Chapter 22
“Okay, we seriously need to head out, like right now!”
Dean clutched his gun tightly, he was tense the moment they saw on the screen Dark Tony killing Dark Bobby. “That guy obviously in a very bad mood and won’t hesitate to kill us all. We only have less than thirty minutes left, before Pain-in-the-ass Erik will blow up this place, without caring if we made it out or not!”
“I know! Dean, I know!” Tony exclaimed in frustration as he looked up from what he was doing. “I am working as fast as I could here!”
“What is the problem exactly?” Bucky asked with a frown, trying to follow the conversation.
“We want to get that Charles out, but we are worried if we removed the wrong wires from him, it might kill him in the process.” Charles explained as patiently as he could in the middle of all of this. “We don’t know what they are using him for, so we need to be cautious here.”
“I think I know what they are doing with him.” Natasha muttered with a frown, making everyone look at her in surprise.
“How do you know?” Clint wondered in confusion.
“Think about it, it is pretty obvious.” She sighed nervously as she tried to explain. “Back home, when Tony created Ultron, he used the Mind Stone, right?”
“Thank you for mentioning that, but yeah it’s true.” Tony confirmed in frustration, as he eyed her with a raised eyebrow.
“That Mind Stone you got from Loki’s staff. In this world, there is no Thor. No Loki. No Avengers. No Chitauri invasion. Then how the hell did that other Tony created Ultron without the Mind Stone?”
“He used the second-best close thing to it.” Dean murmured in realization as they all turned towards Charles, who had a deep frown on his face.
“Fuck, so you are saying that my fucker of a doppelganger used this world’s Charles’ powers against his will, to create a version of Ultron that is less chaotic than the one I created with the Mind Stone.” Tony concluded with a pale face as he took the realization in.
“That’s what I think, yeah.” Natasha shrugged, looking like she hates that discovery, no matter how true it was.
“Fucking hell, that guy is a soulless bastard.” Tony breathed out with a shake of his head, eyeing AU Steve who was standing in a corner looking pale and sick the moment Dark Tony made his appearance.
“So, if we removed my doppelganger from this pod, Ultron might go offline?” Charles wondered, as he checked over the hundreds of wires connected to the pod.
That made them stop a little, since they didn’t think about that possibility.
“It’s worth a try.” Tony decided as he launched at the wires with more focus than before. “This will make things much easier back home.”
“Guys! Guys, we have a problem!” AU Raven and Logan crashed into the room and rushed towards them, while panting harshly.
“What now?” Dean muttered as he turned to them with a nervous frown.
“The moment Erik knew that our Stark is here, he sent a missile that will be here in less than four minutes!” AU Raven exclaimed frantically, looking panicked.
“What? We are supposed to have thirty more minutes!” Bucky’s eyes widened as everyone tensed and started to panic.
“Well, he really, really wants Stark dead so he ignored his own words and attacked.” AU Logan sighed in frustration.
“Fuck! Why did I have to be a fucking bastard in this world?!” Tony yelled in frustration.
“Can we stop the missile?” Natasha questioned urgently, looking at AU Raven.
“No, it is controlled by his powers. The only one who can stop it, is Erik himself, and I don’t think he will do it. So, we need to get out of here, now!” she made a move to grab at Natasha, but Charles stepped forward to grip her arm instead.
“If he knew what we found here, he will stop the attack.” He said confidently, as he dragged AU Raven towards the pod.
“What are you talking about? Charles, you need to get out of here! Not waste more-“ the words choked in her throat, the moment she laid eyes on the figure laying inside the pod. “Oh my God.”
“What?” AU Logan rushed to see what made her freeze like that, only to stop and stare in return when he saw it too.
“Charles.” AU Raven murmured in disbelieve and shock, a tear sliding down her face. “What did they do to you?”
“Erik. I need to call Erik, before he makes the biggest mistake in his life!” AU Logan exclaimed as he rushed out of the room to go back to the car and call his commander.
