Chapter 28 – Damned If You Do
Let it be said that Ophelia Delacour never allowed her teammates to see the ugly side of her. To them, she was the fun-loving, flirty and excitable kid that made the team feel like a family.
Perhaps it was a leftover fear that her team would still think she was a ticking time bomb. Whatever the reason, she unconsciously kept the worst part of herself hidden from them.
Ophelia never thought she'd ever have a reason to show that side.
But here they were.
"All our work is gone," Bruce announced as everyone convened to the labs, a skittish look on his face as he refused to look in the direction of Ophelia's narrowed eyes. "Ultron cleared out, used the internet as an escape hatch."
"Ultron," Steve repeated quietly, leaning against a table in contemplation.
"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other." Natasha relayed, pushing away from the computer to settle behind a stoic Ophelia as she sat on a computer chair. Her forearms leaning on the brawler's shoulders.
"Well, there are no files on me. Unless you two went behind our backs a second time." Ophelia frostily bit out to Bruce and Tony as they avoided her harsh gaze.
A small part of her was winced at how cruel she was being, but the louder part was screaming betrayal of the highest level. Natasha firmly squeezed her shoulders, silently telling her to calm down and stay rational.
"He's in your files, he's in the internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodey pointed out as he walked across the labs, his face pitched in concern but masked with professional calmness.
"Nuclear codes," Maria spoke up in realisation, her foot resting on her lap as she attempted to take out any glass shards from the earlier fight.
"Nuclear codes." Rhodey weakly threw his arm up in affirmation. "Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."
"Nukes? He said he wanted us dead." Natasha pointed out; her brows furrowed in consideration.
"He didn't say dead. He said extinct." Steve replied, partly still lost in thought of what happened.
"He also said he killed somebody," Clint added, leaning on the railing with a faint frown on his lips.
"But there wasn't anyone else in the building," Maria said, her neck craning to look up at Clint on the second floor.
"Yes, there was." Tony finally spoke, his voice solemn as he took out a handheld control pad. Tapping it to the centre of the room to reveal a holographic rendering of JARVIS. The broken remnants of his consciousness hanging suspended in the air, flickering ominously. Ophelia felt almost disrespectful looking at the AI like this. If anyone had saved their asses and kept them alive all this time, it was JARVIS. And this was all that was left of him.
"This is insane." Bruce breathed out, his hand passing through a broken fragment of JARVIS as he stared in shock.
"JARVIS was the first line of defence. He would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense." Steve analysed, falling back into his strategic military mindset whenever something like this happened. But Ophelia could see how disturbed the super soldier was by all this.
"No, Ultron could've assimilated Jarvis. This isn't strategy, this is...rage." Bruce corrected, just in time for Thor to come storming into the lab.
His footsteps were loud as he converged purposefully in Tony's direction with a hateful expression on his face. He grasped the throat of the Stark heir aggressively, holding him up so his legs flailed in the air.
"Woah, woah, woah! It's going around." Clint warned dryly, making no move to help Tony in his predicament.
"Come on. Use your words, buddy." Tony choked out.
"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark," Thor responded heatedly; his gaze locked in vitriol anger.
"Thor! The legionnaire." Steve barked out, trying to convince the Asgardian to let go of Tony as he started turning red.
"Thor!" Steve ordered again but the god of thunder was too lost in his frustration to listen to the Captain.
"What happened to the legionnaire?" Ophelia blithely asked, not having to wait long for Thor to snap out of it and drop the struggling billionaire to the floor.
"Trail went cold about a hundred miles out but it's headed north, and it has the sceptre. Now we have to retrieve it, again." He snarled in irritation, scowling at Tony as he clambered back to his feet.
A huff of annoyance escaped Ophelia's lips, her fingers itching for something to distract herself with, so she didn't potentially kill Tony and Bruce in the next five minutes.
"The genie's out of that bottle. Clear and present is Ultron." Natasha directed, keeping a calm and logical head on the mess they've found themselves in. Ophelia wished she could keep that kind of cool, but she could already feel herself cracking. All that was needed was one final push to set her off.
"I don't understand. You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?" Helen Cho wondered out loud, a tone of incredulousness to her voice as she saw the broken legionnaire robots on the lab table.
It was the laugh that did it, Ophelia was sure. That hysterical, borderline manic laugh that tinkered from Tony as Bruce shook his head frantically to shut him up.
"You think this is funny?" Ophelia snarled, the heat of the room rising by several degrees as her carefully contained cool finally broke. Even Nat's nails digging into her shoulders couldn't bring her back.
"No. It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so... is it so... it is. It's so terrible." Tony rationalised through sudden bouts of laughter, an uncontrollable smile edging away on his lips.
