Reviews:
Xaax : Yeah, I kind of want to make her love interest but I also want the mentor/brother relationship cause I already gave her a romantic relationship with him in my last story.
0vrLrd71 : Yes, it was Morgan who said it and thank you, I'm surprised I've gotten to chapter and am only part way through age of ultron, in my last HP/Avengers crossover this was the point where the story was nearly ending.
geekymom : Thank you.
Chapter 51 -
Everyone looked at him, they were all stunned into silence. None of them knew what to say, none of them knew what they could say to the man who had lost his entire world. In that moment they all developed a new found respect for Harry, how could you not respect a man who had been through what he had?
"I...I don't know what to say." Tony said after a few moments, even his witty brain was struggling to think up something.
"Then don't say anything, I'm not asking for pity. I'm telling you all of this so you can all understand." Harry replied, glancing between each and every one of the Avengers. "The first year of my life was undoubtedly the happiest, because I was an innocent little baby with family and I don't even remember that. Everything after was abusive relatives and bullies and then dealing with politics, fickle people, near death experiences before spending the rest of my life in a war, only for the main asshole to come back and wipe out my entire world. I have more anger than I know what to do with and I am trying to work on it, all I ask is for some patience. Now, let's put that aside and how about we finally start working on stopping Ultron?" Harry suggested. "What do you think, Fury?" Harry asked.
"I'm thinking of a lot of things." Fury said as he walked into the room.
"How long have you been here?!" Tony demanded.
"He got here at about when I said 'Sif's right'." Natasha answered.
"How did you even know?" Tony blinked.
"Ahem." Harry coughed. "Can we get on with this?"
"I feel like we should." Fury nodded in agreement. "Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself some time, we're trying to look into what he's been doing and all we have right now is the belief that he is building something. With all the Vibranium he's made off with it, I don't think it's just one thing."
"Lots and lots of things make sense, but it could also be one large thing or several medium sized things." Harry replied. "Unless he plans to use some now and store the rest for a later project."
"So long story short all we know is he's taken a lot of vibranium and is planning to do something with it." Gwen sighed. "Isn't that wonderful?" She said in a sarcastic voice.
"What about Ultron himself?" Steve asked.
"Oh he's easy to track," Fury said with a shake of his head. "he's everywhere. The guy multiplies faster than a catholic rabbit. It still doesn't help get an angle on any of his plans."
"Unfortunately." Harry sighed, hoping for better news.
"Is he still going after launch codes?" Tony asked.
"Yes he is, but he's not making any headway." Fury replied.
"Are you sure?" Tony frowned.
"I am, why?" Fury asked.
"Oh no reason, just the fact that I cracked the pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare." Tony replied, letting everyone around him know how easy it should be for Ultron to hack into the codes. In Tony's opinion it was laughably easy.
"Well, I contacted our friends at the Nexus about that." Fury replied.
"The Nexus?" Sif and Steve asked at the same time.
"It's the world internet hub in Oslo," Gwen explained. "every bite of data flows through there. Fastest access on Earth."
"So what did they say?" Harry asked.
"He's fixated on the missiles but he's not making any progress because the codes keep changing." Fury responded.
"By whom?" Tony asked.
"Parties unknown." Fury answered with a small shrug.
"Do we have an ally?" Natasha asked, she wouldn't mind having another ally at this point.
"Maybe, maybe not." Harry replied.
"He's right," Sif nodded. "Ultron has an enemy yes but that doesn't guarantee that they are on our side. There have been several cases in the past where myself and Thor along with our friends have worked with others, only to have them attempt to betray us. If this person or group is an ally then we should assume that they are temporary aid, at least until we have more information."
"I agree with that. Still, I'd pay folding money just for a clue on who it is." Fury replied.
"I might need to visit Oslo, find our unknown." Tony said.
"Tell me when you're ready, I'll drop you off there with a portkey." Harry replied.
"This has been great and all, really it has, but I was kind of hoping that you would have had something more than that, boss." Natasha said to Fury.
"I do, I have all of you." Fury said, causing everyone in the room to look at him. "I have eyes everywhere and ears everywhere else to assist you whenever I can, you kids have a sufficient amount of tech to work with. You have the suits, the gadgets, the magic, everything. And if that is not enough in the face of possible destruction then we all have our wit and our will to save the Earth. I believe I'd be correct in guessing you have plenty of motivation in stopping that from happening." Fury said, his eye locked onto Harry. "Ultron says that the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission. And whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction. All this, laid in a grave. So stand, and outwit the platinum bastard." Fury said as if it was a simple problem.
"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk." Natasha joked, hoping to lighten the mood.
