Chapter Twenty-One
Klara sighed and put down the tablet she had been perusing, rubbing her eyes against the coming dawn. Lord Thor had tried to insist that she rest, but she had declined with as much politeness as she could muster. Rest would have been elusive, even had she tried, after the evening's events.
The scene after the battle had not been pleasant, tensions heightening as harsh words were exchanged, loyalties questioned, threats were made. Klara thought she could perhaps understand Tony Stark's frustration. After all, this was not the creation he had envisioned, this Ultron. He had meant it to protect, to ensure the safety of the world he lived in, a world that was not at all prepared for what lay beyond the realm they now inhabited. But he had done it alone (or at least with only the help of Dr. Banner), and it was clear Captain Rogers would find that hard to forgive. During her time at Avengers Tower, Klara had come to realize that this assortment of people, this team was not just a team. It was a family. And for all his good intentions, Tony Stark had betrayed that family's trust. Klara got the cold, strange feeling that perhaps he had more in common with Loki than he might like to admit.
She glanced across the table and saw that Alice Ripley had fallen asleep despite her best efforts. The girl had worked tirelessly through the night, first tending to injuries, and then scouring the internet for any sign of their quarry. Dr. Banner's lab coat was draped over her sleeping form, and Klara noticed the doctor flitting concerned glances in the girl's direction as he paged through screens of scrambled data trying to establish the timeline of events that had led to last night's disaster. The two had not spoken, that Klara could see, and she wondered if Alice felt betrayed by him as well, working in secret with Tony Stark. As much as Klara hated to think that two people so deeply in love could be at odds, it did seem that Dr. Banner had a terrible habit of keeping important secrets from Alice. Klara suspected he thought he was protecting her...but it was not a habit Klara herself could have easily tolerated.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Captain Rogers, Maria Hill, and Clint Barton, who all entered the conference room looking grave. Klara straightened as Alice jerked awake, yawning and stretching, which dislodged the lab coat.
"What time is it?" she grumbled, "And where is my coffee? I'm gonna need coffee."
"Might wanna hold off on that," Captain Rogers said, setting a tablet down onto the table, "This isn't pretty."
Alice leaned forward and then recoiled with a sound of disgust.
"Jesus, Steve, you sure know how to get a girl's blood pumping in the morning. What the hell?"
Klara leaned forward to see the horrific scene for herself: a man with a gunshot to the head, and written on the wall in the man's own blood "PEACE".
"Ultron's been busy," Captain Rogers said, taking the tablet back, "And it looks like he's recruited the Maximoff twins in his campaign."
"Murder-bots and enhanced, working together," Alice muttered, rubbing her face vigorously, "God, this just keeps getting better and better."
Klara noticed Dr. Banner flinch, but pretended not to.
"This is a smokescreen," Miss Romanov countered, pointing at the bloody word on the wall, "Why leave a message when you've already given a speech?"
"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss," Captain Rogers agreed.
"Yeah, I bet he..." Miss Romanov trailed off and turned to one of the computers behind her, tapping on a few keys. "Yep. Everything we had on Strucker has been erased."
"Not everything," Tony Stark said, his hands deep in his pockets.
And so they found themselves digging through boxes of file folders, all that remained of their information concerning the Baron Von Strucker. Klara was setting aside her first stack of files (containing only known aliases and identification papers) and reaching for a second when there was a light touch on her shoulder. She jumped and turned. Lord Thor stood behind her with a finger to his lips and motioned that she should follow. She stood and they left the conference area, passing through the lounge, and out onto the balcony. The sun had fully risen now, and the city was bathed in its golden light, glass and metal glittering like reflections on water.
"Were you able to contact Heimdall?" Klara asked, fearing she already knew the answer.
"No," Lord Thor admitted, "Either he is not at his post or he's been ordered not to respond."
Klara nodded, but the news gave her pause. She had never known a time when Heimdall was not at his post. But the only person who could order the watch-guard to silence was the All-Father and why would he-?
