Towards the end of the night, most of the party-goers and bartenders had gone home. Only the Avengers and Agent Hill remained. Buzzed and a little tipsy, they were gathered around the coffee table, lazily playing cards. Elsie was cuddled up to Steve as he sipped on some beer and participated in the poker match.
Thor launched into the story behind his hammer Mjolnir-its origin, magic, and the conditions under which it can be lifted. Clint didn't quite believe what he was hearing, and Thor just laughed.
"But it's a trick," Clint accused him.
"No, no, it's much more than that," Thor explained.
"'Ah, whosoever be he worthy shall haveth the power.' Whatever, man! It's a trick."
"Please, be my guest," Thor motioned towards the hammer.
Clint took the bet and burst into chuckles when he couldn't lift it. "I still don't know how you do it," he said after giving up.
Tony took a turn and decides to try to cheat the hammer's rules by using basic physics before grabbing the arm of his suit to blast off. Nothing. Not even when he and Rhodey teamed up.
One by one, almost everyone took a turn trying to lift it, but to no avail.
When Steve takes a turn, Elsie thought she heard just a small sound of the hammer's metal scraping the table. She blinked but brushed it off as being buzzed when Steve couldn't lift it.
When Nat was offered a turn, she quickly turned it down.
"All deference to the Man Who Wouldn't Be King," Tony says, "but it's rigged."
"You bet your ass," Clint agrees.
"Steve," Hill perked up, a beer bottle in hand, "he said a bad language word."
Steve immediately looked at Tony. "Did you tell everyone about that?"
"The handle's imprinted, right?" Tony ignored him, his focus on Thor. "Like a security code. 'Whosoever is carrying Thor's fingerprints' is, I think, the literal translation."
"Yes," Thor nodded as he stood. "It's a very, very interesting theory. I have a simpler one." He picks up his hammer with ease and flips it in his hand. "You're all not worthy."
Groans and eye-rolls circled the room.
Suddenly, a high-pitched ringing pierced the air. Shrill. Unnatural.
"What the heck?" Elsie asked as she rubbed her temple.
Clanking metal and wires thumped against the floor. A distorted, metallic voice repeated, "Wooooooorrrrrrtthhhyyyy. No."
Elsie jumped up, hiding behind Steve and squeezing his arm.
Horror loomed over the team as they laid eyes on the tall, grotesque robot behind them as it staggered towards them as a puppet twisted unnaturally by invisible strings. It resembled one of Tony's suits but twisted, darker, and wrong. The helmet's face mirrored that of a botched Jack-O-Lantern carving on metal.
"How could you be worthy?" it rasped. "You're all killers."
"Stark," Steve said, wondering what he was looking at.
"Jarvis," Tony called for the UI. No answer.
"I'm sorry, I was asleep," the robot said, its head twitching. "Or I was a-dream."
It was as if a toddler was learning how to talk and process words.
"Reboot Legionnaire OS," Tony ordered into his remote screen. "We got a buggy suit."
"There was this terrible noise," continued the robot. "And I was tangled in…in…strings. I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy."
"You killed someone?" Steve flinched.
"Wouldn't have been my first call. But, down in the real world, we're faced with ugly choices."
"Who sent you?" Thor asked him.
"I see a suit of armor around the world," it mimicked Tony's voice.
The tech genius stood there shocked. It had listened to his conversation with Bruce about creating-
"Ultron," Bruce realized.
"In the flesh," the robot confirmed his identity. "Or, no, not yet. Not this chrysalis. But I'm ready."
Everyone else subtly drew their weapons, Elsie letting go of Steve.
"I'm on a mission," Ultron continued.
"What mission?" Nat interrogated. A pause.
"Peace in our time."
The legionnaires burst through the walls, attacking the team and sending Steve, Elsie, and Hill airborne. The two women began firing their weapons at the drones, while everyone else began their counterattacks.
Glass shattered. Bottles spilled. Weapons fired.
Those who weren't armed either hid or fought with what they had, while the rest returned fire.
Complete chaos.
"The scepter!" Elsie cried when she spotted a drone flying away with it.
While she didn't have her rockets on her, she was able to quickly pull her throwing stars out of her tweed skirt. With the flick of her wrists, the sharp edges of the stars scratched the drone; but they did little damage.
"Damnit," she hissed just before she's tackled by another drone. She drew her pistol, fired point-blank into the suit's helmet, and kicked free as it short-circuited.
"That was dramatic," Ultron says as the dust settles. "I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through." He paced slowly. "You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to…evolve?" He picked up a damaged suit's torso. "With these? These puppets." He crushed the helmet. "There's only one path to peace: the Avengers' extinction."
Thor didn't wait. He launched Mjolnir, destroying Ultron's body in one blow.
With his voice box fading, Ultron gives one last cryptic message, "I had strings…but now I'm free."