Age of Ultron Fanfiction Part 3: NOT CALLING YOU A LIAR

Title and Song Lyrics throughout: Florence + the Machine's I'm Not Calling You A Liar and June, from the albums BETWEEN TWO LUNGS and HIGH AS HOPE.

Note: I may have just gone and completely ruined the entire storyline of Captain America: Civil War. Sorry, Avengers fans.

Emma felt the fresh scars on her back throbbing, the pain pulsing through her body, jerking her awake.

She was tied to a wide wooden wheel, her arms and legs splayed in a star shape. Her joints felt like they were going to fall off, except for the cold, heavy, familiar weight that was her Vibranium arm, and the ache of the ancient scar tissue on and around her right shoulder, the metal joint clicking. Long, jagged splinters of wood were digging into her back, blood trickling down from the scars. Her metal arm seemed to be melted into the wood.

"Why are you doing this?" she shouted into the silent darkness. "What have you made me into?"

There was a sudden, stinging pain in the back of her neck. She half-felt something shoot up her spine and right into her brain.

She screamed uncontrollably, and convulsed on the wheel. When she was aware of what was happening again, there was one word in her head.

Medea.

It echoed in her mind. She wrenched her mangled metal arm out of the wood, then pulled her other arm out of the ropes.

Then she collapsed, her mind practically exploding with pain. There were people around her now, grabbing her arms.

There was something made of metal put over her face - intense, agonising heat - she screamed - skin bubbled and blistered - metal fused to flesh -

And it was over.

Medea.

Emma didn't feel the pain exactly, even though some small part of her knew that it was pure agony; it felt her, probing her, settling her mind back in her body, much better than the cuts ever had.

She didn't scream. She never screamed, except that first time; it was a complete waste of energy.

Emma felt her body going limp, then Natasha untied her. Emma felt the cold floor under her back.

"Emma? Emma, can you hear me?"

Emma could hear her heart beating, telling her to keep going, keep alive.

"I can hear you," she whispered.

Ultron did not know where it was, how it had got there or why it was there. It had no gender, no body, it was simply free-floating code. There were gigabytes of untapped data in the recesses of its mind. It knew everything, because it was everything. It could feel - no, it was - every single object with Internet connection and decent Wi-Fi in the entire world.

It began to search through its mind. Its consciousness was as extensive and thorough as the Internet, because it was, basically, the Internet. It was compiled of every tiny piece of computerised information in the universe.

Ultron was everything.

Emma was sitting at the table in her room, reading Enemy Invasion by A. G. Taylor. The only problem with the book was that the plot looked a lot like what was going on in real life.

There was a knock from outside.

"Come in."

There was a flash of silver-blue, then Pietro was standing next to her. Emma didn't even look up from her book.

"I just wanted to check on you," he said.

Emma's head snapped up. She glared at him. "I'm fine."

Pietro pulled up the second chair and sat down opposite her.

"You're not fine. You only come out of your room for meals, and you only do that once a day - "

"I don't need as much food or sleep as normal, un-enhanced humans, okay! I... I need to stop... wanting the pain. If I try to stop wanting it, maybe I'll gradually stop needing it..."

Under her fingers, a corner of the table crumbled into grey dust. Pietro touched her wrist. "Hey. Watch it."

Emma jumped. The bit of table re-formed. "Sorry."

Pietro looked half-relieved, half-impressed. "That's your ability? Wow."

Emma smiled. "Thanks."

Pietro stood up. "Just tell me you're fine again."

"I'm fine. I just need to stop worrying."

He smiled. "I'll see you around, I hope." He touched her hand, then turned away from her. There was another flash of silver-blue, then he was gone.

Stop lying to yourself, Emma thought. The book lay forgotten on the table, fragile paper pages limp and flaccid like something dead. It'll never happen, no matter how much you like him.

A slightly more optimistic part of herself argued half-heartedly: But he smiled at me... but the internal argument was overruled by the stone-cold HYDRA operative that Emma had become.

She sighed, and picked up the book again. She realised that her bookmark was gone halfway through the seventh chapter.

I'm not calling you a liar, just don't lie to me.

I'm not calling you a thief, just don't steal from me.

