Chapter 4
"Worthy... No... How could you be worthy? You're all killers."
"Stark."Steve stated Tonys name for him to explain or do something."
"JARVIS." Tony stated doing the same thing as Steve. But he got no response.
"I'm sorry, I was asleep. Or...I was a-dream?" The robot said, sounded disoriented like he just woke up from a sleep with a concussion.
Tony started tapping his device, "Reboot, Legionnaire OS, we got a buggy suit." He said, hoping JARVIS was still operational.
"There was a terrible noise... and I was tangled in... in... strings. I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy." The robot gestured rigidly, his sentences cryptic.
"You killed someone?" Steve asked.
"Wouldn't have been my first call. But, down in the real world we're faced with ugly choices." The robot responded and Peter started to notice a familiarness to his voice, more specifically his diction and tone.
"Who sent you?" Thor asked.
The robot played a recording of Tony's voice, "I see a suit of armour around the world".
"Ultron!" Bruce deduced looking to Tony in disbelief.
"In the flesh." He said turning his gaze to Bruce. "Or, no, not yet. Not this...chrysalis. But I'm ready. I'm on a mission."
"What mission?" Natasha asked. Every one started to prepare them selves. Peter had taken off his jacket and was slowly rolling up his sleeves, his web shooters on his wrists. Maria was pulling out her gun from her thigh holster, Thor gripped his hammer tightly.
"Peace in our time." And suddenly the Iron Legion bots break through the walls and start to attack the team. Cap kicked the coffee table in front of him so the Iron Legion didn't hit him head on. Peter flipped over the one that went to hit him. He saw Natasha and Bruce diving over the bar. Thor hit one away from him as Tony and Rhodes went for their suits. An Iron Legion blasted Rhodes through the glass into the hanger after it hit Tony into a bookcase. Tony and Steve both jumped onto Legions, Peter webbed one up then swung it into the wall smashing it. The Legionnaire shacked Steve into the wall then threw him into the ground.
"We are here to help." They kept repeating as they attacked the Avengers. Tony was on the back of one, attempting to shut it down through the neck using a screwdriver. It fell to the ground shut off.
"Cap!" Clint yells as he grabs his Shield throwing it to him. Steve uses his shield to dismember the last Iron Legion.
"That was dramatic!" Ultron remarks, making them all look to him again. "I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through. 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 asked the Avengers as he picked up one of the dismembered Iron Legion. "With these? These puppets? There's only one path to peace: The Avengers' extinction." Thor threw his hammer suddenly at this statement at Ultron and smashes him to pieces. Ultron's body, or what's left of it starts singing in a very croaked voice. "I had strings, but now I'm free. There are no strings on me, no strings on me."
"All our work is gone. Ultron cleared out, used the internet as an escape hatch." Bruce told them.
"Ultron?" Steve asked wanting an explanation
"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other.
"He's in your files, he's in the internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodes asked
"Nuclear codes?" Maria questioned.
"Nuclear codes." He confirmed. "Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."
"Nukes? He said he wanted us dead." She stated, finding the use of nukes very extreme to kill off a small group of people.
"He didn't say dead. He said extinct." Steve reminded them.
"He also said he killed somebody." Clint pointed out.
"But there wasn't anyone else in the building." Maria
"Yes there was." Tony said, bring up the 3D image of JARVIS' consciousness, it was now deconstructed, broken, destroyed.
"This is insane." Bruce said disbelief in his voice.
"JARVIS was the first line of defense. He would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense." Steve noted but Bruce shakes his head.
"No, Ultron could've assimilated JARVIS. This isn't strategy, this is-
"Rage." Peter finished for him. All of a sudden Thor grabbed hold of Stark by his throat and holds him up in the air.
"Woah, woah, woah! It's going around." Clint remarked.
"Come on. Use your words, buddy." Tony told him through a chocked voice, trying to make light of the situation as he always does. Ever the child.
"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark." Thor spat out furiously. Peter grabbed Thor's wrist and looked him in the eyes.
"Put him down Thor." Peter forcefully told him. Thor looked at Peter for a moment, noting the bravery but still not letting Tony go.
"Thor! The Legionnaire?" Steve asked, Thor finally let go of Tony.
"Trail went cold about a hundred miles out but it's headed north, and it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it, again."
"The genie's out of that bottle. Clear and present is Ultron." Natasha stated.
"I don't understand. You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?" Doctor Cho asked. Tony started laughing, Bruce started to subtly but not so subtly shake his head at Tony to get him to stop.
