AN: Sequel of Death's Gambit. If you haven't read that yet, time to go back!

"Come again, Hawkeye?" the Captain asked when Clint's announcement had been met with static silence over their coms.

"Civilian falling through the portal." Clint repeated. "It's rather urgent. Thor? Tony?"

"I am sorry, Eye of the Hawk! I am smiting enemies in great numbers but even my strong Mjolnir will not bring me there in time to collect the fallen one," came Thor's apology, his voice booming over the intercom like thunder.

"Got it," Tony answered, cutting Thor off before he went off on another one of his poetic tangents, because the man could actually fight and share long winding prose at the same time without so much as breaking a sweat. Being a Norse God didn't allow him to be at two places at the same time however, and it so happened Tony had just finished clearing this area of the alien pest that kept pouring through that blasted portal.

"Jarvis, can you spot him?" he asked while he turned towards Stark Tower where the portal had been opened, his repulsors on at full blast.

A big red X appeared in his line of sight, just a speck of dust from this distance, and one which was lower than he'd like it to be.

"Yes, sir. But her fall is rather erratic. She seems to be slowing down every now and again, although I cannot ascertain how she is breaking her fall."

"Ha! People. No respect for gravity nowadays," he answered, although he was glad for it or he might have arrived too late, and he had no desire to see a soft human body go splat as it met hard concrete at high velocity.

Tony positioned himself and swooped in a dive to catch her, then propelled himself back up, slaloming between aliens and what he was going to call laser beams, because if it looks like a cat and sounds like a cat… Tony lost that train of thought as he made sure they had not been followed before landing on a nearby roof. Now, he could finally ask how the fuck a civilian had fallen through the portal? Were the Chitauri kidnapping people now? Or just tossing them up in the air for shits and giggles? He'd thought alien's fascination with probes were urban legends, but maybe… Then Tony took a look at the person he'd rescued, wondering why she wasn't already gushing over him, because the ladies loved Ironman, after all, and he jerked back.

"Well, fuck," he muttered. "Jarvis what is this thing?"

Because that wasn't a human, or a Chitauri, and it certainly wasn't a "she". Where the hell had Jarvis gotten that idea from? He was an AI, sure, but he'd never had trouble discerning gender usually gave it away. But for all intents and purposes, the thing he'd picked up looked like a very clichéed Grim Reaper, only missing its Scythe, which Tony considered was a good thing. Not that he believed in the Grim Reaper but he rather liked having what was left of his soul attached to his body.

"My readings indicate she is human, sir, but I understand your confusion," Jarvis replied, smooth as ever.

"Hey! I'm not a thing, thank you very much. You're a thing," the thing protested before looking at its own hand, waggling the fine bones before it's eye sockets. The voice was feminine enough, but Tony had to wonder how she could speak without a tongue, vocal cords, or even lungs.

"Damnit," the thing muttered with a sigh before being distracted by a chitauri ship crashing nearby in a fiery explosion that rocked their building. "And what the bloody hell is going on here?"

"Err… Alien invasion? The end of the world and all that?" Tony snarked then shot down one of the small Chitauri carts with one of his repulsors as it flew over them while keeping another on her. "What rock did your crawl out from? Wait! No... don't answer that. I really don't want to know."

He was about to call in the situation and ask what they wanted him to do with her, because babysitting the Grim Reaper had never been one of the Avengers' duties, he was pretty sure of that, when she suddenly moved, her arm extended towards him, pointing a… stick at him while screaming at him to duck, which he did on instinct and not because he was used to obeying bossy women. Tony twisted around just in time to see a dozen limp alien bodies flying through the air and down the side of the rooftop.

"You're not so bad for a bag of bones," he said, getting back on his feet to strike a more dignified pose.

"You've got a big mouth for a robot though," she replied, sounding more thoughtful than spiteful.

"Tony, perimeter breach. One of those… worm things," the Captain interrupted before he could try and figure out if she thought he was really a robot or just pulling his leg. He was Ironman! Seriously, who didn't know Ironman? He was on the front cover of magazines at least once a week.

