Sy

She sat on the floor, her legs crossed as she helped Lila put the finishing touches on her butterfly. Fury stood at the sink washing the dinner dishes, and Clint was making Cooper pick up his toys. Tony was playing darts in the corner. The whole scene was almost domestic.

Almost.

The dinner conversation ruined it completely.

"Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself time. My contacts all say he's building something. The amount of Vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's for just one thing." Fury continued as he dried a glass. Sy stacked the crayons into their box as Lila bounced into the dining room and handed Natasha the picture. The assassin smiled and gave the little girl a hug. Sy followed behind her more slowly, easing down into a seat between Steve and Nat. Steve frowned at Fury's comment, one hand squeezing her knee as she sat down. They all did that, brushing against her, ruffling her hair, patting her wrist whenever she joined them. It was like they needed to reassure themselves that she was really there. The touching made her jump, even as she desperately craved the contact. Sy needed the reassurance too.

"What about Ultron himself?" He asked. Fury shrugged.

"Ah. He's easy to track, he's everywhere. Guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit. Still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans though." He set down the glass, before picking up the next one, hands moving rhythmically. Clint walked in to take over the dishes, the former director of SHIELD conceding his place easily. Sy felt almost relaxed, even with the Ultron threat. Something about Homestead, the quiet domesticity of Clint washing dishes, all her friends - her family - around the table, the low murmur of Laura's voice in the background, sending the kids to bed. It felt the closest thing to home she's found since her dad died. Even camp never quite had this feeling; the children of minor gods might have had a safe haven, but for Sy, it wasn't much of a home.

"He still going after launch codes?" Tony asked, throwing a dart. It landed with a satisfying thud.

"Yes, he is, but he's not making any headway." Fury shrugged, leaning against the counter. Tony scoffed, setting down his last dart.

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare." He said, sounding almost offended. Sy wondered if it was because his creation; murder bot or otherwise, couldn't do something he did as a kid.

"Yeah, well, I contacted our friends at the NEXUS about that." Fury continued.

"What's the NEXUS?" Sy asked, confused. Steve closed his mouth with an audible click. She likely beat him to the punch by a half a second. Tony shot her a surprised glance, almost like he was disappointed in her lack of knowledge. Sometimes being a demigod was annoying. Especially when she worked on a team as technologically reliant as the Avengers are. Steve at least was learning, and learning quickly. He may not be an expert, but he could use pretty much any of the equipment Tony or SHIELD provided on missions without help now, along with most anything available to the public. Plus he had the whole from the past thing going for him when he did struggle. Sy could barely use her email.

Not that any of the - highly legitimate -excuses stopped any of their teammates from teasing them both.

"It's the world internet hub in Oslo, every byte of data flows through there, it's the fastest internet access on earth." Bruce clarified quietly from his place in the back corner. Ever since they'd arrived the quiet scientist had been distancing himself from everyone, interacting with them as little as possible, speaking even less. It was like her friend had become a fragment of himself. He'd flinched away from Clint's kids, a pained expression on his face as he backed away from them. Now he was sitting as far away from everyone as he could get and still be in the same room. The near miss had really rattled the scientist.

"So what'd they say?" Clint asked, the dishes clattering in the sink. Fury shrugged, taking a piece of cake from the cutting board.

"He's fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed."

"By whom?" Tony asked, pulling his dart off the board. A suddenly thwack startled the room. Clint just shrugged at the irritated Tony, a smirk plastered across his face. A single dart was embedded deeply in the bullseye, less than an inch from Tony's nose. The mechanic glared at the archer; Clint just grinned back, going back to drying the dishes.

"Parties unknown." Fury answered slowly, surprise coloring his tone. Sy could taste the acrid irritation in his voice, the bitter knowledge that someone was better than them and he didn't know who it was. If there was anything in this world that would upset the former SHIELD director, it would be not knowing something.

"We have an ally?" Natasha asked, turning to face Fury.

"No, Ultron has an enemy. Those are two very different things." Sy answered, glancing towards Fury for confirmation. The former spymaster shrugged, approval glittering in his eye.

"I'd pay folding money to know who it is." Was his carefully neutral response. Tony sighed.

"I might need to visit Oslo, find our 'unknown.'" Natasha frowned, sighing as she turned to her former employer.

"Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that." A bitter smile crossed the red head's face. The rest of the room turned to Fury, the tension rising. Fury shrugged, biting into a cookie, looking completely at ease.

"I do. I have you. Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else. You kids had all the tech you could dream of, and someone to take the hits when things went wrong. Now SHIELD can't help you, the two of you are barely affiliated, and after the mess HYDRA made, they can't afford to be seen anywhere near your mess until Ultron is handled. So, here we all are, back on earth, with nothing but our wit, and our will to save the world." He paused, walking over to the table. They all sat silently, chewing over the fact that the untrusting, faithless spy just declared his faith and trust in them.

"Ultron says the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission. And whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction. All this,' Fury gestured to the room at large, 'laid in a grave. So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard." He finished, sitting down carefully in a chair. Natasha grinned suddenly, seizing her opportunity.

"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk." She teased, glancing back at Steve. Sy giggled at his exasperated expression. The best part of it was, with the exception of Bucky, Steve had the worst potty mouth out of the group. And James didn't talk enough for it to be that obvious.

"You know what, Romanoff?" Steve groused back good naturedly. He got a cheshire cat grin in return for his troubles.

"So what does he want?" Fury asked slowly, carefully annunciating each word. Sy glanced around the room before answering.

"To become better. Better than us. He keeps building himself new bodies-" Tony interrupted, the look in his eyes telling her better than anything else that his mind was racing.

