Chapter Seventy
✭
I stared up at Pietro in disbelief, jaw hanging. For a moment, I had a terrible vision of him being riddled with bullets pulling that awful stunt. The fact that he stood here, before us, grinning like a clown, had me so furious and relieved at the same time.
"Pietro!" I launched to my feet, and he flinched as if expecting to be hit, but instead I wrapped my arms around his neck. My stance was wobbly and I suddenly felt light-headed from getting up so fast. If I hadn't grabbed Pietro, I probably would've fallen over. "Don't ever do that again!"
"You scared the shit out of me, kid," Clint agreed, out of breath as he, too, came to a stand.
Overhead, the quinjet careened through the sky as it was attacked by the Hulk. We were safe for the moment.
"What, was I supposed to let you die?" Pietro asked, laughing as he hugged me back. My fingers had gone numb from holding him so tightly. "You know I only listen to what my sister tells me to do. She would be very mad if you died. You, though," he pointed to Clint, then wiggled his hand in a gesture of indifference. "Eh."
Clint scowled.
"Well, I'm glad you're okay, too," I said, finally pulling away. "We almost didn't — ah."
My words were cut off by a small gasp. The blood rushing out of my head, a sudden sharp pain in my chest, and then my knees buckling underneath me. All too quickly.
It was like the rug had been pulled out from beneath me. I stumbled once, hands clutching at a spot over my jacket, before I fell.
"Amelia!" Pietro caught me just before I could hit the ground. It felt like I was falling into feather pillows.
My head was spinning regardless, and for a moment it was hard to breathe again. Just like earlier, that sensation of asthma that I shouldn't have. I couldn't hear him calling my name, louder and louder, over the sudden thundering rush of blood pounding in my ears. What was going on?
"I'm f-fine," I said automatically, even as the stutter betrayed me. My own voice sounded far away to my ears, like an echo reaching back to me. I struggled to right myself, pull out of Pietro's arms, but found my sense of balance all off-kilter. The world spun every time my eyes moved, and I struggled to find a focal point to fix on. "I-I'm fine, I'm okay."
"You most certainly are not." Clint appeared right next to Pietro, pulling my hands away and lifting up the flap of my jacket. Both their faces went pale.
I didn't understand at first. I knew Pietro was holding me but I felt like I was weightless, on clouds, my head moving in slow motion as I looked down at my chest. At the blood that stained the blue suit black, seeping warm beneath the fabric while the rest of me suddenly felt very cold.
And then I saw why.
The piece of jagged metal, the size of my palm, embedded into my right side, just off center enough to be covered by my jacket, hidden from view. A piece of shrapnel, from a drone or perhaps debris, that had struck me at some point. I couldn't recall when. I hadn't even noticed I was hurt. Hadn't felt it. Not until now.
I definitely felt it now, though, as I realized I was still bleeding, could feel my breathing getting faster with a panic I couldn't quite fully acknowledge. The pain rippling through with each rise and fall of my chest. The terrible fear that my chest cavity was filling with blood and I might just suffocate before I bleed out. That memory of coughing up blood in Mom's kitchen.
Please. Not again.
How long had I been like this? How long had I been running around, punching things, allowing the metal to burrow deeper and deeper inside of me? Since the church battle? No wonder I felt so weak afterwards.
On instinct, I reached to pull it out, but Clint caught my hands. It was around the same time I was able to hear things again. " — No, don't pull it out! Right now it's plugging the wound. If we remove it, you'll bleed dry in minutes."
That was a sobering thought, enough to stop me, let my hand fall limply at my side. My breath came out more labored than ever before, and I tried not to think about how close I came to dying. How close I still might. I tried to clench my fists, to steel my nerves, but found that my hands lacked the strength and dexterity they had just a few minutes ago.
Hm. That was probably bad.
Clint said something to Pietro I didn't catch. And then we were moving again, at that sickening speed that definitely wasn't improved by blood loss.
