Chapter 2: THis Heavy Crown

I'm alone with Maria in the tower. I'm helping her out here, the only way I can help out. We're currently watching news feed from Johannesburg. It's of Banner as the Hulk. Like the real, raging Hulk. This isn't the Hulk that can be lulled by Nat. Nat's out of commission anyways. She's in some sort of shocked state.

Dad is using Veronica, his Hulkbuster armor, designed by he and Banner.

"Dear God," I say when I watch Dad plow Banner into the tower that is under construction there.

"He can handle it," Maria tells me as she pats me on the knee.

It's like I'm a 3-year-old and not a 23-year-old.

"I know he can," I say. "Still horrible to watch, though."

I watch Maria nod from the corner of my eye.

Dad and I might fight all the time and cross ways, but that doesn't mean I love him any less. He's just pigheaded and stubborn. Which is a bit of a family trait. I'm not as bad, but I certainly have a smidgen of that quality.

I wonder what happened to them.

"One of the wonder twins has the ability to manipulate minds."

I just whistle. "That sounds intriguing."

"That's probably what tore them apart," Hill explains. "That's probably what threw Banner over the edge, and probably what happened to Romanoff."

"I wonder what she showed them?"

"I have no idea," she says as she continues to type.

I get up from my chair and decide to hit the grocery store. There's nothing in this tower for a pregnant girl with cravings.

I get into my recently-purchased Maserati SUV. The Toyota is still in the garage, but I thought I might as well get used to driving the mommy car.

As soon as I shut the door behind me, I hear a movement in the back seat.

"Hello, Mrs. Kossel-Stark."

I turn as best as I can to see the unmistakable face of SHIELD Director Nick Fury in my backseat.

"What can I do for you, Director?" I ask him.

"Well, I'm no one's director anymore. The boys arrived at their safe house and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to give 'em a little pep talk?"

Who am I to refuse that offer?
I get to see Dad…

We hide out in the barn and Mrs. Barton goes to fetch Dad under the pretense of fixing the tractor.

Fury and I wait and appear when Dad is checking out the old tractor.

"Dad?" I ask aloud, alerting him to my presence in this barn.

"Andie?" Dad asks.

"Do me a favor, try not to bring it to life," Fury starts, coming in right behind me.

"I get it, Maria Hill called you, right?" Dad begins. "Was she ever not working for you?"
"Dad –" I begin, trying to rein him in.

"Artificial intelligence. You never even hesitated," Fury tells him.

I can see that Dad is growing more and more tired of people questioning his motive to build Ultron. I see his chest and shoulders heave with a deep breath.

He's fixing to spill the beans.

"I did it so that I could end the Avengers and go home. You think I like being away from my family? From my wife? My child? In case you haven't noticed, Nick, I have a grandbaby on the way and I'd like to be there for her. It's been a long day so why don't we skip to the part where you become useful?"

I can't help but to rub my bloated belly.

"Look me in the eye and tell me you're going to shut him down," Fury tells him.

"You're not the director of me," Dad says stoically. I can't help but the notice the slight shift in his posture.

"I'm not the Director of anyone. I'm just an old man who cares very much about you."

Dad just looks around. "And I'm just the man who killed the Avengers. I've almost killed my daughter on multiple occasions. I didn't tell the team. Okay. When that witch messed with me, I saw my daughter dead. I saw that my granddaughter didn't make it into this world. And it was all because of me. It felt so real –"

"The Maximoff girl, she's working you, Stark. Playing on your fear," Fury tries to reason with him.

I hate to tell him but trying to reason with Dad is like trying to reason with the Hulk when you're not Natasha Romanoff.

"I wasn't tricked – I was shown. It wasn't a nightmare; it was my legacy."

Ah, there's that word again.

I hate that freaking word.

"It's the end of the path I started us on."

Watching Dad like this brings tears to my eyes. I could blame it on the pregnancy hormones, but it's not just that. I hate seeing Dad like this. As hardheaded and stubborn as he is, seeing him vulnerable like this tears me up. Having him actually disclose his feelings like this, his fears, is so touching. Dad can't even stand still right now.

