History [Steve Rogers]

Chapter Eight

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They might think you're insane, but you're sanest of them all

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They all assembled in the technology part of the tower. Maria sat down and started taking glass out of her foot, Helen was looking at the collected parts of the robot, Lexi was wrapped in a blanket and Steve's arm was wrapped around her shoulder holding her close to him, the rest of the team were scattered around the room waiting for Thor to get back from trying to find the scepter.

"All of our work is gone. Ultron cleared out, used the Internet as an escape hatch." Banner said, Lexi looked up at Steve and lay her head on his shoulder.

"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other." Lexi's breath hitched at this, she didn't even know much about herself, some of the memories of Xandar aren't there like they should be.

"He's in your files, he's in the internet. What if he decides to access something more exciting like nuclear codes? Look we need to make a few calls, assuming we still can." James Rhodes said, Lexi closed her eyes and imagined what would've happened to Xandar if the robots exceeded.

"Nuclear codes. He said he wanted us dead."

"He didn't say dead. He said extinct." Lexi said it was the first thing she had said to the team since the party. She still didn't trust Tony and Bruce, they created a murder robot.

"He also said he killed somebody," Clint said. Lexi wondered if it was a lone guest or support staff or Kayla and Sam.

"But there wasn't anyone else in the building," Maria said, she was finished taking the glass out of her foot. Tony walked in and held a device in his hand.

"Yes, there was." Tony tapped the empty space in front of them and a 3D hologram of JARVIS that was broken showed up.

"This is insane," Bruce said while walking towards the hologram. A.I looked similar on Xandar but the A.I wasn't going to attack the planet.

"JARVIS was the first line of defense. He would've shut down Ultron, it makes sense." Steve said, he looked down at Lexi and noticed she wasn't really paying attention to the conversation and she was lost in her memories.

"No, Ultron could've killed JARVIS. This isn't a strategy, this is... rage." Banner said. Suddenly Thor charged in and grabbed Tony by the neck and lifted him up into the air.

"Come on use your word buddy," Tony said, still getting strangled by Thor. Lexi tries to move towards them but her body and Steve won't let her.

"I have no than enough words to describe you, Stark."

"Thor! The Legionnaire?" Thor dropped Stark and turned to face everyone else.

"Trail went cold about a hundred miles out but its headed north, and it's got the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it again." Thor snarled, he glanced at Lexi and noticed she looked so tired and fatigued from the power attack.

"The genie's out the bottle. Clear and present is Ultron." Natasha said, something about this whole situation didn't feel right, they were missing something besides the obvious.

"I don't understand. You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?" Helen asked. Tony looked at her and started to laugh, Banner looked at him and told him to shut it but he still continued to laugh.

"You think this is funny?" Lexi asked, turning her head to the side. How could this be funny?

"No. It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so... is it so... it is. It's so terrible." Tony said while laughing slightly, the team looked at him like he was an alien.

"You don't laugh in these situations, Tony," Lexi said, Tony looked at her right in the eye and turned his head.

"You don't get to say anything, Grace." Tony snarled. Steve pulled her closer and Lexi fell into his side.

"Leave her alone, this could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand," Thor said, the team watched how Tony got defensive with her like he knows something she doesn't.

"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this." Tony said while looking into Lexi's eyes, challenging her. He pointed at her and the team got what he meant, Lexi pulled closer to Steve.

"Tony, maybe this might not be the right time to..." Banner tried to interject and take the focus away from Lexi. Thor stepped closer to Lexi, to protect her from Tony.

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

"Not when I've created a murder bot!" Bruce yelled, he watched Lexi as her eyes swelled upon tears.

"We didn't. We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?" Tony told the team, he turned to Banner but he just shrugged, Bruce didn't know much of alien technology.

"Well, you did something right. And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different from SHIELD." Steve said, Lexi felt his arm tighten around her, he does this when he got angry.

"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" Tony questioned, everyone, rolled their eyes at the arrogant billionaire. They didn't know where he was going with this.

"Never heard of that."

"Recall that? A hostile alien army came charging through a wormhole in space. We're standing three thousand 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 endgame. How were you guys planning on beating that?"

"Together."

"We'll lose."

"Then we'll do that together too. Thor's right. Ultron is calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he is ready for us. The world's a big place, start making it smaller." Steve said, Lexi left his grip and started walking to the elevator.

"Grace?" Tony called, Lexi turned around and faced him and the team. Tony had his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at her. Lexi motioned for him to continue.

"What the hell was that?" Tony asked he wanted to why she blames robots so much.

"Was what?" Lexi played dumb, she didn't want the team to know too much about her, they might use it against her.

"You blame robots, you were scared of the Iron Man suit the first couple times I put it on." Lexi sighed and decided she can't lie to them, they are her family, her only family.

"Back on Xandar, I... am an orphan, on Xandar.  I lived with my parents and a little brother. We lived a peaceful life but one day, someone had a grudge against my family and they sent robots to our house and killed my mom, my dad and I fought to protect my brother but my dad was killed and my brother was killed later before the officials got there. I was in the system ever since. They never caught the guy that responsible." Lexi said the team's faces fell from anger to sympathy. That wasn't even the full story.

"Lexi, I'm so sorry," Tony said, he walked forward to the young woman. Lexi scoffed at turned around.

"Sure you are."

Edited 20/12/2019