"Dahlia Anelace, I have never been more happy to see you."

"And that's saying something, since he flips out every time you enter a room."

Dahlia chose to ignore these two comments made by the twins, instead focusing on the task at hand— she didn't know how long Jimmy could keep the cameras offline.

The cells were very tightly secured, with only fingerprint access, and steel reinforced doors.

"Fucking-" She swore profusely as she messed with the fingerprint locks, they wouldn't be fooled by any sort of fake print she could make. "Wait. Have any of you been paying attention to the guard's rotations?"

Clint jumped up from his seat, looking like a puppy who was happy to be of use. "I have!"

"Great, do you remember which one brought you in? They'll have fingerprints that can open this." Dahlia asked quickly, hoping Clint knew something helpful.

"I think Grant Roberts was, he's the one who's having an affair with Kyle's wife, and Kyle knows all about this, but he's being paid off not to talk about it by this mobster who-"

He stopped when he noticed the funny look on Dahlia's face. She turned to Sam for confirmation that she wasn't, in fact, going insane and Clint was actually saying these things.

"Yep, he's made up this soap opera between all the guards to keep himself occupied." Sam looked embarrassed on his behalf.

"I'm trying to think of a name for it. Prison Promises, Guardly Galavants, I think I'm getting really close to a good one." He drummed his fingers on the wall of his cell.

Dahlia scrunched up her nose in thought, before exiting the prison block swiftly.

The imprisoned Avengers looked at each other in confusion, wondering what the hell she was doing.

After a few minutes of muffled yells and grunts, Dahlia returned to her friends, dragging a guard behind her by his thumb.

"This is Grant Roberts, right?" She sighed, lugging the large man along the floor.

Clint hesitated. "...No. That's Chris Laketon."

Dahlia groaned, dropped the man flat on the floor, and turned back around, the soles of her shoes tip-tapping on the ground as she did.

A few more yells, along with the sound of a gun being fired, reached their ears, and she came through the glass double doors once more, pulling this man in the same manner as the last.

She looked to Clint for verification and he nodded. Dahlia lifted the man's thumb up to touchpad, the screen glowing a bright green as she did so.

A grin graced the girls face as Wanda's cell door slid open, who immediately ditched her straightjacket with ease.

It was quite the funny sight, ask any of them, to see Dahlia Anelace walking from cell to cell, with an unconscious man being dragged behind her by his thumb.

"Dahlia, I think a few guards heard the noise, they're heading down the corridor towards you now." Jimmy's voice crackled in her ear.

"Fuck, thanks." Dahlia replied, the Avengers looking at her weirdly.

"Who are you talking to?" Sam looked worried that another one of his friends was going crazy, like Clint.

She laughed, realizing how crazy she looked. "My friend is helping me get you guys out, but that's not what we have to worry about right now. Some guards heard me take out the guys in the hallway, and they're heading this way right now. We'll have to fight our way out."

Clint looked at Dahlia with puppy eyes. "But I don't have my bow and arrow!"

"Sucks to suck, Clinton. Guess you'll just have to fight the old-fashioned way." She stuck her tongue out at him before grabbing her gun and loading it.

"I told you not to call me that!"

Pietro wanted to hug Dahlia and never let her go the moment he saw her, but unfortunately they had other matters to attend to.

Namely, the four burly guards that entered the cell block.

To keep them straight, Dahlia assigned each of them a nickname.

Dumb, Ugly, Dumber, and Uglier.

Clint tackled Ugly, calling out, "I'm sorry about this! Tell your wife I'm sure the twins' will do just fine on their history presentation!"

Maybe the confusion of what he was saying helped, because that guard was out cold in only a minute or so.

Pietro knocked Dumber to the ground, while Sam began to beat him up, leaving him bloodied and unconscious on the ground.

Scott wasn't of much help, not without his suit, so he merely kept watch while the others kicked ass.

Dahlia climbed onto Uglier's shoulders, kicking him on the side. As he fell to the ground, she jumped up into the air, landing on his back. She was sure she heard a crack, and she wasn't sure if it was on his end or hers, but she brushed it off.

Wanda took Dumb, sending him crashing through the ground, hurtling into the sea below the prison.

