My Allegiance (3)

Chapter 20

(Avengers' Tower, Y/n's POV)

"He's gone. There's nothing left of him."

Stark uses his little control pad thing to project the hologram image of the main intelligence in the building.

Or rather, what's left of it.

"Oh my god. What happened? What did I miss?"

Ever since I've been back, there have been repairs being made on the Tower. Holes in walls, broken windows. And now this.

"Stark had a dumb idea is what happened," Rogers says.

We're all sat around the table, looking at this thing.

"Okay first of all, Banner was on board too. Second of all, it wasn't a dumb idea, it just had a very unfortunate outcome."

"We had this idea," Banner explains, "that we could use the power of the mind stone in the sceptre to create the ultimate peace-keeping program, called Ultron. But, it seems it didn't go as we'd planned. All our original code got corrupted by the stone, and this is all that's left of it."

"Not it," Stark says quickly. "JARVIS was more than just an it. He was our first line of defence, and Ultron completely tore him apart."

"Right, yeah. And now we've got a whole new robot army to deal with, plus the Hydra twins."

My head dips slightly at the mention of that place, but Loki subtly squeezes my hand.

Oh yeah, I refused to let them put him back in that cage. He's certainly redeemed himself in my eyes.

The only other person who seems to notice my discomfort is Romanoff, and she gives me an apologetic smile.

"And we have to get the sceptre back. Again. Because it was taken. Again," Thor puts his hammer heavily on the floor, and I just knows it's made a dent.

Stark's shoulders start to shake a little as he suppresses a laugh, and I give him a stern look to try and get him to shut up before the others notice.

It doesn't work.

Thor is mental, "Do you think this is funny? This could have been avoided if you didn't play with something you didn't understand."

"Actually it is kinda funny. Especially as none of you realise why we need this."

"Maybe this isn't the best-"

"Zip it Banner. You roll over and show your belly at the first sign of conflict."

"Would you rather I go green?"

"No. Obviously not. But we were onto something!"

"Yeah, until we weren't and we created a murder bot."

"But we didn't. Not even close. Were we close to an interface?"

"Well no."

"No. Exactly. This isn't what we were doing. This isn't our fault."

"It might not have been what you were doing, but it is what you've done," Rogers says as he stands up. "We are going to fight this. Together. Ultron is trying to lure us out, and I want us to find him before he's actually ready for us. The world is a big place, so let's start making it smaller."

"Inspirational speech, Cap," I say with a small applause.

No-one else seems impressed.

There's a beeping sound from the computer, notifying us of an incoming call from Maria Hill.

"He's all over the globe," she says as we answer. "Robotics labs, weapons facilities, reports of metal men coming in and cleaning the place out."

"Fatalities?" Rogers asked.

I don't know who elected him as the leader but everyone seems to just be going along with it, so I guess I will too. For now.

"Only when engaged. Most of the guys ended up mumbling about some weird dream they had that felt a little too real."

"That'll be Wanda," I say.

"One of the twins, I presume. Is that...."

She squints as her eyes lock onto Loki.

"What the hell is he doing out?"

"He's with us," I stand up defensively as he looks down at his hands. "And I suggest you accept it or me and you are gonna have a problem."

"I suggest you watch your tongue and remember who your superior is."

I feel myself flinch, memories of List threatening to cut my tongue out, the scalpel from his pocket that shone under the lights of the lab, and I quickly turn and walk out of the room as I feel the anger building in me.

"What's her problem?" I hear her say as I leave the room, and I don't want to stay and find out what they tell her.

I don't want to take it out on any of them, and I'll feel even worse if one of them gets hurt by accident.