Alex fell backwards, smacking her head against a branch.
"What the fuck?" She was fairly certain she had been in a field— though why, she couldn't remember. Now, she was in what looked like a park as the sun began to set.
The tablet on her arm beeped and, gratefully, Alex looked down, assuming it would be a message from Tony or a map,
No Signal.
From behind her, Alex heard some children laughing and she flinched automatically. Her throat was drier than Tony's humour, though she remembered drinking a full bottle of water this morning. Somewhere else in her scattered memories, there was the taste of salty seawater and diving under water, but she pushed it back, assuming it was from her childhood.
Memories always came back to Alex eventually, even the ones her subconscious had tried very hard to keep away from her. The therapy had helped until Dr Wells had tried to kill her and that had left Alex unwilling to go again, despite Tony promising to do a better background check.
With her main means of communicating with the team missing, Alex went to push her hood down only to realise both her circlet and mask were missing. She was still in her suit and she allowed herself a moment to panic before composing herself. There had to be a reason why she was in her suit without a mask, but finding out that reason would have to wait— she was by no means the most popular superhero, but her dark purple suit and giant red 'V' on the front was easily recognised.
"Thank god for Natasha always making me wear a vest." Alex regretted saying that the moment she had; to get her suit undone required some impressive contortions and the zip that stretched from the top of her neck to just above her waist got stuck easily.
It took a good minute for Alex to realise something was missing, "My backpack!"
Groping at her back as though it would somehow appear, Alex swore viciously. She always had that backpack on her, so what the hell had happened that would be important enough for it to be taken off.
Alex finally yanked the zip to the bottom and pulled her arms out of the suit, tying it around her waist so she was in a more conspicuous black tank top and purple jeans.
"Someone is to blame for this but I refuse to believe it's me."
There was something wrong with her, she felt exhausted but the only exercise she remembered doing was falling of Sam's sofa when Natasha had grabbed her. Alex knew she had to get out of the park though, so she forced herself to start walking.
Luckily, there was a sign at the end of a path that read 'Central Park Conservancy' at the bottom. At least Alex was in familiar territory, and she quickly located someone on a phone.
Doing a little jog towards them, Alex said, "Excuse me, ma'am, but can I borrow your phone?"
The woman sidestepped around Alex, already leaving before she answered, "No."
"Bitch." Alex called after her, quickly ducking when the woman span around to glare at her. She looked disgusted at Alex, which only made the teenager laugh harder.
"I'll call the police on you!"
"They'd have to catch me first." The woman typed on her phone and Alex almost tripped in her hurry to get away.
She thought she'd made it away— a sign for Strawberry Fields appearing in front of her— when someone grabbed her arm roughly and Alex shrieked.
"Alessandra?"
"Craig!" Embarrassed by her reaction, Alex greeted the elderly man with a kiss on the cheek, and when he was busy examining her face, she nabbed some bird seed from his pocket. Craig let go of her face after rubbing his finger over a small bruise on her cheek.
"Hello Alessandra, I was just wondering about when you'd next come for a visit." He was smiling warmly, "Nasty bruise you've got there. Hopeless, your foster parents are for keeping you safe. I said that to Jonah last week, I said we would have been happy to take you in and you were a fool for not letting us."
"I got into a fight, nothing I couldn't sort myself." she replied, scattering some food on the ground for Craig's pigeons, "I'm sorry for not being around as much."
"Don't worry about it, the pigeons have been keeping me busy. Just the other night, Laura and Logan got into another fight, and of course no one told me until Charles's wing got broken."
"Really?"
"Yeah. It wasn't bad but he refused to let me treat it for a good half hour."
"Sounds like a hard life you've got going."
"Eh, I manage. My backs been killing me recently though, and I had to go to one of Scarlett's ballet things last night. I don't understand how people can actually watch the whole thing, I fell asleep after about ten minutes and didn't wake up until the final bow."
"You've got to tell me the next time she has one, I'd love to see her and Jonah again."
"Come visit me more often, and I will."
"Touchè," Alex laughed. It sounded fake to her, but Craig seemed to smile brighter, "I was wondering if I could borrow your phone to call someone."
"Who you calling?"
"Sam."
"Ah, of course." Craig adored Sam, even gifting him a Crimson Rosella named Red Wing when Alex first left to live full time in Stark Tower.
"Thank you." Alex accepted it, sighing internally at Craig's empty contact list. She typed in Sam's number and pressed call. It rung three times, each ring making Alex's stomach sink even further.
"Hello?"
"Sam," Alex hopped up and down in relief, forgetting her fatigue, "it's Alex."
"Hey, Ketchup. You coming over tonight?"
"No. Something's happened, I'm in Central Park with Craig but I don't know where anyone is or how I got here."
"Isn't this like the third time this month? Hang on, I'm on my way." The call muffled for a moment, then Sam was back, "This morning Natasha picked you up, she only told me that you were going to find Ultron. Ultron, does that help?"
"Ultron..." Alex's mind went blank and it felt as though she was falling backwards. It was the same sensation as teleporting but that was usually over in a split second. Natasha had taught her how to stay on her feet, and Alex forced her arms behind her back so she could catch the ground and push herself back up.
There was no ground beneath her.
There was always ground when teleporting, or at least that's how it worked for her. It was like walking on paving slabs or stepping stones— if each stepping stone lead you to a particular place and were invisible . She'd even gotten a small scar on the back of her head from a nasty fall the first time she tried teleporting after getting away from her mother.
"Let me back!" Alex cried as she snapped her right fingers. Her left hand collided with something solid and Alex made a half-assed effort to propel herself upright like she had planned.
The floor was solid concrete, walls springing up around her. Two blurry figures stood in opposing corners, one of them weaving a beautiful red light.
"I've got her."
"Good work. Get her here." Alex could see better now, the person who had spoken wasn't even a person but more like a robot. Seeing him felt like a jolt of electricity as Alex began to recall parts of what had happened.
"Ultron." She whispered and he looked at her straight in the eyes.
"She's resisting, I can't."
Alex's right hand was still locked in a snapping position and try as she might, she couldn't move. Ultron saw her eyes twitch downwards and a smirk like Tony's crossed his face,
"Do you know where she is?"
"Somewhere in New York. I can hold her mind here for a while longer, but if I try and bring her fully over, she'll faint and I may not be able to get her back again."
"I'll sort that." Ultron turned away, more of the room surrounding Alex coming into focus as he did so. "Lock the door behind you, Wanda."
The other figure—Wanda— nodded and Ultron left her alone. Alex tried to snap her fingers and Wanda turned on her, eyes not quite meeting Alex's the way Ultron's had done.
"I don't know what the hell you did to my brother, but when I find out, I am going to make it happen to you. You tried to take away my family and I will destroy yours." Wanda snarled, the scarlet aura dancing over her hands looking familiar, though Alex couldn't place why. A few seconds passed, as though Wanda was waiting for something, then she nodded her head and walked away.
As the door to the room shut, Alex choked down a sob. This had happened to her before, when she was younger and she had survived that. Now she was older, she knew people cared about her and that was all she needed.
All she had to do was figure out what the hell was happening. And where the hell she was. And who the hell these people were. And how the hell to get back to Central Park.
She hadn't even finished scattering Craig's bird feed.