Chapter 116:
[Spartan POV]
[Train Yard, New York City]
By the time I reach the train yard, Daredevil, Karai, Wanda, and Cap are already on-site, scattered through the overgrown lot like seasoned hunters closing in on something primal and dangerous. The 105th Street Yard isn't much to look at—just another forgotten graveyard of rusting boxcars and crumbling concrete platforms swallowed by weeds and urban decay—but tonight, it hums with tension so thick you could cut it with a blade. My boots crunch against gravel as I move past a chain-link fence torn open by time or something less patient, the metal curling inward like it's been chewed through. My visor adjusts automatically to the gloom, bathing the yard in a faint blue hue as EPYON maps the surrounding structures. The whole place feels wrong—quiet in that off-kilter way that makes your skin crawl and your instincts start whispering. Cap stands near one of the old rail sheds, arms crossed, eyes locked on a bloodstain soaked into the gravel near the tracks. The way his jaw sets tells me everything. He already knows this isn't going to be a clean op. Wanda's not far, moving with that silent, precise grace she's always had, her fingers brushing lightly through the air as faint threads of scarlet magic coil at her wrists. She's reading the space, trying to feel whatever residue Kasady or Muse may have left behind, and I can tell from the lines etched around her eyes that she's picking up something. Something bad. Karai perches higher up, crouched along the edge of a rusted freight car like a panther in the dark, her eyes glowing faintly from the heads-up lenses wired into her visor. She gives me a nod—sharp, brief—then returns to scanning the yard through her rifle scope. Daredevil's already in motion, gliding between shadows like a phantom, his head tilted ever so slightly as he listens to the quiet nothing that most of us would miss. A heartbeat too slow. A breath held too long. He hears it all.
I move in beside Steve and crouch near the bloodstain. It's fresh. Too fresh. EPYON flashes a warning in the corner of my HUD—elevated iron levels, mixed DNA markers, and arterial spray patterns that suggest rage, not precision. Kasady. Has to be. No one else paints with blood the way that bastard does. "We just missed him," I murmur, scanning the footprints around the scene—erratic, uneven, some dragging, some sprinting, "You feel that?" I glance at Steve. He doesn't answer immediately, but I see the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers twitch at his side, close to his shield. Yeah. He feels it, too. We're not alone here. Wanda's voice reaches me softly, not in words, but in that unspoken way we've grown used to—the way her presence threads through my thoughts like a pulse. He's watching. That's all she gives me, and that's all I need. I rise to my feet and unsling the stun pistol from my holster, the metal cool and solid in my palm. "Karai, anything on thermals?" I ask, keeping my voice low but steady. "Nothing human," she replies, "But there's heat bouncing between the cars. Fast. Erratic." I glance at Steve. He's already moving, gesturing for us to spread out. Daredevil fades into the dark, Wanda flares brighter, and Karai drops from her perch with feline silence, flanking me. We advance through the yard, splitting into pairs.
The deeper we move into the yard, the more the shadows feel alive. Not just watching. Breathing. Waiting. The steel carcasses of forgotten trains rise around us like rusted tombstones, hulking shapes that catch the ambient light and twist it into something malevolent. Wanda's at my side, a steady presence, her scarlet magic glowing soft and ready around her hands. Karai keeps just a few steps behind, rifle raised, her breathing controlled and silent. I sweep the area ahead with my visor, EPYON, tracing faint movement patterns in yellow across the HUD, but the shapes are too fast, too scattered. No distinct path. Just chaos skipping across the grid like a rock over still water. Exactly Kasady's style. "Karai, right," I murmur. She peels off without hesitation, ghosting toward a row of shattered storage units flanking the northern end of the lot. I cut left with Wanda, skirting a collapsed watchtower and slipping between the rusted husks of boxcars. Gravel crunches underfoot, and I freeze. Wanda tenses beside me, her head snapping toward the darkness ahead. A whisper—not a voice, not words—just sound. The kind that gets under your skin. We move quickly, clearing the corner of a car, and I catch the faint shimmer of blood sprayed across the siding—fresh, arcing like a half-moon. Someone ran. Someone didn't make it. EPYON confirms as much with a pulse of red across the floor where a body fell and was dragged—fast, hard, like something wild grabbed it mid-sprint.
A shout crackles over the comlink—Daredevil. "Northwest corridor. Contact." The line cuts. No panic in his tone, just clipped urgency, but I'm already moving, "Wanda—" "Go," she says, her voice a sharp tether that grounds me even as I break into a sprint. She'll catch up. I know she will. She always does. I vault a pile of scrap, pistol raised, and land in a full run. Steve's already closing in from another angle, shield drawn, eyes narrowed with surgical focus. I sweep my pistol through the gloom, HUD lines dancing in sync with my breathing. Then I see him. Kasady crouched at the end of the corridor like some twisted creature out of a nightmare. Shirtless, arms streaked in blood—some of it his, most of it not. His chest rises and falls in erratic bursts, like a man halfway between laughter and a seizure. His mouth twists into a grin as he spots me. "Tag, you're it," he hisses. Then he moves—fast, uncoiling from his crouch and darting sideways into the maze of steel.
