Anna swallows back a scream as she realizes where she was. "Fuck you, Thanos," she mutters, feeling a heavy sort of resignation settle in her heart. "Fuck you so fucking much." But honestly, what else should she have expected from a pissed off, genocidal warlord prince who wanted to punish her for spilling his secrets to his enemies?
"We're going to visit a special person today," her mother said, holding a younger Anna in her arms. "Someone who I know would really love to meet you."
Young Anna glanced around before looking up solemnly to meet Pepper's gaze. "Are we here to see daddy?"
Her mother's smile was pained and on the verge of crying. "Yeah, baby, we are." She sniffled, then glanced down to watch her step as she made her way up a small staircase. "I know I've never taken you to see him before, but I wanted you to be old enough to understand some things when you meet him."
"I know why he's dead," little Anna told her mother. "And I know he's not coming home with us."
"I know you know that, sweetheart," Pepper sighed, her smile still sad. "I guess…I guess I thought that taking you here would…well, I don't know," she settled. "I guess it was silly of me to wait so long."
"You're not silly, Mommy," Anna assures her mother, echoing her younger self's words. "I love you."
Pepper gave her a watery smile. "I love you too."
Thwap!
"Mommy!" little Anna yells as Pepper topples over, an arrow in her chest.
"No!" Anna cries, running to her mother's side, panic slicing through her body.
'It's a trick,' she tells herself. It's a trick and this never happened because Pepper had been alive when Anna had stepped on to inherit Stark Industries and she knows her mother had been alive when Thanos came to Earth. But seeing her mother fall like that…
It may be another illusion, but damn if Thanos didn't make them all seem so real.
She ran and ran but she didn't get there first. Clint comes out of nowhere, bow slung over his shoulder and knife clutched in one hand. Anna shouts and runs faster, but he only has eyes for little Anna and a dying Pepper.
Grabbing young Anna by the hair, he tosses her carelessly into a headstone and turns back to Pepper, straddling her and tearing her blouse open, making Anna swear and curse and—
Suddenly she's there, grabbing him by the hair and wrenching it back, driving her fist directly into his throat. Clint staggers back, stunned and choking, and Anna whips her leg around, the heel of her foot swiping harshly at his cheek and sending his head spinning with a sickening crack!
And then he's dead.
"You killed him." Anna turns and finds Pepper sitting up, arrow in her chest and accusation in her eyes. "You killed him!"
"Clint!" little Anna's voice cries, and Anna turns again to see her younger self shaking him, tears pouring down her eyes. "No! Clint, wake up! Clint! Clint!"
"Why did you kill him?" Pepper asks from behind her. "Anna, why? You love him! Why would you—?"
"God, I didn't mean to," Anna gasps, spinning around to see her mother. "I was just trying to get him off you!"
But Pepper Stark wasn't alone anymore. Beside her is a rotting corpse in a filthy suit, tall and bald and half-skeletal. It edges toward Pepper, jaw unhinging and bony arms lifting to reach for her mother.
"Get away!" she shrieks at it, pushing the thing away from her injured mother. Its back slams into a headstone, folding it in half as its spine audibly broke. And then it stays flung over the slab of rock rising from the ground, unmoving now.
"Tony!" Pepper cries, and Anna gets pushed back as her mother rushes to the corpse's side.
And then bile is rushing up her throat because holy god that cannot be her father! Tony Stark was always a picture of cleanliness in all the images and videos she'd seen of him—even the drunk and appalling ones—and this thing…
It couldn't be him.
Pepper screams at the sky, begging the corpse to wake up because he couldn't—couldn't—be dead and when it doesn't move, she turns on Anna with rage on her face.
"Get out!" she snarls. "Get out, you stupid girl! How could you? How could you!"
"Clint!" the younger Anna's voice comes back. "Please, wake up! Don't leave me here. I need you!"
"Get me out," Anna whispers, horror gripping her tight. "Get me out of here!"
"You kill everything you touch," Pepper snarls, blue eyes cold, flat and full of blame.
And she's suddenly on the beach. Sinking to her knees, Anna stares down at her hands, shock numbing her emotions as she tries to take in the fact that she'd killed the two most important men she'd always wanted to get to know more than anyone else in her entire life.
