Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Janice ran as fast as she could. It had been a normal day in New York, when the sky had opened up and suddenly monsters had fallen from it. Great flying whales, and stranger things, creatures on flying bikes who fired on the crowds below.

"I'm going to die!" she screamed as she turned down an alley and—

An explosion sent her flying. She rolled over, head ringing, and blinked. One of the monsters was there. It raised its rifle, and Janice whimpered and then—

A boy, teenager really, jumped in front of her, and somehow deflected the monster's bolts with a blade made of… light? Then he dropped, spun, and the monster was falling, now in two pieces. Another monster appeared, but a bolt of energy hit it.

She looked behind her, and an armored figure was shooting the monsters. Slim—a woman? Then the boy with the magic sword was pulling her up, saying something to her in a language she didn't understand.

"Where are we, Sabine?"

"I don't know," Sabine said. Hit an Imperial base that is supposedly working on a hyperspace system that lets you keep the engine at home and just send people where you want them. Get the data, get on your way out when they fire the damned thing up and evidently it doesn't work…

Because everyone else died. Sabine shot another attacker, this one going after a crowd of screaming humans. The only reason they were alive was that Ezra tried to shield them with the Force but where were they? Sabine had never seen a world where you couldn't find a single alien in a city and the architecture… Not to mention that all the vehicles had wheels.

She shook her head, and went to Ezra, flying up there right now was a very bad idea. "We need to get under cover, find out what is going on!" Sabine said.

"Right," Ezra said. "Where do we go?" Sabine knelt down in front of the woman and made pointing gestures.

The woman stared and then nodded, pointing away from the fighting.

"We're just running?" Ezra asked.

"Ezra, nobody knows who we are. The good guys—if there are any here—are just as likely to shoot at us."

"Right," Ezra said. A deep roar, like some monstrous giant, echoed through the city. "Right," he repeated.

The next several minutes were a nightmare. They were attacked twice, ending up fighting off a small band of monsters that wanted to attack an odd-looking bus full of children. And then, they just… died. All of them.

Sabine knelt down by one and grabbed its weapon.

"Sabine?"

"These aren't blasters. I want to know more."

"Right." The woman was making more and more desperate sounds, and Ezra looked around. There were sirens sounding. "Sabine…"

"I know, let's go." But now the girl was pointing to a shattered storefront.

Sabine nodded. "Ezra, get those coats. Under them, we'll look like anyone else." Not that most other people were paying any attention to us.

It took several hours to follow the woman to her destination. She spoke into a small comlink several times, but evidently the net was down. They were passed by many ground vehicles, primitive fliers in the sky. Sabine, wondered how nobody had ever heard of repulsors. The girl waved at some yellow vehicles, but none stopped.

But they got out of the combat zone, and just as the woman seemed unable to go any further, her comlink worked.

Should we stay? She was excited, jabbering into it. Sabine didn't know if that was good or bad, but at least they had an in with her. They'd saved her life.

How can nobody know standard?

Michael was pacing at his desk. He'd wanted to go out when his niece had called. But Mark didn't let him.

"You're the head, Michael. If you go, the organization goes, and you're good with a gun, but against flying monsters?"

So he'd waited, and finally got a call. Janice was okay and needed a ride. And then Michael almost went out again, but Mark made him sit down, and so he waited.  Finally, as the sun started to go down, the limo drove up to the driveway. Mark frowned, listening to his earpiece.

"A pair of kids helped her. With guns and a… light sword?" he glanced at Michael. "Maybe you—"

"My niece, and they saved her, Mark." With that, he stood up, a few bodyguards standing away. Janice ran to him and hugged him. "Uncle Michael!" she said, bursting into tears." I thought I would die!"

"But you didn't," Michael said.

"Because they saved me… Uncle Michael, they don't speak English, Spanish, or Japanese. I tried them all, and I don't think they have a place to stay…"

Michael glanced at the two, and immediately found his eyes fall on the girl. About the same age as Janice, but she was a soldier—as much as any of his guards, maybe more. She'd noticed the bodyguards and was standing, body poised for action. She had a helmet under one arm and was wearing some kind of armor. Next to her was a younger boy, looked to be half way through high school, still wearing an overcoat he'd gotten from somewhere. But he'd also noticed the bodyguards.

Dangerous. But they'd saved his niece, and he'd give them shelter for that, if nothing else.

And also…

You've got enemies, Michael. And these two don't know the language. Take care of them, teach them, and make certain they get your side of the story…

At the very least, they could protect Janice. After all, the other Families didn't like upstarts, and they might try for her.

At best? He could always use a few more soldiers.

"Thank you," he said, bowing. "You've saved my niece, and my home is your home."

Chapter Text

"Apple?" Sabine asked.

"Orange," Janice replied.

"Thanks," Sabine replied. "Ezra?"

"They're fruit." Ezra said.

In galactic basic.

"Ezra…"

"Fruit," Ezra repeated in English. Sabine nodded. Ezra hadn't had as much experience as she had in learning other languages. Bounty Hunting required that you be able to quickly pick something up, and Sabine had always been interested in how other people saw their art—which meant speaking in their language. A world like Lothal… Well, the Empire discouraged that, speaking of a day when Galactic Basic would be the only language needed—or remembered.

They were both doing better learning written English, having free use of the oddly advanced data net. How can these people be so advanced and so primitive? Sabine wondered. Battery technology was laughable—but they used it to power tiny comlink systems that were more advanced than all but the best coreworlds boasted. A world girdling network of advanced computers, and yet the "neat robot" Janice had shown them, a little disk like thing bumbling along the floor unable to even talk wouldn't have been out of place in a museum of ancient history.

And yet…they were oddly naive. Talking about everyone online and yet… Sabine could slice into it, and she didn't even want to think about what Chopper could do.

"Do you think we should talk to the Avengers?" Ezra asked.

"No. Not yet." Sabine said. "They saved the world—remember that's how the Empire got started."

"Those things weren't Jedi."

"No, but it's sort of suspicious, isn't it?" Sabine asked. "Suddenly an invasion shows up, and then goes away, with every one of those droids just… turning off, in time for these people to save the day?" Especially Captain America. An icon from the past? Frozen in time? Sabine snorted.

"So, um, wanna get something to eat?" Janice asked.

"That…Spaanish place?" Ezra asked. "With the noodles?"

"Spanish." Janice said. "And it's Italian."

That was another thing that Sabine had a problem wrapping her head around. How did one world have so many languages? How was it that one world's people had never even left their solar system?

"So what is it?" Nick Fury asked.

"It's not a Chitarui tool, and the portal…" Banner shook his head. "Not the same thing. It may have been piggy backing on them, but not from the same destination."

"Got that in one, Big Green," Tony said. Fury frowned. Tony had been a little off since the attack. He's not a soldier. And he'd almost died several times. Normally a concern, but a bigger concern when the person in question could put on a suit of armor that could take out a city.

"Why?" Fury asked.

"Well first of all," Tony said. "We had to cut it open. The canister's seals weren't just frozen shut—there had been vacuum welding, migration of atoms across the borders…" He shrugged. "This has been in space for a long, long time."

"Longer than the Chitarui?"

Tony shook his head at Fury. "This thing makes the pyramids look young. We're talking a long, long, time ago."

"Is that a technical term, Tony?"

"Might as well be," Tony said. "We're cutting into it." Inside the isolation chamber, the cutter slowly moved along the canister, opening the hatch. Moments later, it opened.

"Well, it didn't explode," Tony said. The scanner showed images of what was inside. A collection of crystal and metal cubes, wrapped in some kind of cloth. What looked like some books, and…

There was a flicker, and an image was projected into the air. A man, older. Gray beard.

"Jor El?" Tony asked. "Jarvis, are you getting this?"

Then he started talking. The words were gibberish, but several words repeated. "I think his name is Kanan," Bruce said.

"Yeah, so who the hell are Ezra and Sabine?" Fury replied. Those were proper names if he'd ever heard them.

"Someone who came here before?" Bruce asked. Then the guy held a little tube, and a bright beam of light emerged from it. He said something that sounded formal, and then the image flickered out.

