ARCTIC CIRCLE, BIODOME, SEPTEMBER 2, 12:00 UTC
"Yesterday the Avengers entered Bosnia and destroyed the Ultron Citadel that was in the country, taking out each and every robot that was there. A story all too familiar to our ears over these past two years. But this specific takedown of Ultron's robots has a little more meaning to it, than the rest. Bosnia was the country on the UN's red list. And according to the words of Captain America this was the last country they had planned a takedown for. Yes people, you are hearing this correctly. As of just twelve hours ago we are officially free of Ultron's rule! I think you will all agree with me when I say a big thank you to the Avengers. Things just wouldn't be going as fast without you."
"It's kind of surreal to think that we're done isn't it?" Francis said, and the others in the room had to agree.
Sometimes it felt like just yesterday Torunn had flown into the sky and thrown Ultron's body into the cold depths of space before they took off in the Quinjet and flew around the world saving everyone they could.
It wasn't too long ago that they would spend hours everyday in Ultra city attempting to strip the city down and fix it, only to realize that the damage done was more than they could ever realize. It didn't feel like that long ago the Scavengers had been fully integrated into the Biodome and slowly they had trusted them to come on missions, and do their own thing.
It really hadn't been that long or at least with hindsight it hadn't been. Two years flew by. And now, well, they were basically done.
"It's all perspective. In some ways we've moved extremely fast, our task of liberation has been done at a speed we should all be proud of. But the work isn't done. Not yet. The rebuild isn't close to being over."
"Yeah the clean up, it's probably the hardest part. Reconstruction. I mean we should know, we liberated the US first and we aren't even close to being finished with reconstruction." Pym pointed out
"Honestly it's probably going to take another 5-10 years before the world is fully reconstructed, and that's just the harsh reality of things."
"I really doubt that. With all of you guys working on fixing everything up, I'm sure it won't be long before you find a faster way of fixing things." Torunn attempted to be positive.
"We have a faster way of fixing things." James finally spoke up "The Iron Legion. But the chances of that getting sanctioned for anything other than prison work is slim to none."
"We've just gotta have a little faith." Tony insisted "With Valerie being sworn into office, who knows, maybe she can help us out a bit."
"Yeah and maybe this is something we can get S.H.I.E.L.D. to help us out with." Riri added, "That's what they're there for right?"
Yet still James simply shook his head and sighed "It's a nice thing to think can happen but it wont. When the world is united on something they are going to win. And it's clear what they want. No more robots. You have to understand. It's not even just the little guys who are afraid. It's other countries' presidents, and ambassadors who are just as afraid as the smaller people. Valerie would never be able to get the UN to agree to something like that. The people would rather wait than let the bots help out."
"Well I suppose we can't blame them." Jim, the newest Avenger spoke up "It was a traumatizing time, they aren't going to be understanding about things like this that fast."
"Of course, it's wishful thinking to believe we could make something happen. It's a hard pill to swallow. But, we're just going to have to wait. Wait and see if we can come up with anything else, or help with the construction as best as we can."
"Well who knows what might happen." Jessica spoke up "I personally believe it's too early to call it. And besides as more super powered people inevitably show up, I'm certain we could get things done, right? That would lower down the 5-10 year estimate."
"Well not really." Amadeus said with an awkward laugh "That 5-10 year estimate was made with the estimate of a 15% growth in the super powered population. It really is going to take that long."
"You have to remember Jess that we aren't construction workers. It takes time to plan things out for one building, and then put the things together, and then you still have to stop and maybe wait a few weeks while the workers get things checked by other workers before you get to work again. You'd have to do that, in thousands of cities, for thousands of buildings. It's asinine to believe we could really lower that number by much." Jane explained to her friend.
"Exactly." Amadeus agreed with Jane's statement "But who knows maybe will think of something. With Tony, Bruce, Me, Riri, Azari, Pym, Mr. McCoy, and maybe your friend Miguel coming to help, I have faith we might be able to find something."
