One year later

Sokovia

After much resistance from Laura who had spend most of the past year in Wakanda with T'Challa, she was called up by Steve and Tony with the rest of the Avengers.

Fury had been hard at work while playing dead.

Tracking down the last of the HYDRA cells around the world.

The Avengers showing the world that it was safe and secure after the fall of SHIELD.

But during their raids there was a surprising development.

With HYDRA being SHIELD all along meant they had their hands on Loki's scepter that they thought was in safe hands since the attack on New York three years ago.

The past few raids were the most likely locations of the HYDRA bases in Eastern Europe where the scepter might be held.

The bases being the largest they infiltrated.

Now though they were advancing on the last one.

In the snowy thick pine forested mountains of Sokovia.

Laura was huddled in her jumpsuit, standing on the back of an armored truck.

And it wasn't just her who was called out of retirement.

Being driven by Nat while shooting blasts at HYDRA soldiers next to Clint who was doing the same with his bow.

She saw soldiers with Tony's designed suit boots on flying towards them and sliced one in half.

Nat punched the other one away.

Tony flew in low to take out another one but a tank swerved in from the woods behind them.

Laura swung around but Thor flew in and used Mjolnir to strike it down.

With a war cry, he leapt forwards to take out a gantry ahead with ease on the dirt road that was leading to the base.

Steve rode in on his bike, in his old red, white, and blue uniform and shield strapped to his back to grab a soldier and drag him away.

He threw him towards a group of them right as Laura blasted a missile defense system by him.

He tossed his shield against the trees, aiming it at more soldiers ahead of him.

Taking them all out while he rode in the woods.

A tank was driving ahead but Hulk leapt forwards, picking it up and tossing it away with a roar.

Nat drove ahead of him while Laura and Clint were blasting and firing at endless targets.

Meeting a barrier, Nat made a handbrake turn and Laura, Clint, along leapt out of the truck with a war cry, meeting the others in the air dramatically.

Getting through another line of defenses, she saw Tony fly ahead to the base which was an old castle on top of a mountain.

She saw him fly to the roof but was bounced off by the barrier.

"Shit!" she heard him curse in her earpiece.

"Language! JARVIS, what's the view from upstairs?" Steve asked while riding towards the base.

High above Earth, a large Stark satellite was above them, watching the scene unfold.

JARVIS zoomed in on their location.

"The central building is protected by some kind of energy shield. Strucker's technology is well beyond any other HYDRA base we've taken." he answered.

"Loki's scepter must be here. Strucker couldn't mount this defense without it. At long last." Thor said while taking out a squadron with ease.

Laura and Nat were running as fast as they could through the woods towards a fortification.

Laura blasting away a seemingly endless amount of soldiers with her spear.

Nat leapt onto two of them, taking them down before pulling out her gun and shooting two more.

The two working swiftly and smoothly.

And the last one at a 50 cal rifle above their heads.

The two crouched behind the trench to catch their breath.

"Yeah. I think we lost the element of surprise." Clint said dryly while under fire.

"Wait a second. No one else is going to deal with the fact that Cap just said "language?" Tony joked while flying over the base, blasting soldiers away.

"That's a dollar for the swear jar Steve." Laura joked as well. All of the Avengers began teasing him on it after he "scolded" Laura on her language.

He sighed.

"I know. It just slipped out."


The Avengers were slowly making their way towards the base but Laura's HUD on her glasses zoomed in on the base and noticed heavy artillery being fired upon the city nearby.

"Tony, their firing at the city!" she warned while she and Nat were running between trees.

Taking cover behind a large one from artillery fire.

"Well, we know Strucker's not going to worry about civilian casualties. Send in the Iron Legion." he ordered.

Five androids flew in from above and landed in the city square.

In the middle of the fleeing Sokovians.

"This quadrant is unsafe. Please back away. We are here to help. This quadrant is unsafe. Please back away. Please back away. We wish to avoid collateral damage and will inform you when this current conflict is resolved. We are here to help." JARVIS' voice was heard but the crowd began forming an angry mob around them and began stoning them.


Back in the woods, Clint was running towards the base but was pinned down by a bunker

Using a tree for cover, he pulled out an arrow and knocked it.

Aiming it at the bunker, he fired but a blur caught it.

Going wide eyed, he knocked another arrow and aimed again but was swept from behind by his feet.

Groaning, he pushed himself upwards to see a blonde teenager strolling by him nonchalantly.

