Even though we had stayed up throughout the night after the attack and the Avengers were pulling all-nighters, I hurriedly found my room so I could try to get some rest. After the nightmare vision I had experienced, all I wanted was sleep. The only problem was that I never knew my sleep would get plagued as well.
"Talk," a girl snapped. Her long brown hair was somewhat matted as she pushed it over her shoulder, and her dark makeup made her eyes seem piercing. Next to her was a boy around her age with dark roots turning to blond hair. A throne was centered in the middle of the room, turned so that they and I couldn't fully see the figure sitting. "And if you are wasting our time-"
"Did you know this church is in the exact center of the city?" the figure interrupted. "The elders decreed it so that everyone could be equally close to God. I like that. The geometry of belief." His voice was rough, almost gritted in a sense. The girl's eyes narrowed at his words, and a red aura seemed to flicker around her fingertips. The figure chuckled. "You're wondering why you can't look inside my head."
That comment shocked me, and I glanced back down at the girl's fingers, no longer emitting the aura. "Sometimes it's hard," she admitted. "But sooner or later, every man shows himself." The figure chuckled again as he rose from his seat, causing me to stumble back with a shocked gasp. It was Ultron, no longer a robot made from loose scraps and wires. He towered over the two people in the room with him; his body built in comparison to an athlete's. The girl looked shocked herself, but she managed to stay more composed than me.
"Oh, I'm sure they do," Ultron smiled, a glint in his glowing red eyes as he stepped toward them. "But you needed something more than a man. That's why you let Stark take the scepter." Take? It was given up willingly?
"I didn't expect," stated the woman, looking over Ultron's body to hide the hints of fear leaking into her voice. "But I saw Stark's fear, I knew it would control him, make him self-destruct."
"Everyone creates the thing they dread. Men of peace create engines of war, invaders create avengers, people create..." Ultron paused, thinking of an answer to his own philosophical truths. "Smaller people?" Uh...children! I lost the word there. Children. Designed to supplant them, to help them...end."
"Is that why you've come?" asked the young woman, a smirk growing on her face. "To end the Avengers?" The boy was eerily silent, glancing up at the robot as if he wanted to ask him a question.
"I've come to save the world. But also, yeah." Ultron turned to face the boy, realization dawning on his face. "But I know the real reason why you let him continue with that god's weapon. I saw her." The girl gasped, covering her mouth with her hands as tears collected at her eyes. I stood frozen. Who was her? Who was the person that convinced her to let the spiral of events occur? "You just have to convince her to come home."
I woke up with a painful gasp, clutching my throat in pain. It felt raw from screaming in my sleep, and my head was killing me. I glanced over at my clock, surprised to see barely only an hour had passed since the argument in the lab. I pulled my legs into my chest as I took large breaths to try and soothe myself, but my door was thrown open unexpectedly and caused me to scream in surprise.
"Isabel?" my father said slowly, his hands raised in the air when he saw me shaking in the corner of my bed. "Hey, hey, hey," he soothed, coming beside me and wrapping an arm around me. I involuntarily flinched at his touch. "It's okay."
"What happened on that mission that convinced you to create Ultron?" I asked him with a rasp. I felt my dad freeze at the question. "What did you see?"
"Why do you-"
"I need to know," I cut him off, surprising myself with the harsh tone that had appeared in my voice. "What did that girl make you see?" He stared at me with slightly narrowed eyes, and I knew he wanted to ask why I had said my previous question. He eventually sighed, glancing down in what looked like shame.
"Death," my father muttered, clenching his fists. "We were all in space, and there were aliens all around us. Aliens flying through portals in the sky to Earth, and we couldn't do anything because I was the only one alive. Nat, Bruce, Clint, Thor, Rogers... everyone. And then I turned around to see where those bastards were coming from..." I tilted my head to the side, waiting for him to continue. "...and I saw you standing there, waving your hands wildly like it was some magic show. You holding up this kind of liquid wall while you slowly faded away into oblivion." I took his hand gingerly, surprising him after the outburst I had just had.
"Dad, just because she made you see something doesn't mean that it's real," I reassured him, rubbing my thumb against a callous. "I mean, I'm still here. I'm safe."
"Yeah, safe," he agreed, but he was staring at the wall, obviously dazing off. "Which is why you were screaming. Makes sense. I can stay back if that's what you want."
"No, you have a team that needs you," I shook my head. "I'm... I come after them." My father started to sputter, but I cut him off. "You have an evil robot to catch, and you can't waste any more time." As if right on cue, Natasha knocked against my doorframe, catching our attention.
"Sorry to barge in," she said with a small smile, leaning against the wood. "But the tiny Stark kind of has a point. Quinjet's fired up and ready to go whenever you are."
"Go ahead," I told him, nudging him to follow the red-headed woman. "Go save the world, Metal Man." Dad chuckled at the nickname, pushing off my bed and leaving my room.
