The initial drop was a moment of sheer, gut-wrenching terror. My heart was pounding in my chest, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Tucking my arms in close to my body, I tried to aim myself down head-first to minimise wind resistance and accelerate my fall as the Red Room rushed up to meet me.

“Wanda?!” Pietro shouted through the comms in my ear, panic in his voice, and I winced.

“I’m fine!” I tried to snap back, the wind whipping my words away. I had no idea if anyone could even hear me. “Stark, if you can hear me, I need your help picking my targets.”

The ruined Red Room loomed large in my vision, getting closer, but not fast enough. I wrapped myself in wisps of chaos magic, coating my body like a second skin before pulling myself forward, urging myself faster. I squinted against the wind, eyes rapidly scanning the wreckage for survivors.

“Tony, Wanda dropped out of the Quinjet. Do you have eyes on her or Clint?”

“Give me a sec.”

A parachute suddenly opened off to one side, far below the main bulk of the failing platform. I couldn’t tell who it was at this distance, but I did see the falling girder slice through their chute. There wasn’t any time to pick and choose, so I threw out my hands and caught them and the nearest bits of falling wreckage in a web of telekinetic energy, rapidly bleeding off a chunk of their momentum. A second later I spun a portal just below them, dismissing it again immediately after they fell through.

I really, really hoped that I’d killed enough of their speed to make that survivable, but it was extremely difficult to tell given that my own frame of reference was hurtling downward at more than terminal velocity. To add an additional margin, I’d connected the other end of the portal to the lounge in Avengers Tower, flat against the floor and oriented upwards so they’d fly up into the air. I had no actual idea how well that would work or how high they’d be shot up before gravity reasserted and they fell back down to the floor, but it had to be better than the alternative. Hopefully, JARVIS would get what I was doing and the Iron Legion could capture any Widows I sent though. Could an Iron Legion drone administer first aid if they landed poorly and broke some bones? I had no idea. JARVIS and Bruce would just have to figure it out.

As I dropped below the main body of the Red Room—I was falling much, much faster than it now—I dismissed the energy accelerating me and twisted in mid-air, letting myself spin in a slow circle so I could see every angle. There, that looked like a person. And there, two more clinging to the inside of a helicopter, its blades twisted and useless. I gestured and strands of telekinetic power yanked them free of the wreck, then they fell out of sight through another portal. I moved my hands rapidly, looking from side to side, sending out portal after portal, rescuing survivors in their ones and twos as I fell. At one point, a falling Widow looked about to be crushed between two pieces of twisted superstructure and I lashed out with both hands, blasting them apart with a surge of magic before rescuing her.

“I see her, she’s picking out survivors. Wanda, if you can hear me, I’m going to light up some targets for you.”

A wide orange beam of light cut across the wreckage, and I followed it with my eyes to find another survivor just below it. I portalled them away and saw the gleam of red and gold reflecting the morning sun—it was Stark. Twice more the orange beam lashed out, and twice more I rescued the indicated targets.

After a moment, Iron Man cut across the sky, spiralling down to meet me. He matched my velocity for a moment, and I heard Tony’s voice in my comms. “You good, Elphie? Need a hand?”

“I’m fine!” I yelled and pointed back up toward the wreckage. He nodded, blasting away and heading back up, ostensibly to see if he could spot any more survivors. Twisting a bit in midair, I looked down at the rapidly-oncoming ground, a dizzying patchwork of greens and browns. How long had I been falling? Sixty seconds? More? Less? It was very difficult to tell exactly how much time I had left.

I held my hands out to the sides and started to decelerate myself, which my stomach really did not like. Tony lit up another target and I portalled them away—it was actually getting easier the more I was doing it—and, when I couldn’t see any more, I focused on myself as the ground rushed up to meet me. Wrapping myself in telekinetic energy once more, I focused on moving myself sideways, trying to get myself away from the main bulk of the falling wreckage, as I slowed my descent.

A moment later, I hit the ground, sending out a shockwave of cushioning telekinetic energy. I probably didn’t need to land in a perfect three-point superhero pose, but I felt pretty sure I’d earned it.

I tapped my earpiece as I stood, ignoring the roiling in my stomach as I looked upward to make sure I wasn’t going to get squashed by a stray bit of falling debris. “What’s Clint’s status? Did we get him? Is he safe?”

“He’s safe,” Steve’s relieved voice responded. “He’s back in New York with the rest. You got Taskmaster, too, and a half dozen Widows. A few of the regular soldiers, as well.”

“Thank God,” I breathed.

