Natasha’s hotel room was nice, if a little sterile. Neutral greys and tans dominated the palette, offset by a large bed with crisp white linens, a padded headboard, and a pair of matching nightstands with identical lamps. A modest sitting area in one corner featured two low armchairs and a round table with a generic flower arrangement. The far wall was mostly taken up by a large window, its blackout curtains drawn halfway to block the sodium-orange haze of the DC evening.

  She dropped her overnight bag onto the bed and pulled out her phone. With a quick tap, she opened a SHIELD-issue scanning app—years outdated but still useful. Holding the device upright, she slowly turned in a circle. A shimmering fan of blue light washed over the walls, refracted and distorted by the corners of the room. A series of soft beeps sounded as it mapped and cleared the space: no active signals, no camera shine, no unusual heat signatures. Nat moved to the bathroom and repeated the scan.

  Once that room was cleared as well, she dropped the phone next to her bag and knelt to check the underside of the bed first, before systematically moving to the nightstands, the armchairs, and the table. She popped the battery cover off the television remote and gave it a flick with her thumb. She checked the curtains, the light fixtures and lamps, the vent grille, the picture frame, the toilet, inside the shower head. All clean.

  Old habits died hard.

  Satisfied, she drew the curtains closed and picked up her phone, tapping out a quick text message. Hotel room’s secure. About to shower, if you wanna join xx.

  She sighed and dropped the phone back onto the bed, rolling her shoulders as she headed back into the bathroom. She’d gotten a tiny power nap in on the flight from the compound to Washington, but between skipping sleep entirely last night and a day filled with even more discussions and meetings, Nat was completely exhausted. She’d welcome a little bit of fun with Wanda to help relax, but she was going to definitely be a bit of a pillow princess this evening and make it clear that it would mostly be a cuddle night. Not all of them had a super-soldier’s ability to function properly for days without a good night’s sleep.

  The water came hot and fast—steam fogging up the mirror in minutes. Natasha closed her eyes as she stood beneath the stream, letting it pound into the back of her neck and shoulders. The hot water eased some of the tension she’d carried through the day, but didn’t fully erase it.

  When she stepped out ten minutes later, a towel wrapped tightly around her, she picked up her phone to check it. No response, which wasn’t too surprising. If Wanda had seen the message, Nat was pretty sure she’d have dropped whatever she was doing to portal in. Shower fun was one of Wanda’s favourites. A small smile pulled at the corner of Nat’s mouth—she’d probably be disappointed that she missed out. Ah well.

  Nat dried off, putting on a simple cami and pair of cotton panties, then retrieved her tablet from her bag and settled onto the bed. The screen flared to life with the day’s filings: the motion to quash, the emergency TRO, the attached statements and supporting affidavits. She slipped quickly back into the mindset she’d worn all afternoon: adversarial, careful, anticipating angles. She knew Ross—he’d come at them hard. Best to be ready, anticipate his moves in advance.

  Time passed. An hour. The tablet screen dimmed to black as she set it aside. She checked her phone again. Still nothing.

  She frowned, then tapped out another message. Getting lonely over here. Gonna call it a night soon xx.

  After she hit send, she stared at the phone for a moment, as if expecting an immediate response. This was a little strange.

  Not alarming, not yet. But strange. Wanda usually responded pretty promptly to texts. Even if she was in the middle of something, she’d at least flick back a one-word reply or a heart emoji. They’d been doing this long enough for Nat to know what normal looked like. And this wasn’t quite it.

  Maybe she just hadn’t heard her phone go off. Out and distracted, having drinks with someone, maybe? Wanda tended to put her phone on flight mode instead of just silent when she went to catch a movie… that could be it, too. Nat hadn’t said exactly when she’d be free, after all, just that it’d be evening sometime. It was still only 8pm. It could just be a case of poor timing; maybe Wanda had assumed Nat had meant later than this.

  Still, it niggled.

  She hit the call button and held the phone to her ear. It didn’t ring, just went straight to voicemail.

  “Ahh,” Wanda’s strained voice said, a little distant, like she was several feet away from the phone. There was an unidentifiable commotion, the sound of a struggle. “Hold on, hold on! Agh. Hang on!” A small crash, like a plate breaking. “I… I got it. I got it. Don’t hang up!” A clatter.