[Underground Service Chamber.] "Fan out!" I shout into the comlink, my boots hammering the ground behind him, "Target is mobile! Repeat, we have Kasady!" He doesn't run in a straight line—he never does. He jerks left, doubles back, climbs over an overturned freight cart, and drops into the service tunnel like a spider retreating into its web. I follow without hesitation, sliding down the incline and landing hard, pistol ready. The air down here is worse—thicker, heavier, filled with rot and the stink of rusted iron. My HUD flickers with interference. EPYON groans in my ear, "Sensors disrupted. Environmental interference is increasing." I grit my teeth. Of course, it is. Footsteps behind me—Karai. She's fast. She doesn't speak, just nods, and we press forward together, clearing the tunnel one bend at a time. Then we hear it. Screaming. High, sharp, and echoing through the dark like a blade dragged over glass. It's not pain. It's laughter. Kasady again. Playing with us. Wanda's voice threads through my mind, 'He's close. Too close.' I round a final corner and stop cold. The tunnel opens into an old service chamber, walls splashed in crimson, symbols etched into the stone in something that reeks of copper and madness. And at the center, standing in a pool of blood like a priest at an altar, is Kasady. "Welcome," he purrs, arms outstretched, "To the part where you die." Karai raises her rifle. And the world explodes into motion.
"It's time to reveal my true self! Carnage!" Kasady roars, his voice spiking like a broken signal caught in feedback, reverberating off the blood-slick walls with manic glee. Then it happens. His entire body is suddenly engulfed in a living tide of crimson—a writhing, sinewy, blood-colored substance that pours from beneath his skin like it had been hiding just under the surface, waiting for a trigger. At first, it looks like he's bleeding out of every pore, but then the impossible happens. The blood doesn't fall. It rises. Twists. Coils. It pulls itself together like it has a mind of its own. The substance clings to him, thickening by the second, latching to muscle, bone, and sinew until he's no longer just Kasady—he's something else entirely. The transformation is grotesque and lightning-fast, each second a fevered convulsion of mutation as the red mass molds itself into a jagged armor of death. Jagged tendrils unfurl from his back like skeletal wings, razor-sharp and twitching, each one dripping with a viscous sheen that hisses as it hits the ground. My breath catches, not from fear, but from pure disbelief. I've fought gods. I've fought monsters. But I've never seen anything like this. Whatever this is, it's not tech, and it's not magic. Not even Wanda flinches, though I feel the tension pulse off her in waves as she appears at my flank, eyes wide but focused. Karai takes a single step back, instinctively lowering her rifle's aim to steady the shot, but even she hesitates. This thing—this Carnage—isn't moving like a man.
Kasady's mouth tears open in a jagged grin, fangs jutting out like broken glass from his gums. His voice is no longer entirely his—it's layered, double-toned, shrieking with something unnatural, "This is what I was always meant to be. Not a man… a purge. A beautiful, endless slaughter." "Open fire!" I bark, instinct overriding awe, and Karai doesn't need to be told twice. Her rifle cracks with three sharp bursts. I follow with two stun shots from my pistol, but it's like trying to take down a tank with a rubber band. The bullets strike him—no, it—square in the chest, but the red armor ripples and absorbs the impact like water catching rain. My stun shots don't even register. They sizzle against the bio-mass and vanish, eaten by the suit like it's hungry. "Not working!" Karai shouts, pivoting and unloading a full magazine in controlled bursts. Carnage shrieks. Not in pain—excitement. It lunges.
The movement is terrifying in its fluidity—Kasady doesn't charge like a man; he flows. His body stretches mid-air, limbs elongating, claws forming mid-swing as he arcs through the space between us in a blink. I shove Karai back just in time and bring my arm up to shield myself, but it's like being hit by a wrecking ball. I fly backward, slamming into the tunnel wall hard enough to dent concrete, and the wind leaves my lungs like a grenade went off inside me. My suit absorbs most of it, but the pain still bursts down my ribs like hot glass. Wanda is already reacting—scarlet energy explodes outward in a radial burst, catching Carnage mid-step. The thing jerks back, hiss-screaming as its chest lights up with red embers, but instead of being flung away, it plants a foot—a talon—into the ground and skitters sideways, absorbing the magic blast with sickening elasticity. A second tendril lashes out, catching Wanda across the shoulder. It doesn't cut—it rips. Her body spins from the blow, tumbling, and I see blood spray against the chamber wall. "Wanda!" I roar, vaulting back to my feet and launching a shock grenade dead-center into Carnage's chest.
The detonation lights up the chamber. Sparks rain down. Smoke floods the air. Carnage howls again—but not in retreat. Through the smoke, I see him dragging himself across the wall like a spider, claws gouging through cement, moving inverted and sideways at once. Karai throws a flashbang without hesitation. The burst disorients him for a second—just enough. I close the gap, stun blade drawn, and go for the legs. My blade slices into the material coating his thigh, but it feels like hacking into rubber steel. I drive it deeper and twist—Carnage screeches and whips around, a blade arm forming from his right limb mid-swing. It cleaves through my shoulder plating, and I feel the force of it drive me to one knee. If I hadn't shifted at the last second, I'd be in two pieces. Wanda's back on her feet, blood running down her cheek, magic coalescing into a storm in her palms. She throws a blast that lifts Carnage off the wall and slams him into the ceiling, where he sticks for half a second before dropping like a meteor. Steve crashes in from the far tunnel a moment later, shield already in motion. He hurls it with everything he has. The vibranium disc slams into Carnage's midsection—and ricochets off. Steve catches it on the return, eyes narrowing, "That ain't armor," he mutters, "That's alive."
