"Keep moving! Don't stop, come on!"
Decked out in the full Imperial suit, Audelia Motter rushed the families on the twelfth floor of the Sokovian apartment down the staircase and out toward the streets. After the last family made it down the stairs she did a sweep of the apartments, ensuring no one was left on the last floor of the building before flying out one of the windows.
Hovering just outside the building, she watched as the stream of people people filed out of the building and onto the crowded streets below, as people ran and drove out of the small city as quickly as possible. Deli made her way back toward the bridge, landing beside Steve Rogers as he coordinated traffic moving out of the city.
"Building clear?" Steve questioned as Audelia lifted her mask.
"Last of them should be filing out any second now," she spoke, turning back to look at the hoards of people making a mad dash for the city exits as she spoke through the comms next. "Tony, how are things over there?"
"He's waiting for me. Heading in now, be on alert,"
Steve and Audelia followed his word, moving back to handling the traffic and the people at hand. They tried to keep the lines moving out of the city as neat as possible, trying to keep all cars moving and keep the people in an orderly line as to not cause more confusion than necessary.
All moved fine until the earth below them began to shake, screams erupting from the civilians. Steve and Tony whipped around, seeing Ultron's army of bots descending from the skies, crawling out of every crevice imaginable as the brought havoc down on the city.
The Imperial facemask came down on Deli face as she shoved two civilians out of the line of fire, firing her repulsor at the bot as it fell to pieces. She turned on her heel, Steve seeing her aim at the bot behind him as he ducked, throwing his shield at the one sneaking up on her just as she destroyed the one on his tail.
The ground beneath them shifted once more as Deli flew up into the air, surveying the land from an areal view.
Cracks formed around the edges of the city in a circle, breaking off the center of Sokovia from it's outskirts. Bridges, roads, rivers, they all split apart as the center piece of Sokovia rose further into the air above.
"FRIDAY?" Deli whispered, hoping for a better answer than the one she knew she was going to get back.
"Sokovia is going for a ride,"
Tony's suit appeared beside her in the air, they pair exchanging a look before they turned back to the destruction that was occurring before them as Ultron's voice poured out of the bots surrounding the city.
"Do you see? The beauty of it, the inevitability. You rise, only to fall. You, Avengers, you are my meteor, my swift and terrible sword and the earth will crack with the weight of your failure. Purge me from your computers, turn my own flesh against me. It means nothing. When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world will be metal,"
"Quit staring at the problem," Deli spoke to her lover beside her as they flew further out from the rising city to get a better look at what they were working with. "Start troubleshooting it, let's go."
"The Vibranium core has got a magnetic field, that's what's keeping the rock together," FRIDAY informed the pair as the city rose faster and faster.
"If it drops?" Tony questioned, voice ringing through Deli's ear piece as she shook her head.
"The impact would kill thousands, and the higher it get's the more people will die," she cursed quietly under her breath, though she knew Tony could hear it. "If we let it get too high, the impact radius...Tony, we could be looking at global extinction."
FRIDAY alerted them to a nearby building on the edge of Sokovia that wasn't clear. Tony didn't waste a second, flying off toward it.
"I've got this. I've got to get a closer look, let FRIDAY get a scan and see if there's some way of stopping this thing," Tony voice flooded her comms once more as she flew off in an opposite direction back into the city.
"I'll coordinate with Steve on the ground, work on containing the citizens. You keep me updated, and you come back to me in one piece, understood? We do this together, Tony,"
"Yeah yeah, you've got my back, I've heard it before. Start working for a living would you?"
Audelia landed back on the bridge by Steve, just as he had been knocked back onto a car. She couldn't contain the small smirk on her face as she lifted her mask, holding out an armored hand for him to take.
"You've got incoming,"
"No really," Steve shot back, taking her hand as he got back to his feet. "Couldn't tell."
"Tony's going to head for the core," she informed her teammates over the comms as her and Steve surveyed the situation before them. "Right now, unfortunately, it's making the city fly but is also the only thing keeping it together. The rest of us have one job to do."
