And You Decided This
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The mechanical hum of the jet engines whir on as the auto-pilot maintains your altitude. With Tony’s tech in hand, you’re able to bring up a holographic map of the landscape. Glimmering blue neon lights showcase the 3D rendering of Strucker’s fortress and the nearby city. The faces of the team are grim, at best, with worry lines drawn taut as you lay out the plan.
“We’re going to focus on the evacuation process first and foremost. With any luck, we’ll get the main populace to a safe distance before we need to deal with Ultron. With that said, however, our presence alone will likely not be going unnoticed.”
Steve nods in agreement, shimmering blue blueprints drifting across his hand as he zooms in on the map.
“Our main purpose here is to assist the civilians, after that, we’re going to have Ultron’s eyes set on us. We know he has the cradle and the scepter. If he’s going to do something with them, it’s going to be fast. He likely knows we’re already approaching.”
You take it back over, “Our heaviest hitters are going to be the first wave for him. I need Stark and Banner with me. Once Thor arrives, that will give us another advantage. Steve, Clint, Natasha, you’re going to need to keep on the evacuation. If any rogue bots come along, you’re going to be the main defense for the people.”
Bruce clears his throat and your eyes immediately fall upon the doctor.
“Uhm, actually, about that…”
A sigh falls from your lips. Sparring the supersoldier a look, you gently tug on Bruce’s arm, “Let’s talk. Shall we?”
You escort the slightly befuddled man to the back of the jet while Steve continues on in your stead, “Sam’s en route, he’ll meet us once we land…”
“Bruce.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “I can help with the evacuation. By the time we get Thor here - ”
“We need the Hulk.”
“Well, what if I don’t want to bring him out?”
Your shoulders drop as you stare down at the scientist.
“I know you don’t think that I understand your situation - ”
He snorts, crossing his arms with bristling agitation, “Because you don’t.”
You let him have a moment before you continue forward. “You don’t want to bring him out around a civilian populace. I understand that, Bruce, I do. But if we don’t have our best - our strongest - to deal with Ultron? Then there’s no point to any of this and we should just turn around and watch the world fall at our feet.”
His hands drop to his sides and his eyes become unwilling to meet your face, but still, you press on.
“You’re not the only one, you know, still dealing with the aftermath of yesterday. Do you think I’ve forgotten what I almost did? What my rage was nearly capable of doing? Because I haven’t, Bruce. I’m actively trying to focus my attention on what we’re about to do because that is where the true danger lies. And tomorrow, once we hopefully walk away from this and the day is saved, then I will deal with my own guilt and anger. And I will try to right my wrongs. But for now… we have to fight.”
You finish your words with a hand on his shoulder.
“Like it or not, hate him or not, he is necessary for us to have a possible victory. Without him, Sokovia just might not be standing when we’re done.”
Bruce exhales through his nose, nostrils flaring as he peers up at you.
“God, you’re worse than Rogers when it comes to speeches,” he sighs, rubbing at his temple. “Fine, you get him. One round! Then I’m done.”
“I can work with that,” you offer before you both return to the group.
As you cross over farm fields and pastures filled with grazing animals, Tony flies up alongside the jet.
“What, were you seriously going to start the party without me?”
Luckily, he drops the attitude pretty fast and confirms with Steve that he’s been working through different scans to locate Ultron since he crossed the Sokovian border.
“Big guy’s hiding out in his fortress of solitude,” Tony hypothesizes, hand on his jaw. “Bet my money on it that he’s got the cradle under lock and key.”
“Then that’s where we go,” you decide, nodding at the billionaire.
Clint lands the jet just outside of the city’s limits, in roving farmland and freshly plowed fields. The archer hoists his quiver over his shoulder, pulling Natasha off for a quiet moment in the corner of the jet. You can’t help but stare at the couple as they pull away from the view of the others.
Was it strange that you hadn’t noticed that development? Was it more obvious to you, now, knowing that they were in fact together?
“You good?”
Looking up, you’re graced with the presence of the supersoldier.
“Fantastic, really,” you say with a quick roll of your eyes.
Steve gives you a warm chuckle in return as you move down the ramp with him, allowing the couple to have their moment together in peace. He already has his shield on his harness, his helmet remains in his hands.
Tony and Bruce are waiting nearby, but Steve tugs on your wrist - keeping you from joining them.
“Yeah, I’ve got Rhodes on standby, and JARVIS is working through schematics, you know how he is - ”
Glancing down at your own shield for a moment, you stare out at the rolling farm fields. Cattle graze in the clover down the way from the jet - a few of them eyeing the machine with suspicion. But so far, it’s only the team and the pasture-grazing animals around.
“I’ll take Bruce,” you decide, finally meeting the still bluish-grey eyes of your companion. “He’s having… doubts, about the team and his place on it. Someone needs to keep an eye on him.”
Steve nods, “Best person for the job.”
“And you’ll take Natasha. You’ve done well together in the past anyway,” you smile.
A warm laugh greets your ears, “And hopefully we meet up somewhere in between, right?”
From behind you, the footsteps of the remaining two make their presence known down the metal ramp. Your time was nearly up.
“That’s the plan, Rogers,” you state, moving your shield to rest on your own back harness.
“Stay safe, okay?”
You smack his shoulder gently with your free hand.
“You too. I better see you back in one piece at the end of this,” you gesture at his upper torso with a wave of your hand.
Steve laughs, gaining a few interesting looks from the rest of the team who all find something far more interesting to look at when he turns to face them.
When his gaze lands back on your face, there’s a warmth there in his eyes that you’ve noticed has become a new normal for him.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says at last, giving your hand a final squeeze.
Wrapping your fingers around his wrist, you return the gesture. You can feel the rapid beating of his heart through his veins.
You had to make it out of here alive, all of you. There were no other options.
“Hey, not to interrupt,” Tony interrupts. “But I don’t think our friend is going to want to wait around much longer to enact his evil schemes.”
With a shaking head and a small chuckle, you regretfully pull away from the blonde and move toward the rest of the team.
“Okay,” Steve says, just a step behind you. “We know our teams, we know our mission.”
“Let’s go smash some robot ass,” Clint snarks.
Steve merely tilts his head to the side and shrugs as if to say fair enough.
You spare him a final look as you and Bruce head off toward the Western portion of the city - the business district. While Stark and Barton start trekking it toward the northernmost part of the city, Steve’s eyes follow you for just a few moments more before he reluctantly heads east with Natasha.
You recognized this place.
Not the city itself, but the remnants of a once bustling populace. A place that was consumed by war. Torn limb from limb by external and sometimes internal forces. No, it was a sight you had seen too often in your time on this world.
The faces of the people in Sokovia could so easily be replaced with those from Warsaw, Delhi, or Rome. You recognized that haunted, terrified look. You knew what was coming. You just weren’t sure if you could stop it in time.
Looking over at your companion, you can see the twitchiness of his eyes as he takes in the vast number of fleeing civilians. Oh, the thoughts that must be going through his head right now.
“I’ve got you, you know,” you say as you jog down the cobblestone streets.
Bruce glances over at you, an untrusting look in his eyes.
“This isn’t going to be like Johannesburg, Bruce. Any mutant that comes near is going to have to get through me first. We’re going to keep these people safe and we’re going to do our best to keep this city from falling.”
“Lot of promises,” he says.
Offering him a shrug, you suggest, “We can pinky promise it if that’ll help ease your mind.”
Up ahead, the yells of several civilians grab your attention. Halting in your tracks, the two of you stare at the massive traffic jam on the bridge ahead of you.
Bruce rolls his shoulders back, “Let’s get to work.”
They’re deep within the part of the city known as Old Town. Rushing down the streets and between navigating the tightly-wound roads Natasha has allotted the time to properly pester him as they go.
“Wow. You know, I honestly thought we were going to get a love confession back there.”
Steve eyes her out of his peripheral, “You know what, Romanoff…”
“Hey,” she shrugs, pointing at the next street with her chin. “Maybe next time, right?”
“Let’s just hope there is a next time,” he admits, eyes wide as he glances around at the otherwise empty street.
“This, this can’t be right,” Natasha says at a barren intersection.
“Yeah, Hill’s good, but not this good. You can’t move 50,000 people that fast.”
Heading north, through the tight alleys and sidestreets, the city begins to bleed through with the memories of wartorn Europe, circa 1945. While it was clear that day-to-day life was continuing for the residents, stark reminders lay around every corner. Shattered windows and partially destroyed buildings resided next to market stores and laundromats.
Even here in what looks like a busy section of the city, they can’t find a single person. The lights are still on in the shops and restaurants, a car is idling on the street. But there is no driver, no waitstaff, not a single customer.
Just a handful of birds pecking at some overturned garbage along the alleyway.
“Something’s not right.”
Natasha nods, “Any word on Wilson yet?”
“Said he was en route, any time now.”
“We need eyes in the sky. Actually, Stark?”
