Chapter 62
Diagrams and Overlays
"Tony?"
"Not yet."
Frustrated screams clamored for an excuse to escape Natasha's lungs. The text channel with Em had been lost five agonizing minutes ago. The only thing keeping her in her seat was knowing Tony was heading for the stranded idiot.
His comms were being rerouted by little buoys he was dropping as he ventured through the tunnels. Clint was piloting the quin, Thor was holding the entrance Tony had used, while Hulk, Steve, and Bucky protected the church entrance.
It took all of her self-control to force herself calm. Emily would be fine. She'd succeeded in locking Ultron out of the engine systems. She'd survive until help came and then some. Her armor and helmet could pressurize and provide oxygen for fifteen minutes.
The city was approaching 30,000 feet. Em had a few more minutes, longer if the room she was in was airtight. And then fifteen more if she remembered to put her helmet on.
"Civilians are all onboard, sir." A SHIELD operative reported.
"Do another sweep of the city." Fury ordered.
"Sir, we just did." Hill said.
He nodded. "Alright, Avengers, you and your metal friends are all that's left in the city. And I mean in. Scans indicate more than half are making their way underground. It looks like they're going in around the engines."
"We are getting close," came Jarvis' voice. Not Jarvis though. Or was he? There hadn't been a discussion of what to call the new being. The vibranium humanoid. Synthetic human. Emily was much better at the humanizing thing. "I can sense Emily's presence."
There was a sudden cacophony of explosives, and the comms went staticky.
"No!" The single cry was punctuated by a fist shattering a screen.
A SHIELD operative next to her station flinched and scooted a few inches away.
"What happened to the comms?" Fury shouted down from the command post.
"Ultron must have rigged the tunnels to prevent intruders," hissed out. She glared at the screen with all her might, not the hand that was probably bleeding.
Fury grumbled then swore heavily.
"It's stopped." An operative cried out.
"What?" Hill demanded.
"The city. It's stopped rising."
That better be your work, Emily. And you better not be hurt.
Emily didn't understand much of what the displays were telling her, but she could read an altimeter. Wasn't Mt. Everest this high? No wonder she was feeling lightheaded. At 30,000 ft, the air was as thin as a sugar wafer. Oof. Bad analogy. It was thinner than the chicken soup from Village Inn, which was really, really shitty and didn't deserve to be called soup.
Planes flew at this altitude, pressurized and full of good air. A first class seat on a flight to anywhere sounded fantastic about now. Damn. She bent to read the instructions that Nat had sent yet again, moved to a bank of buttons that seemed right. Her helmet banged on the counter. Stupid thing. Why did…
"You idiot." She berated herself. Her phone was shoved in a pocket and her helmet was tugged on. Aching injuries and gloves made the process a thousand times more difficult, but eventually she fumbled the clasps tight. A flush of air filled her lungs, made her giddy and dizzy. Oh, sweet oxygen. And Nat had had the forethought to replace the zapped battery on the armor. Damn, she was a brilliant woman. She couldn't wait to marry her.
A jolting clang behind her had her nearly jumping right out of her armor and skin and fucking mind!
"Fortune, we're really going to have a talk about why you aren't allowed to go places by yourself."
"Tony!"
"Yes. Now, be a dear and open this door before Junior shows up?"
"Which door?"
He knocked until she heaved the steel bar out of the way and cranked the lock open. Despite his Iron Man suit, she hugged him the moment he was in.
"Yes. Thank you. Come on, Fortune, I have work to do." He huffed.
Thor's vision strode in next. He smiled. "Hello."
She couldn't help it. She stared. "Oh hey, you."
"I think the moniker Vision is sufficient."
Tony grunted, already distracted by buttons. "What?"
"Vision. I find it sufficient for a name."
"Good for you. Look, lock the door again. Hold Ultron off."
Vision nodded, closed and barred the door again. "I expect we have five minutes before Ultron arrives."
"That's nice." Emily grunted. "A fight. I'll be even more useful then."
