nine : murderer

      LAGOS WAS AN AVERAGE CITY. There were children running around, playing freely in the sun that shone over the littered sidewalks. Elaine wasn't one to like tea, so when she ordered an iced coffee at the small café, she was quite annoyed when they said they only serve tea.

      She sat in the shade under an umbrella, enjoying the relaxation and fresh air around her. She had her EDITH sunglasses on, a gift from Tony. The billion dollar glasses were still in their early stages, but they worked similar to Tony's Iron Man suit.

      She poured six of the yellow sugar packets into her tea before stirring it around with her spoon. She looked over her shoulder, seeing Natasha's face and the back of Wanda's head.

      "All right, what do you see?" Steve asked through the earpieces they were wearing. Elaine and Natasha had been on a few missions to find Rumlow without Wanda, but this time they decided to include her.

      "Standard beat cops." Wanda replied lowly from behind Elaine. "Small station. Quiet street. It's a good target."

      "There's an ATM around the corner, which means?" Steve quizzed.

      Elaine set the metal spoon down on the outdoor table. "Cameras."

      "Both cross streets are one-way." Steve continued.

      "So, compromised escape routes." Wanda finished.

      "Means our guy doesn't care about being seen." Steve stated. Elaine could tell from his tone of voice that he was concentrated. "He isn't afraid to make a mess on the way out. You see that Range Rover halfway up the block?"

      "Yeah, the red one?" Wanda observed. "It's cute."

      "It's also bulletproof, which means private security... which means more guns... which means more headaches for somebody. Probably us." Natasha warned.

      "You guys know we can move things with our minds, right?" Elaine checked, taking a sip of her fruity tea. Too much sugar.

      "Looking over your shoulder needs to be come second nature." Natasha advised as the women each looked over their shoulder, meeting each other's eyes.

      "Anybody ever tell you you're a little paranoid?" Sam's voice asked as he was somewhere on a rooftop.

      "Not to my face." Natasha replied. "Why? Did you hear something?"

      "Eyes on target, folks." Steve interjected, getting everyone back on track. "This is the best lead we've had on Rumlow in six months. I don't want to lose him."

      Sam lightly scoffed. "If he sees us coming, that won't be a problem. He kinda hates us."

      In seconds, there was loud and indistinct shouting, along with the horns of cars honking. Elaine wanted to turn her head, but that means she'd be distracted. She wasn't going to jeopardize this mission.

      "Sam..." Steve's voice called. "see that garbage truck? Tag it."

      There was a few long seconds of silence before Sam spoke again. "That truck's loaded for max weight. And the driver's armed."

      Elaine quickly pieced two and two together. A large and heavy object against a simple concrete barrier? There was no math there. "It's a battering ram." She notified the others.

      "Go now." Steve ordered.

      "What?" Wanda asked.

      "He's not hitting the police." Steve said.

      Elaine and Natasha bolted from their seats, darting over to the cheap motorcycle and hopping on. Natasha was driving as Elaine was in the back, having her hair blow freely behind her. Natasha swerved left and right to get to the Institute For Infectious Diseases.

      "El, now is a really great time for that energy boost!" Natasha shouted, speeding the motorcycle even faster. Elaine made a ball of pure energy before blasting it down onto the motorcycle, having it go even faster.

      "Body armor, AR-15s." Steve warned. "I make seven hostiles."

      There was a long pause of just wind slapping against Elaine and Natasha before they heard Sam's voice. "I make five." and another pause. "Four."

      Elaine could hear the fighting in her earpiece before Steve spoke. "Rumlow has a biological weapon."

      Elaine muttered a curse before she slowed down the motorcycle. "We're on it."

      Elaine and Natasha drove the motorcycle into the parking area before Natasha abruptly slammed the breaks, causing the motorcycle to fly sideways from beneath them and take out the first hostile. The two women were on their feet in the blink of an eye as they ran towards the other hostiles.

      Elaine created a weak ball of electricity and blasted it at one man, allowing Natasha to use him to her advantage and not get electrified. Elaine allowed her fingers to dance as strings of pure energy tightly wrapped around the men in front of her, causing them to face plant into the ground, affectively immobilized.

      Natasha took out three more as Elaine helped, taking down the ones coming at her from behind. She boosted Natasha onto the hood of an armored truck as another hostile came at her. The assassin used one of Elaine's electrified discs, shocking the man.

      As Elaine turned around, she saw Rumlow attack Natasha from behind before she used one of the magnified electricity shockers, jamming it into Rumlow's neck. Although the amount of volts in it should've knocked the man unconscious, it did nothing.