"No intel on this thing," I say between clenched teeth, rising, "Not a symbiote. Not an alien. Bio-organic. And it loves pain." "Good," Steve growls, shifting his stance, "Because I've got plenty to give." Carnage comes down hard, landing on all fours like a beast. Then he splits—tendrils shooting out like spears in every direction. One clips Karai's leg and wraps, yanking her violently across the floor. I fire a grapple line, hook her mid-flight, and pull her back as Wanda shields us both. The tendril severs with a snap and slithers away, still twitching. The fight devolves into chaos. Karai rolls beside me, pistol swapped for blade, and stabs into an incoming tendril. Steve draws Carnage's attention with sweeping shield strikes, each one backed with full-body momentum. Carnage moves like liquid death, slashing in crescents and spirals, the air around him a blur of violence. Then he laughs again, "You're all so fun! Let's see how long you last before I wear you like a second skin!"
My HUD blares—heart rates spiking, Wanda's vitals unstable, Karai's suit integrity dropping. This isn't a brawl. This is a horror show with us playing catch-up. "Wanda—containment spell?" I ask, voice strained. "I'm trying," she says, panting, magic swirling as she forms a rune circle mid-air, "But he's feeding off the chaos. It's like he thrives in this madness." Carnage lunges again. Steve intercepts. Shield slams into claw. Bone grinds against vibranium. Sparks burst in a halo around them. And for a second, I see something behind Carnage's eyes. Not madness. Control. Cold, cunning calculation layered beneath the frenzy. He's not just killing for fun. He's testing us. And we're barely surviving the first round.
I push forward again, surging past the haze of smoke and residual sparks, my heart hammering like a war drum in my chest. Every inch of this chamber feels smaller now, like the walls are closing in around us, and Carnage is the flame at the center of the trap. He moves with a grotesque grace, ducking and weaving between Wanda's magical bolts and Steve's shield strikes, the bio-organic tendrils peeling off his body like flares from a sun, writhing with a mind of their own. Every time I think we've scored a hit, the suit shifts—consumes the damage, reforms instantly. It's not just armor. It's adaptive. Reactive. Almost predatory. EPYON tries to scan it, running diagnostics, but the results blink null across my HUD, "Unknown bio-signature. No match in SHIELD. The structure resembles parasitic biomass with regenerative features. Origin: undetermined." That's not helpful. That's a warning dressed up like a shrug. Karai leaps in beside me, the blade glowing faintly from the heating filament running through its edge, and together, we flank him. I come in high, feint with a jab toward the torso, while she sweeps low. But Carnage reads us like a book soaked in blood. One of his tendrils blocks my strike, hard as rebar, while a second lashes around Karai's ankle and flips her mid-air. She hits the ground with a grunt, rolls, and fires a short-range dart into the joint of his shoulder. The projectile embeds. Pops. Smoke bursts outward. Carnage laughs, spinning through it like a cyclone, and then—he splits. For a second, it's like there are two of him, a mock-form peeling off his back and charging Steve. Cap meets it head-on, slamming his shield into the doppelgänger's face, but it doesn't react like a person—it collapses into a puddle of viscous red and slithers away under the debris like a snake made of flesh and rage.
"Decoys?" Steve calls, barely dodging a fresh slash, "Some kind of projection or growth!" I shout back, narrowly avoiding a lashing spike aimed for my throat, "He's building this suit with intent. Every second we give him, he's learning!" Wanda raises both arms high and slams her palms together, releasing a concussive wave of pure scarlet force. The shockwave rattles the walls, cracks the tiles, and hurls Carnage back into a support beam hard enough to dent the steel. It buys us breathing room. Barely. Karai scrambles beside me, reloading, "Where the hell did this come from?" "No idea," I growl, "But this thing isn't alien. It's not from space. It's man-made. Engineered." The implications sting more than the bruises. Something like this doesn't just show up. Someone built this—either in a lab or a nightmare—and let it loose in the body of the most unhinged killer on the East Coast. We aren't fighting a rogue element. We're fighting a weapon. One wrapped in flesh and psychosis. Carnage peels himself from the steel beam, body cracking and unfolding like some horrible insect shedding its exoskeleton. The grin never fades. "You keep coming at me with toys," he sneers, "But I'm not a game. I'm the end."
He charges again, faster this time—blur-speed. My visor can't track him fast enough, even with predictive motion mapping. He's not just faster—he's accelerating. Improving. Adapting. I fire a grappling line to swing out of range, land beside Wanda, and raise my arm to shield her from the next impact. She nods, sweat running down her temple, hands glowing like miniature suns. "I can bind him," she says, her voice low, intense, "But I need time. Ten seconds." "Then I'll get you ten," I say without hesitation. I sprint forward, shouting into the comlink, "Cap—distraction pattern Gamma-3. Karai—support suppression left flank. Daredevil—centerline intercept!" Steve doesn't question it. He moves, drawing Carnage's attention with a shield feint, bouncing it off a wall and catching it mid-air. Karai flanks from the left, firing non-lethal concussion rounds that crack like thunder. Daredevil drops from above, baton in each hand, striking with surgical precision—targeting joints, pressure points, tendrils mid-swing. I go center, diving low and throwing a cluster of flash pulses. Light explodes. Carnage snarls, blinded for a split-second—and that's all we need.
