"Stay in the sub," Natasha said, eyes darting around the underground Brooklyn bunker. "I haven't had a chance to speak to the Captain yet."

"We'll need to refuel somewhere," Brand insisted. The sound crackled for a moment, cutting in and out as the woman spoke, but Natasha managed to get the majority of it. "We might see if we can go north to one of the fuelling docks near Boston."

"Don't stay if there's trouble."

"We may not be able to help that."

Natasha paused as a flash of familiar blond hair darted down the stairs on the other side of the main hall. He was flanked by no less than six S.H. .D. agents in military uniform, all of them speaking rapidly.

"I have to go," she said, and then hung up before Abigail could get another word in. She'd been waiting in the American resistance headquarters for the better part of an hour and a half, and thus far, no one seemed to take her seriously as someone who deserved to speak to Captain America. Mind you, she had only spoken with army footmen, so none of them would have known her rank inside her secret society. Still, it was a pretty big change from the immediate respect she had in Colombo.

It had taken longer than she anticipated, but she and her small crew managed to cross the Pacific without running into any real problems along the way. Their sub was equipped with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cloaking technology, allowing them to slip by the few enemy tankers plonked out across the vast, clear ocean waters. They blitzed through the Panama Canal's levies, and it took all of Natasha's pull to persuade her gunmen not to sink any alien ships along the way.

They were traveling incognito, and despite not running into many issues around the Caribbean and Central American coastlines, she wasn't ready to start a war by sea. Her territory was secure, and she wanted to get directly into the American heartland before she unleashed havoc on the few alien strongholds left. So, they traveled unseen, though she wondered if Bruce had had the tact to do the same. She hadn't heard from him since he stole a submarine earlier in the month, and she could only hope he made it through the ocean waterways with as little trouble as she had.

It'd be horrible to die at sea—all that'd be left would be a bloated corpse, if the sharks didn't get to you, and that would be a pathetic way to go.

Once the team made it into the East River, Natasha donned a protective watersuit and shipped out. The water was positively putrid, but she had prepared for that, covering every inch of herself in scuba gear. The sub crew, meanwhile, threw up their cloaking shields and sunk to the bottom of the river, careful to be out of sight and out of mind. Natasha, meanwhile, surfaced alongside an abandoned boat on the Brooklyn side of the river, in which she changed and set out on foot to the coordinates they had on the Captain's base.

And so, she soon found herself surrounded by chaos. There were maps of the US strung across walls, all of them digitized to show alien movements. Military officials and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents alike seemed to be fighting to be heard, and the Captain had been nowhere to be seen. The man who checked her blood and led her in gave Natasha a hard look before telling her that Steve was busy, but she was free to wait. The look she gave him in return seemed to send him shuffling away in a hurry, and wait she did.

But she was done waiting. As soon as she saw Steve, she made a beeline for him, darting down the metal stairwell and into the pit. He had a few files in his hands, his expression stern, but when he looked up and saw her properly, she watched the façade drop a little—he almost looked relieved.

"Agent Romanoff," he said as she pushed through to get to him, ignoring the squawking agents at his sides. "When did you… No one told me you were here."

"I'm not surprised," she said, nodding at the vultures around him. "Can we talk somewhere? It's urgent."

"Everything's urgent these days," he muttered. However, he nodded, and she followed him in the direction he came: up the stairs again, through a claustrophobically small hallway, and into a small office that she assumed belonged to him. There were a few photos on a small desk, but otherwise it was bare—aside from the patriotic shrine behind a hip-high cabinet. Her eyes swept over the old flag as Steve shut the door behind them, blocking out prattling people as he did so. The sounds muffled, but they weren't gone for good, and Natasha turned to him a moment later, hands by her sides.

He looked like he always did, but his face looked… heavy. His shoulders slumped a little now that they were alone, and his eyes told a story she wasn't sure she wanted to know. He seemed to be appraising her too, eyes traveling up and down her frame—not lewdly, but as an employer would a new employee. Then, out of nowhere, he threw his arms around her and pulled her in for an almost painful hug. She felt the air squeezed out of her, but eventually managed to get her arms around his thick midsection to return the gesture. It would have been touching if she wasn't so innately frustrated with him.

