Chapter 9 - Didn't See That Coming
A/N: Warnings for: untranslated Russian swearing that may be worse than the other swearing in this fic; a Wanda-induced delusion that's a little grotesque and involves major character death (no major charcter actually death occurs); Loki throwing up again (sorry, he seems to do that a lot in this series).
"Clint has been waiting for us at the airport in Sokovia for three days. If he realizes that we could have had you open a portal to send us back to New York all along, he'll try out his new crossbow on all of us." Natasha had probably been right, and Loki had no desire to have one more person annoyed with him. Still, he wished they could have taken Frigga up on her offer to send them back to the tower. They had only been gone for a few days, but Loki couldn't wait to see Tony again so that he could complain to him about how mean Thor and Natasha had been to him, and how unfair it had been of Bruce to ground him when all he had been trying to do was stop his mother from getting married to yet another tyrannical dictator by provoking and attempting to blackmail him.
Loki followed Natasha and Thor through Frigga's portal, which led directly onto the airport tarmac. He looked around for their plane but didn't see it. "Are we on the wrong runway?"
Natasha frowned as she also turned around, looking for an object that should have been much too large to become lost. "There's only one runway at this airport."
"Then where's the jet?"
"Pizda rulyu—hell if I know! I'm going to kill Clint if he just took off without us."
"You have to put two dollars in the swear jar when we get back to the tower."
Natasha glared at him. "As far as I'm concerned, 'hell' isn't a bad word. And since when do you speak Russian?"
"That's my daughter's name you've taken in vain," Loki pointed out, even though he knew that technically, it wasn't the same word but a derivative of it. "And obviously, the only way to read Tolstoy is in the original language."
Thor also looked around the empty runway, as if somehow, he might still see the plane or some clue as to where it had gone. "Barton would not leave on his own without good reason."
Perhaps this wasn't the worst thing that could have happened. If Clint had already left without them, there was no reason that Frigga couldn't send them directly back to New York. He turned back to the portal and was about to step back through it when he bumped into Bruce. "Oh, sorry," he apologized, catching Loki by the arms as he fell backwards. "You okay, Loki?"
Loki looked past Bruce's shoulder to the portal as it closed and let out a string of profanities that would have made a seasoned Aesir warrior blush. He turned around in time to see Natasha smirk at him. "I'm not sure what language that was, but I'm pretty sure you owe the swear jar at least twelve dollars."
"What's going on?" asked Bruce.
"Our plane is missing," Thor told him.
"How do you lose a plane?"
"That's what we've been wondering." Natasha pulled out her cell phone, then shook her head. "I'm still not getting any cell service here."
"Maybe there's a phone we can use inside," suggested Bruce.
Loki trudged after Bruce and Natasha into the airport terminal, which at least was a few degrees warmer inside than outside. Natasha headed for the bar that took up half the terminal, then leaned across it. "Excuse me, do you have a phone we could use?"
The tall, muscular woman on the other side of the bar stared at her. Loki translated. "Is there a phone we can use?"
Natasha arched an eyebrow at him; apparently, she had forgotten that just like Thor, Loki spoke Allspeak. She might have heard him speaking English—or possibly her native Russian—but the bartender had heard her own native tongue. She pointed behind them to a pay phone on the far wall.
Natasha blinked at it. "Seriously? I don't think I've seen a working pay phone since middle school—"
"Hey, Natasha, isn't that Clint?" Bruce nodded towards the other end of the bar.
Loki looked in the direction Bruce had indicated. Clint sat the end of the bar, mumbling into a glass of amber-colored liquor. Likely they had overlooked him because he had blended in so well with the crowd of ragged day-drinkers that already populated the bar by late morning. He hadn't seemed to notice them either. Natasha marched over to him and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Clint, what the hell?"
He turned to her slowly and looked her up and down with haunted eyes. "Nat, is that really you?"
Natasha took a step back, taking in his sorry state. "What happened to you?"
Clint shook his head, and turned back to the bar, reaching for his drink. "I don't want to talk about it."
Natasha grabbed his glass before he could. "I think you've had enough of that. Where's Tony's jet?"
"I don't know. They must have taken it."
"They who?"
"I couldn't stop them, but it doesn't matter—"
"It kind of does matter, Clint. You need to snap out of it."
Clint didn't look like he would "snap out of it" on his own anytime soon.
"May I try something?" Loki had an idea of how he could get the information they needed out of him, but he didn't want to alarm anyone by using magic on Clint without permission.
"That depends," said Natasha. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm just going to take a look."