Wanda chants under her breath, symbols forming around her in mid-air, glowing brighter and brighter. She's calling on deeper magic now—stuff that bends the air and makes your bones feel too tight in your skin. The chamber vibrates as the spell takes shape. Carnage feels it, too. He turns his head toward her, the smile faltering for the first time. "No, no, no," he growls, and tendrils lash out in her direction. I intercept. I hurl myself in the way and get speared in the side. Pain flares white-hot as the tendril punches through armor and digs into flesh. I clamp my hand around it and fire a point-blank shot into the base. It shudders. Pulls back. My blood hits the floor, but Wanda is still chanting, still glowing. Steve grabs Carnage from behind in a full nelson hold, and for a second, they struggle like titans, muscles straining, steel against madness. "Now, Wanda!" Steve shouts. She finishes the incantation and slams both palms toward the ground. Runes light up beneath Carnage's feet, a lattice of glowing red that surges upward like a cage of pure force. He howls, the suit spasming as it's suddenly forced still, locked in place by ancient bindings powered by Wanda's will. "Containment engaged!" she shouts.
For the first time, Carnage screams in real pain. The suit tries to peel away, tries to escape, but it's stuck—anchored to Kasady's body like a parasite caught in a death grip. We surround him, bloodied and bruised but standing. Karai limps beside me, rifle raised. Steve breathes hard, shield in hand. Daredevil stands a few feet off, chest rising and falling fast, batons still clenched in his fists, blood at the edge of his mouth but eyes locked on the target. Wanda's hands shake, her face pale from the strain. Kasady glares at each of us, his eyes still wild, still burning. "You think this is over?" he whispers, voice dripping venom, "I'm just getting started. You haven't seen the real me yet." But for now—he's contained.
We're making our way out of the chamber, backs slick with sweat, boots crunching over shattered debris and smeared blood, when the familiar weight of tension rolls back in like a second storm—this one colder, sharper. I feel it before I see it. The air stiffens. The silence isn't victory—it's the calm before another wrong kind of chaos. Wanda is at my side, one arm wrapped around her ribs, her magic flickering low and faint at her fingertips like the last embers of a fire. Karai follows behind us, limping but upright, rifle clutched tight, and eyes alert. Cap's at the front, shield ready but lowered, pacing slow and steady through the mouth of the tunnel like he expects something to go wrong. Because it always does. And it does. Daredevil walks to our right, silent as ever, his steps precise despite the fatigue riding his frame. His head tilts slightly, sensing what we don't yet see, the slight twitch of his brow the only sign that he's already caught the sound of something incoming. They appear at the corridor's end just as we breach the final stretch toward the surface. Black boots thunder down the access stairwell, the staccato rhythm of trained movement echoing off the walls. Tactical lights flare up, brilliant white beams slicing through the lingering dust and smoke—and behind them, the silhouettes of armored figures drop into formation. Ten. Fifteen. Maybe more. Each one is clad in jet-black body armor, faceless helmets, and the distinct shoulder insignia of the city's Anti-Crime Unit. But these guys aren't cops. They're PMC—private, polished, and packing tech that screams black-budget. Weapons up. Laser sights flare red dots across our chests before a single word is exchanged. "Hands where I can see 'em!" a voice barks—male, clipped, all authority and no patience. Steve's shield inches higher without him even thinking about it, but he doesn't raise it. Not yet.
I step up beside him, my visor dimming its display as I switch from threat-detection to facial recognition, cross-referencing helmet markings with our EPYON database. Nothing. These guys are running dark. No tags, no ID, no linked command. Just a single-channel encrypted line and a lot of firepower. "You're pointing guns at Avengers," I say flatly, voice modulator smoothing out the edge of anger grinding in my throat, "Lower them. Now." "Protocol 29-B," the lead says, stepping into full view. His helmet is angular, red visor gleaming, voice is distorted through a vocoder unit. "Crime scene disruption. Unauthorized meta engagement. Target interference. You're all under detainment for questioning." Wanda's breath catches, and Karai swears under hers. Steve doesn't flinch. "There's a bleeding psychopath wrapped in something unnatural bound behind us," Cap says, voice cold steel, "You want to detain someone? Start with him." "Already have a retrieval unit en route," the lead snaps, "Our orders are to secure all entities involved in the incident. That includes you." I shift, not enough to trigger their sensors, but just enough to put my body half in front of Wanda. She doesn't argue. She knows this game. These guys aren't here to help. They're here to clean up—and sometimes, that means wiping the whole slate.
The one on the right flank barks, "Disarm and step away from the meta." And there it is. The tell. Not "Wanda." Not "Scarlet Witch." Just meta. These bastards were never coming for Carnage. They were coming for her. Wanda feels it too—I see it in the way her jaw clenches, in the subtle shift of her weight as she draws magic up into her palm despite the exhaustion bleeding through every movement. Karai doesn't wait—she flips the safety on her rifle and whispers, "I've got the left." Daredevil shifts beside me, chin tilted slightly toward the lead, baton halfway raised but not yet drawn, his breath calm but ready. Steve lifts his shield, slow and deliberate. "I suggest you call your CO before this gets ugly." The lead doesn't budge. Neither do we.
