Of Luck and Lack of Forethought

Steve was predictably destroying punching bags in them gym when Natasha went looking for him.

Understandably, Natasha didn’t know if coming to Steve for this was a good idea but Rogers is Captain America and if there is one thing that Americans forgive is the embodiment of their country.

“Steve?”

“Yes?”

“Clint is in trouble.”

“What happened?”

“Footage of his actions back in 2012 has been leaked,” and Natasha cursed herself for it, since they were leaked by her in 2014, “and there are talks of prosecuting him.”

“For Loki’s invasion?! He was being mind controlled! How can any of it be his fault?”

“Murder has no statute of limitation.” Natasha eyes the lost look on Steve’s face before sighing, “It means that because people died and it falls under federal law, you can be prosecute at any given time.”

“So they just can up and decide at their leisure when to ruin someone’s life?”

The redhead blandly looked back at him, “The actual intent is that even if the murderer escapes, the family of the victim can still get what little justice they can.” And just watched as Steve blushed.

“Still,” he shook his head, “they can’t just decide to blame Clint.”

“Actually they can because until three days ago nobody even knew that Clint helped Loki at all, mind control or not.” Natasha sent him a hard look, “The people that lost family and friends in that invasion can’t make that distinction and besides, without the scepter and without Loki himself, not that I think he would have helped us, we have very little to defend him with. The most we can do is wait to see what people will want and vouch or testify in his favor.”

“People are smart and I trust them, if we can only speak with them I know that they will understand.”

“And say what?”

“That he was mind controlled. That he wasn’t himself.”

“With what proof?”

“The fact that we did manage to break him out of it. That he helped us in the end should count for something after everything he went through.” Steve took off running.

Rolling her eyes, Natasha followed and was unsurprised to see the super soldier sheepishly staring at her in the Compound’s driveway.

“You have no idea where you are going, do you?”

~*~

Months earlier…

Tony was exhausted. Between SI, Iron Man, and the relief efforts in Sokovia he was stretched way too thin. That when not mentioning all the investigations that were only concluded a week ago, clearing him of charges for the Ultron mess.

To be honest, it was less anything to do with any testimonies, aka Dr. Cho’s, Hill’s and Rhodey’s and more towards past proofs, since…well, Tony couldn’t very well tell the investigators and lawyers that the Avengers don’t exactly watch the news if they weren’t looking for something very specific so calling them to testify would be an exercise in futility…Ultron was defeated and that was all that mattered, so they just packed and went home. No need to ‘dwell on the past’ or whatever Rogers means by that.

Either way, reports from way back 2012, clearly stated that close physical proximity to Loki’s scepter compromised those around it. From there, his lawyers were able to clear his and Bruce’s name with relative easy, barely even touching that ‘hey…Ultron was impossible, call anyone you want, review any footage you want, Ultron shouldn’t have happened’.

Bruce…

There was a reason he never confronted Bruce on his… falling asleep as Tony poured his heart out. Ever since they first met, even long before Tony offered him a position and a lab to work on his own projects in SI, the billionaire knew that Bruce was a flight risk.

At the surface, they had one significant trait in common: science.

As the friendship progressed, they found more common ground but science, the academic field where no one seems to even try to understand their work binges is where they were in most sync. But Tony always had in mind that the second the Hulk lost control, it would be a while before he saw his fellow genius. After Johannesburg…Tony wasn’t surprised, he wasn’t even disappointed and certainly not angry.

The inventor sighed and leaned back on his seat, letting Happy’s atrocious radio preference wash over him.

What most didn’t seem to understand, perhaps Betty Ross, perhaps her father if the madman wasn’t so obsessed, was that Bruce could have destroyed any enemy on any battlefield whenever he wanted.

The first point in common that they found. Before their Enhancements, Doctors Robert Bruce Banner and Anthony Edward Stark were, in a biological view, completely ordinary men. They never trained in martial arts and they never thought to hold a gun and charge into a fight and they certainly never had any interest in doing anything of the sort.

And while Tony is used to be the unusual combination of good at sports and academics as a student, it has been years since the last time he even touched a ball, the point was: they weren’t fighters. Not in the conventional sense one would think when a ‘fight’ was mentioned.

