chapter xx.
(   civil war   )

what a  shame we all became
such fragile broken things
a memory remains, just a tiny spark
i give it all my oxygen, to let the flames begin
let the flames begin ─── paramore

flughafen leipzig-halle airport, germany
june 10, 2016
(   crossover   )

♛♕♛

Steve Rogers walks out from underneath an overhang, dressed in his complete uniform and his red, white, and blue shield in hand. The supersoldier glances around before breaking into a run towards the helicopter that waits. A sudden small missile flies through the air and stabs into the chopper's side. Steve steps to a stop, watching as an electric charge shoots through the machine and leaves it lifeless. Tony, dressed in his Iron Man suit, hovers about forty feet away before he flies over and lands hard onto the ground. War Machine drops down beside him, his metal boots clanking as he hits the cement. Steve watches them with a careful expression.

"Wow, it's so weird how you run into people at the airport." Tony quips as his helmet pulls back and he glances over at Rhodey, "Don't you think that's weird?"

"Definitely weird." His best friend plays along which the Stark responds to with a thoughtful nod.

"Hear me out, Tony," Steve cuts the joking mood, saying in a measured tone, "That doctor, the psychiatrist, he's behind all of this."

A man in a black vibranium suit leaps over a nearby truck, landing gracefully onto the ground just as his ex-girlfriend flies and drops down beside him. It's a simultaneous motion as the pair slowly straighten up to look at the supersoldier.

"Captain." T'Challa speaks up lowly.

"Your Highness," Steve bows his head slightly before looking at the brunette beside him, "Lisa."

"Steve." Lisa nods her own hello, but her movements are stiff and unnatural.

"Anyway." Tony steps around Rhodey's side, "Ross gave me thirty-six hours to bring you in. That was twenty-four hours ago. Can you help a brother out?"

"You're after the wrong people."

"Your judgement is askew." Tony's tone and his eyes alike turn hard, "Your old war buddy killed innocent people yesterday,"

"And there are five more supersoldiers just like him." Steve cuts in, speaking louder as they argue, "I can't let the doctor find them first, Tony. I can't."

"Steve..." A low voice turns the man around to look at the redhead woman; Natasha dips her chin down and her eyes are pleading, "You know what's about to happen." God, she herself knows better than anyone what's about to happen; she's seen this kind of civil war all before, "Do you really wanna punch our way out of this one?"

Even though the man is completely surrounded, Steve just turns back at Tony with a squinted and uncompromising expression.

"Alright, I've run out of patience." Tony snaps and holds his hands up to his mouth, calling loudly, "Underoos!"

A figure suddenly leaps in from above, yanking the shield out of Steve's grip and in turn tightly binding the supersoldier's hands in a cluster of webs.

The figure continues his flip before he gracefully lands down on top of a nearby cart, his back arched and the shield at his side as he slowly lifts up his head and a boy clothed in a high-tech red suit stares back at them.

As Spider-Man stays crouched across from her, Lisa smirks a but proudly and Tony congratulates, "Nice job, Kid."

"Thanks!" Peter Parker energetically pipes back before glancing down, "Well, I could have stuck the landing a little better, it's just... new suit." He quickly looks back up at Tony and throws out his hand, "It's nothing, Mr. Stark. It's perfect. Thank you!"

"Yeah." Tony cuts his hand at him and shakes his head, "We don't really need to start a conversation."

"Okay." Peter quietly says before awkwardly saluting Steve who still has his hands webbed up, "Cap. Captain. Big fan. I'm..." He motions to his chest, "Spider-Man."

Lisa's face crumples into a bit of a cringe at her brother.

"Yeah, we'll talk about it later. Just..." Tony tries hard to get him to kindly shut up.

Releasing a nervous breath, Peter looks around and gives a semicircular wave, "Hey, everyone."

Lisa sighs a little and T'Challa's face mask turns towards her in brief confusion.

"Good job." Tony nods firmly at the fifteen year old boy.

"You've been busy." Steve tells the other man with a small smirk.

"And you've been a complete idiot!" Tony snaps back, "Dragging in Clint, 'rescuing' Wanda from a place she doesn't even want to leave, a safe place. I'm trying to keep..." He stops and growls in frustration, "I'm trying to keep you from tearing the Avengers apart."

Steve just sighs and says in a convicted tone, "You did that when you signed."

Tony looks back in quiet and horrified disbelief, unable to believe his ears, "All right. We're done. You're gonna turn the Barnes over, you're gonna come with us now, because it's us!" Natasha worriedly blooks between the two as Steve turns to look away, "...Or a squad of J-SOC guy with no compunction about being impolite." His voice turns quiet as he begs, "Come on."

Sam's voice suddenly pipes up in Steve's commlink, "We found it." Bucky and Svetlana stay crouched beside the man as they stare off at the scene unfolding, "Their quinjet's in hangar five, north runway."

