—the enhanced

i got my gun at the

ready, gonna fire at will

at the soldiers with a machine gun she had stolen from the man she had killed before. Her eyebrows unconsciously frowned as she pulled the trigger deeper, watching the line of men fall to the ground with a loud thud. She threw the weapon aside, it hit a man straight in the face, successfully knocking him out.

She ran towards the rest of the team while shooting at whatever stood in her way with her repulsors. When she finally reached them, she pushed her feet off the ground and jumped towards the HYDRA men―it all looking like a paused movie scene. Barton frozen in the process of shooting an arrow, Natasha on her way to kicking someone, Cap on his bike, Thor with his hammer, Tony flying forward, Arabella in the middle of landing and the Hulk roaring.

The snow mixed with dirt flew to her face due to a bunker shooting near her, lifting the said mixture. She wiped it off her face with her forearm and threw her hand to the side, sending a beam of energy from her repulsor to the bunker. She walked away smiling satisfyingly as it exploded.

"Shit!" She heard Tony exclaim. Arabella made her way to Barton, dodging a few shots.

"Language!" Cap breathed out, quite scolding Tony. Arabella snorted at the comment while throwing a dagger to the soldier that was running towards her. "Jarvis, what's the view from upstairs?"

"The central building is protected by some kind of energy shield. Strucker's technology is, well, beyond any HYDRA base we've taken." The A.I. responded.

"Loki's scepter must be here." Thor supposed. "Strucker couldn't mount this defense without it. At long last."

"At 'long last' is lasting a little long, boys." Romanoff's voice sounded through the coms, the faint sound of an explosion could be heard in the background.

Clint and Arabella were back-to-back getting rid of the threats. He shot arrows and she shot beams.

"Yeah. I think we lost the element of surprise." She heard Clint behind her.

"Wait a second. No one else is going to deal with the fact that Cap just said 'language'?" Arabella and Clint chuckled at that, rolling their eyes at the older Stark silliness.

"I know." Rogers sighed. "It just slipped out."

Clint pulled Arabella quickly behind a tree, avoiding quite a few shots. She placed a hand on her cheek to hold her head, her elbow supporting on the tree.

"You good?" Her hand lost contact with her face as her whole body stabilized to look up at the archer.

"Yeah. Thanks, Bird-Man." She half-smiled at him. The corners of the older man's eyes wrinkled when he tried to hold back a smile, but failed when he heard her contagious laugh.

"Bye-Bye!" Arabella shouted to Clint while running away, leaving him behind.

The repulsors from her boots ignited and she flew to the entrance of the base. She took a moment to look at the uncommon barrier that kept them from coming inside.

Hesitantly, she phased a hand through it and closed her eyes, expecting some kind of pain. But when nothing happened, she phased her whole body through the barrier and the brick wall.

"I'm inside, y'all," Arabella announced rather proudly to the others. The room she landed in had nothing but desks and papers scattered all over the floor.

"I'm jealous." Tony joked and Arabella was sure he pouted when he said that.

"I know."

"How did you get inside?" Cap asked.

"I phased." The words came out of her mouth nonchalantly, as if it were the most common thing to do.

Laying on the floor were two sheets of paper with photos that caught Arabella's attention, she knelt down to picked them up. Her eyes quickly scanned through them, eyebrows furrowing as she went further into the reading. Those files belonged to a boy and a girl, twins. Enhanced twins.

"You could've done that before, don't you think, Belles?" Arabella ignored her dad's remark and called her A.I.

"Wednesday, scan them please." She placed the papers on the nearest desk and held her wrist out. Her armored hand emitted a bright golden light as it scanned the sheets of paper.

"Scan complete, Miss." With the information now registered in her database, she left the papers there and thanked Wednesday.

"Guys, I think we'll have company―" She didn't get to finish when Steve cut her off. "We have an enhanced on the field." He alerted everyone else.

"Clint's hit," Natasha said worryingly. "Somebody wants to deal with that bunker?"

"I was about to tell you that. They're twins. Both enhanced." She spoke as she made her way out.

"Stark, we really need to get inside." Captain Rogers urged.

"I'm closing in," Tony replied confidently through the ear coms.

Arabella ran through the halls, the sound of steps guiding her. She ended up in a room much bigger than the one she'd just been in, armed men were discussing something. A loud explosion stopped the men from talking, they all looked at each other raising their weapons and aiming at the air.

"Drawbridge is down, people," Tony announced.

Arabella stepped out of the corner where she was hiding and walked towards the soldiers. They started to shoot at her as she made her way out of the room―the bullets phasing through her body, getting caught in the bodies of Strucker's men instead.

"Clint's hit pretty bad, guys. We're gonna need evac." Romanoff said.

"Take him to the jet." Arabella quickly replied, worry lingering in her voice.

