BLIND RAGE AND REVENGE...
Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.
THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO Angel1D98, NicoleR85 AND Gwendolyn Yuki. I'M GLAD YOU LIKED THE LAST CHAPTER, THE LAST LINE WAS MY FAVORITE TOO!
Bruce looked over the ruined lab, his brow furrowed. "All our work is gone. Ultron cleared out, used the internet as an escape hatch."
Tess didn't miss Steve's snarled, 'Ultron,' and reached out to rest a placating hand on her brother's shoulder.
"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other." Natasha added.
"That feels oddly…violating…" Tess tilted her head, and shook it after a moment. "But…low level, for a robot who can access all of the internet."
"What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodey pondered, seeming to agree with Tess' comments.
"Nuclear codes," Maria continued, have caught his train of thought. She continued to pick glass fragments out of her feet and Tess flicked her fingers, some of the shards dislodging themselves easily and painlessly. The Hill woman shot Tess a grateful look before placing the tweezers away.
"Nuclear codes," Rhodey repeated in agreement. "Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."
"Nukes?" Natasha asked incredulously. "He said he wanted us dead."
"He didn't say dead," Tess disagreed, her tone bored and her eyes unfocused. She was picking at her nails and sitting on a ruined bench. "Correction: He said extinct."
The archer wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders, knowing that the psychopathic robot affected her more than she let on, "He also said he killed somebody."
Maria frowned, "But there wasn't anyone else in the building."
Tony interrupted, tapping a remote on his hand, "Yes, there was." Tony brought up the now destroyed 3D image of JARVIS's consciousness.
"This is insane." Bruce commented as Tess gasped, putting a hand to her mouth.
"JARVIS was the first line of defence." Steve glanced with worry over to his sister, who looked close to tears. It wasn't for the sole reason that the (somehow lovable) AI was dead but because they had lost one of their members – a part of their family. "He would've shut Ultron down; it makes sense."
"No," Tess was unconvinced and slid off the bench, walking towards JARVIS. "Ultron could've assimilated JARVIS. This isn't strategy, this is...rage. I – I know blind rage, and this is it."
Suddenly, Thor walked into the room, holding Mjölnir and wearing his full armor. The god of thunder stalked towards Tony, his boots loud and his large hand curled around Tony's throat and holding him up.
"Put my godson down!" Tess' voice – and anger-filled eyes – halted the god of thunder. He was well aware of how protective Tess was when it came down to family. He was extremely grateful that she classed him in that category but he knew that her love for him would not amount to the love she felt for her brother or godson.
"Come on. Use your words, buddy." Tony choked out, and Tess felt ready to smack him in the head. He was being arrogant, as per usual, and only making the entire situation worse by angering a god.
"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark." Thor growled, but this time the other Rogers' sibling intervened.
"Thor! The Legionnaire."
Thor dropped Tony, who gasped for breath. "Trail went cold about a hundred miles out but it's headed north, and it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it. Again."
Natasha scoffed, "The genie's out of that bottle. Clear and present is Ultron."
"I don't understand." A look of confusion was spread on Helen Cho's face. She was still slightly shaken by the fight but was still functioning – Tess admired that. "You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?"
Tony started chuckling to himself, and both Bruce and Tess subtly shook their heads at him to get him to stop, but Thor had already noticed. "You think this is funny?"
"No. It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so...is it so...it is. It's so terrible."
"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand," Thor spat back but Tony was still grinning in amusement.
"Thor's right," Tess added, making Tony look at her. She waved her hands at the mess around them. "What you tried to do was like HYDRA; now there are another two Enhanced like me running around. You kept pushing and pushing for answers, without realising the consequences. You didn't understand what you were messing with and created something that we didn't need!"
"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this."
Bruce twisted his hands, "Tony, maybe this might not be the time to..."
"Really?!" Tony exclaimed, "That's it? You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls."
"Only when I've created a murder bot," Bruce chimed sarcastically, lightly glaring back at Tony.
"We didn't. We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?"
Steve raised a brow, "Well, you did something right. And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD."
Tony lifted up his hands, "Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?"
Rhodey shook his head, "No, it's never come up."
"Saved New York?"
Rhodey's response was just as sarcastic as the first, "Never heard that."
