STEP ???: GO TO WASHINGTON
The blazers are hideous. Absolutely hideous. They're yellow and ugly and they looked like a seven-year-old's vomit — Nina hated it, every single aspect of it, so much that she refused to wear it unless she absolutely needed to.
Mr. Harrington was obviously not a very great designer - she made a mental note to do something about that later.
The girl grips her luggage tighter when she sees Flash's eyes trailed on her bag, looking at the boy with an annoyed sigh. "What's your problem, weirdo?"
He gulps, eyes still on her bag. "That's a Michael Clarke's Louis Vuitton Luxury Trunk."
"Yeah, I'm rich, Flash." Nina groans, wanting to go inside the bus and fall asleep - she was still quite tired. "It's been established."
Flash still looks surprised, "But that's like... a hundred seventy grand."
Before Nina could make a remark about how Flash knew way too much about bags, Abe had suddenly yelled out of nowhere. "Hey, it's Peter!"
At the mention of his name, Nina turns around a little too quickly, watching as the familiar (and cute) face of Peter Parker strolled down the pathway. "Guys," he states out, not breathless like Nina thought he'd be.
"Peter?" Liz mirrors the same confusion everyone's feeling at the moment.
"Yeah, I was hoping maybe I could rejoin the team."
Nina raises her brow at the statement. He has a lot of nerve showing up the day that they're supposed to arrive at D.C unannounced after he'd quit the team which was how she'd gotten her spot - so what, he's just gonna steal it?
Flash, who was standing right beside her snaps out of his dace and walks forward to face Peter. "No, no way. You can't just quit on us, stroll up, and be welcomed back by everyone."
As much as she disliked the boy, he was right. Sure, she didn't really give a fuck about the decathlon considering she'd be focusing on the weird weapon guys Illiana was weirdly obsessed with for the duration of the trip, she was suddenly very defensive - was Peter gonna take her position?
"Hey, welcome back, Peter." Mr. Harrington smiled giddily, "You're at first alternate. Flash, you're just backup now."
Good. He isn't taking her spot. Granted the chance of Nina not being at the decathlon was quite high, she still appreciated the fact that Mr. Harrington thought that she was smarter than Peter. Gave her a huge ego boost.
"What?" Flash breathed out, expression lost.
Abe smirked. "He's taking your place."
"Excuse me, can we go already?" the voice of a girl Nina was too uninterested to get to know called out from the back. "Cause I was hoping to get in some light protesting in front of one of the embassies before dinner, so..."
Nina is glad that she's wearing sunglasses - that way, no one can see her rolling her eyes in annoyance.
"Protesting is patriotic. Let's get on the bus."
....
Nina sighs against her seat, shutting her eyes in annoyance as she listens to her teammates practice with the flashcards Liz had prepared beforehand. She's not answering any of her questions, and frankly, has no intent to do so.
She'd never realized how much of a nerd her best friend actually was up until this point. Fuck, how nerdy everyone in the goddammed bus was; answering questions eagerly, scrolling through their thick textbooks - the whole situation with the weapon guys better be worth it because she'd rather be sleeping in her room right now.
"Nina," Liz calls out softly, which jolts the girl out of her drowsy head. "You still with us?"
"Yeah, um, what was the question?" Nina lies, trying to sound as awake as possible. Great, now Liz was singling her out in front of everyone.
"The ability of vaccinations to prevent the spread of disease in unvaccinated individuals because the pathogen is not able to effectively spread due to a high number of vaccinated individuals is known as?" Liz rushes out, eyebrow raised. Nina almost chuckles. Nerd.
But then she looks at her teammates, their expectant glances - they think she's a fucking genius, but she doesn't know the answer.
For the second time that day, Nina is glad that she's wearing sunglasses. She doesn't necessarily know how much her powers work, especially since she was just declaring the lie into thin air with no one around... but who'd be harmed if she tried, right?
She focuses, focuses, and focuses. The girl shuts her eyes, steadying her breath as her eyes glow from the inside of her glasses. Nina finally utters the words out and hopes to god that it worked - she wasn't going to be embarrassed in front of these people. "Immunity by association."
"Actually, it's—" Liz flips over the card to see the answer before confusion is scattered on her face. "Immunity by association. I swear it used to be herd immunity..."
Nina's brain stutters for a moment and her eyes take in more light than she expected, every part of her going on pause while her thoughts catch up. She never knew she could do that. Her powers were only supposed to be summoning and the occasional mind control - but that, changing reality (sure, reality is a bit of a stretch since it was just an academic term) was something she'd never thought was a part of the pack.
Nina glances at her hands. She had gotten her powers a mere week ago, when she had turned fifteen (actually, she didn't know if she was actually fifteen or not, her birth month was still unknown since Illiana literally stole them as children, so they settled for early September) - and she thought that she had maximized her capabilities with Samara, but she had just shifted reality in just the slightest- so what the fuck did that mean for her?
