Claws and Consequences

The Harper household had become a fortress of half-baked defenses. Daniel rigged motion sensors to the gutters ("To detect speedy ninjas!"), while Wulan stockpiled rendang in the freezer like wartime rations. Kirana, however, treated the tension as a game, "patrolling" the backyard with a bubble wand and a colander helmet.

"Enemy at 3 o'clock!" she shouted, blowing bubbles at a startled squirrel.

Arlan watched from the porch, Stark's business card burning in his pocket. Wanda joined him, her gloves humming faintly. "You're going to call him."

"Maybe."

"Liar."

He scowled. "Stark's a narcissist with a savior complex. We don't need him."

"But you want his tech," she said, eyeing the cracked screen of his homemade tracker. "Admit it."

Pietro zipped past, snatching the card. "Let's negotiate. Demand a Ferrari. Or a death ray."

"Return that," Arlan growled.

"Make me."

They blurred into a chase, Pietro's laughter echoing as Arlan lobbed Ren-charged acorns. Wanda sighed, sketching their antics into her notebook. 'Boys.'

Midnight painted the sky ink-black when the Winter Soldier struck.

Arlan jolted awake, En prickling like ice down his spine. He sensed it first—a void in the ambient noise, the crickets silenced. Then the creak of a floorboard.

THUNK.

A vibranium claw speared through his bedroom door. Arlan rolled aside as the Winter Soldier ripped the door from its hinges, his metal arm glinting under the moonlight. Cold eyes locked onto Arlan, devoid of recognition, devoid of anything.

"Asset here to retrieve," the Soldier intoned. "Comply."

"Hard pass," Arlan spat, Ren flaring.

Down the hall, Wanda's chaos magic erupted in a crimson burst. Pietro's snarl echoed—"Get away from her!"—followed by the crash of splintering wood.

The Soldier lunged. Arlan ducked, channeling Ko into a punch that glanced off vibranium. Pain shot through his fist. "Pietro! Distract him!"

A silver blur yanked the Soldier backward. "Distract this!" Pietro taunted, zigzagging down the stairs.

Arlan sprinted to Kirana's room. Wanda stood guard, scarlet tendrils encircling the crib where Kirana slept, oblivious.

"Go!" Wanda shouted. "Help Pietro!"

The Winter Soldier pinned Pietro in the kitchen, his metal hand crushing the boy's throat. Arlan's aura surged, En slamming into the Soldier like a battering ram. The grip loosened—enough for Pietro to gasp, "Took you… long enough…"

Wanda's chaos whip snapped, searing the Soldier's shoulder. He recoiled, eyes flickering—a flicker of something human beneath the programming.

"Now!" Arlan roared.

They struck as one: Pietro's supersonic kick to the knees, Wanda's magic binding the metal arm, Arlan's Ko-charged palm strike to the chest. The Soldier staggered, crashing through the window into the yard.

Daniel and Wulan burst in, baseball bat and frying pan in hand. "What in God's name—?!"

Kirana toddled in, rubbing her eyes. "Al… why's the snowman angry?"

The Soldier fled, but not before leaving a message: a Hydra dagger embedded in the oak tree, its hilt wrapped with a Stark Industries schematic.

"They're mocking us," Pietro spat.

"No," Arlan said, prying the dagger free. "They're scared."

The schematic detailed a Hydra base beneath a Queens warehouse. A trap—or a plea.

Wanda traced the coordinates. "We go tonight."

"We call Stark," Arlan countered.

Silence.

Pietro snorted. "You are getting soft."

"Smart," Wanda said. "Not soft."

Stark arrived in a convertible, sunglasses on at midnight. "Kid, you've got a flair for drama."

The warehouse loomed behind them, its windows boarded, walls graffitied with faded Hydra sigils. Arlan tossed him the dagger. "You're the weapons expert. What's playtime look like?"

Stark's smirk faded as he studied the schematic. "This isn't a base. It's a lab. And whatever they're cooking here? Smells like extinction."

Wanda's glove sparked. "Then we burn it."

"We?" Stark raised an eyebrow.

Arlan met his gaze. "You're the consultant. Consult."

The raid was swift, brutal, and bathed in the eerie glow of stolen Stark tech. Hydra's experiment? A machine pulsing with Tesseract energy, its core fused with… Nen.

"They're weaponizing aura," Arlan realized, horror coiling in his gut.

Stark disabled the machine with a repulsor blast. "Merry Christmas. Now let's leave."

The Winter Soldier watched from the shadows as they fled, his mission failure logged in Hydra's database. But as the lab burned, a single word flickered through his fractured mind:

Remember.

At dawn, Arlan found Wanda on the roof, sketching the sunrise. "You okay?"

She showed him the drawing: the Winter Soldier, his human eye tinged with gold. "He's like us. Broken. But not gone."

Pietro joined them, stolen Hydra rations in hand. "Next time, we save the death ray."

Kirana's laughter floated up from the yard, where she "interviewed" Oyen about the battle. Daniel and Wulan sipped coffee, their hands intertwined.

Arlan texted Stark a single word: Partner.

The reply was instant: Bring popcorn.