*A/N Poached from the What If…? series on Disney+ because my creativity is limited and Marvel's is not. Premise: Ultron won and the world was decimated. But STRIKE team DELTA survived. Are they enough to save the multiverse?
May 2015
"I see a suit of armour around the world."
Little had Tony Stark known the consequences that would follow the words he had uttered in confidence to Bruce Banner. Little did Wanda Maximoff realize the monster she gave birth to when she let Tony Stark take the sceptre after feeding him his worst fear.
It took only one week to end life on Earth. In the span of three days, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner built enough to give Ultron life. In the span of a few hours, Ultron escaped the Avengers. And in the span of four days, he created an indestructible vibranium body. And he celebrated that achievement by destroying all life as it had been known.
STRIKE team DELTA heard and saw the end live.
After a failed mission to retrieve the cradle in Korea, the three former SHIELD agents had taken the quinjet and started for Norway where the rest of the team were already gathered, preparing to stop Ultron.
"Ultron's going after the nuclear codes." Tony informed the trio anxiously as Clint took them ever higher into the sky, trying to build speed. "I don't know how much longer we can hold him off."
"We have to take out the satellite network." Natasha looked at her team. "He won't be able to launch the nukes without them."
Clint and Arianna nodded in agreement. As Clint took them almost directly toward the sun, Arianna moved slightly back and switched her comm unit to a private line.
"Steve."
Clint and Natasha glanced back at their youngest member before looking forward once more, giving Arianna a tiny bit of privacy as she talked to her boyfriend.
"Ria." Steve answered, his tone low as he spoke to her as privately as he could while amongst their friends and fellow Avengers. There wasn't time for them to find privacy; they could get what little their friends could give them.
"You regret taking so long to ask me out on a date yet?" Arianna asked as lightly as she could. It had been a running joke in the team for two years that Steve was too uptight when he refused to make a move on Arianna despite her dropping increasingly obvious hints, including when she'd papered an entire wall in the Avengers tower with excerpts of the law pointing to over sixteen as being treated as an adult equivalent.
"I'll always regret that. But what I'll most regret is not giving you more good ones." Steve responded. There was a loud bang from his side of the comms and Arianna knew they were running out of time. Steve knew it too.
"We might need a raincheck on that date tomorrow." He commented steadily and Arianna closed her eyes briefly.
"I told you it was ambitious to think we'd get to do a regular anniversary with Stark around." Arianna joked half-heartedly after taking a deep breath.
"You never did like him." Steve agreed. It was possibly the understatement of the century; Arianna and Tony had bickered endlessly for the last three years since their first meeting on the Helicarrier. Mostly because Tony couldn't seem to get past Arianna's young age (ironic given he still often acted like he was six) and Arianna because she despised him treating her like a child (probably given said irony).
A louder bang from Steve's side made Arianna's fist tighten and she breathed deeply again.
"I love you." The words were blurted out but she meant them.
"I love you, too." Steve's response was steady, as always. He then hesitated and started, "Ria, if we don't make it, I-"
What was the saying? Famous last words?
It was minutes after an explosion sounded over the comms and Steve abruptly cut off that team DELTA saw the world's entire cache of nuclear bombs rain down from the sky. Arianna's hands flew to her mouth as the meaning of what that meant hit them while Clint's blue eyes widened in despair.
"We're too late. He did it." Natasha murmured numbly. Clint's eyes filled with unshed tears.
"Laura..." Clint whispered.
Arianna meanwhile choked on a sob as her leg buckled and she fell down on one knee as they watched the world burn down to ash far below. In a way, it didn't matter - her world had already been imploded at Ultron's hand.
Some long time later
Arianna waited patiently, hidden in the shadows of the desolate buildings and mountains that rose around her crouched position on the edge of the tenth floor in an empty building. The building, like those around her, was only half intact with the remnants of the windows littered on the ground only a few floors down. The once vibrant downtown itself was little more than dust and ruin by this point - much like the entire planet.
Shaking off that depressing thought, Arianna perked up as Natasha's familiar voice sounded in her ear.
"Here they come. We've got 90 seconds. Start the clock."
At the redhead's signal, Arianna hit the button on the side of her watch. The timer immediately started counting down from 90. Looking up, she fixed her eyes on the roof of a particular building further down the street. Not a second later, dark, thin shadows suddenly appeared from the roof edge, soaring straight and true. Arianna watched the arrows rain down on the droids that trailed behind a motorcycle tearing down the ruined street. The droids instantly fell victim to Clint's arrows and crashed into the Earth, arrows sticking up into the air proudly from where they had pierced the droids' heads.
