Tony, Jax, Bree, Clint and Bruce were in the Avengers tower.
"Anything on Nat?" Bruce asked.
"I haven't heard," Tony told them.
"But she's alive, or Ultron would be rubbing our faces in it," Jax told them.
Clint looked over the Cradle. "This is sealed tight. We're gonna need to access the program, break it down from within."
"Any chance Natasha might leave you a message outside the Internet?" Bree asked. "Old-school spy stuff?"
Bruce looked over his computer. "There are some nets I can cast. Yeah, I'll find her."
Clint didn't respond, walking away.
Bree watched him go worriedly in concern, turning to Bruce, Jax and Tony. "If he's this bad..."
"Then imagine what Ana and Tatiana are going through," Jax finished.
"I'll be back," Bree told them, walking out of the room to follow Clint.
"I can work on tissue degeneration if you could fry whatever operational system Cho implanted," Bruce told them.
"Yeah, about that..." Tony trailed off.
Jax looked at Tony in realization, shaking his head. "No."
"You have to trust me," Tony told them.
"I trust you," Jax told him. He gestured to the Cradle. "I don't trust whatever this is, and I sure as hell don't trust Ultron."
"Our ally, the guy protecting the military's nuclear codes?" Tony asked. "I found him."
Tony brought up a hologram of Jarvis.
Jarvis: "Hello, Mr. Jackson."
Jax looked at the hologram in shock. "Jarvis?"
"Ultron didn't go after Jarvis because he was angry," Tony told them. "He attacked him because he was scared of what he can do. So, Jarvis went underground. Scattered, dumped his memory. But not his protocols. He didn't even know he was in there until I pieced him together."
"So, you want us to help you put Jarvis into this thing?" Bruce asked.
Tony shook his head. "No. Of course not. I want to help you put Jarvis in this thing. We're out of my field, here, Dr. Banner. You know bio-organics better than anyone."
"And you just assume that Jarvis' operational matrix can beat Ultron's?" Bruce asked.
"Jarvis has been beating him from inside without knowing it," Tony told them. "This is the opportunity. We can create Ultron's perfect self without the homicidal glitches he things are his winning personality. We have to."
Jarvis: "I believe it's worth a go."
"I'm in a loop," Jax told them. "I'm caught in a time loop. This is exactly where it all went wrong."
"I know," Tony told them. "I know. I know what everyone's gonna say. But they're already saying it. We're mad scientists. We're monsters, buddies. We've gotta own it. Make a stand." Jax turned away, overwhelmed, shaking his head. "It's not a loop. It's the end of the line."
Bruce was obviously tempted, looking at the Cradle.
Ⓐ
Ultron was in his lair.
Natasha was lying on the floor nearby, just now waking.
"I wasn't sure you would wake up," Ultron told her. "I hoped you would. I wanted to show you. I don't have anyone else." Natasha sat up painfully. "I think a lot about meteors. The purity in them. Boom! The end. Start again. The world made clean for the new man to rebuild. I was meant to be new. I was meant to be beautiful. The world would have looked to the sky and seen hope, seen mercy. Instead, they'll look up in horror because of you." Ultron walked toward Natasha. "You've wounded me. I give you full marks for that. But, like the man said, what doesn't kill me..." A new, bigger and stronger suit for Ultron punched through the first Ultron suit, destroying it, ripping it apart, throwing it aside. Natasha slid back over the floor. "Just makes me stronger."
Ultron locked Natasha in a cell.
Ⓐ
In Tony's office, Bruce, Tony and Jax were working.
Ⓐ
Clint and Bree were sitting at the comms center. They could hear static from Natasha's comm piece.
Bree sighed in relief. "She's alive."
Clint typed away at the computer. "And I think I can track her."
Ⓐ
In Tony's office, Tony, Jax and Bruce continued to work.
"This framework is not compatible," Tony told them.
"The genetic coding tower is at 97%," Bruce told them. "You have got to upload that schematic in the next three minutes."
Pietro, Wanda, Ana, Tatiana and Steve walked in.
"I'm gonna say this once," Steve told them.
"How about 'none-ce'?" Jax asked.
"Shut it down," Steve told them.
"Nope, not gonna happen," Tony told them.
"You don't know what you're doing," Steve told them.
"And you do?" Jax asked. She pointed at Wanda. "She's not in your heads?"
"I know you're angry," Wanda told them.
"Oh, we're way past that," Bruce told them. "I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade."
"Banner, after everything that's happened..." Tatiana trailed off.
"It's nothing compared to what's coming," Tony told them.
"You don't know what's in there," Wanda told them.
"This isn't a game," Steve told them.
Pietro zoomed to unplug the systems. "No, no. Go on. You were saying?"
Jax pulled on a Gold Strike glove, aiming it at Pietro.
Pietro zoomed to aim the glove at Jax.
Tatiana threw a shocking device into Pietro's head, making him let go of Jax.
The light blast shot into the glass behind Jax.
Pietro continued to shake with shock, looking at Tatiana.
Tatiana used his words from the woods. "You didn't see that coming?"
Wanda used the red energy to pull the shocking device off of Pietro's head.
"I'm rerouting the upload," Tony told them, turning to the computer.
Steve threw his shield into the computer.
Tony pulled on his Iron Man glove, shooting Steve in the chest with a light ray, making him fall.
Bruce restrained Wanda from behind. "Go ahead, piss me off."
