Sy

She and Steve raced through the destroyed lab, desperate to find any survivors. A small groan sent them both scrambling through the back room filled with broken sparking equipment.

Dr. Cho was slumped in the corner of the lab, her shoulder bleeding heavily. Sy dropped to the floor, ignoring the broken glass that immediately dug into her knees. With both hands she gripped the hemorrhaging injury, putting pressure on the wound. Steve passed her some bandages and gauze to help stem the blood flow, Sy's hands moving quickly in well practiced motions.

Camp, and the Apollo Cabin, had drilled emergency field medicine into everyone's heads over and over again. Plus, SHIELD had a mandatory first aid course she'd taken a couple of times over the years.

Those skills had definitely saved her life more than once, and on occasion she'd also used them to help others. They were definitely useful now.

"He's uploading himself into the body." Dr. Cho whispered hoarsely, her hand reaching up to grab at Sy's wrist. She has to physically stop herself from flinching at the sensation. Based by the expression on Steve's face, she didn't succeed well enough. Sy pulled her hand back as quickly as she could, continuing to pack the wound. If she focused on that task, she could ignore the fear pounding in her chest.

"Where?" Steve passed her some medical tape and she used it to secure the bandages. Sy stood up, her hands and bracers coated in blood. She flexed her hands uncomfortably at the feeling of the sticky liquid on her skin. Dr. Cho grabbed Sy again, and this time she did jump; ripping her arm out of the injured woman's grasp. Steve carefully nudged Sy out of the way. She took a half step back, her eyes wide and breathing uneven. Sy fought with herself to calm her racing heart and to clear her head of the wild panic threatening to take over. She wasn't broken. She wasn't.

"The real power is inside the cradle. The… gem… or whatever it is, the pieces of the fuel cell and something more…. Its power is uncontainable. You can't just blow it up. You have to get the cradle to Stark." She insisted to them between her stuttering, gasping breaths.

"First we have to find it." Steve promised her quietly. Dr. Cho pushed them both away weakly, relief and urgency coloring her tone.

"Go." They turned and raced back the way they came. Steve talking to the others through the headset.

"You guys copy that?" Sy listened in, her head tilted in Steve's direction to catch the voices through his comm set.

"We did." Was Clint's grim reply.

"I've got a private jet taking off across town." Natasha added. Sy glanced at Steve and shook out her wings, the celestial bronze plating rattling softly.

"Are you sure?" He asked her quietly, neither of their paces faltering. She just shot him an unamused glance, not bothering to answer him. He sighed heavily through his nose, but didn't ask her again. They burst out the doors onto the roof. Sy spread her wings and leapt off the building. Steve was two steps behind her, taking his own flying leap off the rooftop. Sy spun around in the air, catching him easily. Just as she had a dozen times before. It was almost like she was never gone. Adrenaline poured through her, her anxieties pushed away but the thrill of the upcoming fight.

"No manifest. That could be him." Natasha continued, her voice small through the comms unit.

"There,' Clint said, 'It's a truck from the lab. It's right above you two. Three with the cradle, one in the cab."

"I'm on it." Sy muttered, beating her wings hard. This part was harder than she remembered, the strain on her out of shape muscles pulling on her shoulders unpleasantly. Sy gritted her teeth, and strained harder.

"I could take out the driver." Clint offered. Sy and Steve shouted at the same time.

"No!"

"Negative! If that truck crashes, the gem Ultron made from the fuel cell could level the whole city. We need to draw out Ultron." Steve insisted. Sy forced herself to fly faster, angling her wing tips to take advantage of every draft she could as they sped through the sky towards the freeway ramp. Sy glanced down and spotted the truck.

"There."

"On three." Steve ordered. She nodded and began to drop lower. They shifted so that Steve was now dangling awkwardly beneath her. She started to swing him gently, Steve pumping him legs to help build his momentum.

"One, two…. Three." She grunted and dropped him. Steve fell through the air for only a second before landing on top of the truck. Her heart skipped a beat when he tumbled backwards, but then he caught himself. Sy soared back up into the sky, carefully circling the truck in a holding pattern, keeping careful watch over Steve.

"Leave me ALONE!" Ultron's angry roar echoed just as a bright white plusing beam of energy blasted Steve off the roof of the moving truck. Sy dove. A second blast emitted from the truck, the bright plasma beam breaking the doors of the truck. They dragged on the asphalt behind the truck, sending up bright orange sparks. The wind howled in her ears, but she still caught Clint's brutally honest remark and the sarcastic thanks Barton Steve muttered back to him before she swooped down and picked him up.

A concussive blast just barely missed her, but the resulting force still sent her spiraling over the side of the highway. Sy beat her wings wildly, just barely regaining control before the two of them ended up as bloody smears on the pavement. She flew back to the freeway, dropping Steve off on top of a different truck, leaving him to make his own way to the cradle. Ultron was now hovering in the air, shooting high energy beams at them, desperately trying to protect the cradle and the body being built inside of it.

Sy muttered a quick prayer to whatever deity had granted Percy Jackson his luck, beat her wings hard twice and slammed into Ultron, carrying the robot over the side of the highway. The robot roared in anger and ripped her away, tossing her through the air. The force of his throw sent her tumbling half a dozen yards up. Sy spun through the air for a moment, and dropped a couple of feet before she used her wings catch her.

