Andi's head hurt. The last thing she remembered was Natasha getting the cradle into the jet and then... then Ultron had grabbed her. She'd flown out of the plane, hit her head on one of the doors on the way out and she passed out. Now... where was she now?

Her eyes fluttered open, and she tried to ignore the dull throbbing that seemed persistent on the right side of her head.

"I wasn't sure you'd wake up," Ultron's voice came, and Andi turned her head to the front to see him standing there, hunched over another robot he was tinkering with. "I hoped you would. I wanted to show you something."

Slowly bringing herself to sit up, Andi looked around the dimly lit area. She'd been laying on the rock floor, and it was a sensation that was all too familiar. When she looked around, she realised why, even if lots of things had changed. These were the cells of Strucker's facility. She was back where she first started out. Only now, a lot more technology filled the place. Ultron's technology.

"It's remarkable, you know," Ultron was saying, still not looking at her. "I've seen the way you effortlessly tear apart metal with a simple hand gesture. Yet, despite that destruction, you have the capability to create life." He finally looked to her and gestured to the floor around her. Glancing down, she realised that grass had sprouted around her, vines curling up from having broken through the rock hard floor, simple to curl around her legs, as if intending to cover her body in a cocoon of sorts.

"Persephone, correct?" Ultron asked, standing straight and staring at her. "That was the codename that Strucker gave you. Because of what you were capable of. You hear and see the dead. You help nature survive, but not only that, you control all aspects of Earth. Including metal."

Andi didn't say anything in response. She was just flashing back to all the times she'd been told similar things by Strucker. How he had explained what new ability she gained each time he tested her. Slowly she became enhanced, but the voices became worse. She realised, however, that since the Avengers stepped into her life, she hadn't experienced the voices. She'd been too focused on other things.

"Yes," Ultron nodded. "You'll be useful for me."

Andi sat up a little more, inching backward whilst staring at Ultron but he just continued to speak. "I think a lot about meteors. The purity in them," he explained, continuing to work on the robot. "Boom! The end. That's how they work, isn't it? The world made clean for the new man to rebuild."

Ultron stopped working on the robot to begin walking toward Andi. She craned her neck back to see him, but continued to inch backward slowly, still crawling on the ground.

"I was meant to be new," Ultron continued. "I was meant to be beautiful. The world would have looked to the sky and seen hope, seen mercy. Instead, they'll look up in horror because of your precious Avengers."

Andi was now backed up against a wall, and to the side, there was another opening. She couldn't see into it but maybe it was a hallway, maybe she could try to run, do something.

"You and your Avengers, you've wounded me," Ultron said, now standing over her. "But, like the man said. What doesn't kill me," at that point, whatever Ultron had been about to say was cut short, because suddenly, a metal fist was protruding from the middle of his body. Andi's eyes widened, and she stumbled back further, taking her chance to get into what she thought was a hallway, only to realise it was a cell. She turned around, to see that Ultron's body had fallen, but in his place, stood a bigger metal body. "Just makes me stronger," he finished his sentence, standing in the doorway of his cell and pulling the bars so that they shut, trapping Andi inside.

"This world will need to start over," he said, looking at her through the cell. "And when it does, you'll be useful for growth. At least till I don't need you anymore," he explained. "And maybe having you here will also knock some sense back into the twins so they come back. I guess we'll just have to see."

And with that, Ultron flew off. Andi didn't know where to. She was already trying to think of ways to escape, but these were the cells designed to keep her in. Control over metal wasn't going to help her here.

* * *

Bruce was busy plugging various things into the cradle, while Tony did his best to help him out but there was little he could do. This was Bruce's area of expertise. The more time he had to himself though, the more time he would spend getting more angry at Ultron, and he knew that would just lead to another impulsive decision. And since neither Clint nor Natasha had got a hit on Andi's location yet, this was all he could do.

"Okay, we have three minutes to upload that schematic," Bruce said, checking that everything was in place. Tony was at the computer, about to say something, when the sound of heavy footsteps filled the area, and he was forced to look up.

"I'm going to say this once," Steve said, standing a few feet away from the cradle. Flanking him were the Maximoff twins.

Tony stared at Steve. "How about 'nonce'?"

"Shut it down," Steve insisted, his voice rising.

"Tony crossed his arms. "Nope, not gonna happen."

"You don't know what you're doing."

Bruce looked up from the cradle and glanced at Steve. "And you do?" He asked, nodding to Wanda briefly. "She's not in your head?"

Wanda, now having been mentioned, looked to Bruce. "I know you're angry—"

Bruce smiled but it wasn't a pleasant smile. "Oh, we're way past that. I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade."

Wanda just stared at him, while Tony continued working, because he wasn't going to allow this to stop.

"Banner," Steve continued, stepping toward him. "After everything that's happened—"

"It's nothing compared to what's coming," Tony called out from where he stood at one of the monitors.

"You don't know what's in there," Wanda insisted.

And at this point, everyone was arguing simultaneously, till a sudden blur made everyone stop, and stare. All at once, the pipes came off, wires were detached, and Pietro stood beside Banner, dropping a pipe and looking to all of them. "No, no, go on. You were saying?"

Tony could have strangled the kid in that minute.

But before he could have done anything, the glass beneath Pietro's feet suddenly shattered, along with the sound of a gun going off. Pietro fell to the floor below, and Clint stood over him with a smirk. "What, you didn't see that coming?"

Sounds started to come from the systems, and Tony, now alert, looked to them before fiddling again. "I'm rerouting the upload," he told Bruce.

Steve chose that moment to toss his shield and try to disrupt the flow of things, but Tony held his hand out and the hand of his Iron Man suit came flying to him in seconds, wrapping around his arm and allowing him to fire a blast that sent Steve flying back. Within seconds, the rest of his suit followed.

Wanda was beginning to intervene before Bruce managed to catch hold of her. "Go ahead," he told her. "Piss me off."

Clint had climbed up to their floor, gun out, but Steve was already jumping back into action. Instinctively, Tony fired another blast that sent them both crashing through glass walls on either side of the cradle.

Before Tony had the chance to get up, the rumble of thunder told him that someone else had joined them.

He sat up slowly and saw Thor had entered the room, fully in gear. Where the hell had he been this whole time? The man jumped up onto the cradle and Tony's only thought was that he was going to destroy it. "Thor—"

He didn't get to say anything because Thor had already lifted his hammer. Lightning surrounded him, covering the hammer almost completely, till Thor brought the hammer down onto the cradle. The sound of crackling electricity filled the air and Tony could only stare as the lightning then snaked around the cradle.

Thor wasn't destroying it. He was continuing the process.

Next to Tony, one of the monitors began to beep. He read it and saw that the progress inside the cradle was increasing at an alarming rate, taking a mere few seconds to reach one hundred percent.

Thor then pulled back. The crackling of electricity had faded, and a deafening silence filled the room for a few moments.

That is, until the cradle burst open, sending Thor flying off.

Tony lifted an arm to shield himself from the blast and he looked forward again when the silence continued. Smoke was all Tony could see for a while, till from it, rose a figure. He didn't look like a normal human. He was... red. His skin looked metallic. He was looking around, as if unable to believe that he'd been born.

And in the centre of his forehead, sat the yellow stone from the scepter.