"You didn't see that coming?" he asked mockingly before running away at superhuman speed.

Dumfounded, he knocked another arrow at the direction he ran away to but the cannon in the bunker behind him struck him in the waist.

Laura and Nat were nearby where they heard him fall in their comms.

"Clint!" both of them gasped.

They began to run towards him but the teenager swept Laura's leg's from under her.

"What the hell…" she said while on her stomach.

Arching her head around the battle to not see anything.

"We have an enhanced in the field! I repeat, we have an enhanced on the field!" she warned while using her arms to push herself upwards.

She ran through blast fire, firing several blasts from her spear towards the bunker, levelling it in a smoldering ruin as she ran towards Nat who was applying pressure on Clint's wound.

"That spear of yours comes in handy." Nat said sarcastically.

"It has its uses…" she said but looked down and saw the red and black burn marks on the side of Clint's stomach.

"Tony, Clint's hit bad. Are you inside the base yet?" she asked him.

Providing cover for the two.

"I'm closing in. JARVIS, am I...closing in? Do you see a power source for that shield?" he asked while landing on a gangplank inside.

Taking out even more soldiers.

"There's a particle wave below the north tower." he replied while Tony blasted through a gate as he flew towards it.

"Great, I wanna poke it with something…" he saw a missile vehicle driving towards him.

He flew into it, grabbing the missile itself before flying high above the base and aiming it at the North Tower.

Deactivating the shield.

Laura fired another blast at an approaching tank and sighed.

"Guys, we're still pinned down over here. Clint needs evac now." she warned.

"I can get Barton to the jet. The sooner we're gone the better. You and Stark secure the scepter." she heard Thor tell Steve.

"Copy that." he nodded.

"And for gosh sake, watch your language!" Tony joked.

Laura smiled.

"That's not going away anytime soon."


Tony flew into Strucker's lab and was met with a barrage of gunfire from the soldiers while he hovered above them.

"Guys, stop, we gotta talk this through…" he said while aiming his shoulder mounted gun at them, taking them all out at once easily.

"It was a good talk…" he said while stepping out of the Mark… XLV.

"Sentry mode." he ordered.

The suit kept its hand raised and blaster armed while looking around for potential intruders.

Tony walked over to the setup and inserted a drive.

"Okay, JARVIS. You know I want it all. Watson, make sure you copy Hill at HQ." he asked.

"Got it. We're locked down out here Tony…" she said while she and Nat were beginning to escort the surrendered and cuffed HYDRA soldiers away into trucks.

"Then get to Banner, Romanoff time for a lullaby." Steve hinted.

Inside, Strucker's lab, Tony began scanning the room while the files were being downloaded.

"The wall to your left...I'm reading steel reinforcement... and an air current." JARVIS confirmed.

He moved over to the concrete wall and began brushing his hands along it.

"Please be a secret door, please be a secret door, please be a secret door..." he whispered but felt a hidden latch and pressed it.

Prying open the hidden door.

"Yay!" he joked.

Looking down the long darkened tunnel, he walked down it.

He made his way into another, larger lab deep in the base.

Looking around he saw his old suit pieces, a large Chitahuri Leviathan hanging above along with a array of SHIELD and HYDRA weapons scattered all over the place.

"Guys, I got Strucker." Steve confirmed.

"Yeah, I got… something bigger…" Tony said while looking over to see Loki's scepter mounted on a workbench.

"Thor, I got eyes on the prize…" he said but a teenaged girl crept behind him and used telekinesis on his brain stealthy.

Her eyes glowing red in the process before backing away.

He frowned but looked up to see the Leviathan roar at him.

He stumbled backwards as it flew through the ceiling.

A floor appeared ahead of him which laid all of the dead Avengers.

Stepping around them, he crouched down and gasped to see Laura's body.

Swallowing uneasily he reached out to cup her face but her eyes suddenly popped open and she grabbed his wrist.

"You could've saved us…" she managed to choke out before her last breath.

"Why didn't you do more…" he heard her voice in his mind.

He looked up to see the portal from the other end from three years ago.

This time an endless army of Leviathan's flying towards a doomed Earth from space.

He managed to snap out of it, sweat dripping down his forehead.

The teenagers watched silently from the corner of the room which he didn't notice.

He ran over to grab the scepter and raised his hand.

A suit hand assembled around it which he used to pry the scepter from its barrier before running out.

"We're just gonna let them take it?"