Author's note: Over the Independence Day holiday, my niece requested an MCU movie marathon, and we watched probably eight or nine movies in two days, and I scribbled off this short piece as a gift for her. It takes place (I guess) shortly after the events depicted in "Age of Ultron". I don't pretend to be any sort of expert when it comes to Avengers lore, all I know is what I watched until my eyeballs fell out :P but I'll share it here with everyone anyway...
It was a bright, sunlit spring day in New York City, and in a modest office in the Avengers tower, Steve Rogers was trying to make himself comfortable in a high-backed chair. He sighed in exasperation as he couldn't find any sitting position that seemed remotely relaxing, or even normal posture.
Natasha Romanov stopped in the doorway and smiled at him. "You wanted to see me, Steve?"
"Yeah. Come in, Natasha. Sit down." Steve adjusted himself in the chair again, still clearly uncomfortable.
Natasha permitted herself an amused smile as she sat. "You look like a man who can't stand being in an office," she observed.
"Guilty," Steve admitted ruefully. "I don't know how Tony manages to sit in one of these things all day long."
"That's simple. It's like a throne. Strokes his ego."
Steve grinned, but then he pulled back, suddenly self-conscious. He hesitated for a moment before speaking. "I want to pull Wanda from the active duty roster."
Natasha frowned. "You do? Why?"
"She's not ready." He sighed heavily. "The problem is, I'm not sure we can afford to have her on the sidelines."
"But you intend to bench her anyway."
"I don't want to. We need boots on the ground, Natasha. In case you hadn't noticed, our ranks are a little thin at the moment. But someone who sits in her room all day and cries is of no use to us."
"She's grieving, Steve. She's a frightened, traumatized girl who lost her brother. The only family she's known since she was ten. She watched him die. Horribly. You don't just get up and brush yourself off after something like that."
"No. You don't," Steve agreed. "But we need her, Natasha." His mouth was set in a grim line. "The Avengers still have the rep of being the heaviest hitters when it comes to defending the planet. But with Tony, Thor and Bruce out of the picture, we just don't have the same amount of firepower backing us up any more. Unless you've heard anything from Bruce?" he asked hopefully.
Natasha shook her head sadly. "No, I haven't," she sighed.
"Then Wanda's still the best power hitter we've got."
"What about Rhodey?"
"He's liaisoned to the DoD. The Pentagon's not about to share him, not as long as we're not directly tied to the US military in some way."
"Damn," Natasha swore softly.
"If we're just doing covert ops, then we have the best team anywhere. I would take you, Sam and Clint into the field with me any time, without hesitation. I'm not sure I'm ready to give Wanda that same level of trust."
"She needs time, Steve. You don't create good field agents overnight. You know that."
"I know. But when the alarm rings, she has to be ready to go." He paused. "If she freezes in a fight, Natasha, the consequences could be far more disastrous than anything you or I really want to deal with."
Natasha nodded her assent, albeit reluctantly. She was in complete agreement with Steve on that particular point, at least. "I'll talk to her."
"Thanks."
Natasha walked to the doorway, then paused and turned back to look at Steve.
"I would think you'd be a little more sympathetic," she said quietly. "You were on the front lines during the war. You know what shell shock looks like."
Without waiting to see if Steve would reply, Natasha left the room.
Steve sighed heavily. The communicator sitting on the desk chirruped briefly. He pressed a button on the console.
"Rogers here."
"Hey, Steve," Sam Wilson's voice crackled over the tiny speaker. "We're ready down here on the field."
"I'll be right down."
A few minutes later, Steve Rogers walked out onto the wide practice field, adjacent to the tower. It was a wide, open area covered in grass, about the size of a football field, bordered on three sides by a modest copse of maples and oaks. The sun was shining brightly, although the morning air was still cool. Steve's mood lightened a bit. It was impossible to feel somber when spending time outside in weather this perfect.
As he walked onto the field, Steve could see Sam Wilson and Clint Barton standing next to a low workbench, which had been positioned roughly in the center of the field. Sam was hunched over an object which seemed to be demanding all his attention. Clint stood off to one side, a look of bemused exasperation on his face.
"What have you got for me, Sam?" Steve asked, coming up to them.
Sam Wilson stood up from his crouch over the low workbench and gave Steve a wide grin. He pointed to the metallic object on the table.
"This is Redwing," he said proudly. "It's basically a modified defense drone. It can give you audio and video surveillance up to six city blocks. It has 360 degree scanning capabilities, in multiple spectrums."
