WARNING: Uh... that title isn't just for show. ;)
13. To Kill a Legend
It was a good thing there was mostly uninhabited terrain near the bunker where they had found the Hulk and the awful Radioactive Man. Sandy knew he shouldn't call things awful, and normally he didn't. But as he dragged himself through what had recently been a lush – albeit artificially planted and therefore overly organised – forest that was now a wasteland filled with dying trees, he couldn't really muster up very kind thoughts. Especially when the man responsible for it all didn't seem to care in the slightest.
Sandy barely dodged yet another projectile of radiation, and felt his shoulder burn until the wound was stitched shut with sand. This had to stop. Now. The others were no doubt in trouble. Sandy had had more than enough experience with things like this to know that what had happened in that bunker wasn't going to be the end of this. Somewhere a much larger battle was brewing. Perhaps it had already begun. Sandy could only hope that it hadn't already ended with the victory of the ones who wished them and other people harm.
No. He didn't think like that. He always dreamed about the better.
But you know what they say? Dreams mean nothing if one doesn't want to actually make them reality.
Do they even say that? Sandy had got hit more than he had anticipated in this fight. Another wave of radiation wilted the last plants that had so far remained mostly untouched. Oh, Emily Jane was not going to like this. Well, hardly anyone was going to like this. Sandy definitely didn't. It was time to change tactics.
Sandy started to think of the Radioactive Man as one of his stars. The ones he had herded back in the days before he had crashed on Earth. Before he had got his job as a Guardian. Back when he had met Emily Jane. The Radioactive Man was a very stubborn, angry star, radiating death and destruction all around himself and perhaps eventually burning himself out. But Sandy wasn't going to wait and see if that would happen. Too many things had died already because of him. Sandy created a lasso in his hand. It had been too long since he'd had to steer angry stars to their right places.
This one wasn't just angry and stubborn, though. It was also calculating and overly curious. Also nothing new to Sandy. Stars often were curious.
The star lashed out, barrelling towards him with particles and radiation around it. It was preparing to unleash a big wave of energy. One that would kill and wash away far too much. He had to stop it. Sandy stood up, his legs shaky but still supporting him. He'd definitely need to sleep this battle off once he had time. Beams were shot at him, but he danced away, his steps less than perfect out of exhaustion and still healing injuries – the one in his chest still burned and wasn't quite fixed yet – but they were good enough. The star passed him by, and Sandy spun around. The lasso was just where it needed to be, winding around the star and yanking it back. There was a grunt, perhaps of surprise or irritation, but Sandy didn't care which. In a few swift movements he was on the star's shoulders, locking both him and the star in a bubble of dreamsand. He formed words out of the sand; gently chastising words that would most likely go unheeded, but words that needed to be said anyway:
You can't keep doing this.
Look at the destruction you are causing.
You can't control and study through breaking things.
I'd rather not fight you, but I am going to stop you.
The frustrated star was hurling Chinese insults at him. Sandy rolled his eyes, braced himself for a wave of radiation that his dremasand bubble could barely keep in. It cracked and split, and Sandy struggled to keep it together. His wounds burned even harsher, and he closed his eyes tight. He felt a tug when the star started moving, dragging him towards new places it could study by destroying.
He held on, and started steering it without it even noticing.
Dozens of miles away, in the bunker the star had come from, the Executioner stirred. No one noticed it – least of all Sandy, who was very preoccupied by stars and nuclear fallout. The Executioner listened to the chatter of the agents around him, heard reports about attacks and knew the Baron had made his move. And he knew that the ones he needed to defeat in order to restore his warrior pride would be there, standing against the Baron. And most importantly, his beloved Amora would be there too. His body was shocked awake by determination and the Asgardian equivalent of adrenaline. The agents around him never saw it coming.