"See you in a few hours, Water Girl." Nat's head turned slightly as she watched him leave, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly. I tensed, letting my legs slide back down and over the side of the bed. Something was internally telling me to keep my guard up.
"So is this what you do every time he goes with us?" she asked me curiously. "Sit in your room and wait patiently for him to come back?" I nodded slowly, keeping my facial expressions to a minimal.
"Well, yeah," I told her with a small laugh that quickly died out when I saw her annoyed look. "Yeah, um... that's kind of how it's been since... since I can remember, I guess."
"Sounds like it sucks," Nat clucked her tongue. She rubbed her shoe back and forth against the carpet. "I mean he could be trying to train you instead of ignoring you all the time. You obviously have some talent with a knife."
"He doesn't ignore- I was just defending- train me?" I sputtered, severely caught off guard by her statement. "I'm... no, no. It's better this way." Nat hummed, smirking to herself.
"I beg to differ," she told me. "You've made quite the impression on my teammates, especially Clint. I've known him for years, and he treats you like you're his daughter after knowing you for a few days. He doesn't just trust people so easily; it comes with the job."
"And this is swaying me how?" I asked, tilting my head to the side.
"First of all, he likes you. Second, it seems odd that you would have the strength to kill something if you've never had training." I bit my bottom lip nervously, keeping eye contact with the assassin to try to keep from showing any more of my embarrassment. "So... we're going to be on the outskirts of Wakanda at an oil rig. I bet we wouldn't be able to turn around if someone surprisingly showed up halfway." She pivoted on her feet, leaving me to process the information by myself. "It'd be nice to receive backup once and a while, you know?"
It felt like a setup. She obviously had no clue about my powers, which was good, but her offer was tempting. No more sitting and hiding; I would finally be proving myself to everyone, to my father. I pushed off my bed and walked briskly to my dad's lab, pausing only to grab a pair of cuffs and slide them on my wrists. I pushed my glasses back up my nose, staring down at the metal suit appearing in the tech zone below my feet. "Activate Marina."
____________________________________________________________
I could never understand how flying in the Iron Man suit could bring my father such joy. He tried to surprise me once with a suit of my own, but when I nearly destroyed his lab, he let me focus on just my powers. He never knew that I spent countless nights learning how to control the suit and adjust it to my own liking. It didn't have a proper defense system, but its speed was impeccable.
"Passing the six hundred mark," the suit's internal voice told me. I had based it to be similar to my own, but it was currently sounding more like the girl from my dream than me. "Power is below ten percent."
"Right on schedule," I murmured to myself, putting on a final burst of speed and launching myself on the roof of the Quinjet and latching my metal-covered fingers on a hold. "Ow."
"You've got to be kidding me." I turned my head around to see my father land next to me, his feet latching for him. Even with the helmet on, I could tell he was glaring. "What... the hell... are you doing here?"
"Can't hear you, sorry!" I yelled back. "It's a little windy out here!" That was an understatement; it sounded like a train was roaring in my ears. "Do I have permission to board?" He stayed silent, motioning for me to follow him inside the jet. We both landed with two loud clunks, causing most everyone to look curiously at us except for Nat. She had a smirk plastered on her face.
"Didn't realize we had another person coming, Stark," Steve commented, looking over me with a raised eyebrow. "Would've been nice to get a heads up."
"Yeah, it would've," Dad agreed as his helmet exposed his face, startled when he heard the laugh coming from the cockpit. "What, Barton?"
"Nothing." I leaned over slightly to see the archer smiling back at me. "It's nice to see my little personal chef came along."
"Ha ha ha," I mock laughed, taking the helmet off to reveal my messy ponytail and slanted glasses. "Didn't bring anything for you though, sorry to disappoint."
"You owe me fifteen dollars, Barton!" Natasha commented, causing my father to look back and forth between the two ex-SHIELD agents in annoyance.
"So did you two know my daughter was planning to sneak out on a mission with us? And decide not to tell anyone?"
"I mean, Thor knew." We all turned in the Asgardian's direction, earning a sheepish smile and shrug.
"I mean... she seems like she could be very helpful..." he tried to explain, but he seemed to shrivel under Dad's gaze. It was so strange how he could go from threatening him to being threatened by him. "I'm gonna sit now." Bruce looked at my father, his hands rubbing against one another.
"Tony," he asked nervously. "What if we have a code green?" My dad glanced down at me, sighing as he tried to plan.
"She'll stay here, like during any fight unless of a dire emergency," he decided, trying to play it off with a chuckle but ended up covering his face with his hands. "This is stupid; I'm stupid. I can't do this."
"Hey," I told him softly, taking his hand into my own. "It was my decision to come. Plus, I want Ultron to have a timely... watery demise."
"His demise better be a dry one, missy," he told me darkly. "You know the rules."
"Yeah, and the rules kind of went out the window when I decided to hitchhike," I pointed out. "So let's go, save the world, and kick Ultron's metal butt."