Chapter 51: Chaotic Flare
Out of nowhere, two smaller robots of Ultron's kin took on Thor and Steve. Thor found himself engaged in a fight with one of Ultron's tiny little robots, as Tony and Ultron fired at each other, dodging each other's fire balls. Ultron slammed Tony against the glass but Tony fought right back as they upwards inside the ship, away from his teammates.
Steve grabbed onto the robot's hand and pushed it away from his head for the robot had tried to knock him. They pushed against each other with each other's might until the robot drew him close to the railing and grabbed his throat, tightening it between his metal fingers.
Meanwhile, Thor tossed the robot over his shoulder and was about to crush it with his foot, until Pietro zoomed quickly over to Thor, knocking the God of Thunder out of balance. Thor gripped onto his hammer tightly as he tried to steady himself upon his feet.
Steve round-house kicked the robot onto the ground and glanced over at the Witch, who suddenly used her powers to create a magnetic force field to shove him back down on his back to where his robotic opponent was waiting for him to finish Steve off.
Ulysses pulled himself up with the strength he had left, and leaned against one of the weapon crates. He looked back at his co-worker with angry eyes. "Shoot them," he said in a low growl.
"Which ones?" the co-worker asked.
"All of them!" Ulysses said. It didn't matter, so long as they were out of his ship.
"Move, move, move!" his worker said on his walky-talky, and rushed out to gather the rest of his mercenary crewmembers on board, anyone with a good shot to kill these things.
Machine fire heard from the dark corridors, coming at the entrance ways just in time for Clint and Natasha to keep them at bay.
Blue light on her suit glowed underneath the red dim lights as darkness surrounded Natasha. She whirled her head around to the sound of gunfire. As she waited for the men to come into her web, she reached out and pushed him into the metal door, hard. She grabbed one's rifle and knocked it in his face for him to double back, so she could wrap a hand around his neck, and pull his weight around as she twisted her body and kicked the remaining guys who tried to get to her, but they were no match for the Black Widow's slick abilities to knock them all down at once, including tossing the man she used as leverage onto the floor.
Clint stood against the wall on the highest upper level he could find, already shooting arrows at the men as they advanced towards his teammates on the lower levels. One by one, as they tried to shoot his teammates, he shot an arrow into their throat, not missing a single crook on this boat.
Across the air, Tony and Ultron continued their engaged firefight. Tony shot a beam of firelight from his repulsors, trying to fry Ultron, but Ultron dodged and tossed him against the window.
Thor and Steve continued to try to end their robotic opponents on the main level of the ship. Thor reached his hammer, and grabbed a hold of the robot's throat with his hand, while he twisted them both up in the air. At the same time Thor fought his opponent, Steve tossed his shield at his own robotic enemy, but before the shield could even get to the robot, Pietro had suddenly zoomed in, leaving traces of blue flare of his energy behind and smacked Steve's chin with the butt of his hand. Steve fell backwards, hard on his back.
Thor noticed Steve's predicament and threw his hammer at a zooming Pietro across the second level, but it had missed him by a second. Pietro turned to look at the hammer curiously, "Hmm," he said, and reached out to grab the hammer. However, within the hammer's strength and Pietro's speed hadn't quite caught up to each other and as soon as Pietro's hands wrapped around the hammer, he whooshed backwards down on the main level of the ground by some heavy creates behind him. "Awe," he groaned at the hard impact on the metal floor beneath him.
Tony and Ultron twirled around, zooming at each other's throats, and knocked into the wall on the other side of the ship. Orange and red flared from the soles of his metal feet and hands as they tried to tear one another apart. They breached the ship's ceiling and into the outside in the high skies.
Ava crept over to Steve, and knelt down beside him. She leaned forward, smelling in his musky scent that flared up her button nose, and ran a gentle hand over his neck down to the star of his chest, and outlined it, admiring the symbol it stood for. Steve rolled his eyes as he watched her. She may be cute on the outside, but on the inside, she was something else. Steve was about to throw a hit, but Wanda suddenly used her telekinetic ability to keep his hand down, burning into the metal floor. Red flare curled around his hand as it curled into a fist, trying to break free from her abilities.
"Silly, Captain, tricks are for kids," Ava cooed.
"And you would know," Steve said, as he struggled against Wanda's dark power, trapping both hands, along with his shield beside him, keeping it down for Ava's sake.
Ava narrowed her eyes, not liking Steve's mocked tone of voice.
Steve smirked, "Since you're acting like one."
Ava shook her head, and tisked, "Would you like to know how you die?" she asked in a haunting whisper. She ran her delicate fingers, bony looking, but smooth against his chest, and smirked.