"I'm sending you away, Klara," Lord Thor said, and it was so abrupt that it took a moment for her to process the words, "I've contacted Jane, she's currently in Switzerland awaiting your arrival. There is a flight in a few hours-"
"My lord," Klara cut in, then dropped her head in deference, her hands clasped behind her, "Forgive me, but...I do not wish to go."
There was a long pause, and Lord Thor sighed.
"This is not a simple mission, Klara," he said, "The dangers are-"
"I understand," Klara said, surprised at her boldness in interrupting him a second time, "I also understand that these...enhanced, as the Midgardians call them, possess what very much sounds like magic. In which case, my unique abilities might be of invaluable use. I cannot shirk the responsibility of that knowledge, my lord."
He studied her face for a moment. Then, to Klara's surprise, he took her by the shoulders and smiled at her.
"I am very glad to have brought you to Midgard, Mistress Klara," he said, "I believe it has been good for you."
Klara blinked at him, then bowed her head.
"I am very glad to have had the opportunity to serve you, my lord," she said, "Even when you did not particularly wish for my service."
He laughed then, a hearty chuckle and gave her arms an affectionate squeeze.
"Come," he said, "It will be an honor to stand side-by-side with you in battle!"
The door to the balcony opened, and Maria Hill poked her head out.
"We've got something."
Alice wouldn't have said she was pissed. Well... Okay, maybe she was a little pissed. But that could have been the sleep deprivation. She wasn't really pissed at Bruce. Maybe. Okay, she was more than a little pissed at Bruce. Even though she knew she should probably be more pissed at Tony. After all, Tony had created a crazy robot intent on annihilating Earth's mightiest defenders...who had murdered JARVIS. She blinked back another threat of tears as she pictured the garbled, broken code that had once been her friend. JARVIS had been there through some of her roughest moments in the Tower. He had never once judged her when she asked him to look up the earliest flights from JFK to anywhere. And he had never questioned her decision to cancel those flights just as she was on the verge of booking them. He had been there for her when she hadn't even known she needed him. And now he was gone.
"Might wanna ease up on the stick there, kid."
Alice blinked and relaxed her grip, realizing that she had inadvertently allowed the quinjet to drift into the upper atmosphere. She swore under her breath and began to lower them back down. Clint smiled at her, but the expression was tight around the edges.
"You good?"
Alice nodded, keeping her eyes on the instruments until they reached an acceptable altitude, then switched on the auto-pilot. "Yeah. Just let my mind wander. Won't happen again."
"Hey," Clint dropped to a crouch by her arm, the concern that had only been a hint before now full-blown on his face. "I know you can do the job. I'm asking as your friend, not your teammate who would like to get to Africa in one piece."
That made Alice smile despite herself.
"I'm pissed," she finally admitted, "But no more than anybody else, I guess. I'll be okay."
"Hey, personally, I think you've got more right than most of us to be pissed," Clint said, glancing over his shoulder, back toward the flight seats where Alice knew Bruce was probably fidgeting and fretting, "I mean, you share a bed with someone, you kind of expect they'll tell you the big stuff. No matter how scary or how much they want to protect you."
Alice stared at Clint for a second, suddenly realizing she knew very little about his personal life. He'd said he didn't have a girlfriend, but that didn't mean the man was a monk. Had he been in a serious relationship before? As a SHIELD agent? Or was he just talking out of his ass? Almost as if he could read her mind, he smirked.
"Yeah, I know, I don't seem like the guy to be giving out relationship advice. But trust me, I get you. Just...I know he screwed up. Major screwed up. But you should talk to him, sooner rather than later. I'd hate for two of the most disgustingly in love people I know to break down over this. It would feel like...I don't know, like letting the bad guys win. And we're the Avengers: we don't let the bad guys win."
Alice's smile widened.
"We?"
He stood up and shrugged, adjusting the quiver on his back.
"If you don't think you're an Avenger, Baby Bird, I don't know what you think you've been doing the last couple months."
