Arcane (Wanda Maximoff)

Twenty five

FIVE YEARS LATER

"Yeah, we boarded that highly suspect warship Danvers pinged," Rocket said.

He, Rhodey, Nebula, Okoye and Carol were all on holographic ports to join the call that Maggie, Katerina and Natasha were hosting. Andreas was in bed, or at least in his room. He'd begged to come to the call but they still tried to keep him away from things about the snap as much as possible because he, like his aunt Maggie, had developed a nightly routine of violent nightmares, just without the actual injuries that came with them.

Katerina had a baby monitor on her hip to listen out for her daughter, Valentina, even though Valie was three, now, and sleeping through the night pretty well. Valie had been the result of a drunken one night stand. Maggie, Katerina and Natasha had gone out, with Pepper and Tony offering to babysit Andreas for them. They'd agreed and enjoyed their child-free night. Maggie and Natasha had stuck with vodka but alcohol always made Katerina a little slutty.

So, Valie's appearance in their lives was none too surprising, and completely welcomed, too. The little girl was a breath of fresh air and they all needed it.

"It was an infectious garbage scowl," Nebula said.

"So, thanks for the hot tip," Rocket rolled his eyes at Carol.

"Well, you were closer," Carol smirked back at him.

"Yeah. And now we smell like garbage," Rocket said. Natasha turned to Okoye.

"You get a reading on those tremors?" she asked.

"It was a mild subduction under the African plate," Okoye said.

"Do we have a visual? How are we handling it?" Natasha said.

"Nat, it's an earthquake under the ocean. We handle it by not handling it," Okoye said.

"Carol, are we seeing you here next month?" Katerina asked.

"Not likely," Carol said.

"What, you gonna get another haircut?" Rocket snarked. Maggie bit back a small smirk.

"Listen fur-face, I'm covering a lot of territory. The things that are happening on Earth are happening everywhere, on thousands of planets," Carol said.

"All right, all right, that's a good point. That's a good point," Rocket muttered to himself.

"So, you might not see me for a long time," Carol said.

"Alright. Uh, well. This channel is always active. So, if anything goes sideways... anyone's making trouble where they shouldn't... comes through us," Natasha said.

Okoye murmured her agreement in Wakandan.

"Okay," Rocket nodded.

"Alright," Maggie said, running her hand through her hair. She was careful to avoid the still painful cut on her forehead. She'd had a nightmare about the experiments again the night prior and had woken Natasha up screaming. Natasha had stitched her up and had held Maggie while she cried.

Maggie may be twenty five, now, but she still needed her mama exactly like she did when she was fourteen and terrified because the nightmares were too scary to fight off.

Rocket and Nebula left the call, Okoye following quickly. Carol nodded at Rhodey.

"Good luck," she said. Carol disappeared, leaving Rhodey.

Natasha sank down at her desk with an exhausted sigh.

Running what was left of the Avengers, keeping herself, Maggie and Katerina afloat, helping raise two children in this strange new world, it was killing them all. It was natural they were exhausted and fed up.