AN:

I was asked a question a while ago about whether I had an actress in mind for Riley, but honestly I couldn't find one. I just felt like they didn't capture her properly.

Chapter Twenty Six

The pain in my chest and shoulder had diminished completely, leaving only a slight stiffness in my injured leg, but also declaring me primed and ready for hugs with my two favourite dorks.

Clint had landed the jet on the aircraft pad below the Avengers Tower's main laboratory. With some (extremely exhausting) team effort, we pushed the Regeneration Cradle up the fancy shmancy staircase, leaving scrapes all over the varnished wood. Step by step, we pushed the heavy, metal, (did I mention heavy) box into the lab. In all honesty, I was doing most of the work, despite Clint giving it all he had. But even with my telekinetic juice, it was a struggle.

"Damn, Vi. You should think about shedding some of those intergalactic kilos." I huffed through laboured breaths.

"What was that?" Clint puffed.

They don't know about Vision yet! Cover up! Recover!

"Err... Nothin'?" I cringed at my own save, my mouth turning into a frowning grimace.

Clint didn't see it as he was watching to make sure we didn't run into any desk or equipment. "That's definitely the most inconspicuous reply I've ever heard." He responded, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

With a few more pushes, the Cradle was in place in the centre of the lab. Clint stood off to the side, speaking into his earpiece as I watched the light from within the metallic crib. I could hear him through my own earpiece, he was calling Stark and Banner to the lab, but I drowned out what he was saying. I bent at the waist, putting my elbow on the lid of the Cradle and my chin in my hand then continued to watch the light.

"I should probably stop talkin' to a half-alive android in a box but I can't help it." Through the mist in the Cradle, I could just identify the shape of his head, and the faint glow of the Mind Stone. My free hand travelled to the yellow illumination, and my middle finger traced it on the thick glass as I continued speaking. "It feels like you're already alive, I guess. Like you're all there, but you're just waitin' for somethin' to give you that push." I laughed softly. "Wouldn't it be funny if you weren't, and couldn't remember a thing I've been sayin' to you this whole time." I started pressing that same finger into the glass as hard as I could, feeling attracted by a pull to the Infinity Stone. When I moved my finger away after realising I wasn't able to get to it, there was a shallow dip in the several inches thick glass.

Oops. I didn't realise I was using that much strength.

I was confused about the strange, though small, magnetism I had to the Stone. I hoped it was a normal thing, but I don't recall anyone else ever mentioning anything like it.

I paced from the Cradle as the elevator gave a soft ding and two brunettes stepped out. I squealed like a child when I saw them and ran on my stiff knee to them. Thanks to their considerably longer legs, we met halfway and I jumped between them. My arms went wide and swung around both of their necks. I forced them closer to and around me, making myself the filling in the best hug sandwich ever.

"I missed you guys so much!" I whisper-yelled. I felt Bruce chuckle and pat me on the back, giving me my cue to release them and step away.

"We were only separated for 17 hours." Bruce said.

"That's 16 hours and 59 minutes too long, thank you very much." I smiled back and rested my forehead on the outer side of his arm, using him as a leaning post.

Tony's being quiet, too quiet.

I twisted my neck, still keeping my forehead on Bruce's arm, but my face was towards Stark. The man looked lost, and upon seeing my questioning glance, proceeded to ask, "You, the girl who gets annoyed at everything I do, genuinely missed me?"

He kind of seemed touched. I laughed, masking my uncertainty at his behaviour. "'Course. I try to hate you, but I can't. You're like my annoying-as-fuck older brother."

Tony opened his mouth in offense. "Watch your language, young lady." He teased with a trace of a smirk. Bruce flicked me on the top of my head.

The betrayal is real, Bruce. Right in the feels.

I pulled myself off of Bruce's arm and glared at Tony. "What are ya gonna do about it, punk?"

