Disclaimer: NOPE!
The plan to rescue Dr. Cho and thwart Ultron's evil plan is going great. Of course, there are a few problems. With Thor taking a trip to the pool of the Water's of Truth (or whatever magical body of water Asgardians use), Tony going off to the headquarters of the internet (which Cassie hadn't known was an actual physical place that people could visit, and Banner hiding out at the Barton's to avoid releasing the Other Guy any time soon, the team is down a few heavy hitters. Fortunately, the demigod contingent goes along for the mission, staying in the background for as long as possible. They are unknown to Ultron at the moment and all the available strategists think that whatever element of surprise they can gather going forwards will be beneficial.
Leo and Will wait on standby for when they get the cradle so that they'll be ready to deactivate it and undo whatever might have already been done while Nico and Reyna stay back to guard them. Hazel, Frank, and Calypso remain at the Barton's farm to provide defense there. Annabeth elects to stick with Stark on his trip to the nerve center of the internet and Percy refuses to leave her. Piper and Jason come along to intercept the cradle.
When the fighting gets going, Piper places herself somewhere highly visible and talks soothingly in to a microphone, keeping as many of the civilians around clear of the scene as she can. Jason, as the individual least bothered by heights and most capable of flying if he has to stays in the small jet with Barton to oversee things. For her part, Cassie decided to visually track Natasha through the entire altercation.
She does this for a few reasons. Th first of these is that if any of the combatants on her side are going to get hurt, Natasha, as a full on human being is the most likely to die from any injury received. If Cassie can keep her in sight, she can be at her side in seconds if she has to be. The other reason is that if they run out of time to steal the skin cradle outright to take back to Leo, Cassie is the person with the best chance of deactivating it on the spot.
Steve takes on the unenviable position of playing distraction and keeping Ultron occupied. Not the job you want your boyfriend to take. Even if that boyfriend did have a heart pumping super serum through his body and in to each of his cells every minute of every day.
"Well he's definitely unhappy," is Steve's comment. While hanging from the back of a truck doing seventy on the highway. After the door of that truck had been blasted apart from the inside by a laser gun. "I'm going to try to keep him that way."
Cassie surpasses a groan and actually hears Bucky sigh over the mic. Bucky had taken on the job of shooting at Ultron's minions from the ground and was traveling between rooftops to keep pace with events as they unfolded. "You're not a match for him Cap," Clint says.
Not very helpful as in fight commentary goes. The eye roll Steve does is practically audible as he says a dry "Thanks Barton."
"Someone smack Hawkeye for me," Bucky requests over the line. Cassie follows through on the request without a second thought and Barton makes an indignant sound. His protests are cut short by Bucky. "We never tell Steve he isn't a match for someone!" Bucky reprimands. "I learned this in first grade!"
Barton mutters a few colorful swear words but keeps his attention on flying and the fight going on down below them continues. Despite Barton's dire predictions, Steve is holding his own pretty well. At least, he is until Ultron gets his shield and chucks it in to oncoming traffic. That's when Natasha takes her place on a motorcycle n the cargo hold. "We've got a window," Barton informs. "In four, three, two, give him hell."
Natasha drops in to traffic perfectly and with a grace Cassie certainly wouldn't have been able to pull off. "I'm always picking up after you boys," she says lightly as she scoops up Steve's shield, bracing it against the bike's handlebars.
"They're heading under the overpass. I've got no shot," Barton concludes.
"Copy," Bucky says from down on the ground. "Sight lines are becoming obscured. Changing tactical positions."
The sound of Natasha's bike's engine revving in to a higher gear fills the speakers. "Which way?"
Cassie focuses and her vision zooms. "Hard right," she calls. "Now." Natasha doesn't respond verbally, but makes the turn Cassie tells her to.
That's when Piper gets in on the conversation. "Barnes can relocate anywhere along the stretch I've already cleared. No one will be there all day." Then her voice changes and Cassie knows she's talking to more civilians. "Hi! Isn't it a great day to be alive? Why don't we all stay that way and get you inside?" It must be what everyone wants to hear because the crowds around her practically evaporate.
"Pipes, can you clear a path for Agent Romanov?" Jason asks.
Cassie isn't looking at Piper but thinks the other girl probably shrugs as she considers. "Worth a shot. Hey everyone! My friend is going to be coming through here on a motorcycle carrying a Shield. Don't you think it would be just so amazing to be out of her way?" The message spreads through the crowd like wildfire and Cassie can see the foot traffic parting like the waters of the Red Sea.
Barton lets out a low, impressed whistle. "Handy." He glances at Jason. "Your girl's impressive."
The words actually make Jason smile. "Yeah I kinda like her." Then he taps his ear where the com link resides. "Nice work Piper."
"Thanks," Piper gasps, sounding a but strained. "We should try to finish up here quickly though. Charming a crowd this big takes a lot of energy. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep it going."
Natasha makes a road runner noise and blasts up several flights of stairs to pull up level with Steve and toss him his shield. This re-arming changes the dynamics of the fight and Steve gets down to hacking and bashing. Cassie manages to relax a notch. The shield is small, but it's bullet and blast resistant and a million times better than Steve fighting with nothing.
"Can you draw off the guards?" Natasha asks, zooming up towards the truck carrying the cradle. She keeps a safe following distance for now because of the robots still in the truck.
Barton hesitates, examining the situation and Jason cuts in. "You should stay nearby in the plane," he says decisively. "Be ready to receive the cradle. I'll handle the robots." He adjusts his golden sword and slams the button that will open the cargo door of the plane.
"You sure you can handle them at once?" Barton asks. "Once they're on you I'm not going to be able to turn around."
"Trust me," Jason says darkly. "I've got it." The door opens, spilling sunshine in around him and bleaching his hair gold. Wind whips in through the space, tugging at Jason's clothes and ruffling his still military short hair. Suddenly he grins. "This is gonna be fun." Without another word he falls casually backwards in to the open sky."
Barton swears and barely avoids jerking the controls. He swears again and adjusts rapidly to keep the plane level. "He's insane!" he mutters. "That kid better not be dead." That's the moment Jason picks to come shooting up through the lower atmosphere, no fewer than four robots on his trail. His hands are spread wide as he bends the air to his will and the winds seem to be wrapped around him like an airy blanketing shield.
Clint's mouth opens like he's going to speak, but at that moment part of the sky goes dark and two crackling branches of electricity fork down from above, frying half of the robots on the spot. Barton shuts his mouth and shakes his head twice like he needs to clear it. Down below them, Steve and Ultron go careening through the air to crash through the side of a passenger train. A shot rings out from below and the third robot trailing Jason falls to the ground, head and body disconnected thanks to Bucky.
