CHAPTER SIX

Author's Note: Little bit of a longer chapter, this one. Hope you enjoy!

It looked like a creature, but was made out of metal. As it walked into the light, I could see it was a broken Iron Man suit. No arm, burned face. I felt a shiver run down my spine as it started to speak.

"No," It said. "How can you be worthy? You're all killers."

Ultron. I suddenly remembered the movie, the new one, the one Eli and I were excited to see. I didn't know much about Ultron, but I knew he was the bad guy. And now he was here, standing in the middle of the room.

"I'm sorry, I was asleep," Ultron said.

"Stark?" Steve said.

"Jarvis," Tony said.

Natasha looked over her shoulder at me.

I looked back, unsure of what to do.

"I was caught in… in strings," Ultron continued. "I had to kill the other guy."

"You killed someone?" Steve asked.

"Wouldn't have been my first call," Ultron said. "But in the real world, you have to do what you have to do."

"Who sent you?" Thor asked.

Ultron paused. Tony's voice spilled out of the helmet.

I see a suit of armor around the world.

"Ultron," Banner said.

"In the flesh," Ultron said. "Well, not quite. Not yet. Not this... chrysalis. I'm on a mission."

"What mission?" Steve asked.

"Peace in our time," Ultron said.

The wall behind Ultron exploded and three more Iron Man suits crashed into the room.

The whole room erupted in chaos. I heard gun shots and blasts from the Iron Man suits. I felt someone grab me and pull me toward the bar but I had no idea who it was. I caught a glimpse of Natasha before I dove behind the counter, my heart in my throat. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. I watched as Banner and Natasha tumbled over the top of the bar not too far from me.

"Don't turn green," Natasha said.

"I won't," Banner said.

Natasha saw me crouching behind the counter. "Are you okay?" She asked.

"We're being attacked by a killer robot," I said.

"Good point," Natasha replied. "Just stay here and don't move."

"No problem." I leaned back against the counter.

Natasha and Banner made their way out from behind the bar and to another part of the room. I had no sense of where anyone was or what was happening around me, but the sounds of fighting. Thor's hammer connecting with metal, more gunshots, one of the Iron Man suits kept repeating "I'm here to help." There were shouts of "Stark" and "Cap" and "Thor" and everyone tried to get everyone else's attention.

Then it was over just as suddenly as it had started. I carefully stood up from my hiding place and looked around. The Iron Man suits were down. Destroyed and in pieces all over the floor.

"Well that was dramatic," Ultron said. "I'm sorry. I know you mean well. You want to save the world but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to evolve?" He picked up one of the Iron Man suits. "Look at these puppets." He squeezed the head. "There's only one path to peace. The Avengers extinction."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Thor move. He threw his hammer and it crashed straight through Ultron and the wall behind him.

The blue light in Ultron's eyes died as the Iron Man suit shut down.

I stood in the corner of the lab and watched as the Avengers regrouped and tried to figure out what was going on and what Ultron was planning next.

"He used the internet as an escape route," Banner said. "He's gone."

"He's been in everything," Natasha added. "Files, surveillance. Everything. He probably knows more about us than we know about each other."

"What if he tries to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodes asked. I don't know what happened to him but he was cradling his arm.

"Nuclear codes," Hill said. She was sitting in a chair picking glass out of her foot.

"We need to make some calls," Rhodes said. "Assuming we still can."

"Nukes," Natasha said flatly. "He said he wanted us dead."

"He didn't say dead," Steve said. "He said extinct."

"He said he killed someone," Clint said.

"There wasn't anyone else in the building," Hill said.

"Yes there was," Tony said sadly. He turned away from the table where an Iron Man suit was laying in a heap and waved a small, flat device toward the middle of the room.

A glowing yellow ball appeared but it was broken. Torn apart. Whole chunks were missing

"Jarvis was the first line of defense," Steve said.

"That's Jarvis?" I asked.

They looked at me like they'd totally forgotten I was there. Natasha came to stand next to me. She put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me.

"Yeah, that's Jarvis," Tony said. "What's left of him, anyway."

"Jarvis would have shut Ultron down," Steve said. "Makes sense to take him out first."

"No," Banner said. He was standing next to what was left of Jarvis. "No, this isn't strategy. This is rage."