"Saving your dumb ass, mostly," Alice said, turning back to the controls.
"Exactly. Avenging." He squeezed her shoulder, then dropped back to the hold with the others. The African coastline was in view and Alice tapped her earpiece.
"We're five minutes out, folks," she said, flipping a few switches and taking control of the flight stick again, "Seatbacks and trays in upright and locked positions."
"Copy that," Steve replied.
She listened with half an ear to Steve's pep talk and direction for the plan of attack. Steve, Thor, and Tony would go in through the front door. Clint and Nat would take up positions above. Bruce and Alice would stay behind in the jet unless called upon.
"Klara, I want you to stay up high with Clint," Steve said, and Alice could almost feel the air thicken, "It'll be the safest place, out of the direct line of fire, and you'll have a great vantage to see the enhanced if they make a play. Do not engage without direct orders, clear?"
"Perfectly, Captain."
Alice could hear the tension in Klara's voice. She could just imagine the carefully neutral expression.
"Clint? We still good?"
"Gotcha, Cap." Clint had that forced cheerfulness to his tone that Alice could recognize from a mile away. He was not pleased to be stuck as babysitter, but there was no more time to debate the point, and he knew it.
Alice put down just outside the boating salvage yard where Ulysses Klaue was reported to be running his business these days. It was a sad amalgam of rusted out container ships that looked like the perfect spot for a black market operation. Not that Alice would know anything about that, of course...
"Alright, it's go time, people," she said, flipping the switch to lower the back ramp, "Break a leg out there."
"Shut the door behind us, Alice," Steve said, "And stay safe."
"You too," Alice said, "Tony, do me a favor, and try not to give any of those rust buckets sentience while you're out."
"Har, har, you're hilarious," Tony's voice came back through the comms, but he sounded a little relieved for the jab.
She flipped the lever to close the ramp behind them, and set the controls for a quick launch, in case they needed to take off in a hurry. Then she sat back in the pilot's chair and shut her eyes. She took three deep breaths, trying not to think about Bruce sitting back in the bay, probably still fidgeting, probably trying to think of something to say and coming up blank. Probably waiting for her to explode.
...you should talk to him...sooner rather than later...
She spun around in her chair, hands clasped, elbows on her knees.
"Alright," she said, looking Bruce straight in his wide, startled eyes, "Let's talk."
Klara watched the twins with a shocked sort of fascination. They were... They were children. Klara was no longer quite so horrified by what had happened to the lately departed Von Strucker. Children... Klara shuddered, and Clint Barton glanced at her, his bow already drawn and trained on the robot bantering with the three men that had dared to challenge him.
"I know you've suffered-" Captain Rogers spoke soothingly in her ear, addressing the twins rather than the thing that now controlled them.
Ultron made a disgusted noise that sounded like feedback in the comms, and Klara winced.
"Captain America," he said with contempt, "God's righteous man, pretending you could live without a war. I can't physically throw up in my mouth, but-"
"If you believe in peace," Lord Thor demanded, "Then let us keep it."
"I think you're confusing peace with quiet."
"Yeah, uh huh, what's the vibranium for?" Stark cut in.
"I'm glad you asked that because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan-"
There was a crash, and suddenly the bottom of the boat was swarming with robots, similar to the Iron Legion but somehow more menacing, armed with weapons Klara had never seen before.
"Shit," Clint Barton muttered and loosed his arrow. It exploded in the face of one of the robots, and he already had another trained below. "Get down!"
Klara did as he bid her, ducking behind the solid railing of the gangway. They were on a corner and the joint had rusted out, creating just enough space for Klara to see a portion of what was happening below. She tried to find the children in the chaos, but the few seconds it had taken her to change position and refocus her eyes had been sufficient time for the two of them to disappear. Gunshots were being fired now, pinging against the metal and flying in all directions. These shots were not being taken by the robots, but by the men of ill-repute who had commandeered this vessel for their nefarious purposes. And they did not appear to be taking any side in the struggle except their own, shooting at metal and flesh alike.