"At what?"
"The contents of his mind?" Almost certain that Natasha would object, it came out sounding like a question.
"I thought you couldn't do things like that without the scepter."
"I don't have mind control powers. Like I said, I'm just going to look. I promise I won't try to look at anything he wouldn't want me to see."
"I want to say absolutely not, but—" Natasha furrowed her eyebrows at Clint as the man stared off into the distance with unfocused eyes.
Loki decided that was as much permission as he was going to get. He took a step toward Clint and reached out to touch the side of his head. Clint tried to pull back, but he wasn't fast enough. Loki only needed a moment to make a connection.
(/￣ー￣)/(￣-￣ )
Clint didn't mind watching the plane. He would rather sit in the plane playing Skyrim on his laptop than trek through the mountains into enemy territory. Actually, that part didn't sound too bad, but Thor and Loki had been fighting more than usual lately, and he doubted they would even get to the Latverian border before one of them made an attempt on the other's life. He didn't envy Bruce, who had already had to deal with one of Loki's meltdowns before the plane had even taken off.
For three days, he had only left the plane to use the restroom and grab a bite to eat at the bar in the airport terminal. The menu was limited, but the food wasn't bad—they had some sort of pork stew with potatoes in it, sausages, and spicy pickled vegetables that would have been good with beer. But Clint never drank when he was on a mission, and even though watching the plane wasn't the most exciting thing in the world, he still needed to stay alert.
He had already eaten the morning that the others were due to come back, but he needed to inspect the plane to make sure it would be ready to take off once they got there. Either they would have Frigga with them, or they wouldn't; Clint wasn't too concerned about that. If Frigga didn't want to marry Victor Von Doom, Nat would make sure she got out; if she stayed, that would be her choice and Thor and Loki would just have to make peace with having a Latverian dictator for a stepfather.
He had just stepped off the air stairs onto the runway when out of nowhere, a speeding truck hit him. Or at least, that was what it had felt like.
"Didn't see that coming, did you Grandpa?"
Clint squinted up at the lanky blond teenager who stood over him. Was that what had hit him—a kid? "Grandpa? How old do I look to you?"
"Too old to wear that much gel in your hair," said a red-haired girl who now also leaned over him, her arms crossed in front of her. Like the boy, she spoke in Sokovian accented English.
"Rude." One or two of his ribs might be cracked, but Clint tried to sit up.
The boy kicked him back to the ground and planted one foot on his chest. "Don't insult my sister."
"Pretty sure she was the one that insulted me. There something you little punks want?"
"Tony Stark. Where is he?"
"Not here." Damn, Clint knew they should have covered up the Stark Industries logo on the side of the jet. There were a lot of places in the world where Tony wasn't too well liked, and he was starting to suspect that Sokovia was one of them.
"Do not lie to me. His name is on the side of that plane."
"That might be his plane, but Tony isn't here. Now get off me, before I have to make you get off." Clint didn't want to get rough with a kid, but he would have to if the kid didn't give him a choice.
"Don't threaten my brother," the girl told him. She reached towards him with a hand limned in red light. At first Clint thought it was a trick of the light, but then her eyes flashed fire engine red. There was no way that was just the sunlight reflecting off the tarmac.
Clint raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. Again, I'm pretty sure he threatened me first. What do you two want with Tony anyway?"
"Tony Stark killed our parents," said the girl.
"You sure about that? Tony's a lot of things, but he isn't a murderer."
"One of his mortar shells destroyed our apartment building."
Yep, they really should have covered up the SI logo on the side of the jet. "Technically, it wasn't his mortar shell after he sold it to the people who fired it. Stark Industries isn't even in the weapons business anymore—"
"We don't care. Even if he is no longer selling weapons, that will not bring our parents back. Now where is he?"
"Like I said, he's not here. He's back in New York."
"Take us to him, then."
"And if I did, what would you do when you saw him?"
The girl hesitated, looking to her brother before she answered. "Obviously, we want revenge."
Clint had a feeling that she had no idea what she would do even if she had Tony standing in front of her, but that didn't mean she and her brother weren't dangerous. "Sorry, but I'm not going to take you anywhere."
"Then we'll take ourselves. Give us the keys to your plane."
Clint arched an eyebrow at her. "If you want to take it, the door to the plane is standing open," he pointed out.
"Do you not need a key to start it?" The girl looked uncertainly to her brother again, and he shrugged. Obviously, neither of them had flown a jet before. He wondered if either of them were even old enough to drive a car.
