Hey guys, so sorry for the extended wait! I had some personal issues to take care of that prohibited me from having any real sit-down time, but hopefully they've been well taken care of and I'll be returning to my update schedule of posting a chapter every day/every other day.

As an apology/thank you for waiting so long, here's a chapter twice as long as usual that shows some things... well, you'll finally get to see into Charlie's past. Fair warning.

Chapter Eight

I was pulled away from my drinking and self-deprecation only and hour later by Natasha, who knowingly replaced the alcohol in my hand with an unwrapped cherry lollipop and gestured towards the door leading out of the living room. "Come on," she encouraged when I groaned from my seat on the couch, not wanting to deal with the people I had just argued with. "Nobody is going to yell at you. We're just trying to figure out where to go from here, and I'm not going to let you sit here drinking while the rest of us are working."

I pursed my lips into a pout and waved the hand that wasn't holding my candy flippantly in the air. She rolled her eyes at the motion, but grabbed my hand firmly in hers anyway before pulling me to my feet and leading me out of the room while I licked the treat in my hand. She really did know me better than anyone.

The room she took me into had everyone except Steve and Clint inside, though they entered shortly after we did. Natasha dropped my hand to sit down at the computer in the middle of the room and set to work looking for anything Ultron might have left untouched.

Tony ignored me completely as he brushed past me to stand at Steve's side, looking down at the tablet in his hands. "What's this?"

"A message," Steve answered. Thor took the tablet from his hands and smacked it against Tony's chest while the rest of us closed in, curious to see what the 'message' was. Bruce and I stood on the tips of our toes at the same time, glancing over Steve and Thor's shoulders to look down at the image as Steve finished. "Ultron killed Strucker."

"Is that Strucker's blood?" I asked, staring at the bold red PEACE painted above Strucker's limp head. "Ultron really isn't messing around."

"This is a smoke screen," Natasha interjected, leaning back in her seat. "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss."

Natasha nodded at Steve's suggestion, sitting back up to tap a few keys on the computer. "Yeah, I bet he... Yep. Everything we had on Strucker's been erased."

"Not everything."

We all turned to Steve, but he offered no further explanation before turning on his heel and marching out of the room. Confused and curious, the rest of us followed after him through darkened hallways into a relatively untouched room. He flipped the light on as we walked in, and what looked like hundreds of old-fashioned cardboard boxes were illuminated.

At the realization of what we were going t have to do, I pulled the Blow Pop out of my mouth with an audible pop. "I'm really a lot better with computers."

My complaint was largely ignored as the team set about unshelving boxes and tossing lids to the floor, digging through piles of paper for any information that Ultron would have been unable to keep from us. I moaned with annoyance and shoved the candy back in my mouth, mentally grumbling about hating paper as I pulled a box off a shelf and dropped it onto a table before dropping the lid next to my feet.

"Look for any known associates," Steve instructed. "Strucker had to have had friends."

Bruce lifted one file out of its box and grimaced at its contents. "Well, these people are all horrible."

Right as Bruce closed the file to throw it onto the pile collecting on the floor, Tony pointed at it. "Wait, I know that guy." He took the papers from Bruce and flipped through them, nodding his head. "Yeah. Back in the day he operated off the African coast, black market arms." Steve gave Tony a look, to which he defended, "There are conventions, all right? You meet people. I didn't sell him anything. He was talking about finding something new- a game changer. It was all very Ahab. But this, uh, tattoo... I don't think he had it."

"No, those are tattoos." Thor trailed his finger over the picture, indicating the multiple tattoos covering the man's arms and back before pointing towards his neck. "This is a brand."

Bruce glanced at the photo before walking over to the computer and pulling up the same image. "Oh, yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning 'thief', in a much less friendly way."

"What dialect?"

"Wakanada?" Bruce guessed when Steve asked, adjusting his glasses and narrowing his eyes at the screen. "Wa-Waka... Wakanda."

Tony looked at Bruce's monitor before turning back to Steve. "Think this guy got out of Wakanda with some other trade goods?"

"I thought your father said he got the last of it."

"What trade goods?" I asked, dropping the papers I had been holding back into their box. "What's in Wakanda?"

Steve looked back over his shoulder, and we all followed his gaze to see his shield leaning back against the wall. "The strongest metal on earth." He turned back to Tony with a grave expression. "Where is this guy now?"

Only a few hours later, we were landing the quinjet on the murky African Coast to confront Klaw about his vibranium stash. Suited up and ready for business, all of us except for Bruce left the jet behind to board the docked ship where Klaw was hiding.

"Stark, Thor and I will confront him head-on," Steve planned out loud when we neared the entrance to the ship. "Clint, you take the high ground with your bow. Nat and Charlie, you two come in from either side and make sure he doesn't get away."

We all nodded our agreement as we entered the ship, and split up to follow Steve's orders. While he and Thor walked straight through the suspiciously abandoned boat, Tony flew up above them to check the upper decks. Clint climbed the nearest staircase, and Natasha went to the right while I snuck against the wall to take the left flank.

I had just made my way over to walkway on the left side of a broken window when I heard the familiar robotic voice of Ultron shouting at somebody. "Don't compare me with Stark! Stark is- he's a sickness!"

