Coulson said cheerfully. “S.H.I.E.L.D. has the man power and resources to prepare for an attack.”

Fitz perked up, “Yes! We could work with Stark to develop the new morphers. Between the three of us we would have them ready in no time.”

Tommy hesitated. Having S.H.I.E.L.D. backing them they might stand a chance, but there would be a huge catch. The rangers relied on their identities to remain secret, it would ruin their lives to go public.

Coulson realized what the problem was, “No one outside my team will know you’re Rangers. To everyone else, you’d just be consultants.”

Tommy looked to Jason, seeing what the original Red thought about working with S.H.I.E.L.D..

Jason nodded, “Sounds like a plan to me. I’m in. No way is anyone touching Earth while I’m around.”

Tommy smiled, “All right. Looks like we have a deal.”

“Great-” Jason slapping his hands together, “I’ve got to make a phone call. Trini’s going to love this.” He said, sarcasm coloring the words. The red ranger made his way back up the stairs, fishing his phone out of his pocket.

“Since it looks like were taking a break, I better check in with May.” said Coulson and followed the Red ranger up the stairs.

Jason went out to the porch to call his wife. The sun was starting to set behind the trees and stars beginning to show. Jason could see why Tommy moved out here, away from the city. He only had to wait two rings before Trini answered.

‘So, how’d it go?’ She asked as soon as she picked up.

Jason felt calm wash over him, “Tom wasn’t thrilled to see us, but I think everyone’s getting along now.”

‘That’s good. Did they find what they were looking for?’ she asked idly. Jason could hear the sound of the washing machine in the background.

“Sorta. Turns out Tommy’s not as retired as we thought. He found some ranger tech and has been trying to make new morphers.”

He couldn’t hear anything on the line for a second as Trini struggled to decide what question to ask first. “That… that’s not… Why is he making new morphers?”

“Because we have a problem.” Jason rested his head in his hand as he leaned against the porch railing. “There’s something big heading this way and I…”

“I understand. You wouldn’t be who you are if you walked away.”

“I’m going to keep you safe.” Jason put as much certainty into his voice as he could.

‘My due date is in 6 months. You better make it back. Don’t be late. I love you.’

“You got it. I love you, too. I’ll talk to you soon.” Jason hung up the phone. He stayed outside for a few more minutes, trying to get his bearings before heading back inside. He ran into Coulson coming down the stairs that lead to the second story. “Hey man, what’s up?

“Nothing, just looking around. It’s been a crazy day, it’s a lot to take in.”

Jason chuckled, remembering all the situations he ended up in as a ranger. “I know what you mean. Doesn’t matter how much weird shit you see, it doesn’t get easier. You just learn to roll with the punches.”

Coulson couldn’t agree more, but he felt the need to understand something, “Speaking of weird, was I seeing things earlier or did Oliver’s eyes glow green?”

“Yeah, that’s a thing that happens.”

“Is that a ranger thing, or…”

“Na, that’s just a Tommy thing. Kind of a side effect of being under an evil mind control spell for, like, five weeks or something.” Coulson just stared at the ranger for a second. “Don’t worry, we got rid of it ages ago, he’s fine. It’s just a tell, you know, a good way to know when he’s royally pissed off. He’s usually really laidback, I think we just caught him on a bad day.”

After working with Banner, Coulson didn’t like the sound of that. He wished he knew more about the rangers’ history. “I feel like that would have been good information to have before we arrived.”

Jason disagreed “If I told you that before you met him, and you already had it in your head that he was a potential threat, you would have probably pulled your side arm when he drew on you.” Coulson couldn’t deny that was a distinct possibility, “If you had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Calmly Jason faced Coulson and drew himself up to his full height, looking every bit the venerable leader he once was. “Now, you listen to me. You’ve got no business judging him for something he didn’t have a choice in. I’ve faced Tommy at his worst, and I still vouched for him the day he joined our side. So, if you have a problem with how he joined the team, you can either leave or keep your opinions to yourself.”

Coulson nodded in understanding. He had people on his own team controlled before and didn’t blame them for their actions. He had even given a similar speech when people inside S.H.I.E.L.D. doubted Skye. The Red ranger’s fierce protection of his team was almost endearing.

