H for Hypnosis

Guys I am so, so sorry I didn't update the last two weeks, I was travelling all weekend and struggling to get my work done for class and study for my Calculus midterm. I swear I'm trying my hardest, just bear with me!

I cannot thank you all enough for all the reviews. Seriously, they make my days so much brighter, please don't stop. Sometimes, when I'm stressed, I read through them and they remind me that everything is going to be ok and I can do this!

I love you all, thank you to whoever suggested H for Hypnosis, it's gonna be a fun one…Two parts, because you all deserve it. LOTS OF WHUMP FOR EVERYONE! YAY!

It's a long weekend so I'm going to write some chapters in advance.

Tony swooped left and right, flying high and dipping low, blasters hitting hard and true at the enemy lines.

"Widow! Take flank!" Steve's orders were coming in steadily and confidently, there was no panic in his voice – only the appropriate amount of urgency for a mission such as this.

Without skipping a beat, the Russian stepped wide and fell back, her pistols firing from her expert hands. She circled around to cover Steve's back, enemies falling like dominos at her precisely calculated discharges. Barton's arrows were felling men at the same alarming rate, each feather tipped weapon whizzing past his teammates within inches of their faces, but never once so much as grazing them.

The proximity to Barton's shots used to make Steve flinch, but now it didn't faze him at all. Rogers didn't respond with as much as a blink when an arrow passed in front of his nose to kill the attacker on his left.

Tony, amidst his own munitions, watched his teammates on the ground. He loved this sort of operation – when the team was engaged in full combat without missing a single step. They truly were a well-oiled machine, something which appealed to Stark's engineering nature. His lips quirked up at the thought.

Pew! His blasters knocked two men off the parapets of the compound and rained deadly rubble down on several more below. Within no time, the yard was completely clear of hostiles.

Tony landed with a muffled thunk on the cold and frozen ground. His faceplate came up to assess, with his own eyes, the state of his healthy, albeit winded, teammates. The cold October breeze stung at his nose, and the Russian trees swung noisily and ominously around the clearing, their dim colors and ancient gnarls only adding to the creep factor. A shiver ran down Tony's spine, and it wasn't from the cold.

Steve and Nat approached Stark, leaving Barton to climb down from his perch and scavenge for arrows. Steve was stretching his taut muscles and wiping the pine needles from his hair. Nat's words came out in puffs of white, her sheen of sweat and her heavy breathing counteracting the frosty morning air.

"Heat scanner?" Nat was always to the point, never wasting her time with more words than she had to.

Tony shook his head. "Nothing left outside or in the first three levels of the compound. But-" He threw up a projection from a gadget in his left gauntlet. Little dots of red, no more than 7, were clustered together in an internal level of the compound – a model of the building had been perfectly constructed by the holograph and showed the complete internal workings of the building they were storming.

"As you can see," Stark continued. "There appear to be six hostiles left, if we assume the seventh is the target."

Steve contemplated for a moment. "Understood. Thank you, Iron Man." He turned to readjust a strap on his shield. "We'll enter the compound in exactly ninety seconds. Synchronize your watches." Everyone paused to do so, even though they had done it at the start of the mission as well.

Steve continued. "From there, you all know your duties. Do them well and do them quickly…and if you do, maybe we'll all make it home in time for taco night at Coulson's." Rogers gave a mischievous smile. Barton laughed from behind the group, and even Natasha let her eyes go teasing for a small moment before reassuming her steely gaze. It was a long running joke amidst Coulson's closest associates that Tuesday night was Taco Night as his house and they were all invited weekly – it wasn't real thing of course, just some sort of inside joke…and damn if any one of them could actually remember how it had started.

Tony cast a look at Natasha then, and watched her as she turned slightly and cast a long look into the forest.

It must be strange for her to be back in Russia. Tony couldn't help ponder over the mystery that was Agent Romanoff. They all read her file, they all knew the generalization of her backstory – but none of them, not even Barton, would ever know all of it.

For a second, Tony thought he saw an emotion flicker across the Russian's stoic features – sadness, perhaps. Longing. But too soon, Steve announced that they had sixty seconds, and her discipline kicked in, returning her blank expression to its usual place.

