A/N: Well, we get closer and closer to the climax with every word. This chapter is probably plot point three, for those you that are familiar with that outline type. I'm actually almost EXCITED to write the next two chapters especially! I want to take a minute and thank those who have mentioned that this story's gotten better each chapter, because knowing that I'm actually improving in my writing skills is really important to me. Rest assured that when this story is finished, I will go back and use those new-found skills to hopefully bring the entire story into a better standard. Also, if you've noticed the new inclusion of Vision and Wanda in the story info, they're coming up next chapter.

You know what? I actually think that not many of you figured out what I'm about to pull! HAHAHAHAAA! Get your tissues, folks. Actually, nah, you probably wont care that much Don't worry about it.

I had been beyond the definition of jittery all day so far, and the night before. Lucky me got to be the one to tell Aleks that morning that we had decided to risk going in for Pa. "I mean, really, Aleks, how could we not? He's our ateyts."

"And I sincerely doubt he would want us to kill ourselves while trying to give him a freedom he does not want," my brother replied, wringing his fingers as he paced, still limping and probably trying to ease the muscle back into use. That big brain of his was still trying to fathom the danger we were imposing upon him. While he was much closer to our father than I was, he wasn't a fighter in any sense of the word and definitely seemed apprehensive about our odds of success, but hey, if the walking computer thought we could pull it off, that was good enough for me.

I sighed condescendingly. "Ultron, would you please enlighten my brother on how great our chances of glorious victory and general badassery are?"

"Dismal. At best."

I turned to toss a glare at the sentient pile of scrap metal. "Gee, thanks for providing such a united front, Metal Head. This was your idea in the first place."

When Aleks shot an accusing look at him Ultron raised both hands in defense and then pointed back at me. "She seduced me into it."

My jaw dropped. "What? You- you..." Now Aleks' accusing look turned on me with an aftertaste of disgust, but funnily enough, no surprise. "Oh, come on. You know he's making it all up. All we did was talk."

"Talking was all that was needed," the android said in a mock-wistful tone, earning a generous eye-roll from me and barf motions from my brother.

"Go grease yourself, Ultron."

Of course, after that came hours upon hours of planning, only broken by my occasional and completely necessary complaints about hunger, boredom, or discomfort. Nervous energy and preemptive adrenaline were turning my usual already incorrigible self into a hell raising little brat. Hopefully I could channel all that and just annoy the guards to death. Yeah, that would definitely work.

Things got a little better when, ever the gentleman, Ultron flew off and then some time later returned toting my precious child- my laptop. After going through every single important file, the time during which I wasn't being much help with the tactics, but at least I was quiet, I deemed it not tampered with and unharmed. Good news for that bucket of bolts.

I hadn't forgotten those ominous words from my last chat with Baldy, specifically, about the Avengers being too busy fighting each other to worry about the war brewing in secret over here, and when I added Ultron's throwaway comment about them killing themselves for him, it seemed very much like a Bad Thing. A Bad Thing that I desperately wanted the internet's opinion on, but alas, apparently old abandoned barns didn't have free wifi. Who'da thunk it?

With a sigh I closed the lid of it, conscious of conserving its limited battery, and approached the arguing geniuses in the room.

"We can not do this so soon, we need to regroup."

Ultron raised a mechanical eyebrow. "That's exactly what they'll expect us to do. The longer we wait, the stronger they'll become. We won't get another chance."

"And if we take this chance fail, they will certainly kill us and Atyets!" This roundabout argument had been enduring all day, and Aleks, while he had helped in the planning of the rescue, never ceased to be vocal about his feelings on the matter. It was time to step in.

I grabbed his ear and yanked to his yelp. "Listen up, little brother. While Pa's not here I'm in charge. I don't care if the stars themselves spell "don't do it" in the sky, we're going to save our atyets, or we're gonna die trying." I released his ear, which he straight away rubbed with a pout. "So shut the hell up. Clear?"

He muttered something along the lines of a yes, and that was good enough for me. I turned to the robot. "So, what do we have so far, General Sassy-ass?"

