Never Stay Down

Phoenix had observed as Dr Stark tried to talk sense into Rogers, even precised the stipulations that would grant his friend protection but as she had predicted it, he didn't budge.

"I count Rogers, Barnes, Wilson, Maximoff, Barton and Lang on their side." She spoke in the earpiece that linked everyone in their team.

"Never heard of Lang." Colonel Rhodes commented.

"He's known as Ant Man. His suit is powered by Pym Particles. He can shrink and enlarge but I can easily take care of him."

"How?"

"We know each other." She said vaguely. She knew every vigilante and hero out there to be honest, they were the last one she had left to meet with.

She had also managed to get Dr Stark to let her talk with King T'Challa beforehand. She had disclosed the proof that it was not Barnes that had bombed the UN - which again raised the question of how the hell she knew all this stuff but that was a story for another time.

The rest of their team was a little perplexed at her, Colonel Rhodes had actually vehemently protested her being there due to her age but T'Challa had backed her up. She had earned his respect even if he hadn't seen her fighting skills yet. And well, the rest were convinced by Dr Stark's unusual but utter trust in her, though she knew he didn't trust her completely - There were too many things that didn't make sense about her and she knew that.

She heard Dr Stark click his tongue twice - her signal to come in.
Phoenix vaulted over the Star-spangled man, snatching his shield on the way and landed easily on a container behind Dr Stark.

"Rogers." She greeted. He seemed agitated. "It's Captain America to you."

"No, no I don't think it is." She said slowly. "If I recall correctly, you never did officially get to that rank, did you?"

She heard a few exclamations of surprise from her earpiece and let herself smile.
Dr Stark turned towards her, looking exasperated but fond. "We're going to have a long talk about how you know all of these things kid."

She said nothing, instead letting her spider sense expand. She felt Lang coming towards her and blocked him with the shield, throwing him back.

He flew back expanding in size as he land on his back.
"Harsh Spider." He mumbled.

"I thought you'd know better than to cross me Scott."

"I was surprised to see you here. Why are you fighting with Stark? I thought you'd be for Barnes going free."

"I am." She said simply. "You're the one who knows nothing about a war you've chosen to fight in. It's still not too late, go back to Cassie before you get caught up in this and lose her."

He seemed conflicted. She was known for picking her battles after all. "Just - tell me why you're fighting with Stark."

"Well firstly, you need to stop listening to Hank. His grudge was with Howard Stark and he just passed it on to Dr Stark. Secondly, anyone who knows me knows that I'm the biggest advocate for mutant rights and he" she jerked her thumb towards Rogers. "Is standing in my way. The accords are what I've been waiting for and I'm not going to let fucker ruin the chances at freedom of so many."

Scott stared at him for a moment before she raised his hands in the air. "Yeah ok I give up."

"Wait, wait, wait, hold the fuck up." Wilson interrupted and she sighed. "Why would you listen to a child? You wanted to help Captain America, didn't you?"

Scott rolled his eyes. "See, the vigilantes have a list of other vigilantes you don't cross. She's above the Punisher on that list. Also she's saved almost each one of our asses at least one time, no one is going to go against her."

"I - who are you?" That was Sergeant Barnes. He seemed to be piecing things together.

Her costume was a full body armour thanks to Daredevil, with a hood and a cloth that went over her nose. She wanted her eyes to be seen because she had a handy ability to bring fire to her eyes and freak her enemies out.
She lowered the cloth, letting her face become visible, jumping down from the container and walked towards Barnes, passing a bewildered Tony on the way and handing him the shield. He took it mutely.

She came to a stop a few steps in front of Tony and directly in front of Barnes. "You know me Winter." She smiled.

Recognition seemed to form on his face. "You escaped?" He grinned.

"Not everyone did." She said gently.

The smile was instantly wiped off his face. "And you think that this - these Accords can help."

She nodded. "It's definitely a good start."

They stared at each other for a while. "I'm not going to fight. I'm turning myself in." He informed Rogers without breaking eye contact with her.

She smiled thankfully at him.
"I'll repay you."

He smirked.
"What can a little squirt like you do?"

"Well, for starters I know your trigger words." She winked before turning to Tony. She spread her hands. "Solved."

He seemed to be in shock.
"Recruiting you was the best thing I ever did since a long time." He admitted softly enough for only the both of them to hear.

Before she could reply, her spider sense flared up and she spinned on her heels to meet Maximoff's eyes.

She felt the tendrils of her magic in her mind like a bulldozer breaking each of her walls, looking for something.

She let the fire come to her eyes and brought forth her most painful memories and the pain that she could remember like her wounds were still fresh.

She registered a scream and her mind was released. She felt something restraining her and her instincts took over and she flipped her person over her head. She faintly registered something metallic. **A Weapon** and reached out blindly to rip it off from whoever had it throwing it away from them.

She more sense than saw another presences next to her. It was hostile.
She jabbed blankly, before the form crumpled.

No one attacked her and she got the time to regain her bearings.

