ROOM 4203

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐀 𝐁𝐀𝐘 𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒, 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐀𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐄

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Victor didn't know what to expect when he entered the room in which the last of the wand's energy trails had diminished. Someone had activated it mere minutes before he had arrived, obviously having initiated something at a larger scale. When he spotted the crimson liquid and the rusty scent of blood roll of acridly, Victor was at the tip of the iceberg. He had his hands fisted for the impact that awaited him, sensing faint potential fallout still existing within the room. The tables were split, the window was blasted open to let the midnight warmth move in. 

'Victor,' a voice whispered.

It was a haggard Eleanor, the ends of her mauve dress hanging in tatters and gripped between her blood-drenched palms. Her blue eyes were flung wide open, scared and wild. There was blood crusted over her neck and collar and slashes of nails lining her arms, her shoulders shaking as she took his form in. When she stumbled forward, Victor caught her waist and gently steadied her. 

'Hey,' he murmured into her loose hair, 'what happened?'

'It was her,' she said quietly, 'I came in and she tried to—to—'

He felt the warmth of her breath caress his jaw when she pressed her face into his neck. He felt something churn in his stomach when he realized how wrong it was to have her so close and hold her so intimately. Elle only grappled him harder, a hand going around his neck.

Victor whispered hastily. 'We need to get to the roof. The colonel—'

She shushed him softly, a finger traversing down the nape of his neck. To his utter confusion, the hand that clutched the end of her dress had wound around his waist to pull him into her and she held him like he was hers. The blue in her eyes burned like azure fire, coming alight like it were alive. He felt a pull, a want to hold her closer. 

'It's okay,' her whisper was a croon to his ears. 'Look at me.'

Before he knew it, her mouth had claimed his. It was an engaging battle for dominance, inconsequential at the lowest and leapt out of nowhere. He was caught in the moment, a hand going to clasp her cheek and utterly lost between the feel of her smooth lips on his. It hurt him on the inside but it felt so good all at once. 

His hands were guided to her neck, deepening the kiss and slow moan leaving him. His heart hammered, his want increasing and he found himself thinking―Stark, you lucky bastard.

Upon holding the name, his eyes snapped open and blinking himself out of a trance.

'No,' Victor pulled back, the thought of the woman he loved sweeping him off his feet, 'Eleanor, this is so not—'

'Why do you fight it?' Elle whispered, her voice low and strangely seductive. Her lips were set over his cheek and slowly grazing his earlobe. He felt himself lean into her for more, his mind telling him differently. 'You resist all this.'

Muted and confused, Victor willed himself away from her. Knowing it was the right thing to do. Out of pure dread, he ensnared a secretive spell around her and felt the presence of two entities inside the charm he had inducted. His eyes rounded with horror when he saw four wands hang down her back within the twines of her dress and realized the ultimate mishap.

'Eleanor.'

No response.

'Elle.'

Still no response.

'Whitney,' he called. 

Her body stilled between his arms, caught in the act. He felt her move back to showcase the smile on her face, looking more manic than wry. She took a short step back.

This was Elle, for sure. But it was Whitney, too. 

'You're smart, Doom,' she mused. He couldn't comprehend what was occurring even when she spoke up. 'Not smart enough.'

A swift hand reached behind her back to seize a wand but he administered a force-field to stop her from doing so. Using a power nullification spell, he conjured a dark blue bolt of electricity and aimed it straight for the head. She ducked with a grin and used her palm to contract his parried spell into her arms. 

'That's not possible,' he whispered, terrified as she played with the bolts of his spell between her fingers mischievously. Quick to evade her strike of his own spell, he built another force field around him. Without another delay, he cast technopathic control over which ensnared them in a blackened annular form. Elle broke the form with the expansion of her arms.

Tired of aimless fighting, she growled at him and opened a fleeting portal of mystic mist and purple glows of electricity that sucked into the vortex. A warning was administered to him before he could work to break the teleportation charm, vanishing into the hollow.

'Stay away from us.'

∞

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐀 𝐁𝐀𝐘 𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐒𝐊𝐘𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊,

𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐀𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐄

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Twenty ninjas. Twenty fucking ninjas and Rhodey was wearing the best suit he had worn in a while. All the while battling it out with a little girl who stole tech with just her thoughts so, he was pretty abandoned. Oh yeah, his Friday was a blast. 

