When they touched down at Barton's safe house, the sun was already above the horizon.

Cathryn walked between Thor and Steve as the team filed along a narrow goat-track through a wide green field towards a pale farm-house. She breathed deeply, enjoying the country air, which was warm and damp. By the time the path widened into a proper trail, dew had soaked through the fabric covering her lower legs. Everything about this place reminded her painfully of the Burrow, so much so that if she closed her eyes, she could imagine that she was headed towards the whimsical house, where a beaming Molly would be waiting with tea and scones in the kitchen. There was even the sound of chickens from somewhere around back, and when she glanced back towards the jet, she was momentarily blinded by the glare of the sun off a small pond very similar to the one that she, the Weasley's, and Hermione had swum in during the summer before fourth year.

She wasn't the only one looking around. In front of her, Thor's head turned from left to right with startling rapidity; ahead of Thor, the little of Stark's face that she could see appeared to be stuck in a state of mild confusion. At the head of the line, Natasha and Barton walked side by side, blatantly comfortable in their surroundings.

"What is this place?" Thor finally asked as Cathryn started up the front porch.

"A safe house," Stark answered, earning himself a dirty look from Thor.

"Let's hope," Barton called over his shoulder, opening the door. Cathryn inspected the shoe box just outside the door.

"This is someone's home," she said, pointing to the multiple pairs of children's shoes that had been deposited haphazardly, as if their owners had been careless in a hurry to get inside for a meal. Banner made an uncomfortable noise behind her, but Barton and Natasha were already inside; Steve's hand between her shoulder blades ushered her past the shoe box.

"Honey?" Barton called from the room to Cathryn's right. "I'm home." A heavily pregnant woman came in from an adjacent room, eyes widening as they landed on Natasha and Barton, and then continued on past them, landing lastly on Cathryn. "Hi. Company. Sorry, didn't call ahead," Barton apologized to the woman who was apparently his wife, moving forward to hug her.

"Hey." She greeted him with a brief kiss.

Stark immediately said, "This is an agent of some kind," to Thor, who was watching the events uncertainly. On Cathryn's other side, Steve looked dumbstruck at the turn of events, while Natasha watched with an almost bored expression. Banner just stared at his feet.

"Gentlemen, Cathryn, this is Laura."

"I know all of your names," his wife said with a chuckle. "Except," she glanced at Barton, "Griffin?"

"Is Cathryn," Barton confirmed, gesturing to Cathryn, who offered Laura a hesitant wave. Cathryn could nearly see the woman coming to the same conclusion that the others had already arrived at: she was too young.

The sound of feet clattering down stairs echoed into the room, and a smile crept over Barton's face. "Incoming," he warned. Moments later, a young girl dashed into the room, followed by a taller boy.

"Dad!" the girl exclaimed as Barton swept her into his arms.

"Hi, sweetheart!" The boy hugged Barton from the side. "Hey, buddy! How are you guys doing?"

With the exception of Natasha, the other Avengers watched Barton greet his children with varying expressions of shock and disbelief. Stark turned to Thor, although he kept his eyes on the children. "These are smaller agents," he said.

"Did you bring Auntie Nat?" the girl asked shyly.

"Why don't you hug her and find out?" Natasha emerged from behind Steve, who folded his hands carefully behind his back and took a step back. The girl darted towards her, and was caught up in another hug.

"Sorry for barging in on you," Steve said when the family had finished greeting Barton and Natasha.

"Yeah," Stark added. "We would have called ahead, but we were busy have no idea that you existed."

"Yeah, well, Fury helped me set this up when I joined," Barton explained. Cathryn jerked her gaze away from Natasha, who was whispering something to the girl with an indulgent smile on her face. "He kept it out of SHIELD's files. I'd like to keep it that way."

Cathryn nodded immediately, and the others gave their assent as well.

"I figure it's a good place to lay low," Barton said.

"Honey," Laura said, and Barton nodded, heading towards the room she'd entered from, his son tagging after him. The girl stared at the rest of them, eyes wide. Cathryn waved at the girl, who was only a few years older than Ekaterina.

"I'm Cathryn," she introduced herself. "What's your name?"

"I'm Lila," the girl said, and then added, "Your pants are wet."

"I know," Cathryn said, glancing down at her legs. "It's just dew from the grass outside. Did you know," she added in a conspiratorial whisper that drew Lila closer, "that there's a special type of dew that's used in magic potions?"

Lila's eyes went impossibly wide. "Really?" she breathed.

Cathryn nodded. "I'm a witch," she said. "Potion-brewing is part of the training."

"Wow!" Lila turned towards Thor, who was at least three times her height and busy shoving a toy that he'd stepped on under a nearby chair. "Are you a witch too?"

"No," Cathryn chuckled, moving towards Thor as well. "This is Lord Thor of Asgard, God of Thunder and - "

Blue lightning arced from Mjölnir, lashing out towards Cathryn, who caught the bolt in the middle of her chest. It knocked her backwards; a pair of warm arms caught her before she could hit the floor.

Dazed, Cathryn struggled to stand upright. Steve helped her, although he kept an arm around her waist. "What - ?" Cathryn asked, but she lost her words when she caught sight of Thor, whose eyes had gone completely white while Banner and Stark held him in place, though he didn't seem in danger of falling. Natasha and Barton had extracted Lila, who was gaping at Cathryn from between her parents, completely unharmed.

It was a full minute before Thor's eyes cleared, during which time the toaster pinged, momentarily claiming everyone's attention. Finally, Thor shook his head, expression grim, and then shrugged out of the grips of Stark and Banner, striding for the exit. Steve went after him.

"Sorry," Cathryn apologized to the room at large.

Barton's frown didn't ease, but he said, "Whatever happened, it wasn't your fault."

"Was that a witch power?" Lila asked.

Barton answered. "No, sweetheart. We're not sure what that was."

"Oh."

Steve reappeared in the doorway. "Thor had a vision," he explained curtly. "He's gone to find some answers." When no one commented, Steve turned and vanished back out the door, his footsteps sounding briefly on the wooden porch.

Cathryn found herself being watched expectantly by nearly every adult in the room (Banner was still fascinated by his feet, and Laura looked slightly upset by something). "I'll just…" she trailed off, and followed Steve's path out the door. As she left, she heard Stark say, "I claim first shower!"

She didn't have to look very far to find Steve. He was leaning against the split-rail fence, gazing out at the pond that Cathryn had noticed earlier.

She joined him, leaning on the fence close enough that she could feel his presence, but not close enough that her shoulders were in danger of touching his arm.

They stood in silence for long minutes, listening to the wind in the grass, the occasional snatch of conversation from the house behind them, and birds roosting in the trees.

"It's their home," Steve said at last.

Cathryn thought she knew where this was going, and nodded. "I could tell," she agreed. "As soon as we walked in the door. They both just - relaxed."

This time, only several seconds passed before Steve spoke again. "The closest I ever came to a home since waking up was your café. Something about it…" He picked up his sentence after a few moments of thought. "The atmosphere reminded me of how things were like before, in my youth. It's what brought me back, at first." He shot her a rather weak smile. "The food wasn't bad, either."

She smiled in return. "Glad to know someone liked it." Her smile faded as she said, "The first place I ever felt at home was at school."

Steve absorbed the new information with a wrinkled brow. In all the time they'd spent together, neither of them had mentioned much about their childhoods - sometimes they'd share an amusing anecdote, but Cathryn had been quick to notice that, like her, Steve was vague in his descriptions. "What about your family?" he asked. "Your aunt and uncle?"

"I grew up in their house, but it wasn't my home," Cathryn clarified. It was more true than saying that they'd hated her and she'd hated them, because despite the bitterness between herself and the Dursley's, when they'd said goodbye she'd received a (stiff) hug from her aunt and a warm handshake from her cousin. "No, my first home was Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts?" His lips twitched in amusement despite his earlier gloom.

"A school for people like me."

"Are there many…people like you?" Steve asked slowly.

"There's enough of us," Cathryn allowed. She was stretching the Code to its limit. The conversation wouldn't make sense to anyone who didn't already know she was a witch. "None like me," she added when he began to look worried. "Even amongst them, I'm…different." She sighed. "But even though I didn't always belong, Hogwarts was always so welcoming. It had a sort of - warmth, I guess, like this place does." She frowned. "Just - not as peaceful. There was always something happening in Hogwarts."

"Why'd you leave?"

She shrugged. "I couldn't stay." They watched as a doe and a fawn trotted from the edge of the trees, quickly crossing the field for the trees on the other side. "Earlier," Cathryn said, "you said something about a friend who you thought had died."

"His name is Bucky," Steve affirmed. "He was one of the Howling Commandos - the special forces unit I lead during the war." Cathryn nodded, and settled herself more comfortably against the fence. It sounded like it was going to be a long story.

Half an hour later, Steve had finished explaining the events that had lead to the collapse of SHIELD.

"So now you're trying to find him?" Cathryn asked.

"Sam's been following leads on both of you, but now he'll be able to concentrate on Bucky."

"When did you - ?" Cathryn began, but the sound of footsteps coming down stairs caught her attention.

Natasha strolled over, looking very much at ease in a pair of jeans and a blouse. "The two of you are up for your showers," she said. "Though the water went cold halfway through mine, so it might be more expedient to just share."

Cathryn's face heated, and she knew she was turning red. Steve scowled at Natasha. "I'll take the second shower," he told them.

"Suit yourself. I'll show Black the way," Natasha said, and snagged Cathryn's arm to lead her towards the house.

Cathryn was in the sitting room, watching Natasha and Lila play some sort of board game, when Steve appeared, hair still damp, tugging at the sleeves of a plaid shirt that was a little too small across the shoulders.

"The water was warm," he said pointedly to Natasha

"I fixed it," Cathryn explained.

"Is that what took you so long?" Natasha asked.

"Enchanting things isn't exactly easy," Cathryn responded somewhat peevishly.

Natasha hummed, and told Steve, "Stark's going to catch up. He took a few from your pile, too."

"He what?!" Steve grumbled as he left the room. Within the minute, the sounds of wood being split doubled as a second axe joined the first.

"Daddy won't have to chop wood all winter," Natasha told Lila, sending Cathryn a sly glance.

Fifteen minutes later, Lila trotted outside to join her brother and father on the porch, leaving Natasha to pack the game away with the ease of someone with a lot of practice.

"How long will it last?" Natasha asked. "Whatever you did to the shower?"

