Helen Cho's Laboratory, Seoul, South Korea
It was almost impossible to see the body being formed out of light and cells inside the metal box of Helen Cho's Cradle. Wanda had been mostly ignoring the device since they arrived. Ultron had taken control of the woman, Cho, and her employees, using the staff the glowing gem had been housed in, so Wanda had not needed to take a hold of their minds. She was still fighting off the intense piercing headache from the nasty electric arrow the Avengers archer had attacked her with. Pietro hovered, restless and concerned.
Doctor Cho kept narrating the process, using words like cellular cohesion and initiate the consciousness stream. Wanda had only been half paying attention. But then Cho connected a wire between Ultron and the Cradle and said:
"We're uploading your cerebral matrix… now."
Ever since her rebirth in the fortress at Novi Grad, Wanda had been able to sense… presences around her. The burning red glow of other humans' minds, the ebb and flow of their consciousness. Until now, the Cradle had been just a metal box, filled with artificial material. But the second Cho connected that wire, she felt… an emergence. Like the bloom of new foliage through snow, a soft red glow appeared inside the Cradle.
"I can read him," she whispered. She stepped closer. "He is… dreaming." That was her closest frame of reference for the strange, shifting consciousness inside the box. She peered through the narrow glass segments on the top of the box to see the silhouette inside. The yellow stone Ultron had produced from the gem on the staff was housed on the silhouette's forehead. She thought she saw the ridge of a nose.
Slowly, she reached out.
Obliteration.
A minute later, Wanda stared horrified and breathless up at Ultron's burning red eyes and grim mouth.
"You are a madman," she breathed. How could I have been so blind? She looked at Pietro, his wide eyes and his furrowed brow. Not even he was fast enough to get them out of this mess. He was angled in front of her, as if to protect her with his body.
Ultron kept talking, explaining his awful, apocalyptic logic. He leaned in and Wanda wanted to flinch away,.
"When the Earth starts to settle, God throws a stone at it."
Wanda reached a hand towards Doctor Cho with her strange blue eyes.
NEXUS Internet Hub, Oslo, Norway
It took Maggie and Tony over an hour to piece together the fragments of code sparking lightning-fast across the world's internet. The entity had no memory, no understanding of itself save for its innate protocol drive to protect.
It wasn't like putting a body back together. It was like piecing together a soul.
Finally, when they were both drenched in sweat and their fingers ached, Maggie and Tony paused. They looked at each other.
"Good evening, sir. Good evening, Ms Stark. How can I help you this evening?"
The crisp, polite British accent rang out from the NEXUS Hub speakers, and Maggie pressed her eyes shut so hard that tears spilled out between her lashes.
"Hi, buddy," Tony croaked. He reached out and his hand landed on Maggie's shoulder.
There was a brief pause.
"Sir, I believe I have experienced a malfunction of some kind."
"Oh no, you're absolutely perfect," Tony said, and Maggie could hear that he was grinning. She opened her eyes and he beamed at her. "Let's get home."
Seoul, South Korea
Bucky had been to Korea before. Several times, he was pretty sure. The city he looked down at from the Quinjet now looked different, but only in the way New York had looked different when he came back. He had been here before, he was sure of it. In another time.
They'd dropped Steve off on a rooftop several blocks away from Helen Cho's lab, which sat on a promontory on the river. Now they hovered over the city, which gleamed through a thick layer of hazy smog. It spread for miles. Clint flew the Quinjet just above the highest buildings, and they listened in as Steve found the lab damaged and abandoned. Bucky clenched his jaw as he heard Helen Cho herself, her voice tight with pain.
"He's uploading himself into the body."
"Where?" Steve asked, but she could not answer.
"The real power is inside the Cradle. The gem, its power is uncontainable. You can't just blow it up. You have to get the Cradle to the Starks."
"First I have to find it," Steve murmured.
Bucky shared a glance with Romanoff, before they both turned back to the computer screens which flicked through city-wide surveillance. They worked fast, scanning through flight manifests, power grid scans, and police reports. Bucky looked for anything big enough to carry this Cradle thing, which Romanoff said was about the size of a coffin.
Clint identified a truck from Cho's lab, and the situation very quickly fell apart; Steve jumped down onto the truck from an overpass, and then there were sounds of explosions and shrieking metal over the comms. Bucky peered out the cockpit of the Quinjet to see Steve clinging to the door from the back of the truck, which was dragging along the road behind it. But then the truck passed under an overpass and Clint had to veer away.
"Well, he's definitely unhappy!" Steve called. "I'm gonna try and keep him that way."
"You're not a match for him, Cap," Clint called.
"Thanks, Barton," Steve replied, sounding deflated.
Bucky looked up. "We've gotta catch back up to that truck."
"Working on it," Clint grunted. He jerked on the Quinjet controls and Bucky had to reach up to steady himself against a bulkhead. Over the comms, he could hear Steve and Ultron exchanging threats as they fought, followed by the sound of shattering glass. What the hell have you got yourself into, Steve? Clint piloted the Quinjet through the forest of skyscrapers in Seoul, maneuvering his way back toward the highway the truck was tearing down.
Bucky didn't realize Romanoff was behind him until she tapped his shoulder. He tore his eyes off the view out the front of the cockpit and turned to find her offering him a full-face tactical helmet, completely black.
"Put it on," she said.
Bucky took the helmet.
"We got a window!" Clint called. "Four, three… give 'em hell."
Bucky felt the pressure shift as the Quinjet pulled up just before it hit the road, and a second later the belly of the jet opened up below him.
A motorbike dropped out of the bottom of the Quinjet and hit the road with its wheels spinning. Romanoff drove the bike, hunkered down low and her red hair snapping back in the sudden blast of wind. Bucky sat perched behind her with his boots on the wheel well, flesh hand on her shoulder and the metal one gripping the seat below him. The tactical helmet he wore limited his vision a little, but it offered protection from the sudden screaming wind and prevented anyone from recognizing him. The metal arm was disguised by the long-sleeve tactical jacket he wore.
