My body tenses up as I'm faced with the second door. I'm not about to breakdown so Sterns can see but I don't know how much more I can take. At the same time, I have to make sure that the locals are okay so I have to play along with this sick and twisted game.

I step inside and shiver from the sudden cold that hits me. The room is so cold I can see my own breath.

"Cold isn't it? It's similar to death."

I know that voice all too well. After all, how could I not know my own mother's voice? I turn around with a stony expression. It's my dead mother. "Wow. Sterns makes a damn good LMD."

"Am I? Or could it be that he actually brought me back? He is a genius after all."

I scoff, "Yeah, right. Resurrection?"

"Agent Coulson managed to pull it off."

I take a few steps closer to her, almost in a taunting manner. "You're not my mother. Even if you were, I made peace with what you did to me a long time ago."

"You think you can forget me just because you found your dad? Because you hang out with righteous idiots? Have you truly forgotten all I've taught you?"

I clench my fist briefly and take a deep breath, " I'm not gonna do this with a robot. I still have a little dignity left."

"Oh, how I miss the days when all you'd ever do was sit around. Children are made small so-"

"You can't see or hear them," I finish.

She smiles sickeningly, "It seems I did teach you something after all."

"You didn't. The insane people who raised me brainwashed me into believing crap like that. Thankfully, I know better now."

"It's nice to you let yourself think that. Deep cover does tend to mess with the mind. But you've managed to complete your mission nonetheless."

"What are you talking about?"

She chuckles, "Splitting the Avengers, of course. You did it wonderfully. Gained their trust so you could take all they had away."

"Stop it."

"This may be the best torture we ever invented. You actually believe that you're one of them. You actually believe that you're anything more than what we made you."

I break my eye contact with her, "You're lying."

"It's just a shame Zemo couldn't finish the job. That would've left them beyond repair. Your job would've truly been complete." I shake my head silently. She continues to taunt me. "Go ahead and cry. No one does it quite like you. You were only a distraction so that we could finally take those 'Avengers' down. That's all you are. A distraction."

"My mother manipulated me for years. I won't let you do the same."

"Worthless," She spits out. "You are just a worthless little-

"You're not my mother. You don't have her way with words, " Light wraps around her body, lifting her up in the air. "She was a horrendous monster."

The body begins to spark electricity as the light is wound even tighter. "But she gave birth to a bigger one."

The body falls to the ground, writhing. It still tries to speak to me, "Y-you'll....nev-never... be....an-an... Avenger."

I kneel down to her face level, "I'll settle for being rid of you."

The body dies out, growing still. Sterns really captured all her features but he could never capture who she really was. She scarred me so much, the simple thought of her would be enough to give me nightmares for days. But at some point, I just stopped thinking of her.

"You broke my toy. That's not nice." Sterns tells me over the speaker.

"Why are you doing this? What's your plan?"

"Don't worry you'll be too dead to stop me." The door swings shut. Water starts to fill the room rapidly.

I make two light daggers and attempt to slice through the door to no avail. The water is up to my knees already. The lights flicker off just as I'm about to light-speed travel. Sterns really thought of everything.

Come on, Emily. You can do this. Just think. My eyes switch into night-vision mode and I scan the room for a possible exit. I wade through the water, following the walls. I shiver as another cold breeze hits me.

That's it. In the right corner of the room, there's a vent. My clothes are thoroughly soaked by the time I manage to reach where the vent is. The water is by my waist at this point. I drop down below the water and tug on the vent. It won't budge no matter how hard I pull.

My head pops back up above the water taking a quick breath before going back under. I grasp for a small knife in my pocket and use it to unscrew the screws. After a few more quick breaths, I get the vent unscrewed only to find a brick wall. I grunt angrily and swim back up. There's not much space left between the wall and the water. Time is running out.

Think. THINK! I'm not dying this way. I've gone through far too much to die in such a cliche trap. I duck back under the water and swim to the door again, banging on it. I twist the handle and it cracks open. I push it open fully, letting the water out of the room. I allow it to carry me with it, landing me on the floor coughing. I stand up slowly being careful not slip. My feet trudge towards the door, water dripping behind me.  I push the door open, hoping I can just get out of here.

An explosion goes off in the distance. My hand flies to cover my mouth as I watch as the fire begins to spread through the town. The worst part? I hear people screaming.

I sprint as fast as I can toward the town, to see it overrun with androids. I press my earpiece, "Rick? You there?"

"We lost connection temporarily. What's going on?"

"Robots are attacking the townspeople." One charges at me. I flip it up in the air and stab it with a stick of light. "They're pretty weak compared to Ultron. I think I can manage but we'll need first aid."

"Got it."

A robot corners a man with long dirty brown hair in sandals. He tries to hit but it only makes it angrier. It prepares to blast him when I make a lasso of light to pull the bot away and slam it into another.

I help the man up, "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, I'm fine... "He squints at me. "I'm Leonard Samson."

"Do you need a babysitter or are you good to go? I'm sure there's a house somewhere with a nice and cozy basement you can crawl into."

"I-"

I pull my gun out and shoot a robot that was sneaking up behind him.  Headshot. Just like Natasha taught me. I hand the gun to him. "You can do what you want with this. Protect yourself or protect others."

He takes off. I look around. A bunch of robots break a window and storm a building with a sign out front, Law offices of Goodman, Lieber, Walters, & Holliway.

I run inside the building. "Hello? Is anyone in here?"

Someone pulls me into the nearest room and shuts the door. "SH! Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

I turn and face a woman with curly brown hair. "You need to get out of here. It's not safe."

"You were the one broadcasting our location," she fires back.

