Paint the Hills Red

Seven years had passed since the Accords had been put in place. Five years since they had been removed, and three since the "disappearance". Three years since the Avengers, the worlds mightiest heroes, had fought the good fight. but hadn't managed to come out the victor, no amount of soldiers or weapons could stop the crazed titan. they had been close, god they had been close but Thanos had decimated not only the planet, but the universe.

It took some time for the avengers to leave wakanda, everyone was in a state of shock. The first to leave was Banner. Typical, Natasha thought. She could still remember him leaving, his muffled apologies barely making it past door. Natasha watched as one by one the "remainders" left the once peaceful city. Natasha was the very last to leave. For once she didn't know what to do, no back up plan, no false identity to revert too. She was alone, and she was scared. Five days after the disappearance, Natasha traveled to clint's farm, after her failed attempts to contact the Barton family. Upon arrival, Natasha sat in the cockpit of the wakandan stealth jet, watching the front door to the Barton residence, hoping, praying, that her family had somehow remained intact. The longer she waited the more scared she became. No one came out to great her. Reluctantly, Natasha stood from her seat and walked to the back cargo bay to inspect the once noisy and cheerful house. As she walked to the house she couldn't help but think the worst.

What would she do if no one had survived? Thoughts raced through her head as she stood at the door, uncertain. She mustered up the courage to walk in. The sound of careful footsteps shocked her out of her trance. Gun drawn, she kicked in the door, aiming her gun at the source of the noise. She dropped her aim as she saw Clint standing beside the door with a gun drawn at her. His eyes were as black as the coffee he drank, his hair was different, a short shaven, military style just like steve's. Natasha holstered her gun as she wrapped Clint in an embrace. After a few seconds she pulled away.

"Who's left?" It only took one look in his eyes to tell that no one was left. That night was one of the few times Natasha allowed herself to cry..

As time moved on so seemed the people, but no one would ever forget. Things moved back into their normal rhythm. The biggest tell tale sign was the lack of people walking down the streets in the middle of the cities. It took time but people started going back to work, making money and spending it, of course there had been a lot of outbreaks in petty crime, people taking out their loss on the world. But most of the outbreaks were removed within the first 48 hours. With nowhere left to go Natasha and Clint left the Barton residence after spending one night there, neither spy could stand the sight of the one cheerful house now turned dead. Both spies loaded up personal belongings, cloths, weapons, photos and packed them into bags and headed for the Wakandan stealth jet, there next stop would be the Stark tower. After the avengers facility was built Stark re branded the Avengers tower back to Stark tower. Neither spy could get a hold of Tony, it took the Stealth jet several hours to arrive at the tower, as soon as the jet landed and the ramp lowered both spies walked down the ramp and into the tower, neither had been back in quite some time. As they reached the door both former agents had to scan their hand before friday could confirm that it was indeed them before letting them into the tower. As they entered they just stood there in the elevator, neither sure which floor to travel too, Natasha looked up to the ceiling before speaking "Friday, is Mr Stark in the building?"

"I'm afraid Mr Stark is currently out at his beach house at the moment, I have alerted him to your appearances at the tower and he has asked me to make sure you are both comfortable before he arrives in an hour or so" came Fridays response. Both agents looked to one another before Clint punched the Common Room button on the elevator and were sent down several stories before the doors chimed open and both could step out and relieve there shoulders of there bags, both walked over to the bar and poured themselves a drink before they sat down in the sofa that will be forever dubbed the "Steve rogers chair" near the window and watched the chaos of looters and mayhem breaking out down on the streets below. Neither had the energy, nor will power to go down there and put a stop to it, instead they both sat there in pure silence and drank. Natasha sat there and watched the tiny ants run around looting stores, she looked away to her left where her vision caught on the side table, the side table had a lamp sitting on it, but below the lamp was a book, with a bookmark in it, Natasha picked up the book and inspected it, she remembered this book, it was the book Steve had been reading meere days before the acords incident had happened. Tony had left this sit here all this time? She thought to herself, or maybe Tony had just never noticed it? Highly unlikely. Natashas mind once again shifter back to that of one Captain Steven James Rogers. What had happened to Steve, he never showed up when Thanos had arrived and taken everything from them. Was he dead? No one had seen Steve or captain america ever since the accords went into place. No glimpses of midnight vigilantes matching the build of a bulking 6ft tall super soldier saving old ladies cats from trees, he had simply vanished. In this regard she was kind of proud of him, she had been the one to teach him how to blend in and remain out of sight. But in this instance she simply wished she could just see him and see if he was ok, not knowing if he had made it or if he was one of those to disappear was only now just beginning to tear her up inside. When the US government and then followed by the UN Nations disbanded the accords. Natasha had returned to the US a free woman and once again titled an Avenger. She had been glad to return home after 2 years on the run from almost every government. Manny of the Aveners held grudges against one another for what had happened at the airport that day but they understood that neither were technically correct. The avengers didn't just come together again, they grew, gaining the members of Ant man and Bucky and many more. Much to Natashas surprise Tony had been the one to invite James to the team, Tony just stated that he had potential, it wasn't until Natasha talked to the Now Mrs Stark that she discovered that Tony had made amends with James for what happened after he calmed down and saw things from a new light. Natasha was proud of tony, he was a stubborn man and always got what he wanted, but he had a good heart. It just took him some time to realise it himself sometimes. However by far this biggest surprise not only to Natasha but to the whole globe was the no show by Captain America. No one seemed to know where he was, he had all but disappeared from existence almost. It wasn't until 2 weeks after the pardoning of everyone that Tony came rushing into the common room out of breath and ran straight to her, Tony looked her dead in they eyes, he almost looked spooked. "Hes deleted himself" was all Tony had said, everyone else in the common room looked confused as did Natasha before tony spoke again. "Steve has deleted every single piece of information from the net, hell not even the Net, he has deleted himself even from Friday. The only things we have left on him are his action figures and any paper texts or books on him, he's a ghost. Everyone was quiet before Sam spoke up. "How's that even possible, aren't there measures to make sure this doesn't happen, and even if it could be done there's no way that a 94 year old man could know how to delete himself right? Rhodes was the next to speak "he must have someone powerful and smart helping him, there's no way he's working alone, we need to find what he's up to and where he is. Natasha just stood there, what was he doing, she just thought that he was taking some much needed time off from running and just relaxing somewhere, this was super out of character for him, what did this get him, what was his end game? Was he against the avengers? Thoughts ran wild in her head as the others threw in their money's worth. No one could figure out what had happened to Captain America.