Daredevil tilts his head ever so slightly, the muscles along his jaw tightening as he listens to something we can't. His voice cuts through the standoff like a wire pulled too tight. "They're receiving orders," he says, quiet but clear, eyes narrowing behind the red cowl. A beat passes. Another. Then, the lead operator shifts. A subtle nod from him, and the rest follow suit. Safeties click off. Rifle stocks adjust against shoulders. Their stances change—not tense, but locked. Intentional. Ready. "Orders confirmed," the lead states, voice as sterile as the barrel of his weapon, "All Avengers present are to be detained. No exceptions." The air freezes. Every breath feels weaponized. Steve doesn't blink, but I see his arm shift the shield just slightly, a half-inch higher, just enough to be ready. Wanda exhales slowly beside me, magic sparking weakly but defiantly at her fingertips. "They're not here for Carnage," she murmurs, "They're here to put us down." She's right. This was never about containment or clean-up. This was a hit in the shape of protocol. My fingers tighten around the grip of my pistol, but I don't raise it—yet. "This is a mistake," Steve warns, his voice like thunder muffled behind stormclouds, "You want to escalate with the people who just saved this city from a nightmare?" "Our jurisdiction doesn't answer to capes," the leader responds flatly, "You're assets. And right now, you're unsecured ones." Karai spits blood from her lip, snarling, "I dare one of you to try." She means it, and I stand with her.
Daredevil slowly lowers his batons, but it's not surrender. It's strategy. His stance shifts, heel turning a fraction, coiled like a spring. He's ready to move before the first shot is fired. "They're waiting for a signal," he mutters to me, "Radio cue. Silent burst. Any second now." "Then we move before it hits," I reply through clenched teeth. My mind races, already calculating trajectories, fallback points, and nearest exit shafts. This was supposed to be over. Carnage was the threat. But this? This is a culling under the guise of control. EPYON flashes a single warning in the corner of my HUD: Multiple active target locks. Recommend evasive maneuvers. I breathe once. Deep. Slow. "Wanda," I whisper without turning, "Get ready to run." She doesn't argue. Steve's shield lifts another inch. Karai angles her rifle low, near the hip—less recoil, faster turn. Daredevil shifts his weight. We all feel it. The moment before the sky breaks open. The anti-crime unit primes for takedown. Their fingers slide over triggers. Their commander gives one final warning, "Comply. Or be neutralized." My thumb flicks the safety off, "We're done playing nice."
"Screw this," I hear Wanda hiss. And then she moves—not with flash or spectacle, but with the raw, deliberate force of someone who's bled enough for people who keep pointing guns at her. Her eyes glow, not bright, but deep, and I feel the temperature shift like a storm front rolling through steel. Scarlet threads of magic unfurl from her fingertips, dancing like snakes in a pit of fire, coiling and snapping through the air toward the anti-crime unit. There's no incantation. No chant. Just will—pure and sharpened. It hits them like a wave, and I watch through my visor as their body heat spikes, then flatlines into a trance-like equilibrium. Their rifles tremble in their grips. Fingers twitch. Knees buckle. One by one, they begin to lower their weapons. Do not drop them. Just… surrender. Their movements turn glassy, their helmets turn slightly to her like she's gravity, and they're just debris caught in orbit. Wanda's face doesn't change. There's no smugness. No rage. Just exhaustion and that deep well of fury that she keeps locked beneath her skin, rising for a moment to do what we won't. What we can't. "You will not harm us," she says, voice steady, layered with an unnatural harmony, like it's echoing from somewhere older than this chamber. Older than all of us. Her power threads into their minds like vines through cracked concrete, wrapping, pulsing. "Stand down. Leave. Forget." The lead operator takes a step back, red visor flickering. His weapon lowers fully, his head tilting as though listening to some invisible lullaby. He turns. Walks. The others follow. A silent exodus, their boots echoing like falling dominoes in a collapsing tower of control.
I watch as the last of them vanish into the stairwell. EPYON flickers, scanning bios and confirming every single hostile target has disengaged. "All clear," it says in my ear, voice static-wrapped but functional. My grip loosens on the pistol. Wanda sways slightly, and I reach out instinctively, catching her by the elbow. Her magic dims, flickers, fades. She leans into me—not heavy, just there. Present. "I didn't hurt them," she whispers, more to herself than to me, "I just… made them stop." Steve exhales, stepping forward, shield still half-raised as he watches the empty corridor. "You did what you had to," he says, voice low. Karai nods, wiping a line of blood from her cheek, rifle slung back over her shoulder. "We need to move. Before someone higher up decides to send the kill order instead of the clean-up crew." Daredevil says nothing, but his posture eases, shoulders relaxing a fraction, batons returning to his belt. We just stopped Carnage. Contained him. Beat the monster. And somehow, I feel like that wasn't even the worst part of tonight. The worst part is realizing we're not just fighting monsters anymore. We're fighting a system that sees us as threats, not saviors. As weapons to be shelved, leashed, or erased.