"Worm-things, Cap? Seriously, that's the best you could come up with? On it." he added as an afterthought, just in case the captain got his spangles in a twist.

He stopped at the edge of the rooftop and glanced at the skeleton standing there with her dark, tattered robes whipping about her in the wind.

"You helping or… you know, watching the world die? Which might just be your thing."

She nodded. To what? He wasn't sure, but she hadn't killed him, had saved his life in fact, probably, so she couldn't be as bad as she looked, and there were a crapload more things trying to kill them right now that were a lot uglier than her and required his immediate attention. He headed towards the giant worm ravaging office buildings a few blocks down and opened the com to warn the others.

"By the way guys, if you see the Grim Reaper, don't shoot. It's a friendly. I think."

"The Grim Reaper?" several of them asked at the same time.

"Yeah, you know? Death personified? Skeleton in a black robe, missing the scythe though, but you'll know when you see her."

"Death is a woman?" Hawkeye asked, sounding dubious.

"Why are you so surprised?" Natacha replied cooly. "Makes perfect sense to me."

"Really? That's what bothers you?" the captain asked and for once, he had a point, although it did make some kind of twisted sense to Tony that Death would walk the Earth went it was in peril.

And there was the worm. Up close, it actually looked like an armoured eel, which wasn't any better because at least worms didn't have teeth, and Jarvis was insisting he didn't have the firepower to take it down after they'd scanned the length of it.

"Banner's here," the captain reported.

"Finally," Tony said, but he'd had faith he'd return. "Tell him to suit up, I'm bringing the party to him."

He shot a salve into the worm-eel's side. Yes, a wormeel. He was quite proud of having coined that word and told Jarvis to copyright it while he flew in between buildings, forcing the wormeel to fly lower and lower until its belly almost grazed the road. He caught sight of the Grim Reaper in a side street, blasting huge fireballs at dozens of Chitauris that had cornered policemen protecting an underground entrance. It was pretty cool, he had to admit, and then lost sight of her again, but was pleased that she was on their side after all. He liked being right, and he liked having a new acquaintance he could throw a ton of puns at.

After the battle had ended and his heart had apparently been rebooted by the Hulk, of all people, they only had the one day before Nick Fury insisted on rounding them up for debriefing. No rest for the brave, or was that the wicked? Only half of them were sporting any sort of injury since the others had super healing abilities, which didn't seem fair.

"Tony, you mentioned a Grim Reaper?" Fury asked once they had gotten the boring stuff out of the way.

He nodded and not wanting to go into boring details and be assaulted by pointless questions, he took out his tablet and sent the feed his armour had recorded from the battle onto Fury's screens with a lazy flick of his finger. The "civilian" Hawkeye had spotted falling from the portal, their discussion on the roof before she'd blasted the wave of Chitauris crashing their little banter time and the glimpse he'd had of her fighting the aliens to protect humans.

"That's all I have, but she's definitely on our side. She kicked Chitauri ass by the dozens," he concluded. "Do you know where she is now?"

"Apprehended," Fury replied.

"You apprehended the Grim Reaper? Death?" Natasha asked, doing her eyebrow thing that meant he'd better be kidding or she would bust his balls.

"She's not Death. It's just some elaborate disguise. And we had to take her in, she was...having a nervous breakdown, as far as we could tell," Fury said and showed his own feed of images: it was taken right after the battle judging by all the alien carcasses lying around and the distinct lack of explosions, and there she was, just standing in a street near a newsstand, then she began shouting at the sky and kicking a nearby Chitauri until its head rolled off.

"Someone needs those anger management sessions more than me," Banner pointed out and Tony laughed at his self deprecatory humour. It never got old.

After which, SHIELD agents seemed to crawl out of the woodwork and asked her to surrender herself. Yeah, bad move, but they had guts all right. However, she ignored them and attacked the new stand instead, setting it on fire and laughing maniacally.