"Well, Katja, I'm glad you asked," he began, slinging a heavy vibranium arm over my shoulders which I immediately removed with an eye roll, "it will be much the same as when we went to get you and your whiny brother out. Except this time, they know what we're capable of, and we can safely assume that they're already preparing in case we try to extract Feliks. We have to get us in and him out tonight before they can get too well prepared."

He paused, rubbing a metal hand over an equally metal jaw, a distracted look in his eyes. "There is also the matter of that ridiculous pretender, the machine. From what Aleks has told me, if it is functional, the armada of my stolen designs likely will be, as well."

"That stands to reason, yes," Aleks confirmed. "They kept their work on any changes to the program pretty locked up, but it was clear that the Infinitus was designed to be a remote mobile server, the brain so to speak. All the drones were just its fingers, extensions of that main control."

I deciphered what he was saying for a minute before saying, "So... like Dave."

Aleks looked at me confused, wondering what I was on about, but Ultron pointed at me and nodded. "Exactly," he said.

"What? Who is Dave? Sorry, but I am lost."

"You know," I started to explain for him, "Dave, out of Catch That Rabbit by Asimov. The robot whose processes got all mixed up because his 'finger' drones took too much of his brain space."

I could see on my brother's face when the penny dropped. "Oh, of course. In the end after they destroyed one of the drones under his control he was fine. Of course, Dave had much more independent autonomy that Infinitus does. Its program is basic in terms of super intelligent computers. It has a team of five human controllers back at the base to give it orders, and the rest is simple protocols. I do not know much more than that."

"Do you know how many of these drones are at the base currently?" I asked warily. We knew, but probably wouldn't mention aloud, that Ultron couldn't handle the Infintus further than keeping it occupied for a while, and a swarm of its underlings was just something I did not want to deal with.

My brother pursed his lips, so Ultron answered for him. "They capped off Sokovian production at the five and a half thousand mark, but from the intel I could gather the last few months, most have been shipped to other strategic locations for storage."

"I estimated that this facility still holds," Aleks paused, like stalling the words would make it any less real. "It holds at least three hundred drones."

I sucked a breath through my teeth. "Crap. We'll just have to be fast and hope that they don't sic 'em on us."

"Thanks for that input, Captain Obvious," the idiot android just had to add when we were all having a successful serious conversation. I sent him a look.

"You know, I'm sure that if I tried really hard I could manage to call the Avengers and deal with all my problems. Just remember that, Metal Head. Everyone knows Tony Stark's Malibu address since he shouted it to the world," I threatened.

His red eyes narrowed at me with warning. "Oh yeah? Why don't you just try crying to that hypocrite."

"Don't tempt me," I bit out. After a couple of beats, though, I wondered why we had suddenly started arguing again. Hadn't we been sorta on the same team a few moments ago? I chewed on my lip, almost regretting my uncanny ability to ruin the mood. But hey, he was just as bad. I hadn't forgotten what he did, that this whole situation was all his fault.

All was quiet for a long time while we tried to figure out what kind of words situations like this demanded. In the end, it was my big mouth that broke the silence. "Five thousand robotic soldiers just in Sokovia. I can only assume that their allies far, far outnumber that figure. Who knows how many there are between them." My voice was low and solemn, for once, as we all stood there like depressed and anxious corners of a triangle, and I met Ultron's gaze. "Well, looks like you win, in the end. Thanks to you our world is gonna end, whether it's by your hand or not."

He turned away. "The sun is setting now. If you want my help in getting your father back, we should probably start moving."

Tensions ran high the whole flight back to that hellhole I had spent way too much time at during the last half a year. As if the situation wasn't stressful enough already, I had to go and endanger our fragile alliance with the only thing that gave us half a chance to be able to pull this off. It was hard when you knew despite how much you wanted and needed to trust someone, you just couldn't. It was wrong that I should have to remind myself that this was a rogue, terrifyingly clever robot who had actually killed people and tried to drop a makeshift meteor on the planet. The problem was that I hadn't seen any of that in the brief and strange acquaintance with the android.

