Epilogue
"Coming right up, three fancy grilled cheese Rhodes specials, and an empty plate for Vision so he doesn't feel left out."
"Much obliged," Vision said.
"What exactly makes it fancy?" Sam asked. He tapped a long spoon on the edge of the pitcher before pouring three glasses of lemonade.
"I can't tell you the secret," Rhodes said.
"It's not 'secret' grilled cheese – it's fancy grilled cheese, and I demand to know what makes it fancy."
"Sam is right," Wanda said. "If you don't want to tell people, you're going to have to put 'secret' in the title."
"Fine," Rhodes said, getting very serious. "It's mayonnaise."
"Mayonnaise?"
"Instead of using butter, you spread a real thin layer of mayonnaise over the bread. It just grills better that way."
"This is pretty good," Wanda admitted through a viscous bite.
"Isn't mayonnaise on sandwiches a fairly common occurrence?" Vision asked.
"Not on grilled cheese," Sam said, distributing the lemonades. "Anyway, Wanda, can you elaborate on this witch you fought? Like, was she a Doctor Strang-type witch?"
Wanda shook her head fervently as she swallowed her lemonade. "No, but we did just see him recently. And you – fought an army of superhumans?"
"Yeah, me and Bucky and our old pal, Zemo."
"Not sure if I'd call Zemo a 'pal,'" Rhodes said.
"You're not still salty about that whole civil war thing, are you?" Sam asked.
"I think calling it a civil war is a little dramatic, isn't it? We aren't a country that broke into factions, we're just a bunch of super-people who had a disagreement."
"Uh-huh," Sam said. "And by the way, super-person, what have you been up to recently?"
"Oh, I've been busy," Rhodes said. "I've been very busy. Do you know how hard it is to keep bad guys from getting Tony's tech? It could be a full time job on top of my full time job."
"Can't be as much work as being the new Captain America –"
"Oh yeah?" Rhodes said. "And what exactly do you do?"
"What do I do?"
Over the rising chorus of bickering and the smell of fresh lemons, Vision smiled at Wanda. Across the table, Wanda smiled back. Outside the mountain wind whipped through the canyons, and the world rebuilt itself, and they knew it would go on like that, at least until it didn't. And come what may, they would persist.
