WARNING: gun, blood mention
Chapter Twenty
As much as he loved Tony, Happy was considering finding employment elsewhere after the punk with super speed took the door off its hinges running inside. Maybe he could permanently transfer to the maintenance crew. He had plenty of experience piecing Tony back together. Building upkeep would be like a day in the spa compared to Stark sensibilities.
Happy waited for the blur to solidify. He tracked it in his peripheral vision, a silver streak that zigzagged throughout the building.
Looking for something.
Finally it stilled, a man blinking into form before his eyes. Old adrenaline pumped through Happy's system as he levelled his gun in the kid's direction.
"Hands up!" he barked.
The kid twitched, the edges of his body smearing before defining into clear, hard lines. Great. Not only was he faster than Happy's aunt Merle after the stuffing at Thanksgiving dinner, but he was just as built as damn Captain America.
The kid slowly lifted his arms, holding his hands at head height. Happy considered the tense stance, the wide eyes focused entirely on the gun. He considered his own gut, weighed the push and pull of his instincts. This kid could been a hell of a lot more dangerous than Killian ever was if he wanted to be. Happy sensed he didn't.
With a sigh, he flicked the safety back on and holstered his weapon at his belt. Immediately the kid relaxed, the fear melting out of his posture as he bounced on his feet, remaining in place even as his eyes darted all over. Happy crossed the room toward him, cataloging his face and trying to match it to one of Tony's Super Friends or even trace a resemblance to any of the dozens of women Happy had to escort off the premises over the years. Happy pegged him as mid-twenties. Too old to be Tony's, at least Happy hoped, and almost too young to be Howard's. If Howard had been getting it on with a pacemaker. Some women liked the silver fox look. Happy tossed that idea aside. If there was one thing Tony and Howard always agreed on, it was their love for Maria.
"Tony Stark―" the kid started, words wrapped in a heavy accent.
"―isn't here," Happy interrupted.
"Then where is he?"
The kid blurred again. Happy waited for him to settle down.
"Why don't you tell me who you are, first."
"MynameisPietroMaximoffmysisterisWandaMaximoffshe'sanAvengerandI'mhereforStarkbecausehe'stheonlyonewhowillbelieveme―"
"Hey! HEY! Slow down, I can't understand a word you're saying. You sound like Merle's kids after their fifth pudding, jeez." Happy rubbed his temples.
The building's security detail wasn't worth their paycheck anyway. Might as well fire the lot and replace them with drones. Happy could get a nice, calm, quiet job watering Pepper's ferns, defending the plants against flies.
"This is about Lian!" the kid exploded. "She's alive and everyone else thinks she's dead and I need Stark to figure out where she is!"
Lian? All the intruders and excitement in the world couldn't replace the noise supplied by Lian McKinnis. He'd never ignore her again if he could just hear her rattle off their coffee orders before darting out on a caffeine run one more time. The Tower wasn't the same without her chatter, and neither was Pepper without her ginger mini me.
It was just too quiet. Forget the plant job. He'd never had a green thumb and would probably kill them all immediately.
"Lian? Where is she?" Happy reached for his radio. He better get Pepper down here.
"I DON'T KNOW THAT'S WHY I NEED STARK."
Was it really too quiet? Maybe he could learn to garden.
Happy replaced the radio. "Does Tony know where she is?"
The kid fisted his hands in his white hair. "He probably has a better idea than I do where she would go if she'd just escaped imprisonment and disappeared. Wherever she felt safe―"
Happy scoffed, "That's easy. Lian would feel safest at her grandparents' house. Her dad's family. In Scotland. They're the only real home she knows."
"Scotland? Why the hell not," the kid muttered. He released his hair, smoothing it back, and took a few controlled breaths. There was a sheen of sweat coating his skin Happy didn't notice before. "Uh, thanks . . ."
"Happy Hogan," he supplied, sticking out his hand. "You think you can find Lian, kid?"
