Make You Feel My Love
~Book III~

Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers nor do I own the plot of Age of Ultron. All rights go to Marvel.
All I do own are my own characters and their stories.

~Chapter 1~
New Gear

Avengers Tower

"Dalton!"

Maria smiled, removing her mask as she exited the elevator an hour after Stark had called her back.

"Stark!" called Maria back, quickly embracing him. "So?"

"Yes," said Tony, starting to walk up the stairs towards where the lab was. "I've made you something."

"What?" asked Maria, following him up the stairs.

"Last night, me and myself were thinking about the past and our first mission together," said Stark, earning a nod from Maria as she walked beside Tony towards the lab. "And I remembered that you used to have a sword which you handled pretty well."

"Yeah… where are you going with this?" asked Maria, frowning slightly.

"Well, since you threw the sword away, you don't really have a weapon, right?" asked Tony.

"Look, I threw it away for a reason-"

"I know. It was Artur's," breathed Tony, waving his hand as if dismissing what Maria wanted to say. When he saw the hurt look on her face, though, he quickly retaliated and placed a hand on her lower arm, stopping as well. "I know."

Maria simply nodded, glancing down at the hand on her arm before taking a deep breath. "Let me guess, you've made a new sword on your spare time?"

Tony smirked. "Even better."

With a confused Maria following him, Tony walked into the labs, earning the attention of Bruce who was fiddling with some papers at the far end. He leaned his head forwards enough to be able to look at the two heroes entering over the edge of his reading glasses, and when Maria smiled and waved at him, Bruce smiled back, removing his glasses and walking over to them.

"I thought you hadn't tested it enough to give it to her yet," said Bruce simply, placing his glasses in the breast pocket of the white lab coat he was wearing.

"I figured she could help with the testing," coughed Tony, earning a pointed look from Bruce.

"This weapon could potentially be dangerous-"

"And Dalton can heal," replied Tony to which Maria scoffed.

"That's not a valid reason to put me in danger."

Tony looked between Maria and Bruce for a while before pouting slightly, walking over to a cabin, opening it and taking out a metal box from it. Maria watched him with interested eyes, following his hands with her gaze as he quickly opened the box and took out, what looked like, a sword handle. Though it was rounded in a different way and it looked much more technological than sword handles usually did.

Tony turned to Maria, letting the handle rest in the palms of his hands as he watched Maria with a knowing look in his eyes. He could see the curiosity in her eyes and he could see that she was willing to take the risk if it meant that she could figure out what the handle was for.

"That's not a sword," said Maria, cocking an eyebrow at Tony who simply rolled his eyes.

"When I say me and myself, I mean me and myself watching a movie that might possibly have been about space and accidental incest," said Tony, lulling his head to the side as he continued to watch Maria.

"Star Wars?" asked Maria before she widened her eyes. "What kind of sword did you make exactly?"

"Don't worry. Lightsabers are scientifically impossible to make," said Tony before grabbing the handle in his right hand, offering it to Maria. "But one could say I got my inspiration from them."

Curiosity and excitement filled Maria as she quickly grabbed the handle from Tony, pressing the red button with her thumb on accident. Luckily, she had pointed the handle away from anyone, otherwise an accident might've happened. From the handle, after she had pressed the button, a swish of energy escaped the top of the handle. Though it wasn't anything like a lightsaber. It was a see through light, the sides of the 'blade' showing off a little more light than the middle of the 'blade', making them look like contours rather than light. To Maria, it looked more like one of Tony's holograms than anything else, the light blue colour of the blade and the light green contours reminding Maria of the hologram of Tony she had seen earlier with Matt.

"Still don't want to take the risk?" asked Tony, wiggling his eyebrows.

Although it was quite cool, Maria didn't understand how it was supposed to work. After all, you couldn't touch holograms.

"How does it work?" asked Maria.

"Well, it's sciency. But I supposed you can say that I pushed the hologram to past its limits in order to make it – uh – touchable," said Tony, clearly trying his best to make it seem reasonable to Maria who hadn't done anything 'sciency' in her entire life.

"Oh…" was Maria's only reply, her eyes fixated on the light from the blade as she slowly moved it around.

The weight of the sword was perfect, even more perfect than the one she had earlier. Not only that, but if things worked out with this weapon, she wouldn't have to carry around an entire sword all the time which took up quite a lot of space, not to mention that they were very heavy. This sword, however, was as light as a feather.

"The core is unstable," said Bruce, causing Maria to turn her head to him. "It's dangerous."

