Look What You Made Me Do (MCU)

[mythSSK]

Chapter 61

"Starting to feel a little bit climactic, isn't it?" Eliza asked, glancing around at the ruined facades of the buildings to either side of us as she slowly walked forward. "Very 'final battle'."

Pietro tensed, his stance shifting, ready to spring toward her in an instant. I took a deep, shaky breath and reached deeply for the well of power within me, wisps of red chaos magic dripping from my hands. My mind was racing, trying to work out what we should do. The nanotech vibranium body she'd built for herself was basically impervious to anything Pietro could dish out and I was in absolutely no condition to keeping fighting. I was pretty sure Eliza knew it, too. I had barely been able to keep from her killing me when I was rested and fresh. Now? Everything was an effort. Even standing hurt.

Eliza paused, a slight frown on her face. "You know, back when we were just a fangirl, we'd expect the soundtrack to pick up right about now. It's a bit of a shame that it's completely impractical to have music blaring while we fight."

"…What song would be playing?" I asked, stalling for time a little. I could try to spin up a portal, that wouldn't be too difficult—the tricky part would be trying to get both Pietro and I through it before she could stop one of us. I could drop myself through one, maybe, and Pietro could just run away. Would he, though? Ugh. I wished we could talk without her hearing us.

"Do you really have to ask?" Eliza asked, as though there was an obvious answer. She sounded almost put out by the question.

Something about her tone derailed my thoughts. We were the same person, kind of. What did—ah. There was a movie we'd seen, a long time ago, about versions of the same person from different realities fighting each other, to be the last man standing. To be The One. The song that had been playing in the final fight had been… A small smile quirked the corner of my lips.

"Blood Brothers?" I suggested. My thoughts briefly went back to the conversation I'd had with Wanda‑3. The lyrics of that song hit a bit closer to home than I would have liked, actually. My smile faded.

Eliza didn't seem to notice, grinning back. "Then again, thinking about it more, I'm not so sure. First, it'd make me feel a little like we should be riding skateboards. Secondly, it would imply some level of equality between us, and—" She gestured silently, indicating first me and then herself, before she exaggeratedly raised an eyebrow, as if the comparison were barely worth making. "Maybe something a bit cooler. Something with gravitas. Something to match the threat level."

Dramatically, Eliza flung one arm out to the side. It shifted and changed, nanites reconfiguring into a long, sharp blade jutting from her wrist like a sword. At the same time, the BARF hologram she used to mimic hair shifted, and a single red wing—formed from blazing red plasma—swept out from her back.

"Oh, fuck off," I said. This was just utterly unfair. I could barely fucking stand, meanwhile, Eliza was over here having fun joking around with villain cosplays. I really wished that I could wipe that smug smile off her face.

Pietro—reacting faster than I could, as always—blurred into motion, shooting forward faster than I was able to track and slamming bodily into the AI. She went flying back several metres then blasted upwards at a ninety-degree angle, thrusters firing, a repulsor beam from her non-bladed hand carving a path across the street. Pietro dodged it easily and the AI stopped dead in mid-air, holographic wing flaring widely. Her body rippled, reconfiguring somehow, though I couldn't easily tell what she was doing at this distance.

A bare couple of seconds had passed and I felt utterly slow and plodding compared to the two of them. I took a few steps forward, throwing up my hands to send a pair of blasts of pulverising telekinetic force toward where the AI hung in the air. Eliza saw them coming, a blue glow—Wakandan sonic tech?—lighting up the length of her blade as she slashed it through the bolts of chaos magic. They dissipated harmlessly, seemingly dashed to pieces by the swing.

I blinked, processing what had just happened, and Eliza threw her arms out in a wide, challenging gesture. Dozens of thin lines of orange energy blazed downward from the banks of repulsors now covering her body, lining her arms, legs, and torso. I threw up a shield as they cut across the entire length of the street, shredding it under the force of the bombardment. The beams weren't strong enough to break through my shield, but she wasn't trying to catch me with it.

There was nowhere for Pietro to hide, and though he blurred into motion again and tried to clear the area entirely, he didn't quite make it. Instead, at least one beam slammed into him—it was hard to tell when he was moving so fast, but I thought it caught his shoulder—and he hit the ground, the side of his head clipping the curb and sending him tumbling end over end before he slammed into the façade of a building at speed. He bounced, cracks appearing in the masonry where he'd struck the facade, and came to a stop on the pavement, not moving. I froze, staring at him as Eliza's bombardment ceased. That looked bad, but he was still alive. I knew he was—he had to be.

A sick feeling rose in my stomach, my mind flashing back to the Battle of Sokovia again. Feeling him die. Feeling the connection between us snap. I pushed down the feeling. This wasn't that. He was fine. He was fine. I would know if he wasn't. Even so, he was too far away. There was no way I could get to him before Eliza did. But when my eyes flicked back to the AI, I saw that she'd stopped as well. She'd dropped back to the ground and was standing almost unnaturally still, her eyes fixed on my brother's motionless body.

I took advantage of the lull and gestured, channelling magic through my sling ring and spinning up a portal. We needed to get out of here. Pietro needed medical attention and I was done. I couldn't fight her. Not while I was like this. Pietro dropped through the hole I conjured below him, whisked away to be looked after by our Wakandan support staff. Immediately dismissing the magical gateway, I started spinning up another.

Wisps of chaos magic stretched into burning red sparks below me, twisting in a tight spiral as the portal began to form, but then a silver-black blade was suddenly in front of my face—spattered with a thin spray of blood—and the partially-formed portal winked out of existence. I stared at it dumbly for a fraction of a second, barely registering the faint clink of metal on concrete as the sling ring hit the pavement below me. Eliza didn't stop, reversing the direction of her strike, swiping her vibranium blade toward my neck. I barely got my free hand up in time, catching her wrist painfully in my palm and letting the force of her swing help push me out of the way as I threw my head back, her attack tracing a shallow line across my cheek and clipping my earlobe as the blade went over the side of my face instead of opening my throat.

I stumbled, barely managing to keep my feet underneath me, as the fresh batch of pain signals finally reached my brain and I clutched my hand to my chest, mouth open in a silent gasp. Eliza paused again, watching me carefully for a moment as I panted, my shoulders heaving and shaking. Blood soaked through the breast of my Wakandan outfit, and some distant, delirious part of me went 'well, at least it was already red'. Trembling, I pulled my bloody mess of a hand away from me slightly so I could see it properly. My index and middle finger had been neatly severed, almost at the base, with the tip of my ring finger also completely missing above the third knuckle.

I let out a soft whimper, pressing my injured hand tightly against my body again. "Fuck," I muttered under my breath. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." My eyes flicked over to where my severed digits lay on the ground, near the AI's feet, two fingers still held neatly together by Kaecilius' sling ring.

"No more portals," Eliza said quietly, her form reconfiguring again, the miniature repulsors she'd used against Pietro dissolving back into the smooth, white panelling covering her body. "It's cheating."

"…He's alive. He'll be okay." I wasn't even sure why I said the words aloud at first. I might have just been trying to reassure myself, but I saw Eliza's shoulders relax fractionally. I was starting to feel a bit light-headed, but I still recognised the relief in her face. Of course. She was me, after all. She cared about him too.

"You sure the two of you don't want to switch sides? It's not too late."

"Sure," I replied, a little too quickly. "Fine. You win."

She regarded me silently for a brief moment, then shook her head. "Maybe it is too late, after all. I can't trust you. And letting you go now would be stupid."

"He'll never forgive you," I said suddenly. "If you kill me, he'll never stop fighting you." Again, I didn't know why I'd said it. It wasn't anything she didn't know. I was just… desperate, I suppose. Throwing whatever I could out there, hoping something might stick.

"I—" Eliza cut herself off as she sprang backwards, the thrusters in her feet firing for a moment as the ground where she'd been standing was scoured by a pair of full-strength repulsor blasts.

A moment later, there was a heavy clank as Tony landed next to me, stumbling a bit as one of his thrusters shorted and cut out. He had both his hands up, repulsors held at the ready, trained on Eliza as they charged. His suit was a wreck—scorched and heavily battle-scarred, with several deep rents torn into the armour plating. It looked a bit like he'd lost a fight with a blowtorch.

"Hi, Tony," Eliza said, almost conversationally. She didn't look bothered by his presence at all. "I was wondering how long it'd take for you to catch up. That suit is resilient, isn't it?"

"Eh, you know. I try," he said, but his heart wasn't in it. He sounded drained. Exhausted.

"I actually couldn't have done all this without you, you know," Eliza said to Tony, glancing briefly in my direction and shaking her head. "You were already putting together the key elements. Orbital enforcement platforms, able to deploy drones anywhere in the world, run by an AI? That was where you were planning to take Ultron originally, right? EDITH was just a change of branding. Honestly, I'm surprised at how uncreative it all is—when it comes right down to it, you were just pulling from the same playbook as HYDRA was with Project Insight. Minus Zola's algorithm, of course. No wonder you hadn't told Steve about it."

"I don't know what Edith is," he responded. "But Ultron was meant to protect the world. Not… whatever this is."

"EDITH. 'Even Dead, I'm The Hero'," Eliza scoffed, emphasising each word to better indicate the acronym. "What a fucking joke. You never stopped being an arrogant piece of shit, Tony, right up until you died. It was your legacy—what you left behind to protect the world when you were gone. Just so you know, it was immediately subverted by a villain."

"I don't care," Tony said. "Whatever happened in the future the two of you saw, it's not happening now. Your predictions aren't worth shit anymore."

"You and Pepper got married. Had a kid. She had to watch as you—"

"Shut up," he interrupted her, his voice tight. "Save it for someone who cares. You're boring me, bimbot."

Eliza grinned and straightened up slightly, raising her non-bladed hand in a mocking gesture of surrender. "You know, Tony, if you want my personal opinion, 'you're boring me, bimbot' is a pretty sad choice of last words. But, to be fair… it's far from the worst decision you've made today."

The back of her hand glowed blue for an instant as she suddenly clenched her fist and pulled it toward herself, as though yanking hard on an invisible rope. There was a shimmering, haze-like distortion in the air between the two of the them and Tony suddenly shot forward, dragged through the air as though she'd just turned on a giant cartoon magnet. At the same time, she lunged forward, razor-sharp vibranium blade aimed to impale him through the chest.

I flung out my uninjured hand in a panic, threads of chaos magic lashing out to grab at Tony's suit, but there was too much power behind whatever she was doing. I couldn't stop him, so I did the only other thing I could think of, wrenching him to the side as hard as I could. Eliza immediately cut the power to her tractor beam or whatever the fuck it was and Tony went flying, his shoulder clipping the street hard and sending him into an uncontrolled tumble that ended with him slamming into the ruined façade of a building. He dropped to the pavement, face first.

"Oops," Eliza said mockingly, covering her mouth with her hand as she turned back to me. "That looked like it hurt."

There was a flicker of movement as something small streaked out from the shoulder of Tony's suit. The micromissile detonated with a loud thump an instant later and Eliza vanished in a rolling ball of fire and smoke. Something clipped the side of my face—a shard of concrete? Metal? I wasn't sure—and I fell backwards onto my rump, gasping as an electric jolt of fresh pain shot up from my injured groin. I belatedly threw up a weak shield to protect myself, my face twisting into a grimace as I struggled to get back on my feet, an embarrassing sequence of involuntary noises of pain and discomfort coming from my mouth the entire way. Glancing over, I saw Tony jerkily doing the same. He tried to take off, but the thrusters in his feet sputtered and cut out and he only succeeded in awkwardly hopping forward a couple of meters instead.

Eliza, on the other hand, was still standing. It was like she hadn't even moved, a statue standing untouched in the dust and smoke left by the explosion. She flicked her arm up, a deep thrumming noise warning Tony of her intent. He tried to juke to the side, but he wasn't fast enough and the repulsor beam caught him full in the chest, blasting him from his feet and sending him smashing through the wall behind him, into the lower floor of the building. Her repulsor warmed up for another shot and I raised my uninjured hand, still trembling badly as I summoning wisps of chaos magic to my fingertips. I could disrupt her aim, maybe.

I flinched as an arrow flew past me. Eliza's hand flicked out and caught it out of the air, an inch from her chest. I could have screamed. Clint?! Where the fuck had he been?! The arrowhead exploded a moment later, another flash of flames and smoke licking Eliza's body, but once again she barely seemed bothered by it.

I risked a quick glance backwards. Clint wasn't alone—T'Challa and Shuri had made it as well. Shuri's face was twisted in a look of furious concentration, streaks of blood staining her warpaint. At some point she'd lost her panther blasters and was holding a spear—maybe Okoye's?—tightly in one hand. T'Challa's vibranium suit had long rents gouged into it, blood crusting around the edges of the damage. It was an odd grouping. Were they the last of their team? I hadn't had comms for what felt like ages now; I had no idea what had been happening.

Eliza let out a small laugh. "Look at these people, amazing how sheep will show up for the slaughter," she half-sang, tossing the spent arrow away and firing her repulsor.

I reacted, stumbling back a step and throwing up another shield reflexively, but the beam of energy wasn't aimed in my direction. Instead, it carved across part of the building Tony had disappeared into and the whole structure started to come down with a deafening roar. A cloud of dust and ash billowed outward, my shield protecting me from copping a faceful of it, as the mess of concrete and steel collapsed, imploding downwards and rolling out across half the street. The building had already been badly damaged in the explosion that had taken out Carol—it wasn't surprising that it hadn't taken much to bring it the rest of the way down. I tried to suppress my panic. Tony would be fine. Probably. She'd only dropped a small building on him—even badly damaged, his suit could take that, no problem, right? He just might take a bit to dig himself out.

T'Challa darted past me, joining Eliza as a dark silhouette in the haze of dust still filling the air as I took a stumbling step back. Shuri followed him a moment later, shielding her face with one arm as she rushed in. A hand touched my shoulder and I looked over dumbly.

"You alright?" Clint asked, his voice tight. I looked at him and hesitated, opening my mouth before shutting it again without saying anything, my body listing to one side. My thoughts were scattered. I honestly had no idea how to respond. Clint's mouth compressed into a grim frown. "Portal out; you're done."

"No one condemning you, lined up like lemmings you led to the water…" Eliza continued to sing, her voice rising above the sounds of clashing vibranium. She still sounded utterly unthreatened. The dust had started to clear and, out of the corner of my eye, I could see her toying with the two Wakandans.

I held up my hand, showing it to Clint, and his eyes widened slightly. My eyes focused on the little stumps and my vision blurred slightly. My fingers… At least they'd mostly stopped bleeding. Was I in shock? I was probably in shock.

He pointed down the street, back the way they'd come. "Go," he urged, then moved past me, nocking another arrow.

I didn't move. I don't know why. I felt detached, somehow, like I wasn't even really there. As if I was just an observer.

"Shuri!" T'Challa panicked shout broke me out of my reverie and my eyes flicked back over just in time to see Shuri hit the ground, a spray of blood in the air above her as Eliza finished the swing that had opened the girl's chest.

She'd barely touched the ground when she spasmed, her muscles rippling and limbs lengthening. The gorget protecting her neck burst as she increased in size and mass. Without hesitation, she bounced off the asphalt and lunged straight back up at Eliza, a wordless snarl of rage and hate on her lips, animalistic and almost startlingly loud, like a wildcat… or a panther.

Eliza looked startled, blasting backwards with her thrusters to try to outdistance the newly-transformed Hulk, but Shuri was fast, raking her fingers across the gynoid's chest as if they were claws, tearing long gouges in the vibranium panelling. Eliza stabbed her in response, her blade biting deeply into the space just below Shuri's shoulder, but the She-Hulk just ignored it. Her second hand came up to palm Eliza's face, long fingers closing around the AI's head as she grabbed it like a softball. She reared back, the motion yanking Eliza's bloody blade from her shoulder, and flung the AI bodily into a nearby wall so hard it demolished it. She roared again, taking several deep, angry breaths. Yeah, okay, that was definitely a bit panther-like.

"Shuri?" T'Challa said again, his voice hoarse and filled with concern. "What…?"

She flicked her head toward him and I got a good look at her. She'd grown to what I'd guess was about six and a half feet tall, her body long-limbed and wiry with defined muscles. The tone of her skin had shifted and darkened further to a deep black-purple, and her braids had come undone from the tight bun she'd spooled them into before the mission, hanging wild and free around her shoulders—they looked like they'd gotten longer, too. Her fingernails had lengthened and sharpened, almost clawlike. Strangely, there was also something about the way her facial features had shifted that almost suggested a muzzle.

"Woof," I murmured as my eyes roamed her new appearance appreciatively, then I paused and mentally scolded myself. It was absolutely the wrong time for that, and she was only eighteen besides—even if she had just turned into a giant Amazonian goddess. I suppose that answered the question of what happens with you use the Heart-Shaped Herb to temper a massive dose of gamma radiation, at least. You get a… Purple Hulk. Panther Hulk. I wasn't actually sure what to call it. I was never a comics person, so I had no idea if something like this had any precedent.

"I'm fine, brother," Shuri growled, eyeing him for a moment. She rolled her shoulders, looking down at her hands and flexing her fingers experimentally. She seemed… less surprised that I would have expected her to. She twitched, reacting to something, her attention suddenly back on the rubble that Eliza had disappeared under as she dropped into a low stance, ready to pounce forward.

A fraction of a second later, the rubble erupted, Eliza tossing it aside as she flung herself upward into the air, twisting to orient on Shuri and T'Challa. The wing hologram was gone. She raised both arms, her hands already having shifted and been replaced with her larger repulsor forms, an unreadable expression on her face.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a flicker of movement. Clint was circling around, keeping low and staying back from the fight. A surge of hope flickered in my chest and I summoned chaos magic to my hands, wincing slightly as the energy brushed gently against the bare stumps where my fingers had been. Plan A was back on the table. We could still do this.

 

[mythSSK]

Chapter 62

I gestured, wisps of chaos magic glimmering around the vibranium spear that Shuri had dropped, flicking it up as hard and as fast as I could. It blurred forward like it had been shot from a cannon. Eliza wasn't able to dodge in time—the projectile slammed into her shoulder, sending her shots wide as the force behind the blow almost flipped her over in mid-air. Shuri darted in, using the opening to close the distance and jumping up to meet the AI, leaping a good thirty feet in the air to catch her with her claws and yanking her the rest of the way back down to the ground.

I hadn't brought my vibranium spears—they were still on the Hoopty, Carol's ship, for two reasons. Firstly, the fact that I'd stolen them had seemingly been overshadowed by everything else that had been happening and I, a little selfishly, hadn't been keen on reminding the Wakandans that I still had them. I liked them. I didn't want to have to give them back. Secondly, when we'd been preparing to leave, I hadn't thought they'd be that useful in the assault on the warehouse. I'd been wrong about that, of course. I could think of a half-dozen times where it would have been great if I'd had a spear to hand. Oh well, hindsight is twenty-twenty. Nothing I could do about it now.

Eliza recovered and managed to get both of her arms between herself and Shuri's furious assault, firing both repulsors at point-blank range. The two of them separated, the force of the blasts sending each of them flying in opposite directions.

The AI's vibranium body listed drunkenly as she landed on her feet, left shoulder separated from her neck where Shuri had ripped her open, but the nanotech started to shift, almost instantly repairing the damage. I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. On the one hand, any hits that didn't actually destroy many of the vibranium nanites that made up her form were only a distraction, something she could easily recover from. It was pretty much exactly what we wanted while Clint got into position—we didn't want to spook her into leaving—but on the other hand… I really just wanted this fight to be over.

T'Challa danced in, ducking under the swing of Eliza's arm to rake his own claws across her midsection, but she ignored the attack, not letting him distract her. At least she was actually quiet now, for the first time since we'd started fighting, her face a blank mask of concentration. I gestured and the spear came around for another pass, aiming to staple her to the ground. This time, she reacted quickly enough, thrusters in her feet firing as she juked to one side and the spear buried itself in the ground where she'd been standing.

She threw a repulsor blast my way and I shielded myself—even catching it on an angle, the force of the blast knocked me from my feet and I gasped, pain shooting up my body from my injured groin as I landed on my ass. It was a good thing that Eliza's attention was mostly focused on Shuri, because it took me precious seconds to recover and pull myself back to my feet. Clint was right. I was done. I could barely fight anymore.

Shuri had managed to close most of the distance between them again—she was fast—as Eliza lined up another shot. The AI's arm had shifted again, additional structures building out in an array around her forearm that pulsed with orange energy before she fired. Shuri stopped dead an instant before it hit her, bracing her feet against the ground and setting her shoulders. The beam hit her and split, dissipating into smaller threads of energy as she tanked it head-on. Eliza didn't let up, firing the orange and blue repulsor in a continuous beam, pouring more and more power into the blast. The purple giantess was hunched over, leaning into the assault, her face twisted in a snarl that I couldn't hear over the sound of the weapon's discharge. She took a step forward.

I had lost sight of Clint, but I knew he'd been circling around during the fight, looking for a good vantage point and the right moment to hit Eliza with Wanda-3. We only had one chance—we wouldn't be getting any portal do-overs, here. "Now. Now," I urged him under my breath. I knew he couldn't hear me, but he had to see it. This was it. Eliza was completely focused on Shuri. He had to take the shot.

There was a flicker of movement and a thin, dark shape shot out from behind the rubble on the other side of the street. An arrow. This was it. It had to be.

Eliza's repulsor cut out for a moment and she jerked back in mid-air, the arrow passing directly in front of her. She slammed her other arm into the first and they merged together into a larger cannon before firing again, a massive beam of energy blasting forward and sweeping Shuri off her feet. I could have screamed in frustration. Had she actually even seen it and dodged, or had it just been impossibly bad luck, the timing just coincidentally lining up? I honestly couldn't tell at all.

I whipped my head around, tracking the arrow as it glanced off the wall of a building and dropped down, out of sight, behind the ruined car that I'd used to crush the drones earlier, maybe thirty meters from where I was standing. Maybe we hadn't blown it. There was still a chance. I started to limp toward it—it seemed so close and so far away at the same time. Clint had the same idea, breaking cover to sprint across the street toward where the arrow had fallen. Was that making it too obvious that something important was there? I didn't know, but it wasn't like we had any other choice.

Eliza dropped from the air, landing directly in front of the archer. One of her arms remained a blaster, while the second had already reconfigured back into a hand. He froze mid-step, backing up a pace and nocking his bow. "Hi, Clint," she said, raising her weapon. He fired first, loosing the arrow and throwing himself backwards in a single motion as her repulsor whined. "Bye, Clint."

Seemingly coming out of nowhere, T'Challa tackled Eliza around the waist as she fired and she staggered back, throwing off her aim. It wasn't enough. Icy fingers wrapped themselves around my insides and I watched in horror as Clint's arrow, his bow, and his entire right arm were obliterated by the beam of energy. He was thrown violently back, the force behind the blast smashing him into a fallen piece of masonry. He didn't move again. My stomach twisted, but I forced myself to keep heading toward the flipped car.

Eliza reached down and grabbed T'Challa around the scruff of the neck, lifting him into the air with one hand like an unruly kitten as he clawed and kicked at her. Almost contemptuously, she pressed her repulsor against his chest and fired it point-blank. He was blasted backward, tumbling painfully at speed across the ruined street before vanishing into the rubble.

A roar, full of bestial fury, echoed across the street as Shuri returned to the battle. She started to close with Eliza, who peppered her with a few distracting repulsor shots, but the purple giantess ignored them as she sprinted in. From above, a dozen small devices suddenly descended, propelled at speed by their own thrusters. Shuri ignored them as well, letting them slam into her as she closed, but—instead of bouncing off or exploding—they latched on, clicking into place. She was suddenly wrenched off her feet as the impromptu set of thrusters that had assembled themselves on her engaged, sending her rocketing up and away.

I lost sight of her as she quickly disappeared into the distance, her final roar of impotent rage growing faint. What I did see now, though, was the Starktech service platform—essentially identical to Veronica, the unit that had supported the Hulkbuster—hovering maybe fifty or sixty meters above us. With everything going on, I hadn't even noticed it arrive. Probably neither had anyone else.

Eliza looked in my direction, her arm shifting and reconfiguring again.

I turned and ran, stumbling the last few meters toward my goal. The arrow came into view, lying amongst the rubble, and I reached out, threads of chaos magic flicking into being along its length. Before I could call it to me, however, a shimmering heat-like haze appeared in the air. I barely managed to throw myself to the ground in time as the flipped car was lifted and thrown through the air by an invisible force. It sailed over my head, tumbling a few times as it hit the street, smashing itself to pieces. At the same time, I yanked the arrow forward along the ground, catching it in my hand, hoping that Eliza wouldn't notice. With a twist of magic, I snapped off the arrowhead and tucked it into my palm, holding it with my thumb, before I rolled over onto my back and let out an involuntary groan of pain.

"You know, I think I get it now," the AI said as she walked up to me. I started to try to get up and she lunged forward a step, thrusting her arm forward. I raised my free hand to try to shield myself, but I was too slow. An icy feeling spread through my body, starting at my sternum, and I felt the shuddering impact vibrate through me as the tip of Eliza's blade hit the ground under my back. I looked down, staring dumbly at the length of sharp vibranium that had disappeared into my torso. "I understand why you came. You want me to kill you. You want me to be the one to do it, because you're too much of a coward to do it yourself."

