7 | STRINGS
"Mind catching me up on what your little friends,Peter and Wendy?" Steve asked his daughter.
Liviana rolled her eyes as she hurriedly walked down the gray halls alongside her father. "Pietro and Wanda? He's fast and she's... weird." Liv shrugged as they halted to a stop once they reached the elevator.
"Well, they're gonna show up again. File says they volunteered for Strucker's experiments. What kind of monster lets a German scientist experiment on them to protect their country?" Steve asked sarcastically, Amelia influence still evident in him.
Unfortunately for Steve, Liviana didn't know much about him and didn't get the sarcastic joke very well. "They are not monsters, they are my friends. You also forget that there is one more enhanced person amongst the HYDRA affiliates: your daughter." Liv mentioned, shutting her father up.
* * *
For the next few days, Liviana learned to adapt to the life as an Avenger. She was quickly adopted into the group as if she had been a member of the team since the beginning. They loved having her around to give her a different perspective on the data they were given and they loved how she was so easily trusted.
It was Saturday and the team was having a party at the Avengers tower. Liviana had never been to a part and she was quite astonished at how fun they could be. Liviana sat at the bar and watched people drink the strange yellowish liquid with foam layering the top. She looked at the bartender with a perplexed look spread across her face.
"What do you need, sweetheart?" The bartender asked, throwing the rag she was holding over her shoulder.
Liv nodded at the cup Thor seemed to be holding. "One of those." She told, her strange accent coating her voice like thick honey.
"Aren't you like 18?" The bartender looked her up and down, then recalled her accent.
"Oh, you're probably from somewhere where you can drink at 18. I'll get you a beer, then." The bartender smiled.
As if on cue, a pair of large hands were dropped onto Liviana's shoulders. "Don't. You're only like, two." The familiar voice of Steve rung out as he pulled her away from the bar.
"But—" Liviana began, but Steve rapidly covered her mouth with his hand.
Steve clicked his tongue disappointedly. "Underage drinking is illegal." Steve lectured her, feeling like a father for the first time.
"Does that mean I can't drink water, either?" Liv inquired, she was innocently ignorant.
Steve sighed and slapped a hand to his forehead. "No, you know what," Steve turned and called the first person he laid eyes upon in the room, "Thor!" Steve led Liv over to Thor, who was talking to an old man.
"I gotta have some of that." The old man stated as he leaned over and eyeballed the tiny flask Thor was holding.
Thor poured some of the liquid concealed inside of the flask into his cup. "Oh, no, no, no. See this... this was aged for 1,000 years. In the barrels built from the wreck of Grunhel's fleet. It is not meant for mortal men." Thor waved over Steve and handed him a cup filled with some of the liquid too.
Liviana attempted to reach over and take a sip, but Steve pulled the cup away from her and shot her a disapproving look. "Neither was Omaha Beach blondie. Stop trying to scare us, come on." Another old man at the party spoke up and waved Thor over to give him some too. Thor shrugged and poured some of his special alcohol into the old man's cup.
* * *
"It's a trick!" Clint exclaimed. Thor was challenging everyone to lift his hammer. He claimed that only worthy men were capable of lifting it.
Thor bellowed. "No, no. It's much more than that." Thor told.
"Ah, whosoever be he worthy shall haveth the power. Whatever man! It's a trick!" Clint claimed.
Thor pointed over at his resting hammer. "Please, be my guest." Thor offered.
Clint instantly stood up and went to grab the hammer. "I still don't know how you do it!" Clint chuckled as he struggled to lift the hammer.
"Smell the silent judgement?" Tony joked.
Clint nodded over at Tony. "Stark, by all means." He suggested that Tony try it.
Tony immediately got up confidently and neared the hammer. "I was never one to shrink form an honest challenge. It's physics." Tony told.
"Right, so, if I lift it, I then rule Asgard?" Tony inquired.
Thor nodded. "Yes, of course."
Tony began to lift the hammer using various methods and none of them seemed to work. Soon enough, everyone seemed to be trying to tug at the hammer. "How about you, Little Rogers?" Tony asked for Liv to have a go.
Liviana shrugged and skipped over to the hammer. She wrapped her hand around the handle and pulled it up without a hesitation. The hammer hovered over the table by a few inches, and Liviana quickly put the hammer back down. "So, we are all going to agree we didn't see that, right?" Tony spoke up after a few moments of shocked silence.
Everyone mumbled in agreement except for Thor, who was still staring at Liviana with worry flooding his eyes. "I— This doesn't mean anything." Liviana assured Thor, and rushed back to sit down on the couch once again.
The group continued to chat for a bit until they heard some growling coming from the back of the room. Everyone shot their heads over toward the direction of the noise and saw a barely standing, thrown together iron man suit stumbling in their direction. "How could you be worthy? You're all killers" The suit grumbled, referring to their conversation about being worthy to lift Thor's hammer.
"Stark." Steve blatantly said.
"Jarvis.." Tony called out, wondering if the suit was communicating through Jarvis.
"I'm sorry, I was asleep. Or I was a dream." The suit grumbled.
Liviana watched the machine carefully as it wobbled menacingly over to the group. "Reboot Legionnaire OS. We got a buggy suit." Liv heard Tony speak to his control panel.
"There was this terrible noise. And I was tangled in... in... stings. I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy." The suit continued to ramble.
Steve stared coldly at the machine. "You killed someone?" Steve inquired.
"Wouldn't have been my first call. But, down in the real world, were face with ugly choices." The suit spoke frankly.
Thor gripped his hammer tightly. "Who sent you?" Thor queried.
The suit ignored Thor and continued to speak. "I see a suit of armor around the world. I see a girl a special one that can do great things, but will go rogue." The machine whispered.
"Ultron." Bruce Banner, who was very quiet until that moment, announced.
"In the flesh. Or, no, not yet. Not this chrysalis. But I'm ready. I'm on mission." The suit informed.
Everyone simultaneously held their weapons close. "What mission?" Romanoff continued the interrogation.
"Peace in our time." The suit blatantly said, then cued every iron man suit to fly in and knock everyone over.
All of the superheroes were tackled to the ground or knocked around. Liviana quickly recovered and grabbed a discarded gun from the ground and began shooting wildly at the robots. Her effort had little effect on the bulletproof machinery, so she used the skills HYDRA had taught her to use.
Liviana jumped onto the back of one of the suit and flipped it upside down with her legs to send it crashing to the ground. Liviana got at and grabbed the suit by its head and ripped out the wires connecting it to the body. She instantly looked around and spotted some decorative plants growing around the room and maneuvered the plants to rapidly grow outward. The roots and stems of the plants managed to reach an astonishing length and was even able to wrap itself around another flying suit, disabling it from moving any further. The suit attempted to rip away from the strong stem of the plant, but was unable to.
Steve quickly caught sight of the vulnerable suit and threw his shield at it, breaking it in half. "Well that was dramatic. I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through. You want to protect the world but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to evolve? With these? These puppets," the suit began to ramble once again after the last suit had been destroyed and picked up a trashed robotic suit, "there's only one path to peace. The Avengers' extinction." Thor had enough of the AI's talking and threw his hammer at it, breaking it's dismantled body into dozens of pieces.
"I had strings, but now I'm free." The A.I. muttered before it was pushed out of the disabled suit.