Tony's smirk widened and he lunged for me. I giggled as he reached centimetres within reach of me, then flooded myself with energy. I didn't know what I sounded like, but I assumed a giggle getting cut off out of the blue would sound quite strange, even more so since the person giggling disappeared at the same moment.

Tony, unassuming to my actions, stumbled into the spot I was still standing in.

Tony Stark is inside me. Ugh, I feel so dirty.

I stepped out of his way. He scratched his head and looked around for me before looking to Bruce, who was actually smirking! I spotted Clint behind the two of them, crouching on top of the Cradle with a fist to his lips, trying to silence his amused laughter. It seemed peculiar that Mr. Stark losing his centre of balance for a single moment was so darn hilarious.

"Stupid Ghost." Tony muttered with a pretentious pout as he fixed the bunched material around his right elbow. "I'll show her."

I smirked and jumped behind him, reappearing for all eyes to see. "Show me what?" I challenged.

He swung around with wide eyes at the sound of my voice, his right hand coming up to my left ear as he made for a pinch. I ghosted before he could grab hold, leaving his hand to swing down lamely at his side.

I smirked evilly as an idea popped into my head. I walked to Bruce and grabbed his hand, pushing energy up his arm and through his body. He gasped at the foreign sensation, having only experienced this once when he was the Other Guy, and looked down at me.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"You're ghosting with me." I answered plainly. "I have an amazing idea to scare Tony. You stand over there in front of him, and I'll go behind."

We both took our positions and I smiled mischievously at him before pulling the energy I'd leant to him back into me. Tony spotted Bruce as soon as he appeared, stepping back in surprise, right at the moment I finished my short run up. I jumped onto Tony's back, wrapping my legs around his middle and pinning his arms to his side at the same time while my own arms went around his neck. He gave a startled cry.

I bowed my head down until my lips were in line with his ear and whispered as creepily as I could manage -which was very much- "I'll never let go, Jack. I'll never let go." I emphasised my point by squishing him between my limbs a little tighter with each sentence.

It was quite a sight. Apparently Clint and Bruce both thought so too, because Bruce was holding his head in his hand and shaking with laughter, while Clint was rolling on his back atop the Cradle, giggling like mad.

Who's the cackler now, Barton?

Deciding the joke was getting old, and not wanting to push Tony too far, I placed my hands on his shoulders and used them to propel myself down onto my own to feet. I clapped Tony on the shoulder on my way past him. "You're my world, Mr. Stark. Don't hate me 'coz you ain't me."

"You're the most annoying fucking person I've ever known." Was his response.

I laughed as I neared Clint, who was holding his stomach and recovering from his fit.

"I'm the most awesomest person you've ever known." I corrected him.

I tapped the edge of the Cradle gently, but loud enough to make some noise. "We should probably get to work on this." I tapped the Cradle once more for extra measure. "We got a lot o' work to do."

"You don't have that much work to do." Bruce pointed out. "You're not the ones who have to figure this thing out."

"True." I replied, as I picked up a desk chair and placed it beside Vivi's head. "I'll be the encouragement to keep working. You stop working, and I'll haunt ya till the end of ya days. They call me Ghost for a reason." I widened my eyes impossibly big without raising my eyebrows and stared Clint down as he tried his best to open the Cradle. I plopped ungracefully onto the chair while Bruce gave an amused huff at my antics and started typing madly away at a computer, searching for clues on where Natasha might be being held. Tony pulled out a clear, rectangular piece of glass from his pocket. Glanced around to see if the boys were watching, and stepped out of the room. It was my expert deduction that he went off to have a little chat with a particular British computer program.

It had been 15 minutes of Bruce scanning a bunch of websites and other sources on his computer, and me watching Clint try to crack open the Regeneration Cradle. At one point he noticed the grooved I'd made in the lid and ran his finger over it, baffled, but said nothing.

Tony sauntered into the lab a while after that. "Anything on Nat?"

"I haven't heard." Bruce said as he stood from the desk and headed towards Stark. They took stride with each other and headed towards Clint and I.