"Do you know what's inside that cradle? The power to make real change. You should know that better than anyone; according to HYDRA you're the one who made it all possible." Sy just snarled.

"What's inside that cradle is just another product of my hell." She drew her sword and spun out of the way of a second blast aimed at her.

"You're just as afraid of change as the rest of them." Ultron growled at her, disappointment lacing the robotic voice. Sy snorted.

"I've seen the kind of change you want to bring before. I didn't like it then either." Sy tilted her head to the side, a familiar sound whistling through the wind. She grinned as Steve's shield slammed into Ultron. She lunged forward, working in sync with Steve to push back the robot. For a few glorious seconds, it even seemed like it would work. Ultron was on the defensive.

But Ultron quickly became too much for them. One minute the out of control AI was retreating, and in the next, a powerful block sent Steve's shield skittering down the highway and Sy got slammed into the side of a building by a well timed backhanded blow. She hit the ground with a soft grunt. Sy stood up slowly, rubbing her tender jaw. That was going to bruise. She shook herself off and took off again, barely sparing the staring crowds behind her a second glance.

By the time she caught up with the cradle again, Steve had his shield back and Natasha had shown up on a motorcycle. Ultron's drones opened fire on the pursuing Avengers. SY dove down in front of Natasha, a celestial bronze shield opening from a secret compartment in her bracers. Thank the gods for Cabin Ten and Leo Valdez. The blast battered the metal of the shield, but the meager protection the bronze disk offered held. With the godly metal repelling the blasts, Sy advanced. She quickly dispatched the first robotic drone, and kicked the second one out from the truck. Natasha promptly ran it over. It was clear that Ultron prioritized one or two bodies, and the rest of the drones, the rest of himself, was simply disposable metal. Extra hands, or cannon fodder to distract them with.

She heard a loud crash from outside the truck. Sy ran to the doorway to look at what was happening.

Ultron and Steve had crashed into a train, a massive hole gaping in the side of the car. She glanced at Natasha. The spy just shouted one instruction at her.

"Go!" She didn't hesitate.

Sy dove through the hole in the train, barreling into Ultron for the second time that day. The force of her entrance slammed him into the side of the train car. She knew later she as going to pay for tackling a metal robot twice in a single day.

The robot got back up quicker that she expected, and Sy barely dodged the retaliating blow. She wasn't able to avoid the second punch, and that one sent hers skidding into the seats. Causing her to land awkwardly on her back. She stood up and folded her wings, pulling them in tightly against her spine. In such close quarters, they were a hindrance not an asset.

"Protect the civilians." Steve shouted at her as he leapt up, attacking Ultron. A distraction to give her some time to protect people, even though he was getting his ass royally kicked. Sy reached into a pouch hanging from her belt. From inside, she pulled out the plastic recorder she'd borrowed from Cooper before they'd left Homestead. She wished she had a different instrument, but anything bigger would have gotten in her way or have already been destroyed in the fight. She screwed the three pieces together and brought the instrument to her lips.

The melody she played focused on conveying a warning, pushing any civilians in earshot to move into the compartments furthest away, as quickly as possible. She also threaded elements of strength into the music, trying to help Steve. She wasn't sure if it would be enough.

Sy heard him before anything else happened. But in the span of one note to the next, a blur slammed into Ultron, rescuing Steve from the beating he was receiving.

Pietro Maximoff stood at the end of the car. As Ultron got to his feet, red energy bent metal ripped from the walls of the train into a flimsy barrier, stopping him from going after Pietro. The witch, Wanda, stood behind her and Steve, red light wreathing her hands and filling her eyes. The robot stumbled to a shocked halt.

"Please, don't do this." Ultron begged softly to the twins, something not unlike grief filling the mechanical voice. Sy helped Steve to his feet, recorder slipping back into her belt. She'd promised to return it, and she was a Greek. They weren't in the habit of breaking promises; usually because it ended up biting them in the ass when they did. She drew her sword again. It was four of them in an empty compartment, and Ultron. Sy liked these odds.

"What choice do we have?" Wanda asked, her voice shaking slightly. Sy could taste the bitter sincerity in the other woman's voice. Ultron turned and blasted the train, sending Pietro diving out of the way. Sy lunged for the robot, but Ultron was faster, flying off in the distraction he'd created.

"I've lost him! He's heading your way." Steve shouted into the ear piece as they sprinted down the length of the train. Sy could already see the conductor laying across the panel, dead. She glanced back at the twins.

"This train can't stop. It's up to you." She ordered before leaping out of the train herself. Her wings beat wildly, the wind from the moving vehicle making it more difficult than usual for her to take flight. She pushed herself hard, racing to catch up with the red glow of Ultron's flight. She heard Natasha cry out, just before the cargo container exploded. Sy raced to catch the robot, her friend hanging limply in his grasp. Ultron turned midair and sent out three consecutive blasts in her direction.

Sy was too tired, too worn, and too out of shape to avoid them all. She dodged one then the other, but the last one caught her full in the chest. The resulting shock wave sent her plummeting out of the air. The last thing she was aware of was the wind roaring in her ears as she fell.