The Endgame

A blinding headache. A buzz in my ears. The taste of blood in my mouth. It hurts to open my eyes, my whole skull is pain. It's dark in this warehouse, the only light allowing any vision coming from one lamp alone. The Irishman is alone now, rid of his goonies. I guess he doesn't need them anymore. My ankles are fine, but my wrists feel on fire. He's sure as hell not using rope back there, and whatever tech he is using is working, because my system can't do shit against it. I can't free myself.

''Ah, you're awake.''

The thing about dying is that it royally sucks. It's not painful per se - mine wasn't, at least - it's just terrifying as fuck. I particularly didn't like the fact that I was perfectly aware that I was dying - it made for some pretty shitty last moments. If someone had given me a heads up, informed me just a little bit in advance, maybe I would have used that time to tie some loose ends, say some nice words, do something cool before I get disintegrated into kingdom come. But nah. My last moments were spent panicking, with a lingering selfish thought of ''Oh shit, no! I don't wanna die, I still got shit to do!'' Then I died. I died in Tony Stark's lab, alone, or almost alone, with Tony's AIs to keep me company. As I said, it didn't hurt. Everything was happening too much at once for there to be any pain.

Being brought back sucked a lot more. The partial amnesia didn't last long, but it took my body about a month to get used to just existing again, and even now I have these what-the-fuck moments where I feel like I'm an alien in someone else's vessel and I'm just wobbling my way through life on this weird planet, without any idea what the heck I'm doing here.

Yeah, my mind took a greater toll. It's to be expected of someone who just happened to skip five years in time only to find that the people they've loved the most are dead. I was there just in time to watch him die. The universe has one hell of a sense of humor.

The next time I die, they better not bring me back.

I'm not dying here.

''O'Mally,'' I say, my own voice sounding foreign to me, ''Somehow even uglier in the dark. You look happy to see me.''

''Oh, you have no idea, sweetheart,'' he says, pacing, ''You've given me a lot of trouble, you know? It's only right I take a little bit more time with you.''

''Whatever happened to evening the odds. This is hardly a fair fight,'' I tempt him, biding time to figure something out, ''Plus, I don't particularly like being tied up. Not outside my bedroom at least.''

He chuckles darkly, tinged with genuine amusement. The scar I gave him months ago flashes under the light of the lamp, before it's swallowed by the darkness again. I should have killed him that night. Instead, I'd left him a souvenir. A reminder. Whenever he looks at his own reflection, he thinks of me. Of course he'll never rest until he gets me.

I should have killed him. My mistake. A mistake I won't repeat.

''You're not charming your way out of this one,'' he says, stepping up to me. He crouches, so that he's level with me, and pulls out a knife. It glistens in the light.

''Where'd you get the tech, O'Mally? I know a force field manip when I feel one.''

''It takes more than a stick to capture a lion, doesn't it?''

''Aww, sweet talker.''

''See, I've been thinking a lot about what I'd do to you once I finally catch you,'' he says, now inspecting the knife like the blade itself is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, ''And I have to admit, my mind is in the gutter. But then I decided,'' he presses the tip of his knife against my thigh, ''Nothing like a good, old-fashioned carve up. I would love to hear you scream.''

''I'm sure you would,'' I smile, ''But you've made one tiny, yet very important mistake.''

''And what is that?''

''A wooden chair? Really?''

I never got to say goodbye to them. To any of them. Not to Natasha, not to Tony, not to my parents. And they're the people I loved the most. I mean, what kind of cruel universe would do that? To anyone? Let alone me? I dare say I'd been a good person thus far. A good kid, though a struggling grown-up. Standing up for others, giving to the poor, helping old ladies cross the street, all that jazz. I mean, I'd technically been an Avenger. Shouldn't that buy me a ticket to the universe's good graces? Is there any sense in any of it?

It had taken me a while to get to the bottom of why I was still alive, when others weren't. It had taken me a while, but I'd figured it out.

The Irishman doesn't understand what's happening until it's too late. By the time realization sets in, splinters are already covering his skin, his eyes. The chair splits in half when I slam it against him, and then completely disintegrates when I slam it back down against the floor. My binds are still on, but I use the moment to pull them under my legs, one by one, so they're in front of me and I can stand a fighting chance. I recognize the tech now - Stark Industries used to manufacture something similar.

O'Mally gets up fast, wiping blood off his face. He's already assembled his little squad of assholes - suddenly, I'm looking at a dozen different UZIs, M16s and AK-47s.

''Awww, you guys were waiting at the door?''

''I'm tired of this shit,'' O'Mally growls, ''Shoot her.''