...
Nina walks behind the group, separated from everyone as she observed the hotel. Before she had her powers, the Viotto family weren't billionaires like they were now. In fact, they were a good middle class, so this hotel is probably one of the biggest she's ever seen. Decathlon banners are hanging around everywhere, which makes the girl roll her eyes. They know that they're here for the decathlon, there's no need to prove it.
"Everyone stick together," Liz calls as she begins to lead them through the hotel. "Nina, where are you?"
"I'm here!" Nina calls out in response, jogging slightly to make her way towards Mr. Harrington. Back at the bus, they've discussed the rooming for everyone: all she could remember was that she had to share a room with Michelle Jones (the girl who was heading off to a protest, Nina finally knew her name) but she couldn't do that, not when she's going to be calling her mother who was a secret criminal to discuss her plans of infiltrating the weapon base.
"Mr. Harrington!" Nina rushes out once she's next to the old teacher, not letting go of her luggage for a minute know that she knew that it cost 170,000$ - probably the most expensive thing she's ever had. "I need to get my own hotel room."
The teacher raises his brow. "Why?"
"None of your business," Nina responds sharply, before remembering that she's talking to their only source of authority for the whole trip. "It's a family thing, sir. I'll pay for it."
Mr. Harrington still looks confused. "Are you sure about that? I mean, the rooms are pretty big and Michelle is going to that protest-"
"Family matter, sir." Nina interrupts him curtly, not noticing the two boys listening to the whole conversation while the rest waited for their keys on the benches: Ned and Peter.
"Okay," the teacher finally agrees with a sigh, "Let's just hope that all the rooms aren't booked. Cmon."
The two boys watch as Nina follows her teacher towards the counter, not before hearing her voice say, "Do they have suites?"
"Who do you think is richer, Nina's family or Tony Stark?" Ned questions, watching as the girl hands over a wad of cash to the lady at the counter in trade for one of the keys for the suites. "You sure this is the same girl you saw two nights ago? Bleeding at Delmars? She looks pretty fine to me."
Peter doesn't listen, instead, as he watches her right hand grab the key from the lady, he feels his heart drop into his stomach.
He sees her wrist. When his Spidey senses focus on the slight discoloration on her skin, he sees her bruised nerve - the median nerve.
...
"You need to leave tonight."
"Tonight?" Nina repeats softly, not sparing her mother whose face was on her laptop screen a single glance as she gently laid down the outfit she prepared for the decathlon.
Nina knew for a fact that the people that would be there wouldn't know how to dress, so she took complete advantage of that, her outfit ensuring that she'd be the best-dressed person in there.
"There's going to be a heist tonight at ten," Nina doesn't even bother to ask her mother where all this information is coming from, knowing that Illiana had people working for her everywhere. "You have the chip?"
Nina nods, taking the chip out of her luggage. It's stored in a glass container, the chip seemingly floating out of thin air. Again, Nina doesn't ask anymore at this point: her mother's technology is weird and she never understood it, nor does she want to ever understand it. It's just a bunch of math, and Nina hates math.
She doesn't even like it in her school - she only agreed to attend Midtown Science due to their reputation, but Science or Math wasn't really her strong suit. Most of her classmates, despite being between the ages of fifteen and sixteen had their college lives planned out; most of them opted for MIT for a science or math-related course.
If she was still alive by college, Nina has already given it some thought: Political Science at Columbia.
"Nina, listen to me."
"I'm listening," Nina lied, removing her costume out of the glass cage it's enclosed in. The girl smiles at the wig, flexing her fingers as she touched the fabric of the suit. It was truly a great suit, she'd give her mother that.
"Remember," Illiana persists, raising her voice just a bit. "Stick the chip in—"
They've been through this plan almost a hundred times, and frankly, Nina was growing tired of the constant repetition. Stick the chip in the big flying guy's suit who was apparently their boss, and Illiana would be doing all the work starting from there. "I know where to stick it in, mom."
"You better, Nina. It's a simple mission, and I trust that you can manage it. You know what happens if you fail this." Illiana narrows her eyes at the girl who had been avoiding her gaze ever since the call started. "Look, sweetie, I'm sorry about yesterday, okay? You know I'm doing this because I love you, right?"
For the first time that night, Nina glances at her mother. She can see it in her eyes, the way that her mom looks at her, that she deserves at least one more chance of making things right.
Illiana loves her. She's never come out and said it directly to her, scratch that, to any of them, but she knows her mother does. And she loves her mother. What happened in the penthouse yesterday is something Nina is confident wouldn't happen again - not after Illiana saw how much pain she's been through the rest of the day.
"Yes mom," Nina grabs her laptop and sits down on her bed. She shifted now, leaning against the headboard of her bed so that she could see her mother properly on the screen. Nina breathed slowly, making sure her head did not rise to fall too quickly. "I- I love you too."