"Aw, junior." Tony dropped onto the metal bridge connecting the office to the opposite pathway with a clang, Steve and Thor standing on either side of him. "You're gonna break your old man's heart."

There was another echoing vibration as a clear tube containing vibranium was tossed to the side by Pietro Maximoff, who I was seeing for the first time in person. His twin sister Wanda stepped next to him, and Ultron moved to stand in front of the both of them while I took a step back into the shadows. "If I have to."

"Nobody has to break anything," Thor argued. Well, actually-

"Clearly you've never made an omelet."

I gaped at Ultron, internally debating whether I was angry he stole my mental quip or if I was proud that something I helped create had a sense of humor. "He beat me by one second," Tony commented, confirming my theory that Ultron's humor came from the two of us.

"Ah, this is funny Mr. Stark?" Pietro walked forward with a small smirk, motioning towards the weapons littering the floor below us. "It's what- comfortable? Like old times."

"This was never my life."

"You two can still walk away from this," Steve offered, stepping forward.

"Oh, we will," Wanda nodded with a smile.

"I know you've suffered-"

"Ugh." Ultron groaned before chuckling, shaking his head. "Captain America. God's righteous man. Pretending you could live without a war. I can't physically throw up in my mouth-"

"If you believe in peace, then let us keep it."

Ultron turned to Thor when he interrupted, tilting his head to the side. "I think you're confusing peace with quiet."

"Uh-huh," Tony nodded towards something behind Ultron that I couldn't see. "What's the vibranium for?"

"I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to discuss my evil plan." As Ultron finished his sentence he reached forward and gripped the air, locking onto Tony's arc reactor and pulling him forward before shooting him back into the wall with streams of electricity.

Iron Legion bots came crashing through the windows above us, immediately attacking Steve and Thor as Ultron and Tony took off through the air, struggling with each other before Ultron knocked Tony out of the boat through one of the shattered windows and flew after him.

Just as Steve decapitated one of the robots with his shield, Pietro sprinted forward so quickly he became a blur and tackled Steve to the floor. Wanda cupped her hands together, summoning some form of red energy before blasting Thor into the same wall Tony had already dented.

When Wanda took a step forward, I rushed out of hiding to knock her to the ground before she could fire at Steve- who was struggling enough as it was at the moment. We hadn't come here expecting to fight Ultron or the twins, meaning we didn't exactly have a plan in place for what we were supposed to be doing in this situation and we were going to have to improvise.

I slammed my shoulder into Wanda's side, and she shouted in surprise before hitting the metal path with a groan. "Yeah, don't touch my friends."

I didn't even see Pietro coming before he was already in front of me, and I was thrown back over the railing. The wind was knocked out of me as my back collided with a stack of wooden crates, and I saw Pietro standing over me. "Don't touch my sister."

He had disappeared again in the next second, and I sighed as I rolled off the crates to get back on my feet, cursing out the little asshole in the back of my mind. And as if the twins weren't enough to deal with, only moments after I was standing again a group of men came charging in firing machine guns. "Great," I whispered to myself as I ducked behind cover. "Now there's these guys."

I waited for a few of them to run past me before I revealed myself, jumping out and wrapping my hand around the back of one of their necks. I whipped him around and kicked the gun out of his hand before shoving him forward so that he stumbled into his friends, knocking the lot of them to the floor where Clint started firing arrows at them.

Fortunately, they were taken out relatively easily and I was able to turn my attention back to more important matters. Unfortunately, however, the second I nodded at the pile of men on the floor and turned around, I was startled to see that Wanda was standing only inches away from me.

Before I had the time to react, her eyes flooded with red and she touched her fingers to my forehead, giving me an immediate dizzy feeling as she backed away and disappeared from my sight.

I staggered forward with unsure footing as a dark red mist crept in at the edges of my vision, and the world grew darker and my thoughts muddled incoherently. Eventually, the blacks and reds that clouded my eyes were replaced by a faint yellow light shining down from above me, revealing a large wooden door in front of me.

Almost instinctively, I twisted the dirty golden knob and pushed the creaking door open as I stepped inside a dim room that smelled of cigarettes and stale popcorn. Closing the door as quietly as possible behind myself like I had been taught to do, I crossed the carpeted floor with light footsteps with my fingers trailing along the wall covered in small dents and chipped paint.

I could hear the television playing on low volume in the living room in front of me, casting flickering lights across the hallway I walked through. Usually when the TV was this quiet, it meant that my dad had fallen asleep in front of it. Taking a small comfort in this fact, I allowed myself a sigh of relief as I took my hand off the wall.

"Where were you?"

My blood ran cold as my comfort revealed itself to be a lie, and my father's gruff voice sounded on my left through his open bedroom door. Turning my head so that I was facing him but keeping my eyes on the floor, I tried to keep my voice as steady as possible. "At the library."

"Look at me when you're talking to me, Charlotte."

I looked up at my dad, hating the fact that he stood almost a foot and a half taller than me. My mom always told me that I would hit my growth spurt eventually, but all the other kids in my grade were already hitting anywhere between 5'5 and 6 feet tall, while I remained seemingly forever at my measly 5'3. "At the library," I repeated, looking into his forest green eyes that mirrored my own.

