Chapter 51

Waking up in the middle of the night to the sounds of alarms and explosions wasn't the best feeling in the world. To find out your security system had been bested by a teenager was just making it worse.

Steve was standing, arms folded in front of himself, the Avengers, Helena Perez, and Maria Hill along with him in the meeting room, discussing what had happened in a matter of minutes.

He always had a foot backward with Fury and Hill's habit of keeping secrets, and this was just making it worse.

Rhodes, who had been hearing what had happened with an impassive expression, was the first to speak up.

"What were you thinking?!" He asked, his face finally showing the anger he was feeling, looking at Hill. "All everyone has been trying to do is keep her away from those criminals!"

"I wasn't going to send her to the field. I was letting her help get the guy who was one of the responsible for killing George Allan." Said Maria, firm in her place, despite that EVERYONE ELSE in the room, was against her.

Fury sure knew how to pick his proteges. She was as tough as nails that one.

"Look, I may disagree with her, but we are not going to get anywhere just talking about why she did what she did." Said Natasha.

"Nat's right." Said Steve. "We need to find Bella before she puts herself in more danger."

"Tony?" Asked Rhodes, looking at his friend, who was leaning back on his chair, feet on top of the table, hand over his eyes.

Tony chuckled once.

"Cloaking was activated. Connection to FRIDAY deactivated." Said the billionaire, putting his hand down. "So, no, Rhodey. We can't track the Quinjet."

"Where is she going then?" Asked Steve. "She was working on finding this arms' dealer, Maria, where is she going now?"

The woman took her tablet from the tabletop, typing a few things and a screen in the room lit up with files and files of numbers, maps, and photos of ears.

"This is what she had in her tablet before she cut the connection to our systems. A bunch of uncomprehensive data." Said the woman. "She was doing a lot of thinking before Helena interrupted her."

"She looked excited when she got out of her 'mind zone' or whatever she calls that now." Said Helena Perez, looking worried and extremely uncomfortable being in the meeting room of the Avengers. "She usually says that computers are too slow in making the connections between things, so she does it all in her head."

"Great, so we have no idea what she figured it out then." Said Rhodes, leaning back.

"How did she get access to our systems in the first place?" Asked Vision.

"How did she even got the tablet? All she had was a phone." Said Tony, irritated. "That I modified myself so she wouldn't be able to access the internet or our systems."

Steve could bet that he was holding back a larger reaction. The billionaire looked ready to snap and start yelling at everyone.

"FRIDAY, what was the tablet she was using?" Asked Natasha.

"The files that Miss Hill selected were created using Miss Maximoff's ID." Said the AI.

"What?" Asked said woman. "How is that possible? I only access our system through my desktop. I don't even use my tablet."

"I am running diagnostics." Said FRIDAY.

"Oh, shit." Said Tony, rubbing his eyes.

"What?" Asked Steve, it sounded like he had figured something out.

"You two were playing a game on your computer." Said the billionaire, looking at Wanda.

"It's been weeks. We just played a racing game." Said the woman. "I didn't let her use it after."

"The game ID, Friday." Said Tony, with a bitter laugh. "She used the game ID to create a back door to Wanda's computer. And get in our system using an authorized existing ID. Fucking... this girl used the systems security directives against themselves."

Steve would have asked if that was even possible, he wasn't a computer person, but he had the impression Tony would talk about him being a grampa. Besides, no one else in the room looked like they were questioning that.

"Brilliant." Said Vision. "That frustrates me."

"Yes, that's the usual reaction." Said Helena.

Steve looked at the screen, the marks on the maps and the pictures of ears.

"It looks like we'll find her if we figure out where she's going." He said. "So we should look through these. Maria, why there are all these photos of ears?"

"Ears are just as unique to humans as fingerprints." Said the woman. "She marked the people working for the buyer pretty easily, but the people working for the Serpent are not known. So she made a software that mapped the ears in the places she suspected the meetings were happening. From there she would eliminate the ears of actual costumers."

"Smart." Said Natasha, leaning back on her chair.

Vision approached the screen, looking at the numbers on the files. Steve didn't even know how to begin with them.

"Tony, is it just me or is there something? In these?" He asked.

The billionaire looked at the screen, frowning.

"Not sure what it is." He said. "But... there's something."

"Something useful?" Asked Steve.

"Not sure." Said the billionaire. "But I have the impression it's staring me right in the face."

"Then you work on it." Said Rhodes. "I'll go check if the investigators from the army have something else about this Serpent, something they might have forgotten to put in their reports."

