"Do you have your eyes on the target?" Raphael's voice comes into my earpiece through the coms. I'm grateful that they didn't ask me to use my telepathy to hear them otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do my job with the ringing and headache of them being too far away.

Me and Archie managed to get through security because we are for one dressed like Soldiers, and two because Strucker made sure we had the documents needed as well. Considering we are American it would have been a lot harder to get into the building if we didn't look the part or had the IDs we needed to get inside. It has come in handy since we started doing other missions that are more dangerous as well. Strucker had to be sure we would have the proper equipment for certain missions to limit on using our powers. In this case especially we were able to get through security in a breeze and we didn't have to use Archie's freeze to get past them, which was a definite plus not to egg anyone on.

I press my finger to the earpiece, my back against a wall outside the door to the lab that Jackson Magnolia is in. Despite getting inside with no issue I don't want to be caught off guard by anyone. "Yes." I respond to Raphael, "He's at a table with a few other people. They seem to be mixing chemicals together."

"That must be it." he says back to me, "On your mark go in. No powers..."

"Unless Necessary." Archie says to him now, "We know, Raph."

I hear him sigh through the coms and I smile at Archie, "Ready?"

He nods and straightens up, even fixing his uniform that he absolutely looks adorable in. "Let's hope they cooperate."

I half laugh, "We both know that things aren't that easy."

He smirks, making me know he is so for using his magic outside of the compound. Then he takes a breath and walks to the door with me behind him and places his hand onto the handle. When he touches the door though he goes still for a second and his eyes close, his body is so relaxed and seems to be concentrating. I know what that means, he had a premonition.

"What happened?"

He takes a soft breath, shaking his head in confusion. "Fire."

Now I stare at him with confusion, "My fire?"

He shakes his head again to indicate that it wasn't, "Regular fire." I can tell that he's not sure what to make of it though, seeming out of it for a second. However we can't think about it now, which is the face he gives me before swinging open the door.

I'm of course concerned about him and the vision he saw, but we are unfortunately in the middle of something so I follow behind him. "Mr. Magnolia?" I say gently, looking over to where he's standing and watch as he and the few people with him turn their heads to my voice.

His face seems to drop slightly, knowing we are soldiers. "Yes?"

I press my finger to the stitched badge on my own uniform, Archie doing the same. "Sokovian military."

Now his eyes narrow a bit, watching us carefully. "American's more like it."

I press my lips together because we should have seen that coming, "We need you to hand them over." I point to the stuff on the table.

"You can't take it." He says in a paranoid tone, grabbing the case of vials in front of him. "We've worked too hard to figure it out."

"Sir." Archie says now, putting his hand up so he knows we aren't here to start a fight. "An energy drink that powerful isn't safe."

"It's helping people."

"It's killing them." he says softly, walking a little closer with caution.

Jackson Magnolia shakes his head rapidly as he hands the vials to the people behind him. "It's my life's work."

"We understand that, but without the proper testing of live subjects it's not doing much for anyone." I add, walking closer as well and then stop so he doesn't get spooked.

He stares at us both and his eyes get a little dark. "It's no different than the super soldier serum made by the US Military."

My eyebrows raise slightly, "Well, that was out of our control considering we weren't born yet."

"Plus.." Archie continues, "The only known super soldier alive is Captain American and he's on the side of justice."

The man in front of us licks his lips gently, "They have made more over the years." He watches up both carefully, "Centipede and the Winter Soldier seem to be people you're unaware of."

I look at Archie in confusion, but am very aware that this man is trying to distract us so we don't take his concept of a high paced energy drink. "Those are rumors."

"A mystery that is very real."

I take a breath, then I place my finger to my coms. "Raph, there are four people here. Vials are visible."

"Roger that. Search the rest of the lab and make sure there aren't any left over."

"Copy that." I set my hand away from my ear and stare at him again, "Mr. Magnolia. We have orders to check the premises. You can either help or need to leave."

"Please hand over the vials you have in your hands to us." Archie adds, now standing a few feet in front of me at the next table from where they are and sets his finger to the top of it. "Then you are permitted to let us do our jobs."

