Heartless

Chapter 24

I ran to Fury and hugged him. He seemed shocked when I let go. "You could have at least called me once to let me know you were safe."

"I'm fine, Monica. Do me a favor," Fury said to Tony. "Try not to bring it to life."

"You too? Is she your mini-me or something?"

"Shut up," I said.

"Monica, your face," Fury said. "What happened?"

"What?"

"You have a huge bruise on your forehead."

"Oh. Honestly, I don't even know. Probably from one of Ultron's minions." I rubbed my forehead.

"Maria Hill called you, right? Was she ever not working for you?"

"Artificial intelligence. You never hesitated." Fury said.

"Look, it's been a really long day, like, Eugene O'Neill long, so how's about we skip to the part where you're useful?"

"Look me in the eye and tell me you're going to shut him down."

"You're not the director of me."

"I'm not the director of anybody. I'm just an old man, who cares very much about you. All of you."

 "And I'm the man who killed the Avengers. I saw it. I didn't tell the team, how could I? I saw them all dead, Nick. I felt it. The whole world, too. It's because of me. I wasn't ready. I didn't do all I could."

"Stark. Are you serious? Maximoff is just playing on your fear. You need to turn it around and use your fear to your advantage." I said.

"Easy for you to say, Capello. You're practically fearless."

"Au contraire. I just learned how to deal with it when I was like, 5."

"I watched my friends die. You'd think that'd be as bad as it gets, right? Nope. Wasn't the worst part."

"The worst part is that you didn't," Fury said.

"Well, that's thoroughly depressing. I'm gonna go inside now."

 "Can you get everyone together?" Fury asked.

"Okay, yeah, sure."

- - -

Once everyone was seated at the kitchen table, Fury began speaking.

"Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself time. My contacts all say he's building something. The amount of Vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's just one thing.

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve asked.

  "Ah. He's easy to track, he's everywhere. Guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit." Fury said. I snorted. "Still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans though."

"He still going after launch codes?" Tony asked.

"Yes, he is, but he's not making any headway."

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare."

"Yeah, well, I contacted our friends at the NEXUS about that."

"NEXUS?" Steve asked. 

"It's the world internet hub in Oslo, every byte of data flows through there, fastest access on earth." Bruce explained.

"So, what'd they say?" Clint asked.

"He's fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed."