"Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive" 
- Survivor

  "Pepper, there's something wrong with Harper."

  "What do you mean ?" she asked, already worried sick.

  "Don't be mad at me but I hid a chip in her dress just to...you know, make sure she's safe. It's moving way too fast."

  "Do you know where she is ?"

  "Not at school and that's why I'm worried. Parker's suit is still at school and... Pepper..."

  "Go."

  Tony didn't wait any longer : he put on his armour and flew directly towards Midtown High School.

  "Try to locate Harper as precisely as possible," he asked the artificial intelligence.

  His suit showed him the exact location of his daughter : she was in Queens, in what seemed to be an old abandoned building. "I'm on my way, sweetie, hold on," he repeated himself. When he got to the school, he immediately noticed Peter trying to get up, still stunned from the hit.

  "Peter ! Tell me what happened ! Now !"

  "Mr Stark ? I... Where's Harper ?" he asked as he slowly started losing his mind. "She was here like...a second ago ! Mr Stark, where is she ?"

  "You must've got hit real hard, kid. Never mind, I'll go get her. You...you go back to your Aunt May."

  "No way," he protested. "I'm coming with you."

  He was already getting his suit out of his backpack. He ran towards the school and two minutes later, Spider-Man stood in front of Tony Stark, more confident and determined than ever. For a moment, Tony looked at this teenager he had been mentoring for a while : there was pride in the man's eyes.

  "Follow me. She's in Queens."

  Peter nodded and jumped on the roofs, following the trail of Iron Man. Adrenalin motivated them just like fear and worry : they were both worried sick about Harper.

  "We're coming to you, sweetie, we're coming."

***

  Harper was tired of screaming : she had been screaming at the top of her lungs ever since she had been brought here. Her hands were tied together with silver handcuffs that surprisingly burnt her wrists whenever she tried to use her powers. Tired and almost hopeless, she hit the wall as hard as she could. She let angry tears roll down her cheeks as she looked at her joints : they were covered in blood.

  "Your efforts are vain, little girl," whispered a low and slow voice behind her.

  She turned around extremely slowly : her eyes were throwing blades at the man who had spoken to her.

  "I assume you're Smith."

  "Exactly ! You are a very perceptive young lady !"

  "A man who's cowardly enough to have someone else kidnap me or attack me... It couldn't be anyone but you," she spat at him.

  He clenched his jaw. He was quite old and his hair was almost pure white. He wore a goatee as white as his hair and wore a grey and elegant suit. He looked to well-groomed to take part in any kind of combat. 

  "Let's get right down to business : what do you want from me ?"

  "You know exactly what I want," the old man chuckled. "I want to run Stark Industries, with my greatest creation standing by my side."

  "And what's that ? A robot to satisfy your ego ?"

  "No, no, no... Don't you understand, now ? Turns out you're not as smart as the man you call Dad, then."

  "Stop messing around."

  "My greatest creation is you, Harper."

***

  Iron Man had just landed on the roof of the building where Smith had imprisoned his daughter. He told his sidekick to follow him as he kept his eyes open, careful to whatever could put them in danger. They managed to access the last floor. There they were met with three of Smith's henchmen : Peter stuck two of them to the wall with his webs and Tony took down the last one. They went through the following floors, searching every corner of a trace of Harper. They opened every door, lifted up every tarpaulin, moved every plank. Peter stopped suddenly when they got to the tenth floor.

  "Mr Stark," he whispered, "did you hear this ?"

  "What ?"

  "Listen..."

  Peter approached a closed door. They could hear voices muffled by the concrete walls.

  "You think that he...the girl ?"

  "I don't know. He wanted...Industries."

  "It's all...nonsense."

  "What's nonsense ?" Tony asked as he burst into the room, his arm held straight toward these two men, ready to attack at any moment.

  "Mr Stark !"

  One of them had just aimed his revolver at Tony and shot him, almost as a reflex. The armour dampened the impact, taking all the damage instead of Tony's body. 

  "Protection system failure," the A.I. announced. 

  "No shit, Sherlock," Tony mumbled as his gloved hand hit his opponent's face.

***

  "You're so full of shit."

  "Did you ever wonder how you got these powers, Harper ? Do you think they appeared out of thin air ?"

  "No, but I..."

  "You see," he interrupted, "all of this...it's the reason you were even born."

  "You're telling me that..."

  "You were still in your mother's womb when I gifted you with this tremendous power. Of course, there are some side effects...like those visions you get, sometimes."

  "Stop cutting me off, for God's sake ! What did you do to my biological mother ?"

  "Nothing she hadn't agreed to beforehand," Smith cleared himself. "The Stark empire has made its lot of victims, including your mother's parents. When I told her about my plan, she was over the moon. That's why she decided to have a child, in order to achieve my goal."

  "Are you telling me that...she knew ? Ever since the day I was born, she knew I was going to kill her ?"

  "Even better ! She knew she would have to make you do it."

  Smith's sneers disgusted her, they proved her she was born as a monster, a monster that had been created to destroy her own father's life work.

  "But my dad...how..."