Some of the others agreed, but James didn't comment as he knew his words wouldn't instill confidence in anyone, and he wasn't fond of talking if it wasn't going to make the others feel better. But the harsh reality was this was going to take a long time. Time and patience were two things he was beginning to feel like he didn't have at all.
For one there were all these cities that needed help and he was struggling to see how the Avengers and even the X-Men could commit the next 5-10 years of their life helping. But then there was Ultra city.
The only city in the entire world to ever be...terraformed by Ultron to create something so sinister. He had been looking at statistics not too long ago and supposedly 20% of the weaponry in Ultra City still hadn't been removed for danger of nuclear explosions. They couldn't even touch it. If the rest of the world was going to take 5-10 years, Then Ultra City was going to take 20 or 25 years...if even. It seemed like it was destined to be the next Chernobyl. And James wasn't sure how he felt about that.
"Since we're all here." The Super-Soldier interrupted whatever they were talking about "I was wondering what we all think of Ultra City. Is it...is it time to let the city go. Focus on other things. Do you see...redemption for the city?"
The question was more so for the O5 and the Original X-Men, he was curious to what they thought of the project that had long since slowed to a halt.
"It's distracting." Emma told him immediately "A big clunky metal city in the middle of America. Everyone can see it, and understands why it's there. It's depressing, an ugly symbol of what happened, but a symbol nonetheless. If you can restore New York City I'd say go for it. But if you're talking about destroying the city, I'd say it's not worth it. At the very least it reminds us of where we came from, and just because something hurts doesn't mean it should be forgotten."
"I'd agree with Emma honestly." Kitty told him with a sigh "I'm all for getting NYC back, but only if we can well and truly get it back to its former glory. But if not, well then let's just not worry about it then. There's tons of other places that could use some help."
"Blowing it up is...I don't know. Too desperate for me." Francis admitted "It's the last resort, but we shouldn't give up either. If we can just remove the nukes, I'm sure we'll be fine. That should be easier to do than the other stuff right?"
"It should." Hank agreed, "I'm sure we could get that done in under a year."
As others began to talk about how fast things could get done James just nodded along and put up a smile, he wasn't exactly happy these timeframes were still too long. When he went out and saw the people it only made him want to work faster. Get things done faster.
But he couldn't blame Tony, Bruce and the rest. They really were working as fast as they could and he was grateful for that. He just...wasn't ready to accept that it was going to take that long. He wondered where he got this impatience/stubbornness from. His Mom or his Dad?
Either way he was practically done with this conversation, so he snuck out of the main room pretty sure that the only two people who noticed were Frost, and Jim but those two seemed to understand when he needed a break from certain things.
And these days now that they had rounded up the Masters of Evil, James did what he always did and went on 'Hero Watch'.
Before all this Masters of Evil stuff popped off. The Avengers had been focused on adding more people to their cause. They had wanted to get larger. And they had managed to add Amadeus along with Riri, and Jim as field agents.
Of course there was the entirety of the X-Men who were always willing to lend a hand or two at the moment, though all of them hadn't even fully moved from Genosha yet still going back and forth as they still tried to figure out which city they would move into.
Regardless there was a fair amount of them at the moment the Avengers had all agreed that more was always better. They wanted a network of heroes, not just a couple. They wanted to know who they had on their side, who was willing to help the people. And not just in the aspect of fighting.
And because of that James would constantly be on 'Hero Watch'. With Friday's help it wasn't hard to get her to scan across the globe and more specifically the US of A to find certain anomalies in the system. People who seemed to have powers, or spectacular abilities that might be able to help out. And who might be good enough for the Avengers.
He had one person on his list, though things weren't exactly concrete so he was still ignoring that for now and looking for other people.
Today once again Friday had brought him to Portland, Oregon. And he had to sigh in slight annoyance. Something had clearly been going on in this city, something good and wonderful, but he wasn't exactly sure how. As the person somehow kept avoiding the cameras.
Well, not today.
He nearly had to do a double take as he saw a streak of red and blue fly...swing? Swing in the camera's view and stop a huge slab of rocking from landing on a couple of kids and then repel off the rock with relative ease zooming out of the camera's view.
