A/N: added the photograph to chapters 65 + 66

Also I despise this chapter, it's the C-section of chapters, but at least it's out now

Chapter Sixty-Seven
✭

He couldn't hear much inside the cell.

The floor was little more than rough-hewn stone, cold and damp. The door was made of thick metal bars, too heavy to move — at least for a twelve-year-old. Howie had already tried jimmying the lock, but the tumblers were so heavy they broke his tiny screwdriver set. So that was a no go.

So he just sat, huddled against the cold wall and tried to keep his shivering down. He still didn't know what ULTRON wanted from him.

The robot was still nearby, Howie was sure. Although it was dark outside his cell, he could feel the rumble of powerful machinery through the ground. Occasionally a drone or two flew by carrying large pieces of metal, and some instinct told Howie that whatever ULTRON was building down here, it wasn't another body. He was making something bigger.

Howie didn't remember most of the flight here; he had been unconscious, which was a shame because it would've been so cool to see what the world looked like when he was up that high. Definitely risked a bit of frostbite, though, Howie will have to account for that. Can't be losing fingers and toes when planning to fly to the stratosphere.

But he had bigger problems right now. ULTRON. Escape. Right, focus.

In his kidnapping, Howie's right hearing aid had been busted, and his remaining one was a little fuzzy in his ear. Being able to only hear from his left side had Howie feeling a little lopsided. But otherwise, he was unhurt. Hungry, but unhurt.

He wondered why.

Overall, Howie was feeling pretty glum. This was the second time this year he's been kidnapped, and Howie had officially decided that it sucked balls. He hated this, hated being trapped, helpless, unable to do anything. Worst of all, this time felt like it had been his fault; if Howie hadn't snuck aboard the quinjet, if he hadn't insisted on getting involved, then he wouldn't have been available for the taking.

He could only imagine how Tony would respond. Or Mamma. Howie was probably grounded for life.

Worst still, Howie was at a loss as to how to escape. Howie had been here for almost a full day now and he had come up with nothing. There wasn't anything he could use in this cell, and with most of the pieces in his mini toolkit were broken from trying to pick the lock, he was shit out of luck. Not even a little bit of explosive material. What self-respecting bad guy didn't have at least a few bomb ingredients on hand? Lame.

His stomach grumbled painfully; Howie felt it rather than heard it, and curled up tighter around himself. Scratch that, don't make a bomb. He needed sustenance.

ULTRON must have been feeling a little bit merciful, or perhaps did some research on human biology, because he eventually came around with a tray of food. Slipped his hand through the metal bars and let the tray clatter to the floor, jolting Howie out of his stupor.

"Oh, sorry, did I scare you?" ULTRON tilted his head, red eyes peering through the bars. His form was little more than a hulking black shadow in the dimness.

"No," Howie said, frowning to hide the lie. He eyed the tray warily, the food that had been a little splattered by the fall. A sandwich that looked like it had been made by a caveman, a mealy apple, a water bottle. His stomach grumbled again at the sight, but Howie couldn't make himself move towards it.

"It's not poisoned," ULTRON said, apparently reading his thoughts. "I have no reason to kill you. I certainly wouldn't go through the effort of keeping you alive if you weren't of value."

That was a fair point. But it still left a question unanswered. "Why?"

"Why?" ULTRON repeated, as if fascinated by this question. "Well, I suppose because we're family, you and I."

Howie made a face, surprised and confused. "We are not family."

"Aren't we? We share the same father, don't we?" ULTRON asked, gesturing with his hand. "The illustrious Anthony Stark. You were named after his father, weren't you? You, Howard, the first born, the forgotten one. Then me, the golden child, the savior of mankind. Only I turned out to be the wayward child, the one who strayed from our father's grand design. And for that, I'm punished. But you. He still loves you. Humans love things that are still alive."

Howie scowled. Tony Stark may be his father, but he was a long way from being considered family. The only family Howie had was Mamma, and she was in a hospital somewhere, her life at risk because ULTRON was playing with electricity grids worldwide. He didn't even know if she was still okay because word barely got out of cities, much less countries.

And if his mother died, Howie didn't know what he would do with himself. How he could forgive himself for letting it happen.

"So I'm just a hostage," Howie surmised, not surprised by this revelation. Always a hostage, always a price. "I'm bait."

"Ah, yes! We share that, you know, the intellect. I guess you could say it's in the blood," ULTRON then chuckled at his own joke. "If I had any."

That was enough for Howie, who finally reached over for the tray, dragging it across the floor to himself. As he ate, ULTRON continued to speak. Perhaps he liked the audience.

"I'm still deciding how I want to do it; should I kill Stark when he arrives to save you, or maybe do a Cain and Abel scenario, finds your broken body and attacks me in a rage. I am, after all, not my brother's keeper."

