Fire and Ice

•26•

Kate tears her eyes away from the scan as the name hits her — a name said a number of times in this lab as a wonderful hypothetical, a theory developed as they worked on other things. "I thought Ultron was a fantasy."

"Yesterday it was," Tony replies. "But if we can harness this power, apply it to my Iron Legion protocol...?"

Bruce shakes his head. "That's a mad-sized if."

"Our job is 'if.' What if you were sipping margaritas on a sun-drenched beach turning brown instead of green? Not looking over your shoulder for VERONICA?"

"Don't hate, I helped design VERONICA."

"As a worst case measure, right? How about a best case? What if the world was safe? What if next time aliens roll up to the club — and they will — they couldn't get past the bouncer?"

The idea seems so big, but the more she thinks, the more it gets smaller — more possible. "The only people threatening the planet would be... people. Like it used to be, before all this alien crap."

"I want to apply this to the Ultron program. But JARVIS can't download a data schematic this dense. We can only do it while we have the scepter here. That's three days — give me three days."

"So... you're going for artificial intelligence and you don't want to tell the team," Bruce says, grinding Kate's thoughts to a halt. What would everybody else say? Steve especially?

"Right," Tony replies. "That's right. You know why? Because we don't have time for a city hall debate. I don't want to hear the 'man was not meant to meddle' medley."

Kate sighs. "I mean, I could give you the medley right now. We weren't meant to meddle." She wonders what her dad would say, if he knew. Maybe it's meddling, but if it could save lives...

"Then we're not meddling. We're protecting," Tony corrects. "I see a suit of armor around the world."

"It sounds like a cold world, Tony," Bruce replies. Kate shakes her head; she'd still be a threat. So, not very cold.

"I've seen colder. This one, this very vulnerable blue one? It needs Ultron. Peace in our time. Imagine that." He turns to Kate. "Come on. Don't you wanna help save the world, before it's even in danger? Banner?"

If she can help save lives, somehow make Ultron a reality — if she can do some good...

Isn't any risk worth it?

~_~_~_~_~

They work tirelessly for three days. Numbers and words start blurring together as Kate taps on screens, refers to JARVIS's notes, and gets little sleep while drinking a lot of coffee. The night before the party, though, Tony forces both her and Bruce to get some decent rest. They come back to the lab, refreshed as they try once more to fix things and work out the kinks. But something just isn't working.

A knock sounds on the glass door, but Nat enters without waiting for a, 'Come in.' "I'm sure whatever you're doing is incredibly interesting, Kate, but you're going to this party, and you're not wearing a lab coat."

Kate groans. "Do I have to?"

"All yours friends will be here."

"Must be a small party."

Nat rolls her eyes. "Come on. I'll help you get ready."

"Yeah, fine. Just give me five more minutes."

"If you're not upstairs in five minutes, I'm coming back down and dragging you," Nat replies, only then leaving.

Tony sighs, looking at the clock. "Well... it is revel time. Go get dressed. We should take our mind off this stuff for a while."