LIGHTNING STORM |b. barnes| [2]

CHAPTER 06

ANANYA RUSHED DOWN to the lower level to find Natasha. When she did get down there, she found her in the equipment room, sitting against a wall. "What hurts?" She asked the redhead,

"My leg." Natasha winced, "Go help Thor."

"What is he doing?" Ana asked,

"Fighting the big guy." Ana rushed through the hole in the wall into the aircraft port. When she found them, she saw the Hulk on a jet, tearing it apart. Ana grabbed Thor from the floor and helped him up,

"They're here for Loki. Go." Ana told him and he nodded, grabbing hammer and running towards the detention center.

Ana began making her way back to Natasha and found her fighting Clint. Natasha kicked Clint's face. Clint took a swing at her, but she grabbed his arm before twisting it. Using his other arm, he tossed the knife over and began to slash at Natasha. 

She dodged every move, but found herself in a lock hold with him. As he forced the knife down, Ana jumped in and elbowed his arm, causing him to let go of the knife. Natasha backed up as Ana wrapped her legs around his neck, flipped him over and put his arm in a lock. Ana slammed his head into a pipe rail. 

Clint went down... hard. 

He looked up at the girls as Natasha stepped over, "Ana? Natasha?" He questioned before Natasha punched him, knocking him out.

Paramedics came to get Clint and Ana helped Natasha walk towards the exit. They paused when they heard Fury's voice in their ears, "Agent Coulson is down."

"Paramedics are on their way." Another agent replied,

"They're here. They called it." Fury responded.

Ana looked over at Natasha's blank face and tugged on her hand, "Come on. We need to meet with the others."

Natasha shook her head, "I'm going to take him to the infirmary. Need to get him assessed."

Ana nodded before leaving to find the others.

Once all injuries were assessed and taken care of, the group had all gathered back into the briefing room with a look, as if in a daze. 

Bruce and Thor were missing and they lost one of their own. 

A look of numb shock were on all of their faces. Jacqueline was shaking in her seat and Steve had an arm wrapped around her.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them." Fury threw Coulson's Captain America Trading Cards on the table towards Steve. Steve unwrapped his arm around Jacq and picked the bloodstained cards up,

"We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming." Fury sighed, "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark knows 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 that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes."

After Fury's attempt at a motivational speech, Tony got up and walked off, clearly not wanting to hear it anymore.  "Well, it's an old-fashioned notion." Fury stated.

Steve wanted to go find Stark, but couldn't leave Jacqueline. Fury said she had an episode after Loki had killed Coulson and Steve was too worried to leave her.

Instead, Ana went to go find him. 

She found Tony where they kept Loki, where Phil was killed, but was now empty.  "He was good at his job. Always smiled when I passed him in the offices. I didn't know him well, but... well, I knew Phil was a good man."

"He was an idiot." Tony replied,

Ana glared at him and crossed her arms, "Why? For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone." He said,

"He wasn't alone. Jacqueline was there and he was doing his job." She defended,

"He was out of his league, they both were! He should have waited. He should have-"

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony." Steve interrupted, walking into the room,

Tony began walking away, clearly not wanting to talk to the super soldier, "Right. How did that work for him?"

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?" Steve asked, following,

Tony turned around sharply, "We are not soldiers! I am not marching to Fury's fife!" He exclaimed,

"Neither am I!" Steve responded, "He's got the same blood on his hands as Loki does. Right now we've got to put that aside and get this done. Now Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list-"

Tony turned to look at the bloodstain on the wall, "He made it personal."

"That's not the point." Steve said,

"That is the point. That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?" Tony asked,

"To tear us apart." Ana answered,

"He had to conquer his greed, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us and he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience." Tony said,

"Right, I caught his act at Stuttengard." Steve replied,

"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 paused as he realized something, 

"Sonofabitch!"