Fury stared at it. "This is Fury," he said into his phone. "I want a list of any anomalous damage to Chitarui, or any other object or person. Focus on thermal injuries, coupled with slashing damage."

"Yes, sir."

"You think there may be someone here?"

"I don't send care packages unless I think somebody is here to get them."

"So why do you want us to protect her?" Sabine asked. "Why does she need protection?"

Michael frowned. This was delicate. They'd stayed in the house, save for little excursions, the two kids getting the feel of the community. But the girl had learned English fast, and was working on Spanish. The kid, for all that he had some kind of magical power… not so fast. He just oozed "Fresh of the Boat" to Michael.

Not the girl. The girl kept her eyes open and had a poise to her. She was dangerous. Like when Janice had tried to get her to wear some dresses. She'd refused, unless she had to, and after whining and bemoaning, she had accepted a blouse, leggings and a short skirt…

That she could just pull off if she had to so it wouldn't bind her movement.

Fortunately, she was also a teen and he'd learned more from them than they had him. And his family…

"Come with me," he said. They followed Michael into a room full of boxes. He pulled a carton out. "You know what these are?"

"Um… Death Sticks?" Ezra asked.

"Yeah, some call 'em that, but see, they're legal. But the government likes to tax people, and poor people use them more, so they tax 'em when you buy them. Just across the river, these things are half what they are here. So we… help people not spend so much money."

"What are the taxes for?" Ezra asked.

"Oh, to 'help' the people. But they never say for what. They put up ads and specials and never actually try to stop them. Sound familiar?"

"Yeah," Sabine said, glancing at Ezra. "The Empire did that a lot, giving someone a monopoly and talking about how it was for our own good."

"So you see my problem. Technically, it's against the law, but it's a law passed to help people get rich. But because it is against the law…"

"People may cut in."

"Right, and some move other things, things that are just dangerous. Guns, drugs that will kill you. I'd like you two to help now and then, if you want…" He raised his hand. "You saved my neice once already. Whatever you say, you have a home here." And it didn't hurt that he actually meant that. If they wanted to stay here and go to college on his dime, Janice's life was worth that.

"No, you've given us a place to stay. We'll help."

"Good. Now Janice will be heading back to school, so I've set up some ID…"

Moments later, Ezra blinked. "Wait. School?"

"I say we just cut it open," Tony said, staring at the innoffensive cube currently held in a clamp.

"I'm sorry sir, but the force required to cut it open would destroy the contents," JARVIS replied.

"But the data in there must be incredible," Bruce said. "Look at what we got from the quantum scan."

"None of which helps us, unless we can get them to work. You think the Big Guy could scare out some information?"

"I don't think I want to see what the Big Guy would do if he got frustrated.

"Right, still fixing the helicarrier." Tony tapped his fingers, and then nodded. "Okay, Fury's wanting to find out who made these, and we know they weren't Chitauri, so I have an idea."

"I'm not liking this," Bruce said.

"C'mon, you love my ideas. JARVIS, how long before you could make a duplicate?"

"A non-functioning duplicate? I can have one made in about three hours."

"Great. You know what the Museum of Metropolitan Art needs? A new exhibit, mysterious art, with a bunch of things, including these things front and center."

"I…"

"If they were sent here for someone, someone's looking for them, so we put the fakes on display with a tracker, and publicize the hell out of them."

"What's Fury going to say?"

"He'll say 'thank you' when I get around to telling him."

Chapter Text

"Boss, hold the presses!" Mark said as he ran into Michael's office. "Screw cigarettes, you and I are gonna be rich!"

"You been tasting too much brew, Mark?"

"Nope. The chick, you know the one who knocked out half our guys in that sparring session?"

"Hey, a body guard needs to be able to fight."

"Yep. Well, the kid also can fight, but that light sword of his? It shoots some kind of knock you out bolt."

"Yeah, you and I both saw it. He's got a magic sword."

"Yeah, but the boys were talking to him, and one mentioned that would sure come in handy, you know, to keep from accidentally killing anyone and he was surprised. So was the chick. Boss, that isn't a magic gun. That's something that everyone had back home."

Michael stopped. "You're kidding."

"Nope. How much will the cops pay for a knock out gun that doesn't need wires? That has nearly as much range as a real gun?"

"Fu…" Michael bit the curse word off. It'd be a license to print money… And even in the normal business, if you started shooting at someone, even if they shot at you first, and a bystander got hit… Well, it'd be bad.

But if the worst you could do was knock someone out, then the feds would be landing on the other guy…

"And they can make this?"

"Sabine says yah. I just needed you to pay for the stuff."

"It's done. Let me talk to the lawyers about patent law…" He paused. "Or have him suggest a guy." After all their lawyer was more into tax shelters than patent law.

"Okay, everyone, we're going to have some dodgeball."

Dodgeball, what's that? Ezra had never been in school, not since his parents had died, and Sabine had been tutored. The both stuck with Janice in class, with a cover story that they were from some place called… Sokovia.

Hopefully Ezra wouldn't meet anyone actually from there.

"Hey, let's target the fresh meat!" someone said. Ezra tried not to roll his eyes, as one of Janice's friends walked up to him, evidently annoyed that she'd shown up with Ezra and Sabine. "How do you like that?" He was a lot bigger than Ezra and was sort of looming over him.

Is he trying to intimidate me? Ezra looked up at him and remembered another voice.

Your master has deceived you into believing you can become a Jedi… A great, dark figure, untouched by the fire around it, untouched by anything they were able to do. Darth Vader.

"Sure," Ezra said. "It'll be fun."

Later on, Janice bounced up to them, with a smile on her face. "So, how did you like um, bodyguarding me?"

Sabine tilted her head. "From what? Your friends?"

"Didn't you have…" Janice blinked. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it like that."

"Our friends were a little different, but I didn't feel any real hostility." Ezra said.

"Which is good, because we're not exactly armed." Sabine muttered.

"Did they let you take guns into school?" Janice asked.

"Like Ezra said, our friends were a little different." Sabine said.

Behind them, one guy was telling his friends. "I'll get that little shrimp later. It was just luck the way he dodged everything."

Smirking is not the way of the Jedi. Ezra tried to remember that.

"Cool… you know, did you want to go to the museum with me?" Janice paused. "I mean, Uncle Michael wants you to go out, but he's really over protective especially since…" She gestured towards downtown.

"Museum?"

"Art Museum," Janice said. "I thought you'd be interested, since you painted your room like that…"

"What kind of art?" Sabine asked.

"Here, they had a flier in my AP class." Janice handed Sabine the paper and Sabine…

Opened it and sounded like she'd been kicked.

Ezra felt the shock in her mind. "Sabine, what is it?"

Sabine turned the flier over to Ezra and the center picture caused his eyes to widen. "Are those…Holocrons?"

"Maybe, but look at the banner!" Sabine said. Ezra stared, at it. It was… There was a three-pronged symbol, along with Sabine's starbird.

"Did you ever…"

"No, not like that," Sabine said. "What…"

"Yeah. We'll go," Ezra said.

"If Tony Stark paid that much to put it up, it's gotta be worth something."

"But in the middle of town?"

"Half the roads are still congested. And we've got this Chitauri firepower we grabbed off the street. The moment we pull the trigger, the cops will back off and we'll be long gone before anyone else shows up. Then it's pay day."

"Right, Boss. Payday."

They were among a group of friends of Janice when they headed out to the museum.

Sabine really didn't know how this worked. She'd been tutored. The school had been strange. No combat training, no teams competing, no political slogans on every wall extolling the virtues of the Empire…

The whole place, even now, was strange. The soldiers were leaving the town, because the last of the alien hardware had been cleaned up. The ones left were…

Not like home. Not like Lothal, at least not under the Empire.

Worst of all, the only thing she had on, under her normal clothes, was her bodysuit. No armor, no guns. Every other place had detectors. Ezra had his lightsaber, but nobody knew what that was. And not only that…

The detector buzzed.

"Pardon me, young man, can I see what's in your pocket?"

