It was a cascade of metal and armor, waves upon waves of sentries relentlessly seeking the core of the spire. Ultron was set upon the destruction of the earth, upon the Avengers failing to meet the challenge, and he was sure that once he forced the issue, they would live down to his expectations.
Yet, for all his words, for all his hopes and wishes, they would not satisfy him in that regard. Each and every one of them defended that core, defended each other, tirelessly. The stream of robots seemed unending, but none of them would let that faze them. Twists and turns, punches and jabs, rips and tears broke apart their enemies as though they were nothing. Mists of scarlet were pierced by lightning, repulsors and orange beams of power working in tandem, muscle and might met with speed and unerring accuracy. When the shots were fired, they crashed or whistled through the air, depending upon the source. Vibranium scattered at their feet, arms and legs wrenched in twain as they were torn without mercy from their sockets, roars filling the space of the church.
As the army dwindled, dismantled with horrifying alacrity, Ultron joined the fray. Though he could not feel at the level of human understanding, there was enough rage in him to want to take them apart piece by piece as they had done to him. The Vision, floating above, beckoned him, violet face untouched by the brokenness of what should have been his brothers. Ringing sounds of metal hitting metal filtered around them, accompanied by the crush of stone as they tried to pin one another down to the roof of the church. With a hard blow, Ultron had thought the Vision was pushed to the side, out of the way. Searing, blazing heat began to pour onto him, shoving him down and out through the nearest wall. The jewel, his flesh, it was burning him, driving him away. Jolts of electricity joined it, and the white-hot intensity of repulsors slammed down as well. The three powers of god, man, and machine stripped away his layers, exposed him and drove him down into the dirt and dust. As abruptly as the assault has started, it had disappeared, the android left singed and twitching as he looked upon his assailants. His comrades were all dead or dying, and soon enough, he knew, it would be just him.
His freedom, his mission, was in jeopardy, truly, and there was no way they would simply let him walk away from it. Opening his mouth to say something, anything, to appeal to their better senses, a great, green hand smashed against his torso, flinging him away like so much refuse.
The remaining sentries, assessing the situation, turned on their heels, some taking to the skies and others attempting to limp away on foot. The Hulk's grunts and roars told them they would not get far.
"They're attempting to escape," Thor pointed out, swinging his hammer to take to the skies. The Vision soared after him, ready to join in the pursuit.
"Not a single one can get away," Tony remarked, powering up as well.
Tapping the link in his ear, the captain breathed out, pushing a fallen sentry away from him with his foot. "You hear that, guys?"
"Gotcha, Cap," Rhodey retorted, whooping as he encountered some of the robots.
Over the crackle of the comms, the voice of Bucky could be heard. "Sam, give me a ride?"
"Okay," the other man answered, the shuffle and clanking on his end signifying his accomplishment of the task. It was easy enough to deduce that Barnes would attempt sniping those trying to get away, and Sam would assist in the aerials as well. With that plan set in place, Steve turned to his remaining fellows. It was up to them to provide the ground support, dispatching any and all leftover sentries and escorting the last of the civilians to the safety of the lifeboats. The Maximoff girl, pulling herself to her full height, volunteered to stay behind with the core to ensure that no others would come near it while they worked. Once everyone else was clear of the city, then she would come. She and Barton shared a fast look, his chin dipping once before he motioned for Natasha to come with him, both of them set on completing their tasks. Pietro, at the behest of his sister, was pointed in the direction of the people, his speed working to his advantage in driving them to the boats.
Sweeping for stragglers, Steve bolted out of the church, vaulting over collapsed beams and cars as his eyes darted from one street to the next. They appeared to be empty; the agents sent over from the helicarrier had done their jobs well, it seemed. However, he needed confirmation.
"Tony, can you do a flyby and check the city for clearance?" he asked, coming to a four-way split on the street and pausing, deciding which way to turn.
"Doing it...looks like six blocks west of you, got a couple of people," Stark confirmed, the streak of red and gold cutting across the sky. "Looks to be some of SHIELD evac guys...or girls, I should say."
"Alright. I'm on my way over," the captain responded, his words nearly lost as Tony focused upon the HUD. As per the norm, it had analyzed the people he spotted, using facial recognition to pull files or records upon whomever he was looking at to confirm friend or foe status. The agent, the one with blue hair, had some interesting addenda added to her records, but it was the second's that caused incredulity.
"Wait a minute...JJ, team mute for a sec." Once the AI did as requested, he spluttered, "Do you need some recalibration?"
JJ's voice had taken on a stiff, polite tone, as if he were offended by such a question. "What makes you say that, Mister Stark?"
"Because I think something must be wrong internally. Those signatures you picked up, they can't be right."
Specifically, the one signature that was picked up had to be false, but eh, semantics.
"I assure you, sir, that I am operating at top capacity," the AI informed him thusly as he made another pass around the city. "If you're referring to whether or not you can believe what you see, I can confirm that you did indeed identify Miss Martin below."
Stunned silence was his initial response, but eventually Tony found an accurate way to project his feelings. "What in the hell is she doing here?"
It was baffling; that kid should not have been anywhere near the battle. As far as any of them knew, specifically the captain, she was supposed to be stateside. Her appearance there was as frightening as it was hard to swallow. Rogers was going to be...well, he couldn't quite imagine the guy being enraged, but Stark knew better than to think he would take that sitting down. His own gut clenched in sympathy, understanding how he would feel if Pepper had been shunted onto a floating city overrun with hellish robotic sentries.