Tony sighed quietly and ordered JARVIS to run a suit diagnostics. The faceplate closed, and all systems were rebooted and stretched and prepared for round two. Motor Controllers whizzed, potentiometers reset, servos buzzed and rotated, and encoders clicked. It was music to his ears.

The team assumed their positions, forming their two groups of two for the next stage of the incursion. Barton and Steve would take left, Romanoff and Stark would take right. They all clenched and unclenched their fists, waiting for the order.

Steve held up his hand, his eyes fixed in the countdown. "5…4…3…2…" He swung his hand down and, like a checkered flag releasing cars at Daytona, the Avengers sprinted forward with stride and purpose.

Tony blasted the lock on the door only feet ahead of them, and they ran through a thick spray of dust and dirt without ever breaking pace. Corridors stemmed from their hallway, leading to depths unknown and unimportant. They knew their route, and they knew their job.

Soon, the hallway reached the back end of the compound and branched off to both sides. Without so much as a pause, just a grunt of mutual understanding from everyone, the two pods split. Barton and Steve went left, reeling around their corner, with his shield up and poised for protection in front of Barton, who had his weapons loaded and primed.

Tony rounded their right-hand corner first, using a bare minimum of thruster power keeping him in flight, off the ground to avoid clanking his metal boots on the concrete floor – and frankly, to be able to stay ahead of Natasha. Damn she was fast.

They encountered no hostiles on the ground floor, and per strategy, the red head and the billionaire made their way to the bottom levels of the compound, stopping only to listen for running footsteps of the armed guards.

Tony and Nat beat their teammates to the basement by a substantial lead (as they find out later, Barton had not memorized the map and led Steve down the wrong hallway). They descended the steps to the lowest level, creeping silently down a dismal short hallway towards an ajar cast iron door. Assuming positions on either side of the door, they shared a look, silently nodding to an imaginary beat. On three, they burst through the entrance and began firing, taking out the last remaining hostiles. Bullets whizzed in their direction, but Tony made sure to keep Natasha protected behind him at all times. She hung off him, swinging from his back, firing above his shoulder, running and leaping around the room like an acrobat. It was moments such as these that Tony remembered their assassin was a Russian prima ballerina.

She killed people with such a painful amount of beauty and grace.

The room was quiet, the last Russian mercenary lay twitching on the floor. Only the click of Nat's weapon chambers and her steady breathing could be heard above the absolute silence. Tony brushed some dirt off himself, scratching absentmindedly at a miniscule dent that a .22 had left in his chest plate,

"You good?" Her voice was even.

"Yah."

…

"Good."

Tony smiled underneath his faceplate. Yah, love you too, Tash.

But very quickly, both of their attentions were drawn to what lay in the center of the room.

The package: what they had been sent to either deliver back to SHIELD or kill on spot – there was no in between.

It was a crate – solid metal, small air holes in the sides – about six feet tall and 3 feet wide. There was no sound coming from the crate at all, but they knew that whoever, or whatever, was in this was alive – it had showed up on the heat scanner.

The two avengers shared a look before nodding to one another. In a swift pull, Iron Man pried the crate open, ripping the door off its hinges. What they saw inside shocked them both.

Tony had been expecting a villain - an alien maybe. A great, foul creature that tortured its victims and feasted on human flesh – or maybe some huge weapons trader who carved people up as a message to his other clients about paying their debts. He had been expecting something…evil.

He had not been expecting some Old Russian grandmother.

If Stark hadn't been so wary and confused, he may have laughed at the ridiculousness of the sight before him. The old woman was wrinkled and helpless. She had arms as skinny as sticks and enough lines and wrinkles to rival the Grand Canyon. Her hair was cotton white and her lips were set in an angry Russian pout that reminded him slightly of Tash – not that he would ever say that to her face, of course, at fear of death.

The most striking part of the woman, however, was that she was wearing a blindfold.

