Chapter 6

March 13, 2013

The Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan

"I don't like this. It's too easy." Natasha surveyed the corridor around them, walls scarred and pitted from their recent firefight.

Stevie couldn't argue. After Rumlow had neutralized the lookouts, they'd cleared the tunnels in one quick push, the terrorists' bullets sparking uselessly off Tony's armor. It had been over in minutes.

"I agree," Rumlow said over his shoulder. He stood guard over a kneeling line of prisoners, hands bound behind them with white plastic cuffs. "These guys folded like yesterday's sheets."

"Oh, lighten up," Tony said, voice tinny through his helmet speakers. "They weren't expecting the Avengers to knock down their door. Overconfidence. It's a killer."

"And who knows most about that?" Natasha murmured.

"Hey!"

"Alright, kids, settle down," Stevie said. The ribbing stopped as they looked toward her for guidance.

Is this too easy?

Maybe after fighting aliens, garden variety terrorists just weren't a challenge anymore. But the level of activity Natasha's intelligence had suggested should have involved more people than they'd found. Could it be a trap?

"Tony, you sent the drones ahead?"

"I'm patching in now," he replied. There was a pause while his suit system connected to the camera feeds of the tiny robots he'd released into the caves ahead of them.

"Branching tunnels are clear. Tunnels ahead are clear. No people, no explosives."

So the Ten Rings hadn't lured them in just to collapse the mountain on them. That was reassuring.

"Wait," Tony said. "There's some kind of large chamber up ahead."

"What's it look like?"

"It's hard to say...there's some kind of interference."

"Interference?" That didn't sound good.

"Something's generating a lot of electromagnetic energy in there. it's screwing with the drones." He huffed in frustration. "I've got something that looks like a person. Maybe two people."

Natasha, Rumlow, and the STRIKE agents were all looking at her in silence. It was time to make the decision that would lead to victory or defeat. Stevie felt the weight of the moment – the thrill of it.

"Natasha's information was pretty clear," Stevie said. "I don't think it could have been falsified. If we leave now, there's no backup team. We'll lose this chance for good. We go ahead."

Natasha nodded, a little smile quirking up one side of her mouth. Stevie found herself smiling in response.

"But let's be smart about it," she continued. "Rumlow, Jenner, Ramirez – stay out front. Guard the prisoners and the entrance. I don't want us getting flanked."

Rumlow grimaced, but nodded. "Yes, boss."

"Everyone else – we enter the chamber together. Tony, what can you tell us?"

"Best I can tell, it's about fifty feet in diameter. There's some kind of platform built out over the floor. I couldn't get much."

"It's better than going in blind. Tony, you'll be point, with me. The STRIKE team will fan out behind us. Natasha, use us as cover. Get into a good position and stay inconspicuous. If the situation calls for it, you can give whoever's in there a nice surprise."

"I do love surprising people," Natasha replied.

"Got it?"

Everyone nodded, varying levels of excitement and anticipation in their faces.

"Good. We don't know what's in there, so be ready for anything."

The tunnel sloped downward. As they moved deeper underground, the air grew colder, until Stevie could see her breath. They moved as quietly as they could – although it was difficult for Tony to mask the noise of his suit, which crushed gravel with every heavy step. The tunnel took a sharp jog to the left, and Tony stopped them with a raised hand, voice murmuring from his suit directly to their headsets.

"After this turn, the tunnel opens up pretty much immediately. Time to rock and roll, Captain?"

Stevie's senses were sharp. The blood was singing in her veins. She was ready to act.

"Time to rock and roll," she said. "Go!"

The STRIKE agents echoed the command. "Go! Go! Go!"

They burst around the corner and out onto the platform, boots thumping on the rough wood. Tony and Stevie went in first, the STRIKE agents behind them with rifles up, scanning the edges of the room. Natasha had already melted into the shadows.

"What the – ?"