      While Elaine was distracted, she felt something jab her in the back, and she felt the electrified baton send waves of more electricity through her. She rolled her eyes before turning around, facing the confused man before grabbing his wrist and jolting it upwards. He dropped the electrified baton, and Elaine easily caught it before she jabbed him in the neck with it.

      Elaine heard an explosion behind her and saw Natasha flying out. Elaine reached her hands forward, allowing her powers to wrap around Natasha and soften her fall.

      As Steve, Sam, and Natasha went after Rumlow, Elaine helped Wanda with getting the gas out.

      "Wanda, you can't send it up out of the Earth. If that stuff gets into the atmosphere, it'll reproduce!" Elaine shouted.

      Wanda looked over to her sister. "Then what the hell are we going to do with it?"

      Elaine thought for a moment. The gas had organic ingredients, meaning it wasn't man made. If it wasn't man made, the gas could go back into the Earth. "Send it through the Earth! Once it reaches the core, the gas will explode and cause a small earthquake worldwide. Nothing too bad."

      Wanda nodded, using her telekinesis and sending it into the Earth. While Wanda sent the gas to the core, Elaine listened back to what the others were saying.

      "Payload secure." Natasha's voice said. "Thanks, Sam."

      "Don't thank me." Sam said.

      "I'm not thanking that thing." Natasha dismissed.

      "His name is Redwing." Elaine could hear the smirk in his voice.

      "I'm still not thanking it." Natasha refused.

      "He's cute. Go ahead, pet him." Sam jokingly offered.

      Once Wanda nodded, signaling that the gas was gone, Elaine propelled herself into the air, quickly getting to where Steve was. She didn't hear the words Rumlow told Steve that got him so distracted, but when she saw the detonator in his hand, she wrapped her powers around his body the last second when he pressed the red button.

      The bomb exploded in the bubble of pure energy, trapping it inside and burning Rumlow alive in a painful death. She thrusted her hands upward with a yell of exhaustion, sending Rumlow into the air before she felt her powers spark.

      In the one second her concentration broke, her powers had a mind of their own, slamming the trapped bomb with Rumlow into a building, causing the whole side of it to explode, the windows shattering and raining the shards of glass below.

      Elaine paled, her haywire powers finally relaxing as her legs crumbled. She fell to her knees, a shaky had covering her mouth as she heard screaming. She saw her sister kneel in front of her, pushing the hair out of Elaine's face as she couldn't tear her eyes away from the destruction she caused.

      Her hand fell limp by her side, knowing there was people in that building. Humans.

      Elaine Maximoff was a murderer.

▔▔▔▔▔▔

It had been a month since Elaine murdered over fifty people. The news didn't shut up about it, constantly replaying the incident on Elaine's TV. She had locked herself in her room, the only person able to pass being Vision. He brought her food, which she only ate when he was gone.

Steve talked to her through the door sometimes, not wanting to leave Elaine by herself. She appreciated that, how he didn't show her pity, or tell her that it wasn't her fault.

There was yet another news channel reporting on the incident in Lagos, Nigeria. Elaine watched it, hearing every awful word they spoke of her and what she did. She left her door open today, and she felt Steve's presence there before he turned her TV off.

He leaned against her doorway, seeing her side profile. "It's my fault." She numbly said.

"That's not true." Steve immediately dismissed.

"Turn the TV back on." Elaine sighed. "They're being very specific."

"I should've clocked that bomb vest long before you had to deal with it." Steve countered, pushing off the doorway and making his way to her. He sat on the edge of her bed as she turned to face him. "Rumlow said "Bucky", and all of a sudden I was a 16 year old kid again, in Brooklyn. And people died."

Elaine had heard about Bucky from a few months ago when her and Steve's friendship first began to build. "People died because of me. My powers are getting too strong, and a lot harder to control."

"It's on me." Steve finalized.

"It's on both of us." Elaine gave him a sad smile, watching as he looked away from her and to the floor.

"This job..." He trailed off. "We try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody. But if we can't find a way to live with that, then next time... maybe nobody gets saved."

After a long moment, Vision suddenly walked through Elaine's wall. "Vis! We talked about this."

"Yes, but the door was open so I assumed that..." He trailed off, not finishing his explanation. "Captain Rogers wished to know when Mr. Stark was arriving."

Steve nodded. "Thank you. We'll be right down."

Vision pointed to the door where Wanda was waiting with an amused face. "I'll use the door." He paused before leaving. "Oh, and apparently, he's brought a guest."

"We know who it is?" Elaine's soft voice asked.

"The Secretary of State."