I don't know how to explain this update schedule to you dear readers, but I guess enjoy while I'm still updating like a madman. And, no, I'm not mentally stable. T Rycbar is actually kinda cool. They have some sick stories if you want to check them out. (Yes, I'm hoping they will read this and be nice enough to buy me cookies from the grocery store.)
IDon'tOwnMarvel
Steve watched me go with a particular bit of interest and as soon as I stepped down the hallway, I noticed him following a bit further behind. Of course he wouldn't be leaving me alone that easily, so I made two quicker turns down halls to lose him before going up a flight of stairs. I wasn't leaving yet, but I did need a moment for my own thoughts, so Steve chasing me around would not allow me to do that.
I took two more left turns as soon as I couldn't see or hear him anymore, followed by a right turn through a door. A door that took me right into what looked like a partially lit up lab.
You know- Tony's lab.
I stopped in my tracks with machines whirring below the floor and a blue hologram in the center of the room. Shit.
"You." Ultron's voice filled the room I was standing in as I took a careful step back, ready to bolt. "Who are you?"
Refusing to respond, I turned quickly and marched right back to the door.
Nope, not a chance. I released a breath I was holding as I shut the door behind me before continuing down the hall as if nothing happened. Ultron? Who's that? Never met him.
I sat down a few hallways back in the direction I'd come from with none other than Steve coming to join me on the floor after he found me twenty minutes later. Neither of us spoke at first with me declining to since I really didn't have much that I wanted to talk about.
I mean, sure, I could get all mopey about the fact that I was torn away from normality once again and now supposed to deal with killer robots. As if killer robots were somehow part of everyday life on this hellhole of a planet and universe. I didn't even want to consider the future right now, even though it was technically my job. Thanos, guardians of the galaxy...the universe really did not stop getting weirder the longer I was stuck here. Then, of course, I had to consider what happened to me after my knowledge ran out.
"You're fast." Steve stated, looking over at me then as I just traced my fingers over my little bag that held the journal. "Did you get lost?"
I shook my head. "No, just finding a place to take a breath."
"Oh," Steve looked away then. "So I was thinking you might not be here just to see us again."
"What gives you that impression?" I asked back, pulling a leg closer to sit criss-cross.
Steve just sort of gestured vaguely to the clutch. "You bring the journal?"
I looked up at him then, studying his face for a moment before sighing and looking back down. "Killer robots."
"What?"
"Killer robots." I shrugged, flipping open the bag and pulling out my journal to open the page and show him the bad drawing I made a while ago. "That's what you have to fight this time. I can't say much else, but if you were interested in a heads-up, this is it."
"O-oh." Steve took the journal to look at the drawing I made. "Who-" He cut himself off when I gave him a look and shut his mouth seconds after. "Right. Don't ask."
"It's literally only the start of this mess and I'm already so tired." I admitted quietly, accepting the returned journal and leaning back against the wall. "You're not even supposed to be out here. You're supposed to be hanging out with the others at the party and trying to lift Thor's hammer."
"Strangely specific." The Super Soldier mumbled to himself, glancing over at me. "Hey, so I didn't ask earlier- were you planning on going back to finish school? I know there's some cool senior year traditions everyone still does that you might not want to miss. Prom and graduation...and all that...I think."
"Yeah, I don't know." I shrugged it off, not super keen on talking about the subject. "I mean, I was gonna go to Prom. I thought after this I might be able to still go with my classmates after I practically ghosted my date for this...but I'm entirely sure if it's really on my list of necessary things."
"So you have a date...to a dance." He started, a small smile growing on his face. "And you want to miss out on it? Do you even know who you're talking to?"
I couldn't help the small smile that reached my face from that. It was a little funny to think about who I was ranting about this too.
"Are we going to be actively fighting something during this supposed date?" Steve asked, nudging me with his arm. "Because I would gladly take your place in this fight so you could go."
"No," I chuckled dryly, biting my lip. "No, it's not that you would be doing anything at the time. I'm sure this will be up before seven days from now. I just- I don't know if I want to go. And this is a really bad time to bring this issue up."
Steve looked up and down both hallways. "I'm sorry, are we fighting evil robots right now? Why don't you want to go to the Prom? Bad date?"
"No, she's very nice." I replied a little too quickly, realizing the gender of my date might be strange to him a little too late. I decided to just continue over the squint he did at the wall. "And pretty. But I don't know if I like her. I've been on dates before with friends, but when it's explicitly considered a date, they always expect the relationship to change. I haven't really felt that way about someone and so when I can't return the expected feelings, I lose a friend. I don't wanna stop being friends with Connie, so I don't want to go."
