Loki walked the dimmed halls of the helicarrier with a nervous step, careful to keep his invisibility up as he prowled. This night was giving him a sense of foreboding that he didn't like. Undoubtedly it was the full moon that he'd been anticipating all week. He knew why he was on edge, but he didn't understand why. He shouldn't be this nervous, and he knew that-after all, Kinners couldn't really be a werewolf. They didn't even exist on Midgard, if at all. She was always trying to make herself more mysterious than she truly was, but he could always see right through her. And he did not see a wolf.
Au contrare, he saw a friend.
But at the same time, there was that pesky glimmer of faith in the back of his mind. She talked about being a werewolf so naturally, and he of all people would be the first to know that she was a terrible liar. Perhaps it was such an old lie that she told it without any reaction at all anymore. Perhaps she even believed it.
But there had to be some fine line of truth, didn't there?
"Beautiful night out, huh?" murmured Clint. Loki rolled his eyes and stopped-between Hawkeye and Black Widow, he couldn't brush past them without being noticed. They were holding hands, too. He almost gagged. Natasha nodded, a shadow of a smile on her lips. Only a shadow.
"Tony sure knows it," she muttered, shaking her head with an eyeroll. "He's so drunk he'd down a molotov, match and all. Did you see him hitting on the new girl? He's three times her age."
"Stupid is as stupid does," whispered Loki under his breath, eyes narrowed. That Stark imbecile was barely tolerable as it was. It was good for Tony that Kinners would tolerate anything for her friends. It still escaped Loki how she could stand such mortal idiocy, however.
"Stupid is as stupid does," echoed Hawkeye. Loki smirked to himself-he loved doing that. Nothing made him feel better like fooling someone. "out in the moonlight and everything. Who does he think he is?"
Loki's blood ran cold.
Moonlight?
Instinct seized the controls. Completely forgetting his magic with his urgency, he bowled over the two lovers in a breakneck sprint. What was he doing? Why was he so terrified of something that wasn't real? Was his inner truth sense so faulty that in his core, he truly believed?
Perhaps that was why he was running. Because he knew that she was a terrible liar. And because he knew that she wouldn't lie to him.
That spark of faith had fanned into fear. But he didn't know the meaning of the word, not really. Not yet. No one truly understands fear until one has been hunted.
Kinners chuckled to herself, rolling her eyes at Tony. He staggered around in one of his older suits, waving a beer bottle around like nobody's business as he raved about everything from polar bears to the quality of his socks. He got so excited that he actually shattered the bottle with his grip, swearing in surprise and staggering backwards. She couldn't help but burst out laughing at that. After all, what are friends for? Laughing at you when you're being an idiot so that you can tell the difference.
She looked behind her at the sound of an opening door, taking in the silhouetted old-school leather jacket and khaki cargo pants in a heartbeat. Steve. He stepped out of the doorway and let the door shut behind him with a pneumatic hiss, cocking an eyebrow at Tony.
"He's something, ain't he?" he muttered to her sidelong. Kinners nodded, raising an eyebrow and giving her skewed smile that meant: Uh. Yeah.
"You shaddap!" slurred Tony, almost falling over. She and Cap figured simultaneously that they should help him out before he hurt himself. They stepped out of the shadow of the helicarrier's bridge, but the touch of the moonlight stopped Kinners in her tracks as surely as a brick wall. A shiver rode up her spine, and she was suddenly hyperaware of herself. Her conscious mind screamed at her to get out, but its voice was muffled, as if from far below her. She only heard one voice clearly.
Turn towards it.
She turned slowly, deliberately into the full embrace of the moon.
The night was gorgeous. Luna had surely outdone herself this night. The stars were scattered to the four winds, as clear as day without city lights anywhere near to outshine them. But the moon was even better...or worse, depending on your point of view. A perfect circle, dappled with grey, casting its gentle silver over the clouds around them and the helicarrier itself. Anything would look gorgeous in that divine light. But Kinners herself was something else.
