DEAD BEFORE HE STOPPED BREATHING

(deleted flashback)

It was just an ordinary mission. At least, that's what Messalina kept telling herself. She kept repeating in her head that it was just a normal intelligence gathering mission, that nothing was too strange about it. That Tony would be okay on his own on the mission. But she couldn't stop the doubt creeping into her mind. The rumours seemed too easy to dig up. The location of the information was easy to infiltrate. Everything just seemed too easy. 

She knew she should've fought harder to join Tony on the mission. Instead of sitting in the compound, twiddling her thumbs and ravaging at her nails. The more she tried to take her mind off of it, the more it seemed to repeat in her head. Her best friend was in danger, and everyone would be surprised but her. She should've just convinced Strange to let her help him; the man was oddly persistent about letting Tony go alone, but she could've worn him down eventually. She was a master spy after all. 

Messalina sighed. She paid little mind to the blood bubbling at her nail beds, nor to the squeak of the door as it creaked open. The only thing that took her mind off of her worries was the hand snatching harshly at hers, pulling her lips away from her bleeding hand. 

"Messalina, cut it out." A voice snapped. Her eyes flicked up. There, Curio was stood with her hand still in his. He had a stormy look on his face, eyes thundering. She hated to be the person on his bad side. 

It was like putting on a mask. One moment, she was the worry stricken friend who found it hard to breathe. The next, she was carefree, her body loosening with a confidence she'd grown to fake. A small smile twisted up at her lips. "Hey newbie."

Curio sighed, dropping her hand as if it were coated in acid. She simply pulled it back into her body, hiding any level of offence she had. "I told you to stop calling me that, I've been here for a year." 

"And that's still a newbie to a lot of us. Octavian and I have been here for a good three or four years, probably longer." Messalina shrugged it off. "You looking for your boy toy?" 

Curio raised a brow. 

Messalina elaborated playfully, the smile building more on her face. "I mean, are you looking for Octavian?" 

Curio flushed a deep shade of red. His jaw moved up and down to no avail, it just making the amusement within Messalina grow. As much as Curio irritated her sometimes, it was fun to mess with him. 

"I could say the same about you and Tony." 

And just like that, all of the humour got sapped from her. Her entire body slumped at the mention of his name. The smile slipped off of her face. Her teeth started to nibble on her nail beds once again. The mask she'd hidden behind had been carelessly shattered by a single name. His name. The name of the man who accepted her for everything she was, who understood how she hated Thanos not because of what he did to her parents, but because of what he had turned her brother into - a violent monster. Rarely she saw her brother smile, even less so did she see her brother outside of the gym or a mission. She savoured every moment she spent with him but sometimes it was hard seeing the little brother she adored grow up to be a stony faced man. 

Curio swore under his breath, a hesitant hand reaching towards her. "Are you okay?" 

She couldn't even count how many times she had sighed that day. Another one whooshed out of her body. "I don't know. Tony got sent out on a mission but... He's alone."

"You're worried about him?" 

"Yeah, I really am. I... I don't know how I would handle it if something happened to him." Just the thought made her queasy. She couldn't ponder on it long, feeling as though she would vomit right there and then. Rapidly she tried to erase the image out of her mind. 

"Strange sent him out alone?" Curio asked, ripping open the wounds she'd tried to heal. She merely nodded, teeth digging deeper into her skin. "What are you going to do?" 

Absentmindedly, she ran a hand through her hair, her fingers catching on all of the tangled knots. An idea sparked in her head, her mind instantly rejecting it. Her heart though? Her heart embraced the plans insanity. For her friend. 

"I have an idea, and I don't think you're going to like it." 

"I disagree with 99% of what you say, trust me, I already knew I was going to hate everything that came out of your mouth the moment I stepped into the room." In any other situation, Messalina would have lightly smacked him, or gasped in mock offence. Now, she had no energy for either. 

"Good, because you are definitely going to hate this." 

*

"I don't think hate is a strong enough word." Curio uttered under his breath. Messalina brushed it off, continuing to dodge her way through the crowd. Her hooded head was kept turned towards the ground, and Curio's baseball cap and sunglasses in the midst of a rainy day did little to keep the pair completely undetected. 

