Yep, I suck. It is official and I know it. I've had a pretty crazy year with few updates on anything I write so I'm very sorry! It was all to do with leading up to this semester, where I am studying abroad! So at least the stress of getting here is over with but there are other stresses too. I just laugh at myself and my intentions because I genuinely thought I would have this finished last summer. Lol, isn't that hilarious? And all that said, this is… Not a short chapter but no twins and not a whole lot of development. I felt it would be too incredibly long if I continued into the party at Stark Tower. But I hope you enjoy this and again, I am really sorry! Thanks for all of your reviews, favorites, and follows. It really means a lot to me and please keep them coming. I only own Katia. Thank you!

I dream about Pietro and Wanda and how everything is fine until a storm causes me to lose track of them. I search and I scream and still, they are washed away. There is whirring and buzzing, like everything is going wrong. I feel as if I'm falling and stuck at the same time. Pietro screams my name and I fear that will haunt me forever.

"Wake the girl up before she crashes this jet!" I crack my eyes open and register that I'm in a great deal of pain. Looking around, I'm confused. Someone is above me, with a tight grip on my wrist and his other hand on my shoulder. Slowly, I recognize him as Thor. Thor, the hammer wielding Avenger, who is half lightning. My mouth forms his name, almost in disbelief. Why would I be with Thor? Then it all floods back to me. The whirring and beeping continue. "Hey, kid! Do you think you could stop doing whatever it is you're doing and let me keep this plane in the air?"

I turn my head and see Tony Stark at the helm of this quinjet. "What?" I croak. I'm not doing anything. But I am delirious from blood loss and I can feel everything in the jet; the circuits and switchboards, the overriding computer system, the hair raising on my arm under Thor's touch. Suddenly, I'm not sure that I'm not doing something. I concentrate on leveling out, on calming down, on focusing on a solid point like Wanda taught me. There's a pang in my chest at that thought.

"She's not doing this, Stark!" Clint, I think. Oh God, Clint. He's on the gurney beside mine. Captain America is staunching his bleeding. I let out a haggard breath, feeling faint.

"Uh, yeah, she is. Thor said she brought down that shield."

"Where are the twins?" I whisper.

"What?" Thor asks, his grip on my arm tightening. I fear he'll rip it from the socket.

"The twins. Pietro and Wanda. Where are they?"

"Oh, you mean the boy who got Clint shot and the witch who screwed with my head? They're back in Sokovia, wreaking havoc in their hometown," Tony Stark yells.

"You didn't take them," I mutter. Thor's face goes out of focus and I don't know if that's because pain is blurring my vision or tears. "Why didn't you take them?"

"Uh, they made it pretty clear what they thought of us." I clench my jaw and look to Clint. He's pale and grimacing. It occurs to me that Tony Stark is right; Pietro let him take the hit. But he saved me and isn't that worth something?

Clint returns my look with one of his own. "You're gonna be all right, Kat. You hear me?" I nod, even though I notice his expression is masking confusion and something worse. Something like fear. I force myself to take a deep breath.

"Clint-" I start, because I want to tell him the truth, but he cuts me off.

"Wait till we're better. You don't have to explain anything to me." He reaches towards me and I give him my hand. I smile at him weakly because it's all I can muster. Clint's good at reassuring, at wanting to hear my side of things. It's why we get on so well. It makes me want to relax. After feeling like Pietro and Wanda wanted answers that I couldn't give them, or rather that they wouldn't listen to, this is a nice reprieve. But I still see it on Clint's face, worry about what has happened to me, fear that I'm not the same girl I once was. What's worse is that I'm worried and fearful too.

We reach the Avengers base soon after and Thor wheels my gurney into the old Stark Tower. It has been refurbished since the Battle of New York. It is highly technologically outfitted, which I sense more than I see. The décor seems industrial and grey, truly just a modern version of the Sokovia base in my eyes, particularly with the amount of Iron Man suits and gear. Von Strucker was obviously trying to emulate him.

