The Ant and the Boot

“I don’t know how to handle you.”

“You don’t need to. I’ll leave you alone if that makes you feel more comfortable.”

“I don’t want that.”

“Don’t you?”

I looked up at Steve, talking quietly as the plane began to go in for a landing. He sat next to me still: I wasn’t sure if he was monitoring me or genuinely was keeping my company. He was unreadable and civil, never betraying dislike or affection. He looked out the window of the jet while I looked at him.

“You remind me of someone I know,” he said. “Someone who died. You don’t look the same but in a lot of ways you act like her. That bothers me.”

I smiled ruefully. “Are you telling me that I’d be better suited to have lived in the 1940s?”

“You seem as out of place as I do.”

“I do now, at least.”

“I suppose.”

We fell into silence again. I folded my hands in my lap and looked down at my fingers, tapping them against my leg.

“Who was she?” I asked.

“A woman named Peggy Carter. She was the bravest and smartest girl I ever knew.”

“Did she die?”

“Yes. Only a few years ago. She lived a long life. But…”

“But?”

“I promised her a dance just before I landed the plane in the water. I broke that promise.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

I quickly cast around for a subject.

“What was she like?”

A bitter smile turned up the corners of his lips. “Smart, talented. Stubborn as hell. She was hard to read most of the time. She knew how to shoot, though, and she wasn’t afraid of a battle. She gave me all the signs but I missed every last one of them – up until the end, anyway.”

Words failed me. I looked down at the ground, not really wanting to look in his face. I didn’t want to see the emotions there. His dialogue was, as usual with me, terse and detached, but there was always a level of depth to everything Steve said that took me off-guard. I felt like I knew everything and nothing about him at the same time – similar to how it was with Loki, though where Loki teemed with cunning and hate, Steve exuded a steady nobility that rolled off of him in waves. He was very broken, but anyone who got near him could sense that he was a good man. I hadn’t known many good men in my life, aside from my brother and later Thor. It made me want to help him, maybe fix him somehow and let him know that it was all going to be okay.

But it wasn’t going to be okay. Not for us, at least. Not for the Avengers. I knew that now, a month after talking to Steve on the plane. He stood next to me still, still calm and steady and noble and broken, shield held over his chest. Hot wind lashed out at my face, whipping my hair in currents so strong they almost pushed me backward. The air howled in a high, steady shriek of rage, spitting fine dust over my black leather combat boots. Debris bounced harmlessly off my fatigue pants but sliced at my arms, leaving no mark but a hot sting as they blew past. The power had changed me enough that I didn’t bruise even if I could feel the pain.

Still, the pain of my arms and face were next to nothing compared to the scars on my mind. We walked quietly, padding dust into parched earth, eyes falling over broken buildings and road signs spattered with blood. A tank lay on its side; a dead woman lay on the floor, her head downward and blood arching out from her body like wings. Everything capsized upon itself, from homes to stores to cars.

Whatever had attacked here, the civilians hadn’t stood a chance.

“Is it another Chitauri raid?” I asked, swallowing. My throat was still dry. Steve knelt down to the ground, his shield making a metallic noise against the earth. His fingers dug into a small crater the size of my fist and dug out a blackish-green goo.

“Looks like.”

I nodded. The Chitauri had started attacking places seemingly at random, usually in third world countries where the people didn’t have the technology to fight back. They hit fast and hard, never leaving survivors – only bodies. This was the third such attack, the first on a village in mid Africa and the second on a community in rural India. This one was in the Middle East – I didn’t know where yet, since we’d only had time to get on a plane and come here when we received word it was happening. We were too late, though, as we had been the other two times.

“They’re trying to make us move faster,” I said, trying to turn stony to the violence around me. “They think that if they attack now they can force our hand.”

“They just might,” Steve replied, his tone grim. He stood up. His golden hair and fair skin were both creased and smeared with dust and dirt, and the dark stains over the white stripes on his suit looked almost like blood. He pressed one gloved hand to his belt, pulling out an outdated walkie-talkie.

“Come in, Natasha,” he said darkly. “We’re too late. Nothing we can do here.”

“Affirmative. Coming in for landing.”