The room itself was as Tony had described - large, roughly circular, the platform built out over a steep drop-off. Stairs led down from the platform to the cavern floor a sheet of ice, smooth and milky green as polished jade. But that wasn't the strange part. Embedded in the far wall, jutting out of the craggy stone, was a tapering cylinder as black and slick as oil. An unnatural chill came off it in waves, colder than the wind outside had been, cutting right through Stevie's suit. On its surface, strange lights moved, casting eerie, flickering shadows.

It took a moment for Stevie to even notice them- two people, standing in front of the monolith, where the stone met the ice. One was an old man in a black coat, gray hair swept back from a high forehead. Stevie frowned. It was hard to see in the shifting light, but there was something familiar about that man, about his eyes. The other was a young woman, slim as a dancer, with coppery skin and a face that brought to mind a bird of prey. She wore a blue, high-necked coat trimmed with black fur. As Stevie watched, she brought a silver pocket watch out and consulted it.

"That took longer than I expected," she said, her voice bearing traces of an accent Stevie couldn't place. "Did you stop for a smoke in the hall?"

"I'm told men never ask for directions," Tony responded.

The woman frowned."Not your best comeback, Mr. Stark."

"What can I say, you took me by surprise. You'll get the full comedy hour on the way to the Triskelion."

The old man stood by without speaking. He could have been sixty or eighty, straight-backed, piercing eyes glaring from his careworn face. Stevie knew she had seen him before. Who was he?

"I don't think so, Mr. Stark," the woman continued. She turned to the old man. "Now would be a good time to explore the terms of our agreement, don't you think, Mr. Lensher?"

Lensher. It came back in a rush, the prison in the mountains, the girl who saw the future, the boy who could tear planes in half with his mind.

Erik. Fear seized her, cold as ice in her veins.

"Out!" She shouted. "Everyone out now!"

Erik lifted one gloved hand, and the platform collapsed beneath them. The ice cracked with a noise like a gunshot. Stevie rolled to her feet. She'd lost her shield and pistol in the fall. Metal. Erik had them now. She ran for him, but something whipped past her face and cut her across the cheek. In front of her was a storm of shrapnel, sharp metal fragments whirling like a dust devil even though there was no wind. She backed away from it and it followed her, pushing her back until she bumped into a STRIKE agent coming from the other direction. She spun in place – all the STRIKE agents were with her, inside the vortex, weaponless. Corralled. Tony was outside it, hovering above the ice. He raised his hand at Erik, repulsor humming as it powered up for a burst.

Erik twitched his fingers, and Tony's suit peeled off him, like a newspaper coming apart in the wind. It slammed into Natasha, who Stevie hadn't even seen creeping up from the shadows around the cave wall. The suit sealed itself around her, and Tony fell to the ground with a surprised squawk.

Stevie clenched her fists in frustration. She couldn't get through. Her physical speed would mean nothing to someone whose power moved at the speed of thought. Erik could easily turn those shards into javelins and kill them all.

He could. But he hasn't. That means there's something somebody wants. There's an opening.

Tony scrambled to his feet and made a sudden lunge at the older man. Erik clenched his fist, and Tony stumbled to his knees, clutching his chest.

"The heart of Tony Stark," Erik said with surprising venom. "Who would have thought it was so fragile."

"Erik!" Stevie shouted. The old man stiffened, though he didn't look at her. "I know you remember me. If you feel any gratitude at all for what I did for you and Margot, let me come through. I just want to talk."

He gave no indication that he'd heard her, but Stevie stepped forward anyway, into the wall of spinning blades. They parted around her as smoothly as a flock of birds.

"Captain Rogers. It's good to see you well."

His voice had changed, of course. It was deep and resonant, a compelling voice. One people would follow.

"I wish I could say the same," she replied. "After everything that happened to you, you're working with the Ten Rings? They're drug smugglers and murderers, Erik."

"I always regretted leaving without thanking you, Captain," he said. "But you knew little of me when we met, and now you know less. This is none of your affair."

