Chapter 53

They had to regroup, that much was for sure. Whatever it was Ultron wanted, he was free to take it, what with the Avengers currently holed up in a small farm on the countryside.

Thor and Loki had gone off already, looking to see if they could better understand the scepter to learn how Ultron came to be, as the power to defeating him may be contained within.

Leaving them to figure out what Ultron had been up to in the meantime.

"Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself time. My contacts all say he's building something. The amount of Vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's just one thing," Fury informed them. "Whatever it is, it's big."

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve asked, crossing his arms.

"He's easy to track, he's everywhere. Guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit. Still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans though," Fury told them, "He's in everything."

"He still going after launch codes?" Toni confirmed, making sure there was something going on there.

"Yes, he is, but he's not making any headway," Fury said, "It's too locked up."

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare," she told the room, "It's not impossible."

"Yeah, well, I contacted our friends at the NEXUS about that," Fury said, turning back to keep washing the dishes.

"NEXUS?" Steve asked, confused.

"It's the world internet hub in Oslo, every byte of data flows through there, fastest access on earth," Ava told them.

"So what'd they say?" Harry asked curiously.

"He's fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed," Fury said, "So it's going to be harder for him to get to."

"By whom?" She asked, knowing that Ultron would target them.

"Parties unknown," Fury shook his head.

"Do we have an ally?" Natasha inquired.

"Ultron's got an enemy, that's not the same thing. Still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is," Fury told them.

"We might need to visit Oslo, find our 'unknown'," she said, looking over at Ava and Bruce.

"Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that," Natasha said, a bit disappointed.

"I do, I have you. Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else. But HYDRA rose and SHIELD fell. So here we all are, back on earth, with nothing but our wit, and our will to save the world. So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard."

"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk," Natasha said, and Steve looked exasperated at that.

"Will the joke ever be let go?" he asked with a sigh.

"So what does he want?" Fury asked the room.

"To become better. Better than us. He keeps building bodies," Steve noted.

"Person bodies. The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it," Toni agreed.

"If his programming was meant to try and protect the human race, then it's failed spectacularly," Natasha shook her head. "If that even what his goals were."

"Humans don't need to be protected, they need to evolve. Ultron's going to evolve," Bruce disagreed with her.

"How?" Fury asked him.

"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?" Bruce asked, and she swore. If Ultron had gone after Cho then he'd be able to create unimaginable things. The work she was doing was remarkable, and in the wrong hands, in Ultron's hands, it could achieve horrible things.

"I'll take Natasha and Clint," Steve said, immediately getting his SHIELD, nodding around the room.

"Alright, strictly recon. I'll hit the NEXUS with Ava and Harry and we''ll join you as soon as we can. Be careful, Steve," she said, and he cupped her face.

"You too, Darling," Steve said softly, "If Ultron is really building a body-"

"He'll be more powerful than any of us," she agreed, "Maybe all of us. An android designed by a robot. He could do terrible things with that."

"You know I really miss the days when the weirdest thing science ever created was me," Steve said, reminiscently.

"I'll drop Bruce off at the tower," Fury said with a nod, "It's better if he lays low still. Do you mind if I borrow Ms. Hill?:

"Of course," she agreed readily, "What are you gonna do?"

"I don't know. Something dramatic, I hope," Fury deadpanned.

She looked over at Laura and Clint, the former of which seemed worried about her husband leaving.

"I'm gonna finish re-flooring that sunroom as soon as I get back," Clint promised her, as he took her hand in his.

"Yeah, and then you'll find another part of the house to tear apart," Laura said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"No. It's the last project. I promise," Clint said, not talking about the house.

"It's time to go," Steve said, and she grabbed her stuff as she followed after her team.


Steve wasn't all that sure how it happened, but suddenly Wanda and Pietro Maximoff were on his side. He knew he would have to question it more later; they had been HYDRA willingly after all. They couldn't be trusted, not until he knew their motives weren't questionable. He knew better than to willingly let HYDRA in; that was how SHIELD had fallen in the first place. The wrong people had trusted HYDRA and let them in.

But one second Ultron had been landing punches, and the next Pietro had thrown him off, and Wanda had blocked him, causing Ultron to fly out of the subway in an attempt to get the Cradle once more.

