Cold As Ice
"Wait!" Claire exclaimed as they approached the room where the others were waiting. "Miss Black Widow- I mean, Natasha," Claire blushed a little and Dean almost laughed. But then Claire turned her eyes on Dean and gave him a very pointed look. He realized what she was getting at when she widened her eyes and raised her brows.
"Oh, shit," Dean said, reaching out for Natasha's arm. She sidestepped his reach with an impressive glare, and he awkwardly let his hand fall. "Uh, listen, Natasha- we just need to know, who is the blue chick?"
"An alien. Actually the daughter of Thanos. But she wants him dead as much as we do. Apparently he was a shitty father."
Claire cleared her throat, "And, uh... have her eyes been like that since you met her?"
Natasha was quiet for a minute. "You think she is a demon?"
"So you know about demons?" Dean pressed.
"Like I said, a friend of mine dealt with this shit a while back. I've only heard the stories, but black eyes is a demon thing, right?"
"Yeah, you're right," Claire responded, smiling approvingly. Her smile fell, though, as she continued. "So, blue lady. Demon, or not?"
"You know, I haven't really thought about it. I guess it's not impossible, but I don't really think so. She's.... driven. And a bit violent. But I think that's mostly just how she was raised. I don't think she is genuinely evil. Though I've only known her for a day."
"Well, we should check to be sure," Dean leveled.
"How do you do that?"
"Holy water, saying the name of God in Latin, we have a special knife that kills them, though sometimes if you piss them off they reveal themselves anyway."
"Well, try whatever is least likely to piss her off. As far as we know, she's on our side. Even if she is a demon." Natasha maintained her steady gaze, and he and Claire nodded. They kept heading back, approaching the doorway. Dean honestly felt a little intimidated by Natasha. He had been to hell, killed death, looked God in the eye, and this woman kind of frightened him. It's a feeling kind of like when Cas goes all "angel's are warriors" instead of the usual clueless non-human routine.
Whoa. That... that was the first time he'd thought about Cas without feeling that cringe in his chest. Of course, now it was there that he was dwelling on it. And of course the feeling made him remember that Cas, Sam, Jack, Jodie, all of them were gone and now he was feeling a little light-headed, that cringe in his chest was growing painful, and he felt like he couldn't breathe, black was spotting up in his vision...
"....Dean! Dean! What the fuck, Dean? Can you hear me? Get up, Dean." Claire's voice started cutting through the fog in his head. He looked up, realizing that he was on the ground. He saw faces but they were swimming in his vision, he couldn't make them be still. He closed his eyes. Focused on what he could feel. He was leaning against the wall. Sitting on the floor. He must have sat down. But the demon! Or potential Demon, whatever. Dean's eyes shot open and focused on the faces. They were blurry and not quite still yet, but he found the blue chick on his right.
"Christo!" he gasped, but his voice was raspy and out of breath. Blue lady just stared at him.
"This again?" She asked, somehow sounding bored and judgmental at the same time.
"Dean, I already checked her. You spazzed out. What happened?" Claire was as harsh as ever, but he could detect the growing concern in her voice.
"I believe he is suffering from a panic attack. Tony had multiple episodes like this while we were trapped on the ship." Blue lady gazed at him pensively, like he was bug under a microscope. It made him feel uncomfortable. At least the fog in his head and the spots in his vision were clearing though. And everything had stopped moving.
"Yeah, you're probably right," a voice to the left said. Bruce. Bruce Banner said that.
"Dean, what is up, man? Has this happened before?" Claire actually didn't put as much work into sounding stoic. She sounded worried. Then he realized she asked him a question.
"Uh... Not recently? I guess.. after hell, and then every so often, but it's usually not this bad. Usually it's just a bad feeling and I keep doing whatever I'm doing."
"So it hasn't happened since everyone disappeared?" Bruce asked. Claire flinched, and the pain in his chest flared a little bit.
"I guess not, doc," Dean rasped. He made a move to get up and everyone simultaneously put a hand on him, which just made him freak out more. He pushed off all the hands and stood up, placing a hand on the wall to steady himself and swatting at Bruce's attempt to support him at the elbow.
"So you're not a demon, huh?" he asked the blue lady, ignoring everything else. He really should learn if she has a name. Bruce and Claire got strained looks on their faces when he changed the subject. Natasha looked stoic as ever, but she was staring at him intensely.
"Your apprentice has already verified this, both by saying the same word, christo, and by requesting that I touch water which has apparently been sanctified."
"Whoa, hold up, I am not his apprentice," Claire announced.
