Love Me (Steve Rogers Fanfiction)

Chapter 4

There are no strings on me.

No one speaks. I find a towel at the bar and start cleaning out my shredded knuckles when Steve follows me. He takes the towel from my hands and looks at my scrapes. His voice is quiet as he speaks. "What did you do?"

I know he doesn't just mean the injury.

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"All our work is gone," Bruce says in dismay while examining the file databases in his lab. "Ultron cleared out, used the Internet as an escape hatch."

"Ultron," Steve mutters under his breath only loud enough for me to hear. I don't know if I've ever seen him so angry, but it's contained, at least for now. The real fury is in his eyes. Blue flames burn the hottest of all. I'm not looking forward to being alone with him later, even though we're newly engaged. I'm going to get a lecture I completely deserve and it's not going to be fun at all. I just stay quiet and continue to bandage my knuckles.

"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other." Natasha folds her arms and looks around at us all. What does he know about me?

"He's in your files, he's in the Internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodes asks.

I follow his line of thought, and it scares me. "Nuclear codes."

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

"Nukes?" Nat asks. "He said he wanted us dead."

"He didn't say dead. He said extinct," Steve says.

"He also said he killed someone," Clint points out.

Maria looks up from pulling shards of glass out of her foot. I'm lucky my heels had straps. Now I've traded them for bare feet. "But there wasn't anyone else in the building."

"Yes, there was." Tony's voice is less boisterous than usual, more defeated. He pulls up an image for us all. A consciousness destroyed. It's JARVIS. Tony doesn't say anything else. I know that in a way, JARVIS was like family to him, and my heart aches, but we have bigger problems to face right now.

"This is insane," Bruce mutters, pushing his glasses up to get a closer look.

"JARVIS was the first line of defense," Steve says. He ducks his head. Instead of approaching him, I give him space. "He would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense."

Bruce shakes his head. "No, Ultron could've assimilated Jarvis. This isn't strategy, this is...rage."

I helped create this. This is my fault. Thor, who has been silent this entire time, marches up to Tony and grabs him by the throat, pushing him against the wall. No one stops him.

"Woah, woah, woah! It's going around," Clint says, almost joking.

"Come on. Use your words, buddy," Tony sputters.

"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark!"

"Thor! The Legionnaire." Steve yells. I think Steve is the only one Thor really listens to around here, because he throws Tony to the ground.

"Trail went cold about a hundred miles out but it's headed north, and it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it, again."

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