"Tear these things apart," Steve finished for her. "You get hurt, hurt 'em back. You get killed...walk it off."
Across the way from the bridge lied a field, a group of civilians caught in a circle of bots. They screamed for help, seeing no way out of the situation until a suit of purple and gold landed before them.
"Get down!" Deli's voice rang from her suit as the civilians dropped to the ground. She fired her chest repulsor, spinning in a circle as she destroyed the bots holding the civilians hostage. "Get up! Get to the building, take cover, now!"
The civilians listened without a second to waste. Over on the bridge, Thor had made his way out of the destruction within the core, grabbing onto one of the women in a falling car as he threw her up to Steve. The soldier caught her with ease, hoisting her back onto the road as he threw his shield at one of the bots, throwing it over the edge of the bridge and to the ground far below.
Thor landed on the bridge again, placing down another car with civilians as Audelia landed before them, shooting the two bots heading for her teammates before they walked back into fire.
"What, were you napping?"
"Deli," Natasha's voice sounded from the comms, the woman signaling in on her friend just a few yards away. "Might need a lift and a hand in a second."
"Was wondering when you would decided to show up,"
The woman landed beside the assassin, firing at the incoming bots from above while Natasha dealt with the ones on the ground surrounding them. Deli knelt down onto the ground, turning her side and firing at a bot while Natasha catapulted herself over the back of the suit, legs locking around one of the bots as she brought it to the ground.
"Natasha!"
The assassin looked up as Steve threw her his shield. She gratefully took it, taking out a bot sneaking up on her and Deli before tossing it back to Steve, as he took down the final bot that was in their vicinity.
"Awe," Deli cooed, looking between her two friends as she lifted her helmet to smirk at them. "Aren't you two the cutest! Using his shield, what a couple thing to do."
"Nathan used it that night at the party," Natasha retorted back, avoiding her friend's eyes as the trio turned, surveying the dust that was settling over Sokovia the higher into the sky they rose. "Does that make them a couple?"
"That's a conversation to have with Pepper-"
"Enough matchmaking," Steve retorted, shooting Deli a look as he ran over to a building, helping an old man take cover inside. "The next wave is bound to hit any minute and we still don't have a plan."
"Tony?" Deli called out. "Please tell me you've got something."
"Honey, I'm going to be honest, it's nothing great," Tony sighed over the comms. "Maybe a way to blow up the city."
"The spire is vibranium," Deli shot back, Natasha and Steve stepping back to watch her and Tony duke it out with their brain power for a solution. "What if we can get Thor to hit it with Mjolnir?"
"It's so cute how we have the same ideas. Already ran the numbers by FRIDAY, it'll only crack. The impact it would make would still be devastating. If we cap the other end and keep the atomic action from doubling back-"
"That would vaporize the city, Tony," Deli reminded him. "And everyone on it."
"Deli," Steve spoke up, stepping forward and drawing her attention toward him. "We need a solution, not an escape plan. I'm not leaving this rock with one civilian on it. If this is the only plan, then that's it."
"Y-you're saying we shouldn't leave?" Deli whispered, looking wide eyed at her friend as he avoided her gaze. She was finally catching on to the plan, the only plan they had at this point, as flashed of Aurora hit her eyes as they filled with tears.
"There's worse ways to go," Natasha reminded her friend with a sad smile, knowing she was thinking of her daughter as they all looked off into the clouds. "Besides, where else do you get a view like this?"
"Glad you like the view, Romanoff," Nick Fury's voice infiltrated the comms. "Because it's about to get better."
The trio was frozen in place in shock as they watched a shadow fall upon Sokovia as the familiar hellicarrier rose into view, it's fully glory on display before them as the evacuation ships and medical ship left the main base, flying toward the city.
"Nice, right? I pulled her out of mothballs with a couple of old friends. She's dusty, but she'll do,"
"Fury, you son of a bitch," Steve muttered with a laugh, looking out at the ship before them.
"Hope you brought any medical personnel you could find," Tony told their former boss over the comms. "We've got a lot of injured on the ground."
