𝐏𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 (marvel fanfic)

Chapter 22 🎁🎁🎁

She closed her eyes, this would come back to bite her ass one day. "One month. Show me." The spilled wine rose up, acting as a timely pillar to prevent the room from collapsing on itself. As for Hydra... she would leave future-her to deal with it.

"Thank you for trusting us," Steve walked up to her, extending his hand.

She shook it without too much will. "You're paying for the food of course."

"With pleasure," Tony nodded, "I'm already paying for all of them."

Clint agreed with a chuckle, "He's the wallet of the group."

"Oh, and another thing, I hate being woken up," she glanced at Tony who had a tendency of blasting music in the early morning. She valued the little sleep she managed to get.

Tony nodded sheepishly before instructing his workers to repair the roof.

When her head met her pillow, all the sleepiness in her body left, leaving her frustrated and overthinking. By agreeing to work with them, she had just put herself back on Hydra's radar—she would be dumb not to know of the spies they had everywhere, including in the Avengers tower. And she knew that despite how well she destroyed the traces, there would always be something left about their less precious experiment. Her.

In addition to that, there was the fact that she had blown her cover in front of a dozen civilians—including Peter. She could say goodbye to her peaceful and normal life of blending in. Well she could always escape to another country... She had always wanted to try one of the colder countries, like Sweden or Russia. But that would mean leaving a mere teenager to risk his life daily, alone.

How she hated that conscience of hers that only seemed to appear when it deemed fit. Hydra would have her sent to isolation for that.

"Alright, my life is falling apart but it could be worse!" she tried to reassure herself, walking to the bathroom for another long night underwater. "That reminds me, he has a pool doesn't he?" She looked down at her clothes, a jean and a t-shirt, "he wouldn't mind, would he?"

She didn't wonder too long before heading straight for the pool. "Wow..." she gasped, seing the holympic-sized pool. "Just what you would expect from a billionaire..." She threw away her shoes and walked on the surface of the water, smiling as the luke-warm liquid gently stroked the sole of her feet. Once she was in the middle of the pool where it was the deepest, she let herself sink in, closing her eyes, enjoying the safety of the warm hug.

She was in her element, and there was nothing she loved more in the world than that. Once she had completely relaxed, she opened her eyes and resurfaced. The panorama the view offered wasn't bad—a view on the night city. About a thousand times better than the confine of the cell she was in mere hours ago.

Hours of swimming never seemed to affect her skin, that was another one of the perks of her powers. She never got bored of playing around with her powers. Without her noticing, the sun once again rose from the horizon.

The door opened for the first time since she arrived, she glanced at the scientist who walked in carefully, Banner. He waved awkwardly, "Good morning, I just wanted to ask if you wanted to eat?" His gaze wandered up where he saw a faceless couple made of water dancing in the air.

"Depends on what you're offering?" The creation melted gently to morph back with the water.

"Pizza," he smiled knowing no one hated pizza.

"Alright, I'll take you up on your offer." She smiled as a wave carried her over to the edge. Water soon slid away from her body, leaving her dry in a matter of seconds.

They both stood in silence in the elevator, with Banner glancing at her awkwardly.

"Your powers are beautiful," he blurted out, remembering the handful of times of saw her powers in action. The way water slid through the air, dancing around her with a mind of its own. He envied her, his 'abilities' were ugly and devastating, not controllable.

That was unexpected, she thought. "Thanks Dr. Banner."

He perked up at the use of his title, glancing at her impassive face. He couldn't tell if that was a sign of respect or if that meant she had read his work but he didn't dare ask such a self-centered question.

When they opened the main room, they could see the most of the group at the large table. Tony was scouring through the system trying to find something left by Ultron. Just as she arrived, Steve and an Agent walked in, a tablet in hand.

"He left something for us." He pushed the tablet to Tony. "A message of kind."

Tony glanced at it—Strucker dead with a bloody message on the wall 'peace'—before passing it around, "He left a nice Banksy for us at the crime scene."

Natasha replied, "Why leave a message when he already gave a speech?"

"Looks like a smokescreen," Sarah said, sitting down and taking a piece of pizza. She ignored Natasha's glance—just because she was working with them didn't mean she was willing to reveal her whole past, she wasn't doing charity work.

Steve agreed, "Strucker probably knew something Ultron wanted us to miss." Strucker was, after all, amongst Hydra's head researchers.

"I bet he- yeah he deleted everything on Strucker," Natasha noted, showing the blank page they had on him.

"Not everything," Tony sighed.

Sarah munched on her delicious pizza while watching them leave and come back with a dozen boxes of folders. "Good luck with that," she mumbled, attacking another piece of pizza.

A dozen minutes of searching later, Tony pointed to what Banner held, "Wait, I know that guy." he grabbed the file. "He operates off the African coast. Black market arms."

Steve gave him a disapproving look.

"What, there are conventions alright, you meet people, I didn't sell him anything." He continued, trying to remember any useful information, "he was talking about some revolutionnary discovery."

Their investigation progressed smoothly with Sarah listening in silently. By the time they found out Ultron was probably going to go after Klaw to grab Vibranium, Sarah had enough time to finish the pizza and pour herself another glass of wine.

"We'll have to be careful of the Maximoff siblings."

That word tingled her brain in a weird way but she couldn't remember where she had heard that name before.

"You're coming with us," Tony put a hand on her shoulder, "supernatural powers against supernatural powers."

"That's not how it works, but yeah," she got up and stretched, going to the fridge to grab a water bottle. "I don't suppose you have a bigger water bottle laying around?"

He shook his head. So she grabbed a few bottles, "Alright, let's go?"

"You'll need a proper suit and weapons," Natasha commented looking her up and down. "I know you can fight, so you need something more suitable."

An hour later, they all regrouped on the jet.

_________________

Merry Christmas to everyone ! And here's to another year I guess :D