Gimme Shelter
“What did you do?”
“I went for the head.”
Silence crushed the group from all sides. The lifeless head practically mocked them from the corner where it sat. The stones were gone.
There was a loud crash, and everyone startled. Claire’s weapon, a modified energy canon that she and Rocket had rigged from the grenade launcher, was discarded on the ground. She was gone already, her footsteps quick and purposeful as they faded away. Dean made to follow her, but Natasha puts a hand out to stop him.
“Dean… let me?” She phrased it like a question. He didn’t say that he needed to be doing something right now, focusing his energy into somebody else, or else the reality would come crashing down. He didn’t say that Claire was his last avenue of denial, that fighting with her or letting her scream at him would be the last thing from his old life that could let him pretend even for a second that none of this was happening. But looking at Natasha, Black Widow, who he only met because of this mess, he can’t pretend. This woman wouldn’t even be in his life if not for the mess that he finally has to accept, that his family, except for Claire, is gone. Natasha seems to take his speechlessness as confirmation, because she whisks away after Claire. How can she be so composed? It has to be a mask. Perfected from years of practice. Just like Dean’s own mask from hunting. But in that last look at Natasha’s face he got before she left to follow Claire, Dean could see the cracks forming. Cracks that had ghosted her face in their weeks of preparation and searching, now solidified. They may be small, but they were there.
And in that moment of realization, Dean’s mask went on. And he resolutely decided, it wouldn’t come off. His cracks wouldn’t show. He would move through this, like anything else. Rowena was either dusted or off the grid, and the eight crossroad demons he managed to contact were unable to do anything about this, nor were they in any shape to get a superior officer involved. He had thought of every spell, threatened four separate witches, and tried every supernatural trick he could think of in the last few days. Hell was in shambles, heaven probably was too, and now the whole universe. Who knows if Chuck even could be of use, if he ever gets back from fucking off and ditching Earth for the millionth time. But none of this touches deeper than the surface for Dean. In the five seconds he has begun to process, his mask has formed and hardened. What would have torn him apart only days ago now just seems like simple facts. Feeling solid now, he knows his composure won’t falter. Not like that panic attack. Not like after Hell, when it took its toll in nightmares, paranoia, and anxiety. Not like when Sam got stabbed in the back. Or when Sam went into the cage. Not like every single fucking time he saved the world and had to sacrifice something. And not like he got choked up before, saying their names. Sam, Cas, Jack, Jodie, and nearly everyone he knew and depended on, was gone. It’s just a fact.
And there was officially, unequivocally, nothing that he could do about it. He left the group where they stood, still dumbfounded and processing. He walked back to the ship, sat down in his seat, swallowed all the anxiety he had about flying in a fucking spaceship, and resolved to use this as a head start. While he waited, he closed his eyes, sat deathly still, and found himself thinking: half the monsters on Earth, already gone for him. Yippee.
~
Of course, he wasn’t prepared for Claire to have a different plan.
“I’m staying with the Avengers.” Her face looked somewhat softened, which only made it harder for him to actually accept what she was saying. This wasn’t some hot-headed last-minute decision, this wasn’t an attempt to punch her way through grieving. She thought this out. In the few days they stayed with the Avengers after killing Thanos, Okoye from Wakanda had met with Natasha and the other Avengers. Claire was invited to sit in on those meetings, where steps forward were proposed and developed. Dean was too, but he opted out. He knew what he would be doing, once it was appropriate to duck out. He didn’t want to be terribly rude about it, but he would be hitting the road eventually. He just wasn’t expecting Claire to be on board with the… less violent side of damage control.
“Uh, wow. Okay. And, you’re ahh… pretty decided on that?” he floundered.