The last robot turns and dives back towards Ultron and the cradle. "One of the drones is heading back in," Jason reports, manipulating the air to drop him quickly back towards ground level. "Whatever you're doing, do it now."
"Copy that," Natasha replies. "Cap, can you keep him distracted?"
Once again Cassie can practically hear Steve roll his eyes. "What do you think I've been doing?" he demands. The tone in his voice is somewhere between exasperated and indignant.
Cassie watches carefully as Natasha boards the truck with the cradle in it at high speeds. "I'm not having any luck with the override command on this thing," she reports, voice strained.
At that Cassie stands and moves to the still open door at the back of the plane to find a beam of sunlight to stand in. "Hold on," she tells Nat. "I'm coming to you." She concentrates and feels the familiar tingling warmth as the energy from the sun supercharges her molecules, breaking them apart and reassembling them in the container with Natasha. Or at least, in the container was her goal. Lack of sunlight means she actually materializes on the roof and has to act quickly to drop her weight before being swept away in to traffic.
She gets inside the truck and makes her way to Natasha's side. As it turns out, the action is carried out just in the nick of time. Barely a heartbeat later the entire truck seems to lift off of the ground. The floor tips wildly and both she and Natasha tumble to the floor, scrambling for whatever purchase they can find on the metal interior. Cassie makes a mental note to get them both in for a tetanus booster if they survive.
"Package is airborne," Barton reports over the comms. "I have a clear shot."
"Negative!" Natasha pants urgently. "Negative. Morgenstern and I are still on the truck."
The two of them go in to a brief squabble of detail hatching that Cassie tunes out in favor of concentrating on the cradle and what is inside it. She lays her hand against the control panel and a rush of cold energy races up her arm. It's... an unsettling feeling. There's very nearly a life force there for her magic to lock in to but its somehow mechanical and odd. "This is weird," she mutters.
No one takes any notice and frankly Cassie can't blame them. Everyone is a little busy covering everyone else's backs, doing their jobs, and trying to stay alive to be worried over something being a little out of the ordinary. Of course, out of the ordinary for them might be worth noting. "I can't disable it here. We need Stark and probably Leo."
Nat nods and interrupts Cassie's distracted thoughts by clambering on top of the cradle itself. "Get up here," she says. "And brace yourself. This is going to be a bit of a rough transit."
As someone who once traveled across a third of the country being carried by a metal angel with overly shinny toes, rough transit really isn't something Cassie has any kind of problem with. With that in mind, she does as Natasha says and clambers up beside her, gripping tightly to the sides of the container. "On three?" she asks, noticing the open door of the plane Barton is still flying, tumbling to the plan, and Natasha nods.
Cassie counts it out, shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind. On three, Natasha pushes against the wall of the truck with her legs and Cassie redirects the cacophony of sound filling the space in to a sonic blast that propels them out in to the open air towards the opening of the plane. Miraculously, they actually seem to make it inside the plane. If Cassie had to be she'd say Jason might be bending some air to help them in. The laws of physics can only be disobeyed for so long by so many people before retribution becomes imminent.
Her joy at this miracle is, to put it lightly, extremely short lived. In fact, it's so short lived that it barely registers as joy at all before it's cut off. Seriously, not fair.
They're about half-way inside the plane and to safety when something hard and metallic forms a crushing grip around her left ankle. The pain is so sudden and startling that the shock of it makes Cassie's grip loosen and in the next second she's being jerked out in to open air. She hears the rush of air, Barton calling for Natasha, Steve yelling to get the cradle to Stark, the rumble of approaching thunder, and the sharp report of Bucky's rifle. Her vision registers nothing but a confused impression of gleaming metal, huddled brown buildings on the ground, and the cold, clear, unbroken plane of blue that makes the sky.
Then something hard knocks against her head. Pain blooms along her scalp like a horrifying psychedelic flower. Then everything goes black.
Waking up again is honestly a pretty mixed bag. On the one hand, she's literally in pain from the top of her head to the bottoms of her feet. No kidding, her head is throbbing all along the top of her scalp, her back and shoulders are bruised, her hip and knee feel overly extended, and her ankle is actually throbbing. It's not the worst she's ever felt, that honor goes to shortly after the battle of Manhattan, but it's extremely far from pleasant. On the other hand, she does actually wake up. Which is, to put it lightly, not something she thought she'd ever do again given the circumstances surrounding her loss of consciousness in the first place.
Well, now that she's sure she is alive, the natural next step is to make sure she stays that way. In the interests of that goal, Cassie draws on her training, remains calm, and runs a full body systems check. The range of motion in her toes and foot tells her without magic that her ankle is sprained but not broken. In fact, none of her bones are anything but intact. Bruising and ligament damage is a different story.
Her knee and hip both feel like they might be at least partially dislocated. The pounding, dizzy feeling in her head tells her she's definitely concussed. To what level, she isn't completely sure. She makes a distant mental note to update team concussion protocols if she gets out of this situation without ending up dead. Her recently mended ribcage has more bruises than healthy flesh. The fact that barely more than twenty-four hours ago her boyfriend had been in a guilt spin over accidentally cracking one of those ribs is enough to send her head spinning in her concussed state.
At least, she thinks it was twenty-four hours ago. There don't seem to be any clocks anywhere in the space she's been taken to. More bad news, there are absolutely no windows. No sunlight provided. Cassie represses a groan at the observation. She can access some of her abilities without the sun, but it'll be exhausting and the abilities themselves will be limited in scope. Sun Traveling out of here won't be an escape option.
Strangely for a kidnapping (and she can say that because it's happened to her more than once) she doesn't seem to be being restrained in any way. Her hands and feet are both unbound. There are no chains or robes pinning her against a column, or the cold metal floor, or to any of the industrial work tables.
"Industrial" just about summed up the space. Harsh strip lighting flickered far above her head. Disused cat walks and broken ladders meandered along the ceiling and up the walls. Each floor circled around an empty vertical tunnel in the middle of the space. Cassie was reminded eerily first of a beehive, and second of the underground tunnels in the woods at Camp Half Blood that had housed the Myrmekes, a species of gigantic ants.
It's not a comforting memory association.
The buzzing of machinery doesn't help the impression. A little bit of extra focus reveals random showers of orange and yellow sparks lighting up the darkness, a result of metal grinding and welding together. Her heart sinks a little farther towards her shoes. Whatever Ultron might be planning on doing next, mass production is a definite uh oh of frankly massive proportions.
