Sy
Sy stood in the doorway of Tony and Bruce's decimated lab with her arms crossed, a virtual storm of emotions raging through her. The rest of the Avengers team hovered around; everyone else had been sent home. Although it had taken a lot of work to get Director Hill to leave. They only got her to leave the tower because Steve promised (through Sam) to keep her updated. The Director had in return promised what resources of SHIELD's the slowly rebuilding organization could afford.
"All of our work is gone. Ultron cleared out, used the internet as an escape hatch."
"Ultron." Steve muttered softly, his face a stony mask. Natasha looked up from her place at the computer monitor.
"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance, everything we took from SHIELD last year. Probably knows more about us than we do about each other." Sy glanced up at this. She wasn't sure what her status was with Olympus and the Avengers anymore, but if information on the mythological world got out, that was still her responsibility.
"Olympus?" Sy asked worriedly. Tony shook his head.
"You're the only one he couldn't touch. You records are all paper copies; handwritten and any imagery was developed on physical film. Anything that might have once been online was deep sixed years ago. Nothing on the internet, nothing even on hard digital drives that he could hack. You're in the clear." Sy let out a small sigh of relief.
"He's in the files, he's in the internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhody interrupted, beginning to pace the room.
"Nuclear codes?" James asked stoically. Rhody nodded once at the Winter Soldier.
"Nuclear codes. Look we need to start making some calls, assuming we still can." Rhody said resignedly.
"I told Maria I would keep her updated. We gotta figure out if we can make those calls or if I'm going to have to buy some carrier pigeons." Sam added. James nodded towards Rhody.
"I have some other options we can use if we have too." The colonel nodded back gratefully.
"Nukes? He only said he wanted us dead." Natasha commented.
"Dead? No, he said extinct." Steve growled, moving towards Sy, wrapping a protective arm around her. She leaned into him, taking comfort from his solid presence. Her whole world had been flipped on its head too many times in the last week for her to feel safe. She wondered vaguely if it would have been better if they had left her to rot in Sokovia.
"He also said he killed someone." Clint pointed out.
"Kill someone? There was nobody left in the building to kill." Loki scoffed lightly. Tony's face grew somber, grief flashing in his eyes.
"Yes there was." The genius tapped his tablet at the air, activating a huge holographic screen. Scattered golden pixels filled the air. Sy took in a sharp breath as she surveyed the destruction, unease spreading in her gut as a nervous hunch formed in the back of her mind. Bruce stepped across the floor, arms held out as if he could gather all the broken pieces and heal the missing member of the team.
JARVIS.
"This is insane." He breathed out, horrified.
"JARVIS was the first line of defense. He would have shut Ultron down. It makes sense." Steve said softly. A small shiver worked its way down her spine, as the loss of the previously omnipresent AI echoed through their dysfunctional team.
"No." Bruce broke in roughly. Sy glanced over at Tony, noting the blank stare on her friend's face. She also hadn't missed the tension between him and Steve. She doubted that either of them have actually worked out any of their issues in the time that she'd been gone.
"Ultron could have assimilated JARVIS. This isn't strategy, this is… rage." Suddenly Thor stormed across the room. The blonde god grabbed Tony by the throat, lifting him clear from the floor. Loki flicked a hand, and green magic filled the air, holding them all back. Rage wasn't a strong enough word for the look on Thor's face.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Steve broke in, trying to push through the barrier.
"It's going around." Clint commented blandly, a carefully blank expression on his face as he studied the infuriated aesir. Sy hummed under her breath, gathering power, before punching the godly magic. It shattered, allowing her and Steve to attempt to intervene, even as Loki stepped in front of them as a barricade. The two brothers may not get along, but they always backed the other without question.
"Come on. Use your words buddy." Tony choked out, his face turning red. Thor let out an ugly snarl into the billionaire's face.
"I have more than enough words to describe you Stark."
"Thor! The legionnaire." Steve snapped out the order, pushing around Loki. Sy hummed again, pushing out an aura of calm. She felt the terror and fear of being gagged again seep into her head, as her friends both relaxed and tensed at the sound of her music. Somehow she kept herself in the present, taking deep breaths as she focused on her immediate world. Her friends needed her, and she wasn't going to let them tear themselves apart. There was nothing she wouldn't do to protect them. Nothing. Thor dropped Tony to his feet as he replied, not giving the billionaire a second glance as he made his report to Steve.
"The trail went cold about a hundred miles out, but it's headed north. And it has…" Thor stopped himself abruptly, glancing nervously towards her. Loki's grip suddenly became less restraining and more comforting. The rest of the team's expressions changed dramatically, but the anger in the room was palpable.
"Has what?" She asked, the urge to vomit suddenly presenting itself. All her fears and stress and anxiety suddenly surged forward. Sy could hear her pulse thundering in her ears, her breath came shorter and she began to shake. Steve quickly turned away from Tony and took her from Loki, enveloping her in his arms.
"Sy, you don't need -" He started.
"Has what?" She demanded softly. Tony sank into a chair, massaging his throat gingerly. The genius was studiously looking at a point right next to her ear, rather than her face.
"Sy, when we rescued you from Strucker we also confiscated parts of the equipment, pieces of different experiments, anything that looked immediately dangerous. Most of the data. One of the things we found was… well it was you. Not you, you, but your blood. It was part of this fuel cell that was filled with energy from Loki's scepter. Loki and Clint both confirmed it was the same force. And your blood was powering it or feeding it or I don't even know. That was how we were eventually able to track you down; we'd been following the blood. We found at least several hundred fuel cells. Most of the cells had been damaged or destroyed during the fighting. But, there was one left. And…. we took it. Figured out it has most of the same properties as the scepter does." He delivered the information almost gently, even though his tone was completely robotic. Sy turned away, lunging for the trash can underneath the desk. She heaved violently.