"Anna?" Her head snaps up, and she sees Uncle Thor walking towards her. He was casually dressed in a loose button-up and board shorts—the outfit she'd always kept on hand for him just in case he dropped by for another unexpected visit—and holding two cans of Mountain Dew. His small smile disappears when he takes in her expression, and he puts the cans down on the sand to rush to her side. "Little Anna, are you well? What has happened?"
She remembers this moment. Two years after Odin had her cast out of Asgard, Uncle Thor had a disagreement with his father about Loki, and his usual way of putting off an apology was to come visit her. Anna had been struggling with her attraction with Clint, knowing it was so wrong and aware that Clint would never look at her that way, that she never had the tiniest of chances of him loving her at all.
Because despite the routine and mentor-student relationship they'd established, Clint had never made a secret of his feelings for her. She was like a pet to him—one that he had to feed and train every day. And he was a bachelor through and through, had been for sixteen years before Uncle Thor foisted her on him, and two years apparently wasn't enough for him to change his ways and want to keep her around. He brought home the occasional redhead and had deliberately loud noisy sex in whatever apartment they'd been staying in at the time because he knew it forced her to leave, knew it reminded her of why her mother had left her with Uncle Thor in the first place. Clint never held anything back with her, and it was both a blessing for her training and a curse for her masochistic attraction to him.
And at eighteen, all of that—the merciless training, the loud sex, the stoic way he spoke to her—it had all been so apocalyptic, she'd become depressed and lost weight that even Clint slipped up and began to worry about her. Of course, he'd been very relieved when Uncle Thor arrived, passing her onto him and washing his hands of her troubles while the only uncle she had left was paying her a visit.
"Uncle Thor," she chokes out, throwing her arms around him because god, she couldn't take any more. Thanos has made her kill Clint so many times that it was getting old, but her father…
God, her father had been a shock.
"Anna, please," Uncle Thor says, rubbing circles into her back, "speak of what troubles you. How can I help if I do not know what ails you?"
Anna just sobs into his chest, this time because of more than her Clint troubles. God, how she wished she could just go back to those problems. They seemed so simple compared to the ones she faced now.
"Do you wish for me to find Clint Barton and—"
"No!" she shouts, pulling back sharply and glancing to the side, where she knows the small hut they had been staying in stood. Clint was in there entertaining—or rather, being entertained by—yet another Random Redhead. "No, I—" I don't want to kill him again. I can't do this anymore. "—can't do this anymore."
"Do what?" Uncle Thor asks. Anna opens her mouth to tell him everything.
But who was she kidding? This was just a memory. It may be protecting her sanity and it may feel real, but none of it was. This was an escape—a way to keep hold of her ever-loosening grip on her mind—and sooner or later it would fade. And then Thanos would be back with more of his tricks and false promises taken from his never-ending arsenal.
So just like the first time around, she closes her mouth and looks away, unable to share her misery with the only person who never stopped caring about her.
"Do what, Anna?" Uncle Thor persists, brushing back her messy hair and gently angling her face to look at him. "The training? Do you wish for Clint Barton to cease your lessons in archery?"
No. "No," she shakes her head. "No, I like the archery."
"Then what troubles you, my Lady Thorsdóttir?" He smiles at the title nostalgically even as it puts a lump in Anna's throat.
She says nothing, simply pulling him back into a hug and repressing the wish to have her real uncle with her. He feels real enough anyway, and Anna's determined to enjoy the little comforts she could get before Thanos reappears and took it all away again.
"I need to speak with you, Lord Stark."
Tony glances up to see Loki hurrying into the room containing his armor, and the demigod looks frenzied. "What's up?" he asks, setting aside the helmet he had been about to wear.
Bright gold and green sparks erupt from Loki's fingertips and began dancing around them. Tony jerks back, only to slam into what seems to be hard air—which was really impossible. Freaking magic, showing up Tony Stark, of all people. He was so going to make something—
Right, Tony. Not the time.
"It's a privacy spell," Loki supplies when Tony shot him a suspicious look.
"So this is about our little time-traveler," Tony deduces, and man, but that word was still so awesome to say.
Loki nods. "Earlier, while I spoke with Thanos, he conjured up a ball of light," he begins.
"I saw it," Tony nods, absently turning around and feeling the invisible…spell-thingy Loki had cast. "Nice job pulling that out of her, by the way."
