A/N: Decided to treat you. Here comes the second-to-last chapter, and I'm telling you there will be some sort of epilogue, and...a chapter just for you! You'll see it later today, if fortunate. Love you all!

37. Memories won't last

Liana's POV

"I said punch, I didn't say send me across the room!"

I snapped my head off my current thoughts, all, of course, directed at Loki, and watched as Clint got up from the floor and walked back towards me.

Around us, most S.H.I.E.L.D agents started clearing their throats. He glared at them and then at me. "What's on your mind, today, Li?"

I sighed and rubbed my hands. "It's been 12 days, Clint."

He sighed as well and took his towel at my feet. "You miss him. That's only natural. But he said he'd come back, and as much as I hate the idea, I think he will."

I nodded and then kicked my leg in the air, only for it to be caught in mid-air and thrown aside. Clint smirked at my attempt, and we resumed our cordial fight.

"Oi, Moonlight!" Clint's hand stopped inches from my face, and I kissed his knuckles as a joke. He smiled and we both turned to see Tony, in a bloody expensive suit, his sunglasses on – inside of a flying aircraft carrier, should I remind you – and a file in his hands.

"Tony. What a pleasure."

He looked at me above his glasses. "That was a bad attempt at being sarcastic, my dear. I just ran into our lovely boss, and it appears we have a case." He handed Clint the file, and he swiftly opened it, revealing a photograph of Justin Hammer, and another man, looking weirdly familiar. I remembered seeing his face at Tony's.

"Vanko? But, you killed him, didn't you?"

That's it. Anton Vanko. Whiplash. I had seen an article about him on Tony's lab's wall about a week before.

"Unfortunately, it seems that dear Justin didn't tell us everything. Vanko did blow his suit up, but he didn't die. He lost both his arms and his right leg in the process, poor lad, but the rest of his body was just fine. So, naturally, Hammer Industries did its best to bring him back to a walking state. He's a little like Frankenstein, apparently."

I looked up the file into Tony's black eyes. "And how have you known?"

"Hammer's a bitch. He likes to make me think he's more intelligent than me. He boasted about it, actually. Not really clever, for an inventor." He caught his glasses and started waving them in the air. "Anyway, Fury needs us to find him. As we know, he could very well be more dangerous now that he's not...entirely...himself."

"And he wants me as well?" I couldn't hide my surprise.

"Yep, Steel. You're in. Though I really doubt I'll need backup. I killed him once, I can kill him twice."

"Except that last time, you had Rhodes."

Tony glared at Clint. "Yeah, whatever."

I chuckled and stole Clint's towel. "Come on, boys, we need to suit up."

A distraction wouldn't be enough.

o°o°o°o°o°

Kitty's POV

"Are you sure you can help me pass?"

I smiled at Liana's fear to get through a wall. Bobby had been the same, last time. I nodded. "Of course I can. I did it numerous times, you know."

Fury looked at us weirdly. "Are you sure, Agent Moon, that you won't freak out once in place? We desperately need someone inside the bunker to hack the security and open the doors."

She glared at him. "I don't remember if I liked you before, but I definitely don't like you now." He sighed and rolled his eye. "Yes, I am sure, Colonel." She nearly spat the word.

It sounded just like Loki.

"Then here you go. Stark and Rogers, you'll be the first to enter. Banner and Thor, usual backup, Romanoff and Barton, exit."

Usual pattern. I wondered if Liana remembered the day she...no, of course she didn't. But it had been just the same pattern as that day.

We soon were off. Liana looked lost in her thoughts as she gathered her usual knives and guns. Ever since Loki and Sif had left, she had seemed absent. But yet again, she hadn't had any news.

"Kitty, will you take anything?"

I looked at Steve, who was handing me a gun. I looked at it with disgust, and shook my head. "No, thank you Steve. I'd prefer not."

I stared into his blue eyes, and he seemed concerned. That was a first. My heart twinged in my chest, but I ignored it. He was just concerned about a member of his team, not me in particular.

"It's okay, Cap, I'll watch over her. And apparently I can bring her back if she dies, so..."

Steve grimaced but nodded nevertheless.

Liana smirked at me once I had turned around.

I raised an eyebrow.

"I shouldn't say, but it seems, my dear, that you've finally hit the cord." The last part of her whisper was swallowed as the plane got down and down, and I knew that was it.

Tony opened the back door of the plane. A strong wind invaded the cockpit. "Ladies first."

Liana grabbed a parachute, but I shook my head and outstretched a hand. "We don't need it."

Stark grimaced and shivered. "And I warn you, it isn't agreeable."

Liana shrugged and took my hand, gripping it tight as we walked towards the edge and jumped into the air.