Jason nodded in turn, “Good. Let’s go see what all the mad science geeks have been up to.” The veteran ranger headed back down to the lab. Coulson followed, feeling certain that he made the right call to seek out the Power Rangers.

~~~

As the two team leaders headed upstairs, Tommy leaned back on the sofa feeling like a weigh had been lifted from his shoulders. “So, this is a bit embarrassing, but I never got any of your names…”

Skye laughed, “My name’s Daisy Jonson, but everyone calls me Skye. Our boss is Phil Coulson, he’s the director of the new S.H.I.E.L.D. office, and...” she looked around, finding Fitz inspecting the Dino Gems again, “he’s Leo Fitz, one of our best engineers.”

Tommy hummed to himself and pushed off the sofa, “Hey, Fitz. Come here a minute, I want to show you something.” Fitz followed Tommy over to the side of the lab, where the ranger pulled a polished wood box off a shelf and handed it to the agent. “If your going to be helping with the new morphers, you might as well take a look at these.”

Fitz opened the box gingerly. Inside there were three different morphers. Tommy took the Turbo morpher off his wrist and put it in the box with the others. Exited, Fitz took the box to a workbench and started inspecting its contents. The first thing he noticed was that two of the morphers looked similar; one green, one white. The green morpher had a coin in it, Fitz recognized the footprint design on it as the same on decorating the lab. The white one was in pieces, and the coin was missing. He figured Oliver had disassembled it while doing research for the new morphers. Fitz set them aside and started investigating the two red morphers. 

Skye chuckled as Tommy made his way back to his seat. “That’s going to keep him busy for hours.” She turned back to Tommy just as he was sitting back down, “Hey, since we’re all working together now, can I ask which ranger you were? Jason told us you were on a bunch of the teams, but didn’t say what color you wore.”

“Did he at least explain the different teams?” Skye nodded “I started out as the Green ranger. Zordon made the original White ranger powers for me, then I picked up the Ninjetti White ranger powers. I really miss that Zord.” he lamented, looking wistful, “I changed colors again for Zeo with the Red Ranger 5 morpher and kept the red for Turbo.”

“That’s a lot.”

“Yeah, the whole ranger history got kind of complicated after a couple years. I really want to do a video journal about it for future rangers. I was able to get some stuff from the Command Center, but I can’t find any video of our battles. Hell, I can’t find any public info on the rangers at all. I’m guessing that was you guys?”

“Someone in S.H.I.E.L.D. classified and redacted all the information on the Rangers. Videos, news articles, even the eyewitness testimonies are sealed.”

“Cool. Can I have them? Those records would be useful to have even if I don’t do the journal.”

“I can tell you they’re ‘really’ not. It’s so redacted there is practically nothing left. Personally, I blame Hydra. I think we might have a mole problem.”

They heard Jason laughing as he came back down the stairs, “More like a frog problem.” Tommy and Skye shared a confused look. Jason leaned on the hand rail. “Tom, they put Adam in charge of covering up the ranger attacks!”

“Adam? You mean our Adam?” There was a second of surprised silence, then both rangers busted out laughing, Tommy practically falling off the sofa in hysterics.

“Are you kidding me?!” Skye yelled in frustration “There’s been a ranger at S.H.I.E.L.D. this whole time! I spent hours trying to find anything in that shit report!” The rangers just looked at her and started their laughing fit all over again.

“Shit, I needed that. I haven’t laughed like that in a long time,” Tommy said when he could breathe again, “I had no idea Adam joined S.H.I.E.L.D.. Last time I talked to him he just said he was working in security. I bet he has the original copies somewhere, we’ll have to ask him.”

Jason thumped Tommy on the shoulder as he came up beside the sofa, “So, at some point we should probably give everyone a Ranger history lesson. You know, all the villains and the ranger capabilities and Zords.”

Tommy nodded in agreement, “We can use whatever footage Adam kept, and I have my old morphers for show and tell.”

“I saw Fitz taking a look at those, what happened to your white morpher? It looked like the power coin was missing.”

Tommy reached under the hem of his white shirt for the gold chain there. He pulled gently, revealing the white tiger coin. Tommy had attached a ring to the top so it could be worn as a pendant. The antique gold of the coin shimmering dully in the florescent light, “I wanted to keep it close. It’s a good reminder.”

Jason rolled his eyes, “You always were sentimental.” He knew what Tommy meant though. Becoming the White ranger had been a turning point for him. It signified no longer being connected to Rita.

“So, you’ll come back with us?” asked Fitz, glancing up from inspecting the Red Zeo morpher.

“Yeah, I just need to get some things.” Tommy rose and went back to his computer. Grabbing a portable, high capacity storage drive from a nearby shelf he started downloading all the information he had on ranger technology. When it was done loading he, put it in a pocket. He picked up a small steel box and went to collect the Dino Gems. The Red and Yellow Gems went into the box, but he hesitated with the Blue, tossing it in the air a couple time. Considering it for a second, he glanced back to Fitz who was packing up the old morphers. Tommy called across the room, “Fitz! Heads up!” And lobbed the stone through the air.

Fitz startled, fumbled the Gem, almost dropping it to the floor, “Hey! What was that for-” He stopped abruptly, eyes widening as the Blue Gem started glowing brightly, a warm feeling coursing over him.

Tommy smiled, “Take good care of that. You’re going to need it when the morphers are ready.” He finished by opening a cabinet and pulling out a green and white go-bag. “I’m ready if you are Jase.”

“I’m good to go.” Said Jason, “But at some point, I’m going to have to swing by a store. I did not pack nearly enough Red for this trip.”

Chapter Text

Location: Airborne Mobile Command Station (The Bus)

Bobbi had been busy working on some firearm maintenance with Lance when the away team had returned. She saw Fitz come back to the lab and waved, but he seemed distracted and didn’t see her. She shrugged it off, after all Fitz was hyper focused when he had something on his mind. Shortly after, May announced that they would be taking off and returning to base.

Lance shrugged one shoulder as he worked on calibrating a scope, “I guess they either found what they were looking for or it was a dead end.”

Bobbi glanced through the glass doors of the lab, watching Fitz gesturing wildly as he talked to Jemma. “Kind of looks like they found something.” The agents exchanged curious looks, wondering when Coulson would call them for a debrief.

~~~

The Bus had been air-born for over an hour with no word from Coulson, and Bobbi was letting her curiosity get the better of her. She had tried to ask their science duo, but Simmons had locked the lab door and said something about quarantine through the glass, pointing to a box on the table. Lance tried telling her to wait and chill, but Bobbi decided to get answers directly from Coulson and made a bee line for his office.

She came up from the lower level of the Bus, passing through the lounge. Halfway through the room she paused, backtracking a few steps, and noticed a man lounging on the couch. He was fast asleep, snoring slightly, and using a tattered green and white duffle bag as a pillow. Bobbi wondered who the stranger was and figured it was something else to ask her boss.

She ascended the stairs to Coulson’s office and knocked lightly, trying not to wake the person on the couch. She heard their lead agent call to enter and slipped into the office. She was a little surprised to see Skye and Mr. Scott already there.

“Hi, do you know there’s some random hot guy sleeping downstairs?” she asked, pointing a thumb behind her.

Skye snorted a laugh, but it was Coulson who answered, “That would be Dr. Oliver. He’s agreed to help us with an emerging situation.”

“Ok, did you find the missing artifact? Was it an infinity stone like we thought?”

“Yes and no. We did find the artifact, or rather three of them, in Dr. Oliver’s possession. They are down in the lab with Fitz and Simmons. However, they are not Infinity Stones, at least not entirely. Mr. Scott here informs me that they are perfectly harmless-” Coulson shot the former ranger a scolding look “and will not harm my agents in any way.”

Jason rolled his eyes, he had been reassuring Coulson for last 45 mins that the Blue Dino Gem wouldn’t hurt Fitz. “Dude, relax. Fitz is fine. The absolute worst thing that’ll happen is he’ll have a mild obsession with the color blue.”

Bobbi looked back and forth between the two, “What happened to Fitz?”

The leaders ignored her in favor of glaring at each other so Skye jumped in, “Apparently Fitz is the next Blue Ranger.”

“What! Are you serious? Coulson, we need a full debrief, now! I’ll go get Lance and Fitzsimmons.”

Coulson stopped her, “Not yet, I’m waiting until we get to the base. I want the whole team present and we need to secure the artifacts.”

Bobbi wasn’t happy about it, but she let it go. “Well, would one of you at least come down to engineering? Simmons is freaking out and has the place under quarantine.”

“I’ll go.” Jason got up and they left the office, Skye slipping to the door behind them.

As they passed the lounge again, Bobbi asked, “What about Oliver? He doesn’t look very comfortable where he’s at.”

“Let him sleep,” said Jason, “I’d be surprised if he’s gotten any shut eye the last few days, I’d be surprised if he woke up before we land.”