Once the Executioner exited the building that had become his ground of humiliation and defeat – though that was now also full of defeated agents to even things out a little, he looked around and found the surroundings deserted. He found a path of death and destruction, of burned grass and the feel of something heavy and deadly in the air. The Executioner knew who it was coming from. He started running towards the source.
Fury didn't like this at all. Their attacker seemed hell-bent on bringing their base down around them. And not just breaking it, but disintegrating it into atoms. Or that was what he assumed, at least. They didn't exactly have time for more thorough analyses right now. They just needed to keep backing away and hope to keep the casualties to a minimum while they planned their next move. Where were the Avengers? Hell, even the Guardians with their kid-friendly beliefs and admittedly useful abilities would be more than welcome now.
"Stark!" Fury barked into his earpiece when he saw to his disappointment that one more of his agents vanished with a pained scream, "The leader of this attack is right here. We need backup now!"
"Yeah, I'm working on getting there! It's just that I ran into one of our buddies who-" there was a clang and a grunt on the line, "-isn't our buddy right now."
"Who? And this isn't the time for smartass comments!"
Fury shot at the approaching man, but the Baron disintegrated the bullet with rather impressive accuracy. The woman in green waved her hand and a pulse of what had to be Asgardian magic sent a group of men to the floor.
"It's Thor," said Stark, and for a moment Fury was so focused on the fight on his end that he almost missed what Stark was saying. Then it sunk in.
"What?"
The woman in green seemed to hear it and smiled very wickedly.
"Oh, are you perhaps missing someone?" she asked.
Fury ordered his agents to back away and frowned at the woman. Why did they always have to gloat?
Tony was feeling a very strong sense of déjà vu when he watched the God of Thunder charging at him – heh, charging – with a very pissed off look on his face. Hadn't they done this back before the Avengers had been formed? Back when they'd been arguing about Loki for some arbitrary reason Tony could barely even remember. Back then it had been just a difference in opinions. This time it was clear that a) Thor wasn't quite himself and b) he was clearly out for blood. And Tony hadn't been Iron Manning for some time, and as much as he hated to admit it, he was still feeling the shot in the lung and the multiple surgeries he'd gone through recently. So the odds were not in his favour. Then again, he was Tony Stark, so turning bad odds in his favour was exactly what he was good at.
"Okay, big guy," he said, "Time for you to calm down a bit."
He shot a ray at Thor, who brushed it off with a swing of his hammer and kept coming. The more or less faceless enemy soldiers had also trained their guns at Tony again. They wouldn't be much of a problem unless they were secretly packing more heat than some measly handguns. The bullets were definitely an annoyance, though, but nothing he couldn't-
Why did the air suddenly turn unnerving?
Tony only barely dodged Thor's hammer and flew upwards. He surveyed the battlefield – and man, had it really started to look like a battlefield fast – and noticed what looked like a blob of shadow at first, but what seemed to divide into small shadow creatures, and…
"Oh, great," Tony muttered, "The Boogeyman and his army. Fantastic."
He hoped his newly installed backup power sources would be as Boogeyman-proof as he had theorised while making them. He definitely didn't need weird shadow powers short-circuiting his suit again.
He sent a quick heads-up to Fury and anyone else who might have been within radioing distance and swerved to the side to avoid Thor. He spun around in the air and fired at the man. At least he didn't need to pull his punches. The Thunder God was made of really sturdy stuff.
The shadows were swarming on the ground beneath him, going through most of the soldiers like they weren't even there. The shadows were probably here just for the Guardians. And maybe to bring down S.H.I.E.L.D.'s morale. Tony gave a few commands to his A.I, JARVIS, and turned his focus again back to Thor.
"Hey, Thor!" he shouted, "What's gotten into you? We're on the same side here… I think."
There was a certain emptiness in Thor's eyes. It wasn't like Loki's mind control, but it was maybe something similar.
"I am here to defend Lady Amora's honour," said Thor, and swung his hammer again. It brushed Tony's shoulder and sent him off-balance in the air.
"Lady who?"