The aircraft overhead rolled with its own thunder as it came to the ground, blades scattering dust, stones, and remains of the village in its wake. We boarded silently when the hanger opened, taking seats in the back of the plane as it took off. I glanced at Steve, who stared out the front windowpane of the pilot’s station. Even though I couldn’t see them under his gloves, I knew that his knuckles had gone white against the grip of his shield. When his eyes flickered towards me I quickly looked away, staring at my dirt-stained fingertips.

We were tired. We were all growing so tired, even after only a month, fraying at the edges and coming undone like a tapestry lift outside in a violent storm. It felt like we were fighting blind here, between fighting with the increasing panic in the press from the attacks and always arriving late when the next attack happened. The world was losing faith in us, blaming us even, for the growing problems falling upon the world from the outside.

And maybe they were right to do so. I felt the guilt roll in my stomach as I stared outside, seeing thin trails of black smoke rolling from the earth below until we rose above the clouds. Maybe I hadn’t done this to them, but Loki had. I pursed my lips. Why, Loki? Why would you do this? What power that you seek is worth this kind of havoc and murder?

Absentmindedly my hand touched my abdomen. The bump hadn’t begun to form yet, but I could feel my body changing. It had been two months now. Eventually I would have Loki’s child – and Loki might still be killing then, unless we had captured him. Would we be forced to kill him to end this?

I closed my eyes. Footsteps padded across the iron floorboards and a hand touched my shoulder, firm and reassuring. I touched his fingers lightly with mine for an instant, opening my eyes. Steve’s face was still grim, but he watched me steadily with blue eyes.

“We’ll win this,” he promised.

“I know,” I replied. Still, a small voice inside of me asked, But at what price? Will my child never know their father?

Steve’s fingers squeezed my collarbone lightly before he let go, moving up to talk to Natasha. I closed my eyes, hoping to sleep for the rest of the flight so my thoughts couldn’t drown me.



“This is madness,” I hissed, slamming my scepter on the ground to accent my words. The death god moved as if drunk, gargling out a laugh that shook the room.

“What is it, little god? Afraid of death? Afraid of something so sweet?” he mocked. His eyes turned to me, fiery red holes that blazed in a rocky head. My features twitched with rage but I looked away, unable to stare into those terrible eyes.

“I heard once, little god, that you tried to destroy an entire realm. Is this true? Or just a rumor?” Thanos asked. My fingers gripped tightly around my scepter, knuckles growing pale against the outline of bone against skin.

“I did, once,” I replied. “I attempted to destroy the realm of my father, Laufey.”

The creature laughed. “So there is yet cruelty in you. Then why don’t you rejoice in the death of these pathetic mortals? Why don’t you relish the taste of their pandemonium, their fear? They are nothing but animals.”

I could not claim to love these creatures; on the contrary, each day I grew more sickened by their squabbles for power and their mindless frivolities and excesses that they poured so much of their lives into. Still, I didn’t want them all to die. I had wanted to rule them, not kill them. In some way I had claimed these people as my own.

More than that, I was thinking of my child. I did not want to be the brutal murderer of my wife’s people, even if she was not of them anymore. I did not want my wife and child to think that I was a monster. Therefore I would not, could not, comply with Thanos.

Stark, you have poisoned my mind, I thought to myself bitterly, and have made my thoughts reckless.

I smiled coldly, teeth hidden behind thinly drawn lips, and bowed.

“Of course, my lord,” I whispered. “Nothing but animals.”

I thought to myself quickly as Thanos chuckled, then walked up next to him. I worked to loosen my stride, hide the anger boiling within me. It wasn’t hard: I could make myself ice if I wanted to.

“And where do we strike next, my lord?” I asked, resting my scepter lightly on the stone floor. He smiled, staring out into the sky.

“A place that they call ‘Mexico’, in a region called Chiapas. There the people are poor and battered. They shall spread the fear, their home being so close to the borders of the place called the United States – what a strange name, don’t you think? The people shall not stand a chance.”

“They shall be defeated quickly, no doubt,” I agreed, bowing my head and pacing away from him as he smugly celebrated his victory in his mind. I smiled, my teeth glittering with malice as I stepped out into the cold night. The breeze pressed timidly against my face, growing colder as it came in contact with my skin.

And it was then that I set out to throw my life away, betraying the death god as he gloated and changing sides.