“Yeah. Nat and Okoye have some really great ideas for what to do now. I know it’s not really my M.O., but I want to help here. It’s stuff that probably would have helped me, once upon a time, and now people need it even more than I did then. Helping kids whose parents were snapped, can’t be all that different than a dad abducted by an angel and a mom gone off the rails,” she said with a hint of a smile. “Not to mention, housing, and damage control for all the secondary stuff, like the bus crash from my vamp hunt. Stuff like that happened with planes, buildings on fire, so much more. I can do a lot here. And Nat might not be a hunter, but she offered to train me. I want to stay.” Dean was impressed. He was glad his mask was so solid, or he might have actually shown emotion because he was so proud of her. She truly was growing up from that angry, vengeful teen into a mature young adult. He did take the opportunity to tease a little bit, though.
“You sure training is all you want to do?” He waggled his eyebrows, and thankfully, instead of looking murderous, Claire simply looked sheepish.
“Shut up, Dean. She’s like ten years older than me. I had a crush, but I’m over it and now that I know her for real, it’s different. And this is serious stuff.”
“I know it is. And… for what it’s worth, I’m proud of you.” Mask still intact, the words came out rather flat, but Claire smiled, nonetheless.
“I know you have plans to keep hunting, but you know… you could stay too. I’ll probably take cases here and there just because the numbers are thin, but if we both stayed, we could both help in multiple ways. It would be efficient.”
“I won’t stay away forever. But this is how I am. I’ll handle some far away stuff and the efficiency will balance out, maybe. Anyway, I’ll be back eventually to bug you some more,” he huffed, ruffling her hair and earning himself a shove disproportionate to her size.
“You sure you won’t come back to ogle the Captain’s ass some more?” Dean actually blushed at that, hurriedly looking around to make sure no one heard before he shoved Claire back with equal fervor.
“Shut it, Novak,” he grumbled. So what if in the days after Thanos, he had been calm enough under his mask to let his fanboy admiration come out a little bit more? Just because Captain America was an ass to them when they arrived doesn’t mean he wasn’t the same jacked superhero that Dean has had a crush on since basically forever. Natasha, too, for that matter, but he was much more careful around her. She was far more intimidating, and he actually enjoyed her company. The jury on Cap was still out.
Currently he and Claire were sitting on a couch, watching old episodes of The Office in one of the common areas of the compound. The area they had chosen was mostly deserted, as they hadn’t really wanted to be around the others. Perhaps hunting differed from superhero-ing because Dean and Claire needed distraction and occupied thoughts, whereas the Avengers seemed only functional in moments of action and planning. The rest of the time, when they weren’t in meetings or discussing next steps, the Avengers moped. And while Dean and Claire completely understood, it just wasn’t how they functioned. If they moped, their masks would break. They wouldn’t be as good at hunting. Moping was a necessary emotional experience at times, but it made for a vulnerable hunter, even if it wasn’t a moment of action.
As it was, movies and completed series were about all that could be watched… News was bare bones because it hurt too much to talk about and half the crew were all gone, as was half the personnel from TV shows that were still airing. Dean was too hollow to really care about TV but if he had been a little less determined to keep his mask up, he would have been very disheartened that Brooklyn 99 was put on indefinite hold, and would likely be cancelled. Andy Samberg, Terry Crews, Stephanie Beatriz and Andre Braugher were all blipped. That’s what non-Avengers were calling it now. The Blip. The few who had been in Wakanda and near Thanos when it happened were calling it the Snap, but as the rest of the world hadn’t actually seen Thanos snap his fingers, Blip made a little more sense.
The TV they had picked already had Netflix logged in and they just continued where the last user had left off with The Office. After Claire had expressed her intent to stay, they got through another three or four episodes when Tony Stark weakly ambled into the room. He was leaning on a walker, but the IV bag was gone, and he had gained some weight. He was healing. And he looked downright furious.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Just watching TV, man, is something wrong?” Dean asked tentatively, pausing the show.
“You’re gonna… in the middle of watching… you’ll lose his place, get out of here, GO. Get off this floor, go somewhere else. Now! Get. Out.”
“Okay,” Claire said gently. The two of them swiftly and calmly moved from the room, but as they rounded the corner to the staircase, Dean heard a sharp sob from the common area.
