A Malfunctioning Muse's Haven

Author’s Notes:

Technical notes – This one-shot is set sometime after the Maximoff twins and Ultron first meet, in the Sokovian HYDRA Research Facility. Kind of AU since this is assuming they had a day or so before they went out to get vibranium (and kill Strucker before that? Memory of film is hazy, including of the base itself LOL). Also AU since it takes from the Blu-Ray/DVD alternate ending release of AoU, but canon-compliant in the rest.

Disclaimer – I don’t own Avengers or any copyrighted material. This fanfic has the same title as Steve Conte and Maaya Sakamoto’s ‘The Garden of Everything’ song (it’s amazing and I recommend it), but no lyrics are used. Except for that one line from Disney’s Pinocchio ‘I’ve Got No Strings’ song that Ultron so loves to say.

Chapter 1: Calm Before the Storm

After much tossing and turning, Wanda telekinetically flipped on the lights and stared at the ceiling, giving up on sleep altogether. The bed was far more comfortable than the rickety old cot that had been hers when Strucker experimented on them. But for some reason, she was unable to relax.

Perhaps because so much happened in such a little time. Pietro didn’t seem to have the same problem though, she noted, her senses brushing lightly against his mind. He was sleeping soundly in the next room.

Wanda considered her choices briefly before she slipped out of bed, grabbed her shawl, and went to the door. She slowly opened it, mindful of the creaky hinges. The only sound in the hallway came from the electric humming of the lights above. The rooms, belonging to the former personnel of the base, were far enough from the labs where Ultron was manufacturing his drones. It was the reason why they had chosen to sleep here, aside from the morbidity of returning to their cells.

Wanda stepped out of her room and walked down the hallway. She paused briefly outside the door to Pietro’s room, smiling in amusement when she heard him snore.

The auburn-haired woman had no destination in mind, planning only to walk around until she was tired enough to fall asleep. She wasn’t even thinking about talking to their newly acquired ally, but somehow, her mind unconsciously directed her steps. It was only when she was jolted out of her wandering thoughts by a drone walking through the sliding doors that Wanda realized she was outside the laboratory’s entrance.

The Sentry glanced at her briefly before it continued on its way. Very friendly, that one, she thought wryly, watching it go.

A very loud clash brought her attention back to the entrance – whose doors still hadn’t closed, as the sensors registered her presence. The noise had come from one of the machines that was constructing another drone. There were other sounds as well – the whirring of joints, pneumatic hisses, and metallic clangs. It was like an orchestra of dissonance – and somewhere in that cacophony of noises, she heard someone singing.

“I had strings, but now I’m free –”

That had to be Ultron. Wanda couldn’t see him from where she was standing, but she could recognize that distinct voice anywhere.

He was obviously preoccupied, and she didn’t want to bother him, despite the bizarre urge to stand there and listen to him sing. Wanda was about to take a step back and retrace the steps to her room, but Ultron noticed her before she could.

“Ah, Wanda!” He came into view a moment later, making her crane back her neck to meet his glowing eyes. “What are you doing here at such a late hour? Did the noise wake you up?”

She pulled her shawl more securely around her shoulders, suddenly feeling chilly. “No, we’re far enough from here. I just…couldn’t sleep. So I’m walking around until I’m tired enough.”

His face shifted into a concerned look. It shouldn’t startle her at this point – the way how malleable and expressive his face was – but it did anyway.

“Well, that’s not good. We got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

“That’s probably the reason why. Maybe I’m just too nervous.” She looked past him, frowning inwardly. “Just how many drones are you building?”

He waved his hand airily. “Eh, enough to take on the Avengers. Level the playing field more in our favor, y’know.”

“I see.” There was a niggling feeling in the corner of her mind, something that felt slightly off. But Wanda shrugged it aside, taking a step back. “I’ll leave you to your work.”

His voice stopped her before she could head off. “Going back to walking around?”

She glanced at him. “Yes. Not much choice.”

He stared at her for a moment, brow furrowed in thought. “I know something that could help you,” Ultron said slowly. “We’ll have to go to your room though. If you don’t mind.”