I didn't know Natasha was gone until after the battle. I couldn't see her anywhere in the fight, but that didn't alarm me in the slightest - there was a lot going on, after all. It was only after Tony died that they'd told me. It was an off-hand question, not even a bit of worry behind it. I was too consumed by grief already to even assume that we might have lost someone else.

''Where's Nat?'' I'd asked no one in particular. We were going home, and Peter was crying, and Thor and Steve were helping Rhodey and Pepper with getting Tony's body back. No one replied. Clint gave out a painful, angry sob. Then he turned his back on me and walked away.

I expect the bullets to come, fully prepared to be riddled away into nothingness. I didn't want to die here, and especially not by these dumbasses' hands, but if I gotta go, I gotta go. I just hope it hurts this time around. I feel like dying should hurt. It only seems right, after I've fought for so long. I don't want to go in peace. Let me rage through it.

The bullets never come.

It takes me a moment to catch on. The web has zapped up the rifles so fast that my mind doesn't even process it until I see Peter himself, swinging in from one of the windows. He's already tied up two of them like a couple of burritos by the time I pull myself back to reality and get to moving.

The knife is on the floor. It had flown out of O'Mally's hand when I drop-kicked him with the chair. We seem to figure that out at the same time, because he lunges just as I'm scrambling for it.

I get to the knife first, but there's only so much I can do with my hands tied.

''Got friends in high places, eh?'' O'Mally taunts with a bloody smile, ''My men will keep him busy for a while. It's just you and me again, darling.''

''You really shouldn't have called me that. I might have let you live.''

Confidently, he lunges at me, but I twist and duck, as his fist whizzes past me. He recovers fast, but not until I kick his shin and cave a knee in. He growls in pain at cracked bones, but throws himself at me in a limp nonetheless, piloted by reckless anger. He's too fast for the amount of pain I've given him, so he surprises me with a socker punch that makes me taste iron again. I swing the knife once more. He jumps back.

''What's the deal with you anyway?'' he asks, limping around me, ''Got Spider-Man on speed-dial... The strength of a bodybuilder. Who the hell are you?''

''Come and find out.''

He hardly sees it coming when I run at him, throw myself on my knees, and slide down the floor just far enough to get past him. I twist, and turn, and swing the knife as hard as I can at the back of his good knee. I can feel it cut through it all - tendons, sinew, muscle tissue, smaller bone. Blood pours out. O'Mally cries out in pain, falling over. I straddle him, securing his arms, and manage to get the knife next to his throat.

''Told you I don't like being tied up.''

''Anna, stop!!!!''

Something whips the knife out of my hands. It clatters somewhere further away from me.

''Peter-''

I turn around. He's wheezing. He's beyond tired, and though I can't see through the suit, I know he's bruised and bloody enough to give him pain for days. O'Mally's henchmen are all tied up and tied together, wiggling helplessly on the floor like fish out of water.

''The police are on the way,'' Peter tells me, ''It's done. Let me tie him up so we can go.''

''It's not done. It's never done,'' I tell him, ''It's not done until they're gone, and they can't come back.''

''Please,'' he says, stepping forward almost carefully, ''Don't make me tie you up and carry you out of here. Get off of him.''

''Peter-''

''Please.''

O'Mally has to die. How does he not know this? He has to die because if he goes to jail, they won't put him away for long, not with how clean he's been, and when he gets out, he'll hurt more people, and I'll be first on his list. He'll come back for me.

''He has to go.''

''Get up,'' Peter says, ''Please.''

I comply. Gingerly, I get off of the Irishman, letting Peter web him up, gagging him too in the process. The sudden quietness in the room is almost deafening.

I offer him my wrists silently. Peter picks up that knife he'd whipped out of my hands, and gets to working on the power-belt's weak spot. ''You aright?'' he asks me.

''Yeah,'' I say, watching him work, ''You shouldn't have come.''

''If I hadn't come, you'd be dead,'' he says.

''If I die, I die. It comes with the job, Peter,'' I tell him, ''We all die some day. You shouldn't have come.''

''What the hell is wrong with you?'' he asks, and though I can't see his face, I can imagine the fury, ''I'm not letting you kill yourself.''

With a click louder than it should be, the belt loses power and the binds fall off my hands, clattering against the floor.

''We have to go,'' he tells me, offering me a hand, ''Come on.''

''I'm sorry,'' I say.

''For what?''

It's almost too easy, the way I twist his wrist and steal that knife. I've caught him unawares, and abused the trust he has in me. I don't need anything more than that moment of confusion and surprise, when I send that knife flying. With pinpoint precision, it buries itself between the Irishman's shoulder-blades. He'll be dead before the police manage to get him help.

''For that.''