"Good news. We're going to the opera!"
Instantly, the group of teenagers protested. Cat stayed at the back with MJ standing beside her.
"What happened to the carnival?"
"Well, this is upgrade living, guys. Come on. The tour company just gave us these tickets. For free! Do you have any idea how much opera tickets cost?"
"No, because none of us have ever wanted to go to the opera, ever," Flash replied.
"Uh— I think this is gonna be culturally enriching for us," Ned was quick to say.
"Bless his heart," Cat gave the boy a sympathetic look. Peter had a good guy in the chair.
"Thank you, Ned. Everyone, this is gonna be, maybe, the best four hours of our whole trip!"
"FOUR HOURS?!"
"Guys, I think this is gonna be really fun! Seriously!"
"Well, at least we can make fun of the costumes, right?" MJ nudged her arm.
"Sure," Cat smiled at her briefly, she already had an excuse to leave early.
***
"Hey. I'll save you a seat," Brad offered.
"Oh, you're so sweet, thank you!" Cat beamed though it was pretty obvious he wasn't talking to her.
Before the guy could correct her, her phone started buzzing, she'd asked M.O.U.S.E to fake a call and she looked at MJ with a bit of worry.
"I should answer this..."
"Oh, sure," MJ walked away.
She walked past Peter at the entrance.
"You better get out quickly," Cat whispered, then pretended to answer the call. "Hi! What's going on..?"
She glanced back at MJ and Peter and saw them interact. He'd never acted that way around her, he'd always been the one to take the lead. Was that the right way to do things? The will-they-won't-they, bashful glances...
"Agent!"
Cat winced, she covered her right ear hissing. "What?"
"You should be in position already!"
"I'm going, you old crow!" She put her phone away and approached the teens. "I'm sorry, Pepper is having a few problems with an account— But I'll try to be back!"
"Oh, don't worry," the girl replied. "Peter and I are planning to sit together, so..."
Cat gave the boy a look that she hoped looked discretely exasperated. "Good! Well, see you later!"
***
"All right. I'm in position. As soon as I see something, Beck, I'll let you know."
"Roger that."
"How's the suit?"
"The suit's great. It's awesome. It's a little tight around the old web-shooter."
"Parker!"
"Okay, I'll shut up."
"Appreciated, Webs," Cat muttered.
She was looking at the scene from their quarters, the agent was tapping her foot anxiously, and Soren had to squeeze her arm to make her stop.
"Fury always says the boss has to stay away from the action," her aunt reminded her, "and you and Talos are leading this operation."
"It's stupid. I never asked to be the boss. I'm not even it officially, I'm just here to see if I'm interested in doing more..."
"You are?"
"Not like this," she scowled, "a team leader, that's what I wanted! That's what I like to do!"
"Energy spiking," Fury announced from the other side of the room.
"We have seismic activity."
"Good luck, guys," Cat spoke through the coms.
***
"You gotta trust them—"
"This is me trusting them!" Cat stormed out. "Get me a damn car!"
"Spider-Man, keep your distance!"
She walked towards one of the vehicles and got into the driver's seat, the keys were inside so it took her a few seconds to turn it on, time in which Fury and Hill joined her.
"Can't let him get near the Ferris wheel!"
"Okay! I'm on it!" Peter shot at something and she heard a brief interference. "Whoa, what is that?!"
"I'm going guys, hang in there!" Cat exclaimed.
"Agent, you can't be seen—"
"I know!" She snapped. "If you're lucky maybe the boys will finish things off before I arrive."
However, things were far from over when they got to the scene. Cat grabbed something from the back seat and as she walked out of the car her hair turned white and her eyes became purple. Her mask covered the lower half of her face. She grabbed her spear and ran towards the fire.
"Hey, you slimy rock!"
She threw the spear and it merely scratched a side of the creature, but that was exactly what she'd intended to do, the monster had its attention on her.
"It's too late," Hill whispered behind her, a bunch of metal had just fallen on the elemental's back and it was growing quickly.
"I'll be the judge of that," Copy growled.
Quentin tried to stop her, but she raised both hands with her palms facing forward.
