a/n: thank you kindly for reading and reviewing as always!
Natasha and the Hulk finally make it to Thor and Steve after ten more grueling minutes of fighting. Thor holds up his new axe for her to behold.
"This is Stormbreaker," he says with his usual grin, despite the hell on Earth they're currently trapped in.
"Cool," she says, whacking away at more aliens with Thor. "Nice hair."
Steve moves to fight beside her. "Coulson said the lab is compromised. Where's Wanda?"
Natasha scans the battlefield. "I just saw her, she said she was going—"
She stops as she catches sight of Wanda tearing another one of the large spike wheels apart several yards away. While she's focusing on the wheel, the blue-haired alien from before—Proxima—sneaks up on her from behind.
"Shit. Wanda!" Natasha ditches Steve and Thor to hurry toward Wanda.
A group of aliens tries to block her, but Stormbreaker knocks them back like bowling pins. She turns back toward Thor and Steve just long enough to nod her thanks. Hulk suddenly appears next to her with a roar, offering his arm. She nods, clambering up onto his back.
"Take me to Wanda!"
Maggie holds onto Coulson's hand as May and Pepper lead their group through the long corridors of the base. Even though Maggie has spent countless days and nights here, she still finds herself getting lost on occasion. May and Coulson spend even less time here. Luckily, Pepper knows the base like the back of her hand. She stops them after a few minutes.
"The lab is at the end of this hall," she says. She points to the hall to their left. "This is a more roundabout way of getting there." She points to their right. "That's the side the alien entered through."
"Should we split up and try to overwhelm him?" Coulson suggests.
"I'm not sure splitting up is a good idea," May says, gesturing to Maggie.
Maggie thinks for a moment. "Is there a way we can distract him so Shuri and Vision have more time to get out?"
Coulson nods. "More aliens will probably follow this one here."
"So we get Shuri and Vision to the bunker," May says. Again, she looks at Maggie. "I don't know…"
"We have to keep them safe, too," Maggie insists. Again, she thinks of what her parents would say. "Even if it means we're also in danger."
Pepper squeezes her shoulder with a small smile.
They hear glass shatter from somewhere ahead, a grim reminder of the time crunch they're under.
Just outside the lab are two Dora Milaje standing guard. As the alien turns the corner to the lab, they each get into a defensive stance.
"Princess Shuri!" one of them yells as the alien starts charging.
Shuri looks up and sees the problem quickly approaching. Vision turns his head enough to see.
"Princess, let me—"
But Shuri keeps working. "I'm almost done!"
Just as the alien passes another hallway, a whistle rings out.
"Hey! Over here! We have the Mind Stone!"
He skids to a stop and looks behind him. At the end of the hall opposite the lab, Maggie holds up a yellow stone that, sure enough, appears to be the Mind Stone. It glows brightly in her hand.
Maggie holds her breath as the alien starts to move toward her, trying to keep her arm from shaking. She glances off to the side, where Pepper is in her full Rescue suit, her arm pointed at Maggie. A small device on her iron hand projects the Mind Stone hologram into Maggie's hand.
As the alien walks past an intersecting hall, May launches herself at him in a sudden blitz. She lands a successive punch and kick to his head and hand, knocking his staff from his grasp. It slides across the floor toward Maggie's feet.
Behind May, Coulson shoots at him, but the bullets bounce off his armor. Within moments, he recovers from the surprise attack to knock May stumbling back, but this gives the Dora Milaje a chance to come at him from behind.
While he's occupied fighting all four of them, Pepper takes flight, scooping up Maggie and flying down another hall. They take the roundabout way to the lab, avoiding the fight altogether. They enter the lab through the other side.
"We're taking you down to the bunker," Pepper announces as her helmet retracts, revealing her face. "We don't have much time."
"But I'm almost done!" Shuri insists.
"There's no time!" Pepper says.
Maggie looks out at the fight in the hall, only to find it's already gone south. Coulson is nowhere to be seen, May's been knocked back into a wall, and the Dora Milaje struggle to deal with him alone. The alien stabs his staff through one of them. As Maggie gasps, she feels Pepper quickly turn her away from the fight and back toward Vision and Shuri.