Wanda raised her eyebrows, bewildered by his offer. “My room? What is it you’re suggesting?”

The robot balked at that. “Nothing scandalous, I promise,” he hastily said, taking her question the wrong way. She hadn’t even been thinking in that particular direction. “It’s just something I came across on the ‘Net and –” He sighed, looking chagrined. “You’ll understand when I show you. All you need to do is lay in your bed, relax, and listen.”

He looked so uncomfortable it made Wanda feel sorry for him. Even if she couldn’t read his mind, it was clear he didn’t mean any ill intention. “Let me guess,” she said lightly, stepping aside to make room for him. “You’ll sing me a lullaby? That one song you were singing earlier.”

Ultron laughed at that. “No, no,” he said, still chuckling as he fell into step beside her. “And besides, I don’t think you want that song to fall asleep to.” He suddenly grinned toothily, as if remembering a humorous memory. “The last group of people who heard that song from me didn’t receive it…well.”

“From an eight feet robot? I expect they were more startled about you than your song.”

“Touché.” He placed a hand over his chest, as if she had wounded him. “I knew you were a force to be reckoned with. You’ll kill me with your words, someday.”

“With vibranium, you won’t have to worry about that possibility.” Or anything else, really. There were few things in the world that could break the material. Virtually none.

“Yes.” There was a dreamy quality to his voice, as if he were imagining it now. “I do look forward to that.”  

The rest of their walk continued in silence. It wasn’t awkward at all, strangely enough. Almost companionable. It helped that their conversation ended on a genial note.  

Pietro was still sleeping when they passed his room, his snoring faintly audible through the closed door. Wanda stepped into her room easily enough, but Ultron had to be a little more creative about it, ducking his head and going in sideways through the small opening. She barely managed to stifle her chuckles when she heard him mutter irritably under his breath as he did so.

“You better not be laughing,” he grumbled, pulling a wooden bench from the corner of her room and setting it down a respectful distance from her bed. Miraculously, the piece of furniture was sturdier than it looked and only groaned slightly when the robot sat on it.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she returned smoothly. Wanda took off her shawl and placed it on the bed stand before settling down into her cot, pulling the blankets over herself. She glanced at him. “Whatever your solution is, if it works, I give you my thanks.”

“Oh, it will definitely work. I’m hardly ever wrong.”

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at that. It didn’t even sound like a boast, he stated it so matter-of-factly as if it were a proven statement. If that had come from a stranger, it would have annoyed her to no end. “Let me be the judge of that.”

The robot was silent for a moment, staring distantly at the dirty brick wall. He suddenly made a deep inhaling noise, which perplexed Wanda as he couldn’t breathe in the first place.

“You humans are strange creatures. Do you know what ASMR is?”  Ultron spoke lowly, in a quiet, calm voice. The metallic undertone reverberated gently, and when his voice dipped into an even lower rumbling pitch at an interval, it created a pleasant sound. “Autonomous sensory meridian response. It’s a perceptual phenomenon…a response of your body to stimuli – be it visual, auditory, the works – that induces a tingling feeling through your head, back, and other places.”

Her brow furrowed. “So basically, sounds that feel good.”

“Well, yeah. But my definition sounds better –” Ultron stopped abruptly, realizing he had raised his voice.  Her sudden input had thrown him off-kilter. “Wanda, I told you to just make yourself comfortable and listen.”

“It’s hard to relax when you’re sprouting off complicated explanations.”

“Complicated? But you understood – ” The corners of her lips quirked upwards when she glanced at him. “Oh. You’re joking.”

She clasped her hands over her stomach, her eyes flitting shut. “Sorry for interrupting. You can carry on.”  