Cathryn set down the garden almanac she'd been flipping through - there were a surprisingly large amount of plants that were valued in both the magic and muggle gardens - and glanced out the window. Steve's pile of split logs was now considerably larger than Stark's. "Until the pipe holding the showerhead is replaced," she replied.

Natasha crossed to a tall cabinet and slid the box inside. "How does it work?"

Cathryn shrugged. "Magic's got rules, just like everything else. Nothing that can be easily explained, though."

The spy frowned, but nodded. "You should tell Laura."

"Tell me what, Nat?" Barton's wife stood in the doorway, a glass of lemonade in each hand.

"Cathryn?" Natasha prompted.

She stood. "I did some work on your guest shower. The water won't ever go cold - unless you turn the dial for cold water," she added hurriedly.

Mrs. Barton's eyebrows furrowed. "You fixed the water heater?"

"No, just the one shower." Cathryn crossed her arms over her chest. "I can put it back," she offered, "if you'd rather."

"No, no, it's fine," Mrs. Barton assured her. "I'll just let Clint know - he might want to pick your brain on what you did. I'm getting the boys out there some refreshment." She took a step towards the front door, and then paused. "Could I get you to do the kitchen sink, if it's not too much of a bother?"

Cathryn grinned in relief, both for having not upset Mrs. Barton and for the prospect of doing something constructive. Even watching Steve split logs was getting boring.

Within a minute of entering the kitchen, Cathryn had an audience. Natasha and all four of the Bartons watched as Cathryn inspected the sink.

"Which way for hot?" Cathryn asked.

"Left."

After the shower, the sink was an easy task. Ten minutes and four runesets later, Cathryn was finished.

"It was just a bunch of drawing," Lila complained.

"Magic isn't a toy," Barton told his daughter. "It is useful, but can be very dangerous." He tugged her braid lightly. "Go play outside. It'll be dark soon."

Natasha followed Barton's kids outside.

"Thanks," Barton said, testing the water.

"I won't have to run the water for five minutes to wait for it to heat up," Mrs. Barton added with a grateful smile.

"Is there anything else I can do?"

Mrs. Barton shook her head. "You're a guest."

Cathryn accepted the dismissal. "How far does the forest go?"

"Far enough," Barton warned.

Mrs. Barton handed Cathryn a large bottle of water.

"Don't get lost," Barton sighed, leaning against the counter.

"I'll be able to find my way back," Cathryn promised.

Steve caught up to her about a mile into the trees.

"Clint said you'd come out here," he said, slowing to a walk.

Cathryn didn't bother to be discreet as she tucked her wand behind her ear once more. "The trees here are very different from the ones I'm used to seeing in forests."

Steve glanced around. "Sure," he agreed. "Nothing like Germany or New York."

Cathryn nodded, and they walked on in silence.

"I think we've gone far enough," Steve said, quite some time later.

"Have we?" Cathryn murmured, but she turned and followed Steve along the path they'd forged, allowing the disturbances they'd made to lead them back.

She estimated they were halfway back when she said, "I'm not angry anymore."

Steve didn't reply, but he drifted ever so slightly closer, until they ended up walking side by side.

Natasha was a tall silhouette on the fence, a smaller figure to each side, when Cathryn and Steve finally left the trees. The sun was lower than Cathryn had expected - they'd been in the woods longer than she'd thought.

"Clint thought he'd have to go find you himself," Natasha greeted them. "Go tell your dad that they're back," she added, and the two children raced each other towards the house. "See anything interesting? Besides each other?"

"Natasha," Steve warned.

"Laura's nearly done with dinner," Natasha changed the subject. "The two of you missed lunch. And Fury's here."

"Fury?" Steve asked, looking towards the house.

"Hill called him. He's had a talk with Tony, and he'll explain the rest after dinner." Natasha herded them towards the house. "The two of you have about an hour," she said, chivvying them up the stairs and then to the upper floor of the house. "The rest of us have taken a rest. It's your turn for a nap." She all but shoved Cathryn into the room after Steve, and closed the door behind her. "Sleep well!" she called through the door.

Cathryn shook her head in exasperation.

"I'll take the floor," Steve offered.

"Don't be dim," Cathryn sniffed, toeing off her borrowed shoes and flopping onto the bed.

"Tony - "

"If he says anything, I'll turn him into a frog." She frowned. "I probably shouldn't. No telling how that gadget of his will react. And if you sleep on the floor, I will too," she threatened.

She didn't bother to hide her smug grin as Steve sat on the edge of the bed to untie his shoes.

Banner was the one to wake them up, knocking politely at the door.

"How'd you keep Stark away?" Cathryn asked when she and Steve joined Banner in the hallway.

"Natasha," was Banner's succinct reply.

Dinner was falsely lighthearted. Fury greeted Cathryn with a pleasant nod, and spent the entirety of the meal entertaining the children with fantastic stories that, so far as Cathryn could tell, were made up on the spot.

Only when Laura and Barton prepared to tuck their children into bed did matters turn to a more serious topic.

"Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself more time," Fury said. "My contacts all say he's building something."

Lila ran into the kitchen, a paper clutched in her hands. Fury fell silent, filling a glass with tapwater, until the girl gave the paper to Natasha, received a hug in return, and darted back into the sitting room.

"The amount of vibranium he made off with," Fury continued, "I don't think it's just one thing."

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve's voice rumbled against her shoulder where it pressed into his side. She watched Stark as he collected a number of darts and prepared to throw.

"Oh, he's easy to track," Fury said. "He's everywhere. The guy is multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit."

Cathryn slipped out from under Steve's arm and joined Stark at his throwing line. He grudgingly passed her three of the darts.

"It still doesn't help us get and angle of any of his plans, though," Fury finished.

"He still going after launch codes?" Stark asked as Barton entered the kitchen, heading for the sink full of dirty dishes.

"Yes, he is," Fury replied. "But he's not making any headway."

Cathryn followed Barton to the sink. "Do you want me to take care of the dishes?" she asked quietly. "It's just one spell."

Barton shrugged. "Give me those, and it's a deal."

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare," Stark pointed out.

Cathryn passed Barton the darts and drew her wand. Fury froze, knife part-way through a loaf of bread, his single eye watching as she directed her wand at the sink. Three seconds later, the dishes were industriously washing themselves, and Fury was back in motion. "Well, I contacted our friends at the Nexus about that," he said, laying a slice of cheese on his bread.

"Nexus?" Steve asked.

Cathryn shrugged as she rejoined him, slipping an arm about his waist.

"It's the world Internet hub in Oslo," Banner supplied. "Every byte of data flows through there. Fastest access on Earth."

"What'd they say?" Barton asked, idly flinging one of the darts to the bullseye.

"He's fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed." Fury took a drink of water.

"By whom?" Stark asked.

Barton slung the other darts at the same time; they joined the first one.

"Parties unkown." Fury didn't seem happy about not knowing.

"Do we have an ally?" Natasha asked. She was the only one still at the table.

"Ultron's got an enemy," Fury said. "That's not the same thing."

"The enemy of my enemy," Cathryn pointed out.

Fury inclined his head in acknowledgement. "Still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is."

"I could visit Oslo," Stark suggested. "Find our unknown."

Natasha shook her head. "That's all well and good, but when I saw you boss, I was kind of hoping you'd have more."

"I do," Fury said. "I have you." He raised his glass to the room, but no one else made a move. He sighed. "Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, and ears everywhere else. You kids had all the tech you could dream up, and some you couldn't." He glanced towards Cathryn and Steve. "And here we all are, back on Earth, with nothing but our wit and our will to save the world. Ultron says that Avengers are the only thing between him, and his mission. And whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction." He gestured around the kitchen. "All this, laid in a grave." Barton glanced at the ceiling. "So stand." Fury sat, joining Natasha at the table. "Outwit the platinum bastard."

They were all silent for a moment.

"What if I could get some more help?" she asked.

"What do you mean, help?" Stark asked sharply. "We're the Avengers."

"Don't bother," Fury told Cathryn. "If I thought it'd do any good, I'd reach out myself. They're simply not concerned that anything we do could be a threat."

"They? Who are 'they'?" Stark pressed.

"I know people," Cathryn said. "People know me."

Fury shook his head. "Last time I tried, they quoted the rulebook at me. 1689, is what I believe they said."

Cathryn pursed her lips. The International Statute of Secrecy had gone into effect that year. "By the time they get their heads out of their arses, they'll be dead," she said at last.

Fury snorted, and Natasha said, "Steve doesn't like that kind of talk."

The others chuckled, except for Stark, who demanded, "Who are you talking about?!"

"Doesn't involve you," Fury told him. "Back to Ultron - what does he want?"

Steve was the first to come to an answer. "To become better - better than us."

"He keeps building bodies," Barton agreed, turning a chair around and straddling it.

"Person bodies," Stark interjected, standing next to Fury. "But the human form is…inefficient. Biologically speaking, we're outmoded but he - he keeps coming back to it. Why?"

"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed," Natasha said.

"We don't need protection," Banner said slowly, picking up the drawing that Lila had brought Natasha. "We need to evolve." He dropped the drawing. "Ultron's going to evolve."

"How?" Fury asked, lowering his glass to the table.

Cathryn glanced up at Steve, who shook his head slightly.

Banner took off his glasses. "Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?"

They all looked at each other.

"Shit," Steve said, pushing away from Cathryn. "The Cradle."

Natasha explained the Cradle to Cathryn as they changed.

"I thought you would be more weirded out by the idea of someone building themselves a new body," Natasha said, pulling a clean suit from the closet.

"It's not the first time I've heard of the concept," Cathryn said with a strained smile. Last time, she'd had a front-row seat. "How many suits do you have here, anyways?"

"Enough," Natasha said, passing a second suit to Cathryn. "It's either that, or the dirty one," Natasha told her.

"This is fine," Cathryn said. "I'll adjust it, if I have to." Her clothing charms weren't very good; she'd always depended on Lavender and Parvati for that. Even Hermione was better than her at that sort of thing.

Five minutes later, they were following Steve and Barton to the Quinjet.

"Where's Stark going?" Cathryn asked, jogging slightly to keep up with Steve, who seemed to have no trouble spotting where to set his feet despite the darkness.

"Oslo," he said. "And Fury's taking Banner back to the tower."

"Is it safe? For him," she elucidated.

"Hill said that if they'd planned on arresting him, they would've issued a warrant already," Steve explained. They followed Barton onto the jet. "Strap in," Steve said. "This one won't be gentle."

