I MAY SCREAM AND SHOUT AND YELL BECAUSE I'M ANGRY
BUT EVEN WHEN I'M ANGRY I LOVE
THE ANGER IS NEVER GOING TO TAKE AWAY MY LOVE
Ultron is such a stupid name.
He's delivering a monologue about world peace and extinction. He's admitting to murder and blaming Tony for the world's issues. He's infuriating the rest of the Avengers, disrupting the peaceful ease that they've had for such a little time. He's confusing and eerie and Elizabeth can feel the incoming disaster, the impending fight, the imminent threat in the form of the broken robot in front of her.
Still, all she can think of is how ridiculous the name Ultron is.
The world gets a little sharper and forces Elizabeth to focus a little more when the Iron Legion attacks. Her repressor is secured into her neck and the pace at which the Iron Legion, the legion she had helped design a few months ago, is charging towards her leaves her no time to pull the problematic device out.
Somehow, halfway through her attempts to disband the robots, which are thankfully a prototype, she has one of Hawkeye's arrows in her hands and she plunges the weapon into the robots without a second thought of what she's breaking, where she's piercing. One of the robots gets too close and she muffles down a scream when the metal fingers press the repressor into her neck, digging it in deeper.
She's on some sort of autopilot; the only thought that courses through her head is the absurdity of the name Ultron.
She doesn't know what she's feeling. Her emotions are dulled down to a point where she doesn't really understand them as she ascends the stairs to the lab, trailing the rest of them. Tony goes through the schematics first and she just watches quietly, numbly as the other Avengers. She watches without expression as she loses Jarvis for the second time, watches as her brother tries to understand the dysfunctional robot.
She snaps when she sees Thor charging at her brother. Despite the repressor firmly implanted into her system, despite the repressor shoved deep in by a robot, Thor's hand goes blue and he has to snatch it away at the slight pain before he can choke Tony Stark.
Liz heaves in a deep breath as she realizes that the lightning has been coursing through her veins uncontrolled with the repressor present and she looks at the tiny blue lightning sparking through her fingertips before looking up at the six Avengers that are looking at her with worry.
And then she laughs.
"Such a stupid name; Ultron"
It's loud and it resonates but it's uncontrollable as the few tears seeping down her face and she laughs and laughs until she feels a hand on her arm and looks up to Tony's concerned face.
"Liz."
And she feels the dulled down emotion that her brain kept under lock. The numbed feeling that induced the lightning.
She's angry.
Anger isn't unusual for Elizabeth Stark. The world had not treated her well and she has a lot to be angry over, a lot to be angry for. She's human and once in a while, she'll be angry over the unfairness of the world, the curse that has somehow befallen on her head.
She almost never feels anger towards her brother. The last time she did, he was dying and she was more scared than angry.
So when he places his hand on her arm and calls out her name, she shoves the hand away and spits out, "You're such an asshole."
Tony reels back, never been on the receiving end of Elizabeth's spite.
"What?"
Liz takes a step back, completely uncaring of the audience they have, "You told me you wouldn't do it."
"Ultron was necessary for..."
Liz isn't talking about Tony creating Ultron; she's talking about Tony going behind her back to do so. "You said that you wouldn't do anything. Then you did."
"Liz, we need Ultron and I didn't know how to convince you," Tony says after understanding the reason behind his sister's anger.
"I have backed you up every single time. Iron Man, Killian, Vanko, Stark Industries. I have backed up your call every single time Tony," Liz yells in partial distress.
"You wouldn't have backed this one." Tony sighs.
Liz smiles bitterly at her brother, "Because I made the call to leave the sceptre be and get it away from here. And you didn't back my call."
She's upset, perhaps rightfully so. It hurts for her to think that her brother doesn't value her judgments as much as she does his. It pains to think that maybe her brother doesn't trust her calls as much as she blindly trusts his.
She turns on her heels and walks away, walks down the stairs and into the partially destroyed tower, her anger fuelling her.
It leaves once she's away from her brother and the rest of the Avengers. It leaves because Elizabeth Stark has never been one to hold grudges or seek revenge. She was never one to hold onto the hurt and anger if she had a choice to let it go.
And once the anger leaves, she starts to feel the aching throb at the back of the neck; starts to remember the robot that had dug his fingers into the metal and scratched the surface of her skin. She lifts her hand to touch the small device and winces when the action causes another surge of pain.
"I can help with that."
She turns around to see Steve. He has his arms crossed and is looking at her with no malice and judgement, looking at her as if she hadn't just lost her temper in front of all of them quite explosively.
She doesn't say anything and he fills the silence, "Come on."
He gives her his hand and she takes it, exhausted and slightly drunk with an ache in her neck and anger in her head. He gently pulls her towards the elevator and when she rests her head on the cool metal, she realizes that she didn't realize how much of a toll using her powers despite the repressor took on her body.