Messalina spun around to him, bumping into the shoulder of a passer-by. In one fluid movement she yanked the glasses off of his face, tossing them to the ground. Curio let out a cry of protest, glumly staring at the shell of his glasses. He muttered something under his breath that she couldn't pick up; she didn't have the energy to ask what it was. What little energy she had was consumed by propelling her to her friend, to make sure that was okay. 

She grabbed at Curio, pulling him behind her as they wove their way through the crowds. She didn't waste a moment, every movement perfectly calculated and guiding her through the streets she had grown to know like the back of her hand. 

"Where did he say he was going?" Curio pestered, trying to shake his hand out of Messalina's. She only tightened her grip, dragging him towards what appeared to be a gap in the crowd. A string of words were about to leave her lips when it happened. 

It was like there was a shift in the air. All of a sudden, the crowd around them had once been walking with little purpose halted. They spun on their heels and ran in the opposite direction, pushing and shoving and screaming, desperately catapulting themselves away from the thing that had them so scared. 

Someone. 

She didn't even need to think. Her feet involuntarily pushed her in the direction of the direction. She worked her way against the flow, carelessly barging people out of her path and ignorant to the colourful words they flung at her back. Messalina couldn't hear their screams of terror, the one name that struck fear in her heart being repeated over and over again. She could only hear her own whirring thoughts. The thundering of her heartbeat acted as background noise for all of the worries bombarding her senses. 

She was trying to lie to herself that the danger up ahead wasn't the thing that she knew it was. 

Soon, she found that she couldn't lie to herself anymore. 

Something flew through the air, surging towards her. She barely had time to sidestep the object as it charged at the ground, rolling on impact. An almighty clang hit her ears at the impact, finally cutting off her deaf episode and forcing her to pay attention to reality. Messalina took a step closer to the metal; only for a hand to push her back. Curio moved in front of her, pushing her back gently. She seethed. 

"If it's a bomb, better me than you, right?" Curio offered up, a tiny smile on his face. Even though she knew there was some truth to the words of how he felt, it wasn't something he thought at that precise second. It was a facade, something to distract her from the reality of what the object was. 

He knelt down closer to it, bracing a hand against the ground. His hand reached out for the object, it disappearing from her sight for a moment. 

Curio was quiet for a very long time.

"Curio?" She didn't know why she felt like she needed to whisper, and still the words came out in a hushed tone. "C'mon, we need to find Tony." 

"Lina, I don't think that's a good idea." Her brows instantly furrowed at his words. Since when did he give her a nickname? Since when did he speak so softly to her? 

The realisation soon dawned on her.

She wasn't sure how it happened, but one moment she was staring at Curio was a lax jaw, and the next she saw Tony fighting valiantly against the Black Order. He was frantically trying to attack them all at once, trying to parry blows they sent at him and deliver crippling hits. With each hit they landed, she saw him crumble further into the ground. 

Her fingers fumbled for the knives hidden inside of her jacket. Her shaking fingers desperately tried to snatch at the blades, her trembling getting worse the closer Tony got to the ground. Even from this distance she could see the cuts bleeding heavily, the bruises already blackening, the defeat behind his eyes. 

She was watching him die before his heart even stopped beating. 

At last her hands gripped onto one of the knives. She pulled it out of her jacket with purpose, knocking her arm back without a seconds hesitation. Messalina moved to pull her arm forward, meeting an unexpected resistance. 

"Lina, don't do it." Curio whispered into her ear. His grip was still firm on her upper arm. Her brain was already fathoming ways to wiggle her way out of his grip, to send the knife flying and free her friend from the fate he had already succumbed to. 

Her voice trembled just as much as her hands. "I can't leave him." 

"I know." Curio cooed. He pulled her behind a wall, peeping around the corner constantly. "But if you do that, you'll reveal you're a member of Libertas. They'll kill you." 

"But Tony-" 

"Wouldn't be able to live with himself if you died for him." Curio pressed something cold into her open palm. Her eyes glanced down momentarily, taking in the scratched metal. A rectangle had been cut in it, a deep crack formed at the corner of the edge. It was a part of War Machine's - Tony's - mask. "We need to go now if we want to live." 

After seeing what she had, she wasn't sure if she wanted to anymore. 

Curio led her away from the scene. No matter how hard he tugged on her hand, he couldn't stop her from turning around and looking one last time. And when she did, her eyes connected with Tony's. 

And he smiled.