A/N: AHHHHHHH I'M SO SORRY THIS IS SO LATE I'LL SHUT UP JUST READ IT AND DON'T HATE ME

I woke up some time the next day with the worst headache from hell in the history of mankind. No, I worry that what you heard was, 'I woke up a with a bad headache'. It was the worst headache from hell in the history of mankind and I'd take you to court on that. I moan of agony left my mouth as I covered my eyes from the sunlight. What on earth did I drink last night?

"Careful, sis," I heard my brother say beside me, though he sounded odd; tired, world-weary even, "you lost a lot of blood yesterday, and I am not sure how well your wound cauterized."

"What?" I asked, confused. Then it all came rushing back at once, overwhelming me with memories and the subsequent emotional response. A lump took root in my throat. "So... Pa?"

He didn't answer my unspoken question for a few minutes, which was really answer enough in itself, then he mustered the guts to say the word, "Yeah."

I took a deep, shaky breath, removing the hand from my eyes and blinking tears away. With a whole lot of willpower and Aleks' hand supporting my back I managed to sit up, noting the fire that burned in my side with dulled interest. The pain in my head and heart were much worse. As my vision adjusted to the light that filtered through holes in the roof, I realized we were still in that same old barn. It boggled my mind that we hadn't been caught by anyone yet, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Anyway, as far as I was concerned anymore, I didn't care what they did to me. My life was as good as over, no matter what happened from here on in.

Pa was gone, murdered by the very robots he helped to create. By the very country he helped to serve. And my brother and I were orphans. The word left a hollow feeling in my gut.

Whilst trying to distract myself from my situation, I came to notice what should have been obvious: we were alone. "Where's Ultron?"

Aleks looked around, though it was clear he was well aware the android was not here. "I do not suppose you remember much, you were quite out of it, but after you fell asleep we woke you to tend to your gunshot wound. Ultron managed to seal it. You were not conscious for long; it was very painful. After that he flew off, and though I did not expect him to, he returned not long after with food," he paused here to jerk his head in the direction of a couple of large McDonald's bags, which I didn't want to ponder of the origin of. It was food and I hadn't eaten since the day before yesterday. "Then he left again. Did not say anything, and that was several hours ago, now."

He was right, I didn't remember much at all of the wound-tending debacle, but I sure as hell could remember why the assbot would have upped and left. I was still angry, I was still hurt, and a large part of me still whispered that this was all his fault. That being said, I was ashamed of my actions. I had no right to say those things. Other people probably did, but I didn't. Ultron had saved my life more times than he had threatened it by now. He did all that he could to help get me and my family out of the mess he inadvertently caused, regardless of the fact that he really didn't have to. He could have abandoned us the moment we were shoved into those vans. That bloody robot, for all his flaws, had really come through for us. Again, maybe not for other people, but he had for us.

My father, for all of his flaws, loved his children, and trusted the android to protect us, in the end. And I had to go stuff all of that up with my big mouth. "I'm an idiot, Aleks."

"What do you mean, sis?" he asked while he sat there and rubbed my back, like the wonderful human being he was.

"I mean, we already lost our father, and then," that lump in my throat decided now was a good time to choke me, "then I had to go be a big idiot and drive away our friend, too."

"Hey, it is okay," Aleks soothed while I started crying anew, sniffing as my nose ran.

"I said it was Ultron's fault, but it really wasn't, Aleks. It wasn't his fault, it was mine. I'm the reason Atyets is dead." Even as Aleks murmured fervent denials I knew it was true. If Atyets hadn't have been carrying my bleeding ass there was no way this would have happened. If I would have just let that bastard, Moskvin, shoot me properly, my brother and father and Ultron would have been able to escape. I shook my head as the salty water dripped down my cheeks and my face contorted into my ugly crying expression. "If I could do it over again, if I could go back..." I choked out.

He stood from my side, moved, and placed himself in front of me, glaring sternly into my watery eyes. "You listen to me, Katja," Aleks never called me by my name, "this is not your fault, damn it. And it is not Ultron's, either. This is their fault. They did this, murdered a good man in cold blood, all in the name of war. Kat, you do not get it." His eyes dropped from mine and his breathing became shallow as his shoulders shook. My baby brother in so much pain made me feel awful for being so wrapped up in my own grief. I sniffed and pulled him him into a tight hug. My baby brother, my tall, disheveled, unshaven, far too skinny, far too kind baby brother. He returned the embrace with desperation.

