"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.
***
Steve and Bucky were running toward a helicopter at full speed.
They'd figured out a bit of the gist of the situation and were going to Siberia to double-check and finish up everything relating to the other Winter Soldiers in the Hydra facility that Bucky had remembered being trained in.
They were both running on a clock and had to get there as soon as possible. Though they both knew it wasn't going to be that easy.
*Clink* *Bzzz*
Before they even got to the helicopter, there was a clinking sound of something sticking to it, and an electromagnetic pulse fried the helicopter's rotor motor.
"Stand down Cap!" Tony came flying through the air and pointed his repulsers at Cap and Bucky while midair.
"You know I can't do that, Tony." Steve shook his head.
"Then you leave me no choice." He said as there was the sound of his repulsors powering up.
And then it was Pandemonium.
…
[Wanna fight for both sides again?] Alex asked in Nat's mind as she ran through the staff entrance of the airport toward the center of the conflict that had just started. She'd received the signal from Tony to arrive at the scene.
[The only family I've felt in far too long is falling apart Alex. I don't want to choose sides.] Natasha's mood wasn't the most stable.
[It's happening, Nat… Whether you like it or not.] Alex felt sad about it too, but he knew that at this point it was inevitable.
[What do you think I should do?]
[If you want my opinion, then you should help Cap leave. Make sure that the rest of the people don't end up imprisoned in the Raft. He and Steve are going to Siberia, to the facility where Bucky was turned into the Winter Soldier. There's more of him. More Winter Soldiers. Let them both leave, Stark and the War Machine guy can follow them and deal with what needs to be dealt with.]
[How do you even know this?] Nat was surprised that he knew so much.
[I may have planted an indetectable bug on Bucky when you dropped him in the warehouse, a tiny tendril of my body. I couldn't hear everything perfectly since it was a very tiny tendril and most of my focus was on gathering his plans, but I heard enough.] He hadn't done anything of the sort, but he couldn't just say that he knew the plot from the movie.
'Now that I think about it, this would've been a very nice spying method…' Alex regretting not having this idea earlier.
[You didn't think to tell me this before?] Nat frowned.
[It would only make you feel bad for not telling Tony about it. And I know you wouldn't have told him about it. That would lead to you feeling guilty for no reason.] Alex said.
[You don't know that…] Her thought lacked conviction.
At this point, Nat finally reached the open area and saw Steve and Bucky fighting against Iron Man and War Machine.
[Incoming!] Before they could continue their conversation though a strong shockwave was blasted toward Natasha's head, with the intent of incapacitating her.
With Alex's timely warning though, she instantly jumped back. The ground where she would have been at this point in time was blasted apart. She noticed and noted that his voice was really panicky when he warned her.
[Quake?] Alex said in her mind while feeling rattled from the shockwave that spread from the impact. He was feeling glad inwardly that he'd gotten that ‹Lesser Heat and Sound Resistance›
[Who's that?] Nat asked him as she shot a taser dart at Daisy who was floating in the air.
[Daisy. Coulson's subordinate. The vibrator girl.] Alex told her many terms to remind Natasha about her.
[That sounds wrong on so many levels…] Natasha remembered whom Alex was talking about, but was weirded out by him calling Daisy the vibrator girl.
She'd skimmed through almost all of Shield's data and knew about many of the high-priority individuals of Shield. She also knew quite a bit about the Inhumans too.
[It's accurate.] Alex shrugged.
[Right…] Nat trailed off as she saw Quake release a sonic blast at Nat's taser dart and destroy the projectile.
Alex looked around at the battlefield and noticed that it was much more chaotic than it should've been.
'The Defenders… Agents of Shield… Is that the fucking Ghost Rider? The Punisher... These guys are all on Cap's side… Shit changed. Amazing.' Alex felt a sort of internal excitement to fight all of them.
He also saw that Iron Man's side was also much more crowded.
The most prominent being almost a hundred different versions of Iron Man suits piloted by Friday. Also, the presence of a few of the Inhumans.
'No wonder this fucker ended up on a break with Pepper. He's probably made a fucking production line that creates the base suit and then he personally enhances them with different purposes in mind.
Alex even noticed a weaker version of the Hulkbuster fighting with the combined forces of Luke Cage and Iron Fist.
'Those Inhumans probably came out since the new reality made them want to get more involved in the world. These people can't stay hidden in the shadows any longer. Even Wakanda will have to expose itself soon enough.'
Alex saw Blackbolt, Karnak, Gorgon, and a few other Inhumans that he didn't recognize.
Yo-yo and Daredevil were fighting against Karnak and an unknown inhuman with fire manipulation. Yo-yo was being assisted by some drones that were blocking blows for her while helping with the fire.
Ghost Rider and Ant-Man were fending off the combined forces of Black Panther and Gorgon.
'Did he get the upgraded suit already?' Alex thought as he saw T'Challa's suit absorb most of the impact from Gorgon's shockwave manipulation ability before releasing it at Robbie Reyes aka Ghost Rider. They had created a combo attack to beat Ghost Rider.
A whole lot more stuff was going on at the same time. Alex already knew that the entire airport was going to get trashed in the aftermath of this fight.
[Nat, I'm joining in the fight…] Alex told her as a portion of his symbiote body left Natasha's body in a camouflaged state.
[Which side?] She asked as she jumped up at Daisy who was floating only slightly above the ground, intending to engage in a fistfight.
[Both of them.] He told her. He just wanted to fight a good fight. He was going to help whichever team would have the weaker hand and even out the field.
He knew that by the end of all this Steve and Bucky would be making their way out of this place in the Quinjet. He was confident in all that fate bullshit that was going on.
He told Wanda the same thing as a part of his body separated from her and merged with the camouflaged body that was outside.
She was with Hawkeye and they were dealing with Vision and a couple of Tony's suits.