Down in the cargo area, they came up to the glass wall of the lab. Inside, Jemma was pacing back and forth and Fitz was rubbing his arms uncomfortably, looking downright miserable.

Jason walked right up to the wall and thumped on the glass, “Hey, you can open the door, those gems are safe.”

“Safe?!” Jemma squeaked, “Look what that did to Fitz!” gesturing to the state her friend was in.

Jason rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath about rookies, “It’s a ranger thing. Let me in and we’ll get him sorted out.”

Cautiously Jemma opened the door, glancing back at Fitz.

Jason didn’t hesitate as he went over to Fitz and put his hand on his shoulder. “Hey, how’re feeling? Cold, itchy?” Fitz nodded shakily “Ok newbie, here your first lesson on being a ranger. Go put on a Blue shirt.”

Fitz looked at Jason like the ranger had grown a second head, “What?”

“It has something to do with prism wavelengths and being connected to the Grid. I don’t really understand the science behind it, but I do know you’ll feel better.” The veteran ranger gave Fitz a pat on the back and gave him a light shove towards the door. Fitz had no idea how this would help, but figured it couldn’t hurt to try and went to change.

Jemma was left in the lab staring dumbfounded after Fitz as he headed up the stairs. Bobbi and Skye sidled up on either side of her. Bobbi looked curiously at Jason in his black and gray sweater. “How come you don’t have to wear red?”

“It mostly affects active rangers, especially when they’re new. Most of us still wear the colors out of habit, though.” He pulled the hem of his sweater down to show the red t-shirt underneath.

Skye shrugged, “Ranger stuff is weird.”

~~~

Hours later, Jason found himself leaning back in the same chair he had occupied on his first flight, gazing out the window at the clouds and distant checkerboard of fields. Jason glanced back at Tommy on the couch. His fellow veteran ranger hadn’t woken up once in the 20-hour flight and Jason was starting to get concerned. He saw Fitz walking through the room, heading up to see May about something. If the engineer hadn’t reminded Jason of Billy before, he diffidently would now with his safety glasses on top of his head and oversized blue shirt. Jason chuckled to himself. Fitz had frantically tossed his gear only to realize he didn’t own any Blue, and ended up borrowing a shirt from Lance.

Stretching, Jason got up to ask Coulson how much longer until they landed. Heading up the spiral staircase he could hear Coulson talking to someone, his voice frustrated. The door was partially open and curiously Jason leaned around the corner. Coulson was standing in front of the large monitor on the wall, clearly on a video conference with someone. When the agent saw Jason at the door he waved the ranger inside.

“It’s good you’re here. I’ve been trying to contact Agent Park about the original documents we discussed.”

Jason nodded, leaning against the door frame and trying to stay out off camera, “Who are you talking to?”

“Some intern. This kid is either new or he’s trying to get on my last nerve.”

The intern in question must have come back on the screen because Jason could hear a small voice coming over the speakers, “I’m sorry sir, Agent Park says those files don’t exist.”

 Coulson frowned “Mr. Stewart this is a matter of planetary defense, get me Agent Park.”

“Agent Park is busy at the moment sir, I can take a message.”

“I need to talk to your superior-”

Jason suddenly recognized the voice, “Wait. Stewart? Justin Stewart?” Jason rounded the corner to stand next to Coulson so he could see the screen and smiled when he recognized the youngest ranger, “Hi, kid! Long time, no see!”

Justin looked like a deer in headlights “Mr. Scott? What… what are you doing there?”

Jason smiled, laughing to himself at the kid’s disbelief “Well, long story, but Coulson’s team here are in on the ranger identities. Some of them at least.”

Coulson looked back and forth so fast Jason thought he was going to hurt himself. “This kid is another ranger! How old are you kid? Do you even have clearance?”

Justin’s nose wrinkled in irritation, “I’m 29, not some little kid. I graduated the S.H.I.E.L.D. academy and everything.” Coulson’s eyebrows almost reached his hairline, the kid (and he was going to keep calling him a kid) didn’t look old enough to drink, let alone be a certified agent.

Jason patted Coulson on the back, “Justin was the youngest ranger. He was only 12 when he was given the Blue Turbo powers.” Coulson shook his head in disbelief, trying to figure out how a 12-year-old could be chosen to save the world.

“Hey Justin, I need you to do me a favor, can you put Adam on the line, please?” Jason asked the young agent. Justin nodded and scurried off. Coulson and Jason could hear him talking from off screen.

“Adam! Adam! Jason’s on the video call!”

“From accounting? What does he want, I already filed my overtime- “?

“No, not him. Jason, Jason!”

“What are you talking about kid?”

“Our Jason! Red One! Jason Lee Scott!”

“OH, that Jason. How did he even get this number?”

“He’s on the Bus with Agent Coulson!”

“What’s he doing ther…Oh shit!”

Suddenly an older, dark haired man came into the frame. Jason waved, “How’s it going Adam?”

Adam, flabbergasted, looked back and forth between the original red ranger and the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Umm. Good. Hi. What’s going on?”

“Long story. We’re going to be working with S.H.I.E.L.D. for a bit. Do you mind sending over the unedited ranger files?”

“Sure, yes.” Adam disappeared, off to locate the hidden files. Coulson was amused by the interaction, but could see where he had a problem. Technically, Agent Park worked for SHIELD. The fact that the agent would completely ignore the chain of command to follow someone outside the organization told Coulson that Parks loyalties were solely with the rangers.

Justin came back on, looking timid and curious. “Hey, so... how many rangers do S.H.I.E.L.D. know about?”

Jason glanced at Coulson. “Only a few. They’ve met a couple of us already. Tommy’s actually here too.”

Adam came back to the computer, “It’s sent. Coulson should receive it in a secured email attachment. I thought Tommy was retired? I heard he was working on a doctorate.”

“Yeah, he got a PhD, built a house. He’s been doing all kinds of normal adult stuff, who would have guessed.” Coulson’s disbelief was practically radiating off him. “If it wasn’t for the Command Center and new powers in his basement you’d think he was a well-rounded member of society.”

“That’s cool, I’m glad he’s- Wait. Command Center?” The former rangers on the screen stood gapping for a second, trying to wrap their heads around the new information.

Jason laughed at their expressions, “Come on guys, you can’t be that surprised.”

Justin muttered under his breath about the original rangers getting all the cool stuff. Adam shook his head, clearing away the disbelief, “Yeah, no, that tracks. I just never thought he’d take it that far though.” The Ninjetti ranger thought about it for a second, “He wouldn’t go through all that trouble for nothing. He found something, didn’t he? That’s why you’re working with S.H.I.E.L.D.” Justin looked equal parts nervous and excited.

Coulson nodded, “There will be a debrief at the Playground at 1300 hours tomorrow. I expect both of you to be there.”

There was a chorus of ‘Yes Sri’s from the agents. Amused, Jason added, “Rangers are going out for drinks after. It’s been too damn long since we’ve gotten together, and Justin can actually join us this time.”

Justin rolled his eyes and gave Jason a rude gesture, Adam laughed and threw an arm around the youngest ranger, “When do you guys land? We’ll meet you there.”

Jason looked to Coulson for the answer, since that was his original reason for coming up to the office. “We’re about 45 minutes out. It’ll be late when we arrive.”

Adam shrugged, “We’ll see you tomorrow then, we can show Jason and Tommy around.” Justin threw in his agreement.

Jason gave a salute to the screen, “All right, we’ll see you then,” Coulson moved to disconnect the video call, “Oh, and Adam, thanks for covering for us. You did good.” Adam beamed. Coulson scoffed, thinking of all the extra work his team had to do, and turned off the call.

Coulson leaned back in his chair, “So, are there any more rangers in S.H.I.E.L.D. I should know about?”

Jason chuckled, “Hell if I know. I didn’t know Justin was there.”

“So, how did a 12-year-old become a ranger?”

 “He filled in for someone during an emergence, he wasn’t a ranger for more than a few months.” Jason said, looking sad. It had taken Rocky years to recover from his accident, and Justin shouldn’t have had the world on his shoulders. At least it looked like the kid was doing well for himself.

There was a ding from Coulson’s computer notifying a new email. He opened the attachment and started clicking through the un-redacted files.

Jason knocked on the desk, “Well, I just came up here to see how much longer the flight was. I’ll leave you to it.” Coulson waved distractedly, not taking his eyes off the files.

Jason made his way back to the lounge, thinking about asking around about something to eat. He stopped when he passed by the couch, which was decidedly missing a paleontologist. Jason looked around in confusion, not seeing his friend anywhere, “I know I left him right here.”