Tony didn't let his friend's answers dampen his attitude. "Recall that? A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the live long day, but, that up there? That's...that's the end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?"
"Together." Everyone glanced up at Captain America, whose arm was around Tess and was holding her close to him.
"We'll lose." Tony responded.
"Then we'll do that together, too." Steve looked steadily at Tony who looked back for a moment, and then turned away. "Thor's right. Ultron's calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."
Tess had never been prouder of Steven Grant Rogers than in that exact moment.
XXXXX
"I don't see the big picture, I have a little picture. I take it out and look at it every day." Tess heard Pietro Maximoff say. She was hovering over the twins and Ultron in what appeared to be an abandoned church.
It was a mere astral projection but Tess could see and hear everything going on, yet she had only caught some of the conversation.
"You lost your parents in the bombings. I've seen the records." Ultron drawled.
The silver-haired boy shook his head, "Their records are not the picture."
"Pietro." Wanda interjected but Ultron cut her off, intrigued, "No, please."
Pietro continued speaking, "We were ten years old, having dinner, the four of us. 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 supplied, a scowl on her face.
"We were trapped two days."
"Every effort to save us, every shift in the bricks, I think, 'this will set it off.'" Wanda had hatred swimming in her eyes, and Tess' eyes widened in horror. What had Tony done? "We wait for two days for Tony Stark to kill us."
Pietro tightened his hold on his sister's hand, "They know what they are."
Ultron had an almost human expression on his metallic face, "I wondered why only you two survived Strucker's experiments. Now I don't. We will make it right. You and I can hurt them." He moved closer to Wanda, and acted as if to touch her face before changing his mind and moving away, "But you will tear them apart, from the inside."
Much to the shock of Tess, he turned to her, "And what of you, Tesseract? Are you willing to join us?"
Tess projected an image of her body in the church, her legs crossed as she sat on a nearby block. Wanda and Pietro stiffened in surprise, ready to fight, but Tess kept her eyes fixed on the robot. "You can sense Chaos Magic. The scepter's doing, I presume."
Her words were more statements, not questions, and she needed no answer. Tess turned, looking directly at the Maximoff twins, "Tony wishes only to save the world, but most of the time…he does more harm than good. But I am truly sorry for what you have experienced." She shook her head with a scoff, "Tony was commissioned to make the missiles, he had no idea where they were going and still, he did it."
They could both tell Tess was genuine and the girl with the electric-blue eyes addressed Ultron again. "I was once controlled by a monster, I will not be controlled by one again." Ultron seemed almost disappointed. Tess caught the twin's eyes again, "I would advise you to discover his true intentions sooner, rather than later."
Tess disappeared with a flick of her hand, leaving the Maximoff's to gape after her, wondering what she meant. 'I was once controlled by a monster, I will not be controlled by one again.'
XXXXX
Tess snapped back into her body with a gasp, alerting Tony, who was working on the desk near her. Bruce had left some time ago while Tess was 'projecting' and Tony looked more lined and tired than ever.
"Sense anything in the Force, Tessie?" Tony asked, barely glancing up from his work.
Tess grinned slightly at the Star Wars reference, but let out a shaky breath, running her hand over her face. "Something like that."
The Avengers needed to take Ultron down, and soon, before innocent people were hurt. And the twins helped him do it.
XXXXX
"Do you have dreams?"
"Of course, I do," Bucky nodded. He leant back into the couch he and Tess were sitting on. "I want to find a girl, get a nice house. Maybe some kids."
Tess smiled kindly, "You with kids?" She bit her lip, "Somehow, I don't see it. I'm sure you could get any girl you want, a nice house too. Probably a dog, rather than children. Steve is the family man."
"Yeah," the dark-haired man nodded, "You're probably right. You're accent is coming along nicely, doll."
Tess wrinkled her nose, "Sometimes I have to think about it and other times, it's just like the German part of me disappears. It's very odd."
"You don't need to change, doll. Not your hair or your clothes or your voice. You're accepted here, no matter what."
"Thank you, James," Tess murmured quietly, eyes glowing with warmth. "You have no idea how much that means to me."
"Don't get sappy on me, doll."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
XXXXX
The flashback was a kind of last minute thing but I liked how it turned out. I wanted to strengthen the bond between Bucky and Tess, even though they hadn't been friends for very long.
Please review!
~ Raven