07. | THE UNEXPECTED

CHRISTINA WALKED DOWN the staircase, her head hurting badly and her legs feeling heavy. There was an empty feeling in her heart, gently seeping out into her chest and throughout the rest of her body; making her feel cold and far off at the same time. Her feelings were out of control; one second she wanted to collapse to the floor and cry, and the next she wanted to hit something so bad until her knuckles bled. From time to time, she felt nothing at all and the cold in her chest would physically hurt her.

Though there was something oddly comforting about this feeling. It seemed, while she was around Steve, she'd been able to forget about this hard choices she had had to make in her life and the pain they had caused her; forgetting about previous heartbreaks and her struggles through life. Now, with the innocent child growing inside her—they were all coming back.

She had brought this upon herself, she supposed. Had she reacted to the pregnancy differently, not tried to so hard to keep it hidden, she might've been able to keep these images at bay.

Natasha and Laura were the ones down in the kitchen. Christina had no idea of what the time was, seeing as she had just awoken at some point during the day, still sitting in the chair in the bedroom where she had decided to take a nap after her talk with Steve. It had taken her a while to gather the strength to get out of the chair, feeling as though that very room shielded her from the reality that lied beyond the door. Though she knew she had to get out, back to reality to face everyone and the problems they needed to solve.

"I shouldn't be saying it, but I will; Good morning," said Natasha, leaning back in the kitchen chair she was seated in. "Did you tell Steve?"

There it was, that bit of reality Christina had been hiding from in the bedroom. How could see tell anyone? It felt as if it were already too late to say anything.

"No."

"But you will. Once this is all over," concluded Natasha. "And you'll realize that there was nothing to be scared of in the first place."

Christina rolled her eyes at the optimism of the redhead. It was the last thing she needed and Laura seemed to understand that better than Natasha did.

"I'm about to make some dinner," Laura interrupted, walking over to the table, her pregnant belly seeming to make even that movement a little difficult. "Do you wanna help? Get your mind off things?"

Christina nodded and got to work beside Laura.

Dinner was ready and Laura had walked outside to gather everyone. Natasha and Christina were busy preparing the table and seeing as there were quite a lot of Avengers staying in the house, they needed to put two tables next to each other, as close together as possible—to make enough space for both the Barton family and the Avengers.

Everyone sat down around the two tables, Christina and Steve strangely sitting on opposite sides, while they waited for Tony to arrive. Apparently, a while ago, he had left to take a look at the Barton's tractor which didn't want to start anymore. He hadn't returned since then.

Although the Avengers were all talking while they waited for Tony, Christina couldn't help but just sit quietly in-between Liam and Bruce, her hand constantly moving to brush across her lower belly. She knew things were going to be difficult for quite some time, though she didn't want them to be.

It wasn't until Tony walked inside of the house with a surprise guest that Christina finally managed to pull the hand from her stomach for a while.

"Guess who's back?" called Tony, raising his hands ever so slightly as he strode over to the table with Nick Fury following him.

"Nick?" Bruce questioned from beside her.

"This is where he's been hiding out," Tony explained.

He looked the same. The eye-patch was back and the leather coat too. And as usual, there was an air of seriousness and pride around him. Although S.H.I.E.L.D. was gone, Fury still seemed to be who he always had been.

It wasn't until later that night did Fury actually begin to talk about why he had shown his face to them; a couple hours after dinner. The sun had gone down and only the lights inside of the house were keeping them from being completely in the dark, seeing as though the moon wasn't out that night either.

Some beers had been opened and some games had been played, though Christina hadn't joined for any of it. At first, she had stayed on the couch in the living room which was connected to the kitchen and dining room—meaning she could hear the Avengers having fun and talking from where she was seated. Though Clint Barton's daughter had come up and talk to her and she quickly became Christina's entertainment that evening. She asked Christina questions, the usual funny ones she normally asked, before Christina made her steal one of the games the Avengers had been playing so that the two of them could play it together. She knew that the young girl enjoyed drawing and painting, so Christina encouraged her to grab some of her supplies so they could do some of that. Toward the end of the evening, Christina had drawn five quite horrible pictures of houses and animals.

"That's a beautiful butterfly," Christina said with a smile and heard Fury begin to talk about their current mission which she didn't really want to miss out on. "How about you go and show it to Auntie Nat?"

The girl nodded her head and stood up, running over to the dining table where Bruce and Natasha were sitting. Christina stood up as well, and found herself standing next to Steve; and could see that he was glancing at her from time to time.

"Ultron took you guys out of play to buy himself some time," Fury began. "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?" asked Steve.

"He's easy to track," Fury replied, casually leaning against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest. "He's everywhere. The guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit. Still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans, though."

"Is he still going after launch codes?" Tony asked, making Christina turn her head toward where he was, throwing darts on his own.

"Yes, he is. But he's not making any headway."

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare," Tony announced with a smug smirk on his face.

"Well, I contacted our friends at the Nexus about that," Fury added.

"The Nexus?" Steve repeated.

"It's the world internet hub in Oslo," Bruce explained. "Every byte of data flows through there. Fastest access on Earth."

"So, what did they say?" Clint asked, twirling a few darts between his fingers.

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

"By whom?" Tony questioned as the darts Clint had been holding in his hands whizzed past his face and hit the very center of the dart-board Tony had been standing standing in front of.

Christina ignored their shenanigans—only focused on the mission at hand seeing as it was the only thing that was keeping her mind off of her current situation.

"Parties unknown," replied Fury.

"Do we have an ally?" asked Natasha.

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

"I might need to visit Oslo," Tony called. "Find our 'unknown'."

"Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that," Natasha said with a grin.

"I do. I have you," said Fury, making Christina look away from him as his eyes travelled over all the Avengers. "Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere—ears, everywhere else. You kids had all the tech you could dream up. Here, we all are, back on Earth, with nothing but our wit and our will to save the world. Ultron says the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission. And whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction. All this, laid in a grave. So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard."

"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk," Natasha said jokingly.

"You know what, Romanoff," Steve joked back, pointing a finger at her.

"So, what does he want?" asked Fury, ignoring the two Avengers.

"To become better," Steve observed. "Better than us. He keeps building bodies."

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

"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed," Natasha quipped, glancing between Tony and Bruce.

"They don't need to be protected," Bruce said, grabbing the drawing Clint's daughter had given to Natasha earlier, an idea seeming to have popped up into his mind. "They need to evolve. Ultron's going to evolve."

"How would he do that?" asked Christina, shocking everyone in the room with her voice.

"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?"

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the only thing i have to say about this chapter is that it is a very, very, very short filler and i'm not entirely sure how i feel about it...

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if you haven't already, you should go check out my new steve rogers story. it's called Infliction.