You had to put on your strongest face first when it came to your people. You had tried out many persona in your lifetime, so all you had to do was figure out which one made you feel the most powerful. Scanning through them all at an impressive speed, you landed on your answer. It was so obvious.
Don't let anybody ever take that title away from you.
You never did. Frigga gave you your title, and she gave you the strength to be yourself. That had to be your strongest self. If you alone wasn't good enough now, it never would be. So it was settled, you just has to show them who you had become, and hope they realised they ruined the wrong persons childhood.
Either way, you was ready for this confrontation. Not only had you prepared yourself enough, but you were also bored as hell waiting for them to arrive.
By the time your people had arrived, you were sat in the very centre of the field, the loose grains of dirt swirling around your body. You could feel them surrounding you, from a reasonable distance. You let them all get into position, it wouldn't make a difference to your plan either way.
Once surrounded, you felt Him gesture for your people to start closing in, that's when the dirt stopped in its place, the people followed suit.
"You're late." You announce as your rise to your feet, "20 minutes late. What didn't I factor in? Space traffic?"
"I'm pleased to announce we have a muzzle for you this time, Y/N." He spoke, it was disgusting, everything about Him made your skin crawl. But now wasn't the time to show Him that, now was the time to show Him you.
"I'm pleased to announce you can keep it, maybe try it out yourself sometime."
"I see you've grown an attitude since I let you go. Tell me child. How is your hip?"
"How's yours old man? Surely your death is almost upon us." With every insult you heard the crowd throw more insults, you didn't care though, it felt good. That, and it helped you realise something very important. "Yeah, that's right. You're going to die soon. And all you've done for the latter years of your life is search for me, just so you can watch me leave again. At least if I die here, I did something with my life."
"Ah. You're not going to die here. You're going to come back with us. Willingly."
It seemed like they were going to try and break you down emotionally first, you knew it was going to happen either way, but you was still unprepared. He was ready to fight though, or else He wouldn't have made everybody wear those stupid helmets.
"I'd like to see you try." You gave them your best self, not backing down from what could have been an empty threat.
It wasn't.
"Remember the day you left us?" He started, you rolled your eyes in response, it seemed like too obvious of a start. "Did I ever show you what became of that man?"
"Let me think, no. Since I haven't seen you since." Sarcasm was always a good card to start with.
A hologram was brought into your view, the mans kind face, broken, in so many places. Physically, he would never had been the same again, but you guessed that didn't matter, he died. The hologram was nothing short of... weird. It showed you exactly what he had promised, the consequences of that poor mans kindness. He was skinned, you had never seen that before, but it wasn't enough to make you squirm; you had been trained to kill from a young age. The next part though, it was unnatural, even for your people. He was consumed, his bones made into weapons, his skin hung on the wall like a trophy. It wasn't right. None of this was right. But that wasn't the point right now.
"So... What? You show me a poorly made montage video and expect me to get back on that ship?" You shrugged, they had to do better than that. Honestly, you felt a little offended that they weren't trying enough, you considered just starting your plan now.
"How about your parents?" He snarled, whatever He had up His sleeve this time was His power move, you could tell. The way He dragged out the sentence, His smug look and the muffled laughter from the other 3,000 people- you were a small population- you readied yourself.
"What about them? They left me-"
"No." You were confused, but you continued.
"At the age of 5, because they didn't love-"
"No."
"Me. I was sent to-"
"No." You swore if He continued you was going to make His death even more painful than you had planned.
"The elders. I was trained to kill from the age of 5, to forget about my parents, and I killed random people for 10 years before you decided a different fate for me."
"No-"
You snapped. Nobody tells you no that many times. How could your childhood be wrong? It was about time He knew who He was talking to. You let the dirt fly towards the first line of defence surrounding you, you had collected enough dirt in your waiting time for it to make an impact. The helmets protected their minds, they couldn't do anything about you throwing things at them.
"Quite the temper. Y/N."
"That's Goddess of the Mind to you, asshole."
He scoffed, "Goddess? You're delusional, child."
"How about you take that helmet off and we find out?" You were angry, and you were ready.
"Not until I've shown you what you missed."