All the scientists look at each other as if trying to decide what to do, which obviously isn't very odd. At least not until I realize that one of them has something in their hand and she raises it up before tossing what looks like a ball of glass our way. That's when it breaks onto the floor, exploding directly in the middle of us and them.

The heat seeps towards my body as I go flying and hit the wall behind me before falling hard onto the floor feet first and then topple forward onto my stomach. I gasp hard from the impact and cough from the smoke pouring into my lungs as I see dots in front of my eyes and I lift my head up to look around. My eyes have to adjust a bit from seeing double as I set my hand up to my eyes from a blaze of orange bright in my face and I see it expanding, getting more drastic the longer I stare at it.

"F-Fire." I say in between breaths, now understanding what his premonition meant.

"Oh God, we have to go." Archie says not too far from me and I look over to see that he's on his hands and knees with soft breaths, seeming just as winded as I am. Then he puts his hand out and freezes the flames in front of us.

I know that he does this because the lab will be extra explosive once it hits any of the chemicals in this room so I get painfully to my feet and lean against the wall a bit. There's a ringing in my ears from being dazed, but there's also Raphael's voice echoing.

"Hello?!" he screams, making me wince from how loud he is.

"We're here…" I say with a cough.

"What the hell happened?"

"They tossed a man-made bomb at us." Archie says now as he grasps my shoulder to make sure I'm okay.

"They escaped through the back stairs." I add with a soft pant and smile up at him when he doesn't let go.

"On it!" Raphael says before the line goes dead.

I tap his arm gently so he knows I'm okay and straighten myself off of the wall. I then look at the flames, knowing that I need to do something else besides running after them, so I take a deep breath as I close my eyes and hold out my hands. Almost immediately I feel myself absorbing the heat into my body as I connect with my fire ability, all of my energy focused until the flames are gone.

"That'll keep the building from any more damage." I say with a soft pant and then I take a deep breath as it weakens me a bit. That's the first time I've done that and I slightly slump into Archie now.

He catches me, "W-Whoa."

I half laugh and grip onto him for a second longer, "We...we gotta go."

"But…"

"Arch, we gotta go." I say now with a little more strength in my voice because I don't need him lecturing me or being distracted on how I managed to do that, because I have no idea. I just knew I needed to do something and hoped it worked.

Once he seems to understand I straighten up from his body and point over to the back door before bolting towards it.

Fortunately, Raphael and his team are able to get the remaining vials while me and Archie manage to get down the flight of stairs just in time to help them capture the escaped scientists. Despite feeling super weak with a limp in my left leg that hurts with every step I take I don't back down. As soon as I hit the last step to the back stairway and out the backdoor that led to the street I see all four of them being stopped point blank with weapons by our allies with their hands raised up in the air. I know it's over, but I'm extremely pissed off at this point so I do not even hesitate to tackle Jackson Magnolia to the ground before my fist goes immediately to his nose. Two shots to the face and he stops struggling beneath me from trying to get me off.

I don't realize however that my eyes are flaming blue until one of the soldiers sets their hand onto my shoulder and I shift my eyes to them instead, seeing the blue surrounding my vision and it settles right away. If they hadn't done this I would have probably killed him.

The woman who has her hand on me smiles softly before pulling her hand away, as if slightly afraid of me and then tells both of us that we did a good job. She then points to the car and says for us to get to it so we could start heading back. That's when I feel a pair of hands grab me from under my armpits and lifts me off of the man, pulling me away. It's Archie of course, making sure I don't do something stupid.

"You okay?" He asks gently, letting me go now as the others take care of Jackson Magnolia.

I stare over at the man, seeing his nose dripping with blood. He looks young for a scientist, can't be no older than 30 and somehow something like this consumed him enough to attack people who are supposed to be part of the military. Then I look back at Archie when he sets his fingers to my chin to have me look at him and asks again. "Yeah, Arch, I'm fine."

"You were limping."

I wave his worries off, "Probably sprained something. I'm okay, honest."

He gives me a soft smile, searching my face a bit. "You're bleeding from your eyebrow and out of your nose."

"Explosions." I shrug, which makes him laugh. "You don't look so good yourself." I indicate the cuts on his face and the fact that his ear is seeping out some blood.

He half smiles, copying me as he waves me off. "I was closer to the blast."

