Chapter 9
They landed with an almighty crash, the sound of sirens already blaring in their ears. Wanda's hands were still locked tight around the glowing orb clasped to her chest as she looked up to see one of Stark's drones hovering above her.
“This area is unsafe. Please evacuate. This area is unsafe.”
“That's ominous,” Clint said, pushing himself up and hooking a comm unit into his ear. “Tony, come in. Your freaky robocops are here and-”
“Look out!” Wanda screamed suddenly, blasting them off their feet and out of the charred circle of pavement with a burst of red light. A giant explosion roared out of the ground, incinerating the droid in the air and radiating heat out.
Stark, Wanda called, searching for his mind. He reached back out to her with a wave of fear and shock.
What the hell is going on?
We've been followed.
How is that even possible?
I don't know, you're the scientist!
She could feel his grim resignation. Steve and Nat are on their way. We have to hold them until we can figure out what this is.
“Hold them!” Wanda yelled. Thor swirled, confused.
“Hold who?”
A demon burst out of the column of flame, roaring straight for his neck. A beam of golden light blasted it into ash before Thor could raise his hammer.
“Them,” Vision said dryly.
More demons were descending from the flames. Stark! Wanda screeched inside her head.
Coming, coming, he thought back, skidding to a landing beside her with a repulsor blast to knock out a demon. “Barton, what the hell did you do?”
“I didn't do anything!”
The column of fire shrank back into the ground, revealing a swarming mass of demons filling a seemingly bottomless hole. Tony shot another demon out of the sky. “Clearly, you guys did something!”
“Hel turned out to be a bit of a pissy bitch, so we had to improvise.”
“Improvise what?”
“I stole my brother's soul from her,” Wanda said. “And Barton blew up an arrow in her face.”
Tony flipped up his faceplate to stare at her, dumbfounded. “You guys pissed off the Asguardian goddess of the dead?”
“She pissed us off first,” Barton grumbled, releasing another batch of arrows into a group of demons' necks.
“You said you got the soul, though, right?” Tony said.
She nodded to the orb in her hands.
“Okay. Rhodey's guarding your brother on the top floor,” he said. “Hurry.”
Steve and Nat materialized inside the quinjet and immediately sprinted for the door.
“Do you ever worry that you'll end up splinched by that thing, like in Harry Potter?” Natasha asked.
“Fortunately, every time I've had to use it I've had bigger worries on my mind,” he said. He put a hand to his comm as they ran out into the sunlight of the roof. “Tell me what we've got.”
“Demons!” Thor bellowed in his ear. Steve sighed, reaching the edge of the building and gazing down upon a sea of chaos.
A giant hole had opened in the center of the mercifully deserted street. Sam swooped past him, wings tucked before banking hard and shooting down a flock of demons. Machine gun fire just below them took out some more – Rhodey, positioned on the top floor. The rest of the avengers were all doing their best to keep the demons from moving too far from the circle, but they were clearly losing ground with every new wave of the beasts.
Wanda, Steve thought loudly, feeling a little ridiculous until she answered him wordlessly, opening the channel between their minds.
You got what you came for? he said.
Yes, she thought. I need to get to my brother.
Okay. Grab Vision and go as soon as you can.
“Priority one is containment,” he said into the comms. “Priority two is getting Wanda to the top floor. Keep those things contained, you hear me? I don't want any reaching so much as the next street.”
“Easier said than done, Cap,” Tony said tightly.
An unearthly roar echoed behind Steve and he whirled around just in time to dodge the door to the quinjet flying off its hinges. The Hulk stood panting in the empty doorway.
“Well. This should help,” Steve said.
Hulk roared again.
“Hi,” Steve said awkwardly. “Um. Go smash?”
With a grin, the beast leapt off the roof. “Just be careful of the buildings!” Steve yelled after him. He turned to Nat, who stood looking slightly dumbfounded. “Did you know about that?”
She shook her head weakly.
Below them, the others yelled in shock at the Hulk's sudden appearance. “Bruce!” Tony yelled gleefully. He zoomed up close to the Hulk and wrapped his metal arms around him in a hug. “I've missed you, big guy.”
“Stark, what the hell are you doing?” Natasha said.
With an irritated grunt, Hulk threw him off into the side of a building.
“Okay,” Tony said weakly, plastered in an Iron-man-shaped dent. “We can talk later.”
Natasha rolled her eyes. “Stark, can you still fly?”
“Yeah,” he said suspiciously.
“Cool.” She stepped up onto the edge of the roof. “Catch.”
She winked at Steve and threw herself off the building.
