Hey guys! I am really sorry about not updating sooner. I've had a really hard year at university so that's the only excuse I have. How did ya'll like Winter Soldier? I LOVED IT. Anyway, have some fun with a seriously brainwashed Charlotte. Tell me what you think!

It had been one hell of a night, Tony had to admit. Charlotte called him at midnight claiming that she and Clint were going to the bar since the mission failed and around 4am, she finally stumbled into the apartment. From there, it was clear she didn't go to sleep since she sounded like she was rummaging through her room looking for something. When Tony yelled at her to "kindly shut the hell up," the noise stopped. He assumed she went to sleep because when he got up to finally go into S.H.I.E.L.D., Charlotte's bedroom door was still closed.

"Charlotte," he called, banging on the door. She didn't respond. "That must be one wicked hangover," Tony said and then he didn't think any more of it.

Once inside S.H.I.E.L.D., Tony didn't see Clint either. God, what if they got drunk and slept together? Tony thought. I will never let them forget this. Tony was shaken from those thoughts when he entered the break room where the other Avengers were lounging.

"Tony, have you seen Charlotte?" asked Steve, who hadn't even bothered to put his shield down since last night. "I've been calling her all night." Tony wanted to shrug, just to piss him off, but then he realized that Steve was actually worried. "No one's seen Clint either."

"I let her sleep in because she and Clint went out drinking last night after the mission," Tony replied. "I figured she told you before they left."

"I haven't seen either of them since the middle of the mission last night." Tony had to admit that he thought that strange. Charlotte could be unprofessional but not that unprofessional and it was totally uncharacteristic of Clint.

"Well, I don't know about that but she's home. She'll probably be here later." Steve nodded and pushed his hair back with his hand. He is not gonna make me feel sorry for him, Tony thought. But for once, Steve looked like he hadn't slept well. One thing's for sure; he wasn't making up his feelings for Charlotte and judging by the look on Loki's face from across the room, it was much to his chagrin. In fact, Tony was beginning to wonder whether Loki always had the same I'm-better-than-everyone-here-and-cleverer-too look plastered across his ghostly face. The odds were probably saying yes, he does.

Thor was having a hell of a time keeping Loki in line but Tony was only glad that it wasn't his job. You make your bed and now you have to sleep in it. Wasn't that the saying? Thor was the one who wanted him here and he'd gotten his wish, even though he brought Charlotte down with him.

Loki looked pissed and Bucky just kept staring at him in disdain. Tony didn't think it was possible but he actually hated Steve's best friend more than he disliked Steve. At least with Steve, the main problem was that he was a stick in the mud. He hadn't yet figured out Bucky's problem. "Before you ask," Tony told Bucky and Loki in the same breath, "Charlotte's not here yet, which means you can't bitch at her yet," he told Bucky, "and you can't awkwardly put the moves on her yet," he told Loki.

"Well, if she's got a good reason for walking out of a mission before it was even done, I'd like to hear it," Bucky responded. Loki froze.

"What did you say?" he asked. Tony cocked an eyebrow.

"You heard me, didn't you? She and Clint ditched me and Steve before we could take the spear." Loki's normally straight posture began to slouch.

"Is she alright?"

Tony groaned. "Yes, she's fine. She's just hungover so I let her sleep in." He could tell by the look on Loki's face that he didn't even remotely believe him. Well, who cares? Tony didn't have to tell him anything.

"I should have known," Bucky replied.

Tony didn't bother to give a response. Instead he turned to Steve and Thor and said, "Keep your dogs in line, will you?"

The morning continued rather boringly. Charlotte didn't show up until the meeting about the mission to retrieve the scepter was on a break. Fury had called it to see if anyone could find Clint. Tony took that to mean that everyone could stand around and pretend to do something but in actuality, not do a damn thing. He was on his phone, looking through files for Stark Industries that Pepper had sent him (really, they weren't together anymore so president or not, why was she still bothering him about this stuff?) when Charlotte entered the room. No one had even really noticed other than Tony. Steve was chatting with Fury while Loki and Bucky just looked around angrily and everyone else seemed to actually be trying to contact Clint.

