Chapter 11: Warped

The coffee machine whirred loudly but the silence was still deafening. Steve made all sorts of clatters and clicks and thuds as he bustled about the kitchen putting breakfast together. Cracking eggs on the sides of bowls. Yoke sizzling on the pan. The knife chopping bell peppers. Still, the silence was deafening.

Natasha had been up for a little bit, not long, but enough to watch Steve cook his breakfast by himself. She had woken up to find Steve's side of the bed cold and empty. She checked the gym first and didn't find him there, not a good sign. She then padded to the kitchen and found him there.

When all was cooked and done, Steve slid the food onto this plate and sat down to eat it alone. His fork scraped the plate and he was done and still, the silence was deafening.

Natasha could tell that he was blaming himself for all of this, even though he shouldn't. They spent a lot of time together the last couple of days, celebrating their success with the scepter. They were together in different ways, and tried new things. She even surprised him in the shower one morning. And all the while, Tony and Bruce were in the background making this thing that now threatened them all.

Natasha walked into the kitchen at this point. She was only wearing a sports bra and a pair of Steve's boxers, so she was completely silent. Just an old spy habit she never broke. And even then, Steve usually noticed her, but he was distracted. She could almost hear his thinking, and she knew he was putting this all on himself.

"It's not your fault Steve," Natasha said with a still sleepy voice

He sighed. He couldn't bring himself to turn and face her.

"That's what I keep trying to tell myself," he confessed. "I can't focus on whose fault it is. I just have to deal with the situation at hand but I can't even do that because Ultron's in the wind. We have no leads." He dragged all ten fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp. "And he could be out there. Anywhere. Hurting people. Killing them. And I can't do anything right now to stop it."

Natasha sighed and went over to get herself some coffee. She automatically poured Steve a cup as well, having memorized just how he liked his coffee. She brought over both cups and sat down next to him, looking him up and down.

"You know who's fault it is," Natasha said. "It is all on Bruce and Tony. They tried to do something that no one should do. There are dozens of movies and books about why artificial intelligence isn't a good idea. They thought because of who they were that it would have the same outcome. They messed with a power they didn't understand, Thor was right about that."

Natasha took a deep breath and prepared herself for the next statement. She didn't like that she had to say this about Stark, but she needed to.

"But focusing on who is to blame isn't going to fix anything," Natasha said. "And the thing is Steve, we're doing all we can to try and find him. I've had my web searching since before we went to bed and I'm sure that they've been down in the lab tracking him as well. I know you and how you want to protect everyone, frankly it's my favorite thing about you."

Natasha reached over and cupped Steve's cheek in her hand to get her point across.

"But you're only one man Steve," Natasha said. "Even with all the superpowers in the world, you're still a man. And putting all of this on you will just break you faster than you can fix things. We have to do this as a team, together. One triumphs, we all triumph. One falls, we all do."

Natasha could tell he disagreed that the fault lay entirely on Bruce and Tony's shoulders. But he didn't voice that to her, which was a start at least. "Together," he agreed, parroting himself from last night.

He smiled a little and leaned forward for a chaste kiss. Spell broken, he stood and started collecting the dishes. "Can I make you anything? I'll call Hill after breakfast and see if she found anything last night. I know her and Terra made some calls."

"Any chance you want to come back to bed for a bit," Natasha asked. "I know you didn't sleep very well last night and we're going to have a long stretch ahead of us."

She wanted to do a lot of things with Steve. She wanted to lay down with him, kiss him, forget the world for a bit. Postpone what was happening for just a little while longer. She knew there was a limited chance of that happening, but she could at least try.

"Or if anything we just lay down for a bit and say sweet nothings into each other's ears," she said with a soft smile.

"I think I'm gonna head down to the lab," Steve said. "Check the progress. You coming with?"

"Need to probably change first," Natasha said with a smirk. "Only you get to see me like this."

Steve blushed and Natasha smiled, leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek as she headed out of the kitchen to get geared up for the day.

Natasha padded into her and Steve's room and took a deep breath. There was a big mess that they had to clean up, and she needed to make sure that she was at the top of her game. Her current feud with Stark had to be put on hold. She patted the dog tags on her chest and started getting dressed for the day.

