“Alright, Captain,” I said. “Permission to come aboard?”

The holographic image of Carol Danvers inclined her head, a small smile on her face. “Permission granted.”

I was in the briefing room in the main living area at the Avengers compound, along with Pietro, Natasha, Steve, Tony and Clint. Tony had put together a specialised comms array based on Carol’s specifications to allow for directed signals to be shunted through the Universal Neural Teleportation Network and, as far as we could tell, it was all working perfectly. As long as Carol’s ship was within a certain distance of a jump point, we’d be able to call through to her—or anyone else we had the right codes for, for that matter—and have real-time conversations no matter the distance. I was pretty pleased about it; this would make things a lot easier going forward when it came to planning our future moves against Thanos.

There was just one other logistical thing we needed to test out. Stepping back from the table, I fixed an image of Carol in my mind—visualising her face, her body, her scent, the way her power thrummed beneath her skin—until I could practically feel her right there in front of me. I took a deep breath and spun a thread of chaos magic into the sling ring I was wearing, my free hand gesturing to create a portal.

Nothing happened.

I continued to focus, repeating the circular movement again and again as I channelled more magic into the ring. There was a small red spark, but it sputtered out again almost instantly. Frowning, I poured even more energy into the relic, feeling the spellwork reach out further than it ever had before. The spell flailed awkwardly into the ether, untethered and wobbling, like a tower that had been built too tall. There was a clear target in my magical perception, provided by my focus on Carol, but it felt impossibly far away. The threads of magic refined by the ring were being stretched incredibly thinly, straining to reach their destination.

I redoubled my efforts, feeling my hands start to tremble a little. I was breathing hard, now. My target was moving, spinning, slipping away from me. When I’d created portals into Earth orbit I had noticed a slight drag effect—I hadn’t really paid it any mind at the time as it hadn’t really impacted my ability to make portals, but this threw it into pretty stark relief. At the distances involved, it was less like trying to draw a straight line from point A to point B and more like I was trying to accurately lasso a moving target with a throw from somewhere beyond the horizon. The gulf of space between Carol and me was mind-bogglingly large, difficult for a human mind to even conceptualise properly. She was in orbit around a planet a hundred trillion miles away—we were moving at phenomenal speeds relative to each other and we were spinning, spinning, spinning. I fell to my knees, feeling my gorge rise as dizziness overtook me for a moment.

“Wanda?!”

My shoulders shook with effort as I pushed even harder, staring at the ground in front of me, willing a portal to open there. I drew deeply on my well of personal power—as deeply as I had when I’d thrown up the flawed Hex in Wakanda. I was dimly aware of concerned voices around me, but I couldn’t really hear them, blood pounding in my ears as I continued to gesture, continued to feed more and more magic into the ring, extending the reach as far as I could push it. Embers started to flare into being, red wisps of chaos magic drawn whip-thin and snapping like sparks from struck metal. My head hurt.

The portal suddenly flared fully to life below me and I fell through, grunting in pain as my knees banged painfully against the metal floor of the Hoopty. The gateway above me snapped shut almost instantly; I just couldn’t hold it for more than a bare couple of seconds.

Carol was immediately at my side, a steadying hand on my shoulder. “Wanda? Are you okay?”

“‘M gonna be sick,” I mumbled, my throat feeling thick.

She hooked her hands under my shoulders, lifting me like I weighed essentially nothing to her, and quickly carried me through to the ship’s bathroom, managing to get me in front of the toilet a bare moment before I started to retch in earnest. Working quickly, she gathered my hair in one hand and held it back, out of the way. Her other hand started rubbing gentle circles on my back, and she murmured indistinct but soothing words as I messily emptied the contents of my stomach.

Less than ten minutes later, I was back on my feet—I’d washed my face, rinsed my mouth, and Carol and I had rejoined everyone to discuss what had just happened.

“I don’t get it,” Tony said. “You said that Dr Weird and the other sorcerers could do this easily, right? Portals across space?”

“Strange,” I corrected him. I was still breathing a bit hard. “Yeah. Just the once, though, that I know of. He didn’t… this isn’t right. He was fine when he did it. It shouldn’t be this hard. I’m doing something wrong.”

