Stars

1: 04

Thor threw his hammer and destroyed Ultron's body.

After Thor destroyed his body, Ultron began singing. "I had strings, but now I'm free. There are no strings on me, no strings on me." Ultron had uploaded his consciousness in the abandoned Sokovia base.

LAB

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

"Ultron," Steve and Bucky repeated.

"He's been in everything," Natasha noted. "Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other."

"He's in your files, he's in the Internet," Rhodey told them. "What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?"

"Nuclear codes," Hill guessed.

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

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

Bucky shook his head. "He didn't say dead. He said extinct."

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

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

"Yes there was," Tony replied, bringing up the now-destroyed 3D image of JARVIS' consciousness.

"This is insane," Bruce stated.

"JARVIS was the first line of defense," Steve told the group. "He would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense."

"No, Ultron could've assimilated JARVIS. This isn't strategy, this is... rage."

Thor barged in and grabbed Tony by his throat, holding him up.

"Woah, woah, woah!" Clint protested. "It's going around."

Tony said to Thor, "Come on. Use your words, buddy."

"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark," Thor retorted.

"Thor!" Steve and Bucky called. "The Legionnaire."

Thor 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," Natasha said. "Clear and present is Ultron."

"I don't understand. You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?" Dr. Cho wondered.

Tony began laughing and Bruce subtly shook his head to get him to stop.

"You think this is funny?" Thor questioned.

"No," Tony replied. "It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so... is it so... It's so terrible."

"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand."

"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 best time to-" Bruce was cut off.

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

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

"We didn't. We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?"

"Well, you did something right," Steve told him. "And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different from S.H.I.EL.D."

"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?"

"No, it's never come up," Rhodey replied.

"Saved New York?"

"Never heard that."

"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 end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?"

"Together," Steve and Bucky answered.

"We'll lose."

Steve looked between the group. "Then we'll to that together, too." Tony looked between at him for a moment before turning away.

"Thor's right," Bucky said. "Ultron's calling us out. And Steve 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."

SOKOVIA

The twins met with Ultron in an empty church.

"Talk," Wanda ordered. "And if you are wasting our time..."

"Did you know this church is the exact center of the city?" Ultron said. "The elders decreed it so that everyone could be equally close to God. I like that. The geometry of belief." He was sitting in a chair facing away from them, a cloth draped over him. "You're wondering why you can't look inside my head."

"Sometimes it's hard. But sooner or later, every man shows himself."

Ultron stood and faced them, revealing his new body. Wanda looked briefly shocked. "Oh, I'm sure they do. But you needed something more than a man. That's why you let Stark take the scepter."

"I didn't expect... But I saw Stark's fear, I knew it would control him, make him self-destruct."

"Everyone creates the thing they dread. Men of peace create engines of war, invaders create avengers, people create... smaller people? Uh... children! I lost the word there. Children. Designed to supplant them, to help them... end."

"Is that why you've come? To end the Avengers?"

"I've come to save the world. But also... yeah." They moved into the Sokovia base. "We'll move out right away. This is a start, but there's something we need to begin the real work."

Wanda referred to Ultron's bots. "All of these are..."

"Me. I have what the Avengers never will. Harmony. They're discordant, disconnected. Stark's already got them turning on each other. And when you get inside the rest of their heads..."

"Everyone's plan is not to kill them," Pietro said.

"And make them martyrs? You need patience. Need to see the big picture."

"I don't see the big picture. I have a little picture. I take it out and look at it every day."

"You lost your parents in the bombings. I've seen the records."

"The records are not the picture."

"Pietro," Wanda called.

"No, please," Ultron said.

Pietro explained what had happened. "We were ten years old, having dinner, the four of us. When the first shell hits, two floors below, it - makes a hole in the floor. It's big. Our parents go in, and the whole building starts coming apart. I grab her, roll under the bed and the second shell hits. But, it doesn't go off. It just... sits there in the rubble, three feet from our faces. And on the side of the shell is painted one word..."

"Stark," Wanda finished.

"We were trapped for two days."

"Every effort to save us, every shift in the bricks, I think, "This will set it off." We wait for two days for Tony Stark to kill us."

"I know what they are."

"I wondered why only you two survived Strucker's experiments," Ultron said. "Now I don't. We will make it right." He turned to Pietro. "You and I can't hurt them." He spoke to Wanda. "But you will tear them apart, from the inside."