“Stay where you are, we’ll circle back around and bring the Quinjet down.”

A couple of seconds later, Iron Man flew down and landed a dozen metres away from me, his gold and red armour marred by soot and scorch marks. “Nice work, kid,” he said, striding over to me. “Don’t think we’d have saved more than a couple without you.”

“Hold that thought… Can you keep a secret, Stark?”

“What’s that?”

I held up a finger, then turned away from him and bent almost double, hands on my knees, as I noisily and messily emptied the contents of my stomach all over the ground.

--

“Okay, so I know this was just my first Avengers mission, but I’m pretty sure I nailed it,” I said, looking between Natasha and Yelena. “I nailed it, right?”

Nat nodded, a faint smile passing across her features. Her eyes were shining and red, like she’d been crying earlier. “Not bad for a first timer. We’ve gotta work on your communication, though—tell people what you’re doing, don’t just do it.”

Yelena shot me an unimpressed look. “Yeah, and what was that, when you hit the ground? The pose? You did a pose.” She bent down and did an exaggerated mock imitation of my three-point landing. “Like this. You did this.”

“You saw that?”

The corner of Natasha’s mouth twitched as she suppressed a laugh. “Tony’s video feed was still on in the Quinjet. We all saw it.” I winced. Guess the secret was out, everyone had seen me toss my guts after all. “Have you ever even jumped out a plane before?”

“Nope, never. It just… seemed like the thing to do. Not sure what I was thinking.”

Yelena sniffed. “You were thinking ‘ohhh, man, it’d look so cool if I stepped backwards out of the plane, even though it means I can’t see what I’m doing and I might hit my head on the edge of the ramp like an idiot’. You’re a poser. Total poser.” She looked over at Natasha. “Both of you are.”

“Ah, so you’ve seen her cool fighting poses? Where she, like, flicks her hair back?”

“Hey, now,” Nat warned playfully, her eyes widening slightly. “Don’t bring me into this. I got enough about that earlier.”

I smirked at her. “Don’t worry, I like your fighting poses.”

“I don’t… ugh.” She sighed, then glanced meaningfully toward Yelena. “Can you give us a sec?”

“Whatever,” the younger Widow said, holding up her hands in mock surrender. She turned and headed back toward where Alexei and Melina were having an animated conversation with Bruce. From the brief snatches I could hear, it sounded like Melina was filling in some gaps regarding how the mind control worked. With her here, along with the data that Tony had taken from the Red Room’s mainframe, I couldn’t imagine it’d take very long at all to free the Widows from the chemical subjugation.

Natasha waited until Yelena had wandered out of earshot before looking at me seriously, something unreadable in her eyes. “You knew about my mother, didn’t you?” she asked quietly. “My real mother?”

I pulled a face and looked away, really hoping she wouldn’t be angry with me. “I did. I thought… if I told you, it would sound too manipulative. You wouldn’t believe me, or you’d think I was just telling you what you wanted to hear. You’d close off, I’d push you away. But you deserved to know and I knew Melina would tell you so I just… steered you in the right direction. I’m sorry.” I paused, thinking for a moment. “Melina did tell you, didn’t she?”

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A slight smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “She did. You’re right, I don’t think I would have believed you. Not before all of this.” She took a deep breath. “Is there… anything else that you saw? About me, I mean?”

“Natasha…” I fidgeted, trying not to look at her.

“Thought so. What is it?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not relevant in any case. It won’t happen, not anymore.”

Nat took a step in closer, reaching up to touch my shoulder. “Tell me. It doesn’t matter what it is. I need to know, please.”

I sighed and met her eyes. “I saw you die, okay? It was part of the whole thing with Thanos and the Stones. You sacrificed yourself, threw your life away, because you thought someone had to. You thought you were… less important, so you did it.” There was real heat to my voice for a moment and I paused, swallowing hard, trying to get it back under control. “You were wrong. You are important—to them, to her.” I gestured over toward the Avengers and Yelena, then hesitated a moment. “To me. I won’t let it happen. Not this time.”

Natasha was quiet for a moment, studying my features, and I shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. Suddenly, she pulled me into an embrace, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me tight. I hugged her back. After a few seconds, she pulled back a little and rested her forehead against mine, gazing into my eyes. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

--

“We’ve still got a lot of work left to do, but all things considered I think everything went about as well as it could have,” Steve said, sounding pleased.

