Chapter 7

Tony refuses to look me in the eye.

Even as we all made our way back to the Lab, having changed out of our more or less destroyed outfits.

I came back five minutes later, wearing a black hoodie over my sweatpants.

The cut on my back was steadily healing but it still ached like a bitch. It was the least of my worries.

Not with how there were eight very, angry people in this very room.

"All our work is gone," Bruce calls out, checking through our now empty files. "Ultron cleared out, used the internet as an escape hatch."

Steve who had been quiet thus far shakes his head at the name. "Ultron."

"He's been in everything," Natasha typed at the monitor before her brows furrowed in apparent anger. "Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other."

Rhodey walks through the floor, a hand around his injured arm. "He's in your files, he's in the internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?"

"Nuclear codes." Maria deduced as she picked up splintered glass from her toe nails with clippers.

"Nuclear codes," Rhodey nodded, shaking his head with worry. "Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."

Natasha scoffed. "Nukes? He said he wanted us dead."

Steve looked angrier than I'd seen him. "He didn't say dead. He said extinct."

"He also said he killed somebody," Clint leaned over the railing behind us.

Maria frowned. "But there wasn't anyone else in the building."

"Yes, there was."

The voice came from the far corner.

Tony.

His pain wafts back at me from where he is, and I stood up straighter, wanting to know why my brother was in so much distress.

He created a murder bot. He did it behind our backs. The question on everybody's mind was clear;

Why?

Why do it? Why use the Sceptre? Why risk it at all?

In all these years, I've always known my brother to do unorthodox things for his beliefs. While some may argue that he does things for his own benefit, I've seen a side of him that most people haven't.

Therefore, I knew there's more to this.

Tony snaps the monitor with the palm of his hand multiple times in contemplation, before jutting it out to the front of the room, revealing a 3D image of JARVIS's consciousness.

Or, what was once, JARVIS's consciousness.

The yellow lights are destroyed.

Torn apart.

Shattered.

I got up from my seating position which was on the table and approached the image with obvious pain.

"JARVIS..." I mumble, watching the pieces of yellow light flicker on and off. There was no way to know if the intelligence bot was still in there.

Not like this.

Not with how ruined it looked.

"This is insane," Bruce grits his teeth as he joins me at the centre of the room. He eyes what's left of JARVIS, sadness evident in his gaze.

Steve looks down in disbelief. "JARVIS was the first line of defence. He would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense--"

"No, Ultron could've assimilated Jarvis." Banner points out with quick reflexes. "This isn't strategy, this is... rage."

From a distance, loud thundering footsteps began to cross the room and in comes the god of thunder, having changed to his armour.

Anger courses through Thor's emotions, practically suffocating to my abilities. He marches into the Lab, red cape billowing.

"It's going around," Clint added unhelpfully from the back and I shot him a glare, gaze on getting the god of thunder.

"Thor--"

He'd crossed the room in seconds and without warning, pulls Tony by the throat with one hand, backing him all the way up in the air.

"Come on-- use your words, buddy-" Tony tries to say, his breath laboured against Thor's grip.

"I have more than enough words to describe you Stark," Thor growls venomously.

All I had to see was Tony--dangling, and Thor holding him there.

Something in me cracked.

I reacted.

Wrapping my hands together, I whip out coils of energy, flourishing them to the surface. The snapback makes Thor stumble, his grip loosening enough to let my brother go.

Everyone shifted, the air turning frigid and dangerous. Instincts are telling them one thing: Attack.

The lights branch out in vines, filling and curving every nook and cranny of the room, the pressure dominating enough that everybody is instantly rooted to their spots.

Lights flickered.

Glass beakers and science equipment rattled in warning.

The room goes dead quiet.

I position myself in front of Tony, glaring madly at the god in front of me.

"As he said, use your words." I threatened, the lights swirling around us. My eyes glowed blue and the dark energy hover near my neck.

It was clear as day to everyone in this room, I was beyond pissed and highly elevated.

I was reminded just how unstable I was as of lately.

But if anyone was going to scold Tony, that falls to me.

No one has that right.

"Thor," Steve walks over to us, wanting to put out the fire. The tension in the lab was palpable. "The Legionnaire?"

The god of thunder sends me a knowing look. His eyes narrow into a frown, gears turning at the back of his mind. He's looking at my flourishing powers, noting them down with cautious interest.