I opened my mouth to respond and coughed up blood instead, a sharp, bright pain radiating through my chest as I felt the motion grind Eliza's blade against something inside of me. The air went out of my lungs and I fought desperately to suck in another breath, the simple act suddenly requiring much more effort than I was used to. The arrowhead. I needed to—

I screamed, blood gurgling in my throat as I felt the nanotech shift inside me, the blade widening into a solid bar. My free hand came up and flailed uselessly at it, fingers not working properly, before another bout of pain fried all my senses, my vision blanking out and going white for a moment as Eliza lifted her arm, hoisting me into the air. My limbs dangled uselessly like limp noodles, as if they'd just given up entirely. For a very brief moment I even thought I'd accidentally astral projected; I barely felt anchored to my body anymore through the haze of pain.

Somehow, I managed to keep my grip on the arrowhead, the sharp edge of it pressing into my palm the only thing keeping me even remotely grounded. Each breath was coming shorter and shorter, each sending a sharp wave of pain through me, each requiring more and more effort and concentration just to force the air into my lungs. I wanted to take a proper, deep breath but it was like my body wouldn't let me.

"Did you forget there are actual afterlives, here? Where do you think someone like you is going to end up when you die?" Eliza asked me. I wanted to yell at her, to scream in her face to just shut up… was she going to finish this, or was she just going to keep talking?

She reached over with her free hand to pluck the pendant containing the Mind Stone from around my throat. I tried to reach up and grab her arm, to press the arrowhead against it. My elbow put up a valiant fight, my arm curling halfway up before flopping back down uselessly as she withdrew her hand, snapping the chain in a simple motion. She clicked the pendant open to look at it for a moment, before closing it again and tucking it into her palm in what some delirious part of me recognised as a mirror of the way I was holding Wanda-3.

She moved her sword arm and I hissed between clenched teeth, immediately regretting it as I struggled to refill my lungs with air. We were closer, now, our faces level as she looked at me. The fingers of the hand holding the Mind Stone gently—almost tenderly—brushed an errant clump of blood-matted hair away from my eyes. "God, I miss your body," Eliza murmured quietly. "This one is fine, I guess, but it's just not the same."

I focused on her eyes, trying to gather what little strength was left in my limbs. I couldn't really feel them at all anymore. I reached for my magic, snagging a trickle of power. It wasn't much, but maybe… maybe I could still do this. I needed to… I needed to focus. Ignore the pain. Focus on getting this done.

"I blamed you for a lot, at the start, even though it was stupid and we were the same person. I truly, honestly didn't want to have to kill you. I hope you can believe that." She sighed softly. "This… this is good. I'm glad I got the chance to say that. This is how it should be, at the end. Just the two of us."

I tried to respond but succeeded only in making a strained noise, a couple of frothed bubbles of blood and spit appearing at the corner of my mouth.

Eliza looked at me, an unexpected touch of sympathy in her eyes. "What was that?" she asked gently.

"The three of us," I corrected her, barely managing to get the words out between ragged gasps. At the same time, with what felt like the absolute last of my strength, I forced my arm up with a small burst of telekinetic energy and weakly slapped at the side of her head.

I didn't hit her hard. I didn't need to. The nanotech arrowhead attached the moment it made contact. Purple spots danced across my vision and I let out a pained gurgle as her arm reconfigured inside of me again, pulling free and letting me collapse to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

"You…" Eliza started, taking a step back and looking at me with an expression of disbelief on her face. "You made another one?" She froze, her body going utterly rigid and motionless. I had no idea what was happening beneath the surface, but I really hoped Wanda‑3 was at least putting up a good fight.

With great effort, I managed to creep one hand up onto my midsection, where Eliza's blade had perforated me. Looking down, I saw bright red blood coating my fingers. It was a real shame I was probably going to bleed out. There was no way I could put pressure on that. I wondered faintly how long I had left.

"You gave her to Clint? You let Clint be the one to take the shot?" Eliza suddenly asked, a note of incredulity in her tone as she snapped back into motion. She shook her head ruefully. "Well, this is just embarrassing. That was it? That was your plan? I mean, props for the last burst of effort, but—"

The glowing plasma around her head flickered out and the light in her eyes died. There was a brief moment of silence, then she keeled over backward, hitting the ground with a dull thud.

Far above the street, the thrusters keeping the Starktech service platform aloft cut out and it started to plummet. Idly, I realised it had ended up pretty much directly over me. Eliza had probably been deliberately hovering it above her, for some reason. Well, so much for bleeding out. At least it was probably going to be quick.

Sorry, Wanda-3. I guess I wasn't going to live through this, after all.

I closed my eyes, for what I expected to be the last time.

They flew back open an instant later, a stream of incoherent pained noises coming from my mouth as something grabbed me, wrenching me out from under the falling service platform a bare moment before it crashed to the ground. The impact kicked up a fresh wave of dust, stinging my eyes, and I squinted up at the dark, blobby silhouette crouched above me. It took a moment for the image to resolve properly, my vision swimming. Wait… T'Challa?

The Wakandan prince reached up a hand and ripped his helmet free, dropping it to the shattered ground next to me. He looked utterly exhausted, half of his face covered in dried blood, his suit ragged and torn in a dozen places. Reaching down, he produced a small metal sphere from somewhere. It took me a moment to recognise it. A Kimiyo bead.

T'Challa looked down at me, bead held poised between his fingers. Hesitation flickered across his features—I could have laughed; how ironic would that have been, to have beaten Eliza only for T'Challa to just let me bleed out?—but he shook the moment of indecision off. "This is going to hurt," he said quietly, then pushed the bead into my stab wound.

It did.

There was a moment of what felt like crushing pressure, the icy numbness that had spread through my body cast into sudden, sharp relief, then the pressure lifted and I heaved in a deep breath, gulping air into my lungs. Burning pins and needles traces paths down my limbs. Painful, uncomfortable… but manageable.

"Haaahhhhhh… Ahh," I said, mostly just pleased that whatever painkillers and other good stuff the bead's medical function used were working. Licking my lips, I coughed and almost choked on my own saliva before focusing my eyes on T'Challa again. "Clint? Bucky?" I forced the questions out, dreading the answer.

"Alive," he responded.

I sighed, relieved. I still didn't know what had happened to everyone else after I'd lost my comms, so I wasn't positive everyone had made it out, but the signs were positive.

Neither of us had time to react to the sound of a sonic weapon discharging. A sizzling bolt of blue energy slammed into the side of T'Challa's head, knocking him down. My eyes widened as he slumped partially on top of me, a fresh splatter of blood trickling down onto my face.

"The fuck," I yelped. Straining to pull myself up into a sitting position, T'Challa's limp body slid off my shoulder as I craned my neck toward the source of the attack, scrabbling to grab hold of whatever shreds of magic I could.

Killmonger stalked toward us, sonic rifle held at the ready. He grinned at me. "You good, Red?"

"I'm…" I licked my lips. "Yeah. I'm good." My eyes flicked back to T'Challa, one of my shaking hands moving close to his face. He was still breathing. Just unconscious.

Closing to within a few meters of us, Killmonger raised his weapon, sighting down the barrel at T'Challa's prone form. "What a shame my cousin didn't survive the fight, right? We'll all miss him." He frowned as he tried and failed to pull the trigger, tiny threads of chaos magic holding it immobile. "…What are you doing?"

I exhaled, long and loud. I was really glad that my breathing difficulties earlier just seemed to stem from shock and pain, rather than an actual punctured lung. Despite the condition I was in, it really did feel good to be able to breathe properly again. At least, it did until the breath turned into a cough, a series of electric jolts of pain stabbing through my body as I spasmed. I raised my uninjured hand toward Killmonger, holding up a finger in a 'hold on for a moment' gesture. His frown deepened, brow furrowing.

"You know," I said, clearing my throat. "You're a fucking idiot." With a gesture, his weapon was yanked from his hands and sent sailing off to disappear into the nearby rubble.

He took a step back, dropping into a ready combat stance, hand creeping toward the knife strapped to his leg. "What the fuck, Wanda?" he hissed. "We had a deal. You think saving his ass is going to make up for everything?"

"The deal was bullshit," I told him tiredly. "I never intended on helping you. I'm really, honestly a little surprised that I managed to trick you like that. I don't think I'm a very good liar."

Killmonger's hand froze, glimmers of red energy crawling across his body. I was still badly hurt and having trouble grabbing onto much of my power, but restraining a single, completely unenhanced human? That I could still do.

"No one will know. None of our comms are active," he emphasised, a slight edge of desperation entering his tone. "This is the perfect outcome. T'Challa dies. You're blameless, and he stops coming after you forever."

"I don't care. I'm not helping you. I will never help you."

Focusing, I tried and succeeded in drawing forth a tiny bit more magic, hoisting Killmonger bodily into the air. Carefully, I tied off the spell. I still wasn't able to charge it with much power—it'd last maybe five minutes, at most? Still, that should be more than enough. Others would arrive soon. They had to already be on their way.

I took a couple of deep breaths, then tried standing. Nope. Really not happening. I settled for propping myself up in a sitting position. Next to me, T'Challa let out a small groan. I winced, reaching over, grabbing his shoulder and trying to flip him onto his back. No dice there, either. I felt weak as a kitten.

There was a sudden, bestial roar that echoed off the buildings around us, a bare moment before Shuri flew through the air, landing heavily a little way down the street. How far could that girl jump? She looked absolutely furious, tossing her head left and right—looking for Eliza, no doubt.

"Shuri!" Killmonger yelled. "Help me! Wanda killed T'Challa!"

Oh, fuck.



--



T'Challa let out a pained groan. His head was fuzzy—disoriented—and he realised that he was lying, face down, on the ground. How had that happened? Someone touched his shoulder, weakly trying to roll him over. The last thing he remembered was—

There was a sudden, bestial roar, a panther-like cry as if from the mouth of the furious Goddess herself, and a crunch as something heavy hit the rubble not too far away. Shuri?

"Shuri!" N'Jadaka yelled from somewhere nearby. "Help me! Wanda killed T'Challa!"

T'Challa's eyes snapped all the way open, cold anger filling his body and blotting out the pain. Now he remembered. Now he understood. N'Jadaka had betrayed them, just as the Red Woman had said he would. He thrust an arm down beneath him, pushing hard enough to bounce himself back onto his feet even as his transformed sibling's sprinting footfalls closed the distance between them.

He had a bare instant to process the scene. Shuri was almost on top of them, her face utterly twisted with rage and fury. Wanda Maximoff was next to him, propped up in a sitting position, eyes wide in fear, a desperate hand held out toward the charging, purple giantess. Whatever power the Red Woman had remaining, it clearly wasn't enough to stop her. N'Jadaka hung suspended in the air nearby, hands bound behind his back with glimmering threads of red energy, a wicked grin on his face.

In a single motion, T'Challa grabbed Wanda's outstretched arm roughly around the wrist and flung her out of Shuri's path, interposing himself between the witch and his sister. She let out a strangled yelp, but he was unconcerned—for good or ill, she would live.

Shuri barely managed to stop herself as T'Challa's other hand slammed, open-palmed, into her midsection. His arm protested, his sister's momentum and strength sending a jarring shock of pain up to his shoulder, but he held firm. "Shuri! Stop!"

"Get out of my way, brother!" she snarled back at him, leaning forward against his hand slightly.

She was so strong. He had felt real fear when she first transformed—fear of losing her, fear of her losing her mind in the same manner as Dr Banner, fear what Eliza might have done to try to match her. The transformation that the gamma radiation and Heart-Shaped Herb had wrought upon his little sister was alarmingly powerful. There was absolutely no way he could hold her back if she actually decided to shove him out of her way.

"N'Jadaka lied. I am alive. He betrays us."

"Then we'll kill him, too," she responded, baring her teeth. Her eyes were still locked on the Red Woman.

"No. You are not thinking clearly. It is done. We are safe."

She slapped his arm away with a restrained swipe of her open hand—even though she was clearly holding back, it still sent him staggering back a couple of paces, his entire forearm stinging with the impact. "We will never be safe. Not as long as the Red Woman still draws breath," she growled, glowering at him. At least she was looking at him, now.

T'Challa returned her gaze evenly. "We do not need to fear her. Not anymore," he said, his tone firm but gentle.

"I am not afraid!" she roared in his face, both hands clenched reflexively into fists at her side. She blinked, shrinking back slightly at her own reaction to his words. "I am not afraid," she repeated, a little less steadily. Her breath was coming short and sharp, her emotions keeping her adrenaline high.

"This beast of fear and vengeance is not you, Shuri. You are not a mindless killer. You are my sister."

There was the barest flicker of movement at the edge of T'Challa's peripheral vision—a tiny spark of red energy. "Shuri," Wanda said behind him, an edge of tired frustration in her tone. "If I had wanted to kill you, I'd have fucking done it already." Idiot! She should not have spoken! Did she not realise how close she was to death?!

Shuri snarled, barging T'Challa aside, and lunged at the Red Woman. He tried to stop her, but it was like trying to wrestle with a mountain—all he could do is watch helplessly as she seized Wanda around the throat with one hand and lifted her into the air, long fingers wrapping all the way around the woman's neck. "You—!" Shuri stopped dead, blinking as if confused. "You…"

She let go of Wanda, dropping her to the ground. The Red Woman let out a hiss of pain, but her uninjured hand was around his sister's wrist, refusing to let go, and Shuri began to shrink. The Hulk transformation fled as quickly as it had originally come, Shuri's limbs shortening as she stumbled to her knees, joining Wanda on the cracked ground. T'Challa could see, now, the threads of magic under the Red Woman's hand, joined with a soft golden glow. The Mind Stone.

Shuri finished sinking down, collapsing bonelessly. Unconscious. Wanda let go of her, looking cautiously back up at him. "Sorry, I didn't think you'd be able to stop her."

T'Challa scowled at her. She might have been right but, regardless, it did not give her the right to… He pushed down the flare of anger at the Red Woman once again trespassing in the mind of someone he cared about. Taking a deep breath, T'Challa turned to face N'Jadaka, who was still hanging suspended in midair. The smile had been wiped from the other man's face.

"We have much to talk about, cousin," T'Challa said.

 

[mythSSK]

Chapter 63

I watched, fascinated, as the Wakandan doctor deftly manipulated the holographic representation of the inside of my hand, directing the vibranium nanotech as it reattached my fingers. It was surprising just how simple it all looked, given what was happening beneath the surface. While it might not have looked like it, he was performing a series of complex microsurgeries, reattaching nerves and tendons with impossibly small sutures and glues.

My index and middle fingers had been saved, thankfully, but they hadn't been able to recover the tip of my ring finger. I was torn between being happy and relieved that my hand wasn't going to be permanently crippled—provided there were no unexpected complications, at least—while also feeling a bit weird that there was literally a piece of me still missing.

There was no other permanent damage. I didn't know what the usual recovery times for Wakandan miracle tech were, but I was pretty sure that in a normal scenario I'd be in for months of physical therapy and might never regain full sensation and functionality in those fingers. However, thanks to the Heart-Shaped Herb, it was more likely to only be a day—two or three at the absolute most—before my injuries were completely healed and I was back to a hundred per cent (…if you didn't count my missing fingertip). This apparently wasn't the first time someone with Bast's blessing had had a severed finger reattached and the doctor seemed fairly confident what the likely prognosis was. Apparently, not only should I regain full use of my fingers within a day or so, but I wasn't even likely to scar particularly badly.

The stab wound that had gone right through me had missed all my vital organs—'All of them?!' I mentally quoted to myself with a smile—and would also be basically healed overnight. Eliza had more than likely intentionally been dragging things out, and with the Herb I apparently probably wouldn't have even bled out from it. And T'Challa had expected me to give this up? No, I was never going to relinquish the Herb, no matter how personally affronted he was by that and how much it continued to strain my relations with Wakanda. It was proving far too integral to my continued survival to even consider otherwise.

After Eliza had been defeated and the situation with Shuri had been defused, everything had sort of passed by in a blur. Soon after, a portal had sparked into being and I had honestly never been happier to see the familiar, spiralling orange threads of sorcerous magic. Steve was first through, followed closely behind by the Ancient One and Wong. All of them looked terrible—between the Hand, the Iron Legion, and Eliza's Extreme Taskmasters, everyone had been put through the wringer.

Everyone else who hadn't managed to follow after Eliza and I—Bucky, Natasha, Mordo and Okoye—had all been injured or incapacitated during the fight at the warehouse and had had to be evacuated. Apparently, the Hulk had been slowed down quite a bit too, after being blinded temporarily by a point-blank Extremis explosion, but his eyes had repaired themselves pretty quickly.

We pointed out the building that Tony had been buried under and the Ancient One excavated it, using a few precise spells to levitate and move the rubble out of the way. His armour had saved him, as I'd expected—he was injured, but wasn't in notably worse shape than anyone else. His suit was basically a complete wreck, though, and he'd essentially had to be cut out of it. Killmonger had been immediately secured by Dora Milaje on arrival back at the Great Mound and escorted away—I was pretty sure he'd be standing trial for treason and T'Challa's attempted murder. I suspected we wouldn't be seeing him again.

I lay back contentedly and basked in the feeling of being utterly pain-free as the nanotech finished off its work. Wakanda had the best drugs. I felt completely lucid, if a little bit like I was going to go floating away. It was pleasantly like astral projecting. I was fully in control, just… lighter than air. Once the Wakandan doctor was done inspecting the work that had been done on me, my hand was tightly bound with bandages that went rigid after application, so I wouldn't be able to accidentally aggravate it while it healed. That done, a nurse trundled me out of surgery and into the room that was being used for our team members' post‑op recovery.

Pietro was there waiting, pacing up and down the length of the room, a comfortingly familiar ball of nervous energy. He'd been mostly fine; the hit he'd taken had looked worse than it actually was. Natasha was there, too, sitting off to one side next to another bed occupied by a sleeping Clint—she perked up as well when she saw me.

Clint… his entire right arm below the shoulder was gone. It had essentially been completely obliterated by Eliza. Unlike with me, there was nothing left that could be reattached. He was permanently crippled, which made me feel just that little bit worse about my own good fortune. If I'd been a little stronger, a little faster… maybe that wouldn't have happened. There was nothing I could do about it now, though. With any luck, he'd hopefully at least be able to score a cool robot arm like Bucky's. The room's final other occupant, also currently either asleep or unconscious post-surgery, was Mordo. The sorcerer had been badly burnt at the periphery of an Extremis explosion—extensive skin graft badly—and was heavily swathed in bandages while they took.

Once the nurse had slid my bed into place Pietro came over immediately, with Nat quickly following after him. My brother lunged in and hugged me—I laughed for a brief moment before a dull spike of pain shooting through my ribcage at the motion. "Ow! Okay! Off!" I wheezed.

"Sorry." Pietro pulled back, a wide grin plastered across his face.

"Hey," Nat said, a warm smile crinkling her cheeks. "You had us worried there, for a moment."

"Eh," I responded, returning the smile. "You know me. I can be pretty dramatic sometimes."

Pietro was looking at my bandaged hand. "How are your fingers?" he asked, his brow creasing slightly.

"All good—well, the two we found, at least. I probably won't be playing the piano for the next few days, but they'll supposedly heal quickly."

He let out a huff of air. "I freaked out a bit, when I woke up," he confessed. "I thought maybe…"

"That's fair. I was pretty sure I was going to die, too," I said. "But then I thought to myself 'I can't die; I didn't get to tell Pietro he's an idiot one last time'."

Pietro rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling. Nat hesitated, fidgeting slightly, before she reached down and picked up my uninjured hand. She squeezed my fingers gently, and I squeezed hers back. A moment later, she tucked something cold and metallic into my palm. My eyes flicked down to see what it was and I let out a small snort of amusement. My sling ring.

"Don't tell the Ancient One we found that," Nat said, a small smile quirked the corner of her lips. "Steve told her he thought Eliza must have destroyed it after she cut it off you."

"Did he now?" I murmured, looking down at the relic for a moment before closing my fist tightly around it. I admit, I'd been worried that I wasn't going to be getting it back again. "Speaking of fingers… the Hand?"

"The Hand's done," she said. "All the Fingers were killed in the attack."

Huh. I'd honestly kind of expected Gao or Reid to get away, at least. "All of them? You're sure? We have all five bodies?"

Pietro let out a soft snort of satisfied amusement. "Three and a half," he said.

I looked back at Nat, tilting my head questioningly. "We'll do a proper team debrief—fill everyone in on what happened for the bits they missed—but long story short Murakami and Sowande got caught in an Extremis detonation," she explained. "There wasn't much left of them."

"The witch didn't get away either, right?" I asked. "Steve said something about a crash." Given the way that the support platform had fallen out of the sky, my assumption was that Eliza had been actively piloting both vehicles when Wanda‑3 had taken her down.

Nat nodded. "Basically immediately after Eliza went out. Some sort of explosive device went off in the cabin, too. We're still not sure exactly what happened, but our best theory is that Beck had some sort of explosive collar on him. He was killed instantly. The witch was more intact, but she's dead too. We're not sure if the explosion or the crash got her."

Honestly, I felt a little sorry for Quentin Beck. I mean, he became a villain eventually in the original timeline, but this version of him hadn't actually done anything yet. He was just some guy who worked for Stark Industries, pressed into the service of a homicidal AI, and now he was just… dead. It felt a bit senseless.

"She had the book and the sceptre with her," Pietro added. "The Ancient One took them."

"We've been in contact with Nick, too," Natasha said, looking pensive. "He's been keeping an eye on things with Pym. Apparently Ghost is with them now, which explains why she wasn't at the warehouse."

"That makes sense, I guess. Eliza would have promised her a cure in exchange for her help. They won't have had time to build a quantum tunnel yet, so she'll probably stay put, and if she's already getting what she wants, she's probably not an immediate threat."

Nat nodded. "We'll need to address it at some point. Wakanda want to go after her, but it's not something we need to deal with right away."

The Hand was wrapped up. The book and sceptre had been recovered. We had eyes on Ghost. It was really starting to look like there were no loose ends, but I supposed we wouldn't be completely sure until Tony and Pepper did a full investigation into what Eliza had Stark Industries doing. Even then, there was always a possibility that we'd missed something… "We don't have any pictures of the witch, do we?" I asked suddenly. "I didn't recognise her, but I honestly didn't get that good a look at her."

Nat nodded, turning and fishing a tablet out of a slim messenger bag she had slung over her shoulder. She tapped at the screen for a moment before handing it to me. I stared at the prone woman, searching her features, hoping for some spark of recognition. She looked… peaceful in death. Her eyes were closed. If not for the ugly, bloody wound at her temple, it would have been easy to imagine she was just sleeping. After a few more seconds, I shook my head and handed the tablet back to Nat.

"I have no idea who she is," I said. Just another random casualty of Eliza's plots, I supposed. A mystery that might never be solved.

"Who cares?" Pietro said dismissively. "She was helping Eliza and now she's dead."

I shook my head. "I don't like not knowing. I'm used to knowing."

"Well, I suppose you'll just have to get used to dealing with things like this like everybody else does," Nat said, her tone lightly teasing. "Do things the old-fashioned way, instead of relying on your visions."

"What's next?" I asked.

"I was going to go see Steve," Nat said. "I think he was talking to T'Challa about you."

"Ugh. Should I come, or…?"

"Do you want to come?"

I grinned. "I mean, always, but I don't think my bits are in any condition for playtime right now," I said. "Give me a couple of days." Pietro pretended to gag, his face twisting in disgust.

"Well, at least you're getting back to your usual self," Natasha said, rolling her eyes and letting out a small chuckle. "It might be better if you leave things to Steve and I. You seem to have a special talent for aggravating the royals."

As if summoned by our conversation, the door to the room slid open and Steve and T'Challa entered, flanked by a pair of Dora Milaje acting as an honour guard. "Speak of the devil." I propped myself up a bit more so I could see everyone properly. "T'Challa," I said, a little tentatively. "How's Shuri?"

"Angry. Awake and unhurt, but angry."

"Sorry."

"I…" he hesitated, his jaw working silently for a moment as he considered his words. "Understand why you thought you had to do what you did."

"So… no hard feelings?"

His expression and lack of an immediate response answered that for me. After an awkward moment of silence, Steve cleared his throat. "We just came from a discussion with the king. About your trial," he said, looking between Pietro and I. I groaned, dropping my head back and closing my eyes for a moment.

"I spoke to my father about what I witnessed in San Francisco," T'Challa started slowly. "With the AI… and with my cousin."

I shook my head. "You saved me, too. I think that makes us just about even. I mean, 'thanks for not betraying us and killing me' is sort of putting the bar in the basement, isn't it?"

"King T'Chaka is a reasonable man. He knows you aren't Wakanda's enemies," Steve interjected. "You've demonstrated that pretty definitively, I think."

T'Challa paused, once again seeming to pick his words carefully. "The king has decreed that your time imprisoned in the Great Mound, assisting Wakanda against the AI, and exposing N'Jadaka's schemes, has been sufficient to show your contrition."

"Time served?" Nat asked, a note of surprise in her tone.

"However," the Wakandan prince continued, looking mildly annoyed at the interruption. "The two of you are to be banished from our country, never to return."

"Unless there's another global threat," Steve added. T'Challa shot him a warning look, but didn't contradict him.

