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AN: And now, we get into the events of 'Age of Ultron' in depth, as Barry learns who the Maximoffs are/were working with, and encourages them to find some very particular allies…

Mercurial

Looking at the body lying in the chamber, Wanda wasn't sure if she should feel unnerved or entranced at the possibilities.

Just a few months ago, she had been nothing more than another Sokovian orphan protesting against Tony Stark's new attempt to monopolise the weapons market, and now she was wielding powers beyond anything she could have imagined possible and witnessing the 'birth' of a completely new form of life.

"Cellular cohesion will take a few hours, but we can initiate the consciousness stream," the scientist said, as a series of cables linked Ulton's powerful form to the cradle; she might have needed a 'nudge' to get her to work for Ultron rather than her corporate masters, but Wanda was hopeful that she'd realise how she'd been duped once the Avengers were out of the picture. "We're uploading your cerebral matrix...now."

"I can read him," Wanda said, half to herself as she held out a hand over the body; she was still learning everything that she was capable of, but sensing such a potent mind as Ultron's wasn't much of a challenge, even if it was a surprise to sense him after so long just talking to him. "He is dreaming."

"I wouldn't call it dreams," the scientist clarified, as lights glowed within the chamber. "It's Ultron's base consciousness, informational noise. Soon …"

"How soon?" Ultron asked, glancing over from where he sat with a glowing cable in the back of his head. "I'm not being pushy."

"We're imprinting a physical brain," Doctor Cho noted. "There are no shortcuts. Even if your magic gem is…"

Wanda didn't hear the rest of the doctor's speech as she placed her hands on the chamber, reaching out to touch the mind of the new body, and suddenly found herself witnessing an explosion on such a scale that it far surpassed anything she'd ever imagined even Tony Stark's weapons could be capable of.

And this was all in Ultron's mind…

This was all in Ultron's plan!

Screaming in shock, she stepped back from the coffin, taking a moment to register that her brother was alongside her before she looked back at Ultron.

"How could you?" she asked, staring in horror at the machine she had believed was simply acting against the Avengers.

"How could I what?" Ultron asked, as though he honestly didn't know what she might be referring to.

"You said we would destroy the Avengers," Wanda said, wishing she could collect herself faster. "Make a better world-"

"It will be better," Ultron said dismissively.

"When everyone else is dead?"

"That is not-!" Ultron began, before apparently calming himself. "The human race will have every opportunity to improve."

"And if they don't?" Pietro asked; Wanda was grateful that he was trusting her judgement even without knowing what she'd just seen.

"Ask Noah," Ultron said dismissively.

"You're a madman," Wanda said, wishing that she could hide the pain she felt at that discovery; she had thought that she and Pietro had someone they could trust once again, and all the time, they had been nothing more than new weapons in his arsenal against the Avengers…

"There were more than a dozen extinction level events before even the dinosaurs got theirs," Ultron noted, leaning over to examine the chamber more closely. "When the Earth starts to settle, God throws a stone at it, and believe me, he's winding up. We have to evolve. There's no room for the weak."

"And who decides who's weak?" Pietro asked, as Wanda reached out with her powers to disrupt Ultron's influence over the doctor; it was a move of desperation, but if the older woman had still been aware, she was in a better position to take action than Wanda or her brother right now…

"Life," Ultron said, clearly unaware of what Wanda had just done.

"Life always decides…"

He paused, raising his head as though hearing something. "There's incoming. The Quinjet. We have to move."

"That's not a problem," the doctor said, before she tapped a few keys and paused the program uploading Ultron into the new body. Shaking his head in frustration, Ultron fired at the doctor, giving Pietro the chance to grab Wanda and run from the room. Wanda had expected them to flee the building, but she was surprised when she found them both standing in the room set aside for Barry Allen.

"What-?" the red-clad speedster began.

"We have a homicidal robot who wants to destroy the world after us," Wanda said, hoping that Barry would accept that for now rather than ask too many awkward questions. "Can you help us get out of here?"

"I have your… thing," Pietro added, revealing the strange device that Barry called the tachyon generator when they met. "Could that-?"

"I've been jumping through realities the last couple of times I've used that thing; don't think we want to go that far if that robot you mentioned is trying something that big," Barry noted, even as he collapsed the tachyon generator down and put it in a pocket attachment in the suit. "Right now, sounds like our priority is to get out of here so that robot can't get to us, and ; do you have somewhere we can go?"

"We only just got to this city ourselves-" Wanda began.

"OK, never mind that," Barry said. "Pietro, take Wanda and get out of here; I'll take in the area and see if I can find somewhere safe for us to hide."

"How will you-?" Pietro began, before Barry handed him a handheld radio.

"I've set that to the frequency of the radio in my suit; just respond when I call you," Barry explained, before indicating the door. "Come on; let's move."