5 years old. Unaware. Innocent. Loved. Your family? Right beside you, always. They were hardworking and they were happy, and so were you. They were aware you had powers, they let you practise in the house, but they feared the 'bad people' would take you away if you practised outside. In the end, it didn't matter. You was taken away from them anyway. Taken. The first and the second 'No' answered. They loved you very much, they tried to fight for you but it was you who told them not to. You didn't want them to die because of you. So you went willingly. 'No' number 3, solved. Upon arrival to the elders, they gave you a drink and sat you down, told you to sip every time they told you a new piece of information. 'Your parents never loved you.' Sip. 'You weren't worthy enough for love.' Sip. 'You were never able to use your powers until now.' Sip. 'Don't think about your parents.' Sip. 'You are a weapon.' Sip. 'You are made to kill.' Sip. 'You will kill.' Sip. You were out of liquid, but they had given you enough to get you started. Your first order, to kill the two people they had pushed into the room. The people were not struggling, despite being blindfolded and gagged. Looking back, they seemed familiar, but at the time, you had no idea. It didn't seem like you, to kill, after seeing your childhood, you knew what was coming but you still hoped you didn't do it. The elders talked you through how to use your powers to kill them as you went along, and as you watched, helpless and unable to turn back the time, you realise who those faces were behind the masks. And you watch yourself kill them. 'No' number 4, you didn't just kill random people.
He was right to leave that part for last, it broke you, but it wasn't like it showed on your face. You let out a faint 'No.' and reset your face back to neutral, you still had a war to win. Your face was back in the game, but your body failed you. It was tired, it was weak, it hadn't had sleep for so long- it stayed up all the time wondering what could have been of your childhood, and it turned out that you was the one who ruined your own life. Your knees were buckling, but you remained enough strength to ease yourself down to your knees.
"Alright, enough fun. Get her." He gestured, and they ran towards you. Your whole community wanting you to be punished. Hadn't you suffered enough? Apparently not. It didn't matter though, you killed your parents, you killed the man who tried to save you, you deserved this. That, and they played right into your hand.
See, the dirt was a distraction, so you could set up your present from Shuri on the ground with plenty of time to spare. You just had to wait for all 3000 of them to get into range, which they did, as soon as you seemed weak. So all you had to do was press a button in 3...2..
One.
You pressed the button and shot back up to your feet, seeing the lights malfunction on their ridiculous helmets, without them even realising. It was time to put that trained killing to use. You knew that killing them all at once would might leave you too weak to fight Him afterwards.
500 people at a time seemed reasonable, after all, they had formed circles around you, with around that many in each row. It's almost like you knew what they were going to do. Almost like you had been keeping an eye on them for days.
In total, you only had to physically fight around 10 of your people, whilst He just watched. The others didn't get close enough before you started shutting down their brain function. One of your most ruthless powers. Luckily, the people you fought were still using the same fight style that you had witnessed before you had left the planet, it was pretty easy for you so far.
He let you have a moment after you had killed them all, presumably to show you that you were born a killer. That everything the elders said was true. He wanted you to mentally torture yourself and you knew it. But as you looked around, you saw people who had fought for him, that weren't even old enough to have seen your torture on that land. They were just fighting because they were told to, and from your experience of your home, they probably didn't have much choice in the matter. You felt a tremendous amount of guilt. Not just about those, but the man who saved you, your parents, the other people you killed- probably other innocent people.
It wasn't their fight to lose.
"If you're not going to come willingly, I'll just have to get you myself." He sighed, revealing His speer. The speer. It had been sharpened especially for that moment, you could tell. He took his helmet off, he knew there was no use for it. Of course, it now meant you were definitely going to get in a few head shots in this fight.
You let him come to you, you were in no rush, and apparently neither was he, since he took his sweet time walking over to you.
"You know, this wasn't how I planned for it to happen. But I'm glad I get to drag you back." When He was only a few feet away, He started to talk again, to your displeasure. He knew those people you had just killed, and He cared less than you did. It made you sick that He had this fake authority and He abused he had abused it for over a century.
"Shut up." You spat. You was sick of Him. And you were terrified. You stared at the speer, knowing its history, and hoping it never came near you again.
"Very well-" He started.
"Hey! Guys! The ones that aren't dead. Can you help me? I'm lost." You hear a voice, you knew that voice, and you really didn't need this right now.
"Oh don't worry, I know the way out." Another voice shouted, from another direction. You wanted to confirm your suspicions but you had to focus.