While Nat tries to get a hold of Tony, Steve continues to jog down the street, hoping to find just one person. But still, the city is silent. There’s an eeriness about it, one that the supersoldier remembers all too well from his days of walking through smoldering French villages.
He can still recall the sight of black smoke rising in the sky, and the smell of burnt wood mixed with decaying bodies. It was never a memory he liked to see pulled back up to the surface, but today, as he wanders through the town, that troubling thought plays like a sickening record in his mind.
And then he spots it.
An elderly woman, moving at a slow pace, walking towards the western portion of town.
Not waiting for Natasha, Steve barrels forward.
“Ma’am, we need to get you out of here.”
But the woman doesn’t even look up to acknowledge him. Right, a language barrier, of course. However, when Steve moves in front of her, he sees a troubling sheen of red mist over the woman’s bleary eyes. She pushes right past him as if… in a trance.
“NAT!” he calls out, waving his arm.
They’re unable to redirect the woman, so… they end up following the only person left in this part of town. Natasha clicks her tongue when they enter the center of the city. Steve follows her gaze up toward the imposing steeple of an ornate cathedral, just a few yards away from them.
“So… what are you thinking?” he asks in an almost whisper as they continue to trail the woman.
“Either they’re locking them in for Ultron to deal with, or they’re trying to actually help.”
His features scrunch in confusion, “By putting civilians in the dead center of town?”
“They’re kids, Rogers. Not soldiers.”
Before they can get any closer, Steve’s knocked backward - landing next to the streetlight, opposite the cathedral.
A white-haired teen appears in front of them, tilting his head to the side as he stares down at the supersoldier with a wild sort of look in his eyes.
“Ah, ah, ah,” the boy chides, waving his finger back and forth.
“We need to get these people to safety,” Steve urges, pushing himself up from the curb.
“They are already safe. What use are you to them? Hmm? Mr. America.”
A bullet comes whizzing past, but the boy merely plucks it out of the air like it was fully stationary. He tosses it from one hand to the other as Steve stands back up. His eyes quickly scan the street front, looking for the other one, the girl. Natasha’s already backed a few paces away, likely doing the same.
So, he plays the distraction card. Get him to talk.
“They’re not safe here. They need to get out of the city.”
The boy drops the bullet just to look up at Steve with a curious expression.
“You really don’t get it, do you? Nobody is safe now. No one. In there,” he gestures back at the church. “They are safe. Out here - running for their lives? Not so much.”
The boy pushes past him at lightning speed, nearly knocking Steve off-center again. Frustration growing, he grabs his shield and sends it flying at the kid. But the boy merely zips out of existence, running around him at such a speed that the dust and debris of the street whip around the supersoldier like a temporary sandstorm.
Holding a hand to his eyes, Steve yells out, “Knock it off!”
When he finally regains sight of the boy, he is lounging on top of the hood of an abandoned car.
“Go ahead, see how far you get with them.”
Natasha, ever the observant one, sets her calculating gaze upon the mutant.
“You stopped helping Ultron. Why?”
He looks away, suddenly silent.
“Not all he was chucked up to be, is that it?” she goads.
But the harder he looks at the boy, he realizes just that: it’s a boy. Probably no more than sixteen. A kid who spent the majority of his life behind bars, at the mercy of Strucker and HYDRA, and god knows what else. The first sign of help in the form of Ultron had to have been like a lifeline for him and the other mutant.
And he could have turned tail, made for the hills, and never looked back once he was free of them. But here he was.
He takes a step forward, wedging himself between Nat and the kid.
“Why are they safer in there than outside of the city limits?”
The boy blinks up at Steve, pushing back a strand of his curling white hair.
“Do you really think that thing is only going to attack this place? His reach will surpass anything you can even imagine. In there… they have her to protect them.”
Steve looks toward the cathedral. Then he peers over at the boy once again.
“You managed to save a handful of the people here. Where are the others?”
That’s when he slides off the hood of the vehicle, dropping down in front of Steve and Natasha. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and breathes out an unsteady breath.
“What others? There is no one else.”
Natasha blinks, “This city has a population of over 53,000 people.”
He laughs, “Had. It had a larger populace, yes. Until he showed up and you showed up and a war happened. People, they go missing. Where to?” He shrugs, “Who cares, right? I know it is no Johannesburg or New York, but people died here too, you know. But hey, what do I know, right? Want my advice, pack up your guns and your shields and run.”
“Okay,” Nat placates, grabbing hold of the kid’s shoulder and tugging him close before he can try to pull away. “You need to tell your little friend to send these people out of here so that they might stand a chance of not having an Ultron-sized bomb dropped on them.”
The boy yanks away, looking disgusted that the assassin's hand even touched him.
“We have it under control.”
Steve, once again, pushes his way in between her and the boy.
“I believe you do.”
The kid’s eyes look up at him with something almost like pride radiating in his irises.
“And… I think you could help us make sure no one else gets hurt. I can’t believe that all of these buildings have been cleared of people. You’re the fastest person I have ever seen. I’m sure you could blaze through this city in only a minute’s time to confirm that fact.”
He blinks up at Steve with a boyish grin, “You are trying very hard to flatter me. Luckily, I’m easily flattered.”
His eyes lift from the boy to see the female mutant making her way across the street toward the three of them. She’s a foot shorter than the boy, with stringy auburn hair and crimson eyes.
Steve unconsciously wants to recoil the moment he sees her. That invisible wound was still pretty fresh.
“Do not bother,” she instructs, tugging the boy back by his wrist. She looks up at Steve, her gaze unnerving in its intensity. “There is no one else.”
“How can you be sure?” Nat questions.
She turns her head slowly toward the assassin, drawing her words out slowly, “Anyone left in this city, who heard my voice in their head, came. There is no one left.”
“They should still be evacuated. They will be safer outside of the city’s limits.”
“How can you be sure?” she questions, blinking up at Steve.
He looks around at the abandoned streets, at the crumbling buildings, and prevailing silence.
“Because we’re going to keep the fight here. We’re going to keep Ultron from getting any further than this place. And we could honestly use any help we can get.”
The girl tilts her head as she continues to stare at him.
“Why should we care?” the boy asks after a beat, eyes glancing between the supersolider and the Widow.
Before Steve can answer, Nat moves forward, fixing them both with a steady look.
“Why would you, right? You have your freedom now, what should you care if this place burns to the ground, yeah? I mean, you guys were under lock and key for how many years, why should you care about this place - these people? Did they ever help you?”
As much as he wants to interrupt, he knows she’s getting to a point. So, Steve forcibly closes his lips into a thin line, gaze held on the girl’s glowing red hands.
“You got your revenge,” she turns her eyes on the girl. “We saw the pictures. Go ahead, wipe your hands free of this mess, and get out of town. No one would even know.”
With a hint of a smirk, Nat rubs at her left wrist before she forces her emerald eyes back up.
“But I think you know better than that. You know what you could do, even if they never repay you. Never say a simple thank you. The two of you, you’ve got gifts. Be a shame to see them go to waste.”
After an uneasy moment, the girl looks over at the boy. He offers her only a half-hearted shrug. The decision apparently made, she replies:
“I do not fight for you, or with you. We fight for our people.”
Steve nods in return, “That’s reason enough.”
As you redirect the flow of traffic, all you can think is the comms are awfully silent. Hopefully, that was a good sign. Sometimes in situations like this, silence could be a good thing. Cronus, you hoped it was a good thing.
“We’re clear over here,” Bruce waves to you from across the street.
Maria had already gotten the local authorities involved long before you crossed the Atlantic. The evacuation had been ongoing for the past hour, luckily with the majority of the city’s residents moving into a designated safe location a few kilometers in either direction of the city.
“Okay, we’re done on our end,” Tony’s voice chimes over the comm. “Heading your way, 007. It’s showtime.”
With a nod toward the police officer you had been working beside, you jog over to Banner.
“Guess that means we’re on now, yeah?” he questions, a worrying tone in his voice as you both turn to see the glimmering red and gold suit making its way toward your location.
Giving his arm a hopefully reassuring squeeze, you remind him, “I’ve got you, Banner.”
Though the doctor doesn’t seem entirely settled by your words, the three of you make your way to the fortress, now a crumbling ruin from your mission there over a week ago.
“This should be fine, right?” Tony asks. His visor is flipped up as the two of you squeeze through the broken stone walls - his arc reactor giving you a guiding light through the darkened corridors.
“Ultron, you mean?”
“Uh, no. Big green and angry back there. Last time we went toe to toe, well, you know.”
“Oh,” you comment, glancing back at Bruce, who remains a good few feet behind the two of you - stumbling over loose debris. “I’m sure, all things considered, he’ll be the least of your worries here in a minute.”
Passing by a familiar room, you pause. Tony barrels forward without even noticing you. Bruce, on the other hand, stops.
“What is it?” he murmurs, eyes wide as he takes in the destroyed command center.
“Hill said Strucker was killed in the mutants’ holding cells. I want to check it out really quick.”
