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The world ends with a whimper and not a bang like the saying always said it would. Natasha’s not sure what she feels about being there on the other side of it. One moment the world was turning like it always had and then the next everything was crumbling into chaos and dust around them. It hadn’t taken long before the world’s governments had crumbled away into nothing and the law of the land was survival of the fittest.
She and James had been investigating rumors surrounding a genetics program the Red Room had developed while the both of them had been under their control. To say it made the both of them uneasy was an understatement. The beautiful surroundings of the Greek countryside did little to alleviate their discomfort. Their lives had taken them all over the world and little of it had been for the pure enjoyment of the sights that awaited them. All of it had been in the service of a mission.
It hadn’t been either of their ideas of a good vacation from the Avengers but it needed to be done. And they preferred to handle it off the books without Steve or Tony’s involvement. That way only madness would lie. What they hadn’t expected was the destruction of the world to follow shortly after they’d gone incommunicado. While humanity had managed to spread to nearly every corner of the world that didn’t mean there weren’t still pockets hardly touched by their presence. The Red Room had ensured that isolation was their key criteria for this compound.
What they’d found when they got there was a deserted military complex, long abandoned to the mothballs. There was nothing but a layer of dust and disappointment. No clues on where to go next. They’d managed to awaken the system to poke around the internal servers to find nothing but empty space. Natasha had hooked up some tech she’d borrowed from Tony and saved themselves a copy of the hard drives. It probably wouldn’t amount to much but it never hurt to chase down all the possibilities, no matter how slim they might be.
They’d patched the communications network enough to boost their cell signals and received a garbled message from Steve. They couldn’t make out much. Something about the world ending and hell gates opening but it hadn’t sounded believable. Natasha had looked at James who’d simply shrugged his shoulders and wondered if Tony had convinced Steve to play a joke on them.
The two weeks it had taken them to hike back into the nearest decent sized city it was already over. From there, well, Natasha doesn’t like to think about that either. The pure anarchy and chaos that had trailed its destruction from one end of the city to the other reminded her all too much of the trials she and the other Black Widows had undergone. You either killed or were killed.
They’d made a beeline to her nearest safe house, desperate to get into contact with Tony, Steve, anyone they knew. They managed to retrieve another garbled transmission from Steve that simply had coordinates that were half a contingent away. It wasn’t going to help them right now. Survival was their main concern.
All of that had been months ago. The world had readjusted to their new normal. News from across the world still managed to filter in on radios and televisions but neither she or James knew what to believe. What they were seeing with their own eyes was already beyond belief. Creatures that looked like they crawled up from someone’s version of hell had started roaming the countryside and stalking humans while leaving the wildlife alone. Oddly colored fires that would pop out of nowhere and consume the nearest human in sight. Creatures that were best described like harpies from the legends swooping out of the sky to pluck people from the ground and deliver them to who knows where.
The first time she and James had come across the scattered remains of a feeding frenzy from a score of beasts like that neither of their appetites had returned for several days. They’d marched grimly onward toward their destination, trying to put it out of their minds. Shortly after it had all gone to hell in a hand-basket, one of Tony’s Iron Man suits had managed to find them and deposited a handful of Stark tech into their hands before the suit took off again. Likely in search of their other friends. It’d saved them from figuring out how to get back to the US. If the monsters on land were already this bad, she didn’t want to know how bad things were at sea.
If she could believe the monsters she was seeing with her own eyes, then why was it so hard to believe the intel that the suit had dropped off? The tablet they’d immediately opened to scan the files on had spun a story neither of them had understood at first. It was everything out of mythology. Gates of hell, seals, and the world coming to an end because the beings that once were trapped in the nether dimensions were crawling up to the surface to wreck havoc on humanity. Some convenant had been broken and now it was their jobs to fulfill the win solution of this prophecy?
Natasha had thrown the tablet at James and stalked off to find her sense of reality again. She’d been muttering under her breath in Russian as she ducked out of the way of branches and scrambled over rocks to get back to that stream they’d passed earlier. Really, hell gates? What kind of world were they living in? There had to be a more logical explanation for what had caused the world to break down within two weeks of them disappearing into the Greek countryside and that wasn’t it.
James had found her with her feet in the stream under a tree.
“You’re going to burn.”
“I already am.” She pointed at the tablet she could see he still carried in his hand. “Did that thing start making any more sense yet?”