This was really not good.
"Perhaps that's a question best asked at a later time? Because, you know, there is the small matter of destroying this rising android-made meteor threatening to end all life on the planet," JJ retorted, bringing back the matter at hand. It was not for him to speculate on the impulses of humans or their high faculties for distraction. "Far be it from me to dictate your points of concern, though."
Tony sniffed once, drawn effectively out of his musings. "...I'm going to scale back on your sass levels once this is over."
A ghost of a laugh seemed to be behind JJ's words. "You know what they say about promises, sir."
xXxXxXx
As the swish and zoom of flying bots above dwindled, the pair of women below made their way across the city. As adept an agent as Kay was, traversing the torn city of Novi Grad was not as simple as it could have been. More than once they had to abandon their travels in order to wait out a passing crop of robots, or, unfortunately, to fight them off. It was mostly Kay doing the fighting, with her gun and Holly's bat-like apparatus brandished before her, while the other would dip out of the way, the little girl in her arms too precious to risk in the scuffles. Her weapons and training, combined with the freakish strength she employed at turns, was enough to keep them mostly at bay. Dasha, the poor kid, had basically gone mute over the time still spent afield, her energy concentrating on not drawing more attention to them and crying quietly into Holly's shoulder. Her broken leg, with its temporary splint, was biting harder at her, and the spread of wetness along her jacket told Holly they needed to get her into medical care, and soon.
"We almost there?" she asked after a moment, the pale arc of thrusters cutting a swatch across the sky as it peeked between buildings. Pausing for a second, listening to the distant cracks and crashes as they became more and more sporadic, she waited for Kay to speak.
Dipping her chin once, Kay sighed, "Close...I think."
With an injured kid in her arms, and soreness ripping through her body as she carried the young one, the answer given made Holly frown. "Not like we're on a time limit or anything."
Flicking a strand of blue hair out of her face, Kay rolled her eyes. "Not my fault your boyfriend's superhero squad decided a floating city was the best place to do battle and destroyed the terrain."
Holly narrowed her eyes, jaw clenching as she tried to control the flare of temper that shot through her. "It wasn't their choice."
"That's not what I heard," the agent retorted, resulting in the two women staring heatedly at one another. Getting into an argument would avail them nothing, not with time threatening to run out any moment, and they both knew it. Still, they indicated via facial expression how they were starting to let the tension and strain eat at them. Huffing slightly, she collapsed the bat, clipping it to her belt and pointing down an adjacent road, one less littered with trash and metal than the others. "Just down a couple of side streets, the last lifeboat should be there."
Breathing out sharply through her nose, Holly nodded. Shifting the girl in her grip to alleviate the strain on her arms and back, she looked down at her. A few more tears had strayed out, but the fact that she wasn't weeping vocally or even saying one word worried her more.
"You doing okay, Dasha? Are you good?"
Big brown eyes, red rimmed and watery, glanced up at her. "Hurts. Still hurts, Holly."
That sounded about right to Holly's ears, her grimace in sympathy gracing her face. A flash through her mind brought back the time she'd broken her ankle when she was younger, and while that was not as severe an injury as the one Dasha had (Kay had muttered something about the massive bruising on the little girl showing that it was a major break) it had been painful. The memory of the ache crawled through her mind, and reflexively she shifted, putting weight on the stronger one out of ingrained habit.
"I know, but we're almost there," she told Dasha, infusing her tone with more positivity. Sharing one more look with Kay, she let the agent turn onto the correct road, staying as close to her heels as she dared. The scrape of the boots as they trod along the ground ringed around them as they moved, the space suddenly much quieter than it had been earlier.
That made Holly all the more nervous. In places like that, quiet could not be trusted, for obvious reasons.
A whining noise split the air above them, the rush of wind blowing up dust and dirt as another set of sentries touched down ahead of them. Grinding to a halt, Holly groaned under her breath, and Kay merely sighed in resignation.
"Oh God, not again," she grumbled, releasing the empty clip of her gun. Reaching deftly into a pocket along her belt, she reloaded the weapon, eyes flicking around the tight space before the robots had a chance to approach. Spotting an open door just to the right, her elbow twitched towards it, the only signal she would give physically to Holly. "Look, you duck in there, I'll—"
The remaining plan was lost, the sentries' forward press delayed by a clipped bark from behind. Before they had a chance to turn, a disk spun at them, bouncing from one to the next with perfect accuracy. Embedding itself into a stone wall, the robots that remained standing, few though they were, tromped back to attack the new arrival. A blur of navy, white, and red jumped and kicked, arms clenching hard around their necks. Granted, they could not be choked, but the move was still deadly, as the attacker demonstrated by wrenching up at the elbow and decapitating the adversaries. One by one they fell to the ground, their defeat done in short order.
Both women sucked in a sharp breath, one in relief, the other in nervous anticipation. The agent caught the guilty slide of her companion's eyes, noticed the rapid paling of her face, yet did not comment. Something was amiss here, but then again it wasn't very hard to figure that out. What was wrong remained to be seen.
"Or never mind," Kay said aloud instead, waving her free hand towards their avenging helper. "Hey, Cap!"
As the captain moved forward, plucking his shield from the wall and hooking it onto his harness, Holly felt her stomach tighten. Her heart, though, seemed to relax a little at the sight of him; grease stained his face, smeared almost like war paint and a testament to his efforts, but he seemed otherwise unscathed. The solid crunch of his steps faltered as he drew closer, blue eyes widening when he focused on the pair of women and young girl he'd protected.