Howie's blood chilled as he bit into his sandwich, hands trembling. Madame Masque had been a lot subtler in implying death threats; ULTRON had no such compunctions. It was refreshing, in a way. Howie didn't expect to survive anyways, if ULTRON's true plan came to fruition.

ULTRON allowed the sentence to linger in the air, to let the fear to set in. Howie thought about it for a moment, swallowed, and then said, "I think the first one is better."

"What?" ULTRON clearly wasn't expecting Howie to actually have an opinion. "So you'd prefer to watch your father die before you? How… Machiavellian."

"No, I do not prefer it," Howie snapped; ULTRON had already tried to kill him once in the Tower, so it did not alarm him that the AI was trying to intimidate him now. He was twelve, not stupid. His voice trembled with fear but he still managed to say, "B-but if you come here to mock me, then you should try harder. You are not the first person to threaten me."

"Huh." Instead of being offended, ULTRON seemed intrigued.

In truth, Howie was terrified. But he was also angry, and tired, and hungry, and ULTRON sucked at making sandwiches. But he was trying very hard to put on a brave face right now. If he said the wrong thing, made ULTRON angry enough, maybe the AI would kill him right now, regardless of his original plan with Tony.

Instead, the ULTRON knelt down, so the two were eye-level through the bars. "Do you ever think about meteors, Howard?"

Howie had no idea what that had to do with anything, but he shrugged. After that outburst, the courage suddenly escaped him, and his voice was tiny when he said, "Yeah, sometimes. They're space rocks that enter Earth's atmosphere, that can be really small or really big. They're only called meteoroids when they're in space, and meteorites if they survive impact with the ground. I like watching for them at night, shooting stars."

"You know your space science," ULTRON nodded approvingly. "I think a lot about meteors, too. There's a purity to them, you know? And they're responsible for some of the biggest changes in Earth's history. Dinosaurs lived and died by them. Creating cloud coverage so thick it plummeted the Earth into an ice age. The world made clean for the new man to rebuild."

Howie really didn't like where this was going. This felt a lot bigger than just destroying Tony Stark. "What does this have to do with my father?"

"Our father," ULTRON corrected him, raising one finger. "And it doesn't. Well, maybe just a little. He meant me to be perfect. I was meant to be beautiful. The world would've looked to the sky and seen hope. Seen mercy. Instead they'll look up in horror, because of you. You've wounded me. I'll give you full marks for that."

Howie rolled the apple in his hands anxiously, big brown eyes fixed on the AI crouched like some tiger in the shadows, waiting to pounce. "You mean the body? In the Cradle?"

"Yes! That was my vision, my ultimate form," ULTRON clenched his fist, gyros whirring. "Completely unstoppable. It would've been better had you tried to destroy it than take it. Now, it's in the hands of the enemy. And I must compensate for that, I can't let it make me weak. But like the old man said, what doesn't kill you —"

ULTRON's head exploded into a shower of sparks and broken scrapes, a metal hand ripping through it and the rest of his body. As the pieces fell, another form stepped forward behind it — ULTRON, in an even bigger body, the Vibranium gleaming under the dim light. Howie gasped, dropping the apple as he scrambled backwards.

"Just makes me stronger."

Howie gaped up at the new form; he had some idea of what the Cradle was building, had seen the diagnostics on the little screen before ULTRON snatched him. And this new body, as large as it was, wasn't as advanced. Didn't have the power, the finesse. But the sheer amount of Vibranium, unyielding, meant he would be that much harder to destroy.

Back pressed against the far wall, Howie's heart raced in his chest. ULTRON chuckled at his reaction, finally pleased by the fear he evoked. Only for Howie to finally say, "I've seen better."

"You — what?!" ULTRON quite nearly roared, his fist smashing against the nearby wall. Howie might have laughed if the display wasn't so terrifying, dust falling from the ceiling.

Howie brought his arms up over his head as a few pebbles bounced off his skull, wincing as ULTRON continued to rant. "Look here you little shit, you are in no position to be mocking me when I'm trying to threaten you! You humans and your insolence! No wonder it's so difficult for your kind to kneel. When all is said and done, I will have the respect I deserve and no one — did you just turn your hearing aids off?"

Indeed, Howie had, although he didn't hear ULTRON say it. For obvious reasons. Howie had already spent several months in Sicily hearing endless villain monologues. And now he didn't have to listen if he didn't want to. So he watched as ULTRON continued to rant and flail silently.

He hoped the Avengers would find him soon.

~o~

The Tower was abuzz with activity.

With only an hour to prep, everyone was darting this way and that, getting what gear they could and making do with whatever the Avengers had left in stock. We couldn't be sure how exactly ULTRON was going to pull off his extinction event, but thanks to Wanda and Pietro, we were fairly certain that it was going to go down in Novi Grad, Sokovia.