"Oh, right," Ezra said. He held out the lightsaber. "It's a toy I bought for my little sister. Am I going to have to stay out? I…"

The man shook his head. "Nah, Kid, go on in, but just remember not every place is as easy going as we are."

"Thank you, sir!" Ezra said, his eyes wide and earnest.

Sabine rolled her eyes as she went through.

They followed Janice, and both Sabine and Ezra had decided not to head right for the holocrons. That'd be too obvious.

And Sabine actually enjoyed it. There was the art from a place called Greece, some of it a few thousand years old.

Sabine had to remind herself that was old for this world. The abstract Chinese landscapes were a bit drab for her tastes, but she could appreciate how the artist had worked to blend all aspects of the landscape into one cohesive whole.

Ezra was jittering, barely bothering to look at the other exhibits.

Way to stay subtle…

But finally Janice headed over to the exhibit, and Sabine and Ezra followed.

"Mysterious arts of America," Janice said. "Found in a deserted shack…"

Ezra stared, and then lifted up one hand…

Then he frowned.

"What is it?" Sabine murmured.

"They're not real. They're fakes," Ezra said. "I can't feel the Force in them."

Sabine started looking around, casually. Is this a trap? But the banner used her art style, so it had to come from back home.

"We need to—"

"THIS IS A HOLD UP!"

Ezra looked up as several men entered the building, holding the alien weapons they'd seen when they first arrived.

"I want you all to sit down and shut up," the man said. "We're here to make a withdrawal courtesy of Tony Stark."

What? Ezra stared. They were going for the fake holocrons?

"Sabine?" he murmured.

"Let them take it. We can follow them," she said.

"Right, I—"

"Hey!" A girl shrieked as one of the men walked up to her and pulled her phone out of her hand. "That's mine!"

"You were filming us!"

"You leave Cindy alone!" Now the guy who had tried to intimidate Ezra was getting up.

How can they—they have guns! Why is he even?

"Oh, you wanna play hero? Fine!" Now the man was leveling the gun at Cindy and her protector.

No time. Ezra lifted his hand and pushed with the Force, and the man went flying back. Now guns were coming out, pointing at the crowd and…

Ezra's lightsaber was in his hand, and he started opening up with the stun bolts, keeping the blade deactivated. He'd seen stories about things called Tasers, which sounded like stun-only weapons. But he'd never seen anything that looked like a lightsaber, so he couldn't use it without outing himself as a Jedi. A force assisted leap took him away from the crowd as a display was hit and started to burn cheerily. Ezra dodged another bolt and then kicked the man into a wall.

"Ezra!" Sabine took out two men aiming at him, the teen having grabbed a quarterstaff from the martial arts exhibit, using it to smash down her assailants.

Then, it happened. One of the wild shots struck the ceiling, and a heavy, hanging display came free, plummeting to the ground where a family was crouched. The mother looked up and shrieked.

Ezra reached out and held the display. "Run!" he shouted, and the woman grabbed her children and managed to pull them away before Ezra let the display go.

"Too bad, asshole!"

Ezra spun around just in time to dodge the bolt fired at him. But now two other guys were also raising their guns, and Sabine was occupied with—

And with a crash of glass, a golden and red form dropped through the skylight, bolts of energy knocking Ezra's assailants across the room.

"Gentlemen, I don't recall paying for live entertainment…" he said.

"Ezra!" Sabine had Janice by one arm. "Let's go."

"But the—"

"He'll handle them." And then Sabine got closer to Ezra and spoke. "Fake Holocrons and look how fast he showed up. I think he was here for us!" Ezra looked around and nodded. "Fine."

"JARVIS, hack the street cams, and follow those two. I want to be able to track them—"

"A call for you, sir, from Mr. Fury."

"Well put him on," Tony said, stunning one man with a well-timed bolt. The other's were trying to run, all into the welcoming hands of the rapidly arriving NYPD.

"Stark! What are you doing?"

"I think I found your aliens, Nick."

"Do not pursue! Repeat, do not pursue!" Tony paused.

"I thought you were all about control."

"Not when it is one of your plans. Head back to the tower, I'll meet you."

"Well, that's interesting. Okay, no pursuit. JARVIS, get me an ID on their companion, and where they live."

"Yes, sir."

Back at the tower, Fury was well, being Fury. Natasha was with him.

"What the hell was that!" Fury asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Finding out about a human-looking kid with magic powers who was interested in the display."

"So you planned for the attack?" Natasha asked.

Tony shook his head. "No, that was unexpected. I was just going to have JARVIS go over the footage of everyone who visited the exhibition and see if there was anyone who didn't exist. But why didn't you have me go after them?"

"Because they might be friendly?" Nick asked. "The only signs of violence in New York were signs of them fighting the Chitarui. So maybe trying to find out who they were and talking to them would have worked."

"I have no control over random gang members…"

"Fine, let's run the footage," Natasha said.

Thirty minutes later, everyone was quiet, except for Tony, who had grabbed a bucket of popcorn. Bruce had come in and was leaning against a wall.

"Okay," Natasha said. "They spend some time with the other kids, wandering around the museum."

"Not just wandering," Tony said. "Look at Sunset Shimmer over there, staring at the art. She's not doing that to just pass the time."

"So aliens are into human art," Bruce said. "Not the weirdest thing."

"Yeah, but look at this part." Fury pointed. "The kid holds his hand out to the artifacts, then pulls it back. Something about it made him realize they weren't the real deal."

"Something like the way Thor's hammer is built?"

"You think we have some teenage Asgardians wandering around?" Natasha asked.

"No," Fury said. He fast-fowarded it to the brief fight. "The girl isn't nearly as strong as Thor is, but she's skilled…"

"Very good," Natasha said, watching as the girl dodged a bolt and then knocked two men out. "She's keeping a wall to her back—making certain they can't hit anyone?"

"I don't know, I'm more interested in Junior's magic spell. I wonder if he goes to a magic school." Tony said. "Look at that—he's holding what must be about three tons of exhibit!"

"Not for long," Bruce said.

"But long enough to get the civilians out. And that gun of his, whatever it was, only stunned, it didn't kill." Natasha frowned.

"So they're good Samaritans." Tony said. "I—"

"Mr. Stark," JARVIS said. "I have located their current domicile. Their state IDs read as Sabine Wren, and Ezra Bridger, both refugees from Sokovia—or at least that is what it would appear to be on a short look. A deeper examination of the records shows no evidence of entry into the United States."

"Stark, you and I are going to have a talk about infiltrating government databases," Fury said.

"Fine, so, shall we take the limo or just fly over?"

"Whoah…" Bruce said. "You know, from experience? I'd be pretty paranoid after all of this. They just outed themselves, and they've gotta be wondering if that was the reason for everything. Maybe we should give them some time to think things over, you know, have a little less… pressure."

"Which means not you, Stark." Natasha smirked at Tony's expression.

"First, I'm going to find out everything I can about them, using SHIELD resources. No contact until we know what's likely to blow up in our face. Then, presuming that we don't find anything out, we contact them with a message, asking them to come talk to us. No pressure. No going behind my back," Fury said.

"And what then?" Tony asked.

"Find out why they're here, and if they can help us while we help them."

Ezra and Sabine had taken Janice for a walk, after calling her father and some of her friends. Janice was shaken, but the other two wanted to make certain nobody was following them. Two bus rides later, they got off in a part of the city Sabine and Ezra had never been to before. A little walk took them to a small park, where they sat down, Sabine and Ezra looking around to see if they were being followed.

"Those guys, they had—"

"Blasters," Ezra nodded. "But they were really bad with them. Worse than stormtrooper bad."

Sabine nodded. "And no plan. I bet they were just a gang that picked them up off the street after the fight."

"You did this… A lot where you came from?" Janice asked.

"Well… usually we were the ones grabbing stuff," Ezra said. "But yeah. I—" He fell silent.

"Ezra?" Sabine asked.

"I… feel something." Ezra stood up. "It's… Like nothing I ever felt before." He turned to Janice. "What's down there?"

