ATTENTION READ THIS!
THE END OF THIS PART OF THE STORY IS IN SIGHT I NEED TO KNOW WHETHER YOU GUYS WANT ME TO END THIS STORY AND MAKE A SEQUEL OR CONTINUE THIS STORY AS A THREE-PART STORY
IF THERE IS NOT ENOUGH OR NO REACTION THEN THE CLIFFHANGER OF CHAPTER 20 WILL STAY THAT WAY UNTILL I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT ( BELIEVE ME YOU IT'S A BIG ONE)
a BIG SHOUT OUT for the people who DID review: you are the best people in the world and I want to hug you all! The Great Battle for Asgard is beginning and Loki is on the wrong side heheh, enjoy!
"Loki."
The screaming stops. His mind is clear again, silence, pure and blissful. Loki looks up and at first he thinks it's another trick. But he knows it isn't, no one, not even the Mad Titan, can manage an illusion like her. Loki smiles sadly.
"Hela."
There is no acknowledgement that she has heard him reacting, like a statue she stands there, proud and tall.
"Why are you here?" his voice sounds weak even to his ears, Hela would never just come here for no reason. He's never had many experiences with the Goddess of the Dead, the only ones he's had weren't particularly pleasant. Of course they hadn't been necessarily unpleasant either.
"I have my reasons." She says, he appearance is obviously an illusion, it is flickering and Loki can feel the seidr, it makes him sick. It feels like being dehydrated and right next to stands someone with more water than you could ever imagine, the familiar feeling of this seidr is torture on its own.
Loki cannot help himself.
"Would those reasons have anything to do with your rivalry with Mistress Death?"
He can feel her anger at his words and somehow her ire makes him feel better.
"That abomination is nothing." She spits before regaining her composure.
"I am here to propose a deal."
A deal. A deal brought him into this mess, it would seem a deal would help him get out of it.
"And what, pray tell me, would be the price of this deal?" Loki knows he'll accept the deal, doesn't matter at what cost, he'll find a way out of this deal like he'll find a way out of the one he is currently in.
Hela knows this too of course. She shrugs nonchalantly, a gesture that does not fit her.
"You will simply owe me something, I suppose Trickster." She smiles.
XxXxXxXxXx
"Loki."
The boy turns around and opens his arms as if to invite him for a hug.
"Yes, brother?"
Loki keeps his arms open and the smile on his face widens when he sees the face of his not-brother. Thor, the Thunder god, the Golden Prince of Asgard shall fall by the hands of Loki Laufeyson, how iconic that will be.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY BROTHER!" The thunder god narrowly misses his target as Loki simply laughs louder and takes a step sideways, knives already in his hand. He has two very special knives reserved for two very special people. Thor and Odin.
With a wide grin Loki attacks his not-brother, the knife almost plunges in his chest but is deflected by Mjolnir.
"Why Thor, I am right here." Loki sneers as they stand before one another, Thor heaving and looking exhausted, he's fought off many enemies already and unlike Loki he does not have a never-ending supply of seidr to keep him going.
"LIAR, TELL ME WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO HIM!" Thor screams before he lunges at the creature that is the body of the Trickster but not his brother.
Loki jumps away and disappears in green smoke before materializing behind Thor to stab him in the back. He doesn't see Mjolnir coming though and it buries itself in his chest making him fly backwards. With an angry snarl that is almost feral Loki disappears again.
"This is me Thor, this is who I really am!" Loki's voice drifts towards the thunder god like it has been carried by the wind from a long distance.
"Thanos freed me from you and your father."
Green smoke rises up from everywhere around Thor and the voice keeps going, louder and louder by the passing second.
"Thanos showed me what I needed to see: I am not your bother, I am NOT YOUR FAMILY!"
Behind Thor stands Loki suddenly, knife in his hand as his voice drops to a whisper.
"And I will kill everyone in this entire-" when Thor turns around to face this abomination that has taken the form of his brother he can see an arrow buried in its chest, blood seeping out of the wound and from behind Loki he can hear the Man of Iron yell.
"Need some help there Point Break?"