"You've never felt that way about someone?" Steve asked back, giving me an odd look. "I find that a little hard to believe. Teenagers have a lack of filter when it comes to romantic attraction. I would know. I was one."
I shook my head with a small shrug. "I don't know what to tell you other than that we should probably check on the party. I don't want them fighting robots without us."
"Do the robots show up there?" Steve got to his feet and offered me a hand after I tucked my journal away again.
"Maybe." I laughed a little, mostly out of nervousness when he pulled me to my feet. "Sorry to unload that on you. I haven't exactly had an abundance of people I could talk to about things that aren't related to my fake backstory."
"No, I don't mind." Steve waved it off easily, definitely being the one to subtly lead the way back towards the room with the party. "It makes me feel a little better when I don't know nothing about the person who knows too much about me."
"Fair enough." I played with the edge of the clutch as we walked. "You're gonna keep the date thing to yourself though, right?"
He nodded and smiled a little at that. "Sure. I don't have to share every detail about you with Fury."
"He sure thinks so."
"He does."
As we walked back to the room, I heard the growing voices of a very familiar scene. Well, familiar until they were trying to get Bucky to pick up Mjolnir in place of where Steve should've been. I didn't know how I felt about that, sitting down on a stool to watch from afar before waving Steve towards the group.
He actually listened, moving over to sit near Bucky. "It was a good try, Buck."
"Well, why don't you do it?" Bucky laughed, giving his arm a shove. "If anyone could…"
"It'd be the golden boy." Natasha finished, smirking a little at him.
"No, I'm alright." Steve shook his head, sitting down. "I don't need an answer to that question."
TC looked up at me from Thor's shoulder, taking note of my location before turning and pressing himself closer to the god's neck for heat. I smiled slightly, leaning back on the bench to watch the calm before the storm. They had a nice thing going on here and I honestly didn't take a lot of enjoyment out of being the bringer of hard times and bad news. Though, apparently this was the role I was fitting into at this given point in time.
Tony took a beer from Rhodey then, barely passing a glance my way. "All the difference to the man who wouldn't be king, but it's rigged."
"Your bet your ass." Clint grumbled, taking a sip of his drink while Hill pointed at him quickly.
"Steve, he said a bad language word."
I couldn't help but laugh a little at that, drawing too much attention to myself. The group looked over then, a different mood covering the room and making me feel a little shitty about causing it. In a desperate attempt to not be a horrible wet blanket, I gestured vaguely at the hammer. "It's not rigged. Just a spell."
"The lightning child is correct." Thor agreed quickly as I got up to walk closer in the least awkward way possible. "It's a spell put in place by Odin himself."
"I don't mean to accuse anyone of anything," I started, letting TC up to my shoulder when I stopped behind Thor. "But Rhodey definitely thinks I look different."
"It was an honest mistake." Rhodey defended in a more desperate voice while Bucky actually laughed at him. "Stop telling people that."
I waved him off with a roll of my eyes while Steve and Clint both tried to hide smiles as Rhodey's expense. "So, what are we doing?"
"Wouldn't you know that?" Clint complained with a small smile.
"It was a bit rhetorical, Katniss." I shot back, glancing at the door and making them all look too. I frowned back at them. "What are you doing?"
"Watching you." Rhodey replied, "You're clearly waiting for something."
"Yeah," I agreed, tuning in to hear the shuffling step of something inhuman coming down the hall. "Something for sure."
Steve heard it too and got up with Bucky and Thor.
"The line you're missing, god of Thunder," I started, just barely seeing the edge of Ultron's foot as he slowly made his entrance. "Is that they are simply…not…worthy."
The others stood too at the entering robot until the loudest screeching noise saturated the room. I winced with the others, definitely not remembering that while Tony shot a glance in my direction. I ignored it in favor of moving closer to Bruce and keeping one hand on TC.
"Worthy… No…" Ultron stepped into full view of the room, putting everyone on high alert and worried. "How could you be worthy? You're all killers."
"Jarvis?" Tony looked a little unhappy with this appearance, paying me another glance since it was obvious I knew this was coming.
I, on the other hand, was shockingly calm as I pushed lightly on Bruce's shoulder and shot a look at Nat. She got the message with Bruce and took his arm as well, pulling him aside more with TC relocated to his hands. I didn't exactly want to be putting my best friend in harm's way, so I gave him to the guy who was also supposed to stay out of trouble.