I wouldn’t call it a getaway. I mean, yeah, it was nice, but we were there to work, not just drink martinis. It was a nice refuge, except that people seemed to know where we were and the whole place was dedicated to training.

It was an island. A very small island, only a mile or so wide in any direction, but an island nonetheless. I’d bought it and adjusted it myself, first for the Iron Man suit but more recently to practice with all the Avengers, honing our talents and, more importantly, figuring out which ways we could work together. It’d been under construction since Loki’s attack, Bruce and I coming together to see what ways we could test each and every one of our companions and push them to their limits. It had been pretty fun to be honest, until we had to put the island to practical use.

The problem had been Dove. Aside from coming in last minute, she was also a god, therefore had potential that I didn’t quite understand. I didn’t really get all this supernatural mumbo jumbo that can’t be quantified by science. And on top of that she was pregnant, which meant I had to be more careful with her than the others. Some days she was hormonal, outright blowing up my machines and putting an entire exercise into disrepair for a week, and other days it seemed like she barely had powers at all. Since I never knew exactly what she could do it was hard to fit her into the equation – as much as I would like to. She was my friend, a great ally, and I really felt that she just needed something to divert her. I could see the pain on her face. Hell, when she wasn’t throwing up I swear to you I could see the torture she inflicted on herself in her eyes. Ever since the first Chitauri attacks started happening and the press got involved she’s closed up like a clam, going from happy and outgoing to almost reclusive in the span of two weeks. I tried to keep her out of the reach of the press, but it still ate at her. I couldn’t do anything about that, besides give the girl a hug every so often and say it was going to be alright. She was a cast-iron bitch with a resolve of steel and tried to hide what she was going through, but when you live with someone you start to notice those things.

I noticed another thing, too, though: Cappie wasn’t making it any easier. He hovered around her like some sort of star-spangled hawk, watching over her shoulder in training. He worked with her a lot, and damn did they work well together, but the way he talked to her rubbed me wrong. After the most recent Chitauri attack in Pakistan I finally pulled him aside, having enough of his brooding expression.

“Hey, lay off the girl, would you?” I growled, shoving him against the inside of the airplane hangar. “Can’t you see she’s already having a rough time of it?”

He stared at me levelly with agate-hard blue eyes. Cap and I had I had never gotten along that well, and even though we could get over it in battle we both had leadership issues – meaning I liked to be in charge and Cappie was, well, a Captain, and therefore thought his title ranked over my narcissism. I tended to disagree.

“I’m not doing anything to her, Stark,” he said coolly.

“Like hell you’re not. She might talk to you, but you don’t have the right to PMS whenever she’s around just because she’s having the kid of a guy you don’t really like. It’s not her fault.”

“Stay away, Stark,” he said again, his voice dropping a little. “I’m warning you.”

I let go of his shoulder, regarding him stiffly. He narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t hate her,” he whispered, his tone so low it was almost a growl. I sniffed.

“Then stop acting like you do,” I said. “She doesn’t need that. Not right now.”

“Duly noted,” he replied, then walked away, his gate tense. I watched him go, pressing my lips together and furrowing my brows in thought.

I had to get back to work. I still hadn’t figured out a way to track the Chitauri attacks, dammit. I didn’t have time to deal with Cap’s moodiness right now. Rubbing at my eyes I realized I hadn’t slept in recent memory, eyelids growing heavy as I blinked.

“Can’t quit now, Tony, you’ve got people to save,” I muttered with a sigh. Instead I promised myself caffeine and a jolt into my arc reactor – and maybe we’d be able to figure this thing out before more people died.



“Hey, would you mind sitting down and talking for a moment? It’s okay if you’re busy.”

I turned, tired eyes darting to find the source of the voice. My eyes fell upon Bruce, who smiled kindly and stood in the hallway, beat up sneakers a stark contrast to the waxed and polished floor. I blinked and smiled.

“Of course,” I said, returning to him. I had been on my way to take a shower, but I suppose that would have to wait for later. He smiled again and I followed him over to a bench that overlooked the ocean. I sat down next to him and for a moment we just looked at the sunset, the fading oranges of dying embers casting pink and red rays over a shimmering surface of blue and indigo.

“So you wanted to speak to me, doctor?” I asked, tearing my head away from the horizon. His eyes were still fixed on it dreamily, but he nodded in acknowledgement.