Finally, Alex did something he'd wanted to do for a while.
He made himself visible in the middle of the battlefield. He was wearing completely black armor with a prominent belt wrapped around his waist that seemed to have many tools. Only half of his face was visible as the rest of it was covered by a mask that had two tips going out from the ends.
He'd turned into Batman.
Noticing an unfamiliar face on the battlefield, one of Tony's suits moved in to attack Alex.
Alex also wanted to check his tanking capabilities so he let the repulser blast hit him, though for safety measures he used the palm of his hand to receive that attack.
'Okay, it stings… I'm not invincible.' Alex's palm was a little charred but healed back in an instant, but it helped him calm down from all that excitement. After seeing this utter chaos, he was excited to the ends of the earth and wanted to fight every single one of the people in this airport.
Now though, he'd calmed down a little.
Alex moved to dodge the other blasts that were shot at him as he moved with an inhuman level of speed toward the suit that was attacking him. His hand formed into a spike and he leaped into the air, piercing through the suit's chest. He discretely grabbed the arc reactor with his tendrils and kept it within him. He was going to see if it could provide him with any insight into the new metal that Tony had created for his upgraded arc reactor.
He landed in the middle of a fight between Jessica Jones and an unknown Inhuman who had the power to manipulate metal.
The inhuman was fighting her while having his fists covered in the scrap metal of an airplane while at the same time bombarding her with scrap metal projectiles. Jesica, despite being physically stronger, was forced to keep dodging the projectiles while being at a disadvantage in the fight.
Seeing that Jessica was on the losing side in this fight, Alex decided on his opponent and slightly changed his trajectory midair toward the metal manipulator.
A few of the stray projectiles ended up hitting Alex but he easily shrugged them off.
He increased the mass and density of his leg and swung it at the guy.
The metal manipulator blocked Alex's kick with his metal-coated arm. But that ended up giving Jessica an opportunity to punch him.
He flew back from the huge recoil but used some more metal to slow his fall and did not get too hurt.
"Hi!" He smiled charmingly at Jessica.
***
"Hi!" He smiled charmingly at Jessica.
"Do I know you?" She asked with a weird expression. She felt like the expression that she was seeing on the unknown man's face shouldn't exist.
"No, but I know you, Ms. Jones. I'm Batman." He said the last two words in the harshest and heaviest voice possible for him.
"Ahem ahem…" He ended up coughing due to the bad attempt at trying the heavy voice for the first time.
Before Jessica had the time to quip with him about his weird bullshit, one of Tony's suits approached them and shot its repulsor blasts at both of them at the same time.
Alex had already reacted before the suit even shot, courtesy of his ‹Enhanced 6th Sense› and picked up Jessica in his arms before dodging the shot and using one of his new abilities.
He put Jessica down and jumped up at the suit, just as he was about to use his ability, an arm punched through the suit and damaged the connection of the arc reactor with the rest of the suit, scrapping it.
"Huh?" Alex was momentarily confused but then he saw Jessica giving him a dirty look as she dropped to the floor with the destroyed suit.
"I didn't need you to save me. I'm plenty strong myself." She gave him that line and moved back to the metal manipulator guy that she'd been fighting before.
"Feisty… I like her." Alex didn't care about Jessica anymore as he'd already left a part of himself on her. He would be bonding with her after the fights were over and everything was settled. He presumed that bonding with her would provide quite a nice boost to the physical stats of his ‹Superhuman Grade Physique Creation› ability, allowing him to create stronger physiques.
…
Alex stayed as far away as possible from people who were fatally dangerous to him. Like Blackbolt and Ghost Rider.
He was sure that if he gets blasted by one word from Blackbolt, all parts of his body in this world would get completely decommissioned for a long while with its effects probably extending to the bodies in the other versions of earth too.
And that was after getting some minor resistance against those forces.
He wasn't even going to mention Ghost Rider's hellfire that could literally burn his soul. He wouldn't even survive if he got hit by that fire.
Ghost Rider could literally burn the evil in him. And there was a lot of evil in him. Even right now, he was killing a couple of officials in Research Earth and Farm Earth to take over their offices.
Next up, he decided to interfere between Luke Cage and Iron Fist versus the mini Hulkbuster that Tony had brought out.
He turned invisible using ‹Camouflage› since that was the best way to avoid most of the conflict in this huge fucking moshpit.
'I thought that too soon…' Alex thought as he jumped back from three Iron Man suits that had attacked him.
By turning himself invisible, Alex had actually ended up painting a target on his back. Tony had a set of suits using infrared cameras monitoring the battle.
After seeing the Inhumans, and how they had such varied powers, he decided that he would take all precautions necessary.
"Well, good enough for a training session." He said as he created a springboard under his feet and used it to propel himself toward one of the suits. At the same time, he created a drill in both his hands to attack the suits.
He accurately jumped at a suit, but it grabbed his drill hands and quickly attacked him with the Unibeam blast directly from the arc reactor in the chest.
Alex had already moved himself to the side and avoided the blast, but he wasn't able to avoid it completely since the suit was grabbing his hand and it turned with him. He was left with a huge gash on his left side which regenerated momentarily.
'Note to self, don't throw yourself in front of an Iron Man suit. Sometimes the supersenses aren't enough.' This fight was going to help Alex find out his problems.
He wasn't a combatant. No matter how many skills and memories he'd got, this was the first true fight that he was experiencing. He didn't count that brawl with The Punisher and Kraven in Gwen-65's Earth since they were no more than humans with slight enhancements. Alex could literally overwhelm them with his physical strength.
As he dodged the attack of the first suit the two other suits' tiny shoulder-mounted shot missile darts at him.
He tanked the darts using his body and stabbed the suit that was trying to keep him in place after freeing one of his drill hands.