“Not really. I don’t think Steve or Tony are joking either. They’ll…take care of the hell gates in the Americas and we’re tasked with figuring out how to close the ones we can reach in Europe.”
“Every word that just came out of your mouth makes me want to commit you.”
“And then you wouldn’t have anyone to live this insanity with you.”
“My whole life is a telenova. I’d find a new sidekick pretty quick.”
James drops down to sit beside her. His shoulder pressed against hers. She tilts into him and sighs.
“I bet it was Loki’s fault.”
James starts laughing and doesn’t stop for entirely too long. He’s gasping for breath by the end and he’s wiping tears from his eyes.
“I love you, you know that?”
Natasha rolls her eyes at him and dips her hand in the stream to flick water at him.
“Shut up and tell me where our nearest hell gate is and how we’re supposed to seal it. After we’ve dealt with all this, you and me are going to have a talk with whoever the hell the master of the universe is and give him a piece of our minds. Because seriously, aliens and Norse gods weren’t enough? They had to go unleash the depths of mythology on us?”
She’d been right to be wary about a sea trip. Their efforts to seal the Cape Matapan Caves had been more horrifying than anything they’d encountered on land to that point. The intel that Tony had helpfully dropped off for them didn’t say word one about how to seal the supposed Hell Gate that was there. It just said they had to seal it or the problems they were having would only get worse. Something about the world tearing itself apart at the seams.
No, thank you. Natasha would rather not be around for that please.
When they reached the Cape, they’d scoured the ruins of the Spartan temple first. Their knowledge of ancient languages was barely north of nil, which is where Tony’s thoughtful gift of a tablet and handheld scanner had come in handy. Stark satellites were still operational for now and with JARVIS hopefully still running things behind the scenes they should be able to find what clues they would need for this. Unless of course this was some extremely messed up version of a mind thing and then when she woke up from this Natasha was going to kill the people responsible for this in the most gruesome ways possible.
James taps her on the shoulder and she turns to him with an arched eyebrow.
“Hey, look, I know I’ve told you I love when you’re looking especially murderous because well it’s us, but right now you’re giving me the willies. What the hell are you thinking about?”
“Murder and mayhem. And how if this is just an elaborate mindfuck how I’m going to tear apart the people responsible.”
He looks at her a long moment then wraps his arm around her shoulders.
“Maybe we should take a break. We are just above the water. Some time on the beach where there’s a breeze should help.”
She glares balefully at him but lets him lead her out of the temple and down the winding hillside to the water. It looks serene right now. They don’t go anywhere without being visibly armed any more. It’s not only protection from the monsters lurking around but the human element. Survival brings out the best and worst in people.
They wander too close to the waterline for her liking but James is giving her that look. The one where he can’t believe she’s being stubborn about something silly and she never sees him laugh enough that she always ends up indulging him. She kneels down to wash the grit and dirt from her hands. She sees James shading his eyes and looking around at the hills rising around them.
There’s a statue of someone riding a dolphin near the ruins they were just in. They’d learned a whole lot about what the ancient Greeks thought about Posideon and what appropriate offerings to the god of the sea were. The temple ruins hadn’t told them how to seal anything. It was all going to be pointless and Natasha was going to be the one blamed for not being able to stop the world from collapsing down onto itself because she didn’t know if she needed to sacrifice some virgin queen to the seas and chant some obscure Latin ritual. She wouldn’t even be able to find a virgin queen anyway. If there were any left in the world, they were definitely out of her reach.
“Any bright ideas?”
“Where did that boat come from?”
She throws her gaze in the direction James’ is pointing and squints against the setting sun’s glare to spot a wooden boat rocking slowly in the waves. It hadn’t been there a moment before, had it? What the actual hell….
“Of course, we end up going to the water and the answer to our dilemma throws itself at us,” Natasha mutters as she stares upwards.
“…I think you’ve been spending too much time with Stark.”
“For that, you’re going first into the boat and the cave.”
She leaves James to investigate the boat while she heads back toward the hill to pick a few handfuls of the scrub brush and grass that litter the landscape. She’s not sure what she’s doing but some offering related to the land seems only fitting. She also scoops a bit of the dirt and then the sand into a small plastic vial she had in her bag as she makes her way to James.
“You figure anything out, smarty pants?”
“There’s no means of propulsion or any signs of how it even made it to the beach intact.”
Natasha sighs. “Of course not. We’re in the middle of our own deus ex machina. Logic no longer exists.”
