The Other Stark (Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 8

Barton walks alone on the catwalk, heading to the detention section. Tory lightly walks behind him. With a quick move, he takes an arrow out of the quiver and adjusts it on the bow, turning around and pointing it to her.

She grabs the bow and pulls it to herself, spinning to his back. He elbows her and then attacks with the bow, but Tory dodges it and kicks him on the chest.

Clint stumbles back. Tory gives a step ahead and receives clout on the ribs. Victoria recovers fast, and throws a punch in his direction, which he blocks, but gets distracted and she shoves the bow out of his hand.

They look at each other for a brief second and Barton gets a knife from his uniform. He rushes to her, pointing it to her face, but she hits his stomach. He slams her into the handrail and tries to suffocate Tory. The woman busts his leg and he lets go on the tight grip.

Barton charges to her ribs, but she defends herself and pounds him on the stomach nonstop. He grabs her and starts to pull, but Victoria bites him and uses his own weight to knock him out of his fit. She smashes his head on the metal. Tory clobbers his head until he almost passes out.

"Stark?" he eventually asks, but Tory wasn't fully sure Loki's control was gone, so she hit him one more time, making him pass out.

"Barton is down," she says on her earpiece and feels the taste of blood in her mouth. Tory walks her way out of that place. She wanted to see if her brother was fine and the cut on her arm was stinging.

...

Tory was on the infirmary. Natasha had just awoken. Fury wanted to talk to her, but she didn't want to talk to him at the moment. Her wounds were taken care off. She had discovered that Thor and Hulk were missing. And Coulson was dead. Loki wanted to tear them apart, and he did it.

"How do you feel?" Tory asks looking at Romanoff, who was looking around.

"It's being a while since I woke up here," she says.

"What happened?"

They get out of the room and start walking down the corridor, to the medical room Barton was. In the meantime, Tory tried to update Romanoff on what happened. They enter Clint's room to see him struggling, strapped down.

"Clint you're gonna be alright," Nat says, as she seats on the bed.

"You know that? Is that what you know? I got...I gotta go in though. I gotta flush him out," he mumbled.

"We don't have that long, it's gonna take time," Nat replies.

Tory wasn't paying attention to their conversation. She had a million thoughts on her head at the moment, a lot of questions and she didn't know half of the answers.

"Why am I back? How did you get him out?" Barton questions. At that, Tory comes back to the room.

"I didn't, she did," Natasha answers and points to Victoria, who is lined on the doorframe.

"Cognitive recalibration. I hit you really hard in the head," Tory answers. They both look at her with the same question on their eyes.

"First of all... how could you fight him?" Romanoff questions.

"I thought you were a scientist," Barton says.

"Tony wanted..." she started explaining, but speaking of the devil, her brother calls her on the earpiece

"That's a story for another time."

She walks to where Loki's cell was being held. Now there was just a hole in the middle of the room. Steve and Tony were having a conversation when she arrived.

"No, there was a cellist... I think," Tony answers Steve.

"I'm sorry. He seemed like a good man," Steve apologizes.

Tory walks up to her brother and sees the bruises he had all over his face.

"What happened to you?" Tony asks, looking over his sister, not giving time for her to ask the same question.

"The Hulk happened..." Tory answers, spotting blood on the wall.

"And Barton."

Steve was quiet, looking blankly at the opening on the floor.

"What now?" Tory asks looking at the Captain, who looked troubled.

"Loki took the scepter with him, and he's still with the cube."

"He planed all this, he wanted us apart," Steve says, now looking at the Starks.

"This was just the preview," Tory states out.

"Now he needs a power source to turn on the Tesseract."

"If we come up with a list of..." Steve continues, but Tony interrupts.

"He made it personal. He hit us right where we live, to tear us apart."

"I see where you're going," Tory stutters.

"Loki wants to be seen when he wins, and he knows he needs us apart so that can happen."

"Yeah, I saw his act at Stuttgart," Steve adds.

"Yeah. That's just a preview, this is opening night. Loki's a full-tilt diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered..." Tony pauses, and Steve looks at him with an eyebrow raised, as realization hits him.

"Son of a Bitch!"

They all burst out of the room to warn everyone of Loki's next step.

"Where are you going?" Tory asks as she follows Tony to the lab.

"I'm gonna get Mark VIII fixed, we need to go to the Tower now!" he explains.

"What about the one I came with?" she asks, handing him the tools he needed.

"I sent it back to the tower," Tony mutters as he starts to work on the helmet.

"Then I can fly you there with my nanobots, it's faster than trying to fix it," his sister replies looking at him. In her ear, she hears Rogers ordering for them to suit up.

"You're not going into this mess! I'm not letting you get hurt," Tony yells and stops what he's doing to look at his sister.

"Ohh... no no no... I'm going and you can't stop me! You know I can handle myself," Tory insisted, getting angry.

"I always support you when you make choices that certainly will kill you, now it's your turn."

She starts helping him fixing the Iron Man suit, but Tony is just standing there, holding a clipper. He knew he couldn't argue with her. She would end up winning, and his sister was right. She did support him.

"Okay, but if anything happens with you, I'll kill you," he says and they start working again.

"I say the same for ya bro," Tory says with a wink.

***************

Sorry, I took too long to post. I was traveling. So... it's almost on the end. What are your thoughts on Tory Stark?