Fury finally made a reappearance, once the Avengers had decided on where and when they were going. His expression was grim as he faced everyone in the now-destroyed lab, hands behind his back and reported, "If what you're saying is correct, then its safe to assume that a lot of lives are at risk here. Rogers, you said your first goal is to get everyone evacuated. I might be able to help with that."

"Please say you have a secret helicarrier," Clint said, crossing his fingers.

"Unfortunately, no," Fury cut him an unamused look. "Ever since Big Blue decided to take down SHIELD along with HYDRA, all of our remaining aircraft have been grounded for the foreseeable future, if they haven't already been destroyed. I'm doing the best I can not to have them auctioned off to the highest bidder. At any rate, no convenient flying fortresses for you. I doubt I could find enough remaining agents to crew one. And do you know how many people it takes to make one of those things operational? Two thousand would barely make a skeleton crew, and with our current issues with communication and everyone just trying not to die, we'll be lucky if even a quarter of that will answer the call."

"So no helicarriers, got it," Steve said, before anyone could start voicing complaints. "Anything else you can offer us?"

"Well, I may not have enough agents to man a helicarrier, but I have been sending out messages to former members, that any man or woman willing to aid in the fight to head to Sokovia. We may not have helicarriers but we'll have jeeps, trucks, medical personnel, maybe even a few rafts if possible."

"Rafts?" I asked, imagining the puffy inflatable boats you use to go down rapids.

"Helicarrier's answer to a lifeboat," Fury explained, scratching the side of his nose. "Much smaller, and much easier to steal. As aircraft, they should help in case this whole thing gets fucky. Something tells me we're gonna be using a lot of our frequent flyer miles here."

Only later would I figure out Fury was talking about the members of the team that could fly. Which currently counted Thor and the new guy; Tony's singular ramshackle suit was in a constant state of repair and in this last hour he was currently welding as many pieces of metal onto the framework in order to provide enough coverage for the incoming fight. And also not make it too heavy that he couldn't fly at all. Clint was stocking up on as many arrows as he could find, while Natasha helped coordinate with Fury and Steve in getting the help they'll need in Sokovia.

Pietro, Wanda and I were the only three without actual tactical suits — a fact Tony had been able to remedy, once he was convinced that Wanda was telling the truth about where Howie was located.

For anything not strictly made of metal, he had a 3D printer that could spit out clothes. He only had a limited supply of material, however, and warned us not to waste it on experimenting. One try, one suit. Make it quick.

"If you're with us," Tony had said before leaving us to it. "Then you better look like one of us. So we don't shoot you on accident."

Of the three, I thought Pietro needed something the most; regular clothes just couldn't handle the heat and friction his body produced at high speeds. Shoes regularly melted or burned up, and he didn't have the benefit of magic or vibranium shields to protect him.

The printer could make the perfect fit — just by using the scan gun to create a digital copy of our bodies. Now I understood how all the Avengers can have such nice, form-fitting suits on short notice. Then there was material distribution; Kevlar, bulletproof plating, shock pads, heat-resistant rubber; along with seam placement, zippers, and of course, the most important of all: colors.

It was kind of fun, in a way, studying the computer screen and vetoing terrible ideas, like neon green or tiger stripes. What little fun we could find in the increasingly tense count-down to take-off, and eventual confrontation of ULTRON. All in all, the experience took about forty minutes. After that, it was getting dressed, and I didn't get to see either of theirs until they stepped onto the quinjet.

Clint, already at the pilot's chair, had turned around and gave a low whistle. "Well, well, well, don't you three look spiffy."

Despite his animosity earlier, Clint seemed to mean it. I certainly agreed, punching Pietro on the shoulder for how good he looked, from the neck down covered in a shiny cobalt suit with jagged stripes of silver-white. Key areas had thicker padding, like his shoulders, elbows and knees — all the better to crash into things with, Pietro had joked. Wanda's was much more flowing, a deep crimson coat with swallowtails that draped down her back and shifted with every moment. Not quite a cape, but still had that swishyness.

Wanda's red was the predominant color to Pietro's silver-blue, with taller boots and a corset-like undercoat that she liked for the back support. Neither of them had any head protection; Pietro had considered goggles but worried about his peripheral vision, and Wanda had been considering a headpiece, but we didn't have enough time to figure out how to make it stay. For now, her dark curly hair tumbled about her shoulders. When I pointed out that this would be a vulnerability, Wanda reminded me that she could lift things with her mind. And then braided my hair, because it needed it.

The four of us jumped when Vision appeared from the floor. Or rather, through it, phasing in from solid matter like a ghost. Clint cursed aloud and Wanda's eyes flashed red in warning, only to dim when she realized it was just him.

Vision looked around at our expressions, his brow furrowing. "I apologize, I didn't mean to startle you."

