"You really want to do this Steve?" Tony was talking to Steve over the phone.
"He didn't do it, Tony. Someone's after him. You know that." Steve wanted to protect his friend.
"Damn it. He killed 5 people Cap! He will be brought in and you are going to get burned right with him." Tony was almost shouting right now.
"What do you want Tony?" Steve said calmly.
"I want you to sign the Accords. We can make the last 24 hours legit. When Barnes is brought in and he will. Instead of a maximum security prison, he gets transferred to an American Psyche ward." Tony tried to convince him.
"Even though he's innocent?" Steve asked.
"That's the best deal we can get, Cap," Tony said with a helpless tone. He wasn't against Steve. As much as they bickered with each other, they were still comrades in arms. They just had too much pride.
"I'm not completely against signing the accords…" Steve finally compromised.
Before Tony could say anything he said, "But there would have to be amends and safeguards." Steve was not willing to accept the number of restrictions that the accords put on him.
"Great! Once we put out the PR fire and tell everyone that all the Avengers have signed, the documents can be amended. I'll file a motion to have you, Sam, and Wanda reinstated. Everything goes back to normal."
"Wanda? What about her?" Steve caught onto Tony's words.
"It's nothing, she's currently confined to The Compound, Vision's keeping her company." Tony tried to dismiss it, knowing that Steve would lash out at him for his decision.
"God, Tony… Every time I think you see things the right way…" As Tony expected, Steve was completely against Tony's actions.
"It's 100 acres with a lap pool, there's a screening room. There are worse ways to protect people." He tried to defend his decision.
"Protection?!" Steve was flabbergasted, "Is that how you see this, Tony? This isn't protection, this is internment."
"She's not a US citizen…" Tony tried to reason with Steve.
"Oh, come on, Tony." Steve thought that it was dumb reasoning.
"…And they don't grant visas to a weapon of mass destruction." Tony's volume was increasing.
"She's a kid!" Steve said with a loud voice.
"Give me a break!" Tony slammed the table, "I'm doing what has to be done to keep us together."
"Keep telling yourself that." Steve scoffed and hung up the phone.
"Well, that was entertaining…" Nat says from beside Tony.
"God, when did you get here?" He didn't even realize her presence in the room.
"I've been here a while." She smiled. She'd just switched with Alex's copy of hers and came to Tony only to see him having a screaming contest with his phone.
"That so?" Tony pinched his eyebrows.
"You didn't do things right…" Nat told him.
"Oh yeah? How?"
"First of all, you should've been there when Ross came to tell us about the accords. It was a dick move to agree without even consulting the team."
"I don't have the time. Nat. Fucking politics. The world is scared and they all want the Avengers under their control. I would've done better if I wasn't so busy. We don't know when we'll start dealing with a literal intergalactic war, and Steve here is throwing his temper tantrum because of his trust issues with Shield." Tony was completely exasperated with this shit.
Nat didn't know what to say after Tony laid everything bare like this. Her stance on authority figures was similar to Steve's— That was why she ended up helping him out with Bucky— But hearing all that laid bare like that left her a little speechless.
"So-" Just as she was going to speak, Ross walked into the room.
"I don't suppose you have any idea about where they are." Secretary Ross walked in while posturing.
[It's funny how he keeps trying to act up like a little rooster in front of the Avengers. It's like he's wagging his tail feathers while saying, "Look at me. Praise me, Admire me!"] Alex said into Natasha's head.
[Hahaha...] Natasha had to turn her head slightly away so that she doesn't look at his face. She would laugh right in his face if she looked at him.
[Alex… All I can imagine right now is that fucker… haha… with a little beak on his face with… haha… wagging feathers behind him…. hahaha.] That image was burned into Natasha's brain right now.
'I should get better with biological manipulation so that I can make that image a reality.' Alex really didn't like this fucker.
"We will. GSG 9's got the border covered. Recon's flying 24/7. They'll get a hit. We'll handle it." Tony said told Ross that the German Feds were focused on their task.
"You don't get it Stark. It's not yours to handle. You have more important things to do and it's clear that you can't be objective. I'm putting Special Ops on this." Ross said in a final tone.
Natasha frowned, "And what happens when the shooting starts? What, do you kill Steve Rogers?"
"If provoked, yes. Barnes would've been eliminated in Romania if it wasn't for Rogers. There are dead people who would be alive now." He glared at Tony as he said the last sentence.
"All due respect, Ross. Guns and bullets aren't going to work here. You've got to let us bring them in. 72 hours. Guaranteed." Tony gave his final words. His tone left no room for refusal and Ross knew that it was impossible to have Tony change his mind on this.
"36 Hours." Ross gave in, but he had to get in the final word to satisfy his fragile pride.
"Barnes. Rogers. Wilson." He said the names as he walked out.
"You okay?" Nat walked up to Tony and asked him.
"Always…" He said nonchalantly, deep in thought.
"We're seriously understaffed for this…" She mentioned.
"Yeah. I've got a few ideas, what about you?" Tony was in contact with a group of people that he was planning to bring on for this.
"Yeah, me too." Nat also knew someone who had a reason to be involved in the fight.
…
[I'm angry, Alex…] Wanda was looking out the window while talking to Alex.
[Then let it out. Let all your anger out.] Alex was all in to see the world burn from the Scarlet Witch's wrath.
[That's a risk that I'm not willing to take…] She knew that her powers were unstable and didn't want to risk blowing up the entire compound. She'd never really understood the true potential of how strong she was.