They had to get the package to Toni; she was the only one who could stop Ultron from uploading his consciousness into the body he'd had Cho make for him.

"He's headed your way!" Steve warned Clint and Natasha as Ultron took off after them.

"Nat, we got to go," Clint said urgently, as their teammate remained trapped in the airborne truck.

He nearly swore as he looked out the train car window and saw that they were headed towards a dead end fast. They needed to stop the train.

"Nat! Cap, you see Nat?" Clint asked him frantically.

"You have to go," Steve said, closing his eyes, "If you have the package, get it to Toni. Now!"

"Do you have eyes on Nat?" Clint repeated.

"Ultron can't get to it, Clint. You have to go now."

"Copy that," Clint said, sounding upset, and he didn't blame him. If Natasha was caught by Ultron, he didn't even want to begin to imagine what it would mean for her.

"Civilians in our path," He gave an order to Pietro Maximoff, and the male twin immediately took off trying to get the civilians out of the way. "Can you stop this thing?" he asked the witch.

She looked unsure as they plowed straight threw a building, and the force of the collision threw him backwards.

Wanda raised her hands, as red mist came out of them and circled under the train car, bringing them to a halt.

She immediately went to check on her brother, who looked immensely out of breath. One thing was clear; neither of them had been trained properly.

"I'm fine. I just need to take a minute," Pietro said, taking a deep breath.

"I'm very tempted not to give you one," Steve said, glancing at them both, "Tell me, why should I not lock you both up now for crimes against humanity."

"The Cradle, did you get it?" Wanda asked him urgently, ignoring him.

"Toni will take care of it," Steve told her.

"No she won't!" Wanda said in disbelief. "She made Ultron! How can you trust her? She will do anything to make things right after what she's done, and you're just going to trust her with the Cradle? Do you know what she could do with that thing? You need to stop her!"

"You don't know what you're talking about," he told her coolly. "You may have showed her those visions, but she did not make Ultron. The scepter did. She's not responsible for the damage that's been done over the last few days. The same, however, cannot be said for either of you."

"How is that possible?" Wanda asked in shock, "She should have destroyed herself! After the things I showed her she should have been brought down to her knees in distress! And instead, she created a bot to destroy humanity! You are mistaken, such evil comes from Toni Stark. Ultron does not know the difference between saving the world and destroying it. Where do you think he gets that from? She is responsible for all of this."

"Why do you hate her so much?" Steve asked, as the anger was written on her face as pure as day. She may have been trying to stop all of them, but none of the other Avengers were given visions as horrible as Toni. None of the others were targeted as harshly, except for maybe Bruce.

"She killed our family," Wanda spat out.

"We were ten years old, having dinner, the four of us," Pietro continued. "When the first shell hits, two floors below, it makes a hole in the floor. It's big. Our parents go in, and the whole building starts coming apart. I grab her, roll under the bed and the second shell hits. But, it doesn't go off. It just, sits there in the rubble, three feet from our faces. And on the side of the shell is painted one word-"

"Stark," Wanda confirmed.

He felt his stomach sink at that.

"We were trapped two days," Pietro continued.

"Every effort to save us, every shift in the bricks, I think, "This will set it off." We wait for two days for Toni Stark to kill us," Wanda finished. "Toni Stark murdered our parents. So, I tried to get her to destroy herself. And just like she destroyed our home, she will now destroy humanity."

"She's not responsible for your parents' death," Steve said firmly, "I know it was her name on that missile, but she didn't launch it. If someone was shot, you wouldn't blame the gun manufacturer, you'd blame the person who shot the gun. She's not the person you think she is. Maybe she didn't stop selling weapons as soon as she took over the company, but she stopped selling them the minute she returned home from Afghanistan because she knew the damage it could cause. She was not directly responsible for your parents' death and you cannot blame her for it. I understand that you were young and traumatized, but it wasn't her fault. You caused immense harm because of your hatred. Are you going to help make it right and fight with us? Or are you going to stand against us?"


After visiting NEXUS and starting a trace on for the nuclear codes, she returned to the tower with her cousins.

She hadn't heard anything from Steve or Natasha since they'd gone off trying to find Cho, and when Clint returned with the makeshift body that Cho had created for Ultron, she knew what needed to be done.

They were fighting an android; one that was stronger than them, more powerful than them. And one that was going to wipe them all out if they weren't careful. It was clear to her what needed to be done in order to bring down Ultron and save humanity from extinction.

