2016
Swinging her legs underneath the glass table, she tried her best to look attentive. Secretary Ross was lecturing them about how the Avengers were "a threat" and "something that needed to be controlled". She knew that she was a threat and something that needed to be controlled, but so was Wanda, and Natasha, and Vision if you paid enough attention. And she'd only been arrested like twice.
"Five years ago, I had a heart attack. I dropped right in the middle of my back-swing. Turned out it was the best round of my life, because after 13 hours of surgery and a triple bypass. I found something 40 years in the Army had never taught me: Perspective. The world owes the Avengers an un-payable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives. But while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some, who would prefer the word 'vigilantes'." Secretary Ross explained.
"And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?" Cassandra spoke.
"How about 'dangerous'?" Cassamdra raised a brow at his remark. "What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?"
Secretary Ross clicked on a screen, and the battle of New York played before their eyes.
"New York."
She felt a hand squeeze around her's, and glanced behind her at Natasha. Breathing slowly in and out, she fought the panic and anxiety clogging her throat.
"Washington DC." Ross said as if it wasn't obvious.
He changed the screen to a view of a helicarrier crashing into the Potomac. Water engulfed the citizens, and the camera blacked out. Natasha looked down, and Cassandra gave her an sympathetic squeeze.
"Sokovia."
Children ran, the city rose, a building fell over. She looked across to see Wanda, and she saw tears pooling in the back of the woman's eyes. She saw Tony out of the corner of her eyes look down in his lap.
"Lagos."
The building burned, paramedics rolled a body to the ambulance. The camera focused on a dead woman, and Wanda looked down, and Steve intervened.
"Okay. That's enough," the video flashed off.
"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 slid a thick document across the table to Wanda. She passed it to Cassandra, who passed it to Rhodey. Secretary Ross explained it while it was being passed around.
"The Sokovia Accords. Approved by one-hundred seventeen countries, it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary."
"The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place. I feel we've done that." Steve argued.
"Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?"
Steve looked up, a challenging look in his eyez. The same one he'd given Cassandra when she denied him enlistment into the army back in 1943. Cassandra smirked, knowing the Steve would at some point crack and start yelling.
"If I misplaced a couple of 30 megaton nukes you can bet there'd be consequences. Compromise. Reassurance. That's how the world works. Believe me, this is the middle ground."
"So, there are contingencies." Rhodey said.
"Three days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords," Steve looked at Tony while Secretary Ross spoke. "Talk it over."
"And if we come to a decision you don't like?" Natasha asked.
"Then you retire."
••••••••••
"Secretary Ross has a Congressional Medal of Honor, which is one more than you have." Rhodey argued.
"So let's say we agree to this thing. How long is it gonna be before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?" Sam fought back.
"A hundred and seventeen countries want to sign this. A hundred and seventeen, Sam, and you're just like, 'No, that's cool. We got it'."
"How long are you going to play both sides?"
"I have an equation," Vision said.
"Oh, this will clear it up." Sam said.
"In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. And during the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate."
"Are you saying it's our fault?" Cassamdra asked.
"I'm saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict, breeds catastrophe. Oversight,oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand."
"Boom." Rhodey said.
Tony lay in a chair, hand over his eyes, pain gracing his face. He moved when Natasha addressed him,
"Tony. You are being uncharacteristically non-hyper-verbal."
"It's because he's already made up his mind." Steve said.
"Boy, you know me so well," Tony winced as he got up, rubbing the back of his head.
"Actually, I'm nursing an electromagnetic headache."
He walked to the kitchen, pulling a mug from the sink. He glanced down at the drain, a disgusted look on his face.
"Who's putting coffee grounds in the disposal? Am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?" He put his phone in the basket of fruit. A picture projected from it, a smiling young man who couldn't be older than twenty. He looked down at his empty mug, and up again. Pretending to just have noticed the image, he spoke.
"Oh, that's Charles Spencer, by the way. He's a great kid. Computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA. Had a floor level gig at Intel planned for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul, before he parked it behind a desk. See the world. Maybe be of service. Charlie didn't want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn't go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where, Sokovia."
Cassandra glanced at Wanda. The poor girl had hard enough of a day, she needed a break.
"He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. I mean, we won't know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass," he swallowed a pill with his coffee. "There's no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, I'm game. If we can't accept limitations, if we're boundary-less, we're no better than the bad guys."
"Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don't give up."
"Who said we're giving up?"
"We are if we're not taking responsibility for our actions. This document just shifts the blames."
"I'm sorry. Steve. That - that is dangerously arrogant. This is the United Nations we're talking about. It's not the World Security Council, it's not S.H.I.E.L.D, it's not Hydra." Rhodey chimed in.
"No, but it's run by people with agendas, and agendas change." Steve countered.
"That's good. That's why I'm here. When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands, I shut it down and stop manufacturing."
"Tony, you chose to do that. If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go? What if there is somewhere we need to go, and they don't let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own."
If we don't do this now, it's gonna be done to us later. That's the fact. That won't be pretty."
"You're saying they'll come for me." Wanda said glumly.
"We would protect you." Cassandra and Vision said.
"Maybe Tony's right." Natasha said.
Cassandra looked at Natasha with wide eyes and an open mouth. Natasha never agreed with Tony, much less acknowledged he was right. Tony had the same expression on his face as Natasha hesitantly spoke again.
"If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer. If we take it off -" Sam cut her off.
"Aren't you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?"
"I'm just. I'm reading the terrain. We have made some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back."
"Focus up. I'm sorry, did I just mishear you or did you agree with me?" Tiny asked.
"Oh, I want to take it back now."
"No, no, no. You can't retract it. Thank you. Unprecedented. Okay, case closed, I win."
Cassandra's phone buzzed in her pocket. Steve's did as well. She read the message, her heart stopping. It was a text from a number she didn't know, but she knew what it was about the moment she read it.
She's gone. In her sleep.
Steve said something to account for the reason he left, but Cassandra didn't. She stood up and walked out the room trying to contain her emotion until she was alone.
She leaned against the wall of the stairs, sliding down on it. Burying her face in her knees, she didn't cry, didn't scream, didn't wonder what she could've done to stop it. She felt this overwhelming surge of sadness, painful. She wanted to cry, but she had no tears. She wanted to scream, but she had no voice. All these actions and feelings pent up inside her, and she couldn't do anything with it.
Even when Steve found her, and pulled her up. Even when he hugged her close, and tears stained her hair, and his shirt. Even when she crumbled to her bed that night, she couldn't make herself accept it. She couldn't accept that her best friend was dead.
She couldn't accept that Peggy Carter was dead.
jesus christ this chapter makes my soul hurt. i wanna give cass a hug...
love you all 3000 never forget it ❤-