Fate Wills It So
Tony's Safehouse – 4:15 PM
Tony and Pepper enjoyed a nice, refreshing slumber. The problems of the world carried on with them none the wiser. However, as was always the case, the moment they woke up, the problems were waiting for them. The moment Tony opened the door to his and Pepper's bedroom, Happy nearly banged him on the head. "Jeez! What?"
"This." He handed him his phone, which already had a news video queued up. When Tony pressed play, he saw the same report about the flaming Avengers logo in Berlin that the rest of the Avengers saw just minutes earlier.
Tony's face immediately dropped. It was clear as day this was the Masters of Evil calling them out and trying to draw them into a battle. There was a very good chance this was a trap. Still, in the middle of a heavily populated city, he couldn't take the chance or the risk. The Avengers needed to respond, and he was going to be right beside them.
"Wait, you're going?" Pepper inquired anxiously.
"I have to. The Avengers are going to respond and I have to be there with them. I couldn't forgive myself if I wasn't."
To him, it made perfect sense.
She looked like she wanted to argue, but once she caught another glimpse of the video, she gave her consent. "Please be careful."
"I will. Have dinner hot for me when I get back." He smiled and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "I love you."
"I love you, too, Tony."
He pretended not to see the worry in her face. He tried to ignore the sadness in her eyes. Acknowledging it and making an attempt to convince her that all would be well would only make it that much harder to leave. It was hard to leave her every time he left for a mission since there was always that chance he could not come back, that he could die on the field. This time was no different, and yet, that foreboding sense of doom he felt as he armored up and flew into the sky toward Berlin, Germany was unlike any other he had felt since becoming Iron Man.
The Masters of Evil were unlike any enemy he had faced in his life. He had always risen to the occasion, overcome any and all odds set before him since he was a kid. This time, he hoped, would be no different.
"Jarvis, you with me?"
"Of course sir, thanks in no small part to you."
Hearing Jarvis' voice again was a comfort that couldn't be put into words. With the AI watching his back, he knew that his chances of surviving the upcoming fight just substantially went up. The same could be said for the others. He felt a lot better about what was coming in the very near future. "I assume Cap and the others are on their way to Berlin. Get a hold of the quinjet and patch me through."
It was a few seconds before he heard Steve's voice filter into his helmet. =Tony, is that you?=
One thing he immediately noticed was that Steve sounded exhausted. He had no clue what had been happening to the others while he was gone, but it had only been three days so it couldn't have been that drastic. Then again, considering how quickly his life fell apart, anything could happen in three days.
=Yeah, it's me, Cap. According to Jarvis, I'll be in Berlin in about twenty minutes.=
"Same for us. When we come up with a strategy, I'll radio you the details."
=Got it. See you soon, then.=
Steve cut off the comm and sighed. "Tony's on his way. We should all arrive at about the same time."
"If only Bruce was on his way," Clint uttered from the cockpit.
"There's still a chance," he reasoned, even if he didn't sound like he believed it. It wouldn't have been the first time Bruce showed up at the last minute.
According to intelligence Fury gave him on the incident in Berlin, the city was attacked at 2:30 PM ET, and the mysterious fire started only twenty minutes after that. The incursion was quick and efficient, with no time wasted. Fury's sources told him that it was likely Hydra behind the assault. It made sense; the Masters were shacking up in Hydra's lone base, and it seemed that Viper – apparently the current leader of the terrorist organization – was a part of Zemo's team.
"As soon as we arrive," he spoke, "Thor, put out the fire. I'll organize whatever cleanup is necessary. There's already an evacuation in place, so the city should be mostly empty by the time we arrive. Everyone else stay alert. Zemo and his team will likely be on the scene; I don't want us getting caught unawares."
He sighed and sat back down.
"Wanting to not get caught unaware with the fastest man on the planet lurking around somewhere," Natasha intoned dryly. "Easier said than done."
"He very well may be focused on me," Wanda retorted. She didn't sound very comfortable with that allusion, for good reason. "I will keep him as occupied as I can."
"Not by yourself, you can't," she argued. "You tried that once. You didn't wake up until three days later."
