My Allegiance (3)

Chapter 36

(Sokovia, Romanoff's POV)

Ultron disappeared a while ago, but given the sound of bombs and yelling from above, I think it's safe to say that the other Avengers have arrived by now.

"Nat? Natasha?"

Speak of the devil.

"Bruce? Bruce, I'm in here!"

He appears around the corner, face flooding with relief, "Oh thank god, are you alright?"

"Yeah, pretty good given the circumstances."

"The others are out in the city."

"Great. Don't suppose you found a key lying around anywhere did you?"

"Sure did," he says and holds up a ridiculously large alien rifle.

I stand a safe distance away as he fires at the lock, obliterating it to pieces and freeing me from the cell.

"So what's our play?"

"I'm here to get you to safety, we're out of here."

"What? But the job's not finished."

"We could help with the evacuation. But Nat, I can't be in a fight near civilians. And you've done plenty already. I think our fight is over."

"So...... We just disappear?"

The ground starts to shake around us.

"Nat please, let's just go. We have to leave now."

I'm torn. He's offering me a life that I want to grab with two hands. Love, freedom, peace.

But I was raised to fight.

This fight isn't done.

"Come on," he grabs my hand and starts pulling me through the tunnel, narrowly avoiding falling rocks and deep pits that have been created in the ground.

"Wait!" I pull him back for a second. "You're not gonna turn green?"

"Let's say I've got a compelling reason to keep my cool."

I smile at him, but it's a little bittersweet, "I adore you." I press my lips to his for a moment before pushing him down into one of the pits. "But I really need the other guy."

There's a moment of silence in which I fear the strategy didn't work, but then rocks and boulders are smashed to pieces as the Hulk comes flying up and lands heavily in front of me.

"Hey big guy. Time to finish the job."

(Sokovia, Stark's POV)

The twins are in charge of evacuating everyone from the city, but Ultron's army is coming in from all sides as the ground begins to crack.

I got stuck here, facing Ultron himself.

"Do you see?" he says as Sokovia begins to rise into the air. "The beauty of it, the inevitability. You rise, only to fall. You, Avengers, you are my meteor, my swift and terrible sword and the earth will crack with the weight of your failure. Purge me from your computers, turn my own flesh against me. It means nothing. When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world will be metal."

FRIDAY, my JARVIS replacement, sounds loud in my ear, "The Vibranium core has a magnetic field sir, that's what's keeping the rock together."

"And if it drops?"

"Right now it would kill thousands. Once it gets high enough, it will cause global extinction," she then focuses my sight through my helmet on a building about 100 feet away. "That building is not clear. There are occupants on the tenth floor."

I glance at Ultron, but he's too busy looking at the carnage around him.

Psycho.

"Alright, heading straight for it."

I narrowly avoid collision with other metal men, and I simply blast apart the ones directly in my path. I come crashing through the window of the tenth floor building to see a young boy with his two parents, cowering in the corner of the room.

"Uh, hi. Alright, how to do this," I look around the room to think of the best exit strategy. "Okay, everyone in the tub!"

They quickly climb into the bathtub without questions, and I propel us all out of the building mere moments before the whole thing goes crashing to the ground.

"I've spotted some airborne, going for the bridge," FRIDAY says.

"Cap, you copy that? You got incoming."

"Incoming already came in," he sounds out of breath. "Stark, you worry about bringing the city back down safely. The rest of us have one job, tear these things apart. You get hurt, hurt them back. You get killed....... Walk it off."

(Sokovia, Rogers' POV)

Thor appears on the roof of a car that's thankfully been vacated already, and helps me to pull up a woman who's own car was falling off the demolished bridge.

There's one rogue robot left in this area.

"You can't save them all. You'll never-"

I grab its hanging arm and toss it over the edge of the city.

"You'll what? Sorry, you didn't finish!"

We head back to the centre of the city, destroying more robots on the way, and it seems that everyone has reconvened back here. Looks like Bruce got Romanoff out alright.

"What have you got Stark? The next wave is gonna hit any minute."

"Uh, still working on it Cap."

"Any chance you can work just a tiny bit faster?"

"I mean, the spire's vibranium, right? If we can get Thor to it-"

"It'll crack," Thor says as he looks at his hammer. "It won't be enough. The damage will still be devastating."

"Well I don't know what to do! Maybe blow up the city? It'll keep it from impacting the surface if you guys can get everyone cleared out."

"I want a solution, not an escape plan."

"Cap, the impact radius is getting bigger every second. We gotta make a decision."

"These civilians are going nowhere," Romanoff says as she keeps an eye out for more robots. "If Stark finds a way to blow this rock, they're gonna blow with it."

"No. Now blowing up anything. Not until everyone is safe."

"Everyone up here versus everyone down there?" she seems surprised. "There's no maths there."

"We are not leaving this rock with a single civilian on it."

"I never said we should leave," she shrugs. "I mean, there's worse ways to go, right? When else are we gonna get a view like this?"

"Glad you like it Agent Romanoff, but it's about to get better," a familiar voice intercepts our earpieces.

"Fury. You son of a bitch," I grin as the Helicarrier appears through the clouds.

"Ooh, you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"Alright," I choose to ignore his comment, it can be addressed later. "Send down the lifeboats. Let's get these civilians out of here."