Author's Note: The final chapter, and only, like eight hundred months after I started this little fic. Seriously, this holds barely a match to some of the epic-length fanfics on this site, and I could barely get more than one up. So to those of you who write novels of fic, I salute you. Also, I would just like to once again thank those of you who favorited/commented/followed this story. Cheers!

Chapter 14: Gonna Spread You Like...

It was a strange feeling for Natasha, a woman who had defected from a generally overzealous-in-its-pride country, to want to lash out at someone for attacking her home base. Patriotic had never been a word that she would have checked off of a personality quiz, and yet here she was, watching over her partner, thinking of how she could contribute to shoving some sort of vengeance up Loki's ass.

"Do you know what it's like to be unmade?"

She could have scoffed at his question, and he could have, too, if he were completely himself. Every major turning point in her life had been a kind of 180, and it was not always entirely voluntary. She could be the poster child for being unmade, made, and repurposed. But he had been hit on the head, so she let it go. Besides, she was more happy to have her partner back than wounded by his borderline thoughtless question; they hadn't been partners this long without her occasional oversight of his tendency to be a grade-A idiot at times.

"We have to do something," she said; it had been a repeating track in her mind, and she had finally said it out loud because, well, they had to do something.

"Who?"

"I don't know. Whoever's left."

"Well, I suppose if I put an arrow in Loki's eye, I might sleep a little better."

"Now you sound like you."

"But you don't. You're a spy, not a soldier. And now you want to...wade into a war. Why? What did Loki do to you?"

"Nothing. I just..."

Maybe it was Loki, but maybe it wasn't. Loki took Barton, sure, but the seeds for her new-found sense of responsibility had been planted long before she had ever thought to freshen up her knowledge of Norse mythology.

"I've got red in my ledger."

And there it was – again – her self-imposed debt to society. She had joined SHIELD in this same line of reasoning, had gone about her job with a singular focus, and she had made minimal changes. Here was a chance for her to seriously step in and save the day; how could she let that chance go? Here was a huge payment toward the principal of her debt.

So when Cap came back and told them to suit up, she was ready. Or, at least, she thought she was.

On the ground in New York, a slough of dead aliens around her, charred remains of cars, and the distant echoes of people screaming, she felt painfully human. Her body kept reminding her of that, and watching Tony in his incredible suit of armor, or the God of Thunder, or even the super soldier, made her wonder why in the hell she was even there. Maybe her debt would only be paid with her life.

"None of this is going to mean anything if we don't close that portal," she breathed. None of my debt will be paid if we don't succeed here.

And, okay, maybe jumping onto one of those...things...hadn't been the best option, but desperate times and all that. Besides, it seemed infinitely safer compared to some of the old equipment that the Russians had had her use; seriously, a Katusha rocket launcher had been inaccurate in World War II, so why would they have her using it in the 80's or 90's? And maybe it was a bonus that she had left Barton just a little bit speechless.

"The Tesseract can't defend against itself," Dr. Selvig had said, and she thought that it all sounded too good to be true. It couldn't be that easy; nothing was that easy.

But anything was better than giving up, so she found herself clinging to the wall of Stark tower, climbing down to where Loki's scepter had fallen. When it was finally in her hands, she almost started shaking; doubts plagued her, and she was surprised to find herself praying that it would work. We have at least one god on our side, maybe that will buy us some sympathy.

The climb back up was both desperate and exhilarating, and she threw herself onto the top of the roof with a breathy chuckle. She was half mad, she felt sure, and she was desperate, which was a position she rarely found herself in. She rolled onto her hands and knees, pushed herself up, and half-carried, half-dragged the – what was it Tony called it? - Glow Stick of Destiny to the pulsing orb of whatever the hell Selvig had created.

She closed her eyes when she tried it the first time, convinced that it would either blow her up or just not work, and she wasn't sure which outcome was worse. She pushed, and she felt the energy field fight back, then give, like pushing through a magnetic field. She opened one eye to peak, and when she was convinced it was working, she opened them both.

"I think I can close the portal. Can anyone copy?"

Natasha was surprised how small her voice sounded. She was still shaking, and Tony's news about the nuke hurtling toward New York City did little to calm her. She watched, alone and yet somehow with the other Avengers, as Tony carried the bomb up toward the portal. She was praying again; he disappeared.

She held her breath, and despite herself, she felt a deep sorrow when he didn't reemerge at once. Her teammate's voice shouting to close down the portal jerked from her reverie. She hesitated – what about Tony? But her debt won out. It always did. She pushed against the energy field again, driving the end of the scepter into the heart of Selvig's contraption. And if her life flashed before her eyes in that moment, she would never admit it.

It wasn't until later, when the group was in the crumbling remains of the restaurant, being served by people whose entire lives had probably just been overturned, that she felt some of the weight lift away. She wanted to hug all of them, thank them for helping her on her quest to redemption, but she wasn't that kind of person, and she wasn't entirely sure any of them were physically capable of hugging or being hugged. Maybe Thor. Maybe.

She still felt human, but she also knew that she had earned her place at the table. She had earned her title, the right to call herself an Avenger.