The Daughter of Tony Stark

Chapter 6

  "All of our work is gone," Banner announced to us, entering the lab with a grim expression. I sat on top of a countertop, wincing as my father helped pull the glass shards out of my skin with a tweezer. My glasses had a small crack in the right lens and were folded next to me. We were all quite shaken after the attack, and Thor had yet to return from trying to find the robot that had escaped with Loki's staff. "Ultron cleared out, used the internet as an escape hatch."

"Ultron," Steve murmured to himself, not meeting anyone's eyes.

"He's been in everything," Nat informed us as she searched through one of the computers. "Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other." Rhodes groaned from his corner, crossing his arms angrily.

"He's in your files, he's in the internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?"

"Nuclear codes," Maria thought out loud, pausing from pulling the glass from her foot. She had taken the injuries better than I did, but then again, that came with her past job.

"Nuclear codes," Rhodes agreed with her. "Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."

"Nukes?" Nat questioned, trying to wrap her mind around the idea. "He said he wanted us dead."

"He didn't say dead," Steve corrected her. "He said extinct."

"W-what did he mean when he said he killed somebody?" I piped up for the first time since the incident. My voice quivered due to the stinging my injuries were giving me, and only one thought was going through my brain: that I needed to get into the water.

"There wasn't anyone else in the building..."

"Yes, there was," Dad sighed, pulling the final piece of glass out of the back of my arm. He pulled a thin remote out of his back pocket and flicked it, pulling up the yellow hologram of JARVIS. I breathed out shakily as I took in the AI's destroyed appearance. Broken pieces flickered in an out of existence, falling to the floor.

"This is insane," Bruce shook his head.

"JARVIS was the first line of defense; he would've shut Ultron down," Steve said, stepping forward to get a better look. "It makes no sense."

"No, Ultron could've assimilated Jarvis," Bruce contradicted him. "This isn't strategy. This is... rage." There was a loud thud as Thor stormed into the room, brushing past me and grabbing my father by the throat.

"It's going around," Clint muttered with wide eyes at the same time I shouted, "What are you doing?!?"

"Come on," Dad patted Thor's hand as he tried to breathe. "Use your words, buddy."

"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark," Thor growled, and his grip tightened.

"Thor! The Legionnaire," Steve ordered, bringing the Asgardian back to earth. He let my father go, who immediately began to rub his throat.

"I'm fine," he whispered to me. I looked down at my closed fists, not even knowing that my fingernails had begun to dig into my palms. "Breathe."

"Trail went cold about a hundred miles out," Thor reported angrily. "But it's headed north, and it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it... again."

"I don't understand." I looked over at my father's head doctor, sitting in a swivel chair and staring at her hands. "You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?" My father began to laugh, trying to cover it with his hand. Banner looked at him with alarmed eyes, shaking his head to try and tell him the stop.

"You think this is funny?" Thor threatened, and Dad's face fell into annoyance.

"No. It's probably not, right?" he mocked. "Is this very terrible? Is it so...is it so...it is. It's soterrible."

"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand," the Asgardian reminded him angrily.

"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny," my father retracted condescendingly, getting all up in Thor's face. "It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this."

"Tony," Banner murmured, "maybe this might not be the time to..."

"Really?" my father sighed, turning around to face his fellow scientist. "That's it? You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls."

"Only when I've created a murder bot," Banner defended himself. Those two words echoed in my head. He had deleted the safety precautions I had set up. What if he hadn't? Could Ultron have been just a fantasy and not reality like it was supposed to?

"We didn't," Dad snapped. "We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?"

"Well, you did something right," Steve informed him, crossing his arms. "And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD."

"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" my father said suddenly, turning to look at each of his teammates individually. I blinked a few times. What was he talking about? Somewhere in my head, it was ringing a bell, but I couldn't figure out why. Everyone else in the room either rolled their eyes or looked down to not acknowledge him.

"No, it's never come up."

"Saved New York?"

"Never heard that," Rhodes continued, but he wasn't keeping the sarcastic act. I could see the hurt in his eyes, and screams of terror rang through my ears. I looked around warily, trying to figure out who it was, but no one had moved from their places or from the sound. I quietly got up and out of the lab, clutching my ears as the screams started again.

"Tony!" a girl was shouting against the screams. "Tony, wake up! Wake up!" I ran through the halls with my hands still covering my ears as I tried to locate where it was coming from. "Help! He won't wake up! Pepper!" I almost flew up flights of stairs and around hallway corners until I eventually reached a familiar room I had never been in. There was dust on dressers and a desk, and a bed shoved to the side was messily made. "I don't know what to do without you here, please wake up!" I ripped the bedsheets off the bed, my breathing hitched and my fingers scrabbling against the mattress as I tried to find the person yelling for help. "I need a dad!"

All of the screams went away as I stared at the mess I had created. It was like I had been possessed by something else. What was going on?