There are many different ways to communicate the death of a loved one. It could be via a tearful phone call, a visit, a letter, or even a text. When Betty received the call from Marielle she had to admit she'd been half-expecting it. Corporal Timothy Dugan had finally succumbed to the weight of his years and the tears that Betty shed were more in celebration of a life well-lived than grief for a friend departed. She attended his funeral to pay her respects, as did Steve, but they hung back, away from the crowd, with only a small wave and nod to Marielle. If Betty listened hard enough she could hear his booming laugh and see his giant red moustache twitch in amusement. The siblings toasted their old comrade with glasses of red wine, and shared stories until they were both too tired to speak.
She sat now, staring down at the letter in front of her, the thick paper trembling in her hand as she read the words over again for the hundredth time. Beautiful script, in stark contrast to the words it carried, informed her of the death of her mentor, Master Daniel Drumm, killed by one of his own, a sorcerer gone rogue. Master Wong, whose name resided at the bottom of the page, wrote kindly, letting her know that Daniel had held her in high regard. She wanted so much to pay the Sanctum a visit, to let them know how she shared in their grief, but the subtext in the letter was clear; the sorcerers were in the midst of a power struggle, and Betty didn't want to get caught up in something that she knew so little about. She sighed heavily, wiping her hand across her eyes, and stashed the letter in her desk drawer. Standing, she stretched out her neck and left her room in search of some company to temper the sadness she felt.
Betty headed towards the main common area, passing the large training room where Steve and Nat were putting some of the new operatives through their paces. She craved the solace of company but didn't want to interrupt their session so carried on past and into the living space of the compound. She found Wanda there, sat at the dining table playing solitaire, lifting, and placing cards using the swirling red energy that was at her command.
"I'm practicing precision," the young woman said, without looking up from her game.
"Looks like you're pretty good at it," Betty said, kindly. "I was gonna grab a coffee, would you like one?"
The cards stilled in the air, bobbing only slightly as Wanda finally looked up at Betty and smiled.
"Yes please. I take cream and one sugar."
"Coming right up." Betty smiled back as Wanda returned to her cards.
As Betty prepared their drinks she stole glances at Wanda, whose penetrating gaze was transfixed on the cards in front of her. Graceful hands moved in a delicate formation, almost like a dancer's, directing the crimson energy to bend to her will. Betty was fascinated. Shaking herself, she picked up their cups and sat in front of Wanda at the table, sliding one of the cups over to her and lifting the other to her lips for a sip, wincing and blowing on the drink when she burned her mouth.
"I can be a fuckin' liability sometimes," she chuckled dryly, shrugging at Wanda.
"You're distracted, it's understandable," Wanda replied.
"Yeah I guess I am a bit," Betty agreed. "How are you holdin' up?"
"I'm OK sometimes, other times I'm not so good, but I keep going."
"And that's all we really can do," agreed Betty, reaching out to the young Avenger.
"You understand," Wanda stated, grasping Betty's hand in return. "I'm sorry for your losses."
"Wait, how did you..."
"I didn't look if that's what you're worried about. Sometimes, when people feel emotions strongly enough, or have loud thoughts, I can hear them without even trying to listen. I would never intrude like that." Wanda looked a little hurt and sad, and started to withdraw her hand, but Betty grasped it even tighter.
"No-one here would ever think that of you Wanda. You're home now, whatever that means."
Wanda gave Betty a tight smile. "I do not know what home is either anymore, but I hope I can find something like it here."
"I'll make sure of it," Betty promised, feeling herself getting a little tearful.
She understood exactly what it felt like to be pulled from the only life you'd ever known and thrown into another, whilst carrying the burden of the loss of a loved one. She counted herself so fortunate that she'd had Steve, and Bren, to help her through, and was determined to be that person for Wanda.
"How about I see if Natasha is free tonight. We could get some takeout and watch a movie in my room?" Betty suggested, "just us girls?"
"I would like that," Wanda said softly, and her nose crinkled just a little as her smile became more genuine.
"Hold that thought ladies," came a familiar commanding voice, as Steve stalked into the room. "Maximoff, get ready, we've had some intel on Rumlow's next target. We're wheels up to Lagos in ten minutes."
Wanda nodded and rose from her seat. Betty turned to Steve with an expectant look on her face, but he didn't say anything else.
"Steve am I..."
"No," he said abruptly, cutting her off.
"Are you shittin' me? You're doin' this to me again?! I need to be there!" Betty was incredulous.
"You're not coming Betty, that's the end of it." Steve was adamant, arms folded across his chest.
"But...I thought we'd got over this Steve," she shook her head sadly, aware of Wanda watching the exchange. "I thought you trusted me to be able to fight with you."
Steve's face softened as he looked at his sister, understanding how she could have misinterpreted his reluctance.
"Bets, no, it's not that. Please don't ever think it's that."
"Well what the hell am I supposed to think Steve, 'cause it looks like you're leavin' me behind again!"
Steve sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Betty, calm down. I'd give anything to have you with us if it were anyone other that Rumlow, but it's not. What would you do if you found him, eh?"