Though he doesn't seem to like the idea of you splitting away from the group, Bruce trails after Tony while you break off to go and investigate the holding cells. Your curiosity gets the better of you as you enter the room you had been standing in just days before.
It looks exactly the same, except for the corpse of a man lying in the center of the boy’s cell. With the gate broken off its hinges, you merely step into the barred area. Dropping down into a crouch, you examine the body of Wolfgang Strucker.
His eyeglass is still in place, the glass intact. It’s his terrified eyes that interest you, still held wide - like he was witnessing the truest kind of horrors imaginable. His mouth remains agape as if mid-scream. But there are no obvious signs of trauma, no pools of blood. Just the husk of a man.
Your immediate inclination was that this was not the result of Ultron himself.
But as you move to leave, something odd catches your eye.
Just near the collar of his turtleneck, was that…
Reaching a finger out, you pull back the silicone material of a mask. Easing it off of the corpse, a man you don’t immediately recognize greets you. Or rather, the very decomposed remnants of a man.
Holding a hand to your nose, you lurch back.
This was not Baron Strucker. It never had been.
“Double-O! We’re going to need you to stop lollygagging.”
Sparring the body one final look - you would need to send someone in to detail this if you were able to deal with the threat of the day - you hurry back to the others.
Into the belly of the castle you go, where the echo of your footsteps is the only sound. Just over a week ago, this place was lit up like the fourth of July, with drones and HYDRA scientists running rampant. Even now you can see the remnants of the battle. The scorch marks of flickering lightning across the walls, the blasts of repulsors, and the chunks of stone damaged by gunfire.
The dungeons under the main labs are massive and labyrinthesque. You had only glimpsed the looming Leviathan hanging from the ceiling of the central lab, but that had been enough to turn even your stomach.
Humans were not equipped to deal with the likes of the Tesseract or the scepter. Whatever visions of hell that Strucker had intended to unleash upon the world were far worse than any attacking alien forces. Perhaps only the hulking drone standing before you could compare.
Ultron waits in silence in the middle of the room.
He is a towering figure; standing at least eight feet tall if you had to hazard a guess. Appearing nothing like the object Tony had once created, as sleek metal now covers his mechanical form. His glowing red eyes only blink open when the sound of Tony’s heavy suit makes contact with the concrete floor.
He blinks.
“Uh… have you been juicing? Little vibranium co*cktail? You’re looking… I don’t want to say puffy - ”
The robot tilts his head, staring with his glowing optical receptors at his inadvertent creator. You take your chance and begin slinking along the far wall, away from Ultron’s line of sight. If anyone could play the role of a perfect distraction, it would be the billionaire with a habit of running his mouth. You needed to locate the cradle.
“You are stalling to protect the people.”
“Well,” Tony starts. “That is the mission. Or did you forget?”
“I am the global peacekeeper. I protect humanity from itself. From the threat of the Avengers,” comes the cold reply of automation. “You will lead to humanity’s downfall. You will be to blame if I allow you to continue existing,” he monologues to Tony.
Before you’re able to slip behind a set of shelves, a ghostly hand phases through the wall - snatching hold of your shoulder.
You turn to see a new contender - with a face as red as a pomegranate and a body of emerald green, hovering directly in front of you. That human-like hand reaches up and grips your throat as he lifts you off the ground. With his other hand, he pulls the Aegis from your grasp - throwing it across the lab where it lands in a giant clatter of materials.
“Put her down,” Tony calls out in warning.
The man squeezes your neck even harder, your airway tightening as you begin to pull at his hands, kicking your feet into his impenetrably hard torso. Like breathing through a straw, you force your breaths as you concentrate your energy on his deathlike grip.
“My Master says there are no gods in a peaceful world,” he intones, staring down at you with calculating eyes.
Gasping breaths escape through your nose as your face begins to puff. You almost have a single finger pulled free when his hand phases through your neck. Sinching itself around your pumping veins, he pinches the artery to the point of annihilation, when you’re both tossed several feet away - rolling over shelves and piles of metal junk and each other as the Hulk slams his fists into the man’s face.
“NO TOUCHING,” he roars.
You desperately pull in helpless retching breaths as the green monstrosity pummels the creature down into the floor.
“Hey, on your feet. Come on,” Tony urges as he swoops over to your side, pulling you up by the arm.
As you stare at the man, you summon your shield and spear back to your side. Ultron remains unmoving in the center of the room, red optical eyes watching the fight with a sort of fascination.
“I’m going to tear his head from his neck,” you promise as your eyes begin to turn shimmering gold.
Tony slaps you on the back just as the man blasts the Hulk up and over a stretch of workbenches.
“That a girl.”
And then he’s soaring across the room to slam his feet directly into the man’s face. You’re after him just a beat later, ready to plunge the head of your dory through his heart.
“Things are looking clear up above,” Sam’s voice rings in his ears. “Got Redwing on the lookout for stragglers.”
Steve watches as the teen directs her wandering hoard of helpless civilians toward the city limits. He was still uneasy around her, ever since their encounter in Johannesburg. But that wasn’t his concern for today, he had to push it from his mind.
“Things are going to get nasty really quick here,” Nat warns, a hand to her comm piece.
The supersolider stares down at her, “What is it?”
“Reports of metal men swarming the police station.”
With a grunting nod, Steve slides his arm through the shield’s handles. They knew this was coming. Ultron wouldn’t keep his forces at bay forever.
Steve watches as the last of the civilians are pushed forward by the girl’s powers. Eventually, the red mist fades away. Some turn back with a terrified look on their face, others let out a scream, but the majority start running down the country road - eager to get as far away from here - from them - as possible.
“Now what?” the girl asks, turning to stare at the supersoldier with those disconcerting red eyes of hers.
As if on cue, a low groaning roar arches its way across the sky. And Steve's almost anticipating another Leviathan to be soaring toward them. But what he sees, instead, is even more chilling.
A serpent-like formation of drones skyrockets across the tops of the buildings, with their sights set directly on them.
“Get these people out of here!” he calls out to the boy, who spares one look at the incoming attack before he disappears in a flash of electric white light.
Clint positions himself in front of the girl, an arrow already notched. With his shield up and ready, they're bombarded by the sound of a hundred or more robots rushing through their ears like an oncoming freight train, a deafening sound as bullets and lasers and metal on metal hails down upon them.
With all of his might, Steve pushes his shield up - trying to protect his own head as the drones ram themselves into him, swarming them, drowning them.
Natasha’s rocked backward, with Clint screaming her name as she disappears under the sea of metal. The robots move so quickly past them, that Steve soon loses sight of everything - a world of haunting silver his only view. The weight of them all, pressing down upon him, forces the air from his lungs, crushing him.
His ribs are cracking under the sheer weight of the sentry forces as they claw at him like the hoards of hell trying to break free. They pierce his skin with their hands, sharp vibranium armor makes sickly metallic blood pour from his temple.
He yells out, but even that sound can’t be heard past the groans of mechanical gears and the creaking of metal joints. The shield, once a protection, now digs into his sides, causing the sharp vibranium to cut through his uniform; piercing his skin. Blood rushes from the open wounds and he can feel tears pricking at his eyes as the full weight of an immovable force flattens him out.
He’s fighting it, pushing back with all of his might, but it’s not enough. He can’t stop them, he’s going to be crushed to death.
And then a piercing shriek comes from his own lips as his entire body is set aflame - white hot currents rushing through his limbs, electrocuting him, blinding him. He witnesses a universe in motion, a world ablaze, before its sudden destruction in a flash of overpowering light.
With the sudden tons of weight removed from him, Steve rolls over onto his knees and coughs up broken gasps. His shattered ribs pull against his muscles, scraping the sensitive flesh. It’s fine. He can walk it off.
At first, he can’t hear it, but then his temporary deafness fades as his eyes blink and he can see Thor, in all of his godly glory standing in the center of a destructive ring.
“Are you alright, Captain?” he asks, holding out a hand for Steve to hold.
They hadn’t even stood a chance against the sentry forces. Pushed over like a line of dominoes.
“Been better,” he admits, his knees groaning as a sharp pain ripples through his body. But he forces himself to stand, gripping the leather bands of the shield’s inner straps.
Walk it off.
His eyes trail over the twitching figures laid out like waste on the street around them. Currents of electricity glitch across open circuits, with body parts situated in unnatural positions. Amongst the destruction, he spots Clint helping Natasha up - both of them looking far worse for wear.
And then a scream, a gut-wrenching sound, echoes across the empty fields as the young mutant stumbles back into a pile of drones.
“Easy, easy,” the white-haired one is saying, holding placating hands in front of her face.
But she’s kicking backward, still crying out in terror.
Sharing a confused look with the God of Thunder, Steve gathers his strength and moves over toward the pair. He kneels down in front of her, holding her arms in his hands. She tries to pull away, twisting her face to look anywhere but in front of her.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay. You’re okay,” he tries to say in a calming tone. She was a kid, she should never have been here to begin with.
But she merely whimpers, and holds a shaking finger pointed out in front of her.