~~~

Jason had spent the last couple minutes wandering the plane trying to figure out where Tommy had wandered off to.  He made his way down the spiral stairs to the lower level of the Bus. A couple steps down he heard commotion and knew he found the right place. Rounding the corner, it took Jason a second to sort out the ridiculous scene he was walking into.

Tommy was sitting at a table in the cargo bay area of the Bus, a plate with a half-eaten sandwich and a bottle of water beside him. Across the table Agent Hunter sat opposite of him, the two locked in a heated arm-wrestling match. Or at least heated on Lance’s side, the agent straining to pull Tommy’s hand to the table. Tommy on the other hand seemed to barely register the agent was there, casually leaning the table. The rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. crew was gathered around, laughing and cheering encouragements to their fellow agent. 

Tommy must have seen him coming down the stairs because he half turned to look at him and welcomed him to the party, “Hey Jase. Guess what, this guy didn’t believe you when you told him rangers are enhanced.” Lance tried to use Tommy’s distraction, standing up to throw his weight against Tommy hand with no success.

Jason snorted, “Does the phrase ‘Emergencies’ only’ mean anything to you?”

Tommy gave him a mock innocent smile, “Seriously Jase? I bench 250 easy, without drawing on the ranger powers. Do you really think I needed to use them to beat this guy?” Jason could see the amusement in Tommy’s expression, he was glad to see his friend back to his usual cheerful self. Tommy finally decided to take pity on Lance and knocked the agents hand flat to the table.

“Ouch.” Lance rubbed his wrist. “Dude, you could have at least let me think I had a chance.”

Tommy just smiled and picked up his sandwich, “You’re the one who challenged me, remember?”

Lance shook out his hand. He had honestly thought Jason had been exaggerated the whole enhance bit, “When we get to the Playground, I need to introduce you to Mack.”

Chapter Text

Location: SHIELD Base of Operations: The Playground

Coulson’s operational debrief went exactly as expected, with the SHIELD director explaining their most recent mission calmly and properly introduced the Power Rangers to the rest of the team, which primarily included Agents May, Mackenzie, and Koenig.

The two rangers they had picked up in California (plus the two that were apparently already working for S.H.I.E.L.D.) had given them a brief history of their group, the threats they had faced, and their past and current capabilities. Agent Park and junior Agent Stewart put together a production of all the intel SHIELD had gathered on the rangers as part of their standard containment procedure. The two agents showed pictures and played videos of the ranger battles, animatedly voicing over the videos with commentary. Dr. Oliver brought out some examples of their old ranger tech to pass around, and even offered to demonstrate a morph to show them the armor. Mr. Scott, however, promptly shut that idea down, reprimanding Oliver for reckless over use of the powers. They had taken questions after, answering as many as they could without compromising the identities of other retired rangers.

May had held her breath as Dr. Oliver explained the new threat that was looming over Earth and the importance of securing the Infinity Stones for the safety of the entire universe. May had seen a lot of things in her time in S.H.I.E.L.D. Most of it fueled her nightmares, but none of it was as daunting as the planetary destroyer heading towards Earth.

May hadn’t been overly impressed by the rangers show and tell performance. Without their weapons, the rangers were little more than civilians, even if they were mildly enhanced. By the sound of it, their whole plan for defeating Thanos hinged on being able to make a new superhuman fighting force. Which by the sound of it was next to impossible. She didn’t think much of Fitz joining them, either. The engineer was irreplaceable in the lab, but fighting an intergalactic threat? He was no Avenger.

May stayed behind after the meeting, waiting to talk to Coulson alone. Once everyone had filed out of Coulson’s office, the director slouched down in his chair, looking exhausted. May claimed the chair opposite his desk and waited, knowing Coulson had a lot on his mind.

“Well, that went over as well as it could have” Coulson heaved a heavy sigh. Seeing the videos of the ranger battles had unnerved him. He thought that the threats the avengers had faced were devastating, but the Zord battles were on a whole other level. It was difficult to think of the mild-mannered Jason or shy Adam as soldiers, but the Rangers could obviously handle themselves.

“Do you think we should be following their lead on this?” asked May, suspiciously, “If Oliver is right and this Thanos is on his way here we should be working with the Avengers, not relying on an organization we just learned about.”