"Charlotte, are you okay?" Tony asked slowly. She was wearing black from head to toe, including thick black jeans and a long sleeved black shirt that covered her to her neck, and to top it off, she had on sunglasses. Tony saw a holster tightly strapped to her thigh and a belt around her hips of knives and other various weapons, including S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new "taser sticks" (as Tony liked to call them) and small disks that would emit an electrical charge high enough to probably stop a man's heart. Over her shoulders, he saw the hilts of two long knives and if he wasn't mistaken, she had a black eye. "Are you still drunk? Why do you have all your gear on? What the hell are you doing wearing all that? You do know it'll be in the 90s today, right?" This didn't add up. Charlotte always acted like the world was ending when she got hot.

Behind the sunglasses, he could almost see Charlotte narrow her eyes at him. "Why does it matter?" she responded, her voice devoid of all emotion. "I didn't come in for a lecture."

"Well, you're gonna get one. Seriously though, are you sick?" Charlotte could never abide by hot weather and looking back on it, Tony should have realized something was wrong then.

"I said I'm fine," she said and brushed past him without another word. Tony didn't think another thing about it. What a hangover.

When Steve caught sight of her, he broke off with Fury and approached Charlotte like he wanted to shake her. She kept her distance, as though she sensed he was angry.

"Charlotte, what the hell were you thinking?" Steve demanded. It was hard not to notice Bucky's smirk. "Where were you? Where is Clint?"

"Look, I get that you're angry but can you keep your voice down?" she responded, again like she didn't even care.

"Are you seriously drunk right now?" Charlotte shrugged in response.

"What are you, my keeper?" Finally something caught the attention of everyone.

"What the hell is your problem? I was worried sick about you! You could have been killed!" Steve paused all of a sudden. "Do you have a black eye? Are you hurt?" He reached towards her, just to barely touch the side of her face and she moved away from him so fast, Steve would've thought she was scared of him. "Charlotte, I-"

"No," she responded, vaguely touching the skin of her black eye under her glasses. "I'm sorry. It hurts. But maybe you could look at it?" Tony wanted to retch. Even with Charlotte sloppy and drunk, she and Steve were pathetically cute.

"How'd you get it?" Steve asked, moving closer to her. Loki narrowed his eyes from his vantage point, leaning against the opposite wall. This wasn't right.

"It all happened so fast," she breathed. Steve placed one hand against Charlotte's neck before letting the other graze her cheek. Charlotte managed a sly smile before putting her right hand against his chest and resting her left one on his shoulder. His heart hammered in his chest and Charlotte's smile only grew. Her fingers wrapped around the edge of the shield on his back but it ended there.

Steve had not even seen Loki coming and clearly, neither had anyone else. He slammed Charlotte against the wall, his long, pale fingers around her throat.

"Loki!" Thor yelled. "Let Charlotte go!"

Loki didn't respond, not even when he heard everyone else in the room cock their guns. Charlotte began to smile again so Loki slammed her against the wall once more.

"Loki," Steve began, "what are you doing?"

"You are all fools. She wanted your shield," Loki responded before yanking Charlotte's sunglasses off. Everyone gasped, including Tony and Bucky.

Charlotte's eyes were scanning the room as Loki placed his head next to hers. Where once they had had the same charming green eyes, Charlotte now had unnaturally bright blue eyes, the color of the tesseract.

"You've just been waiting to do this, haven't you?" Charlotte asked, putting one of her hands to Loki's face and using one her legs to wrap around his. Her other hand went to the belt at her waist. His grip on her throat loosened when he realized that what he feared had actually happened. It was his mistake when Charlotte tightened her hold on his leg and slammed a small disk onto his chest. The disk emitted a flash of electricity and it dropped Loki automatically. "You're just as pathetic as everyone always said you were."

"What did you do to me?" Loki shrieked, looking at his hands in disbelief. He tried multiple things but nothing happened. Charlotte had somehow damaged his magic.

"Oh, you won't be pulling any tricks on me any time soon. Nothing flashy like your cloning or anything that you think will distract me." Loki only looked at her in disbelief.

Thor moved to grab Loki before he could respond and Charlotte let him. He was the only one that tried to get closer to her. Her grip flexed on a knife in her belt.

"That's a pretty good idea. Keep your distance. Now if no one decides to be a hero, I won't kill anybody… right now. But if you think you can get anything by me, like those agents waiting outside the meeting room with their tranquilizer guns, you are sorely mistaken. Director Fury, if you allow those men to come in here and attempt to take me, I'll kill you first."