He's not mad at me. Warier than mad.

Like he knows something about me that I don't.

And it pisses me off more.

The god of thunder eventually relents, he lets out a sigh. "Trail went cold about a hundred miles out but it's headed north. And it has the sceptre,"

Thor move closer to Tony but I didn't budge from my position. "Now we have to retrieve it," He hisses. "Again."

When the god finally walks away and I'm confident he won't come back, I drop the lights and left Tony's side, opting to remain quiet at the farthest corner of the room.

Everybody's confusion is all I feel.

They are wondering why I'm helping Tony.

Why I'm defending him.

He's my brother and if you choose your own family over something else without an explanation, then you don't deserve them.

I'm not planning on losing him anytime soon. I've only been around him for three years.

There isn't enough time left to think about what he did.

I'm afraid I don't have that much time left.

"The genie's out of that bottle. Clear and present is Ultron,"

Natasha speaks after a heavy amount of silence around us.

Dr Cho walks over to the remains of the Iron Legion bot and stares at it comically. "I don't understand. You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?"

Tony and Bruce walk over to the monitor and Banner is about to explain when suddenly, out of plain utter blue, Tony starts laughing.

Laughing.

Banner notices the stares our team was giving them and shakes his head at Tony, trying to get him to stop.

"You think this is funny?" Thor begins to move forward again but when he sees my venomous glare, he chose to stay where he is.

Tony's emotions run clear to me and I frowned, feeling them alter.

It was more of like a distressed-sarcastic-side-effect of what's happened. Humour to cope with misery.

"No. It's probably not, right?" Tony shakes his head. "Is this very terrible? Is it so... is it so... it is. It's so terrible."

He continues to laugh and my anger only grows. I'm trying to go deeper into Tony's mind but I am unable to do it as my head pounded.

I'm still recovering from the attack and it hurts like hell.

"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand." Thor scolded, the god of thunder looked absolutely furious.

"No, I'm sorry--I'm sorry, it is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this."

He turns to face us, all of the Avengers as we stare right back. Looks like my brother isn't going to give up anytime soon.

"Tony," Banner stops him, hand out. "Maybe this might not be the time to..."

"Really? That's it? You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls."

"Only when I've created a murder bot." Banner snaps back just as angry.

"We didn't. We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?" Tony glares at him.

Steve crosses his arms over his chest having grown tired of Tony's behaviour.

"Well, you did something right. And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD."

Tony scoffs when he sees no one is backing him up. He's looking at all of us like we were outsiders. Including me. "Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?"

Rhodey rolls his eyes. "No, it's never come up."

"Saved New York?"

Considering Rhodey was Stark's best friend he was clearly not on his side. "Never heard that."

Tony looked more distressed than I've ever seen him. Something was eating away at his mind, something big, something he's kept to himself for years.

"Recall that...? A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it."

The room goes silent upon his words.

And I realized that's what all those sleepless nights mean.

These are the things that torment him.

These are his nightmares.

The same ones I've had to save him from when he wakes up, gasping for air.

"We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but, that up there? That's... that's the end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?"

No one knew the world needed the Avengers, but after the threat of humanity's extinction came to be, most of us realized we needed to be there.

We needed to protect our home.

Because if we won't, who will?

But at the end of the day.

We bleed and get hurt like the rest of them. We have nightmares, we have good dreams, we have good and bad days too.

We were still human.

"Together." Steve answers, his tone firm. He doesn't miss a beat.

Tony's jaw clenched as his gaze swirls with pessimism. "We'll lose."

"Then we'll do that together, too." Steve doesn't break eye contact with Tony and for the first time in a while, I watch my brother look away first, submitting to his mistakes.

For a moment, the super soldier lets Tony's resignation hang in the air, a signal to others that we were all a team and we needed to know that.

He unfolds his arms and takes a step forward, already dishing out a plan.

"Thor's right, Ultron's calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."

The command was clear.

Find Ultron and get ready.

Everybody turns to leave the room.

Prefer bally to collect what's left of the pieces we'd destroyed.

It was terrible.

Feeling the anger and rage from everybody I called my friends and family.

How did it come to this?

It was so perfect.

So perfect.

"Blues?" Tony walks over to me.

I don't look up at him but I know we're left alone in the Lab as the others left to give some privacy.

