I don't own The Avengers. Marvel Does. I only own my OCs.
The day following the hearing, Tony Stark couldn't help but groan in frustration as he heard of the scandal Nelson had been instigating. The philanthropist sent him a message telling him of the termination of his job, so Nelson would have to find some other job, now that Claudia was also preparing to file a divorce.
As a couple weeks passed by, Carol continued with her drawing and making prints in Photoshop, hoping to raise enough money so she could live on her own. However, Ultron would often stop by to ensure she was taking care of herself and even remind her to take a break once in a while. Even if most of the Avengers took up the role of maintaining the peace, that didn't stop Ultron from continuing his objective.
Once September began one day, Carol read through her email on her smart phone when she noticed a message from Wanda:
{Hello, Carol. Ultron told us about the self-sustaining home he completed. Is there something you want to do before you move out?}
Carol couldn't help but smile, remembering the email Ultron sent her about the self-sustaining home in question. She even remembered blushing when he mentioned that he offered to let her give a try in living in it, even if it meant she would have to move further inland of the New York state. Smiling, she sent Wanda a response:
{Maybe I can spend the night out with you and Nat?}
While Carol waited for a response, she picked up the laser pointer from her desk, turned it on and aimed it at the floor. Snoofles, who lay on the bed, stared at the small red dot in a moment of silence before it leapt off the bed and pounced at it.
{Sounds like a plan. I'll grab Nat and swing by whenever you're ready,} Wanda replied, {anywhere in particular you feel like going tonight?}
Carol smiled before she sent another text:
{Maybe we can go to a trivia game or something?}
Carol still kept using the laser pointer to keep Snoofles occupied. After a moment, she took a break to change into an aquamarine dress and a green flower pendant. After that, she slipped on a new pair of boots she bought around August. Now she would have to wait for Wanda to fill in on what their destination should be. Carol set down the laser pointer while Snoofles scampered out of the room. She picked up her handbag before she headed out into the living room.
A while later, she heard someone knock on the front door.
"Ready if you are!" Wanda called from the other side, "come on, Nat has something planned!"
Carol eagerly smiled and skipped towards the door before she opened it.
"Hey, Wanda!" Carol chirped, "where's Nat? Is she meeting with us somewhere?"
"She's meeting us down out front," Wanda answered, wearing a variation of her preferred attire with a dark blue dress under a red cropped jacket and combined with dark tights and boots, "come on."
Out on the street, Natasha pulled up in a car and climbed out. For this night she had opted for what passed as casual for her while balancing the necessary amount of clothing to conceal a weapon or allow her full mobility if anything happened.
"Girls," she swung the door shut behind her and the car pulled away of its own accord, likely compliments of some auto-drive system Tony or Ultron had put together, "you both ready?"
Carol nodded.
"Yeah!" Carol chirped, "Ultron may be busy tonight, so I can't wait to see where we're going."
"Well you did say trivia, so I pulled a string or two and got us in at a place that Steve recommended," Nat responded as they began to walk side by side, "don't worry, I scoped it out a few weeks back. You'll like it."
Carol and Wanda followed Natasha as they sauntered down the sidewalk. The late sunset glistened over the horizon, reflecting on the glass windows of each building. Along the way, Carol fidgeted in excitement like a little kid eager to see Santa Claus at the mall while Christmas shopping.
"You know, if it'd make the surprise more exciting we could grab a blindfold for you," Natasha teased before looking ahead, "never mind, too late."
She swept one arm out towards their destination.
"Surprise."
Before them stood a typical bar, but when they stepped inside, groups of people seated themselves in each table while each group laid out a sheet of paper, a couple pencils and pieces of paper the size of post-it notes. While the trivia competitors read through their menus while waiting for the game, Natasha led Wanda and Carol to the register. While Natasha signed them up as a team, Wanda worked to suppress her own telepathic abilities as best as she could. It would hardly be sporty if she ended up reading someone's mind for the answer to every question.
Clearly Natasha had kept that in mind, as she whispered to the young Enhanced after finishing the sign-in process.
"No mind powers," she reminded.
"I know, yeah," Wanda nodded quickly.
Carol turned down the volume of her smart phone and stashed it into her handbag. The three women sauntered over to a table and sat down after Wanda grabbed a couple pencils, a sheet of the trivia and some pieces of small paper. While they waited for the trivia game to start, Carol read through the menu, but she avoided the cocktail list, considering her age.