“Meanwhile, as Logan, hopefully, manages to convince Erik, we need to get moving to open the gateway.” Dean said firmly, facing his friends.
“How? There is an army out there and an evil Iron Man.” Clint frowned nervously.
“We will attack head on and push our way through. That’s the only way.” He turned then to Tony and Charles. “You two try to get this Charles out as fast as you could, until we open the gateway, then you leave him with Logan and join us, you get it?”
“Yeah, yeah, we got it.” Tony nodded at him, while Charles gave him a quick smile.
“I will stay with them.” AU Steve murmured, finally getting out of his trance as he turned towards them with a determined look, despite his pale face. “I will make sure they join you as soon as possible.”
“Good, that’s good. Thank you.” Dean nodded at him gratefully, before facing the rest of the team, AU Raven just kept standing silently, eyeing her Charles like she completely forgot everything around her. “Everyone with me? Let’s fight our way home.”
***
In the pent house, things weren’t going well.
Ultron stood in the middle of the room, firing relentlessly at the team, while laughing manically and expertly avoiding their attacks.
“Dammit, he is as annoying as our version.” Steve muttered, as he and Erik ducked behind the kitchen counter to avoid Ultron’s relentless attacks.
“Isn’t he made of metal? Why don’t you crush it?” Logan asked in frustration, when he was thrown harshly to the floor next to them.
Meanwhile, Wilson and Rhodey were shooting at the robot, who laughed harder as he shoots a beam of energy from his chest that made them duck fast behind a thrown off couch, while Thor screamed bloody murder as he charged towards the robot with his hammer.
“He is not made of any magnetic metal that I could manipulate; don’t you think I would have done it if I could?” Erik snapped in frustration, as he and Logan proceeded to glare at each other.
“God, I wish Tony is here.” Steve groaned as he closed his eyes in pain, when Thor was gripped by the throat and then thrown to crash against the windows, thankfully not falling from it as he gripped the frame at the last second.
“Do you actually think they are still alive out there?” Erik questioned, half bitterly, half hopefully.
“Seriously? Erik, they are the most stubborn, most reckless people in the entire world. They are not that easy to kill.” Steve answered firmly, trying to reassure himself along with Erik. “They will find their way back to us any moment now.”
Meanwhile, Ultron was coming towards the kitchen, where they were hiding, with a grin on his robotic face.
***
“Hold the hangar! Don’t let them open the gateway manually!”
Dark Tony was screaming at his soldiers, getting frustrated the longer it took the heroes to attack.
What the hell are they planning? What is taking them so long to make a move?
All was important at the moment, was to stop them from leaving and for him to go the control room.
He needed to make sure that the battery was still intact.
He was about to make a move towards the door that will lead him to the mentioned room, when it suddenly exploded, making every soldier that was close to it get thrown harshly throw the room.
From the exploded door, came Dean, Natasha, Bucky and Clint, shooting relentlessly with their guns at the soldiers, as they made their way forcefully through the hangar.
“What the hell are you waiting for? Shoot them back!” he yelled in pure anger at the sudden attack, he was about to move, when he noticed one of his soldiers making his way discreetly towards the lever that will open the gateway.
He knew exactly who that was.
***
“Fucking hell, Erik, just answer!” AU Logan shouted in frustration, when he kept calling the commander without any use. “I am trying to stop you from making a huge mistake, you stubborn idiot!”
From afar, he could see the missile approaching fast, making him more desperate by each passing second, as the commander kept ignoring his calls.
“Dammit, Erik!”
***
Dean ducked behind craters and huge vehicles as he kept shooting at the soldiers, who in return rained their own bullets on him.
“This is taking longer than it should.” Natasha yelled over at him, as he ducked with her behind a rather large crater.
“The army is larger than I planned.” He shouted back over the shooting; frustration evident in his voice. “And they are shooting with intent to kill. Raven is our only hope in getting closer to that damned lever at the moment.”