Clint Barton let loose another curse and dropped beside her, changing the arrow tips in his quiver with the touch of a button. He glanced at Klara and rolled his eyes.
"Just...stay here!"
And then he was gone. Klara didn't know what she should do. Clearly, he was needed elsewhere. But she had been told to stay with him, that had been Captain Rogers' specific orders. Did Clint Barton's orders trump those in the field?
Klara didn't have time to debate the point further. She heard a loud roar, human, and turned to see two men, markings all over their skin and large guns in their hands, approach up the stairs to her right. If she remained where she was, she would surely be killed. So instead, she stood and turned into the top of the stairs, bracing herself on the rusty railing and kicking out with both feet. The two men, not expecting resistance, were taken completely off guard and went tumbling, hitting a rusted out stair that collapsed beneath their combined weight. With a sickening screech, they went screaming into the dark below. Klara turned and ran in the direction Clint Barton had gone.
"Alice, I wasn't keeping it from you intentionally," Bruce insisted. Alice tried very hard not to lose her cool. "You were busy with Helen, we've both had a lot going on these last few days, hell I've barely even seen you!"
"Artificial intelligence, Bruce," Alice said, with as much calm as she could manage, "It's not like you came up with that overnight. I'm not really upset that you didn't tell the team. Hell, I almost get that! Let's be honest, Steve's a little bit paranoid when it comes to the science-y stuff. But for god's sake, we sleep together!" Bruce flinched. Okay, she might have lost her cool a bit. She tried to get it back. "We're not supposed to keep things from each other. That's not how it works. I mean, I've told you everything-"
"Except when it suited you," Bruce muttered, then looked immediately as if he regretted it.
"What the hell does that mean?" Alice snapped, giving up on her cool. Her cool was officially a lost cause.
"Really?" he growled, his eyes flickering a dangerous green, "It means you didn't seem to have a problem keeping secrets from me if it meant you got what you wanted! It didn't seem to matter that I was trying to keep you safe, that I was trying to protect you!"
"Protect me? We are literally fighting a sadistic robot with a god complex, and you want to talk about protecting me?"
"Oh, come on, Alice, you know this wasn't supposed to be the end game! Ultron was supposed to be our shield, a safeguard, a way to get us out of this hellhole of a life we're living!"
Alice reeled back like she'd been physically slapped.
"...hellhole?"
Bruce rubbed his face in obvious frustration.
"Don't you...?" He trailed off and seemed to gather himself before he looked at her again. "Don't you ever want to be normal, Alice?"
Alice rolled her eyes, forcing back her pent-up tears.
"Come on, Bruce, we're not normal," she said, "No amount of AI is going to make us normal."
"But it might make us obsolete," Bruce said, leaning forward with an intensity that Alice rarely saw outside of a lab, "Which would be almost the same thing. No more running. No more worrying about whether the world was going to end today, or tomorrow, a year from now, ten years! We could just..." He reached for her hand and took it in both of his, cradling it. "...live."
Alice stared at him. She didn't know what to say. It had never occurred to her. When she had agreed to stay, to make him a part of the island of her life, she had also accepted that their lives would always be...this. Either running or waiting for the next disaster, when the world would need him to be their defender against the things that were just too big for anything less. She had never even considered that there might be-
There was an explosion of chatter on the comm, the broken feedback of metallic whines and the staccato of what sounded like gunfire. Bruce and Alice both jerked upright, and Alice put her hand to her earpiece, trying to make out anything through the static.
"Cap, is that you? Thor, Tony? Anybody copy?"
There was some more broken background noise and a few words, but they were garbled beyond recognition.
"Shit," Alice muttered and ran back to the pilot's seat, fiddling with the knobs on the comm base which only succeeded in creating a screech that she quickly corrected, "Damn container ship is jacking with the signal."
Bruce came up behind her and pressed the button to route comms through the quinjet speakers.
