Ash's POV

I was sitting in my room reading a book that Pepper had recommended to me on my bed wearing a bright yellow t-shirt, light blue jeans that rolled up around my ankles to reveal the neon orange "hightop" shoes I was wearing, and my bright red hair was braided into a single plait that rested on my shoulder and my pendant was around my neck until I got bored reading about humans who hated sunlight but somehow sparkled and were always brooding for what seemed like no valid reason so I tossed the book aside.

"When are they gonna get back?" I asked absentmindedly to no one in particular, but JARVIS was happy to provide an answer anyway,

"Sir and the rest of the team should be back by tonight from their mission to retrieve Loki's scepter."

"I know JARVIS, I was just trying to 'kill time'? That's how that expression is used, right?"

"Correct. Your speech adjustments are coming along well."

"Thanks JARVIS."

"You are quite welcome, Ms. Ash."

"I hope they all come back in one piece." I mildly commented as I picked another book off my shelf and began to flip through it to no page in particular.

"If I recall, your exact words before they left were 'Don't die'." JARVIS played back my words, making me smile ruefully.

"It was a valid send-off, especially considering how last time Tony nearly crashed into the base of a mountain."

"Yes, Sir was not too pleased with having to walk back to the Quinjet that day."

Laughing to myself while remembering that mission, I went to the kitchen to get a snack when a beeping noise sounded and JARVIS sounded off,

"You have an appointment with Dr. Miller in 10 minutes."

"Thanks for reminding me, but I have something I need to work on first." I told JARVIS as I picked up the newspaper from the counter and tore a piece of the frontpage article off and shoved it into my pocket.

"Shall I alert her that you will be late?"

"No, I'll be down there in a few minutes."

"Very well." I walked back to my room and went over to the whiteboard I kept in the corner that had a map of New York on it with wreckage plans from the Chitauri on it, but I pulled the map up to reveal another board underneath with what I've heard humans refer to as a "conspiracy board" with newspaper clippings of possible alien sightings, but that I was sure were other Chrysintheans like me.

"Another sighting?" JARVIS's voice sounded from the walls of my room.

"I believe so." I pinned up the new clipping I had taken that stated that a fire had been started in a forest near Virginia, but witnesses swore they saw someone with glowing eyes walking through the flames.

"Perhaps if you told Sir or the others of your findings, they could assist in locating other Chrysintheans?"

"I can't do that just yet JARVIS, you know how the media would get if they got wind that there are others like me, but some of them are dangerous while they're still under HYDRA's control." I tapped away at my laptop mode tablet where several tabs on alleged HYDRA sightings were open from my research when I discovered that Xavion wasn't the only one being exploited for their gain.

"Alright, I need a break from this..." I looked down at the watch around my wrist and pulled on my lab coat before heading down to the med bay.

I had finished another monthly check-up with Dr. Miller, with her reporting that, aside from having dangerous gamma radiation within me and still no way to fully extinguish it, yet, I was in perfect health as far as she knew about me and my species. I was heading down to the labs continuing my research on my tablet when I heard several *woosh's* right outside the window and I saw the Iron Legion returning from battle, entering the building through the large A.

"JARVIS?" I questioned while looking down at my tablet to listen to JARVIS's response,

"Sir and the rest of the team have returned. Unfortunately, Mr. Barton was injured in combat."

"What?!" I started to sprint down the hallways to the main medbay area where Bruce and Tony were talking right outside the main operation room

"You're back!" I put my tablet down on a worktable and ran up to Bruce and Tony, giving them each a hug.

"Hey Kid." Bruce half-smiled at me and I saw worry on both their faces.

"How's Clint doing?" I asked.

"Unfortunately, he's still Barton." Tony lightly joked and we all cracked a smile at that.

"That's terrible." Bruce remarked.

"He's fine." Tony smirked before asking me,

"By the way, how're D.R.E.I. and the new radiation tags working?" I rolled up my lab coat sleeves and held out my wrists to show the tags he had created for me; two smaller disks of metal that attached to my wrists. The D.R.E.I., or Dangerous Radiation Extraction Inverter for short, in question was the machine I had to check into every night to drain the radiation I built up during the day to be converted to electrical energy for the city to use.

"It's a bit tedious having to discharge every night, but I guess it's better than the alternative." I shrugged nonchalantly before rolling my sleeves back down.

"Hey at least we're making great progress in other clean forms of energy."

"As clean as filtered gamma radiation could get." Bruce commented.

