QUINJET
"The news is loving you guys," Hill said. "Nobody else is. There's been no official call for Banner's arrest, but it's in the air."
"Stark Relief Foundation?" Tony asked.
"Already on the scene. How's the team?"
"Everyone's... we took a hit. We'll shake it off."
"Well for now I'd stay in stealth mode, and stay away from here."
"So, run and hide?"
"Until we can find Ultron, I don't have a lot else to offer."
"Neither do we." He ended the call and switched off the monitor before saying to Clint who was flying the Quinjet, "Hey, you wanna switch out?"
"No, I'm good," Clint replied. "If you wanna get some kip, now's a good time, 'cause we're still a few hours out."
"A few hours from where?"
"A safe house."
---
The Quinjet landed outside a large farmhouse and the group walked towards the house.
"What is this place?" Thor asked.
"A safe house?" Tony questioned.
"Let's hope," Clint replied as they entered the house. "Honey, I'm home." His heavily pregnant wife, Laura, walked in front the kitchen. "Hi. Company. Sorry I didn't call ahead."
"Hey," Laura greeted.
Tony said to Thor as Laura kissed Clint, "This is an agent of some kind."
Clint introduced his wife to the team. "Gentlemen, this is Laura."
"I know all your names," Laura told them.
The group looked at her awkwardly. Bucky smiled lightly at them before hearing scuffling feet. Children. Maybe he and Flora would have them one day.
"Ooh, incoming," Clint said as his children, Cooper and Lila ran in.
"Dad!" Lila cried, getting picked up by her father.
"Hi, sweetheart." He kissed the top of his son's head. "Hey, buddy! How you guys doing? Ooh..."
Tony said to the others as they watched with surprise, "These are... smaller agents."
"Look at your face! Oh, my goodness!"
"Did you bring Auntie Nat?" Lila asked.
"Why don't you hug her and find out?" Natasha replied.
Lila rushed towards Natasha, who picked her up in her arms.
"Sorry for barging in on you," Steve apologized.
"Yeah, we would have called ahead, but we were busy having no idea that you existed," Tony added.
"Yeah, well Fury helped me set this up when I joined," Clint explained. "He kept it off S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files, I'd like to keep it that way. I figure it's a good place to lay low."
"Honey," Lila called. "Ah, I missed you."
Natasha touched Laura's stomach and asked, "How's little Natasha, huh?"
"She's... Nathaniel."
Natasha bent towards Laura's stomach. "Traitor."
The hallucinations brought on by Wanda continued to creep up in Thor's mind and he walked out of the house.
"Thor," Steve and Bucky called.
"I saw something in that dream," Thor told them. "I need answers, I won't find them here." He used his hammer to fly away; Steve and Bucky turned to enter the house when Steve heard Peggy's voice and Bucky heard Flora's voice from Wanda's visions.
"We can go home," Peggy said.
Instead of going inside, Steve turned and walked away.
"Come on, Buck," Flora said with a smile before a confused frown overtook her face.
Bucky turned away, shaking off the vision as best he could.
Laura checked Clint's wound that Pietro had given him.
"See, you worried for nothing," Clint told her. "Can't even feel the difference, can you?"
"If they're sleeping here, some of them are gonna have to double up," Laura warned.
Clint laughed. "Yeah, that's not gonna sell."
"What about Nat and Banner? How long has that been going on?"
"Have what?"
She laughed. "You are so cute."
"Nat and... and Banner?"
"I'll explain when you're older, Hawkeye."
"Oh. Okay."
"It's bad, right? Nat and Bucky seem really shaken."
"They've been through a lot together. Ultron has these allies, these uh, kids, they're punks really. They carry a big damn stick and Nat took a serious hit. Seems Bucky did too. Someone's gonna have to teach 'em some manners."
"And that someone has to be you. You know I totally support your Avenging, I couldn't be prouder. But I see those guys, those "gods"..."
"You don't think they need me."
"I think they do. Which is a lot scarier. They're a mess."
"Yeah. I guess they're my mess."
"You need to be sure that this team is really a team and that they have your back. Things are changing for us. In a few months time, you and me are gonna be outnumbered. I need- ...just to be sure."
"Yes, ma'am." He kissed her, then she placed her arm around his waist and touched his wounded side.
"I can feel the difference."
U-GIN GENETIC RESEARCH LAB, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
Dr. Cho entered her lab and saw Ultron who said, "Scream, and your entire staff dies. I could've killed you, Helen, the night we met. I didn't."