It took nearly four hours to fly to Korea. The last fifteen minutes Cathryn spent glowering at Steve. It wasn't just him, though - Natasha and Barton had agreed that she shouldn't go in.

"Steve knows what he's doing," Natasha said as they watched him jump from the building they'd dropped him at, half a mile away from the laboratory.

"I can be invisible," Cathryn pointed out.

"Ultron almost certainly has infra-red and heat-detecting vision," Barton said.

Cathryn subsided, reluctantly.

A minute later, Steve's voice came through the comms. "I'm in. The place is cleared out - Dr. Cho!"

"He's uploading himself into the body."

"Where?"

Natasha began typing furiously. Cathryn joined Barton in the cockpit, scanning the traffic below.

"The real power in inside the cradle," Dr. Cho panted. "The gem, its power is uncontainable. You can't just blow it up. You have to get the cradle to Stark." She breathed harshly. "Go. I'll be fine."

"You guys copy that?" Steve asked, his voice uneven. Cathryn could see him in her mind's eye, sprinting for an exit.

"We did," Barton acknowledged.

"I've got a private jet taking off across town," Natasha said. "No manifest."

"You got anything?" Barton asked Cathryn.

"No - wait," she pointed at a truck disappearing into a tunnel. "It looks like it might've come from the laboratory."

When it came out of the tunnel, Barton said. "It is. It's got a logo on the side. A semi, right above you, Cap. On the loop by the bridge." He flicked a button. "It's them. You got three with the Cradle, one in the cab. I could take out the drive," Barton offered.

"Negative," Steve responded. "That truck crashes, the gem could level the city. We need to draw out Ultron."

"Is there any place you can let me down?" Cathryn asked. Even if she wasn't guaranteed to end up in that eerie not-Earth land of abandoned shadows, she wouldn't have risked Apparition. She still remembered the painful landing from Apparating mid-fall in Luna's house; the downward energy had carried over through the Apparition, and the three of them were lucky that none of them had broken a leg.

"I'm looking," Barton said, steering the jet towards the freeway. They were close enough to watch as Steve flung himself over the railing, landing on the top of the truck.

"I could fly down," Cathryn offered. "Bugger," she swore as the door to the truck was blasted open, sending Steve into the air.

"Well, he's definitely unhappy," Steve's voice came through the quinjet's speakers.

"No shit," Cathryn muttered. "Barton, get me down there."

"I can handle it," Steve said.

"You're not a match for him, Cap," Barton agreed with Cathryn. "Thirty seconds," he warned her.

Cathryn took the earpiece. Half a minute later, she was in the air, falling to allow herself the distance to clear the jet's airstream.

She caught up with the truck just as Ultron tossed Steve's shield to the ground.

As soon as her paws touched metal, she transformed. Her wand was in her hand in less than a second. "Accio shield!"

She caught the metal disk in time to block a blast from Ultron, the force of which pushed her back nearly a foot.

"You shouldn't have come," Ultron said, aiming a second blast at her. She blocked it with a spell, and the energy dissipated without affecting her.

"Thanks," Steve said, swinging up next to her and taking his shield. "Get the Cradle out of here. I'll take care of - "

Cathryn blocked another of Ultron's blasts, and the robot gave an exaggerated sigh before zooming towards them.

She ducked, but his punch clipped her shoulder, sending her over the edge. Steve grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to safety, and took a hit for his troubles. She nearly fell off a second time as he staggered back.

"I'm sending Nat in," Clint told them. "Just keep Ultron busy; she'll get the Cradle."

"Right," Cathryn agreed, her shoulder throbbing. She raised her wand. "Time to get serious."

The battle narrowed to a world of act and react, until Ultron picked Steve up and flew him into a nearby passenger train.

Cathryn swore. There was no way she could jump that far, and even if she could, the train was already falling behind; if she transformed, she wouldn't be able to fit through the hole that Ultron and Steve had made.

"Jump!"

Cathryn looked down. Pietro blurred in and out of sight, looking up at her whenever she caught a glimpse of her face.

"Natasha?"

"In the truck. She is fine."

She jumped.

They moved so fast, that it was almost as if they were still and the world crept by past them.

On the train, Wanda's red energy twined lazily through the air, and then shot towards Ultron when Pietro set Cathryn down. "Excuse me," he said, and vanished once more. Ultron jolted sideways, into the path of Wanda's power, which he blocked with a blast of his own energy.

"Don't do this - you waste your potential," Ultron said, raising his hands once more.

"What choice do we have?" Wanda sneered, her hands shrouded in red.

Ultron fired a blast at Pietro, who - predictably - popped up next to Wanda, unharmed. The blast rocketed through the front of the train, and Ultron followed in its path of destruction.

"Ultron's headed your way," Steve called, running to the front of the train. Cathryn followed, and frowned at the hissing and sparking control panel.

"What's going on?" she asked Steve.

"The Cradle's in the air," he explained curtly, staring at the last few hundred yards of railline that was getting shorter far too quickly. "Romanoff's sending it to Barton."

She didn't ask how. "We need to stop this thing."

"Brace yourself." She did.

The train broke through the end-barrier. Cathryn clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering due to the roughness of the train on asphalt.

Steve craned sideways to look out the hole that Ultron had left. "If you have the package, get it to Stark! Go!"

"He's got it?!" Cathryn asked.

"Cathryn, can you find Romanoff?" Steve demanded, turning to her.

"Is she not with Barton?"

"Can you find her!"

"Not from here!" Cathryn tucked her wand into her sleeve. "I need to get onto the roof."

He jumped onto the dead conductor's seat and punched the ceiling.

"I've got it," Pietro said.

Once more, the world moved around them, shifting sideways and down.

"Thanks," Cathryn said as they crouched on the roof, easily finding the Quinjet in the sky. "Get Wanda to stop this thing."

Pietro was gone between blinks. Cathryn shifted, flared her wings, and was airborne.

She circled in the air a few yards in front of the Quinjet, which was hovering above the ocean. Barton pointed somewhere behind her and spoke, and it was only due to her wolfish hearing that she could make out what he said.

"Ultron got her."

It took a minute for her to catch a scent, and she followed it, straining her wings for every ounce of speed.

Cathryn was thirty miles out when she gave up.

Ultron could fly faster than her, and he would never get tired.

She wasn't sure where to go, so she found her way to the place where the runaway train had finally stopped, but before she had to worry about landing, a sharp whistle from a nearby rooftop caught her attention.

Steve, Wanda, and Pietro watched her land and transform.

"Romanoff?" Steve asked.

"I was too far behind to hope to catch up," Cathryn explained, accepting the bottle of water that Pietro handed her. "Ultron was headed east, though."

Steve looked grim at the news, but nodded. "Barton took the Cradle to the tower."

"To Stark," Wanda spat.

Cathryn said nothing at the vehemence in her voice. "What are we doing?"

"Waiting," Steve replied. "Dr. Cho's called in a jet for us. It's not as fast as the Quinjet, but we'll be back in New York in six hours once it gets here."

On the flight to New York, Steve explained what they suspected Stark was doing.

"He's trying again?" Cathryn asked in disbelief. "After making Ultron, he thought it was a good idea to do the same thing, a second time?"

"He thinks he is saving the world." Wanda was playing with a small ball of energy, trying to toss it between her hands, but it kept on fizzling out halfway between.

"Here." Cathryn moved to the seat next to her and used her wand to conjure a blue globe of light. "Orbit this."

Pietro interrupted a few minutes later. "Wake me when we get there."

"It is easier when I have anger," Wanda said a few minutes later.

"You can't be angry all the time," Cathryn pointed out.

Wanda gave her a sharp smile. "Perhaps."

When they arrived at the lab, Stark and Banner had yet to open the Cradle, which both pleased and disappointed Cathryn. While she was glad that they still had a chance to stop the two scientists, it also meant that there would be an argument to split the already-fractured team. And she wasn't sure who she agreed with; she didn't think that Stark and Banner were being very clever - assuming that they were, in fact, trying the same thing that had unleashed Ultron in the first place - but she could understand why Stark thought the planet needed a higher protector, just as she could understand why Steve baulked at the idea of meddling with something that could set off a war larger than the one that Stark hoped to prevent.

"Stark, Banner." Cathryn preempted anything that Steve might have said.

Stark looked over at her, saw Steve, Wanda, and Pietro behind her, and sighed. "You couldn't have waited another three minutes?"

"Sorry," she said, "but we've got some issues with your project that we'd like to discuss."

"You?" Banner asked lowly. "Or her," he nodded to Wanda. "You sure she's not in your head, poking - "

"I know you're angry - " Wanda began, but Banner cut her off.

"Oh, we're way past that. I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade."

"Shut it down," Steve commanded, stepping around Cathryn.

"Not gonna happen," Stark said lightly. "If you'll just hold your britches for - "

A slight wind ruffled Cathryn as Pietro blurred past her, zooming around the lab, pulling out power cords as he went. "No, no. Go on. You were saying?" he asked cheekily.

A number of things happened in quick succession. A gunshot rang out, followed immediately by the sound of breaking glass and a shrieked, "Pietro!" from Wanda.

Cathryn drew her wand, Stark called out, "I'm rerouting the upload!", and Thor skidded into the room.

She stood dumbly, wand raised but no idea of what spell she should use. She'd never fired at her allies, never had an occasion to think of how to take down people she considered her friends.

Steve's shield flew towards Stark, but Thor knocked it off course with his hammer as he strode towards the Cradle.

"What are you - ?!" Banner began.

"Lady Death, to me," Thor commanded, and Cathryn jerked, her legs taking her a few steps towards the Cradle before she could get them to stop.

"What the hell?!" she snapped at Thor, who leapt onto the Cradle, hammer already returned to his hand.

"There is no time," he said. "You know what you are, your own magic will compel you should I demand it."

She hesitated just long enough to feel the desire to move to the god, and the swell of the foreign magic she most often tried to forget. "Death bows to no-one," she warned, and strode the last few steps to the Cradle, allowing Thor to pull her on top.

"Cathryn - " Steve started to object, but Thor cut him off.

"There is no life without death, except for when death makes it so." He took her hand - her wand hand - and, without any sort of warning, wrapped it around the handle of his hammer so that the Elder Wand lay flush against the leather-wrapped metal.

Even before Thor's hand closed around hers, pinning it in place, she knew she couldn't have moved her hand away even if she'd wanted to. Every hair on her body stood on end, and the skin of her scalp crawled.