"I'm going to take him," Thor reassured the girl. She didn't reply, knowing that the Asgardian found her silence as words of gratitude. "Find the scepter." The god demanded.

"And for gosh sake, watch your language!" Tony dramatically added, not failing to earn a laugh from the girl.

"That's not going away anytime soon." Steve―yet again― sighed.

"Not a chance, Cap." She walked further into the old building, trying to find where the scepter was. But, instead, she found Tony's suit aiming at nothing in particular.

"Hello, Miss." Jarvis greeted her.

"Hey, Jarvis. Where's the man?" She asked.

"Down that path." The suit pointed the way. "Thanks." She nodded.

Arabella stepped inside a much brighter room and found Tony whispering to himself. "Please be a secret door, please be a secret door." He chanted as he pressed the various bricks of the wall. "Yay!" A secret room appeared as the wall opened.

"That was cute." She flatly said, catching the man by surprise.

He turned around abruptly and placed a hand dramatically on top of his chest, breathing loudly. "Gosh, Belles! You're gonna give me a heart attack."

Arabella laughed shaking her head. "I assumed Jarvis told you I was here."

"J, how could you? I thought we were friends, buddy." She moved towards him and hooked her arm around his, a habit she's had since she was a little girl, even though back then she couldn't fully hook her arm because of her small height.

"Sometimes I think you live for drama." She joked half-heartedly, her eyes wandering around the pathway as they entered the room.

"What can I say? I'm good at―" He stopped in mid-sentence when he saw Chitauri artifacts scattered all over.

Arabella wasn't there for the Battle of New York, but she was sure it left quite an aftermath; not only for Tony but for everyone else. The anxiety attacks were something she was aware of. She was aware of how the words wouldn't come of his mouth altogether and cold sweat would form on his forehead.

"Guys, I got Strucker," Steve informed through the coms.

"Yeah. We got . . ." The words hesitated to roll out of her tongue, not quite finding the right ones. "We got something bigger."

Tony pulled Arabella by her arm―protectively moving her closer to him―as they stepped deeper into the room. A big leviathan was hung on the ceiling, making Tony jolt when he saw it. Arabella made a grimace of disgust, finding the creature horrendous. She moved her gaze from the Leviathan and turned her head to her right. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of blue light and was quick to turn her head to it. She nudged Tony's side with her elbow to get his attention off the hideous creature.

"Thor, we got eyes on the prize." He called out for Thor as they directed to Loki's staff.

Suddenly she saw a glowing red hand creeping up on Tony's temple. She turned around as fast as she could and as a mechanism of defense, she shot the girl with her repulsor.

A silver blur passed by and knocked her off her feet, then as fast as it came it disappeared, taking the girl along.

Stark's eyes were wide and his expression was one of astonishment and horror. A series of regretful 'no' escaped his mouth as he slightly shook his head.

Arabella recovered immediately after the hit and turned the man to face her. Watching his expression, she shook him violently. But as soon as her hands came in contact with his shoulders, she felt what he was feeling at that moment.

Grief. Guilt. And pure, intoxicating pain.

"Hey!" Arabella shook his shoulders trying to get him out of the vision. "Come on, snap out of it!"

He shook his head once again and outstretched his hand, making his metal glove wrap around it. He grabbed the scepter harshly and turned around, his expression softened as he saw Arabella.

"You all right?" He asked, scanning her body to see if she had any injuries. A sigh of relief left his mouth when he found none. "You're all right." He whispered reassuring himself rather than the girl.

"I'm awesome. Now, come on."

she placed a foot inside the Quinjet, she grabbed a bottle of water and drank it straight away, dehydration was never an option. She sat cross-legged on the floor and leaned her head on the wall. Her mind was set on the events that happened earlier, more specifically the vision her dad had. The image of the team dead wandered around her head. Arabella wanted to know more, she wanted to see the whole picture not just half of it. But she couldn't just ask Tony, it would bring the vision afloat. She didn't want that, not after the reaction he had.

Sighing, she stood up and shook the invisible dust off her catsuit. She tightened her ponytail and made her way towards Clint.

"Bird-Man." She acknowledged him with a quick nod and a serious face. He grunted and raised his brows at the girl. "Looks pretty bad." She tilted her head towards the wound.

Clint glanced at it and smirked. "I've handled worse. Besides, Doctor Cho will come here and fix me up. Nothing Hawkeye can't take." He had a smug look plastered on his face.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, Hawkeye." She told him rolling her eyes. She pulled a chair and sat on it, right next to the wounded man. "I'm going to keep you company. You know, just to make sure you don't die, Barton." Arabella smirked.

"Such a nice gesture, Stark."

Thank you for taking the time to read it. I hope you liked it and found it somewhat interesting. The lyrics above are from acdc's shoot to thrill. I hope you stick around!

love, lili

tales of sacrifice ; issue no.1