"I thank you," the guy replies, sidetracked. "The conjured ball was tinted with color," he continues after a pause. "I was unable to bring this up when we conferred earlier on, but I also wished to speak about this in private."
Tony turns back to his companion as his brain tries to process what Loki was saying. "So you wanted to talk to me about a floating tinted nightlight?" he asks lightly, though he could tell there was more to it. There has to be if Loki's 'this-is-important' vibe was anything to go by.
In response, Loki raises an open palm and makes his own magic nightlight. Tony's mind races, formulas and equations dancing past as the idea to replicate the effects forms in his brain. His hands itch to touch the light and see if it was as hot it should be to attain that level of brightness.
"See the green-tint around this ball?" Loki asks, making Tony focus on the slightly green edges around the magic ball. "That's my soul."
Tony blinks, the hubbub in his thoughts freezing as he took in the new information. "Um, what?" he asks, because That Did Not Compute. "Aren't souls supposed to stay in the body?"
Loki gets rid of the light, which is kind of saddening. Tony had really wanted to touch it first and see what applications— "As I said," Loki speaks up, breaking through his thoughts, "the soul is the conduit that allows us all to conduct cosmic energy and convert it into what you call magic." Finally—an explanation Tony understood. "My soul has a green tint. Thor's is red. Thanos's soul, as you've seen," he adds somberly, "is purple."
Cool. Okay, Tony learned something new today—souls have colors. What did that have to do with a tinted—?
…wait. A. Minute.
Scrambling for his phone, Tony brings up the footage of Loki's confrontation with Thanos and zooms in on the magic light ball. "Do the nightlight again," Tony demands, and Loki wordlessly conjures it again.
Light-green. Too light. Almost invisible.
Tony looks back at the video and sees the too-light tint. It's almost the same color as Pepper's favorite scented hand-soap. Lavender, if he wasn't mistaken. If he was, then it was probably magnolia, but that wasn't the point.
If Loki said that souls were the figurative wand people wave to make magic, and his magic had the 'tint' of his soul, which was green, then the lavender-tinted ball Thanos had made wasn't conducted through Anna-girl's soul.
It was conducted through his, which meant that Thanos hadn't broken her will yet.
"Wait," Tony shakes his head. "We already knew she still had her free will. Thanos said she had an unbreakable spirit, remember? Why is this—" he gestures to the ball in the demigod's hand, "—relevant?"
"I had always assumed that Thanos had used a spell to stay connected with me," Loki says, the light disappearing once more, "while he safely resided in whatever hellhole he ruled in, keeping away from the war about to break loose. But if he had been using a possession spell, then that—" he gestures to the video, "—shouldn't be possible. As I said, you need a soul to conduct cosmic energy. Thanos used his. Therefore, Thanos's soul is currently in Lady Anna's body."
Tony bites his lip. "Didn't we already know that?" he asks, suddenly unsure, because hell, that's the assumption he'd been going on this whole time and he'd assumed everyone was on the same page, ever since Loki had done that whole spiel about exorcism.
Loki chuckles bitterly. "Perhaps you did," he replies, shaking his head with what seems like chagrin. "You have a…knack for realizing things others don't, Lord Stark."
"Not that I don't appreciate the compliment," Tony tells him, "but I'm a little lost now. You thought you were under a…possession spell," and in retrospect, that wasn't the weirdest thing that had ever come out of his mouth, "but thanks to his little bout of show and brag down in the cage, you realized that Thanos had actually possessed you with his soul, which moved into Anna-girl when she laid one on you. So…?"
"You will not like what I have to say," Loki warns him.
"Doesn't seem to matter to you," Tony points out blatantly, his curiosity sufficiently roused, "since you came to me anyway."
Loki inhales deeply. "If the plans you deduced Thanos to have is true, then as you said, so long as he had me as his vessel, then all paths led him to a victory, and you indeed stood no chance of stopping him in the end." Loki paused, then adds meaningfully, "With me as his vessel, he was immortal."
Oh, no. Tony did not like where this was going. "With Anna-girl too," he reminds the demigod, feeling his heart begin to race. "You said it yourself—she's immortal until we kick Thanos's ass."
Loki shakes his head, making Tony's heart sink to his gut. "I said immortality is bequeathed to her until the moment her purpose for returning is indubitably accomplished. Her purpose was to stop Thanos's plans from coming to fruition."