"Brace yourself." Thor hefted Mjölnir into the air; for a third time, blue lightning sprang around the hammer, but unlike times previous, it was controlled.

Cathryn squinted against the brightness that gathered between heartbeats. She could feel her wand vibrating against her palm, nearly as much as her holly wand had vibrated during the Priori Incantato at Voldemort's rebirth. At the same time, despite Thor's presence, she could feel the weight of Mjölnir pressing at her, growing exponentially heavier with each millisecond, until only Thor's hand over hers kept her arm from collapsing beneath the hammer's weight.

She gritted her teeth against the force, and the wand began to burn against her skin. Lighting crackled and jumped, arcing from Mjölnir to Thor, from Mjölnir to Cathryn, until she cried out, "I can't - "

Thor roared, directing the head of Mjölnir at the Cradle. The blue lightning surged to the casket. When it was gone, after-images played across Cathryn's eyes.

Thor's hand loosened, and Cathryn gladly slipped her hand off of the hammer, straightening from the crouch that Thor had forced her into. She was in the process of putting her wand back up her sleeve when the cradle exploded, catapulting her into the air. Her back collided with something that broke, digging into her briefly, and then she fell to the ground, turning awkwardly to avoid snapping her wand (although the Elder Wand had always repaired itself in the past, there was no way to predict how long it would sit about in pieces, and she had a strong feeling that she'd need it in the coming few days).

"Oww…" she groaned, a little surprised that no one had come to check on her. When she finally opened her eyes, blinking wetness from them, it wasn't difficult to see why none of the others were moving.

The Cradle hadn't exploded due to a malfunction or an excess of power - a man of metal and red skin balanced on the remaining rim of the Cradle, intensely taking in the room with an expression of confusion, which morphed almost instantly into rage when he saw Thor who, unlike Cathryn, had recovered enough to stand.

Instead of engaging the unknown - because he certainly didn't look like a robot, as Ultron had - Thor diverted him through a glass wall and towards the windows of the tower. Cathryn expected the synthesized man to continue on his path, but an invisible force caught him before he could crash through the window, and he hovered there, staring out at the city. Thor flew after him, landing in the lounge area on the level below them.

The Avengers began to move. Steve was quickest, snatching his shield from the ground and jumping after Thor, but the god held him back from attacking with a rapid gesture. Stark still had on most of his Iron Man suit, and Barton had a gun out, though he wasn't pointing it anywhere.

Banner alone didn't arm himself, and stooped to help Cathryn up.

"Thanks," she murmured, and then joined everyone else in watching the red-and-silver-skinned man watch the city.

When he finally did turn away from the window, most of the red on his body darkened to a navy blue, until he appeared to be wearing a suit not unlike the ones standard-issued by SHIELD.

Thor set his hammer on a glass table with a gentle clink, and everyone relaxed. Cathryn walked forwards - gingerly, at first, and more confidently when no sharp pains appeared - following Banner and Wanda down the stairs to where Thor, Steve, and the others had already congregated.

"I am sorry." The nonhuman said, his voice soft and cultured. "That was…odd." He glanced first at Thor, and then at Cathryn, inclining his head towards each of them. "Thank you."

Thor sighed, apparently relieved about something.

Cathryn frowned. "Who are you?" she asked bluntly.

The nonhuman also frowned. "I…am not sure who I am. I know who you are, and who you wanted me to be, but I do not know who I am."

"That was helpful," Steve pointed out. "Thor, why did you help create - this? Why did you make Cathryn help you?"

"I'm more interested in how he made Black help him," Stark chimed in.

"Well, don't ask me," Cathryn muttered. "I'm not entirely sure either."

"Thor?" Steve prompted.

"At the abode of Clint, during the…exchange with Lady Black - " Cathryn was sure everyone knew the exchange Thor was speaking of. She wouldn't quickly forget her part in nearly electrocuting Clint's daughter. " - I had a vision. It was brief, so I traveled to a place known to mine kin, to revisit the vision."

"You can do that?" Steve blurted out.

"Magic," Cathryn reminded him.

"Science," Stark rebutted, before Banner hushed them all with a pointed stare.

"A whirlpool that sucks in all hope of life, and at its center is that." Thor pointed at the yellow stone embedded in the non-human's forehead, glowing gently.

"The gem?" Banner asked incredulously.

"Are you forgetting the other glowing approximately-rock-sized-thing from outer space?" Barton asked. "Because I sure have some vivid non-memories of it."

"Clint is correct in his comparison," Thor said. "That is the Mind Stone. It is one of the six Infinity Stones, of which the Tesseract is another. Together, they are the greatest power in the universe, unparalleled in their destructive capabilities."

There was a fraction of a second of silence, and then -

"Why would you bring - " Steve started, but was cut off by Stark's, "Where are the other four?"

"We should focus on the one on Earth, don't you think?" Cathryn said, not bothering to temper the snide tone that had snuck into her voice. "And why did you - we - make him - " she jerked her chin at the nonhuman, which she decided to label as a 'him' because of his definitively masculine appearance and behavior. " - if you knew he was in possession of one of the Infinity Stones?"

"Because Stark spoke truly. The Avengers cannot defeat Ultron. Not alone." Thor frowned, his face grim. "Your powers," he said, speaking towards the twins, "and Ultron himself pale in comparison to what the Mind Stone can unleash. It is perhaps the most powerful of the Infinity Stones. Even without the Mind Stone, Ultron is capable of destroying us completely."

"Even you?" Stark asked flippantly.

Thor nodded gravely. "I am not immortal, though it may seem so to ones with such short life-spans. We all must die."

"Right," Stark muttered. "Valar morghulis."

"I do not understand."

"It is a reference to a popular television show and book series," the nonhuman supplied.

"Why does your vision sound like Jarvis?" Steve asked.

"We reconfigured Jarvis' matrix to fit into the - for lack of easier explanation - space that Ultron was supposed to insert his consciousness into." Stark seemed both proud and sad.

"So you're Jarvis?" Cathryn asked the nonhuman.

"I am not Jarvis, and neither am I Ultron. I am…I am."

Wanda spoke for the first time. "I looked in your head and saw annihilation."

"Look again."

Barton scoffed. "Her seal of approval means jack to me."

"It does not matter if you agree," Thor said sternly. "With the Mind Stone on our side, we have a hope for victory."

"Is it?" Steve asked, and then turned to the nonhuman. "Are you? On our side?"

"I do not think that it is that simple."

"Well, it better get real simple real soon," Barton muttered.

"I am not like you. I do not choose to align myself with you because of what you believe. Each person is entitled to their beliefs."

"What do you believe?" Steve challenged.

"I believe in life. Ultron does not. He will end it all."

"Enemy of my enemy, then," Stark summarized. "Welcome to the team."

"What's taking Ultron so long, then?" Cathryn asked.

Steve's frown deepened. "Why hasn't he gone for the nuclear codes, if Jarvis isn't protecting them any longer?"

"A surprisingly good question," Stark agreed. "Except that I gave the Nexus a different AI to help them keep up what Jarvis was doing. I am a philanthropist. Back to his question - what's Ultron waiting for?"

"You." Everyone turned to the nonhuman.

"Where?" Banner asked.

"Sokovia," Barton supplied. "He's got Nat there, too. She managed to get me a message."

Banner nodded sharply, and then took a step towards the nonhuman. "If we're wrong about you, if you're the monster that Ultron made you to be…"

"What will you do?" the nonhuman interrupted Banner, staring at him for a long moment before continuing. "I do not want to kill Ultron. He is unique, and he is in pain. But that pain will roll over the Earth, so he must be destroyed. Every form he has built, every trace of his presence on the net." He turned, meeting each of their eyes as he continued to speak. "We have to act now. And not one of us can do it without the others. Maybe I am a monster. I do not think I would know if I were one, and there may be no way to make you trust me. But we need to go." He started towards the passage to the quinjet, handing Thor his hammer on his way.

Cathryn wasn't the only one to do a double-take at the non-human's casual handling of Mjölnir, but she was the first to recover.

"What do we call you?" she called after him.

The nonhuman paused. "Vision," he said at last. "One was my maker, and another my forger." Vision continued on his way.

Thor blinked at Mjölnir, adjusting his grip. "Right," he muttered, and then clapped Stark on the shoulder. "Well done."

"Three minutes," Steve said. "Get what you need."

"Can I make a side-trip, and meet the rest of you there?" Cathryn blurted out before the others could get more than a few feet.

"Where?" Steve asked.

"My friend's house," Cathryn said, trying to communicate the magical nature of her friends without actually saying anything. "An old friend. They got my things from Sokovia, or should've."

"I see." Steve nodded, and Cathryn knew he'd understood the message. "Thor, can you take her there?"

"I do not believe so. I have never taken anyone through a storm with me."

Steve didn't seem like he was going to agree, so Cathryn added, "I don't feel safe going into a fight without my armor."

"Low shot," Barton muttered. "Give me the coordinates," he said in a louder voice. "I'll calculate the estimated add-time and then Cap can decide."

She didn't know the coordinates. "Do you have a map?" she asked instead.

Steve ended up giving the detour the go-ahead, and Cathryn spent most of the flight to Bulgaria in a state of apprehension.

When the jet touched down, about a mile and a half from the edge of Viktor and Yvette's wards, Cathryn was down the ramp before it'd even touched the ground.

"Ten minutes!" she called, and then transformed, leaping into the air and using the low clouds for cover.

Viktor and Yvette were waiting in the garden. Yvette held a surprisingly fat infant (Cathryn had forgotten how chubby young children were) while Viktor plaited a crown of flowers into Rina's hair, only to have his work disturbed when the girl leapt to her feet with a happy cry of, "Krŭstnitsa!"

Cathryn hoisted her goddaughter onto her hip. "I cannot stay long," she warned Rina as she joined Viktor, Yvette, and Aleksandar.

Rina wriggled, so Cathryn set her down. "My brodder, Alek," the girl said proudly, pointing to the infant.

"Your godson," Yvette said, standing and passing the baby to Cathryn, who smiled down at his confused expression. She made a face, and Alek took five seconds to decide to give a toothless smile.

"I haven't long," Cathryn repeated, pressed a kiss to Alek's forehead, and passed him back to his mother. "Viktor - my things?"

"This way."

Viktor had stored her trunk in his office, and left her there. When she emerged, feeling safe in her dragon-hide armor, a wand strapped to each leg, he was just outside the door.