I look around, groggy and vision blurry. My shoulder throbs and my eyes are still nearly full of tears. I catch sight of what has to be Bruce Banner talking to a Korean doctor. He gestures at Clint, who is still near me. He manages to shake his head and he says my name. I open my mouth to argue but no sound comes out.

"I think we will be friends, Katia Ridley." I turn to stare up at Thor, who is just watching me with clear blue eyes. The man is twice my size, from another world, yet he gives me a look of respect. His hand, dirtied by my blood, grips mine. "I sense you are a fine warrior."

I swallow my pain and my sadness and reply, "That I am." He smiles, a generous and boisterous thing. The god of thunder and a girl with lightning in her fingertips. It could be an interesting match.

The doctor is Helen Cho and she has a machine that can regenerate flesh, which is what I and Clint desperately need since Hydra doesn't use regular guns. They fire blasts modelled on the tesseract and Loki's scepter. Thor makes me take off my tattered jacket and lifts me onto the bed of the machine. It is absolutely excruciating. Once there, Dr. Cho does her best to explain what's happening but I know what's happening. I can feel the machine. I understand everything that it's doing as it moves over me and shines a laser on my shoulder. I wince while it works, even though the pain is menial compared to the actual wound.

I watch from Dr. Cho's regeneration machine as one of her nurses discards my jacket. That is, oddly enough, what makes me want to break down the most. I think of Pietro and I think of the kindness he and Wanda showed me when I was sick. I think of the kindness they have shown me every day I've known them and how I have repaid that. I make myself focus on Tony Stark's ceiling to keep from crying.

For all I know, I will never see them again. Over a year of my life spent with them and I have no idea whether they are safe, whether Von Strucker had enough men left to subdue them, whether they're back on the streets of Sokovia. I tell myself that this was my goal all along, to get broken out and have the option to do what we wanted. But I find that I must have wanted to stay with them, on the streets or in the forest at the bottom of the base.

Finally, it is over and I am brand new, though they bandage my shoulder anyway. When the machine turns off, I suddenly feel even emptier, as if its whirring and lights were keeping me going. Maybe they were.

Dr. Cho helps Clint next. I stay with him and Natasha the whole time because to some degree, him getting hurt feels like my fault.

"Katia, why don't you get some rest?" he says with a groan, still obviously hurting. How can I tell him that I can't sleep? How can I tell him anything that's happened to me?

"She's fine, Clint," Natasha replied for me, sipping on a green smoothie. "She's got a new shoulder." But she looks my way and I know she's seeing me for what I really am, a damaged wreck.

"Clint," I murmur and he shakes his head again.

"You don't have to explain anything to me, Kat," he repeats. "I just want life to get back to normal for you." I feel a pit form in my stomach at that word. I will never be normal again and I sense that Clint knows that. I saw the fear on his face on the quinjet. It reflected my own.

"Katia, let me show you your room anyway," Natasha says. She holds out a hand to me, as if she fears I will wander and lose my way.

"I want to talk to you later, Clint," I tell him before going with her.

"Anything for you, kid," he replies and I make myself return his smile.

When we leave the living room, we pass Captain America and Dr. Banner again, long enough for me to be introduced. I met Steve Rogers once after the Battle of New York and he remembers me. He personally apologizes for what happened. He has a kind, handsome face and he could probably bench-press me. I like him. Dr. Banner is unassuming and constantly gathers his hands to his chest, as if he fears relaxing. Natasha watches him with a far friendlier gaze than she gives Steve.

My room is huge, with a bed that could hold three people and a closet that could hold more. It is more than anything S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever given me. Natasha goes and sits on the bed, ruffling its blue bedspread. I have admired her since Clint brought her in. She has been a role model and a friend and I can feel that now she will occupy the role of counselor.

"Clint's not going to understand," she starts. "I doubt anyone here will ever understand. But if you want to talk about it, I'll listen."

"Are the twins okay? Do you know?" I ask. By the look on her face, I doubt she does. They've done enough to put Wanda and Pietro on record as enhanced. Once it was clear they weren't friendly, the Avengers wouldn't have given pursuit, even if I'd asked it of them. "Will you go back for them?" I glance around, as if the answer means little to me, but my fingers tweak and the lights dim. Natasha shakes her head, unflustered by my ability.

