A/N: Thanks to all who reviewed! You guys make my day, honestly. With out further ado, let us get on with chapter three!

That night, after a brief negotiation on bedding arrangements, I had flopped onto the mattress in the waiting room and almost immediately fell asleep. Stress never did stop me from getting to sleep, I wasn't a tosser and turner, but if I had a dollar for every time I was woken up because my body was on some weird high alert, I'd have enough money to buy the expensive latte I obviously needed. Eventually I gave up on trying to catch my share of winks and checked the time on my phone. Not even six in the morning yet. Great.

With a groan I pushed myself into a seated position and stretched the kinks out of my spine with a satisfying series of cracks. It was still dark out, so I had to stand and fumble around until the pads of my fingers found the light switch, which was near blinding when it was turned on. So then, squinting and shading my eyes, I made my sluggish way to the door to the garage. Yesterday I had found the bathroom that was obviously for employees when there were some at the back of the shop, and now felt like a good time to empty my bladder. I ran a hand through my hair and grimaced. Perhaps hand soap and a sink would be enough to wash it. Fetching my bag of toiletries from the suitcase, I started my tip-toe pre-dawn journey.

I opened the door slowly, wincing at the squeak, and stepped into the darkened room of the workshop, the artificial light flooding through the doorway enough to guide my way through. Off to one side I could just make out the forms of Aleks and Pa, Aleks on a ratty old couch and Atyets on the other mattress not far away. Though, even if I couldn't see them, I'd be able to hear their snoring a mile away. The other resident of the room, with his constant and vaguely threatening presence, was awake, and staring at me from his place at the workbench, watching with those glowing scarlet eye-slits. I had never known a bunch of red LEDs to be so intimidating. For a moment I considered just backing out into the room from which I came, but in the end the need to pee outweighed my self-preservation.

"Um, I'm just going to... go to the bathroom. So... yeah," I mumbled nervously, feeling like I for some reason had to explain myself him, while edging around the outskirts of the room towards to bathroom, keeping as much distance between me and him as possible at all times. My eyes never left him, and his never left me, though he didn't bother to dignify my feeble explanation with a response. In the darkness and my distraction my foot clipped a piece of shrapnel, almost tripping me over, but I caught myself and kept going, mentally kicking myself for proving the extent to which one could be 'un-smooth'. When my hand finally felt the cold metal knob of the door I almost cried in relief, racing in and locking it behind me.

After dealing with my 'morning routine' on the toilet and scrubbing my hands clean, I stared at the sink and weighed my options. Cold water and hand soap hair wash? Was it worth it? I glanced at my reflection in the grungy mirror. Yes. Definitely worth it. So I bent over, stuck my head in the sink that wasn't meeting my standards of cleanliness, and turned the tap on. The water was freezing, causing my teeth to chatter, so I worked as quickly as I could, rubbing the soap into my scalp and rinsing it out. Of course, when I was done and standing straight again, I realized the other thing the rudimentary bathroom was lacking: towels. Cursing my life, I wrung out my hair as best I could, and pulled the small hand towel I had thought to pack in with my toothbrush and toothpaste. At this point I was cursing myself for not packing shampoo and conditioner, too. But, alas, I used that little face washer, barely bigger than the span of my hand, to dry my hair as best I could. It was better than nothing, after all. When that was done I brushed my teeth and almost felt like a new woman, free from filth and morning breath.

Then I stepped back out and remembered how much reality sucked. Ultron was still there, though this time he didn't turn around to acknowledge my presence, just kept welding whatever it was that he was working on while the others slept. A good thing they were such heavy sleepers, because that bzzting sound and flashes were probably what had kept waking me up all night. Still, I was curious, and the boys were right there if something grizzly happened and I needed to scream. Hence, I padded my bare feet across the concrete floor with a mind to keeping quiet, and tried to get a look at what he was working on. My father's project from last night had been placed to the side, and it was clear that it was nowhere near as complex as whatever the android was making was. And then, peering closer, I realized that thing was attached to the inside of his chest. My eyes bugged out of my skull. "Is that thing your heart?"