That was a bit of a mistake, because the floors below them started to flood with water.

"Well," Dahlia looked down into the hole in the ship. "I hope you all can swim."

"I can't!"

"You're a grownass man, Scott, that's just sad." Sam snickered.

"Um, guys, we really have to go." Wanda was staring down at the water that was filling up quickly beneath them.

Dahlia looked out into the hall, checking for more people.

"We've got a helicopter on the roof, all we need to do is make it up there without getting caught. Secrecy isn't an option anymore, so let's just run the hell out of here, take out anyone in the way, and not die, okay?"

Everyone nodded in agreement and burst out into the hallway, armed and ready to fight.

Luckily, the first corridor was empty with bodies littering the floor, a result of Dahlia's previous fight.

"Why am I not surprised that Dahlia doesn't clean up after herself?" Clint said, hopping over a body that was in the way.

"It wasn't a priority okay? I was too busy trying to save you, you're welcome by the way."

Pietro pressed his back to the wall, looking over his shoulder to check the next hallway. "Dahls, there are three guards out there."

"Give me two minutes. You can time me." Dahlia walked out from their cover, and after well under two minutes, she came back, with only a few drops of sweat to show for her efforts.

Pietro was just staring at her with a dopey grin on his face. "Have I ever told you how amazing you are?"

"Yeah, yeah, we know, now let's not get shot or drown, shall we?" Wanda said, and the group made their way towards the roof, salt water nipping at their heels as they ran up the stairs.

Dahlia was behind the group, making sure everyone got up alright, when the water started to pool around her ankles.

Now, if you've ever tried to run in water, you'd know that it's a particularly difficult feat. It slows down your movement and makes it near impossible to get from place to place. So you can imagine that as the water rose higher and higher on Dahlia, she started to panic as her ability to move was hindered.

They had all made it onto the roof, and the helicopter was in sight, but the possibility of what would happen if she didn't make it there kept flashing in the back of her brain, making her flinch and keep pushing her way through the rising sea.

Scott had climbed into the chopper, pulling in Wanda after him. Clint and Sam reached only a moment later, throwing their bodies onto the floor. Pietro grabbed the footing, pulling himself up and into the transport, just as the roof fell below the ocean surface.

"We've gotta get this thing in the air." Sam said urgently to Jimmy, who nodded and pulled it up. "Sam, by the way."

"Jimmy."

"We did it!" Pietro smiled and looked around, but he froze when he realized who was missing. "Dahlia!"

Pietro almost flung himself out of the helicopter with desperation, upon trying to look for the girl.

The sea below them was empty, void of any signs of life that could be Dahlia's.

Pietro's heart began to sink, his eyes widening and his breath catching.

A large, military grade ship arrived to their right, prisoners and prison guards alike being boarded onto it. Evidently, someone had given them word of the sinking prison, and they were here to collect everyone from it.

"We need to close the doors and go now, or else they'll catch the chopper and you guys along with it." Jimmy said, panic in his voice.

"We can't leave her!" Pietro was beginning to hyperventilate, scouring the water with his eyes, hoping to see her face.

Clint came up behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "He's right, kid. We have to go."

He hung his head in his hands, hoping that if he closed his eyes tight enough, he'd wake up from this awful reality, and Dahlia would be right beside him.

Pietro took in a shakey breath, finally standing up and getting ready to leave, despite how badly he wanted to stay and throw himself out into the ocean, when he noticed a hand.

A hand was clinging tightly onto the landing gear.

He nearly toppled out into the water when he saw it.

Sam sighed, for no one inside could see what he was gawking at, and assumed he was just hesitant to leave. "Maximoff, we've gotta go."

"N-no, look."

"Kid, I know it's hard and I'm feeling it too but-"

"No, seriously look!"

Sam's jaw dropped as well.

Pietro immediately sprung into action when Sam saw it too, because he was now aware he wasn't just imagining it.

He grabbed her hand with his own, hanging onto the door for support as he used every muscle he could to pull her up into the chopper.

Slowly, as his arm contracted, Dahlia's face came into view, face scrunched up in pain. With one last grunt, Pietro lifted her up and she lay sprawled beside him.

