Chapter 23

"Alright, you sure you got this, Elphaba?" Tony asked me, flicking a few switches on the Quinjet's main console.

"Pretty sure," I said, picturing our destination in my mind. I was currently seated behind and to the left of him, at the secondary console. Holding up my hands, I focused on a point a dozen metres ahead of the aircraft. "Let me know when we're good."

Red threads of energy came together in a familiar sight as a portal formed. It quickly reached the typical size I used for personal travel, but I didn't let it stop there, continuing to feed magic into my sling ring. The gateway expanded steadily, rapidly growing larger than any I'd made previously. Opening a mystic portal big enough for a person had never required anything but the barest amount of effort from me, but the difficulty seemed to increase exponentially the bigger the portal got. I wasn't sure what my upper limit was at the moment, but making sure that the Quinjet had enough clearance for its wings was enough for me to start to feel a little bit of strain. Honestly, I was still a novice when it came to using the ring, though I felt like I'd already gotten noticeably quicker at opening portals in general.

"Okay, we're good. Heading through." Tony moved the flight stick and we surged forward, transitioning from morning to late afternoon as we travelled nearly seven thousand kilometres in an instant. "Clear."

I heaved a deep breath and dismissed the portal, leaning back in the flight chair. I slapped the arms of the chair lightly with my palms as I stood up. "This thing is super comfortable. Good lumbar support."

Tony snorted. "It better be. You have any idea how much this bird cost?"

My tried and tested Google Maps portal technique had let us select a precise starting point for our trip to Russia. After Alexei had pointed out where Melina's farm was, we'd settled on a spot about sixteen kilometres (or ten miles, as the Avengers insisted on saying) outside of Saint Petersburg. The Quinjet was set to silent running and our intent was to stay low to the ground to avoid detection by anything monitoring air traffic around the city.

I missed the tail end of a conversation between Yelena, Natasha and Alexei as I retreated back out of the cockpit, catching only the angry looks in the aftermath. Pietro, Bucky and the other Avengers were avoiding getting involved in the drama, choosing to remain relatively quiet as they performed some final checks on their gear.

The interior of the Quinjet was sleek and surprisingly spacious, feeling and looking more like the inside of a small spacecraft than anything else. Nat caught my eye as she stepped away, ducking under a bulkhead as she headed into the compartment to my left. I followed and she let out a small huff of annoyance as I approached. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this."

I sighed and dropped my voice lower, trying to minimise how many other people could hear us talking. "Look, all you need to do is go in there and talk. Melina will be receptive. Don't do… that," I said, waved a hand vaguely in her direction.

"Don't do what?"

"Shut down. Close yourself off. Whatever you want to call it. All this… look, I know. This is complicated and hard and you don't want to do it. But it'll work, I promise."

Natasha shot me a hard look. "You're right, I don't want to do this."

"Nat… listen. I know that, no matter what you might say, those years that the four of you were together—were a family—it meant something to you. Something real, even if you don't want to let yourself admit it," I said. She set her jaw stubbornly and I rolled my eyes in response. "You can deny it all you like out there, but you can't lie to me. Not about this. I already know the truth."

This was incredibly nerve-wracking, though I was trying to play it cool. This was the first real time that the Avengers had taken a gamble and acted based on my intel. If it went well, it set the stage for future cooperation. If it didn't, or I made a mistake about the key details, it would damage my credibility. Beyond that, this was incredibly personal to Natasha and I didn't want to mess things up with her, either. It felt like a tightrope act; one misstep and I'd fuck everything up one way or the other.

Nat stared at me quietly for a few moments, until I cracked a little under her gaze. "What?"

She sighed and shook her head. "Nothing. I just… I think I might have been underestimating what I was getting myself into with you."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. You're right. Maybe I do need to do this. Ugh." She closed her eyes for a moment, then a small smile ghosted across her face. "Is this revenge? I seduce you and you, what, force me to resolve my childhood trauma? I didn't expect you to be so vicious."

