Bruce left the jet first, barely letting the door open as he climbed out. As the rest of us followed, I looked out of the window to see the press swarming the doors of the Tower, obviously reporting on the events in Wakanda.
"Where's Bruce gone?" Tony questioned as we all gathered in the lab. "I need to talk to him-"
"I think you've done enough." Steve stopped him leaving the room by placing a first hand on his chest.
"Yes, you have done plenty." I backed up Steve, to which Tony faced me, looking pissed.
"I built that suit to protect all of us in case anything like that ever happened! You should be thanking me-"
"Thanking you?" Thor stepped in, standing next to me as Pietro and Wanda stood slightly outcast from us. "You treat us with such mistrust, are there suits built according to each of us in case we go crazy?"
"You're the one who's brothers with a lunatic who tried to invade our planet-" He was cut off by Thor's hand on his throat, pinning him against the wall as he feet started flailing around.
"Thor-" I placed a force field in front of Steve to stop his interfering.
"Scar!"
"He needs to learn a lesson! He won't kill him Steve why cut to extremes!" I argued back.
"Put down the force field. Now." His voice turned stern, almost threatening.
"Once Thor puts down Tony, I will." I replied with an equal tone.
A few seconds later, Tony thudded down to the floor, gasping for air as Thor held out his hand for his Mjolnir, holding it in the air above Tony's head.
"Next time, it will be this." He moved away from us and slumped against the lab table. I let the forcefield down from in front of Steve as he stormed over.
"One minute you're glad I'm not dead, the next you're happy to let Tony get killed-"
"You think Thor would kill Tony? You think I would allow murder? Really Steve? I thought you knew me better than that-" I said slightly sarcastically before he interrupted.
"Well sometimes it feels like I don't even know you anymore." I froze as he stood strong in front of me. "You have changed a lot, and it feels like as you gain more of your powers, that fun loving girl who I used to know is fading away and she isn't coming back. That hurts Scarlett, it stings like hell-"
"We're fighting a war." I interrupted. "You saw what he did to Natasha, how merciless he was. We cannot show him mercy. He is a vicious killing machine who will not stop until all of us are wiped out. Steve, I am not that fun loving girl anymore, and that hurts me too, but you know what? I have to face it, I am not the girl I used to be. You need to face that too."
The room was eerily silent as an extremely tense atmosphere filled the room. I swallowed deeply, shaking slightly as I understood the words that just left my mouth. Steve stepped away, moving far across the room as Clint finally spoke.
"What are you doing here?" He said bluntly, briefly looking at the twins.
"I told them to come-"
"What are you doing here?" He asked again, signifying for me to shut up.
I listened to the words that left Wanda's and Pietro's mouths, their descriptions precise and truthful. You could feel the pain in their voice as they talked about the experiments, what Ultron did to them, events too graphic to describe. Clint seemed to understand them, but no way did he trust them just yet.
"We need to move from here, the press are going to finish up blowing the doors down." Pepper hurried in to the room, slowing her pace as she noticed the distance between each of us, as well as an exhausted looking Tony.
"I know where we can go." Clint stood up. "Everyone pack as much as you can, get changed and meet me in the garage."
"Scarlett." Wanda and Pietro stopped me as the others left. "We don't have anything."
"There are spare clothes in the bedrooms, go in the elevator and tell Jarvis I've told you to go to the bedroom level." They both nodded, Pietro speeding off down the hall to the elevator.
I took the stairs two at a time, barging in to mine and Steve's apartment, hearing Steve in the bathroom scuffling through the cupboards. I took out a duffle bag from underneath the bed, and shoved clothes: electronics; beauty supplies, everything else I could possibly need. Running round the room, I took all of the pictures on the walls out of their frames and placed them on the bottom of the bag so they didn't fold over.
Peeling off my suit, I stuffed that in to the bag and fastened it up. I quickly changed in to a pair of dark blue leggings, a white top and a brown leather jacket with my usual boots. Pulling out another bag, I carefully placed in every weapon I owned, making sure none of them were loaded and I had plenty of reloads and cartridges. Looking as if it was about to burst, I barely managed to zip it up as Steve came out of the bathroom with a huge bag, throwing it down on the bed before getting out a bag of his own, doing exactly what I had just been doing.
I hauled the bags on to my shoulders, ignoring him as I went to leave the apartment.
"Scar-"
"What?" I yelled back, more snappy than I would have liked to be.
"If you're going to be like that then forget it." I rolled my eyes, dropping my bags and walking back in to the bedroom.
"What?" I repeated.
"Do you really think I don't know that we're fighting a war?" His voice was low as he couldn't even look at me.
"I think you don't know that people change when they are fighting wars because of the mindset you need to have going in to it Steve."
"You don't need to be so stern with me!" He retaliated. "I was in a war before all of this you know! I know the pain, the adrenaline, the loss..."
"Steve-"
"Why are you constantly pulling me back and forth like this is game? Do you know how much I care about you? How every second of everyday I think about you, I've never done that with anyone since Peggy. What am I doing wrong?"
"I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with me." I took a step back as he stood up straight and looked me in the eye.
He's right. I have been all over the place recently. It's as if my emotions are trying to dominate each other, and every now and again one will excel the other briefly before another gets ahead. It's a race to control me. Now my emotions weren't just affecting me, they were affecting everyone else.
"I'm taking my bag down to the garage. Don't be long." I turned my back on him and hurried out of the bedroom, picking up the bags. I took one last look at the apartment, reminiscing about all the memories in this place, before closing the door behind me.
The elevator doors opened at the garage, and it was bustling with noise despite there only being Wanda, Pietro, Clint, Tony and Thor there.