“You’re right. We need the Avengers brought in on this. We are going Stark Tower tomorrow morning to read them into what’s going on. The rangers are going to give them the same demonstration we got today.” Coulson started rearranging flies on his computer. He was actually looking forward to seeing the Avengers again. Barton and Romanoff knew he was alive and the new director of SHIELD, however everyone else still thought he had died before the battle of New York. He shot May an amused smile, “And to be fair, calling the rangers an organization would be overly generous. As far as I can tell they don’t have any kind of official command structure.

That got a mocking gaze from May, “They don’t have a ranking system, but they absolutely have a command structure.” May was one of SHIELDs best operatives for a reason. The spy had been observing their new consultants ever since they arrived. “Jason is obviously their default leader; all the others defer to him. Tomas acts as co-leader but still accepts that Jason has the final word. The rest appear to use seniority to determine status.”

Coulson thought about how Jason had ordered Tommy to stand down back in Reefside and nodded his agreement. Mays assessment matched what he had observed himself. “If all this works out I’d like to talk to all of them about permanent positions in SHIELD. Scott and Oliver have potential and Agents Park and Stewart have a specialized skill set that’s being wasted in Archives.”

May scoffed. The rangers were their own independent unit. It would be impractical to try conforming them to the bureaucratic SHIELD system. Whatever Coulson was planning, she didn’t want any part in it.

~~~

It was well into the evening by the time May left Coulson’s office, the two senior agents going over tomorrows travel plans, and the technical and logistical problems associated with it. May supposed she should retire for the evening, but was feeling too keyed up to rest. As she passed by the Common she could see Bobbi, Skye, and Jemma. The girls had their heads together giggling like a bunch of teenagers. May tried to ignore them, and whatever foolishness was going on, trying to make it to the kitchen unnoticed.

“Hey, May!” Bobbi said spotting he before she could disappear, “Come on, we’re having a girl’s night! We have wine and gossip!”

May stopped, she wasn’t really in the mood for wine, but she was always interested in gossip. An occupational hazard of being a spy. Interest peaked, she joined the other women, settling into an armchair and accepting a glass from Skye. “So, what are we talking about?”

“Take a wild guess…” Bobbi smirked.

May scoffed, “Our new consultants?”

Bobbi nodded along, “You got to admit, it’ll be nice to have them around.”

 May gave her a look of disbelief, “We work with soldiers and assassins all day. These guys might be a little enhanced, but they don’t have the training or experience our S.H.I.E.L.D. agents do. There’s nothing exceptional about them.”

“Oh, but new eye candy around the base is always appreciated.” Skye laughed, rising her glass to Bobbi and taking a sip of her wine.

May couldn’t help but laugh at her younger coworkers. She was about to tell them off for objectifying people when she heard another group coming down the hall from the dorms. The girls turned to see Jason and Adam walking down the hall in their ranger colors; Jason in a red and black flannel, and Adam in a sharp black pearl snap shirt. Behind them came Justin and Fitz in blue and white graphic t-shirts, Fitz’s most likely borrowed from the young former ranger. All four of them looked ready for a night out. Bobbi and Skye were eyeing them admiringly, even May had to admit they cleaned up nice.

Bobbi called after them, “Hey, where are you off to?” 

“Just doing some bar hopping. Figure we might as well catch up before things get crazy.” Said Adam, “Plus, we’ve got a new ranger to celebrate!” He clasped Fitz on the shoulder. The engineer smiled, looking like a high school freshman that had been adopted by the cool kids. May found it strangely endearing. As much as she disliked the idea of Fitz trying to be a superhero, she was glad that the rangers were welcoming him.

Skye did a quick head count, “Looks like your missing one. Where’s Tommy?”

“Late” All the veteran rangers echoed. Jason chucked, “That guy can’t be on time to save his life. I swear, we had most of the battles finished before he showed up.”

“And you guys still needed my help when I got there!” The girls turned together to see Oliver coming up the hall wearing a green button-down over a white shirt, his hair styled into spikes, and small gold rings in his ears.

Jason and Adam started cackling as he approached, Jason managing to chuckle out, “You know Kim’s not coming, right?”

Tommy punched Jason in the arm as he passed, “Shut up! Leave us single guys alone, Red.”

The ranger continued and filed out of the base, laughing and teasing each other along the way. The S.H.I.E.L.D. women were left giggling amongst themselves.

~~~

The next morning, May went for her regular cup of coffee in the kitchen and found the original Red ranger already there, nursing a cup of black coffee with his head hung low.

May smirked at his hung over, shaggy demeanor. It looked like he was in the same clothes as the night before. She wondered when the rangers had gotten in. “Rough night?”

Jason groaned, “I’m getting too old for this.” He took a sip of coffee, grimacing, “Adam definitely knows his way around the bars here.”

May took pity on him and took some aspirin out of a cabinet. Setting it down, she asked where the other rangers were.

Jason accepted the pain killer gratefully and shrugged, “Adam sent Justin home around midnight. Even enhanced the kid is still a lightweight. We lost Tommy somewhere around the Smithsonian,  no idea where he thought he was going. Adam is probably still sleeping off a massive hangover. The dumb ass thought he could keep up with Fitz.”

May raised one slender brow in curiosity, “Fitz doesn’t drink. I figured he would be the first one out.”

Jason smiled into his coffee, “Rookie is the only active ranger, he’s more enhanced than the rest of us combined right now. He can’t get drunk.” May was taken aback, she never considered that. She would have to try convincing the young engineer to spar with her or Lance to see how he handled himself.

They both heard the heavy door to the base open and close in the distance. They looked towards the entrance, trying to see who else was up this early. A few seconds later Tommy came strolling around the corner looking rough.

“Dude, are you just getting in?” asked Jason, brow furrowed in confusion.

The former green ranger sighed heavily pinching the bridge of his nose, “Yeah, I had to wait for the museum to open, but it was worth it. Look what I found.” he held up a pair of gems, one gleaming obsidian black, one shining bright white.

“Are those more Dino Gems!?” “Did you rob the Smithsonian?” Jason and May glanced at each other.

Tommy flinched at the noise, rubbing at his eyes. “What? No… yes?” Drinking last night was a bad idea. “Yes, they are Dino Gems. And no, I didn’t steal anything. Who do you think I am? Romanoff?” May crossed her arms and shrugged. Maybe not Romanoff, but Oliver was absolutely giving off Barton vibes right now.

Tommy gave them a tried smile. “I saw a promotion for the exhibits at the Smithsonian and recognized the Gems. Apparently, they were found at an archeology dig about a hundred miles east of where I found the other three.” He leaned wearily against the table “A paleontologist friend of mine works there and he was able to get me in behind the scenes as soon as they opened. I talked to the curator and told her I was studying similar artifacts. She let me sign them out.”