"Don't worry, the best you already had was already in the building,"
Natasha, Steve and Deli turned on their feet as the sound of the familiar voice on the comms, and the sound of footsteps behind them.
Nathan Porter sent his friends a smile, decked out in an old SHIELD suit with a gun strapped to his back, an entire medical team staffed behind him. Deli let out a short laugh of wonder, shaking her head at the man before her.
"Nathan..." Tony's voice trailed off for a second on the comms. "This is the only time I'm ever going to be happy to see that Jim Halpert face of yours, don't forget it."
"I'll take what I can get," Nate shot back with a laugh, looking to Steve. "Heard you've got some injured, Cap. Mind leading the way?"
Steve led Nathan and the medical team into the building, Natasha hot on his tail to lead the rest of the civilians onto the life boat that had just docked on the edge of the city.
Pietro wizzed past Audelia, coming to a stop right beside her as he looked at the ship in wonder.
"This is SHIELD?"
"This is what it was meant to be," she told him, her helmet coming down over her face as she save Rhodey flying in the sky above. "Get back to work, load these ships."
"Not a problem, Imperial,"
James Rhodes flew through a pack of bots heading toward the hellicarrier, destroying them as their parts fell from the sky just as Tony and Audelia appeared, twisting around one another and flying to opposite sides of Rhodey, taking out two stray bots on his sides.
"This right here is going to be a great story to tell!" He called out to his friends, gaining slight laughs from them both as they flew in tandem.
"Live to tell it first, Rhodey," Deli called back to him.
"What, you think I can't hold my own out here in the big leagues?"
"We get through this, I'll hold your own,"
"See Tony, that's just weird, especially when I know Audelia-"
"Focus on taking out the mini psycho murder bots and not talk about mine and Tony's sex life, alright?"
Tony and Audelia flew side by side, spinning around and ducking over and under one another as they shot down the bots heading for the hellicarrier to stop the life boats from taking in people.
"Dell got it!" Tony called out to Deli as he destroyed one of the bots mid air, turning around and firing at another while she handled two others. "Create a heat seal. I can...I can supercharge the spire from below."
One of the bots managed to take out one of the engines on a life boat full of people. Deli's eyes went wide as she dove down, flying up under it as she let out a grunt, holding up the falling end of the life boat as she ran the numbers in her head.
"It could work, but it would take a lot of power," she called back to him as Rhodey flew over, taking over her spot as maneuvering the life boat back to the main hellicarrier. "Your suit alone won't be able to generate enough power, it's going to take us both."
"Dell-"
"Don't Dell me. We do this together, or we don't do it at all," She shot back at him as she destroyed another bot. "I've got your back and you're got mine, that's how this works. Thor, we've got a plan."
"We're out of time. They're coming for the core,"
"Avengers, time to work for a living," Tony called out to the team as he and Deli took off for the core in the heart of the city. "Meet at the core."
The pair landed at the core beside Thor and Vision, who had just taken out two remaining bots that were attacking. The twins made their way inside with Clint by their sides, followed by Steve not long after. Natasha and Bruce arrived just seconds after Steve, the team coming together by the core.
"If Ultron gets a hand on the core," Tony gestured to the vibranium core in the ground beside them. "We lose."
Ultron loomed just outside among the wreckage, staring down into the building at the team that stood together.
"Is that the best you can do?" Thor taunted.
Seconds later, at Ultron's will, thousands of his bots crawled out of the wreckage, forming together around the building and prepared to attack to get to the core.
"You had to ask?" Steve questioned with a glare.
"This is the best I can do," Ultron sneered back at the Avengers before him. "This is exactly what I wanted. All of you, against all of me. How could you possibly hope to stop me?"
Tony paused, looking around at his team, before his eyes drifted between Steve and Audelia, before they turned back to Ultron.
"Like they keep saying," his helmet came down over his face once more. "Together."
◼ ◼ ◼
Hey, remember when you guys hated Nate and now you all love him? I'm proud of that, by the way. That's called character development.
Also, we're almost there. God, Age of Ultron really does drag on forever doesn't it?