Romanoff drove like she'd never heard of a driving license. She roared along the main road, weaving through traffic and only leaving a hair's breadth of space between cars on either side. Bucky squeezed his knees in close so she wouldn't snap them off.
"Relax," Romanoff drawled as she veered in front of a taxi. His hand tightened on her shoulder.
"I could've been in Oslo," he grumbled.
He felt her attention fix on something ahead of them and she sighed. "I'm always picking up after those boys. A hand, Barnes?"
He looked ahead and only had a second to recognize the gleaming disc on the road before Romanoff leaned down on the motorcycle, almost skimming their left knees against the concrete. Bucky reached down and snatched up Steve's shield in his metal hand with a clang.
Moments later Romanoff veered a hard right into a pedestrian commercial area, and Bucky winced as terrified shoppers dodged out of their way. He held his breath when she turned up a narrow alleyway lined with neon signs, but seconds later she had brought them out on the main road, headed directly for the blue and white UHGIN GENETICS truck. Bucky got a glimpse of Ultron's tall metal figure, gripping Steve in a choke hold on top of the truck. Romanoff's muscles bunched and she gunned the engine.
Bucky sucked in a breath. "Oh, don't-"
"Lean," Romanoff hissed, and as one they threw their weight right to send the motorcycle skidding underneath the truck. It was over in a second and they came up on the other side, where Steve nearly hung over the edge, Ultron's hand around his throat. He glanced down at the sudden appearance of the motorcycle on the road below.
Bucky hurled up the shield. Steve snatched it out of the air and slammed it into Ultron's head, sending him flying to the ground. Bucky used his hand on Romanoff's shoulder to hop up so he was crouching on the back of the motorcycle seat, then leaped - both hands gripped the edge of the truck and his boots banged into the side.
Ultron blew up a section of the road ahead and Romanoff had to come to a screeching halt, letting the truck race ahead. Bucky hauled himself up on to the top of the truck just as Ultron got to his feet. Bucky yanked the machine gun free from his back and laid down a spray of fire at the robot - Ultron let the bullets ping off him and looked up, eyes glowing red. But that had been all the distraction Steve needed. He charged Ultron with the shield, knocking him back almost off the edge of the truck. Bucky could hear the drones inside the truck firing out at Romanoff as she tried to chase after them. The truck engines roared, echoing off the underside of the overpass above them.
Steve slammed the shield into Ultron's middle again, but then Ultron fired a piercing arc of lasers at Steve which knocked him clean off the truck and onto the hood of a black car thirty yards away. Ultron brought up a chunk of the road using that strange magnetic ability he had, and Steve's car flew up into the air, spinning.
Bucky launched himself at Ultron. He slammed the robot in the back with his metal fist, making Ultron let out a bite of pain, then followed up with a kick to his metal knee, knocking him to a kneel.
Ultron whirled with a snarl, backhanding Bucky away. Bucky tumbled along the length of the top of the truck before catching himself in a crouch, looking up at Ultron's seven foot tall metal form through the goggles of his tactical helmet.
Ultron faced him, metal fists clenched and his red eyes burning. He cocked his head, considering Bucky. "Sergeant Barnes."
Bucky reached for the pistol at his hip.
"Zhelaniye." [Longing]
Bucky froze. Ultron just stood there, his head cocked, and a smile playing at his metal mouth. "No," Bucky croaked. "No, you… you can't know that."
"You'd be surprised what you can find on the internet," Ultron smirked. "Rzhavyy." [Rusted]
Bucky pressed both hands to his head, wincing through a burst of lightning. But he shook off the spike of pain and grabbed for his pistol. He raised it and got off a shot that knocked Ultron back a step.
Bucky kept the pistol up, his hand shaking, waiting for the next blow to fall. He held Ultron's burning red eyes. Several long moments passed. It felt quiet, even though Bucky knew that with the racing truck and the crashing cars and the laser blasts that this was as far from quiet as you could get.
Ultron remained still.
Bucky let out a breath. "You don't know the rest."
"Zhelaniye," Ultron said again, and the word burned, but Bucky's mind remained his own.
"You don't know the rest," he repeated. His eyes widened. "Those HYDRA agents. That's all they knew too. They must've heard the words at some point, but not all of them. That's… all you could find. On the entirety of the internet." He let out a shaky breath. Maybe I'm the only one left alive who knows them all.
Ultron took a step forward, metal palm out. "I could help you, Soldat."
Bucky jerked his gun back up and started firing.
Steve had caught back up and leaped on top of the truck, so now it was him and Bucky against Ultron, carefully balanced as they traded blows. The Quinjet had drawn off the drones from inside, and Romanoff was closing in on the bike. Ultron was tough, but Bucky could feel his anger rising with each blow Steve and Bucky rained down on him - strange that a robot can feel rage. Steve and Bucky placed themselves on either side of Ultron, striking for his weak points when Ultron had his back turned. They were a flurry of blows, trading off the shield to deliver maximum damage to Ultron's Vibranium blend body.
Something about the unyielding metal and the flashing red eyes reminded Bucky of fighting Meg.
He kicked Ultron in the chest, and a swing from Steve's shield sent Ultron falling off the truck for a moment. Steve glanced back to Bucky, his chest heaving.
"Just like old times!" he said breathlessly. Behind him, Ultron caught himself in midair and looked to them with burning red eyes.
Bucky lowered his centre of gravity. "If this is how you remember the war, pal, you need to get your head checked."
Ultron dove back into the fight.
Just as Bucky had bounced the shield back to Steve and slammed his elbow into Ultron's hip, Ultron fired up his repulsors, jetted off the top of the truck, and then soared back to tackle Steve off the roof. Bucky whirled, watching them both plunge through the side of a train racing along to the right of the road.
"Steve!" Bucky hesitated, his eyes on the hole in the train.
