#PeterParkerProtectionSquad

Wanda gets a call from Peter. He’s breathless and tired and obviously worn down. He begins to speak in a rush about high-tech weapons and men with wings. Wanda has to tell him several times to slow down before he does, panting, his fear bleeding across the connection no matter how hard he tries to hide it.

“–and then Mr. Stark pulled me out, and he was shouting, but it wasn’t him it was a fake robot, and I’m scared, Wanda. Mr. Stark said he’d look into it but I don’t know how hard and I–” I’m scared, he doesn’t say. I don’t know what to do.

Wanda tries her best to be reassuring. She looks around the tiny apartment she and Sam have been sharing. Rhodey offered to lend them some money to find a nicer one, but they’d refused. They were mostly here for the kid, but it made sense for them to lay low. If Stark found them, neither could know whether he’d run to the authorities or ignore them or what. He’d probably think they were a bad influence on Spider-Man anyway, despite how obviously upset Peter was at his supposed mentor’s actions just now.

“I am not going to tell you to stop the, um,–“ she loses the word, and has to improvise–“the pow pow and the boom crash? I know you won’t. Just, if you see anyone with those weapons, call me, or Sam or Rhodey, or even Stark, before you go do the thing. We are here for you, yes? You do not have to do everything alone.”

“What if they catch you? Will they send you back to the Raft?”

At the mention of the prison, Wanda shudders. She tries to stay calm, for Spider-Man’s sake, who’s obviously upset. “You are more important. We want to…keep you safe.”

“You don’t even know who I am,” says Spidey, appalled. And no, they don’t. But Wanda knows he loves Star Wars and Lego and thinks explosions are cool so long as nobody gets hurt. She knows he gets starstruck every time he meets a hero. (Even when Clint phoned Sam in the middle of a session, Spidey had had to sit down and freak out over actual Hawkeye being on the phone to a room he was in!!!! for a moment before they got back to sparring.) Wanda knows about how much he loves his aunt, and that he’d rather die than let anyone else get hurt. She knows he’s pretty much the smartest kid ever (except for Shuri, who is beyond the realms of genius and is slightly terrifying. And awesome.) Wanda knows he’s a kid. And she knows that there is no way in hell she’s letting Spider-Man get hurt on her watch.

She’s using her best teacher-voice when she expresses this, but she’s not sure how effective it is. “Besides, we’ve broken out of there before. We’ll get out again. If we have to. You are coming to training tomorrow, no?”

“Uh, yeah,” affirms Spidey.

“Fantastic,” says Wanda. Then she says, “I will teach you all Sokovian swears. You will be expert.”

Spidey spends the rest of the conversation gushing about how cool it will be to swear in a foreign language. Apparently, he has many plans for the use of these curse words, many of which involve cussing out his annoying teammate at some club who thinks he’s stupid. Wanda thinks he’s too nice of a kid to do that. She doesn’t say this. Instead, she says, “This will be fun. I will see you tomorrow, then, Spider. Bye-bye.”

Really, Wanda was not expecting to get a call so soon, figuring Spidey would take her advice for at least a few weeks. But he calls barely five days later. He’s on a school trip, so training is cancelled. When Wanda gets a call, she assumes it will just be him wanting a chat, or advice on the pronunciation of a Sokovian word.

Instead, he says, “There’s a bomb in the Washington Monument.”

Wanda curses extensively, before remembering Spider-Man can now understand everything he’s saying. So she continues with, “Where are you?”

“Outside. But my classmates are there. And it’s my fault. The bomb–it’s a bit of alien tech, and I didn’t know about it, and–”

Sam is approaching, having returned from his job in a deli a few blocks away. He must notice Wanda’s stricken expression because he gestures to take the phone.

“Hey, kid, Sam here,” he says. There’s a minute while Spidey talks, before Sam says, “Shit. Uh–“

Wanda’s already fumbling for Sam’s own phone. She ignores the weird-old-man sexts from the Captain and sends him a text instead. It reads, SM in DC. Washington Monument about to blow. He’s going in, needs backup ideally. – W, before sending a similar text to Rhodey. The latter responds immediately. His message just reads: I don’t know if a quinjet can get there fast enough. How soon is it going to collapse?

Wanda shows the message to Sam, who repeats the question to Spidey, who informs them that his AI says that the building will collapse in five minutes. Rhodey says there’s nothing he can do in that short a time.

Finally, Steve responds. Natasha’s in DC. Contacting her now.