'Give up, colonel.'

Rhodey caught the sword he had flung in the air as one of them came right for his abdomen, parrying the hit by using the ninja from his back as a human shield. The sword met his fist and he sliced it through them like kebabs on a skewer and disembowelling the machine men. Yanking out the sword with a loud grunt, he pointed it at the girl in the big suit of armour.

'I've fought a sentient cyborg ten times bigger than you,' Rhodey mused. 'This is child's play.'

'We shall see.'

He dodged a repulsor blast from her as he used the shoulders of two ninjas to climb his way up onto the mechanical arm she had efficiently stretched out. Dismantling the swivel gun that was fitted over the right shoulder, he let out a hoot of victory.

'Finally,' he sighed, cocking the pistol. 

After a short reload, he aimed the firearms for the heads of three ninjas nearby and leaping back onto the ground while evading multiple repulsor blasts from Tomoe. Three of them fell dead and he spotted more of the biohack warriors climbing onto the roof and once again surrounding him.

'Give me a break, damn it.' Turning on his basal comms out of fatigue, he tried to connect himself to the prodigal girl who had managed to escape with Margo. 

'Reggie?' He couldn't remember her name. 'Ronnie? Kid, is that you?'

'Uncle Rhodey!' The voice screamed happily.

'Mags?!' He resisted the urge to shriek out, you're alive! He grunted again as he eluded a strike of the sword with his and pushed the katanas out of the warrior's hands. He now honed a sword and a rifle—absolutely delightful. 

'Are you okay?' She asked as Rhodey grunted when he shot a bullet into Tomoe's arm-panels. 

'I'm hella fine,' he sighed. 'So fine that I'm having a blast.'

'Good, because daddy wants to speak to you,' she said swiftly and soon enough, the familiar voice bled through his comms. His mouth twisted to a small, grateful grin.

'You can kiss me later, Rhodeycakes.' 

'I will publicly boot your brainy ass if you don't get down here and fix this, Tones,' Rhodey threatened as he fired a bullet for one of the ninjas who came too close to slicing through his leg. 

'Ease up, you big bully,' he said suavely. 'You've got incoming.'

He hissed. 'Incoming already came in!'

'For gosh's sakes, look up.'

He heard Tomoe yell something in Japanese to the warriors who had already placed their gaze on golden blur of light that was heading right for the roof. The spot got larger in size as it neared its destination and powering a photon blast right for the newly materialized armour. His comms had picked up an establishing channel and permitted it to connect. The spot continued to shift from its discombobulated path and stir in a slender figure in a tight uniform.

'No suit, huh? That's gotta hurt a little.'

He could've recognized that voice and the blast anywhere. She pummelled a kick for Tomoe in the armour and sending her crashing into the ground while lowering nearby with a soft huff. Her blonde cropped hair rested back into position, light eyes shifting to Rhodey with a smirk. 

'Carol fucking Danvers.'

'Say my name as if you mean it, babe,' Carol gleamed at Rhodey, sending him a wink. 

Rhodey shook his head in amusement. Only six months of intimate advances that had gotten him here. In another three months, they'd be celebrating their one year anniversary. Not that he was kitschy enough to remember but it was just that. Carol found it endearing, anyways.

'Did you know I accidentally blasted a guy in the crotch?' Carol mused as she went for a hand-in-hand combat with one of the ninjas who came at her. Rhodey realized the change in her suit, the leather patchwork darkened and she had her old red boots switched out for blue ones. Nevertheless, he thought it looked hot.

'Goddamnit, Carol,' Rhodey chuckled as he knocked a good punch into the chest of one of the ninjas. He reeled back, taking two more down with him.

'Seven times, actually. The poor guy turned blue.'

'Okay, so never casually provoke you. Got it.'

'You can laugh it up,' she said with a grin, tossing the ninja carelessly off the ledge to which his yells vanished into the distance. 'It was a joke.'

'A violent one, at that.'

'You love my nutty gaiety,' she quipped. 

'Providentially,' he said. Another intermittent buzzing in his ear indicated a channel wanting to connect to his. As if Carol felt this too, she looked at him flatly.

