Next Avengers: James Love Story

Citadel

As we started our journey, I noticed James was avoiding my eyes. What's his deal? I know I snapped at him earlier, but I had to get my point across or else he wouldn't take me seriously. I decided to make a proper apology, even if he necessarily didn't deserve it, but I was doing what's best for the team. I couldn't stand him ignoring me so childishly.

"James," he turned his head in my direction, acknowledging his attention, "look, I'm sorry I snapped at you. I just can't stand anyone getting seriously hurt, okay?"

"No, I should be the one apologizing," he says, finally meeting my eyes for the first time since we left, "I was wrong to push my limits like that. You were right, and I'll try harder to not make that mistake again. So, I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," I smiled.

"Look, that tower's headed for the citadel. Come on," James said. A tall, mechanical tower was moving on tracks to the citadel. When it passed over us, we jumped onto it, climbing the wires and beams to the top. To save time, Torunn and I grabbed the boys and flew them up to the top, gracefully dropping them on the top platform. I noticed that Torunn was still unusually quiet since the whole bot thing.

"Uh, James? Was getting crushed part of the plan?" I said, bracing for impact.

"Ahh!" The tower and the wall connected, but we didn't get crushed. Yay us. It was dark, so Azari used his powers to light the way, Pym also shrinking down to provide more light.

"Great, now what?" Pym asked.

"See what you can do about that door," James told him.

"I'm on it." Pym flew to a keypad on the wall, examining it. "Hey, Azari can open this."

"What? How do you know?" James asked.

"It's just like the maintenance hatches at home," Pym explained.

Azari used his powers to open the door. It worked. We're in.

"Uh, Azari, you go first," Pym said as we cautiously walked down a skinny hallway. Pym then took the lead, but all of a sudden, the walls expanded, then disappeared. Pym started to panic, the floor starting to fold in on itself and Pym started to lose his balance. Azari jumped to the other side, the floor folding in until there was nothing left.

"Help!" Pym shouted. He jumped, but not far enough, and fell.

"Pym!" Azari yelled. Pym then shrunk down and flew up to Azari.

"Just kidding," Pym said. Azari gave him a look, obviously unamused by the timing of his joke. Torunn then flew to the other side, leaving James and I by ourselves on that side.

"We shouldn't be here. James, I'm scared. What if-"

"It's going to be okay. I promise," he assured me, holding out his hand, and I took it, flying us to the other side, setting him down gently.

"Okay, there's no one here," Azari stated.
"Maybe Ultron didn't think anyone would be dumb enough to break in."

"Ha, that'll show him. We are dumb enough." Pym said. He walked over to Azari, but then he stepped on a square, lighting up, making a bridge form, leading to seven display cases. We all just stared at the lit displays before us. Then James broke from the group, taking the lead.

"James, wait!" Torunn called, but he ignored her and kept going. I guess there was really nothing else to do but follow him, so we did. In the center display case was what was left of Iron Man's armor.

It was all that was left of Tony.

I gasped, while the others had wide eyes, with terrified expressions. Tears threatened to spill over, and I had to turn away to keep myself from losing it completely. The sudden awareness of the absence of Tony made me hug my arms. Then I noticed that all the display cases had name plates under them. All of them were Avengers.