"I'd shoot him in the fuckin' balls," Betty growled, causing Wanda to let out a snicker.
"Exactly. We need to take him in, not take him out."
"But...but...for fuck's sake Stevie, come on!" Betty threw her hands up, frustrated.
"Could you let us take him in?"
"Yeahhhhh...?"
"Really?" Steve raised his eyebrow sceptically.
"No, not really," Betty grumbled. "After everythin' he's done to you, me, Bu...Bucky," she cast a side-eye to Wanda, who gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head, "I'd be after him, guns blazin'. GOD I hate that you know me so well." Betty stamped her foot in an uncharacteristic display of pique.
"But you know that I'd have you with me in any other situation, right?" he said, stepping closer to her and flicking up her ponytail in an effort to lighten the tension.
"Yeah I guess," she said sullenly.
"Good. Come on Maximoff, we need to roll." Steve beckoned to Wanda, and she followed him out of the room with a wave and sympathetic glance towards Betty.
Betty huffed in frustration, more at herself for understanding Steve's reasons but still wanting to take a piece out of Rumlow anyway and made her way to the comms room to keep an eye on the mission from a distance.
Betty couldn't stop pacing around the comms room as she waited for the team to come back from Nigeria. The mission to capture Rumlow had been a disaster in every sense of the word. Rumlow was dead, the only high point of the mission in Betty's eyes, but it was at the expense of the lives of twenty six civilians. The explosion of Rumlow's bomb vest had been successfully contained by Wanda, in an impressive display of power, but she'd lost control, and the explosion had ripped through a building. As soon as the word was given that the quinjet was arriving on the landing strip Betty flashed outside, foot tapping, impatiently awaiting the arrival of her friends.
The jet landed and the team exited, dumbstruck. After fixing some minor scraped and bruises on Nat and Sam, Betty reached out to Steve, who tried to shake her off.
"I'm fine Bets, honestly. Just take care of Wanda." He indicated towards the young woman, but Betty didn't miss his wince of pain.
"Shut up Stevie," she gritted, placing her hands on his arm, the familiar crystalline glow covering them.
Her brother sighed in relief as she healed his injuries, despite his protests.
"Yeah, a cracked sternum is totally nothin', eh Steve. I saw you fallin' from that buildin' on the video feed," she snarked, before turning to Wanda.
Wrapping her arm around Wanda's shoulder, Betty guided her into the compound. She was distraught, whispering to herself in Sokovian, periodically shaking her head and crying hot tears of grief. Betty led her to her room, tucking her up into bed with a soft blanket and putting something mindless on the tv for background noise. As she was heading out to the kitchen to make Wanda some tea she encountered Vision, the strange, red-skinned android, who was on his way to Wanda's room.
"Ah, Miss Rogers, I was just about to check on Wanda, I mean, Miss Maximoff. How is she?"
"She's not good Vision," Betty shook her head. "I think she could do with your company. I didn't really wanna leave her on her own."
"I don't really know what to say in these situations Miss Rogers. I don't exactly have much experience..."
Betty placed her arm on his hand in a familiar gesture of reassurance and he looked down at it quizzically but didn't shrug it off.
"Vision, you don't need to say anythin'. More often than not it's just bein' present for someone that makes the most difference."
Vision looked at her, analysing her, for a beat or two before nodding.
"I think I understand. I will go and try to be...a comfort."
Betty smiled reassuringly at him and continued into the kitchen to make Wanda's tea.
The next couple of weeks in the compound were the hardest Betty had ever seen. Even though she hadn't been in Lagos with the others, she empathised with them, and it broke her heart to see her friends and family questioning themselves so much. Steve and Wanda had each taken the blame for the mission to heart, Natasha was even more closed off than was usual for her, and introspection seemed to be the common theme for everyone.
She'd been so wrapped up in her concern for her friends that Betty hadn't realised what date it was until she felt the burner phone buzz from its permanent home in her pocket. Pulling it out, her eyes widened in surprise at the message and a warm feeling spread across her chest.
I'm not totally sure but I think I need to say happy birthday.
Betty replied with a thankyou and then ran all the way to the workshop, completely forgetting to teleport in her excitement to share the message with the one person there who knew it all. Bren tried to be stoic, she really did, but then squealed in excitement along with Betty and then handed her a parcel wrapped in the packaging left over from a delivery of electronic components.
"Sorry," shrugged Bren, "presents I remember, wrappings I do not..."
Betty laughed at her friend and opened up the rectangular package to find an electronic photo frame with scrolling photos of her and Bren, usually depicting them doing something ridiculous. Steve popped up on screen every so often, grinning at their antics, and even Natasha was in one, her eyes rolling back in her head as Bren and Betty tried to copy her superhero landing.
"Thanks Bren, this is fantastic," she gushed, still staring at the scrolling images.
"Well it's not a secret text from an off-the-grid ex-assassin but...you know, I try."
"Shut up," grinned Betty, throwing the packaging back towards her friend.