Thor walked in then wearing his full Asgardian armor. I used to make fun of him and his stupid cape. It flowed behind him as he walked through Jarvis and took Tony by the neck and lifted him up in the air.

"It's going around," Clint said.

"Use your words, buddy," Tony said.

"I have more than enough words for you, Stark," Thor said.

"Thor, come on," Steve said. "What did you find?"

Thor put Tony down. "The trial goes cold about a hundred miles north," Thor said. "And it has Loki's scepter, so we must retrieve it again."

My stomach dropped. The scepter was my only way home.

"Genie's out of that bottle," Natasha said. "Clear and present is Ultron."

I shifted next to her.

"We'll get the scepter back and get you home," She said quietly to me. "But we have to deal with Ultron first."

I nodded. "I know."

I hadn't realized that Dr. Cho was still there until she started talking.

"I don't understand," She said. "You built this program."

Tony was standing at another table surrounded by computers. Everyone turned to him for answers, but all he did was start laughing.

"You think this is funny?" Thor asked.

"No?" Tony replied. "It's probably not funny?" But he kept laughing. "This is really bad and it's not funny." And he kept laughing.

"This could have been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand," Thor said.

"No, you know what? It is funny," Tony said. He walked toward Thor. "It's an absolute hoot that you don't understand why we need this."

"Tony, maybe this isn't a great time for that?" Banner said quickly.

"Really?" Tony turned around to look at Banner. "You're going to roll over and show your belly every time someone snarls?"

"Only when I create a murder bot," Banner replied.

"We didn't create a murder bot," Tony said. "We weren't even close to an interface, were we?"

Banner shrugged and nodded.

"Well you did something right," Steve said. "And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different from SHIELD."

"Does anyone remember when I threw a nuke into a wormhole?" Tony asked.

"Nope," Rhodes said sarcastically. "That's never come up."

"I don't think it happened in the movie, either," I added quietly.

Rhodes smirked at me.

"Well I do," Tony said, looking between Rhodes and me. "An alien army came charging through a hole in space and we were standing 300 feet below it. We can bust arms dealers all the live long day but that up there? That's the endgame." He looked around. "How were you guys planning on beating that?"

"Together," Steve said.

"We'll lose," Tony said.

"Then we'll do that together, too," Steve said without missing a beat. "Thor's right. Ultron's calling us out. I'd like to find him before he makes things worse. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."

"I think it's time for Mavis to go to bed," Natasha said.

"I'm sixteen, not six," I said.

"No, but considering everything that's happened," Natasha said, trailing off.

"You mentioned this is all movies earlier," Steve said. "Ultron a movie?"

"It's going to be," I said. "It's not out yet. Just the trailer. I don't know what happens."

Steve nodded. "Did the trailers tell you anything we should know?"

I tried to remember the trailers but nothing stuck out as important.

"You know about he Maximoffs?" I asked.

Steve nodded.

"Then, that's all I can think of," I said. "And I didn't know about Ultron before he attacked. I didn't know they'd built him yet. I guess I thought that was supposed to happen later or something."

Steve nodded again. "Go to bed, then. We'll see you tomorrow."

Natasha gently pulled me after her and lead me back through the tower.

"You can stay in my room tonight," She said. "I'm probably going to stay up and help find Ultron."

"Okay," I said. "Thanks."

Natasha gave me some sweatpants and a big t-shirt to use as pajamas before leaving the room. I changed and left the dress and heels piled on the floor.

I curled up in the bed, pulling the covers over my head, and sighed. It felt like I was finally breathing, really breathing, for the first time all day. Just one second to breathe, that's all I wanted. I was ripped out of my world, tossed into another full of people that should exist, and then I was almost killed by a robot built by a couple of those people who shouldn't exist.

This was supposed to be fun. It was always framed as being fun. Going to another world. Having adventures. But they left out the part about how dangerous it was. Living in the world of the Avengers always sounded sort of fun, but now I was there, and there was a killer robot and I was violently and completely aware of real this was.

It was like I'd been sleeping with my eyes open all day. It was real and not real all at the same time. A dream I knew I was having but hadn't woken up from yet. Now I was awake, and it was real, and it was terrifying.

Tears pricked at my eyes again and I cried myself to sleep.