So, I guess the real question was whether should I trust my own experiences, or those of others.

Rather than dive straight into the fray the flying robot landed us in the heavy treeline that surrounded the secret base. It was well and truly dark out now, none of us had weapons beyond whatever lasers Ultron was packing, and while these military issue grey coveralls were pretty good for this kind of thing they weren't gonna stop a bullet. Yep, I was feeling pretty optimistic about the whole thing. Definitely.

"Atyets is being held where I was, in the barracks near the assembly line," Aleks informed me in a whisper, peering through the dense foliage to the brightly lit buildings. The night would cover our approach, but ever since the invention of the electric light, well, it didn't mean diddly-squat when we were inside. "That also means that the drones will not take long to get to us once they are activated."

Nodding at this information, I bit my chapped lip and turned to my walking can opener, knowing I needed desperately to smooth things over before we went into battle together. "How's the dodgy reactor faring, Robutt?" It was something about as crass and blasé as I'd ever say, but I tried to keep the tone less inflammatory than usual and lightly patted the left side of his metal chest. He didn't take his eyes off the building of our target, but he did catch my hand and hold it there for a moment. It was, I dunno, kinda gentle and rubbish, and I guess it meant that he understood and accepted my weird request for a truce.

"I'll tell you when this is over," he answered my question, then released my hand.

"Then you better make sure you make it out alive to have that conversation, okay?" This time he did spare me a moment for a glance.

"You too."

There was a load groan from the party I had briefly forgotten the presence of. "Really, you two are gross."

I whacked him over the back of the head lightly for embarrassing me. "Shut up, Aleks."

"If you're quite done we need to get moving. Now." And that 'now' wasn't an overstatement, because the robot really did immediately leap into the air and fire his repulsers, destroying the barbed fence, rocketing towards the building and blowing a hole in it's side. Aleks took that as his cue and started sprinting to the entry he made, so I followed suit and ran like a bat outta hell with him.

"Ultron will keep them occupied as long as he can, and we will have to get Atyets," he said between sucked breaths, and I shouted a confirmation back at him. The subtle approach was never really an option, anyway. We just had to be fast if we wanted even the slightest chance of getting out of here with our lives intact.

Alarms blared, and we could hear gunshots in the distance, but the hallways that Aleks led us down all seemed to be deserted. I did worry about the robot who was literally acting as Guard Bait, but I figured he could take a lot more than we could and still walk away, so I refused to let it distract me from my part of the job. We turned another corner in the white-walled, clinical hallways that all look the same. Honestly, I had no idea how my brother could remember his way around in here.

"This way," he called as he sped up, "we are almost there!"

My breath was in too short a gasps to reply if I wanted to keep up with him and not pass out, but soon there was something far more solid than exertion blocking my airways. My eyes bugged in my head as I realized there was a hand clamped over my mouth and an arm latched across my torso, restraining me as Aleks kept going until he turned out of sight, unaware that I was no longer following. Damn.

I stopped struggling, and started collecting my thoughts. My attacker was definitely fleshy, and he smelled strongly of cigarettes and cologne. I had never really gotten close enough to smell him before, but it was a scent I could guess belonged to a man like Moskvin. My brows came down in a vengeful glare.

He chuckled, and my suspicions were confirmed. "Look who came back. You must have missed me, Katja." The hand over my mouth was removed, but before I could do something useful like shout, there was a sudden hard, sharp-edged object pushing against my spine. And I didn't think he was just happy to see me. Gun. Gun, gun, gun. I'm gonna die. Goodbye, cruel world.

I tried to keep my panic on the inside. "So, you're really gonna just shoot me? After all we've been through?"

"Seems like a fitting end to our relationship, if you ask me." The gun pressed a little harder.

"I don't know, I would have guessed your style to be more along the lines of long and tortuous death, Baldy."

"Oh?" He sounded interested. "And why would you think that?"

Okay, okay, keep him talking, just like Ultron. "Because, that's what I prefer, and you and me, we're pretty similar."

