Captain America: Civil War (Charlotte Stark)

Ch. 9 Leipzig Pt. 2

Cap, Falcon, Bucky, and I came together with Hawkeye, Ant-Man, and Scarlet Witch, running in a group toward Hangar Five. "There's our ride," Hawkeye said.

Cap waved. "Come on!"

A searing yellow beam from above carved a trench around us. We froze and looked up to see Vision, floating perhaps ten feet in the air between them and the Quinjet they were hoping to fly out of there.

"Captain Rogers, I know you believe what you're doing is right." Vision, as always, kept his tone level and polite. "But for the collective good, you must surrender now."

The rest of the pro-accords team gathered near him: Black Panther, Iron Man, Black Widow, Spider-Man, and War Machine.

It was a standoff.

"What do we do, Cap?" Falcon asked.

Cap kept his eyes forward. "We fight." He started walking forward, and we moved with him.

We crashed together in a free-for-all, separating into smaller groups and one-on-one fights that swirled back together. The only exception was Black Panther, who had a single goal: going after Bucky Barnes.

Nat and I grappled. When I got the upper hand, with my foot on her stomach, she asked me, "We're still friends, right?"
I considered this. "Depends on how hard you hit me."

She sucker-punched me. Pivoting into a kick, she would have knocked me out cold—if Scarlet Witch hadn't frozen the kick in place with a flare of scarlet energy. She flicked her wrist, and Nat flew away to crash down on the other side of the tarmac.

Wanda glared at me. "You're pulling your punches." I then ran to go find Steve.

Spider-Man was swinging above the fray, waiting for the right time to jump in and make a difference, when Captain America's shield severed his web. He tumbled up a cargo ramp as the shield came back to Cap.

"That thing does not obey the laws of physics at all," Spider-Man said.

"Look, kid," I said, landing next to Steve. "There's a lot going on here that you don't understand."

I didn't want the kid to get hurt for the wrong reasons.

"Mr. Stark said you'd say that." He webbed me up, and I quickly broke free using the blow torch.  Spider-Man snapped out a web and hauled Cap's legs out from under him. He hit the ground hard, got up, and found both of his hands suddenly caught in webs. The kid was fast—and good—but he wasn't a pro yet. "He also said to go for your legs." Captain America flexed and suddenly pulled the kid off his feet, using his own webs to toss him away. He came flying towards me but I kicked him in the chest, sending him down again.

But he was better than Steve and I had expected. He hit a wall, bounced off, and swung himself up onto the roof of a jet bridge.

"Did my brother tell you anything else?" I asked.

"That you're both wrong. You think you're both right. And that makes you both dangerous." Now the kid was serious.

"I guess he had a point," Cap said.

Spider-Man came after us again, but Cap and I knew his moves now. He saw the swinging kick coming, and I belted the kid back with my arms, smashing him into the jet bridge's wheel assembly. The kid rolled under the jet bridge and Steve threw the shield to break off the assembly the rest of the way. The jet bridge fell down on the kid, who got both hands under it and held it in place. Barely.

"You got heart, kid. Where're you from?" I ask him.

"Queens." Spider-Man's voice strained with the effort of holding up the jet bridge.

Cap nodded with a grin. "Brooklyn," he said, and we ran to rejoin the fight.

Steve, Bucky, and I came together near the Quinjet. "We got to go," Bucky said urgently. "That guy's probably in Siberia by now."

Cap looked up. "We got to draw out the fliers. I'll take Vision. You get to the jet."

"No, you three get to the jet!" Falcon shouted. "The rest of us aren't getting out of here." Steve and I paused.

"As much as I hate to admit it," Hawkeye added, "if we're gonna win this one, some of us might have to lose it. This isn't the real fight."
Cap and I hated it, but we knew they were right. "All right, Sam, what's the plan?"

"We need a diversion. Something big."

Ant-Man piped up. "I got something kind of big, but I can't hold it very long. On my signal, run. And if I tear myself in half, don't come back for me."

Bucky looked confused. "He's going to tear himself in half? You're sure about this guy?"

Half an inch tall, Ant-Man ran along the cargo ramp where he'd landed after falling out of Iron Man's suit. "I do it all the time. I mean once... in a lab. And I passed out."

He leaped off the ramp and landed on the passing War Machine. With the wind roaring around him, Ant-Man touched the blue stud on his forearm control screen. Just like Hank Pym had shown him with the original disks, blue meant large and red meant small. Essentially, he had figured out how to grow as well as shrink. Except it didn't always work. But now was the time to give it a try, right?

Absolutely.

He touched the panel and couldn't help but start yelling as his body expanded from its normal just-shy-of-six feet to something closer to maybe fifty feet tall. He couldn't get much bigger without starting to lose control of his limbs, and even at this size, he was slow. But it sure did make an impression. He reached out and caught War Machine in his left hand.

"I guess that's the signal," I said and we made our break for the Quinjet.

Falcon shouted, "Way to go, Tic Tac!"

Giant-Man kept rampaging through the airport, keeping Iron Man and War Machine busy... but then Vision phased through him, stopping him in his tracks. He twitched and shook himself. "Something just flew in me!"

Passing out the other side, Vision used the power of his gem to cut through the base of the air-traffic control tower. It fell toward the hangar entrance—but Scarlet Witch held it in place, just high enough so that Cap,  Bucky, and I might be able to get under it.

Then War Machine hit her with a sonic blast and made her lose her concentration. The tower fell, pelting us with debris... but we were through!

And inside, waiting by the Quinjet, was Nat. "You're not going to stop?"

"You know we can't," I said.

She nodded. "I'm going to regret this." She raised one hand and fired a stinger—past us, where it staggered Black Panther.

"Go," she said. T'Challa kept coming, and she stung him again.

The three of us get on the jet and make our way to Siberia.