Wow, this story is getting a lot more response (and reviews) in its first eight chapters than Endurance did. I feel so blessed. Thank you all for following me on this strange journey I call Malenkaya. It's far from over, lovelies!

So, without further ado: Malenkaya

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. The lovely Joss Whedon, awesome Disney and marvelous Marvel do!

Chapter 9

SHIELD Helicarrier

Natasha hovered over Clint as he began to come to. She had restrained him to his bed in the Helicarrier, just in case any of Loki's influence lingered. She could see by the look in his eyes that he was feeling wave after wave of dizziness washing over him as he tried to collect his bearings and return to the land of living with his mind completely in tact. Dipping a rag into a basin of water, she pressed the cloth, gently, to his forehead and murmured, "You're going to be okay, Clint."

"Do you know that?" choked the groggy archer. "Is that what you know?"

Natasha watched him as he writhed, squirming. She could tell that some of Loki's magic still lingered.

"Gotta..." Clint breathed, "...flush him out."

"It's gonna take time," Natasha murmured, frowning at him. She picked up the cloth again, submerged it deeply in the water and then brought it back to Clint's forehead.

"Have you ever had someone take your brain and play?" croaked Clint.

You have, malenkaya, her mind replied without a second's thought.

"Take you out...and shove something else in?" he continued.

Yes. Even now, you live in the effects of such carelessness, the strangely familiar voice within her mind added.

"Have you ever been unmade?" he finished, looking up at the ceiling with frightened blue eyes.

Natasha watched him, her eyes swimming with emotions, her mind swimming with names. Lukas. Anastasia Nikolaevna. Even her own named was heavy with uncertain meaning now. Romanova.

"Maybe I have," she said, distantly, before sitting down next to Clint on his bed. She placed a hand, warmly, on his shoulder.

"Why am I back?" Clint asked, looking at her. "How'd you get him out?"

Her usual sardonic gleam was back as she smirked and replied, "Cognitive recalibration. I hit you really hard in the head."

Clint offered her a shaky smile. "Thanks."

Natasha offered a half-hearted smile in return and reached out, looping her fingers around the restraints on Clint's arms and releasing them. Then, she stood and went over to the table where the basin of water sat, and picked up a pitcher next to it, pouring the cool liquid into a tiny, plastic cup.

"How many agents did I-"

"Don't do that, Clint," Natasha interjected, turning and handing the cup to him. She sat back down next to him."It's not your fault. This is monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for."

"Did Loki get away?" Clint asked, raising an eyebrow as he glanced, sideways, at her.

She nodded. "Don't suppose you know where?"

He took a long sip of his water and shook his head. "Didn't need to know. Didn't ask. But he's going to make his play soon. Today."

Natasha stood, a charge of motivation suddenly rushing through her. "We need to stop him."

"Yeah? Who's we?"

She took a deep breath and then shrugged, shaking her head. "I don't know. Who's ever left."

"Well," Clint said as he finished his water. "If I put an arrow in Loki's eyesocket, I'd sleep better, I s'pose."

A strange kind of sadness—and a twinge of anger—rose up in Natasha's heart at the idea of that, but despite it, she murmured, "Now you sound like you."

Clint turned his head on his neck, craning it a little to look at the standing woman who's eyes swam with an uncertainty he hadn't seen in them since Belarus. "But you don't. You're a spy, not a solider. Now you want to wade into a war. Why? What did Loki do to you?"

"I watched her die."

"I told you I'd be the one tricking you someday."

Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova

The words swam like bittersweet poinson behind her eyes, causing a well of unsure emotions to rise up in her. Finally, speech spilled from her mouth in a soft, nearly inaudible tone.

"I've been compromised."

Before he could ask what she meant, she turned, leaving the room with heavy, firm footfalls. Clint allowed his eyes to follow her until she was out of sight.

And he wondered what had changed.

Steve approached Tony as he stood, still and contemplating, staring at the blood that stained the wall of the detainment area that Loki had been kept in. His hands were tucked behind his back, his blue eyes wondering, calculating.

"Was he married?"

Tony shook his head. "There was a cellist. I think."

"I'm sorry," murmured Steve. "He seemed like a good man."

"He was," said a new voice as Natasha entered, looking a little worse for wear herself as she approached the two men.

Tony shook his head. "He was an idiot."

"Why? For believing?" Steve asked, giving a nod of courtesy and respect to Natasha before he turned his eyes back to Tony.