"And it hasn't been stopped yet," Tony argues, waving a hand in the air. "The invasion is on until we get the Tesseract back."
"And then she is mortal again," Loki says, "with Thanos inside of her." Another pause. "He would be vulnerable."
Something in him shrieks with fury. "We are not going to kill her," he snaps, finally saying the word Loki was trying to avoid as his calculating self is overruled by his temper. "How can you even— She saved you, you ungrateful piece of—!"
"I know!" Loki rages, lurching up to pace along the radius of his privacy spell. "I know that! I know I owe her a great debt for saving me from the hand Fate had dealt."
"Then why the hell would you even think it!" Tony demands heatedly.
Loki shakes his head again, still pacing. "You don't know Thanos like I do," he says, sounding like a movie cliché. "We may stop the invasion now, but then what? Thanos will come again, and next time in his own body. He'll be indestructible! We cannot stop him then from laying waste to your world!"
"Don't use my world as an excuse, you selfish son of a bitch!" Tony sneers, and it has Loki turning to him with insulted anger on his face. But Tony bulldozes right over whatever excuse he had falling from his lips, because he'd just realized—and god, how could he have missed it before?—that this must've been what future-Loki had hoped his younger self would think when he sent Anna back here.
The selfish motherfucker had planned this. All of it.
"You think you're the only fuck up who got screwed over?" Tony snaps at Loki, taking the frustrations of his realization out on the only Loki he could possibly face. "You're not! You think you're the only one on this ship who faced his own personal hell as someone's captive? You're not!"
"Oh, of course," Loki scoffs. "You think you know what it's like to be—"
"I don't think—I know," Tony cuts him off, seething. "Just because the situation was different doesn't mean the end result wasn't the same."
Loki quiets down at that, looking thoughtful as he stares at him. The sudden lull gives Tony time to wrestle his temper back and think about what he was doing. It's been a while since his temper got away from him, and it was a rather stupid move on his part to rant and rave at a demigod with actual magical powers who could send him to…well, to some hellish dimension or something equally awful.
To keep the peace, and possibly save his life from any future retaliations from the so-called god of mischief, Tony chooses the high road for once and continues speaking in a lower tone. "I know how it feels," he says to Loki, who glances at him with a haunted expression. "When I escaped my version of hell, I destroyed everything I could. I took pleasure in seeing everything my captors worked for explode in their faces. I killed whoever got in my way on my way out. Even now, I soothe my nightmares by remembering how I screwed them all over, and I don't feel a speck of guilt for killing who I could kill in that god-forsaken cave. So I know," he nods, acknowledging the look of yearning that forms in Loki's eyes, "how good it feels to fuck them over and watch them suffer for what they did. And I want that for you too," he admits. "It's a…a privilege. One that very few people ever get."
"And we are two of those people," Loki murmurs, understanding.
"So is Anna," Tony tells him, and the demigod flinches. "That's what you forgot. You're not the only victim here. You're not the only one who Thanos screwed over—who was taken captive by that monster." And it wasn't just Thanos who did that to her, he thinks, tempted to point that out to the dark-haired god. He chooses not to. "You deserve to see Thanos suffer for what he's done, but she has that privilege too. Are you going to take that from her?"
Loki swallows, hesitating, but Tony knows he has Loki by the balls now. The selfish fuck wouldn't do anything to Anna—not if he felt some sort of kinship with her. Because that's how it was. No man was an island, and if Tony could empathize with Loki despite the difference in their experiences, then Loki sure as hell would empathize would Anna.
Such was their nature, human or not.
"He will be unbeatable if he comes in his own body," Loki repeats, but now he just sounds like he's trying to convince himself. "We may never have this chance again."
"Maybe," Tony says. "But Anna saved more than just you; she saved my planet—and yours too. I think we should pay the favor back. Don't you?"
"Ten minutes to ten." Fury's voice comes in through the earpiece. "Hill?"
"All heavy vehicles have been secured," Maria reports, "and everything that wasn't bolted down, has been."
"I took the liberty of packing up my gear too," Stark cuts in obnoxiously. "They're in my 'room.' That tiny poor excuse for a—"
"The armory's been secured, sir," Phil butts in before Stark can get any more galling, "and we have agents stationed on the deck and at all possible entry points ready to apprehend Agent Barton and his team. Agent Romanoff's already there."
