**A/N: It's a little early, but my awesome betas had it all ready for me, so why not post now? :)

The next update will be on Christmas! It's so close! We don't even have snow where I live... and I live in CANADA. It's actually amazing, to be honest. I'm working on a 1943 Christmas One-Shot of the gang as a special Christmas gift for all of you who celebrate, and a random gift for all of you who don't :) IF I finish it in time. That's still up in the air at the moment.

Chapter 28- Everything is Broken

"Take hold of this moment. Let go all of the past. Everything is broken. Nothing ever lasts."

~Everything is Broken, Ollabelle


The Legionnaire team crashed through the wall behind Ultron, heading straight for the team. Steve reacted quickly at a bot coming straight for him, pushing Bethany down before kicking up the table in front of him, blocking the robot. The Legionnaire robot flew straight at the table, making both it and Steve fly backwards in the process.

He could hear Bethany calling out his name in a panic before he saw her jumping over the couch to check on him. He flipped up, the both of them ducking as the team of rogue Legionnaire robots began to fire at free will. "Go!" He yelled to her, gesturing to a pillar for them to duck behind. The two of them stayed there for a moment, Steve studying the room, deciding what to do. Bethany was clutching the tablet close to her, reminding him of their baby downstairs, as well as their friends.

The tablet fell from her hands, shattering on the ground as Bethany quickly jumped up on an Iron Legion bot who had taken hold of Loki's sceptre. Steve wasn't sure who's great idea it was to have the sceptre on display during the party, but it was clear that they were about to lose it. Despite Bethany catching the robot's foot, it pulled her up opposed to her pulling it down, throwing her into a glass panel, the shards falling around her as the robot flew out the window, sceptre in tow.

Seeing a robot about to attack Bethany, who was still trying to pull herself out of the shattered glass, Steve jumped up onto it, wrapping his arms around his neck, hitting it with his fist. It was making no difference, but angering it, which caused it to fly backwards to the tiled wall over the bar, Steve feeling the ceramic crunch from the impact. His back burned, but he barely had any time to register what was happening as he watched Natasha throw Bethany a gun, Bethany aiming the weapon up towards the robot.

"Wait!" He called out, scared that her aim would be off and the bullet would hit him instead, but her aim was perfect, wedging itself into a soft spot in it's armor. It quickly began to lose altitude as its flight was damaged, it throwing Steve off its body and crashing into the bar. Natasha was leading Bruce deeper into the room so that there would be no chance of him turning green, Bethany quickly helping Steve get up before aiming her gun at the bot one more time and shooting, watching as it crumbled towards the ground.

"Stark!" Steve called out to Tony, trying to see where he went. Everyone else seemed to be under control, but when Tony replied 'one sec' from the air, Steve tried to think of how to get up there.

"Steve," Bethany spoke, interrupting his thoughts, pointing out to where Cho was cowering behind the piano, a robot about to attack her.

Steve made a mad dash for it, throwing it backwards and calling out to Thor who was waiting to smash it with his hammer. Bethany was watching as Tony fell from the air, the bot he had been working on fell silent and still. "There!" Steve pointed out to where Natasha and Bruce needed help. Bethany made a move for it, shooting her gun as if it was the only thing she had ever done in her life, her bullets counting.

"Cap!" He heard Clint call, throwing Steve his shield who quickly caught it before putting all his body weight into throwing it towards where the last Legionnaire robot was still alive and attacking them.

The shield crashed through the robot, the metal pieces crashing down to the floor. There was silence for a moment, Steve watching as Bethany leaned down and picked up the shattered tablet, her entire body shaking.

"That was dramatic!" Ultron declared. The most eerie thing about Ultron was his voice. There was emotion in his words, not the plan garble so many electronics had. No, Ultron was more like JARVIS, but even more alive. It was as if he was just that. Alive.

"I'm sorry, I know you mean well," Ultron continued. Steve tried to focus his gaze on the robot, but it was hard when he could see Bethany, across the room, shaking visibly. "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? With these?" Ultron bent down and picked up a head of one of the out of service Iron Legion members, crushing its skull as he continued to speak. "These puppets? There's only one path to peace. The Avengers' extinction."