"You do not get it, sis, you lost Atyets, but I almost lost you both. I heard him, the gunshot and your scream, and I was so..." he searched for the word.

"Scared?" I supplied, trying to keep my voice from wavering.

"No," he said, surprising me a little, as he usually wouldn't deny being terrified during anything conflict related. "I was not scared, I was so, so angry. Oh, Katja, what will I do?" he moaned, the words full of horror.

In my confusion I felt my stomach drop. "What do you mean?" This was not like him, and I was more than a little worried.

He pulled out of my arms and stood, burying his head in his hands as he began pacing in stress. I tried to follow after him, but the wound in my side pulled and forced me back down with a hiss. "Aleks, you better tell me what's wrong now before I start really worrying."

He mumbled something into his hands that I couldn't begin to decipher, and when I demanded again he tell me, he threw his hands down and shouted something I never expected to hear my quiet, sweet, clever little brother to say ever. "I said I killed him."

There were several moments of tense silence between us. When I could break it, it was is a cracked and warbled whisper, "Who? Moskvin? I don't understand."

He blinked his watery eyes and took a deep breath. "I heard the gun and your scream, right after I found Atyets and let him out. First I was scared, and I ran to find you. There was blood and you were on the ground and he was standing there with that gun. All I was thinking was, 'He will shoot you again, and then he will turn it on the rest of us, and we will all be dead because of him'." He started shaking his head, briefly pressing a hand to his mouth before he continued in a hoarse murmur, "I did not have to kill him, I could have thrown the gun away, or just shot to disable him somehow. I had no right to kill him, or anyone else." Another grieved moan escaped his chapped lips and he sank to the ground, holding his knees to his chest and burying his face in them.

While a small part of me wailed with frustration that I would now suddenly have to be the comforter, not the comforted, when my own emotional state was still very not up to par, it was totally overshadowed by every other part of me that was riddled with guilt that I had allowed myself to be the center of attention when my baby brother was quietly imploding. All of me wanted to take away his pain and for him to the his happy self again. I gingerly scooted over to beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Aleks, you are such a good person. I hope you realize that. You saved my life. You likely saved all our lives. You made the hardest decision anyone has to make, and you even have the decency to feel guilty about it." I reached over with my spare hand, catching a glance at the scabbed, scraped flesh before smoothing my father's curls away from his face. "You're right, it isn't something you want to be proud of, but it is something you need to accept as the right decision at the time." I forced a little smile and tried to jest, "Just don't make a habit of it and there wont be any problems."

He didn't raise his head. "Ultron told me that he didn't have a family, but that hardly makes me feel better. He could have changed, and I took that chance away from him. Ma always said that anyone can change." He sounded so broken.

I gave his shoulders a little shake. "And she always added, 'But not everyone will'. Sorry if I don't hold a lot of sympathy for the creep who instigated World War Three, locked me up for half a year, gave me an unjust criminal record, held my family to ransom, then tried to kill me."

"You do not understand, sis," he said finally lifting his head, staring at a thousand yards into nothing.

I nodded in humble agreement. "You're right, I don't. However, I do understand you. I know you better than anyone alive on this Earth, 'Leksy, and I know you hate the thought of hurting anyone. I know you're a good, kind, honest, intelligent person, and probably the best little brother ever, not to brag," I nudged him at this. There was the tiniest of twitches at the corner of his mouth. "And I also know..." a lump caught inconveniently in my throat accompanied by its tears-in-the-eyes henchmen, "...I-I know that now more than ever I really need you, and you really need me, and damn it, we both really need a cheese burger and I can't stand up so go get them, damn you."

He quickly obliged me and I wiped the leakage from my traitorous eyes as he did. When he sat back down I eagerly snatched the large and heavy paper bag off him and peered inside. "Looks like its all beef. No drinks but there's fries. Oh, wait, there's some bottles of water down the bottom. Thank goodness, he does have a clue on what the human body needs to function. Double Cheese or Big Mac?" I asked finally, sniffling away my nose-tears.

