A/N: Let it be known that—I changed a few things with the first chapter! I mostly cut that whole first part out and went straight into the part with Sharon talking about boring things in the Tower. Kill your darlings, guys, kill your darlings.

Let me know what you think, and enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 4

The scene in the crowd was utter mayhem when the fighting broke out. I swallowed my own forebodings and went after what mattered most.

Natasha.

She was already on Steve's back, arm wrapped around his neck with a knifepoint at the back of his head despite the fact that she was still wearing her floor-length party gown. Her face glistened with sweat against her short red hair.

I made the mistake of running up and trying to pull her off and got an elbow in the mouth for my trouble.

"Listen to me," Nat hissed through her teeth toward Steve. "If you ever threaten the Excelsior Project again, there was NEVER any friendship between us. My life, my family, everything that matters to me now depends on that project going through. Is that clear?"

Steve tried to head-butt her and throw her off of him, but she kept dodging his blows. Finally his brute strength overpowered her grip on his neck. He trusted well enough that she wouldn't stab him, or at least not fatally. She hovered by him, unwilling to let him go that easily.

Tony came up and he glowered at Steve.

"You," Steve growled angrily, coming out from under Natasha's grip. "I thought it was pretty clear we didn't want another Ultron, and then what do you decide to do?"

Tony's face was adamant. "Like she said," he pointed to Nat, who still held the knife ready, "I made it my business to hang back. If Nat didn't want to be interfered with, it was best to wait until she let you. A lot of people's lives depend on this, Cap, yours included! You think you can just go and dump SHIELD files on the internet, and there be no consequences? Everyone knows all this stuff. This is my attempt to pack it up again; consider it—a thank-you gift after Ultron."

Steve gaped at that response.

"I'd maybe just assumed you'd overcome your antiquatedness enough to realize that."

"Don't call me antiquated because it makes you sound less biased," Steve snapped, levelling his gaze at Tony. "I don't need hindsight that dates back to the day I was born. I've got plenty just by remembering what happened last year. Did you learn nothing for being the one primarily responsible for hundreds of deaths in Sokovia? No one should have the power to control other human beings, Tony!"

"Then what are you promoting?" Tony was incredulous. "Chaos? Anarchy? Look out there and see where that's gotten you in the last thirty seconds!"

He gestured to the mayhem in the, still darkened, lawn. People were screaming as Vision, Wanda, Rhodey, and Sam duked it out in a full-fledged battle in the middle of them. Somewhere in there, Sharon Carter was still trying to find Bruce. I knew it was only a matter of time before—

"Tonyyyy!" a familiar voice screeched as a decisively emotionally distraught Pepper came marching along the side of the stage, being careful to avoid shards of glass from broken display cases. "You have got to stop these guys from fighting right now, because I don't know how, but if you can't stop them then so help me I will—"

The stage began to shake forebodingly beneath our feet.

"CRASH!"

"RRRRAAAAAARGHGGHGGH!" echoed a gigantic voice across the recesses of the property. A woman's scream followed it almost immediately.

"Oh, no," Tony muttered.

Pepper's hand flew to her head and she took a deep breath. "Please tell me I had an extra tequila and dreamed all this!"

"Don't worry," Tony deadpanned, panic sliding in under his features but still attempting to play it cool. "Nat's got this."

I jumped off the edge of the stage and sprinted across the lawn as fast as I could. I ended up parkour-ing over a few stacks of chairs and narrowly avoiding a few fistfights, but I kept going.

Guests were still lingering behind here and there, whether it was because they were stuck behind the several pile-ups of chairs or just plain paralyzed with fear. I began shoving bodies in the direction of the street, wherever I saw one, but sprinting straight toward the new green addition to Pepper's lawn ornaments as fast as I could.

The Hulk picked up one of the display cases, one of his own inventions flying out the back and crashing to the ground like an afterthought. I turned and watched where he was aiming at. Sharon lay struggling behind another case, attempting to hide.

She turned and her eyes met mine, wide. I grabbed her and lifted her to her feet by her elbows, since her dress was tangling around her legs. "He has the disk," she was gasping. "I was trying to take it without him noticing."

Steve came running up right behind me and quickly helped me lift her out of the mess of glass she was trapped in. "Let me guess," he replied grimly, "he noticed."

"You think!?"

"Hit the deck!" I screamed as another case came flying toward us. We all hit the ground in a giant dogpile of Sharon, Steve, and me on top. Glass and computer parts went flying through the air like tiny missiles. I batted Sharon's gun down as she attempted to aim it back. "Don't! You'll only make it worse."

"Can Romanoff calm him down?" Steve panted as he emerged from the debris, his suit jacket ripped in about thirty places. The guy could never fit in a regular-tailored suit anyway.

