***PETER***
Rogers follows us out of the parking garage in his Mustang. Natasha rides along with him, as does Barton, who’s there to explain everything as best he can. I, meanwhile, sit back, looking askance at Stark’s phone. Then something hits me. “Holy shit,” I whisper. “Stark, doesn’t that Ultron thing like to jump between...you know...devices?”
Stark laughs once, then his face falls as he remembers how Ultron hijacked Baymax. Even after it had apparently left Baymax’s system, there were still traces of the AI in his system. “Oh shit,” Stark cries out. “That means...oh God. We gotta get rid of my phone!”
“What? Why? How?” Gwen asks.
“Skye, stop the car, then back it up when I say so,” Stark says.
“Tony, what are you doing?”
“Just do it!” Stark yells.
Skye mutters some curses under her breath, but listens to Stark. She stops the SUV, and he jumps out, placing his phone under one of the wheels. “Back over it,” he says as he climbs back in.
“You sure about that?” Skye asks.
Stark is too busy panting to answer. Skye merely says, “Okay then,” and puts the SUV in reverse. We all cringe as we hear the faint but definite crunch of Stark’s phone being destroyed. “What was that all about?” Skye asks.
“Can’t let Ultron get into anyone else’s phone or anything,” Stark says, scratching the side of his head. “I’m sure none of you guys want a crazy AI gettin’ into your phone through your Wi-Fi.”
“Or this car,” Hiro says. “We got Wi-Fi in this thing too.”
Gwen and I look first at Hiro, then at Stark, then back again. “Oh crap,” Hiro groans. “All right, please tell me I didn’t just speak too soon.”
We all freeze for a moment, fearing the worst. Did Ultron hack the SUV too? Three seconds go by, then four, with no word from Ultron.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Hiro says, breathing a loud sigh of relief.
“I feel you, dude,” I say, delivering a light punch to the back of his seat.
Skye continues driving out of the parking garage. As we exit, wrapping around the JCPenney on our way back to El Camino Real and 380, I get a text message from Barton: “Anyone wanna explain what that was all about?”
I send a quick response, but I’m pretty sure my explanation doesn’t make much sense. It’ll be better if I can actually tell him face-to-face, I guess.
Hiro then gets a phone call - not a text message, an actual phone call. At first, I’m scared that it might be Ultron coming in again, because Hiro’s ringtone is the same song Stark got Ultron to play for Gwen earlier - “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark.” It’s only when Hiro answers it with a chuckle and a “Moshi-moshi” that I can finally breathe normally again.
“Oh, hey, onii-san,” Hiro says as Skye drives into the lane to take the cloverleaf onto 380 back to SFO. “What? Whoa, Tadashi, slow down! What? No. Are you friggin’ kidding me? Hold on a sec!” He puts his hand over the mouthpiece. “Skye, we gotta turn around, go back to the mall!”
“What? Why?”
“Tadashi’s orders!”
Skye considers it for a second, then swerves out of our lane, passing under the freeway overpass without taking the cloverleaf. Rogers doesn’t have enough time to react, and he gets onto the freeway.
YOU ARE READING
Deadpool Syndrome - A Marvel Fanfic
FanficPeter Parker has always loved the Amazing Spider-Man movies. He's always identified a great deal with the web-slinger. But lately, he's had weird dreams in which he himself actually is Spider-Man, and the girl he likes, Gwen Stacy, is the girl he tr...