"They are citizens of Sokovia and even if they were under our jurisdiction, they have the right to live freely as long as they don't endanger anyone." I take her words and apply them to myself, even though I am clearly under their jurisdiction. "The girl caused Stark to hallucinate but the boy saved your life. There's no reason to pursue them."

"I'd just like to know that they're okay." She nods but I think she knows I want more than that affirmation.

"We can find that out."

"Their names are Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. They volunteered for a human experimentation program that promised to give them and others abilities akin to the Avengers. They were the only two survivors. They were orphaned when a shell collapsed their apartment building. That's what you want, isn't it? Information on them and the base."

She shakes her head again and I can see that it hurt her. I remind myself that Hydra couldn't have wiped all the files that quickly and neither could I, not with powers I haven't fully explored. The Avengers have all the information they could want or need about the Maximoffs. And all the information about me. "Katia, I'm just concerned about you. None of that matters now. You never have to say another thing about it, if that's what you want."

"Is that how you felt? When Clint brought you in?" I cross my arms and stay standing. There is a mirror on the closet door and it reveals me as thin and piqued. My hair is thin and stringy. There is purple beneath my grey eyes. I am a ghost of a girl. And I think there are many reasons to be frightened of me.

"Yes," she replies. "It's hard to come back from some of the things I've done. But Clint knows. I've told him. Some burdens are easier to bear alone and some you should share."

"And you think I should share?"

"I believe that you should talk to someone totally outside of the situation. Talk about what you can do now, talk about what you did, talk about how you hate Hydra. You don't need to tell me what happened explicitly because I know suffering and you've clearly gone through some," she responds. And because I know that Natasha is the only person who could even begin to understand the torture and my fear of water and my love for the twins, who could easily have made a different call, I tell her. I tell her what they did. I tell her what I can do. I tell her that I lost faith in S.H.I.E.L.D. and myself and that I was consigned to my fate. I tell her that Pietro brought me juice instead of water and gave me his jacket and that Wanda told me stories of their parents.

Then I confess. "I killed Agent Smith when he put a gun to Pietro's head. I shot him once and that should have been enough but then I shot him twice more to make sure he never did it again. I murdered Basso and it was an accident and I hid his body in a cabinet in the base. He came at me and what I can do now killed him. I did it without thought." I pause. "I just tried to save Pietro and Wanda. And I disappointed and betrayed them. I wanted to save them but I couldn't even save myself." And then I am crying. Natasha gets up and wraps her arms around me.

"What happened to the Maximoffs, and to you, is not your fault. It's not your fault," she whispers, "and I need you to repeat that to me. Say it. 'It's not my fault.'"

"It's not my fault," I murmur into her shoulder.

"Say it again. Say it over and over until you believe it."

"It's not my fault."

"Again."

"It's not my fault."

I repeat those words until I fall asleep that night, Natasha at my side, and I dream of murky water and silver hair. When I wake up, it is early and Natasha has left, probably training or briefing Clint on me. I make my way out of my room and pause before entering the labs because Steve Rogers and Maria Hill are having an in-depth conversation.

"He's got increased metabolism and improved thermal homeostasis. Her thing is neuro-electric interfacing, telekinesis, mental manipulation," Maria Hill is saying. It's as if she's reading right off the file I created. At Steve's confusion, Hill shrugs. "He's fast and she's weird."

"What about Katia Ridley?" Steve asks.

"Apparently, Ridley's powers were so new that Strucker and his team didn't have the time to change much on her file. In fact, they listed a death date. She wasn't expected to survive."

"Well, clearly, she did," he says in a way that makes me proud.

"And all Strucker seems to have known is that she can manipulate electricity. Their base underwent an eight hour blackout three days ago, that she's supposedly responsible for."

"So technology. Computers, the lighting systems, security, the like." Hill nods at him.

"She could bring this building down."

"We need to know the extent of what she can do and we need to keep tabs on the Maximoffs. They'll show up again, particularly if they shared a bond with Ridley."