She decided to go with black jeans, a red tank top, with a black jacket on. She strapped a glock to her hip, not caring about concealing at this point and headed out of the room. She knew Steve was talking to Maria at this point, so she went to a shared area just off the main room and lab where a computer hub was. She sat down and started typing away, trying to see what her web had dug up on Ultron or anything that could be related to Ultron.

A few minutes later, Hill walked in and she guessed that Steve was right behind her. She faintly heard his voice talking to Clint, who was currently on the phone with Laura giving her an update. Clint was still trying to keep the secret, but this threat might expose everything. She was going to try like hell to help him and his family safe as well, and she knew she would sacrifice her own life for those kids.

Steve entered the archives room where everyone was waiting. Normally Steve or Terra were the first ones to meetings like this but Ultron had everyone on edge. Even Tony had been punctual. Thor had gotten there just a few minutes before, followed by most everyone else.

Natasha looked up from the computer she was on as she saw Steve and Clint enter the room. There had been a terse silence while they were waiting for Cap, not good for a team in her mind. Thor kept to himself, Tony and Bruce chatted back and forth with each other occasionally, but mainly kept away from her. Terra was near Bruce as well, making no attempt to make conversation with her either.

Did she really even belong on this team anymore? Or did she ever in the first place?

Steve handed the tablet to the closest Avenger and the one who had maybe the most at stake: Thor. It still had Strucker's photo on it, bloody forehead, message, and all. Thor took the tablet and glanced down at it. There he was, the only lead they had on the scepter, dead. Thor growled and looked next to him where Tony was standing. He took the tablet and slammed it in Tony's chest, showing how pissed off he was.

"What's this?" Tony asked right before Thor slammed the tablet into his chest.

"A message," Steve replied without emotion. He had to keep things in check and that included the stability of his team. "Ultron killed Strucker."

Tony raised his eyebrows at the image on the screen. "And he did a Banksy at the crime scene. Just for us." That last part was said with declining sarcasm.

Bruce peered over Tony's shoulder to see, Terra not far behind in looking as well. Both had the same concerning looks on their face.

Natasha processed Steve's words and it just didn't make sense. Why go out of your way to kill someone that they had no reason to suspect. Ultron knew that they were coming after him, why take out Struker?

"This is a smokescreen," Natasha surmised her concern. "Why send a message when you've just given a speech."

On the same page with Natasha, as was becoming the new norm (which made Natasha very happy), Steve continued the thought. "Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss."

Natasha nodded and piggybacked on Steve once more.

"Yeah I bet," she started as she turned back to her monitor and started a quick search for Strucker.

She found that, almost immediately, a screen popped up that showed 0 results.

"Yep. Everything we had on Struker has been erased," Natasha reported her findings.

"Not everything," Tony countered, gesturing to the far wall with the shelves upon shelves of boxes, each one stuffed with hard copies of documents before Tony had gone completely digital. "Start digging."

The Avengers set to work, rifling through folders and binders and organizers.

"Known associates..." Steve plopped a heavy box on the counter next to Tony's. "Strucker had a lot of friends."

Bruce, now equipped with his glasses, peered over at the tab names and pulled out one at random. "Well, these people are all horrible," he said dryly.

"Wait." Tony pointed at the random file Bruce had just plucked. "I know that guy." He made a "grabby hands" gesture and Bruce handed him the folder. "Back in the day he operated off the African coast. Black market arms."

Steve stared Tony down disapprovingly but said nothing.

Tony noticed. "There are conventions, alright?" he defended. "You meet people. I didn't sell him anything." He thought back. "He was talking about something new. A game changer. It was all very Ahab."

Thor had gone through numerous files, having no idea what to really look for, just training his eye for anything that could lead to the scepter. When Stark announced he found something, he looked over and grabbed the picture, finding something pretty irregular.

"This," Thor said, pointing to a marking on the man's neck

Tony peered at the paper in Thor's hands, "Uh, that's a tattoo. I don't think he had it."

"No those are tattoos," Thor said, pointing to the ones Tony thought they were. "This is a brand."

Bruce adjusted his glasses to get a better look at the brand Thor was pointing to and quickly scanned the database for something similar. He found a hit pretty quickly. "Oh yeah, it's a word in an African dialect meaning 'thief'... in a much less friendly way."

"What dialect?" Steve asked, glad they were finally getting somewhere.

