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It was a Friday night and the room was filled with the laughter and conversations of the Avengers. Natasha and Wanda were sat next to each other on the love seat, their legs and shoulders pressed together. Tony and Rhodey were on the couch adjacent to them while the couch across from them was occupied by Thor and Steve. That left Bruce and Clint to sit on the floor in front of them.
They'd all been scattered throughout the common room around the TV, watching movies and just talking about whatever came to their minds when Clint, having been looking between Wanda, Thor, and the rest of the team, decided to ask a question that he'd apparently been sitting on for quite some time.
"So, who's actually the strongest avenger?"
The others stopped talking abruptly and turned to him, each with expressions of confusion and bewilderment.
After sharing looks with the rest of the team, Natasha was the one to lean forward from her spot next to Wanda on the love seat. "Wanda's the strongest." She looks around. "Isn't she?"
There are nods of agreement, except Clint, who shakes his head left to right. "No, no. She's the most powerful, definitely. But I mean, who is the strongest avenger, like, physically."
Through the looks of comprehension throughout the group he continued. "Like, don't get me wrong, Wanda's powerful as hell, but she's probably the weakest out of all of us, physically."
Wanda's expression changes to one of offense. "Hey! That's not true." She says in her heavily accented voice. "Just because I'm the smallest doesn't mean I'm the weakest."
The others, of course, didn't believe her, and scoffed at her statement. "Come on, Wanda." Starts Rhodey from his spot on the couch adjacent to her. "No offence, but I've never seen you lift something more than 30 pounds without the help of your powers."
Tony, where he had been sitting next to Rhodey, had a growing smile on his face at the argument, an idea apparently forming in his mind. He leans forward, speaking to Wanda.
"Wanda, if you have something to prove, I'm sure we can figure out some way to test it."
She looks back at him. "I have nothing to prove."
Rhodey looked back at him in understanding, seeing what he is trying to do. He sighs. "Yeah. I doubt anything would change anyways. You're obviously not as strong as the rest of us." He finishes with a smirk.
Wanda knows exactly what they're doing, she really does. That doesn't stop her from wanting to prove them wrong, however. So, her eyes narrowing at the challenge, she answers. "Fine. How are we going to do this?."
Tony grins. "Arm wrestling."
She rolls her eyes. Boys. Getting up and moving to the table in the middle of the room, she sits next to it, placing her arm in the position for arm wresting. She looks around. "Well?"
"Who's first?"
The group smiles at each other at the acceptance of the challenge.
"I think Nat should go first." Tony says with a smirk. "Girl versus girl, you know? Start of easy."
Natasha's eyes flash at the implication that she's weak because she's a girl, getting up and sitting across from her girlfriend, looking her in the eyes.
"Don't hold back, Red."
Wanda smirks. "Wouldn't dream of it."
They lock hands, elbows resting on the table in front of them, and wait for a count down.
Steve, having been watching the exchange in amusement til now, is the one to begin the count down. He shakes his head, leaning forward.
"Three..."
"Two..."
"One!"
Their hands don't move. The team looks between the two women's faces, seeing a difference in their expressions. Natasha is obviously straining, using seemingly all her strength.
Now, Tony may have poked fun at her earlier and joked about her being weak because she's a woman, but he knows she's far from weak, having seen her fight many times against men three times her size. So, imagine his surprise when he looks to Wanda's face, expecting to see her straining against Natasha's strength, only to see that her face is completely blank, as if she's not putting a single ounce of effort into beating Natasha.
Wanda is looking across at Natasha's face with a smirk, seeing her struggle. She knew her team thought she was the weakest physically because of her small stature, but what they didn't know was that, after the experiments, the addition of her powers also seemed to bring about an increase of her own physical strength. She'd never really tested it, but she knew she was quite a bit stronger than the average woman. Quite a bit stronger than the average man, even. She supposes this is a good way to test how much strength she actually has.
So, with this in mind, she decided to have mercy on Natasha and finish her off quickly. Using almost none of her strength, she began pushing against Nat's hand, their arms tilting in her favor almost immediately. Natasha's eyes widened, knowing that she was going to be beat by her scrawny girlfriend, before her smile grows, accepting defeat. Wanda pushes harder and their joined hands fall back quickly, signalling her as the winner.
She lets go of Natasha's hand with a smug grin at the fact that she had just beat her assassin girlfriend at arm wrestling. In almost no time, as well, with almost no strain on her part. She laughs, leaning in to give Nat a quick kiss on the cheek before pulling back and looking at the rest of the team. They had looks of awe on their faces, not expecting the tiny witch to move Nat's arm at all, let alone win.