  Natasha found herself smiling as she listened. God, why did she find this absolute idiot so cute?

  Finally, in a much more normal tone, Wanda’s voice said, “Hello?” There was a second of silence. Nat waited for it. “Hahaha! Elaborate voicemail hoax. You know what to do, stupid.”

  There was a beep and she hung up, shaking her head, a slight smile still on her face.

  Weighing the phone in her hand for a moment, she tapped a different contact and quickly typed out another message. Hey! You home? Wanda around?

  Yelena’s reply came barely twenty seconds later. Ya. Nope. Haven’t seen her all day.

  Natasha bit the inside of her cheek. Of course Wanda wasn’t home. If she was, she would have answered. There still wasn’t necessarily anything wrong. Nat sat with that thought for a moment. Then she tapped at her phone again and called Tony.

  “Hey, Nat,” he answered on the second ring, a resigned sort of exasperation in his tone, as though he’d been expecting the call. “Look, before you say anything, I—”

  Nat cut him off, keeping her voice level. “What happened?”

  “Wanda didn’t tell you?” Tony sounded surprised. He paused for a moment, seemingly working out the best way of putting it into words. “I took her to take a look at what we found under Midland Circle. Big magic wall thing. We had a little road trip, a little singalong. Then Wanda decided to poke the bear. Big surprise, it roared.”

  “What happened?” she repeated, more firmly.

  “She went ahead and started messing with it. Didn’t warn me, just started doing her magic thing and set off a quake. Check the news—she hit Manhattan with a 4.6. It’s looking like there was minimal damage, but…”

  “But?”

  “Okay, so, in my defence, I was a bit startled by the whole ‘impending threat of being crushed to death’ thing. I might have yelled at her a bit. She yelled back. It was a mutual yelling. Then she stormed off. Left me stranded, by the way. I had to get the Mark 47 to come pick me up.”

  “When?” Nat asked.

  “Eleven, eleven thirty.”

  Nat closed her eyes and pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose. “Right. Thanks.”

  “Can you talk to her, please?”

  “I will. Good night, Tony,” she said, and hung up.

  Natasha exhaled slowly and leaned back against the headboard. Her instincts were prickling. Something was off, but there was nothing concrete to go on yet. Wanda had been under a lot of pressure lately. There was yesterday’s blow up with Ross, then having a fight with Tony the next day? She’d probably just gone off somewhere to be angry for a while and lost track of time. She was fine.

  She was probably fine.

  Nat typed one last message. Let me know you’re okay when you get a second xx.

  She set the phone on the nightstand and turned out the light. Lay back against the pillow. Stared up at the ceiling for a long, silent minute.

  If Wanda still hadn’t replied by morning, then she’d start to worry.

  Even as exhausted as she was, Nat didn’t sleep well.

  --

  Each time Thena beat me, she took something from me.

  My sling ring was next. Then the contents of my pockets. Then my shoes—contemptuously, embarrassingly—one at a time. Only then did she strip me of my dress. My underwear. Everything, until there was nothing left for her to take.

  And she didn’t stop. I went down again, my body sending me a host of interesting new pain and exhaustion signals as I lay stunned, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

  Thena loomed large over me, her expression unreadable. I went still, freezing up like a prey animal that had just been cornered, feeling my heart hammering in my chest as the goddess knelt, hand reaching toward my face. Was she…? Her hand passed over my face, fingers threading roughly into the hair at the side of my head. She was. This was it. There was nothing else left for her to claim. At this point, I really wasn’t into it, but I wasn’t sure that mattered anymore. Thena had won. That meant she could take whatever she wanted from me. She’d already made that abundantly clear. It could be worse. This had sucked, but at least—

  Thena held me firmly in place as threads of cosmic energy came together in her free hand. A quick movement—a release of pressure, and she stood again. Clutched in her hand was her prize—a long, thick tress of light auburn hair. She stepped away, tucking it into her belt and tying it securely in place.

  An involuntary, pathetic-sounding little whimper escaped my lips. Painfully, I pulled myself up into a sitting position. “What the fuck?” I breathed, reaching up with one hand to gingerly touch the side of my head as I looked over at Thena with hurt in my eyes.