He placed down the welding iron, which in hindsight I shouldn't have been looking at for my eyes' sake, and looked at me, and I'm sure if he had a functioning face he would have been wearing the kind of expression that just screamed 'please take your stupidity away from me before I catch it'. "No, it's not a heart. I don't have one of those. It's my reactor core," he told in a no-duh tone of voice, probably mentally rolling his eyes.

"Gee, thanks for the healthy dose of condescension, Ultron. It's still basically your version of a heart. Pumps around the stuff that keeps you running," I expanded in a tone to match his.

He sighed like only a robot with no lungs can. "That is a gross oversimplification."

I just shrugged, unhurt. "Whatever. So what's wrong with it?"

"It's not working."

"Ouch."

"Pretty much. Thank you for your insight."

I scrunched my face up and brushed damp hair back behind my ears. "Ease up on the attitude until I've had my dose of caffeine, Sassbot. You kept me up all night, after all."

"What? Who kept my sister up all night?" Aleks demanded, looking around wildly, somehow being roused by those words and getting the total wrong end of the stick. Even worse, it had a domino affect.

"Someone kept my little girl up all night?" my Pa roared, instantly on his feet and picking up whatever was nearest to clobber someone with, which just happened to be a shoe. I just buried my face in my hands with an exaggerated moan, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me. Ultron, however, found this, like most things, utterly hilarious, and was stifling laughter behind his hand. I peeked through my fingers to witness it, the bizarre picture of natural movement, human movement, even though a metal and to a metal mouth had no logical reason or practical value behind the action.

It gave me a strange image, not of the highly advanced robot that my Pa and bother saw, but rather, a true, human mind, trapped within a mechanical body. Again Ultron noticed my odd look and immediately ceased, turning his focus back on his project, but the damage had been done. I had started to change my opinion of him, just ever so slightly. Blinking a few times, and feeling a little dazed, I told them in a faraway manner, "I'm... I'm going to head out and pick up some groceries."

"In your nightclothes?" Aleks asked, now that he had woken up properly and realized that no one was deflowering his sister.

Shaking my head free of the cotton wool within it, I looked down at my grey flannelette pajamas and found out he was right. "After I get changed, that is. Don't get into any trouble while I'm gone."

As I was stepping back into the other room I couldn't help but smile as I heard Pa ask confusedly, "So who was keeping Katja up?"

The walk into the part of the city that was still functioning was long and complicated, but with the help of my phone's GPS- after I made sure to put a pin in the location of the 'hideaway'- I did manage to make it there unscathed. Actually, there was probably a benefit to having such a long walk, because now that it was a bit later businesses were actually open. Soon there were people milling about on the street, and carts set up in every possible spot selling every possible produce. The resourcefulness of the Sokovian people warmed my heart. As long as they had a trike with a trailer, they always had a source of income. It was a lot like China in that regard.

But, despite the convenience of the street-side morning market, my first stop of the day was past the table where they were gutting fish and past the old lady selling okra and some other vegetable I had never seen, and sat within a quaint looking building on the corner. Coffee.

Despite the fact I probably could have really done with a lazy sit within the cozy cafe, I knew I had to get back to the others before something disastrous happened, so I got the latte to-go, and stepped back into the chaos of the market with a brave face.

It should have gone a lot smoother than it did, considering I was used to buying food this way in China and had done so here before then for years, but my rusty use of the mother tongue, and the fact that speaking mainly Mandarin had changed my accent in various places, they all thought I was a foreigner. Hence I became barer of the renown 'foreigner surcharge', because, you know, if someone isn't from here they must be rich and therefore we can rip them off. After arguing with the little wrinkly old lady, she had to be ninety years old, for ten minutes over the price of her eggs, I gave up and just gave her what she was asking for, about three times what they were worth. Most expensive damn eggs I had bought in my life, but who knew what she needed the money for? I tried to be considerate about these things. Goodness knows that even with my crazy and usually money-thin life she probably needed it more than I did. Still, after a few accounts much the same, my wallet was feeling much lighter than I would have liked.

