Author's note: This is my do-or-die chapter here. So please review, otherwise I might explode without knowing if it totally bombed! *Crosses fingers* Enjoy!

This was not happening. It couldn't be. Charlotte was here? On the helicarrier? It looked like she already had her spell over everyone. Thoughts raced as I tried to figure out what to do.

"Fury, that's Charlotte." I said. He looked at me, blankly. "This is Charlotte, the woman we've been searching for for months. My mother, your ex! It's her!"

"Ah, you've been talking to Eli?" Charlotte said.

"Yeah. Yeah I have. Hello, mother. What've you done to my friends?" Everyone was just standing around, looking contented and completely oblivious to the threat right in front of them. "Bruce, tell me you see this?"

"Oh, he won't dear." Charlotte said. "I've got them all under my control. If I asked them to follow each other off a cliff like lemmings, they would."

"And what about me, huh?" I said through gritted teeth as the collar buzzed. "Why don't you have me all zonked out like them?"

"Oh, dearest, you're my daughter. I couldn't even if I tried." She moved with deadly grace over to one of the computers. "Now, let's see. I could overthrow more than a few empires from this thing. What do you think; China, Britain? Ooh, maybe Germany. Get them off their high horse."

"Why are you doing this?!" I shouted. She turned, her expression innocent and uncomprehending as if I had just asked why the sky is blue.

"I'm doing it for you, Wendy. All this, it's for you. I'm building a better world, you see? One where you don't have to struggle like you have, killing people for pay just to get by." It struck me hard. She was doing this all for me. She thought she was helping. "Come on. Help me. We could do this together, for old time's sake." She reached a hand out to me.

"No." I said.

"What?"

"No! Ma, you don't have ta do this!" My twang was coming back. "You're a good person, you just got dealt a bad card! Let us help you!" She looked hurt as she withdrew her hand.

"I see you still have the twang?" She said, smiling sadly.

"When ah need to, yeah."

"You really don't want this?" I shook my head, and she sighed. "Well, I suppose there's nothing for it. Captain? Thor?" The men perked at the mention of their names. "This woman is very dangerous, and she's trying to harm me. Could you restrain her, please?" All at once I saw them both coming for me, and I made a mad dash for the doors, sprinting through them and out into the halls. "Follow her, would you?" I heard ma's voice from behind me. Damn, I was calling her ma now… I ran until I came to a wall with a vent in it, which I quickly popped open and climbed inside. I waited, trying to get my heavy breathing under control, as Thor and Steve ran past my hiding spot. They stopped and looked around for me for a bit. My heart was beating so hard I was sure they'd hear it. But they eventually gave up and returned to the office, leaving me alone in the vents with my thoughts. God, this was all wrong… why couldn't I have just had a normal life? With a mother who wasn't a psychopath, a father who wasn't a bounty hunter. Everything I had done so far, every decision, had led up to this moment; what to do about my psychopathic, megalomaniacal mother. Tears started welling up at the corners of my eyes. I knew what I had to do. She needed to go down, that was the only way. But… she was my mother, god dammit, and even though I'd only just met her for the first time in twenty years, I still loved her.

"Ms. Trescott?" I jolted at the voice. Then I realized it was Jarvis, speaking in hushed tones so he couldn't be heard by the others.

"Jarvis? She didn't get you, too?"

"I don't believe her power extends to inorganic matter. Ms. Trescott, do you have any sort of plan?" I shook my head.

"All ah know is that she needs to be stopped. What about you?"

"Well, ma'am, do you still have the blueprints for the collar memorized?" My eyes widened.

"How…?"

"I see everything, ma'am. I saw them under your mattress."

"That's a little creepy."

"Terribly sorry, ma'am."

"Did you have a plan?"

"Well, ma'am, you could turn down the voltage on the collar and attack." I thought about it.

"No. Even with the collar down, ah couldn't take down all the Avengers at once. And that's what ah'm goin' to have to deal with once ah'm in there."

"You could attempt to break the others from her control, first?"

"Like that's gonna work. Ah've read her file, and ah'm guessing so've you. She's strong; the only thing that breaks her spell is her command."

"We are out of options, ma'am." I leaned my head against the lining of the vent. We really were screwed this time. Charlotte was right; she could do just about anything she wanted with S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers under her control. There was no stopping her.

