Leipzig, Germany
Leipzig Airport
2:21 p.m.
“Star, I got Clint and Wanda making a run for it. You see ‘em?” Stark asked, firing off several missiles from his shoulder pads. The missiles shot downwards with small trails of fire and smoke following them. They impacted the ground and vehicles near the two, cutting off their escape. Both Clint and Wanda recoiled from the explosions, backing away and turning their attention upwards.
Tony could see as a third blip appeared on his HUD, revealing Starlight teleport near the aftermath of the explosion, also cutting off Clint and Wanda’s escape. He could see her nod, pressing down on her right ear. “Yeah, I got them. On you,” she replied.
With Starlight waiting on the sidelines, Tony hovered in, his arm outstretched so the two below him could definitely see the light of the repulsor. They watched him descend, holding their ground. With his palm aimed towards them, ready to fire at a moment’s notice, Stark zeroed his HUD on Maximoff.
“Wanda, I think you hurt Vision’s feelings,” Tony told her. “That wasn’t very nice.”
She was dressed in her standard Avengers attire. Her long, red coat covered her zipper corset, a necklace around her neck. Obviously. She also had black leather leggings, boots, and red gloves. Her eyes held no comfort, just agitation for the man hovering several feet ahead of her.
She glared at Stark, saying, “You two locked me in my room.”
“That’s an exaggeration, Wanda. I did it to protect you,” Tony said. Turning away from Wanda’s growing frown, he centered his gaze on Barton, who had an arrow already at the ready. Just a second was he needed to send an arrow right between Tony’s eyes. “Hey, Clint.”
“Yeah, hey, man,” Barton said, nodding his way.
“I’d love to stay and chat all day, but we only have a few hours left to bring you all in so… can you help a brother out?” Tony asked. He could see the incredulous looks on each of their faces, but before they could respond, Tony quickly backed up his statement. “I mean, you’re surrounded and out-gunned.”
At that, Clint and Wanda finally turned their neck around to see Starlight blocking their path. She stamped her hoof in the ground, snorting and charging her horn. “I wouldn’t even try it, Mr. Barton,” she told him, eyes lingering to his hand on the quiver.
Clint sighed at seeing Starlight act so hostile towards them. He could remember sharing a drink with the mare a while back at the facility. “You got a pretty powerful magic user?” he asked, seeing Starlight smirk his way. Clint smiled, turning back to face Stark and the repulsor light aimed his way. “Yeah, I got me one of those.”
He quickly fired off the arrow he had ready, but Stark blew it out of the sky just as fast. “Yeah, but you still don’t stack up well against the old iron,” Tony said to him, his voice, of course, cocky and knowing.
Barton matched it well with his own. “I won’t have to.”
Before Tony could even react fast enough, the cars lined up in the garage behind him began to fall, all at once. Stark turned and fired off a few repulsor beams, hitting a few but failing to hit them all. He noticed a red haze surrounding each car, Wanda’s nearly-silent grunts growing behind him.
As the cars fell, Clint whipped out a second arrow and spun completely around, firing it in Starlight’s direction. The unicorn yelped, bringing up a magical shield to protect her front. However, Clint’s arrow impacted the ground in front of her, Starlight raising a curious brow before a frown replaced it. She charged up her horn, her shield dissipating, just in time to see Barton smirk her way. To Starlight’s surprise, the arrow shot out an electric current towards the only living thing in its proximity, which unfortunately turned out to be Starlight.
The mare flinched, yelping in pain as the electricity stopped her dead in her tracks. Knowing the electric current wouldn’t kill her, Clint turned back to see the cars topple up and crush Tony, his body hidden within the pile of cars. He groaned at the heavy weight on his back.
“Our armor has remained intact,” Homer told Stark, who only grunted in response. “Should I order a chiropractor appointment later this afternoon?”
“No,” Stark mumbled, rolling his eyes. “We gotta work on your attitude, smart-ass.”
“Just helping, sir.”
Once the cars stopped falling, Wanda turned to Clint and lowered her hands, nodding his way. He nodded back, spinning around alongside Maximoff to make a break for it. They stopped again, however, when their eyes landed on Starlight Glimmer. Her horn lit up, firing and blowing apart Clint’s arrow embedded in the cement ahead of her. Doing so cut off the electric current, freeing her.