Disconcerting eyes swept over her. "I don't understand self-deprecation. Your strengths do not lean toward violence. It is unreasonable to expect you to add as much as Thor or Hulk to a battle. It would, in fact, make fighting easier if you were to stay out of it, especially when you are lacking ammunition as you are now."
She blinked. A laugh bubbled out. "Okay, I like you."
The planes of his face shifted, his techno-organic eyes twitching and adjusting until finally, his features settled on pleased. He smiled. It was warm and without sarcasm, ulterior motives, or angst. "Thank you, Emily Fortune."
"Just Emily, please."
"Emily."
"Vision, can I ask you a painfully personal question?"
He nodded.
"How much of Jarvis is you?"
"I was wondering who would ask first." He glanced at Tony as he muttered to himself and Friday about schematics. "I believe a good analogy would be Jarvis' knowledge and personality is the soil I was planted in. I am anchored by, but not defined by it."
"Are you saying you're a daisy? You can't be. I already have a Daisy in my life."
Vision tipped his head. "Indeed. And I do not wish to take another's place. I will make my own."
"Speaking of, do you not need to breathe?"
"Not much. I would, however, not survive an extended period in the upper atmosphere or darkness of space."
"Or depths of the ocean?"
"Or there."
She grinned. "O-"
CLANG! The room shook with the crash of metal on metal. A dent appeared in the door. The same spot began to glow a few seconds later.
"Why? He knows exactly how strong the door is, why did he even bother trying to knock it in?" She yelled.
"It would be faster to let the door stop forward momentum instead of braking. It would also serve as a petty attempt to scare whoever is inside. He will take any advantage he can get."
Emily shook her fist at the door. "I'm already scared, okay! Asshole." She turned. Tony was still fully engaged in whatever he was doing with the wires.
"He is attempting to interface his suit directly to the engines." Vision supplied.
"Are you reading our minds or just being really, super fucking intuitive?"
"Reading your minds."
"We're going to talk about that later. It's rude."
"But my being able to communicate Tony's actions has saved him precious seconds explaining it to you."
The glow on the door was moving. Fast. Molten steel dribbled from the glowing line. Ultron had the best laser cutter in the world. Had he gotten ideas from video games? Like that Subnautica one Emily had gotten last week? There was a laser cutter in it that cut through metal doors in seconds. It wouldn't work on enemies though. Super frustrating.
"You're right. That doesn't make sense." Vision frowned. "If the laser cutter will cut through metal, there is no reason it wouldn't hurt an enemy."
"Didn't I just say reading my mind was rude?"
The hole was almost complete. It wasn't large, only a few feet in diameter, more than enough for a robot that didn't care about burning itself to crawl through. Emily shrank back. Vision could totally take these things on one at a time. It would be a piece of cake fo-
CLANG!
She jumped and shrieked. The other door had a glowing dent. No, no, no!
"It's maintaining altitude." The operative said.
"You should have evacuated, Romanoff. We could be eliminating a global threat right now if there weren't people on that rock." Fury fumed at her.
"We had to try." She glared back at him. "We could still give this city back to its people."
"You know," Pietro was suddenly beside her. She didn't bother questioning how he'd gotten past security. "There really isn't much to give back at this point."
"How did you," Fury cut himself off. "Nevermind. I w-"
Wanda strode onto the bridge. Security raised guns that she ignored.
"Put your guns away before you get sent to the infirmary." Hill's order was tight with annoyance.
"If you provide us with a pilot, we could help." Wanda said.
Natasha grunted. "A pilot, pressurized suits, oxygen, and a truckload of luck, you mean."
"I do not need luck!" Pietro growled. "I am too fast for luck." His mouth opened wider at the end of luck, stretching into a jaw-popping yawn.
"No. You're right." Natasha agreed. "You need a nap. Have you eaten?"
His pale face flushed. "I am not a child! I c-"
She raised a hand. "Emily isn't here to mother you, and she'll whine at me if I don't do it for her while she's on that rock fighting for your city." She turned to an operative playing an eight-bit videogame at her station. "You, Pacman," The operative jumped and stuttered. "Go get the kids something to eat."
