Sunshine | Pietro Maximoff

CHAPTER 13

"This is the location Barton gave us." Thor said.

Thor, Banner and I had been tasked with finding Nat while the rest of the team evacuated the city. We stood outside a large brick warehouse with no way to get in.

"What's our plan?" I asked.

Without a word, Thor blasted a hole straight through the wall. In silence, Banner and I followed him into the warehouse. Whilst Thor headed right to investigate what Ultron had been up to, Banner and I headed up a flight of stone stairs. We came into a large stone room with a jail cell taking up a section of the space.

"Nat?" I called.

"Natasha, are you in here?" Asked Bruce.

"Ophelia? Bruce?" Came a voice from the cell.

An uncontrollable smile came onto my face. We approached the cell to see Natasha standing on the other side of the bars. I reached out and placed my hands on top of hers.

"Are you all right?" Bruce asked from beside me.

"Yeah." Natasha answered.

"The team's in the city. It's about to light up." I told her.

"I don't suppose you found a key laying around somewhere?" Nat asked.

"Yeah." Bruce said.

He and I stepped back from the cage as he held up a large, high tech weapon. Natasha hid behind a wall as Bruce sent out a blast at the cell door, busting the lock. Natasha slid the door open and joined us on the other side.

"So what's our play?" She asked.

"We're here to get you to safety." Bruce replied.

"Job's not finished." Nat stated, her eyebrows slightly furrowed.

"We could help with the evacuation but I can't be in a fight with civilians." Bruce told her.

"Don't worry," I began, "I'll go back and join the others, you two just get to safety, okay?"

Natasha opened her mouth to argue, yet I cut her off.

"You've done plenty, Nat. Go."

~*~

Out in the city, chaos was ensuing; Ultron's robots were attacking anything in their path while the civilians yet to be evacuated scattered as fast as they could. Up ahead, I spotted Steve taking on two robots at once.

"Need a hand?" I called.

I formed a ball of light between my hands and blasted it at one of the robots. The robot fell on to the floor, defeated. This gave Steve the opportunity to ram his shield into the other robots chest.

"Thanks." He said, as I joined him. "Did you and Banner find Nat?"

"We did. They're on their way to safety as we speak." I told him. "She wasn't hurt." I added, noting the concern on Steve's face.

"That's not what I..." He started.

"Don't worry, Cap, your secret's safe with me."

I shot him a wink before running off to where I saw robots cornering civilians. I formed a rope of light between my hands and whipped it out to secure two of the robots. I yanked the rope, severing the robots bodies in two. The final robot came flying at me. Holding my hands out in front of me, a formed a shield of light and shoved the robot to the ground. I jammed the shield into the robots chest, finishing it off.

"Are you okay?" I asked the civilians.

A blur of blue and silver shot past and Pietro came to a stop beside me.

"I can get them to safety." He said.

I nodded in response and Pietro instantly began whisking away the civilians.

All of a sudden, I felt the ground begin to rumble beneath my feet. Cracks began to appear and it felt as if Sokovia was gradually ascending into the air. I spotted Cap a little ways off standing on the edge of a bridge and hurried over to him as quickly as I could.

"Steve?" I called. "What's happening?"

When I reached his side, my jaw slowly dropped open. I was right; a section of land had been cut out and was beginning to rise up.

"Ultron..." Steve said.

I looked up to see Ultron in the sky, looking down over the city.

"Do you see," He began, his voice carrying even from such a height, "the beauty of it? The inevitability. You rise, only to fall."

Steve and I looked at each other, the same look of dread in both of our eyes.

"You, Avengers, you are my meteor." Ultron continued. "My swift and terrible sword. And the earth will crack with the weight of your failure. Purge me from your computers, turn my own flesh against me. It means nothing. When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world will be metal."

A robot flew in from behind us. Cap raised a fist and knocked it away instantly. As we stood looking out over the edge of the bridge, I noticed another robot heading directly for Steve. Quickly, I stretched out my hands and formed a shield moments before the robot came crashing against it. I transitioned the shield into a rope, secured it around the robots waist and smashed it into the ground.

"Cap, Madden, you got incoming." Tony warned.

"Incoming already came in." Steve replied. "Thank you." He said to me.

"Anytime." I said with a grin.

"Stark, you worry about bringing the city back down safely. The rest of us have one job, tear these things apart. You get hurt, hurt 'em back. You get killed, walk it off."