Nat looked thoughtful for a moment. “Could it be something to do with the fact that you’re using your personal power instead of sorcery? What did Master Wong call it? Chaos magic?”

Huh. That wasn’t actually something I’d considered as a possibility at all. I didn’t think it would cause issues—same shit, different bucket, right? Then again, I knew so little about the way that magic functioned that I couldn’t really rule it out. “Maybe,” I hedged. “It could be anything, really. It feels like… like I’m trying to brute force something that you aren’t supposed to brute force. The other theory I had, last time I tried something like this, is that maybe there are advanced techniques of some kind, or supplementary support spells you can use to amplify the range of the spell.”

This had been the easy test, too. Carol had parked over a random planet with a jump point on the opposite side of the Milky Way to start with. The plan had been to try this first and then, next time, we’d have her head over to somewhere in Andromeda—maybe Xandar or Knowhere—and check intergalactic distances as well, but there was no point doing that now. The distances involved in that were orders of magnitude larger and, based on what had just happened, there was simply no way I’d be able to make a portal that far.

“Maybe we should just ask Kamar-taj?” Clint piped up. “They would know, right?”

I snorted and shook my head. “We can try, but fat chance. They aren’t happy that I’ve still got the ring at all. I don’t think there’s any way they’d be keen to teach me how to use it better.”

“Maybe we’d have a better chance if we framed it as a request from the Avengers?” Steve said uncertainly.

Tony was resting his elbow on the table, stroking his beard, a slight frown marring his features. “I don’t know, I think Wanda’s probably right on this one—they’re just gonna say no and we really don’t have a lot of social capital to burn with them.”

Clint frowned, but nodded. “I guess. The Ancient One’s still a little stand-offish, and we probably didn’t help matters with the whole spontaneous ‘let’s have everyone try to learn portals’ lesson.”

“Will you be okay to come back?” Natasha asked me, sounding a little worried.

“I think so, probably, just… maybe not right away.” I glanced at Carol, a slight questioning look on my face. “If Carol’s happy to put up with me for a little bit, I might just hang out here for an hour or so, rest and recover a little, before I try. I’m feeling pretty drained after that.”

Carol nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Of course. Worst comes to worst, we can just head back to Earth so I can drop you home. We’re only seven jumps away, wouldn’t take long.”

“Alright,” Steve said. “If you run into any more trouble, call and let us know.”

“Will do, Captain.” I saluted him.

He rolled his eyes, but smiled. “Go rest up.”

“Speak soon,” Carol said with a wave, then closed the comms. She turned to me and smiled sympathetically. “I could make you a bit of tummy tea; it might settle your stomach, make you feel a little better?”

“Oh, sure. That sounds nice.”

Carol fished out a kettle, filling it up and then laying her hand on it briefly. Orange energy flared through her skin, outlining her bones, and a second later the water was boiling. She retrieved a pair of mugs, making herself something zesty-smelling while she made me my tummy tea.

It was pleasantly fragrant, smelling and tasting of sweet mint, ginger and fennel. I held the mug in both hands and inhaled deeply, enjoying the aroma, then blew on it and carefully took a small sip. “I hate to be a pest, but there were actually a couple of other things I was going to ask you very nicely to look into for me, while you’re bouncing around the universe, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Like what?’ Carol asked, leaning back against the wall as she nursed her tea, looking at me curiously.

“Translator implants, for one. I definitely want one, and some of the Avengers might as well.”

“Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Uh, I’ve got a Kree universal implant, but those aren’t easy to get hold of. There are other types around—you can get them pretty much anywhere where trade happens through the network—but they work off a database and sometimes you run into languages they can’t translate.”

“Whatever you’re able to get your hands on would be good. Do you think Tony and Shuri would be able to reverse engineer one?”

Carol wobbled her head from side to side in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “Maybe. All the actually worthwhile ones are proprietary to whichever megacorp made them, and they generally have pretty strong anti-tampering measures built in to protect their designs.”

“Ah. Fair enough.”

“I’ll pick up a few, next time I see them. You gonna reimburse me?” Carol asked, a teasing edge to her tone.