Erik released his grip, and Tony fell forward onto both hands, face ashen, wheezing. From within the dead Iron Man armor, Stevie could hear Natasha's muffled shouts.

"What happened to you?" She said. "You wanted to save lives, to protect people."

He turned on her in fury.

"I am protecting my people! I watched them disappear into labs, to be cut apart by madmen your government set free. Yes, even your precious SHIELD is not innocent, Captain. Clean your own house before you question my decisions."

Stevie was stunned into silence. The woman spoke to fill the gap.

"I do love to see old friends get reacquainted," she said in her musical voice, stepping smoothly out onto the cracked ice.

When she reached Stevie, she stopped to look her up and down. Despite her delicate build, she radiated confidence. More than confidence. Command. This close, Stevie could see that her face was crossed with hair-thin scars from brow to cheek, from lip to jaw, from the temple to the corner of one eye. And those eyes...so old in her young face. She grasped Stevie's shoulders in a firm grip and squeezed before releasing her.

"There really is no substitute for Erskine's process, is there?" She asked, as if talking to herself. "What wonderful work."

"You're the Mandarin," Stevie said. "Aren't you?"

The woman clapped her hands at that, laughing in childlike delight.

"Excellent! You guessed my name! Sadly for you, I won't rip myself in half at the revelation. What was it that gave me away?"

"I can't imagine anyone else being so..." Arrogant. "Confident. In the face of three Avengers and a STRIKE extraction team."

Said STRIKE team was still imprisoned behind a wall of whirling knives. Was it still shrinking around them?

If Erik wanted to kill them, he could have. She's the boss here. There's something she wants.

"If you wanted to talk to me so much," Stevie continued. "You could have sent me an email. I do that now."

"Wonderful bravado, Captain," the Mandarin said. She paced around Stevie as she spoke, forcing her to keep turning. "Some conversations...Well, when a person has been chipping away at your operations, arresting your lieutenants, generally being a thorn in your side...That's a conversation you need to have in person. And with every possible advantage." She nodded briefly in Erik's direction.

"So, you want me to promise to leave you alone? Scout's honor? Doesn't seem like your style, if you'll pardon me for saying so."

"And now the old-fashioned charm." The Mandarin's smile was the edge of knife. "How many people know that it's all an act, Captain? The weapons of women – courtesy, tears, the whisper in the ear. I've used them myself, but they don't really suit you. You favor the direct approach, I think."

Out of the corner of her eye, Stevie saw Tony slowly getting up again, rising to one knee.

"You're right, of course," the Mandarin continued. "It isn't my style. In the old days, I would simply have had you killed. But you and your friends are celebrities. People like you don't just vanish into the mountains without a trace. Not anymore. The world is changing, but I've worked too hard to give up what I've built."

At that her pacing stopped, and she looked up at the shining column lodged in the cave. It gave her face a strange blue glow, light shifting and flickering. She reached out a slender hand that came just short of touching its slick, black surface.

"It speaks to me sometimes," she murmured. "It shows me things. Do you hear it?"

Stevie realized with a start that she had lost a few moments staring at the light moving on the surface of the monolith. The Mandarin looked mesmerized by it, hand still raised. Even Erik was staring at the column, hands slack by his sides, the metal storm around the STRIKE agents slowing. Stevie caught Tony's eye. He had come to a crouch. She flicked her eyes at Erik, and nodded.

"Now!"

Tony sprang for the older man at the same moment Stevie pulled the Mandarin into a chokehold – one forearm on her throat, other hand behind her head. Tony had barely reached Erik before the other man raised his hand and he collapsed to the ground, crying out in pain.

"Let him go, Erik!" Stevie commanded. "Unless you think you can kill him before I snap her neck."

"You wouldn't," he said, glowering.

"You knew little of me when we met, Erik. Your words."

"It'd be embarrassing to...go out on the job market with this on your...resume," Tony croaked. "You being a bodyguard and all."

