✓ | escaped [ ➀ ]

[ chapter nine ]

Needless to say, Andi barely got any sleep that night. While Hydra was one step closer to being shut down, thanks to the Avengers, the world was also facing a new threat. It seemed there was no end to the evil in the world, but Andi supposed she shouldn't be so surprised by that. Her father always preached that to her, when he recited his sermons in the hopes that it would have some effect on her.

While there is good in the world, there will always be evil to balance things out.

And Andi was seeing now how true it was. After all, she hadn't been exposed to much of the good till recently.

Andi knew it was morning when light began to stream in through a small gap in the curtains, and it was the only excuse she needed to get out of bed. Still dressed in the jeans and T-shirt she had worn to the party the previous night, Andi got into the lift and headed straight upstairs, to the scene of the crime.

The elevator opened up into the room that looked the same way it did before she went to bed last night. Broken glass littered the floor, along with a lot more debris from whatever else was broken because of Ultron's robots. Glass crunched underneath her sneakers as she made her way further into the room, only to pause when she heard voices. She recognised them immediately. It was Maria Hill, in conversation with Steve.

"He's all over the globe," Hill was saying as she walked with Steve. "Robotics labs, weapons facilities. Reports of a metal man, or metal men, coming in and emptying the place."

It sounded a lot like Ultron was creating a robot army. A heavily armed one. But what did he hope to accomplish? Surely the extinction of the Avengers couldn't be the only thing on his mind.

"Fatalities?" Steve asked as they began to climb a set of stairs. Andi remained underneath it, able to see them a bit through the slits between each stair.

"Only when engaged," Hill replied. "Mostly there are guys left in a fugue state, complaining about bad memories and worst fears, and 'something too fast to see'."

Andi recognised that description immediately, and so did Steve, apparently.

"The Maximoffs," he concluded with a small sigh, their voices getting more distant as they walked further away from her. Andi followed, now mounting the stairs as well. "Makes sense that he'd go to them. They have someone in common."

"Except they don't." The two of them stopped at the top of the stairs and Andi peered from around the corner to see Hill handing Steve a tablet. She caught a glimpse of a dead body, but she didn't need a longer look to recognise the face of the man who had tormented her for a good part of her life. Strucker was dead.

The two continued walking and Andi followed again, this time not bothering with being quiet. Steve and Hill had gotten further ahead of her already, and she bumped right into Clint as he came out of a hallway to join the rest of the team.