Starlight stamped her hooves out in front of her, stating her dominance like a rabid animal. “Not so fast!” she yelled, expression now etched into a furious frown.
“Starlight, out of our way,” Wanda breathed, her chest rising and falling. Just seeing the mare she considered a friend just yesterday now willing to stand against her was rough. It hurt, but it didn’t keep her down. “We don’t want to fight you.”
As if it brought any form of calming resolution to Wanda, which it barely did, Starlight shook her head. “Neither do I,” she said, her horn quickly igniting, “but you’ve aided a wanted criminal and are therefore guilty, so unfortunately I’m going to have to take you both in.”
“What are you, the police now?” Clint asked, pulling out a fresh arrow and placing it in his bow. Starlight bent down, anticipating the shot. Her horn glowed even brighter. “Oh, I forgot, you’re Stark’s left-hand mare, second only to Twilight.”
Starlight pursed her lips at that comment, shaking her head. She grumbled something incoherent, probably trying to calm herself down, and said as calmly as she could, “I apologize for this, Mr. Barton.” She took a step forward. Clint tightened his palm around the arrow. “For all its worth, I’m glad we got off on the right foot.”
Clint barely smiled, nodding her way. “Yeah, same.”
She didn’t waste another second to fire off her first spell. Barton tried to fire off his arrow—another electric bolt—but didn’t let it go in time. The spell hit him right in the chest, knocking him flat on his back. Wanda turned around, gasping. Clint gritted his teeth and arched his back, still alive and still moving.
Wanda could hear the sound of another spell charging, the sound of Starlight’s voice behind her saying, “Wanda, please, for your own safety—”
“Don’t tell me about ‘safety’,” she snarled, whipping back towards the mare. She scoffed, shaking her head at the unicorn slowly approaching her. “Stark and Vision keep me locked up and allow you to run free? Get out of my way, Glimmer.”
Starlight shook her head, stepping closer and closer to the enraged Maximoff. “I can’t do that, Wanda. It’s for your own good.” What she said next, however, caught Starlight heart, stabbing it with a cold ice pick.
“Putting you away in a jail cell back in Equestria would have been for your own good, yet here you are,” Wanda said, her fingers twirling, a red haze circling her palms.
The words hit her like ice, so fast, so unpredictable, and so, so deadly. Starlight almost snapped. It felt like it when she unloaded spell after spell onto Wanda, each one a paralysis, not a regular spell like the one she used on Clint. She wanted to end the confrontation quickly before it got out of hoof. Unfortunately for her, Wanda wasn’t going to comply that easily.
With every spell sent her way, Wanda flicked her palms out in front of her, a red shield emerging out of nothing and blocking the spells before they got too close. Starlight waved her neck back and forth, up and down, sending spell after spell after spell, and every time Wanda blocked it. Finally, she stopped, a small bit of smoke drifting from her horn’s tip, and her heavy breathing accompanying the approaching silence.
But the moment she stopped, Wanda frowned and tightened her fingers. Starlight gulped. The Maximoff was the one moving forward now, shooting out her arms, grunting and crying out with each wave of her hand towards the unicorn. Waves of red lashed out and struck Starlight. The unicorn did her best to block the oncoming strikes with a few magical shields, but in the end she just couldn’t handle the onslaught. It didn’t help that Wanda wouldn’t let up.
She screamed, bringing up her hands and slamming them down. A gust of red washed across the cement, impacting Starlight in full-blast and blowing the unicorn several yards back. She rolled to a stop, her chest still rising, her breathing still heard, though a tad ragged.
Wanda didn’t stay to see her stand back up. “Come on, Clint!” she said, turning his way and running off.
“Nice work!” Clint grunted, pushing himself up and hobbling right after her. “Good job!”
2:25 p.m.