Steve defiantely tilts his chin up and lifts up his bound hands, waiting for his team that he knows will do their jobs. A sleek arrow suddenly slices through the air and cuts through the webs, allowing the supersoldier to break free. Natasha's eyes widen in horror and everyone immediately whirls back around, trying to find the source of the arrow and knowing it could only be one person.

Clint Barton.

With a quick breath, Steve sets his shoulders and nods, "All right, Lang."

Peter confusedly glances down at the shield that's still in his hands, "Hey, Guys? Something,"

The boy is suddenly cut off when a figure suddenly shudders up into existence, kicking Peter in the face and stealing the shield from the boy. Peter falls to his back and his legs fly up over his head, making his sister gasp and wince.

"Holy crap!" Lisa jumps and even T'Challa recoils just slightly as the figure lands down in front of them.

"Whoa!" Rhodey's eyes dart back and forth as he quickly spews, "What the heck was that?"

Scott Lang in his red and black Ant-Man suit stands by Steve's side and confidently hands the shield back over, "I believe this is yours, Captain America."

"Oh, great." Tony groans as his gold face mask drops, "Alright, there's two on the parking deck. One of them's Maximoff, I'm gonna grab her." Tony quickly lifts up, but pauses to ask, "Rhodey, you wanna take Cap?"

Rhodey lifts up at his best friend's suggestion before adding in, "Got three in the terminal."

Lisa squints her eyes at the interface in that appears in her contacts, making out the heat signatures just as her uncle does, "It's Sam and the Barnes."

"Barnes is mine!" The Wakandan man fiercely determines, turning and sprinting away.

"T'Challa!" Lisa yells, turning and sprinting after him.

Steve takes no time to launch his shield at Rhodey's chest, making him bounce back.

Peter watches his sister run off before quickly piping up, wanting nothing more than to be of use, "Hey, Mr. Stark, what should I do?"

"What we discussed!" Tony snaps back incredulously, "Keep your distance, web them up."

"Okay!" Peter chirps back quickly before sending two webs above his head, "Copy that."

Steve chases after T'Challa and Lisa and sharply throws the red, white, and blue shield at the couple that sprints towards the terminal. Lisa ducks and rolls underneath the flying shield and it clangs loudly when it hits the Black Panther suit. Steve jumps forward, wraps his arm around T'Challa's neck, and throws a leg to the side, kicking Lisa to the ground as he throws T'Challa over his head.

They both roll up into readying positions and T'Challa threatens, "Move, Captain. I won't ask a second time."

Steve only stands more resolutely before the two launch themselves at the supersoldier.

♕♕♕

Outside the terminal, Tony glides along in his iron suit and sends small missiles from his shoulder. The two small missiles dive through the air after the running Clint and Wanda. The two duck and cover, trying to shield each other as fire and cement bursts up around them.

With Lisa having blasted off to join her father, T'Challa and Steve are left to fight on their own for the moment. The Wakandan rakes his long claws along the front of Steve's shield, creating a loud screeching noise.

The two men twist away from each other and the supersoldier dodges each attack that the prince makes. Hovering at a distance, Rhodey watches as T'Challa kicks the captain away, and the lieutenant colonel huffs a deep breath and yanks out an electrical bat from his back.

The man in the War Machine suit mumbles with a shake of the head, "Sorry, Cap, this won't kill you, but it ain't gonna tickle either."

He flies forward and strongly brings the white sparking bat down against the shield, making the two men fly back from the force.

Tony curls to a stop above the ground, hovering a few feet from where Clint and Wanda stand on offense among the still fiery debris.

"Wanda, I think you hurt Vision's feelings." Tony quips and raises his white-glowing thruster at them, cocking his head to the side.

Lisa drops from higher above to join his side and Wanda's eyes are sharp as she looks quickly at her best friend for an explanation that Lisa cannot give. Still, the hovering brunette girl doesn't raise her weapon as her father wants her to, instead, she merely stares at her two friends that she's only grown closer to in the past year since Sokovia.

Wanda's eyes narrow and she steps threateningly closer, hissing, "You locked me in my room."

Lisa looks hard over at her father and, ignoring her look, Tony scoffs, "Okay, first, that's an exaggeration. Second, I did it to protect you."

Wanda doesn't seem to agree as her eyes squint and she tilts her head to the side.

"Hey, Clint."

Clint readjusts his shoulders a little as he holds his bow in his hands, "Hey, Guys."

Lisa looks away, unable to stand the casualness.

"Clearly, retirement doesn't suit you." Tony, on the other hand, revels in it, not willing to take this heart, not wanting to take it to heart, "You got tired of shooting golf?"

"Well, I played 18, shot 18." Clint shrugs slightly cockily, "Just can't seem to miss." The man suddenly releases an arrow and small explosive barrels erupt around Tony and Lisa, making the father and daughter quickly shoot at the explosives, but none of them even get close.