Natasha presses a finger to her earpiece. "That's confirmed, sir," she tells him, looking over the forklift she was hiding behind to see at the black jet dotting the sky. "And we have incoming."
"Barton's starting the party early," Stark says lightly.
"Director," another voice comes through, "we have an incoming aircraft, Transport six-six-bravo, with an arms ammunition haul."
"That's them," Rogers states unnecessarily.
"Good," Fury says. "I want all systems in—"
The ground suddenly trembles, and klaxons suddenly begin squawking, red lights blinking to emphasize the severity of the situation. Natasha grips the nearest surface she could find and held on, turning her head when a burst of fire caught her eye.
"Where did that explosion come from?" Fury demands.
"External detonation!" Natasha yells into the comm.
Maria's voice comes in after her, "She's right, sir—number three engine is down! Can we get a run in? Talk to me!"
"Turbine looks mostly intact," someone says faintly through one of the comms, "but it's impossible to get out there to make repairs while we're in the air!"
"We lose one more engine, we won't be!" Hill points out. "Somebody's gotta get outside and patch that engine."
"Stark?" Fury asks.
"I'm on it!" Stark replies. "Can you spot me?"
"No!" Fury suddenly exclaims. "Jesus, Stark!"
Natasha only understood the uncharacteristic yell when Banner pipes up. "I can't, Tony, I'm sorry."
"I'll spot you—I'm on my way," Rogers snaps before anything else can be said.
"Oh, fun," Stark drawls. "Later, Bruce."
"See you, Tony."
"Coulson," Fury says, "take Dr. Banner and the Odinssons to the detention level. Coordinate with them. You boys make sure that Thanos doesn't escape."
"It will be done," Thor assures him.
"Yes, sir," Coulson responds. "This way, gentlemen."
"Agent Romanoff?" Fury finally addresses her.
"We're on standby," Natasha replies, having never taken her eyes off the jet. "Barton's ride is making its landing."
"I suggest you wait until they're off deck," Fury tells her. "Let them come in."
"Yes, sir."
It's another few minutes until the aircraft lands, and then it's opening up with Clint's all-too-familiar form stomping down the ramp. Something in Natasha eases at the sight of him, and she watches as he leads his team to one of the vents before deciding she's seen enough and slips back around the forklift to head indoors. Once there, she takes off at a dead run.
"All units to Vent 4," she yells into her earpiece. "We have eight confirmed hostiles; they are armed and dangerous."
"Orders, ma'am?" someone asks.
"Capture, not kill!" she snaps, angry that they have to ask.
"Yes, ma'am."
She arrives at the air corridor in time to see one of the eight hostiles lying on the ground, the others out of sight but presumably down the hall if the bullets ricocheting were any indication, and a uniformed SHIELD operative was pinned to the wall with an arrow to his shoulder.
Clint is nowhere to be found.
"Damn it!" she curses in her native tongue. "I want eyes on Barton."
"I saw him heading east up the access strip!" someone down the hall answers, his voice echoing above the pinging bullets.
And there were only two places he could go to in that direction: the bridge, and the detention level.
Bridge it was.
She arrives too late. Clint is already making his way further up the corridor, ducking the openings to avoid the bullets aimed for his head, and it was far too risky to start running to him now with all the chaos going on.
"Engine 1 is now in shut down," a voice suddenly announces from the bridge below.
And then the ship tips sideways.
Gripping the nearest railing before she could slide down, Natasha looks up just in time to see that Clint was less lucky, having actually toppled heels over head down the corridor before his hands found purchase in the grated floor. He pushes himself to his feet and continues his route, seemingly unbothered by the impromptu lack of grace he'd exhibited.
"It's Barton," Fury calls through the comms, "he took out our systems! He's headed for the detention level—does anyone copy?"
"This is Agent Romanoff," Natasha grits out, swinging herself over the railing to secure her balance. "I copy."
She finds her center of gravity and clamors after him, catching up with his oblivious figure three corridors later. She paces herself and gets close enough to touch him before he senses her presence and loads his bow, but Natasha catches it with both hands and moves out of the way as he releases the string and sends the arrow flying over her shoulder. She tries to twist the bow out of his hands, but he turns and snaps his elbow into her face, making her stagger back as she recovers from the hit.