"Are you all..." his voice trailed off, staring beyond the blue-haired agent straight to the brunette, her face flushing bright red as he gaped. Flicking her black eyes between them, Kay started to get the gist of what was going on. However, that was not the priority here.
"We're good, Captain," she affirmed for them both, Holly nodding mutely in agreement. Aside for a couple of bruises and minor cuts each, they were physically sound. And though the main priority was to get past pleasantries and right to the point, Kay couldn't resist poking the beast that loomed silently between them. Hooking a thumb at herself and then to Holly, she continued, "Agent Kay Szymik...and you two know each other. Pretty intimately, I'm told."
The two glares directed at her—blue and brown, and both downright harsh—told her that she'd scored a point. That, and to drop whatever it was she was angling at. Instinctively, her shoulders raised in a shrug, and she let it go. Teasing them obviously would not go over well at that moment. The blond man merely dipped his chin at the agent, his gaze turning back to the other woman.
When the brunette said nothing, just shifted the girl in her arms to relieve pressure, he spoke.
"Holly," he greeted her, the wealth of emotion behind his tired expression surface rapidly as he flicked his eyes over her. "You, too?"
Holly winced outright, nodding again as she struggled to think of something to say. Really, all thought had gone out of her head the second Steve had rounded that corner, when she'd realized he was the one dismantling the robots. Any half-baked speech she'd been preparing to tell him once he found out about her involvement with evacuation, with being so close to the danger he always tried to spare her from, had flown directly out of her head. Not because she was afraid of what he'd do, but for any retroactive fear or rage he'd feel on her behalf. She knew it had the potential to be bad…but it wasn't something they could afford to indulge in. Swallowing hard, she cleared her throat, pulling herself up to her full height and meeting his gaze as squarely as she could.
"Steve," she replied, letting a corner of her mouth lift in a placating effort. Tipping her head to the young girl in her arms (who was staring up at Steve like he was either the Savior come again or a madman, she could not decide which), she went on, "This is Dasha. We're, uh, trying to get to the lifeboat, but we got, um, sidetracked. It's kinda like a maze around here."
The thunderstruck look on his face, leaning more towards thunder as the seconds ticked by, was softened when he focused on the little girl, with him even going so far as allow is lips to twist into a sort-of grin. Dasha's look of awed shock lessened slightly, but her fingers still dug in around Holly's neck, clinging to her desperately. Swiftly her head turned into Holly's shoulder again, mouth opened in a muffled scream as more pain ripped up her leg. His brow furrowed slightly, observing the poor kid's injuries and hating to see another sufferer in the attack.
"Not to mention the robots that keep showing up randomly," Kay supplied, flicking a few fingers towards the dispatched ones littering the alley. "But it looks like you've taken care of that."
Steve glanced back over his shoulder at the carnage he'd wrought not, shrugging it off.
"...Right." Motioning back the way he'd come, he breathed, "It's back this way."
Off his unspoken cue, they began to trod in the direction he pointed, Kay moving with ease and Holly trying to keep up. Her sharp breathing and visible strain were noticeable, and while Steve certainly was not happy to see her in the thick of the trouble surrounding them, he wasn't going to make her suffer for it. Coming up to her side, he laid a palm on her free shoulder, stopping her from going further.
"I can take her," he said quietly, eyes cutting down to the girl with the splinted leg. A flash of relief sprang up beneath the tension, and Holly sighed a little. However, when Steve opened his arms and Holly started to turn towards him, Dasha's awe had given way to panic. Her small hands dug into Holly's shoulders, and she shrank into her.
"No!" she cried, not wanting to lose her only anchor in the madness around them. Without any family or friends nearby to comfort her, she'd soaked in the careful brand that the older woman had offered. The bigger man, though he'd defended them, was still frightening. She shut her eyes tightly against a fresh waves of tears, ignorant of the sting in the man's gaze and the concern in the woman's. The grip holding her up adjusted, cradling her a little closer.
"He's just going to carry you, like I have been. It's alright," Holly explained, trying to make Dasha see reason. Her back was killing her, and the additional weight meant she could not move very fast. If she went into Steve's care, she could trust him to take care of her and get her back to the boats speedily, without her hindrance. Dark hair swung violently as the child protested, a string of words in her native language snapped so harshly that they could only be taken as denials. Steve frowned, but he did not push the matter, instead dropping his arms and letting her make the call. "Okay, I guess it's not."
Gritting her teeth to carry on, she peeped up at him.
"Just...watch my back?"
"Of course," he replied, no hesitation in his voice. Rather than reach out for the kid, his palm rested upon her back, positioning himself so that she would be ahead of him. Turning his gaze forward to the other woman, he queried, "Agent Szymik?"
Kay, who had stopped once she realized her companions weren't moving, gestured with her free hand, palming her gun and letting them pull ahead of her. "Lead the way, Cap."
They moved out in silence, Steve's hand firmly planted on her back as they went. Mentally, Holly was counting down in her head, and when she got to three, she heard her fiancé cough. Understanding that it was a precursor to more, she waited.
"You didn't go home," he said finally, the tone bearing a hard edge. It made her flinch to hear it, but she did not let it deter her.