"I'll go talk to some contacts, see what else they can have." Said Natasha.

Sam, who had been quiet the whole time, stood up.

"I'll go over the files, see what I can put together." He said, leaving the room.

"Wanda, Maria and I are going to be working on that too." Said Steve, the man paused at the doorway.

"Right, I'll be right back then." Said Sam.

Steve frowned a little, Sam had been quiet for a while. Ever since this whole media circus with Tony and Bella started, really.

He had to talk to him, see what was going on.

"Alright. Get to it." He said, ending the meeting.

The rest of the people cleared out, except Tony.

"How are you doing?" Asked Steve.

The man ran a hand over his head, breathing deep.

"She had one, two minutes to figure out this plan." He said. "Two minutes to figure out how to go around MY security system."

"She could have figured it out a while ago." Said Steve. "And was just waiting for the right moment."

"Yeah."

Tony turned to look at him.

"You're good with people. Captain Empathy and everything." Said Tony. "What do I do?"

"You find her before she gets hurt."

"I did that before. It doesn't seem to be working." Said the billionaire.

"Therapy."

"She's not going to talk to anyone."

"How do you know? You didn't try to send her to one."

"She already hates me. She might actually try to kill me if I lock her in some house for traumatized kids." Said Tony.

"I say therapy, you say locking her up." Said Steve. "See the difference?"

"You see another way of having her actually sit down and talk to one?" Asked Tony.

"She escaped a place where you had a supercomputer and a hundred cameras keeping an eye on her 24/7." Said Steve, with a side smile. "You're really thinking that there's a clinic out there that can hold her? Outside of a prison?"

Tony shook his head, breathing hard.

"Damn Hill." He said.

That was something Steve agreed to.

"Tony, we'll still help you when we find her again. Figure out how to stop her from doing these things."

"But only after we find her." Said Tony, completing his thoughts.

"Yes." He walked over to the man. "And those numbers over there, you're the only one in this place that can see what she saw there."

"Really? They didn't teach that in the army?" Asked Tony, the usual sarcasm helping him build up walls around himself.

Steve smiled a little.

"I'm going to work on the intel we have on this deal." He said. "We compare notes later."

Tony nodded, giving him a pat on the back and leaving the room.

One down, another one to go.

Steve left the room and found Sam in the kitchen, drinking some coffee.

"Are you okay, Sam?"

The man startled, finally noticing him there.

"I... sure. Tony is the one who needs the 'Cap talk' right now." Said Sam.

"Already did." Said Steve. "Now, are you okay?"

The man glared at him, annoyed.

"Ah, screw it." He said, shaking his head. "Just wallowing in self-pity and guilt. Nothing much."

"Why?"

The man ran a hand on the back of his neck, looking tense.

"Kinda my fault the media started this frenzy." Said the man. "Screwed up. Kid freaked and dove headfirst in this suicide mission."

"Sam, her behavior it's not your fault." Said Steve.

"I know it's not my fault she's weird, that's all Tony's fault. But... I should have handled that motel situation better." Said Sam. "I was annoyed at this whole situation, at having to parent her because Tony won't. Or can't. Completely frustrated at just how... very much 'Bella', Bella can be. So I just wanted to get out of there. I didn't even... cared for anything else. I didn't even think of how much anything about Tony has the potential to create a media frenzy."

"It's understandable, Sam. You didn't set out to start this. It happens. It was bound to happen sometime. Tony, being who he is, she couldn't be kept a secret forever." Said Steve, walking closer and leaning against the counter next to him. "And let's face it... thinking that she wasn't going to do anything just because she was in here with FRIDAY monitoring the exits was naïve of ALL of us."

"Naïve, it's a mild word. It was just plain stupid." Said Sam, making Steve nod in agreement. "You know... despite how serious this situation is, I get a feeling that Tony can't help but be proud of her."

"I noticed." Said Steve. "She's smart, genius, Tony likes that."

"I think is more than that." Said Sam. "I think... Tony is getting old. He's not that close yet, but... he'll get old and he'll die. And she is a shorter version of him who can keep going when he's gone."

"A legacy." Said Steve, understanding what Sam was talking about.

"The way she does it is misguided, but she CARES. It's the whole problem. She really, REALLY cares." Continued Sam. "She's not going to make the same mistakes he did when he was young and still made those weapons, because that what's his dad's company did. She has a very strong sense of right and wrong, she's not going to hurt anyone like that. She knows guns are not the answer. She can use that brain to help the world without needing to hurt a single person. Refusing to hurt a single person."