A day later, we were gathered in the briefing room of Avengers Tower once again, doing a post-op debrief. With Melina’s help, the Avengers had cracked the Red Room’s mind control, the data that Tony had copied from their mainframe enough for him to seize control of the now directionless network that Dreykov had formerly helmed and use it to free Antonia Dreykov and the other Widows—all of them, all over the world.

Dr Helen Cho had been flown in to help patch up Clint, who was doing fine and would be back on his feet pretty quickly. Melina and Alexei had gone back to Russia. Yelena was going to stay with Natasha for a little bit—she was finally free, for the first time in her adult life, and New York was a big city. She wanted to spend some time enjoying herself before she decided what she was doing next. The Stark Relief Foundation were helping out Antonia and the Widows we’d rescued, giving them temporary housing, food and access to counselling services. Russia was already asking pointed questions about the Avengers’ involvement, given that the Red Room had ended up strewn across the Arkhangelsk Oblast, which was probably also going to tie the team up with queries from the UN and NATO for a little while. Thor had taken that as his cue to leave, and had returned to Asgard to seek his father’s counsel.

“Is there anything else we need to go over?” Steve asked, looking to close out the meeting.

“There is one other thing,” Bruce ventured, scratching the back of his head awkwardly as he looked over at me. “The Mind Stone. Wanda, now that everything with the Red Room is resolved and we’re not expecting trouble from any other fronts for a little while, I was hoping Tony and I could take it off your hands for a little bit longer?”

I shot him a hard look and he wilted slightly under the intensity of my gaze. “Bruce… I’d expect this from Tony, not from you.” Looking around, I addressed the whole team. “Listen, this isn’t how this is going to work—I’m not just going to be allowed to take it out when you want me to have it for a mission, then put it right back away again. I’m not a child. The Stone is mine, not yours. You don’t get to control my access to it like that.”

Tony rolled his eyes, but Bruce raised his hands in a placating motion. “It’s not like that. I’m sorry, look, this isn’t TV, we’re not going to solve all of particle physics over night, but even another week could make a huge difference. The insight we’re getting into gamma radiation is… could be extremely important.”

Looking at Bruce, I could see from the expression on his face that he meant it—that this was important to him—and suddenly it clicked. “Gamma radiation… you think the Mind Stone could help you understand what happened to you?” I asked, the heat gone from my tone.

He made a face. “Maybe,” he hedged. “I don’t want to get my hopes up, but we really have only just scratched the surface of what we could learn from it. It’d mean a lot if you could let us.”

I glanced over at Natasha, who flashed me a hopeful smile. Sighing, I nodded my head slowly. “Okay. Fine. But if I ask for it back, for any reason, I get it back immediately. No argument, no discussion.”

“Works for me,” Bruce said.

Tony nodded. “Sure, fine.”

I took my necklace off and passed it back over to Bruce, hesitating only a little bit. I really, really wasn’t keen to part with it again, but if there was some possibility that it could lead Bruce to a better understanding of his condition, we might even be able to get an early Smart Hulk, which would be a pretty solid achievement. I really should talk to him about that soon, too. “Thank you,” he said gratefully. “We’ll let you know if there are any developments.”

Steve looked at me. “Wanda, Pietro—can you hang back for a sec?”

Uh oh. “Sure thing.”

The three of us waited until everyone else stood and filtered out of the briefing room, Bruce and Tony breaking off to head to the lab, while the rest headed vaguely in the direction of the lounge. Steve looked at the two of us appraisingly. “You did good out there. Both of you.”

Pietro grunted noncommittally, then paused and reassessed his response. “It was fun,” he said, only slightly grudgingly. “It was an awful place and I’m glad we shut it down.”

“Yeah,” I affirmed. “Everyone worked well together.”

Steve leaned forward, resting his elbows on the conference table as he looked at us. “We’re going to be dealing with political stuff for a bit, so now would be a good time to reach out to Wakanda, too. Get that out of the way.”

I pulled a face, annoyed. “Seriously? I said I’d handle it.”

“Seriously. Wanda, I don’t think you understand how serious this could be if we don’t get ahead of it.”

“I just… ugh. Fine, but there’s some stuff you don’t know about what happened in Wakanda. We’re not going to be able to resolve this easily. I’m not even sure we can at all.”

“Why not? What happened in Wakanda?”

“Okay,” I took a deep breath and looked over at Pietro. “You want to chime in?”

“I only know what you’ve told me,” he said with a shrug. “Wakanda has a national hero. A protector’s mantle that’s handed down. The Black Panther. There’s a plant they cultivate in secret, the Heart-Shaped Herb. It was a sacred blessing from their goddess. You eat it… well, drink the goo, and it makes you stronger. Faster.”