“US dollars probably aren’t going to cut it, are they?” Before she could respond, I bit my lip and tilted my head, leaning forward a little. “Maybe there’s some… other way I could repay you?”

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She chuckled. “Maybe there is. Anything else, or was it just the translators?”

“There’s this guy on Earth, Enhanced, someone who’s a good friend and ally… he’s blind. He was in an accident when he was young,” I said. “I was really hoping to help him out. I know that cybernetic prosthetics exist, but I don’t know how common they are or anything.”

Carol grimaced, shaking her head. “Yeah, they exist, but I’m pretty sure that eyes—in particular—are not cheap.”

“Ah. Of course not. Sorry, don’t worry about it.”

“I didn’t say no,” she said, making a dismissive gesture with her hand. “It just might be tricky to track some down that are affordable and still worth grabbing. Leave it with me, I’ll have a think and talk to some people.”

“Thanks. I really do appreciate it.” My eyes flashed mischievously and I placed my mug of half-drunk tea on a side table, stepping closer to Carol before sinking down onto my knees in front of her. I looked up at her expectantly, back straight. “…I can start paying you back, in advance, right now, if you’d like?”

“I thought you needed to rest and recover?” she reminded me, though she was grinning. “Get some energy back?”

“Well, I mean, you’re full of energy. You are what you eat, and all that.” I reached over and hooked my hands around Carol’s legs, just under her butt, and gently tried to pull her closer to me.

Carol barked out a short laugh, shaking her head, and very pointedly resisted my attempt to move her. She took a leisurely sip of her tea while I waited on my knees, then reached down with her free hand and lifted my chin with a finger. “Okay, but first you’re going to finish your tea, then you’re going to go brush your teeth and freshen up,” she said, then crinkled her nose at me. “You’re still a little gross.”

“Gross?!” I said with mock outrage, then paused and shrugged. “Yeah, that’s fair enough. Sorry. I’ll go clean myself up… then I can start paying you back.”

A few hours later—a little less rested than I probably should have been—I managed to successfully portal back to the Avengers compound (after several false starts and another bout of vomiting). No one bothered to ask why I’d taken so long to get back.

--

After what felt like an eternity we finally pulled over, coming to a much more abrupt stop than I really would have liked. I didn’t say anything, sitting quietly for a moment while I made an active effort to control my breathing, slowly unclenched my fists, and tried to let my shoulders relax, heart pounding in my chest. Pietro glanced over at me, an amused smirk on his face. I glared at him.

Natasha had driven into the city for a late afternoon meeting at the United Nations HQ and had, very kindly, let Pietro and I borrow her car for the evening while she was dealing with that and a few other little errands around Manhattan. Of course, Nat happened to drive a black Chevrolet Corvette Stingray—a sleek, low-slung sportscar—and Pietro had looked at me with puppy-dog eyes until I’d agreed to let him be the one to drive us.

Never again.

“It’s a nice car,” he said with a casual shrug, ignoring the clear distress I was in. “It handles really well.”

“‘It’s a nice car, it handles really well’,” I repeated in a high-pitched, sarcastic voice. He’d at least driven a bit more responsibly once we’d gotten to the suburbs but, even then, it was borderline. “I swear to God, Pietro… you are not driving in the city ever again. Not while I’m in the car, at least. I’d rather have you carry me again, like in the old days.”

“Feh. You’re being silly.”

“Am I?” I said, eyes flashing red with chaos magic. “Am I being silly?”

“Yes,” Pietro responded, still smirking a little. “Why did you want to do this, anyway?” He lowered his head a little, peering through the car window at the glass-fronted suburban mansion we’d parked in front of. “I still think you could have let Natasha or someone else handle it. This isn’t really important or urgent, right?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Then why? You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

“This is easy,” I said, a little defensively. “Small, simple, no real way for it to go that badly. In, quick chat, out. Problem solved.”

Pietro rolled his eyes, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “And now you’re jinxing it.”

“I like doing stuff myself, okay? It makes me feel less useless. You didn’t have to come.”

“You’re not useless, and even if this guy doesn’t have any powers, I still don’t like you running off to handle random bad guys alone.”