I grinned. "By the way, speaking of trauma, Alexei is almost certainly going to try to fit back into his old Red Guardian suit, so have fun with that. I don't think Melina's ever washed it."

"Ew," she screwed up her face. "Why would you tell me that?"

I smirked and ducked back out of the compartment as the Quinjet landed. The rear ramp folded downward and Alexei, Yelena, and Natasha took a few more moments to confirm their readiness before heading out together.

It had been a little bit of an uphill battle to convince Nat that this was the best way of doing this—we could have tried to take Melina by force, along with the technology at her farm, but after some discussion she'd acknowledged that it would be better if we could get her erstwhile 'mother' to defect and help us directly. The plan was for the three of them to head in on foot, while the rest of us waited nearby and provided overwatch support if needed. What I was hoping for was that this would play out much as it had in the original timeline, just a couple of years early.

"We didn't really need to do it like this, did we?" Clint asked me. He was lurking off to one side, leaning casually against the edge of the main cargo compartment.

"Huh?" His question caught me off guard. "What do you mean? We all agreed on the plan."

"We did, but this—" He gestured toward the now-closed rear door. "Your little conspiracy to reunite Natasha with the only family she ever really had… we didn't need to do it like this, if the goal was just to take down Dreykov and the Red Room. We had other options. But that was never just the goal, was it?"

I was quiet for a moment, then shrugged. "No, it wasn't. Their family reunion happened naturally in the visions I had, but things have changed since then… it wasn't going to happen like that anymore and I didn't want her to miss out on the opportunity to work through this. She certainly wouldn't admit to needing it."

"We'll all support her," Thor rumbled from the opposite corner. "Widow can be difficult to read sometimes, the way she holds herself at arm's length, but I think some part of her is grateful for the opportunity."

"Agreed," said Clint. He looked at me thoughtfully. "Maybe this is all going to work out after all."

We lapsed into relatively companionable silence as the minutes started to crawl by. At first, I was content to sit by Pietro and lean on his shoulder, but it didn't take long before I dozed off and he was nudging me back awake. The sun had finally crept below the horizon, darkening the landscape around the parked Quinjet.

Standing up, I sighed and paced back and forth for a little while before I headed back to the front of the aircraft—Tony was still sitting in the main flight chair with Steve leaning back at the secondary console. "Stark, I have a question."

"Shoot."

"You remember when you captured Loki in Germany? You flew in, Acca Dacca blasting on your speakers…"

"Acca Dacca?" he asked incredulously, mouth twisting in distaste.

"AC/DC," I said, waving a hand dismissively. "Why don't you do that sort of thing anymore? I mean, it was pretty cool."

"Well… I guess you could say I grew out of it."

Steve looked over at him from where he was sitting, the corner of his mouth quirking upward. "It was pretty childish."

"Oh, was it?" Tony's voice rose a little, a challenge in his tone. "Was it really?"

"Does the Quinjet even have external speakers?" I asked, sensing an opportunity.

"Oh, it most certainly does. It has everything. Look, here," he gestured for me to look at the main console, tapping at the touch screen. "See, this accepts audio out from another device and all our phones are connected automatically to the same local network, this is the external speaker channel, the interior speaker channel—over here is the encrypted channel that our earpieces are on, too—and all you need to do is connect things through like this and voila." He glared back at Steve, daring him to respond. "You're right, it was pretty cool."

Steve just smiled again and shook his head. "Getting bored?" he asked, looking at me.

"Getting is the wrong word. Am. Am bored." I was staring at the console, trying to memorise the exact sequence of things Tony had just shown me. The Quinjet's console was ridiculously complex-looking, far more so than a regular plane. I certainly wasn't going to be flying it anytime soon, but at least knowing how to play music was cool. If an opportunity arose to arrive somewhere with theme music blaring, what would I pick? I had no idea. I'd need to think it through.

"Just sit tight. Nat will check in soon," Steve reassured me, but I was already on my phone, busily planning a playlist.

Fifteen minutes later, Nat's voice came in on comms. "Change of plan. Melina's defecting, but she alerted the Red Room when we first arrived. ETA sometime in the next few minutes."