She walks over to the boat and nudges it with her foot. It seems sturdy enough for something that’d be straight out of an old historical text. She places a hand on the edge of it and leans her weight into it. There’s no give at all. It’s no wisp of imagination or designed to fall apart as soon as they reach a depth that’ll be uncomfortable to swim back from. She looks at James. He moves to the other side and they push it more fully into the water then she climbs inside, steadying herself against the swaying before moving forward to allow James to join her. As soon as he’s on board, the boat glides out into the water and turns by itself toward the mouth of the cave.
There’s little that scares Natasha. Uncontrollable, unreasonable beings are one. She’s still figuring out what the others could be. Obviously, not being able in any way, shape, or form able to influence what was going on was another. She reaches back for James. His hand finds hers and his grip is just as strong in return. They’ve faced down worse. They’ll survive this.
The boat takes them through the water entrance and it’s like another world down here. The water splashing against the rock walls seem to echo forever. The light filters through the darkness in patches and shines bluer than the warm yellow of the outside. It could be a worse thing to see before they go. But drowning wouldn’t be her preferred method of death.
They float through arches and around pillars of stone that look like they were carved out of the most elaborate and alien hands. No man made these. It was the simple passage of time and the continual drip and wash of water against the earth’s foundations.
By the time the boat begins to slow, they’re deep into the cave system. There’s no voice that comes out of the darkness. A part of her had been hoping for something out of the legends. What they get is simpler and it at least means this gate will be easy to close. She doesn’t have the same hopes for the others. Words written in the air, golden and sparkling, and isn’t that just typical? Telling them to dispel pieces of the land above into the water in front of the boat and to declare their intentions.
She reaches into her bag and makes quick work of dumping everything she’d gathered into the golden circle swirling in the water before them. She lets James do the talking. It was always his thing. She could form the words and play on the emotions but she preferred actions to words.
When James’ voice finally fades away, they don’t know what to expect, what kind of signal to indicate that they’ve managed to seal this gate. Of course, she should’ve expected the earthquake. Isn’t that what happens in every old story? Something momentuous is sealed with the earth shaking and trembling under you?
When it subsides, they’re sitting in ankle high water but their boat is unharmed otherwise. They’ll be able to make it out of here hopefully. The golden cirlce in the water has disappeared and their boat has begun their journey in reverse.
“Do you think?” she whispers.
“I don’t know….”
That’s the other thing she hates about this. The uncertainty. Legends were never clear about the outcomes of sacrifices or talking to gods. It was always hope for the god to look favorably on you and let them bestow your wish upon you if they’re in a favorable mood.
The boat scrapes back onto the sand of the beach and James helps her out. He gazes back at the mouth of the caves. They don’t have the time or the resources to return to any gates they don’t seal on their first try. She doesn’t know if there’s a timeline on how long they have to achieve this but everyone would likely agree the sooner the better.
There should be other caves in the general area that were also famed hell gates. If they failed at this one, then maybe trying one of the others will lead to them being able to seal them all. The more horrifying thought is having to go to each cave system and individually seal them off before this gate area in Greece was considered sealed.
She wants to go to James and comfort him. Tell him that everything will be okay in the end but they promised each other a long time ago that they wouldn’t lie to each other. Instead she steels herself with a breath. It’s real. It’s true and now they have to figure out how they’re getting their asses to the other gate locations and sealing them. Stark resources would be wonderful right now.
A shimmer and a cliche tinkling of bells has them both looking at the boat. It collapses into a burst of yellow sparks and dissolves. She steps forward to see what’s left in its place. It’ll have to tell them if they succeeded or not. What she spots in the sand, etched with ancient Greek, is a circular disk that’s about the size of her palm made out of the wood of the boat. It’ll be easy enough to carry. She picks it up out of the sand and brushes it off, turning it over to examine both sides. It looks like an official seal. Something they’d only see etched in wax from some uppity upper society madame.
“You think there’s some place we need to deliver these stupid things to?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Why else would it be here looking like that?”
“When did this become our lives?”
The problem with being in Greece is they have two options. They can decide to go east toward China or west to Europe. West wins out because there’s more gates in a smaller area to cover than if they headed toward China. Either way, they’d be backtracking over area they’ll already have covered but this way it’ll be less distance. Maybe by the time they reach China or Japan, Tony and Steve will have enough resources to spare to get them more intel or more frequent communications.