"I dunno. I've never been to this part of town before. I mean, probably just houses, or maybe a shop. Why?"

"I think we should check it out," Ezra said.

"Ezra, we're not…"

"We can just walk by."

"Fine…"

With that, the three got up and turned right, walking down Bleecker St.

Chapter Text

The house looked just like any other house, but the Force was just… Thrumming around it.

"This is it." Ezra stared.

"What?" Janice asked. "It's just a house…"

"Ezra has a way of seeing things," Sabine said. "But shouldn't we—Ezra? Ezra!"

But Ezra ignored them, and walked into the house. The door opening as he came to it, and closing behind him. Sabine charged the door, Janice behind her, and then they were pushing it open…

And Sabine was alone. In a hallway. No sign of Janice.

No sign of the door.

Sabine glared at it, clenched her fists, and headed down the hallway, checking the doors on each side. Locked.

And as strong as Imperial blast doors.

"Hello?" Ezra asked. He was standing in a foyer, a broad stairway rising up to the second floor.

The place actually looked…Bigger.

Like the temple on Lothal. Ezra closed his eyes, reached out…

"Hello."

He spun around, jumping back and staring at the small, bald woman who had somehow just appeared behind him.

"May I help you?" she asked.

"This place, it's…" Ezra swallowed. "Are you a Jedi, or a Sith?"

"I don't believe I've ever heard anyone say those words here," the woman said. "Some call me the Ancient One. I'm a teacher and guardian, though not of the arts you use."

"You don't use the Force?"

"What is that?"

"It's…" Ezra tried to think of what Kanan had said. "An energy, it binds the universe, binds everything."

"Well, then, I do use it, but not in the same way you do." The woman smiled. "That's our hubris, isn't it, to look at the universe, at how we interact with it, and say: this must be the only way."

"I, um…"

"Come along, I'm brewing tea, and I think we can chat."

"My friends, they'll—"

"They're being taken care of, don't worry."

Sabine kept walking. How could this house be so big? She'd lost track of the twists and turns.

"I'm not liking this…" She said. "I—"

She heard a whispering voice that sounded familiar up ahead. Is that… Mother?

Sabine started running, and then came to a dead halt, staring at the open door. In it, a younger version of her was talking to her mother.

"We can fight! We can stand up—"

"Really. We can fight, against the weapons you created, Sabine Wren. The weapons you gave the Empire to use against Mandalore?"

"Mama—"

"Clan Wren will submit itself to the Empire, and pay whatever price Gar Saxon demands. But as for you, Sabine Wren, I think we have had quite enough of your… help." The screen went dark and the younger Sabine slid off the chair, ending up on the floor, sobbing with her head in her hands.

"I didn't—" Sabine took a deep breath and spoke to her younger self. "I didn't mean to, they tricked me, I can fix it… Just listen—We can do—" the crying girl didn't seem to notice her, and the screen didn't come on, with her mother. If it would just turn on, she could talk to her, and they would understand—

A hand touched her shoulder, and she shrieked, spinning around to face a man who somehow was now safely far out of reach.

"Parts of this house can be… uncomfortable when it chooses to test a guest," he said. "I am Wong." Behind him, Janice waved timidly. "Maybe we should go and wait for your young companion," he said.

Sabine nodded. She swallowed once, and then brushed the moisture from her cheeks. We should go. I don't know if I trust him. But something caused her to just follow the man. She glanced back more than once, but there was only the closed door now. She could fight, she could demand…

But he didn't feel like he was dangerous. There was something about this place. Something unnerving… But not dangerous.

And Sabine didn't want to be running through this house alone. Not anymore.

"So you want to go home," The Ancient One said.

"Yes." Ezra sipped the tea. It tasted just like the way his mother had made it. "When we managed to deactivate the Imperial experiment, there was an explosion, and well, we ended up here."

"You saved many," the woman said.

"It may not have worked," Ezra said. "I mean, build a gateway from one planet to another, from the surface?"

"It worked well enough to bring you here," she said. Then she sighed. "Ezra, I can take you to where you were born, but not your home. When I touched you, I saw that much."

"Take us back to Lothal? How would that not be my home?"

"Are you willing to risk it? The impact of what you will see?"

"I'm not afraid," Ezra said.

"Fear may not be the worst that you must endure." She stood up. "This house, and those like it, are placed on nexuses of reality, part of the wards that defend Earth. But one with a proper knowledge can use them to travel across the universe, to galaxies whose light has not even reached Earth yet."

"Can…could you teach me?" Ezra asked.

She smiled. "Maybe, but I think your paths to wisdom go along a different route. But one day, you may learn, from myself… or another."

"Kanan says I'm a fast learner."

"And you have also been hurt, have you not?"

"I…" Something about her reminded Ezra of Yoda. "Yes."

"And have you ever felt the desire to show those who hurt you what it feels like?"

"I… Yes, but I try not to. It's the path to the Dark Side, but Kanan, he never did, and he was hurt worse than me. Zeb, Hera, Sabine, they've all been hurt, but they don't let it make them… into who they fight."

"You have good friends, Ezra Bridger. You are a good man, for not one in a hundred would have resisted that temptation. Which is why I am sorry to do this to you." She gestured. "Your home."

Ezra walked through the gleaming portal. And there it was. Lothal. He could smell the air. The grass, it was…

Wait. Something was different. He was on a plain, and down there, he could see from the mountains should be the…

Where's the city? Where's the tower? Ezra turned and looked to where the tower was, but it was gone. All of the structures were. It was like people had never lived here.

"What—this is… how can this be?" then he saw a Loth-wolf. The big animal stared at Ezra, before it chuffed and took off. But it looked…

Different. Longer, slimmer, the eyes a little further back, the teeth more prominent.

"It's…how is it different!"

"Evolution, I would expect.

Ezra blinked. "But that… Hera told me how some animals can change when they go to other worlds, but it takes…"

"Thousands of years, yes. Maybe millions. This is Lothal, today, Ezra."

"They're all—but where are the people?" Ezra asked.

"Reach out with the Force."

Ezra closed his eyes. "It's… the world is empty—no, it's… waiting. Waiting for…" He looked up. "Someone else. Nobody has been here, not for a long time."

"Everything changes, and even galaxies have their own lifecycle. Species grow up, then transcend, or grow old and die, but very few stay as they are forever. The history of your people, of the bright republics and dark empires that flourished here… Has been fulfilled." She held out her hands, and Ezra found himself taking them, like a small child. "There was no tragedy here, Ezra. Your fellows, and their children, and children's children, lived long, full lives, until one generation chose to take the next step. And when that happens, it is often like a fire, spreading through the galaxy, as those teeming trillions shed their mortal form for… Well, for something else."

"They're gone…" Ezra pulled his hand from her, stumbling back. "All of them. Kanan, Hera… Zeb… Chopper… All gone." His voice broke. "We can… if we can come here, we can…"

"No. Your past is far too distant in time to journey to." She shook her head. "And I think you have a destiny here, in this time."

"Then why did you bring me here?"

"To test you." The Ancient One stared. "And you are not ready."

"I—" Ezra fell silent.

"So much has been placed on your shoulders. This, right now, right here, would destroy you. Would destroy Sabine, for much she desired to say will now go unsaid forever." She smiled, a sad expression. "One day, Ezra, you will see this again, perhaps with with me, perhaps with another. But not today. For here, alone in this world, you and Sabine stand upon sand and this would wash you away. You must wait until you stand upon the granite that friends and loved ones bring."

Ezra sniffled. "Well, I hate to tell you this, but I can't exactly—"

"Forget?" She tilted her head and reached out and touched Ezra's forehead. "That's the easiest part."

"So an hour walking around and I didn't find anything," Ezra said. "I'm sorry, guys."

"Well, it got us away from the museum, and I'm comfortably certain nobody was tracking us," Sabine said.

"Uncle Michael has sent like ten texts," Janice mentioned. "I think he's going past worried and getting annoyed." She stretched her legs. "Hey, I think that exercise is doing me good. I'm not as tired."