"I couldn't," was her simple answer, despite the fact that the motivations behind it were not. Stepping over a scattering of metal and concrete (and trying very hard not to jostle Dasha too much), she told him, "I just...couldn't sit by and let things go to hell in a hand-basket without, I don't know, doing something."
Not that she wanted it to have escalated this far, to bring her into total danger and complete idiocy on her part due to her own acceptance of it, but it had happened, anyway.
Out the corner of her eye, she detected that he had rolled his, and then he scoffed audibly. "Well, this is something, alright."
"For the record, this wasn't my idea. I was sort of drafted into it." At the implication of of the higher ups making demands on her, even with her lack of qualifications, she had earned an outright perplexed look from him. Perplexed, and not a little infuriated. Time to backtrack and do some damage control. "I swear, I did not think I would be out here. Honestly. I had other stuff to work on."
"Such as?"
Kay piped up then, her weapon held up and her own gaze flashing with irritation. "Less squawking, more running, lovebirds."
Holly felt her shoulders stiffen, the movement telegraphed visibly. "Ugh, I despise that term."
"And I despise being stalled for stupid arguments...or whatever this is," the other woman muttered, picking up the pace intentionally. "Let's move it."
Pushed into an almost run, Holly felt sweat bead and fall down her forehead and back, a couple strands of hair gluing themselves to the sides of her face and her ponytail swinging. Steve kept stride with her, focus moving from the shadows to the overhangs of the buildings, jaw clenching and working as they went. Loose rock under her feet made her stumble, fingers at her waist preventing her from pitching forward and tossing the little girl. However, it did not stop Holly from landing on her knee, the one she'd injured back in October. Grunting harshly at the renewal of pain, she tried to will herself back onto her feet and ignore the slight limp she was going to sport for the remainder of the run. Stabilizing her, Steve called to Kay to halt her, dropping down on one knee himself to be at her level. Gently, he removed his grasp from his fiancée, opening a palm to the little girl in her arms.
"Here...Dasha, right? Will you let me carry you, please? It'll really help Holly if you do," he said, pushing back his churning feelings and appealing to her gently. Dark, worried eyes flicked from her caretaker to the strange man, the one that Holly seemed to trust. "Come on, kiddo, we're nearly there."
Seeing her hesitance, her underlying panic threatening to explode, Holly whispered, "Not going anywhere, I promise."
It took a few seconds, a few heart-pounding seconds in which she feared an onset temper tantrum fueled by fear and hurt, but Dasha finally nodded her consent. Scooping her up carefully, Steve swung back onto his feet with more ease than Holly thought was fair, but she couldn't complain about the freedom her body was given in that instant. With another nod to Kay, the trio of adults actually bolted into a full run, the last leg of the journey flying by quickly (Holly had felt that her lungs were on fire by the end of it, but at least she'd made it). The last wave of civilians was trickling in as they made it to the square, other agents ushering them forward onto the boats. Climbing up the closest one, Kay waved down one of the medics onboard, the fellow taking Dasha as soon as Steve stamped up the ramp. Mindful of her promise, Holly trailed after them, staying near at hand so that the little girl didn't look up and find her out of sight. Her companion had moved off to consult with the other agents about the possibilities of moving out soon, and her fiancé was pulled to one side by Sam, who had needed to report in. Kay returned her collapsible weapon, a tight grin and a dip of the chin her parting words. The girl had her back propped up against a bank of seats, the temporary splint being removed and falling away in favor of a proper one being put on. The medic was asking Dasha questions in her mother tongue, and she answered as best she could, but the kid was so out of it from the shock and the fear that they had to turn to simply treating the broken leg without comment. A dosage of painkillers changed hands, one small enough to not harm her, with Holly being gestured over to help her take them. The flurry of voices and faces around them were blocked out as she held out the pills to Dasha, motioning for her to take them quickly and to drink from the bottled water the medic provided. It would do until they got back to the helicarrier and the infirmary there, where she could be treated fully. The panic in Dasha's eyes dulled, the overwhelming events of the day getting to her and making her exhausted on top of the injury she sustained. Her head lolled, resting against the edge of the seat closest to her, the shrieks of chaos and the horror of her people her lullaby. Rising from her crouch near the kid and sinking onto one of the nearby seats, Holly let out a low, ragged breath, her head going into her hands.
She felt Steve's renewed presence at her side after a minute or two, and he dropped into the seat to her right. Letting her hands fall, she glanced at the grim set of his jaw, the thinness of his lips. However, all that was overpowered by the storm in his eyes, which she could not look away from.
"You've been mentally eviscerating me this whole time, haven't you?" she asked him, almost timidly. His gaze narrowed, more in consideration than in true anger.
"...Not you," he responded finally, his head shaking and fists clenching in his lap. While he was not pleased in the slightest to find her there, precisely where he'd never wished her to be, he knew her participation in something of this caliber would not be entirely of her choosing. Someone had convinced her to act, appealing to her natural inclination to help where she could. "They shouldn't have asked you to do it."
"Well, persuading me wasn't too difficult. But if I'd refused...then..." she said, not willing to let the entire blame fall on the organization, on Maria and Fury. If she had truly been determined to not participate, she could have fought them on it, make them drag her kicking and screaming onto the boats. She didn't, though, and now, while she couldn't say she'd made the smartest choice in doing as she was asked, she'd felt it was better for her to have agreed. After all, if for nothing else, the little girl resting near her knee told her that much. She shrugged, a residual ache coursing up her back and making her wince. "It's happened. We can argue about it later."
