"The news is in love with you guys, not everony though. There's been no official call for Banner's arrest, but it's in the air." Maria tells the team from a desk back in the Avengers Tower. Currently, Clint is piloting the quinjet while Y/N and Tony are the only one who seem to not be on edge. The others, Steve's look is reminiscent to remembering something from his past back during the time of World War Two, and his first love, Peggy Carter. Thor is pacing around the room, looking a little bit uneasy. Natasha, however, just has a look that you can directly tell that she does not want to remember what Wanda made her go through.
"What about the Stark Relief Foundation?" Y/N asks Hill.
"Already on the scene. How's the team?" She asks Y/N, who looks to the team with a solemn face before responding.
"Not looking so good, Wanda messed with our minds. I tried to reason with her, but it didn't go so well." He responds, gaining the attention of Tony and Clint when they hear that Y/N has tried to convince the twins to defect.
"I see, well for now just stay in stealth mode, and stay away from here." She requests of the team.
"So, run and hide." Tony concludes.
"Until we can find Ultron, I don't have a lot else to offer." Maria says.
"Don't worry, Maria, we can take it from here. Be safe." Y/N says before cutting off the transmission and walking over to Clint's side. Tony does the same as well.
"Wanna switch out?" Stark asks the Archer.
"No, I'm good. If you wanna get some kip, now's a good time because we're still a few hours out." He informs the two of them.
"Few hours from what?" Tony asks, and all Clint can respond with is.
"Safe house."
(A few hours later)
The quinjet lands a few dozen meters away from a small barn house, it's a quiet place, not car horns in the distance, the birds are regularly chirping, it's like a dream home you think of when you want to retire. Everyone departs from the jet, and they head into the house.
"What is this place?" Thor asks to the others.
"Clint said it's a safe house." Y/N answers, which the said person manages to listen in on.
"Let's hope." He tries to reassure the team before opening the door and making his way to the living room. "Honey, I'm home." After a few seconds of silence, a pregnant woman walks in with a few kids art tools in one hand and sees Clint before smiling. Then, Y/N manages to piece everything together but decides to stay silent.
"Hi, company, sorry I didn't call earlier." He says to his wife before they peck each other in the lip and hug.
"This is an agent of some kind." Tony says, thinking it's so.
"No, Tony, she is much more than some agent." Y/N says.
"Gentlemen, this is Laura." Clint introduces his wife to the six other members aside from Natasha.
"I know all you're names." She says to them before loud footsteps can be heard coming down the stairs.
"Oooh, incoming." Clint mutters to himself as two kids, one boy and one girl, come rushing in to hug their father. He carries his daughter into his arms and gives a kiss on the head to his son.
"Hi sweetheart, hey buddy! How are you guys doing?"
"These are, smaller agents." Tony says, utterly confused. But he is not the only one who is confused, Steve, Thor, and Bruce are too.
"Did you bring Auntie Nat?" The daughter say, making said person turn to her and give her a smile.
"Why don't you hug her and find out?" She playfully says before carrying the girl into her arms for a short hug before setting her back down.
"Clint, I didn't know you had a family. Did Fury set this up for you?" Y/N asks.
"Yup, after I joined too, he kept it out of S.H.I.E.L.D's files, like to keep it that way. I figure it's a good place to lay low." Clint answers before Thor accidentally steps on some Lego bricks, gaining the attention of Steve as he kicks them under a chair. Y/N walks over to Laura before shaking her hand, when she soon realizes his metal enhancements but doesn't question it. Then Natasha comes over and places her hands onto Laura's bulging stomach.
"How's little Natasha, huh?" She asks her.
"She's...Nathaniel." Laura says, making Natasha's smile turn into a frown before leaning closer to her stomach before whispering something to the baby.
"Traitor." Is what she says, making both Y/N and Laura chuckle. Suddenly, Thor walks out of the house in a hurry while Steve follows after, so Y/N decides to do the same.
"Thor." Steve calls out to the god.
"I saw something, in my dream. I need answers, and I won't find them here." He answers to them before he spins his hammer and leaves the farmstead. Once he's gone, Steve and Y/N look to each other before they head back inside, hoping to lay low for the upcoming days.
(An hour later)
The team is starting to settle into Clint's homestead, as Bruce, Natasha, and Laura are inside while Clint and his kids, Steve, and Tony are outside, with the last two chopping up some wood and the second three are doing some measuring for some renovations to the house. Y/N, however is currently sitting on the wooden fence, looking at the big field ahead of him. In his hand is the pager that Carol had given to him, and is debating whether to ask for her help on this Ultron problem or not. Before he can make his decision however, he is Bruce, who pats him on the shoulder and leans on the wooden fence.
"Y/N, we haven't done a mentor-protege talk in a while. So, I thought this would be a good time to have one now that we're laying low." Bruce suggests, and said person doesn't protest to it. "So how are you dealing with this entire thing?" He asks his protege.
"I should be asking you that, Bruce. You were still manipulated by the Maximoff girl. I could've stayed and protected you from her, but I was being selfish." Y/N says with regret.
"That's not even remotely true. Yes, you weren't able to protect me, but you doing it out of instinct is what sets the two of us apart. You're not selfish, Y/N. You are a kindhearted soul." Bruce says with a fatherly tone in his voice, and Y/N just stays silent throughout.
