"Worthy... No... How could you be worthy? You're all killers."

In front of the Avengers stood a very misshapen robot, wires hanging off of it every which way. The sight of it made chills run down Dahlia's spine.

Everyone in the room got up, aiming various weapons at the deranged automation.

"Stark." Steve said warningly, knowing Tony had something to do with this.

"JARVIS," Tony tapped at the device in his hand. "Reboot, Legionnaire OS, we've got a buggy suit."

"There was a terrible noise... and I was tangled in... in strings. I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy." The robots' voice croaked, scaring Dahlia out of her wits, though she didn't let it show.

"You killed someone?"

"Wouldn't have been my first call. But, down in the real world we're faced with ugly choices."

"Who sent you?" Thor asked, readying his hammer for combat.

A voice that sounded eerily like Tony's filled the room. "I see a suit of armor around the world."

"Okay Tony what the actual fuck is going on? If this is some Terminator-type deal, then let's get this over with and sink this bitch in some lava real quick." Dahlia demanded, her voice low.

"Did you even watch that movie?" Tony asked.

"I may have just walked in at the end of Terminator II but I'm fairly sure I got the jist."

"Yeah, you didn't."

Bruce didn't seem to hear them. "Ultron."

The robot, Ultron, gestured to himself. "In the flesh. Or, no, not yet. Not this... chrysalis. But I'm ready. I'm on a mission."

Natasha hesitated to ask the question everyone was thinking. "What mission?"

"Peace in our time."

Before anyone could process what he was saying, the Iron Legion robots broke in through the window, covering Dahlia in the remains of the glass.

"All I wanted was to have a normal night where I eat popcorn and watch drama unfold, and some shit like this just abso-fucking-lutely has to happen!" She complained loudly as she decapitated several robots at once with the emergency knife she kept on her.

"Sorry!" Bruce yelled to Nat.

"Don't turn green!"

"I won't!"

Dahlia backflipped onto the glass table, taking out four robots as she did so.

After a few minutes of fighting, Tony finally managed to shut the Iron Legion's down, leaving the robots limp.

"That was dramatic! I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through. You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to... evolve?"

Ultron picked up one of the Iron Legion's limo body. "With these? These puppets? There's only one path to peace: The Avenger's extinction."

Thor threw his hammer at the robot who was standing at the front of the room, leaving a dismembered pile of wire and metal behind.

"I had strings, but now I'm free. There are no strings on me, no strings on me." Ultron sung as the lights in the robots eyes went dark, obviously having downloaded his subconscious somewhere else.

The room was quiet, the air thick.

"Is this a good time to mention that I am not, in fact, an Avenger?" Dahlia asked, receiving several glares upon saying so.

"Alright, not the time then."

•

"All our work is gone. Ultron cleared out, used the internet escape hatch." Bruce sighed, setting his head in his hands, rubbing his temples.

"Ultron." Steve said, still processing the whole idea.

"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other." Natasha said.

"He's in your files, he's in the internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodey asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Nuclear codes."

"Nuclear codes. Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."

"Nukes? He said he wanted us dead." Nat offered.

"He didn't say dead. He said extinct." Steve's forehead creased in concern.

"He also said he killed somebody."

"But there wasn't anyone else in the building." Maria Hill was sat on the countertop.

"Yes there was." A 3D image of Jarvis' consciousness appeared in front of them, destroyed and in pieces.

"This is insane." Bruce's head felt like exploding.

The room's attention was drawn away from the situation as Dahlia threw her phone at the wall, making a loud noise as she yelled, "God damnit! He beat my Candy Crush score! He needs to be stopped."

"That monster." Nat replied, her voice playfully serious.

Steve cleared his throat, bringing the room back to their original topic. "JARVIS was the first line of defense. He would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense."

"No, Ultron could've assimilated JARVIS. This isn't strategy, this is... rage." Bruce said, his voice shaking slightly.

"Rage that he used to beat me in Candy Crush!" Dahlia pointed her finger at nothing in particular, her eyes narrowing.

Suddenly, Thor entered the room and grabbed Tony by the throat and held him up in the air.

"Come on, use your words, buddy." Tony wheezed, his voice strained.

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

"Would one of these words happen to start with mother and end with fucker? Because if so, share the rest with the group, please." Dahlia said, propping her legs up on the table.

Tony was starting to struggle to breathe, and Dahlia didn't feel like attending a funeral today so she decided to intervene.

"Thor, down." She sternly demanded, as if he was a puppy.

"Thor, the Legionnaire."

Thor dropped Tony, leaving him gasping for breath. "Trail went cold about a hundred miles out, but it's headed north, and it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it, again."

Thor's voice was cold and bitter, something that rarely happened, since he usually reminded people of an innocent golden retriever puppy.

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

"If someone sees the genie, would they tell them my three wishes? One is to always have the exact amount of money I need in my pocket, two is to have world peace, and the third is to live in a popcorn manufacturing factory." Dahlia said, tapping her finger on her chin.

"That's a good one! Mine would be to be able to fly and transport myself from place to place!" Thor said, his eyes lighting up.