"Being a version of him without the things he regrets and carries with him every single day." Said Steve, he could see what Sam was getting to.

"If she only stops trying to get herself killed. She can do anything. A mind like that, with the empire he'll leave behind... Anything she decides to do will change the world." Said Sam, shaking his head, then taking a long gulp from his coffee. "You know, I hate that she is in danger out there. Don't agree with Hill, don't think this will help. But... I gotta take a page out of Tony's book. Don't want her doing it, but damn, I'm impressed."

"This is probably why she managed to get away with doing these things for so long." Said Steve. "We know she shouldn't be putting herself at risk like that, but can't help but be impressed at how she does it."

"You heard Maria, Steve. No one else in the world managed to find this guy. She did it. By reviewing video surveillance for ears." Said Sam, with a side smile. "I never would have thought of it."

"We all need to change the way we're approaching this." Said Steve. "Find a way to keep that brain busy without calling herself the rage of those criminals. College maybe."

Sam shook his head.

"I pity the teacher who tries to keep her constantly challenged." Said Sam.

A moment of silence passed and Steve was confident that, despite still feeling bad for his actions, Sam was okay for now.

"Come on, we have work to do." Said Steve.


Bella's hand was throbbing. She was sitting on the pilot's seat, the first aid supplies she needed in front of her. The first aid kit in this plane was impressive. As it should be when it was used to go into battle.

Her shirt had been completely soaked with blood on the left side, where she held her hand between her arm and torso. She didn't dare to stop until she arrived at her destination.

She was in the Czech Republic, where the next meeting would be. The meetings were happening exclusively in Europe, mainly so they happened in a 'neutral' place. The buyer was from the Republic of Chad, in north-central Africa.

Bella knew that the Serpent was a cautious creature. Paranoid. Slippery. No way it would send the minions to the place where the buyer had the upper hand.

This was business and that was best made in a place where both sides had the freedom to speak. And one could disappear too, if necessary.

To land the Quinjet in a place where she could have some ounce of certainty that it would stay hidden for a while, was a bit of a challenge. But she managed.

Now she had to finish bandaging her 'self-stabbed' hand to get out of there. Find blood-free clothes and get a ride to Prague.

After the last piece of medical tape had been in place, she got up from the chair, taking her shoulder bag and shoving all the supplies back on the high-quality backpack that was the portable carrier of the first aid kit. She took both bags and left the quinjet, but not before taking other useful things she could need (stuffing them in the bags), and programming the plane to open with her hand-print on the screen outside alone. Technically the Avengers could open it too since their prints were programmed to do so, but they were not here and she didn't feel like wasting her time deprogramming them from it.

She waited to see the plane lock itself down, before turning around and leaving.

Almost two hours she walked until she reached a road. Then half an hour until a car passed by. Stopping when she made a signal, asking for a ride.

She didn't speak Czech, but she hoped to get by with her knowledge of other languages.

"Ride?" She asked, pointing to the side, in the direction the old looking man was driving towards.

The man said something she didn't understand and nodded, smiling with yellowed teeth. That, along with the smell, told her he was a smoker.

The smile was all the answer she needed, she got in the car.

The man exclaimed something, surprised, looking at her side, expected. A hoodie half covered in blood was a reason for concern, at least to most people.

She waved him off and lifted her bandaged hand. Hoodie down and glove on, so her scars and 'unusual' skin were not showing, that would raise even more questions.

"Accident." She said, hoping he understood what it meant. He frowned for a bit but then nodded.

He started the car again, driving.

He made a question, that she obviously didn't understand. She could guess that it was him asking where she was going. It was the first obvious question made to people one gave rides to.

"Prague." She said.

The man shook his head, saying something she didn't understand and motioning to the glove compartment.

She opened it and found a well-used folded map. He signaled with his hand a few times for her to unfold it, which she did until he placed a hand on it, stopping her. He pointed to the spot on the map that said Pardubice. A little less than halfway to the Prague spot on the map.

Well, halfway there was better than nothing. She could do with that.

She nodded.

"Ok. Pardubice." She said, most likely butchering the name.

"Pardubice?" He asked, with a completely different pronunciation. She was right, she butchered the name.

"Pardubice." She confirmed with a nod.

She had 25 hours until the Serpent would be in Prague. The deal was being closed. No deal was closed by lackeys, when it came to that much money, the boss was the one to close the deal.