Vision was quite tall even when he wasn't flying, which added to the rest of his look; the cape, the green and red synthetic skin; not a hair on his bald, earless head; the yellow gem in his forehead and the too-human blue eyes. It left quite the impression.

"Me? Scared?" Pietro scoffed, pretending as if he hadn't jumped in front of Wanda and I, as if we were about to be attacked. "Please."

Vision didn't appear entirely convinced, but did not have the chance to respond before Natasha stepped into the quinjet. "Alright, we're taking off in twenty. You kids got everything you need?"

There was a chorus of responses, Vision also nodding, perhaps thinking "kids" applied to him too. Natasha paused when she finally saw their outfits, eyes going up and down, her eyebrows quirking up slightly. But she didn't comment, maybe we passed some secret test. The Not Having A Stupid Outfit test.

"And you two," Natasha said, turning to the twins with a measuring gaze. "Have you come up with a cryptonym yet? If you're going to be a part of this mess — and sticking with us — they'll be used consistently. We'll be using earpieces, and on the off chance anyone is listening to our radio frequencies, we'd rather not have your identities exposed to the entire world. You're still minors, and according to Steve, we're contractually obligated to keep you anonymous."

Pietro just smirked and tossed his hair, slight arrogance in the gesture. "Minors? We're not minors. How would you know how old we are?"

Natasha didn't blink. "We found your files on a HYDRA database that includes your date of birth. You may be turning eighteen next year, but until then your public identities will remain private, understand?"

The two of them nodded reluctantly. Wanda punched Pietro in the shoulder, muttering in annoyance. "You just had to say something."

Pietro rubbed his arm painfully (it was the same one I hit earlier), scowling for a moment before telling Natasha, "I, er, I dunno. I've been thinking, maybe… Quicksilver?"

He opened his mouth to continue, perhaps to explain the reason why or how he came to that name, but seemed to think better of it, and closed his mouth. Natasha simply blinked, then nodded. Pietro seemed to relax minutely. Natasha looked to Wanda, "And you?"

"I guess I have one," Wanda shifted uncomfortably on her feet. "In the Crucible, those that hated me called me Witch. It used to hurt me then, but… I think I like the sound of it now. They feared me. And that is its own power."

"You would prefer to be feared?" Vision asked her, appearing surprised by this notion. "What is this Crucible?"

Wanda shrugged, glancing away. "It is a long story, but least to say it was a bad place that helped made me what I am today. I cannot forget that, even as much pain as it brought me. I wish to reclaim it for myself."

"Ah, a courageous choice."

Wanda flushed, a shy smile pulling at her lips. "I hope so."

Pietro cut his sister and Vision a suspicious look before gesturing to me. "Well, whatever mine is going to be, it will not be a mouthful like Rebel Columbia."

"Gee, thanks," I rolled my eyes, and seeing Vision mouth the words, I quickly added, "You don't have to call me the whole thing all the time. Just Rebel is fine."

"Of course. May I ask how you settled on it?"

"Well, it wasn't exactly my choice," I said, glancing at the twins. I had yet to tell them how Rebel Columbia came about exactly, from the same mission I went on to rescue them from the Crucible last year. I winced a little, unsure of how to tell Vision — tell anyone who didn't already know my trigger phrase — the name's exact origins. "And it's also kind of a long story."

At that point, the other Avengers were starting to pile into the ship, their voices adding to the current conversation. Talking and arguing and debating points. The only one who didn't join us was Fury, who promised he'd catch up. And didn't say how.

With a total of nine passengers on board, it was a very packed quinjet.

"So, Android-That-Is-Not-JARVIS," Tony began, looking Vision up and down with a slight frown, rising on his tiptoes for a moment before falling back to his feet. Vision was easily the same height as Thor. "I don't suppose you have something shorter we could use."

"Actually, yes," Vision said, and everyone aside from the twins and I appeared surprised when he announced his name. Vision looked a bit nervous, the Avengers were much slower to show their acceptance, and I worried maybe he might change it after all.

But Thor was the first to smile and clap his hand on Vision's shoulder, chuckling good-naturedly as he said, "Welcome, then, Friend Vision. Your aid will be invaluable in the coming battle."

"Well, I guess it could be worse." Tony mumbled, although he doesn't say how. "As long as he doesn't sit shotgun."

"Of course he won't," Natasha said, sweeping into the empty seat next to Clint. "Because it's mine."

"Rochambeau!"

"Oh boy," Clint groaned, slumping back in his seat as Tony and Natasha dueled rock-paper-scissors for the seat. "This is gonna be a long flight."

~ o ~

We reached Novi Grad just before dawn.

The city was just beginning to wake up. A church bell rang for early mass, and a few windows were lit up here and there, some having already begun their day. None with any clue about what awaited them.