"You know what Romanoff..." Steve said to Natasha, who couldn't help the smile on her face. Despite her smile she was still very worried about Harry and would make sure to talk to him as soon as she got an opportunity to be alone with him.
"So, what does he want?" Fury asked.
"To become better, better than us." Steve said. "He keeps building bodies."
"Person bodies." Tony reminded him. "The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking we are outmoded but he keeps coming back to us."
"You're right," Harry nodded in agreement. "not wolves or tigers or birds. It's always humans, Ultron walks like a human, talks like a human and still shapes his bodies after humans. The fucker even has a personality."
"When you two programmed a robot to protect the human race you amazingly failed." Natasha said to Tony and Bruce.
"He doesn't want to protect them." Sif frowned. "Whatever his aim is, it is clearly not protection. Maybe he doesn't care about the mission or maybe he doesn't know that what he is doing is bad."
"They don't need to be protected," Banner said as realization hit him. "they need to evolve, Ultron's going to evolve."
"The vibranium," Harry said suddenly. "you say he's going to evolve and he's stolen a large amount of the strongest metal on Earth, that can't be a coincidence."
"That's...possible." Tony gulped as he thought about an Ultron made of Vibranium. "Can you do something if he makes a vibranium body?" He asked Harry. "You know? Like um...change him into a plank of wood or something.
"Um...if we're being honest then I don't really know," Harry admitted. "vibranium didn't exist on my world, or at least I don't believe it did. I've never tried turning it into something else, it should be possible unless it has some special properties which prevent me from doing so and I doubt that will happen."
"If I get my shield here then can we try?" Steve asked.
"Uh...yeah, yeah do that." Harry nodded.
"I will get it back, right?" Steve asked as he stood up.
"I'll pay you if you don't." Harry said with a roll of his eyes before gesturing Steve to go and get it.
"There's still one important question, if Ultron wants to evolve then how is he going to do it?" Fury asked. "Anyone?" He said, looking around the room.
"Has...anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?" Bruce asked.
Wanda currently found herself in a lab along with her brother standing next to her, behind her were more scientists and Ultron robots. In front of her, at the other end of the lab, was a cradle (which to her looked like a robots coffin) that was placed next to Ultron who was sat down and looking down at the floor, standing next to the cradle was Helen Cho. Wanda currently had her and the other scientists under control by affecting their minds, not something she really enjoyed doing but it was necessary.
Wanda wasn't really thinking much about them, right now she was thinking about the memories she had seen. The rage, despair and guilt at being unable to stop that monster, 'Voldemort' he was called. She felt it, she doubted she would ever permanently forget it. Memories of Grim roaring into the sky as he stood amongst burning and broken buildings, dust everywhere, not a single living being in sight. Her mind was torn between helping the Avengers and helping Ultron, Stark was responsible for what had happened to her family along with her brother and herself, but the other man - Grim, or Harry as his name was - wasn't responsible. He had seen a whole world been destroyed, hadn't he suffered enough?
"Are you okay?" She heard Pietro whisper as he rubbed her back with his hand.
"I'm fine." She said in a quiet voice.
"You're not," Pietro replied, shaking his head. "you are thinking about it again."
"So what if I am?" She said in a tired voice, this wasn't the first time they had discussed this.
"What did he do to you?" He asked in a worried voice.
"I told you already, he didn't do anything!" Wanda hissed. "I...saw...I saw part of his past. It was...it was horrible. It made what happened to us look like nothing. The world ended, Pietro."
"It can't have ended, we're still alive." He reminded her.
"I know what I saw, Pietro." She said through gritted teeth.
"You saw what was in his head, just because he thinks that the world has ended does not mean that the world has ended."
"I know what I saw, and I know the difference between real memories and imagined ones." She growled at him. "And his emotions, I felt them, they were real. Sadness beyond words at all the losses, guilt for not being able to prevent it and rage unlike anything I have ever felt. It was worse than being trapped under that building, waiting for Stark's bomb to go off. His emotions were real, his memory was real."
"But it can't be," Pietro protested. "we're all alive, it can't be real."
"Pietro, we went from having dinner with our family to having powers beyond our dreams and now we're helping a robot made by Stark. I don't know what's real anymore." She said before she walked further into the lab, a worried Pietro following after her. Once they got close enough they heard Doctor Helen Cho speaking.
"Cellular cohesion will take a few hours but we can initiate the consciousness stream." Cho said to Ultron. "We're uploading your cerebral matrix now."
"I can read him," Wanda said in a surprised voice, picking up on the thoughts of the being in the cradle. "he...I think he is dreaming."
"I wouldn't call it dreams," Cho said. "this is Ultron's base consciousness, informational noise. Soon..."
"How soon?" Ultron interrupted. "I'm not being pushy." He quickly added.
