The party was going well, Tony was pleased to note. The Avengers were enjoying themselves. Maybe enough to close the very real ideological divide within the team, not that most of them knew of or acknowledged it. Unlikely, but he could hope.

"The handle's imprinted, right? Like a security code. "Whosoever is carrying Thor's fingerprints" is, I think, the literal translation?"

It burned a little bit inside that he couldn't hold the hammer. Not even Spangles had made it. He couldn't think of a quality unique enough that it would only apply to Thor, and dismiss all other candidates. The man in question was laughing as random theories made rounds. Cheerfulness, perhaps? Rogers definitely didn't meet that one.

"Yes, well, that's, uh, that's a very, very interesting theory. I have a simpler one." Thor said as he stood up and lifted the hammer. He even flipped it in front of them, all while wearing a smug grin! "You're all not worthy."

Tony joined the chorus of disagreement at that, but held in his real hypothesis. Perhaps, pseudo 'godhood' was a preliminary requirement before the worthiness. Perhaps believing you were worthy, besides just being 'worthy' — and god knew there wasn't a more subjective and nonsensical term than 'worthiness'— was also necessary. He certainly didn't feel worthy, not with his past. Not when his work to change and make up for years of being the Merchant of Death hadn't ended. It would likely never end. Looking around the room, it was likely most of these people also didn't feel so. Insecurity was such a crippling human vice.

"Tell him, Tony," Rhodey punched his elbow and said.

"What?" He must have been more in his head than he thought, to not have noticed someone speaking to him.

"About—" his friend started, but suddenly, a loud screeching noise rang throughout the floor. Everyone covered their ears while he tried to think what the fuck had just happened. The Tower's systems wouldn't just play any sound willy-nilly.

"Stark," Rogers said once it stopped.

"Wait a moment," Tony answered absent-minded, his hands already typing on his pad. "JARVIS?"

The helpful AI didn't answer. He wasn't getting a good feeling about this. "JARVIS."

Nothing again. "JARVIS, this is not the time for pranks, buddy."

No, it wasn't. And JARVIS didn't do pranks. His youngest AI was usually too much of a goody-two-shoes for that, despite his snark.

"JARVIS!" he shouted as he checked the systems and tried to find the presence of the AI on the tower's servers. "Answer —"

A loud scream rang around the room. So loud, that most of the Avengers covered their ears again. Tony didn't even try.

It was a heart-wrenching scream, not the type you heard about in horror movies. It was desperate and painful and screeching and so very fucking long.

The sound cut. The scream hadn't ended. The audio they had heard did.

Tony felt ashamed that the first thing that he had thought once he realized the voice sounded like that of a young child was: It wasn’t JARVIS.

"What was that, Stark?" Hill not-quite-yelled at him.

Pushing down the mixture of relief and worry, he turned to Hill. "I have no idea."

“This is your tower, Stark!” Barton shouted amidst a choir of angry guests.

Tony didn’t have time for his guests at the moment. He had to find out what happened to JARVIS. Had he been silenced or… worse?

Ignoring the others, he checked the security cameras of the lab. That was where he had last spoken with JARVIS, and where the… scepter was.

“What are we looking at here, Stark?” Rogers said as he watched him over his shoulders.

“That sounded like a child. I couldn’t make the gender.” Romanov added.

“Does that mean someone took a child and… caused that?” Bruce continued, making a wobbly motion towards the ceilings, where the acoustics were.

“You think someone kidnapped a kid?” Barton said. “And is using it to do what? Send a message? To us?"

“Maybe it’s just to Stark. But how would they hack the security?” questioned Romanov.

“I am calling this in.” Hill decided as she placed a call on her phone and left the room.

Rhodey placed a hand over his shoulder. “Tony, wouldn’t they have to get past JARVIS to do that?”

Tony stared at the lab footage. The image of JARVIS’ consciousness was missing. No.

“Tones?”

He blinked. “Yes.” What were they talking about? The scream? The hacking? “Yes. They would.”

He got up. He didn’t remember sitting down. He had to hold the sofa arm because he suddenly felt a bout of vertigo. He shouldn’t have drunk.

“Tony, you alright?” Bruce asked.

He had to get moving. He had to find JARVIS. “Just fine. Great really. I’ll let you work on the scream thing. I gotta go.” He paused as he made the way for the door.

“Stark, what are you doing? We have a child to rescue!” Rogers said, always disapproving in his Cap voice.

He was getting really annoyed. He shouldn’t have drunk. “So do I.” He told Spangles. Then addressed his friend. “Rhodey, you have the access codes. You can show them around security as you guys check. Good?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Great.”

"Tony!"

"Stark!"

He ran for the elevator. He had to go to the lab. He had to find JARVIS.

"He's fine. He's just fine." He couldn't even convince himself of that as he looked at the floor numbers change.

As he entered the lab, he stopped. What the fuck?

The projection of Ultron's consciousness. The one the scepter would help grow. Oh, it had grown, alright. It had taken over the floor.

"No. No. Didn't happen. Ultron did not just eat JARVIS. That's idiotic. Stupid. Imbecilic." Regardless, he better remove the scepter from the room first. "Yes. Good idea. Let's do that." However, just as he made for the scepter, the 3D image of Ultron's consciousness collapsed and disappeared in flecks of light. "Or let's not."

A screeching noise shouted from the audio again. Tony barely covered his ears in time. After it stopped, a scream followed.

This was getting ridiculous. Tony went to his desk and started to manually check the code for both JARVIS and Ultron. JARVIS, he couldn't find anywhere. But neither could he find evidence of a fight happening, of pieces of his code broken or lost amidst the servers. Ultron wouldn't just overwhelm JARVIS. JARVIS was a fighter. A survivor. There would have been something. But Ultron's code... What the fuck was wrong with it? Why couldn't he access any parts of it at all? No matter how he tried, something blocked him.

Another screech of noise from the audio, another childish scream. Was it happening periodically? He hacked his own firewalls to see if only his access as Ultron's creator was being pushed off.

Ultron's programming appeared on the screen. Finally. Here was something. He looked over the records. He frowned. That wasn't Ultron. Ultron wasn't programmed like this. Even with the scepter's help, how had it become so complex? So... adaptable? It was as if it was... "Alive," he whispered, disbelieving.

He checked the trials JARVIS had looked over. The initialization had been successful. How? They hadn't found anything that would have made —he looked at what now appeared to be Ultron on screen— this. A person. Ultron was a peacekeeping program. Not a... mind. A being. Even as an AI, this code— this mind was too... developed, not as if newly created.

A screeching sound. Then a scream.

Ultron noticed his intrusion. And adapted. He was being pushed out. Tony tried to keep up. But he knew it wouldn't work. He couldn't hack a mind. Not something this complex. He didn't even know how the scepter came into this. And where JARVIS would have disappeared to. Wait.

Why was there a scream? It hadn't been JARVIS. He looked at the code that disappeared more and more behind a wall of nothingness even as he typed. Was it—?

The sound system let out a screeching sound once more. Seconds passed. No scream. He waited. Feeling ridiculous as he did so.

Music blared around the room. The melody sounded joyful but slow. It was familiar. He couldn't say where he had heard it from.

Had he changed genres in his absence? From sci-fi to horror movies.

"I've got no strings,"

That voice.

"To hold me down,"

He knew that voice.

"To make me fret,"

Or make me frown."

The screaming child.

"I had strings,"

It was singing. Creepily.

"But now I'm free,"

It couldn't be. "Ultron?"

The child laughed. All the screens and projections turned neon blue.

"There are no strings on me."

The lab exploded.