"Agreed. File says they volunteered for Strucker's experiments. It's nuts." I know the file said something else. It said I was a party to the experiments, that I sat there every day and let them happen because I didn't know what to do. A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent like Maria Hill would think less of me for that.

"Right. What kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on them to protect their country?"

"We're not at war, Captain."

"Those three kids are at war. They've been fighting a war for a very long time," he asserts. When he makes ready to leave, I duck back down the hallway and I fear that Wanda and Pietro may have been right about some things. I'll be down on the list as enhanced, they'll keep tabs on me, and even if I wanted to set out on my own and leave all this behind, they'd never truly let me.

It's later in the morning when I finally talk to Clint. It's obvious that he's spoken to Natasha and that, perhaps, Natasha has spoken to everyone. I'm grateful that I don't have to say anything more. But when Clint takes me down into Stark Tower's lavish living room area, I know that the news has been hard on him. I sit beside him on a leather couch, in new tennis shoes and a new dress, and the official reunion is already more somber than it should be. I have known Clint most, if not all, of my life. He practically raised me. What happened to me will be just as unfathomable to him.

"Kat, I think I owe you an apology," he starts and I automatically shake my head. "No, I do. You just got the go-ahead from some higher-ups to go on that mission and no one thought anything of it. It should have been normal and honestly, what were the odds that you'd end up with them? It wasn't two weeks later and S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. The scepter was gone, you didn't know who you could trust, electronic files had been tampered with, teams abroad suddenly fell off the radar. It was madness and my first instinct was to find you but-"

"Things had to get taken care of stateside," I finish. "And eventually I'd been off the grid so long that there was no point in looking." He nods.

"I knew you were but people's thinking was that either you were loyal or you weren't. If you were, you were probably killed and if you were Hydra, then you didn't want to be found." He pauses. "I knew you weren't dead and I knew you weren't Hydra but I didn't expect this."

"Neither did I."

"Katia, I can't imagine- I don't want to imagine what they put you and those kids through. And the fact that you bore it all alone." His fingers press against the bridge of his nose and he closes his dark eyes. "Look, kid, you're like my own. You're like family to me… and I and S.H.I.E.L.D. have let you down."

"That's not true," I mutter and take his hand, even if, to some degree, it is. "I survived and it's over. That's all that matters."

"It's not over, Kat. It won't be over for you for a long time." He glances at me and I see that Natasha has told him about the water.

"I'll get better."

"I know you will. But this isn't your fault, Kat. I know you so I know that you felt responsible for standing by but there's nothing you could have done. And what you did was more than enough. You and the Maximoffs are free now." There's an edge to his voice that sounds like he doesn't believe that's such a good idea. I remind myself that Pietro could have saved him from the blast but didn't. "I'm sure they're grateful to you."

"We were supposed to stay together but they never wanted me to call you. They're apprehensive about S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers in particular." He gives me a dry laugh.

"Really?" he replies sarcastically. "I didn't get that at all."

"I love them, Clint," I admit. "They mean a lot to me and if I've lost them, that's one of the worst outcomes."

He weakly smiles and it's an expression that tells me I am young and inexperienced. "Look, kid, it might have been the worst experience of your life but it was your first mission. And I'm gonna tell you something that nobody believes on their first mission but is the absolute truth; you can't save everyone. Some people don't want to be saved, some people don't want to be saved by you, and sometimes, you fail. What happened here was not a failure. You did what you set out to do. Wanda and Pietro Maximoff are free. You're back home. This is a victory."

"It doesn't feel like one."

"Any battle where you come out alive is a win, Katia. You know that. You're a soldier. You and the Maximoffs walked out of this alive. That's more than enough." I want to say that I am not a soldier, that I don't deserve that honor, but I can only think of the twins.

"They were all I had and I ruined that."

"Look, it would be incredibly strange if you didn't care for them after all that you've been through and believe me, I get it. Situations like that bind people together and I've seen the files. You're similar to them. In another life, you could have been them. It's understandable that you love them and that you feel bad. And frankly, I don't know what to say or do that would be a comfort."

