「5」

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Wandering across the city market, Pietro and Wanda directed their way toward the crumbling church which was currently fenced in. The place was run down and Pietro hesitated to step in, while Wanda went straight ahead. The only light illuminating the room was the undergoing sun, the light soaking the round room in a golden color.

Sitting on a chair in the center of the church, was a man. His head and upper body were covered by a blanket, the shadow hiding his legs.

"Talk, and if you are wasting our time-" Wanda was cut off by the man speaking up.

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

The twins blinked a couple of times, trying to figure out the man in front of them. Wanda tried to invade his mind but didn't find any access to him which confused her a little.

"You're wondering why you can't look inside my head," the man stated.

"Sometimes it's hard. But sooner or later every man shows himself," Wanda said, her eyes losing their red glow.

The man suddenly stood up, taking the piece of fabric off him, revealing himself. His...robotic self.

"Oh, I'm sure they do."

To say the last, Pietro and Wanda were shocked. Pietro needed a moment to comprehend the scene in front of him, and Wanda gulped, taking in Ultron's form.

"But you needed something more than a man. That's why you let Stark take the scepter," Ultron continued.

"I didn't expect..." Wanda trailed off, nodding her head towards Ultron's body. "But I saw Stark's fear. I knew it would control him. Make him self-destruct."

"Everyone creates the thing they dread. Men of peace create engines of war. Invaders create Avengers. People create..." Ultron said, stopping his last sentence. "Smaller people? Uh... children! I lost the word there," he chuckled. "Children. designed to supplant them, to help them end."

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

"I've come to save the world!" Ultron spoke sharply. "But also...yeah."

Leading the twins away from the city and into the forest, the three of them made it to the HYDRA base, which the Avengers thought they'd crossed off the list only days ago, that Ultron transformed into his own footing.

"We'll move out right away. This is a start, but there's something we need, to begin the real work," Ultron said.

"All of these are..."

"Me. I have what the Avengers never will. Harmony," Ultron said, and flew up to pull at a heavy chain. "They're discordant. Disconnected. Stark's already got them turning on each other. And when you get inside the rest of their heads-"

Ultron got cut off by Pietro talking.

"Everyone's plan is not to kill them," he said.

"And make them martyrs?" Ultron questioned. "You need patience."

Well, I don't really have that.

"Need to see the big picture."

"I don't see the big picture. I have a little picture. I take it out and look at it, every day," Pietro said, his eyes swimming in emotion.

"You lost your parents in the bombing. I've seen the records," Ultron said, sounding like he wanted to be sympathetic but really wasn't convincing anyone.

"The records are not the picture," Pietro disagreed.

"Pietro..."

"No, please," Ultron dismissed Wanda, wanting Pietro to go on.

Pietro looked at his sister and began to talk.

"We were ten years old. Having dinner, the four of us. When the first shell hits, two floors below us, it makes a hole in the floor. It's... big," he spoke, making small gestures with his hands. "Our parents go in and the whole building starts coming apart. I grab my sister, 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," Pietro said, a broken smile on his face.

"Stark," Wanda finished for him, her voice seething in disgust. "We were trapped for two days."

"Every effort to save us, every shift in the bricks, I think, 'this will set it off'," Wanda said, her expression turning incredibly sour. "We wait for two days, for Tony Stark to kill us."

The two of them watched as Ultron stared at them, tilting his head.

"I wondered why only you two survived Strucker's experiments," he said. "Now I don't. We will make it right. You and I can hurt them," he spoke, looking at Pietro.

"But you...will tear them apart," Ultron said, bringing his metal arm up to Wanda's temple. "From the inside."

ꕥ

"NO, LET ME GO! Let me go.. please I-...no, no, I've been good! I don't need to... don't.. don't.."

Child's screams echoed across the compound as several men dragged a young girl toward the experimentation labs. She kicked and screamed, but no seven-year-old could win against three fully grown men.

"Oh, will you be quiet, child!" one of the men snapped, tightening his grip on her arm.

Alyssa cried. She knew she could hurt them, maybe even escape if she tried hard enough, but she also knew the punishment for that would be crueler than anything she'd ever experienced before.

She whimpered, already dreading another session with Dr. Nowak.

That man was a Psychopath. He would laugh when Alyssa screamed, carelessly smash the needle into her skin, and then condescend her for being scared and 'childish'.

Dr. Nowak already awaited the little girl and smiled when she got roughly pushed into the entrance of the lab.

"Alyssa! Nice to see you. Look, I brought candy!" he said excitedly, handing Alyssa the bowl of fudge.

She didn't say anything and didn't reach for a piece. The doctor didn't care, he only grabbed a pair of gloves as he straightened his glasses.

"Well, well, I think we should get to work now. It's the same schedule as always. First, the anti-medication, then some business and lastly we'll test out your powers a bit more. Sounds exciting, right?" he said, his voice laced with an accent.

Alyssa barely nodded when the doctor pulled her toward an uncomfortable seat. It was ripped at the rest because Alyssa always gripped the fabric so hard.

Dr. Nowak prepared a syringe, its yellow liquid glowing brightly. He put down the syringe again and walked back to Alyssa.

Fastening the leather belts around Alyssa's torso and legs, Dr. Nowak picked up the syringe again and seated himself on a chair in front of the girl.

"Now this will sting a bit more than the times before, okay?" he said, smiling. To anyone else it would seem friendly, but Alyssa could practically smell the sickness seeping from his mouth.

Ramming the needle in her arm without warning, Dr. Nowak pressed in the yellow liquid.