"You vill be safe." It was an order, more than anything.

"I'll come back," Cathryn agreed, giving Viktor a quick hug, which he returned. "Thank you," she added. "For getting my things."

Viktor shrugged. "It vas easy."

"I'll bring Wanda and Pietro with me when I come back," she told him as they headed for the front door. "To meet their cousins."

Viktor nodded. "Vhen?"

Cathryn shrugged. "Tomorrow, maybe. I'll take my trunk with me then."

"Fight vell."

"I will."

She took flight, circling a serious Yvette and a laughing, waving Rina before heading towards the jet.

She was greeted with, "You disappeared," when she stepped into the jet.

"Magic," was all the explanation she gave, seating herself next to Steve.

Stark didn't have time to press for a better answer. Cathryn hadn't even had time to worry about fixing her mask into place - it was harder without a ponytail to tie the ends around, though magic made an easy solution - before Barton had the jet in the air once more, headed almost directly north.

Cathryn was given the part of the city closest to the citadel to clear. When the first woman slammed the door in her face, Cathryn resorted to less legal measures.

A series of Confundus Charms, Stunning Spells, and Binding Spells left her wands, followed every few minutes by a Porticus Charm. She dearly hoped that the clearing she sent the citizens to - the one that Viktor had lead her to the first a few months before - was far enough away be able to escape any collateral damage that might accrue during the fight. If she was even luckier, the Sokovians would be smart when they saw the battle and go further into the woods.

Wanda was even more effective than Cathryn, reaching through the entirety of the quadrant assigned to her and into Cathryn's with ease. Cathryn left for an area that Wanda's power couldn't reach.

She took a short rest on a rooftop, scanning nearby buildings with Human-Revealing Charms as she caught her breath. Cars, bicycles, and foot traffic streamed away from the citadel like ants away from encroaching water. She swallowed heavily before transforming and winging her way to a building that had resulted positive for human presence - she didn't think their efforts would be enough to entirely prevent civilian casualties.

She'd just Portkeyed the stubborn old man and his wide-eyed grandchildren to join the others when the screams met her ears. Explosions followed not long after, and Cathryn rushed to the window.

Robots darted through the air, and panicked Sokovians raced for cover; not all of them made it.

Cathryn swore, and began firing at the robots, wishing she could call in backup, but the 'special' earpiece that Stark had tinkered with hadn't survived much longer than five minutes. Most of her spells missed, and the ones that did collide didn't seem to do anything beyond attract their attention.

Four of them turned to the window she was at. Cathryn might have been a Gryffindor, but she wasn't stupid. She darted for the door, only just clearing the apartment before the walls exploded; she stumbled, but managed to stay upright as she sprinted down the hallway towards the staircase.

The robots didn't pursue her, but her relief only lasted until she peered around the corner on the ground floor. A large group of Ultron's henchmen - though could they really be called that, if each of them was Ultron? - loitered outside the building, shooting at the street around them. Even as she watched, a stray bullet shattered the main window of the lobby of the building she was in.

"Bollocks," she muttered to herself, arming herself with a wand in each hand. She frowned, and then switched the Elder Wand to her left hand; normally, she wielded the holly wand left-handed, but today it just didn't feel as comfortable.

It took her thirty seconds to sort through her arsenal of spells to find ones that would, hopefully, work. If none of them did, she wasn't going to have a fun next few minutes.

Spells decided, Cathryn squared her shoulders and stepped into line of sight - and line of fire - of the robots.

Her first spell caught their attention - an over-powered reducto which did nothing more than elicit a painful screech from the metal breastplate of the robot it'd impacted - and her second spell enraged them as the Gouging Curse blew a hole the size of a Quaffle through the same robot's chest. The robot crumpled, eyes fading, but Cathryn was too busy killing the robots who were rushing towards her, dodging their fire where she could, and blocking it where she couldn't. Only one bullet escaped her attention, and it bounced off her dragon-hide armor, leaving her with nothing more than a painful ache that she knew would be a bruise before too long.

It took Cathryn nearly two minutes to dispatch the robots, keeping them at bay with wind-shields and gusts of bright blue fire, and only when the last of the robots was firmly in six different pieces could she stop to inspect her wands. The Gouging Curse, which should've been a murky brown, had been more of a muddy blue than anything - even from her holly wand, although the effect had been more pronounced in the Elder Wand; the fire spell she'd used should have produced hot white flames, not electric blue.

She didn't have much time to consider the problem. More robots were already headed in her direction, likely called to her location by their fallen brethren.

Cathryn didn't wait for them to come to her. She charged at them, wand-tips drawing blue-brown lines through the air as she fired curse after curse at the robots. After the seventh was dead, she took a second to catch her breath, and was just beginning to jog towards where she'd last seen Steve and the others when the ground shuddered beneath her.

For a terrible second, she was sure that more robots were about to erupt from the ground, or perhaps just a single very large one, but the earth simply continued to tremble and jerk for nearly twenty seconds. An opportunistic robot dive-bombed her, and was caught in the crossfire of her wands, falling in four pieces the rest of the way to the ground.

At thirty seconds, the jerking stopped, but the ground was still rumbling, nearly humming beneath her feet, and her body felt heavier than it normally did, as if she was taking off very slowly on a broom. Cathryn ran, relying on the sound of distant explosions to guide her to where, hopefully, there would be someone who knew what was going on.

She swore when she saw the edge, the rest of Sokovia growing smaller and smaller below. If she'd had time, she might've stayed to enjoy the view. As it was, she didn't think that this was going to be anything near a pleasant flight.

Cathryn continued to fight her way towards the noisiest part of the floating chunk of city. She killed a few handfuls of robots, saved two citizens from falling to their deaths as the ground near the edge continued to crumble away, and a further four from being crushed by a structurally unsound building.

She could actually see Steve, blurring in an economy of motion on the bridge that jutted off the side of the floating city, when the robots all stopped, the same voice emanating from each of them.

"Do you see?" Ultron asked at large. "The beauty of it? The…inevitability. You rise, only to fall. You, Avengers, you are my meteor, my swift and terrible sword, and the earth will crack with the weight of your failure." Cathryn stopped paying attention to Ultron's monologue, and used the time to perforate as many robots as she could. It was more difficult than she'd hoped, because they dodged her attacks even as they continued to speak. "Purge me from your computers, turn my own flesh against me. It means nothing. When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world will be metal."

"We'll see about that," Cathryn muttered to herself, joining Steve on the bridge a few harrowing minutes later.

"What's going on?" she asked, grunting as she blocked a shot from one of the robots.

Steve's shield hacked the robot in half. "Ultron has somehow made the city float."

"Yeah, I got that. Why is he doing it?"

They split up for a few moments. Cathryn shot down a pair of robots heading for the building that Natasha was guarding. When she turned around, Steve was just finishing wrenching his shield through the neck of another robot.

"You ever drop something from really high up?" Steve asked.

Dread solidified in her stomach. "I see." Even Fred and George had taken heed after the scolding McGonagall had subjected them to for tossing a dungbomb off the Astronomy tower. It had taken nearly six months for Hagrid to completely cover up the disproportionately large crater left behind.

Steve nodded.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Stark's checking it out. I'll ask him."

They separated again. Cathryn blew the arms off of a robot, pinned it beneath a car, and then set the car on fire.

There were no more robots in sight, so Cathryn began using debris to blockade the windows to the building that Natasha was guarding - the building with the most Sokovians sheltering inside.

"Make sure to keep a few paths open," Natasha directed, joining Cathryn. "Or they'll just pin us down and bomb us." The floating city slid into the clouds, and her line of sight was reduced to a few yards.

Steve ushered a trio of cowering citizens over, shield on his back but still on guard, eyes scanning the mists warily for the tell-tale glow of Ultron's many bodies. "This is just a lull," he warned them, sending the Sokovians inside the building. "The next wave is going to hit any minute. What do you got, Stark?" He went back into the cloud-obscured city, voice vanishing quickly in the water-dense air as he responded to whatever Stark had told him - by the tone of his voice, it wasn't anything good.

Cathryn placed a last chunk of broken concrete atop a pile of rubble, and then used her magic to clear a path in the clouds that they were passing through so that the citizens could see more easily. She only needed to hold the spell for a handful of seconds because they were ascending quicker than she'd realized, and the city soon broke through the upper cloud layer. Spotting Natasha and Steve near the middle of the bisected plaza, Cathryn jogged over, ignoring the way her throat burned from the rapidly chilling air in ways she hadn't felt since third year Quidditch.

"If Stark finds a way to blow this rock - " Natasha was saying as Cathryn slowed to a halt between them.

"Not till everyone's safe," Steve interrupted.

"He's going to blow us up?" Cathryn interjected, making sure to keep her voice down. There was no point in panicking the already terrified citizens.

"Everyone up here versus everyone down there?" Natasha asked incredulously, ignoring Cathryn. "There's no math there."

"That's tripe." Cathryn spoke before Steve could respond. "Everyone gets hurt either way, regardless of what someone thinks is the greater good. Even if Stark does manage to blow this rock up - and somehow, I think he's good for it - where are the pieces going to go? People 'down there' will die either way." She frowned. Third year Quidditch. "Unless...no," she shook her head, turning around to stare at the expanse of shaky buildings behind her. "It's too big," she muttered.

"That's what Ultron's going for," Natasha said, somewhat snide.

"If we don't stop this rock, it could trigger global extinction," Steve said, turning to face her. His brows furrowed when he saw the look on her face. "You've got an idea?"

"Maybe." Cathryn smiled grimly. "It's less chance of succeeding than a kneazle does of catching a Snidget, but - "

Steve's head jerked towards the clouds as a large metal plate protruded fin-like from the white expanse, the rest of the air-ship emerging quickly. It didn't take Cathryn long to recognize the Helicarrier.

"I thought - " she started, but Pietro blurred past, slowing down to visible speeds as he gaped at the ship.

Steve shook his head. "Fury, you son of a bitch."

The response from the comm was enough to make Natasha smirk for a brief second before Pietro turned to them, an awed smile on his face. "This is SHIELD?"

"This is what SHIELD is supposed to be," Steve said as the sides of the Helicarrier opened, releasing smaller airships that headed for the floating city.

Pietro watched as one of the airships approached, slowing down as it hovered level with the side of the city, extending a ramp to join with the broken edge of the bridge. "This is not so bad."

Steve turned towards the building full of Sokovians. "Let's load them up."

