#( leaves of yggdrasil | verses | thor )

[salvagedsouls]

( v. boldly continuing | starfleet!thor )

he doesn’t expect to find a program such as starfleet so appealing. he doesn’t expect meeting winona ( though he sees marrying her ). first officer of the uss kelvin is a dream; different beings, including his beloved humans, including his darling wife. travelling as he always has adored doing, being out among the stars, even if the bifrost remained far faster. he doesn’t expect to die. he knew it to be a suicide mission, to save the crew of the kelvin from this invading vessel. the magic in his veins sang that something was wrong with this event, that the ship was not right, but he had to buy time. for all of them; for his wife, for their son. the crash and following explosion, while disabling the enemy vessel and preventing pursuit of the survivors, killed george kirk. but thor, god of thunder cannot die. he floats through space, for a time. as ignorable debris, or assumed to be a body from damages done to the kelvin before the impact. not until he floats into a safer area is the bifrost used to bring him home and delivered to the healers. the explosion had still done a great deal of damage, and it takes time to recover. by the time he is able again, he is informed that winona has remarried. by the time he can safely travel again, he hears that his son has enrolled in starfleet as well. now the question was if thor would ever be able to get the chance to explain himself.

this verse takes place within the alternate timeline of star trek, but does not rule out original or other alternate timelines. he goes by the name george kirk after an old friend tiberius kirk agrees to play the part of his father.

thor’s adoration for humanity does not disappear with time; if anything, it continues to blossom. he makes sure to keep in touch, long enough to keep ties with families should he decide he needs covers, as he has done in the past. he rarely settles, but as the humans reach out for the stars, for other realms, it is easier to seem less out of place.

[shieldedsouls]

( v; all from memory | professor!thor )

he knows he doesn’t look the part. knows the stories flying around campus: he has thirty stories for every lecture, he must live in his office since no one sees him away from campus, there’s no way that thing is 200 years old AND real applying to any number of items that aforementioned office is chock-full of. every time he thinks he’s heard them all another one seems to kick up; when someone tries to bring up answers, he smiles. never lies, though sometimes it’s later realised he’s hardly given any real answer at all.

“ where were you born? ” ah, a common one; he always says far away from here. “ do you go to the gym a lot? ” oh no, he prefers his workouts at home so he can freely adjust his routine as needed. “ how old are you? ” obviously old enough to be a professor in astrophysics. “ what did you do before you taught? ” oh, well, lots of things. and that reminds him, he has a story...

thor is a college-level professor for astrophysics, also teaching additional courses for astronomy, and treats the position as a sabbatical from always travelling the nine. he enjoys participating in campus life, encouraging clubs and sports, and tries very hard to always be available to help or support students and fellow faculty members ( with perhaps some limited exceptions ). 

[mornyavie]

Glossary of references in The Bifrost Incident

 It’s Very Long and yet also not really complete. If there are any questions / clarifications I can add, or I’ve messed anything up and need to fix it, let me know!

The tl;dr is that nearly every word in the album draws from either Norse mythology or the Lovecraft / Cthulhu mythos, directly or indirectly.

@moony221b here’s that glossary that I promised forever and a day ago.

Edit: I decided to create this document of annotations (x). Lyrics taken from Genius; I’m not totally sure how accurate they are, but hopefully they help get the point across! Again, questions and complaints both welcome.

Arcomba

I can’t find anything on this, would be interested if someone knows.

Asgard

One of the Nine Worlds, specifically the one where most of the ��sir (the subset of gods most associated with humans, including the well-known ones like Thor and Odin) live.

Thus Asgard is the planet on which the most powerful inhabitants of the Yggdrasil system, and those named after the gods, are found (though the subjugation / colonization relationship does not exist in myth).

Azathoth

This one’s from Lovecraft; Azathoth is the greatest of the Outer Gods, often served and worshiped by other gods themselves. Often described as mad, a demon, a sultan, or putting it all together as the Mad Demon Sultan. Resides at “the center of the universe,” where he appears as some sort of vast, amorphous, bubbling, roiling mass of “nuclear chaos.” (Nuclear probably refers to center, not nuclear power, which didn’t really exist when this was written). Servants about him play drums and flutes.

Mentioned briefly as the train travels through the Bifrost and into his realm, and a lot of the narration in those few verses draws directly from Lovecraft’s descriptions.

Baldur

The god of light and beloved by all, Baldr was killed by Loki in his final betrayal of the gods. After the murder Loki was tracked down and imprisoned, and will escape at the start of Ragnarok. In particular, Loki used a spear made of mistletoe... or, in the album, missile two. And tricked another god into throwing it, which I think is mimicked in the distance and impersonality of the crime. Look up more of his story if you want, it’s interesting and important, but that’s the relevant info here.

Bifrost

The rainbow bridge that the gods use to travel between worlds. 

Which is, of course, directly analogous to the wormhole-ish extradimensional-ish space of “shifting, undulating hues” through which the train travels.

Edda

The Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda are the names given to two pieces of literature that are most people’s main source for Norse mythology. The Prose Edda was written by Snorri Sturluson around 1200 to teach his (mostly Christian) contemporaries about the mythology and mythological references that made up a big chunk of Norse literature. The Poetic Edda is a set of poems that serve as a major source for Norse tales.

This is partially just a way to connect our hero Lyfrassir Edda to the Norse traditions, but also definitely a reference to their (presumed) role as the main “recorder” and source of information to get out of the Yggdrasil system.

Fate

Honestly the way the Mechanisms deal with fate in general is very interesting and arguably sometimes quite Nordic... but in particular, Bifrost Incident references fate or destiny a number of times and features a number of situations where the outcome is fixed and can’t be changed, but you have to fight anyways: “Killing me won’t save your world” “I don’t care” or how Loki and Sigyn can’t stop the train, but can only delay it. A lot of Norse tragedy revolves around people heading into battle knowing that they’re doomed and fighting anyways, or around the cycle of conflict that marked the cultural requirements for avenging insults. And the myth cycle is notable for the fact that the gods know, explicitly, exactly what Ragnarok is, what’s going to happen, and how they’re going to die, but will fight in it anyways. 

Inevitability and helplessness in the face of what you can’t possibly understand, let alone fight, which is a depiction slightly sideways of the Nordic version, are very Lovecraftian themes.

Fenrir

A wolf, child of Loki and father of Skoll and Hati, who was chained by the gods (particularly by Tyr, who placed his hand in the wolf’s mouth as “hostage” to assure him they would unchain him later, and lost the hand). He will break free at Ragnarok to join the battle against them and kill Odin.

With his association with monsters and with Loki, it’s fairly clear why he was aligned with the resistance movement. He’s serving “five life sentences” as a reference to his being chained, and the whole motif of the train’s journey being hijacked for a prison break certainly references the various characters who will be freed or break free as Ragnarok begins.

Frey

The brief reference of Frey being killed by the raging fire of the sun, with “no weapon, no defense,” is a direct translation of the god’s role in Ragnarok, when he will be killed by Surtr. Frey gave away his sword for the opportunity to woo his eventual wife, and so will be armed only with a stag’s antlers in his final combat. Also called Freyr.

Freya (“weeps tears of red-gold”)

Like her brother Frey (and yeah, these names get confusing), Freya is associated with harvest and fertility, though unlike him she also gets battle. In the song she weeps red-gold tears at the death of her husband Odr, which in myth she is said to do when her husband is absent. Also called Freyja.

Garm

Garm is another wolf, who guards Hel’s gates. He also breaks free at Ragnarok, and his howling heralds its coming. As in the album, he will fight and kill Tyr. Also called Garmr.

Hati

There’s a lot of wolves in Norse mythology. This one is a child of Fenrir. He chases the moon across the sky, and will swallow it when Ragnarok comes.

Mentioned briefly only as one of the resistance members on the train.

Heimdall

Heimdall is the watchman of the gods, with keen eyes and foresight, and guards the Bifrost as the entrance to Asgard. He will blow his horn to summon the gods to the final battle during Ragnarok, and he and Loki will kill one another. Also called Heimdallr; you’re probably noticing a pattern. It’s a grammar thing.

Mentioned as guarding the train and “doing his part.” His dying screams initiate the train’s destruction and echo throughout it, which presumably recalls the horn thing.

Hel

Another daughter of Loki, and, as the name will imply to English speakers, a guardian of the dead. She refuses to give Baldur back to the world of the living after Loki kills him. Also the name of the realm in which she resides, and to which go those who die of disease or old age. Doesn’t necessarily have the same bad-punishment connotation as modern Hell. I don’t know whether there’s any indication of what she herself is doing in Ragnarok, but many of her people and associates are certainly fighting against the gods, and I’m fairly certain the ship Naglfar, which carries Loki and his allies to Ragnarok, sets sail from Hel.

Hel as a prison colony clearly references the various characters the gods have chained or otherwise imprisoned (though, in myth, not all within Hel) as well as her alignment with “other side” during Ragnarok, and the jailbreak the resistance members are planning recalls the breaking of all these bonds as Ragnarok begins.

Hoddmimis

The woods in which Líf and Lífþrasir (see Lyfrassir) will shelter to survive Ragnarok and the various disasters accompanying it. 

So, good news! We can be marginally assured of Lyfrassir’s survival after taking shelter at the mining-colony of Hoddmimis.

Jormungandr

The world serpent, which lives in the seas and encircles the earth. Will arise during Ragnarok, causing great floods, and fight Thor; Thor will slay the serpent, but in turn the serpent’s poison will cause his death, after he staggers “nine steps back.”

Thor’s fight with Odin-turned-serpent is pretty clearly analogous to this, especially the taking nine steps to the window before destroying it with his hammer, resulting in both their deaths. I don’t think there’s any mythological basis to Odin turning into the serpent, though

Kvasir (“blood drained out”)

Kvasir was a very wise man/god and the originator of poetry. I’m leaving out a fair amount of his birth and life; the important information here is that two dwarves who were jealous of his knowledge tricked him, killed him, drained his blood, and mixed it with honey to make mead. Any who drank of the mead gained the gift of poetry / scholarship; eventually the gods stole it.

I’m not sure if there’s a reason they decided to specifically describe him as a resistance member, but there’s a clear parallel in Kvasir’s blood being drained and used to power the train, especially with the language of glyphs and sigils providing power.

Loki

Ah, Loki. Male in the general canon, though not without genderbending (he turns into a mare and gives birth to Fenrir, Hel, and Jormungandr, for instance). Inasmuch as the Norse myths we have can be organized into a “chronology,” you could do it (in my opinion) along Loki’s path from a mostly benevolent trickster god whose antics occasionally cause trouble to a genuinely malevolent figure. Associated with wit, magic, and trickery. Despite how modern lore (I suspect influenced by Marvel) often portrays Thor and Loki as brothers and children of Odin, in the myth Loki and Odin are bonded as blood-brothers. But Loki also often appears alongside Thor. As mentioned, parent of three of the main figures of Ragnarok. In the “final” myth, he jealously arranges the death of the god Baldr, who was loved by all; then he appears at a feast, where he exchanges insults with the other gods. This is the last straw; they capture him and chain him to a stone, over which they tie a serpent. Venom drips from the serpent’s fangs, causing him great agony. His wife Sigyn stays by his side, catching the venom in a bowl, but when she is forced to leave for a moment to dump it out his thrashing causes earthquakes. He will break free at the start of Ragnarok and sail to Asgard, where he and Heimdall will kill each other.

Hopefully that’s enough to give you a good background for Loki’s role in the album... it’s pretty clear why she’s framed as the opposition to the gods and the “leader” of the resistance movement, as a call to her role in Ragnarok. Her association with magic and trickery make sense for her being the “expert” in the twisted Lovecraftian “science” that produces the train. It also parallels her role in myth; her actions often get the gods into trouble, but they just as often need her wit and knowledge to get them out of it, as Odin needs her knowledge despite her taking action to destroy the train. And the setup at the end - drip, drip, drip, her face twisted in pain, her wife beside her, her “release” heralding the end of the world - precisely echoes the language of her bondage in myth; though her mind-destroying imprisonment by Odin also invokes this.

Lovecraft(ian)

A highly influential horror writer from the early 20th century. He’s largely credited with the creation of the creation of the “cosmic horror” genre, a type of horror which emphasises a vast, unknowable, uncaring universe against which we cannot hope to even begin to fight. His ideas and the gods / demons / creatures he created form the basis of the “Cthulhu mythos” or even “Lovecraft mythos,” which today is a sort of standard set of assumptions on which writers can build. Lovecraftian themes of apocalypse, inevitability, and powerlessness are highly prevalent in the album. Several of the gods in this mythos are used; in particular, Yog-Sothoth (see below). Also, a lot of the general description (madness, roiling chaos, undulating colors) draws from his distinctive vocabulary that remains staple of the genre. It’s worth noting that Lovecraft was a horrible and very racist person, but the genre today is widely used by people who are not terrible.

Lyfrassir

Líf and Lífþrasir in Norse mythology are the two humans who will survive Ragnarok and rebuild humanity; a hopeful sign for our album’s protagonist!

Midgard

In Norse mythology, the “middle” world where humans live. Earth.

Nagthrod

I don’t know this one.

@acorn-mushroom pointed out that it may be a mis-transcription of Naglfar, the name of the (ocean) ship which will carry Loki and his followers from the shores of Hel to the battlefield at Ragnarok. It’s made of dead men’s nails.

Odin

The king of the gods in Norse mythology. As the god of both wisdom and madness, Odin’s role in the album as a researcher and technological ruler whose discoveries drive her slowly mad is both very Lovecraftian and a reasonable leap. I could say a lot about the figure of Odin, but I think this character is one of the most divergent from the myth, in detail if not in role.

Odr

Óðr is Freya’s husband.

Outer gods

A Lovecraft thing referring to several of the most horrible and powerful gods, including Yog-Sothoth.

Ragnarok

The apocalypse, basically, in Norse mythology. Proceeded by various catastrophes, especially a very long winter, mentioned in the album, culminating in a great battle between the gods and their enemies, and resulting in the death of the majority of gods and other creatures of the world.

Ratatosk

A squirrel who runs up and down Yggdrasil, carrying messages between some of the tree’s other inhabitants and sowing discord. The Ratatosk Express links the worlds of the Yggdrasil System, and causes “discord” in the resistance’s opposition to it.

Sigyn

Loki’s wife. See Loki for her role in his imprisonment.

Skoll

Sköll in Norse mythology is the wolf that chases and will someday eat the sun. Association with Fenrir (another wolf) and other monsters motivates his inclusion in the list of resistance members.

Thor

A Norse god, associated with war, lightning/thunder, strength, and in general sort of... common people, as opposed to Odin’s association with kings and royalty. Prone to anger, which makes sense with his depiction as a volatile military leader in the album. He is heavily associated with his hammer mjölnir, hence jokes about “throwing a hammer in the works” and whatnot. Often associates with Loki, both as friends and as enemies as Loki progresses from a mostly-harmless trickster to actively opposing the other gods; thus how in the album he and Loki were once friends. See above for his death fighting Jormungandr.

Tyr

Another Norse god associated with war. He sacrificed a hand to bind Fenrir, and will be killed by Garmr during Ragnarok, both events referenced in the album.

Yggdrasil

The world-tree of Norse mythology, which supports the nine worlds of the cosmology. 

Yog-Sothoth

An Outer God of Lovecraftian mythos; also called the Gate and Key. It is associated as sort of the substance of time and space, binding together the cosmos. A lot of the description during the Ragnarok sequences draws directly from the “canonical” descriptions of this deity, and the invocation spoken by Lyfrassir in Red Signal draws from a story about this creature, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

[realityhelixcreates]

Lasabrjotr Chapter 77: Like a Good Old-Fashioned Barn Raising

Chapters: 77/?

Fandom: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: pg

Relationships: Loki x Reader

Characters: Loki (Marvel),

Additional Tags: Post-Endgame: Best Possible Ending (Canon-Divergent), Party Time

Summary:  Buridag begins!

Loki was awake long before you were, getting preparations ready, loose ends tied up, last minute orders sent out. He allowed you to sleep until you woke on your own, having removed his little illusory alarms from you some time ago.

Sometimes flower petals still rained upon you, and perfume rose from your footsteps, but no more snakes in the bath.

So you rose slowly, stretching and yawning the grogginess away at your own pace. Time was very hard to tell by looking out windows at this time of year, but when Loki entered the room carrying an egg sandwich, a little pile of fresh potato chips, and a glass of coffee, you placed yourself firmly within brunch territory.

Loki flicked on your sunlamp, gestured at the chair, and handed you your brunch once you'd taken your seat.

You munched your food and absorbed your light while Loki laid out the day's plans. You'd get dressed in a ceremonial outfit that included your armor and helmet, and join the parade that was gathering even now.

They were initially going to put you on Sleipnir. You had asked them not to. Sleipnir was magnificent, but you had no connection to him, nor to Leynarodd, who was the second choice. Your sweet, stout, shaggy little Acorn was who you preferred, a horse that belonged to no one initially, but who had formed a trusting bond with you.

Your clothing was, predictably, green, the underdress and apron a dark mossy color, hemmed on all edges with fine gold braid, embroidered with stripes of delicate knotwork, and your mark, also in gold. Over the top of this went your quilted tunic, in it's shimmering jade, and then your armor; the breastplate, the tassets, the bracers, pauldrons, greaves, and poleyns, though the last two were not visible. They went on over the leather trousers you'd been given to wear under your dress. They were sleek things, made of tough black leather, pleated in diagonal patterns, just like something Loki would wear. You thought the pleats had the advantage of putting more leather between you and any danger, and were flexible as well.

There were actually places where your familiar oval brooches could be fastened, your strings of shining beads strung between, your chatelaine dangled. Your belt was tooled leather and brass findings, hung with a leather purse, your Yggdrasil phone case, a small drinking horn carved with your mark, and of course, your knife. A little burst of deep pink against all the gold, green, and black.

You wore a minty-green velvet cape, a gift from Andsvarr, and your beautiful helmet to top it all off. You truly looked like something out of a fantasy novel, someone who looked like they should be standing next to the legendary figure that Loki currently cut.

He looked enormous, with his many asymmetrical layers, and molded shoulder guards, his billowing cape and hair spilling from beneath his magnificent curling horns. He shone with nornbein, and his cloak, shot with silk, shimmered subtly.

“You're so beautiful.” you mumbled. Loki smiled, and leaned down to adjust your cape, cheeks dusted with pink.

“Thank you.” he said, “I make every attempt. Though I think I will fade into the background under the power of your radiance.”

Warmth rushed to your face.

“Um, I know we've got to hurry and get Acorn, but I want to ask you a favor, Loki.”

“Anything. Tell me what it is and I'll make it so.”

You took a deep breath.

“I need you to stop trying to impress my father.”

The pink on his cheeks transformed into bright red.

“Ah. Yes, I rather hashed that, didn't I? I apologize. I thought that was still standard procedure, but your father, uh, explained otherwise.”

“Mhm, I'll bet he did. Look, I know you wanted to surprise us, but when it comes to things like that, you really oughta run it by me first. I could have told you that wouldn't work out the way you thought it would. You know, saved you from being chewed out like that. You can let me save you sometimes too.”

“ Like with the Huldra.”

“Kinda. Dad's not as bloodthirsty as she was, but he's a lot more stubborn.”

“Like father, like daughter, hm?” he teased.

“You have not seen me be stubborn yet.” you warned, and he gave you a quick smooch.

“A blessing, I'm sure. Very well, I agree. Surprises get run by you. Anything to save me from another tongue lashing. That man truly does not hold back.”

“I mean it though.” you persisted. “I'm not saying that you can't have any surprises at all, but talk to me about big stuff like that. If it's something that Asgardian law or custom would demand, but would be insulting to a human, we can maybe hash out an alternative that would satisfy both. That's the point, isn't it? Please, I really don't want to deal with anymore trouble between you two. Don't get hung up on impressing him, he has every reason to reject it, and he will. No more gifts, no toasts, no calling attention to him in public, nothing. He hates being the center of attention. Just let him be a guest, and see, without interference, that his little girl is doing fine on her own.”

“I really didn't mean to make him so angry.” Loki said, a little crestfallen. “And the more I tried to explain, the angrier he became. I just wanted him to know how much I value you. I wanted you to know too.”

“Material culture is different where I'm from. There are places in the world where that would have been understood and appreciated, but we've stopped doing it. In the same vein, fathers don't make all the decisions for their daughters anymore, so you don't actually need his approval. But...I need you to understand, it's not just that you took away his child, though that's bad enough. It's that I'm the only family he has left. My grandma only had one kid, and that was my dad. And she's dead, and so's my granddad, before I was even born. And then my mom died, and Beth too, and so I'm all that's left for him. And I have this giant Sword of Damocles hanging over my head all the time, and he's had to worry about that for my whole life. Most of the women on my mom's side all died from this, but occasionally, rarely, there's one that doesn't. I'm starting to hope that might be me. Maybe the magic is protecting me. But he's not going to be able to accept that so easily. I'm all he had left, and you took me away. That's all that's going to be important to him. You didn't even have to do the things you did in New York, this is the worst possible crime you could commit, in his eyes.”

Loki heaved a sigh of remorse. “And I cannot even return you to him. It seems there is one more thing I cannot set right.”

“The best you can do is make sure I'm okay. And don't bother him anymore. And maybe let him come visit more often. The more he sees me living my life and being fine, the more confidence he will have that I'm actually safe here.”

“I shall endeavor to help you thrive.” Loki promised.

“All right, so if that's settled, we should go get our horses.”

                                                                         ******

Acorn was, like you, a bit overdressed in your opinion. Long tabbards and blankets covered her from nose to rump, green and gold, embroidered with oak leaves. They were so long, they almost brushed the ground. Ribbons were braided into her wild mane and tail, and bells jingled with every movement. Like you, she could barely be seen under her splendor. But she was probably warm, and happily accepted a carrot from your hand. Placid as always, she let you up on her back, and fell into step behind Leynarodd, who likewise, followed up behind Sleipnir, whose hooves still rang like bells even over the thin layer of packed snow that covered the recently cleared streets.

There was a whole procession of people-this was a parade after all, and Thor, on Sleipnir, was preceded by the twin Valkyries, carrying Asgardian banners, as well as several musicians, and Beli, who chanted an ancient epic on the exploits of Buri.

Saga had translated the chant for you a while ago, and it sounded something like the sensationalized, self-aggrandizing boasts of pharaohs, or Mesopotamian kings-the kind that claimed to be rulers of the world, or rulers of the heavens themselves, to have battled armies of demons, killed giant lions with only a stick-that sort of thing. But when Beli called out those verses in such an ancient dialect of Asgardian, the words themselves felt powerful.

Thor followed slowly, Sliepnir plodding along, both of them absolutely huge. Loki and Leynarodd came right behind, only slightly smaller. And then you and Acorn, almost comical in your stature, diminutive by comparison. You were keenly aware of it, but either all of Asgard was too polite to say anything about it, or they simply didn't care.

The human guests, corralled in roped off areas, whooped and cheered when when you passed. Behind you, more musicians played, and a circle of Seidkonas walked in silent dignity. Then came more banners, the rest of the Valkyries, representatives of each noble house and guild, and the rest of the Aesir in Asgard, provided they didn't already have another position in the parade.

After them, the gathered Asgardians began following, lengthening out the procession, bright balls of magical light bobbing overhead. The sun had barely peeked over the horizon, and would be slinking away in a mere three or so hours, so the mage lights sparkled everywhere. Helpful Einherjar herded the humans to the next specially roped off area, so they could follow the parade as well; you caught a few amused faces at the playful rowdiness displayed by celebrating humans.

That was just how humans were when they were excited about something. Humans loved to holler, to jump, and dance, and clap. Some of them were even trying to keep time with the music.

You weren't actually able to pick out your father or Tara in the crowd, nor anyone else you knew, so you just kept your head forward and your back straight, trying to look as dignified as you could.

You'd only ever seen a few of what you considered 'proper' parades: in a small town a parade mostly consisted of people waving from the backs of neighborhood pickup trucks and tractors, maybe decorated with balloons or paper chains, blasting music from dusty old speakers. In the autumn, there might be pumpkins and corn stalks, and usually hayrides. But never anything like this spectacle.

As you got closer to the construction site, the apprentice mages responsible for all the floating lights started throwing sparks from their hands, like colorful sparklers. The gathered Asgardians began lining up in their designated areas, ready to play their part. The foundations had already been dug, and everything that needed to go into them was already there. All that remained was the pouring.

Thor, Loki, and yourself dismounted as close to in unison as you could manage, the horses carefully lead away to a temporary enclosure. You headed to the stack of decorative bricks, and took your place among the Asgardians there, while Thor gave the order for the cement to pour.

While this went on, Beli gathered his students and skalds in front of the Huldrastone to recite a modern epic. Within the first few verses you realized that it was about the Huldra's attack, and your confrontation with her.

Of course, the poem was much cleaner and more elegant than the actual events had been, but certain things had still been included. Your ears burned beneath your helmet when Beli reached the part where you had 'bestowed upon the fallen prince, a gentle sacrificial kiss, knowing that to trade life for life would grant him breath once more.'

You had finally spotted your father and Tara in the crowd; he crossed his arms and glared upon hearing the verse, while Tara gave you a cheezy grin and thumbs up.

As the poem reached its conclusion, the cement finished pouring, and a new recitation began. As Thor and Loki knelt and began scratching ritual runes into the wet cement, Beli's current group of student came forward and began telling the story of Beli, while apprentice mages illustrated the words with colorful, stylized illusions.

There were harrowing battles against huge stone people, the construction of the original Bifrost, which at that time connected a fleet of alien ships to one another. The illusions showed the gathering of construction materials, the building of a platform in space, and the grand revelation of the crystalline platform upon which Asgard slowly grew. Mountain and plain, river and ocean, building after magnificent building rose into the sky. Their ships captured and carved an asteroid, then set it in orbit as a bright new moon. All this was accomplished by the use of a glowing, icy blue cube that was difficult to look directly at. It was compelling though; it caught and held your attention with its beautiful, sparkling light.

You knew what that device was: you had learned about it in your lessons with Saga. It was the object known as the Tesseract, a four dimensional creation meant to house the incredible energy of an Infinity Stone. Perhaps that was why it was simultaneously fascinating, yet hard to perceive. Your curious human brain was drawn to its uniqueness, yet equally unable to fully fathom it.

That device was the key to Asgard's existence and eventual success. It was unthinkable to you that Odin had just lost it on Earth, as Sagas histories had proclaimed. It must have been a terrible loss.

Thor and Loki completed their carving, and began the process of imbuing the foundations with divine power. Goosebumps rose on your arms, and there was a pricking in your sinuses, like you were about to sneeze. There was almost a flavor to it.

The actual blessing didn't take nearly as long as the rune carving ritual, and soon, the two brothers stepped back, to allow others to begin their work. More mages worked a spell together that lifted the water out of the cement, drying it within moments. People came forward with wires and pipes, floor and wall supports, insulation, hammers, plaster, bricks, and mortar. In rotating lines people laid flooring and installed fixtures, scraped grout and assembled frames. Every now and then youths moved through, sweeping up dust, always away from you.

It suddenly became clear that that was why you were so far back in line, why you'd been assigned a decorative brick, something that would be placed near the very end of the construction. There would be no dust then. Gratitude swelled in your chest, but you said nothing. There was singing now, simple, repetitive melodies that sounded like work songs.

Every hour, volunteers carted huge, heated cauldrons around the lines and groups of human spectators, dipping out hot drinks like witch's potions, and it was possible that there was a simple sort of magic in things like hot chocolate, strong coffee, and buttered rum on a cold day.

The building went up faster than you thought possible, the widows, doors, and lights being set into place as auroras began ribboning across the sky.

Finally, there was one brick left. You lifted it up, as the singing seemed to intensify, scooped some mortar from the pail, and fitted it all into the only remaining slot. Giving the brick a light pat to make sure it was secure, you turned back to the assembled crowd.

“We did it.” You said, and the cheering began.

[omniishambles]

MEDIA: MCU (Thor, The Dark World, Avengers, Ragnarok, Loki). FACE CLAIM: Tom Hiddleston. (Eva Green when female presenting). AGE: 1054 (appears in his 30s). GENDER: Genderfluid. OCCUPATION: God of Mischief. SPECIES: Frost Giant (Jotun). SEXUALITY: Bisexual. NATIONALITY: British sounding accent. EYE COLOUR: Blue. HAIR: Black, usually around shoulder length. Shorter in his young verse. HEIGHT: 6"2. SCARS: Numerous from torture by Thanos and Ebony Maw. LANGUAGES: Asgardian, English, Old Norse, Scandinavian, Norwegian. ZODIAC: Sagittarius, December 17th. RELATIONSHIPS: Thor, older brother.

- - BIOGRAPHY - -

Born Loki Laufeyson, to the race known as Jotun, the Frost Giants. He was a runt, deemed too small to survive (or be worth raising), and so his own parents abandoned him in the bitterly cold wastes of Jotunheim. This being one of the Nine Realms connected by Yggdrasil, it was by chance that Odin Borson stumbled across the baby during the aftermath of a battle with the Frost Giants.

He had lost an eye but gained a son, who he took back to Asgard and raised alongside his own son, Thor. Odin placed a powerful spell on Loki that would allow the baby to blend in as he grew older, hiding the blue skin of his heritage. Loki grew up alongside his brother and lived a happy, normal life, even if he felt himself standing in Thor’s shadow half the time. He grew close to his Mother, Frigga, who taught him all about magic and how to wield it. He learned to fight, particularly good with daggers and knives, often acting as a scalpel where Thor was- quite literally- a hammer.

When it came time for Thor to take Odin’s place as the ruler of Asgard, Loki was jealous. Although he loved his brother, Loki considered himself the better candidate- more studious, less hot-headed- and set out to prove it by allowing Jotun soldiers to enter the palace and attempt to steal a powerful weapon. Thor responded by going to Jotunheim and attacking, destroying the shaky peace that had been achieved between the realms.

Thor was banished to Midgard (Earth), as punishment, unable to lift his treasured hammer until he was worthy. The great stress of the situation combined with his age, Odin fell into a deep sleep, leaving Loki to take the throne. That was until his brother learned a lesson in humility and returned to Asgard to stop him. After a battle with his brother, Loki fell from the Bifrost, disappearing into the void of space and letting his family think he was dead.

Loki is highly intelligent but also a prankster, earning himself the title of God of Mischief from a young age. His magic is strong, and as a boy he often turned himself into animals to sneak up on his brother- or on one memorable occasion, turn his brother into a frog. He has a taste for power, a gift that Odin unconsciously passed on to his adopted son, often getting into terrible situations in order to achieve it. Loki is also a victim of pride, and this often gets the better of him. Generally he only cares about his own interests.

Enhanced strength, speed, agility, stamina and durability, extended lifespan, regenerative healing, immunity to subzero temperatures, illusion manipulations (holograms), duplication casting, shapeshifting, presence concealment (allowing himself to unnoticed by those around him), temporary mental manipulation, conjuration (can summon objects at will, such as his daggers, and conceal them again in a ‘pocket universe’), telekinesis.

- - VERSES - -

Young Verse Set anywhere from Loki’s childhood in Asgard to his mysterious disappearance off the edge of the Bifrost as a young man. He has delusions of grandeur and a feeling of entitlement which leads him into the path of Thanos.

The Avengers After suffering torture and coercion at the hands of the The Titan, Loki is out to retrieve the Tesseract and gain an army with which he can rule Midgard (Earth).

Post Dark World After being imprisoned in Asgard for his crimes, Loki is freed by his brother in order to avenge their Mother’s death and retrieve the Reality Stone from the hands of the Dark Elves. Loki fakes his death and returns to Asgard in the guise of their Father, Odin, whom he places under a spell and exiles to Earth.

Ragnarok Tossed from the Bifrost by their vengeful big sister, Loki and Thor find themselves trapped on a party planet known as Sakarr. However, Loki arrives first and gets the upper hand on his brother by befriending the strange ruler of the planet, The Grandmaster.

TVA Verse 1 After deviating from The Sacred Timeline with a stolen Tesseract, Loki discovers that the universe is much smaller than he thought. In this verse, Loki has managed to wrangle himself a position as an agent for the Time Variance Authority, investigating any strange ripples in the timeline.

TVA Verse 2 After being dumped into an alternate timeline, Loki is reeling from the betrayal by Sylvie and the loss of his newfound friend, Mobius. Alone and trapped in a radically changed universe, he’s trying to figure out how to fix the timeline- or get back to the one that he came from.

FBI AU - created with @imprvdente After losing the Mobius he’d come to know, Loki stumbled into an alternate timeline where both Mobius and his childhood friend, Fish, were working for the FBI. Desperate to cling to familiarity, Loki decided to stay, hoping that the TVA wouldn’t follow with the distraction of the broken timeline. Now he’s Agent Odinson, tracking down serial killers and starting his life again on Earth.

The Umbrella Academy ‘Adopted’ by Reginald Hargreeves and dubbed Number Ten, also known as Loki. He’s able to create elaborate illusions and place images into the minds of others, tricking them in all sorts of ways. After the Academy disbanded, Loki turned to crime as a means of getting attention and flaunting his powers.

[multiverseforger]

The Enchantress' parentage is unknown, though it is known she was born in Asgard and has a sister by the name of Lorelei. Amora began learning magic as an apprentice of Karnilla, Queen of the Norns, but was eventually banished.[3] She continued learning magic on her own, notably by seducing others well versed in magic and learning their secrets. In time, Amora became one of the more powerful magic-wielders in Asgard, with her magical arsenal focused on (but not limited to) charming and mind-controlling people. Her by-then well-renowned beauty did not hinder in this.

In her first appearance, she is sent by Odin to eliminate Thor's human love interest, whom Odin sees as a distraction. She also hopes to have the thunder god for herself. She is assisted by a powerful minion — Skurge, the Executioner. The Executioner loved the Enchantress, and she strings him along with her feminine wiles, using him as her muscle.[4] She aids Loki by attempting to seduce Thor in his Don Blake identity and by sending the Executioner to kill Jane Foster, but though the Executioner traps Foster in another dimension Thor is able to bring her back by giving Skurge his hammer. When the Enchantress, angry at Skurge returning Jane, begins to turn Skurge into a tree, Skurge releases Thor from the pact in exchange for his help. Amora then tries to change Thor's hammer into a hissing serpent, but it is immune to her magic. Thor then transports the two back to Asgard.[5]

The Enchantress and the Executioner are exiled to Earth by Odin. They become members of Baron Heinrich Zemo's original Masters of Evil, the opposite number to the Avengers, a superhero team that Thor had joined. The Enchantress hypnotizes Thor into attacking the other Avengers with her own spells and a special brew, making him believe they are enemies of humanity, but Iron Man wakes Thor from his trance by reflecting sunlight into his eyes. Thor sends the Masters to another dimension through a space warp, but two issues later, the Enchantress uses a spell to send them back to Earth. She recruits Wonder Man into the Masters of Evil after paying his bail. She also meets Immortus, who helps Zemo attack the Avengers. When this attempt fails, she turns back time to prevent it from happening, though the Masters retain their memories of this event. When Immortus begins to contact the Masters, the Enchantress prevents this from happening.[6] She then joins in the Masters of Evil's final assault against the Avengers and breaks the Black Knight and Melter out of jail. She manages to escape in the end with the Executioner when the other two are transported to another dimension where their weapons rebound due to different scientific laws.[7] As a member of the Masters of Evil, the Enchantress (and Executioner) repeatedly face the Avengers. She is especially affronted by the attempts of the Scarlet Witch, a mortal, to subvert her divine spells, though she is occasionally genuinely challenged by the Scarlet Witch's mutant gifts.



Art by Alan Davis.

