Chapter 57

Acrobatic Bullshit

"This is fantastic." Steve moaned around a mouthful of chili.

The aromas of spice and meat filled the quin as the team tucked into the meal Laura had sent with them. Chili and cornbread. The woman was a saint. It filled their bellies and eased tension. With another hour left until South Korea, they needed it.

Cho couldn't be reached. A secretary insisted that the doctor was immersed in an experiment and would return his call later.

"An experiment." Emily muttered. "Right."

Were Bruce and Tony okay? There shouldn't be danger waiting for them at the Nexus, which was why Bucky was in the quin, but Emily didn't stop worrying. Tony could be his own worst enemy. Hence Ultron.

Where had Thor run off to?

What if Ultron was here and had already found a way to combine the vibranium and the scepter's gem into some sort of god? Something more powerful than Thor? Or all the Avengers combined?

"Em." Hands took her empty bowl away, then grasped hers. Natasha smiled at her. "Stop worrying about what you can't do anything about."

"But..."

An eyebrow arched.

"Okay, okay. I'll try to stop worrying about Tony and everything that can go wrong between now and forever."

"Good girl." Natasha pressed a kiss to her forehead.

She sighed and resigned herself to watching Steve pace until Clint announced they were fifteen out. They crowded the windows and camera feeds. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. The lab's building wasn't destroyed. Lunch traffic was piling up on the nearby highway system. The only thing that made them frown were the heavy clouds coming at them. Lightning flashed in their depths.

"Weather report says heavy rain today." Natasha said.

"Let's hope we don't need the cloak when it starts to come down." Steve said. "Buck, on me. Barton, keep it level. Romanoff, I'd appreciate your eye behind that rifle. Em, make sure she stays behind the rifle. Up here. Please."

Emily laughed. "I'll try, Cap."

Clint dropped the quin to hover beside a nearby parking garage. Steve and Bucky jumped out, and the quin climbed back up.

"At the entrance." Steve reported. "It's quiet." He left the mic open. Guards and secretaries tried to stop them, but murderbots didn't show up.

Emily strained behind the zoom of her rifle, yet the windows into the lab were the foggy translucent kind, and she couldn't see more than vague shadows. Nothing seemed to be moving.

There was the ding of the elevator. Boots crunched on glass. Nothing else. They pressed on, Emily's heart in her throat with each step.

"Dr. Cho!" Steve yelled. Their boots thudded, and Emily could see their running forms. "I found Dr. Cho." He said. "She's injured, but stable."

"C-capta-"
"Save your energy, Dr. Cho."

"N-no. He's..." Cho hissed. "He's uploading himself into the body. I t-tried to stop him."

Body? Shit.

"Where?" He didn't bother with details. Good soldier.

"The real power is in the cradle." Cho gasped. "That gem. So much power. You can't just blow it up."

It's like she knew what the Avengers' strong suit was. Blowing stuff up. But did she mean it couldn't be blown up or that it shouldn't be?

"Do you know where Ultron is going?"

Cho coughed. "It doesn't matter. Stop the upload."

"Did you guys copy that?" Steve asked.

"We did." Clint

"I got a private jet taking off downtown." Natasha. "No manifest. That could be him."

"No. There's a truck from the lab." Clint. "Highway. Right above you, cap. On the loop by the bridge."

"Bring Cho to me." Emily ordered.

"Bucky." Steve delegated.

A foggy window was shattered by a chair. Bucky stood in it for a moment, then turned to lift Cho in his arms. He backed up for running room as Clint angled the quin down and opened the bay door. Six steps and a powerful leap later, Bucky was settling Cho into a jumpseat. Emily shouldered her rifle to free her hands.

"Don't worry," Emily said as manicured brows knit at her touch. "I won't hold it against you that you hate me. But I can't change the fact that this will hurt."

Nat was already putting a rubber bit at the scientist's mouth. She shifted to brace Emily as the quin abruptly banked. Bucky was holding on to a strap by the open bay doors. City noise came in with the wind, then a peal of thunder. Clouds had already turned the sun into a dim, fuzzy thing.