Now it was rare enough to see someone so clearly enhanced on his Hero watch, but in this case his eyes had struggled a little to keep up with everything going on, The cameras had just barely caught the person jumping around.
It was even rarer to find a person wearing what looked like a costume, indicating that they might have been trying to be something more.
James wasted no time grabbing coordinates from Friday, grabbing his energy shield, and putting on the top half of his Cap costume before hiding it under a brown jacket. He wasn't really trying to be seen, but he also wanted this hero to know that he wasn't an enemy.
And so after making sure he had everything he told Friday to tell the others he was leaving and coming back before flying a Quinjet to Oregon. He wondered, what was he going to find?
HEROES OF TOMORROW
"I was thinking that maybe we could look into Hank's Pym Particles. Maybe if we shrink the Nuke to a much smaller size we could remove them, and then maybe we could even allow them to detonate as the explosion should be much smaller." Beast proposed to the group of scientists around him.
For him it was a little nostalgic being around so many big brains. It had honestly been too long. Aside from him and his son Miguel, no one else was truly on that wave length. Yet over here there were now 5, 6, 7 people who could think like he could. It was refreshing, and something he never knew he missed so dearly.
"I think that might actually work, and would certainly speed up the process." Tony agreed "Pym, what do you think?"
"It's...probably doable. We'd need to make Pym Particles however. And isolating the flying around my bloodstream has always been harder to use, as it's harder to control the factor which allows me to grow or shrink. Still I think I have some of my father's old notes, it shouldn't be too hard to recreate." Pym said all of this looking directly at the experiment in front of him, he still couldn't really look Tony in the face. He wasn't really mad anymore, but their relationship had definitely been fractured.
"Well then-
"Mr. Stark." Friday interrupted "James would like to inform you that he has taken a Quinjet to Portland Oregon. He should be back in a couple of hours."
"Oregon." Michael was the first to respond to the surprising notice from the AI "What's he doing all the way over there?"
"Surveillance." Friday answered dutifully. "He's probably looking for something." Azari translated for those who didn't understand the AI was covering for the Super-Soldier.
"He's very emotional. At least more so than his father was, publicly I don't think either of his parents were this...expressive." Emma quickly deduced
Tony nodded his head in agreement, but it only made sense. James was still a teen "He's 16 and feels like the world is on his shoulders. It's not always the best mix."
"Tell me about it." Francis said with a scoff "I don't get him. There is literally nothing else he can do. He's done the best he can. We've done the best we can."
"Sometimes people just have a hard time realizing they can't fix everything." Jimmy told them "And it eats at them."
"It was one of the first things Tony told us." Azari agreed "It was years ago, but he's always insisted. You can't save everybody."
"Yes but James is a stubborn man, he's never been one to take no for an answer." Torunn explained "It's endearing and it's why he's our leader, but it's our job to calm him down. When he comes back the four of us will talk to him."
"Good idea." Pym told her, but he really just wanted to push the conversation along, not wanting to talk about James behind his back for much longer. "Have you all decided where you're going to move yet?"
"Eager to get us out of your home?" Sofia teased Pym, who tried to stutter out a response before Hank put him out of his misery.
"No, we haven't decided. We would have picked Westchester but-
"It doesn't exist." Jessica finished off for him "And look I dig the fake Arctic thing you guys got going on here, but we might as well go to California. We don't really have any other options."
"That is where we are leaning towards. That or another remote location like Genosha just...closer. Too bad those are hard to come by." Kitty added on.
"I'm sure in a week or so we will have figured out where we are heading off to." Emma told the group "Once the rest get here, The decision should be quick and easy. As much as I'd like to, I have no desire to move to a place half the children have no desire to go to. That's just asking for a headache."
"I guess that's right. Personally I don't care where we move Ms. Frost as long as the next place doesn't have as much-
"Sorry to interrupt Mr. Wilson. But I have urgent news for Mr. Stark and the rest of the Avengers."
"Is it James?"
"No Mr. Rogers is safe and sound. It seems however I'm discovering a probing device at the edge of our borders."
