Frostbite

Eleven

I wandered downstairs not soon after Steve went outside. Laura was almost finished with dinner and somehow wasn't fazed at all by all the extra mouths to feed in her home. I offered my help with anything she needed; I wasn't shy in the kitchen like most of the team.

She kindly told me she had pretty much everything wrapped up, but that I could help Lila with setting the table. Lila excitedly pulled me to the cabinets and began handing me plates. My grin couldn't contain itself around the sweet girl. I set the plates, and she hopped around the table placing the silverware behind me.

The door opened, and Tony and Steve entered with Fury following right behind them. I raised a brow in surprise but finished helping Lila in silence. Laura instructed her to go find everyone for dinner, and she dashed off in compliance.

"She's adorable," I told Laura, chuckling as we watched her run around the house. Everyone began pouring in the kitchen while Clint dragged some extra chairs in to seat everyone.

"What brings you here?" Bruce asked Fury curiously as we all sat down.

"I don't want to spoil this dinner that this lovely woman has been slaving over. We'll talk after," Fury said, shaking his head and smiling warmly at Laura. Cooper, the boy, was fascinated by Fury's patch and kept staring at it, transfixed. I heard Laura scold him quietly about staring, and I tried not to laugh aloud.

We ate in peace, making small talk with each other. Everyone had a lot of questions for Laura and Clint. It had to have been hard on Clint keeping his whole world a secret from us; I was shocked he had even brought us here since he had kept them hidden for this long already.

Once everyone was finished, the guys started to clean up the table and insisted that Laura relax and not to worry about a thing. I refilled my glass and leaned against the doorway letting them do all the work. There wasn't much room for everyone to try to help anyway. Finally, when things settled down, Fury spoke.

"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, leaning closer into me. I was surprised to see him as comfortable as he was here. It was like this life was easy for him to accept, but I had figured he didn't want anything like this.

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

"He still going after launch codes?" Tony inquired, tossing a dart at the board across the room and missing miserably.

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

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare," Tony scoffed, tossing another. I remembered when he did that. He had gotten in so much trouble. Tony had set the bar for rule breaking in our house.

"Yeah, well, I contacted our friends at the NEXUS about that," Fury sighed. Clint sneakily tossed a dart, hitting the bullseye dead on. Tony gave him a dirty look, but he just shrugged in amusement.

"NEXUS?" Steve asked in confusion, glancing between the two.

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

"So what'd they say?" Clint asked. Lila suddenly ran into the room and gifted Natasha with a cute drawing of a butterfly. Nat smiled widely and gave her a quick hug of appreciation. Lila quickly ran back out of the room.

"He's fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed," Fury said, shaking his head.

"By whom?" Tony asked.

"Parties unknown."

"Do we have an ally?" Natasha assumed in surprise.

"Ultron's got an enemy, that's not the same thing. Still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is," Fury disagreed.

"I might need to visit Oslo, find our 'unknown'," Tony suggested almost excitedly.

"Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that," Natasha told him in halfhearted amusement.

"I do, I have you. Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else. Here we all are, back on earth, with nothing but our wit and our will to save the world... So, stand. Outwit the platinum bastard," Fury urged, glancing around at the lot of us.

"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk," Nat warned. I snickered and earned a small elbowing from Steve before he turned to her.

"You know what, Romanoff?"

"So, what does he want?" Fury pondered, ignoring their exchange, hoping we had an answer.

"To become better. Better than us. He keeps building bodies," I answered when no one else did.

"Person bodies. The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it," Tony added.

"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed," Natasha quipped, taking a sip from her glass. Bruce moved closer to her and stared over her shoulder for a moment.

"They don't need to be protected; they need to evolve. Ultron's going to evolve," Bruce realized, gesturing down at the picture in front of Natasha.

"How?"

"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?" he asked, already knowing the answer. No one had spoken to her since the party.

Now that we had Ultron's next target, everything sped into motion. We all gathered our belongings and changed, ready to take him on again. I met Steve and Tony in the front alcove. Steve had already changed back into his suit.

"I'll take Natasha and Clint. Mel, you go with Tony," Steve instructed, not missing a beat. I nodded silently; Tony probably didn't need a bodyguard, but at the same time I didn't want him going alone.

"Alright, strictly recon. We'll hit the NEXUS; we'll join you as soon as we can," Tony agreed, wiggling his eyebrows at me. I rolled my eyes.

"If Ultron is really building a body..." Steve trailed off, thinking of the destruction it would cause.

"He'll be more powerful than any of us. Maybe all of us. An android designed by a robot," Tony marveled in amazement.

"You know, I really miss the days when the weirdest thing science ever created was me," Steve sighed with a small, quirky smile. I shook my head and gave him a quick kiss goodbye.

"Be careful," I ordered, eyeing him warily.

"Yes ma'am."

"I'll drop Banner off at the tower. Do you mind if I borrow Ms. Hill?" Fury requested of Tony as he approached from behind us.

"She's all yours, apparently. What are you gonna do?" Tony asked curiously.

"I don't know. Something dramatic, I hope."

Well, if there was any time for dramatics, it would be now.