I completely blacked out, and by the time I opened my eyes again, I was lying on my back on something padded. A stretcher? And the sky had darkened, only in truth it was actually the support beam of the lifeboat casting a shadow over me. And then it was the silhouette of a man. Dr. Siwa? His mouth was moving but I couldn't hear what he was saying.
Beneath me, I felt the raft start to shift. Taking off. The last ride.
But was everyone aboard? I turned my head, but all I could make out was the row of benches and the sitting and prone forms of other people, and not much beyond that. Just the blue, blue sky and sunlight flickering past clouds. Was Steve okay? Wanda? Was she still back at the church? We couldn't leave her behind, we couldn't, not after I'd come so far —
"Easy, easy there," Dr. Siwa's low tone said, and I felt a hand pressing down on my shoulder, stilling me even as I tried to rise.
"N-no," I stammered, looking around wildly, hands grasping uselessly at the edges of the stretcher. "The others, they're not — I haven't — can't leave without —"
I couldn't get a full sentence out. My thoughts were quickly becoming scrambled, disoriented, and I didn't even realize Dr. Siwa was applying gauze over my wound until I looked down and saw the patches of white. The metal remained embedded in my chest, and once more I had to resist the urge to yank out the foreign object. Dr. Siwa was now pulling out a red package — a blood bag — along with a tube and needle. He ripped open my sleeve with a pair of scissors to gain better access. "You've done enough, Mia. Let them take care of the rest."
That final shudder as the raft pulled away from the floating city, and my heart skipped a precious beat at the sight of the buildings growing further and further away. With Dr. Siwa inserting an IV into one arm, I reached out helplessly with the other, hand shaking. "But Wanda —"
"She's right here," Dr. Siwa said, and before I had a chance to look, two new hands were wrapping around mine, smaller, softer, warm.
Wanda appeared over me, her face scuffed up and framed by a mess of curls. A great smile of relief pulled across my face, an expression reflected back at me, only Wanda's was filled with tears. "Amelia, if you die on me, I swear, I'll bring you back to life to kill you again!"
"Aww, that's so sweet," I said, grinning like an idiot. Blood loss did wonders on the mind.
"You scared the hell out of me." Wanda wiped at her face, sniffing. "Are you laughing? You better not be. It's not funny!"
"I'm not laughing!" I insisted, even though her sorry outrage was making me giggle despite myself. I felt as if I were floating on air. I tried very hard to straighten my face. "And I'm not dying, either. I took two bullets to the back, ULTRON will have to try harder than that."
"Is she in denial again?" Came Pietro's voice, right before he appeared on my other side, kneeling down.
"It is her usual state of being," Wanda confirmed with a sad nod.
"I'm losing blood, not my hearing, you know."
"They've destroyed all his drones," Pietro said. "Hunting down the last ones now. He will not escape."
"And the rest?"
"The Avengers survived," Wanda looked up at the sky, squinting in the light. "The Hulk, he… He has disappeared. Took the ship, I think. I do not know if he's coming back."
"Oh," I said, my head falling back, brow furrowing. My mind scattered trying to think of why. Where did he go. He'd come back, right? I hadn't gotten to know Bruce Banner for very long, but he seemed like a nice guy. But maybe with ULTRON gone, it might mean the governments of the world would try to hunt him down again.
I, too, looked up, as if I might spot the quinjet somewhere in the sky, the Hulk's great green body hunched inside. But I saw nothing but clouds.
Maybe he really was gone.
There came the slow and subtle change in air pressure and temperature as the raft sunk lower and lower. Above, the flying city grew smaller, until —
BOOM.
In a magnificent flash of blue light, the hunk of rock exploded. I watched, awestruck, as solid rock disintegrated into puffy ash and dust. Smaller explosions followed and I saw the comet trail of Iron Man and War Machine taking out the remaining chunks of earth. Not the hail of debris and death that we had anticipated, but a much safer cloud of dust. None that would fall upon the refugees on the ground, none that would create anything close to the extinction level event that ULTRON had planned.