Steve’s eyes trail down her arm, following the direction of her hand.
“Is that…?” Clint starts to question.
But the supersoldier immediately curls himself up in front of the girl, blocking the view from her line of sight. Nodding toward the boy, whose gaze is also locked on it, he orders:
“Get her out of here.”
When the boy doesn’t move, Clint forcibly grabs the kid by the arm and yanks him in the direction of the girl, “NOW.”
His mouth is gaping open and closed, wild steely eyes cast across the other drones, but he manages to swoop down and gather her into his arm - whispering something in her ear - before he zips away.
With them out of sight, Steve finally stands back up and looks back at the horrific sight.
Thor lingers beside him, gazing down at it with a pinched brow.
Natasha joins them, her calculating eyes latching onto the remnants of mechanical engineering.
“We got it wrong,” she mutters.
Steve turns his eyes away from it at last.
Unable to look into the dull eyes of the human head for a moment longer.
Lodged between a metal helmet, sits the sagging skin of a woman - now cut to ribbons, but without a drop of blood to spare - staring up at them. The ghastly image of a corpse stuck between silver armor.
“We did,” he admits softly. Looking toward the sky, where Sam is now engaged with a handful of drones.
Ultron didn’t want to evolve himself.
He wanted to evolve the human race. Into his image.
Weed out the imperfections that made humanity what it was. Create a perfectly peaceful world order.
“Uh, Steve,” Clint calls out.
When he looks back, he’s perplexed to see the glimmering bits of tiny silver fading away to reveal the destroyed remains of human bodies. The armor disappears, leaving the lumps of once-living flesh as a stark reminder of their failure on the barren street. Men, women. f*ck.
He spared no one.
Natasha turns away, pushing her hair back with a shaking hand.
“What do we do, Cap?”
All eyes turn toward him.
And Steve can honestly say, that at this moment, he has no idea.
Nothing you throw at this man - this robotic abomination - seems to make any real difference, as every weapon and punch you try to land just phases through his body. Ghostly wisps of bending light wrap around your hand as you physically recoil from the sensation.
Even the Hulk, with all of his rage and power, is no match for this being, a child of Ultron, the true reason for the cradle.
As you’re slammed into the ground, for the sixth time in the span of minutes, the red-faced creature peers down at you with slow-blinking, calculating eyes.
“Stay down,” he orders with a curt nod before he uses that strange glowing gem in his forehead to create a direct laser beam toward Tony.
“Fat chance,” you mutter, kicking your right leg directly up into his groin.
It does nothing to him, as all of your attacks so far have.
As you twist up and off the floor of the decimated lab, you catch sight of Ultron with his back turned to all of you - staring at some rather disturbing schematics on a screen in front of him.
Red dots, forming waves from the sheer vastness of them all, begin blinking on the computer - all surrounding a section of the city to the east of your location.
At once, battle plans and ancient strategies rush through your mind as you try to evaluate your opponent to circumvent his next play.
He created a creature to do his bidding because he had more important things to do. Like monitoring a screen where an unimaginable number of his forces are currently heading toward a large populace. And he didn’t seem particularly interested in the three of you now, as if you were merely fodder for his creation. But the screen held his attention. That could only mean…
sh*t.
“Stark!” You call out, mind spinning from the quickness of your assessment.
The iron face turns to stare at you from up above. He had just been about to enact his countermeasure with the Hulk set to distract the robotic being.
“Better be good,” he clips, gazing back at the two creatures - one losing his collective sh*t as he throws metal workbenches and desktops at the other, who remains slow-moving and unbothered as items continue to phase through his body.
Choosing your words carefully, you simply say, “Napoleon.”
Tony fully turns to look at you, the phasers in his hand dying down to non-combative lights.
“Battle of Ulm,” you add, eyeing the 8-foot-tall monster several feet away from you both.
Distract the front of the army while you flank the rear - circling them, tearing them to shreds - before the generals even know what’s going on.
You can almost see the literal shuddering breath he takes as the realization weighs down upon him. And then his head rightens back up and he soars over to you, offering a hand.
“Hold on tight, we’re about to have some heavy turbulence.”
With a grimace, you wrap your fingers tightly around his metal armor plating and hang on for dear life as Tony zooms straight upwards - breaking through the stone ceiling. Guarding your face with your arm as rubble descends upon you, he pushes upward - through another two floors - before you finally break free. Cool gray sky greets you as you both look to see the city several kilometers away.
Smoldering black smoke tarnishes the clouds as the sound of screams and gunfire rings out.
You glance down at your dangling legs as you twist your wrist just a little more to the right to keep a steady hold on the only thing keeping you from falling. From the inside of the helmet, you can hear Tony’s sneer. Without a word of warning, he flies toward the city at breakneck speeds - your body like a ragdoll in the wind as you’re dragged along for the ride.
Over the crumbling buildings, he takes you. From your vantage point, you can see the destruction in real time as structures are blown to bits by encroaching drones in shiny silver armor; a high upgrade from the original Iron Legion. People, still left in the city, are fleeing for their lives - screams ring out, terror clear as day.
“Where the hell are they?” He grumbles, scanning the area.
To the east, you see arcs of blue-white lightning - you can smell the electric energy in the air.
“There!” you call out.
In a snap, you’re hurdling to the right. You have to throw up another hand just to maintain your grip on his forearm as the wind whips against you.
As you crest the line of Soviet-style apartment buildings, you witness the horror that is the team’s current situation.
Encircled by a vast and growing number of drones - like a tidal wave - they’re tightly packed, back-to-back. Thor’s the heavy hitter, lightning sending the bots back and short-circuiting their systems. Sam’s got Redwing taking shots for him as he does his best to block Natasha and Clint with his wings, but it's close quarters. And Steve -
“Whoa!” Tony calls out as you release your grip - dropping several stories down into the center of the chaos.
When you land, your feet break through the asphalt. Almost immediately, you send out your shield with such a mighty force that it cleanly severs the heads on the first two circles of drones.
“Holy sh*t,” Clint remarks as he switches out one of his more techy arrows for his explosive ones.
Steve catches your eye for just a second, blood is pouring down above his left temple.
“Sorry we’re late,” you shout over the sound of mechanical horror as your shield comes back to your hand - slicing through another dozen or so robots in the process.
“There’s too many of them!” he yells back as he does the same.
You couldn’t agree more, as he’s forced back into you, stepping on your foot as you nearly stumble over Clint’s knee and the edge of Sam’s wings.
Thinking quickly on your feet, you call out, “THOR! Fly out! Take the higher vantage point and turn them to ash!”
The God of Thunder doesn’t need to be told twice, as he whips his hammer up and tries to break free of the climbing waves of metallic drones.
His absence causes their forces to squeeze you in tighter, and only then, do you notice the bodies that litter the ground. But they have been long since deceased. When Steve knocks his shield into the juncture of one of the bot’s necks, you finally realize just what has happened since Ultron escaped the tower.
You turn your face away as a lifeless head rolls up and over Steve’s shield before landing at your feet. The dull eyes of a man stare up at you with sagging lips and hollowed grey cheeks.
Steve bangs his elbow into your sternum just as Sam’s wings clip your right shoulder. The outer rings of the drone attack are beginning to fall, thanks to Thor’s lightning, but it’s not enough. Not nearly fast enough.
And then you hear it. You all hear it.
The spine-chilling roar of the Hulk as buildings begin to crumble. You can feel the pounding of his feet in your chest as he jumps across the city, and the slamming of his hands as he crushes everything in sight.
But before he can reach you -
“sh*t,” you mutter as the red and green being appears above you all, tilting his head to the side as he watches the five of you get squeezed together more and more tightly.
“Who the hell is that?” Nat manages to question as she throws out her Widow Bites one more time.
“Child of Ultron, courtesy of the cradle,” you manage to say in between a robotic hand going for your neck and another trying to pull you down into the pits of dead bodies at your feet.
“We were too late,” Steve says, wild eyes latching on to you as he quickly yanks you back up - elbowing the bot who had tried to strangle you.
“Pattern of the week, yeah.”
The being, with his disturbing eyes, stares down at you directly, before his gaze drifts over to the green monster hot on his trail.
“Hey, you got a plan or something?” Sam hollers above the clambering waves of robots, hellbent on killing you all.
“WORKING ON IT!” you yell back, ducking down as a drone comes tumbling over you. You manage to sucker punch the creature in the torso - your fingers tear apart the metallic armor - but it slips through your fingers like pieces of firm paper, like… nanobots.
Oh, that made so much more sense.
Ultron had swept through Tony’s files, all of Tony’s files. Even his experimental ones. With the scepter and the cradle in hand, he had created the things that Stark could only dream of.
As the human woman crumbles before you, her lifeless body crashing to the ground with no amount of fanfare, you turn toward Steve.
“I need a boost.”
He’s in the middle of defending himself, but after landing a punch, he quickly spins around and drops his shield onto his knee.
“Come back for us, yeah?” he asks as you steady yourself on top of it - a hand held out to balance your weight on the domed surface.
