Chapter 16

Happy endings don't exist.

Maybe they do, but not in my life.

All I know is that someone out there must really hate me a lot to have to put me through this.

What with all the mind games and the glowing jewels and the fact that my abilities continued to run rampant and free... seriously when will I catch a break?

Someone pat me on the shoulder and I realized it's Natasha. She gave me a small smile and proceeded to sit down by the messy dinner table.

If you look at it this way, the entire Avengers team in a small but large kitchen may seem a little, odd.

We all looked like a family of golden retrievers that Barton just had to take in.

"Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself time." Fury speaks, having washed his dishes.

"Maybe if some of you were to listen to me, we won't be in this mess," I grumbled, glaring at my team before me.

They all looked away upon my glare except for Tony who merely pouted.

Given that the fight between Tony, me and Steve were what caused us to be distracted in the first place.

Fury raised an eyebrow at the team's obvious wariness of my words but doesn't deter.

"My contacts all say he's building something. The amount of Vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's just one thing."

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve asked as he leaned over a wall opposite me.

Banner lingered by Natasha having just cleaned his glasses.

The Russian was smiling at a picture Barton's kid drew.

I think her name's Lila Barton.

Tony walks by me and takes notice of a dartboard. He hums to himself as he takes the darts and plays around with them.

The guy never stops holding anything I swear.

"Ah," Fury shrugs. "He's easy to track, he's everywhere. Guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit."

I winced at the term and pushed my empty dishes towards the sink, my abilities making it float towards Fury's direction.

He scowled at me, but I blink innocently, and he sighed before grabbing hold of them and washing the dishes for me anyway.

"However, it still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans though." He added, once he was done and wiped at his wet hands with the rag on the side of the counter.

"He still going after launch codes?" Tony threw a dark at the board, asking out loud.

It misses its target, making him frown.

"Yes, he is, but he's not making any headway." Fury journeyed towards the table and unwraps a loaf of bread, slathering butter all over it.

"Huh," Tony scoffed. "I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare."

I rise from my position by the couch and glared at him. "Tony is now really the time to be boasting about your abilities?"

He shrugs and throws another dart, but I flex my hand and the dart goes flying of its target.

"Yeah, well, I contacted our friends at the NEXUS about that." Fury cuts the bread into two pieces and I had a strange feeling that he'd make a good Suburban Dad.

"NEXUS?"

My poor Super Soldier looks confused.

"It's the world internet hub in Oslo, every byte of data flows through there, fastest access on earth." Banner adds helpfully, making Steve nod in thanks.

"So what'd they say?" Clint grabs a bunch of darts hidden behind the counter.

"He's fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed."

Tony peeks his head out. "By whom?"

Clint sends two darts flying in Tony direction and it solidly hits the target on point.

Barton shrugs at Tony who mutters; "You could've impaled me."

"Parties unknown." One-eyed wonder sounds as mystified as the rest of us.

Natasha brings her knee to her chest at that. "Do we have an ally?"

"Ultron's got an enemy, that's not the same thing. Still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is."

Tony slowly steps back into the room and peeks his head through the beaded curtain. "I might need to visit Oslo, find our unknown."

"That's the start of a plan, I can tell," I said, stretching over the couch.

God, it's comfy.

"Barton, how much are you willing to sell this couch to me?" I asked him, rolling like a cat.

The team looks at my childish action but doesn't say a thing. Either they don't want to, or just don't dare question me right now.

Barton grinned at me from the counter. "I made that, it's not for sale."

I paused at my rolling and shot up from the couch. "What else did you make? Your house?" I demanded.

Steve chuckles at my obvious shock.

Lying back down on the couch, I stretched once more. "Laura, I'm sorry, but I'm stealing your husband! I need him as my fixer!"

Laura, Barton's wife, pokes her head by the doorway and smiles at me.

"Be my guest, you can take him anywhere," Then she disappears again.

Clint's mouth opened wide as he spluttered his disagreements.

"What was that, Laura? Laura!" He whined, rising from his spot and running to his wife.

Tony's gaze narrowed. "Sorry Barton, there's only one room for a fixer in her life and that's me," Tony announces to himself, sounding deadly and I laugh.

