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 22~
The Body

"And? Did you find our unknown, hopefully, ally?" asked Maria as Tony walked into the Tower, slowly taking off the sunglasses he had been wearing, although Maria didn't see what sunlight he had been shielding his eyes from.

Tony had finally returned from his trip to Oslo which, surprisingly so as Maria had thought he needed some more time over at the Nexus, had only taken him 24 hours. He had gone to visit the Nexus in hope to find the ally Fury had been telling the Avengers about over at the farmhouse; the one that had been making sure that Ultron couldn't get his hands on the launch codes for the missiles, changing them constantly so as to make it impossible for Ultron. Tony was meant to go over there to find out whoever this ally was, and Maria truly did hope this person was an ally of theirs as it felt like they could need some good news.

"I… I think I did. But I need to do some more research first," said Tony absentmindedly, walking past both Bruce and Maria without saying another word to them.

"Strange…" said Maria as they watched him go up the stairs towards the lab.

"Yes, for Tony, he was acting rather strange," agreed Bruce before the two of them shrugged and walked over to the kitchen.

Nobody had been there to clean up after the party, not to mention it had been trashed as well after the fighting with Ultron's robots. Bruce dusted off some dust from a counter and grabbed two of the unharmed plates while Maria went to search for some food in the fridge. She managed to find some ham and turkey and placed it next to the plates Bruce had laid out for them. Bruce himself was looking through the cupboards by then, though seeing as most of them were ruined, there wasn't a lot of searching to do.

"There isn't any bread," said Bruce, breaking the silence between the two of them. They had silently agreed to find something to eat for breakfast, though soon found there wasn't much food left that was ruined or squashed.

"Great… well, we've got ham and turkey," sighed Maria, exchanging a look with Bruce before the two of them began to laugh.

"The luxury of being a hero," said Bruce in between laughs as Maria playfully placed slices of turkey and ham on the two plates as though they were going to serve it at a restaurant.

Bruce sat down at the table, dusting off one part of the table and two chairs in the process, watching Maria as she brought the two plates over to him, placing one in front of him.

"C'est voila!" exclaimed Maria. "Bon appétit!"

"We really need to go grocery shopping," chuckled Bruce as Maria sat down opposite of him with her plate of 'food'.

Silently, they began to eat, a smile on Maria's face. For a moment, she felt a strange sensation in her chest, as though she felt guilty or worried about something. Then it hit her, the pain and the sadness of what she had been through the past couple of days. The ring resting neatly against her skin seemed to burn and she suddenly lost her appetite.

Bruce seemed to have noticed her change of demeanor, though he didn't comment on it, only offering her a sympathetic smile that said enough.

As she continued to peck on her food, a question bubbled up inside of her that she didn't want to have, but couldn't resist ask.

"Do you think Steve's okay?"

Bruce looked at her, a slice of ham halfway up to his mouth. His features softened as he looked at her and he slowly placed the ham back down on his plate.

"You're worried."

His statement shouldn't have surprised her. She obviously knew she was, seeing as he was her teammate. Though it still did surprise her as he had literally hurt her quite a lot and those sort of feelings should be going away after something like that. But they didn't. They stayed and even now, now that they weren't a couple and barely even friends, she was still as worried if not more, as before.

"He's Captain America. And he's got Natasha and Clint with him, I think he'll alright," said Bruce, nodding his head.

"Talking about Natasha," began Maria, trying to change the subject as fast as she could. "What's been going on between the two of you lately?"

"Huh? O-Oh. Nothing," replied Bruce, beginning to peck at his food the way Maria was, causing her to slouch slightly.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said quietly, shaking her head. "I shouldn't have asked-"

"You didn't know things weren't working out," said Bruce. "Besides, they never were going to work. The other guy's always going to be a part of me and those sort of… normal-life things aren't a part of my destiny anymore."

"Maybe not," said Maria quietly. "Though it doesn't look like those sorta normal-life things are a part of any of our lives. Have you seen Pepper lately?"

Bruce's face turned into one of realization; "No… I haven't. But surely… I mean… Nah, I'm sure they're fine."

"Tony hasn't talked to you about it then? He hasn't said if anything's wrong?"

"No… No, he hasn't," said Bruce with a shake of his head.

A silence wrapped around them again before Bruce suddenly began to smile again.

"Look at us," he said. "Two sad heroes sitting in a trashed kitchen eating leftover bread spreads."