He rolled his eyes. "My name is Pietro Maximoff. I'm not a kid," he huffed, "and yes, I do."
Happy smirked. "Then godspeed, kid."
"You're cheesier than Lian," Pietro groaned, before he was gone in a silver blur and rush of wind.
A side effect of being dead that no one really considered was how few opportunities you had to network.
Pietro leaned against a tree in Central Park and tapped his thumb idly on the screen of the basic smartphone he'd swiped from a convenience store across the city. He kicked at the carpet of leaves beneath his feet, hoping the number of someone he could call would be hidden beneath them.
He hated to admit it, but it was time to face the facts. Wanda had more friends than he did. For the first time in their lives, Wanda actually had a social life, and he didn't. Sure, that was mainly because Wanda had been alive to make friends, but Pietro was a charmer. He'd always been a charmer. Then he died and came back with all these issues which made his literal witch of a sister more appealing than him.
He needed friends. He needed allies. Hell, he just needed someone who could get him across the Atlantic to Scotland. He didn't care if he had to search the whole country once he got there; he just needed to get there first.
He'd tried calling Stark. Stark would've been the easiest solution: a man with the means, money, and motivation for this.
Stark never picked up the phone. He'd shut Friday offline too.
Pietro…didn't really have anyone else to turn to. His family believed Lian was dead. He barely knew Wilson or the robot who hung around his sister. Rogers was a man of heart, Pietro knew, eager to trust its whims and convictions. His quest to save his friend's soul was proof enough of that. However, Rogers would probably want him to come back in and seek help from the team. Considering they'd locked him up for observation once already, Pietro wasn't keen on returning for the same treatment.
Dr. Selvig? No, Erik was off on sabbatical somewhere. Or exile. Retreat. Whatever Erik chose to call it when he squirreled himself away with books and research and scientific instruments with no pants on. Erik cut off contact to the outside world in his reclusive state.
Rhodes.
That—that could work.
Pietro dialed the soldier's number, holding the phone to his ear in too tight a grip, judging by the creak of metal and plastic.
Early in his hospital stay, they'd given him a list of all the Avengers' phone numbers. Cooped up in the room, he'd had nothing better to do than memorize them. He'd never called them—he was used to a team of two, after all, not a squadron—but he knew them by heart.
Answer answer answer answer answer—
"Hello?" Rhodes' voice scraped his throat when he spoke, rough and hoarse with a fatigue echoed in the burn of Pietro's muscles. He must not have slept all night either. "James Rhodes speaking."
"Rhodes, this is Pietro Maximoff."
A sharp intake of breath over the line. "Pietro? Where are you?"
Pietro uncovered a patch of damp sidewalk with his toe. The fraying mesh of his shoes exposed his sockless feet to the bitter chill. "An ocean away from where I need to be. Think you can do anything about that?"
Muffled voices. Was Rhodes betraying him? Tracing the call? No matter. Pietro could be long gone by the time they would arrive here.
He cut in after a long moment, "This is not a simulation. If she's in danger and I don't save her, I don't get another chance."
Manipulation was not his forte, and neither was inflicting pain. He'd never been taught how to wield words like weapons, how to twist a knife deeper into a wound with a smile.
But he'd borne witness to the demon, and you could not witness such a thing without some of it sticking to you. Once a weed is in a garden, you can't just pull the one shoot. You have to dig up the roots, and even then, the seeds will have spread, and there's nothing you can do about those until they've already grown into thorns.
Pietro hoped any cuts his thorns made would not be laced with poison, would be shallow, would heal.
"Tony's jet is here," Rhodes said. "The pilot will take you where you need to go."
He did not have to search all of Scotland for the McKinnis house. All he had to search was the tablet left lying on one of the suede leather seats inside the plane.