Stevie met Erik's eyes glare for glare, and did her best to channel Bucky's cold stare, his souvenir from his time with Dr. Zola.

"Release us. Now. Or I kill her."

The moment lengthened. Erik's hands twitched in his black leather gloves. Then, the Mandarin gave a choked laugh.

"Good try, Captain," she said, hoarsely. "But really, do you expect anyone to believe you're the neck-breaking type? Don't worry, we won't have to call this bluff. Wanda, sweetheart?"

A young woman emerged from the shadows at the edge of the cave. No. That wasn't right. She had always been there. Stevie's eyes had just...looked around her all this time. Stevie's mind had cut her out of the picture. She felt her flesh crawling and readied herself…

Stevie blinked. She was kneeling on the ice, cold biting into her legs. The Mandarin stood in front of her, the girl to one side. Stevie wanted to turn her head, to stand up, to speak - but her body wouldn't obey her.

"As I was saying earlier," the Mandarin said. "I found myself with a conundrum. I couldn't kill you, but couldn't let you go. And certainly couldn't let you tell anyone about what was in this cave. But what if you returned from your investigation and told Fury that you found nothing? That it had been a dead end? I'd call that an elegant solution, wouldn't you?" She smiled, but her eyes were cold as the ice beneath her feet. "Wanda, if you would."

The young woman stepped into Stevie's line of sight. Her face was round and pale, with long, black hair and huge, dark eyes.

"Margot?" Stevie whispered. But that was impossible. Margot would be an old woman. This girl was twenty at most.

"Don't be afraid," she said. Her voice wasn't Margot's. Low, throaty with an accent that hinted at Eastern Europe. "This won't hurt."

Stevie's heart had started to pound in her chest with the helpless terror of a trapped animal. The girl was inside her mind. Stevie could feel her there, inside her memories.

"No," she said. Did she say it? Or only think it?

Don't forget. Don't forget. The monolith. Erik.

Stevie could feel the memories slipping away from her, like sand underfoot. No. Those are mine.

"Do you know what the monolith says to me?" The Mandarin's voice was one point in the darkness closing in on her. "You're not ready for what's coming."

"Well, that was a whole lot of nothing."

Tony slouched in one of the quinjet's rear seats, holding a blue gel pack to what promised to be a spectacular black eye. It turned out The Ten Rings had pulled out of their cave headquarters, leaving it mined behind them. Tony had taken the brunt of the explosion, saving all their lives, as he was happy to recount, at the cost of his suit.

"Expensive nothing, too. Do you know how much those suits cost?"

"Well, the next one you make can be more durable," Natasha deadpanned from the co-pilot's seat.

Stevie was in the pilot's seat, hands on the controls, smoothly directing the jet over the widening valley. But she couldn't remember buckling herself in. She couldn't remember driving back down the mountain. Or leaving the cave.

How did I get here?

You got everyone out. You shielded them as the tunnel collapsed. A stone hit you on the head.

Right. That was what had happened. Of course. Stevie shook her head.

"Need me to take over?" Natasha asked. "You don't look so good."

"Thanks," Stevie unbuckled herself and moved to a seat at the rear. Her head ached terribly. The STRIKE team around her didn't look much better than she felt, dusty and bruised.

"Hey, Cap," Rumlow handed her a bottle of water, which she took gratefully. "Don't look so glum. No one hits it out of the park all the time."

She smiled. Suddenly she felt tired. "What matters is that we're all safe. We'll get them next time for sure."

The agents smiled back wearily and settled in for the flight. Stevie leaned back against the hard padding and closed her eyes. As she hovered on the edge of sleep, a voice came to her from the darkness.

You're not ready for what's coming.

Thanks for reading, everybody!

Yes, Erik has come back, with strange allies and unfathomable plans. This will come into play in Winter Soldier, but will become more relevant after that storyline. As always, I welcome your feedback.