She closed herself to the outside world and focused on Cho. The injury was deep, through skin, bone, and lung. Everything was cauterized. That's why she wasn't dead yet. Emily started with the lung, sealing it, then nursing back the insides, the bagillion little blood vessels and bronchioles. The major arteries and oh, shit.

The aorta and pericardium. Emily panicked, immediately switching to the heart, sighing when she realized that the interior of the heart hadn't been breached. Nor had the aorta. Not breached, though singed, even cooked.

"You got five with the cradle. One in the cab." Clint's voice tried to pierce her concentration.

"I'll draw out Ultron." Steve said.

Emily shook her head. Focus. There was cooked Cho to fix. She finished the heart, the lungs, then scoured the rest of the chest cavity for damage before closing it up. Vertebrae and nerves needed attention. Then she could seal the insides.

Cho let out whimpers as muscles and ribs grew back.

"Not sure if you're damn lucky or not." Emily muttered. "An inch in almost any direction would've killed you."

Narrowed eyes told Emily to shut the fuck up and finish.

Skin began to knit back together. Emily looked up to take in the world. Bucky was gone. The bay door was closed, and the quinjet was deep within the forest of skyscrapers. Everything tilted sideways as they skimmed close to a glass wall, yet Natasha's strength kept Emily firmly in front of Cho.

Clint looked over his shoulder. "Hey, Em. Cho good back there? Cap lost his shield and could use more backup."

"I'll g-"

Emily slapped a hand over Natasha's mouth. "No. You'll stay up here. With Clint and your rifle."

Argument flared in green eyes.

"Don't." Emily touched the belly with a growing little bean.

Lips pressed tight and Natasha nodded.

A quick kiss to this unhappy lips, and Emily stuffed on the helmet that she'd thought had been lost in Mauritania. At her feet, a second bay door opened, revealing a super-badass motorcycle held suspended above a third door. Traffic rushed by underneath.

Emily jammed on gloves and hopped onto the bike before she could pee her pants. She revved the Stark-powered engine to life. "In position," she radioed.

"You have a window in three, two, one."

She made the engine roar.

"Give em hell." The clamps on the bike released and dropped her a terrifying thirty feet to the pavement below. Tires grabbed and shot her forward instead of exploding. Horns blared around her. Wind would have whipped at her hair, thankfully not; the armor did its job and kept her warm.

"Coming up on the shield. It's in the middle lane. A red semi just drove over it." Clint advised.

She swerved around a cluster of crotch rockets that lifted fists and cheered at her. "Red semi. I see it."

The lane opened as cars avoided the shiny thing in the road. Emily shifted her weight, thanked Tony for the reinforced gloves and touched knuckles to pavement to get her fingers around the shield. Heart thundering, she righted herself, let the magnets on the front of the handlebars hold the shield, and pushed the engine harder.

It started to rain. Brake lights flared. "Shit!"

"They're off the highway." Clint said. "Take the next exit."

She dove between cars that screamed at her and flew down the ramp. An intersection awaited her.

"Straight through, then first right."

Fuck. She didn't stop at the red light. Brakes shrieked, horns blared, but nothing hit her. She put an armored knee to the street as she took the right turn.

A few blocks ahead, she saw the telltale flash of laser fire. "Coming up on you, Cap."

There wasn't a response. She had to swerve around a chunk of metal. A door? Then fresh potholes that were rapidly filling with rainwater. Her tires threatened to lose their grip under the onslaught of frigid liquid. They howled and skid when she slammed the brakes to avoid a tumbling body, forced her into a controlled three-sixty.

The body stood. Bucky's armor was scraped, but he seemed fine.

"Get on." She ordered.

He hopped behind her, feet on the seat, hands on her shoulders. The tires squealed on the wet pavement. She handed the shield to Bucky.

The ground exploded, forced her to brake hard again, yet Bucky kept going. He slammed shield-first into a small Ultron. More flew out of truck.

"Hawkeye. Can you draw off the guards?" Steve said.

"Let's find out."

From the corner of her eye, Emily saw the quin maneuvering to come alongside the truck. She pushed on, to put herself in position to take advantage of the distraction, to probably jump from moving bike to moving truck.

Lightning flashed. One murderbot went down, a huge hole in its chest. Natasha's work.