Later, again; the refrain of the disagreements and the events of the last few days. However, it wasn't merely a gesture to put it off, but a promise to discuss it, truly, and she made it with honesty. Steve exhaled slowly at that, his fingers relaxing little by little.
"And here I was, hoping and praying that when I saw you again, it would be under better circumstances."
Holly snorted. "I'm with ya on that one, sweetie."
The use of the endearment cracked the veneer of seriousness around him, the corners of his mouth quirking. "This day has been so..."
"Bizarre?" she supplied, his little half-smile a reward for her summation. Her heart began to loosen, the tension in her chest and gut lessening. "I'd think you'd be used to it by now."
"You'd think that." A hand carded through his hair, the blond strands going awry and sticking up at strange angles due to the grease in it. "But with Sam and Bucky showing up...and you, too...I'm just..."
She nodded. It was one shock after another, in a situation that was literally life or death. While she couldn't really understand what it was like, she did know that underneath his commanding facade, he had to be reeling.
"Yeah. Welcome to the last four days of my reality," she tried to joke, lacing her hand with his and squeezing. "I think this is the end of the surprises, though, unless you've got one to spring on me."
His smirk was weak at best, but it was still there. She knew better than to think his feelings, his anger, would be forgotten, but she could see that he would not pursue it right at that moment. There was still too much at stake, there was still much to do before he could give way to it. Rather, he just reached out, cupping her chin in his palm and running a thumb across her skin. The gentle touch eased something in both of them.
"Be careful what you wish for," he muttered, tapping the curve of her jaw lightly. Leaning forward, he brushed his lips against her temple before moving away, jogging off the platform to meet with his newly arrived teammates.
xXxXxXx
Upon the nearby roof, Bucky Barnes had grounded several of the escaping robots, sniping them with as much ease as ever. The bullets he'd been provided had been specially smelted overnight on the helicarrier, a combination of metals that would pierce through thinner metal plates. However, he took care to aim at the weak points: the neck, the shoulders, the knees. Whatever he did not immediately shut down, he hindered long enough to allow Wilson or Rhodes to dispatch of (as well as that violet creature with the golden cape. Whoever he was, he was able to dismantle the robots with his bare hands, pushing through them). One the quinjet began to ascend, he'd initially thought his job had been finished, and soon he and the others would be able to go back to the carrier.
His gut clenched when he realized the intent of the vehicle was not a friendly one in the slightest. Through the scope of his rifle, he could see it sweep close to the city, opening fire not on the remaining robots, but on people. A roar ripped through the air, chilling him as he understood that the big green guy had been targeted, but the jet pulled away before he could pursue it. Following its path, he could see that it was making a beeline for the last lifeboats...for a man in a crimson cape, and for Rogers.
Soon enough, all he could see was red. Fury slammed into his ribs and drew out a desperate shout as the jet's guns began to fire.
xXxXxXx
Pietro knew himself. He knew exactly how difficult, how headstrong, he could be. It was his stubbornness that had allowed him to survive his trials with HYDRA, his well of strength drawn on again and again to keep himself from death and drowning in madness during the numerous experiments and exposures to the scepter over the last two years. He was always quick: quick to defend, quick to attack, quick to act. In childhood, his mother had reprimanded him many times for doing before thinking, and that had carried on into adulthood. He preferred it that way; it meant that when he acted quickly, he would more often than not get the result that he wanted. And the experiments with the scepter had accelerated those aspects of him, made his mind impossibly fast to keep up with as well as when he moved. He could think as he acted now, at an alarming rate.
But only after he'd started moving. And once again, he found himself in a position that required swift action and thinking.
The quinjet's guns spat out rounds, the fire preceding each a burst of white-hot intensity. Bolts of heat and flame pelted into the earth, a curtain of shells and dirt that cut down anything in the direct path. The god and the captain had lurched sluggishly to opposite sides, seeking cover as the jet narrowed in on them. Many screams, loud and long, echoed in his ears, the voices full of horror and sorrow. His gaze shifted from them to the projected trajectory, his stomach dropping at the sight. The archer was there, a boy in his arms. An innocent child, who had asked for none of this to happen, was in the direct line of fire. Barton had also spotted the jet, assessed the danger of it, and grimaced. Slowly (to Pietro's eyes) he knelt in the dirt, pivoting his body to protect the boy so that he would absorb most of the bullets. He would die, the younger man mused.
He would die...and now, he did not wish for it. Later, he would think about the fact that he no longer wished any of the people he'd fought with dead—to be fair, the only one he actually would have wished that on was Tony Stark—but at that moment, he simply could not let it happen. Pietro felt one foot move, compelling the other to follow in a mad dash to get to them first. Out the corner of his eye, he saw the winged man from before take flight, propelling himself against the glass of the cockpit. Plastered against the glass and distracting the automaton within, he had given Pietro the chance to do more than just shield them, as was his first plan. Instead, with the very narrow window of time that he was given, he instead capitalized on his reserve of strength, arms wrapping around both of them and hoisting them off the ground when he got to them. His pounding steps pushed them all back towards the market, a store's windows looming in front of him. At the last possible second he pushed up and twisted, shattering the glass with his own body. The trio broke through the barrier, the shards burrowing into Pietro's skin as he dropped the archer and the boy, skidding to a halt by the far wall. His head was spinning, but he was able to see through the shifting vision beyond. The blanket of fire had erupted outside in the street again, the bullets missing them by the thinnest of margins. Instead, shots embedded into the concrete and dirt, the jet zooming away from them.