XxXxXxXxXx
Normally it's either contain or kill. This one is kill on sight, no hesitation and never in his life has he ever had any problem with that, as an assassin he'd killed hundreds of people in the blink of an eye.
Man, woman, child he's never truly cared if his employer wanted someone dead that person was dead within 24 hours and that was that. Whether it was 1 person or a hundred, one child or a hundred.
The mission is simple enough, they need to protect the Russian president because if he's killed in this convention, here and at this time where America and Russia couldn't be further apart America will pay the price and a nuclear war is inevitable.
An unknown organization has taken to it that a nuclear war would be exactly what the world needs and has hired an assassin only known to them as the Black Widow to make their sick dream come true.
S.H.I.E.L.D. has given him information about this Black Widow but it seems even they are uncertain about who this assassin truly is.
Barton sits as high as possible, hidden by the shadows of the statues and woodwork above him no one can see him keeping an eye out. His name has never been more fitting. He's sitting there, scanning the guests for potential suspects when he sees her.
A flash of red before it's disappeared and without further ado he follows her. His target is fast, faster than he had expected and she knows her way around. Clint has seen the blueprints of this building and he can only assume this Black Widow has as well.
At first he thinks she's foolish, why is she running to the roof, where there is no escape?
It's only when he's run onto the roof and feels the cold metal of a gun against his neck he realizes that he's been a fool and god how could he have been this stupid but it's too late now.
Slowly he turns around, the gun is pressed at his forehead now.
He tries to smile like the gun at his forehead isn't there.
"So you're gonna shoot me without a silencer? This place is crawling with security they'd hear you and you wouldn't have the chance to kill the president."
To his surprise the woman actually smiles back. She takes the gun off his head and cocks her head.
"You're right." She says.
"I'll push you off this building instead."
And then her hands hit his chest with so much force he stumbles back and before he can react she has kicked him in the chest already and he's falling of this very important building in Russia to his death.
XxXxXxXxXx
When that arrow hits Loki Clint almost feels bad for the lunatic kid god. Almost.
Next to him agent Romanoff is holding a Chitauri weapon because her own guns are empty and she's literally soaked in Chitauri blood. Stark and Rogers are standing behind him and the Hulk is somewhere else probably squashing ten Chitauri at a time with one foot.
Thor looks up with a confused look on his face and the Loki Clint shot slowly disappears in a cloud of green smoke.
Suddenly a wind comes out of nowhere, throwing them all of balance and Clint can see the cloud of green smoke being carried away by that sudden wind and he's almost disappointed that didn't finish Loki for good. Of course that would have been too beautiful to be true.
Thor doesn't waste his time and with one mighty swing of Mjolnir he follows his brother's smoke cloud.
Stark takes of the mask for a second and looks very much offended.
"Did you just see that?" he huffs, blasting a Chitauri warrior that had foolishly decided to try and take the Avengers on alone while being surrounded by his dead comrades.
"What?" Rogers looks confused. "Loki disappearing in some weird cloud of green smoke?"
Clint shoots another arrow in the eye socket of the closest Chitauri while Natasha shoots the next one.
"No, he means the fact that Thor just totally ditched us…again."
XxXxXxXxXx
"For Asgard!" the Einerjahr surround the All-Father and All-Mother weapons raised as more and more Chitauri come.
Next to him Frigga is throwing knives at a speed that reminds him why she is the woman standing next to him and not the woman his father had preferred for him.
Gugnir has never felt this heavy in his hand as it does now, powerful seidr shoots from the tip and kills a hundred Chitauri at once but they keep coming and right now they are boxed in, in front of them are the open doors of the Throne room where these vile creatures keep coming from, the Tesseract's Energy can easily be felt.
Thanos has not arrived yet but it will not be long until the mad Titan comes for what he wants. Odin can only guess how Thanos had managed to open the Tesseract, to make it create a portal in the middle of Asgard right under their noses.
Suddenly and with a loud bang all doors fly open, the Einerjahr that had been guarding them are thrown away like children's toy soldiers and the entire ground shakes, wind with so much force it even blows away some of the Chitauri howls through the palace, Frigga's throwing knives now hit the wrong targets and Odin and Frigga can feel it.