[Wanda Maximoff POV]
[AVENGERS HQ, New York City]
[Common Area.] I drop onto the couch, exhausted. The cushions give under me with a soft sigh, like even the furniture knows what kind of night it's been. My body aches—not just from the fight but from holding everything in. Holding the power back. Holding myself together. The containment spell is still echoing in the back of my mind, each syllable stitched into my bones like an ancient burn. I feel it reverberate through me, a reminder that I had to reach into something deeper—darker—just to stop the bleeding. My hands tremble slightly in my lap, fingertips still tinged with scarlet light that hasn't completely faded. I stare at them, half-hoping the glow will disappear, half-afraid it won't. Spartan paces just beyond the threshold of the room, helmet still on, silent but there. Watching. Guarding. He hasn't said much since we got back, but I can feel the tension rolling off of him like steam from pavement after a storm. He keeps checking the feed, EPYON still scanning in the background, and I know he's not looking for Carnage. He's watching for those soldiers. Or someone worse. Steve's upstairs, probably already drafting the report to Fury—words he'll have to choose carefully if we don't want another black-bag squad sent to our doorstep. Karai limped off toward the med bay with Daredevil at her side, quiet and bleeding but alive. We're all alive. That's supposed to mean something. I press my hand to my chest and close my eyes, trying to focus on my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. But I can't keep my thoughts from circling back to the way they looked at me. Not like a person. Not even like a threat. Like an error in their system. A flaw in the design. Something to be flagged, filed, and deleted. I didn't want to hurt them. I didn't. But the moment I felt that decision snap into place inside me—the moment I knew I had to act—I didn't hesitate. That's what scares me. Not the power. Not the aftermath. The certainty. The silence that followed. The ease.
The door hisses open, and I glance up. It's Spartan. He doesn't say anything at first, just stands there, helmet tilted slightly, scanning me like he's trying to see past the damage. Finally, he steps in and kneels in front of me, voice low through the modulator. "You okay?" It's a simple question. I want to say yes. I want to give him that peace of mind. But I can't lie to him. Not him. I shake my head slowly. "No," I whisper, voice cracking at the edges, "I'm not." He doesn't flinch. Don't try to fix it with words. He just nods, takes my hand in his gloved one, and stays there. Still. Solid. The lights overhead dim to a soft amber, casting the room in gentle warmth. It feels… safe. But I know what's coming. The questions. The surveillance. The judgment. I crossed a line tonight, even if no one else will say it. I did what I had to—but the world never cares about reasons. Just results. Just labels. Just the fear that people like me bring with us. Spartan squeezes my hand gently, anchoring me to this moment. I lean forward, resting my forehead against his armored chest. No words pass between us. None are needed. The storm outside may still be raging, but in this sliver of quiet, I let myself breathe again. Just for a minute. Just enough to remember that I'm still here. Still me. Whatever that means now.
I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a slight rush out of it. There was that split second within a moment; I forgot myself. Strangely, I liked it. Not in the way power corrupts. Not in the way people fear it does. It was cleaner than that. Sharper. Like exhaling after holding my breath for too long. Like tearing the weight of judgment off my shoulders and finally standing without flinching. It was only for a second, maybe less, but I felt it. That hum beneath my skin. That sovereignty. And I didn't flinch. It was only one other time I felt that sensation, though I barely remember it now. A blur. A storm. A scream that split the sky. Based on the pieces I could remember, we were fighting an archdemon. Hawkeye was hurt—killed, they told me—and something inside me shattered. Not in grief. In fury. I remember the heat, not the tears. I remember magic ripping itself out of me before I even had a thought to control it. I remember a sound—this low, unearthly vibration that cracked reality at its edges. When I came to, the battlefield was silent. The archdemon was gone, turned to dust that the wind refused to carry. Clint was alive again. No one could explain it. No one dared to try.
Spartan doesn't speak, but I know he's listening. His presence is the only thing keeping me tethered right now. My fingers curl around his as if anchoring myself to something tangible. I don't want to drift back into that place—that storm where I stop being Wanda and start becoming something else. Something unrelenting. But the truth is, that version of me is always there. Lurking beneath the surface. Waiting. Watching. She doesn't ask permission. She doesn't need to.
"I scared them," I murmur, voice barely above the whisper of my own heartbeat. Spartan tilts his head slightly. I know the gesture by now. It's the one he makes when he's trying to find the right words, but tonight, words won't save me. "I scared myself," I add, and that's the part I never say aloud. Not to anyone. Not even to myself. But it's real. That brief euphoria—that moment where the choice was no longer a question, just instinct—it felt like freedom. And I don't know what that says about me. He finally speaks. "You made a call," he says, low and firm, like a verdict passed without judgment. "They were going to take us. Take you. And you stopped it." I look at him. Really, look at him. Not at the helmet or the soldier or the tactician. Just the man beneath all that steel. And I see no fear in his gaze. No hesitation. Just that quiet intensity that always makes me feel like maybe—just maybe—I'm still human in his eyes.
But I wonder, even as I nod in silence if he understands how thin that line is for me now. How easily I could have gone further. How part of me wanted to. The room is quiet except for the soft buzz of electronics on standby and the distant rumble of a storm that never quite left the city. I rest my head against the back of the couch, feeling the tension slowly bleed out of my limbs. "If they come back," I whisper, "I don't think I'll hold back next time."
"Then don't hold back," Spartan says, "If you're forced to go all out, then go all out." The words land with the weight of iron—heavy, deliberate, unmoving. They don't feel like permission. They feel like truth. Like a blade laid on the table between us, glinting in the low light. My gaze flicks to him, and he doesn't flinch. Doesn't recoil. There's no hesitation in his tone, no caution buried behind his words. Just that unwavering calm that's carried me through more than one hellish battlefield. He means it. Every syllable. And I don't know whether to be relieved or terrified. "I'm not sure you understand what that means," I say softly, voice brittle at the edges. But he leans in slightly, his hand still wrapped around mine like it's the most natural thing in the world like it's always been there. "I do," he replies, "Because I've seen it. And I've seen you. And I know the difference." The difference. That fragile, flickering thread that separates me from what I could be if I let go completely. I want to believe in that distinction. Even at my worst, there's still a version of me that doesn't lose herself in power. But nights like tonight make it harder to hold onto. When the system that's supposed to protect us turns its sights on us. When the men with guns and rules and hollow eyes try to put us down like rabid animals instead of people. What else are we supposed to do but fight back? What else is left but fire?