“Yes. Sorry, it’s just so rare that you get to see truly beautiful things in this world.”

I laughed. “That’s true.”

He finally looked at me, soft brown eyes strangely serious and almost sad. He sighed, sitting forward in his seat.

“I wanted to talk to you about your power,” he said.

I nodded. I was aware that he’d been doing some research on it. Hell, he’d borrowed a bit of my blood for testing.

“What about it?”

He thought for a moment, and I was sure he was trying to think of the best way to dumb it down for me from Advanced-Nuclear-Scientist. His fingers tapped together as he thought.

“You understand that the power of the Tesseract needs to be whole to have all of its power, right? And that taking away even one part of it – even just a little part – breaks down the whole of that power, right?”

“Yes,” I nodded. Tony had told me about it. It was something like a multi-faceted electrical circuit, able to run still but losing much of its charge because one of the links was missing. With the Tesseract both split in half, part with us and part with Loki, it was already crippled. Once I had literally ingested a portion the power was even more reduced, much of the available power transferred to me. I by no means held all of the power, but as part of the whole I had a direct link into that power source.

“And you know that we and the other guys have equal portions of the Tesseract, right?”

“Except for the two pieces I ate, yes.”

Bruce thought again. Finally he sighed, looking down at his fingers.

“Dove…” he began, “I figured something out. But I didn’t want to tell anyone besides you because it only involves you. I didn’t want you to feel any outside pressure from anyone, okay? Promise me you won’t make a decision because of anything anyone says, does – anything.”

I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Okay.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

He nodded. He made eye contact with me for the first time, only for an instant, but I saw real, bone-deep sadness. Whatever he was going to tell me, he didn’t want to.

“I figured out how to stop the other guys from using the Tesseract,” he said.

“That’s wonderful news,” I said. My heart skipped a beat and I almost laughed. The look on his face didn’t match what he had just told me. “How? Please, tell me. I’ll do anything.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said slowly, gaging my reaction. I raised an eyebrow. He sighed again.

“Dove, you remember Tony’s circuit analogy, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well… Think about a basic circuit – not a multi-faceted one. What happens if you cut the wire somewhere?”

“It doesn’t work anymore.”

“Exactly.”

He met my gaze evenly, hands tightly gripped together. As I met his eyes a painful stab pierced my chest, making it hard to breathe.

“If you cut off a portion of the Tesseract it won’t work anymore,” I said quietly. I swallowed, my throat suddenly going very dry.

“Yes, but I’m not saying I want you to – you don’t need to do anything about it. I just wanted to tell you before Tony figured it out. I don’t know what would have happened if someone else figured it out.”

I closed my eyes.

“And the Tesseract is locked inside of me, making it mortal,” I finished. “I can stop them from using the Tesseract… if I die.”

“But we don’t even know if you are mortal.”

“Gods can choose to die.”

I couldn’t believe that I was thinking about this. If I died, I could save the world. But that was suicide. And worse, it was murder. I touched a hand to my abdomen, acutely aware of the life growing there. I couldn’t sacrifice my child – not even for the world.

But couldn’t I? I thought of the life that my child would have to grow up with. What if Loki came back for them, altered them, made them as corrupt as he had become? Or worse, what if my child lived and was eternally scorned and ostracized for what they were? Would it be worth living just to give my child that kind of hardship?

I thought of the dead woman on the parched earth earlier today, then of my child. Could I make that kind of choice?

A hand on mine dragged me free of my morbid thoughts. I looked up at Bruce, who looked pained.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wanted to tell you so you’d know, not so you’d be pushed to do anything. I’ve been there. It’s okay to not know what to do, but that’s not a step you should take. That’s never a step you should take.”

He could see I still wasn’t entirely convinced. He looked at me, smiled, and gave me the tightest hug I’d received in months. He was very warm, very comforting. I leaned my head against his shoulder.

“Please, don’t do anything. It’ll get better, I swear.”

“Thank you, Bruce,” I said, smiling. Damn sunset, getting all blurry like that. I quickly wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.

“Promise you won’t do anything?” he said, resting a hand on my shoulder. I smiled, for real this time.

“Promise.”

He mussed my hair in a way that made me feel like a little girl again, sitting next to her father – or rather just a fatherly figure, since I had never known what it was like to sit with my father. Still, I imagined it would be something like this. We both stood, nodding to each other.

