Raven sat on the couch looking at the screen in her hands. She heard Tony coming down the stairs, "How is he?"
"He's still Barton." Tony answered.
"How will he ever survive?" She replied still focused on what she was reading.
Steve came up behind her, "Reading up on the Maximoffs?"
"Yeah." She looked up at him over her shoulder. He had a small smile on his face as he leaned on the back of the couch. "I'm trying to see if I can figure out what all was done to them. The amount of people Strucker tested on…I thought it had stopped with my team."
"It's not your fault." He told her.
"No, but you keep apologizing to me for what they did to me so…" She gave him a smile back, "Only fair that I feel bad about what happened to them."
"Weird that you feel bad at all." Tony butted back in.
"Stop." Steve looked up at him and Tony just waved him off with a smile.
"You were wondering what came next for me." She held up the screen, "This is it. I'm going to find the two of them and let them know that just because the people that made them, we're pieces of shit, doesn't mean anything about them." She paused then held back a smile, "Sorry, I know you don't like that kind of language."
"Seriously? You too now?" He laughed.
"Oh yeah." She nodded. Standing up she went over to the bar and got a drink, "I'll do my best to watch my mouth from now on."
"Sounds like a hell of a fight, sorry I missed it." Sam walked next to Steve as they started heading up the stairs.
"If I had known it was going to be a fire fight, I absolutely would have called."
"No, no, I'm not actually sorry." Sam joked, "I'm just trying to sound tough. I'm very happy chasing cold leads on our missing persons case. Avenging is your world." He looked out over the party. Watching as Steve's eyes searched the room, he followed the mans gaze as it landed on the figure wearing a dark red dress, her brown locks flowing down her back. Raven was standing by herself in a corner sipping on a drink, "Speaking of, how are things with the no longer missing person?"
"Good, she's a part of the team now. Wants to go after the missing twins to try and help them." Steve answered him, eyes lingering on her.
"That all?" Sam watched him with a smirk.
Steve looked at him, "What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing." He put his hands up.
Looking back at Raven, he said, "I'm going to see if she's alright." As he walked away, he pointed at his friend, "Don't read into it."
"Whatever you say man." Sam smiled into his drink.
Steve made his way over to where she was standing looking out at the city lights. "Hey."
"Hey." She smiled. Looking at him she realized how much she hated it when he wore blue, it was bad enough in his uniform, but the color always made his eyes seem to glow.
"You know there's a party going on, right?" He motioned to everyone in the room.
"Yeah, it's…it's just a little weird for me. Being around this many people." She told him.
He nodded, "I understand that."
"No, you don't." She looked down at her drink. He gave her a confused look and she let out a nervous laugh, "Sorry, I didn't mean for it to come off that way."
"You're fine. What's going on?" He asked.
"These people…they should be scared of me." She told him, "I was made to do horrible things, I've done horrible things."
"Yeah, you have. But you didn't want to do most of them, you didn't know the rest were bad until much later. It was the same for Natasha and people aren't scared of her." Steve leaned on the banister and looked at her, "You belong here. With us."
"Are you lying to me?" She asked him, her eyes narrowing, a smile tugging on her lips.
"What's the point in lying?" He smiled then motioned his head towards the party, "Come on. Stick with me and you'll be fine."
"If you say so." She turned following him down the stairs.
She was fine for the rest of the night, drinking with him and Thor, talking with Sam about how Steve couldn't afford a place in Brooklyn. Eventually she got to talking to Doctor Cho, both of them speaking in Korean about the latest things happening in Seoul and the doctor wanting to run tests on her. People started to leave and the few that were left were sitting around the table in the main room. She had her legs tucked up under her, leaning slightly towards who Steve was leaned back on the couch.
They laughed about picking Thors hammer as Steve passed her the flask with the Asgardian liquor in it and she took a swig handing it back to him. She smirked as Clint couldn't lift it and laughed when Tony went to get an iron glove to try and get it off the table. Her eyes flickered to Steve as he grinned at Tony and Rhodey trying to work together.
After Banner went Thor looked to Steve and he looked around at the others and then to Raven and she motioned towards it, "Show us all that valor and justice you've kept pent up."
