[so sorry for this, just a quick note that I really wanted to get out. This was absolutely my most favorite chapter to write, and probably the one I'm the proudest of. I can say this because the book is finished and sitting in my drafts, I'm just slowly publishing to get the most reads I can. Lastly, a trigger warning for there is blood and references of death.]
"He's just gonna stay here?" Bailey asked Tony while she zipped the side of her suit.
They both looked to where Bruce sat, eyes closed, and then back to each other.
"We'll be fine, he'll be fine," Tony said and clamped his helmet shut.
"You've got your earpiece, right?" he asked her.
Bailey nodded her bead, and strapped on her flying goggles that were wired by Tony to connect with Jarvis.
"What's the plan?" Steve walked up to the two, and summoned his shield to his arm with magnetism.
"We never have a plan," Bax butted in.
"Why start now, right?" Tony lit up his boosters, and flew towards the ship that was docked in the salvage yard.
"One, two, three, follow me," Bax sung out and followed where the man had flown off to.
She flew over to the side of the docks, and found a window on one of the cargo ship that was left open. She slid her body through, and found herself at a staircase that led to seemingly nothingness.
"It's a thing with me," loud voice boomed and Bax watched a man go rolling down her stair case.
She phased into the wall, becoming hidden amongst the shadows, and another man came running after him.
"Stark is... he's a sickness!" Ultron shouted.
"Ah, Junior," Tony flew down, and landed on the bridge in front of Bailey. Both Thor and Steve walked up behind him, Steve motioning for Bailey to stay where she is as backup.
"You're gonna break your old man's heart," Tony complained.
"If I have to," Ultron replied, taking a few steps closer to the group.
Bailey noticed the two Maximoff Twins creep with him, she wasn't told that they would be here and reminded herself to have a small chat with Steve afterwards.
Bailey pressed her back to the wall so that she could watch both her team and the two men that got pushed down the stairs. She was behind the Male Twin, who was fidgeting and tapping irritably.
"Nobody has to break anything," Thor intervened with a compromise.
"Clearly you've never made an omelette," Ultron sarcastically replied.
"He beat me by one second."
Bailey let out an eye roll, and made a move to grab the Laser Gun that was strapped in her thigh holster.
"Ah, yes. He's funny," The boy stepped out, away from Bailey now and gave her a much clearer shot in case anything were to happen.
"Mr. Stark," he greeted, "It's what? Comfortable?" he asked, straining his head in the direction of the nukes that sat below them. "Like old times?"
"This was never my life," Tony defended himself with a sigh of words.
"You two can still walk away from this," Steve warned them.
"Oh, we will," Wanda puckered her lips and nodded in sympathy, as if teasing a young kid that she had their lollipop.
"I know you've suffered-" he got interrupted by Ultron scoffing loudly.
"Captain America," he chuckled, "God's righteous man. Pretending you could live without a war. I can't physically throw up in my mouth, but..."
"If you believe in peace, then let us keep it," Thor cut off.
"I think you're confusing 'peace', with 'quiet'."
"Uh-huh, what's the vibranium for?" Tony asked.
"I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan," he then lit up his hand and activated a magnet that forced Tony forward.
Bax had to yank her gun back that tried to leave with the pull, and stabilised herself against the other wall, with her back now facing the Twins.
A beam then left Ultron's' Hand, and sent Tony into the metal side of the ship behind him. Tony recovered and shot into the air, tackling Ultron as both their boosters activated and enabled them to fly.
He got thrown into the wall above Bailey, and she took the opportunity to shoot out at the metal man.
"Stand down, kid," Tony warned her.
A fight had started as Ultron's minions took swings at the Avengers, and Pietro-speedo came running at Bailey with a fistful. She phased and watched him tumble, but the boy let out a growl and ran right back into the fight with a different target.
He tried to push Thor over, but failed, yet continued running to become an impossible target to hit him back.
Cap noticed where Bailey was, and tried to run to her, but Wanda let out a projected of psionic energy that sent him barrelling back.
Some men came up the stairs then, guns in hand and ready to shoot everyone.
Bailey grabbed one of the gun's barrels, and slammed it into the owner and then into the head of the man running behind him. She pushed off and kicked another two down the stairs, turned and rammed her fists into the face of a last.
She threw the gun to the floor, and stepped over the bodies to find more.
She walked onto the bridge, trying to get a better look at the fight, but was distracted by the disappearance of the Female Twin and clicked the safety switch on her Laser gun on. She didn't need to accidentally shoot Tony who was flying around with Ultron, sending beams and punches at the Robot.