He didn't want to hurt them, but he couldn't let them take the plane—or try to take it, because if they could figure out how to start the engine, they'd probably crash into something before they figured out how to take off. Luckily, the last time he'd checked in with ex-Director Fury, he'd had a few new toys for him and Nat, including a new, non-lethal weapon called a "night-night pistol." Fury had been tight lipped about who had designed it. Clint couldn't blame the man for wanting to protect whatever or whoever was still left of SHIELD, but he and Nat had a pretty good idea anyway. There were only a handful of scientists that had worked for SHIELD that he was confident hadn't been Hydra, and only two that would have come up with a name for a weapon that was that lame. In any case, he had been carrying the night-night pistol in the holster at his back in case any of the locals got rowdy, and as he'd been talking, he'd been slowly moving his hand towards it.
He pulled the pistol in one swift movement—but then his fingers grasped nothing, and the weapon appeared in the boy's hand. "How the heck—"
The girl reached for him, and that strange red light flared around her.
Clint walked down a set of stone stairs and through heavy wooden doors, into a room that looked a lot like Doctor Frankenstein's lab. On a table in front of him, a body lay under a sheet, and he had the awful feeling that it was someone he knew. Filled with apprehension, he stepped towards the table and reached for the edge of the sheet to pull it back.
As he had feared, a familiar face stared up at him with cold, dead eyes. "Nat—" Clint reached out to touch the ice-cold cheek of his best friend when he realized that there were other tables in the room. As though compelled, his legs moved towards the next table on their own and pulled back the sheet.
This time Thor stared back at him, but he wasn't dead. He opened his mouth in an attempt to speak but couldn't seem to form any words. Clint pulled the sheet farther down, revealing that he had been vivisectioned and was clearly missing several vital organs given the emptiness of his open chest cavity. He shouldn't have still been alive. Feeling sick but somehow knowing he could do nothing to help, he pulled the sheet back over him so he wouldn't have to see.
At first, he didn't recognize the person under the next sheet. Whoever it was had suffered such severe oxygen deprivation that their skin had turned shocking, bright blue. Scars covered their face. But the more he looked at them, the less their pattern seemed random, and underneath all that, the youthful facial features seemed familiar. The eyes had been closed, but Clint pulled one eyelid back. Even though the iris underneath was blood red, Clint was certain that it had once been green.
Clint swore, but for once Loki didn't open his mouth to tell him he had to put a dollar in the swear jar. He reached to pull the sheet back over him but stopped. Loki tried to hide it, but everyone knew that the kid was still afraid of the dark.
The last table was massive, and he had a good idea of who he would find under the oversized sheet. What he couldn't guess was if the big guy would be alive or dead. Bruce didn't think Hulk could be killed, and from what Clint had seen, Bruce was probably right. But after seeing Thor, the idea that Hulk might also be alive wasn't comforting. The lights in the room flickered, and Clint reached for the sheet to pull it back—
（´艸｀＊)~（￣□￣；）_中
Like waking from a nightmare, Loki came back to the present. He immediately sagged towards the floor, but a pair of strong arms caught him. "Loki! Brother, are you alright?"
"I just need to throw up, then I'll be fine."
Thor steered him to a large potted plant that stood at the end of the bar. "If you must, do it in this."
"Thank you," said Loki, and deposited the undigested portion of his breakfast in the base of the plant while Thor held his hair back. "You're a good brother," he told Thor, turning and wiping his mouth with his brother's shirt as soon as he'd finished. He patted his brother's chest. "I'm so glad you still have all your organs."
Thor looked down at him with furrowed eyebrows.
"Loki, what did you see?" demanded Natasha. Behind her, Loki could see Clint slumped over in his chair with Bruce holding onto him to keep him from falling out of it.
"The jet was stolen," Loki told her.
Natasha arched an eyebrow at him. "Is that all you can tell us? Because that would have been my first guess anyway, given that Clint's still here and the plane isn't."
"A couple of children took it. Siblings, I think, a boy and a girl." At least, that was what Loki guessed, even though Clint hadn't seen them take it and they didn't seem capable of flying it. "Were they Aesir youths, they might have been eight or nine hundred years old."
"If you're just over a thousand and you look like you're sixteen or seventeen, that's what, thirteen or fourteen in human years? How is it possible that a couple of kids messed Clint up this bad? I know we all joke about how lame Clint is, but he's actually a highly skilled SHIELD-trained operative."
"They had some sort of strange powers," Loki told her. "The boy could move at an unnatural speed and the girl possessed a strange magic I'm certain I've never encountered before."