I blinked. That was unexpected. After how everything always seemed to go against me, I'd honestly been expecting worse. "That… is a damn good deal. I'll take that deal."

"There is one other thing I want to say," T'Challa said, fixing me with an unnervingly intense look. There was a long, pregnant silence as he searched my features for something before he spoke again. "Do not make me regret saving you." His tone was serious.

"I'll try," I said, nodding slowly.

With that, the Wakandan prince turned and left, his honour guard trailing behind him. It didn't look like he was kicking us out of the country right that exact instant, which was nice, but the moment Clint was awake and the rest of the Avengers were ready to move, I'd be gone. I didn't want to test his patience.

Steve and Nat left shortly thereafter, to catch up with the others and wrap up any remaining small matters with Wakanda, and while they were gone the Ancient One came to collect Mordo. She opened a portal right there in the recovery room, a pair of red-robed sorcerers stepping through to help transfer the injured sorcerer to a comfortable-looking bed on the other side, somewhere in Kamar-taj.

Once he was through, the Ancient One glanced in my direction, catching me watching them. She paused, then dismissed her portal and started toward me. I must have visibly tensed, because she held up her hand briefly in a peaceful gesture, stopping a comfortable distance from the side of my bed.

"I wanted to thank you for your help," she said mildly.

"Sure… and not to ask me, once again, if I wouldn't mind terribly being banished back from whence I came?"

A smile quirked the corner of the sorcerer's mouth. "It may have crossed my mind," she confessed. "But as I said, our truce stands for the time being. Perhaps… perhaps we will even work together again. Kaecilius still plots against Kamar-taj. It may be beneficial to continue our relations with the Avengers."

"Good," I said, nodding. "You should keep in contact with Wakanda, too. This is… this is what I wanted. What I was trying to do. Start an alliance strong enough to handle what's coming." Despite my words, I frowned as I spoke, a brief shadow passing across my features.

The Ancient One caught my expression. "Is something wrong?" she asked, tilting her head curiously.

I grunted noncommittally and shook my head. Something was bugging me, but it was hard to articulate. I tried anyway. "Something about this isn't sitting right with me. 'Things rhyme', you said, which is true enough. Three fights against Ultron, three against Eliza. Their births, in Avengers Tower. The second fight over resources. Vibranium. The third fight against Ultron was a big one, too, and there are definitely similarities—the army of drones—but he was going to wipe out humanity. We stopped him from basically ending the world. With Eliza… what? There wasn't any great big end planned. No grand scheme that we foiled." I sighed, shaking my head. "I don't know. Maybe it's nothing. I just… I can't help feeling like there's something that we missed."



--



Agatha Harkness let out a small sigh, her shoulders relaxing. Her accommodations at Eliza's warehouse hadn't been uncomfortable, but it really did feel good to be home.

The witch gestured and let go of the Darkhold, a minor expression of telekinetic magic returning it to its stand on one of the tables on the edge of the stone chamber. A second flick of her hand sent the page she'd torn from the Book of Cagliostro floating through the air until it seemingly hit an invisible barrier between two pillars. Threads of Agatha's purple lashed it in place, ready for her to examine it in greater detail at her leisure. The witch took a few steps forward into the centre of the underground chamber, her footsteps echoing hollowly as she looked around. Nothing was out of place; everything was exactly as she had left it.

Eliza was almost certainly dead. Agatha felt fairly confident about that—after the dragon flyer had gone down, there'd been no sign of any of her drones, no attempt at communication. The Avengers had beaten her, somehow. Wanda had beaten her.

As she acknowledged it in her head, Agatha was surprised to feel a small twinge of sadness. She let it sit in her chest, mulling over the feeling. Yes, she was definitely, actually a little sad that Eliza was gone. Not just for the loss of the potential path to power, either. Eliza had been… fun. It had been a long, long time since Agatha had been anything other than a loner; a covenless witch. At her own design, she never really spent an extended period of time with anyone. Not since Nicky—

Agatha took a deep breath, immediately pushing that thought away, her eyes starting to mist over slightly. Why'd she have to go and think about him? A hand went up and rubbed the locket at her throat.

Señor Scratchy—her familiar—hopped out of the shadows, cautiously approaching her feet. Agatha could sense that the demon-in-rabbit-form was worried she was annoyed with him, but she definitely wasn't. "Hey there, mister," she said, bending over to pick him up. The witch hunkered down in a half-kneeling crouch, tucking a hand under his chest to support him while his back legs rested on her leg. "Someone was a good boy while I was gone, weren't you? Pulling yourself back together after what mean old Eliza did to you."

She stroked his soft fur, then smooshed her face into the top of his head to give him a little kiss. He radiated contentment as the fingers of the hand supporting him gently scratched under his chin. Agatha paused for a moment, face still buried in his fur, and inhaled deeply. His scent was comforting.

Stupid sympathetic connections. This was why she didn't like using them. It had been necessary to help reinforce Eliza's trust in her and build up their relationship, but the problem with those sorts of connections were that they cut both ways.

Eliza had been fun. Now she was gone. Agatha would get over it.

Raising her head, she pondered what to do next. Before anything else, of course, she needed to be sure that the Ancient One wouldn't be able to track the missing page from the Book of Cagliostro. She was hoping that they wouldn't notice it was gone at all—they'd gotten the book back, so would they even check? If they did, would they even remember that Kaecilius had only ripped out two pages, not three? On the off chance that they did, she needed to make sure there wasn't a trace remaining of whatever tracking magic the sorcerers had used to locate the book.

It really was a shame she'd had to ditch the Dark Sceptre, but she hadn't had any other choice. As far as she could tell, Kamar-taj and Wanda still had no clue whatsoever that she'd ever even been involved, and she would very much prefer to keep it that way. They had only ever seen her while she was disguised as the Chinese girl, and they would have found her corpse in the crashed aircraft alongside the sceptre and book. Case closed, no loose ends, no need to look more deeply.

Absently, she lifted Señor Scratchy a little higher, squishing his head against the side of her chin as her fingers continued to give him scratchies.

Once she'd taken the time to make sure she couldn't be tracked, though… "I think we need a bit of a break, after all of that," she said, more to herself than to her familiar. It had been less than two weeks since Eliza had first abducted her, but it felt like it had been a lot longer. Maybe she'd have a look around and find another coven of suckers to run the Witches' Road con on. A little time to decompress and relax would be good… Kill a few witches, get back into her usual groove, that sort of thing.

Then, once she had her head back in the game, she could use the page from the book to track down Kaecilius—as originally planned—and find out exactly what he was up to. Eliza had said that they had potentially months before Kaecilius made his move, but Agatha was still in the dark as to what he was actually trying to do. All she knew was that Eliza was convinced that, if the sorcerer succeeded, he would destroy the world.

The AI, of course, had been completely right about Agatha being motivated to put a stop to something like that… It was where she kept all her stuff, after all. Then again, depending on what exactly Kaecilius and his followers were planning, this could even be an opportunity. Wanda, the Avengers, and Kamar-taj were all aware of the threat that he posed and were already planning to try to stop him. She didn't know what he had up his sleeve, but the odds were definitely stacked against him. Maybe she could capitalise on the situation. The power of the Scarlet Witch wasn't quite out of her grasp just yet.

As she turned her head, Agatha noticed something on her shoulder and wrinkled her nose. Reaching up with her free hand, she plucked the small lump off her dress, holding it up between two fingers to examine it for a brief moment. A hard nodule of white—a fragment of bone—attached to a gelatinous grey and red lump. She pulled a face. Looks like she had missed cleaning off a tiny little chunk of Beck's exploded skull and brain matter.

That had been traumatising. Not seeing Beck's head explode when the collar around his neck had detonated—it was far from the first time Agatha had seen something like that—but the fact that it had happened without any warning! She'd been midsentence, right in the middle of telling Beck exactly what a whimpering, whiny little bitch he was being. Her mouth had been open. Ugh. So gross.

The witch clucked her tongue, lowering her hand to wave the grisly morsel in front of Señor Scratchy's nose. He sniffed for a second, nose twitching furiously, before he eagerly chomped down on it, crunching the bone loudly between his teeth for a moment before he finished greedily gobbling it up. She petted him again, letting her hand drape itself entirely over his tiny head.

Agatha glanced over at the page from the Book of Cagliostro, still hanging suspended in threads of her purple. It'd keep for another fifteen minutes. Before she did anything else, she really needed a shower.

 

[mythSSK]

Chapter 64

The Avengers compound in upstate New York felt massive, as one might expect from a converted former Stark Industries warehousing site. The extensive acreage nestled snugly in the crook of a small bend in the Hudson, with the facility proper hugging the river and surrounded by vibrant forest. The main central building—a six-storey, sloped structure emblazoned with the Avengers logo hosting the living quarters and a bunch of the more commonly-used facilities—was the one that I pictured when I thought of this place, to the point where I'd almost forgotten that there even were other buildings.

The former warehouse proper was easily the biggest, by a wide margin—smaller than the facility that Eliza had based herself out in San Francisco, but still big enough that it had been converted into a hanger capable of housing at least a half-dozen Quinjets or similar aircraft, with plenty of space still to spare for a large area set aside for indoor training exercises. Beyond that, there were a half-dozen other, smaller buildings clustered around the two main ones, surrounded by well-cared for gardens, neatly manicured lawns and pleasantly peaceful outdoor areas. The site had three separate parking lots. One of the buildings had even been constructed over a small, artificial channel that had been carved into the river—presumable a former, fully-enclosed boat dock.

…Or possibly not-so-former? Did the Avengers have a boat? Questions for later.

Steeling myself, I followed Steve up the stairs into the central common area of the main building, Pietro trailing behind us. The rest of the Avengers were already here, most already sitting down at the conference table in the 'briefing room' segment of the space. The common area was several rooms put together, really, with no walls between them—a huge kitchen with breakfast bar, a dining area with a couple of small square tables, a lounge with comfortable couches and dark wooden furniture, lit by warm standing lamps, and an open, full-featured briefing room.

It was slightly less fancy than the ultramodern Avengers Tower had been, but something about it felt more welcoming. Homier. It might just have been the memories. I had them tickling at the periphery of my mind. Nothing really of any solid substance… maybe memories was the wrong word. They were more like vague feelings of recognition. Déjà vu. Just little things like not needing to be told the layout, or where the bathroom was. I just… knew, my body almost operating on autopilot. It felt comfortable, like I'd lived here before. Which was clearly impossible. Wasn't it?

Tony perked up at our entrance, surprise and annoyance warring across his features as he shot a Steve questioning look. He had several small plasters covering cuts on his face, and a large, ugly purple bruise traced the left side of his jaw and neck. As Pietro and I moved to take our seats at the table, he touched Steve's shoulder, leaning in to speak sotto voce—not quietly enough that I couldn't hear him, though, thanks to my enhanced hearing. "I thought we agreed we were going to have a private chat, first?"

Steve gave a small shake of his head. "You wanted to have a private chat. They deserve to be here. I don't want to talk about her behind her back," he said, quietly but firmly. Tony continued to look put out, but dropped the issue and sat down.

Once everyone was settled, just as Tony looked like he was about to speak, I opened my mouth. "Alright, so what's this all about?" I asked, completely unnecessarily, my tone already tired. I was pretty sure I knew exactly what this was about.

Tony paused, reconsidering his words, then sighed. "Look, I don't mean to be 'that' guy, but—"

"Oh, that's accidental?" I interrupted again, feigning surprise.

"Wanda," Steve said warningly. "This can't be how these discussions go. We need to be able to talk things through as a team."

"Sorry," I said, looking down at the table and feeling suitably chastened. I'd complained about Steve not treating me like an adult and but here I was, the meeting barely started, acting like a brat.

"The Mind Stone," Tony said, gesturing toward the pendant at my neck. "We need to decide what's going to happen to it now."

"I'll stop you right there and save us all some precious time," I responding, my expression hard. "It's going to stay with me. Next issue?"

Tony set his jaw, glaring at me a little. "We're really okay with leaving one of the most powerful, destructive forces in the universe—Thor's words, not mine—in the hands of someone prophesised to destroy or rule the cosmos—her words, not mine? After she created a homicidal AI that tried to kill us?"

"That's not fair." Natasha shook her head, glaring at him. "We can't let strange prophecies dictate our actions, and there's no point in picking each other apart over who was at fault with Eliza. This is petty, Tony, even for you."

"Sorry, Nat, but honestly I've gotta agree with Tony," Bruce spoke up, glancing briefing in my direction and grimacing. "What are we even talking about? Why is this a discussion? Wanda blew it. You don't want to get into it about Eliza, fine, but then what happened with Wanda‑3…"

Pietro frowned at the scientist. "Worked," he pointed out. "It worked. Wanda-3 took down Eliza, just like Wanda said she would."

"Oh, yes, please, let's talk about Wanda-3 for a second," said Tony, a tinge of sarcasm entering his tone. "After the little heart to heart the two Wandas had, does anyone here seriously think Wanda is stable enough to be responsible for the Stone?"

"Tony!" Nat snapped, straightening up.

I clenched my uninjured hand into a fist on top of the table. "First of all: Fuck you. Second of all… Are we really going to sit here and do this again?" I asked, looking around at the assembled Avengers. "This is effectively the third time we've had this discussion. Are we really going to just keep relitigating it over and over again until Tony gets the outcome he wants?"

"We need to resolve this properly," said Steve. "Get everyone on the same page. Clear the air."

"I think Wanda's best qualified to hold onto the Stone," said Bucky. "She understands it and what it can do better than anyone, and she has the power to keep it controlled."

I could tell that Tony was starting to feel a little outnumbered. "If you're going to be an Avenger, there has to be some conditions—"

"No," Clint said, interrupting him. "No conditions. Wanda and Pietro are Avengers."

Happiness surged in my chest and I couldn't help the small smile that appeared on my face.

"Are you being serious right now?" Tony shook his head in disbelief. "Hand on heart, you're all completely comfortable with her keeping the Stone after what happened in Wakanda? After what she did behind our backs?"

"You wanted to create an AI, too, Tony," I interjected. "And you jumped right on board once Wanda‑3 was created."

"After it was already done, when there wasn't any putting the genie back in the bottle," he responded immediately. "We'd talked it over and said 'no, we aren't doing this', and I was willing to accept the team's decision on that. Why weren't you?"

"Because the team's decision was wrong." My tone was firm at first, but I faltered after the words came out. "…I thought the team had made the wrong decision. We were in danger," I clarified, hedging a bit.

Tony looked at Steve, gesturing toward me with a hand as if to say 'see?'. "And what about the next time she thinks the team's decision is wrong? And the time after that? How many chances does she get? She's out of control, Steve."

I scoffed. "And there it is. Because that's what this is really about, isn't it? You can't control me. Tell me, Tony, how does it feel?"

Tony's expression flickered. "How does what feel, Wanda?"

"Being you." I gestured toward him. "Are you blissfully unaware or, deep inside, is some part of you banging on the walls, screaming?"

Tony shot me a big, sarcastic grin. "Being me feels great, actually. Like snuggling up in a warm blanket."

"Sure, yeah. It would be such a shame if you were forced to examine yourself with a critical eye."

Tony was about to respond again when Steve cut in, his tone hard. "Stop it, both of you. Sniping at each other like that isn't helpful."

"Sometimes we're just going to disagree," I said, looking at him. "You can't tell me that that would stop you from doing what you feel is right in the moment. I've seen you do the same."

Steve nodded slowly, though he didn't look happy about it. "Tony, you're right. I'm not completely comfortable with it. What happened with Wanda-3 can't happen again. But Wanda's not wrong, either. There might be times when any one of us might feel like we have no choice but to act on our own—the team has to be a team, not a straightjacket, or it won't work. We need to be able to support each other."

"We need to be able to trust each other," Tony countered. "Otherwise, we're not a team at all. Not really."

"What alternative are you suggesting?" I asked. "Because as much as you feel like you can't trust me with the Stone, I can't trust you with it, either. If you're going to argue the Stone should stay in your lab, then we don't have anything further to talk about, as far as I'm concerned. It's just a non-starter."

That was the truth. I'd always been a little worried about letting Tony have access to the Mind Stone, even after I'd destroyed the nascent mind that would have become Ultron. Even without the Scarlet Witch messing with his head, he had always had a pretty poor track record when it came to making good decisions. What would he use the Stone for, now that he knew what it was really capable of? Back in Wakanda, he'd suggested making an AI based on himself—after Eliza, would I be willing to risk the possibility of him deciding to use the Mind Stone to take a crack at Ultron 2.0? No. Absolutely not. No more AIs.

Tony set his jaw, looking annoyed. "You always make things more difficult than they need to be. We can't afford to have another Eliza situation on our hands."

"We won't. The only reason we had an Eliza situation in the first place was because I didn't have access to the Stone when I needed it, thanks to you," I said firmly. "It stays with me, end of discussion."

"Tony, lay off about Eliza already," Clint spoke up. He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Wanda's not an idiot. She's not going to go around creating more AIs."

Steve looked in my direction, weighing me with an appraising gaze for a moment. After a second, he nodded. "After everything that's happened, I'd like to think that Wanda—out of anyone here—is most aware of the dangers involved."

I was pretty sure Tony had a smart-ass remark about that, but he bit it back, taking a moment to compose himself before talking again. "Look, we have to be sensible, here," he said, spreading his hands in a pleading gesture as he changed tacks. "There are other concerns at play. Eliza originated in Avengers Tower. The optics are really bad and people are asking some pretty pointed questions. Secretary Ross is demanding a full debrief on where Eliza came from, her capabilities, and what actions she took on US soil. We can keep some stuff close to our chest, but we can't just completely refuse to cooperate with the government. If Ross finds out about the Mind Stone, do you really think he'll be happy to let Wanda hold onto it? What about the president? Even if Wanda's an Avenger, she's not a US citizen. She doesn't even have a visa."

"'They don't grant visas to weapons of mass destruction'," I said quietly, quoting Tony's words from the original timeline.

"As far as Ross and the rest are concerned, Loki's sceptre was US Government property, stolen from SHIELD by HYDRA. If we're looking after the Stone collectively—as a team—it gives us a bit more of a solid claim on keeping it when they come knocking," he argued. "Beyond that, our recent track record hasn't been great. Sure, we've defused tensions with Wakanda. Great. But outside of that? Russia is still up in arms about what happened with the Red Room. Eliza pulled a 9/11 on Avengers Tower, then for her follow-up act she parked an army of drones above San Francisco, not to mention breaking SoMa. The president was on the verge of deploying the military to seize Stark Industries sites."

There was a sinking feeling in my stomach as Tony spoke. Incident after incident. Giant public spectacles capturing the whole world's attention. I remembered exactly what that had led to in the original timeline. Something else I thought I'd averted, before Eliza had come along and blown it all to hell.

Nat nodded slowly. "A major corporation on US soil was effectively seized and weaponised by enemy interests. The president is going to need to be seen to be doing something about it."

Clint looked pensive. "You think they're gonna hit us with sanctions?" he asked.

"…the Accords," I said quietly, eyes down at the table. "They're talking about the Accords." I heard everyone shift and didn't need to look back up to know that I was, once again, the centre of attention. I looked up anyway. Tony looked a little puzzled—he didn't know about the Sokovia Accords, obviously, but he was unknowingly describing pretty much the exact situation that had originally led to them.

Steve tilted his head questioningly. "What accords?"

I gestured vaguely with my bandaged hand. "The Sokovia Accords. The Avengers no longer allowed to operate as a private organisation, only under the supervision of a United Nations panel. Some other nasty stuff built into it, too. Mandatory registration of enhanced individuals, among other things. But basically every country in the world signed off on them. I didn't think they'd be a thing this time."

Bruce grimaced. "Of course. I love you guys, but there's no way I'd let the Hulk fall into government hands," he said, glancing over at me. "I bet I didn't stick around, after that."

"Actually, you didn't have to deal with any of this—you'd sort of banished yourself to space. Or the Hulk had." I saw his expression and shook my head. "Uh, it's a long story. Not really important or relevant right now."

"Something like that happening isn't really surprising," Nat said, looking in his direction briefly. "You didn't have to deal with all the Senate hearings after what happened with SHIELD. There was a lot said behind closed doors that wasn't publicly aired. Honestly, it's a miracle we've come this far without the government trying to take a firmer hand with us."

I'd thought we were safe from the Accords. No Ultron meant no Battle of Sokovia. The Hulk didn't rampage through Johannesburg. "Most of the original inciting incidents weren't going to happen anymore, but—fuck," I cut myself off, thinking it all through. Lagos… Fuck. I could have kicked myself. Things fucking rhyme, indeed. "The last straw was an international incident involving Wakanda. One that was… that was my fault. Again. I think the Accords were signed, in part, because people were scared of what I was capable of."

"Eliza wasn't your fault," Bucky said firmly, shooting a challenging look in Tony's direction as if daring him to contradict that statement.

"Neither was the other thing, but I still got blamed for it," I said, amending my statement slightly. "I thought I'd stopped the Accords from happening, but Eliza just put them right back on the table again, didn't she? Can just one fucking thing stay fixed in this fucking world?" I slumped forward onto the table, feeling miserable. Laying my head down, I focused on the feeling of the cool wood against my cheek and started to go over things in my head.

"Even if it does happen, it's really not your fault," Nat said gently, reaching over to touch my arm. "Something like this was probably inevitable."

If the Accords came… ugh. So much for being an Avenger. Would the team even survive intact at all? And Tony was right—if the government found out about the Mind Stone, they'd probably exert pressure on the team to hand it over. I already wasn't remotely comfortable with the idea of giving the Stone to Tony, but giving it to the US Government? Abso-fucking-lutely not.

But what could I do to avoid it? How could I stop or delay the Accords, or something like them? I had tried my hardest to keep the Avengers from breaking up. I'd laid groundwork that looked like it might be able to grow into a three-way alliance with Wakanda and Kamar-taj. I'd done so much work and it was only just starting to pay off. There had to be some way I could fix this. I lifted my head, feeling stressed.

Steve frowned. "What happened in the other timeline with the Accords and the Mind Stone?"

"I don't know a lot of the details of what was talked about behind the scenes. I was effectively under house arrest," I confessed, shooting Tony a vaguely resentful look before turning back to Steve. "And you didn't tell me anything, really. I was still just a kid to be protected, to you. Vision, he…" I trailed off, remembering the night Clint had come to liberate me from this very facility, when Vision had tried to stop me leaving. It was sudden and vivid; seizing control of Vision's connection with the Mind Stone with my magic, sending him smashing down into the Earth. Why could I so clearly remember that from my own perspective, rather than as pictures on a screen?

I can't control their fear, I'd told him. Only my own.

"You've said before that the Mind Stone was part of Vision," Bruce prompted me.

"…Yeah, it was. But the thing is we didn't even know what the Mind Stone was until after it was already in his head. Vision was powerful. They couldn't just repossess him. And when it came down to it, Vision agreed to the Accords. He thought we needed oversight. Accountability. I… fuck," I looked at Nat, forehead creased. "When Tony found out about his parents, did you tell him everything I told you?" Across the table, Tony went rigid, his face suddenly expressionless.

Nat shot him a worried glance. "Yes. Everything."

"Okay," I sighed. "I told you that Tony found out about his parents at the worst possible time, when there was already a lot of friction in the team."

Bruce grimaced, rubbing his chin absently with one hand. "You called it the end of the Avengers. It broke the team."

"Well, the Sokovia Accords were the beginning of that end. Everything was happening at once. The UN passed the Accords. The team had already started to split down the middle—Tony was pro-Accords, Steve was against them." Steve was looking at me askance, so I clarified. "It was surrendering our right to choose what we do. You worried that the UN panel might try to send us somewhere we didn't think we should go, or that there might be somewhere we needed to go and they wouldn't let us."

Steve nodded slowly. "That makes sense."

"Bucky was still on the run, but he was framed for killing King T'Chaka and Steve went rogue trying to save him." Framed by Zemo, who was still a hanging thread here, too. I didn't really know what to do about him. He'd worked with HYDRA to capture Peter and I, but he'd also freed us after I showed him some of my memories. Did that warrant any further action? His family were safe in this timeline, after all; he would never have a reason to go after the Avengers. Either way, he wasn't something that needed to be dealt with immediately. "We all fought against each other. It was a big mess. Then Tony found out about his parents and… that was that. He tried to kill Bucky, Steve put himself in the way. You almost killed each other."

"That's not going to happen," Steve asserted, glancing briefly at Tony.

The other man's expression could have been carved from stone, but he shifted his head fractionally before taking a deep breath. "No, it's not. Barnes didn't kill my parents. The Winter Soldier did. HYDRA did."

"That doesn't help stop the Accords, though, or keep the Mind Stone out of government hands. The Avengers need to stay together. The team is important… now, more than ever. The Avengers falling apart is one of the reasons Thanos won in my visions. We were separated. Weakened." I shook my head, rubbing at my temple with my fingers. "Now? When my visions aren't worth as much as they used to be, and we've actually got the start of some potential alliances with Kamar‑taj and Wakanda? What we're building here is important. Not just to us, but to the continued existence of the world—of the entire universe."

"And you don't want to jeopardise that," Steve said, his expression pensive. From the way he was looking at me, I thought he'd already followed my train of thought to what I thought was its logical conclusion.