"Ma'am!" The operative's panicked eyes shot to Hill.
"I've written you up for playing games before, Tully." Hill sighed. "Bring something for Romanoff too. I can still hear her stomach growling."
"You're bringing food on my bridge?" Fury's question was almost a threat. "I already fed Romanoff."
"Sir, do you think you could get these three to leave while Romanoff's wife is trapped over there?" Hill gestured at the floating city.
The one eye cut to it and back. He frowned harder.
"Besides. Romanoff is one of our best. We need her running at full capacity."
"I better not find any crumbs later, Agent Hill." He whirled to bark orders at the other side of the room.
Vision used a freaking mind laser to put appropriately destructive holes in two minions and turned the grapple a third. Three crumpled bodies were already piled on the floor.
"Tony, no pressure, but fucking hurry!"
He glanced up and used a hand blast to stop a minion at the unguarded door. "You know what, Fortune. You can finish." He blasted another. "Get over here and follow the instructions. Get over here!" A minion dodged his blast and crashed into him midair.
She swore in every language she knew and leapt over a metal body part. Her HUD lit up with diagrams and overlays. Friday started talking in her ear. She glanced over her shoulder and three voices berated her for delaying.
Clumsily as ever, she did her best to follow Friday's guidance. The diagram overlays helped. It was almost like playing a video game. With that thought, her entire demeanor relaxed. Video games she could do! The awkward feel of the situation vanished. She sank into focus, only occasionally muttering about the gloves being too thick and how it really wasn't like a videogame, because a control pad would be way easier to manipulate than these tiny wires.
She discovered a multitool in one of her pouches. Okay, Friday told her it was there. She really needed to be better prepared, to actually know everything about her armor and what it held. She was a terrible Avenger.
How was Nat doing? She looked up for a window, swore when there wasn't one.
"Please focus, Fortune." Friday chided.
"Sorry."
Natasha chewed angrily at the jerky she'd been given. Nothing. No communication, no change in the city, nothing! Emily couldn't have more than a few minutes of air left. Dammit! She should have kept Emily by her side, had her help herd the civilians onto the helicarrier, not sent her off to save the world!
Someone else, stronger, faster, more capable would be on that rock. Or someone more expendable. The weapons on the helicarrier could be put to use and they could be hunting down the remnants of Ultron instead of this awful waiting!
Over her own jerky, Wanda looked at her.
Dammit. It wasn't enough that she had to control her own actions and words, but her thoughts now. The little bean fluttered, and her hand went to the miracle inside her. She sighed. She should have been working on adjusting how she thought. To be fair, she had been. She simply needed to work harder at it. For the little bean, for Emily, for herself, and for everyone whose life she affected.
Wanda met Pietro's eye. Both twins glanced at Natasha, their expressions shifting with a silent conversation. When they stilled, the twins remained staring at her.
"No! This doesn't make any sense."
"Fortune, it's i-"
"Friday! These diagrams don't match what I'm seeing!" Emily reached down, picked up a metal leg, swung it as hard as she could at the minion about to brain Tony. "You finish. I can whack at minions!"
The minion brained Tony anyway and backhanded her across the room. Breath was clapped out of her lungs, and stars dazzled in her eyes. A red fuzz landed beside her. Bright gold light shot across the room, followed by thuds and a nasty ringing in her ears.
Someone picked her up. Ultron! She flailed and struggled, tried to fight him off with her elbows and hysterical wriggling. He dropped her, and she ran. Tried to. She gasped, not from having her breath knocked out, but the air was thin. Too thin. She sucked in as much as she could. It didn't help. She couldn't breathe! Air, she needed air! Panic fumbled for the catches on her helmet.
Something stopped her, and she struggled harder, tried to, but she didn't have the air. Sounds, possibly voices buzzed in her helmet, but the ringing blurred everything out.
A/N - Gotten some good name suggestions! Keep em coming!
And in case I don't update again before the 11th, happy Coming Out Day! We all have our stories, our fears, our desires, and I hope some day, Coming Out Day won't be necessary. But until then, if you need someone to tell your story to, my inbox is open :)