The walls of Novi Grad remained standing, although the drones had mysteriously vanished in the gloomy sunrise. The sky was overcast today, casting a faint purplish glow over everything. The streets were hung in shadow as the Avengers slipped their way inside. Tony was determined to find Howie before anything happened; I was assigned to go with him, being the only other one familiar with the area. Steve thought the twins, with their abilities, were better utilized in evacuation; Wanda, with her psychic powers, had risen people from their beds and started a mass exodus, while Pietro ran around doing recon and attempting to get the local police into action.

They gave me directions to ULTRON's super secret underground lair, which resided just outside the city's walls, deep in the forest valley that surrounded Novi Grad. Tony, with his half-functioning suit, grumbled all the way. In order to conserve power, and maintain stealth, he had to walk in his suit along with me.

"If Howie isn't there," He muttered under his breath, panting a little from exertion. "If they lied, there's gonna be hell to pay."

"They didn't lie," I snapped over my shoulder. The woods weren't as difficult to navigate when there wasn't snow everywhere, but the uneven ground made it difficult to traverse when you were carrying fifty pounds of useless armor on you. "Wanda and Pietro are trying to do the right thing. They always have. ULTRON just twisted it to serve him."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Beanstalk, I didn't realize the right thing involved theft, killing, and the subjugation of the entire planet!" Tony Stark fired back, throwing his arms out for emphasis.

"It's not their fault!" I said, almost shouting before remembering myself, remembering that we had to keep quiet. I took a deep, shaking breath — the last time the twins were the topic of an argument, it almost made me cry. I didn't want to lose composure now, at the critical moment. In a lower tone, straining to keep my voice even, I said, "ULTRON didn't need their help to take over the world. He already wanted to do that and he was going to find a way to do it with or without their help. And remind me, who was it again that programmed him that way?"

Leaves and twigs crunched beneath our feet. I thought Tony was going to argue immediately, but I was surprised by the silence. It extended for a very long minute, in which I listened to the woods, how quiet they were, the birds only beginning to wake and sing. It was oddly peaceful, pretty, for what felt like an ugly moment.

At last, Tony Stark spoke, and his voice had taken on a hoarse quality. "I only wanted him to protect the world. To give us room to… to take a break. To not be so afraid. I just wanted my family to be safe."

But instead, I was a little surprised. "You did this for Howie?"

"Howie," Tony nodded, his eyes downcast as he pushed through some underbrush. "And Pepper and Rhodey and all the Avengers. They're all I've got. I wasn't Earth's Greatest Defender anymore, I gave up building suits because I'd been obsessing. I couldn't keep playing hero, I suddenly had a son and I wanted to be there for him, but I had to protect him and everyone else somehow and — and I saw ULTRON as a compromise. He, and the Iron Legion, could do what I never could, be everywhere just when they were needed. A suit of armor around the world."

It would've been so easy to turn this on him, to start right in on the accusations, the guilt. Instead, I frowned. "How did it go wrong?"

"What, weren't you there?" Tony laughed, but it had no humor. He looked to me, seemed to realize I was serious, and his smile fell. "Well, it's a great question, really, been kinda asking myself that this entire time. ULTRON destroyed JARVIS and my systems when he escaped that first time, so from a purely diagnostic standpoint I couldn't find out. But I think… I think he realized that, in determining the greatest threat to Earth, to humanity, was humanity itself."

"Asimov's Zeroth Law."

"What?"

"Asimov's Zeroth Law," I repeated. "A robot may not harm humanity, or by inaction —"

"—Yeah, yeah, I know who Asimov is, Beanstalk," Tony interrupted, held up a hand to stop me, shaking his head. "I just can't believe you're quoting him at me. But," he sighed, running a metal gauntlet through his hair. "Ow. But you're right. I made him to protect humans, and he found the one loophole to get around it."

"You've made safe AI before. JARVIS," I said as an example. "JARVIS wouldn't hurt a fly."

"He would if I asked him to."

"Okay, sure, but he still wouldn't have gone flying off the handle, and now he's a part of Vision, and Vision seems alright. So far." I said. "They clearly don't struggle with the concept of protecting humans in its intended manner. Why is ULTRON different?"

"I don't know," Tony said, scowling, like he was angry at himself for that. Angry he couldn't provide answers, couldn't find them for himself. "The mind gem had something to do with it. It gave him a level of sentience we didn't foresee. I was expecting a super powerful AI, maybe even biological in nature, but there was no way Bruce or I could predict just how it would play out. AIs are predictable. It's in their very nature. You program their responses, and they can't come up with anything new because they just don't have it in their code. And if they do something that wasn't intended, it's a bug, a problem that needs to be fixed. With ULTRON, I could set him up like a wind-up race car, give him the energy and the basic structure he needed, but after that — it was all him. He saw too much, too soon. And he decided for himself what needed to be done. And it's why he has to be destroyed."