Tony likes to think that he was the one who had Friday start looking for Captain rogers, but he would be wrong, Natasha had asked Friday to start searching for him since the day the Accords were dropped. They had Friday scanning day and night all around the globe but not once did they ever get a slightly warm trail. As time passed people put it down to Captain America lounging on a sun chair sipping drinks somewhere in bali. But for Natasha, someone who knew him, she knew this wouldn't be right. Steve would never just give it up and relax, he simply couldn't whether he wanted to or not. Natasha never gave up looking but slowly the others did. After time the public began to become suspicious of the lack of their favorite star spangled man with the plan. When a year passed with no return of the Captain the group bar Natasha decided to open Steves will and testimony that he had left in his side table in is room at the Stark tower. Inside the letter were the list where few personal possessions where to go to and a few odds and ends. But by far what surprised everyone the most was that in his will Buck was to take on the Mantle of the shield and wield it in his title, Bucky was to become Captain america, who better than the person who had protected captain america before he was capable to protect himself and the globe. After a short period of James refusing the shield the team had managed to convince him to take on the role as their captain. After all he was technically the oldest out of all of them. Natasha hadn't liked the idea of James taking on the role of their captain when their captain was just missing and not dead. But as time ticked forth james proved to be a good leader, not a perfect leader but still a good one nonetheless.

Just over two years after the removal of the accords word started getting around about a robotic looking figure towering 7ft in all dark metallic armour taking down hostels in Russia started to float around, Naturally the avengers headed out to investigate the claims, had the russians created their own version of the iron man armours? The team flew out in their new mobile base of operations. A large aircraft much similar to a C130 but retrofitted with Stark repulsor to propel the craft, it allowed for the team to move around and relatively relaxed and strategize as they flew to their target. The avengers had Friday manage to find a link between the already attacked compounds and discovered a sole remaining compound and decided to head there in hoped the unknown figure would try and attack it as well. The avengers had the craft hover 10 km above the compound up in the clouds in stealth mode as they scanned the compound and waited. It didn't take long with only having to scan the area for 9 hours before Friday began to scan a metallic object fly in near the compound, and start its march to the compound. Upon further scans it became discovered the metal was that of the same type for Captain America's shield, Vibranium. The avengers decided that their best plan of attack would be to stealthily infiltrate the warehouse from the back while the unknown figure would draw the hostiles attention to the front. As they all stood there in the warehouse with all the illegal weapons and ammo they could hear the onslaught that was occurring outside, after 10 minutes the noise dropped down slowly, before long they were left in total silence. No light or noise, no one could see anything. And even worse they couldn't hear anything. The next thing they knew there was a dull glowing pair of lights behind them "are you hear to stop me" cam the low deep voice they all knew too well. "Ultron" was all natasha could say when suddenly all the lights turned on. Before them stood Ultron but instead of sleek silver was clad in a dark grey body, his face had changed much too, it almost matched that of Tonys but with some differences. Instantly Thor had Mjölnir flying to the metallic giant. Instead Ultron just reached forth and grabbed the hammer by its handle. The avengers attacked but Ultron had shot out lightning and disarmed them all as Ultron held the hammer. "Impossible" thor stated. In their destruction Ultron reached to his belt and pulled out some explosives and threw them at the creates of weapons and ammo "my fight isn't with you, i suggest you leave and live to fight again Avengers" before they knew it the explosives went off and fire began to take to the crates, they all just watched as Ultron walked out the exit. As Ultron was about to pass their captain he turned his head "nice shield" with that he walked out. After a few seconds everyone was looking at thor who just looked at his hammer laying on the crate the crazed robot had left it on.

After the incident all of them decided that ultron had to be stopped at any cost, they contacted every government around the globe and informed them of the situation, they were not going to make the same mistake twice. They theorised what his plans could be and how he survived but no one could come to a conclusion that made sense. So from that point on the avengers hunted day and night to find Ultron, but he always seemed to be four steps ahead of them. The next time they personally saw him was on the battlefield fighting Thanos.