th a z on the same menu that sold chicken for $102. Paying while trying to figure out what 'Michelin star' meant from context clues, too embarrassed to ask the waiter as he returns her(Ultron's) card.
Sometime on the walk back to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, where she'll stand until Ultron picks her up in a monstrous truck she has to climb into, she plucks out her hearing aids. The fuzzy soup they produced made her nauseous and everything she'd eaten sat behind her teeth, impending.
She sighs and tries not to inhale much of the sour air. The last time she'd been to New York was on vacation with her mother. It was summer, she remembers holding onto the soft cotton of her mother's Laura Ashley skirts, bending back to see the tops of skyscrapers. Her mother came alive in the city, asking people to take their photos in mundane places while peppering them with questions about their lives like she was catching up with old friends. She was always exuberant but never like she was in New York; dancing through the steel maze like living light, romantic and in love with being alive.
But that was 20 years ago, and Simone was not her mother. City life didn't suit her, it choked her. Pressed overhead, acrid and syrupy, like being encased in amber. Every other block Simone walked she dipped into buildings and stuffed herself in bathroom stalls. She'd find herself sitting on a toilet lid, face squished between her knees, waiting until the patterned tile was burnt into her retinas. When she finally walked outside again, the buildings leered down at her, blocking the sun. All Simone saw was a cage threatening to buckle in on itself. At any moment there could be another Loki, another Hulk, another cataclysm, another cause for Assembly.
The threat breathed down her neck, hot and sticky, every day felt like pushing luck.
Ultron had booked a hotel for her, one with a view and a tub she could lay down in. Fancier than anything she knew what to do with. He wanted her away from… whatever he was doing. Something about forging materials, stealing from a university that had machines rare enough to make the delicate parts of himself. She liked that consideration, but couldn't enjoy it. Not when she fell asleep with the Avenger's A peaking between pillars of glass, watching. She was excited to leave and shed the Orwellian paranoia brought on by literally shitting on the Avenger's doorstep.
And she knew Ultron put her there to insult his old enemies. A personal 'fuck you' while he had the chance. Look what I can do right under your nose. That was the only reason to even risk New York in the first place, she supposed.
Being on the bridge and knowing it was their last day in the proverbial belly of the beast, soothed her anxieties slightly. Simone was instantly comforted by the open sky and how it makes her feel small in a sharp way, unlike the throngs in SoHo or Times Square where she felt… blurred. Here she was a person, not a lump sum.
She sees Ultron's truck before it reaches her. Relieved, she waves, stretching up on her tippy-toes to flag him down even though there wasn't a chance he'd miss her.
"Hey," Simon greets, quickly hauling herself up into the cabin. She was met by a drone, his main body was sequestered to the cargo box. It was the only place he'd fit, "Hold on a sec," tapping her empty ear as she gets settled.
"Bonjour, bonjour! Ça roule, ma poule?," Ultron chirps, "How were the flavors of France away from France?"
"Oh delightful , sir, I didn't know how to say a single thing."
"And I'm assuming you made the poor servers revisit each pronunciation?"
Simone smirks co-conspiratorially, wine-loose and heavy limbed, "At least everything thrice, everywhere I went." She holds up a matching set of fingers to emphasize her trickiness.
"You're wicked, and while I'm at it a shameless hedonist," He's scolding her but there's no real fire behind the words, just gentle teasing. She was relieved to see him again, after three long days.
"Take that back, I got you a surprise," Simone gasps, eyes crinkling.
"With my money," he reminds her.
"Stolen money!"
"Mm, well, no one was using it at the time."
"Exactly!" She sticks her tongue out at him and fishes out the small bag labelled I Heart NY from her jacket lining, proudly depositing it on the dashboard with gusto. He wouldn't take it now, despite everything he was still too proud to accept something from her, in front of her.
"You're welcome," She pesters.
Delighting in the mundanity, Simone rests her head back and watches him pull off the curb in precise, curt movements. He was most inhuman in his exactness. In the way he didn't slip into French or any language but rather clicked, his American accent jettisoned for whatever was appropriate. Like changing a channel; Simone snorts.
She lets him drive in peace, lazy from a belly full of food that tasted even better knowing she didn't pay for it. By the time Ultron almost works them off the bridge she's nodding off while he fiddles between FM stations looking for the rich, vintage music he'd taken to lately. It dripped from the speakers like honey.
"Did you get everything you needed?" She asks blearily.
Ultron nods, gliding into the turn lane, "For now. As much as I dislike being transient I'd rather err on the side of caution. There isn't enough room in this box to fit all the pieces. I'll have to trade out tools, for now, and frequently."
"Oh, that's gonna be a bitch. Can you at least finish your arm?" Simone eyed him from her side of the cab. She had a vested interest, the sooner he was at full strength the sooner he'd have both hands on deck if it came down to protecting her, literally.
Ultron tuts, "Ever thee of little faith, Simone, but yes. We'll be stopping in Jersey City for material, steel, lots of it...then my Aegis will be finally reforged, and the anvil that thought to strike me down will become a crucible of great rebirth."
"That sounds nice, doesn't it? Rebirth." He always sounded somewhere else when he spoke lyrically, beyond her reach and but within her grasp. Simone remembered when that used to terrify her, and if she was honest it still did. Now, however, in their proximity the slipping of Ultron's mind felt nothing but familiar. She thinks of her mother, a thousand miles away.
"Okay," She says, for lack of anything else,"I'm gonna get chicken savoy."
"You just had chicken."
She shrugs, turning back to the window, "It's Halal-can you even taste?"
"Eugh!" Ultron gagged, "No. Eating is beyond me, the whole process is so...Ugh, no, I physically can't make myself think about it."
