Seven Of Spades

I blinked my bleary eyes, holding the side of my head while I tried to overcome the wave of vertigo that followed the explosion. The communicator Natasha had demanded I wear after jumping ship in Germany crackled in my ear, and I tapped my finger against it a few times to clear the static. Somewhere behind me I could hear pained moans and strained pants. When I looked back over my shoulder, I saw that Bruce was clutching his hands into fists that he had pressed against the top of his skull while Natasha was trying to pull her leg out from under a fallen steam pipe.

"We're okay," she responded when Fury called her name over the comms and glanced back at Bruce. "We're okay, right? Doctor?"

Bruce pounded his fist against the metal floor with a loud groan, and my breath caught in my throat when I realized what was happening. "Oh no," I breathed, slowly pushing myself up to my knees and crawling towards Natasha with my eyes trained on Bruce.

When she noticed I was coming closer, Natasha tried to wave me away before collapsing back onto her hands. I ignored her warning and continued making my way over while she tried to talk Bruce down. "Bruce, you got to fight it. This is just what Loki wants. We're going to be okay, just listen to me. We're going to be okay."

I tried to push the pipe off her leg when I got close enough, but the subtle shift was enough to cause a high-pitched screech against the floor that made Bruce twitch violently as a growl bubbled up through his throat and an involuntary shudder ran down my spine. After taking a calming breath, I pressed one finger to Natasha's mouth to signal that maybe she should shut up now before returning my hands to the steam pipe.

Obviously I wasn't going to be able to just push it off her, meaning the only other option I had at my disposal was finding some way to alter it. It seems today is just a day for trying new things.

Trying my best to ignore Bruce's increasingly angry sounding fit behind me, I ran my hands along the pipe and honed in on the metal it was constructed of, changing it to the first thing that came to mind. Seconds later, the smooth metal under my fingertips was replaced by rough styrofoam, and I easily lifted the lightweight material before encouraging Natasha to remove herself from the position she was in with a nod.

Once she was free we both turned our heads to the sound of Bruce crashing onto a lower level of the maintenance room we were in, followed by the ripping fabric of his clothes. "Time to go," I muttered, snatching Natasha's hand and pulling her in the opposite direction.

An ear-splitting scream that I could feel vibrating in my bones caused me to falter in my footsteps as sheer terror gripped at me, but Natasha kept up the pace and pulled me along with her. I couldn't remember a time I had felt so scared, and I sincerely doubted I would ever be so terrified again.

The Hulk's thundering footsteps shook the steps of the staircase Natasha and I were climbing, and before either of us made it to the top, he had grabbed onto the bright yellow sidebars and pried it away from the pathway it connected to. Thanks to her expert training, Natasha was able to leap off the falling steps and swing up onto the railing of the upper deck.

Me, not so much.

I went flying along with the stairs when the Hulk tossed them to the side, colliding with a collection of metal boxes that were even bigger than me. The Hulk huffed heavily as he glared at me before turning back to Natasha. I only had to take one look at her to get the message that she was going to make a run for it, and followed in her lead by sprinting in the opposite direction.

The room I ran into had a group of men dressed in black tactical gear facing the opposite direction, but as soon as I came in, they all turned to face me. Based on looks alone I might have guessed that they were SHIELD agents if it weren't for two dead giveaways- the eerie blue eyes, and the fact that Clint Barton was standing at the center of the group.

"Oh, you are kidding me."

Clint shooed the other men away, and they separated into three smaller groups before taking off in different directions, leaving only the two of us in the small room. I half-expected him to make some witty remark on this being his second chance to take me out, or finishing what he started. Instead, he immediately went for his bow.

Having learned my lesson back in Germany, I knew that if this was going to happen, I was going to have to be on the defense. So when he pulled an arrow from its holster and pointed it in my direction, I dodged to the left and ran straight for the wall. Having spoken with Tony earlier about messing around with cartoons, I had a bit of an idea on the fighting style I was going to test here.

As soon as I reached the wall, I pressed my foot against it and lifted myself off the floor. I had to resist the urge to break out into laughter when my trick worked and I ran vertically along the wall and up to the ceiling. When I reached the break between wall and ceiling, I leaned backwards and waved my hand towards a very frustrated looking Clint.

"I'm not playing games with you again," he warned, pulling the arrow back in its string.

"Really?" When he released the arrow, I dropped from the wall back to the floor and landed in a crouch. "I don't think you have much of a choice here, Barton. Unless you plan on surrendering, but you don't-" I rolled to my left when he shot another arrow that came just a bit too close to hitting me right between the eyes for comfort "-really seem the type."

"Stop moving."

"Yeah, like that'll-"

He dropped the bow and rushed me just as I stood, shoving me back into the wall. "Stop moving."

I frantically slapped the arm he was forcing against my windpipe, cutting off my air supply, before clawing at it and trying to shove it away. When none of that worked, I used the hand that wasn't trying to keep Clint from killing me into my back pocket and pulled an egg out. Clint's eyes flicked to the random item just before I smashed it against his forehead and a white dove appeared, flapping its wings and cawing loudly.

Clint stumbled back at the sudden attack on his face, and I clutched at my throat taking deep, panting breaths while I circled around him to where he had left his bow on the ground. I swept the weapon up into my own hands, holding it more like a baseball bat than a bow. When he managed to push the bird away from himself and turned back to face me I swung the bow in a wide arc, slamming it into the side of Clint's head and knocking him to the floor.

I threw his bow to the ground as if I was a football player who had just made a touchdown before pointing at Clint sprawled on the ground. "That's for Germany, jackass!"

He didn't stand back up, which I was more than grateful for as the adrenaline slowly seeped out of my body and I dropped into a sitting position on the floor. If I ever had to fight Clint Barton again, there was a distinct possibility of me simply dropping dead.

As I stared at Clint lying motionless on the floor, unwilling to take my eyes off him for fear of him springing back up and launching a counter-attack, the dove flew in front of me and landed on my knee, tilting its head to the side.

I smiled down at the small white bird, holding a bent finger out and brushing its plush feathers. "Hey, birdy. I'm gonna call you... Little Asskicker. Lala for short. Sound good?" Lala cooed as it shook its feathers out, and I nodded as if it had granted me approval. "Wonderful."

"Phil Coulson is down." My smile dropped at Fury's statement, and my hand stilled over Lala's back. Another voice offered to send a medical team, but he said that they were already there. "They called it."

I waited for him to say something, anything else. When he didn't, I sighed and pressed my hand against the comm device to make sure they could hear me. "I have Agent Barton unconscious in..." I glanced up at the plaque by the door "Bay Entrance 3."

"We'll send a med unit your way," Fury offered. "Everyone else, meet at the bridge as soon as possible."

With that taken care of, I took one more look at Clint before standing up. Lala fluttered her wings and hopped off my leg as I stood, flying away and darting out of the room. I was too tired to bother following her, so instead I pulled the deck of cards out of my back pocket and flipped the top open before dumping the lot into my hand. After sifting through them, I managed to find the one I was looking for.

"Seven of Spades," I mumbled to myself, flipping it over to see all sides of it. It was the card Coulson had picked out of the deck when I first met him. It was an irrelevant card, overall. It wasn't anything symbolic, like the King of Hearts or Ace of Diamonds. It was just the Seven of Spades.

I slid the card back into its deck, which I then also returned to my pocket as a group of SHIELD agents dressed in white medical garb rushed into the room and lifted Clint onto a stretcher before hurrying him out of the room. "Excuse me," one of the women stopped by my side. "Do you need any assistance?"

I pursed my lips together before shrugging. "Can you show me how to get back to the bridge from here?"