Disclaimer: I don't own anything Marvel. Just Anna and fellow OC's.

Chapter 24

Theta Protocol

"Glad you like the view, Romanoff. It's about to get better."Fury hijacked the comms, but it was greatly appreciated seeing as what he said meant the Avengers and all those innocent people had backup now. The Helicarrier that Anna had been informed of back when Coulson and Hill told her about Theta protocol flew up out of the clouds to join the floating landmass. "Nice, right? I pulled her out of the mothballs with a couple of old friends. She's dusty, but she'll do."

"Fury, you son of a bitch," Steve exclaimed in relief.

"Oooh! You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

Natasha looked to Anna with a knowing smile. "You called in Theta protocol before you guys even got here, didn't you?"

Anna just smiled back. "Figured this was classified as emergency enough. Didn't know we'd need to be safed out of the sky, but hey, I'm not complaining it all worked out!"

"I'm impressed," Nat told her. "I wouldn't have thought about doing that. I would've just run head first in. I'm glad Fury put you on a team for a while so you'd think about these things instead of just how Clint and I think."

The lifeboats deployed off the Helicarrier and made their way to make contact with the land. The group made their way over to them to start helping civilians to be transported to safety. Pietro popped up next to the group.

"This is SHIELD?" he asked.

"This is what SHIELD's supposed to be," Steve said, placing a hand on Anna's shoulder. "It's the SHIELD Anna was a part of creating."

In part that was true. Anna had always been part of SHIELD. What she saw wasn't always good, but the parts of it she embodied, the parts of her SHIELD embodied, was how it had always been meant to be. It was supposed to protect those that couldn't protect themselves from anything or everything that needed to be addressed. It was how the people that stuck around and were running the show were making sure it stuck to now after everything fell apart.

"This is not so bad," Pietro said.

"Let's load 'em up!" Steve ordered.

Everybody started to fill up the lifeboats with the remaining people that hadn't been able to get out of there before the place started to take off. One by one they lead people in and made sure they were secured safely before they'd take off back to the Helicarrier to unload and return back to repeat the whole process over again.

"Thor! I got a plan!" Tony called out.

"We're out of time. They're coming for the core," Thor answered.

"Rhodey, get the rest of the people on board that carrier," Tony instructed.

"On it."

"Avengers, time to work for a living," Tony said.

"What is it he suspects we have been doing this whole time?" Rey asked as he moved in front of Anna for her to get on to move faster towards the church where the core was located. "It seems to me that all he has done is fly around with his thumb up his-"

I really don't want to hear you finish that, Anna thought and she clung to Rey's fur.

Anna and Rey made it there at the same time as Wanda and Clint. Already there was Thor, Vision, Tony, and Cap. For the moment it was quiet as the early birds had already taken care of the wave of bots that had just attacked.

"Romanoff? You and Banner better not be playing "hide the zucchini," Tony said.

"Relax, Shell-head. Not all of us can fly," Nat answered just before she joined the team. "What's the drill?"

Tony turned and pointed to the Vibranium core machine in the middle of the rubbled area. "This is the drill. If Ultron gets a hand on the core, we lose."

Speak of the devil. Ultron arrived just moments after Tony finished his explanation. Ultron had clearly upgraded his body with Vibranium, but even with said improvement, he was on his own. There was no way he'd be able to take all of them on his own. Which was why Anna suspected his cronies were not too far behind him.

"Is that the best you can do?" Thor antagonized.

"Dude, you did not just…" Anna muttered. Ultron raised his arms and just as Anna had thought, his army appeared to back him up.

"You had to ask," Steve muttered.

"This is the best I can do," Ultron said. "This is exactly what I wanted. All of you, against all of me. How could you possibly hope to stop me?"

"Well, like the old man said. Together," Tony answered.