With the Executioner, she menaces Jane Foster again at Loki's behest.[8]

The Enchantress is also notable in that she has given other superhumans their powers. For example, she used the deceased Zemo's equipment to make a henchman of his, Erik Josten, into the original Power Man, who aids her in battling the Avengers. Her illusions and traps turn the city against the Avengers, forcing them to disband and making Power Man seem like a hero. Captain America, in disguise, corrects this by obtaining a taped confession from the Enchantress and Power Man. Power Man is able to defeat him, but the Enchantress is knocked out by gas from Hawkeye's arrow. Realizing the tape is on its way to the police, the Enchantress used her spells to teleport away.[9] The Enchantress is then recruited by the Mandarin, along with the Executioner, Swordsman, Power Man, and Living Laser for his plan for world domination. With the Executioner, she attacked the Asian sub-continent with an army of trolls, but they were defeated by Hercules and the Scarlet Witch.[10]

Amora poses as the Valkyrie and forms the Lady Liberators, which battle the male Avengers. She dupes Arkon into fighting the Avengers.[11] Amora also uses her magics to make Samantha Parrington and later Barbara Norris into the Valkyrie.[12] With the Executioner, she battles the Defenders and the Thing.[13]

With the Executioner, Amora attempts to conquer Asgard with a troll army. She also served as Loki's lieutenant in his brief rule of Asgard.[14]

During the "Secret Wars," she is placed on the villains's side, but she spurns the idea of fighting a gladiatorial game for the amusement of a higher being. She instead proposes to Thor that the two of them simply join forces, leave both heroes and villains behind, and go back home to Asgard.[volume & issue needed]

On the appearance of Amora's sister Lorelei, it is established that the two sisters have something of a strained relationship, rooted in rivalry. More than a little friction is seen between the pair, not the least due to competition over which one of them would manage to seduce Thor.[15]

The Enchantress joined the Asgardian gods and heroes in final battle against the world-ender Surtur. She establishes that she is motivated by enlightened self-interest: Surtur seeks to end the world, in which case Amora would perish.[16]



Another regular foe of Amora's is the Scarlet Witch, as seen here in The Vision and the Scarlet Witch (Vol. 2) #9. Cover art by Richard Howell and P. Craig Russell.

Soon after the Surtur War, Thor leads a number of Asgardian heroes to Hel, the realm of the death goddess Hela. The Executioner asks Thor to let him join the expedition for reasons he does not immediately reveal. In truth, he had seen the Enchantress dallying with Heimdall, and, heartbroken, Skurge wishes to lose himself in a noble cause — such as rescuing lost souls from Hela. Thor's forces accomplish their mission but need one man to guard their retreat from Hel by holding the bridge Gjallerbru. The Executioner, knowing there was no more Amora for him, chooses to be that man, giving his life so the others might flee. When Amora hears the news, to everyone's surprise, she is truly grief-stricken.[17]

After Skurge's death, Amora continues her regular hi-jinks, occasionally helping Asgard, occasionally opposing it. She aids Asgard against the evil Egyptian God Seth's legions.[18]

Lorelei later perishes as Amora refused to give her life for her sister's. The deceased Skurge (in Valhalla) rejects the Enchantress, and Amora goes on to empower the Earthman Brute Benhurst into a short-lived new Executioner to serve as her minion in Skurge's stead.[19] Amora becomes vexed with the Avenger Wonder Man and assists Thor and the Warriors Three in their quest to return Odin to the throne of Asgard. During this time, an attraction between Amora and Asgard's guardian Heimdall is explored. Amora even battles the powerful entity Nightmare on behalf of both of them as Heimdall was unable to protect himself at the time. She ultimately rejects Heimdall when she realizes that he wishes to be married and she does not.[volume & issue needed]

In Acts of Vengeance, Amora and Skurge join forces and attack Doctor Strange, only to be bested by Clea when she flies to his aid.[volume & issue needed]

Later, Thor has been spurned by his father Odin, exiled to Earth and disempowered. In this vulnerable state, Thor ends up forming a willing liaison with Amora, with the two of them living out of a loft in New York City as lovers. This status quo would remain until Thor goes missing during Heroes Reborn and is presumed dead.[20]

During Ragnarök, Amora is present with the other Asgardian deities and dwarves when Eitri and his brothers are sealed into a tomb they had carved due to the Mjolnir mold destroying them, albeit accidentally. When Surtur's forging of new Mjolnirs creates chaos, Thor attempts to fly to the skies to discern the source, but is at once struck down by a blast from a Mjolnir duplicate of Loki's; Amora is slain by the same blast, one of the first victims of Loki during this event. Neither her magic nor her inherent durability is capable of shielding her. Heimdall falls soon afterward; Amora is not seen again except, seemingly, in one of the realms of death, unable to use her magic to assist her once-lover.[volume & issue needed]

After Ragnarök, when Thor, Asgard and the other Asgardians return, Thor is manipulated by Loki into inadvertently awakening some of Thor's enemies, among them Amora, though when she was last seen, she is the victim, falling by Loki's hands and mourned by Thor and the other Asgardians. She does not return to Asgard but instead goes to attack the world tree, Yggdrasil in order to resurrect Skurge and release him from Valhalla. Amora is ultimately thwarted after Thor, Loki, and Balder convince her that she is dishonoring his memory with her actions.[21]

She has returned after Thor's resurrection, with Donald Blake - bitter about his separation from Thor and his non-existent past - offering the Enchantress his soul if she can make him a god again.[22] The resulting god is a twisted abomination, with Thor defeating the Enchantress and her new god before banishing them from Asgard, leaving Blake - reduced to a living head after his body was consumed to create the god - connected to a series of dream-weaving creatures to make him dream that he is living a full life.[23]

After this Amora was defeated by Thor and banished to the forest in Norway. She was trapped in an Odinforce barrier and stripped of her powers. Lady Deathstrike and Typhoid Mary were on a quest to find Arkea, an intelligent gestalt microorganism capable of controlling machines and people. They found Amora and offered to help her regain her powers.[24] In exchange they founded a new sisterhood to battle the X-Men, who were hunting Arkea and Lady Deathstrike. Arkea hacked the Odinforce spell and restored Amora's full powers. In exchange for this, Amora restored the physical form of the immortal mutant witch, Selene,[25] and helped Arkea resurrect Madelyne Pryor. Before the Sisterhood could add more members, the X-Men attacked and killed Arkea. Amora was ambushed by the X-Man M, who defeated her in a surprise attack. However, Madelyne Pryor swore to continue the Sisterhood, which presently has Madelyne, Selene, Lady Deathstrike, Amora, and Typhoid Mary as members.[26]

During the "AXIS" storyline, Enchantress appears as a member of Magneto's unnamed supervillain group during the fight against Red Skull's Red Onslaught form.[27] After the heroes and villains present at the battle experience a moral inversion due to the Scarlet Witch and Doctor Doom's attempt to bring out the Xavier in Onslaught backfiring,[volume & issue needed] Magneto recruits Enchantress as one of his new 'Avengers' to stop the now-villainous Avengers and X-Men.[volume & issue needed]

Following the "Secret Wars" storyline, she has become a member of Malekith the Accursed's Dark Council.[28] Through a spell, she takes control of the queen of the Light Elves, allowing her marriage to Malekith to happen and the conquest of their realm.[29]

During the "War of the Realms" storyline, Enchantress accompanies Malekith the Accursed in his invasion on Midgard.[30] She and Kurse fight Ghost Rider and She-Hulk until Jane Foster slams Skidbladnir into Enchantress.[31] In Uruguay, the Enchantress raises the dead, but Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange, and Balder ward her off.[32]

[alleyesonthehindenburg]

hi! wanted to say ur fic law of probability is really pretty, and i hope this doesn’t sound mean but im a bit confused? i understand what happens but i feel like im missing something

Hi anon, that’s very kind of you to say! Don’t worry, I am also confused about law of probability, and if you feel like you’re missing something, that’s probably on me. I banged out this fic in an hour while also taking a test for my online course, and it shows. Anyway, I tried to disentangle it below and it turned into a goddamn dissertation, so feel free to ignore that if you want.

law of probability is a mess of things bouncing around in my head, but in large part it stems from my frustration with how Marvel presents Loki as the god of mischief. As a disclaimer, I am by no means an expert in Norse mythology, but it’s been a subject of interest to me for many years. My understanding, based on the limited selection of surviving myths remaining to us, is that Loki isn’t the god of anything. Some scholars have suggested that he is the god of fire or wind, but these two attributes are based on mistranslation/etymological confusion. Calling him the god of mischief has the most solid foundation, but also… no? That designation follows from scholars identifying Loki as a trickster figure, and he certainly fits a lot of the criteria for it! But that has to do with his actions – hindering the gods one moment and helping them the next – and his role in the narrative; it doesn’t make ‘mischief’ his aspect in the way that fertility is Thor’s or wisdom is Odin’s. 

All of which means that Loki’s real aspect is sort of *noncommittal hand-wiggle*, and Marvel doesn’t want to go into that. Which I totally understand! That’s a lot to try and portray concisely at a storytelling level, especially in a ‘verse as crowded as the MCU. But I’m still salty about it in the privacy of my own mind (and, in this case, my personal ao3 account).

My own personal interpretation of Loki is that he is representative of chaos (not the god of chaos, but a manifestation, I guess). His capricious nature, the way that he can turn on a whim – so many stories involve him creating a problem, and then going back and fixing it himself. I personally think of chaos and order as two opposing forces, neither of which can exist as an absolute, and Loki serves as an agent of sorts for the former.

The Death of Baldr is a story that, I think, perfectly captures why Loki seems to me like a manifestation of chaos. Frigg, seeking to avoid the death of her son Baldr, extracted a promise from every living thing that they would do him no harm, except for one: mistletoe. No clear reason is given for why she couldn’t extract a promise; maybe it refused, or maybe she considered it so unthreatening that she didn’t even bother. I read this as an example of her trying to force absolute order, trying to remove all potential for chaos, and failing. But even with just one exception, the scales are tipped precariously in favour of order, and Loki serves to balance this out. The gods are playing a game with Baldr’s newfound immortality, throwing things at him and marvelling when he takes no damage. So Loki fashions a weapon made of mistletoe (maybe a spear, maybe an arrow; sources differ), and gives it to Höðr, Baldr’s brother. Here’s my favourite part of this theory: Höðr is blind. Loki  could have thrown the mistletoe himself, if his intention was to guarantee Baldr’s death, and shapeshifted so as to avoid blame; he could have cast an illusion to disguise the weapon, and handed it off to someone else. But he gives it to a blind man, thus leaving it to chance whether or not it will hit, and chance, in my opinion, is a form of chaos.

All of this is why I included these lines in law of probability:

In every story fate tells, she embeds a shred of what came first: chaos. It is flame, and wind, and mischief, and none of these things, and this is what she takes from death. The titan sought to master chaos, and so she will turn chaos on him.

I’m explicitly referencing, refuting and accepting the various interpretations of Loki’s role within the Norse pantheon. Which is paradoxical, but I think that it’s a very narrow view of the world to think that paradoxes and contradictions cannot and do not exist.

The MCU, however, is not just dealing with Midgard. Within Norse mythology, yes, I think Loki is exceptional; but when we’re dealing with an entire universe, I specifically didn’t want to portray him as ~oh so special only he can do it~. Which is why I introduced the character of fate.

fate, in this story, is a personification of order much as Loki is a personification of chaos, although to a much larger scale. I used female pronouns for her as a reference to the Norns, and portrayed her as a sort of master storyteller. Within the story of Yggdrasil, and the Avengers, Loki plays a role that is repeated in the millions of other stories she tells; it just so happens that this is the story that Thanos has most directly impacted, and so Loki is in the best position to take action. So she defies order itself, and resurrects him – not because I think that Loki can singlehandedly take down Thanos, but because given the range of his abilities and his knowledge (which Marvel seems to forget about, but no, I’m not bitter) it will be a lot easier.

Fate has written a million epics, but the titan ran head first into one and destroyed the rest by proxy. So as the coins are tossed, she tears into herself, tears into the core of herself until she finds the one true shard of inevitability, and she sets it aflame.

But why not just, you know, kill Thanos herself and start over? Well, fate is not all-powerful. She can lay out the bare bones of her stories, and hope that they go as she wants them to, but she cannot directly influence the actions of her characters. There’s too much chaos in all of them for that; and Loki, and the others like him, are especially resistant to her meddling. Which brings us to this line:

Fear is the most primal emotion. The first coin toss is deferred.

With the Snap, Thanos invoked pure chance, which is a form of chaos. fate cannot influence what he’s doing, she can’t do anything but watch as half her work is destroyed in an instant. There is no order in this situation, which means she can’t do anything.

Except.

If there’s one thing that Infinity War practically shoved down our throats, it’s that Thanos, too, has emotions. And the most base emotion that we all have, the one that evolution has universally decided is Good and Useful, is fear. Thanos snapped his fingers, and gave every living thing in the universe a 50/50 chance; but he held the power of reality in his hands, and like all other things he was afraid. So, consciously or not, he deferred his own coin toss and guaranteed his own survival. That’s a tiny shred of order in a mess of chaos, but it was enough for fate to intervene. Death’s gates are overwhelmed, and in the confusion it is not difficult for her to steal a single soul away, throwing her own rules to the wind as she does so.

[storiesof2018]

Against the Ropes

The cost of freedom is high...

That visceral mantra infinitely resonated through his veins against the bestial fringe conducted by Amora the sirenic-vengeful denizen of Asgard. The Enchantress was a viperous Noric spell caster who delivered a reckoning of sorcerous discord in Vanaheim siphoning cosmic essence from rooted extensions Yggdrasill, she was a deceptive spawn-a conjurer of blighted chaos, bounding her allegiance to Hela—the befallen demoness. After the nova-atomic ruination of Asgard when the fiery impaling Twilight sword of the Muspelheim devastator Surtur cleaved off the empyreal bridge, Hela's bloodthirsting-maniacal spirit was dragged into chasmic depths of Helheim—only to become resurrected when a valorous warrior of morphs into a true wraith of Dwarven legend: a dire wolf.

As the damnable knells of his warring humanity were careening a symphonious resilence into his Brooklyn spirit; every moment he was grippingly seized into a feral thrall, being cemented down to a pestilent reality of infectious-morphic possession. Around him, centuries of mortal dereliction and reverence became chilled visages of defeat etched into rows granite headstones—forgotten markers that were decoratively adorned with plump orange-fleshed pumpkins-beacons of amber light hauntingly contrasts against ghoulish sneers—the veristic ambiance of Halloween tradition.

The flavorous palatableness of decadent caramel and peanut butter-infused chocolate bars were shattered in heaps of desiccated leaves explosively ignited unslaked—predatory urges that he couldn't shake off. He was losing the fight. The wrapped candy undoubtingly served as baiting tactic of enticing craven—gluttonous prey to breach his reluctant kill-zone in daring-brazen traction. Against the chasmal bestial dregs of his mortal-razing wolven curse; Steve was detachedly isolated and shackled to an arid oak tree on the backlit environs of Green-Wood cemetery.

Emitting a growly cadence against his jutted fang incisors, in a rampant motion of a blinding thrust, unrestrainedly, Steve angled his canine muzzle up, evading another carious whiff of decomposed flesh that reekingly sailed in the frigid air. The roguish thickness of his golden-blonde fur bristlingly reacted against the miasmic stench of death greeted him in all directions- vitric incandescent of astral energy pulsated over stone headstones, beckoning with echoes of ghoulish assonances that ushered unprecedented -demonic resurrection of the Dark Verse. They were running out of time. A blearing onset of tears feverishly melded against the hawkish depth of Steve's crystalline azure irises as he unwaveringly gazed at the candlelit pumpkins that eerily lit up his passage of heart-wrenching execution.

Around him, blockades of unearthed coffins were mounted near the iron entrance gates, skeletal limbs hung lifelessly in dormant unison over rotted edges of mud-dampened wood, forcing him to inadvertently rear his canine head back against the phantom implosion of a celestial breach.

Unremittingly the wolfy Avenger felt the malodorous command of hellish butchery scourging through him—a carnal pulse of unquenchable hunger—teeming bloodthirst that wouldn't stave down. The furred sleekness of his long muzzle flexed on instinctive accord of his shifting paws. Dragging out a whimpering breath, Steve felt his twined incisor fangs pulse against implosive cadence of latent hostility. "I can't do this to em'..." he raspily choked off against growling strain, pinching his eyes shut against the raw unity of cacophonic—revamped aggression betrayingly rivaling with desperate echoes of his prevailing heartbeat throbbingly rigged to denotate like an incendiary rush of high-octane. "I can't..."

Hunger gnawed at him like fingers digging into his stomach, determined to cause him restless pain until he succumbed to the burning desire to sate his malice. Steve despised the feeling as if it were something as repugnant as a drug addiction that couldn't be kicked. He wouldn't know from experience, but he knew enough to assume the feeling was overwhelming, robbing him of all thought and cohesion as his world spiraled into a distorted reality where everything glowed green, marked as his prey.

He could feel the perverse presence of the blonde Asgardian sorceress that was trying to control him like a puppet on strings. He groaned and gnashed his sharpened teeth that dripped with saliva. He could smell them-two furry bunnies close by. Plump and ripe for the taking. His stomach growled at the thought of wrapping his fangs around their necks and chomping hard.

"N-No...can't. Won't..." He whined, collapsing near a headstone while his eyes spied the shape of a bouncing ball of cindery-brunette fur moving behind another tombstone, followed closely by a chubbier, slower blonde bunny that was busying himself by gobbling up pieces of chocolate bait.

"Don't worry punk, this furball s'not leavin' ya..." A gravelly murmurous drawl throatily challenged with alighted relevance of a brotherly promise; after shimming through the iron bars with gunned momentum, Bucky unerringly braced the pudginess of his chestnut furred body against eroded granite. Trudging into the rigged minefield was disarmingly fueled by full-measured recklessness. Every conscious breach of his thumping paces detonated a hair-trigger pulse.

Raptly scrunching his furred nose with an evident twitch, Bucky stealthily in a measure of cautious urgency, edgily he registered the sugariness of discarded chocolate-only a paw's reach from his tactical position-a distraction to arrest his banking resistance. He was being hammer-locked within a chimeral reality; every defiant pulse of his hellbent resolve felt soul-crushingly useless to ride out. Against his steeled vision's laser-edged periphery, involuntarily he gazed at the paunchy heaviness of the downsized Asgardian Thunderer's wobbling pace; his debauched, unkempt golden furred mass was sluggishly nearing the heap of leaves with telltale—gluttonous intent steering him towards a baited death trap.

"Damnit..." Bucky seethed out a dragging breath of his vexatious timbre, as he bracingly wedged against the headstone, readily with his sniper-honed poise in tactful ease, Bucky lowered in half-crouch against patent tension bolstered on his hind feet; utilizing extensions of shadow to keep him distant from the crosshairs. Against the floppy length of his drooping ears, silvered heat of grayish-aquamarine irises nakedly gleamed against stilted gravity that consciously roped him down. It was an escalating moment of unwarrantable heartache that he couldn't wage through: not without his best friend.

Evicting an vexatious onslaught of untrammeled hunger, the podgy Brooklyn lop grabbed of what appeared to be a half-shelled walnut for his arsenal, with a blinding swipe of a trigger paw, snarlingly with an underhand pitch, Bucky careened his effective projectile with unwavering variances of headlong-brazen precision undeviatingly at the indulging, rotund lion-haired lop, betraying his obscured position; while a myriad of chocolatey scents became mouthwateringly delectable for him to evade, he was knee-deep in the crosshairs. "Thor, you gotta keep it together man...!"

"Huh?" Thor had unknowingly fell beyond the plateau of adulthood and down to the baser instincts, one might expect from an easily distracted child. The air was fresh, the skies were cool, and his stomach growled with unabashed hunger as he savored down the rich taste of chocolate with big mouthfuls. Chocolate. He never knew Midgardians could be so brilliant in developing such sweet delicacies that could not be found in the other realms. It was mouth-watering and filled him with an unquenchable delight he licked his bucked teeth and grinned oafishly over at his companion who appeared rather glum of late.

"As you can see, Friend James, I am perfectly held together. You will not find a more fluid form of Asgardian might and vigor!" He demonstrated by bouncing on his hind legs with a small wobble but succeeded only in landing on his backside. "Oof! Perhaps that was an unwis-Ow!" He groaned when he felt something small hit his head. "Did you just throw a walnut at me?!" he suddenly became indignant.

"I'll admit it wasn't my best throw," Drawling back a terse quip scowlingly Bucky half- quirked his tiny muzzle while harnessing a swift variant of his tactical grace and ducked in mid-crouch his plushy form lower against the carved out pumpkin with defensive ease rapt over his disheveled fur. Quaking vibrations of an earthmoving crescendo hammered phantasmally against his flattened hind paws, glaringly Bucky drove the knifing intensity of his razored glacial irises towards emptied wrappers and smeared fudge stickily caked over Thor's furrier, blubbery mass. He was becoming exceedingly aware of his own unhinged cravings that penetrated him with a flashpoint throb as he rode on the edge of irrepressible hunger.

Quelling back a nauseous rush with chagrined effort, as intoxicating-appetizing scents were arrestingly stealing his warred resolve, Bucky emitted a scathing rasp that was tellingly apparent to a derisive scrunch of his twitching nose—they needed to gun for a breathless measure of untouchable distance. The driving—brotherly need to daringly rescue his best friend—little punk— from Amora's tenebrous-possessive conjury waged through him in a burgeoning tenfold; challengingly eliciting a suicidal—breakneck dash of hopping speed.

"We gotta pull Steve out of this..." Bucky urged out gratingly his deep-timbered resonance fringed into a squeak, as he lifted up his droopy ear against volumes of clamorous ferocity chasing Steve's panting breaths. Slivery traces of moonlight haloed of the wolf's grayish-blonde fur, while Steve deceptively grounded his adamant poise with a sentry-like vigil-the murderous stance of an executioner. They had one reckless—instinctual advantage; the warren of disinterred graves could be utilized as open burrows to hop into."M' not losin' him..."

The telltale steps of a looming predator encroached on the two bunnies as they felt the vibrations beneath their feet. Thor had been drowning in a sea of gluttony throughout the night. But the moment his beady eyes of blue and artificial green took in the looming shadow hovering over them like death itself, he was ripped back to reality and cringed with a sharp yell. "It would appear he hasn't lost us either, Friend James. Odin's Beard..." The fat bunny felt his fur rise on end as a guttural snarl bellowed through the vicinity. A flash of lightning lit up the skies and illuminated the chilling visage of a blonde timber-wolf. Thor could scarcely recognize the shade of cool azure blue in those merciless eyes that were consumed by sorcery. Steven Rogers was the most disciplined and honorable man he knew, but Amora's enchantment turned him into a hungry predator with a mouth-watering taste for rabbits...big fat rabbits like himself! "Barnes, if you plan to talk him down now might be the right time!" Thor boomed as he shrunk back clumsily against a headstone, leaving Bucky to stare down the big bad wolf.

'I gotta dreamin'... Bucky grumbled under breath ruefully, wobbling in a variance of cautious prowess from the headstone, heartache banked with a ricocheting throb in his pudgy form as he reactively tucked his furred paws, warding off clamorous pulses of adrenaline against knifepoint tension cuttingly piercing through the velvet silkiness of his dark chestnut fur. He was staking down his life-humanity in the damn crosshairs, disarmingly useless to engage the predatory aura that infinitely clashed against Steve's valorous-Brooklyn spirit, while he felt Amora's celestial-parasitic energy spawning a ghoulish legion around him.

The miasmal reek of skeletal decay made him choke on feverish breaths, scrunching his furred nose against the obstructive stench, Bucky thrashed a paw up with rapid ease while Thor grouchily headbutted a pumpkin with sluggish motion; unquestioningly clearing a spot to gorge another heap of potion-infused chocolate. 'Hell, does this guy ever quit...' he quipped snarkily, feeling unnervingly outrivaled by the obese Asgardian's hoggish, unrepentant caliber, as he moodily brandished a semblance of clamorous defiance.

Grimacingly, in a low-hop, Bucky edged a breadth closer to Steve's intimidating, chained proximity, a telltale flit of his droopy ears conveyed his unwarranted reluctance as he thready murmured, coaxingly. "Punk it's me..." He gazed up at the captive wolf's incisor fangs menacingly curving underlip to deliver a killing strike, as the growling cadence stuntedly deafened out his urgent timbre, his vision blearing against a fevered pinch of unshed tears. On the edge of reaction, a furrowing pinch tensely notched up over Steve's furred brow, glacial light detracted off his razor-slit pupils -manic aggression stalled in a heartbeat as the Brooklyn lop caught a drag of gulping breath, never betraying a rampant scrunch of his tinier nose. "M' Bucky under all this fur..." he croakily hitched.

Somewhere at the back of his thoughts, Steve felt a gripping sense of terror as he faced down the brown-furred rabbit that he knew was his oldest friend. The brush of agony in his chest increased every second as he was consumed by malicious thoughts of wrapping his jaws around the rabbit's neck and ripping it out. Hunger gnawed at him, turning his discipline into a struggle of wills. "R-Run, Buck…" He snarled through clenched teeth, saliva drooling from his incisors. The stubborn rabbit remained in front of him, fearless of the beast that was fighting to control his actions and the witch that was causing it. "C-Can't fight her…"

'Obey me, my Hound.' Amora's voice commanded his thoughts, filling his being with dread. 'Kill them all…'

"N-No!" Steve howled. His struggle caused him to pant heavily and thrash his paw blindly. His sharpened nails were like knives cutting through the air. He was angry, he was hungry, he wanted something to lash out against. Enchantress' magic entangled with his emotions, worming him into her thrall until his iris' were glowing an ominous green. Steve Rogers had vanished and the wolf had taken over. "Kill them!" The rabbits in front of him were prey. Food for his insatiable hunger. "DIE!"

The wolf charged in a sudden mad dash of speed and ferocity. Bucky and Thor scrambled backwards against a headstone. They were trapped and their end was imminent. They didn't scream nor did they tremble. They were prepared to meet their end together as warriors. Until their world was consumed by a burst of exploding magic as a magician's top-hat was thrown over them. The wolf collided head-first against the headstone-stunned and confused at the sudden intervention that saw the two rabbits disappear from his grasp.

"I think our two rabbit friends have had enough excitement, Captain Rogers." Said the smooth deep baritone voice. The wolf gazed up to see a man dramatically floating down from the sky with a red-cloak billowing from behind him. "You and your master, on the other hand, have a date with me tonight…" Doctor Strange landed across from the wolf who snarled menacingly at him as the clock approached closer to midnight on Halloween night.

You gotta move on...

It felt like his reality was inevitably threatening to pull the pin to detonate an emotional grenade within his grief-razed world; nothing was the same after cosmic snap-the scything purge of mortality ushered by the soul-butchering intergalactic Mad Titan-Thanos; prevailed humanity fostered onto the starvation of hope behind the barricades, echoes of valor dissolved in remnants of heaped ash. He trudged on the accelerated cataclysmic fringe of soul-wrenching failure, throes of anguish grappled him back to that incendiary moment when Bucky horrifyingly became obliterated into earthen mulch as the convergence of the astral plane imploded.

During five years of heartbreakingly enduring the grievous aftermath of the Infinity Gauntlet's atomic wastage; Steve never stopped looking back, he crossed quantum–dimensional paradoxes of time to bring everyone back at the moment Thanos heralded the apocalyptic reckoning of mass-annihilation; only to lose his best girl-Natasha-to the eternal-votive-trade of the Soul Stone. The stakes of infinite price were immeasurable snowy crags of Vormir; a lasting sacrifice of expandable love thrown over the edge of a celestial void- an elysian realm that harvested out souls like a lightning strike. 'Nat bet her life on it...'

Without the brotherly grace of Bucky's hand anchoring him out of throes of interminable heartache, Steve would have never walked on to face new daybreak. His snarky defiant best friend-his Bucky- pulled him off the ropes, got him back in the game, reigniting his dormant Brooklyn spirit. He couldn't look back into the vacuous drift: a beckoning resonance of stowed defeat. He lost everything in five seconds would he breached the quantum realm, never blinking as Natasha vanished into a strand of time with Clint Barton-beyond his reach. Love wasn't disposable; it was a visceral pulse of a dueling heartbeat, a soul-mirroring cadence of a feverous dance. Natasha was more than his combat partner of tactical dynamic-a rebellious intimacy of evocative compromise. She had awoken him out stuporous grief that he punishingly harbored for Peggy Carter; gave him a chance to trust-love- -again in the betraying crossfires.

In the wake of soul-hammering ache that he warringly stowed back, with dismal traction of his impassive reserve, Steve guardingly isolated himself from the reconstructed Avengers Compound; bolstering the enhanced heaviness of his gladiator-like bulk against roughened bark of an oak near the forested lakefront, scones of amber harvest moonlight were ethereally captured in ripples, as the chilling breeze of late-October hauntingly rushed over his leather-sheathed muscles. He needed distance for pent-up ignitable release.

Within the renovated Compound, Thor's 'grand' return with the cosmic piratical ravagers -Guardians of the Galaxy was being welcomingly celebrated; barrels of Asgardian-brewed ale were stacked with indulging delicacies of imported chocolate. Moving towards a vacant log, achingly Steve eased down, resisting to join the reunion gathering-there was nothing for him inside. The denim of his threadbare jeans became stiff over the hard-edged muscle of his calves as he crushingly fisted the material with a clenching squeeze while heartsick tension inexorably gripped him in a tenfold of blinding urgency.

Thinning his sensuous chiseled lips into a feigned grimace that made dimples of his cheek stretch, he blearily gazed up at the hypnotic luminance of full moon above, desperately searching beyond the darkened vistas as he rode out another heart-splintering onslaught. Against disheveled blonde tresses feathering messily over his tear-drenched lashes, the cool azure of his irises grew piercingly stormier in the forested darkness as errant treks of wetness ghosted a feverish sting over his hawkish, angular features. Steve quashed down the urge to rawly scream out her name in a painstaking cadence of explosive agony; trying to hold everything back as he throat strained to release a sobbing breath. "M' sorry, Tasha..."

"Y'know I figured you were out here..." A murmurous drawl throatily cut against the brisk air in a suave-timbered pitch that Steve viscerally registered against phantom flexes of bone-deep tension; in the eclipsing contrasts of patent-bestial- menace as Bucky edged his sniper prowess invested in his nonchalant-honed paces swaggeringly towards the forested lake, keeping a measure of braced distance from the crestfallen First Avenger, who stared passively at the waxen effulgence glowingly haloing over them.

Grabbed in a Hugo Boss slim-fit jacket that intimidatingly delineated over heavy-sheathed cords of banded muscle, in a controlled, impassive stance, Bucky innately detected unwarrantable volumes of clamorous heartache- an irrevocable longing that wouldn't be staved down into soul-neutralizing dregs of reigned failure. Grazing his teeth over the pouty swell of his jutted underlip, he dragged out a tactful breath, his grayish-aquamarine irises silvered alight with telltale urgency. "Are you okay, pal...?"

Steve attempted what should have been a smile of reassurance but to Bucky, it looked more like a grimace of uncertainty. "About as okay as I can get..." Steve answered shifting his gaze towards the starry skies. He avoided his best friend's gaze knowing without needing to look that he could see right through him. In a time long past, Steve never felt the need to hide from those he cared about-especially since he had no one and nothing except for his mom and Bucky...until all he had left was Bucky.

And now he had once again come full-circle, feeling the burden of heartache and loss weighing heavily on him. He wasn't the same kid from Brooklyn anymore who took comfort by opening up. Opening up allowed too many people to get close-people he cared about and ultimately lost. Mom, Peggy, Tony...Natasha…He thought by shutting himself away, he could move past his grief by being a soldier, an Avenger. But now...

"Actually...No. I'm not all right." He answered with a deep exhale. "And I don't think a party is gonna help me, Buck."

The edged rawness of his Steve's hitching timbre was betrayingly strained, Bucky felt his stubbled features tauten against a viscerous slash of razored penetration infinitely gouging over his heart as his best friend unquestioningly barricaded him within torturous extensions of latent anguish-the loss of 'Tasha' to celestial devoid of Vormir was a hammer-blow to the heart-Siberian bloodlines that surgically mutated-weaponized their expandable bodies into lethal-heartless instruments of mechanical agility and tactical precision, never made him abandon a mercy shot when he pulled the trigger on her in the Odessa crosshairs. She deserved redemption-daybreak: not a flatline afterlife.

Forcing himself to lower into a crouch of sniper ease, inches from the occupied log, vexatiously, against a fisting pulse, Bucky dragged his leather motorcycle sheathed fingers with painstaking traction over roughen dirt, not clashing with the teary blur of Steve's azure depths-incarnate echoes of phantom grief. "I know s'it's been a rough slide for ya, Steve..." he murmured croakily in a gravelly drawl, pulling his shapely lips into a half-grimace, ruefully. "Hell, I wasn't there when you needed me..."

"This isn't on you, Bucky," Steve answered some form of his usual self returned to offer his friend the reassurance he needed to know that he was in no way to blame. The pain in his chest festered and ached each time he found himself turning to say something to Natasha. Asking her if she wanted a friendly spar or go have lunch together. Only for the painful reminder that she was no longer there to stab him in his heart, making the void inside grow deeper. Blinking repeatedly, he spared his friend a short glance and felt his somber mood take a more emotional turn as his eyes misted and he fought furiously to withhold his tears.

"Even if you had been here...there was no changing her decision." He shuddered, knowing Clint would agree with him. Natasha fought her oldest friend to prevent him from sacrificing himself for the soul stone. Natasha never believed herself to be a true hero, fearing her past would forever define her legacy. There was no stopping her from taking that jump...unless maybe he had been there himself to do it first. "Some things I suppose are just meant to be…"

It was a bitter pill to swallow, and Steve had hoped time would make it easier. But even after six months had passed, the ache in his heart hadn't stopped and his nightmares about her falling off that cliff hadn't stopped haunting him, just like the Red Skull's words when he had returned the Soul Stone.

"The Soul Stone does not return what was given. It is sentient, it craves life-encapsulates it. Those sacrificed to its power will forever wander the soul world."

"Sometimes life just isn't fair." Steve couldn't stop a single tear from escaping him. He thought life after death would grant peace to those who were benevolent souls, especially those that sought redemption. The thought of Natasha being trapped there… Steve suddenly rose up from his seat, struggling and failing to banish the chilling thought that made his insides twist.

Inwardly he seethed and felt a build-up on the anguish that made him want to punch something. His pulse beating wildly, he could distinctly hear his name being called and Bucky attempting to pull him back.

A cyclonic implosion of white-heat electrified through a bank of encroaching cloud masses that bridged a funneling vortex over the darkened lake- an elysian dimensional breach had irrevocably ushered thunderous dissonance to boomingly echo as spastic lightning forked every two seconds in eclipsing convergence of an atmospheric tempest. Clenching the hard-edged planes of his stubbled jaw against reactive tension, Bucky angled his head, wolfish chestnut tresses flittingly whipped-lashed over graven cheeks as he unerringly braced into an aggressive-honed stance, furrowing his brow into a pinch, confusingly. "Steve..." he rasped out breathlessly as voltaic salvos of incandescent amethyst struck down around them. "W-what kinda storm is this..."

"One we shouldn't need to worry about," Steve replied with a detached voice. If he were in a leisurely state of mind tonight he would have paused to admire the atmospheric spectacle that bathed the night sky in brilliant hues of indigo blue and lime green. It lasted only a moment before its radiance diminished over the night skies. Steve for a moment thought he had seen something in the midst of the tempest. They looked like carvings-runes. He shrugged tiredly, wondering if he was seeing things after going nearly twenty-fours without sleep. "You should get back to the party, Buck. Selina is waiting."

Steve looked at his friend with a somber smile. "I appreciate what you're doing here. I know moving on won't be easy, but without you here it makes a world of difference." Without Bucky, Steve knew he would have no one. He ignored the knife-stabbing pain in his chest and kept a cool expression as he patted his best friend on the shoulder. "Go on, I'll be all right. I think I'll be heading in-in a bit."

The edging directness of Steve's fractured deep-timbered was underlying penetrative, against his unstinted chagrin that raptly stamped over the bristled ruggedness of knife-edge cut features, Bucky felt the unrepented echoes of guilt-ridden heartache grievously mounting into full-acceleration.