Thor had evidentially had enough, throwing his hammer straight towards the broken and bent body, the body falling dead on the ground. He heard Bethany say 'Jamie' before breaking into a run towards the elevator. Steve regained the use of his legs and senses, picking up his shield and going after her, the elevator doors not closing fast enough for them to miss Ultron's dying voice. "I had strings, but now I'm free."

The ride down to their apartment seemed to take years. The shattered tablet remained in Bethany's arms, the screen now blank. Her breath was heavy, and worry was resting on her brow and deep within her eyes. She had blood running down random parts of her body from when she was tossed into the glass panel, but all the cuts were now healed. All except one wedge of glass that had wedged itself deep into her skin.

Reaching forward, Steve withdrew the shard from her arm, Bethany not even feeling it, or noticing. He looked down at the transparent glass, blood smeared at the front, but his gaze fell even further down, through the glass towards her feet. They were bare from when she kicked her heels off, her smooth and soft feet weak and defenseless against the glass shards that littered the floor. Her entire foot was red from blood, leaving a trail with every step, and glass still pressed deep into her skin. But with her attention on their son, and not being able to feel pain, Bethany didn't even seem to care.

When the elevator doors finally opened, there was a moment when the two of them just stood there looking at their home. There were holes in the walls, and burn marks from the beams the Legionnaire were equipped with to serve and protect. Deeper into the apartment, furniture was overturned and their beautiful glass window that took up the entire wall was gone, some broken shards of glass left at the corners, but the entirety of their protection from the outside gone.

The wind howled in, as well as the sounds from the New York City streets, but so were sirens in the apartment that indicated danger, a strange and distorted sound coming from the almost completely destroyed television and sound system. But what was the most piercing sound of all where the two sets of cries that echoed through the room.

"Jamie," Bethany breathed, running into the room and collecting a crying Jamie from Jackson who looked bewildered and like he had actually put up a fair fight. Steve followed her, touching Jamie's head softly, his heart hammering. The baby seemed relatively unharmed, his face red from his screaming, but otherwise completely fine.

"Is everyone okay?" Steve asked, looking to the ground where Jen was holding a sobbing Theo.

"What the hell just happened?" Jackson asked, his eyes wide. The man wasn't one to swear, even if it was just words like 'crap'. But Jackson took the words out of Steve's mouth.

"I don't really know," Steve admitted, looking at two of the four Legionnaire robots that were one the ground, completely frozen. Looking to Jen's face, he could see how she was staring at those frozen bodies, as if unable to justify if what she did was right or wrong.

"You did what was right," Steve quickly assured Jen, leaning down so he could check Theo. "Are you okay?"

"He's just shaken up," Jen whispered.

"And you?" He pressed on.

"I'll be okay," she replied, her voice still quiet. Steve didn't necessarily blame her. Those droids were set up specifically to protect Jamie from HYDRA, and if they were coming after Jen, she may have thought that they have been behind it. Instead, she fought and defended everyone.

"Two got away," Jackson continued, pointing to the window. "Jen took care of those two. What happened? We were just watching a movie and they attacked."

Steve sighed, standing up. Now that Bethany had Jamie in her arms, her heavy breathing had died down, but there was that look in her eyes that told him she knew something. "There was a… glitch." He let out a deep breath, looking around the room again. Everything was destroyed. Their island tabletop was in six pieces, two of the cabinets on the floor, their dishes in broken pieces. The wall was burned in some places, cracked in others and even the floor had damage to it. His eyes drifted to a photo on the fallen bookshelf that had mostly held records. Pieces of the black rounds were smashed, having no chance in their delicate state. But there was one photo on the bookshelf that Steve pulled out of the mess, a black and white framed photo of him and Bucky, the only one he had. The glass still retained its shape, the corner of the frame indented, but otherwise in perfect shape.

He placed the photo on a coffee table that usually held a lamp which was now overturned on the floor. The elevator doors opened, Natasha and Clint coming in. "Everything okay in here?" Clint asked, his face showing business, but there being clear worry in his face. "Oh shit man."