It didn't sting.

No, it felt like her body was on fire. Like her blood was being heated up to a thousand degrees, and someone pushed her head into flames. Her body was fighting, her mind was fighting, every part of Alyssa was fighting against the pain. But it was too much, and the little body of the seven-year-old girl soon collapsed, giving into the torment.

The pain eventually ceased, leaving Alyssa still incredibly sore, but at least the worst was over.

So she thought.

"Oh. Oh, this is amazing. Truly, truly fortunate. Her body absorbed it. Beautiful! Don't you think?" Dr. Nowak spoke, turning to one of his colleagues who just entered the room.

"Yes, indeed. I suppose she is able to level up a bit," the female doctor responded, smirking slightly.

Alyssa's sight was fading, going in and out of consciousness as the guards picked her up and put her in a dirty wheelchair.

Dr. Nowak and some other doctors walked with her, pushing open a large iron door. Alyssa's head was rolling around on the way out, catching glimpses of the other subjects.

When they arrived outside the sun was blocked by dark clouds, and the air was even colder than the prison cell Alyssa was in.

Some of the doctors pulled out charts and notebooks, while Dr. Nowak got down on one knee in front of her.

"This will be different, Alyssa. But you will know what to do," he said, accepting the large syringe from his colleague. It didn't have anything inside of it, at least that's what it looked like, but when it made contact with her upper arm, Alyssa quickly realized that it definitely had something in it.

She jumped out of the wheelchair, circling around to take in the group of doctors just staring at her. She was breathing heavily, almost choking on her own saliva as she took desperate steps.

She could get away, she thought.

The forest was right there, its eery look almost inviting.

No. Something wasn't right. They wouldn't just let her go.

She didn't even realize she was crying, only snapping out of it when another pained yelp reached her ears. Frantically whipping her head around her breathing immediately stopped when she saw the small, bloody footprints all around her, a ball of orange fur whimpering a few feet away from her.

"Remarkable. Is it still alive?"

"Alyssa."

"We're going to try something else."

"Alyssa?"

"Should I prepare the serum?"

"Alyssa!"

Alyssa got ripped out of her dream by Steve's voice and looked around, breathing heavily, until she saw the familiar face hovering above her head.

"You okay, little Stark?" he asked, worry slowly filling his eyes.

"Yeah. Yeah... uh.. just a.." Alyssa stammered, not finding any words.

"Nightmare?" Steve finished for her.

Alyssa nodded, although it seemed weird to her. It was so clear of a dream, yet so... cloudy. She could practically feel the cold, but when she tried to remember some of the faces she just came up short. The fact that she even dreamed so intensely was confusing as well. She never, ever, had nightmares, so this experience was new to her. Usually, she wouldn't dream at all and straight forward go to sleep.

Steve looked at her, smiling softly before speaking.

"We have information on Ultron. You can meet us in Bruce's lab, if you're feeling up to it."

Steve then left the room, leaving a still confused Alyssa behind.

It probably really was just a nightmare. It seemed so familiar though...

Taking a deep breath in and then releasing it again, she stood up and quickly dressed herself before running out of her room.

Alyssa entered Bruce's laboratory just when Thor smacked a Samsung tablet against Tony's chest. She already heard Steve talking about how Ultron killed Strucker and went to stand beside her father.

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us," Tony said, and Alyssa looked over his shoulder to look at the tablet which displayed a photo of a dead Baron von Strucker; 'peace' written on the wall with his blood.

"This is a smoke screen," Nat said from her spot in front of the computer. "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss," Steve stated and watched the others until Natasha spoke up.

"Yeah, I bet he... yeah. Everything we had on Strucker's been erased," she said.

"Not everything," Steve disagreed, and soon the Avengers found themselves looking through dozens of boxes filled with files.

Thor threw a box lid behind him, earning a glare from Alyssa when the lid hit her in the back. Going back to looking through files, she threw a lid from one of her boxes behind her and purposely hit Thor in the back of his head, who turned around and looked at her with a slight smirk before both of them went back to work.

"Known associates. Baron Strucker had a lot of friends," Steve said and handed some files to Bruce.

"Well, these people are all horrible," Bruce said and wanted to put away a file again before Tony stopped him.

"Wait. I know that guy," he said and accepted the file Bruce gave him.

"From back in the day. He operates off the African coast. Black market arms," Tony said and inspected the photo.

Steve turned his head and looked at Tony, unimpressed.

"There are conventions. All right? You meet people. I didn't sell him anything," Tony defended himself. "He was talking about finding something new, a game-changer. It was all very Ahab."

"This?" Thor asked, pointing at the photo.

"Uhh, it's a tattoo, I don't think he had it," Tony answered.

"No, those are tattoos, this is a brand," Thor stated and pointed at a strange looking mark on the man's neck.

They gave the photo to Bruce and he scanned the mark on the computer. After a couple of seconds, the computer came up with a match.

"Oh yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning 'thief'. In a much less friendly way," Bruce read from the computer.

"What dialect?" Steve asked.

"Wakanada. Wa- wa-wak-" Bruce stammered before Alyssa corrected him.

"Wakanda."

Tony and Steve turned to Alyssa with a questioning look.

"What? I know things," she shrugged, raising her brows.

Tony narrowed his eyes at his daughter before turning to Steve again.

"If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods..."

"I thought your father said he got the last of it."

"I don't follow. What comes out of Wakanda?" Bruce asked.

Steve sighed and looked at his shield as Tony answered.

"The strongest metal on earth," he told the team.

"Where is this guy now?"