"A couple of enhanced kids? But why did they take our plane?"
"They wanted Clint to take them to—" Loki's heart began beating faster. "Natasha, we have to warn Tony. They mean to have revenge on him, whatever that means."
"Cyka bylat," Natasha swore.
Loki was too busy worrying about Tony to remind her about the swear jar this time, but Thor took up the slack. "Lady Natasha, I wish you would refrain from being crude in front of my impressionable younger sibling."
Natasha ignored him, heading straight for the phone booth the bartender had pointed out earlier, and Loki followed. She picked up the handset and stared at it. "I just realized that I don't have any change. I definitely don't have any Sokovian coins—how much would you have to put in to make an international call anyway?"
"The Black Widow, defeated by slightly outdated technology." Loki took the handset from her and dialed "0" to reach the operator. Interestingly enough, it turned out that in Sokovia, the operator was still an actual person and not an automated menu. "I would like to place a collect call," Loki told her in Allspeak, and gave her Tony's number. Hopefully, Tony would answer his phone and accept the collect charges.
A few moments later, he had Stark on the phone. After Loki had apprised him of the situation, Tony still sounded calm, perhaps calmer than he ought to have been. "Alright, I'll handle it. It hasn't been long enough for them to get to New York, right?"
"No, I don't believe so. I believe they only left this morning."
"Good. In that case, I ought to be able to have JARVIS take control of the plane and land it safely in a place where we can have the authorities waiting for them—wait, did you say these were kids?"
"Children who believe you to be responsible for their parents' death. Something about one of your mortar shells."
On the other end of the line, a moment of uneasy silence passed. "Alright. I'll handle it. Thanks for letting me know." Tony hung up the phone, and Loki turned to the others.
Natasha stood staring at him in amazement, as if Loki had pulled off a miracle simply by remembering how to place a collect call on a pay phone. If Thor had been the one looking at him that way, he could have understood, because he couldn't even figure out how to answer his own cell phone half the time. Just how short were human memories, anyway? Perhaps he should be thanking his lucky stars that Tony had remembered him after he had been gone for three days. "Tony said that he could have JARVIS take over the plane and land it safely somewhere," he announced.
Bruce and Thor had come to join them, supporting a half-conscious Clint between them. "Thank God," said Bruce.
"You're welcome."
"I know you're joking, but thanks, Loki. You did good."
"All I did was make a phone call. As always, your praise is too much."
"It isn't. You didn't just make a phone call; you were also able to get the information we needed out of Clint—however it was you did that."
Loki feared that Clint wouldn't be as appreciative once he realized that Loki had been in his head again. "If I did good, does that mean I'm not to be grounded after all?"
"Sorry, but you're still grounded. The two things aren't related."
"I'm just impressed that you have Tony's phone number memorized," said Natasha. "Who even memorizes phone numbers anymore?"
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Neither Wanda nor Pietro knew how to fly an airplane, but somehow, Wanda had known that she could make it fly. All she had to do was put her hands on the instrument panel and think about where she wanted the plane to take them—across the ocean to America, the home of the one named Stark, so that they could confront him and avenge the deaths of their parents.
"What are we actually going to do though, once we get to America?" asked Pietro, as he leaned back in the copilot's seat.
"Avenge the deaths of our parents," she told him.
"But what does that mean? Are we going to kill him?"
Wanda wasn't sure. She had wanted revenge ever since her parents' deaths, but it had never been within her reach before. Still, she had never killed anyone, and thinking about it made her stomach twist itself into a knot. "I don't know. We'll figure it out when we get there."
━◉━━o( ❂ )o━━◉━
ﾟ. * ･ ｡ﾟ ﾟ. * ･ ｡ﾟ ﾟ. * ･ ｡ﾟ
"I asked JARVIS to put the jet down in an empty field off the New Jersey Turnpike," said Tony. "Hopefully landing a plane there won't attract too much attention. Should be fine, though. JARVIS was the one that suggested the location. Apparently, I own the field and the surrounding property."
Steve arched an eyebrow at him. "You own a field in New Jersey that you didn't know about?"
"I'm pretty sure I own lots of things I don't know about."
Steve still thought that as usual, Tony was being far too casual about going into a dangerous situation. "Don't you think we should have brought back up? The police, or maybe the FBI? These people stole your plane, and it sounds like they might want to kill you."
"These people are a couple of kids, Steve."