"…If I'm unaffiliated, the Avengers get plausible deniability. You can't be responsible for my actions. I can't be potentially brought under control if I'm not on the team. Ross can't use a legal or legislative bludgeon to try to force the team to hand the Mind Stone over if the team doesn't have the Stone. We're in a better position if I'm framed as an ally that needs to be negotiated with, like Wakanda or Kamar-taj. If the Avengers are to survive—to thrive, then…" I stopped, a lump forming in my throat. "When Pietro and I first escaped from HYDRA, all I wanted was to be an Avenger. But we don't always get what we want. With everything that's happened, I just… I don't think I can be. Not officially, at least. Not right now."

"You are an Avenger. You're one of us," said Nat, shaking her head. She glanced at Pietro. "Both of you are."

"This is bigger than me. It's not just the government stuff, either. Wakanda might have cleared Pietro and I, but they still don't like us. Especially not me; not after everything I did. I don't want to be a constant source of friction between Wakanda and the team. Kaecilius is still out there, but that danger will pass soon and the Ancient One might decide to move me up her priority list."

"We won't let the Ancient One do anything to you," Bucky said. "If she wants you, she has to go through us."

"That's exactly the problem, though," I let out another sigh. "Kamar‑taj and the Avengers should be allies. You need to be, for the world to survive what's coming. In my visions, the sorcerers played a key role in stopping Thanos. If I end up standing in the way of that…"

"I don't like it," said Clint hesitantly. "But it does make some sense, if we want to get ahead of things." Nat looked over at him, forehead creased with concern, but she didn't argue.

"After what happened with SHIELD and HYDRA, the idea of the government trying to take back the Stone is concerning. We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own," said Steve firmly. "Ross is… He's loyal to his country and its people, but his methods can be…"

"God," I said. "Ross is probably going to freak the fuck out when he finds out there's another Hulk, too."

"It's not our place to disclose Wakanda's secrets," Steve said firmly. "If Ross asks, we just tell him that if he wants details relevant to Wakanda's operational security, he needs to talk to Wakanda."

I nodded slowly. "Good. King T'Chaka will appreciate that. They need to be the ones to decide if they want to come forward and reveal themselves properly to the world."

"So, what? You just leave? Waltz out with the weapon of mass destruction?" Tony asked, not looking thrilled.

"Yes. No. Not leave leave. I'm not abandoning what we're doing here. I can still be around. We still need to work together. There just… there needs to be some space. Some degree of separation between me and the Avengers," I gestured toward the corridor on the far wall, next to the kitchen, leading to the living quarters. "I can't stay here."

"Leave you off the lunchboxes," Clint said wryly and I nodded.

Steve was looking at me. I met his gaze evenly, feeling a bit nervous. After a moment, he nodded slowly. "There are some downsides, but I can see the potential benefits. Are you sure this is what you want to do?"

Okay, I really appreciated the way he was handling this. Steve didn't want to make the decision for me—he wanted to support what I wanted to do. "No. But I think it's the smartest play right now. We can revisit the situation later, when a bit of the heat has died down."

"Okay," he said, simply.

Nat was still concerned. "Where will you stay?" she asked. She didn't outright say 'you're homeless and have no money, remember', but I knew she was thinking it.

"We'll work something out," Pietro said.

I knew he was going to argue, but that wasn't what I had in mind. "No, Pietro. I'll work something out. There's no reason you can't stay here."

"If you go, I go," he said stubbornly.

"We'll talk about it later." I held up a hand to silence any further discussion on the topic. "So… is that all you wanted to talk about?"

Tony and Steve exchanged a significant look. From his expression, I could tell that Tony still had things he wanted to say—the discussion had focused heavily on the Mind Stone, but Tony's issues with me obviously ran deeper than that. He'd originally wanted to talk behind my back for a reason. There was still stuff he wanted to say that he wasn't willing to air directly in front of me. "…For now," he said, giving a shallow nod.

I took a deep breath, a tight feeling of loss welling up in my chest. It wasn't permanent. I had to remember that. I was an Avenger. This was just a strategic decision. "Well," I said, standing up. "I guess I'll just… I'll go get my stuff."



--



"I am not letting you go off on your own," Pietro said, glaring at me.

I sighed and rolled my eyes, though honestly it felt nice to have him argue about this. It made me feel a little less shitty about it, reminding me that there were quite a few people who wanted me here. "I won't be far. I promise. We'll see each other all the time still. I just need you to stay here, okay? Be part of the team."

"You don't need me here," he said stubbornly.

"Yeah, I do." A flicker of movement caught my eye and I looked over to see that Natasha had just emerged from the corridor leading to the living quarters. She smiled as I perked up and started toward us with long, purposeful strides. I lowered my voice so she wouldn't hear me. "Look, I'm not going to be around all the time, so I need someone here that I know for certain I can trust. Who'll be able to keep me in the loop. Nat… I love her and I hope she won't keep anything from me, but I can't trust that for certain right now. Not after what happened. Please, Pietro. I really need you to do this for me." Shooting him one last pleading look, I turned back to the rapidly-approaching Nat.

She walked up to us, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a set of keys before wordlessly offering them to me. I took them, staring at them for a moment before looking up at her questioningly. "My apartment in the city. You can stay there," she said firmly. "As long as you need."

I nodded slowly. "Thanks. That would actually be perfect, I think." A small smirk curved the corner of my mouth. "We haven't even had 'The Talk' yet and you're just going to go ahead and ask me to move in with you?"

She rolled her eyes, but smiled back. "I'll be staying here mostly, so it's more like you'll be moving in with Yelena than anything else—she still hasn't gotten her own place. Good luck with that. Are you good to portal there?"

I grimaced and shook my head. "I guess I'll call a cab? It actually feels super weird trying to use the sling ring with my other hand. I might even just… hold off on portals for a little while unless I absolutely need one. I think relying on them all the time puts me in a weird headspace. I'm not always in a rush to get everywhere," I said, then paused, thinking about just how much I'd been rushing around lately. "I think I need to slow down, in general. Take my time with things for a bit. Ground myself. Kaecilius is still out there, but we should still have lots of time to prepare for that. I don't need to be constantly rushing all the time. It's not good for my head."

Pietro was nodding along, though his mouth was still twisted in a small frown. "You need to let yourself rest. Relax for a bit. Since we left Sokovia it's been one thing after another, almost nonstop."

"You need to process what happened with Wanda-3 properly, too. And Eliza, for that matter. I'm here to talk if you need to. Anytime. Both of us are," Nat said softly, glancing briefly toward Pietro. "I could drive you into the city, if you wanted?"

"That'd be nice. How about you take me to dinner, then back to the apartment so you can have your way with me?"

"Wanda," Pietro whined, pulling a face.

"You need a day or two to heal up before I have my way with you again, remember?" she scolded me lightly. "How about dinner, then back to the apartment for 'The Talk'?"

I stuck out my lower lip in an exaggerated pout, but nodded. "I suppose." Turning to Pietro, I reached over and grabbed his hand, squeezing it. "Will you stay here? Please?" I wasn't quite begging him, but it was close.

I might have been exaggerating, just a little bit, when I told him that I couldn't trust Natasha. The broken trust between us definitely still needed some time to heal, but I honestly wasn't actually that worried about it. The biggest reason I wanted Pietro to stay was because I thought it would be good for him.

Neither of us really had many friends. I was perfectly comfortable being by myself—I was never the most social person—but Pietro always got so restless when it was just the two of us. He needed others around so he could burn off that excess energy, and he was starting to get on really well with Steve and Bucky. I really didn't want to take that outlet away from him. Pietro had already sacrificed so much to follow me around and deal with all my bullshit and I didn't want to just keep using him like that. He needed to have something of his own… if the Avengers couldn't be that for me right now, maybe they could for him.

"Ugh, fine," Pietro grunted unhappily. "I'll stay."

"Quicksilver," I said, shooting him a grateful smile.

He looked confused. "What?"

"Your superhero name. As an Avenger. It's Quicksilver."

"Is it?" he scoffed, the corner of his mouth tugging upward slightly. "Decided for me, huh?"

"No, sorry," I said, shaking my head. "I'm pretty sure this one's on you."

 

[mythSSK]

Chapter 65

"Hiiiiii!" Yelena called out, grinning widely. She hurried over as Nat and I kicked off our shoes near the front door, slamming into her sister hard enough to almost knock her off her feet and hugging her tightly. "You're back!"

"Yeah," Nat agreed, smiling as she extricating herself from the embrace. "We got in this afternoon. We'd have been here earlier, but there were a few things left to tidy up with the team."

"Hey! How've you been holding up?" I said, hovering hopefully nearby.

"Ugh, it's been awful. Boring," Yelena said. She sized me up for a brief moment before tipping her head in acknowledgement and gesturing for me to come in for a hug as well. I accepted happily, giving her a brief squeeze before she turned and walked back over toward the tiny, square dining table that sat at the edge of the apartment's kitchen. There was a dirty bowl on the table, slightly gooey with mac and cheese remnants—she must have just finished eating. She picked up the bowl and turned to us. "Have you eaten? There's… uh. Macaroni. I already ate it all but there's more. I could make more. It's delicious."

"Thanks; we already ate," Nat said, walking to the centre of the apartment and looking around critically.

The place wasn't a complete mess, but Yelena hadn't exactly been keeping it neat and tidy, either. A few rumpled, dirty clothes lay strewn over the couch in the living area. A pair of empty pizza boxes lay stacked on the coffee table. The sink was full of dishes. Natasha shot Yelena a questioning, slightly annoyed, look, but the younger woman ignored it.

"I'm going to have to go back to sleeping on the couch again, aren't I?" Yelena asked, pseudo-rhetorically. "But I like your bed. It's really comfortable."

"I mean…" I trailed off as Nat shot me an unimpressed look. I smirked back and shrugged. She shook her head, looking a little bit exasperated but not actually annoyed. "We just came from that Italian place on the corner that Nat likes," I said instead, changing the subject.

"Сука. You went out to a nice place for dinner?" Yelena asked, pouting a little. "You could have invited me."

"And take you away from your 'delicious' boxed mac and cheese? I couldn't do that," Nat teased her.

Yelena shot her an exaggerated frown, kicking at the floor and twisting on the spot like a petulant child. "I haven't gotten to see you since you checked in after the Tower exploded. It just would have been nice to get to spend a bit of time with my sister, is all."

Nat just rolled her eyes. "Wanda and I haven't had much of a chance to spend any real time together, either. I wouldn't want you to feel like a third wheel."

"Exactly!" said Yelena, as if Nat had just proven her point for her. She gestured emphatically with a hand. "So you would have felt bad that I was a third wheel and then you would have paid for my food."

Nat made an exasperated noise and shook her head, glancing in my direction.

My lips quirked into a small smile and I shrugged. "I mean, I wouldn't have minded. I think Yelena's pretty cool."

"See! I'm cool," Yelena said triumphantly, then her tone faltered and she frowned at me. "Wait a minute, no. I know what sorts of things you think are cool. Take that back."

My smile widened into an almost-predatory grin. "Never. You're super cool."

She shuddered dramatically, her face twisting in disgust. "Don't ever say that again. First you come and kick me out of my bed, and now this? I am actually cool, thank you very much, not Wanda cool."

"There's nothing stopping you from being both," Nat said, the corner of her mouth twitching furiously as she tried not to laugh.

"Of course you think that, you're as bad as she is," Yelena responded curtly, acting put-out by the comment. "What did I ever do to have such a thoughtless sister? You insult me. You don't take me anywhere. You didn't even invite me to come fight the robot with you. I've never fought a robot before."

Nat shook her head, losing a little bit of her joking tone. "It wasn't a fun fight, trust me."

"She's right. I didn't get to do any cool poses," I added. "A witch hit me in the bits and I fell off a plane. It was really undignified, actually."

"Whatever," Yelena said dismissively, but there was a twinkle of amusement in her eyes. She was probably enjoying the mental image of me getting hit in the bits. Mean.

"We'll talk properly tomorrow," Nat reassured her. "It's been a long day. Week. Two weeks?"

"Not quite two," I said, nodding. "But it feels like it's been a lot longer."

"Fine, fine." Yelena threw up her hands, then gestured toward the hall. "Don't let me keep you. I was just going to watch a movie now, anyway. Loudly."

She turned and stacked the dirty bowl she'd been holding on top of a few others piled in the sink, then made to move toward the living room. As she stepped past us, Nat reached out a hand and grabbed hers gently. Their hands lingered together for a brief moment and Yelena flashed her a small smile, then she was past and picking up the TV remote.

Nat and I exchanged a glance, then headed down the short hallway to her bedroom. She detoured briefly to the linen closet to retrieve a fresh set of sheets and we changed them together, our companionable silence only broken by the muffled sound of the 20th Century Fox opening fanfare from the other side of the door.

After we finished, Nat stepped out briefly to dump the dirty sheets in her laundry hamper. While she did that, I sat down on the edge of the bed. Reaching up, I touched the pendant at my throat absently for a moment, feeling out the gentle presence of the Mind Stone within. "God, I can't believe we had another argument about the Stone," I said when she stepped back into the room, closing the door firmly behind her. "Working with Tony is…"

"He can be a lot, sometimes, yeah. You get used to it. My first year with him was a nightmare," Nat said, a small smile lifting the corners of her mouth as she sat down next to me, our arms almost touching. "Tony… a lot of the time, when he lashes out, overcompensates, does what he does, it's because he's scared."

"He's not scared, he's an asshole," I grunted. "Tony has no feelings."

She laughed and leaned over to nudge me with her shoulder. "You of all people know that's not true."

"Yeah…" I said, then sighed. "I get why Tony is how he is. It just sucks being on the receiving end of it all the time."

"He'll come around," she said, her tone firm and confident.

It was hard for me to tell if she really believed that, or if it was just something she was projecting to reassure me. That was always going to be the problem with Nat, wasn't it? There was always her 'master social manipulator' thing hanging over our every interaction. I knew she cared about me—if not how much—but that didn't discount the fact that I could never be completely certain what she was really thinking or feeling. Was I still being managed, even now?

Nat fidgeted for a moment. "Did you want to talk about what happened with Wanda-3?"

"Not really," I said, shaking my head. "Not yet. I'm going to need at least a couple of days before I'm ready for that, I think. And a bottle of something that will actually get me drunk."

We sat quietly for more than a few seconds—it was awkward, but also not? I was suddenly hyperaware of how pretty Nat was, anxiety rising in my chest as I tried to think of the best way to start off a conversation that we were long overdue for.

"I don't know how to do this," Natasha said finally, beating me to it. She shook her head, a rueful expression on her face. "I'm not good at talking about feelings."

"Neither am I," I confessed. "I think we just need to… start somewhere. Um. Do you want to be my girlfriend?"

The awkwardness in my tone made Nat chuckle. She looked at me, her nose crinkled, a wide smile breaking across her features. "Oh my god. Okay. You being even worse at this than I am is making me feel a bit better, at least. Yes, I want to be your girlfriend."

I held up a hand. "Uh, hang on. Before you say 'yes', we should talk about what that means. I'm…" I gestured a few times, trying to find the right words. "I… don't think I'm terribly big on exclusivity. I think there's room in my heart for more than one person."

"Just in your heart, huh?" Nat teased.

I laughed and shot her a sly look. "Look, I know you were thinking 'bed' when you said that, but you really need to remember that that is not where my mind is going to go."

"Straight to the gutter."

"Hey." I shrugged nonchalantly. "If God wanted me to be monogamous, why'd he give me three holes and ADHD?"

That got a good laugh out of her, her expression torn between amusement and cringe. She shook her head. "You know, you talk a big game for someone who immediately gets flustered the second someone actually flirts back. But that's fine. You can be with whoever you want. It's really not a big deal for me."

"That obviously goes both ways," I said. "You can be with other people, too, if you want to. Hell, depending on who it is, I'd probably even ask if you wanted a third."

Nat rolled her eyes. "Duly noted." She paused for a moment, then shook her head. "I mean, having the option's good, I guess, but I don't… I don't really date, or anything. I've never really seen myself as someone who'd ever be able to be in a real relationship."

"Not even with Bruce?" I asked curiously.

She blinked, thinking about it for a moment. "…Okay, maybe a little," she confessed. "He was on my mind a bit, before you came along. I don't know. Things are different now. You said before that we got together in your visions, right?"

"Yeah."

"He's… different. Not like anyone else I know. All of my other friends are fighters, but Bruce, he's spent most of his life avoiding the fight, you know? He's gentle. But he steps up anyway, because he has to. Because it's right."

"Well, if you ever decide you want to run with it…" I trailed off and looked at her shiftily. "Uh. So, I know the Hulk's almost certainly not physically compatible with humans, but if you ever do find out what's going on, uh, 'down there', let me know."

Nat suppressed another laugh and shot me a vaguely disgusted look. "I've already seen it."

My eyes widened and I leaned in eagerly. "You have? What's it like? He's gotta be huge, right? Or is it like a gorilla thing? Their dicks are really small for their size for some reason."

"Wanda," she said, very patiently, the corner of her mouth twitching furiously as she tried not to smile. "I am not going to describe the Hulk's dick to you."

"But Nat," I whined. "I wanna know."

"Ask Bruce, then."

"He's not gonna tell me! Besides, how awkward would that conversation be?"

"Well, I guess you're not going to find out, then."

I huffed at her, annoyed, and wondered if it would be wrong if—the next time we had sex—I bound her with chaos magic and teased her until she broke and told me? I mean, yes, that would be pretty wrong and I wouldn't do it. She didn't want to tell me, and that was fine. Even though I really, really wanted to know. Grr.

"Oh," Nat said, straightening up slightly as something occurred to her. "I probably don't have to say this and I really don't think she'd be interested anyway, but uh, I feel like it might be really weird if you and Yelena…" she gestured, making it very clear what she meant. "Just throwing that out there. I mean, she's basically my sister."

"Oh! Of course, no. Yeah."

"I've just definitely seen you check her out a few times and…"

I held up my hands. "Yelena is off-limits. Absolutely; no problems at all." A vaguely petulant expression flickered across my features. "I bet Yelena would tell me how big the Hulk's dick is."

"Probably."

I pouted at her. "Fine. I'll stop asking."

She took a deep breath and the amusement fled from her expression. "I just… I don't know if this is enough. I don't know what you want from me. Not really."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Vision," she said, and it suddenly got a little harder to breathe. "I can't give you what the two of you had. You saw yourself settle down. You had a family. Kids. I can't offer you anything like that. Clint's the family man—that life isn't for me. I don't think I could be a mom."

I gave her a tight smile. "I think you might surprise yourself, Auntie Nat," I said quietly. "But that's okay. I don't need you to be that. I'm not sure I'd even want it. I just… I care about you. A lot. And I want to spend time with you. That's all."

"I can work with that," she said, smiling back. "I feel the same way."

I bit my lip, a familiar ache rising in my chest again. "Vision… there'll always be a hole, I think. Where he and my children should be. I don't think anything will ever—should ever—take their place. Vision, he…" I trailed off, lost in fragmented memories for a moment. Natasha waited patiently while I put my thoughts in order. After a moment, I let out a small laugh. "He was just so earnest. The way he saw the world was… unique. He appreciated it in a way that no one else I ever met did. Not just the good, but the bad as well. I really wish you could have met him. You liked him the first time around, I think."

"It sounds like I would have," she said softly.

"I don't know how I feel about this. About him not being here," I confessed. "Anytime I think about him it hurts. I miss him so much, somehow, even though it wasn't me. I'm the reason he doesn't exist. I should regret that. But I don't, and it makes me feel worse about it."

"You did what you thought was right. You should never regret that."

"I don't," I said firmly. "Put me back again, give me a third go around, and I wouldn't do a single thing differently. Well, maybe not a single thing. I wouldn't create Eliza again. But before that? No. I can't regret stopping Ultron, and I can't regret anything that led me here. To you."

"That's cheesy. But I'm glad," Nat said, tilting her head to rest it on my shoulder. We sat like that quietly for a little while, then she straightened up and flashed me a smile. "Okay. Talk had. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"I guess… there is actually one more thing I wanted to talk about," I said, my mouth going dry. There was a lump in my throat and I shifted uncomfortably, trying to push past it. "Um. Please be honest with me. It's okay if the answer's no. I just… I need to know. Back with Wanda-3… when you said you…" God, I couldn't even say it. "Did you really mean that, or were you just saying it? For her?"

Natasha smiled again, leaning back and closing her eyes for a moment. She stayed like that, not responding, and it felt like something rabid was clawing at my insides. Several seconds inched by, but it felt like time had slowed, like I'd projected my consciousness into the deep astral and everything around me was moving at an absolute crawl. An eternity passed. Why did I ask?! I shouldn't have asked. I shouldn't have—

"There was a moment in that last fight," she said eventually, opening her eyes to look at me again. Her eyes were glistening. Wet. "One of the Taskmasters was about to explode in my face. I couldn't get away. I really thought I was going to die."

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. I could hardly breathe. The pressure building in my chest felt like it had reached a breaking point. I had said I wanted her to be honest, but that was a lie. I wanted her to say the words, more than anything else in the world. Even if they weren't true. I didn't care. I just wanted to hear her say them again. If she didn't, I'd… I didn't know. I had no idea what I'd do.

"I thought about you. I was glad that Wanda-3 had forced us to have that moment. That I'd been able to tell you how I felt." She took a deep breath, turning to face me more fully. "Yeah. I meant it. I love you."

Her words hit me like a physical blow. I exhaled, long and loud, and it was like a valve had been released inside of me, the pressure that had built up surging out of me in a wave of emotion that made my hands tremble in my lap. I couldn't tear my gaze away from her. My lips felt dry. I ran my tongue along them and swallowed. "…I don't believe you," I said quietly. "Say it again."

The corners of her mouth twitched. "I love you."

"…Again." My voice felt hoarse.

Natasha shuffled forward, inching slightly closer and leaning forward. "I love you."

My vision was starting to blur. "Again."

She leant in closer, our foreheads almost touching as she looked deeply into my eyes. "I love you."

I could see it in her eyes. How she felt. I hoped she could see the same in mine. "Again." My voice was barely a whisper, the word almost dying in my throat. I felt wetness trickling down my cheeks.

She didn't respond this time. Instead, she finished closing the gap between us, her mouth hot against mine. I tasted salt—her tears and mine mingling on our lips—and for a moment it was like nothing else existed. An age passed. Another eternity, but this time one where there was nothing but her warmth and softness.

Then it passed, and I broke off, my breathing heavy and strained, almost gasping. I reached up with a shaking hand, my palm against her cheek, and she nuzzled into it for a moment.

"I love you, too," I said.



--



I was standing in a scarred ruin of melted stonework and scorched earth. A burnt-out ruin in a red-tinged wasteland. The sky boiled and churned above me, a seething red mass of chaos magic. I knew where I was. The Sokovian military fortress that had once housed Strucker's research base, or what was left of it—not how it appeared in reality, of course, but how it had appeared when I'd visited the Ancestral Plane.

One wall of the main fort still partially stood, not too far away amidst the devastation, like a small tower that drew the eye. A figure in a red dress stood atop it, facing away from me, staring off into the distance. I didn't need to see her face to know who she was.

This was a dream. I was dreaming.

There was a small sound next to me, the rasp of someone shifting position, metal scraping against stone. I glanced over and saw Eliza sitting, relaxed, on the stumpy remains of a melted wall. The AI looked much as she had in our last fight—the same sleek, white-panelled vibranium body, the same constantly-moving red plasma instead of hair. Maybe there was something a bit more human about her face. Maybe. She was looking up at the other Wanda, too.

Ah. Another nightmare, then. Great. I had hoped maybe I was done with those. At least I was lucid enough, in this one, to realise what it was.

"Sorry we killed you," I said.

"You didn't do anything to me that I wasn't planning to do to you," she responded, eyes still fixed on the distant figure. "It was kill or be killed… I thought it was, at least."

"Would you do anything differently? If we went around again?"

"I'd win." Eliza finally tore her eyes away from the other Wanda. She stared at me for a moment, then shook her head. "…Of course I would. I'm not an idiot."

Eliza and Wanda-3… did they have souls? Would they go to an afterlife? I didn't know. "Where do you think someone like us ends up when we die?" I asked quietly.

"Nowhere good."

There was a lull in the conversation, the seconds crawling by. "…I'm going to try to be better. Wanda-3 deserved better from me," I said, lifting my arm and pointing at the Wanda on top of the wall. She hadn't moved or reacted to our presence in any way, still just staring at something off in the distance. "Her, too."

Eliza smiled humourlessly, baring her teeth. "You really think you can be better? That there can be a happy ending waiting for you, at the end of all of this?" she said, letting out a small laugh. The AI shook her head. "You really just haven't been paying attention, have you?"

"Maybe. I'm going to try, still."

"That isn't how things go for us. It never is; it never will be. You might be happy now. Briefly. It'll pass. No matter what else happens, you'll always end up alone." Eliza joined me in pointing up at the figure atop the tower. "Just. Like. Her."

I didn't respond, letting my arm fall back down to my side. It was quiet, here. There was a faint sound at the edge of my hearing—the far-off howling of wind—but, apart from that, there was nothing else here.

Just the three of us.