"You won't get the chance," he responded. Charlotte only smirked when she heard the door open.

The first three men into the room didn't even stand a chance. Charlotte drew three throwing knives. In under a second, she swung her left arm and threw them. A knife hit each of their throats immediately. She raised her hands and grabbed the longer blades on her back. The next agent landed at her feet as she crossed her arms and slit his throat. Another agent got impaled at the end of knife and she dragged it through his middle.

Steve was eerily reminded of Charlotte saying during the mission that she had never killed a human and didn't plan on it. Clearly, whatever the scepter had done to her had taken away her skepticism and her natural fear of handling weapons. Now she was all skill, no emotion. There was no shaky-hands, no more think-before-you-act. Charlotte was a weapon at someone else's command now. A weapon with no regard for her own life.

"Only five? That's a disappointment," she said, putting her knives back in their sheaths. Everyone was openmouthed. It was Natasha that moved next, as nothing seemed to shock or stall her. But Charlotte predicted it and threw a small disc at her. It caught Natasha before she was even in range of touching Charlotte and instantaneously erupted in a blitz of electricity. Natasha fell unconscious to the ground.

"She was probably our only hope," said Tony.

"That was incredibly shortsighted of you," said Charlotte before she threw Tony onto the meeting room table. He had been the closest of them to her but he was also the weakest. Charlotte had a knife levelled at his eye before he could utter a word.

"Charlotte," he muttered.

"Be quiet! You're here to be seen, not heard." She was leaning most of her weight onto him, almost forcing him through the glass table. One hand was tearing at his hair to keep his head to the glass while the other forced a knife uncomfortably close to his eyeball. "Now if you all do as I say, I'll let him live… or maybe not." Tony was shocked as he saw Steve was the one with his gun raised to her, the shield over his left arm. Charlotte tsk-ed. "Steve," she breathed. "You know how this goes. Don't come any closer."

"Charlotte, if you do this, you will regret it for the rest of your life," he responded. Charlotte only stared blankly at him, her eyes bright and sickening. There was nothing there. She had always, always looked at Steve like she thought he hung the stars in the sky, even Bucky could see that much. She always looked at him with love and respect. Steve could see her in his head, looking at him longingly, when he could tell she was going to kiss him before she did. There was none of that now, no recognition that she had ever felt that way about him at all. "Why don't you tell me what's going on? Talk me through it. Why did you want my shield?"

"It's not exactly easy to persuade you to my side when you're blocking my every advance with that thing."

"You couldn't hope to get that close to him," said Bucky. Charlotte bared down on Tony, letting her knife cut his cheek.

"Guys, a little help here," said Tony.

"Bucky," muttered Steve, "let me handle this."

"You don't know what I'm capable of in this form. Or maybe you do. Haven't you been like this before?" said Charlotte, looking at Bucky with her now soulless eyes. Bucky reached for his gun. Loki shifted beside Thor. This was the whole point of sending her in here. She was trying to manipulate people into doing exactly what she wanted. "And by the way, Steve, there is nothing about this that you can handle. You are out of your depth."

"No, I'm not, Charlotte. You know me, I can tell that you do. You haven't forgotten the things that everyone is capable of so you know that we're going to do everything we can to help you."

"You say that as you have a gun pointed at me. Oh well, there's no point as I know you won't use it. No matter what I do to you, you just keep coming back for more. You're just like a hurt dog who keeps returning for another kick. I'll tell you why I finally responded to your advances; I felt sorry for you. This is just another strike against me that you'll ignore and for my and Thor's benefit, you won't take it out on the person who is responsible for all of this. Loki is the reason that this happened to me." Steve brought his gun down then. Loki only looked between them, wide-eyed.

"Okay," replied Steve. "I know what you're trying to do. You think you're going to get us to turn on each other and hurt Loki. But we know that you're making this up to hurt us. You can try and deny things to force the blame onto Loki but we're not laying a hand on him." Loki had to admit that this entire thing had caught him by surprise. There was no denying that Charlotte was being used as a personal slight against him but that she was being used as a weapon against her own people showed that this was on a more massive scale than anyone could have realized. Everyone here had been caught off-guard and yet the only person who was attacking the situation head-on was the one Loki had assumed would be unnerved by Charlotte's brainwashing. Add to that, the fact that Steve was legitimately looking out for him? Maybe this trip to Earth wasn't going to be so boring after all.