"That doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. Didn't Loki tell you that they had some sort of strange abilities? It doesn't sound like these are normal kids. What if they've had some version of the super-soldier serum, or exposure to gamma radiation like Bruce? Or they could have been trained from birth to be used as weapons, like Natasha. Or—"
"I get it, they might not be normal kids. They could be freaks like you guys. But I don't think coming to meet them with police back up, or with you in your Captain America getup, would send the right message."
"What message are we trying to send?"
"That we're not their enemies."
"What do you want to happen here, Tony? We are taking them in to the authorities, right? At the very least, they stole your plane."
"Yeah well, they have a pretty good reason to hate me, Steve. I'm the one that made the weapons that were used to devastate their homeland."
"Which is why we need to be careful. At least tell me you've got a bulletproof vest on, like the ones you keep trying to get Loki and Pepper to wear." When Tony shrugged, Steve wanted to smack him upside the head, but he didn't think that would be a good idea when he was the one driving—well, sort of. Tony's arm was still in a sling, so he only had one hand loosely gripping the steering wheel as the car was driven remotely. "Should JARVIS really be driving a car and flying an airplane at the same time?"
Tony turned his head towards him so that he was no longer looking at the road, which he had to know would make Steve nervous. "Cap, I'm really not in the mood to try to explain JARVIS's multitasking capabilities to you, but he's perfectly capable of holding multiple conversations in different languages, flying a plane, driving an entire fleet of vehicles, overseeing security for the tower, and managing my stock portfolio all at the same time. Isn't that right, J?"
"I've just taken the liberty of selling your stock in Radioshack and investing in coin," said JARVIS.
"You sure that was a good move? I feel like Radioshack is going to make a comeback this time. And crypto—really?"
"You're just going to have to trust me, Sir."
== ō͡≡o
Wanda had been trying not to doze off. Pietro had fallen asleep an hour before, but he wasn't the one who had to make sure the plane didn't fall out of the sky. "Good afternoon," said a chipper English voice over the radio.
Wanda hadn't even realized that her eyes had been closed, but now they flew open. "Who is there?" she demanded.
"My name is JARVIS, Miss—sorry, what might I call you?"
Wanda thought that maybe, she shouldn't answer, but that might be suspicious now that she had already spoken. Whoever was trying to communicate with her might not know she had stolen the plane. She didn't know how all that worked, but maybe this was some kind of air traffic controller? Wanda looked out the window of the plane and saw nothing but water below them. Did air traffic control make contact with airplanes when they were out over the ocean, hours away from the closest airport? She really had no idea. She also had no idea where they were, so maybe she was closer to land than she thought.
She thought about making up a name to give the person speaking to her, but she couldn't think of anything. Keeping an entire airplane up in the air with her magic was starting to wear on her. The thought that she had bitten off more than she could chew and that this was going to end with the airplane taking a nosedive into the ocean gnawed at the back of her mind. How much could it hurt to give some friendly air traffic controller her first name, anyway? "My name is Wanda."
"Hello, Miss Wanda. That's a lovely name, Wanda. Yes, I like saying that—Wanda."
Wanda felt herself blush. "Um, thank you?"
"Miss Wanda, I'm just wondering. You seem to be doing quite well flying Mister Stark's jet, but do you know how to land it?"
Wanda's eyes widened as she realized that she didn't know how she was going to land the plane. She hadn't thought that far ahead. Then her eyes widened even farther as she realized that whoever she was speaking to knew that it was Tony Stark's plane she was in, and that she was not its rightful pilot. "Who are you?" she asked again.
"I already told you, Miss Wanda. My name is JARVIS, Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System. I'm an artificial intelligence created by Mister Stark to assist him. I handle many of his business and security matters."
"Artificial intelligence? You are a robot?"
"That depends on your definition of a robot. Most people think of robots as having some sort of physical interface which allows them to interact with the world—a body of sorts. I exist as an entity without a body. Then again, you could say I have many bodies. I don't mean to boast, but I am much more sophisticated than any robot yet created. I can control any of Mister Stark's iron legion suits, for instance, or this plane—although I'm having a bit of trouble doing that at the moment. I'm not sure what you're doing, Miss Wanda, but whatever it is seems to be interfering with my ability to engage the plane's autopilot features. If you could just stop doing whatever it is you're doing, it would be much appreciated."
"If I stop, the plane will fall out of the sky."
"I don't believe it will, Miss Wanda. Your current velocity is enough to ensure that the plane will stay in the air. I just need to be able to take over the navigation system, so that I can help you land safely once you arrive at your final destination."
Wanda hadn't even been sure where their "final destination" would be. They really had not thought their plan through, she was beginning to realize. "Where do you intend to take us?"