Loki burst out the door, breathing heavily with his exertion. He froze, held in place for a breathless moment by Kinners. Even in a wrinkled t-shirt and ragged jeans, the look on her face was indescribable. Her hair seemed to float of its own accord, as if she were underwater. She shut her kaleidoscope eyes and took a moment to just breathe. She was beautiful.
But soon she would be terrible.
She doubled over with a grimace, as if she had been shot in the gut. Growling, she stumbled onto her knees, convulsing as if she were about to vomit. She held herself up from the steel floor with but a hand, making pained noises in deeper and deeper tones. She began to grow, muscles bulging under her suddenly skin-tight clothes and snapping the feeble fabric. Hands lengthened into lethal claws, skin gave way to shaggy fur, face lengthened into muzzle. She bowed her head in her agony and gave the most pitiful utterances of pain, but Loki knew that she would lash out at any moment, regardless of any physical torment she may be experiencing. Yet somehow he couldn't bring himself to move away, to save himself. He felt displaced, almost, strangely calm. Maybe she was lying. It all felt like a dream.
Then he noticed Tony toddling towards her.
"Who invited you, Banner?" he drawled, poking the beast with what remained of the bottle. Next thing they knew Tony was flying across the deck, three gouges ripped in the torso of his suit.
Not a dream.
What used to be Kinners rose to her hind legs and threw her head back in a howl. The note rang out, long and clear and bone-chilling, freezing time for an eternal moment. There was only a silver patch on her chest to break up the robust brown of her pelt, a patch with such iridescence that it was as if she had stolen a chunk of the moon for herself. She brought herself back to earth and settled into a supple hunters' stalk, turning to Loki. The only thing to identify her as his old friend were her greenish eyes, looking more like a cold gray in the night. She snarled at him, the trademark warmth replaced by a cold predator's instinct.
"Get down!" shouted Cap from the other side of the beast, heartbeats before she met her mark. Loki ducked to the side at the last moment, but she skidded with her claws on the metal to turn on a dime, throwing up sparks that illuminated her toothy muzzle. She lunged again, but then he wasn't there. She only wasted half a moment with her eyes before shutting them and reverting to her sense of smell. The fear scent was almost overpowering, and its source was making a beeline for the door.
If Loki had been a hair slower, he would have been dead.
Slamming the door behind himself, Loki put his back to the reinforced hatch, letting Kinners slam herself against the door and taking a moment to calm his pounding heart and pulsing lungs. Though his eyes were wide open with fear, he barely noticed Hawkeye drawing an arrow and Black Widow raising her handgun-even though both weapons were aimed directly at his chest.
"What were you doing out there?" asked Natasha shortly. Loki was about to serve an explanation along with his cold glare, but none was necessary after what used to be Kinners pounded a basketball-sized dent in the wall inches from Loki's head. He whirled and backed away, wincing slightly at the volume when another dent appeared where his midsection had been. More appeared. He kept backing up.
"What is that?" demanded Clint. Loki was too fear-stricken to bother responding-that's a first. He noted with a hint of smugness that Hawkeye sounded just as terrified as he did.
"Another hit, and that door's coming off," predicted Black Widow. They all waited for a breathless moment, waiting for the final blow. But it never came-what did come were the sounds of a familiar technology and several pointed noises.
"Of all the nights Tony decides to get drunk," muttered Loki to himself, slinking up to the door. Trying to still his pounding heart, he heaved it open, wincing at the grating that the mangled door made against the frame. But Kinners-or the wolf, depending on your point of view-was distracted by someone else.
The wolf seized Iron Man by the hand that had just fired a laser into her chest and slammed him into the ground. Loki winced inwardly, slightly reminded of the way the Hulk had treated him after his attack on New York. Iron Man desperately attempted to scramble to his feet, but his face was shoved back into the floor for his trouble. The wolf raised a bloody claw into the air, the moonlight illuminating it perfectly before the final, fatal blow.
She roared in pain and recoiled backwards, a carbon-alloy shaft run straight through her paw.