By now everyone was looking to Ophelia was barely repressed worry, the air now hot enough to physically feel heatwaves pulsing. And the brawler's apoplectic expression incited a wrathful vengeance for the two scientists.
"Yes, it's terrible! It's fucking terrible Tony because look who thought it'd be a good idea to screw around with things they didn't understand!" Ophelia exploded, her eyes now an eerie dark orange that sparked a tinge of madness.
"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this." Tony interrupted, losing his hysterical amusement as he strolled over to a now standing Ophelia. Not taking notice of how precarious her temper now was.
"No, no, no, no. What we needed was for you to analyse the sceptre and figure out what Strucker did with it. Not create a homicidal robot hellbent on killing us!" Ophelia roared, her gauntlets now catching alight as a response to her fury.
Suddenly a foreign calm presence pulsed in her head, it caught her enough off guard that her powers receded into her slightly. It stifled the writhing pool of rage that circled inside her, a balm to her fury as it curbed her vicious impulses.
Ophelia vaguely recognised the presence, the intrigue and curiosity it inspired just as strong now as it was before.
She couldn't see her, but she could feel Wanda Maximoff' smothering the flames of her wrath. Ophelia had no idea what was happening, she had no idea how the girl with the red eyes was somehow here but not here.
She wouldn't have the opportunity to ponder further as her attention was brought back to the focus of her ire.
"Tony, maybe this might not be the time to—" Bruce tried to intervene and get Tony to backpedal, recognising the signs of Ophelia losing control of her anger.
"Really?! That's it? You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls." Tony whirled around to face Bruce.
"Only when I've created a murder bot." Bruce pointed out with wide eyes.
"We didn't. We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?" Tony argued back to Bruce.
"I told you." Ophelia spat out through gritted teeth. "I told you not to fuck around with the sceptre! I told you to be careful with it! And you still went and used it!"
"Because we needed to! The sceptre was the only thing capable of-" Tony started but was interrupted by Ophelia.
"So, you probably saw it was alive in your scans, that it was intelligent. Did you also pick up how it was looking for the right opportunity to strike?" Ophelia continued, breathing heavily as she got more and more worked up.
"You had a power source with unknown variables and the first thing you and Bruce did was use it to create sentient life. Without even telling us! I don't know whether to call you the most stupid dumbasses I have ever met or idiots that don't give a shit about the consequences of their actions!" At the inclusion of Bruce, the scientist winced slightly, perfectly willing to let Tony bear the brunt of the Delacour's rage.
"Putain de merde, j'en ai ras de cul! (Goddamn, I'm so fucking done with this shit!)" Ophelia bellowed, the air flickering with wisps of nuclear energy as she collapsed back onto a computer chair.
The heat suddenly receded into the brawler as she tried her hardest to reign in her powers. Holding her face in her hands, Natasha tentatively cupped the back of her neck as the brawler tried to calm her breathing.
A stronger pulse echoed through her mind; it wasn't perfect tranquillity because Ophelia could detect a hint of confused panic from Wanda's side. But it grounded her, gave her a better thing to focus on than her own anger.
The Sokovian's presence, just the knowledge that she was there gave Ophelia a light feeling in her chest. Gratitude to this beautiful stranger overwhelmed the brawler for a moment, compounded by the need to just know her, to no longer be a stranger to her.
Tony seemed frozen as he took stock on how truly angry Ophelia was at him. For a second, a flash of remorse came across his face, but it was smothered by his eyes meeting Steve's critical ones across the room.
"Well, you did something right." Steve started, his eyes lingering on Ophelia as she tried to level her breathing in concern. "And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD."
"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" Tony began, inciting eyerolls and sighs of annoyance. Very nearly setting off Ophelia again as she tried to stand up, but Natasha kept a firm hold of her shoulders this time.
"No, it's never come up." Rhodey sarcastically drawled.
"Saved New York?" He continued brazenly as Natasha rolled her eyes.
"First I'm hearing about it." The Russian drawled.
"Recall that? A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but, that up there? That's... that's the endgame. How were you guys planning on beating that?" Tony pragmatically asked, his eyes locked on Steve the entire time like everyone was intruding on a private conversation. Ophelia certainly felt like she was stomping on a moment between the two.
"Together," Steve replied, his voice firm as he spoke in his pre-motivational speech voice as Ophelia called it.
"We'll lose."
"Then we'll do that together, too," Steve answered gravely. "Thor's right. Ultron's calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."
As everyone moved to follow the Captain's orders, Ophelia made a beeline for an unsuspecting Tony and Bruce.
"Come on." She gestured to a quiet area outside the lab, expecting them to follow her lead.