They were all sitting at a little cafe, the sun slowly going down. Here, there wasn't any hint of the chaos earlier in the day, people coming home from work, or just enjoying the end of the day.

"Yeah," Sabine said. She stared at her tea. "Excuse me," she said to the waiter. "I've never had tea like this, it's just like home… do you?"

"Oh," the waiter said, "a nice lady who lives up the street gave us the recipe this morning. "It's really popular," he added. "So don't worry about missing it. We'll have it here all the time."

"I won't…" Sabine said.

Ezra nodded. The drinks on Earth were nice, but somehow… this did remind him of Lothal, and for a moment, he heard the wind rushing through the grass of home, remembered running through it as a child.

But then the moment passed, and it was just the early evening wind blowing through the street.

"We'd better go," he said. The others agreed, and they got up to walk home, never noticing the woman sitting by the corner of the cafe.

"Go well, Sabine and Ezra," she said. "And may you find good ground to stand upon."

Chapter Text

The explanation for why they didn't immediately come home didn't sit that well with Michael.

"So you thought it was a honey trap and just wanted to wander around New York?"

"Yeah, to see if anyone was following us," Ezra said.

Michael sighed. "Kid, that's Iron Man. Otherwise known as Tony Stark. He's not going to be flying around over the streets seeing if he can find you. Fine. You protected Janice and well, we've got other things to talk about." He picked up a yellow gun-like object. "Ever seen this before?"

Sabine shook her head. "No… It's…" She took it from Michael, then frowned, keeping the muzzle away from anyone in the room. "No."  She handed it back to Michael. "I've never seen anything like it."

"It's a taser."

"A what?"

"Watch," Michael said. He gestured, and Mark set up a little target. "Ready—fire."

There was a soft bang, and two dart-tipped wires shot out, hitting the target. "It puts out a shock, locks your body up. It's the best less-than-lethal gun on the market."

Sabine stared, disbelief on her face. "You… use this, really? It only has one shot!"

"There are some that have two," Mark said.

Ezra stared at his lightsaber. "I…"

"Yeah, that's what we thought of this. So, Kids, how'd you like to go into legal business with me? Because the thing that keeps a lot of people from buying guns, is that guns can kill. Make a mistake and you go up for murder, and the government can make it really hard for someone to be armed in their own self-defense."

Ezra glanced at Sabine. That was one of the first things the Empire did in a lot of places.

"Can you do it?" he asked.

"I can try," Sabine said. "Stunners are old, old technology, so… Maybe?"

"I set up a workshop for you out back." Michael said. "And before that, you mentioned that your jet pack runs on fuel and you don't have a lot of it, right?"

"Yes," Sabine said.

"I may have something else for you as well," Michael said. "You don't say a lot about where you came from, but if trouble follows you, well… Let me show you."

Out back, there was a large building. Michael had told them that the guy who owned the mansion had once been an auto-freak, and had loaded it with cars.

Now it was full of equipment. Sabine walked in and frowned. "I've never used any of this." She sighed. "It'll take me a while to learn my way around it, but… making a stunner shouldn't be hard. It's the power that is going to be the problem."

"Well, we won't be able to use it for every stunner, but at least for you, we've solved the power problem. Mark?"

Michael's assistant grinned and walked over to a table with a sheet on it. He pulled the sheet off to reveal the remains of…

A droid? Ezra thought.

"About a year ago, there was a real dust-up at the Stark Expo. Some lunatic set off a bunch of robots. Now the thing is, people… sometimes stuff falls off of the back of a truck. You know…"

"Smuggling," Ezra said. "We know."

"Hah! I bet you do. Well, this here is the remains of a Hammer Drone. Nobody could make it work, but I thought of you, and… Yeah, picked it up from the guy."

"How much?" Sabine asked.

"100,000 dollars. Like I said, it didn't work, and he can't exactly sell it on the open market."

"So how did you know him?" Sabine said.

"Oh, we'd done some gambling, I… may have helped him get out of the house before his girlfriend's husband came home, and I also…"

"Lando," Sabine and Ezra chorused. "We get it."

Sabine walked forward and stared  at it, running her fingers over the parts. "This is weird. You don't even have repulsor lift systems in use but some of this is…" She shook her head. "I'm going to have to study this… and this…" She reached down and pulled up the disk-like object. "This is hooked into the power systems but…"

"Oh yeah, that's an Arc Reactor. That's actually the part that I was happiest to get. Stark spent a lot of time collecting those from the Hammer bots, and his lawyers land on anyone who tries to use them without authorization, like the wrath of God."

"Typical," Sabine muttered. "These conduits…" She shook her head. "I'm going to have to study this. I don't want to blow myself up, but I have some ideas…"

"Stunner first, if you don't mind, I'm not made of money."

"Right," Sabine nodded.

"Also, if anyone asks when you go back to school, Ezra had a prototype."

"School?" Sabine asked. She gestured at the equipment. "What about this? I can't—"

"Sure you can," Ezra said. "School's sort of fun. Besides, if someone was looking for us, wouldn't it be suspicious if we stopped going to school?"

"I… Okay." Sabine glared at the suit. "But this… I mean, I need to know." She turned to Michael. "I need you to get me out of math, science, and history, and put me in some kind of study hall."

"What, why?"

"Because I know better math than they do, I can't talk to anyone about our science, and history I don't need. But I need to study this."

"So much for teaching you tennis," Janice said in a resigned tone.

The next week the school was buzzing. Ezra explained that he'd been given a prototype Taser because he'd been threatened before. For a while, Sabine was bothered by guys who asked her if she was okay, or told her how they could have handled things better.

"She's really getting annoyed," Janice mentioned.

"Yeah, it's… Well, she'd probably like to show them why telling a Mandalorian you can protect them is a big insult."

Fortunately, Sabine was more interested in her work. She had paper notepads, that she brought from home, and would spend time in the corner of the study hall she was assigned to, supposedly because she needed some remedial work, reading and writing, carefully positioned so that nobody could see her work.

"What are we looking at, Stark?" Fury asked. The microcameras had been seeded through the school the night after they'd confirmed the two were going there.

"Well, the kid? He fits in. In fact, the way he helped that girl with her papers, and told off that one bully—you sure he's not an alternate universe you, Cap?" Tony asked.

"Fairly certain," Steve said.

"Now the girl is interesting," Tony said. "Look at these pictures." Several blown up pictures showed the notepad, the computer building a composite, and editing Sabine's head out of it.

"That's the writing on the cache we found," Fury said.

"Right, but look at what she's doing—We've been watching for a week, and she keeps working on this. Looks like some kind of energy projector, but the design keeps evolving."

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

Tony gestured at the image. "She's not someone who found something and is copying it—she's an engineer. She's refining the paper design."

"And from the sound of her voice, getting annoyed," Bruce said. "But I think her tech is limited in some respects. She didn't think of microcams."

"Most kids don't assume they're going to be spied on in school," Steve said, an edge to his voice.

Fury shook his head. Captain America had not been happy to find out about modern surveillance technology.

"No," Fury replied. "They are. She's watching and putting herself in a position where people can't see what she's working on, but I see what Bruce means. She's not used to how small we can make these sensors. Or she knows, but hasn't internalized it."

"So what do we do?" Tony asked. "Just let little Miss Raygun design her blaster? If she's designing it, she's going to build it."

"And she could be building something else, they have that back building that she goes to." Bruce added.

"The only thing they've done is fight the Chitauri, escort a girl home, and then fight some robbers," Steve said. "How about we just go and visit them?" He looked around. "We know that they're connected to the package, and they went to go see it, but we don't know why. Maybe those things are money. Maybe they're information. Maybe they're just pictures from home. But not everyone from beyond Earth is an enemy."

"You have an infinite capacity for optimism," Tony said.

"Well, I come from a naive generation," Steve replied.

"Do you think you can talk to them?" Fury asked.

"I think it won't hurt."

Fury frowned, then nodded. "I'll set it up. But we won't be able to do that right now, I've got some things you need to deal with, Captain."

"More important than this?"

"The world doesn't stop just because we want it to. And for that matter, some of our analysts agree—giving them time to get settled might make them more likely to listen to us. I don't always go for the hard sell."

