Entrance Examination
(Whitehall Terminal, Manhattan, New York City)
War Machine’s silver coating was easy to spot from the sky. Summer sunlight was glimmering harshly, and the armor reflected the rays like a very badass, very deadly mirror.
Naomi might or might not be having a fangirl moment, but impressing Major General Rhodes meant professionalism and graceful dignity. So with a little more flair than usual, she dove to the rooftop where the armor was waiting and nailed her landing with ease. Leo landed a few seconds after her, and she swore she could hear him snickering at her.
Prick.
They both stood attention and snapped clean salutes. “Majors Lim and Verde reporting for duty, sir,” she said purposefully.
“At ease, soldiers. This armor is remote-controlled,” the man said as he flipped the face plate up to reveal a completely empty armor.
They both lowered their hands and stood at ease. “How do we go with this, sir?” Leo asked politely.
“We decided that your acceptance to the Avengers will be reviewed by your performance on this mission, so you'll be the ones ambushing the Vulture before he got Into the ferry.”
A chance to join the Avengers by showing off to the War Machine? Yes please.
She could feel Leo's judging amusement rolling off of the big man, and honestly, she didn't even care. “What about the ones in the ferry, sir?” she asked for a good measure, pointedly ignoring her partner.
“I'll take care of it. You just make sure that maniac doesn't land until I can come to back you up. Bonus point if you can save me the trouble and bag him quickly.”
Leo and she looked at each other briefly before nodding minutely in agreement. “Affirmative. Ready for deployment.”
They folded their wings back open and took into the air. Immediately, they fell back into an old pattern that they had perfected after so many missions together. Leo was flying low and slow, acting simultaneously as a bait and herdsman, while she soared high above, watching his back while staying hidden from sight.
Saying that they work well together would be an understatement. Their records, which had been spotless before they met each other, had turned into something of a legend in the Air Force. Ultimately, His ballsy, relentless bombardment maneuvers, paired with her blink-and-you-miss-it hit and run tactics had earned them their place in the EXO-wings program.
But even before they found a match in each other, they had both been lauded for their solo accomplishments. It was hard to say without sounding braggy, but when they first worked together, they had each earned their respective “epithets” and the resulting bragging rights within the base.
His was “Leo the Mower.” Leo insisted that he got it from that time he left a line of charred earth, straight to the heart of an enemy base somewhere in middle east. According to the engineer that fixed his jet after said mission, it was a miracle that he managed to land without a single bolt or nut missing. Seemed like Leo had both the innate instinct of knowing which shot he could take, and which one he should avoid, and the guts to do so without once changing his course.
After 10 shots of her best Vodka, though, Leo spilled the beans that he only got that nickname after he demonstrated that same bravery (although she would rather call that insanity) out of the field. By pulling that one bigoted drill sergeant’s testicles like one would do to a lawnmower. After that they used “the Mower” instead of “faggot,” “fairy,” “homo,” or the likes.
Leonardo Verde abolished homophobia in his base by literally pulling it by the balls, and Naomi had never been prouder to call someone like that her best friend.
It was kind of hard to top that kind of backstory, but thankfully her moniker was a lot cooler than a garden appliance. “Cincinnati Reaper,” they called her. She had to explain over and over that she never actually lived there, because her family moved to Phoenix a few months after she was born in Ohio. But the name stuck, so she decided to roll with it, even if she bemoaned the lost potential.
Even now, North Korean government still couldn't find any proof that U.S. military was involved in the black ops that annihilated half of their top air squadron, and that was a fact that Naomi took grim pride in even to this day.
Sometimes, she even wondered if the North Korean had a different name to call her with.
She sobered up when a winged shape appeared over the horizon, heading towards the ferry behind her, only to suddenly turned to her partner instead.
The Vulture had just arrived.
“Heads up, Leo, you're on his radar. 3 o’clock, firing distance in 10.”
“Got it. Formation alpha.”
Naomi steered her wings ever upwards, and stuffed herself inside a wet cloud hanging nearby. “Peregrine in position. Open fire in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.”
Leo's wing pack opened up to reveal a multitude of assault guns and micro missiles that he unleashed with abandon at the quickly approaching Vulture. Sounds of explosion and gunfire filled the open space as Leo's salvo hit his target dead on. But it seemed like the Vulture was heavily armored, because he shot out of the cloud of smoke and mist, looking just a little banged up.