Nodding in agreement, Pietro let Wanda climb onto his back before he ran from the building, briefly aware of Barry behind him before they left the lab and the yellow lightning that was the other speedster dashed ahead of him. For a few moments, Pietro just kept running around, not wanting to stop in case Ultron used that moment to catch them, but then the yellow flash that was Barry appeared alongside him, Pietro following the older speedster to an empty house with an open door.

"Pretty sure whoever lives here's out at the moment, so we've got some time to talk," Barry said, as Pietro released his grip on Wanda. "For starters, what was all that about a homicidal robot?"

"He was… the friend we mentioned," Pietro said, looking awkwardly at Barry. "I do not know what happened, but-"

"He intends to do something to destroy the world."

"He… huh?" Barry looked at Wanda in confusion. "How do you know that?"

"My power includes… I believe the term you use is 'telepathy'?" Wanda asked, allowing Barry to nod in understanding before she continued. "I cannot read Ultron's mind as he is, but he was attempting to create a new body for himself using an advanced medical treatment and a rare metal, and when he was trying to send himself into that body, I was able to read his mind through the new form."

"Huh," Barry said, looking at her with a curious smile. "That's… kind of cool, if I don't think about the problem."

"'Problem'?" Wanda repeated.

"Have you faced something like this on… your Earth?" Pietro asked.

"The psycho robot trying to destroy the world? Not so much," Barry noted, before he turned back to Wanda. "Did you get anything else?"

"Just that it involves a very big bang," Wanda said grimly. "I… do not know anything else."

"What do we do?" Pietro looked urgently at Barry.

"Just… give me a moment," Barry asked, holding up a hand as he turned his attention to the house's small computer. "Maybe… if I can run a few searches…"

As the Maximoff siblings watched, Barry quickly activated the computer and began to rapidly assess various web sites, running a series of searches as he entered the terms and waited for the computer's slow bandwidth to respond, until he stepped back with a hopeful nod at the screen.

"OK, I think I've got something," he smiled at them. "It's a long shot, but when I didn't find anyone I knew here, I ran another few searches, and there's this group of heroes called the Avengers-"

"NO!"

"Excuse me?" Barry looked between the twins, startled at their objection. "What's wrong with the Avengers?"

"Stark," Pietro practically spat.

"Stark?" Barry repeated, glancing back at the article. "As in this 'Iron Man' guy? What's wrong with… hold on," he added, stopping himself as he went back to the computer, running a few further searches before he looked back at the twins. "He's the guy you were talking about? You made it sound like he'd assembled those metahumans as his own personal hit squad-"

"Aren't they?" Wanda asked, even as a slight tremor in her voice made it clear that she was starting to doubt that perspective. "He funds their efforts to find anyone he doesn't like-"

"Which sounds like it's mainly this bunch called Hydra who were trying to covertly take over the world after being founded by the Nazis back in World War Two; I get that this isn't my world, but I don't think anyone associated with the Nazis could be anything but the bad guy," Barry countered. "I can get being mad at Stark, but he just sold the missiles, it's not like he's the one who fired on your village!"

"He is responsible-!"

"Like you're responsible for whatever this robot's going to do?" Barry asked.

"It is not the same; we did not create Ultron-"

"But I'm guessing you've been helping him?" Barry asked, the twins' sudden discomfort all the proof he needed that he was on the right lines. "Look, I get how it feels to be betrayed like this; I spent almost a year working with a guy I thought I could trust when I first became the Flash, and it turned out he was the one who killed my mother and framed my father for it-"

"You did?" Wanda looked at him in surprise.

"But," Barry cut in, indicating the screen, "I understand that anything on the net is going to be biased, but it really does sound like this Stark guy's changed from the days when he was just selling big bombs to make money, considering that he's kept the design of his armours to himself rather than selling them on. I know that you're angry at him for making the weapons, but it doesn't sound like Stark ever fired them; God, a guy back home made a weapon specifically designed to kill me, and I consider him my best friend these days-"

"What?" Pietro looked sharply at Barry.

"Getting off-topic; sorry about that," Barry said awkwardly, shaking his head before he focused his mind on their original discussion. "My point is that I appreciate that I'm new here, and I get that you have reason not to trust these… Avengers, but if we're dealing with a guy who has a plan to blow up the planet, I don't want to go after him with just the three of us. We need help, and from what I've read, the Avengers already dealt with one problem on that level; are you really going to let Earth get blown up just because you aren't sure about the people who everyone says saved the world?"

Pietro and Wanda looked uncertainly at each other for a moment, before they turned back to Barry.

"You believe… you can trust the Avengers?" Wanda asked.

"I read enough to think that I can trust them to want to save the world," Barry replied. "Anything after that… I'd need to meet them and take it from there."

Maybe he was getting too invested in a crisis when it wasn't his world in peril, but as far as Barry was concerned, he wasn't going to leave a planet in danger when there was a chance he could help to save it.

He just needed to work out what he could do about this apparent plan to destroy the world when it sounded like all Wanda had seen was the aftermath…