  "I suggested him this idea, years ago. He was such a selfish man, an opportunist, I was afraid he wouldn't even want you."

  Harper buried her face in her hands : her father had contributed to his own loss when he'd adopted her. Her powers were still as inefficient as earlier and the handcuffs were burning her skin so roughly that she could now see a thin thread of smoke rising up from her wrists. She was weeping buckets now and Smith's laugh as he left the room only made her angrier. 

  "I'll let you brood over all of this," he said before he crossed the threshold. "I have a business man to kill."

  She screamed as loud as she could when he locked the door and left her there, alone and more helpless than ever.

***

  "Mr Stark, did you hear this ?"

  "Hell yeah, I'd recognise that scream anywhere. She's right below us, I'm sure."

  "The staircase is this way... Oh."

  Peter lowered his arm pointing towards the stairs when he saw Tony Stark disappearing in a hole he had just dug under his own feet. They got to the lower floor, in front of a closed door Tony knocked down right away.

  "Dad !"

  Harper ran to her father as soon as she saw him.

  "You need to leave, I'm begging you. Smith, he's the one who's done all of this, you adopted me because of him, he gave me this...these awful powers. He created me from scratch. It's a trap."

  "Hey, enough. Don't talk that fast and stop crying," he tried to comfort her. "We're gonna stop this asshole, you hear me ?"

  Harper nodded before she saw Spider-Man standing behind her father. She frowned but didn't say anything. 

  "Get me rid of this," she asked her father, showing him the handcuffs. "They hold back my powers."

  "Did...Did silver burn you like this ?"

  "Whenever I try to use my powers, it burns and..."

  Harper lowered her puffy eyes. Peter had to keep himself from running to her when he saw her wrists : they would stay scarred forever after a burn like this one. 

  "Let's go get this monster," mumbled the young New Yorker, filled with rage.

  Harper tilted her head when she heard his voice : why did it sound so familiar ? Hadn't it been so filled with rage, she would've probably been able to recognise it. All three of them got out of that room and kept getting down the building floors. They found more guards but with their combined powers, those men didn't stand a chance. They were still convinced they could end this quickly when they got outside and were met with Smith's evil grin. Tony immediately recognised the social worker who'd advised him on adopting his daughter. Harper clenched her burning fists.

  "Ah... So many years later, my work is almost done," the old man congratulated himself. "I've been waiting for this moment all my life."

  "You really think you stand a chance against the three of us ?" asked Spider-Man.

  "Me ? No !" Smith scoffed. "But they do."

  That's when they saw them : Smith's henchmen came from all sides. Some of them were coming out of the building they'd been hiding in ; others came from alleys ; others came from surrounding buildings. There were at least fifty men and even though our three heroes were gifted with amazing abilities, they were outnumbered. These men had already circled them in a lethal and methodic way. To her greatest relief, Harper noticed that few of them had actual guns and that they were the most simple guns ever. If she moved fast, it would be impossible for them to touch her. Tony had his suit and Peter had more than a few tricks up his sleeves.

  "Mr Stark," Peter said, "we won't..."

  He was interrupted by a weird crackling noise, still new to his ears : when he turned around, he saw a sparkling circle that grew bigger and bigger, as though it had come out of thin air. In the back, he could see a man, wearing a red cape and who seemed to be in a totally different place. When the circle reached the height of a regular man, a soldier wearing blue clothes and holding his legendary shield, got out of it, lowering his head and bending his knees to fit in : that man was none other than Steve Rogers, Captain America himself.

  "You called Steve ?" Harper asked, quite astonished.

  "What did you think ? Your old man knew this coward would have a team, so I called mine."

  Steve didn't bother with the usual small talk and he stood before Harper right away.

  "How...this is impossible !" Harper exclaimed.

  "You got flames coming out of your hands and you still think anything can stay impossible ?" Steve asked with quite a sarcastic tone. "It's Strange, he's some kind of wizard. He brought us here."

  "Us ?"

  Indeed, Steve wasn't alone : soon enough, Harper recognised Wanda Maximoff, who had helped her a lot when she couldn't control her powers. She also saw Natasha Romanoff, who had always treated her as an equal instead of some fragile thing that needed protection. The warrior was quickly followed by Clint Barton, her long time friend. Vision, with his glowing stone on his forehead, came as well, alongside Thor, the god of thunder, Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson. Everybody stood there completely still and ready to fight : when they saw Loki, they hesitated between surprise and  wariness. Harper, on the contrary, was happy to see him : he was the one, in the middle of a big identity crisis, who had taught her that family wasn't defined by blood. Without Loki to tell her about the mistakes he'd made in the name of his loneliness, she might not even be here today. She smiled at him warmly, which convinced the others not to tell him anything (at least, not right away). As to that guy, Strange, who had brought them all here, he didn't took part in the fight. Smith started backing up to his hide-away place, in the building, while shouting orders to his men. Tony retorted immediately.

  "Avengers !" he called out. "Let's crush them !" 

***

I know Strange isn't introduced to the Avengers until Infinity War buuuut I needed something to bring them on the battlefield. That's why he didn't fight. I hope you like it anyway ! 
- Céline