"You come up with some pretty impressive inventions, Stark. War isn't one of them."

"Watching my daughter, my family, my future die – you'd think that'd be as bad as it gets, you know? Nope. The worst part –" Dad is getting antsier and antsier by the moment.

"The worst part is that you didn't," Fury finishes for him. "I'll leave you to your greetings. I'll be in the house when you're ready."

As soon as he's gone, the dam in my eyes break. Hot tears of repressed emotions begin to spill their way out of my eyes.

"It's okay, baby. It'll all be okay," Dad tells me as he brings me into his arms.

"I'm so sorry, Dad."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, honey. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's me who should be sorry. I just want to get in and fix everything and I usually end up wrecking it worse than what it was..."

"You're not a one-man fix-all, Dad. You're part of a team. A part of something much bigger than anything else. This fight. Ultron. It's bigger than anything. This isn't some nuke that can just be flown through a portal and with one detonation, can fix everything."

"Andie –"

"Come on, you're gonna be late for the debriefing."

Dad pulls me into another hug before we set off for the Barton's farmhouse.

The debriefing doesn't really tell me anything I don't already know. They all agree with my statement earlier, that Ultron is building himself up, that he will be bigger and badder than he was.

Cough, cough. Knew it.

The say he got off with a lot of Vibranium, which means that he is probably got an army somewhere.

"Ultron's goal is human protection, right? What if he uses the perverse of that and really means that he's going to kill everyone – let them 'evolve?'" I ask.

"Probably the case," Dad replies.

After that, some of the team goes to Seoul.

The rest of us go back to Stark Tower.

Banner and I immediately try to destroy whatever Ultron was in the process of building. Dad, however, stops us. I was already logged in and trying to fry the Operating system Ultron built in here.

"Yeah, about that –"

"No. Not this again," I groan.

"No," Banner says.

"You have to trust me," Dad begins.

Banner just holds his hands up and back away slowly. "I don't," he says.

Can't say that I blame him.

"Our ally. The guy protecting our nuclear codes? With a little help from Fiona -"

"Aww, you're making me blush, Tony," Fiona says when her name is mentioned.

"I found him."

Dad once again flings Jarvis into existence. This isn't the infected Jarvis we last saw. This is the healthy, fully-functional Jarvis.

"Hello, Dr. Banner," Jarvis says.

"Hello, Jarvis. Welcome back," Fiona's purple orb shifts as she's speaking to him.

"Thank you, Fiona," Jarvis replies.

All though the systems have not been integrated, they have occasionally worked together.

"Ultron didn't go after Jarvis because he was angry. He was scared of what he could do. So Jarvis went underground. He scattered, dumped his memory, but not his protocols. He didn't even know he was there until I pieced him together."

"So you're wanting me to help you put Jarvis in this thing?" Banner asks him in shock.

"No!" Dad says. "Of course not. I wanna help you put Jarvis in this thing."

"We're out of my field. Andie's, too. You know bio-organics better than anyone," Dad says, trying to reason with the Hulk.

Dad and Jarvis team up against Banner. I'm adamantly against this. It didn't end so well the first time, why would the second be so different?

Jarvis apparently thinks "It's worth a go."

As this thing goes, the rest of the team comes back and there is a fight. I automatically excuse myself while the adults work this out.

Thor comes in and finishes it.

Whatever was in the cradle comes to life. It's some purple being with Jarvis's voice.

Thor has to give him a good couple of swipes before he's passive.

Thor's Vision then tries convince the group that he's not Ultron nor Jarvis. He says that he is on the side of life. I think what really convinces everyone is Vision's ability to pick up Thor's hammer.

Dad no longer has an Operating System. I watch as he goes to desk in the lab and goes through SD Chip cards.

On boring, rainy days, Dad and I used to sit and create different operating systems.

"Andie?" Dad questions, beckoning me over. Once I waddle my way over there, dad asks me who he should use. He obviously knows that Fiona is off the table.

I look at the different cards and their labels in front of him and I immediately seek out Friday. Of course, I do. She's one that I mainly programmed. But hey, she's a powerful OS. And probably a lot cleaner than Jarvis was.

It's a girl thing.