The suit was made with the intention of having high physical stats and was bulky, so his attack wasn't enough to completely destroy it. Alex then used his ‹Basic Lightning Manipulation› and electrocuted the suit. That made the suit freeze for an instant.
He used that instant to free his other hand that had been grabbed by the suit and made it into a sharp axe. Just as he was about to stab the suit though, another one came over and grabbed his hand that had been turned into an axe.
"Okay, this is just annoying." Alex used his full physical strength to pull that new suit close and headbutted the suit. He'd increased the mass of his head to a few tons so it was going to have quite a few effects.
And it did. That suit wasn't one with high physical stats and its head was flown straight off from Alex's headbutt.
He then finally was able to rip off the head of the bulky suit that he'd been grabbing. It took him some effort since it was made to withstand quite a bit of damage.
'2 down, 1 more to go.'
After grabbing the arc reactors from both the terminated suits, he used the depowering suit he was on as a springboard and jumped to the back of the next last one. Having learned his lesson from before.
This suit was one with a large number of weapons and had been bombarding him with quite a few weapons that he'd had to tank. It wasn't too big of a deal but it was annoying for him.
He used a new move and used his energy as a magical source and created a compressed ball of magical energy in his hand before pushing it inside the suit that was shooting him while trying to shake him off.
At that instant, the suit burst open from the inside and Alex jumped back to the ground.
He'd developed this move after working with his ‹Weak Magic Affinity› and exploring its capabilities. Its main use that he'd discovered till now was to convert his own raw energy into so-called magical energy.
Alex could use that magical energy for myriad purposes. He hadn't been able to cast real magic yet and could only use this crude way of compressing the energy into a ball and having it explode.
This wasn't done through the use of the biological energy that gave him EP, nor through Wanda's Chaos Energy. It was his everyday energy that was used to run his body.
He could easily obtain it through easy means like food and even his hosts constantly generated quite a bit of it for him so it wasn't a scarce resource for him. He was basically converting his stamina into magical energy or mana as he decided to call it from now on since it was convenient.
When he was done, he decided to look for another opponent, this time one from Captain America's side. He was playing both sides and he was going to make it seem that he was playing both sides.
…
Wanda felt that Alex's body was moving away from her, but she could feel that he was also inside her and what was separated was only a part of Alex's body from inside her.
The invisibility wasn't very effective on Wanda since her Chaos magic acted as a natural detector when she was focusing. With more practice and proficiency in Chaos magic, this kind of thing would become a passive ability for her.
She was holding back Vision's Mind Stone beams while also creating shields to defend herself and Clint from the repulsor blasts of the ten Iron Man suits surrounding them.
"Does Tony not have anything better to do? How does he have so many fucking suits." Clint felt like crying as he shot an arrow at a suit's vital spot. Two repulsor blasts attacked him at the same time, he dodged one while Wanda formed a shield to block the other.
"Vis told me that he's pretty obsessed with this work. It ended up with him and Pepper on a break." Wanda commented offhandedly as she counterattacked against Vision.
"You seem pretty lax right now." Clint noticed how she was being pretty carefree.
"Well, we just have to hold back Vision until Cap and his friend can leave."
"And then?"
"Then… I blow everyone away and walk out in stride as if I own the place…" She smiled with a very rare confident look in her eyes.
Clint was surprised at how uncharacteristic Wanda seemed, "You don't hear that every day…"
"Well, maybe I'll just fly away. But I'm sure as hell not getting caught and put in a hole like some animal." She had a furious glint in her eyes as she said the last part.
[Incoming…] Alex warned Wanda and she created a shield to directly block the web that was shot at her. His warnings weren't limited to words. Telepathically, Alex is able to instantly convey the exact direction and location of the danger.
She telekinetically grabbed Spider-Man and lifted him before throwing him at Vision who was preparing to shoot another beam at her.
"Hey, Vis, I'll show you something fun…" Wanda smiled and decided to unleash something she'd been preparing for a few minutes.
***
"Hey, Vis, I'll show you something fun…" Wanda smiled and decided to unleash something she'd been preparing for a few minutes.
"Clint, duck," She told Clint before a big red shockwave of chaos magic spread out from her as the center.
"Fuck, Wanda, give me a timely heads up." Clint was full of complaints as he barely ducked to stop himself from being thrown away from Wanda due to the effects of the shockwave.
That Chaos Shockwave spread out in the blink of an eye, reaching Vision, Spider-Man, and the 8 Iron Man suits that were attacking them. All of them froze in their place from the effects of the energy that was coating them.
Wanda could've just immobilized those suits, but she decided to trash them, causing some loss to Tony. She was still bitter about being treated as a prisoner when she didn't do anything wrong.
With a thought, the 8 suits started compressing into balls of metal, basically becoming ruined. It was her telekinesis, but it wasn't exactly telekinesis per se, she was able to release Chaos energy to coat her targets and then manipulate that energy to move the target around.
Then she separated Spider-Man from Vision and threw those Iron Man balls at Vision. She knew that Vision could take it, but Spider-Man would die.
In the end, this conflict wasn't a deadly conflict. She knew that Both Steve and Tony had told their people and the 'hired' help to not kill anyone.
Vision prepared to turn intangible but Wanda used a familiar trick to stop him. The mind stone got a red glow and Vision lost control over his body, disrupting his concentration.
He was able to snap out of it quickly this time since he'd made some countermeasures, but it wasn't enough. He still ended up getting hit by two of those super-compressed spheres. They made him lose his concentration and Wanda was able to use her old trick to put him out of commission for a while.
She'd seen that Spider-Man was just a kid that Tony'd gotten so she held back and threw him at the Punisher's opponent, it was one of the physical power-based Inhumans. She didn't care much for most of the people that were here, nor did she care that the Punisher was on their side and would now be dealing with two assailants. Her goal was to make sure that Cap and Bucky were able to leave.