"Drones are headed back toward you," Clint said over the comms. "So whatever you're going to do, do it now."
"Damn." Bucky tore his gaze off the train and paced down the length of the truck. He could see Romanoff racing up towards the open back now, and he swung himself inside just as Romanoff leaped up and into the truck. Bucky landed on one knee, and looked up to see a strange metal box lying at the front of the truck compartment, glowing an eerie blue. There were moving lights inside it, working on the indistinct shape of a humanoid silhouette.
Bucky and Romanoff shared a glance.
A roar of engines made Bucky turn around, but too late - the two Ultron drones roared down level with the truck and fired a series of repulsor blasts. The whole truck jerked and Bucky, half-standing at the back of the cab, lost his footing and tumbled out.
"Barnes!" Romanoff called.
Bucky tumbled along the harsh surface of the road, metal arm out to protect himself and his helmet banging against the concrete. When he rolled to a stop, he looked up to see the truck racing off, the two drones now hovering down on either side of it. Romanoff had kept her footing in the compartment and was now bent over the Cradle.
Cursing under his breath, Bucky pushed back to his feet and started running. He picked up speed quickly, boots pounding along the road as the train raced along to his right and the distance between him and the truck closed. But seconds later, the drones on either side of the truck compartment gripped it and took off. Bucky stared, still sprinting, as the whole thing lifted into the air like a bizarre rocket.
"Shit. Romanoff!" he called. He veered right, dashed up onto a parked minivan, and then leaped off the roof toward the speeding train.
He would have bounced right off the side if it hadn't been for the metal hand. He dug in with his unyielding fingers, putting gouges in the side of the train carriage, hanging fast like a limpet. Wind tore at his body and his boots dangled in thin air, but he had grabbed ahold of the train. Using his handhold, Bucky heaved himself up on to the top of the train, hesitantly balancing on the centre of the roof.
"The package is airborne," Clint said. "I have a clean shot."
"Negative, I am still in the truck!" Romanoff called.
The two of them broke off into arguing, which Bucky tuned out. He was crouched on top of the moving train, with river whisking past to one side and a busy highway on the other. He looked ahead, up the rows of carriages, until he saw the smoking hole in the side of the carriage where Steve and Ultron had hit.
"Man, I hate trains," Bucky muttered under his breath as he lowered his centre of gravity and broke into a run.
Despite his nerves and the shrieking wind, Bucky made a good pace up the length of the train until he finally reached the carriage where he could hear shouts and clanging metal. There was already a crack in the roof so he took a running leap and plunged right through it into the carriage below, taking a second to get his bearings.
He'd dropped down right behind Ultron's tall metal figure, but he and Steve weren't alone; ahead, in front of Steve, he could see the blonde Maximoff boy, fists curled, and when he glanced over his shoulder he saw the dark haired witch. She'd contorted two of the luggage racks into an eerie hovering metal X in the air.
Ultron glanced at Bucky for only a second before he whirled, hands outstretched, and fired a beam of lasers at both Steve and the Maximoff boy. They ducked, and the beam scorched along the carriage and through the very front of the train, blowing a hole. Ultron dove out of the train and soared upward.
Steve and Bucky shared a glance, then both ran for the front of the train.
"We lost him!" Steve shouted into the comms. "He's headed your way!"
Bucky peered out the window as he ran, and spotted Ultron's gleaming body hurtling upward. A pair of wings would be really useful right about now.
The train driver was dead. Steve leaned down to check on him all the same, and Bucky looked out the gaping hole in the front window to see the bollard at the end of the line, less than a mile away and closing fast. Wind whistled into the train from the open window.
"I really fuckin' hate trains," Bucky growled. He tapped Steve's shoulder. "Hit one of those buttons, there's gotta be a stop button."
Steve tried, hitting buttons and pulling levers, but none of them seemed to do anything. "Must have taken out the controls," he muttered.
Bucky reached past him for a passenger communication set by the driver's head. The bollard at the end of the line was seconds away. He pulled the comms set to his mouth and shouted: "Jasin-eul beotida!" [Brace yourself!] He wasn't sure where the Korean came from, but it was in his brain, so he was going to use it.
A moment later the train collided with the bollard with a crunch, and they all jerked forward. Bucky almost tipped out of the front of the train, but Steve seized the back of his tactical jacket. The train didn't stop, however - they were now skidding along open road, plunging through crates and parked cars.
Clint was asking over the comms where Romanoff was, but Steve looked up at the Quinjet and ordered him to get back to the Starks ASAP.
The train carved a gouge along the road. Bucky kept hitting anything on the controls that looked like an emergency stop button, but Steve turned and stepped back into the carriages, his eyes on the Maximoffs.
"Civilians in our path," he said. Seconds later Bucky spotted a blue and white streak zipping ahead of the train, pulling people out of the way. "Can you stop this thing?" Steve asked the girl, Wanda.
Bucky stood, helpless, at the helm of an out-of-control train, his jaw clenched and his metal hand gripping a support pole. He watched the Maximoff kid race ahead, clearing civilians, and then his eyes widened as he spotted an oncoming building. At the last second Steve darted in front of Bucky, shield up.
They plunged through the building in an explosion of bricks and dust. Something large hurtled through the front of the train and slammed into Steve, who flew back and bowled Bucky over. They tumbled to the ground in a tangle of metal and shattered glass.
When Bucky got his hands under himself and looked up, the train was slowing down. He frowned, but then glanced back to see the witch, her hands glowing red and the air around her surging with power as she pulled the entire train slower and slower. Seconds later the hunk of metal ground to a crunching halt in the middle of a road.
For a few moments, the only sounds were the hissing and creaks of the settling train, and frightened breaths from the passengers. Bucky sat up with a groan.
Trains.
Bucky helped passengers climb down from the banged-up train. They seemed afraid of his faceless helmet at first, but then accepted his steady grip as they escaped to safety. Smoke rose from the train, and sirens in the distance were rapidly growing louder.