'Rhodes, here.'

'Uncle Rhodey, we need you to keep the big suit girl within range,' he heard Margo's voice request to him. Carol had an amused grin on her face. Rhodey mouthed, 'Tony's kid' to which she made a noise of approval. 

'What do you mean, Mags?'

'Daddy and I just configured virus to impact the armours and their systems,' she informed in her typical small voice. Carol was finding it hard to control her laughter to which Rhodey smacked her arm. 'So have her full, I guess.'

'Your word is my command, pipsqueak,' he smirked. 'Keep me posted.'

∞

Meanwhile, on the other end, Margo was freaking out. She was jumpy as she almost bit a hole into her lips and watched Riri bring down the two ninjas who came for them in the hotel corridor, using the base of the extinguishant to knock the last one unconscious.

'Mags,' she heard her father call out, 'don't phase out on me. Come on, chop-chop.'

She nodded at him, releasing her lip from her teeth and forcing her frames up higher. His dim eyes were occupied, watching another panel while glancing at her with a grin. She couldn't type very well yet, using single digits to fix her father's cryptograms.

Contrary to belief, Margo loved to code. She loved the attention to detail and how you recognize stupidity after a good patter. In one of Riri's textbooks, they had told her that coding required strong memory. Well, good thing she had one.

'You are so cool, you know that?'

Margo managed to break out into a grin. It was the first time she was hearing her father say that. He always found her cute or small but he never called her cool. 'You mean it?'

'Course, I do. You're the coolest girl I know.'

Her heart swelled to an extent she didn't know was possible. Courage washed through her like a perfect surfer's wave. With her father's words, she felt like Icarus in the story her mother told her. How he flew so close to the sun until it melted his winds. But in this situation, she felt like it was a better feeling than demise. She was grinning so hard that she heard her father laugh loudly.

'Okay, shortstop, get down from cloud nine and flip the switch.'

In her moment of reverie, Margo failed to realize the command box that had been activated and the bar that was loading the files finally waiting for execution. With palpable tension, she shifted to hit the button.

'Watch out!'

The laptop was knocked out of her hand, with her body being tossed to the side of the glass railing with a tough splat. 

Margo groaned when she rolled to her side and seeing the computer careen at the end of the corridor. Riri smacked the extinguisher over his head at one final resort to stop him. Margo spotted a solitary, glowing sword on the ground. Working fast, she kicked it towards her fighting friend. 'Riri, sword!'

Riri caught it with her feet and grinned. 'Thanks, Mags!'

Pushing the hair out her eyes, she levelled the sword to her eyes. The ninja tilted his head as if mocking her.

' 戦う方法さえ知っていますか？' The warrior said to which Riri blinked in confusion. She looked over her shoulder at Margo for help who only shrugged. ( Do you even know how to fight? )

'JARVIS?' Riri called. She made a noise of realization when he translated it for her. She shrugged again in rebuttal, presenting out a warcry and racing for the ninja. 

'Margo! Hit the button!' Her father yelled at her from the laptop. Scrambling on her knees, Margo crawled past the fighting duo and screeching as one nearly missed her arm. Bracing her hands over her head, she screamed in spurts and dodged the swerves of the clashing swords.

'I. Don't. Know. How. To,' Riri yelled between crashes and parries, 'Fight!'

'You can do it, baby,' her father beckoned for Margo in haste as she continued to creep between them. She shrieked when the end of a sword sliced through her cotton dress. 

Finally, she had managed to escape the battling duo and stretching out for the laptop. Rubbing a hand down her face, she looked to the keyboard and searched for the 'enter' button. Upon finding it, she glanced at Riri who had herself in a headlock with the ninja.

'Push it, Mags!' She yelled. 

'Honey, come on!'

With a slow squeeze of her eyes and deep inhale, Margo blindly reached for the button and struck it.

∞

The couple watched as the ninja's visors flickered dead and their suits dulling to a grey as they collapsed to the ground. Almost fifty of the warriors had collectively laid dead around them and some of them short-circuiting as they crumpled to a meaningless biohack mess.

Rhodey pulled Carol away as the formatted suit behind them screeched with the attack of the virus and falling to shreds and panels. A coalition of coloured plates and weapon systems blighted to bolts and Carol let out a small hoot of fatigue as she slumped into his side.