She moved to look at the center of the fight where Iron Man and War Machine were fighting Captain America and The Winter Soldier.
"You couldn't have done that before?" Clint said as he took deep breaths.
"It takes preparation. I had to make sure that the blast was controlled. I don't want to end up killing someone. The last time I did this, it ended up decimating every single Ultron robot in the surrounding 200 meters." Wanda said nonchalantly, referring to the time her brother died and she felt an unbearable heartache, releasing a huge shockwave of pure Chaos energy.
"Crazy—" Clint was about to continue speaking when they were attacked by a cold breeze before it blew into a full-on icy tundra.
The area around him and Wanda was covered in ice as a female Inhuman with the powers to manipulate ice walked out of the icy mist that she'd created.
Wanda wanted to support Steve and Bucky and tried to finish it fast, so she sent a concentrated beam of Chaos energy at their new opponent.
"Everyone's got a gimmick now…" Clint was full of complaints and nocked an arrow at her chest. It was an electric stunner.
Just as Wanda's Chaos Beam was about to hit her, an ice wall came in front of the ice girl, blocking Wanda's attack. Though the Chaos Beam managed to destroy a huge chunk of the ice, it didn't hit the girl. The same happened with Clint's arrow.
"Destroy the surrounding ice. She's using it to augment her abilities." Clint was a battle-hardened veteran and was able to easily discern the attack's source.
"On it." Before Wanda could release a large blast to clean out the surrounding ice, she and Clint were bombarded by extremely sharp spikes, so she had to form a shield to defend herself.
Seeing as there were too many spikes in the surroundings, Wanda released a strong red glow that formed a sphere around her and Clint, creating a shield around them.
"Get ready Clint, The shield isn't going to hold for long." Chaos magic wasn't very stable and Wanda wasn't proficient enough to create a long-lasting shield. So, though the shield was strong and protected them very well, it was a strain on Wanda to maintain it.
She took a deep breath and gathered a large amount of Chaos magic, planning to create another shockwave. At the same time, Clint nocked another arrow to stun the girl.
This time, the ice girl wasn't able to stop her since Wanda and Clint were shielded.
"Now!" Wanda gave Clint the signal before the shield dropped and a strong shockwave spread out from her as the center.
She'd taken longer this time with full concentration so she was able to bypass Clint and he wasn't affected by it, but the surrounding ice was completely pushed away.
Clint had already released his arrow and at the moment the ice cleared, revealing the ice inhuman, his arrow hit her in the stomach, shocking her and incapacitating her.
"Let's go!" They didn't waste any time as they ran to the center of the fight.
…
With Natasha.
She knew that she wasn't Quake's match when she saw her. Nat spent some time avoiding Quake as she looked for a way to get rid of her.
That was when she noticed someone who seemed to be just viewing the fighting, seemingly not planning to get involved.
'When did Tony meet with the Inhumans…' She recognized Blackbolt. The Shield archives had quite a bit of information about the Inhumans and their kingdom.
'He's going to be perfect to deal with her.' She decided to lure Quake to Balckbolt so that they could do their own thing.
She did exactly that and in the end, she didn't even have to convince them to fight. They seemed to have something of a feud among themselves.
Alex was relieved after Quake stopped fighting with Nat, he hadn't planned on revealing his weakness to her and was glad that Nat took the initiative to get rid of Quake instead of continuing the fight. He was in utter pain and wanted to kill himself from the effects of the vibrations.
'If this is after I have some resistance, what would I have felt without it…' Alex felt shivers go down his non-existent spine. He had no plans to bond with Quake despite how overpowered she was. If he's bonded with her while she uses her powers he would probably be annihilated.
He looked ahead and saw that the fight between Blackbolt and Quake seemed to be personal.
'I should've watched Inhumans and Agents of Shield…' Alex didn't understand the conflict. He'd stopped watching Agents of Shield after Coulson died and was brought back for the 15th time.
'Probably related to her mother…' He thought that it probably had something to do with Jiaying— Quake's mother, who was supposed to be connected to the Inhumans.
[Nat, I doubt that you can help much in this crazy brawl without using some powers. How about I create a decoy of you and you use your White Knight Persona to go all out?] Alex suggested. He wanted to see how much better he would be able to act when connected with a host.
He'd realized that without being connected with a host, although he had a very strong physique, that was all he had going for him. He wasn't able to channel his powers as well, both lightning and magic were nerfed when he wasn't with her or Wanda.
He was only able to tell this difference at this point because all the training that Alex had done with Wanda and Nat had been without separating from them. He never had the chance to test things while separated from them.
The compound was under constant and complete supervision by Friday except for their personal rooms. So he couldn't actually separate from them within the compound except for their special activities in the personal rooms.
[Sounds like a plan.] Nat also liked fighting in that persona and going all out. Beating up the Black Panther had been pretty fun.
Alex formed a large bubble around them while camouflaging things as if Black Widow was just standing there before separating from her and turning an identical replica. Nat on the other hand lost her usual combat suit which turned into her white armor with the face mask and everything.
It all happened within a period of 5 seconds as an invisible White Knight went away from Alex's copy of Natasha who had someone approach her for a fight.
Seeing an invisible person going through the battlefield, three of Tony's suits instantly targeted Natasha aka White Knight. Friday had registered White Knight as someone who helped Steve and Bucky and treated her as a hostile individual.
'Side-to-side comparison, eh?' Alex smiled as he warned Natasha of the incoming danger.
Even the set of suits was identical, one used for physical combat, one for weapons, and another for auxiliary support.
'Having months of a looming apocalypse does this to a man…' Alex thought as he understood some of the reasons that Tony has so many suits right now. The presence of the multiple worlds made him panic and he did the only thing he knew how to do. He built another fucking army of suits.