Shuri looks up and realizes what's happening outside. She swears loudly in another language and starts disconnecting Vision from her machine. Within moments, Vision stands. Pepper starts leading Maggie out of the lab.
"Come on," Shuri yells to Vision, grabbing his wrist and her sonic hand weapons.
The four of them hurry back through the hall Pepper and Maggie came from, but the alien catches sight of them from down the hall as they pass by. He points his staff at them.
"Vision, fly!" Pepper yells as she re-activates her helmet and grabs Maggie like before. As they leave the floor, Maggie looks behind her to see Vision carrying Shuri in a similar fashion.
"What about Uncle Phil and May?" Maggie asks over the wind.
Suddenly, the wall beside them explodes, knocking both off their flight paths. Maggie screws her eyes shut as she braces for the impact. She slips from Pepper's grasp at the last moment and finds herself colliding with a wall, then falling several feet to the floor.
Pain unlike anything she's experienced before explodes in her right forearm and elbow, which took the full force of her body smacking the floor. She hears herself cry out, but it's mostly muffled by the ringing in her ears from the explosion.
"Vision!" someone cries out from behind her.
Maggie opens her eyes, but black starts creeping into her vision. She rolls onto her back and turns her head toward the gaping hole in the side of the base. Outside, the fight rages on—now with Vision in the mix, as he takes two big aliens on alone. The black in her vision starts to take over when Pepper hurries to her side. She's saying something to her, but Maggie can't make it out through the ringing in her ears. Her eyes slip closed.
Wanda grunts as she redirects the large spike wheel, sending it flying back toward the barrier and taking out countless aliens in the process. She stops to catch her breath, her head pounding; she's still recovering from how much energy she used on their mission and against the two aliens the day before, but she's pushing through as much as she can.
Suddenly, Sam's voice fills her ears, making her head throb. "Guys, we got a Vision situation here!"
"Somebody needs to get to Vision!" Steve adds, breathless.
"On my way!" Wanda yells back, taking a moment to focus her magic into her hands so she can fly back to the base. Just as she leaves the ground, however, something whacks her head from behind, sending her rolling down a nearby ditch.
Her head aches from the hit as she pushes herself up. Boots suddenly land inches away from her eyes. She looks up to see Proxima, pointing her staff in her face.
"He'll die alone," she says. "As will you."
"She's not alone."
Wanda turns to find Natasha jumping down into the ditch from Hulk's back a few feet away. She can see her own exhaustion reflected in Natasha, who's breathing more heavily than she usually would in a fight. Despite that, Natasha readies her batons.
Suddenly, Okoye appears on the other side of Wanda and Proxima, meeting Natasha's eyes with a silent nod.
With a cry, Proxima launches herself at Natasha, who blocks a blow from her staff with her batons. Okoye runs around Wanda and up the side of the ditch, using the slope to maneuver around Natasha and Proxima to attack from a different angle.
Hulk roars at them from above. Wanda looks up at him.
"Can you find Vision and help him?" Wanda yells.
Hulk nods and jumps over the ditch, running toward the base.
Wanda finally pushes herself to her feet as Okoye knocks the staff from Proxima's hands. Undeterred, Proxima switches to hand-to-hand with ease, overcoming Okoye and her spear. As she knocks Okoye back, she turns to Natasha and triggers a blade from the armor covering her left arm. She pins Natasha.
"It's over," she sneers, stabbing at Natasha, who barely blocks it with her batons.
Just as Proxima tries to stab Natasha again, Wanda picks Proxima up with her magic and throws her into the air—just as one of those giant spike wheels passes overhead. All three women shield themselves from the spray of her dark blue blood.
Okoye stands with a huff, trying to brush the blood splatter off her clothes. Wanda hurries to Natasha's side to help her up. Blue blood drips from her forehead.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
Natasha just pants and stares at her, dazed. "That was really gross."
Maggie wakes up from a jolt of pain in her arm. She cries out, trying to curl protectively around it when a hand meets her uninjured arm.
"Hey, hey, you're okay," comes a familiar a voice. She opens her eyes to find Pepper kneeling before her. "I think your arm is broken."
