Project Ultron

TwentyOne.exe

The bobbly head of the toy moved from side to side and, when it stopped, I hit it lightly again. It was a little vinyl doll of Mister Stark wearing a shirt with a cute tiger drawing. The package was on my desk when I arrived, with a note saying 'Happy first day. -T'. It was a nice gesture on his part, considering he wasn't here to say it to me personally.

The new Avenger's facility was in upstate New York, an hour by car for me. It used to be a warehouse of Stark Industries. They had made a good job renovating it, though we still needed more time to get it up and running. The personal, most of them former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, were still moving boxes up and down and settling into their own desks. I had just arrived some minutes ago and, after firing up my computer, was staring at Mister Stark's present.

The aftermath of the Battle of Sokovia had been hectic. After the confusion about the whole fighting robots passed, a lot of people started to complain about enhanced individuals. Everybody had watched footage of both Maximoff twins, and stories about enhanced sightings were coming up every day. The public was both amazed and scared of them, a natural response upon something they didn't understand, however stupid a response it was. Something had to be done about it; politicians were starting to voice their opinions and most of them weren't too kind about enhanced people.

I pitied Wanda, the Maximoff girl. She lost her brother during the battle. He died a hero, but people were just ignoring that and focusing on why they were like they were. Why they weren't normal. Apart from grieving, she had to deal with those critics. It all seemed unfair to me.

The Avengers would have to do something about public perception now that they had admitted her into the team. I would have hoped that Mister Stark would be the one to lead the whole facility, but he decided to leave the team and return to focus on the company for a while. So had Agent Barton, who I guessed had gone back to his family, and Thor, who I hadn't understood why he was going. When I asked Mister Hogan about it when he was driving me to the compound, he told me something about a rainbow bridge and magic. I could tell he didn't really get it either.

Only Agent Romanoff and Captain Rogers remained in the team and the compound. And they had adopted some new recruits, apart from Wanda, but I hadn't paid much attention to them yet. I would meet them eventually, considering we now worked in the same place.

Mister Stark told me I was welcomed to stay in the company back in Manhattan, but he rathered if I worked on the facility. There were new and exciting projects here. There were amazing scientists too, like Helen Cho and Erik Selvig, so when he told me that, my response was immediate. I wanted to work here.

After the missions I participated in during Ultron's short but intense life, Maria Hill told me there was a spot for a recruit with my potential. They assigned Owen Eversley as my Supervising Officer and got me a desk and a name tag. I was excited. I would be able to continue training and, hopefully, do more good in the future. Every day I reminded myself that I had to make Robert's sacrifice mean something, and that drove me. I thought a lot about how much he would have liked all of this.

I hit the doll again and little vinyl Mister Stark nodded to me.

Leslie and I had moved back to our apartment in Hell's Kitchen. Mister Stark had insisted on buying a new one on a nicer part of town, but Leslie had declined. She said that she did her work best on an area like Hell's Kitchen. I couldn't argue with that. If her job was to help troubled youths, there was more than enough on our block, she didn't have to look that far.

I expected our door to be gone and our things looted, considering that Robert had broken it when he saved us from Strucker's men. But, to our surprise, it was fixed and all our stuff were just where we left them. My room still looked like a junkyard, just like I liked it.

"Thank God," I had told Leslie, "I really didn't feel like scavenging back all my computer parts."

She threw a sarcastic 'yay' my way. She had told me many times that I needed to get rid of all those things, but I didn't want to. I liked to use random parts to try to update my laptop, and after the whole Ultron thing I was starting to think about studying mechanics. All these things reminded me of that. Plus, I liked my torn-apart old computers and TVs, I thought it made my room look retro.

When Mister Stark heard that I wanted to get into mechanics, he personally offered to pay for my studies. He told me he had more than enough money to send me to any university I wanted, provided I finished high school with a good grade. I was okay with that, it was only one more year and now I had some motivation to do it, though I would have to give my GPA the biggest boost ever seen. Leslie argued about Mister Stark giving me the money, but he said it would be a part of the Stark Scholarship, which I was still a part of, in theory. So I started to check universities. I would be attending high school after the summer break and coming to work at the compound during the weekends.

I would have to learn how to balance my studies with work and training but I thought it was worth it. I was actually happy with how everything had turned out. I had had my ups and downs and there had been moments during the last year were I thought very little of everything, even of me! But working in Stark Industries, meeting all the people I now knew, it all had changed my perspective. I wanted to do better, to be better.

And I was fine with it.

"You okay?" Agent Eversley asked me. I hadn't heard him approach, but now he was standing in front of me with his arms closed and head slightly tilted. He noticed the toy and touched its head, and we watched it move.

"Yeah..." I grinned at him. He was a good S.O.. He had proven that by not leaving my side while I was getting better from the concussion and then checking in on me every day or so. I really liked him. I was decided to learn from him.

He stopped the head with a finger and looked at me.

"Right," he said, "Back to work."

- - -

The end.

For now.

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