"Why does everyone look at me like I know what Nat's gonna do?" I protested vehemently, before the Hulk grabbed the entire outdoor bar and hurtled it toward us. This time Steve, thankfully, threw himself in front of me and shoved us all backward to avoid being hit. I could've done without some of the dusting of glass shards I'd been hit with the first time.

"We've got to find a way to destroy that disk," I yelled over the commotion.

"Come on! I have a plan!" Sharon exclaimed, struggling to her feet and tugging her heels off.

The other Avengers descended around the Hulk as if in swarms. Natasha led the pack. Along the way, Falcon had knocked Rhodey on his back, where he lay, panting from the blow of the younger soldier. Nat grabbed Sam and wrenched him away from Hulk, pinning him with at least three pressure points that couldn't have added to his dignity.

"No lullaby this time, Wilson," she grunted in his face, before suddenly dropping him and floating helplessly backwards as a red glow surrounded her features.

Sam scrambled off, only to be pinned down by Hulk, who grabbed him by one leg and dangled him above the ground, leaving him screaming and flailing madly.

Vision flew up, moving faster than I'd ever seen him. He grabbed Wanda by her shoulders, and the two exchanged some momentary, tender words. Wanda gazed behind her, into his face, and seemed to utter an apology, tightening her grip on Natasha.

I leaped forward to stop her, but Wanda harmlessly threw Nat away from the ground, causing her to slam into the base of one of the broken displays. She hit hard, but not hard enough to be seriously hurt. Vision simply looked at Wanda, who clasped her hands guiltily behind her back, and levitated over to where he held a hand out to Nat. She was on her feet in moments.

I relaxed only a tiny bit and turned to see what else was happening.

"Hulk!" Steve shouted from behind me, running up. "Put Sam down! We don't have to do this!"

"No, no, no!" Sam sounded a little strained from behind hung upside-down, his knee pinched between Hulk's huge, not altogether careful fingertips. "Do not drop Sam! Sam doesn't have his wings on right now, CAP! If you're planning on dropping Sam, put him down gentl—"

Hulk held him up to his nose and gave him a telling grimace.

Sam's eyes went wide.

Hulk shrugged. He pulled his arm back, swinging the Falcon up over his head, and let go. Sam's scream was enough to make anyone's blood curdle. He went clear over the top of Stark Tower, hundreds of meters in the distance, before beginning his unstoppable descent.

"Wanda!" Steve gasped, bumping into her from behind.

She immediately responded, reaching out and sending tendrils of dark energy, burning a small glowing trench all the way across the yard onto the other side of the Tower, where we couldn't even see what she was still doing. She closed her eyes, lifting her chin to the sky. We heard a soft, strangled yelp from afar, and no "SPLAT!" like we had feared, so whatever she did must've caught him before he hit the ground.

Rhodey was on me first, and when I jumped on his back and spun him over my head, he got straight up and tackled Wanda as well. It was then that the Scarlet Witch's own Black Widow training shone through. Nat had taught her well, even if for only a couple of months. She grabbed his leg, flipped him up in the air and over, and he landed with an equally hard "THUMP!"

I grinned, despite the somber situation. Wanda flashed me a glance. She was scared. Heck, I was, too, but I gave her a reassuring nod anyway. The last thing she needed was to become a victim in a fight against her own. I knew she could take down all of us if she really wanted to, and she wouldn't do that.

I started picking up rocks and debris from the ground and hurtling them in the Hulk's direction, attempting to distract him long enough for Sharon to make her moves. Being a sniper in a relegating situation without any weapons (except for my unusable gun) was a little crippling.

Sharon disappeared into the throng, but a blasting golden beam from the Vision held her at bay. "I cannot allow you to pass," he informed her regretfully, as smoke billowed up from the smashed metal plaque he'd hit.

I ran up and threw my arm around his neck from behind, using every trick in the SHIELD handbook and a few that weren't to wrestle him to the ground. "Go!" I shouted after her, as Cap blocked another shot with his shield, fighting off Nat with his free hand. I briefly wondered how he'd found it in the chaotic situation, but I didn't have time to think about it.

Vision was awfully muscular for his size, effortlessly throwing me off within seconds and leaving me on the ground, gasping.

Steve smashed Natasha in the face with the next blow from the shield, and Rhodey was on me again. I was just glad he wasn't wearing his suit at the moment. Either way, the guy's a beast with his tactical training, not some run of the mill high school boxer (like Tony pretended to be, and wasn't even that good).

Hulk began to sprint after Sharon, and while I was throwing punches to the side of Rhodey's ribs, I had no way to stop him. His giant, green fist came down directly on top of the one remaining, intact display case that contained what we needed.

Behind it, Sharon scrambled to her feet, grasping Bruce's cordless defibrillator. We had no idea if it would work, but it was worth a try if we didn't want to pluck it from Bruce or Tony's cold, dead hands.