"The core can get unstable," agreed Tony, nodding his head. "But with some data from when it's actually used in battle, we can get it more stable."

Bruce sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Don't tell me you're actually going to do this, Maria? If the core gets too unstable, the handle won't just warm up and burn your hands, but it might explode."

"How big is the blast radius?" asked Maria, earning a chuckle from Tony.

"Not big enough to do damage on the building," said Tony.

"Big enough to do damage on Maria," argued Bruce.

"I'll do it." Both Tony and Bruce looked at her with different looks on their faces. Tony looked smug, having known she wouldn't back away from this as it was too cool and too little of a risk. Bruce only looked annoyed, not liking the idea of getting Maria into danger.

"Good girl," commented Tony. "The training room is downstairs."

Music blasted through the hidden speakers as Maria ran all over the room, attacking the holograms Tony made appear from his safe spot behind bullet proof glass in a room next door. Sweat dripped down Maria's forehead as she ran, swinging her new sword back and forth, taking down holographic Iron Man suits with ease.

It wasn't until the music stopped blaring that Maria stopped, pressing the red button to make the blade retract and placing her hands on her knees as she took deep breaths to calm down. The holograms around her disappeared and Tony walked inside, clapping his hands.

"Impressive!" he called, Maria watching him as he stopped in front of her. "Did it work?"

"Yeah," breathed Maria, standing up straight again. "The handle didn't burn me this time."

"Yes," said Tony, fist bumping the air slightly before looking at Maria with a smug look. "Told you it would work."

"Can I take some time off now? I mean… after four days, I think I deserve it," breathed Maria, wiping away some sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

Tony chuckled. "Yeah, go ahead and take a day off."

"What do you mean, a day? I'm taking the rest of the week off," said Maria, brushing past Tony.

Stark's laughter echoed through the training room as Maria left, the door swinging close behind her. Her room wasn't far away from the training room. The lab, the living room and the kitchen were all on the top two floors of the building. Though the training room and the sleeping areas were on the lower levels. Luckily, Maria's room was only two corridors away.

The moment she entered her room, she threw her new sword on the bed, quickly removing her suit and doing the same thing with it. In just her underwear, she entered the bathroom, turning on the tap to the bath, adding some bath oils to the water before exiting the bathroom again, letting the bath fill up slowly on its own. Her bedroom consisted of a large, king sized bed at the far end of the room and two closets. One was a simple walk-in closet in which her civilian clothing existed – Tony had bought all of them for her – while the other one, on the opposite side of the room, had glass doors and lights in it. There, her costume was supposed to hang though the past four days, the suit had been used non-stop and the closet had been empty instead.

While the bath filled up, she checked her phone for any messages from Steve. He had promised to call her every day that he was away, though lately, he hadn't done so. Worry latched onto her heart as she saw that he once again hadn't called nor texted her. It was currently late in the night and she knew that if he was going to contact her, he would've done so. All she could do, was hope that nothing had happened as she didn't know where he was which meant she couldn't go out and help him.

With a pout, she threw her phone on the bed again, entering the bathroom again and trying her best to not think too much about it. After all, Steve could take care of himself and he had Sam by his side.

With a fuzzy robe wrapped around her, she walked outside of the elevator, warm socks and her pyjamas on underneath. Her hair was still dripping slightly, though she didn't care. Tony was already sitting on the couch, waiting for her. The past week that she had spent at the Avengers Tower had not only given her a new weapon, but also a new evening routine. She and Tony had, after having talked a bit, realized that they had the same taste in TV-series. So, each evening, the two of them would meet up by the TV and watch something together.

Never in her life had Maria thought she and Tony would actually become close enough to do something like that together. Bruce had been invited too, though he was working on something important and didn't always turn up. Apparently, he wanted to find a new and better way to make the Hulk calm down after he wasn't useful anymore. Maria had come up with the name 'operation lullaby' for the project Bruce was working on, as a joke, though it had stuck and the three of them used it regularly.

"Okay," said Tony, clasping his hands together. "Which series should we watch?"

Maria looked over at Tony's happy state and sighed. She had failed miserably with trying to think of something else but Steve's silence during her bath and she was currently in a sad state. What if something hadn't happened and Steve just didn't want to talk to her?

"Okay…" said Tony, looking at her now, seeming to notice her mood. "No series. You need to talk."

Maria groaned. "It's stupid."