As Bucky helped an elderly woman navigate the rubble around the train, he glanced over to see a familiar red and white shield. Steve was walking up to the front end of where the train had come to a rest, toward a young blonde man in joggers and a woman with a red shawl.
Bucky stormed after Steve.
"I just need to take a minute," panted Pietro Maximoff, leaning against a nearby wall.
"I'm very tempted not to give you one," Steve said grimly.
Bucky was five steps behind, and when Steve moved out of the way he pulled his last remaining pistol from the back of his jacket and aimed it at Wanda Maximoff, flicking off the safety.
Both of the twins stiffened, Pietro pushing defensively off the wall, but Steve held out a quelling hand. The gesture was clearly meant for him, but Bucky didn't put down the gun.
"The Cradle," the Maximoff girl said, her gaze flicking back to Steve. "Did you get it?"
"The Starks will take care of it."
Maximoff's eyes widened and she took a step back, looking more frightened by those words than she had been at Bucky's gun. "No they won't."
Steve frowned. "You don't know what you're talking about. They're not crazy."
"Tony Stark will do anything to make things right," Wanda Maximoff urged. "And his sister will only help him."
Bucky frowned. Steve held Maximoff's gaze a second longer before he turned aside. "Stark, come in," he said over the comms. "Stark. Anyone on comms." He turned to look at Bucky.
Bucky shook his head as his gun lowered. "We reduced our comms capacity, remember?" And Clint was taking a direct path back to Avengers Tower.
Wanda Maximoff glared. "Ultron can't tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it. Where do you think he gets that?"
Bucky remembered Maggie's words, as she had looked at her brother. He wants to exert his control over the world, whether that means protecting it or ending it. His brow furrowed.
Ultron could have been… so beautiful.
Steve leaned in toward Bucky. "We need to get back," he murmured.
Bucky's jaw clenched. He wanted to say they wouldn't, but he knew it wasn't true. Because he understood Maggie Stark.
Steve turned back to the Maximoffs. "You're coming with us."
Bucky turned to stare at him. "What? Why?"
Steve pointed at the twins. "You're going to help make this right."
Wanda and Pietro looked at each other, sharing an assessing glance. After a second, they both nodded. The unspoken communication reminded Bucky so much of Maggie and Tony that it made his stomach flip.
"Ultron needs to be stopped," Wanda said firmly.
Bucky clenched his metal fist. "Just… stay out of people's heads," he warned.
Wanda turned to face him fully, and her head cocked. He still had his helmet on, but he felt like she could see straight through him. Her eyes shifted and she said, softly: "She dreamed of you."
Bucky snapped his gun up again, but the Maximoff boy darted forward in a blur to bat it out of his hands. Bucky swore.
"Hey, hey!" Steve snapped, holding out a hand. "Buck, I know you don't like it, but they can help."
"I'll believe it when I see it," Bucky said darkly. He turned and stalked away.
Avengers Tower, New York
Bruce was alone in the tower when Tony and Maggie returned. He looked a little better, but still haunted.
"Any update?" he asked them.
"Some. We'll have to wait on the others," Tony said. They hadn't heard anything, not that they had expected to. The plan was to meet back at the Tower.
He and Maggie went upstairs to shower and change. The common room had been cleaned up, no doubt by Hill's doing.
When Maggie emerged from her room and made her way back down to the common room, she ran into Tony on the stairs. He'd changed into jeans and a long sleeved shirt, looking so normal that for a moment she almost forgot about Ultron.
"Hey," he said when he spotted her, and paced over to squeeze her shoulder. "You look better."
"I always look good."
He half smiled, but it quickly became a frown. He let out a long breath, and in it Maggie heard all the heaviness and mistakes of the last few days. It was late in the afternoon, and deep orange light had washed over his face. "What did she show you? The witch?"
Maggie sighed and closed her eyes. "She showed me my life… without you." She opened her eyes to see him looking hurt. "And it was such a cold life, Tony."
He tugged her in for a hug. "You can't get rid of me that easily, Maggot."
She gripped him tight. "I hurt you."
"It was only a dream."
"But I-"
"You're okay. I'm okay. And that witch? That witch is toast."
She smiled into his shoulder. "What did she show you?"
He hesitated.
"Don't lie to me. I know she must have done something to you in Sokovia."
She could hear him frowning. "It wasn't just a hallucination. It was real."
She frowned and stepped away so she could see his face. "What was it?"
His mouth twisted. "My life without you." Something complicated crossed his face. "Mags, we have to-"
He broke off at the sound of footsteps hurrying up the stairs, and they both looked down to see Bruce, his eyes bright.
"The Quinjet's just landed!"
The three of them hurried down to the Quinjet docking bay just as the jet's loading ramp opened. Maggie stumbled to a halt when she saw the blocky metal shape of what had to be Helen Cho's Cradle. Glass panels on the top of it glowed an eerie, misty blue and she could see control panels active on the side of it. She let out a breath of relief.
Clint climbed out of the cockpit and met their eyes darkly. "Ultron took Nat."
Maggie's relief dissolved. "Took her? Didn't kill her?"
Clint shrugged helplessly. His fist clenched and unclenched.
"Where are the others?"
"Had to leave them behind," Clint said grimly.
"Ultron won't kill Nat," Tony said. "He needs an audience, he'll want to hold her over our heads."
Maggie turned to Bruce, and her brows contracted when she saw his face: he looked like he'd been punched in the stomach. She reached out. "Hey-"
Bruce flinched back from her outstretched hand, then looked up and met her eyes.
Maggie curled her fingers back. "Nat will be okay," she said firmly. "It's Nat. Ultron's no match for her."
Bruce said nothing.
"Helen Cho said that this thing needed to get to you guys," Clint said with a nod at the three of them. "Let's get this thing down to where you need it, and then let's find Nat."
Tony was peering at the Cradle.
Maggie nodded. "Let's do it."