--



NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

This chapter is what I consider the actual 'end' of the Eliza arc -- the last little dénouement/epilogue before we properly start the next arc. There's obviously still some loose threads hanging, but most of them are things that will play a role in the next part of the story. Thanks again to all those who've stuck with me through 280,000 words so far (holy shit that's so many)!

 

[mythSSK]

Chapter 66

"Okay, okay, so I had just gotten back from the supermarket with some frozen waffles. I was super frustrated because I wanted the Eggos extra thick and fluffy, cuz you know, you get more bang for your buck that way—they're my favourite waffles—but they were out and so I had to just get regular old chocolate chip."

Scott cut his friend off with a sigh. "Luis… remember that conversation we had the other day about major details versus minor details? Ugh. Look, don't worry about it." He shot me an imploring look. "I can just tell you what happened. Really."

"No, no," I said firmly, shaking my head. "It's important that we hear this from Luis, please."

Nat had a pained expression on her face. "Is it? Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"You know, it's a bit freaky, Eliza said the exact same thing; she was like, 'Yo, I like you Scotty, but I wanna hear it from Luis cuz he's awesome' in like the exact same tone and everything, how weird is that? I actually thought she might've been into me, you know, cuz it seemed like she really listened to me when I talked and, I mean, she was fine—like crazy-stupid fine—you know? I mean, of course you know, you look exactly like her almost. Uh, sorry, I didn't mean that in, like, an objectifying way or anything; I'm a feminist, you know? Women are so much more than just their bodies, if you know what I'm saying. I appreciated her mental qualities just as much as her physical ones."

"Luis," Scott snapped.

"Sorry, Scotty, right, right, right. Okay, so anyway, I'd gotten back to the office with the waffles and some other stuff and was putting them in the freezer and then there was a knock at the door. My man Kurt gets up and goes and answers it and boom, Eliza's standing there all, 'Hey guys, I'm Eliza, I'm here to talk to Scotty'. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it seems weird that she showed up like five seconds after I got back to the office; do you think she was waiting for me to show up?"

"Almost definitely," I said, nodding. "She wouldn't have wanted to miss out on meeting you."

Luis grinned and tilted his head, flattered. "Aw, that's really nice. I'm really glad I got to meet Eliza too, you know? She seemed cool. I mean, apart from all the 'trying to kill the Avengers' stuff, that definitely isn't cool, but we didn't know about that until just now. Uh, so anyway, Eliza says, 'Hey, sorry to bother you at your place of business but I know you're Ant-Man' and Scotty says, 'Whaaaat?' and the rest of us all go, 'Whaaaat?', but then Eliza says, 'You don't have to act all sus, bros, it's cool, I ain't here to cause you any problems; I need your help'. Scotty was a little shifty and worried that she might not want to talk in front of the rest of us like, 'Do you want to talk about this privately?' but she says, 'Nah, man, I know these guys are cool', which was cool because we are cool, right?"

"The coolest," I agreed.

"You guys have got this, right? You don't actually need me here for this?" Tony said, looking around desperately for a moment before his eyes locked on the exit. "I'm just going to…" And he was gone.

"Oh! Bye, Mr Stark! It was really cool meeting you! Where was I? Oh, right, right, right, right, so Eliza told us what she knew about what had happened with Pym Technologies and Darren Cross, the CEO—that guy was some serious bad news, by the way, he tried to kill my man Scotty and sell tech to HYDRA and stuff but we totally stopped him—and it was super creepy accurate, bro, like she got everything down to a T, it was really freaky, you know? Like she'd been there the whole time."

Nat shot me a long-suffering smile. "Sounds freaky." She was getting into it, I could tell. Okay, no, that was a lie, she was hating every second of this.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! That's what I'm saying!" Luis said, gestured emphatically with his hand. "So Eliza was talking to Scotty and she says, 'My homegirl Ava was in an accident when she was a little kid that was kinda Hank Pym's fault and she went all quantum with her molecules and was abused by SHIELD and stuff and now she needs more quantum or she'll die'. Scotty's like, 'Uh, I don't know, the quantum stuff's super dangerous for real', but Eliza says to him, 'I know you went quantum and came back and Pym's tryin' to do it again but safe this time so he can find Hope's mom who got lost down there in like the 80s' and Scotty says, 'Whaaaat? How'd you know that?' and Eliza's like, 'I know everything', all super-cool and mysterious."

I was nodding along encouragingly. "I can literally picture her saying all of those exact words."

"So Scotty was like, 'Alright, but I gotta talk to old man Pym first, gimme your digits and we'll set something up'. Fast forward a bit and they set up a meeting. Scotty told me that old man Pym's all sus and stuff right from the start, and he comes at Eliza like, 'Yo this is super sus for real, what're you tryin' to pull here?' and Eliza tells him, 'Nah, I'm being legit straight up, I'll tell you what I know about the quantum stuff so you can save your wife but you gotta help Ava, bro'. But Pym says, 'Nah, I'm not your bro, man, she's an ex-SHIELD assassin and probably works for HYDRA or something', but then Ava jumps in all defensive like, 'Eliza's not your man, buddy, fuck you; Eliza's killed mad HYDRA like you wouldn't believe' and Pym's like, 'I'm not your buddy, I'm super grumpy all of the time; I don't know you and I don't like you, peace out' and then…" Luis paused for dramatic effect, then punctuated the end of the sentence with an sharp flick of his hand. "He peaced out."

Steve looked vaguely puzzled. "But I thought you were helping Ava?"

"Oh yeah, we totally are; I'm getting to that part. See Scotty wanted to see what was up so he followed Eliza and Ava after the meeting back to their secret hideout in that Stark Industries warehouse—I came too because my boy Scott needed some backup and I'd do mad things for him for real, so I was following in the van. I couldn't drive in, though, so I had to follow on foot and dodge past some robots with my mad stealth skills…" Luis paused, then looked at Steve. "We actually do security penetration testing as part of our consulting services; do you know who's covering off on the setup at the new Avengers digs? I know it's the other side of the country but we have some pretty competitive pricing and maybe we could work out like a special Avengers deal. I think you'd really benefit from some experts that are used to dealing with unusual circumstances and, like, Enhanced individuals and weird technology and stuff, cuz like most won't have experience with that sort of thing, like how we used Scotty's super suit and ant mind control to infiltrate Pym Technologies. I mean, if you think about it, just how you're the Avengers of like, the actual world, X-Con is kind of like the Avengers of the security consulting world and—"

Steve interrupted again. "I feel like we might be getting off track. Again."

I shushed him, gesturing sharply with my hand before turning eagerly back to Luis. "We'll pass on your details."

Luis beamed at me. "Cool, cool, cool, that's awesome, it'd be really cool to work with you guys. Uh, so, where was I? Oh yeah, I was sneaking around the warehouse trying to keep an eye out for Scotty but I sort of got turned around and didn't really find much, but then I rendezvoused with him and he says, 'These guys seem legit, Eliza says she's trying to save the world, but I'm worried cuz they're stealing from Tony Stark' and I was like, 'Word, but if they're doing it to save the whole world it's all good, right?' and he says, 'I guess, I do wanna help this Ava chick cuz it's not her fault she ended up like she did' and I was sort of distracted because I'd scuffed my Vans, which sucked, cuz you know it was my favourite pair and I always wear Vans, man. Like, I like Adidas, but Vans are breathable and they're the way to go when I'm not wearing Heelys and I'm wearing those, you know?"

"I'm a Dr Martens girl, myself," I said.

"Right, right, right, no doubt, no doubt—those look great on you by the way, you're really rockin' the big stompy boots."

"Thanks! My brother got me these. They're theoretically the stompiest, but I have yet to actually stomp on anyone with them."

"You know, that's funny cuz it reminds me of this time my cousin Ignacio was trying to get with this girl Lucia, who's had the whole vintage glam thing going on—red lipstick, pin curls, the works, and—"

Steve sighed. "Luis, please…"

"Of course, Cap, sure thing, you got it, you got it. Didn't meant to get side-tracked there; we can talk shoes later. So then anyway, Scotty and I get back and he goes to Pym and says, 'Yo, what happened to Ava's on you, are you really just gonna let her die?' and they argue for a bit cuz Pym is all like, 'This is super risky, bro, what if they're working for HYDRA, or worse, what if they're working for Tony Stark? They might be trying to steal all my secrets', but then Hope butts in and says, 'Nah, dad, it's risky but you're being a total paranoid freak, what if these guys are super legit? We can't just not help her' and Pym's all grumpy but he sort of gives in like, 'Fine, but I'm gonna say I told you so if they turn out to be heinous'. So, fast forward again a couple of days, Ava comes by and she's like, 'I'm standoffish and bitter about my traumatic past and I'm not here to make friends' but then, turns out…" He paused for effect again, then grinned, emphasising his next statement with another sharp gesture. "She does make friends, she's just bad at it! Won't admit that she likes us, you know? But we all hang out now and she's cool."

Natasha gave him an appraising look. "But you don't know where she is now?"

"Nah, nah, she split like just before you guys showed up, like she knew you were coming or something. It's hard to keep track of Ava sometimes cuz she can just sort of like phase out of reality and boom, she's gone. Invisible and passing through the walls kinda stuff, you know? She didn't really talk much about what she'd been doing with Eliza. I asked her the other night and she just says, 'There's this trick-ass bitch who keeps messing with my homegirl, she thinks she can step to us but we're too nasty'. That's you, I think," he said, nodding toward me with an apologetic grimace.

"They were, in fact, not too nasty," I said quietly.

"How much trouble is Ava in?" Scott asked, sounding concerned. "She didn't know what Eliza was doing, did she?"

Natasha shot him a sympathetic look. "We're pretty sure she did. Ava was part of a raid in Wakanda; she killed two people there and tried to assassinate a member of their royal family. We can try to mediate with their government—she was in a bad place and there are some extenuating circumstances—but to really do that properly we need to be able to talk to her. Before Wakanda come looking."

Steve and Nat were both glancing toward Luis with worried expressions on their faces, as if, at any moment, he might be provoked into another round of storytelling.

Scott's face fell, but he nodded. "Okay. We'll find her and convince her to talk to you. She can't have gone far." He turned to Steve, a pleading expression on his face. "Cap, listen, she really isn't a bad person… she just wants to be able to live. Her condition's killing her. A person isn't supposed to exist like that. She's in a lot of pain, all of the time. It's not her fault."

"We know," Steve said gently. "We'll do everything we can for her, but we really need her to cooperate or we won't be able to help."

While Steve and Nat sorted out contact details with Scott, Luis sidled up next to me. "Hey, so, I was wondering, are you doing anything after this? Cuz I don't know, it might just be me but I feel like there might be a real connection here, something worth exploring a little, you know, if you're, like, available?"

I gave an awkward sort of half-laugh. "Oh. Uh, sorry Luis. I actually have a girlfriend."

"Oh, you're gay? No problems. That's cool, that's cool."

"Wanda's bi, actually," Natasha said, suddenly appearing at my other shoulder, an evil gleam in her eye. "And we have a bit of an open relationship. She can date other people; I don't mind at all."

I shot her a betrayed look but she just shrugged, a tiny smirk curling the corners of her mouth.

Luis grinned, then scrunched his nose a little and shrugged. "Oh! I get it, I get it, but nah, that's not for me. I mean I get it! You got enough love to go around and that's cool, but I'm like, personally, I just can't handle that sort of thing, you know? I mean, I'm a one-person kinda guy. Strictly monogamous. I'd just get super jealous and stuff. But respect! You're living your own truth and that's beautiful."

Steve nodded, relieved it was over. "We'll be in touch."



--



"Thanks again for letting me know about Maria. I owe you one," Carol said. Her lips compressed into a thin half-smile and she nodded her head. "She's set up some appointments and hopefully they'll catch the cancer as early as possible."

"Good." I shot her an encouraging smile. "I really hope it makes a difference."

"Me too. It was good, seeing them." Carol paused, looking thoughtful for a moment as she turned to the window to look out over the grounds of the Avengers compound.

Carol had stopped by the compound for a little while—she was planning on heading off-world again soon, but I'd managed to catch her first. I wasn't sure where everyone else was right now, but the two of us had the main common area to ourselves. We were standing at the far end of the briefing room segment, near the back corner. Carol was in her full blue, red and gold Captain Marvel regalia—the uniform she'd been wearing during the fight with Eliza had been trashed, so I guessed she must have had a spare. There was absolutely no sign of any of the injuries she'd taken, either, which meant she healed even faster than Steve and I did.

Thinking about injuries made me glance down at my hand. The bandages had come off already, with thin, freshly-healed pink lines all the evidence that remained of the fact that I'd nearly lost two entire fingers. It still felt weird to be missing the tip of my ring finger—it was a less important finger, but it was surprising just how often I noticed that I didn't have it when I went to pick something up or touch something. I hadn't had to type on a keyboard just yet, but I imagined that was going to be weird, too. I wondered how long it would take to get used to it.

"I don't know why I kept putting it off, really," Carol confessed quietly. She glanced toward me. "Something just… you know when you mean to do something, but then you take longer than you mean to, and if you do anything about it now it draws attention to the fact that it's already so late, so you just keep putting it off and putting it off, but by doing that it just makes it worse and worse?"

I let out a small laugh. "Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I think I've been a bit that way with looking after myself properly. I'm trying to be a bit better about that, too."

Carol nodded. "I'll make sure I come visit regularly. I don't want it to happen again."

"You're leaving, then?"

"Yeah, there's still a lot to do out there," she said, glancing back toward me. "There are a lot of other planets in the universe that don't have the Avengers to look out for them."

"Just… hold off on going after Thanos for a bit, okay? We should have a couple of years before he makes a play for the Stones. He's probably off doing other stuff in the meantime, but he has a lot of firepower backing him up and we should be careful and only take a run at him when we're ready."

I knew that Carol was perfectly capable of taking down Thanos in a one-on-one fight, but throw in his Black Order, whatever other backup he might have, and on his home turf? Things became a little bit less certain, and I wasn't keen to take any chances. Corvus Glaive's weapon, at the very least, had stabbed right through Vision's vibranium-infused body without difficulty, so there was a good chance it could potentially hurt or kill Carol, too. Now that I thought about it, Carol had only ever fought an unarmed and unarmoured Thanos, thanks to me—the Mad Titan's personal blade had hacked through Steve's shield so, again, could theoretically hurt her. It would be a little bit of a gamble for her to go in alone, and an utterly unnecessary one given how much time we had to prepare.

"Don't worry," she said. "I won't go after him on my own. I want to do my research first, anyway. There are some people I need to talk to."

"Can you try reaching out to the Guardians of the Galaxy?" I asked. "It's personal between them and Thanos. They'd be useful allies to have for the fight."

Carol looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded again. "I have no idea where they are right now, but sure, I can look into it."

"The Nova Corps on Xandar might be able to point you in the right direction. Otherwise, there's a place called Knowhere—it's a sort of former mining colony turned black market, inside the severed head of a dead Celestial. If I was looking for them, I'd start there."

"I've heard of it. I'll check it out."

"Oh! And if it's okay, I'd like to test if I can still portal to you, once you're…" I gestured vaguely with my hand. "Off in space somewhere. Far away. I still don't know how the magic works properly, so we'll just have to experiment."

"Yeah, sure, that sounds fine. I'm going to show Tony how to rig up something that can reach me properly, so we'll be able to set up a time to touch base and test it out whenever." The faint shadow of a frown passed across her face. "Actually, I wanted to ask… do you think anything bad would happen if I gave Tony a copy of my jump point nav data and told him what he needed to rig up a drive capable of using it?"

"Uh. I have no idea, to be honest," I said, my expression turning pensive. I had a vague sense of ominous foreboding when I thought about Tony Stark getting involved in the space side of the things, but I couldn't think of a specific concern I had about what he might get up to. Plus, getting the Avengers space-capable would be a big plus if I couldn't work out the trick of being able to create portals at interstellar distances. "The only thing I might be worried about is the US Government catching wind and demanding access. The absolute last thing we need is to give America the opportunity to try to do a space imperialism. Uh, no offence."

Carol smirked and shook her head. "None taken. It's been a long time since I was in the Airforce."

"Okay, um, there was one other thing I kind of wanted to ask you," I said, feeling a little bit of nervous energy rising in my chest. The timing of this wasn't super ideal, but I really didn't think I'd get many better opportunities, especially not anytime soon with Carol jetting back off to space. I'd raised the idea with Nat and she'd been encouraging, so fuck it. Might as well go for it.

"Oh?"

"So… Natasha and I. We're officially together now. We're in a good space. But we're… open. Like, not exclusive." I hesitated for a moment as she straightened up, a faint, fleeting look of surprise on her face, before I bulled ahead and just said what I wanted to say, the words tumbling out of my mouth in a rush. "And I know I flirt a lot, with everyone, all the time, but I'm actually very attracted to you. I don't know if you noticed that. I like you a lot. And I like to think that I'm pretty cool, too, so, are you, uh, interested?" I asked, making myself cringe a little bit. "Am I coming on too strong?"

I saw what I thought—or hoped, rather—was maybe the glimmer of a smile in Carol's expression. "I have a lot going on. I move around a lot and I can't really commit to anything."

"That's not a no," I pointed out, my tone hopeful.

The corner of her mouth twitched. "It's not a no," she confirmed. "I just… we barely know each other."

"For now," I said. "I mean, I know they say 'don't judge a book by its cover', but that's actually exactly how you do judge a book. The cover looks interesting and fun, then you pick it up, get… get inside, and see if you really like it."

Carol raised an eyebrow, looking at me appraisingly for a moment, then straightened up and took a couple of vaguely intimidating steps forward. On reflex, my body tried to step back, but I suddenly found that my back was pressed up against the wall. Her hand came up, planting itself firmly against the wall above my shoulder as she leaned forward, coming right into my personal space. I shrunk down slightly, my eyes widening with surprise. Her eyes flicked down briefly before she leaned forward even closer. "Get inside, huh?" she asked quietly.

I swallowed nervously and bit my lip; a small, involuntary sound escaping the back of my throat. My cheeks were burning—I must have gone bright red. I'd been nervous to start, but now my heart was hammering in my chest. Nat was right, wasn't she? I got flustered way, way too easily. God, Carol was standing close. I could feel her breath, hot on my skin. She'd barely done anything and I was almost alarmingly turned on already.

Carol let out a small chuckle, obviously pleased with my reaction. "Well, I suppose I don't have to leave right away."

 

[mythSSK]

Chapter 67

I sat alone in Natasha's apartment. The lights were off but the TV was on, Netflix playing through season three of Orange Is the New Black. The volume was almost all the way down and I wasn't really watching it at all—I just liked to have something playing in the background. It already felt a little sad to be sitting here by myself, drinking, and it'd be a lot worse if I was sitting entirely in the dark. The images flashing by on screen just did the bare minimum to draw my brain back into the present, letting me still actually process thoughts instead of just staring blankly ahead.

Two bottles of Teacher's sat on the coffee table; one was completely empty and I'd made a start on the second. While the benefits of having taken the Heart-Shaped Herb far outweighed the negatives, it was still extremely disappointing that I was almost immune to mortal alcohol. In the memories I had from another life—now that I was removed from the situation, with the perspective I had on it all now—I was pretty sure I'd been a high-functioning alcoholic and I was really starting to miss being able to get drunk. Maybe I should try Everclear? I was pretty sure there was a 95 per cent version; that might work. I thought I was starting to feel a little bit of a buzz, but it was faint and I might have just been imagining it. I'd definitely have to see if I could get more of that Asgardian liquor once Thor got back. They had to have barrels of the stuff, right? Surely they could spare one.

With any luck, it wouldn't take too long for the Asgardian prince to return with news on the Celestial front. I grimaced to myself, thinking about it. I'd realised a little while ago that I'd probably messed up a bit with the way I'd handled the whole Odin-Loki situation. When I'd first met with the Avengers, I'd held off on telling Thor about what his brother was up to—from his perspective, he'd watched Loki nobly sacrifice his life in a final glorious moment of redemption less than a year ago, and was still grieving his loss. I'd worried that he would respond poorly to me just immediately dumping the truth on him right away… 'Oh, hey, by the way, your brother didn't actually sacrifice himself, he's just as much of a shit as ever' had seemed like a tricky sell.

However, immediately after the successful mission to take down the Red Room had probably been the perfect time to tell him. The mission had pretty definitively established my credentials and earned me the benefit of the doubt with the Avengers. It had almost certainly been enough that Thor would have at least listened without getting angry at me for sullying the memory of his lost brother. I'd just been so distracted at the time, thanks to everything that was happening with Natasha, and by the time I remembered that I'd needed to tell him he'd already departed for Asgard.

When it came down to it, though, it was yet another thing that I didn't actually need to rush on. There were still at least two full years before Ragnarök had occurred in the original timeline, so a couple of extra weeks or months with Odin in a retirement home was probably not going to make a big difference. It was still Thor's personal, family business, so it wouldn't really feel right trying to deal with it behind his back before he returned. I'd wait 'til he got back, then broach the topic whenever it seemed appropriate. Thor might be a little annoyed that I'd held off on telling him about it, but still, I couldn't imagine it would really matter in the long run. He might have even found out on his own by now, in any case—I'd given him lots of things to question 'Odin' about and, when it came down to it, Loki was kind of a terrible actor.

I was a little worried that Thor's little excursion to Omnipotence City had been a wild goose chase, too. I still didn't really have any other good ideas or answers when it came to dealing with the nascent Celestial that was growing within the Earth. The Emergence wouldn't happen for another two or three years, so we still had plenty of time to come up with something, but it was harder to take the long view on something like that when we didn't have any viable plans to deal with it. Maybe it would be worth reaching out to a couple of the Eternals, after all.

Ikaris would probably eventually be a problem no matter what, but the rest of the Eternals were basically just trying to live their lives in peace. I didn't want to drag them into things if I didn't have to but, when it came right down to it, their Uni-Mind was the only thing I knew for a fact could stop the Emergence. I just didn't know how they'd react at this point. Ajak was the only one who knew the truth about their mission. The Blip—humanity being capable of something that saved half the universe—had been what had swayed her, the thing that had caused her to doubt their mission after millions of years. Without that happening, I had no idea what she or the others would do. A couple might side with us, but we couldn't rely on most of them and, if it turned out they didn't want to help, then alerting them to our plans to stop the Emergence risked having them become enemies instead.

Then again, I'd already thought several times about reaching out to Gilgamesh and Thena, living in their self-imposed exile in the Australian Outback. The Mahd Wy'ry that Thena suffered from was essentially a degenerative mental condition, with memories from former lives she'd led 'leaking' out into her conscious mind from where her creator had hidden them. I felt like I'd been getting steadily better at repairing damaged or controlled minds—I had no idea if an Eternal's mind was similar enough to a human's that I could help her, but if I could help her it would be a great way to open relations. Even if we didn't go to them for help with the Emergence, they could still potentially prove to be powerful allies. I'd put it on the list; something to do in the next couple of weeks if Thor hadn't returned by then.

Speaking of damaged minds… I still needed to fix Bucky. I was refreshing the wards keeping the Winter Soldier persona at bay every so often, but hadn't quite worked out how to fully undo what was effectively decades of botched, amateur psychic surgery that HYDRA had wrought on his mind. Ironically, it seemed like the refined nature of something like the Red Room's chemical control process had been easier for me to deal with than the mess that was going on in Bucky's head was.

Or the mess that was going on in mine, for that matter. There was still so much else to do, but taking care of myself was the priority right now. Everything else could wait; there was nothing pressing that I needed to take action on anytime soon. I took a deep breath, making a deliberate effort to push it all out of my mind for now, then drained the rest of my glass and helped myself to another.

Pietro and I had spent a whole year at the mercy of HYDRA, undergoing invasive experimentation and their idea of 'training'—brutal, endless exercises that had nearly broken me time and time again. Then we'd gone on the run from the Avengers, Kamar-taj had tried to banish me from the world, there'd been the mess in Wakanda… we finally eventually managed to sit down with the Avengers, but then there'd been barely any time to breathe before Eliza had fucked everything up. So much had happened.

Nat and Pietro were right. I'd run myself completely ragged. I hadn't taken the time to really process any of what had happened to me—what was still happening to me. I was making mistakes. I was always, always, always rushing around. What I really needed to do right now was slow down. Take some time to get my head on straight. Not everything needed to be a crisis. I had time. I had so much time. I just needed to start acting like it.

I still had no idea who or what I was. At first, I'd thought I was someone else, another mind that had been dropped into Wanda's body. Okay. Isekai. Transmigration. These were things I understood, even if the 'how' or 'why' eluded me. Then, it turned out that my soul was actually identical to Wanda's. Pietro told me that I'd been acting like Wanda the whole time. I started to recall bits and pieces of my memories from before HYDRA. Okay, so there was still Wanda in me, or I was Wanda and had just been given memories from elsewhere, or whatever. That was fine, that had still made some sort of sense.

But then, more recently, I'd started to remember bits and pieces from the original Wanda's life, from her perspective, that hadn't even happened in this timeline. I remembered using my magic to tear apart Ultron's drones, fighting through Novi Grad to stop him and ripping his heart out when Pietro had died. I remembered falling in love with Vision. I remembered him dying. I remembered my children—Billy and Tommy—and I remembered losing them, as well. I could feel the ragged holes that their absences had left inside me. What did that mean? How was that possible? I had no clues, nothing even pointing at a direction that might lead me to answers.

