Against The Clock {Wanda Maximoff A/U}

Chapter Eleven- Earth 9907 (2)

I wandered through the abandoned sewer system until I came to a ladder leading up into an abandoned warehouse, who would've guessed.

I climbed the ladder until I pulled myself to the warehouse floor. The humidity immediately crashed against me from the hot New York weather, I'm sure the state of the world didn't help either.

I slowly climbed the stairs and followed the catwalks until I came to a broken balcony on the outside of the warehouse.

A woman with long red hair that fell down past her shoulders sat looking out upon the New York skyline.

"I told you Bucky, I can't be out in the field. Not yet." She said looking down at her lap.

"It's not Bucky." I said quietly.

She spun around to her feet faster than a speeding bullet and immediately met my eyes.

"Carter?" She asked tears flowing almost instantly as she reached up and gently touched my face.

"Yes, but no." I said sadly. "My name is Carter Cole, I'm from another Earth."

She raised an eyebrow. "Like the multiverse?"

I nodded. "I've been sent here with a team to close a Rift between worlds somewhere in New York."

She hugged me suddenly before backing off. "I'm sorry, you're not my son. You're just his variant."

"I'm sorry, you had to lose someone who was like your son."

She shook her head. "He was my actual son, Carter Rogers. He was a miracle. With my training as a widow I was sterilized but with Steve's super soldier serum somehow let me get pregnant. We decided with our job it was best to send him away but he found us anyway."

I struggled trying to imagine what it would've been like to have been the son of a trained assassin and a super soldier.

She grabbed my arms and looked up at me.

"It should've been me." She said. "What kind of mother am I for sending him into battle. To his death."

"Nat, it's not your fault." I said to her. "He made his decision and he was a hero. So was Steve. You cant keep sitting up her wondering what you could've done differently. The Rebels need you, just like they need Pietro."

She waved me off. "It's no use, we were so close. After the Scarlet Witch was killed we were finally pushing them back to the brink. Until they pushed back harder with technologically advanced weapons."

"Weapons powered by dimensional energy." I said to her.

"Yeah, they tore through us like nothing. Danny Rand, Matt Murdock, even Luke Cage. Those weapons obliterated us."

"Listen Nat, moving on doesn't mean you forget about what happened, but you're alive and you have to accept it and continue living because if you don't, there will be no one to remember. You're an Avenger."

***
"Tony." I said to him as I got back to the war room.

"What's up?" He asked as I crossed to the other side of the table.

"Where's Strange?" I asked suddenly looking around not being able to see him.

"He went to meditate. Something about visiting other Earths?" Clint Barton said walking up to the table.

"Hey, you're dead on my Earth." I said to him. "I got your sword."

"I use a bow and arrow." He said squinting.

"On my Earth, your family died and you become a killing machine. It was actually pretty badass. I was dead during that time but yeah."

"Huh." He said surprised.

"Anyway, back to what I was saying. Have you guys been tracking any extreme dimensional energy?" I asked.

"Peter told me about your guys' mission." Tony said dragging a map to a red dot. He zoomed in on it revealing Stark Tower but it was crawling with Hydra Agents.

"How did you get your own building taken from you?" Peter asked over his shoulder. "N-no offense." He stammered as Tony looked at him.

"Your building is just great for creating inter dimensional wormholes." I said to him getting laughs from no one except Peter.

"We've been monitoring a sudden surge of energy in my old building for the last couple of days." Tony said. "We had no idea what it was and had no way of figuring it out until just hours ago when we got the same read of energy from you."

"Which brings me to my question." A man said walking out of the shadows. "Who caused this mess?"

"Oh, you've got to be joking." I said instantly recognizing the long blonde hair, viking armor, and hammer that hung at his waist.

"Was it you?" He asked grabbing me by my collar and lifting me.

"Alright Thor, put him down." Tony said.

"I'm here to help." I said gasping for breath.

He dropped me to my feet and I fell to a knee choking.

"I touch a glowing orb." I said to him. "If it wasn't for Thanos snapping his fingers and wiping out half of everything and then my Stark snapping his fingers and bringing everyone back we'd be fine."

"Why won't you kill anyone?!" The demonic voice in my head growled.

The pain ripped through my head but I had learned to shake it off and expect it at every second.

"So what's the problem?" Peter asked.

"Hydra's Arsenal is too advanced to even get close to the building." Tony said.

Footsteps echoed outside the hall.

"We will deal with the weapons." An accent spoke coming from the doorway.

Pietro walked through the door followed by Wanda in what looked like her new suit.

"You filthy witch, you took everything I loved. I won't hesitate to succeed where Carter failed." A gun clicked as Natasha came from the sewer system.

I quickly jumped in front of the gun. "Woah, woah, woah. Lower the damn gun, girl. This is the Wanda from my Earth."

"They're all the same." She spat.

"Yeah okay, so that's definitely not true." I said disarming Natasha of the pistol and emptying it to the floor.

"Who taught you that?" She asked as I perfectly executed her move.

I smiled at her. "You did, now shall we start over?" I said looking around trying to ease tensions. "This is my girlfriend, she is on our side."

"Okay great, now that introductions are done. Let's make our plan." Tony said as we gathered around the table.

"Wanda, Pietro, and Thor can hit their main bases, located here, here, and here." Barnes said marking locations on the map.

"What about Strange?" Peter asked.

"Strange refuses to do anything unless we absolutely need him." I said rolling my eyes.

"I do not trust thy witch." Thor said.

"None of us do, but what choice do we have?" Natasha said to him.

"I'll send word to Sam and Scott that we're hitting the tower. We'll go in two teams, Carter prep your team." Tony said to me.

"Okay, I want Peter and Natasha." I said to him.

"Barton, Sharon, and I will go with Barnes." Tony said. "Jarvis, activate Redemption protocol." Tony said.

"Already on it, sir." A robotic voice said from the comms.

"Tony." Barnes said.

Tony turned to look at him.

"Sir, with all due respect, if we're going for the big one. I'm going to need that shield."