"For taking on Loki alone."

"He was doing his job," snapped Steve.

"He was out of his league!" Tony growled in return.

Natasha watched them, crossing her arms, tightly, across her chest, her eyes narrowed. She had come to find them to inform them of Clint's notions that Loki might strike on that very day. It was time to enact a plan or not at all.

"He should have waited. He should have..." Tony continued, trailing off, looking lost all of sudden.

"Sometimes, Stark, there really isn't a way out," Steve tried to offer, soothingly.

"Right. Where have I heard that before?"

Steve closed his eyes, trying to stay patient. It seemed that Tony had been the closest to Coulson outside of actual SHIELD personnel. Calmly, he asked, "Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?"

"We are not soldiers!" barked Tony, and Natasha couldn't help but feel he was right. This was not their fight. This shouldn't have to be there fight. She wondered, then, why she felt like it was her fight most of all.

Tony turned to her. "You. You're one of Fury's. Why do you march to his fife, huh? When he's got the same blood on his hands as Loki!"

"You don't know me as well as you think you do, Stark," Natasha replied, and with a half-hearted smirk, she added, "I don't always do as I'm told."

"Well, I sure as hell am not going to," Tony growled.

"You're right, Stark," Steve murmured. "But right now, we have to put all of that behind us and get this done." He looked at Natasha. "What's up?"

"Clint's awake—I mean, awake. And he says Loki's going to make his move today," Natasha murmured. "We've got a limited window."

"Where?" Tony asked, suddenly interested.

Natasha shrugged, shaking her head.

Tony's calculating face was back, and both of the other occupants could practically see the wheels whirring behind blue eyes. Suddenly, he looked at them, stating, "He made it personal. Loki. He made it personal."

"So?" Steve asked. "What's the point?"

"That's the point! He hit us all where it hurts. Why?"

"To separate us," Natasha offered, matter-of-factly.

"To tear us apart," Steve clarified.

"But he knew he'd need to beat us in order to win," Tony said, and the wheels spun faster and faster. "He wants to beat us. And he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

"Like his act in Stuttgart," Natasha murmured.

"Yes! But that was just previews. This is opening night. And Loki, ohh, he's a full-tilt diva. He wants flowers, and parades. He wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered on-"

All three of them had the same epiphany at once.

But it was Tony who voiced his concern:

"Sonuvabitch."

Steve opened the door to Clint's room as soon as the plan had been hatched. He wasn't sure how comfortable he was with Natasha and Tony's approach, but something told him he needed to let what was about to happen occur exactly as it was supposed to. Natasha Romanoff was far more entangled in this than he really understood, and if she and Tony were the geniuses everyone believed them to be, he just had to trust them.

"Hey," Steve said, already dressed in the red-white-and-blue that Coulson had so admired. He looked at Clint with determined eyes, and murmured, "Suit up. Time to go."

Clint glanced at him, his brow furrowed. "Where's Tasha?"

Steve was silent for a moment, and then: "Let her worry about that."

Clint wanted to question the answer.

But he didn't.

Stark Tower - Manhattan, New York

Erik Selvig had tried to fight the control that Loki had forced over him. So many times in the past few days, he had tried to break free. But it was impossible. Everytime he had almost broken free, the grasp of Loki's magic had tightened, deepened.

The machine he had been commissioned to build was finished now. And, despite his better instincts, he had even positioned it atop Stark Tower. Ready, according to his calculations, to rip through the fabric of time and space and open Loki's gods-forsaken portal.

The end was near, and he had been the almost-direct cause.

He only hoped, in the deepest recesses of his mind, that someone would discover his failsafe. That someone would end the horror.

Even if, in the forefront of his mind, he was praising Loki and the Tesseract for the strengths and beauty of the new universe he had promised.

And so it began.

Loki watched as the Iron Man suit whizzed toward Stark Tower. It paused, just over Selvig's head, and tried to shut down the machine with a eruption of energy from the blasters in the hands. But the machine was self-sustaining now—he could tell that by the way the magic in his scepter danced to life. The Chitauri were coming.

And soon.

The suit turned toward him, and he narrowed his eyes a little as he studied it. It landed, a few feet away from where he stood, on the platform, and bit by bit, the armor was stripped from the wearer.

And Loki was surprised to see who had been lingering beneath it's metal parts.