This caused the room to freeze. Was it just a late attack by the Masters of Evil? It couldn't be right? It hadn't taken much to round up Zemo, Viper, Moonstone, Knockout, and the Egghead. They couldn't have had the materials to do something like this from behind bars.
And not just any bars. Behind S.H.I.E.L.D. bars as they had taken over watching the Vault while the Raft was still under construction.
But still that wasn't really a chance they could take. "Send a message to Daisy, and tell her to check the Vault for any mysterious activity from the Masters of Evil. Francis commanded the AI. And please show us the probe."
"Right away." Friday answered easily. In times like these it was obvious why Francis was the second in command. He never froze. Maybe it was because he was the oldest, but it was years leading the Scavengers as a boy that really made him into what he was today. He could easily lead his own team if he needed to.
Friday pulled a video of the probing device, and everyone crowded around the holographic screen. On the screen a metal ball the size of a fist hovered over the ocean moving at incredible speeds. It only stopped as it reached the borders and once it did, a piece of the metal ball flicked off revealing a robotic eye.
And the robot simply hovered almost stationary around the border clearly just looking. Whether it was searching for something was unclear. But everyone in the room could understand that's not good.
"Can you determine who made the probe?" Azari asked "Maybe check through the database."
"Checking through the database…finished. Results show 96% for Victor Von Doom."
"Shit." They heard Kitty swear, and Emma simply sighed as well "I genuinely forgot he existed. He hasn't done a thing."
"Yes, so why now?" Hank questioned. It was a question no one knew the answer to. Well no one but Doom, and already the Avengers could tell that, and so they gave each other a couple of looks before getting ready to do what they did best.
"Friday do me a favour and destroy that probe and prep a quinjet to Latveria. Call James and tell him it's important he comes back soon, and then give me literally everything you have on the state of Latveria and Doctor Doom."
"Will do."
"Uhhh, isn't that a little brash?" Jane questioned "I mean I don't know about you but it kinda sounds like well…
"A trap." Jessica finished off her, and Francis could only look at the young heroes and roll his eyes. They had so much to learn. "Of course it's a trap. That doesn't change anything."
"There right Francis hold on. I've told you before-
"Doom is different from the other baddies we've faced." Francis cut Tony off "I know we've heard, but what choice do we have? Either we let him make moves on our territory or we put him in his place."
"Tony we haven't ever had better numbers than we have now. Either we let another villain control our lives, or we let him know that we aren't to be messed with." Torunn agreed with Francis "Come on we can do this."
"I've never met this Doctor Doom but...we have strength in numbers. I believe we can manage this situation. With the right planning we can get out of this just fine."
For once Tony and Bruce didn't have to be the only authority on these subjects and he looked to the older X-Men for their opinion and they seemed to be agreeing with the children. "Some of us can go with them." Laura spoke for the first time.
Tony just nodded and gave them the go ahead "Alright, fine but we have to be careful. And Friday, get Rogers back here ASAP."
"On it boss."
PORTLAND, OREGON, SEPTEMBER 2, 12:25 UTC
Quinjet technology was truly amazing. He could travel at incredible speeds and get to where he needed to be in mere hours, and in this case, less than thirty minutes. The only important thing to do as he prepared to land was cloak the jet and then head on his trek to find this...vigilante. He already had his suspicions about who or what it was.
A spider surely. But the big question was well how? He honestly never remembered Spider-Man having a child and he had met the hero a couple of times. And he was a pretty private hero but he was sure that this was something both Tony and Banner should have known. Maybe even the X-Men.
It was a mystery he planned on solving. With a little help from Friday he had already triangulated the vigilante's most frequent positions and was around a High School that was in almost pristine condition.
And James felt like he could remember being here for a couple hours maybe a year or two ago helping with the construction around the city. They had tried to do that in every major state. At the time he never thought a Superhero might be hiding in the city.
Oregon was a part of the esteemed 44% of America that was considered livable. Or at least would be livable pre-Ultron. As that was what they were aiming for. Most of the state was actually very beautiful and quiet, the perfect place to move post-Ultron if you could afford it.