"Our?" I question. "Are there other people here? We have to move-"

"Just come with me," She opens a trapdoor that has a staircase leading down into darkness. We walk down the stairs and she flips a switch, illuminating the room. There's a ton of people down here. I can feel the fear radiating from them. Their auras are so dim, I can barely even see them. The woman turns to me. "Five hours ago, everyone went inside their homes and couldn't move an inch. No one could even speak. When we could finally move, our town got attacked. We got as many people as possible here."

I look at all the people cramped up in here. This is my fault. There's a loud boom from upstairs causing dust to trickle down. A man with a buzzcut and a dusty rose aura steps forward. "I  can  lead them away from here."

"Walter, you'll get yourself killed."

"You and I both know that's not true," He protests.

I look in between them confused before speaking up, "I'll deal with it. If you two want to keep doing whatever this is."

"Absolutely not," She tells me. She pinches the bridge of her nose, "Why is everyone so eager to get themselves killed?"

I shrug, "It's just that kind of day."

She looks at me strangely, "Have we met?"

"If you really want to go out there, I can't be watching you. You'll have to take care of yourself," the man warns.

"Right back at you," I pat him on the back and climb up the stairs. I hear his heavy footsteps following behind me. Rolling my eyes, we reach the room I was just in. Now the entire building seems to be swarmed with robots. "I'm Emily, by the way."

"Walter Langowski," he tells me.

"Are you sure you can handle this, Walter?" I ask while forming a plan in my head.

"I'm almost insulted," he jokes.

"Not a time for jokes. We have a job to do."

"You remind me of someone I used to know. He was my old college friend. A real stick in the-"

I cut him off with a sharp glare. "You lead them away from the building. I'll sweep for stragglers. Once the building is secured I'll join up with you but you need to stay alive until then. Can you do that?"

"Good plan but are you sure you can do this? No offense but you're a very small person."

"No offense but you're a moron," I mock.

He puts his hands up in defense, "Got it."

"On my signal," I tell him, turning back to watch the robots. As soon as there are multiple in the hallway I nod for him to go.

He steps out, straightening his shirt. "Hey! There's this great part shop down the street! Wanna check it out?"

He starts running out the door and the robots fall after him. I slip out of the room as soon as they're out of sight. I head straight up to the roof, looking over the town. There's no sign of Sterns. Only chaos and disaster. Most importantly I have to find a way to shut down these robots. These aren't exactly like the Ultron bots in Sokovia. Those were all him. These ones seem to have one command, attack anything in sight. There has to be some kind of signal going out. I spot a huge satellite on top of a radio station. That has to be it. Shut that off and hopefully, the robots will follow. I look over to the nearest building. I back up to get a running start. I leap off the building and land on the next roof. A smile crawls onto my face, I missed this.

I jump onto building after building. I come across where a furry figure with a dusty rose outline is fighting off robots. My jaw drops slightly, it's Walter. I can practically feel gamma radiating off of him.

A laser beam from behind almost knocks me off the roof. Turning around, I encompass the robot in light and throw it off the side. I have to focus, I can deal with Walter later. I continue onto the radios shack, landing a building away. It's surrounded by robots. I sigh, making a bo staff of light. I jump down and start attacking. Light tears apart the nearest robot to pieces, drawing the other's attention to me. Both of my hands start glowing as they get nearer. I get into a defensive position, ready to fight. The robots all shut down at once. My eyebrows furrow, looking up at the satellite which is now powered off. A light board forms under me and I fly up to the roof.

"Well, this is a hot mess." A blonde- haired Natasha stands with her hands on her hips. A small Quinjet is behind her.

"I know," I admit, letting my defensive mode down.

She gestures to my soaked outfit, "You're wet."

"You're blonde," I smile pulling her into a hug. "And you look great."

"Thanks. It's something I'm trying out. You look great too. Wanna explain what's going on here?"

I cringe inwardly, shifting my weight, "I'm handling it, Nat. You don't have to worry."

"I can't help but worry when a small town gets attacked by robot and you are fighting all by yourself."

"You know I can handle myself."

"Not like this. Not when you're not using your full potential."

"I'm not going to hulk out," I back away, "I-I can't. I just can't. If I lose control, who knows what would happen, it's too dangerous. You have no idea how badly that could go."

"You've been holding back since the moment you left your old life behind. You never use your full potential."

I shake my head, "If I do that, people could get seriously hurt. I can't lose control like that."

"Then don't lose control. It's not one or the other. You can reach your full potential and still be in control. Just because it's hard for your father doesn't mean you can't. You've spent the majority of your life practicing control while having no control at the same time. Now, you can have both."

"I'm not that strong. I pretend to be, but I'm not. I'm not like you," My arms cross, looking down. "I can't just shake things off as easily as you do."

"I don't. There's a time and a place to deal with baggage and this is not it. Whatever Sterns said or did, will be a lot easier to deal with once he's dealt with. It's fine to move on and grow, but you need to remember who you once were. You can't erase your past. You know that."

"So I'm just supposed to go back to being who I was?"

"I'm not saying that. But you can't be scared of her. She's apart of you. Her skills are your skills. Except now you can choose how you use them."

"Romanoff, Ross is on his way. We need to bounce," Sam shouts, poking his head out of the Quinjet. He gives me a small wave, "Hey, green bean."

Natasha nods, "Give him hell."

I smirk, "I'll do worse."

"That's my girl. Oh and Emily?" She shoots me a sly smile, "Get with the kid. He obviously adores you and you have completely fallen for him."

"We're just friends, Natasha," I protest.

She laughs as she walks into the Quinjet, "No, you're not but I guess you'll have to figure that out yourself."