The next morning, Annie found herself up early playing the good hostess as she stood in the kitchen attempting to make enough food to feed the entire group which had situated themselves in her house. And an addittional party. 

As it was half way through cooking eggs that Annie felt another presence enter her farm. She paused for a moment as her limited telepathy attempted to reach out and identify the person who had entered her homestead. A skill she had been recently working on with the professor. But it was still very limited due to her not so developed powers in that aspect. The one clear thing that was obvious was that the new person was not a mutant, she was normally able to seek those out pretty easy. But they were familiar another hopefully good point. She was not able to pinpoint exactly who they were but they were familiar. And they knew where the farmhouse was. Which left only a real short list of people. 

"Ann?" Clint's voice broke through to her as the smell of smoke started and she attempted to save the eggs she had started to burn.

"We have a guest." She spoke in the way of which Clint was able to identify meant she had identified them using her mutation rather than knowing they were coming over in advance. 

"A friend?"

"Hope so paint on the shed isn't quite dry." Annie commented.

"I'd hope you'd think of me as a friendly face." The gruff recognisable voice of Nick Fury entered the kitchen and Clint let out a sigh. After all, it would seem like the little farmhouse was pretty much becoming a grand meeting point at that moment, even if he had been the one to open it up to everyone else. 

"Where's the others?" Fury asked and Clint motioned his head to the group who were slowly congregating in the kitchen for the promised breakfast by the two hosts. Annie indicated to the breakfast foods she had made before speaking to her old boss. "Help yourself there's enough to go around."

And as the complete group was currently present, of which included all of the avengers par Thor who had yet to return from wherever he had travelled to the other night. Annie could only hope that they would see the immortal god again some point soon. 

"Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself time. My contacts say he's building something. The amount of vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's just one thing." Fury started as he addressed the group he had once brought together to fight for himself but now had to watch from the side lines. 

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve asked trying to sort out what the ex spy knew from his many contacts he had made across the world over the years which had passed. 

"Ah. He's easy to track, he's everywhere. Guy's multiplying faster than a catholic rabbit. Still doesn't help us get any angle on any of his plans though." At Fury's words Annie rolled her eyes. The man was obviously trying to make a joke with the words he had chosen, but she knew it was not the best wording he could have chosen, not since she was still under the belief that Captain America was still indeed Catholic. Poorly chosen words for sure. 

"He's still going after launch codes?" Tony questioned, thinking the question that Annie was sure many of the other's were also thinking but did not want to say aloud. Annie herself had nearly forgotten about the evil robot's intent to blow the world to pieces using nuclear codes. Nearly.

"Yes but he's making no headway." Fury confirmed giving a sentiment of good news. 

"I cracked the Pengaton's firewall in High School on a dare." Tony subtly bragged but it was also stated in a way as to put out in the open wondering why the robot who was much smarter than he should have been was not able to crack said codes. It should have been done by now. 

"Yeah, well I contacted our friends at NEXUS about that." Fury added speaking as if the whole room would know what he was talking about, and many of them should have considering the fact that they were mainly all involved in the secret agency before it had collapsed a year ago. 

"NEXUS?" Steve asked not sure he had ever heard of the agency before. 

"It's the world's internet hub in Oslo, every bite of data flows through there, fastest access on Earth." Bruce explained and Annie tried to control the rolling of her eyes at just the mere sound of his voice, pretending there wasn't an issue between them.

"So, what did they say?" Clint joined the conversation cutting Bruce off from saying anything else regarding the subject.

"He's fixated on the missles but the codes keep changing." Fury explained and it was like a little bit of weight lifted from Annie's shoulders. Despite almost forgetting about the nuclear codes it was good to know that there was a limitation to getting to the codes. 

"By Whom?" Tony asked

"Parties unknown." Fury stated and Annie turned to look at Clint the two exchanging a look as if to ask each other if they knew someone who would do that and remain doing so. 

"Do we have an ally?" Natasha asked and Annie hated the way her voice at this moment in time was irritating, they were discussing something big, bigger than the cheating and everything going on in their personal relationship. But that seemed to be taking over Annie's mind just a little more than it should have. 

"Ultron's got an enemy, that's not the same thing. I'd still pay folding money to know who it is." Fury responded and for a moment it sounded like he was explaining things like you would to a small child before he took back on his tough persona. 

"I might need to visit Oslo, find our party unknown." Tony muttered, his mind fixated on the unknown individual who was helping them keep the world safe. 

"Well this is a good time boss, but I'd thought you'd have more than that." Natasha spoke again. 

"I do, I have you. Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else. Here we all are, back on earth, with nothing but our wit, and our will to save the world. So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard." Fury added as he took the time to individually look at each member of the team sat around him, as if to ask them all why they were sat doing nothing at that moment in time. "So what does he want?"

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

"Person bodies. The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it." Tony built from Steve's original words the team trying to really work out what was going on with their latest final level boss. 

"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed." Natasha seemed a little harsh to the pair of mad scientists and Annie could see where she was coming from, but the little voice in the back of her head one that seemed to sound just a little bit like her mother, could also see where the two scientists were coming from. After all, at some point don't they all want to retire from the job they were currently doing. 

"They don't need to be protected, they need to evolve. Ultron's going to evolve." Bruce pitched in and it would make sense that he found this moment after all he had programmed the murder bot. 

"How?"

"Dr Cho!" Annie exclaimed "Has anyone spoken recently to Dr Cho?" And at her words the group shared a look. As they finally came to a conclusion where they would be heading next. 

"I'll take Natasha, Clint and Annie with me." Steve announced as they decided what next to do and Annie turned her attention to the front porch she had yet to finish and looked at it longingly. It would appear that she would not finish fixing that before she had to head back to working at the school. 

"We'll finish that together the second we're home." Clint promised as he watched Annie give him a bitter sweet smile knowing it would be a while before they come home again.