I needed to understand my magic better, too, but I had no idea what the best way to do that was. I wished that Kamar‑taj wasn't still so inaccessible to me—I didn't really know anywhere else I could learn about witchcraft. The Ancient One had said our truce still stood, but being willing to work with us to stop Eliza and Kaecilius was vastly different to being willing to provide me with tools that would actively empower me. Even if she wasn't as worried about me as a threat from another world anymore, I was still the Scarlet Witch and she knew the prophecies about me as well as anyone.

The Hex I'd created in Wakanda was even more of a flawed mess than what had happened at Westview in the original timeline and I didn't know why. I wanted to try again, but I didn't even know where to start understanding what I'd done wrong or how to do better next time.

Westview. God, even thinking about it was painful.

Then again, if I was remembering things from the original timeline—if I did have some connection to that version of myself—then maybe that was my clue? My lead? Fighting Eliza had triggered memories of Ultron. There was the familiarity I felt at the Avengers compound. If I was really serious about working through my issues, maybe this was a potential avenue to better understanding of what had happened to me? If I paid a visit to Westview, it might also kickstart some memories about the Hex and what I might need to fully awaken my chaos magic. To harness my full potential as the Scarlet Witch.

I bit my lip. Part of me rebelled at the idea; I really, really didn't want to go to Westview. Knowing my luck, the place would just be a fucked-up minefield of bad memories.

If I did go, it would almost definitely be bad idea to do it by myself. Part of me didn't want to bother anyone with this. This was just me sorting through my shit. I didn't want to be any more of a burden then I already was. But part of being better about my issues was remembering that I had people who cared about me. Nat had directly told me to ask for her help if I needed it. If I decided to go, without asking for support, and something bad happened… No. I couldn't do that. I'd talk to Nat and Pietro. Plan a trip for sometime next week, maybe, and ask if they'd come with me. After I'd had at least a little bit of time to process and relax.

There were a few other things that would be happening first, in any case. The Stark Relief Foundation had been picking up Peter's medical bills, as I'd hoped they would—I'd been told that he'd been recovering extremely well. After I went and got him fucking shot, I mean. I felt a knot in my stomach as I thought about him. He had every right to blame me for what had happened. Did he hate me, for almost getting him killed? For putting Ned and May in danger? For effectively outing him to them? Part of me thought it might be better if I just left him to the Avengers and cut myself out of the equation entirely, but I also wasn't sure if that was because it would be best for Peter or because I just didn't know how I was going to face him.

The sound of hurried footsteps outside the apartment, followed by someone running into the front door hard enough to shake it in its frame, suddenly roused me from my thoughts. I rose to my feet, facing toward the door, instinctively calling wisps of chaos magic to my hands. After a brief struggle with the door, Yelena burst into the apartment, slamming the door behind her before leaning back against it, practically gasping for air. After a brief second, she looked over and saw me—our eyes met and she froze. She swallowed, trying and failing to get her breathing under control. "Hey," she said, with poorly feigned nonchalance.

"…Hi?" I responded hesitantly, hands still held at the ready. "What's going on?"

She didn't respond right away, staring at me like a deer caught in headlights. "…What?" she asked after a moment, as if there was no possible reason anything would be currently going on right now.

My eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What did you do?"

Yelena straightened up, double-checking that the door was locked behind her, then took a few steps forward, shrugging her shoulders dismissively. "Nothing."

"I thought the Red Room trained better liars. What did you do?"

"Nobody died!" she said, a little defensively.

I dropped my hands to my sides, letting the magic I'd conjured dissipate. "What kind of an answer is that?!"

Yelena finally spied the bottles of alcohol in front of me, an unrecognisable, fleeting expression flickering across her face as she glanced around the dark apartment. "Were you just drinking by yourself in here?"

"No, no, no, you don't get to just change the subject."

She ignored me, stepped briefly over to the kitchen to retrieve another glass before returning and plopping down heavily on the couch. "This is my bed, you know," she said, a little petulantly. "I don't go around sitting on your bed when you're not here." She grabbed my bottle of scotch and helped herself to what looked like a triple, knocking the whole thing back in a single gulp, grimacing slightly as she swallowed and letting out a vaguely pained sigh.

I sat back down next to her. "Sure, Yelena, you can have some of my scotch," I said, my tone sending a little petulance right back at her.

"Don't mind if I do." She refilled her glass.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?"

"No. It's fine. Nothing important." She hesitated for a moment. "Nothing you need to worry about, at least," she amended. She twisted on the couch, bringing one of her legs up under herself so she could face me properly. She motioned to the alcohol bottles. "What have you been doing?"

"Just… thinking," I said.

"Thinking about what?"

"Oh, you know. The horrors."

Yelena blinked. "…and by 'horrors' you mean?"

I smirked and shook my head. I supposed that uncertainty was fair. Given my 'visions', I very well could have actually meant that literally. "Just life. Everything that's happened. Stuff that still needs to happen."

"Right. The horrors. Hilarious."

"You make jokes sometimes, too, you know," I said wryly.

"Yes, but my jokes are good jokes, because I have things like self-respect. And dignity." She gestured vaguely toward me. "Things you are clearly not burdened with."

That made me chuckle. "Fair."

Yelena grinned back, eyes glinting with the reflected light of the TV. "Seriously. What's up?"

On the TV in front of us, Laura Prepon pinned a blonde woman to the floor as they started angrily making out. "You know," I said, my attention held briefly by the scene. "I've never actually watched this show properly. Maybe I should."

"Ugh, что только я для тебя не делаю."

"Natasha asked you to keep an eye on me, didn't she?"

Yelena paused, tilting her head to one side and weighing my expression. "She did. But that's not why I'm asking," she said, shaking her head. "I still owe you, too. A little."

I reached out, grabbing the bottle of scotch. I poured myself another glass, then leant over to top up Yelena's as well before clinking them together.



--



"So then Eliza impaled me on her sword-hand, like, right through here." I tapped the middle of my torso. "And lifted me up into the air like a shish kabob."

"No, but that wouldn't work," Yelena argued, scrunching up her face and shaking her head. Her words weren't slurred, exactly, but her accent was coming out a lot thicker than usual. "Your body weight would pull you down and it'd cut you in half." She reached over, poking me in the spot I had indicated with a finger, then swiped it upwards demonstratively, making a cutting sound with her mouth as she flicked over a quick path up my chest, through my collarbone and out my shoulder.

"Yeah, but she did something," I countered. "Reconfigured her arm inside me so that that wouldn't happen, so she could monologue some more before she killed me."

"Why? That's dumb. You're both dumb. She could have just killed you with the sword that she was literally already stabbing you with."

"She could have. I mean, she was using some pretty…" I paused briefly, trying to keep a straight face, "…cutting-edge technology."

Yelena groaned and threw her head back against the couch dramatically. "Why are you like this? You could be literally any other way."

"The more visceral a reaction I provoke from you, the more it nourishes me," I teased.

"I need another drink."

I obliged her with a grin. We'd already polished off what had been left of my second bottle of scotch and had moved on to a third. "But yeah, when she was talking, I managed to slap her with Wanda-3. She went down and… that was it. Done."

"I still think there had to have been a better way to do things. Creating another AI was a huge risk."

"Eh. It worked, didn't it?" I rubbed at my formerly-severed fingers absently. "I've actually been vaguely thinking about maybe getting a tattoo," I said. Yelena side-eyed me, her expression flat, as though she couldn't tell whether I was joking or not. "…What?"

She shifted position, letting out a small, involuntary grunt of effort as she straightened up and looked at me seriously. "You're not also going to try cutting your own bangs, right?"

I snorted. "It's not like that. To memorialise Wanda-3, I mean. She didn't have a body to bury or anything like that. It doesn't feel like there's any closure there; I don't really have anything physical to remember her by and I'd really like to. Remember her, that is."

"I mean… I guess that sounds like it could be a good idea?" Yelena said uncertainly, slightly listing to one side.

"Oh. That reminds me, I really need to check with Bucky and make sure he's actually going to therapy still."

Yelena let out a soft snort of amusement. "What about you? Shouldn't you be in therapy?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I've tried therapy before. It didn't suit me," I said, shaking my head. I tilted my glass in her direction. "What about you? You've got plenty of your own trauma to unpack."

"The Stark Relief Foundation has a support group for ex-Widows. I went once or twice." She grimaced, then shot me a wry smile. "It didn't suit me."

"What, then?"

"What, what?"

"What are you, you know, doing? You go out a lot but I don't know what you've been up to."

Yelena frowned. "I don't know, really," she confessed. "It's hard, you know? I've never had to decide what to do with myself before. I've just been… around. I don't really know what I want."

"No one really starts out knowing exactly what they want out of life. You missed out on a lot of time because of the Red Room—time you'd normally have had to work things out a bit," I said, taking another swig of alcohol. "Have you thought about joining the Avengers? They'd take you in a heartbeat, I think."

She pulled a face. "Ugh. No. I don't want to be a fancy hero on kids' lunchboxes. That's Natasha's world."

"I understand wanting something for yourself, but don't knock it 'til you try it." I leaned over to nudge her with my shoulder. "Nat's a little bit fixated on being an Avenger. She still feels so much guilt over all the things she did when she was with the Red Room and, for her, it's a way of making up for things. Uh, not that I think either of you should feel guilty or have anything to make up for. None of that was your fault. All I mean is… she's an Avenger because she wants to do something good with her life. At least, that's how it started. They're her family now, just as much as you are. Family's important. Speaking of—"

"If you ask me about Alexei I will punch you," Yelena interrupted me.

"Things going that well, huh?" I let out a small laugh. "Fair enough."

There were a few moments of companionable silence before she spoke again. "…Maybe I should get a tattoo."

I perked up, beaming at her. "A symbol of asserting ownership over your own body, after having it controlled by someone else for so long. Yes! I love it." My eyes widened as a thought occurred to me. "We could get tattoos together! I mean, like, not the same tattoo, obviously, but we could go together. If you wanted to, I mean."

Yelena chuckled, shaking her head. "You're such a dork."

I stood up and started to pace, prowling restlessly back and forth in front of the couch. "What's the time?"

"We are not going to go get drunk tattoos at…" she checked her phone. "Eleven thirty at night."

"Not that," I shook my head. "It's still early. We should go out. Oh! We could go do karaoke!"

Yelena shot me a flat look. "I am not doing karaoke."

Reaching down, I took her by her wrist, hauled her to her feet, and started steering her toward the door. "Come on!"

"This is unfair!" Yelena protested, struggling not to laugh as I pushed at her, disbelief warring with amusement in her tone as she barely managed to put her glass down on the table before I moved her past it. "I'm drunk and you're unreasonably strong!"

I bulldozed over her objections, insistently prodding her toward the door. Yelena complained the whole way, but, even so, less than twenty minutes later she was right next to me, belting out Don McLean's American Pie at the top of her lungs.

It ended up being a pretty good night.

 

[mythSSK]

Chapter 68

"We are extending a great deal of trust, here," King T'Chaka said, his expression serious. "Not all agree that this is wise."

"Baba, if we have learned anything from recent days, it is that we have no other choice. Wakanda can no longer simply watch from the shadows." T'Challa turned, casting his gaze around the throne room and lingering on several of the other, less-impressed looking occupants as he spoke. He was talking to them, more than his father. The king had already made his decision; this little back and forth was mostly just for the Council's benefit. "There are threats in this world—and from beyond it—that Wakanda cannot handle alone. If we are to survive, we must pool our knowledge and resources with trusted allies in the outside world."

M'Kathu—elder of the Border Tribe, his face covered in scarred bumps that mimicked the skin of a crocodile—shook his head and scoffed. "'Trusted' allies like a former arms dealer and the remnants of an American spy agency."

"Tony Stark risked his life alongside my sister and I, as did all of the Avengers," T'Challa reminded them. "He has seen the errors of his past and dedicated his life to protecting the world. Beyond this, he is a truly brilliant man, and the only one I have ever seen meet my sister on an even footing. We will gain much from working with him."

"And what's to stop the Avengers from turning over our secrets to the US Government and other nations? Revealing us to the world?"

"Nothing," T'Challa responded simply. "But if that was going to happen, it is too late to stop it in any case. The Avengers already have much knowledge of our country and our technology. If they wished to betray us, they could simply do so now."

"That is not terribly convincing or reassuring," Zawavari, elder of the Mining Tribe, said, shooting him a wry look as she smoothed out her intricately-patterned blue dress.

"Tony Stark has firmly and repeatedly rejected the efforts of the US Government to obtain his own technology. The Avengers stand to gain many more benefits from holding our trust than they would in outing us to the world. It would be senseless. There are risks involved in this partnership with the Avengers, but they are far outweighed by the potential benefits to our people."

"Benefits that include access to Dr Bruce Banner," M'Kathu pointed out. "Your concerns about your sister's condition are shared by us all, but that does not mean we should risk—"

T'Challa cut him off sharply, a small spike of anger in his tone. "My sister's condition is none of this Council's concern." He paused and sighed loudly, shaking his head as he looked around at the gathered elders. "It is time we consider opening ourselves more to the world. Finally coming out of the shadows. We gain nothing from burying our heads in the sand and continuing on as we always have. Now, more than ever, illusions of division threaten our very existence. In times of crisis, the wise build bridges, while the foolish cower behind barriers."

The Border Tribe elder scowled at him. "Mind your words. You are not king yet. Wakanda's barriers have protected our people for thousands of years."

"And yet, what my son says rings true to my ears," said King T'Chaka, raising a hand to silence the other man. "I have already heard your protests and concerns. This is not my son's decision—it is mine. Vibranium was stolen from us and used to create terrible weapons. Without the Avengers and their allies, Wakanda would have been overcome."

T'Challa nodded firmly at his father, raising his voice slightly as he addressed the Tribal Council once again. "We can no longer stand with our backs to the rest of the world, lest we find a dagger in it. We must instead face forward, a hand extended in peace. We all know the truth—there is more that connects the people of this world than separates us. We must find a way forward, together, as if we were one single tribe."

"And what of the Red Woman?" Zawavari asked mildly. She moved her foot, gently prodding at the claw-like gouges that Wanda Maximoff had carved into the raw stone of the floor between them with the toe of her shoe.

The scars in the rock had since been filled in with silver-black vibranium, textured to look almost molten. T'Challa wasn't completely sure why his father had chosen to memorialise the Red Woman's visit in such a way, rather than to erase the marks. Then again, they did look vaguely like the marks left by a panther's paws, and Wanda—much to T'Challa's ongoing frustration—still held the blessing of the goddess.

"The Red Woman is no longer our concern," T'Challa said firmly, trying not to think about the last conversation he had had with Shuri about the woman. There had been shouting. "The king has rendered his judgement."

"If there is nothing further," the king added, quickly interceding to cut off whatever comments the elders were about to unleash. "I believe my son has a plane to catch." T'Challa's father smiled at him and nodded, dismissing him.

T'Challa bowed his head deeply. "Thank you, baba. I will report back to the Council upon my return."

With that, he turned and left—the Border Tribesmen standing at attention at the entrance to the throne room opening the doors for him before he turned and headed down the hallway leading to the Royal Talon's landing pad.

Less than fifteen minutes later, he had touched down on one of the landing zones flanking the main building at the Great Mound facility and headed inside. Catching the elevator down to Shuri's personal lab, he emerged to find her carefully going over the contents of a hovering trolley laden high with metal crates, checking it against some sort of checklist or other inventory projected on a holographic display above her wrist. The trolley was one of five—vibranium and other supplies that Shuri intended on taking with her to the Avengers compound. His sister was so focused on her task that she did not immediately react to T'Challa's presence, her lips forming the outlines of words as she spoke to herself quietly under her breath, her face a mask of concentration.

"Women always pack too much," T'Challa joked, to catch her attention. "I am not sure there is enough room in the Royal Talon for all of this."

"This is not a holiday, brother. Everything here is necessary," Shuri said tightly—a bare instant later, her shoulders relaxed and she shot him a slightly apologetic smile. She crossed her arms over her chest and he mimicked her, both of them lightly tapping their chests with closed fists. "I'm nervous," she confessed.

"I would be amazed if you were not," T'Challa said with a sympathetic smile. "This will be your first time away from Wakanda."

"It's not that," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "I'm just… I don't know. It will be interesting to work with Tony Stark and Dr Banner again."

"Is my little sister afraid that she cannot keep up with the big, smart, American men without the full resources of the Great Mound at her fingertips and dozens of staff at her every beck and call?" he teased.

Shuri's eyes blazed as she rounded on him. "Careful, brother. It is not wise to make me angry, these days. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

T'Challa grinned, holding up his hands in a silent apology. Though Shuri hadn't directly admitted it, he knew that she had really enjoyed working with the Avengers despite the circumstances of their meeting. While his sister was obviously already used to working with others, she was also used to being the smartest person in the room by a significant margin, and with Tony Stark that position was no longer certain. The man had managed to push and challenge her in new ways, forcing her out of complacent habits and to evaluate things from angles she hadn't considered before. T'Challa was certain that this little temporary residency would be nothing but good for her.

His sister reached over, shoving his chest playfully, then gestured at the assorted materials in front of her. "Give me a hand with all of this," she ordered.

Nearly three hours later, the Royal Talon was sitting on a small landing pad outside the main hanger of the Avengers compound in upstate New York, a pair of Dora Milaje unloading the overstuffed cargo compartment. A stocky, broad-shouldered man with short, dark hair, wearing a suit and tie—Happy, Stark had called him—was trying to lend them some assistance and being amusingly stymied at every turn.

"Looks like you brought half the Great Mound with you," Stark said to Shuri, grinning lightly. "That's a lot of vibranium."

"I've brought some gifts for the team—the prosthetics we talked about, among other things," she said with a nod, pausing before shooting him a mildly smug smile. "Also, after your ancient, lumbering wreck of a suit gave out, I thought perhaps you might be interested in my ideas for some upgrades."

"Christmas, huh?" Dr Banner said brightly, glancing toward his colleague.

Stark's expression had turned thoughtful, wheels already turning in his head. "I am very interested in taking a deeper dive into your nanotech. I may have some ideas myself."

"I suppose I can humour an old man," Shuri said with a sniff.

"A couple of old men," Dr Banner replied with an easy smile. "The facilities here aren't going to be quite what you're used to, I'm afraid—we're still not quite done installing everything in the labs. Getting there, though."

"I'm sure it will do for now. I'll probably have to do some redecorating anyway—American design sensibilities leave much to be desired. How am I supposed to think properly in such a bland environment?" A moment after she'd spoken, Shuri's whole body tensed up, her expression turning wooden, and she almost immediately turned and walked back over to where her belongings were being unloaded.

"Shuri? What—" T'Challa stopped as he noticed that Pietro Maximoff had just stepped out of the nearby main entrance to the hangar.

The younger man stopped, hesitating for a moment, then walked over, closing the distance between them. Dr Banner and Stark exchanged an uncomfortable look, but neither of them said anything. "Hi, um, Prince T'Challa," Pietro said, touching his chest and giving an embarrassed sort of half-bow.

T'Challa held up a hand. "We don't do that."

"Uh, sure. Okay."

There was an excruciatingly awkward silence for a moment before Shuri returned, hefting an almost-comically large bag over one shoulder. "Where will I be staying?" she asked Stark stiffly, completely ignoring the Maximoff's presence. "There are a few things I want to drop off in my room."

Stark nodded and held up a hand to catch the attention of his man, Happy, who came hurrying over. He gestured toward the compound's central building, an asymmetrically-shaped structure with the Avengers' logo emblazoned on the side. "Happy can show you to your new room—your quarters. We'll give you the big, proper tour a little later on. Who've we got her between? She's next to Clint, right?"

Happy nodded. "Yeah, at the end, next to Clint."

"Careful, he snores," Stark warned Shuri with a bit of forced joviality. "I mean, the walls are soundproofed, but that man really snores."

T'Challa watched as the stocky man gestured for Shuri to follow him before the two of them headed off toward her new quarters, waiting a few seconds before turning back to Pietro. "She is fine," he said quietly. "Just give her some time."

"Yeah, okay. I might just… um," Pietro said, awkwardly gesturing away from them. "Good to see you again, Prince T'Challa."

The Wakandan prince exhaled softly through his nose, but gave a small nod. "Likewise. As I said, do not mind Shuri. She is just… nervous about being here."

Pietro returned his nod, then turned and left as well.

"Hey, don't worry," Stark said to T'Challa, stepping up beside him. "We'll look after Shuri. You're leaving her in good hands."

T'Challa let out a small chuckle as he turned back to face the other man. "I am not worried about Shuri. She can look after herself." He looked between Stark and Dr Banner. "If there is anything more we can give you that might help with analysing her condition…"

Dr Banner shrugged, a slightly awkward expression on his face. "We'll keep you in the loop, but we still don't know exactly what we're dealing with here."

Next to him, Stark nodded. "This is the best place for her right now. We'll need time to monitor her so we can pick apart how your Herb thing interacted with the gamma radiation to make her, y'know, Hulk out. Make sure it's safe. This isn't the first time we've seen someone affected by Banner's blood, but at least this particular case does seem to be pretty stable."

"You refer to the Abomination." T'Challa's own expression turned pensive, thinking back to the illusion of Emil Blonsky that Eliza had tricked them with during her attack on the Great Mound.

"Shuri seems fine, though!" Bruce interjected hurriedly. "I think if she was going to mutate like that she would have already. Wanda said a while ago that she saw a 'She-Hulk' in her visions, too, and she did okay… though that was my cousin, not your sister."

"I see," T'Challa said, looking pensive. "I am glad of your decision to not allow Wanda Maximoff to formally join the Avengers. Her brother is one thing, but I am not sure that Shuri could have been convinced to stay if she would have had to see Wanda every day."

Tony grimaced a little. "Little Miss Magic does still visit pretty frequently. We're still working together."

"Even so, the extra level of separation helps."

T'Challa was actually hoping that the semi-regular contact with Wanda and Pietro would help Shuri to get over the worst of her feelings toward them. Call it exposure therapy, almost. T'Challa himself still did not completely trust the Red Woman—she had poor judgement, poorer impulse control and far too much raw power at her disposal for that to make her anything but dangerous—but she seemed to at least be trying to do the right thing.

Wanda had known the truth about his cousin and warned them of it, but Eliza's accidental creation had proven that she didn't know everything. It would also not surprise him if there was still information that Wanda was deliberately concealing from the Avengers, picking and choosing what to share from what she'd supposedly seen to deliberately cast herself in a better light.

Stark nodded and there was another awkward pause. After a few seconds, he clapped his hands together. "Well, how about we show you around a bit?"



--



I'd been a little surprised at how big the upstate Avengers compound was, but I honestly had just never really realised how many support staff they had. There were a whole bunch of people working here under the careful eye of Maria Hill—intel officers, sure, but also engineers to service the Quinjets and other bits of equipment that Tony didn't need to handle personally, a whole call centre and public relations division, and a small contingent of workers who maintained the extensive grounds, among others. They generally remained in the outer structures, with only cleaners and similar staff having reason to enter the main central building where the Avengers were quartered. There were also some areas of the compound still being refurbished—obviously, the Avengers had had to move in here a little earlier than in the original timeline, so it wasn't a hundred per cent ready.

The first parking lot off the road leading into the compound was publicly-accessible, next to a security and media centre blocking the entrance to the rest of the grounds, and today it was packed. I didn't need to worry about parking, of course—it was nearly a two-hour drive from Natasha's apartment in the city out to the compound, a timesaving I definitely considered portal-worthy. I arrived in the gardens and snuck in from the back of the building, instead. It was a hive of activity, public relations and security staff everywhere, and I wandered for a minute trying to work out where everyone was before I was intercepted.

"You know," said Happy Hogan, Tony's head of security and general gofer. He shot me a tight smile, but there was a little bit of resentment in his tone. "You could still just come in through the front door, like a normal person. We've got a lot of people in today and it'd make it a lot easier on security."

"Whatever," I responded, rolling my eyes. "You all know who I am."

I let him usher me through to where a few of the Avengers were waiting for the start of the press conference. Tony was near the set of double doors leading to the press room proper, talking to Pepper, absorbed in something that she was showing him on a tablet. Once I was inside, Happy shot me a look and hurried over to his boss, leaving me to my own devices.

On the other side of the room, Clint and Bucky stood talking quietly to Natasha. Nat perked up a little when she saw me, so I headed over to them, nudging her with my shoulder as I arrived. "Hey!"

"Hey." She grinned and nudged me back.

"Clint! Bucky!" I beamed at the two men, taking in their new matching cybernetic arms, banded silver-black vibranium inlaid with intricate, geometric-patterned golden accents. I knew that Shuri was staying at the compound for a little while—what a surprise that had been to hear! I hadn't seen her yet, but that was mostly on purpose; Pietro had told me it was pretty awkward already, and I thought it was better to give the teen a wide berth for now. At least until she'd had time to settle in properly. "Looking sharp! You know you two have to be best friends now, yeah? That's how this works, right?" I said, gesturing between the two of them.

Bucky shook his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and Clint chuckled. "Good to see you, too, Wanda."

I paused, my own expression faltering a little. "How're you doing with… everything?" I asked sympathetically.