But they were far from out of the woods yet.
Arianna's eyes narrowed as she saw another squadron of droids zip out from their sentry post not far from her own hiding place. Immediately, their targets locked onto the speeding motorcycle and Ultron's minions started firing at Natasha.
"On your left." Arianna warned.
"Yeah, I got it, thanks." Natasha quipped back sarcastically as she expertly swerved and dodged the blasts. "I could use a little help."
A second barrage of arrows rained down on the droids, dropping them like flies as Natasha continued on down the street. She skirted around an abandoned car and ended up climbing the side of a building before she brought herself back down onto the ground. Arianna saw Clint's arrows suddenly stop providing backup as he was undoubtedly discovered by more droids, while from around the corner of the street, more droids started to congregate around the area Natasha was headed. They weren't yet visible to the Russian spy but from her place at the street corner, Arianna had the perfect view of their flight path.
"More incoming." She informed her teammates over the comms as she got up and tossed a rope over the side of the building. The almost black line was invisible to the naked eye as the shadows grew longer around them with the moon's path in the sky; just as they'd timed it.
"Then get a move on, Aria." Natasha commented dryly.
Arianna didn't bother to respond as she stepped onto the ledge of the building - and then she let herself tip over the side. Her feet quickly landed on the building's side and she rappelled her way swiftly down in the way Natasha had taught her years ago. She opened fire as she went, aiming with a handgun and throwing several of her sharpest knives right into the neck of Ultron's droids, severing the main control cords and cutting off their power. She also tossed a couple hand explosives in for good measure and quickly, the droids just rounding the corner in front of Natasha went down while Natasha's own explosives took care of the ones following her.
Reaching the end of her line, Arianna jumped off the side of the building she'd been on, just as Natasha zoomed by. Arianna landed on the seat behind Natasha as she let go of her line; she almost fell off the motorcycle as she did, but Natasha gripped her tightly with one hand, helping Arianna stabilize herself. And then they were on their way again, zipping around the corner and circling back around.
"We've got thirty seconds until their signals reconnect with the hive." Natasha called as she checked her watch while Arianna straightened behind her.
"Thanks for catching me." Arianna gasped as she regained her breath and held onto Natasha's back.
"We need to train you some more on rappelling again - that leap at the end was abysmal." Natasha noted.
"Only because your timing was off - you need to ride more." Arianna quipped back.
Their lighter banter was interrupted as they turned the corner and Arianna sucked in a sharp breath as she saw Clint falling off the roof of his building, tackled off by one of Ultron's droids.
"Clint!" Arianna gasped as Natasha hit the gas pedal, driving them faster toward their friend. Clint thankfully landed not far below the roof, hitting the wind-swept sand where he rolled down the makeshift mountain and landed with a groan on the ground. The droid that had tackled him remained down from where Clint had ripped its head off with his knife, but two remaining droids flew in to take Clint down. Before they could even aim at him, Natasha drove their bike up an abandoned car, using it as a makeshift ramp… and then slammed their bike into the droids.
Clint raised his head with a groan as Arianna hopped off the bike and walked over to him.
"Need a hand?" She asked as she held out a hand, brow raised high as she looked to the empty socket where Clint's metal left arm had been. Clearly, one of Ultron's droids had blasted that off at some point before Clint was tackled off the roof.
Natasha meanwhile found said arm where it had rolled down not far behind Clint and she picked it up while Clint groaned.
"You two are terrible." He grumbled as he grasped Arianna's hand. She hauled him up and Natasha handed him his arm back even as she checked her watch. The light-hearted grin Clint's words had inspired disappeared quickly when she saw the time.
"We're getting rusty." She commented seriously. "A couple more seconds and the Sentry signals would have alerted the Ultron hive mind to our location."
"Which is… where, exactly?" Clint asked pointedly as he circled his newly attached metal arm, trying to get comfortable.
Natasha looked into the distance.
"Home, sweet home. Well, what's left of it anyway."
Clint and Arianna stared at the ruined remnants of the famous golden domes of St. Petersburg's monumental church.
"So, you really think the secret to taking down Ultron is here?" Clint gestured around them.
"It's Russia, Hawkeye." Natasha answered. "Secrets were the national pastime."
"It's scary that that used to scare us. Now, it really does seem like 'peace in our time' compared to what Ultron's done across the universe." Arianna muttered.