"Unimportant," blue lady continued, as Claire scoffed. "What matters is that I am not a demon. Though, I suppose, in your point of view, I am an alien." Her voice really was menacing, even if she wasn't evil. Dean shivered a bit.
"Cool deal. So, now that you guys know we're legit, what's the move on Thanos?" Dean asked, moving over to the table to sit down, gently shoving his way between Claire and Natasha, who raised her eyebrows at him. He shivered again.
"Dean, I know that I'm not really the poster child for this, but you should take it easy," Claire said.
"You're right, you're not the poster child for that," he snarked. "Bruce? Natasha? Bl- Uh, I didn't catch your name?" He directed at the blue meanie.
"Nebula," she responded.
"Galactic. Cool. Well, you three, what's the move? And where did Captain America go? And the, uh, raccoon?" He looked around, and took in more of the room. It looked like a conference room of sorts. There was holographic stuff going on, some long tables, chairs. Before his question could be answered, from the far corner, a door opened and through it walked the black guy from earlier.
"Tony is fine, he's resting now and Pepper's with him. What... what happened here? Who are they?" he asked, moving toward Natasha, Bruce and Nebula where they had grouped together. Claire stood awkwardly to the side and the new guy looked at her, then Dean again.
"Hey, I'm Dean," he volunteered.
"Claire," Claire added flatly.
The guy seemed to take this in, and with a glance at all the weapons piled on the table, then toward the other three, accepted it without question. He seemed exasperated.
"Alright, then." He turned to the others. "Where's everyone else?"
"Danvers and Thor were out as soon as these guys came in. Steve left a little bit later, probably went to join them, wherever they are," Natasha answered. "Rocket, too, I guess."
"Okay then. Well the Captain can go shit a brick for all I care, but I'm sure the he'd like to be present to discuss what's gonna happen next, now that we have... Dean and Claire." Claire raised her chin at him, as if challenging him to question her presence here. He looked... almost chastised for a moment. Regaining his composure almost instantly, he continued, "Yeah, Dean and Claire. So if we can get everyone back that would be great."
"I will go retrieve Rocket. I'm sure he has returned to our ship," Nebula stated before stalking off.
"I'll grab Cap from wherever he is, he'll probably be least pissed to see me," Bruce volunteered. "He's probably back in his room or something."
"Thor and Danvers are stewing in the room across the hall," Claire piped up.
"And you know that how?" the guy asked. Claire glared at him.
"The door across the hall was open when we came in. It was closed when we went out to see the security footage. It's still closed." Claire said all this through gritted teeth. Once again, Dean thought the guy looked a little freaked out by her. Maybe not Claire in and of herself, but the fact that so much anger and hostility could come from someone so small. Then again, this guy did hang out with Black Widow, so what did Dean know?
"Ooookay, then. I'll grab them," the guy responds. "Is all this shit yours?" he asks, gesturing to the weapons on his way to the door.
"Yeah, we'll uh, put that away," Dean says with a forced smile. The guy smiles back in that tight-lipped way, equally forced, then ducks out and knocks on the door across the hall. Claire then accompanies him to the table and starts stowing weapons, leaving the bulkier ones that would make sitting uncomfortable. Dean takes those and places them on a smaller table by the door. In a couple of minutes, everyone returns with their charges. Almost everyone goes to sit at the table, but the raccoon stands to the side.
"Hey blondie, c'mere," he says, carrying something huge and vaguely gun-shaped. Claire looks slightly shaken, but makes her way over.
"Check this out," he begins, gesturing to various parts and explaining their purpose. Claire seems afraid to get too close at first, but then gets into it. Almost a minute passes and she starts asking questions, when Captain America clears his throat. Dean chuckles a bit, which earns him a few seconds under the Captain's glare.
"Chill out, beefcake," the raccoon grouses. "I'm just showing her some space gadgets, beats her wimpy little grenade launcher." The captain facepalms and Thor and Danvers both sigh with exasperation. Bruce just looks concerned. Claire is offended, though.
"Hey! My grenade launcher is not wimpy," she defends, but now she's fighting a smile.
"Well, we can compare guns later, you two," Natasha says, significantly kinder than Captain America but still with an air of impatience. To Dean's complete and utter shock, Claire immediately complies without a trace of defiance.
"Yes ma'am," she mumbles before rushing to the table. Natasha looks surprised, as does Captain America. It clicks for Dean at that moment, and his eyes light up, flitting between Claire and Natasha. Claire catches him though, and makes a slashing motion over her throat. He almost laughs, but catches himself and disguises it as a cough, which absolutely zero people in the room buy. Amidst all the confused or irritated looks, Rocket sits down, having left the large ray gun with the grenade launcher and other weapons.