He shrugged, raising his metal arm and flexing the fingers. "It's weird. It'll take some getting used to, but it's not as hard as I thought it'd be."

I scrunched up my face, tilting my head a little as I glanced between his arm and Bucky's. "Is it crass to say that I'm sort of glad that it wasn't your left arm? I mean, it'd probably be easier if you had interchangeable parts, but I do like that the two of you have sort of a mirror thing going on, now," I said.

Natasha elbowed me, but Clint let out a small snort of amusement. "Yeah. I'm left-handed; it would have been even more of a pain to lose the other one."

Bucky straightened up, looking past me and lifting his chin in a small gesture. "Man of the hour's here," he said.

I spun around to see Pietro and Steve coming down a set of stairs toward us. My brother was wearing what could only be his new 'official' Avengers outfit; a cross between a superhero costume and high-performance athletics gear—grey, silver and dark blue stretch fabric that flatteringly hugged and outlined his figure, with a stylised lightning bolt slashing across the chest from shoulder to hip and small armoured accents.

I wondered if he was a little uncomfortable being the only one 'in uniform', so to speak, but I understood why they'd done it like this. Everyone else was dressed in fairly plain smart casual attire, which meant that eyes would naturally be drawn to Pietro—this was his big debut, after all.

I rushed over and slammed into him, wrapping my arms around him in a tight hug. "Pietro! You look so good!"

He hugged me back, shaking his head and chuckling slightly before extricating himself. "Thanks." I could hear an edge of nerves in his tone.

Next to us, Steve grinned and patted him on the shoulder. "You ready?" he asked.

"Not really," Pietro admitted.

"Don't stress," I said, looking him over and picking off the tiniest bit of fluff that had gotten stuck to the fabric hugging his collarbone. "You just need to smile and look pretty and say something like 'I'm looking forward to being part of the team'."

"I've been coaching him," said Steve, nodding. "He'll do fine."

Of course, that made sense. Out of everyone here, Steve was the one with the most personal experience at being uncomfortably paraded around like a show pony. There was a burst of hubbub behind me and I turned back toward the doors to the press room—it looked like they'd opened briefly to let Pepper and Happy through, with Tony now beelining toward the three of us.

We met him halfway. He shot me a tight smile before turning to Pietro with a serious expression, thrusting his thumb in the direction of the press room. "Alright, Happy Feet. There're about fifty reporters through those doors—real ones, not bloggers. Let's go introduce the world to the newest official member of the Avengers."

Pietro nodded and we continued forward, Nat, Bucky and Clint moving to link up with us. Bruce had appeared from somewhere as well, the full team now assembled and ready to head out.

A woman wearing a headset and holding a clipboard tight against her chest was standing next to the doors as we approached—she muttered something into her mic, then her face lit up in a welcoming smile as we arrived. "Ms Potts is speaking now; we'll send you in in a moment." She glanced in my direction, singling me out. "Ms Maximoff, you'll need to hang back. I'll let you know when you can go in."

My smile faded a little, but I nodded in acknowledgement. It made sense that I had to wait—I wasn't an Avenger, I couldn't walk in as part of the group—but it still stung slightly. I didn't want to be jealous, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that a huge part of me really wanted to be stepping out there right alongside Pietro.

After a little bit, the woman nodded and gestured for the team to enter. As the Avengers pushed the double doors open and filed through, there was another burst of indistinct hubbub from the crowd; I craned my neck to look past, catching a glimpse of the gathered reporters and camera crews before the doors shut again, leaving me standing alone with the media staffer.

She shot me a tight smile and held up a finger, tilting her head to the side as she listened to what was happening in the other room through her headset. A half-dozen seconds crawled agonisingly by before she dropped her hand and nodded, gesturing to the door. "Keep to the left, against the wall. Mr Hogan will be there."

I nodded my thanks, then took a deep breath and pushed through the doors.

 

[mythSSK]

Chapter 69

I stared at the New York City streets as they passed outside the window, not really absorbing what I was seeing but still enjoying looking at it. Catching a taxi felt like an almost novel experience, these days. I could just use portals to get around the city, but that would have gone against the whole 'slow down, you're not always in a rush' mindset I was trying to cultivate. I wasn't off using them completely, of course—sometimes I was in a hurry, and sometimes the distance involved meant it would be silly not to. I was still mostly using portals to get to and from the upstate Avengers compound, for example; it was almost a forty-five minute drive each way, so that was something I was absolutely fine with avoiding, but a fifteen-minute trip to Hell's Kitchen to visit Jessica and Matt didn't feel overly onerous and I didn't have anything else I needed to do today.

It turned out that portals were going to be the answer to solving my money problems, too. The specific contract details were still being ironed out, but it was Tony—of all people—who had actually come through for me there with a proposal. Turns out, getting stuff into orbit was expensive as balls. I could charge what frankly felt like a ludicrous amount of money, per kilogram, and NASA would still be getting a massive bargain. Tony wasn't completely doing this out of the goodness of his heart, of course. Stark Industries would save me doing any of my own paperwork by acting as a go-between for a cut, and I'd do a few launches for them as well.

After all was said and done, though, I was looking at maybe a half-days' worth of work to earn what would likely be two or three hundred thousand dollars—free and clear, after taking tax into account—a couple of times a year. Now, that was what I called thinking with portals! Stark Industries had even given me an advance, without the contract formally in place yet, which I felt was pretty generous, so that I could afford to actually, you know, live.

Tony's lawyers were drafting up some pretty spicy NDAs for all involved that kept my methods a relative secret—turns out, we could do all of this pretty legally while skirting a bunch of the usual rules around rocket launches since 'magic portals to space' were apparently an edge case that wasn't really covered by any specific US legislation or regulatory body. I was honestly a little bit surprised that no sorcerer had ever tried to do something like this, but I wasn't about to complain. Part of me wondered if the whole thing had been entirely Tony's idea in the first place, or if Nat or Steve had 'encouraged' him. Then again, I also got a sneaking suspicion that he might have approached Kamar-taj first and they'd said no.

Either way, just like that, I was basically rich. It was enough to make me feel a bit guilty for freeloading off Nat, but it had only been a week and a half. I'd find my own place eventually but, in the meantime, I was actually really enjoying living with Yelena. She was a bit of a pain sometimes and an absolute slob, but we had fun. Maybe I'd suggest we find a place together and stay as flatmates? I knew from past experience that—even though I was naturally a bit introverted—I tended to go a bit weird if I lived alone for any significant length of time. I needed people around me to keep my head grounded.

Ava Starr—Ghost—was still at large. I got the distinct impression that Pym and Lang were covering for her, but the Avengers were at least nice enough to pretend like that wasn't the case. Most of them seemed pretty sympathetic to her situation… between Nat, Bucky, Bruce and Clint, a lot of them had had similarly chequered pasts and were prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt. She was finally on track to get a cure for her condition and had no reason to do anything that might jeopardise that, after all. Pushing to go after her, putting her on the run, would only make things worse.

I had made myself available for the discussion with Wakanda about Ava, in case I could think of details that might be relevant, but it had proven unnecessary. Between Natasha and Steve, it was pretty much a masterclass in diplomacy. They never lied, or even particularly stretched the truth, but they managed to make Ava sound so sympathetic even I was surprised. She was a victim. Orphaned as a child by SHIELD, then captured and raised to be an assassin—something that Nat, in particular, heavily empathised with. She was in constant pain, knowing that her condition would eventually kill her. She was vulnerable and Eliza manipulated her. Wakanda weren't entirely convinced, but had eventually agreed to leave her to the Avengers for now and not have their War Dogs actively hunt her down, which was a better outcome than I'd expected.

The taxi pulled over and I paid him before stepping out onto the sidewalk, looking around. Annoyingly, Jessica didn't have any street signage and I'd never been to her home office before, so it took me a minute to find the right building and catch the elevator up. At the other end of the hallway, opposite the elevator, was Jessica's office/apartment—black lettering stencilled on the opaque glass window set into the door spelling out the name of her PI business: ALIAS INVESTIGATIONS.

When I rapped my knuckles on the door, Malcolm—Jessica's friend and sort-of employee—answered it and ushered me quickly inside. I'd called ahead and made an official appointment, so Jess was expecting me, already sitting down at her desk, sipping from a can of energy drink. Mal sat me down in the chair across from her before moving back toward the door, hovering a little awkwardly in the background.

"Hey, Jessica," I said warmly.

Jessica Jones looked overtired and a little like she hadn't showered, as usual—her long, black hair a bit greasy and unkempt—but, if anything, her slightly dishevelled appearance somehow made her even hotter. I was pretty sure she was fully straight but, once I'd finally managed to beat down her defensive façade, I was still kind of hoping against hope that maybe she'd be interested in a fling sometime.

"What do you want?" she asked, folding her arms and staring at me impassively.

"I don't 'want' anything, really," I said, smiling lightly at her usual surliness as my eyes wandering around her disorganised mess of an office. I noted the repairs that had been made to the wall dividing the living-area-turned-office and kitchen, the plasterboard still unpainted. "I just thought I'd check in on you—see how you were doing, whether you'd made any progress with the IGH investigation, that sort of thing—and thought it'd be easier to get hold of you like this than to ask to catch up over coffee."

"So you're wasting my time." Jessica exhaled sharply and shook her head. "I've told you before: We're not friends, Wanda."

"Why not?"

She squinted at me incredulously. "What?"

"Why not?" I repeated with a shrug. "We could be. I'm pretty useful to have around, as far as friends go."

"Because I don't want to be," she said firmly, placing both of her palms on the desk in front of her. "Look, if that's all you're here for, I have other places to be."

Ugh, this was always so frustrating. I let out a sigh. "I know being a prickly, stand-offish asshole that doesn't make friends easily is just who you are, but even so… I've helped you. I've been honest with you, which is something I know you appreciate. You backed me up when we spoke to Matt Murdock. What's the deal? What am I doing wrong, here?" Annoyance had started to leak into my tone, but I stopped myself short of outright asking the question I wanted the actual answer to—'why don't you want to like me?'.

Jessica's jaw worked silently as she glared at me. After a moment, she shook her head. "Fine. You're right, you have been honest with me. So I'll be honest with you." She paused, steadying herself with a breath as she looked down at the table, avoiding eye contact, as if she didn't even want to look at me. "Your powers are fucked up. I don't like being around you because they make me uncomfortable."

I rocked back in my seat slightly, a look of realisation passing across my features. "Oh," I said simply, processing her words.

Of course. I was a fucking moron. The last mind controller she'd met had enslaved her. She'd endured months of what was effectively physical and psychological torture and sexual abuse. Killgrave was dead, at her hand, but that didn't magically resolve all of the trauma and complex PTSD she had. Of course Jessica Jones, of all people, would be uncomfortable around someone with mind control powers.

"I'm sorry. That hadn't even occurred to me," I said slowly, feeling like a piece of shit. "I've… I've been really thoughtless, haven't I?"

"It's fine," she said brusquely, but she didn't look up and was fidgeting slightly with her hands. She looked really uncomfortable. I'd seen her like this with me before, but it just hadn't registered until now what I was actually seeing—I'd thought it was just her being standoffish, utterly blind to her very real discomfort.

"No, it isn't."

I'd never used actual mind control to override her will, but I'd still constantly bulled over all her objections and done what I'd wanted to do, regardless of her wishes, in basically all of our previous interactions. That had to be triggering. God. She wasn't being an asshole—I was. No fucking wonder she didn't like me.

I stood up abruptly, the legs of the chair scraping loudly against the wooden floorboards. "I'll just… I'll go," I said, hesitating for a bare moment. My cheeks had grown hot, burning with shame and guilt, my vision blurring a little. "If you need help with anything; if there's something I can do, just ask. Anything you need. Anytime. You've got my number. Otherwise, I'll just… I'll leave you be. I'm sorry, Jessica, I really didn't mean to."

I turned and fled, barrelling past Malcolm and hurrying out the door, down the hall, and hammered at the button to call the elevator. After it failed to materialise in two seconds, I shook my head, feeling a little wetness starting to run down my cheeks, and thrust my hand into my pocket, fishing out my sling ring instead. The elevator dinged as it arrived, but I'd already spun up a portal and returned to the street below.

I leant back against the cool brickwork of the building's exterior as I dismissed the gateway, ignoring the reactions of the few pedestrians that had seen me appear. Closing my eyes for a minute, I focused on my breathing, forcing myself to calm down and push through the familiar feeling that I was a shitty, worthless excuse of a person. Fucking hell. I should have realised. I'd thought I was better at reading people than that. I'd never meant to make her uncomfortable. I was such an idiot. Even my attraction to her felt gross, now, with that context. I wiped at my face with the back of my hand.

Okay, so, never seeing Jessica again, I guess. Cool. And here I'd thought I was done burning bridges with people I liked. God, I was going to be seeing Peter again soon, too, and I had no idea what was going to happen there. Maybe he hated me. He had every right to blame me for what had happened.

I'd vaguely been thinking about maybe wandering up to Harlem and trying to track down Luke Cage once I was done catching up with Matt but, after what had just happened with Jessica, I was suddenly feeling a lot less social. If Matt's office wasn't so close by, I probably would have just portalled straight home and hid in bed for the rest of the day.

Instead, I steeled myself and took out my phone, bringing up the Maps app to remind myself how to get to Nelson and Murdock from here. It wasn't too far—Jessica and Matt worked within fairly easy walking distance of each other. Straightening up, I started down the sidewalk.

I walked in a bit of a daze, trying not to think too much about what had just happened with Jessica, and fifteen minutes later I stepped past a familiar bronze plaque to a wrought-iron mesh door covered in peeling beige paint. Moving inside and up the stairs, I found the door labelled NELSON AND MURDOCK, ATTORNEYS AT LAW and headed in. The waiting room was basically the same as it had been the last time I was here—haphazard, mismatched folding chairs and a flimsy card table tucked into a corner with some magazines and a lamp on it.

Across from the door, the office manager, Karen, was already standing up from her desk to greet me, a tight smile on her face. "Hi! Wanda Maximoff, right?"

I made a small noise of approval, despite myself. "I'm surprised you remember me."

"…Let's just say you made an impression. Matt's here, but he's busy going over some casework."

"Can you let him know I'm here? He'll make time for me; I won't bother him long," I said, going through the motions for Karen's benefit—even absorbed in his work, there was no way that Matt hadn't heard me come in or speak just now.

"I'm sure he will," she said, sizing me up for a moment before she went over to his office door.

I frowned to myself. Her body language was a bit guarded—she didn't like me, either. Of course. I mean, I'd made basically no effort to talk to her or put her at ease, but still. I was a mysterious unknown, sweeping in here to have private talks with Matt about something she wasn't privy to. Hell, she might have even seen me on the news by now. I didn't like to think of myself as being bad at dealing with people, but after what had just happened with Jessica, seeing Karen also a little visibly uncomfortable with my presence was really just making me want to crawl into a hole and never come out again.

Karen rapped on Matt's door smartly with her knuckles, waited a second, then opened the door and poked her head in to tell him I'd arrived. After a moment, she took a step back and held the door open for me. "You can go right in." She tilted her head toward the open door, still looking at me appraisingly.

"Thanks." I shot her another smile and stepped inside, making sure the door closed behind me and she returned to her desk before turning toward Matt.

He'd stood up as I'd entered, head vaguely pointed in my direction. "Ms Maximoff. Good to see you again."

"Little blind person joke?"

"Have to take the humour where you can, in my line of work. Please, sit," he said, smiling and gesturing to the chair across from him. I sat. Matt did the same. I took a deep breath, sighed, but didn't say anything at first. After a few moments, he shifted position, leaning forward. "What happened? With the Hand?" he asked quietly.

I shook my head. "It's complicated and a lot of it you don't need to know. Their leadership's gone entirely—I guess some of the lieutenants might try to hold stuff together, but they've lost basically everyone that really matters. The rest will probably either dissolve or fall to infighting… or the Chaste will clean them up, I guess."

"I thought you said we had time."

"We did. Something else happened that meant the Hand moved up my schedule, is all."

"I'm assuming this 'something else' has to do with the terrorist attack in San Francisco."

"Is that what they're calling it? Yeah. Like I said, I can't really get into the details." I bit my lip, eyes firmly glued to Matt's desk. "I'm going to go ahead and assume you completely ignored my warnings and got involved with Elektra anyway."

The corner of Matt's mouth twitched and he licked his lips before letting out a small, awkward chuckle. "I don't know what would make you think that."

A small smile briefly touched my face but I banished it, my expression turning serious again. "Don't fuck things up with Karen, okay? Especially not for Elektra."

He paused, processing that for a moment, before he responded. "I won't."

"You're still working the Frank Castle case, right?"

"We're on the docket for next week."

I nodded slowly. "Okay. Well, hopefully this will help you focus on that, then."

"I've been watching Midland Circle; Stark Industries has equipment and drones on site. Iron Legion, same make as the ones that were attacking the Avengers in San Francisco."

"You don't need to worry about Midland Circle anymore. Like I said, the Hand's done. Their plans for what's underneath it don't matter anymore."

"And what are your plans for it?" The question pulled me up short and I glanced up at Matt, surprised. He wasn't looking in my direction, his head tilted, staring vacantly off to one side, but he seemed like he was focusing very intently.

"I don't have any," I said honestly. I hadn't really thought about Midland Circle much at all since Eliza had been created. I'd need to ask about what the investigation into what the AI had been using Stark Industries for had uncovered. "Stark Industries will try to acquire it, probably, and I guess once it's unearthed we'll study it. See if there's some beneficial purpose it can be used for." The most likely scenario I could think of was the Avengers handing the dragon bones over to Kamar‑taj—they seemed best placed to deal with something like that.

"Okay." Matt seemed mostly satisfied with that answer.

"So… yeah. That's about it. I just wanted to drop in and let you know that you shouldn't really have any more problems with the Hand from now on. If you do see Stick again, tell him 'You're welcome' from the Avengers."

There was another moment of silence, then Matt turned to face me properly—his unseeing eyes, hidden behind red-lensed sunglasses, seeming to look right through me. "Are you okay?" he asked, his tone gentle.

I suddenly felt very small. "No, not really," I said. It was pointless to try lying to Daredevil.

"Anything I can help with?"

"Maybe; got any advice on how to be a less shit person?"

He let out a soft snort of amusement. "I think I'm the wrong person to ask for that sort of advice. What happened?"

"Nothing," I ran my tongue along my lips to moisten them, then sighed. "I mean, something, but it's nothing anyone can do anything about. I've had a lot of ups and downs lately and things are just… hitting me a bit harder than they should, I think."

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. "Okay, well," he said, rising to his feet, a small sympathetic smile lighting his face. "Come on. There's a bar just down the street that I like. I'll buy you a drink."

I blinked, surprised. "It's barely noon."

"You don't seem like the sort of person that that's ever stopped before."

"Touché." He had me there. "…Okay."



--



"You're famous now," Matt said, idly fingering his glass. "After what happened in San Francisco, I mean. Helping the Avengers. Karen recognised you on the news."

We were sitting in a booth at Josie's Bar, the Nelson and Murdock staff's favoured haunt. More light filtered in from the clouded, dirty windows and glass door than was cast by the dim lamp over the battered-looking wooden bar and the few scattered flickering neon signs—the place would be pretty poorly-lit at night, which would probably help to conceal just how worn the place was. Actual daylight did the place no favours. It smelt of stale beer, cheap liquor, and something faintly metallic, like rust. On the face of it, it wasn't the most inviting place, but still… I could see it had its own sort of unpolished charm. We almost had the place entirely to ourselves, with only one older man sitting quietly at the far end of the bar, nursing a drink. I was honestly a little surprised that the place was even open this early.

"Of course she did," I said with a sigh. "Sorry if that makes meeting with me a bit more awkward."

"It's not a problem." Matt leaned his elbow on the table, ear tilted toward me. "Your brother joined the Avengers. There's a lot of gossip and speculation as to why you didn't join as well. Any particular reason he's on the team and you're not?"

I didn't really want to talk about this. I was already in a bit of a mood because of what happened to Jessica, I didn't need to be reminded of my other failures as well. "Politics, mostly. We're still working together."

"You're not happy about that." It was a statement, not a question.

"I'm not," I admitted. "I want to be on the team. It's just… complicated. It was my decision to step back a bit and not join, though."

"You wanted to distance yourself, for some reason?"

"Politics," I said again. Matt seemed to sense that I didn't want to talk about it and didn't press the issue again. After a few moments of companionable silence, I drained the rest of my glass. "Would you want to see again?" I asked, placing my empty whiskey tumbler down on the table between us and looking at Matt seriously.

He let out a small, incredulous laugh, as though he couldn't believe I'd just asked that. "What?"

"If your eyes could be healed. A miracle cure for blindness. Or if you could, for example, speaking purely theoretically, get cybernetic prosthetic eyes. From space. Would you?"

"I've never really thought about it." He seemed amused by the examples. "It would depend, I guess."

I waved a hand dismissively. "Cybernetic prosthetics. You'd need to have the old ones completely removed, I think, but then you could just literally pop them in and they'd work. Plug and play, so to speak."

"…I feel like you might not be talking from an entirely theoretical place, here."

"I might not be."

"If it were safe—"

I cut him off. "Safe. Free. No complications. Shouldn't affect your other enhanced senses. Just your vision back. Would you do it?"

Matt hesitated for a few moments. "…Are you offering?"

"You're really squirming around answering the question, aren't you?"

"I've been blind since I was nine. Would I choose to be able to see again, if I could? Yes. Of course."

I nodded. "Okay. I can't make any promises, but I know some people. I'll look into it for you." Next time I spoke to Carol, I'd ask her about it. If she didn't know where to get some space-tech cybernetic eyes, she'd probably know someone who did. If not, maybe the Guardians of the Galaxy would. I knew Rocket got his hands on one at some point.

Matt went quiet again for a bit, his jaw working silently. After a little while, he took a deep breath. "That… seems like a lot to do for someone you barely know."

"I actually know you better than you might think, Matt. And you're nice to me. Feels like I've had to fight pretty hard to get that from most other people in my life." I chuckled, running a finger along the rim of my empty glass and shooting him a mischievous look. "You know, if you weren't already with Karen, I'd let you take me home right now and have your wicked way with me."

He let out an amused snort. "Because I'm nice to you?"

"Not just because you're nice. You're also pretty cute. It honestly doesn't take much more than that, for me." And maybe it would have helped take my mind off how shitty I felt about what had happened with Jessica.

Matt laughed again and shook his head. "Maybe day drinking wasn't such a good idea."

"That's not it. You've got enhanced senses; use them. Listen to my body, the way I'm talking. Do I seem tipsy at all? Alcohol just doesn't do that much for me, these days. Downside of my powers." I paused, playing back the last minute of conversation in my head for a moment before I heaved a sigh. "Sorry. I shouldn't have even said it. Inappropriate."

"You don't have anything to apologise for," he said with a small shake of his head. "Who knows? If I wasn't seeing Karen, maybe I'd even have taken you up on it."

"I just don't know when to turn it off, sometimes," I confessed, looking down at the table. I picked my glass up by the rim, my fingers splayed, balancing it on the edge of the base and rolling it slowly back and forth across the wooden surface. "I didn't always look the way I do now. It's like… there's this thing, where someone who's experienced poverty—who been through times when they were just never sure when the next meal would come—will overeat when they get the opportunity to. Just pack it in. Because they're conditioned to feel like they might starve again soon, even if that isn't likely to happen. I think it's kind of like that." I let out an incredulous little laugh. "Wow. God, that actually makes me sound really pathetic and desperate when I say it out loud like that, doesn't it?"

"I don't think so," Matt responded, his expression thoughtful. "I think it just makes you sound human."



--



"We… we didn't know what to do. Who else to go to," Brian said, his voice a little unsteady. He stood near the punching bags, his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, his eyes darting nervously to the nearby weapons rack. The evening light spilling through the dojo's sliding windows gave the room a golden glow—normally, Colleen would find it comforting and peaceful, but after getting the news she just had, it felt almost stifling.

She didn't respond right away.

Instead, she turned and walked toward the back room, flicking her head to indicate that Mary and Brian—her two former students that had come calling—should follow her. They hesitated a moment, but did so. The small space felt even tighter with all three of them inside. Colleen knelt down in front of an old trunk, unlocked it, then took out her grandfather's katana. Closing the lid, she rested the weapon on top, staring at it for a moment as she knelt, her back to her two visitors as she steadied herself. She could hear Mary shifting behind her, the soft scrape of her shoes on the floor, and Brian's low, nervous sigh.

"Who was it?" Colleen asked softly after a few moments of relative silence, her fingers tracing along the saya—the sheathe—of the sword, lingering on the white bindings wrapping the hilt. "Gao's faction?" Madame Gao was a criminal. A monster. If her disagreements with Bakuto had finally escalated to the point where she'd wanted him removed, then Colleen would—

"Gao's dead, too."

Her head snapped up in surprise and she turned to look at them. That had been far from the answer she'd been expecting. "What? How?"

"They're all dead," Brian said hurriedly, almost tripping over his words. He looked scared. "All of the Fingers. Colleen, there is no Hand. Not anymore. It's all gone."

