Benched, an avengers fanfic

Benched

Upstate New York
After the Events of 'Age of Ultron' (Pre 'Civil War')

Stark was gone, and with him, at last, went Captain America's emotional passivity.

They'd parted on a civil note: the only note that Steve had been able to manage at that point. Mentally, if no longer physically, exhausted and still reeling in the wake of Bruce's disappearance, he'd had had no time to think or process, so for once he'd done the easy thing and had said what the jovial, puppy-eyed Stark, still basking in the triumph of Saving the World (if not the specific cities and the thousands of affiliated lives) obviously wanted to hear.

I'm home. I'm adapting. I'm evolving.

It wasn't exactly the truth, though it wasn't exactly a lie, either… Not if one defined home solely as a point in space rather than time, and adaptation and evolution as methods of physical and social survival rather than as psychological processes that affect the heart, mind and soul.

Steve didn't, and doesn't, but he'd been willing to allow Stark his assumptions. It certainly, he thinks now, can't make more of an ass out of him than he's already managed, and as for Steve himself… He feels the complete ass anyway, every time he thinks on the fact that he was actually beginning to trust the man.

It had reassured Stark, though. He'd driven away, cocky smile firmly intact, phone attached to his ear as he'd directed orders like bullets – send money there, send doctors there – paying people, Steve thinks sourly, as was his habit, to clean up his messes.

Steve had watched him go, turning and heading back to the compound before Stark's jaunty little sports car had even reached the end of the drive. Less than ten minutes later he was clad in his sweats and tying his running shoes. He'd taken a moment to breathe deeply against his own sheer, incredulous rising rage, and had set off to the west.

Ten miles down and nine-and-change back, behind a clump of trees but still well in sight of the main complex, he'd discovered the bench. It was half-rotted and crumbling away, or at least the seat was… As he'd examined it closely, though, he'd seen that the supports were still sound. That afternoon he'd come back with his toolkit and a half-tree's worth of requisitioned lumber strapped to his back, and had set to work. Once the bench was repaired, he'd cleared out the weeds around it, leaving a bit of artistically draped green just because, and settled experimentally, stretching out his long, long legs.

Perfect, he'd thought, and the next morning, after his run and his shower, he'd returned there, opened the thermal bag, and began the long and pleasant process of eating his breakfast.

Natasha is the first of the New Avengers to visit him there. It is not a coincidence; they have that bit of unfinished business to deal with, after all. Steve watches as she approaches, and takes a huge bite out of his sandwich as she sits beside him.

"Go ahead," she says. Her lovely face is resigned to her self-imposed fate, and the silver arrow nestled in the dip of her collarbones glimmers. "I know you must be close to rupturing something by now."

He does not pretend to misunderstand her.

"It's none of my business," he says. His loud, obnoxious slurping of milk from the thermos begs to differ. She rolls her eyes.

"He's my best friend," she says. "And he needed – needs - a cover."

"Mm. So kissing and groping another woman's husband is written into your contract?"

Natasha knows him well enough, and they are close enough now, to know that it's not precisely moral criticism on Steve's part. It might have been had they been just a little less familiar with each other, but he is who he is, she knows: compulsively so, and he just won't be happy till he gets, at the very least, his moral explanation.

"What can I say," she says. "The job has its perks," and as he slurps again, warningly… "No. No contract. That being said… You may have the best ass on the team, but have you seen the websites starring his arms and abs? Or read the associated commentary?"

"No. I have not."

"Well I have. Trust me, if he didn't have me watching his back, and ostensibly his backside… He loves his wife. How many of his groupies would he have to turn down before someone noticed that he sends them all away, and starts poking around on the reasons why?"

He lowers his thermos and regards her narrowly.

"I understand." Then… "What's with the necklace?'

"He didn't give it to me. Laura did. It's a reminder of the plus-five acidic equivalent that she plans to ram through my eyes – and his balls – if we're ever tempted to violate the terms of their contract."

"But you're not attracted to him? Or him to you?' he says hopefully.

"Attraction is irrelevant in our instance." Intimacy takes on whole new levels of meaning, Natasha Romanoff thinks, when you're a super-assassin…The shared vocation, whether a product of nurture or nature, of dealing death breeds a kind of raw, naked intimacy between colleagues that making love can't even begin to touch. She refuses to enlighten him on the fact though. She's never had the indelicacy to ask whether or not Captain America still has his V-card, but she's not about to be the one who robs him of his innocence. Steve Rogers, who may or may not ever have had sex but knows more than a little about making love, only smiles a little at her obvious restraint.

