📍SOKOVIA RESEARCH BASE
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The snow-covered scenery around the enormous Hydra Base in the remote and small country of Sokovia made it a harder task to fly through the trees and take down its defenses. (Y/N) also managed to use this to her advantage and tried to blend in while sneak-attacking the soldiers with her photon blasts, making them lose consciousness or to those who were high up in posts, they would plummet down a few feet into the snow.

Her and the six other members of the Avengers were doing the same as her, all using their various skill sets in fighting the Hydra agents. While Hulk was busy smashing trees down into the soldiers, Steve drove a motorbike down while trying to keep up. Natasha and Clint hijacked a truck and while the redhead took the wheel, Clint fired up some of his arrows. Thor and Tony were able to fly by her side, one using his hammer to summon lightning and the latter fired his boosters at every passing agent.

(Y/N) did a turn in the air as she dodged the bullets from below, her radiant glow distracting them long enough to ball her fists and fire the photon blasts downward. An explosion went off when this happened, and the small post that was firing at her was completely destroyed.

After that, she focused on the other scattering agents running amongst the trees, and saw how Clint and Nat's truck was driving near by, along with Steve's motorbike. She saw how they were headed towards the same swarming group of soldiers and flew that way, noting that Tony was also approaching and the Hulk was smashing everything in his path while making it nearby. Thunder rumbled in the distance and Thor made a jump toward the snow, hammer in hand. All seven stood side by side for just a small second, while the Hydra agents were fearing for their lives.

(Y/N) helped in removing some of the agent's out of the Hulk's area, since she noticed how he was quickly getting surrounded by them. The green monster sent her what she thought was a growl of thankfulness, but maybe that was just her hallucinating. Her attention was drawn back when she saw Tony fly higher in the air and get closer to the base, obviously trying to get the upper hand.

In a way to return to that sense of normality before things got a little awkward, (Y/N) and Tony competed on who had taken down the most agents in their missions. Without counting today, she was winning, and she would not allow him to take that invisible crown from her.

She saw him dodge the blasts that were coming from the side of the base, and he nearly got a hit on the roof before he realized it had an invisible barrier protecting it.

"Shit!"

"Language!" Steve scolded him from comms, and it seemed like a natural reflex. (Y/N) had to bite her tongue to resist her laugh. She was surprised she hadn't heard a jab from Tony. "JARVIS, what's the view from upstairs?"

"The central building is protected by some kind of energy shield. Strucker's technology is well beyond any other Hydra base we've taken."

(Y/N) saw some more agents standing in a defensive line before her, aiming their much more improved weapons at her. There were about 15 men lined up, and others were inside the trucks. She decided to drop down from the sky and land on the snow-covered floor, making them all raise their weapons higher.

"Loki's scepter must be here," Thor pointed out, his voice booming through her ear. "Strucker couldn't mount this defense without it. At long last."

She didn't let this distract her and instead raised her fist in a challenging manner, but preferred to take slow steps toward them. One of the agents in the line — she supposed it was the leader of the squadron — yelled an order in their native tongue  and a blast from their guns rang through her ears.

"So rude," (Y/N) scoffed, placing a hand to her chest. "Firing a gun at a lady. Oh, well."

She shrugged in the final sentence and fired a photon blast at the agent who had shot the gun, knocking him back a few feet in the woods. At this, the others scrambled and surrounded her in a circle, but (Y/N) reached out for one of the men's guns and tugged on it, pulling the man along with this action. She back-kicked another soldier in the stomach, and used all her strength to toss around the other man she was still holding onto, using him to knock down his teammates like dominoes.

"'At long last' is lasting a little long, boys," Natasha spoke up too after a few seconds, and gunshots were heard from her side of the comms.

"Yeah," Clint agreed, his voice strained. "I think we lost the element of surprise."

"There wasn't any to begin with," (Y/N) took down the last of the squadron surrounding her, and her eyes scanned for remaining soldiers. "Natasha and I could've had this done by now."

"Agreed, we would've been already on the jet back home," Natasha responded, and she sounded out of breath because of a fight.

"I think that's an exaggeration — "

"Wait a second," Tony's voice returned. There it is. The poking fun of. She truly was waiting for it. "No one else is gonna deal with the fact that Cap just said 'Language'?"

"I know!" Steve's tone was exasperated. There was a pause on his line, but then he returned. "Just slipped out."