The economy had of course gone down the drain so most people couldn't afford it. Giving Portland an almost small town vibe. It was weird.
Still James was here on a mission. And so he did what he did best and grabbed a Newspaper and sat on a bench waiting for the kids his age to exit for what he assumed was lunch. High School...it was such a foreign concept to him.
Tony made him learn when he was younger but he doubted any of the Avengers could ever go back to school like their parents probably envisioned. Pym was too smart, Azari was too smart, Francis would never go, and was also too smart, He himself was too smart, and Torunn would never go without any of the others, and probably smart enough as well, plus she was a princess. Who needed school.
It was weird to see the kids shoot out of school heading to various places to eat lunch. He heard them babbling on and all he had to hear was a couple of conversations and he learned that most of the conversations were about them.
What interested him the most was a brown haired girl with a bit of a bounce in her step seemingly narrating the Avengers entire press conference the other day. It almost seemed like pure luck as his eyes widened and quickly began to recognize the familiar build of the vigilante in the video, so she was female like he initially thought.
But as he looked at that girl, there were around 3 girls with near identical physiques as well. Normally if the video had been he could have easily deduced which girl it was despite the very close physique, but now he wasn't so sure.
Until a huge boy chasing down a football was running like a missile straight for the girl. In every scenario the girl should have been decked. Hammered, sent tumbling to the ground, it was basic physics. Instead without even looking she flipped out of the way and the boy tripped over his own feet and landed on the ground in a heap.
If that wasn't superhuman he wasn't sure what was.
The girl looked alarmed, but ease was worrying her face until her friends began to pepper her with questions "Are you okay May?" "May how'd you do that?" "That was amazing May!"
"Yeah...I-I gotta go guys, my Mom's expecting me for lunch!"
"Okay bye May." and James watched the girl run off faster than most other girls could manage and now was simply waiting for some confirmation.
He quickly had Friday search the database for a May Parker wasn't surprised when she found it in a matter of seconds and pulled a picture of the brown haired girl he just saw. He guessed now the only thing he had to do was follow her.
He tailed May from a couple of blocks away and watched as she entered an alleyway before she began to swing through the air without a care in the world. And James had to do a lot more parkour than he would expected to keep up with the fast webslinger. At one point he found himself in a suburbia neighbourhood but it seemed he had lost the Spider-Girl until he heard a distinct.
Thwip! And instinctively flipped back from the red and blue girl who landed right in front of him and flipped forward in stride tagging him right in the chest, sending him tumbling to the ground to say he was shocked was an understatement.
"WHO are you and WHY are you following me!" May demanded with a hiss she grabbed the collar of his James jacket and raised her fist back as if she was ready to punch him right in the face. James probably should have simply told her who he was, but he was interested in her abilities so instead he smacked the fist holding his jacket and kicked his leg up at May which knocked her square in the jaw. And she flew back straight to the ground.
"Owwwww," She cried, as she got up and rubbed her chin. "That was not very nice. Jeez you hit hard. Who...who are you? Wait...you're not...You couldn't be? Right?" She asked herself in a near breathless whisper.
"But that's impossible, what are you doing here, and, and with me! It's...Am I dreaming?" She continued rambling. It seemed that she had noticed the stars under his jacket and so now his cover was blown.
"Yes I am who you think I am. And yeah I'm here for you, do you...have a quieter place we could maybe talk?"
May nodded and simply led him to the third house in the street apparently now she was too starstruck to say anything. "Sorry about-
"It's fine, promise it didn't hurt too bad. You're really strong though. It usually takes more than that to take me down."
"Oh thanks!" May accepted the compliment, it seemed to ease her a little bit, and she knocked on the door and James thought it was utterly bizarre that they were both dressed in costumes in the middle of the neighbourhood, and yet apparently they weren't worried about anyone seeing them.
There was a little bit of a wait but then an older woman with long flowing red hair, and a pretty smile. At least it was a pretty smile and then it was a frown, and then it was a look of shock as she saw who was at her door, and then he really couldn't tell the last emotion any longer.
"I...May seriously." Was all the woman could manage as she glared at her child.