Speaking of Ultron, the robot himself is standing mere feet away bent over one of the work tables. Suddenly Cassie finds herself wondering if Ultron actually is a he. The animatronic voice Ultron used was definitely male, but did Artificial Intelligence possessing robots have a gender? Should she be referring to Ultron as they? If JARVIS were still around, Cassie would have asked. As it is, the question is too confusing for her to try to tackle at the moment. She'll stick with he until someone tells her differently.
She must move or make a noise she doesn't register because Ultron turns and fixes glowing red eyes on her. "Oh," says the robot, metallic voice resonating unnaturally. "You aren't dead. That's good. I was hoping you'd be able to help me."
Gods this moment is tricky. Cassie's had to talk to unstable gods and titans before, and handling beings like that was always a complicated balancing act. "How would I help you?" she asks, doing her utmost to keep her voice level. She also takes on the mission of figuring out sitting up straight and manages it by relying on the wall for extra support. Mentally, she's trying to run through the calculations needed to tell how much energy it would take to mend her injuries here in the dark.
"All in good time," Ultron says, sounding for all the world like a magnanimous showman getting ready to reveal the grand prize. "I think we'll wait until the other one wakes up. I'd hate to have to repeat myself."
Cassie bites her tongue to hold in her commentary but can't help the fact that her eyes roll. Fortunately, Ultron doesn't seem to be looking at her anymore, his attention back on the pile of metal pieces on his work bench. Of course any Artificial intelligence created by Tony Stark has absolutely no patience. Maybe she'll get the chance to ask Leo if AIs really could in merit personalities from their programmers. Gods, she'll have quite the to-do list to get through if she can survive the next twenty-four hours.
Moments later Natasha is growing and shifting beside her as she returns to the waking world. The grimace on her face tells Cassie that the other woman feels just about as bad as she does, maybe worse given that even without sunlight, Cassie's healing time is faster. Natasha notes her presence and then pushes herself upright, analyzing the space and their physical relationship to Ultron with a single searching look.
"Good," Ultron says, noticing that Natasha is awake too now. "You woke up. I had hope you would." The robot seems to look down at his project. "I wanted to show you," he says. "I don't have anyone else."
At that Cassie grits her teeth. If the reason she was concussed and kidnapped turns out to be that Tony Stark managed to create an Artificial Intelligence sentient enough to get lonely then so help her-
"I think a lot about meteors," the AI continues, interrupting her thoughts. "The purity of them. Just, 'boom'. The end. Start again. The world made clean."
A shiver runs the length of Cassie's spine and the pounding in her head increases as the tension communicates itself to her muscles, tensing them and stressing her bruised skin and abused tendons. Gaea had wanted something disturbingly similar. She had grown tired of human life walking over the Earth and decided to wipe them all off of it in her anger and malice. Luke-or perhaps Cronus had wanted to cleanse the gods from creation and start all over again.
The fact that this has happened often enough that it can be considered a reassuring theme in Cassie's life is really, really, depressing.
Ultron still isn't done talking. "I was meant to be new," he's saying with something that sounds almost like longing. "I was meant to be beautiful. The world would have looked to the sky and they would have seen hope, seen mercy. Instead they'll look up in horror. Because of you." There's definite accusation in his voice now. As though she and Natasha have purposefully robbed him of his destiny. Hades, if he were more human, Cassie's willing to bet that she would have no time thinking that that was indeed his perspective on the matter. Only the fact that Ultron is a robot makes it seem to freaking unlikely that he could feel an emotion as complex as betrayal.
"I give you full marks for that," says Ultron, now making his way closer with the sliding creaking sound of moving metal pieces and gear systems. Natasha shrinks further in tot the wall to get away on instinct and Cassie throws all caution to the winds and sends a burst of healing magic down her leg towards her ankle. Without light the effort will drain her, but she's got no hope of every escaping if she can't even stand.
"Like the man said," Ultron muses, still advancing. "'What doesn't kill you-'"
They never hear the end of the proverb because before Ultron can continue, his body is ripped in half from behind. The metal scrap pieces fall to the ground with a series of inharmonious clattering noises. A shower of red sparks burst forwards towards Cassie and Natasha and Cassie barely has the strength to deflect the flames away from their bodies. Getting set on fire is sooooo not what she needs right now.
Where the last robot had been stands a new metal form. It's a different machine but clearly still the same Ultron, an evolution from the last version. This Ultron is taller, his limbs and metal plating smoother and more shiny, hands more dexterous, and eyes brighter. Two low metal horns curl back down along either side of his head, almost suggesting the shape of ears.
The new Ultron spreads his hands. Cassie notices that the metal is still glowing faintly from the heat it absorbed tearing apart the form of the Ultron's predecessor. "Makes me stronger," new Ultron completes. His voice is exactly the same and the realization that the last Ultron must have downloaded himself to this new body makes Cassie shudder once again.
Natasha had had to scramble back to avoid being crushed by robot pieces and as Ultron speaks he continues to back her up, making her retreat against the far wall. He pulls a row of bars across the space, trapping her in a makeshift cell with a decisive slam. Then those glowing mechanical eyes are focused back on Cassie. "Now," the metal voice rasps. "You're going to make me a body."
This time Cassie can't stop her mouth from falling open. "What?" she chokes out incredulously. "I can't do that." Although thinking about it, this is an explanation for her kidnapping that makes a lot more sense than Ultron being lonely.
"Oh I think you can," Ultron says. His face twists almost like he's trying to imitate a patronizing smile but hasn't given himself quite the right range of facial control to pull it off. "You forget I know everything. The entirety of the internet is all right up here," he taps his head with a sound like throwing a rock against an empty trash can. "I've seen your file. I know exactly what you can do."
Cassie takes a breath to steady herself. "If you'd looked at everything carefully then you would know that it's impossible to make something out of nothing," she says, and is pleased to find that her voice barely shakes. 'Especially with a human body. I never actually make anything. The body wants to heal and replace damaged tissue, blood, and bone. I just give it the energy to do that. I can't just grow skin because I feel like it."
Ultron tips his head like he's actually thinking about what she's said. "I see," he says. Strangely, he sounds almost like a child who's just had a teacher explain some basic fact to him in kindergarten. "You need tools," he continues. "The basic building blocks of life."
"Yes," Cassie confirms slowly. Suddenly she's struck by the thought that maybe if she can buy time, she and Natasha will be able to figure out a way to get out of here. "No human starts at base zero. It doesn't exist. You need beginning genetic information for each piece of the body to develop. Like a base code for the rest of the body, or program, to develop off of. And there's no way that I know of to download a computer formatted intelligence in to a human body."
The robot brushes those words away like they couldn't matter less with a single sweep of one metallic hand. "I'd handle that," he pronounces. "So you could make me a body if you had the right," he gestures at the hunks of metal surrounding them. "Materials?"
