Flaming Abyss
After 4 months of raiding hydra bases and leaking intel to government agencies so they could remove the rest, the avengers and x-men had one last base to raid.
The base was located in the middle of the southern antarctic ocean 100 meters below the surface, under the 6 meters of ice they were standing on. They had been relying on Dr. Strange to portal them as close as he could, so here they were. Jean gray and the professor had made a barrier against the wind and heartfire was slowly using a mix of drilling and fire to melt away the pack ice.
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Something was off about heartfire according to Steve, she had too many secrets. His working theory was that she was going to try and kill wanda, who was just a child because she had accidentally tried to get into her mind. Wanda was innocent! Why could no one understand that? Even his Toni wasn’t nice to the child, Toni had loved him as much as he loved her but her paranoia had driven her away from him and Wanda. If only she had seen that Wanda was good and that she was supposed to be with him, then she would still be alive.
Heartfire probably hadn’t even died at hydra’s hands. She was probably making that up as an excuse to hurt Wanda because she had lost control of her powers at that point and she had upset another mutant. Wanda had confided in him that heartfire had some kind of barrier around her mind and she couldn’t get past it. That woman was hiding something! The professor also had a barrier and he was being unreasonable when he threatened to take Wanda’s ability because she lost control, she was just a child! Why did everyone treat her like a monster?
Heartfire could be a useful ally though, if he managed to befriend her, maybe she would trust Wanda and let down her guard or join the avengers. Or maybe he could see if he could get powers like hers, heartfire couldn’t be trusted. She had to have an agenda, she couldn’t be trusted with power but since he was Captain America people would trust him with that power. Because he always did what was right and people would feel safer with him in control. He also didn’t trust how close she was becoming to Bucky and Toni's ‘family.’ He was her actual family, the only one who had her back but he was sure that they had brainwashed her into thinking that. He should have asked Wanda to fix that. Then Toni would be alive and safe in his arms.
He would have to get rid of heartfire after this base was destroyed he decided, she couldn’t be trusted for all he knew she could be hydra and killed his Toni.
“How much longer?” Spider-Man asked as he walked over to heartfire. That kid had been tricked into believing strange was a good person, he shouldn’t look up to strange, he should look up the steve. Steve would have to fix that after they got back to the compound.
Heartfire smiled at him and her fire flashed, he didn’t trust that she wasn't lying especially since she wouldn’t speak to them. He watched as she turned to the professor and the other x-men and her fired pushed out around her in small circles. Causing everyone to take several steps back.
Steve watched as she unfurled her wings and slammed a massive arch of fire into the ice. She then held her focus, just as the heat was getting to be too much it died down to reveal a hole in the ice only a meter across, leading straight to the water. She bowed with a mocking flourish and Steve gritted his teeth, she couldn’t be trusted. She was too keen on showing off and she was too dangerous.
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Toni watched as Jean and her father entered the water first, forming an air bubble that would fit everyone and bring them safely to the base. Her father had reached out to her through their mind link telling her to be wary of the captain, he was convinced she loved him and that heartfire was a hydra agent that needed to be eliminated. Which was pretty hypocritical since he trusted the scarlet bitch but he was stupid like that. It probably had something to do with his overinflated ego and all the bullshit about Captain America being the shining example of morals. Captain America might be perfect but steve rogers? He was delusional.
Peter went next, over the past few months she had spent anonymously with her family she was heartbroken with how grief-stricken her son, fiancee, and brother would. She always knew they cared but to see them blame themselves for her death and turn into the shells of who they used to be. She did everything she could to ease their pain, distracting them and helping them to make friends with her other, much larger, secret family.
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The x-men and avengers blast their way through the hydra base, working slower than normal, knowing that if they hit a supporting part of the wall the whole base could collapse, and if the pressure didn’t kill them, the freezing water would. There was a reason they hadn’t let banner and the hulk come with them.
After 3 hours of slaughtering the agents in the base, they all regrouped in the control room, muscles burning as the adrenaline wore off. They heard a commotion coming from one of the screens. As they watched the upper left-hand monitor they saw heartfire, she was missing a wing and another was trailing behind her broken. She sat on the floor; surrounded by still-smoldering bodies.
“What do you want, hydra whore?” they heard her snarling voice crackle across the audio and slightly distorted. They watched in horror as Maximoff and Rogers stepped into the camera’s frame. “Finally going to show your true colors? Try and mind rape me again? You captain, are you going to go on and on about how you are doing this for the greater good and i’m too powerful to be trusted? How the safest hands are your own? Get your head out of your ass I’m not a monster or a freak. That’s you. I might not trust people but at least i don’t go and murder them because they are an inconvenience.” they watched in horror as she spat blood onto the floor.
The avengers turned pale as Rogers sneered “we can’t trust you, you don’t tell us who you are and according to Wanda you have a barrier over your mind. You're hiding something.”
“You tried to let the witch into my head? I thought you said brainwashing was bad after what happened to James but it's completely fine if you do it?” the professor inhaled sharply under his breath and the wolverine growled.
“No one is going to rescue you, you know that. You shouldn't have so much power. You don’t deserve it! You’ve never suffered but I have your powers should be mine!” Wanda screamed, “we are at the weakest point of this base, all I have to do is rip down that wall and I'll kill them all!”
They watched in horror as the captain rushed forward and tried to slam his shield into heartfire's chest. She rolled away coughing blood and grimacing as her broken wing tore.
“What happened to her powers?” Asked Strange in horror eyes unable to look away from the screen.
“She can’t use them, she’d melt the wall and she doesn’t want to kill us all.” said storm sadly “and none of us would be able to get to her in time to help especially with the witch threatening murder if we try and save her.”
A sharp crack and more coughing came from the screen. Rogers had slammed his fist into her chest. “Run” she rasped “run dad….. take the family…… run. Tell them the truth. And get them out of here….. Please.” she gasped for air and slumped forward. Rogers reached forward, sneering he slammed his fist into her face.
Just as he stood the avengers and x-men watched as heartfire’s phoenix feather mask slid away. Revealing a battered Toni, her eyes upon and glazed over. Rogers froze and dropped to his knees, picking up her battered body with tears streaming down his face, “come on Toni wake up, you love me you can’t leave me” while Wanda broke out of her stunned silence and started to giggle maniacally.
The professor collapsed as strange and spiderman froze. The avengers felt sick, their captain had murdered Toni, she had been alive and helping them and then he had claimed to LOVE her. And the captain had killed her. Wolverine leaned against Storm as her shoulders shook. Jean snapped with tears streaming down her face “professor we have to go she’s starting we need to go, remember what she said. She asked us to keep the family safe. That is what we will do.”
The professor nodded and a barrier formed around, they hovered just below the ice, watching.
“Why didn’t she tell us? How could Rogers say she loved him? He just MURDERED HER!!!!!!!” Rhodes whispered, his voice rising steadily to a yell.
A flash of light, everything was muffled and distant, they could feel the shock waves rolling off the base. Bits of the base floated upwards, scraps of fabric, a shoe with the foot and ankle still in it the flesh waving at them like slightly singed fabric in the breeze, somehow still burning. Huge chunks of the concrete and steel were missing altogether. Total silence for a moment. They stumble as their force field is tossed around like a ragdoll. The refractions of flames in the water, turning everything red
At the center of the base, in the massive crater, making the base look like a collapsed volcano, was a ball of molten metals and rubble, bubbles rising up as the water around it boiled.