Bruce turned back to the computer, dreading his probable awful pronunciation of the word. "W... Wa- Wakanada? W-Wakanda!" He turned triumphantly to the others.

Tony and Steve exchanged looks. "If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods-"

"I thought your father got the last of it," Steve replied just as quietly.

"I don't follow," Bruce said (and didn't say often) as he stood closer to hear them better. "What comes out of Wakanda?"

Steve looked over at his shield, sitting in the corner since last night.

"The strongest metal on Earth," Tony answered dejectedly. Vibranium.

It was a lead still, thought Steve, however grim it may be. If Ultron was going after the vibranium he'd be even more powerful than a sentient robot with access to the Internet already was. "Where is this guy now?"

November 17th, 2013
Johannesburg, South Africa

Natasha crept through the rafters and down the catwalks of the warehouse the had tracked Klaue to. Sure enough, when they got there and Tony did his scans, they were able to see Ultron and two other people flanking him. The Maximoffs were here, and probably pretty pissed at the entire situation, which made them even more dangerous.

Natasha found a safe place for support as Tony, Steve, and Thor were going to make the initial contact and Natasha, Clint, and Terra would be there for any support for backup that Ultron may call in. Bruce was safely on the Quinjet, awaiting to see if a Code Green was needed for this situation.

She noticed right away that Klaue was opening up a storage container with the stolen Vibranium to give to Ultron, who had assembled a brand new body for himself, one much bigger and more menacing. Natasha started to listen in, taking account of all the information and log it away.

"You know, it came at great personal cost," Klaue said, rubbing the part of his neck where the brand currently sat. "It's worth billions."

"Now so are you," Ultron said, as Klaue got notifications of the numerous deposits that had a lot of zeros behind them. "It's all under your dummy holdings. Finance is so weird. But as I always say 'keep your friends rich and your enemies rich and wait to find out which is which'."

A look of realization came over Klaue's face as he looked up at the robot. "Stark."

"What?" Ultron said, wondering where he fit into this and why his name was brought up.

"Tony Stark used to say that to me," Klaue accused immediately on the alert. "You're one of his."

"I'm not," Ultron said, grabbing Klaue's arm. "I'm not. You think I'm one of Stark's puppets, one of his hollow men. Look at me, do I look like Iron Man? Stark is nothing!"

Ultron punctuated that point by slicing his hand down and chopping off Klaue's arm at the elbow. Klaue dropped to the ground in pain and Ultron stood over him.

"Don't compare me to Stark," Ultron said, as he kicked Klaue down the stairs. "Stark is a sickness."

"Aw, Junior. You're gonna break your old man's heart." Iron Man descended from the ceiling as if he'd always been there and dropped the last foot to the metal bridge with a clank. Captain America was there waiting for him, standing at Tony's left shoulder when he landed.

Thor came up behind on Stark's right, hammer in hand and ready for a fight.

Ultron turned and looked at the arrival of the Avengers, all going according to plan. He figured they would show up here at some point, and now he had the tools to drive them apart even further.

"If I have to," Ultron said.

"We don't have to break anything," Thor said, wanting nothing more than to end this.

"Clearly you've never made an omelet," Ultron said, a little more menacing than a joke was meant to be told.

"He beat me by one second," Tony said and Natasha fought the urge to roll her eyes. Looks like Ultron got more than just code from Stark.

"Ah, it's funny, Mr. Stark," the boy Maximoff, Pietro, drawled as he slowly walked forward. "It's what?" He shrugged. "Comfortable? Like old times?"

"This was never my life," Tony said.

Steve, who had nothing but everyone's best interests at heart, stepped forward and spoke to the Maximoffs, ignoring Ultron completely. "You two can still walk away from this."

"Oh, we will," the female twin, Wanda, responded back, very confident about that.

"I know you've suffered," Steve tried again, ready to begin a big speech.

"Uggh Captain America," Ultron said in disgust. "God's righteous man. Pretending he could live, without a war to fight."

"If you believe in peace, then let us keep it," Thor said, gripping his hammer a little tighter.

"I think you're confusing peace with quiet," Ultron said, making another very fair point.

Oblivious, Tony continued to snark with his robot. "Yuh-huh. What's the vibranium for?"

"I'm glad you asked that," Ultron said. "Because I wanted to take this time to explain my plan."