Jason studied the Gems closer, noticing how bright they were, “They’re glowing. Are they yours? Are you active again?”

Tommy shook his head, “No. I can feel both responding to me, though. The white gem is just reacting because of my other white ranger powers, you know. A like recognizing like kind of thing. The black gem could me mine if I accepted it.” He was surprised to feel the Gem reaching out to him, offering another power and another color change. Tommy had considered it, but decided to let it choose someone else. He had a much older power he wanted to get his hands on. He had sensed the Time Stone move again; it was somewhere close.

Jason studied his friend for a second, giving him a skeptical glare, “You turned it down? You?” he shook his head in disbelief. Something about Tommy turning down ranger powers seemed suspicious to him, and he wondered what his friend was up to. He eventually shrugged. He was too hung over to deal with mysteries and magic this early in the morning. “Well, I guess that’s a relief. Is that the last of them, or are there more out there?”

Tommy shrugged, “I couldn’t find any Eltarian records on how many Gems they made, so there no way to know for sure, but I think that’s it.”

“That’s good.” Jason nodded and went to get another cup of coffee. “Now we just need to make new morphers and find rangers for them. Piece of cake.” Tommy caught May’s eye behind his back, they couldn’t decide if he was being sarcastic or not.

Tommy yawned and stretched, “All right. I’m gonna drop these off in the Lab and get some sleep.” Tommy pushed off the table, getting ready to leave.

“No, you’re not” Called Jason, turning around with a fresh cup of coffee, “We have that meeting with the Avengers today. It a three hour drive up there.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that, shit.” Tommy sighed, it was going to be a long day.

May was starting see why the former ranger was late for everything. “I can take the Gems to the Lab,” May offered, “I need to talk to Fitz anyway.” She wanted to ask him if he felt any other side effects from becoming enhanced.

Tommy shrugged and handed the Gems over, watching carefully to see if they reacted to May. He was disappointed when nothing happened, she would be a great ranger. He made a mental note to watch next time May was near the other two Gems.

Jason got up to leave. “There’s still coffee left if you want it. I’ll wake up Adam. We’ll leave Justin here; the kid doesn’t really need to come anyway.” It was going to be an interesting trip. Jason was looking forward to meeting the Avengers.

Chapter Text

Location: New York, NY

Tommy guided the SHIELD marked sedan through the packed streets of New York, following Agent Coulson in a SHIELD SUV. Adam in the passenger seat beside him was taking in the sights and calling out street signs. Tommy glanced up at the rearview mirror, checking on Fitz and Simmons in the back seats. Coulson had asked Jason to ride with him. Tommy suspected the agent was trying to recruit the original Red. As they pulled up to the Stark Tower skyscraper Coulson, May, Skye, and Jason were already exiting the first vehicle.

Fitz, Simmons, and Adam joined them on the sidewalk, but Tommy hesitated, looking up at the ugly building with its A logo. Slowly, he exited the driver’s side and looked over the top of the sedan, “Hey, you guys go on without me, I’ll meet up with you later.”

Jason gawked at him in confusion “Wait, what? No. You’re the only one who’s met Thanos, you need to explain him to the Avengers.”

“Have you heard of Wanda Maximoff? The Scarlet Witch?” Tommy pointed up at the tower “There’s a high likelihood that she’s up there. Do you really want me around someone who controls minds?”

Jason took a second to think about it, “Yeah, no. Fair point. You stay here, we’ll see you later.”

Skye looked back and forth between the two rangers, “What? You’re just going to let him get out of the meeting? Just like that?”

“Absolutely. Tommy and mind control don’t mix well.” Said Jason, he and Adam walked into the tower reception area.

She pointed at Tommy and turned to Coulson, “Can I go with him? You guys don’t need me there, and I’m not good with crowds. Don’t want to freak out meeting the Avengers and start a quake in the tower.”

Coulson nodded and followed the rangers into Stark Tower. May, Fitz and Simmons are already waiting for them at the security check-in. Tommy smiled and clapped his hands together, “All right, lets go get some lunch.”

~~~

Skye and Tommy walked through the streets of New York, Skye with a hot dog in hand. They had found a food cart a couple blocks from Stark Tower. It was a nice enough day to go see the sights, but she was starting to think Tommy had other plans. The ranger kept stopping, changing direction, and going down side streets, almost like he was looking for something.

By the third time they had changed directions she was starting to get fed up with not knowing where they were going. “So, are we just wandering in circles until the Avenger meeting it done, or are you trying to find a museum or something?”

Tommy laughed and stuck his hands in the black leather jacket he was wearing. “I’m not sure what I’m looking for yet. I have a feeling I’ll recognize it when I see it.”

The cryptic answer piqued her curiosity. Looking around at the towering buildings she could see Stark Tower in the distance, she noticed that their meandering path has taken them steadily South, “So, this a ranger thing then?”

“Sort of. Maybe.” Tommy stopped and looked down a side street. “I think the Time Stone is here somewhere.” He was absolutely positive the Time Stone was here. He had felt it at the edges of his senses like a glowing beacon for hours. Narrowing down the location was the hard part. The Infinity stone was so powerful it seemed like the energy was coming from everywhere at once.

“What!? We’re tracking down an Infinity Stone!? Shouldn’t we have backup?”

Tommy continued down the street, “Relax, I just want to know where it is. This one jumps around a lot, all over the world. This might be our only chance to catch it.”

Skye stood frozen in shock for a second and had to jog to catch up with him, “So, what, you could track this thing the whole time? Can all rangers track Infinity Stones?”

“I don’t know, it’s never come up before. Although, I wasn’t able to track the Aether like this, even though I had two different Red ranger powers.” Tommy looked thoughtful, “If I had to guess, this might have something to do with Rita. When I was the Green Ranger, she used some kind of spell to bind me to the Dragon Coin, it’s how she was able to drain the power after I joined the Rangers. If that spell was strong enough, it might have connected me directly to the Time Stone itself.”

Skye didn’t know anything about magic. The whole thing gave her the creeps. She followed Tommy on his winding path through the city, keeping an eye out for anything unusual. As they turned down Bleecker St. Skye was distracted, admired the cool old building as they passed, and nearly ran into Tommy as he stopped dead. The ranger was looking up at an old brick building with white pillars. The roof was a dull copper green that contrasted with the beautiful round, stained glass window in the center of the building. Straining to look up, Skye could barely make out the figure of a man standing at the window.

Tommy eyed the place suspiciously, “This is the place.”

