"Oh my gosh. I can't believe I did that. I- oh my gosh, that was amazing!" Sarah, still inhabiting James, yelled triumphantly as they cruised through the sky. She looked to her right and saw Iron Man soaring next to them, giving her a salute as she waved awkwardly back.
"You saved my life." Morgan wheezed as she retracted her nano suit into her wristband. "How can I ever repay you?"
Sarah turned to her, realizing her face was very close, then heard her own voice screaming from the trunk, "Uh, ha, gimme a minute-" Sarah closed her eyes and focused, centering her mind and bringing herself back home. When she opened her eyes, she was back in the trunk, and she felt the car take a severe dip in altitude, "James!"
"What... just... happened?" James panted in terror, looking around and seeing Morgan appalled by his odd behavior, "You didn't just kiss me did you? Because if you did, I think you just kissed my sister."
"I didn't kiss you, and what about your sister?" Morgan retorted, turning to over her shoulder as Kayla shifted into Wanda's lap, revealing Sarah grinning awkwardly through the hole in the seats.
"I, uh, I think I can soul swap. It was kind of amazing. Is that what it feels like to have the super soldier serum, because now I am a little jealous." She chuckled and Kayla smiled weakly, letting out a deep breath as she reached into the trunk to grab her daughter's hand.
"Maybe give us a head's up next time you soul swap with your brother, okay? Because that's kind of weird." Kayla offered as Wanda shifted under her weight. Kayla passed Zawadi, who had taken her spot in the middle in an attempt to lick Sarah's face, over to Tessa. The little brunette grunted loudly as she tried to restrain the dog, unsure why she'd been appointed the Rhodesian's babysitter. Kayla shifted onto the floor, squishing her face as she bent her legs into Wanda's leg space to give her daughter room to breath, since they couldn't exactly let her out in the middle of the air.
"If you ever do that to me again, I'll end you." James snarled, looking over his shoulder to see his sister and accidentally turning the steering wheel to the right with him.
"James!" Morgan shrieked, leaning over to straighten the wheel. James quickly threw his hands up and leaned back, giving Morgan space as she corrected their course.
"Listen hot shot, I'll take it from here. Or maybe you can get in the trunk and let your sister drive. FRIDAY, set course for Midtown. I'll jet ahead and make sure company's ready." Tony blasted forward and Morgan stared after him wide eyed as she studied the coordinates that appeared on the dashboard of her car.
"Why there?" Morgan asked, lifting her brow to the red suit that flew beside them.
"Because," Tony replied simply, "it's kind of a tourist hot spot now. It'll be an easy place to get lost in the crowd." With that he sped ahead to prepare for their arrival in New York.
Tessa massaged her temples, staring out the window wistfully as Kayla looked up at her from the floor, "You okay?"
"Am I going to die?" Tessa asked bluntly and Kayla gaped as she looked from Tessa to Wanda, but the Scarlet Witch stared out the window. Tessa continued, "I don't think there's anywhere in this world that we can hide. And I've accepted that, but can you?"
James and Morgan tilted their heads to catch her words, then looked to each other. What James didn't comprehend was his mother's unfailing ability to protect the people she loved from death, but everyone in the car seemed to understand that this threat was somehow worse than the others.
Kayla swallowed hard and met Tessa's eyes as Sarah peeked in from the trunk. Kayla smiled knowingly before letting out a heavy sigh, "I don't believe in death." Wanda turned her head at that, but Kayla's eyes stayed on Tess, "There's always another way."
Tessa snorted, turning to look out the window as she scratched Zawadi's ears, "You keep on living that way. I hope you never find yourself wrong." Tessa pressed her fist to her mouth and mumbled, "God, I hope you never have to make a choice about who lives or dies."
Kayla's expression fell and Wanda rubbed her shoulder comfortingly as the Manhattan skyline appeared in the distance.
"Energy readings are off the charts." Steve grumbled as he studied the quinjet's onboard computer, "If this isn't Schmidt, we're walking into some other trouble."
"Three floors, multiple entrances. How the hell are we going to find him?" Bucky asked, sitting behind Steve and flipping through photos of himself and Tessa on his phone.