Oh… something else in common: seven doctorates. Well… their fields of preference (physics and engineer) aside, most of their degrees were basically the same, their thesis had different subjects but that was it. As they left the academic setting as students and sometimes came back as teachers, their focus went to very different fields.

There was another field both scientist were conquering, one neither of them thought they would ever be a part of.

The billionaire snorted. The rest of the Avengers never understood why Bruce takes off, in the rare, one, occasion that they wondered about it and then never again once Wanda “made the team”. Sure there was the obvious part, the one that Bruce most often mentions: he didn’t want to hurt anybody. And people just assumed that this had to do with the Hulk, and Tony supposed that most of it did, but if Bruce stays to face the music then he would have no choice but to follow through with it.

Ross would be rotting in jail, if not given the death penalty and Maximoff would be much in the same situation.

Bruce still cared about Betty and enough about the team that accepted him to not want either to suffer.

Truth of the matter was, Hulk or not, if Bruce wanted to take Ross and Maximoff down legally, he could, easily at that. If Bruce wanted them dead… even easier.

Tony was much in the same situation. With Thor gone, none of the Avengers, Maximoff included since he now had a way to deal with the mind control, could go against him physically. Actually, mind control or not, the suit or not.

What his former teammates don’t seem to understand is that Tony wouldn’t need to go anywhere personally to achieve that. He hacked into the Pentagon in high school on a dare… and he was twelve in high school. Tony could simply hack the nearest military facility and target the compound with missiles without ever getting out of bed.

Taking them down legally? After all the shit that he accumulated? It would take more time but it could be done just as easily. At most, a decent lawyer would go for ‘obstruction of justice’ due to how long he took to present the alphabetic list of crimes committed by the so called Avengers but that wouldn’t change what they did.

The billionaire almost laughed, Natashalie with her ‘Iron Man, yes. Tony Stark, not recommended’ would never see this coming.

Actually, Tony might have done so good a job that he doubted that anyone there would even notice his hands on it, Bruce very probably would have… too bad Bruce wasn’t here and the other genius would also notice the real target, with the other Avengers’ tendency to ignore the physicist unless there was some stressing situation that could provoke a Code Green, Bruce mastered the ability to blend with the walls very early in his life so it was unlikely that the scientist would offer any words even if they asked.

Tony would wait and see if his former teammates were shameless enough to call for his help and dumb enough not to notice anything.

Well… if Ultron was any indicator, Tony snorted, chances are that his former teammates would blame him by default. These people really don’t have second gear.

~*~

Steve was almost tearing his hair out, why didn’t these people understand?

“Do you understand, Mr. Rogers? There is no feasible proof to exonerate Mr. Barton. I’m sorry, your word that he was mind controlled is not enough.”

“I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

The lawyer exchanged glances with the PR, “Be that as it may, we all now have footage of Mr. Barton’s deeds on American soil that resulted in the deaths of almost three dozen citizens. Their families are not going to just wave everything away because of something that can’t even be ultimately proved.”

Steve took a deep breath and tried to ignore his frantically beating heart, “What do you… how…how do we even prove that mind control exists?”

The lawyer made a complicated face, “It’s not that we never heard of mind control. There are counts of mind readers among Inhuman and Mutant community so mind control is not such a leap, but you have to admit that it is something that…is ultimately…almost impossible to prove. The few contacts a court had with mind readers and it was easy, the telepath only ever has to reveal embarrassing stories or the more ridiculous thoughts revealed out loud the better, but mind control? A man croaks like a toad because someone else is pulling his strings just seems…staged.”

The PR took over then, “Anyone can claim to be able to control minds. I can talk with Mr. Barton and we can go in front of a million people, I will make an intense expression and Mr. Barton can cartwheel all over the place and I can claim that I mind controlled him into doing it. A… a thief or even an assassin can claim that they were mind controlled into committing the crimes. In other words, if we try to defend Mr. Barton using mind control, best case scenario is that people are going to laugh at us or at least roll their eyes at us. Worst case scenarios are, we lose our professional registration or…psychiatrists are issued to test all of us. Or both.” He added after a second.

Steve visible struggled because there was nothing that can really dispute that. Like those weird TV shows where people claim hypnotism and make a grown man act like a chicken. Most of the room thinks it’s a cheap trick and he was included in it.