Another skybattle erupted as Cathryn directed the emerging Sokovians towards the nearest airship, shuttling them towards a second rescue shuttle when Steve signaled that the first had filled up. When she could spare a glance at the robots in the air, she could distinguish Stark and one other metal-clad humanoid fighting, but wasn't sure if the other was a person or yet another of Stark's AI's.

She checked the diner with a Hominum Revelio just to be sure that it was abandoned, and was about to join Wanda and Hawkeye when Pietro materialized next to her.

"The god says to go to the church."

He began to speed up again - to fetch Wanda, no doubt - until Cathryn asked, "Where?" There were, after all, many churches in Sokovia.

"That way." He gestured. "It was closed for repair when you lived here."

By the time she recalled where to go, Pietro was already gone.

Cathryn arrived at the church - or what was left of it - at the same time as Steve, who raised his shield as if to fling it at her before realized that the flying object was a cynogriffin, not a robot. She landed smoothly on two feet and drew her wands.

"What's going on?"

"If a robot touches that - " he nodded to the silvery metal contraption protruding from the center of the ruins " - the city accelerates towards the ground."

"Boom, we're all dead," Stark supplied as Thor flung his hammer at an aspiring kamikaze robot. Pietro stood next to Wanda, and Vision and Hawkeye shot down any robot they could see.

"How fast?" Cathryn asked.

"What?" Steve tensed, but allowed Wanda to rip a robot apart.

"Until the thrusters turn on, I can't calculate the speed," Stark said. "Where is - "

Natasha joined the protective circle around the apparatus. "What's the drill?"

"This is the drill," Stark pointed to the metal protrusion. "If Ultron gets a hand on the core, we lose."

"What if I - " Cathryn began, but Hulk stomped into the church, shaking off the remains of two of Ultron's shells.

Hulk slotted himself between herself and Steve, driving Cathryn to join Wanda on the broad step leading to the dais where the drill head was situated. Ultron's main body was visible, no more than a eighty yards away.

There was a moment of tense silence, and then Thor roared out, "Is that the best you can do?!"

Cathryn was sure she wasn't the only female in the room to roll her eyes; she wasn't a horror-movie connoisseur by any means, but even she knew that those words were usually followed by -

Masses of robots emerged from nowhere, and Ultron spread his arms, encompassing his bodies with a gesture. "This is the best I can do."

"You had to ask," Steve sighed, hefting his shield to a ready position.

"This is exactly what I wanted," Ultron nearly crooned as his other bodies streamed towards the church. "All of you, against all of me. How can you possibly hope to stop me?"

The robots swarmed them just as Stark said, "Like the old man said. Together."

Cathryn lost herself to the fighting. Steve had joined her and Wanda between two arms of the drill, but sometime during the first wave of robots Cathryn was maneuvered to be next to Thor. A lucky lunge from one of Ultron's bodies drove Cathryn onto the head of the drill itself, and she balanced on it as best she could, taking out any robot that got past the other Avengers. Images of the others snuck in as she turned and bent to get clear shots at her targets.

Thor with an almost gleeful snarl on his features as he sent blue lightning arcing through several robots at once.

Wanda's look of shock as Iron Man took care of a robot too close for her to destroy without the debris injuring herself.

Hulk struggling under a veritable backpack of robots.

Barton abandoning his bow, useless in close quarters.

As the tide of robots slowed, motion in the corner of her eye had Cathryn turning in time to see Ultron diving for Vision. Without thinking, she raised her left hand and directed the wand in it at the largest of Ultron's bodies. She didn't need an incantation; electric blue energy rocketed from the end, striking Ultron squarely in the chest.

She was only half-aware of red energy snatching apart a robot only inches from colliding with her. Ultron slammed into the side of the church and tried to fly up, but Vision was there, blocking his escape. Thor hurried over, preventing Ultron from landing, and Stark closed in from the left.

Thor was the first to add his power to hers, lightning almost the exact hue as her magic crackling up the length of Ultron's body. Vision's yellow beam was next, and Stark's twin repulsors followed barely a split-second later. Under their combined torrent, Ultron's body shivered, shimmered, and then began to lose the outermost plates of metal, which hissed and steamed as they oozed into the cracks between the paving stones of the church.

Ultron made another attempt at escape upwards; Vision's beam of light faltered and then guttered out, but Cathryn, Stark, and Thor didn't relent. By the time Ultron was nothing more than a puddle of rapidly solidifying metal on the floor, the fight had ended.

Cathryn loosened her grip on the wand - the Elder Wand, she noted, though by logic she should've used her right hand - her dominant hand, and the holly wand within. "Where's Banner?" she asked Natasha, who was watching the smoldering remains of Ultron with extraordinarily blank features.

"Took off after the surviving baby-Ultrons," Barton said.

"So did Vision and Thor and Stark," Steve said, glancing around at the floor, which was liberally covered with broken robots. "We gotta move out. Even I can tell the air is getting thin." Cathryn frowned; she felt just fine now, although perhaps she was more accustomed to thin air after so many years of Quidditch. "You guys get to the boats," Steve directed, nodding towards Natasha and Barton even as he placed a hand on the small of Cathryn's back and tried to usher her in the right direction. "I'll sweep for stragglers. Be right behind you."

She wanted to object, and had even opened her mouth to do so, but a sharp look from Barton had her nodding in grudging acceptance. Steve was the general in this sort of situation - especially with Thor haring off after escaping Ultrons - and it wouldn't do any good to challenge him now.

"What about the core?" Barton asked.

"I'll protect it," Cathryn and Wanda said at the same time.

"It is my city," Wanda protested. "It is my duty."

"You're exhausted, and you've only just begun to realize your powers. I've had years to hone mine." Not a lie, but not completely true either; only a few - one or two, really - of her spells worked well against the robots, but she didn't particularly expect that there were many left behind. Most had fled, in hopes of Ultron surviving to recoup in safety. "You should help your people," Cathryn added. "They're more familiar with you and Pietro than they are with the rest of us." The obstinate expression faded somewhat from Wanda's face, but didn't go away completely until Cathryn pointed out, "You'll be able to keep an eye on your brother if you're with him."

"Pietro can take care of himself," Wanda said, but Cathryn already knew that she'd won the argument. The twins were each other's greatest strength, but greatest weakness as well.

"Nat, Maximoff," Barton interrupted the silence between Wanda and Cathryn. "This way."

Wanda stalked after the two SHIELD agents, sparks of red flashing at her fingertips.

"You'll be fine?" Steve asked as soon as the others were out of earshot.

Cathryn spared him an amused glance over her shoulder as she took a guard position over the drill, but her words were completely serious. "I've gotten this far, haven't I? Hurry up and get yourself on a transport. Unlike me, you can't fly."

Steve nodded once and disappeared with one last, "Be on guard. One of Ultron's bodies might still be around."

He was gone too fast for Cathryn to reply.

Thirty seconds passed before a sudden gust of wind announced Pietro's arrival, sending stray scrap-metal chittering across the broken bodies of robots.

No sooner did he begin to speak than a half-broken Ultron lunged for the drill. Pietro's words were lost in the explosion as Cathryn blasted it apart with a Gouging Curse followed closely by a Reductor Curse to its newly unprotected innards.

"What was that?" she asked when the noise of raining metal stopped.

"I see you have everything under control," Pietro commented, kicking idly at a piece of robot that had come to a rest against his foot. "Where is Wanda? I thought she would be here."

"She left with Barton and Natasha," Cathryn supplied, conjuring mirrors on the walls so that she could have full view of her surroundings. That last Ultron had been uncharacteristically stupid, coming at her from the side instead of from her back, but she couldn't count on luck twice. "Where's your comm?"

Pietro shrugged. "Fell out. What way?"

"Towards the Helicarrier."

He tensed to run, but then relaxed. "You will be okay here?" He was more timid than Steve had been when he'd asked much the same question; Cathryn barely restrained from rolling her eyes.

"Ask that robot."

With a quicksilver grin, Pietro said, "Yes, I see your point," and then was gone, leaving only a few of the lightest shards of metal to shiver in his wake.

Two minutes later, Cathryn was short on breath as she spun, casting different spells from each wand in an attempt to keep the fifteen ragged robots from triggering the core. With so few of them now available, the Ultron program had decided to overwhelm her as best it could, sending all but two of the robots directly at Cathryn instead of towards the vibranium drill.

She'd seen through that tactic almost instantly, and the only reason it took her more than a minute to dispatch the robots was because Ultron had retained the presence of mind to shatter the mirrors that she'd been using to keep track of them all.

Thor arrived exactly twenty seconds after the last Ultron lost its head.

"The citizens are clear," Thor greeted, striding towards her, Mjölnir grasped easily in one hand. "You would do well to join them, lest you fall afoul of the actions of myself and the Man of Iron."

"What are you planning on doing?"

"A most complex plot, full of sciences that I do not entirely comprehend," Thor replied, and then tilted his head slightly, finger rising to his ear. "Stark has relayed that the reaction will vaporize the city."

"Vaporize, or just blow up?" Cathryn asked, wishing, not for the first time, that her comm hadn't shorted out.

"Stark says, 'yes'," Thor said after a few seconds.

"And what about - " she cut off as the ground jolted beneath her, and the sudden decrease of gravity left her unsteady for a moment. "What was - "

"You must leave, Lady Griffin," Thor said sternly, setting himself into a stable stance. Cathryn was confused at his motion, but the next moment her confusion was driven away as her stomach lodged in her throat as the ground fell away from beneath her. She caught up to the plummeting city a few seconds later, landing awkwardly on a robot's lower arm; only the dragon-hide leather of her boots kept her from twisting her ankle.

"Leave!" Thor commanded.

Cathryn prepared to transform, but Thor had already raised Mjölnir into the air, lightning snapping angrily from the ball of pure electricity that was forming at the head of the hammer. She would have to be suicidal to try and fly from the church; electrocution was not a way she would like to die.

She was nearly to an archway, struggling against the weird gravity, when Thor roared out, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT WILL NOT WORK!?"

Her wands were back in her hands, and she didn't even think about the impossibility of what she was about to do as she incanted, "Arresto momento!"

Nothing happened. They continued to fall, and Thor was struggling with the massive amounts of electricity he had collected and yelling at Stark through the communication system.

