Vision sat there, alone, twirling a chess piece in his hand in the compound, thinking.
As a machine, he was infallible. Or so he thought.
Logic. Logic should rule me. So, what happened? What went wrong?
He touched his other hand to the Mindstone, felt its warm glow in the receptors of his fingertips…and wondered.
It was just a couple of weeks ago that the Avengers' world fell apart. Only Tony and he were left. Spiderman was home in Queens. Rhodes was somewhere in the compound, trying to regain his mobility, with help from one of Tony's latest creations.
His latest creation. Was he not also one of Tony's creations? Hmmm…
They had been in Germany, trying to stop Captain Rogers and his team from escaping with the arrested Sgt. Barnes. It was a simple equation. Even now, Vision was running it thru' his head.
The quin jet had taken off. Iron Man and War Machine had launched into flight after them. Falcon had launched right after them. He was going to try to stop them from catching the jet.
Rhodes called for Vision to target Falcon's pack. Turn him into a glider. Those were his exact words.
Comforting Wanda, trying to explain to her how all of this could have been avoided – the catastrophe he wanted to avoid – if only Captain Rogers had signed the Accords….
He turned his gaze away from her, fired up the Mindstone and hit his target.
Falcon's pack lit up like an Independence Day firework, and smoke came pouring out.
Ahead of him, Tony and Rhodes forged onward to stop the jet, never looking back.
But something went wrong, very wrong.
Falcon plummeted down to earth, in a death spiral.
The emergency parachute deployed, but it was burnt.
Wanda and Vision watched in frozen horror as Sam Wilson hit the ground and died upon impact.
The rest of the Avengers' on both sides were frozen in shock and horror.
Wanda cried out with such pain, Vision was thrown clear.
It was only then that Tony and Rhodes looked back, as the waves of anguish hit them, wobbling them in the sky.
What was that? A confused Bucky asked Steve as the jet took the impact.
In a sad voice, Steve answered him. That was the price of freedom.
On the ground, the teams converged on the spot Sam Wilson laid in a most unnatural position. In the distance, emergency sirens could be heard, but it was already too late.
Vision looked down at the body. How did this happen? I was, I thought, I calculated every variable. Didn't I? He looked over his shoulder at the red-haired beauty. He ran the calculations again, but this time he hit a snag. This time Wanda did not come into the equation. But? But? What happened?
He remembered looking down at Wanda. A human body, so frail, so beautiful! In pain! They had done this. They had forced Colonel Rhodes to hit Wanda with a subsonic blast, causing her pain. He remembered hearing the command. Turn him into a glider!
He fired without really thinking, just obeying. He fired with anger. Was that even possible? Was he angry? His distraction with Wanda caused him to fire without making all the necessary….calculations.
But he realized now in horror, that he'd forgotten one. Himself. He had not thought it possible that he had to take into consideration his own impact on the variables. He'd made a grave error, and now, at his feet Sam Wilson was dead.
Vision straightened up with a start, the chess piece falling from his hand to the floor, clattering away.
He was the one variable he could no longer calculate!
Ultron may have started building him, but a man, a fallible human man had finished the project. Humans were…are…flawed, driven to decisions based on emotions, not logic. Was it possible that he was also flawed?
If he were flawed, could it be then, that Steve Rogers was right?...