She had work to do, in order to search for JARVIS, and with Steve and the others missing in action, now was as good of a time as any to see what had happened to her AI.

She'd barely had five seconds to process the loss of JARVIS let alone do an in-depth search of for her AI.

JARVIS on her servers was gone, torn to fragments, and even if she were able to put that JARVIS back together, he wouldn't be the same. He'd be missing large sections of code, and if she pieced him back together again, he'd be a different AI.

Like Phineas Gage, the man whose frontal lobe had been damaged in an accident and had subsequently acted differently. That JARVIS was gone.

But that didn't mean that JARVIS was gone all together. She was right, there was probably a copy of her AI somewhere on her spare server bank where she backed up all her important code, SI and personal, in a protected site in Malibu.

The first thing she planned to do after all of this was over was to go to that site and bring her son back.

But for now, she had work to do.

"Anything on Nat?" Harry asked, looking a bit worried.

"Haven't heard," she said, looking at him softly, "But she's alive, Harry. If she weren't, Ultron would have let us know. He'd have let the entire world know."

"This is sealed tight," Clint commented as he examined the Cradle he'd come in with

"We're going to need to access the program, break it down from within," Bruce said, tapping it lightly.

"Hm. Any chance Natasha might leave you a message, outside the internet, old school spy stuff?" She asked Clint and Harry.

"There's some nets I can cast," Clint nodded, looking over at her cousin, "Yeah, alright. We'll find her."

"I can work on tissue degeneration, if you can fry whatever operational system Cho implanted," Bruce said, looking at her and Ava.

"About that," she said to them both, "I have another idea."

"Toni," Bruce said warningly.

"You're still reeling from the loss of JARVIS," Ava said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Think rationally."

"When have I ever not?" she questioned them both. "We're in a race to save humanity. We need all the help we can get."

Bruce let out a sigh.

"Have I ever steered either of you wrong? In the years you've known me? Have I ever given you any reasons not to trust me?" she asked them.

"No," Ava said firmly. "What did you have in mind?"

"Our ally? The guy protecting the military's nuclear codes? I found him," she said, as she brought up a version of JARVIS' broken code.

"Hello, Dr Banner, Dr Carter-Sousa," JARVIS said, and Ava gasped.

"Ultron didn't go after JARVIS cause he was angry. He attacked him because he was scared of what he can do. So JARVIS went underground. Okay? Scattered, dumped his memory. But not his protocols. He didn't even know he was in there, until I pieced him together," she told them both.

"So what?" Bruce asked her, "Instead of fixing up JARVIS, you want us to help you put JARVIS into this thing?"

She shook her head, "This JARVIS is not the same. He's a broken-down version of my baby. A phantom, if you will. I'll work on his code and restore him, but he'll be a new AI. I want to help you put JARVIS in this thing. We're out of my field here. You both know bio-organics better than anyone."

"And you think JARVIS' operational matrix can beat Ultron's?" Ava asked her carefully, unsure of what she was saying.

She nodded, "I know he can. J has been beating him from inside without knowing it. This is the opportunity, we can create Ultron's perfect self, without the homicidal glitches he thinks are his winning personality. We have to. It's our only real shot of being able to stop all of this from happening. From humanity from getting extinct."

"I believe it's worth a go," JARVIS said with a nod.

"What if we just make it worse?" Bruce asked softly, "Make another Ultron."

"This is JARVIS source code," Ava reminded him, "He loves Toni. He'd never in a hundred years do anything which could possibly hurt her. Or the rest of us. JARVIS wouldn't wipe out humanity; if he wanted to, he'd have done so decades ago. He wouldn't have waited until now to do so."

"Okay," Bruce said with a sigh. "You're right. You both are. If this is what is going to help defeat Ultron, well I can't say I'm a fan, but I trust you both. You're right. This is our only chance. Ultron, he's everywhere all at once. And even with your technical skills, I don't think you can beat him, Toni. Not alone. So I'm with you both. Let's take a stand."

"To the end of the line," Toni said with a nod.

"The end of the line," Ava agreed. "Whatever it takes. We can't let him win. Not when there are so many causalities that can occur if he wins. We need to stop him. Whatever it takes."

"Let's get to work then," she said, turning to the screen.