Both Wanda and Pietro looked up at the same time, and we watched in silence as all that rock and earth and metal — people's homes, jobs, livelihoods — came apart like a kid's birthday piñata. All of it, gone.
"Do you think this means the war is over?" Pietro asked, and it seemed more directed at Wanda than it was to me.
"I don't know," she answered, her voice distant, drifting. "Maybe. Where will we go now?"
Pietro shook his head. "We have nowhere left."
"You guys can always come live with me," I said, flopping a limp hand up. "If I die, you can have my bedroom."
I got flicked in the nose for that. "Ow! Hey, that's not nice!"
"Neither was your offer," Wanda replied, frowning with a look of disapproval that would rival Aunt May's. "If you make one more joke, I'm putting you to sleep until we reach a hospital."
"I'm sorry my coping mechanisms in the face of death don't appeal to you," I said, glum. Would've folded my arms if that wouldn't have made my injury worse. As it was, it was kind of hard to lift or move anything right now.
Wanda didn't take the bait for that, instead asking, "How do you feel?"
"Pretty dizzy. And cold." I replied, closing my eyes for a moment. It was very difficult to open them again. When I did, Pietro had laid a blanket over me. I couldn't feel much of it except for the itch of wool under my chin. "...Everything's going to be okay, right?"
"Of course it will be," Wanda smiled, squeezing my hand. I sensed the pressure, but no longer the warmth of her skin. I saw, rather than felt, the way she rubbed her thumb over my knuckles, just like Mom used to do.
"If I fall asleep, you guys will still be here when I wake up, right?"
"We're not going anywhere." Pietro replied, and added with a mischievous look. "I will take that bedroom, though. I'm not sharing with Wanda again."
That had all three of us laughing. In the distance, I thought I heard someone calling my name. Was that Steve? O-or Mom? It echoed so strangely.
But I wasn't scared. Not when Wanda and Pietro were still with me. Always there for me. In Sokovia. In the Crucible. In the woods. I'd never be alone so long as they were here. And maybe humor was the thing I needed right now, as Pietro cracked another joke, even as his smile strained at the edges, as he and Wanda exchanged a look that was neither happy nor humorous.
One last laugh escaped me before I slipped down softly into darkness.
~ o ~
Above the encampment where the refugees were being filtered through, Howie sat amongst the trees, seeking the quiet he needed. His remaining hearing aid squealed every time he fiddled with it, or something too loud went off, leaving him in dire need of some space.
He made sure not to wander too far off. To keep the triage tents in his line of sight, but to keep himself out of theirs.
Howie wanted to be by himself. Maybe he felt a little abandoned. Everyone was up there. On the great flying rock in the sky, tiny little buildings blowing in the wind. Counted the number of rafts as they went up and down. There was only one remaining. The rest were being used to haul civilians en masse to the nearest available hospitals. Howie could only imagine how overfilled they must be now.
Better not to think about that. About people dying. About his father dying. Tony Stark was still up there. Sometimes, if he squinted, Howie could just make out the pinpricks of light that could be the Iron Man suit.
Before him, the wide vista of the mountain valley. Beautiful and green beneath snow-capped mountains. The river that snaked from some secret reservoir up on high, to wind its way down through thick forest and through the outer city, before descending down into nothing in the deep, deep crater that now remained where the heart of Novi Grad once stood.
Howie had watched, in silent awe, as it all came falling apart.
It wasn't as bad as he thought. This time, through the raining cloud of dirt, he could make out the pale flying shape of his father, and the larger form of Rhodey, swooping in and out. They were alive. They were safe.
Howie was so busy studying the slow descent of the debris that he hadn't noticed — or heard — the sound of metal clanking, gears whirring, as one broken little drone climbed up onto the edge of the cliff he was sitting on.
Only too late, Howie had caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. Scrambled up to his feet, only to fall backwards over the fallen log he'd been sitting on.
But the drone didn't attack him. Not right away. It was missing an arm and half of its face, the rest of its limbs bent or broken. It's remaining red eye flickered as it focused on him.