He laughed as he got up and tried to lift it but after a second try gave up.
"Widow?" Banner asked as everyone looked at her.
"Oh, no no, that's not a question I need answered." Natasha smiled then looked to Raven, "Do you?"
"Oh no." She drew out the last word, "I touch that thing and it's dropping to the center of the Earth."
"You're not that bad." Clint waved her off.
Raven scrunched her brow at him, "What are we doing the whole 'Every saint has a past' deal on this one? Because either way, it's not gunna happen."
They all laughed as Clint and Tony said it was rigged. Thor got up and gave them the easy answer that none of them were worthy. Everyone booed him before a loud screech entered the room. They all turned and looked at a torn-up Iron Legion suit walking into the room. The machine muttered, "Wooorrrrtthhhhyyyyy…No. How could you be worthy? You're all killers."
"Stark?" Steve asked as Ravens face went pale at the statement.
Tony tried to contact JARVIS but to no avail. The suit went on to say it had been asleep or having a dream. Tony tried to contact the Legionnaire OS but it failed again. It said that it killed someone, a nice guy and they all wondered who since they were the only ones there and it explained that it was made to be 'A suit of armor around the world' using Tonys voice. Bruce said realizing, "Ultron."
"In the flesh. Or, no, not yet. Not this...chrysalis. But I'm ready. I'm on a mission." The machine said.
"What mission?" Natasha asked.
"Peace in our time." Iron Legion suits bust out of the walls attacking them.
Steve kicked up a table in front of them and they were both knocked over as a suit ran into it. As they flew to the ground Steve grabbed her and landed on his back, keeping her from hitting the ground. She recovered and began shooting fire at suits trying to take them out but she had to hit them each in more than one spot as they were made for situations like this and she looked up seeing one grab something from the lab, "It has the scepter!"
They all confirmed they'd heard her, and she watched as Thor ripped the top off one of the suits and threw it down, but it got back up and approached Dr. Cho. Sliding over she grabbed Steve's shield slung it at him, knocking it down as she caught the shield again. The woman looked at her, "Thanks."
"No problem." She said knocking another one down with a blast of fire. She yelled out, "Steve!"
He turned grabbing the shield as it was thrown at him and he took down the last one and Ultron started again.
"That was dramatic! I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through. You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to...evolve?" Ultron picked up one of the fallen Legion Suits, "With these? These puppets? There's only one path to peace: The Avengers' extinction."
Thor threw his hammer shattering the machine which slowly died.
They regrouped, tried to figure out what exactly had happened, Natasha told them, "He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other."
"He's in your files, he's in the internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodey rhetorically asked.
"Nuclear codes." Maria realized.
Rhodey confirmed this and Natasha looked around, "Nuclear codes? He said he wanted us dead."
"He didn't say dead. He said extinct." Steve replied.
"He said he'd already killed someone." Clint remembered and they all said that no one else had been there. Stark showed them JARVIS had been killed, the one line of defense against him. Thor grabbed him upset and an argument ensued.
Thor yelled, "This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand."
"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this." Tony laughed looking around.
"You know the last time man tried to make the next step in evolution he made me, and I tried to help take over the world." She looked at him, "Maybe it wasn't the best idea to go about it this way. Creating a thing that now wants to kill us."
"But we didn't, we weren't even close." Tony looked at Banner for help, "Were we close to an interface?"
"Well, you did something right. And you did it right here." Steve put a hand on Ravens shoulder, "The Avengers were supposed to be different than S.H.I.E.L.D."
"A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. I'm not even going to mention the fact that she helped." Tony motioned to Raven.
"Leave her out of this." Steve stepped forward.
"Steve, it's fine." She shook her head and he turned back to look at her, seeing her eyes lowered away from the others.
"We're standing three hundred feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the live long day, but, that up there? That's...that's the end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?" Tony asked everyone.
"Together." Steve answered.
"We'll lose." Tony looked at him.
"Then we'll do that together too." Steve replied a disappointed tone in his voice.
A/N: Don't forget to let me know what you guys think! :)