I do not own Avengers or any of the characters.
Korea
"I was there," Olivia rasped, her voice barely above a whisper, trembling, and ringing out for the first time in the two days since Wanda had made them both relive their pasts.
They'd gone into hiding while Hill tried to find Ultron, but instead of a safehouse, they were at Barton's house. The one where his pregnant wife and children lived.
"I was experiencing it all over again," Olivia rasped.
"I know," William said, holding her tighter. "It's over now. It's over."
Olivia nodded, tucking herself tighter into him. Finally, she took a ragged breath, struggling to compose herself. She'd tried countless times over the last few days, but this time it worked a bit better.
"What was yours?" Olivia asked. "You haven't said anything, even though I can't imagine it was much better."
"I...I relived my powers first activating, when I accidentally massacred my family and their friends," William said. "Then Master found me. Then I was reliving getting trained by him as the favorite. Then finding you. Then I relived training when you were Master's favorite." He paused, his sight growing distant. "It was things I'd forgotten, or chose not to remember. Everything you did was great. He was always proud, and you never had to train unless you wanted to, and that was fine. The one time I said I needed to rest instead of train, I was yelled at by Master. And when I was working, any time I executed my job perfectly and left no trace, it was just expected. Master wasn't proud. It was just what he expected of me. And then the first time I brought a building down to mask an assassination as a tragedy, the way you had, Master was furious. And then I remembered overhearing him telling you that you'd be the next head of the organization, and I'd be the most useful tool the organization had."
Olivia's eyes widened. "You heard that?"
William nodded. "He said that you couldn't be the head of the organization until you learned to recognize the use of things, even something as unappealing as me."
Olivia nodded. "I could never understand why he was saying that. You had always done perfectly. I was always trying to do better at my jobs in order to prove to myself that I was better than you, but where I had to bring down a full building to hide an assassination, you could just turn your targets to ash and no one who know they ever died. Your missions were perfect. Mine...And yet, he was calling you a useful weapon. I was so confused. I may not have liked you, but even I didn't consider you a tool."
William nodded. "Because he saved me and taught me to control my powers, I forced myself to forget anything negative about him. I forced myself to see him as a saint, and a good man. But in the end, he was just another murderer for hire."
Olivia nodded. "We all were."
William sighed. "We sure have changed. And not just our relationship. Neither of us used to care about anything other than being the best and getting paid."
"And now we're working as Avengers alongside our friends for free," Olivia smirked. "I blame you."
"I blame Fury," William snorted.
Olivia laughed, nodding. "That's fair." After a few more minutes of sitting in silence, Olivia finally sat up, wiping whatever remained of her tears from her face. "Come on. I'm sure the others have at least something new for information by now."
"They'd better," William agreed, standing, following her out of the room and to the kitchen where the others were gathered.
The others, in this case, did not include Thor but did include Fury.
"Glad to see you two are up and around again," Fury said. "We were just discussing your next move."
"So glad you came all this way to volunteer to help," William grumbled, leaning against the counter, Olivia leaning against him as he wrapped his arms around her. "So? What's next?"
"We're going to Korea to stop Ultron from using the Cradle to form a new body out of Vibranium," Tony said. "It would be more powerful than any of us, maybe all of us. The mission's strictly recon, though."
"Sure it is," William snorted, reaching back and picking up his mask from where he'd left it sitting on the counter for the last few days.
"Before you go, I have something for you," Fury said. "You can't be a hero without a uniform."
"Christ, not a new superhero costume," William groaned.
"It's the same kind of armor as the last one, but for obvious reasons, we've removed the right arm and the legs," Fury said, setting a briefcase on the table. "It's basically a one-sleeved shirt now."
William sighed, taking the case.
"There's also a complete set in there for Olivia," Fury said. "We figured it'd come in handy."
"Oh, great," Olivia said, rolling her eyes. "Matching unitards. It might as well be Christmas."
"Well, if you like that, you'll love this," Fury said, sliding an FN 5.7 across the table.
Olivia gave him a blank stare.
"It's not like yours," Fury said. "It's loaded with twenty railgun cartridges. Instead of just going through an armored vest, or a metal plate on a robot, it's put a hole through them the size of a softball. And you should be able to duplicate the cartridges."
Olivia raised an eyebrow and picked up the gun, ejecting the magazine. A soft blue light was emanating from the top of it, and after a moment, she slid a cartridge out. It was a silver piece of metal, shaped somewhat like a bullet casing but with a glass projectile with blue energy inside of it. reloaded the gun, checking the chamber before chambering a round and nodded.
"It'll do," Olivia said, placing it on the table again.
"What kind of energy is it?" William asked.
"Yours," Fury said. "We found a way to mimic your energy generation and used it to make both lethal and non-lethal ammunition. However, we've only been able to generate enough for small-arms, so there won't be any energy-based missiles for a while."
"Good," William said, then looked to Olivia. "Can you duplicate the energy inside, or just the casing?"