It took a while to get it down to the lab between the four of them, and then they split apart for a moment. Clint investigated the Cradle, trying to crack it open, and Maggie and Tony both did their best to trace Natasha, with no luck. Every tracker in her uniform had been deactivated in South Korea. Maggie might have been able to get something, given time, but…
"She'd want us to beat Ultron," she eventually sighed. "We need to get back to Bruce's lab."
Tony had given her a grim nod and followed her down. Night had fallen, leaving the lab illuminated by the ambient blue light of dozens of screens and the illuminated Cradle. Clint was crouched atop it, peering inside.
"Anything on Nat?" Bruce asked hopefully the moment they entered.
"We haven't found anything," Tony said apologetically. "But she's alive, or Ultron would be rubbing our faces in it."
Maggie paced past them, into the center of the lab. She'd barely had a chance to look properly at the Cradle yet. It was the size of a coffin, but made of metal and humming with power. Whatever program it had been set to was still running, constructing something within. Maggie felt herself getting drawn closer, despite her worry for Nat. She barely heard Clint as he hopped off the Cradle and said this is sealed tight.
She leaned in, placing her hand on one of the glass panels, feeling a crackle of power from within. The interior was murky and misty, but she could just make out the shape of a silhouette inside, and a point of glowing yellow light. The gem. It was a different color, but there was no mistaking the way the hairs stood up on the back of her arm, and her mind seemed to vibrate in its presence. The Cradle hummed.
As horrible as this was, Maggie couldn't help but feel awe. Creating life. This was lightyears beyond what Helen Cho had imagined for her invention.
She heard Tony as he turned to Clint. "Any chance Natasha might leave you a message, outside the Internet? Old school spy stuff?" Bruce had moved to the nearest desk and was tapping away at a computer screen, scanning the Cradle to access its programming.
"There are some nets I can cast," Clint said, and with a nod he turned to leave.
Maggie looked up. "I'll help-"
But Tony turned to her, holding a hand out for her to stay. She paused, one hand still on the glass panel of the Cradle, and frowned at her brother. His head tilted, and the light caught his face. She saw the look in his eyes.
"Oh, no," she murmured.
"Yuh-huh," he said, eyes sparking.
Maggie eyed Tony for a long moment, taking the measure of him. She'd seen so many variations of her brother: the businessman, the inventor, the martyr, the warrior. Who are you? She asked of him silently.
Tony held her gaze for a moment longer, then stepped past her to talk to Bruce, who was muttering about tissue degeneration and deconstructing Cho's operational system.
"Yeah, about that," Tony said, rubbing the back of his head.
Bruce looked up, eyes wide. He took a moment to measure Tony's expression, before he said: "No."
Tony stepped forward. "You have to trust me."
"Kinda don't," Bruce said, backing away. He looked to her. "Maggie, come on - you must have something to say here, you're going to let him do this again?"
She turned, but didn't look Bruce in the eye. She paced to the foot of the Cradle instead, her brow knotted. Tony kept talking, finally revealing what they had found in Oslo.
When Tony projected J.A.R.V.I.S.'s digital hologram into the centre of the lab, the light washed yellow over them all.
"Hello, Dr Banner," J.A.R.V.I.S. said politely. Maggie looked up and smiled, reassured by his whirring, moving parts.
Tony continued talking urgently, using Bruce's surprise at J.A.R.V.I.S.'s reemergence to his advantage. He followed Bruce in a circle around the Cradle, explaining how he wanted to put J.A.R.V.I.S. into the body, and Maggie was reminded of a very similar conversation in this lab only a few days ago. Like before she remained silent, her eyes on the object of their disagreement. She saw thin beams of light working away within the Cradle, building.
"We're out of my field, here," Tony urged. "You know bio-organics better than anyone."
They kept arguing. Maggie frowned and chewed the inside of her cheek.
"I'm in a loop!" Bruce exclaimed, throwing up his hands. "I'm caught in a time loop. This is exactly where it all went wrong."
Maggie thought about her dream, forged in scarlet light. She thought about what it had been like to be made, to be programmed.
You can't program life, she realized as Tony and Bruce whisper-argued. She looked down at the body inside the Cradle, just a mere shadow. You have to give it your best, and hope that it turns out… worthy. They'd failed with Ultron. She hoped that this… wouldn't be a Jurassic Park 2.
"We're monsters, buddy. We've gotta own it," Tony was saying, his hand on Bruce's shoulder. Both of their faces were illuminated blue. "Make a stand."
Bruce looked down, then across to Maggie, beseechingly. She stood on the other side of the Cradle from them.
Maggie looked down at the shadowy body, concealed by mist, then across at J.A.R.V.I.S.'s glowing yellow form. Her gaze tracked back to Tony, whose eyes were gleaming as he watched her. He still wasn't sure what she'd do.
I'm not one for faith, she thought. But I'll always have faith in you. She gave him a single, small nod, and he let out a shaky breath of relief. Her gaze turned to Bruce and she gave him a helpless shrug.
"How else can we defeat Ultron, Bruce? We might have stopped him from creating a body, but he's hell bent on world annihilation and he'll find another way. He's smarter than all of us and this… this might be our only shot."
"It's not a loop," Tony said. "It's the end of the line."
Bruce finally sighed, and looked down at the Cradle. "Okay."
Tony grinned and cracked his knuckles. "Let's get to work." He dashed up to the upper level of the lab.
"This has to work," Maggie breathed as she moved to the cabinet that she knew housed enough power couplings to supply a small town. "The others will understand. They have to."
"They might not," Bruce said as he turned back to his work station. "They're not going to take this one on faith."
"So we'll need to have a pretty good end result to prove it to them," she replied nervously.
Bruce's lips thinned. "Bring up J.A.R.V.I.S.'s base code for me."
Novi Grad, Sokovia
Ultron, in a taller, more terrifying Vibranium body, glared at Natasha Romanoff.
"I was meant to be new," he hissed. He closed his eyes. "I was meant to be… beautiful."