"I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be a part of the movie, had there been one about our lives," chuckled Maria sadly. "The reality behind the heroes."

Bruce chuckled again, though their casual conversation was cut short as Tony burst into the kitchen.

"They're back!"

"Clint!" exclaimed Maria, running up to him. She was about to hug him, though thought better of it and simply placed a hand on his shoulder, nodding her head at him. "Where are the others?"

They were standing out on the platform where the Quinjet had landed just seconds ago. Though only Clint had exited the jet.

"Rogers made me come back here with the cradle. Nat's… I think Ultron got her," said Clint, his voice low as he spoke about Natasha.

"Oh God…" mumbled Maria, her worry and her anguish over not having pressed to go with them growing as Clint said this.

"Cradle?" asked Tony, earning a nod of Clint's head, telling them to follow him inside of the Quinjet.

"This here is what Ultron was trying to steal from Cho's lab. It's one of her fancy machines she spoke about back when she was healing me. And apparently, it can create tissue so well, it's creating a body," said Clint as the three heroes followed him onboard, looking at the crate he had been talking about.

It was made out of metal and looked rather much like a coffin. Though the tubes coming out of it clearly made it look like anything but a coffin.

"He wants a body… Just like we thought," breathed Bruce.

"Did Rogers tell us what to do with it?" asked Tony.

"Store it. Destroy it. Anything but make it available to Ultron. Once everyone's gathered again, we can discuss what to do with it and what our next move will be. Tony, you got any intel on our new ally?" said Clint, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I do," said Tony, his eyes not leaving the cradle. "But that's for when everyone's gathered."

"Meaning we need to find Natasha," said Bruce.

"And wait for Steve," said Maria.

"And Thor," added Tony, pointing a finger at Maria. "Wherever the hell he is."

"We can't stick around waiting for Thor too long. If he's out on his own adventures, well, who knows how long that'll take," said Clint.

Tony's finger moved over to Clint; "Good point. Our first move will be to move this cradle, back into the lab. I want to get a closer look on it."

"And our second move?" asked Bruce.

"Find Nat," said Maria and Clint at the same time, causing them to exchange a look.

With a heavy heart, Maria walked up to the cradle, leaving the laptop she had been working with behind on the desk. She had told everyone she was going to help in the search for Nat, though soon found out (once she sat down in front of the laptop) that she had no clue of how to search for her using that laptop. She wanted to go out there and search for Nat, though seeing as they didn't have a clue of where Ultron's base was, it would be pointless to start a search so global as that one.

Meaning, Maria couldn't do anything. She couldn't help with scanning the cradle, she couldn't help in the search for Nat; how long would she be this useless? She hadn't even been allowed to help search for the cradle. Then again, she didn't have a weapon nor did she have any powers to use against her foes. Perhaps she was indeed useless now.

Clint caught her attention and she watched him for a while as he tried to open the cradle. Just like Maria, Clint didn't know much about scanning and taking scientific tests. So, instead of sitting and waiting, he had taken to trying to pry the lid off. Which wasn't quite working in his favor.

It wasn't until both Bruce and Tony returned back to the cradle that Clint gave up, wiping his forehead and letting out a long sigh, shaking his head.

"Anything on Nat?" asked Bruce, his voice quite monotone though Maria knew better than to believe that.

"I haven't heard. But she's alive, or Ultron would be rubbing our faces in it," said Tony as the two of them walked up to Maria and Clint.

"This is sealed tight," commented Clint.

"We're gonna need to access the program," said Bruce. "Break it down from within."

Tony nodded his head, putting his hands in his pockets before pouting, a thought seeming to have struck him. He turned to face Clint; "Any chance Natasha might leave you a message outside the internet? Old-school spy stuff?"

"There are some nets I can cast," replied Clint, nodding his head. "Yeah, I'll find her."

Maria watched as Clint began to walk away; noticing how Tony looked over at her.

"You wanna go watch, see what he's doing and learn?" asked Tony, raising an eyebrow at her.

Maria realized he was trying to get rid of her and Clint. At the same time, Natasha was going to need to be found. Though Maria knew that if she was looking over Clint's shoulder, distracting him with her questions and annoying him with her presence while he was trying to find his partner; things wouldn't be progressing. Though at the same time, Maria wanted to know what Tony wanted to discuss with Bruce. And as she looked over at Bruce, he seemed to have understood what was going on as well.

"Sure," said Maria simply, walking towards the door.