"I understand," he says again. She reaches out and dips into his thermal breakfast bag.

"Peanut butter and jelly on Wonder Bread?' she says, around a mouthful. "How very and essentially patriotic of you, Captain."

"I try."

"Have you heard from him," she says.

"You know I'd tell you if I had."

She leans against his shoulder. He puts his arm around her and pulls her into his side.

Vision is next. His eyes are gentle and curious and infinitely young, lit by the juxtaposing shadows of the eons that fuel him. Steve isn't yet sure whether he actually likes the android, hammer or no, but there's no denying that he can relate to him on the certain level. He offers him a bran muffin as a polite nod against their essential differences. Vision accepts it sweetly, and carefully crumbles it, scattering it for the birds and ants. He finishes at precisely the same moment that Steve himself downs the last bite of his own, first muffin. They dust their fingers together.

"Coffee?' Steve offers him the thermos, wondering what the birds and ants will make of it. Vision just smiles and shakes his head.

"I've not yet developed a taste for it," he says. "Perhaps in time?'

"Language!" Captain America says ironically, and can't help but be intrigued by the laugh. It sounds so… real.

"Training is going well," the android observes. "Are you pleased with the way the team is shaping up?' The idiom flows smoothly off his lips.

"Early days yet," is all his commander says. He really doesn't want to talk about work right now. He wonders if Vision has the ability to pick up on that kind of nuance, and decides to educate him just in case. "I really don't want to talk about work right now."

"My apologies." Vision rises to his feet. "I did not mean to intrude."

"You don't have to go. We'll just talk about something other than work."

"Ah." He sits again. They stare at each other for a long moment. Vision looks expectant. Steve sighs.

"I really, really need a life," he mutters.

"I do not understand."

"I doubt that, somehow." Steve drinks his coffee in self-defense, and lowers the thermos. "Look, it's nothing personal. You're obviously a decent guy. I mean, I don't know about his interpretation of worthiness, but Thor vouches for you, and he's weird, but Loki aside, he's a pretty good judge of character, and we all have our blind spots when it comes to family anyway."

"Everything is personal," Vision observes. "That is the nature of humanity. That does not mean, however, that I take offense. I will await your invitation, next time."

He makes his way back to the main road, humming.

The Scarlet Witch is third. Steve watches her watch him for a month, and waits for her to approach him, as Bruce had waited for him. She appears silently just as he finishes his run and sits down on the far edge of the bench as he swigs water from his bottle and digs out a protein bar.

She does not look at him. A silver veil hovers over the horizon, blurring the rising sun. A soft breeze is blowing, scattering the mist like soft, silken dust. He tears the wrapper off of the bar neatly, tucking the detritus in his duffle for later disposal before taking a bite of the denuded results.

'You always run clockwise," Wanda Maximoff says, apropos of everything. "Against the earth's rotation. Pietro does that too, when he has the choice." Then, before he can respond…. "Stark calls you old man. Does it bother you?'

"No," he says. She slides a bit further back on the bench.

"Your world is dead," she says. "All that you ever knew is dead. All that you ever loved. How do you go on?'

He drapes his arm across the length of the bench, careful not to touch her, and crosses one leg over the other as he considers that.

"There's no formal protocol," he says. "Given that, and for the most part… This new world goes on by itself, and takes me along with it. The view's not bad, most days, even facing backwards. As for love… It survives. Takes on, and infuses, new forms. It's good at that."

"I'm dead too, though," she observes. "It makes a difference."

"It's not necessarily fatal. Leave it alone long enough, and you won't even have to make the decision on your own. Fury'll do it for you."

Her shoulders hunch under her little red jacket.

"I'm not good at jokes," she says.

"I had lessons. If my teacher ever bothers to write, I'll give you his address."

She eyes him at that.

"How come you're not mad at him?' she ventures. "He helped Stark, after all."

"Stark used him," Steve corrects flatly. "He unleashed a snake into the cracks of his psyche and it offered him the world as a green apple ripened to a perfect red – a world that could define itself by the fact that Hulking out would never be necessary. Even I couldn't have expected him to resist that. And now he's got to live with the results. So does Nat, so do I… Everyone does. Everyone except for the people who paid the price of his hope, of course."

