CHAPTER THREE

Ultron

- - - - -

"All our work is gone." Bruce said, "Ultron cleared out, used the internet as an escape hatch."

The team had regrouped in the lab. Tony was looking at one of his Iron Legion drones, Maria was pulling out glass shards off of her feet. Natasha and Clint stood around as Ana placed an ice pack to her head.

Steve was beside Ana as he shook his head, "Ultron." He mumbled.

"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other." Natasha said as she crossed her arms.

"He's in your files, he's in the Internet." Rhodey said, pushing himself off a table and holding his injured arm. "What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodey suggested.

Ana looked down, frowning. "Nuclear codes." Maria said.

"Nuclear codes." Rhodey nodded, "Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."

"Nukes? He said he wanted us dead." Natasha said.

Ana shook her head gently, "He didn't say dead, Nat."

"He said extinct." Steve corrected.

"He also said he killed somebody." Clint said.

"But there wasn't anyone else in the building." Maria said.

"Yes there was." Tony said, and activated his device. He brought up the image of Jarvis' mainframe, a destroyed image.

"This is insane." Bruce agreed lightly as he walked closer to Jarvis's dismantled image.

"Jarvis was the first line of defence. He would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense." Steve said, arms crossed over his chest, head down as he spoke.

Ana looked over at Steve. "No, Ultron could've assimilated Jarvis. This isn't strategy, this is...rage." Bruce said looking at Steve and Tony who stood next to each other.

Thor had suddenly returned, walking over to Tony and grabbed is throat, lifting him off the ground. Ana dropped her ice pack and hopped off the table she sat on, "Thor!" She called.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Tony said, bringing up a hand to pry Thor's hand off of his neck.

"It's going around." Clint said, watching with nervous eyes.

"Come on. Use your words, buddy." Tony rasped as Thor looked at him with anger. "I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark." He remarked.

Steve walked up to them. "Thor! The Legionnaire." He said, wanting to know about the stray robot that took Loki's sceptre.

Thor dropped Tony and looked to the group, "Trail went cold about a hundred miles out but it's headed north, and it has the sceptre. Now we have to retrieve it, again." He said.

"The genie's out of that bottle. Clear and present is Ultron." Natasha said crossing her legs as she leaned against the wall.

"I don't understand. You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?" Helen asked as she looked to Tony and Bruce.

Ana looked over at Tony when he started to chuckle. Everyone gave each other weird looks and looked over at Tony and Bruce. Bruce subtly shook his head at him to get him to stop.

"You think this is funny?" Thor asked.

"No," Tony turned around from his computer. "It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so...is it so...it is. It's so terrible." He said.

Thor walked over to him, "This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand." Thor pointed over to where Jarvis had broken down.

"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this." Tony said, looking at his teammates.

"Tony, maybe this might not be the time to..." Bruce began but Tony whirled around to face his friend.

"Really?" Tony asked. "That's it? You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls."

"Only when I've created a murder bot." Bruce said.

"We didn't," Tony said. "We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?" Bruce tightened his nervous smirk on his face and shrugged, nodding his head at Tony.

"Well, you did something right." Steve said. "And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD." Steve said, sharing a look with Ana before walking toward Tony.

"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" Tony asked, pointing to the sky.

Ana sighed and stepped closer, "Of course Tony..."

"No, it's never come up." Rhodey said, shaking his head.

"Saved New York?"

"Never heard that." Rhodes mumbled.

"Recall that?" Tony questioned.

"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?" Tony said as he pointed to the ceiling, "That's...that's the end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?"

"Together." Steve said.

"We'll loose." Tony said.

"Then we'll do that together, too." Steve stated, giving him a determined nod.

Ana dragged a hand down her face, "Thor's right. Ultron's calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us."

Steve looked to Ana, nodding. "The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."

- - -

The next day, the team found out from a little message Ultron left them that he had killed Strucker. This had disappointed Ana, she still had questions and now they will never be answered. They were digging through physical files, since everything they had on the computers were erased, for anything that might help.

"Known associates." Tony said, flipping his file on the desk. Steve brought another box over and set it down next to Tony's.

"Well, Strucker had a lot of friends." Steve commented.

"Well, these people are all horrible." Bruce said, glancing down at his own set of photos that he looked through.

Thor opened up another box and tossed it across the room that nearly hit Ana if she hadn't grabbed it. The God looked at her with a wince and she just sighed, dropping the object. She had her own box of files she was going through. She tossed a file that didn't have any use and reached for another. When she opened the brown file, a photo slipped out and landed on her lap.

"What the..." She whispered with wide eyes. She quickly checked the front of the file and read 'Subject Two' with a small label in Russian. She looked up and saw everyone was reading files and talking. Her eyes flickered to the papers in her hands.

Ana took the file and placed in it her backpack. It sat next to a small notebook and she zipped it before pushing it away from her. She'd have to read it later.

"Wait."

Ana froze in her spot and looked up only to sigh in relief when Tony looked at Bruce before he could discard his file away. Bruce handed it to Tony. "I know that guy. From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms."

Steve looked at him accusingly as Ana joined them, nervously placing her hands in her jacket pockets. Tony didn't like Steve's look, "There are conventions, alright? You meet people, I didn't sell him anything." He retorted.

"He was talking about finding something new, a game changer, it was all very 'Ahab.'" Tony explained.

"This." Thor pointed to Ulysses Klaue's neck.

"Uh, it's a tattoo. I don't think he had it..." Tony said.

Thor pointed his finger at the tattoo on the arms dealer's neck behind his head, "No, those are tattoos, this is a brand." Thor pointed to a brand on the side of his neck.