Time passed, and (Y/N) continued blasting down bunkers, trucks and agents down when they shot at her. There was a moment where one of the blasts passed by her figure and missed by millimeters, and if she hadn't moved out of the way just in time, she would've been knocked down. She tried to be careful from then forward, while also keeping an eye out for her teammates.

There was a moment where she was looking down at the ground, and saw a flash of blue and silver run past the tree lines and bunkers in just a blink of an eye. (Y/N) backtracked, thinking she had imagined it, but just a few seconds after that, her teammate's voice returned in the comms.

"We have an enhanced on the field," Steve filled her with new information, and she was relieved to hear that it wasn't part of her head.

"Clint's hit!" Natasha cried out in alarm, and (Y/N) felt a knot in her stomach. There were grunts coming out the comms. A moment of pause happened, and then the redhead's voice was filled with extreme annoyance. "Somebody want to deal with that bunker?"

(Y/N) heard the infamous growl from the Hulk and saw how he ran through its walls in just seconds, making it crumble down to the ground.

"Thank you."

(Y/N) decided to take a lap around the perimeter and secure that there were no other enhanced on the field or no more agents were running outside. She flew through the trees and saw nothing out of the ordinary, still taking her time to blast off the last bunkers that hadn't been destroyed by the Hulk.

"Stark, we really need to get inside," Steve reminded after a couple of minutes in silence.

"I'm closing in," Tony informed, his red and gold outline flying close to the base. "JARVIS, am I closing in? Do you see a power source for that shield?"

"There's a particle wave below the north tower."

"Great," Tony replied to his AI before contacting the team. "Vaughn, come help me, I want to poke it with something."

"On it."

(Y/N) thrusted her figure higher in the air to approach the main tower, where she could see Tony's figure closing in. He was flying through the outdoor passages that were filled with guards and fired at them with his boosters, and she joined him right on time. Together, they blasted off the last of the squadron protecting that side of the base, and flew out of the area.

(Y/N) had heard what JARVIS had said about the power source, so she scanned the towers with her eyes in a quick motion and spotted where she had to strike. She balled up her fists and let out two identical photon blasts at the lower part of the north tower as indicated just as Tony fired a missile out of his suit into the side of the base.

The entire base glowed in a clear blue color to make the barrier stand out before it collapsed and disappeared, now allowing them to enter the so important base and grab Loki's scepter.

"The drawbridge is down, people," Tony announced dramatically.

From below, Steve ran up to Thor after he'd successfully taken down a couple more Hydra agents with his hammer. The captain ran up to him with the shield in hand, and out of breath.

"The Enhanced?"

"He's a blur," Steve told him in a disappointed tone.  "All the new players we've faced, I've never seen this. In fact, I still haven't."

"Clint's hit pretty bad, guys," Natasha informed. "We're gonna need evac."

"I can get Barton to the jet. The sooner we're gone, the better," Thor offered in his deep voice.  "You and Stark secure the scepter."

Steve didn't need to be told twice. "Copy that."

"Looks like they're lining up."

"Well, they're excited."

Steve placed his shield in front of his figure and held it up high, preparing himself for what was coming. Thor smashed the hammer on the shield and this caused a strong energy wave, strong enough to knock the upcoming agents and trucks surrounding them.

Thor's attitude returned to a much ordering one. "Find the scepter."

"And while you're at it, watch your language," (Y/N)'s voice retorted, a teasing tone in her voice.

"I was gonna say that!" Tony yelled, annoyed.

A sigh left Steve's lips, and he dropped his head in embarrassment. "That's not going away any time soon."

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Now inside the Hydra Research Base, Tony had successfully taken down the remaining people inside it, having to break in through one of the windows with his Iron Man suit. He'd searched from room to room after finding absolutely nothing, especially the one thing they were looking for.

After he stepped into another room, he spotted a man typing into a computer desperately, as if he was trying to get rid of something, before he shot at his chest with his boosters and knocked him out cold. Tony exited the suit after this, but turned back to face it.

"Sentry mode," he ordered, and the suit stayed in a defensive position while he walked away.

Tony headed straight for the three opened computers, a drive in his hand. "Okay, JARVIS, you know. I want it all."

He typed down at the keyboard and the screen changed, all data saving into his drive instead of being deleted. "Make sure you copy Hill at HQ."

As he waited for it to download, Tony looked around the room with a suspicious look. "I know you're hiding more than files." In order to prove this, he called back to his AI. "Hey, J, give me an IR scan of the room, real quick."

The suit emitted a red light out of the lenses, doing the instruction that Tony had ordered. It scanned the room from left to right, the light passing right through Tony like air.