"I'm sorry, I was asleep…" Ultron continued over my mental check of the room. "Or was it a dream?"
Tony tapped on a small screen, looking like he was trying to work something out with his tech while I saw Steve move slightly from the corner of my eye. Thor picked up his hammer.
"There was a terrible noise, and was tangled in… in… strings." The legionnaire tilted his head like he was thinking. Which, well, I suppose he was. "I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy."
I saw Steve's face harden from where he was now standing a little closer to me than he needed to be. "You killed someone?"
"Wouldn't have been my first call. But, down in the real world we're faced with ugly choices."
"Who sent you?" Thor asked, gripping his hammer a little tighter.
Everyone was standing at the ready now, myself also ready to jump away at the exact moment those other bots were supposed to fly in. I didn't exactly want to get caught off guard here.
Ultron played the recording of Tony's voice. "I see a suit of armor around the world."
"Ultron!" Banner exclaimed then, exchanging a worried glance with Tony.
"In the flesh." Ultron tilted his head again, his 'eyes' falling on me for a moment. "Or, no, not yet. Not this… chrysalis. I'm on a mission."
Natasha had a tight grip on Banner's sleeve now, standing several feet from where they were previously. "What mission?"
Uh oh. I tensed at the question. Trigger word.
"Peace in our time."
With those three words, I almost jumped away at the sound of a crash, only to be unceremoniously yanked backwards by Bucky while Steve kicked up a table to send the legionnaire that came flying at us in a new path towards the ceiling. I did not appreciate being snatched out of my place and held by the back of my shirt in front of Bucky while he turned us away from an attack that Thor foiled with his hammer.
I appreciated it less though when I spotted a legionnaire approaching Dr. Cho behind a piano. Shoving Bucky off, I kicked off my heels at the same time and made a sprint for it, definitely feeling the hardness of metal on my fingers as I latched onto it's back. The bot twisted and tried to throw me off, but I was quick with sending a killing shock into its system via my fingers around its neck, melting the wires and forcing it to the ground. I fell with it, landing hard on my back with the bot partially on top of me and sure to leave a bruise later.
"Ow," I groaned, shoving it off and seeing another fly overhead.
Raising a hand, I summoned the tingle up my spine and directed the power on top of this bot before it could run into Bucky. Sure, Bucky looked fully prepared to lay it out, but with the purple bolt cracking over the top of it and making it crumple, he didn't have to. Instead, he looked over to me and frowned with a small sigh.
The room fell into an uneasy silence with the absence of gunfire and breaking glass. Tony was on the stairs and a little out of breath with Bucky coming over to pull me to my feet. TC was perched on Bruce's shoulder with his beard flared and a tiny purple spark rolling over his back, signifying that this little guy was sure he could take on a whole robot.
"That was dramatic." Ultron stated, sounding somewhat bored.
Bucky helped up Dr. Cho next, letting her stand beside us while Ultron continued.
"I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through." He stopped taking steps and stood in his place, looking around at us. "You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to… evolve?"
I allowed myself to relax knowing that there was no more fighting for tonight outside of what I was going to have to explain later. Bucky saw that and relaxed his shoulders a little too with TC climbing off Bruce to sprint across the floor. I scooped him up and let him simmer down on my shoulder.
"With these? These puppets?!" Ultron growled, picking up and crushing the head of a legionnaire. "There is only one path to peace: The Avengers Extinction."
Thor apparently had heard enough and threw his hammer, breaking the bot into pieces with several glances being passed my way. I was a little more than fucked now if they didn't get used to the necessity of the chain of events real soon.
None of them spoke much to me though as they decided to regroup in the lab. You know, outside of what Clint had to say.
"Now I get it." He muttered, passing me a glance on our way to the lab behind everyone else.
I sighed and nodded. "Gotta stay sober when homicidal robots are running around."
Bruce went to a computer and Agent Hill sat down with some tweezers from her purse to start pulling glass out of her feet. I sat quietly on a stool near the far side of the room, playing with my hands and avoiding any direct eye-contact that could lead to me having to talk to them. It was like when the teacher asked a question and tried to find someone to answer.
"All our work is gone." Bruce looked up at them. "Ultron cleared out, used the internet as an escape hatch."
"Ultron." Steve repeated the name.
Natasha looked up from her own computer. "He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other."
"He's in your files. He's on the internet." Rhodey started, glancing in my direction while I stared at an interesting spot on my hand. "What happens if he decides to access something a little more exciting?"
The thought occurred very quickly to Agent Hill. "Nuclear codes."