"So Fury's looking at these kids."

"Yes. We've got data on them, but they're a blank. Just appeared during the attack on New York. Fury thinks they may have come through another gateway, but since Thor isn't here, they don't have anyone to ask."

"Why should we care?" Pierce asked. He looked out over the skyline of New York, buildings still being repaired from the invasion.

"Evidence indicates that the girl is a high level combatant, and the boy has… unusual skills. We're not entirely certain about their extent, but…" the image played, showing the display being held, "that kind of ability, in a covert agent…"

"We have a hundred high-level combatants," Pierce said. "And this isn't the kind of thing that's worth deploying SHIELD assets or our other arms to deal with." The call was secured, but saying HYDRA aloud was just terrible tradecraft.

"We won't. Fury's already tracked them to their home—he's a small-time smuggler and crimelord."

"And?"

"And they're illegal immigrants, working with a known criminal, even if the DA hasn't been able to pin anything on him. Whisper in the right ears, and we can drop a SWAT team on them. I have a team that can take them into custody, with everyone being read in on the organization, so we can get what we need. It's a win-win. If they give up, Fury will bring them in. If they fight, we can see how good they are, and depending on whether or not they kill anyone, we can pull them out of Fury's reach and indoctrinate them both, the same way we handled the Soldier. Even if they don't kill anyone, there's no way Fury lets them run free, so we still get influence over them."

Pierce tapped the desk, thinking hard.

"No." He finally said. "Not yet, and nothing that complex. I want to see what they're going to do over the next month or so. There's nothing keeping us from pulling the trigger later, after all."

"And Fury?"

"If we decide to go forward, our only point of contact will be turning the New York authorities loose on them. After that, let Fury handle it. If he brings them in, we have our own people who can… talk to them, without ever letting on that they're not part of SHIELD."

"Cautious for you."

"We were just invaded by aliens. Everyone's at high alert, and I'm juggling a lot of balls in the air as it is. One point of contact, an anonymous tip, is something that even Fury won't pick up on. But the more clever we get, the more strings there are for someone to start tugging on." He shrugged. "Keep it simple and keep it quiet for now."

"Yes, sir."

The phone went dead. Pierce frowned, staring at the city. The damaged buildings were a sign of the rot at the core of the nation, of the world. They'd been weak and vulnerable.

Mankind needed a strong hand to guide them. An organization unafraid to do what needed to be done.

Hail Hydra, Pierce thought, and then went back to his paperwork.

Chapter Text

Three weeks, Ezra thought. Three weeks since the fight at the museum. They'd been interviewed by the police, and didn't that bring back bad memories of the ISB. But nobody had twigged on to them.

Oh, and Sabine had wrecked the school driver's ed car. She was sitting, head bent over her workbench, grumping about that.

"Don't worry," Janice said, looking nervous. "Everyone, um, hits the curb doing 30."

"Everybody does, in a world where you use repulsors instead of rubber wheels," Sabine said. She did something with her soldering iron and then grinned. "And it's done."

Ezra looked over where he'd been working on the power coupling. "You sure?" he asked. All three looked over at the soot stains on the far wall, and the five new fire extinguishers Michael had put in the room.

"Yes," Sabine said. She hefted the stunner. "Let's show Michael."

"And your suit," Janice said.

"That's for me," Sabine grinned. She glanced over at the suit, the gray armor decorated with complex abstract designs.

Ezra nodded. Replicating the power source wasn't something she'd managed to do, not yet. It required some kind of material that she couldn't figure out. But she'd been able to strip the drone and repurpose its reactor. Now, there was an open frame that would lock around Sabine's armor, adding weapons, thrust and shields without hurting her mobility.

Not only that, but the reactor had enough power to call up shields larger than they'd used back home. Granted, Sabine hadn't been able to fix the problem with the arc reactor overheating, but as long as you didn't fly and shoot everything off, that wasn't a problem.

These people are weird. Tech like that, and they ran around with slugthrowers.

"So show me what you have," Michael said.

"Right," Sabine held up the heavy weapon. It looked like a short-barreled shotgun, with a thick cable running back to a power pack. "You don't have any power sources that work well enough, so this only gives 10 shots, and it only has a range of about 30 meters." She shrugged. "I tried to make it as small as I could but this is the best I could do."

"Ten shots, thirty meters range?" Mark said. "Kid, you just became our accountant's favorite person. He paused. "But how fast can it fire?"

Sabine grinned and then raised the gun and pulled the trigger as fast as she could. Blue rings shot out, one after the other.

"Holy…" Michael stared. "I think you just put every less-lethal alternative out of business. What about danger?"

"Well," Sabine said. "If you shoot someone when they're on a wall, they can fall and die. Other than that, the stunners have a limit on how much they can do. Shooting a person 10 times just makes them sleep a little longer." She felt pride at the way they were looking at her.

And then she remembered the last time she'd felt that pride—when her tutor at the Imperial Academy had called her in to talk with the ordinance director on how best to make her dream Mandalore's nightmare.

"How soon can we start production?" Michael asked.

"I have the plans." Sabine nodded. "You just have to…" She frowned. "Talk to the patent office?" It felt strange, talking about something like a stunner, like it was some new development.

But this world was so young. There had been stunners in the galaxy for longer than Earth had possessed cities.

"Yeah, we'll file those right away. Great Job."

"Hands off the school," Chief Landon muttered. "Hands off the fucking house." Michael was flaunting his new business, with a pair of illegal aliens going to school, and his every attempt to act on the information was being stonewalled. Bringing in equipment. Talking to patent attorneys. He bet he had grabbed some fucking alien tech and was going to pretend that he had invented it.

The only thing he'd invented were new ways to smuggle a few million dollars' worth of black market smokes into the state.

Well he wasn't going to stand for that. Someone wanted Michael protected, they could fuck right off, especially with his information that SHIELD was pulling strings. Having anonymous sources was great, even if they wanted him to hold off for a while. Well fuck them too.

"You know," Landon said to his deputy chief. "The presence of these kids could imply a trafficking operation, and given the danger to them…"

"A no-knock warrant?"

"Yep, get Judge Conners. All you have to do is wave law and order in his face, and maybe show that the kids ain't white, and he'll sign it in an instant." Landon didn't understand people like that—a crook was a crook, didn't matter what color their skin was, but it paid to know what judges would give you an auto-sign off.

"You know, it could be dangerous," the deputy chief said. "And with all the people talking about how we dropped the ball with the Chitauri…"

Right. Landon thought. There had been cops and national guard troops on the ground, and more than a few had died in the line of duty—but to hear everyone talk, they'd been out getting donuts while the city was invaded. Nobody bothered to think about what it took for some guy who wasn't a god or wrapped up in enough firepower to sink a battleship to go up against aliens with a 9mm sidearm.

"Yeah… Full hostile entry. Flashbangs, ram Old Bessie through their front gate, helicopters, the whole thing. Minimum notification required by law. Scare the shit out of them. Maybe bring some news people who are on our side for the good PR."

"Oh, and make certain to get a bunch of boxes," Landon said. A real search warrant would take days to clear, but people loved seeing boxes of paperwork coming out of a house. The fact that they'd taken the boxes in and just brought them out filled with nothing but newspapers never really got talked about.

"Right," his deputy said.

"But keep this quiet. I don't want to find out that SHIELD is going to come sweeping in because they've decided they get to tell everyone in the nation to do."

"Will do, Boss. Friday sound good?"

"Perfect. It'll be a great way to start off the weekend. We'll be on every Saturday news program."

Chapter Text

It happened on a Friday.

As usual, Sabine was finished with her homework. Janice and Ezra just felt a little annoyed.

Okay, maybe it's because she got out of History. Ezra was having issues with history. On the other—

Suddenly, the Force just screamed out a warning. Ezra stopped.

"Janice, get your dad," he said.

"What's—"

"Something's coming. Sabine, is your armor ready?"

"Yeah."

"Get it." Ezra turned to Janice. "We need to talk to your dad."

"Right," Janice said. They ran to Michael's office.