"Can it see through walls?" Clint asked half-jokingly.
"Actually, it can. It can track heat signatures and electronic signals through thirty feet of concrete. It even has a grapple on the underside. Firepower's limited, though. I wanted to keep it small and light, so there's only two cannon mounts, one on each wing, basically just enough to deliver the equivalent of one machine-gun round apiece. It can also deliver pizza."
"Sounds great," Steve nodded. "But who's going to operate it?"
"That's the beauty of it," Sam grinned. "It's tied into the flight suit. If I'm in the air, so is Redwing. It can respond to verbal commands on my voiceprint, or command codes from my wristband."
"Ten bucks says it crashes in the first thirty seconds," Clint snorted derisively.
"Twenty bucks says no such thing," Sam retorted.
"Case of beer?"
"You're on."
Steve held up a hand. "Sam, are you ready to demo this thing or not?"
"It's ready."
"Then let's see it."
Sam stepped back from the workbench and touched a button on the display console of his gauntlet. The drone began to make a gentle, humming whirr, and then rose smoothly into the air, about three feet from the surface of the bench. Sam touched another button, and the drone immediately soared to a height of forty feet.
"The drone has a semi-autonomic mode," Sam explained, touching another button.
Clint grimaced in annoyance. "Semi what?"
"It's capable of threat assessment and independent movement. Within limits. It knows how to avoid weapons fire, and it won't run itself into the side of a building. It can also preemptively target hostiles."
"Like us?" Clint muttered, as the drone swooped downwards in what looked suspiciously like the start to a strafing run.
"Heat seeker is on," Sam confirmed, checking his display. "And we are the closest heat signatures. We're targeted."
"That thing's not loaded, right?" Steve asked.
"I never put live ammo aboard a beta-" Sam was unable to complete his sentence, as all three men had to abruptly hit the deck as the drone bore down on them, shrieking past within inches of their faces.
"I think your little toy has a mind of its own," Clint grunted, getting to his feet.
"It's supposed to," Sam answered. "That's the whole damn point."
"It's coming 'round again," Steve said grimly. "Sam, shut it down."
Sam touched a button on the gauntlet console, but the drone continued its approach. He touched it again, then shook his head in puzzlement.
"It's not working."
"Hit the kill switch."
"It doesn't have one."
"What?" Clint shouted angrily. "You mean you can't turn it off?"
All three men dived flat again as the drone swooped down on them. Clint was instantly on his feet after the drone passed, drawing an arrow from his quiver and expanding his bow.
"Heck with this," he muttered, placing the arrow in the bow and letting it fly.
His aim was perfect, but the drone easily swooped to one side, avoiding the arrow.
Sam sighed. "Well, at least the threat assessment software works."
"Sam, you need to shut that thing down, now," Steve barked in a warning tone.
"I'm trying," Sam grunted, frantically stabbing buttons on the console.
After a moment, the drone shuddered visibly as it queued the repeated commands, and then, its propulsion systems off, went into a tailspin and embedded itself headfirst in the soft grass and earth a few yards upfield. There was a sharp crackle of electricity and a curlicue of smoke as the motor shorted out.
Sam sighed despondently.
"Okay, so, it needs work," he allowed.
Clint Barton shook his head.
"You owe me a case of beer, Wilson," he declared, clapping a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Better make it light beer, though. Laura says I've put on a few pounds."
Natasha stood outside the door to Wanda's room. The girl had left her door open, but Natasha wanted to make a point of not entering until she was invited. Wanda was sitting on her bed cross-legged, staring pensively out the window at the tree line beyond, her chin resting on the heel of her hand. Natasha rapped lightly at the doorframe. Wanda, startled, looked up. Natasha gave the girl her friendliest smile.
"Okay if I come in?"
"Yeah. Sure."
"How are you settling in?"
"Okay. I guess."
"May I sit?" Natasha indicated the edge of the bed. Wanda nodded.
"So, how are you, really? Are you doing okay?" Natasha asked as she sat.
Wanda hesitated. "I don't know what I'm doing here," she admitted after a moment.
"I thought you wanted to be here," Natasha reminded her gently.
Wanda made an indifferent shrug of her shoulders. "I had no other place to go." The girl's soft Eastern European accent was more pronounced when she was distressed, Natasha noted.
"Well, Captain Rogers is very pleased you decided to stay with us," she assured her. "And so am I. You have a very special gift, Wanda. You can save a lot of lives with the powers you have."