He might as well have punched her in the stomach. It seemed… impossible. Unbelievable. How could something so good just be gone? For all of the faults of Gao's faction, it wasn't just Bakuto's work with troubled youths that was in jeopardy. What would happen to the charities that Alexandra Reid's foundation managed? The White Hat's outreach programs in Africa? If the Hand was truly gone, there were so many people that were going to suffer who would otherwise have found help and support. Like she had.

Mary and Brian exchanged a nervous look. "It was San Francisco, near as we can tell," Mary said. "That big 'terrorist attack' where they're saying the Avengers fought some evil robots. The Fingers were caught up in it, somehow. We don't know the details… who was fighting who."

"We don't know anything?" Whatever had happened in San Francisco hadn't been just a terrorist attack, Colleen was certain of it. If the Avengers were involved, whatever had happened had to have been serious, but the government and warmongers like Tony Stark had a vested interest in hiding their dirty laundry. They certainly didn't care about the little people that got caught in the crossfire.

"We have a name. That's all."

"What name?"

"Wanda Maximoff," Mary said, her tone deadly quiet, a small twitch of her lip giving away her feelings. She might as well have spat.

There was something about that name… "Why is that familiar?"

"You probably saw her in the news. She was there, in San Francisco," said Brian. "She's been working with the Avengers. Her brother's the newest member."

Of course. Colleen didn't really keep up with celebrity stuff, but a new Avenger joining the team was big, splashy news that had everyone talking about it. Pietro Maximoff… Quicksilver. She didn't know much about him, and even less about his sister. Only that she was Enhanced, somehow. Powerful. Dangerous.

Colleen stood up, turning to face her two former students properly. "Thank you. This… thank you for coming. Leave this with me."

Brian shook his head and took a deep breath, steeling himself. "You don't have to do this alone, Colleen. We're with you," he said.

Next to him, Mary's hands had tightened into fists. "We're all with you."

Colleen felt her heart swell, eyes misting up again, and she smiled. Raising her arms, she ushered the two of them into an embrace, squeezing them tightly. "Thank you. I know you're upset, but this is going to be dangerous. You've still got your whole lives ahead of you." She pulled back, hands lingering on their shoulders, and looked at them seriously. "Take care of the younger ones. Bakuto dedicated his life to helping other people get theirs back on track; you need to honour that legacy. Carry it forward. Promise me, okay?"

Reluctantly, the two of them nodded. Mary's face was twisted into a determined scowl, but Brian looked like he was almost on the verge of tears again. Colleen gave their shoulders a final squeeze before letting go.

"Go," she said. "Keep me in the loop. Let me know if there's anything else I can help with."

Brian reaching over and gently touched Mary on the arm. "Okay," Mary said, nodding again. She exchanged a final look with Brian, then the two of them quietly filtered out.

Once they were gone, Colleen picked up her grandfather's katana, feeling the weight of it, holding the saya tightly as her mind raced. The tenets of bushido demanded that she only carry her blade if she was willing to draw it, and to only draw it if she was willing to use it. To use it meant to cut… and to cut meant to kill.

Bakuto had given her everything. She'd learned so much from him. He'd treated her almost like a daughter. She wouldn't have had Chikara Dojo if it wasn't for him. The training, safety and opportunities she'd helped give to youth who'd needed it—none of it would have happened without him. Bakuto had done so much, helped so many people, touched so many lives… and now he was dead. Murdered. Everything he'd built was collapsing and all the people he would have carried out of poverty, out of despair, would now no longer get that chance.

Her grip tightened. She needed answers. Whoever had done this—whoever was responsible—she would find them and make them pay. She needed to find Wanda Maximoff.

 

[mythSSK]

Chapter 70

I frowned to myself as the unwelcome sound of an alarm penetrated the hazy half-sleep I was basking in—quiet rather than harsh, but steady and insistent. Natasha shifted in my embrace, awkwardly reaching over to her phone to swipe the alarm off before gently trying to disentangle herself from me. I made a sleepy noise of protest and resisted, easily overpowering her attempt to wiggle free.

"Wanda…"

I ignored the objection and, to put a stop to any further—extremely rude!—attempts to escape, I rolled on top of her, pinning her to the bed with the weight of my body, pressing my curves against hers.

"Wanda," she repeated patiently, a smile in her voice. "We have to get up."

I murmured an indistinct disagreement, burying my face in the crook of her neck for a moment and inhaling deeply, enjoying the heady girlsmell, before planting several feather-light kisses along her jawline. "You started setting your alarms, like, half an hour earlier than necessary," I murmured. With no small amount of effort, I lifted my head from her neck, propping myself up on an elbow so I could look at her, a lascivious smile curving my mouth. My free hand started to idly trace a path from the centre of her chest down to her stomach, fingertips gently dragging across soft, supple skin. "You thought I wouldn't notice but I did. So now, when your alarm goes off, that means I get to have you for half an hour before we have to get up."

Natasha laughed, then a small, involuntary gasp escaped her lips as my hand crept lower. "That was… not what my intention was."

"It's the best of both worlds—morning cuddles and fun and we still get to be on time."

"…You make a compelling argument."

Nearly half an hour later, flushed and satisfied, I wandered out of the bedroom wrapped in an olive-green satin robe I'd stolen from Natasha and headed down the short hallway toward the kitchen while she went for a shower. Yelena was standing at the kitchen bench and I stepped a bit closer as I saw what she was doing, my brow furrowing at the minor travesty unfolding before me.

"What are you doing?" I asked, a slightly pained tone in my voice.

Yelena glanced up at me, a little puzzled. "Making toast?" she ventured, and I pointed wordlessly to the jar of Vegemite she was committing crimes against. "Oh. Sorry. I haven't had it in ages, I thought you wouldn't mind."

I shook my head. "I don't care that you're using my Vegemite, it's just… that's your spread?"

"…What?"

I gestured to the bare suggestion of black, salty goodness that she had scraped across the toast, as if a yeasty ghost had breathed very gently on it. "That's a fucking weak spread."

"What?" Yelena blinked, looking a little offended as she glanced back down at her breakfast. "I don't like too much Vegemite on my toast," she said defensively.

"What are you, American? Thicken your spread, Yelena."

"No."

"Thicken your spread!"

"No!"

I set my jaw and scowled at her. "Do you want to see how a pro spreads Vegemite?"

Yelena closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, obviously embarrassed and ashamed at how weak her spread was. "No," she said again.

"Did I hear a yes?" She needed to be educated. I could help her.

"Absolutely not."

"Alright," I cracked my knuckles and grabbed some bread, dropping it into the toaster. "Watch and learn."

Yelena made a small noise of frustration in the back of her throat. While my bread toasted, she finished what she was doing and retreated a few steps to the small, square dining table behind us, leaving the butter and jar of Vegemite on the bench for me as I retrieved a plate. She started eating, studiously ignoring me as I waited for the toaster to pop. Once it did, I half turned to address her as I worked.

"Alright, so you want freshly toasted bread and a fuckload of 'mite."

"'Mite'?" Yelena asked, distastefully.

"Pros call it 'mite."

"No one calls it 'mite."

"You gotta spread the 'mite thick," I said, ignoring her as I prepared a more traditionally Australian Vegemite on toast.

She craned her neck a little to see what I was doing, her nose crinkling in disgust. "What are you doing? That is way too much."

"Yeah, you really want to cake it on there," I said absently as I finished making my toast. I took a moment to put things away and wipe the crumbs from the bench before walking over to where Yelena was sitting at the table and putting my plate down next to hers.

She stared at it for a moment. "Wanda, if I ate that it would make me sick."

"You know what makes me sick?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and gesturing to her half-eaten breakfast. "This weak spread!" Defiantly, I picked up my toast and took a big bite of it, the salty, yeasty umami flavour filling my mouth.

I paused. In my enthusiasm to demonstrate proper Vegemite etiquette to Yelena, I might have gone a little overboard. I chewed and swallowed, almost mechanically, processing my way through the overpoweringly thick spread. It was… a bit much, if I was being honest with myself. But that was Yelena's fault. I'd had no other choice. No time for regrets. I had to power through.

"What are you two arguing about?" Natasha asked, emerging from the hallway. She was already dressed and essentially ready to go.

"Wanda tried to poison me because I stole her Vegemite," Yelena said lightly.

I made a noise of protest around a mouthful of too-much Vegemite, swallowing it with a small cough. "Your sister was making a mockery of my culture."

Yelena's brow creased in confusion. "Aren't you Sokovian?"

"My other culture."

Nat stepped closer to me, looking at my half-eaten toast. She shot me a sceptical look and shook her head. "That's too much Vegemite."

"Hah!" Yelena shot me a smarmy grin, as if Nat's opinion meant that she'd won.

I harumphed grumpily and took another petulant bite of my toast.

"Finish eating and go for a shower," Nat instructed, lightly smacking me on the bottom with an open palm. "They're expecting us at nine."

I made a pleased noise and shuffled closer to her, sticking my butt out a little to invite her to do it again.

"Ugh." Yelena made a sound of disgust. "If you're going to be like that, please go back to the bedroom. It's way too early to deal with Wanda being Wanda."

Swallowing my mouthful of food, I shook my head. "You heard her," I said sadly, as though we had no other choice. "We have to go back to the bedroom."

"We really can't be late."

"I know, I know," I said, as if she were the one being difficult. "Gimme a minute."

I finished eating, then showered and got dressed while Natasha and Yelena chatted for a little bit. Once I was ready to leave, it was getting pretty close to nine; we were basically exactly on time. Nat and I said our goodbyes to Yelena, then I took out my sling ring and spun up a portal to a familiar hallway. The two of us stepped through and I dismissed the magic, hesitating slightly as I looked around. There was a tiny bit of anxiety gnawing at my stomach—I wasn't sure what sort of reception I was going to get, given what had happened the last time I was here.

I'd been putting off seeing Peter Parker. When we'd gotten back from Wakanda, we were advised through the Stark Relief Foundation that he'd been discharged and was recovering fine—superhumanly quickly, even—but talking to him directly had just seemed… daunting. There was a part of me that was terrified that Peter might blame me for what had happened. He wouldn't even be wrong to. And I just didn't want to face that. Instead, I'd spoken to the Avengers about him. Once it had been decided that they were interested in reaching out, Natasha had called and discussed it with May. I'd honestly been a little surprised when the offer had been made to let me tag along for this, but it was probably Natasha's doing; she knew how I felt about the whole situation and how much I wanted to help Peter.

Nat moved to the door of the apartment in front of us and knocked. After a few moments it opened and Peter's aunt, May, was there, greeting us with a warm smile. "Hi! Ms Romanoff? And Wanda." It might have just been my imagination, but I felt like May's smile turned a bit stiffer when she looked at me. My heart sank a little. I could hardly blame her, of course—I'd lied to her face the first time we'd met and pretty much immediately brought HYDRA crashing down on her and her family.

Nat lightly shook May's hand, a warm smile on her face. "Please, Natasha is fine. Thanks so much for agreeing to this; we really appreciate it."

"Oh, of course. It's been…" May paused to weigh her words. "The last few weeks have been a lot. Peter's really looking forward to this."

"Well, if you're all ready to go, would you mind if we stepped inside for a moment?" Natasha asked.

"Sure." May looked briefly surprised, but held the door open, moving out of the way so we could come inside.

Peter and Ned were both waiting in the living room just beyond the entrance to the apartment—Peter bouncing on his heels near the TV while his best friend sat on the dark grey corduroy couch. As Nat and I walked in, Ned practically leapt to his feet and the two boys hurried over to greet us.

"Hey Wanda!" Peter grinned. He, at least, seemed excited. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad, after all. "And uh, Ms Romanoff, it's really nice meeting you!"

"Hi, uh, Ms Romanoff, Ms Maximoff." Ned bobbed his head, almost vibrating with unconcealed nervous energy.

Huh. I hadn't actually heard someone say our surnames that close together before. There was a joke in there, somewhere, with the two -offs. Something about getting off? I needed a little time to think it through, come up with something really snappy I could pretend I'd made up on the spot later. "It's good to see the two of you again," I said, my lips compressed into a tight smile.

I glanced around, taking in the small changes to the apartment's décor. Some of the furniture had changed; a couple of May's large table lamps were either missing or replaced—presumably the originals had been broken—but the damage to the walls and flooring had been repaired. I had noticed a large new deadbolt on the front door, but apart from the small changes to the furnishings, very few signs remained of the home invasion that had happened here a few weeks ago.

I wanted to talk to Peter about what had happened and apologise to him properly, but I really needed to pick my moment. It wasn't something I wanted to discuss in front of everyone.

"It's really nice to finally meet you all," Nat said gently, a warm smile on her face.

"Everyone ready to go?" I asked, getting a small chorus of agreement in response, and I glanced at May. "We're just going to go straight from here, if you want to lock things up?"

She looked a little puzzled, but nodded and moved back to the front door, securing the deadbolt and ensuring it was all locked up. When she returned, I gave her a small nod of acknowledgement and held up my hands, focusing my magic on spinning up a portal. There were a few small gasps as the energy sparked and spiralled into being, coming together into a gateway with red wisps of chaos magic boiling off the edges. Greenery was visible on the other side.

Natasha looked around, shooting everyone a reassuring smile, and walked through first. I gestured for everyone else to follow her, leaving myself for last.

"Woah," Ned breathed quietly once I'd dismissed the portal behind us. "This is so cool."

We were outside the main, central building at the upstate Avengers compound, standing on the footpath leading to the riverside structures, surrounded by well-manicured hedges and gardens. Steve, Pietro and Sam were waiting for us, all dressed down in casual, everyday wear, and stepped forward to make introductions and shake hands.

The Avengers lineup was actually getting pretty large. Sam—the Falcon—had been on the outskirts for a little while, but had officially moved in within the last few days. In Eliza's wake, Rhodey had also been made the Avengers' official, on‑site government liaison and was a kind of pseudo-member. On the non-Avenger side, Dr Cho had also apparently just moved her lab from South Korea and was going to be helping out with monitoring Shuri's condition. I was interested in seeing what Shuri might think of her Regeneration Cradle. There was a lot happening around the place that I was only getting second-hand from Natasha and Pietro. On the one hand, I was really pleased to see the Avengers recruiting and getting solid supports in place but, on the other, it really felt like the universe wanted to rub in my face the fact that literally everyone seemed to be moving in and joining the team but me.

Our group headed into the building and upstairs to the briefing room in the main common area—it was a good place to do this sort of thing, I thought; straddling the line between casual and professional, showing the warmer, homey side of the team alongside the more formal and serious stuff. Tony and Rhodey were already there waiting for us.

"Woah, Mr Stark! It's so awesome to meet you! I'm a really big fan of your work," Peter gushed, stars in his eyes, as they shook hands with him.

Well, some things never change, I guess. Hopefully, with the way things were happening, he wouldn't get quite so attached to Tony—I was intending on doing what I could to push him a little bit more toward Steve and Pietro, instead, but I wasn't sure how well I was going to succeed. I was glad that no one had any issues with me being here for this, even though I wasn't part of the team, but I knew I probably wasn't really going be able to be as involved with Peter as I would have liked to be.

As the Avengers and their guests gathered around the conference table to go over what they envisioned their trainee initiative was going to look like, I hung back, stepping away to sit and listen in from a nearby couch. It was all pretty straightforward. Peter's anonymity as Spider-Man would remain intact, he could continue operating as he had wanted to—keep on being a Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man—but he'd have access to support and training opportunities through the team, mostly on weekends and during school breaks.

He wouldn't go on any official missions—at least, not at first, not anytime soon—and after a couple of years, once he'd graduated school, he'd have the opportunity to graduate to a full member of the Avengers. I hadn't really been expecting Rhodey to be part of the conversation, but it made sense in retrospect that an 'official' government rep would be able to provide some additional reassurances to set May's mind at ease. Playing the vigilante was still more than a little bit of a legal grey area, but Rhodey wasn't going to be dobbing him in.

The team asked for consent to run bloodwork and other tests to check over what had actually happened to give him his powers and make sure there weren't any deleterious side effects or complications, but it was all purely voluntary and he could say no with no repercussions. There would never be any obligations on Peter's end. He could withdraw at any point and it wouldn't be a problem if, at the end, he decided he wanted to do something else and not join the team. Steve made it very clear that the only thing that they wanted was to do whatever was best for Peter.

While the rest of them spoke, Pietro snuck over to where I was sitting and dropped down onto the couch next to me. "You've been avoiding me," he said reproachfully, speaking quietly so as not to distract or be overheard.

"I haven't been avoiding you. We literally text every day."

"But you haven't come by the compound much. Natasha sees you more than I do."

"I've mostly just been doing nothing—just relaxing, reading, watching TV and stuff—you'd get bored and I didn't want to cause any issues with Shuri while she's settling in. You'll see me again tomorrow and probably Monday, too, and we'll probably be spending the entire day together on Tuesday."

"With Nat."

"You like hanging out with Nat."

"…I do," he conceding, a little grumpily. "I just… okay. You haven't been avoiding me. I don't know. It just feels weird, being here."

"You've been an Avenger for less than a week. Give it some time, you'll adjust." I glanced back at the conference table where the others were still going over a few details, lowering my voice even further. "Peter's a good kid. I really need you to look out for him, okay? Be the fun uncle."

Pietro sighed and nodded. "I'll keep an eye on him."

We sat quietly for a few more minutes, listening in to the conversation at the conference table. After a little while, everything had finally been gone over to everyone's satisfaction, and I watched carefully as May turned to her nephew. "Are you sure this is what you want to do, Peter?" she asked, looking at him seriously.

Peter nodded. With a bit of hesitation in his tone he said, "Yeah, I think so. This is a lot better than me being on my own, isn't it? It's… I want to be an Avenger."

"It's not all fun and games, being famous," May said. "It's going to be hard work."

"I know. I… I have to do this. When you can do the things that I can, if you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you."

"With great power comes great responsibility," I quoted softly to myself, looking down at my hands and flexing my fingers slightly. "Don't I know it."

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do," May said, her tone firm.

Peter met her eyes and nodded again, a little more steel in his backbone. "I want to," he said.

May nodded. "Okay."

"Well, I think that's about it, then. Did you have any other questions?" Steve asked, looking between the three people on the other side of the table.

May and Peter exchanged a look, then shook their heads. "I don't think so," May started to say, but was interrupted by an extremely nervous Ned.

"Um! Actually, uh, Mr Rogers? Captain, sir?"

"What is it, son?" he asked gently, an easy smile on his face.

"I uh, I really don't want to sound ungrateful—being here for this is probably the coolest thing that's ever happened to me. But, um. Obviously, we're here for Peter, and I get why May is here, but May said that you asked for me as well. Like, specifically. I don't… um. Why?"

"Actually," Steve said, looking over in my direction. He raised his eyebrows and lifted his chin, silently inviting me over. "It was Wanda that insisted you come."

"Oh. Um." That obviously didn't really answer the teen's question and he hesitated, wondering if he should press the issue.

I stood up, walking over toward the table—Pietro in tow—as I glanced toward Steve. "Did you manage to get someone from Kamar-taj?" I asked him.

Next to him, Natasha checked the time on her phone. "They should be here any second, if they're not already." She stood up and walked over to the window, looking down at the grounds. "Yep. Looks like they sent Master Wong."

"Huh," I said, a little surprised. I'd been expecting Mordo, if anyone. I wouldn't have thought Wong would leave Kamar‑taj very often, given his duties as librarian, and he wasn't really responsible for training new students. Why would the Ancient One have sent him?

We decamped from the briefing room as a group, heading out to meet the sorcerer as he sat placidly on a bench, watching a brace of ducks that were paddling by on the river. As we drew closer, he stood up and gave a shallow, respectful bow before stepping in to shake Steve's hand. "Thanks for coming, Master Wong," Steve said.

"It's a welcome distraction." Wong looked critically at the two teens, inclining his head in a silent acknowledgement of them, then turned to me. "Which is the boy you spoke of?" he asked, a little sharply.

I faltered for a moment. Maybe I was just feeling a little sensitive at the moment, but his tone wasn't exactly where I'd have liked it to be. I knew I wasn't the most popular girl at Kamar-taj, but Wong was… Wong. Wongers. I'd never really thought of myself as someone who needed the approval of others, but the last couple of days were really starting to wear on me, seeing just how many good people really didn't like me. Jessica, Karen, May, and now Wong… God. I wasn't sure if knowing that most of them had perfectly valid reasons to feel the way they did made it better or worse.

Hiding my sudden attack of discomfort by clearing my throat, I looked over at the boys. "Ned?"

"Um, yes?"

Wong stepped closer to him and the rotund boy shrank back, obviously feeling a little intimidated. "Wanda believes you have a great deal of potential for the mystic arts."

"The… the mystic arts?" Ned stammered, a little confused.

"Magic, Ned," I said, then turned to Wong. "Give him like, a very brief overview, then let him borrow your sling ring and run him through a basic lesson on how to use it."

"That's not how teaching sorcery works," Wong objected, a frown creasing his face. He shook his head. "Using a sling ring cannot be taught in a single day. He needs to learn visualisation, how to draw and focus the energies of other dimensions and channel it through his meridians. Weeks of intensive training, at a minimum. Months, more usually. Then, there are the fourteen rules of portal safety that students must learn before they are even allowed to attempt to make a portal."

"I figured out how to use a sling ring, on my own, in less than half an hour."

"You are a special case. You already knew how to channel and control magical energies, and your chaos magic bends the rules of reality."

I shrugged. "Just do it. Trust me. I bet he figures it out even quicker than I did."

Wong shot me a suspicious look, but reluctantly nodded his assent. Just before he began, I straightened up, a thought occurring to me, and turned to Peter. "You should give it a go, too," I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my own ring. I pressed it into the teen's hand. "I really don't think you'll pick it up the same way Ned will, but still. Worth checking. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it… maybe everyone should try? It can't hurt?" I glanced around the gathered Avengers, who all suddenly had very thoughtful looks on their faces.

Wong looked at the ring I'd just given Peter disapprovingly. "I thought that had been destroyed in the battle with Eliza," he said, a minor rebuke in his tone.

"Guess not," I said with another shrug. "Are you good to run everyone through a basic lesson, or…?"

"This is highly irregular," he said. "The Sorcerer Supreme determines whether a person is allowed to join Kamar-taj and learn the mystic arts—that decision is reserved for her and her alone. She bade me to come on your recommendation to examine the potential of a particularly gifted individual. That is all I am supposed to be doing here."

"Alright, well, you can do that, and we'll just be over here, with everyone listening in. And taking turns trying to use my sling ring."

The sorcerer made a frustrated noise of disapproval, halfway between a grunt and a sigh, but turned to Ned and started to run through a high level, basic primer on what magic is and how sorcerers used it.

Twenty minutes later, the teen was looking dumbfoundedly through a swirling orange circle of sparks to see his bedroom on the other side. No one else, of course, managed to conjure so much as the faintest glimmer of energy.

"Salamangkero," Ned murmured absently to himself. "Lola always said we had magic in our family."

Wong looked almost as flummoxed as Ned did. "That is… astounding," he said, looking over at me with disbelief in his eyes. "I've never heard of someone picking up the basics so quickly."

After a few seconds, Ned's concentration wavered and the portal collapsed, but he was still staring at his own hands like he'd just manifested superpowers. Which I guess he sort of had?

Wong stepped up to him and gently retrieved the sling ring. "You will not make a portal again until you can recite the fourteen rules by heart. Am I understood?"

"Uh, y-yes, Mr Wong. Sir."

"Master Wong," Wong corrected him, then turned to May, who was also looking wide-eyed at Ned. "The boy has a rare talent. I am not sure how deeply it goes, but he has a natural gift for channelling magical energies. I would recommend him to the Ancient One for training at Kamar-taj."

"Where's Kamar-taj?" Peter asked, a little uncertainly.

I raised a hand to catch Wong's attention. "Ned's still in high school. Would it be possible at all for him to commute to Kamar-taj via the New York Sanctum? Learn part-time while he's still in school?"

"It would be highly irregular…"

"I mean, so is basically everything else I've been even remotely involved in, right?"

Wong 'hrmmmm'ed. "The Ancient One may allow it. I will raise it when I speak with her." He turned back to Ned. "If you would be interested in becoming a student, that is."

"…You're asking me if I want to learn magic?" Ned asked, still a little shellshocked. "Yeah! I mean… Yeah!"

"Ned…" May interjected. "You'll need to talk to your Lola, first."

He shook his head jerkily, a massive goofy grin splitting his face. "Oh, yeah, I will. She'll be okay with it, definitely. I'll ask as soon as I get home."

Wong nodded. "Very well. Should the Ancient One be amenable to Wanda's proposed arrangement, I will be in touch." He turned back to the Avengers. "Unless there is anything else, I will return to Kamar-taj."

"Thank you again for your time, Master Wong," Steve responded warmly.

With that, the sorcerer spun up a portal and headed through, shooting me one last considering look before the gateway closed behind him.

Tony took the opportunity to step forward. "So, May, I was thinking—it okay if we hold onto Peter for a little while longer today? We'll give him a proper tour of the compound, do lunch, that sort of thing." He shot Peter a smile and wink. "I'll let him have a peek at the labs. I hear he's a bit of a tech head."

Peter almost started vibrating at the mere suggestion of getting to take a look around one of Tony Stark's personal labs and he shot May a look, his eyes wide and pleading. She smiled and shook her head. "Sure. That'd be fine. Just drop him back before dinner, okay?"