I stared at myself in the mirror and took a deep breath. Affirmations weren’t my usual style, but today I felt like I needed every little bit of self-confidence I could muster. “You are smart. You are important. You know what you’re doing,” I told my reflection. I was dressed impeccably, once again having taken the opportunity to break out my very expensive red and bck three-piece pantsuit.

  I had a meeting with Secretary Ross today. Well, we had a meeting with him—Natasha was going to be there to represent the Avengers and Rhodey would be there in his capacity as official team liaison—but I was the central figure. The State Department had been trying to corner me for an interview for some time now and the Avengers had been quite helpfully and successfully using the artificial separation we’d cultivated to deflect their requests. They’d pass messages on to me, and I’d just never quite get around to following up. I really didn’t want to have to deal with the US Government if I didn’t have to; I already had enough problems.

  Unfortunately, things had escated to the point where the Secretary of State had stepped in and made some very clear demands of Rhodey—his ass was on the line if I didn’t show up to a meeting, so I’d finally agreed to one. It wasn’t until a date and time had already been set that we found out that Ross actually wanted to talk to me himself, rather than delegating to an underling.

  God, Ross. What a fucking cunt. How many of the problems of the MCU could have been avoided if Thaddeus E. ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross had never existed?

  You know what? No. Fuck that basic affirmation bullshit. How about… I reached up and undid the top button of my shirt. “You are hot,” I said to myself, then frowned a little and kept going until every button above my scoop-front vest was undone and I was showing an extremely unprofessional amount of cleavage and bck cy bra. “You are scary. And you are not going to let Ross fuck with you today.”

  Better.

  Nat and I had had a preliminary discussion about the meeting, of course. She’d advised that it’d be best to keep my answers short and to the point, said that it’d be best not to reveal anything about my knowledge of the future that hadn’t already been cleared through Rhodey, and told me there was no point in needlessly antagonising Ross. She was right, to a degree, but I needed to not be a pushover, either. I wasn’t under his authority, and I wouldn’t pretend like I was to massage his ego. Rhodey, in particur, was almost certainly not going to be happy with the way I was pnning on asserting myself if it came down to it. I was coming to this meeting fully prepared to have a vein-popping shouting match with Ross if I had to.

  Once I was sure I was ready, I spun up a portal to the Avengers’ wn and stepped through. Natasha had gone ahead over an hour ago—she had some other meeting to deal with before the one with Ross—so I had been left to my own devices. She’d asked me to make sure I was ready in the main common area at least half an hour before the meeting, for a pre-brief with her and Rhodey, to which I’d grudgingly agreed.

  I made my way into the central building of the compound, heading up the stairs to the common area. Sam was the only other person around—I gave him a little wave. “Hey, Sam. How’s things?”

  “Oh, hey Wanda.” I was pleased to see his eyes momentarily flicker to my chest before he casually pyed it off. “Things’re good. Keeping it light today. Hear you’ve got a meeting with the Big Man?”

  “Ugh.” I stepped up to the kitchen isnd as Sam turned the kettle on. “Yeah. Really not looking forward to this, but it’s gotta be done, I guess.”

  “You’ll be fine. Just… try not to cause another international incident, yeah? Tea?” he asked. As he spoke, he pulled out his phone, tapping out a quick message to someone before putting it away again.

  I grinned. “Always.”

  Sam retrieved two mugs and my expression started to fade as I watched him make two cups of tea. He put the tea bags in the mugs, then a teaspoon of sugar—he didn’t ask, he’d made me tea before, I’d just never actually watched him do it—in the mug. With the tea bag. My eyes widened, though I didn’t say anything at first. The kettle finished boiling, he put in the water, then immediately put in the milk.

  “I liked you, Sam,” I said to him quietly, staring. “But now I know you’re a fucking psychopath.”

  He paused. “Uh?”

  “Okay, if it was just bag, water, sugar? I get that. Don’t let the bag steep a little before putting in the milk? Fine. Okay. Not everyone needs to make tea the same way I do.” I raised my hands, gesturing emphatically. “But the sugar before the water? That’s actually deranged.”

  Sam looked a little nonplussed. “The sugar sits at the top if you put it in after the water.”

  I stared at him ftly for a moment. With a flick of my wrist, red wisps of magic set a third mug down and filled it with water from the kettle. Leaning forward over the counter, I reached over to scoop out a spoonful of sugar and dumped it in the water. It sank and started to dissolve instantly. I swirled the spoon in the mug, once, to further prove my point. Still leaning over the counter, I shot Sam a deliberate, questioning look.

  “Okay, well,” Sam gave a defensive little shrug. With the way I was leaning over, he was visibly struggling to maintain eye contact. “It’s just the way I do things. Do you want your tea or not?”