But Tash and Tony quickly noticed that this wasn't just a regular blindfold- no measly strip of fabric. This was goddamn heavy duty; her eyes were covered by stainless steel framed goggles, blacked out lenses, rubber sealed to her face. The two side straps were locked in place behind her head with a chain padlock. And as if to ensure that she could never free her vision, her old rheumy hands and legs were tied with rope and duct tape.

Tony's human side was impelled to free her, but his avenger side knew that she had been tied like his for a reason.

It was Tash who spoke first. "What do we do? Is she a threat or a friendly?"

"Tash," Tony shifted uncomfortably. "You're the one who speaks Russian – you ask her."

Tash nodded. "привет мэм?" Hello Ma'am? And Tash then let out a slew of gentle Russian, speaking warily and approaching the old captive woman with due caution. Tony heard his name and 'Tasha's being thrown in as an introduction.

Tony wasn't even sure the woman was alive never mind paying attention until her thin lips parted, and responded shakily to Tash's words. Her own Russian was heavy and interrupted by scraggly breaths.

The redhead listened, and responded again, her voice more sure this time and her walls seeming to come down.

"Tash, what is she saying?" Tony made a move towards the two women, eyes never leaving Tash's face to search for signs of any potential danger they may be in based on the woman's words.

"Her name is Ana. She say that she was taken from her village several months ago, brutally attacked in the night and dragged from her house." She listened as the woman continued. "She also says that the men we killed work for a crazed man, a man with power and weapons but with a sick head. He believed that she was a witch, and he called her a devil worshipper. He wanted to burn her at the stake." At this point in the translation, the old woman chin started to quiver, and behind the tight vision bindings, her eyes filled with misty tears. "He changed his mind, however. He demanded that she be kept alive and used as a weapon against his enemies. But the blindfolded her so that she could not bewitch him with her demon powers." Romanoff's voice rang with a tint of bitterness.

"Who was this man? Who were his enemies?" Tony interrupted.

Tash halted, and asked the woman the question. She replied softly, but with less of a quiver to her voice.

"She says that he was a drug man, Muskovitch – he recruited local young men, giving them weapons, turning them into criminals at threat of their family's lives. He fought against other cartels. That's all she knows; they almost never spoke to her of their plans." Tash paused as the woman added something else. "And they…they only let her out of her crate once a day."

Tony closed his eyes and felt sick. This poor woman. "Tash…Tash I don't understand. This can't be the package that Fury wanted us to pick up. He must have heard a Russian cartel had a human weapon and he thought it had a potential to be a superhuman or a potential Avenger recruit. Not…" He cast a pitying gaze down at the old woman – she was frail and shaking and filthy and starving. "Not this, Tash. Not this."

"Stark, I hate to admit it, but I have to agree with you."

"Can we let her out of those damn restraints now, please?"

Tash gave a hesitant nod, and got stepped up into the crate while Tony carefully sintered the back off of the steel siding, giving himself access to the padlock at the back of Ana's head. The whole while, Tash calmed the spooked woman, telling her that she was being released, and they were going to take care of her and return her to her home. The woman started whimpering and nodding her head, thanking them quietly in Russian. Tash gave her a strong hand to hold as Tony split her ropes and gently snipped the chains.

The woman's hands were freed, followed by her ankles and her upper body. Tash and Tony stepped back, allowing her to stretch her fingers and rub her wrists. She reached up and began pulling weakly at the pinching metal goggles, freeing her face and her eyes. Ana blinked painfully in the dim light of the basement, taking in the faces of her saviors and the bodies of her captives on the floor.

Much to Tony's surprise, the older woman stuttered out a heavily accented reply in English. "T-Thank you." She said. Tony gave her that signature Stark smile and nodded. Natasha helped her out of the chair, and Tony checked the heat sensors to find Barton and Steve. They should have been here five minutes ago to help them take out the hostiles. It was a good thing everything had gone so smoothly.

"Speak of the devil," Stark mumbled when he heard the heavy patter of boot steps and spandex approaching the top of the stairs. The two men came thundering down, completely out of breath, with Barton spewing apologies and defenses.

"I said I was sorry, didn't I? Everything on that damn map looked the same."

