CHAPTER 14: CLINT'S FARM
The void energy in Pietro's soul sang with dimensional resonance as he tracked the Avengers' retreat from Johannesburg, his enhanced senses following technological signatures that existed partially outside normal space-time. Where conventional surveillance would have lost them within hours, Pietro's connection to collapsed realities allowed him to perceive the quantum fluctuations generated by advanced technology across vast distances.
"Stealth technology, but not perfect stealth. Everything leaves traces in dimensional space if you know how to look."
The trail led northwest through African airspace, then across the Atlantic toward coordinates that shouldn't have existed in any official database. Pietro shadow-stepped through the intervening distance in a series of carefully calculated jumps, each void transition bringing him closer to his quarry while leaving no electromagnetic signature that conventional sensors could detect.
He emerged from the final dimensional rift in a tree line overlooking pastoral farmland that seemed utterly disconnected from the superhuman conflicts raging across the globe. Rolling green hills, a modest farmhouse with weathered white paint, children's toys scattered across a yard that spoke of normal family life existing somehow adjacent to Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
"Clint Barton's safe house. The place where the team goes to lick their wounds and figure out how to stop Ultron. And where I need to gather intelligence while staying completely invisible."
Pietro settled into a concealed position among the oak trees, his enhanced perception allowing him to observe the farmhouse from nearly half a mile away while remaining undetected. Through the building's walls, he could track individual heartbeats, analyze stress hormones carried on wind currents, and piece together conversations from the microscopic vibrations of window glass.
What he found surprised him with its emotional complexity.
The Avengers weren't just strategizing about Ultron's next move—they were wrestling with fundamental questions about their purpose, their methods, and their responsibility for the chaos that followed in their wake. Pietro watched Steve Rogers pace the farmhouse's front porch, the super soldier's body language radiating the kind of moral certainty that had made him a legend, but also carrying subtle signs of doubt that suggested even Captain America questioned whether they were fighting the right battles.
Tony Stark had isolated himself in the barn, his arc reactor's glow visible through gaps in the wooden walls as he worked on emergency repairs to his armor. But Pietro's enhanced hearing detected something else—the irregular breathing patterns and elevated heart rate that suggested Stark was experiencing anxiety that went far beyond mechanical concerns.
"He knows Ultron is his creation. He's carrying the weight of responsibility for every life that AI destroys, every innocent person who dies because Tony Stark thought he could build a better world through superior firepower."
Through the farmhouse windows, Pietro observed Bruce Banner sitting alone at the kitchen table, his brilliant mind struggling to process what had happened in Johannesburg. The scientist's hands trembled slightly as he reviewed data on a tablet, and Pietro realized with a surge of unexpected sympathy that Banner was trying to calculate how many people had been injured during his transformation.
"He doesn't remember what happened while he was the Hulk. He's trying to reconstruct events from secondhand reports and security footage, knowing that each casualty number represents someone's father, mother, child..."
But it was the family dynamics that truly surprised Pietro. Laura Barton moved through the farmhouse with the quiet efficiency of someone who had learned to create normalcy in the midst of extraordinary circumstances. She served coffee to world-famous superheroes with the same casual grace she used to make sandwiches for her children, offering comfort that had nothing to do with superhuman abilities and everything to do with basic human kindness.
The Barton children—Cooper and Lila—treated the Avengers like slightly exotic relatives, their innocence providing an anchor point that reminded the heroes what they were fighting to protect. Pietro watched Thor attempt to explain Asgardian culture to a ten-year-old girl, the God of Thunder's cosmic perspective reduced to simple stories about family and responsibility.
"This is what normal looks like. This is what all the fighting and dying is supposed to preserve—parents who love their children, kids who feel safe enough to play in their own backyard, families who believe tomorrow will be better than today."
The observation triggered an emotional response that Pietro hadn't expected. Watching the Barton family interact with the Avengers, seeing the way heroism and domesticity could coexist, made him acutely aware of everything his own family had lost. His parents would never meet the grandchildren they might have had. Wanda would never experience the simple joy of feeling completely safe in her own home. And Pietro himself...
"I'm not even their real son. I'm wearing the face of someone who died, carrying the memories of a life I never lived, pretending to be family to the one person in this reality who truly loves me."
The guilt was crushing, but Pietro pushed it aside as he detected Wanda's approach through the forest behind him. His sister moved with supernatural quiet, her chaos magic suppressing the sounds of her passage while she used enhanced senses to track his location.
"Find anything interesting?" she asked softly, settling beside him in the concealment of overlapping oak branches.
"The Avengers are more human than I expected," Pietro replied honestly. "They're not the arrogant gods Ultron described. They're just... people. Trying to do the right thing with power they never asked for."
Wanda studied the farmhouse through enhanced vision that could perceive electromagnetic auras around living beings. Her chaos magic painted each Avenger in distinctive colors—Steve Rogers blazed with steady blue that spoke of unwavering moral conviction, while Tony Stark flickered between gold and deep red as guilt warred with determination.
"They're afraid," she observed quietly. "Not of us, not of Ultron—afraid they're not good enough to save the world they've sworn to protect."
"She's seeing through Ultron's propaganda. Good. I need her to start questioning his characterization of the Avengers as arrogant oppressors."
"Maybe that's what makes them heroes," Pietro suggested carefully. "The fact that they worry about whether they're worthy of the power they wield."