Ah. I'd actually forgotten that that was why they ended up with the specific plan to infiltrate the Red Room they had in the original timeline. Oh well. I didn't foresee any real trouble here in any case. We had nearly a full roster—the sole absence was Bruce, still cooped up in the lab looking at developing the mind control's counteragent—and I was pretty sure that there was nothing the Red Room could throw at us that would be more than a speedbump.

"Should we intercept?" Steve asked.

"Negative. If anything goes wrong here, Dreykov will assume his location has been compromised and we might lose our shot at him."

Clint scoffed. "You just want us to let them take you?"

"We don't have a choice. Don't worry, I have a plan… sort of. Tony, I'm activating my duress tracker. You think you can follow us back to the Red Room without being spotted?"

He frowned, nodding to himself. "Only one way to find out."

--

"Alright, people, let's go over the plan," Steve said as he scanned the group clustered in the Quinjet's main cargo space.

Tony had stepped away from the cockpit, presumably leaving control of the Quinjet to the autopilot, and had suited up in the Mark 43, now repaired after our unfortunate run-in in New Delhi. Bucky was checking the sights of his rifle, while Clint and Thor stood ready with their own weapons in hand. I gestured—perhaps a little more dramatically than necessary—and opened a small portal, letting a vibranium spear fall from my stash into my waiting hand. Pietro stood next to me, practically vibrating with nervous energy. He cracked his neck and I shot him a look.

"Our primary target is Dreykov. We need to identify his location as a priority and cut off any escape routes. Once he doesn't have anywhere left to run, we'll close the net. Tony, Thor, focus on staying mobile—disable their anti-air weapons and take out any escape aircraft while the rest of us find Natasha's team. Remember, everyone: nonlethal, disabling attacks where possible against the Widows. They're just as much a victim as anyone else. Same goes for the Taskmaster, if she's activated. Wanda, we'll need you ready for extractions. Stay close, but stay mobile. No running off on your own."

We'd already made preparations for an assault on the Red Room and had a set of makeshift sealed cells back in Avengers Tower ready for me to dump in any Widows we came across until they could be freed from the chemical agent. JARVIS had the Iron Legion—Tony's little army of humanoid peacekeeping drones—active and ready to guard them, and Bruce was going to be keeping an eye on things while he worked as well. I was a little bummed that I was mostly being relegated to rescue duty, but if that's where Steve thought I was best utilised, I didn't want to waste time arguing. It wasn't like I expected this to be difficult considering the forces we were bringing to bear.

"Pietro, you'll be taking point, scouting only. As far as we can tell the place is shielded from scanning, so we'll need you to build us a picture of the internal layout as quickly as possible. Don't stop to engage unless you absolutely have to—just get in, scout everything and tag key locations. Find Natasha and her team, Taskmaster, Dreykov and their main computer servers."

Pietro acknowledged Captain America's instructions with a nod. It was really nice seeing him actually stepping up and taking this seriously. I'd been worried, but it seemed like he was just as interested in putting a stop to the Red Room's activities and rescuing the Widows from their mental bondage as the rest of us.

Steve nodded to himself, satisfied that we were adequately prepared. "Be careful when we go after Dreykov. We don't know what the limitations of his pheromonal lock are or if it works on non-Widows, but it's fairly safe to say that it won't work on Thor and Tony's suit should provide him protection. Anyone else, stay at range, do not engage him from within 30 feet."

"We're coming over the Red Room now," said Tony, his armour's faceplate slamming into place. "I'll sweep up from the bottom, draw their attention." The rear ramp of the aircraft opened, the interior space immediately filling with howling wind. I steadied my footing, hand securely tucked into some webbing on the edge of the room specifically for that purpose. With a wave, Iron Man flew out, disappearing rapidly from view.

"Thor! Want to go help clear the way?" Steve raised his voice so he could be heard over the wind.

The thunder god grinned. "My pleasure!" Striding over to the open ramp, he spun his hammer in a rapid loop before launching himself out as well.

