Tell Me When You Know

Mission: Sokovia

JARVIS was gone.

No matter how many times he reiterated it, he couldn't quite bring himself to believe it. His baby boy was gone.

JARVIS had been his longest companion, besides Adina, and even she had been on and off for a while there, busy dealing with her own shitstorm of a life. JARVIS, though, had been a steady presence for him since the very second of his inception, a loyal friend, a good listener, a beautiful, beautiful being of sentience.

JARVIS had been...he had been his son.

And he had just lost his son.

How did one cope with such a loss?

"We've got a hit on the Maximoffs' possible location for tonight," Adina announced, walking into the dishevelled living hall with visible purpose fuelling her steps and her attention taken by the tablet in her hand.

"Is that really a priority right now?"

She looked up at the Captain with an arched eyebrow. "If you're Ultron and you want to ruin the Avengers or make them 'extinct', in his own words, who would you go to for help?"

"Does a sentient AI really need anybody's help?"

Currently, they were running with the idea that whatever had commanded and rewritten his Ultron program was a sentient being, or something akin to that. He had made too many independent decisions to be a mere puppet with strings in another's hand. That, coupled with Thor's analysis of the sceptre being capable enough to influence minds of its own accord and their own experience with its pull on the helicarrier right before Loki's alien army had flooded the airspace of New York, Tony was inclined to believe it to be an artificial intelligence. Perhaps not a coded program, but something close enough to be considered one, at any rate.

"Probably not. But we don't have any clue about Ultron's whereabouts, and I don't know about you guys but I'll sleep better if we can keep a mind-warping witch and her lightspeed brother out of a hostile AI's reach."

Good point.

"So, where are they?"

"Still in Sokovia," Adina answered before passing over her tablet to Rogers. "But sources suggest they are expected to make a move tonight. There's an old church right in the centre point of the country."

"Do you think HYDRA is regrouping?"

"Either that or they're meeting Ultron there. Regardless of the reason, it'll be in our favour to apprehend them before they reach the church. Preferably take out whoever they're scheduled to meet as well, but if it's Ultron, I don't want to send any of my guys and lose them."

"I'll go." Tony didn't have to think to know his decision. "I'm equipped to handle Ultron as well. He caught me by surprise once, it's not gonna happen again."

"I know it's not, but you're not going."

Tony tamped down the rush of irritation that gripped him. "And why not?" He didn't cross his arms, that would have been too defensive a gesture, but he also did not make his annoyance at her refusal subtle. "If you're gonna feed me some bullshit like how I'm compromised, then save it because I won't—"

"It's not that."

"Then what is it?" If Tony's rational mind were a little more in control, he would have noticed the wariness sketched across her face and the tense setting of her shoulders. As it was, the only feeling his brain could focus on was the need for revenge.

He was no hero. He was going to make Ultron regret ever touching his son.

"Tony, would you please just listen to me this once?"