I smile a bit from his mocking of how I reacted to his concerns earlier and then say, "You're lucky you're alive."

He nods a bit, "So are you."

I dramatically use my hands to point up and down my body, "I'm a pyro, Arch. I'm fireproof."

Now he smiles and laughs, a genuine one rather than acting brave. "Yes, I know. I literally saw you absorb the entire explosion of flames into your body."

I press my lips together, "I have no idea how I did it."

He rubs my head a bit, "We're accomplishing what we joined for. Expanding our magic. You are a badass."

I roll my eyes but I can't help but laugh before pointing at the huge gash that's spilling out blood where the sleeve of his uniform used to be. "Ambulance, now."

He stares down where I'm pointing before making a disgusted face, "Well that looks bad."

I half laugh and then pull him over to one of the vehicles waiting to give medical attention, both of us getting checked out.

...

We ended up going to the hospital as soon as we got to the ambulance because they noticed that we both weren't in the best of shape. The soldiers we were with knew that it would take more than a few doctors here in the compound to patch us up so they agreed that we should go. Archie's arm is wrapped up in bandages and has a sling so he doesn't move his arm too much from his injury. The blast also messed up his eardrum a bit, hence why his ear was leaking blood. He's still able to hear though so that's great news. Meanwhile, I got a few stitches on my eyebrow and fractured a bone in my calf.

So it's a few hours later, almost midnight and we're just walking back into the headquarters. I'm so tired that I can't wait to hit my bed...hard.

"You absorbed fire?!" Pietro says almost as soon as we get into the hallway where our rooms are, his arms crossed over his chest with a smile on his face. It seems they had been waiting for us all this time.

I feel like I don't even have time to breathe or explain what happened before Wanda is throwing herself into my body for a hug, making me groan in pain because I'm sore and have to keep myself steady from the crutches I had to get from breaking my leg. "W-Wanda…" I say through gritted teeth.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." she says frantically, but doesn't let go. "They told us what happened. You guys could have died."

"Well as you know…" Archie starts to say before I can reassure her that we're okay, "She's fireproof. She told that explosion to fuck itself."

Pietro loses himself to laughter and I hear Wanda also start to laugh as she finally pulls away, but I snort so hard that my entire body rockets into pain and I wince.

"Oh my poor baby." Wanda says in a whisper and holds my face in her hands with a soft pout and tears in her eyes, "We should have been there."

I melt from her calling me her baby and melt even more from her touch, but I keep a smile so that I'm not giving away how much I want to kiss her. "It's nothing we couldn't handle." I grab one of her hands in mine and squeeze it gently before we let go of each other and she pulls her other hand away from my face since we're out in the open.

Pietro snorts now with a face as if saying I'm full of it and points at both me and Archie, "Have you seen what you guys look like?"

"Yes, Maximoff, we're aware." I say sarcastically to him with a smirk.

"That we need to shower." Archie adds, making the sarcastic joke more noticeable.

I can't help but laugh at the shower comment, taking a breath as I nod. "And sleep. Lots of sleep."

The twins smile at both of us, then their eyes shift over our heads and footsteps come seconds after. So we both turn ourselves around to see who's walking our way and see that it's Strucker. Despite it being late he's still dressed in his commander uniform and looks to be ready for business. I stare at Archie quickly, kind of scared by the look on his face. Is something wrong? Are we about to get yelled at?

"Madison. Archie." he says in his deep accent, stern even.

"Sir." We both say with nods.

He watches us for a few long seconds before taking a breath and his body slacks a little bit, "You two gave us all a scare."

Now I take a breath, because I realize that he's acting this way from being worried. "Sorry, sir." Archie says, "They resisted."

"They did more than that. They tried to blow you up." his fists are clenched a bit, as if angry. "It was very uncalled for."

We both nod in agreement, "Magnolia was very passionate about this drink, sir. It seemed almost...manic."

Strucker looks at me now, "You think he's unstable?"

I nod slowly, "There was something going on in his head...in all of their heads for him and them to react the way they did."

Now he nods slowly, as if thinking. But then it fades and instead he puts a smile and looks at both of us. "Dr. Kovac wants to see you both tomorrow morning in case you need pain medicine."

We both nod, "Yes, sir."

He nods back at us, says goodnight and is on his way.