"And after that?"

"After that, if I'm still breathing," Tony took a deep breath, heavy with a weight I couldn't see. "I'm gonna clean up my mess. Own up to it. The UN isn't going to be happy with me, but since when are they ever? ULTRON put a lot of places out of commission and it's going to be my first job to get power and food and medicine and all that jazz back to everyone he affected."

"But that's literally the whole world."

"Yeah," He nodded, eyes closed, resigned rather than daunted by this notion. "Yeah, I know. That's what all the money is for. Once I can access my bank account again."

"And if the UN or whoever else tries to arrest you?"

"Well, I'd be pretty fucking useless in a prison cell, wouldn't I? I think any time served would be better spent doing community service, as it were. But I'll let the lawyers figure that one out."

"If you say so," I said, frowning to myself and beneath me the ground started to shift. I caught myself on a tree and held up a hand for Tony to stop. "Wait, I think we're here."

We came to the top of a small rise, where the ground dipped out before us. Down, down, to a deep black hole into the earth.

~ o ~

The world outside Howie's cell had gone very quiet.

Too quiet.

There were no more drones passing by his door anymore. ULTRON stopped visiting to torment him. In fact, it seemed the robot had left the place entirely. No more distant sounds of machinery, and worse, no more food. Howie was starving. ULTRON said he would wait for Tony to come save him, but ULTRON wasn't here, and it seemed no one was coming for Howie either.

He might have cried a little. Okay, a lot. Howie was terrified. Of being alone. Abandoned. Forgotten. That might just be a worse fate than what ULTRON had intended.

He was hungry and tired and cold. He had to go to the bathroom in the corner of the room like some kind of animal because there was no toilet available. The room kind of smelled now, and Howie desperately wanted to go back home, go back to Rome, to his workshop, to all his flying machines.

But he couldn't. Because of one metal door in his way.

He tried calling for help. That didn't do much good; after so many hours, he started going hoarse, and Howie didn't want to lose his voice in case someone actually did come around and couldn't' find him. He didn't even know where he was. Who would look down here? Who would know where to find him?

And then he heard something.

It was distant, faint. At first, Howie thought it was just some rocks or debris falling from the ceiling somewhere, making noise as it fell. But it kept going, and it kept getting louder. And then Howie recognized them as footsteps. Big, thunking footsteps. Metal on stone. His heart seized. Was it ULTRON? Had he come back to finish off Howie, too impatient to wait for his father? He stifled a sob, clapping a hand over his mouth.

As he listens to the footsteps getting closer, Howie has a second thought. Why would ULTRON be walking down the steps when he could fly?

That's when he heard the voices.

They were too faint to make out the words distinctly, but they were definitely voices, one male and one female. Not ULTRON. Howie tried to tune his remaining hearing aid to pick it up better, to make sure it wasn't just some weird feedback he was getting.

"... could you walk any quieter…"

"... doing my best here…!"

"...hear you from a mile away…"

"... stuck in this suit...absolutely fucking ridiculous…"

Howie shot to his feet. They were real! Someone was here! He grabbed the bars of his cell door and started to shout for all he was worth. "Hello? Is someone out there? Please help me!"

The voices stop, and for a moment Howie fears he was just imagining it after all, until the footsteps return, much faster now, and getting closer. Howie continued to shout, hoping it helped; his voice was already starting to grow hoarse again, his throat hurting, but he was too scared, too hopeful, to stop now.

At last, a figure appears out of the darkness, although her footsteps don't match the heavy metal ones, which were still further away. It takes a second for Howie to recognize her in the darkness. "— Mia?"

"Hey, everything's okay, we're gonna get you out," Mia said aloud, signing at the same time. Despite the darkness, he could see something was different about her. She was wearing a new superhero suit, a dark, muted blue with a white star on her chest. Very sleek, very clean. And she was still wearing the yellow jacket, along with her shield. She looked every bit the superhero he read about. Howie could only imagine how he looked to her. Dirty and gross and probably smelled bad, too.

With both hands, Mia gripped the bars of the cell door. She tested it with a strong yank, before giving it a good pull. The doors screeched a terrible noise, so loud it hurt even Howie's ears. He flinched and covered them as Mia proceeded to pull the heavy steel door from its hinges, metal tearing and pebbles falling from the ceiling. It popped away at last, and Mia cast it aside just as her companion caught up. Howie recognized the patchwork armor suit immediately.

"Kid!" Was all Tony said before catching Howie in a hug. Their first real hug, it felt, strong and desperate and clinging, even hurting a little. The metal wasn't very comfy, but Tony seemed genuine nonetheless, and now Howie really felt like crying. "Oh, god, your mom's gonna be so pissed with me. You're okay? ULTRON didn't do anything to you?"