Steve looked over his shoulder to see his best friend distant. He sighed, feeling heavy with guilt, "Let me go and find him. I think you should stay behind in the jet."
"Well, that's stupid." Bucky mumbled as he lifted his face from his phone, "Then how will I know when you die so I can leave? No, no it's much better to be in the room where it happens so I know when to high tail it out of here and what to tell your wife and kids."
"I'm serious Buck, it's my fight. It's my score to settle." Steve barked, but Bucky just turned over his vibranium arm to check the paneling. "I can do this on my own."
"You won't have to, I'm already in the jet, we're already here." Bucky groaned, finally smiling, "What did we used to say? Something about the end?"
"I'm with you till the end of the line." Steve said quietly, beginning to take the quinjet down near the building. "It's your turn to be happy Buck, you've waited long enough. I'm gonna get you home so you can start a family of your own-"
"I already have one. It's Tess, and you, and Kay, and those two kids of yours. Even Tony and Morgan and Wanda. And Sam." Bucky listed, gripping Steve's shoulder with his right hand, "Dealing with the lot of you is basically like having children. So I'm gonna protect my family, same as you."
As the jet settled onto the grass nearby, Steve finally turned to look at his best friend fully, "The last mission."
"For real this time." Bucky added, standing and reaching down to give Steve a hand. Steve allowed Bucky to pull him up and they faced the back of the quinjet together as the sun beat down on the field they'd landed in. Bucky turned slightly to Steve, never taking his eyes off the open back, "We should hide till nightfall. I don't feel comfortable breaking in during the middle of the day."
Steve tilted his head and raised his brow as he shrugged, "I can't argue with that." Steve locked up the back of the quinjet and turned on stealth mode. He plopped down in the pilot's chair and spun around to face his friend. "Now we wait."
"And on your left, you can see the Baxter Building! It's currently the headquarters for the superhero group The Fantastic Four, however, many of you may remember its origins as the original Avengers Tower after the Battle of New York in 2012."
Kayla leaned her cheek against her fist as she leaned on the bench, looking over at the eighth tour bus to pass in the last hour. "Are you sure this is where your dad said to meet him? This seems like the opposite of hiding." Morgan turned to look at Kayla as Sarah and James stared up at the massive building in wonder.
"These were his coordinates. He'll be here. Nobody's looking for us, especially not here." Morgan explained quietly as Wanda and Tessa walked down the street with Zawadi toward an ice cream truck, "Don't get too far!"
"Mom, did you ever get to go in there?" James asked excitedly as he leaned back to try and see the top, "When it was Avengers Tower?"
"I lived there for a hot minute." She mumbled, twisting her wrists together as she looked around to make sure nobody was listening, "If you want to talk about it come closer."
"Naw, I'm good." James said as he stood with his hands in the pockets of the jeans he wore. "Did ya'll ever work with the Fantastic Four?"
Kayla tilted her head to stare blankly at her son, but he just raised his eyebrows expectantly, "This counts as talking about it. And no, I did not work with them." She said in air quotes and James and Sarah looked to each other.
"She put air quotes-"
"Yeah, the air quotes mean something."
Both kids sidled up to their mother and she rolled her eyes and leaned back, looking up at the whirring sound of an engine. Kayla squinted as a jet took off from the roof and everyone oohed and aahed. "They used to do that when your father would come and go. I mean, not him specifically, but the team." Kayla remembered with a sigh, "I'll never forget watching the quinjet take off. Or Thor, gosh, that was the best. Lightning would strike and there he'd be. It was... really something."
Sarah looked to her brother, seeing him paint the picture in his mind. She considered invading her mother's memories, inhabiting her very soul in an effort to see what she described for herself, but Kayla seemed content to keep her memories to herself. Sarah couldn't help but notice her mother was sad, and she didn't know if it was because the life she described was long gone or because she didn't want to think about her husband alive and well when they didn't know what would happen to him.
"I have to use the restroom." Sarah said finally and James looked at her expectantly.
"Okay. Go find one." He looked back up, seeing all the people on the observation deck above. When she didn't move, he growled at her, "You don't need a babysitter."
"I'm sorry that I don't frequent New York." Sarah hissed back.
