Chapter 27

In the aftermath of the battle in Sokovia.

Hundreds of lives were lost and one Avenger died.

Soldiers die everyday.

Fury told me that, when I told him I had murdered the guards guarding my room. It doesn't make the pain go away though.

For now, the Avengers were slowly rebuilding.

It was amazingly slow progress but we were getting there.

The Avenger's facility no longer remained in the Tower at New York City.

Tony moved us upstate, somewhere far and away from prying eyes.

One thing is for sure, the latest Avengers facility was much larger than our previous one.

After SHIELD helped the Sokovian civilians escape the battle, most of the agents moved over to Stark Industries with the intention to join forces and help each other.

I didn't come out of the battle unscathed.

My leg was still recovering and bruises still lined my skin.

Either way, they were healing at a much slower pace than usual.

Clint went back to his family after staying a few days in recovery. The rest of us were still here. After all, many of them had nowhere else to go.

Banner was nowhere to be seen. He'd gone missing after the battle and the Russian, although quiet, I can see she misses him deeply.

Someone knocked on my door and I look up to see Steve.

"Hey," I greeted him, rising to my feet after having zipped up my suit.

His blue eyes scanned my being in obvious worry before I tapped his nose, to get his attention.

"I'm fine," I huffed. "Come on, Thor's leaving."

He wrapped a hand around mine and the two of us exit the room towards an awaiting Tony and Thor who was waiting out in the hallway.

Thor smiles when he sees us and Tony's gaze narrowed at our holding hands.

"You ready to leave Thor?" I walk up to him as we began the long trek outside, along the winding corridor.

"It has been a while since I return home," He hummed, sounding wistful.

"You're just running away because of what's happened," Steve smirked. "The rules have changed."

I felt Tony saunter behind Steve and me before he'd forcefully break up the hold between us.

He positioned himself in a way where now he was between the super soldier and me, effectively cutting off our views of each other.

"We're dealing with something new," Tony adds innocently and I rolled my eyes at his protectiveness.

"Well, the Vision's Artificial Intelligence." Steve lets Tony have his way and I can see a slight smile form on his lips.

"We're calling him Vision now?" I pouted at the three males. "Funny, I was calling him Odd ball, in my head."

Tony ruffled my hair at the comment obviously liking the nickname while both Steve and Thor exchanged confused looks.

"He's a machine," Tony continued, looking at Steve.

"So it doesn't count." Steve bluntly adds, sounding triumphant.

Oh, they were at it again.

Apparently, the team has been giving Thor a hard time about his hammer.

Vision lifted Thor's hammer so one would assume that Thor is no longer worthy.

They've been at it since the battle was over.

"No. It's not like a person lifting the hammer." Tony concluded, tapping his chin.

"Right. Different rules for us."

It's times like this where I feel like the two people I love the most were okay with each other.

"Nice guy, but artificial."

"Thank you."

Thor stopped walking and sighed dramatically. "If he can wield the hammer, he can keep the Mind Stone. It's safe with the Vision and these days, safe is in short supply."

Both males go quiet and I watch as Steve's brow furrowed.

"But if you put the hammer in an elevator..."

Tony eyes lit up. "It would still go up."

"Elevator's not worthy."

Thor gives me an exasperated smile to which I shrugged, knowing these two were just intolerable.

"I'm going to miss these little talks of ours." He pats Tony's shoulder.

"Well, not if you don't leave."

Thor's face falls and I know for a fact that he needs to go.

"I have no choice. The Mind Stone is the fourth of the Infinity Stones to show up in the last few years."

I pushed the glass doors heading out and we all stood outside by the lawn.

"That's not a coincidence. Someone has been playing an intricate game and has made pawns of us. But once all these pieces are in position..."

"Triple Yahtzee?"

I slap Tony's arm when he said that and he pouted in return.

Steve watched the god of thunder move further out on the lawn. "You think you can find out what's coming?"

"I do. Besides this one, there's nothing that can't be explained."

Folding my arms across my chest, I gave the god of thunder a weak smile. "Try to find out about me too, yeah?"

Thor tries to smile but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. He walks back to me and places a large hand on my shoulder.

The two of us knew something ran deeper than this. Something either of us can't explain.

From what he told me, the stone from which I gained power was called the Space stone.

Its abilities were to project energy and from what I remembered, travel through space.

It opens up portals like the one during the battle in New York.

It would explain why I would wound up somewhere else if my abilities had their way with each other.

Space, blue, Mind, yellow, Reality, red, Power, purple and two more unknowns.

Green and orange were still lost.

"Fear not Lorelie. I will find why this has happened to you."

I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek, knowing the god of thunder had a rough journey ahead of him.

"Good luck," I whispered.

This time he grinned and raised his hammer.

Rainbow lights danced across the lawn, circling the god in a trail of light before finally disappearing and leaving a burning intricate design on the ground.

We were left alone once more.

"That man has no regard for lawn maintenance," Tony grumbled.

"Since when did you two get close?" Steve prodded, placing a hand around my waist.

His blue eyes flicker with doubt and I leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his lips silencing him at once.

"Uh, no, no, no." Tony groaned, swiping the air around him in disgust.

I laughed out loud as we began walking towards the pavement.

"I'm going to have to get used to that," He grumbled, kicking at the rocks in misery.

"Relax Tony, we won't do anything you're uncomfortable with."

He doesn't look entirely convinced and the sigh that escapes him tells me everything.

"I'm gonna miss him though," My brother gestured to the spot where Thor was before looking back at Steve. "And you're gonna miss me. There's gonna be a lot of manly tears,"

Tony clicks on a remote he held and an orange Audi drives itself forward.