"It's so good to see you… as you," he said in her ear, and Natasha nodded, patting his back.

"You too, Captain."

He stepped back moments later, hands clasped behind him, and then shook his head. "Have you… What's been happening out there?"

"The world's fine," she told him. There was no need to beat around any metaphorical bushes, no need to sugarcoat or drag out something unnecessarily. "We have most of the Pacific and Southeast Asia settled… Australia and New Zealand too. Thor has most of Europe on lockdown, and we think it'll be fine. I… I haven't heard much from Barton, but he seems to be doing okay in Africa." She paused, a smile tugging at her lips. "Last I heard he was chasing aliens through Zimbabwe, but I don't have a solid on that information just yet."

He stared at her for a moment, and then leaned back against his desk. "Is that all?"

"Banner is on his way here," she told him. "He heard about Stark's special serum, and that the Fantastic Four might plan to us it."

She wasn't sure what to make of the revelation, but by the dark shadows Steve's frown cast, she knew his opinion on it.

"I haven't heard from Stark in almost two years," Steve grunted, jaw set and eyes hard. "He just… disconnected, and then all of a sudden he's here to save the day, like I couldn't have used him a few months ago when things really started to go bad. He isn't a team player, Natasha. Never has been, and it must have been a fluke when it did happen..."

"They really did a number on communications going in and out of the States," she admitted, preferring to pull back from the Stark topic for now. "I've been in regular contact with Thor, and I'm sorry that wasn't the case with you. It's been… easier to get through this with him."

"Easier?"

"You know what I mean." It was easier to fight so hard knowing that there was someone who understood her wholeheartedly elsewhere in the word, someone who had fought the good fight before and knew what it took to survive. She could have done it on her own, but she could see that the isolation hadn't been good for Steve. "What happened, Steve? How did it get like this?"

He shook his head, a hand on his forehead, and sighed. "We knew they were going to make a move, but we waited too long for an evac. We knew, and they… They just did it."

"Why didn't you just…" She stopped herself, knowing hindsight was twenty-twenty, and it wouldn't do them any good now to rehash what he could have done instead.

"They infiltrated the armed forces more than I initially thought," he told her. "It was a military takeover with Loki as their figurehead, and ever since then I've been trying to manage the death camps they've made in every state. It's chaos, Natasha."

"Loki?" Her eyebrows furrowed. "I thought he was dealt with? Got his punishment already and kicked out of Asgard?"

"According to Johnny Storm, he was kidnapped and used," Steve told her. "Successfully at that."

"I see." She didn't like the fact that Loki was anywhere near this, and his name muddied the waters considerably. "And now?"

"Storm says he's part of the resistance in Manhattan. He's been down in the field with the people, and he's part of the planned coup for this weekend."

"Coup?"

"Right, yeah…" She listened to him explain the Fantastic Four's plan to gas the aliens with Stark's serum: a staged attack this upcoming Saturday, a few days from now, and their plan to murder some of the head honcho characters running things. She didn't recall there being any "leader" types when she did damage control for her region, and she was sure Thor could say the same. They may not have given Steve enough credit: perhaps he was dealing with more than they had originally thought?

He also expressed that he didn't think the alien capital was actually Manhattan—while there were bigwigs there, most of the orders seemed to be coming directly out of Washington, which seemed to upset him. She wondered when he realized that he wasn't in the eye of the storm, but too far north to really do anything.

"In a perfect world, I would have rallied my men and stormed the camps," he told her. "I would have treated this like the war it is, and I would have gone in guns blazing."

"The world isn't perfect." She crossed her arms when he looked up at her, and then shrugged. "It never will be."

"They have so many hostages," he said weakly. "Literally thousands of people across the country are stuck in these camps, and at the drop of a hat the aliens can kill them or climb inside them or whatever it is they do, and we don't have the manpower to stop them."