When I got back to the workshop I was heavily laden with real food; vegetables and fruit and meat and legumes, and kicked at the door to knock on it because my hands were full. After a listening to a scuffle from inside, Aleks came to the door, looking relieved to see it was only me. "Why did you knock so loud? We thought you were SHIELD."

I rolled my eyes and stepped in, placing the bags on the table. "Well, if you weren't harboring a fugitive you wouldn't have to be worried about things like that," I said as I unloaded the groceries.

"Oh, come on, sis, don't be like that. It will all be worth it in the end; we need the money," he replied, and I turned to him with a searching look.

"What do you mean, money?" I asked, getting a sinking feeling. Aleks, too, seemed to understand that he had said something that he perhaps shouldn't have.

"I had thought Atyets would have explained this to you already. Sis, Ultron told us that if we help him with his repairs, he will give us money, load it into our bank account. Millions, Katja, he will give us millions. He knows how."

I swallowed thickly, and stared at the yellowed wall. "And what will you do if he does not fulfill his promise?"

"Well, we will just do what we planned to do with him before he woke up; wipe his programming and sell the robotics to whoever will pay the most. See? Nothing will go wrong," he tried to reassure me, misreading my aversion for fear.

I shook my head. "No."

"No?"

"No! We are better than this sort of underhanded scheming."

Now he was really confused. To be honest, I wasn't sure what I was trying to say, myself. "Katja, weren't you always telling us that Ultron must have some ulterior motive, some scheme? Why are you now upset at us for preparing for the double-cross?"

I grasped the edge of the table and clenched my teeth. "I'm not sure," I replied, and I wasn't. "I just feel very strongly about this. And why is money so important, anyway?"

He frowned at me, pulling an apple out of one of the bags and rubbing it on his shirt. "We don't have a house or business anymore, sis. He destroyed them, along with the entire economy here. Why do you think we are living in a place like this? It is because no one else would risk it, so we do not have to pay. Because of Ultron we have nothing, and now we hold his life in our hands. Does he not owe us this?"

"I don't know, Aleks," I began, shoulders drooping from the weight of the world, "but to me, holding someone's life as blackmail seems like a pretty dick move. It shouldn't matter who they are what they have done." I took the last bit of coffee in my cup and went back outside, finding my spot on the stair again.

I stared blankly ahead, trying to figure my emotions out. What was worse to me, that my family would potentially sell out the human race, or that they would kill a sentient being for money? Really, I wished that they wouldn't do either, but they had put themselves in the position that those were their only options, besides the fact that the sentient being in question could still turn around at any time and kill them. And was there anything I could even really do? What was I prepared to do? Warn the known killer of what the family I loved planned to do to him? Have that family give a powerful machine of war to someone who could use it to kill innocent people? Let them release the homicidal android back on the world for millions in their pockets? Ultron didn't care about money or who he gave it to! It would mean nothing with humanity extinct. They were all so naive to not see how there were no ends to this where they came out on top.

It was becoming clear to me that I couldn't talk sense into Pa or Aleks, they were too narrow minded. As tragic as it was, if there was going to be any hope for anything, it was going to come from Ultron himself. And me, I was just a silly little girl trying to save her own little world. I was no Avenger. I was nothing. But I had to do something to help keep the Earth safe, because I was one of the idiots who lived on it.

Man, I felt pretty stupid for being jealous over their 'adventures', now.

A/N: Okay! Another one done. This one didn't have QUITE as much Ultron, but I felt it was import for set up. Now, you may have noticed that I haven't actually described Katja, and I've been vague about her family's appearance too. This is so your imagination can input whatever it feels most comfortable with in her place. However, if you would prefer that I just start including how I envisioned her in the narrative, I will begin doing that. If you would like me to send you a description privately, just make sure you're logged in when you ask for it in a review, so I can reply.

Thanks for reading! Leave a review and I'll keep pumping the chapters out!