Grin and Bear It

You didn't pop. At least not during the next twenty-four hours, which was the length of time Bruce insisted you stay in bed, despite your repeat attempts to convince him you were fine.

Nat visited once, bringing a book. Some silly romance she picked up at a train station during a solo mission in Spain. But for how much she tried to downplay the novel, the deep crease on the spine told a different story. And it was a page turner. So much so that your enhanced hearing didn't pick up Wanda's hesitant steps as she approached your bed, carrying a plate of lemon bars. It didn't help that you were in the middle of one of the story's steamier bits...

"Hi, Y/N. How are you feeling?" Her voice made you jump, and your face flushed like you'd just been caught watching porn. You shoved the book under the blanket, but not before Wanda caught a glimpse of the cover. "Oh, that's a good one."

Your face flushed even more, and you were surprised your heart rate monitor wasn't chirping with alarm. "You've read it?"

"Nat left it in the lounge once and I was bored. But it was pretty good." Wanda winked as she set down the plate of lemon bars. "I thought you might like these."

You stared at the plate. Lemon bars. Your favorite. You pushed aside the implication that Wanda had dug through much more of your brain than you realized. "You made these?"

Wanda shrugged, a bit embarrassed. "It wasn't too hard. I like to cook. I promise they're not poisoned."

You picked one up and gently took a bite, your mouth filling with gooey, lemony goodness. "Wanda, these are amazing," you gushed. "What are you doing fighting with the Avengers? You should open a bakery."

Wanda smiled and, unlike the previous times, it lingered. "Before," she waved her hand, "all this, I wanted to open a cafe in Sokovia." Her smile faded. "It would've been nice."

Clint popped his head into the room. "Wanda, it's time for the team meeting."

Wanda nodded and followed him out. "I'll see you later, Y/N."

"Thank you!" you yelled after her as you polished off the lemon bar and immediately went for seconds.

Wanda and Clint were the last two to sit down at the conference table, where Bruce was already laying out the day's most pressing issue -- you.

"I can't keep her in bed indefinitely. She's medically fine and she knows it."

"Well then," Tony said. "What are our options? We let her go? Put her in a cell next to her good-for-nothing foster dad? Or, better yet, have them share a cell, make some popcorn, and watch them fight it out?"

Tony earned glares from everyone, but the strongest was from Nat. "Why don't we just give her a room in the compound? It's not like we don't have the space."

Steve leveled his gaze at Nat, a worried crease forming between his eyes. "You're suggesting she join the team."

Nat chose her next words even more carefully than usual. "No, I'm suggesting we give her a chance to decide if she wants to join the team. I've seen her fight. If she was going to try to hurt us or prison break Kilroy, she would've done it by now. Instead, she's following doctor's orders, staying in bed, reading books, and eating Wanda's lemon bars."

Clint turned to Wanda with a look of betrayal. "Why don't you ever make us lemon bars?"

Wanda simply crossed her arms, but Bruce zeroed in on her as well. "You were in her head. What do you think? I can't pretend I'm not intrigued at the prospect of studying someone who's received two doses of serum, but is this even something she would want?"

Wanda stared down at the table, overwhelmed as all eyes fell on her. "You should ask her yourself. As you said, she is medically fine."

Nat suppressed a smile at Wanda's snark. Maybe the young woman was finally coming out of her shell. And if you were helping with that, it was even more reason to keep you around.

"Wanda's right," Steve said with a sigh. "We owe it to her to be up front. Should we bring her in? Do this properly?"

Bruce shrugged. "I don't see why not." He craned his neck to the ceiling, "JARVIS, can you have someone from the medical team escort Ms. Y/L/N to the conference room, please?"

"Certainly, sir," the calm, robotic voice immediately responded.

"So," Clint turned to Bruce with a mischievous grin. "Do you think she's stronger than Steve? Thor?"

"That's a good question," Bruce replied, playing along. "I guess we'll have to run some tests."