Fluttershy flew as far away and as fast as she could from the battle below. The second Steve gave the signal, she knew it was now or never. She never wanted to fight her friends, so she decided now was good time to help Bucky and direct him to the Quinjet. It was the perfect opportunity to get him out of harm’s way. It was also a good opportunity to not have to fight any of her…
Fluttershy’s expression fell apart at the thought, the wind blowing her mane far passed her body or her beating wings. She dreaded the idea. She actually… hated the idea of having to fight her best friends. She didn’t want to believe it was actually possible to do so, but after witnessing Rainbow Dash being the first to charge into the fight and attack Twilight, well it almost too much for Fluttershy to stand. So, she flew.
She knew she wasn’t a fighter. Even against such terrifying, awful monsters back in Equestria, she always had her friends by her side to do the punching, kicking, and every terrible thing that came with fighting. But not her. Fluttershy did all she could except raise her hooves. She used her Stare, she stood up bravely and talked down to the awful monsters that tried to hurt her friends, just like that dragon so long ago.
So… was this any different?
Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Spike were some of her best friends. She wouldn’t let them down, or leave them to have deal with the problem on their own. But then again, Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, and Starlight were also her… best friends. Fluttershy cried out, hooves pressed to her head, tears leaking from her tightly-shut eyelids.
This shouldn’t be happening! Friends shouldn’t fight one another! Even when they disagreed on something, there was no need for violence to solve the problem. That was mostly the case for Equestria. Then again… they weren’t in Equestria. They were on Earth, a planet with entirely different rules, where violence isn’t as frowned upon as it is on Equus. The thought of that brought Fluttershy to even more tears.
She flew away. She flew and flew, closer to the terminal, closer to helping Bucky. Closer to ending this war. Behind her, she could her the rabid cries of her closest friends flying, punching, and doing Celestia knows what to one another. Every cry punched her heart, every scream hurt her in ways she couldn’t imagine. As she flew further and further away, she almost turned back, the cries nearly breaking her.
Should she help her friends... only to fight her friends? It was a thought she wouldn’t dare ask herself again, the idea almost alien to her. She couldn’t fight her friends! Then again… she couldn’t abandon them either.
A terrible roar erupted from the terminal. The terminal! Fluttershy gasped, wiping her eyes free from the tears to gaze down to the terminal beneath her. She shot downwards, stopping just in front of the glass windows lining the walls. She could see from the inside, far, far down the terminal and there was Bucky and Sam. She almost missed the red and blue figure swinging throughout the terminal, dodging rockets fired by Sam.
He was going for them! Whoever he was, he was trying to hurt her friends. Fluttershy frowned, finding the nearest smashed window and flying right through it. She entered the surrounding chaos quite easily, already approaching the multicolored figure’s backside. She was so close she could make out the large, red spider on his back.
“Now, you listen to me, mister—!”
Fluttershy’s voice was drowned out when the figure spun around. The first thing Fluttershy saw was his mask, and it was so surprising it caught her off-guard and froze her mid-air. His white eyes grew even larger, his palms shooting out right for her.
“Look out!” he said, and shot two strands of webbing. They latched themselves to Fluttershy’s chest, the mare yelping in shock as he pulled her right for him.
With the pony safely in his grasp, Spider-Man leapt off the support beam just as the terminal’s information stand/map impacted where he just stood. The assailant, Bucky Barnes, instantly lost all the color in his face, having realized the information pillar would have struck Fluttershy. She wasn’t there before he threw it, so how did she get there so—
“Hey, buddy, over here!”
Turning in the direction stupidly, Bucky was met with a strand of webbing hitting him right in the face. He pried at the sticky substance with both hands, roaring incoherent words and stumbling around like a madman. While the Winter Soldier almost tripped over himself trying to get the webbing off, Spider-Man rolled to a stop, resting on one knee.
He breathed a sigh of relief, finally looking down to the mare in his arms. “You all right?” he asked. “That would’ve been pretty nasty.”
Fluttershy shook like a leaf in the young man’s surprisingly powerful arms. She couldn’t help it. After seeing the information map do the type of damage to the ceiling and support beam, the thought of what it would have done to her had he not grabbed her in time…
Fluttershy didn’t answer. Spider-Man shook his head and placed her down like a toddler, even holding his pointing finger out to her like he would to a toddler. “Now stay here,” he told her, Fluttershy’s breathing finally slowing down. “There’s some bad guys I gotta take care of.”