"Kid? Kid!" Barton called to him, a hand tugging at his elbow. The grip was firm, strong, and enough to pull his face off of the floor. He let out a hoarse scream, jagged edges cutting and driving into him. Still, he did not answer the archer verbally. The concern in the other man's tone shot up as he tugged at his arm again. "Pietro!"
Panting hard, Pietro barely managed to raise his head up from the ground, the slashing glass wedging deeper with every breath. Opening his eyes, he viewed Barton's incredulous, unfathomable expression. A few cuts decorated his arms, one spilling blood from the corner of his jaw, but he was relatively unharmed. Weakly, the younger man smirked, chest rising and falling rapidly.
"Didn't see..." He closed his eyes too quickly, and did not see the archer's faint grin in response. Rather, he heard it in his words.
"Definitely not," he conceded, knowing exactly what he was going to say. A shift along the floor and the frightened breaths of another alerted him. He lifted one eyelid, looking up at the boy Barton had risked his life for. Though cut across the forehead and bruised, the child was alright. Good, he'd done well enough, he thought. The boy was alive, and so was his new teammate. He'd done what he could. The lid drooped back down, and the smirk returned in time for the archer to call out again. "Cap, I need a hand."
Faint crunches and footfalls became louder, skidding to a halt on his left side. It was getting tougher and tougher to try and maintain eye contact with any of them, and to ward off the pain, but he still made a valiant effort at both. Captain Rogers was kneeling shiftily in the glass, his shield hooked to his harness and shock in his eyes. His winged companion, hovering on the other side of the windowpanes, leaned against it, limping a little as he moved. He was battered, but not broken, from his bout with the jet.
"Oh, good lord," he heard the captain mutter, and feebly he waved a couple fingers in the air, as if to brush off the incredible pain ripping through his body. His eyes closed again, the darkness settling around him, the noises of the world bleeding away. The seep of his own blood joined it, dripping into the earth beneath him. Fingers pressed to his neck, but he did not feel them. There was only the pain, only the blood, only the quiet.
"He's breathing, but barely," Rogers stated to Barton, sharing a hard glance with the archer. Looping one of the battered man's arms about his shoulders, he started to lift him up. "We've gotta get him to the boat, now."
xXxXxXx
The fire in his blood was replaced by ice, his hated moniker never more true than in that moment as Bucky squared himself up. Though Rogers had risen up from the attack, and Wilson's efforts had at least not gotten him killed either, he was still infuriated. The enemy had commandeered their vessel, had turned it against them. He could not be allowed to continue. Pressing the stock firmly into his shoulder, he brought the rifle up again, determined to do just that.
"One shot, one good shot..." Bucky whispered, peering through the scope and watching the jet take another turn. The glint of sunlight off the glass of the cockpit gave him an idea of the bend and shape of it in his mind. Memories swam to the surface, of gunning down something similar in the past, but he pushed them back. Exhaling, he drew in one careful breath, tilting the gun swiftly. As the quinjet made another pass, much closer to him now, he fired.
Unbeknownst to him, he had actually missed his intended target, which was the pilot. Perhaps "missed" was not the correct term; he had successfully pierced the glass, and even nicked the android. However, the vibranium shell left over on his form had made the bullet ricochet off him. Ultron, sputtering in annoyance, looked down to follow its trajectory, eyes widening when he realized it had buried itself into the main control panel. The flight controls were not responding, the jet starting to spiral out of control. He made to stand, to save himself from the inevitable crash, but suddenly the craft lurched horribly from the back. Turning his head, he bit off a harsh curse as the great, green hulking mass of the doctor came scrabbling up the hatch. Viciously, he was seized and bodily hurled out of the jet. The blur of the landscape, of the jet barreling headlong into the nearby buildings, was lost to him, moving far too quickly for Ultron to keep up. Violently, he made contact with the ground, bouncing several feet before embedding himself into the broken carriage of a tram.
Perhaps it would be best for him to rest for a moment, he mused, shutting down into the proper mode so that he could adequately recover.
The crash of the jet rocked the buildings nearby, Bucky's included. He had witnessed the expulsion of the android from the vehicle, and had expected the green giant to extricate himself from the wreckage afterward, but when the dust settled, all was quiet. His sense of self-preservation told him to get off the rooftop, head back to the lifeboats and find Sam and Rogers, but as he strapped his rifle to his back and careened down the drainage pipe, he found his feet taking him in the opposite direction.
Vaulting over cracked asphalt and concrete medians, he darted between the abandoned cars, sharply turning left to get to the crash site. Smoke billowed from a side alley, allowing him to locate the trashed quinjet in a few minutes, fires ignited on its wings and along the ground leading up to it. Inside, dark gray clouds floated out of the open hatch, and the great monster that had impacted with it was nowhere to be found. Rather, on the lip of the hatch, torso and face pressed against the ground indicative of his attempt to crawl to safety, was a man. The fellow was bloodied, scratched and beaten up, his dark hair matted to his head. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and the remains of his pants were ragged and torn, the pale skin beneath speckled with oil and dirt. Sucking in a sharp breath (and consequently choking on the smoky air) Bucky stared at the smaller man.
That monster was this guy? The two pictures in his mind could not coalesce, even as he made his way through the insufferable heat and grabbed him up, linking the arms around his neck and carrying him away from the wreckage on his back.