"Maybe," Cassie says after a moment of consideration. Honestly, given her abilities and magical prowess the number of things she could accomplish with stem cells and enough time might honestly be limitless. She'd just never tried before, both because she hasn't really wanted to and because she has no scientific way of making that kind of work valid. However, she senses a potential opportunity and dives for it like a baseball player sliding in to home. "I can't do anything in the dark," she declares. "Nothing at all."
Ultron huffs and a moment later Cassie's being hauled to her feet by cold robotic hands and dragged towards the wall opposite from Natasha. Her ankle is still mending and almost buckles when she's forced to put weight on it. Apparently Ultron doesn't have the patience to handle her stumbling because she's lifted off the ground and carried to the far wall with her arms pinioned to her sides. She's unceremoniously tossed to the floor and hears the metal bars slam down. Cassie knows she's caged in without having to turn around.
"I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Ultron says, almost derisively. Then he spins and storms from the room. Cassie's no stranger to dramatic exits what with her father being the god of theatre, but this is the only time she's ever seen a robot make one. Ah well. She supposes there's a first time for everything.
There's a long silence and Cassie gets the feeling that both she and Natasha are trying to be sure that Ultron really has left. When Cassie has counted fifty-eight of her own heartbeats worth of silence, Natasha speaks. "Do you think you managed to buy us some time?"
Cassie shrugs, then remembers that it's dark and Natasha probably can't see her. "Maybe. Everything I told him was actually true. I'm actually a bit scared about what he might do with the information. Best case scenario, I've added something to his to do list for before he wipes out life on this planet."
"You think that's the goal?" Natasha asks.
Cassie sighs and mentally reviews what she knows about Ultron. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah I think so. You heard what he said about meteors and starting over again. I have unfortunately heard a similar spiel before, and both times it definitely involved wiping out humanity as we know it."
The shadows shift as Natasha moves off of the wall and towards the bars of her cell. "Can you do that teleporting thing you do? You could get out of here and bring back help."
Cassie considers for a moment and holds one hand out to the weak electric lights with her palm facing upwards. She tries drawing the energy in to herself and her hand momentarily flickers, becoming partially insubstantial, but she doesn't have enough power to blink out of existence and appear somewhere else. She shakes her head. "Not happening from in here. If I could manage to get outside in to natural sunlight I would at least be able to vanish. Figuring out where I reappear would be harder."
Natasha settles on to the floor opposite her. They're separated by two sets of bars but this is as close as they're going to get under the circumstances. "Why is that exactly?" Cassie looks at her questioningly. Out of the entire team, Natasha has always asked the fewest questions about what she can do and how it works. Natasha shrugs. "We're trapped. Humor me."
Figuring it can't hurt and might actually help them get out of here, Cassie takes a moment to organize her explanation and then dives in. "As far as I can tell, vanishing through the sun like I do involves literally overcharging the energy on my body at the molecular level. The added energy pushes all of my atoms apart. To pull everything back together again I have to know where I want it to happen and I need a second energy source to charge my molecules back together again. If there's no sun exactly where I want to go, I end up as close as possible."
"What happens if you go blind?"
"Nothing good," Cassie says darkly. "It's possible I'd just never reform. Or I'd just end up as far away as my energy could take me. When I was first learning to do it I ended up in some weird places by accident. The middle of the Atlantic Ocean was a bad one. Nico does something similar. He ended up in China twice before he got the hang of it." A thought occurs to her and she tips her head. "Sometimes I don't need a place. That time I showed up in Sam's kitchen, I didn't know where I was headed. I just aimed for wherever Steve happened to be. If I had sunlight I could probably do that again now. As long as he's within about two hundred miles."
Cassie stands up and paces around her cell. She examines the bars carefully and searches for a locking mechanism of any kind. Being a descendent of Mercury, if there's a lock she might be able to pick it and get them out of here. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a lock to be picked. "Is there a lock anywhere on the bars of your cell?" she calls over to Natasha.
Natasha stands up and examines her space. "No," she calls back after a moment. "Nothing. Ultron seems to have just slammed the bars down." She grips the metal experimentally and gives it a tug, but it doesn't budge. "Yeah," Natasha pants. "That's not going anywhere."
"Okay," Cassie says categorizing what information they have. "If we're not getting out, then someone else is going to have to get in. Normally I'm not a fan of sitting around waiting to be rescued, but I'm not seeing another option right now."
To her surprise, Natasha actually seems to be smiling. "Ultron wasn't too careful with this nice little prison. He left me in here with a signaling device. If it's still in working order, I might be able to get a message out to Clint. He can pass it along to the rest of the team, and we'll go from there."
Cassie nods. "Sounds good."
Natasha gets up and goes to work on whatever machine she's been left with. With nothing else to do, Cassie reclines against the wall of the building and carefully bends and extends her various limbs. Her body is healing slower than normal, but it is still healing. If she wants everything to align properly, then periodic movement in as many directions as she can manage is crucial.
"Got it working," Natasha announces. "I'll send the signal continuously for as long as I can. Hopefully Ultron will be too busy to notice until some help can get here."
Her knee pops slightly as it realigns and Cassie winces and then smiles through the pain. "You know, in a way I kind of feel bad for him." Natasha aims a look at her that's clearly a question about what she means and Cassie moves to explain. "Percy Jackson has literally gone to hell and back for the people he cares about, Clint Barton is a very dangerous long range assassin with excellent focus, and the last time anyone tried to kidnap someone Steve cared about he airdropped directly in to an active war zone. Now, all three of those people are incredibly pissed off, and they've all got friends."
This time, Natasha smiles too. It's not a happy smile. It's grimly satisfied and coldly vindictive. "Any bets on who shows first?"
They don't make any bets which turns out to be a good thing. Percy isn't the first one of their friends to show up. Neither is Barton or Steve. In fact, the very first person to show up, is none other than Nico DiAngelo.
He evolves out of a puddle of darkness, his over large black coat swirling as it regains form and substance. Nico looks pale, but clearly the jump hasn't drained him too badly. Either he's been storing up on energy for at least a week, or their other friends aren't so far away. Cassie likes the second option better.
Nico blinks around at the space and then his eyes find Cassie. "Oh," he says, like her presence here is the surprise, not his. "Hi. Your brother is freaking out worse than your boyfriend. You owe me therapy for dealing with both of them at once."
He unsheathes his black sword, the blade glowing with a purple, thrumming light and makes his way forwards. Cassie rolls her eyes. "Nice to see you too Nico. Thanks for coming."
Nico shrugs and raises his sword. "You're my boyfriend's big sister. I wasn't about to let Will use you. Now, stand back."