Avengers Tower, New York
After an hour of feverish work, they got J.A.R.V.I.S.'s upload active and running. Maggie had fixed up all the hardware, connecting the Cradle to the building's arc reactor power supply and creating a coupling for J.A.R.V.I.S. to be uploaded through. It was bristling with wires and couplings now, like a many-tentacled squid. Bruce had figured out the bio-organic side of things, with Maggie chiming in with cybernetics advice from time to time. The body had already been a quarter complete when it arrived; Tony had had the job of deconstructing the partially-completed cerebral matrix upload and optimizing J.A.R.V.I.S. for transfer.
Clint hadn't come upstairs, too busy tracking Natasha. So the three of them were left to work in peace, surrounded by computers and wires and scanners. Maggie singed her fingers on wires as she hastily engineered the Cradle, and her brain ached with the cognitive overload of trying to combine J.A.R.V.I.S.'s UI system with the strange bio-Vibranium thing inside the Cradle. But where her area of expertise failed, Bruce's kicked in, and where his failed, Tony came in with a fresh idea. This felt like the culmination of everything they had been talking about and planning for for months, and it was terrifying.
When they reached the last percentage points of the upload, Maggie felt sweat beading on the back of her neck.
"This framework is not compatible," Tony said urgently, looking between three screens as he worked to run the upload of J.A.R.V.I.S., on the upper level of the lab. At the computer readout by the Cradle, Maggie scan-read through the input he'd sent through in the last minute, combing through for errors and addressing upload issues as the Cradle flagged them.
"The genetic coding tower is at 97%," Bruce said, his voice tight. He worked at the other end of the Cradle from Maggie. "You have got to upload that schematic in the next three minutes." The screens behind Maggie chimed and she whirled, spotting another issue with the input speeds. Her fingers danced over the keyboard. Behind her, the Cradle hummed, occasionally hissing as it offset pressure.
"Tony, you have to reflex the codon table framework," she called. "That might reverse the compatibility issue." He nodded, distracted.
Maggie was so absorbed in the work that she didn't see Steve, Bucky, and the Maximoff twins enter the lab. THe first clue she had was Steve's heavy footstep as he came to a stop, staring at them.
"I'm gonna say this once," came Steve's firm voice.
Maggie's head jerked around and her eyes widened as she saw the four of them. She spotted Bucky, standing just to the right of the two Maximoffs, staring horrified at her. She stared right back, her brows slowly lowering. Her eyes darted to the witch.
"How about none-ce?" Tony shot back, not taking his hands off his keyboard.
"Shut it down!" Steve commanded.
"Nope," Tony said, turning his back on Steve to move to his other readout. "Not gonna happen." Maggie shared a quick glance with Bruce, then took that as her cue to keep working. She inched down the temperature of the Cradle and loaded up the next section of the schematic Tony had sent through.
"You don't know what you're doing," Steve snapped.
"Steve-" Maggie tried, looking up, but Bruce interrupted her.
"And you do?" he said in a dangerously low voice. He pointed at Wanda. "She's not in your head?"
Wanda stepped out from behind Steve. "I know you're angry-"
Maggie glared, even as she kept working. She couldn't afford to stop now. Her glare switched to Bucky, and his face closed off.
"Oh, we're way past that," Bruce murmured. "I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade."
Steve stepped forward. "Banner, Maggie, after everything that's happened-"
"It's nothing compared to what's coming!" Tony shouted from the upper level.
"You don't know what's in there!" Wanda cried.
Steve kept stepping forward. "This isn't a game!:
"We're not playing," Maggie snapped.
"And you," Steve said, his eyes falling on her. "You're so eager to follow where he goes" - he jabbed a finger up at Tony - "that you've abandoned everything you used to stand for."
"Hey," Tony snarled at the same time as Bucky stepped forward and said: "Steve, maybe-"
Maggie just glared. But then there was a whoosh and she caught a blue-and-white blur as it surged around the lab, rustling papers and creating sparks-
A second later Pietro Maximoff appeared by her side, clutching an unplugged power coupling. She glanced around and her stomach dropped as she spotted all the dead computer screens.
"No, no. Go on," Pietro smirked. "You were saying?"
Maggie's eyes darted to her main readout, showing the power levels. They began to drain. "No-"
A gunshot made her flinch, and in the next second Pietro plunged through the glass beneath him as it shattered, landing at Clint's feet. Clint stomped on the boy's thigh. Maggie spared them half a glance, then turned back to the Cradle. POWER LOSS CRITICAL blared all her readouts.
"Tony, the upload!" she shouted. If they could run it through before the power completely failed…
"I'll reroute it!" he called back, turning to his screens.
But Maggie had barely reached for the closest power coupling before Steve wound back his shield and hurled it. Maggie ducked as the shield rebounded around the lab, crunching through computer screens and server towers and causing an eruption of sparks. Maggie felt sparks catch on her skin in pinpricks of burning pain. She glanced up to see that he'd taken out half their computers.
On the upper level, Tony summoned an Iron Man gauntlet and blasted a repulsor beam at Steve, knocking him into the far wall. Bruce surged to his feet and wrapped his arms around Wanda, muttering furiously in her ear. Clint emerged in the door of the lab with a gun just as Tony summoned the rest of his armor.
As the Avengers pulled out weapons and prepared for battle, Maggie dove for a fallen power coupling and hefted it into her arms, dragging it back toward the Cradle. Her frantic gaze scanned the readouts - they had only seconds before the powerloss killed all their progress. Her ears ached from the close blasts of repulsor beams, crashing metal, and shattering glass. She heard Tony cry out.
She sensed someone come up behind her and she whirled, throwing a punch - only for her fist to land in an unyielding metal grasp. She met Bucky's eyes over where he'd caught her punch, and then they both ducked as a repulsor blast rebounded off Steve's shield and hit a pane of glass over their heads.
"Meg-"
"Get off me!" she shouted, diving for the power cable.