"Yeah," Steve nodded, grateful that no one was hurt, but feeling his heart clench at how ruined his home was. Bethany seemed uncaring about the room however. "Everyone is okay."

"Everyone is doing a sweep of the Tower," Natasha began to explain as Jamie's cries became hiccups. "Making sure that no one needs help, or that Ultron didn't take anything else."

"'Ultron?" Jackson echoed.

"Then everyone is meeting in Stark's lab in half an hour to… I don't know, make sense of this, I guess," Clint supplied.

"We'll be there," Steve nodded, laying a hand on the small of Bethany's back. "We have some things to take care of here."

"Yeah," Clint replied, looking around, his face unbelieving of the damage.

"I'll help," Jackson volunteered, following Natasha and Clint to the elevators, knowing that Jamie wouldn't be leaving Bethany's arms if she had anything to say about it.

Steve looked down to Theo and Jen, both visibly distraught, but Theo's cries having stopped. "You sure you two are okay? No cuts or bruises?"

"We're okay," Theo replied this time, holding onto his mother tighter.

"Bethany, your feet," Jen pointed out. Bethany looked down, seeing the state of her feet for the first time. "Sit, I'll fix them."

"Sit where?" Bethany asked, rubbing Jamie's back in a comforting motion.

Steve looked at the overturned couch before placing it upright. Bethany took a seat while Jen went for the first aid kit, Theo clinging to her for dear life. Steve sat beside Bethany, cupping her chin. "I know you know something, Bethany. What did you do?"

She looked at him, worry filling her eyes. "I didn't think this would happen," she said quietly.

"Obviously," Steve felt the need to say.

"Please don't be mad," Bethany begged, fear in her voice. He wasn't sure if it was fear of what had happened, what could happen or if it was of what he would do.

"Just tell me," he prompted, his hand moving to grab hers, giving it a comforting squeeze.

Bethany took in a deep breath, looking around the apartment for the first time. "We used the sceptre to harness an intelligence that resided inside the gem. It was similar to JARVIS, but more advanced. It was why our Ultron project needed to succeed. He was supposed to wake up and bring peace… Real peace, not the peace he claims is peace. Steve, I didn't-"

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked patiently, Jen coming back over, her and Theo sitting in front of them. Jen took Bethany's foot in her hand, taking out a pair of tweezers from the kit and beginning to pull the glass out of her foot.

"I was afraid that if we said anything, you'd want to shut the program down," Bethany admitted softly. "We all were. But we knew that if there was a small chance that this could work, then we had to try. We had to Steve. It's in our nature to try."

Steve sighed, leaning back on the couch. "And I suppose you did this for a reason?"

"Yes," Bethany replied, shocked that he didn't know why. In all truth, he did. He knew exactly why she did this. Why they all did this. But he needed to hear her say it. "I did it for us. For all of us. So that we could wake up in a world where we felt safe. Where we didn't have to decide whether we want to save the world that day or go to Jamie's softball games. And is that such a bad thing? That I wanted, as Ultron said, 'peace in our time'?"

"No," Steve admitted, Bethany's eyes growing. "Look Doll… I understand why you did this. And I'm upset you kept it from me, yes. But I understand why you did. If I knew and I tried to stop it, and it worked?"

"But it didn't," Bethany muttered. "So we should have said something."

"But we had no way of knowing," Steve reminded her. "I'm not upset with you. Or Banner or Stark. I'm disappointed, but I'm not upset."

Bethany moaned. "I'm pretty sure that's worse, Steve."

He offered her a small smile, but was unable to laugh at a time like this. "Well I'm pretty sure you've learned your lesson. Although, after Insight, I thought you would-"

"In my defense, I wanted to tell you about Insight. And I didn't agree with it either Steve," Bethany fought back.

"I know," Steve said, trying to calm her down.

"For the record, I had some worries about this project. I should have stopped it as soon as I felt like something was wrong, but Tony and Bruce were so sure that everything would work out… they assumed the worse that would happen is that the intelligence wouldn't sync to the program."