Clint and Bree ran upstairs to see what was going on.
Clint drew his gun.
Steve punched Tony in the chest, making him crash through a glass window and fall.
Wanda sent red energy through her to Bruce, making him let go, turning to face him, using the energy to push him back.
Thor ran inside, jumping onto the table.
"Wait!" Jax told him.
Thor raised his hammer to the ceiling, summoning lightning, slamming the streaks into the Cradle, overloading it with power.
The new creature burst out of the Cradle, the burst throwing Thor to the floor.
The new creature was a human robot controlled by Jarvis. He was called Vision. Vision flew toward Thor.
Thor grabbed Vision, throwing him out through a glass window, making it shatter.
Vision stopped just before he reached outside, looking around.
Steve jumped over the railing, landing next to Bree, about to attack.
Bree held her hand toward Steve to stop him.
Vision turned toward the others.
Pietro walked closer.
Thor placed down his hammer.
"I am sorry," Vision told them. "That was... odd." He looked at Thor. "Thank you."
A cape appeared around Vision.
"Thor, you helped create this?" Bree asked.
"I've had a vision," Thor told them. "A whirlpool that sucks in all hope of life, and at its center is that."
Thor pointed at the stone in Vision's head.
"What?" Bruce asked. "The gem?"
"It's the Mind Stone," Thor told them. "It's one of the six Infinity Stones. The greatest power in the universe, unparalleled in its destructive capabilities."
"Then why would you bring--" Steve started.
"Because Tony is right," Thor answered.
"Oh, it's definitely the end times," Jax told them.
"The Avengers cannot defeat Ultron," Vision told them. "Not alone."
"Why does your Vision sound like Jarvis?" Ana asked.
"We reconfigured Jarvis' matrix to create something new," Tony answered.
"I think I've had my fill of new," Bree told them.
"You think I'm a child of Ultron," Vision told them.
"You're not?" Steve asked.
"I'm not Ultron," Vision told them. "I am not Jarvis. I am... I am."
"I looked in your head and saw annihilation," Wanda told him.
"Look again," Vision told her.
"Her seal of approval means jack to me," Clint told them.
"Their powers, the horrors in our heads, Ultron himself, they all came from the Mind Stone," Thor told them. "And they're nothing compared to what it can unleash. But with it on our side..."
"Is it?" Bree asked. She looked at Vision. "Are you? On our side?"
"I don't think it's that simple," Vision told them.
"Well, it better get real simple real soon," Steve told him.
"I am on the side of life," Vision told them. "Ultron isn't. He will end it all."
"What's he waiting for?" Tatiana asked.
"You," Vision answered.
"Where?" Ana asked.
"Sokovia," Clint answered. "He's got Nat there, too."
Ana and Tatiana looked at Clint at the sound of their mother's nickname.
Bruce stepped closer to Vision. "If we're wrong about you, if you're the monster that Ultron made you to be..."
"What will you do?" Vision asked. No one answered. "I don't want to kill Ultron. He's unique, and he's in pain. But that pain will roll over the Earth. So, he must be destroyed. Every form he's built, every trace of his presence on the Net. We have to act now. And not one of us can do it without the others. Maybe I am a monster. I don't think I'd know if I were one. I'm not what you are, and not what you intended. So, there may be no way to make you trust me. But we need to go."
Vision picked up Thor's hammer effortlessly, holding it toward Thor.
The team looked at him in shock.
Thor was stunned, taking the hammer.
Vision walked away.
There was a long moment of awkward silence.
"Right," Thor told them. He walked toward Tony and Jax, patting them each on the shoulder. "Well done."
Thor followed Vision.
"Three minutes," Steve told them. "Get what you need."
Ⓐ
Clint was readying his bow and arrow.
Ⓐ
Tatiana was getting arrow bolts to explode things she would shoot with her crossbow.
Ⓐ
Ana was getting shocking devices and devices that glowed with blue. She cut them through metal.
Ⓐ
Jax was readying his Gold Strike suit.
Ⓐ
Pietro and Wanda were watching the team from separate rooms.
Ⓐ
Bree picked up her staff, twirling it around in her hand.
Ⓐ
Tony was sitting at his computer, putting in a device.
Computer: "Good evening, boss."
Ⓐ
Clint, Tatiana and Ana were sitting together, looking at a picture of Laura and the kids.
Bree: (voice over) "No way we all get through this. If even one tin soldier is left standing, we've lost."
Clint turned to Tatiana and Ana. "We're gonna get your mom back. All right? I saved the three of your once before from an organization full of Hydra agents. We can get Nat back from a bunch of robots." Tatiana and Ana nodded. "Come here."
Clint, Tatiana and Ana embraced.
The three of them were still worried.
Ⓐ
Bree, Steve, Tony and Jax were talking in the office.
"There's gonna be blood on the floor," Jax told them.
"I got no plans tomorrow night," Steve told them.
"I get the first crack at the big guy," Tony told them. "Iron Man's the one he's waiting for."
"That's true," Jax told him. "He hates you the most."
"You're a close second," Tony told him.
Jax shrugged.
Ⓐ
Everyone was on the jet.
"Ultron knows we're coming," Steve told them. "Odds are, we'll be riding into heavy fire. And that's what we signed up for. But the people of Sokovia, they didn't. So our priority is getting them out."
The jet flew away to Sokovia.