"If that serum works, then it'll definitely even the playing field."

"It works," he told her. "We've run the tests needed and we've put it into production at a factory we've been using for civilian production upstate."

"Any known antidotes?"

"I didn't even know about this until last Thursday," he admitted, his face growing dark. "We could have saved a lot of people if it had surfaced sooner."

"Half of the Indonesian population is dead," she said unflinchingly. "China's population is down by fifteen percent, and Australia by thirty-five. A lot of people have died, Steve, and there's nothing we can do to change that."

He looked down at the floor, expression unreadable, and when Natasha was close enough, her took her hand in his.

And she let him.

"I feel stupid."

"Don't, you look smashing on camera," Peter chuckled, which earned him a look from Johnny. The man then turned to her and nudged her arm.

"It's important that we get this right."

"Why couldn't you just do it by yourself?" she asked, fiddling with her hair. It probably looked the same now as it did when she put it in a ponytail ten minutes ago, but she couldn't help but play with it.

"Because I don't want to do it by myself."

"So I got roped into it?"

"Nobody else would do it with me—"

"I don't want to do it with you!" She heard Loki and Peter whispering to each other behind the tripod, and she shot him a glare.

Over the last couple days, the occupants of the tower had been busier than ever. Sue and Reed worked overtime to can the serum to meet the overwhelming demand they now had to fill, while Peter, Loki, Johnny, and Ben spent most of their time in the tunnel system. They did shiftwork to make it fair, and they always went in pairs. Loki was usually absolutely miserable to leave, but when he returned, he wore a smile that Max read as him being pleased with himself. They went with representatives from Captain Plymyth's reserve to visit the small camps throughout the subway lines. Sometimes they'd fight Pagurolids attempting to break in, but most of the time they were there to spread the message of the impending fight.

Max, meanwhile, was resigned to play the babysitter, and Sue seemed to think it was a very important job—and Max was beginning to see that too. The kids were starved for attention, and with everyone else in the towers gone or busy, she was the only one to keep them entertained. They read books, watched movies, and worked through some of their homework that Sue insisted they keep up with. She worked with Franklin on his telekinetic abilities, but he hadn't been able to move anything in her presence since the last time he knocked a piece over—it seemed Loki was the best motivator there was, and fear of disappointment seemed to work best with Franklin.

According to the cameras around the city, Reed told them over dinner last night that there was no more movement out of Central Park. However, there was a much heavier police presence in the city now. More black uniforms patrolled the sidewalks and busy intersections. This, however, seemed to make Reed and Sue happy: now there were more of them to gas on Saturday, and they welcomed the new arrivals. Still, Sue had caught a pair of footsoldiers sniffing around the tower on Monday, and Saturday couldn't come soon enough for her.

It was Wednesday—late Wednesday. All the men had returned from making their rounds in the tunnels, and Johnny had commandeered her for a job before dinner. Apparently, Peter had the brilliant idea of filming a video to explain what was happening on Saturday, how the serum worked, and what the average citizen could do in the meantime. He and Reed had been fiddling around with various forms of online hacking, and they were confident they'd be able to override various systems, much like Captain America's team had tried back in May, to broadcast the commercial right after the attack started.

The rest of the tower approached his plan with mixed reactions. Sue worried they would trace the video back to the tower, and Reed expressed concern about the aliens mobilizing across the country faster should the video leak. Peter argued that they could get it onto local television stations only, and by the time any of the aliens realized what was happening, they'd hopefully have met the cold embrace of Tony Stark's serum.

In the end, Johnny and Peter decided it didn't hurt to film said infomercial, and got to work on it once they returned from the sewers. Unfortunately, Sue, Reed, and Loki flat-out refused to be on camera. Ben scoffed at the idea, but Johnny didn't bother to ask him. Peter's voice was a little unclear at times from behind the mask, so that left Johnny and Max to get through all the material.