The mechanical flutter and click of wings warned him of Sam's arrival. He'd figured after his headlong attack of the jet in question, he'd be taking a place on one of the boats, but apparently, that was not meant to be. Glancing over his shoulder, he noted the limp the other man had, his heavily favored right side bearing up the pain as he strode towards him. There was no surprise in his gaze, just recognition, as he looked upon the other guy. Whoever the man was, Wilson knew him, and knew what he turned into. Perhaps later he could provide more insight to that.
"Is he okay?" Sam asked, wincing as he approached. Adjusting the weight across his back and shoulders, Bucky grunted.
"I think so. Still breathing," he supplied, the muted hot breaths wafting over his neck as the guy's head lolled behind him. It was awkward, positioning him around the rifle on his back, but it was doable. Holding his arms tighter, he shared a grimace with Wilson, the silence in the air broken by the crackle of flame and coating it with smoke.
Coughing loudly, Sam shook his head, gesturing for him to keep moving. "Get him on the lifeboat, and then let's head on out."
Humming an agreement, Bucky pivoted back towards the alley he'd come out of. Time was running out, and he had to move fast to make sure not only he would live, but that his new ward would as well.
"See you over there," he told Sam, wings clicking out and the whoosh of air overhead his cue to start running hard.
xXxXxXx
He sensed her before he saw her. And she had expected no less from him.
Wanda, grease staining her neck and arms, a dribble of blood at her temple, stepped into the tram, her face contorted with rage and deep sorrow. Of course she knew what he had tried to do; she had felt her brother's pain as if it were she that had been attacked, as if her wounds were littered with glass and failing hope. Every jagged edge cut into her, making her breath short and her eyes water. Still, the faint beat of her brother's heart echoed in her ears, and so she had been able to stand her ground against the final onslaught of sentries in the church. Directing her pain and rage outward, she had struck them fiercely, a ring of mist and hexes cascading from one to the other in swift succession. And when all were dismantled, dead at her feet, she sought out the cause of the suffering and torment.
Though she could not read his soul, she was able to at least sense him. Enough contact with the sentries left something like a distinct mark in her mind, like a stench on the wind, or a cloud of algae in water. Wanda followed the stench back to the source, and found Ultron; his sprawled, damaged body activated upon her arrival, and his eyes met hers without hesitation.
Red mist ringed her hands as she knelt down beside him, watching the creature as he attempted to sit up. Sparks fluttered under his chest plating, at the joints of his arms and legs. Frayed wires snapped and crackled, threatening to terminate his life if he kept moving. Giving up on that, Ultron instead looked back at her frankly.
"You know why I am here," she said, voice raw with emotion. Carefully, he dipped his chin.
"Yes." Of course he knew. How could he not? Focusing on him, on his melted face and artificial eyes, she frowned deeply, her heart pounding. Nodding once, she stood up, a steely resoluteness he had never seen in her before. Wanda was powerful, Ultron had known that much. He knew that between her and her brother, she had the most potential, the ability to thrive and surpass the elder twin in ways he could not hope to imagine. All she had needed was a chance, and she could devastate the world.
Now, instead of it being the world, she would devastate and destroy him.
She exhaled slowly, her jaw tightening and body trembling. "It has to end, one way or another."
Clawed fingers reached up, reached out, as Ultron tried to reason with her. "Wanda, listen—"
At once, her control on her emotion slipped, the fury pouring out as she growled at him. She refused to let him speak another word. He threatened her country, her world, her family, and had done it with no remorse. With a lie and a smile, he had nearly succeeded; he'd betrayed their trust, manipulated their desires, all for his own benefit. The pulse of her brother beat faintly, the trace of his soul still present enough for her to sense at a distance, but it could be that he would not last long. Ultron offered them everything, but he left them with nothing. His vision, his world, could not be. He could not be.
The auras snaked out from her palms, projecting directly at him as she curled her fingers, turning her hands towards one another. The mist swirled and invaded him, his sensors at the join of his neck and head going haywire and rattling. Her eyes flushed to scarlet, the shade coloring everything in her line of sight as she wrenched her hands apart. Metal cracked, bent, and tore apart, oil spurting out and splashing over her in a wide arc as she separated Ultron's head from his body. Hexes went further into the two shells, frying the remaining circuits and shutting down both the body and manufactured brain of the creature. Both head and body shut down audibly, the last few quarts of oil and fluid pumping out of the headless torso, pooling at Wanda's feet. Tears that she could not feel slipping down her cheeks dripped into the mess, ignored as she stared down at the shattered corpse of her real enemy.
It was over. She had done it.
Breathing out shakily, she murmured to herself, "I prefer this ending."
xXxXxXx
Standing at the rail, with an arm wrapped around one of the connecting poles for the weaved roof above the lifeboat, Holly was teaching herself how to breathe properly once more. With Dasha still asleep, and Kay leading up another passenger—a stray dog, but still a worthy passenger to her eyes—she could afford to step away, the cold sweat on her brow and rapid beating in her chest slowing down.