Ana carefully took the photo out of Thor's hands as she furrowed her eyebrows. "This looks familiar, something I learnt in college." She told Tony before humming, "I can tell you it's African... but that's about it. It's been a while since I've familiarised myself with this type of language. Bruce?" She looked up at him as he typed on the computer.

"Oh, yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning thief, in a much less friendly way." Bruce said as the data popped up and he turned to face them.

"What dialect?" Steve asked.

"Wakinada? Wa...wa...Wakanda," Bruce read out loud, narrowing his eyes as he tried to pronounce it right.

Ana clicked her fingers with a grin, "That's it." She nodded to herself. She had visited many countries through college for field trips. Wakanda was a very beautiful place, very high tech compared to it's neighbours. And the royal family were very kind in showing her group around.

Tony turned to Steve, "If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods..."

Steve turned to Tony with a furrowed look, "I thought your father said he got the last of it?"

"I don't follow," Bruce said, getting up from his seat to join them, "What comes out of Wakanda?"

"The strongest metal on Earth." Steve said, turning to face his shield.

"Vibranium." Ana stated.

"Where is this guy now?"

- - -

"Don't compare me with Stark! It's a thing with me. Stark is, he's a sickness!"

"Ah, junior," Tony said as he flew down in his Iron Man suit, joining Thor and Steve beside him, suited up and ready to fight. "You're gonna break your old man's heart..."

"If I have to." Ultron said. Clint, Ana and Natasha crept along either side of the wall, while Ultron was distracted with Tony. They were supposed to take care of the others floating around. Ana spotted the twins next to Ultron and frowned. She didn't want to hurt them.

"We don't have to break anything." Thor said.

"Clearly you've never made an omelet." Ultron said.

"He beat me by one second." Tony grumbled.

"Ah, this is funny, Mr. Stark. It's what, comfortable? Like old times?" Pietro said, stepping forward and looked to the weapons on the lower level that had STARK painted on them.

Tony sighed, "This was never my life." He said.

"You two can still walk away from this." Steve stepped forward, looking at the twins.

"Oh, we will." Wanda said, smiling at him.

"I know you've suffered." Steve said, not giving up that easily.

"Ugh! Captain America. God's righteous man, pretending you could live without a war. I can't physically throw up in my mouth, but..." Ultron said.

"If you believe in peace, then let us keep it." Thor said to Ultron.

"I think you're confusing peace with quiet." Ultron replied.

"Yeah-uhuh. What's the vibranium for?" Tony asked.

"I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan." Ultron said with a wave of his hand then used his powers to take Iron Man's suit away from his teammates and then shove him backwards against the metal wall with a blast from his repulsers.

That triggered the fight. Ana leaped down from her spot, landing right in front of the twins. She held out her gloved hands, "Look, we can help yo-" She was interrupted when Wanda forced her back with her powers on instinct and Pietro smirked before running off.

Ana landed on her back with a grunt. She gritted her teeth and rolled to the side, "That felt different." She mumbled. It felt as if someone actually pushed her back, not like a blast or energy force.

Ultron's robot goons attack the Avengers. Thor and Steve worked together to clear them all, as Natasha and Clint fired their weapons around the perimeter. Ana wanted to get the Maximoff's. She saw a blue blur pass her to go a hit Steve. She followed it, not caring if he was like a bullet.

"Speedy boy!" She called. She ducked when the robots blasted at her. She just threw her daggers, hitting them just under the head in the controls. She was still running when she bumped into something.

Ana grinned, finally finding Pietro. "Hey, I caught you." She said.

Pietro chuckled, "I only stopped because I wanted her to do this." He said, his eyes glancing to his sister that came next to Ana.

"Do what?"

Wanda looked to Ana, a small frown on her face before waving her hand delicately in front of her eyes. Ana blinked when scarlet red flooded her vision. She breathed out a chuckled when nothing happened, "What's that supposed to do-"

Pietro took Wanda in his arms, stepping away from Ana when she suddenly fell to her knees, grabbing her head. Ana could hear them, the voices. It was overwhelming. She cried out and shut her eyes as her body trembled.

Pietro looked at his sister with wide eyes, "What did you do? That's not supposed to happen!" He said.

Wanda looked just as shocked, "It was supposed to subdue her, Pietro. You know I can't control my powers as well as you." She explained.

The twins looked down at the girl they had unintentionally hurt. While they were in experimentation with Strucker, he would always brag about his greatest creation. He would tell them about how he had ripped her from her own mother and father when she was just a baby. What had rattled them to the core is that Strucker had set up her life, her adoptive family was all loyal Hydra agents. Even when miles away, Strucker still saw to it that his creation only lived up to his expectations. But then SHIELD had recruited her and everything stopped.

Wanda and Pietro had volunteered for vengeance against Tony Stark. They were only ten when they had their parents ripped away from them, Ana wasn't even a year old. She had suffered, while they wanted to participate. They always wondered if she was alive wherever she was, and to see Ana fighting aliens to protect the world on tv, the Maximoff's felt somewhat relieved that the lonely girl had triumphed.

They didn't mean to cause anymore pain.

Pietro sighed and looked at the last member of the Avengers, the archer. "We have to finish this." He told his sister before nodding at her. Wanda glanced at Ana, seeing she was crying, before gulping and going after Hawkeye.

Ana whimpered on the ground, breathing in and out heavily. "No, no, no..."

- - - - -

Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed and please tell me what you think. The next chapter will give a sort of a small insight into Ana's parents and her life in Hydra. So stay tuned and see you next time for the next update!

Q- Who ships Wanda and Vision? i was so happy when they showed their budding relationship in Civil War.