Thor's only reply was yet another heavy strike that got through properly this time. Tony was sent to the ground, and he felt the impact through his suit, muffled but solid. His chest ached.
"No seriously?" he coughed out, "Who?"
Thor dropped down towards him, and he rolled to avoid the hammer. The slam dented the concrete under him and the shockwave sent him flying. He righted himself in the air and turned to face what had by now become an annoyingly familiar sight: a pissed off god attacking him. Thor raised his hammer, feinted to the right and struck with a surprisingly fast downward swing. Tony barely had time to dodge. Damn, why did these Asgardians have to be so friggin' fast? Thor roared and raised his weapon again. Something hit him in the back of the head. Something that broke into chunks of… snow?
"What," Tony said.
"Hey! Old Man Thunder!" the unmistakable carefree teenager-voice of Jack Frost rang out, "Snap out of it!"
Jack was floating in the air, and the Tooth Fairy fluttered next to him, swords in her hands. Jack grinned at Tony, all of their previous arguments apparently forgotten.
"Need any help?"
Tony sighed.
"Just… let's just get this over with."
"You are in my way."
It was the only thing the Baron had said during the fight to justify this attack in any way. It was definitely a pathetic justification. Not that Fury even cared at the moment. He just cared about the disintegrating base and the agents inside it. And he definitely cared about the innocent people not too far away from the base. They needed to do something. They needed something to breach that shield the woman was creating. Seriously, where were the Avengers? Fury had more than enough experience to get through even unexpected situations without help from enhanced people, but when the ones opposing them were gods and monsters, things got trickier.
"This is almost too easy," the Baron said, and the woman nodded.
"Yes… that is why we should be prepared for something-"
She didn't even have time to finish the sentence before a wave of what could only be described as aggressive weather barrelled into her and the Baron. It tore right through the woman's shield like it was made of tissue paper and threw them both into a wall. Fury shot at the Baron right away, but the man had enough incentive to duck into cover.
"WHAT was that?" the Baron bellowed.
The woman had turned around, not caring about the bullets that were flying her way. She was Asgardian, so she didn't really need to worry about tiny pieces of lead that much. Fury didn't even try to waste his own ammo on her, but instead focused on getting the drop on the Baron, who was still very dangerous with his gun. He did spare a glance at who had given them a chance to fight back. They had a couple of weather-powered people on their side at the moment, but the one who had come to their aid was the most suspicious one. Mother Nature stood at the door, robes flaring, eyes blazing. The more hostile woman in green crossed her arms.
"Oh, 'tis you," she said, "You have finally stepped down from your pedestal and decided to get your hands dirty."
One of the agents next to Fury leaned in to whisper:
"Who's she talking to?"
Fury shook his head curtly.
"Doesn't matter. We have bigger problems right now. Leave the woman to the Avengers. Take care of the Baron."
Mother Nature looked over her shoulder when another group of soldiers reached the door.
"And those guys," Fury added, "Take care of them too."
One of his agents shivered. That was odd. His people weren't usually afraid-
Oh, son of a bitch.
As mostly invisible, fear-spreading shadows poured in in the soldiers' wake, the two women in green broke their cold staring contest when the Asgardian one fired something from her hand. It hit Mother Nature in the arm, and she was flung backwards out of the building. The Asgardian woman followed, but was tossed aside with such ease that Fury suspected Mother Nature had let herself be blown away just to take the fight away from the base. He focused again on the soldiers and the Baron, who had recovered and was again firing his weapon that kept destroying their defences. They had to keep moving. Out of the corner of his eye, Fury saw the rather impressive form of the Santa Claus dancing between the soldiers, sometimes literally weaving through them, and meeting the group of shadows with a pair of sabres. Some of the soldiers were shot down by a sniper, and Fury would have smiled if he'd had time for it. Maybe this battle was turning around already.
One couldn't get too optimistic, though. The fight was just beginning.