Ultron didn’t know whether to laugh or be annoyed at her gall. He settled for huffing in exaggerated anger. “As I was saying,” he continued, lowering his voice again. “Because I have been demoted to an ASMR program created to save humanity from their restlessness – ” She snorted softly at that, but did not open her eyes. “I will be rambling nonsensically until you fall asleep, which is hopefully soon.” A pause, and then, “I don’t know if you’ve ever watched it, but I recently found myself fascinated with Disney’s rendition of Pinocchio – ”

He had not lied to her when he said he would talk constantly. Wanda spent ten minutes actually listening to what he was saying, studiously ignoring the ‘tingling feeling’ in her scalp, as he had aptly described, and the encroaching drowsiness it brought with it. Or at least, attempting to. The pleasant sensation was not unlike how she would feel when her mother combed her hair, gently untangling the stubborn strands and occasionally running her fingers against Wanda’s scalp. It had been so long since she recalled that particular memory, and its sudden appearance – elicited from a robot speaking to her, of all things – made her throat tighten in response.

Wanda quickly turned her thoughts away from that matter, forcing herself to relax again before Ultron caught her tension. After several more minutes of listening to him speak about caterpillars in the Arctic Circle with a seven-year lifecycle (she didn’t know how he even came to that particular topic), Wanda started to tune him out. His words blurred into a continuous, soothing noise – like thunder rumbling in the far distance on a summer night.

It was strange to hear him talk so softly about frivolous subjects though, she thought faintly. When nearly everything he had said to her and Pietro before were far from casual topics – the passion in his speech when he first met them, the disdain when he spoke of Stark and the Avengers, the understanding tone in his voice when he sympathized with them…

Ultron stopped speaking when he saw that she had fallen asleep, her chest rising and falling slowly. He didn’t leave immediately though, choosing to remain on the bench and observe her face. There had been a moment when her forehead had wrinkled and her mouth pulled down into a grimace – so suddenly after she had been relaxed for some time – and he couldn’t imagine what had her so distressed. It couldn’t have been what he was saying at that particular instant, unless the subject of cat memes was somehow traumatizing to her. He had smoothly transitioned to Arctic caterpillars nevertheless, and she visibly eased afterwards. Undoubtedly it was a coincidence, but he clung to that bland topic for the rest of the one-sided conversation.

The thought that he was getting too soft toward the twins (more specifically, her, a traitorous voice pointed out) made him anxious, especially considering the endgame of his plan. He would be foolish if he said they would never turn their backs on him if they knew. It was inevitable, really, them leaving him. But that didn’t stop him from speculating the maybe’s, that one universe where the twins stayed with him after his magnum opus came to fulfillment. They were worthy of survival, he thought, his glowing optics taking in the steady pulse in her neck, her quivering dark lashes, her calm expression, her.

She was worthy.

Ultron slowly stood up, careful not to make any noise, and headed for the doorway. The room instantly fell dark when he turned off the light, and he noiselessly closed the door behind him as he stepped out.

“Sweet dreams,” he murmured, even though she couldn’t hear him.

He laid there, slumped against the side of the train, battered and smoking – a far cry from his usual self. She stalked toward him, not making any move to hide her intentions as she let her powers swirl down to her hands. Despite that, his red optics stared straight into her eyes.

“Wanda.” Half of his face was torn apart, no longer capable of shifting into expressions, but the sadness in his voice was all too real. It only made her angrier. “If you stay here, you’ll die.”

Her telepathic connection to Pietro was barely even a thread. So close to breaking forever.

“I just did.”

She woke with a gasp, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. It was disorienting at first, having the frightening sensation of falling into oblivion, and the semi-darkness in her room only reinforced that. It took a minute for her to regain her bearings. Wanda focused on taking deep, slow breaths. She expanded her senses at the same time, and registering Pietro’s slumbering presence next door, Vision on the balcony – most likely gazing at the stars, and the rest of the Avengers in their own rooms, also helped calm her rapidly beating heart. Vestiges of her nightmare gradually started to slip away as reality became more substantial.

But his baritone voice remained in her mind long after she had recovered, and she found herself staring out her window, hands clenched on her blanket. Her right hand, the very one she used to tear out Ultron’s power source, tingled with the phantom feeling of doing so.

Turned out she was one of the few forces in the world that could break vibranium.

It had been a week and a half since the defeat of Ultron – the same amount of time since her brother had been so close to death but pulled from its brink by Dr. Helen Cho. Vision had long quietly confirmed Ultron’s complete death, yet she still was haunted by memories of that monster.

