My Avenging Heroes

Bad Memories and Worst Fears

A/N: Heavier subject matter near the end. Reader discretion advised.

All of the fallen legionnaires were taken to the lab where the Avengers and 1-A were scrambling to figure out where Ultron could have gone. There, they learned just who it was who Ultron killed: J.A.R.V.I.S. Thor had left to search for the fifth legionnaire but had come back. And now he was choking out Stark. After Steve asked about the legionnaire, Thor delivered his report.

"Trail went cold about a hundred miles out," he said, "but it's headed north. And it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it again."

"You built this program," Dr. Cho said, "Why is it trying to kill us?"

"I should think that's simple," Todoroki said, "despite him being one of the smartest people on earth, he doesn't have even one iota of common sense."

Stark began chuckling and was admonished by Thor. He then attempted to defend himself.

"Tony," Banner said, "maybe now isn't the best time to -"

"Really?" Stark interrupted, "That's it? You just roll over, show your belly every time someone snarls?"

"Only when I've created a murder bot."

"We didn't."

"Given how genocidal Ultron sounded," Bakugo said, "yeah, you did."

"We weren't even close," Stark said to Bakugo before turning back to Banner, "were we close to an interface?"

"Well, you did something right," Steve said, "and you did it right here. The Avengers are supposed to be different from S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Anybody remember whe I carried a nuke through a wormhole? Saved New York? Recall that? A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space after twenty powered kids appeared out of nowhere... we're standing 300 feet below it and several blocks away from where they appeared. We're the Avengers and the junior league. We could bust arms dealers all the live long day, but that up there? That's... that's the endgame. How were you planning on beating that?"

"Together."

"We'll lose."

"Then we'll lose together," Midoriya said.

Steve told everyone to start trying to find a way to draw Ultron out. Everyone set about to doing just that. The Avengers were faster to do it than 1-A. This was new territory for them. How were they supposed to draw out an AI that moves through the internet?

The next day, they got a bloody lead in the form of the death of the Hydra leader Baron Strucker. After attempting to search their database for anything on him, they saw everything they'd had on him was gone. Until Steve had them going through paper files.

"Why are there so many mentions of some agent named 'Bob'?" Midoriya asked about his file.

"And who's Wade?" Uraraka asked, leaning in to read with him.

Their faces were only inches from touching. Midoriya was glad she couldn't see what his face was doing, as it turned beet red.

SO CLOSE!!! he thought.

Finally, though, Tony found someone he recognized. This caused pretty much everyone to glare at him.

"There are conventions," he explained, "you meet people, I didn't sell them anything. He was going on about something new, something revolutionary."

Thor noticed a brand on him, and Banner traced it to another country none of 1-A had heard of before: Wakanda. Apparently, Vibranium came from there. They had a location on the guy, and now both teams of heroes were on their way to South Africa. On their way, Tony asked for three of the 1-A heroes to join them. Kaminari, Iida, and Uraraka decided to join. After several hours, they arrived at the place the guy was. The quinjets landed reasonably far apart, and the three 1-A heroes walked over to the Avengers and joined the ones going in. They were ordered to hang back while Steve, Thor, and Stark dealt with Ultron, who'd already arrived. Ultron had two helpers that the Avengers recognized as the Maximoff twins. After a brief conversation with them, a fight broke out.