If he noticed how desperately I was trying to distract us from our majorly crappy life he didn't mention it. "Big Mac, please," he played along with me, though his voice still held serious fatigue. I could guess he hardly slept last night. He hoed into his cold stale burger like a ravenous wolf, though. I could figure out I hardly looked any better, with the rate at with my own was disappearing. Then the fries, then the cheeseburgers. Four meals between the two of us in a matter of seconds. That was going to cause some awful indigestion later. I handed one of the four water bottles to Aleks and cracked the seal on my own, greedily gulping nearly half the bottle before realizing that probably wasn't such a good idea and slowing down. Still, the edge of my wooziness was beginning to clear.

After our meal, we sat in a more comfortable silence, neither of us daring to think of any recent events, lest we have a mental breakdown. For now, until all of this was well and truly over, we had to stay in survival mode. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement in the air: there would be time to grieve properly later. So we locked away our most troublesome emotions for now, with food in our bellies and the relative safety of the barn around us. I had pulled the top half of my bloodied coveralls to the side to inspect the ghastly bruising on my shoulder and ribs, and the crudely singed flesh over the entry and exit wounds on my side. Okay, it wasn't that bad considering, but the sight of it definitely made expelling the food I had just scoffed seem like a tempting idea. I averted my eyes and put my arm back in my sleeve. Not something I wanted to have to deal with right now. Feeling it was bad enough without having to think of the consequences of the injuries. Better to stay positive, right? I mean, at least I hadn't bled to death. I had one person to thank for that.

I sigh escaped my lungs. "I actually think I miss him," tumbled from my lips absentmindedly. Aleks looked over at me.

"Atyets?" he asked.

I shook my head. I was trying very hard not to think about Pa. "Ultron," I corrected, chewing on the inside of my cheek. "I never got to properly thank him for everything he did for us. Besides, it's too quiet without him."

"I'm touched, Katja. I never knew you felt so strongly about me," came a voice from behind me so thick with snark and metallic undertones that I thought I imagined it. Twisting my body so suddenly hurt like hell, but when my eyes settled the familiar chrome form of my simultaneously most favorite and least favorite sentient robot, I hardly even noticed. In fact, I was scrambling to my feet and running in his direction like a person that hadn't gone through hell and back the last few days. If the way his arms raised awkwardly and metal lips parted slightly he was not expecting me to fly at him with an embarrassingly tight hug. He would probably be suffocating if he wasn't a, you know, solid metal man, still, his chest rumbled with a somewhat stilted scoffing laugh. "Well, if I had known this was the reception I'd be getting..."

"Shut up," I grumbled into his chest, and whacked him for good measure, "I'm actually really mad at you for making us think you had left for good." Ah, crap. I was about to cry again. I had the world's most overactive tear ducts, I swear. I sniffed and pressed closer into the warm vibranium, partly because I wasn't keen on anyone noticing the fact that I was crying again, partly because I just really needed a big robot hug. You know the feeling.

A heavy, solid hand was placed on my shoulder, gently prying me from him, but staying as his thumb rubbed lightly over my collarbone before being removed. "Leave? No, you're well and truly stuck with me, by now. Or, maybe it's me that is stuck with you. You do remind me an awful lot of a fungus."

"You're such an ass," I grumbled my obligatory retort halfheartedly. To be perfectly honest I couldn't pinpoint the exact time having the robot around became a comfort rather than a threat. It wasn't really a logical thought that I had carefully planned out, it was only a feeling. In this case, a feeling was enough for me, just for the moment. Just for the moment I wouldn't question it. "But I'm almost slightly glad you're here." I knew the words weren't enough, that there was so many apologies and thanks I should be showering on him, a lot of things that I was keeping guarded in my heart and mind, hidden even from myself, but looking up at him, I knew that for now we would both be better off without any of it said aloud.

His thick, glow-y eyebrows raised in a pleased way to match the smug smirk twisting the metal plates of his face. "Likewise," he retorted simply. Then his expression became serious once more as his eyes flicked between Aleks and I. "How are you doing?"

Reality came down on me like an orbital strike for the second time that day. My heart plummeted from the higher ground it had just began climbing to, and my legs buckled like they had just remembered weakness. My brother, ever observant, quickly supported me in lowering to the ground. "How many times am I going to have to remind you to be careful with yourself, sis?" he huffed, wiping the forming beads of sweat on my forehead off with his sleeve. I gave him a watery smile to hide my wince, gingerly pressing my hand into my side in a useless attempt to numb it.