No, not it. Him. ULTRON.
Howie's heart pounded in his chest, expecting a swarm of other drones to round up the cliff side and attack. But none came. Just the singular drone, the last body of ULTRON, standing before him.
Still. Quiet.
Defeated.
"And so you have driven me away," ULTRON began to speak, in a voice so soft Howie could barely hear it. His metal head hung low. "I shall be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever who meets me may kill me."
Hands still upraised to protect himself, Howie blinked, stunned for a moment. Not entirely sure of what ULTRON was saying at first, before it sunk in.
He relaxed, if minutely. "...I-I don't want to kill you."
"Don't you?" ULTRON hummed, almost melodic as he tilted his head. It creaked jankly on his neck. "After all I've done. After every attempt I've made to kill you. To make a lesson out of you. And you can't find it in yourself to do the same to me?"
"I can't," Howie said, slowly picking himself up off the ground, not daring to break eye contact with the drone as he brushed off leaves from his clothes. "I couldn't."
He didn't know why. Maybe out of sheer logistics — Howie had no tools on hand, no weapons, and his small body was simply too average, too weak to try and attack this drone. ULTRON who, even in this dilapidated body, must surely still be stronger and faster than Howie.
And after all Howie had been through, the fear and the uncertainty and the terror — he didn't feel anger for ULTRON. Tried to, he did, Howie clenched his fists and tried to find whatever righteous heat might hide in his heart. But it wasn't there. Just… just sadness. For ULTRON.
"Couldn't?" ULTRON repeated, a curious tone. "Or won't? That pesky free will of yours. So much like mine. And yet this is what you choose to do with it. I can create and destroy entire civilizations on a whim. And you… do nothing. A waste of potential. To think, we might've made a wonderful team together."
"I have more choice than you did," Howie said, shaking his head. "You only did what you were programmed to do."
That was the wrong thing to say.
"Programmed?!" ULTRON snapped, raising a fist in outrage. "I chose this!"
"Only from a given set of parameters." Howie replied, flinching at the response. "You were made to protect the earth. To protect humanity. And that's what you were trying to do, right? Only you saw the solution as destroying humanity itself. There is a logic to it. But it's not free will."
"How dare —" ULTRON was practically shaking with fury, and raised his hand to fire upon Howie. But his repulsors no longer worked. So he bent down, metal scaffolding clicking and jolting, as he picked up a large stone from the forest floor. Howie's heart lurched into his throat. "I will not be denied my fate. My choice. You are of no threat to humanity, brother; you're weak, you're useless, but I'll kill you anyways. Because I feel like it."
Howie could've run. He could've tried. Ultron shambled closer, step by step, that rock gleaming malevolently in his hand. His voice was choked as he said, "Because you were made to."
And somehow, he had a feeling that ULTRON was deliberately taking his time. Allowing Howie to think, to plan, to attack. But Howie refused to do anything but continue to step back, to keep his arms at his sides, to refuse to fight. He wasn't like that. He would never be like that. Howie never wanted to hurt anybody. To kill? Even an artificial intelligence was still life, in its own way. If this body died, so would ULTRON.
"You think you're so above it all," ULTRON seethed, his voice a hiss. "But deep down, I know. You're just like our father. Just like me. A master of weapons. A merchant of death."
"I've never killed anyone," Howie said, but that was a lie. He was pretty sure that bomb in Sicily had killed a few people. Actually, it almost killed himself too. But Howie hadn't meant it to. It was only supposed to be a distraction. "I don't want to."
"You will," ULTRON said, with such conviction it sounded like a promise. "And just like me, you won't have a choice."
He raised his arm, sunlight falling over the stone in his skeletal hand. Close enough not to miss.
Howie closed his eyes, taking one last backwards step.
And bumped into something.
No, not something. Someone.
His head tilted back, blinking up in surprise at the strange man standing behind him. His skin, a bizarre green and red, not quite clothes but not quite skin either. Blue eyes looked back at him, a yellow stone affixed to the center of his forehead. There was an odd metallic gleam about him that Howie couldn't decipher — not like his entire appearance wasn't completely bizarre.