"Mom, he found me! Promise!"
The woman sighed once more before opening the door "Come on in, before anyone sees you."
HEROES OF TOMORROW
As James sat in the living room which was rather plain. There were a couple pictures of May as a child, and then one picture of the woman and Spider-Man that was in pristine condition. No doubt it was the only picture of him she had.
As James watched the woman move around the house he knew he had seen her once before. Not from a picture but once when he was a small boy. It had to be at Avengers Mansion. He just couldn't remember why.
The woman sat across from him and placed two cups of tea down and took one for herself, and he took the other whispering his thanks and went straight back to staring at the woman. He hadn't asked her name yet because he wanted to figure it out for himself but he really was drawing a blank. He was disappointed in his four year old self for not remembering something like this.
"I can remember like it was yesterday. 'Aunty M!' I think you followed me around the entire day." She basically read his mind and like a broken dam his memories came rushing back.
"Yeah, my parents left me at Avengers Mansion with you. My father went with Spider-Man and I'm not exactly sure why my Mother couldn't watch me but they left me with you...For some reason I couldn't understand why you had two names while everyone else had one. So I just called you M."
"Your memory is astounding. You were barely four at the time." Mary Jane noted "Your mother couldn't help as she had been working on a mission I think with S.H.I.E.L.D.? At least that's what I remember her telling me. I was the only one at the Mansion that day so I watched you until they came back. It was forever ago...you've grown up so much since then."
"Yeah it has been a long time." James agreed, it was hard to think of a conversation when May was still doing whatever it was she was doing upstairs, he didn't want to upset her by talking about the past, but nostalgia really was all they had in common. He didn't have to worry; she continued the conversation for him.
"What you kids have done is insane at your age. I remember when Peter was just in High School. When he had started no one had known he was so young, it was taxing on him every single day but he would never let him stop. He loved it. Helping everyone out. It was his responsibility he could never let anyone else do the job. If he had the power he would fight everyday...it drove me crazy."
"A lot of the heroes were like that. When Captain America, your father had been thawed from the ice and the public found out, Peter freaked. He basically adored Captain America, always sticking up for the little guys. And then when he met him and your father was just as he imagined, that had been what he needed to keep pushing at the time. Your father was a big inspiration and It may not mean much but I'm proud of the way you all have managed being heroes in this day and age."
Well that was very touching wasn't it? "Thank you."
"You're very welcome, now that being said. I have some reservations about this entire superhero thing." MJ said more seriously than he thought she should have been able to muster.
"I kid you not when I tell you my daughter is my life, and if anything ever happened to her then I would not know what to do. I don't care if she can jump 50 feet in the air. Or hit harder than a tank, I've seen it all, heard it all, and have still been disappointed in the end things inevitably go wrong. Why should I let May go with you? How will this benefit anyone?"
She was very prepared, it was interesting as James had no intention of going into any of that stuff so quickly, but if she insisted.
"Training. May is an obvious novice, though her natural talent is clear. And the Avengers have always pushed training as our main philosophy. The fact of the matter is that we are all young. None of the Avengers are 18 yet, neither are any of the younger X-Men I've met. And May isn't either."
"As Avengers We've been doing this longer than everyone else and have more experience than everyone else…Everyone looks up to us, we understand that, and so we are taking it as our responsibility to train as many people who want to be trained as we can. It's not easy being a Hero and who knows who we might face next. But if everyone is prepared then we have a better chance to not just survive, but live. Because that's what we want to do. Live the lives most of our parents will never get to us do."
MJ looked at him for a long while before sighing and giving him a small smile. "You know I was hoping that the Avengers would take notice of May. Only because it scares me when she goes out there everyday without much training. I know. I know there isn't much to worry about these days. Next to no Ultron bots, and no more people coming out of the woodworks but I've just seen it all. Just promise me you will do your absolute best to train her."
"All of the Avengers will. I'm sure of it." James told her seriously "May will get the training she needs from us. I promise."
"Alright then. I've got my peace from this situation."
"So I can go with Captain America!?" May asked incredulously as she suddenly appeared from the staircase. "Really Mom!?"
