ROARA
"Remind me." I said to Nat as we stalked down 5th avenue, away from the Avengers tower. "Where are we going again?"
"I tracked the broadcast as soon as it was sent out." She replied, showing me a device with a map on it. "They did a very good job of covering up where it was sent from, but not quite good enough."
"They underestimated two of the world's best agents who are against them." Clint added. "And forgot that I wasn't going to let my niece go without a fight." Clint's face was a picture of rage and determination.
"But won't it draw attention?" Bruce asked, trying to catch up. "You know with half of the Avengers walking down the street."
"And we're bringing half the wildlife of New York with us." Peter muttered.
"This is barely even a taste." Fiona huffed, eyes glancing to her furry and feathered entourage.
I shuddered. "I really don't want a mouthful then." I was really not a fan of rodents, and there seemed to be a lot of them with Fiona. I'd never liked them, even as a girl. I'd come from a time where the plague was much less a historical event and more an unwelcome and unplanned for visitor. 1665 was a bad year. Lots of people died from the plague, and while I'd never been fond of rats anyway it made me truly terrified of them. Diseases spread fast back then, no decent sewage system, water was contaminated. Especially in big cities like London everyone was living on top of one another. Rats, while clean themselves, spread diseases that they had an immunity to; making people sick. And when you could never get anything properly clean, and when there was always a way in to the house, rats were never hard to find.
"Honestly I think Thor is the most obvious of all of us." Loki said calmly, looking his brother up and down. "Besides, I don't really think you can talk about what you would or wouldn't have in your mouth Roara." He didn't even look at me as he said it. I wanted to punch him so bad that a nearby water pipe burst in the street. I kept forgetting that I had so many aspects of my power now that when I got emotional I kept startling myself.
"What about the child?" Thor asked to break the silence in the aftermath of the watery explosion, gesturing with his hammer to Peter. "He's in red."
"So are you." I replied more calmly now. "And you're about twice his size. Also the only people watching us are the press in the helicopters and with their drones. Oh and any Ascendency spies."
"Can we please stop calling me a child?" Peter asked, his voice not quite a whine but very close to one.
"Natasha," Bruce took her arm gently. "Please. I don't think Fiona should be here." We all stopped as they did, their eyes locking in a stale mate.
Wanda walked up to him, standing in front of him so as to make him look at her instead of Nat. "Bruce, while you may care, it is none of your business what your niece does, she has her own free will to choose. She's handled a lot of situations on her own already. You need to give her more credit."
Bruce looked at Nat pleadingly. Nat just shrugged and said, "I was younger than her when I started. She looks as though she's got a head on her shoulders."
"Thank you Wanda, and Miss Romanoff." Fiona said from behind us. "Wanda would have snuck me out anyway, so you might as well deal with it."
"You should be at school!" Bruce ran a hand through his hair, "You're not an avenger, you have no training, this is not where you're meant to be."
Fiona threw a hand through the air in an arcing motion and together all her animals squealed, called, and cried out for just a moment before silence filled the air once more. It was deafening. The sound came not only from the animals and birds directly around Fiona, but from all across the city, from every tree and dumpster and rooftop. The streets were deserted with the emergency lockdown imposed on NYC while the Ascendency was being dealt with, and I was very glad of it. Otherwise we'd have a lot of people staring, and a lot of people with noise complaints.
"Bruce." She said, slowly and calmly. "It is my duty to go where the animals need me. I have no choice. Just like you have no choice but to use your mind and your abilities to try to help and protect the world with the Avengers. It's a duty I'm glad to fulfil. I didn't mean to have this, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. But this is where they need me to be now." She pushed her glasses back up her nose. "Besides if I end up on TV, I might get a cute girlfriend or something."
"What about boyfriend?" Peter asked, his masked eyes changing shape slightly with the inflection at the end of his sentence.
Fiona gave him a slightly withering, slightly pitying look. "I'm a lesbian you buffoon, you didn't see the massive rainbow pin on my school bag? Or the book I'm reading?"
"What book... are you reading?" Peter asked cautiously.
"The Song of Achilles." Wanda said softly.
"Right," Peter said, "okay, yeah, but I don't like to assume-"
"She has notes in her margins that say 'this warms my cold lesbian heart', you should be more observant." Loki said quietly. We all stared at him for a second. "What?" He asked. "It's a good book I was reading it over her shoulder."
"Oh." Peter paused for a second in thought. "Well we better get you a cute girlfriend then! And I'm glad you feel comfortable enough with us to share that about yourself."
I nodded, impressed. I'd seen a few people handle others coming out in my lifetime and it wasn't always as nice as this. It wasn't perfect but he was doing a pretty damn good job. I looked at Fiona who nodded as well. Nat crossed her arms and gave a look of approval.