Clint was silent in his agreement while Natasha could only sigh as they thought about the superbot who now ruled the entire universe, a universe made solely of metal robots after he'd wiped out all life wherever he found it.
"It does, doesn't it?"
Inside the KGB
The trio stared as the door slid open… revealing an enormous warehouse filled with rows upon rows of bookcases filled to the brim with boxes. Arianna's mouth parted slightly in shock while Clint chuckled mirthlessly.
"Oh, boy."
Natasha patted her friend's shoulder. "Welcome to the KGB archives."
"They really did their diligence." Arianna breathed.
Natasha grinned grimly. She was the first to step into the dimly lit archives. Arianna slowly followed behind the redhead while Clint let out a deep sigh before he finally also joined his 'sisters'.
As the three wandered deeper into the warehouse-like basement, Clint asked, "Have you ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark? Ever seen that?"
"Love that movie." Natasha answered.
"That's an old people movie, right?" Arianna asked, glancing at Clint with the faintest trace of the old humour she'd had before the universe imploded.
Clint scoffed, the faintest hint of the man he'd been before peeking through before he looked around the shelves of boxes again. The humour slid off his face quickly.
"Your countrymen never heard of PDFs?" Clint asked dryly.
"Hard copies are harder to steal, easier to destroy." Natasha answered. "But code, code is slippery and it never dies."
"You don't say." Arianna muttered and Clint agreed.
"Yeah, I think we learnt that the hard way."
Reaching one particular row of shelves, the trio paused and Clint glanced at Natasha expectantly.
"So, where do we start?"
Natasha pulled a heavy box off the shelf nearest to her. "Just pick a box."
Both Arianna and Clint stared at her briefly in horror and then looked around at the archive that now looked infinitely larger.
Clint let another deep sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose while Arianna muttered, "Guess it's a good thing none of us have any plans anymore."
"Yeah." Clint mumbled as Arianna tugged a box nearby. Clint pulled his own from the opposite shelf and silence fell over the group as they started rifling through the many, many folders within their boxes.
Several hours later
Arianna was slowly starting to lose her mind as she looked through her she-had-stopped-counting-after-forty-th box.
The only sound since they'd started their search had been the shuffling of papers and musty folders and the sliding of boxes off shelf after shelf. The dank air had grown heavier with all the dust they were throwing up into the air as they pulled out boxes that had clearly not been moved in decades. And the only thing they had to show for their efforts so far was a trail of rows upon rows of shelves filled with opened boxes.
The silence was finally broken when Natasha made a noise. Arianna lifted her head briefly to look at the older woman curiously. She already knew Natasha hadn't found what they were looking for in the tone of the redhead's exclamation: but she wasn't sure she was fully prepared for when the Russian stood up with a red circular shield. Shape aside, it looked nothing like Steve's. And in her head, Arianna knew it must be the shield that had belonged to the Red Guardian, Russia's poor attempt to copy Captain America. But it still made her heart constrict tightly and she was suddenly blinking back tears. It didn't matter - they would never fall, anyway.
The lines in Clint's face had also hardened as Natasha looked up at Arianna and then held out the shield.
"Do you want it?"
Arianna's hand reached out so fast, they were sure she was going to fling the shield away. But at the last moment. her hand stopped just an inch away from the shield. Clint and Natasha watched expressionlessly as Arianna's fingers slowly curled around the edge of the shield and she slowly took it from Natasha to pull it against her stomach. Arianna stared down at the shield where the shiny metal showed her reflection. She saw a tired, dirty young woman with dead hazel eyes and a withering will to live. A far cry from the bright-eyed teenage girl who had rushed from the aftermath of the Battle of New York to sit the rest of her high school final exams and flirted shamelessly with Captain America when she got back..
"It suits you."
Arianna slowly lifted her eyes back up to Natasha, who just continued to stare at her.
"It doesn't, and we all know it." Arianna answered quietly, dropping the Russian copy of what had once been a symbol of hope to the world… and the symbol of the man who had been Arianna's whole world.
Natasha's expression softened while Clint just turned away, unable to see the dimming of Arianna's eyes. He started to reach for the next box… before letting out his deepest sigh yet.
"This is pointless."
The two women turned to look at him as Clint turned to lean back against the shelves before he slid to the ground.
"Clint-" Arianna started and Clint raised a hand to silence her.
"I know you feel it too, Ria. My will-to-live meter is flat-lining, and I can see the same in you."