"Then that's a real shame. Because I want Loki. He has to stand punishment before Thanos. I personally don't care what I have to do to make that happen but I did have so many plans for some of you."

"What kind of plans?" asked Bruce. "Where's the scepter?" Charlotte smirked, shifting her weight against Tony's back.

"You don't have that kind of clearance, Dr. Banner. The scepter is being kept safe. That's all you need to know."

"Well, I don't care what anyone else votes, I'll hand the little son of a bitch over to you now if you let me up," declared Tony. Thor pushed Loki behind him instantly.

"Interesting prospect but I didn't ask you to talk, did I?"

"What happens if we give him to you?" asked Bucky, leaning onto the glass table. Charlotte analyzed his stance before understanding that he was on alert.

"You are not making deals regarding my brother's life," Thor said, his voice raised.

"Actually, that's exactly what we're doing." Bucky tried to make a face at Thor so that he would realize he was just trying to keep Charlotte talking. They all knew backup would be coming at any minute.

"Bucky, you can't be serious! He's here under our protection!" said Steve.

"Yeah, right. He's in time-out for trying to destroy our planet. I say we let him receive his well-deserved punishment."

"You don't see anyone here judging you for the wrongs you have done others," said Thor.

"Like all of you haven't been judging me from the start. You believe every word Charlotte tells you." Charlotte smirked. This was going well.

"Okay, okay, everyone shut up. I am about to lose an eye here. Give her what she wants!" Tony demanded.

"Stark, cool your jets," said Fury. "We need to look at every avenue."

"The only avenue that matters is the one where none of us good guys dies. Give Loki up!"

"Tell me, Charlotte, what happens if we give him to you?" asked Bucky again. "Will you leave us alone or will you just come back here, looking to kill more agents?"

"That depends," she responded. "What can you do for me?"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Bucky leaned onto the table, now intrigued.

"You see, I have a list of things to do before my time is up. One of the things near the top of my list is securing James Buchanan Barnes as an agent either under the influence of the scepter… or something else. It's no matter of concern really. I just need to make sure you go back to your factory setting. Your blank slate, as it were."

"Oh, my God," said Tony. "What the hell is going on?"

"Be quiet."

"I- I don't know what you're talking about," said Bucky.

"Of course, you do. Can't you think of all those tedious meetings with the S.H.I.E.L.D. therapist talking about how in your nightmares you can still feel them turning on that electro-shock machine to wipe your mind? Or maybe how something would jog your memory ever so slightly? Just slightly enough to throw a wrench in whoever's plans you were carrying out that day and then they put you on ice for years at a time."

"How do you- How do you know that? I've never told you any of that."

"I know everything about you, Bucky. So don't underestimate me. Now you can either come with me too or I'll have to come back and exact some force."

"Charlotte, you are not going to touch Bucky. You can't do anything to revert him back to the Winter Soldier," said Steve.

"Yes, I can. There are a lot of things that I can do now but I don't really have the time to bore you with them."

"Thank God," said Tony. "Now can you take Loki and go?"

"Shut your mouth."

"Charlotte, what will happen to you when you've completed your mission?" asked Bucky. Her shallow blue eyes stared at Bucky for all of a second before Loki answered for her.

"If she takes me to Thanos, she will be killed!" said Loki. "You can be assured that I will die as well but not before they murder Charlotte in front of me."

"Bravo," she whispered.

"Damn, that's a really tough choice," said Tony. "Sorry Bucky and Charlotte. See ya!"

"I said, be quiet!" Charlotte yelled. She moved her knife from pointing at his eye and brought it down into Tony's hand on the table. Tony screamed at the impact and the table showed a slim crack where the knife had connected with the glass. Blood streamed out of the center of his palm and ran off the table. "The next one goes in your head," she breathed.

"I don't think so," said Bucky. He pushed down on the table and launched himself over it. Charlotte pulled the knife out of Tony's palm as he shrieked again.

"I figured I'd have to face you at some point. You're the only person I know who truly hates me," Charlotte said, pushing up her long black sleeves. Blood was streaming from an open wound on her right forearm. Half-assed stitches had torn open in one of her earlier tousles. Red lines were also open on her small wrists, showing she had been restrained.

"What on Earth happened to her arm?" Bruce wondered aloud.

"Are you seriously asking that when I could be losing my hand?!" shrieked Tony.

