Taken
"I'll take Natasha, Rose and Clint." Steve said, picking up his shield and placing it on his back.
Nat gave me a sideways glance. I looked at her and shook my head. It was awkward, we knew it was. I was still put out by my harsh rejection. And I wasn't even the one who had made a move. Still, I would try and be somewhat civil, for the sake of the mission. And I missed actually getting some action.
"All right, strictly recon. I'll hit the Nexus. I'll join you as soon as I can." Tony replied.
"If Ultron's really building a body . . ." Steve said to Tony warily.
"He'll be more powerful than any of us." Tony finished. "Maybe all of us. An android designed by a robot."
"You know, I really miss the days when the weirdest thing science ever created was me." Steve said, a hint of humour in his voice.
"I'll drop Banner off at the tower," Fury entered the room, shrugging on a jacket. "You mind if I borrow Ms. Hill?"
"She's all yours." Tony said. "Apparently."
"What are you gonna do?" I moved forward, ignoring Tony and Steve and looking directly at Fury.
"I don't know," he said. "Something dramatic, I hope."
~
The Quinjet dropped Steve and I off on some random roof. I pulled a gun from its holster and readied it, checking that the metal staff I had picked up from Clint's house (well he wasn't using it) was still strapped to my back. There it was, safe and sound and ready to be extended for close combat, should the situation call for it.
"Two minutes. Stay close." Steve said to everyone through our earpieces.
Weaving through buildings, we found our way into the facility where Ultron had been working; it was deserted, no Ultron or other bots, but there were several bodies on the floor, including Cho's.
"Dr. Cho!" Steve and I ran up to her, dropping to her as she struggled to sit up, her clothes stained red.
Steve whipped out a cloth and pressed it to her injury, trying to stem the bleeding. She breathed heavily. "He's uploading himself into the body." She told us.
"Where?" Steve and I asked at the same time.
Cho shook her head, she didn't know. Steve turned to look around but she grasped his arm. "The real power is inside the Cradle. The gem, its power is uncontainable. You can't just blow it up." She looked to me. "You have to get the Cradle. You and your brother."
"I understand," I nodded. "First, we have to find it."
"Go." She told us.
"Did you guys copy that?" Steve asked into his earpiece.
"We did." Clint replied in the Quinjet.
"I got a private jet taking off across town." Nat informed us. "No manifest. That could be him."
"There. It's a truck from the lab." Clint said through my ear. Steve and I began to move. "Right above you, Cap, Rosie. On the loop by the bridge. It's them. You got three with the Cradle, one in the cab. I could take out the driver."
"Negative!" Steve said at once. "That truck crashes, the gem could level the city."
We climbed several rungs onto a road. "We need to draw Ultron out to us." I said. We came out on the bridge, the truck on the loop nearing us.
Steve offered me his hand but I ignored it, running and jumping over the edge of the bridge and on to the top of the truck, Steve barely a second behind me. We landed with a clang and rolled slightly. We rolled to the back and climbed down to the doors.
We heard a shout from inside. "Leave me ALONE!" A red blast shot the left door open, swinging Steve into the side of the truck but he pushed back. I just about had time to duck away to the right hand side of the truck, clinging on to whatever I could as the entire back doors were blasted off, Steve lifting and landing on top of them, dragging onto the road. I yelped a little, worried he'd fall off into traffic behind us.
"Well, he's definitely unhappy!" Steve yelled. "I'm gonna try and keep him that way."
"You're not a match for him, Cap," Clint said. "Not even with Rosie."
"Thanks, Barton," Steve replied sarcastically. He looked at me and, given the situation, I finally met his eye. He nodded at me and I nodded back.
As Steve rode on the remnants of the door on the side of the truck, I breathed deeply and then turned inside, firing a shot or two at whatever bots I could. They missed, ricocheting off the metal sides. I turned back before Ultron saw me, but I heard him disconnect himself from the Cradle. As Steve managed to haul himself to the edge of the truck, Ultron sent off a pulse that blew the doors off and Steve with it, flying back onto a car behind and cracking the windshield.
I clamped my mouth shut. I had to be quiet, not let Ultron know I'm there. Not yet. I clung tighter to the edge of the door and watched as Steve jumped cars to the top of the truck. "You know what's in that cradle?" Ultron asked him.
I peeked my head in, unnoticed by the other bots. The sheer energy that came from it. . .I could feel it, it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before, beyond science and technology I had seen and done with Tony and Bruce. I heard the familiar clank of Ultron's beam against Steve's shield. "The power to make real change. And that terrifies you."
If I could just damage this enough. . .
"I wouldn't call it a comfort." Steve replied. I heard repeated hits, the pair of them fighting on top of the truck.