"Well," Cho began. "so far it is really just about..."
Wanda ignored whatever Cho was saying as she placed her hands on the cradle, she tried reading its mind once more. It might not be a mind but she would think of it as one, if just to make things simpler. She closed her eyes as she did so, she looked into his mind when a burst of pain shot through her head as she saw all life on Earth being destroyed. Pietro was quick to her side, checking over her and holding her to comfort her.
"No! No!" She said to herself as Ultron suddenly stood up and looked at the two. "No! No! Not again! Not again! Not again!" She cried.
"Wanda? What is happening to you?" Pietro asked, looking very worried.
"Wanda?" Ultron asked.
"How...could you?" Wanda said to Ultron in a horrified voice, tears dripping down her face.
"How could I what?" Ultron asked in a confused voice.
"You said...you...you said we were going destroy the Avengers," Wanda said in an angry voice, furiously wiping away her tears. "make a better world! That's what you said!"
"It will be better." Ultron calmly replied.
"When everyone is dead?!" Wanda yelled, Pietro looked confused for a second but it didn't take him very long to realize that what Wanda saw was more than likely not something he would like and it didn't take long to work out what it was that she saw.
"That is not..." Ultron paused, he shook his head briefly before he continued speaking. "the human race will have every opportunity to improve." He said in a patient voice, as if he was talking to a child.
"And if they don't?" Pietro asked, stepping in front of Wanda, making sure to keep himself in-between her and Ultron.
"Just ask Noah." Ultron replied in an uncaring voice as he performed a very human-like shrug.
"You're a madman." Wanda said, feeling more horrified than ever before, she could feel that her brother was the same.
"There are more than a dozen extinction level events before even the dinosaurs got theirs." Ultron said in a voice that was bordering on exasperated. "When the Earth starts to settle, God throws a stone at it. And, believe me, he is winding up. We have to evolve, don't you understand that? We need to evolve, it is necessary, there is no room for the weak." Ultron said as he looked down at the cradle, his hand stroked it in a loving fashion. "No room for the weak."
"And who decides who's weak?" Pietro asked while Wanda took advantage of Ultron being distracted to free Cho from her mind control.
"Life," Ultron laughed. "life always decides." Ultron was about to continue when a beep was heard. "There's incoming," He said. "the Avengers are making their move, we have to start making ours."
"That's not a problem." Helen Cho said, drawing Ultron's attention to her. She quickly cut off the upload of Ultron into the creation in the cradle.
Ultron sighed right before he blasted her, Wanda gasped as Helen fell to the floor. Pietro reacted quickly and picked Wanda up into his arm before he ran away at superspeed while carrying her, Pietro was able to hear Ultron call after them but he didn't stop. Once they were at a distance that was far enough away from Ultron and safe enough to stop, Pietro put Wanda down before pulling her into a hug.
"Are you okay?" Pietro asked in a concerned voice while stroking her hair.
"He...he's going to kill us all." Wanda cried into his shoulder. "He's going to kill us all. It's all our fault."
"Wanda, please, please calm down." Pietro all but begged.
"I can't," Wanda said as she pushed herself out of his hug, she shook her head several times as she grabbed her head hard in an attempt to slow down her thoughts, "we need to stop him, we need to stop him before it's too late. We need...we need the Avengers!" She suddenly blurted out.
"The Avengers?"
"Yes, yes!" Wanda quickly nodded. "They will help us, I know they will."
"Are you sure?" Pietro asked.
"I don't know about all of them, but I know at least one of them that will do whatever it takes to stop Ultron." She said in a confident voice.
Omake 1:
"The floor is lava!" Morgan suddenly yelled before jumping up on a chair.
"Morgan," Pepper sighed. "please grow up a little, you don't see everyone else doing it, do you Morg..." Pepper paused as she looked at everyone else. They were all standing on the furniture with the exception of Gwen who was hanging off the ceiling and Harry who was hovering in the air. "Really guys? You're still playing games like this?" She sighed.
"Mighty words from a woman who is standing in lava." Harry replied.
Omake 2:
"I heard that Harry and Natasha are having a baby." Tony said to Pepper.
"Oh that's nice."
"I'll still be Harry's favorite, right?" Morgan asked.
"Harry will definitely still love you." Pepper replied.
"Oh...okay." Morgan smiled as she put her knife away.
Omake 3:
"Okay, I'm in charge of today's Avengers meeting." Harry said as he stood in front of everyone. "And today we will be participating in nap time." Harry said before he began hitting everyone with sleeping spells.
"But what about..." Steve began, only to be interrupted.
"Nap time!" Harry said in a forceful voice before putting everyone to sleep. "Nap time." He smiled before hitting himself with a sleeping spell.