She smiles at the surprised looks on their faces before speaking. "Who's next?"
After looking around the group and seeing none of them speak up, Tony slowly raises his hand with an arrogant smile before saying with confidence, "I'll go."
Wanda's smile turns dangerous at the false confidence in Tony's voice, his smile faltering slightly, before gesturing for him to take Nat's spot. Said woman got up to make room for Tony, moving back to the love seat to watch.
As Tony settled down, they locked their hands, elbows on the table. Their arms in position, they both turn to nod at Steve, who begins the count down again.
"Three..."
"Two..."
"One!"
Wanda can feel the pressure of Tony pushing against her. A little more than Natasha's but not quite enough to make their hands move in his favor. The smirk still on his face fades as his expression turns to one of concentration. Wanda's wide smile turns into a smirk, seeing Tony's face change as he realizes that he was sorely mistaken when he said she was weak.
Deciding to mess with him a little bit and teach him a lesson, Wanda keeps their hands in the original position, not moving even a centimeter from the center. With her eyes trained on Tony's face, she sees the vain popping out of his forehead with the effort of him trying to force her hand down. His teeth gritted together as he stares at their hands, before looking up and meeting her stare with widened eyes, realizing that he was going to lose. His eyes narrow again at this thought.
"If you're going to finish it, finish it, Maximoff." He grinds out, causing her smile to widen.
She laughs. "Whatever you want, Stark. Just remember this the next time you doubt my strength." And within the next second she's won, her confidence building.
She looks around the room before landing on Clint, who had been staring at their hands in disbelief.
"Clint! You're up!" Wanda shouts.
He looks up at her, surprised and little scared. She smiles dangerously. "You're the one that called me the weakest. You're the one that asked the question." She tilts her head to the space Tony had just vacated, telling him to take his place. He does so, wearily, before placing his arm on the table, waiting for her to do the same. When she does there is no pause before Steve counts down for the third time.
As he reaches one, Wanda isn't even trying at this point. Clint is slightly stronger than Tony but not by much. She got it over quick, immediately forcing his hand down as soon as Steve hit one. His jaw dropped, as did the jaws of the other occupants in the room. She laughed as Clint got up slowly, as if in a trance. She gestured for the next person to take his place. Steve decided to skip out on it, as did Bruce. She let them get out of it because neither of them were part of the original challenge, much to the chagrin of the other three she had already beaten.
So, after a quick gesture, in comes Rhodey who, at this point, didn't expect to win at all. He was just going through the motions.
Steve quickly counted down and Rhodey was quickly defeated.
Finally, they got to Thor, who Wanda didn't actually think she'd beat with her strength alone. He was a god, after all. He knew all that, as well. So, he was pretty much just doing it to humor them. But, what he didn't know, was that she had a plan that may or may not be considered cheating.
It was kind of comedic, the size difference between the biggest and smallest members of the team. Wanda's hand was almost completely covered up by Thor's own massive hand. Everyone looked on in amusement. Even the two competitors chuckled slightly.
As the laughter died down they both nodded to Steve, who began counting down for the last time.
"Three..."
"Two..."
"One!"
As Steve reached one Wanda immediately brought her powers to the surface of her skin, not quite noticeable to those around her. She kept their hands steady for a moment, her eyes looking down to hide the glow from the man across from her as well as the rest of the team.
She held their hands there for a few moments, laughing and then looking up. Allowing them to see her eyes. They all scoffed, knowing what was happening. At least it was found amusing, even to Thor, who was sitting across from her with a grin on his face.
Finally, she allowed her power to crawl from her hand, wrapping around Thor's arm along with her own. Even with her powers reaching out, it was still quite difficult to keep their hands steady for this long. She already knew Thor was physically stronger than her. Now she's just having fun.
The mist surrounded their hands gave her the force needed to tip the score, slowly pushing Thor's hand to the left. She was straining, anyone could see it. Her eyes were narrowed with red shining through and her forehead was scrunched with effort. But, with one final push she was able to land Thor's hand and arm on the table to the left, only her magic keeping their hands from going through the glass.
As they pulled back from each other, making eye contact, both of them out of breath, they all started laughing in surprise before Wanda spoke with a grin and a laugh.
"Gotcha."
Thor's smile widened, him reaching out his hand to shake hers. "Well done, Miss Maximoff."
Wanda turned to the others. "I'm not the strongest Avenger. But I'm not the weakest either." She smirks. "That's obviously Clint." She finishes, gesturing to the archer who sits up in indignation, causing the rest of them to laugh at the reaction.
She turns back to Thor before saying jokingly, "I could definitely beat you in a power fight, though."
He laughs loudly. "That's a challenge for another day."