Tony looks over at Clint with a smirk, "Well, first time for everything."

Clint gives a smirk of his own, "Made you look."

Tony and Lisa quickly whirl around to look up as Wanda's red tendrils begin yanking vehicles from the car park behind and dropping them all around them. Lisa lets out a quick gasp and her eyes widen at the sight, quickly moving to shield her head with her metal-armored arms. Tony quickly shoves Lisa forward, getting her out of the way just before the cars crash down hard on top of his back and his left arm.

Lisa calls out for him and quickly drops down to the ground, wincing at his painful position.

"Multiple contusions detected." FRIDAY chimes to the man who lies on his stomach underneath the pile of smashed vehicles.

Tony groans back to the AI, "Yeah, I detected that, too."

♛♕♛

The fight continues all over the airport.

"Hey, Cap, heads-up!" Scott runs across the strip, displaying a small metal disk in his hand and tossing a miniaturized truck over to Steve, "Throw it at this." The two men toss their respective devices when Scott yells, "Now!"

Natasha's eyes widen when a huge truck materializes before them and she eagerly dives out of the way.

Rhodey stands just before its path, glaring up at the flying truck, "Oh, come on!"

T'Challa eagerly jumps out of its path as the truck crashes down and explodes. Everyone tumbles away from the explosion, roughly rolling across the ground as Steve and Scott cover their faces in shock.

"Oh, man, I thought it was a water truck." Scott groans out in disbelief before he winces over at the captain, "Uh, sorry."

Steve frowns at the man before they both turn and run off once more. Tony and Lisa land down hard near the others on their team; Tony's metal books clunking down hard. As Tony moves towards Natasha, Lisa jogs over towards her uncle and unsteadilly helps the man clad in the War Machine suit back up to his feet.

"Are you okay?" Lisa tiredly questions, raising her brown brows at him.

Without exactly answering her, Rhodey just glares after the men who disappear from sight and he yells out across the comms, "All right, now I'm ticked!"

Natasha groans from where she's been thrown back into the ground, the sound of the explosion still humming in her ears. The redhead rolls onto her back and her batons click against the concrete before Tony pulls her up to her black-booted feet. Her red hair bounces against her shoulders as she angrily looks around at the fire that burns around them.

"Is this part of the plan?" She breathes heavily and quietly winces at the ache in her ribs.

"Well, my plan was go easy on them." The two friends simultaneously look irritatedly over their shoulders as Tony quips, "You wanna switch it up?"

Wanda and Clint run forward as the latter points at the quinjet that lies on the other side of the airstrip, "There's our ride!"

As the two go on, Steve and Scott pass a clutter of crates and run ahead of them before Sam, Bucky, and Svet can be seen sprinting closer.

"Come on!" Steve waves them on before they all fall into step, running as a group towards their only means of escape.

They pass the planes lining the airport as Steve leads with Svetlana and Bucky running at his left and Clint, Wanda, Sam, and Scott running at his right. They all quickly slide to a stop, however, when a long yellow beam cuts and forms a deep line into the earth before their feet. Svetlana gasps lightly and her feet trip a little while her eyes widen at the smokey slice in the earth and then trail up to find the source. Bucky puts his arm slightly in front of his daughter, protecting her from the strange red being that hovers above them all.

"Captain Rogers!" The one called Vision calls from far above, "I know you believe what you're doing is right."

The other members of the Avengers slowly come up on the other side of the line, a distance forming between the two halves.

"But for the collective good... you must surrender now."

Tony lands Natasha down at his side while Lisa drops T'Challa down onto the ground before dropping herself. The young woman slowly steps up to be in between the prince and her father as they watch the others with grim expressions. Rhodey clunks down on the far left and Peter swings in, perfectly flipping and landing down in a crouched stance. Vision slowly glides down behind Natasha and Peter, still staying slightly hovered above the concrete.

The sides have been chosen.

The teams have been set.

Friends against friends.

Family against family.

Sam stares hard at the other side of the line, asking with full faith in his friend, "What do we do, Cap?"

Steve's jaw sets and his eyes narrow while he determines, "We fight."

And they cross the line.

The captain's team begins marching towards the other's and they ready their weapons as their faces harden. Iron Man's team pushes their shoulders back and it is Tony who starts a march for themselves.

Natasha lets out a sigh and she shakes her head, grumbling, "This is gonna end well."

Clouds build in the distance, a storm brewing as the paces grow quicker and the expressions darker. One side begins running towards the other, the running building and building until it is a full out sprint to meet the other face-on.

"They're not stopping!" Peter calls out in concern, uncertainty looking over at Tony and then at Lisa.

"Neither are we." Tony's voice is hard and his hands ignite with white fire as he blasts up.

Lisa looks over at her father with wide eyes before gritting her teeth and lifting herself off of the ground.