***
AU Raven, taking the form of one of the soldiers, used the chaos that was happening around her, to make her way fast towards the lever.
She was almost there, just a few feet away. No one was stopping her. No one was paying her any attention.
When she was about to touch the lever, a metal hand wrapped around her throat suddenly, raising her from the floor.
She gasped and looked down, only to find herself face to face with a smirking Dark Tony Stark.
“Raven. Long time no see.” He greeted in a smug voice, eyeing her intensely. “To be honest, I thought you died along with Magnets.”
She froze, keeping her form firmly, not planning to back down.
“S-sir! Please, I-I don’t know who are you talking about!” she let out in her most scared voice, keeping the act that she was just another soldier.
“Cut the crap.” He snapped harshly, tightening his metal fist around her throat, it was getting harder and harder to focus on keeping her form. “Do you think I don’t know how you walk? We used to be close, you know?” He grinned wickedly at her, making her almost throw up in revulsion. “Show your face, Raven, or I will snap your neck.”
He tightened his grip more harshly, and that’s when she completely lost control over her form.
Her blue skin made appearance. Effectively making his smug grin widen as he watched her.
“You are a survivor. I will give you that.” He grinned at her, bringing her face closer to his. “You know, in that other world, I saw a version of you. I felt nothing. Just like how I feel right now.”
With that, he threw her against the wall, which she hit hard before crashing to the floor. Motionless.
***
“Fuck.” Dean cursed loudly when he saw the scene, unable to move and stop it from happening. “Fucking fuck!”
“You are lucky Steve isn’t here. He would have made a fortune from your mouth alone.” Natasha muttered, even when she gritted her teeth in frustration. From afar, she could see Bucky and Clint, shooting frantically at the soldiers.
“If Steve was here, he would swore just as much.” Dean retorted without missing a beat, then turned to her. “We need to get to that lever ourselves.”
He saw her staring hard at something, before she turned to him with wide eyes.
“Dean, Dark Tony is nowhere to be seen. He was here less than a minute ago!”
***
Finally, what felt like forever, the commander answered.
“Are you out of there?” AU Erik said in a disinterested voice, probably expecting AU Logan to tell him that they did.
“No, and you fucking need to stop the missile right now!” AU Logan screamed frantically, eyeing the missile, which was a few seconds away from them now.
“Why would I do that? I gave you five minutes to leave. You didn’t. Not my problem.”
“Erik, you are about to make the biggest mistake in your life!”
“I am about to end this war! I am about to get my revenge on everyone that wronged us! For Charles!” AU Erik shouted in frustration.
“It’s Charles! Erik, it’s Charles!” AU Logan shouted desperately, unable to make a full sentence with a fucking missile about to hit them.
“Charles is dead, Logan! That’s why I need to-“
“He is not! Erik, he is alive! He was kept alive in that facility all this time! He is alive and you are about to kill him with your own hands right now!” he let out on one long shout, closing his eyes preparing for the explosion as three seconds were left.
He was met with silence. Silence so tangible that he could almost hear his commander’s brain explode.
In the next second, the missile flew to the dark sky instead of the facility, exploding with a deafening noise.
***
“Are you done?” AU Steve asked nervously, getting restless as he watched the two geniuses removing the last of the wires.
“Almost done.” Tony answered, keeping his full focus on the delicate work he was doing. “The next part is critical, we need to be careful, or it will all go to waste.”
“You are doing a great job, Tony.” Charles nodded encouragingly at him, helping him carefully. “You are about to do it.”
“No, he is not.”
A voice rang through the room, making the three of them freeze. AU Steve’s face got paler and paler as a terrified look took over his face. Tony and Charles looked up slowly towards the source of the voice.
Only to see Dark Tony approaching them with a cruel smirk on his face.
“Didn’t anyone tell you it is impolite to play with someone’s toys, while they are not home?”