Somewhere, in the back of her mind, Maggie feels the urge to cry, but she's too overwhelmed by her surroundings to think too hard about the pain. Behind Pepper, the wall is completely gone, giving her a clear view of the fight. There are still just as many black aliens as there were when she was watching the security feeds in what now feels like a lifetime ago.
Vision suddenly comes into view for a moment, fighting two aliens bigger than the black ones—one of whom Maggie recognizes as the base's intruder. Hulk appears out of nowhere, taking on the bigger of the two aliens with a roar. He grabs the alien by the arm and drags him away, back toward the barrier.
"Let me see your arm," Shuri says, crawling up to Maggie beside Pepper.
Maggie flinches initially when Shuri reaches out, then takes a deep breath and nods. Shuri carefully presses her fingers against Maggie's forearm, traveling up slowly to her elbow. Maggie gasps in pain, screwing her eyes shut.
"It's broken," Shuri confirms. She looks to Pepper. "We need to get her out of here."
Pepper nods. "Can you help me grab her?"
Shuri and Pepper work carefully to help Maggie to her feet, which makes Maggie's vision start to swim again. Shuri holds her upright as Pepper carefully pulls her up into her arms bridal style.
"Thank you," Maggie says quietly to Shuri, who just responds with a small smile.
"You should come back to the bunker with us," Pepper says.
"I need to help my brother," Shuri says. "And see if I can get Vision back in the lab. We were so close."
Before Pepper can respond, Shuri's running outside through the giant hole in the base. Maggie looks up to Pepper.
"Where are Uncle Phil and May?" she asks.
"…I don't know."
Natasha and Wanda hustle toward the base, where Vision's currently fighting the alien from yesterday outside. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Hulk drag the bigger alien toward the force field, pushing him into it with a loud roar, until his body burns up.
Well. That works.
Steve suddenly runs up beside them, then passes them, barreling toward the base at full speed. Show-off.
Natasha chances a glance at Wanda, whose struggling to keep up with Natasha, her breaths heavy. Natasha grabs her hand and runs faster, pulling her along.
"We're almost there."
Steve arrives just as Vision lifts the alien up into the air, over the base, and flies toward the forest on the other side. Vision's flight quickly turns to falling, and the two propel downward toward the thick trees.
In front of him, a large chunk of the base's wall is missing. Going around the base would take way more time than Steve had, so he decides to cut straight through.
As he navigates the halls to reach the other side of the base, closest to the forest, he nearly runs Coulson and May over. Coulson's got May's arm up over his shoulders and helps her walk.
"Guys—why aren't you downstairs?" Steve asks.
"Someone needed to help Vision and Shuri," May says, holding her side with her unoccupied arm.
"What about Pepper and Maggie?"
"Steve?"
He turns to find Pepper approaching him from behind, suited up, with Maggie in her arms. They're both covered in debris.
"Maggie?" he asks, closing the distance between them. Maggie meets his eyes tiredly, cradling her right arm with her left as much as she can. Steve looks between the two of them. "What happened? Your arm—"
"We tried to help Shuri," Maggie says.
"Nobody else could," Coulson adds.
"You guys bought them some time," Steve says. "But you need to get back downstairs."
"That's where we're heading," Pepper says.
"Are we losing?" Maggie asks.
"I don't know," Steve admits. "But I'm going to help Vision now."
"Be careful."
Steve presses a quick kiss to her head, despite the debris. "I will."
Maggie suddenly laughs. "This is such a shitty birthday."
"Hey, language. You're not a teenager yet."
A blast outside rocks the base for what feels like the millionth time that day. Steve turns back toward the direction he needs to go.
"Good luck, Cap," May says. "Take it easy."
"We're here if you need us," Coulson adds.
"Thanks. Listen to Pepper and be good, okay?" Steve looks down at Maggie, and flips her words from earlier back onto her. "Promise?"
She nods as much as she can in her current position. "Promise."
With that, Steve squeezes her uninjured hand, then resumes pursuing Vision.
a/n: i've been slacking but here we go! return of the end a/n question game! let's get into it! what's something that's changed in your life in the past 5 years? can be big or small! (aka between the last 2016 update of this fic and now haha.)
in the past 5 years, i started and finished college! i now have a silly little film degree hehe