Both of them reached towards their pack and drew their respective weapons. Leo had a military issued, modified portable coilgun that she knew had enough firepower to pierce through a frigate’s hull, while the Vulture prepared an alien looking rifle that would undoubtedly shoot lasers like the ones from Star Wars movies Leo really liked.
No subtlety, really.
She watched as Leo faked a dive, getting himself in a point-blank distance with the flying monstrosity. The Vulture immediately twisted mid-air, trying to defend himself from the threat of Leo's gun making a new hole in his ass. Naomi dove down immediately in a break-neck speed when the Vulture exposed his back to the sky.
Her EXO-wings didn't come equipped with the same kind of firepower, nor the improved defensive plating that Leo's harrier had, but Peregrine’s Wings' speed and agility was unrivalled. She extended her bladed “feathers,” activated their high-frequency electric current edges, and angled it carefully. Report said that Chitauri tech was highly unstable, and was bound to be explosive unless destroyed entirely before they could blow up, and she was looking for a clean job with no messy corpse retrieval afterward.
Under her, Leo and the Vulture was still busy grappling for an upper hand. Leo was using his manacle gun to wrench the Vulture’s gun away, while said man somehow produced a familiar round shield to deflect Leo's coilgun shots.
Where in the name of fuck did he get a vibranium shield?
But shield or no shield, Vulture's wings were still created out of regular earth metal alloy, and her wings met only A little resistance when it cut through his. She heard Vulture's scream as he spiraled into the water below, but she had her own maneuver to complete.
Trusting Leo to be able to apprehend the disarmed terrorist, she corrected her dive and went after the fallen wings and rifle of the Vulture. She wouldn’t want them to start spewing lasers and somehow made a new Mariana Trench in New York's coastline.
“Got ‘im,” Leo grunted.
“Got the techs, too,” she reported back as soon as she snatched the falling machinery out of the sky.
“You don't know what you're doing!” Vulture's muffled voice screeched through Leo's com. “You're fighting against equality and freedom!”
“Can you muffle him? I have a feeling Major General won't appreciate his spiel about the glory of freedom of terrorism.”
“You try holding a squirming, heavily armored grown man waving an indestructible Frisbee at your face, see if you can still find the time to gag him,” Leo answered grouchily.
“You guys done already?” War Machine's voice said in an appreciative tone. “That's quick. Good job.”
“Don't preen, you peacocking fangirl,” Leo teased in their private channel.
“Go eat a dick, Leo. You're annoying when you're thirsty.”
The prick laughed over Vulture's increasingly erratic swearing and confirmed the rendezvous point with Major General Rhodes.
“Seriously, man, can't you threaten him to shut up, at least? You know the Council is going to review our com channel later.”
“ ¡Oy! ” Leo barked after he sighed at her request. “ Te calmas, o te calmo. ”
“You'll regret this!”
“Welp,” Leo said with and audible shrug, “I tried. Could’ve sworn it worked on me.”
Naomi sighed in defeat. “Yeah, well, you’re also the biggest mommy’s boy in the Continental America. Just make sure he doesn’t have any bomb to blow himself up with.”
“Aw, you do care.”
“Yeah, every rom-com protagonist needs her gay best friend to make fun of.”
“See that, Lim? That's the puddle of my melted heart over there.”
Naomi snorted. “It's called “sea,” Verde. Now shut up and help me impress the big boss.”
“One highly choreographed landing coming right up.”
(Pepper ’s Office, Stark Tower, Manhattan, New York City)
“Pep, c’mon, calm down just a little.”
“No! You can’t just find out a psycho bitch messed up with your mind and expect me to calmly leave her be! Where is she?? Where is that little fucker?!”
“Pep, please… I got this in the bag, OK? I don’t want you anywhere near her, ever.”
Pepper started tear up, but she didn’t care. How messed up was this situation?
“Honey, hey, don’t cry, please? Just for a little while until those idiots all clumped up in one spot, and then we’ll get them, I swear.”
“What the fuck is her problem?!” she screeched at the holoscreen, wishing madly that she wasn’t strapped to her office in the tower right now.
Surprisingly, it was Crowley that poked her head over Tony’s and the gaggle of children (and Vision… is that Cassidy?) that crowded around Tony protectively. “I think I can answer that, ma’am. I’ve seen her head and it was messed up, believe me.”