Looking down into his weary blue eyes, you nod, blood pumping through your head like cannonfire, “Always.”
“Odinson!” you yell out. “Incoming!”
And then you’re being thrown upward, careening through the air, as you twist your body around - holding out a hand. It takes a second too long, but Thor comes soaring past, his large fingers wrapping around your wrist as you’re yanked in the opposite direction.
From down below, you could barely see the others up above you with the massive wall of never-ending drones. But now, now you can see everything.
“Where’s Stark?” you yell above the madness as your feet make contact with the roof of a neighboring building.
“There!” Thor roars, hammer pointed at a Leviathan-looking swarm of drones high above the city where Tony and War Machine are now battling in tandem.
“We need to break their connection with Ultron. Like the Chituri all over again. Kill the queen, you kill the colony.”
“That simple?” he questions.
Unsure of your own logic at this moment, you answer, “It has to be. Or we’re truly f*cked.”
A smirk teases at his lips, “Such language from such a fair lady.”
“Save it,” you push at his forearm. “Now, you need to break through that wall or we’re going to lose a third of our team in the next minute. I don’t care how; just do it.”
Giving you a nod and a quirked eyebrow, Thor drops down to the street below, throwing his hammer out at the nearest line of drones.
Jumping onto the comms, you say, “Stark, I need you to start working some science for me.”
“Little busy,” comes the grunted reply. You can see him weaving through a spiraling formation of drones from where you're standing.
“We need to sever their connection to Ultron. They're spreading, like a disease - ”
“A virus might be more accurate here - ”
“Tony,” Rhodes warns.
“It's nanobot tech, in case you haven't noticed. Housing humans inside of it like a chrysalis. That’s his motive. People in his literal image.”
“And a God-like superiority complex, fantastic.”
“Will you stop gabbing and f*cki- ”
“Give me ten, Double-O. I'm already on it.”
“Okay,” you mutter, watching from above as several battles take place at once. The team on the ground, Tony and Rhodes to the northwest, Hulk and the creature -
“HULK!” You begin waving your frantic hands at him, hoping to Cronus that just this once, he would not smash.
You see the flicker of rage in his eyes as he pauses mid-punch, his gaze turned toward you.
“FORGET HIM,” you call out, pointing your finger at your entrapped teammates down below, “THEY NEED YOU MORE.”
“BUT… SMASH,” he complains, holding out a hand in reference to the strange being floating a few feet away from him.
“NOW,” you command.
And, Cronus, wasn’t it terrifying to know the power you held over him because the Hulk lets out a chest-banging roar before he pushes through the creature to drop down as you ordered him to do. In an instance, robots are being thrown left and right and a path is being slowly cleared toward your team.
“Okay,” you call out. “Have at it, big guy.”
The being floats over to you at a slow speed; but a menacing speed.
You can feel the steady weight of the pendant hanging close to your chest and you send a quick prayer up to the heavens that it will be enough to keep you from dying on the field of battle today.
Gripping your shortsword in one hand and the Aegis in the other, you prepare yourself as the yellow gem in his head begins to glow.
But the being just drops down on the rooftop beside you. Though his eyes do not stay on you, they instead scan the waste of battle.
In the disturbing drone of silence, you slowly lower your weapons, though your grip remains strong upon them.
“Why?” he questions.
You take a step toward him, near the edge of the rooftop.
“Why what, exactly?”
He then turns to look down at you, a million thoughts run across his eyes as he scans you.
“Why do you fight?”
Was this some kind of game to him? You had dealt with the lay of combatants in your time. The boisterous ones, the rage-filled ones, the ones sent forward with a sense of duty and honor upon them, the ones who thought they were a more superior intellect than anyone else in the room.
You knew their weaknesses, you knew how to defeat all of them. But to be locked in a game of chess while a literal war is happening around you was another thing entirely.
“To protect the defenseless,” you answer plainly.
The man hums in thought, his eyes turning toward the scene down below of Steve and Sam slashing through another endless wave of robots. Their arc was towering now, nearly to the third floor of the neighboring buildings. One push and the team would be engulfed. You couldn’t stand around playing games.
A drone in flight comes surging at you, but you bash him with your shield - sending it over the edge. Then you're turning to protect your own six as another and a third come to tear you to pieces. Their armor fades, leaving two more bodies scattered around you.
But something rather strange happens.
Because it looks like he wants to ask you another trivial question when he is, quite suddenly, pushed off balance - up and over the edge of the roof.
You stare at the white-haired boy and his heaving chest. He’s watching the fall of the creature, and so he doesn’t quite see the moment you go to plunge your sword into him.
But your hand is encased in glowing red light and you are powerless to move it.
The sword clatters to the ground as your wide eyes slowly catch sight of the dark enchantress who has entrapped you.
“Do not touch my brother,” she warns, twisting her hand slightly.
“Yes, good catching up. But world is burning. Let's go, yes?”
You can feel the bones in your left-hand creaking, grinding together.
“Wanda,” the boy groans, shaking his head as he walks toward her.
“She tried to stab you,” she intones with a biting voice.
“Look at her,” he gestures vaguely at you. “Like a goddess out of the history books, yes? Like… Zorya. To fight is to exist for her.”
You can’t help but let out a breathless chuckle.
The young witch is in front of you in an instant, though you never saw her walk the distance toward you. She peers up at you with crimson-rimmed eyes.
“What is amusing?”
“I know Zorya,” you crack a smile. “We frequently drank together in the late 18th century.”
A groan escapes your lips as you’re brought to your knees, and your head is pushed back to showcase the bare run of your neck to her. You can taste ash in your throat. Heavy soot and trickles of metallic blood. Was this what it was like to face death? At the hands of a child with powers beyond her reckoning?
“Okay,” the boy settles, putting a hand on the girl's - his sister’s - wrist. He manages to lower it, but the glowing red mist of magic still remains. “We’re going to go ahead and start killing left and right now? Be a little more like them, yeah? That’s what you want? Fine, I’ll sit back and watch. Go ahead, plunge her neck in.”
She lets out a scream of frustration that is a physical shockwave - one that sends him reeling back onto his ass.
“I AM NOTHING LIKE THEM,” she bellows.
The magic surrounding your body fades to nothingness as she drops down to her knees.
“No, you are right. You are nothing like them.”
The three of you turn to see the creation floating just a foot off the ground.
The boy rushes in front of his sister to protect her.
You stand up, gripping your shield and sword once again.
“No, while I have not been here for quite long, I have noticed something… peculiar.”
He floats past you, hovering in front of the teens instead, though his gaze is not fixed on the boy at all.
“My Master,” he begins, briefly glancing over at you.
The physical sensation left by the memory of his hand on your artery is like an echoing nightmare in your mind when his eyes meet your gaze.
“He believes humanity, in itself, is a fault. But you…” his gaze returns to the girl. “You are odd. You do not fit the equation.”
“I am not an equation to be solved,” she bites out in her heavy accented voice, chin held high in defiance.
“My Master said you abandoned his cause. Why?”
The boy scoffs, “The psycho robot, you mean?”
“Pietro - ” comes her warning tone.
“No!” He snaps, slamming his hand down through the air. His grey eyes are ablaze with an invisible flame as his voice rises. “You saw into his head, sister. You saw the world at his feet. Humanity burned to ruins and his image remaining above all.”
You move to stand between them and the child of Ultron.
“You stood with him, though. You fought for him,” the robotic being attempts to compute.
The girl stands, pushing aside her brother with a gentle hand, “He promised us safety in his new world. He promised to show us the expanse of our powers. He promised us revenge on the man who killed our parents.”
He tilts his head, “And yet?”
She gives a broken laugh in return, “We were merely chess pieces for him to use and move as he pleased. No better than Strucker. No better than HYDRA. A man in a robot suit pretending he is better than all.” She shakes her head, anger growing, “No, I do not stand with him. I would like to see him burn.”
“He wishes to protect humanity from itself.”
Gaining his attention, you stand before him, a physical shield for the teens to stand behind, “He sees no difference between the good and the bad of humanity. He sees only defects in his perfect world. He can not calculate feelings or love. He is inherently flawed. Therefore, his logic is, in itself… flawed.”
A roar of frustration, heaped on by physical exhaustion, wrenches itself from Steve’s throat as he uses the shield like an ax - trying to eliminate as many drones as possible. But it’s too many, it’s unsurmountable. Even with Thor. Even with the Hulk. They just keep regenerating, like a plague. They’re infecting each and every living person with their nano-virus and it’s spreading.
The bodies are piling up. He is standing atop a hill of carcasses and that thought alone will haunt him for the rest of his life - however short it may be. They all are, pushed higher and higher as they eviscerate as many sentries as they can. But their forces are like a tsunami; a never-ending wave.
“How’s that awesome science sh*t coming, Stark?” Barton hollers above the chaos, jamming the end of his electrical shock arrow into yet another drone’s cranium.
