Remembrance | S. Rogers [2]

19 | MEMORY LANE

May 2015

Avengers Tower, New York

Everyone was gathered in Tony's lab, except for Thor who had been tracking the rest of the Iron Legion which happened to take off. Clint was the only one not on the main floor, choosing to stand in the overlook of the place.

On one of the tables, Rose had set apart some tools and monitors leaving a free space for her to draw. She was silently in a trance tracing lines and patterns with her hand, her hair covered her face for the rest and her back faced some of them as well. Beside her, Steve was facing the group, leaning with one hand on the desk next to Rose's arm, the other was on his waist.

"All our work is gone. Ultron cleared out, used the internet as an escape hatch," Bruce informed.

"Ultron," Steve repeated with mixed feelings.

"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other," Nat said glancing around them.

"He's in your files, he's in the internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodey walked through the room holding his injured shoulder that had been sore since he fell in the fight.

"Nuclear codes," Hill chimed in plucking the shards of glass out of her foot.

"Nuclear codes. Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can," the Colonel said.

"Nukes?" Nat questioned. "He said he wanted us dead."

"He didn't say dead. He said extinct," Steve pointed out.

"He also said he killed somebody," Barton added.

"But there wasn't anyone else in the building," Hill mentioned.

"Yes there was," Tony said solemnly walking to the middle of the room flapping a flat device, an orange broken sphere of network appearing. Rose was still oblivious to the occurrences in the room.

"What?" Bruce said inaudibly. "This is insane," he let out watching what used to be JARVIS' consciousness.

"JARVIS was the first line of defence. He would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense," Steve theorized before looking at Rose recognising the patterns that signalled the end of a trance.

"No, Ultron could've assimilated Jarvis...."

Steve moved closer to her carefully, his left fingers running through her right hand softly, unclenching her grip on the pencil she had been using. The object fell making a faint sound and he kept his hand close to hers, there was a soft gasp coming from Rose's lips, inaudible for the ones who weren't near, especially the ones that were intently listening to Dr Banner. Rose's hand gripped Steve's who until now had only been hovering over it. A feathered touch brought her back to a safe reality.