When Bunnymund hopped out of his tunnel, he, Barton, and Romanoff arrived in the middle of a warzone. There were soldiers, agents, Fearlings, Avengers, and of course Guardians, all locked in very chaotic combat all around the S.H.I.E.L.D.-base and its perimeter.
"Crikey," Bunnymund said, "We definitely have some work to do."
Behind him the two agents didn't waste time getting to said work. They were shooting as soon as they were back on the surface. Bunnymund pulled out his boomerangs and scanned the battlefield for more serious threats that were yet not being dealt with. North was at the base, taking care of Fearlings. There was a fight between Mother Nature and a woman in green. And Frostbite and Stark seemed to be battling… Thor?
Wait, that ain't right.
Bunnymund couldn't really wonder about Thor's sudden change of sides for long, because he caught a glimpse of an unmistakable shift in the shadows. He raised his boomerang.
"Ya think ya can hide? Not this time."
Pitch Black only had time to change his smirk into a look of anger before a boomerang smashed in his face.
"Nice one!"
Bunnymund glanced at Tooth, who hovered above him, swords drawn. Her mini fairies were spreading all over the battlefield, meeting Fearlings with force that would have been surprising if Bunnymund hadn't known Tooth so well after all these centuries of working together.
"Good timing, Sheila," Bunnymund said.
One of the soldiers fell near them, out cold because of a seemingly out-of-nowhere shot. At first Bunnymund thought it was Hawkeye, but there were no arrows in sight.
"Who's sniping?" he asked.
"Oh, that's the Taskmaster," Tooth said with a wave of her hand, "You know, the assassin who was after them. We negotiated a bit. He even promised to not kill anyone if he could help it!"
Bunnymund stared. Behind him, Pitch got up with a groan.
Tooth beamed.
"So, shall we dance?"
Bunnymund smirked. There was time for explanations later.
"Ya know it."
They charged at Pitch together.
It was not often that Mother Nature took to the battlefield. She preferred to keep to herself and let the people sort out their own messes. But now everything was just going too far. And the people who had started it all didn't even seem to care. So she summoned the winds and the clouds, and fought it.
Mother Nature and the Enchantress clashed in a whirlwind of magic and weather. The poor soldiers who got too close thought the Enchantress moving alone, with far too much chaos around her, and jumped aside the best they could. The Enchantress didn't even seem to notice, and she kept her eyes locked on Emily Jane's own. In seconds the battlefield was in the middle of a fierce storm that rose out of nowhere, or at least so it seemed. Emily Jane silently thanked the winds and then sliced her way through the Enchantress's magic with them. She couldn't even remember the last time she had lashed out with her powers like this. It was almost… refreshing.
She felt her storm also slicing into Fearlings and smiled coldly. Feeling joy for destroying Pitch's creations may have been a bit petty, but she couldn't help it. She told the winds to pay attention not to hurt Toothiana's little fairies that were battling the shadows all around them. Though she suspected that young Jackson had already made sure even her winds wouldn't touch them.
The Enchantress staggered backwards from Emily Jane's latest attack and snarled in a quite undignified manner. She vanished, and Emily Jane narrowed her eyes. The winds whispered to her, told her where The Enchantress had reappeared. Emily Jane smiled. The Asgardian woman thought she could beat her with cowardly tactics. Well, it wasn't going to work. This was her turf. Emily Jane let the wind take her to the woman. She was there in an instant, and dodged an abrupt magic projectile at the last moment.
The Enchantress smirked.
"Well, you are doing surprisingly well for someone with obviously no combat experience."
Emily Jane didn't answer. There really was no reason to. Thunder clouds gathered behind her. Lightning struck. The Enchantress was unimpressed – not that Emily Jane needed this woman to be impressed by her.
"Charming," she said, "But you are not the only one with thunder on her side."