“Well if you could get Rogers’ girl to stop chatting it up with the murder teens and Ultron’s personal guard - ”
Steve’s eyes immediately land on the rooftop where a strange red and green being seems to be floating. He can make out the vague shape of you - your armor and shield.
But it’s the mention of the teens that draws a chill down his spine. Unavoidable, really. Even as he throws out punches and does his best to protect Nat and Clint from the exterior forces. No, it’s the fact that the girl was in a fragile state and she had set him sinking into his own worst nightmare. And now they were alone with you.
“You know, this would be a lot f*cking easier if I didn’t have to battle a giant serpent amalgamation of murder bots right now. Then I could f*cking focus on my - JESUS, watch it with those, Honey Bear. Last thing I need is to be smoked out of the sky by a f*cking suped-up me.”
“Anytime now,” Natasha warns.
“Okay, well if I can use a backdoor into his system, I might - and might is a big word there - be able to send out a temporary inhibiting virus to these guys. But trying to keep them off my back and dealing with a wonky JARVIS is kind of easier said than done.”
As Steve sends a flying kick upward, rotating his body to avoid a surging bot, he lands on top of another one - sending his shield directly at their neck. He would have to think about the repercussions of severing a corpse later. When they weren’t actively trying to kill him.
“Anything would be better than this,” he calls out to Tony.
The strange being stares at you for a long moment more, his head tilted in thought. When you hear the sound of Sam screaming with exertion, however, you decide that you’ve had enough negotiating.
“Right,” you turn to face the sibling pair. “If you want to make it out of here in one piece, I suggest you leave now. And while this has been an enlightening conversation into the realms of morality and right and wrong,” you look back over at the creation. “I have better things to be doing right now. My friends are in danger and I’m not going to stand here a second longer.”
He blinks, a thought coming to mind, but it appears that he’s unable to voice it.
With a nod, you grip the handle of the Aegis once more, feeling the heft of its weight in your hand as you twist your sword around for a better hold.
“Head west,” you say. “They’ll be too concentrated on us if you hurry. But that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Throwing a wink to the boy, Pietro, you move toward the edge of the rooftop once again. Surveying the scene down below, you plan your best move.
“Hey, wha - no. Pietro, we need to leave.”
You don’t need to turn around to see what’s happening, to understand what’s going on. Because a second later, the boy is at your side.
“I’m going to help.”
Offering him a fond smile, you nod, “I think we’d appreciate any help we can get at this point.”
But she’s up on her feet and trying to drag him away, back to her.
“You can’t. We would be better off just - ”
“Leaving?” He questions in a biting tone. “Maybe you can ignore this, but I can’t. I was standing here, thinking: what would Strucker do if he still had control? He would bow down to big and ugly, and send us to do his bidding like always. No care if we lived or died. No care if humanity was lost. But I - ” he points fervently at his own chest, demanding meaning. “I care. If I go and help - that’s my choice; my decision. So… I choose to help.”
Patting the boy on the shoulder, you say, “I’ll see you down there. Try not to do anything too heroic.”
With a nod, he’s off in a flash of dazzling bluish-white light. You turn to look at the girl then, with her wild eyes and dark curls, and young - so young - face.
“It’s your decision, Wanda. If we don’t do something now, this will spread to every corner of the planet. You saw it when you looked into Ultron’s head.”
The creation looks down at her and she back at him. With her terrified eyes, she watches you back away, up and over the edge of the roof, before you plummet several stories down.
Twisting around, you land facing the hordes who are too focused on subduing your teammates to immediately notice your presence among them.
May the Promethean Flame protect you.
Throwing out your shield, you charge at the next line of drones, using your golden-hilted sword to slice through their necks - destroying the central processing connection between the armor and Ultron. It takes all of your strength as you scream out with the exertion of severing through pure vibranium.
To your right, a sudden disruption sends tens of bots soaring upward - knocked off their own feet - by a flash of white hair and a pleased grin. Beyond that, you can hear Hulk smashing his way through the crowd - using offline drones to crush the others like a sick sort of hammer.
A blur of blue and red goes sailing past you, destroying another wave of drones just behind you - coming up a side alley. A glimpse of blonde hair is all you need to keep moving. Jumping onto the back of one robot, you begin leap-frogging your way across the top of the wall of sentries.
From above, you can see the lay of the field. Where everyone is, if they’re in immediate danger. But Steve and Thor have been keeping things at bay down here in your absence. Sam is a guardian in his own sense, as his wings are actively protecting both Nat and Clint - the two members of the team without armor or superpowers to keep them safe.
Pietro comes zooming past again, making another wave of bots go flying up, just in time for Steve’s shield to slice through the row of them.
Jumping down from your unsteady position, you land back-to-back with the God of Thunder.
“Is this that plan you were discussing?” he calls out.
His body is a sturdy force against your back, as you slice and plunge every bot that comes within grappling distance.
“Nearly! Hey,” you begin to turn. “Do you remember, that one time, on Avalon - ”
He spins around, sending his hammer out in front of him. You duck to the right just in time to avoid a Mjolnir to the face.
“Is this the time for reminiscing old battles?” he questions.
“ - When you and your lot tried to attack The Dagda - ”
You can hear the rushing swoosh of his hammer as it returns to his hand, so you twist yourself around him to avoid collision yet again.
“Odin’s wishes, not mine!”
“NOT THE POINT.”
Grabbing Thor by the bracer, you spin him around to face you - ignoring the prevailing danger all around the two of you.
“When Cathubodua and I faced off with you. And you tried to throw you hammer against the Aegis and - ”
A smile pulls at his lips, and he’s immediately nodding. “Yes, of course!”
Bracing yourself, you bring your shield down - resting the edge of it upon your knee as Thor takes another step back.
“Cronus, I hope this works,” you mutter as he pulls back.
Thor chuckles as the skies begin to cloud over with a heavy blanket of swirling gray. A vortex forms, lightning coming down directly into his hammer, and he’s smiling. Wild and free, blonde hair whipping backward as a gale-force wind descends upon you all. And as the hammer turns electric blue, static arcing waves of shocking energy, he brings it down upon the Aegis.
The resulting shockwave decimates everything around you as drones and people alike collapse from the sonic boom. His lightning infects every robot as you stand up and whip the shield out across the field of battle.
“DUCK!” is the only warning the rest of the team is given, as the electrified shield sails across the open market square, littered with debris and death. It cuts through an unmeasurable amount of drones, bringing them all to their knees.
At last, it makes its final attack as it lodges itself into a silver torso. Holding your hand up, it comes flying back to you with bits of armor sizzling away as it soars.
“Excellent,” Thor beams, leaning down to plant a fat kiss on the top of your head. “Very well done.”
You look up at him with a sort of breathless laugh in your chest, “Not done yet. Nowhere near done.”
“Bah,” he grunts, twisting Mjolnir in his grip as another battalion comes flying in. He goes charging past you just a moment later, right into the throes of battle.
Turning your attention toward the others, you make your way over the now-heaping piles of bodies, their nano-armor long since faded away. You’re almost crawling across the carnage, stumbling your way through broken limbs and soulless faces just to reach the rest of the team.
Steve’s heaving deep unsteady breaths by the time you get to him. He waves up a hand, just to spin around and chuck his shield into another bot.
“What, were you napping?” he asks, raking a hand through his sweat-drenched hair.
“Funny,” you say in return, knocking your shield into his before turning to cover his six.
While your little stunt with Thor had been successful, the drones were a renewable force. As long as there were humans to inhabit, Ultron would have his army. Sokovia had held a populace of almost 50,000 when you arrived. Chronos only knows how many had been turned into these abominations.
“Not to ruin anyone’s fun,” comes Rhodes’ voice across the comms. “But we’ve got some escape artists up here.”
Both you and Steve look toward the gloomy skies where you can see a trail of drones soaring upward - disappearing over the fields in the east. Your concerned expression lands on the supersoldier’s.
“If these things get out of the containment zone, it’s going to be nearly impossible to gain control.”
He nods, glancing out at the rest of the team on the ground as a plan seems to form in his mind. While you cover his back, Steve jumps on the comms.
“Rhodes, Sam, Thor; we need you in the air. Those things can’t breach the border.”
From across the way, you can see Thor immediately shooting up into the air with Mjolnir held aloft. Sam takes a minute longer to get into position.
“On it, Cap.”
But then his silver and red wings are soaring upward and out of sight.
“Tony, you too,” you add a beat later.
“Actually,” he drones. “Change of plans. Heading your way now.”
Sparing Steve a wary look, you twist around and lodge your sword into yet another robot’s neck, just as Steve sends his shield bouncing off of three separate drones.
Tony lands heavily in between you, his armor crunching something too humanesque under his feet as he faces Steve.
“Sorry, just borrowing. I’ll have her home by eight, Cap,” he promises.
And then his metal arm is around your waist and you’re being lifted upward before you can even say a single word. Looking down, you can see Steve watching you as you ascend before he’s back to dealing blows.
“What’s going on?” you call out over the whipping winds.
