shards - pietro maximoff

chapter five ; files and failures

"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."