~~~

Coulson went up to the security check point in the Stark Tower lobby and recognized Happy Hogan at the desk. “Hello Mr. Hogan.”

Happy looked up from his phone, startled. His eyes went impossibly large when he saw Phil Coulson back from the dead. The chief of security scrambled to his feet, pulling a Taser from a holster and yelling into a radio, “Mr. Stark, we have an LMD attempting to gain entry to the building!”

“I’m not a live model decoy. I have an appointment.”

“That’s what an LMD would say-“

“Happy it’s OK, It’s really him.” Happy and Coulson both looked in the direction of the new voice to see a blond man in a purple and black hoody walking towards security.

Colson smiled, “Good to see you again Agent Barton.”

“You too Director. Everything’s all right Happy, he really does have an appointment to talk to the Avengers.” Happy scoffed and sat back down with a huff. “Come on Phil, everyone’s waiting.” Coulson and his team followed Clint down the hall, Jason throwing a friendly wave to Happy as he passed the desk. “We were able to get everyone together, well, except Thor, he’s off planet again. We’re set up in briefing room 12 on the 55^th floor.”

“That’s surprising. Knowing Stark, I would have thought he would meet us in the Penthouse.”

“Yeah, well… there are some unplanned renovations going on up there. Wanda was experimenting with her powers again and it set off the Hulk, and it kind of snowballed from there.”

Clint chatted with Coulson as they waited for the elevator to get to the upper levels of the tower, “I was surprised to get a call from you. I thought you were still playing dead?” Clint subtilty looked over Phil’s team. He recognized May, of course. Things must be serious if they called in the Calvary.

“Circumstances changed. How did Stark take the news of my less than permanent death?”

Clint pulled out his phone and played a short video of Tony, his voice tiny as it yelled through the small speakers. Stark waved his arms around, pointing accusingly at Natasha and Clint behind the camera. “I think he took it pretty well.” The archer chuckled.

Coulson chuckled with him right before the doors opened. They stepped out into a well-lit office room with a large, heavy oak table and floor to ceiling windows. It was very…Stark.

Tony Stark was the first one to meet them at the door, the eccentric billionaire wearing a stock, almost condescending expression. “Agent. You’re late.”

“I missed you to Stark.” Tony gave a slight nod and headed over to a bar in the corner to pour himself a martini.

Steve greeted him next, coming over to clasp his hand in a firm handshake, “It’s good to see you made it out Coulson. What brings you back to working with the Avengers?”

“Nothing good unfortunately.” Coulson looked around at the two assembled teams, waiting for them to gather around so he could explain why they were there. “What we’re about to read the Avengers in on has been classified above top secret for over a decade, and we’re going to need all the help we can get for what’s coming.” Coulson said seriously.

~~~

Tommy pushed open the heavy wood doors of the building, glancing inside. He had tried knocking, but when no one answered he tried the door, finding it had been unlocked.

“You can’t just go in!” whispered Skye from behind him, “We don’t even know what kind of place this is. It could be a trap.”

Tommy stepped inside, studying the grand staircase that took up most of the space and noticing all the books and artifacts in glass cases. The whole place practically vibrated with magic. It reminded Tommy of Rita’s palace more than he’d like to admit, and it made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He didn’t see anything that looked like an Infinity Stone thought.

“You shouldn’t be in here” a voice echoed from the top of the stairs. “This is privet property.” The voice had come from a man in his early 40’s with a trimmed mustache and gray streaks at his temples. He was dressed in strange blue robes and high boots, and around his neck was a large gold amulet. “This is no place for tourists.”

Tommy heard Skye standing behind him, letting the door close. “Sorry, we tried knocking.” She said, “We’ll just be going.” She tried to grab Tommy’s arm to get him to come with her.

The former ranger ignored her and stood his ground, “Actually, I’m looking for something, maybe you’ve seen it? A green gemstone, about the size of a marble, probably glowing.”

“If you’re looking for some kind of gem, there is a jeweler down the street. You’re not going to find anything here.” The man said, striding over to them down the staircase.

Tommy could hear the Time Stone calling out to him stronger as the man approached. He studied the stranger and the amulet he wore. His eyes narrowed in determination, “That’s funny. Because the stone I’m looking for is in the amulet you’re wearing.”

The stranger stopped abruptly, taken aback, and regarded them with suspicion, “I’m sorry, you must be mistaken Mr.-”

“Doctor”

“Excuse me?” The stranger looked affronted, his brown drawing together with annoyance.

“My name is Dr. Tomas Oliver, and I’m here for the Time Stone.”

The man on the stairs went on the defensive, dropping into a fighting stance, sparking gold shields with spiraling sigils appeared on his hands, “I am the Sorcerer Supreme. It is my duty to protect the Time Stone. You’ll have to go through me to get it.”

Another man in similar robes rounded the corner of the stairs, holding a takeout bag and looking exasperated, “Strange! What is going on?”

“Wong, we have an intruder attempting to steal the Time Stone.”

The Monk dropped the food and mirrored the Sorcerer Supremes stance, ready for a fight. Tommy could see Skye in his peripheral, tightening the shock absorbing braces on her arms, subtly glancing at him, ready to follow his lead. Tommy forced himself to stay relaxed. He didn’t want to take the stone by force, but this self-proclaimed sorcerer was starting to get on his nerves, “Look, whoever you are, I think we might be on the same side here. We both want to protect the stone. Now if you could just give it- “

“The Time Stone is a crucial element in safeguarding the timeline and preventing disruptions across the multiverse. What make you think I’ll just-” Tommy rolled his eyes and reached out his hand towards the amulet, using the connection to call to the stone. The intricate gold clockwork spiraled open on its own, revealing the Time Stone. The sorcerer could only watch in bewilderment as the Time Stone leapt across the room into Oliver’s waiting grasp. “-Hey!?” The sorcerer helplessly dropped his guard, “How did you do that?”

Tommy gave him a smug little smile, “I didn’t do anything, it just likes me better.” He closed his hand around the Time Stone. The stones power surged, wrapping him in a translucent green cloak. The power formed around him and took on the ghostly image of green plated armor with a gold shield and dragon helm, before fading away.

“Oh, that is who you are.” Wong rushed forward and bowed respectfully, “Our greatest apologies, Grid Master.”

Grid Master? “Is that what you sorcerers call us?” Tommy asked. He liked it, it was catchier than Power Rangers.

The Sorcerer Supreme joined them at the bottom of the stairs, “Wong, what’s going on? Do you know this guy?”

The monk made a so-so gesture, “The sorcerers of Kamar-Taj have known about the Grid Masters for centuries. They are the ones chosen by the Infinity Stones to protect the balance of the universe. If anyone could be considered the rightful masters of the stones, it would be them.” That made Tommy laugh, he has always felt more like a servant to the Power rather than its master.

“We’ll in that case, I suppose you can take it after all.” Strange seemed rather sullen about surrendering the Time Stone. Tommy could understand that. No one enjoyed relinquishing a powerful weapon. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are you going to you use it for?”

“Oh, you know, the usual, batting against intergalactic, tyrannical warlords, saving the universe from mass genocide, that sort of thing. But first-” Tommy pulled his green ranger morpher from his back pocket, the antique gold dragon coin shining against the green crystal and black metal. Tommy opened the hand holding the Time Stone and moved it closer to the morpher. The vibrant green glow of the stone intensified, its power filling the air around them. They all watched in amazement as the dragon coin started absorbing the energy, the green light swirling around the morpher and being drawn into the coin. It was over as soon as it started; the Time Stone glowing contentedly, and the Green Ranger morpher humming with restored power.

Tommy smiled, heart racing at the familiar, intense rush of energy flowing through him, as his first morpher connected him back to the Morphing Grid.

Tommy jumped and almost threw the morpher as his phone buzzed and started ringing in his pocket. He fumbled with the morpher and Time Stone as he pulled the phone free, he saw Adams name on the screen and quickly swiped to answer, “Hey Adam, how’s it going?”

“Not great. We gave them the whole ‘Imminent Danger, We’re Here to Help’ speech, but Stark is being an ass. He thinks they can handle Thanos themselves. He called us dead weight, Tom! Dead weight! Can you believe that!?” Tommy could hear Stark arguing with Jason in the background, “Look, we need you to come back and help convince these guys that we can help.”

Tommy scowled at Starks stubbornness before a slow smile crept onto his face, “Adam, I have an idea. It will defiantly get their attention, but it’s going to take a few minutes. Hang tight… and keep an eye out the window.”

“What-?” Tommy hung up the phone and put it away.

Tommy turned to the sorcerers, “Do you know any piers around here? Something by the Atlantic?”

“There’s Brighton Beach Pier,” said Wong.

“Perfect. You wouldn’t happen to have a fast way to get there, do you?”

Curious to see what the Green ranger had in mind, Dr. Strange held up his Sling Ring and started forming a portal. The golden sparks cleared into a circular gateway onto a long boardwalk. Tommy and Skye gapped in amazement as the two sorcerers walked through, then quickly followed them.

The cold fall air whipped around them as they exited the portal, the expanse of the ocean cooling the air to chilling levels. Tommy took a deep, bracing breath and started towards the end of the pier, “All right. Let’s see if I remember how to do this.” The newly reenergized ranger quieted his mind, falling into a light meditative state where he could concentrate on the Power flowing through him. Tommy held out his right hand. Green sparks of energy formed along his palm, sparking in the air before solidifying into a long green and gold dagger, the blade gleaming in the afternoon sun.

Skye was closest to him and could see the sparks of green energy racing along the length of the blade. She wondered at the curious hilt of the dagger that almost looked like a flute. She was even more curious when Tommy raised the hilt to his lips and blew into it. The sound that came out of the dagger was a haunting, clear melody like a trumpet.

Tommy smiled, remembering the tune. He repositioned his fingers on the hilt and focused out to the water. He changed the tune, letting power from the Time Stone weave into the sound. It released a shockwave that rippled out across the water and… nothing happened. Tommy scanned the horizon whispering under his breath, “Come on, come on. Wake up.” Tommy raised the dagger and played the tune again, strong and clear, and another shockwave rippled out over the ocean… this time answered by a spray of white water in the distance as something moved under the waves.

Tommy grinned in triumph, “There you are.”