She heard a thud of footsteps and then a snap of fabric, and looked up to see Thor leaping over her head and onto the Cradle. He wore his full armor, and his face glowed blue from the Cradle. He raised his hammer high and lightning exploded inside the lab, summoned to Mjolnir.
"No!" Maggie cried, her hand out.
"Wait!" Bruce shouted.
The lightning grew brighter, brighter, electric blue and so blinding Maggie had to squeeze her eyes shut. She felt a metal hand close around her ankle and drag her away from the Cradle. She covered her head and opened her eyes just as Thor brought his hammer down toward the Cradle, sending lightning surging into it. Everyone in the lab stopped and stared as the arcs of crackling electricity plunged into the metal box, and the readouts on the side blared with the POWER OVERLOAD alarm.
Finally, Thor drew his hammer back and the arcing, blistering light died. For one breathless moment, everyone in the lab stared. Maggie sat up, her eyes wide.
And then the Cradle exploded. The whole top of the device blew off, sending Thor hurtling across the lab, and they were all blown backward - Maggie heard Bucky grunt as he collided with the server stack behind him, and she was flung flat on her back. Out of the corner other eye, she saw a silhouette emerge from the Cradle in a cloud of mist, coming to a crouch at the very edge.
Maggie pushed herself up onto her elbows, staring, her hair in her eyes. Her chest heaved as she fought to catch her breath.
Mist poured off the figure crouching on the end of the Cradle. It was humanoid, with deep red-maroon skin and silver inlays on its body. Its head was bowed, and she could see corded strength in its limbs. A yellow gem glowed on its forehead. The mist rolled along the floor and Maggie's nostrils flared when she caught the scents of ozone, metal, and something… more organic.
The being rose with unnatural smoothness, lifting its gaze to look around at them all. The Avengers rose with it, staring.
The being's gaze fell on Maggie, and she stared back at him. There was intelligence in its green eyes, keen and incisive. Her breath stopped in her chest.
The being's gaze rose, and she realized it was staring at Thor. Then, faster than she could believe, it leaped at the Asgardian. Thor caught the thing and hurled it over his head, through the plate glass and into the common room. Maggie jumped up to her feet just as the being caught itself in midair before it hit the far window.
The Avengers rushed out of the lab after the being. Maggie seized Bucky's shoulder to help him to his feet, and then they ran out of the lab and down the stairs. Thor held his hand out to them, warding them off, and they all paused.
The strange metal being was floating in midair, staring out at New York - no, at its reflection. After several long moments, the being turned and floated back down to the floor, its skin shifting - Maggie blinked, and realized it had fashioned itself some kind of uniform.
It came to land by Thor, who was closest. Maggie kept padding down the stairs, unable to take her eyes off it.
"I'm sorry, that was… odd," the being said. It had J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice. He nodded to Thor. "Thank you." Its form shifted again, and a golden cape shimmered into existence behind it.
"Thor," panted Steve, who was furthest ahead of the other Avengers. "You helped create this?"
Maggie and Tony shared an astounded glance, then stepped forward. She could sense Bucky behind her, staring.
"I've had a vision," Thor said breathlessly. "A whirlpool that suchs in all hope of life, and at its centre is that." He pointed at the glowing gem on the being's forehead.
Thor explained his vision of the Infinity Stones, as the Avengers listened in shock. Maggie couldn't take her eyes off the being's face. It was calm, but she could see… it was thoughtful, looking around at them all, listening, considering.
"Because Stark is right," Thor said clearly, gesturing to Tony. Maggie looked to him, her eyebrows high.
"Oh, it's definitely the end times," Bruce muttered.
"The Avengers cannot defeat Ultron," Thor explained.
"Not alone," the being said, and paced forward.
"Why does your Vision sound like J.A.R.V.I.S.?" Steve asked.
"We reconfigured J.A.R.V.I.S.'s matrix to create something new," Tony said. He and Maggie shared another glance, then stepped closer to the creature, meeting it as it walked forward. Face to face with it, Maggie felt her heart skip. It looked into her eyes, and she into its, and she wanted to cry. Its face had a metallic gleam to it, but the eyes… they were human.
"You think I'm a child of Ultron," it said, pitching its voice to Steve.
"You're not?"
"I'm not Ultron," it says. "I am not JARVIS, I am… I am." He looked back at Tony, Bruce, and Maggie as it continued pacing. She looked past it to Bucky, who was still on the staircase, looking astounded.
The others continued to discuss it, Wanda suggesting that she look in its head, but Maggie's ears were ringing. You can't program life.
"Are you?" Steve said eventually. "On our side?"
The being - the Vision - cocked his head, considering. "I don't think it's that simple."
"Well it better get real simple soon," Clint said grimly.
"I am on the side of life," the Vision said. And though he had J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice, he didn't sound… like J.A.R.V.I.S. "Ultron isn't. He will end it all."
"What's he waiting for?" Tony asked.
"You."
Bruce frowned. "Where?"
"Sokovia," Clint said. "He's got Nat there, too."
Bruce stepped toward the Vision, looking small beside it. "If we're wrong about you… if you're the monster that Ultron made you to be…"
"What will you do?" the Vision asked curiously.
Bruce could not answer.
Maggie looked into the Vision's eyes. She couldn't believe that only minutes ago he had only been a shadow in a box. A dream. But she looked into his eyes now, and she saw life there. The same way that she had seen life in Ultron, but this… she thought she could see kindness, and it broke her heart.
"I don't want to kill Ultron," the Vision said. "He's unique, and he's in pain. But that pain will roll over the Earth. So he must be destroyed. Every form he's built, every trace of his presence on the net. We have to act now." He looked around at them all. "And not one of us can do it without the others."
Maggie swallowed.
The Vision looked down at his hands. "Maybe I am a monster. I don't think I'd know if I were one." Maggie heard echoes of Tony in that, of herself, and her heart twisted. "I'm not what you are, and not what you intended," he said, with a look at his creators. He kept pacing. "So there may be no way to make you trust me. But we need to go." And with a simple gesture, he picked up Mjolnir from where it had been resting on the floor and handed it to Thor.