Classy bastard.

"I will miss you, Tony," Steve says this genuinely and I watch as Tony scrutinized him almost calculatingly for any lies.

When he found none he shrugged.

"Yeah? Well, it's time for me to tap out. Maybe I should take a page out of Barton's book and build Pepper a farm, hope nobody blows it up."

"Tony you and I both know the reason the farm would blow up is because of you." I scoffed at him, knowing he was prone to exploding things.

"The simple life." Steve cuts in and Tony and him share a look of understanding.

"You'll get there one day." He loosely tells the Super Soldier.

Steve goes quiet and his gaze found mine. "I don't know, family, stability. The guy who wanted all that went in the ice seventy-five years ago. I think someone else came out."

I understood his logic. This whole relationship thing was still new to him.

Hell, I don't know if I was even ready to build a family.

Could I achieve that?

After everything that's happened, everything I've done, everything I still hadn't recovered from?

I just came out of the world 3 years ago. I had so many things to do.

So many things to find out.

So many people to help.

Wanda needed me.

Tony needed me.

Everybody needed me.

Creating a family would be the last thing on my mind at this point. At least until I figured everything out.

The problem was, I was out of time.

"You alright?" Tony gets in the car and gives each of us careful looks.

I smiled weakly at him and leaned closer, kissing him on the cheek. Tony gives me a small resigned smile in return.

I'm sorry Tony.

"I'm home," Steve nods solemnly as Tony starts to pull away.

"Blues, I don't suppose you'll come with me?"

I shook my head, letting him know he can no longer play the overprotective brother.

He's learned that the hard way and reluctantly accepted it.

"Alright. Kick Capsicle's ass for me while I'm gone, kay?"

Tony flashes a wink in my direction before driving off the estate and out of view.

I watch my brother go, an ache growing deep in my chest.

"Hey," Steve tugs my arm, breaking me out of my trance. I cast one last look in the direction of Tony before heading back inside the facility.

We clambered up several flights of stairs and down a corridor when we spot Natasha staring at the wall in front of her.

"You want to keep staring at the wall, or do you want to go to work?" Steve asked her, the amusement clear in his tone.

The redhead flips around to face us and rolls her eyes.

"I mean, it's a pretty interesting wall."

"I thought you and Tony were still gazing into each other's eyes." She mocks. "How do we look?"

Steve pulls out a monitor and hands it over to her.

"Well, we're not the 27 Yankees." He sighs as the redhead swipes through the background checks of the latest recruits.

It was time for them to train and to get them in shape.

"We've got some hitters," Natasha flips the monitor off as we descended down the stairwell towards the cargo holding.

"They're good. They're not a team."

"Not yet," I admonish him, giving him a playful glare.

"Let's beats em' into shape."

Steve opens the doors wide, revealing, War Machine, Falcon, Vision, and Scarlet Witch as they gathered in front of us.

The new recruits of the Avengers program.

We all had unanimously decided Wanda needed a name. To my surprise, she chose the nickname I've given her but simply added the 'Witch' behind.

The Dark Witch.

And Scarlet Witch.

Oh yeah, I can tell we're going to mess around with the team a lot.

I flash Wanda a small smile and waved. She happily returned it upon seeing me.

The death of her brother was still fresh on both hers and my mind, but it hadn't stopped the fact that she's grown closer to me since then.

The girl and I shared a link that even I could not officially understand. I realized the forming of the bond in the first place wasn't a coincidence.

From the moment we first met in that snowy landscape of Strucker's Facility, the twins and I had subconsciously decided to bond.

It wasn't some higher calling, or fate, as they like to call it.

It was a decision made between three of HYDRA's former members.

No one knew who made the first move.

No one knew who reached out first.

It just happened.

When it did, the bond became permanent.

My theory is that the link formed easily because we were sibling/bonded through Infinity stones.

So all those times of confusion when we would question how on earth the link came to be in the first place--was finally answered.

We were the ones who did it because we wanted to.

Of course, having someone share a part of you and vice versa can get a bit annoying.

It was easy for me to block her out of my mind but she was still unable to block me out of hers.

Slow progress but we're getting there.

Eventually.

It doesn't change the fact that she has grown increasingly closer to me because of it.

Emotions are weird.

I should know because I read emotions.

"Avengers," Steve called out, loud and clear. We waited for the Captain's response. His lips move--

My hands jerked unsteadily and I whip around, watching the lights spark in uncontrollable anger. Pain hit me all at once, ice filtering through my forearms.

No. Not here.

I exited the hangar doors immediately, afraid the others may see it.

The beating in my ears is deafening. I'm hoping it's just a trick of my imagination, that maybe I'm dreaming and it's not true.

None of it is.

But the winding corridors and hallways seem to go on forever even as I run and run.

Pain.

I crumpled, the deep ache dotting up my arms, making me jerk to a stop, gasping.

Pain. Pain. So much pain--

Splaying my back against the wall, my breathing comes out in short heavy pants.

I slowly raise my fingers, wincing as the lights flicker, blue, green, gold, black.

The colours morph all at once, amassing darkness I never knew existed, and a lone tear slid down my face as I let my hands fall to my sides.

Black is overpowering the light, tainting the colours all at once.

I shut my eyes and clenched my fists.

The blue veins have never glowed any brighter than they did now and they've never hurt so much then.

Shakily running a hand through my hair, I whispered at the reflection in front of me, at the glass window, at the girl who stares back equally scared even as the light cast back over half my face.

"Another secret... J-Just another secret to keep..."

The irises in my eyes turned full-on black and I shut them, not wanting to see the monster.

"One last time..."

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END OF PART 1

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Lorelie Brook Stark will return

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