The ramp raised again and a few seconds later Tony's voice came in over the interior speakers. "Got a visual, should be coming up on screen now."

I rushed over to the cockpit, leaning over the seat to look at the feed from his helmet's cameras. The Red Room loomed large and imposing—a massive, star-like structure around a tall spire, floating impossibly in midair and partially hidden amongst the clouds. The picture blurred as Iron Man took evasive action, several projectiles of some description streaking past him. He'd been spotted. Still, the camera feed refocused, providing a zoomed in, relatively stable shot of a small runway and hanger entrance.

"Got it," I said, fixing the picture in my mind. I turned and immediately began spinning up a portal, red threads of energy coming together. A hole in the air appeared, linking the interior of the Quinjet directly to the outside of the Red Room. "Go, go, go!" I could feel my power bubbling up inside me, reacting to my excitement. I was practically shouting, even though I knew I didn't need to.

Pietro rocketed through first, followed by the rest. I waited for everyone else to clear the portal first, bouncing eagerly on the balls of my feet, then leapt through, dismissing the gateway and landing on the steel superstructure just in time to feel an explosion shiver through the floating platform. Looking around, I saw Clint line up a shot at a barely-visible control console by the side of the hanger door and hit it with an arrow. A moment later, the hanger glided open. No idea how that worked. Pietro didn't wait for the rest of us, immediately rushing ahead and into the opening.

A dozen black-armoured soldiers, wearing featureless, face-covering helmets and carrying assault weapons, poured out in response, lining up their shots and opening fire on our position. I threw up a shield, a red curtain of energy that robbed their projectiles of momentum, and Steve rushed through, charging one of the soldiers with his shield hard enough to send the man flying back. Bucky and Clint returned fire, covering him, and I flicked my spear forward.

Wrapped in threads of telekinetic energy, it flew through the air and impaled a soldier through the chest, overpenetrating him entirely and exiting his back in a spray of blood. He collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. I felt a twinge of guilt but gestured upward, the spear arcing up and around like a giant version of Yondu's ridiculously-deadly self-propelled arrow.

Another group of soldiers had arrived on an elevated deck off to our right and I threaded the spear through them like they weren't even there, my enhanced reflexes giving me even more precise control than I'd previously been used to. I was just glad that I was too far away to seeing any graphic details or hear anything more than panicked gunshots. When the spear returned to me, it was slick with blood. I left it hovering near my shoulder, unwilling to touch it again. Clint paused, staring at me for a moment in barely-disguised shock before continuing on without a word.

A few minutes later, we were inside the Red Room proper, heading down a corridor and kicking ass as we went. In the closer quarters, I kept my spear hovering nearby and switched to grabbing at guns with telekinetic energy and yanking on them, disrupting the soldiers' aim or, in some cases, disarming them entirely and sending their weapons flying away. It wasn't too long before we met our first Widows, but they went down just as easily as the soldiers, either smacked with Cap's shield or bounced off a wall with a burst of telekinetic power. Each time, I spun up a portal and we dropped them through.

Pietro's voice came through the comms. "I've found Yelena, she was in a medical room—guards are disabled, she wants to link up with the rest of the team."

"Opening a portal now," I focused my thoughts, concentrating on the two of them. A moment later, Yelena had joined us, Pietro returning to his scouting mission. A group of a half-dozen Widows came around the corner a moment later and we dismantled them, sending them to the cells before continuing onward.

"Stark, I think I've found their… what do you call it, mainframe? Lots of big computer servers."

"I've got your location. Clear the area and I'll breach."

A few minutes later, Steve touched his earpiece. "Tony, what's the verdict? Can you take control of their systems?"

"Give me a sec, working on it."

Pietro piped up again. "Something's happened. They've caught on. Corridors just sealed, everything's locked down. What is this? Plexiglass or something?"

"Sit tight, kid, I'll get you out once I've got the system under control," Tony responded.

"I'm going to try to bust it down."