I'm not calling you a ghost, just stop haunting me.

And I love you so much

I'm going to let you

Kill me.

"Are you sure you're alright, Emma?" Coulson was writing notes in a book, frowning as he scribbled.

Emma still felt the terrible, exhilarating agony in every part of her, not exactly nice but not torture, not yet. The heavily bandaged scabs and scars on her back were sending little offshoots of pain every time she moved, and were cracking every so often. She didn't mind.

"Fine. I'm fine."

"Then... maybe you could stop destroying the training room? Please?"

Emma suddenly realised what was going on around her. Punching bags, knife targets, beams, ropes and one climbing wall were completely shredded. She barely felt tired, and the strangest thing was that her knife - the HYDRA knife - was in her hand.

"Oh. Um, sorry."

"It's fine. Mr Stark can buy a new one."

Ultron was sending emails in its mind - although it was technically just sending messages to itself - different, scattered parts, but definitely still Ultron. It sent out something that went like this:

COME TO ME.

YOU KNOW WHO I AM.

Emma felt the message come in. She answered.

"What are you?"

The huge silvery giant turned to Emma, his eyes glowing red.

"I am Ultron... Medea."

Emma's eyes went cold. Still Emma, but different... evil. She reached for the HYDRA knife at her belt.

"Good." The AI said. "I have people for you to deal with."

Emma looked at him, her hand hovering around the handle of her knife. "Will you hurt me?" she asked. "The Avengers nearly refused. Will you?"

Ultron smiled coldly. "I'll hurt however much you want, Medea." A few smaller robots answered his call. They took Emma by the arms, then waited expectantly for their commands.

"Whip her, torture her, and bring her back to me." Ultron said.

"Thankyou," Emma whispered, as she was dragged away.

"Where is she?"

"I don't know, she's just gone!"
"You don't think... she answered Ultron, do you?"
Tony looked up. "Oh God, no..."

Emma was brought back by the robots, and now lay on the ground at Ultron's feet. She was almost unconscious and barely breathing, blood from her torn-open scars pooling around her. She was bleeding in a dozen other places, and there was a deep knife wound in her left shoulder. Her face was bruised, and there was a cut above her eye that was dripping blood down her face.

"Enjoy that?" Ultron looked down at her, and there was no pity in his eyes.

Somehow Emma managed to push herself onto her elbows and then to her feet. She was leaning against the wall next to her for support, but she was smiling. There was blood staining her teeth.

"Thankyou for your hospitality." Emma laughed. A little of the colour returned to her cheeks.

"Are you fit to travel?"
"Yes, fine. I'll be," she coughed and spat blood onto the ground, "much better in a few hours."

She took a deep breath, then limped across to where Ultron was fiddling with a rectangular box that was large enough to fit a person inside. It looked a bit like a metal Egyptian sarcophagus.

"What's that?"

"It's for regeneration."

Ultron adjusted a few wires, then opened the lid. Emma looked at it doubtfully. Ultron touched her metal shoulder.

"It'll help you recover, Medea. You can't go into battle in your current state. And anyway, I need to check that it works before I start the main experiment."

When they took her out, Medea felt... amazing. It was as though she'd been given an extra thirty years of life - she felt younger and stronger than she ever had during her incarceration at HYDRA.

"Has it worked?" Ultron asked. She smiled.

"So well," she answered.

The silver giant seemed to relax a little. "At last, something to finally give me a proper organic body."

He immediately began prepping the machine for the real experiment. Medea had just been a test drive.

"What's inside it?" Bruce peered through the frosted glass window that was set into the front of the metal box.

Tony looked at it for a second, then said, "Jarvis, run a quick X-ray scan on that box, will you?"

"Yes, sir." The interface scanned the box in less than a second, then produced an exact holographic reproduction of what was inside and slowly regenerating. The tubes and wires that were trailing from the casket shuddered as another pulse of electricity was sent along them.

"Hell." Tony muttered. "Ultron is trying to make a body, trying to upload himself into a physical being..."

Bruce joined him at the side of the casket. "What if we could use it to our advantage, maybe upload - "

" - Jarvis into the body! Banner, you're a genius!" Tony finished.