Svetlana forces herself to look away from her mother as she takes a deep breath and then sets into a sprint along with the rest of the captain's team.

The two halves push themselves harder, rushing to take the other side down until they come together as a whole, slamming their fists into each other's bodies and throwing each other back. A metal fist crashes against a metal shield. Assassins battle assassins as those who can fly take to the air, dodging Wanda's red tendrils and Clint's exploding arrows. T'Challa and Bucky battle without reservation, aiming for each other's throats. Lisa faces off against Svet, both girls knowing full well the consequences of this fight when it comes to a conclusion.

"You have helped me and now you attack me?!" The fifteen year old girl yells at Lisa as her skinny legs kicks at the other girl's.

Lisa throws a punch at the girl's frame, "We all have our reasons here, Kid; I don't expect you," she blasts Svet's foot away with a light shot before spinning up and missing a kick of her own at the other girl, "to understand!"

Svetlana suddenly yanks two small disks that Clint gave her from her pocket and then hurls them at Lisa. Slight distablizing voltage shoots up the young woman's spine and she jerks as she falls and groans on the ground.

"That is good." Svet takes a deep breath, standing over Lisa with a small shake of the head, "Because I don't."

Still in a bit of pain, Lisa huffs and watches the younger girl run off, "Punk."

"Jerk." Svetlana mumbles as she sprints off to find either her father or uncle amidst the fight.

♕♕♕

When suddenly one of Tony's thruster repulsors gives out as he battles Clint, he pulls a face and irritatedly shakes at his metal hand, "FRIDAY?"

The feminine voice replies, "We have some weapon systems offline."

"Eh, what?"

"Oh, you gotta," the mini Ant-Man yanks a wire from its position, calling out to the man, "you're gonna have to take this into the shop."

"Who's speaking?"

"It's..." As he still dismantles the inside of the suit, Scott struggles with an answer, "your conscience. We don't talk a lot these days."

"FRIDAY?" Tony calls to his AI.

"Deploying fire suppression system."

"Uh oh." Scott slowly turns to see a cold white gas rushing for him and the mini man quickly follows suit, rushing away from it, "Ah, oh, boy! Whoa!"

♛♕♛

Steve, Bucky, and Svet slam their bodies against the back of the luggage carts, briefly taking shelter from the fight that rages on the other side.

"Are you okay?" Bucky touches the side of Svetlana's face, checking her over quickly.

"Da, yes." She breathily nods before gnawing on her lip, "That doctor man is likely already near the Siberian facility by now, Papa."

"She's right." Bucky presses his back to the cart, "Steve, we gotta go."

Svet winces tiredly at the pain in her heaving lungs while she glances around the corner.

"We gotta draw out the flyers." Steve nods quickly, "I'll take Vision, you two get to the jet."

"No, you get to the jet!" Sam quickly breaks in while he still flies above, "All of you! The rest of us aren't getting out of here."

"As much as I hate to admit it..." Clint agrees with the man, knowing the only way for his niece to get out is if he doesn't, "If we're gonna win this one, some of us might have to lose it."

"This isn't the real fight, Steve."

Steve sighs to himself in darkened concession, "All right, Sam. What's the play?"

"We need a diversion. Something big."

"I got something kinda big. But I can't hold it very long." Scott calls out to the others, running along a panel, "On my signal, run like heck. And if I tear myself in half... don't come back for me."

"What?" Bucky breathes out in impatience, shaking his head and squinting, "He's gonna tear himself in half?"

"What?!" Svetlana looks between the two men with wide eyes, "Who?!"

"You sure about this, Scott?"

"I do it all the time." Scott dismisses before growing a little more honest, "I mean, once. In a lab. Then I passed out. And my oldest daughter laughed at me."

Steve looks off into space in disbelief.

"I'm the boss, I'm the boss, I'm the boss." With one final yell, the man jumps forward through the air, "I'm the boss!"

After dropping down onto Lisa's shoulder, he squeezes his eyes shut and then slams his thumbs down onto the buttons on his gloves. Then, suddenly, Scott's body is shuddering up and up until he is a ginormous... giant-man.

Scott stretches his monstrous hand forward and latches his huge fingers around Lisa's leg, holding her flying form tightly in place.

Peter steps back, exclaiming, "Holy crap!"

"Wowza." Lisa surprisedly breathes, fumbling back a little.

The Giant-Man laughs like a maniac, his eyes big with glee.

Rhodey quickly widens his eyes and then spews, "Okay, tiny dude is big now. He's big now."

As the three step out from behind the luggage carts, Steve breathes in quiet surprise, "I guess that's the signal."

"Why can't you do something like that?" Svet jokingly looks over at Bucky who gives her a look.

Still cruising through the air, Sam laughs and grins, "Way to go, Tic-Tac!"