And she was pretty unimpressed to be coaxed into doing her part. It wasn't that she couldn't memorize the lines, but she wasn't a particularly good actress by any means, and Johnny's head seemed to swell whenever the camera light blinked at them. Loki, meanwhile, thought the whole situation was hilarious, and seemed to revel in her discomfort.

"Just say the lines, Max."

"I am," she hissed, shifting on her chair and holding up the prototype of the canisters that would be making their way through the underground community Saturday morning. "I just feel stupid… It's like we're selling whip cream or something."

"But you look stunning while doing it," Loki added, and then smirked when she flipped him off miserably. No one was making her do it, and she saw the merit behind the project. However, her cramps were killing her, her boobs hurt just having a bra on, and she just wanted to sit in a hot shower until the aches went away. PMS waits for no woman, apparently, no matter how busy she is with world-saving tasks.

"Let's take it from the top, guys," Peter suggested, leaning down to fiddle with his camera. Luckily for them, it took videos too, and he planned to do the editing tonight on one of Reed's many computers.

"Are we sure this one doesn't need more make-up?" Johnny asked, pointing at her. "I mean, the glare off her nose… I can't work in these conditions!"

She spritzed him with the serum, careful not to use too much, but just enough to make him cough unattractively while Peter zoomed in on him.

"I don't want to hit you."

Max's voice bounced off the grimy walls of the elevator shaft, off the cables strung from the ceiling. Loki looked up at her, seeing her leaning over the edge in the soft lighting, and then set another target on the floor.

"Well, don't hit me then," he called back when she said his name, looking up at her with a smirk. There really wasn't any need for him to be down there. After all, they could have just thrown the targets—which were several orange triangular pieces of plastic that they found in Johnny's apartment while filming that afternoon—down the long shaft and had Max shoot them from whichever floor suited her. However, he wanted to add that element of stress to her task—he wanted to see her focus her few spare bullets on hitting the targets directly. With all of them situated around the bottom of the elevator shaft, there wasn't much room for Loki.

He could have stepped out into the basement. He could have pressed himself flat to the wall, or done any other number of things to get out of her way. Instead, he stood directly in the middle of all of it. When she went for her target on Saturday, he wouldn't be the only thing in the street for her to hit, and she had one shot to hit him.

And he knew she carried that burden with pride, just as he knew she'd be a little upset with him when he told her to botch the shot. Loki wanted to kill the creature who brought him here in chains, and he fully intended to do it. Unfortunately, Max's hit would signal the start of the whole attack, and the rest of the tower wold be watching carefully for Carl to go down. Loki would take out the rest of that party who traipsed along after him while Ben commandeered the tank that loitered in the background—her shot would start the war in Manhattan, and deep down, Max was proud of that.

He'd hate to take that from her, but he couldn't let her have it. She'd shoot him, but Loki would ensure that in the moment, she'd shoot him where Loki wanted her to shoot him. It wouldn't be a clean shot to the head—that much was certain.

Still, he had no qualms with helping her practice, even if he knew she wouldn't need dead accuracy for what Loki wanted. After the filming had finished and dinner wrapped up, Loki took up Max's offer to do a little practice shooting in the tower. The gun had three bullets to spare, and Max wanted to make sure she knew how to handle it in its most basic form. She had agreed with Peter that there would be a lot to consider on the day: wind, sunlight, the speed of the moving vehicle. Anyway, if it made her more comfortable to go shoot some pylons in the elevator before bed, he'd do whatever she asked.

He'd been surprised that she even wanted to—from what he gathered, she'd been moody all day, complaining of soreness, and had gone so far as to snap at him when he went in to hold her. She apologized, naturally, but Loki had thought, with the evidence he collected, that she might have been more comfortable going up to bed or to the shower instead of sprawling out on a cold tile floor to shoot things. However, he wasn't going to argue with her: if she was feeling better, so be it.