The robot heaved a sigh laced with frustration. "Not well, then. This probably isn't the best time to remind you both that just because you've been hurt doesn't mean the rest of the world can or will scream to a halt. Things are only going to get worse from here on out."

Aleks shot him a look. "No, definitely not the best time, Ultron," he emphasized, rubbing my back. I felt my heart swell with pride at how well he was functioning despite how upset and disturbed he had revealed himself to be a short while ago, my selfless brother. It was time for me to learn from his example.

"He's right, 'Leksy. We can't stay here forever. We could be the only outsiders who know what's going on, and we have a responsibility to do something about it." I saw Aleks' mouth open to argue, but I raised a scabbing hand to halt his words. "Yeah, it's probably a suicide mission. I get that. But even if we did ignore everything and stay here, it won't be long until we're found, and then, even if they didn't, I'm gonna need medical attention. Real medical attention. I'm as good as gone either way, and I would much rather go down fighting, than with my head buried in the sand."

"No."

For a moment I thought it was Aleks who had said it, then I realized his mouth hadn't moved and the voice was not his own. My head turned to Ultron, eyes wide in surprise. Hadn't I just been agreeing with him? But there he was, all glorious shining and battle scarred seven feet of him, shaking his head with a deep scowl on his face. Confusion bred upset and fear within me. "Ultron?"

"No," he said again, with a frightening authority that I wasn't accustomed to. "You're out. I came to tell you that you're both going somewhere a long way away, where you're going to forget all of this. I'm going to get you out," he paused here, setting his jaw, "and then I'm going to leave. To fix something that should never have happened."

My jaw, rather than set, dropped and became slack. "What? What? You just told us that you wouldn't leave. That we were stuck with each other! I'm sorry, but I'm not in the business of fair-weather friends, and you do not have the right to tell me what I am and am not going to do. I'm in this for the long haul, and I'm in it with you."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to stand here and keep encouraging the kind of harebrained schemes that almost got you killed yesterday. That did get your father killed," the android bit out, forcing a gasp from me, making Aleks tighten his hold on me. It was a low blow, and Ultron knew it. Or, if he didn't, the crushed expression on my face probably would've clued him in. Either way, though he didn't move, he seemed to back down just slightly. "I'm going to put you somewhere safe. Don't you get it?"

"Don't you get it? You can't just barge in here and tell me that I'm going to lose you too. You can't, damn you! You don't get to suddenly turn around and be the martyr after all the crap you've put me through. I won't let you." A dry sob hiccuped from my throat. "I won't let you."

There was an awkward, pervasive silence for several minutes, broken only by my haggard breathing as I tried desperately to get my emotions in order. In the end, Aleks was the one to break it. "I, too, don't want all that we have suffered, all we have lost, and all we have done to be for nothing. I want to finish this."

The fight seemed to have left the android; he looked deflated. "You will get hurt." It wasn't a maybe, or even a probably, it was a statement. I replied to it in kind.

"It's a price we're willing to pay."

"An admirable attitude to have, certainly," an unfamiliar voice suddenly chimed in, making me and Aleks start in alarm. I had to blink a few times to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks.

In the large barn doorway, silhouetted against the sunlight, was a floating red and green man in a flowing gold cape, looking everything like an avenging deity.

If I had thought I had known confusion before, I was proven wrong at this moment.

Then the figure spoke again, voice smooth and calming like I never knew one could be.

"Hello, Ultron."

A/N: PHEW! That was a loooooot later than I expected, and nowhere near as exciting as I was hoping it would be. Shorter, too. Oh well. I got a couple of reviews that made me go "Wait, people are actually still reading this?" so I decided to jump in and finish this chapter up, finally. Like, three months later. Sorry. It was a real problem chapter, and I had to rewrite it a few times because I wasn't sure how it should all play out. Even this I'm not really happy with, but eh, it's probably better than nothing, right? And we finally have Vision. YAY! Wanda next chapter, too, cuz I'm Scarlet Vision trash.

Baby steps, baby steps. Lets get this stupid story finished, damn it.

Please give a review! Hate asking, but I just love them so much they give me life, bro. They also get me off my lazy ass and writing.