It’s the biggest bit of relief Wanda’s ever felt. She texted Rhodey. Can we get a quinjet anyway? Almost certain somebody’s going to try and arrest Natasha in an hour or so.

Natasha was just having a normal, espionage-filled day. She’d been hanging around the Washington Monument all morning, people watching. It’s her idea of hiding in plain sight: she sits on a bench, pretends to read Anne Brontë, and watches the people coming by. An elderly couple swings a child on their arms, who giggles frenziedly. A teenager is telling her friend were telling a story that involved lots of kissing and a decent amount of puke. A group of school-kids on a trip wander past, yelling excitedly while one waves a trophy. At the back, one is on the phone, obviously angry. After a small discussion, the group goes inside, leaving one girl outside, who rolls up her sleeves and comes to sit by Natasha.

For five minutes, everything is fine. Then the explosion hits. Natasha curses her lifestyle. It seems to her as though she’s doomed to a life of explosions and disaster. She isn’t wearing her combat suit, so her sweats will have to do. She jumps up as the kid next to her does the same. Natasha chucked her book into her bag and is about to begin running towards the disaster when Spider-Man descends from–somewhere.

“My friends are in there,” cries the girl in the yellow jacket.

“What?” exclaims Spider-Man. He curses in Sokovian–what?–and speaks to what Natasha assumed was an AI. “Karen, call W–uh, the magic lady.”

The kid swings away, but not before Natasha hears him say something about a bomb. She definitely needs to get up there. As Spider-Man climbs up to a window, the Black Widow stows her bag in a bush and approaches the doorway. She passes through the metal detector, ignoring the beeps she sets off and the evident alarm written all over everyone’s faces at the sight of Natasha Romanoff, Wanted Criminal and General Femme Fatale. Natasha shoulders past the crowds and hurries for the stairs, ignoring the closed-off signs. She’s glad she’s been working out: these stairs are a nightmare. Eventually, she makes it up, panting and spluttering, even if she would never admit it. At the same time, Spider-Man bursts through one of the windows and begins webbing things up.

“Spider-Man,’ she cries. “Need some help?”

“Ms. Black Widow, ma’am! I knew Wanda would get someone to help. Uh, not that I know with any of the Rogue Avengers, or anything…” he says, sheepishly. Steve was right. There’s no way this kid is older than eighteen. “Anyway. If I hold up the elevator, can you get them out?”

He disappears inside the elevator, shooting a web to hold himself up as he does so. One of the kids pushes forward to be the first allowed out. He emerges from the elevator and holds out his hand for her to grab. She pulls, careful not to hurt the kid. The staff, seemingly coming to their senses, begin to help her pull him out.

One by one, the kids emerge, until there’s only one left. This would be hard to maneuver: this girl couldn’t climb over other people like the others had, and the elevator is getting lower and lower.

“Spider-Man,” orders Natasha, “you’re going to have to pull this one out.”

Then she notices the webbing holding up the elevator slowly snapping, and adds, “And quickly!”

Natasha reaches for the girl. So does Spider-Man.

The webbing snaps.

Someone screams.

The elevator falls.

Natasha has to hold back the screaming kids from jumping after their friend.

A web shoots above her head and sticks to the doorframe. Spider-Man pulls the girl up and sets her on solid ground next to Natasha. For a moment, he looks at the girl through his mask. Then he falls. Again.

Natasha says, “Sorry, but excuse me. I gotta go make sure he’s alright and also not get arrested.”

She backflips into the shaft and climbs down.

The quinjet is waiting when they emerge.

“Thank you so much, Ms. Black Widow, ma’am,” exclaims Spider-Man.

Sam rolls his eyes at his earnestness and Wanda hugs him. “Nat, you good?” asks Sam.

“Fine. Glad I chose to people-watch here and not at the Air and Space Museum. Or something.”

Police cars are beginning to roll up. “I gotta go,” says Spider-Man. “They’ll question me about you guys if I’m not out of costume soon.”

“You did good, Spider-Man,” Nat says.

“I’m proud, Spidey,” adds Wanda.

Sam gives him a high-five. Spider-Man leaves.

“I knew Spider-Man was young,” says Natasha, as she paints her nails red on the dilapidated couch in Sam and Wanda’s apartment, “I just didn’t realize how young.”

“He’s a good kid,” says Sam, whose nails are being painted by Wanda.

“This is a good colour on you, Sam,” remarks Wanda, waving the green polish she’s holding. “I’m glad Spidey’s okay.”

“Yeah. He’s a dumb kid, but a good kid. His aunt’s done a damn good job.”