Italy is the next closest and that involves securing passage by sea. That mystical magic would be real handy right now. Instead they’re scoping out the nearest harbor to see what’s coming and going or if there’s just a boat they can outright steal for their needs.
At least this feels familiar. It feels like the beginning of any other kind of mission. James talks to people and uses that charm of his to feel out the latest gossip while Natasha goes about making connections. Sidling up to the people that look like they’re in charge and figuring out what they need to be paid to get them to do what she needs. The distrust is levels higher than it would ever be on a normal mission but everyone’s zealously guarding their resources. There’s no guarantee they’ll ever see more.
In the end they get connected with this ad hoc underground resistance that’s getting people to Italy because they want to find their relatives deeper in Europe or because they want to find somewhere else more welcoming to survive the end of the world. They secure passage easily enough. It’s early days yet and nothing is too scarce. That won’t last long.
They leave at dusk that night. Natasha takes in the weary and strained faces around her as she and James hunker down in the false cargo containers in the back of the ship. The rumble of the engine that nearly drowns out the sound of the lapping water is a strange contrast to the gate seal in her bag. It’s all so mundane. She can’t stop herself from running her fingers over the seal.
They won’t be on the ship more than a day, if that. It should be easy enough to slip away from the rest of the crowd and disappear into the Italian hillside. She keeps expecting someone to ask them what they’re doing or who they’re desperate to get to. The lies will be easy but it’s seeing the connection etched across their faces that amazes her. Even when the world no longer makes sense people still want to make friends and understand each other.
James catches her watching and murmurs, “What?”
“Is this what you see when you see people? Their potential?”
“I grew up with Steve Rogers. The guy who never knew when to quit even when he should’ve. I’m not sure you’re asking the right guy about this.”
She elbows him and rolls her eyes. He might have a point there, but that didn’t mean she didn’t either. She and Tony were too alike in that regard. She didn’t trust people to want to do anything but serve themselves. How she could use that desire to her advantage was her key to things. People want people to help them help themselves. It was an urge most people would succumb to more often than not.
They make landfall and even without the help of the underground contact they would’ve made it off the ship. Natasha makes them linger long enough to ensure that the rest of their fellow travelers make it safely off and into the night before they fade away. Their destination is Naples. That gate’s the one closet to them and then it’s on to Rome.
She wonders what the situation’s like in the more populated countries. Has it fallen into one faction against another? Does the government still run in any shape or fashion?
They’re camped in the lee of a hillside that night. The stars clear above them and what she thinks is a winery in the distance. It’s a beautiful scene if they were here on any other occasion. They still haven’t figured out if any of the data they pulled from that Red Room compound would lead to anything. They’d been a little busy and it wasn’t pressing in the grand scheme of things. If they were still alive in a year’s time and the world had begun putting itself back together then maybe they’d be able to find their answers.
“Do you think we’ve been here before?” she asks James later after they’ve eaten their high energy rations. “Enjoyed the view and the tourist things everyone else has?”
“Wondering if we’re going to have the time to do that, are we?”
She shrugs. It’s hard not to when they’re off traveling the world to seal hell gates to prevent said world from imploding around them.
“And don’t you say we’re doing it now because it’s not the same.”
James reaches over to tap her on the nose before he steals a kiss.
“You know the only thing that matters is that we’re with each other. The world may be ending and we may be sealing hell gates that were never supposed to be real but I get to do it with you. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. And so what if the world ends? We found each other again. We were able to figure out that much at least and make every moment after count.”
“I don’t know how I ended up stuck with such a sappy guy like you.”
James shrugs and smiles that grin that makes her melt. “It’s a gift.”
They break camp early the next morning. The quicker they get going the sooner this will all end. The trail they’ve stumbled upon seems deserted. It’s been used by wagons recently but not much else if the tracks are any indication. She catches James wandering off into the woods entirely too often even for bathroom breaks. When she hears the soft yip around noon she shakes her head at him.
“What is it with you and picking up strays?”
“Hey, the guy looked hungry and I had some extra food from this morning I didn’t want.”
“He’s going to keep following us if you do that. We aren’t taking a dog with us across all of Asia.”
Natasha expects a pout’s going to be directed her way shortly. Her turns around when she hears a familiar sound. Buzzing like a helicopter or single engine plane? They’re out in the open and completely exposed. Hiding is futile at this point. They’ve long been spotted.