The two lay on the floor of the helicopter panting for a minute or so. The door beside them slid shut and the chopper lifted into the air, rumbling beneath. It was quiet for a moment, but Dahlia was never one for silence, so she launched into conversation.

"Thank goodness, I've been hanging on there for like five minutes! Good thing Steve made me do all those pull-ups in training or else I woulda been-"

She was silenced as Pietro crouched over her, crashing his lips with hers like it was the last time he could, because it almost was.

Dahlia wrapped her arms around his shoulders, melting into it before separating them. Still underneath him, she said, "As much as I liked that and I definitely enjoy doing this in front of my friends and your family, there's something I want to do first."

She stood up, facing the back window. Everyone looked at her with confusion as she stuck both her middle fingers up and gestured to the military boat behind them.

"Suck on this, Ross! You just got Dahlia'd!"

Clint face-palmed, sighing something about 'stupid kids' into his hand.

"So, where to?" Jimmy asked, steering the chopper carefully away from the place where Raft's Prison used to be.

Sam slid into the passenger seat beside him.

"Do you have a phone? I need to make a call."

•

The chopper landed on a snowy mountain, the cold wind whistling at all of their ears.

"When Cap said he needed us to find him, I didn't think he meant here. You would think he has experienced enough cold to last him a lifetime, right?" Dahlia asked, munching on some popcorn that she picked up in Germany.

"I mean, probably, but I didn't think it'd be an island or anything," Pietro shrugged.

She sighed happily. "I'd love to live on an island, man. Some place where you can walk to the ocean, and you don't have to wear shoes a lot, and where there are pretty flowers all over the place..."

He grinned at the look on her face, grabbing a handful of her popcorn, earning a glare. "What?"

She let it go, for once in her life. "You're lucky I love you or I would've cut your hand clean off."

The two went still, Dahlia frozen with her mouth full of popcorn, Pietro with his hand full of it.

"What?" He asked quietly, trying to conceal his smile. "You- you what?"

"I- uh-"

Clint butted into their discussion, thankfully. "We're leaving this 'copter and getting in the quinjet, Cap still has it."

The two leapt at the chance to get out of the awkward conversation, climbing out of the helicopter and heading towards the huddle of adults.

Cap and Bucky looked awful, to put it plainly. Steve had a cut lip, a bruise forming on his left eye, dried blood on his forehead, and an evident limp, even as he stood there. Bucky looked to be on the brink of unconsciousness, bleeding from a gash on his leg and leaning his weight entirely on Cap. The most jarring difference, though, was that his synthetic arm was gone, completely cut off, leaving only a stump behind.

"Wow, you guys look terrible!" Dahlia didn't hesitate to say what she was thinking.

Steve smiled as best he could, and Pietro interrupted with a smirk. "You can't talk, Dahls."

"Yeah, well, at least I don't bleach my hair." Dahlia snorted.

"I do not!"

"Do too!"

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

The tension between the group seemed to lift at the return of Dahlia and Pietro's childlike spats.

"I see you two haven't changed a bit." Steve chuckled.

"Why would we?" Pietro smiled, nudging her in the ribs.

"There's no need, not when you're as fabulous as we are." They both did hairflips so in sync that they must've practiced, which they had.

Jimmy Woo, who was standing in the circle and trying not to squeal with excitement as he was inches away from Steve, spoke up. "I should really head back to Quantico, I managed to make an excuse to my superiors, but they'll notice if I'm gone too long."

Dahlia smiled and gave the man a hug. "Thanks for helping, Jimothy, even if it could have lost you your job."

"I think I still owe you from a few years back, so don't worry about it. Just count this as my debt being repaid." Jimmy smiled.

"Hey, are you heading to America?" Scott asked. "I need to get back to my kid, and I would really appreciate a ride back."

Jimmy nodded and the two walked off in direction of the helicopter, chatting as they did. Dahlia could only make out snippets of their conversation as they walked away, but she definitely heard Scott say, "You can do magic? No way!"

She turned back to Steve, a question suddenly taking over her mind. "Wait, he said they were going back to America, are we all not going there?"