They all stared. After a few moments, Thor took the hammer, looking at it like he'd never seen it before. The Vision strode off.
"Right," Thor breathed. He followed after the Vision, pausing to pat Tony on the shoulder. "Well done." He nodded to Maggie. "You too."
Steve swallowed, then drew in a breath. "Three minutes," he said to those of them left standing in the common room. "Get what you need."
The others broke off, heading for uniforms and weapons. But Maggie turned to Tony, meeting his eyes. He reached out and grabbed her elbow, his eyebrows high and his eyes glinting.
"I know," she whispered, her eyes catching on the others as they rushed around. "I know, I know. Holy shit." She swallowed and looked around. "We should go."
He nodded feverishly and glanced to where the Vision had disappeared down the corridor. "They grow up so fast."
Maggie collected her armor and got changed, making sure to attach every weapon she could think of to her various holsters. She hurried down to the changing area and armory outside the Quinjet docking bay, blinking when she realized that the sun had risen.
She spotted a glimpse of a shimmering golden cape, and she veered left to follow after it. "Oh, um - excuse me?"
The figure wearing the cape came to a graceful halt and turned. They both stood in the corridor between the locker room and the armory, which was currently empty. The Vision looked strange in the light of day - well, stranger. His skin - if you could call it skin - was a deep maroon, with silver metal segments tracing around the back of his skull and neck. His uniform was a muted blue-grey, with the gossamer gold cape falling down his back to the floor. He was like nothing she had ever seen before.
"Margaret Stark," he said evenly. His eyes rested on her face. "You want to know if I am like J.A.R.V.I.S."
She shook her head. "No, I… I can't begin to comprehend what you are. I just wanted to say…" she held out her hand. "That it's lovely to meet you. And welcome."
He considered her hand. Finally, he reached out to take it. Maggie almost flinched at the feeling of his hand - it was warm. Not as warm as a regular human's, but she'd been expecting cool metal. "Thank you," the Vision said. He considered her. "J.A.R.V.I.S. was your friend."
She fought off the spike of pain. "He was." She nodded. "I hope that one day you might be too. But first, let's deal with Ultron."
He nodded, then looked up. "Sergeant Barnes. You're ready?"
Maggie looked over her shoulder, and Bucky walked out of the shadows at the end of the corridor. He was in full tactical gear, with several guns strapped to his torso and belt, and a tactical helmet dangling from one hand. The metal arm was completely covered.
"V-Vision," Bucky greeted. "That's what Thor said you wanted to be called?"
The Vision - Vision - inclined his head.
Bucky fired off a salute with his free hand. "Nice to meet you."
Vision looked back, over Maggie's shoulder. "The others are almost ready. We should go." And with that he strode off, leaving Maggie and Bucky alone in the corridor.
Maggie and Bucky met eyes, for a moment merely looking at each other; the look held apology and wonder and concern all at once. Maggie let out a shaky breath and nodded.
"Jurassic Park?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No. Something completely new." He cleared his throat. "So. Off to battle. Steve already told me I don't need to come, but…"
"Yeah," she breathed. "Are you really ready?"
His jaw clenched. "I never am."
Maggie and Bucky strode up the loading ramp of the Quinjet together; they were the last to board, and Maggie could already hear the engine powering up and conversations drifting out of the jet.
At the top of the ramp, Maggie stalled for half a second when she saw the Maximoff twins, standing together at the edge of the jet, putting commlinks in their ears. The boy, Pietro, wore a lightweight, synthetic cobalt uniform, and the girl, Wanda, a red leather jacket. They both glanced over when Maggie and Bucky appeared at the top of the ramp.
Wanda turned to her. "Ms Stark-"
"Don't," Maggie bit out as she strode right past them and secured herself into one of the jumpseats near the cockpit.
They took off, and things were strangely silent for a few moments as Clint piloted them out over the Atlantic. Maggie checked over her weapons and occasionally glanced around at the full Quinjet, her eyes lingering on Vision from time to time. Early morning sunlight streamed in, illuminating everyone's faces.
"So… what's the plan, here?" Bruce finally asked.
Everyone looked to Steve. He drew in a breath, and climbed out of his jumpseat to face them all.
"Ultron knows we're coming," he said frankly. His gaze was serious. "Odds are we'll be riding into heavy fire. And that's what we signed up for." He looked to the twins. "But the people of Sokovia, they didn't. So our priority is getting them out." His brow lowered. "All they want is to live their lives in peace. And that's not going to happen today. But we can do our best to protect them. And we can get the job done. We find out what Ultron's been building, we find Romanoff, and we clear the field. Keep the fight between us."
Steve looked around at them all, then lowered his gaze. "Ultron thinks we're monsters. That we're what's wrong with the world." Maggie found herself, inexplicably, looking over to Bucky. He hadn't strapped himself in, preferring to stand on the other side of the jet against the wall, near Thor. His gaze was heavy. I used to think you were a monster.
"This isn't just about beating him," Steve said finally. "It's about whether he's right."
Okay, so next week there will likely be no update, as I'm going on holiday to the lovely city of Paris! I will do my best to update as per usual, but if there's no update, that'll be why. Have a lovely week!
Reviews
DBZFAN45: I'm glad you liked the Clint family house stuff! Hope you enjoyed this chapter :)
Guest: We shall see what happens with Pietro and JARVIS :)
EchoMoment: Bucky is a big mother hen! Older sibling energy for sure.
Morgzw: Maggie and Bucky definitely care a lot about each other but they can't admit it!
Spanieluver1973: Maybe in a tangential way but probably not in a lot of detail!
Shortrooper: So glad you liked the chapter! We needed some forgiveness, and some more lighthearted moments at the Barton farm. I'm excited to show you guys what happens post-AOU as well!