"You're not a monster, Wanda," Spartan says, "You're a force. And the world's afraid of forces it can't control. That doesn't make you wrong. It makes you necessary." His voice lowers, not out of secrecy, but intimacy—like he's letting me in on something he doesn't say to anyone else, "So if they come back with orders to collar you, clip you, erase you—then don't hold back. Burn it all down." My breath hitches. Because some part of me wants to. Deep down, in the spaces I try not to look too closely at, that fury is still burning. But it's not rage for rage's sake. It's protection. Survival. Every time I've lost control, it wasn't because I wanted to hurt. It was because I wanted to stop the hurt. To stop the taking. The silencing. I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees, his hand still wrapped around mine, grounding me. "What if I go too far?" I ask. Not rhetorically. Not dramatically. I mean it in a straightforward question, "What if one day I look around, and there's nothing left standing?"
Spartan doesn't answer right away. He sits down beside me instead, close enough that I feel the armor against my arm but not so close that I feel boxed in. "Then I'll pull you out of the fire, like I always do," he says, quiet but firm. I close my eyes. Let the silence stretch. Not empty silence—safe silence. There's no lecture coming. No judgment. Just the pulse of his presence next to mine and the unspoken promise buried inside it. That I'm not alone. That even if I do fall too far, someone's still willing to reach for me. Outside the window, lightning flickers against the skyline. Thunder rumbles a beat later, low and long like the city is exhaling with us. I squeeze his hand. Not as thanks. Not as a relief. Just: I'm still here.
"And besides, you don't have the luxury to not come back home. We have a son and a family," he adds. Cute. He used my own words—the ones I threw at him not so long ago—against me. And damn him, it works. My lips twitch in the ghost of a smile, exhausted but real. It's not sarcasm. It's not deflection. Just recognition. He remembered. And he meant it. I exhale slowly, letting the moment settle deep in my chest. "You keep that one locked and loaded for a moment like this?" I ask quietly, still leaning against him. His helmet tilts a little, just enough to suggest a smirk hidden behind the voice modulator. "Always," he answers. And for a second, it feels like the tension from earlier is miles away. But the truth hangs there, tethered to his words. We do have a son. Jericho. I think of his little hand wrapping around my finger this morning, the way he babbled up at me with that curious glint in his eyes—like he's already measuring the world for what it could be. Like he knows the weight we carry and isn't afraid of it. I think about the sound of his laugh echoing down the hallway, sharp and clean and full of life. That laugh is what I'm fighting for. What I'll always fight for. "I saw him before we left," I whisper, "He was asleep. Little hand curled up in a fist, like he was ready to throw punches in his dreams." Spartan lets out a low, short breath that might've been a laugh. "Like his mom," he mutters. I glance at him sideways, "Like his dad," I counter.
We sit like that, in the low hum of the common area, surrounded by the quiet hum of the tower and the knowledge that we've both faced death tonight and walked away from it again. But it's different now. Stakes were always high, but with Jericho in the picture, they're personal in a way nothing else could ever be. "I don't want him to grow up thinking this is normal," I murmur, "That his parents vanish into wars and come back bruised but smiling like it's all part of the job. I want him to have better. I want him to feel safe. Not just protected—but actually safe." Spartan nods, slow and steady. "Then we make the world safer," he says, "One bastard at a time." My eyes fall closed again, just for a moment. The weight of that promise is too big to think about right now. But I believe him. He won't stop. Not for himself. Not for me. Not for anyone. But for Jericho? He'd burn the world and rebuild it by hand if that's what it took. And I would, too. "I'm glad you're home," I whisper. "I always come back," he answers. And this time, he doesn't have to say it like a vow. Because I already know he means it.
[Spartan POV]
The news report plays low across the room, flickering on the screen like a bad memory already being rewritten. Cletus Kasady—apprehended, restrained, relocated to an undisclosed facility for psychological evaluation and high-risk containment. The anchor's voice is cool, polished, and manufactured like everything else on the feed. There's no mention of the Avengers. No Scarlet Witch. No tactical push through a train yard crawling with blood and madness. Just a clean sweep credited to the city's elite Anti-Crime Unit. No faces. No names. No real account. Just a line in the crawl: "Public safety restored. Threat neutralized." Not surprising. Wanda did make them forget. Most of social media doesn't buy it, and for once, they're right. The comment threads are a flood of doubt, conspiracy, and blurry clips from rooftops too far away to catch more than shapes and flashes. There's no way those guys took down Kasady solo." "Where's the footage? The guy was a serial killer with half the city in lockdown." "Why are all body cam feeds corrupted? Anyone else think that's weird?" They know. Not the details. Not the magic. But they feel the lie under the skin of the story. The Anti-Crime Unit—those polished, faceless bastards in black—didn't bring him down. They didn't even show up for him. They showed up for Wanda. The footage cuts to a b-roll of the Anti-Crime Unit in formation, sleek armor, visors gleaming under industrial lights, their insignias stark white on black plating. PMC-born repurposed for "civil defense." Black-budget tactics hiding behind a public badge. The government says they're the new face of peacekeeping in metahuman events. But I know the truth. They're not peacekeepers. They're pressure valves. Sent in to contain, silence, or erase anything that doesn't fall in line.