"I'm telling you, Hank, this is a deal you don't want to miss out on. I saw it, and it works and—hang on." Michael looked up as Ezra and Janice came running in, and then frowned as he saw Ezra holding his lightsaber. "I'll get back to you."

"Something's coming. Something bad," Ezra said. "You need to leave with Janice. Now."

"Do you know what it is?" Michael asked, already getting up.

"No."

Michael had seen the kid levitate a car. If he said something bad was coming, something bad was coming. "Janice, here are some preloaded debit cards. Go with them."

"Unc—"

"Don't argue. If—"

"Boss, someone hit the Ga—"

And then the windows shattered. Ezra's sword ignited as he swept Janice behind him, but other windows were shattering. And through them came flash bangs.

For the rest of his life, Michael wondered if he could have avoided the disaster. If he'd known they were cops and not someone deciding to hit him because of the business, he might not have done what he had done. If he remembered that nobody else knew about the stunner, he might not have done what he did.

But in the flashings and explosions of the grenades, he grabbed the prototype and opened up, the blue flashes barely visible to his dazzled eyes. He was shooting blind, but he knew which way the windows were. They hit the first bodies coming in through the window, and they dropped like sacks.

This is going well, Landon thought. The gate was smashed, his people were in, already with some of the bodyguard on their bellies, getting cuffed. There was even a news crew there to watch as the traffickers were arrested, and the people in the front had shouted "police" as they kicked the door down so they were covered legally. He didn't know what the team on the side was—

"OFFICERS DOWN! MULTIPLE OFFICERS DOWN! THEY'VE GOT CHITARUI GUNS!" And on the heels of that, the sound of gunfire started to rise from the house.

Inside, it was chaos. Blocking a bullet was a little harder than a blaster, and you couldn't redirect them, but Ezra managed to protect himself. But Mr. Michael fell back, dropping the stunner, scarlet blooming on his shoulder.

"Uncle Michael!"

"Kid, get out of here, take Janice—" he fell behind the desk as another volley of slugthrowers rang out.

Ezra struck out with the force, sending the stormtroopers flying out of the window. Then he grabbed Janice and pulled her after him.

"Uncle Michael!"

"We can't help him if we're dead." Ezra grabbed his communicator. "Sabine! We're heading to the garage, I need you to distract—WHA!" he dodged back as a volley of fire almost got him and Janice, and then raised his saber, switching to stun bolts. They couldn't get stopped here, and by the time the stormtroopers were awake, they'd be long gone. "I need a distraction!"

"Oh, you've got that," Sabine said.

We were stupid. Everything had looked so nice that they'd forgotten. The Empire liked to act like this, too—until it was time to show its real face. Sabine felt the outer armor lock around her body, her helmet linking with the systems on the armor.

I really wish I'd had time to test this. But no time like the present. She looked up at the door, men using some kind of sledgehammer on it.

"Ok, let me help you," she said, and triggered her repulsor.

The door exploded as she shot out.

"Ezra, I'll clear a path!"

Then she was rising up, and the targeting systems were coming alive. She looked at the big armored vehicle sitting in front. It was blocking the way.

Sabine targeted it, and blew it onto it's side with a full-power repulsor blast from the rings around her hands. That way, if she had to, she could use both her repulsors and her blasters. She would have preferred to use missiles, but she only had a few of those.

And then Ezra came roaring out of the smoke on a scarlet bike, Janice clinging to his back. He got close to the cars blocking his way and then they were just shoved aside by the force.

"Ezra!" Sabine said. "Head to Manhattan."

"What?" Ezra said. "Sabine—"

"They came for us, we have to recover the holocrons and go. If this Stark had the fakes, I bet he's keeping the real ones in his tower."

"Right."

"Where are we going to go?" Janice whimpered. "Why did the cops…"

"That's what they do," Ezra said. "We'll keep you safe, don't worry."

"What the hell happened?" Fury snarled as he stormed into the command center.

"Cops pulled a no-knock warrant," Maria Hill said, turning to face him. "They kept it on the QT."

"Pulling up a video," someone called, and Fury swore as the devastation was shown. Police cars were on their sides, burning, what looked like an armored car had been tossed past the gates.

"This is American News, live. We've been informed that what was thought to have been a human trafficking operation was actually a front for a terrorist organization using alien-derived weaponry!" The reporter gestured, and suddenly the video showed cops falling to blue flashes, and a figure unleashing repulsor bolts on vehicles.

"Well now we know what she was doing when she wasn't working on a blaster," Tony said. "Suiting up."

"We've just received information about the two terrorists who attacked so many of the nation's finest." A pair of images appeared. One of Ezra Bridger looking… well, nervous as several girls surrounded him, and the other of Sabine Wren, leaning against a locker, talking to Ezra.

"They should be considered armed and extremely dangerous, and the police have assured us that they will be brought to justice!"

"Damn. It." Fury shook his head. "How many dead?"

"None, sir. In fact a lot of the ones listed as being down appear to have been just stunned. No other injuries, just like they were knocked out. That's where the first reports of deaths came from. Other injuries include broken bones, burns…but no dead." Hill shook her head. "I think they were lucky. Those two were prioritizing getting out, rather than racking up a body count."

"Somehow, I don't feel lucky," Fury said. "Stark, try to avoid a fight."

"This is the girl with enough firepower to blow up a tank, heading into the most heavily populated city in America? I just wanted to be certain."

"Tony, they're not acting like crooks," Steve said. "They could have done a lot more. I think they're scared, and they don't have a plan. If we can talk them down…"

"Big if, Cap," Tony said. "Right, I'm in the air. JARVIS, give me a track on Tinkerbelle."

"Coming up, sir."

"Sabine, how can we get there?" Ezra asked. "That's the first place I'd protect."

"I don't know!" Sabine said. "But we— Oh, no."

"What is it?"

"Iron Man."

"Karabast!" Ezra burst out. "We have to—" then suddenly, directly in front of them, there were cars, dozens of police cars, men getting out. Ezra turned right, then left, trusting in the Force, and ended up in what looked like an old office building of some kind, smashing through the front in a shower of safety glass. He let the bike slide, leaping free with Janice in his arms.

"Ezra, we have to surrender, we can explai—"

Ezra cut her off. "Janice, if we surrender we die. That's how these people act! They were friendly to you because you didn't matter, but look what they did! They didn't ask to come in. They started shooting, even though we hadn't hurt any of them." Ezra took a breath. "I'll hold them off. You have money. You need to take it, and when I open a way, run, get out of this city. Don't look back."

"But Ezra, you don't un—"

"Promise me!"

"I… I promise."

Ezra shook his head. "I'm sorry. It would have been better for you if we'd never been here." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I guess that's how it is for a lot of my friends."

No way Ezra can get away with him in the air. Sabine knew that. She'd seen pictures of what he did during the invasion.

So as the form rocketed towards her, she did what she had to do.

Did what she would do for her friends, and they would do for her.

Put herself in the way of those who would hurt them.

And with that, she launched her rockets at the armored Avenger.

The only way he was getting to Ezra was if Sabine Wren was dead.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Nick Fury was not happy.

No, Nick Fury was beyond angry. He'd wrapped his way back to calm. Sure, the kids were with a criminal, but mostly a non-violent criminal. They'd already saved lives, and beyond that, were… going to school. Learning the terrain.

So they had been put down lower on the list of fires SHIELD had to put out. Some of the analysts had actually said it would be a good idea. Let them get more assimilated, get to know more people, then come in with a soft debrief and maybe, depending, a job offer.

Or just give their current guardian a warning about involving them in the criminal underworld and go from there. They wouldn't be the first aliens who just wanted to live their lives on Earth in quiet anonymity.

And now… This.

"Explain to me," Fury said. "Why you felt the need to attack an estate, after we requested that you not get involved, without giving advance warning?"

"You're taking the word of a criminal over us?"

"I am taking the word of a man who was shot in the shoulder, after using a less-lethal stunner, and who was in a room that my people agree had flash-bangs detonate in it, probably not moments before the team entered." Fury took a calming breath. "My people are very good at forensic analysis, and you are very lucky that those two teens were getting their friend out instead of sticking around to fight."

