Rescue, Red Light, and Reckoning
"Alright, everyone, get ready for the attack. I don't want anyone getting hurt… or I'll kick your ass," Owen said with a defiant grin, locking eyes with each of them as the ship descended.
The others stared at him as if he'd just said the dumbest thing of the day.
"What? Don't look at me like that. I'm serious. And if you die… I'll kill you," he added with a mocking tone.
"You really need to work on your jokes, Owen," Nicolás muttered, shaking his head.
"Tsk… fine, get down already. Let's make this quick: we save the damsels in distress, grab the scepter… and nobody does something stupid like creating an artificial intelligence," he said, giving everyone a serious look.
"Artificial intelligence…?" Banner asked, confused.
"Sometimes the things you say are oddly specific," Steve cut in, raising an eyebrow.
"It's my fun… because if it ever happens, it's going to make me laugh," Owen replied calmly.
"It's just the four of us in a base full of HYDRA soldiers… are you sure?" Steve pressed.
"We're more than enough. Nico, you can shoot from the air. Stevie… why did you bring a motorcycle? Never mind, use it. Banner, bring out the Hulk. I—"
He didn't get to finish. An explosion shook the ground, followed by a deafening roar that made the ship's hull vibrate. In the distance, a column of red energy shot upward, ripping leaves and branches away as if the entire forest had gasped at once.
Owen's mouth fell slightly open.
"Well… looks like we're not that necessary," he said, staring at the half-collapsed castle.
…
Inside the castle
"Ahahahaha! We did it. How many survived?" asked a man with a monocle, drunk with pride. In front of him, a young redhead knelt on the ground, panting, her skin streaked with sweat and dust. Around her, wrecked laboratories, scattered scientist corpses, and the stench of smoke filled the air.
"Just her and her brother, sir. Do you want us to bring more?"
"Of course. This is only the beginning. Two enhanced… a perfect prize," he said with a cruel smile, stepping closer to examine the woman. "Take her to her room. Phase two starts soon."
But a beastly crash cut his words short. The wall exploded into rubble, and through the cloud of dust, a massive green figure burst in with a roar that made the ground quake. Hulk had arrived.
Strucker barely had time to widen his eyes in panic before trying to flee, but the brute swatted him aside, knocking everything down in his path. Soldiers and equipment flew like rag dolls as Hulk advanced toward the woman.
"Wait, Hulk. She's not one of them… yet," said Owen, emerging through the breach with firm steps. Behind him came Steve and Nicolás, ready to move.
The place was emptier and less fortified than Owen remembered. No trace of alien tech… until he recalled the general's order after New York: destroy everything left from the Chitauri, keeping only a few samples for Tony. The war between S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA had bled them dry, forcing them to scatter. Gideon's death had sealed the wound.
"Yeah… I'm definitely doing things right," Owen murmured with a faint smile, walking toward Wanda Maximoff.
She could barely stand, exhaustion clouding her vision. Her eyes lifted slowly, finding Owen's figure—half-hidden in smoke and red light, imposing yet ambiguous… savior and threat at the same time.
"Well… if we add her to the team, we can kick Tony out. We gain a beauty… and lose one of the two egotistical, sarcastic playboys," Owen said just before Wanda collapsed. He caught her easily with one hand, never breaking eye contact with her face.
"Who's the other egotistical one?" Nicolás asked.
Owen looked at him in silence. Even Hulk turned his head to watch.
Meanwhile, Steve was clearing the rest of the base. His voice crackled over the comm, calling them over. The three of them gathered near a cell where a young man, upon seeing Wanda in Owen's arms, shouted:
"What are you doing with my sister?! Put her down now!"
He tried to force the door, but vanished in a blink—reappearing slammed against the wall, unconscious.
"Uh… I don't carry men," Nicolás said quickly, stepping aside. Hulk was already shrinking back into Banner, bored with the place.
Owen sighed, adjusted Wanda in his arms, and looked at Steve calmly.
…
Wanda slowly opened her eyes, feeling first a strange pressure in her head before realizing she was lying somewhere unfamiliar. With the little strength she had, she shot upright.
"Pietro?" she asked in a faint, worried voice.
