Cure // Pietro Maximoff [1]

4

I'm not sure how to react at first. Obviously I stand up, along with the rest of the team, but then I just kinda stand there. My mouth slightly open, showing my surprise. I take a step forward, curiosity getting the best of me when Thor puts his arm in front of me, keeping me where I am.

"Worthy... No... How could you be worthy? You're all killers." Tony's suit speaks and looks up to all of us.

"Tony." My voice shakes, showing my concern.

"JARVIS." He searches for JARVIS but he doesn't respond.

"I'm sorry, I was asleep. Or... I was a-dream." My hands begin to shake as I instinctively reach for the two knives that should be in my belt, but I silently curse myself as I realize they were left in my room. I had figured I wouldn't need them, not to mention not having a place to hide them.

"Reboot, legionnaire, we got a buggy suit." Tony taps on his tablet.

"There was a terrible noise... And I was tangled in...in...strings. I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy." I quickly take a look around the room, seeing if anyone was missing.

"You killed someone?" Steve speaks up.

"Wouldn't have been my first call. But, down in the real world we're faced with some ugly choices."

"Who sent you?" Thor asks from beside me.

"'I see a suit of armor around the world.'" Tony's voice comes from the bot and I look over at him at the same time Bruce speaks.

"Ultron."

"In the flesh. Or, no, not yet. Not this... Chrysalis. But I'm ready. I'm on a mission."

"What mission?" It's Nat's turn to speak up.

"Peace in our time." As if on cue, some of Tony's Iron Legion bots come flying through the walls and right towards all of us. I notice one aiming right towards me and I put my arms up in front of me, bracing my body for the impact of the big metal suit.

"Tony!" I yell out the first name that comes to my head right before getting thrown across the floor by the suit. I look up in time to see Thor's hammer going through the suit, stopping it from advancing on me once again.

I look around me for any sort of weapon I could be able to use to protect myself but come up short. I quickly heal a small scrape that appeared on my knee before standing up once more.

I stumble across the room, looking for Steve's shield. If I can't help fight then I might as well be useful in another way. I look up and see Tony with his arms wrapped around one of the suits, attempting to disable it rather than destroy it. Nat and Bruce are running up the stairs, Nat using her gun on one of the suits.

I find Steve's shield by a window against the back wall and yell out to him before tossing it his way, like you would toss a frisbee. I compose myself as Steve throws his shield at another bot. My arm gets grabbed and I'm pulled away from the majority of the fighting by Clint.

Steve uses his shield to destroy the last bot and everyone goes silent. The only thing I can hear is everyone's heavy breathing.

"That was dramatic!" Ultron breaks the silence as everyone stares at the single bot left in the room. "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 picks up one of the broken bots from the ground. "With these? These puppets? There's only one path to peace: The Avengers' extinction." I jump as Thor throws his hammer, destroying Ultron's body against the wall.

I let out a sigh of relief before looking around at everyone else and then to the mess that was made.

"Anyone hurt?" Steve calls out. We make eye contact and I see worry spread across his face. I look down and notice a few pieces of glass sticking out of my arm. I must have been too worried about everything else to even notice. Of course, once I know its there, it starts to hurt like hell. I grab my hurt arm with my other hand to try and get a look at how much glass was truly in there.

"Everyone to the lab. We can get everyone who needs it cleaned up and check a few things out." Tony says, taking control over the group. I'm still staring at the wound in my arm, fighting back tears as I attempt to remove a piece of glass. Clint pulls my hand away from the wound and leads me behind the rest of the group towards the labs.

>.<

I'm sitting on one of the tables in the lab, focusing on Helen Cho pulling the pieces of glass out of my arm, wincing each time a piece is moved. I don't focus too much on the conversation, just picking up bits and pieces. Ultron deleted all our information, knows pretty much anything there is to know about all of us, and could possibly get ahold of nuclear codes. Sounds fun.

Tony brings up a 3D picture of JARVIS' destroyed consciousness just as I let out a yelp after a big piece is removed.

My head flies to the direction of Tony as I see Thor grab his throat, lifting him into the air.

"Come on. Use your words, buddy."

"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark." I glance back down at my arm as I feel a bandage being placed over it.

"Don't worry about that." I pull the bandage away and heal the wound. "It's easier just to do it this way."

"That's amazing." She grabs hold of my arm once again and runs her fingers over where there were cuts just moments ago. She joins back into the conversation just in time to add her input and Steve turns away for a second to address me.

"Why don't you head up to bed?"

"Excuse me?" I give him a confused look. "This is my business too."

"I know, Riles. You've had a long day though, and I think it'd be best if you got some rest."

"I'll get rest once everyone else gets rest." I cross my arms over my chest and do my best to tune into the conversation.

"Tony, maybe it's not the time to-"

"Really? That's it? You just roll over, show your belly , every time somebody snarls." My head turns to Tony as he cuts Bruce off.

"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 speaks up again. "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?" I roll my eyes. I feel like he's trying to play the pity card.

"No, It's never come up." Rhodey shakes his head and acts confused.

"Saved New York?"

"Never heard that."

"I wasn't here yet." Tony glares at me.

"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."

"We'll lose."

"Then we'll do that together, too. 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."