a/n: omg time to fight for real now, let's goooo
Natasha dries her tears in the minutes it takes to catch up to the rest of her team outside. She weaves through the ranks of Wakandan warriors and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to finally reach Steve and the others, all quieter than usual given the level of threat at hand.
The moment she joins their group, Steve looks to her with sympathy, having an idea of her conversation with Maggie before coming. She just sighs and shakes her head.
Overhead, Rhodey flies around the perimeter of the force field. His voice sparks to life in Natasha's ear. "I got two heat signatures breaking through the tree line. Straight ahead of you guys."
Natasha has a guess as to who they could be. She looks over their group, taking stock of everyone. Steve. Clint. Bucky. T'Challa. Sam and Rhodey overhead. Bruce, soon-to-be the Hulk. The absence of Tony, Thor, and Peter. Okoye stands with the rest of the Wakandans, ready to move upon T'Challa's order. In the S.H.I.E.L.D. group, she quickly spots Daisy, Fury, and Hill.
Suddenly, a portal opens up a few feet from them, and out walks Strange's friend Wong, with a sizable group of other…wizards. (Natasha is still not sure what they technically are.)
"Thanks for coming on such short notice," Steve says as Wong approaches.
Wong nods. "Now that the Time Stone is compromised, we cannot let them get this one."
Natasha nods her thanks, then turns back to Steve and the others. "So, what's the play?"
Natasha, Steve, and T'Challa approach the heat signatures Rhodey pointed out on the other side of the barrier. Sure enough, as they get close, Natasha recognizes the duo from their encounter yesterday, though both have healed up. The invisible wall still stands between them, thankfully, allowing the three of them to stop just before the two aliens.
"Come back so soon?" Natasha asks.
"Thanos will have that stone," Proxima says.
"That's not gonna happen," Steve says.
"Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood," T'Challa adds.
Proxima looks at them almost thoughtfully, with a snarl, as she draws her sword. "We have blood to spare."
She lifts her sword with a cry, then says no more.
The three of them return to their small army, unsettled.
"Did they surrender?" Bucky asks dryly.
"Not exactly," Steve says.
T'Challa starts to lead his forces in a battle chant, rallying everyone's spirits. In the distance, Natasha can make out…something approaching from the ships.
More like countless somethings swarming toward the force field like insects.
"What the hell," Clint mutters from beside Natasha.
"Looks like we pissed her off," Natasha says.
As the black alien creatures reach the force field, Natasha realizes her mental bug comparison is not too far off. The aliens mindlessly and recklessly claw at the barrier, trying to force their way through. They tear gaps in the force field just long enough for their limbs to break through, though they're then severed by the barrier closing itself. Some even manage to break their entire torsos through, only to then be cut in half.
"They're killing themselves," Okoye says, horrified.
Because of their sheer numbers, some of the creatures do start to fully break through, charging at their group. T'Challa signals to the members of the Border Tribe with him to put up their shields and start shooting at them. Bucky and Clint follow T'Challa's lead as well, firing their own weapons. Sam and Rhodey try to shoot at the aliens from overhead.
"You seeing the teeth on those things?" The uncertainty in Sam's voice fills Natasha's ears.
She watches Rhodey fly toward edge of the force field, passing Sam. "Alright, back up, Sam. You're gonna get your wings singed."
Sam flies back toward their group while Rhodey drops mines on the swarms of aliens breaking through the force field, blowing many of them up. But Natasha's eyes follow a large portion of the aliens running around the force field to try entering from another point.
Bruce, already looking a little green, moves to stand by Steve. "Cap, if these things circle the perimeter and get in behind us…there's nothing between them and Vision."
He has a point. Natasha and Steve share an uncertain look.
"Then we better keep 'em in front of us," Steve says.
"How do we do that?" Okoye asks.
T'Challa looks to Steve, who nods grimly.
"We have to open the barrier," Steve says.
He looks to Natasha again. This is it. She knows they have no other choice at this point. She thinks of Maggie in the bunker with the others, considering the very real possibility that she and Steve will die today. But they must do this for Maggie's sake, for the sake of their entire planet—no, universe, at this point.