However, instead of continuing down the hallway, she stopped by the doorway, placing one of her daggers in the doorway so that the door wouldn't shut completely. That way, Tony and Bruce didn't see her standing there, eavesdropping, though she could still hear them talk.

"I can work on tissue-degeneration if you could fry whatever operational system Cho implanted," she heard Bruce say.

"Yeah, about that…" Tony's voice rang.

There was a moment of silence in which she figured Bruce looking at Tony with that cute, dawning look of his that always made her smile.

"No." She nearly snorted.

"You have to trust me." She nearly snorted again.

"Kind of don't."

"Our ally, the guy protecting the military's nuclear codes, I found him."

Maria's ears perked up. She wondered why he was telling this to Bruce when he, moments earlier, had told them all that he wanted to keep this a secret until everyone was gathered again.

"Hello, Doctor Banner." Maria jaw dropped. She'd recognize that voice anywhere. It was the one who'd so many times had awoken her in the middle of the night because Tony wanted to speak to her about something random he had found out. That was Jarvis.

"Ultron didn't go after Jarvis 'cause he was angry. He attacked him because he was scared of what he can do," said Tony's voice. "So Jarvis went underground. Scattered, dumped his memory. But not his protocols. He didn't even know he was in there until I pieced him together."

"So… You want me to help you put Jarvis in this thing?" asked Bruce's voice, making Maria's jaw drop even more.

Tony's first idea had created Ultron. What was Tony thinking creating a life Jarvis when it was so clear that big ideas of his didn't really turn out that great?

"No! Of course not! I wanna help you put Jarvis in this thing."

This time, Maria actually snorted. Quickly, she placed a hand over his mouth, her eyes widening. There was a long pause, though soon, the conversation continued on and Maria could breathe out again. Eavesdropping was bad. If they caught her, they'd not be very happy with her. And she couldn't bare having to deal with more teammates hating her.

"We're out of my field, here. You know bio-organics better than anyone," Tony's voice said.

"And you just assume that Jarvis' operational matrix can beat Ultron's?"

"Jarvis has been beating him from inside without knowing it. This is the opportunity – We can create Ultron's perfect self without the homicidal glitches he thinks are his winning personality."

"No!" exclaimed Maria, throwing the door open and strutting inside with a dangerous look on her face; at least she assumed it was as Tony took a step back at the sight of her. "You're not going to create another Ultron!"

"Not another one! A better one!" retorted Tony, making Maria scoff and look at Bruce with a questioning face – to which Bruce simply looked away, clearly not wanting to be a part of this argument.

"Even if it's a better one, it's still an Ultron! If the first one got so messed up when it was supposed to be a good, piece program that would make our work way easier then it is, imagine what can go wrong if you try again!"

"Maria, you have to understand; fighting fire with fire is the only chance we've got!" said Tony, walking up to her and placing his hands on her upper arms, looking her straight in the eyes. "We're doing the same thing, but removing the glitches. It's like, when developers create a new game and they realize some things are faulty. Nowadays, they send out an update to the people via the internet. Now, we can't do that. But back in the days, they'd make new copies. And that's what we're doing here."

"I believe it's worth a go," said Jarvis, making Maria look over at the orange hologram of Jarvis.

With a sigh, Maria looked over at Bruce; "What do you think of this?"

He paced back and forth a few times before running a hand through his hair; "I'm in a loop! I'm caught in a time loop. This is exactly where it all went wrong-"

"I know," said Tony, letting go of Maria and moving over to Bruce instead. "I know. I know what everyone's gonna say. But… They're already saying it. We're mad scientists."

He clapped Bruce on the arm casually, as though that wasn't in the least a negative thing to be called; especially seeing as that trait caused Ultron.

"We're monsters, buddy. We've gotta own it," said Tony. "Make a stand. It's not a loop. It's the end of the line."

"Oh, don't go all Bucky on the guy," said Maria, earning confused looks from the two scientists. "This is wrong! Don't do it, Bruce! Who knows what'll come out the other end!"

Tony looked back at Bruce, a pleading look on his face. Maria saw Bruce looking between the two of them and she slowly saw him making up his mind. However, she also saw him making the wrong decision.

"Alright then."

The panic of school starting soon has made me procrastinate on life... Literally don't eat because I feel it's a waste of the last bit of summer vacation I have left. I know, I have problems. But I'm getting over that now! Don't worry. Hence why I'm updating too XD