"What? So, you can murder us and hide the bodies somewhere? No." Tony snarked, his eyebrows raised in incredulity as Bruce fiddled with his glasses.
"Aww, it's cute that you think you have a choice." She sarcastically smiled. "Now get your ass out there."
Without looking back, she led the two to a relatively quiet area of the lab, knowing full well that they were following her.
"I don't like shouting at you two or being angry at you." Ophelia started, her eyes finally turning back to her normal dark green. "It sucks and I don't want you to think I don't..." Ophelia trailed off for a second as she tried to find the right words to say. "I don't want you to think I hate you. So, I'll keep it brief. Both of you screwed up."
When Tony looked like he was going to argue, Ophelia's eyes flashed a dark orange again. Warning him that her temper, while cooling, was still bubbling under the surface.
"You screwed up, and now we all have to deal with it. So, if you pull something like this again without giving me a heads up at the very least. I will personally throw both of you into the sun. Vous comprenez? (Do you understand?)" Ophelia gave a cheerful smile while threatening painful death to her two friends, who looked mildly horrified at her.
"Fine, jeez we get it. Won't do it again, Ratatouille." Tony muttered as he escaped her hold.
"I'm sorry, Lia," Bruce said, still fiddling with his glasses and refusing to look at her.
"I'm not gonna bite your head off Brucey, just lay off the killer robots I beg." Ophelia shook her head before hooking her arm with the shy scientists. Dragging him back to the labs to get back to work.
✺
Sokovia, Novi Grad
"Why won't you tell me what happened?" Pietro demanded as he and Wanda shuffled through the town square. The atmosphere was tense all around like everyone was just waiting for an Avenger to turn up and wreak havoc.
"I told you, I don't even know what happened," Wanda answered, rolling her eyes at her twin as he furrowed his brows. Trying to look intimidating when really, he looked constipated to her.
"So why the hell is an Avenger taking special interest in you?" Pietro asked confused.
"I don't know." Wanda groaned, although in her mind she was still remembering the heat she felt two days ago. Her intensity, her focus, and the strange warm comfort she felt around her.
"Why were you two just staring at each other?" Pietro asked again as Wanda's tinged a light pink.
"Again, I don't know, Pietro," Wanda repeated, sighing at the monotonous questions as they got lost in the crowd of evening shoppers.
"Is there anything you do know?" Pietro humorously asked.
"I know that if you ask any more dumb questions, I'll smack you." Wanda snarked as Pietro let out a bark of laughter; scaring the nearby children with the loud noise.
"So defensive, it's almost like you have something to hide." Pietro teased, ruffling Wanda's hair despite her flailing before speeding off to the town centre. Intent on giving out gifts to the populace from his many thefts.
Wanda didn't exactly approve of his belligerent insistence on stealing from the government-controlled food reserves and medical supplies that were kept for the military alone. She was afraid that one day his reckless activities would catch up to him and end up with a bullet in his brain.
But Pietro was just as stubborn as he was reckless and talking him down from something once he was convinced was partially an impossible task.
Despite his joking nature, her brother was a fighter. He fought to protect the forgotten, the old man who couldn't get his meds or the young girl who'd never had a toy before.
So, despite not approving, Wanda couldn't fault him for his efforts.
Unlike everyone else, at least he was trying to do something good.
The young witch found herself a calm spot in the controlled chaos of the early evening rush home. From her place on a stone slab, she could take a small breather, calm her mind that had been whirling with thoughts of dark green eyes for the last two days.
'This is pathetic' She thought to herself. What was it about her that kept her in the witch's mind? Wanda didn't even know what she properly looked like. But during moments when she should have been planning Tony Stark's downfall, she found herself wondering about the curve of her smile.
"For heaven's sake." Wanda groaned with irritation as she caught herself doing it again. "Snap out of it Maximoff."
Abruptly, a surge of something echoed in Wanda's mind. It was overwhelming, wild and ruthless and utterly dangerous. The Sokovian thought she was being attacked at first until she began to recognise the person behind the wrath.
She didn't know how she was able to feel it, but somewhere in the world Atlas had fallen into a fit of rage. A rage so deep that it caused Wanda's fight or flight to come roaring forward. Her eyes flickering to a vibrant red at the perceived threat.
Running to Pietro would have been the sensible thing, being able to feel the emotions of someone halfway across the world was something to at least be concerned about.
But feeling the turmoil underneath the rage, the hurt underneath the vicious need to fight, Wanda took a chance. It was stupid and reckless and 100% something that Pietro would have done.