Then Thor Odinson jumped at Emily Jane, hammer raised as if he had been waiting for his cue. Emily Jane spun, but was unprepared, and the hammer struck her in the shoulder. Had she been mortal, her shoulder, arm, and several ribs would have probably shattered. Now she just let the wind take her back a few feet, and she faced Mr. Odinson with rage in her eyes and mind.
"You!" she hissed, "She really got to you?"
A ray of light, and a bolt of ice struck Mr. Odinson, and the man fell to the ground into a crouch.
"Yup, she did," said Jackson, who came to a stop next to Emily Jane, "Tony and I've been trying to snap him out of it."
"We'll get him eventually," said Iron Man, and shot another ray at the man to keep him down.
The Enchantress frowned.
"Stark," she growled, and then glanced at Jackson, "And… Jokul Frosti, I presume? I have heard about you, though we have never met. You have been quite a nuisance to Asgard from time to time."
Jackson chuckled.
"Well, I don't want to brag, but…"
"And now you are ruining my plans as well," The Enchantress sighed, and then inclined her head, a seductive smile on her face, "Although, you are a lot prettier than I expected."
"Uh… thanks?" Jackson frowned.
"Uhh… you do realise she's totally coming onto you, right?" said Mr. Stark.
Jackson's eyes widened.
"What? Eww, gross!"
"Aaaand you never went through puberty, did you?"
"Focus!" Emily Jane snapped, "Mr. Odinson is getting up again!"
This was going to be a long night. Emily Jane couldn't wait for it to end.
The Baron cursed. These Avengers and Guardians were not supposed to be here at all! Not in the moment of his revenge and triumph! He and his allies had worked for so long to get to this moment, and now it was falling apart in front of him. Sure, he had destroyed a lot of this S.H.I.E.L.D. base, and had been close to eliminating their leader and then getting to his key targets, once the people were in disarray, but then he had been pushed back. What had gone wrong? They had supposed to work on this as a team! To take down all the opposition by dividing and conquering! And now he was huddled behind some chunks of ruined street and saw his allies scattered to fight the ones he had tried to get out of the way.
He saw the Avengers, almost all of them, doing far too well against his allies. He saw the Enchantress, who was supposed to be his shield while he attacked, fighting another green-clad woman with weather powers. He saw the shadow army being beaten back by small birdlike creatures, and he saw his soldiers being shot by an unseen assassin and by the two Avengers-affiliated agents who were clearing out the battlefield with much more efficiency than normal, unenhanced humans should have been able to. It was infuriating!
The Baron clutched his beloved gun, his masterpiece, and then raised his hand. If his plan was going to be hindered like this, it wouldn't be done without a price. He pointed the Disintegrator at the bow-wielding agent's back when the man was focused on fighting an aggressive wave of shadows, and pulled the trigger.
The gun flashed.
A yell, maybe of rage or distress, cut the air at the same time with the beam. Hawkeye spun around too late to face the impact, but it never came. Something had got in the way. Looking around he realised with growing horror that it was the small, feathery body of the Tooth Fairy.
The Baron waited, holding his breath. His gun was truly a marvel of science, but could even that destroy these immortal, partly intangible beings?
Clint Barton stared at the tiny, yet majestic fairy who fluttered in front of him.
Toothiana's eyes were wide, alight with pure, unadulterated fury. She stared the Baron down, her fists clenched despite the glowing hole that was now growing in her chest.
"Tooth?" said a disbelieving voice belonging to the Santa Claus, "Toothy?"
Toothiana let out a shaky breath, and her feathers started scattering away into the wind, along with her wings, her arms, and her face. It wasn't like it had been with solid objects that had just crumbled into nothing. The Tooth Fairy fell beautifully, and terribly. Clint realised he couldn't breathe for a long moment. Santa Claus had stretched out his arms as if to catch the feathers that fell into glowing fragments, but they slipped between his fingers. The Baron's surprise and triumph were almost visible through his hood.
