22

The Ironman

Ultron has been sending the three on these 'missions'. They'd raid warehouses, steal supplies and do what Ultron would instruct them to. This time, they went to a salvage yard in Africa where a man stashed stolen Vibranium from Wakanda, Monica wondered how he managed that in the first place.

    Their part in this was to interrogate him, honestly Monica wasn't really listening to it all. The night before that, she was tossing and turning a cold sweat coating her and making her kick of the sheet. Some memories began coming back. Of the twins and her when they were smaller. A few of Massachusetts too. Some things from when she was a child, long before she was shipped to the confines of Hydra.

    One of them was her eleventh birthday, it'd been a good minute since she'd actually celebrated and didn't refuse it or wasn't allowed. The twins came into her small room with rickety pots and banged them together to wake her up, they were howling 'happy birthday' and Monica had jolted awake with a scream. She was happy that they remembered, and was even happier when they gave her these handmade presents. Wanda gave the girl a bunch of string bracelets that she'd spent the night making all of them colourful. And Pietro, he gave her a bead necklace with pastel blue and green small plastic beads, which are our favourite colours. It was the best birthday ever.

    "Monica?" Pietro's hushed voice snapped her out of the trans as they made their way through the shadowy hall. "You okay?"

    "I'm fine, why?"

    "We just asked if you were ready... five times."

    "Oh... yeah I'm ready."

Pietro sped in and disarmed the man's gun that he was holding. Monica walked in cautiously while Wanda stayed lingered by the door. The man looked overall unfazed, face relaxed, despite the fact that a real life Speedy Gonzales just disabled his gun in less than a second and had his bullets lined up next to it on his desk. He scoffed at the three young adults. "The enhanced, Strucker's prized pupils." He sat in his desk chair, resting his tattooed arms on his knees. "I was sorry to hear about him. But he knew what kind of world he was creating."

Is he saying Stucker's dead? Since when, and how did I not know and why wasn't I the one to do it, she thought bitterely to herself? She and the twins exchanged a look of shock. 

"Oh, you didn't know?" He laughed dryly. "Is this your first time intimidating someone?" This time Monica scoffed, but didn't say anything. This guy was starting irritate her. "I'm afraid, I'm not afraid."

"Everyone is afraid of something." Wanda stepped in fully, stopping beside her younger friend. 

"Cuttlefish." He answered quickly, snapping his fingers. "They have these lights to hypnotize their prey. I saw it on a documentary once, it was terrifying. So, if you're going to show me a giant cuttlefish then I know you don't do business and I know you're not in charge. And I only do business with the man in charge."

Monica watched, amusedly as Ultron flew up behind him and in a second, he was on the ground below and groaning in pain. By the time they got down there Ultron was already being led to the stash and the three followed close behind. 

They watched as the wall opened, revealing a compartment behind it with the Vibranium. He pulled out a glass tube stocked with the metal, handing it to Ultron who just threw it to Pietro. Monica  peered over his shoulder at the goods, beginning to wonder what the plan was for the rare metal.

"I always say, keep your friends rich and your enemies rich and wait to find out which is which." She heard Ultron say while the man's face went unnaturally pale.

"Stark..." Monica heard him mumble. "Tony Stark used to say that, to me. You're one of his." She took a sharp inhale when Ultron sliced off his forearm and started yelling. He pushed the man through a door and down a flight of stairs; the she and the twins visibly winced.

"That's the thing with me, Stark... he's a sickness." Ultron seethed, to no one in particular.

"Awh Junior, you're gonna break your old man's heart." The group all spun around to see Ironman, Captain America and Thor just across the poorly lit and grimy platform.

"If I have to." Ultron stepped forward as Pietro tossed the Vibranium aside.

"Nobody has to break anything." Thor spoke lightly, though he radiated confidence and power.

"Clearly you've never made an omelet."

"He beat me by one second." Tony grimaced from the safety of his metal armor.

The blonde Maximoff slowly paced towards them, stopping by Ultron. If looks could kill, Tony Stark would be on the ground and the Avengers would be planning his funeral. "Ah yes, it's funny, Mr. Stark. This is what? Comfortable. Like old times." He ticked his head to some missiles below us, the adults' gazes following.

When they were talking about their parents Monica was only really half-listening, now that they're around the murderer of their parents she felt bad for not giving them her full attention. But, to be fair, she was half asleep and had just woken up from my nightmare of being taken to the labs.

"This was never my life." It probably came out quieter than he intended but his voice was flooded with guilt and pain.

"You three can still walk away from this." Captain America piped up, trying to ease the tension that was clouding the room. "I know you've suffered."

"Captain America, God's righteous man." Ultron taunted the super soldier. "Pretending you can live without a war-"

"If you believe in peace, then let us keep it." Thor interjected.

"Ha, pretty sure you're confusing peace with quiet."

"Right. What's the Vibranium for?" Ironman piped in.

"Perfect, I really wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan." Maybe that should have been red flag number 7000 in what Ultron had them believing, but at that moment, the three were just mad at them. So, when the fight broke out and Ultron blasted Ironman, Monica did what she was good at. I fought the Avengers.

She sent Thor tumbling backwards before teleporting out of the way as Captain America threw his shining shield at her. It bounced back at the man and he caught it as she appeared behind him and swiped his legs, causing him to fall to the ground.

Monica began running to the other side of the platform and her attention was caught by Pietro, who had his hand attached to Thor's hammer, clashing into her and sent us both flying through a railing, landing in a pile of crates and boxes. The breath was dragged out of her as she made contact with the metal crates, squished between them and the six foot tall Sokovian.

"Real smooth Speedy Gonzales." She groaned, pushing the boy off her to try and get some composure.

"Shut up." He gasped through his dazed state. Pietro tried to stand but was sent tumbling back into the girl by Captain Rogers' shield causing her to hit my head off a box. A sharp pain pierced the back of my head from the solid crate.

"Stay down you two." Cap said before running off.

"Jesus." She grunted. "You know maybe you shouldn't try to take flying hammers that belong to a six foot three, two hundred pound god who's not from Earth."

"Noted." He grunted, clasping her hand as she pulled him to his feet.

Monica scaled the huge boxes and jumped up, latching onto the broken railing and pulling herself up. Running down the hall, she saw Thor; noticing he hadn't yet seen her, she ran towards him faster. The agent jumped up and pushed herself off the wall, wrapping her legs around his neck while Wanda worked her mind magic. While he was in his daze, Monica swung herself and he fell to the ground as she rolled to the side.

"You have to teach me how to do that someday." Wanda smiled, an impressed grin on her soft features.

"Sure. Now, go get the rest of them."