The seidr that's causing all this and with a sinking feeling in their hearts they recognize it, this flow of energy that is unmistakably…Loki's.
XxXxXxXxXx
She doesn't even wait to hear the body hit the ground, that man is dead by now and she turns around, ready to get back in and kill a president to cause a nuclear war. What can she say? She's already done so much, got this much red on her ledger, what's a few billion people more?
"Nice try."
Natasha whirls around gun at the ready before someone kicks her arm but she doesn't let go of the gun.
She drops on knee and makes a pirouette to trip her attacker but he just jumps up and land on her leg, it breaks with a CRACK but she ignores the pain and using her attacker who's still standing on her leg as leverages she pulls herself half-upright and punches him in the stomach making him stumble.
With all her power she yanks her leg from under him and throws her gun away reaching for her knife.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." A smug voice calls from above her. She looks up with narrowed eyes. The man she's just pushed of this roof is pointing a… bow and arrow? At her head.
He smiles when he sees her reaction.
"It's a bit old fashioned I know but hey, this doesn't need a silencer."
She's taken a hold of the knife now and just when she's about to plunge it in his chest he kicks her right arm from under her ad gestures towards her left.
"You might wanna drop the knife lady unless you're planning on cutting your own wrists in which case I'd say: go ahead."
Time for a different approach. She slowly puts down the knife and with both arms raised she slowly stands up.
She smiles apologetically at him.
"You can't blame a girl for trying." She whispers, cocking her head and flashing another smile at him.
She slowly takes a step towards him and continues talking.
"You know," she very close to him right now, she leans forwards placing her hand on his chest.
"I could-
The man takes a step back abruptly, almost making her lose her balance.
"-take a step back?" he says, 'that'd be nice."
Fine if this won't work she'll have to do this the less pleasant way. Without hesitating she ducks and grabs the knife she's dropped, the arrow narrowly misses her hand and with one swift move she's jumped on him, rendering the bow useless and kicking him in the chest.
Her opponent seems surprised for a moment and then he grabs her and attempts to throw her away but with one swift move of her wrist she hits his temple with the knife handle and he falls down, knocked out cold.
She's got to admit it she's almost out of breath. Ignoring her leg she gets up and looks down at the man she had thrown of this roof a few moments ago and then had somehow survived this ordeal to almost beat her.
When she looks down she can see that the Russian president is stepping inside his car and with screeching tires the black bulletproof car drives away.
"дерьмо!" she mutters while she throws away her knife, she turns around and kicks the unconscious agents vehemently.
"This is your fault you meddling хуй!"
Angrily she picks the knife she's just thrown away back up. She cannot leave loose ends.
XxXxXxXxXx
When they finally get to that goddamn palace Tony wants to throw his hand in the air and hoot for joy, seriously how big can a palace get? He thought his home was big.
Of course his immense joy has to be tramples the moment he can feel it because then the entire palace starts to shake and he really really does not like the idea of this whole stupid building collapsing on them after having done so much effort to get here in the first place.
In the middle of the room (and the attention, why does this not surprise him?) stands Loki, somehow he looks older though but now is not the time to study Loki's age or appearance because green smoke and sparkles (yes sparkles, my little pony friendship is magic style) is rising from the ground at Loki's feet.
When they try to get closer more Chitauri just attack them and the ground keeps shaking, with much difficulty Tony manages to get to Thor, behind him the rest of the Avengers are slaughtering Chitauri.
"You brother has gone CRAZY!" he yells.
Thor turns around to his voice (finally he is not ignored!)
"That is not my brother!" he screams back, squashing another Chitauri.
"No?" Tony counters, "He sure looks like him!"
With one might swing of his magic hammer the Chitauri separating them from each other and a normal conversation, are thrown away or smashed to pieces.
"He is under the control of some sort of spell!" Thor yells.
"Thanos must have-"
And apparently the universe hates fully completed, uninterrupted sentences because then a blinding blue light fills up the room and Thor cannot finish his sentence because he has to scream and cover his eyes in outrage and so does Tony.
