Chapter 25:
When Natasha first set eyes upon the demigod she barely recognized him. The sudden onset of such total power had perverted the man that had once been.
Loki's hair was wild, his complexion pallid. He had lost weight, stretching the skin of his already thin frame even tighter over his skeletal figure. The clothes he was dressed in were reminiscent of those he had worn in Asgard, though they were now jet-black and adorned with heavy gold medallions and decorations.
His eyes though, were what were truly frightening about him, enough so to cause the group of heroes to take a step back. No longer even vaguely resembling those of his brother or a human, they were now just two electric blue orbs that crackled with energy in his skull, matching the unearthly glow of the Tesseract that had once caused so many problems.
"Holy shit," she heard Tony mumble over the SHIELD comm.
She privately agreed.
"Brother!" Thor called out, "You have caused great pain here, I beg you give up the throne and end this madness!"
"I have brought this planet to its finest hour!" Loki said, his voice louder and more terrifying than it had ever been before, "YOU are the only things foolish enough to attempt to stop it! The world is mine to command and I have led it into glory! You, Thor and your Avengers," he stressed the word with obvious disdain, "Are traitors to the my rule, and must be executed!" He whirled his sceptre around sending bolts of blue energy at the team who scattered. Pieces of concrete vaporized in its wake leaving only smoking holes of melted tar behind.
"Loki!" Thor cried out stepping from behind Tony's satellite dish, "I beg of you, allow us to resolve this with peace!"
Loki's eyes seemed to flare up with even more furious energy as he sent five bursts of energy in quick succession at Thor in reply.
"Yeah I don't think diplomacy is going to decide this one," Tony said over the communicator before shooting up into the sky.
Loki's attention followed him momentarily allowing Steve time to hurl his shield at the villain. Loki spotted it at the last moment and ducked, though not quickly enough to prevent it from knocking the helm off his brow. "You'll pay for that!" he hissed at the captain, sending a blue lightning bolt shooting at him from the end of his sceptre. Natasha barely had time to knock Steve out of the way, feeling the power of his energy ruffle her hair as she hit the ground on top of him. Quickly, she rolled and drew her guns, firing both at Loki who threw up a bright blue shield that seemed to absorb them. From within it he shot another flurry of energy bolts at the team, hitting Tony in the leg even as he dodged the first two and taking out his propulser. For a long and horrible moment they were forced to watch as the suit shuddered and twisted in the sky, then was hit again by Loki, this time directly in the chest.
"No!" Steve cried out as Tony began to fall, disappearing below the edge of the rooftop. The Hulk gave a roar of fury and hurled himself after Tony, disappearing over the edge as well.
"Bruce!" Natasha screamed, as they heard a massive crash as something hit the ground below hard. People began to scream and ran out into the streets below trying to figure out what was going on.
Loki grinned and shot multiple bolts of energy out at the skyscrapers surrounding the Avengers' tower, breaking off huge pieces of brick and metal and raining them down upon the innocent people below.
"Clear the streets!" Steve was screaming into his communicator. Natasha didn't even know to whom. There was no response from the Hulk or Tony. "Thor!" He shouted, "Try to break those pieces up! Get the police, get someone to get them all underground!"
Thor took off heading for the biggest sections of debris and shooting lightning bolts at them to try and break them into smaller, less deadly pieces. They were still raining down on the crowd below though, some of them big enough to do damage.
"CLEAR THE STREETS!" Natasha was screaming into her communicator. The small minute it took her to do this, and the small break in the volley of bullets she was firing at Loki provided just the opportunity he had been waiting for.
With a cry of fury he sent a blast of energy flying at her, capitalizing on her distraction.
"Natasha!" Steve cried diving in front of her with his newly reclaimed shield. The metal stopped the blast, but drove them back towards the edge leaving her half hanging over a sixty story drop upside down, and clinging by her fingers to the concrete.
Reaching down Steve hauled her back up and turned to block another blast of Loki's magic.
On her feet again, she took a quick analysis of the situation and began yelling attack plans into the communicator. The shield held in front of them, they charged Loki, driving him backwards as Steve blocked the energy and she ducked under Loki's arms placing her too close for him to hit her with the blue magic. With a scream of fury she clapped her hands on the sides of Loki's face, delivering a double blast of the electric shock from the Widow's bite bracelets. He screamed in pain, reeling back from her.
Falling back, the pain from her aching body seemed to catch up with her as she felt a sharp stabbing sensation in her left side. Squinting against the pain she momentarily brought her hand to her abdomen in an attempt to stop the pain.
There was a loud cracking sound and Natasha looked up to her horror to see the captain's head go crashing into the pavement, his shield flying askew in the opposite direction.
Loki smiled malevolently and raised his sceptre as a spear to bring down on the Captain's exposed neck.
With a cry of rage, Natasha threw herself at him, knocking the demigod's aim awry so that the sharp point embedded itself into the concrete a few inches away from its intended target.