The last ten minutes of her life had been heart attack-inducing, and her stomach threatened to spill its contents once more (of which there was very little left at that point). The quinjet making a near-fatal run at the team, at Steve, had nearly done it, she'd thought, her abject and pure relief at seeing him rise from the blanket of fire unscathed making her very weak for a second or two. It was replaced with disgust and sorrow when the male Maximoff was brought back, his injuries so deep the medics were still fussing over him even now. Clint sported a new tear in his side, but he was making due with a hasty binding and watching over the young man who had saved his life. He was joined by a young boy, a new bandage plastered to his forehead and hovering at the edges as the medics went to work, refusing to be called back by his older sister. And when Bucky returned with Doctor Banner, the smaller man unconscious and beat up, she thought she was just about ready to find Ultron herself and be done with it.
The barren landscape of the city before her was blotted with smoke and dust, the remains of the fallen dotting the streets. The sounds of the civilians mixed with the wind as the other lifeboat beside them, bearing Bucky and Sam, launched. Hers was poised for departure next, the last lifeboat to return to the helicarrier.
It was nearly time, and she didn't know if she could handle another near-miss like that.
'And you used to wonder what it would be like, when Steve went out on missions,' she groused to herself. 'Idiot. Congratulations on the nice, new nightmares you're going to have for the rest of your life after this.'
Inhaling and exhaling, she let her dark brown gaze wander across the cityscape again, up to the blue sky above, the thin air affecting her. They couldn't afford to wait much longer. The crew, however, was deferring the choice to leave to the captain, and were waiting as much as she was. And speaking of the captain, Steve shouldered his way off the boat, pattering down the lip of the ramp and sweeping his eyes over the city. It appeared that he was scanning the terrain, judging when it would be best to call back Wanda from her post (that woman had a lot of courage to stand up to those creatures alone, Holly had thought when she was told, just to protect it from even being touched). It had to be soon, she conjectured, and a a sense of release began to invade her system as she saw him lift his hand to his ear, ready to tap into the comm-links and make the call.
Suddenly, the whir of a hundred engines shutting down cut through the air. It took less than a second to react, but when Steve's shoulders tensed she knew something was very wrong. He pivoted on his heel, executing a leap just as the ground below him dropped away.
The horror and fear roared through her again, tearing the scream from her throat. "STEVE!"
As the city fell, he just managed to arch himself over the ramp, bodily shaking it as he landed on it. Holly tore away from the rail, shoving between people to get to him. The lifeboat lurched as its thrusters fired up, keeping it in the air now that its solid base was gone. Dropping to her hands and knees, she crawled out to him, her own safety entirely disregarded in her mind. Steve, transfixed by the sight below, did not turn his head until her fingers hooked into his belt, staring at her for a few breathless seconds as she maneuvered closer. As one, they both peered over the edge of the platform underneath them. The trail of gravel and destruction rose into the air behind it, pale blue trails of boosters forcing it to fall faster. Fire burned away the stone and tore through buildings, the momentum increasing with each passing second. The crackle of lightning made her hair stand on end, and a roll of thunder blasted through the air as electricity began to light up the rock plummeting below. Somewhere down there were his friends, members of his family, the fate of the world in their hands. She could faintly make out Tony's voice crowing from Steve's earpiece, a command that she could not understand. Steve could, though, and that was when he gripped her arm tightly, his somber expression and bated breath telling her that the final move was to be made. More bolts tore from the heavens, and a magnificent crash echoed through the clouds. Blinding white light spread through the rock, crumbling it and extinguishing its fires with a new one. The light spread out, cracking it and its spire into pieces, the rocks and concrete spreading out. The threat that Novi Grad had once posed was dismantled. It had become a rock fall from the sky, yes, and it would scatter over the face of the earth, but it would not destroy it.
"Holy...they...they did it," Holly gasped, eyes wide at the sight. It was done; whatever it was that Tony, Thor, and Wanda had set out to do to stop the city from leveling the earth, they'd met the challenge and completed it. She was unsure if Steve had heard her, as he was still bewitched by the last parts of the city falling down, but when he looked back at her, he nodded, almost folding in on himself in relief.
"Thank God," he muttered, his arm slinging over her and pulling her close, lips pressing into her hair as he shut his eyes and sighed.
A/N:...And that's part two. :)
Yep, I let Pietro live. His death, when you include the deleted scenes from the movie, makes a bit more sense—it's said in Thor's vision that a human sacrifice would bring about Ultron's destruction—but as they were cut out, it made the theatrical version of it unnecessary, in my eyes. Yes, noble self-sacrifice is a plot device that does work, but I think that, given that his strength is increased when his speed climbs, he could have just as easily grabbed up Clint and Costel and pulled them out of Ultron's path. So that's what he does here, and almost perishes. And Doctor Banner does not get to fly away. I've got a plan for him, and for Pietro as well. Also, I realize it may be impossible for Bucky to have made the shot that he did, but, well...superhero fanfiction. And the dude basically defies physics as it is.
And this may sound sick, but I am way more satisfied with how Wanda wrecks Ultron here. I like the symbolic, poetic nature of his death at her hands in the film, but this was just...exactly what I wanted it to be.
Some of you were pretty close with your guesses in regards to Kay last time...think Agents of SHIELD...
As Nick Fury has said, "After comes after." And we are now approaching "after."
I still don't own anything from the MCU, nor do I own any other pop culture references made.
Oh, one more thing...screw Nick Spencer. His Cap is not my Cap. No matter what Marvel does to its characters on paper for sales, I refuse to let them wreck the character in my heart. And that's all I am going to say about that.
Happy Memorial Day, everybody. Thanks to all who have served, who have lived and died in defense of the United States of America. Truly, your sacrifices were not in vain.
Thanks for reading, please review, and I'll see you all for the next one!