Olivia ejected the cartridge and caught it. "Let's find out. I want a full load anyway."
She opened her hand and a second cartridge separated from the first, blue energy glowing from inside of it already.
"Alright," William nodded. "Halfway decent upgrade."
Olivia smirked. "You're just jealous I can fight with energy now, too."
"I mean, you already had a laser sniper," William pointed out.
"True," Olivia nodded, putting the two cartridges in the pistol's magazine before inserting the magazine again.
"Go suit up, you two," Steve said. "We need to leave soon."
Both nodded and headed into the spare bedroom they'd been using, quickly putting their armor on before both putting on their old work uniforms on over it, William leaving the neck gaiter behind as they headed out to the jet where the other three that were going, Steve, Natasha, and Barton, were waiting. Olivia set her sniper rifle on the floor, keeping her laser sniper with her, along with all of her pistols.
"You shouldn't need that," Steve said.
"You can think it's a recon mission if you want," William said. "We're going to prepare for the mission to go south, as usual."
Steve sighed, nodding. Barton took the controls, piloting them toward South Korea quickly. As they flew, William flexed his fight hand, staring at it in silence, memories, his true memories, of his and Olivia's master playing through his head again. The Maximoff girl had broken the dam, and now the memories were flooding through. More and more memories of his favoritism toward Olivia played behind his eyes. Olivia getting a birthday party the first year, the only one, while William had been trained nearly to the point of torture every birthday he'd had to condition him to hate the day and ignore its existence. Olivia being told that, if the wanted, she could be with anyone, so long as they didn't know what she did for a living, while the one time William had a crush on someone, the master had sent him to kill her the day after he found out. Olivia being allowed to take the anniversary of her sister's death off from work and training while William was legitimately tortured on the anniversary of his family's death as "pain conditioning training."
Finally, Olivia slipped her hand into his. "Are you alright?"
"No," William admitted softly. "But I will be. Thank you."
"For what?" Olivia frowned.
"For being you," William smiled.
Olivia returned the smile before releasing his hand as Steve looked over at them.
"We're dropping Olivia, or one of her duplicates, off a ways away in order to have her cover us with her sniper rifle," Steve informed them, Olivia nodding and forming a duplicate for the job, then another to cover the sniper.
A few moments later, the Quinjet dropped off Steve and William a short distance from the building.
"Keep him safe," Natasha said.
"I will," William promised before she flew away, the door closing.
"Two minutes," Steve said. "Stay close."
He and William began to run, reaching Dr. Cho's office a little early, only to find her unconscious on the ground, wounded, and the lab destroyed.
"Dr. Cho!" Steve said urgently, kneeling beside her as William checked on the other scientists in the room, finding them all dead.
"He's uploading himself into the body," Dr. Cho warned as she pushed herself up.
"Where?" Steve asked.
"The Cradle," William guessed. "But it's gone."
As Steve began to stand, Dr. Cho caught his arm.
"The real power is inside the Cradle," Dr. Cho said. "The gem...it's power is uncontainable. You can't just blow it up. You have to get the Cradle to Stark."
"First I have to find it," Steve said.
"Go," Dr. Cho said.
Steve and William ran out of the building quickly.
"You guys copy that?" Steve asked as they got outside again.
"I've got a private jet taking off across town," Natasha supplied. "No manifest. That could be him."
"Barton?" William asked.
"Excuse me," Natasha said. "What makes you think-"
"There," Barton interrupted. "It's a truck from the lab."
"That does," William said, forming a bow and a rope arrow. "Where am I heading, Barton?"
"Right above you," Barton said. "On the loop by the bridge. It's them. Got three with the cradle, one in the cab."
"I can take out the driver," Olivia offered.
"Negative!" Steve said, beginning up a ladder as William launched himself up to the freeway with his arrow. "That truck crashes, the gem could level the city. We need to draw out Ultron."
"On it," William said, using thruster-like energy bursts from his feet to launch himself onto the top of the truck, his energy instantly magnetizing his feet to the truck.
He squatted down, tapping out the "Shave and a Haircut" knock with his right hand, only to then lean back, avoiding a pair of blasts from Ultron's finger-lasers that coincidentally fired the response. After a moment, Stave landed on the truck as well, just as the door was blasted off the truck, two of the Ultrons inside flying out and up to the roof of the truck.
"Sorry to drop in," William said, forming his bow and arrow again.
"Why do you keep interfering?" Ultron asked.
"I don't have a choice," William said. "I have someone that I want to be a better person for. And if you destroy the whole world, or even just the Avengers, she'll be dead. So you've left me no choice."
"Admirable reasoning," Ultron said. "But I have an alternative. I'll kill you first, that way you don't have to worry about it anymore."