Wanda's power was naturally chaotic, content to cause mayhem at her beck and call. But in her vehement need to bring Atlas out of her rage, for once it stilled. Its normal disordered movement calming to a soothing pulse that she let the Avenger feel. Her eyes ended up closing as she felt the rage drawing back, like a wounded animal settling. Scorching hot became a comforting warmth that settled deep in her bones.
And just when she thought everything would be fine, the fury came back with a vengeance.
"You have to be kidding me." Wanda huffed as she felt her hard work dashed in an instant. "Stark probably did something."
Wanda restarted her efforts with new vigour, but as the rage kept growing and growing, she became more frantic. She never knew someone could feel anger like that, where it consumed your entire being and acted like a vengeful god.
"Don't fall in it." She murmured under her breath, and by some miracle, it seemed like her plea was heard.
The volatile explosion coming back to its normal inviting warmth. The near-divine anger becoming smaller and smaller until it vanished as if nothing had ever happened.
The only thing left behind was a gentle touch of gratitude that hummed from Atlas' side.
"Wanda. There's someone that wants to meet us at the church." Pietro suddenly called out, breaking his sister out of her reprieve.
"Who is it?" She asked, shaken out of her thoughts.
"They say he's a man of iron."
✺
"This is a hellscape." Ophelia groaned from her place on the floor, surrounded by boxes of dusty files that were more likely to make her sneeze than give her Ultron's location.
"Agreed, the amount of problems Ultron is gonna give us. I'm dreading it." Clint answered Ophelia as he sifted through files on the table.
"I mean yes, that too. But I was referring to the ungodly paperwork, Katniss." Ophelia waved her hand around the small mountain of files at her feet as Clint rolled his eyes. "Is it too late to say I'm selectively illiterate?"
"What does that even mean?" Natasha incredulously asked.
"I simply cannot read through boring shit," Ophelia answered, earning a huff of amusement from the spy.
After Natasha saw through Ultron's diversion, Steve had the bright idea to use the physical SHIELD files that Tony had on hand since the fall of the organisation. To be fair it was a good idea, but Ophelia's patience was wearing thin and if she had to read through any more stakeout mission reports, she'd throw herself out of a window.
"Known associates. Well, Strucker had a lot of friends." Steve sighed at the mountain of paper they had to sift through. Thor decided to forgo gentleness and simply threw the papers and boxes out of his way. As he threw one of the box lids, it, unfortunately, ended up bonking Ophelia right on her forehead.
"Aïe (ouch)! Can you not?!" Ophelia pouted; Natasha absentmindedly patted her head as she sat on a chair next to the brawler on the floor.
"Well, these people are all horrible." Bruce awkwardly trailed off as he read through the list of criminals.
"Put a mark on the traffickers, I got some pent-up aggression from today," Ophelia said as Bruce raised his eyebrow at her. "What? You have your punching bags, I have mine."
"Wait. I know that guy." Tony suddenly called out; his finger pointed at a roughed up looking guy from a file in Bruce's hand. "From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms."
Steve's judgey look was enough for Ophelia to snort in laughter as Tony tried to backtrack from his earlier comment. "There are conventions, alright? You meet people, I didn't sell him anything. He was talking about finding something new, a game-changer, it was all very "Ahab."
"What's this?" Thor asked, pointing to the red circular mark on the side of his neck that looked painfully fresh.
"Uh, it's a tattoo. I don't think he had it..." Tony answered.
"No, those are tattoos, this is a brand." Thor corrected, citing the difference between the red and black markings.
"Oh, yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning thief, in a much less friendly way." Bruce scanned from his computer.
"If he's a thief, he's probably got access to something Ultron wants." Ophelia hummed as Nat nodded in agreement.
"What dialect?" Natasha asked Bruce, mindful of how shy he seemed around her.
"Wakanada...? Wa...Wa...Wakanda." Bruce stammered out the pronunciation, although whether it was because of Natasha or the difficulty of the word was unknown.
"If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods..." Tony whispered urgently to Steve.
"I thought your father said he got the last of it?" Steve asked, just as frantic as Tony.
"I don't follow. What comes out of Wakanda?" Bruce asked the question everyone was waiting for.
"The strongest metal on earth," Tony answered gravely.
"You know what? Never mind. This is a hellscape." Ophelia grumbled at the ridiculousness of it all.
A/N: Have any of you watched Black Widow? It's such an amazing movie, and in regards to the fic I'm surprised with how well it fits in with what I have planned for Nat. I might have to rearrange some things but Black Widow will be at least partially included in Atlas so even if its a few chapters away, here's your early spoiler warning. Wanda and Ophelia's connection gets explored a bit more in this chapter but it will be built on more, next chapter is a fight and an unwanted trip down memory lane. Thanks for reading!