"Anyway, I'll be back, he's thirsty." Tony left to get drinks while Bruce and I went into the room where Clint was laid out under a machine being operated by Dr. Helen Cho with Nat close by.

"Are you sure he's gonna be okay? Pretending to need this guy really brings the team together." Nat asked Dr. Cho before she and Clint shared a look.

"Nat..." I whispered, silently giving her a side hug before going up to Clint with a straight face to say,

"I was very specific that you not die."

"Glad to be back too, Match Head." Clint smirked at me before weakly reaching up to flick my braid into my face, making me smile ruefully before paying attention to Dr. Cho's explanation on her machine that was healing Clint's wound.

"There's no possibility of deterioration. The nano-molecular functionality is instantaneous. His cells don't know they're bonding with simulacra."

"So this machine is essentially creating human tissue by fooling the body's natural healing process into accepting the new tissue substitute." I stated while looking at the process in wonder.

"Yes. If you brought him to my lab, the Regeneration Cradle could do this in 20 minutes."

"Oh he's flat-lining. Call it. Time?" Tony betted as he came in with a tray of drinks before Clint countered while getting the drink he asked for earlier,

"No, no, no, I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna be made of plastic."

"You'll be made of you, Mr. Barton. Your own girlfriend won't be able to tell the difference." Dr. Cho assured him.

"I don't have a girlfriend."

"That I can't fix." Helen stated before turning to Tony, "This is the next thing, Tony. Your clunky metal suits are gonna be left in the dust."

"That is exactly the plan. And, Helen, I expect to see you at the party on Saturday." Tony responded before asking.

"Unlike you, I don't have a lot of time for parties." Dr. Cho tapped away at her tablet before questioning, "Will Thor be there?"

A few awkward seconds later, Tony pulled me and Bruce aside to walk toward the lab where Loki's scepter was resting on the counter, but as we were walking, I felt something... off about Tony, almost... fearful... which was unlike him and made me wonder in concern about what happened during the latest mission.

"What's the rumpus?" Bruce asked and I squinted in confusion to myself before realizing what he meant right as Tony answered,

"Well, the scepter. You see, we were wondering how Strucker got so inventive. So I've been analyzing the gem inside. You may recognize..." Tony pulled up JARVIS's hologram form right where Bruce had been standing before he stepped out of it.

"JARVIS."

"Doctor."

"Started out, Jarvis was just a natural language UI. Now he runs the Iron Legion. He runs more of the business than anyone besides Pepper. Top of the line." Tony explained.

"Yes."

"I suspect not for long." JARVIS commented before Tony pulled up an image of the composition of the gemstone of the scepter.

"Meet the competition."

Unlike JARVIS's orange, organized, spherical appearance, the gemstone's inner composition was bright blue with several extensions protruding from the smaller spherical center.

"It's beautiful." Bruce marveled at it before Tony asked,

"If you had to guess, what's it look like it's doing?"

"Like it's thinking. I mean, this could be... It's not a human mind. I mean, look at this. They're like neurons firing."

"But they're more calculated, methodical..." I noted the specific patterns the small dots were making in repetition.

Bruce and Tony started talking about Ultron, a defense system I heard Tony mention once to help protect Earth from future invasions coming from outside the planet, while I got closer to the hologram to get a better look at its center. As soon as I did though, I felt my core begin to steadily heat up and when I looked down to it, I saw small wisps of light coming out to intertwine with the hologram's.

"You still here, Flamehead?" I heard Tony ask, but I was still staring into the center hearing quiet voices in the back of my mind before I felt someone grasp my wrist.

Instantaneously, I found myself in a dark place somewhere in space from the stars that surrounded the area. I looked over to see Tony kneeling on the ground in front of me.

"Tony?" I tried to call out to him, but he was more focused on what was in front of him. I walked forward to see what he was looking at before my hands flew to my mouth at the horror that lay in front of me; everyone on the team: Nat, Clint, Hulk, Thor, Steve, even me, all dead or close to death from the various weapons that were impaled into everyone, I clutched at my own heart when I saw a spear protruding from my core.

"Tony!" I went to grab his shoulder but my hand went right through him as Steve was whispering something to Tony in his final dying moments before a roar caught my attention and I looked up to see a massive army of Leviathans making their way through the same hole in the sky from the battle in New York toward Earth.

"Kid!" I snapped out of the vision only to see that whatever I had seen wasn't real and had only taken place in the span of a second.

