Disclaimer: I do not own anything pertaining to The Avengers or any of its associations.
The first few days passed uneventfully. They took their turns between searching, watching, and sleeping. The searches always came without incident, and when the Avengers would lay their heads to rest, their sleep was never interrupted.
Unless by their own doing.
Thor would often sit up on the edge of his bed and blame himself for Loki's actions. Clint would pace his room for hours without a moment of rest. Natasha would feel Loki's cold fingers on her neck and wake up gasping for air whenever she closed her eyes. Steve would take his frustration out on a punching bag until it broke. Bruce would sit up reading or be out of the room sharing ideas and theories with Tony when he was on watch.
Tony was the only one to never miss a second of his beauty sleep.
On the fourth day, Natasha woke in the usual cold sweat. After a quick shower, she suited up and joined Bruce Banner in the living room to take over for Tony and Thor, who had just arrived back from their search.
They said nothing, just passed by to take over the watch for Clint and Steve so that they could get some rest as well.
Natasha and Bruce went down Tony's personal elevator, borrowed one of the cars from his collection, and took it out on the New York City streets to begin their search for the day. They were limited with their travel, as neither of them were able to fly, so they braved the traffic.
They really had no idea where to look. Loki could be long gone by now, even on the other side of the world. But for some reason, they knew he was here, knew he would not distance himself from the Avengers, from those he wanted most.
After sweeping the main streets, Natasha went to a more deserted part of the city. She figured abandoned buildings and warehouses would be easiest for Loki and his companions to set up shop, though given the amount of them it would be impossible to search them all in only a few hours.
That's why over the past few days, Natasha and Banner had been strategically searching different parts of the city and the possible locations in each Loki could be hiding. They had at least a dozen maps of the city drawn up, each spotted with black where they had investigated and came up with nothing.
After the first building of the day was a bust, Natasha and Bruce got back in the car and drove to the next location. She listened to him list the statistics of finding Loki today, or even within the next week, running through the numbers in his head and then aloud. She knew he meant it to be comforting, giving her hope that it was possible, but it was more of a distraction than anything and Natasha was not one for distractions.
When they pulled up in front of the next building, an old warehouse that had been shut down for unsafe work conditions relating to the structural foundation of the building, Bruce fell silent and folded up the map he'd been looking at and set it on the dashboard of the car.
He stayed back while Natasha crossed the expanse of asphalt between the street and the warehouse, her feet ghosting across the ground expertly as her training had taught her. When she reached the door, old and worn and already cracked open, she slipped inside without a sound.
And then she felt it, this wave of dread overcome her, the feeling she knew would come when she ran across Loki again. ''Banner!''
And then the room was flooding with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, all under the control of Loki. She heard Bruce come into the room behind her, and by his labored breathing, she knew he was fighting to keep the other guy at bay.
They ducked behind a few rusted machines just before the first wave of bullets had been fired, and Natasha abandoned Bruce to take out the advancing agents.
She was careful not to hurt them too badly, they were S.H.I.E.L.D. after all. But she swept over them with ease, slick like liquid, leaving their unconscious bodies in her wake.
When they were all down, she stood there catching her breath, her back to Bruce. She could hear footsteps a ways away, and knew it would be another flood of agents. ''We need to get out of here.''
''There is nowhere for you to go, little spider.''
The words had been spoken so closely to her that the breath was cool on her ear. She spun around fast and came face to face with Loki.
He had an amused smile on his face, as if he were very pleased with himself for sneaking up on her, but as always with Loki, it was tinted with menace.
He looked much better than the last time she had seen him. Where he had looked weak and frail after his travel back to Earth, he looked healthy and strong and as arrogant as always. And for that small moment as Natasha looked over him in silence, still clad in the black and green and silver costume from Asgard that fit perfectly to his slim form, she admitted to herself that he was handsome.
''Loki, get away from her!'' she heard Bruce say, but the words were muffled and twisted, and her eyes were trained on Loki.
The next moment was fast, her hand going for her weapon and his lashing out. He grabbed her wrist before it fulling cleared the gun from its holster, and brought the other up around her neck. He tossed her to the floor easily, as if he was flicking a speck of dirt from his clothes.
She used the momentum to roll to her feet, but he was there the next moment in front of her, and sent her crashing into a pile of molding crates. They crumpled easily under her impact, and she grunted when she hit the concrete floor beneath them. She rolled free of the debris to face him, but his attention was now elsewhere.
Bruce Banner was shifting, his eyes already gone to those of the beast, and in a few moments time he was large and green and towering over Loki and Natasha.
After her last personal encounter with Hulk, Natasha was not waiting around. He tended to attack indiscriminately, and she did not want to be on the receiving end once again.
She turned on her heel and ran towards the doors in the back of the warehouse, unsure if they led underground or out of the building. She took her chances, and when she got to the door she turned back for a moment, hoping to see the Hulk distracted with Loki.
But Hulk only swatted at empty projections, and Loki laughed at him through them, angering him further. Frustrated, Hulk turned towards where she was standing, and her eyes widened in fear as he charged towards her next.
She ducked out of the doors, and found they were to a stairwell that led lower. She spilled fluidly over the railings and fell the few feet to the lower landing, before pulling open the door.
Just inside the room, she felt a few trickles of concrete fall from the ceiling above her, and she ducked and rolled out of the way as the foundation collapsed under the weight of Hulk and came crashing down where she had been.
Hulk recovered quickly from the fall, spotted her and grabbed her before she could recover too. He tossed her across the ground, and she rolled until she lost momentum and skidded across the concrete on her side. When she came to a stop, she got to her feet, ready for Hulk to be coming for her again, but he only screamed at her from across the room, and punched the ceiling above his head.
The concrete floor above them cracked, and the crack spread all around. She tried to watch where the floor was splitting, to escape and not be crushed when it collapsed, but then she heard the footsteps once again, close now, and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents began approaching her and Hulk at every side.
She tried to focus on taking out the agents, but she got distracted every time she would hear the crack expand in the floor above her. She took a blow to her shoulder by the butt of one of the agents guns, and she cursed aloud and sent a vicious kick to his head, a blow from which he did not stand.
A bullet grazed her side and she cried out in pain, and after leaping onto the agent's shoulders and twisting him around and to the ground, she remained down on the floor with him, gritting her teeth against the pain.
Just then, the floor above Hulk finally gave and he disappeared in a cloud of dust, beneath giant slabs of concrete and machines and crates. He did not stir.
The few lights that had been on suddenly went out, casting them all in complete darkness. When Natasha heard the floor start falling along the path between Hulk and her, she scrambled to her feet to escape. But not in time.
She heard the ground falling before she could hope to move out of the way. But in the end she did not have to. She felt the breath rush out of her when another body collided with hers, strong arms wrapping around her as they rolled together in the darkness to avoid the falling floor.
Natasha could not see her savior, but when the cool fingers of his hand brushed her neck as he removed himself from her, she knew. She had felt those same fingers on her throat every night now, she would not mistake them.
But she could not find the breath to speak, and she knew by the time the dust settled, he and whatever remaining S.H.I.E.L.D. agents he had would be long gone. She pressed the microphone in her ear, now set to go to Stark instead of Fury. ''Tony...'' she managed out.
''Tasha, what's wrong?'' Tony said urgently, but she didn't reply. Couldn't reply.
After the exertion of her body and the assault she had taken, her body shut down automatically to heal. Before she could manage any more words out, her mind went as black as the room around her.
Author's Note: Action scenes are so much fun to write! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please continue reading, and review!