Crumpled before her was Rogers and Winter. The first was one was in an awkward pile glaring up at her. She recognised the signs of him having been paralyzed and as for Winter....his arm had been ripped off. It was neat and was surprisingly not bleeding but he was still lying on his back.

"Winter - I'm..."

"No, no it's alright. It was painless. Help me up." She did so, smiling sadly. "At least this time I didn't fracture your neck."

He chuckled. "You're one dangerous spider. There's no question over why you're on Hydra's no shit list."

"They learned their lesson." And then her eyes went back to look like flames. "And now I'm going to teach a witch hers."

Winter knew better than to stop her.
It wasn't the same for the dear old Captain. "She's a child!"

"I am a child, she is an adult and she will face the consequences of her actions. I don't take it very lightly to have my mind breached or my privacy taken from me. You should have thought about that before you ordered her to me."

He turned a few shades lighter.
"Oh yes, I heard that."

She raised her gaze up to assess the others. They didn't seem likely to intervene but from their expression she knew she'd have a lot to explain later.

She stalked towards the witch. Maximoff seemed too scared to even try to get away from her. She had fallen to the ground and had stayed there, just pulled her knees close to her.

When she stopped in front of her, the older girl regarded her with fear. She mentally weaved her web around her, a single muscle contraction and she would know.

"How did you do that, how are you still alive?" It was barely a whisper.

"You're not the only one who has mind powers my dear and as for how I'm still alive, I have the tendency to never stay down for long. I'm a pest, like a spider. But the people kinder to me see it more as me rising from my ashes and it is for them I fight. You saw."

"Yes." She still didn't meet her eyes.

"So you know that I will stop at nothing to get what I want. You will cooperate, won't you? Or will I have to hunt you down-?"

"NO!" The thought seemed to panic her. "No - that won't be necessary."

She smiled. "Good. You'll find that I'm a person you'll like to have on your side. I protect my own. The choice of whether you want to become one of them is yours." And just to make herself clear, she pushed an image to the forefront of her mind and Wanda flinched.

She said nothing but finally dared look up to meet her eyes and didn't that speak enough for itself?

~

"You know, while I don't regret coming to you for help, you definitely just raise more questions for me."

"You can ask me, what I can guarantee you is that I won't lie. If I don't want to tell you something, you'll know."

Tony Stark pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Okay, so what I know right now about you is this. Your name is Phoenix Parker, all of your family is dead except for that weirdly hot Aunt of yours. You were expecting me to come ask for help to you. You know a hell lot more than you should and according to Scott Lang, you are very respected among the Supers which raises the question of why didn't the avengers know of you prior of this. To me you are a book of questions."

"Well let's start by the introductions. I am Phoenix, adopted by the Parkers. I am a mutant slash mutate of sorts. I have spent more than the better half of my life in the Facility which works in hand with hydra which is how I know the Sergeant Barnes-"

"Wait, I need a little more elaboration on that. How did you meet?" The man seemed a resigned, like nothing in this world couldn't surprise him anymore.

"They wanted me dead so they sent their best killer." She locked eyes with him. "He didn't succeed. Instead I fractured his neck, thus incapacitating him. This is how we met. Any more details you wish for."

Tony Stark didn't seem deterred from asking questions. He looked horrified but wasn't deterred. "Why didn't they just shoot you?"

She sighed. She could do without these questions. "There would have been a riot. The only death acceptable to everyone is if it happens in the ring, fighting. "

Everyone in the room looked mildly disturbed, except for James and Natasha who just looked resigned and all too familiar to the harsh reality of this world.

She decided to spare them and continued answering Dr Stark's initial questions. "Moving on, I expected you to come to me, because I let myself be seen by you and no, not even your A.I can find me if I don't wish them to. And as to the matter of how the Supers know me, well I haven't just recently stepped in this game. It's been about two years since I've been around."

For some reason they seemed even more horrified. "Two years ago, how old were you kid?" Oh, that was why. "I'm fourteen now, twelve then."

From their faces, she figured that maybe it would have been better had she not told them.

"You can't be out there fighting!" Captain Rigtheous exploded.

"It's not your choice to make." She stated calmly. "You can only try and unsuccessfully stop me."

"We are fighting for the people. A child doesn't need to be out there."

She stared at him dumbfounded. "I'm sorry bitch, what? The whole reason you even know of me right now is because I had to come in to stop you from making a mess. You were going to go against the fucking UN and ultimately just make things worse for all of us mutants or mutates. Point is, you're not doing your job correctly and I'm the biggest proof of that."

"We're doing what we can. You can't just-"

"What you're doing is not enough." She said harshly, her eyes shifting to Romanoff. "You're actually making things worse. Uncovering SHIELDRA put so many people in danger, so many undercover agents dead, mutants tortured and experimented on. And the rest of the time, what did you do? Use the resources of a man freely to look for the person who killed his parents without telling him may I add?"

The was a shocked silence in the room before Dr Stark chuckled dryly.
"You're ruthless."

She flashed him a toothy grin before turning a predatory look back to the frozen super soldier and black widow.
She faked a sorry look.
"Oh yeah, he knows now, I told him."

And then she leaned back and watched the chaos unfold.