Cassie doesn't need telling twice, standing as far back against the wall as she can get. Nico sliced through the bars near the bottom, cutting a healthy gap. The stygian iron glow seemed to pulsate as the metal of the underworld absorbed energy. It might have just been Cassie's imagination, but she thought she could almost see the shadows in the room coalescing around Nico, wrapping him in loving wisps of darkness.
Getting through the gap means ducking down and shimmying a little which Cassie does. As soon as she's free she leans up and wraps Nico in a tight hug, his oblique reference to Bianca's death still ringing in her ears. She has to stand on her toes to hug him. That didn't used to be true.
Nico isn't normally mush of a hugger but he accepts the gesture stiffly and gives her back an awkward pat. Then he turns and cuts a new gap in the bars of Natasha's cage, offering a hand to help pull her out. Cassie wonders if she should invest in keeping a sword around. Normally she prefers smaller knives and her arrows, but nothing she carries around would be able to cut through the bars like Nico's sword had.
"Do we have a ride out of here?" Natasha asks, all business now that she's out of the cell.
Nico quirks an ironic eyebrow, a skill he's been perfecting for years. "You mean past the homicidal robot drones downstairs? Yeah, I've got something." Then he fishes a leather cord out from around his neck and brings the object hanging on it up to the meager light. On closer inspection, Cassie sees that the object is a gleaming silver-white dog whistle, the kind percy had once used to summon Mrs. O'leary in to the Labyrinth. The whistle is made from Stygian Ice and Cassie shudders at the realization that Nico had been wearing it against his skin.
Nico raises the whistle to his mouth and blows in to it. There's no sound, but Cassie knows better than to think that that means it hasn't work. Cassie gestures for Natasha to stand back and the woman does so without question or further prompting. The shadows in the center of the room begin to thicken and swirl once again and between one blink and the next, they're joined in the room by the one and only friendly Hell Hound in existence.
"Hey there girl," Cassie greats happily, stepping forwards to scratch along the highest bit of fur she can reach which is only about knee level. Mrs. O'Leary barks happily with a sound like sheet metal being banged with a hammer and wags her tail, slamming it against both walls. "Yeah," Cassie laughs. "Good to see you too." Then she turns and faces Natasha. "Natasha, meet Mrs. O'Leary."
Natasha is staring at the Hell Hound warily and cuts a quick glance from her to Nico, and then back to Mrs. O'Leary. "Is this your dog?" she asks, in an impressively calm voice.
"Technically she's Percy's," Nico says, clambering up Mrs. O'Leary's black furry side. "She used to belong to Daedalus, but then he died and Percy inherited her. I can call her because my dad rules the underworld. Come on," he slides forwards and grabs the dog collar around the Hell Hound's neck. "Clime up. We need to get out of here."
A clattering sound from the ground floor reinforces Nico's words and Cassie leaps up to grip Mrs. O'Leary's shoulder joint. She hauls herself up and sits behind Nico, holding on to the back of his jacket. Mrs. O'Leary obligingly lies down flat on the ground so Natasha can climb on board more easily. "I'm escaping from killer robots on a gigantic mastiff," Natasha mutters. "I don't get paid enough."
"Stark's got plenty of money," Nico comments over his shoulder. "I'm sure he'd up your salary. Now hold on, tightly."
Cassie only needs to be told once. She's Shadow Traveled a few times before and it's definitely not her favorite way to get around. As Nico leans forwards to talk to Mrs. O'Leary, Cassie wraps her arms around his thin chest and holds on so tightly she could have crushed the bones of a regular mortal. No matter how healthy and happy Nico gets, the guy seems to be incapable of ever putting on weight.
She can feel Natasha crushing in against her from behind and moments later they're gone. They've dissolved in to blackness and shadows. The wind whistles and screams around them with the sounds of a million terrified souls. Cassie buries her face in the back of Nico's jacket and closes her eyes, focusing all of her energy on trying to breath as her heart races in her chest. The only solid things are Mrs. O'Leary's fur beneath her and Nico and Natasha to her front and back.
Then it's over, and they're reforming on wonderfully solid ground.
Well...
Kind of solid ground.
Unfortunately, part of the city seems to be flying.
Cassie tips herself sideways and slides down to the ground, breathing deeply as wonderful, glorious sunlight filters down through the tree canopy and warms her face and hands. The shivery coldness that had permeated her skin through the trip is chased away in small streaks. It's like standing in a hot shower after a day spent outside in January. Off to her left, she can hear Natasha being sick. Even the most iron mortal stomach was no match for first-time Shadow Traveling.
Nico is still sitting on Mrs. O'Leary and catches her eye from up above. "Head that way," he says, gesturing in to the woods. "We're in Sokovia. The main portion of the city is about a quarter mile East. We've evacuated most of the civilians. Piper was helpful. Your boyfriend made a very rousing heartfelt speech about limiting casualties as much as possible. I think Jason might have a new personal idol."
"Steve does that to people," Cassie says with a nod. She revolves where she's standing, fixing the points Nico's told her about in her mental compass. "Got it," she makes a small gesture of blessing towards Nico. "Go be a hero."
He salutes, and then he's gone, vanishing with Mrs. O'Leary.
Natasha straightens up, looking towards where Nico just disappeared. "You have strange friends," she tells Cassie.
"Yeah," Cassie says. "But strange in a good way." There's a distant crashing noise from through the trees in the direction Nico had indicated. "Let's go. The rest of our strange friends are fighting an army of killer robots. We should probably go help them."
Really they should probably take a minute to regroup before either of them goes charging in to battle, but they don't really have much choice. The sounds of the battle get louder and louder as they approach and Cassie can smell ozone. Clearly Jason has been busy.
They hit the main city right in time to see a silvery-blue blur shoot past knocking robots left and right. Cassie frowns and taps at the com link Ultron never bothered to take from her ear. After a little fiddling it's operational again and Cassie is just in time to hear Steve say. "Stark, you worry about brining the city down safely. The rest of us have one job; tare these things apart. You get hurt, hurt 'em back. You get killed, walk it off."
"You're saying that like a joke," Jason's voice mutters. "But at least three of us have actually done that."
Leo makes a contemplative sound. "I'm not actually sure I was all the way dead. I kind of have this like, hazy memory of post Gaea fiery explosion awareness. Hazel definitely, that was like seventy years of dead. You Jay-Man, you were dead. Was I?"
"Yes," Nico says matter of factly answering what might well have been a rhetorical question. You were dead. The memories only come back to you because you took the cure quickly. Hazel remembers being dead because of our father. Jason was dead and his spirit literally walked it off in the underworld for a week and then calmly asked Thanatos if he could come back. The paperwork hadn't been processed yet, and Thanatos was so surprised that he agreed."