***
Nat pointed a gun at the incoming suits and shot her taser darts at them. They were amplified by Alex's lightning manipulation and packed quite a heavy punch. Alex had formed that gun to shoot darts of lightning. It was a replacement for her taser bracelets.
He couldn't channel electricity through Nat's body since she wasn't immune to it like Alex who had the power to manipulate it.
The suits though dodged her shots, though Natasha kept shooting a few of them as the suits approached her.
One of the darts finally ended up grazing a suit and it was all that was needed for a tiny explosion of electricity to burst out and fry half of the suit.
The auxiliary suit had been destroyed, but by then the suits had already reached her position as the physical suit lunged at her with a punch while the weapons suit started bombarding her with different weapons.
Nat jumped back while throwing a kick at the skull of the suit. It didn't phase the suit and Nat jumped back from it to make a little distance.
Invisibility was useless against these suits so she had to get creative. She knew about Alex's Lightning manipulation abilities and was going to use them to take care of things.
[Alex…] She gave him a signal and leaped away from the suit that was attacking her while dodging the missile darts and bullets that were being fired at her from the ranged weapon armor. She leaped toward the fried suit that was descending toward the ground. She wanted to completely get rid of it first.
She reached it and stood in its trajectory while dodging the attacks from the other suit. She had it easy dodging the attacks since Alex was able to telepathically share his 6th sense ability with her, allowing her to know where the attacks were coming from.
Just as she reached the half-fried auxiliary suit, she jumped high up and swung her leg around, aiming for the chest of the suit.
[Alex weights…] She wanted Alex to make her leg that she'd just swung heavier. As she hit the suit it fell to the ground and the arc reactor powered down.
Before she could sigh in relief, she had to jump to the left as the physical suit had already caught up to her and punched her in the back. Though she was able to dodge due to Alex's 6th sense sharing.
"All right big guy…" Unlike Alex, she was a master of physical combat and that was one domain in which she thrived.
She used everything that she had in her arsenal, not caring that her use of her full melee combat style would end up letting Tony know who she was.
'I'll explain everything to him some other time…' Nat had already decided to go on the run and was going to help Steve.
If she wasn't necessary then she wouldn't compromise herself for no reason, but if she had to then she was going to choose Steve and help him.
Using her usual style of fighting to its full extent, with the crazy enhancements that she had gotten by bonding with Alex, she was able to utterly decimate that suit.
[It feels good to not have to hold back…] Nat sighed in relief.
[Right…] Alex agreed with her. If she was in her Black Widow persona, she would have to hold back and make it seem that she wasn't as strong.
But wearing this suit allowed her to use her full capabilities without worrying.
[Tony probably already knows who you are. Friday can analyze your fighting style.]
[He won't tell on me.] Nat smiled as she told him. She trusted Tony enough to know that this wouldn't ruin her relationship with him. They were comrades in arms. All of the original Avengers were. They all had implicit trust in each other.
That's why even though Steve and Tony had brought in so much external help, there was not a single death. Some of the people were going to get roughed up, but it never went beyond a certain point. It was just a clash of ideals. Not a clash to the death.
Especially in the scenario of the multiple worlds. They were going to need all the fighting strength they could get.
She started running toward the center of the conflict where Tony, Rhodey, Steve, and Bucky seemed to be fighting. People were constantly involving themselves in that fight. They were, after all, the main reason everyone was here. Half of them to help Steve leave and half of them to help Tony stop Steve.
*Sizzle* *Zap*
Nat's path was intercepted by an electricity-manipulating Inhuman. He jumped in front of her and attacked her with the intention of immobilizing her.
[Aren't you supposed to be on Tony's side?] Alex teased Natasha.
[Shut up…] Nat growled at Alex. Her having to fight those robots gave the surrounding people the impression that she was from Cap's side.
Before the man in front of her could do anything, Nat turned invisible. Although Tony had set up contingencies against invisible people, it was clear that he'd only hurriedly done everything.
He hadn't actually created a real countermeasure against them. Nat was still able to use invisibility to fight her other opponents with an advantage. It was just the suits that could make detect someone like Nat.
As he saw Nat disappear in front of him, the inhuman got alarmed and instead of looking around, he closed his eyes and started sensing around him.
Just as Nat approached him and was a meter away from him, he turned to her and extended his hand at her, releasing a blast of lightning.
Nat was surprised and even with Alex's timely warning, she ended up getting shocked by a part of the lightning. She was faster than before, but she wasn't fast enough to the point of being faster than lightning.
Lightning traveled very fast and even with a timely warning, her physical limitations failed her.
Though the lightning didn't affect her at all and her suit easily tanked everything. The stun that Nat was expecting never came.
[I can manipulate lightning, Nat. Immunity to it is necessary for me to use it. Do you think Thor needs to keep himself away from his lightning?] Alex laughed at her.
[My bad…] Nat was embarrassed since in the middle of the fight, it had skipped her mind.
Ignoring the electric Inhuman's shocked expression, Nat jumped up and kicked him right in the face before he could attack her again, making him go to sleep.
"Let's move." She said.
At that moment there was a huge change in the battlefield.
As Nat was running toward the central battlefield, a huge man appeared in her vision.
"What the fuck…" She whispered as she saw a huge 60-meter-tall giant wearing a red-themed suit with a silver helmet. It was Ant-Man turned Giant-Man.
[Well, this just got interesting…] Alex said in her head.
[Right… Interesting...] Nat's thoughts were a mixture of sarcasm and disbelief.
…
"What the fuck…" Wanda and Hawkeye were looking at the huge giant.
"I know you said you have a distraction but I never expected this…" Clint said into the intercom for Ant-Man aka Scott Lang to hear.
"Let's go people, it's the last stretch. Don't waste the time that Scott just bought us." Wanda and Hawkeye heard Cap's voice from the intercom and started running toward the hangar with the Quinjet that they were going to use to escape. Their plan was to have Cap and Bucky escape with most of the people that had come to assist them, but it didn't seem that feasible right now.