Steve let out a sigh, not wanting to fight with her and trying his best to just accept what happened and move on. Them fighting wasn't going to solve anything. He understood why she did what she did. In a lot of ways, he couldn't even blame her for doing it. He knew how desperate she was for them just to have normal lives. Ultron would have given them the option to do this.

"Look, we should probably pack a bag or something. We can't sleep with a giant hole in our home."

"Finished," Jen told Bethany using a small container inside the first aid kit to hold the glass shards.

"Thank you," Bethany breathed to Jen, exhaustion clear in her voice again. "For everything Jen. I owe you my son's life."

"Just consider us even," Jen said with a soft smile which Bethany tried to return, but failed miserably. The blonde got up, balancing Jamie on her hip and walked over to the thermostat on the wall. They had never actually used it, JARVIS always adjusting the temperature according to everyone's individual needs. Every room was usually a different temperature depending on what was happening and who was there. But to Steve's surprise, when Bethany flicked a switch on it, a heavy metal door began to close where their window used to be.

"We'll deal with Ultron first and then the apartment, but at least our room is okay," Bethany said with a shrug. They hadn't even seen it yet, but the door was still shut like it had been when he left it. "I'm sorry," Bethany apologized, more emotion in her voice. "I don't want to live like this anymore, and I took a move to change it. Something needs to change."

Steve opened his mouth to respond but found that he couldn't. He didn't know what to say anymore.


When half an hour had passed, everyone made their way up to Tony's lab. Jen and Theo had opted out, the little boy having fallen asleep from the exertion of emotion, and Jen not willing to leave him. No one blamed her.

"What's the situation up here?" Bethany asked, trying to get Jamie to fall back to sleep, but his eyes were wide open. It was evident that he wasn't falling back to sleep anytime soon.

"I think downstairs is more important," Tony pointed out.

"Everyone is fine," Steve supplied. "Our living room and kitchen aren't in the best shape, but Jen was able to freeze two of the Legionnaire bots. I took the liberty of destroying them so there's no chance of them waking back up when the ice melts."

"So a benefit of Jen's time with HYDRA," Bruce said, his gaze still on a computer.

"I never thought that there would be a day when I was actually grateful for HYDRA," Bethany admitted.

"We're still assessing the damage up here," Natasha offered quietly, looking through some online files that they had. "It doesn't look good."

"Thor headed out to find the Legionnaire, but we haven't heard anything back yet," Maria added, sitting on a chair and picking glass out of her foot. Evidentially Bethany hadn't been the only one to step in glass.

"Can someone please explain to me what happened?" Jackson asked, sounding exasperated.

"When Tony was scanning Loki's sceptre," Bethany took the liberty to explain. "He found something inside the gem. Something we couldn't just create, despite our efforts in the past."

"Artificial intelligence," Bruce explained. "Or something very similar.

"We decided to attempt to upload it to a project that was put on the back burner, called the Ultron Project. It was designed to be a peacekeeping initiative. Obviously, something went… terribly wrong."

"Why didn't we know about this?" Maria asked, Bethany unable to ignore the way Steve crossed his arms in that way that indicated that he was impatient.

"We had three days," Tony stressed, finally turning away from his spot at a work bench, looking at an Iron Legion robot, one that he built that had tried to kill him. "Three days to do this. If we failed, then we failed. If we succeeded, then we succeeded. We didn't think that debating this, on a limited timetable would be beneficial."

"We assumed there would be two outcomes," Bethany added, needing everyone to understand like Steve did. She knew he wasn't too happy with the entire situation, but he was taking it relatively well. She knew that she would have to deal with the full consequences at one point, but even his calmness was punishment enough. It was keeping her on edge. "We didn't anticipate this. If this was even a possibility, do you think I would've agreed to this?"

"All our work is gone," Bruce finally reported, having finished his assessments on the computer. "Ultron cleared out, used the internet as an escape hatch."

"Ultron," Steve muttered, his disapproval burning a hole through her. She felt bad enough already. She could have easily been the cause of her friends' deaths, her husband's, her child. She couldn't help but mutter 'I'm getting too old for this' under her breath. She knew that the only one who heard her was Steve.

"He's been in everything," Natasha reported. "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 pointed out.

