Shadow Butcher (LokixAvengersxOC)

Betrayal

The guilt came back and it almost made me unaware of the attack from one of the opponents. Luckily, I noticed it quickly enough, dodged it, and threw a loop from my shadow manipulation around the droid to catch it.

But Ultron's smirk is making me ill. He eyes me as if he knows rigorously, the next words will hit me mentally.

I grip the obsidian-colored loop tighter and start to spin around before he can speak out the next utterances. But it was too late since what Ultron said caught every one of us off guard.

"Well, I dare to declare she preferred to eradicate your unborn child."

„What?", Loki mumbles and lets the droid's head fall.

Unintentionally, I let go of the sling, and the robot crashed into a wall instead of Ultron himself. Tears filled my vision but it was a mix of sadness and fury.

With my feet apart, I ball my hands into fists. The shadows holding Ultron start to pull him apart. His screeching scream should satisfy me but it doesn't. The shame, the grief, the impairment, they all overshadow the satisfaction from my acrimony.

I was angry because we almost made it and could have told Loki by myself. Instead, Ultron used it against me. My heart couldn't bear to face Loki. For all I can imagine, is, Loki has tears in his eyes, probably his chest heaving from the painful surprise. Instead, I grit my teeth as I focus on not letting Ultron out of my sight as my shadows tear him apart slowly.

A scream escapes my lungs with all the effort I put into tearing him apart. My fists glow bloody red and the next second my side hurts. When I look up from my blurry vision and ears ringing from the impact.

Forgetting about all the rules of combat and fighting in battles. I ignored the most important rule: If you have the strongest man, never forget about his pals, they will get to you to free their comrade.

I was so concentrated on the killer A.I. that I forgot to check on any other distractions. One of the Iron Legion lunged at me and smashed me into the stairs near the core. My head hit the concrete face first.

Through my blurry vision, I saw only different colored spots clashing with each other. I guess those were the Avengers against Ultron and his army of androids.

But one spot caught my special attention. The black spot stood still in the corner. At first, I thought it was a dead and broken robot but when it radiated the emerald shade, thrashing at every single enemy, the silver-colored spots fell dead to the ground.

Everything stood still. Only my ringing gets less and exchanges with the sound of my rapidly beating heart that pumps my blood into my head. The pain on my left side spreads through my body, especially to my head which makes me nauseous now.

"They'll try to leave the city."

The voice rumbles through my thumping ears and it sounds as if it came from afar but I can see the colorful spots except from Loki's, standing before me.

"We can't let 'em, not even one. Rhodey!"

That one I could identify as Tony's voice since it sounded more robotic and came from the red and yellow spots.

"We gotta move out. Even I can tell the air is getting thin. You guys get to the boats, I'll sweep for stragglers, be right behind you."

And that sounded patriotic as Captain America is.

"What about the core?", Bucky questions, his voice I can detect right away after being captured by HYDRA for such a long time.

Poor Bucky. Could he even rest before the next war began?

"I'll protect it. It's my job."

Since that sentence came along with a thick East European accent it must belong to Wanda.

My hearing gets back to normal just my blurry vision is now caused by the tears streaming down my face. I sob uncontrollably with fast and short breaths. My breathing made it worse when I had the feeling I wasn't going to get oxygen into my system.

And then I stop.

Realization hits me. Loki knows. I fucked up. I fucked up really bad. This is all my fault.

I killed my child. I broke the moral code of being the Goddess of Death to protect the people on the other side from my home.

"This is all my fault," I wheeze through pain and the whimpers that escape my throat again.

Finally, my eyes drift to where Loki stands. To clear my vision, I wipe the tears away with my shaking hands. Loki's breathing gets heavy as he finally snaps out of his paralysis.

"You!", he exclaims and strolls towards me.

My heart stammering against my chest. I ignore the pain in my bones when I cradle backward to escape his madness. It all comes back. The day when he snapped at me when I got mind-controlled by HYDRA. But this time I know I deserve it. I brutally deserve to be yelled at and be a target for his wrath.

At least Bucky was still here since everyone else left to clear the city and Wanda was preoccupied with Pietro.

Bucky steps in, his metal arm stopping Loki immediately from coming any closer.

"Leave her alone, Loki."

Loki's jaw clenched, his hurtful eyes glare daggers at me. Leastways, he takes a bottomless breath to clear his mind from the shocking surprise.

"She can barely walk. Let's get her to the ship and finish the mess with Ultron first, alright?", Bucky suggests with a stern but calm voice to Loki.

My breathing gets shorter and quicker. I close my eyes to push this wicked game of Ultron aside. We still have a job to get done. I can talk with Loki later, just as I told it myself when I killed my child. As I promised Bruce.

As I opened my eyes, Bucky sighed. When I can't seem to find Loki, I understand why Bucky stares at the ground. When I realized that Loki left me, I let myself go. I cry out, the physical and mental pain taking over.

Bucky crouches down. His metal arm is under my back and his other arm slings under my knees as he picks me up.

"It's alright, Shade," he shushes me while he carries me away from the core. "He'll get over it. Just give him some time."

But his sweet talk doesn't help at all.

"Bucky, I fucked up. I don't think he'll ever get over it," I sob into his vest.

He sighs, "Honestly, you shocked all of us in there."

"I killed my child. I killed Loki's child. I killed our child, Buck."

Bucky holds me closer to his chest and whispers, "You didn't kill anyone. You made that choice for a reason. He'll understand it someday."

Whilst Bucky carries me to the lifeboats, I cry my eyes out. He tries to soothe me just like in the HYDRA days. But the pain exhausts me too. I caught myself slipping into unconsciousness from time to time until we finally made it to the ship where he then laid me down next to Loki.