Mister Rogers ⍟ || Steve Rogers

23

I landed on the hood of the truck. Using my abilities to boost myself up, I peered over the top where Steve and Ultron fought.

Ultron tossed the shield to the ground, firing a pulse that sent Steve tumbling past me onto the road below.

I started toward the edge of the vehicle. "The shield--"

"I'm on it," said Natasha quickly. "Can you hold him off?"

Quickly, I turned and hopped to the top of the trailer, palms charged with yellow light. Ultron mirrored me, body whirring with ammunition. "I suppose we'll see," I muttered.

I fired two discs at him. They ricocheted off his body and snapped back toward my face. I ducked and pivoted, the solid light slicing past where my head had just been.

Ultron lunged for me. I met him head-on, deflecting the first punch, then the second, the impact vibrating up my arms. He caught both my wrists in one hand and tightened his grip.

I twisted hard against his metal fingers, trying to break his hold. I shifted my weight to throw him off balance. Wiggling a hand free, I drove a concentrated pulse of light straight into his chest.

Ultron staggered back, grip loosening just enough for me to yank both of my hands free and shoot my body upward. He followed me instantly.

I angled above him before dropping hard, driving both hands into his shoulders as I came down. The impact forced him off balance, and I used the momentum to drag us both back down.

We crashed against the roof again. Still on his shoulders, I turned to hook my legs around his neck and locked them tightly.

"Addy?" Steve's voice cut through the comms.

I turned my head slightly, still holding Ultron down as he strained beneath me. Steve had just landed back on the hood of the truck, shield in hand.

I shook my head at him. "The cradle," I said through my teeth.

Steve was already moving inside the trailer. He trusted me to hold my ground against Ultron. The same could not be said for the others.

"Still alive, AJ?"

I sighed, "It's been five minutes, Barton."

Ultron wrenched his arm up and struck me with a blunt hit to my side. He twisted under my loosened grip, roughly throwing my body against the roof. He turned slowly to face me.

Ultron reached up, striking me with the back of his arm. He wiggled free of my hold on him, pivoting sharply to face me.

"You have the power to make a change, yet you resist" said Ultron. "How stupid."

"And you want to kill off the human race," I said, jumping to my feet. "Guess we all have room to grow."

At the drawback of his fist, I threw up a barrier on instinct. His fist collided with it. The shield fractured under the force, light cracking outward in thin, jagged veins across its surface.

I gritted my teeth and pushed more energy into it, stabilizing just long enough to redirect his momentum. The barrier flared, and Ultron's strike deflected upward instead of through me.

I moved under his arm as it lifted, slipping into his blind spot and firing two quick pulses into his elbow and shoulder joints.

I pivoted, driving a knee into his side and following with a burst of light straight into his ribs. He slid back a step across the roof of the moving trailer, metal scraping loudly.

"You're stronger than the others--" he recovered quickly, straightening up. "But I thought you'd be smarter."

In a single stride, he closed the distance between us. I barely had time to inhale before his hand closed around my throat. Air caught sharp in my lungs as he lifted me clean off the roof, my feet kicking uselessly against open air.