  Without stopping staring at him, I reached over and slid the mug he’d made for me over to my side of the counter before straightening up. “It’s not the tea’s fault that it was made this way.” I cupped my hand over the top of the mug, like I was patting it comfortingly, and spoke to it in soft tones. “It’s okay. I’m here. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  Sam chuckled, shaking his head. He jiggled his teabag, using the spoon to agitate it further before squeezing it out against the side of the mug and taking it out. “I gotta go,” he said, smiling as though this was all a big joke and I wasn’t completely serious. “I’ll catch you ter.”

  I gred at him a little bit as he left, then drank my tea. By the time I was finished, I was starting to wonder where everyone was. Checking my phone, I noticed that it was already several minutes past the time Nat had asked me to be here by—where were she and Rhodey? It was unusual for her to be te for a pre-briefing, especially considering the nature of the upcoming meeting.

  Then again, I wasn’t even really sure what they wanted to talk about in the pre-brief. I didn’t think there was really that much we could discuss beforehand that we hadn’t gone over already, but I had been given a copy of the current draft of the legistion that was being worked up via the Special Joint Committee on Enhanced Security and Oversight, just in case the topic came up: they were calling it the Enhanced Anti-Terrorism Bill. I’d read it over and really wasn’t impressed. Nat had assured me it was still a work in progress, but I wasn’t feeling overly optimistic. I could see that the government was making some concessions, but still, the most I could say about it was that it seemed a little better than the Sokovia Accords had been.

  “—and up here is the main common area; it’s sort of a combined kitchen, lounge, library and low-impact meeting room all in one.” Natasha’s voice preceded her as she walked up the stairs and I turned to look—it sounded like she was giving someone a tour.

  My eyes widened fractionally as I saw who she was escorting: It was fucking Darcy Lewis. The scientist was dressed casually in dark jeans and a hooded jacket, a bck-and-white woollen scarf around her neck, bck-framed gsses perched on her nose, and a grey beanie over the slightly-messy waves of her long, dark hair.

  I straightened and turned toward them as they walked into the common area, suddenly incredibly self-conscious about how I looked. Was the suit too much? Oh, god, my shirt was hanging half-open. Was that the sort of first impression I wanted to make? For some reason, it had seemed like such a good way of asserting dominance in my meeting with Ross, but right now I couldn’t work out why I’d thought that. Too te now—it’d be weird if I hastily tried to button myself up. Better to just roll with it. I swallowed my sudden nerves and greeted them with a smile and a small wave.

  Nat returned my smile—it might have been my imagination, but I thought she looked quite pleased with herself—and the pair of them walked up to me. “Darcy, Wanda Maximoff. Wanda, this is Dr Darcy Lewis.”

  “I, uh, yeah,” I stumbled a little over my words as Darcy offered her hand and I shook it lightly. “It’s really nice to finally meet you, Dr Lewis.”

  A warm smile lit up her face and she crinkled her nose a little. “Ugh, just Darcy’s fine. It’s nice meeting you, too!”

  “It’s… Sorry, this is just a surprise. I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I said, my eyes flicking briefly back over to Nat, but she was maintaining an impeccable poker face.

  Darcy looked a tiny bit puzzled. “Uh, okay… Should you have?” She looked at Natasha as well.

  “Wanda’s actually the one who pushed for us to reach out to you and make the offer,” Nat crified.

  “Oh!” Darcy perked up a little, tilting her head to one side. “Cool! Appreciate it. Yeah, I’m not really sure if the job’s for me, but it’s hard to pass up a chance to work with the Avengers, you know?” She paused, big blue eyes searching my expression for a moment. “We haven’t actually met before, though, have we?”

  “No, I just, uh… There are a few projects going on that I thought could benefit from your insight. I’m a big fan of your work.”

  That st statement seemed to surprise her a little, her lips quirked up in a pleased smile. “Really?”

  “Well, I mean, honestly I mostly just mean the stuff you did with Thor, Dr Foster and Dr Selvig,” I said hastily, filing a little bit as I tried to recover. I had no idea what sort of work Darcy had been doing since then, only that she’d gotten a doctorate in astrophysics. “How long are you in New York?” I changed the subject a little awkwardly.

  “I dunno yet,” she said with a small shrug. “They’ve put me up in a guest room here for today and tonight—I’ve got a meeting with the other science-types tomorrow to see if I’d be a good fit for the team, but after that? Eh. Depends.”

  “Sorry to cut this a bit short, but we do have that meeting to get to,” Nat interrupted gently.

  “Oh, yeah, you said! Sorry, I’ll get out of your hair.” Darcy looked at me again and grinned. God, those eyes.

  “If you do get some time,” I said, trying—and maybe failing a tiny little bit—to keep my tone mostly casual. “I’d love to have a bit of a chat, maybe over coffee or something? If you want.”