She angles her head enough to look at the wound and winces when she notices that one side of the repressor has almost pierced through the skin, meaning that it'll require tweezers.
She looks at Steve only to realize that his eyes haven't really left her, "I'm not sure you know how to help."
He nods, accepting the blunt but truthful observation, "I'm sure I can figure it out. You can talk me through it."
It elicits a small smile and Steve Rogers counts that as a victory. The elevator doors open and Liz is surprised when she walks into Steve's foyer, under the impression that he would take her to the med lab. Instead, he leads her to his room and she sits on his wooden floor, looking at the patterns on the tiles that she hasn't seen in years.
Steve's room is a mix between the modernity of the tower and the splashes of the nineties that he had put into the room. Liz surveys the several frames holding pictures of the people she can't recognize. There's an old radio unplugged on top of the cabinet and most of the room is taken up by a large desk that houses several drawings that Liz ignores as a respect of the soldier's privacy.
"Okay," She looks up at Steve walking back into his room with a large first-aid kit.
She opens it and pulls out the gauze, tweezers, antiseptic, needle and thread. She hands him the tweezers and turns around, pulling her hair over a shoulder, showing Steve the dug in repressor. He gets the idea and clings onto one edge of the repressor, the edge that is dug into her skin and, with the kind of strength that only he can ever have, he tugs the repressor out, ignoring Liz's hands digging into his knee and her short gasps of pain.
The repressor leaves her with an open wound, shaped like a half-moon, on her neck with the usual four holes from the needles attached to the incriminating device.
"Is it bad?" Liz asks, keeping her gaze firmly trained on the leg of the chair at Steve's drawing desk.
He stares at the awful device that he just threw on the floor, mustering up all his self-control to prevent himself from ripping it apart with his hands, "No. Just a couple stitches."
She relaxes into him when he uses anesthesia, and he stitches up her wound with quick effective movements while Liz simply closes her eyes and allows herself to feel the security Steve somehow provides her with.
She turns around when he's done and takes note of their clothing; still very formal, still very uncomfortable.
Steve, after debating on whether he should bring up the topic, nervously starts, "About Ultron."
She interrupts him, "Don't hassle Tony about it. He's rightful in his motivation, just went about it the wrong way."
Steve purses his brows, "What motivation?"
She shakes her head in a manner that reminds Steve that she's still a little tipsy, "I can't say."
"Why not?"
She shrugs, "Because, it's not mine to share."
The topic is dropped after that. The combination of the anesthesia and the drinks as well as the fact that unlike her brother, Elizabeth Stark is a lightweight, causes the world to go bright for a moment as she stands up. The heels don't help and she stumbles into the dresser, causing some of the contents to fall to the floor.
Steve's grip on her waist is soft and steady and the touch is comforting.
"Thanks," She breathes out when the world is righted and she no longer feels as if she wants to fall.
"You want some water?" His voice tries to sound concerned but his face betrays his amusement.
She huffs, "Stop laughing at me, I'm not good with alcohol."
He makes his way to the other end of the room to grab her a glass of water, ignoring the pestering voice that is increasingly becoming louder each day that tells him that Elizabeth Stark looks good in his bedroom. She, in her pink dress and bright hair and brighter eyes, distinctively stands out within the dark undertones in his bedroom. But somehow, she looks as if she belongs, as if she was always meant to be there.
She shuffles uncomfortably, not knowing where to look at, before she notices the spilled stuff on the floor, apologizing as she makes her way to pick it up.
She moves fast, picking up three of four items before placing them back on the cabinet as Steve approaches her with the glass of water. He recognizes the compass on the floor but before he can rush to take it away, Liz picks it up from the ground by the little chain causing the compass to fall open.
The picture of Peggy Carter is a sharp slap to reality for Liz. The picture reminds her of all the things she's forgotten, all the lines she had drawn, all the promises she made to herself to protect her heart. The picture is a reminder of why she can never have Steve Rogers. The picture is a reminder that he is still very much in love with another woman.
A woman she killed.
Steve has stopped trying to find explanations, stopped trying to decipher why he feels the feelings he feels when Elizabeth Stark walks into the room. So he doesn't try to figure out why his heart drops when she finds the picture of Peggy on his locket, why he feels like he owes her an explanation, why he feels the need to say something, anything, to get that look off her face; that bitter, dejected look of giving up.
"Liz," His voice has gone soft and she blinks up at him, clearly lost in her own thoughts.
She shakes her head to clear it, to reason with the ridiculousness of this entire situation, the impossibility of falling for the man out of time, and hands the compass back, forcing a smile, "Here, it opened when it fell, I wasn't prying or anything."
Steve tries again, "Liz."
She peels off her heels, causing her to drop down five inches, reaching his chin, making an excuse as she navigates her way out of his bedroom, "We should probably change out of these clothes and figure out what we're going to do about Ultron."