"I think I freaked some people out on that one," Jason says, sounding almost apologetic. "Octavian actually wet himself."
"A memory I personally will cherish forever," Reyna adds.
Percy sighs. "A memory I wish I myself had to reflect on.
At that moment a male accented voice breaks through the line, interrupting the banter before Steve can give anyone a stern talking to in Captain America voice. "Keep up old man!" Barton's grumbling tells Cassie the comment had come from Pietro Maximoff and been addressed to him. Apparently, the twins have switched sides since the last time she saw them.
Cassie shrugs off the loyalty shift and twists the charm on her necklace to activate her bow. Right now a long range warrior will be more useful than a healer. She'll be that again later after the battle is over. without further a due, the shoots off a quick volley in to the vulnerable metal joints of the robots closest. Natasha goes to work using high-tech electric weapons and together they manage to cut a line towards the center of the battle.
"What'd I miss?" Cassie asks over the link. "Is everyone alive?"
"Cassie!" Percy's voice says cheerfully in to her ear. "Happy you're back. You have awesome friends by the way."
Before Cassie can formulate a response to this Annabeth's voice cuts in. "Focus Seaweed Brain! We can all sit around and trade compliments later."
"But sarcasm!" Leo protests. "Besides my man Percy and I have witty enough dialogue to count it as a weapon."
"I don't think the robot army agrees with you," Reyna says conversationally. The clash of metal in the background makes it clear she's fighting her way through a crowd. "Is anyone close enough to come help me out?"
There's a loud elephant trumpeting sound and the crashing of gigantic feet. "Hold your position," Hazel's voice says. "Frank and I are on the way to you right now."
Cassie focuses on the fight. If the demigods can banter than they must be doing just fine. Moments later, Steve comes hurtling out of nowhere and throws his shield over to Natasha to use as a sort of flying discus of destruction and Natasha calls out a thank you. Steve pummels apart a few robots and hurls their broken pieces off the edge of the floating city before turning to her.
"Hi honey," Cassie greats without looking away from the robots she's aiming at. "I'd kiss you but I'd really like it if neither of us died."
Out of the corner of her eye she sees Steve swallow and nod before punching a hole straight through the chest of another robot. "That's fair," he says. "But I'm still going to say I love you, and that the last eighteen hours haven't been good."
"Likewise," Cassie replies, firing off another volley. "Also, just out of curiosity, are the twins really on our side now? Or, should I shoot them the next time one comes within range."
One of her arrows hits a robot and explodes in a fountain of root beer. The moisture seems to creep through the circuitry and the bot falls to the ground in a twitching, sparking heap as Steve confirms that Wanda and Pietro are indeed playing for Team Good Guy. "Percy?" Cassie asks over the ear piece. "You should know that these things don't like getting wet."
Percy makes a contemplative noise. "You don't say. So hypothetically if I were to blow a water pipe in to their faces, they might not like it much?" Cassie can actually feel the ground beneath her shudder as Percy uses his powers to access the buried water lines which seemed to have kept their integrity despite the city's new status as a floating island. There's a swooshing flume! of sound several hundred yards a way and Cassie focuses her vision to see an enormous spout of pressurized water blasting out of the ground and in to the robots. They fall to the ground short circuiting. "Hmmm," Percy mumbles. "What a shame."
Steve takes off at a run through the rubble and Cassie follows after, moving a little more slowly so she can still aim. "What've you got Stark?" he asks.
"Well not much," Tony answers, voice a bit tiny from being filtered through his helmet. "Maybe a way to blow up the city."
"That I could help with," Leo pipes in helpfully. "It wouldn't be that hard if we just-"
He's interrupted by Piper hissing at him to shut up and listen, Charmspeak still heavy in her voice.
"If we blow the city then it wouldn't work as a meteor," Annabeth deduces out loud. "That might work. It's limited the casualties for the people down below anyway. Of course, we'd have to get clear first."
"Between me, Nico, Cassie, Frank, Percy on Blackjack, Hazel on Orion, Thor, and Stark that might be doable," Jason says analytically. A loud crackling interrupts the line and Cassie supposes h must have just electrocuted some unfortunate robots. "If that's the plan we want to go with."
Steve helps a few more civilians out of the main line of fire, blinking in the clouds of dust produced by all the rubble. "I asked for a solution not an escape plan," he says sharply.
Annabeth comes back online then. "If I'm doing my math right then the impact radius is getting bigger every second. This might not be the best plan, but it's the only one we've got."
"Whatever we decide, we're not going to have long to pull it off," Jason adds. "Pretty soon the air is going to start getting thin, and not everyone up here can survive that."
"Cap," Natasha says. "These people are going nowhere." Cassie turns and sees that the woman is looking out at the sky over the edge of the city. "There'd be worse ways to go," she comments. "Where else would I get a view like this?"
"Uh," Percy says, clearly gearing up for a smart ass comment. "Like, any airplane ever? The Grand Canyon?"
Cassie can almost hear Piper's wince. "Can we all agree to never talk about the Grand Canyon? Like, ever?"
"I met you at the Grand Canyon!" Jason protests. "What's wrong with it?"
"Technically," Leo cuts in. "We broke the skywalk at the Grand Canyon, then got thrown in by an evil coffee drink and almost died. I'm with Piper on this one."
Reyna sighs and it's a rush of static over the speaker. "How many times do we have to explain that Venti are wind spirits and not just a drink size at Starbucks?"
Suddenly a new voice breaks in on the conversation. "I'm glad you all can be so chatty about the view," says Nick Fury. "Keep looking. It's about to get better." He's not wrong. The hellicarier that bursts through the cloud layer to hover directly next to them is one of the single most beautiful things Cassie has ever seen. "She's nice right?" Fury says. "I pulled her out of the mothballs with some old friends. She's dusty but she'll do."
Cassie spares half a second to wonder which friends Fury has that were quietly hanging on to an aircraft with more equipment and technology in and on it than the average military base. The other half of the second is spent wondering how long it will take Leo to take apart and rebuild the engine immediately after boarding. The thought isn't that comforting.
"Fury you son of a bitch," Steve says with heartfelt appreciation.
"Ooh," Fury says with not a little touch of humor. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"
The sound of a watery explosion comes again and Cassie turns to see Percy hacking and slashing through the robots with Riptide, Piper behind him. "I have some good swearing puns," he says helpfully. He extends his hand a section of water drainage pipe rockets up from under the earth, impaling three robots with a muddy spray.