"All you had to do was remember the one hallway, Clint! One damn hallway! ONE!"

"YOU DON'T NEED TO SHOUT STEVE I'M NOT DEAF!"

They all paused.

"OK, WELL, I AM DEAF," Barton puffed out his chest. "BUT THAT IS NO REASON TO SHOUT AT ME!"

The bickering grew louder and louder until the first pod of Avengers burst into the room, guns drawn, to find everything under control and Natasha holding up an old grandmother.

Definitely not what they were expecting.

"Agent Romanoff, report." Steve holstered his weapon and dropped his shield, eyeing the civilian with wariness.

"This is… the package." And from there, Nat and Tony explained all that Ana had told them.

"So, what you're saying is," Barton was sitting cross legged on the floor, his back against the wall, and his arms splayed causally. "That this Muskovitch guy was a superstitious little shit and kidnapped and blinded an old woman because he thought she was a witch that could strengthen his Russian drug cartel in the middle of nowhere?"

Tony nodded. "Yah, that's pretty much the whole thing."

Barton cursed under his breath. "Dammit, Fury. He sends us out to the coldest fuckin' country on earth to save someone's Nanna from being kidnapped by a psychotic Russian drug lord." He wiped dust off his cargo pants. "Next time, Nicholas, dear, do your damn homework so we know what we're getting into."

Steve scoffed. "Barton, you are not one to talk about doing homework."

"Hey - listen here, Spangles," and the two teammates resumed their bickering.

"Children, children," Tony stepped between them. "No fighting, you'll upset Mother." Sure enough, Nat was sending them all steely glares of disapproval. She set Ana down on a nearby stool and went to stand with her teammates.

"Help me with the old woman," Tash directed. "We will get her to safety, return her to her village, and then go right back to SHIELD for the debriefing of our lives." They all begrudgingly nodded.

But then the atmosphere in the room completely changed.

Steve, with his heightened senses, felt the shift. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and his instincts were telling him to run. "Romanoff-" he began, but she placed a hand on his arm. She felt it, too.

They all turned to look to the door, thinking maybe there was someone outside – but there was no one.

That's when the metal door slammed shut by itself and locked, immovably, in place.

Steve ran to open it, the rest of the team on high alert, gazing around in fighting stance. His muscles bulged, strained, and protested, but the door would not open.

"Tony!" he panted, "Can you blast the door?"

The engineer quickly assessed the frame. "Cap, this ceiling wouldn't hold it if my blasters rocked the foundation. This place was built in World War One." Sure enough, the concrete on the ceiling was chipping off, deformed, and full of splinters and cracks. "Four floors of concrete would fall on our heads. We would all be buried."

Suddenly, the lights began to flicker on and off. The wind outside picked up speed, and they could hear it wrapping and twisting its way around the compound's exterior walls– impressive considering they were almost thirty feet underground.

"What the hell is going on here?!" Barton was on his feet, looking quite alarmed. Steve was still trying the door, and Tony was desperately searching for another way out, expecting at any moment for an armed unit to march into the basement and open fire.

Natasha was the only one who thought to look behind them.

"Боже мой," she whispered. My God. The other Avengers spun around to follow her gaze.

The old woman was not sitting where they had delicately placed her - In fact, she looked quite less frail than she had a minute ago. She stood with a wide stance, a malicious grin on her gnarled face. Her hands were poised and her back was straight. A low and icy chuckle was resonating on her lips, and her eyes… her eyes…

They were like gentian crystals, purple to the deepest degree of color. They wisped and glowed, light and dark swirling tendrils of power emanating from them like steam from cauldrons. Her hands seemed to catch the trails of falling color, wrapping and warping around her fingers – power collecting in her palms.

She spoke loudly, in accented but clear English, her voice full of strength and cruelty – this was not the same woman they had found in the crate.

"Thank you for your help, children." She smiled wickedly. "But I will not be needing you any longer."

Tony's eyes went wide.

Holy shit, she's actually a witch.

Without any more of a warning, she attacked.