Using Wanda's powers she lifted a bunch of debris (all rocks and dirt) and gathered it around the creature. Something strange happened: As the rocks hit it from every angle, the creature glitched. Cat thought it might've been a trick of the light, but then Quentin took off his helmet and looked at Peter, who was trying to hold the Ferris wheel in place, with horror she saw Ned and Betty were in it.
"Whatever happens I'm glad we met!" Quentin spoke like he was in a hurry.
"Beck, what are you doing?!"
"What I should have done last time..."
He threw himself directly into the chest of the Elemental, concentrated all his power, and blasted the creature out of existence. When it vanished, however, it didn't become hard stone or splashed all over them, not even a speck of dust was seen.
Years of experience had taught her something crucial: Life could not be created out of thin air, and killing them, or dying, didn't mean being gone. The matter could only be transformed, and there was nothing left of the creature.
Cat activated M.O.U.S.E, she made sure to turn off the coms that were connected to the rest of the team. "Tell me the general radiation levels of the area."
"Below 300 millirems."
"Run a general analysis and tell me if some kind of energy is higher than it should be."
Cat and Peter got to Quentin at the same time, but while Peter was all over him trying to make sure he was okay, the young woman remained on both feet, looking down at the man without showing emotion.
"That was a hell of a killing," she pointed out.
"I had to take the risk," he said humbly.
She looked up at the Ferris wheel, Ned and Betty were looking at them so she couldn't shift back nor take off her mask. "Good job, both of you."
***
"That was the last of them."
"But not the last threat we'll ever face," Fury moved forward, facing Beck. "We need to stay vigilant. There's a void in this world for someone like you. Hill and I are going to Europol headquarters in Berlin tomorrow. You should join us."
Cat said nothing, she was in the middle of a silent trial, and she couldn't object unless she had proof.
"Thank you. I just might take you up on that."
"Mouse?" She spoke quietly.
"I'm almost done," the voice replied.
Fury approached Peter.
"You got gifts, Parker, but you didn't wanna be here. I'd love to have you in Berlin too. But you got to decide whether you're going to step up or not... Stark chose you. He made you an Avenger. I need that. The world needs that... Maybe Stark was wrong."
She could not believe he'd dared to call out Peter like that, let alone use Tony's name to bring him down when she knew how much he'd believed in the boy.
"Sir?" She said through gritted teeth.
Fury —Talos— decided to ignore her. "Was he wrong, Parker? The choice is yours."
When Fury moved away, she opened her mouth to speak, and even though he couldn't see her whole face, Peter stopped her. "I don't want to hear it."
"But he's not right! Who does he think he is?"
"He's Nick Fury," Peter said tearily, "and he's right."
"He's a closed-minded, biased old man," she retorted harshly, "you leave it to me."
Cat patted his shoulder before walking away towards one of the cars, someone opened the door for her and as she climbed in, M.O.U.S.E spoke to her.
"My analysis is complete."
"I'm listening."
"It seems there was a high level of radio frequencies going back and forth for the entirety of the fight and it stopped when Mr. Beck killed the creature."
"That creature wasn't real, was it?"
"If it was real, I'd say it was nowhere near as dangerous as the reports Mr. Beck showed us."
"The heat waves weren't that big of a deal either, were they?"
"No."
"What about all the lava? The things it melted? You recorded it, right? I always record my missions."
M.O.U.S.E projected the video frame by frame, she stopped one that had some parts of debris near view. She zoomed in on a piece of metal. "When the creature moves away the thing's melted, but you can see a big puddle on the floor. D'you know what that means, Mouse?"
"The monster was not absorbing the metal."
"He lied," Cat sentenced darkly. "Find a clear image of his face, I want you to search for data under every person in the world that has any similarity to him."
It took about ten seconds, but eventually, her assistant found it. It was so stupid it almost made her faint out of white-hot anger.
"Mr. Beck worked for Stark Industries a few years back under a different name. According to his file, he was in charge of the development of a holographic tool that Tony Stark presented at MIT with the name of—"
"Barf," Cat finished. "Oh, God... they're all illusions!"
Wishing it was all just her paranoid way of thinking, Cat tried to mimic Quentin's powers... and felt nothing.