  Darcy nodded. “Uh, sure,” she said, a slight smile quirking her lips. “That’d be cool.”

  I froze for a moment as my brain came up completely bnk as to how to coordinate that. Should I ask for her number? Should I give her my number?

  Nat rescued me smoothly, as though there hadn’t been a slightly-awkward pause at all. “I’ll pass Wanda’s number to you, so you can touch base when you know what you’re doing.”

  “Thanks.” Darcy gave me another bright smile. “I’ll see you around, then!”

  “Looking forward to it,” I said.

  “I’ll just take Darcy back downstairs,” Nat said. “Back in a couple of minutes.”

  It might’ve just been my imagination or wishful thinking, but I thought that Darcy shot me one st quick look before she headed down the stairs, out of sight. I went over our conversation in my head, trying to work out how badly I’d managed to flub things.

  When Nat returned, she walked up and gave me a small kiss on the cheek, standing close. I folded my arms and shot her an unimpressed look. “That was sneaky, Nat. I see through your little games.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said innocently, though her eyes twinkled with amusement. At my expression, she gave a small shrug. “I might have shuffled some things around a little, but it was mostly just convenient timing. Dr Lewis just came from a conference in Washington, so she wasn’t too far away. It didn’t take much convincing to get her to come visit the compound.”

  I bit my lip. “Do you think she’ll take the job?”

  “She’s been putting on a little bit of show about having some reservations, but reading between the lines I think it’s basically a lock, so long as her ‘interview’ with Tony and Bruce goes well tomorrow. Which I’m pretty sure it will.”

  I exhaled, long and loud, then shot her a dubious look, feeling a rising bit of stubbornness. “Do you really think that you can just dangle a pair of double?Ds in front of me to put me in a good mood when you want me to behave myself?”

  Nat shot me a sceptical look straight back, the corners of her mouth quirking upward. “First, point of order, they are at least triple-Ds—hard to get an accurate read under that jacket, though.” As she spoke, she reached up and started to try to do up one of the buttons on my shirt. I stopped her, firmly grasping her hands in mine. “Second, yes, I absolutely do. Third… I did a little bit of checking. Dr Lewis is currently single and she had a girlfriend for a year and a half when she was in college.”

  My eyes widened and I made an unintelligible noise in the back of my throat. “Rreee-hee-hee-heeaaaallll-lyyy?” I stretched the word out as I stared off into the distance for a moment.

  Nat tried to extricate her hands from mine, but I held her firm. She raised her eyebrows. “Wanda, speaking of boobs—yours are practically hanging out. Can I please do up at least one button?”

  I cleared my throat. “Maybe I like having my boobs out.”

  “I know you do,” she said with a small snort of amusement. “And they are very nice; I just don’t think ‘having your boobs out’ is going to help in there. Secretary Ross is a bit… old-school. He’s not going to take you seriously.”

  “Fine… one button.”

  “Thank you,” Nat said as I let go of her hands and she buttoned me up. “When I was talking to Dr Lewis, there was actually an opportunity to casually mention the fact that we’re in an open retionship, too. Did I mention that her college girlfriend was a redhead?”

  I started cackling madly for a moment. I couldn’t help it. “Oh my god,” I choked out. “I love you so much. This is… God, you’re good at this. I know exactly what you’re doing and you’re still managing to pull this off, somehow. You’re…”

  “A highly-trained master spy and social maniputor?” she supplied. “Yes, thanks for noticing. So, are you going to be a good girl in our meeting with Secretary Ross? Be nice?” Her hands lingered at the front of my shirt, fingers absently tracing a small circle on my exposed skin.

  “Augh,” I said, jaw working for a moment as I tried to wipe the massive smile off my face. “When you say ‘be nice’, do you mean ‘pleasant’, or do you mean ‘hit him with a whole bunch of zingers that make everyone else go ‘nice!’?”

  She gave me another Look. “The first one,” she said patiently. “I know this is going to be a tricky conversation and things might get heated, just… please don’t go out of your way to be petty in there.”

  “Nat, you know I never go out of my way to be petty,” I corrected her. “It always just happens to be directly on my route.”

  --

  “Did you get a chance to look over the draft Bill, in case the details come up?” Rhodey asked. He was trying to keep his tone fairly light, but there was still clearly a degree of underlying tension there.

  We hadn’t had to wait long for Rhodey to join us. There hadn’t actually been a pre-brief, of course—the whole thing had been Nat just making sure I’d be in position for Darcy’s visit—but we still managed to sit down in the briefing room a good fifteen minutes early, so there was time to have a bit of a pre-meeting discussion before Ross hologrammed in.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It sucks.”