~
“So, Carol and the raccoon are hitting up outer space, Okoye is heading back to Wakanda, you’re staying here to be the coordinator of basically everything, Bruce is going off to his lab and Cap is fucking off to Chuck knows where…”
“Rhodey is also going to help me, here. Pepper and Tony will be around, but no one expects them to give more than they already have,” Natasha responded. “I don’t really know where Thor went, I’m assuming to New Asgard.” Dean was trying to get as good a read on things as he could before he headed out, back to the road. Call him overprotective, but he just wanted to make sure Claire wasn’t going to be alone or strung out.
“So the compound will still be the base of everything?”
“Dean. You don’t have to worry about Claire. I know that’s what this is about. But yes, the compound will be the base. And now that we have some supernatural help, it’s even safer than ever. But I won’t control her coming and going, you know.”
“Nah, I know. I just, you know, wanted to get the details before I check out.”
“You know… this could be a home base for you, too. Like your bunker. I know you don’t want to go back there. But you could have a home here, too. With Claire, and us. If you want.” Claire, Natasha and Bruce had graciously received everything from the bunker that they could fit into a quinjet, and Claire knew how to get in if they ever needed anything else. Dean couldn’t set foot in the place.
“I’ll keep that in mind, Natasha. And like I told Claire, I’ll be around sometime. Just not right away.”
“I know, I know, you’ve gotta keep busy, hit the road, kill some monsters,” Natasha said with a smile. “But you’re a part of this now. Honorary Avenger or something. Don’t be a stranger.”
Dean nodded in agreement, smiling at the idea. Honorary Avenger. His life was getting crazier by the day. The mask was still firmly in place, and it stayed there when he finally packed up the Impala and rolled out, Claire and Natasha standing by the entrance and watching him drive away.
~
The zing of machete made a grossly satisfying sound as the head of the vampire he was fighting hit the ground with a thud. For a moment, the head wasn’t some barely adult-looking vamp, but Thanos. Only a second later, the horrifying image passed, and Dean’s mask was still intact. His chest tightened, looking at the young girl. This was always a hard part of hunting. She was maybe twenty years old. But she couldn’t be cured and didn’t want to be, so he did what he had to do and let his resolve harden and his mask stay put. This was easy compared to all the dust stuff. He was shocked, however, to turn around and find a fucking sword in front of his face. The figure on the other end of the sword began to talk, and then he pretty much never stopped.
“Uh, not that I’m not about the occasional decapitation, but can I ask what this literal baby did to you? Man to man. Hombre to hombre. Just wanna know. I was kind of on a no-killing streak before this fucking dissolving crap, but hey, I sees a murderer and I got’s to know why they’s a murderer, eh?” What the fuck was this accent? Brooklyn? Boston? Canadian, right at the end? Jesus fuck. “I used to just take out whoever the biggest buyer wanted, but now I’m trying to carry on this whole benevolent legacy for a pal of mine, though I’m more R-rated to his PG-13 brand, yada yada, point is, I’m not against killing a sicko murderer. So, buckaroo, did this chick deserve to get it, huh? Cause if she didn’t, I’ll challenge you to a sword fight! Your machete, against my katanas. I’ll even let you cut off an arm first, head start,” the figure said, offering out his other arm that wasn’t holding a sword. Yet. Dean noticed the other sword sheathed on his back. The dude was in some sort of red leather body suit and the mask didn’t have a mouth, but Dean would swear it had actual emotions. It looked like it was smiling. Maniacally. Dean exhaled slowly, trying to keep his cool.
“Come on, buddyyyyyy boi, I don’t have all day and I haven’t decapitated anyone in a while, this might be fun! But I’ll have an angry arachnid ghost on my hands if I kill the wrong dude.” The person behind the mask looks up a little bit, eyes of the mask following and focusing in the weirdest way possible, as if he were addressing the space over his shoulders. He continues, “Yes, I know he’s not really an arachnid- Of course I’m joking, it’s how we mask our pain!” He turned back to Dean. “That, and the actual mask.” He cackled with laughter, and Dean felt highly unsafe just because this guy seemed unstable, even if he wasn’t… pure evil.
What the fuck was happening with his life?