Chapter 10: Deceived

The atmosphere of the after-party suddenly shifted from relaxed to pin-drop tension. Terra stood slowly at the new robotic presence that made itself known, while Maria remained sitting and watched it with a blank expression. It was an Iron Legion robot... sort of. Bruce had set his drink down at that point and Natasha was up on her feet, clocking her position in the room.

Steve stood at attention, fingers cracking, ready for anything. "Stark..."

"JARVIS," Tony said, getting out his phone to try and figure out what was going on. JARVIS, however, did not reply.

"I'm sorry, I was asleep," the robot continued. "Or was I a dream?"

Natasha was inching closer to Steve at this point, cursing herself that she didn't have any sort of weapon on her at this point. Clint had stood as well, keeping close to Maria and Thor had his hammer gripped in his hand, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice.

"There was a terrible noise," the robot added. "And I was tangled in...strings. I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy."

"You killed someone?" Steve asked, waiting impatiently for the confirmation - for an excuse. His fingers curled into his palms.

"Wouldn't have been my first call," the robot continued, having too much voice fluctuation to be anything but a higher enhanced AI, even against Jarvis. "But down in the real world, we're faced with ugly choices."

Natasha was getting more and more wary by the second. She glanced back and saw she wasn't as close to Steve as she thought she was, and was instead closer to Bruce. Something she didn't know would be good or bad depending on how south this went. Thor was standing protectively in front of Helen, planning on not letting her get caught in the crossfire."

"Who sent you," Thor demanded, grip on the handle getting tighter and tighter.

The robot casually glanced up and played a recording of Tony's voice.

"I see a suit of armor around the world."

"Ultron," Bruce breathed, turning to make eye contact with Tony; with a 'what the hell' look on his face.

"In the flesh," Ultron said. "Or no, not yet. Not this chrysalis."

Thor tightened his grip a little more glaring at the so-called Ultron. Natasha was still standing too close to Bruce for her comfort, knowing this was only headed in one direction.

"But I'm ready," Ultron continued. "I'm on a mission."

"What mission?" Natasha asked hesitantly.

"Peace in our time," Ultron said evilly and looked at the group before the rest of the Iron Legion burst through the wall and started flying at the Avengers.

One came directly at Steve and Maria cocking its fist back to slam into them. One came at Thor who easily batted it away with his hammer. Thor then jumped up to the second level to take out the blasting from above. Two of them split up Natasha and Banner from Clint. Clint took off, dodging blasts left and right and slid under a table. Natasha made her way over to the bar with Bruce and jumped up on top to avoid a blast that shattered all of the glasses. She fell behind the bar, but Banner was still on top. She pulled him down and he landed directly on her, face in her cleavage.

Red as a tomato, Bruce held his face as far from Natasha's as possible without poking his head over the counter. "Sorry."

"Don't turn green," Natasha said quickly, knowing that the Hulk wouldn't help this situation any.

After getting the reassurance she needed, she crawled over to where a pistol was stashed underneath the bar. She pulled it out and immediately began firing at some of the bots. It just seemed like the bullets bounced off of the shells, damn Stark and his armor plating.

The fighting was going well for the Avengers all things considered. Tony was currently on the back of one of the Legionnaires, using a fondue stick to try and separate some of the wires. Thor was taking down bot after bot with ease and Steve had also taken out one that was trying to shoot at Natasha and Bruce.

"C'mon," Natasha said to Bruce, dragging him around the counter and up some stairs, dodging blasts as they went.

It only took one shot to Bruce to make this all end in a very green and ugly way. They had reached the top of the stairs and Natasha noticed just one of the bots left, hovering in the middle of the room, focused on them. She peaked around the corner and fired a couple of shots and the bot returned fire right back.

She ducked behind the wall, checking her count to see she was down to the last couple bullets in her clip. She was about to peak back around when she heard the yell of, "Cap!" from Clint.

She turned to see Clint throw the shield towards Steve and Steve caught it midair and spun, firing it into the chest of the bot and severing it in two. Natasha let out a long breath in relief and came out from behind the corner, surveying the damage below them, and the still standing pieced together suit on the far end of the room.

"That was dramatic," Ultron said, gesturing to all of the chaos with his remedial arm he constructed. "I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through."

The robot turned back to the Avengers now that he had stopped pacing.

"You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change," Ultron continued on. "How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to...evolve?"

Ultron looked down and picked up one of the busted robots from the Iron Legion.

"With these," Ultron said, looking at the Legionnaire with disgust if he had facial features. "These puppets?"

Ultron crushed the legionnaire's head and the faceplate popped right off, revealing the circuits inside. Ultron tossed the body to the ground and it fell with a loud thud.

"There's only one path to peace," Ultron said, looking around. "The Avengers extinction."