"But she's alive," Tony assured him. "Or Ultron would be rubbing out faces in it."

Clint jumped off the Cradle and walked around to face them. "This is sealed tight." He declared. "The most I found was a tiny ass groove in the lid. But unless we can figure out what made it, we got no way of getting into this thing."

It was obvious he was about to go off and search for that 'what', and I needed him searching for Nat at Tony's suggestion. I reluctantly put my hand in the air. "It was me."

In perfect synchronisation, each of them raised an eyebrow at me.

"I put the groovy thing in the thing." I gestured wildly with my hand at the Cradle, which was just out of arms' reach.

"Could you open it up for us?" Bruce asked as he neared the Cradle.

"I could."

"Will you?"

"Nope. No can do. Sorry, Brucey." At his sad puppy eyes I continued with "The future's at stake. Don't give me that look."

"You're lucky you're one of the good guys," Clint mused. "Or you'd probably get a punch to the face right now for that."

I sighed theatrically. "You try to do a nice thing..."

"We're gonna need to access the program, break it down from within." Bruce stated as he laid a hand on the Cradle. Tony obviously didn't like that because he was immediately thinking of ways to get Clint out of the room. As Clint walked behind him with hand on his luscious hips, Tony swivelled around.

"Any chance Natasha might leave you a message outside the internet? Old-school spy stuff?"

He'd successfully captured Clint's attention, as the man himself rubbed his knuckles along his jaw. "There are some nets I can cast." His urgency increased dramatically as he made his way to a downwards staircase, completely determined to find his best friend. "Yeah, I'll find her."

Tony watched him leave, then turned to me. He walked over and stood beside me with one hand in his pants pocket and the other on my shoulder. Bruce was busy at a computer and didn't notice as Tony tilted his head down at me, and before he could ask me some shit about if I could help Clint as an excuse to get me out of the room, I interrupted. "I'm not leavin'. Clint might have fallen for it, but there is no way you're getting me out of this chair. Besides, I already know how the conversation you're about to have is gonna turn out."

"As if you know every single word. You just know what's gonna happen. Please leave."

"I can work on tissue degeneration if you could fry whatever operational system Cho implanted." I glared at Tony as I said what Bruce was about to say. And, whoopdy doo, Bruce began the exact same sentence just as I started the last word. Tony started walking around to the other side of the Cradle, where Bruce was approaching, giving me an eye roll that meant 'fine, you can stay' as he went.

That's what I thought, bitch.

I sat back in the chair and watched the conversation unfold.

"Yeah, about that..." Tony scratched his head, giving Bruce a look. Banner paused and looked up at Tony, but Stark just continued to look at him like that. Bruce caught onto what Tony was insinuating and cocked his head as he responded bluntly "No."

Tony advanced with his hand out. "You have to trust me."

Bruce stepped back with his arms turned out wide. "Kinda don't."

"Our ally, the guy protecting the military's nuclear codes," He flicked this magical piece of glass and a hologram of Jarvis' spherical form appeared. "I found him."

"Hello, Dr. Banner, Miss Rose." Jarvis greeted us.

"Hey, buddy." I responded, though Bruce did no such thing. He merely watched thoughtfully, and Tony took this as an opportunity to keep persuading.

"Ultron didn't go after Jarvis because he was angry. He attacked him because he was scared of what he can do." He pointed at Jarvis. Bruce tilted his head and licked his lips as he continued stepping away. "So Jarvis went underground. Scattered, dumped him memory. But not his protocols."

Bruce, who had circled the head of the Cradle, crossed his arms as he stood next to me, listening to the things that came out of Tony's mouth.

"He didn't even know he was in there until I pieced him together."

Bruce scoffed and raised his hand to his head. His hand came down again as he paused and thought over what was being asked of him. "So, you want me to help you put Jarvis into this thing?" He gestured to the things at hand as he said them.

"No! Of course not." Tony objected. Bruce waited for the penny to drop in the pause that followed. "I wanna help you put Jarvis into this thing."