But there was someone that could help! Steve didn’t think that… well, Wanda is an Avenger, she was a good girl, she helped and was a hero like the rest of them and she would help Clint.

~*~

If Tony could pick one moment that he wanted to giggle like a little kid, it probably would be right about now.

As Steve dragged a very confused looking Wanda to coffee shop of all places – of all very public places – teenagers subtly got their Smartphones… which meant that a few days later, everyone was commenting about Captain America’s new girlfriend.

Yep, the last vestiges of his control just went out of the window.

Sure, Tony recognized the PR and the lawyer in charge of Barton’s case in the background of a few of the pictures but no one else would and this was so perfect that Tony wished he was there in person just to hear the comments.

When Steve just “decided” to not inform anyone about Maximoff’s anything, Tony just knew the shit show that would ensue. A few very public missions and people would be clamoring to know the newest Avenger.

The problem was, the most interesting thing about Wanda, what makes her an Avenger material so to speak, wasn’t acquired through very heroic means. They could try to spin it like Natasha’s background. How she was misguided and whatever, but unlike Natasha that was literally raised and conditioned, Wanda joined a terrorist organization out of her own free will to get revenge. Not to survive, not for her country – Tony rolled his eyes every time he remembered Cap saying that tidbit – and certainly not through an accident.

So Tony was counting the days just waiting for the inevitable headlines, “Captain America in defense of Hydra.”

Eventually, there would be investigations, or just someone nosy enough to find all the juicy bits. The billionaire was expecting the misses at the start but concluding that Rogers was on a date? That was a spectacle that Tony was already making popcorn to witness the fallout, and if Steve was nothing but constant in his arguments… Tony just knew where this was going to lead.

Look at that, Tony was spot on about where this was going.

 “Ok, look, I’m going to say this only once because this is ridiculous. Wanda is not my girlfriend. She is just a kid, a really good kid! And she has been helping me, us, with a friend in need. Wanda is about to prove to the world that mind control exists.” Steve concluded in a video posted on the Avengers website.

It was clear that Steve didn’t stick to the cards or… what the PR, lawyer and Natasha were expecting because people could clearly see all three trying to reach for the computer with panicked expressions on before Steve sent the video.

Social media didn’t know what to focus on first. It was a just silence for a few blissful moments until the sea of comments began trending.

The mind control bit was, obviously, getting more attention but Tony grinned as he read quite a few Twitter users going about the “kid” part, as he predicted they would.

“Wait, is he saying that Maximoff – was it? – is not even eighteen yet?”

“Cap is, sort of not even thirty, right? Like, if you get the years in the ice out. Whatever he is calling her a kid?”

“If Maximoff is a kid… you guys don’t think she is like a real kid, like, the Avengers accepting a kid like, right?”

Tony just waved those away, although a nice, big, cherry on top, it’s not what he was counting on.

A few days went by until interest in Maximoff reached an all-time peak.

A few more days and there they have it:

“Guys? Is it a Code Green?”

“I want the big one.”

As the lawyer carefully closed the binds on the windows, the PR sat heavily in one of the chairs.

“Well, Mr. Rogers, if anything, I suppose that you did help us prove that mind control is real. Mr. Barton will be cleared of charges from 2012 on the grounds of being mentally controlled.”

“And also, the lawsuits of manslaughter on Dr. Banner’s name are on the process of being dropped too.”

Steve’s lost and pale face suddenly shot up at that, “Wait, what?”

The lawyer frowned at him, “The Hulk? The Hulk vs Iron Man fight in Johannesburg, South Africa? South Africa is, well, was building a huge case of manslaughter against Dr. Banner for the fourteen deaths and also reckless endangerment and battery assault for the fifty five injured… and public and private property damage of almost sixty million dollars, but after that video dropped, Dr. Banner will probably be cleared.”

“I… uh… didn’t Tony… I mean, can’t Tony take care of that?” the answer seemed obvious to Steve.

“No. Because it’s not Dr. Stark that is being sued so he can’t answer or act on Dr. Banner’s behalf.” The lawyer eyed Steve strangely.

“Tony always fixed those sorts of things.”

“He fixed death?” the lawyer blurted out with an incredulous expression on his face to which the PR elbowed him.