"You're making excuses for him." She waves off his look. "We do that, for people we love. And I'm not good at jokes, but here's a riddle for you. If the analysts are right, and Stark's psyche is now defining Ultron as representative of his dark side and Vision his good, what's left inside the Hollow Man now that he thinks that dark side destroyed, and as his secondary alter walks about of its own accord and intelligence?'

"Huh?" Steve says blankly.

Wanda Maximoff gets to her feet and crosses her arms tightly across her chest. Behind her, the last of the silver mist dissolves in the heat of the sun.

"Ultron couldn't tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it," she quotes herself. "Where do you think he got that?"

"Do you get visions of the future too?' he asks. He really, really doesn't want to know the answer.

She turns her back on him.

"Stark may be rich," she says. "But when it came right down to it… Inside… He's as poor as everyone else. He had his dreams, made of blue and dim and dark, of night and light, and half-light… And no, I can't read the future, but I do tread through dreams. Not just on them, but through them, and I tell you this; if a man has no dreams of his own… If he sees half of their source as dead, and sees the other half now walking about outside of him, outside of his reach… What will he do – what can he do - but rob others of theirs, and make them his own? And Stark is made hollow now, as I said, and is hungry with guilt, and is as ripe for plucking as that apple that he offered your friend."

Steve Rogers stares at her.

"Yeats," he says. "The nuns taught me that one," and he hears again the voice of Fallon Ichloss, Head of Accounting, overheard at dinner two nights ago as everyone had settled in for shepherd's pie and speculation. I heard he'd gone to Washington, and numbly… "God help us." Unbidden to his mind comes another quote, read aloud to him at the top of a now abandoned tower.

"When I'm older I'll understand," said Lucy. "I am older and I don't think I want to understand," replied Edmund.

"I prayed," Wanda says, apropos, again, of everything… "Those two nights with Pietro, against the devil sitting before us. We both did. God saved us then, though the war went on. Though the war went on."

"God help us," he is all he says again, numbly again. Wanda turns and walks away, unfolding her arms. They hang loosely by her sides. The fingers of her right hand, Steve sees, are curled in on themselves, as if around a second invisible hand. He closes his own fist, unconsciously, and feels nothing against them but his own chilled, solid flesh.

More days pass, and the weeks flow together. There are no postcards from islands of any variety. Barton doesn't visit, of course, but Steve does receive a battered package with an unsigned, carefully rendered crayon-sketch of the team, sitting on a crooked fence behind a mass of scribbled green. He smiles, and goes to compares his with Natasha's… He is absolutely shocked to find her in tears. He holds her, alarmed… He is even more alarmed that she allows it. He does not understand until she shows him her sketch - a red-headed stick figure sitting on a porch swing, smiling beside two smaller brunet figures as she holds a stick-figure baby. Her sketch does have a caption (on the back) - TO ANTY NAT FRUM COOP LILA AND NATANIL, and he cries right along with her as she explains the reasons behind her tears. When they are recovered, he lies on her bed and holds her, and she falls asleep in his arms. When he awakes, she is gone, but there is a steaming thermal cup of her favorite Nespresso on the night stand beside him, and the door to her room is wide open. It takes a moment for that to process. She has left it open so that anyone passing will have seen him sleeping, fully clothed, on top of the blankets.

People talk of course, but only for oh, thirty seven minutes… That's exactly how long it takes James Rhodes, a.k.a War Machine, to hear the rumors and to land firmly on top of the offenders. When he has delivered them to the infirmary, he appears at Steve's door, Sam in tow, and they all go for a brisk morning run. Afterwards, they sit on the bench, sweat, eat their bacon breakfast burgers, and offer disparaging opinions on Tuesday night's episode of NCIS and how the disposable-blonde-of-the-week's hair compares to Thor's. Steve enjoys himself thoroughly. After they are finished, he escorts them both men back to the compound, instructs them to join the rest of the team in the courtyard, goes to his quarters, showers, changes into fresh sweats, and presents them with his best imitation of his favourite drill sergeant as he grinds every one of them into the not-quite-metaphorical dirt.

He enjoys that even more, and trots, whistling happily, off on his evening run as they lie there: exhausted, moaning, and cursing his name, for the first time, in absolute tandem. Captain America approves of tandem, no matter how it comes about. As such, he chooses, again for the first time, to ignore the standard punishment for inappropriate adjectives.