Her gaze softened just slightly when she saw her brother sitting beside her, apparently waiting for her to wake. He wasn't looking at her; his eyes were fixed on some point in the room, his brow furrowed. That's when Wanda noticed something strange—on his feet, Pietro was wearing huge, heavy metal boots.
"That's so your brother, who still doesn't know how to control his powers, doesn't crash into another concrete wall… again."
The voice came from behind her. Wanda turned to see Owen sitting with absolute calm in an armchair, casually shaking a soda can before taking a sip. He didn't even flinch under Pietro's murderous glare.
Wanda narrowed her eyes at Owen, and suddenly a fleeting image flashed before her—a memory that wasn't hers. She grabbed her head, trying to hold onto it, but a sharp pain forced her to let go, as if something had pushed her out.
"Wow… that was interesting," Owen remarked, tilting his head slightly. "I thought I already had a complete defense after Jean tried to get into my mind… but it seems your ability has nothing to do with hers. So… thanks for the new mental barrier, I guess."
Pietro leaned forward, his voice tense. "So are you finally going to tell us why we're here?"
"Ah, right… Welcome to the Avengers base," Owen said with utter calm. "I could've taken you to our V.I.T.A.E base, but we've got classified information there. Besides… I wanted an excuse to test the new Avengers facility. The idea is for most of the new recruits to gather here. Unless you'd rather join V.I.T.A.E directly… but in that case, you'd be working under a general's orders, and not everyone would be comfortable with that."
He leaned back a bit more in the chair, never losing his relaxed tone. "The Avengers are meant to be a meeting point for heroes who usually work alone, to come together when facing greater threats. V.I.T.A.E, on the other hand, is a humanitarian aid group… and for now, most of the Avengers are also part of it. But we're sending invitations to more people."
"Heroes? And why us?" Wanda asked, still rubbing her forehead from the lingering ache of what had just happened.
"First, because you now have powers you can't control, which makes you a danger to others… and to yourselves. Second…" Owen shrugged. "I haven't decided yet."
"You're friends with Tony Stark," Pietro said, his voice laced with anger.
"You say that like it's an insult," Owen replied with a faint smirk. "Yeah, I guess you could say I'm his friend. I've saved him a couple of times, we've worked together… let's just say I'm his favorite person."
Then his tone shifted to something more serious. "I also know what happened to you. I can't say much, but as a soldier I can tell you—if he hadn't built those weapons, someone else would have. And even he paid the price for his creations, which is why he's now trying to make amends."
"You don't know anything about what we went through," Pietro growled. "It's not as simple as reading a report. We spent two days—two damn days—trapped under rubble… with a missile bearing the Stark Industries logo just inches away from us. Every time we breathed, we thought it would explode. And I watched my parents die right in front of me."
Owen let a faint smile tug at his lips, which only made the twins tense up further.
"What the hell are you smiling at?" Pietro snapped.
"When I was on the battlefield, with Stark weapons… we faced mercenaries, terrorists, even convicts. Many of my men—friends—fell one after another. And the same weapons we carried… the enemy had too. I watched my entire battalion die during a rescue mission. They even had tanks made by Stark Industries. Do you think I went running to cry to Tony over their deaths?
He made them, sure, but he didn't control where they ended up. Sometimes it was our own military selling them, or they were stolen. In case you didn't know… Stark's own uncle was trading with terrorists. When I went to rescue Tony from his kidnapping, every single weapon there was Stark-made… and the shrapnel in his chest? Also Stark-made."
His gaze hardened. "If you want an enemy, maybe start with the man who invented gunpowder… or the miners who dig up the metal used to forge weapons. I'm not saying it's wrong to hate the man who built the missile that almost killed you. If it were the Stark from the past, I'd probably help you myself. But your revenge… is it worth more than saving millions of lives?
Picture this: you succeed, you kill Tony Stark. But if his life as Iron Man could save millions… would it still be worth it?"
Silence fell over the twins.
Owen studied them for a moment longer before glancing at his watch. "Get some rest. Your rooms are on the second floor—pick whichever you like, there are plenty free. Tomorrow, your training starts so you can learn to control your powers… and after that, you'll decide what you want to do."