Hulk's fist came down again, pinning Sharon to the ground. "Rogers!" she screamed. He dragged her upright and held her up to throw just as he had with Sam.

Falcon himself came running up, out of breath, having not found his wings but armed to the teeth with several components of Tony's private arsenal. The pounding of gunfire pierced the air as he held the semiautomatic levelled at Hulk's broad back, ignoring Sharon's terrified screams in his effort to avoid shooting her.

Still gripping tightly to the invention, Sharon angrily flipped the switch on and jammed it between Hulk's wide fingers. That, coupled with the gunfire and her sudden lurch after being hit with the shock, surprised the big guy enough that he dropped her like a rock. She hit the ground hard, and rolled over on her back, gasping for breath after the effects of the shock.

I was grazed by one of Rhodey's fists, nearly knocking my jaw out of place before deciding this fight was over. I pressed my hand to his neck and drove him up against a pile of chairs, ignoring his terrified wince as he struggled, knowing he was going unconscious from the lack of air.

A rocket whizzed overhead. Tony himself descended in all his red-armored glory. "Friday," he stated into his helmet speaker, "be a nice girl, okay, and listen to Daddy. Call Maria Hill, please. Tell her that if the Avengers went divisive during a prominent tech expo, it WASN'T my fault." A second later, "What do you mean you're not authorized? You're my baby! How are you not authorized?!"

He flew over the lawn, coming to a hovering standstill in front of where Hulk was ready to charge at Sam. "Whoa, Big Guy," he held up his hands. "Seriously, Friday, cut the crap and get me Miss Hill."

In the brief reprieve, Sam tossed a gun to Sharon, just in case. I pulled out my own and nodded at him as Rhodey fell limply to the ground in front of me.

"Who has the disk?" Tony asked him. "Come on, who has it? Is it you?"

Hulk snarled and shook his head.

Wanda immediately grabbed Natasha from behind, yanking her to the ground. Nat rolled backward and kicked her in the jaw and she stumbled back, landing on her butt, but I was on Natasha now. "Just like old times," I grinned wryly.

Natasha gave me a dirty look. She never did appreciate my sentimentality. I've never understood why.

She threw me off, and I landed, face-first, into the wet grass. Then she was on top of me, and there we were, wrestling in our formal wear in the muddy lawn of Stark Tower.

Sharon grabbed Nat after I did and sank her teeth into her arm, fumbling around her dress for the location of the disk. Vision and Wanda found themselves locked in an explosion of Infinity Stone-versus-Von Strucker Experimentation power. A golden-red arc glowed and began spreading wider and wider around them until it almost encapsulated their whole bodies, causing a hollow wind to blow in twirls around where we were landed. The wet grass flew up in gusts and stung my eyes as it swept past.

I pinned Natasha's arms and legs to the ground as fast as she maneuvered her way out of them. All I had to do was keep her there long enough for Sharon to find the disk, and keep both of them from killing each other.

Then the other heroes were on us. Steve slammed into me, accidentally knocking me off of my position. Hulk nearly crushed us all by starting to lift us all and smash us to the ground, but Tony head-butted him with the suit to convince him to change his mind and they started chasing one another around in circles surrounding us, creating a miniature earthquake from the stomps of Hulk's giant feet. Making our hero-dogpile feel like a glorified version of lying down in the middle of a crowded trampoline. In the corner, even Rhodey was starting to come around.

Then Sharon grabbed the corner of Nat's dress, ripping it off with a grunt of rage. Natasha flew after it, but it was too late. Her sleeve came ripping off, and the Excelsior disk, hidden in the secret pocket I should've known would be there, rolled out onto the ground.

Instantly nine heroes leaped at the tiny metal disk, clawing and shoving each other for it.

I got an elbow in my eye, a couple of angry slashes at my gut, and too many arms and legs and tangled bodies to know if any injuries I sustained afterward would be from my competitors or my allies. It felt like a wet, bloody dogpile of Black Friday shoppers, all diving for the last iPhone 6. Except worse.

Sharon was at the bottom of the pile, one knee twisted under her at an inhumane direction, her hair being tugged in at least three more of those. Natasha was coming at her in rage, I knew, when I heard her scream of pain.

I could just see them fight over it, the disk, with slippery, bleeding fingers. I reached up and shoved Nat's red head out of the way. Sharon wrenched the disk out of her grasp, causing Natasha to scream in rage, groping for it and getting Sharon's hair instead, which she yanked out in a handful. Sharon brought the metal plate of the defibrillator down on the disk with a loud "ZAP!"

I jumped despite everyone on top of me, feeling the jolt rip right through me.

If there hadn't been as many of us in the pile, someone may have needed CPR. Suffice it to say, it didn't make any of us feel too good. I wasn't sure how Sharon survived the first shock she gave Hulk.