I fired another three shots, this time with more accuracy: I hit one of the bots in the neck and head and it collapsed, sliding on to the floor. There were a few more bots, but only one was scraped by the third bullet. They turned their heads but didn't see me, having returned to my position. This was it, slow and precise shots.
"Stop it." Ultron said, and I saw Steve's shield bouncing on the round.
"Shit."
I heard banging and imagined Steve rolling off onto the front of the truck. "Got a window. Four, three. . . give him hell." I heard Clint say and knew Nat was on her way down. Good.
Another turn. Another several shots. This time, one was ready, watching me. It lifted an arm and fired; I ducked just in time to let it pass over my head. It walked slowly towards me as I hung on for dear life with one hand.
"I'm always picking up after you boys." Nat said and as I ducked to miss another shot I saw her weaving her way through traffic behind us, picking up Steve's shield.
"They're heading under the overpass. I've got no shot." Clint told us.
"Which way?" Nat asked.
"Hard right. . .Now."
Nat disappeared. I turned back to the bot and crouched, lunging for its legs and tackling it. Two more turned and lifted their arms, blasts ready to fire. "Uh, Nat..." I said warningly.
"On it."
The first came at me, aiming for my head but I turned and let the shot fly, pressing my own gun to its neck and firing, the close distance exploding its head. "Gross..." I kicked it from the vehicle and saw Nat swerve to avoid it.
The other two bots split, one aiming for me, the other for Nat on the motorcycle. She vanished again and I heard her apologising to people. I ran at the bot aiming at me, pushing it into the truck wall with a loud bang. The pain of my body against metal rippled through me but I grit my teeth. I grabbed the bot's arm as it tried to shoot at me, pushing that, too, against the wall and using my gun to shoot its arm off. As I watched the arm fall, I saw Steve flying off the roof and onto a car that flipped but he managed to get his footing back.
That damn man making me worry about him when I had a robot trying to kill me.
I wasn't paying attention, and the other robot fired, just grazing my shoulder. "Bitch!" I yelled out, hissing in pain. The other bot used my distraction to his advantage and shoved me from it, my own back hitting the other wall, head slamming against the metal. I groaned, dazed and looked up just as I saw a blast aimed at me. I widened my eyes and dropped to the floor quickly, missing only by inches.
"Can you draw the guards out?" I heard Natasha ask Clint.
The two cornered me, weapons raised. I heard shots firing above the truck and they turned, suddenly more interested with that as they took off outside of the truck to find Clint.
I breathed heavily against the wall, head pounding from hitting it so heard and my shoulder in agony. Through the rip in my suit I could just about see the wound; open, red, sore, and bloody. Fucking great.
"They're heading back towards you." Clint warned us. "So whatever you're gonna do, do it now."
"They can get fucked," I grumbled, struggling but managing to force myself to stand. My head span and I felt dizzy, resting a hand against the wall and blinking hard.
"I'm going in and joining you, Rose." Nat told us. "Cap, can you keep him occupied?"
"What do you think I've been doing?" Steve asked and I could hear his annoyance in his voice.
Natasha suddenly appeared in the truck. She eyed my shoulder and the hand on the wall, other on my forehead. "You good?"
"Peachy keen," I said through gritted teeth. We both walked to the cradle and finally looked in it, frowning at the sight of a vague-robotic-looking body in blue coloured water. I surveyed the screen the cradle was connected to. Nat did, too, both of us pressing buttons to stop it but were denied. If only I wasn't so dazed, or was with Tony or Bruce. Maybe then I could think. "What the -"
I was cut off by the ground falling away. Nat and I looked at each other, panicked, as the truck lifted from the ground and we fell to the floor, rolling backwards but managing to grab on to the thick tubes that were hooked up to the cradle.
"Okay, package is airborne." Clint informed us. "I have a clean shot."
"No!" I cried out. "We're still in the truck!"
"What the hell are you . . .?"
"Just be ready!" Natasha told him urgently. She looked and me and I nodded at her, knowing what we were going to do. "We're sending the package to you."
"How do you want me to take it?" Clint asked us and I might've laughed if I wasn't anticipating what would be coming soon.
Nat got to work on one side of the cradle and I walked up to the other, both of us using small knives in our belts to cut the tethers of the cradle. "Uh," I said, almost laughing. "You might wish you hadn't asked that."
"I lost him!" Steve's distressed call came through the earpiece. "He's headed your way!"
"Ready?" I looked at Nat and she nodded.
"Nat, Rose, we gotta go." Clint reminded us.
We broke the tethers and Nat placed a bomb on the wall, setting it off. We grabbed on to the cradle as it began to slide, falling out of the truck and into the Quinjet.
A cold, metal hand grabbed on to my leg, another on Nat's and we were pulled back from the Jet, letting go of the cradle as it slid into the plane.