Natasha presses the comms link in her ears. "Coulson?"
In the bunker, Maggie stares at the security feeds with Pepper and May on either side of her. Behind them, Coulson's been listening to everything the Avengers have said through his comms, in case they need him from afar.
"Tasha—you want me to what?"
They all turn to Coulson at the surprise in his tone. He walks toward another keypad on the wall. Maggie looks between him and the aliens breaking through the force field on the screen.
"Open the barrier?"
"What?" Pepper looks to Coulson. "That's suicide!"
Maggie's breath catches. She turns to May, who appears just as flabbergasted as both Pepper and Coulson.
"On my signal," Natasha says, looking at Steve. The same fire to fight, to protect, in her soul is reflected in his eyes—yet, at the same time, so is the same sorrow of knowing the likely outcome of this fight.
"Avengers!" Steve calls out.
"Wakanda forever!" T'Challa yells as he takes off, the other Wakandans following him. Steve matches T'Challa's pace as both race toward the barrier.
Natasha follows, pushing that sorrow to the back of her mind.
"Now!"
Coulson swears under his breath, but types the necessary command into the keypad. A single section of the barrier opens onscreen, acting as a funnel for the aliens swarming outside the force field. They push through the narrow entrance in droves, running straight for the Avengers and the others.
Within minutes, all hell has broken loose. Natasha quickly loses sight of Steve and T'Challa. She finds herself near the Hulk, who struggles to keep up with the number of aliens throwing themselves at him. Natasha hurries to Hulk's side, shooting and batting away as many of the aliens as she can. He grunts in what she interprets to be gratitude.
"How much longer, Shuri?" T'Challa's voice blares in her ear.
"We're still working, brother!" comes Shuri's reply.
Natasha can hear the impatient-sibling-tone in T'Challa's voice. "You might want to pick up the pace!"
Suddenly, Hulk yells out in pain behind her. She turns and finds him disappearing under a swarming pile of black. She can't even stop fighting off the aliens coming at her long enough to help him.
"Guys, we're being overrun over here!" she yells into her comms. From the brief glimpses she catches of others on the battlefield, though, everyone else appears to be in the same predicament; there's no way they can make it over to them to help. Even if winning was always going to be a long shot, she had at least hoped they'd last a little longer than this. Vision and Shuri need all the time they can get.
Thinking of them in the lab, she cranks up the power on her batons as high as they'll go, forgoing technique for just swinging around blindly. There's no strategy here. There's only hitting as many aliens as quickly as possible. Within minutes, her arms are burning, but she's no closer to helping the Hulk than she was before.
Suddenly, the ground shakes as a large beam of light strikes it, knocking several aliens back. Once she recognizes the rainbow hue of the light, she nearly cries in relief.
An axe, bursting with electricity, flies out from the light, ripping through crowds of aliens. Natasha ducks as it sails just over her head and over the Hulk, throwing back most of the aliens swarming them. When she stands back up at full height, she spots Thor at the center of the light, catching the axe. With him is…
"Is that the Guardians?" she asks in disbelief. Beside her, Hulk stands up with a perplexed grunt.
As the light fades, she realizes it's only Groot and Rocket, who's perched upon Thor's shoulder with one of his usual large guns. The Hulk roars in triumph, beating his chest. Natasha can practically hear Bruce's own elation at Thor's arrival in Hulk's voice.
"Bring me Thanos!" Thor bellows, charging into the crowd of aliens. Rocket jumps to Groot's shoulder and starts blasting anyone who comes near them.
Natasha turns back to the Hulk. "Hulk, let's go with them!"
He roars again, following her toward Thor and the others.
Steve, fighting alongside Bucky, somehow encounters Thor and his crew. Rocket descends from Groot's shoulder to shoot at the aliens from the ground.
"Come and get some, space dogs!" he barks out in that same, harsh voice Steve remembers from their last encounter with the Guardians years ago.
