Inheritance of ash

hijack

Peter turned slowly to look at Kate, then at Yelena, then back again, eyes widening like he'd just caught the tail end of a cosmic joke.

Yelena didn't say anything. She just drummed her fingers against the wheel and hummed along with a smug little twitch at the edge of her mouth.

Kate sat frozen in the backseat like she was living out a personal horror film in real-time. Her eyes stared straight ahead, pointedly not at Yelena's reflection in the rearview mirror. Her brain was already spiraling into meltdown:

Forehead kiss. I kissed a girl. Loud music. Tight car. Yelena is two feet away. Forehead kiss. I kissed a girl. Forehead kiss.
I swear to God I'm going to jump out of this car. This is it. This is how I die.

Meanwhile, Vicky was doing absolutely nothing to help. She was mouthing every word dramatically, tossing in sidelong looks at Kate when the lyrics hit particularly on the nose.

Wanda, sensing the silent Kate implosion, reached over casually and handed her a pair of earbuds. "Here. For your sanity."

"Thank you," Kate whispered like she'd just been handed an oxygen tank on the Titanic.

She stuffed them in her ears immediately, not that they blocked out much of the sound.

Up front, Yelena turned the music louder.

⸻

The airlock doors hissed open with their usual sleek perfection as Tony and Steve entered the garage first, trailed by Bruce, Clint, and Natasha. Thor came in through the upper landing, landing with a clap of wind. Sam touched down behind him in his flight rig, retracting the wings as they moved toward the main room in loose conversation about the SHIELD debriefing.

"I still say it was a waste of time," Tony muttered, pulling off his sunglasses as they stepped inside. "We already knew that base was defunct."

"Doesn't mean it's not protocol to check," Steve said mildly, brushing some dirt off his sleeve. "There were records."

Tony rolled his eyes. "There are always records. You know what else there are? People who read them for us." He waved a hand, turning toward the coat rack. "Anyway, I'm going to go decompress by polishing my emotionally dependent car."

Bruce glanced at him. "You mean your car's emotionally dependent on you?"

"No," Tony said dryly. "I'm emotionally dependent on it."

They reached the heart of the garage, where rows of sleek vehicles gleamed under perfectly calibrated lighting, each spaced like museum exhibits. Classic cars, motorcycles, hover tech, a prototype that could either be a car or a war crime—and then the space where the Lamborghini should have been.

Steve blinked first. "Uh... Tony?"

Tony was smoothing his coat again, more out of habit than need. "What? You suddenly remember you parked a motorcycle here in 1943?"

Steve pointed.

Tony followed the line of his arm.

And froze.

Right there.
Right not there, actually.
The space.

The Lamborghini.
Gone.
Not under a tarp. Not in diagnostics. Not in the hidden bay.
Not even cloaked by experimental stealth paint.

G. O. N. E.

The matte-black Lamborghini Aventador. With custom arc reactor core. With god-tier tuning. With that one paint job he never let anyone breathe near. The one he once called "the love of my life" in passing while Pepper was on the phone.