The bad guys he was referring to was Bucky and Sam, what with his intended direction being right towards them. Fluttershy shook her head, trying to shake away the shell shock, which was not so easily done. She shot her hoof out, yelling, “No, wait! You can’t!”
But he was already gone, trailing fast behind the Falcon. He shot web after web at the ceiling, pushing him forward and closer to his target. When he was several feet above him, Spider-Man bent down and fired a single strand of webbing into the Falcon’s jet pack. Sam spun his neck around, watched as his wings began to fidget out of control until his jet pack eventually gave out. He screamed, falling and crashing into a glass information pillar.
Sam quickly rolled to his feet. He looked up, then to his left to see Bucky come rushing forward, strands of web still visible on the side of his face. They both readied themselves for the Spider-Man, holding up their fists and watching him come swinging their way. Unfortunately for them, they hadn’t prepared for more web attacks. Spider-Man shot out a large strand, the entire web covering Sam’s torso and arms. He shot out a second strand, this one simply covering Bucky’s metal fist. It was just enough to distract them and keep them immobile as he drove his feet into both men, sending them crashing through the glass railing and falling to the floor below.
Thankfully for them, it wasn’t too much of a fall. Both men landed with just a grunt coming from each. As they rolled in the broken glass, their chests arching upwards from the rising pain of the impact, they looked up to the Spider-Man leaning his head over the edge.
Spider-Man nodded his head, saying, “Look, guys, this was really fun, but I only really need Barnes. So… sorry, Falcon, sir.”
He pointed his palm towards Sam, his middle and ring finger almost pressed into his palm. He stopped, however, when he heard that delicate little voice appear from behind him. “Stop right there!”
Spinning around, Spider-Man lowered his arm, both of his hands choosing instead to rest on his hips. Fluttershy approached him, a look on her face that tried to look intimidating, but failed and only looked adorable. Well, to Peter it did.
Spider-Man snapped his fingers, taking a step forward. “You must be with Captain America’s group, right?” he asked, white eyes narrowing.
Fluttershy frowned and nodded. “Yes,” she said, trying her hardest to sound intimidating. Once more, it didn’t seem to work. “Now, if you would please leave and let me tend to my friends, that would be appreciated. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
Peter laughed, falling to one knee and shooting out his hand to rub her head. He rustled up her mane, the mare only frowning at him. After leaving the top of her head a pink mess, he rested that arm on his knee, shaking his head to her. “Aw, that’s so cute,” he told her. “I’m glad you care about me enough, but no offense, I really don’t think you can hurt me.”
Fluttershy just raised a brow. “Oh, I wasn’t talking about me. I was talking about Redwing.”
He stopped chuckling and tilted his head. “Who’s Red—?”
Spider-Man then stopped talking when a small grappling hook attached itself to the arm resting on his knee. His arm. “What the—?” he said, his voice drowned out by the oncoming screams when he was yanked up and off the ground, dragged through the air, flung through a window, and brought down to the cold, hard cement in the outside world.
Fluttershy let loose a sigh of relief. An adversary dealt with without even having to raise a hoof to him. Then again, it wasn’t really her. Still, she helped, and it was a victory Fluttershy would take any day. Her thoughts were interrupted by a pair of familiar voices appearing a floor below her, one asking, “You couldn’t have done that earlier?”
“I hate you so much.”
Galloping forward, Fluttershy stopped just at the edge of the destroyed railing, peeking over to see both Sam and Bucky lying flat on their backs in the crushed glass. She gasped, a hoof rising to cover her mouth. “Oh, my goodness!” she said. “Are you two all right?”
Sam sighed, quickly nodding to the pony several feet above him. “Yeah… Yeah, we’re good. Thanks for the assist, Fluttershy,” he told her, seeing he mare blush lightly at the compliment. Sam grunted, struggling to move within the cocoon Spider-Man gratefully made for him. Out of sticky, tensile webs no less.
“Do you think you can give us a hand here?” Sam asked.
“Hoof,” Bucky corrected him.
Sam sighed again, the back of his head hitting the glass beneath him. “Don’t talk to me.”