As unnecessarily blunt as she was, Natasha was right. Wanda couldn't handle Pietro on her own. He was too fast and knew that she needed time to set up her more powerful spells. Her hex bolts didn't affect him, which was her only hope. Unless she had been keeping things from the rest of them – which very well may have been the case, since she studied magic by herself in her room – he was hard-pressed to figure out what she could do against him.
He didn't want to underestimate her.
"I can handle my brother," she responded testily.
"This isn't your brother," Natasha responded coolly. "He's a slave, bent to the whims of an Asgardian goddess. If you slip, just once, he will kill you. And Thor or the rest of us will not be able to save you."
It was cold, pragmatic, and every word was correct. Just one look at Wanda showed Steve that she knew Natasha was right, too.
Carol waited fifteen minutes after she saw the Avengers depart before heading to the hangar and firing up the only other quinjet that was present. Steve didn't want her to come; Natasha said she was a liability. She would show them. She wasn't a liability and she wasn't useless. She was just as capable as the redheaded spy, or Clint. They were normal humans just like her, yet they left and were allowed to leave without hesitation.
Steve was just like her father. He cared, but he couldn't stop babying her. She proved her old man wrong and she would prove this old man wrong, too.
Natasha was just a bitch. A crazy, psychotic, sociopathic bitch. She couldn't wait to see her face when she showed up and turned the tide of the battle.
I'll show you. I'll show all of you that I have what it takes.
Berlin, Germany – 11:55 PM (4:55 ET)
When the Avengers arrived, they were assaulted by the smell of burnt flesh. It was repulsive and stomach turning. The fire had either been put out already or had died out naturally once its kindling had been used up. Clint noticed a trio of police officers waving them down, and landed the jet a safe distance away from them.
"Stay sharp," Steve said as he quickly stepped down the gangplank and toward the officers. "Was ist passiert?" he queried.
(Translation: What happened?)
The highest ranking officer answered him. "Es war ein Angriff über zweieinhalb Stunden von Soldaten in dunkelgrün , die sich Hydra genannt . Sie wurden von einem Smaragd rothaarige Frau und ein Mann in einer Maske führte . Er sagte, dass dies die heralding einer neuen Weltordnung war." The man paused and turned to the then pile of still smoking ashes. Thankfully, Thor created a wind that blew both the smell and most of the ashes away. "Es gab Leute, in diesem Feuer, Kapitän. Unschuldige Menschen, die kein Geschäft hatte zu sterben. Bitte, finden und stoppen die Monster, die dies taten. Ich weiß, Deutschland hat eine schwarze Vergangenheit, sondern—"
(Translation: There was an attack about two and a half hours ago by soldiers in dark green that called themselves Hydra. They were led by an emerald haired woman and a man in a mask. He said that this was the heralding of a new world order. There were people in that fire, Captain. Innocent people who had no business dying. Please, find and stop the monsters who did this. I know Germany has a black past but—)
Steve cut him off with a raised hand. That was one place he was not going; not today and not in this place. "Wir planen, keine Sorge. Wie viele müssen evakuiert werden?"
(Translation: We plan to, don't worry. How many more need to be evacuated?)
"Nicht viele. Wir sind fast alles geta—" The man's head suddenly exploded into a mist of blood and gray matter. The other two drew their guns, only for the same to happen to them.
(Translation: Not many. We are almost do–)
"SNIPER!" Natasha roared. The Avengers present immediately dove for the nearest cover.
"Clint, aerial coverage! Now!" Steve yelled.
The archer nodded hastily and scampered from cover to cover until he had a clear shot to the jet. It wasn't safe, but if he ran in a zig-zag pattern, the sniper shouldn't have been able to get a bead on him. It didn't actually occur to him that it wouldn't be him that was the next target. A bullet struck the jet's engine; an incendiary bullet that exploded on impact. Mere moments later, the entire jet exploded in a fiery ball of super-heated metal.
Clint was tossed back and landed hard on his back, his head snapping back and banging against the hard, unforgiving pavement.