The girl seemed unimpressed. "But I couldn't save Pietro, could I?" she said, her voice utterly flat and toneless.
Natasha pursed her lips before answering. "You can play the 'what if' game for a lifetime, Wanda, and still never come up with the answer you want. This isn't a zero sum game. We're trying to save lives, but we're not going to able to save every life. That's not the way it works."
Wanda sighed, and stared out the window again. "I guess not." After a moment, she frowned in puzzlement and looked back at Natasha. "Why are you here?"
"I'm here because I want to be."
"But aren't you a spy? Don't you kill people?"
Natasha hesitated a moment before she answered. "I was trained to be a covert military espionage agent. And an assassin," she added. "Yes. Sometimes I was ordered to kill people."
"And did you always follow orders?"
"Most of the time."
"But not all the time."
"No."
"And now you follow Captain Roger's orders."
"I like this job better."
"It's better to help people," Wanda agreed thoughtfully. "I like Captain Rogers. He is a good man, I think."
"I think so, too." Natasha smiled, but as she did so, she caught a glint of something outside the window, at the very edge of her peripheral vision. She stood up, frowning suspiciously.
"What is that?"
As Natasha watched in horror, the object - still some distance away, but traveling very fast - came into focus, and with a thrill of dread, she realized she was staring a short-range missile heading straight for the compound. She quickly touched her Bluetooth receiver earpiece.
"Steve, Sam, Clint, we have ordnance coming in hot!" She yelled. "This is NOT a drill!"
Wanda stood up, saw the incoming projectile, and her eyes went wide. Natasha was already bolting for the door. "Come with me!" she ordered.
"Wait!" Wanda pulled back sharply on Natasha's hand, halting her intended flight. Wanda had no time to explain; she gestured at the window, and in seconds, a ruby ring warped and melted the glass to create a wide opening. Grabbing Natasha around the waist, Wanda dived without hesitation through the open space, using her powers to allow herself and her companion to make a controlled descent to the grassy field just meters below them.
By now, Natasha could hear the shriek of the projectile, and knew they had only seconds before it impacted. But Wanda calmly raised both her hands, splaying her fingers as wide apart as she could, and everyone on the field could only watch in dumbfounded amazement as a bright ruby red ring of energy coiled itself tightly around the missile. Wanda gestured upwards with her hands, and the trajectory of the missile followed suit. It exploded harmlessly in the air, several hundred feet above the compound.
Wanda crumpled slightly, putting her hands on suddenly very shaky knees. She glanced at Natasha and smiled ruefully. "That was scary, yes?" she said breathlessly. "I was scared."
"So was I," Natasha admitted.
Clint Barton came running up to them. "Damn. That was close," he muttered.
Steve touched his earpiece. "Maria, I want to know where that came from."
"Already on it, Captain," Maria Hill's smooth voice assured him. Steve trotted up to where everyone else was standing, Sam just two steps behind him.
"Everyone all right?" Steve asked.
"Everybody's fine, Captain," Clint grinned. "Thanks to the new recruit."
Steve regarded Wanda appraisingly, and she flinched slightly under his close scrutiny.
"Yes," he nodded with an approving smile. "Nice job, Wanda."
He shot a quick glance at Natasha, who grinned at him.
"Ready for the field, wouldn't you say, Captain?"
Grudgingly, Steve nodded, but he was still smiling. "Yes. She's ready." The next second, he was all business. "All right, people, get ready to move out. As soon as Maria has coordinates for us, we're going to deliver a little calling card of our own."
Sam turned to Steve. "HYDRA?"
Steve shrugged. "Don't know yet. But probably."
"This is the first time they've called us out on our own turf."
Steve shook his head. "This wasn't the real attack. They were just seeing if we're paying attention. When they're ready to come after us for real, we'll know it." He smiled grimly. "It does mean we're starting to annoy all the right people, though."
"Yeah, and that's supposed to make me feel good how, exactly?"
As the men sprinted off the field, Natasha turned to Wanda, who was just starting to straighten up. "You all right?" she asked with concern.
Wanda exhaled sharply, and then nodded with a smile. "Yes. I think so." She watched the men racing away a few yards ahead of them. "I think I am going to like working for Captain Rogers."
Natasha grinned. "Yes. I think so too. Shall we?"
By unspoken agreement, the two women broke into a run to catch up with their companions, ready for their next mission.