[Zemo POV]
[CERBERUS HQ, New York City]
The monitor bathes the room in a dim blue hue, and the PMC clip replays on another screen to my right—formation drills, press coverage, crowd control, and staged demonstrations. They look formidable in black armor, don't they? Skulls behind mirrored visors. Clean, obedient, hollow. They believe they're making a difference. They believe their Mayor. Their orders. Their oath. That belief makes them the most useful kind of weapon: one that asks no questions. I didn't even have to compromise a single one of them. No infiltration. No bribes. Just a carefully timed crisis and the right whisper in the right ear. The Anti-Crime Unit rose like a weed from the soil I poisoned. All it took was fear—strategic, potent, sustained. The public begged for containment. The government didn't blink. And now, these paramilitary ghosts parade as saviors while the true architects of their existence watch from the dark. They don't know me. Not really. To them, Zemo is still a relic—old blood, old grudges, old wars. Let them think that. Let them rot in that illusion. I don't need recognition. I need results. Control. Outcomes. The symbiote was just the ignition switch. Kasady was never meant to survive. He was merely the flare in the night sky, the monster from the closet set loose to ensure the public would never look too closely at the men marching in behind him. The door hisses open behind me. Skeith steps in, translucent as ever, her outline barely disturbing the air. She doesn't speak. She doesn't have to. I know she's watching the same screens I am—reading lips, studying body language, predicting stress fractures in real-time. "They'll dig," I say without turning to face her, "The Avengers are too clever. They'll sniff out the inconsistencies." "Let them," she replies, her voice a razor drawn slow against the glass, "They'll find nothing that leads back to us. No footprints. No paper trail. No living witness." I smile faintly. She's right. Of course, she is. We've burned every bridge behind us. Scrubbed every frequency. Wiped metadata with custom daemons that bury code beneath code. But the beauty of control isn't about hiding everything. It's about deciding what to leave behind. Enough to frustrate. Confuse. Distract. If the Avengers want a trial, let them follow the one we left—right to the Mayor's office. Right to the PMCs. Let them think they're the puppeteers. Soon, the next phase begins. Skeith lingers in silence, a phantom presence by my side. No wasted breath. No unnecessary movement. That's why I tolerate her proximity—because she understands restraint. Discipline. She understands purpose. Her loyalty isn't blind—it's calculated, sharpened by cold understanding. Like me, she knows this isn't about revenge. It's not even about chaos. It's about evolution. The old world is brittle, corrupted by sentiment and history. A machine too bloated to correct itself. We aren't destroying it. We're replacing it. Quietly. Surgically. Efficiently. Not with fire and blood but with contracts, compliance, and control.
The people won't notice. They never do. Not until it's far too late. That's the true power of the mask—not just the anonymity it grants but the permission it offers to become more than a man. To become an ideal. A force. A constant. I step away from the console and approach the central display—a slowly rotating schematic of New York City's grid overlayed with PMC positions, surveillance nodes, and predictive riot clusters. The web is almost complete. "Four more precincts," Skeith murmurs, her tone laced with expectation. I nod once. "And then the signal." One pulse. One broadcast. The protocols go active. Civil unrest spikes, the units deploy, the Mayor issues martial law, and we assume total coverage. From there, it becomes a matter of attrition. One piece at a time. No loud coup. No dramatic declarations. Just a seamless transfer of power, like breathing in a new atmosphere. They'll resist, of course. The Avengers. Let them. The city's already chosen. The people no longer want heroes—they want protection. Assurance. Order. And order is what we will provide. Not through speeches. Not through capes. But through absolute, unyielding will.
I am authoring a future. Every keystroke, every signal, every whisper through the ether is a brushstroke on the canvas of a world reshaped. I stand not before a battlefield but a console—my war is waged through code, through silence, through influence layered so deep even the sharpest eyes won't find the roots. They think I'm hiding. That I'm a shadow cast by older wars, skulking in the cracks of peacetime. But I'm not hiding. I'm building. I am the architect of inevitability, and these screens around me are my cathedral. I look at the rotating schematic of New York City on the central display—the pulse of a metropolis mapped, dissected, and predicted. PMC units dot the boroughs like chess pieces—strategically placed, constantly fed data from surveillance nodes and social media crawlers. Each movement tracked, each anomaly flagged. Skeith once called it a net strung tight enough to catch thought itself. She wasn't wrong. The Anti-Crime Unit, a supposed safeguard, now walks like silent wardens among the people. Clad in black, mirrored visors concealing nothing but the void where independent thought once lived. I watch them march on the rightmost screen—another public demonstration of strength choreographed with the precision of ballet and the menace of a firing squad. They think they serve justice. They wear the badge of order, but they carry the weight of my design. I didn't corrupt them—I never needed to. All I had to do was present the right enemy, let fear blossom into desperation, and give their leaders a solution just before collapse. The PMC was born not in secret but in plain sight. A solution paraded as salvation. A trojan horse welcomed through every gate by a population too exhausted to ask what lay beneath the armor. The irony is exquisite. People fear chaos more than oppression. They will trade their liberty for a curfew. Their privacy for security. Their voice for a silence they can call peace. All I had to do was show them the cliff's edge, and they crawled willingly into the cage. The Mayor believes he's still in control. That's the beauty of manipulation: the most powerful chains are the ones worn voluntarily.