Tony caught her mid-fall. “Fuck you,” he snapped. Steve chuckled. “Fuck you too, Rodgers, she gets this from you.”
“You just missed an amazing opportunity to quote Enchanted,” Natasha said haughtily. “Take me to Clint.”
They blasted off, Tony's irritated muttering low in Steve's comm.
“Okay. I could use a lift down,” Steve called.
“I got you,” Sam said, swooping up in a wide arc to scoop Steve up off the roof. He kissed him on the cheek as they flew. “Hey, babe.”
“Is now really the time?” Steve said with a grin.
“I missed you,” Sam said, shrugging, dropping Steve a few feet from the ground and swinging back up into the air.
“Why are you still here?” Steve yelled across the street to Wanda, flinging his shield into a row of demons.
She nodded, looked around. “Vision!”
He appeared at her side instantly, phasing through the crowd between them. A moment of silent communication seemed to pass between them before he swept her up in his arms and took off.
Steve's shield returned to him and he caught it with one hand, watching his teammates rise into the air before plunging back into the fray.
Vision's arms were steady underneath Wanda as they flew, dodging demons left and right as they ducked and weaved upwards. The orb Wanda clutched to her chest began to hum, slow and steady, as though it could sense that it was coming home.
The top floor was hidden by a thick swarm of demons. Flashes of light and falling bodies let them know where Tony was, while Sam swooped up and down around the beasts, knocking them out of the sky. “Hold on,” Vision said quietly in her ear. She did, wrapping an arm around his neck and clinging tightly to her brother's soul. Demons came at them from all sides, a beam like a floodlight pouring out of Vision's forehead and incinerating them. Their screams bounced around her, and she pressed her head into his chest trying to block it out. The orb's vibrations shook her whole arm.
There was the sudden rattling of a machine gun, cutting through the sound of the screaming, and then Rhodey's unmistakable voice:
“I. Hate. Aliens.”
Vision lowered her gently to the floor as she looked around the lab. Rhodey flipped back his visor. “You okay, kid?”
Wanda nodded. “Where is he?”
“Back-” A demon charged the window and Rhodey blasted it away. “In the big metal casket.”
Vision and Wanda hurried over, peering over the edge of the metal container. Wanda swallowed a gasp at the sight of his body lying there. He was so still, so silent. This neat and orderly body was not her brother, who brimmed with so much energy that he was constantly moving, who twitched and mumbled in his sleep, who's foot beat out an incomprehensibly fast rhythm when he sat. Her grip tightened on the orb.
“Do you know what you're doing?” Vision said.
Wanda shrugged. “Not really,” she said, and she plunged the orb into his chest.
The reaction outside was instantaneous. A great gust of wind howled out of the hole, sucking the demons back down its maw. The Avengers all ducked. Steve planted his shield two inches into the concrete. Thor grabbed a lamppost. Natasha and Clint gripped the curb and each others hands, while above them Sam and Tony clung to the side of the building with their fingertips. Hulk simply sat. They could hear a furious and unearthly shrieking from deep within the ground, and it sounded to each of them like a voice they knew, calling for them to let go, to come back, to join them, save them, please-
Clint squeezed Natasha's hand tighter. “Don't let go,” he said.
“Of you,” she panted, “or the curb?”
“Both,” he gasped.
She wrapped her fingers around his. “I've got you.”
Inside, a wind was swirling around Wanda, her eyes aglow, her hands planted on her brother's chest. She let out a long, strangled hiss. Beneath her, Pietro writhed and jerked. The machines were screaming around them. Rhodey clung to the doorframe, expression awestruck and frightened. Vision stood firmly planted against Wanda's winds, eyes locked only on her.
“What is happening?” Rhodey yelled.
“Trust her,” Vision said. “She can do it.”
Wanda's whole body was lit from within. The glow was spreading down towards Pietro, into his chest, his face, his arms. They rose slightly in the air, hovering, shining, like the worlds most powerful constellation- and then Wanda threw back her head and let out an almighty shriek, a sound to wake the dead.
Pietro opened his eyes.
The wind let up so suddenly that gravity seemed to reassert its hold on them with a vengeance, all of them collapsing back into the ground with thuds. Steve lay there for a moment, catching his breath, running a brief diagnostic on himself – no broken bones, no cracked ribs, he may have pulled a muscle in his leg and he was bleeding from the arm but it wasn't too serious -
A low growl filled his ears.
“Hulk,” he said warningly.
The green giant was standing at the edge of the hole, every muscle tensed in his back. He snarled at the abyss.
“Nat,” Steve said. “I could really use a lullabye.”
“You really think it'll work?” she said nervously.