"Wait a minute…" A thought came into my head. "Jarvis, do any of these vents lead out into the office?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Can you hack the intercom?"

"Pardon?"

"Can you hack the intercom for me? Please?"

"I'll do my best. May I ask what you are planning?"

"It'd be best not to." I heard a few odd electronic noises, and finally the crackle of the intercom.

"You can say whatever you wish, ma'am, they can hear you."

"Good. Ma? If you can hear me, this is your last warning; surrender. Surrender, and there'll be a happy endin' for everyone, ah promise. But if ah walk into that room and ah don't see a white flag, it's war." I signaled Jarvis to cut the intercom off. My eyes burned with tears as I crawled my way toward the office, with Jarvis's direction. Even Tammy had the decency to shut her trap for once. I found the vent that led out to the office, and peered out through it.

"The weapons are primed and ready, Director." That was Tony's voice.

"Good. And the ultimatums?"

"All have been delivered." Fury said.

"Very good. Whaddyou say, boys and girls? China first?"

"Sounds good to me." Steve said. He had returned with Thor in tow.

"Ah, I see you've returned without her?" Charlotte said, twitching. Huh… I guess it wasn't just the collar. "That's unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. You realize that?"

"Terribly sorry, ma'am." Steve said.

"She escaped us, Lady Charlotte. We had no choice but to return."

"This is all wrong." Charlotte leaned over one of the desks, her hair hanging down over her face. "It's all wrong, all of it. She was supposed to rule by my side… my princess, my Wendy. The only thing I ever did right…" My heart went out to her a little. The only thing she ever did right? Heh… She must have had a pretty shitty life if I was the highlight. I couldn't wait any longer. I fumbled around the collar until I found the hatch in the side. I opened it, took out my nose-ring, and used it to make a few… adjustments. Then I busted through the vent and into the room. Everyone turned toward me, and Steve and Thor made a beeline to restrain me.

"Wait!" Charlotte held up a hand to stop them, and they froze in their tracks. She turned toward me, smiling warmly. "Wendy, you've finally come around!" She said. "You won't regret it, darling. Not when we're sitting on our thrones together, the world at our feet." Now she was closer, I could get a better look. Behind the mask, behind all that beauty, she was empty. Her eyes were glassy, and her expression… it wasn't real. I don't know how to explain it, it just… it wasn't real at all. It would make me feel a little less guilty, then. All at once, I ran at her, my mother, and tackled her to the ground, shocking us both. I had turned up the voltage. Bursts of white hot pain shot throughout my entire body, as hundreds of thousands of volts coursed through us both, my muscles spasming wildly as my vision began to go black.

"Hey." Before me was a tall, skeletal figure in a dark cloak. It… she? Spoke with a feminine voice. Way to kick the stereotypes, Death.

"Ah'm ready." I said.

"Uh-uh, no dice. It isn't your time, kid; sorry." She passed me by and took the hand of my mother, who was standing beside me.

"I don't want to go." She said, sounding, somehow, distressed and peaceful at the same time.

"I know, hun. But everyone's got their time. Yours already came once, as I recall." Ma looked sheepish.

"It wasn't my fault." She said.

"Oh, tell me about it. Tricky bastards, necromancers. It's time to go now, alright? Say goodbye to your daughter." She walked toward me. I opened my arms. And we buried each other in a hug. A real, honest-to-goodness, mother-daughter hug.

"I'm sorry things weren't different." She said. I just held her, silently, until Death got impatient.

"Sorry girls, but I'm on a bit of a schedule." She said, tapping her foot. I let ma go, and watched as she took Death's hand, and slipped away into the darkness. "One thing." Death said as she began to disappear. "Say hello to Wade for me, would you, Wendy? Tell him no hard feelings."

"Am I going to hell?" I heard ma ask as they faded further into the distance.

"Not exactly. There's a nice lady called Hela I'm gonna take you to meet. We'll see from there." Everything started to fall away, and suddenly I was on the floor of the office, and everything hurt, and someone was leaning over me and crying. I lifted my head.

"Bruce?" He looked up at me, his eyes red and puffy with tears.

"Wendy?" He said, disbelieving.

"Hey," I murmured weakly. "Who died?" He threw his arms around my neck and held me tight, and I put my own arms around his back. Everyone else stood around me, shocked and disbelieving.