"Nat! Rose!" Clint's yells were lost to the wind as were pulled away, "Cap, you seen the girls?"
My earpiece fell away; Nat and I struggled against the bot that had grabbed us but another joined and separated us, seizing our hands so we couldn't grab our weapons. We gave each other helpless looks as we were pulled away from our friends.
Something hit my head, and I was out cold.
~
I woke up as Nat did, laying sideways on a stone step. Ultron stood before us, a few metres away, messing with wires and metal.
"I wasn't sure you would wake up." He said to the pair of us. "I hoped you would. I wanted to show you. I don't have anyone else." We struggled to sit up, utterly beaten and heads woozy. "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." He stopped fiddling with metal and looked to us. "I was meant to be new. I was meant to be beautiful. The world would've looked to the sky and seen hope, seen mercy. Instead, they'll look up in horror because of you."
He stepped closer to us ominously. "You've wounded me. I give you full marks for that. But, like the man said, what doesn't kill me. . ." a hand reached up and crushed Ultron's head making Nat and I flinch back into a cell of some sort. Another Ultron appeared looking bigger. Tougher. ". . . Just makes me stronger." The new Ultron pulled the cell door across, locking us in.
"Asshole," I spat at the door.
Ultron had walked away, but still called back to me, "Manners, Miss Stark!"
I resisted the urge to yell back something even more rude and just fell back against the crate behind me. My head hurt. My shoulder was in agony now. My cheek was cut from the bot pulling us from the Jet.
It was cold and clammy and I shivered for more than just a chill in the air. But more than that, I was just pissed. Pissed at Ultron and his bots for taking us when we were so close.
I wish I hadn't ignored Steve. Ultron could kill us, easily, with the snap of a finger but he hasn't yet. I didn't know why but I was grateful. But who knows how long we would be here for, and whether we would be found. He could be saving us, preparing for a grand finale where Nat and I are killed in front of our friends. And I'd never get to see Steve again. Never get to tell him how I felt about him. Never get to have that almost-kiss with him.
I groaned and kicked a useless piece of metal in anger. "We have to get out of here," I whispered to Nat
She nodded. "I was thinking something old school. Clint will find us that way."
"What did you have in mind?"
She holds up a battered looking radio. "Reckon your genius mind could repair this for me?" she whispers, giving me a grim smile.
I looked at it and sighed, holding my hand out for it. "Let me have a look. . ."
It took me an hour to do it, having to hide away from Ultron and his little minions, but eventually I fixed the radio, handing it over to Nat to send a signal to Clint. We only prayed that he was listening for us.
"Well," she said, lifting up the little device ready to tap out her Morse code. "Fingers crossed."
I nodded grimly and let her do her thing and tell Clint we were stuck in Sokovia.
"So," I asked once she'd finished. "How much trouble do you think the boys have caused since we've been gone?"
Nat fixed me a look and rolled her eyes. "I can only imagine."
"They're going to fight, aren't they?" I asked, resting my head back against the tall. Nat looked at me, cocking her head in question. I elaborated, "Ulton's gearing up for a fight. We're here, the others have the cradle, there's higher stakes now. Clint will have gotten the message and now the others will be gearing up to come here and fight. Not just to get us out but to destroy Ultron, too, before he gets the cradle back."
She nodded slowly. "How many bullets you got left?"
I let out a breathy laughed, shaking my head. "Not nearly enough, Nat."
It didn't take long.
We heard Bruce first. "Natasha! Rose! Natasha!"
We scrambled up, rushing to the gate of the cell. "Bruce!" The two of us called at the same time, voices echoing through the deserted stone building. Ultron and his bots had left some time ago.
Bruce appeared outside our cell. "You two all right?"
"Yeah," Nat replied and I let them have a brief moment.
"The team's in the city," he told us. "It's about to light up."
"I don't suppose you found a key lying around somewhere?" Nat joked.
"Yeah," Bruce said, stepping back and raising a giant gun. Nat and I quickly moved out the way behind a wall. "I did." He fired and the lock on the cell melted away. Nat and I pushed the cell open and I let out a sigh of relief.
"So, plan?" I asked Bruce immediately.
"I'm here to get you to safety."
"Job's not finished," Nat frowned.
Bruce shrugged. "We could help with the evacuation, but I can't be in a fight near civilians. And you've done plenty." He moved to Natasha and I raised my eyebrows, seeing that I wasn't wanted. I turned my back but could still hear. "Our fight is over."
"So, we just disappear?" Nat wondered.
I turned. "I hate to kill the mood," I said. "But I need to find Steve."
Nat looked over her shoulder and quirked an eyebrow. "Oh?"
I shoved her arm. "Shut up, let's go."
"He was looking for you!" Bruce called as I moved past them and out of the building. "If that helps. . .?"
I groaned.