I rolled my eyes and tapped my comms. "Pietro, just sit tight until Stark can get them open. Don't try to break it, you'll just hurt yourself."

"I'll hurt myself?" There was a challenge in his tone. "You think I'll hurt myself, Wanda?"

I sighed. "Yes. You will."

"You're sure about that?"

"Yes. I am a hundred percent sure that you will hurt yourself if you try to bust down those doors." There were a few seconds of silence, stretching out long enough that I started to worry a little bit. "…Pietro?"

"Ow." Pietro's voice was pained.

Steve looked at me and I just shook my head, the corner of my mouth twitching furiously as I tried not to laugh. I touched my earpiece again. "Cool, great job."

"Wandaaaa…" Pietro whined.

"What?" I asked sarcastically. "What happened?"

"Why didn't you warn me?"

"What happened? Did you hurt yourself? No way!"

"You know," Tony said, exasperated. "It's nice when we keep the comms clear of unnecessary chatter."

Suddenly, a massive, muffled explosion rocked the entire structure. There was the tortured groan of rending metal beneath our feet, then the floor began to list alarmingly to one side. A moment later, Thor's voice came across the comms. "Oops. That was me, sorry. We, uh, might have a problem."

Steve sighed and turned to the rest of us. "Alright, new plan: Wanda, I want you back on the Quinjet providing overwatch—when someone calls in for a portal, you extract them."

I blinked. "Wait, just me? You're all going to stay?"

"We're not done yet. We don't have Dreykov and there are still Widows on board."

"I… I guess," I said, frowning. "Wouldn't it be better if—"

"We don't have time to argue, Wanda, just do it."

Suppressing a huff of annoyance, I complied, picturing the Quinjet's interior and opening a portal. Another explosion made the floor tremble, almost making me stumble as I stepped through and closed it behind me.

I looked around the empty aircraft interior. Apart from the gentle hum of the engines, it was quiet. The spear floating quietly by my side was still slick with gore. I opened a small portal before floating it through—I didn't really want to look at it right now. It had been way too easy to just… how many people did I just kill? Seven or eight? I felt a little sick to my stomach, but forced the feeling away. They were firing on us. It was just self-defence, after all.

"Good news and bad," Tony's voice came through. "Mainframe went down, but I copied most of the data. We should have enough to reconstruct what we need."

"Thanks, Tony," said Steve. "We're closing in on Dreykov. Wanda, extraction please, we have more Widows."

I opened a portal and four unconscious women dropped through. Dismissing the first gateway, I opened a second one beneath them and they disappeared out of view, falling into the cells in Avengers Tower. This sucked. I should have been down there still, helping more directly.

"Two on your six, Cap," said Clint.

"I got them," Pietro responded.

Walking to the cockpit, I looked out at the morning sky as I listened to what the others were doing. I wasn't quite sure where the Quinjet was in relation to the Red Room right now, but I couldn't see it anywhere. Frustrated, I sat down in the pilot seat and scanned over the incredibly complicated-looking console. Reaching out with both hands, I cautiously took hold of the flight stick and tried moving it slightly, but nothing happened—locked to autopilot, I guess. I wasn't really sure why I'd even tried; it wasn't like I knew how to fly this thing. There was one thing I knew how to do, though. I tapped at the touchscreen, cycling through to the audio channels Tony had shown me, taking out my phone and lining up a song.

"Wanda, we need an extraction," Yelena's voice came through, tight with frustration. Only slightly annoyed by the interruption, I gestured back toward the main cargo hold and spun up a portal. A moment later, Yelena and Melina stumbled through, carrying Alexei supported between them.

"What happened?" I asked, a little surprised.

"He's an idiot, that's what happened. Don't close it yet!" Yelena dropped her half of the burden and ducked back the way they'd come, leaving Melina to stagger uncertainly. I gestured again, sending wisps of red magic over to lift the heavyset man from her. She shot me a grateful look as I floated him through the air and carefully placed him on the small bunk/medical table off to one side of the hold. Yelena returned a minute later, an unconscious Widow in her arms.