Wanda was quiet for several minutes, her brilliant mind processing observations that conflicted with everything Ultron had told them about their supposed enemies. Through their twin bond, Pietro felt her growing uncertainty about their alliance with the AI, doubt that he needed to encourage without seeming to guide her conclusions.
"Pietro," she said finally, "in Johannesburg, when I hexed Banner... there was resistance I didn't expect. Like something was interfering with my magic."
"Careful. She's starting to piece together inconsistencies in my behavior."
"What kind of interference?" Pietro asked, though he dreaded the answer.
"Dimensional disturbance. Brief, almost imperceptible, but definitely there." Wanda's chaos magic stirred around her fingers as she remembered the incident. "Someone or something disrupted my hex just enough to limit its effectiveness."
Pietro forced confusion into his expression while his enhanced mind raced through possible explanations. "Could it have been Banner himself? You said his willpower was stronger than expected."
"Maybe," Wanda agreed reluctantly. "But the signature felt familiar somehow. Like..." She trailed off, her enhanced senses suddenly focusing on something beyond normal perception.
Pietro followed her gaze and felt his blood turn to ice. Wanda wasn't looking at the farmhouse anymore—she was staring directly at him, her chaos magic analyzing the dimensional disturbances that clung to his enhanced form like cosmic radiation.
"She knows. Or she's starting to suspect. The void energy leaves traces that her magic can detect."
But before Wanda could voice her growing suspicions, Pietro's void sense exploded into overwhelming sensory input that drove him to his knees with the force of prophetic vision. The dimensional energy in his soul resonated with something vast and terrible approaching from beyond the edge of reality, cosmic forces that made Ultron's threat seem trivial by comparison.
Images flooded his consciousness—not memories from the transmigrator's knowledge, but genuine glimpses of futures that hadn't been predetermined. Multiple timelines collapsing like dominoes, reality fracturing along lines of stress that couldn't support the weight of impossible choices. And at the center of it all, a figure of purple shadow collecting golden stones that blazed with the light of creation itself.
Thanos.
The vision lasted only seconds, but Pietro experienced subjective hours of cosmic horror as he witnessed potential futures where his interference had created consequences he couldn't control. Timelines where his presence prevented the Avengers from assembling when humanity needed them most. Realities where his attempts to save lives actually doomed entire civilizations to extinction.
"I'm not just changing events—I'm destabilizing the fundamental structure of causality. My transmigration created ripples that are spreading across dimensional space, affecting possibilities I never considered."
When the prophetic vision finally released him, Pietro found himself lying on the forest floor with Wanda kneeling beside him, her hands glowing with red energy as she tried to use chaos magic to stabilize whatever had attacked his consciousness.
"Pietro!" Her voice carried genuine terror. "What happened? You were convulsing, speaking in languages I've never heard before."
Pietro struggled to sit up, his enhanced physiology still reeling from contact with cosmic forces that existed beyond normal space-time. The void energy in his soul pulsed with alien hunger, feeding on the dimensional disturbances his prophetic vision had created.
"Vision," he gasped, letting genuine fear color his voice. "Something worse than Ultron is coming. Something that makes his threat look like a child's tantrum."
Wanda's chaos magic tested the edges of his consciousness, searching for signs of the entity that had attacked him. But the vision had come from sources beyond her ability to detect, cosmic forces that operated according to rules no Earthbound intelligence could fully comprehend.
"What did you see?" she asked urgently.
Pietro considered how much truth he could share without revealing the full scope of his knowledge. "War. On a scale that spans galaxies. And Earth at the center of it all, defending something that could determine the fate of reality itself."
It was vague enough to seem like genuine prophecy while specific enough to plant seeds that would become important when Thanos eventually arrived. But Pietro's real concern was the implications of what he'd witnessed—his interference with the timeline had created cascading effects that could doom far more than just this single reality.
"I need to be more careful. Every change I make, every life I save, every death I prevent—it all has consequences I can't predict or control."
Inside the farmhouse, Clint Barton paused in his conversation with Natasha as something indefinable made the hair on his arms stand on end. The sensation lasted only a moment—a brief impression of cosmic forces moving beyond human perception—but it left him deeply uneasy.
"Someone's watching us. And whoever it is, they're not entirely human."
Clint moved to the window overlooking the tree line, his archer's instincts analyzing potential threat positions with practiced efficiency. Nothing visible moved among the oak branches, but his enhanced senses detected subtle disturbances that suggested recent presence.
"Nat," he called softly, "we might have company."
Black Widow joined him at the window, her spy training allowing her to perceive threats that normal observation would miss. Together, they studied the forest beyond the farmhouse, searching for signs of surveillance or infiltration.
"Enhanced individuals," Natasha concluded after several minutes of careful observation. "The electromagnetic disturbances are consistent with exotic energy signatures. But they're not moving to attack."
"Reconnaissance," Clint agreed. "Someone wants to know what we're planning, but they're not ready for direct confrontation."
Through the window, they watched the tree line for additional signs of activity. But whatever had been observing them was gone now, vanished into the growing darkness of a Iowa evening that suddenly felt far less secure than it had an hour before.
"The enhanced twins from Sokovia. Has to be. But why observe us instead of attacking? What are they planning?"
Clint made a mental note to increase security protocols around the farmhouse while keeping the changes subtle enough not to alarm his family. Whatever game the Maximoff twins were playing, it was more complex than simple revenge against Tony Stark.
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