"Nope, not today," Steve said, trying to release himself from Wanda's powers on him, almost breaking free. She shot more power back down and his hand clung against his side. He winced and looked over at Wanda. Thor had called his hammer, and continued to fight against his robot, nearly having the upper hand.
"See," Ava said, "I looked into your future, and an image of how you die came to my head. I can pull it out of you so much as I can bring it right to the present, and show you, make you feel it, like it's actually happening, until you pop! You're fighting for a world that is doomed to fail. You know in you're heart this is true, yet you still try to find a way around it. You should give up, and give in to death. Death is waiting for you Steve. You're running on borrowed time," she paused slightly, as a thought crossed her mind. She looked down at him curiously, into his blue eyes that peeked out from underneath his blue cowl that covered the rest of his face. "It's a sad way of how you die. Certainly not by my hand, but I can always make it happen, in seconds," she snapped her fingers and Steve watched with wide eyes, as her fingers glowed with yellow and gold flares at the ends.
"This is not you, Ava," Steve said quickly. "Don't do this to Zoe. Do you know how long it took her to find you?"
"Only out of guilt," she hissed, and reached out for his futuristic death to come to pass, but Thor threw his hammer at Wanda. She ducked and dodged into a corner, rolling on her side. She looked up at Thor with dark eyes as his hammer returned to the God's hand.
Steve winced, but he had no choice to do this to Ava. He picked up his shield, free from Wanda's powers, and pushed Ava off of him with the bounce of his shield, shoving her far away off of him. A startled cry escaped from her lips, as she flew away from Steve's body, and whirled around onto the floor.
That gave Steve enough time to get up from his capture, and turn to find the remaining robot jump down by Steve. He raised his shield to hit the robot, but the robot grabbed it. However, Steve twisted his arms around the robot, holding onto the shield with both hands, trapping the robot against his knee. Thor belted the hammer across the robot's face and smashed it to pieces.
Steve jumped in the air and twirled around, tossing his shield at Ulysses' remaining men across the second level, and turned around just in time to knock Pietro down onto his feet with his shield in hand.
"Stay down kid," Steve said.
Ava helped up Wanda up off the ground, steadying her onto her feet. Wanda glared, as Thor and Steve finished the last robot off. The two girls looked at one of Ultron's counterparts.
"It's time for some mind games," Ultron said to Wanda. Ultron turned to Ava. "We'll hurt them soon enough, but, now, I think it's time we bolted."
Ava nodded. She was sad that she didn't get to show Steve how he truly died, but grateful that she was leaving the firefight. She knew her time would come soon, as Ultron promised, since her sister was not currently present.
~*A*~
"And I'm on Banner watch!" Zoe said with a sigh. The whole time the Avengers had tried to stop Ultron from continuing his plan, she had been talking to Bruce about what she'd been up to. She was so angry and so frustrated that she hadn't meant to let all of it out inside the quinjet. It made her slightly worry the amount of anger she was letting go of, and wonder if she'd have enough of it to relay on in a fight, but she wasn't in a physical fight right now.
They had Clint and Natasha. They didn't need her and she felt so left out. She wanted in, and she wanted to help them with Ava and the Maximoff's. But, because she didn't have any special abilities or real skill in the field, she was stuck here on the quinjet with Bruce, protecting the Other Guy.
She plopped into one of the chairs that rested along the wall of the quinjet. Bruce arched a curious brow at the former Shield agent. She was still an agent in Bruce's eyes, and he could see her frustration written in her eyes. She'd found a place with Shield, but now she was a lost kitten. Unsure of what to do with herself at A-tower. Though, according to Steve, Zoe was just supposed to help and be on Banner watch, in case anything happened. He would call her for sure if he needed their help with Ava and the twins. She was almost positive he would, but so far, it's been quiet on the water front.
"No offense," she said, realizing what she'd said might have hurt his feelings.
"A little taken," Bruce said. "But, I'll let that slide for now. Steve has been giving you a hard time, myself included, but you did get that brand on your neck, and we don't know how many innocent people you killed." He said, tilting his head toward her with curiosity in his brown eyes.
She chewed her bottom lip, as he stood over her, arms crossed over his chest.
She pulled up her knees against her chest, and frowned, leaning her chin against them. She looked up into his eyes. "None," she said.
Bruce furrowed his brows at her, and blinked. What? She was acting as a potential Hydra agent and she didn't kill one single innocent? He found that hard to believe, but he was willing to listen to her side of the story. He allowed her to continue.