And just like that, the army charged. Each member had their own way of dealing, but there was no time to take notice of how they were doing so with the sheer amount of bots that were descending upon them. Anna punched left, then right, left elbow, then lastly raised her hand and shot the bot in the face before she spun around at one bot that was charging to the Avenger next to her. Mid run, Anna used its raised leg before it came down in its run to jump up, grab the shoulder to swing herself around with her legs around its neck. She used her momentum to throw them to the ground, ribbing out the wiring from the neck to disable it.

Anna rolled backwards to push herself up to her feet so she wouldn't have her back to the oncoming attack for very long. It was the fastest way for her to get up without leaving her as vulnerable as the other methods. Anna clearly wasn't the strongest or most gifted Avenger, nor did she fight off the most robots during this defense, but her contribution was definitely beneficial.

Thor, Tony, and Vision took Ultron on outside while the rest continued to fight off the robots until they suddenly stopped. They could hear Ultron start to speak, but before any of them could even turn to look outside to see the bot talk, Hulk jumped out and threw the robot as far as he could before he could finish what he was saying. "You know with the benefit of hindsight…" The robots all stopped when Ultron had, and once he was out of there, they all turned to run away.

"They'll try to leave the city," Thor said.

"We can't let 'em, not even one. Rhodey!" Tony called out.

"I'm on it," Rhodey answered.

"We gotta move out. Even I can tell the air is getting thin. You guys get to the boats, I'll sweep for stragglers, be right behind you," Steve said.

"You better," Anna warned him, pointing Jern Slange at him.

"What about the core?" Clint asked.

"I'll protect it," she said, looking at him directly. "It's my job."

Anna got back on Rey, who was looking a little worn for once, and took off with Clint and Natasha back to the flying lifeboats. They kept pace with the others to make sure nobody got into any danger as they went.

"I know what I need to do," Clint said out of nowhere. "The dining room! If I knock out that east wall, it'll make a nice work space for Laura, huh? Put up some baffling, she can't hear the kids running around. What do you think?"

"You guys always eat in the kitchen anyway," Nat agreed.

"Dining rooms are only for holidays anyway," Anna said. "Or so I've heard."

"No one eats in a dining room," Clint said as they arrived. "We don't have a lot of time."

"So get your ass on a boat," Nat said as she turned to the Hulk.

Clint, Anna and Rey got on the boat to wait with the others. However, just as they got there, a woman was calling out looking for someone. He got off to go help look, but Anna took the woman onto the boat and assured her that this was where she needed to be to reunite with him.

"Thor, I'm gonna need you back in the church," Tony said.

"Is this the last of them?" Thor asked, referring to the people on the lifeboats.

"Yeah," Steve said, joining the boat people. "Everyone else is on the carrier."

Barton came back not too long after leaving. The kid ran to the woman and embraced, but Clint was dragging Pietro's body back to the boat. He placed him on the ground, and collapsed onto the bench next to his body, refusing medical treatment. Anna knelt next to Peitro, checking his pulse. There was none. The poor boy was finally saving lives like he's wanted, and now he'd made the ultimate sacrifice to save even more.

"Who's going to get Wanda?" Anna asked. She couldn't rush off as the boat took off. "One of the fliers needs to get Wanda!" Anna screamed through the comms.

"I've got her!" Vision replied as the whole thing exploded.

Two more chapters until the next movie begins. I seriously can't wait. I really need to start writing it though. Things have been super hectic lately, but I get a few days off next week so hopefully I'll be in the mood to do that while I take care of my mom as she gets her other knee replaced. it's all planned out through Endgame anyway, except for a section I left empty in case Anna is going to be in Black Widow.

Thanks to the following for their review on the previous chapter:

Jedi Jesla777 - I love him too! I was so sad when there was so little of him. I was hoping he'd come back to life after the snap, but we know how that went now... I do love that Clint used his name as Nate's middle name at least. It just shows Clint's character there. Chapter 26 is just Anna and Tony together, so get ready for even more fodder.