DARKNESS.
003. | ❛ safest hands are our
own. ❜
"SECRETARY ROSS HAS A CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL, that's one more than you have!" Rhodes shouted at Sam, pointing to his chest pushing him back almost threatening him.
"Why are you fixated on medals, Rhodes? The whole point is what we have to be focusing on." Kiara scoffed at Rhodes, sticking up for Sam.
Caroline heard the three continue to bicker as she glanced down to Steve, who was flipping through the contents of the Sokovia Accords supplied by the United Nations. Although she was focused on him, she diverted her gaze over to Tony, who looked as if he was done with all of this and couldn't take the fighting anymore.
"Let's say we agree to this, and they load jack us like a bunch of criminals." Sam begun, as the group's attention was now on him. Caroline glanced up to hear but was immediately cut off by Rhodes.
"One hundred and seventeen countries want to sign this. One hundred and seventeen, and you're like 'No, it's cool'." Rhodes snapped back at Sam again with Kiara fed up with the attacks.
"How long are you going to be playing both sides?" Kiara whipped around to their side, scaring even Caroline to see the anger on her face ready to attack almost. Caroline found herself next to her sister's side, knowing if she didn't that Kiara would find herself in soldier mode.
"I have an equation." Vision states sitting beside Wanda. Steve and Caroline glance over to the red animatronic man.
"Oh, this is going to clear it up." Sam states.
"In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, a number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially, and during the same period, a number of potentially world ending events has risen at a commence rate these things—" Vision states, before Steve cut in.
"Are you saying it's our fault?" Steve asked.
"I'm saying that maybe a causality, our very strength, invites challenge. Challenge invites conflict, and conflict breeds catastrophe" Vision answers him and Caroline sighs.
"Boom." Rhodes shoves it in Sam's face, and he rolls his eyes.
"Are you saying that someone like me, is catastrophic? Or not even me, what about Caroline?" Kiara threatened, as Caroline did her best to not shove her foot through this issue, but what Kiara was saying was right. She couldn't sign, because it would be giving into the people who seemed her dangerous. And they wouldn't want a vampire in action on any more missions.
"Tony, you're being uncharacteristically non-hyper verbal." Natasha pointed out as she glanced over to Tony, before his hand finally left his face.
"That's because he's already made up his mind. Haven't you?" Caroline asked, already knowing the answer to the question. Her voice started to swell since she knew that this discussion was going to end in catastrophe. She could only expect that Steve was also holding the same face of disbelief that she was at Tony.
"Living with me sure made you know my every move." Tony replied to Caroline, someone he considered family in the sense that she was there for him as he was for her.
He started to get up and move over towards the kitchen. "Actually, in nursing a electro magnetic headache. That's what's going on, Care, just pain discomfort." She looks on as he opens up the garbage disposal before reverting his gaze back to the group, a weird look on his face. "Who's putting coffee grounds in the disposal? Am I running a bread and breakfast for a biker gang?"
The next move he did was project an image on the screen, aiming it towards them so that they could see. Caroline noticed it was an African American male, that didn't look over his thirties. She glanced back over to Tony, seeing a emotion she's seen so many times before on those silent nights.
"Oh that's Charles Spencer, by the way. Great kid, computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA. Had a four level gig plan for the fall, but first he wanted to put a few miles on his soul before he parked it behind a desk." Tony explained while pointing to the young man. "See the world, be of service, Charlie didn't go to Vegas, which is what I would do, or Fort Lauderdale. He didn't go to Paris or Amsterdam, that's sounds like fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor, guess where. Sokovia."
Caroline takes a seat next to Wanda, sharing a look since they both remember that tragic day. The day where she lost a brother and Caroline almost lost her life. They glanced back up to Tony as he continued.
"He wanted to make a difference, I suppose, of course we won't know cause we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass." Tony states placing both of his hands on the countertop. In this moment, Caroline no longer questioned who was on what side. It was evident that certain lines were drawn and that she wasn't on the same train as Tony, and that destroyed her. "There's no decision making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, I'm game. If we don't accept limitations, we're boundriless, we are no better than the bad guys."
"Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don't give up." Steve says.
"Who says we're giving up?" Tony questions.
"We are if we don't take responsibility for our actions." Steve answers him. "This document just shifts the blame."
"I'm sorry, Steve. That is dangerously arrogant. This is the United Nations we are talking about. It's not SHIELD or Hydra." Rhodey says, with smoke coming out of his ears.
"I've been alive longer than any of you have, and I have built SHIELD, and I more than anyone knows that it's run by people with agendas and agendas change!" Caroline snapped at Rhodes.
"That's good, that's why I'm here." Tony addresses Caroline, "When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands, I shut it down and stopped manufacturing them."
"But you chose to do that!" Caroline argued, gaining the courage to stand in her feet. "Are you saying that I should give myself over to the government because my powers are too much for them to handle? If we sign this, we choose to surrender our right to choose."
"What if the panel sends us somewhere we don't need to go, what if there's somewhere we need to go and they won't let us?" Steve asked. "We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own."
"If we don't do this now, it's going to be done to us later. That's a fact, it won't be pretty." Tony said to him.
"You're saying that they'll come for me?" Wanda nervously questioned.
"We will protect you." Vision comforts her.
"Maybe Tony's right." Caroline snapped her head to the voice of her best friend, knowing that her and Tony constantly disagree and hearing her agree with him was a first.
"If we have one hand on the wheel, we can't still steer, if we take it off-"
"Aren't you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?" Sam questioned her.
"I'm just riding the terrain, we have made some very public mistakes, we need to win their trust back." Natasha explained her reasoning.
"Okay, hold on a second. I'm sorry, did I mishear you agree with me?" Tony asked to see if his ears failed him for a minute.
"Oh, I wanna take it back." Natasha sighed.
The team started to go off into bickering once again, and Caroline looked to Steve when she heard both of their phones go off. She was too afraid to pull out her phone to check the notification, she watched as his face slumped down as the emotions that ranged were from sadness. She grabbed Steve's hand and held it, before he dismissed himself from the room with Caroline following close behind.
It was in the stairwell that Steve finally showed the message that he received, 'in her sleep'. Caroline's jaw opened with her hand covering her mouth as empty cry escaped her. Steve reached to her and got ahold of her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze like she would do for him. Peggy was their closest friend, and Caroline spent various highs and slows of her life with Peggy. She rested her head in her shoulder as tears spilled from her eyes, as she slipped her arms around his torso and pulling him closer to her. His wrapped arm around her comforted her, as the other rubbed her back.
"In her sleep, indeed."