When Wanda began to glance over the cocktail menu she was quickly dissuaded by Natasha.
"None for you," Natasha scowled.
"Why? I'm old enough," Wanda protested.
"Your brother told me what happens if you get even slightly drunk and I don't want to pay to fix a few walls," Natasha replied, "so again: none for you."
The Scarlet Witch let out a huff.
"Kill joy," she muttered under her breath.
In the meantime, Carol reminded herself to request a glass of ice water in case the waiter stopped by, so she flipped over to the main entree list. A variety of dishes listed most of its ingredients, but she double-checked the menu to ensure her choice didn't have any brussels sprouts. She paused for a moment and spotted what appeared to be a young veteran but had a black t-shirt with a skull symbol on it out of the corner of her eye. For some reason, he kept an eye on both Natasha and Wanda yet he didn't pay much attention to Carol. Maybe a stalker?
Natasha cleared her throat.
"Carol?"
While Carol had been observing the man with the skull emblazoned on his shirt the waiter had arrived and asked to take their orders. The man watching them shifted his vision towards her and quickly turned his attention to his own drink. Still, Carol locked eyes onto the Russian assassin.
"I-It's nothing," Carol blurted.
Lying to Natasha was as futile as trying to clap with one hand, but luckily she wasn't one to openly confront a friend when they were clearly unsettled by something. She let the matter rest as the group made their orders, but even as she seemed to be focused on the upcoming trivia game she was discreetly scoping out the room.
Glancing around by moving her eyes was an obvious tell, so she made sure to never let her gaze waver whenever she turned her head. When she rotated from talking to Carol to speaking with Wanda, she memorized every detail to pass her field of vision. When the waiter arrived with their drinks she finally found a reason to glance in the direction that Carol had been looking without looking like she was looking for something.
The skull shirt caught her eye, followed by the face of the person wearing it as they glanced away quickly…
Sticking to her training, she accepted her glass with a smile and didn't betray that she recognized the person Carol had been concerned with.
Trivia came first. She could deal with him later…discreetly.
Once the trivia began, the participants listened to the host announce the rules of the game before he started asking questions related to various subjects such as science, music, literature, sports, history, movies and television to name a few. The participants were left to figure out each answer to write down while a song played.
"I'm serious, Wanda," Nat whispered after a few questions, keeping her eyes locked on their answer sheet, "no mind reading."
"I told you I'm not doing that!" Wanda hissed, keeping her voice down, "besides, these are easy."
Carol ignored the argument as she wrote down some answers over time. Once the waiter brought over their food, the ladies started eating between listening in on the next question and coming up with the answers.
"See?" Wanda looked smugly at Natasha as they answered their tenth question, "didn't need it."
"Then why are your eyes glowing?" Nat asked, one side of her mouth curling upwards in amusement.
Wanda quickly cast her gaze down.
"Illusion to make us look different. Do you want the whole place to recognize us? We're a little famous and I'm pretty sure they might also think I'm cheating."
Natasha found herself glancing discreetly towards the man from before.
"Is it possible for someone to see through it?"
"Well, yeah," Wanda raised one shoulder in a casual shrug, "but they'd have to be intensely focused and alert. It's like with the Jedi Mind Trick from those Star Wars movies: weak-minded means easily manipulated."
Nat wondered if the man was seeing something else when he looked their way or if he was the only person in the restaurant besides them who wasn't 'weak-minded' as Wanda had put it.
A long while later and after Natasha, Wanda and Carol finished their meal, the trivia game ended and the host announced the winning team who earned first place, rewarding them with a valuable prize while Natasha's team won a gift card after earning third place. It may have been an enjoyable night, but the ladies still had a beef with the person still watching them.
"Hey, Nat?" Carol asked, "should we go ask him something or wait for him to leave?"
"Let's do both," Natasha decided, either unaware of or apathetic to how annoyingly cryptic her response was, "Wanda, read my mind."
After several moments the Scarlet Witch smiled.
"I see where you're going," she looked at Carol, "she has a plan."
Using her abilities, Wanda relayed Natasha's plan to Carol.
Upon receiving the signal, Wanda would use her powers to knock out the lights (really by just hexing an employee to throw a breaker switch in the back rooms). In the confusion they would slip out before the lights came back on, thus reducing the chance that the other patrons would try to leave en mass. If the man really was watching them then he would try to leave the building either by following them out the front, or would be smart enough to sneak out another way due to realizing that they were onto him.
