Briana Stark

"All our work is gone," Bruce speaks up, breaking through the thick and heavy silence, "Ultron cleared out. He used the Internet as an escape hatch,"

"Ultron," Steve spits out, shaking his head in disbelief.

"He's been in everything," Natasha says, crossing her arms over her chest and facing everyone. "Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other," she and Clint glance at each other.

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

"Nuclear codes," Maria looks up.

"Nuclear codes," my uncle repeats. "Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can,"

"Nukes?" Natasha looks around, "He said he wanted us dead,"

"He didn't say dead," Steve quickly interrupts. "He said, extinct,"

Clint steps along the railing above us, "He also said he killed somebody,"

"There wasn't anyone else in the building," Maria said.

"Yes, there was," dad suddenly turns, walking up in between Steve and Bruce.

He suddenly flicks out his wrist and then two broken spheres; one orange, one pink appears before us. This horrible sense of loss hit me. Jarvis was there for me since I could remember, and C.A.S.S was the first invention that I ever made. And now they're both gone.

"What? This is insane," Bruce says.

Steve looks down, saying lowly, "Jarvis and C.A.S.S were the first line of defense. They would have shut Ultron down, it makes sense,"

I dazed out of the conversation, thinking about both Jarvis and C.A.S.S. I just couldn't believe that they were both gone now. "Trail went cold about hundred miles out, but it's headed north. And it has the scepter, and now we have to get it back. Again," Thor's voice brings me back to reality.

"Genie's out of that bottle," Natasha nods towards the orange and pink hologram. "Clear and present is Ultron,"

"I don't understand," Maria said. "You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?"

Dad doesn't say anything for a while but then he starts laughing a bit, Bruce begins shaking his head, humming at my father to stop.

"You think this is funny?" Thor bitterly smiles.

"No? It's probably not, right?" Dad asked, "Is this very terrible? Is it so, is it so...it is, it's so terrible,"

"This could have been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand," Thor says.

"No! I'm sorry," Dad interrupts. "I'm sorry, it is funny. It's a hoot, that you don't get why we need this,"

"Tony, maybe this might not be the time to," Bruce says.

"Really?" Dad asks, "Thats it? You just roll over? Show your belly every time somebody snarls?"

"Only when I've created a murder bot," Bruce says.

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

"Well, you did something right, and you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD," Steve says.

"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" Dad's voice breaks into my silent question.

"No," my uncle speaks sarcastically, "it's never come up,"

"Saved New York?"

"Never heard that,"

"Recall that!?"

Dad continues, "A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but, that up there, that's, that's the endgame,"

"When I come, nothing will be left, not even you,"

"I only hope that they remember you, Stark,"

Oh, god. He's right about one thing: what's up there in space, we're not ready, and we'll never ever be ready for that. It's the end, the end of everything we all know and loved. But we can't stop what's coming, no matter how hard we try.

No one can.

"How were you guys planning on beating that?" Dad asked.

"Together," Steve says.

"We'll lose," dad says.

We're going to lose. We're going to fail.

"Then we'll do that together, too,"

•••

"Ultron killed Strucker,"

Without looking in direction, Thor slaps the tablet against dad's chest. "And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us," dad adds.

The man we apprehended only days ago is lying dead on a white cot with blood splattered all over the walls. One word is written with the blood: PEACE.

"This is a smoke screen. Why send a message when you've just given a speech?" Natasha says.

RECORDS DELETED filled our screens.

"Yeah, everything we had on Strucker's been erased," Natasha says.

"Not everything," dad speaks.

Next thing I know is that we're all looking through old files and records that I didn't even notice that dad kept. "Baron Strucker had a lot of friends," I heard Steve's voice says.

"Well, these people are all horrible," Bruce says.

"Wait," dad says pointing a finger out to the file in Bruce's hand, "I know that guy. From back in the day. He operated off the African coast, black market arms."

Steve gives dad a look while dad drops his arms in irritation, nodding and squinting at him, "There are conventions, alright? You meet people, I didn't sell him anything. He was talking about finding something new, a game-changer, it was all very Ahab,"

Thor points to the tattoo on Klaue's neck, "This?"

"Ah, it's a tattoo. I don't think he had it," dad says.

"Those are tattoos," Thor points to the weird black tendrils the man has imprinted on his flesh before tapping at his patch of reddish-colored skin, "This is a brand,"

Bruce quickly slides over to the computer, scanning for the meaning of the brand, "Oh, yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning 'thief' in a much less friendly way,"

"What dialect?"

"Wakanada. Wa-W-Wakanda," Bruce struggles with the word.

"If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods," dad says, not finishing.

"I thought your father said he got the last of it," Steve says.

"I don't follow, what comes out of Wakanda?" Bruce asks.

Steve turns back at the red, white, and blue shield as my father finishes, "The strongest metal on Earth,"

"Where is this guy now?"

Avengers belongs to Marvel

Briana belongs to me

AJ belongs to richnbad0627