Space Between Us

Avengers Assemble

Someone was shaking her, "Agent Barton! Wake up!" She groaned and opened one eye, looking at a blurry Nick Fury. He sighed when he saw her eye open, "For a minute I thought we lost you too." He didn't need to say Coulson was dead for her to know. It was rather obvious he wouldn't survive.

She opened her other eye and he helped her stand, "How bad is it?" 

He knew her well enough to know exactly what she doing, "Thor and Banner fell off the ship, we don't know where they are. Loki escaped. Coulson's gone. Romanoff knocked Loki out of your dad's head." 

"It could be worse," she nodded, a small shred of hope filling her.

Fury laughed a little and shook his head, "I don't see how." 

She shrugged, rubbing the cut on her forehead as she followed him out of the high-security detention room, "Cairo was much worse than this." 

"Are you ever going to tell us what happened in Cairo?" he glanced at her, irritated.

She smirked at him and shook her head, "I'd sooner tell you what happened in Budapest."

~~~

Fury dropped the box of blood-splattered trading cards onto the table in front of Steve, "These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them." Steve picked one of them up, guilt filling his face. 

Mor sighed, "I should have saved him." Tony and Steve looked up at her, grief in their eyes. 

Tony shook his head, "It's not your fault, there was nothing you could have done." 

Fury cut back in, refusing to let any of them get distracted from the job, "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, our location on the cube, Thor, Banner. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming." There was a pause, "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. Never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, you all know this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes." Tony stood and walked out, not able to listen to the wishes of the dead man so soon. Nick looked between the Captain and his partner, "Well it's an old fashioned notion."

~~~ 

She knocked on the open door, a strained smile on her face. The two master assassins looked up at her; Clint jumped to his feet and wrapped her in a hug, "Hey sweetheart, you okay?" 

"It's good to have you back, dad," she nodded, though they all knew she was lying, and returned the hug. 

He held her at arms length and scanned her for injuries, glaring at the fresh cut running from the top left corner of her forehead right to the inner corner of her right eyebrow, "How did you get that?" Nat walked over to Clint's side and stared at the offending injury, concern in the assassin's eyes. 

Mor shrugged, "Loki slammed me head first into a wall, medics said he only gave me a minor concussion." That last bit of information didn't seem to lessen the anger of the two assassins, not at all. 

Clint growled, "I'm going to enjoy putting an arrow through his eye socket." Someone cleared their throat from behind them. 

They all looked to see Steve in his uniform, "Time to go." 

Nat, who was completely unprepared, nodded and glanced briefly at the Bartons, "Go where?" 

"I'll tell you on the way. Can you fly one of those jets?" Steve was clearly relieved they were going to fight with them, and not hide on the ship.

Clint spoke up, sounding deceptively calmer than he had a moment ago, "I can." The captain looked to Mor warily, she nodded- confirming Hawkeye was on their side. 

He looked back to the short, blond man, "You got a suit." Clint nodded. "Then suit up."

~~~

The four of them walked through the hangar, fully suited up with serious expressions on their faces. SHIELD agents turned to watch them walk passed, but none bothered them. Cap and Mor were in the lead, Nat was on her right and Clint was on Cap's left. 

They walked onto the nearest open jet and a young SHIELD agent stood to face them, "You are not authorized to be here...." 

Steve gave the agent an annoyed look, shaking his head with a sigh as he looked at the man, "Son....just don't."

~~~

The four of them sat in the quinjet, preparing mentally for the war ahead. Clint and Natasha were in the cockpit talking quietly between each other; whilst Mor and Steve were sat next to each other in the passengers section taking solace in the others presence. Her head rested on his shoulder and he was playing with her fingers. Clint called back to them, "Guys get ready, we're in the city!" They jumped to their feet and walked over to the windows, staring out at the chaos. Clint steered the jet so they were flying towards Stark Tower and pointed a mini-gun at Loki, who wasn't too happy they were there. The god aimed his magical stick at the quinjet and fired, hitting the right wing. Mor swore colorfully under her breath. Nat hit a button to open up the ramp, and the two of them grabbed the sides. The two of them started edging towards the open door.

They were half way there when Steve yelled over the wind to her, "On three we jump out! Clint find a way to ground this bird!" They nodded. "One...two...three!" They let go of the sides and ran off the ramp.

~~~

They looked around. Chitauri were were crashing and sliding down buildings, attacking civilians and there were more flying out of a massive portal hundreds of feet above Stark Tower.

"Stark, are you seeing this?" Steve spoke over the comms.

The billionaire responded immediately, "I'm seeing, still working on believing. Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?" 

"Banner?" Steve's brows creased.

Stark sighed, worry evident in his voice, "Just keep me posted." Mor looked over at Nat and mouthed 'bromance'- the redhead snickered. There was a roar from above them and a large, snake-like creature came out the portal.

~~~

They ran down the empty roads, weapons at the ready. Running with a katana wasn't exactly the easiest thing in the world, but after doing it for fifteen years it became as easy as breathing. The Chitauri were firing at civilians, all of whom were running away from the fight. Cap looked at his team, "Those people need help down there!" 

Nat started shooting at the aliens, "We got this. It's good. Go!" He was still hesitant to leave them, as he looked at Hawkeye and Katana, "You think you can hold them off?" 

The hawk shot a mechanical arrow, looking at Mr Stars and Stripes, "Captain it would be my genuine pleasure." Mor picked up a blade with her free hand and chucked it at one of the Chitauri, preparing to run at the aliens. 

Cap grabbed her elbow, hope in his eyes, "Stay with me?" She nodded and followed him away from the group.

~~~

Cap looked over at her as she sliced down another Chitauri, "We need to get the police to set up a perimeter, try to minimize the damage." 

She nodded and they continued their search for anyone in need of being evacuated, "I saw police a block or so away." They ran in the direction of the police, ducking under bullets being fired at the Chitauri. She glanced over at him, "I'll deal with the Chitauri, you talk to the police." She turned on her heel and started running the other way, sword out at the ready. She shoved her sword through what she estimated was the Chitauri's stomach, wrinkling her nose when blue blood squirted onto her face. The alien smacked her back and she flipped so she still landed on her feet. She ran at the creature again, aiming for it's neck. The creature fell, dead, with its head detached from its shoulders. She fought alone for about three minutes, killing about twenty Chitauri, when a white, blue and red shield came flying in and killed the last one for her. She gave her partner a smile, "Thanks." 

He yanked his shield out of its neck, returning her smile, "Let's go find the others."