Rhodey nodded at the similar thought he'd had. "Nuclear Codes. Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."
"Nukes?" Natasha questioned, "He said he wanted us dead."
"He didn't say dead." Steve inputted, also looking at me briefly as if he expected me to have something to add. "He said 'extinct'."
I didn't, and willingly let myself zone out of the conversation before reaching to pull out my journal and sit it on my lap. TC relaxed against my chest while I leaned on the wall behind me and put a foot up on a table to read. If the other's noticed, they didn't call me out and let me try to read through for the fifth time what my younger self had written.
'Age of Ultron
Deaths- 117 civilians (Ancient One provided exact number), Pietro, Ultron.
Ultron starts by meeting with an arms dealer who will sell him vibranium at the salvage yard off the coast of South Africa. The arms dealer, Ulysses Klaue (pg. 31), loses an arm that gets replaced during Black Panther (pg.68). Ultron recruits the Maximoff twins, Wanda and Pietro. He is building more of himself in Sokovia where the avengers first got the scepter from-'
I was rudely snapped out of my reading when Tony and Thor started to get heated on the topic.
Thor stepped towards him, threatening the man's next choice of words. "This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand."
"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Tony chuckled dryly, waving him off. "It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this."
I stared between them with a hint of nervousness creeping into my system. Bucky, apparently, had been quick to materialize beside me, making me jump when I noticed his presence. I blinked in confusion at his terrifyingly silent movement that led him to be leaning on the wall beside me.
Meanwhile, Banner was trying to mediate. "Tony, maybe this might not be the right time to-"
"Really?!" Tony snapped, turning to look at him. "That's it? You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls?"
"Only when I've created a murder bot."
"We didn't." Tony emphisized with his hands. "We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?"
"Well, you did something right. And you did it right here." Steve added, shooting a glare at Tony which struck me as odd since I was technically a little at fault for not stopping it. Instead, he was just pissed at Tony. "The Avengers were supposed to be different from SHIELD."
"Let's reminisce for a moment here." Tony cocked his head at the man. "A hostile alien enemy came charging through a hole in space. We were standing 300 feet below it-"
"2,130." I interrupted, almost immediately regretting it when everyone turned to look.
Tony narrowed his eyes at me. "What?"
"You were standing 2,130 feet below it." I stated again, forcing the fake confidence that Nat was definitely reading through.
"Look," Tony shook his head, seemingly ignoring me at first. "We can bust arms dealers all the live-long day, but that-" He pointed at me. "And what's up there? That's...that's the endgame. How are you guys planning on beating that?"
I am not a 'that'. I kept quiet but wrinkled my nose and frowned at the accusation. He is definitely not okay with me being alive still.
Turning back to my reading after sticking my tongue out at Tony's back, I tried to read up more on what I had down for Ulysses Klaue. I got past his fear of cuttlefish before getting sick of the start to Steve's motivational speech and slipping out of the room. I didn't really need to stick around for a morale boost since mine came in remembering that 117 lives plus Pietro were sort of at stake.
I set myself up at the bar again, back in the room where we were just fighting evil robots, and kept reading over the page on Pietro to try and figure how it might change with different circumstances. After all, I had a bit of a plan in motion already that might complicate his fate here. Now, while trying to make a safer situation for the other civilians, I had to account for going in blind in regards to Pietro's future. I had no idea if he was even going to be in a situation where he would die during this battle. Though, to be fair, by changing the playing field in the way that I was planning, I was also risking the lives of literally all the other Avengers in hope that they were strong enough to escape no matter what.
TC and I spent a little under an hour at the bar with him sleeping on my chest and myself adding touch-ups to my legionnaire drawing with the bodies around. It just seemed more aesthetically pleasing in my journal to have a realistic drawing for Ultron since I previously just had a bad doodle. At the time I finished the replacement drawing, someone else wandered in, no doubt needing me for something regarding the evil robot.
"Link," Clint called in, holding the door. "We're going to look through files. Are you gonna help?"
I tilted my head a little in thought before deciding that it wasn't against me to help them look at papers for a bit. Leaving my place at the bar, I switched TC to my hands and tucked my journal back away to follow Clint down the hall.
Okay, so, sorting through files is somehow less exciting than it sounds. I know- crazy. I let the lizard sleep on top of the computer Bruce was using because it was giving off warmth like a heating pad for him to enjoy. We must have been sorting through files for about two hours before Tony recognized Ulysses. I was also, excitingly enough, recognizing a few faces from my sales on the Garage site. I couldn't tell if that was cool or concerning, but it was certainly something.