Arianna averted her gaze, unable to deny his words. Natasha however stepped forward determinedly and she started in a coaxing tone, "Hey, Clint, come on. If we want to take down Ultron, we need an AI that can combat his code."
"Yes, I know." Clint snapped, glaring at Natasha. "But it's not here. Sorry to break it to you, Nat, the Death Star plans are not in the main computer."
Arianna sighed, starting to feel the small hope remaining in her fade with Clint's words; but Natasha disagreed. "We're gonna find it. It just takes time."
"What are we gonna avenge when we're 90?!" Clint growled. But Natasha remained unfazed; they had all been there before.
"You're frustrated. I get it-"
"I'm not frustrated." Clint interrupted, the fight suddenly going out of him. He stared up at Natasha with weary blue eyes, suddenly looking a lot older than his age. "I'm tired, okay? We've all lost so much, and I'm not sure there's anything left worth fighting for. He's already taken over every program on the planet."
"Yes, yes." Natasha agreed readily before her eyes grew steely. "Every digital program. The one that I have in mind is a little more… analog."
She reached for the box Clint had abandoned and started to riffle through. Arianna, however, turned to look despairingly down the endless boxes they still had left, Clint's words echoing through her head... when Natasha let out a soft exclamation.
"No way."
It was all there in the redhead's voice. Arianna whirled around, heart already pounding with anticipation. Anticipation that was not disappointed when Natasha turned and waved the folder she had just pulled triumphantly.
"Feel like a real jerk for almost quitting?" Natasha smirked when Clint gave her a dumbfounded look while Arianna hurried over to read the file over Natasha's shoulder. Her heart leapt when she saw the first word on the page; Zola.
"What? You found it?" Clint exclaimed, still in disbelief as he leapt to his feet and rushed to peer over Natasha's shoulder. "That was my box."
"Mhm, no one cares, Barton." Natasha winked, glad to see her friends rejuvenated once more.
Arianna wasn't even listening as she read the file and noted, "An old HYDRA base in Siberia."
She looked up. "And you really think he's going to help us destroy Ultron?"
"Yes." Natasha nodded. Arianna looked back down at the page.
"How ironic that this is who will help me get what I want." The brunette murmured. She shook her head before Natasha could do more than betray a flash of concern.
"It's fine. I can handle it."
"I know."
But Natasha's green eyes continued to watch her younger friend, her sister, as Arianna strode out of the archive. For the first time in a long while, there was determination in her step. And yet…
Why were things never just simple?
It should have been a simple matter to get into the old Siberia base, pick up Zola and take out Ultron's hive mind. The former scientist had agreed to their plan readily enough - after it was explained to him that the world, much less HYDRA, was gone. And after Clint threatened to dump a canteen of water all over Zola's harddrive, the way he had ruined many laptops at SHIELD back in the way. Boy, had SHIELD IT hated him.
But regardless, the hard part of getting Zola onboard was over much faster than they dared hoped and he had willingly downloaded himself onto the chip in the head of one of Clint's arrows. Ultron's on-world sentries had also fallen for the bait Natasha put out and come hunting in the now-on-fire base (Arianna's speciality). And finally, Clint's arrow had flown straight and true, as always, and had embedded in one of the sentries where Zola could upload himself into Ultron's hive mind. Everything had gone exactly as planned. All they'd needed to do was give it 90 seconds for Zola to get fully uploaded.
So why was Ultron's hive mind out of range?!
"We have to move!" Arianna urged as the sentries finally broke a hole through the blast doors the trio had been hiding behind while they waited for Zola to get fully uploaded.
Natasha grabbed the legless Zola-sentry and hauled the metal body behind her as Clint and Arianna fired on the sentries slowly breaking their way through the breach. The decommissioned sentries were quickly replaced by others, however, and Clint gestured to Arianna. Together, the pair fired one more shot each before they dashed after Nat without even bothering to check they hit their targets. The clang of a bullet and the thwack of an arrow piercing metal told them they had not missed anyway.
The trio hurried to climb up the launch bay, scaling the metal rails on the sides of the cylindrical building as fast as they could. They weren't fast enough. The screech of metal made them look down to see the sentries pouring through a large breach in the door before they flew up like a swarm of bees right after the DELTA team.
"Go, go, go!" Clint yelled. Natasha hurried to climb higher with Zola on her back while Arianna and Clint opened fire on the sentries once more.
"Ria, go after Nat!" Clint ordered and the brunette scoffed as she took down sentry after sentry from half a level above the blond man.
"Not until you move."