'Woah,' she mused at him. 'The little miss did it.'

'Her parents' daughter,' he sighed. 'She's something else, really.'

'Now, I'm dying to meet her,' she said, her attention lost in seconds when something moved from the mountain of dismounted tech. 

'Can't catch a break,' Rhodey sighed.

A girl, no older than twenty, rose from the tech with her arms and face marred with bruises of her painful fall. She sharpened a katana, similar to the ones her warriors used and her almond eyes narrowing with a sneer. Her pin-straight raven hair was bunched on her head into a topknot and even though seeming like an innocent young lady on the outside, she ran the biggest crime cartel in the world.

'How ya like me now?' 

Two voices sang out in the same screeching tone as occurred in the well-known tune. A loud pitter-patter of footsteps came from the same exit he had seen the two kids depart. Margo and Riri rushed to the colonel's side and stood just as tall as Carol and Rhodey regardless of their loud pants. They shared a quick fist-bump. Margo had a laptop between her arm as she stomped her way forward, exuding confidence. Rhodey held back a scoff of shock.

'You're so screwed, suit lady,' Margo cackled at her. 

'What Lil' Magnum said,' Riri backed her up. 

Tomoe moved forward, slashing her sword in the side and pointing the sizzling tip at Margo's forehead. Rhodey shifted with concern but Tomoe silenced their movements with a slicing look.

'Another move and you will have her head,' she said, staring back at Margo. What surprised Rhodey was the fact that Margo was matching this inhuman's glare with her own. She didn't seem scared the least.

'You,' she said to her, 'are one of Tony Stark's. Aren't you?'

'Wrong,' Margo countered, just as smoothly. 'I am my own.'

'You should've run, little girl.'

Unbeknownst to her, Riri saw her hand-held repulsor unit activate with a gradual stretch of her arms and shoot into her wrist, materializing quickly. Tomoe, denouncing the altered, raised her katana in the air. Margo held the laptop out in hopes of shielding herself from the slash. 

Before she knew it, a pair of blasts had rained down on Tomoe and careening her into the panelled junk had arisen from, unconscious. Carol blew into her fist. Riri called off her repulsors.

'Holy cow,' Margo jumped up with a fist in the air, 'I did it!'

No one had the heart to tell her she didn't, so they let her have her moment. With a proud smile, Margo turned to them. Leaping into Riri's waiting arms, Margo embraced her with a prideful squeal to which the dark-haired genius let out a breath of relief. 

'Are you okay?' Margo asked into Riri's hair.

Riri nodded. 'I'm good. You?'

'Kind of sad,' she replied gloomily. 'Now I have to go home.'

Rhodey and Carol shared a laugh. Carol was the first to step forward and Margo wriggled herself back onto the ground. She looked up at the tall, blonde woman who approached her.

Meanwhile, with Riri's help, Rhodey managed to access JARVIS' mainframe and allow the War Machine armour to be assembled back again. Allowing it to go to sentry mode, he looked back at the interaction between

'That was some solid work, soldier,' Carol said with an amused smile. To play along, she shot her a two-finger salute. 'Captain Carol Danvers.'

'Margo,' she smiled. 'But you can call me Mags.'

'Wow,' Carol grinned at Rhodey, 'I think impressed her too much.'

Meantime, Margo looked between Rhodey and Carol with the familiar, prankish gleam in her eyes. The colonel, frightened for his relationship, made a slicing motion on his neck. Margo interlaced two fingers together with a questioning look. Rhodey nodded. Margo sized her up with an impressed smile and made an 'okay' gesture as if accepting her.

'I'm standing right here,' Carol sighed. 'God, Rhodes, you're a dork.'

'I'm your—'

Carol glared, cutting in. 'Remember the crotch story?'

Rhodey resisted the urge to cup the space between his legs in panic. He nervously smiled at her who continued to glare at him.

'Yep. Got it.'

∞

[ how much ever I love valkarol, carol and rhodey are god-tier. if I'm incorporating comics, bitch I ain't leaving no stone unturned. and ANYONE ELSE FREAKING OUT OVER THAT KISS? ]

edited!