Piper reaches them and then keeps going, heading for the evacuation sight where floating life boat style please seem to have anchored themselves. "I'm going to organize the evacuation," she reports. "I have the best chance at keeping everyone calm."
Jason falls out of the skye beside them, landing neatly and giving Piper a quick and earnest kiss on the cheek. "I'll watch your back."
Piper shakes her head. "Work with Percy," she tells him. "Focus on that. Don't worry about me," she sends him a quick grin. "I'm a dangerous girl."
Jason smiles back at her, like they're sharing an old and private joke. "That I can believe." He flexes his palms towards the ground and is back in the air, forty feet above them in seconds.
Pietro Maximoff zooms to a stop beside them and grins at the carrier. "This is SHIELD?" he asks Steve. Smiling, his face becomes boyish and much more pleasant.
Steve glances at him and then nods. "This is what SHIELD is supposed to be."
Maxim off turns back to the carrier and then nods decisively. "This is not so bad."
He looks ready to zip away again but Cassie holds out a hand to stop him. "Wait," she says, then digs in to one of her convenient armor pockets and extracts one of the specialty protein bars she whipped up for Steve and Bucky and shoves it at him. "Eat this. Your calorie and blood sugar levels must be tanking. You'll be faster if you give your body something to process."
Pietro looks doubtful for a second, but must realize the truth to her words because he takes the bar from her, opens the package, and downs the bar in three bites. "This tastes strange," he says around a partially full mouth. "Almost of mint, but in a funny way."
"Told you so," Bucky mutters over the com link.
It's the first time Cassie's heard him speak the whole battle and is momentarily relieved by the proof that he is actually present and watching their backs. Then that relief turns in to annoyance as she processes what he's actually said. "Shut it Barnes," she tells him. "Go back to your sniping. See if I give you food next time you're hungry."
If she could see Bucky she thinks he might have shrugged. "You might not feed me," he says neutrally. "But you will feed Steve. He'll share." Cassie glances across at Steve who shrugs, not looking the slightest bit apologetic.
"I got it!" Annabeth exclaims excitedly. "If we could make a heat seal-"
Stark seems to realize what she's saying first. "I could do it," he says. "I could supercharge the spire from below. "Rhodey, get the rest of the civilians on board that carrier." Rhodes offers an affirmative. Cassie hadn't even realized the man was there, but she's glad he is. The more help they can get, the better. "Avengers," Stark continues. "Time to work for a living. Everyone else, consider this a really intense extra curricular."
"Ah man," Leo's voice says. "If I got a dollar for every time I helped save the world..."
Will's voice interrupts him. "Wouldn't you have like, four dollars?" he asks as he fights his way towards the carrier boats to help with any wounded. Cassie's brother is an incredibly healer and a good fighter when he has to be, but it's not his highest skill set in a battle.
"Nah bro," Leo says, apparently still brimming with enthusiasm. "I'd have duct tape! Do you have any idea how much you can do with the amount of duct tape you can get for four dollars?"
They've been converging on the center of the city where Ultron has placed his device this whole time and Cassie and Steve arrive just in time to see Barton and Wand Maximoff join the party from the other direction. Pietro zooms in to focus to check on his sister and Natasha joins them all with a clearly hijacked truck and asks what the drill is. "This is the drill," Stark answers. 'If Ultron gets a hand on this core," he gestures at the device behind him. "We lose."
Percy jogs causally in to view with Frank in elephant form with Annabeth on his back and Hazel riding Arion on his heels. Jason lands a moment later, clearly having stopped to pick up Leo and deposits the other boy on the ground before drawing his spear. Reyna and Bucky arrive moments later, Reyna cloaked in Athena's gifted aegis and Bucky holding a very large gun. Tony and Thor are already there along with a red-skinned flying man with a cape and a gold gem in the middle of his forehead.
"Umm.." Cassie says. "Steve? Who is that exactly?"
Steve sees where she's indicating. "It's kind of a long story," he says. "His nam is vision. Stark made him. He's on our side. He can pick up Thor's hammer. That's really all I've got."
Well.
That certainly cleared everything up.
A swarm of robots attacks them, but all together they manage to beat them back without too much difficulty. "Is that the best you can do?!" Thor bellows at Ultron.
Immediately, every single demigod in the vicinity groans. They all learned very early on in life that you should literally never asks that question. It was just asking for everything to go wrong.
Sure enough, a huge mob of mechanical nasties swarm towards them out of the rubble that used to be the city. Hundreds of them climbing over each other to reach them. Steve heaves a great sigh from directly behind Cassie. "You had to ask," he says in a put upon sort of way.
Directly to her right, Cassie hears Bucky let out an inelegant snort. "Steve Rogers is lecturing somebody else about picking a fight with somebody bigger than they are," he mutters mockingly. "I must have missed the part of this day when the world started spinning backwards."
"Was he really that bad?" Annabeth asks interestedly. "My dad's like a major history buff."
"Worse," Bucky assures her. " I used to check random alleyways around where I knew he was planning to be on the off chance he was in one getting pummeled. He was like two hundred and fifty pounds of 'get back over here and say that to my face' in a one hundred and ten pound body. Thank god Erskine's experiment got him caught up."
Steve probably would have intervened to tell his friend to shut up but Ultron cuts in on the conversation before he gets the chance. "This is the best I can do," he rumbles. He spreads his hands magnificently. "All of you, against all of me. How can you possibly hope to stop me?"
"Well like the old man said," Stark says, glancing around at the rest of them from inside his helmet as the robots swarm forwards. "Together."
Then everything becomes chaos. This is melee fighting at it's most basic. Weapons smash and slice, water pipes explode, the Hulk and Frank roar through, Tempest the storm spirit crackles along with Thor's lightning as Jason charges forwards. Arion whinnies, and the air dances with flames as Leo gets to work. Pietro is a silver streak through the space while his sister uses swirls of red energy to rip robots apart. Bucky's metal arm flashes in the sun along with blasts of golden light and Stark's repulsers. Cassie uses every trick she has from arrows to concussive sound waves, blasting through enemies like they're dominos.
Thor, Stark, and Vision blast Ultron all together and Hulk punches him out of the way, sending him flying. A group of robots tries to flee and Stark calls for Rhodey. Cassie expects Jason to go with them but instead he turns to Percy. "Ready?" he asks, extending one hand.
Percy nods and takes it. "Lock it up."
In seconds, the pressure all around them drops. The air crackles and the smell of ozone becomes nearly over powering. The wind whips in to a maelstrom and Cassie feels all the hair on her arms stand upright. The temperature dips by what must be ten degrees, and suddenly their part of the fight is happening in a fun fledged hurricane, complete with rain and lightning strikes. Within seconds theres a radius of several thousand yards and a complete sky around them that's completely robot-free. Of course, their entire side is now soaking wet, but Cassie personally considers that a small price to pay.