  She didn’t respond. Instead, she simply readied her stance again.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  That was the pattern for the next dozen clashes, until her belt was almost completely obscured by her prizes and I didn’t have any more tresses of hair left for her to claim. Each time she beat me past that, she’d pause and look at me and I’d feel a surge of shame, like I really should have managed to beat her by now. But with every defeat I was only getting weaker, more exhausted, while Thena seemed utterly tireless—an impassive statue, carved from stone.

  It wasn’t fair. I’d tried everything. I’d even tried to invade her mind—just to try to trip her up, make her stumble, make a mistake, something—but my magic had slid right off her mental defences and she wasn’t remotely interested in letting me have the space and precious seconds I’d need to actually try to break through them.

  The sky lightened into day as we fought. Gil emerged from the homestead at some point, leaning against the stone wall to watch us go at it, his arms folded. If, just a day ago, you’d described this exact situation to me? Gilgamesh watching me fight in the nude, after I’d been systematically stripped by Thena? I’d probably have found the entire scenario super hot.

  Now, in the moment? My entire body covered in a complex web of bruises, scrapes and cuts? Skin crusted with blood and sweat and dirt? My hair crudely cut away? I’d never felt so utterly unsexy while completely naked before. The first set of bruises that I’d earned were already beginning to fade, thanks to the Heart-Shaped Herb, but it felt like I had layers of them now. My muscles protested every movement.

  I sprang back out of the way of the swing of a massive, two-handed falchion, stumbling slightly. Thena took advantage of the opening, instantly dismissed the golden weapon and lunging in to slam the heel of her palm into my chest in a powerful, open-hand strike. I hit the ground hard, tumbling several feet, before I came to a stop with a pained whimper.

  “Right in the tit,” I groaned despairingly, blinking away tears as one hand gingerly covered my breast, where she’d hit me.

  A large shadow appeared over me and I flinched instinctively, relaxing a moment later when I realised who it was. Gilgamesh. He held out his hand. He was holding a water bottle, offering it to me. I snatched it from his hand—probably a bit rudely, but I didn’t really care at this point. Gil didn’t seem to mind too much, simply holding his hand up in a placating gesture as he backed off a step.

  I winced as I pulled myself up into a sitting position, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps. My hands were trembling a little and it made it harder than it should have been to open the bottle. I fumbled with the cap for a few seconds before successfully working it off the bottle and bringing it to my lips. A moment later, I was coughing and spluttering. Stupid, stupid. I’d tried to drink it too fast, practically pouring it down my throat. Taking a moment to settle myself with a few deeper, less-shaky breaths, I drank the rest at a more normal pace.

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice feeling a little hoarse.

  “You’re welcome,” Gil responded, a small smile in his voice.

  “Five minutes,” Thena said, watching me. “Then we resume.”

  She hadn’t moved to get a drink or anything herself. Did she even technically need to, given her nature as an Eternal? Or was the impulse to eat and drink and sleep something that had been programmed into them by Arishem to make them seem more normal, to help sell the lie that they were organic?

  My lips felt dry and cracked as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hands, glowering at my ‘teacher’ for a moment. My eyes lingered mournfully on the auburn prizes tied to her belt and suddenly felt moist. I sniffed, blinking the emotion back and letting it be replaced by a small surge of rebellious anger. “Five minutes? Seriously? It’s been hours. I need a proper break. I thought you were going to train me, not just beat the shit out of me.”

  Thena smiled. I realised now that she didn’t smile like a normal person, either, most of the time. It was more like baring her teeth. “If you are to truly improve, you need to be pushed to your absolute limits. Yours are higher than most, thanks to your enhancements. Get up.”

  I eyed her resentfully for a brief moment before obeying the command, rising to my feet. Even though I flinched a little under Thena’s gaze, my hands twitching slightly, I drew myself up straight and didn’t attempt to cover myself. I’d never really been uncomfortable with nudity before. Even in my other life, when I’d hated essentially everything about my body, nudity and nakedness had still never really bothered me. But this? This was different. I didn’t just feel naked, I felt raw, like she had peeled back layers I didn’t know I had and was assessing what was underneath.

  I wished she hadn’t taken my hair. That actually hurt, more than anything else.