"Clint!" Jessica ran over to him and lifted his head up. He wasn't hurt from the blast, but his eyes were glazed over. "Wanda, help!"
The sorceress ran over to where Clint was laying and looked him over. She saw that his eyes were glazed over and sensed that he was barely conscious. "He'll be okay." She placed her hands on either side of his head and closed her eyes. "Igira soth ith moiparran ta!" As before with Carol, her hex magic entered his head, reversing and mending the damage done when he slammed into the ground. If he had a concussion, fractured skull, or contusion, it was mended in short order. "There."
"Look out!" Natasha saw just in time that there was a red dot hover on the back of Wanda's head. She managed to shove her to the ground just moments before a bullet passed through the air just where her head had been.
Without another word, Natasha rolled to her knees and brought her own rifle to bear. She tracked the trajectory of the bullets that nearly killed Wanda and destroyed the quinjet and knew where to look for the sniper. Sure enough, once she looked through her scope, she saw Yelena Belova on an air conditioning vent on the roof of a building hundreds of yards away looking through her own scope. Without hesitation, she pulled the trigger.
Her shot, a killshot aimed for her head, never made it. "What?"
"Looking for something, Romanoff?"
Pietro let the bullet drop from his hand. Natasha rifle was grabbed out of her hand, dismantled down to its component parts, and the bullets tossed over his shoulder before the round reached even a fourth of the way from his hand to the ground. "You didn't need that, right?" He laughed derisively and casually dodged Widow's Bite fired by Natasha.
He reappeared behind her, the spy a frozen statue from his perspective.
"Pietro!" Wanda stood to face him. "It's me you want. Leave her alone."
"Hehehe. Seems your coma has affected your memory, sister." The way he said sister was absolutely venomous. "This won't last long, and will go the same way our last tussle went. Except this time, Thor won't be there to save you."
"Quicksilver! I see you are still ensnared by the Enchantress," Thor spoke from above the battlefield. The sky had grown black and rumbled menacingly with the looming thunderstorm by his creation. "You will have one chance. Yield. Stand aside and we will show you both mercy and give you the help you desperately need."
Pietro chuckled, then laughed. "No."
"Very well."
"Please, Pietro! We don't want to hurt you," Jessica pleaded.
"That's too bad, Jess. For you, that is."
"How right he is." Zemo approached them, flanked by Gene, Viper, Abomination, Amora, and a mysterious blonde woman in a silver and gold uniform – she was wearing a mask so they couldn't see her face. "The moment of truth has finally arrived, Avengers. I see that you are mostly all here. A pity about Dr. Banner and Mr. Sta—"
Before he could finish, the familiar thunder of the Iron Man armor's approach became louder. Tony slowed his descent and landed next to Natasha. "Save your pity for someone who cares, Zemo."
"Ah! So the great prince knows of me! How exciting! I feel honored." He chuckled and shook his head. "Even still, our destined confrontation has arrived at last. I must admit to having felt anxious the last few days. Now, the wait is finally over and we can fulfill our destinies. Fate has will it so."
"You speak of forces you have nary an understanding of, mortal," Thor spat. "You have trifled with our lives for the final time. If you will not yield, you will die! So speaks Thor, God of Thunder!" The sky opened up, unleashing the full tilt of nature's wrath. Tremendous flashes of lightning danced across the sky, followed quickly by booms of thunder that shook the ground and shattered the windows in every building in the area. Fierce, impossibly strong winds – far exceeding the speeds associated with Category Five hurricanes – blew through the block. The Avengers were unhindered, but the Masters were knocked down by the immense force. Even the Abomination struggled to stay upright.
Thor let out a harrowing roar and let loose the full extent of his godly power. Lightning erupted from his eyes and danced across the metal nodes on his tunic. He landed in the midst of his teammates, eyes aglow with divine power.
"So, this is the power of a god," Zemo marveled. Those around him clung desperately to anything solid – light fixtures, fire hydrants, the sides of buildings – to keep from being swept up. "It matters not. We will prevail this night!"
"Very well." He exploded forward, Mjølnir crackling with power. "Then, have at thee!"