"Alright. The blushing teen and I are done for now. Proceed," he says, causing Claire to actually blush and cast her gaze down to the table.
Cap runs his hand down his face as if stroking some imaginary beard. The black guy begins talking.
"I guess, introductions are in order? It seems that you all have met, but-" He's interrupted by the corner door opening again, and the blonde lady stepping out.
"Rhodey? Tony's still asleep. What's going on? Who are they?"
"Perfect, you're right in time for intros, Pepper. How about we just go around the circle?" he asks. Pretty much everyone looks like they would rather do anything but that, but they seem to consider him very much a leader, and when Pepper sits down next to him and survey's the room expectantly, they all fold. "I'll start," he offers. "I'm Colonel James Rhodes, but as you just heard, some people call me Rhodey. Pepper and Tony have that privilege," he says pointedly. "Otherwise, you can call me Rhodes. I fly the War Machine." He turns to Pepper.
"Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, or what's left of it," she says, and leaves it at that. Dean nods, and they all turn their gazes to Natasha, who is on Pepper's left.
"Natasha, but you knew that." Claire glances up, and Natasha winks at her. Her face is like a tomato, and Captain America facepalms again. "Otherwise known as Black Widow." She turns to the Captain and glares disapprovingly.
"Rogers," is all he says.
"Steve, stop being an ass," Pepper says icily. Every eye in the room turns to her, and then back to Steve. She fixes him with a challenging, unwavering stare. He looks at her, chews his lip a moment, and then starts again, apparently not willing to challenge her. "Steve Rogers. Used to be Captain America. Been on the run a while now," he says, glancing quickly at Rhodes, who raises his eyebrows as if to say And whose fault is that?
When Steve says nothing else, Bruce follows with his own introduction. "I'm uh, Bruce Banner. I've only been back on earth for a month or so, I was stuck on a trash planet for a while... Thor found me," he says with a nod toward the god. "I'm uh, also the Hulk, I guess," he says, looking down. Dean tries to smile at him, because he's actually been reasonably polite after they got past the 'who are you and how did you get in here' crap. He smiles back, but it looks more like a grimace. Claire is to his left, and she goes next, her confidence back and her face only slightly pink now.
"My name is Claire. I'm a hunter. That means I kill monsters and shit, things that most people don't believe in."
"Where are you from, Claire?" Pepper asks politely, like this is get-to-know-you hour at summer camp. Dean gathers that she is intimidating when she needs to be, but he doubts anyone would challenge her or ignore her, including Claire. He's right.
"Illinois. But after my dad kind of got possessed by an angel and my mom freaked out and went off the rails, and then killed by a different angel, I lived all over the place. Then I found my... family, in Sioux Falls," she trails off quietly. "That's where I'm from now," she finishes, staring at the table again.
To Claire's left is the raccoon. "First and foremost, don't call me a raccoon," he starts with a growl. "I know you were both thinking it." Claire actually smirks a little bit, and the... not-raccoon softens a bit. "Name's Rocket. I'm part of a group called the Guardians of the Galaxy. Or, was a part... anyway, I'm kind of a weapons extraordinaire, Captain- well, Co-Captain of my ship, and I'm a genius."
"And very humble," blonde lady says with a smirk.
"Watch it, blondie," he growls out. She laughs, but her expression falls when she realizes its her turn.
"Carol Danvers. I was an air force officer, got powers from one of the infinity stones, was abducted and brainwashed by aliens, liberated a different alien race with the help of Nick Fury, and now I go by the alias Captain Marvel." She stops there and it's clear she isn't gonna say anything else.
To her left is Thor, followed by Dean. Dean starts to feel a little nervous, which is completely irrational. He has faced every scary thing, being, or situation that has ever existed and he's nervous in front of superheroes.
"Thor. God of Thunder. I was with Banner on the trash planet, then my own planet was destroyed, and almost my entire civilization was murdered by Thanos. I lost my hammer some time ago so the rabbit," he motioned to Rocket, which was confusing for Dean and Claire, but not as much as what Thor said next, "-his adolescent tree offspring and I went and forged this axe. I chopped through Thanos' chest, into his heart, which was insufficient. My failure allowed him to complete his plan." Everyone sort of looked away from Thor in that moment. His voice was dark, harsh, and low. "Even more of my people were lost when he snapped his fingers."