"I bet it is," said Tony, causing Maria to glare at him. "But not stupid enough for it to not affect you so, speak up."

"Steve's not contacted me for a while," said Maria with a sigh. "I just- I'm worried."

"Cap's fine," said Tony, earning a look from Maria. "He's Captain America, after all. Besides, if you want, I can have Jarvis find him for you."

"No, it's fine… I just wish he could contact me. And I don't want to call him first either because if he's somewhere important he's go the sound on, he might just get detected and then it would be my fault!"

"Why on earth would he have his sound on while on a mission?" asked Tony, cocking an eyebrow at Maria.

"Because he's Captain America. A man from the fifties where they didn't have cellphones," said Maria, earning a chuckle from Tony.

"Okay, you've got me," he replied before growing serious again. "Put on some clothes."

"What?" asked Maria.

"We're going out to make you feel better."

"Tony," whined Maria as he grabbed her hand, pulling her through the doors of the bar. "How is this supposed to make me feel better?"

"Alcohol always makes people feel better," replied Tony, dragging her towards the bar.

"Tony, I'm not you," replied Maria with a roll of her eyes.

Loud music was being played from a live band standing on a scene on the opposite side of the building. While Tony ordered a couple of drinks, Maria looked out at the crowd of people inside of the bar. It was located close to Hell's Kitchen and it had some hints to a typical Hell's Kitchen bar; dark and filled with people that Maria honestly couldn't decide if they were shady or not.

Tony nudged Maria, making her look over at him. "Bottoms up."

Grabbing the glass he handed her, she watched Tony as he downed the shot in one go before warily looking down at her own glass. Drinking was something she was good at from her previous life with Artur and his men who loved to drink their Russian vodka. Though she knew that each time she drank, she made bad decisions. Therefore, she simply placed her glass back down on the bar, watching as Tony downed another drink.

"Tony, come on. Let's just go," said Maria, though Tony barely even heard her as two women waved at him, earning his full attention.

"Not a party person?"

Maria tensed at the dark voice coming from beside her. A man was sitting on a barstool, his back hunched slightly as he sat there, a glass of whisky before him and a cigar in his right hand. He side glanced at her as she didn't reply immediately.

"Uh, no, not exactly," she replied simply before looking away again, tapping Tony's shoulder once more though still not succeeding in grabbing his attention.

"What's your name, bub?" asked the man.

Maria sighed slightly before looking back at the stranger beside her. "Maria."

"Suits ya'," he replied, causing Maria to look down at her hands. "Pretty girls shouldn't have to be forced to do anything."

"Who says I was forced to do anything?" asked Maria, not truly trusting the stranger.

"Your futile attempts to get away says so," he replied, smirking as Maria simply looked at him. "Logan."

"Okay," was all Maria said as she turned away again. "Tony, please."

"Fine," sighed Tony before pointing a finger at her. "But you've gotta relax a little and live life while you're still young."

"How many of those shots did you have?" asked Maria, frowning at his breath.

"Two more than I should have had," replied Tony simply. "Gotta go pee."

Maria rolled her eyes as he stumbled away from her, leaving her with the stranger by the bar.

"He your date or something?" asked Logan.

"No… Just a friend," replied Maria.

"So… No boyfriend?"

Maria widened her eyes before looking back at Logan. "I've got a boyfriend. Just not him."

Logan was about to say something more when suddenly, a loud bang was heard. It was definitely the sound of thunder, though it was louder than it was supposed to be and it caused the ground to shake. Logan stood up, his body tense and his eyes looking all around himself while everyone else quietened down. The music was the only thing that could be heard while everyone tried to figure out what that sound and shake had been.

Maria joined Logan, standing beside him with her hand inching to grab the dagger she had in her pocket. When the doors suddenly burst open, Maria relaxed, a smile appearing on her lips as she saw the familiar face of Thor entering the bar. His eyes searched the crowd, people inching away from the God where he stood. When his eyes found Maria, he started to walk towards her. Logan seemed to tense up even more, though Maria simply walked past him towards Thor, quickly embracing the Norse God who lifted her up from the ground with ease, embracing her back.

"It's been a while," said Maria as Thor placed her back on the ground, her smile wide.

"Indeed it has," replied Thor while his smile faded, unlike Maria's. "Lady Maria. I am in need of your assistance."

Well, this was a little bit of a filler chapter to just get things going. I was a little distracted when writing this since my friend was freaking out over the new Civil War trailer (so was I) so there may be strange bits here and there. Sorry about that :P