"Nuclear codes," Maria realized.

"Nuclear codes," Rhodey confirmed. Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."

"Nukes?" Natasha spoke up. "He said he wanted us dead."
"He didn't say dead," Steve was quick to correct. She could hear it now. His frustration and anger. He had done a hell of a good job keeping it to himself downstairs when he was trying to comfort her. Now they were facing the real problem. "He said extinct."

At Steve's tone, Jamie began to whine. Steve only spoke in that tone around Jamie when either him or Molly had done something wrong, using a firm 'no'. But hearing the tone now, Jamie reacted by whining, trying to gather his parent's attention.

"Shh," Bethany prompted, bouncing him slightly, trying to give him any sort of comfort that she could.

"He also said he killed somebody," Clint pointed out.

"There wasn't anyone else in the building," Maria replied instantly.

"Yes there was," Tony supplied, finally moving from his place by the metal parts and flicking his phone to show a holograph. They all knew what it was, and seeing it was more disturbing than anyone would ever admit.

"What?" Bruce asked quietly, moving over to the broken ball. "This is insane."

"JARVIS was the first line of defense," Steve reasoned, everyone's attention on the broken yellow waves that had once made up a huge member of their team. The glowing gold ball that had been responsible for their safety, their information, their wake-up calls. All of it had been JARVIS. "He would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense."

"No," Bruce disagreed. "Ultron could've assimilated Jarvis. This isn't strategy, this is...rage."

Thor then strode in, in full gear, angrily stalking towards Tony. "Whoa, hey!" Bethany quickly interjected, trying to get Thor to stop, the demi-god only taking a hold of Tony's neck and lifting him up.

"It's going around," Clint remarked towards Bruce's comment on rage.

"Stop it boys," Bethany reprimanded, struggling to keep a firm grip on Jamie who was now wiggling in her arms, trying to get down.

"C'mon, use your words, buddy," Tony urged Thor on.

"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark," Thor replied, making Bethany grow angry really quick, but luckily Steve took charge before she had a chance.

"Thor! The Legionnaire?"
Thor threw Tony down, the engineer landing on his feet and tumbling backwards a bit towards Bethany who put a hand on his arm to steady him. "Trail went cold about hundred miles out but it's headed north, and it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it, again."

Bethany couldn't help but wince, knowing full well if she had jumped a moment sooner, she could have gotten a firm grip on the robot and would have been able to retrieve that sceptre. She had been the only one watching it during the break out of the fight. That and the tablet, her eyes flashing back and forth. Once the sceptre was gone and the tablet smashed, she focused on the actual fight around her, but those were her two top concerns.

"The genie's out of that bottle," Natasha quickly added,

"The sceptre is the last of our problems right now," Bethany agreed, although it pained her to say it.

"I don't understand," Cho began, finally speaking up for the first time. To be honest, Bethany had forgot that Cho was even there. "You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?"

It was probably because she was tired. At least, that's what she would say if anyone asked her, but when Tony started laughing randomly, she didn't even judge him. She just stood there, face blank, wondering what it would feel like to be able to laugh at that very moment.

What Helen said was hilarious. And the way she seemed to think she was superior in every sense only made Bethany roll her eyes at her stupid question. Because it was stupid. She had no idea what the science they played with really did. Sure, she could regrow tissue and that was pretty impressive. But there were moments when people should stay quiet, and this was clearly a time when Helen should have kept quiet.

Bruce shook his head at Tony's laughter. Everyone else seemed shocked, but Bethany just switched the arm Jamie was in, trying to get him to settle down. "You think this is funny?" Thor asked Tony.

"No," Tony said with a shrug. "It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so...is it so...it is, it's so terrible."

"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand," Thor chastised, which was the breaking straw for Bethany.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" She asked, unbelieving of his words. She hated when people thought they knew better, were better. It didn't matter if it was true, or if she was a hypocrite for doing the same thing, she came from a time where every single day meant being chastised for something that a man had no idea about.

"No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Tony continued. "It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this."