"Maybe she is a villain after all. I've only ever heard villains laugh like that," he joked.

"That sounds like Loki alright," Clint agreed, still grim after what he'd been forced to do.

Fury gave them the evil eye, but the screen was much more interesting: the agents threw nets at her. Ballsy. Fury should give them a pay rise. Then, the screen shut off once it was clear she wasn't even trying to fight off the SHIELD agents.

"Where is it now?" Hawkeye asked.

"Detained until we know more about her. She's still sleeping off the tranquilisers."

"You're going to recruit her for The Avengers Initiative aren't you?" Bruce asked. "I guess I won't be the strangest monster of the group anymore."

"That's debatable, she has a hot bone structure."

"You did not just say that," Natasha growled while he and Bruce sniggered like kids.

"What if she refuses?" the Captain asked. "She didn't do anything wrong, she even helped."

Fury raised his eyebrow which didn't warrant any more explanations. It was a join us or else scenario then. They'd all been through that on some level or other. After that, they hadn't heard of Death again and Fury had made sure he couldn't hack into the SHIELD database. Yet.

ooo

Even if there was no news of the Grim Reaper coming from Fury, the press was going wild with speculation about every one of them who'd fought during what they'd so originally dubbed "The Battle of New-York". Even a generic "Alien Invasion" sounded better. Just how little were journalists being paid nowadays that they weren't even trying. So many missed opportunities: Star War I, Gone with the Wormeels, One flew over the Chitauri Nest, E.T. Go Home…

Tony didn't mind the attention, he'd already been out for a while as Ironman, but all the others, bar Thor, hated it, especially Natasha because her cover was completely blown as a spy. Even their new friend from the grave had been included amongst the Avengers, so whether she wanted to or not, in the eye of the public, she was one of them. There were even pictures of her, and accounts from the survivors and emergency response teams she'd saved because she had done a lot of ground work. To be expected since she couldn't fly. Some of the tales about her even Tony had a hard time believing, and he'd seen her gigantic fireballs from hell burning the aliens to a crisp, but it was said she could also turn Chitauri into fish, levitate cars to use as shields and even make the aliens turn on each other. Needless to say SHIELD was interested in her, poor thing.

All too soon, the hero-worship died down and people started demanding answers and wanted to make them accountable for the destruction the aliens had caused, or them sometimes, he had to admit. Honestly, given the large scale invasion, the damage had been rather confined, but Fury still insisted each of the Avenger do their part to help the City of New York rebuilt itself. Which meant Tony threw money at everyone because he refused to use the Ironman as a bulldozer, it was completely undignified; Captain America used his muscles with the rebuilding crews which attracted more gawkers and screaming fangirls than people actually coming to help; Hawkeye helped entertain the kids whose schools were destroyed and from the Youtube videos he'd seen, he was a great hit with the little monsters; the Black Widow had been pulled into giving women self-defense lessons as a way to cope with the traumatism and feeling of helplessness; as for the Hulk, everyone seemed glad he was not about because he was good at smashing which was not a skill in high demand right now. But he did have his fans though, Bruce could hardly believe it and said they I were probably just mad. There were also rumours of the Grim, as everyone called her already, participating in the rebuilding of the city, but nobody understood how she did it and she had a tendency to disappear as soon as there was anyone about. So people who came to salvage what they could from the ruins of their home were surprised to find it as if nothing had happened. Cleaner, if anything. Road crews who'd been sent to resurface a street found it already as flat as it could be and towing trucks supposed to collect totalled cars found them brand new. Even the old models. She was trending on twitter with the hashtag #SantaGrim. Tony was jealous, but he also took her furtiveness as a challenge.

So he was quite smug when Jarvis informed him of another sighting. Tony had tasked him with keeping an eye on the social media feeds for any mention of the Grim's location. It was the fastest way to find anyone today. The Instagram selfie of a bearded hipster with the Grim lurking in the back was geotagged and it was close enough that he might be able to catch her before she vanished again.

"Why, hello there, sweetheart," he said as he landed next to her. "Did you miss me?"