“It’s basically a natural equivalent to the Super Soldier Serum that Erskine gave you… I don’t think it’s quite as strong, but it’s in the same basic ballpark. Strength, speed, reflexes and durability.”

“Prince T’Challa is the Black Panther at the moment,” Pietro added.

“We actually saved his life as well, I think. King T’Chaka should suspect what I told them was true, so hopefully they’ll actually do something about Killmonger before he becomes a problem.” Steve looked at me questioningly, so I explained. “In a few years he’ll get some kind of incurable illness. I’m not sure what it is specifically, but the Heart-Shaped Herb has healing properties and can save his life. One of the reasons we went to Wakanda in the first place was to stop a madman from stealing the throne… if he was successful, one of the first things he would do is destroy the Herbs.”

“So that’s why you’re so strong,” Steve murmured. “I was surprised when we fought together in Bucky’s apartment. HYDRA’s files didn’t indicate you had any physical enhancements. You took the Herb.”

“I know it’s not an excuse, but they’d just attacked us when all we wanted to do was leave. They just wouldn’t listen. I didn’t want to walk away empty-handed. Not again. And I figured I’d already burned my bridges with them, so I didn’t think I could mess it up any more than I already had, so yeah. I did something even more stupid and stole from them. I was really angry… not thinking clearly.”

Steve heaved a sigh. “I see. Still, we need to open a dialog. If they see genuine contrition from you, we can exert a little bit of political pressure, and—”

I cut him off. “No, you don’t get it. It’s reversible. They have a way of removing the enhancement.”

He set his jaw. “And you won’t agree to that?”

“No! Of course I won’t agree to that! I’d be dead if I hadn’t taken it, Steve. I'd be dead and Bucky would still be the Winter Soldier.” I felt Pietro looking at me in surprise and touched my neck. “You remember what happened. He’d have crushed my throat. I’m not going to throw away something that literally helps keep me alive because I hurt some people’s feelings.”

“You hurt a lot more than their feelings,” Steve reminded me unhelpfully.

“You know what I mean. You’ve heard what we’re up against. Hopefully, by now, you believe me about the stakes involved. I can’t give this up. It could be the difference between losing or literally saving billions of lives.” He was getting one of his stubborn looks on his face again and I shook my head. “Look, if you want us to talk to them, fine, but we’re not going to be able to reach an agreement. It’s just not going to happen.”

“You really do like making things more difficult than they need to be, don’t you?” Steve said with a sigh. “Regardless, we still need to try.”

“Like I said, fine. We’ll try.”

With that wrapped up, the three of us filtered out of the briefing room. Pietro and I headed toward the lounge and, as we came out into the main area, Natasha straightened up from where she’d been waiting, leaning against the wall. “Hey.”

“Hey.” A small smile crossed my features. I slowed a bit, but Pietro rolled his eyes and continued on past.

Nat paused for a moment, waiting for him to get a bit further away, before she looked at me and tilted her head. “So where do you think you’re going?”

“Uh, I don’t actually know. Why?”

The corner of her mouth quirked up. “I thought you might like to buy me dinner tonight.”

My eyes widened in surprise and I stammered a little in response, a knot of anxiety rising up in my stomach. “Uh. I mean…” My reaction just made her smile wider.

Meanwhile, my thoughts were racing. I couldn’t actually buy her dinner. It wasn’t like I had a job… Pietro and I had relied on stealing to survive while we’d been on the run, and I was depending pretty heavily on the Avengers’ kitchen at the moment, and I didn’t expect that Nat would be too receptive to a ‘just let me get Pietro to steal me some money real quick’.

“Nat,” I said hesitantly. “I’m going to be straight with you.”

“Unlikely, but continue.”

The corner of my mouth twitched furiously as I tried not to laugh, the joke at least taking the sharp edge off my embarrassment at the admission I was making. “Seriously. I have no money. I can’t buy you dinner.”

“Oh, is that all? That’s fine,” she said. She reached into a side pocket and held out what looked like a credit card, offering it to me. I took it and snorted when I read the name on it.

“…you stole Tony’s credit card? Firstly: amazing. Secondly, though, wouldn’t that be him buying you dinner?”

Nat’s arm snaked forward and wrapped around my shoulder, pulling me in close so she could rest her forehead comfortably against mine, gazing intently into my eyes. “Listen to me: don’t clam jam yourself here. Tony kind of owes you one anyway.”

My brow furrowed in horrified amusement. “Did you just say clam jam?!”