They fought back and forth, seemingly evenly matched in skill. Natasha gave herself completely over to her battle instincts, ducking, dodging and hopping over the sceptre and around Loki's blows. At one point she seemed to have the upper hand, having stolen the magic spear from the demigod, standing over him, ready to bring it down on his throat; but was foiled when he kicked her legs out from under her.
And so the fight went on, slowly but surely turning into a battle of wills. Natasha fought harder than she had ever done before, every fibre of her willpower pushing her to destroy the man who had been so instrumental in the hell that had been the past few weeks. Loki battled back just as manically, his eyes burning brighter with the blue electricity as he threw blow after blow at her, exerting his strength to the maximum, determined to cling on to his rule.
Below them a crowd was gathering, bystanders following the noises of the battle itself and of the medical team, which had presumably arrived to deal with Bruce and Tony, not to mention the number of civilians who had been injured by falling debris. As a war raged above them they pulled out camera phones and video recorders, sending their evidence to friends, with messages like "U got 2 get down here man!" Loki seemed to grow even more confident in front of his audience even as nature took its toll on Natasha's fatigued body. She had not slept properly in weeks, had been through tremendous pain to escape the prison, flown from San Francisco to New York City via Norse God of Thunder, and now was being assaulted by a demigod gone mad with power. Her stamina was fading fast, a fact that Loki certainly noticed. She didn't have a chance.
When her strength finally faltered he took full advantage of her slowing reflexes to cut her legs out from underneath her and send her sprawling to the edge of the building. Only at the last moment did she manage to find grip on a railing enough to stop herself from following her legs over the edge to her death.
Casually, the twisted god ambled to the edge where she clung on for her life, smirking down at her. "The itsy bitsy spider ran up the water spout," he sang mockingly, his voice completely devoid of any hint of mercy. He lifted up his boot over her hands. Her breath stopped. He was going to bring that foot down on her hands and it would be all over. She would be dead. She would never see Sofia again; never get to really know her daughter. She would never get to tease Tony, or watch old movies with Steve again. She would never be able to tell Clint how sorry she was.
Clint.
God she had made so many mistakes with him. She wished now that she could go back and start everything over again, right to the moment that he put that arrowhead in her shoulder, the arrowhead that she could now feel pressed hard against her thigh through the pocket she kept it in…
"Down came the rain and washed the spider out…" she saw his foot begin its journey down and closed her eyes, imagining her family and friends, all of them, and mentally apologizing to everyone of them. She waited for the inevitable sting and sensation of falling.
She waited…
Instead she felt a searing heat pass over her head and collide with something hard.
She opened her eyes in time to see Thor toss his brother like a rag doll to the pavement, his face a mask of fury. The sceptre went scuttling to the edge and dropped out of sight onto what remained of Tony's balcony. The god picked his brother back up and shook him hard. "Enough Loki!" he shouted. "You will not win this. Earth will never be yours! You will stop this now, and finally give up this poisonous dream! Look at what has become of you; you are now no more Asgardian or any other such honourable creature. End this now!" He gave the stunned looking villain another rough shake.
For a very brief moment Loki's eyes cleared. The blue electricity faded leaving only green. "Thor?" Loki gasped, "I…I can't make it stop…Thor it hurts…"
Thor's eyes widened and his grasp slackened slightly. "Brother we can find a way to—"
With a sudden twist Loki yanked his way out of Thor's grip, the blue electricity reclaiming his eyes again. He threw a hand out, smiling evilly as the sceptre returned to his hand just as Mjolnir did to his brother's. "You fools," hissed and raised his arm to send a deadly blast of magic at his brother, whose face bore and expression of utter confusion. "You can't best me! I am Loki! I rule this—"
There was a whistling sound that cut through the air. Loki stumbled backward, screaming in pain as the long shaft of an arrow embedded itself in his eye socket. He was still screaming when the arrowhead exploded.
"NO!" Thor roared, but it was too late. There was almost nothing at all left of the demigod, save for what lay scattered on the ground around them. The hulking god fell to his knees, clutching at the last remains of his adopted brother, wailing something in a language Natasha didn't understand but that clearly spoke of a profound mourning.
And in the midst of it all landed Clint and Tony, who hauled her up over the edge of the roof whereupon she lay gasping for breath surrounded by debris.
"My god Stark," she gasped after a moment, "You're okay."
"People keep trying to kill me in my own house," Tony said amiably, "You would think that they should realize that I've made that pretty much impossible. I'm a genius remember?"
Natasha laughed breathlessly. Tony Stark ladies and gentlemen, in all the modesty he was capable of.
She sat up, her muscles crying out in protest as she suddenly remembered something important. "Steve!" she cried out, "And Bruce! Where are they…are they okay?"