Steeling him to wage against the prevalence fed by a maelstrom of anguish, Bucky tucked his motorcycle-gloved into pockets of his leather jacket, aggressively his shapely lips pressed harsher into a taut grimace of feigned tension, stiltedly, accepting the chastened revelation that his best friend-little punk was shrugging him off—unstable distance needed to be widened between them. A despondent cast melded nakedly alight in Steve's downcasted azure irises as the flit of his dark lashes caught errant tears-he wanted to be left alone. "Don't do anythin' stupid out here..." Bucky urged in a gravelly drawl, scathingly, before pivoting on his tactical boots in a variance of reluctant traction. He sucked back a choking drag of breath. "I-I can take a damn hint when M' not wanted..."

Steve knew he had unintendedly hurt Bucky's feelings by his curt dismissal. Something he would need to apologize for later when he was in brighter spirits. But he couldn't bring himself to offer any form of consolation right now. In a moment where he felt stretched and drained of all energy.

The part of him that once longed for the simple life of finding a beautiful dame to settle down with was a fantasy he had stowed away when he lost Peggy Carter to time. He locked away that dream and focused only on the fight. It wasn't the peace he wanted in life, but it was one that gave him purpose.

But that was only when Natasha was by his side. Always by his side, fighting more battles with him over the years anyone in his life-time, including Bucky. She made the fight feel as close to home as he could ever hope. The dream he kept locked away had slowly begun to push through the cracks, giving him that lost hope that he could find a life he always wanted with the Russian beauty who had unknowingly claimed his heart.

But now she was gone. And with her, so was his will to keep on fighting.

"There's days I wonder, Buck, how much longer we can keep going on like this." He says to his friend before he can walk away. The solemnity in his voice made him sound years older. "Fighting and fighting, never seeing an end to the war. Never finding that warm, apple-pie life that we hoped was at the end of the line. Half the time it feels like we're rabbits hopping in circles with wolves at our backs."

His eyes closed to shutter the offset of a tear that threatened to cascade down his cheek. His hands closed into fists in his pockets and the blonde released a shaky breath before meeting Bucky's gaze. "When does the fighting stop?"

As the validity of those retriggered words gripped him into a knifepoint deadlock, everything had inadvertently reversed in that naked moment of a soul-deep throb; the raw tension clashingly racking through him, became stormily evident in his glacial aqueous irises as Bucky with controlled effort driven by ignition of a timeless cadence off Brooklyn resilence-brotherhood; he didn't want to become a disposable extension of quench-out heartache, while trudging on the inevitable-reckoning fringe of a denotative -apocalyptic- powder-keg.

With a vehement shift of his measured paces, impassively Bucky neared his slump-face best friend's side."It doesn't..." he answered back in thickened-pitch, murmurously, his shapely-wide lips tugged half-heartedly with a telltale pinch. A glide of errant wetness sheening over the broad planes of Steve's hawkishly-cut features starkly resurrected invulnerable defeat-a chastening penance "There's always gonna be a fight puttin' us against the ropes, Steve," he drawled in a hitching rasp, throatily."We just gotta keep swingin' when the hits come..."

It was an answer Steve knew to expect. Life without war it seemed was as impossible as life without death. It was an inevitability that couldn't be staved off forever. War was like a virus always lurking; waiting to break out and spread. It just never occurred to him how much it would become a part of his life-of both their lives. He was once a kid who wanted to be a painter. A man who wanted a quiet family life. But he chose to become a soldier, and soldiers always had someone to lose no matter the circumstance of which a relationship was formed. Steve lost partners, friends, family. He needed to make peace with himself after the endgame. It wouldn't be long until the next fight reared its way in, but until then, he had to find peace.

"Let's hope we won't need to be swinging for awhile yet." He said with a soft smile, not quite reaching his eyes. He looked at Bucky in a new light, seeing a man who had endured countless years of mental torture and battles but had managed to find his way to adapt to a normal life much easier than Steve ever did. He envied his friend, but at the same time, he was happy for him. Before he could say anything more, they were both interrupted by a voice calling for them near the compound.

"Hey Cap! Bucky! Pizzas arrived. You guys coming in? I'd hurry, I don't think Thor plans on slowing down tonight." Scott Lang said with a shrug. He held a vodka bottle in hand, wearing black clothes and a Halloween shirt that acutely forbid the presence of clowns. Scott hated clowns apparently, Steve thought with an amused smirk.

"You should get a move on, Buck. I'll be a few minutes," Steve gave his friend an encouraging nod, grateful for the talk he'd given him.

Against the bordering grip of vestigial relevance, Bucky nodded smirkily, his grayish-aquamarine irises glinting alight with echoes of boyish naughtiness; tellingly evident to the wrinkled lines of crows-feet deeply bracketing at his pinched temples-a gracing deliverance of eternal brotherly promise felt graspable-indestructible to ward off. Breaking distance from the rivalrous aura of isolated solace, Bucky did a half-spun on his tactical boots; Scott's dark-hazel irises widened dumbly in frank amusement while sheepishly mouthing 'jeez' at the Siberian beast machine's gladiator-like bulk menacingly shifting accord of poised intimidation underneath his leather jacket.

"I ruined the moment again, didn't I?" Scott uttered out ingenuously, narrowing his dark gaze, he uneasily pressed his lips into a half-grimace. "Don't worry, I totally respect lasting friendships and you guys have yours as a museum exhibit which is very cool..." He continued, humorously without being off-beat in comedic tenor. "Luis wrote our two names in the prison's bathroom stall with a permanent marker, can't be scrubbed off."

In a controlled motion of his gloved hand, furrowed his brow into a tenser pitch, Bucky unerringly grabbed the Vodka bottle out of Scott's leaden grip as he clumsily reeled back. "I got this, Lang..." he quipped huffily under tight breath; the diesel- roughened smokiness of his Brooklyn drawl edged huskily suave in nonchalant tenor, as his pursed lips quirked up, toothily back at Steve. "S'just try not to get caught in the rain, punk..."

"I'll do my best," Steve replied. He watched as both Bucky and Scott went back inside the newly rebuilt compound. It was bigger than it was before with more room to spare for new members but somehow feeling even emptier than it ever was before. With Tony in a coma, and Clint having returned home to his family and Natasha... The compound's only permanent residents were himself, Bruce, Scott, Sam, Wanda and Thor. Clint, Peter Parker and Carol Danvers only paid periodic visits each month that never lasted more than a couple of days. Then there was Bucky and Selina whom often treated the compound as their hotel between their travels. A home away from home.

It was nice to see familiar faces still keeping close but there was a stigma on the property each time he would walk near the apartment that used to belong to Natasha. Used to in the previous iteration of the building before Thanos had levelled it. Pepper had it rebuilt from the ground up with Natasha's room and what few belongings of hers that they had scoured from the ruins intact. The first night it of its completion Steve had spent the night inside of her room, staring blankly at the ceiling in deep thought, trying to piece together some semblance of closure now that one of his closest friends in life was gone.

Every night after that, the pain of her absence had increased to the point where he couldn't be anywhere near her room, knowing she would never again occupy it. They would never again spend a late night of quietly sharing stories about their past before sitting together to watch an old movie he had missed out on. The last one they saw being Schindler's List. The next one they would've seen but never having gotten around to watching was a favorite horror movie of hers she recommended called "The Witches". A movie she had once saw as a wayward girl from the Red Room.

That was how they spent their nights together in the five years they believed they had failed. Steadily, their relationship had begun to change. He felt it, she felt it too. The pull, the attraction-the undeniable trust they placed in each other that was born eight years ago when they were on the run from Hydra. The night before Scott had came back, they had come close to breaching that barrier that had been in place for so long. The line between friendship and romance. They were both battle-weary and wanted nothing more than fall back into blissful normalcy that had been denied to them for so long.

Tears trailed down his cheeks. Rather than hastily wipe em, Steve allowed them to flow. He had to grieve. He had to accept the fact she was gone and never coming back. "Natasha…" He spoke up to the moon, looking to the heavens where he believed all benevolent souls passed into. "Nat...Its tough without you here...Without you helping me to keep me on my feet." He sniffed, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Sometimes it feels impossible to believe this is how things are...how they'll always be. I thought I would be the one to go long before anyone else. Old man Rogers finally biting the bullet while the war goes on…I miss you, Nat."

He swallowed, feeling his chest constrict with pain that sent chills throughout his whole body. "More than you probably would've thought you deserved. But the truth is you deserve more than any of us. The universe owes you a debt it can never repay. Wherever you are...I just hope you're at peace...And that I'll keep on fighting for as long as I can. Because I know its what you would've wanted…"

The more he spoke, the more it felt like his words were becoming lodged in his throat. It got to the point he had to pause to collect himself. His disciplinary training as a captain kept him together to the point he avoided sobbing. But the cracks in his composure began to show as the tears dripped off his jaw. He breathed deep and released a shaky breath.

"There's more I want to tell you...More I should've told you while you were still here. It's become my biggest regret. One I'll have to live with...Until we see each other again." For a moment Steve felt the void in his chest grow even steeper the further he moved into delicate territory. The shortness of breath he was experiencing could've been explained as a mere overwhelming of emotions that he'd kept bottled for so long. But in truth, he knew it was because he was wrestling with his greater instinct to soldier-up and stow away such a compromising notion that made him feel like the small little guy too who was too nervous to speak to women.

The ache in his heart needed relief and the only way of doing that was to unburden the revelation he'd kept hidden for so long. Shedding a tear, Steve released a deep breath. "...I loved you, Natasha. I always did...I always will." He sniffed. "I guess it just took me too long to realize that living in the past was pushing me further away from having a future I wanted with you. Peggy Carter might have been my dream girl...but you were my best girl."

The imploding resonance of grievous-unendurable heartache grew into beckoning volumes that agonizingly intensified against a half-wake deadening that rapidly shunted an eruptive throb. Mistily, with the dregs of stowed reverence, Steve's teary azure irises blurred out the silvery cast of moonlight, harboring onto visceral desperation rigged through his veins, everything felt utterly defective against stemmed regret that he condemningly allowed to grapple him down. It hurt to breathe-to force himself to trudge onto a victory road without her. Like several ex-G.I's, the warranty of embracing the homefront again was a naive-reckless illusion; after returning from the battlefield, nothing was left to claim: not even a dance.

He wanted questions answered on the snowy crags of Vormir-if there was a grip of chance for Doctor Steven Strange to breach the celestial dimension and reserve those irretrievable 'five seconds' in the quantum realm with the archaic energy of the Time Stone. Maybe the interminable cost of getting her back was unforgivingly stacked up at high price; if he engaged another time heist mission, he would lose a good friend close to the heart by the bargaining extension of the soul-driven penance on the fringe of a cosmic elysian: blood was always payment. Fostering onto a razor-thinned visage of hope wasn't enough. He wouldn't let her become a phantom memory of guilt that he stowed in his threadbare sketchbooks. "You gotta shake it off, Rogers..."

Against the forested contrasts of near-darkness, with balletic-swanlike grace in her advancing prowess, a visceral breach of chaste feminine allure that enticingly became a sensuous-elemental force; a vixenish charade of weaponized to atomize a heartbeat-the sirenic arsenal of combative fusion-a Siberian cadence incarnate ardently echoing a wanton play of intimate challenge.

A cast of moonlight exposed the delicate suppleness of her vibrant pearlescent features that were hauntingly shadowed by the hooded Gothicesque cloak draped over the curvaceous of her svelte exquisite-honed body; disheveled length of her silken ombrécopper-platinum blonde tresses became distractingly evident as she paced closer to his adamant-isolated proximity with a ghosting semblance of tactical ease on casual accord. "I'm not surprised to find you like this, Rogers," A jaunty quip, cannily rasped with a huskier pitch, banteringly, watching as etched lines belied the plusher arch of his sensuous chiseled lips, raptly setting into a firmer grimace."You're really terrible at starting a new life..."

The chill Steve felt travel up his spine nearly had him shaking in his shoes as that familiar voice suddenly spoke to him. Could it be? No...it couldn't. He couldn't calm the racing of his heartbeat nor find it within himself to move in the seconds that followed. He could recall only one time he had become frozen in shock and that was the day he had discovered Bucky was alive and then known as the infamous Winter Soldier. Like on that day, Steve felt a combination of disbelief and dangerous hope. Slowly he turned to look towards the small pond at the edge of the compound where an ethereal cast of moonlight bathed the scenery with an incandescent glow.

What he saw was a lithe hooded shape walking towards him. The longer he stared with waking trepidation, it appeared more like she was gliding on the wind. She possessed the grace of a balletic swan. It was familiar and enchanting. His hope began to grow and so did his apprehension. "Nat?" He called when she was only a few feet in front of him. The memory of her the last time he saw her was so fresh he immediately recognized her signature Black Widow attire beneath the cloak and the stylish long braided ponytail that was a blend of coppery red with flecks of blonde at the bottom.

Her face, angelic and beautiful as he remembered. The shimmer of life reflecting off her teal eyes caused him to freeze in a state of awe and crumbling emotion. This couldn't be real. He had to have been dreaming. When he saw her nod to his call, Steve couldn't control his emotional uplift. He took two quick steps forward and embraced her close into a warm hug. "How is this possible?" He asked trying to keep his composure when he felt like breaking down into sobs.

For a compromised breach in that breath-stealing moment, nonplused shock impassively etched over the smooth broader planes of his hawkishly-set boyish features; traitorous anticipation carnally thrummed in her veins; she detected a viscerous agony deep-rooted in phantom volumes crescendoing in his heartbeat when she gazed into the banking penetrative embers of his oceanic azure irises rawly bleared against fevered wetness that dampened the fringe of his lashes.

His ironclad and unshakeable resistance that made his valorous battle-ready spirit legendary against titanic strife and barbarous carnage were irrevocably cleaved apart. Thanos had shaken him down when the celestial energy of the Infinity Gaunlet had reaped the unforgiving defecation of mortality over Wakanda's jungled battlegrounds, eradicating his teammates-Bucky into heaps of sifted atoms-erased from his reigning symphony of cosmic tyranny.

Five laters later, Steve couldn't dodge another fist-hammering blow to heart when Clint Barton returned from the quantum time bridge without Natasha ever-present at his side. Now, a splinter of hope was gleamingly alight in his vigilant aqueous depths in that suffusive wake of an addictive revelation—the intimate rush of their beckoning heat grew into a decadent-earthen fragrancy of minty vetiver and ambrosian cherry explosively detonating the urgent proximity of their passion-driven arousal. Feeling the bulkier-wide solidity of his tauten chest flex rigidly against the cushioning swells of her neoprene-clad breasts was the starving response of mortal vassalage that she unreservedly craved to slake."Nothing lasts forever up there... it's just harder to get back when you finally wake up on the edge ..." she murmured raspily, the silkier lushness of her quirking lips grazed fervidly over his wetted cheek in sensuous ministrations of intimate precision of ardent-incarnate heat. "It's like a fallback from eternity..."

Steve hung onto her every word as if they were something as precious as a long lost treasure. His thoughts painted a dire and grisly image of what she was describing on Vormir. Clint never went into much detail about the dark realm that served as the final resting place for his best friend. No one blamed him, nor did they press. Steve was a man who grew up believing that a divine power guided their lives and listened to their prayers in their moments of despair. Miracles were something to be mocked and seen as fairy tales in this day and age. But he never stopped believing that such things were possible, even if they occurred in the smallest measure.

But this...this was something beyond expectations. It felt too good to be true…

As he slowly withdrew from the hug, he didn't relinquish their proximity. He kept his hands on her small of her back; afraid that if he let her go she would vanish on the wind just as quickly as she had arrived. He searched her eyes and was drawn by breathtaking allure of their depth and emotion. It was tempered, guarded. "I missed you, Nat…I thought I'd never seen you again." he found himself saying with a pained swallow. "But Clint said there was no coming back from that. He said there was a Stone Keeper there that mentioned it." Slowly he guided her to sit down beside him on a bench. She kept her hood up as she stared into deep space. "Nat?"

A viperous ascension of deception had pulsed a birthing communion of rabid vengeance, predatorily her grayish-teal irises glinted with a tactile demand of ignitable ecstasy-he was carelessly disarmed and separated from his best friend-Bucky. With delicate ease, she lowered down beside him, shiveringly gliding her leather-sheathed palm over his roughened knuckles with answering-ephemeral- a contrast of feminine reverence-enough to increasingly distract his questioning resolve. "Let's just live in the moment, Rogers..." she imploringly rasped, watching his broader jaw evidently set into a reluctant clench-he wanted a harboring reality to believe in again. She had to play down the memory card- trusting variances of their grounded-tactical partnership. "Don't you trust me, Steve..." she breathily urged, waiting for him to breathlessly engage the amorous cadence of mirrored fusion.

It was a question that puzzled him in a moment in what should have remained joyous after months of unrelenting grief. He furrowed his brow and looked at her intensely. "Of course I do, Natasha. Its just...hard to believe you're back. We saved the universe because of what you did. But losing you...it hit all of us hard." He needed her to understand just how delicate things were. He could imagine how Clint and Bruce would handle her resurrection as it appeared. Steve took a moment to openly scrutinize her, wondering why something felt off about this whole thing. And then he realized, she was unblemished... almost as if she hadn't endured any kind of trauma recently...like falling to her death.

It was a superficial detail that shouldn't have bothered him. He tried to stow away the doubt creeping into him that things weren't amiss. That Natasha had come back to them-to him-by the will of some kind of divine intervention. "It hit me hard, Nat. If there was something I could've done-"

"I knew the extent price of getting that damn stone in our hands..." The apparitional force of expandable betrayal was counterpoised, as the possessive flexion of the cool, tentative delicateness of her lithe fingers controlled rigged tension, featherily delivering a stark tracery of faux promise that wouldn't detract the measured gravity of her strained confession. "I couldn't let Barton take the fall not when everything could be reversed..." She dragged her fingers in kneading tack over the taut-corded muscle of his leather sleeved forearm with seductive pressure that arrestingly coaxed his downcasted azure irises to stare at the voluminous curves of her readied lips. "I came back to care of unfinished business that I left here and maybe a dance..."

A flush of heat surged throughout Steve's body when he realized what she was saying. It carried with it a flood of memories that they shared over the years where they toed the line between friendship and something much more. Natasha had always been the teasing sort-flirtatious even in their more exhilarating moments in the field where they fought and danced in ballets of violence that made them work like a well-oiled machine. She had always been hesitant to explore something more serious between them, and he had been too consumed with the fight to seek her out. Could this be their second chance to explore what could've been?

The suspicion he felt had fled as he gazed into her eyes with a softness that spelled longing. "I always hoped you would ask." He said nothing else as he brought his hand across her cheek, testing the waters. She didn't recoil nor shy away from the contact but leaned into it. His heart hammered in his chest and he knew this was the right moment to confess his deepest feelings.

"Nat, I-" Before he could reveal the sum of his affections, he could feel her hands latching onto the hem of his shirt as she pulled him towards her, discarding any notion of tenderness and sentiment. She brushed her rosebud shaped lips onto his own and kissed him, firm and possessive, it shocked him into mind-screeching halt.

Sensing his reeling ease to break their evocative rhythm, grazingly with a painstaking drag of her teeth, raveningly Natasha caught the throbbing swell of his jutted underlip, awareness of his visceral surrender ratcheted against incendiary clashes of fusing heat as the bruising edge of the kiss-like a feverous rush of the burgeoning exchange that searingly branded over his bones, against shifting pressure of their rivalrous-mirrored sync that dizzyingly conceived naked-rapturous havoc of addictive ecstasy.

A throaty moan was hushedly deafened out into a breathless fever-pitch cadence of exquisite abandon, she urged him to chase the demanding tempo; captive in ardent surges of the heart- rampaging intensity fueled stoking deliverance, with no breath of hesitant release. Willingly against the sensuous reality of liquid-boneless heat; keeping his eyes closed, Steve felt his aching lips stretch flaringly wide under the angling crush of her deepening, lusher mouth in urgent-carnal- tenor beyond euphonic measure of restraint: nothing would be reined back.

Unhurriedly, answering his driving need, with virile tenderness invested in blinding motion, adoringly Steve rested the graven-edged curve of his flushed cheek against her jaw almost reverent as her head titled instinctively back and she ravenously supped feverish saltiness of his errant tears gliding over the plushier arch of kiss-swollen lips."Do you want this moment to last forever, Steve?" she murmured in a drag of breath, smokily through the headier depths of their sweltry recaptured kiss; feeling the corded heaviness of his muscled bulk growing revealingly tauter as her lithe palm splayed caressingly over the white material of his undershirt as skeins of verdigris energy incandescently fused into Dwarven sigils over resilient thickness of his enhanced flesh.

It was a blighting infection to curse-weaponize Midgardians into bestial extensions of Nidavellir; to chimerically become executing sentinels of the underworld (Hvergelmir). The celestial effusion railed graspingly through his veins with a soul-arresting unity of chastened throes-a vessel of astral resurrection to herald the rapine-merciless demoness of Asgard's merciless butchery-Hela. "Or just five seconds...?"

Breathlessness was one of the many things Steve was feeling. The taste of her kiss had left him reeling due to its tempting allure that made him want to fall deeper into their passion. But the calm part of his mind that wasn't fogged by emotion and desire, made him realize something about this was...off. He didn't know what he was expecting. The speed of things happening tonight was nearly overwhelming. Natasha was still alive, she wanted to take a dance with him after so many years of traipsing around the bush as friends.

Her words didn't sound like the Natasha he knew… It was then that a painful thought entered his mind and the hope he felt in his chest began to wilt as wariness took hold of him. He didn't push her away, a part of him still caught in the heat of the moment where he wanted to surrender to the latent feelings for her he'd kept bottled up for so long. For a moment he hesitated to indulge his doubt, but knew there was no turning back from it.

"Natasha…" He said to her with a serious voice, gazing into her unblinking teal eyes that looked oddly hypnotic. "What was the last thing you said to me before Vormir? Before…" He swallowed the lump in his throat, knowing her answer would prove or disprove his suspicions.

Reacting to his sonorous timbered drawl, Natasha felt the intimate gliding trace of his roughened fingers becoming tenser over the sleek length of her garbed forearm, capturing her pulse as echoes of infinite distrust tumultuously flashed guarded light of in the hawkish depth of his azure irises, as chiseled edges of his broad jaw set reservedly evident to patent tension warningly clashing against her revamped seductive beckoning like a careening blade-he saw underneath the fracturing charade. Lifting the delicate litheness of her palm up to his flushed cheek with an ardent-guileful contrast of tempered reverence; Natasha whispered in a husky undertone, devious rawness fringed breathy in her jaunty challenge, as hard, angular planes of his features jutted out furrily against morphic-bestial strain- a wolven extension of cosmic divergence. "Is that an honest question, Rogers, or are you just uncomfortable with this play of affection?"

It was an evasive tactic, Steve knew. A play on words to distract someone from their doubts in a delicate moment where something was being concealed. Something Natasha had once taught him. Rather than fall further into this spell of passion that so nearly had him consumed by latent feelings, Steve put his hands on her arms and gently forced her away from him. The look in his eyes was hard with suspicion. "I think you know me well enough to know what makes me uncomfortable...if you were the real Natasha." Saying those words hurt more than a punch to the head from Thanos. The unblinking accusation in his eyes threatened to spill angry tears in this moment of creeping realization.

"Now I'm gonna ask you one more time…" He said with a deep foreboding voice, full of authority as he rose up to his full height. "If you're really Natasha. Tell me what was the last thing you said to me!" His muscles coiled with increasing hostility as he watched her calm demeanor begin to shift into something much more nefarious.

A definite implosion of soldiery valiance clashed against her infectious wake; chimerical heat thievingly gleamed in her steel-gray irises that ravingly belied a incarnate promise of soul-cleaving vengeance that bled into a sardonic curve quirking over the voluminous swell of her lip, as she taunted, raspily. "You were always one step ahead on the battlefield, carousing as a pathetic warrior of mortal liberty, you and Sergent James Barnes ruined my fated desires of reigning over Midgard, preying on HYDRA ranks like a wolf, so I decided to come back here and chasten you into a brutal reality of my will, Captain..."

His worst fear of this situation was confirmed in a manner that left Steve both puzzled and furious. The spill of tears that flowed down his cheeks were quickly wiped away the moment he realized he was undoubtedly facing down a shape-shifting imposter that appeared familiar with him. His eyebrows furrowed into a glare of suspicion. "Who are you really? What do you have to do with me and Bucky?" He demanded. Not-Natasha rose to her feet and faced him down with a haughty malicious gaze. It was a dreadfully wrong thing to be seen on a face he recognized as a deceased friend he cared deeply about. The imposter didn't keep him waiting much longer as she fully discarded the pretense she used to lure him into a thrall of distraction, and she became engulfed in a coat of green magic. It was ominous and chilling. The dread Steve felt in his stomach increased ten-fold when Natasha was no longer standing in front of him but instead a dreadfully familiar blonde that was the cause of many horrors he'd witnessed during the Howling Commandos incursion into Amsterdam. "Doctor Annette Ziegler?"

Feigning rapt disgust at the dumbfounded mention of a utilized charade of a German architect of the Iron Cross science division ushered by Doctor Armin Zola's metastatic tantamount of surgically amputated out mortal vitality with morbific-inventive conjury of obsessively jabbing shunts of mutative serum-devolving young allied soldiers-the POW hostages in dormant visages of bloated-out creatures that were torturously fattened to become executed in sanguineous HYDRA ranks. "That mortal charade was an extension of my deception, I am called, Amora, dear Captain ..." The Asgardian sorcerous-Enchantress- bluntly fumed with envenomed malevolence fringing in her ceremonious tone. "I became rather bored with HYDRA's blighted appetite for tapping veins of immortality, such craven ways as expected when cosmic deliverance falls into their ill hands..."

In fluid unison of her arcing hands, serpentinely, Amora threaded her lithe fingers over tousled platinum-blonde whorls, conjuring up jade-spiked headgear that ethereally appeared on the delicate contours of her temples; the unmistakable Nordic sigil of -Yggdrasill- the cosmic tree celestial-nine gateways was etched in the center: viridian skeins became ghoulishly infused in the sleek-ashen pearlescence of her flesh, merging into veined gauntlets of red aster that sheathed over her wrists like intricate spider-webbing. The fine-bone curves of her exquisite seraphic features were darkly poised in a vitriolic cast of telltale wickedness, as her steel-gray irises grew steelily viperous with soul-lancing intensity.

"Such calamitous devices to wield an extension of Asgardian power..." Amora whispered, seethingly, mirroring the iced azureous depths of his slitting irises."Armin Zola would have ushered your precious Bucky Barnes into dormant oblivion of the cattle stocks if you haven't obstructed his conquest..."

Steve felt little surprise that another of his enemies from the past returned to haunt him in the present day. But the fact that the sadistic Doctor Ziegler was in fact secretly an Asgardian sorceress the whole time made him feel uneasy. It also explained how she was still alive and looking no older than the last time he'd seen her. After he and the Commandos had blown up her lab, they were certain she had died in the blast when she refused to be taken captive. The experiments she was performing for Hydra, using innocent civilians as test subjects to create hybrid monstrosities...All the horrors he had shuttered away from the war returned with full force. It also made him realize why she had targeted him...and Bucky.

"So that's what this is all about? Bucky and I blew away your hideous lab, so you come back and wear the face of my best friend to seduce me?" He couldn't keep the abject outrage from his voice. He knew it was naive to think an enemy of his wouldn't resort to such a tactic to get back at him, but it still filled with righteous fury that made him wish he'd brought his shield out here. "You insult her memory. Whatever it is you think you're doing here, its not gonna work."

Raveningly with a breathless snarl, Amora's imposing valence of her efficacious poise became searingly infective against his virile resiliency that clashingly resonated under heavy-corded bands of tauter planes sculpting his widened chest-the invincible-warring strength that would inexorably meld into layers of canine fur-a morphic fusion was being ushered by cacophonous variances of anarchic mantra, cuttingly shunting through his veins with ferocious-animalistic heat grippingly conceived by the predatory divergence-rebirth of her mutative onslaught.

"You valorous fool, I did not come here to revel with your departed lover's face..." Amora gritted lashingly in sadistic pitch, and viciously gestured a hand up with ghoulish ease as demonical vehemence possessively arrowed within her lithe fingers like an incendiary pulse of suffusive phosphorus white of a vaporous nova explosively flaring against her opened palm; sulfuric miasma reekingly wafted against the October gales.

Piercingly driving the unblinking depth of his crystalline azure irises glacially at the virescent-astral tendrils; with tactical-honed vigilance, Steve harnessed gladiatorial evades of his athletic-combative fluidity, tensely dragging his boot with registered traction in adrenalized fruition: he wasn't backing down. "I need a mortal vessel to deliver an eldritch reckoning of incarnate vengeance, and unfortunately dear Captain, your prevalent humanity will be stripped into feral throes once the moonlight beckons you to howl a bestial cadence of surrender..."

Knowing a hostile situation when he saw one. Steve's natural instinct kicked in as his hand reached his communicator in his ear. "Avengers, I got a breach in the northern quadrant of the compou-" A merciless blast of Asgardian magic hit him square across the chest before he could finish his transmission, sending Steve flying across the lawn where he lay splayed on his back. The rapid beating of his pulse could be heard above his strangled groan of pain. He felt as if his skin had been thrown across a bed of hot coals that were causing his flesh to burn and sting. The absence of his shield made him vulnerable and he was at the mercy of a vengeful driven Enchantress who approached him with a swagger in her steps.

"What's the matter, Captain, not enough bite?" Tauntingly with vampiric ease, Amora crouched down a breadth to indulgently gaze at the atrophied First Avenger; forcefully bracing his thrashing mass onto his leather-sleeved elbows with bruising pressure on rigid accord edged in his heavy, well-defined muscles shifting with burgeoning tenor, as the bulked solidity of his shoulders arched with jackknifing momentum off the ground against the spasmatic onslaught that he couldn't ride out.

Blearily against a nauseous rush, choking off a voiceless whimper; Steve felt a contractive throb of skull-cleaving flexion of his lengthening jawbone in a morphic—outstretched strain that was excruciatingly notching as the curves of his swelling ears grew bushily pointer under disheveled blonde tresses; his twined incisors were rapidly jutting out with canine length over his bloodied underlip. Snarlingly in heaving pants, he railed out deep-throated volumes of predatory assession- a menacing resonance of clamorous aggression. Dementedly, Amora tilted her chin up with an unhinged jerk, she lowered her palms at her curvaceous side, relishing in the converging-enslaved thralls of his wolven infancy. "Feel the celestial essence of fallen Asgard become your unremitting salvation..."

It was at that moment, Steve realized what she was planning to do to him. Memories of her cruel experiments weren't acts of twisted science but rather of dark magic. It was a lethal tool she used like a human would use a gun. Her aim was directed solely towards him and the words she spoke were the act of her pulling the trigger. The moment the last syllable rolled off her tongue, Steve felt dread and pain unlike anything he'd ever felt pour into his body. It wasn't the white-hot one associated with injury or death. This was something evil and unnatural entering him and twisting him from the inside out. The glow of her magic made him feel as if he were being dumped into a world of blinding green light that seared every natural thought and instinct within his body. The deafening roar in his ears caused him to shudder and wish he could hold his ears. His limbs were paralyzed as if something had siphoned off every bit of energy inside of his body and was now using it against him.

Amora's beautiful yet cruel face hovered above him, hands splayed out as her magic began its work of undoing his humanly body from surface to bone. The sight of the full-moon high above robbed his focus until he could only gaze at it as if he were being compelled. It wasn't until he felt the snap of his bones that he realized the roaring he heard in his ears was, in fact, his own humanly cries that were soon replaced by the howling of a creature of the night.

Within the backlit lounge, the rave-up assonance of partying had blaringly amplified in symphonious volume, keeping his appreciative distance in the lounge area that had been reconstructed into an ultra-modern bar with electric neon contrasting against a row of matte black leather stools, Bucky narrowingly downcasted a unwavering glance of his steel-aquamarine irises at a untouched platter of stacked peanut butter sandwiches that Wanda amply had prepared in honor of their fallen teammate-friend Natalia.

Gripping a chilled bottle of vodka with deft ease of his bionic clutch, he owed it to Steve to keep that cherishing memory of Tasha close to the vest-their dynamical variants of sniping combat were harmonically elemental: Natalia was the cunning foxy vixen who daringly cross the Siberian wolf's kill site of weaponized supremacy in the rivalrous cadency of their combative dynamic.

The sterilized ranks of Red Room Academy-the Widow markers- were compromised with the defective insurgence—verminous echoes of humanity that Natalia had rebelliously ignited, performing balletic graces of traitorous defiance. She was the black swan of stage light-an elite operative of seduction. 'My nikogda ne lomayemsya ...(We never break)' Sometimes off the grid extraction -ghost recon missions like in Odessa when Natalia had brazenly hot-wired of HYDRA mountain-terrain vehicle with a targeted nuclear engineer tampered with his battle-tested limits of restraint—comradely mercy in triggered crosshairs. He never delivered an executing kill-shot at her.

'Ty ne mozhesh' bezhat' vechno, malen'kiy pauk...(You can't run forever, little spider)'

He regrets that he never found the time to sit down with her and apologize for their many near-death encounters over the years that ended with him putting a bullet through her. He regrets he never apologized to Stark for taking away his parents, even if he knew to expect a repulsor beam through his heart rather than forgiveness. Too many crimes he didn't willfully commit but Bucky still felt the weight of their guilt.

Suddenly feeling somber, he took a swig of the margarita that Scott had prepared for him and let the soft punch of alcohol momentarily dull his nerves. It lasted too brief before his super-enhanced metabolism washed it out of his system and he was once again feeling stone-cold sober. His blue eyes wandered and took in the homely lounge area where many new friends and acquaintances were getting into the Halloween spirit.

Over by the well-stocked bar stood an enthusiastic Scott Lang preparing another round of drinks while bopping to an upbeat rock-song from a band he'd come to identify as "Queen". Sitting on the bar stool was a very imbibed but also equally exuberant Avenger that till now Bucky would have never assumed to be the Mighty Thor- the Norse god of thunder. Bucky never judged people based off their appearances but he had never imagined the famed Asgardian powerhouse to be so...jolly.

Having heard what the Asgardian had been through over the past few years, Bucky considered this a good sign of recovery after living through so much woe and loss that would've destroyed most people. Speaking of recovery, his stare now shifted over to the nearby couch close to him where he saw a relatively warm sight that put a smile on his face. '

Wanda sat at the back of the couch, wearing shorts and a tee with her hair tied into a ponytail. She seemed to be animatedly engaged with her phone as her fingers rapidly typed away a storm of text messages, ignoring the Halloween movie playing on the gigantic tv. Bucky knew the young Sokovian woman better after having spent time with her after Germany...and the Snap.

Needless to say, to see this kind of life being breathed back into her set him at ease in a way a big brother felt about their little sister coming out of depression. He knew a certain Sorcerer Supreme was to thank for this big turn around. "You know back in my day, when a girl smiled like that, it meant there was one lucky guy not far behind. I take it your friend, the wizard, will be stopping by soon?" He asked her with playful ease watching as a soft blush colored her cheeks.

Registering the suave timbre of his gravelly drawl croakily underlying nonchalant-Brooklyn- charm, in silent vigil, against warring attentiveness, Wanda quickly swiped the lock screen of her mobile phone to power-off; under silken auburn-burgundy tresses that stylishly draped over the delicate fineness of her shoulders; penetratingly her grayish-hazel irises roved at the lounge's bar, amethyst neon gleamed over Bucky's thatch of wolfish chestnut, his shapely lips broaden with a smirky quirk as he disarmingly gave her a sidelong glance, the crows-feet bracketing his temples evidently crinkled with brotherly sweetness alight that she wouldn't discard.