"Why were you out so late?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

The truth was that I had been caught up once more in my never-ending fascination with their computers, seeing as my own had given out on me recently and I still had been unable to fix it. I knew he wouldn't appreciate that answer, and I was grateful to my mother for stepping out of the kitchen at this point so I wouldn't have to come up with a lie.

"Hey, baby," she smiled. "Why don't you come help me out in the kitchen? I could use your help putting the dishes away."

"I'm talking to her right now, Catherine," my father answered before I could. "Did she tell you she was going to be out after 9?"

"Yes," my mother lied for me. I assumed normal teenagers would appreciate this sentiment, but it only made me cringe in fear as my father's arms dropped to his side. He always knew when she was lying, and he was always angry afterwards.

"Go to your room, Charlotte."

"Dad-"

His hand landed on my shoulder with a tight grip, and I froze mid-sentence as he leaned down to be eye-level with me. "Go to your room, Charlotte."

I glanced at my mother from the corner of my eye, stepping out of my father's grasp when she nodded. My bedroom was on the other side of the living room, and my muscles stayed tense the entire eternity it took to get out of arms reach from my father. My mother stopped me when I passed her, smiling down at me and pulling a cherry flavored Blow Pop out of her pants pocket. "Here, baby. I'll come see you before I go to bed."

I nodded at the assurance before continuing the walk to my bedroom. I could already hear my father whispering angrily, so I quickened my pace as much as possible without drawing attention to myself and closed the door behind myself as I entered my room.

Once I was alone, I wasted no time in ripping the wrapper of the lollipop and discarding it on the floor, popping the candy into my mouth and pulling my small computer case out of my closet to rest it in the corner. I tossed the lid of the box to the side and pulled out multiple computer parts that I had been working on for the last two weeks or so.

At the sound of my father shouting something, I tucked my knees up to my chest and pushed myself further into the corner, clutching the wire-filled circuit boards to my chest as I fumbled through the box for my pliers.

Just keep working, and everything will be okay. As long as you don't confront him, he won't hurt you. Ignore the bad things, and they can't hurt you. Breathe. Work.

Normally this worked, but my fingers froze when I heard my mother screaming back. "No," I whispered, shaking my head. "No, don't fight back."

Something shattered, something banged. Screaming, fighting, cursing.

I ripped a red wire off the motherboard and stripped it of its plastic coating, twisting the copper inside into a tangled braid.

"No, you leave her out of this!"

A crash against my door caused me to jump, shocking myself with the wire. I pulled the lollipop out of my mouth and replaced it with my slightly singed finger, staring at the door and waiting for another noise. One meant he might be finished. Another meant I needed to hide my box.

"Stupid woman," my father growled outside my door before raising his voice to a shout. "You hear that, Charlotte? Your mother is a stupid woman! She should have kept her mouth shut. This is all her fault!"

I wanted to help her. I wanted to fight back. I wanted to finally take the bag I had packed months ago and stored in the depths of my closet and make a run for it. I wanted, wanted, wanted. I was seventeen now, I could make it on my own. All I needed was to fix my computer, and I could make a living. I would never have to see him again.

The silence outside told me that he had finished for the night, but just to be sure, I waited until I heard his bedroom door slam close before setting my things back into their place in the box and tip-toeing back towards my own door.

When I opened it, I was unsurprised to see droplets of blood settling into the already dotted carpet. What caught my attention, though, the fact that it trailed down the hallway and around the corner of the living room. I followed the splotches from my doorway and around the corner, only to gasp in horror at the sight in front of me.

I dropped to my knees next to my mother, my shaking hands dropping the forgotten lollipop before hovering uselessly over the deep gash in her temple that leaked blood in multiple streaks down the side of her face and onto the floor. "Mom," I breathed as quietly as possible, more afraid than ever to let my father hear me. She didn't respond. "Momma..."

He killed her. He had threatened it before, but I never actually thought... I almost touched her, but decided against it at the last second while my grief shifted into something much darker.

As quickly and quietly as possible, I hurried back to my room grabbed the backpack out of my closet and slung it over my shoulder before running into the kitchen where our landline was and dialing 911. I held the phone next to my ear until I heard, "911, what's your emergency?" I set the phone on the counter and walked towards the sink, glancing inside before grabbing the knife and staring at it.

I could do it. For everything he had done to us, for what he had done to her... I wanted to do it.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

I sucked in a deep, quivering breath, not caring enough to wipe away the stinging tears trailing down my cheeks and dripping onto the counter top.

"We're sending officers to your location."

I closed my eyes and swallowed a sob, dropping the knife back into the sink with a dull thud as I backed away. No. I couldn't do it. But at least he wouldn't get away with it.

"Charlie?" A faintly familiar voice called for me, an invisible hand cupping my cheek. "Charlie, are you with me? ... Tony, I need you back here. I can't snap any of them out of it."

Clutching the strap of my backpack, I resisted the urge to look back to my mother and sprinted out of the house, not even bothering to closing the door behind myself as I ran.