"Wait, I know that guy." Tony stopped, pulling a file out of Banner's hand to look at it. "From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms."
Steve shot him an accusing look.
"There are conventions, alright?" Tony defended easily, "You meet people, I didn't sell him anything."
I peered over his shoulder at the file and lit up at the familiar face. "Oh! I did!"
Steve gave me a concerned look then with several of the others.
"Oh….boy, let's back that up." I chuckled nervously, looking back at them. "I sold him a copy of 'MI'."
"You sold him a heart attack?" Tony actually questioned, tilting his head.
"Oh, no," I shook my head and gestured vaguely with a hand. "Um...malware. He wanted Spyware for something and then tried to recruit me. I said no. Organized crime isn't really my thing."
"You sell malware? To criminals?" Bruce frowned.
I narrowed my eyes right back at him in a defensive manner. "Uh, yeah? Living isn't cheap, and working as a line cook beside school doesn't exactly cover the cost of living in this capitalist monstrosity of a country."
Tony opened and shut his mouth before shaking his head in exasperation and continuing. "The man was talking about finding something new, a game changer. It was all very 'Ahab'.
"This." Thor pointed at a picture Tony was holding while I went back to shuffling through files.
At this point, I'd started to wonder if they had any physical files on me and began searching for those while everyone else did the real work. I would, of course, have to confiscate any of these hypothetical files that SHIELD stored in the Avenger's tower, so that was my motivation to actually keep looking.
"Uh, it's a tattoo." Tony looked to where he was pointing. "I don't think he had it-"
"No, those are tattoos." Thor interrupted, tapping the picture. "This is a brand."
"It means 'thief'." I commented, not bothering to look up as I kept shuffling through folders. The attention of the room was definitely on me whenever I spoke though. "Just in a meaner way."
"What dialect?" Bruce asked, already starting to run the photo on his computer.
I shrugged, pulling out a folder with my name on it. "Wakanda from...Wakanda, I guess. Lovely people if you don't wrong them in any way."
Frowning, I opted to set the folder aside before continuing to shuffle through random paperwork in the same box. There was a sort of pregnant pause that fell over the room while everyone else looked at Bruce as he ran the symbol on his computer.
After a moment, he nodded. "Link's right."
Tony jumped at the confirmation as if the word of an eighteen year-old delinquent he happened to dislike was not reliable enough. "If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods-"
"I thought your father said he got the last of it?" Steve cut in immediately.
Bruce furrowed his brow at the two of them. "I don't follow. What comes out of Wakanda?"
"Vibranium." I answered, still not paying much attention and pulling out another paper with my name on it. It held a report from when I first arrived. I shoved that in the folder too since the first line told me all I needed to know.
'Medical Evaluation- Lincoln Patel'
"The strongest metal on earth." Bucky added, looking back to where Steve's shield was propped against a wall.
Steve sighed a little at that before bringing back that wonderfully American sense of urgency he always carried around in times like these. "Where is he now?"
I stopped searching when I felt the eyes of everyone in the room falling in my direction. I looked up at them slowly with a frown. "What?"
"You've been right about everything so far." Steve nodded at me, using a surprisingly relaxed tone where I expected to be yelled at again. "Can you tell us where he is?"
I shrugged again haphazardly, looking down again at a paper that had caught my eye. "I don't know for sure. My younger self seemed to think he was at some salvage yard off the…"
'Elimination Request
Subject- Patel, Lincoln
Reasoning- Potential Global Threat'
"Where?"
Steve's voice snapped me out of my reading, making me look away from what I'd just stumbled upon.
"Um," I winced and shook my head, mentally grabbing for the memory of the location with something new demanding all of my attention. "African Coast. Sorry."
I was quick to shove this paper into my collected pile, not really wanting anyone to accidentally notice what I was compiling and try to steal away this new information before I had a chance to process it.
Steve passed me a small thankful nod before addressing everyone else. "Alright, start looking there."
Who wanted me dead? I sucked in a shaky breath, running my hand through my shorter hair with some of the Avengers filtering out and Steve and Bucky staying to crowd around Bruce on his computer. I looked away before Steve could notice my cautious staring. Honestly, you show up to help and someone files an execution request with HR- I knew there was a good reason for me to be missing all those years. Ain't no way I'm sticking around after this if they're just gonna try to kill me.
I bit the inside of my cheek in thought, turning back to look for any more shocking information that I might need. Who would ask to have me killed instead of just doing it themselves? Fury? Maybe. But if that was the case, I would've been dead for a while now. So, who?