Before the Baron could shoot again, Clint nocked an arrow and shot, ignoring the shadows that threatened to swarm him. The arrow struck the Baron's arm, and the Baron howled, dropping his gun. Clint knew that wasn't enough. He drew again, but this time the Asgardian woman got in the way and got her force field up. Clint got into cover, where he again saw the haunting lull that had fallen on the rest of the battlefield. Nat crouched next to him, her mouth set in a tight line. Even Pitch Black had stopped fighting and stared at the display with something akin to disbelief.
It could be a trick. These Guardians could shrug off pretty much anything. Too much anything for a single shot to take them out. But this… this gun was unlike anything they had seen before. It didn't just hurt. I seemed to unmake. And it looked like it had even been enough to break apart a legend.
Jack felt a shudder going through him, and realised a moment later that the shudder had come from Baby Tooth, who had landed on his shoulder. She tweeted miserably, her tiny hands clutching at Jack's hood. Jack cast a look at Emily Jane and Tony, and hoped they got the message when he cast a hunk of ice to knock Thor to the nearest building, and then put distance between any of the bigger fights.
"Baby Tooth?" Jack asked urgently once they were in a relatively safe place, "What's wrong?"
Baby Tooth's eyes were wide, her shoulders trembling. She was staring upwards, and Jack looked up as well. What he saw made his blood freeze.
The army of tooth fairies that had been fighting like a miniature hurricane had frozen into a surreal, unmoving formation in the sky. Judging by the nearest ones that Jack could see properly, their faces held the same, disbelieving and pained expression as Baby Tooth's. Their weapons fell from slackened hands.
"What the…" Jack's voice caught in his throat. Something was very, very wrong. He looked around for someone who could help, and was glad to notice Bunny staring at the sky nearby, "Bunny!"
Bunny was at his side in an instant.
"I see it," he said, "This ain't good."
The tooth fairies started falling. They dropped like stones for a moment before vanishing in mid-air. Their faces twisted and then froze into horror, and they became like tiny statues for a moment right before they shattered. Jack choked on his own breath.
"No…" Bunny whispered brokenly, "Tooth…"
"What?" Jack asked in a barely audible voice and was already dreading the answer, "What's happening?"
Baby Tooth croaked, and it was such an odd noise out of her that Jack was startled. She fell from Jack's shoulder, and Jack caught her into his cupped hands. Her body had stiffened, and her eyes were blank. Jack stared at her in horror. This… this couldn't happen.
"Baby Tooth? Baby Tooth!"
Her heart beat sluggishly against his palms a couple of more times before it too went still.
"No!" Jack gasped, "C'mon, Baby Tooth! Stay with us! You can't! None of you can…"
Her previously warm body went cold in an instant, and then coated with frost that emanated from Jack's hands. Jack was trembling. She was so still, and so fragile. Jack could almost feel her body starting to break apart like the others had seemed to, but the solidifying water held it together.
"What just…?"
A furry paw landed on Jack's shoulder, surprisingly gentle. Jack looked at Bunny's mournful face, startled and trying to understand what was happening. Behind him, tooth fairies were still falling.
"The fairies… for them to just drop like that…" Bunny took a deep breath, "They're connected to her, Frostbite."
A horrible realisation sunk in.
"No… no, no no nonono… She can't…"
His voice broke. Bunny squeezed his shoulder.
"Tooth's gone. Something… took her out."
Jack's legs felt weak, and he had to awkwardly lean to the staff he had tucked under his arm to stay standing. His vision blurred. The battle was still going on around them, but it all felt so detached. He vaguely knew that Bunny took out the last of the surrounding Fearlings with terrifying ferocity, but his own hands were still cupped around Baby Tooth's frozen body. It couldn't be true. It was a trick, or… something. Anything else. They couldn't die. His mind told him that Sandy had died and come back before. But now… what had happened now?