Tony scowls up at the way the Giant-Man clasps Lisa in his hand and he says lowly, "Give me back my Lisa."

"This is just so messed up! Let go!" The twenty year old struggles against the monstrous hand holding onto her before suddenly the man pulls back an arm.

"Oh, wait, wait, I didn't mean it!" The girl worriedly widens her eyes just before he then chucks her through the air.

Peter hurriedly yells, "I got her!"

The brother shoots a web around her legs and yanks her to a stop just before she can crash into a nearby plane. The Giant-Man makes the fight even more complicated for Iron Man's team, forcing them to dodge kicked buses and large swinging fists and legs.

"Okay." Tony replies irritatedly as he dodges being hit at with an airplane wing, "Anybody on our side hiding any shocking and fantastic abilities they'd like to disclose... I'm open to suggestions."

As the prince sprints after the escaping trio, Clint sends forward two arrows that T'Challa's claw-covered hands skillfully catch midair. He holds them on either side of his mask-covered face as the tips burst into small explosions that do nothing to the Black Panther but make him turn his head to the side.

The future king carelessly drops the arrows to the ground and then turns darkly back at the archer who watches him with cautious eyes.

"We haven't met yet." The master archer straightens and he lowers his black bow to his side, "I'm Clint."

T'Challa hisses back with absolutely no interest at all, "I don't care."

As Steve Bucky, and Svet still make a run for it towards the nearby hangar, whoever is left does their best to stop the other team who quickly picks up on their plan. Lisa and Tony dodge Clint's arrows and Sam's drones that seemingly attack them at all sides. Wanda and the Giant-Man continually fight back and forth with War Machine and Spider-Man.

"Get off!" Scott bites out, swatting at Peter's body like the little bug he's named after.

As Peter still crawls all over the man's head, Vision curls into a ball and then pushes him back, making Scott's massive height get the better of him. At the sight of the trio getting closer to the hangar, Vision closes his eyes and then completely phases through Scott's body.

The man's eyes widen and he yells out in a panic, "Something just flew in me!"

Lisa follows his line of sight and her eyes widen at exactly what his plan is, worried for the captain and the tower that might collapse on him, "Vis, no! Don't!"

Tony whips his head to look at her darkly.

The Vision pays the girl no mind as narrows his eyes at the still sprinting people and the determination to not let them get away comes back full force. With a hard expression, he sends a long yellow bean that cuts down the aircontrol tower, making the thing crumble and collapse. Svet stumbles to a stop in between the two supersoldiers, watching their last seemingly slip away.

"We're not going to make it..." She whispers just before the cement suddenly stops feet above the ground, being lifted up by Wanda's red mist.

Steve, Bucky, and Svet waste no time in sprinting forward again, trying to make it underneath the debris before it's too late. With a scowl, Rhodey throws forward his thruster and then shimmering beams are stretching through the air and overcoming all of Wanda's senses. The girl's hands fly up to her skull as she screams at the pain, losing control of the crumbling tower. The three fugitives disappear from everyone else's view as the cement collapses and dust rises.

♕♕♕

"Hey, Guys," Peter calls as he glides by my side, "you ever see that really old movie, Empire Strikes Back?"

"Oh God, Kid..." I mumble and shake my head at him.

"Geez, Tony!" Rhodey yells over the comm, "How old is this guy?"

I see Dad rolls his eyes before he snaps back at his best friend, "I don't know, I didn't carbon-date him! He's on the young side!"

"You know that part where they're on the snow planet..." Peter continues swinging around the giant guy's thick legs before he strains to yell, "With the walking thingies?"

"Holy crap!" I exclaim when I realize what the heck he's talking about and a grin comes onto my face, "Yes! Boy, I love you! You are a stinkin' genius!" I see Peter beam into his mask on my interface at my words.

Dad quickly calls back to us, "Maybe the kid's onto something!"

"High now, Guys, go high!"

Dad, Rhodey, and I leap forward through the air, curving up along the length of the huge man's body, and then ramming our fists into the bottom of his chin. The towering man tumbles back, his arms flailing and his back bending.

"Yes!" Peter laughs and throws a thumbs up as we cruise back around, "That was awesome!"

The Giant-Man struggles for balance and throws his arms around to try to grasp for it, only to smack my brother and his grinning face out of the sky. My eyes widen and I choke on a gasp when Peter releases a grunt and goes hurtling through the air. I cry out as I watch my brother crash down into a collection of wooden crates and lie unmoving against the hard ground.

Oh God. We've killed him. He was just a boy and we've killed him! The giant man topples back in nearly slow motion and falls down onto the cement. His form shrinks down until he's once more the size of a normal man. The man groans and winces when he releases the mask from around his face.

He squints and blinks a couple of times, calling out, "Does anyone have any orange slices?"

"Oh God," I whisper in horror as Dad and I shakily land down onto the ground a few feet from Peter, "please no. He can't be... Dad, please, don't tell me we're to blame for this."