Steve shook his head with a smile as JARVIS' voice filled the room. "Apologies, but the medical team has alerted me that Ms. Y/L/N is gone."

Bruce was already on his feet. "Gone? Where did she go?"

"Unfortunately, sir," JARVIS continued, "her biometrics are not in our system. But Ms. Romanoff's tracking device shows she's in the basement."

Now Nat was on her feet, Clint right behind her. "Kilroy," she said. You'd gotten one over on her yet again, but this time she was at a loss as to why. Did you want to kill him? Rescue him? You hadn't spoken of him once since you'd been at the compound, so why now?

Steve led the charge out of the conference room while Tony lingered in his seat. "I'll make the popcorn," he called out as the rest of the team headed for the elevators.

The idea came to you as soon as Clint had said "team meeting," meaning the likelihood of running into one of the Avengers on their coffee break was low. It was admittedly half-baked, and you didn't know where you were going let alone what you would say once you got there. But armed with Wanda's lemon bars, you decided you'd stayed in bed long enough and, painful memories still fresh in your head, it was time to get some answers.

Finding the elevator was easy enough and you had a pretty good feeling that wherever the Avengers were keeping Kilroy, it was probably in the basement. They may be "Earth's mightiest heroes" and all but that didn't make them exempt from predictable architecture.

Kilroy had long ago showed you how to obstruct the doors of an elevator to keep the car from being recalled. So, as you stepped into the dimly lit hallway, you left Wanda's plate sitting on the floor, leaving the doors to comically close, then instantly jolt back open again, rendering the lift useless.

You munched on the last lemon bar as you got your bearings. You were definitely on the right level, passing by several empty rooms that, nicer than your prison cell by far, were still clearly meant for containing people.

And then, there he was, the man responsible for so much of your fucked up life. Slumped on a bench, defeated. Looking so unlike himself that you questioned if it was really him. Until...

"Y/N! Boy, am I glad to see you. I knew you'd come. How much time do we have? I've been thinking up a couple escape plans––" Kilroy pressed himself up against the window, his usual vigor and cunning back with a vengeance.

"Stop." You shook your head in disbelief. "I'm not here to do anything with you. I'm not doing anything with you ever again."

Kilroy studied your face, your physique. "They hurt you, didn't they? Those bastards! What did they do?"

"They kept me alive," you spat back. "And unlike some people, they don't expect anything in return."

Bruce pushed the call button again. "Something's wrong with the elevator."

Nat rolled her eyes as Bruce stated the obvious. "Steve, maybe you should..." Nat gestured to the elevator and Steve took the hint, forcing the doors open manually.

He looked down the empty shaft. "Seems like Y/N knows how to buy herself some time."

"I'll take the stairs," Clint said, heading for the stairwell.

Bruce held up his hands. "Confined spaces. Not a fan. I don't need Tony billing me for repairs if things go green. I'll be in my lab if you need me."

Nat turned to Steve. "Age before beauty."

Steve shook his head as he grabbed onto the cable, effortlessly sliding down. Nat followed a few seconds later and Wanda brought up the rear, choosing to use her magic to levitate down instead.

They landed on the roof of the elevator car and Nat immediately got to work opening the hatch. She looked up at Wanda. "Is Kilroy still alive?"

Wanda took a second to scan the space and then nodded. "I think... I think they're just talking."

Kilroy stared at you, genuinely hurt. "What do you mean, Y/N? I never used you. I merely helped you uncover your full potential."

"As what? As a criminal? As your personal hitman? Why can't you just admit it? All you wanted me for was to do your dirty work."

"Listen to yourself," Kilroy's voice took on a disappointed tone, a tone you knew all too well. "Imagine what Seb and Louis would say if they were here."

Hearing their names flipped a switch in your brain and suddenly you were just as tight against the window as Kilroy, starring daggers through the thick, reinforced glass. "You bastard! You don't get to say their names. They're dead because of you!"

You curled your fist and punched the sturdy metal door. It buckled under your knuckles like soft butter, and you were amazed by the deep imprint left behind when you withdrew your hand. Either the Avenger's security was shocking lax, or you'd suddenly gotten much stronger.