"We're nothing more than friends, Bucky..." she returned wistfully in raspy pitch, trying not to dredge up staved-patent heartbreak that she guardingly barricaded. Vision was more than an evolving synthetic android of vibranium that had been conceived by the plaguing extension of Ultron's binary coding nexus-he functioned with a human spirit-a heartbeat- until that intergalactic Mad Titian's crushing monstrous hand savagely extracted the Mind Stone out of his head, leaving only a gun-metal alloy husk on Wakanda's battleground.

After spending a few months at Clint Barton's farm, Wanda amply welcomed solitary peace, despite the immeasurable-constant heartache stowed to her love-Vision that she couldn't banish. Returning to Manhattan, Wanda tested grounds of relevance- sentiment, embracingly rediscovering her faith in the benevolence of humanity that once viewed her as a destructive mutated spawn of HYDRA; and how connective-kinetic- devices of Eldritch incantations could be wielded out of the chaotic Multiverse planes. It was like breathlessly composing an intimate symphonic capriccio of sorcerous energy with the mystical, snarky virtuoso-Steven Strange. He was preparing her to become a sentry of the astral gateway.

Feigning vulnerable tenderness suffusing the elfin contours of her waifish features, sheepishly, Wanda drew out a hitching breath, lowering his glass, Bucky attentively quirked up an eyebrow against dismal thinness of her accented voice."Doctor Strange helps me distract myself from what I feel every day when I know that Vis isn't coming back..."

Bucky nodded feeling the somber emotions coming from her that reminded him that "The Blip" didn't bring everyone back who suffered at the hands of Thanos. Though he didn't know the android Avenger, and his only encounter with him having been hostile, Bucky knew what Vision meant to the others, especially Wanda. "I didn't know Vision as well as you and the other Avengers, but from what I've heard, he cared about you a great deal, Wanda." He said with a compassionate look.

"And he probably would've come up with some logical explanation about why its good for you to be trying to move on." Bucky watched as Wanda listened to him intently, hanging onto his every word though he could see the ache in her eyes. "This Stephen Strange seems like a great guy. All I'm saying is, don't be afraid to look beyond friendship."

"You mean that you weren't afraid to look into Lina's eyes and tell her what you feel?" she asked knowingly, downcasting her gaze at her leather-sheathed hand, in the moment of breaching her guarded resolve, a tectonic pulse of astral crimson surged burningly through her veins- arcs of ignitable energy that was a chimeral divergence of sorcerous fusion ghosting twistily over her poised fingers as she incandescently melded vaporous skeins of morphic flares into an emotive silhouette of a feline over the bar top, a breadth from his robotic hand. "If I had a chance you like to embrace humanity again with someone who sees a heartbeat in stone, I wouldn't waste a moment, James..."

Bucky nodded appreciating the gravity of her statement. "Someone saw a heart beating inside a human terminator, fresh out of the ice. Nothing is impossible for people like us, Wanda. We just gotta know when to take that leap of faith and make a move." Inwardly, he hoped Steve would one day find the strength to move on after losing two women in his life before ever getting his chance to dance with them. Before Bucky could convey deeper words of sentiment and his experience with Wanda, they both hear FRIDAY chime in. "Attention Avengers: another guest as arrived at the foyer."

"Please tell me its the pizza man. My appetite can only handle so much candy in one night," Thor grumbled as he took a drink of something Scott finished preparing for him. Seconds later, the blonde's eyes widened and he downed the drink in one go, much to Scott's bafflement. "I like this drink. "A Bloody Mary", you called it, Friend Scott? The Lady Mary who invented this drink should be most proud." He sets the glass down in front of the pint-sized Avenger and grins. "Another!"

Bucky's attention shifts away from the scene at the bar and feels his blood-pressure rise when a familiar lavender perfume touches his senses, followed soon by the soft clicking of high-heeled boots entering the lounge. Wanda smirks at his comical expression frozen at the sight of one Maria Hill making her way towards them.

"Just routine check-in boys," The sternness of a feminine undertone of Agent Maria Hill edged distractingly within the backlit proximity of the crowded bar, the haloing strips of neon lighting delineated over the black kevlar of her tactical garb; she was a vigilant night hawk of global surveillance; resourcefully dexterous in stealth recon missions, and always 'riding shotgun' with ex-director Nick Fury. Her raven tinted brunette tresses were neatly fastened into a knotted chignon, not detracting the cool rigidness of her alabaster features that were hawkishly cut as she fluidly side-stepped over globs vodka-infused tomato juice messily shattered on the granite flooring. "Fury wants Cap on a jet to Berlin for hardware upgrades pronto..."

Her genuine presence was imperative within the Compound, briefing Steve with omega-level threats detected on the orbiting grid of Stark Industries satellite network, every contingency was operative with the cyber utility of AI tactical defensive system (E.D.I.T.H.) that was granted binary access to the Queen's web-slinger Peter Parker. Rebuilding an underground SHIELD base in downtown Berlin was a vital countermeasure that Agent Everette Ross had set into high gauge after the defection of the Accords. With a resurrected cabal of HYDRA spawning infectious extensions, the Avengers were issued the green-light protocol. Her reason for engaging a ceremonious audience with them was a faux charade of deception.

Keeping her distance grounded from the bar, her smoky-cerulean irises caught Bucky revealingly stiffening with leashed tension shadowily brandished over his stubbled-graven planes as the heaviness of his jaw tautly clenched, evident to whirring robotic sync of his cybernetic hand that intimidatingly flexed on defensive accord—he saw through her invidious semblance of deceptive contrast. "This is a high priority order, Barnes..." Maria addressed, tonelessly. "Stark left Cap an encrypted file that can't be discarded..."

"Cap is in no shape to be flying back into the field. Have you seen him, Hill? Has Fury?!" Bucky demanded heatedly. Wanda, Thor, and Scott looked at him, sensing his frustration and the tension that oozed off of him. He stares down Fury's henchwoman and shrugs disappointedly. Too many people thought of Cap as just as gun to aim and shoot back in the day. It was beginning to look like not much had changed. "If you put him back out there, you're just giving him another distraction to help stow away all the pain he hasn't dealt with yet. Sooner or later he has to face it. The longer he doesn't, its gonna take a toll." Bucky wouldn't admit it to anyone else, but he was worried about Steve's inability to find a life for himself away from the fight. If the fight was all he had, it would drive him over the edge eventually.

The intrusive decadence of her unslaked-vitriolic thirst of betrayingly fractured against her stoic reserve; with a subtle arch of her eyebrow, Maria's pale-rose lips half-quirked into a stretching grin as she leveled the steeliness of her unwavering gaze at him. Indulging on bloatedly divesting the hunky ruggedness of his boyish features into a wretched vessel of indolent -craven-pudginess was raveningly clamoring her stalled intent of ushering Hela's condemned spirit out of the bedrocks of Helheim. "Before you whip this at Fury, Barnes," she rebuffed in firmer pitch, bluntly. "You should know that the encrypted file is a contingency protocol that Stark designed if loose ends weren't cut on Vomir..."

That name inspired only dread in the stomachs of all those present. The place that Natasha Romanov paid the ultimate price so that the Avengers could succeed. Her final resting place. Thor suddenly appeared like he hit rock bottom along with Scott-both men instinctively reaching for another drink. Wanda's once cheerful look suddenly became a mosaic of remorseful expressions. Bucky was just glad Steve wasn't in here to be listening to his. His jaw tightened and he took a menacing step towards Hill.

"That's a road Steve doesn't need to go down. Especially now. You want to discuss contingencies? Tell Fury to ask his friend Danvers." Bucky said with a dismissive edge to his once cool tone. He didn't give it any thought as to why Hill's poker face showed the faintest hint of dark amusement nor why she didn't put up more a protest as he turned to take his leave. "It was good seeing you Hill. Give Fury my regards." Bucky turned and marched his way out of the lobby, determined more than anything to cool off. He might stop by the gym for a few minutes to work off some steam.

The stoking ferocity of his bridled aggression impelled in Bucky's storming momentum as he begrudgingly tried his damndest not to glance over his tensing shoulder—his glacial aquamarine irises searingly zeroed on her indifferent stance while he vanished into the upper level that would direct him to the training room; unaware that Hill uttered under breath, vilely."Enjoy wielding your mortal strength while you still can, James Barnes..." Shifting her waspish gaze at a bowl of overpriced chocolate bars displayed on the bartop, as she nauseatingly listened to the hearty resonance of the blubbered-gut Asgardian royal's jovial chuckle, Hill curved her lips into a poised sneer, driving the conniving intensity of her gray-cerulean irises snidely at Thor Odinson's hoggish-revolting stash. "Once you revel in a bite, all of you foolish Misgardians will become worthless hostages of my will incarnate ..."

Her magic poured permeated the building like an invisible pestilence ready ravage everyone in its way; seeping into the very molecules of the sugary treats the humans...and Asgardians indulged in by handfuls.

If a certain thunderer weren't so intoxicated by an alluring mixture of alcohol and candy, he would have felt the magical rift in the very close proximity. Instead, Thor finished his cup and frowned at the growling in his stomach. By the Norns, where was that pizza man? He was beginning to consider taking Stormbreaker and flying to the parlor itself to pick up their dinner. Should the parlor face an electrical outage in his current mood, he would not be held to blame. Grumpily, Thor reached towards the candy bowl and picked up a snickers bar. He bit into the chocolate covered peanuts with a sour look. On the couch, Wanda lazily shoved a caramel bite into her mouth while reading from her phone.

Both Avengers grimaced at the bitter aftertaste the candy left, oblivious to the wicked smile forming across Hill's lips as she made her way out of the foyer. "Happy Halloween, Avengers." It wasn't until minutes later that a disgruntled Thor felt a painful pull against his skull as his ears began extending. Wanda suddenly doubled over and groaned. Scott meanwhile had become too imbibed from so many cocktails that he was snoring softly on the bartop.

Within a darkened spacious quarter of the Avenger's Compound, as blissful drowsiness overrode her, Selina intimidatingly registered the bulked heftiness of graven corded muscle-the virile contrast of intimate heat bodily suffusing a feverish onslaught through her veins, Selina clashingly felt the robotic shifting of his alloy bionic arm heavily spooning over the suppleness of her velvet sheathed curves in reverent tenor of naked accord; mechanized coolness of his bracketing palm featherily traced a distractive-hypnotic pressure, delivering a sensuous voltage over the sleekness of her pearlescent flesh.

In that ardent -mirrored stillness of being cushioned by gladiator-honed solidity that melded against her, a vixenish quirk ghosted kittenishly over her pillowy-full lips as a throated resonance of masculine snoring deafened against her ear, the unkempt length of his chestnut tresses wolfishly caressed a ticklish glide over her freckled shoulder-beckoning a novel relevance of need flaringly become orchestral in a riotous volume of their heartbeats, as she blindingly dragged her lithe hand from underneath the curved pillow in alarming reaction to nauseous dampness infused with chocolatey peanut butter reekingly wafting over the matted ravel of sheets. "Urgh-" she moaned in a threaded breath, raspily, scrunching her nose against the intrusive stench. "Buck...Don't tell me you were midnight snacking on Thor's free grabs again..."

A soft resonating chuckle crawled up her skin that left her feeling flushed with heat. "Its Halloween, kitten. Can't hold that against me." Bucky playfully ran his hands up her side, watching as she nearly recoiled on contact and casting him an unamused look. Right. She's ticklish, and kittens don't like to be tickled. His mood may have been somber only a half-hour ago after his chat with Steve, and then frustrated after chewing out Hill. But once he caught whiff of that blood-rushing scent of lavender coming from his room and he felt as if the weight of the world had been relieved from his shoulders.

And now he here found her, still fully dressed wearing tight jeans, black heeled boots and a leather jacket. Her travel bags were left near the wall. She had just gotten in if he were guessing. One look at his bright smiling features, accentuated by the crow-feet at his temples, was enough to show how much her being here meant to him.

"Didn't think you'd be back here in time. Everything go alright in Venice?" He asked, knowing she had been chasing some valuable excavated find before it wound up on the black market.

"The job would have been more thrilling if you came, handsome, but I did leave on an explosive note..." she rasped, purringly, evident to a devious glint naughtily melding in her coffee irises half-smudged with kohl mascara that made her appear untouchable like an Italianesque Botticelli siren against the shadowy contrast of their room; a galvanic pulse-careening them into addictive drags of evocative tension. The urgent heat of their aligning bodies was bakingly surging a denotive rush of incendiary possession as her lithe finger shiveringly traced a phantom brush of chaste—feminine demand over the dimpled cleft of his stubbled chin; bracing muscled flesh of his forearm into the cave-in softness of the mattress, quirkily, Bucky answered her wanton invitation as he edged his shapely-wide lips in a breathless thrust over the exquisite curve of her jaw in unhinged abandon. "Just a few tankers docked in the wrong place for a matchstick throw..."

"There's always a next time," Bucky murmured, planting a soft kiss against her collarbone while his skilled hands began to slowly peel off her jacket. "And believe me, I don't plan on staying behind. I really missed you." The dramatic onslaught of this night had filled him put him on-edge and right now there was nothing he wanted more than to immerse himself in the passion of this unexpected reunion. For weeks he'd worried about Selina, having wished he could've gone with her to chase her next thrill. But he had opted to stay for his best-friend who needed him. But now she was back.

And as his lips began a tentative exploration of her neck up to her jaw, he never felt more invigorated-he felt alive. Meeting her eyes, she smiled into them again, playful and coy but with obvious desire as he hand traced her cheek and his thumb brushed her lips. "You can't imagine how much."

"Well don't keep me guessing, Barnes..." she coaxed, huskily, as the cool pressure of his bionic-vibrainum fingers metallically gentled in kneaded sync, as his palm slowly cradled over the delicate edge of her jaw with reined heat-a starving accord that became mirrored in beckoning pulse of invested reverence over the decadent plushness of her silkier underlip—a tempered caress of his gliding thumb stealingly graced feathery chasteness that enticingly melded a sensual reckoning of amorous-liquid fusion."Careful or I might feel guilty..."

Under the flit of her lashes, as his chestnut tresses shaggily ghosted her flushed cheeks, Selina caught the smokiness of his grayish-aquamarine irises mesmerically gleam as shadowy heat eclipsed over the hard-angles of his roguishly chiseled features as the gaping stretch of his bruising lips headily throbbed cherishing precision of wet heat delivering an errant sheen in the wake of breathless need-the silvery light of his heavy-lidded gaze smolderingly razored with electrifying heat, alight with echoes of visceral urgency."S'just feel me, darlin'..." The murmurous timbre of his Brooklyn drawl scorchingly trapped between the fine silkiness of her alabaster skin. It was a nameless craving that wouldn't quench, holding them mindlessly captive as the desirous thrall of reality began to kickstart their passion-driven ignition.

In a blinding thrust of his bristled jaw of bestial variance, he branded an open-mouth kiss hungrily on her shoulder, against rampant demand that propelled them onto the ignitable fringe of glorious-painstaking ecstasy. Sinking bonelessly into the mattress, through crushing pressure of virile ferocity, devouringly stretching her recaptured mouth wide, Selina felt his coaxing readiness of urgent challenge as she lithely twined her arms over the bunching corded planes of his muscled back, anchoring herself in a succession of coupling moans that were intensifying as they edged deeper into aphrodisiac mania of soul-devasting havoc—a crescendoing duel of abandoned supremacy of their untamed odyssey.

There was no more room for words as they fell into a crescendo of heady passion. Bucky's mind had reverted to its primal instincts that demanded attention. His lips trailed a wet path up her neck until finally, he captured her full wide lips. Hot, empowering, energetic. There was no chasteness involved here as their lips became locked in a firm but amorous dance. The taste of mint and strawberries slipped past his lips and onto his tongue. Bucky felt burning heat encompass him as his hands cupped Selina's face and coaxed her in, deepening their flavorful interlock that was punctuated with deep breaths and noises of pleasure. He could feel her meeting his pace, her pale white digits raking through his hair with one hand slipping into the collar of his shirt. They briefly parted for breath, their intense gazes locked and spelling more than words could. Selina ditched her jacket and Bucky began to make short work of his shirt.

They needed each other. But what neither could have anticipated nor hear was chaotic noises coming from the lobby of the compound. Bucky felt a tingle of unease and discomfort move through him, even as their kissing resumed.

Shatteringly against the rushing tempest of irresistible white-heat that arced through her in a contractive intensity as she dizzily clung the surging-fevered pressure of his angeled lips with a crushing thrust -a rapturous command of stoking hotness; a blood rush careened them onto the intoxicating fringe of mind-wiping voltage that explosively ratcheted them into heart-thundering oblivion.

Each moaning cadence of stolen breath was roughly threaded as Bucky hungrily ravaged his kiss-bruised lips deeper into her plushier mouth as the arrowing glide of their noses crushed in mirrored—tempestuous accord. Lolling her head against the wedge of pillows under tousled wavelets of mahogany, achingly on her own violation, Selina widened her lips as he demandingly tugged with addictive—breathtaking rhythm—driving them into an eruptive release of intimate havoc.

With an incredulous flex of her drifting ministrations over the bracketed ridges that hunkily edged over tauter-defined curves -washboard V-ridges of his sculpted abdomen fringed by the black Armini of his unbuttoned shirt, Selina felt a heavier layer of jutting pudginess was ballooningly registered in clangorous fruition of banked alarm-a mutative tracery of globby flab saggingly fused over the virile litheness of his braced hipbones as he vertiginously arched his back on his cybertronic forearm against a knifing strain of his throbbing gums. Starkly in unwarranted reaction, with blank intensity deadened in her coffee irises, she watched Bucky's nose chubbily scrunched in a waggish rapt-twitch as chestnut skeins of fur morphically deforming his fleshed hand."J-James look at your hand..."

Bucky didn't understand what she meant until he got one long look at his hand and fell into a confused stupor. Whatever it was he was expecting, it wasn't the alarming sight of his hand becoming encompassed by patches of thick itchy fur. "What the hell is this?" He shook his hand repeatedly, thinking for a second he had some kind of furball stuck to him, but his range of motion felt restricted-heavy. He felt as if he were carrying layers of heavy clothes and his skin was sagging. His confusion grew to panic when he saw that the fur wasn't just covering his hand, but also spreading rapidly across his body-his fat body... "Selina, get back!" Bucky yelled as she reached out to touch him. He stumbled backwards, his mass causing him to lose traction and fall off the edge of the bed, pulling the sheets with him. The repugnant taste of spoiled chocolate traveling up his throat until he felt like vomiting it all up. The part of his mind that hadn't succumbed to hysteria was running through a list of possibilities about what he was experiencing. The only conclusion was magic. Something or someone was doing this to him!

"Lina...Arghh..." Gnashing his teeth against convulsive pressure of his lengthening incisors that disturbingly morphed protrusions of bucked curves that bone-splittingly intensified against jutting pulses of an infective-bestial extension as he sulkily dragged a pinching graze, treks of blood slicked over his stubbled chin.

Wrenching his reared head crushingly back in thrashing blur of his grungy wolfish tresses against the mattress; the knife-edge cut of his graven- thickening cheekbones flabbily melded into rubbery-plumpish chubbiness—a bulbous pudge expanding horrifyingly furrier. Grimacingly with dredged up resilence, his thrusting bionic clutch desperately gripped onto the drape of sheets in mechanized variance as his throated groans excruciatingly coupled against raw-edged panic as his bulkier mass exponentially dwarfed underneath the curtaining sheet.

"T-This can't be happenin'..." Bucky railed out, chokingly as the pukey rancidity of peanuts and chocolate became vaporous reek against quivery breaths, his sensuous-wide lips furrily hung agape on devolving accord-nothing could be warded off. "Grahh..." Onrushes of neasous heat were rackingly amplified in his veins as Selina's dark pupils owlishly widened, paralyzingly evident to a breathless gasp as the droopy length of his outstretched ears were became floppily swatched with patches of brunette fur: bunny ears.

It all happened so quickly, but it still felt like a long drawn out torture as if his body was being unmade from the inside out. His mass decreased giving him the feeling some unseen force was sucking the life out of his body. His skin was prickling with discomfort that never seemed to abate but grow stronger. He itched, he felt hot and trapped in the sheets he was wrapped that for some reason were twice as large as they were a few minutes ago. "W-What's goin' on?!" The more confused he became, the more his anxiety began to creep up to the point he was convinced he had to be dreaming all of this. His voice sounded high-pitched, almost chipmunk like. His movements were wild and imprecise as if his traction had been lost along with all feeling of his body.

When he finally tore through the sheets, he released a loud cry and inhaled as if he were suffocating. His attempt to jump away from his trappings sent him bouncing across the room where he landed with a crash against a night-stand. "Ow!" He yelled, having hit his...dewclaw, against the wood. The strange sight along with the realization that he was looking at his own foot trapped him in a thought-maze that made the room spin and his vision to blur. He could distinctly hear Selina calling out to him.

"J-James..." Shudderingly in her panicked utterance, Selina feigned jack-off desperation resonating through her veins; in an unwarrantable tenor, she reeled back against the draped wad of sheets with deadened momentum-a bone-racking shunt of penetrative numbness, propelling her back apparitional drift of resurrected-paralyzing heartache when the genocidal cosmic Titan snapped the Infinity Gauntlet on the forested grounds of Wakanda, the scything astral energy tectonically purged souls in a reaping wake of chimerical eternity; that apocalyptic reality had devastatingly stolen her sniper wolf-Bucky into a celestial realm—she wouldn't lose him again.

Tearily, harnessing controlled deftness of her lithe hand, she lifted up a discarded piece of torn denim while bracing herself with instinctive-visceral poise, Selina unblinkingly gazed at the doughy pudge of dark chestnut fur thrashingly wobbling in clumsy-tactless succession evident to a boyish cadence of throated squeak adorably emitted from the floppy-eared lop's tinier muzzle—she wouldn't abandon him, not when he was delectably precious to hold in her shielding embrace—a little furry cutie.

Bracing her palm in a heart-driving reaction to deter his frantic hopping, Selina tellingly felt the damp velvetiness of his pudgy form bodily collide against her wrist-he was nakedly captive in throes of banking-neasous distress with no avail. "Easy ..." she rasped in coaxing pitch, tentatively sweeping her thump over the droopy length of his flitting ear as the Brooklyn lop rapidly panted out spastic hitches of choked breath-she needed to pacify him down a contractive pulse fatally breached his tiny heart.

Suppressing back a terse breath against roisterous emotion, painstakingly Selina kneaded a chaste glide over his tensing back, as his glacial aquamarine irises smokily betrayed his impassive stubbornness."Hey, Cute boy..." The melodic snarkiness of her undertone gently anchored him back to her open-unwavering reach, as she innately recognized a deceptive aura sinisterly breaching within the Compound; Bucky was definitely targeted in vengeful crosshairs of serpentine—infectious conjury. She needed to get him out of the room. "You're snug with me, remember..."

Bucky would be the first to admit he was in a full-fledged panic the moment he realized what had just happened to him, and worst it wasn't a nightmare. He was a small, fat ball of pudgy fur that couldn't control his mounting hysteria that saw him in a world that was much larger and more frightening than he could have imagined. Was this what it was like for Scott? Would he be able to turn back? Could anyone human understand him? What if someone decided to hunt him for breakfast? What if-what if-. He couldn't control the rapid beating of his heart that made him falter and sway. He felt close to passing out until he felt a surprisingly gentle touch rub warm circles across his furry back. That...That felt pretty good.

He felt his teeth clatter together and his hind foot thump involuntarily. That's when he remembered he wasn't alone. "I remember, darlin'." He murmured, leaning his head against her palm. "Can't believe what's happening. How did this happen to me? We gotta to ask the others. Find out what's-"

"Argh...!" Roaringly a masculine utterance blasted against the door in feral pitch, as rotund fluff-ball of shaggier golden-blonde fur-the leonine Asgardian heir of Odin's throne bunglingly hammer-pounded batter ramming force of his tinier fore-paws; driving all pent-up momentum with indignant brazenness fueling his reckless intrusion.

Defensively, in tactless poise, attuned to the Asgardian's rash intentness, feigning a tenser scowl, Bucky hopped on the pillow with stunted agility, dragging his floppy ears as he beadily glowered aggressive heat melding in his aquamarine irises down at the fuzzier-tubby lop; Thor rebelliously wobbled in doltish pace a breadth near the unwelcomed bedside."Friend Barnes, so you're hopping around in small form as well..." He grumped humorously, his voltaic- cerulean depths became smugly alight evident to his quirking muzzle, as he dodged the edgy chestnut lop's stink-eyed glare. "This isn't the worst magic of the Nine Realms can throw at us...I have fair hope we'll probably change back."

"Thor?" Bucky snorted, torn between amusement and anxiety as the situation dawned on him. If he wasn't the only one to have been turned into an animal, there had to be a threat nearby. "What the hell has happened to us? One minute I have poseable thumbs, then next I have floppy ears!" Bouncing on the sheets he comes beside Selina and looks at her quizzically. "You don't feel sick or anything do ya, Lina? Whatever this is, it had to be-" That's when Bucky saw Thor trying to bite through the wrapper of an uneaten candy bar that had fallen off the nightstand. "Its the candy."

Steeling her incredulous gaze narrowingly at the Reeses' wrapper Thor was piggishly gnawing against the orgasmic-debauched wake of unslaked hunger, unassailably Selina detected an ephemeral inducement of aromatized conjury meltingly seeped within the gooey peanut butter caking underneath the lardaceous, stubbier lop's bloated-out girth. "It was that damn Halloween stash..." she breathed, threadily, as Bucky's downcast grayish-sapphire flitted stiltedly down at emptied wrappers. "Someone decided to play a sick game of Trick or Treat with the candy..."

"No...It's not the candy I had recently..." Thor grumbled with indignant pitch, sottishly, licking off a gooey remnant of peanut butter, his furred girth bulbously flexed against the wake of his gorging-piggish indulgence as Bucky vexatiously gnarred in huffish cadence, readily lasering his steel-aquamarine depths to an untouched pillow on the mattress's edge with unrelentingly precision to shove it down. Slobbily chewing on the orange wrapper, the burly golden lop nonchalantly gestured a stubbed fore-paw to the opened door that he vigorously busted through. "I recognize this furry conjury from Asgard...It's someone having a bit of fun," An evident gleam of unbridled mirth naughtily grew alight in his beady cobalt irises as a jovial grunt stuntedly deterred Bucky's hopping-breakneck momentum. "This will be a good challenge for us..."

"A challenge?" Bucky couldn't contain himself as he lundarted off the mattress, onto the pillow then onto the floor in front of Thor. "Well, I'm glad you're taking this all in stride, Simba. But turning into a bunny wasn't at the top of my fun-list. Hair-dye in my shampoo? Ants in my sheets? Shaving cream on my pillow? That's a prank! Not being turned into a tubby rabbit." He ranted, though Thor just continued to lick at the candy crumbs on his mouth with a blank if not bored look which served to only agitate Bucky all the more. "Give me a name, Thor. Who could have done this to us-"

That was when they all heard a crash coming from downstairs followed by intensive shouting. Not a moment sooner, Bucky and Thor were hopping their way down the corridor with an exasperated Selina up ahead of them. What they found downstairs in the lobby was a bewildering sight that none of them could have anticipated.

"You! You're Bucky's girlfriend, right?! Can you tell him to get down here! There's a super-powered rabbit going ape-s***, and I don't have my suit!" Scott cried from behind his fortified position behind the bar-counter. Across the no-longer immaculate lounge, a tiny scarlet red force of nature was bouncing off every piece of furniture in a mad panic. Scott ducks as a wave of kinetic energy slams against the counter, shattering shot-glasses and sending fruit and alcohol spilling all over him. "Where did everyone go?!" Scott yelled.

Harnessing a balletic variance of agility, in whipcrack reaction, explosively Selina vaulted over the bartop, as her dark irises unblinkingly watched a svelte weasel-like form of vibrant copper frantically scamper over a barricade of lounge cushions, in a panic-crazed onslaught. Pulsing scarlet veins of kinetic energy deafeningly cannoned the brunette-furred lop-Bucky- off the granite floor in the hostile wake of destructive crimson salvos ethereally arcing over them; Scott hastily squatted down into a back catchers stance, and effortlessly caught the propelling rotund—stunned pudge-ball in his opened palms without stumbling traction. Giving him a curt smirk for his daring attempt of heroics, Selina demanded in urgent pitch, breathlessly. "Get their furry asses out of here and find Rogers..." She drove her intense gaze back at the lanky- Slovakian mink distressingly shimming through a cushioned space near an upturn coffee table, emitting pained squeaks."I need to calm Wands down before the whole place drops on us..."

"No! Selina, its too dangerous!" Bucky cried out, as he slips through Scott's hands and tries to bounce towards her. He was suddenly enveloped into massive arms and was brought against that Scott's chest, and that ridiculous Halloween shirt he still wore. "Let go of me, Scott!" Bucky practically growled against the now bewildered Avenger who suddenly looked frozen in comical shock.

"Bucky?" Scott looked at him funnily. "Either I had too many vodka's or you have some kind of shape-shifting superpower you didn't tell us about. Or was I the only one that didn't know?" He rambled. Another wave of kinetic energy slammed against the wall. Scott ducked behind the counter still holding Bucky. To his befuddlement, there was another furry lop now squatting over a pile of spilled cucumbers and was digging in with a startling appetite. "Who is this?!" He wasn't sure how he found himself suddenly surrounded by destructive rabbits, but Scott knew something unnatural had hit the compound and it all happened while he was asleep.

"Damn it, Lang. Let me go! She needs help!" Bucky argued.

"She can handle herself better than you can right now, Bugs."

An incendiary pulse of telestic scarlet fierily imploded with cacophonous tremors, strobing demonic energy hellishly striated over granite flooring, cleaving elevated pieces furniture, dauntingly branching over the bartop with unstable-denotative rabidness of incanted-possessive mantra of Noric utterance. "Dårer, du hindrer kreftene mine ...(Fools you dare to obstruct my power...)"

Against the lancing force of merging tentacles; electrifyingly in a blurring rush of acrobatic graces fueling the detonative momentum of her stoking adrenaline, Selina lithely pounced off the counter in a blood-raiding variance of combative precision, bracing her palms over the floor with balletic accord as she grounded effortlessly in mid-crouch on the sleekness of her toned haunches. "L-Lang get them out of here...Now!" In a bone-whipping jerk, viciously she reared her head up, as mahogany tresses unkemptly draped over her tensing shoulders, and roved the knifing intensity of her coffee irises at chestnut lop thrashing aggressively in the muscled lankiness of Scott's cradling arms, she gritted snappishly."Or I'll enjoy locking your tiny ass in a Gotham safe that isn't uncrackable..."

Scott looked suddenly pale with fright at the thought which ironically caused Bucky to look at him smugly. "She's one kitten you don't want on your bad-side. Trust me, Lang. She'd eat ants for breakfast if push-comes to shove." Bucky chortled.

Propelling the vixenish svelteness of her rodent form, clashingly Wanda bounded onto the cushion in defensive ease as she motionlessly crouched on her tinier hind-paws, rampantly aware that soul-morphing convergence of a heralding-deistic unity in the astral—Élivágar gateways were on the butcherous fringe of a chimeric—damnable resurrection of the vampiric Asgardian demoness—the rapacious, massacring blight of the Nine Realms: Hela.

Uttering a high-pitch squeak, the lasering incandescence of the mutative- telekinetic aura that was haloing galvanically over her silken auburn fur in sorcerous—fissionable contrast as her irises beadily gleamed with surging crimson that melded reddishly into voltaic heat as she witchily twirled a clawed-paw in psionic sync, manically seizing a discarded shard from a vodka glass with a possessive command. "Y-You will not touch me..." she warned squeakily in raw cadence, conducting the serrated piece with throat-gouging trajectory, berserkly aiming the unhinged flares in the exposed direction of where Scott was strenuously hefting up the chubbiest of the ensorcelled lop bunnies. "Stay away..."

The assailing direness of the moment felt suicidally pernicious to engage, steeling herself with tentative ease that belied a hijacking reluctance of vestigial-cunning urgency, as she remained in mid-crouch, Selina unwaveringly edged on her bare arches a breadth closer to Wanda; readily in deft measure of caution, she reached out her lithe hand with a dynamical beckoning of sisterlike trust, coaxingly as she flexed her swift palm open for the distressed mink to protective curl into."Cool it down, Wands," she rasped breathily, as Wanda sveltely nuzzled her tinier muzzle over the delicate suppleness of her braced wrist. "You're in safe hands..."

"That's enough excitement for us tonight!" Scott did what seemed to be reasonably the best option in terms of self-preservation and that of the little furballs in his grip, and that was to high-tail it out the glass doors and into the outdoors. Inside the noises of uncontrolled devastation continue to shake the walls of the compound and send tremors through the ground. Scott didn't make it a few steps outside before the dark-furred lop that he had come to identify as Little Buck, slipped out of his grip, raced up his arm and bounced off his shoulder. "Hey, wait! Where you going?!" The rabbit didn't stop as he raced onwards. "Where the hell is he going?"

He looked at the remaining blonde fuzzball that was nonchalantly scarfing down a small carrot. "Where does all that go?!" He wondered aloud. "Unless you wish to find out, I suggest you put me down, Friend Scott." The bunny spoke with a deep majestic timbre that was familiar. The words had the intended effect as he immediately dropped the blonde lop on a side bench.

"Steve?! Steve where are you?!" Bucky called desperately, bouncing off his feet towards the area he had only spoken to his friend an hour ago. "Oh no…" What he found was an all too familiar sight. One that he left behind inside his bedroom only minutes ago. Steve's empty clothes lay tattered on the ground, but even more, alarming were the tears in the fabric indicating some kind of wild animal attack... "Not you too, Steve... This is bad."

Laggingly enforcing warrior-honed ferocity in his wobbling paces, chubbily Thor bounced near the impassive-despondent Brooklyn lop's side, an errant tracery of heated wetness feverishly dampened velvetiness of Bucky's chestnut fur-heartbreak was devastatingly grappling him onto a condemned fringe into soul-materializing oblivion. As a floppy ear lifted in reaction to hiccuping squeaks that were boyishly whisper-soft, with a measure of vicarious grace, Thor dragged the rotundity of his plumpish mass a hairbreadth closer the buck-tooth sniper.

"We need to find the caped Wizard..." He urged broodily, as his beady cerulean depths roved over Asgardian sigils that were hauntingly etched in the dirt by typhonic witchery that infectiously branded the earthen plane- a diseased incantation that he remembered Hela branded in his father's throne room-Válaskjálf-when she used the Eternal Flame to resurrect the ghoulish-skeletal cavalcade of entombed warriors of Asgard's victorious battles under Odin's reign. Angered, he thumped a forepaw down with bone-crushing momentum "I swear by the grace of Odin, we'll get our friend Steven back..." he avowed, thunderingly. "Trust my rage, Barnes..."

Thor's strength and courage had always been a guiding force for the Avengers in their most dire conflicts. Bucky had only fought beside him on a few occasions since the Endgame, but he knew he didn't make promises lightly. Neither did he. He promised Steve he would always look out for him. No matter what. Till the end of the line, he would always have his back. Turning around he sees, to his relief, Selina coming to meet, gently cradling a mink enchantingly adorned with burgundy- auburn fur in her arms. "Whoever took Steve is gonna learn the hard way what a kid from Brooklyn can do. If they push, we'll punch. And when we do, they won't be getting back up."

Against the putrescent stench of carious flesh reekingly enwreathed over him, groggily emitting a throated resonance, listlessly he felt anchored the subduing heftiness of erosive chains of Dwarven iron forged on Nidavellir; chiaroscuro glyphs of basalt firelight veined into obsidian stalactites that were fused within a cavernous -sepulchral labyrinth as demonical pulses became an orchestral mania that screechingly caromed throughout the fiery chasmal void of the Nine Realms: Muspelheim.