"Bruce is fine," Tony told her, "He crashed into Trump Tower, knocked himself out cold, and was picked up by SHIELD med. Last I heard good old Donald was having a hissy fit about the varnish on his floors being scratched. What a diva," Stark waved his hand dismissively.
Natasha couldn't resist the little giggle that slipped out because here was Tony Stark, accusing someone else of overly dramatic behaviour and wasn't that just rich?
Even he seemed to find it a little amusing, though the smirk faded quickly when he glanced over to where Steve was laying, still unconscious and surrounded by a SHIELD medical team and Clint, who was looking very pointedly away from where Natasha was. "Is…is the Captain alright?" Tony asked hesitantly, obviously trying to give off the vibe that he didn't really care. He was of course, failing miserably at that.
"Go and check on him," Natasha said quietly. "I'm sure you're the first person he'd want to see."
"I doubt that," Tony said quietly. Even though they were now all aware from Natasha's debriefing how exactly Loki had manipulated them, there were still a lot of things floating around that were no longer secrets. Things that changed everything from the way it was before. Even though Tony knew Steve hadn't actually broken up with him, and Steve knew that Tony and Bruce's "affair" had been made up using pictures stolen from Steve's missing phone (Tony had apparently left the photos as a "present" to the Captain, a gift that wasn't terribly successful given that Cap had no idea that his phone even took photos); things were awkward, to say the least.
"Tony Stark," Natasha said with a heavy sigh, "Go to him and sit there, and when he wakes up, kiss and make up."
"It's not that simple," Tony protested.
"Then simplify it genius," she retorted.
He looked as though he was going to argue for a moment, then stood up with a small smile on his lips and walked away towards the people trying to revive Steve. She knew that they would figure out a way to sort everything out.
She was less certain about herself.
Struggling to her feet, she walked across the battered rooftop towards Clint. He saw her coming and turned to face her. For a long moment they stood facing each other, neither one speaking.
Finally Natasha broke the silence. "Where is Sofia?"
"She's in a bunker with Fury, Hill, and Coulson. They took off when Loki took over and have been underground ever since."
"Where?" Natasha asked, "Did they put them in the Boston safe house?"
"No, they literally put them underground. As in, in a bunker we built a few years ago under the Russian Tea Room."
Natasha smiled a bit at the name. The silence resumed.
After a long moments Clint finally broke the silence. "Okay, so I have to know," he blurted out. "Is it true? Did you and Loki…" He trailed off unable to finish the sentence.
Shamefacedly, Natasha nodded.
"But you ended up in prison, and came back," Clint said. "So what the hell is that?"
Natasha thought for a moment. "I screwed up," she said. "I was compromised, and he took advantage of that. He used me, gained my trust and then stole my memories. It was like being a puppet…" she trailed off with a shudder.
"I know what that's like," Clint said quietly.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. And to her relief he seemed to understand how much.
After a moment she turned to him again. "So was it really as great as you imagined?" she asked, an old conversation coming to mind, "Putting the arrow through his eye?"
His mouth twitched. "It helped," he admitted, "Especially given…recent events."
"You always were the jealous type," she smiled.
"Deadly," he deadpanned. Both of them glanced over to the remains of Loki and both broke out into giggles.
"We are terrible people," Natasha laughed. "We shouldn't laugh."
"We killed people for a living," Clint pointed out. "I really don't think it makes a difference at this point."
They both lapsed into muffled hysterics again.
Natasha suddenly felt extraordinarily tired. It wasn't really surprising given the events of the last few weeks, but it hit her like a ton of bricks, her legs nearly giving out beneath her. Clint caught her against his strong arm, sending a little tingle up her spine. She looked at him and from this close angle of his face she could see a lot of things. She had always been able to read Clint Barton better than most. She recognized the crease that appeared in his forehead when he was stressed or angry, the laugh lines around his eyes and mouth. She could recognize the tiny scar on his forehead from when she'd had to clock him in the head to release him from Loki's spell. Right now was no different. As always she could read a lot of things in his face, though some of them were new.
She knew that he still loved her. He was upset, he was angry sure, but you don't just get rid of almost twenty years of love overnight. She was not forgiven. She still had a lot to answer for, but maybe, just maybe, they could find a way to work this out. It would not be the same, and she knew that. Trust had been broken. But maybe, she found herself thinking, maybe she could hope. Maybe they could find a way to move past this as a team.
We will never again live the way we used to be, she thought to herself, but maybe we could be better.
For the first time in a long while, she had hope. And it was with hope that she reached out her hand and took his, allowing him to lead her back into what was left of the Avengers' Tower.
THE END
Aaaaand it's over. Holy crap.
I feel like I've been writing this for so long it's insane! Thank you for all of you who read this, you get all the gold stars in my book. Thank you for your reviews and kind words, and for making me feel like maybe I don't suck so much at writing as I sometimes think.
I might consider writing like an, epilogue or companion one-shot about what happens to the rest of the characters. I am undecided though. Do any of you have opinions?