Live Long Enough to be a Hero

Finding A Robot

~Chapter 33~

"Tony? Where's Hadley? Steve found something and we're - Tony?" Bruce cut himself off when he saw the state of the man in front of him

Tony sat in a chair in the lab, his face in his hands, completely silent and frozen

"Tony? You... Alright buddy?" He asked, tapping his shoulder

Tony looked up at him, his face was red like he'd been punched or... Crying...

Bruce was a little startled by it

Tony drew in a large sniffling breath and shook his head, rubbing his face "No I'm not... I haven't seen her. Come on.." he said, walking from the lab

Bruce watched him go for a moment before sighing and following

~

When Tony and Bruce got to the rest of the team, Hadley was already there. Tony stepped toward her and she immediately crossed the room, refusing to even look at him

Steve handed Thor a tablet

"What's this?" Tony asked

"A message" Steve said as Thor slammed the tablet into Tony's chest, the genius looked down at it, "Ultron killed Strucker"

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene.. just for us" Tony said, examining the picture of a man, Strucker, slaughtered, the word peace written on the wall in his blood

"This is a smoke screen" Nat said, "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something Ultron wanted us to miss" Steve said

"And now he's dead" Hadley spoke

"And I bet he.." Nat sighed, looking at the screen in front of her, "Yep. Everything we had on Strucker has been erased..."

"Not everything" Steve said

~

Hadley sighed as she looked through the box of files in front of her. This was going to get very tedious very fast

"Known associates..." Steve said, looking through one himself, "Baron Strucker had a lot of friends"

"Well these people are all horrible" Bruce said, looking through a file

"Wait I know that guy" Tony stopped him, taking the file, "From back in the day, he operates off the African coast. Black Market arms"

Steve and Hadley both looked at him, the same disappointed expression on their faces

Tony sighed "There are conventions. Alright? You meet people. I didn't sell him anything. He was talking about finding something new... a game changer... it was all very Ahab"

"This?" Thor asked, pointing at the man's tattoos

"Ah, that's a tattoo, I don't think he had it-"

"No those are tattoos..." Thor said, pointing at a different part of his neck, "this is a brand"

Hadley looked over as Bruce ran it through the computer

"Yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning thief... In a much less friendly way." Bruce informed

"What dialect?" Steve asked

"Wakanada...? Wakanda." Bruce corrected himself

Steve and Tony looked at each other in surprise

"If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their goods..." Tony said to him

"I thought your father said he got the last of it." Steve said back quietly. Hadley raised a brow

"I don't follow." Bruce said

"What comes out of Wakanda?" Hadley asked

"The strongest medal on Earth." Tony said as Steve looked down at his shield

"Where is this guy now?" Steve asked

~

There was a scream of pain as the Avengers entered the area where Ultron stood

"Don't compare me with Stark!" Ultron yelled, "I'm sorry it's a- It's a thing with me... Stark is... He's a sickness!"

"Aw Junior.." Tony interrupted, grabbing the robot's attention, "You're gonna break your old man's heart.."

"If I have to.." Ultron replied, looking at them

"Nobody has to break anything" Thor replied

"Clearly you've never made an omelet" Ultron replied

Tony scoffed "He beat me by one second" he said

"Ah yes.. It's funny Mr. Stark" The boy behind Ultron spoke, "It's what? Comfortable? Like old times?"

The boy looked down at the missiles below the bridge they stood on.

"This was never my life" Tony said

"You two can still walk away from this" Steve said

"Oh we will" the girl said

"I know you've suffered" Cap continued

Ultron scoffed loudly and chuckled "Captain America... God's righteous man... Pretending you can live without a war... I can't physically throw up in my mouth but..."

"If you believe in peace then let us keep it."

"I think you're confusing peace with quiet" Ultron stated

"And I think you're confusing peace with destruction" Hadley replied

"Uh-huh what's the vibranium for?" Tony asked, getting to the point

"I'm glad you asked that" Ultron replied, "because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan"

Ultron clenched his fist and an energy pulse grabbed Toy, dragging him closer before blasting him back

Tony quickly blasted forward and attacked him back, the two flew through the boat in combat

The robots that were standing behind Ultron launched forward and attacked the ones still on the ground

Before any one could do anything about them, the boy sped off quickly, Steve ran at the girl but she blasted him back

Hadley looked at him then raised her arms, things floated up and launched at the girl, who dodged them and ran off

Men who were originally in the boat began shooting at everyone, robots, avengers.

A blue blur whooshed around, shoving people back, punching Cap in the face. When it passed Thor's hammer, it slowed then the blur flew backward as the boy grabbed Thor's hammer and was dragged back by it. He went to get up but Cap pushed him back down.

"Stay down kid" Cap said to him quietly

"Guys?" Bruce said through the coms, "Is this a code green?"

Nobody could answer him though as they were all busy with their own fights

Hadley yelped as she was thrown back by a bot, she was quick to throw it aside

She looked around for a moment before spotting the girl, Wanda she thought her name was. She did something to Thor before disappearing again

"Thor status?" Cap asked

"The girl tried to warp my mind... take special care.. I doubt a human could keep her at bay... fortunately I am mighty" Thor responded

Hadley looked around quickly, looking for Wanda before she came face to face with her.

She went to throw something at her but before she could, Wanda summoned a bit of red energy and blew it in her face. When it cleared, the girl was gone