"Thor... you can fly and you have a goddamn transportation magic Bifrost thing."

Doctor Helen Cho looked at the two friends strangely, before returning to the situation at hand. "I don't understand. You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?"

Tony started laughing, and everyone looked at him weirdly, even Dahlia, who was eating from her emergency stash of popcorn in her pocket.

"You think this is funny?" Thor glared, raising his hammer up in anger.

"No, it's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so... is it so... it is. It's so terrible." He chuckled to himself.

"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand." Thor scowled at Stark.

"Also could've been better if you had told us after you did it, sooo." Dahlia said, crunching on her snacks.

"Hey, young lady, I'll send you to your room if I have to." Tony pointed at her sternly.

"I'm twenty four! How many times do I have to say it? Just cause you're one of my three legal guardians doesn't mean you can send me to my room, right Nat?" Dahlia looked to the redhead for confirmation.

"Right, if Fury agrees we have majority."

"I have the coolest guardians ever." Dahlia smiled. Fury, Nat, and Tony were the best possible parental figures, she gave them credit for most of her badassery.

"Whatever, I'll take away popcorn for a week, I'll do it!" Tony said, desperate for something to hold over her head.

"You wouldn't dare."

"Anyway, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a hoot that you all don't get why we need this." Tony said, laughing to himself yet again.

"Tony, maybe this might not be the time to..." Bruce warned him.

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

Nat tensed up when Tony's tone towards Bruce sharpened, her knuckles turning white. You bet Dahlia was watching this with interest.

"Only when I've created a murder bot."

"We didn't. We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?" Tony sighed, tired of everyone turning against him.

"Well, you did something right. And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than S.H.I.E.L.D." Steve was extremely frustrated with the situation.

"Imma just stay out of this, then." Dahlia said, feeling awkward, being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and all.

"Anyone remember when I carried a nuke into a wormhole?" Tony asked, raising his hands above his head.

"No, it's never come up." Rhodey said.

"Not once." Dahlia commented.

"Saved New York?"

"Never heard that."

"Last I heard, New York was fine?"

"Recall that? A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the live long day, but up there? That's... that's the end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?"

"Together." Steve said, and Dahlia had to stop herself from throwing up in her mouth at the cheesiness.

"We'll lose." Tony said nonchalantly.

"Then we'll do that together, too."

Tony looked thoroughly disgusted, portraying Dahlia's feelings on the situation exactly.

"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."

"Oh, I'd love to, but only if it involves more cheesy lines about togetherness!" Dahlia said, her voice filled with sarcasm.

"For fuck's sake, Dahlia." Bruce said.

"Language!"

"Oh god."

•

The empty car lot echoed with every noise Pietro's sneakers made.

The cold of the air made him shiver, and he shuffled in his spot, feeling something off about the circumstances.

"Are you sure this is a good idea? Something isn't right." Pietro whispered under his breath to Wanda, shivering slightly.

"It's our only option. He can protect us from Strücker, we aren't safe anywhere else." She breathed, her brother's anxiety feeding her own.

"What about S.H.I.E.L.D.? They could keep us safe."

Wanda scoffed. "Like they'd every trust us. We're weapons of mass destruction to them. They'd kill us on sight."

"What do you have against them?"

"They're working with Stark, Pietro. Do you not remember what he did to us? Taking our family, our lives, and our only chance of happiness? They cannot be good people if he is among them." She snarled.

"They aren't all that bad." Pietro mumbled, not meaning for her to hear his comment.

She turned to him, red sparking in her eyes. "Is this about that girl? Because you know that this is bigger than her. It's bigger than us, and bigger than everyone."

"That's what she said." He cracked a small grin, but it melted as he saw Wanda's face of rage.

"Just be quiet and let me do the talking. We'll talk about this later."

Pietro grumbled and followed behind her. He didn't like the situation but he knew not to get on her bad side.

They approached a chair that was facing away from them, a chair that held Ultron's current form.

"Talk. And if you are wasting our time..." Wanda said warningly.

"Did you know this church is in the exact center of the city? The elders decreed it so that everyone could be equally close to God. I like that. The geometry of belief."

Wanda's face contorted into one of confusion, and Pietro stood nearby, watching her, but knowing not to interfere.

"You're wondering why you can't look inside my head." His voice crooned.

"Sometimes it's hard. But sooner or later, every man shows himself."

At her words, Ultron rose and turned to face them, revealing his robotic form.

Wanda's face turned to shock, while Pietro was merely surprised.

What? His voice sounded like a robot, Pietro didn't understand why she was so shocked.

"Oh, I'm sure they do. But you needed something more than a man. That's why you let Stark take the scepter."

"I didn't expect. But I saw Stark's fear, I knew it would control him, make him self-destruct."

Pietro watched the interaction with surprise, still not over the question of how the hell this guy knew that she let Stark take it.

"Everyone creates the thing they dread. Men of peace create engines of war, invaders create avengers, people create... smaller people? Uh... children! I lost the word there. Children. Designed to supplant them, to help them... end."

His words sent chills down Pietro's spine, but Wanda appeared unfazed.

"Is that why you've come? To end the Avengers?"