"Are you sure? You're the reason we're lost in the first place!" Another shouted. You had to admit, it was a good distraction.
"You guys, I think its that way." The fourth yelled. This was getting ridiculous, and it was really unnecessary.
It's only at that moment where you hear the Quinjet lower behind you, probably trying to get a clean shot on Him. That's not how it was going down. It wasn't their fight, you didn't want anybody to get hurt.
He had figured you knew who the people were. "Very clever." He laughed, everything He said was patronising.
"Oh, then you're going to love this move." You drop to the ground and grab your contraption, and flip the switch. It encompasses you and Him inside, leaving the Avengers on the outside. Whilst he watched the barricade form, you took a quick peek around. Sam. Loki. Nat. Bucky. Bruce and Clint in the Quinjet. More specifically, Bruce in the Quinjet, Clint perched on top to get a good shot. You heard the protests from outside the barricade, but you had asked Shuri to reverse her technology, so they could see in, but you couldn't see out. "Okay. It's you and me. No powers. Keep your stick if you need it that badly."
Playing your game, He tossed the speer to the side and prepared himself for a fist fight.
On paper, you was definitely going to lose this fight. He was taller, stronger, more muscular, could reach further and you was certain he had a dagger in his belt. You never was one for statistics, you was going to win this fight. Why? He made you believe you were made to kill, and for 5 minutes, you were going to allow yourself to believe it.
You knew not to hit first, so you waited for Him to take the lead. A wild swing, you ducked, retaliating with a left hook of your own, followed by a roundhouse kick. Not enough to knock His balance, but enough for Him to realise that it wasn't going to be easy.
It was a pretty even fight, he hit harder than you did, but you had gotten more hits in. Neither of you showed signs of slowing down any time soon. You were leading him away from the speer with every hit. With another hit, and a dropkick to the legs, he finally fell to the floor. That's the thing with tall people, their legs betray them so easily.
"Wooo! Go Y/N!" You hear from outside, Clint. You could help but lose focus and laugh, it was so unexpected.
You were also not expecting Him to throw you from one side of the barricade to the other, but that was the price you paid for the distraction. The barricade stung like hell, anything more than a slight touch on it would surely kill someone, or at least seriously injure. You laughed.
Correction, you howled.
Dragging your momentarily-burned body off of the floor, you could control yourself. It much have been seriously unnerving for Him. He didn't move, He just watched you. You had to drag it out though, you continued, on all fours, giving your laugh all you had, sitting back on your knees. You had near enough healed again. You don't know why He waited until you had, but he charged after you afterwards. You were still cackling.
He was aiming for a kick to the head, by the looks of it. He never got close enough though. You grabbed the speer with both hands and forced it into His gut, running Him to the other side of the barricade. He was slowly burning, with no way to turn. And it felt so right. He had to die that way. That speer. That feeling of having nowhere to go. As He cried out, you screamed at Him, drowning His sorrow with your own emotional pain. You didn't know if you felt relieved or if you were left with more baggage, you just didn't know. But you were tired, and as He stopped His screaming, you knew there was no more running anymore. So you stopped your screaming too.
You could finally rest.
"I think he's a little on the burnt side." Sam broke the silence after a couple minutes of you keeping Him pinned up against the barricade, you had to make sure He was truly dead. You let him drop as Sam spoke, speer first.
"You're right." You say, trying to turn so you were facing Sam, but struggling. "Forgive me?"
"It depends. Do I have to clean this up?" He joked, which you took as an accepted apology.
Walking towards the contraption, you continue talking, trying to will yourself to stay awake. "You know, this wasn't your fight guys. You didn't have to do that."
"We wanted to. I- uh-" You listened to Bucky stammer whilst turning the device off. "We like having you around." He finally said as you looked him in the eye. And it lifted a weight from your shoulders, knowing that the Avengers wanted you to stay with them, knowing that the Avengers weren't made at you for not telling them the whole truth, knowing that you were going to get to know the Avengers more, spending late nights talking to the Avengers...
Yeah. The Avengers. All of them.
You mind was drifting, you hadn't moved since turning the machine off.
"Hey, you all go ahead, I think I'm going to-" You lay down and get as comfortable as you can on the ground. It had been 1585 years, you weren't going to complain about the location you had to sleep in.