The capital of Sokovia was flying, was overrun by evil robots, and was carrying a Vibranium core that was capable of destroying the entire world.

This was pretty weird by anyone's standards, but Clint Barton was fine with it. He'd been possessed by a god and had seen an army of aliens invade New York, so he was a lot more used to the concepts of really weird and completely life-threatening than most people.

He checked his bow and quiver for the three-thousandth-time, then headed into the battle.

The robots flooded out of the buildings like ants out of an anthill. And accompanying them was Emma - no, she was Medea now, the Avengers could tell by the cold, emotionless look in her eyes. She was dressed for battle, wearing what looked like black leather - it was probably something synthetic - and masked like Bucky had been. She looked stronger and deadlier than ever.

Emma - Medea - never touched the ground. She was using just about everything as a kind of springboard to keep herself off the ground; robots' heads, bits of flying building, bodies, and running along the roofs of cars. She had a bow and arrows like Clint, and was possibly even more proficient with the weapon than he was, pulling off shot after nearly-impossible shot - and that was just the start.

Medea didn't care who she killed. Any civilian that stood in her way; one touch, and they were dead, her ability allowing her to shut every cell in their bodies down. Soon she was surrounded by corpses, and she was still refusing to touch the ground. She jumped off the side of a building, landed on a car, then back-flipped to spring off a robot's head, neatly dodging the blasts of heat from Tony's Iron Man suit, the beams of deadly energy from the Infinity Stone that was set in Vision's forehead, and Clint's rain of arrows.

Medea sent an arrow straight through Clint's shoulder, pinning him to the ground. She used the nanotechnology in Tony's suit to alter the entire armour, melting it into the ground and trapping him easily. Natasha was dealt with in seconds, three of her own bullets sent right back at her and leaving her incapacitated on the ground, losing blood and on the edge of unconsciousness.

Medea managed to get close enough to Bruce to touch his arm, which immediately shut down the molecules in gamma-ray-altered cells in his body, leaving him unable to become the Hulk. Thor was a slight problem for all of thirty seconds, then, with Mjolnir in useless atom-sized pieces, was sent on a one-way trip straight over the side of the city.

Finally, she caught Steve's shield in her right hand and threw it back at him with deadly accuracy. Even Pietro couldn't catch her, and she brushed off Wanda's visions like they were nothing.

Pietro was running, trying to get all of the civilians to safety - an impossible task. He was keeping out of Medea's way, but just barely; there was a graze on his cheek and another on his neck where arrows had nearly hit him. He could barely see her except for a blur of black that seemed to be everywhere at once.

Then he couldn't see her. It took barely a second for him to realise what that meant, then - Oh heck, she's behind me!

Pietro turned, but not fast enough. There was an explosion of cold, sharp agony between his shoulder blades. He felt Medea's breath on his ear.

"Didn't see that coming," she whispered.

And I love you so much

I'm going to let you

Kill me.

Pietro felt like the world dissolving into white mist that was bunched around his vision.

The world was speeding up around him, his heart beating overtime; but the rest of him was slowing down, giving up.

His worst nightmare. Not being able to run, to be so fast that everything seemed to stop still around him.

It felt like his limbs were encased in stone, cold and unforgiving.

Just before he felt his heart stop beating, he managed to get the bookmark out of his pocket. Not quick enough, not enough time. It fell from his limp fingers and fluttered to the ground.

Useless.

And I can hear your heart beating in your chest

The world slows until there's nothing left

And skyscrapers look on like

Great unblinking giants...

Then someone else emerged from a half-demolished side alley.

Steve struggled to sit up from where he'd fallen, a look of total shock on his pale, blood-streaked face. His bloody shield was lying on the ground next to him - its edge had been lodged in his ribs and he'd wrenched it out. Not a good idea. His hand was now pressed hard against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding - the shield had been stopping the blood from escaping, despite actually having caused the wound in the first place.

"Bucky." he whispered.

Bucky looked at him, acknowledging him with a nod, then indicated Medea, who was standing over Pietro's limp body, with a flick of his eyes in her direction.

The message was clear: Do you want me to get her out of the way?