“I assume you mean… the aftermath of a fight. The difference, Steve, is that Johannesburg wasn’t an Avengers fight in the sense of Avengers fighting some big evil. All the world knew is that the Hulk lost control and basically proved all the people calling the Hulk a monster right.”

“But he isn’t! I mean… we can explain that Wanda just made a mistake!”

The PR dug her heel in her co-worker’s foot, “As it is, it was a mistake that cost the lives of fourteen people. We can’t even claim that Ms. Maximoff was misguided or didn’t know what she was doing,” one could hear the air quotes in her voice, “because she clearly knew who Dr. Banner was and what he was capable of. Besides, Johannesburg was moving so slowly because a case against Dr. Banner is complicated enough with an alter ego and the spotty memory afterwards. There is just no legal precedent for someone like him. Things are much more straightforward now, Dr. Banner didn’t turn into the Hulk and lost control, he was forced into it so they will probably be laying charges in a week, if that.”

“Wanda… she regrets it, she can be a force for good.”

“Perhaps,” the PR threw him a kind look, “but after so long and…you, all of you, hid it. The world, South Africa, didn’t have a say in forgiving and giving a second chance to Ms. Maximoff because they weren’t even aware that they were forgiving anything.”

The silence stretched and the lawyer spoke again, still frowning at Steve, never having stopped since the blond revealed that he didn’t know the legal issues his teammate was facing.

“As things stands, you are our client, Mr. Rogers, we will advise you on the best course of action but I guess that ultimately the final decision is yours. With what Ms. Maximoff did in Johannesburg out in the open and footage from Ulysses Klawue’s ship, mind control is being debated but no one can really disprove it now. Physical changes in unnatural eye color and footage of SHIELD’s facility where they were studying the Tesseract recovered, Mr. Barton will be soon cleared. But if you want to exonerate Ms. Maximoff… it means disproving mind control.”

“Bottom line is,” the PR sighed, “we either save Dr. Banner and Mr. Barton or we save Ms. Maximoff, but not all three.”

“There has to be another way, any way!” Steve rubbed his face. Not believing where all of this went.

“Dr. Banner and Mr. Barton can only be innocent if we prove that their actions were not their own and Ms. Maximoff can only be innocent if we prove that Dr. Banner was acting on his own volition. There is no third option.” The lawyer concluded.

The PR finally lost a little of her sympathetic face, “Mr. Rogers, I won’t pretend to know why you are so fond of Ms. Maximoff, but by bringing her into the Avengers, by vouching for her the way you did, you undermined two of your teammates’ innocence. That’s how the public will perceive that. The other, less likely, alternative being that you used Ms. Maximoff to clear your teammates’ names.”

“What? How would anyone think that I used Wanda? That I would even do that?”

“I said “less likely” because you certainly made your stance about Ms. Maximoff clear with your very public support of her. Either way, with Ms. Maximoff around, mind control is now a real thing, with real proof which absolves Dr. Banner and Mr. Barton and this is our official advice.”

“What advice?”

“That you only ever brought the Scarlet Witch into the Avengers to preserve your teammates’ reputation. That not only will emphasize your tactician mind but also paint you as a good and reliable teammate, not to mention save your own reputation.” The lawyer made a face as the PR build the story.

He wasn't liking one bit that if Rogers was the usual bullhead in the middle of court, he will probably be charged with obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact for Johannesburg. No wonder the Widow made a disappearing act, she was desperate to get out of dodge from the gunfire.

 “First, I would never do that. Second, what do you mean, “my own reputation”?”

The lawyer rolled his eyes, “Former or not, misguided or not, young or not and a pretty face or not, Ms. Maximoff willingly joined Hydra and Captain America, knowing about it, championed her membership into the Avengers… into America actually after she sicced the Hulk into an African city. That doesn’t make for a shiny advertisement of your decision making skills.”

~*~

Honestly, Tony leaned back in his seat, Johannesburg would always come to Bruce or Wanda, and he was perfectly fine with throwing her under the bus for his Science Bro.

Before Steve could even think about it, Tony admitted on live TV that he knew Maximoff’s role in South Africa and he decided to bow to Steve’s decision of bringing Wanda into the Avengers so that Clint and Bruce could be proven innocent.

The fact that Tony himself was the one to let it slip that Clint worked for Loki back in 2012, no one needed to know.