"Anyway." Barton said, beginning to walk again, "We don't have time to argue. It's not too far from here and we don't know how much time we have before something happens to them."
My brain was still playing catch up. "So you're saying they didn't send the broadcast from the park?"
"No." Nat replied, showing me her phone. "They just made it look as though they did."
"So..." I frowned, still confused.
Barton turned around to look at me, walking backwards in line with Natasha. "They made it look as though they were hiding the broadcast in some random place in the city, and then made it look as though that was a cover up for sending it from Central Park. While they filmed it there, they sent it from somewhere else."
"So how were they expecting us to find them to show them I was still ready to kick ass?"
"They've still got agents stationed there, we'll need to deal with those too, once the other group has made sure their location is secure I think they'll come and help here. If everything goes to plan."
"Sure." I raised an eyebrow. "Everything always goes to plan."
"Oh come now." Loki purred from beside me. "You used to love a bit of chaos."
As we walked I fell back to be beside Thor. "Don't you sometimes wish," I whispered under my breath, "that I'd just let him die?"
"Oh often." Thor smiled at me. "But you wouldn't look so terrifying without those," he gestured around his face, "colourful face markings. The permanent ones. The ones that come and go, I like those ones too."
I grinned. I think other people might have found that rude, but I knew Thor well enough to know when to take a compliment.
"Are you still-"
"Angry at you for lying to me for four centuries?" I suggested. "I am angry, but not at you. I'm angry at the situation. I'm old enough to know when to let things go, even when I'm hurt."
He nodded. "I was young when it happened."
"You were over 500 you should have known better, I just gave you forgiveness don't try to come up with excuses." I let out a deep sigh. "Just, take the forgiveness and try to find a way to forgive yourself."
"I never properly thanked you." He said, glancing at me as we walked. "For saving my brothers life."
I sniffed. "It was nothing."
"No. Roara it was not nothing. You said that you didn't know what you were going to sacrifice when you made that deal with your mother, it could have been anything, rather than mere markings."
"Thor." I said quietly as we walked behind the others. "I don't think I've made my sacrifice yet. I think this," I gestured to my face, "is just a reminder that it will happen. And the ability to weigh up someone's value, how much their life means? That comes with the territory of bringing someone back from the brink."
"I will be with you. When it happens." He promised.
I shrugged. "I don't know when it will happen. I don't know what I'll be doing. I might just drop dead at some point, who knows. But I do know that I didn't have a choice, not really, when it came to saving him. You were there, we grieved together, and I realised that I didn't think I could go through that grief again. I've lost a lot of people Thor. But if I lost either you or Loki? I don't know what I'd do."
"I suppose that is why death and funerals are so different on Asgard. You form bonds over centuries. It is a different type of grief when you've known someone that long, even if you barely see them." Thor agreed.
We were quiet until we got to the building. It was in a part of New York I didn't know well, the buildings a bit more run down, less shiny shops. I didn't think the lockdown went this far through? I shook my head and walked to Nat.
"This is it?"
She nodded. We looked up at the apartment complex. It was old and grubby, windows dirty and some broken. It looked, well, foreboding. I turned to the group. Who was the leader here? Nat? Clint? They'd got us here, but for some reason everyone was looking at me. Even Thor. Alina was a natural leader, I liked to stay behind a little. I had outbursts every so often but that wasn't the same as having responsibilities and everything. I looked over at Wanda and Vision, stood protectively by Fiona who in turn was being watched over by Bruce. I glanced at Nat and Clint. I'd have expected Thor to step in and steal my thunder so to speak, but I suppose after watching someone scream into light and then kill someone using their own cancer might make you think twice. Peter was stood by Thor, looking much shorter than usual compared to him. As I scanned our group it was though my eyes were trying to seek out someone who wasn't there. And it wasn't Bucky, but Alina. My rock. And then I saw him, at the back of the crowd, his green eyes dazzling in the early summer sunlight.
Loki was looking at me intently, a grim expression on his face. His left hand was resting in the crook of his right elbow as his other hand rested on his lips in concentration and anticipation. He saw me staring and gave me the slightest of nods as though to say go on then.
"Okay." I took in a shuddering breath. "All they said was that they wanted to see me. Of course they said they wanted to destroy you all but we knew that already. We don't know what we're up against, we don't know what skills they may have, but you need to assume the worst. We want to know where they're keeping the girls and what they're planning on doing with them. We want them alive. Do you all understand?" Everyone nodded. I turned to Clint. "We're getting Aditi back. Alive. I promise."
"You better." He shook out his bow.
"Alright." I said. "Let's get in there."