Steve hesitated before replying. "It's... not safe for us there anymore. I think we have to go into hiding. We are, technically, still war criminals."

"Oh," Dahlia's brow furrowed. "Well, where are we going, then?"

The group seemed to collectively smirk and look towards Pietro as she asked this, for a reason she didn't know.

"We're all going various places, it's not safe for us all to stay together." Sam said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Wanda smiled to herself. "Vision and I are going to go somewhere in Europe, I'm not sure just where, yet."

"It's not all planned out just yet, but I think there's a few things that Pietro needs to talk to you about first." Cap felt like a proud dad as he noticed the boy's nervousness, seeing as he was playing with his fingers.

"Dahls, you want to take a walk for a moment?" Pietro asked timidly.

She nodded, taking a seat next to him on a cliff overlooking the mountains.

"What is it, Speedy?"

"Well, everyone seems to be going their separate ways," He looked down at the ground. "But I don't want to be away from you. I don't know if I could if I tried."

A smile made its way onto Dahlia's face. "Are you asking me what I think you're asking me?"

"Maybe..." Pietro looked up at her. "Do you want me to be asking you what you think I'm asking you?"

"Do you want me to want you to be asking me what I think you're asking me?" Dahlia's eyes held a playful glimmer that made his heart do a flip.

"This is starting to hurt my head, so, I'll just say it." Pietro sucked in a sharp breath. "I want to be with you, Dahlia. I want to wake up and see your face, get to hug and kiss you, and be like everyone else for once in our lives. I don't know how long it will last, but it's the only shot at normalcy that we're gonna get, and I want to take it with you."

Dahlia's heart skipped a beat, the reality of what he was asking flooding her brain. She was quiet, processing what he had said.

"I want to take it with you, too."

And then his arms were around her, wrapping her up tight, and giving her all the safety she had never felt. She rested her head on his shoulder as he held her, neither of them wanting to let go.

"About the other thing..." Pietro pulled away to look her in the eyes, but she shied away from his gaze. "Did you mean it?"

Dahlia's mind raced a mile a minute with what she could say. She could lie, and say she didn't, or she could ignore the question and point out some pretty... snow or something? The area they were in was pretty desolate and void of distractions. She knew she had a multitude of options, but deep down, somewhere in her heart, Dahlia knew they weren't really options. She needed to tell him, or her heart would explode.

"I did. I'm not even gonna lie, I really did and I still do. I get it if it weirds you out or something, but I needed to tell you or I think my brain would malfunction." She was starting to panic, trying to cover her tracks with countless apologies, but she stopped talking when she saw the look on Pietro's face.

It wasn't one of confusion, anger, or awkwardness like she expected.

It was one full of glee. Not just any kind of glee, though. It looked like a kid on Christmas type of happiness, like if he smiled any wider his face would split in two. It was the look of a lovesick puppy.

"You're not... upset?" Dahlia asked carefully.

"What? No, of course not," If it was possible, Pietro's smile grew. "Can you say it? I need to hear you say it."

"Really, you're gonna make me say it?" Dahlia crossed her arms.

"Indeed I am." He mimicked her actions.

"I swear- You know, fuck it. I love you."

As soon as the words left her lips, Pietro's heart started racing. "One more time? I just- I can't believe it."

Green met blue as their gazes connected.

"I love you, Pietro Maximoff."

"And I love you, Dahlia Anelace."

The words, though they had both thought them before, felt much different when they were said aloud. To hear the man she was desperately in love with return her affections wasn't something that she could describe, at least not accurately. The closest she could get was the feeling you get when you're at the top of a rollercoaster, with all the anticipation and the scary but exciting feeling in your stomach, and when they say those four letters, you've been released down the track. It was downright terrifying, but if you had the right person beside you, it made it all worth it.

"You know, we're awfully strange. Most people confess their love after dating for months or years, even."

They were sat on the edge of the cliff, looking out on the landscape, with Dahlia's head on his shoulder.

Pietro knew the view was beautiful, but nothing out there could compare to the woman right beside him, it couldn't even come close.

"Well, we're awfully strange people, so it makes sense. Also, we both know you've wanted to date me since you met me, so we could say that we've been dating for two years now, if you wanted."

"Shut up."