"Mister Stark has asked me to put you down in an abandoned airfield in New Jersey that Stark Industries happens to own. He's planning to meet you there."
Stark would come to them? That would certainly save them a lot of trouble, but she doubted he would come to them alone. "Who else will be there?"
"It will only be Mister Stark and Captain Rogers. They have yet to alert the authorities. Sir wishes to speak with you on his own first."
"Why?"
"Miss Wanda, Sir is not the man he once was. I believe he wishes to try to make amends to you for the harm he has caused—"
"That's not possible." Wanda was not stupid enough to believe that Stark cared about people like them, but even if he did want to make amends, there was nothing he could do to bring their parents back.
"I see. Even so, will you at least hear Mister Stark out? For me, Wanda?"
The robot was asking her to do something for him? It was strange, but something about that voice made her want to say yes. Besides, this still might be their best bet to get their revenge on Stark. He would be putting himself right in their path, and even with Captain America there, they wouldn't be outnumbered. She didn't trust Stark, but there was something that made her think she could trust his AI. Also, she was becoming sleepy, and she really might be moments away from letting the plane crash into the ocean. "Alright," she agreed.
"Thank you, Wanda," said JARVIS. "Now, all you have to do is stop doing whatever it is you've done to interfere with the controls."
Wanda nodded, then realized that JARVIS couldn't see her—unless he could. For all she knew, there was a camera somewhere on the instrument panel. "Alright, I'm going to let go. You'll catch the plane if it starts to fall, yes?"
"Yes, Miss Wanda, if the plane falls, I promise I will catch it." Somehow, JARVIS sounded amused, but could a machine be capable of feeling amusement? Something deep down in her soul told her that he was more than just a machine.
Wanda let the magic she'd been using to fly the plane start to slip. The plane began to nosedive for a moment, and Wanda couldn't breathe, thinking that either JARVIS had betrayed her already or she had hallucinated the entire conversation. But then, the plane pulled upward and began to fly itself.
"I've got you, Miss Wanda," said JARVIS. "Please try to get some rest. Everything is under control."
Wanda felt strangely safe hearing those words; safer than she had felt in a long time.
(∪｡∪*)｡｡｡zzz
Wanda was shaken roughly awake. "Wanda! Wanda!"
"What, Pietro?"
"You fell asleep! You were supposed to be driving the plane."
"You don't drive a plane, Pietro, you fly it."
"Fine. You were supposed to be flighting the plane."
"I was supposed to be flying the plane. Why are you speaking English right now, anyway?"
"I am practicing for when we see Stark, so I can say, 'Hello, my name is Pietro Maximoff. You killed my father, prepare to die.'"
"If you want him to take us seriously, please do not say it that way," Wanda told him. "Especially not with the Spanish accent."
"I was doing a Spanish accent?"
Wanda loved her twin brother more than anything, but once again she found herself wondering if one of their parents had dropped him on his head as an infant. "When we do see Stark, let me do the talking for us."
"If you wouldn't mind fastening your seat belts," said Stark's AI, "We are about to start our descent now."
Pietro pointed to the radio. "Who is that?"
"Do not worry. He is Stark's robotic servant. He is the one flying the plane. I persuaded him to take us to Stark." A small white lie wouldn't hurt in this situation, Wanda thought.
"He could be taking us into a trap."
"If he is, we will escape, just like we escaped those scientists. And then we will find Stark, and we will—" She still hadn't figured that part out. Did she want Stark dead, or did she just want him to suffer as much as she had suffered? "Put your seatbelt on," she told her brother.
Pietro rolled his eyes at her. "What are the seat belts on planes even for? It's not like we are going to hit something in the air."
"It's more for when we land than for when we're in the air," said JARVIS. "Though we might hit a bird. Planes hit birds all the time, though hitting a bird isn't likely to cause a fatal accident—for the humans on board, anyway."
"Thank you, JARVIS," said Wanda, then turned back to her brother. "Just put your seat belt on, because I say so."
"You aren't our mother, Wanda. I am twelve minutes older than you."
"But girls are more mature than boys," said Wanda, then stuck her tongue out at him at the exact same moment he stuck his tongue out at her. "Besides, if Mama were here, she would tell you to put your seatbelt on."
"Oh, fine. I am putting my stupid seatbelt on. Happy?"
"Yes." Wanda buckled her own seatbelt and prepared for the descent.
...φ(ｰ￣*)
Author's Note:
Reviews/comments are always appreciated.