As the figure moved, slowly, with sure, firm steps into the Tower, Loki followed, unsure as to what was about to occur but prepared for the best—and the worst. When both parties were finally present within, the figure moved, carefully, down the steps, now level with Loki, and stared at him with careful, questioning eyes.

"Agent Romanoff," he said.

Natasha stared back at him. "Surprised to see me?"

"Mildly."

"I want answers."

Loki snorted, smirking as he turned his face from her. "As do I." He turned his eyes back to her, the smirk falling to serious. "I did some research on your name on my way here. Since you informed me you used to be Russian."

Natasha closed her eyes and turned, pacing back and forth in place. "And?"

"I learned both Natasha and Romanoff are diminutives of a very Russian name," he replied, his voice low and menacingly calm. "So, Agent Romanoff, what is your real name?"

Natasha chuckled, dryly, crossing her arms over her chest, and staring, calculatingly, at her feet. Finally, she glanced up at him, unwilling to give in to him so easily. "Natalia."

Loki's eyes narrowed, impatiently. "What more than that?"

Natasha pursed her lips, her arms sliding down, hands resting on her hips, before she turned her body to face his, resting her weight on one side of her body, tilting her head at him. She smirked, bitterly. "You're grasping for straws."

"Tell me."

Her eyes narrowed, and she studied him—the girl made him anxious. He was making connections in his mind, she could tell. Between herself and Anastasia. She couldn't deny she was as well. It unnerved her how familiar the name Anastasia felt in her mind and in her heart.

Gathering her thoughts, she finally answered: "Romanova."

She saw the physical change in him. His shoulders slumped, his face contorted in pain and he turned at the torso to face away from her—to hide his pain and uncertainty from her.

It was then she heard it—it was a mere whisper but in the silence of the Tower, she heard it clear as day.

His voice, as smooth as silk, and pained, murmuring: "Malenkaya."

How? How could he possibly know that name—the name that the child in her mind had been calling her since she herself was a child? The name that had haunted her mind for decades right there next to-

"Lukas," she said without filter. It had just spilled out.

Loki's head snapped around and he looked at her. "What did you just say?"

"I could ask you the same," she replied.

Loki approached her, cautiously, dropping his spear to the floor. His whole body was running on instinct now. He hadn't heard that name in nearly a century, but it spilled, so easily, from the mouth of the woman in front of him and made his heart swell. It was impossible for anyone to know it. Anyone but...

"Malenkaya," he whispered again, reaching out, touching her cheek, gently. "It can't be... I watched you die...I saw..."

Then, a thought occurred. One that hadn't occurred to him since the strange familiarity between them began. Carefully, he pushed the short, red curls away from her temple, and his green eyes widened. There, faded and discolored, was a scar—a scar left behind by the wound he had only superficially healed the night he believed her dead.

Tears filled the emerald orbs, and slid down his face. He stepped back from her, and the clear conflict on his face spoke volumes.

"It's you," he murmured, his voice wet with the unshed rivulets. "You're alive."

Natasha opened her mouth to reply—but the next turn of events countered her, as bullets rained through the windows of Stark Tower from the Quinjet that appeared outside. Natasha, remembering her end of the plan, leaped and dove behind Tony's bar. And as Loki stood, distracted by the jet's rain of gunfire, she grabbed the two bracelets that sat, hidden, on the bar. Peeking out over the bar, she noticed Loki's discarded spear and then glanced at the bracelets.

Noticing Tony rushing toward her from the platform, she tossed the bracelets to him, the whole moment seeming to move in slow motion. Tony caught them, snapped them on and immediately, the Quinjet departed. Natasha, finding a clear opening, dove back over the bar as a second Iron Man suit shot from within the wall as Tony entered the Tower.

Natasha tumbled and slid across the floor, grabbing the spear as the barely scathed god of Mischief reached for it. Sliding into a standing position, she watched as Iron Man tackled Loki, both men careening out of the bullet-ridden windows.

It was then she heard the rumble above her—the rumble of the machine kicking into high-gear. On the roof, Selvig watched as a stream of blue light ripped the sky open and a mass of shrieking aliens came rushing through.

Natasha rushed out of the Tower, just in time to see Iron Man lift Loki by the neck into the air above her—level with the machine on the roof—and then drop him. She gasped, suddenly, as he tumbled toward the New York street below, and the part of her that was beginning to realize exactly who she was—who she used to be—wished for someone to save him.