"Yes really. And his name is James. And as long as he isn't busy, then I won't mind you leaving. But if you're not back in 24 hours you will hear it from me."
"Yes Ma'am!" Spider-Girl told her with a salute "So whaddya say James ol' buddy ol' pal, Can I leave with you? Please?"
"Sure." James answered her with a shrug and a smile "As long as I'm not busy which-
VRRTT! VRRRT! His communicator vibrated and flashed a vibrant yellow. James frowned, back to base? What for?
"Actually it seems like I'm being called back right now."
"Is there a problem?" MJ asked, now just a tad bit worried, maybe James could come back another day when things were a little less rushed. But May knew that look on her Mother's face and began to drag James to the door.
"Welp, we better get going then, See you later Mom! We'll call you when we get there." Mayday called as they exited through the door.
James frowned almost all the way to the Quinjet. It seemed each of the Avengers had alerted him individually...was something wrong? And if it was wrong, was it responsible to take the rookie with him?
"Oh come on, don't bench me now!" May insisted "I don't know what's up, but I'll follow orders, I promise."
They were already in the Quinjet and so James just quickly made up his mind "Alright fine, strap in."
Besides? How bad could things be anyway.
ARCTIC CIRCLE, BIODOME, SEPTEMBER 2, 2:00 UTC
"And so that's where we are at. We want you to do your thing, look over the plan, and then we're heading to Latveria." Francis told the seemingly stunned Super-Soldier. "Alright James? James?"
James wouldn't really consider himself a person who gets easily shocked. Not in the slightest. But now as he listened to Francis recall everything that had gone on in the past hour or two.
Apparently Doom had sent some sort of probing device, but in reality it was probably a trap, but the had agreed to go to the trap anyways because they felt like they needed to end the potential threat if they had the chance, even if it would be a stupid decision.
And he had to say, he was struggling not to agree. "Man and I thought I had news."
"Yeah about the girl...She's not actually Spider-Man's kid is she?"
"No she is. Found her and her mother living in Oregon. She agreed for her to come here today because she trusts me, and I told her nothing much was going on. I wouldn't have let her come if I knew we were going to do this."
"So you think our plan is sound?" Jessica wondered.
"It's decent. A trip to Latveria will take over 4 hours, so we can plan more on the Quinjet. I understand why you all think we should go, and I guess I agree. Let's get suited and get out of here. The quicker we respond to Doom the better."
James' mind was already moving at a mile a minute. He was thinking of three teams, A healthy mix of X-Men and Avengers and they'd confront the Tyrant at his hometurf. But they needed to be very, very good to make this work.
"Uhhhh, you guys aren't actually going to leave me here, right?" Spider-Girl broke almost everyone's train of thought "I mean this place is pretty cool and all, but...I'd rather go on the mission."
"Sorry kid, no rookies." Francis told her immediately with a shrug
"Oh come on, I'm not a rookie. And those X-Men only started fighting like 2 months ago! I've been a fighter longer than that, give me a chance."
"It's gonna be dangerous." Azari pointed out
"Well of course, that's why you need all the help you can get. Come on Cap, you said I was good!" she pleaded with James.
Her mom would probably kill him if she found out, but Doom was a big threat, and as long as she stayed with the original team should have been fine...They could even let her stay in the Quinjet if need be.
"Promise to stay by one of the Avengers' sides at all times?"
"Dude you can't be serious…" Francis nearly hissed at him
"Sir yes sir!" May told him enthusiastically.
"Well come on then, the Quinjet isn't going to fill itself everyone, we leave in 15." He told them commandingly. Despite being only 16 his words brokered no room for argument, so the others simply nodded at his words and left to get ready.
"Uh Cap, we finished the upgrades to the new suit. It should be where your old one used to be." Riri informed him.
"Good to know. Thank you."
Everything really was coming to a stand still. Maybe this was the last thing they needed to do before they could really get back to rebuilding. Maybe. But as the Avengers made their way to the Quinjet they were all thinking the same thing.
What did Victor Von Doom want?