[Go into the mountains then, find some secluded spot, and let out all your anger. Destroy the entire mountain if that's what it takes.] Alex joked.
[That sounds kinda sorta fun…] Wanda smiled at his suggestion.
As she was talking to Alex, she abruptly turned around and threw a knife from the kitchen at the person that she'd captured in her senses.
And at the same time, there was an explosion nearby. It served as a minor distraction to lure Vision away for the next few seconds.
"Clint?" The tension of the fight left her body as Wanda realized who it was.
"Oh, my god. What are you doing here?" Wanda walked to Clint.
"Disappointing my kids." He fired two electromagnetic shock arrows at two sides of the window that she was standing in front of as a trap to suppress Vision for a bit.
"I was supposed to take them to the water park. Come on, Cap needs our help." He grabbed Wanda and started walking out with her.
"Clint!" It was Vision.
"You should not be here." He phased through the window and was floating toward Wanda and Clint.
"Really? I retire for what? 5 minutes and everything goes to shit." Clint stopped and turned to look at Vision.
"Please consider the consequences of your actions," Vision was objective in his actions.
"They're considered," Clint said as he activated the electromagnetic suppressors. There was a constant electric burst from the arrows that destabilized Vision's artificial body and froze him in place.
"Let's go!" He hurried Wanda as he started running.
Wanda didn't follow after him as she looked at Vision.
"It's this way…" He pointed to the exit, hoping that he doesn't have to give her another pep talk.
She said, "Those arrows won't hold him long enough." He indeed didn't have to give her a pep talk.
Talking with Alex regularly, she'd already been planning to leave sooner or later. Her mental state had been much better than it would've been otherwise.
Wanda was someone who desperately needed some sort of pillar in her life. Especially since her powers were very volatile and she was terrified of them. Alex's presence not only helped her find someone who was with her at all times, but it also gave her real hope that one day she would be able to control her powers.
It's like she'd always lived with a monster within her that would sooner or later devour her. And one day, Alex came and helped her control that monster and became a confidant for her.
Before Vision could get free from the electric prison, Wanda extended her hands with a red glow in them.
"Wanda!" Vision tried to dissuade her as he felt his body's connection with his core getting suppressed.
Wanda didn't listen to him as she suppressed the connection between the Mind Stone and Vision's Vibranium body, making his body flicker between tangible and intangible.
Then she put a large amount of pressure on his body, making sure that it started floating in a fetal position while being unable to move.
"That's new…" Clint was surprised by the fine-tuned control that she had just displayed with her power.
"I've been training. This should hold him for a few hours. We should get going." Wanda was proud of her newfound control over her power.
This was because of the large amount of training that she'd been doing with Alex. She was still a little hesitant to use her powers but after seeing how Alex suppressed her outbursts easily, she started getting more confident in her use of the power.
All Alex did in the name of suppressing her outburst was to absorb all the excess Chaos Energy in her body. She was able to naturally generate it at all times. Her so-called 'outbursts' were because when she didn't use her powers for a long time, the Chaos energy would get accumulated and at one point, it would burst out. Hence the so-called 'outbursts'.
Wanda never bothered to explore her powers or understand them so she wasn't able to control that generation of Chaos energy in her body.
Alex had been constantly absorbing a portion since she didn't exactly have much use for it and it helped her prevent her outbursts. Initially, he'd planned to convert it into EP so that he could buy the teleportation skill, but that didn't work. Chaos energy is a powerful energy on the level of Cosmic Energy, It has countless uses, but it can't help Alex buy skills since he needs biological energy for that. Even though EP was on a similar level as Chaos energy, he didn't have any way to convert one to the other.
So, he did the next best thing, he started experimenting with it to see what he could do with it. He could use it since he'd gotten ‹Weak Magic Affinity› after bonding with Wanda.
Theoretically, he should be able to use Chaos energy, but it's not that simple. He hasn't found any use for it yet. Mostly because he had practically no control over Chaos energy.
Clint and Wanda left The Compound and then went to grab another person that Cap was planning to recruit— Ant-Man.
After that, the three of them left on their way to infiltrate Germany.
…
Although the German Police or the GSG 9 were paying strict attention to outgoing traffic, it wasn't exactly difficult to infiltrate and get inside the country. It was going out that was difficult.
At the same time, Tony had started getting together his side.
Natasha grabbed T'Challa, Black Panther. She decided to make some flimsy excuse that she deduced his identity and was offering him a chance to bring his father's culprit to justice.
Similarly Tony grabbed Spider-Man, the bane of Alex's existence.
Alex had reached four different versions of Earth and every single one of them had him run in with Spider-Man in an identical scenario. He was almost going crazy.
Tony had also gotten into contact with a certain group of people that he'd recently discovered and was going to invite them to the conflict.
Steve had assembled his team consisting of himself, his lackey Sam, Bucky, Clint, Wanda, and Ant-Man.
Cap had also invited some loose strings that he'd known about and had practically called in every favor.
Tony had gotten himself, Rhodey, Natasha, Peter Parker, T-Challa, Vision, and lastly, the mysterious group that he'd invited.
Though Alex had a host on both sides, he didn't know the exact situation and was going to be in for a surprise when the complete situation unfolds. He only knew what Wanda and Natasha knew, and that wasn't a lot considering that neither of them had the time to coordinate with their respective teammates. They were both extremely busy.
'Some things are bound to happen, eh?' Alex thought as he realized that even after all his interferences, everything was building up to the same thing.
***
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