The rest of the men were weary that evening. For the last two days, they had been going down into the subway lines to speak with people. Most of the time, Loki was paired up with Johnny, and they had moved from camp to camp along a few specific lines, acting as spokesmen for the upcoming attack. Loki generally let Johnny do the speaking—he was the man the people really wanted to see, particularly when they realized who Loki was. However, whenever there were specific questions about the aliens, Johnny deferred to Loki, and he watched ordinary humans gather around to listen to his answers.

He still wasn't sure how to feel about such treatment, but Max seemed to think it was positive development for his image, particularly after the Pagurolids sullied it so greatly with the television campaigns.

"Okay, are you done?" He looked up to see her aiming the weapon in his general direction, but he could also see her squinting through the small telescope on top. Loki extended his arms, gesturing to the space around him.

"Fire away."

"Move!"

"No, I'm staying here."

Her incoherent grumbles traveled down to him at the bottom, making him smile, but he held his ground. The first shot struck the target to his far left, and he flinched only slightly when the cone exploded, bits and pieces of orange plastic flying in all directions. The shot itself, however, was practically silent. The second shot left her gun just as he moved to kick some of the debris out of the way, and he heard her gasp over the sound of the second cone shattering.

"Don't move!" she all but shouted.

"He'll be moving," he argued up at her loudly, smirking as he moved the rest of the debris out of the way. She was good at this—she had talent. Her aim was true, her focus strong. It made him proud, made him want to show her off.

The third target was far more difficult: just as Max went to shoot it, Loki hurled it into the air. She managed to hit it, and the bullet embedded itself somewhere in the wall over his left shoulder. However, there was no explosion of orange this time, and Loki watched it fall back to the ground in two pieces. Just as he bent to gather it for further inspection, he heard something above him, and grinned as Max descended the shaft a few feet at a time, putting Peter's gifts to good use.

Once her feet touched the ground, he helped her free herself from the wristguards, and she rubbed her arms. The gun, it seemed, was left up on the ninth floor.

"You're a very good shooter, my sweet," he praised, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she surveyed the damage she caused. "You shouldn't be worried for Saturday."

"Well, I'm probably still going to," she admitted, her hands on her hips as she did a full circle. When she was through inspecting the floor, she looked up at him. "Thanks for doing this with me."

"Of course."

She caught his lips with hers, standing up on the tips of her toes to do it. He chuckled against her, a hand on her waist and the other pressed to her hair.

"You know, I read somewhere," she started, her words muffled between them until Loki pulled away, "that orgasms are great cures for cramps…"

He arched an eyebrow, shocked but not unwelcome to the turn of events. "Whatever have you been reading? That's very scandalous indeed!"

She giggled as he hoisted her up and set her on his shoulder, taking her out of the shaft and into the secluded basement lair to tease her relentlessly until she practically begged him to have her. She had no troubles with him touching her then, no scolding or chastising to be heard, and that was just how he liked it. When it was over and they gathered their hastily discarded clothing, hand in hand, he dreaded how she'd respond when he told her to botch the shot on Saturday—what she'd say, what she'd think of him after.

Nothing good, he assumed.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

My work schedule decided to be a little crazypants this weekend, so I rushed to get this chapter finished. Otherwise, we'd probably be looking at sometime next week for an update, and that'd be shitty.

I know it feels like nothing happened in this chapter—not much, anyway. However, to me, knowing everything that's going to go down in the future, it's heavy with foreshadowing. So. I had fun dropping things here and there, little bombs that characters will step on later, and I'm excited to revisit them.

I'm actually trying to alter my writing somewhat—to make it simpler. I can be pretty longwinded when I describe things, so I'm trying to find shorter, more succinct ways of detailing scenes without compromising quality. It all goes back to the original pieces I'm working on… I've written about half of the novella that I'd like to self-publish sometime in the next few months, and I've started a twitter account (see my profile!) to start interacting more with readers. I also started working a website this week for my author-site, and I'm pretty happy with the progress so far.

Anyway. My weekend schedule is busy as fuck (yeaaay working at a movie theatre), but my weekday schedule next week is super open (boo not having enough hours to pay for things), so you can expect a regular update sometime next week!

SEE YOU THEN, BABIES!