"Guys? Is this a Code Green?"
The only answer was static.
Klara ran for what seemed a long time before she finally caught sight of Clint Barton again. He had taken a position in another corner of the gangway and was firing arrows into the maelstrom of metal swarming below.
...and there was the girl. Approaching Clint Barton from behind, her hands swimming in red light, and he didn't appear to see her. She was coming for him, and all Klara could think about was what Loki had done to him, what he had been forced to endure. Not again. Never again. Without another thought, Klara ran and slipped between them, clamping her hands around the girl's wrists. She felt the magic, a swirling red fire against her skin, but it did not flee as other magic did. It fought, struggling against her, looking for a way through, still fixated on its goal, on Clint Barton's vulnerable mind.
"No," Klara growled through gritted teeth as the girl locked eyes with her, angry and frightened, "You will not have him!"
Without truly realizing what she was about to do, Klara set her mind and shoved, pushing back against the tendrils of red slithering against her skin. The girl screamed as the magic she had intended for another fell back upon itself, attacking the mind of the one who had created it. She stumbled away and Klara let her, releasing her hands and sagging back into strong arms that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. There was an indistinct blur and the girl was gone.
Klara blinked and shook her head, feeling as if there were cotton where her thoughts should be. She looked up into the shocked face of Clint Barton and realized with a jolt that the arms holding her upright were his. She struggled to find her feet again, but he resisted her attempts, holding her steady.
"Woah there, easy, take a breath."
Klara blinked again and furrowed her brow, confused. He had never spoken to her in that manner before. Like...like it mattered, what she did. He lowered her to the floor and only then did he slip his hands away, moving to crouch in front of her, holding her up by the shoulders when she sagged again, his face set into a familiar frown.
"Forgive me," Klara rasped out, pressing the heel of her hand to her temple in an attempt to quiet the rushing cyclone spinning through her mind, "Forgive me, I...I don't..."
Her hands were shaking as she tried to run her fingers through her hair, lowering her head to her knees. She had never felt anything like this, like the strength had been sapped from her very soul.
"Klara." Clint Barton's voice brought her back from the black pool that threatened to close over her. She forced herself upright again. "What the hell did you do?"
Klara furrowed her brow and tried to think.
"I...do not know. Truly, I...I've never felt... It wanted you. Her magic. It tried to fight me. So I fought back."
There was a long pause. Then Clint Barton took her shaking hands in his, holding them tightly, his expression grim, but determined.
"Klara," he said, "You have shitty taste in men. But that was pretty badass. Thank you."
Klara blinked.
"...you're welcome."
He nodded and pressed his hand to his earpiece.
"Whoever's still standing, we gotta move!" There was no answer. The fighting had stopped, but there was only static on the comm. "Guys?"
Still nothing. Klara pressed a finger to her own earpiece, but she didn't know what to say. Clint Barton exchanged a glance with her and she could see her own fear reflected in his eyes.
The girl...what had she done?
"We don't even know if they need you," Alice said as Bruce took off the baggy shirt he was wearing and stripped out of his old khakis.
"Well it doesn't exactly sound like they're having a party in there," Bruce quipped, making his way to the back of the jet.
"What we can hear, you mean," Alice said, running after him and putting her hand over the lever for the back ramp before he could reach for it, "Bruce, wait-"
"For what, Alice?" he asked, putting his hand over hers and searching her eyes, "What are we waiting for?"
Alice got the feeling that he was asking so much more than his words implied, more than she was ready to answer. He held her eyes with such intensity. It scared her. So she rolled her eyes and flipped the switch.
"We'll just take a look," she insisted as the ramp lurched and lowered onto the cracked landscape, "There's no need to get all worked up over nothing."
Bruce smiled at her and ducked out, Alice following after. The wind was hot and carrying bits of grit that she could feel digging into her skin. She shielded her eyes and scanned the landscape, the broken chatter on the comm an ominous backtrack to the desolate scene, a graveyard for rusted machinery. A breeze whistled past and Alice shuddered.