~~~

Coulson leaned against the wall of the office. Clint and Natisha were standing with him, watching the reactions of the various Avengers as they sorted out the new information they had been given. With the threat of Thanos hanging in the air, Steve and Sam seemed ready to do what was necessary to defend the planet. Vanda and Vision sat at the table, waiting to see how things played out. But the overwhelming commotion in the room was the argument going on between Jason and Tony. The billionaire had taken on the opinion that the Avengers alone could handle Thanos, and that the Rangers would just be in the way.

“No one needs your weird dinosaur things. My tech is more advanced than anything you’ve got!”

“We’re asking you to help make the new ones! We live on earth too, and we will fight to defend it!”

The two had been going back and forth for several minutes now, with no sign of either one giving in. Adam had given up trying to help convince Stark and was staring morosely out the window.

“The Avengers have sent The Chitauri packing before, we’ll do it again.”

“That was one mother ship- “

By the windows, Adam tensed up, eyes going wide, “Um, guys’-“

“- and you barley won. Thanos has hundreds of those ships under his command!”

“We still don’t need your stupid Zords!”

“GUYS!” Everyone turned to Adam, who was staring out the window, expression pale, “You’re gonna want to see this!”

The whole room went quiet and now Coulson could hear a dull thud… Thud…THUD. A water glass on the table rippled, seismic vibrations rattling the floor. He looked towards the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the East River. The Avengers all crept closer to the glass, curious and hesitant. Adam stepped aside so they could get closer. Coulson walked up beside them, just in time to see something massive walking through the river towards them. Coulson gapped in fear and astonishment as the colossal assault weapon prowled up the river towards the tower.

Over fifty stories tall, green and black metal glistening, the Mecha-Godzilla like Dragon Zord stood gazing at them with red, glowing eyes. It’s massive head and gleaming metal teeth eye level with their floor of Stark Tower. The Zord let out an ear shattering roar, the Avenger dropping to the ground and covering their ears as the windows rattled.

Jason walked up behind Stark, “So. You don’t need Zords, hum?”

Stark half turned toward Jason, not taking his wide eyes off the Dragon Zord, “Yeah, OK. I’ll help with the morphers.” He ripped his gaze away from the windows, “What are we waiting for. Let’s go save the world.”

Jason’s phone rang, the old ranger communicator tone he had recorded years ago playing through the speaker. The former Red ranger swiped open the screen without looking at the caller, “Hey Tom.”..… “Yeah, they see it. Kind of hard to miss. How did you even-”……. “You found what?” ……. “You know what, I’m not even going to question it right now. Just send the Zord back and get over your ass over here. It’s time to get back to action.”