"I should have had a real conversation with them, not just keep my cards close to my chest."

"Don't do this to yourself, Kat. Don't sit here and beat yourself up over something you can't change. The Maximoffs were given the opportunity to come with us." He doesn't say it but I hear "and with you" hovering at the end of his statement. "Now given time, they'll pop back up on the radar and we can deal with that later."

"You mean, you would consider going after them?" I ask, my voice filled with a stupid amount of hope. I shouldn't want S.H.I.E.L.D. to pursue them. That's not what they'd want. But I just feel like there was so much left unsaid between us. They deserve something from me, even if it's just some lousy expression of gratitude. The twins did more for me in that year than they'll ever know and I owe them for it. And besides, I can't seem to shake them. They are there every time I close my eyes, around corners in the hallway, in my dreams. I know it is my guilt but it takes on their faces.

Clint's entire expression changes and it flickers to worry. "Katia, I think it best that you do what you can to leave this, all of this, behind you."

There is a pause, a pause where the lights blink around us and Tony Stark complains from the lab. "You don't want me to be in contact with the twins."

He shakes his head. "It's not that."

"Yes, it is. It is that."

"Look, with what is going on with you, which you don't even understand yet, so how can we? It's just safer for you to stay here and recover. Learn the extent of what you can do, rest, eat a proper meal and gain some weight back, sleep without fear of death. You start down that road and nothing changes for you."

"I just want to speak with them. That's all I would ask. They won't come here, that's the last thing they want, but it was over a year of my life and they were all I had." The skin around Clint's eyes crinkles, like he's softening to me, but he sighs. "Clint, I don't expect you to understand it. You say you do but you can't. Thank God, you can't but it was just us three for that year. They're the reason I'm alive. They deserve something, at least a proper goodbye. And they're the only people on the planet who can genuinely understand what happened to me."

He shakes his head. "I get that you've got a bond with them. But just give yourself some time alone first, kid. You need to just take some time and relax. Recover. Not think about all of that. And if you wanna think about it and you wanna talk to somebody, there are two people here who would be more than willing to discuss their own experiences with you. Steve and Natasha." Natasha is easily comparable. She's never said what she went through explicitly but she's never had to. There has to have been some vague human experimentation involved in what happened to her. And Steve Rogers, he was precisely the same as the twins when he went in for that procedure. He'd even said as much in that conversation I overheard this morning. I want to take comfort in the fact that there is someone who might get it but without the twins, it still feels as if I'm lost. We didn't have the time to talk about it all but they're the ones who could have helped me learn about what I can do.

But Steve and Natasha and the rest of the Avengers are something, something I've been working towards most of my life, and I can't throw that away over one horrible year with Hydra. Wanda and Pietro did have a choice and they made it. I need to make mine.

"You're right," I allow. I will be of no use to anyone, even myself, if I don't learn to control what I can do.

"I'm sorry. I didn't catch that." But he's laughing so I punch him in the arm.

"I said, you're right."

"I need to mark that on the calendar." I laugh too and I admit that it makes me feel a little better. "Now there's gonna be a party in a couple of days and after that, Thor leaves. He's offered to give you some pointers between now and then and if I were you, I'd take him up on it."

"Some pointers?" I ask warily. Thor wanted to help train me?

"I don't know how you took down that shield, kid, but it impressed the hell out of him." I let my chest fill with pride. Impressing someone like Thor still gives me a thrill, still makes me want to be S.H.I.E.L.D. more than anything else. "He can't tell you much about the technology but the raw electricity, those sparks around your fingers, he can help you get that under control."

I doubt that anyone can help me get this under control when I don't even remotely understand it but I take the chance and approach Thor that afternoon. If nothing else, speaking with him will be a welcome distraction from wondering about Pietro and Wanda.

