CHAPTER 23

A/N: I just want to say thank you all for the crazy support so far. It's been wonderful and fun for me seeing how you all love this story. Tugs at me little heartstrings.

Not to be a bearer of bad news, not that it's that much of one anyway, but I'll be starting my exams soon and while I'll still be posting during the time, I was just wanted to give you guys the heads up in case I end up not posting for a day or two.

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The base was easily taken care of with Pietro covering for all the present members, at least the ones that needed it, while Vision was like an movable object of abstract horror as soon as he stationed himself above the base.

Wanda with her constructs was able to move around the place mostly unimpeded since she was a mutate with both offensive and defensive capabilities that were active at the same time. 

Sam Wilson's battle was completely aerial which was expected from his moniker. The snarky comments and whooping he did at every impossible turn showed just how much of an adrenaline junkie he was. 

Steve, as expected, was quite the fighter and also put on the eye-catching display of putting a whole squadron in the dirt and stepping on them with only a shield in his hand. That thing moved as if it had a mind of its own with the way it ricocheted at seemingly impossible angles and almost always ended up back in Steve's hands. 

Natasha wasn't behind any of them in the mastery of her fighting element. With two completely illegal stun batons and stunners wrapped around her body, her reflexes being quick and stunning, pun not actually intended, perfectly showcased her preferred style of fighting. 

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[Average cumulative combat effectiveness percentage of the group designated 'Avengers' against groups under the tag 'Possible future threats' – 38%] 

This was the conclusion I came to, with the exception of Wanda and her brother, when I watched their fights. 

Thor, Hulk and Stark were the heavy hitters of the group and without them, their average combat prowess was only that of a world class elite strike group. 

The only reason I'm still waiting before the whole revamp I had in mind was because they still haven't gotten the government off their backs.

Once the Accords dies down, my plans to strengthen the Avengers would then come into fruition. 

Why not just do it now? 

For the obvious reason that I'm still on the back foot on who wants to sign and who's against it. And also because most materials I'm in need of are still wanted. 

The main reason for the Accords, from what I've picked up, isn't even about the destruction that happened due to the Avengers interventions but out of insecurity that this unhindered group could turn against them. 

A solid base for fear in a normal scenario but this wasn't it. They just wanted the power to turn the Avengers towards their 'enemies'. It's fucked up even now when I still think about it. 

I landed near the Quinjet with everybody already gathered around and Wanda giving me a stink eye. 

"Did you manage to find something out, Vision?"

"Yes, in fact. There's two members of the Senate and one member of the DoD."

Sam whistled in shock and disbelief while Natasha and Steve looked as if they already expected something of this nature. Pietro and Wanda expressed their thoughts more openly, not too used to things like this. 

"Do you know who they are?" 

"One Rtd. General Williams and Stephen Crowley from the Senate and Theresa Makarov from the Department of Defense."

"Wait, did you just say Williams? Wartface Williams?" Sam asked. He along with Natasha were the most knowledgeable ones among us about the Senate since he was part of a military division while the other was a spy. 

I pulled up Williams profile and it turns out that name wasn't given in spite. He had a good part of his face covered in warts. "Yes. Anything of importance about him?"

Sam crossed his arms with discomfort clear on his face as if he had hoped that this Williams was another person. 

"It's not exactly a secret but Williams is usually on the same page with Ross, agreeing with whatever he says. He's one of the reasons why Ross sometimes acts out of line and jurisdiction without any reproach or demotion. He's basically Ross' stand-in in the Senate." He said.

Ross? Now that's a name I wasn't expecting to hear since what I know says he's rarely been out of a particular military camp for a while now. 

Why would a close associate of Ross take part in alien tech trafficking? Though the guy had a few screw loose and a borderline psychotic obsession streak when it comes to Banner, he was a pretty hardcore General with an 'Absolute justice' point of view. 

I don't think he'd smuggle alien tech for money since his cake of the budget pie is quite big every year. I'd think he'd rather research it than smuggle it. It could also be that this is just Williams' entire doing along with the other two. 

A mental command from me was all it took for the Quinjet to thrum to life as we all stepped in before it took off on its own. 

"Huh, nice trick." Natasha commented. 

'Pull up everything there is of Williams, Crowley and Makarov on the internet.'

[Task generated… Task completed]

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[Later at the Compound] 

I went through every digitally uploaded item there was about the three of them and I was a little surprised that alien tech sells for quite a lot… like a lot. Even more so for the Ultron-droids in pristine conditions that were only missing a power source. That itself was key to Stark's Iron Man armor. 

I swept all through their devices and unearthed everything they've buried throughout the years, even the atrociously cringe sex chats that almost forced me to factory reset my system's memory. 

Ross wasn't entirely a part of this deal gone wrong as he was playing something even nastier – genetic mutation. 

Guess his decade long obsession with Banner still hasn't gone down a bit, and I bet seeing Banner as a free man almost drove him crazy. 

He's been holed up in a military base in Nevada and it was just my luck that I was having a hard time accessing whatever they were doing there. Except there was something that drew my attention to it. 

Genetic mutation. 

I doubt Ross would just settle with whatever small amounts of Banner's DNA, if he had any, and rely solely on it to take his research further. 

Since the advent of Captain America, Ross no longer believed that strongly on the adage of 'he who has the most guns' and started salivating the day he would have his own regent of super soldiers. 

At least that had been the dream before Banner appeared. 

Banner's accident stoked Ross' ambitions to a vastly greater height than anything the man had ever dreamed possible. 

What guns? What missile? What tank? 

Even if assigned a whole battalion of those, none of them could compare to a single Hulk. 

He thought he'd won the gambit with Blonsky but the idiot turned too greedy with power and he was now imprisoned in a special facility that had had a special remodeling, courtesy of Tony Stark, to hold the monster in should he try to escape. Out of Ross' reach. 

With none of these resources available to him, he'd have to resort to the extreme ways he's infamously known for. 

Mutants. 

There have been quite a number of speculations concerning the new sub-human species but most of the public didn't even know of their existence until recently, especially after the Chitauri Invasion. 

They were pretty low-key but that didn't mean someone of Ross' caliber didn't know about them. 

Fucking complications. 

Honestly, the more I deal with the arising complications the more I just want to say 'fuck it' and nuke somewhere and have people just leave me alone and chill the fuck out. 

For all that I know, Ross could be down there getting a mutate boost or maybe he was about to Hulk out, who knows? 

It would have been very easy if I just uploaded their dirty schemes and secrets but politics were all about profits and benefits, and me doing that is bound to put the whole of America's parliament inside a hot pot and once it comes to a scenario like that, all they needed to say was – It's all fake – and with it everything is rendered moot. 

Videos and evidence could be fabricated and all they needed was a stupid reason to refute it and that's what the newspaper will run and not to mention how the public will guzzle everything up as if they were particularly thirsty about it. 

Springing everything on them at once is bound to cause some repercussions and that's not to mention that my nature was still under debate. And if I exposed all of them like that, instead of it being against corrupt officials, it'll be something like who gave the android access and permission to invade American officials' privacy. 

I'd rather just wait for them to shoot their shot and be ready to execute the perfect counter and bring them down a notch at the same time while I'm at it. 

I think it's better I go talk to Banner before he leaves. We can't lose our current fear factor, whether he likes it or not. 

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