Rocket blasts any aliens who come near him. Bucky, also shooting his way through the aliens, ends up next to Rocket. Steve can practically see the gears turning in Bucky's head in the moment he sees Rocket, so it's no surprise when Bucky picks Rocket up and spins around, maximizing their shots.
"Come on, get some, get some!" Rocket continues yelling. "Come on, get some!"
Once they have enough space for a breather, Bucky lets Rocket go, who looks up at him with a glint in his eye. "Hey, it's you again, metal arm man," Rocket says. "How much for the gun?"
"Not for sale," Bucky says.
"Okay, how much for the arm?"
"Yeah, I'm not doing this again, raccoon." Bucky shakes his head and stalks off, shooting at more aliens.
"Oh, I'll get that arm," Rocket announces as he jumps back onto Groot's shoulder.
"Classic Rabbit," Thor comments, throwing his axe into the crowd again.
Now that Thor's close, Steve finally looks him up and down. "New haircut? And no Mjolnir?"
Thor just laughs as he catches his axe. "This is Stormbreaker. A lot has changed since we last spoke."
Steve nods. "I'm sorry about Asgard."
Before Thor can reply, they're swarmed with aliens again, forcing them back into the fray.
A tense silence fills the bunker.
The security feeds don't have audio, so the only sound is the occasional rumble of the base above them. Because the fight is so far out from the base, it's hard to make out the details of the mix of aliens and humans. She at least could make out Thor's arrival, judging by the beam of rainbow light, which gave her renewed hope for the battle.
Shuri is still hard at work in the lab, Wanda pacing the room impatiently.
Finally, Maggie can't take the silence anymore. "Is Shuri almost done yet?"
Nobody answers. The tension of their uncertainty rolls off them in waves.
The bunker rumbles again, more roughly than before. Maggie squints at the screens displaying the fields around the base, and notices huge, spiked wheels rolling in through the gap in the barrier. They remind her of something she'd dodge in a Mario game.
They roll rapidly toward the fighting crowds.
"Wait, is Wanda—"
At Pepper's words, they stop to look at the lab again and, sure enough, Wanda's rushing out of the lab and flying herself into the heat of the battle.
"Shit," Coulson suddenly says. "It's a diversion."
He points to one of the feeds just outside the base, where one of the more humanoid aliens is breaking in. Maggie holds onto May a little more tightly.
"Hey, one of the aliens is breaching the base!" Coulson says into his comms. "We need someone here now!"
"He can't get down here, right?" Maggie asks.
"No," May says. "He can't."
"But Shuri is up there," Pepper says.
The adults share a look over Maggie's head as the alien breaks through the door on the security feed. Luckily, he's entering from the side of the base opposite the lab, but it won't take him long to find it.
"They're being overrun out there," Coulson says after a few moments, which Maggie interprets as no one can come help.
"I'll go," May says immediately, standing from her seat.
"I…can also go," Pepper says, hesitant, but stands anyway. She reveals the small arc reactor-like device Tony had designed for her under her jacket. "As Rescue."
Maggie watches Wanda rip one of the huge wheels apart with her magic on the feed, saving several people—one of whom Maggie is certain is Natasha, judging by the color of the blob Maggie assumes to be hair. She thinks of what her parents would do in this situation, and a strange calm washes over her. Maybe it's adrenaline, or simply wanting to get away from these screens where she can't do anything but watch her family fight. If there's a way she can actually help them...
She stands. "I wanna help Shuri, too."
Cue the immediate chorus of "no"s.
"You and Coulson stay down here," May says. "And Pepper, too. I'll take care of it."
"No, I'm going." Pepper stands firm. "I need to do this. For Tony."
"Uncle Phil and I can't just sit here and watch," Maggie says, turning away from the screens and looking to Coulson for help. "I'll stay out of the way, I'll listen, I swear. Please, just let me help."
Coulson looks over the three of them thoughtfully. "Okay."
a/n: y'all...the falcon and the winter soldier...is so gay...sambucky canon WHEN