"Tony, maybe this might not be the time," Bruce said warningly, but even Bethany had to agree with Tony. This was the time. If the entire team was going to be thinking and talking about everything they did, judging them, then at least they had the right to explain why they did what they did. Maybe what they did was selfish. They all had their personal reasons. But in the end, they did it for the team as a whole.

"Really?! That's it?" Tony all but yelled at Bruce. "You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls."

"Only when I've created a murder-bot," Bruce reasoned.

"We didn't. We weren't even close," Tony argued. "Were we close to an interface?"
"Well, obviously," Bethany replied. It didn't matter what side she was picking or how she felt. Ultron was out for blood. And they had created him.

"Well, you did something right. And you did it right here," Steve spoke up. "The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD."

"This is not the same level as SHIELD," Bethany quickly interjected. "We didn't keep this a secret because we wanted to exclude you. We knew you wouldn't understand, and refuse to understand."

"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" Tony supplied, an idea flooding to him.
"No, it's never come up," Rhodey voiced.
"Saved New York?" Tony continued.
"Never heard that."
"Recall that? A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it," he reminded them, painting a very familiar picture for everyone.
"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?"

"Together," Steve replied honestly.
"We'll lose," Tony said harshly, but it was the truth he believed.

"Then we'll do that together, too," Steve promised, before looking to Bethany, who was still struggling to hold Jamie in her arms. "What's the point in being a team if we don't act like one?" He asked them, but the way he was looking at Bethany made her believe he was talking to her personally. Reaching out and taking Jamie into his arms, his strength keeping Jamie firm more than Bethany's did, he turned to the room. "Thor's right. Ultron's calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."

"We should sleep in turns," Bethany advised. She was exhausted and she wouldn't be good to anyone with drool running down her chin as she slept through the entire hunt. "If this is like all the times before, we may go days without sleep. Might as well get what we can."

"Tasha and I will start poking around," Clint offered, Natasha nodding in agreement.

"I'll stay behind too," Bruce added.

"There won't be much until he makes his first moves," Maria reminded them. "If he's being smart, he'll erase anything he doesn't want us to see."

"No," Bethany disagreed. "He wants us to find him. They always do. That's typically their downfall."

"Beth and I will be up close to six anyways for feeding time," Steve continued, putting an arm around Bethany's shoulders. "We can take over then."

Everyone agreed on their jobs and schedules, dreading actually having to do this, especially with the alcohol starting to wear off. This was not how any of them expected their nights to go. Before the team scattered, Bethany felt the need to say one more thing for everyone to consider.

"For the record, Tony's right. If this worked, none of you would be complaining. At least he was trying to do something. It's better than settling for something that's mediocre and accepting death like its no big deal. It doesn't matter what we've been through. None of you are ready for that, no matter how hard you try to convince yourselves."

With that, Bethany made her way to the elevator, not caring to hear any arguments. She would return to her apartment, where everything was broken. But more so than the broken records, dishes and pieces of glass, her happiness and all the hope she had that things could actually change for the best.

Everything was broken.


**A/N: Next chapter will be pretty basic. And kinda boring. Sorry. But like I said, hopefully I'll have that Christmas One-Shot done :)

FeliciaFelicis: I know! Snippets are important! Everyone seems to love them, so I'll have to remember to write more in the future. It's definitely Steve's jacket! We don't see her taking it from him, but I needed to find a way to incorporate it into the plot.

Bruce and Natasha- I don't mind it at all. I feel like it was rushed and that's why people are so against it. They both are monsters in their own right, and know that they will have understanding between the two of them because of that. I'm low key rooting for Natasha and Bucky in MCU, but I'm not totally upset about Bruce/Natasha. Him leaving and her being a little heartbroken will lead to a girl's road trip however, so something good is coming :)

There's been twice as much smut in this story than in the first two. Sorry Ever After had 6 scenes and Wrong had 7. This one has 12 already... Oopsies! Smut will come eventually, but not until the whole Ultron thing is out of the way. They're not going to slip away and have sex while their friends are trying to deal with a homicidal robot.

Anonymouscsifan: Bethany is definitely in Mama Bear mode, and her need to protect her son will only increase. A lot will happen in the up-coming chapters.