  “If you can stand, you can fight,” she said sharply, her tone brooking no disagreement. “Do you think your enemies will be kind—will let you rest—simply because you are tired?”

  I sighed, looking away from her, casting my eyes out over the arid red earth, wind-sculpted rock, and sparse scrub that stretched for miles around us. We’d moved a little further away from Thena and Gil’s home, though the building was still visible in the morning light.

  Wait. It was morning.

  Ugh. Everything had sort of blurred together after the first hour or so of Thena’s ‘training’ and, even as the sun had risen, my mind had been fixed wholly on the fights. It just hadn’t clicked that that much time had really passed. If it was properly morning here now, it’d be sometime in the evening in DC—if Nat hadn’t already texted me or tried to call, she would soon. If I was going to stay here, instead, I needed to at least let her know that I’d gotten caught up with something.

  “Sorry, I just realised,” I said, gesturing in the direction of the morning sun. “Nat’s expecting me. Can you give me back my sling ring and phone? I just need to send a quick message.”

  Thena tilted her head fractionally, an impassive expression on her face. My heart sank. “If you want your belongings back, you know what you need to do,” she said.

  “You can’t be serious,” I protested, glancing in Gilgamesh’s direction for help. He had folded his arms again, a small frown on his face, and instead of meeting my gaze he looked away. I turned back to Thena, swiping a hand through the air in a sharp gesture. “Enough for now, Thena.”

  Her expression didn’t change. “It will be enough when I say it is enough. You will rest when I say you will rest. You will have your things back only when you can take them back.”

  The anger grew tighter in my chest. “Look, okay, fine. I will give them straight back to you, but I need them for a second so that my girlfriend isn’t worried about me when I don’t check in with her when she’s expecting me to.” I exhaled sharply, shaking my head. “Plus, knowing my luck, Kaecilius will decide to attack right when I’m stuck out here and my alert won’t go off because of the black spot. I need to be able to check in regularly. It’s important.”

  “And so what if he does come? Do you have such little faith in your friends’ and allies’ ability to fight without you?” Thena asked, a derisive note in her tone. “All your preparations for him are really that meaningless? The combined might of the Avengers and their allies is not sufficient? Wanda Maximoff is so crucial a piece that she simply must be there to respond as well?”

  My hands clenched into fists at my side and I scowled at her. “That’s not the point.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Thena said. “The point is that you will do as you are told. Nothing more. Three minutes.” With that, she turned and walked away, heading toward a shaded spot under a rock formation a few dozen metres away.

  I was clenching my fists so hard that my knuckles had gone white, my nails biting into my skin. I needed—

  A heavy hand on my shoulder caught me by surprise. Gilgamesh could move surprisingly quickly and quietly when he wanted to. “I did warn you. A goddess is not someone you can take lessons with at your leisure. You made a commitment, and she expects you to follow it.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to let go of some of the anger and worry in my chest. “I didn’t think… I wasn’t expecting it to be like this,” I said quietly. “For her to be like this.”

  Gilgamesh made a small noise, halfway between amusement and sympathy. “Thena is no common martial instructor. She doesn’t…” he paused, picking his words. “Even when she trained armies, she wouldn’t usually do this. One-on-one? The last time she took on a student like this would have been Arthur.”

  I thought for a moment. “‘King Arthur’, Arthur?”

  Excalibur was among the treasures currently secreted away on the Domo, the Eternals’ spacecraft, and I vaguely remembered Ikaris referencing King Arthur having a crush on Thena. Thena did say that she raised champions—warriors without peer. I guess I hadn’t really understood what that meant, when she first said it. The last time she did this, what I could only assume started out as a normal human went on to be a legendary king written about for the next fifteen hundred years. What could she do with someone like me as a starting point?

  Gil nodded. “Thena isn’t acting without purpose. She’s put you in this position deliberately. Pressuring you.” By his tone, it didn’t sound exactly like he agreed with her training methods, but nor did he seem like he was in a hurry to insert himself into the situation. “If you’re worrying about your friends, you’re letting yourself get distracted—and if you’re letting yourself be distracted, then you’re not taking this as seriously as you should be. She’s pushing you to set all of that aside. So that you can focus solely on her. On the fight.”