I had to really concentrate to land correctly.

o°o°o°o°o°

Liana's POV

I shivered many times to shrug the feeling off me. "Gosh, that's just...disturbing!"

Kitty looked at me. "Sorry. I thought it more discreet if we weren't landing with parachutes."

I nodded at the logic. "Come on, we have to open those blasted doors before the others get in."

She nodded and we walked towards the emerged part of the bunker. Two doors just like a cellar's, and a wall fifty inches tall, just enough for us to crawl into the bunker. I watched the map and directed ourselves towards the wall just above the control room.

I sat on the ground and put my feet against the wall. Beside me, Kitty did the same. I took my gun in my right hand and offered the left to her.

She took it, and as soon as she did, I felt my body cells melting, and my feet got into the wall as if it had been water.

I closed my eyes, and a second later, I was falling two meters high in a square and big room.

Crowded with armed men. No, not men. Drones.

I pushed Kitty behind a desk and pushed my earplug as I started shooting at them, in vain of course. "Guys? We might have a problem here. The security panel isn't really human."

"Drones, again? God, Vanko will never learn." I heard Tony swear. "Guns useless, darling. I'm afraid you'll have to take them down with your dear daggers. Aim for the head, and disconnect them from the rest of the body. The gas compartment on the right chest could be another good option."

I nodded into thin air and gestured to Kitty to stay where she was no matter what.

And then I launched myself onto a desk and jumped onto the first drone's neck.

Gosh that was better than killing real people.

Okay, the drones' blood wasn't really better on my hands than real one, but I still could look at me in a mirror.

Three of them decided to aim for me at the same time. No need to punch.

I grabbed one of the dead's arm and shot its kind right in the head. That slowed it down, and my knife did the rest.

I cringed in pain when the second one's blast touched me squared in the chest, but fortunately for me I healed pretty fast. But that still had hurt.

Once I only had to kill four of them, I drove them towards a far corner of the room and gestured Kitty to go and open the doors. She ran across the room and punched the button with her fist, hiding under the desk as she was done.

Another drone down. One arm cut deep. Another head flying down. My thigh cracked.

The door opened and an arrow came lodging itself in the last drone's neck, breaking the connection.

I turned to Clint, my blood oozing from several wounds. "What was that for?"

He shrugged, an irresistible smirk on his lips. "Just wanted to have fun. Come on, I'll drive you both to the jet."

Kitty ran to us and supported me until my thigh was okay. She was covered in oil. "Sorry, darling. I'm afraid we'll smell during a month."

She smiled. "That's okay. And, if I can say, you look really frightening when you're angry."

I smiled proudly. "That's a beautiful compliment, darling girl."

And Clint blasted one or two drones who came behind us. The alarm had been given.

o°o°o°o°o°

"You look horrible."

I turned around and saw Bruce walking towards me. I looked down at myself. My right arm was covered in dried blood, as was part of my left leg, and the rest of me was just covered in either oil or some sort of yellow gluish thing. I smelled bad as well.

I smirked at him, mocking his appearance as he had obviously just turned back from Hulk, and came to hug him tight, giving him some of my stink. "Bruce, my dear Bruce. You'll never learn."

Tony arrived at that moment, and grimaced when he saw both of us. Bruce was chuckling, and that was a agreeable sound. "Oh, for Heaven's sake, Li, don't come near me in that state!"

I rolled my eyes playfully, and was about to hug him as well when a bucket of real cold water was emptied on my head.

I turned on my heels. "Thor..."

"Sorry, Liana, but...the smell really is terrible."

And our whole group started laughing hard.

o°o°o°o°o°

I got out of my quarters' bathroom after each and every inch of my body was free of oil, smell or blood. It had taken some time, but I was then as clean as a polished mirror.

I got into my bedroom, a towel wrapped around my waist, and quickly put a shirt on. When I was about to put my pyjama's pants as well, two soft knocks echoed on the door.

I walked to it, my still wet hair stinging on my back.

I opened the door and saw no one.

Startled, I gazed into the corridor but no one was there either.

It's only when I closed the door that I realised the air had become chillier.

I smiled widely before turning around.

Loki was there. Standing before me, not wearing his Asgardian outfit, but a tight dark blue jeans and a dark green shirt.

I bit my lip before running into his open arms, kissing every inch of his skin I could reach.

"I missed you, silly."

He breathed me in and drove me to my bed. "And I you, my love."

And he put his lips on mine.

I forgot everything that happened after that.

:) I like moments like this.

I thought it good to make one last "action chapter" before the end. So that Liana wouldn't have waited for Loki to come back just by punching into Clint's chiselled face. If you get my meaning... :p

Review, please!