It was another hour before Steve returned to the Tower, with the two twins Maximoffs in tow.

"What are they doing here?" she asked, immediately ready to fight them if necessary. Had Wanda Maximoff taken Steve under her control in an attempt to get to the Avengers? This wasn't good.

"They're with us," Steve said firmly. "They stood with us against Ultron."

"Just like that?" she asked in disbelief, "You do remember what they did right? What they did to Bruce? To all of you? To me?"

"I know," he told her softly, "I haven't forgotten. And after all of this is over, I plan on going over it thoroughly. But for now, we need all the help we can get if we're going to go up against Ultron."

"For the record, I still don't trust them," she said, glancing over at the twins.

"Nor I you," Wanda spat at her, "I told you, she will destroy us! You said I was wrong, but here she is, working with the Cradle instead of destroying it! She may not have made Ultron, but she will still be the undoing of us all! Stark must be stopped."

Her hands began to glow, and Bruce immediately stepped in front of her and Ava.

"You won't touch us again, Witch," Bruce spat out.

Steve raised his hands, trying to regain control of the quickly escalating situation.

"Toni, what's going on here?" he asked, looking over at her.

"We're uploading JARVIS' reworked framework into the CRADLE," she said, looking firmly at him, "We need to upload the schematic in the next three minutes."

"Is this really the best idea?" Steve asked her carefully. "Especially after everything that's happened recently? Do we really want to create another AI bot which could side with Ultron?"

"No, we're not receiving this question from you," Bruce shook his head, "You're siding with her. How are we supposed to believe that she's not in your head?"

"Look I know you're angry," Wanda started, and Bruce cut her off.

"Oh, we're way past that. If you thought you could come in here and expect everything to be 'fine' now because you've had a change of heart, you have another thing coming. It wasn't just our lives you endangered. It was hundreds and thousands of lives in Africa. You stood with Ultron and you put the world at risk," Bruce told her furiously, "I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade."

"Bruce, after everything that's happened-" Steve started.

"It's nothing compared to what's coming!" Toni cut him off, crossing her arms. "You may believe that the murder twins suddenly had a change of heart, but I have no reason to believe that."

"You don't know what's in there!" Maximoff said furiously, "You may not find us trustworthy, but why should either of us trust you? After everything you've done to us!"

"I don't even know you!" Toni cried out.

"I told you, that was not on Toni. And I refuse to allow you to continue to blame her for something she had no part in," Steve said to the female twin, before turning back to her, "But this isn't a game, Toni. We need to stop this now."

"The creature," Wanda started, and she saw a shape move quickly, destroying her lab. In the blink of an eye, her lab was a mess, and she couldn't do a thing to stop it.

"How dare you," she said, seething with anger.

"No, no. Go on. You were saying?" Pietro said with a smirk back at her.

"Do you have any idea how much this lab equipment cost?" she asked him furiously, "How much you've destroyed?"

Before he could respond, an arrow pierced the floor and the speedster fell through the glass.

"Pietro!" Wanda screamed, and Bruce turned back to her.

"Go ahead, piss me off," Bruce said, beginning to turn green. "This time, I'll still be behind the wheel."

"I'm rerouting the upload," she said, as the systems began to crash.

"Toni!" Steve said, placing a hand over hers.

"Steve please," she said, giving him a pleading look, "Do you trust me? If you trust me, let me do this. I have to do this. It's our only chance of stopping Ultron from winning."

His eyes searched hers for a moment, and he gave a nod, "Okay," he said, lifting his hand. "Do what you have to, Toni.

She nodded, turning back at her computer, and began typing. Bruce was eyeing Wanda sceptically, as she returned the gesture.

She hit the enter button, but as the code began to upload, she watched in horror as Thor crashed through her roof then, raising his hammer, as a bolt of electricity shot through it and down into the cradle.

"Wait!" Bruce said, trying to stop him.

The cradle exploded then, throwing all of them backwards, and she looked up from where she landed to see a powerful android creature hovering in the air.

The creature flew at Thor as the god flung him out of the lab. She gathered her suit as the Avengers watched the Android, who appeared to be staring out the window, like he was lost in thought. The android returned to their level, looking over at them all.

"I'm sorry," she heard her baby's voice say, "That was odd."