Betty was in the medical suite with Dr Cho, trying to get her head around the way The Cradle helped cellular regeneration when a call came for her to join the rest of the team in the conference room. Why the hell do they want me? I'm not an Avenger, she thought as she teleported outside the room and then knocked before entering. General Thaddeus Ross was stood at the front commanding everyone's attention. Betty took a seat in the back corner and folded her arms across her chest. She didn't like Ross, he was an arrogant bastard, she thought, more hung up on the power he held than the good he could do with it.
Wanda and Steve were the last to come in and took their seats. It wasn't lost on Betty that Stark had taken a seat outside the group, just as she had. He looked anxious, and that put her on edge even more. Ross started to speak, attempting to charm the Avengers with his sycophantic words, and then came the one word that changed everything, but.
"Here it comes," muttered Betty, and she saw Steve's lips flicker upwards the tiniest amount. If she didn't know him so well she wouldn't have even noticed it.
Ross started in with the second half of his speech. He'd built them up, now he was trying to break them down. At his words, Steve turned his head to look at Betty for a split second, knowing how this would rile her. It was getting to him too, she knew, but she hadn't been called a firecracker for nothing, and Steve was all too aware of that. She didn't say anything and just raised her eyebrow in that silent communication that siblings have.
Ross continued, showing videos of the fights they'd had; New York, DC, Sokovia, and now Lagos. At the last Wanda had to turn her head away and Steve jumped in.
"OK that's enough," he said, his jaw tightening.
Ross stopped the video feed but continued with his speech.
"For the past four years you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution."
Ross's assistant handed him a weighty document, which he passed onto the table, before his assistant began disseminating other copies amongst the assembled group.
"The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries, it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organisation. Instead they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and of that panel deems it necessary."
"The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place. I feel we've done that." Steve countered, and Betty could hear the anger in his voice that he carefully held in check.
She tuned out the discussion as she read through the opening paragraphs of the document in front of her. She already knew what stance she was taking after reading only a few words of the paper shackles, because that's what they were. She felt the anger growing inside her, not for herself – she didn't give a shit – but for Steve and her friends. They deserved so much better than this.
Ross left the group to talk it over and Betty was glad that he had, what she wanted to say to him wouldn't have gone down well with the rest of them she guessed. She could have put money on which side of the line most of her friends would stand. Sam and Rhodey butted heads verbosely with Sam, ever the maverick, rejecting the Accords outright. Vision put together a concise viewpoint which everyone, including Betty, listened to intently. It didn't change Betty's mind about where she stood, but having that calm, alternate argument, was appreciated. Natasha voiced the observation that Betty shared – Stark was being uncharacteristically quiet about everything.
"It's because he's already made up his mind," Steve noted, and Betty couldn't disagree.
Tony launched into a monologue, punctuated by his usual distracted manner, and then showed a video of one of the casualties of the Lagos incident and suddenly Betty understood. This one victim, this single person, had given Stark a face to focus on. He was a personification of all of the casualties of all of the battles they had fought. She didn't think Stark had looked at it from that angle before. In his arrogance of being Iron Man and flying in to save the day, he had never considered the impact his actions would have on others. She knew that most of the others had been on this emotional journey a long time before and sometimes still they struggled to reconcile their actions, but Tony had had it flung into his face in glorious technicolour and it was clouding his decision.
Betty bit the inside of her cheek in an attempt to stop herself from verbally lashing out. Thankfully, when Steve spoke up, it was as if her were putting a voice to the thoughts in her head, albeit a calmer, slightly more reasonable voice. The greatest shock Betty had was when Natasha spoke up in favour of signing. Her head whipped around to face her friend, disbelief evident on her face, that Sam obviously shared.
"Aren't you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?" he asked, incredulously.
"I'm just...reading the terrain," she replied, an awkward tone in her voice. "We have made some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back."
Stark started speaking again but Betty wasn't listening. She was focused on her brother as he looked down at his phone. His expression changed, face hardening, and Betty knew he was suppressing something that hurt, massively.
"I have to go," he said curtly, leaving the room.
Betty rose to follow her brother, concern for him roiling in her stomach.
"Hey, Rogers, what about you? Are you going to sign this thing?" Tony said, and all eyes turned to her.
"Get fucked Stark, I'm not signin' shit. I'm not an Avenger, and I'm not bein' under the control of yet another agency."
"It's not about the Avengers, it's about being an enhanced individual. It's not about control, it's about accountability."
"Well then class me as retired. But hold on, what if I don't actually retire, what are you gonna do? Arrest me? You can't touch me, and you can't cage me. My abilities are passive, the only weapon skills I have are the same as any other agent. So no, I'm not signin', and I think that this is the biggest mistake you're ever gonna make. Now excuse me..."
Betty focused on her brother and teleported to his location, a stairwell not too far away from the conference room. He leant against the rail, his head bowed, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. She leaned next to him, silently, waiting for him to speak. When he did it was through a veil of tears.
"She's gone Betty. Peggy's gone."