Dean waited, but it was clear he was done with his bit. Well, that would be fun to follow. He considered just keeping it short and sweet, but Pepper fixed him with an intimidating stare, so he let his brain kick into overdrive.
"I'm also a hunter, like Claire. My name is Dean. I hunt... with my brother," he took a deep breath and focused on calming his anxiety and not going into another panic attack. He felt almost detached as he continued, his mind seemingly watching the scene unfold from outside his body. "The angel that possessed her dad," he said, motioning to Claire, "kind of became a part of our little team. We also kind of adopted the son of Lucifer aka the devil, who is a nephilim, half angel, half human, whose mother was hooking up with the President, scandal alert. All three of them.... yeah. Anyway. I've been to literal hell, like, fire and brimstone hell where I was tortured for 30 years and then tortured other souls for 10 years, I killed Death, as in the actual granddaddy grim reaper, stopped the biblical apocalypse, prevented alternate reality Archangels from restarting the apocalypse in this world, was possessed by an archangel, handled that like a boss, stopped a bunch of angels from taking over the world, oh you guys remember Dick Roman? Yeah he was a scary black goo creature from Purgatory, which, spoiler alert, I've been to; anyway, I handled him, and that whole army of gross, uh, met God, he's apparently a dick and abandoned humanity forever ago, met his sister, she kind of molested me in more ways than one, I met Cain from the bible and took on the Mark of Cain, made me very murder-y for a while, turned me into a demon briefly after I died thanks to another angel, which, most of them are dickbags anyway, and turning into a demon is different than being possessed by one, then I did some shit with the King of Hell, who sacrificed himself eventually to help us, which surprised everyone. Anyway, I've seen some shit and this ain't even the half of it. And now I'm here." Still floating outside of his own mind, Dean smiled without emotion, leaned back, and opened his arms to gesture to the table at large. Everyone was staring, wide-eyed and open mouthed. Even Natasha's facade was broken. Rocket kept glancing between him and Thor.
"Gotta say, that sounds even worse than Thunder-man here," Rocket said incredulously. Thor only huffed and resumed glaring at the table.
"I don't even know where to begin with all that," Natasha said, shaking her head as if she couldn't process her own thoughts.
"How much of that was Claire present for?" Rhodes asked him, but then he turned to Claire as if awaiting her answer instead of Dean's. Pepper turned too, which was probably the motivating factor that made Claire actually answer.
"Bits and pieces. The angel that wears my Dad's body was there for a lot of it, but I've been kinda doing my own thing. We get in touch when we need backup, that sort of thing. He and his brother are close with my mo-," Claire chokes off as if she just swallowed sand. "Anyway. It's all like a big extended family, but I wasn't on the front lines for most of the big stuff." Everyone caught her slip, but no one called her on it.
The room was silent for at least ten seconds. Rhodes and Pepper lowered their eyes away from Claire. When the silence had stretched a ridiculous amount, Nebula spoke up.
"As you are aware, I am Nebula. Thanos stole me from my birth parents and my home, and raised me as his own daughter. He trained me as a warrior, replacing parts of my body whenever I would fail. For much time, I worked for him and shared his vision. I have since learned the error of my ways. He stole my sister, who I only recently gained back from pushing her away myself. For her, and for all the torture he inflicted on me, I will destroy Thanos with a thousand times the ferocity and mercilessness he showed me." Bruce, Dean, and Rhodes all shuddered at the end of her speech. Everyone else was more or less stoic, but Dean could see some wariness in Claire's face.
"Right, thank you Nebula," Rhodes said. "So... we're all acquainted now. Tony is in the other room. He and Nebula were trapped on a damaged ship in space after they both fought Thanos. Nebula fared better than Tony could after they went a few weeks without food, and eventually water and oxygen. Carol saved them, and returned the ship here. Tony is still in very bad shape, but he'll be alright. A lot of our... company, colleagues, well, they were lost to the... events of Thanos. We want to get them back and stop Thanos from ever doing anything like this again. The trouble is, we don't know where he is or how to get to him, or how to face him when we do find him, because as far as we know, he still has the stones. He's bested us once with them, he could probably do it again. We just don't know."
Rocket spoke up. "I know how we can look for him. If he uses those stones, I'll be able to tell."
"Excellent. Then let's get a plan together." Rhodes looked around the table, then focused on Carol, who nodded approvingly.
"Here's what we do," she started out, continuing with strategy. Dean and Claire both leaned in, and prepared to join the actual fucking Avengers to take down this crap sack. They were gonna get their family back. This is it, Dean thinks. This is it.