Or, she suspected, the one to be listening in on the meeting while your least stupid lackey closed the deal.

She leaned back on the seat, feeling the pain in her hand. Using it to ground her in reality, because her mind wanted to wander. To remember the past. To remember what she lost because of this Serpent. What that monster had cost her already.

If she lost herself to her pain, she would have no idea where she might end up. She could forget all she used as a moral compass. She could use her brain to truly hurt, instead of punishing.

Vengeance instead of justice.

And she wanted that, so, so much. More than anything. She wanted that freak to die in agony. When it came to this particular criminal, it had always been vengeance.

She wasn't able to completely keep the memories at bay.

Bella walked into the living room, feeling frustrated and angry when she saw the woman on the couch.

A half-empty bottle on the coffee table.

She got close, shaking the woman awake.

"Oh..." Exclaimed the woman, after the moment of confusion when she figured out what was going on. Or the most she could, she was still drunk.

"Mom, go to bed." Said Bella, in a harsher tone than she had used before with her mother.

"Oh, bunny. I'm so sorry." Said Emma, hiding her face in her hands. "I'll be better tomorrow, you'll see. I promise."

"Yeah, you always say that." Said Bella, taking the bottle and going to the kitchen, to empty it in the sink. "Why don't you actually try following through it, this time?" She called from the doorway.

Bella was sick of all this. Seeing her mom like this. Always hurting. Always in pain. Bella was too, but she had to take care of her mom, make sure she didn't get herself killed or anything. She missed her dad, every day. She missed her mom being okay, every day. She hated herself because she found a problem her brain couldn't seem to solve.

She went back to the living room, her mom getting up from the couch, almost not doing it from how drunk she was.

"Are you hungry, bunny?" She asked. "I can...m-make something for you."

"Not hungry." She said, climbing up the stairs. "Just go to bed, mom."

She went to her room. She was frustrated. She was angry. She was tired. Just tired.

She didn't do her routine check of the doors and windows that night.

She didn't check the stove either. Or what her mother might want to do with it.

'Just go to bed, mom.' Was the last thing she ever said to her mother.

She nodded thanks to the driver when the man parked in front of Pardubice's bus station, leaving the car and taking a moment looking around to see if she could find a place where she could find some clothes. The bloodstains were not an ideal look for a girl who didn't want to be noticed.

She also didn't have money...

After a moment of thinking, she decided a direction to go to, then started walking.

It took her one hour and a half to take enough wallets in the street. The first thing she did was to buy another hoodie. A larger one that hid her frame better. It was also a darker color, which would seem cleaner for longer. No bloodstains would appear there.

After that, she took a piece of a cardboard box, wrote 'Prague' on it and started walking down the highway, waiting for a ride.

She was in a hurry, so every second she was not in a car moving to Prague was torture, fortunately, an old van stopped and a group of people in their late teen and early twenties let her in.

And luckily, some of them spoke English. Not so lucky, she had to keep her head down all the time because they were taking selfies all the time. Apparently, they were long-time friends and enjoying a long weekend together before they each went to their college.

The music and 'chatting' were getting on her nerves. Especially because they were constantly trying to get her to join in. Her hand was still killing her, and her mind was still going through all the things she didn't like to think about.

Bella was actually surprised that her mother noticed her meltdown. She was always drunk these days. She was drunk now.

"Bunny?" Asked Emma, surprisingly not crying. Her mother was a sad drunk or she was drunk because she was always sad. The girl didn't know anymore. "What happened?"

"I had them. And I lost them." Said the girl, crying with her head buried in her pillow. The room destroyed around her. After she had lost all the data, she had about the weapon that killed her dad and the people responsible, she couldn't control herself and started breaking everything she saw.

"Had- Had what?" Asked her mother, stumbling through the room and falling on her ass by Bella's side on her bed. Incredible, that in such a state the woman managed to find in herself to worry for her daughter's state of mind.

"The people responsible!" She sat up, looking up in tears at her depressed-looking mother. What a pair they made. This was the most depressing house in the town she could guess. "The people who made the missile that killed Dad. The people who sold it. I had them and... they got at me and I lost everything! I can't prove it! Those monsters at Stark Industries are selling weapons to both sides, and I can't prove it!"

She leaned forward, hugging her mother and burying her face in her. Drunk or not, she was her mother and Bella needed her mother to comfort her.

It took a long time of Bella not feeling Emma's arms hugging her back for her to lean back and look up at her mother. Who seemed in shock, looking blindly at the wall.