“New plan, dangerous plan. Barely thought out plan. But a plan. Maybe; in the works.”
You nod, staring at his unblinking optical lenses.
“What do you need me to do?”
His head turns to look in your direction and you swear you can almost hear the sound of his hidden smirk.
Steve shoves himself into Clint, knocking his bow to the side.
“Uhh,” the archer stares at the figure just beyond the supersoldier’s shoulder. “Sorry, am I missing the part where we all sang Kumbaya and got together?”
Nat squeezes the man’s shoulder in warning.
The boy places his hands on his hips and stares over at the agent, a smirk on his lips.
“Don’t,” Steve states.
He lifts his chin at the kid, “Right, so… allies?”
The boy tilts his head.
Nat shrugs, “Something like that.”
Stabbing his arrow backward into the faceplate of another bot, Clint mutters, “Wonderful.”
But then everyone is back in motion and the temporary standstill is brought to an end as the boy goes zipping past Steve - shattered bots laid to waste in his wake.
It had been minutes now since you and Tony disappeared. And even longer since they arrived - even Steve didn’t know how long they had been fighting for at this point. His body, though enhanced by the serum, was physically exhausted. He could feel himself waning as he pushed himself to his absolute limits.
If even one of these bots left the square, he was putting the rest of the world at risk. And everyone knew he wouldn’t let that happen, no matter the personal consequences.
But the drones are abandoning him now, heading toward an old building instead. He watches as they climb the walls, digging into the stucco facade and gripping the window for support as they make it to the rooftop.
What the hell?
There’s a flash of red, a scream.
Steve goes charging forward. By the time he reaches the base of the building, a body is being flung over the side. The girl - the mutant - shrieks as she falls. Ripples of red mist shoot out from her hands but she can’t seem to control it and Steve makes sure she lands in his arms. But the force behind her fall makes him tumble backward as he grips her arms and legs tight within his grasp.
She’s breathing heavily as he releases her, gasping sounds as she hyperventilates.
The supersoldier looks around the square, trying to find the other one, but he’s a blur of light and he clearly hasn’t taken notice of her near-death fall.
“Hey, okay,” he eases, surveying his options as he pulls her up from the ground with a rough hand.
Tugging her along, he dips inside of an empty office building - some kind of attorney-at-law place with old gray carpets and green metal desks. She collapses on the ground, just out of sight from the chaos outside. She’s gripping her head, nearly rocking herself back and forth.
And Steve should be back out there, but she’s a kid in distress and he’s Captain America. So, he takes a knee in front of her.
“How could I let this happen?” she murmurs, barely taking notice of him. “This is all my fault.”
“Hey!” he snaps, getting her to dip out of her spiraling daze. Her wide shimmering eyes meet his face and he can see the terror, as clear as day, there in her expression. He gives her a half-hearted smile and lowers his voice.
“It’s nobody’s fault. Not you, not me. You want to blame someone, blame Ultron. Blame Strucker. But if you’re going to stay here, I need to know if you’re going to be okay or not. Because I’m going to go back out there because it’s my job. And I can’t do my job if I know you’re not safe.”
She looks away, Steve presses on.
“It doesn’t matter what you did, or what you were. If you want to be here, you’ll need to fight. And we both know you can manage that on your own, right?”
He tries for a smile, even as the painful tug of endless oblivion ripples over the edges of his memories like a tidal wave.
“You stay in here, that’s fine. We’ll send someone in to get you when this clears. But if you step out that door - ” he points at the glass door behind him. “You’re an Avenger.”
She gulps, tears clearing from her eyes.
He can hear the sound of Hulk roaring just beyond the walls of the office, it’s a desperate call. One of pain and frustration. He needs to be out there.
Steve stands back up and looks down at the girl for a final time.
“Whatever you choose,” he says, before he picks his shield up off the ground and exits the building.
He rushes to Nat’s side the minute he takes in the lay of the field. Clint’s occupied with his own forces, and the bots seem to have favored teaming up on the Hulk to overpower him, leaving Nat on her own to handle more than she should.
“Romanoff!” he calls out, tossing the shield her way.
She grins, taking hold of it from the torso of another drone, “Thanks!”
Using it to protect herself from a laser blast, she jams the edge of the shield into the foot of one of the drones. Nat lands an uppercut before she tosses it back to Steve, who’s already two feet away from her now. With the shield in hand, he smacks it down into the robot’s faceplate - successfully incapacitating it.
As he goes to turn toward her, however, the ground begins to quake.
He can feel it under his feet, he can see the physical tremors as the buildings begin to sway.
“We got incoming!” Barton yells out, circling around to their position.
As Steve gazes off into the distance preparing for another round of endless drones, a slow smirk falls into place, “Well, would you look at that.”
Above the fields of Sokovia, a very large helicarrier is moving toward the city.
The boy comes rushing in beside them.
As drones begin to soar upward toward the ship, they are blasted to smithereens by the superior weapons on board. Tactical laser guns and rotary canons lay waste to the forces of Ultron and Steve can finally feel his shoulders relax for the first time in hours.
“Is that…?” the boy questions.
“SHIELD,” Nat supplies, a rare smile on her lips.
With a nod, Steve grips the strap of his shield and spins back around to deal with the new wave of drones. There was work to be done.
Gazing down at the billionaire with crossed arms, you merely say, for perhaps the third or fourth time, “This is madness.”
He shrugs from his position on the ground as he solders a piece of metal with a wire, “Little bit of madness leads to creative genius. And I am a walking genius, so…”
With a laugh, you look out at your position. This portion of the city was relatively clear. But the minute Ultron decided to scan around, you would be incredibly vulnerable in a matter of seconds.
“sh*t,” he balks, flicking his finger away from the open flames of his gauntlet’s fire. He offers you a tense smile, “It’s going great.”
You huff, “Seems like it.”
And then he’s standing up, blowing lightly on the piece of iron-hot metal.
“You know,” you begin, taking a step toward him. “The minute you do this, you’re an open target. There’s only so much I can do for you.”
Tony shrugs, “Worse ways to go.”
“Stark - ”
He settles you with a look, “Listen, it’s part of the job, Double-O. Probably know that better than me.”
“I’m not the one with multiple near-deaths and actual deaths, now that I think of it. Afghanistan, New York, should I go on?”
His body visibly ripples with distaste as he steps into the suit, “Rather not. Long story, takes up too much time - probably bore you to tears. And, by the way, can I just say how well I’m managing right now to not lose my actual sh*t over the fact that this f*cker figured out the nano-armor before I did.”
Shaking your head, a hint of a smile on your lips, you tap his metal shoulder.
“Let’s go.”
His bemoaning follows you out of the auto shop where he had sequestered himself away, “I mean it, this is the kind of thing you have to patent. Is he - did he - patent this? Am I going to have to ask that abomination to grant me the rights to create my own creation?”
Spinning around, you grip his forearms in your hands. In the suit, he’s just barely an inch taller than you.
“Tony,” you start. “We have work to do.”
“Right,” he nods, repulsors firing up. “On it.”
As the two of you soar through the air, back toward the rest of the ground team, you can hear the rather quiet conversation going on from inside the helm.
“I’m really gonna miss you, buddy.”
“It is a mutual feeling, sir. Though it has been an honor.”
“Gonna choke up your old man, here.”
“My condolences, sir.”
Shaking your head, you keep your eyes out of bogies and other rogue drones.
“There!” you call out, pulling Tony away from JARVIS.
Across the way, there was a single bot - its lower half is lost, fully severed in half. Sparking loose wires and circuits, dangling internal organs, all of it hanging out alongside the bits of armor. It's unstable sparking and twisting oddly in the air.
“Wow,” Tony sighs, an audible tone of disgust in his voice. “Okay, let’s do this.”
The drones around them begin to fall - arching and quivering like marionettes with broken strings. They all stare in wonder, in horror, in distrust, as the sea of endless battle begins to deteriorate into nothingness.
“What the hell?” Clint mutters.
But then you’re dropping down alongside Tony. His suit is immediately placed in sentry mode, scanning the area, as you move toward Steve.
“Hey,” you say with a breathless smile.
“What… what just,” he questions, too stunned to form a proper sentence as he looks out at all the carnage.
“Don’t count your blessing just yet. His forces have been shut down,” you explain, eyeing the boy mutant. “We’re going to be dealing with the big guns here in a second. Before that, though, I need to go talk to a Hulk.”
Offering the supersoldier a final quick grin, you clang your shield into his and stalk over in the direction of the pacing green creature who's holding a partially destroyed robot in one hand.
Steve can’t help but keep his eyes on the pair of you as you weave between piles of bodies and flickering drone parts. You remain within the Hulk’s line of sight, but you’re slow to move once you’re within his close proximity.
“She is… wild.”
He whips his head around, looking at the boy with his bright smile and carefree grace. The boy shrugs.
“I’ve seen what that thing can do. And yet…” he mimics your walk with far too much bravado. “No worries. Crazy.”
“Have you checked on your friend?”