XxXxXxXxXx
The next time they meet it's in much more pleasant circumstances. It's been 4 months and in those four months Barton still doesn't know. Why would she leave him alive? He's been tracking her ever since that rooftop incident and he hasn't contacted S.H.I.E.L.D. either, this is something he needs to do without the help or interference from S.H.I.E.L.D.
He doesn't know why she's chosen this setting and he feels ridiculous for even accepting her invitation. Because there is no doubt in is mind that invitation on his pillow in that crappy motel to this fancy costume ball is not from her. He's done some personal digging on her this time. More detailed and with less legal routes then S.H.I.E.L.D. had ever done but at least he'd gotten some result. Not much, naturally he hadn't expected to find much about her but still.
Mostly he had found aliases but from what he would conclude her name was Romanoff, Natasha Romanoff, a spy slash assassin with a past that would make most people want to cry and hide in a dark corner in a very much secured house. Not him, his findings had intrigued him, she reminds him so much of himself. The Hawkeye that had chosen a criminal path instead of the one he's walking right now.
The people here make him sick, pretentious rich and spoiled children, who believe they're everything and the world resolves around them. The only good part about his ex-job had been he had the opportunity and excuse to murder some of these pretentious bastards. Now his job almost exists out of protecting them, a though that makes him sick in his stomach, honestly.
It doesn't surprise him that he finds her on a balcony, wearing a black dress, that covers her legs partly and does not hide much of her upper body at all. Her hair has grown and she's wearing it in a bun but he can recognize that shade of red any time.
The music from downstairs is still audible and the night is quite warm.
He comes to stand next to her and they stand there like that for a while. When the next song is being played she turns to him and lifts her hand towards him.
"Care to dance?" she asks innocently.
Clint takes her hand and nods.
"Of course." He says.
She's a very good dance, much better than he is actually but that's not that hard anyway.
They dance until the song ends and when they part he akss her the question that's been bugging him for a long time.
"Why didn't you kill me?"
The Black Widow sighs and looks at the view they have from this balcony, it is truly beautiful but Clint doesn't feel like admiring the view right now.
"I have so much red on my ledger."
It's not an answer. But somehow it is, somehow it is the exact answer that Clint needs, it's the answer that starts it all. That's the very reason everything after this moment has happened. And so is his reaction.
"Would you like to wipe it out?"
XxXxXxXxXx
Steve really does not like this new era he's awakened in, he likes the old one much better. Back in the time when it was just some German egomaniac with a world-dominance wish and no real flesh on his bones, with a red skull and just an army of Nazi's with super weapons at his back, not this modern shit.
With de-aged demi gods and power hungry almighty mad titans who can't die and want to kill everyone in the world to court some weird Mistress Death. With armies of aliens with super weapons and goddamned magic flying around everywhere.
When blue lights blinds them all the only thing Captain America can see for a while is black dots dancing in front of his eyes and even sound is muffled, like the light has affected all of his senses.
He feels drowsy for a second before the super-serum kicks in and he regains his senses much faster than an average human ever would.
Hearing comes back first, cries of battle or of death are the first thing that reach his ears and it suddenly feels like he's back in the 1900's, in the middle of the war with people dying everywhere for nothing.
Then the black dots finally disappear. He looks around but he doesn't have to look long, in the opening of the doors (they had been ripped of their hinges, those were golden ten feet high doors, seriously?) stands Thanos, the scepter Loki had had on earth back when he had attacked it, in his hands. Steve can almost feel the scepter and he's a human standing at least twenty feet away from it.
Yeah, Steve prefers the old world, or if that's not possible, he'd like those black dots back before his eyes please.
YES; that is my take on how Hawkeye and Black Widow met (it is NOT CANON) this part was not based on the comics it's entirely my own creation. I hope you enjoyed it, flashback will come in the next chapter as well, a little less of Clint maybe a little more of Loki I'm still deciding. Again THANK YOU for those who reviewed and please for those who haven't: it would be very much appreciated! If you review my story might get known a bit more, more people might get interested and I might be able to make a sequel but that's entirely up to the people who review! I know I said I might get a preview of the other fic I'm working on but it' still very much in progress and with school that started again I don't have that much time.
ATTENTION AGAIN TO THE DISCLAIMER AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS CHAPTER PLEASE READ IT