  I didn’t like it. I wasn’t even sure how Thena would react if I tried to back out now, either. If I gave up. Would she even let me? There was something about the way her power had settled on me when I’d agreed to be her student… I was pretty sure I’d stumbled my way into some sort of mystical pact with a goddess. Would there be consequences if I tried to renege? Plus I had a feeling that, if I stepped away now, I’d lose this opportunity forever.

  I sighed softly. Sorry, Nat. I knew she was going to be worried, but hopefully it wouldn’t be for too long. For now, I had to set that aside. I needed this. I could worry about the rest later.

  “Alright,” I said. “Fuck it, we ball.”

  --

  It was dark again.

  Somehow, we’d been doing this for an entire day. The passage of time had grown increasing fuzzy as Thena had expertly dismantled me again and again. Had it really been a full day? Basically nonstop? Part of me couldn’t believe that I’d been able to fight for that long, even with the enhanced stamina and recovery I’d been granted by the Heart-Shaped Herb. Another part felt like that couldn’t at all be accurate, but in the opposite direction—if anything, it had to have been weeks.

  Pain exploded through my back and along my limbs as Thena slammed me into the rocky cliff with enough force to fracture stone, her hand around my throat. My vision whited out for a moment and the pressure at my throat vanished, though I still couldn’t breathe, my throat refusing to cooperate. With Thena’s grip gone, my legs chose to follow my windpipe’s example and I fell forward, collapsing to my knees first before the ground rushed up to meet my face. I lay there stunned, making wheezing, choking noises as I struggled to pull some air back into my lungs.

  After a few seconds, Thena’s voice came from somewhere in front of me. “Get up.”

  Somehow, I managed to get my legs back under me, though I couldn’t get any higher than onto my knees. Scrabbling at the cliff wall next to me, I found enough fingerholds in the broken rock to just barely pull myself the rest of the way to my feet, though I stayed leaning heavily on the wall for support.

  Thena just watched, her expression neutral. Behind her, Gil walked up slowly. “Thena,” he spoke softly as he drew close. “Enough for now. Let her rest. She can't go any further.”

  Even though I barely had the breath to form words, I managed to force out a response. “I can… I can keep going.”

  My limbs twitched and suddenly what little strength I still had in them vanished. I fell over again, my face bouncing painfully off the earth and sand.

  “She’s done.” I heard Gil say, somewhere above me.

  “Get up.”

  I blinked. That wasn’t Thena’s voice. That was… Kneeling beside me was a familiar figure, circuit-threaded eyes bright with reflected moonlight. Eliza, as she had been in Westview.

  Oh, good. I was actually straight-up hallucinating now. I’m sure that was fine.

  The imaginary Eliza locked eyes with me. “Get. Up,” she said again, her voice almost a snarl in the back of her throat.

  Slowly, painfully, I started getting my limbs back under me, pushing up onto my shaking hands and knees. This time, I didn’t reach for the cliff. This time, I forced my numb limbs to move, overruling the protests of my exhausted muscles and bruised body.

  I stood. Swaying a little unsteadily, but still… I stood.

  My vision was blurred and it was still dark, so it was hard to tell exactly, but I thought I saw Thena smile. Or bare her teeth, at least. I swallowed and grimaced, the fingers of one hand lightly probing at the burning ring of pain encircling my throat where hers had been.

  “I can stand,” I rasped. “I can fight.”

  Two minutes later I was in the dirt again. Everything hurt. I could barely twitch a finger. It felt almost like I was paralysed. For a brief moment, I worried that maybe I was—that maybe Thena had taken it too far.

  “Enough,” Thena said. There was a distinct sense of satisfaction in her tone.

  Strong hands took hold of me and lifted me from the ground as though I weighed next to nothing, and I found myself being gently held to a wide, barrel-like chest. I let out a sigh of relief, the side of my head resting against Gilgamesh, letting his warmth and solidity centre me.

  “You’ve impressed me,” Thena said, her voice a little softer this time. I shifted slightly, turning my head so I could see her. “Rest now. In the morning, we begin your training in earnest.”

  Something inside of me broke. A pressure that had been building up all day. Tears tracked muddy paths down my cheeks. “…This wasn’t already in earnest?” I asked, my voice sounding as small as I felt.

  She bared her teeth at me again. “No.”