They then burst through the wall, letting rubble fall onto Bax. She raised her hands to shield her face, and coughed up the dust that entered her lungs.
"Watch it!" she growled into her comm.
"Does it look like I can control this situation?"
A bot then came up behind Bax, and Steve flipped over it embedding his shield into its neck. Thor sent his hammer flying and it knocked the shield, slicing the head off.
"Thank you," she sweetly told them, and continued her search for the girl and boy.
She spotted the speedy one on the ground, and sent Steve his way to keep him from going back into the fight.
"Guys? Is this a code green?" Banner asked on the Comms.
No one was answering, so Bailey let her leadership skills kick in, "Stand down. We're okay. It's a too little space," she replied while running up some stairs to where she had seen Clint fire arrows from.
"Thor," Steve pointed Bax to where the girl had just walked away from the god, so Bailey jumped over the railing and began to fly over, "status," he requested to know what the girl had done.
"The girl tried to warp my mind. Take special care, I doubt a human could keep her at bay... fortunately, I am mighty."
Baileys head turned from the direction she was flying, and got distracted from her mission to get to Thor. The boy had sped under her, and kicked Steve backwards, right next to where the psionic girl stood and waved some red energy into his mind.
"Steve!" she shouted and twisted her body in order to reach him.
They both ran off, and Bailey was ripped between getting to Steve and following them instead.
Her decision was decided for her as she watched the blue blurs of the Boy stream in Natasha's direction.
"Don't you freaken dare!" she yelled, and shot through the sky like a bullet slicing wind.
She was a second too late though, as the girl tampered with Nat's mind, leaving the woman in a dazed state.
"Tash?" she called out, touching down on the ground next to her, "Nat? Come on, Tasha? Natasha!" she tried holding the woman's head and giving it a few taps.
The Red Head broke away from her grip, and in a daze starting stumbling down the stairs like she needed to reach what was at the bottom.
"Clint!" she called out on the Comms, "She's got Nat, and my bet is she's on her way to you. You better get my revenge you hear m-" Bailey swayed on her feet, all frustration and rage left immediately.
Her gaze started getting dizzy and blurred a red colour, Natasha was becoming a flickering image.
Bailey turned, and noticed she wasn't on the boat anymore, but in a glass cell that reeked of copper blood.
"Whoever's standing, we gotta move!" the softest voice shouted out for anyone, "Guys..?"
Bax's head slowly dipped to the figure that laid on the ground, at the centre of the circular room. Brown curls fell over her face, and a red shadow glistened her body.
"What did you do to her?" she cried out, a tear falling as she looked into Emma's dead eyes.
"You want to rather ask yourself, what you did to her..." the deepened voice of Natasha called out.
Bailey turned again and noticed that the stairs the woman was previously walking down had disappeared, replaced with mirrors that left over a hundred of the murderous stares Nat was giving her.
"You led her to this... you knew what you were sacrificing to help us. You sent her into this life with a push, a shove, and a kick!"
"That's a lie!" Bailey shouted, and ran to her best friend's side.
"You're the monster..."
The dead, icy blue eyes of Emma had faded, and a green forest rested in its place.
Natasha laid dead before her eyes, but this time the corpse held no blood. Just a defeated stare, and her bottom half of her body stuck in the ground.
"You couldn't ever think you truly deserved her..." Her mom's voice echoed.
"You'll end her like you ended us," Her father spoke up.
Bailey screamed out, scratching at her face and pulling at her hair. She wanted this nightmare to end, she wanted her future to stop replaying in front of her. Bailey wanted Natasha back, next to her.
"Bailey... Nat needs you... cut out of it, let me take you back to the jet..."
An indistinctive voice called out in a soft whisper, it sounded welcoming, comfortable, like home. She willed to get out, to leave and have her mind back.
Bax's density flickered, like when she didn't have control over it as a teenager. Her nightmare had become scarier, she'd been able to control it by will since her mother had died, and she was scared it was happening in the outside world.
Which, in fact it was. Clint Barton stood over the girl, and kept trying to scoop her up. His hands would fade through her, and she couldn't grab a hold of anything at all.
Clint glanced at the red head next to him, gaze far away and shoulders slumped as she swung back and forth. Her body language was too relaxed for his liking because it meant she had no control over anything.
"N-Na... Tash?" Bailey spoke in an almost inaudible whisper.
"Yes!" Clint called out, "It's Tasha, right here. Right in front of you. She needs you Bails. Come on," he finally clasped her wrist, the woman becoming tangible once more.