The Grim startled. Tony had officially scared Death. This was going in his obituary.

"Mr Toaster," she said and that was not on. "How did you find me?"

"A little bird told me," he said and flipped his faceplate up. "Hi, I'm Tony. We weren't properly introduced last time."

"So there really is someone inside," she said, ignoring his offered hand and trying to look down his neck to see the rest of his body. "I thought Fury was pulling my leg."

"I'm surprised he let you out. Have you officially joined the Avengers then?"

"I didn't have much of a choice," she muttered. "I owe Fury a favour. He drives a hard bargain."

"Really? You owe him a favour?" Tony asked, his attention perked. What could Fury possibly hold over Death personified? Did he really have dirt on everyone? Scary.

"Long story."

"I'm not busy."

"No? I thought we were supposed to clean up 'our' mess?" she asked and waved her stick at a collapsed wall which proceeded to crawl back up in orderly fashion and glue itself back together again, like new.

Tony tried not to look too impressed but he just had to poke the wall to verify its solidity. It was… normal. Nor he nor Jarvis could detect anything special about the new wall. It was just a wall.

"I'm glad someone else thinks we should have let the aliens eat those ungrateful bastards," Tony deadpanned and was rewarded with… giggles. He'd been expecting a sepulchral laugh so this was a bit of a letdown, not to mention ridiculous.

"Thanks. I needed that," she said and made as if to wipe tears of laughter from her empty eye sockets which was just as weird as the giggles. She made no sense and he hated that.

"So, do I call you the Grim or do you have a real name?"

"The Grim," she snorted. "It's almost as bad as the Hulk. You're Ironman, right?"

He nodded.

"Tony Stark," he said with no sign of recognition from her, which was refreshing.

"Hermione," she offered and did shake his hand this time. "Fury didn't tell me much about the other Avengers, so I've been reading the press but most of it sounds like a load of dragondung."

She grimaced. Not a fan of the press then. Another point for the Grim Reaper!

"I can correct that!" he said cheerfully. "I'm throwing you a welcome party tonight at Stark Tower so you can meet everyone. Except Thor. He's busy kinging his kingdom, or whatever it is Asgardians do. But it'll be fun. Fury will hate it, so you have to come."

"I'm not sure that's such a great idea."

"Of course it is, it's mine. My idea are always great. I'm famous for them."

"No, you don't understand-"

"Nine sharp, don't be late!"

And he sped off before she could protest again. She'd be there. She was a bit of a pushover despite her appearance.

ooo

Captain America had come! To a party! To his party! This was surely another event to celebrate, or the only thing to celebrate because it was ten to nine and his Grim Reaper had still not arrived. Just getting in the building and up all the way to his loft, you'd have to count ten minutes, but maybe she didn't know that, sohe was going to be late. He was a bit disappointed. He'd always figured Death would be the punctual sort.

"Are you sure she's coming? Did you actually invite her?" Natasha asked and he nodded. "Did you wait for her answer?"

"Oh, come on. Who wouldn't want to come party with us? We're awesome!"

"For a start, no one except you has ever spoken to her. I bet you frightened her off."

While they bickered, Clint and Rogers started a match of beer pong. A pointless game since the first never missed and the second never got drunk. It was almost nine when he checked the time again. Natasha was looking at him smugly, waiting for him to admit she was right, when suddenly, the Grim was there. One moment she wasn't, and then she just was, standing behind the couch just behind Rogers who jumped back and knocked over the beer and table.

"Holy mother of fuck," Clint said with a whistle.

"Oh, hello. I'm not late am I?" she asked, turning to Tony. "You did say nine sharp, right?"

"I did. In fact, you're scarily right on time. And you were doubting me," he said to Natasha with a shake of his head.

"Everyone, this is Hermione, our very own Grim Reaper. Hermione, meet the team: Natasha Romanoff better known as the Black Widow," Natasha nodded but stood her ground, clearly on the defensive. "Clint Barton, also know as Hawkeye," To his credit, their archer stepped right up to her and shook her hand.