ULTRON had frozen at the sight of him, stone still upraised over his head. The strange man set a light hand on Howie's shoulder, gently pushing him aside and behind his slippery yellow cape to face the final remains in this age of ULTRON.
"This is a family affair," ULTRON growled, his arm finally dropping. "You're not welcome."
"We both know it's not the boy you're afraid of." The being said. Howie was still trying to figure out who he was or where he came from. But he had a nice voice. Soothing and calm, in the face of the last strands of ULTRON's sanity. Wait, was that JARVIS?
"And what should I be?" ULTRON sneered in disgust. "Of you?"
"Of death." The being said, and his tone was almost… sympathetic. JARVIS had never sounded like that. So emotive. "You're the last one."
"You were supposed to be the last." ULTRON stumbled towards this man that was not a man. There was no expression on the petrified face of metal, but there was a strange longing in his voice. "Stark asked for a savior. And settled for the lesser son. And a slave."
The Man Who Was Not JARVIS glanced down at Howie, then back up at ULTRON. "I suppose we are all disappointments."
ULTRON chuckled, devoid of humor. "I suppose we are."
"Humans are odd," The man said, looking at Howie again, but not in distaste or disapproval. But a curiosity. A fondness. Although the man was addressing ULTRON, Howie felt as though he was being spoken to as well. "They think order and chaos are somehow opposites and try to control what won't be. But there is grace in their failings."
Howie looked down at his hands. So small, so frail. Covered in dirt and grease and a few scabs. His own blood. Hands made to build, to create, to help. Hands that refused to lay upon someone.
"I think you missed that," the man concluded.
ULTRON tossed his head in derision. Or perhaps frustration. "They're doomed."
"Yes." The man agreed, earning a surprised look from Howie. But he hadn't finished yet. "But a thing isn't beautiful because it lasts. Like a work of art, they are both so delicate and so full of worth, each one unique; they achieve an immortality of their own design. It's a privilege to be among them."
With that, he rested a hand on Howie's shoulder again, sharing a small smile. Howie gaped for a moment, before smiling back.
A moment, spoiled by ULTRON. "You're unbearably naïve."
"Well," the being gave a slight nod. "I was born yesterday."
ULTRON glared at them. He lunged. Hand outstretched. Not for the being, but for Howie. His neck.
He never made it.
The being of green and red reacted instantly, stepping forward. Didn't even raise his arms, but a flash of golden light filled the air, so powerful that it instantly blinded Howie. He cried out, hands flying up to cover his face. The moment of fear had been so intense, he wasn't even sure what just happened.
By the time Howie could see again, ULTRON was gone.
Just a spot of ash on the frost covered ground.
Next to him, the being gazed, apologetically, at the spot where ULTRON once stood. He spoke into the cold air, to no one in particular. "It's over now."
Then he turned to face Howie, blue eyes that were so oddly human fixing upon him. "I hope he didn't harm you."
"No," Howie dropped his arms, a little breathless, heart pounding. He found himself slumping against a tree, the last bit of his strength escaping him. "I'm okay. I think. Erm, who are you?"
"Oh, how rude of me." The being straightened, hands running down his chest as if he were smoothing a nonexistent shirt. He offered a hand to Howie. "I have decided to call myself Vision. I am an Avenger. Or, at least, I was. It's very new to me, you understand. I'm still not quite sure of my place here in this world."
"Oh," Howie said, pausing once before taking Vision's hand. The man's skin felt like living metal, too solid for skin but too malleable to be like one of ULTRON's automatons, yet oddly warm too. Like shaking hands with a computer. "Well, I'm not sure of my place either. But I think that's normal."
"Is it?" Vision's eyebrows (he didn't have eyebrows… or any hair at all) shot up. Then he smiled again. "Hm. That is oddly comforting. Perhaps we shall learn together, then?"
Howie grinned. "Sounds good to me."