Ant-Man grabbed Rhodey's leg and stopped him from being able to move forward.
"Let go of my Rhodey…" Iron Man said as he pointed his repulsors at Ant-Man. With that 10 more suits also came as they also aimed at Scott.
"Um… Guys. Some help here…" Scott was terrified of so many attacks.
"I got you." Daisy aka Quake said from the intercom levitating near Antman and releasing a huge shockwave toward Tony and a few of his suits.
At the same time, an earth manipulator inhuman came to assist Tony as he threw a large amount of debris at Quake to distract her.
Quake used her vibration powers to destroy those huge pieces of debris before moving to incapacitate that Inhuman, but she wasn't successful.
As Quake engaged with the Earth Manipulator, Ghost Rider was fighting Black Panther while Ant-Man had been stomping on Gorgon all this time who kept trying to release some shockwave blasts to remove Ant-Man's foot from him but was unsuccessful.
Ant-Man had served as a nice distraction for all this chaos as Captain America and Bucky slipped away from Iron Man's watch.
Cap noticed one of Tony's suits chasing after them and decided to get rid of it first.
"Buck, boost me up." He told his old friend.
Bucky didn't have to ask him what he was planning as he allowed Steve to use his metallic arm as a footrest to propel himself into the air.
They timed it just right such that Steve shot into the armor that was chasing them and his fist punched right through the armor.
"Let's go." They continued on their way, ignoring the scene of Ant-Man swatting away Iron Man like a bug.
"Captain Rogers. I'm afraid that I must stop you here." A yellow beam of light was fired at the pavement in front of them, making them stop in their tracks to not get burned.
"Vision…" Steve said as he looked at Vision with some apprehension.
"Please, Captain Rogers. Stand down." Vision's tone was forceful.
"You know I can't do that, Vision," Steve said and took a defensive posture.
"Then you leave me no choice." Vision prepared to fight as Captain America charged ahead.
***
"Then you leave me no choice." Vision prepared to fight as Captain America charged ahead. The next moment both Steve and Bucky were flung far ahead with a red glow on their legs.
Wanda had pushed them away from the conflict and sent them closer to the hangar.
'This is so similar to canon…' Alex thought.
Vision ignored her and tried to fly after them but was stopped by Wanda compressing her chaos energy and launching a Chaos Beam at Vision. He was forced to confront Wanda but he knew that she had some obscure way to cause a lot of problems for him so he tried to find a way to stop Steve and Bucky.
That way came in the form of Vision launching a beam from his mind stone at a radio tower at the side of the entrance of the hanger and destroying it. It ended up falling right on their path to the Quinjet.
"Keep going, Cap." Steve heard from the intercom just as he and Bucky were slowing down.
Daisy aka Quake was using her vibration manipulation to keep the tower in the air and bought them precious time to enter the hanger, though just as they entered, she was hit by an extremely strong sonic wave that made her fall right to the ground while clutching her ears in pain and screaming.
'Fuck… Even at this distance, it's painful…' Alex almost whimpered in pain from the horrible feeling of the soundwaves that Blackbolt released. And he was inside Wanda at the moment who was nowhere close to the place of the impact.
But it was all finally over. Steve and Bucky were already at their destination.
*THUMP*
In the background, a loud thump sounded as Ant-Man fell to the ground after Spider-Man's Empire Strikes Back idea. He had wrapped his webs around Ant-Man's legs and Tony and Rhodey had used their thrusters at full capacity to kick Ant-Man down.
"It's over…" Wanda sighed in relief as she saw the Quinjet leaving with Stark, Rhodey, Sam, and Vision after it.
[It's just starting Wanda… I don't want to see you end up in the raft. You need to go all out.] She heard Alex's voice in her head.
[I know…] Wanda got a determined look on her face.
…
Inside the Hanger.
"I've been waiting for you." T'Challa's voice sounded out as he stood in front of Steve and Bucky in a standoff.
"Your highness…" Steve looked at Black Panther. They'd already found out his identity since he'd officially revealed it before joining up with Tony.
"I did not bomb the UN. Nor did I kill your father." Bucky tried to reason with him.
"I don't care." T'Challa didn't believe him and lunged at him with his usual panther-style martial arts. Before he could reach them though, he was punched in the face by an invisible force that sent him flying.
"Hey, Cap." White Knight revealed herself.
"Nat…" Steve called out in a really soft voice that she was only able to understand since she'd been looking at him. He made sure that T'Challa didn't understand what he meant.
"How'd you find out?" Nat was surprised that he found her out so quickly.
"I noticed your fight against Tony's armor. I could recognize that fighting style anywhere. Also White Knight… The name is a glaring reveal." He told her while holding back his laughter.
"I should really learn a different style of fighting… Even if it's for appearances." She seemed to be grumbling but was smiling under her mask.
"I'll take care of T'Challa. You guys leave." She told them before going invisible and dodging T'Challa's attack and countering him with a kick.
"Thanks a lot. I owe you." Steve called out before getting into the jet and leaving.
"You already owe me a lot." Nat shocked T'Challa with a heavy bolt of lightning which seemed to work momentarily but not completely.
But since she was invisible she could keep him occupied for some time without any issues. In the end, Nat stalled him enough that Steve and Bucky left.
Before she could do anything after that though. There was a red glow in her vision.
'Wanda…' That was her last thought before she fell into a deep sleep.
…
"We did good with all that training, huh?" Alex smiled as he held Wanda in his arms and looked at her with a proud smile.
"Huff huff huff." Wanda couldn't say anything as she was pretty much wheezing from how tired she was. She'd just released a huge shockwave that knocked out every single human in a five-mile radius.