He fired a blast from his finger lasers, only for William's bow to grow a shield in a flash of light, blocking the lasers but sending him skidding backward, magnets and all. Then, just as the lasers ended, one of the Ultrons exploded into his gut, hurling him off the truck before stopping, allowing him to fly backward out of reach, the energy daggers meant for Ultron missing entirely. William flipped, using a blast of energy to slow himself enough to stay upright as his feet hit the ground and began to skid backward in a shower of sparks. As he stopped, he sighed, looking up as two of the three Ultrons from the truck flew down toward him. One of them took a shot at him with a Hydra energy cannon, but William blocked it with an energy shield. Then, he formed his bow, only to dive out of the way of several more shots. One of the two landed in front of him just as a bullet exploded through the other Uktron's head, the gunshot following by a couple seconds.
Ultron shouted in frustration as William formed a pair of energy daggers, but as he stepped forward to attack, Ultron simply blasted him in the chest, then flew toward Olivia.
"Would you stop doing that!?" William shouted, standing and looking after Ultron.
"I've got him," Olivia said calmly.
"It's fine," Hunter said, forming a more full bow silhouette than his normal blade version, then drew it back, the arrow that formed being little more than a long, pencil-width beam of light. "I've got him."
He released the arrow and it flashed through the air, easily interception Ultron and hitting him in the right side below the ribs, angled upward. When the arrow exploded, it obliterated his entire upper body.
"Not bad," Olivia said.
William smirked, then turned, looking around for the truck. His smirk dropped, and he sighed heavily. "Which way?"
"Look left," Barton said.
William turned to look, only to grunt as he was suddenly thrown over someone's shoulder, the world suddenly flying past in a blur of color.
"I'm going slow so you can handle it," Pietro Maximoff said. "We want to help, because Ultron wants to destroy the world. Don't kill me. Please."
Then, he dropped him off beside the road, William finding Wanda Maximoff was present now.
"Maximoffs," William growled.
"Where?" Olivia asked. "You disappeared."
"Pietro grabbed me," William said, sending a ball of energy into the air, the ball lighting up like a flare. "They claim to want to help."
"We do," Wanda said. "I'm sorry for what I did to the girl. I didn't realize how horrible her trauma would be until it was too late."
"Doesn't make me feel any better," William said flatly. "I have a question."
"I didn't create what you saw," Wanda said. "I brought your most painful memories and fears to the front of your mind. In your case, I broke the dam holding back your repressed memories."
William nodded. "I thought so."
Just then, a train raced past with Steve and Ultron inside, fighting.
"Gotta go," William said, flying himself to the train, then sprinting along it, slowly at first as he got the hang of running while alternating which foot was magnetic, then speeding up quickly.
Finally, he dropped, hia right hand grabbing the roof of the train before he swung inside, smashing through a window and slamming his feet into Ultron's side, smashing him into the wall of the train. Ultron began to turn, and William's fist crashed into the side of his head, knocking him toward Steve, who smashed his shield into Ultron, sending him back to William. William coated his left hand in an energy gauntlet and slammed an uppercut into Ultron's gut, then a haymaker into his head, once again sending him at Steve. Steve slammed several strikes into Ultron using both his shield and fist before sending him at William again. However, Ultron had finally run out of patience.
"That's enough!" he shouted, blasting both of them in the chest and hurling them away, Steve toward the front of the train and William toward the back.
Then, just as the Maximoffs arrived, Ultron fired a laser blast out through the front of the train before leaving.
"Olivia!" William groaned. "All yours."
"As soon as he's in range," Olivia, the one still on the Quinjet, said.
"Cap," William said, staring at the destroyed train controls.
"Shit," Steve cursed.
"Language," William said, Steve rolling his eyes. "You, can you stop this train?" He looked to Wanda.
"I'll have to," Wanda nodded.
As she focused, Steve sent Pietro to clear everyone out of the train's way. Then, William braced himself to leap out of the door with Wanda in order to avoid a fatal train crash. He glanced up in time to see a shot from Olivia's laser sniper punch through Ultron's chest just as one of her new pistol's rounds punched through his head, obliterating it.
"Ultron's down," Olivia reported.
"Except the one in the driver's seat," William said.
"Nat got him out of the truck and stopped it," Barton said. "Has anyone seen her?"
"If you have the package, get it to Stark," Steve said.
"Does anyone have eyes on Nat?" Barton asked.
"Ultron took her," Olivia reported. "I'm sorry, he was out of range by the time I saw them."
"I'm going," Barton said.
"No!" William snapped. "Take the Cradle to Stark. You, Olivia, and I will all go together to rescue Natasha after."
Barton was silent for a moment before agreeing and flying away. A few seconds later, the train finally skidded to a stop. William began to help everyone off the train while Steve went to deal with the Maximoffs.
"Stark, do you copy?" Steve asked as William began to walk toward them. "Stark? Anyone on comms?"
"Ultron can't tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it," Wanda said. "Where do you think he gets that?"
"We need to hurry," Olivia's sniper duplicate said as she and the duplicate in charge of protecting her walked over.
Steve nodded and they all ran for the nearest airport, Olivia signaling a Quinjet to fly to them and pick them up.
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