That night, Nat comes to his quarters, and they curl up on the bed and watch TV together. The door remains open, of course, and when a documentary on the geological evolution of Fiji and the surrounding islands comes on, his arm comes about her and hides her face from any overly-curious passersby. They still see his, but seventy years of ice is good for that much, at least.

For now, at least.

He is sitting, on the proverbial seventh day, plowing his way through a family-sized Tupperware bowl of muesli with blueberries, when the heavens open before him and a small-g god appears. He looks rather the worse for wear. Steve shoves over as Thor plops down beside him, accepting the banana offered him with mumbled thanks.

"Rough week?' the super-soldier asks solicitously.

"That is one way of putting it. Tell me something, Friend Steve," Thor says as he breaks the banana in half and stuffs it into his mouth, peel and all, 'given that temporally and historically enhanced perspective from which you view your allotted span of time, if not space… Have the women of Earth always been this irrational and unreasonable?'

"Pretty much, yep. Let me guess. You missed her birthday again?'

"Uh?'

"Jane's birthday. It was two days ago." He pops in a mouthful of soggy oats. The Crown Prince of Asgard's face drops in comical dismay.

"It… Was? Why did she not remind me?'

"Because you were already supposed to know?'

"Oh, for… Why did you not remind me?'

"The Skype connection between here and Asgard isn't exactly reliable, your Highness. That being said, haven't you checked your e-mail lately? Jarvis was supposed to give you your forty-eight hour reminder this year after you forgot last year."

Thor just looks at him.

"Right. I guess he changed his mind since then?' Steve offers. "Or maybe he got hammered, and forgot?"

"That is not helpful, Friend Steve. Or funny. I have been busy!"

"Doing what?' He has to admit he's been curious. Thor has rarely stayed away for so long. He has to be the only individual on, or off, earth, who actually looks forward to shepherd's pie nights.

"Preventing Ragnarok." He rises to his feet, pulls a phone out of his pocket, and texts tersely. Steve blinks at him.

"Do you need help with that?' he asks politely.

"Not yet, no. I will call when you are needed." He raises his hammer and ascends back to the heavens.

"Preventing Ragnarok?" Captain America says aloud as he settles back. "I've never heard that one before. As excuses go… It's kind of lame. She's never going to fall for it."

He allows himself a broad grin at the thought. It disappears abruptly as he reaches for his hot chocolate and sees the inevitable familiar figure approaching him. He'd known he would show up again eventually - St. Anthony is the patron saint of the lost, after all, and his namesake has always reaped the full benefits there – but still. It figures it would happen just when he is actually, sort of, beginning to enjoy his life.

Steve puts his hot chocolate aside, appetite suddenly and completely gone.

"If it isn't the Acting President of the Breakfast Club," Stark greets him breezily. "What are you doing sitting here? I built you a perfectly good A right over there."

"I'm fine, thank you, Tony. How are you?'

"Whoa. Someone's got an icicle up his ass; did we miss a few spots when we were thawing you out, then, or is that just the standard Capsicle stick?'

"You need a new writer. You've used that one before."

"Man, someone pissed in your cornflakes this morning. I'll tell you what though, in the spirit of this delusion of yours that you're always right and I'm always wrong, let's start over. Hey Steve, how've you been?'

Steve is not in the mood to play along.

'Well, let's see," he says. "Or rather… Let's not. You still have that fabulous imagination, I'm sure… Use it."

Stark sits beside him and tries to look solicitous. It doesn't work very well.

"You're still mad at me," he says. "I get that. I totally, totally deserve it. I've accepted personal responsibility though, and have gone on record as having accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior to boot, so…"

"Do you ever shut up?' Steve asks in wonder. Tony's shoulders slump. They look, to the super-soldier's discerning eye, slightly bony under his t-shirt. Stark has lost weight.

"Not lately, no," he says. 'There are just so, so many ways to say "I'm a self-absorbed asshole with impulse-control issues,' and I've been practicing them all. On all fronts."

'You don't say."

"I do. And have. And have been, and still am. My next six months are booked solid, and that's just during working hours. Pepper's still not done pouring salt into the open wounds there, and as for providing me with sugar? That won't be happening anytime soon."

'Put ice on it," Captain America says heartlessly. "It helps. What can I do for you?'

Tony actually hesitates.

"I've been thinking," he says. "No snide comments necessary… Thinking, and talking to some people."

Steve waits.

"This can't happen again, Steve," Stark says. "I mean… It really can't. Logistically speaking…"

He pauses.