"Get away from it, Tony!" called Steve as Clint drew another arrow. Captain America and Black Widow rushed at it to give it a different target, while Barton provided cover fire to distract the wolf. Loki decided to vanish, although it had already been proved that the illusion was ineffective on the wolf. Old instincts die hard. Arrows rained on her, the werewolf's frustration scrawled on its face in a vehement snarl. Cracking one eye open a smidge, the first thing it saw was Agent Rogers. Recognizing it as an enemy, it pounced, but rather than getting to rip the living hide off of Steve, it got intercepted in midair.
Everyone was surprised when Iron Man tackled the wolf midleap, having considered him too drunk to understand the direness of the situation. Apparently almost dying twice had knocked the alcohol right out of his system-or at least, out of his brain. For the moment. His eyes squinted shut out of fear, he wished he had the coordination to shut off his audio receptors at the shrill sound of the beast's claws grating on his back and its vengeful roars in his ear. But instead he resolved to tighten his grip around its torso, until they both collided with the floor. Using a mind that nobody realized it had, the wolf twirled in the air to use Tony to cushion her own landing. Bonus-at the awkward angle and the intense velocity, his arm and the armor encasing it bent all at once with a metallic snap.
Tony cried out in pain, which for him meant a loud swear word with a choked sob for a grace note. Everything from his mid-bicep down felt as if it were being set on fire from the inside, yet strangely numb at the same time. No wonder he swore. Using their inertia to her advantage, the wolf dug her claws into the metal and swung Tony's body back at the two oncoming Avengers. Not even Black Widow had the reflexes to avoid him, it was such an unexpected move. She and Steve saw stars at the impact, flattened by Tony's weight. Their hearts jumped to their jugulars; with two of them trapped by a crippled hunk of metal, the wolf could kill all three of them in moments. They struggled to get out from under him, blood racing with adrenaline. But if she had intended to kill them, it wouldn't have mattered, because by the time they had freed themselves she would have been upon them. So what happened?
Hawkeye happened. Realizing that Natasha and Steve were as good as dead if the wolf decided to come for them, he revitalized his rain of arrows. She grimaced and turned her face away, dashing off to the side in an attempt to escape the incessant pricks of pain. She was surprisingly nimble, so most of them whizzed past her without so much as a hair nicked. But that was only because she was moving with breakneck speed. She bolted for the edge of the main complex, but somehow lost herself in the shadows. Hawkeye jogged a stride or two closer, but he didn't dare go any farther-who knew how far that wolf could jump?
By now Black Widow and Captain America had liberated themselves, supporting Tony between them. Still not quite grasping the reality of the situation, Hawkeye made for them, watching numbly as Natasha put her fingers to her ear.
"We need a med team out here, now, Stark is injured bad," she barked. Tony was either swearing under his breath or whimpering-possibly both.
"Copy," replied Coulson's voice in her ear, slightly fuzzy. But definitely real. "What's your status?"
"The rest of us are fine," assured Black Widow. "though we won't be so lucky next time. I'll brief you when we get inside."
"Any idea what the $# happened to Kinners?" asked Captain America. Hawkeye shook his head, running his hand through his hair and realizing for the first time how late it was and how tired he was. Not the last time.
"Only thing I've seen that's anything like that is the Hulk," sighed Clint to himself. "On the bright side, it doesn't seem to like pointy sticks launching at it at 350 fps."
"That's the only thing that saved us," observed Natasha. Though her face was stone, Clint knew that it was something special for her to laud him at all. "If you hadn't drawn its attention, we would've been dog food."
"Dog food?" echoed Cap. Hawkeye had no idea what she was talking about, either. She looked at them both for a moment, her eyebrow creeping up her forehead as the moment dragged on.
And the penny drops.
"No way," stated Hawkeye as flatly as he could, struggling to keep the fear out of his voice. "There's no way. Kinners? No. She's a sweetheart. She's not...that."
"We've seen weirder," pointed out Natasha. "From her and from other things."
Nobody could argue that. They were spared the discomfort of carrying on the conversation when the med team filed out of the door, two of which bearing a stretcher. As Steve heaved Tony's moaning corpse onto the linen, Natasha's eyes widened with yet another terror. Something obvious, something that she should have noticed, something that may very well be lethal for all of them.
"Where's Loki?"