"I-I'm alright... just a headache from all the screen time I've been doing." I felt bad for lying, but they seemed to buy my fib with ease.

"As I was saying," Tony resumed whatever he was saying before, "What if the world was safe? What if, next time aliens roll up to the club-"

"Hey!" I cut in indignantly while crossing my arms and giving Tony an irritated look.

"Bad ones, and they will, they couldn't get past the bouncer?"

"The only people threatening the planet would be people." Bruce finished Tony's thought.

And the few of my kind who are under their control... I thought to myself with bitterness.

"I want to apply this to the Ultron program." Tony pitched his idea to the both of us.

"JARVIS wouldn't be able to download a data schematic of this size without some major refinements to the simultaneous coding and biogenic structures." I supplied after taking a closer look at the structures on my tablet.

"And we can only do that while we have the scepter here. That's three days. Give me three days."

"So you're going for artificial intelligence, and you don't want to tell the team?" Bruce questioned skeptically.

"Right. That's right. You know why? Because we don't have time for a city hall debate. I don't want to hear 'the man was not meant to meddle' medley. I see a suit of armor around the world."

"That seems to be a bit of 'overkill'." I commented mildly.

"Sounds like a cold world, Tony." Bruce admitted.

"I've seen colder. This one, this very vulnerable blue one, it needs Ultron." Tony made his point before walking away, leaving us to think about his next words,

"Peace in our time. Imagine that."

"What do you think?" Bruce asked me as I continued to look over the schematics.

"I believe Ultron is possible, with a lot of work on the coding and creating a structure to support it if we were to take the unit from the gemstone." I informed him based on the facts I pulled up.

"No, I mean, I know it's possible, but should we really be doing this?"

"Oh well..." I rubbed the back of my neck as I considered the question before answering, "The more cautious side of me is saying that we should get approval for a change in global security like this, but another part of me thinks that this could change things for the better."

"Yeah...?"

"With technology like this protecting the planet, you all could... have normal lives and not constantly have to jeopardize them."

"And you?"

"I don't think I could ever fit into normal human societies, no matter how much I try to hide what I am... and maybe if this is possible to accomplish, I could finally fulfill the promise I made to find what family I have left..." I took my pendent out and opened it to gaze at the photos of my sister and best friend. I clicked it shut before I felt Bruce's hand on my shoulder and heard him say,

"Then, let's do it." I smiled in response and we both nodded in determination before going to find Tony.

Three days of endless testing and program simulations later, we still had come up empty on progress and time with the scepter was running out, but Tony insisted we take a break and get ready for the party he would be hosting in the Tower, much to my dismay.

"I'll continue to run variations on the interface. But you should probably prepare for your guests. I'll notify you if there are any developments." JARVIS informed me and Tony since we were the last ones to be leaving the lab.

"Thanks, buddy."

"Enjoy yourself, sir."

"I always do."

"Can't I just stay here and continue monitoring the Ultron progress?" I protested.

"Sorry, but uh no." Tony answered straightforwardly, "You need a break from doing science-y stuff and just have fun."

"Fun?" I questioned with skepticism.

"Look I know you're past attempts at 'fun' have been ruined what with almost revealing your identity at Coney Island-" Tony started to ramble,

"You heard about that?"

"Oh yeah. Getting kidnapped by HYDRA-"

"Technically I wasn't trying to have fun while I was here by myself."

"Still counts. Uhh let's see getting into a full on fight in the middle of sleepy little Oregon."

"How-?"

"You're not the only one bad at keeping secrets."

"Fair enough..."

"So, tonight it'll just be the team, a couple of trusted guests, and a fully secured building that won't allow any threats from the outside in." Tony assured me.

"Ok..." I resigned myself, accepting the fact that I needed to stop being paranoid.

"And if you get bored after an hour at the party, then you can come back and do some dabbling or whatever it is you do when you're by yourself in the lab. Deal?" Tony compromised, which I happily accepted with a nod.

"Good. Well Master Assassin Number One should be helping you get ready so you might wanna hurry before she gets impatient."

"If that's your nickname for Nat, you might want to workshop it a little more." I joked before running off, not stopping as Tony called out,

"Whatever Little Red."

2778 Words

AN- Age of Ultron has officially started! I still have to work on the movie scenes after the party and break-in scene, but I am still doing my best to finish them so I can have at least one chapter done and posted per week either every Friday or sometimes during the weekend.