The shot rang through Natasha's head and the room, making her adrenaline spike as she stared at what she'd just done. What had she just done? She tried not to cringe as his body flopped to the side, moving with the shifting of the carrier, not that she could focus on it for too long. On the other side of the room Bruce was still mid-transformation, and she didn't think he'd seen anything, or had been able to pull himself out of his head in time to watch the bullet make its way through Fury's skull. The sound of the shot, however, had made an impact. His muscles began to roll beneath the skin, bones stretching and ligaments moving, trying to accommodate the Other Guy, the one that Nat had hoped to avoid all together. She had all of two seconds to grab at her utility belt where Loki, at Natasha's request, had given her a few tranquilizer darts, one of which would've put Thor out. She flicked three at the giant man in front of her, praying they worked as he paused, halfway through his transformation to stare at her.

"What are you doing?" Bruce demanded, his voice two octaves at the same time, eyes flashing somewhere between their traditional dark brown and bright, fluorescent green. Her heart stuttered at the fear one of his mighty shouts brought with it, but it only forced her to react and throw the remaining three darts at him. They hit his neck, piercing the green-tinted skin. He went down not long after that, body shrinking until he was Bruce again.

She felt her heart rate slow down slightly, taking a deep breath before forcing herself to get up to her feet. She'd deal with Bruce later. Overhead, the coms were screaming that the carrier had been breached, that infiltrators dressed up as SHIELD agents were making their way through before the speakers went dead. Infiltrators dressed in the gear that Natasha had given them. She pushed aside the doubt from her conscious as one of said minions of Loki's stepped into the room, checking that the others were out, before Natasha shot him in the chest. As he fell, she stepped forward quickly and put her gun into his hand, the one she'd shot Fury with. Call her paranoid, but she'd rather not take her chances. When Loki had hit the engine he'd been sure to send a pulse using other Shield technology to take out the cameras, so the rounded glass-covered hub didn't worry her at all. In fact, she smiled to look at it. She would never be stared at, scrutinized, or spied on again. Not like that.

With quick feet she made her way from the room down the hall, the carrier leveling out as she ran. Loki must've gotten on and stabilized it, wanting simply to throw everyone off kilter while they boarded. As she walked her way through the halls she thought she caught a glimpse of him, heading towards the Hulk's containment cell, the quick flash of a leather jacket all she got before she turned and walked down the opposite way. She wished she'd had the foresight to put a com in her ear before the attack, then she'd have been able to pinpoint Barton and the others' exact location, but she went with her gut instead.

Barton was, as she'd expected, on his way towards Loki, and he spotted her at the edge of one of the halls, limping on her left foot. The archer immediately stopped and ran towards her.

"Nat, what the hell happened?"

"Bruce-he got me right before he could contain it," she gasped, sweat beading on her brow as she stared up at him, eyes searching his. Good, his face was riddled with concern, and as he bent down to look at her leg she took one of her bites and pressed it hard into his neck. His body tensed, jolted, then fell to the ground with a dull thud, eyes fluttering back into his head.

Two down, three to go.

As it turned out Loki managed to take care of Rogers without issue once the soldier was separated from Stark, and the iron man was last to go after Rogers and Thor both dropped down to the ground, knocked out cold with a spell of Loki's. Tony watched as Nat grew closer and tried waving her away, telling her to get to the others, that he'd take care of "this bastard." He didn't seem so adamant when she pulled out another one of her guns and trained it on Stark instead, his eyes narrowing and mouth setting into a hard line.

"What're you doing, Natasha? I thought you were a good guy?" He demanded, pointing one repulsor at her, the other at Loki, who'd begun to circle him. Nat tried not to watch the way that Loki's lips twisted into an almost pleased smirk, tried to ignore the way her nerves made mincemeat of her gut, but neither of the men were making it easy on her. Loki stepped around so he stopped beside her, though she shrugged his hand off after he'd put it on her shoulder.

"There's no definitive good and bad, Tony. You know that as well as I do," she murmured, taking a step away from Loki and ignoring the way his body tensed up at her absence. "I'm doing what I have to survive." And to keep you all alive. She didn't give Loki to option to stop Stark, throwing one of her bites at him so that it hit his suit. The electric pulse was set up as high as she could put it, shorting out his abilities to run Jarvis and run the suit. She watched it power down, heard Tony shout as the suit started to take preventative measures and once Loki began to heat it up, well, it was only a matter of minutes before Tony was forced out of the suit. Nat got him with a couple of fingers jabbing into his pressure point, and caught him when he went down, not before a few colorful words passed his lips, though. She ignored them. Tried, at least. Somewhere in her heart they stuck, but they'd see. They'd have to see that she was doing what was best. At least she hoped she was. Her glance slipped over to Loki, the demigod smiling at her and offering to take the collapsed scientist from her . She didn't give him over, slinging the man over her back as though he didn't weigh a thing. She owed him at least the decency of seeing to it that he was taken care of.

Back in Manhattan, the tesseract was nearly in position. This distraction, the capture and defeat of the Avengers, was the last roadblock. Loki gave the word once they'd taken over the hellicarrier, Hill's eyes glowing bright blue as she barked orders to a team of mind-controlled Agents as well. The portal opened, using Stark Tower as its base, and Natasha and Loki watched from the deck as the Chitauri invaded, destroying a good portion of the city. In a matter of twenty-four hours the entire world fell to their knees.

A/N:

Okay-so, hear me out before you absolutely hate me for ending it here. I do have plans to continue this, yes. When I'll do it however I can't say. I've got a thousand and one other fics to finish up, on top of school, and a full time [new] job, so I've been running with this one as long as I can, and I just hit a really good stopping point right here. When I do go on to continue this it'll be under a different name, and be seen as a second part to this whole story, but as I said for right now, while I have such a good ending point, I'm gonna take it. You guys have all been absolutely amazing and so supportive and I love it and appreciate it to death. Thank you guys so so so so much, and I hope to be able to figure EVERYTHING else out in life so I can continue this ASAP 3