Shifting his bulkier wolven mass in deadened ease, consciously against feverish drowsiness, Steve dragged a fore-paw over gutted-out skulls that were ghoulishly deformed by the scorching cascades of bone-charring magma smelting over jutted crags behind a monolith throne. He was shackled on the edge of a galactic inferno, his blonde-golden fur bristlingly tensed against the phantasmatic contrast of unslaked malice that felt soul-stealingly penetrative. The nectareous-intoxicating decadence of cherry fugitively ghosted over the shagginess of his disheveled fur- a seductive conquest that was heart-ravaging to evade. That phantom—ambrosial scent of the lusciously voluminous lips of his best girl wasn't real-just a noxious apparition of execrable deception. He was downplayed for a lovesick-naive fool.

"Hragh...W-Where am I-" he rasped growlingly in panty breaths, as the vigilant intensity of his azureous irises hawkishly flashed over tenebrous environs that sulphurously converged with draconic heat. On instinctive accord, ferally his long canine muzzle scrunched as his curved incisor fangs barred at the intrusive second, he registered the poisonous—maniacal wickedness of the Asgardian Enchantress—Amora. 'This can't be good, Rogers...'

"I am glad you see you have awakened from slumber, dear Captain..." The malefic raspiness of an invidious cadence doomily slithered over his smoky-blonde fur in possessive scourge against his evident vigilance; sitting haughtily in regal poise with a jade-crafted goblet embellished with twined Noric serpents clutched in the litheness of her covetous fingers, in vexed tenor, Amora grudgingly detected the prevalent variants of his warring, battle-tested resistance. The grayish steeliness of her irises manically glinted with ophidian intensity, as she nastily gestured a blatant hand over fiery skeins pulsing in obstructive columns of volcanic bedrock."Welcome to the forsaken realm of Muspelheim, where you remain my shackled hound as your precious Midgardian home descends into the reaping wake of Hela's glorious carnage. ..." she raved out, euphorically. "You will serve as my wolven executioner as Thor's pitiful blood will herald my reckoning..."

Steve could only glare at her with wolfish animosity spurred by a chilling thought. "What did you do?" He had believed that Annette...Amora's vendetta only had to do with him and Bucky given her history. But the mention of Thor brought a new list of questions that he knew wouldn't be answered. The hellacious landscape that surrounded him boggled his mind but the only thing he could feel was apprehension for his friends back home. "What did you do?!" He raised his voice, the noise greeting him was a wolfish bark that sent vibrations through his whole body.

Against snarling resonance predatorily straining up his throat, in breathy pants, the chained dire wolf menacingly angled his long canine muzzle with racked defiance brandished over tauter-graven edges hawkishly delineated the roguish virility of his golden-blonde fur; the lucent azureous heat of his slitting irises piercingly echoed with the invincible resurgence of his bestial vitality was untamed as feral volumes surrenderingly amplified with an orchestral dirge of cacophonic-unquenchable vengeance. Fierce tension aggressively rode over the bulkier heaviness of his canine form, raggedly Steve barred his incisor fangs in jutting traction. "Answer me...!" he snarled in deep-throated cadence, gratingly. "M' not gonna ask again..."

Malefically, Amora tilted her goblet etched with Asgardian sigils of Níðhöggr-the serpent of the Hvergelmir- down with a virulent flex, painstakingly conveying the stygian rabidity of her possessive-ravening thirst. With the calamitous-apocalyptic devastation of Asgard -the Eternal Flame that conducted ghoulish resurrections of Einherjar warriors needed to become ignited again for Hela's ascension of murderous-conquering warpath. Her new leashed pet would become a harbinger of noxious strife-by her slaughterous command the unbeatable paragon of liberty-victorious champion of mortal hope would soon morph into a wolven dreadnought of Hela's bloodthirsty ranks. "It is a simple answer, my valiant Captain, I've entombed your humanity to serve as my Nidavellir vargr (wolf) of execution on wretched Midgardian ground when dark twilight is heralded ..."

"That won't happen." Steve said with a defiant growl. His stalwart defiance had manifested into anger; not just because of what Amora had done to him but because of what he knew she had done to his friends and fellow Avengers. She was on a warpath that began with him and would end with every life standing in her way. "Whatever you have planned is gonna fail. It took just me and Bucky to stop you back in the day. There are more of us now than you can handle, magic or not." A certain Sorcerer Supreme had come to his thoughts and Steve could only hope that Strange was on top of things back home.

His defiance earned him a dark scowl on the face of the sorceress who drummed her fingers on her armrest impatiently. Steve opened his mouth to say more when he was suddenly struck by an unseen force that wrapped bruising pressure on his throat and every bone in his body. A canine yelp came from his throat. He struggled and watched as tendrils of green sorcery poured from Enchantress' fingertips and made their way towards him.

"You know I could have your warrior strength abandon you, Captain," Amora hissed, sneeringly, the possessive arcs of virescent-morbific- energy raked bone-gripping ministrations over the bracketed muscle of his arching back; the passive coolness of his azure wolvish irises silvered ferally with a deadened clash of phantom resistance—every hypnotic pulse of the Enchantress's assaultive mantra draggingly became a stuporous cadence—exponentially amplifying with a soul-arresting inducement as her gauntleted wrist flexed raveningly in commanding succession. "You will embrace the incarnate powers of Vanaheim or I will take vast pleasure of making you submit into a disgraceful runtish whelp ..."

Steve couldn't bite back a retort of any kind. The unnatural sickening feeling that entered his body made him feel as if he was being drawn and quartered within. As if every bone, nerve and molecule was being split and reshaped into something ruinous. A strangled groan growl escaped his latched throat. His paws dug into the dusty surface beneath him as the whips of magic wrapped around him, digging into his fur covered flesh and exerting Amora's will over him. Dimly he was aware of the feeling of growing bigger, stronger...angrier. The roars of hellfire that made up Muspelheim were silenced by the beating of his own pulse that had sounded like war-drums. He arched and howled causing the fires to roar and a billow of flames to escape with his breath.

His mind was being broken until he felt himself being dragged away into a dark cage. All that was left was the honed instincts of a soldier now coupled with the malice of a deadly beast.

A kriger

That was his name. And all Midgard would know to fear him and revere the name of Amora the Enchantress.

177A Bleecker Street...

After crossing through dead zone environs of Washington Square Park, poised on her razor-edge stiletto-heeled boots on a traffic gridlock, vehemently with a measure practical ease, Selina roved collective intensity of her brandy irises, undeviatingly the length of her black Valentino long coat exquisitely contrasted over her curvaceous litheness as she errantly shivered against the drafty Eastern gales; Selina roved collective intensity of her brandy irises, undeviatingly over a Victorian-Gothic three-story brownstone edifice of the destined-occultic proximity-a harbor point of refuge; the Baroque- Romanesque pipe-iron oculus melded over glass to resemble the Eye of Agamotto in the center buildings' Mansard roof. A dimensional valance of the Dark Verse pulsed infectiously with the caliginous energy of a demonic scourage of astral implosions throughout Manhatten.

With the instinctive reaction of a pulse-arresting earshot against the whooshing obstruction of congested traffic, as iron-straight mahogany tresses stingingly whiplashed over the kittenish fineness of her elfin features, rigidly, Selina gripped the cloth handle of a duffle bag that she thievishly swiped from a fenced basketball court when a group of teenagers from Harlem-projects were competitively distracted shooting hoops. With a devious variance of cool nonchalance, she didn't react to the continuous thumping of racking vibrations in restless unison-definitely the Asgardian chub-ball- against tense bones of her delicate wrist.

'Let me guess he's a Sherlock fan...' A derisive quip of snarkiness fringed in her breathy undertone, in succession of her feline-honed momentum, she vanishingly sauntered over the crosswalk with brazen precision in fervent tempo, involuntarily, until she reached the extension of steps unmistakably inscribed with Tiberian Eldritch sigils-the deceptive passage of the Sanctum Santorum. "This better be the place..."

Stephen Strange quietly sipped on his chamomile tea while silently pouring over an ancient tome he'd borrowed from the Kamar-Taj library. He made a mental note to bring donuts next time as to not incite Wong's prickly reception. The last several months had been exhausting on him ever since he was revived from death after being dead for a little over 5 years. He hadn't aged but he'd missed out on a lot. From Christine's promotion to Chief of Surgery to an uprise of interdimensional conquerors trying to attack Earth when it was learned the Sorcerer Supreme was no longer defending this reality. To think there was a time when he thought being overworked meant signing forms all night.

But now something else loomed on the horizon. It was only last night that one of his magical alarms had been triggered and he was alerted to the possibility that Earth was once again getting an unwelcome visitor. It was Asgardian in origin and it was located near the Avengers' compound. He had assumed it was Thor or a friend of his to arrive so close to Avenger territory, but now he wasn't so sure. That's what led him to seek out Wong and this tome on known Asgardian sorcerers and witches who might still be out there.

It was close to 3pm when he heard a knock at his door. Firm, insistent, commanding attention. He wasn't expecting company. If it were Wanda she would've texted or called beforehand. The knocking resumed, louder than the first time. Stephen shrugged as he rose to his feet and made his way towards the foyer. His loyal companion floated and wrapped itself around his shoulders. "Don't get excited, its probably just a UPS delivery boy." Stephen unlocked the door and was confused by the familiar yet unlikely face to be standing on his door step.

"You're Selina Kyle. Barnes' girlfriend. I assume this isn't a social call?" He asked pointedly. He wasn't listed, so that meant he had to stop giving out his address to superheroes and their significant others.

"I make it my hobby to find places I'm not invited too," A deviant play challengingly quirked over her full-bow lips, as she huskily purred, easing down the hefty duffle bag atop of a black-ochre table where untouchable imperial Qiang spearheads adorned; detecting tension stacking between them, distractingly she braced the sleek planes of her garbed back against the wooden edge, keeping her gloved palm readily flexed on her sidearm 9mm Glock-if he needed effective motivation- if the angles of the game were rigged.

The generous exception of heart-on-sleeve charity was overrated-nothing was ever free to gain, she refused to become an expendable player of the sorcerous-chess-play of vengeful theatrics. "Look, I'm obviously not here for you boys to give me a tour ..." she quipped, briskly, dragging her teeth over the pillowy swell of her underlip, while evading the smug-face, virtuosic maestro of the Eldritch arts scabrous glower of grayish-azure that melded like quicksilver of draconic heat. The hawkish-cut maturity of his suave features brusquely conveyed a rapt of pretentious indignance of his mock-serious demeanor, as the high collar of his scarlet cloak flapped annoyingly over his goateed-jaw. "Someone had fixed a game of sorcerous interest..." she gritted out, stingingly, drawing back a terse breath. "The Compound playhouse was attacked, I'm guessing you already got that call...?"

"I suspected. When I talked to Wanda last night, she said everything was fine." He said now feeling apprehensive to have his theory confirmed. And to add to his anxiety, he hadn't heard from Wanda since. A short tense silence followed as he just stared into Selina's eyes, feeling like he was back in the ER about to digest some unfortunate news. "How bad was it? Is Wanda all right?" He asked.

Narrowing her dark irises fleetingly down at the zipped duffle bag, against reactive impedance, fostering guarded poise, Selina lithely glided her palm with deft ministrations of pacifying tenor nakedly over the pudgy masses thumping crankily in telltale urgency for breathing space; a plaguing hailstorm of apparitional-prosaic-conjury was surgically excising out humanity into verminous-disposable strays. Composedly against knifing onrushes of vein-shunting heartache, decisively Selina utilized an impassive charade-blood was already on her name-her rigged tolerance- love for Bucky- was measured on a hair-trigger in the crossfire of damnable reality. Tugging at the zipper with painstaking flexion, she rasped in a flintier undertone. "I can't really answer that..." She paused to bait out a breath, shakily. "They're not...Human anymore..."

Stephen once prided himself on his intelligence and ability to adapt to new conforms, but despite all that he'd seen and been through he had a hard to accept what he was being told. "You're really not kidding me, are you?" One look in Selina's eyes told him this wasn't some kind of rib and she hadn't come all the way here to waste his time. He noticed the sports bag she brought was an odd choice of luggage for an elegantly dressed woman to be carrying around. And then he saw the small vibrations shake within its interior, and understanding dawned on him. "Show me."

Registering genuine urgency in his cavalier timbre, haphazardly, Selina reached inside the stuffed bag on a tracery of visceral accord driven in phantom rush of ardent reverence hinged in her caressing tenderness, the cool leather of her gloved fingers kneaded chaste pressure over velveteen silkiness of chestnut fur, as the sugary amora of grease-fried doughnut wafted up a blubbering, lumpish golden mass noisily munching on a glazed piece to quash long-starved hunger that exponentially aromatizing him into gluttonous dregs.

Reeling back on defensive traction stubbily of his floppy paws, in scathing reaction, the boyishly rotund lop-Bucky- pinched his tinier muzzle, distressingly hitching out a throaty squeak of as he aggressively conveyed rapt disgust over Thor being a boisterous party-crasher within his snug proximity. "Yeah...I know it wasn't a smooth ride, handsome," Selina rasped coolly, sliding her palm with assuaged delicacy under the doughier pudginess of the droopy-eared Brooklyn lop's girth, securing him temperately in the cradling embrace of her sleeved arms as he unabashedly nuzzled echoes of reined affection with his twitching muzzle adorably while cushily pillowing himself against her forearm-achingly vulnerable. "This furry charm-boy right here is... Bucky."

"Strange." The chestnut furred lop sat on his hind feet and stared up at the sorcerer with an animated expression that no ordinary bunny could make. Quick as it was, he was soon captivated by how immaculate and spacious the interior decor of the house was. It was quaint more than it was spartan and it resonated with his older sense of style. "Wish we could've met under better circumstances. Nice place you got here. I hear you serve drinks with unlimited refills."

Seeing a talking bunny was something Strange hadn't anticipated but after fighting alongside a talking raccoon, he wasn't the least bit surprised. He was however curious. "Is that so? And who would've told you about that, Mr. Barnes?" He asked with an inkling of suspicion.

"Hold on, Wizard...I'll be right out." A hearty cadence of a masculine timbre boorishly arrested Strange's perturbed gaze, as the bulgy leonine bunny clumsily hopped out of the duffle bag in a tactless high-bounce, the floppy drag of his lengthy ears slashingly bashed against the bronze neolithic-dynasty arrowheads. 'Oomph-' Each detached shard clangorously raining down on the reddish-auburn mink who skittishly lurched back on careening traction with her stubbed paws as Selina kept her gloved palm unerringly bolstered on the wooden edge, not wavering her grip. Emitting a thunderous gnarl, flabbily, Thor wobbled a breadth closer to Strange, in a clunky pace, as the scarlet cloak- lashed up obstructing his sluggish momentum, ignoring Bucky as chestnut lop puckishly quirked his scrunched-up muzzle, toothily jutting out his buck-teeth-almost sweet-rollin' the moment. "Don't start with me, Wizard, as you can see I'm having a really bad day..."

"Thor, knock it off, man..." Bucky shrugged feeling his patience wearing thin after being trapped inside of a duffle bag for nearly an hour with the fussy Asgardian lop.

"Thor, huh? Your visits to my home are becoming a weird habit, Mr. Odinson. But at least your new form should make you a more manageable guest." Despite his initial dread over the situation, Stephen couldn't help but feel himself smirk ever slightly at the sight of what could only be described as a lion-bunny of blonde fur wrinkling his nose at him with distaste.

"Yes...It's good for a laugh. Wizard..." Thor grumbled under breath, tetchily, as the razored heat of his cerulean depths were stormily intensifying while he gazed at Strange's chiseled-sculpted lips obstinately quirking into a contemptuous grin, tellingly playing off his smug deviousness that belied nonplussed annoyance. Furrily, with a twitch his pudgy muzzle, Thor eased on his stubby hind-paws, reining down a headlong momentum to propel his ferocity into Strange's trimmed-goatee jaw."Honestly, this form isn't the worst I've been changed into...Being turned into a frog wielding my hammer, that was a good challenge..."

"Good to see you're taking this seriously, Thor." Bucky resisted the urge to give the Asgardian lop a whack with his hindfoot. His cavalier attitude to their predicament was nothing if not annoying but it also made Bucky realize if being turned into a frog was the least of Thor's worries, he didn't want to know what could've been worse for them in this instance. "But we guys from Brooklyn don't like being in a tight spot we can't punch our way out of." Whoever did this was playing games with them and it made him wonder if a certain Trickster wasn't as dead as Thor believed him to be. "You sure your brother isn't the one behind this?"

Against grievous echoes that despairingly he stowed back, in a drag of telltale reserve, Thor lamented, his floppy ears draped over his fore-paws as his furry head eased down, naked gleams of straying tears dampened his shaggier fur, as he choked-off a breath, merciless apparitions of Thanos's skull-crushing hand, the vicing pressure of sacrificial deliverance-salvation- that he felt when the cosmic energy of the Power Stone veined in his flesh as stacked corpses of massacred Asgardians-became lifeless silhouettes of utmost failure in a nightmarish reality where knells of victory became silenced. "As I told my adventurous friend, Sweet Rabbit, I watched that genocidal maniac crush his neck..." Unthinkingly, he swiped a forepaw over his muzzle, sniffily. "Sometimes I wish for him to return..."

"Right...sorry." Bucky felt remorse almost immediately for bringing up the mention of Loki. Despite the Trickster's villainous exploits, Thor had watched him die and there was no disputing what he had seen. But it still begged the question of who was responsible for their predicament. Strange who had silently watched this banter unfold was suddenly stricken by the sight of a mahogany-scarlet colored mink climbing out of the bag. It was female, small but carrying a powerful aura that felt all too familiar as he felt his heartbeat slow to a stop.

"Wanda...?"

As smooth gruffiness of his austere timbre sonorously breached her tinier ears, slinkily, the dwarfish auburn-burgundy mink pounced out of the bag with undeterred momentum, reddish kinetic skeins haloed a gravitic pulse over the arrowheads, squeaking in a low pitch, quiveringly in urgent accord, Wanda brushed the lanky svelteness of her enchanted form against Strange's rigid forearm-the morphic overture that chastened her into cursive throes was an extent of unnamable vergence.

"I-I know what's coming..." Wanda chirped in squeaky pitch, evidently flexing her lithe paws as she telekinetically constructed a crimson Eldritch tendril into three-ring Asgardian sigil. "It's a power I never felt before..." Her jeweled beady irises mirrored the hawkish allure of Strange's grayish-azure depths, urgently. "We can't protect ourselves like this...Death is coming."

Whatever shock and sorrow Stephen had been feeling by Wanda's transformation was dispelled as he listened to the urgency in her voice that begged for attention. His dear witch was attuned to certain frequencies in their reality that even he hadn't tapped into. Her mind was augmented, giving her clairvoyance that was invaluable to the Avengers but it was also a waking curse to her depending on what she'd see. And whatever it was she saw had caused alarm to set into the room. With great tenderness, Strange scoops her into his arms and begins rubbing soothing circles into her back. His cape wraps around his shoulder as if to blanket her comfortably.

"Let's talk in my study," Strange says. With a poof, they had all transported to a different room within the house. Bucky groaned loudly at the feeling of hard pudgy mass landing almost fully on top of him.

"Aauugh! What was that?" He groaned trying to shove whoever landed on top of him.

A vertiginous rush arrested her pulse as in a breathless gasp, rampantly Selina felt the sleek contours of her garbed back collide numbingly against a baroque-style bookshelf; as Tibertian journals and manuscripts precariously barraged down with avalanche-like force. "Next time warn a girl..." she rasped, bitingly, papers messily slashed over her mahogany tresses as she reactively surged her arm up with a lighting-fast jerk of her thieving precision, fluidly clutching a book while she pushed explosively the alarmed floppy-eared bunnies under a wing-back chair with shoving urgency invested in her balletic-honed graces of as more books disturbingly rained onto the wooden flooring.

With echoes of tactical athleticism rioting his wobbling prowess, against the feverish onslaught of dizziness, Bucky joltingly bounced onto the Victorian upholstered chair; his heartbeat frantically accelerated. "Hey, you need to distract them fast, Tricks..." Selina pressed, scratchily, gazing at her sniper-lop crouched paralyzingly low on his pudgy girth, "These little fuzzballs can't take the heat of distress."

"Right. Where are my manners?" Stephen only then realized what Selina meant and was quick to pick off a fruit and veg bowl he kept and had it set on the floor in front of the two distressed bunnies. The sight of fresh produce caused their bellies to rumble and their hysteria to ebb before they pounced, consumed by their primal instincts, to sate their hunger. Strange gently set Wanda down on a sofa cushion, caressing her head. "I need to know everything that happened last night. Every point of view if it helps." Strange said, shifting back into focus as he faced Selina. "Were there any other Avengers affected by this attack?"

Registering his concise deep-timbered undertone skeptically teeming with valid interest, as glacial steeliness of his piercing irises arrested her reluctant pulse, infuriatingly Strange had breached her vehement charade as the draconic intensity edged within his unwavering glower, felt like a scalpel, dissecting her feminine resilience- calling her bluff.

Curvily, Selina caught the lavish swell of her plushier underlip kittenishly with a painstaking drag of her teeth as she purred, breathily, flashing a gaze down at the chestnut lop gnawed messily on a carrot. "Look, everything happened fast when Bucky got his downsized makeover..." she rebuffed, trenchantly "I'm not sure if Rogers was playing frisbee toss on the grounds..."

"Steve vanished." Bucky cut in after wafting down a sizeable piece of carrot. His nose wrinkled as he tried to shut away the tempting smell of vegetables that somehow had the appealing smell of a mouth-watering steak to him. Thor meanwhile continued to shamelessly devour an apple all the way down to its core, blissfully ignorant of the conversation. "He was outside the compound. Couldn't have been more than an hour before the three of us were turned. When we went outside after, we couldn't find him. All we found was those symbols in the ground that Thor leaves behind each time he decides to make his flashy exits." Bunny shot a glare at the blonde who merely chewed while looking at him with a bored expression.

"And the candy you ate, that's what triggered all this?" Strange asked, thoughtful.

"I only had a couple pieces. Thor probably had enough to fill a classroom of kids." Bucky grumbled.

Stephen glanced at the quiet mink on the sofa and watched as she bobbed her head at him to affirm his theory. "So we're dealing with an Asgardian who by all accounts, had a bone to pick with a few of you."

"What makes you say that?" Bucky wondered confusingly.

"Only a few of you were turned. Not Ms. Kyle, not Lang. Rogers is missing; either taken captive or lost somewhere on the property that none of you have located. Anything you'd care to add to this discussion, Thor?" Strange asked with a hint of annoyance as the blonde bunny began making a mess of food on the floor.

Grimacingly as he waged against irrepressible throes of voracious hunger racked through his veins, Thor hefted up his beefier mass strenuously and hopped onto the vacant cushioned wing-back armchair; recognizing that the expense of his Aseir vitality-the blood of Odin was measured on the sword's edge of prevalent-unsated vengeance. He remembered armored cavalcades of his father's Einherjar soldiers being diseasedly enwreathed by viridescent-phantasmic salvos of conjuring infective mantras, grippingly morphing them into verminous rodents-it was butchering wake conducted by a traitorous-mephitical siren: the Enchantress.

"I know of whom you speak of, Wizard..." he countered, gruffly, with hinged temperance, he recalled Odin condemning her to Gjöll-the ice river that bridged souls from the living realm."My father called her the Enchantress of Vanaheim, a deceptive maiden who had tried many times to ravage Asgard when I easily dismissed her affection..." he snorted, heartily. "Clearly I was the best choice...on Asgard."

"Well that explains why she would be after you, but what do Steve and I have to do with her? Or Wanda for the matter," Bucky pointed out. Unrequited love was a dangerous thing that made human beings react with bitter feelings of jealousy, even violence. Add magic and gods to the mix and things would take an explosively weird turn.

"Maybe our mystery guest has been around longer than we would've thought, Mr. Barnes." Strange said as he shifted through the pages on the book he had been reading before his guests arrived. "I've learned of a few Asgardians who've lived among us humans for a long time, and some made their presence felt more vividly than others." He at last found a page he had just read earlier. "Amora." Lifting the book up, he holds it open for Bucky and Thor to look at. "Ring any bells?"

Bucky felt an inkling of dread the longer he stared at the drawn portrait, feeling as if he had seen that face before. A breathtaking blonde beauty with cold eyes that made her look nothing but cruel. The tome was old, the ink of the illustrations however were crisp and clear that they painted a vivid picture in his mind of a face that haunted him during the war. He flinched at the piercing feeling of a migraine in his head that came with the memory of green nails digging into his neck, ready to snap him like a twig. He could feel Selina's hand on his back, and it was only then he realized he had been trembling.

A soul-quaking blankness owlishly widened his grayish-aquamarine irises as Bucky mortifyingly felt bone-chilled surges of paralytic heat immobilizing him with possessive contrast; floppily his lengthy ears drooped over his quaking fore-paws as he became vomitously smothered by an implosion of soul-racking distress. "No...Can't be her..."

Panting out heavy drags of breath, the chestnut lop's furred muzzle gapingly stretched wide in a pulse-razed tempo of a voiceless squeak, while Strange underlyingly feigned a deadpanned countenance. The bestial strength of Bucky's gladiatorial invincibility-the predatory-resurrected entity of the Winter Soldier was thumpingly materializing in anguished fruition of jackhammering ferocity of unstabled heartbeat-he was edging into fatal shock. "Bucky..." Thready, Selina urged in fevered-pitch, kneading the litheness of her fingers over his dampen velvet-like fur, the coaxing pressure of her chaste ministrations soothingly delivered a tenor of hushed grace-reverence. "Settle down, handsome..."

"Yes, why don't we all settle down..." The brawny Asgardian lop challenged, huffishly, steering his cerulean irises wanderingly towards an oak Elizabethan side-table where a plate of chocolate-dipped biscotti remained untouched by his cantankerously scrunched-nose rival-James; bouncily hopping off the chair in thunderous—headlong speed, Thor bounded closer to his sugary revels, only to be deterred by slashing whoosh of Strange's flitting cloak as the scarlet-auburn mink impishly writhed the svelteness of her lanky form sneakily around the table's curved leg, snagging a piece with her delicate-fanged muzzle. "Put that down, Wanda..." he demanded, boomingly, thumping his fore-paw down. "It's already been claimed..."

As Wanda and Thor began chasing the same dessert, it took a minute for Bucky to feel his pulse slowing into a downward spiral once Strange had set the book aside. He had been confused at first why he felt as if he were on a rollercoaster going close to a 100mph. But he was reminded that his new body didn't have the nerve-wracking endurance that came from a peaked superhuman soldier.

"Take deep breaths, Mr. Barnes." Strange said, easily falling back into his old profession of managing patients. Once he was certain the brunette lop was calm enough to proceed, the sorcerer leaned back against his desk with his arms crossed. "I'm guessing that's a familiar face to you?"

"Ziegler. She was a Hydra crony in Amsterdam. I'd never seen evil in a woman till I met her." He shuddered, remembering the pit of withered bodies he, Cap and the Commandos had discovered outside of her lair. Human beings; men, women and even some teenage children.

"She killed over a 100 people in her lab of horrors, turning them into freak experiments that Skull would use against us. Innocent people. They were used as lab-rats and then discarded like trash. She almost killed me and Cap if Peggy Carter hadn't rigged the place to blow. We all thought she died in the blast..."

Evicting a retraction of unwarrantable heartache, composedly, as the amber sconces of lamplight flitted entrancingly over the ivory-white pearlescent of her elfish features, Selina adoringly traced her feathery caresses with heart-driven promise. As she caught the flexing rapt of his soul-careening distress; each gentled—intimate drag of her fingers headily bunched the rubbery suppleness of Bucky's adorable—downsized form under the angle of her ghosting palm, tantalizingly invested with cool stillness; the chestnut lop mirrored her tentative-ardent rhythm, drowsily nuzzling his furrier head against her leather sleeve as she anchored him back into a tamed vigil.

"Okay, Tricks," Selina whispered in a breathy undertone, sultrily, while the Eldritch neurosurgeon's lapis-azure irises strikingly narrowed with clinical intensity at the exquisite precision of Selina's hand gracing a contrast of tactile heat gingerly over jutted swelling of Bucky's rotund girth, as he pudgily shifted in her tensing arms."Obviously we need to crash this Asgardian witch's resurrection party and drive her ass back into the ground ..."

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen, Lina," The brunette short-round lop drawled in a boyish timbre, slurringly in throatier pitch; keeping his tucked hind-paws unwaveringly braced on her cradling sleeved forearm with visceral-arrestive fervency; involuntarily Bucky pinched his twitching muzzle waggishly, the denotive reality—hope of being freed out of the soul-condemning dregs of the Enchantress's morphous curse was irrevocably rigged on a powder-keg. He wouldn't allow his kitten to become a furred-mutative extension of Asgardian bewitchery- a disposable vermin like him. Fostering onto his warred stubbornness, Bucky grazed his pudgier muzzle over her palm with an urgent rush, murmuring against a heavy drag of breath. "I've already lost my good looks, can't let that witch take you...If I gotta stay like this to keep you safe, hell, Lina, it's definitely worth it..."

"As heartwarming as your selfless act would be Mr. Barnes, it would be in vain if the threat of Enchantress goes unchecked. Her master is someone not to be reckoned with, as Thor would tell you if he could think any further than his stomach right now." Stephen said with a dry look as he watched the fat blonde ball of fur who had climbed into the fruit basket and struggled to right his posture. Wanda meanwhile snacked on her treat with the same elegance he found to be endearing in her human form. He couldn't let her stay like this. His personal stake was the same as Selina Kyle's who was determined to restore her lover to his true form. "And there is Captain Rogers to consider." He reminded the lop whose ears drooped even further.

"Steve…Damn it. Who knows what she's done to him. Isn't there anything you can do, Doc, for me and Thor? We can't just sit on our furry a*** and do nothing!" As much as Bucky dreaded the thought of seeing Ziegler...Enchantress again, he knew they collectively stood a better chance if he and Thor were back in true-form.

"Asgardian magic has its own unique set of laws that are different from the ones I practice. As much as I pride myself on my intellect, it's still not something I have mastered. I could very well turn you both into roaches if I tried tampering with it. Our only solution is to either force Enchantress to undo her spell, or find another Asgardian who can." Strange calls his cloak to his shoulders and runs a loving hand across the back mink's head. "Stay safe, Wands." With a quick circular gesture of his hands, the sorcerer opens a rift and through it falls Wong who lands on his backside with a startled yell. His eyes immediately land on Strange and he puffs up with outrage.

"Stephen if you-"

"I need you to babysit." Strange cut in tersely, confusing the librarian who looked around at the surrounding company. "Well, actually, its bunny-sit. Ms. Kyle and I have business to see to."

A cataclysmal twilight of being conducted out of the Dark Verse; the astral gateway that Eldritch sling-ring fierily scythed the airwaves near a cluttered bookcase, exponentially Selina was on the invisible doorstep of a concussive pandemonium-a butcherous warzone of soul-plaguing chaos. With tactical ease against the vitreous pulse of mystic conjury, she readily clutched her brandished Glock; she glanced down at her adorably tenacious sniper-lop and dazzlingly flashed him a coquettish smirk as he roguishly scrunched his tinier nose.

"Play nice, handsome," she wheedled, snarkily, as baldheaded Master of the Mystic Arts stood near the bookcase of shelved Noric literature-maps- with unflappable-studious decorum etched over the jowelly pudginess of his Asian features, Wong tellingly stowed a passive measure of rapport with his grouchier diligence of allowing a thievingly evasive siren of Gotham invade his isolated library-sanctum."Try not to get caught by grumpy Kung-fu panda over there..."

"Keep her safe, Strange." Bucky urged the sorcerer who had by now placated an irritated Wong into doing what he asked. Strange gives Bucky a simple nod though he wasn't at all comfortable with the act of leaving a highly destructive and oafish bunny to have free-reign over the sanctum even with supervision.

"Not that she needs it, but I will." Strange offered. He had a hunch on where to begin their search for the Enchantress. With Asgard gone, it was likely she was occupying another of its realms while using one of the branched gateways to slip into Earth. Without the power of the Bifrost, there were eight possible entry-points into Midgard by which she could enter. He just hoped Selina Kyle knew her limits when it came to dealing with magical foes. "Shall we?" He says to her as the rift opens and on the opposite end could be seen a green field in daylight with an ancient fortress looming in the background.

Bucky holds Selina gaze as she gives one last look. To say he was worried was an understatement. But the strength and coyness in her eyes reassured him. His kitten knew what she was doing. And there was not a force in the universe that should underestimate her skills. She followed Strange through the portal as it lingered open, almost temptingly. Bucky wished it would close faster before he did something he might reger-

"Hey, wizard! You forgot to refill the basket!" Thor boomed. Faster than Wong and even Bucky could comprehend, the fat blonde rabbit raced and hopped towards the portal at top-speed.

"Thor, wait!" Bucky yelled. His feet were carrying him across the floor as Wong made stop him. The librarian crashed into the floor just as the rift closed behind the two lops.

"Idiot." Wong groaned, both at Strange's ineptitude for leaving doors open and for his own surprising inability to catch two bunnies. He only hoped the third one wasn't nearly as destruc-

A vase on the table suddenly exploded with red hex energy. A very sheepish looking Wanda looked at him innocently. This was going to be a long day.

"D-Doctor..." A gnarling breath chokingly rasped against his canine incisors; Steve angled his long muzzle to grip onto the animate scarlet cloak's billowing length with a vicious thrust of bestial-wolven- ferocity; Doctor Strange poised his scarred fingers with inventive, gestural motion, intricately weaving veins of astral energy into fiery crescentic sigils, as the Dwarvish mantra of Amora's possessive spell cast effusively became volumes of a rhapsodic concerto within aphotic vistas of the Multiverse plane.

Ferally, as he sniffed against the obstructive-vaporous reek of carrion flesh oozily wafting out of ground-ravaged coffins, in a predatory rush, Steve panted out ragged breaths, as his lucent azure orbs chimerically gleamed murderous heat, apparent to his unstaunched rabidness-bloodlust. An implosive throb of soul-deep valiance-his Brooklyn spirit- cacophonously deafened as bulkier enhanced cords of fur-sheathed muscle hulkingly flexed in hostile succession.

A vicious cadence of eruptive-monstrous abandon gratingly throttled against his barred incisor fangs as he reared his canine head back, arcing his bushy tail with defensive-intimidating poise that fleetingly conveyed valorous echoes of soldiery resilence. Half-crouching in a heavier stance on his furred haunches, a beastlier contrast of slitting-wicked ferocity reigned in his blood-crazed azureous depths-a possessive extent of the Dwarven curse that Strange keenly recognized. "W-Where are they...?" he snarled, demandingly in guttural pitch, slashing a massive fore-paw over discarded Snickers and Kit-Kat wrappers-nothing would detract him from engaging his targeted-wimpish- prey."Answer me!"

"You're not yourself, Captain Rogers. Hurting your friends is the last thing you would want." Stephen braced himself as the creature that used to be Earth's greatest champion, growled at him with vicious malice. Whatever Enchantress had turned him into was unlike any animal to be found on Earth. It resembled a dire-wolf but the gargantuan shape of his mouth/teeth were almost dragon-like. Kriger. He kept calling himself. If Stephen hadn't endured lifetimes of torture and death from a cosmic evil, he would've felt more than the tremor of unease moving through him as "Kriger" growled at him. "So would be attacking me."

The Kriger roared and did just that, lunging at the sorcerer who promptly gestured his hands and forged the ruby Rings of Raggadorr to defend himself. Several yards away from the fight, two bunnies struggle and poke their heads out from a top-hat.

"What was that?" Bucky groaned. One moment he and Thor were staring into the literal jaws of death that used to be his best friend, the next moment they were inside of a hat. He was treated to the bewildering sight of Selina crouched beside him on the roof of a jeep outside the graveyard, looking at him expectantly. "Lina? Its not what it looks like-"

"Why am I not surprised..." Selina gritted out, seethingly, against the unkempt sleekness of her mahogany tresses, her tigerish coffee irises narrowed vexedly at chestnut furred lop who unabashedly crouched low on his hind-paws within the Victorian-style top hat as the fiery portal vanished. Balletically harnessing up her motionless poise on the jeep's roof, she became a curvaceous-lithesome silhouette against the backlit contrasts of brownstone environs around them; kinetic incandescence of crimson salvos eerily arced over the cemetery grounds, as the iron gate barricaded the skeletal cavalcade demonically mobilized out of coffin-buried trenches as headstones became razed to earth-shatteringly unleash worm-infested denizens—soulless zombiesque husks manically possessed by clamorous—effusive mantras of telestic resurrection.