Dad sends me another frighteningly hard look before his eyes flash with guilt and anger. But I don't care about him at the moment. I can't feel my hands. I can't feel anything at all but the agonizing feeling in my abdomen. Dad's face is wrought with worry as he stumbles down to his knees, reaching out for the crumpled boy.

"Kid, you alright?" Peter lets out a panicked gasp and throws out his hands in defense of himself that Dad has to bat away, "Whoa! Same side. Guess who? Hi. It's us."

Relaxing on the ground, Peter lets out a huge sigh of relief, "Hey, Guys."

I let out my own sigh of relief, running a hand over my face, "God, Peter, you scared me to death."

My little brother informs us quietly, "That was scary."

"Yeah." Dad replies quickly in a calm and caring voice, "You're done, alright?"

"Definitely done." I nod and hold onto my still queasy stomach, not yet over that feeling just yet.

"What? I'm good, I'm fine."

"You did a good job." Dad quickly orders, "Stay down."

"No, it's good." My brother scrambles up to his feet and I push his shoulder down as he looks at me with wide eyes, "I gotta get him back."

Dad quickly stands back up, pointing down at Peter in a snapping voice, "You're going home or I'll call Aunt May!"

"Dude!" Peter whines.

"You're done!" Dad snaps and lifts up off the ground.

"Wait, Mr. Stark, wait. I'm not done. I'm not..."

My brother fumbles under my weakening grip as I stare after my father with a sickened stomach. The quinjet with Steve and the Barnes storms out of the hangar and I watch as it sails above my head, and I know I had a hand in that. God, we all had a hand in this.

My brother gets about to his knees before he winces and then crumples back to the ground, "Okay, I'm done. I'm done."

"Peter..." I say his name with caution, as if I don't really deserve to say it, while I stand, "It's time for you to go home, okay?"

He nods tiredly, stretching out on his back, "Home sounds good."

"Yeah." Tears stab at my eyes as I slowly spin in a circle to gaze at what those who have fallen and those who are still fighting, "Home does sound good, doesn't it?"

But home doesn't exist anymore.

My lips tremble apart and my arm wraps around my abdomen as I look around at the mess of debris and fire. Oh God, what have we done? We can't go home after this. We've destroyed it. We've destroyed everything that we've made and it makes me sick to my stomach. This was more of my home than anything ever has been. This brought my father more purpose than I can ever remember him feeling. And now we can't ever go back. Aunt Peggy's words find me now as I stand amidst the wreckage of what we've made.

Compromise where you can.

"Lisa, come on!" Dad's red and gold suit comes into view as he hovers above me, "I need you!"

I need you.

I need you.

I need you.

And if you can't, don't.

"I can't." I shake my head, sending him a hard look that I know he will never forget.

Dad's eyes widen and his jaw clenches at my words as if he's just coming to terms with something. His face morphs into a glare before he turns and blasts up with Rhodey by his side.

Vision carefully cradles my injured best friend nearby, whispering, "I'm sorry."

"Me too." Wanda says back in the same tone with a deep breath exiting her wavering lips.

"It's as I said: catastrophe."

I look over at the two of them as they search each other's eyes for what may very well be the last time. I can't stand to look so I squeeze my eyes closed, knowing that their relationship has been broken and it's never going to be quite the same. No, nothing is ever going to be quite the same.

"Vision, I got a bandit on my six." Rhodey suddenly yells into our comm, "Vision! You copy?"

I look up quickly at the sky, watching as Sam sails after Rhodey. A sick feeling settles in the pit of my stomach and I walk a few steps closer to the scene, watching with narrowed eyes. A strange chill runs up the back of my neck and the hair on my arms all stand on end.

"Target his thruster," Rhodey continues quickly sending orders to Vis, "turn him into a glider."

I look sharply over my shoulder and see Vision quickly turning around, narrowing his eyes and preparing to fire the stone at Sam. My mind flashes with it then. A vision. It's been so long since I've had one.

A man in the sky plummets down from above. Landed, his body is broken and blood is dripping from his nose. His eyes won't open. God, his eyes won't open!

My eyes fly open and I stumble back in horror. Sam! Not Sam! I can't let this happen, I won't let this happen!

"Vis!" I cry out, completely whirling around and sprinting for him, "No, don't!"

I slam my body into Vision and Wanda's, but I don't get there in time. Not enough to stop him. Not close enough. I'm never close enough. A long yellow beam of energy sails from Vis' forehead and, as I land and twist harshly onto the concrete, I flip my hair from my face to watch as the beam completely misses Sam.

And slams directly into Rhodey.

All of my blood rushes to my head and I scream something I can't decipher when I watch the yellow beam slash across the front of his suit. And then I watch his suit give out. His body topples over and over and over as he begins to plummet down from above.