A flash of motion has her leaning back as Clint whirls and swings his bow at her, and she spins to charge her kick as he tries to bring the bow back around and hit her with it. Hearing him grunt and take a few steps back, she gets an idea and drops over the edge of the walkway, moving to cross its underbelly and pulling herself back up the opposite side with a twirl. It gives her enough momentum to slide right in front of Clint and kick him in the abdomen, but he's got his bow loaded again within the precious few moments it takes her to get up. She's forced to leap aside, swinging to the other catwalk to avoid the arrow.
Clint follows her, landing close enough that he has to use his bow as a staff. Natasha makes the mistake of grabbing it by the string, and he uses it to bash her in the face. She manages to bring her fists up to shield herself, but that lets him pull her around, slamming her back into the hard railing.
At the realization that she was pinned, Natasha's knee shoots up automatically, aiming for his balls. Her knee collides with a jock-cup, but that's okay because he still freezes up reflexively, allowing her to slam her fist into his cheek. He moves with the momentum of her sideways punch to keep his neck from getting snapped, and Natasha pushes off the railing and swings the bow over her shoulders, turning to him as he drew a knife from his side.
Damn.
She drops the bow and blocks his attack with an arm, punching him in the chest to distract him long enough to grab his arm with a hand, then she punches him in the same place to keep him from hitting her again as she straightens his arm out and squeezes his elbow. Clint lets out a sharp yelp of pain, but recovers too quickly. He swings the knife up, catches it with his left hand and takes a swipe at her, and Natasha ducks as fast as she could, feeling his arm as it brushes across her back.
Grabbing the wrist that held the knife, Natasha twists her arm in, trapping it between his arm and chest to hold the knife to his throat. But Clint plays dirty and tugs her hair back sharply with his free hand, twirling the knife to point at her chin. Grunting in alarm, Natasha struggles to keep him from sticking the weapon into her skull as she tries to calculate how the hell she was going to get out of this one.
She doesn't get the chance to. She's staring into his eyes, thinking and panting and cursing the unnatural blue tint she can see glowing from his half-closed eyelids when Clint drops the knife, and she's distracted long enough that he spins her around, and then her sight is filled with yellow.
Natasha hears her head hit the hard metal railing with a dull thud, and then she's out.
Anna watches helplessly as the world around her moves, her body stepping out of the open door thanks to the too-familiar man standing beside the control panel.
'See how loyal he is?' the purple body-jacking motherfucker asks her, making her body press up against the younger version of Clint Barton as he stood still, looking down at her.
"You didn't say you'd be changing clothes, sir," Clint says, his face twitching as he adds, "Do I still call you sir, or is it ma'am now?"
"It was an unexpected development," her mouth replies, ignoring his question. "Kiss me."
Caught off-guard, Anna's heart skips a beat.
"What?" she asks, and just as she realizes that she has control of her body again, Clint obeys the command, pulling her close and capturing her lips with his.
Her brain sputters to a stop, all her protests disappearing as she kisses him back.
Even before her life was screwed over, Anna had never bought into the notion of sparks-flying, heart-pounding, gut-wrenching romance—probably because she watched her mother pine for her dead father for the first sixteen years of her life.
But this? It was more than her fantasies, more than the visions Thanos had planted in her head and god, she'd always known Clint owned her ass since the moment she laid eyes on him, but this kiss confirms it. She could kiss him until Ragnarök came and went, and she wouldn't even open her eyes to see what the fuss was about.
And she savors the moment completely—memorizing how it felt to slide her tongue across his bottom lip, the way he sighs when she sinks her fingers through his hair and massages his scalp, the feel of his body pressing against hers…
Clint's large hands slide down her waist to grope at her ass and push her closer against him, making Anna gasp his name in surprise as her breasts were squished into hard chest and the adrenaline-fueled desire and need rushes through her veins. God, but it had been too long since she last had a man touch her this way and Clint was proving much too skilled at firing up every one of her nerve endings.
"Do pardon us," she hears someone say as a bellow echoes around the room, but Clint doesn't stop even through those distracting sounds, and it's such a heady feeling to have him like this, holding onto her like he was never going to let her go.
And then she's pulling away and her head is turning to see Loki and a younger version of her uncle Bruce Banner holding back an enraged-looking Uncle Thor. She feels Clint move his mouth to her jaw, then his teeth began to nip at her lobe, his breath puffing hotly across the flesh of her ear, and god, but that's why it takes Anna several dizzy seconds to recover the shattered remains of her common sense.