[Take care of me, Alex…] She said in a spoiled tone as she fainted. Her output just now had been far greater than she's ever had before. Although her strengthened physique was able to handle it. Her mind was extremely tired and she fainted as Alex held her in his arms.
[Rest up honey. I'll take care of everything now. You did amazingly.] He telepathically conveyed to her and she smiled imperceptibly.
'Such a cutie…' He couldn't help but think that she was cute as she slept peacefully in his arms. He pushed her hair behind her ear and caressed the side of her face before kissing her forehead.
"Let's get to work…" He stood up with Wanda in his arms.
The police were going to be here soon and he had to get out of this place as soon as possible. And Alex wasn't sure whether Vision or any of the others would be coming back or not. The Quinjet is extremely fast and he hoped that he wouldn't have to deal with those guys for a while.
The whole fight was very hectic for him and also gave him perspective. He was extremely weak in the grand scheme of Marvel.
The MCU already had nerfed versions of the heroes that were in the comic books and he wasn't a match for most of them. Hell, he was having trouble with Tony's random mass-produced suits.
'I need to get stronger…' He felt conviction bubbling inside him. For now, though he focused on escaping.
Alex didn't care about the others. The only reason he went so far was that he didn't want to get Wanda and Natasha targeted.
He was going to help everyone from Cap's side escape while going away separately with Wanda and Nat.
In the end, after all this, they were all fugitives and had to disappear from the public eye.
Alex soon found two undamaged jets far away from the battlefield. He split into a large number of bodies and started piling up all of the people that were here to help Cap in one of the planes while he put Wanda and Natasha in the other.
It took him less than a minute since had an abundance of manpower.
That was when he split into two clones and expanded to cover both of those planes. He was going to use the camouflaging effect to make sure that he didn't end up getting bombed or tracked.
He had already devoured three people with knowledge of flying with good proficiency when he killed everyone in Oscorp in the Amazing Spider-Man world. He'd also devoured an experienced commercial pilot with some influence from his second world or the Research Earth.
He wasn't worried about not knowing how to fly the plane, especially since it was all mostly autopilot. He went to the cockpit and started flying both planes.
As the planes were lifting off he saw the cops surrounding the airport while Vision returned at Tony's orders to take care of the mess that had been left behind.
Though he was already too late. Both of the planes had already flown far away in a camouflaged state.
'Thankfully Vision doesn't completely understand how to use the Mind Stone. Otherwise, he would've been able to locate my mental waves even though I'm miles away from the airport. I'm not proficient enough with mind manipulation to completely hide my own mental waves.' Alex thought as he focused on flying away at full sustainable speed from the battlefield. He'd already stocked up on a whole lot of fuel and would be able to run each plane constantly for more than 48 hours. Probably more if he went with it more efficiently.
The plane with just Nat and Wanda had even more time of constant flight— 64 hours. This was because the weight in that plane was much lesser than the other one which was filled with people.
He also took this chance to form a preliminary Level 0 bond with Jessica who was still knocked out in the overcrowded plane. He was driving that plane in his Batman persona.
He could've bonded with Quake too, but he didn't want to. People might mistake him for some sort of masochist if he bonded with her.
Her powers were literally the bane of Alex's existence and she didn't have anything called vibration immunity that he could leverage.
'Though that would be an overpowered defense ability…' Alex thought about vibration immunity.
'Fucking vibrator girl…' He had felt quite a bit of pain from her and Blackbolt's stray attacks throughout the fight.
'So… Now what?' He thought as he flew the planes and waited for everyone to wake up.
He was also going to tell Nat and Wanda that he'd bonded with both of them. He didn't know if they would mind, but he would have to deal with whatever happened after that.
***
"Ugh…" Nat groaned as she woke up from sleep.
[Alex…] She first called out to her partner.
"I'm here Nat…" Alex came to her in his human form. He had a separate body monitoring the plane's autopilot.
"What happened…" She asked while groggily waking up.
"Wanda released a huge blast of energy. It put everything within a 5-mile radius to sleep. It had already been evacuated so the only people that got knocked out were the ones at the airport." He told her the details since she would've been worried if Wanda had ended up killing some civilian.
"Where are we? Are we on a plane?" She asked as she saw her unfamiliar surroundings and the indistinct feeling that is felt when in an airplane.
"Yep. Taking advantage of her putting everyone to sleep, I got everyone that was there to help Cap out of the airport before the police came." He told her.
"Where are they?" She asked him.
"On another plane." He smiled.
"What?"
"I already had to steal a plane, I decided that I was going to steal two instead." He smirked.
"Who's flying that plane?" She asked with a confused expression.
"You seem to have forgotten that my main constitution is a slime. I can turn into a hundred people without any issue." He said nonchalantly.
"My bad. I'm still a little groggy. I forgot…" She said since it was something that she would've usually remembered.
"Don't worry about it. In the end, this plane has you and Wanda. While I stuffed everyone else in the other plane." He told her.
"Wanda too?" Nat was confused. She'd thought that he'd got this plane for them to have some private time together.
Alex seemed to have a sheepish look on her face.
"Well… you see…" He showed that he was hesitant.
"Tell me…" Nat felt weird seeing him like that.
"I'm also sort of bonded with Wanda. It happened at the same time as you. In Lagos." He told her as if it was something that had been making her feel guilty for a while. He knew that he could've lied to her but at some point, those lies would end up getting caught so he might as well go with the truth right from the get-go.
He could lie about his origins and shit, but the rest of the lies were easy to catch if one paid enough attention. So, he decided that he doesn't want to lie to either her or Wanda.
"Oh. Ohh. Ohhh…" She said 'oh' three times with increasingly long pauses of realization.
"So…" She wanted to know whether Alex's relationship with Wanda was as intimate as it was with her.