"Rhodey!" Dad calls over the comm, quickly turning back to look at his best friend fall from the sky.

He doesn't stop. His body doesn't stop!

"No!" I scream, fumbling up to my feet.

"Rhodes!" My father's voice is agonized and guttural as he screams for his best friend.

And then his body crashes down into the dirt, earth shooting up from around him. I can nearly hear it. The shatter in his bones. The break in his spine. The last cry of pain that exits his lips. Dad stumbles down onto the ground across from him, running across the grass so that he can reach him. He doesn't move. He's broken. He's bleeding. My hands are shaking as I press them to my nauseous stomach. I can't breathe and my head is spinning as tears flood my eyes.

Oh God. Oh God.

What did I just do?

Oh my, God.

What have I done?!

The time that passes is agonizingly slow. Trucks pull up all around us. A helicopter lands. Ambulance sirens sound. Or maybe they're police sirens. Maybe the haunting shrieks are made of both. I can't decipher between them now. The minutes pass by with a slow and barely beating heartbeat as the world moves into slow motion around me.

My reluctant eyes flicker up to my father's as I breathe and shake my head to the side a little. He won't look at me. Not yet. It's as if he can't as his brows are furrowed, his face is contorted, and his jaw is clenched so tightly it looks like his bone and teeth might shatter. His hands keep twitching into fists and they're shaking.

I stand in the middle of what must be a battlefield, feeling numb to the loss and to the pain and to the blood that drips down my shoulder. Men in black tactical uniforms are pouring onto the airstrip from all directions, raising their weapons at anyone they see as a threat. Which should include all of us now. We're all threats. Especially to each other.

The high-pitched whining of ambulances still surrounds us while fire rages in the background, symbols of the destruction caused by myself and those I thought were my family. Debris clutters the concrete, and some blood too. My friends are being slammed into the ground and they are harshly treated as they are handcuffed and bound. Unable to look at them, I instead numbly watch as Rhodey's bloodied body is peeled out of the black and gray suit. The medics do their best to not harm my uncle any further, but I'm not sure that 'any further' is even possible. He looks so pale. His body looks disfigured. Blood has stained his face.

"You little traitor," the words are spit out in disgust.

My eyes dart back to Dad as he stands across from me now, breathing heavily and clenching his fists so hard that they shake. He has his back to me, but it's very clear who he's talking to. He still can't look at me, sending out harsh breaths as his head shakes back and forth.

"Do you really care about your new best friends so much that you would kill mine?"

As my chest constricts, I struggle to blink a little and my voice sounds scratchy as I ask, "What?"

He scoffs out a laugh in infuriated disbelief, nodding and whispering to himself, "'What'? 'What'?"

I take in another hard breath, gritting down on my teeth as I glance around.

"You can actually ask... You just..." He scoffs once more and there's this slow and miserable pause as we watch Rhodey's body be lifted up onto a stretcher before Dad whirls around and anger is engrained onto his face, "You just don't get it, do you? You just can't get it into your stupid little head, can you?!"

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out; there is too much shock within me to say anything at all.

He laughs in a tone that I've never heard before, "Right, I'll tell you what, you disgusting little traitor."

I feel my face drain of color.

Standing off to the side in a defensive posture, T'Challa watches the two of us with wide and cautious eyes. I know he stayed behind to be there for me after Rhodey fell, but I can't even look at him now. I can't look at anyone else.

My dad's voice grows stronger as he yells, "I took your pathetic self in!"

My eyes widen.

"No questions asked. I saw what Janice did to you and I took pity on you. But, God, I wish I hadn't, you little piece of nothing." His voice builds up as he shouts in blind anger, throwing out his hand and repeating the very same thoughts my mother had, "You're nothing!"

Worthless.

Useless.

There is a man who has everything, and nothing.

"I am not nothing!" I yell suddenly, matching his anger, "I've never been nothing!"

"Tony, don't!" Natasha hurriedly speaks up for me, a scowl twisting her features as she steps over from the hangar, "That's far enough!"

"No! You have no place to talk!" He yells at her, jabbing a finger in her direction before he turns back on me, "You ruined everything for me: my life, my career, my freedom, and this, you ruined this; but I never once complained about what I had to go through because of you!"

"What you had to go through because of me?!" I repeat in fury.

"All of your pitiful tears and little anxiety attacks and pathetic sensitivities." His voice mocks before he yells, "I put up with it all! Look at what you've done; I am ashamed to call you my kid. I swear to God, I am getting so sick of you!"

I give a sardonic laugh, "Nowhere as close as to how sick I am of you!" My feet step even closer while I shout back, "What about all of what I had to put up for you, huh? You don't think I put up with just as much for you? Your screw-ups and your fears and your constant abandonment! I put up with you and you want to tell me who else does that?!"