Bruce shook his head and looked away from the Cradle.

"We're out of my field here." Tony continued. "You know bio-organics better than anyone."

"And you just assume Jarvis's operational matrix can beat Ultron's?"

"Jarvis has been beating him from the inside without knowing it. This is the opportunity. We can create Ultron's perfect self, without the homicidal glitches that he thinks are his winning personality. We have to."

"I believe it's worth a go." Jarvis inputted.

Bruce looked at me expectantly. "What do you think about this?"

I shrugged as a smile crept over my face. "I mean, there's a lot of risks involved." The smile widened and I couldn't control it as hard as I tried. "But I think we should just do it an' see what happens." I put my hands up in surrender, pursing my lips to try to kill off the Cheshire grin on my face. "But that's just me."

He sighed.

That definitely wasn't the answer he was looking for.

"I'm in a loop!" He cried. "I am caught in a time loop. This is exactly where it all went wrong."

"I know. I know." Tony tried to calm Bruce as he approached him. "I know what everyone's gonna say. But they're all ready sayin' it." His eyes darted to me for a moment. "We're mad scientists. We're monsters, buddy. We've gotta own it. Make a stand."

Bruce exhaled, shaking his head and looking back at the Cradle.

"It's not a loop." Tony promised. "It's the end of the line."

Bruce looked up at Tony, then down at me. I smiled slightly and nodded my head, giving him the green light.

"Okay." He relented. "Okay, fine."

Tony and I smiled at each other as Bruce turned and set to work at the computer behind him. Happy with the fact that the conversation turned out the right way, I stood and headed down the stairs, leaving the dorks to their work.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped up next to Clint. I grabbed the spare chair and flipped it, placing it facing him and straddled it, watching him scan a few monitors with different programs on them for a while.

"Hey, Ghost?" He asked without turning from the monitors

"Hmm."

"How's Nat doin' right now?"

I closed my eyes and thought, recalling everything that was happening in Sokovia between her and Ultron. "Well, I can't tell you where she is," My eyes were still closed. "But I can tell ya that she's fuckin' around with some equipment and wires an' stuff. She'll be on the ball right... about..." I paused, opening my eyes and pointing to the radio. "Now."

We both watched the radio with intense eyes. No more than three seconds after, static came through the speaker, and Clint was quick to plug in a headset. He gave me a smile and mouthed a 'thank you' as he pulled the headset over his ear. I returned his gesture with a double thumbs up before lifting myself from the chair and heading up the stairs.

Clint's gonna be fine.

I was seated by Vision's head again, this time between an assortment of tubes.

After my brief interaction with Clint, I'd managed to get my hands on better medical treatment. I now had a washed, cleaned, and much better wrapped knee. I'd even put a knee pad from the training gym over it so I could put weight on it. I changed my clothing too, with the knowledge that soon we would be 18 000 feet in the air on a floating city. Please thank Stark for the clothes (and his never ending wealth). I now had on a tight fitting grey long sleeve shirt that had a neckline just below my collarbones, a pair of super stretchy grey jeggings with the knee pad over the top, and a grey pair of ankle high combat type boots. Grey was just my colour, I guess.

Okay, well maybe I wanted a costume of my own, and grey seemed to best fit the idea of 'Ghost' after white, which became dirty too easily. But still, it looked good despite my unthinness and I loved it. I'd looked into the mirror and thought to myself:

Well shit, girl. You're actually the Ghost now. Ya sexy thang.

Anyway, I was seated next to Vi between the pipes and tubes. I leant forward and rested my elbows on the tops of my parted knees, and clasped my hand together.

With that, I started talking to the box.

AN:

So now you know what Riley's superhero costume thingy is! All grey! So original. I was tempted to have her put on the jewellery Tony gave her, but I don't want it getting ruined in the fight. Unlike Wanda, Riley will be using physical blows like punches, so I don't want her ring to break or hurt her. Jewellery was impractical, sorry :)

Reviewww :)