Purple rays shot from her arms, firing across the room. The first one missed Steve's head by a fraction of an inch, and only because Barton managed to pull him down in time – it whizzed by, blasting a smoking hole into the concrete wall. They hardly had a moment to recover and get back onto their feet before the next shots were sent spiraling towards them. Tash ran at the woman, closing the forty feet between them in record time, dodging the majority of her shots until a bolt of purple clipped Nat on the side of her face. The strike whipped Nat's head, pain exploding at her temple, and the Russian went reeling into darkness.

"TASH!" Barton screamed amidst the deafening noise of shots and screaming purple fire.

The archer sprinted along the wall, covered by Steve's rain of bullets and Tony drawing the attention of the woman with taunts. Clint crawled to where Natasha lay, completely unconscious, a steady stream of blood pouring from her head wound.

"Tash? Tash?" Barton wiped the hair tenderly from her face, cradling her limp form in his strong arms. He gave himself a moment to simply hold her, stilling the tide of fear in his heart. He pressed a small kiss to the top of her head, and then pulled away. He gave her a quick once over, checking her pupils and her pulse. He wasn't pleased by what he found, but he knew she wasn't in any immediate danger.

But he needed her to be safe.

"CLINT, UPDATE?" Steve bellowed amidst the firefight.

"SHE'S STABLE, BUT I NEED TO GET HERE OUT OF HERE, STEVE."

Steve rolled across the floor and came up behind Tony, taking cover behind the suit. Tony understood immediately and widened his stance, reflecting shots off his chest plate and firing his repulsions back at the witch. They had very little affect – her defenses were like a force field, absorbing and deflecting shots with ease. Her own blows, however, seemed to be increasing in strength and ferocity.

The Avengers needed a plan and fast.

Steve, behind Tony, tried the door once more, but it was locked tight. The witch was holding it shut, effectively trapping them like cattle at a slaughterhouse.

The thought made a twinge of fear flutter in Stark's throat. He needed to get his team to safety.

Tony's heart sank. He knew what he had to do. He had known it from the moment the door had swung shut behind them. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that it was the only way to get everyone out.

"Cap! I have a plan!"

"Be my guest, Stark!" Steve groaned, muscles still tensing against the door.

"I'm going to blast the door down, and the moment I do, you need to lead Barton and Romanoff up those steps as fast you can, understand? I'll cover you down here. You need to go quickly – don't look back." The old woman's blows were causing Tony real pain now as the suit stopped being able to absorb the full shock. She was getting way too strong. Stark was grunting with each shot, but he kept firing right back.

Steve's face was horrified. "But Tony, you said-"

"I KNOW WHAT I SAID, CAP, BUT LISTEN TO WHAT I AM SAYING NOW." Tony cried out in agony and dropped to one knee as a purple strike hit his torso, pain flaring up and down his side. He climbed back up to his feet immediately, ignoring Steve's protests, focusing instead on the malevolent smile from the evil old bitch trying to kill his family.

"STEVE, I'M GOING TO DO IT EITHER WAY SO YOU BETTER WELL JUST BE READY."

The Captain hesitated for one second before accepting defeat. "DAMN YOU, STARK!" but the fear and concern was evident in his voice.

"BARTON!" Steve called to the archer and sent him a series of military hand signals. Barton's eyes grew wide and he flashed his gaze to Tony before settling back on his leader and nodding. He scooped up Natasha, carrying her in his arms bridal style, shielding her with his back as he ran along the wall to rejoin his teammates. His movement caught the witch's attention, and she sent her purple tendrils in his direction. Tony sidestepped them and caught the blows full on, covering his two friends with his body. He had to grind his teeth to stop from screaming. Tears threatened at his eyes – his whole body felt like it was on fire. But still, her munitions came – relentless, unyielding and not weakening by any measure.

Barton, still cradling Tash, hunched against the wall ten feet from the cast iron door. Steve put himself between the exit and Barton, shield up and ready for the blast.

"WE'RE READY, STARK!" Rogers cried over the blasts.

Tony nodded largely, and with a bellow, he opened up everything he had on the repulsors and launched a continuous and terribly powerful stream of fire at the witch on the other end of the room. She gave a cry as well, and the two were locked in a stream of energy, black and purple mixing with the bright white of the arc reactor.