By that time, Thanos is the one in control again. "Stop," he tells Clint, who pulls his lips off her skin, though those bright blue, slightly glazed eyes never leave her face.
That's when it hits her—the realization that Thanos was using Clint against her once more, tantalizing her with a taste of Clint Barton with the hope that she'd give in and stop fighting him. And now…
Now she doesn't even know why she's still fighting him. He already has control of her body, already has access to all her memories… So why was she still bothering to enforce her own will when she's so obviously out-matched?
"Do you know who I am, Agent Barton?" Bruce asks, drawing her attention to the unexpected grouping.
"He's the Hulk," Clint murmurs in her ear. "I have nothing that can keep him down for long."
"I know," Thanos replies with her voice, and he's frustrated because he doesn't have anything that could go up against the Hulk either. Not with her mortal body so susceptible to magical burn-out. Thanos turns her body around and looks up at Clint, using one of her hands to stroke his cheek while the other slips down his pants to grip something hard. "Should he kill them for me and die trying? Or are you going to cooperate and finally give in to me?" And somehow, Anna can tell that Thanos is speaking to her, not anyone else.
'Please,' she murmurs, all too aware of the knife she now had in hand, tucked away from the threesome's sight, 'don't hurt him.'
"Then give in to me," Thanos bargains.
"You cannot give in, Lady Anna!" Uncle Thor shouts, obviously overhearing the one-sided conversation. "We will not harm Agent Barton, and he cannot harm us!"
"That first part's true," Thanos agrees, still talking out loud. "But let's test that last option. Clint," he adds, "shoot the beast, would you?"
In a flash, Clint has drawn an arrow and fired a shot, but before Anna can panic, Loki's already waving his hand and turning the arrow into a white bird. Clint draws another arrow and fires, still aiming for Bruce. He misses again thanks to Loki, but Anna's hand is moving and a fireball is flying through the air just as Loki's shield spell dissipates. Bruce was flung back at the force of the attack, hitting the wall and sinking to the floor on all fours.
His skin starts turning green.
"Banner!" Loki calls, glancing at them. "Calm yourself. You have a job to do." When the change shows no signs of stopping, Uncle Thor grabs his brother's shoulder and moves them back as Bruce's shirt began to rip.
Thanos was alarmed as well, but there's satisfaction in his tone as he says to Clint, "Come. We should go now."
"Halt!" Thor yells at their backs, but neither her body nor Clint are stopped from exiting the doors.
She finds out why when a thumping sound echoes faintly through the hall, and when she turns, Clint is slumped face down on the ground. Standing over him was a man Anna had only ever seen in pictures.
Agent Phil Coulson.
"His name was Phil, son of Coul," Uncle Thor said, smiling sadly. "He was a brave warrior, and a good friend. It was his death that led to the formation of the Avengers; that allowed your father and Steve Rogers to set aside their differences and come together to help defeat my brother and his army."
Thanos hums. 'His death is a catalyst for what I no longer need,' he rumbles. 'And so it shall not be.'
Anna doesn't protest the bastard's decision. Her mother had been fond of Phil Coulson, and despite the rocky relationship they had in the end, Anna loves her mother enough to give her another friend she could lean on besides the uncles she'd grown up knowing. Not to mention Anna's own eventual fate…
"Please don't move," he says, aiming a hefty gun at her. Her eyes dart to the large rifle, and he notices. "You like this?" he asks rhetorically. "We started working on the prototype after Loki sent the Destroyer—"
"The Destroyer was the protector of Asgard's Weapons Vault," Uncle Thor said as they walked through a small town. "Loki sent it here to this tiny village to stop me from coming back to Asgard."
"—even I don't know what it does," Coulson adds. He activates the gun, making it emit a crunching whine. "You wanna find out?"
The world spins as her body whirls around and drops to the ground, her hand darting out to throw Clint's knife with practiced ease. Coulson cries out in pain and falls to the floor, the knife embedded in his upper thigh.
That's the last Anna sees of him—the discharge of Coulson's weapon catching her in the chest and slamming her solidly against a wall.
Notes:
Disclaimer: The fight scene between Clint and Natasha was taken from The Avengers 2012 movie, so I don't own it. Well, except how it ended—that's mine.