James comes up beside her and they both wait for whoever and whatever it is to make an appearance. They should go for cover or maybe raise their weapons. Something to account for the threat headed straight for them. They should be unidentifiable. They should look like every other refugee making a trek across the world to find their friends or family or someplace better to weather out the end of the world. No one would be able to pick them out of a lineup as anything else.
The thing that comes into view looks like a bastard cross between a helicopter and someone’s idea of a time machine. There’s lights flashing on either side of the cockpit. The dual rotary blades up top helping the thing fly through the air are differently colored and there’s a wire mesh that’s fused to the outside of the body. She can’t make out who’s in the cockpit with the sun reflecting off it.
It makes to land beside them on the deserted road, forcing her and James to move back quite a bit to avoid the backwash of the rotors. The door slides open to reveal Steve, hair windswept and a tired smile on his face. James whoops and runs past her to throw Steve into a hug. He grips Steve by the shoulders as he pulls back.
“So you’re here, that means North America’s hell gates are taken care of and you’re here to help us?”
“If only, Buck.”
“Better question is why you left Tony to hold down the fort when there was still work to be done.” Natasha eyed the flying monster again. “Why didn’t you just take one of Tony’s suits? Or just send one?”
Steve looks at her and runs his hand through his hair tiredly.
“How long’ve you been in the air, Steve? Anyone else in that monster with you?”
“Too long, and just me. Couldn’t spare anyone else. Couldn’t really spare me like you said. But we need any seals you might have. Tony’s managed to figure out something about how to stop the world from actually ending around us.”
It seemed too easy, too simple. Steve shows up out of the blue asking for the one thing they have in their possession in some weirdo contraption. Tony’d sent a suit to them before, why couldn’t he do it now? Conditions hadn’t deteriorated that far yet.
“Steve, how many gates have you sealed over there?”
“Not enough.”
“What were the coordinates you sent out in your first message after the world ended?”
Steve frowns at her and Natasha hates to think this isn’t her Steve, isn’t the guy she got to know while working missions with SHIELD, or the guy that simply wanted her to be a friend.
“Nat, why’re you asking me all these questions?”
“Tasha? What’re you thinking?”
She gestures for James to step back from Steve, which he does slowly. Natasha realizes that their new dog friend had stayed far away from Steve. His fur was on end and he was braced to attack. She just now realized the low rumble she was hearing was the dog’s growl.
“Just answer the questions, Steve. Humor me.”
He stares at her for a long moment then throws his hands up as he steps away from the flying monster toward her.
“I don’t remember. A lot of stuff’s happened. I’m sure you’ve been through a lot too. C’mon, just hand over the seal and then we’ll both get back to what we need to be doing.”
“I don’t think so, buddy.”
James’ stepped far enough back that he’s leveled his gun at him, pointing square in the middle of his head.
Natasha hadn’t wanted to be right. She’d hoped she was wrong but everything about Steve showing up here had seemed off. He wouldn’t have taken himself out of the fight like that just to get their seal. Not when they hadn’t even sealed all the gates. It’d be the smarter plan to seal as many gates as they could first then deal with the great big fix once they were fairly sure the world wouldn’t keel out from under them. She’d had to make sure since everything that was formerly impossible was now possible.
She raises the shotgun in her own hands. “You’re not Steve. Now get back in that damn flying monster and go back where you came from.”
Steve’s features twist horribly, disturbingly, into a caricature of his face. It’s half melted and burned. She can see the muscle sinew and even the skull in some places.
“I’ll get those seals eventually and nothing you or your friends can do will stop me!”
He lunges toward Natasha and she’s already pulling the trigger before he can get two feet. It plows into his shoulder, rocks him back, but he keeps coming. She fires again and James’ is firing too, riddling his body with impact after impact until he drops to the ground in front of her.
The thing looks up at her with a grimace, blood shining in his teeth as it lays there. She rolls it onto its back, watching the skin attempt to knit itself back together in morbid fascination.
“The world will end no matter what you do. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. Killing me won’t do anything to delay the inevitable. The door’s been opened and nothing’s going to get it closed again.”
The laughter chills her. She takes a step back immediately and rolls her shoulders to get rid of the uneasy pinch between them. She looks at James. Sealing hell gates, sure, weird as hell, difficult sure, but it was doable. Now this thing? This thing she’s not sure is going to die and leave them alone?
Things just got a whole lot more fucked up.