"People are angry," he says. "Important people."

'It was bound to happen eventually. Money and charm can't buy everything."

"My point is," Tony says doggedly. "That I can't negotiate with them… But they're still negotiating. And right now…" He looks distinctly pained. "Public opinion just isn't on our side."

Steve looks at him. A very bad feeling begins to blossom in the pit of his stomach.

"You don't say," he says again. "Well, that's not surprising. Right now, we're not even on our side."

"We have to do damage control," he says. "Before things get out of hand."

"That would be a lot easier if you would tell me what kind of damage, specifically, you're referring to," Captain America says. "And these negotiators' idea of control."

Tony Stark squares his shoulders under his loose suit. A long agonized moment passes.

And he tells him.

...

Steve tilts his head back and stares at the branches of the trees hovering in solicitous alarm above him.

"An official registry," he repeats. "Of all Enhanced individuals, maintained and upgraded as appropriate by a designated government committee. And what exactly would that committee do with this registry? Stow it in a box and keep it in a drawer for reference?"

"That's the part that still open for negotiation. And at this point, at least… We're still in on the discussion. We need to take advantage of that while we can."

"No. Absolutely not."

"I thought you were all about law and order!"

"I am. I'm also all about democracy."

Stark struggles with his temper, taking a deep breath.

"There'd be tax breaks involved, at least," he says. "And a permanent guarantee of employment as governmentally sponsored consultants."

"Is that what they're calling it these days. Have they hammered out the details yet of the non-compete clause?'

"There's always SHIELD."

"And…."

The silence extends itself.

"Just what side of the negotiations floor are you working, Stark?" Steve looks at him in wonder. "Are you actually saying that you want me, as Captain America, to tell them that it's not the same thing?"

"The same thing as what?' It sounds just a little too bright.

"Don't give me that crap!" His voice rises as he does. "Global and federal government registries, guarantees of permanent government employment, non-compete clauses, officially sanctioned alternatives… Will we get our very own gated communities as well, with armed butler service and an official line of striped pajamas?'

"It wouldn't be like that!"

"It would be exactly like that! It's always like that!" He struggles to get his own temper under control. "Listen to yourself, man! They've got you thinking; you've got yourself thinking, that it has to be like that! You said it yourself: you're self-absorbed and dangerously impulsive, you have no self-control and far too much money, power and talent for anyone's good... I understand the concept of checks and balances; I really, really do, but honestly, if you're that desperate for someone to answer to, just… buy yourself a collar and Pepper a whip, and leave the rest of us out of it!"

Tony Stark's jaw hits the ground with an almost audible thunk.

...

"Well," he says. "That was unexpectedly crass. Well done! We'll make a Renaissance man out of you yet."

"If you don't shut up already," Steve says grimly, "I swear I will break you." He leans forward. 'Before you start in again… I want you to think of something. Someone. Think of Barton, okay? Of his family. The government know where they are. Hell, they put them there to begin with! What happens if Clint were to decline their offer? Do you think that they'd yet agree to keep his wife and children safe? He's an assassin, Tony. He has enemies even God doesn't know exist. What if those enemies were suddenly to receive a name to go with the arrows?'

"They owe him. They'd never do that."

"They owe him." Steve repeats. "What do they owe him that can't be remanded in the face of the dollars and lives that we're responsible for now?'

That stymies him, but only for a micro-moment

"He's not actually Enhanced. We could work with that."

"There is no 'we.' Not in this instance. And you're not actually Enhanced. Are you planning on working with that?"

'Steve…"

"Don't you 'Steve' me. What about Thor, huh? What do they plan to do there? Earth has no diplomatic ties or authority with or over Asgard, or any way to negotiate with them… Where does that leave him and his people? As Persons of Interest, or Alien Hostiles, or what?"

"Oh for… Will you calm down? Please? It's all hypothetical at this point! I just came here to get your opinion!"

"You came here to recruit me for the cause," Steve contradicts flatly. "As a temporally displaced individual who needs to be convinced to convince everyone else that what they're about to negotiate bears no actual resemblance to what they've been told they should never forget. Well, let me tell you something, Stark, and please, feel free to deliver the message to whomever it concerns, word for word… I may have America's stamp on my ass, but nobody- nobody – is ever going to put a fucking tattoo on my arm!"

He breathes heavily, standing, fists clenched… Tony looks up at him.

