Till The End Of The Line

Chapter 3: The Mind Stone

The room was silent. Everyone's gaze was on the pile of junk metal that sat on the floor. Clint was the first to move, running up the stairs to the small lab-like room where they were holding the scepter. Cho grabbed hold of Matilda and hesitantly brought her over to rejoin the group. There was a loud bang, before Clint re-emerged from the lab.

"Scepter's gone," annoyance evident in his voice.

Thor grunted and headed towards the balcony and took off, trying to follow the thing that ran off with the scepter.

"Steve, bring Matilda to her room and be in the lab in ten." Without another word, Tony stormed up the stairs and disappeared into his lab.

Everyone glanced at Matilda, then reluctantly followed Tony. As Natasha passed Matilda, she went and put a hand on her shoulder, her eyes asking if she was alright. Matilda gave a tight nod, and Natasha disappeared up the stairs, leaving Steve and Matilda alone.

"Are you really going to be my babysitter and make sure I go to bed?" Matilda tried to joke, but it fell flat on Steve.

Matilda sighed, walked to the elevators, and pressed the arrow. She heard Steve's heavy footsteps behind her as he joined her at the doors. They stood in silence as the doors dinged and opened. When they arrived at her room, Steve opened the door for her and she walked in. She sat down on the edge of her bed and watched as he stood in the doorway.

"Steve..." she started, but was cut off.

"Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" His voice was low, his gaze not lifting from the floor.

She studied him, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, arms stiff as he leaned against the door frame. He was uncomfortable about something. Matilda only ever saw him like this around Natasha, so why now with her?

"Yeah, I'm okay. Nothing a band-aid and some peroxide can't fix." She let out a breathy laugh.

Steve just nodded his head in response. She wanted to say something, wanted to address the growing elephant in the room, but how would she start?

"Is there something...."

"I should get back, now that you're safe. Tony has a lot of explaining to do." He interjected, cutting her off yet again.

"Oh, yeah I guess you should. Fill me in on the deets later?" she asked, trying to keep a normal tone in her voice.

He nodded his head at her again and closed the door, leaving Matilda alone in her room with a thousand unanswered questions. She thought about running after him. Stopping him in the hallway and demanding that he give her answers to all of the questions that were eating away at her. Instead, she just screamed into her nearby pillow and got ready for bed, hoping that tomorrow would be better.

*********

May 4th, 2015

Well, last night sure didn't go as planned. It's been quiet here today, but I think that's good, considering everything that happened last night. I'm not sure what to process first, the whole Ultron thing, or my maybe, maybe not romantic relationship with my best friend. UHHHH what is happening???!!!! Tony came into my room this morning and asked if we could talk later today, and I'm quite nervous to be honest. I'm going to get to the bottom of this today though. I'll figure everything else out later.

P.S: Happy Star Wars Day!

May 5th, 2015

I live for the day where I come to you, sweet journal, and have nothing to write about because nothing exciting has happened. I fear the day will never come. After Tony and I sat down for our talk the other day I learned quite a bit. He finally told me what happened to him in Sokovia. One of the enhanced had messed with his mind, and all he saw was everyone he loved and cared about dead at his feet, because of him. I can't imagine what has been going through his mind since then. I tried to reassure him that that would never happen. He then told me that is why he and Bruce started experimenting with the scepter and worked on trying to create an AI that would bring peace around the world. I didn't want to rub it in and say well, how did that turn out for you, but now we...I mean the Avengers are stuck cleaning up the mess of it. And poor Jarvis was destroyed in the process. Yesterday morning, Agent Hill informed them that Ultron had gone and killed Striker, so now they are back at square one in trying to find the scepter. They found a lead though, off the coast of Africa with some black-market arms dealer, so they left early this morning to follow it. Steve hasn't spoken to me since he left my room the other night.