"Thor what did you do?" Steve asked, as Loki landed then, in a far less chaotic manner. He looked around the room exasperated.

"Could you not have waited for my return, Brother?" Loki questioned, "Before you went and brought this being to life?"

"I've had a vision. A whirlpool that sucks in all hope of life and at it's center is that," he said, ignoring Loki, as he pointed at the stone in the android's head.

"What, the gem?" Harry asked.

"It's the Mind Stone. It's one of the six Infinity Stones, the greatest power in the universe, unparalleled in its destructive capabilities," Thor told them all.

"The tesseract, for reference, was another," Loki added.

"Then why would you bring it to life?" Steve questioned.

"Because Toni is right," Thor told them. "I've seen it. The Avengers cannot defeat Ultron."

"Not alone," The android confirmed.

"Why does your "vision" sound like JARVIS?" Steve questioned again, looking over at her.

"We reconfigured what was left of JARVIS' matrix to make something new," she said.

"I think I've had my fill of new," Steve said tiredly.

"You fear I'm a child of Ultron," the voice noted.

"You're not?" Wanda asked, in disbelief.

"I'm not Ultron. I'm not JARVIS. I am…I am" the android struggled.

"You are a child of JARVIS," Toni told him gently, "You are not him, but you came from him. You are your own distinct entity. As a child is not the same as their parent."

"You will hold a great power," Loki said, "I can sense it in your being."

"I looked in your head and saw annihilation," Wanda told the android with distrust.

"Look again," the android encouraged her.

"Yeah. Her seal of approval means jack to me," Clint crossed his arms.

"Their powers, the horrors in our heads, Ultron himself, they all came from the Mind Stone, and they're nothing compared to what it can unleash. But with it on our side-" Thor told them.

"Is it? Are you? On our side?" Harry asked it sharply.

"I don't think it's that simple," the android remarked.

"Well it better get real simple real soon," Clint snorted.

"I am on the side of life. Ultron isn't, he will end it all," he told them all.

"What's he waiting for?" Toni questioned.

"You," Vision said to them all. "Your demise will catapult the Age of Ultron."

"Where?" Bruce asked.

"Sokovia. He's got Nat there too," Clint confirmed, letting them know what they had found.

"If we're wrong about you, if you're the monster that Ultron made you to be," Bruce warned him.

"What will you do?" the bot asked, looking over at him, before realization dawned on him. "I don't want to kill Ultron. 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. And not one of us can do it without the others. Maybe I am a monster. I don't think I'd know if I were one. I'm not what you are, and not what you intended. So there may be no way to make you trust me. But we need to go."

He lifted Thor's hammer, handing it back to him, and she let out a gasp of pride.

Of course her grandchild would be able to lift the hammer. Her grandchild that stemmed from JARVIS. JARVIS who loved her and she loved in return.

"Three minutes. Get what you need," Steve told them all.

She walked over to where her suit was, and let out a sigh.

She could fly the suit without JARVIS; she'd done it before. But it would be a hell of a lot easier if she'd had him with her.

She stared at the chip in her hand labeled 'FRIDAY'. She'd considered implementing more AIs earlier on to help with the load JARVIS was facing. Between the Iron Legion, SI, the tower, and her suit, her AI had a lot to handle. And while he handled it well, he shouldn't have to bear the load himself.

JARVIS had always been with her in the suit. She wondered how he'd feel about her loading in another AI into it.

"Good evening, Miss," FRIDAY said as she came online.

"I wish I had time to properly welcome you into the family, Baby Girl, but we don't have time for that now," she told her newest child softly. "We'll go over it later. But for now I need your help with the suit."

"Engaging protocols now, Miss," FRIDAY told her cheerfully.

"No way we all get through this. If even one tin soldier is left standing, we've lost. It's gonna be blood on the floor," she said, looking at her team.

"I got no plans tomorrow night," Steve said.

"I get first crack at the big guy. Iron Woman's the one he's waiting for," she said, and Steve nodded at her.

"That's true, he hates you the most," The android said. "You were never his mother and yet you were to JARVIS. He hates you for what he never had."

"Ultron knows we're coming. Odds are we'll be riding into heavy fire, and that's what we signed up for. But the people of Sokovia, they didn't. So our priority is getting them out," Steve said, as they loaded up onto the Quinjet.

It was time to go fight an evil AI bot.