A minute later, the quin appeared and opened fire with its machine guns. The rest of the little murderbots flew out from inside the truck, chased after Clint. Steve and Bucky continued their battle with Ultron. Tag-teaming, doling out enough damage to smear whole armies out of existence. Ultron looked pissed. He let a few punches slide off, then when both were within range, grabbed them by their throats and jet-jumped through a concrete wall, into a speeding train.

That left one murderbot in the truck, driving it? Time to jump. "Going in." Dammit, this kind of acrobatic bullshit was Nat's thing, not hers! Just do it, coward. Someone has to. She did a little hop, got her boots on the seat, trusted the steering to hold steady for a minute, readied herself, and jumped.

She made it in. Immediately tripped, broke her fall with her helmet against the cradle, sat holding her ringing head for a while.

"I'm in," was hissed through grit teeth.

She surveyed what was there. The cradle, strapped down, with a body inside. She leaned closer. Was that? The same sense of presence, the one she'd felt back in Tony's lab, crawled up her spine. Definitely got to pull the plug on this thing. She poked at the control panel.

Korean scrolled across the screen. Nat could handle this. Why had they decided to get pregnant? You idiot, she screamed at herself. You pushed her to do the procedure. She'd be in here, already halfway done with hacking Cho's password or whatever the screen was blinking for, and Emily would be in the quin, anxiously waiting for her little fox.

Oh, but her little fox was so cute pregnant!

Emily punched at the controls. They flashed angrily at her. Swearing, she bent over, looking for cables or hoses to yank at. Nothing. The cradle was a solid box. All the important bits were kept safely tucked inside. She should tell Tony to add a toolkit to her armor.

The entire trailer jerked, made her grab at the cradle to keep from sliding around. Through the open back, she saw the ground recede.

"Package is airborne." Clint's announcement was calm. How is he calm? HOW?

She shrieked as the trailer shifted again, angling upward, trying to loosen her grip and send her hurtling out the back, to smash into the pavement so very far below.

"I have a clean shot." Clint advised

"No!" Emily managed to open her comm. "Don't shoot. I'm still in here!"

"Shit." Natasha cursed. "Okay, can you get the cradle loose? We can catch you."

"What?" Clint squawked, his calm finally broken.

"Opening bay doors." Nat said.

Grumbling came from Clint, but the quin came into view, backside to Emily, the bay door lowering as it neared.

She could barely hold on, let alone loosen the damn straps! She caught sight of her pregnant fox waiting for her. Okay. Yes. You can do this. Emily found a way to anchor her boots against the cradle. She freed one hand to fumble at the straps.

"I lost him!" Steve announced. "He's headed your way!"

Shit shit shit!

She stared at the straps, the contraption keeping them secure. Oh. There was an easy release, like a seatbelt. She even saw a way to anchor herself on top of the cradle. The strap toward the open doors was popped. She braced herself.

"Here I come!"

Clint swore under his breath. Nat moved out of the way.

She popped the other strap. The cradle slid out of the open trailer, went airborne. She eeped and closed her eyes. A sickening thump put her stomach in her throat, then the cradle abruptly stopped, sent her flying into Clint's pilot seat, knocked the air from her lungs.

She gasped and shuddered, grabbed at protesting ribs.

Screaming brought her gaze up to see Natasha dangling by her foot, a murderbot flying away with her. "Nat!"

"Shit!" Clint growled. He slapped controls, and the door started to close.

Emily ran to it, beat uselessly at the metal.

"Cap, you got eyes on Nat?" Clint asked.

"If you've got the package, get it to Stark." Steve returned. "Go!"

"Do you have eyes on Nat?" Calm, yet with a sharp edge, Clint replied.

"Go!"

Swearing under his breath, Clint banked the quin, turned it away from the city.

Emily ran to a window, couldn't see any sign of Natasha or Ultron. "Natalia! Clint, we have to find her!"

The engines revved, and the boost of thrust punched Emily into the wall.

Clint kept swearing.

A/N - I'm surprised every time I don't update for months, but get responses within hours...

*swoon*

I love you fabulous people!

And I'm so excited to finally, FINALLY be writing actual Ultron interactions! Ahhhhhhh