“I’m sorry—am I not useless, or am I incapable of handling one unpowered suburban dad by myself? Getting some mixed signals here.” I huffed at him. “I know I’m not an Avenger, but give me some credit, at least.”

“Wanda…”

I ignored him, annoyed, undoing my seatbelt and getting out of the car instead before taking in a deep lungful of the cool, early evening air. Pietro stepped out as well and we convened on the footpath in front of our destination.

“This is a really nice house,” Pietro commented, shooting me a sidewards glance. “And they say that crime doesn’t pay.”

It was a very expensive-looking house, at least—sleekly modern, with floor-to-ceiling windows taking up two-thirds of the frontage and an immaculately-maintained front lawn and gardens. The path up to the front door had a low-set wall along one side, lined with accent lighting. Natasha had helped me track down the address when I’d asked, as well as made some other arrangements with Tony on my behalf. We headed up the path, stopping next to a huge, hexagonally-patterned pot with what was effectively a small tree in it, and rang the doorbell. After a minute, the door opened to reveal the man we’d come to visit.

Adrian Toomes—the Vulture—stood there for a moment, dressed plainly in a blue flannel shirt and jeans, a look of confusion and concern flickering across his face for a brief instant before he smiled. “Can I help you?” he asked, his eyes lingered on Pietro.

“Hi, Adrian,” I said, smiling tightly as I drew his attention back to me. “We’re very sorry to bother you at home, but we need to talk to you about your business.”

The man made a passable attempt at looking like he had no idea what we were talking about. “Uh, what about my business? I don’t…” he looked at Pietro again, licking his lips nervously. “You’re Pietro Maximoff, right? The new Avenger? Look, the Department of Damage Control handles the cleanup of all Avengers-related incidents. My, uh, company legally can’t get involved.”

I clicked my tongue. “Legality isn’t something you’re overly concerned with, though, is it? Look, you know who we are. That should make this an easy conversation. Can we come in, please? We’re just here for a quick chat and then we’ll be out of your hair,” I glanced at his balding head. “So to speak. I promise. We won’t take long.” I straightened up, setting my shoulders stubbornly.

He hesitated, blowing air out his nose, probably wracking his brain for any way he could get out of this. After a moment, he gave us another tight smile and stepped aside to hold the door open. “…Sure.”

Toomes led us down a small hallway, an expensive-looking abstract painting hanging on the wall, to an open-plan kitchen and living room. He tried to divert us to the dining room, off to one side, but Pietro and I stepped in the opposite direction and lingered in the kitchen instead. I ran my fingers absently along the fancy marble countertop. When it became apparent that we weren’t following him, Toomes grimaced slightly and stepped back to rejoin us.

“Wife home?” I asked.

“She’s out,” he responded tersely. He was standing stiffly, his body language tense.

“Okay, good,” I said, nodding. “Wouldn’t want to have to awkwardly usher her away.”

“Holy shit.” A quiet voice said from behind me, tone filled with amazement. I glanced toward the hallway leading toward the back of the house and saw Liz—high school crush of one Peter Parker and unknowing daughter of the Vulture—standing there, her eyes wide.

Toomes’ expression shifted instantly, an easy, cheery façade slotting into place. “Sorry, Liz, honey? Could you please leave us be?”

“Oh, it’s fine! She can come say hi for a sec!” I said brightly, crinkling my nose at her. “We’re just here to talk to your dad about a work contract—pretty boring stuff.”

Liz took a step forward, hesitating a moment. “Woah. Quicksilver! Um. Would it… would it be okay if I got a selfie?”

Pietro glanced slyly in her dad’s direction. “Oh, for sure! Everyone always wants a selfie. That’s fine.”

Toomes let out a slightly forced-sounding laugh, his composure slipping a little. “Okay, honey, just one picture—they’re very busy, though, we don’t want to take up too much of their time.”

Pietro moved over as Liz fumbled for her phone, shooting her a winning smile that made her cheeks flush, stepping in close to her shoulder as she opened the camera app.

The teenager hesitated for a brief second, looking over at me. “Um, could I get you in it, too?”

Huh? “What? Me?”

“Uh, yeah? If that’s okay? You’re Quicksilver’s sister, right?”