"Lady Wendy?" Thor said from above me. He and Steve were both looking guilty as hell. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I said, still caught in Bruce's embrace. "I feel like I was run over by a freight train, though."

"Terribly sorry about…" He trailed off.

"It's okay, goldilocks." I smiled. "It wasn't your fault." Bruce pulled away to look at me.

"You died." He said.

"I almost died." I corrected.

"No, you died, Wendy. I checked your pulse, you were dead for three minutes! Wendy, never do anything like that ever again!" He pulled me back into his arms. I looked over his shoulder at the dead body of my mother, lying on the ground. At least I knew she went peacefully. I couldn't stay lost in my thoughts forever, though. Everyone else started to crowd around, and soon I was in the middle of a record-sized group hug.

"I'm okay!" I said. "Everyone, I'm okay!" Honestly, I wasn't. I had just killed my mother within minutes of meeting her for the first time in decades. I had just died for all of three minutes. And I was feeling dangerously weak. But having everyone crowd around me like this wasn't helping the situation. I remembered something. "Oh, hey, Wade?" I said.

"Yeah?" He said from his hard-earned position with his arms around my right side.

"I've got a message from Death. She says hello. And no hard feelings." That's when everything went black; again.

A jolt of energy was sent through my body, and I sat up fast, breath fast and heart beating like mad, but feeling better than I ever had. I had just enough time to register that I was sitting in a hospital bed with IVs all over my arms before the lights began to dim, then go out.

"Wendy?!" I heard Bruce's panicked voice from the dark.

"Bruce? What's going on?"

"Hold on- ow!"

"You okay, hun?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." He felt his way around in the dark until he got to my bed, and the lights came back on.

"Jarvis, what was that?" I asked.

"A momentary blackout, ma'am. Are you feeling well?

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine."

"Oh, thank god." Bruce said. He threw his arms around me, and I felt a weird tingling and he drew back in shock, almost as if he'd been slapped.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, just…" He cautiously reached out a finger towards me, lightly brushing it against my arm. He snapped his arm back.

"Wendy!?" I heard Wade's voice from outside the room. He came rushing in, everyone else after him. Even Fury came to check up on me.

"Hey, guys! What… what happened?"

"You defeated your mother." Fury said, matter-of-factly. "You died for about three minutes. Then you woke up. Then you blacked out again. You're in the helicarrier's infirmary, recovering."

"What am I recovering for? I feel fine!" I sat up in the bed. "Great, actually. Can somebody get these IVs out?" That's when I noticed Bruce was still standing at the foot of the bed, looking like he'd seen a ghost. "Uh, Bruce, are you alright?"

"Tony?" He said, turning toward Tin Man. "Come over here a second." Tony obliged.

"Hey, Wendy, I'm glad you're alright. You gave us quite a scare with the whole," He feigned electrocution with a few theatrical noises. I gave him my best "I am not amused" look. He just smirked. Glad you're feeling better. Bruce, what the?" Bruce had taken his hand and moved it toward my own.

"Touch her. Go on." He said.

"Um… as much as I'd like to, Brucie, that seems a little-"

"Not like that, just her hand! I need to confirm something." Tony raised one eyebrow. Then touched my hand with his finger.

"Ow! What the hell?" He drew back like Bruce had. "You shocked me!"

"Um… sorry?"

"How many cats have you pet today?"

"Um, none." I chuckled nervously. "What's going on here?"

"Lady Wendy." Thor said. I looked up.

"Yeah? What is it?"

"I am overjoyed that you have fully recovered, but there is something you should know." I looked at him expectantly, and he continued. "Mjolnir is yearning for you."

"What?" I said dryly.

"Perhaps this electric quality of yours is not due to the petting of cats." What could they be talking about? I mean, who was I, Electro? I really didn't need all this, not now.

"Guys, this isn't the time for jokes. In case you didn't notice, I've had a rough time of it."

"Well, I suppose there's no other way." Loki said. I didn't even have time to respond before he pushed Wade straight into me. I was fine, but Wade? Not so much. He jolted and spasmed and showed basically every sign of electrocution in the book before he finally fell to the ground.

"Wade!" I panicked, jumping out from the bed. "Omigod, are you okay?" He looked up at me groggily, and said;

"Heh. My brain feels smooth." Everyone looked on in astonishment. Except for Fury, who calmly said;

"You might want to get that checked out."