"Turn on your GPS, okay? I'll be coordinating the location," her voice is still superficial, soft, but Nina doesn't notice it, too blinded by the way her heart warmed. "I'll call you later. I'm sorry. I don't want us to fight."
Nina nods softly, saying nothing as her mother ends the call.
The girl looks at the clock at the right corner of her laptop - it was eight-thirty. She should be getting ready now and be out and about by nine. There was a little part of her that wanted to skip the decathlon altogether since there would be countless people there who can easily spot it when her eyes glow, but she knew what she had to do. Not answer a single question.
A knock sounds from the outside of her suite. Nina quickly pushes herself out of the bed, hides her costume and the chip underneath her bed and whisks open the door to reveal Liz, along with some of the other team members huddled behind the door.
"Hello? Why is everyone here?" Nina questions, not before glaring at a random girl who looked like she was about to step inside. Sally (was it? she didn't really care) froze under her icy glare and backed up. "Because I'm not letting you in."
"We're going swimming," Liz informs her in a whisper.
Nina's eyes rake over her swimsuit, before raising an unamused brow. "Really? Never would've thought of that. I don't have a swimming pool here, so..." before she shuts the door, Liz peeks her head in and laughs.
Nina raises two of her eyebrows. Liz giggles. "No, silly! The pool downstairs."
"Isn't it closed?" Nina asks skeptically.
"That's the point."
"I'd love to, but I can't," Nina lies, pretending to look all flustered as her face turned into a deep shade of red (she mastered the art of blushing on command since the third grade). "I'm on my period. You guys have fun."
A look of understanding makes its way onto Liz's face. "Oh, sure! Rest well okay, Nina?"
The girl fakes a tired nod, offering a small smile before she closes the door.
When the footsteps are gone, Nina walks over towards her king-sized bed and pulls a costume - her Mendax costume, and glances one more time at the wall clock.
Eight thirty-seven. It's showtime.
...
Technology is weird. It's too advanced for its own sake - how the fuck did we come from calculators and brick cellphones to holograms and GPS's that seem to work without the need of wifi?
Nina grunts, readjusting her wig as she stared at the hologram that presented itself in front of her. Illiana had always been amazing at tech, and so was her sisters, but she was, to put it bluntly, very dumb.
Eventually, she figures it out. The location is not too far from where she was right now, but walking over there would be too much of a hassle. Nina glances behind her and spots a motorcycle. Perfect.
Three minutes later, after successfully hot-wiring the vehicle, Nina is zooming through the road, a few meters ahead of a truck that contained several cars.
It's a cold night, and her suit isn't really protecting her right arm, but who gives a shit, right? At least when she'd be putting those chips in their weapons, she would look hot doing it.
"Two hundred meters from destination and closing," a male voice echoes out of nowhere after a hefty amount of time riding the motorcycle, which almost caused her to swerve the vehicle out of nowhere.
"You talk?" Nina yells, aware that no one is going to hear her since the road was empty and she was a few meters away from the truck. "Mr. GPS guy? You there? Can you hear me?"
"One hundred meters from destination and closing,"
So he can't hear her. Nina sighs, changing the course of the motorcycle into the grass, jumping off the vehicle when she sees the gas station.
In all honesty, she's a bit overwhelmed. Nina expected a cool secret lair - but a gas station? Were they being serious?
It's a few minutes before ten, and Nina feels her phone vibrate in her pocket but decided to ignore the device, opting to dash towards the gas station, half-hidden in the trees. The girl made sure to avoid the light cast by the streetlamps, making sure that no one could see her.
Once faced with a wall, Nina made sure to whisper quietly as she summoned two climbing spikes out of thin air as a hushed lie left her lips and wedged the first one then the other between the bricks of the wall as she hoisted herself higher until she reached the top, wherein she's given a clear view of the ongoing transaction.
Bingo. Nina inched closer and closer and leaped soundlessly in the balconies until she reached the van, body pressed against the front door. The windows were opened up in the slightest, so she could hear bits and pieces of the conversation being held, but she had to put her absolute focus so that she'd hear the whole thing properly.
"Greenlight. Greenlight."
That's all the confirmation she needs to get on her feet and find some sort of way to run towards the trucks that were already a few feet away from her. It doesn't look good for Nina, since despite being trained as a child she was still a human being who couldn't run faster than the speed of light.
Nina is slapped into the realization that the trucks were probably going to get away. Heart pounding, breath strained and fast and close to hyperventilating, Nina stared into the darkness and was already trying desperately to calm down and think of a solution, until a voice behind her sent her into the edge.
"Nina?"
Not Mendax. Nina. Nina.
...
note: if you're wondering why i put "canon eternals divergence" and there's literally no mention of ANYONE, i'm setting it up in the gap between homecoming and infinity war :)
not really saying anything but just think of who nina resembles in terms of powers LOLOL okay bye