One of her guns clicked as it hit empty; Arianna threw it so hard it smashed the shoulder joint of one of the sentries before she started alternating knives and bullets with her remaining gun. Clint, realizing she had no intentions of moving and quickly running out of arrows himself, started to run. At once, Arianna moved with him, matching his pace as she moved higher and higher up the rails while Natasha - who had reached a safer height - covered their movements as best as she could from above.
"Oh yeah - this is a happy twenty-first birthday, all right." Arianna muttered sarcastically.
Her gun clicked again at the same time Clint ran out of regular arrows; her last bullet hit a sentry and Clint dove across and fired his second to last arrow into the swarm below. The arrow released a couple detonators as it flew through the air - and in the space of two seconds, the detonators locked onto the side of the building where they released a laser shield across the entire circumference of the building. The sentries hit the shield, but Arianna could see it wouldn't last long under the combined strength of all the machines pressing against it.
"Clint, let's go!" Arianna called as she hurried to reach Natasha high above. Clint ran after them as Natasha turned as well, making her way up to the open top of the launch bay and their only means of escape.
Suddenly, several blasts fired their way and Arianna grunted as she was almost sent tumbling off her rail. Clint wasn't as lucky as the entire metal grid he'd leapt toward shook just before he could land properly on it. With a sharp cry, he fell.
"Clint!" Natasha yelled while Arianna immediately turned on her heel.
"Nat, get Zola out of here!" Arianna ordered as she started to make her way down toward where Clint was now hanging precariously on the edge of a rail a few feet below. Avoiding blaster fire, Arianna reached him just as Clint's grip failed and she dove to catch him before Clint could fall.
"I've got you!" Arianna grunted as she held onto Clint's arm tightly. Their supporting grid creaked ominously under their combined weight while from above, Natasha fired down at the sentry whose arm had broken through the barrier enough to be able to shoot at them.
Her bullets hit but didn't penetrate the hard metal armour of the sentry's arm; but something else did. Zola fired down at Ultron's sentries from beside Nat's foot, his laser blasts proving much more effective in damaging the metal soldiers, as Arianna struggled to pull Clint up without tilting the weight balance on their rail enough for it to break.
"Ria, Clint, hang on." Natasha called as she started to move down toward her friends. Arianna nodded while Clint glanced down at the chaos below as Ultron's sentries tried to simultaneously avoid Zola and aim at the cornered trio of humans.
"Clint, just-" Arianna started, when Clint suddenly looked up. The look on his face made the words die on her lips and her heart drop like a stone into her stomach. "No."
"I told you," Clint murmured, his voice as steady as his defeated gaze. "I don't want to fight anymore."
"No-"
Clint pushed off, away from Arianna's grip, at the same time that the shield below failed.
"Clint!" Natasha yelled while Arianna screamed, reaching futilely for the man who had been like a father to her.
Clint kept his eyes steadily on them for a fraction of a second, saying with that one look just how much he loved them. His last remaining family. And then he turned and, reaching back, he notched his last arrow for the last time.
"Ria, move!" Natasha yelled as she backtracked quickly, grabbing Zola and running once more for the exit. Arianna didn't move immediately, still reaching after Clint desperately, and Natasha was about to shout once more when Clint yelled back without even looking back.
"GO!"
Arianna finally did as ordered, rushing after Natasha and moving more quickly without the extra weight the redhead was struggling with. She caught up to the Russian near the open hatch just as Clint fired his last arrow right into the eye of the nearest Ultron sentry. The orange tip blinked once; and then the world was engulfed in orange flames as the arrow erupted with enough force to wipe out a small army. Just as Clint had intended.
Arianna and Natasha barely escaped the same fate as the Ultron sentries, leaping to safety outside with Zola clanging on the ground beside them. Zola went rolling as Natasha let go to tumble over to land perfectly on her feet. Arianna rolled onto her feet automatically as well, like the good agent she was. But where Natasha immediately rose to her feet to start falteringly toward the flames still licking the sides of the hole they'd escaped out of, Arianna remained on all fours with her head down. Two small droplets splashing onto the snowy ground next to her trembling, fisted hand was the only movement from the young brunette who had lost so much.
And, it seemed, the universe wasn't done taking what little she had left just yet.
*A/N In case it wasn't clear, my version of this story does take place three years after my prior What if story, "What if… Arianna was a high schooler in May 2012?". There is no need to read that one, but certain things like timing and character interactions will make more sense. Hope you all enjoyed this one and have a Happy New Year!