I dismissed the portal and called up another to the cells, and Yelena carefully dropped the unconscious woman through before striding up to me. "Move," she commanded.

"What? Why?"

"Just get out the way, I'm going to bring us around."

I acquiesced, letting Yelena take control of the Quinjet, and stalked grumpily back to the cargo compartment where Melina was leaning over Alexei, stroking his hand. "Is he okay?" I asked.

She nodded, a faint smile on her face. "It will take more than that to put him down. He'll be back up in no time." She paused and looked up at me, her head tilted curiously. "You are the one with the portals, yes? You have been extracting the Widows? How many, so far?"

That was actually a good question. I thought for a minute. "Maybe twenty."

Her face fell slightly. "Even discounting those already out on missions, that's less than half what I would expect there to be on board."

I frowned, concerned. I felt pretty certain that the Red Room was going to fall out of the sky at this point. There was only so much we could do… maybe some of them would find parachutes, but 'less than half' wasn't a great rescue ratio. No sign of Taskmaster either, at this stage, though maybe she just wasn't properly active yet.

Walking back to the front, I saw the Red Room appear just ahead of us. It wasn't looking good, listing dramatically to one side, half of the spikes that had radiated out from the central hub already disintegrating and breaking off. I looked at Yelena. "Can you get us over it? Close as you can?"

"Wanda, extraction!" Pietro's panicked voice came over the comms and I flicked my hands out, retrieving him with another portal. He landed hard and staggered off to one side, clutching at his arm. I hurried back toward him, alarm on my face, but he waved me off. "I'm fine, it's fine."

"You're not fine, you're bleeding," I helped him take his jacket off and sucked in air through my teeth when I saw the nasty cut on his arm.

Melina came over, having retrieved a medical kit from somewhere. "It's okay, I'll take care of him. You focus on getting people out."

I nodded reluctantly and glanced back at the front of the Quinjet—the Red Room was no longer visible, so I went over and hit the switch to open the back ramp. Howling wind and the sound of explosions filtered in from outside and I carefully leaned out. Yelena had brought us more-or-less directly above the failing structure and halted our forward momentum, using the Quinjet's VTOL jets to keep us steady. Below me, the spire tilted drunkenly to one side.

"Wanda, extraction!" Nat's voice came through and I gestured, opening another portal. A second later, Natasha and Steve stumbled through, covered in blood and soot, and almost collapsed against the bulkhead. "Hold it open, there's—" she was cut off by an explosion, "Close it!" I snapped the portal shut, narrowly cutting off a small plume of flame.

"Damn it," Steve murmured, his voice heavy.

"Dreykov?" I called back to them.

"He's dead," said Natasha, a note of tired satisfaction in her voice, amongst a crowd of other emotions. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes.

I inventoried our team, then touched my earpiece. "Clint? Where are you?"

Nat's eyes flew open. "Clint isn't out?" she asked urgently. "The whole place is going down. Get him out, now."

I focused on Hawkeye, picturing him in my mind, then spun up a portal. There was a pause, then a moment of confusion and shock when an arm flopped bonelessly through, slapping onto the deck, then slipped back the way it had come. Nat kicked off, lunging at it, and Steve caught her leg as she dangled through the portal, everything above her hips on the other side. After a moment of struggle, Steve pulled her back through. She was empty-handed and her eyes were wide. "We need to go around! He's falling! He's hurt!"

Tony's voice came through. "I don't see him. Where was he?"

I looked back down. Clint, Taskmaster, and a bunch of the Widows were still out there, about to plummet toward their deaths. Fuck. If I could see them, I could get them, but there was so much smoke… The fall would be survivable for me, I could slow myself down and cushion my landing, but they couldn't. Tony might be able to pick out a couple of people, but they'd be at risk from all of the falling wreckage…

Bad decision made, I bounced on my heels a couple of times, psyching myself up. I shot one last glance back toward the interior of the Quinjet, smiled encouragingly at Pietro, then stepped backwards off the ramp—my heart in my throat—letting myself freefall toward the rapidly-disintegrating structure.