He took a moment before answering, then smiled, if robots could even do that.

"I've come to save the world. But also, yeah. We'll move out right away. This is a start, but there's something we need to begin the real work."

Wanda wandered a bit, looking over at Ultron's bots, gesturing to them with her hand. "All of these are... All of these are..."

"Me. I have what the Avengers never will. Harmony. They're discordant, disconnected. Stark's already got them turning on each other. And when you get inside the rest of their heads..."

"Everyone's plan is not to kill them." Pietro did, ignoring Wanda's glares of protest.

"And make them martyrs? You need patience. Need to see the big picture."

Pietro's fist tightened upon hearing the words he had been told his whole life. He was always told to be patient, to wait a moment, to slow down. He was sick of it, and he was sick of everyone.

"I don't see the big picture," He bit back fiercely. "I have a little picture. I take it out and look at it every day."

"You lost your parents in the bombings. I've seen the records." Ultron's voice was void of any emotion, and though Pietro figured that he wasn't capable of emotion, he believed that even if he was, there wouldn't be a tad of sentiment in his words.

"The records are not the picture." He grimaced.

"Pietro." Wanda warned.

"No, please." Ultron said, and Pietro only saw red, feeling as if he was egging him on.

"We were ten years old, having dinner, the four of us. When the first shell hits, two floors below, it makes a hole in the floor. It's big. Our parents go in, and the whole building starts coming apart. I grab her, roll under the bed and the second shell hits. But, it doesn't go off. It just... sits there in the rubble, three feet from our faces. And on the side of the shell is painted one word..."

"Stark."

Pietro's fist clenched and his jaw tightened at the sound of his name.

"We were trapped two days." He continued, forcing himself to get through the story.

"Every effort to save us, every shift in the bricks, I think, 'This will set it off.' We wait for two days for Tony Stark to kill us." Wanda said, her teeth gritted, reliving the memory.

"I know what they are." Pietro grimaced.

"I wondered why you two survived Strücker's experiments. Now I don't. We will make it right. You and I can hurt them," He said to Wanda, ignoring Pietro's glares. "But you will tear them apart, from the inside."

•

"He's all over the globe. Robotics labs, weapons facilities, jet propulsion labs, reports of a metal man, or men, coming in and emptying the place." Maria sighed, closing her laptop in defeat.

"Fatalities?" Steve said, resting his head on his hands.

"Only when engaged. Mostly guys left in a fugue state going on about old memories, worst fears, and something too fast to see."

Dahlia smirked at the mention of a particular speedster, remembering the blue blur.

"Maximoffs. Well, that makes sense he'd go to them, they have someone in common."

"Not anymore." Maria handed a photo over to Steve, and Dahlia craned her neck to see what it was.

She wished she hadn't.

Strücker's dead body was captured in the image, blood spelling out the word, 'Peace', on the wall behind him.

"That's a negative. I answer to you. Yes ma'am."

Clint was talking on the phone to someone, and Cap looked at him strangely, not hearing the context of the call.

"Barton, we might have something." Steve interrupted.

"Gotta go." Clint ended the call and looked towards Steve.

"Who was that?"

"Girlfriend."

Steve gathered the rest of the team around the photo.

"What's this?" Tony asked carefully, still feeling the tension from the fight.

"A message. Ultron killed Strücker." Steve's voice was more serious than normal, which was saying something.

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us." Tony's voice was filled to the brim with sarcasm.

"This is a smokescreen. Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strücker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss."

"Yeah, I bet he..." Natasha trailed off as she looked at the computer screen. "Yep. Everything we had on Strücker has been erased."

"Not everything."

The team had been searching through the files and had found some stuff, nothing huge yet. Steve decided to take a moment away from the scene, and decided to read a very specific file while the team debated ideas.

Dahlia Lilith Anelace

Seven

Twenty Four

Natasha Romanoff, Anthony Stark, Nicholas Fury

Dark Brown

Green

Undercover recon, training new recruits, swordsmanship, fistfighting, gun usage (See Agent Romanoff's file for further details on this).

Ranked number one in all physical activity courses, youngest official agent in history at 13, impressive mission success.

Harold Anelace, deceased, killed by Olivia Anelace.

Olivia Anelace, in Alcatraz Prison, San Francisco, California.

Physical and emotional abuse from her mother, used as a torture device, saved from said mother at seven years old.

Failed three times in a row, denied field work until Director Fury intervened.

Steve stared at the file in his hands, the tough manila folder resting in his palms.

He didn't realize that someone who was that young could be so hurt in such a short amount of time.

Steve had only ever known risk by choice. He chose to join the army, he offered himself to be used for testing. He fought because he felt the need to do something with his life. He had no idea what it was like to be plunged into hurt and harm, without offering yourself up for it, at least.

Twenty four years didn't seem like enough time for someone to suffer through that much, and Steve's guilt bit at him ferociously.

"Oh god, if I have to read one more goddamn file I will get Thor to hit me in the face with Mjolnir." Dahlia groaned, hitting her head repeatedly on the table in front of her.

Steve had to fix his actions, and fast.