"What would you have done, then?"

"Nothing, I would have done nothing, until we were ready, and then…" Fury leaned forward, looming over the police chief. "I would have called them and asked them to meet us at a neutral location."

"We were worried about—"

"What? That they might be at school? Yes, we've been observing them, and you could have served the warrant here while they were gone. You wanted a PR event." Fury swept out one hand to indicate the road leading up to the estate. It was now jammed with news trucks, ranging from the Times to CNN. One reporter was filming a report in front of the wrecked armored car. "Congratulations. You have your PR event." He spun off and walked away.

"How bad is it?" he asked Maria Hill.

"We've managed to convince the news media to avoid putting their names all over the news, since they're both juveniles…" Hill shook her head. "But every kid they talked to at the school knows who they are, and it's blowing up across social media right now. No way to stop it, not without looking even worse than we do." She paused. "Of course, a lot is going to depend on whether or not we're still talking about two kids by tomorrow."

"Right." Fury shook his head.

"Forensics is going over the workshop. They're confirming what the owner said. Other than personal weapons, they were only working on stunner designs for their host. And his paperwork was all for things like patent rules and loans. He even had an application for a booth at the National Law Enforcement Organizations Convention."

"Damn. It."

Sabine saw flashes. She hurt, and the darkness kept pulling her down. She kept trying to get up. Fight. She had to stop them. Had to protect Ezra and Janice.

There were words around her. Flashes of light.

CODE BLUE, CODE BLUE.

"Right, you'll be okay. You'll be okay. Get ready to move her…" Pain as she was moved to some other bed.

"Get that crap off of her!" There were hands, stripping her. Taking her armor. Sometimes the Empire did that. A way to show what they could do to you. She wouldn't let them. She struggled up from the darkness and raised a hand to stop them. It flopped around, and then they were taking her clothes off.

"Right, get the…" Sabine faded out again and then someone was putting a mask over her face. She fought her way back again, tried to push it off, but someone pushed her hand away. She screamed. They were pressing her down, holding her. Fight. She had to fight. She arched her back, and then her scream turned into a gurgle.

"You'll be fine, honey. Honey, listen to me. I know it hurts, I know you're scared, but you have to let us help you." Was that Ezra? No. She'd gotten Ezra away.

The light hurt… Why was Kanan here? They'd left him at the base when they'd gone—

A high-pitched wailing sound rose up in the room, and Sabine fell into a soft darkness, the pain going away as she heard someone shout out, voice sounding a little bit like Hera's when they ran into a bunch of TIEs.

"She's crashing!"

When Natasha made it to the hospital, she was confronted by the odd sight of a teenaged girl assaulting Iron Man. Fury had called out everyone, now that the teens' identity was out. Clint was on his way, and there were more SHIELD troops around the hospital than there were at the helicarrier.

None of which changed the surreal nature of Iron Man, standing, not even raising his hands to hold her off, as the blond teen slapped him across the face.

Granted, not unusual for Tony Stark, but generally with older women, and never in his Iron Man persona.

"You killed her!" The girl said through her tears.

"Janice," the shorter teen said as he took her by her arms and led her away. "Sabine isn't dead. Remember what Steve Rodgers said. This was… This was a mistake."

And that grabbed Natasha's attention. The kid wasn't in shock or posturing, but he was showing a…

Calm. One that she'd never seen in any of the surveillance videos of his. Interesting. But first, she needed to get information.

"What happened?" She asked Tony, as the teen led the sobbing girl away.

"Oh, normal thing. Cops jump the gun, teenage girl gets into a suit of powered armor, we have a duel, and… I managed to chase her into a solid concrete wall at one hundred miles…" Tony's face was pale, and he was brushing his armor with his hands.

No. The blood on his armor. Natasha hissed. That was a large amount of blood.

"I know what a piece of crap Hammertech systems are, and I still chased her. I could have just waited for the goddamned reactor to blow while I could still catch her in the air, not chase her down to the deck."

"You didn't have a choice, Tony," Natasha said.

"Yeah, you know, we say that a lot. When I was making weapons, I said it every day to some bleeding heart liberal. I didn't have a choice. If I didn't make them someone else would. When we do something that ends up with a bunch of dead kids, we say we didn't have a choice. And everyone nods along, and we go back to our jobs… until the next time we didn't have a choice. Maybe I should have tried to think of something better. Maybe, if we didn't keep telling ourselves we didn't have a choice, there would be a few less bodies."

"She was in a power suit in New York."

"And maybe if I had backed off, like Cap had, she wouldn't be in surgery with a 30 percent chance of making it through the next two hours!" Tony's fist lashed out, and put a hole in the plaster wall of the waiting room. Natasha put her hand on his arm.

"Might want to watch that. Lots of things here don't like getting punched."

"Yeah. Sorry! Just a little structural integrity test!" he said, louder.

Nobody laughed.

The time passed. Right now would be the best time to interview Ezra, normally, but Natasha didn't think he'd fall prey to that. He still had that sense of calm. He was comforting Janice, holding her while she alternately sobbed and ranted.

Her father was coming, but there were… Issues, Fury had said. The locals were digging their heels in on him, trying to recover something based on his position as a dangerous cigarette smuggler.

Natasha got the impression that Fury was about to drop Banner on their heads and see how they liked playing with the Big Guy.

But for now, the order was for a soft touch, to try and recover some of this disaster.

"He's a soldier," Steve said as he handed her a cup of coffee.

"How did he get so calm?"

"Some kind of meditative exercise," Steve said. "I talked to him over the phone and when I got there in person… the panic, the anger… It was…" he shrugged. "Gone. That's a pretty rare skill."

"Yeah. Tony's beating himself up."

"He couldn't have done anything else. I had Ezra in an isolated building. No danger to civilians. I could wait. Tony didn't have that luxury."

"Tell him that." Natasha shook her head. After all. Tony's never killed a kid on purpose. That wasn't something she could say.

She hadn't been kidding when she'd told Loki she had a lot of red in her book, after all.

Three hours later, a doctor came out. "Who is her guardian?" he asked.

"That would be me," Fury said from where he'd just walked in through the door. "Unless you have an FTL drive, that is."

"Right. Well," the doctor stared at Iron Man for a moment. "Good news, you didn't succeed in killing her. Bad news…" he shrugged. "She's in extremely critical condition. Eight broken ribs, broken leg, though that's pretty minor, a punctured lung, damage to the kidneys…" he sighed. "We're still uncertain about those. She may need a transplant or dialysis in the future, but we won't know until the other stuff gets fixed. The internal bleeding almost killed her. Good news, she evidently knew how to fall, or had something shielding her head. She had a heavy concussion, but that was it. She crashed three times, but we managed to bring her back. We can't do anything else, not right now."

"Is she going to live?" Ezra asked, and for all his calm, he sounded much younger than he was.

"I—"

"The truth, Doctor," Fury said.

"I can't give percentages. This isn't like gambling. I can say that if she makes it through tonight, her chances are much better to make it through tomorrow."

"I want to sit with her," Ezra said.

"Young man, that's… she's not…" The doctor shook his head. "She's in bad shape. Are you sure you can handle it?"

"Yes," a new voice spoke. Captain America looked down at Ezra. "He can. If you're worried, I'll sit with him."

"I… Yes, Captain America. Just… she looks bad."

"Can I…" Janice asked in a weak voice. Ezra turned and took her by the hands. "Remember how annoyed Sabine was when she ate that food that didn't agree with her and had to…"

"Puke in the bathroom?" Janice said, giggling, even as tears came down her face.

"She really doesn't like a lot of people seeing her when she's… not on her feet. I'll watch her, and when she wakes up, you can talk to her."

"Tha—thank you." Janice threw her arms around Ezra, sniffling. "I'm sorry. You being with us has been horr—"

"No, it hasn't. You're a friend. And this happens when you protect people. But it's what we do."

With that, he and Steve followed the Doctor out, leaving the rest standing in the room.

Waiting.