"What about "him"?" Y/N asks, referring to Banner's other side.
"You and I both know that the other guys wants to fight you..." Bruce responds, but he gets a chuckle from him, which he does not expect.
"He can try, but all he'll get is six fists, punching him with enough force to dent Vibranium." Y/N jokes, making the two of them chuckle with amusement. Their laughter slowly fades before they start to talk about what they've seen when Wanda had done her mind games on them.
"What did you see, Bruce, when she used her powers on you?" Y/N asks.
"I...I-I saw, Betty, and Natasha. They were scared of me, and when I turned behind me, I saw a crowd of people look scared of me. And before I knew it, the other guy went on a rampage in the city. If it weren't for Tony I would've killed a lot of people." He lets out all of his emotions while Y/N just listens, feeling sympathy for his mentor.
"What about you? What did you see?" Y/N remains silent for a few seconds before he sheds a single tear.
"Death. By my own hands. I saw myself in Berserker form, the one you probably saw during the battle of New York. I was in a burning field just like this one, where I was standing above the corpses of many other of our friends. Rhodey, Maria Hill, Nick Fury, Natasha, Clint, Steve, Thor, Tony, and even you. Even a woman I genuinely like. What I fear most...is what happens when I let my wrath go unbridled and kill everyone I hold dear to me..." After letting out his darkest fear into the light, Bruce places a hand on his shoulder and smiles.
"Admitting to fearing something is the first step to conquering it. We'll get through this together, we all will." The doctor says before their conversation is left at that.
(Timeskip to nightfall)
As it turns out, Nick Fury has been hiding in the Barton residence after the events of S.H.I.E.L.D's compromise, and Tony was the one who found him inside the barn where the tractor he is supposed to fix is. Right now, everyone is doing their own thing just after eating some dinner, with Natasha at the dining table, looking at a drawing Clint's daughter had drawn for her to see, Tony is playing darts, Clint and Laura start leading their kids up to bed, and Bruce, Steve, and Y/N are leaning on walls in different parts of the house.
"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." Fury informs to the team, minus Thor.
"What about Ultron himself?" Steve asks.
"Ah. 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." Fury responds.
"What about the nuclear launch codes? Is he still trying to access them?" Y/N asks, making his way over to the dart board to try his hand at them.
"Yes, he is, but he's not making any headway." The Ex-Director says, garnering a mutter from Y/N.
"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare." Tony adds, and is probably flexing on everyone, but no one pays that mind.
" Yeah, well, I contacted our friends at the NEXUS about that." Fury says.
"NEXUS?" Steve asks, still not knowing much about the world today.
"It's basically the fastest access to the internet on Earth." Y/N answers as he throws a dart on the board, and gets close to the bullseye.
"It's located in Oslo, every byte of data flows through there." Banner adds.
"So what'd they say?" Clint asks as he inspects some of the darts.
"He's fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed." Fury responds.
"By whom?" Tony asks, but is immediately startled by Clint, who manages to make two bullseyes at the same time. Both the billionaire and Y/N turn to the Archer, who just smirks and shrugs.
"Parties unknown." Fury says.
"Do we have an ally?" Natasha asks him.
"Ultron's got an enemy, that's not the same thing. Still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is."
"I might need to visit Oslo, find our "unknown."" Tony suggests, but the conversation is quickly steered into a different direction by Natasha.
"Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that." She says to her former boss.
" I do, I have you. Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else. You kids had all the tech you could dream of. Here we all are, back on earth, with nothing but our wit, and our will to save the world. Ultron says that the Avengers are the only thing standing between him and his mission, and whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction. All this, lay it in a grave." He says, gesturing to the house, meaning that everything they hold dear to them will die and be destroyed should the Avengers fail to stop Ultron. "So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard." Fury finishes.
"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk." Natasha mischievously says, referring to when he said "Language".
"You know what, Romanoff?" He says, which gains him a smirk from the redhead.
"So, what does he want?" Fury asks, steering the conversation back on track.
"He wants to become better than all of us. And he keeps on building bodies, much better than the last ones." Y/N answers, placing his palm and fist together and rotating his "joints".
"Person bodies. The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it." Tony says.
"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed." Natasha remarks to the billionaire.
"They don't need to be protected, they need to evolve. Ultron's going to evolve." Everyone turns to Banner at his assumption.
"How?" Fury asks, which gets Bruce thinking...
"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?" And just like that, Y/N makes his conclusion.
"Ultron and the twins must be using the scepter to control Dr. Cho into making him even more powerful. We need to get to Korea." Y/N says as his eyes flash pupiless white, and everyone agrees that their next mission is to find Dr. Cho, save her, and take down Ultron, and possibly the twins. However, just after their discussion, Fury is pulled back by Y/N.
"What's up, L/N? Anything on your mind?" The Ex-Director asks. All the said person did is lift up the pager in his hand, which makes Fury realize that he has made contact with Carol Danvers, one of his closest friends.
"Do we need her help against Ultron? I am asking you this because you are her closest friend. I want your confirmation on this." Y/N says to him. One second, two seconds, three seconds, and finally his answer...
"You may need her on this mission..."