I could hear a click as the safety was turned off. My breath hitched and heart rate spiked. "How so?"

"We both don't know when to quit; like to go down fighting," now the edge of anger came out over the false innocence in my tone, my words spat through clenched teeth.

"But, my dear, you're the one going down, not me, and your fighting is, quite honestly, pathetic."

I barked out a laugh. "That's another thing, we're both unbearably naive. You really think you're getting out of this alive, Moskvin? You kill me, you can bet that there will be a robot taking his pound of flesh soon after. And he's like us too; he likes long and tortuous best."

There was a loud sneeze behind me. "Sorry," he said, "I'm allergic to bull."

That was it. No one messes with my favorite movie quote. Without warning I slammed my head back into his nose, and in his shock and pain his grip loosened just enough for me to pull away. When the gun went off, however, I guess even that small amount of movement made a difference. Pain exploded in my side as the bullet passed through the extra inch or two of chub I carried. No, not just a little pain. Unimaginable pain that made me swear to never complain about a period cramp ever, ever again. I was on the ground and I didn't even remember falling. My voice was hoarse and I didn't even remember screaming. My life didn't flash, nobody's face filled my vision, I couldn't think of any regrets, I couldn't think at all. All there was was pain, and the feeling of if there is anything I have that I can give to have this taken away, take it.

The only thing that registered beyond it was two more excruciatingly loud gunshots, mostly because I expected more agony to follow them. It was this point I noticed how much of me was wet. My face- probably tears. My hair- probably sweat. My a large portion of my back and left side- probably blood.

Relief was creeping over my senses. Numbness was setting in, filling my head with cotton wool but dulling the feeling of wolves tearing at my skin. I don't know how long it took me to notice I was moving. By the time I managed to open my eyes, it could have been years, but was probably closer to a few minutes. My vision cleared to see a familiar beard from underneath. "Atyets?" I think that's what I was trying to say, but it came out a slurred whine instead. My father looked down at me at the sound, his already crinkly face creased with worry.

"Do not worry, sweetheart. You will be fine." Well, that was comforting. My vision narrowed. "No, no stay awake, honey." I really, really didn't want to, but it made sense that I should, so I forced my eyes back open. I preferred tiredness to pain, anyway. And I preferred most things to death.

My mouth was trying to form words again, with slightly more success. "Ultroo...tronneh."

"Don't worry, sis." Aleks was here running with us, too, but I couldn't bring myself to turn and find the source of his panted words. "We're going to meet up with him to get out of here now." I let out a grunt of approval, very, very ready to be a long way outta here.

"Hey, I said no sleeping, missy." I hadn't noticed that I had been. "Here, you hold on to this, look after it. Keep yourself occupied." My position in my Pa's arms was jostled as he pulled something out of his pocket to place in my clammy grip. It was about the length of my thumb, thin, and rectangular. The shape felt familiar but I couldn't put my finger on it for the moment.

There was a loud noise that made my flinch, though this was more explode-y and thus gunshot-y. Though, whatever wall was now gone seemed to let much of that very sound through. Machine gun fire and around metal clangs and the distinct sound of Ultron's lasers from the fire last night. Somehow my body still had some adrenaline to pump into me and I felt awake, afraid, and very in pain all over again. Pa suddenly about-faced and started running the other direction.

"Go, go, go!" a thick American accent yelled, tinted with mechanical qualities. And it didn't sound good.

"Put me down, Pa, I think I can run," I told him, slipping the small rectangular prism into my bra, because where else would I put anything.

"No, you can not. Be quiet."

"Don't tell me what to do, old man! We need all the speed we can get-" I stopped because this was when there was a bang, two of us pitched forward, and landed on the unforgiving tile floor. I looked up blearily, wondering what had happened."Atyets? Atyets!" I crawled over to where he lay on the ground, trying to pull himself up. Straight away I knew something was very, very wrong. When I saw the thick red leaking between the fingers pressed to his gut, I knew I was right. My heart jumped to my throat and threatened to make me throw up yesterday's meager prison stew. Aleks slid to a stop beside us from his own run, and this was when I noticed the blood that had been splattered on his own clothes, from who even knows where. Pa's eyes were wide with the fear of death as he looked at the two of us.

