The Woman in the Red Dress (Howard and Maria Stark One-Shot-- AU)

Prologue

Standing in the cold air, their eyes opened to the darkness of a pitch black room. A slight breeze picked up out of the east, waving Black Widow's and Scarlet Witch's hair. Both, like all, stood in battle ready position, even if confusion was written on their faces. Having left the bright sun of Wakanda and then transported through time with Doctor Strange's Infinity Stone, the Avengers found themselves in a dark and desolate room. This wasn't where they thought they might end up, especially since Tony Stark had been in charge of navigating.

"Stark," Captain Rogers called, but already Tony Stark's eyes scanned the room through the eye sockets of his Iron Man suit. A crackling came over his helmet as Friday focused in on the outlines of the people in the room.

"Friday," Tony hissed as she zoomed in and out, obviously not in control.

"Stark," Steven snapped.

A body moved, having been leaning against the wall, and Tony focused there. He put up his hand, where a light blue came out, pointed to the figure. The figure continued to move. Tony tried to get a good look as he flared his hand again, giving off as much light as possible. For all the technology in the room, it was useless. Something in the room caught the power and held it.

The clicking continued on the floor.

"Who goes there?" Thor roared, feeling a buzz of electricity fly off his fingertips. However, as he stood, he felt weak. "Vision? Strange?"

The Infinity Stone in Vision's head began to glow bright yellow, illuminating the room, and standing in the front of the Avengers was a tall woman with her blonde hair pulled off to the side of her head. Her red lips matched her red dress of sequins. She gleamed, like the pearls did on her neck, like the large stone on her hand almost seemed to do, which was the only thing off color as it shone an off orange. Running her tongue across her teeth, she smiled.

"Nice party trick," she stated, only speaking out one side of her mouth. Her eyes bounced from Avenger to Avenger, measuring them all: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Doctor Strange, Vision, Bucky, Wanda, Hawkeye, Agent Romanoff, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, Hulk and Falcon. She expected more of them, and her eyes peeled right and left to see if might more appear from thin air.

Suddenly, Tony took a step forward and his helmet slammed back away from his face. His eyes never wavered as he watched her. His mouth hung open in concentration as he breathed deeply. He studied her, and she didn't blink an eyelash under his gaze. On the tip of his tongue, it looked like he might say something.

Walking closer to him, the woman smiled sinisterly at him. "You look familiar. Have we met?"

Tony said nothing.

Flipping her hair back, her eyes rested on Captain Rogers, who glanced at Bucky. "My old man talks about you all the time." She let out a low chuckle. "Is this all of you?" Her eyes rested on Wanda and Natasha, and both of them stared directly at the woman, not backing down. "And here I hoped things would evolve." She snapped her fingers, and a pain burst through them. Groans left each mouth as the Avengers struggled to stand. Tony was hurt the most as the electrical system had gone out in his suit; he was defenseless. As all fell down, gripping their heads, they all stood defenseless as it went black inside the dank room again.