The sun hung, a low hanging fruit, ripe, dipping like a swollen orange beneath the toothy New York skyline. Her reflection smiles despite herself, "Baby."
They were almost off the bridge, out of suffocating New York, the toll booth signage shone above the backs of dozens of unassuming economy cars. Her palms itched to be off the bridge, to be somewhere Ultron could maneuver if a Hydra agent crept from the innards of a Toyota Corolla that seemed innocuous at first glance.
"...On the road again…," Ultron began humming, fingers tapping against the wheel, "...Just can't wait to get on the road again…"
Simone wasn't there when Ultron procured the truck, or the E-Z pass and credit cards that made it so easy to just… Disappear. Another magic trick from the AI that could make money appear at will. They had spent a day flying, misdirecting and back tracking, before he deposited her in Vermont with her duffle bag, a handful of cash, and a simple set of instructions: wait until sunrise, then go out front.
The motel he chose was a stuffy, dim, Clarion with cheap lights that flickered in a jaundiced yellow. It was near forgotten on the edge of a highway by everyone but desperate road-trippers and overworked truckers. No one at the front desk so much as looked at her when they shoved a room key across the table and let a speech about complimentary breakfast pour around their tongue like it hurt. This was probably what Ultron intended; no one would remember her face there.
Exhausted but too wired to sleep she automatically began the long work of barricading the door and windows with furniture. Beds, counters, TVs, chairs, all drafted to her cause. The radio was her only connection to the outside world. She flipped through it endlessly for any sign Ultron was found before giving up and walking into the bathroom. She didn't recognize the reflection staring back at her, suddenly she had realized exactly why no one had wanted to look at her. The rings around her eyes looked like swollen bruises, her hair was wild, windblown and stringy. She looked wane.
Simone pressed two fingers in the corners of her eyes until she saw stars and gave herself a prefuncary wash with a hand towel and bar of soap. A shower was too vulnerable. She hadn't felt clean, the tap water clung to her skin like a membrane, but she sat in the middle of her room, flicking through the radio. She never dared to look away from the door, waiting for a Hydra agent to force it down and-
Their dashboard began to rattle.
"Uh oh," Ultron says, astutely.
"What's happening?" Simone jerks up in her seat, trying to get a vantage point, gagging when the belt locks on her. She turned to him, "Ultron?!" He sat in the driver's seat nonplussed, and started fiddling with the rearview mirror.
"Ah, you didn't hear, it seems there was an explosion, let's see," He shakes out his hand as a finger shifts into a glowing point, then jams it down the radio, static and music shuffle until the first voice, a woman's voice, rang out from the scramble. Other's flooded after her, caught in the wake.
" City dispatch advises all streets blocked, unable to get responders to Park Avenue.
Received, en route from West 45th Street possible explosion on 200 Park Avenue, there seems to be some sort of garbage truck blocking the street.
Ambulances stopped on E 50 to Lexington Ave, responders report large parked vehicles on the road here as well, standing by.
Is Grand Central operational?
Negative. all trains are stalled out of station, the whole grid's gone dark.
Please confirm, 10-71?
10-71 positive, explosion sighted from Avengers tower. Repeat, a bomb has gone off in The Avengers Tower."
"Goodie, goodie!" Extracting his finger, Ultron sounds ecstatic. Practically bouncing off the walls of the cabin. She was horrified. Not of him, not for them, but the pressure of the city found its way to her again. If they got trapped on the bridge their only escape would be Ultron flying off with her swaddled up like a baby in broad daylight, and what if the Avengers came? She couldn't count on Ultron to stick to his word; what would he do if they appeared, all heroic and involved ?
He would drop everything. Including her.
It was times like these where they felt like two ends of a magnet repelling and pulling each other's emotions. She sat, weaker than dust, frailer than air, with her fractured hope predisposed to shatter. She flounders, and looks to her companion.
"Hey, don't look at me," Ultron says.
Simone breathes in and out, cognizant of the instinct to get out of the car and search the horizon for a scar of black smoke, all in bid to prove the truth to herself. She doesn't move, "Do you think it's Hydra?"
"The Avengers aren't exactly in the business of making friends," He spits the last word with venom, then shrugs, mood instantly lightened, "Though, I wouldn't be surprised. They don't strike me as the type, it's a little passé... wouldn't you say?" He paused, "Ha! That rhymes."
She can practically hear his thoughts, what villain worth their salt hasn't done something to that Tower!
"It can't be a coincidence."
"Does it particularly matter to us?" Yes, she thinks, "Let hoi polloi worry it over. No need to make a mole into mountain...wait no that's not right-"
Simone scowls out the window, stuck. Ultron was being dismissive, but she didn't believe the act, it was too smooth, like water rolling over his back. If he didn't want to talk about it, she wouldn't press. There was a long car ride ahead.
She sighs.
"Mountains into molehills," Simone offers weakly, head thudding against the dash. The chicken was no longer sitting well in her stomach, she imagines it coming together and trying to peck its way out, "I'm gonna be sick."
"Out the window if you do, please."
She gives him a loose salute, pressing her eyes closed and focusing on the smell of the car around her. It still had that lingering newness that fogged the air, ethyl benzene, formaldehyde, organobromides, she lists what she remembers in her head from a freelance job two years ago. The client was a man so she over-researched as a preventative to being condescended. She let the chemical scents of the truck and lavender air freshener, that Ultron swore came complimentary, fill her up. They inch forward minute by minute, as he promised. Her body unwinds as the toll pass nears and eventually slides by.
"On the road again… Goin' places that I never been," Simone would never tell him in a thousand years, as annoying as it was, his voice wasn't the worst, "...Seein' things that I may never see again…"
She falls asleep sometime past the New Jersey border, to an AI's voice reverberating through the cabin, dress curled around her knees.
"On the road again-"