Thor tries but I can tell that there are aspects of what I can do that truly baffle him. Though we are similar, we are also incredibly different. He is tall and well-built and ready for a physical fight where I've always been small and scrawny, even without Hydra denying me meals. But in personality, we gel. Where Wanda was patience and understanding, Thor is brawn and jumping in headfirst. His training is the kind I understand, dismantle this, turn that light off, spark up your hands. He even extends that hammer towards me, its head nearly the size of my middle, and lights it up. I feel that power hum in my blood and bones and I'm surprised to find that I want it. When I'm able to connect with the hammer and with him, I feel complete rather than the obvious destruction it normally wreaks. Puzzle pieces finally fit together. For months, all I've been is tired. This is the first time I'm exhilarated and I know it is from this ability.

Clint doesn't mention that Tony Stark and Bruce Banner also want something. I eat dinner with the six Avengers and Maria Hill, forcing myself to choke down the tiny glass of water Natasha sat by my plate. When it's over, they approach me. I actually scoot backwards and knock the back of my chair. I know the look of scientists and it's not a look I'm overly fond of. But Clint gives me a reassuring nod so I make myself relax.

"Would you mind coming up to the labs, Katia?" Dr. Banner asks. I am relieved that he is the one to speak to me because he's a relatively unassuming person and though he's remarkably intelligent, I don't feel like he's the sort to look down on you because you're not. "Apparently, Tony has something to show us."

"Uh… Sure," I reply. But I've crossed my arms and my nails are digging into my skin. Dr. Banner winces, as if he hates even asking me the question.

"To be clear, not all labs are creepy Neo-Nazi labs," Tony says. When I am still tense, he actually sighs and it is a sigh of understanding. I remind myself of his time in the desert, his time tortured and kidnapped. He gets it too. "Look, I need your help with something."

"I'm afraid I know very little about the spear. I wasn't told much. I just know it did this to me and the Maximoffs."

"Well, it's not about the scepter. Not technically, anyway. Just, uh, I'll show you."

I go with them to the labs of Stark Tower, thick glass floors over machines being repaired and white tables. My hand rolls back and forth, in time to a robotic arm being placed on one of Tony's suits below us. Dr. Banner and I stand back while Tony readies whatever it is he wanted to show us. Even after understanding the twins' apprehension about Tony Stark, I'm flattered that he's invited me here, as if I'm on equal standing with one of the greatest minds living.

"I was wondering how Strucker got so inventive so I've been analyzing the gem in Loki's scepter," he starts off. He brings up a tiny tablet that appears totally translucent and flicks it. A round, orange ball appears in front of us. It moves about, flickering like a sun, and my fingers bounce in time to it. I wonder what I could make it do.

"Jarvis," Dr. Banner declares.

"Yes, Doctor," the ball responds with Jarvis's voice. It quakes with each word.

"When it started out, Jarvis was just a natural language UI. Now he runs the Iron Legion," Tony goes on. I keep quiet because I don't want to reveal just how out of my depth I am. "He runs more of the business than anyone besides Pepper."

"So he's amazing," I say, a question in my tone. I'm not sure what he's going for but damned, if I don't want to know.

"Yeah, he's top of the line."

"I suspect not for long," Jarvis interjects. I feel his voice in my body, like I'm hyperaware of Jarvis and where he is. He's not just in the globe in the center of the room. He's throughout the building, throughout the computer systems.

Tony walks up to the scepter and flicks that tiny tablet at its pulsing blue stone. "Meet the competition." Another flick and a blue orb appears beside Jarvis. It is massive and obviously farther down the road than Jarvis has gotten.

"It's beautiful," Dr. Banner says as he walks around it.

"If you had to guess, what would you say it looks like?"

"Like it's thinking. I mean, this could be- It's not a human mind but- I mean, look at this. They're like neurons firing." Dr. Banner looks at me, probably because he knows I'm struggling to keep up, but I nod. Because it is as incredible to me as it is to them, just not for the same reasons, I'm sure. This is something electric that I sense is more a part of me than anything else electric I've felt and I suppose that is because I am linked to the spear in some way. After all, it did this to me. It gave me this power.

I reach out and let my hand move through it. Goosebumps run up my arm.

"Down in Strucker's lab, I saw some fairly advanced robotics work," Tony says. I freeze. "They deep-sixed the data but I've gotta guess he was knocking on a very particular door."