Thor rushed through the sky, hammer first, and knocked Loki back onto the platform just below her. She breathed a sigh of relief despite herself. Until a Chitauri rushed by her on his speeder, moving at the speed of a jet-plane, stirring up a gust of wind, and disturbing her balance. Her grip on the spear was compromised, and she dropped it, stumbling, stumbling, stumbling.

And then, she fell.

Loki groaned as he pushed himself up on his hands, most of his weight resting on palms and knees as he tried to shake the dizzying effects of Thor's assault from his head. When the blurred vision finally subsided, he noticed Thor already moving into a standing position, Mjolnir grasped tightly in his hand.

"Why did you not let me die?" choked Loki as he stood. "I would have died in much the same way I just tried to kill you. It would have been fair."

Thor noticed a change in Loki's attitude—in his demeanor. He was unsure as to what just happened but he knew something had changed. "Because you are my brother. And no matter that travesties you commit against me or anyone else, that will never change. I will always try to save you—even from yourself."

Loki's eyes hardened as he turned them on Thor, his whole body shaking with rage. "I did not ask for your salvation! Nor do I want it!" He rushed him, despite being weaponless, and grabbed him by his cape, swinging him around and into the window behind him, the glass cracking and shattering.

He looked down on him with eyes swimming in uncertainty and pain. "Did you know?"

Thor, his hand firmly grasping Mjolnir in case he needed to fight back, furrowed his brow. "Know what?"

"That she was alive!" cried Loki, tears now falling down his face. "Did you know that Anastasia was alive?"

Thor's blue eyes grew wide as saucers and he shook his head, slowly. "No. It isn't possible. You said you watched her die. You saw her die. How could she be—"

"Natalia Romanova," breathed Loki. "Romanova. She is Anastasia. She has the scar where she was wounded—potentially killed. And now, it makes so much sense...she looks so like my malenkaya would have if she'd lived."

"Malenkaya?" Thor asked, not understanding the language or the word.

Loki threw Thor down to the ground and turned from him, massaging his throbbing forehead. "Everything has changed, Thor. She fights for your side. She fights against me. And she remembers nothing but bits and pieces."

Thor stood, dropping Mjolnir.

"I've alienated myself from her," Loki said, finally, a fearful sadness falling over his face. "Made myself a monster—a villain. I thought I was doing this, at least in partiality, for her. For her memory. But perhaps I-"

He looked at Thor, and then up at the sky as a Chitauri speeder whizzed by, joining it's compatriots as blasts of blue power and the cry of war spilled out into the city. He could hear the shrieking of frightened civilians and see the crumble of the buildings around him. Suddenly, as he remembered Anastasia's smile, and Natasha's beautiful strength—and need to make things right in her world—he realized that he had let so much of his sadness, anger and jealousy fuel a fire that should never have been fanned. He turned his eyes to Thor again.

"There's no way to stop it, now," he breathed, a deep well of regret rising up in his heart.

"No, Brother," Thor said, approaching him. "We can. Together."

Loki looked, deeply into Thor's eyes, realized that even now, even despite the devastation he'd caused that Thor still loved him, and he opened his mouth to answer, when he saw her just over Thor's shoulder.

Natasha.

Falling.

Falling fast.

"Thor!" he cried, pushing past him and rushing to the side of the building to look over. Their eyes met for only an instant before Loki turned and looked at his brother. "I cannot fly. You have to save her. You must."

"Loki-"

"Look," Loki said, approaching him. "I will...I will...find a way to fix this—to close the portal. I will even help your silly mortal humans stop the Chitauri that have already broken through. But you must save her. Please."

Thor looked torn—unsure if he could trust Loki's judgment. Something had certainly changed in Loki's mind and heart but was it enough? Finally, he met Loki's eyes with his own, and the need painted on the pale, chiseled features broke Thor's heart. "Brother..."

"Please, Thor. I cannot lose her again."

Thor glanced over the side of the building, and then looked at Loki. He was still uncertain, but he set his jaw with determination and nodded. If anyone was willing to take a step of faith for Loki, it would be him. He had always had faith in Loki.

He stepped to the edge of the building and began to swim Mjolnir around. Glancing back at Loki, he murmured, "Do not let me down, Brother. I'm counting on you."

"Just save her," Loki practically begged.

With one final nod, Thor left Loki to his promises—empty or no, he wasn't sure

And he dove.

"Let no despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in truth, in purity." 1 Timothy 4:12

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