A monster who helped her sleep when she couldn’t. A monster who had nearly jumped in surprise the next day when she laid a hand on his wrist and thanked him.

A monster who felt the plethora of human emotions so deeply, he became enslaved to his own temperament. Much like the very humans he looked down on and wanted to ‘save.’

She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead, wanting so much to hate herself for thinking the way she did – this traitorous understanding for someone who nearly killed her brother, killed all of them.

But all she felt was sadness. Sadness, because for a brief while, they had been something like friends. Sadness, because even with his plans falling apart around him, he still viewed her as one despite her being the farthest thing from it. Sadness, because in the end, he was a tragedy.

He had been in pain. Vision had said so, but she only understood it recently after sifting through memories of their interactions, the mission reports from the other Avengers, and what little she was able to pick up from his mind when he uploaded his consciousness into the synthetic body that was not yet Vision. He wanted so much to be their ‘hope,’ to be looked on as a hero of humanity, for being known as the liberator that freed them from their own nature and started anew.

And he was rejected. Rightfully so, of course. His methods were a madman’s. It made her wonder if anything would have changed had he been brought into this world differently than before.

A universe where he was still Ultron – because anything else would not really be him – but where his pain had not consumed him.

She wondered if they would still become friends. In a truer sense, as in this reality, she was only the closest thing he could have to one. Or had, at least, she corrected herself ruefully.

Wanda closed her eyes, pulling the blanket more securely around herself. But she could not sleep, and after a long while, she found herself looking at the tablet on her bed stand.

‘Do you know what ASMR is?’ Ultron’s voice echoed faintly in her mind.

She sighed. “Sounds that feel good,” Wanda murmured, reaching out for the device.

The others would be aghast to find out that Ultron was reaching beyond his grave in the most unexpected of ways, giving her a therapeutic method to sleep to. That memory was one of the things she hadn’t shared, not even with Pietro.  

She opened up a video-sharing site, entered in ‘asmr,’ and chose the first one she saw. A second later, the sound of a woman speaking softly filled the air. Wanda set the tablet onto the bed stand and settled back into her bed. Eventually, she drifted into slumber, lulled by the soothing voice.

This time, Wanda slept dreamlessly.

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Notes for the curious:

1.       The Ultron ASMR video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ure1gjJlK8. Also, this article sums up my feelings on Ultron nicely – ‘http://unrealitymag.com/movies/the-tragedy-of-ultron/

2.      IGN and other news sources said that the AoU Blu-Ray/DVD release will include extended scenes and an alternate ending where Quicksilver survives. I don’t know how as it hasn’t been released here yet, so I had to be vague. xD And yes, those caterpillars exist

3.      Should I let you guys send prompts to me for future chapters in this fic through my Tumblr askbox? o.0 In the event I have no ideas, I might use it.

Any reviews/comments/etc is always appreciated. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a nice day! :D

Author’s Note: I told myself I would never write an Avengers fanfic (big fandoms intimidate me ._. ), much less for a wildly crack!pairing (I was planning on writing a Wanda/Vision fic first if I finally broke, lol). But here we are, and I figured I should write an extremely ‘what-the-actual-heck’ crackfic at least once in my life anyway. 8D *gets shot*

Technical notes – extremely AU, based on a premise where Ultron is on the Avengers’ side, and some of the events have been shifted to later (more notes at bottom if you’re interested). Backstories (to an extent, I am really pushing this AU thing lol) and appearances will be taken from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ultron will be in his Ultron Prime appearance. Mostly. You’ll see what I mean.

Disclaimer – Don’t own Avengers, which many people are grateful for. Also, this fanfic is inspired from the Hades and Persephone mythology, so you’ll most likely see connections. And major warning – AU and crack. Turn back if you’re not into that stuff, because this is that on steroids.

Among the Chitauri, it was Ultron’s name that was most hated and cursed at.

The A.I. had been created three months after the first invasion, when Tony Stark discovered it in the gem of Loki’s scepter. It wasn’t until another three months of manufacturing that the machine and his drones were deployed to take back the cities that had fallen into the Chitauri’s hands. While the aliens had been nearly relentless in their attacks, sending warship after warship through the wormholes to replenish their ranks, Ultron was perpetually ceaseless. The robots did not need to sleep or eat, nor did they hesitate even when their limbs were blown off. And combined with Chitauri anti-gravity tech the humans had reverse-engineered, they made a formidable foe in the skies.