Thor had enough of that at this point and flung his hammer right at Ultron. The robot broke into a million pieces and Thor's hammer made a huge hole in the wall behind it. Thor called his hammer back and stared at the pieces of Ultron on the ground.

"I had strings but now I'm free..." the bot said, just before it shut off completely.

"Oh, for fucking fuck's sake!" Terra cursed, clearly in a moment where her commitment to not cursing anymore wasn't important, and Natasha couldn't fault her. "Thor, one of them took the sceptre."

"Aye," Thor said, walking towards the open balcony. Thor raised his hammer to the sky and lightning came down from above. His armor came back to him piece by piece. In just a few seconds, he was ready for battle, red cape and all. He swung his hammer around in a circle and took off into the air, following the trail of the scepter.

"I- I'm-" Tony stuttered, seemingly not being able to find the words after everything that just happened.

Steve looked around sweeping the room with eyes. "Is everyone alright? Where's Colonel Rhodes?"

"Aw, man. Did I miss all the fun?" Rhodes asked, coming out from behind a glass pane that was shattered that he probably fell into.

"Yeah, man. You missed it." Tony said, with a relived look on his face, that his friend hadn't been seriously hurt.

Bruce finally came out of his hiding spot and made his way over to Helen who was still crouched behind the piano and white as a sheet. When he put his hand on her arm he realized that she was shaking. "Come on," he said, lifting her to her feet. She came willingly but shaking like a leaf in stiletto heels did not make her very stable.

Steve looked over at the two scientists, knowing that with the recognition before and the tech, it could only be them. "Stark, Banner, what the hell was that?"

Tony sighed. "We should get this cleaned up."

"Tony," Steve said warningly. He didn't have the patience for squabbling and stalling. Every second they stood here the sceptre got farther and farther away.

"I KNOW!" Tony snapped. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. He took a deep breath. "Everyone meet in my lab. I'll explain this there." He jogged down the stairs to fetch Rhodey.

Steve turned to Bruce as if Bruce had the answers too. Bruce just shrugged because he was almost as clueless as the rest of just shook her head at all the carnage and looked at Barton.

"Set up a station," Natasha said, knowing Clint knew what it meant.

Clint nodded and headed for the lab. Natasha sighed and went towards the elevator to go to her and Steve's floor. She needed to get out of these ripped clothes. She didn't wait for Steve, knowing that she needed to keep her head in the game. It was a quiet elevator ride. The doors opened on their floor and she immediately went to the bedroom to change. She slipped out of her dress clothes and put on a black tank-top and some skinny jeans. She placed Steve's dog tags back over her neck and grabbed one of his sweatshirts and slipped it on. It was much too big for her, but it was what she needed right now. She headed straight back to the elevator, grabbing a tablet on the way out and starting to run diagnostics on their system, and pressed the button to the lab.

She arrived on the lab floor to hear the conversation had already begun, and they were in the first stages of figuring out what this Ultron really was.

"Well he's been in everything," Natasha said, coming into the room while typing on a tablet Clint had given her. "Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other."

She noticed Clint tense at that, and she understood completely. He had a family that no one but her knew about at this point, and he probably wanted that to stay that way. There was no telling what Ultron could find out.

"He's in your files," Rhodes said, still holding his arm from the battle. "He's in the Internet. What if he decides to access something a little more... exciting?"

Maria looked up from tweezing glass from her foot in realization. "Nuclear codes," she said, getting what Rhodey was suggesting

"Nuclear codes," Rhodey agreed. "Look, we need to make some calls. Assuming we still can."

"Nukes?" Natasha said, slightly wondering about why Ultron would go after the rest of the world. He seemed to just have a vendetta against all of them for some reason. "He said he just wanted us dead."

"He didn't say 'dead'," Steve corrected somberly. "He said 'extinct'." An important distinction.

A small, terse silence fell over the room as everyone mulled over that. It was a much more grave threat that made everyone just a little more on edge.

"He also said he killed somebody," Clint piped up, remembering an important detail as well.

Natasha nodded and glanced, worriedly, towards Steve. She knew he didn't like all the secrets that were being kept, and he sure as hell wasn't going to be happy about something at this magnitude staying within the confines of Stark's lab before it broke out itself. There was a storm coming, and she didn't mean Thor.

"But there wasn't anyone else in the building," Terra stated, and that was true. Everyone left the party by then except their group here.

Tony, who'd been quiet this whole time, finally spoke up, and it wasn't good news. "Yes, there was." He tapped his phone against dead space and a large holographic orange thing flickered to life. It appeared to be a moving sphere but... it had been shattered.

Bruce knew immediately what had happened. Shocked, he drifted closer, letting go of Terra's hand. Silence reigned. The lab beeped quietly in the background. JARVIS was dead.

"This is insane," Bruce breathed, arms aloft as if he could grasp some understanding from thin air.

"JARVIS was the first line of defense," Steve said. "He would've shut Ultron down. It makes sense."