"Get over it, old man," he says softly. "Your war is over. Your time is over. Things have changed. They're still changing, and if you can't begin to understand that…"

He doesn't get the chance to finish his sentence before the world goes black.

The car pulls out of the drive, a small orange speck in the distance. Steve leans on his windowsill, arms folded, and watches it go. Behind him, on the bed, Wanda Maximoff sits, eyes dancing. She'd been just close enough to see the full and immediate impact of Captain America's right cross, never mind the left hook to the abs, and the whirling kick to the groin… He'd pulled that last a bit for Pepper's sake, the nauseating thought of more little Starks in the world notwithstanding… Still. It was a pity, the Scarlet Witch had said later to the hysterically giggling Natasha, that Pietro hadn't been there to see it. He might actually have considered the two of them properly…

Avenged.

"Are you quite done?' Steve asks, turning and surveying the woman before him with his hands on his hips. Their personal relationship had taken a marked turn for the better in the aftermath of his restated political views; it might have had something to do with the now-shattered bench that he'd ripped out of the ground as Stark had gone airborne and used to send him… Well… More airborne. She and Vision had been humming 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' at random moments ever since. Steve wasn't sure why Vision was getting involved, but he had to admit that the two harmonized quite well together.

"Oh no," she says. "I'll be visiting that one image in my own dreams for decades, I promise." She bounces up. "Though I still want to know what you were fighting about. And why he didn't fire you."

"Classified, and even more classified. Sorry."

She pouts. He pats her back as they headed down to the cafeteria.

"You'll know soon enough," he says. "Unfortunately."

"Mm. You're lucky Rhodes likes you. He is Stark's best friend."

"Rhodes and I understand each other," Steve says. And they do. James Rhodes might not be temporally displaced, but he has a more than profound understanding of his country's history, never mind his great-grandparents', and likes to keep his ear to the ground besides. The two of them had talked it out while Tony was getting his nose set and his jaw wired, and though Steve hadn't imparted details… He hadn't had to.

"Sorry, man," Rhodes had said, resigned. "I did warn him that he might want to wear the suit. Want me to help you fix your bench?'

"Nah. It died well. I'll just eat with the rest of you from now on."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," he'd said then, and says now, aloud. Wanda looks up at him as they walk, one hand in the pocket of her little red jacket and the other hanging loosely by her side, fingers slightly curled as if intertwined with those of an invisible second.

"Yeah what?' she inquires.

"Mm? Oh. Sorry. Just talking to myself," he says. "Sorry. I do that sometimes."

"A very human habit," Vision observes as he approaches. "Good morning, Wanda. Good morning, Captain."

"Hey, Vision," Steve says, and watches in bemusement as the curled, empty fingers of Wanda Maximoff's hand slip through the android's. She catches his look and smiles a little.

"I don't want to fly off," she says, as if that explains everything. Perhaps, he thinks, it does. And then… "You're big. I'm not. I need an anchor. He helps."

He stops and looks down at her. She stops and looks up at him. Vision watches both of them.

"I have an anchor," Steve says quietly. She reaches up and touches his cheek, and drops her hand again.

"You have nice dreams," she says. "She was very pretty."

"She still is," he says. "But she's not the one I'm talking about."

"I know," she says. "I saw," and then… "Run the other way." It is not a suggestion.

"I'm sorry?'

"Run the other way," she repeats. "Maybe it'll speed things up. Like in the Superman movie, but in reverse. If things speed up… You'll see him sooner, won't you?' She turns at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Natasha is approaching sleepily. "You both will."

"Hey Steve," Nat says, stifling a yawn. "Hey guys. Is it Saturday yet?'

'No," Steve says. "Let me guess; you stayed up late Skyping with Sif again?'

"We were bonding over all the stupid men in our lives. That pretty much includes every man in Asgard, she says, so it took awhile, and she's visiting Russia besides."

"Russia? What is she doing in Russia?'

The Scarlet Witch howls with laughter. Even Vision's lips twitch.

"It is an idiom," he tells his commander. "A rather innocuous one with no implied adjectives, however uncomfortable you might find the subject matter, so you cannot give her extra laps."

"I don't want to know," Captain America says firmly, and pauses. "Can I assume, at least, in this instance, and without provoking another war… That Russia is the situational enemy?'

'Bohze moi," Natasha says. "She's right. You really are worse than Thor. Yes, Captain. You may. Breathe, Wanda. You're going to need the oxygen very, very shortly…"