"I protected you when nobody else gave a crap about you!" His words cut deep and, dear God, he knows it before his voice builds to a scream, "Nobody cared whether you lived or died! I cared!" He scoffs and his chin juts out as his eyes squint with fury, "And what have you done to me now, Lisa?!"

My arm swings by my side as I lowly shout over the sound of his voice, "I did what I had to do! I had my reasons! And none of it was against you."

"No, no, you are the reason three fugitives are in the wind! You think Ross wouldn't find out what you did at the headquarters? You think he wouldn't tell me that you betrayed us, that you lied to me?! You are to blame! It's your fault!" My eyelashes flicker as his words grow heavier with despise, "You are the reason my best friend is dying!" He stabs his finger at me, stepping closer as his eyes flare with rage.

Everything within me screams to retreat, to run away, to escape before he can do anything. And I nearly catch my breath at my own thoughts. But a horrific rage keeps on building up within my chest and it threatens to overtake me. It threatens to consume me completely and, this time... this time I just might let it.

He shakes in his anger, motioning out his hand and stepping closer, "You helped killers, can't you get that into your stupid little head?!"

"And yet it was better than helping you, isn't that saying something?!"

"What more could you have ever wanted from me?! What possibly more could you ever have wanted?!"

"You, Tony!" I scream back; my chest trembling as I rage, "You were the one who wanted a legacy and I just wanted a father!"

His eyes narrow and his head shakes as he spits the insults out, "You disappointing, illegitimate little,"

"And you are an arrogant, despicable, unloved man! Just look! Just look at Howard! Look at Pepper! Look at Steve and Clint and Wanda and everyone! Where are they now, huh?! They're gone. Just like everybody else in your life!"

His eyes widen before they bare back down in fury, "You know what? I take it back! I don't love you. I hate you, you pathetic brat!"

I pull back from him and my lips part in shock.

He steps across the space that I've just made, pushing his chin out as he enunciates, "I hate you."

My breathing grows more shallow and my hands tremble into fists.

I can't tell if he means it. Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't. I can't tell anything now. We're all so blind. We're all so caught up in our own needs. God, look at what we've done. I don't understand. How did we ever get here? What have we become?

"How did that feel?" He mockingly cocks his head at me, "Hm?"

My eyes squint, but I don't respond as the tears burn and heat floods my face and my chest heaves with anger.

"How does that feel? For the one person you swore would be on your side to stab you directly in the back?"

I bare my teeth and lowly spit out, "Twenty years, you coward. Twenty years for you to admit the one thing that is true about you: you're heartless."

"You want truth?! I'll give you truth! The only reason I took you in was because somebody beat the crap out of you! The only reason I kept you around all this time was to ease my guilty conscience!"

I suck in a sharp breath, nodding quickly as my glaring face flushes with color.

"But, you know, I wish that man all those years ago had left you at the bottom of that dumpster! I wish I had never taken you in! I wish that I had never even tried to care about you!"

"And I wish the wormhole had taken you!" I get directly in his face as I hiss through gritted teeth, "You are the same as her, you are exactly the same as my mother and your father. You are cold and calculating and weak!"

His eyes flash with all of the other times someone has said such words to him, but I don't stop there. A part of me wishes we both would just stop, that we could turn back time and fix all of these mistakes we've made. But I shut that part out, I squeeze the life out of it until there's nothing left of that anymore. Until there's only this moment and this rage.

"I was trying to protect us! I was trying to prevent this!" I throw my hands out to our friends who are being thrown into the back of black vehicles.

He glares deep into my eyes, our faces only inches from each other as he hisses back, "At what cost, huh?! At the cost of me? At the cost of your own father?!"

"You're not my father!" I scream as we look at each other with such dark and scathing looks that if it were any other moment, I might shudder from it, "You are just the random jerk who happened to knock my mother up that night."

Neither of us say anything then. We just disgustedly search each other's faces for something of what used to be that person. Something good. Something pure. A father. A daughter. I don't even know what we are now. I broke him. He broke me. And I'm right and he's right. And I'm wrong and he's wrong.

And I hate him for it.

Hands suddenly grasp onto my arms and they attempt to tear me back from Tony Stark's dark face. I harshly yank my arm from their grip, but they grow more forceful and soon I'm lying on my stomach, face down in the concrete. Tony stumbles back a few steps, blinking quickly as he looks anywhere but at me. It's like he can't really believe it, like he can't really believe this is happening, that all of what we just said to each other actually was breathed into existence.

But it was.

And there's no taking any of it back now.

Even if we want to.

... I'm so sorry. Just heartbreak. Be sure to comment though? Did I kill you as I've killed myself? Tony and Lisa are everything to me and I tried to make their argument so they got each other where it hurts. Nothing is going to be the same after this. What do you think is going to happen? Lord knows I cried over this.

Thingamabob:

It's not funny. It's just truth. He's been through a lot. His reactions are natural and it hurts. *sobs*