He ignored the data cache already brought up on the display when he powered it up, something labeled MERRY CHRISTMAS that he only knew how to navigate enough to back out of it. He recognized the make of the tablet once he saw the home screen—the Stark Industries logo, of course. Partially because he wasn't a complete idiot and partially because he was good at mashing buttons, he found the app that connected to the Stark network (finally, some networking he could do) and entered his login. His restricted access immediately locked him out of over half the tablet's functions, but not the one that mattered: the search engine for the network database.
Wanda would have been proud of him for his resourcefulness if she had approved of this endeavor.
Pietro shoved thoughts of Wanda aside. It was only once he did so that he realized how much clearer his head was without the clutter of his twin, the constant feed through their bond. It was…a disturbing revelation, and a liberating one.
He typed JUMPER in first, just in case, but his low rank barred him from that file. "Jumper" wasn't who he was looking for anyway. Jumper was an experiment, a broken, angry girl who trusted no one, not even herself. He sought Liana, the girl with a job and a life and a family she would go to when she was hurt and scared.
LIANA MCKINNIS produced a link to an employee profile from Stark Industries. Pietro clicked on it. The second it popped up something seized in his chest.
There she was. Not his Lian, not even close—this woman still smiled with both eyes and mouth. She looked young, terrifyingly innocent. The time stamp on the image dated it as her first day on the job, and he could see the hint of nerves outweighed by exhilaration in the tilt of her lips. Untouched by tragedy, at least the tragedy of death. He couldn't forget the family she ran to was the same she felt she had to run from so many years ago.
He scrolled to the next image. It was more current, set around January, before H.Y.D.R.A. and Ultron and the coma. She bore a closer resemblance to the Lian he'd met. Her smile was not as wide or as toothy; her cheeks were less round, bones sharper. She'd already carried the weight of her fiancé's death on her brow for years. There were some positive changes though too: the anxiety of something new long since dispelled, her expression radiated surety, comfortability in her position, a relaxed pose that said she knew her place and it was here. Pietro hadn't believed Lian was happy among Stark's people until now.
He kept scrolling, past the images and the lump in his throat to the standard documentation. Date of birth, name, address, years of employment, occupation within the company, insurance, emergency contact, family—aha!
EDWARD MCKINNIS - PATERNAL GRANDFATHER
ISOBEL MCKINNIS - PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER
And an address that hadn't changed in forty years and was unlikely to change anytime soon.
Finally something easy.
One problem replaced the next as pain lanced through his stomach. Right. He'd been putting off eating to finalize his destination, but he'd collapse soon if he didn't refuel.
If Stark complained about all his stores being completely demolished, he'd just blame Lian.
"That's how I got here," Pietro explained. "I got lost a few times trying to find the house."
"That's the idea," grunted the old man. Gray stubble patterned his cheeks, but the mane of hair atop his head matched Pietro's. He'd finally stopped glaring in Pietro's general direction. Something in the story must have relieved his suspicions. That, or the tea his wife served them all had a calming effect.
His wife puttered behind him, scoffing at his comments and tugging disapprovingly at his ponytail. She'd instructed Pietro to call her Isobel upon his arrival, the first of many instructions. The others went something like take off your shoes, come into the kitchen, sit down, tell me what you like to eat, drink your tea, eat your sandwich. (He'd eaten six. She'd merely squeezed his shoulder and joked about his runner's metabolism.)
She delivered the latest command as more of a gentle suggestion, timed while he chewed so he couldn't politely protest. You can look away from her long enough to check what you're eating, dear. She's not going anywhere this time.
This time.
The press of her leg against his beneath the table provided a small comfort, a reassurance she was still here. They'd angled their chairs toward each other when they first sat down to keep each other in direct sight, but it didn't feel like enough. Pietro wanted Lian in his arms again, wanted her crushed against his chest with her arms wrapped around him, holding each other like they'd never let go. Even that hadn't felt like enough, but it was as close as he'd gotten to enough since he found her.
He had a feeling though that her family might object if he pulled her into his lap right now.