“Tell her something we don’t know,” Harley mumbled angrily.
“No, I’m serious, tell ‘em Vision.”
Vision looked a little abashed when he answered, “I didn’t actually manage to glimpse at her mind, keeping her power at bay without her noticing was surprisingly complicated enough for me to do the first time.”
“Huh,” Crowley mused, “well, you’ll just have to take my words as is, then. From what I’ve gathered, she really held Mr. Stark here responsible for her family’s death－”
“Old news, my missile dropped on her house, killed everyone except her and her brother,” Tony answered glumly.
Crowley looked at Tony calculatingly, before turning to look at her instead. “If I tell you she remembers the serial code under the SI logo, can you check the record if that missile even existed? Because I never once heard an SI bomb that doesn’t go boom when it should’ve. Especially for 2 days.”
Maybe Pepper could get along with this girl after all.
“Yes, we do have the records of every single weapons we ever produced.”
“Right. SI-MRP-1503-X51.”
“Records checked. No match found,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. answered both from both ends of the call.
Peter made a ‘there you have it’ gesture with a very exasperated face, but Tony wasn’t convinced.
“Doesn’t make a difference. At the end of the day, she thought it was mine, and she hates me for it.”
“Oh, no, we can use that later, actually. Spin it off to make her look as idiotic as possible, because believe me, beyond the ‘kill Stark’ chant she had in her mind, there wasn’t much going on in her brain.”
“Enough to gain her a mental illness pass in the court?” Pepper asked sharply.
“Nah. She’s not mentally incompetent, just dumb. Honestly, you shouldn’t need to solve for X to know that maybe joining a terrorist organizations with creepy logo might not be the best idea. She did seem delusional, but she brought that delusion on herself because of her hatred. Not the other way around.”
Which means that bitch hurt my man because she’s dumb enough to be fooled by herself. Good to know.
Crowley must’ve seen her murderous expression, because she snorted and continued, “That wasn’t all, actually.”
Peter groaned in annoyance. “Can this woman be any more heinous ?!”
“Oh, you sweet summer child. HYDRA or Ultron, which one do you want first?”
Tony’s face fell even more. “Ultron was mine.”
Crowley’s grin was incredibly vindictive and gleeful, and Pepper couldn’t help but feel the approval for the young woman. “That’s the stuff. It’s not yours.”
“Ultron－”
“Could’ve picked literally any other name, but your program was just there, so he took it.”
“I brought the scepter back－”
“At the agreement of your whole team.”
“If I hadn’t tinkered with it－”
“And we arrived at the crux of the matter,” she said triumphantly. “ Why did you tinker with it, Mr. Stark?”
Tony’s face was a combination of regret, hurt, and… confusion.
Could it be?
“Because I thought it might make Ultron work.”
“Which had failed and been shelved for quite some time, then, right?”
“Uh… yes?”
“Then why did you restart the project? Because you suddenly have an alien artifact in your hands? I thought you hate that scepter?” she asked innocently, but Pepper already had an inkling of where she was leading them all.
Tony gulped on the screen, his hands shook minutely. “I… I saw something, back in the HYDRA base…. Jesus, did she…?”
“Yup. She gave you that vision. She knew that you’d be desperate enough to do something with the scepter, and she knew that the scepter would fuck it up.” She paused, relishing in the silence of both rooms. “Guess who she blamed for her brother’s death?”
Harley growled angrily. “She made that monster! She killed her own brother!”
“Told you she’d rather delude herself. That’s her whole MO, really.”
Vision looked horrified. “I… I did not know that.”
“That’s why you were acting so weird!” Harley exclaimed. “She triggered you!”
“OK, that’s… I don’t know why I never suspected that,” Tony looked around confusedly.
Crowley’s eyes were razor sharp now. “The same way she made sure he,” she gestured at Vision, “didn’t know about her little hidey-hole inside your brain.”
“That… that… that bitch !” Harley ground out, and Pepper didn’t even have enough brain power to scold him for swearing.
“B.A.R.F.,” she said finally after she managed to calm her breathing down. “Get all you know about her and Ultron loaded up. I want the files as soon as possible.”
“Gladly,” Crowley… no, Tracy drawled easily.