"Person bodies. The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it." Tony insisted, his voice twisting into the sour-sweet of anticipation. The genius was close to something, and he knew it. Sy struggled to resist the pull of his voice, the compelling force of his expectation. She forced herself to focus on the rest of the group, instead of being sucked into Tony's rabbit hole of thought.

"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed." Natasha commented sarcastically. Bruce ignored her, coming out from his shadowy corner, his gaze fixed on Lila's butterfly drawing at the former assassin's elbow.

"They don't need to be protected, they need to evolve. Ultron's going to evolve." He muttered distractedly.

"How?" Sy asked, not seeing where Bruce's mind had gone. He glanced up, oddly still.

"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?" The room froze as the implication of his question sunk in. Then the room burst into a flurry of movement. Sy and Clint speed stacked the dishes onto the counters while everyone else ran to grab their gear. Sy dashed for the sunroom, her armor stacked neatly next to the made up couch she definitely was not going to have time to sleep on. She had her armor on in record time, her hands pulling and tugging on straps easily, her hands remembering the steps her mind didn't.

"I'll take Natasha and Clint. You should take Sy, I don't want her fighting him." Sy overheard Steve say as she stepped into the hallway, tightening the last straps of her armor. She heard the magnet engage as Steve placed his shield on his back. She laughed sarcastically, startling both men, as she joined them. The three of them headed to the door.

"Yeah, me in the biggest internet hub in the world. I see that ending well. I might as well just wear a neon sign saying 'eat me, tasty demigod here.' I'm going with you Steve." She snapped. Steve frowned, concern etched across his face.

"Sy, you were a prisoner a week ago. You're barely out of the hospital and then get thrown into this mess. James got free a year ago, and he's barely mission ready. Maybe you should go back to New York in the NEXUS is out. You can still help, just somewhere with less risk." Both men looked at her with concern. Sy felt something inside her slip and crack. Was she really that broken? The consequences of the work that they do meant that the whole team was damaged, they all carried their baggage, wounds weeping as they marched into battle. It was just part of the job. But was her's so obviously heavy that they thought she couldn't continue?

"I need to be there Steve. I can't sit at home twiddling my thumbs. James was prisoner for seventy years, it's different for him. I was healed by a god. And another one ensured I was stable. Tony might have designed Ultron; but I made him. He's powered by my blood. My power. I'm coming with you." She stated firmly, glaring at them both. No matter what they said, she was going. Even if she had to fly to South Korea by herself. Tony broke first.

"Alright, but strictly recon." He ordered stiffly, Steve looked like he wanted to argue, but wisely didn't. Sy on the other hand, did.

"You're funny if you think I need your permission to fight." She scoffed. Both men glared at her, but she glared right back. She was an adult, and could make her own choices. Besides, they needed her; and they knew it. Tony fiddled with his watch as he finished his original thought.

"I'll hit the NEXUS. I'll join you as soon as I can." Sy nodded, hooking her sword onto her belt.

"If Ultron is really building a body…" Steve trailed off. Tony looked at them both, his expression more serious than she'd ever seen on the billionaire's face.

"It will be more powerful than any of us. Maybe all of us." He glanced over at Sy, his brow furrowed. He opened his mouth, then closed it, holding in the thought.

"An android designed by a robot." Sy muttered. She'd seen the movies. That would be Bad. With a capital B. Tony nodded sharply.

"Exactly. He could run every iteration, every possible flaw in seconds, access every online journal, thought or idea and build the closest thing to perfection. He could be unstoppable." Sy felt the blood drain from her face. It was the worst possible nightmare for a demigod. A monster that would summon more monsters while she fought it. Technology and evil mixed up into one entity. And this one was powered by her blood. Tony might have accidentally designed it, but she's the one who brought Ultron to life.

"You know, I really miss the days when the weirdest thing science ever created was me." Steve said grimly. Sy only just barely managed to hold in her snort. He might be a weird science experiment. But most of her family were divine figures (and their offspring) powered by human belief. She used to fight storybook monsters. Now she fights things straight out of a comic book. Life was always weird.

"I'll drop Banner off at the Tower. Check in with Hill." Fury abruptly interrupted them, walking down the hall to where they were standing.

"Didn't I tell you that you didn't have a place in the new SHIELD?" Sy asked him irritatedly. Fury just smirked at her. They'd both known that no matter what happened, Fury was always going to be interfering. The former SHIELD director may not be much of a hero; but he was still a good man. One determined to protect the world by any means necessary.

"What are you going to do?" Steve asked the former director. Fury just grinned at them, his one eye dancing with mischief.

"I dunno. Something dramatic I hope." Sy groaned, but hugged him goodbye anyways. The three of them followed him out the door into the cool morning. The ramp to the quinjet lowered as they approached. Natasha was already in the cockpit, one immaculate eyebrow cocked as she waited for them. Clint was the last to join them.

"Let me guess. It didn't work?" He joked when he saw Sy sitting in her usual spot. She swung around and glared at the rest of the team.

"You were all in on it?" She growled. Natasha's expression was as blank as always, although Sy detected a small note of amusement when she hummed noncommittally. Steve sighed, while Clint had the decency to at least look guilty. Tony smirked at them before walking back outside, his suit assembling itself onto his body. His expression grew serious as the mask slid over his face.

"I'll come as quick as I can. Be careful." He warned them before taking off. Sy nodded at him once before she hit the ramp controls. Soon enough, they were in the air.

An:

OH MY GOD.

Endgame has completely wrecked me and Marvel/Disney owns my soul.

Also I totally called some of the details in that film.

Please no spoilers in the comments, even though the ban from the Russo brothers has been lifted. I have a friend who hasn't seen it yet because life keeps getting in her way, and someone almost spoiled it for her and it's just rude, even if the movie has been out for a couple weeks now.

I always always love comments! Please let me know what you think!