"Isn't that door reinforced with vibranium?" You turned your head as a panting Clint caught up to Nat, Wanda and, emerging from the stalled elevator, none other than Captain America himself. Well, shit.

"I guess we know who's stronger," Nat whispered to a shocked Captain America. Or at least you assumed it was meant to be a whisper. To you, it sounded like she was yelling over a large crowd. Yeah, that was going to take some getting used to.

"Hey, Y/N." Captain America stepped to the front of the group. "I don't think we've properly met. I'm Steve. And that's a really impressive right hook. Why don't we find someplace to talk?"

You glanced at Kilroy, face still hovering just behind the reinforced glass. "You can take them, Y/N," he hissed. You hated him. You hated him so goddamn much. But what pissed you off even more was that he still thought you were going to save him. He still thought you were on his side and that, by extension, he was in control of you.

In one fluid motion you punched the window, shattering the glass, and wrapped your hand around his neck. "I don't take orders from you anymore." With every punctuated word you tightened your grip, closing off more and more of his windpipe.

Kilroy struggled to breathe, and Steve stepped forward, a stern look on his face. "Y/N, let him go. Killing him isn't the answer. He's not worth it."

You stared at Kilroy, his face slowly turning from red to purple as you kept a firm grip on his throat. "Tell that to the witch who killed your brothers," he choked out. You followed Kilroy's gaze as he looked over your shoulder at Wanda.

You dropped your hold and Kilroy slumped to the ground, gasping for breath. "You killed them?" you asked Wanda, hands clenched in fists at your side. That one of the Avengers had seemed obvious, but something about it being Wanda made you feel sick to your stomach.

"It was an accident," Wanda said. "I didn't mean to," she met your eyes for a moment before staring at the floor.

"Were you going to tell me? Or were you just gonna keep giving me baked goods?"

Now it was Natasha's turn to try and keep the peace. "Let's go back upstairs. We clearly have a lot to talk about."

You shook your head, less out of disagreement and more to keep the tears pricking your eyes at bay. You weren't a crier; Kilroy made sure of that. But shit if the last few days weren't putting you to the test.

"This was a mistake." You grabbed the tracking bracelet on your wrist and pulled with everything you had. It was ten times stronger than Kilroy's cell door but finally, you felt the vibranium start to weaken and the bracelet snapped in half, clanking to the concrete floor.

"Shit," Clint gasped, the same feeling evident on everyone's faces. You walked calmly down the hallway towards the stairwell, surprised when none of the Avengers tried to intervene.

"Aren't we going to stop her?" Wanda asked her teammates as you disappeared up the stairs.

"This isn't a prison, Wanda," Steve said, uncomfortable with the irony of standing in front of Kilroy's busted cell. "If Y/N wants to leave, that's her choice."

"This is all my fault," Wanda said, guilt slipping into her voice. "If I had better control of my powers..." her words trailed off and Natasha squeezed her arm, knowing all too well where her mind had wandered.

"You were acting in self-defense, Wanda," Nat reassured her. "You did nothing wrong."

"I don't like this," Clint said, face full of worry. "She's scared, confused, still testing the limits of her new abilities––"

"Not to mention she tore through pure vibranium," Nat added, picking up the two halves of the tracking bracelet off the floor. "Bruce is gonna be pissed."

"I'm more worried about everyone else," Steve said with a sigh. "I don't want her falling in with the wrong crowd."

"Understatement of the year," scoffed Clint.

Wanda listened to her teammates with increasing worry. "Please don't go, Y/N."

Seconds after stepping outside the compound, Wanda's voice in your head caught you off-guard. You thought about a lot of things you could say, some petty, some genuine. You were sure Wanda could sense them all. But in the end, you simply took off at a light jog, eager to get out of range and away from the Avengers.

At first, you ran without direction. But as the NYC skyline came into view, you knew exactly where you were headed. A place you’d never been. Home.