Natasha picks up a glass of orange juice, sighing out loud whilst she drinks it. "Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that."

"I do," Nick looks at all of us, his gaze softening and when he sees we were expecting more. He shakes his head. "I have you."

Everybody avoids eye contact immediately.

It's clear to Fury all of us didn't really trust each other at the moment. Trust was a fickle word, it wasn't that we didn't trust each other it was that, what happened a couple of hours ago truly struck us where it all hurt.

It taught us just how human we still are.

"Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else--" Striding over to me, Fury hands me the bread he made making me grin like a little kid.

"You'd kids had all the tech you could dream off," He ruffles my hair as I ate the bread, silently moaning at the taste.

He remembers I love butter on my bread.

Tony looks offended by the gesture and I didn't miss Fury's smug expression.

Jesus, was this win Lorelie's attention trivia?

Fury approached the centre of the room and gestures to all of us.

"Here we all are, back on earth, with nothing but our wit, and our will to save the world."

I raised an eyebrow at his words, feeling his emotions waft back at me. They were clear and as cut as they've ever been.

"Ultron says the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission."

He wanted us to get up and fight. To stop mopping around about things we couldn't stop. So what if we couldn't stop it? What matters is that we tried.

"Whether or not he admits it. His mission... is global destruction."

"All this," He gestures to Barton's happy home. "Laid in a grave,"

Grave.

My vision begins to flicker, something that's been happening often ever since I woke up. I turn on my back, feet on the floor as my hand reached out to clasp over my right eye.

I am hit with a tidal wave of flashes my fingers gripping onto the sides of the couch with force as everything hits me at once.

Fire.

Explosions.

Blood.

Skeletons.

Corpses.

Death.

Dust.

Jewels.

Glowing.

Glowing.

A golden armour.

A brilliant war.

In the background, people are talking, but I've longed tune them out. It wasn't like before where I couldn't control where I mirror projected, this time it was like something had brought me there.

Wherever, there, was.

The calling was stronger.

And I realized, the calling was from the sceptre.

It wanted me closer.

Nearby.

When I opened my eyes, I realized I was no longer at Barton's home. I was somewhere else.

This time my body wasn't there. It wasn't an actual mirror projection. It felt like I was in a fog, encased in some sort of glass.

I was seeing through a narrow window of time.

Or, to be more certain.

Seeing from the sceptre itself.

"Get it ready, we are running out of time,"

Ultron.

The view changes, the sceptre is picked up and placed over a laser grid. I watch with bated breath as the laser pierces through the sceptre, destroying what lay encased within.

A gentle yellow hue began to light the room.

It's the second stone.

The stone I saw in my vision.

Everything becomes unbalanced for a while, the scene changing and morphing until someone speaks up in the background, their voice muted.

"The cradle is just accepting the Vibranium."

Wait. Isn't that... Helen Cho?

The sceptre, no--the yellow stone, glowed brighter, as though sensing my presence from within it. It recognizes me. That's why it brought me here.

That's why it's showing me what's going to happen if we don't stop it.

"Oh,"

I'm slammed back down my body.

"Shit."

"Person bodies. The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it."

Tony was speaking, his words coming in and out of focus.

"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed." Natasha was talking as well.

"They don't need to be protected," Banner voices out after the silence spreads. "They need to evolve."

Nobody says a word. It seemed like no one understood.

But I did.

I understood perfectly well.

Bruce lifts his head in everyone's direction. "Ultron's going to evolve."

Scream and your entire staff dies.

This, is the next me.

It was him. He's planning on using the stone. He's planning on using it for himself.

"Banner's right," Standing up, I nearly stumbled on my feet but I steadied myself before I could fall back down. "I just saw him."

My mind spun, signalling the unease over the fact that the yellow stone literally showed me that vision.

It felt like it was trying to help almost. 

"Blues?" Tony looks at me in question.

Waving him off, I walk towards the table and placed my hands down in front of me, quickly nodding in Fury's direction.

"I saw him. Or, heard him, I don't know--Look, the point is, Banner's right. Ultron wants a body that the Avengers can't beat."

Nick's brow furrowed. "How?"

Banner made eye contact with me and realizes I'm on the same wavelength. He nods at me for confirmation and I nod back, reassuring his thoughts.

"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?"