Cathryn wondered if she should have used transfiguration instead - tried to Vanish the entire city - but then, even Professor Dumbledore would've had trouble Vanishing something this large, though now she didn't really have much of a choice, so she might as well end the -

Her knees buckled at the sudden decrease in speed and consequent momentary increase in gravity, and had Thor not been a demi-god, he likely would have died from the escaped lightning bolts that impacted his chest and back, leaving smoking holes in his cape.

"Whatever sorcery you have worked, do so again," Thor urged. "Stark does not have the required energy to explode the city."

"Magic doesn't work like that," Cathryn said, and threw more of her concentration into the spell she'd nearly given up on. It's not just the words, twelve-year-old Hermione explained eagerly, it's will and imagination too.

This magic wasn't like what she'd been doing earlier. There were no lights or flashes to show that she was even doing anything. She gritted her teeth and searched for the odd energy inside her that she now knew to be from the Deathly Hallows, easily ignored but always lurking in the recesses of her mind.

It seemed different than before - larger, perhaps, or maybe just more awake, more eager.

She put the matter aside for later, returning to the spell that had once saved her from a messy end on the Quidditch Pitch. The pressure against her feet and knees and back increased as the enormous chunk of earth slowed even more, and then became so powerful that she had to drop to one knee to avoid collapsing altogether.

At last, the pressure abated.

"How - " she coughed, and then started again, voice wavering with strain as the floating mass pulled at her magic. "How far up are we?"

Thor had dissipated the excess electricity. "Stark, what is the distance to the ground?"

As it turned out, the communication device was unnecessary. Stark himself landed with a muffled clang , face plate sliding out of the way. "One hundred four and six-tenths meters," he answered, staring at Cathryn. "What - are you doing this?"

"No, I just like to kneel before I die," she snapped, and paid for the momentary lapse of concentration when they all dropped a few feet.

"So you're controlling - this?" Stark waved his arms in a manner that she assumed was meant to mean 'the floating rock'.

"Yes." She hardly thought it necessary to answer such an obvious question.

"Amazing," Stark muttered, and then added, "Well, let us down slowly and there you go, easy as pie."

It was easier said than done. The spell she was using wasn't meant for fine control of objects, let alone a piece of land large enough to be an entire island if it'd landed in the water. Still, she managed. In fits and starts, they descended. Stark helped by making snide comments about her control in between gauging the distance from the lowest tip of the floating rock to the ground; Thor merely watched, inscrutable.

The removed portion of Novi Grad did not want to fit back in where it had come from. Cathryn was shaking with exhaustion by the time the lowest rocks ground against the earth. The tremors of the contact rocked through her magic even more powerfully than the slight quiver of the ground beneath her aching knee, and the magic failed.

By the time the earth stopped shaking from the reluctant reunion of the two parts of Novi Grad, she lay on the ground, feeling as though she had just spent an entire day battling high winds and Death Eaters on the Quidditch Pitch. Thor crouched over her, ready to block anything shaken loose by the earthquake she'd caused.

Stark had taken to the air to get a better view of the city and surrounding land, but now he returned. "Fury wants us - it's not safe here. There's a ninety percent chance of aftershocks in the next few minutes as everything resettles."

Cathryn lay still for a few seconds, and then sighed. Moving didn't sound very pleasant. Thor was kind enough to take the matter out of her hands, and flew her up to the helicarrier himself.

"Six point four."

"What?" Cathryn looked up from her still-trembling fingers.

Steve lowered himself to the floor next to her, although she didn't know how he'd found her. She'd picked this room because it was the very much out of the way in the mostly-empty helicarrier.

"The earthquake." He'd already taken off his mask, although his shield was still on his back, preventing him from fully relaxing against the wall. "A few broken bones and concussions from falling objects, but no one died, which is more than can be expected from what would've happened if you hadn't been there."

Cathryn didn't know how to explain that she wasn't hiding because she thought she'd killed someone. "Oh. Thanks." They sat in silence for too many tense seconds. "How is - everyone?" she finished lamely.

"The team or the Sokovians?"

"Both."

"We're turning the citizens over to the Sokovian government - Fury has everything under control. The team…" he trailed off, and Cathryn felt a foreboding crawl up her spine to the nape of her neck, leaving prickled hairs and goosebumps in its wake.

"Who's dead? Why didn't you say before - "

"No one is dead," Steve interrupted, placing a calming hand on her knee. "But - Pietro Maximoff isn't doing well."

She stood, placing a hand on the wall to steady herself. "Where is he?"

"Medbay. We're short on staff, but - "

"Show me."

They went quickly through the corridors, Cathryn a half-step behind Steve, partly because he was leading the way, and partly because she was still not recovered from the battle's incredible drain on her magic and body.

She knew when they were getting close to the medical rooms when the hair on the back of her neck started to stand up. The reason why was apparent as soon as they rounded the next corner. Wanda paced stormily in the corridor, tinges of red seeping from her fingers, swirling in her hair and around her body like an angry aura. When the younger woman spotted Cathryn, she paused, and then strode forward.

"Do something."

"I don't know how to heal." Nothing beyond small cuts or scrapes - she hadn't ever been stupid enough to try to fix a broken bone, not after the earful of muttering she'd heard from Madam Pomfrey after Lockhart's disastrous attempt on her arm. "How is he hurt?"

Wanda glared at the wall separating her from her brother. Cathryn could only assume that he was in for surgery of some kind.

"He's paralyzed below the waist."

Cathryn's breath caught in her throat. She couldn't imagine a worse injury for Pietro, who found immense joy in running and being active. "I'm sor - "

"Don't apologize!" Wanda shrieked. "Fix him!"

"I can't." She pinched the bridge of her nose, mind racing through all the resources she'd once had so easily available. She just knew too little about magical healing to be able to know for certain if it was even possible to return Pietro to his feet. "Maybe," she murmured at last, hand dropping back to her side, fingers stroking nervously at the smooth-rough texture of scale. "I might be able to find someone who might - and I really don't know if they can - be able to do something."

"When?" Wanda asked ferociously.

This was a conversation better had in person. "How soon can we get to London?"

On the flight to her homeland, Cathryn was able to glean more about how Pietro had been injured. A mangled but still operational Ultron had liberated itself from under a pile of charred cars and taken the opportunity to spray bullets at the last Sokovians getting ready to board a transport. Pietro had flung himself in front of a young boy, and Wanda hadn't been fast enough to stop all of the bullets. Though she'd saved many civilians, she hadn't been able to keep a bullet from hitting her brother. It went without saying that she blamed herself.

Fury was not pleased to let Cathryn disembark without accepting an 'official' escort.

"The only reason that I've even allowed Thor is because he's proof that the muggle - sorry, non-magical - population is no longer as blind to magic as it once was. Any more people, and we'll be seen as a threat."

"I can - "

Cathryn cut Steve off with a sharp shake of her head. "I don't even know if Wanda will be able to see magical buildings without my aid. We'll be fine." I hope.

Fury narrowed his eye, and Steve crossed his arms, but in the end there was nothing they could do. The longer they argued, the less possibility there was of Pietro being helped, and in any case, none of the four who planned on leaving actually answered to Fury.

She did allow Steve to pilot the quinjet to street level, very glad for the stealth-mode. It was one thing to have a lone witch break the Statute in certain life-threatening circumstances, and another altogether to draw mass attention to the premier hospital in magical Britain.

"I have to go to Bulgaria after this," she told him quietly as they descended. Thor politely ignored their conversation, and Wanda was too busy fussing over her unconscious brother to care.

"You know where to find us," Steve returned.

"I shouldn't be longer than a few days."

His jaw tightened, and then he sighed. "Fine." The jet landed gently on the street.

Cathryn gave Steve a tense smile, dropping her hand to his shoulder as she passed him.

The waiting room of St. Mungo's was blessedly uncrowded compared to the handful of previous visits Cathryn had made, but the milling witches and wizards fell silent as soon as Thor stepped through the glass-window entrance a fraction of a second after Cathryn. Wanda, levitating her brother on a glimmering pallet of red energy, came through next; a path opened directly to the welcome witch.

The wizard whose turn it should have been gaped at Cathryn for several long seconds before scurrying out of the way with a muttered, "I have to - I'll just - not a problem."

"Thank you," Cathryn said. The wizard leaned against the wall, pulling at his overly-enlarged ears (nothing that a decent Shrinking Solution wouldn't fix; Snape had certainly had a way of making his lessons memorable).

The welcome witch blinked very rapidly as Cathryn and Wanda crowded next to the desk, Thor behind them, gazing over the avid crowd like a particularly imposing bouncer. After too many seconds of silence, Cathryn cleared her throat.

"Erm - symptoms?" the welcome witch asked.

"Muggle gunshot wound to the spine, suspected paralysis below the waist."

"I - er - " she fumbled her wand, dropped it on a stack of parchment (the topmost document turned a bright purple) and picked it up, blushing. A quick tap of her wand on a thick tome had pages turning of their own accord, until, "Creature Induced Injuries, First Floor."

"Creature induced - " Cathryn began incredulously, but bit her tongue. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," the welcome witch said faintly.

It wasn't particularly difficult to locate the correct place - at least four medi-wizards and -witches descended on Pietro as soon as the four of them entered the wide hallway connecting the many wards on the first floor. Within seconds, a stretcher had been conjured under Pietro; Wanda allowed her power to dissipate, following after her brother until she came up against a closed door.

Cathryn conjured three chairs. "Sit."

Wanda perched on the edge of the chair closest to the door, and Cathryn sat next to her. Thor eyed the somewhat-spindly chair, but sat all the same, relaxing somewhat when it didn't splinter beneath his weight.

An hour and a half passed before the door opened, releasing six medi-wizards and -witches and two Healers. While the first Healer glanced at his watch, swore, and jogged towards the staircase, the second Healer lingered in the doorway.

"Family?" Wanda was already on her feet, and slipped past the Healer into the room. Cathryn followed at a more sedate pace, Thor behind her.

"How - can he - ?" Wanda didn't seem able to form a question as she gripped her brother's limp hand.

"Will he be able to use his legs?" Cathryn asked the Healer.

"We're not sure. We've never had a case of paralysis caused by muggle technology before. We don't get many muggle injuries in general, let alone in someone like - well - you know, in one of them."

"Who's 'them'?" Cathryn asked.

"An abnormal muggle."

Cathryn frowned as she tried to figure out what the Healer was talking about. When she did realize, she was actually somewhat impressed that the Healer was aware of the muggle sub-group's existence. "A mutant, you mean?"