When did I get so tactile? he wondered. No, tactile wasn't it. He was starved, touch-starved, for a specific person. It had to be a side effect. They'd occupied the same mental space for too long, and this was just a side effect.
He couldn't resist a smile as she stifled her laughter in her sandwich.
Is that just a side effect too?
"I appreciate your loyalty to Ana," Lian's dad said, setting down his heavy mug. Pietro couldn't be sure if he was smiling or not behind the beard, but his eyes were warm.
"Ana—oh." Pietro ducked his head at the chuckle it produced. Lian didn't let him be embarrassed for long. She elbowed him lightly, jostling him back to attention.
"It's just a family nickname," she explained.
He nodded. "Got it. I'll stick to Lian, then."
"No–no, you can use it." It was her turn to drop her eyes briefly. She flicked them back up to meet his, cheeks faintly dusted pink. "You can use it." Her grandfather coughed. She glanced at him and abruptly straightened, adding, "You believed I was alive, unlike a certain someone whose name starts with Wuh and ends with Ahnda."
"She wasn't with you—as long as I was." He caught himself before directly mentioning the chamber, especially in front of Lian's family. How much they knew and how much she wanted them to know were questions Pietro had yet to receive answers to. "I knew you were strong."
Lian found his free hand under the table and laced their fingers together. It eased the ache in his chest.
"I worried I'd find this place, but you'd be in a hospital," he admitted, opening the conversation to the others at the table. Isobel took a seat next to her husband, fingers still restless, flying over her teacup as she doctored its contents. "What did you do when she—" He trailed off, not sure how to describe Lian's teleportation.
"Landed on the front walk?" Isobel filled in. She sipped her tea. "I wanted to call the ambulance, but Ted insisted we wait until Ewan arrived."
"Really?" Lian perked up. "Why?"
Her grandpa shrugged. "Gut instinct."
"I cleaned the blood off you. It was about the only thing he let me do," Isobel huffed. "I don't have the faintest where it came from. You had no wounds."
"You had started teleporting out of bed by the time my Uber got here," Ewan took over. "Clearly it wasn't a natural condition. Observation…seemed best. I was not putting you in the hands of the government."
Lian's eyes narrowed. "Or the hands of my mother."
Ewan's jaw ticked. "Or the hands of your mother," he agreed.
Lian's grip tightened on Pietro's hand. "Good."
"What does Mila have to do with this?" Isobel demanded, her lips twisting as she spoke her daughter-in-law's name.
Lian and Ewan exchanged a long look. Ted put a hand on Isobel's shoulder, as if he could guess what was about to said. Pietro stroked the back of Lian's hand with his thumb. Whatever came next would change this family. Break something that wouldn't be easily fixed.
"Mila must have been working with H.Y.D.R.A.. The terrorists who did this to me." Lian's voice didn't waver. She glanced at Pietro. He nodded. "Who gave him his speed."
A gasp at the kitchen doorway shocked them all to action. Isobel shrieked, Ted shoved her down so his body blocked hers, Ewan jumped forward, and Pietro flung himself at the intruder, restraining the girl's arms behind her back.
Lian was less than a second behind him, disappearing from the table and blinking into space in front of the girl, but only slower, he suspected, because of the surprise. Adrenaline rocketed through him, a thrill that sent shivers racing up and down his spine. Someone as fast as him. Someone who could keep up.
Then tears sprung to Lian's eyes, and she threw her arms around the girl. Pietro released her, sidestepping around to get a look at the girl's face, to see who sparked such a reaction.
She could only be one person, with those green eyes and red hair and young face.
"Giselle," Lian whispered, voice cracking.
Giselle drew back, a choked laugh bubbling from her lips. She swiped her fingertips across her sister's cheeks, wiping away the tears. Then she lifted her head to see the crowd amassed in the kitchen over Lian's shoulder. Her eyes fell on Pietro before she turned back to her sister.
"Why don't you fill me in on when you got a boyfriend and became a superhero?"