Kayla grunted as she pushed herself off of the bench and took a few steps toward the edge of the building to peek around, "The lower levels are just office space. There will be a restroom in the lobby. You can go, we'll be here."
James looked away from the building long enough to see Morgan smiling at him, but when he caught her gaze she looked away quickly. "Why don't you go with Sarah? It's like you said, standing out here isn't really hiding. I'll shoot you a text if Uncle Tony arrives." James explained, his big green eyes lifting from his mom to Morgan then back again with a boyish grin.
"Mmhhmm. Alright. I'll bite. Stay out of trouble. Wear your hat please." Kayla gestured to the baseball cap she'd picked up for her son at a nearby gift shop after ditching the car in a parking garage. James grumbled but pulled the 'I heart NYC' hat over his shaggy blonde hair. Kayla grinned, her teeth sparkling in the September sunlight, "That's better."
"I don't understand why I need to wear a disg-"
"This isn't some little suburb, James. People might actually recognize you." Sarah hissed and he just crossed his arms, his muscles pulling against his white shirt. "You look like Dad."
"And what's wrong with that?"
Kayla pulled her hand down her face and started walking toward the main entrance of the tower without a word. Sarah shook her head in disbelief, but followed her mother, leaving her brother alone with Morgan.
"I swear, I'm not an idiot." James told Morgan and she just raised her hands defensively, as if to say she didn't say he was. "Do you hide who your dad is?"
"I didn't hide who he was. I just had to hide that he was alive for the past eighteen years." Morgan said bluntly, turning around to face the street. She pulled her own baseball cap down to cover her dark eyes, "You and your sister were kept out of the loop, but a lot of shit went down while you were oblivious. My dad? He's safe because he's officially dead. The thing about your dad, is that people think he's dead, too. Everyone except the person who wants to kill him."
James swallowed and looked to Morgan, seeing her soft eyes scanning over her phone, "I don't want to think about that."
"Yeah, neither does your mother, so be ready for that." Morgan grumbled, finally meeting his gaze, "It's a hard dance, with your parents. Because Steve knows he has to finish what he started in the forties, but your mother doesn't believe in losing people. The Red Skull was trapped on an alien world for decades, but your mom accidentally set him free in an effort to revert her friend's death."
"Which friend?"
"Doesn't matter. Red Skull killed her years later." Morgan muttered and James felt the air seep out of his lungs slowly, "I learned young to live every day with the people I love like there might not be a tomorrow. It's the one good thing that came out of me understanding the truth, I knew how fragile life was."
"Do you think my Dad's gonna die?" James asked quietly and Morgan tried hard to make her smile seem less sad, but it told James the answer to his question. "I just feel like an asshole, because I never knew what he did, what he gave up for us. I feel like all those years were wasted."
"Not for him." Morgan said softly, reaching over and rubbing James's back, "If you had known, would you have treated him differently?"
"Of course." James said quickly, then looked down, "But I also think that he would have treated me differently, too. They would have been stricter, they would have kept me hidden. Just like now. Run and hide." He scratched behind his neck awkwardly, "I feel bad. I'm a super soldier, I should be helping Dad and Uncle Bucky. If they can go and fight, I should be able to."
"Why do you think I have a suit? And not a Rescue suit like my mom. I have an actual Iron Man suit. Because someday..." Morgan licked her lips thoughtfully, "Someday the world is gonna need Iron Man again. I want to make sure somebody's there to take up the mantle."
James nodded, looking down as he considered her words until a van skidded to a stop in front of them. A man in his mid thirties rolled down the window of the black vehicle and grinned at Morgan and James, "I'm here to pick up a little Iron Kid."
"Hey, Peter." Morgan greeted with a warm smile, "This is James. You've met at some point, I think."
Peter looked the teenager up and down, "You look so much like your dad."
"Yeah, I've gotten that a lot the past twenty-four hours." He mumbled, looking over his shoulder and waving Tessa and Wanda over. "My mom and sister are inside going to the bathroom."
"Well get in, we'll do circles till they come out." Peter directed and hit a button to open up the rear door so they could climb in and wait for Kayla and Sarah to return.