I was having trouble processing this. “I’m… I’m not an Avenger, though.”

“No, but you still fight with them, right?” Liz said, as if she was the one surprised at my reaction. “I mean, you have those cool energy powers and stuff.”

“…Yeah. Sorry, sure.” I went over, ducking around to her other side so she had Pietro and I over either shoulder. “Hang on,” I said, carefully drawing out a thread of chaos magic, wrapping it around my fingers and bringing my hand up so that it was in the bottom of the shot.

Liz’s grin was so wide it threatened to split her head in half. “Oh my God, this is so cool,” she said quietly, before controlling her expression a little bit for the photo.

It really was. Holy shit. Things had been a bit up and down for me lately, but this… somehow, this felt really good.

“Thanks so much!” Liz beamed at us.

“Liz,” Toomes said, his voice a little strained. “I really need to wrap up things with these guys now, alright?”

“Uh, sure, dad. Sorry. Thanks again!” Liz shot us another smile before retreating back down the hallway she’d come from, almost at a run and practically vibrating with excitement.

I waited until I was fairly certain she was out of earshot, then turned back to her father. “Okay. Like I said, just a quick chat and we’ll be gone. With any luck, you’ll never have to see us again.” Toomes’ smile had vanished, his expression carefully blank. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a business card, offering it to him. “We know all about your operation. You’re done. It’s over. I am giving you one chance to avoid having the Avengers and the Department of Damage Control come down on your entire crew.”

Adrian hesitated a moment before taking the offered card. It was one of Happy’s, with his personal details on the front and an address carefully written on the back. “…What’s this?” he asked quietly.

“There’s a Stark Industries facility at that address. What you’re going to do is pack up everything—and I mean everything; every bit of stolen tech and everything you and your boys have made using it, including the big flappy vulture suit—and deliver it to that address. Tomorrow.”

His face could have been carved from stone.

“I am asking—very nicely, very politely and very quietly—for you to do this. Don’t try to hide or hold anything back. We’ll be watching to make sure, and if we don’t like what we see, the next time you or any of your men will see your families will be when they come to visit you in prison.” I sighed and shook my head. “Look, I want to be very clear, here. This is your chance to have a clean break, and you’re extremely lucky to be getting it. The only reason you haven’t already been arrested is that I’m trying to protect your family. You’ve had a good run; now it’s over. Time to go legit. You have one chance. Don’t fuck it up, because there won’t be another. Do you understand?”

He was quiet for a few seconds. “…I understand.”

There weren’t many villains that would respond well to something like this—for most, this would have been a terrible way to try to get them to stop being a bad guy. Adrian Toomes wasn’t most villains, though. He didn’t have an ideological reason driving him. He’d turned to crime because he’d have been financially ruined if he hadn’t. Toomes didn’t have any grand schemes that needed to be foiled… he was purely and only in it for the money, so he could give his family a good life. There was nothing more important to him than his wife and daughter and, with this, I’d effectively trapped him. He wasn’t an idiot; if he didn’t do what he was told, he’d have to come clean to his family and try to get them to go on the run with him, or he’d lose them, or he’d go to prison. I was giving him an out. He basically had to take it.

I shot him a tight smile. “Good. Look after Liz. She seems like a good kid. I bet she’s gonna do great things. Be a dad she can be proud of.” Toomes was looking vaguely off to one side—still taking in what I was saying, but obviously taking a moment to process what was effectively half his life being upended. I reached over and tapped the card he was holding. “Also, I don’t know his name off-hand, but the guy who does all of your tinkering, repurposing and repairing the stuff you’ve stolen? Get him to call this number and talk to Happy. He’s got a job offer waiting for him at Stark Industries. If any of your other guys have trouble finding work, I’m sure something can be arranged for them as well.”

Toomes’ jaw worked silently for a moment. “Okay,” he said, nodding slowly. “I don’t—”

I held up a hand. “You don’t need to say anything, or try to explain yourself, or whatever. Just do what I’ve asked.” I moved slightly, ducking my head down to put my face back into his direct line of vision and locking eyes with him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I really hope we never have to see each other again. For Liz’s sake. We’ll show ourselves out.”