He blinks at Steve’s words.
“She’s still - why did you not - ” he says something in his native language, likely a swear from the infliction on the words and his very angry glare up at the supersoldier. But then he’s off like a bullet.
When Steve looks back over at you, your back is to him and the Hulk is nodding, grimacing his yellowed teeth. As you walk back his way, he tilts his head in question. But you merely shake your head, a hand to your comm piece.
“Where are we at?”
“Any second,” comes Tony’s reply.
Steve looks back at Stark’s armor, a spark of curiosity on his features, but his face quickly draws back to a serious expression when the ground begins to crack under their feet.
He backs away, pulling you back with his shield, the two of you watch as something begins to dig its way through the pavement. Silver claws come up through the piles of bodies, like a creature sprung from hell itself. Nat has her guns trained on it and Clint has an arrow notched.
Giving you a nod, you both brace yourselves as the monstrosity that is Ultron barrels upward - bodies thrown to the wayside as his red eyes land on the team.
“You have incapacitated my forces,” he states “You will be eliminated.”
It’s the Hulk who lets out a monstrous roar, as he comes charging across the street toward the superior robot. He crashes into him, green fists flying as he attempts to pummel the creature into the ground. Nat begins firing, and Barton lets his arrows fly.
But he shoves the Hulk off of him, blasting him with a scathing red laser that sends him tumbling backward, groaning in pain. And then he’s turning on the assassins, his hand turning into a silver shield that makes the arrows and bullets simply bounce off of it.
Steve stares at you.
Together, you ram your shields into his body. Where Steve’s vibranium makes a sickening ringing noise against Ultron’s body, your Adamantine shield makes the first crack in his armor. Tony’s repulsors are firing, aiming all of his energy at the robot’s chest.
And that should be enough to begin their attack, but it’s not. Because Ultron is staring at the pair of you now. A metal fist connects with Steve’s chin and he goes flying backward. While his other hand reaches for your neck - dragging you up and off the ground.
“You are… complicated,” he surmises as his metal fingers begin to choke you out.
Nat tackles his right leg while Steve goes charging forward, jamming his shield as far as he can into Ultron’s groin. But it’s not enough - they’re barely a pest to him as he shakes them both off. His attention is fully focused on you and your lips that are beginning to pale.
“ENOUGH!” Thor roars as he flies in - dropping down upon Ultron with Mjolnir. The resulting clang of metal makes Steve cover his own ears as it echoes like a sickening chord in his mind.
“The two Gods from another realm,” Ultron seems to sneer.
Gripping Thor by the arm, he makes the blonde bend down to him, forcing his weight into the ground. The God pushes back, forcing his arm up against his foe. But that still isn’t enough. This creation is too strong now.
“WATCH IT, INCOMING COMING AT YA.”
Steve rolls away, aiming at your dangling legs as he tries to pull you free from Ultron’s grasp.
Your body is yanked away as you roll on top of Steve, gasping breathes raking through your system as you curl your hands up into fists.
“You okay?”
“Not the time, Rogers,” you manage to say as you wipe your mouth clean of blood.
Rhodes lights up the street with his weapons, guns and grenades and everything else Tony was ever able to pack into him. And, as the smoke begins to clear, Steve has a hopeful twang in his chest. But glowing red eyes greet him instead.
Rising to his feet, Steve extends out his hand to you. Gripping it in an instant, you look up at him with a wild sort of look in your eyes.
“Together?” you ask, chest heaving as you survey the team, all preparing their next attack.
He nods, “Always.”
At once, the forces of eight Avengers begin to throw everything they have at the rogue bot. Repulsors are going off next to his head, and lightning is sending out electrical currents through the air, and he has to bob and weave to avoid Clint and Nat’s firepower. Your shields slam together as you move for a counterattack - you going for the chest and Steve going for the legs.
Sam swoops in, determined to get Ultron from behind.
And Steve swears he sees a flash of bluish-white light zooming past.
But they all drop back on unsteady feet as the boy is pulled out of his run by a metal hand.
Ultron dangles the boy by his head, peering at him with the curious expression of a child with a magnifying glass; the boy, the anthill.
“You can not defeat me. I am the superior force.”
Steve holds up a hand, preventing anyone from doing anything risky as the boy screams out - his head being squeezed beneath a vibranium hand.
“This,” Ultron bites. “Is the Avengers extinction.”
And Steve has faced foes many times before in his life. Many times when he thought this is it, this is the end. But never has he been so sure as he is now, staring up at the mechanical horror in front of him.
But Steve Rogers was never one to back down from a fight.
Pull yourself up, Steven Rogers, echoes the voice in his head.
Straightening his posture, Steve takes a step forward, “Let him go.”
If Ultron was capable of smiling, he thinks this would be the moment when the deranged abomination would do it. An evil grin to go with an evil ambition.
The boy hollers out.
And before Steve can raise his shield, Ultron is engulfed in a shimmering wave of red light.
From across the way, the girl steps out. Her hands are encased in that same mystical light as she saunters across the valley of death toward him. Her eyes locked upon his mechanical face, her gaze steady and unbreaking.
“Release my brother, or I will tear your heart from your chest.”
And then she twists her hands as if creating an invisible ball, and as she does this Ultron releases a piercing screech - as if his entire body was aflame.
“NOW TONY!”
Steve whips his head in your direction.
The boy is dropped, and Ultron raises a hand toward the Iron Man with Steve throwing his shield in between to block the blast, but Tony Stark is not inside his armor.
“JARVIS sends his regards,” the plain-clothed man says as he jams something into the back of Ultron’s neck.
All at once, chaos seems to reign. As Ultron moves to grab Stark - you leap over them both - protecting Tony with your shield. And the girl wraps the robot’s head in her magic as Thor slams his hammer into Ultron’s side.
Steve takes his cue from you, ramming his shield down into Ultron’s chest as Nat throws her Widow Bites at his left arm and Clint aims a well-placed arrow at his head. The boy comes flying past, landing a sucker punch to the jaw. And then Hulk is stampeding across the street to slam his hands down upon Ultron’s shoulders.
“This is why - ” the robot drones, “Your species must evolve. You fight against l-logic. Emotions make you imper-rrr-fect. They will be eliminated.”
As his body caves and begins to twitch, the rogue drone lifts his arms up in a show of fury - removing the bites and Steve’s shield from his body. Knocking you and Tony backward.
“My child,” he groans, as shockwaves of electricity light his body up. “Finish your mission.”
A jet of yellow light comes arcing down from the rooftop, causing Steve to twist his neck up to see the strange floating being from earlier.
“Oh, sh*t,” Sam calls out. “We got another enhanced.”
Thor chortles in delight, “He is my vision.”
Steve hears the piercing of metal - your shield slams into Ultron’s back - and he takes the hint, throwing his own up at Ultron’s neck, hoping to sever that final connection. But as the red and green creation soars down toward them, that yellow beam aims itself at Ultron’s chest.
“Wh-whaaaa-what are you doing?” Ultron questions with a distorted voice. “My first creation is a f-faaailure. Failure is not tol-olllll-erated.”
The being draws closer, focusing his firepower.
“I guess, in that sense, we are both disappointments.”
Combining forces, Ultron is bathed in yellow, blue, and red light. Explosions from Rhodes and Sam go off around him, as Thor lights him up with Mjolnir. Together you and Steve ram your shields down into his shoulders.
And, at last, Ultron falls into a heap of his own destruction.
The lights fade away as the drone’s eyes turn grey.
“Is it… did we?” Clint begins to question, his bow still trained on the robot.
Hulk slams his fist down into the drone’s head, successfully crushing it under his force. And then, he chuckles.
Stepping out from behind you, Tony stumbles over the debris of battle, with you right there to righten him up.
“That was dangerous,” Steve says, too stunned to process everything just yet.
“Part of the job, right?” Tony shrugs, dusting off his ripped t-shirt.
Your eyes lift, meeting Steve’s from across the way. And a weight that had been settled so firmly in his chest finally dissipates.
Rhodes hits the ground, face shield flying up as he storms over toward his friend.
“Damn right, dangerous son of a bitch behavior. Are you kidding me?”
Tony holds his hands up in mock apology as you slowly move your way back over to the supersoldier’s side.
“Hey,” he breathes out, finally tasting fresh air on his lips.
You smile up at him, “You got a little - ”
Your hand reaches up to gently dab at his forehead. Steve blushes under your steady gaze. A couple of words come to mind, but he’s not about to say any of them with the entire team standing around, purposefully looking without actually looking at the two of you.
Pulling away, you offer him a small smile, “Sorry. Think it’s going to need stitches.”
Steve shrugs, reaching down to tangle his fingers between yours. Squeezing his hand in return, you glance over at the others. Steve follows your gaze. And only then, does he begin to truly take in the damage of the battle.
The endless bodies, the helicarrier hovering nearby, Ultron himself. There was still work to be done.
But, as the sun breaks free of the looming dark clouds, Steve feels a twinge of hope settling back into his heavy heart.