Groaning, most of us managed to untangle ourselves from the pile. Sharon sat up dizzily, looking beyond ready to pass out after two shocks in a row.

Natasha got to her feet and spat in Sharon's face in front of all of us.

I don't think I'd ever seen her that angry before—at least not since I pulled her from a cell in Budapest after she'd been brainwashed by the KGB.

She ripped the disk out of Sharon's readily yielding hands, spun away from everyone, and marched toward the tower.

Steve picked up his shield and hurtled it after her. I made a move to stop him, but I suddenly found my arm trapped behind me as Rhodey held me in a vice grip. I watched there, helplessly, my arm half out of its socket, as the shield collided with the back of Nat's head, knocking her unconscious as she sprawled forward on her face.

Hulk roared, outraged, and grabbed Steve by the throat, held back from tearing him in half only by a wave of concentrated power from Wanda. Vision and Rhodey were both about to jump on her when Tony held up his hand. I got to my feet.

And then we all froze.

The block was surrounded by news cameras.

Hundreds of them, more than even Tony had probably ever seen, were crowding around the perimeter, held back only by police and Happy's security systems. Pepper had called them all back to handle the emergency, no doubt.

They snapped pictures of all of us—Natasha lying unconscious in the grass, face-down and bleeding, Hulk barely being constrained by Wanda, all of our bruised, bleeding hero selves instantly devoured by the news-hungry masses.

"Easy," Tony's voice came to my left, whispering to Hulk, who slightly relaxed his grip on Steve, who shoved the rest of the green fist away and fell choking and gasping for breath to his knees.

Sam gave him a hand and helped him up. Steve had bruises all up and down his neck and his suit was in tatters. Bruce, looking from the crazy lights of the reporters and back and forth between Tony and Natasha, miraculously began to change back from his Hulk-state. As he became Banner again, even more pictures were snapped, and he stumbled back, eventually over to where Natasha had fallen. I stood cautiously to my feet.

Tony's eyes darkened with rage and he turned on Steve. I hung in the background, next to Sam. Suddenly, the need to separate them seemed believable again. "I don't know what kind of game you're trying to play," he spoke lowly so that none of the press could hear, "But people are going to die if you take it any farther. Do you think I don't have some kind of reason for taking your profile and making it part of the system? I have other hero's lives depending on this. They're trusting me!"

Steve started to answer, but Tony interrupted him and continued.

"Listen." His voice was unnervingly calm, although a seething attitude raged underneath it. He was trying to maintain appearances for the press. "Anyone who messes with my stuff, or my people, are gonna get what's coming to them. I don't want to do this any more than you do."

"Do you?" Steve demanded through clenched teeth. "I have a thought for you, Tony. If you don't want me taking your stuff, try asking before you take mine."

"I'm trying to protect the world. What are you and your little hero-band doing?"

"The world doesn't want your protection, and I thought you were PART of this 'hero-band'."

"Half of them are with me, you know."

"And the other half are with me."

Both of them glared at each other. Sam and I exchanged momentary glances behind their backs.

"Then what is this? War?" Tony's shoulders slumped slightly.

"Whatever you want. You asked for it, not me." Steve didn't even flinch as he said the words, which made me uncomfortable.

Sure, I didn't want Excelsior around anymore than he did, but I also didn't want—

"I said all's fair in love, and war!" Tony suddenly turned to the press, extending his hand to Steve in a hearty fashion. He grinned widely, fake as a ringmaster's French accent. "Especially in this—friendly—'test of one another's mettle', as my buddy Thor Odinson would say. Thanks for coming out tonight!"

I winced painfully as the others in the group also attempted to smile and wave off the damage, although some, including myself and Sam, didn't even try.

Steve took Tony's hand, gripping it nearly as tightly as the Iron Man did his, while in the suit. "All is not fair," he muttered under his breath.

"Stop disagreeing with me," Tony snapped.

More cameras flashed, pictures taken of Tony's last-ditch attempt to rectify the situation before the public. It would never work, but we couldn't go on fighting through the night. Especially not in the center of the city.

There had to be another way to stop Excelsior from going through. Maybe we already had, but there was no way to be sure.

"Tony," I spoke lowly, trying not to cringe at the dark stare he gave me in response. "did that shock kill the disk, or is it still running?"

Steve looked to him as well, but the billionaire didn't answer. Beside him, Hulk was beginning to change back into Bruce, and stumbling over to where Natasha lay beginning to come around.

Turning to me, then Sam, Sharon, and Wanda, Steve cocked his head toward the road. "Let's head out of here," he said simply.

I looked back to make sure Natasha was all right. She was sitting up a little, her head in Bruce's lap. I caught a hint of her voice floating through the darkness. That was satisfactory enough.

The others got up, and, with most of us limping from glass shards stuck in our extremities, we followed Steve off the grounds.