Our father said one word to us. "Run."

I looked over his shoulder to the oncoming hordes of familiar drones, though these ones carried heavy infantry weapons. I still shook my head. I couldn't leave my father here to die. I couldn't. He had carried my bleeding self, I would do the same for him. I started trying to hoist his large frame over my shoulder, ignoring the fire in my side, but he pushed me away. "Run," he repeated, more fervently. I shook my head more fervently. What wasn't he getting?

Something heavy sounding landed to our right, and then put itself between the three of us and a sudden volley of bullets. Ultron. He bent over Atyet's prone form, his optics scanning over the old man's face, but not saying anything, not moving. Maybe it was blood loss, but I was confused by this like most things recently. My fathers hand shot out and took a hold of the android by one of the plates on his chest, and hissed these words at the metal man with determination like I hadn't seen in my Pa since he wanted to build a self-driving car: "Protect my children, Ultron. You hear me? Look after my kids."

Before I could even register through my muddled brain what was going on the robot had me and my brother in his iron grip, pun intended, and was flying us both away from our Pa. "No. No, no, Ultron! Don't do this, we can't leave without him," I screeched, futilely trying to break from his grasp. When none of this had an affect, I turned to screaming for my father instead. Over and over I called his name as I watched his calm self become surrounded by the drones, falling out of my sight. Two more gunshots. Silence other than my unholy wail for precious seconds. Then, they turned on us.

We burst out of the building and flew out into the night, and I noted with dulled relief that these ones couldn't fly. They fired at us, and I felt each shot like a bullet to the heart, but Ultron was an impressive flier, even with a load of two people. I wished he wasn't.

When we landed in the shelter of the old barn, I noticed that the flight was a complete blur in my mind. Where had I been? I wasn't even sure where I was now, and I stood stock still staring at a spot on the ground as I contemplated that. Who was with me again? Where was my Pa? What should I order on his pizza? How long had I been in Sokovia again? Wait, had I actually left? Maybe I should ask Ma.

There was a heavy, faintly buzzing hand placed on my shoulder. "Katja," some odd sounding American said my name for some reason. "I know you're hurt, but there was not choice. He would never have let you die just because you didn't want to leave him behind."

Something very fragile within me broke at his words.

An animalistic roar tore through my throat and I threw myself at the robot, gunshot wound and all. I clawed and punched and kicked and hit until my fingernails split and my knuckles bruised and bled and then I attacked the unyielding metal some more. Somewhere out there Aleks was calling my name, but it didn't reach my conscious mind. "This is your fault. This is all your fault! You killed him- you killed my Pa!"

I knew this was wrong, but I didn't care. I deserved to be a little wrong for once. "Katja, please. Calm yourself," he told me, sounding strained.

"No. Don't you tell me to calm down. You're a killer. You started all of this and you killed him. What don't you just kill me too, get it over and done with? I know you want to, so kill me!" I slammed my fists on his chest again. Tears were streaming down my face and I was feeling lightheaded. "Kill me, damn you, kill me!"

He didn't move, as silent and still as the statue he resembled. My knees gave out and I fell to the ground in a sobbing heap, covered in my own and my father's blood, woozy, hopeless. I felt the familiar form of my brother slip silently behind me and wrap his arms around my curled up self. We rocked backwards and forwards in the throws of our grief, his quiet and internalized, mine not so much. Mine more so snot-filled and loud. I was only somewhat aware of Ultron standing there through my display. It didn't last long, though, because before long I was totally out for the count, passed out from more than my fair share of reasons.

A/N: Woah. I can honestly say I didn't expect THAT MUCH to happen this chapter. I mean, I knew Feliks was going to die, but all that other stuff was kind of a spur of the moment. Feels about right, though. I can edit out anything that doesn't fit later on in the track.

Thanks for reading! How did this chapter make you feel? Please tell me in a review! I love hearing your thoughts!