"Nat... Natasha, its Natasha... she's going... she'll kill me..."
"No, no, no. Tasha would never hurt you, if you're seeing her as an assassin just know! Nat would never pluck a hair from your head!" he tried shaking the woman now, glancing over his shoulder at Steve who was trying to stand up.
"Tell... tell her about, about Nat's life..." Steve stumbled.
"You guys talk way to slow for my liking," grumbled Clint.
"No... Nat will kill me, for-for... what I've done... she's gonna hate me Clint. She'll, she'll- Clint!" Bailey jumped up, the red fading from the ring in her eyes.
"Clint! Its Clint!" she started tearing up, she had done it and broke out of the spell.
"Yes, yes it is," he soothingly rubbed her back, allowing her to watch the world again.
"Listen, Bailey. I need you to take Natasha and get out of here. Hulks gone rogue, and Tony is following up on that. Both Thor and Steve aren't in the greatest shapes either, okay? Here, take her-" he wrapped Nat's arm around the woman, letting her be the person to lean on.
"And get the heck out, got it." Bailey nodded her head, and gripped Nat's waist tighter as she climbed into the sky, slow at first still trying to wake up and take a shake back into reality, but eventually was flying at her normal speed.
"Man, you must know. I have the most splitting headache ever," she shook her head and began flying off and out of the ship, back to the quinjet.
"I believe you," Clint replied and watched her fly off.
"She's got it hard, I'm not gonna lie," Clint chuckled to himself, and then did a little jog over to Steve.
"Hold on, Nat. you hear me? Okay, hold on," Bailey sweetly spoke, rubbing the woman's back, and gripping as hard as she can trying to tighten Natasha's hold on her neck.
She felt Nat slipping from her grip, and was grateful she had reached the jet long before her hold on the Lady would've deemed too loose. Bailey stumbled over to the side with a limp, completely out of breath, and placed her hand on the side biometric scanner.
"Bailey Baxter, Avenger," she identified herself.
"Access denied," Jarvis replied.
"Oh, come on, man! You know who I am... Screw it. Peter Pan, Casper, Danny Phantom..." she listed off all the nicknames Stark had called her by.
She let out an eye roll, "Emmet Brown."
"Welcome, Bax," Jarvis opened up the ramp to the jet.
"Jarvis, set a reminder to kick Tony's ass," she called out with a grunt, as she placed Nat down on a seat.
"You already have that set for three different occasions," Jarvis reminded her.
Bailey gave out a huff as she fell to the floor at Nat's feet, leaning her back against her warm legs and letting her head fall into the woman's lap.
"Set it again."
Bailey let her short breaths slow down, calming her heart rate and blood pressure. This wasn't good, she had spiked in a panic during her mind warp, and couldn't relax with Nat so close. Of course it had been one of her greatest fears ever, bringing danger to either Emma or Natasha, but she always knew that fears don't control a person.
Fears draw a line and courage crosses it.
"Clint, I'm in the jet," She whispered with a hand pressed to her headset on private, only her and Barton on the line.
"I'm here too," she heard him say in person, with Thor and Steve following him. They held lost, confused, and saddened eyes.
Bailey climbed to her feet, and helped them walk into the jet, guiding them by their tall shoulders.
She led them to more seats, strapping them in and playing with their hair in order to calm them down. Now all they had to do was wait for Tony to come back with Banner.
"You realise you're gonna have to co-pilot me?" Clint spoke up from where he was starting up the jet.
"Sorry, I only fly myself," she sarcastically replied, still shaken up and not feeling up to doing anything that would put her in the position of risking the team.
"It's not that hard," he swung his chair around and looked at her, "Thor does it."
"Thor knows how to fly alien ships."
"You're right, but you know how to fly without a hammer. Which is pretty impressive," Bailey smiled at this, and stood up from her crouched position.
"You know, Nat jokes, but I honestly don't know where we'd be without you," she stretched her arms open for a hug, which he gladly accepted.
"You guys are a handful," he mumbled into her shoulder.
"Luckily you have two hands, right?" she joked.
"My family is a handful too," he argued, "Now I have no hands to shoot arrows."
"Maybe you can learn to do it with your feet- wait. Family? What family?" she woke up from being side tracked, and maybe had woken up from the last pieces of the spell as well.
"We have a long wait for Tony ahead of us," he then looked at the Agents around him that weren't paying to any detail around them other than what they were being shown in their mind.
"Get comfy, I'm gonna tell you a story."