She sighed, "I was strictly there for researching data on the Avengers. That's why Coulson pulled me away from my assignment. I couldn't do my job there, or Strucker would have killed me. Hydra takes no prisoners, and I wasn't about to kill innocent people. I was supposed to train with Agent Barton, so he could train me how to be the best, but Nat and I got stuck with each other, so therefore I became a spy for Shield. Fury's eyes and ears. Like father, like daughter," she said, sending Bruce a sad smile.
"For three years, I've been undercover, collecting Hydra-Intel. Under those three years, I've been giving away Shield secrets to Strucker. Strucker was impressed with my memorizing skills and wanted me to be a fulltime researcher. He said he had special plans for me. He wanted me to make a data book for all the Avengers' past, weaknesses, family, friends, anyone, and anything that could hurt you and the Avengers. So, I did, because if I didn't, he would kill an innocent for every time I said no," she said.
Bruce swallowed hard at her words.
"I had no choice," she whispered. "Seeing as how he was impressed by my ability to remember and know so much, which is about the only thing I can do right," she said with a sigh. "He decided to push my skills further. He wanted me to become an agent of his. If Steve hadn't found me like he did, that could have been me fighting you in the snow," she said, swallowing hard at the bitter memory in her head.
Bruce frowned, and was really glad that he didn't have to hurt Zoe. It was a lot for what she went through just to find the location of Hydra's next base, and hopefully last.
"In order to make me an official Hydra agent, he had me go inside the Triskelion and grab something of ours that we tried to protect while it was on Earth," she said.
"Loki's scepter," Bruce said in realization.
She nodded. "And it's pretty little glowing jewel," she said. "I got caught up with Nat and Steve, and the dismantling of Shield by accident, but they used it to their advantage, of course," she sighed. "I wanted to quit so badly, but I had to stay in, finish the job. I didn't want to break any more hearts than I've already broken," she whispered. "After I gave Strucker the scepter, they branded me, since I didn't want to wear their tattoo," she said, and she showed him the brand behind her neck, lifting up her wavy brown curls in her ponytail. She twisted her body half-way and once she felt his fingers gently run along her neck, she lowered her pony-tail and turned back to face the floor, hugging her legs for comfort. "Finding Ava there was a miracle. When I learned Strucker was enhancing humans with the scepter, I focused all my time and energy to try and save them, but..." she chewed her bottom lip.
"You couldn't risk your cover," Bruce said softly.
She nodded, and sighed, cringing in her shoulders, remembering the pain she felt. "I didn't think Steve would understand," she whispered sadly.
"Well, you know what I think?" Bruce asked.
She looked up at him curiously. "What?" she asked, desperate for another piece of mind.
"I think you're definitely being hard on yourself," Bruce said. "You went through a lot. And I bet you if you took the time to explain it exactly like you did with me, I think Steve will understand...or," Bruce said with a casual sigh. "The Other Guy's just going to have to pummel it out of him."
Zoe let out a small laugh that hurt her sides. She sighed. "Maybe," she said. "Unless that ship sailed a long time ago."
"Hey," he said gently, and stepped closer to her, and placed a comforting, yet friendly hand on her shoulder. She looked up at the friendly gesture. "Don't give up."
Her lips lifted into a small smile, though quickly faded when all of a sudden they heard the sound of gunfire on the quinjet's radio.
Bruce walked over to the communications and pressed a button with his thumb. "Guys, is this a code green?" he tried to get to them, but all he heard was static.
Zoe looked up with worried eyes, and lowered her hands and knees to the floor. She pushed herself up off her seat when Bruce opened up the quinjet.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Just give me a second," Bruce said, as the quinjet's ramp lowered down onto the ground, showing the outside world. They were hidden within green bushes that lead a clearing of grass stains into the water.
She let out a bitter growl in annoyance, and tried communications again, pressing the button with her thumb, and listened in.
"Can anybody hear me?! Tasha! Clint? What the hell is going on in there?" she demanded, but no one was answering her calls.
Static.
"Shit," she said, spinning around as Bruce walked down the ramp to peer outside.
Bruce arched a curious brow at the colorful use of language that came out of her lips. "I don't think Steve would appreciate that mouth of yours though," he teased, watching her try to communicate with the team.
"Ha, ha," Zoe said, turning into the communications to see if she could reach anyone that was still on the ship. She really hoped someone would answer, but from the sound of things, it didn't sound like they were having the best time of their lives, and that worried her. "Can you see anything out there?" she asked, stepping down onto the ramp beside him. She was getting nowhere on communications. She reached for her back pocket, and took out her gun. She gripped the handle tightly, and kept it drawn in front of her just in case, and kept it close to her side.
Bruce shook his head, and looked at Zoe with a little worried glint in his eyes.
Zoe looked over at him, and swallowed a thick lump in her throat, as she pulled the safety lock off on her gun.
They both knew something wasn't right.