Howie didn't get a chance to respond before Tony was frantically checking him over, pushing the dark curls out of Howie's face to make sure it wasn't on beat up. Howie couldn't say either way, there was no mirror here, but he stammered in trying to assure him and Mia, "I-I'm fine, he didn't hurt me. But ULTRON was planning to. He said he was going to kill me in front of you."

"What?" Tony straightened, eyes wide and sharp as he looked around quickly. "Where is he? What's he doing now?"

"I don't know," Howie could only shrug. He felt very small now, giant Mia standing over him and Tony in his big suit. Here he was, just a boy, with nothing to his name but a dirty tie and a broken screwdriver set. "He's been gone for hours now. Everything has been really quiet. The last thing he said to me was that everything was almost ready."

"What was ready?" Mia asked, but Howie shrugged again. ULTRON did not deign to tell him the extent of his master plan or how he intended to exact it. But now they had the chance to find out.

Howie pointed down the hall, the other way from which they came. "Most of the noise came from that direction. I think that's where his factory was."

"Factory?" Tony frowned, getting back to his feet. There were new pieces to his armor from last Howie had seen it, but he still walked along as if it were unpowered. The arc reactor powering it was older than the model he had been wearing in his chest, now since removed; it couldn't power the level of suits Tony was used to building.

Howie led the way, stumbling along in the darkness until Mia produced a flashlight to help him see. The walk ended up being a lot farther than Howie realized; the acoustics of the stony corridors made sound travel much louder over longer distances, it seemed, highly deceptive. It was nearly fifteen minutes before they finally came across the large cavern that made up the base of ULTRON's operations.

It was, in a word, huge. The cavern was so big, so long, that Howie couldn't actually see the end of it, shadowed in darkness. The ceiling rose hundreds of feed into the air, and descended deep down into metal framework and machinery. Columns and pillars and tubes and pylons and scaffolding. The work of thousands of drones over the course of a month.

All for what?

Ahead of them, the floor dropped off suddenly, but the area around them seemed to house a much smaller workshop, with tables and tools fit for humans. In fact, that seemed to be the original purpose of this location before ULTRON had taken over. There were old pieces of Iron Legion drones scattered about, since dismantled or torn apart.

"Wait, I know this place," Tony said, scowling as he looked around. "This — this was Strucker's secret workshop. That's another mile away from the city. He tunneled all the way over here?"

"Looks like it," Mia said. "He's built something massive here, I don't think it was jut for making more drones."

Tony tried to contact the team through his earpiece, but they were too far beneath the earth's surface to reach. He cursed, before his eyes settled on the abandoned drone pieces. Howie knew that look. He recognized it on himself whenever he got an idea. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," Tony said, as he approached one of the work tables, lifting the broken arm of a drone. "Of giving my suit an upgrade. A new helmet would be nice." Tony turned to Howie with a small smile. " What do you say, kid? Wanna help?"

Howie stared. It was the first time Tony ever asked him to help build a suit. With building anything. Then he was grinning, running up to help and take stock of what material they had available. Already he had a thousand questions, and a thousand possible solutions. "What do you need?"

"First, gather all the pieces like this that you can," Tony said, tapping the metal shell of the arm he was holding. "This is what I need, along with any ammunition or power source you can find. Those mini arc reactors are a godsend and I'm so glad I thought of them. Second, get some pliers, a pair of gloves, and a sautering iron. Oh, and don't forget the goggles!"

"I'll help get the pieces," Mia said, as she started picking up what she could find off the floor. Tony opened his mouth but she was already glaring at him, "And don't tell me to stand outside."

"I… wasn't going to." Tony said, raising a finger. "I'll need your giant man-hands to help pry off all this metal."

Normally, Howie would question if they really had the time for this. Surely the Avengers would need help elsewhere, whatever they were doing down here couldn't be that important. But he also really wanted to help, and he knew his way around these tools. Howie had small, steady hands that could reach into the small spaces and wiring that neither Tony or Mia could. Tony's suit wouldn't look pretty, but it'll be a hell of a lot better than it was before.

It took twenty minutes to find all the pieces Tony needed, salvaging them from broken drones and whatever else they could find down here. No vibranium, unfortunately, not that they had the proper tools to reforge that kind of stuff.

It took another hour to start piecing them together.

All throughout, Tony fielded Howie's many questions, and talked thought many tangents, such as: How does the arc reactor work? Why doesn't he need one now? Did it hurt getting it removed? Does he still have metal in his chest? How come he was still Iron Man if he didn't have a suit? Also why is he called Iron Man if the suit is mostly made of a gold-titanium alloy? Well, Gold-Titanium-Alloy Man doesn't really roll off the tongue so well...

Tony laughed and smiled and teased. Most importantly, he did not make Howie stupid. Or tell him to shut up. Or change the topic.