Steve shakes the damp hair out of his face and assesses the situation. "We don't have a lot of time," he says. "Even I can tell the air is getting thinner. Everybody get to a boat. I'll sweep for stragglers and be right behind you."
"What about the core?" Clint asks.
"I will protect it," Wanda Maximoff volunteers, in the same accented English as her brother. She makes eye contact with Barton. "It's my job." Barton nods and Cassie quietly wonders if he's pulled off some kind of weird pseudo adoption in the last half an hour.
Without another word, Jason gestures for Leo to grab on and takes off, going straight up in to the sky. Nico whistles for Mrs. O'Leary and climbs on to her, vanishing in a pool of shadow. Percy calls for Blackjack and mounts, pulling Annabeth up behind him and they take to the sky as well. Frank morphs from an elephant in to a fire breathing dragon complete with wings and follows. Natasha and Barton stare after this unbelievable sight for a moment, clearly trying to comprehend it before hijacking a car and getting on their way. Cassie can hear them chatting about home renovation as they go.
That leaves Steve and Cassie with Bucky, Reyna, and Wanda huddled around the cube. Steve looks at Bucky questioningly and Bucky shrugs. "This ain't the end of the line yet Pal."
Reyna just shrugs when Steve turns his gaze to her. "He's a time investment now," she says, inclining her head towards Bucky. "Leaving him to die would just be wasteful."
Then it's Cassie's turn and she meets Steve's blue eyes levelly. "You don't leave, I don't leave," she says firmly. Steve opens his mouth to protest and Cassie cuts him off with a quick, hard, kiss to his mouth. She draws back before it can get any deeper and knocks a new arrow. "You, boyfriend mine, are noble to a nearly suicidal level. If you want me off this hunk off rock, then you're going to have to ditch that tendency and come right along with me."
Steve doesn't respond to that but Cassie catches Bucky's eye and he gives her a small nod so she knows she's hit the nail on the head. If Steve only had his own life to think about, there's no saying if he'd try getting out of here at all. With other people he cares about refusing to leave until he does, Cassie and Bucky have effectively backed him in to a self-preservative corner.
They're about seven city blocks from the boats when the rattle of machine gun fire sounds and Barton calls urgently through the coms. "Cassie," he says, sounding panicked. "Get here. Get here now."
"You didn't see that coming," says the choked off voice of Pietro Maximoff.
Cassie looks over at Steve in alarm and he nods once. "Go!"
Cassie vanishes in to a puddle of light, focusing on Clint Barton with everything in her being and a moment later her body has reformed right next to the man in question. She can see immediately what is wrong. Pietro is sprawled on the ground, the left side of his body riddled with bloody holes, a breath rattling through his lungs that for all Cassie knows could be his last.
Without pausing to think Cassie dives forwards and presses both hands against his chest. Most of the bullets have gone clean through his body and Cassie throws every ounce of her remaining magical energy in to ejecting the remaining bullets and sealing the flesh behind them. She feels chipped bones refuse. Both lungs reinflate in a desperate push and the fluid that isn't supposed to be there drains away. Blood begins to replace itself and Cassie can actually feel Pietro's heart shudder below her palms as his body tried to react to her magic. With a shock Cassie realizes that Pietro's body heals so quickly that his body is actually prepared to race her magic to fix the damage. If she can get his heart to beat for just thirty more seconds...
"Jason!" she shouts, even as a horrible scream from Wanda rips through the air and red energy fills the sky. Like a miracle, Jason lands beside her, hands outstretched. "Defib now!"
Thank all the gods Jason is quick on the uptake. "Clear!" he calls. A fork of lighting crackles down from the sky, balances between his palms and then shoots straight in to Pietro's heart just as Cassie leaps back and withdraws her hands.
Pietro's body arches and Cassie has her palm back over his heart before he's back on the ground. She sends one last jolt of magic in to his heart and tracks it as her power spirals out through his newly repaired heart, repairing smashed veins and shredded arteries as blood flows through them. Pietro opens his eyes with a gasp and barely manages to spit out a mouthful of blood. "Your boyfriend said to walk it off," he gasps weekly. "He will have to settle, for breathing."
Cassie almost cries and almost laughs with relief and sits back, utterly exhausted. She turns to Jason. "Get him to the boat and make sure he gets to medical. Send Will to him." Jason nods and grips Pietro under the shoulders, taking off once more. "No one else get shot," Cassie warns tiredly through the earpiece. "Or if you do, make sure you hold really still until I can get there. I'm completely out of magic. It's staples, stitches, and glue from here on out."
"Don't worry about that," Steve tells her, sounding worried. "You and Barton just get to the ship." They've hit the crossword between concerned team leader Captain America and worried boyfriend Steve. Arguing and resistance is futile.
"Copy," Cassie says, struggling up to her feet. Barton is carrying a little boy who is clutching tightly to his chest but he still offers one arm to help Cassie along. Given that Barton is a pair of walking biceps, Cassie lets him take a bit of her weight without feeling bad about it. Pietro seems to have gotten them within ten feet of the nearest life boat and the three of them stumble aboard. Barton hands the little boy off to a woman who must be his mother and helps Cassie over to an empty seat. He vanishes and returns a few minutes later with a juice box which Cassie drains gratefully.
The boat detaches and begins to fly back towards the carrier just as Steve comes charging out of the rubble and launches himself up and in to the raft. He looks around in a panic and his eyes fall on Cassie just as the city behind them explodes, falling in jagged chunks of rock in to the water below. Steve crosses over and hauls Cassie in to his arms, holding as tightly as he seems to dare. Over his shoulder, Cassie sees vision fly out of the rubble, holding Wanda tightly around the waist. A little focus shows Stark and Thor flying along behind them, all four making for the boat.
A small smile graces Cassie's face and she turns her head, burrowing in to the solid warmth of Steve's shoulder.
Incredible as it seems, everyone's alive.
A/N: Damn that one was long! So yes, I decided to save Pietro. Partly because I could see a good way for the story to continue, particularly the version of Civil War I might do with him alive, partly because I think part of the point of having Cassie around is injury recovery, and partly because I recently watched "Nowhere Boy" on Netflix and fell a bit in love with Aaron Taylor Johnson. I just think the character had more to offer the MCU than he got a chance to do and wanted to give writing him a shot. I can kill him off later if you guys don't like him? Anyway, let me know what you thought! I probably won't post next weekend because I have to move out of my apartment and I'll be really freaking busy. Review for me! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox