"Rhodey, where's my copy of The Fall of Giants?"
"Why do you think I have any idea where your book is?"
"Because you were the last one to see it." Sam replied accusingly, rolling his eyes as he shoved another book into his already packed suitcase.
"I gave it back two days ago."
"Then why don't I have it?"
Pietro smirked as he watched Wanda try to zip closed her own bag. "Are you sure you don't need to take something out?"
"I'll manage." she replied, pulling hard on the zipper and silently coaxing it to give anther few inches while Pietro tried not to laugh. "Are you packed?"
"Mostly." It had taken him a long time to go through his wardrobe and find clothes to take. It was his first time in the nation's capital and he was very excited to see all of the monuments and museums that had been a part of Washington DC for time out of mind-though he wished they could have been going purely for recreational reasons. Instead, he would be heading to the legislature to battle for the team's freedom. It was anything but a pleasure trip. "Natasha wants us to be on the plane as soon as possible."
She glanced out the window at the undisturbed summer morning. "Is the plane even here yet?"
"No, Tony's running late. But when he does show up she wants wheels off the ground in no less than ten minutes."
With a final yank that threatened to tear the zipper clear off the suitcase Wanda finally managed to close it properly and sat back on the bed triumphant. "Steve says we'll have time to go sightseeing after we arrive. I can't wait to go to the National Gallery."
He rolled his eyes. "You seem to be getting very cozy with Steve these days."
"And what's wrong with that?" she asked quickly. "We're just friends."
"Just friends?"
"Yes. There's nothing else between us." He still wasn't convinced. They went on walks together in the evenings, out behind the base. But he didn't want to press. The last thing he wanted was to start another fight-they'd been getting along so well lately but he knew that any little mistake could easily break her trust. He sighed inwardly. It used to be that they would never get into fights; they could always tell instinctively what the other was thinking, built on a relationship of mutual trust, understanding, and shared memories. Now he never quite knew what was going on inside her head.
"Fine, fine." he sighed, grabbing his suitcase with one hand and hers with the other. "Do you want me to take this downstairs for you?"
"Thank you." she said with a small smile. "That would be lovely."
He turned to leave, pausing in the doorway. "You know, if you ever need anything you can always tell me."
"I know. Don't worry." She gave him a last, almost carefree smile, and walked downstairs. Pietro hadn't seen her so happy in months. If Steve had this much of a good effect on her, maybe whatever was going on between them wasn't such a bad thing after all.
Just so long as it didn't progress. He had to have some kind of standards.
There was a loud whirring noise from outside the window and he looked to see Tony's large and extravagant private jet land on the front lawn in a whirl of light and sound. It was huge-about the size of a small city as far as he was concerned. "Wow."
"That's called luxury." Natasha explained, standing next to him at the window. "Tony doesn't do anything halfway."
"Obviously not. Is everyone else ready to go?"
She nodded. "Washington DC, here we come."
~V102~
It took no less than an hour to make sure the plane was loaded and ready to go. Even when everyone's assorted suitcases, valises, and other pieces of luggage had been stowed safely in the plane's cargo hold. Tony insisted on touring the base and seeing exactly 'what his billion dollar investment was being used for'. "How's it going, Speed?" he asked Pietro almost jovially, clasping a hand on his shoulder that could be considered almost fatherly in another lifetime. "Excited to get a little fresh air?"
Pietro nodded. "Should be interesting. But aren't you worried about the trouble on Capitol Hill?"
"Not particularly. It's all bureaucrats looking for a way to screw up trouble. When nothing happens it'll all blow over." He shrugged noncommittally. "You see it happen all the time. And how's your sister?"
"Better."
"Does she remember anything?"
"More and more every day. She's almost back to normal."
"Anything about where she's been for the last year?"
"I don't know. Either she doesn't remember anything or she just doesn't want to tell me."
"She'll come around. They always do."
Just then Rhodey came back with a couple bottles of Coke and passed them out to Tony and Pietro. "Ready to get going?"
Pietro nodded, taking a long swig of soda. "Bring it on."
~V102~
Riding on a private jet was a lot of fun; Pietro would give it that. Tony seemed to have every kind of entertainment system available to man above 10,000 feet; no less than three plasma screen television sets, a PS4, and a collection of Bluray discs that rivaled even the Tower's. There wasn't time to watch a full movie before they landed in Washington but they had fun streaming Youtube videos off Tony's iPad. Vision seemed especially fond of Jedi Cat videos.
Pietro also spent part of the time playing cards with Wanda on a leather couch. They both knew a lot of games; they started out easy, with solitaire, before transitioning to gin rummy and mahjong. Natasha even showed them how to play Yahtzee, which was a lot of fun until they lost three dice in between the seats.
It took them about an hour and a half to fly from Syracuse, New York to the private airfield just outside Reagan International Airport where Tony left his jet. By the time they arrived, it was starting to get dark-which meant they had a beautiful view of the sunset over the Washington Monument but not enough time to really go sightseeing. Steve suggested they find a place to get pizza for dinner and get settled in their hotel rooms for an early start the next morning.
"Here's your ride!" Tony said, revealing a stretch black limousine.
Steve groaned. "Tony, we can't possibly-"
"No. Everyone knows the Avengers are coming-and they'll expect you to come in style. We need to show the Senate and the House of Representatives that we aren't scared of them or their accusations. We need to make an impression." As no one wanted to argue with that, everyone piled into the car.