Bucky pulled a knife from his belt as Steve moved to help Tony. Charlotte clutched her dagger, blood staining the skin of her hand. If there was anyone here who was going to make an open move against her, who was going to actually challenge her in a fight, it was Bucky. He was eager to prove himself not only to Steve but to the others. He had been right when he said that other people had been listening to Charlotte. Bucky was just trying to get by after everything he had been through but his behavior towards others, particularly Charlotte, had been hostile, which only served to make him unlikable to people like Tony Stark and Thor. If he was going to prove he was worthy of all the fawning Steve had done over him, taking down a brainwashed Charlotte would be a good starting point. All of this made Charlotte suspect that he would falter when it came down to it.

Bucky had closed the distance between them in seconds, knife outstretched. Charlotte ducked his arm as he tried to grab her and she slammed a knifed-fist into his mid-section. The blade was small though, too small to really pierce Bucky's protective outfit. The pause allowed Bucky to grab hold of Charlotte's hair and pull her up. Her back arched in response as she grabbed another knife, groaning. This time the knife connected with his metal arm and although it was a slim blade, it wedged right into the slated metal. A spark seemed to come off it and Bucky dropped Charlotte to the ground when it happened.

She moaned as she fell on the leg she seemed to have been favoring all this time. Bucky took only a second to recover and descended on Charlotte before she could react. His knife entered her shoulder easily and she didn't even scream. Instead she used her hand to wrap around his throat and hit a pressure point. Bucky gasped but didn't fall off of her. He just grabbed her wrist and twisted. Charlotte let out a noise that sounded like a shriek.

She brought up a leg and tried to kick him but it was futile. After struggling against him became too annoying, Bucky hit her with his normal hand. She felt her lip bust.

"Barnes, do not kill her!" commanded Fury. Charlotte wasn't sure he heard.

He yanked her up off the ground and pushed her over the table. All of Charlotte's strength went to trying to push Bucky away from her. She needed a moment to breathe and assess the situation. But Bucky wasn't about to let her have it. He forced one of his legs between hers and let all of his weight rest on her. Charlotte wasn't strong enough to bear it for long. She was gritting her teeth and trying to reach something that would help her. He slammed her head into the glass so hard, he thought she might fall unconscious. When it was obvious that he was about to do it again, Charlotte took a chance and reached for her gun. In a split second, she fired a shot that shattered the glass of the table. They both fell through but it gave Charlotte the chance she needed.

"Clearly, you've been holding back," Charlotte said, wiping blood from her mouth as she stood up. "I always knew you must be after hearing all of the terrible things you could do when you were brainwashed." Charlotte pulled another electric disk from her belt. "You'll join us soon, Bucky, whether it's by my hand or another." She let the disk hit his metal arm and again, the metal sparked against metal and instantaneously knocked him unconscious. The door to the meeting room opened behind her. "I must admit, all of this has been for show. I came to deliver a message."

Everyone stood in awe as Clint entered the room, flanked by other brainwashed agents. Tony was clutching his hand as his jaw dropped. Clint looked about the same as Charlotte, somewhat banged up and bruised. His eyes had no emotion and were also the eerie blue of the tesseract. He was holding the scepter. Charlotte managed to climb out from the ruins of the table, shaking off bits of broken glass, and take it from him.

"Did you get what you came for?" asked Clint.

"Not exactly," she responded, "but they won't hold out for long. You see, the point I came to make is that you will never see us coming. We want what we want and no matter how many of you stand in our way, we will get it. I hope you understand the ultimatum. You give us Loki, and possibly Bucky, who we will get on our terms, and Thanos may leave you alone. But he has many people working with him, people who know everything that happens here at S.H.I.E.L.D., even things you may not be completely aware of. But you will never see them. I am the one you should be concerned about because I command these men." She gestured at Clint and the others with the spear, which was pulsing with blue energy. "I have a limitless army at my disposable, especially if I manage to make a few of you more… agreeable. Before you have any more brilliant ideas about saving my life, or Clint's, by not handing over Loki… we will die either way. We are no more than tools now. We don't feel for any of you anymore and we never will again. All we want is to obey. There is no saving Clint and I. We will destroy you. You get one week to hand over Loki. Until then, watch your backs." She levelled the spear at the ceiling and jerked it back, sending out a beam of blue light that brought the entire roof down on them.