“Any dirt on her, whatever mission HYDRA assigned her and her brother….”
“I got them all, don’t worry.”
Pepper nodded, satisfied. “Now, then,” she looked sharply at Tony, who groaned at her expression.
“Is this going to involve me signing anything?” he whined.
“No, no, I just need a line with the Council.”
He looked at her in suspicion. “Why?”
“Well, I need to coordinate with the people that’s actually going to catch her, right?”
Tony looked like he was going to protest, but he gave up midway. “You know what? Plausible deniability and all that. Go ahead and do whatever you want, just don’t bother Crowley tomorrow, she’s going to testify for Ross’ trial.”
Revenge, at last.
“Done. Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”
“You called me!”
“Will that be all, Mr. Stark? ”
“Ugh, fine. That will be all, Miss Potts.”
(Commercial Flight to Trinidad)
Her wigs itched, the seat was uncomfortable, and the flight attendants were rude. It was hard enough to use her power without letting anyone see the red mist around her, but if one more person told her that she had to strap that ugly safety belts on, she would do more than just make them forget why they’re there in the first place. The damned plane jolted again, and she lurched forward, hitting her stomach on the tray in front of her. Natasha sent her a warning glare when a wisp of red made a light overhead flicker.
Damn this plane and it’s stupid turbulence. Avengers’ jet never had any, and she didn’t see any reason why people would sell planes if they couldn’t even make it comfortable. She went back to her seat, ready to get back to work. But something felt a little off for some reason, and she couldn’t pin point where.
Whatever, she thought. Probably just the altitude.
She reached out with her power again, routing back to the now familiar path leading to Stark’s mind, but somehow, she suddenly felt a little… nostalgic. Images of her childhood and her home that was robbed by that monster Stark and his accursed weapon flooded her mind. He took her life away, so she used it to fuel a new one. Stark was going to pay for the home that he had taken away from her.
She remembered the nights that she had spent with Pietro, planning the demise of the monster that made them orphans. She wondered if Stark’s sob story about his “kids” were any good for her. Maybe if she made him feel what she felt that night…. A sharp stinging sensation broke her train of thought. She glanced from left to right, trying to find the offender, but found nothing.
Just her imagination? Wanda settled down, deciding that maybe she overextended her power a little bit.
“So you do have a little self-control left, Sister. Good to know.”
She jolted up again, gaining Natasha’s irritated glare in the process, but she didn’t care. That was… Pietro? She reached out with her mind, desperately trying to find the source of his late brother’s voice… just another casualties of Stark’s creation.
If only Stark wasn’t so stupid. Couldn’t he make something else? She just wanted him to self-destruct, not make a murderbot!
“You blame him for your brainchild, Wanda? What did I tell you about cleaning up after yourself?”
What?? It can’t be…. First Pietro, and now….
“ Мамочка…? ”
She resolutely ignored Natasha’s now confused gaze. She focused instead on listening to her mother’s answer, but it never came.
What on earth was happening?
“The crazy bitch hearing voices. I wonder where I’ve heard that one before?”
She barely suppressed her flinch. That voice… she remembered that voice. It was her first… trial back when she was with HYDRA.
“Wow, trial, huh? Didn’t know I rank that low on your scale, you Nazi scum.”
No! No, she’s not Nazi! She’s just misguided!
“Aw… did Stevie told you that one too? Did he put pacifier on you when he tucked you in after you made a boo-boo?”
“ Du bist kein Kind! Du hast mich getötet! Brenn in der Hölle, Nazi Schlampe! ”
“ Убей ее! Убить ведьму !”
“Why did you take Mummy away?! Why?!”
No! No! Shut up!
“What’s wrong, sister? I thought you wanted all those?”
I didn’t! I didn’t!
“Not so fun now when they can get back to you, hmm?”
Please! Stop!
“Regretting something? That’s a first! Congrats!”
I had to do it! I had to kill you!
“Or not.”
“ Einmal ein Nazi, immer ein Nazi. ”
“I’M NOT A NAZI!” she screeched accidentally.
“Wanda, what the hell?” Natasha hissed at her.
She shrunk on her seat, nervously looking around at the people that were either gawking at her, or recording her with their phones. “I… I don’t…－”
“You are this close to giving us away, Wanda! Lay off!” Her friend hissed lowly.
She could swear the voices were laughing at her as they fade away.