PURE AND TAINTED ( wanda maximoff )

twenty-two → like a team

PURE AND TAINTED
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
( like a team )

NOT EVEN AN HOUR had passed before they all rejoined in the lab. Aline had taken that time to change out of her ripped dress, tossing it in the laundry basket, and into a pair of shorts and an oversized sweater. Steve had kindly offered up his blood to heal her, but she declined, saying that she could just take one of the pint bags. Though, he and Maria did help with pulling the glass out of her feet before the skin healed over.

She sat in one of the chairs, a leg pulled up to her chest as she watched Bruce scour through the computer files. "All our work is gone," he said. "Ultron cleared out, used the Internet as an escape hatch."

"He's been in everything," Natasha explained. She too had changed, replacing her nice dress with a pair of yoga pants, black shirt, and jacket. Her arms were crossed over her chest. "Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other."

Aline nearly froze with fear. Ultron must know then 一 about the Red Witches and Madelaine, about the bloodshed that had occurred. She had only mentioned it briefly to her teammates, but they didn't know much. It instantly put her on edge to know that this man – or, A.I., in this case 一 knew more about her. When Natasha had released all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files to the public last year, she knew she was safe for Fury had never mentioned her name within the files, it had all been redacted or she was mentioned as some source, but who knew what Ultron could do with this information?

She exhaled slowly, rolling her shoulders. "Great, another asshole to know my life story." She reached up and grabbed the necklace around her throat. It was a comforting thing for her to do; while she may not have her family physically with her, this was like they were standing beside her.

"What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodey asked.

"Nuclear codes," Maria immediately said. The woman sat on a stool, picking out small shards of glass out of her feet with a pair of tweezers. Her heels had been tossed somewhere on the floor beside her.

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

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

Aline shook her head. "No, not dead. He said extinct." Something about the way the robot had worded it made her feel weird. Killing people was easy, she was sure he could do it easily, but extinction was another level.

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

"But there wasn't anyone else in the building," Maria pointed out.

"Yes there was." Tony brought up a golden 3-D sphere, levitating in the air. It looked shattered, like something had taken it apart again and again. Aline had been in the lab several times with Bruce to know that it was J.A.R.V.I.S.

"This is insane," Banner commented as he walked up to it.

"J.A.R.V.I.S. was the first line of defense," Steve said. "He would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense."

"No, Ultron could've assimilated J.A.R.V.I.S. This isn't strategy, this is... rage."

At the sound of thundering footsteps (no pun intended, of course), Thor stormed into the room. He had changed into his typical armor and tried to chase after Ultron, but failed. He headed straight towards Tony, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him high in the air.

"It's going around," Clint commented.

"Come on, use your words, buddy," Tony gasped, patting the Asgardian lightly on his arm.

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

Steve took a step towards the god. "Thor! The Legionnaire," he said and Thor reluctantly let go of Tony.

"Trail went cold about a hundred miles out but it's headed north, and it has the scepter," Thor huffed. He looked over at Steve, then turned to face the rest of his teammates. "Now we have to retrieve it, again." He was irritated beyond belief, like many of them.

"The genie's out of that bottle," Natasha said. "Clear and present is Ultron."

"I don't understand," Dr. Cho said, turning to look at them. Somehow, the woman had gone through the fight unscathed. "You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?"

Tony started laughing. It was a quiet mock of a laugh, one that held no true humor in it. Aline tilted her head in surprise at him. This wasn't something to laugh about, this was serious, and Aline doesn't really do serious. Bruce just shook his head at him, telling him to stop.

"There is something seriously wrong with you," Aline said and shook her head. "H-how can you be laughing right now? What is wrong with you, Tony? This isn't funny!"

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

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

"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 一" Bruce started.

"Really?!" Tony whirled towards the scientist, arching one of his dark brows. "That's it? You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls?"

Bruce spoke in an almost nonchalant way, slightly shrugging his shoulders. "Only when I've created a murder bot."

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

"Well, we did something right," Steve said. "And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole? Saved New York?"

Aline turned to bang her head on a forehead, just as Rhodey spoke. "No, it's never come up. Never heard that." Tony didn't often bring up the fact that he nearly died three years ago back when Loki and the Chitauri attacked, but when he did, he almost bragged about it. Yeah, I basically, single-handedly saved the world, Tony had once drunkenly said. Every time they heard it, there was always a certain irritation that arose in everyone.

"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 livelong day, but that up there? That's... that's the end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?"

Aline crossed her arms. "I'm assuming we were planning on doing that together, like a team."

"We'll lose," Tony said.

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

[REST IN PEACE, STAN LEE]