Only to find out that there were about ten pizza places in a ten block stretch of downtown DC.
"Anything we can rule out?" Rhodey asked tentatively, scrolling through TripAdvisor. "I think there's a vegan place on the corner. No one here wants that, right?"
Natasha rolled her eyes. "Yes. You can cross out the vegan place."
"We need to decide where we're going tomorrow." Sam said. "This is the busy season."
"Assuming we make it through the meeting first." Pietro replied. He waited for Wanda to reprimand him and say he wasn't being positive enough but it never came; she was too busy looking out the window at the city around them. Almost everywhere Pietro looked he saw something out of one of his old history textbooks-the Washington Monument far in the distance or the White House surrounded by its many fountains. "What are you looking at?"
She shrugged. "Nothing in particular. Everything, really." He knew exactly what she meant. New York was an amazing city, but Washington DC was filled with history.
Why couldn't they make a nice little vacation out of this? Pietro couldn't think of another superhero group in the entire world that deserved it more.
~V102~
After a quick dinner at a random pizza place Rhodey found on Yelp, they set up camp at a hotel downtown. The suites Tony had purchased for them were large and spacious, each with two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchenette, and a bathroom. Sam and Rhodey shared one, the twins shared another, Steve and Vision had a third, and Natasha got the final suite all to herself. Pietro wanted to stay up until all sorts of ungodly hours watching movies but Wanda convinced him that wouldn't be the best idea considering they would be appearing before the most powerful governing body in the entire country.
"Are you two going to need anything else?" Steve asked, practically hovering in the doorway
Pietro shook his head, already immersed in his book. "Not at the moment."
"Good. I'll see you tomorrow morning then." He smiled at them both, thought Pietro knew it was meant more for his visitor's benefit than his own.
"Have a good night." Wanda replied as he slipped away quietly and shut the door behind him.
"So, how do you think things will go tomorrow?" Pietro asked, looking up from his book.
"I don't know. Sokovia may have been a mistake, but the Avengers did save the world in the Battle of New York. They can't forget that."
"They seem to be planning something."
She shivered. "I just hope they don't make a terrible mistake."
"They're the government of the United States. This is probably just a routine thing to get the media off our backs. Maybe then we'll stop getting so much bad press."
She still looked unconvinced-and to be perfectly honest, neither was he. But it wasn't as though they could do anything about it either way; it was too late to go back now and refusing to attend the meeting would cast them even further into suspicion. "Perhaps. Steve thinks there's something bigger going on-not just this, though that's no doubt a big part of it. He says it has something to do with the factory we infiltrated."
"I think Steve is just as nervous about this as we are and wants to come up with a theory so he doesn't need to think too hard about whether or not we actually deserve what's coming to us. None of us want to think about that.
She nodded and stood up with a sigh. "Good night Pietro."
"Good night." He didn't stay up too much longer himself. He wanted to be at full energy the next morning, come what may. And he couldn't help thinking that whatever the outcome of the meeting happened to be, the Avengers team would never be the same.
~V102~
"Phase one of the plan is in action." Nikolas Fisk said taking a seat at the table with the rest of the inner circle. "The Avengers landed in downtown DC earlier this evening."
"Excellent." came the voice from the intercom system. For reasons of security his employer never attended any of these meetings personally; if anything happened to be infiltrated or compromised it was better for ten or eleven underlings to die rather than the head of their entire operation. "Did you face any opposition?"
He shook his head, knowing Zemo would be able to see the motion anyway. He learned from experience that Zemo seemed to know everything about everything-even if you hadn't told him yet. "They suspect nothing."
The man sitting at the head of the table-the meeting leader-pulled out a simple manila file folder and began to page through it almost lazily. "These numbers are extraordinary. What a pity the subject left before we finished our experiments." Nikolas instinctively felt ten pairs of eyes swivel toward him. He would have cringed, if hadn't been sure that would showing weakness. Everyone knew that Wanda Maximoff had escaped HYDRA custody due to his inability to monitor her whereabouts. He knew full well that this was his last chance; if he failed now he would lose not only his position but probably his life as well. And everyone else knew this too.
"We will get her back." he said confidently. "We'll be able to complete the experiments."
"I certainly hope so." Zemo replied. "There is much we have left to learn. However, I will not be so cocky. She's an Avenger now. Things will not be so easy from now on."
He resisted the urge to clench his hands into fists. "I will not fail you again."
"Good. I would hate to dispose of you too early." He could hear the threat plainly in his words. "But enough of that. We must discuss how to proceed. Fisk will work on securing our test subjects but the rest of us must balance tasks that are no less important. We must find an effective way to turn Earth's Mightiest Heroes against each other."
"That shouldn't be too hard." someone else replied scornfully. "We've seen the way Ironman and Captain America bicker among themselves like children."
"The Avengers are an outdated symbol." another person commented. "I say we do away with it all together."
"Such a direct approach will not bode well for us. They will figure out what we are up to and destroy everything for which we have fought and suffered."
"I agree." Zemo replied. "Subtlety is key. Our plans are put into mission tomorrow morning. Is everyone clear on their roles?" Everyone looked at each other carefully and nodded as one unified body. This was important; they could not fail. There simply were no other options.
"Good." the Baron continued. "Meeting adjourned."
I apologize for two things-the time between updates and the short chapter. For the former, I've had a really busy week and for the latter I can only say that they'll get longer from here on out. The next chapter will start to get into the Civil War plotline.
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