Tony held it for five seconds, a yell escaping his throat at the effort – and then he turned abruptly, breaking the stream, and fired through the door, blasting it off its hinges and sending a plume of rubble into the air. The ceiling immediately began to shake as the wall crumbled, large chunks of stone falling and shattering on the ground. The witch let out curses in Russian, scrambling away from the debris.

"GO!" Tony cried. He watched, behind the spots in his vision, as Barton sprinted up the stairs, Nat in arms, followed closely by Steve.

The witch screamed in fury, and while Tony was turned, her line of fire erupted at his back, landing right into his shoulder blades, and sending him flying into the adjacent wall. The pain was blinding, and a cry ripped its way up Tony's throat before he could stifle it.

The captain stopped dead in his tracks upon hearing Tony's screams.

"NO!" Steve bellowed, preparing to charge back into battle to save his friend.

But Tony couldn't let him.

The witch was turning to attack Steve, now, and the ceiling was all but caving in. The noise was thunderous, and the whole room was shaking. Steve stood safely in the doorway – for now, but the moment he crossed the threshold, he would be in too much danger.

Tony raised his right hand at Steve – Rogers thought it was just a signal to stop (one he was going to ignore, of course) until the familiar white glow and the high pitched hum of the blaster shone brightly in Stark's palm. Steve's mouth fell open in betrayal, but he reacted out of instinct, raising his shield, as Tony fired a powerful shot that struck Captain America square in his chest. The impact to the shield sent him flying backwards into the hallway and halfway up the staircase, where Barton grabbed him by his suit and dragged the stunned captain to safety.

If Tony weren't so preoccupied, he would have laughed out loud at the indignant look on Steve's face at literally being shot out of a room against his will. But Tony was quite busy being reckless and self-sacrificing…per usual, as Pepper would say.

Tony scrambled shakily to his feet, wrenched off his faceplate, and shot beam after beam at the witch as she screamed and flailed at the falling rubble around her. Some of it bounced off her shields, but she was too distracted on all sides now to keep her magic going as strong as it had been.

Tony dodged right, then left, and before he knew it, he was right next to the witch. They both held their hands up to one another, an arms distance away, as the world caved in around them, prepared to bury their bodies and crush them to death…and Tony Stark, a wry grin on his face, and his eyes steeled in fury, spat at the woman's face as she gazed in panic at the ceiling one last time.

"I'll see you in hell." And Tony rapidly lifted his arm from its position and fired a last shot directly into the ceiling.

All the remaining structural integrity gave way, and the ceiling came down around them. Slabs as wide as Volkswagens shattered down, burying the two enemies, crunching bones and denting metal, slicing and scraping. Both quickly forgot their fight and fell to the ground, crying out and feeling their bodies being crushed.

Tony was curled in a ball, his suit deflecting what it could, when he felt the physical attacks of the old lady, her balled up fists beating at his suit for what he had done. Suddenly, purple light wrapped around his faceplate, ripping it off and exposing his gaze to hers.

Her face was bloodied and dusty, her lower body was being crushed by the concrete slabs, and rebar protruded grotesquely from her ribcage, but she had enough life left in her dying form to exact her revenge.

"You…will be…my justice, Tony Stark." She spat his name, blood dribbling from her mouth. "You will lose…all that I have…and more…" Tony felt a strange power flow from her hand into his skin, and he cried out but found himself unable to move. His brown irises swiveled in fear, darting around his skull, as he felt the strange electricity crawl up his face into his eyes. His vision took on a purple hue, and he felt his mind retreat; his body was not his own.

"You…you will not rest…until…everyone you love…is dead…" She sneered. "As dead as me…." And with a last wracking breath and a bloody spewing cackle, the witch's impaled torso slipped to the floor, unmoving, as the last concrete from the ceiling fell down around them.

Tony watched the slab and rebar heading for his face. His body prepared itself for impact, and when it struck, the world just went black.

PART 2 WILL BE UPDATED TOMORROW AS A SPECIAL TREAT!

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