In the flurrying reaction of a whipcrack earshot, blurringly Selina tensed against the mordacious potency of carrion decay and rancid pumpkin, as she gripped onto the razored-brim top-hat as the length of Bucky's drooping ears furrily caressed the delicate contours of her leather-sheathed wrist. "Well, I guess it's not Halloween without a dance," she quipped under breath, ruefully, feeling his jutted buck-teeth headily graze an evocative reverence of sensuous-virile heat that ardently blazoned a heart-driven promise. Answering that visceral call of bunny affection, betraying her stony glare, against errant blear of wetness, unblinkingly Selina kneaded her palm achingly over his satiny chestnut velveteen fur, holding onto him for another fevered moment. "Always the charm-boy, huh, Barnes..."

Bucky would have responded with his own quip if he weren't so alarmed at the horrific sight that began to take shape. Skeletal arms began to breach the surface of the graveyard. Boney, with decayed bits of flesh tearing off their frame that dragged their way out from beneath the Earth. It was like a horror movie come to life and Bucky couldn't fathom how such a thing could be possible. They numbered in the dozens, maybe more. Old decrepit bodies from over a century past began to limp and stagger their way out of the gates and onto the streets towards them.

"Just great! Can't they find someone else to play with?" He squeaked out, suddenly feeling overcome with the urge to bury himself deep inside of the hat he and Thor had been shoved into. Wait-Thor! "Care to lend us a hand, Thor? Or you know, a hammer?!" Bucky lightly pushed against the blonde lop who conveniently decided now was the best time to take a nap after so many hours of stuffing himself silly.

"Ham-Hammer..." The lion-haired bunny mumblingly snorted with indignant cadence, listlessly tucking himself further into the hat, the beckoning-thunderous echoes of his invincible Asgardian spirit were latent for summoning Stormbreaker as the chubbier sniper lop bodily slammed his podgy mass against his balloon-out girth in urgent-fiercer variance. "Oomph...We don't need hammers, friend Barnes, just more of those fried cakes that I can easily ravage..." he chuckled, mirthfully, oblivious Nordic sigils of Amora's celestial incantation meltingly veined the pavement as the dead-walker legion advanced reekingly passed the entrance gates: a death march.

It was a run off the world moment, adrenaline revved paralyzingly in their veins, a rhapsodic ecstasy ghoulishly converged on the vacant street as transatlantic energy bleedingly amplified into volumes of an earsplitting upheaval of white-noise. Thumping on his stubbed paws, scowlingly Bucky caught the aromatic-distractive scent of a Starbucks brew, dampening over a heap of discarded-emptied NYPD uniforms as his steel-aqueous irises beadily careened knifing intensity over the sidewalk adorned with remnants of stolen humanity. "S'it's gettin' worse..." Stammeringly, whiskey-roughen huskiness of his murmurous drawl staked down that infinite revelation that Amora would tragically utilize the streets of Manhattan as her execution-harvesting ground. "She's gunnin' everyone down..."

Impeding Bucky's hellbent-soldiery- momentum of rebelliously bouncing out of Strange's hat with swift clutch of her gloved hand; Selina undeviatingly readied her Glock with head -decapitating precision as one exsiccated corpses jerkily limped with deformed prowess near the gridlock; hollowed-out eye sockets of ashen flesh eldritchly heated with apparitional embers-a rabid pulse of orcish blood-thirst."Damnit..." she hissed out, breathlessly, jumping onto the jeep's hood without breaking her crouching stance, intensified fiery glyphs destructively ricocheted off storefront windows. Thrashing against black feltlike borders of the cramped magician hat, driven by reckless instinct, Bucky hopped out, daringly propelled down the windshield at breakneck speed on his fluffy rear.

"There's too many of em," he yelled above the sound of gunfire as Selina let loose bullet after bullet into undead skulls. Bucky wasn't sure if Selina knew what she was doing or just replicating whatever she'd seen in a horror movie involving zombies, but she was grim focused and unrelenting. Bucky felt small, terrified of being swiped up and crushed-or worse eaten! A soldier would retreat but an Avenger would fight on, even if the odds were stacked against them. "There's gotta be somethin'." His sights landed on scattered debris. Plastic bottles, newspapers, trash cans… Trash cans!

He had less to work with in the past. Hopping across a short distance, Bucky leaped and threw his entire weight against the side of an overturned trash-can, sending it rolling across the ground slamming into the brittle knees of the undead. They tumbled and spilled over onto the ground which brought them at eye-level with a soda can punching their skulls. "Still got it," Bucky grinned a buck-toothed smile before pitching- dashing and kicking another trash-can towards the mob of marching undead. In the skies above could be heard the growing roar of thunder.

An incredulous pinch twitchily rapted over Bucky's muzzle, as sloughed bones viscidly glozed into oozing-bloodied resin; ghostlier skeletal denizens wavered in demonic traction, lagging on veined pulses of the astral plane of Helheim—a stygian-ruinous entity was mortifyingly fringing out of Dark Verse's gateways, as the blighted wake of Amora's soul-plaguing conjury harrowingly swarmed around them—the Asgardian demoness-Hela was coming.

Against the carious rush of decomposing—wormy flesh breaching her detected proximity, with a deceptive variance of tactical ease, Selina emptied her Glock 9mm in rapid succession of point-blank gunfire, shredding through deformed contours of jutted bone, in a feverish blur, she glanced over her shoulder, against disheveled curtaining whorls of mahogany, fleetingly, her brandy irises caught voltaic pulses of bluish-white heat blindingly forking strobes of incendiary electricity-lightning-against hurricanic gales as shadowed masses of concussive thunderheads deafeningly encroached over the downtown Manhattan."I think this midnight party is going to get explosive, boys..." she quipped with terse snark, raspily, as Bucky's droopy, furred ears alarmingly perked up with a dumbfounded nose-scrunch, a thunderous momentum careening over the darkened horizon with torpedoed ferocity—the Nidavellir battle-ax Stormbreaker was being hailed.

In seconds the candescent sigils of silvered Asgardian glyphs—Odin's prismatic three-ringed seal became searingly etched in the concrete at that irrevocable moment the shaggier, porcine blonde lop heftily thrust his fore-paw out of the hat with beckoning flex as he jovially belted a throaty guttural cadence, evident to a broaden—chucklesome smirk, gaping his pudgier muzzle into skyrocketing—brawling rapture as he felt a bone- electrified torrent of lightning surging in his veins, roaringly. "Yes...I'm still worthy!"

The sight of a pudgy blonde lop raising a mystical axe-hammer was shocking enough to Bucky and Selina. What neither of them had anticipated was what happened after. A lightning bolt descended from the skies, loud and commanding as all chaos came to a stand-still. The area was enveloped in a burst of light, almost blinding to those in the closest proximity. Selina pulled Bucky against her chest and took cover behind an overturned vehicle, holding him close. A roaring wind blew through the vicinity, becoming a whirlwind of electricity that spiraled towards the skies. Once it vanished, a bunny no longer stood in place, but a newly restored god of thunder!

Thor looked perplexed by the outcome as he looked down at his newly restored form, clad in his Asgardian armor and cape. That confusion lasted only a moment before his eyes focused on the encroaching horde of undead corpses that staggered towards him. The Asgardian's eyes crackled with electricity and Stormbreaker roared with anticipation as its wielder charged and began to cleave his way through the dead like a hot knife through butter.

"Thor?!" Bucky squeaked in awe and disbelief. "How?!" Looking down at himself, Bucky was disheartened to see nothing was different. He was still a small, vulnerable rabbit being cradled protectively in Selina's arms.

As Thor's guttural roars bearishly deafened with the hungrier rawness of infinitely conquering the obstructive battleground, as barraging salvos of bluish-white energy, while Stormbreaker destructively boomeranged through Amora's skeletal legion, creating a gruesome hailstorm of bone shards and tattered dirt-smudged clothing akin to an explosive depth-charge of a grenade blowback. Intoxicatingly with unslaked aggression, of high-voltage momentum, the fattish-grizzly Asgardian delivered a hammer-shock against the cement, seismically ensuing a groundbreaking force that caused manhole lids to propel crushingly against parked vehicles.

In blinding reaction of acrobatic-phantom graces, notching up her feline-like agility Selina rushed into the alleyway, vertiginously collapsing on her knees as the litheness of her arms tautly strained to keep her sniper-lop preciously cushioned-snug- against the voluptuous swells of her neoprene-clad breasts, he was being achingly driven with boyish feistiness, involuntarily shifting his chubbier bulk against her cradled embrace, as the racking cadence of his hind-paws thumpingly demanded release.

Caught in an incredulous deadlock of hinged-stark- awareness, Selina immediately grazed her leather-gloved palm over the metallic plates of Bucky's G1 dog tags as she painstakingly eased him down, adoringly kneading his velvety-soft fur with chaste pressure, and kittenishly quirked up her full-bow lips as she caught a heave of stifled breath, teasingly. "I'll admit you do make a cute fluffball, Barnes..." She nipped on her underlip, thievishly gazing into the glacial smokiness of his beady aquamarine irises-she knew what needed to be done. "...but I need a Brooklyn boy to dance with tonight..."

Bucky certainly couldn't argue with that. The stakes had changed and he was a liability out here on the battle-field. The ground shook with thunderous vibrations that were the result of Thor's unleashed rampage on Enchantress' horde. The sight of the Avenger stirred a deep feeling of inspiration from within. A calling that took him back to a time when he was more carefree but also a force to be feared and reckoned with. A glint of metal caught his eyes, close in his proximity he could also smell the old nickel/copper that invoked a storm of memories. The stainless steel dog-tags were tucked safely inside of Selina's shirt. His beady blue eyes were hypnotized by the sight of something that was as much a part of him as Stormbreaker was a part of Thor.

What if?

He felt Selina flick her finger at his nose, grabbing his attention. She looked down at him with an arched eyebrow. 'My eyes are up here.' Her expression seemed to say. It suddenly made him realize where he'd been staring and he would've blushed if it were possible. Smooth, Barnes. "I'm gonna need those back, darlin'. Trust me, I think this will work."

The froggish suaveness of his gravelly Brooklyn drawl underlying became a headier rush in soul-arresting cadence, unadulteratedly with rampant-banking urgency, feverishly Selina angled her head down, as mahogany tresses disheveledly curtained over Bucky while she unerringly removed the metallic chain off the lithe curvatures of her leather-collared neck, as the mordacious reek of charred bone septically wafted off corpse-heaped trenches behind the Greenwood iron gates-the the second wave of ghoulish rancidity-a prophetic reckoning had converged over the blackout environs. Against that apparitional onrush, Selina clenched her delicate jaw with racking strain, as she deftly graced the metal-plated wartime service dog tags over the unbudging chestnut lop's pudgy neck."This better work..." she rasped, bluntly.

The closer the dog-tags got to him, the stronger he felt this magnetic pull that called to him. It was powerful and true. The chain came around his neck with the steel tags coming down torso. He closed his eyes and felt a white light engulf his whole world. Selina had stumbled back onto her feet, watching and hoping until the light had vanished. Bucky stared at two hands in front of him. One of them rough and made of flesh, the other polished and constructed with indestructible vibranium. He was back. It was a feeling as empowering as the tactical garb of the Winter Soldier he wore from top to bottom. The terror he once felt at being such a small and vulnerable creature made him appreciate the strength he now possessed, and the one who helped him to rediscover it.

He looked at Selina with stormy blue eyes, filled with raw intensity that nothing needed to be said. He took two steps forward and pulled her close for a quick passionate kiss. His lips molded over hers, desperate and firm, an outpouring of love and relief for something he feared he would never get to experience with her again. His arms enveloped her into a tight embrace as the dizzying kiss slowly dissolved into a tentative nuzzling of brows. "I'm back, darlin'. Ready to finish this?" He asked with a dangerous smile on his lips.

An untamed-quenchless rush felt suffocatingly implosive as the melding ardency of their kiss-swollen lips became lingeringly contrasted by tactile graze as Bucky's roughened thumb featherily branded a visceral promise over silken pearlescent contours of her cheek exquisitely delivering sensuous-aphrodisiacal heat of masculine reverence. The starving urgency exquisitely arced through her veins in a blinding rush, as her lithe fingers traced over the graven cut of his stubbled features, every defined-angle of virile-hunky ruggedness-the boyish suppleness of his chubbier-fuzzier visage was no longer prevalent on tauter- athletic solidity of heavy-banded muscle underneath tactical Kevlar.

"I thought you'd never ask..." Selina purred sultrily, quirking her pillowy lips into a devious smirk, foxily as the bristled rasp of his knife-edge jaw hotly razored against her flushed cheek, under unkempt tresses slickly askew over their temples, Selina breathlessly mirrored the roguish steeliness of his grayish-ultramarine irises with piratic decadence of her coffee depths as she deceptively slipped the Glock in the readied-mechanized clutch of his bionic hand. They were fringing on demonical-ruinous oblivion-a grueling requiem that sinisterly exorcised humanity.

Gearing up for one last stand on the mortal ground would bring them a breadth closer to eternity. With thieving precision, on her stiletto heels, Selina distractedly sashayed back to the Jeep, half-crouching down, while swiftly reaching behind a rear tire and clutched her new piece of hardware to orchestrate a grislier ritornelle of bullet-raiding mayhem: Heckler & Koch MP5K-PDW submachine gun. "Don't worry I brought a back-up piece..."

"That's my girl," Bucky took the Glock and with Selina beside him moved back out into the fray. They might've been outnumbered when they began but now they stood as an army against the putrid horde of undead littering the street. Dozens laid smashed in heaps of bones and smashed skulls. Down the street could see titanic flashes of light where Thor was cleaving a path back towards the cemetery. Bucky and Selina rushed down the street, picking off any remaining undead that were attacking frightened civilians screaming for help. Bucky smashed the skull of one zombie into dust with one swing of his cybernetic fist. The pelting explosion of lead shattered any others moving in on a pack of teenagers hiding on a school bus.

Bucky glanced over his shoulder at Selina who unloaded the full roar of her submachine gun on a group of 5 undead, not missing a single shot. Bucky's eyes widened as he glimpsed a zombie coming up on her from behind. "Lina! Look-" She spun on her spiked-heel and smashed the undead with a roundhouse kick before it could get a step closer to her. "Out…" He smirked at her with approval as they met each others eyes. His smirk vanished in place of shock as she threw a throwing knife in his direction. It found its mark, hitting a zombie skull that was coming at him from behind. How'd he miss that one? Looking at Selina, he flushed. "I saw him coming."

She rolled her eyes at him humorously.

Together they make it to the cemetery where Thor was wrestling what looked to be an undead rhino with his bare-hands. "What the hell is that thing?" Bucky wondered. In the graveyard could be seen flashes of light and the rippling of a red cape. Strange locked in battle with a similar-looking beast that Thor was fighting, only very much alive. "Steve…"

Undeterred by the kinetic crimson glyphs of Strange's counter-attack, malignantly against a choke-off snarl, Kriger thrust his canine muzzle against the draconic-bestial tenor resonating within the enhanced corded muscle bulkily flexed underneath grayish-blonde fur; the slitted crescents of his vitreous emerald irises gleamingly fused white-hot intensity of predatory-bloodlust- savageness, a pulsing murderous-deadened heat that fueled his inexhaustive-deadlier momentum.

With a controlled sidestep to evade the dire-wolf's thirstier approach, Strange adroitly whirled on his boots, keeping his shaky hands poised to compose astral strands of energy into a geometric shield. "Argh..." Jutting the curved edges of his twined incisor fangs, on viperlike accord of surging -breakneck aggression, ragingly, he yanked at the vivacious scarlet cloak with a jaw-gnashing assault. "C'mon..." he gnarled out, frustratingly against venting, throated pants, relentlessly tugging with a harsher grip in vicious tow as if the defensive cloak became a plaything of tug-a-war. "G-Get off..."

"Don't let him break free," Strange whispered to his cloak that wrapped around the oversized demonic wolf in a vice-grip. The sorcerer had come close to being bitten and maimed many times in an effort to subdue the beast without killing him nor sending him into a pocket-dimensional prison.

Steve Rogers deserved better than that, but already the sorcerer felt his options dwindling the longer he was unable to knock the beast out. Through the corner of his eye he had seen both Thor and Barnes return to the fight, both of them surprisingly back in their true forms. He would have to ask them later how the enchantment was broken.

His attention once again focused on the Kriger who tried to bite a hold through his loyal relic and partner. Strange recited the strongest spell he knew that was powerful enough to tame an Asgardian bilgesnipe. The kriger unraveled and roared, swaying on groggy feet as slowly his resistance began to ebb. "Go to sleep."

"Steve!" Bucky fought and shot his way through the swarms of undead, fearless and determined to reach out to his transformed friend and help Strange bring him back. Something had begun to change in the grim atmosphere surrounding them. The very winds seemed to howl with foreboding with a crackle of lightning illuminating the skies. It didn't seem to be coming from Thor who until now had kept his theatrics minimal to not cause any collateral damage.

Something terrifying was coming.

His suspicions were confirmed when a mystical portal suddenly ripped through reality across from him, barring the way into the cemetery where Strange and Steve continued to fight. Bucky skidded to a halt, feeling dread come over him as he watched an old but familiar face come through.

Against the synth pulse of a transcendental-galvanic breach, the Vanaheim Aphrodite haughtily emerged out of the sorcerous valance of her conjured-hellish- domain of Muspelheim; every voluptuous curve of her statuesque exquisite form was maniacally honed for vampirish-demented seduction. Adorned over the cascading sleekness of her lengthy platinum-blonde tresses wing-curve headpiece of viridian emerald with golden elfin runes was aesthetically braced over her villainous, sirenic features.

Quirking her voluminous lips into a noxious sneer, Amora glowered her steel-gray irises penetratingly at the dumbfounded blankness tellingly etched over Bucky's pinching, stubbled features."Well, this night has become disappointing..." she hissed out, vilely. "It seems you cleverly figured out how to get your worthless humanity back, Sergent James Barnes...That pathetic victory won't last, as I chasten your Midgardian soul into dormant oblivion..."

Bucky rarely felt uneasy when it came to facing down enemies. Even charging a Mad Titan head-on with only an automatic rifle was a moment that didn't fill him with disquiet. But this was an exception. The flawless features of the blonde beauty across from him was a sight that would have once made him blush with awe if he believed he was looking at a normal woman. It was a mask that hid the ugliness from within. A deceptive, evil soul that hungered for power and exacting suffering on anyone that challenged her. He had been one of those brave enough, believing she was nothing but a crazed Hydra lapdog the moment she strapped him to her table and began to scald him with strange objects that he now knew to be magical in nature.

A venomous sorceress who had killed hundreds of innocent people, and who tried to take away his humanity. He wouldn't be running from her tonight. His jaw clenched and his posture became poised. "Ziegler. Or is it Enchantress? I don't really care. You picked the wrong fight to go for a second round." His fleshy digits curled on the hammer of his Glock while his metallic ones discreetly drew his combat knife from his belt. "You hurt millions of people, including my best friend. We Brooklyn boys take that personal." Bucky kicked the skull of an undead corpse at Enchantress' head to disguise his attack then charged in with his knife held high...

Easing her gauntleted hand up sorcerously, with viperous ferocity Amora commanded a shockwave pulse of telestic energy the massive rootlets of desolate trees, ragingly Bucky gunned his intimidating momentum at boot-stomping pace, dodging the arcing slash of his tactical knife, Amora flexed her wrist, as the ground implosively tremored, razed coffins frighteningly toaster-popped against the collapsing fissures as roots colossally bulged out, poised to impale him."You dare to insult me with pitiful weaponry..." she yelled, mockingly, shifting a carnal glance of soul-stealing hunger at his beautiful-thievish kitten vaulting acrobatically over a bullet-riddled heap of skeletal corpses. " For such a heedless turn of mortal valor, I will relish watching your lover's soul cling on the knife-edge of my mercy..."

Bucky then knew true fear; more than anything he could have experienced or comprehended before when he saw Enchantress focus on Selina, and realized what she meant. An abyss entered his body and he felt his very life being sucked into it, leaving him a cold and trembling mess. Enchantress relished the fear in his eyes and with a gesture of her hand, struck Selina with a burst of light that caused Selina to react as if she had been gut-punched. She didn't know what hit her, not could she stop to think. Her eyes land on Bucky, empty without a spark of life to be seen. And then she fell.

"NOOO!" He cried from the bottom of his soul, falling into a downward spiral where his painful reality obliterated his sense of focus. "LINA!" He shed tears uncontrollably, his body fighting desperately to free himself from the plant roots that had ensnared him in a torturous restraint that prevented him from rushing to her side. His mind desperately searched and watched her, realizing to his mutual relief and horror that she was still breathing, slowly. Her eyes were open and unblinking, but more alarming was the fact that she didn't respond, and she was vulnerable to the staggering ghouls of undead marching towards her.

"What the hell did you do?!" Bucky yelled at Enchantress.

The ragged gravelliness of his deep-throated anguish felt sobbingly convulsive as a maelstrom of heart-grippingly defeat unslaked her calamitous hunger; bodily thrashing against the obstructive roots in aggressive tenor flexing over his bracketed ridges of heavy-sheathed muscle straining under frayed layers of Kevlar, Bucky gnashed his teeth, bleedingly choking on voiceless hitches of snarling breath, in feverish rush, he jerked his head back with neck-breaking force-a stuporous throb of catatonic- irrecoverable heartache tragically destabilized robotic- mechanized sync of his grappled bionic arm. He wanted to surgically hammer-drive a stake through the Enchantress's parasitic heart without a breath of mercy.

"M'gonna kill you..." he belted out in slurring pitch, rabidly, jutting out his stubbled jaw in beastly-livid ferocity as his wolfish brunette tresses damply webbed over hard-angles that delineated his bristled cheeks; the banking wetness of floored rawness of his glacial aquamarine irises nakedly knifed stormier with an excruciating onrush of blearing tears against the immobilizing pressure of a disinterred vine that snaked crushingly over his throat in paralytic succession. "G-Grah..."

Sneerily, with a serpentine variance of her tyrannic poise, Amora raised her hand to painstakingly deliver a cobra-strike into his ensnared throat."Your beautiful love has fallen into numbed throes of my power, Sergent Barnes if she prevails after this frightful hour...She'll become a generous extension of the Casket of Winters..." she raved, tauntingly, only to flinchingly reel back as careening whoosh of thunderous-scything precision cuttingly propelled towards her-Stormbreaker. An eruptive flex of bone-racking disgust quaked over pearlescence coolness of her sirenlike-witchy features as she raged out, ballistically. "Odinson...!"

Stormbreaker returned with a chilling whoosh back into Thor's outstretched hand. The blue of his eyes were mirthless despite the flat smile that was graced across his handsome features. "Amora. It's been a long time." He said with a cavalier voice that matched his swagger as he slowly approached the emerald sorceress. "You look well," casually he swats an undead grunt close to him as if he were swatting a fly crossing a spring meadow. "In fact, I would say you are looking greenier and far more diabolically vicious than ever. Though I can't say it is good to see you. That you survived Ragnarok when so many of our kind didn't, must mean the Norns have a sadistic sense of humor that they allowed you to live if only to continue torturing me further."

"You should know me better, spawn of Odin, I never stake my reign in one place..." Amora chimed, vauntingly in scabrous pitch, fiery virescent skeins incandescently wreathed over the barricaded roots. "Hrr-agh..." Against effusive—throated strain, Bucky's shapely-wide lips gapingly widened in rampant heaves of breath against the vicing pressure of contractive ministrations of throat-strangling vines, his lengthy roguish chestnut tresses dirtily lashed over the graven-edges of his tauten jaw, as the roots exhaustingly dragged him in a possessive fringe closer to a vacant trench—grave in demonical succession as phalanx of skeletal fingers twistingly clawed against vein knots of roots, macabrely slashing over the graphite alloy-vibrainum of Bucky's cybernetic arm."Asgard was damned by Odin's grisly betrayal that he concealed into the abyss of his failures..."

As the Enchantress irately registered the shaggy-bearded Asgardian's hastened burliness crashingly advancing to the ghoulish proximity of her resurrected warren, bludgeoning his with unstoppable-adrenalized momentum, the steeliness of her venomous-grayish irises flashed relishingly over a beer-bellied protrusion underneath his forged Nidavellir-steel armor. "I see the rapacious nature of that squalid hog-Volstagg has made you like a true king of Asgard...Fattened by his conquering revels, Mighty Thor..."

"Does that mean you no longer seek my affections? If that's the case, perhaps I should have indulged my appetite for mead and boar a lot sooner to spare myself your obsessive pursuit." He snarked with a dry look which served to only increase the Enchantress' agitation towards him. Thor glanced at Bucky and Selina, seeing how helpless they were-caught in the crosshairs of the Enchantress' wrath that spelled disaster for those in her way. In their youths she and Loki had been almost inseparable in their pursuit of magic. Thor wondered just how much of a negative influence she had on her brother or vice versa.

"It is I you hold grievance with. Not Lady Selina, not James. Let them go, and you can have me." Thor would have surrendered himself willingly if he believed there was a chance of sparing the lives of his new friends and allies, but as he watched the Enchantress' magic begin to entangle James in a vice-grip of death with the veiny thorns, he knew that she would offer no such mercy. "Enough!" He yelled, the fury manifesting with stormy orbs of electricity.

As Thor readily grounded himself into a battle stance, voltaic heat of pulsed electrifyingly over the angular curves of his eye sockets, a combustible intensity was amplifying into a thunderous-elemental fusion as strobes of arcing bluish-white energy radiated over the cemetery, lancing through skeletal torsos of her zombied cavalcade in phantasmic sync."You dare strike me down, Asgardian hog," Amora snarled out in teeth-gritted pitch, as Thor challengingly raised Stormbreaker with a hammer-grip.

Mephitically with an unhinged shift of her footing, Amora fixed her callous-vitriolic gaze back at the fissuring trench as tangled vines graspingly hoisted Bucky's thrashing-bulkier weight over the emptied grave, while he blindingly gored the stabbing precision of his combat Geber knife clutched his leather-sheathed hand, driving unmerciful-desperate force into the thickened root-his wolfish tresses unkemptly whip-lashed in a thrashing disarray over his tensing, bloodied features. "You have no idea what I wield for victory in the dark twilight..." she admonished, raptorially, glancing at the orange-fleshed of girthier-rotund pumpkin-unmarred by the carving knife. "Allow me to show you by damning this Midgardian warrior to a vessel of earthen harvest..."

Bucky couldn't speak, feeling the vines wrap around his neck like a noose preparing to choke the life out of him even as he fought and struggled to cut himself free. The veins had thorns, and as they pierced him, he felt as if his blood was on fire-invaded by an unforgiving force that he came to identify as magic. Dark magic that began to twist and mold him, bloating his gut into a horrific expanse that began to turn orange. What was happening to him? What was she doing? The questions rushed through him until he felt overwhelmed by its weight.

Thor's anger had reached its zenith. A consequence that acted as a double-edged blade, dangerous for both himself and his enemies. With a bestial roar, he lifts Stormbreaker and throws it in Enchantress's direction, only for the Asgardian sorceress to open a miniature portal with her outstretched hand. Stormbreaker flew into the rift before it was promptly sealed, sending it far beyond Thor's reach. Thor stared blankly in mute shock, realizing his error that would have made Loki both groan and laugh at his stupidity. With the opening, Amora commanded her veins to enwrap Thor in the same state as Bucky, twisting and piercing the god of thunder who struggled and roared at her in defiance. "You will pay for this, Amora!"

"Asgard would have been ruled by celestial titans purged into Helheim," Amora condemningly rasped against a viperish hiss; the galactic chaos bringers-Deviants-mutative hellions of the wasteland planet- Morag- that were punishingly banished during the Iron Ages of blood-ravaging warcraft, as the cosmic elements of Infinity Stones were forged -weaponized to deliver soul-reaping -sanguineous tempest of unquenchable carnage if the astral crossways-dimensional paradoxes were breached-if the branches-realms of Yggdrasil were obliterated. Mad-Titian was a rogue descent, seduced by the starvation of cataclysmic wake of soul-butchering defoliation that would have freed his ethereal sires. "The Deviants that were cast into the realm of useless mortals will conquer again once my heralded Queen scrapes off your wretched filth..."

Ravening in unhinged ecstasy, sadistically Amora gestured her lithe hand to shunt venous pulses of penetrative energy freakishly into the jutting massiveness of rubberized, globular flesh inflatingly burgeoning underneath Bucky's Kevlar garb as the mutative-fattened strain of gourd-size chubbiness was saggily glozing out viscid carroty fluid over tauter ridges of swelled bracketed flesh; he was syrupily oozing treks of pumpkin juice. "It's amusing to watch such masculine beauty rapidly dissolve into a bloated vessel that will be a dormant extension of these carrion-infested grounds."

Her dominance exerted, the sorceress reveled in the power she now boasted that gave her complete authority over her enemies. A soldier out of time reduced to a mindless animal, a jaded assassin diminished to a fatten pumpkin...and an unrequited love being torn to pieces for refusing her. Soon all of Midgard would exalt to her and know to worship her powe- The world unended suddenly in a manner that sent the Enchantress teetering and falling into a great nothingness. Her alarmed scream cascaded until she shattered through a water of reflection, causing mirror shards to explode into her surroundings. She laid flat on her stomach, confused until her experienced mind took in the signs. She was still in the graveyard, but no longer just.

Enfolding vitreous spectrums glimmeringly became implosive like conjured prisms that weaved around her, incensed by a display of Midgardian trickery, seethingly as she braced her palms over reeking dirt, Amora reactively careened a verdigris salvo against the crystalline barrier; nothing penetrated through-the scarlet cloaked Eldritch sorcerer-magician- unflinchingly ascended in front of her with draconic tact maddeningly invested in his unwavering stance. "This foolish trick will not contain me..." she railed in biting cadence, nefariously. "There will be no dawning of united hope, accept the reality that the vitality of your precious friends will soon diminish, and when your defeated corpse lays at my feet, my beloved Captain will feast on your heaped bones.."

"Right now he's taking an overdue nap, he won't be doing any fetching within here." Strange snarked with a fearless look. Ordinary men would perhaps grow timid beneath the livid glare the Asgardian sorceress was now giving him. But after standing in the presence of a cosmic evil that killed him hundreds of times in so many horrific ways, he found the likes of Thanos and now Enchantress to be nothing but deranged aliens with delusions of grandeur. But still dangerous, he knew not to underestimate them.

"The Mirror Dimension is a gateway that we lowly Midgardians learned to access for thousands of years. Something I gather, an Asgardian sorceress would think is trivial and beneath her." He let that insightful hang in the air for Amora to absorb. If the fury on her fair features was any indicator she knew exactly what his condescending words implied. "You won't get out of here unless I say you can." Her response was what he expected, a roar and a salvo blast sent in his direction. She hit only air as the salvo passed through him and he stood looking at her with a blank look.

A decoy. Images of Ikkon. Loki would be proud of that, or maybe annoyed at being copied. Enchantress didn't stop, her ire and pride demanded nothing but the satisfaction of bringing this new adversary underfoot and stabbing his neck with her heeled boot. Strange extended his power, creating multiple decoys to stay ahead of his enemy but careful not to expend too much power. The defense would only last so long against a being that boasted not only super-strength and power, but also stamina. "Vishanti," Strange breathed, conjuring an eldritch blade of sparks that he used to move in and engage.

Enchantress grinned evilly, conjuring her own blade before meeting Strange head on. A balletic dance of sparking blades and magical pulses rang out through the dimension, shattering grave-stones and any objects that were contained with them. Enchantress was agile and trained in physical combat, using a series of kicks and twirls to feint Stephen to expose him for an attack. Were it not for the Cloak yanking him backwards in-time, Stephen knew her blade would have dug into his ribcage. Bearing down on her opponent, Enchantress lunged and brought her blade down only for Strange to conjure a Seraphim shield, causing sparks to explode, blinding the Asgardian's vision.

Strange could see his opening and resolved to finish this. "Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!" His hands sprung forward and viscious tendrils of flame and sorcery reached out and ensnared the witch from head-to-toe. Strange commanded the dimension to up-turn as he began to spin the Enchantress around like a lasso, bringing her smashing through trees and gravestones into his trajectory before slamming her to the ground. She laid still, but breathing. Strange wiped a bead of sweat from his face. And Wanda said he didn't work out enough, he thought dryly. His thoughts were taken by a painful groan close by. No longer focused on Enchantress, Strange rushed towards the open graves where Bucky and Thor were still trapped in a planting of veins.

What he saw nearly made him ill as his first surgery. Their bodies were growing in putrid mass of flesh and plant, a horrid conjury of human and pumpkins. "Hang in there, Barnes, Thor. This isn't exactly my area of magic, but I will try something." He would spend the next couple of minutes practicing a number of spells that did little except to slow their transformation. It was then the Enchantress began to stir and laugh at him.

As vampirish intensity chillingly melded in her smoky-gray irises, Amora disarmingly extended out her opened palm, the arrowed edge of her gauntlet pulsed in taunting steadiness."I know that the sentiment of affection is weakness of mortality," she chuckled, witchily, as crimson skeins flaringly ghosted over her flexing wrist, morphing vaporous energy into a quartz orb that she exhibited with a torturous play of deft tenderness, hefting the orb up for Strange to heart-stoppingly gaze at the half-stunned, auburn mink trapped inside. "I've discovered a way to shackle your heart within the devices of my conjury...I will admit this little vermin was easy snare in my coils after I poisoned her with my friendly bite...She accepted thralls of defeat, just like you will..."

And just like that, Stephen felt the balance of power shift away like a landslide, crumbling every advantage he might have created in this confrontation that was now affecting him in a way he wasn't prepared for. He might've been Master of the Mystic Arts who fought titans and cosmic entities with all the bravery and poise that a man in his position, with nothing to lose, could afford. But that all changed when he met Wanda. And now...now he could feel it. The fear, the anxiety gripping him over a situation where he had no control. In the operating room he wrestled with that feeling until he perfected his craft enough to master those feelings with success.

What success could he hope to attain here? "...What have you done to her?" Stephen asked once noticed the mink was barely conscious, stirring in the manifesto prison the evil sorceress had created. Stephen didn't know how she got to Wanda, or if Wong was even alive, but the only then that kept him from on a knife-edge was the thought of risking Wanda's life by doing something terribly reckless-like attacking in a fit of rage.

The suffusive wake of her soul-crippling onslaught felt bankingly glorious as she registered desperate utterance in Strange's deep-timbered undertone that was betrayingly visceral with a raiding throb of unbidden heartache; every phantom measure of his valiant-ignitable resilence had become excruciatingly deadened by her infinite anesthetic of unwarranted failure, it felt like a neo-dissector was arduously severing through his bones-the abducted mink's soul was expandable as she rapaciously straddled him down into calamitous-unavailing throes.

Brandishing up a feigned grimace errantly over his silvery-goateed jaw, reservedly with painstaking traction, Strange descended to ground level as the dimensional aura was telekinetically ushering verdigris energy-hunger- out of the Nordic empyrean realm of Hvergelmir, while Amora distractingly held the imprisoning glass bauble effectively akin to open-handed bargain-a new gambit to play off the rigged decks. "I can sense the urgency you stow back, it reeks off you..." she hissingly scoffed, clashing with the electrified heat of his unblinking azureous irises as she possessively glided a lithe finger over the smooth glass of her orb. "If you wish for this little vixen to go free, yield to the unity of my power..."