She knew that she'd been used, that HYDRA had exploited her. She'd always known that demigod blood was powerful, and logically knew that HYDRA would have taken advantage of that too.
But to hear it so clinically, to understand exactly how much they'd taken from her. To understand what they had used her to do. How she had been a personal battery for the new and increasingly dangerous weapons and technology employed by HYDRA. It was horrifying. She vomited again, only vaguely aware of Steve's voice irritated in the background, while Bucky's voice was in her ear murmuring something. She could feel the cool metal of his prosthetic hand rubbing rhythmic circles on her back. Sy sat back up, wiping her mouth gingerly, tears dripping down her face.
"We need to get it back." Sy insisted clearly, even though all she wanted to do was lock herself in her room and have a good long cry. Then lock the door and never emerge again, so that she could never be used like that ever again.
"The genie's out of that bottle. Clear and present is Ultron." Natasha countered, green eyes looking at her sympathetically, even as her words tore through Sy.
"He can't have it. We can't let Ultron have it." Sy repeated, her breaths coming shorter as panic began to consume her. Buc- James continued to whisper to her, and she latched onto him, desperately attempting to anchor herself before she loses it entirely.
"I don't get it. You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?" Sam asked, poking at the twisted scrap metal that had been Ultron's first body. Tony suddenly began to laugh, the sound growing increasingly hysterical by the minute. Sy wondered offhandedly through her panic if the man was drunk.
"You think this is funny?" Loki asked scornfully. The laughter stopped immediately. Tony glances up, expression completely sober and serious in a manner that was unlike the mask the genius usually showed the world.
"No. It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? It is so… it is so... It is. It's so terrible." The words were callous and cold, tossed down like a challenge. Sy wondered where her warm, irritating, but loving friend had gone. She couldn't believe that was the same man as the one who stood across from her right now. Sy knew she was shaking, but she didn't particularly care. Anger and fear and panic were blending inside of her to create a potent cocktail.
"This could have been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand." Thor growled, pacing across the floor to confront Tony again. Tony didn't back down.
"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this."
"Tony, maybe this isn't the right time to -" Bruce tried to break in, glancing over at her, but Tony was on a roll and bulldozed right over him.
"Really? That's it? You just roll over and show your belly, every time someone snarls?" He snapped.
"Only when I've inadvertently violated one of our team members to create a murder bot." Bruce snapped back, some of his own inner growl shining through.
"We didn't. We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?" Tony shot back. Bruce got up into the inventor's face.
"No, but we didn't tell Sy. And it's her blood that powered that thing!" Bruce roared, green tingeing his face. Tony fell silent, guilt crossing his expression as he finally looked over at her position crouched on the floor, hugging a trash can. Sy pressed a hand to her mouth, the urge to puke coming back. She hadn't even thought of that part. Steve stepped in front of her, arms crossed tightly across his chest.
"Well you did something right. And you did it right here. The Avengers are supposed to be different than Fury's SHIELD." Tony scoffed, stepping away from the circle of disapproval.
"Anyone remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" Tony asked.
"No. It's never come up." Rhody said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"Saved New York?" Tony continued, ignoring his best friend.
"Never came up." Rhody bantered back, anger radiating from the air force colonel.
"Recall that? A hostile alien force came charging through a hole in space - no offense Loki - And we're standing three hundred feet below it. The seven of us, against millions. Trying to protect the whole goddamn planet. We're the Avengers, we can bust arms dealers and terrorists all the livelong day, but that, up there? That's… that's the end game. How do you guys plan on beating that?" Tony gestured wildly towards the sky, his expression calm even though fear had filled his eyes. Sy could taste the panic, and the last vestiges of the witch's magic, in the sounds of Tony's voice.
"Together." Was Steve's response. Sy gripped James tightly, and forced herself to her feet.
"We'll lose." Tony responded matter of factly. Sy shook her head.
"No. We won't. Forty demigods and maybe two dozen odd allies held Manhattan against Titans and their army of thousands for a week. Seven demigods battled and defeated an army of giants in a day. Two camps, a few hundred campers, enemies, banded together and defeated an army of thousands and an ancient primordial goddess. Two magicians stopped Apophis on his home turf in the Land of Demons. Seven of us held off the Chitauri." Sy took a shuddering breath, struggling to stay on her feet.
"We'll win because we have to. Because we fight together. Because there are forces and allies on this Earth more powerful than us who can and will help us. Because humanity would never go down without one hell of a fight. You forget; the Avengers might have held New York. But the battle was also fought by its citizens. Yeah, we saved a lot of people, helped evacuate parts of the city, but there were more than a few normal New Yorkers who decided to spit death in the eye and fight back just as hard as we did. And they didn't have the advantage of being trained or armed or prepared or enhanced or experienced like we are. Tony, just admit it. The witch scared you. And that fear controls you." Sy sank back down into a chair that had magically appeared behind her. She squeezed James's good arm in thanks. Tony looked at her dumbfounded before turning away, an unreadable expression on his face. Most of the other Avengers were staring at her too. Steve was the first one to shake himself out from his reverie. She'd probably spoken more in that little speech than she had in the past week combined.
"Thor's right. Ultron is calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world is a big place. Let's start making it smaller."