Either way, that would be when they would have a 'pleasant chat' with him to find out why he had been eyeing them up the whole time. Once they were outside, they waited at the corner of the building and noticed the man slipping out of the door leading into the alleyway minutes later.
"Ok, let's get him!" Carol grinned.
The man immediately looked around for them only to be seized by Wanda's power. A red aura coated his body as he was ripped off his feet and flung towards where the three women lay in wait…
Unfortunately, their stalker turned out to be more resourceful than anticipated.
Natasha had been lining up to strike the man in mid flight only for him to drop something from a clenched hand which exploded, creating a blinding flash combined with and ear ringing clap. This disoriented Wanda, who cried out and covered her eyes as she stumbled back. Natasha on the other hand had spotted the flash-bang grenade at the last second and managed to close her eyes and cover her ears against it, protecting her from the worst of the debilitating weapon.
However, the man was now released from Wanda's grasp. In mid-flight, he flipped into an upright position and landed on his feet, one hand going to the back of his waistline where he pulled a concealed pistol and began to bring it around towards the trio. Natasha thought fast and grabbed his wrist, yanking the pistol out of his hand before she slammed her foot into his gut, knocking the air out of him for a brief moment while she and Carol slammed him into the wall, the teenage girl rummaging for any other weapons he might be hiding. Once she emptied his pockets, Carol turned to Wanda.
"Ok," Carol nodded.
The man coughed.
"Not a bad grip, girlie," he said in a low, rough voice.
Natasha held the confiscated pistol to the back of the man's head.
"Not a bad reunion, considering the last time someone saw you there was a building collapsing on your face."
Unintimidated by the weapon, the man chuckled.
"Yeah…you so called heroes never seem to learn a lesson," he said before suddenly twisting free of Carol's grip and knocking Natasha's aim off with an elbow to her wrist which caused her to lose her grip on the pistol.
"If there's no body," he growled, revealing his face to the trio, "they ain't dead."
Carol couldn't help but cringe at the burn on his face.
"Oh, ouch," she mocked, "you must've had a bad facelift."
The man glared at Carol.
"You have no authority to mock me when you lied to the bounty hunters about the Winter Soldier's location," he snarled.
"The Winter Soldier isn't here, you are," Wanda's face was fixed in a glare at the scarred man, "so I would be worrying about yourself right now."
"What's your play, Rumlow?" Natasha tilted her head to the side a bit, "classic revenge? Couldn't reach Cap or Falcon so you decided to ruin our trivia night?"
"Not this time," Rumlow demanded, glaring and pointing at Carol, "I want you to tell me exactly where the Winter Soldier is, and you will not lie to me this time! The bounty hunters searched all over Mexico and there was no sign of him!"
Carol shuddered while she scratched her head. She had a sneaky suspicion that telling the truth would be a terrible idea, remembering the run-in she had with Charlie and Hilda. For all Carol knew, Bucky's safety was in her hands.
"I guess," Carol lied, remaining as cheerful as she could, "he must've gone to Antarctica to go play with the penguins!"
"What do you think I am, some kind of—"
Rumlow took one step toward Carol before Natasha fired off a single round which zipped past his head and flattened against the wall behind him, causing the former HYDRA Agent to pause.
"Idiot?" Natasha finished for him, "if you seriously think that you're in any position to be demanding information, the answer is a resounding 'yes'."
Rumlow glared at the ladies and clenched his fists.
"Don't think you can keep the Winter Soldier away forever, lady," Rumlow warned Carol, "you could as well be making the worst mistake in your life."
With that, Rumlow stormed off. Waiting until after he had stepped out of view, Natasha lowered the pistol to her side.
"Well, of all the way that something could've ruined the night for us, that would be in the top ten somewhere."
"Why would he be so interested in the Soldat?" Wanda asked, briefly relapsing out of English.
"He worked for Hydra, Hydra saw the Soldier as their greatest investment…not hard to connect the dots," Natasha pointed out.
"Well, if we're lucky, then Hydra would most likely never find him," Carol grinned, placing her hand on her hips and beaming with confidence.
Wanda turned her head towards Carol and placed her hand on her shoulder for a brief moment.
"We'll…see," Wanda replied.
With the situation taken care of, Carol, Wanda and Natasha took a walk in Central Park, strolling past the street lights and enjoying the scenery.
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