Hulk snorted irritably.
“If you don't do something he's going to jump in there after those things.”
“Steve, it's a trust thing, I'm not sure if he still-”
“Nat!”
She had seen it before he did, moving with lightening speed and grace to slide in between the hole and the Hulk before he could complete his jump, her hand stretched out to the beast.
“Hey, big guy,” she said. “You're not going to disappear on me again, are you?”
Hulk paused, considering her. She smiled encouragingly. “That's right. Remember me?”
He tilted his head, eyes watching hers. “Remember?” she said again, hand still reaching.
Something like a smile softened his features and was mirrored on Natasha's face. “Sun's getting real low,” she murmured, and he placed his palm in hers. She grinned, tears burning in her eyes as he shuddered, shrunk, and she reached out and caught-
“Bruce?”
He blinked up at her, confused. “Did we win?”
She laughed, a tear spilling down her cheek. “Yeah. I think we did.”
He reached up to wipe the tear away. “Good,” he said, and kissed her.
“This doesn't mean everything has to be fixed,” he said, pulling back after a moment.
“I know,” she said, moving back in.
“I understand if you're still mad,” he said. “We still have a lot of issues. I don't want to invalidate any of your feelings.”
“Bruce?” she said. “The only feeling you're invalidating right now is how badly I want to kiss you.”
He grinned. “Well, okay then,” he said, and pulled her down to kiss her again.
Wanda collapsed backwards into Vision's waiting arms as Pietro sat up, brushing away tubes and wires with a superhumanly fast flick of the wrist and practically leaping out of the casket to pull her from Vision's arms.
“Are you alright?” he said worriedly, rapidly scanning for any injuries. Wanda began to laugh uncontrollably. “What?” he said.
“You were dead thirty seconds ago,” she said, gently cupping his face. “Are you alright?”
He stared at her, eyes filled with dawning comprehension and a wondrous combination of love and sadness and awe. “You saved me,” he said.
“Of course I did,” she said, brushing back his hair. “Of course I did.”
He pulled her in tight, arms locked around her, the two of them just breathing each other in, her hands pressed to his chest, on his neck, where she could feel his heart pound and feel his lungs expanding, and for the first time since she'd felt him ripped away, Wanda felt whole once more.
“Oh, thank god.”
They looked up to the doorway, where the Avengers stood silhouetted. Wanda ran into Clint's arms, tears streaming down her face. He kissed her forehead, held her tight. “You done good, kid,” he said. Then he opened his arms wider. “C'mere, you quick little bastard.”
Pietro was there in less than a second. “Thank you,” Clint murmured, arm wrapped around his shoulders. Wanda could feel her brother beginning to shake and squeezed Pietro's hand tight.
They stepped back, looked to the rest – who enveloped them in hugs as well. Steve was crying openly. Sam and Rhodey introduced themselves for the first time. There was a very awkward reunion with Bruce, smoothed over by Clint threatening to hang him off the roof by an arrow then hugging him and crying. Natasha gently checked Wanda for any injuries before stroking her face and telling her she was proud of her. Steve's phone rang and he paled before answering it.
“Director Fury, sir, I would have called you-”
“What the damn hell is going on?”
“Sir-”
“I go to the Bahamas for one week and you decide its time to destroy Seoul?”
“We had no civilian casualties-”
“Congratulations, you did your damn job. Now why the hell did you have to do it?”
“Sir, if it makes you feel any better, we did recover an asset.”
“Which asset?”
“Quicksilver.”
There was a very long silence.
“I'm taking another vacation,” Fury said, and hung up.
“Does anyone have champagne?” Tony said. “I'm sure there's some on the quinjet, hold on.”
Wanda and Vision had gravitated back towards each other, almost but not quite touching. Pietro took one look at them and threw up his hands. “Really? Really? I'm dead for three months and you start sleeping with the robot?”
“Android,” Vision said indignantly.
“I hate you,” Wanda hissed, face scarlet.
Tony returned with a bottle of champagne and passed around the glasses. “Alright,” he said, raising his. “Pietro. To your good health.”
“Hear, hear,” they all chorused. Wanda slipped her hand into Pietro's as she took a sip.
Never leave me again, she thought.
I'll do my best, he thought back, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.
The sun was just beginning to set outside the broken windows. Without speaking, they all moved to the edge of the building and sat, leaning against each other to watch the day end.
Wanda closed her eyes, and for the first time in a long time, she didn't feel like she was falling. She felt her brothers hand in hers, Vision's chest against her back, Clint's head in her lap, Natasha's foot tapping hers, a living, breathing pile all around her, and she felt like she was flying.