"Stark Fear"

By darthelwig

**I don't own anything. I'm just having fun.**

She saw destruction in his mind. Death. The death of the Avengers, and his desperation to prevent it from happening. She felt his fear- no, his terror, and she was awed by it. Shocked that a man like Tony Stark could feel such a thing, and feel it so deeply. His fear was so easy to release. It hung just under the surface of his skin.

She knew what desperation could do. She had felt it herself- she and Pietro both. They knew how it ate away at you until you were doing things you never imagined yourself capable of. Hadn't they submitted themselves to the experiments of the man called Strucker? Hadn't they let themselves suffer so that they could one day become strong enough to destroy this very man before her?

They had let themselves become something other. Something strange and sometimes terrible. All to destroy Tony Stark. Because they had no other way to reach him. They had no other way to become strong.

Yes, she knew what Stark was experiencing, and she reveled in it. He would take that scepter and he would not only complete what Strucker had been trying to do, he would expand upon it. He would make it bigger, flashier, badder. It was what Mr. Tony Stark did, after all. He lived larger than life. He would create without thought as to what he was creating, and in the end, he would destroy himself. His desperation would destroy them all.

She smiled, a little madness flashing in her eyes, as Pietro asked her if they really were going to just let Stark take the scepter from them.

"Yes, Pietro," she projected into his head, almost gleeful. "Yes, we are."