Carmine Jewels ║ Wanda Maximoff

Chapter 40 - In The Dark

"You, Avengers, are my meteor."

"The Avengers' Extinction."

The words were echoing around in Keira's skull like some bizarre Ping-Pong game, never settling down. It couldn't be a coincidence. It just couldn't.

But how was it possible? How could Ultron have been in her dreams before she even knew of his existence? It wasn't logical, like at all. Or was she just making assumptions? Even if the words weren't exactly the same, they still meant the same thing. And if there was one thing she was certain of, it was that the voice had been the same as the one in her dream.

"Ow." Keira winced, arching her back in a futile attempt to avoid Natasha's hands.

Natasha just sighed and gripped the blonde's shoulder to pull her back, not that Keira could get very far, considering that she was sitting with her front pressed against the back of the chair. "Stop being such a baby." The redhead scolded playfully, using the tweezers to pry out another glass shard.

"You be the baby." Keira retorted childishly under her breath, biting down on her lip as Natasha made another incision around another glass shard. This was the curse of fast healing. If she were to break a bone, and was unsuccessful to fix it into the correct position quickly enough, the bone would mend incorrectly. And in order to fix that, she would be forced to break the bone again.

And it sucked magnificently.

It wasn't any different with the glass shards. Her body healed around the pieces, almost making them a part of herself and thereby making them much more difficult to remove. Keira had moved to the lab directly, eager for an explanation from the scientists.

Natasha on the other hand, had taken a moment to change into something more comfortable and had brought a hoodie with her for Keira to wear later, considering the fact that the back of the blonde's dress was cut open in order to have access to all the glass shards.

By some miracle, the team had made it out of the fight pretty okay. Maria, who had been barefoot at the time was now sitting on a chair, also plucking out glass shards from the sole of her feet with tweezers. Dr. Cho had made it out okay thanks to Steve, and the guys were mostly okay. Maybe some bruises here and there, but nothing they couldn't survive.

"All our work is gone." Bruce announced to the group from his place behind one of the monitors. "Ultron cleared out. He used the internet as an escape hatch."

Great, so not only had they no idea where the AI was, but he had also probably read through files and deleted those that posed a threat to him. And to top that, the scepter had been snatched during the chaos as well. Could this day get any worse?

"Ultron." Steve repeated quietly. The frown on his face was easy to read. He was not happy with the situation. Honesty was something he valued greatly, and now, he found out that two of his teammates had been working in secret, accidentally bringing a murderous AI to life.

Natasha, who was multitasking by both removing glass shards from the back of her best friend, and checking the computer beside her, sighed slightly as she let a piece of glass fall into the container before looking at the group. "He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other." At the end of her sentence, she straightened up and patted Keira on the shoulder, showing that she was done.

Keira shot a grateful smile at her over her shoulder before throwing on the hoodie, shuddering slightly as the fabric dragged over the still-mending wounds.

Rhodey, who was holding his shoulder gingerly after being thrown out a window by one of Ultron's bots, paced across the room. "He's in your files, he's in the internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?"