"No," Bruce said quietly, shaking his head. "Ultron could've assimilated JARVIS. This isn't strategy, this is... rage."

At that point, Thor made his presence known. He stomped in, bypassing everyone, and went right up to Stark and grabbed him by the neck, lifting him up in the air.

"Woah," Clint said, immediately tensing. "It's going around."

"Use your words, buddy," Tony croaked, holding Thor's arm.

"I have more than enough words to describe you Stark," Thor said, squeezing slightly tighter.

Natasha didn't move from where she was standing, even though everyone else seemed to tense. Thor had a legitimate reason to be pissed at Stark, hell, everyone had a reason to be pissed at Stark. She just knew that Thor wasn't going to harm Tony, it wasn't his style.

"Thor!" Steve barked, ready to step in if necessary but trying to keep the situation non-violent. "The Legionnaire?"

Thor dropped Stark, giving him a scathing glare before turning to Steve.

"Trail went cold about a hundred miles out, but it's headed north," Thor said, and then looked back at Stark. "And it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it, again."

"Genies out of that bottle," Natasha said, trying to focus her mind and maybe bring some order to everyone else. "Clear and present is Ultron."

"I don't understand," said Helen, speaking for the first time. She turned away from the cracked and burnt Legionnaire. "You designed this program... why is it trying to kill us?"

Tony seemed to ponder her question for a moment, and then did the unthinkable. He started laughing. Next to him, Bruce frantically started shaking head, but Tony ignored him. Natasha felt a strong rage boil inside of her at this. They were all trying to figure out what to do, and the man that had caused all of this was just laughing and not taking things seriously at all.

Thor looked at Tony as he laughed, and Natasha could see had the same feelings that she had.

"You think this is funny?" Thor said, pointing at Stark with a dangerous look on his face.

"No," Tony said, though the laughter lines remained on his face. "At least... probably not, right?"

The others looked around at each other, wondering if Tony had finally lost his marbles.

"Is this very terrible?" Tony asked, beginning his walk around the lab. "Is it so-? Is it-?" He choked on another laugh. "It is, isn't it? It's so terrible."

"This could have been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand," Thor said, getting more and more irritated with Stark's attitude.

"No," Tony interrupted, stepping forward to meet Thor sort of halfway. He wasn't afraid. He was confident. Defensive. Maybe a little angry. They were pushing him into a corner. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry! It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this."

"Tony," Bruce sang, inching closer to see if he could pull him back. "Maybe this might not be the time to-"

Tony whirled on him. "Really? That's it? You just roll over, show your belly every time somebody snarls."

Bruce's eyebrows shot up. "Only when I've created a murder bot," he taunted.

"We didn't," Tony fired back. "We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?"

Bruce lifted his shoulders, eyebrows, head, and one side of his mouth in a 'yeah, we kind of were' face.

"Well you did something right," said Steve, arms crossed and party amusement gone. He stepped forward as everyone turned their attention to him. "And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different from SHIELD."

"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" Tony asked casually, pointing at the ceiling.

Rhodey shook his head. "Nope. It's never come up."

Tony ignored him because he knew for a fact that he's mentioned it at least a thousand times. "Saved New York?"

"Never heard that," Rhodes continued and again Tony ignored him.

"Recall that?" Tony asked louder.

Steve, Bruce, Rhodey, and Natasha all rolled their eyes.

"A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it." Tony said. "We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day but that up there?" He pointed up again, at the portal, at the sky, at space. "That's the endgame."

No one said anything.

"How are you guys planning on beating that?"

Steve shifted his stance, and everyone knew that Steve would have the next words. As the leader, he always knew what to say.

"Together," Steve replied, leaving little room to challenge it.

Tony stepped up so that they were nose to nose. Neither one backed down.

"We'll lose," Tony pointed out.

"Then we'll do that together too." Steve replied, not backing down.

Tony waited, almost like he was waiting for Steve to change his mind, but neither man budged.

"Thor's right," Steve announced, breaking the silence and turning away from Tony. "Ultron's calling us out. I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."

Thor just stormed out of the room, upset about just everything, and not wanting to talk to anyone at this point.

Natasha just glared at Tony and walked out the room as well, planning on going to her and Steve's room to decompress for a bit. Clint caught up to her on her way out and spoke to her softly.

"I need to call Laura about this," Clint said. "Tell her I'm going to be a little longer than expected."

"Might need to prep the farm in case we need it," Natasha said. "It's the only thing that Ultron couldn't access."

"Guess the secret could only last so long," Clint said.

"We'll still try to keep it," Natasha said. "Just for an emergency."

Clint nodded and headed off and Natasha headed back to the elevator, trying to figure out what their next move was.

A/N

There you go, another chapter! We're into Ultron full swing now and it's sure to be a doozy. Chapter contributions go to A Velvet Rose and SarahCon. Reviews are always appreciated!