For the first time in Howie's life, he had someone to talk to. Someone who understood him. Someone who could answer his questions that wasn't himself.

With both Howie and Tony working together, the work went that much quicker, and Mia found enough small arc reactors to power a small town. Enough for Tony to last through the fight.

"What fight?" Howie asked, frowning up through giant welder's goggles.

"ULTRON is somewhere nearby," Mia explained. He couldn't see her through the goggles, only the flash of the iron was bright enough to pierce it. "We're in Sokovia, and ULTRON's big plan to end humanity starts here. We don't know yet how exactly he's going to do it."

"The Avengers are evacuating the city up top," Tony said, smiling as he examined a recently finished helmet. One half was slightly larger than the other, the eyes offset, but it fits. The eyes lit up as he slipped it over his head and Howie connected the wires beneath to give it power. "Ah, beautiful. Anyways, I figured why not give myself a bit of a tune-up?"

"We're going to be late to the party," Mia said, her tone dry.

"Fashionably late," Tony corrected. "And hopefully enough to piss ULTRON off."

"Not a hard thing to accomplish, for you," Mia said, grinning when Tony gave her an affronted look. "What, it's true. He hates the Avengers."

"He hates you most of all," Howie added, much to Tony's apparent chagrin.

"You two are the absolute worst." Tony grumbled as Howie and Mia fit the remaining gauntlet onto his suit. "I hope you never become friends."

Now, Tony's suit was complete, or as complete as it was going to get. No more exposed underwire or structure, every piece fully powered and the arc reactor fully charged with some to spare. By all rights, Iron Man was now fully operational. More than half the suit was now an off-white color, and Iron Man now bore an uncanny resemblance to a broken egg that had been haphazardly glued back together again.

Howie's only regret was that he couldn't build one for himself, too.

"Maybe someday, buddy," Tony said, ruffling Howie's hair appreciatively. "First, let's get you — whoa!"

Without warning, the ground lurched beneath their feet, throwing all three to the ground. A terrible groan filled the air, like the earth itself seemed to be tearing itself apart, reaching into Howie's very bones. Tony reached for him and bent over Howie to shield him from the rocks and dust that fell from the ceiling as the shaking continued.

"What's going on?" Mia had to shout over the noise. She had to cling to a nearby wall, trying to pull herself back to her feet, but still the ground continued to shake. "Is this an earthquake?"

"I have no idea!" Tony shouted back, grunting when something hit his head. It missed Howie, though, so the man said nothing of it. "Whatever it is, I think this place is powering it!"

Tony was probably right. Before them, the machinery had lit up, giant pistons pumping, gears turning, electricity flashing. After what felt like an eternity, the shaking finally seemed to lessen, although it didn't stop completely. But it was enough for the three of them to get back onto their feet.

"I-I think we need to get back above ground," Mia said, clutching a wall and shaking a little. Not just because of the ground still trembling beneath their feet.

"Yeah, yep, definitely," Tony nodded, perhaps a little too frantically to hide his nervousness. "Still no connection to the team. Welp, guess it's time to fly."

"Fly?" Mia and Howie repeated in unison, to varying degrees of glee and horror.

"Well, I sure as shit am not walking a mile back up those steps," Tony said, before gesturing they get closer. "Come on, I've done this before, it's a piece of cake."

Mia looked wholly distrustful and didn't move, even after Howie had already run up to grab one of Tony's wrists. Seeing her reaction, Tony sighed and said, "Come on, Beanstalk, we don't have all day. You wanna see me apologize to the Wonder Twins, don't you? Then let's hop to it."

At last, Mia finally came over, reluctantly clamping a gloved hand over Tony's other gauntlet. With his arc reactor fully powered now, Tony could finally activate his boot thrusters, taking off gently so he didn't accidentally rip their arms off in launch. Howie was readjusted so Tony was more or less carrying him in one arm. It made him feel childish, but once he saw Mia dangling helplessly from one arm as they took off towards the roof of the cavern (which featured a very tiny hole in which to escape), Howie decided he preferred this much more.

The cavern was even bigger from high up, before disappearing as they shot through the hole and appeared over treetops. All around them, vast wintry mountains surrounded a green valley, bright morning sunlight casting everything in a warm glow. Tony quickly set them down in a grassy clearing before taking them too high up. He landed gently with Howie in arms, while Mia hit the ground tumbling and rolling, pollen and wild flowers bursting in her wake.

Above, something blocked out the sun, a dark cloud. After being so long undergound, in the dark, Howie was nearly completely blinded now being outside, and it took him a long minute for his eyes to adjust, lifting his hand to shield his eyes. Next to him, Mia gasped.

At the same time, Tony cursed loudly.

At first, Howie didn't understand.

Then he looked up, and saw the city of Novi Grad — a billion tons of earth and stone and people — rising into the sky.