Finding Family - Part 1 ~ Chapter 21
I'm very sorry for the long time between updates, its getting harder to follow the flow of this story. Every time I try writing more my mind coms up with so many different ideas I've no idea which to follow. that's no excuse to deprive you wonderful readers of the next chapter so ill try my utmost to keep updating as soon as I have something.
Unfortunately I don't own any of this but for my OC's and the plot, they are owned by far richer and more powerful people than I.
"I missed you mum, but what are you doing here, you'll break your cover. They'll all know we're related they might attack you to get to me," Leo whispered into Melinda's shoulder.
She pulled back from the hug, looking him in the eyes, "I couldn't care less if the world knew I was related to you. I couldn't be prouder of you, you're a hero," she looked round at all of the soulmates, "you all are." They all glowed in pride, Melinda wasn't one to hand out many praises.
"But why are you here, not that I don't want you to be here."
"I heard about your injury Leo, Maria messaged me. She told me you could die, and I couldn't let that happen. I came to try and help, if I'm honest I don't really know what I was going to do but I knew I had to come." Leo stood back up and hugged her tightly, even though he knew she wasn't a hugging person, it was all he thought to do.
Melinda would never admit it possibly not even to Leo but she loved his hugs, they were his way of saying she was doing good, that she was a good mother.
Their small family moment was ruined when Tony stormed into the room. "Why didn't I know there was a party going on," he almost shouted, "oh wow you look..." That was as far as he got as in a flurry of movement Melinda darted forwards and swept Tony's feet from beneath him landing him on the floor.
"Try and finish that comment and I will not hesitate to dismember you," everybody winced at the thought.
"Who are you exactly," asked Tony.
Maria Hill walked forwards into the room, "Melinda is a... business associate." Maria knew full well Tony would research Melinda as thoroughly as possible so if she headed of his leads as quick as possible. "She's helping me look into possible recruits for the team."
"Well if you trust her and she can defend herself I can't see the problem," said Natasha. She wanted to find out more about this new May, the best way to do this was to kept her around. Tony grunted and left the room, storming his way into his laboratory.
A few minutes later Bruce walked into the Laboratory, to find Tony frustratedly pacing the room.
"What's got you in a fit?"
"That damn May woman, I can't find a thing about her whatsoever its as though she doesn't exist. JARVIS found remnants of a complete wipe on her name but it didn't turn up anything."
Bruce knew how Tony thrived of a challenge so this wasn't going away, the sceptre however was, they only had it for a few days.
"Tony, the sceptre," with a few clicks in front of his face Bruce managed to get Tony's attention.
"Huh what?"
"The sceptre, we need to analyse it."
"Oh don't worry I was only doing this cause I'd finished."
"So what did you find," Bruce wasn't too concerned about Tony alone, it was only with others he became irresponsible.
"D'you remember we were thinking how Strucker became so inventive, well I was analysing the gem inside the sceptre. Well you may recognise," Tony lifted his small tablet and with a flourish created a shimmering gold hologram in the centre of the room. It was spherical in shape with a latticework of small connecting gold rods.
"JARVIS?" Said Bruce, he and Tony had done some upgrades to JARVIS' mainframe and so he knew what the representation was.
"Hello Doctor."
"Started out, Jarvis was just a natural language UI. Now he runs the Iron Legion. He runs more of the business than anyone besides Pepper."
"I suspect not for long," said Tony, "Meet the competition." With a swipe of his tablet another hologram appears this one is far larger and a silver colour. It undulated over itself writhing like a coiled snake, every few seconds a firework would explode across the surface sparking off another explosion.
"It's beautiful"
"If you had to guess, what's it look like it's doing?"
"Like it's thinking," gasped Bruce. "I mean this could be, it's... It's not a human mind, it...I mean, look at this? They're like neurons firing."
"Down in Strucker's lab I saw some fairly advanced robotics work. They deep-sixed the data, but... I gotta guess he was knocking on a very particular door."
"Artificial intelligence," realised Bruce.
"This could be it, Bruce." Bruce could see Tony getting excited, "this could be the key to creating Ultron."
"I thought Ultron was a fantasy."
"Yesterday it was. Tony started pacing excitedly, "if we can harness this power, apply it to my Iron Legion protocol."
"That's a mad-sized if," said Bruce sceptically.
"Our job is 'if', what if you were sipping marguerites on a sun-drenched beach turning brown instead of green. Not looking over your shoulder for VERONICA.
"Don't hate, I helped design VERONICA."
"As a worst-case measure, right? How about a best-case? What if the world was safe? What if next time aliens roll up to the club, and they will, they couldn't get past the bouncer?"
"The only people threatening the planet would be people," said Bruce realising where Tony was going with this.
"I want to apply this to the Ultron program. But Jarvis can't download a data schematic this dense. We can only do it while we have the scepter here, that's three days, give me three days."
"So you're going for artificial intelligence and you don't want to tell the team," said Bruce nervously.
"Right. That's right, you know why, because we don't have time for a city hall debate. I don't want to hear the "man was not meant to meddle" medley. I see a suit of armor around the world."
"Sounds like a cold world, Tony," Bruce still wasn't fully convinced.
"I've seen colder. This one, this very vulnerable blue one?" Tony saw he was starting to make headway with Bruce, so he turned walking into the centre of the room. It needs Ultron. Peace in our time. Imagine that, peace in our time," he turned back to look into Bruce's eyes, he could tell that his argument had got through.
They set to work designing a suit of armour, to encompass the earth spreading peace and justice as it went.
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