Family Doesn't End with Blood

Chapter 7

unedited. 

Before:

"How long until we get to this 'safe spot?" Tony complained.

"Seriously, Stark? Could you be any less impatient?" Natasha pointed out. "We'll get there when we get there."

There was no reply from Barton. His eyes were trained purely on the sky, until a beeping caught everyone's attention.

"What the hell is that?" Barton thought aloud. The beeping increased in frequency until it became one, long, droning tone. Suddenly, a video feed appeared on all the screens within the hovercraft.

"This does not look good," Thor pointed out.

"Hello," Ultron's sickly voice greeted. "It's a shame it has come to this point. I'm not a fan of violence; it would've been much nicer if we could've all just talked." The video feed showed some sort of underground area that was dank and murky in appearance. A cage was visible, and it looked as if someone was in it. They weren't moving.

"What the hell do you want?" Tony demanded forcefully. "And what did you do to JARVIS?"

The feed continued on, without any recognition towards Tony. "I don't think he can hear us," said Banner.

Ultron continued, "But alas, this is not the case. The measures I've had to take, but oh well. There needn't be any pain inflicted upon the boy-"

"What boy?" Tony interjected. The cloying voice of Ultron grated on his ears, and it left little to the imagination as to what kind of creature he was.

"Shh!" waspishly hushed Barton. Suddenly the person in the cage looked a lot more familiar to Tony, and his stomach began to fold in on itself.

And with a tone of finality that left absolutely no room for arbitration, Ultron started, "I have a few requirements you, Tony Stark specifically, must agree to. Or, how do you humans say it? Yes, Peter Parker bites the dust."

Now:

Pietro was silent as he thought about Peter, who was currently sitting quietly in a cage in the abandoned HYDRA warehouse that Ultron had set up base in. Too quietly, might he add. He figured any sane person would probably be a lot more panicked right now, but who knows, maybe he was in some sort of shock?

"Wanda, do you notice anything wrong with our prisoner?" He squinted carefully at Peter, expecting him to react in some way even though Pietro knew he was too far away to hear anything. "He seems calm."

"I guess so," she stated, obviously thinking about other things. Pietro couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Call it a gut feeling, but he hadn't got along this far by not trusting his instincts. A cold draft that ran through the base whipped his sister's hair and brought her attention back towards him. "Sometimes I feel like Ultron is not telling us the whole truth. He wants to eliminate the Avengers, but there is more to it than that," she said frustrated. "If I could just see into his head!"

"Stop it," Pietro admonished. "Stop that. You know that we have to do this," he harshly whispered, clutching the photo in his pocket. "We have to get Stark." He glanced back towards Peter, running a hand through his hair. Pietro felt guilty about dragging him into this, before remembering that he willingly worked with Tony Stark, and the guilt vanished.

"You know, when I saw Peter Parker's fears, it was the fear of the people close to him dying. They told him it was his fault, and it destroyed him," Wanda stated.