He stops directly in front of me so I see his shiny shoes.

"Blu-"

I slapped him. Hard.

His face cocks to the side and he blinks at the pain, caught off guard by what I did.

"Do you even realize what you did?" I hissed, jabbing my finger into his chest. Tony palms his face, I can already see a growing red imprint on it.

"Dammit Tony, did you even think? For one second?" My head falls as I crouched to the ground, my breathing coming out much more rapidly than usual.

Blood was rushing through my head at a much faster pace and I could feel the room spin.

My brother silently sits next to me so the both of us were bathed in silence, neither of us opting to speak.

"Do you regret it? What you did?" It was a question I wanted him to answer. Why did he create something like this? Why did he risk everything knowing there would be consequences?

Tony lets out a breathless chuckle. "No, I don't. If I could go back in time, I'll do it again. At least I tried."

He sounded so much like Howard and at that moment, I realized there was something more to this than meets the eye.

"Why? I know you, Tony, what do you mean?"

Tony's brown orbs find the ground and he sighs, defeated.

"I meant what I said when I saw a suit of armour around the world. Ultron was going to help establish that. So at the end of the day, we get to come home. Wasn't that the goal? To come home? To just... stop fighting?"

A medium.

He was creating a medium that would replace us in the future.

So that we won't have to risk our lives anymore.

I turn slightly so I could face him and Tony's emotions came clear to the surface. He was the most crest-fallen than I've ever seen him.

Despite being a few years older than me, I could still see the lines on his face.

He was ageing faster than his age. The nightmares had caught up to him and all I felt was pity.

He was human.

Given that, I was too--but I also had the abilities of an unknown energy source.

"Is that the whole reason?" I urged, reading his emotions. There's a bit of guilt in there too.

Tony shakes his head and crossed his arms over his chest.

There we were.

Two Starks, on the ground.

Defeated.

"I did it for you too."

I didn't say anything. What else could I say?

"You don't think I notice? The more you use your powers the more unstable you become and I don't want that to happen to you. I did it so you can stop. So you can lead a normal life."

Normal. It sounded so foreign.

Alien almost.

First Steve then Tony.

What did they want from me?

Why can't they understand this will never go away?

That I'm doing this because I have to.

Because if I don't then I'm just a killer.

A monster.

HYDRA'S creation, Howard's mistake, SHIELD'S throwaway, I would have believed Tony. I would've been grateful too. But I can't be grateful, I can't thank him, I can't do anything because it's worthless--all of it, every single thing, every single decision, every single realization, it was all fucking worthless.

And the bomb goes off.

All the rage and anger. All the pain and confusion.

"Tony, I'm not normal! Nothing's going to change that!" I snapped at him, slapping at his arms and chest in desperation.

Why can't they understand that they can't fix me? No matter what they do, no matter what they say, I will always be a danger.

"People need to stop thinking they can fix me! They can't! No one ever will!"

Tears threatened to fall but I held them back, aware of the clawing in my chest to breathe.

It was so easy to lose control. So easy to let whatever it was out there, command me.

The very reason why I'm still holding it together, the reason why I try so hard to fight, is because these were my people.

And I don't want to have to go against them.

"You're my brother." I struggled out. "But I can't let you waste your life for a toy you're never going to fix."

Tony's brown eyes widened at my words before he abruptly gets up as though I'd burnt him.

"I did this for you Blues! How can you say that?!"

Watching him seethe was enough to make my spirit break. So I leaned my head back and voiced out a meaningless jab.

"Look where that got you,"

He blinked, hurt and astounded.

Our team was turning against him and it was because he did this for me.

What else could he say?

Tony paused at his actions and in one swift move, walked out of the Lab, far away from where I sat on the floor.

The devastation is painful.

It feels mind-numbing.

I watch him go, pulling up my sleeves and staring at the blue veins that had raised themselves further up my wrist and embedded themselves within.

The subtle glow and the burnt marking of the marks refuse to disappear no matter how much I tried to rub them.

All this power, all this energy, the realization of it all... it hurts.

And the pain only reminds me of what's to come.

The clock's ticking.

I'm out of time.

~~@ @ @~~

A/N

Alright, I've given away too much for you guys to find out what this all means. I'll let your theories run free.

;)

VOTE AND COMMENT.