The Healer nodded. "The patient responded well to our potions and healing spells - better than a normal muggle, in any case, really he's the best we've seen compared to us magicals - so I would speculate that there's a high chance of him being able to walk. Running or anything else isn't a good idea for at least a year, if ever."

Cathryn nodded sharply, not sure whether she should celebrate the good news or not, given the accompanying bad news. "Thank you," she said instead, offering the Healer her hand. He shook it with a modest, "It's my job," and was a few steps away before Cathryn remembered to ask, "How soon can we leave?"

"Whenever you'd like," the Healer responded. "But no Floo, Apparition, or Knight Bus."

With another, "Thank you," Cathryn ushered Thor into the hospital room and closed the door behind her. Wanda had progressed past her initial state of inaction and was now fussing with Pietro's hair with one hand, the other still holding her brother's. It was a matter of a minute to charm Pietro's mattress into a Portkey, and hardly two hours after setting foot on her homeland for the first time in fourteen years, Cathryn left again.

Viktor must have set up some sort of extrasensory ward, because he came running out to greet them less than a minute after their rather bumpy landing.

"Vhat is that?" he demanded, gesturing at the remaining cluster of storm clouds from where Thor had just shot into the sky.

"One of my companions just left," Cathryn explained, and then nodded her head towards Wanda, whose eyes were narrowed as she stood between Viktor and Pietro. "This is Wanda Maximoff. Wanda, this is Viktor Krum, your mother's cousin's husband."

Some of the suspicion vanished from Wanda's face, but the wariness remained. "Pleased to meet you," she said stiffly. "Vhere can my brother rest?"

Viktor gave Cathryn a questioning glance.

"It's Pietro," she confirmed, and then added, "Gunshot - muggle weapon."

He nodded. "Ve have a room for each of you." Viktor lead the way to the house, Wanda holding her brother in the air behind him, and Cathryn brought up the rear.

The Krum's house was a very easy place to recover in. After greeting Ekaterina, Yvette, and little Aleksandar, Cathryn went directly to the room she'd stayed in earlier that year. She slept for nearly eighteen hours, and when she woke up, found that Rina had crept in sometime in the night to join her. Cathryn carried Rina back to her proper bed, and took a shower, only to be caught by Yvette on her way downstairs.

"How long vill stay you?" Yvette asked sleepily, poking her wand at the stove to heat up the kettle.

Cathryn found two teacups and set them out. "Only two more days. I don't know what Wanda and Pietro will do."

"Dey stay," Yvette scowled at Cathryn as if she'd threatened to drag them away with her, but waved her acceptance when she asked permission to bake. "Make vhat you like, Viktor vill eat if novun else like."

Cathryn gave a quiet snort of amusement, and began searching the coldbox for butter and cream. It'd been a long time since she'd had decent scones.

Ekaterina was more than pleased to have a second playmate. Cathryn found herself in the garden late on her last day, being instructed on the proper way to make a flower crown alongside a slightly less-worried Wanda.

"Has he said anything?" Cathryn asked once Rina was out of earshot gathering more flowers.

"Just that he vants to stay here for a while," Wanda replied, nimbly threading a yellow flower into her crown. "I vill stay until he is vell."

Cathryn nodded. "I thought you would. I'm leaving tomorrow morning. Viktor or Yvette will know how to reach me, if you need to get in contact."

After a few seconds of silence, Wanda said, "Thank you."

As Rina trotted back into view, skirt gathered up to hold the flowers she'd found, Cathryn said, "Once he's well enough, you should have Viktor see if a broomstick will work for Pietro. I think he'll like flying."

Wanda laughed. "Da - yes, I think he vill."

Rina arrived with the new delivery of flowers, and they let the conversation drop, but Cathryn felt a sense of peace, knowing that she was leaving Wanda and Pietro in a place that they could be happy - that was the first time she'd heard Wanda laugh without bitterness or scorn.

Cathryn pulled her hood over her hair and stepped out from the alley, glancing back to make sure she'd closed the window to the fire escape of her flat above her bakery. Though she'd left Bulgaria well before sunrise, it was nearly noon on this side of the Atlantic, and the city was crawling with people looking for brunch or an early lunch.

Once she'd distanced herself a few blocks from her café, Cathryn discreetly pulled her hood down and did her best to look more like one of the many city-dwellers around her, and less like a truant teenager.

Stark's tower was, much like the man himself, ostentatious. Combined with its position at the crux of several famous streets, it wasn't difficult to navigate to, and it took Cathryn only twenty minutes to walk from her café to the skyscraper, passing through Central Park along the way.

She was a block and a half away from the entrance to Avengers Tower when someone fell into step with her.

"How's the kids?" Natasha asked, sliding her phone into her jean's pocket.

"Pietro's awake," Cathryn supplied, letting go of her wand handle. "Hasn't said much. They'll be staying there for a while."

Natasha was silent.

"How's everyone here?"

"Stark's fast-tracking a new facility for the Avengers."

"Oh?"

"Upstate."

Cathryn frowned as she followed Natasha into the lobby. "Why?"

"Maybe," Stark interrupted, trotting over from behind a pillar, "because I'm tired of having my windows blown out every six months." He jabbed the elevator button, and was rewarded with an immediate ding! as the doors slid open.

"Half of the broken windows are a result of one of your experiments," Natasha pointed out.

Stark shrugged. "Pepper will be happier."

"I bet the Mayor of New York City will be too." Cathryn blinked under the shrewd gazes of Natasha and Stark. "I don't particularly enjoy politics, but I'm no stranger to how they work," she explained.

"You're not wrong," Stark admitted, scratching absently at his neck as the elevator continued to rise. "The lawsuits from three years ago are still ongoing, though no one's sure who to blame for what."

Cathryn frowned. "I never understood why you Americans like to sue each other over every little thing."

"Money," Stark supplied easily. The doors slid open, and he stepped out. "You'll want the third door on the left in the other direction," he told Cathryn as she and Natasha followed him out of the elevator. "Spangles has been trying to work off some of that frustration you seem to have - "

"You and Steve need to talk," Natasha interrupted Stark.

"Right." Cathryn turned the other direction, ignoring a sudden, "Hey!" from Stark.

The room that Stark had directed her to was half gym and half office. Steve was writing when she came in - what, she didn't know - but he dropped his pen and was halfway across the room before the door had shut behind her.

He stopped just short of her, hands at his sides, behind his back, and then finally in his pockets. "Pietro?"

"On his way to recovery, although there's no telling if he'll ever be able to move as fast as he did before without injuring himself. He'll be able to walk, at the very least."

Steve nodded. "That's good…" He trailed off, his eyes flicking towards her mouth for the barest moment before returning to hers. "Wanda stayed with him?"

"Until he's better."

He nodded again, paused, and took a small step forward. "And you?"

"A few stubborn bruises, but I'm fine." She tried to smile, but even she could tell it wasn't convincing. "What is this place?" she asked, trying to diffuse the tension between them.

Steve followed her gaze around the room. "My office. I do paperwork here - after-action reports, research for missions, that sort of thing."

"I didn't know that was part of what you did."

"Didn't used to be. I'd do the mission, return to base, get debriefed. Now, if I don't do it, it doesn't get done." He shook his head. "Another month and it'll all be moved to the new base - you've heard about that, haven't you?"

Cathryn nodded distractedly, trying to come up with a way to broach the subject she'd come here to talk about. "Natasha mentioned it." She hesitated, and then asked, "Are we - I mean, do you - " She cut herself off, and tried again. "Where do we go from here, the two of us?"

Steve stared up at the ceiling for a moment. "I meant what I said," he finally spoke, catching her eyes. "At the party, I mean. I still want to be with you, live with you." He frowned. "But I won't be living in the city any more. The new facility will have a living complex for all of the Avengers, so I guess you'd be there anyways."

Cathryn ran a hand through her hair, tugging her fringe sideways so it wasn't in her eyes. She stepped closer to Steve and put her hand on his arm. "I'm not sure I want to fight all the time," she said, and then rushed on. "I mean, I gave that up years ago, tried to live a quiet life, but then Fury pulled me in for the Chitauri, and then everything went bottoms up when SHIELD fell, and now I just - " she broke off, hugging herself. "I'm not even sure I'm me anymore. I don't know what it was that Hydra did to me with the stuff from the scepter, but I'm different. Something's different, and I don't know what, and that's - I don't know what to do about it, it's not like last time where I knew why and how and - "

Steve ended her rambling by pulling her into a hug. She returned it gladly, turning her head so that she could see the expansive windows and not the mirrors that were set into the corner by the punching bag. "I understand," Steve said.

She didn't think he did, but he had at least gone through something vaguely similar with the serum, even if that had been voluntary.

"We'll figure out what they did," he continued. "And when Banner gets back, he can help. Stark will know some people."

Cathryn relaxed a little. "Thanks," she breathed, squeezing him a little. "I know some people too."

There was a moment of silence, and then, "People like you?"

She gave a little laugh. "Yeah. Hermione. My not-sister." She pulled back a little to look up at him. "You'll like her."

"You mean, meet her?"

"Yeah." She tapped her fingers against his back, leaning back to be able to meet his eyes. "I think," she said quietly, "That it'd be best if we didn't live together, at least not right away," she added quickly as his face closed off a little. "I just - I think we've got too many things to talk about, too many issues to work through to just jump back to where we might've been if none of this had happened."

Steve's arms dropped from around her shoulders, but she didn't let him move away, tightening her arms about his waist.

"A month," she said. "A month of being neighbors - we can even have rooms right next to each other! - and then, if everything's good between us, we can - talk about it again." She blinked up at him, worried that she'd just ruined everything as his silence stretched out. "Steve?"

He closed his eyes and sighed. "Yeah," he agreed, opening his eyes and smiling. It wasn't a very big smile, but it was sincere, and Cathryn relaxed, an answering smile on her face. "I just - I wish things were easier."

Cathryn didn't know how to respond to that. She'd only ever been in one relationship, and that during a war. "Yeah. Me too." She pulled herself a little closer to Steve, who bent towards her. She tilted her face up for the expected kiss, but he stopped, his lips a few inches from her own.

"May I kiss you?" he asked, only half joking.

Instead of answering, she pressed her lips to his, and for the moment (and several moments after), all was well.

A/N: So, that's it for this installment. I already have an outline for the next part, but I have about fifteen other things going on right now, so it will be a while before it's out. I definitely want to see the next Thor movie first because it may effect how I write things.

Thanks for reading!