A year ago, Stephen's answer would have been a sharp and immediate "no". His devotion to his work had once alienated him from those he cared about. Christine Everheart was one of his biggest regrets. But the silver-lining of losing her, of being a loner, meant he could do his job more efficiently-without compromises. But he was empty, lifeless and bitter. Until meeting Wanda, he had lost touch with how important life was worth living. And now he was at risk of losing her, and failing his duties all at once. He felt trapped and teetered on the edge of a total collapse. Without the Time Stone to aid him, he couldn't even count on a do-over if things went bad. He could do only one thing, and that was choose the only option that felt right to him.

"All right...I'll surrender to you if you let her go." Stephen's turbulent mind went into overdrive, searching desperately for one last trick up his sleeve. When his eyes fell on the slowly stirring Kriger, he felt there was perhaps only one chance left. Slowly he beckoned his Cloak towards Enchantress. A distraction to keep her eyes off of him, and on his loyal companion that floated, laid out like a rug. Discreetly, Stephen opened a portal with a slight-of-hand. A round domed object slipped through out-of-sight. Enchantress flicked her gaze back at him with suspicious eyes, gauging his intent. Stephen hesitantly dropped to his knees, hands held low at the same time Enchantress dropped the mink into the cloak.

The moment she did, she reacted like a viper catching its prey and folded him in a paralyzing grip of vines and magic. The Cloak took off at top-speed, carrying Wanda to safety, leaving Stephen at the Enchantress' mercy. Her hand latched around his throat, causing him to gasp and groan at the vicious sinking of her nails into his skin. Her eyes are intense and malicious to match the grin on her face.

Forcing bruising pressure over the virile resiliency of his broad nape, with a rushing surge of cobra ferocity, scratchingly, the baneful pythoness strafed the litheness of her tenser fingers deeper into his exposed pulsing vein; irrevocably not easing her rabider grip with an echoing flex of choked mercy. Slamming him down in back-breaking tenor, her voluminous lips stretched breathlessly, flashing a razored-length of viper fangs. "Join your felled friends in my conjured oblivion as Hela purges out your wasted soul..."

The gateway of the astral plane-the Dark Verse was being cleaved as tenebrious-inky glyphs luridly imploded a conducted breach within the atmospheric vistas of Greenwood, darkish verdurous of cosmic magery ominously webbed over the earth-razed headstones, a chimeric-apparitional fusion of war-harvesting bloodthirst symphoniously resonated as incandescent voltage tearingly strobed as the vampiresque-feminine silhouette of Odin's bane haughtily emerged, the spider-like edges of an ebon necro-iron headdress arced demonically in rabid poise-the dimensional bridge of Helheim had been anchored.

With euphoric reverence of the slaughterous demoness-the homicidal commander of the Einherjar Berserkers-traitorous oathbreakers to Odin, Amora hastily dropped on her armored knee, welcoming her deific empress with a telltale convey of reined exaltation invested over the ashen fineness of her seraphic features. "So this is what Midgard has come to," Hela fumed in a resonance of mocked-disgust, huskily. "Odin's pitiful mercy will no longer reign, as I unleash my conquering storms of destruction over these mortal insects..."

The sight of the Asgardian goddess of death unsettled Stephen in a way that Dormammu didn't. Hela's malicious gaze was riddled with bits of insanity that were tempered by a sharp focus, knife-piercing and deadly. It spoke of ages of imprisonment and suffering with only hatred being a guiding force. She would casually snap the neck of anyone who so much as annoyed her, let alone challenge her. If that wasn't alarming enough, it was the fact that in her hand she carried along an all too familiar weapon, crackling with electricity. Stormbreaker had apparently found a new owner after being thrown through a magical rift. The goddess of death now wielded the power of thunder and lightning. Strange felt his heart collapse into his stomach at the revelation. He steeled himself when her emerald eyes landed on him and she flashed him with a grin that made him blood run cold. He didn't shy away from her gaze, but knew better than to provoke her in such a delicate moment as she stood surveying the battle-ground and the lines of undead that bowed to her.

With scorpion prowess in her rapine advances, gazing down at her servant-Amora, fiendishly Hela thrust Stormbreaker to a queenly level of her black armor-clad shoulder, impeding her zombied death-marchers with possessive-imperial command. "As firstborn of Odin, I was sired to become the executing raider, unstoppable as blood marked victorious requiems..." she yelled blaringly in growlier pitch, her shadowy grayish-virescent depths hungrily fixed on vacant trenches. "The province of war reaped havoc over the Nine Realms...When I am done with this befallen world, the horizons of daybreak will be smeared with red when the betrayers of Asgard become unworthy for Valhalla ..."

Strange was beyond outnumbered and could only hope that the last piece he set in motion would help turn the tide. His blue eyes searched and could see Barnes. His body was almost unrecognizable at this point. His limbs were completely transformed into olive green vines, all muscular definition still noticeable but unresponsive as he blearily clung to consciousness. His torso had been molded into an orange pumpkin with the only bit of himself still human was the part of his face still visible. "Selina..." Bucky called weakly, a tear shedding from his eyes. "Steve..." His heart was heavy with despair, believing he failed those he loved and called family. Was this how it was supposed to end for them? Alone, miserable in defeat? He prayed, hoping and believing that God was looking out for those that still kept Him in their hearts. "Please..." He called.

Nearby, the Kriger rumbled from his sleep. The residual magic that kept him unconscious began to ebb, bringing him back into a chaotic frame of mind and a burning hunger within. He needed to feast. To carve a hole in the bodies of those his Mistress commanded him to kill. His demonic eyes blinked repeatedly, cringing at the sight of a bright light reflecting off of a metal object in front of him. His paw reached out and swatted only for him to recoil at the force that reflected back at him. A soft ding echoed in his ears, causing him to growl and whine. What was this? Beady eyes focus and take in the shape of a dome circular object with flashy colors of red, white...and blue. The colors were flashy, curiously they were also a source of deep awe, invoking from within a sense of...loyalty. Truth...Liberty...Justice.

He understood.

But more importantly, he remembered.

A moonlit night, lost in a storm of regret where he threatened to drown in his sorrows. He had been uplifted by a mortal-a man...a friend. "B-Bucky...I'm with you..." He growled. And then he roared, collapsing and shaking as if he were under a mental assault from an unseen foe. It was from a force within, buried deep beneath a grave of malice. Memories came like a flood, ceaseless and devastating as they washed away all resistance until he could do nothing but...remember. The agony of his spasms went unheard beneath a clap of thunder that began to pour rain down on the cemetery. The Kriger roared and rolled, feeling the magic within begin to pour out of him like a poison being sweated out. He searched for relief and the shield shone like an anchor to keep him afloat. He latched onto it like a lifeline. At that exact moment, a bolt of lightning struck and a burst of light engulfed his vision. Fur and scales peeled away to reveal hard planes of muscular flesh. Blue eyes opened and a gasp of air followed. "Till the end of the line..."

It was an invincible mantra of a brotherly covenant of kids of Brooklyn revving bone-deep as he blearily gazed into the vibranium of his shield in beckoning-soldiery- urgency, the wolfish disheveled length of blonde-golden tresses were shaggily curtained over the hawkish-graven cut of his broader angular features that were roguishly bristled; under the dark navy blue of his patriotic tactical Kevlar uniform the enhanced flexion of heavier-ridged cords of Adonis-honed muscle bulkily rivaled the feral cadency of the Dwarven curse that stealingly divested him into an Asgardian Wardog. Draggingly in a conscious variance of gripping traction, forcibly Steve braced the rough-leather of his fingerless gloves over uplifted granite of a demolished headstone.

A viscerous rush of stoked adrenaline feverishly in his veins as he clashingly steered the niveous azure of his stormier irises hazily at the morbidly roundish orange-fleshed pumpkins uglily entangled within gnarled barricades of vines-deformed-fattened trophies that the Enchantress would devouringly harvest out. "W-Who are they...?" he choked-off in stammering-throatier pitch, breathlessly, shifting the piercing rawness of his vigilant gaze at cloakless Doctor Strange. "Doctor-"

"There's no time, Captain. You're our last chance here. Make it count," Stephen cut in, straight-to-the-point. His bedside manner was never one of his finer qualities, but in this instance it was all Steve Rogers needed to hear. It's what wiped away that look of befuddled confusion and turned it into that inspiring look of valor that led so many soldiers into battle. He stiffened and groaned as the vines holding him began to grow tighter, squeezing every muscle in his body with painstaking strength that robbed all breath from his lungs. It was enough to draw the attention of the Vanaheim sorceress and the goddess of death who snapped their eyes to him...and then towards Steve.

"Impossible! You dare to take my pet from me!" Enchantress roared. She was prepared to end the life of the upstart Midgardian conjurer who believed himself her equal. With one flicking gesture her enchanted veins would rip him bloody shreds. That all halted the moment she met the pulverizing edge of a shield thrown at her face.

Steve's body was like a motorcycle roaring across the field at breakneck speed, his feet kicking up dirt as he sped and soared. The satisfying clank of his shield hitting Enchantress' face causing her cry out, gave him an added boost of adrenaline as it was sent bouncing back. His hand held out and caught the shield as it came back. The onrush of speed saw him react unpredictably as he rolled and lunged high, narrowly avoiding a scalding projectile thrown at him in retaliation by the blonde sorceress. Steve landed next to Strange, using his momentum to bring the edge of his shield down on the vines wrapped around the wizard's arm, chopping clean through them like an axe through wood.

In her viperous tenor of macabre regality, Hela gestured her knife-like fingers haltingly with deterred poise at Amora while in spookish tread she ghostlily neared the strappingly handsome legendary soldier with infinite-quenchless bloodthirst gleaming rampantly in her quicksilver-ophidian irises under the curved aesthetical malachite-jet fringe of her demonic spidered-legged headgear. "Yield your warrior spirit to me, darling boy, and I will grant your friend a quick death..." Hela lashed out vilely, a disgusted quirk etched deeper into the pale-ashen fullness of her scowling lips, as Steve unerringly braced his vibranium shield against his raised fore-arm with defensive reaction, amusingly Hela extended out her gauntleted hand on lethal accord of murderous intent, shadowy-nitrous veins of astral ether morphed into a sharpened length of an ebon Necrosword that savagely jutted out of her opened palm-a weaponized instrument to orchestrate the battle knells of soul-reaping carnage."The choice is yours, mortal soldier..."

Steve would have felt inwardly shaken at the sight of the Asgardian goddess of death were it not for the adrenaline coursing through his veins. It was a fuel that kept him running, kept him on a reactive edge rather than an inactive one. The howling winds were loud and whipped through the cemetery, causing him to raise his shield to block a piece of debris coming towards him. That was when he saw Selina. His blood ran cold at the sight of her motionless body collapsed over a mound of dirt just near the gate of the cemetery. Her eyes were wide-open and for a moment, he felt fear that grip his heart, robbing all breath from his lungs at the possibility that she had been killed. Another loss that he and Bucky would endure. But as he saw the steady rise and fall of her chest, he knew that wasn't the case.

She was paralyzed in a trance. Alive. But still in danger. The groaning and shuffling of the Enchantress' drones permeated the atmosphere, instilling dread within the First Avenger who watched as they approached Selina's helpless form. "Selina…" Not thinking twice, Steve charged forwards, leap-frogging over a large headstone and kicking the skull off a mangled corpse in his way. Hela and Enchantress both looked on, the former mildly intrigued at the thought of engaging a formidable mortal while the latter was filled with vengeful fury, desperate to be unleashed upon her longtime hated enemy.

"I got you," Steve flung his shield towards necks of a trio of undead, severing exposed spinal cords and skulls in one go. His aim was true, the vibranium tool bouncing off every surface and maiming each of the undead in the way. He leaped forward and scooped Selina up into his arms, carrying her towards cover behind a mausoleum. Meanwhile, Strange worked efficiently with the distraction caused by Steve. His freed hand forged a sling-ring portal beneath him, causing him to fall through with the vines still attached. Enchantress was shocked and couldn't react in time before the portal closed, severing the vines and her power over the Midgardian sorcerer.

"NOOO!" Her vicious screech echoed throughout the cemetery.

Steve propped Selina up against the side of the wall, gently brushing her hair from her face and patting her cheek. "Selina. You got to come out of this. Buck….Bucky needs you." He breathed with a weary look, hoping desperately he could reach through to her.

"S-Soldier boy..." The featherlight pressure of chaste-virile heat was a thermal contrast of urgency traced soothingly over the pearlescent contours of her sleek-elfish features, beckoning shivered-delicate precision nakedly coupled with tentative echoes of brotherly reverence. Against the slumberous barrage of warding drowsiness, with instinctive traction of vomitous accord, Selina braced herself against the stone wall, underneath the fringe of her lashes, she feverishly caught odious bulges of gnarled vines and black-jaded racemes-spires gothically forming a bone-impaling stockade around marble tombstones as a decayed surge of Hela's skeletal-zombied armada clawingly twisted erect from dirt-heaped trenches, hollowed-sockets glowingly radiated crimson embers of astral hellfire."I guess you'll owe me some rest later..." she quipped, breathily.

Steve would've responded with a quip of his own, but then both he and Selina were alerted to the crackling sparks of a familiar sight breaching their hiding spot. A sling portal opened and Doctor Strange stepped through, fully freed from the vines with his cloak once again wrapped around his shoulders. "Strange," Steve's shoulders sagged with relief.

"Good you're both safe," Strange said. 'For the moment.' Steve helped Selina to her feet as they both took a moment to collect themselves. Rain began to pour over them, only adding to their exhaustion after such a lengthy battle that appeared to have no advantage in their favor.

"We need a plan of attack," Steve voiced out, urgently. "We need to call in Banner, Scott, everyone that we-"

"There isn't time for that." Strange discouraged. "Hela and Enchantress individually represent a global threat. Together? The entire galaxy could very well be at risk if they're allowed to carry out their goal unopposed. They'll attack the Asgardian colony first and then they'll reap all life on Earth, turning every soul into monsters to serve them."

"Yeah, unless we can hammer down on this homecoming party" Selina hinted deviantly, the frigid murkiness of October downpour was tangly drenching her mahogany tresses, flitting the brazen-thievish rawness of her coffee irises shiftily at the Dwarven-forged ax-Stormbreaker covetously gripped in Hela's unshakeable clutch-a dynamical conductor of her resurrected-unslakeable vitality out of the Dark Verse gateway."Soldier boy and I will keep the wicked queen distracted while you, Tricks," Lithely, she gestured a gloved had to his Tibetian golden sling-ring that mystically accessorized his surgery-marred fingers."Use that fancy ring of yours to slam a door on this Asgardian hag..."

"Its up to the three of us, Captain," Strange said, agreeing with Selina's proposal. Time to call in help from New York, Wakanda and New Asgard would just give the two Asgardian goddesses time to enact their plan and begin scourging all life on Earth.

Steve for his part, understood the gravity of the danger but was nonetheless concerned about engaging another threat with so few numbers. They nearly lost Tony after the Endgame. But now they were at risk of losing more if they left Bucky and Thor to continuously suffer against the Enchantress' magic.

Seeing Steve's apparent conflict, Strange stepped forward, venturing outside his comfort area as both a physician and a sorcerer. "We can do this. We just need you to lead." 'To be worthy.'

Steve's jaw tightened with newfound inspiration as he felt a tingling of anticipation from his finger-tips. He could feel it calling it to him. "Then let's give em' hell."

Detecting the abandoned resistance—weakness of her fleeing Midgardian opponents, impassively Hela clutched on the knobbed branch handle of Stormbreaker, arcing the curved hatchet-Uru metal edge with a scything command towards Greenwood's iron gates-preparing to siege the Norwegian sanctuary into corpse-filled bastion of her earthen domain as white-hot-meteoric salvos of ethereal light flaringly assailed out her veins-ushering a cyclonic firebolt to irrevocably snuff out traitorous—plagued souls of New Asgard.

"They called this a mighty weapon for Asgardian kings..." she uttered out with hellacious spitefulness in her raspier pitch, the length of black cloak flappingly billowed like a pennant over her metallic-armored shoulders as she thunderously hefted the ax up to electrify the louring banks of darkened cloud masses over the eastern horizon with dimensional incandescence—a spectral beacon of her nightmarish-massacring warpath.

"In my veins channels the Eternal Flame, that will conceive such eldritch deviances of resurrection that I can only wield and once the corpses of this realm fall, they will become useful extensions of my shadow-crossed ranks..." Against the Gothic- smokier contrast shadowing her murderous irises, Hela sneered at the gratifying sight of her younger brother-Odin's champion defeatedly imprisoned within a bulbous-ogre-sized pumpkin vessel. "Well, dear brother it appears, I will reign over the Nine Realms while you waste your last days straining for breath..."

"I believe this bloated fool of Thor's Midgardian friends was the one they called James Barnes..." Amora snickered, currishly, the frenzied smokiness of her grayish irises became snakily alight with vehemence as she haughtily stood at the breadth of the globbing, protrusive—bubblier mass of rubberized orange-hued flesh that was heart-wretchedly being solidified—plumped within the cradling ensnare of rooted vines as torn frays of tactical Kevlar stickily glided off the ballooning, fatter rotundness of an unmoveable—dormant pumpkin. "Shall I allow him to prevailingly burgeon as a morphing symbol of your conquest, Mistress?"

Hela's cruel smirk was matched by Amora's malicious offer. Before the goddess of death could impart her acceptance, her honed senses screamed at her of an incoming threat that arrived with all the swiftness of a prevailing wind. She reacted only a moment too late before her headdress was struck hard by a roaring disk. The clanking metal of vibranium was as deafening as a gong echoing throughout the graveyard, causing her to recoil with discomfort. Amora was the second to suffer as the shield bounced off Hela's headdress and struck the blonde sorceress square in the face, causing her to stumble and curse in Old Norse.

"Get away from my friend." The voice of valor and defiance entered their midst. The goddesses turned equal parts irritated and bemused to see Captain America catch his shield, standing his ground. The mortal man stood mighty in his uniform, taller than even some of Asgard's warriors, and with a focus that could rival Odin himself.

"So this was the mortal who turned into the Fell-beast," Hela gritted in baleful pitch, her wraith-like poise engagingly beckoned a dead-pass challenge of their weaponized-arsenal to conduct tempests of war; arrestingly mirroring the fiercer valiance stormily melded in his cool azure irises-a battle-tested pulse that determinedly rode over the graven-edge contours of his dirt-smudged jawline, as the leather strap of his tactical helmet loosely clung over his uniform's collar. "I desire for him to be kept alive, as I have a much grievous fate for this soldier to endure in the gorges of Helheim..."

"Hela." Steve's focus was on the intricately clad emerald and raven goddess of death. "Thor told me about you." Thor spoke much about what happened to him and Bruce in space. About Hela who had single-handedly overthrew Asgard's armies, killed Thor's friends before taking his eye. She was an older sister he knew nothing about, but was arguably more powerful than him. She made Loki's handiwork look like a child's play in comparison. The turmoil Steve felt over this confrontation threatened to return before he stowed it away as he looked at his two allies beside him. Strange and Selina stood their ground, their attention landing on Enchantress had a score to settle with the Sorcerer Supreme.

"I would ask you to stand down and leave but I don't think either of us is willing to do that." It was rhetorical but necessary to gauge his opponent's perception towards diplomacy. He expected it but nonetheless clenched his jaw as Hela flashed him an amused grin that was chilling.

"Smart boy." She taunted. "Though perhaps not quite if you think you can stand your ground against me."

She was arrogant or perhaps overconfident. Steve wondered if all Asgardian villains were this way and predicted to hear the words "kneel", at any moment. He wouldn't. Not for Loki-not for his older sister. Something in his eyes gave away his conviction which prompted Hela to raise her eyebrows at him curiously. "Well then lady, looks like we're in for a long night." Steve said.

He waited with baited breath as Hela gave Enchantress a nod of approval. With that, the Asgardian sorceress launched herself forward towards Strange, a sadistic laugh escaping her lips. "Stand back and cover me," Strange yelled to Selina who immediately rolled away behind a headstone, narrowly dodging a burning blast of magic and began opening fire on Enchantress.

Steve and Hela stood across from each other, silent and assessing. Her height put her nearly at eye-level with him, her sultry figure was athletic and spoke of ages of experience. Her fingers were wrapped around the hilt of Thor's new weapon-Stormbreaker-and she wasn't shy about demonstrating her needless advantage over him as they began circling one another.

Bracing his shield against the taut-ridges of his Kevlar-clad bulk with a defensive variance of his controlled footing, tensely Steve became attuned to grislier dissonance of her butcherous thirst as the vitric-jade of her spider-edged helm imposingly emitted a miasmic aura, demonically commanding her zombied denizens to march a flesh-ravaging assault into the streets while her predatorily readied to deliver a merciless throat-slashing assault, she was impressed by the unwavering traction of his battle stance, the explosive-blood rush was intoxicating to discard. "So you have chosen death to be your fate..." she jeered, mockingly, leveling Stormbreaker with executing precision to cleave open his chest in with frontal thrust. "I will make your blood rain over the corpses of your worthless friends.."

"Not gonna happen," Steve threw his shield, hoping to distract the goddess long enough to move in for a frontal assault. He charged and rolled towards her, twirling to deliver a whirlwind kick against her solar-plexus. It felt like hitting a brick-wall. His momentum only caused her to stagger but she barely looked phased as she laughed at him and proceeded to backhand him across the ground.

Steve landed hard on his side, but knew the damage could've been much more severe in that Hela was toying with him. He charged at her again, narrowly avoiding her as she brought one of her scythe-like blades down towards his head. He raised his shield to deflect the blow, but the force of her strength caused him to tremble on his feet. She kicked the shield and him with it, sending him rolling on his back.

Vibrations shook the Earth. Blue eyes widened with realization. He dodged left and right as the ground suddenly began exploding with grisly blades. Years of discipline added with sharp reflexes enabled him to maneuver through a maze of death. The blades were demonic and long, protruding from the Earth as if they emerged from hell itself. His arm was narrowly saved by his shield that was scraped in a shower of sparks. Steve grittled his teeth and leaped high using his shield as a surf-board to sail overhead.

As expected, one of the blades plunged upward into the center of his shield, propelling him upward into the air, bringing him high up. Steve closed his eyes and focused, reaching out and feeling a rush of energy travel up his arm. The stormy winds howled and thunder clapped, causing the skies to blacken and arcs of lightning to lance down into the graveyard as a confused Hela looked on. Shifting her gaze between the grave where her diminutive brother was withering away and then towards the skies.

"Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor..."

A thunderous—incanted mantra of Odin's voice clashingly rumbled over the blackened vistas, with a contractive strain of his thrusting hand, impressively harnessing eagle-like graces of his descending, acrobatic momentum over the obsidian protrusion of jutting spikes barbarously elongating to impale him. The soul-driven tenor of his virile resilence surged underneath the silvery navy-blue kevlar, tauten bands of sculpted muscle bulkily flexed with amplified as Steve readily answered the Nordic warrior's cadence, ushering an incarnate reality of cacophonous tempest as voltaic nacreous strobes of whitish amethyst cyclonically propelled an electrifying wake from the bridged dimensional gateways of the Multiverse —a hailed —arrowing ferocity that wasn't sired in the wombs of mortal blood.

Confusingly, in feigned alarm, Hela staggered back over a leveled coffin, her slitting irises widened as incendiary salvos of lightning quakingly lanced heated —careening voltage into the cemetery ground, blindingly singeing the maggoty skeletal corpses in ricocheted succession: Mjolnir was coming. "No...How is this possible, I destroyed that cursed hammer..." A breathless snarl razored out of her throat, gratingly."No mortal can be worthy of Odin's power..."

And just like that, Steve came down from the skies like a meteorite striking the Earth with titanic force. Soil and debris scattered into the air with a shockwave carrying it across. Hela recoiled yet stood her ground. Selina and Strange spared a glimpse from their entanglement with Enchantress and felt immediate hopeful by what they saw. Captain America holding Mjolnir aloft with an unbreakable posture. His veins hummed with a vibrant energy fueled by the arcs of electricity encompassing his body. His close eyelids opened to reveal blue eyes glowing with raw power. Their sights were set on the goddess of death who gazed at him with disbelief.

"You may want to rethink that." And then he charged, bursting with speed and the telltale humming of a twirling hammer in his grip. Hela's shock was violently knocked away with a hard swing, Mjolnir's vengeful might smashing against the side of her head, breaking away a piece of her headdress. Steve didn't give her a moment to react as he dived in, using his shield to block a forceful kick from her boot, the recoil wasn't as overwhelming to him as before. His strength and adrenaline carrying him onward as he began raining a flurry of attacks-shield, knee, fist and hammer across Hela's torso until he felt an equally powerful force clash against Mjolnir in his grip. Stormbreaker was the obstruction, held securely in Hela's hellish grip-emerald green eyes burning with anger.

"You honestly think you can strike me...!" Hela lashed snarlingly, with a hostile counter, she pivoted on her spiked heel in vicious traction; in whirling precision of a slashing thrust of her gauntleted hand, with predatory-hone reaction, ghoulishly she forged darkish mordacious vapors that contrasted into retractable ebon shards of obsidian Neoswords, against the frenzied maelstrom, penetratingly throwing heart-lancing strikes into granite stone and jutted out skeletal torsos. The viscid fluid of smelting decay misted rancidly over gaped-opened trenches; orcish death-walkers screechingly crescendoed into a cadaverous pandemonium of bone-sloughed heaps as the fiery—astral glyphs of eldritch -driven energy were being telekinetically wielded by Doctor Strange across from her kill-zone.

"I know what makes a soldier fall when the mercy of defeat is granted, boy..." The vampiric- serpentine demoness taunted in malevolent pitch, arcing Stormbreaker with executing poise to lethally graze a skull-cleaving assault over Steve's helmet. "Give that wretched hammer to me, and I'll make you an extension of my eternal ranks..."

Gnashing his teeth with a full-throated snarl, roaringly, in lightning-quick reaction, as cool wetness rainily dripped over his sensuous-chiseled lips, Steve defensively braced his athletic bulk into a low split-crouch, angling his shield with his tense forearm, as he dodged a flurrying barrage of knifing hailstorm, bodily gunning his propelling ferocity to batter-ram her with a combative—sledgehammering rush. On a vigilant fringe of his accelerated pace, to duel against the mirrored cadence of tactical supremacy, he called up warred reserves of his enhanced agility—pushing himself to the full-measure limit with headlong momentum as he bruisingly clutched Mjolnir as throbs of blood oozily dripped off the archaic handle.

"Not interested, lady." Was Steve rough response after narrowly dodging a protruding blade hellbent on impaling him. His offensive attacks had done little other than wake-up Hela to the reality that he wasn't an ordinary soldier that could be easily squashed like a bug beneath her boot. His disciplined mind worked in sync with the reflexes of his body; carrying him through Hela's relentless flow of attacks as he searched for his opening. He had been observing her attack patterns. She relied heavily on her ability to summon these demonic blades from outta nowhere and create a more hazardous environment for him than a mine-field. Mjolnir and the shield in his hands kept him in the game. One of her blades was aimed for neck, and a second for his stomach. The hammer smashed one, the shield deflected the other.

The cosmic power flowing through him hummed as if instructing him on his potential-what he could do. Arm raised high summoned lightning into his grip, enfueling him to the brink he felt ready to burst. He released the energy by driving the hammer down against the surface. A shockwave expanded and swept across the cemetery, shattering gravestones and propelling Hela backwards. She held her ground but was distracted long enough for her to miss the edge of Steve's shield colliding with her face. A loud gong rang out, stunning the goddess of death who suddenly felt all air escape her lungs as Mjolnir was thrown smashing against her stomach, knocking her down.

"This is for Thor," Steve murmured, summoning Mjolnir back into his grip. Hela shrugged off her damaged headdress, eyes filled with raw fury and raised Stormbreaker. It was time to finish this. Both raised their weapons to the heavens, calling the lightning to their sides as the winds carried them up high. They rumbling clap of thunder was deafened by the collision of two godly weapons causing an arc of lightning to split open the sky. Hela and Steve came crashing down, falling...falling…

Seeing this, Strange pulled both himself and Selina into the Mirror Dimension while a bewildered Enchantress was left to gawk at the sight of a shockwave of lightning slamming into her.

"Where are we, Tricks...?" An incredulous tenor of Selina breathy undertone raspily echoed as vitreous barriers of mirror-like glass prismatically kaleidoscoped around her; against a feverish shunt of nausea, dizzyingly, in rampant traction of her planking elbows, half-exhausted, Selina arced the svelte contours of the litheness of her neoprene-clad body with balletic poise. Gritting her teeth in vehement strain, her dark irises fleetingly blurred against a sonic blast of lightning, vaporizing the zombied husks as dissected bones splintered in that explosive wake, tarry gloze of liquified-carious flesh viscously trekked over the headstones. "Okay, now that's little gross for a girl to see..." she quipped vixenishly, clutching onto her Glock with a reactive flex. "We need to curb this witch party now..."

"I think its over," Strange said after a moment of watching and waiting for the sounds of battle to resume over the now demolished graveyard. The entire area was littered with debris and enveloped in clouds of dust. The storming droplets of rain had lessened into gentle taps that neither Strange nor Selina could feel. Their hesitation was discarded when they took in the sight of an injured and unconscious Enchantress laying splayed out on the ground. "Stay close," he cautioned. The sparking wheel of magic opened a hole in front of them and the sorcerer beckoned Selina through. They stepped back into their dimension, breathing in the pungent stench of decayed flesh and wet soil. Droplets of rain come down on them and on Enchantress laying at their feet.

Thinking quickly, Strange created a magical rune beneath her, trapping her within its ring. "She won't be going anywhere… But where are they…" He wondered searching and unable to see beyond the blur of their surroundings. Had Hela and Steve done the unthinkable and destroyed each other?

Quelling down a shiver of racked numbness, ephemerally doing her utmost brandished an impassive charade over her elvish features, Selina registered heart-crushing-infective urgency pulsing throughout the ghoulish environs-they were on the blinding edge of hope. Feeling a bruising pinch of her nails against her fisting-gloved palm, she gnawed on the underswell of her lip, under the fringe of her mascara-curled lashes, her gaze searchingly towards an obstructive barricade of upturned coffins; she found a brawny masculine silhouette valorously garbed in patriotic tactical Kevlar, standing in a victorious stance with his legendary shield gripped in his leather-gloved hand. Hard-edged tension rapted over Steve's roguish, bloodied features as he glowered fiercely down at his defeated opponent-Hela-being reined into submission with Mjolnir weightily braced over her armored breasts. "Soldier Boy..." she called out, keeping herself distant. "I guess you like to bring the dance to a new level, huh?"

"Something like that," Steve smiled, glad to see Selina unharmed. He could make out the shape of Enchantress waking up with Strange speaking to her. A hardened resolve took form on the Avenger's face in the aftermath of what had to be his most grueling one-on-one fight he'd ever had. Enchantress and Hela had come to wreak havoc on what they assumed to be a weak and battered world, with heroes too weary to return to battle. Remorse filled Steve's heart as he considered those who were caught in the crossfire. His thoughts were disturbed by the dark ominous chuckling of his defeated opponent. The right side of her face was scorched by the devastating collision of Mjolnir and Stormbreaker. Were it not for his shield, Steve knew he would have been more than just scathed.

"You will never see true victory, soldier..." Vitriolically, Hela grimaced in a wraithlike seethe, the spidered appendages of her ebon headdress gouged into the reeking dirt as she twistily angled her head on straining accord, shifting her murderous gaze at the swelled -out pumpkin fattening into a colossal blob of dormant flesh. "My failure of a brother no longer prevails to your mortal reach...He will tragically join Odin when our horizon breaks..."

"Not if I have anything to say about it." Strange cut through the ominous tension with a commanding presence. Steve and Selina stepped away as they watched a portal begin to open directly beneath Hela. "Might want to hold onto that, Captain." Strange nodded towards the hammer; still keeping the goddess restrained as she now began to struggle and curse with realization. "Farewell goddess of death, I'll tell Thor you said hello." Hela released a roaring scream of fury as the earth beneath her fell away, sucked through into void of time and space. And then she fell into the dark, bitter cold of Nifelheim. Steve caught Mjolnir at the right moment just as the portal sealed behind her. She was gone.

Against the vertiginous onslaught fringing a torturous pressure through her veins, breathlessly Amora felt the feverish slickness of bloodied rivets graspingly contrast over the ashen pearlescent of her arms, delivering an infectious strain of thorn-like Nordic reddish skeins in Eldritch accord. With a reptilian variance of unhinged reaction, the Vanaheim sorceress waspishly flashed a glint of venomous heat at Doctor Strange as the infusive utterance of his celestial incantation of Yggdrasill's light ethereally melded the electrical pulses of Stormbreaker into circlet glyphs-the astral fusion he adroitly composed out of the Dark Dimension. The rigid suppleness of her ashen flesh coiled with cobra-like ferocity as she railed out a throat-crackling snicker, crazily. "You damn fools have unfortunately lost this engaging battle, the mighty Thor and your beloved Sergent Barnes will soon become soulless vessels of earthen decay..."

Warding off paralyzing traction of heart-stabbing momentum on her stiletto heels, Selina neared towards the entanglement of vines stoppingly, careening-rampageous apparitions of desperation excruciatingly became soul-crushing in a breathless onrush of grappling throes of knifing heartache as her brandy irises mistily flitted blank rawness over a lumpish-bulgy orange pumpkin-a mutative deformity of a ballooning prisoner was irrevocably cradled within the mudded depths of the emptied trench.

Angling her chin over her tensing shoulder, as mahogany tresses clingily webbed over her fevered cheeks, Selina felt the errant frigidity of drizzling wetness, the downpour had become a cool-deadening anesthetic; in that denotive moment of starving grace, she blindly clutched onto a gnarled vine, and with a controlled-rampant- precision, her gloved hand edged deeper, as she chastely kneaded reverent pressure of beckoning-intimate- heat over rotund bulbous flesh of the pumpkin's expanding mass. "B-Bucky..." she choked out voiceless hitches of suffocated breath, threadily, caressing her splayed palm over rubbered solidity of the unmovable pumpkin, while Amora's crackling hyena- laugh deafeningly stole the visceral cadence of eternity that became too agonizing for her to answer. "No...P-Please come back..."

Steve had witnessed many gut-wrenching and horrific sights in his lifetime. Witnessing Bucky's many brushes with death always appeared to be a constant that each time it happened he feared it was the final time. The pain never lessened, it only grew. And so nothing could compare to the stark reality that his best friend wasn't just lifeless, but was now completely unrecognizable in the twisted barks and veins that enveloped the grave he was thrown into. Both he and Strange glanced between each other, both grim-faced and morose as they listened to Selina's gentle sniffles over the rotund pumpkin that was once the man she loved.

Gloved hands tightened into fists and Mjolnir returned to Steve's grip. He turned and glared at Enchantress with a tight jaw. "Turn them back now, Ziegler." He demanded. His threat was left unspoken as the hammer hummed with raw anticipation.

Repelled by his adamant stance, against vengeful blindness, Amora mirrored his silvery azure depths, that glacial intensity searingly pulsed with voltaic-stormier heat that melded in his veins; the heathen warren of carrion denizens-legions of mortal warcraft that she forged had collapsed; heralding installations of the slaughterous butchery of Midgard receded back into the fathomless gorges of Hvergelmir. "I find your wretched demands amusing," she hissed, damningly, feeling viscid sludge of liquified bones frothing gloopily over her gauntleted hands. "My powers are unbound and since you denied my Mistress a blood-soaked reign, you shall watch these fattened husks become cursive ghosts in the casts of your dark twilight, Captain..."

"Then I guess that means we won't be needing you anymore. I can think of a few good places to throw you. The Dark Dimension would be ideal..." The biting sardonic words of the Sorcerer Supreme gave Enchantress literal pause as she watched him stand in front of her. Something had shifted in his eyes that were no longer reserved with passive determination. There was an aura of conviction. A judge laying the sentence upon the guilty held at trial before him. The sorceress' first inclination was to dismiss the mortal's power but having been bested twice by him, she knew he was no mere novice. His power was great enough to send Hela to the icy hell of Nifilheim where she would not return. What would he do to her? Amora raised her hand, gesturing for him to stop. Steve exchanged a look with Strange, wondering how serious he was that he managed to intimidate the sorceress. "Unless, you undo your handiwork. Everyone you turned."