Ultron raised his hand suddenly, pulling Stark towards him. He then turned around and shot an energy burst right back at Stark, throwing him into the wall behind the. Beside Thor and Steve, two Ultron bots appeared and attacked without hesitation. Thor immediately took to one, and started to try and rip it apart like last time. But these were much tougher than the ones he fought in the tower.

Natasha sprung into action at this point. Ultron and the Maximoff's had attacked and she was ready to go. At the sound of automatic gunfire, Natasha looked over and saw the pirates enter the action. She knew that she would have to be on pirate duty while the more heavy hitters would be on Ultron duty. She was soon surrounded in a small area, but the blue of her widow lines illuminated the place and told them her charge was ready to go. She dispatched most of them easily, they were just simple pirates. But they made up for it in numbers, and she was kept very busy.

"Thor, what's your status?" Steve's voice came through comms.

"The girl tried to wipe my mind," Thor replied, and Natasha was now more alert than ever. "Take special care, I doubt a human could keep her at bay. Fortunately, I am mighty..."

When Thor's voice trailed off, Natasha knew she needed to get to Steve or Clint so they could watch each other's back. Natasha finished up with the last goon when she felt someone sneak up behind her. She was about to turn when she was hit with something gut punching. She was thrown back in time, to a place she never wanted to visit again. She slumped to the floor as her mind was flooded with horrible images.

Natasha stumbled around until she found some stairs and started walking down them in a haze. Everything was fuzzy, and she started hearing classical music.

She found herself descending a much different staircase than before. She recognized this house immediately. It was the main Red Room facility house. She made her way over to where the music was coming from. She saw armed guards all over the area, but they made no move against her and she them. She was the Black Widow after all, not their enemy. She made her way to the glass where there was a ballet class going on and a small group of little girls watching.

"Again," a man's voice rang out, louder than it normally was and pierced her ears.

She was back to the softer room and felt the Headmistress of her time walk over to her side.

"You'll break them," Natasha said, in a daze.

"Only the breakable ones," the Headmistress responded, Russian accent very evident. "You're made of marble. We'll celebrate after the graduation ceremony."

Natasha's mind was flooded with the images of a cold room and syringes and knives. She saw her younger self in a thin paper rob, laying on a metal cot and sobbing.

She was again brought back to the room where she was watching the ballet class.

"What if I fail?" Natasha asked.

Next, she was transported into her younger body, and she stood in front of a target. She raised a pistol and fired two shots right into the head, she then switched hands in the air, firing two more shots that hit the center of the targets, and then switched hands once more, finishing the clip and burying two more shots into the chest of the target. The image flickered and there was a man with a bag over his head where the target would be. A soldier walked over and removed the bag from the man's head, and it was Steve. Her mind screamed in terror as Steve shook in fear.

"You never fail," the words of the Headmistress rang through her head.

Natasha's face remained stone cold as she raised the pistol and fired a shot right into her boyfriend's head.

She was transported again, this time into the training room. She was battling two men at once, while the headmistress watched. One of them was the infamous Winter Soldier, who had taken part in helping to train the new Black Widow. She managed to wrap her legs around the other man's neck and toss him to the ground, but James was too fast on her recovery, wrapping his metal arm around her neck and the other around her head. She was in a choke hold, her neck one twitch away from being snapped. She struggled for a bit as the Headmistress looked on in disappointment. After she couldn't break the lock at all, she tapped out and the sparring match ended, her on her knees and breathing hard.

"Sloppy," the Headmistress said. "Pretending to fail."

Natasha almost cried out as her plan was ruined. She didn't want to do the Graduation Ceremony. She would be given a super soldier serum like the Winter Soldier and Captain America. But she would also have her insides torn up so she couldn't have children.

"The ceremony is necessary," the headmistress said. "For you to take your place in the world."

"I have no place in the world," Natasha said, accepting her fate.

"Exactly," the headmistress said.

Natasha was forced down on the metal cot and rolled down a long and dark hallway. She got to the operation room and standing there was a doctor holding a scalpel and an evil grin on his face. It looked exactly like Tony. He laughed as the door closed and he began to slice into her.

A/N

After almost a five month wait, sorry about that btw, we have a new chapter. Some of Ultron's dialogue will be modified going forward, tried to make him more menacing and less quippy than the movie did. As always, chapter contributions go to A Velvet Rose and SarahCon