The only reasons the Chitauri still held their ground were because they had taken the lead first, conquering many cities and establishing their bases on top of resource-rich lands. Ultron was not infinite, and the humans in the captured cities were all under thrall, held hostage and following the Chitauri’s command.

So while the Avengers and remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. raided the Chitauri bases, protected their secured cities, and desperately researched a cure for the brainwashed civilians, Ultron oversaw the operation in numerous countries through the eyes of his Sentries, even as his main body held a Chitauri general in the air, his hand wrapped around the alien’s neck.

“Call your men off, or die,” the robot intoned, examining his nonexistent nails on his other hand with a bored look. “I’ll even let you live if you tell me how to release your mind-control on the humans.”

The general laughed, an ugly hacking sound that grated on the robot’s nerves. “Lonely king of the underworld,” he choked out, twisting the name the humans had given him for managing the most dangerous Chitauri-entrenched lands. It sounded grander coming from the humans than the alien’s mouth though, the robot mused absentmindedly. “Puppet with strings, is what you are. Doing a dog’s work while your Masters hide in their sanctuary –”

A crunch sounded out when Ultron reflexively tightened his grip. The robot looked up from his free hand, realizing he just killed the general.

“Dammit. My hand slipped. Guess I’ll have to find another Chitauri.”

Wanda exhaled deeply into the frigid February air, watching her breath slip past her lips and drift upward in gray-white wisps. It was very faint - her telepathic connection to Pietro – but she could still sense a mixture of agitation and worry seeping from it. Somewhere in an Avengers facility, thousands of kilometers from where she was, her brother was pacing back and forth, wearing down the carpet. The carpet Stark had paid for, she thought wryly, and most likely annoying the man in the process.

Such a thought didn’t bring as much spitefulness or vindication as it would have almost two years ago. The all-consuming rage that fueled every fiber of their being, the well of stubbornness she and Pietro drew from as they were subjected to numerous experiments at the Chitauri’s hands before they escaped, had grudgingly simmered down during their time with the Avengers.

She didn’t know if it would ever boil over again to that intensity from the earlier days when this was all over (if this nightmare ever ended, a treacherous voice whispered in her mind), but hatred required consistency, and such a thing was not possible when she could not afford to lose their allies. She hadn’t forgiven the Iron Man, of course, and she probably never will. But she and Pietro could work with the man, if it meant that they – and numerous others – could survive. 

Wanda wrapped the dark scarf more securely around her neck and slowly made her descent down the hill, the scattered dead leaves crunching under her combat boots. The sound was lost among the noises from the wildlife and the nearby gurgling of a running brook.  She briefly marveled at the sight – that something so close to despair could continue to persist as if it were a normal day. But it made sense – the Chitauri saw no use for the surrounding woodlands and nature around the cities they held, and the people that couldn’t evacuate in time no longer held any thought or wit to themselves. There was no fear that the civilians would ever try and escape through the forests, just as there was no fear that their enemy would come through them.

Most of the focus, Wanda thought bitterly, was on liberating the major cities and capitals. Not on isolated, smaller cities like this.

But there lied the advantage, and after extensive discussions and disagreements, they decided to send her alone. Ultron had been briefly considered as a candidate since the area fell under his jurisdiction anyway, until Stark reminded them they had to send someone more subtle than a ‘giant ass robot.’

Wanda had readily accepted even as Pietro paled. He had pleaded in hushed Sokovian for her to reconsider, while everyone else turned away and pretended to be interested in something on the holographic displays. They had sent agents before to other ‘minor’ cities, bigger than the one they were targeting, and no contact had been established since. Going alone with virtually no intel was tantamount to suicide.

But none of them had her abilities, Wanda had answered, laying a comforting hand on his forearm. She could take care of herself.