"You think this is funny?" Peter asked.
"No. It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so...is it so...it is. It's so terrible." Tony said as he struggled not to laugh.
"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand." Thor told him.
"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this.
"Tony, maybe this might not be the time to..."
"Really?! That's it?" Tony asked cutting off Bruce, "You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls."
"Only when I've created a murder bot!" Bruce stated like it was obvious.
"We didn't. We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?" Tony asked Bruce.
"Well, you did something right. And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD."
"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" He asked it obviously meant it to be rhetorical.
"No, it's never come up." Rhodey commented sarcastically
"Saved New York? Recall that? A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the live long day, but, that up there? That's...that's the endgame. How were you guys planning on beating that?" Tony asked them, he looked to each of them eyes ending on Steve
"Together."
"We'll lose."
"Then we'll do that together, too." Tony looked at him for a moment before turning away and Steve then continued,"Thor's right. Ultron's calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."
They started their hunt for Ultron, he didn't know how to feel about all of this. It was now his second day working as an Avenger, it wasn't going amazingly. Tony told him to go sleep, which he argued against but Tony told him there was nothing for him to do right now and that he needed sleep where he could get it. So he gave in, he went and checked in on his new suit first. It was almost done so he quickly finished up the HUD so it was read and uploaded it to the new mask. He then fell right to sleep as soon as he hit the pillow and would stay asleep for a lot longer if his phone hadn't started ringing
"Hello?" Peter asked groggily when he answer the phone, not bothering to look who it is.
"Rise and shine kiddo. Time to do some work." Tony announced.
"Be right down." Peter told him as he yawned. He checked on the suit, it was finished so he laid it out on the desk and started a quick diagnostic on the HUD before heading down to the lab where the rest of the Avengers were.
"What's this?" Tony asked when Steve gave a tablet to Thor. Once Thor was done with it he slapped it into Tony's chest.
"A message. Ultron killed Strucker." Steve informed them as Tony looked at the screen.
"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us." Tony joked as he looked at the framing of the photo.
"This is a smokescreen. Why send a message when you've just given a speech?" Natasha asked not to anyone specifically more to the general room.
"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss." Steve pointed out.
"Yeah, I bet he... " She looked to computer monitor and types a few things in. "Yep. Everything we had on Strucker has been erased."
"Not everything." Tony pointed out, he then lead them to the physical fires and they each grabbed a few boxes and started going through them."
"Known associates. Well, Strucker had a lot of friends."
"Well, these people are all horrible." Bruce noted as he opened up a file. Tony recognised the image of the guy Bruce was looking at.
"Wait. I know that guy." Bruce passed him the file. " From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms." Steve gives him an accusatorial look. "There are conventions, alright? You meet people, I didn't sell him anything. He was talking about finding something new, a game changer, it was all very 'Ahab.'"
Thor points to the scar on his neck "This." Tony looked to what Thor was pointing to.
"Uh, it's a tattoo. I don't think he had it-
"No, those are tattoos, this is a brand." Thor said cutting off Tony as he gestured to points on the man in the picture.
"Oh, yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning thief, in a much less friendly way." Bruce told them after using the computer to identify the bran
"What dialect?" Steve enquired.
"Wakannada...? Wa..ka.
"Wakanda." Peter finished for him so he could stop butchering the countries name. "Its a small African country, considered a third world country but they have quite a bit of pull with the United Nations."
"If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods..." Tony said as he looked to Steve
"I thought your father said he got the last of it?"
"I don't follow. What comes out of Wakanda?" Peter asked. Tony and Steve look to his shield.
"The strongest metal on earth."
"Where is this guy now?" Steve asked him.
"I'd have to check but I'm sure it on the African coast, some old salvage yard." Tony explained.
Steve turned to the rest of the team. "Okay while he does that we will come up with a game plan and get prepared." They nodded to him and left the room. Peter stopped however when Steve called for him.
"Yeah Cap?"
"You sure you're ready for this? It's barely your second day."
"I appreciate the concern but I'll be fine. Plus might as well get thrown into the deep end. Not like I can avoid the big stuff." Peter told him, shrugging it off.
"Okay, well, go get your suit and meet us back here then." Peter gave him a small salute then rushed off. 'Straight into the deepest end' Peter thought to himself as he got int his lab. The HUD in his mask finished it diagnostic.
"Let's see what this new suit can do."