Liz doesn't stop moving until she reaches the elevator, until she's safely inside the metal box away from Steve Rogers. The compass with Peggy Carter's image is imprinted into her memory and she reckons that it's for the best, considers the photo a reminder of the lines that are present; lines she cannot cross if she doesn't want to pick up the pieces of her broken heart.
But fate's such an anomalous concept. Fate doesn't care about broken hearts and safety or reason. Fate is said to play with lives, twist and turn humanity for its own humour.
Because if Elizabeth Stark had chosen to look at the drawings scattered on Steve Rogers' table she would have seen buildings and sunsets and skies lighted by flames and brightened by lightning bolts. She would have seen her mother's eyes and her smile on a face she sees daily in the mirror. She would have seen ice walls and water streams surrounding the woman that controls them.
Perhaps Elizabeth Stark was fated to walk away from Steve Rogers. Perhaps fate is determined to keep them apart.
Perhaps fate, in the form of a lightning bolt, can take away Elizabeth's freedom, her concept of normal, her ability to be a regular woman. Perhaps fate can prevent her from falling in love, from getting too close, from running away from danger.
Elizabeth Stark puts her foot down when fate tries to touch Tony Stark.
Fate cannot take her brother away from her.
They're on their way to the African Coast, trying to get to Ulysses Klaue before Ultron can get away with vibranium, the kind of metal that should have never existed in the first place.
She's fiddling with the repressor, wiping the blood, her blood, off the edges, preparing to shut it in the box she brought with her to the mission, the box that will fly towards her suppose she panics and her powers get out of control.
She looks up from the now shiny device when her brother sits beside her, rubbing his hands nervously over his pants.
"I'm sorry."
The aircraft has a thick sheet of tense silence over it. Tony and Bruce had gone behind everyone's backs and created a powerful robot with capabilities beyond humankind's and while they're supportive, the aircraft isn't as cheerful as it usually would be.
The silence allows for everyone to hear the quiet conversation the two Starks are having, the silence allows them to hear Tony Stark apologize to his sister in a voice intended to be quiet enough so that no one else cannot hear.
Elizabeth simply looks on, waiting for the remainder of the apology, both her and Tony unaware that everyone can hear.
"I shouldn't have gone behind your back. Should have told you. Should have listened to you. I'm sorry Lizzie."
Ten years ago, they would have had a similar argument about matters less severe, matters that didn't threaten to change the world as they knew it and Tony would apologize as sincerely as he is now and she would forgive him and then they would go for ice cream or waffles.
Ten years ago, their lives were much simpler than it is now.
Elizabeth doesn't try to push down the hurt she feels, "It just sucks, Tony. The idea that you might not value my judgments as much as I blindly value yours. You tell me to jump and I do it without hesitation but I made a call and you just ignored it."
Tony shuts down her belief, "No. No that is not what this is. I do trust you. I trust all of three people in my life and I trust you most. This was not about trusting your call it was about..."
"Your vision." She finishes off for him; well aware that whatever Tony saw in Sokovia would not leave him.
He doesn't say anything but she can sense the affirmative.
"Tony, nothing is going to happen to me. I'm not going to die." She reassures him.
By now, even if the Avengers weren't trying to listen in on the conversation, which they aren't, it would have been impossible, considering the volume that the two of them were now speaking at.
"You have some evil alien that's out for your head, the same alien that orchestrated New York. And don't tell me that he's dead or that he doesn't exist because I see you looking up at the sky and speaking to him. I know you call yourself Infinity to spite him. You have no idea how scary it is to know that the person who means everything to you has a bounty on top their head."
"But I do. I do. You went missing for three months. I died those three months, Tony. I was hanging on the ledge when the palladium was slowly killing you. I have nightmares about you going up the wormhole and never coming back. Fuck, I put a torture device into my neck because it would kill me if I hurt you." Liz is nearly yelling but at this point, neither Stark cares.
They're finally talking about the things that they should have ages ago. They're finally sharing the fears that they've kept buried since New York, the box of words they've avoided since aliens invaded the planet, the invisible line they haven't crossed since Loki told Liz someone has been out for her blood for a long time.
Tony shrinks in defeat, "I have to protect you and this was the only way I knew how."
Liz smiles for the first time since Ultron attacked, "You do protect me. You've always protected me. You just have to trust that I can protect myself. The same way I have to learn to trust that that armour of yours is strong enough to protect you."
"We're also here."
Tony and Liz swing their heads at Thor, who smiles at the pair widely, his jovial mood making a brief return.
Natasha seconds his statement, "We're also going to protect you."
Liz smiles, wider this time, gripping onto her brother's hand as a sign of forgiveness, hoping he understands that she's never loved him any less, she's never going to love him any less.
No fate or Ultron can ever take away the love she has for her brother.