"The wall to your left," the red light disappeared. "I'm reading steel reinforcement and an air current."

Tony took cautious steps toward the wall that JARVIS had indicated, raising his arms in front of himself as he muttered under his breath, "Please be a secret door. Please be a secret door. Please be a secret door. Please — "

He pressed on it and the wall opened by sliding to the left. "Yay!"

Tony stepped right forward with no other hesitation, leaving his suit in the other room. What he realized just by taking another quick step was that it wasn't fully lit, only being illuminated by several laps on the walls. There was a long, cold hallway leading down the stairs, and he wouldn't admit that the hairs in the back of his neck stood up because of it.

He followed the hallway until the end of it, where there was even fainter lighting that before. Tony looked up to the roof and recognized the enormous snake-like creature from the Battle of New York. It was held up on wires and scaffolding, and it drew a sense of discomfort.

"Guys, I got Strucker," Steve spoke up.

"Yeah, I got something bigger," Tony replied.

Tony walked deeper into the large room and saw several working tables with machinery on them, some being piled up in storage or tossed away. He thought the design was quite familiar, though he couldn't drill on it any longer because his eyes caught sight of something much more captivating. Loki's scepter.

There it was, glowing in all its godly glory. Its stone was bright blue and radiant, the handle still being the same shade of gold as it was two years ago, too shining to capture somebody's eye. He marched right up to it, and the image was getting clearer with every step he took. It was held up in a support beam, and there was a faint holographic image surrounding it.

"Thor, I got eyes on the prize."

He was too concentrated on the scepter in front of him that he didn't realize a feminine silhouette sneaking up behind him. The young woman watched her step to be silent and raised her hands to his temples, red hues escaping from her fingertips to cover Tony's pupils. After that, she sneaked away without a single sound, and Tony blinked once as if nothing happened.

Tony stared forward and dared to look back after he'd heard a minor screech, his soul jumping out of his body when he turned around and saw the Leviathan from before letting out a growl. He gasped when he saw how the Leviathan freed itself from the wires and flew right by him, making Tony's eyes follow it until he faced forward again.

He thought he would be faced by the sight of the scepter again, but he was wrong. Instead, Tony saw a sight that was going to stay plagued in his mind for the rest of his life. Just a few feet away from him, he saw all six of the Avengers lying on their deathbeds, along with nameless agents.

The Hulk had several spears clawed on his back, and he let out a weak growl. Natasha had her eyes open but stared into the abyss and Clint was in a sitting position with blood all over his arms and arrows, sorrow in his expression. Thor's eyes were closed with his hammer just a few inches away from his hand and Steve was laying in a rock below him, his broken shield by him. Last but not less terrifying, (Y/N) was laying just by his feet, half of her skull cracked open and with blood oozing from her nose, a spear pierced through her abdomen.

Tony fell to his knees in front of her, a horrified look flashing in his eyes. He'd never felt this much fear before, and carefully reached out to touch the side of her face that wasn't covered in blood to check her pulse.

(Y/N)'s hand jolted up and grabbed his wrist. , making him jump while her eyes stared up at him with resentment.

"You did this to me," (Y/N)'s voice was drained, rough, nothing similar to the one he was used to hearing. "You could have saved us."

She dropped his wrist and dropped unconscious, insane amounts of blood still pouring out of her abdomen and face. Tony felt like he was going to throw up or not eat in weeks. He had to convince himself that this wasn't real, that this wasn't happening, that he didn't just lose her again.

Why didn't you do more?

Tony heard another screech and he was forced to look up from (Y/N) and his teammates' corpses to see an army of the Leviathan heading straight to Earth, the growls filling his ears.

Tony lifted his head and in a flash, the horrible sight was gone. He was covered in a cold sweat, and he couldn't see it, but the young woman from before had her eyes widened in surprise at what she just saw, the exact same as him.

He let out a shaky breath, looking back at the Leviathan to see if it was in the right spot again, and saw that nothing had changed. Tony flickered his gaze up at the scepter, much more determined than before. He extended his hand forward in the air, surrounding the table where the scepter was placed.

In a second, the glove from his suit attached to his hand, and Tony was able to snatch the scepter in his hand in a swift movement. All of this happening while the enhanced twins watched from the sidelines, the young woman grinning in mischief at what she just witnessed.

couples that bully together stay together. also, tony's nightmare, what are your thoughts on it? y/n's gonna be interesting, you'll see ;)

i have a quick question, which friendships would you like me to write about more?
i'll do my best to include them

-see you soon, bex :)