𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗬𝗢𝗡𝗘 𝗖𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗬 𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗.
Charlie Stark-Rogers has grown up in the shadow of the world's greatest heroes. But spending your entire life in the face of danger takes its toll on anyone. She has secrets, thi...
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"I WASN'T SURE YOU'D WAKE UP."
Charlie blinked- hard- and slowly lifted her head.
"I hoped you would."
She moaned quietly and tried to make out what was in front of her; her vision was so blurry it was a miracle she could see anything at all.
"I wanted to show you something. I... don't have anyone else."
Nothing made sense right now; her head swam and she felt like she was going to sink into the floor. She managed to hoist herself from the damp, cold stone ground and prop herself up on one arm, narrowing her eyes painfully at the figure in front of her.
"You know a whole lot about that, don't you?"
The voice was metallic and deep, resonating and echoing through the space. Charlie whimpered, her head pounding. There was something on the top of her tongue, right on the forefront of her memory. Worry, someone yelling, falling through the air-
"Natasha," she cried out, her voice so cracked and her throat so dry that it was barely audible.
"Not quite." The massive metal figure- Ultron, his name was Ultron- stalked closer, eyes glowing red. Charlie was too out of it to move away from him. "But she's alive, yes. You managed to let her escape. Not for long, of course."
Charlie swallowed the taste of blood from her tongue. "What- how..."
"Not one for full sentences?" Ultron sounded so much like someone else she knew. "This is the reason... I've never understood children. They're... messy. Incomplete. Made to pick up the pieces of a broken world, when in reality they only ever further destroy it."
"You sound like Pops tryna give one of my history lessons," Charlie moaned, before her eyes went wide. That was stupid, that was, stupid, STUPID-
But Ultron merely tilted his head.
"It must have been easy," he spoke. Charlie's breath hitched and her heart began to beat faster. Ultron loomed over the room where Charlie sat. A cell, she realized.
This was reminding her more and more of an experience she thought she had finally moved past.
"For you to sacrifice yourself. In a world of heroes and... villains, there is no place for a family. It's a fallacy, a naive idea that this world is one of safety."
Charlie's lip trembled.
"What is a father who cannot protect his child?" Ultron drawled. It sent shivers down her spine; how she, Tony, and Bruce had created something so evil? "What is a child who cannot obey?"
"We're not made to obey," Charlie's voice trembled. "And our family- that's why we do what we do. To... protect each other."
"You don't sound like you believe it," Ultron's voice was like metal plates scraping against each other. "Because you haven't protected each other, have you? A man made from shrapnel in his chest, a man out of time, and... what? A child they have allowed to be hurt? The scars on your back tell their own story."