"Mom?" She called, confused.

"Stark Industries." Said the woman in a tone of voice that indicated she was about to cry. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." She answered. "Why?"

"Stark... No. Not him." The woman looked down at her, placing her hands on her face, cradling her face delicately, drunk eyes focussing on her. "Oh, my poor baby. Not him." She said.

Then she started to cry. Cry like Bella had been crying when she walked into the room. Sobbing. Pulling Bella into a tight hug, burying her face in her daughter's brown waved hair, so unlike her blond straight hair.

"Mommy?" Called Bella. It had been a long time since she called Emma that, but Bella was scared. Something was wrong here. She was devastated, grieving, angry, confused. And now worried, because her mother was acting weird. She couldn't handle more right now.

"My bunny." Said her mother. "My poor little bunny." The woman said between sobs.

"Mom! You're scaring me, stop!" Said Bella, pulling back to look at her mother in the face.

"That your father would be responsible for your dad's death..." Said the woman, crying. Lost in her own suffering and not noticing the importance of what she was telling the child.

"What?" Asked Bella, confused.

"I never resented you, Tony. I never hated you. Why did you do this to us?" Continued her mother, looking at someone who wasn't there. "Why? Why my little bunny?"

That was how Bella learned who her father was. Seeing her mother once again lose herself in tears and suffering. The woman would lock herself in her room for two days after that.

Bella didn't leave her room for three.

Her train of thought was interrupted when the guy sitting next to her poked her arm quite roughly and asked in a heavy accent if she wanted to share the drink they were all having.

"No, thanks." Said Bella. "I really can't hold my liquor." She said, noticing that, other than the driver, the rest of the people were all drunk and just wearing her hoodie was enough to make them think she was old enough to drink. "Makes me puke."

They laughed, even though most of them didn't speak English.

"That's so sad." Said the guy, drinking a little and passing the bottle to one of his friends. The loud music doing nothing to mask their laughs and hurried talking.

Time couldn't pass fast enough for them to arrive in Prague. She would not be able to stand these happy drunks for long.

She all but ran out of the van when they finally arrived there.


Tony and Vision had been, along with FRIDAY, working on the numbers they had found on the tablet. Along with the data from the reports, she had used in her 'investigation'.

Tony was the first one to see it.

"It's three different equations." He said, jumping off his seat and approaching the holographic numbers in the middle of the room.

"What?" Asked Vision.

Tony was moving pieces of numbers around, forming three different equations with them.

"There are three separate equations here." He said. "These other numbers here, here and here. They are times, dates and geographic locations."

Vision approached him, watching as he organized the numbers.

"The meetings are decided by these equations." He said.

"Guaranteed random times, dates and locations. Within certain parameters, of course, but random." Said Tony. "Agencies can't pick up a pattern because it's decided by equations that are so complex their agents can't understand. Besides, who would expect it to be this way? They expect human predictability, not mathematics."

"This Serpent is truly a smart criminal."

"You don't say." Added Tony, nodding. "Alright Friday, check it and tell us where the next meeting is."

"Running numbers." Quickly complied FRIDAY. The numbers getting organized and folders of pictures and video surveillance, compiled by Bella on the meetings that already happened, opening and aligning themselves to the side. Confirming the accuracy of what Tony figured it out.

One result at the end of the list didn't have any pictures and videos. Because it hadn't happened yet.

"According to the numbers, the next meeting is happening in Prague." Said Friday, opening a map, with data on a location in said town.

They had five hours, four hours and 57 minutes, to be exact. And Prague was over 8 hours away in a normal plane.

He felt the blood pumping faster in his veins. He wasn't just worrying now. He had something he could do.

"Tell the others I'm taking the other plane." Said Tony, already running out of the room.

The other plane wasn't as advanced or fast as the quinjet she took, but it still was the fastest way to Europe.

He wasn't surprised that Vision followed him.

When he reached the plane. He knew that the suit would have already been flown there by FRIDAY, folding itself into a briefcase. He was also not surprised that there were other people there too, looking like they ran there as fast as he did, uniform in hand, but in civilian clothes.

He was just surprised it wasn't just 'Mother-hen' Rogers, but Wilson and Hill too.

"Got a place for us in here?" Asked the man.

"Get in." He said, grabbing the briefcase-suit and getting on the plane, the others following him. He ignored Hill, and she didn't talk to him either.

It didn't take long for them to be up in the air and flying toward Prague. And Bella.