"Are you trying to break the boot or something?" Clint yelled at Tony as he stuffed as many bags as possible in to the car, barely managing to close it.
"Doesn't matter, I could always buy another." I rolled my eyes as I wandered over. "Take your pick Scar."
"I'm not driving." I made my point before wandering over to the car that looked extremely similar to that of S.H.I.E.L.D, except without the logo on the side.
I opened the boot and threw my bags inside, their size leaving plenty of room.
"He can come with you." Tony placed his Iron Man suit in the boot, sitting it up slightly so it fit. "Jarvis is in him so I can set him up wherever we're going."
"Why do you have so many bags Tony?" I questioned.
"I'm an engineer, I need my toys."
The elevator opened to reveal Bruce and Steve, who seemed to be having a light talk with each other.
"I told him to come here." Steve announced, placing his bag in to the boot, just about managing to fit it in. As I climbed in to the car, a loud bang on the garage doors halted my movements.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
The corners of the garage door were each dented.
"They're gonna blow the doors off." Clint managed to breathe out.
He was right.
The door burst in to pieces, scattering over the concrete floor as the building immediately cut off any access to the rest of the tower from the garage.
A group of protesters ran in, holding up pictures of various different people.
"You're all murderers!" None of us had our weapons handy, so tried to push them away as much as possible. "You're all murderers! You can't protect us!" The chants filled the air
"Get in the car!" I yelled to Pietro and Wanda, opening the door for them.
I began to focus on creating a force field, but Bruce stopped me. "The press would make so much out of that, you can't." He was right, imagine the amount of injury claims the protesters would make and that we 'hurt' them.
Within the crowd, a tall figure stood out, their face unseeable as black clothing covered them. Their hand moved towards the back of their pants, clearly reaching for a gun. I sprinted at them, kicking the gun out of their hands and spinning round, facing them with my fists up.
"Oh Scar..." I felt a lump form in my throat as I came face to face with the man who betrayed all of us.
Grant Ward.
"How are you here? Coulson and his team were holding you after what happened-"
"I have my ways. As you have yours, which include killing innocent people-" I punched him hard in the face.
"You hear the people, you're a murderer. All of you are going down." I punched him again, to hwich he smirked and stood upright. "Don't start a fight you can't finish."
"Who says I won't finish it?" I narrowed my eyes at him as he balled his fists up, just as I did mine.
He ran straight in for a punch, which I swiftly dodged, merely leaning back slightly. As his other arm came up, I blocked it with my own, jabbing him in his ribs, punching him again. I sent my leg to his face, but he knocked it out of the way and got his fist right on the bridge of my nose. His leg swung up, but I dived underneath it, spinning out as the protesters around us began to leave the garage from our fight.
"Everyone get in the cars!" Clint yelled, as I stood at a stance yet again with Ward. "She can finish this."
As his hand went to my face, I grabbed it and spun, elbowing him in the face. Keeping hold of his arm, I twisted it so he bent down, kneeing him in the gut before shoving him down on to the ground. As I ran for him, he stuck his arm out, whacking me in the stomach so I fell to the floor from the impact. Quickly rolling over I got back up, blocking another kick. This time he ran at me, but I shifted out of the way and shoved him in to the wall. He swiftly recovered, grabbing my arm as I went to punch him and making me choke myself with it against the wall.
As he opened his mouth to speak, I forced him off me, spinning with hold of his arm to elbow him in the face again. I flipped my legs over his body, almost doing a cartwheel as I flipped him round also, smashing him in to the concrete floor on his back.
Whilst in a daze of dizziness, Ward recovered to his surroundings. Once his abdomen faced mine, I sprinted at him, swiftly drop kicking him, sending him flying in to the bonnet of the car Steve was sat in the front of. I landed on my hands and flipped myself back up.
Ward pulled out two knives, each razor sharp, holding one in either hand. I smirked, encouraging him. He windmilled his arms, spinning them faster as he came close. I blocked two attacks, ducking underneath one of his arms. Grabbing hold of either wrist, his arms were crossed over, so I shoved them backwards and swiftly head-butted him, making him drop the knives.
Underneath one of the cars was quite a long metal pipe, which he picked up and swung harshly at my head as I leaned backwards, avoiding the collision. The next time he swung it, I grabbed on to the other end, almost making it a tug of war match. He ripped out a punch of my arm, the hit hard enough to make me let go with one hand. In response, I booted him in the back of his knee, his leg giving way underneath him, but his iron grip on the bar remained.
I ran backwards, jumping on to the bonnet of Tony's car and then Steve's. Ward stood between the two, swinging for my legs as I ran, but I jumped in the air as twisted horizontally, grabbing on to the back of his head and slamming it in to the bonnet of the car, hard enough to dent it.
His body lay limp on the floor as I panted for breath, moving the hair out of my face as I retreated to the car Steve was in. No longer in the front, he now sat in the far right seat in the back with Clint driving in the front with Bruce.
"Leave him, he's not worth it." I stated as I climbed in to the back seat.
"Follow my lead Stark." Clint said over the radio that connected the cars together.
As we pulled out, press surrounded the Tower, swarming all over the place as they ran for our cars, but to no avail as we sped off.
Only a few minutes in, my eyes lids started to feel heavy, and my neck dropped to it's own accord, putting strain on the back of it. As soon as I closed my eyes, I couldn't open them again.
A seat belt unclicked for a brief moment before another one clicked in and I felt a warmth next to me. An arm cushioned itself around the back of my neck and I naturally leaned in, knowing it was Steve. My head rested gently on his chest as a small kiss was placed on the side of my head.
"Make the ride smooth Clint, she's exhausted."
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