  Just as the Sokovia Accords had sought to leash the Avengers and make them report to the United Nations Security Council, the Enhanced Anti-Terrorism Bill was trying to fold the Avengers into an official arm of the US Federal Government, forcing them to operate under SWORD’s oversight. Even thinking about SWORD had me clenching my fists, trying to suppress a visceral rush of hatred. Intellectually, I knew that Hayward wasn’t the Director there yet—Maria Rambeau was still in charge, thankfully, and hopefully my warning through Carol meant she was going to live a lot longer than she had in the original timeline. With any luck, that would mean working with SWORD wouldn’t necessarily be that bad, but still, I instinctively distrusted anything that gave the US Government more control over the Avengers. SHIELD had been US Government, after all, and look at what had happened there.

  Nat reached over to touch the back of my hand, a small fsh of sympathy in her eyes, and I forced myself to unclench my fists. When I found out about the push to get the Avengers under SWORD’s oversight, I’d told her exactly what had happened with Vision and Hayward, so she already knew how I felt about it.

  I was happy that, at the very least, the Avengers had managed to gently guide the legistion away from mandatory registration of all Enhanced individuals. There was still opt-in registration and even some incentives to encourage it, but Ross had apparently drawn a hard line when it came to unregistered Enhanced who committed a crime using their abilities—they’d face enhanced sentencing and prosecution under a new federal statute.

  Rhodey winced a little. “The Bill’s still a work in progress—it’s far from final. It’s still better than something like this coming through and blindsiding us,” he hedged, his lips pressing into a thin line. “It’s a really good thing we got ahead of it. We’d have been scrambling to catch up if they’d drafted it on their own.”

  “And the only reason we were able to do that,” Nat said gently. “Was because you warned us it—or something like it—was coming.”

  Rhodey gave a small nod of agreement.

  “Yeah…” I said, though I still wasn’t convinced this was that much of a better situation than the original timeline.

  “We’ve still got a few minutes before Ross is due to dial in. Did you have any questions about the draft Bill?” Rhodey asked.

  “Just the one.” I’d been preparing for this. Something had occurred to me when I’d been reading through the Bill st night, and I’d been holding onto it since then. “The Enhanced Anti-Terrorism Bill. If it gets passed, it becomes an Act, right?”

  Rhodey frowned, looking a little confused at the angle of my question. “Uh, yeah?”

  “So, if it passes, it’d be E-A-T-A. EATA. Right?” I fixed him with a very serious look. “Rhodey, this is very important: Has anyone told Secretary Ross that he can go EATA dick yet?”

  Rhodey and Natasha exchanged a gnce, him raising his eyebrows and flicking his head slightly as if to say ‘can you please control your girlfriend?’ and her giving a small, tired smile and shrug in response, as if to say ‘would if I could’.

  “Have you thought about letting Natasha do most of the talking?” Rhodey suggested.

  I shook my head. “You know as well as I do that would be a bad idea. If Nat’s constantly speaking for me, it brings the level of separation between the Avengers and me into question. Plus, the absolute st thing we want to have happen is for him to bring up our personal retionship.”

  “I know,” he said with a sigh, shoulders slumping slightly. “I just… This is going to go badly.”

  “Probably,” I said with a small nod. “But hey, it could be worse. Tony could be here, too.”

  That, at least, elicited a wry smile from him. “Can you at least try to be on your best behaviour?”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, looking at him regretfully. “I already promised other people that I would be on my worst behaviour. And I gave them my word, so…”

  “Wanda,” Nat said warningly, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Don’t tease Rhodey. He never watched The Office so he doesn’t know you’re quoting it and he’s stressed enough as it is.”

  Shooting her an apologetic smile, I gnced back at Rhodey. “Seriously, though, warning you in advance: I am probably going to be a bit rude to Ross.”

  “But that’s so unlike you,” Nat quipped.

  “Yeah, I can’t imagine you ever pissing anyone off,” Rhodey added, folding his arms and giving me an unimpressed look.

  “I’m not an Avenger and I need Ross to remember that. I’m a significant, strategic-level ally. I know what Ross is like. He’s going to come in acting like he’s giving me orders—try to bully me, browbeat me, control me, just generally be a dick—”

  “—so you’re going to be a dick right back. Show that he can’t just push you around,” Nat said with a small nod. She understood my thought process here, even if her expression said she didn’t entirely agree with my approach.

  “Look, I get it, but you’ve got to learn to be a bit more diplomatic with these things,” Rhodey argued, massaged his temple with the fingers of one hand as he shook his head.

  “The Avengers need to toe certain lines—or at least, make an effort to—so that you can keep operating the way you do,” I said with a small shrug. “But the things we’re dealing with… that I’m trying to deal with? The potential destruction of the entire pnet, threats to the entire universe… it’s so far beyond this petty political bullshit it isn’t funny. I can’t let someone like Ross get in my way.”

  Rhodey sighed, leaning back and looking at the ceiling. “This is going to be a disaster,” he said despondently.