"That's weird," he commented, and poked her in the face with one of his callused fingers while everyone looked on in horror.

"Clint!" Natasha hissed.

"No, come and see this," he urged, then looked at the Grim and amended, "If you don't mind."

"Go ahead," the skeleton sighed. "You would have figured it out sooner or later anyway and it's not like Fury and his mad scientists didn't have a go at me."

Curious, Tony took her hand. He'd been in armour every time they'd been in contact before, so he was surprised when his skin met warm soft flesh instead of cold hard bones. His eyes telling him one thing, while his hand told him another. He couldn't grasp how it was possible.

"This is hurting my brain," Tony said and made room for Bruce and Rogers who each took a hand, turning it this way and that with similar frowns of confusion.

Natasha approached only when Hermione beckoned her closer, offering her free hand.

"An illusion?" Natasha asked. "Like Loki?"

"The God of Mischief?" Hermione asked. "Fury mentioned him but I wouldn't know, I never met him. I suppose it's an illusion, yes."

"So you're normal underneath?" Bruce asked. "Why don't you take off your disguise then?"

Her jaw did a strange movement that might have been a grimace when she answered.

"I don't control it. It's a curse. I hoped it would wear off before I came here, but it should soon, if I'm not mistaken. I haven't been like this often enough to make a precise prediction."

Tony glanced at Bruce because that was very similar to the Hulk in some aspects, and his science buddy was evidently seeing them too if his pitying smile was anything to go by.

Then her form wavered like a mirage and a young woman was standing there instead of the Grim Reaper: small and pale, with long curly dark hair and dark eyes… Hell, she could pass off as his little sister, it was unnerving. But contrary to him, her fashion sense was terrible: what was with all the white? Compensating for her dark Grim Reaper outfit? Taking in their stares, she glanced at her hands, then smiled at them.

"Hello again."

"Wow, okay, that's a change alright," Clint said.

"Down, boy," Tony growled then properly introduced Bruce and Rodgers to her now that the drama over her non-boniness was over. "This is Dr Bruce Banner. If you saw a giant beanstalk smashing aliens, that was him. And this is Steve Rogers or Captain America when he wears the tightest spandex suit in existence."

Tony expected a reprimand from Rodgers but he and their un-dead guest were too busy making googly at each other.

"Please tell me you're not one of his fans," Tony moaned.

He'd been hoping to rope her into riling up the Captain because none of the others would. None! They didn't understand he was doing it for his benefit: Mr tighty-pants really needed to unwind if he wanted to fit into this century.

"No," she replied while keeping her eyes on Rodgers. "We… erm...sort of met before."

"Before? Before when? Capsicle here has just barely had time to thaw properly, and I think he would have mentioned if he'd met you during the Battle. Right, Captain?" Not leaving Rodgers enough time to answer because once he was on a roll it was next to impossible to stop him, Tony continued his line of reasoning, undeterred by all the glowering now directed his way. They should know better. "Which means you met before Snow White went under for a nap. Probably during the war. I mean, you do seem to pop up during important battles so I shouldn't be surprised. You are, after all, the Grim Reaper and that's when you're busiest. Maybe you should think about delegating a bit more. It must be exhausting."

"Not quite as exhausting as you," she said. "We met briefly in 1943, but I only knew him as Captain Steve" Tony snorted. "So I didn't connect the dots until now. Obvious, in hindsight. Extraordinary coincidence though... Oh, I should probably return this to you."

She took her coat off, waved her stick at it and it turned into a heavy leather coat, much too big and masculine to be her own. Rodgers took it with a strange look on his face. Mopey. He was going to start moping again, damnit.

"Thank you," he said and clutching the coat to his chest like a teddy bear. "I didn't think I'd see it again. Or you. How-"

Tony cut him off.

"No. You," he pointed at Hermione. "Story time. Now."

Rodgers knew something he didn't, so correcting such a blasphemy was more important than any polite chitchat the two were about to engage in.