He looked past the Fearlings and the fights, and to the spot where he had last seen Tooth. North was standing there, along with Clint and Natasha, and the man in the purple hood was laughing from behind the Asgardian woman's force field. He had a gun… a gun that had seemed to take apart anything.
Something clicked.
Jack was running, his staff glowing a furious blue. Midway through the battlefield he jumped into the roaring wind and shot towards the man like a bullet, teeth clenched in rage.
"YOU BASTARD!"
The purple hood looked at him a second before a blast of ice and light slammed into the man, shattering the Asgardian woman's shield. The bastard flew through the air, landing on his back and scrambling up. He raised his gun, and Jack only vaguely realised it was probably not a good idea to stay in its range. He didn't care, though. He shot another blast, and saw the man pull the trigger.
Bunny's paw grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the way when the gun fired. Jack landed on the ground, one hand clutching his staff and one still gently around Baby Tooth. He had a moment to see a flash of red and grey before the ground opened underneath him and he was falling, travelling through one of Bunny's tunnels.
"No!" he managed to yell, "We have to stop him!"
The falling stopped abruptly, and for once Jack didn't land on his feet. He slumped on his knees and saw North stumbling to a stop next to him. North knelt next to Jack, and Jack noticed that North's cheeks were wet.
"She…" Jack swallowed, "Is she really…?"
North managed a nod.
"Yes… she… she got between Hawkeye and the gun."
No…
Jack cradled the frozen Baby Tooth in his hands, and tears spilled from his eyes and froze to his cheeks. A heavy, tattooed arm wrapped around Jack's shoulders, pulling him into a hug. Jack curled up in the embrace, and felt a paw in his hair, awkwardly comforting him as well.
It didn't really help now. Nothing did.
Author's Note: I'm finally back! Though considering what just happened in the fic, some of you may wish I wasn't. *dodges rotten fruit* Hey, at least I only killed ONE Guardian! I'd been planning on offing two! But hey, I've been talking about Guardian-death in this fic so much that I had to do something with it.
I should say I feel really sad, because I really like Tooth, but hey, they're Guardians so there's still a chance for her… maybe… I actually really liked writing her death scene because I wanted to make it beautiful in a creepy and haunting way. It's also a small reference to Tooth's backstory in the books, where the Sisters of Flight (her family on her mother's side) turned to statues when they realised Tooth's mother (one of them) was dead.
Aww, Clint! You just keep having to be saved by self-sacrificing people. I mean, if I remember correctly, that's what happened in Age of Ultron too. But I picked you for that part, because… uh, you were there, and I kind of wanted it to be someone other than Natasha because now it kind of seems that Tooth is only really friends with her and no other Avengers. So she would have been more of an obvious choice. Too obvious, really.
But anyway, thank you for being so patient with me! Now I have a summer break and my working hours are very irregular so I have much more free time to dedicate to writing. I'll try to get this fic finished this summer. Keyword being "try". Though there are just a few chapters left according to my calculations. So it might be possible.
I hope you enjoy and maybe comment but whatever you do, thank you for reading! You guys rock!
REVIEW RESPONSES:
Mala: Yup, it's actually really cool to notice how much Nightlight there's even in film!Jack. And in some of the earlier film sketches he looked almost exactly like Nightlight, and that's interesting… Also here was some Sandy for you! I really like him too and he's super fun to write. His perspective is always so calming.
StarLight234: I could go on for quite some time how much schools' teaching methods could be improved to actually encourage and strengthen creativity instead of discouraging it by being mostly kind of repetitive and uninspired and only cater to a specific group of learners. Although I do a lot of drawing at school during lectures so it's possible to do creative stuff as long as the teachers at least allow it. :)
Jack and Tony are indeed a lot of fun to write together. They're just a back-and-forth storm of snark and I love it! Also there was some Thor vs. Jack for you, though it wasn't much. But Thor's still under mind control and now Jack is really angry so I'm sure there's still potential for a more defined fight scene. I'll see what I can do.