"I have a bad feeling about this."
Bruce looked back at her, a smile in his eyes as he opened his mouth to reply.
She didn't even have time to gasp, much less warn him. The girl appeared in a swirling blur and, with a flick of her wrist, a burst of red light smacked Bruce in the back of the head like a physical blow. He cried out, lurching forward from the impact.
"Bruce!"
Alice lunged to catch him and saw the glimmer of a smirk on the girl's face as she disappeared, kicking a puff of dust into the wind of her wake. Bruce was still hunched over as if he were in pain. And Alice didn't think it through. That was her mistake. She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder, wanting to help him, to fix the hurt.
"Bruce, what's-?"
The last thing she remembered was a roar, an explosion of green, and then her world dissolved in a burst of pain and darkness.
Klara accepted Clint Barton's offered support as they descended the stairs into the ship's cargo hold. Not that she had much choice in the matter. She still did not feel strong enough to support herself for more than a few breaths without a rest. But Clint Barton did not seem to resent this, going so far as to rest her arm across his shoulders so he could more easily lift her over obstacles strewn in their path as they continued the search for their missing team members.
They found Captain Rogers first.
He lay prone on the rusted floor, and for one heart-stopping moment, Klara feared the very worst. Clint Barton lowered her to the floor, and then bent over the captain's still form, pressing fingers to pulse points and listening at his chest with intense concentration.
"He's breathing," he said finally, and Klara let out her own breath in a rush, "But his heart's racing, even for him. I don't know what's going on in there, but we need to get him out of it, quick." He looked up at her with expectant eyes. "Think you can do something?"
Klara rallied her strength and sat up, folding her legs beneath her so she was kneeling at the captain's side. He looked like he was sleeping. But his brow was furrowed deeply as if he were having the most unpleasant dreams.
"Captain Rogers?"
He did not stir. She reached out and gently touched his face, smoothing at the lines in his brow, brushing against his closed eyelids, tracing the shape of his mouth. She could feel the magic fleeing her touch, weak without the presence of its mistress, but still, he did not wake. She leaned forward, resting one hand against his cheek and the other on his chest, feeling the pounding of his heart, willing whatever power she possessed to him, to free him of this prison.
"Steven," she whispered, pleading, "Open your eyes."
His breath hitched, his lashes fluttered, and finally, finally, he blinked to consciousness. He stared blankly up at first, and then his gaze fixed upon her.
"...Klara?"
He reached for the hand that still rested on his chest, clasping it tightly as if to reassure, to prove the reality of its existence. Klara smiled as a warm wave of relief crashed over her, smoothing back his hair with trembling fingers.
"Welcome back, Captain."
"I've got Nat!" Clint Barton's voice broke through the warmth and Klara jerked back, swaying with the sudden movement as she tried to regain her equilibrium. She felt Captain Rogers start to struggle upright, and she did not have the strength to dissuade him.
"Klara?" His voice wavered in her ear as if it came from underwater. "What happened? Are you-?"
Tony Stark's voice cut through the comm static, distorted but desperate.
"Anybody got ears? Klara, we could really use a lullaby out here!"
Klara's heart leapt to her throat. Dr. Banner...oh no...
She tried to find her feet, but barely managed to lift herself onto one knee before the darkness started to rise and she was falling. Something with more give than the metal floor caught her, and for a moment the darkness closed over her. She struggled against it and reemerged in time to hear Clint Barton say "...whole team is down, you got no back up here."
"I'm alright," Klara gasped, trying again to gain her feet, "Just get me to the doctor, I can...I can..."
"No, you can't," Clint Barton insisted, "Besides, we need you here. Klara? Stay with us!"
But the darkness came again, and Klara felt herself sag as it closed over her once more. She could not find the surface again, no matter how hard she searched.
A/N: Fair warning, every chapter from this point on is my favorite, but this chapter, guys...THIS. CHAPTER. *runs and hides from inevitable fallout*