"Do you expect a thank-you note?" Dr. Cho retorted.
"I expect you to know why."
"The Cradle." She heard her own recorded voice. ""This is the next thing, Tony.""
"This... is the next me."
"The regeneration cradle prints tissue, it can't build a living body."
"It can, you can. You lack the materials. You're a brilliant woman, Helen. But we all have room to improve." Ultron used the scepter to mind-control Dr. Cho.
BARTON FARM
Natasha and Bruce were still experiencing the after effects of Wanda's hallucinations; Bruce walked out of the bathroom and saw Natasha waiting outside.
"I didn't realize you were waiting," Bruce said.
"I would've joined you, but uh, it didn't seem like the right time," Natasha replied.
"They used up all the hot water."
"I should've joined you."
"Missed our window."
"Did we?"
"The world just saw the Hulk. The real Hulk, for the first time. You know I have to leave."
"But you assume that I have to stay? I had this, um, dream. The kind that seems normal at the time, but when you wake..."
"What did you dream?"
"That I was an Avenger. That I was anything more than the assassin they made me."
"I think you're being hard on yourself."
"Here I was hoping that was your job." She moved closer to him.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm running with it, with you. If running's the plan, as far as you want."
"Are you out of your mind?" He turned away from her.
"I want you to understand that I'm..."
"Natasha, where can I go? Where in the world am I not a threat?"
"You're not a threat to me."
"You sure? Even if I didn't just... there's no future with me. I can't ever... I can't have this, kids. Do the math, I physically can't."
"Neither can I. In the Red Room, where I was trained, where I was raised, um, they have a graduation ceremony. They sterilize you. It's efficient. One less thing to worry about. The one thing that might matter more than a mission. It makes everything easier. Even killing." She hesitated a moment. "You still think you're the only monster on the team?"
"What, so we disappear?"
---
Steve, Bucky and Tony were chopping wood outside Clint's house.
"Thor didn't say where he was going for answers?" Tony asked.
"Sometimes Buck's and my teammates don't tell us things," Steve shot back. "He and I were kind of hoping Thor was the exception."
"Yeah, give him time. We don't know what the Maximoff kid showed him."
""Earth's Mightest Heroes,"" Bucky stated sardonically. "Pulled us apart like cotton candy."
Tony glanced at Steve. "Seems like you walked away all right." He turned to Bucky. "Hard to tell about you, but you seem all right too."
"Is that a problem?" Steve and Bucky asked.
"I don't trust a guy without a dark side. Call me old-fashioned."
"Well let's just say you haven't seen it yet," Steve said.
"Far from it," Bucky added, an edge to his voice.
"You two know Ultron is trying to tear us apart, right?" Tony said.
"Well I guess you'd know," Steve replied. "Whether you tell us a bit of a question."
"Banner and I were doing research."
"That would affect the team," Bucky retorted.
"That would end the team. Isn't that the mission? Isn't that they "why" we fight, so we can end the fight, so we can get to go home?"
"Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die," Steve told him. "Every time."
Laura interrupted them. "I'm sorry. Mr. Stark, uh, Clint said you wouldn't mind, but, our tractor, it doesn't seem to want to start at all. I thought maybe you might..."
"Yeah, I'll give her a kick," Tony agreed and said to Steve and Bucky as he turned to leave, "Don't take from my pile." He entered the barn and walked over to the tractor. "Hello, Deere. Tell me everything. What ails you?"
Fury showed up from the other end of the bark and said, "Do me a favor. Try not to bring it to life."
"Ah, Mrs. Barton, you little minx. I get it, Maria Hill called you, right? Was she ever not working for you?"
"Artificial intelligence. You never even hesitated."
"Look, it's been a really long day, like, Eugene O'Neill, so how's about we skip to the part where you're useful?"
"Look me in the eye and tell me you're going to shut him down."
"You're not the director of me."
"I'm not the director of anybody. I'm just an old man who cares very much about you."
"And I'm the man who killed the Avengers. I saw it. I didn't tell the team, how could I? I saw them all dead, Nick. I felt it. The whole world, too. It's because of me. I wasn't ready. I didn't do all I could."
"The Maximoff girl, she's working you, Stark. Playing on your fear."
"I wasn't tricked, I was shown. It wasn't a nightmare, it was my legacy. The end of the path I started us on."
"You've come up with some pretty impressive inventions, Tony. War isn't one of them."
"I watched my friends die. You'd think that'd be as bad as it gets, right? Nope. Wasn't the worst part."
"The worst part is that you didn't."