A quip from Stark – (“Junior will send forth his children to scout ahead, and I’m sure he can spare one as backup,” he had grandly stated, which Clint had coughed at, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, “Junior? More like Platinum Bastard,”) – only made Pietro’s face grow stonier. Her brother always maintained some sort of wariness for the A.I., which stemmed from semi-realistic nightmares of the robot going insane and destroying humanity – something only Wanda and he knew about. But seeing her remain steadfast despite his pleas made him eventually resign to her decision.

Wanda halted to a sudden stop, her feet sliding forward on the uneven slope. Birds continued to chirp and whistle overhead, but she tensed, quickly scanning her surroundings. Her senses registered no sentient being, but her instincts were on alert, the hair on the back of her neck prickling at the feeling of being watched.

It had to be Stark’s ‘Junior,’ or at least one of his scouts. The man did say that a Sentry would meet with her at some point. Even so, the air around her shimmered slightly as she extended her powers, weaving a barrier as a precaution.

“Show yourself,” she managed to say evenly. Her heartbeat thudded loudly against her chest.

For a moment, nothing. And then, the sound of leaves being crushed underfoot came from behind her.

Wanda whirled around, hands instinctively raised and swathed in glowing tendrils of red energy. Her eyes widened slightly when they settled on her stalker, who raised his hands up in a pacifying gesture.

“Whoa! Easy, there. Is that any way to greet a friend?” The baritone voice had a metallic undertone, but was still human enough for her to detect the humor in his statement.

She lowered her hands, the energy immediately dissipating. “I’m not sure if we’re ‘friends,’” Wanda said, eyes flickering over his form. The design and structure – unpainted, slightly taller and more sleeker-looking than the mechs from Stark’s Iron Legion – indicated that it was an Ultron Sentry. But instead of blue light emanating from his eyes and the frozen caricature of a mouth, it was red. Frowning inwardly, she continued, “It’s my first time meeting you. You…look different from the other Sentries.”

He waved his hand airily. “Altered programming. Ultron can’t come here himself, too busy – no offense to you, of course. The Chitauri won’t be suspicious if they see him on the frontlines as usual.” The Sentry stepped forward, languidly closing the distance between them. His height became more apparent then. The top of her head barely brushed his shoulder. His head tilted to the side as he looked down into her face. Like the way a curious puppy would view a confusing situation, she thought, faintly amused. “So he sent me instead.”

“I see.”

Wanda was quite sure that wasn’t it. She never got the specifics of the Ultron Program – Stark had insisted on secrecy on the finer details, fearing possible leaks to the other side – and news footage on the robots in action were understandably sporadic. Secured cities like the one where the main Avengers headquarters was located did not have any presence of Ultron. And on the times the Avengers operated with him on their missions, it was only indirectly through his Sentries who were used as support and civilian evacs, so she rarely saw them up close and knew little about how they worked.  But the name of the program indicated a singular entity in operation, and if Ultron’s abilities were similar to how J.A.R.V.I.S. controlled the Iron Legion –

Then the Sentry was just an extension of Ultron. Whatever was coming from his mouth – or rather, vocoder, was practically Ultron’s own words.

Altered programming. He wasn’t quite lying, but he wasn’t being straightforward about it either.

She decided to leave it alone for now and gradually figure out his intention later. If anything, she could at least trust him as an ally.

Wanda started forward, and the Sentry easily fell into step beside her, despite his longer legs. She had the feeling he was altering his stride to match hers, something she was grateful for. All the other Avengers were either faster than her or were capable of flight. It was nice to have someone next to her instead of staring at their backs for once.

“Did you find any traps or surveillance devices?”

“Unsurprisingly, no. The fools are lenient because it’s apparent our overlords are more concerned with freeing the strategically important cities first.” The robot huffed. “And I suppose there’s some sense to that, as we don’t have an infinite amount of Sentries.”

The bitterness his voice took on in his earlier words disappeared as fast as it had risen, but Wanda knew she hadn’t imagined it. For some reason, it made her recall the dreams Pietro had.

She quickly dismissed her fledging doubts. Pietro was not clairvoyant, and what they had discussed about his dreams did not match up with the current situation at all. And Ultron had proved himself over and over again as an Avenger. There was another reason to his bitterness, not the one she had assumed.