“I should probably get back to the lab,” he said, his voice almost meek. “I don’t tend to do well around a lot of people.”

I laughed. “I can understand that feeling. I’ll see you in the morning, Bruce.”

“You too, Dove.”

I walked away, vanishing into my room off a side hallway. It was small and simple with white walls, wood floors, and a simple bed with soft blue sheets. The only adornment was a small vase of flowers given to me by Pepper because she thought my room was too stark – excuse the pun. Adjoining was a small bathroom, nothing fancy but with excellent water pressure and a mirror filling up one wall in a rectangular sheet above the sink. As I walked in the fluorescent lights above me hummed and sputtered, their rhythm disturbed by the power that escaped my skin in jolts.

I closed the door and stripped in silence, regarding myself in the mirror as the last of my clothes fell to the floor. I almost didn’t recognize the girl in the mirror. She looked like me, but she looked too old and too worn to actually be me. My face had been harrowed, my muscles now taught and defined as my shoulders shifted. The soft curves I had once had were now replaced with sharper, angular features, the product of heavy training, morning sickness, and sleepless nights. I could also see my abdomen growing flatter and strangely hard, like a balloon just before it starts to bulge. I ran my hand over my navel, noticing the dirt that marred by pale skin and matted my hair.

“Just take a shower, you’ll look more like yourself,” I whispered, then turned on the water, waited for it to begin to steam, and stepped in.

I thought about Banner’s discovery while I showered, and even after I had dressed and curled up in my bed for the night. I realized that I didn’t want to die – more than that, I didn’t want my child to die. I couldn’t decide if I was being selfish or not, but I desperately wanted my child to have a good, happy, healthy life, but I didn’t know how I could give them that. It was a terrible thing, not knowing if you could give your child happiness. A pang of jealousy ran through me as I thought of Tony’s child, who would more than likely have a wonderful childhood with his superhero father and pragmatic, witty mother. Even Clint and Natasha could, together, offer a theoretical child more comfort than I could alone.

Was I cut out to be a mother?

I guessed it all came down to that in the end. Could I give my child the life that any child deserved? I had thought once that I could. But then again, when I had believed that I hadn’t met Loki.

Loki. It tore me apart inside to see what he was doing to my world. How could he do this? I thought bitterly and childishly that he must have never loved me if this is what he had intended all along.

I had to stop worrying or else I was going to drive myself insane. For now all I could do was train and take care of myself so my baby could have the best shot at life that I could give them. I sighed, turning my head into my pillow and closing my eyes. The covers were warm around my shoulders, creating a protective cloak to guard me from the night.

I thought of Tony, of Steve, of Bruce, of Thor, with their quirks and shortcomings but their constant steadiness. I smiled to myself. If anyone could help me give my baby a better life, they could. Hell, they’d do whatever they could to make sure that my child was treated well. I was sure of that.

I don’t remember exactly when I fell asleep, but I didn’t realize it until I was opening my eyes again in the darkness. I shivered, the darkness becoming clearer as my power seeped through my body in a slow trickle.

Something was… tugging me. Pulling at my mind, gently nudging me out of bed. I blinked, swinging out from under the covers and making my way to the kitchen.

I’m just getting some water, I assured myself futily. There’s nothing there. You’re imagining things.

But the kitchen was empty when I got there. I looked around warily but moved forward, dim emergency lights lighting modern white walls, hardwood flooring, and sleek black furniture. Most of the room remained in darkness still, the shadows elongating and making it darker the closer to where the light touched. I went to the sink and poured myself a glass of water, slowly drinking as I continued to look around.

Still nothing.

The tugging feeling began to subside and I sighed, placing my cup in a large dishwasher and heading back to my room. I was just psyching myself out, I suppose. It had been a long past couple weeks.

“Dove, wait.”

I whipped around in a quick circle, power flooding my senses. I didn’t need supernatural sight, though: he had already moved himself into the center of the room, features cast under a spotlight that made him look even paler. I almost didn’t recognize him, his clothes distinctly American in a dark shirt and jeans. Still, I would always recognize his dark hair and green eyes.

My heart leapt into my throat, abruptly halted. He watched me, the ghost of a smile touching his lips.

“Loki?”