"Well, not yet. But it will be. I've been holding back since I don't understand how her powers work and I don't want them to cause a violent reaction when I… you know..." He had the decency to not mention it directly in front of her.
"Is there a specific reason for bonding with two hosts? I thought that you could only have a single host at the same time?" Nat didn't seem mad or even cheated. She was just curious about his reasons.
"I can bond with as many people as my mind can support actually. The more hosts, the better. Bonding with Wanda has allowed me to wield her powers to a slight extent while allowing her to use more of her power without straining her body." He said.
"I see. Is she awake?"
"Not yet, she tired herself out after that last attack. She won't be waking up for a while." He could wake her up with a boost but there was no real point in doing that. And he could rejuvenate her body and mind, but her power would still be strained.
"I see. And plans for a destination?"
"Not really. You both are fugitives and can't really be seen in public too much anymore." He told her.
"Yeah…" Nat seemed a little downcast about it as she frowned.
"You don't have to worry. Steve will contact you sooner or later." He put a hand on the side of her head and ran his fingers through her fiery hair.
"I have an idea about somewhere we could go. It's pretty secluded and in the mountains. There are enough supplies there to hold out for a while." Nat told him.
"I'll map out the route." Alex led her with him to the cockpit and they set the route.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to these clones of yours…" Nat was a little weirded out by the presence of another Alex in the cockpit.
"It's not a clone, Nat. They're like my own limbs. Parts of my body that are connected to my main consciousness" He explained.
"Come on, let's drink our sorrows away. You've just been branded a worldwide fugitive and an enemy of the world. How does it feel to go from protector to fugitive?" Alex held her hand and brought her to the bar area.
It was a nice corporate jet and had a few amenities.
"Like shit." She said bluntly with an indescribable look on her face.
"I could make you feel better…" He teased her.
"And if Wanda wakes up?" She asked.
"She could always join in." Alex leaned closer to Nat after taking a sip of whiskey.
"Is that so…" She trailed off and closed her eyes in anticipation as Alex moved in for the kiss.
Nat was feeling pretty tired and shitty and having a partner to enjoy her time with was just what she needed.
She would probably be open to having a threesome with Wanda if Alex played his cards right during their secluded retreat in the mountains. But that was to be determined.
…
In the other plane, with the others from Cap's side.
Alex had decided that he didn't want to deal with the bullshit from the others so after setting up everything on autopilot, he disappeared into Jessica Jones at the time that everyone would be waking up.
There were groans throughout the plane as people started waking up. They quickly realized that they were in a plane and no one was piloting it right now. It also served as a signal that one of them brought everyone here when they all went to sleep.
Soon, a few of them took control of the situation and decided on a destination. Quake knew how to pilot a normal aircraft and was the one who set their route.
They were suspicious that one of them was responsible for this but there wasn't any lead so they didn't focus on the issue.
Meanwhile, Jessica was sitting in the back with her arms wrapped around her legs and her face buried in her knees.
"What's up?" Luke came to her and asked.
"I don't think we can continue investigating the Hand…" She mentioned.
"Yeah. Bummer." The heat that they would have after this incident was sure to make them unable to be seen in the public eye for a long time. If they were caught, they would probably be sent to either the Raft or put on house arrest depending on their powers.
"Take care, Jess." He patted her shoulder for comfort and left after they talked for a while.
Alex was going to make himself known when she was alone and had some peace to herself.
They all were probably going to some old shield bunker. Daisy was the current director of the new Shield and had all the information from Fury about it.
…
With Steve and Bucky.
Tony, Rhodey, and Sam had tracked the Quinjet to Siberia and were going in to confront Captain America and Bucky.
With Wakanda's resources, it wasn't difficult for T'Challa to track them and he also came, but he hid. He'd calmed down after the fight at the airport and realized that it may all have been a setup after the fight in the Hangar.
Falcon held Rhodes back outside the facility and Tony ended up going in alone.
The events from the original timeline played with an almost exactly identical situation. With one key difference.
Tony's suit was much better than it would've been. After the widespread panic when the different worlds suddenly appeared in the sky, Tony pretty much went all in with working on his suits. He also ended up neglecting his relationship with Pepper. That's why they were on a break right now.
Just as it happened in the original timeline, Tony found out about how Bucky was the one who'd killed his parents and completely blew his top. He lashed out at Bucky, trying to kill him with everything he had. And he almost succeeded. Almost.
Steve was fallen to the ground with his shield in pieces, with tears gathered in his eyes as he looked at the pitiful state of his friend. Tony had ripped off not only his metal arm but also the other arm from his body. Same with one of his legs, Tony had ripped it off from below the kneecap. He was even 'kind' enough to stop the bleeding by burning the flesh in the affected areas.
Bucky's whole body had been riddled with third-degree burns as he'd already passed out from the pain. Even the brutal training that he'd gone through during the Winter Soldier program hadn't been enough to prepare him for the kind of pain that Tony had put him through.
The only thing worse than an angry Iron Man was an angry Iron Man who was prepared for a war on a galactic scale.
Tony looked over at his comrade of many years fallen on one side and the murderer of his parents on the other.
"I won't kill him…" He whispered in a gruff voice loud enough for Steve to hear and then he left the facility after taking care of things. Which meant killing the other Winter Soldiers that were present in the cryogenic chambers. He didn't want more of these Winter Soldier guys running amok and giving Hydra the manpower to cause more problems than there already were.
After that, Tony left with Rhodey.
T'Challa had his talk with Baron Zemo and captured him as the real culprit of his father's murder. He felt slightly guilty for causing so many problems for Bucky and Steve and seeing the pitiful and broken appearances of the two, he decided to help them out. It wasn't going to be a big deal for him anyway.
And that was how the Civil War of the Avengers ended almost exactly the same as it did in the movie.
Even after so many different elements, everything ended up being perfectly balanced. As it should've been.
***