My Allegiance (3)

Chapter 32

(Avengers' Tower, Stark's POV)

The cradle is a thing of beauty. The amount of power contained within it is unmatched, and it's right here. With me.

"Anything on Nat?" Banner asks.

"No idea. But she's still alive, or else Ultron would be rubbing our faces in it. How's the kid?"

"No change. We have no way of knowing if the coma worked or not. Only way to find out will be when she wakes up. If she's herself, great. If not....."

"Then what? She's a Hydra lackey?"

"It's possible. Maybe List got tired of chasing after her, and now wants her to go to him."

"She's not leaving this building," I say firmly.

"I agree. But for now, we need to work on this. I can sort out tissue degeneration, if you can fry whatever operational system Cho put into it."

I scratch the back of my neck, "Uh yeah, about that."

He turns to look at me with raised eyebrows, "No. No way."

"You have to trust me."

"I kinda don't."

"You know that guy who was protecting our nuclear codes? I found him," I grab my control pad and hit a few buttons, projecting the orange hologram image into the room.

"Hello Doctor Banner."

"What......"

"Ultron didn't go after JARVIS cause he was angry, he attacked him because he's scared of what he can do. So JARVIS went underground, scattered, dropped everything except his protocols. He didn't even know he was in there until I pieced him together."

"So, what? You want me to help you put JARVIS into this thing?"

"No of course not. That's a silly idea. I wanna help you put JARVIS into this thing. You know bio-organics better than anyone, you gotta take the reigns on this."

"You're idea is based on the assumption that JARVIS' operational matrix can override Ultron's."

"He's been doing that from the inside the whole time without him even knowing it! This is the opportunity, we can create Ultron's perfect self, but without the homicidal glitches that he thinks are his star quality. We have to do this."

"I agree with Mr Stark."

I make a shushing sound to JARVIS then hit Banner with a beaming smile.

"What do you say?"

"No! I'm caught in friggin time loop! This is where it all went wrong last time."

"I know I know. And I know what everyone's gonna say, but they're already saying it anyway so what does it matter? We're mad scientists. We're monsters. But do you know what? We're gonna own it," I walk over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. "This isn't a loop, this is the end of the line."

He sighs, "Goddamit Stark."

"Yes! Let's do this."

"Fine," he checks the diagnostics on the cradle. "But the genetic coding is at ninety seven per cent. Whatever you're gonna do, you gotta do it in the next three minutes."

"I can do it in two."

The door opens to reveal Rogers with the two crazy twins.

"I'm gonna say this once-"

"How about you don't, and you say what you're doing with the nutcases."

"Shut it down! That's an order."

"Nope. Not gonna happen."

"You don't know what you're doing."

"And you do?" Banner says before pointing at the red-head. "How do you know she's not in your head?"

"I know you're angry," she says in her Sokovian accent. "But-"

"I am way past angry, young lady. I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade."

"Banner," Rogers says calmly. "After everything that's happened-"

"That's nothing compared to what's coming."

"You don't know what's in there!" Wanda sounds worried. "That creature-"

There's a blur of movement before the boy comes back to his original place behind Rogers, all the cables disconnected from the cradle.

"You were saying?" His accent is much thicker than hers.

There's a gunshot, then the glass breaks under Pietro's feet and he falls to the floor below.

"Pietro!"

I run over to the nearest computer and call over to Banner to where he now has hold of Wanda, "I'm gonna reroute the upload."

Barton and Pietro fight downstairs, and Wanda uses some witchy woo nonsense to get away from Bruce.

There's a thudding sound, then Thor comes flying through the air and lands on top of the cradle.

"No wait!" Rogers shouts at him, but it's too late.

He uses his hammer to summon lightning, then channels it into the cradle, powering it to its absolute maximum capacity.

A moment of silence, then the door of the cradle obliterates as a figure comes flying out, landing in a crouch on the ground in front.

It's done.