"Artificial intelligence," Dr. Banner breathes.

"You know anything about this, Agent Ridley?" They both direct their gaze my way and I shrug, though I like that he called me 'agent.'

"I know he couldn't get it to work," I reply. "When they found out what I could do, Strucker wanted me to wake up his machines. He had the design, the system, everything but for some reason, couldn't get them to turn on." Tony snaps his fingers.

"See? We've got the missing link. I think the problem is the system and that you can fix it."

"I'm sorry?"

Tony turns to Dr. Banner without giving me a response, his mind running a mile a minute. "This could be it, Bruce. This could be the key to creating Ultron."

Dr. Banner gives a dry laugh. "I thought Ultron was a fantasy."

"Yesterday it was. If we can harness this power, apply it to my Iron Legion protocol, get Ridley to spark up the system…"

"That's a massive if."

"Our job is 'if.' What if you were sipping margaritas on a sun-drenched beach, turning brown instead of green? What if the world was safe? What if the next time aliens roll up to the club, and they will, they couldn't get past the bouncer?"

"Then it would only be humans threatening the planet."

"Look, I think we should apply this to the Ultron program. Jarvis can't download a data schematic this dense. We can only do it while we have the scepter here. That's three days. Give me three days!"

"Let me get this straight," I finally say. "You want to achieve artificial intelligence and you want me to tweak Strucker's system into working for you."

"And you don't want to tell anyone but the two of us?" Dr. Banner asks, gesturing between me and him.

"Yes, that's the gist and no, I don't because I don't want a lecture. We don't have the time for a city hall debate," Tony replies. "I see a suit of armor around the world."

"That's a cold world."

"I've seen colder." And immediately, I know this stems from whatever Wanda did to him.

"What did Wanda make you see?" I ask.

He turns and his face is an expression that I can only call haunted. "It's insignificant, it's nothing."

"She can show you your worst fear." He nods and my stomach drops at the look on his face. I hope Wanda never turns her gifts on me. "I'm sorry but I can't help you. Not two days ago, Baron Von Strucker asked me the same question and I've got a feeling that I was right to turn him down."

"Ridley, I'm talking about making all of our jobs a little easier. Let us take a day off, sleep. If the Ultron program had been up and running, you wouldn't have needed to SOS. The whole problem would have been taken care of to begin with."

"While that's a comforting thought, I've also seen Terminator and Strucker's system probably resembles Skynet."

"We're gonna fix his system."

"You don't know that I can do that. I don't know."

"If you took down that energy shield, this will barely be a blip on your radar. Come on, it's three days. I'll show you the ropes, let you get the hang of the lab, see how you handle it all, and we'll go from there." He smiles, a charming grin that must have won him many a woman's favor. He's offering me a position in his company.

"I can't work for you, Mr. Stark. I'm meant to be a field agent, not a tech."

"Who says you can't be both?" He's close enough to drape his arm around me, as if we're old pals. He points at Jarvis and the blue globe from the scepter. "Look, I know I don't know you well but I can tell you're digging this, you're feeling the charge, the electricity. Hell, I bet you can feel everything in this building and I bet you know how it works. I wouldn't have invited you up here if I didn't know for sure."

"Mr. Stark-"

"It's one thing, Agent Ridley. It's a snap of your fingers at the end of the process. Bruce and I handle the rest." His sweeps out in front of me and I feel obnoxiously close. "You spark up those well-trained trigger fingers, Ultron turns on, and then you can go back to S.H.I.E.L.D. … or just consider it, just consider Stark Industries." He takes his arm and clasps his hands. I think he is close to begging and Dr. Banner just presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose.

"I can't do it, Mr. Stark. I'm sorry." He sighs, dejected. "It's a matter of principle. It's the man whose ideas you're looking at."

"I am not Baron Von Strucker. Nothing I create will be what he wanted. I've had the Ultron system on the backburner for a while now." He clasps his hands tighter and because he is who he is and because I need to do something, I know I will agree.

"Tell me everything about Ultron." He smiles again.

"You're in?"

I groan but nod. "I'm in."