Enchantress left with no other option, valuing her own survival than the satisfaction of leaving Thor and Barnes to their miserable fates. Her hands folded together, conjuring a triangle sphere that morphed into an emerald Vanir glyph that expanded and burst as a shockwave of light across the cemetery. Steve and Strange looked around, pleased to see nothing had at least changed for the worst. "It is done. Now...release me, wizard!" She spat.

"I will. Don't ever return to Earth." With that, Strange opened a portal and watched as a screaming Enchantress fell through and into the dark underworld of Hvergelmir where a giant serpent would be keeping her busy.

A silence settled over the area; uneasy and timid. Steve and Strange walked towards the pumpkin graves, keeping a respectful distance from Selina who hadn't moved-who hadn't even reacted to the burst of magical energy that swept through the vicinity. Her stare was vacant and listless, as if her life had been drained into the branches that imprisoned the soul of the man she loved, leaving only a shell behind. Steve and Strange exchange an uneasy glance, worried that Amora might have actually lied to them.

And then something had begun to change. Strange could almost feel it. The cleansing of a dark aura that could no longer remain strengthened due to the absence of its power-source. The glowing orange embers of eldritch magic began to fade like a light being burned out. The vines that were entangled around the grave wilted and peeled, revealing a contorted mass of leaves and ripped clothing. Selina by now had realized what was happening, her coffee-brown eyes wide and unblinking with an undried tear staining her cheek. The groaning of the tree-limbs were like a roar of a dying animal as Enchantress' magic dispersed.

And then, alarmingly, the bulbous pumpkin had begun to expand; morphing as if coming to life before their very eyes until the ribbed skin turned into flesh. The thick round shell had turned into the form of a man who suddenly sprang to consciousness with a harsh gasp.

"What the hell happened?!" Bucky gasped, eyes wide in total fright and confusion until they took in the calming sight of Selina hovering over him. The last thing he remembered was her being paralyzed and surrounded by Amora's undead puppets ready to finish her off. The fear-the terror he felt in his heart had been too real, he thought he had failed her. But now...now… "Lina...You're...You're alive…" He reached up to cup her cheek, tentative and loving with a glistening of emotion in his blue eyes.

An evocative reality became cravingly grounded into stuporous drags of addictive havoc, while she gazed into the silvered heat of his grayish-aquamarine irises, under the wolfish length of his rain-dampened chestnut tresses, Selina felt his whisper-soft touch growing heavier against disarmed tenor that was intensifying with abandoned-intoxicating urgency; shifting against the ridges of corded bulkiness sculpting his muscled chest, she registered the virile smoothness of his larger palm bracketing a tentative flex of amorous pressure against the delicate underside her angled sleek jaw, gliding drift of roughened his thumb swelteringly graced a reverent pulse of sensuous heat over the lusher swell of her glossier delectable lips. They were reaching for an edge of a moment-the mirrored -headier cadence of a decadent rush-the incarnate resurgence of sweet victory that felt starvingly long-denied against the freakish sorcerous onslaughts infectiously conceived by Amora's portentous -doomsday conjury.

Smirking with a kittenish quirk on her full-bow pillowy lips, Selina hushedly became aware of the wafting rank of pumpkin juice drizzly infused over his naked, tauten flesh. "I think both of us need to shower, Barnes..." she quipped under a devious breath, snarkily, as the metallic graze of his cool bionic fingers caressingly threaded a fiercer grip of mechanized precision over her tousled mahogany whorls, in chaste-ardent steadiness that was exhilaratingly conveyed as their foreheads blindly touched with intimate contrast of wet heat, revving up a grip of sensual tension of their passion-driven arousal. "If we get this graveyard stink off, there might be time to dig into a few Halloween spoils..." she purred, naughtily scrunching up her nose. "Or maybe you prefer carrots..."

"Very cute, darlin'." Bucky snarked before bringing her in, poised and amorous as his lips feathered across hers and rekindled the passion that was feared lost. It wasn't a desperate nor lustful meld of intertwining lips, but a dance between two reunited souls who never wavered in their love. The kiss lasted a moment before they were disrupted by a loud boorish groan coming from the grave beside them. Everyone flinched but watched expectantly as a newly restored Asgardian King pulled himself into a sit-up position, groaning like a man who had the worst hangover.

"What did I miss? Did we win?" Thor groaned, grimacing at the taste in his mouth that reminded him of stale veg. His memories of the battle returned and he took in the state of the grave-yard, satisfied and relieved to see his friends were all present and alive, and Amora, he could only presume, was knocked half-way across the universe where she would not haunt him.

"Yeah. Looks like it, Thor." Steve said with a relieved smile.

"Good…" A belch escaped the thunderer who then noticed that Steve was holding Mjolnir to his side. His once most dependable and prized possession had once again found its way into worthy hands to save the day. "Show off..." Thor jabbed with good-humor. It lasted only a moment before the blue of his eyes widened and he felt his stomach rumble. He threw his head over the ledge and emptied the contents of his stomach, much to the amusement and disgust of those present he coughed up pumpkin seeds. "I need ale...Lots of it." He held his arm out and called Stormbreaker into his hands, determined to fly to New Asgard, drink away all memory of this terrible night; and maybe tomorrow finish that candy he left behind.

"Steve…" Bucky approached Steve with Selina on his arm.

"Buck…" Steve smiled, happy to see his best friend had cheated death yet again, and had his best girl keeping him up on his feet every step of the way. "This is becoming a bad habit." He said breaking the tension which earned him a chuckle and a soft pat on the arm from the bearded brunette.

"Don't I know it." Bucky studied his friend carefully. Looking at him again, he saw something he was afraid he'd never see again that night they talked. He saw life, he saw peace, and a willingness to move forward.

Pillowing her cheek against the ridged heaviness of Bucky's fleshed shoulder, grungily under tousled-damp mahogany tresses with an incredulous flit of her dark irises, Selina gazed at the mystical virtuoso as he remained trancedly impassive-locked in a telepathic stupor, the cavalier smoothness of his matured-goateed features raptly edged with stiff concentration as he quakily eased up his scarred pin-hinged fingers a painstaking hairbreadth over pulsing strains of astral energy that beckoningly veined out of a transcendental highway-the breached phantom crossways of the Multi-verse plane: something was coming out.

Keeping Bucky grounded at her side, he clumsily lost reined traction on his combat boots from bone-numbing exhaustion after being morphed into a bulging globular-sized pumpkin-it was hard for him to shake off. Shifting her brandy depth with jaunty deviousness alight, Selina detected the heartsick urgency Strange guardedly masked with a dismissive-snub-clench of his bristled jaw. "Let me guess, someone is calling on the other line of your mystic radar, Tricks?" she purred coolly, a play of slyness fringed in her undertone, he didn't react with his off-hand deadpanning tenor. "Well, don't keep them waiting..."

"I don't intend to," Strange replied. His level of concentration had changed ever since he'd become the Sorcerer Supreme. While the human mind could only perceive certain senses such as sight, hearing, taste and touch; his mind was now attuned to cosmic abnormalities and psychic connections. One more specific of which happened to be with a certain Avenger he'd grown quite fond of. He focused and began to rotate dual digits in a circular motion, opening a portal to the New York Sanctum where he had made an important drop-off hours ago.

The wheeling veins of Eldritch-telekinetic energy blazingly converged over the battle-ravaged cemetery; skeletal remnants became sifts of vapory dust against seismic pulses, clenching his beard-ragged jaw, tensely Steve hefted up his shield while Bucky scowlingly echoed his tactical intent, leveling straight-arm precision of the Glock with triggered readiness as reddish psionic flares of magenta consumingly whooshed over headstones. Gearing up his predatory-sniper-caliber, tautly Bucky pinched his furrowing brow, scanning over a white-stone mausoleum and Gothic statuary with the laser-edged periphery of his vision, not easing his grip on the hammer-lock. "I don't like this..." he drawled, throatily, advancing in mid-step with Selina defensively crouched low on her neoprene-clad hunches near an opened trench."Waitin' for your call, punk..."

Steve wasn't sure what was happening, nor why Strange had just opened up a portal but knew that it wasn't to bring in another hostile entity for them to fight. He calmly gestures for Bucky to stand-down as his eyes take in the sight of a familiar face stepping through the portal.

"Steve..." Within a measured rush of a heartbeat, curvaceously garbed in her burgundy Victorian-steampunk- leather jacket that gothically contrasted a corset-like brocade, Wanda hastily emerged out of the sling-ring portal, raspily beckoning for him in urgent pitch, evident to the elfish sleekness that waifishly belied her Sokovian visage, keeping her sleeved arms forcibly extended wide in telltale strain against the rupturing implosion of the dimensional barrier. "I-I have something to show you...There isn't much time before the gateway closes..."

"Wanda." Strange and the Scarlet Witch greet each other with a heartfelt embrace that could be felt by everyone present. The younger woman smiled and laughed at something sardonic he whispered into her ear, and she responded by whispering something into his own. Strange suddenly looked stunned by whatever it was he was told. Steve, Bucky and Selina exchange uncertain looks, wondering what was up with all the secrecy.

"Doc, Wanda? We all right here?" Steve asked worriedly as Wanda's eyes focused on him.

"You have an appointment, Captain." Strange said, barely containing the smile on his lips as he opened up a new portal. This one leading to what appeared to be an open road in an unknown location. Steve looked between the portal to Strange, and then back towards Wanda, uncertain what this meant.

In those rigged seconds of effusive urgency, heartily Bucky edged a measured step closer to Steve; heart-crushingly fostering the Brooklyn covenant of their unbreakable brotherhood, he needed to let his 'little Stevie' go, the infinite battleground they crossed was barren against the promise of new daybreak-echoes of prevailing valor would never be deafened. Straining a crestfallen quirk of his shapely-wide lips, evident to the Brooklyn covenant of unbreakable brotherhood deeply graced in the bracketing crow-lines of his glacial aqueous irises, smirkily, Bucky murmured out against dredged up croakiness of a breathless pitch, whisperingly, giving him an encouraging nod."Go for it, punk..."

Something had happened, Steve knew. Everyone appeared to realize that. Steve was almost afraid to wonder what though inwardly he couldn't stop thinking about the one face he wanted to see at his side more than any other. One that was beside him through thick and thin for so many years since waking up in this new century. But one look at Bucky who gave his nod of encouragement was enough to uplift him from his somber trepidation.

"Hold onto this for me." He says, handing Bucky his shield. "Till next time." He and Bucky share what almost felt like a parting smile, but both knew this wasn't goodbye. Mjolnir would find its way back to the compound with Strange's help. All that was left was the way forward. He had to move forward, and in this instance, it was quite literal. The twirling sparks of magic that created the gateway stood in front of him and Steve felt as if he were about to step into his future. Everyone watches as he steps through with the portal closing behind him.

"Think he'll be all right?" Bucky asked Selina, nuzzling her cheek. Steve didn't need a guardian or keeper, but a part of Bucky would always worry for his best friend who he looked out for since childhood.

"I think Rogers is going to have the ride of his life, handsome..." Selina rasped knowingly; the virile muskiness of sandalwood nakedly caressed over the pearlescent flesh of her delicate elfish features in a headier rush of their melding arousal, a feverous volition that she gloriously craved against drags of restraint. Flitting her lashes against blearing onrush wetness of errant tears, Selina registered the intimate wake of their evocative-rivalrous sync-a tempered demand for her abandonment he commanded, hungrily.

Every tenor of sensuous pressure ignited a slow-burning fever that wouldn't be quenched; she felt the waging—chaste precision of his bionic hand was shiveringly touch-driven that dueled with her rapid pulse as she kittenishly twined her lithe arms over the broad corded thickness of his nape, blindingly a decadent surge of wet heat of the plushier fullness of her lips ghosted an intensifying promise of boneless mania steamily over the hard-edged planes of his stubbled jaw, as she purringly urged. "You do owe me a Halloween spoil, Bunny Boy..."

Wordlessly he leaned in and claimed her lips in a deep kiss full of promise to make good on her claim later that evening. Inwardly, Bucky felt as if an invisible weight on his shoulders had been lifted and the future would begin to look much brighter for everyone. -

Dawn had begun to peak over the horizon, bathing the skies with a mosaic of colors from vibrant pink to warm yellow. It was a beautiful canvas that the artist within Steve could appreciate as he stood on an open road out in the country. He wasn't sure where he was at first. But one look at a nearby sign told him he wasn't too far away from the facility outside of the city. He silently took in everything; the trees, the fields, the every brightening skies and wondered why he had never stopped to appreciate such a calming atmosphere that could feel like home.

Of course, it only felt like home when it had those closest to you to share it with. He knew he wasn't alone. He had Bucky, he had Sam, he had Wanda, Thor, Selina, Tony-everyone that he could call friend and family. A solemn heart could always yearn but push forward…but it could also be rejuvenated.

'Please Nat...Don't let go...Dammit...'

The desperate flex of Clint's vicing grip had anguishedly stolen her pulse in a tenfold; she felt the nether frostiness of galactic wasteland of Vormir chasmically resonated through her veins in the soul-crushing moment of surrendering herself to the elysian bridge of captive apparitions-souls that were harvested on the sacrificial fringe. It was a trade-off run that she had unremittingly geared up for; a votive-suicidal choice that was measured by the ultimate-immeasurable price of her disposable-infective blood. A contingency extension that she conceived where they downsized into the quantum dimension; knowing the inevitable stakes were high. 'Whatever it takes...'

The damnable-surgical cadence of the Red Room had been finally silenced. In the heart-gouging moment of throbbingly registering the straining-urgent ease of her best friend's bloodied hand on the edge the icy crag; they had one chance to reverse the soul-reaping-genocidal energy of Thanos's cosmic Infinity Gaunlet. The incarnate legacy of the Black Widow had been cleaved with an unforgiving price-she had betrayingly lost her fostered sister Yelena to the surgical devices of that ability-copying parasite Taskmaster who had deceptively composed in the underground ranks-harmonic industry of weaponized-combative- marionettes.

'I use to have nothing...'

She wouldn't give Clint Barton to the Soul Stone; that one part of herself that kept fighting to do the right thing, stoking the battle-tested extent of her undeterred-grievous choice to voluntarily fall into the celestial rift of eternity: staking down her expandable deliverance of viscerous redemption. Everything was beyond reach from the mortal plane-the visceral throb of unbidden-contractive heartache wouldn't staunch out. She needed to get back to him-Steve.

After being side-tracked with greenlight missions of SHIELD, harnessing deceptive-tactical calibers of warranted spycraft; Natasha kept herself unbreakable like granite-distant to the limits of her heart; the killing stage of the Red Room Academy had exorcised out her resistance for combative supremacy tested in the blood-smeared crosshairs. When Hawkeye-Barton's arrow delivered precision of mercy in a market sector of Budapest, she became a defective Widow operative-a Sleeper Agent recruited by the underground 'tradecraft- installation helmed by Nick Fury, utilizing hard-core mechanisms of calibrated survival, becoming a fugitive of her own unforgiving-butchered past.

Then, on the flight-deck of Helicarrier, she met the awakened First Avenger-a soldiery descendent of paragon ranks of American heroism; Steven Grant Rogers was a modernized-valiant-hearted- tenacious 'Perseus' who had daringly cut off the tyrannical head of HYDRA with unquenchable and enhanced resilience when malodorous fumes of bloodshed vented out of the battlemented frontlines of war-torn Europe. He braved the impossible-sacrificed everything to finish the mission when the interminable odds tragically flipped against him.

At first, Natasha emptily valued him as the boyish patriotic 'eagle boy' as Fury selected him to determinedly command the united Avengers when the Chitauri armada invasion ushered by Loki had destructively ravaged over downtown New York, after that day victorious day, open grounds of breached trust didn't falter; nothing was the same-Natasha had found her new dance partner-just like Andromeda.

Now, she felt detachedly anesthetized-grappled out a chimerical paradox, almost like vertiginously wading against a relentless undertow-only half-awake to feel the electrified beckon of love's charity-a retractive grip of anchoring salvation. Becoming aware of the elemental callback as fiery sigils of kinetic magenta ethereally barraged around her-a symphonic resurrection that manifested as celestial branches of Yggdrasill morphed into paradisiac beacons of eternity.

Brandishing a poised semblance of tactical nonchalance, inadvertently Natasha braced the supple planes of her leather-garbed back against the chrome handlebars of parked vintage Harley Davidson, her grayish-teal irises searchingly flashed with catatonic echoes of warred resistance as the knifing questioned careened through her veins: did everyone that nightmarishly dissolved-harvested into sifted heaps of ashy mulch on the battlegrounds of Wakanda come back...?

She had waited patiently unlike a woman who had been given a second chance that she didn't say anything. Not a word, not a sound to give her away as he shuffled about the road, turning a corner until he spotted her behind a cluster of trees by the curb.

Steve ground to a complete halt, unable to mask the look of emotion on his face once he realized who it was he had been brought here to see. The face that haunted his dreams and waking nightmares for months now, and until last night he wasn't sure if he would've ever seen again. "...Nat?"

She stood leaning back against a Harley Davidson, decked out in tight blue jeans, a brown leather jacket with her crimson-colored locks pulled back into a braided ponytail. A small watery smile was across her rosebud lips, but he couldn't, for the life of him, bring himself to succumb to the empowering feeling of total joy. Not after what happened last night.

It couldn't be her... Could it? They stood across from each other in silence, neither making a move forward, but Steve struggled with himself as he took a step forward, and then another, until he was in front of her. His heart beat rapidly in his chest the closer he came and took in that blood-rushing scent of lavender and citrus. That was too familiar to be faked...along with the flecks of blonde mixed with her copperish red locks in her braid. It was her-there was no doubting that.

His heart began hammering so hard he thought it might burst as he gazed into her misty teal eyes that were fighting to withhold their emotions. "What was the last thing you said to me?" He chided almost playfully.

She gave him a watery smile as she tucked in her bottom lip. "Well, I guess it was more than five seconds..." She teased.

And just like that, all doubt vanished from inside of him and his joy soared to unimaginable heights. He raced to her and lifted her up into his arms, crushing his lips to hers in a breathtaking kiss. His heart was quaking inside his chest, making him feel breathless as their lips moved and they breathed into each other like they had dreamed of doing for so many years. It was therapeutic, it was life-giving and shattered the barriers that had been between them for too long.

Steve held her in his arms, almost afraid to let go until she coaxed with a reassuring smile that set him at ease. Neither of them made an effort to wipe the trickle of tears from each others eyes as they basked in each others warm presence. "There's so much I want to say to you, Nat. There's a lot I should've said. I-" Steve began, recalling the remorse he felt last night. His eyes must have revealed so much, or maybe it was the kiss itself, because his words were halted as she cupped his cheek.

Against the stark pressure of wonderous-unfeigned heat that rode stealingly through her with an incendiary-hungered pulse of aphrodisiac voltage as the rampant firestorm of white-heat arced rackingly in her veins; a tenor of novel resistance was caught in a rushing drags of her breath as the bruising shift of his sensuous-chiseled lips over her flushed cheek hotly edged deeper into a vibrant—promise—release of starved ecstasy. Utilizing the ardent flexion her sirenlike caress—a recapturing touch of feminine compromise, her lithe fingers exquisitely traced phantom—feverous delicacy of a kneading pressure over the graven-edged heaviness of his beard-roughened jaw that branded a definite revelation. An exhilarative pulse of naked ferocity tempestuously fueled amorous rhapsody, under her heavy-lidded gaze, Natasha stiflingly mirrored the oceanic intensity of his cool azure irises fringed with tear-dampened lashes: nothing ever felt so real.

Angling the voluptuous curvaceousness of her svelte form dizzyingly against tauten-planes of his bulked solidary—the invincible reality of him garbed in navy-blue Kelvar-a fusing-boneless contrast of sensuous tactilely as the cushioned swells of her lusher breasts; a dynamical—mirrored rhythm that was breathtakingly glorious in a rapturous accord of headier—intoxicating urgency. A ratcheting pulse of naked desire tempestuously fueled amorous rhapsody, under her heavy-lidded gaze, Natasha stiflingly mirrored the oceanic intensity of his cool azure irises fringed with tear-dampened lashes: nothing ever felt so real. "Let's just go for a ride, Steve..." she huskily urged in a smoky undertone with a foxier cadence and blindingly lifted a black visored helmet off the motorcycle's saddle, thrusting it against his armored chest, teasingly. "We both need to live again, don't you think?"

Truer words couldn't have been spoken except for the ones that didn't need to be said. There was a time for that later tonight. Right now, it was a new day and Steve couldn't think of a better way to spend it than this.

"I'm driving." He accepted the helmet with a gracious smile and then straddled himself into the front of the motorcycle. It had been months since he had driven his Harley Street 750. Some who drove bikes were either thrill-seekers who chased the sunset, or troubled souls looking for an escape. Steve drove because he appreciated the simplicity of a nice quiet ride made even more special by the dame who settled herself into the seat behind him. Once Natasha was fully situated behind him, Steve throttled up the engine, feeling it purr beneath his seat as two arms wove around his waist, hugging him close.

The sun was climbing higher into the sky. All was quiet in the countryside to the two souls who drove on empty roads with no clear destination in sight. Neither Steve nor Natasha cared. The road to this kind of tranquility had been loud and chaotic. Their focus had been to save all life, to give the universe another chance at sustaining itself in peace or war. For Steve, much had changed over the past few days, for good and for worse. But if he learned anything it was how important the fight was-and how it gave him this second chance to find the happy ever after he'd always been hoping for. Was it all worth it in the end? It damn sure was.

Natasha saw the world in a whole new light as her gaze watched the passing scenery. From the fields of oak trees, to the streaming rivers, to the robins flying overhead. There was a beauty she had never fully appreciated. But being given a second chance at life made her want to live in a way she had denied herself as the Black Widow. Family was important-Yelena, Alexei, Clint...and Steve. She wouldn't be afraid to embrace that vital part of her existence that was truly worth living for. Her arms tightened around Steve's waist as she rested her chin against his back, smiling as she looked to their new future together.

The End

[shieldedsouls]

tag dump ten ft. isms, verses, and aesthetic tags !!

[shieldedsouls]

( v; boldly continuing | star trek | thor )

           he doesn’t expect to find a program such as starfleet so appealing. he doesn’t expect meeting winona ( though he does in marrying her ). first officer of the uss kelvin is a dream, different beings, including his beloved humans, including his darling wife. travelling as he always has adored doing, being out among the stars, though the bifrost was still far faster.

                                              he doesn’t expect to die.

                 he knew it to be a suicide mission, to save the crew of the kelvin from this invading vessel. the magic in his veins sang that something was wrong with this event, that the ship was not right, but he had to buy time. for all of them; for his wife, for their son. the crash and following explosion, while disabling the enemy vessel and preventing pursuit of the survivors, killed george kirk.

                                             but thor, god of thunder cannot die.

                        he floats through space, for a time. as ignorable debris, or assumed to be a body from damages done to the kelvin before the impact. not until he floats into a safer area is the bifrost used to bring him home and delivered to the healers. the explosion had still done a great deal of damage, and it takes time to recover. by the time he is able again, he is informed that winona has remarried. by the time he can safely travel again, he hears that his son has enrolled in starfleet as well.

   now the question was if thor would ever be able to get the chance to explain himself.

timeline: 2225 — ( pre-, during, or post movie events )

   takes place within the alternate timeline of star trek. does not rule out original or other alternate timelines. he goes by the name george kirk and his old friend tiberius kirk agrees to play the part of his father.

          thor’s adoration for humanity does not disappear with time; if anything, it continues to blossom. he makes sure to keep in touch, long enough to keep ties with families should he decide he needs covers, as he has done in the past. he rarely settles, but as the humans reach out for the stars, for other realms, it is easier to seem less out of place.

[shieldedsouls]

( v; as time goes by | 1900s | thor )

          Though they do not pray as they used to, Thor still listens. Almost the only branch of magic he has ever expressed focus in, aside from channeling through Mjolnir, and so he sometimes still responds. Many on earth find him and his people a myth now, which is fine, but flattery gets someone a lot.

                                                  Too much, sometimes.

The young god does not realise what exactly he has done until the balance tips and turmoil unfolds too far to contain again. Had he ignored the prayers, or at least sought permission first, it may have gone by as little more than a regretful note, but when the Allfather finds out he has been defied? Even his eldest son is not spared from ire and Thor once more finds himself in Midgard, the very powers he used to assist those who prayed to him now bound.

 It does not take long to find old alliances, build a supported past and identity to blend into the unfamiliar world he has been dropped into. Takes less time to find himself in the war itself, and it is so much worse than what he has ever experienced. Compounds on the uselessness and guilt now resting on his shoulders, and all the god man can do now is try to keep moving. To save lives where he can, and make recompense where he can not.

   Thor finds himself missing the world of humans as he remembers it because this? This is not what war is supposed to be. This is not how it should be. And never has he regretted his own nature so much, reviled his own vanity for holding sway by some flatterers.

Even if his powers were not bound, he had learned his lesson: do not interfere without paying attention to the full situation as it is, not just who speaks to you.

timeline: 1935-1960 ( verse can be adjusted up to about 1990 )

   takes place pre-wwii through the events of agent carter and the establishment of SHIELD. limited reveal of his true name and abilities are shared to those he trusts, but otherwise he is Donald Blake, thanks to past connections with the Blake clan ( Ireland ) and families ( England, from Norman invasion ) and a decently believable history is created and then partially shrouded.

big note: thor unintentionally helps start the second war, in no small part by giving magical assistance. it isn’t much as far as he’s concerned, just a nudge, but the consequences are paid by people not his own. he will not admit to this freely, but holds immense guilt for it and tries his hardest to save who he can while in his temporary exile from asgard.

small note: @themrsjarvis​ is our default ana, and this verse ties to the main verse of my thor muse.

[multiverseforger]

The Enchantress' parentage is unknown, though it is known she was born in Asgard and has a sister by the name of Lorelei. Amora began learning magic as an apprentice of Karnilla, Queen of the Norns, but was eventually banished.[3] She continued learning magic on her own, notably by seducing others well versed in magic and learning their secrets. In time, Amora became one of the more powerful magic-wielders in Asgard, with her magical arsenal focused on (but not limited to) charming and mind-controlling people. Her by-then well-renowned beauty did not hinder in this.

In her first appearance, she is sent by Odin to eliminate Thor's human love interest, whom Odin sees as a distraction. She also hopes to have the thunder god for herself. She is assisted by a powerful minion — Skurge, the Executioner. The Executioner loved the Enchantress, and she strings him along with her feminine wiles, using him as her muscle.[4] She aids Loki by attempting to seduce Thor in his Don Blake identity and by sending the Executioner to kill Jane Foster, but though the Executioner traps Foster in another dimension Thor is able to bring her back by giving Skurge his hammer. When the Enchantress, angry at Skurge returning Jane, begins to turn Skurge into a tree, Skurge releases Thor from the pact in exchange for his help. Amora then tries to change Thor's hammer into a hissing serpent, but it is immune to her magic. Thor then transports the two back to Asgard.[5]

The Enchantress and the Executioner are exiled to Earth by Odin. They become members of Baron Heinrich Zemo's original Masters of Evil, the opposite number to the Avengers, a superhero team that Thor had joined. The Enchantress hypnotizes Thor into attacking the other Avengers with her own spells and a special brew, making him believe they are enemies of humanity, but Iron Man wakes Thor from his trance by reflecting sunlight into his eyes. Thor sends the Masters to another dimension through a space warp, but two issues later, the Enchantress uses a spell to send them back to Earth. She recruits Wonder Man into the Masters of Evil after paying his bail. She also meets Immortus, who helps Zemo attack the Avengers. When this attempt fails, she turns back time to prevent it from happening, though the Masters retain their memories of this event. When Immortus begins to contact the Masters, the Enchantress prevents this from happening.[6] She then joins in the Masters of Evil's final assault against the Avengers and breaks the Black Knight and Melter out of jail. She manages to escape in the end with the Executioner when the other two are transported to another dimension where their weapons rebound due to different scientific laws.[7] As a member of the Masters of Evil, the Enchantress (and Executioner) repeatedly face the Avengers. She is especially affronted by the attempts of the Scarlet Witch, a mortal, to subvert her divine spells, though she is occasionally genuinely challenged by the Scarlet Witch's mutant gifts.



Art by Alan Davis.

With the Executioner, she menaces Jane Foster again at Loki's behest.[8]

The Enchantress is also notable in that she has given other superhumans their powers. For example, she used the deceased Zemo's equipment to make a henchman of his, Erik Josten, into the original Power Man, who aids her in battling the Avengers. Her illusions and traps turn the city against the Avengers, forcing them to disband and making Power Man seem like a hero. Captain America, in disguise, corrects this by obtaining a taped confession from the Enchantress and Power Man. Power Man is able to defeat him, but the Enchantress is knocked out by gas from Hawkeye's arrow. Realizing the tape is on its way to the police, the Enchantress used her spells to teleport away.[9] The Enchantress is then recruited by the Mandarin, along with the Executioner, Swordsman, Power Man, and Living Laser for his plan for world domination. With the Executioner, she attacked the Asian sub-continent with an army of trolls, but they were defeated by Hercules and the Scarlet Witch.[10]

Amora poses as the Valkyrie and forms the Lady Liberators, which battle the male Avengers. She dupes Arkon into fighting the Avengers.[11] Amora also uses her magics to make Samantha Parrington and later Barbara Norris into the Valkyrie.[12] With the Executioner, she battles the Defenders and the Thing.[13]

With the Executioner, Amora attempts to conquer Asgard with a troll army. She also served as Loki's lieutenant in his brief rule of Asgard.[14]

During the "Secret Wars," she is placed on the villains's side, but she spurns the idea of fighting a gladiatorial game for the amusement of a higher being. She instead proposes to Thor that the two of them simply join forces, leave both heroes and villains behind, and go back home to Asgard.[volume & issue needed]

On the appearance of Amora's sister Lorelei, it is established that the two sisters have something of a strained relationship, rooted in rivalry. More than a little friction is seen between the pair, not the least due to competition over which one of them would manage to seduce Thor.[15]

The Enchantress joined the Asgardian gods and heroes in final battle against the world-ender Surtur. She establishes that she is motivated by enlightened self-interest: Surtur seeks to end the world, in which case Amora would perish.[16]



Another regular foe of Amora's is the Scarlet Witch, as seen here in The Vision and the Scarlet Witch (Vol. 2) #9. Cover art by Richard Howell and P. Craig Russell.

Soon after the Surtur War, Thor leads a number of Asgardian heroes to Hel, the realm of the death goddess Hela. The Executioner asks Thor to let him join the expedition for reasons he does not immediately reveal. In truth, he had seen the Enchantress dallying with Heimdall, and, heartbroken, Skurge wishes to lose himself in a noble cause — such as rescuing lost souls from Hela. Thor's forces accomplish their mission but need one man to guard their retreat from Hel by holding the bridge Gjallerbru. The Executioner, knowing there was no more Amora for him, chooses to be that man, giving his life so the others might flee. When Amora hears the news, to everyone's surprise, she is truly grief-stricken.[17]

After Skurge's death, Amora continues her regular hi-jinks, occasionally helping Asgard, occasionally opposing it. She aids Asgard against the evil Egyptian God Seth's legions.[18]

Lorelei later perishes as Amora refused to give her life for her sister's. The deceased Skurge (in Valhalla) rejects the Enchantress, and Amora goes on to empower the Earthman Brute Benhurst into a short-lived new Executioner to serve as her minion in Skurge's stead.[19] Amora becomes vexed with the Avenger Wonder Man and assists Thor and the Warriors Three in their quest to return Odin to the throne of Asgard. During this time, an attraction between Amora and Asgard's guardian Heimdall is explored. Amora even battles the powerful entity Nightmare on behalf of both of them as Heimdall was unable to protect himself at the time. She ultimately rejects Heimdall when she realizes that he wishes to be married and she does not.[volume & issue needed]

In Acts of Vengeance, Amora and Skurge join forces and attack Doctor Strange, only to be bested by Clea when she flies to his aid.[volume & issue needed]

Later, Thor has been spurned by his father Odin, exiled to Earth and disempowered. In this vulnerable state, Thor ends up forming a willing liaison with Amora, with the two of them living out of a loft in New York City as lovers. This status quo would remain until Thor goes missing during Heroes Reborn and is presumed dead.[20]

During Ragnarök, Amora is present with the other Asgardian deities and dwarves when Eitri and his brothers are sealed into a tomb they had carved due to the Mjolnir mold destroying them, albeit accidentally. When Surtur's forging of new Mjolnirs creates chaos, Thor attempts to fly to the skies to discern the source, but is at once struck down by a blast from a Mjolnir duplicate of Loki's; Amora is slain by the same blast, one of the first victims of Loki during this event. Neither her magic nor her inherent durability is capable of shielding her. Heimdall falls soon afterward; Amora is not seen again except, seemingly, in one of the realms of death, unable to use her magic to assist her once-lover.[volume & issue needed]

After Ragnarök, when Thor, Asgard and the other Asgardians return, Thor is manipulated by Loki into inadvertently awakening some of Thor's enemies, among them Amora, though when she was last seen, she is the victim, falling by Loki's hands and mourned by Thor and the other Asgardians. She does not return to Asgard but instead goes to attack the world tree, Yggdrasil in order to resurrect Skurge and release him from Valhalla. Amora is ultimately thwarted after Thor, Loki, and Balder convince her that she is dishonoring his memory with her actions.[21]

She has returned after Thor's resurrection, with Donald Blake - bitter about his separation from Thor and his non-existent past - offering the Enchantress his soul if she can make him a god again.[22] The resulting god is a twisted abomination, with Thor defeating the Enchantress and her new god before banishing them from Asgard, leaving Blake - reduced to a living head after his body was consumed to create the god - connected to a series of dream-weaving creatures to make him dream that he is living a full life.[23]

After this Amora was defeated by Thor and banished to the forest in Norway. She was trapped in an Odinforce barrier and stripped of her powers. Lady Deathstrike and Typhoid Mary were on a quest to find Arkea, an intelligent gestalt microorganism capable of controlling machines and people. They found Amora and offered to help her regain her powers.[24] In exchange they founded a new sisterhood to battle the X-Men, who were hunting Arkea and Lady Deathstrike. Arkea hacked the Odinforce spell and restored Amora's full powers. In exchange for this, Amora restored the physical form of the immortal mutant witch, Selene,[25] and helped Arkea resurrect Madelyne Pryor. Before the Sisterhood could add more members, the X-Men attacked and killed Arkea. Amora was ambushed by the X-Man M, who defeated her in a surprise attack. However, Madelyne Pryor swore to continue the Sisterhood, which presently has Madelyne, Selene, Lady Deathstrike, Amora, and Typhoid Mary as members.[26]

During the "AXIS" storyline, Enchantress appears as a member of Magneto's unnamed supervillain group during the fight against Red Skull's Red Onslaught form.[27] After the heroes and villains present at the battle experience a moral inversion due to the Scarlet Witch and Doctor Doom's attempt to bring out the Xavier in Onslaught backfiring,[volume & issue needed] Magneto recruits Enchantress as one of his new 'Avengers' to stop the now-villainous Avengers and X-Men.[volume & issue needed]

Following the "Secret Wars" storyline, she has become a member of Malekith the Accursed's Dark Council.[28] Through a spell, she takes control of the queen of the Light Elves, allowing her marriage to Malekith to happen and the conquest of their realm.[29]

During the "War of the Realms" storyline, Enchantress accompanies Malekith the Accursed in his invasion on Midgard.[30] She and Kurse fight Ghost Rider and She-Hulk until Jane Foster slams Skidbladnir into Enchantress.[31] In Uruguay, the Enchantress raises the dead, but Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange, and Balder ward her off.[32]