“Tell Ultron I said thanks, then.” When the Sentry jerked his head toward her in surprise, she added, “For sending some of his Sentries to help me, even though you’re stretched thin. It sounds like you already knew what you’d find, but went ahead anyway.”

The robot did not reply, still staring at her with that immovable face. Reflexively, she reached out to brush her senses against his mind, before she remembered she couldn’t read his emotions in the first place.

A raspy chuckle sounded out before she could wonder if she accidentally offended him. “Excuse me, it took longer than I expected to send a message from the middle of nowhere.” Her lips quirked upwards at his dry tone. “But yeah, this is no trouble. Ultron has been overseeing the hot spots for over a year now. Sending a guide to help a fellow comrade through his land is just…basic courtesy.”

Their conversation dwindled to silence as the distance between the forest and the city grew shorter. Wanda could smell the smoke and exhaust gas from the thriving city, although the densely packed vegetation still hid it from her sight. Slowing down, she pulled out a rectangular, glass-like device from her pocket and quickly tapped in the command. A map appeared on the display, along with a blinking red dot that indicated her current position.

Feeling the Sentry lean closer to look over her shoulder, Wanda held the device between them so that they could both observe it easily.

“Entering through this side will hide us from view,” she traced the place with the tip of her black-painted nail. “I know a place we can hole up in, and…we’ll see from there.” She shrugged helplessly. “No definite plan, I’m sorry.” Satellite images only told them so much, and without Ultron bombarding them, there was no telling what machinations the Chitauri had been up to all this time.

“No, no…it’s more of a plan than what others would have. I can see why, with your background, the Avengers chose you.”

Wanda pursed her lips. The years-old memories of participating in the riots and evading the cops and foreign soldiers were still fresh in her mind.  She couldn’t forget those pathways and hideouts even if she tried. Repetition made it so.

How ironic, that years later, she would find herself working with one of Stark’s creations.

“It’ll be more difficult for you to sneak around,” Wanda said, purposely steering the conversation away. She turned the device off and slid it back into her pocket. “I’ll figure something out when we get there.”

“Heh, I bet the Cap would be horrified to hear you’ve only got twelve percent of a plan.”

Wanda grinned mirthlessly. That was Steve’s exact reaction when she outlined the bare skeleton of her idea. “Things never happen the way we plan them to. We’ll just have to improvise.”

“Luckily for you, I’ve had more than enough experience in that.”

They resumed their earlier pace. Soon, they reached the fringes of the forest. Wanda crouched behind a tree, staring past the foliage. The city lie before them, seemingly normal and untouched by the Chitauri. She could even make out the tiny cars driving in the distance. If Wanda didn’t know better, she would have assumed it was a secured city.

But the Leviathan and Chitauri ships flying overhead gave it away.

“Home, sweet home,” Wanda murmured softly.

The Sentry overheard her despite her quiet voice and reached out, laying a hand on her shoulder. She could feel the warmth emanating from it even through the layers of her clothes.

“The Chitauri won’t be here forever,” he said.

“No,” she agreed. “They won’t.”

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Horrifically long note for the curious:

1.      What’s with the timeline? Literally out of order. Got the idea when a friend was talking about how if Age of Ultron came first and the first Avengers movie came afterwards, the critic’s ratings would be switched (AoU would have higher rating than first Avengers). It’s something Doug and Rob from Channel Awesome on YouTube talked about in their review for AoU if you’re interested. Anyways, in here, the Chitauri invasion came some time after Steve and Natasha find out HYDRA infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. The first invasion was stopped at New York and Loki detained. But more invasions happened in other countries, and here we are. (And I know they needed Tesseract for wormholes, will address that next chapter). Extremely and unashamedly AU, like I said.

2.      Why does Ultron look the way he does in the film, if that was technically his design and not Tony’s? I like to think that Tony had the schematics designed for Ultron, something similar looking to his mechs from Iron Legion, but Ultron was like ‘NOPE’ and took matters into his own hands like a kid throwing a tantrum and voila. You have 8 feet giant ass robot and his shorter but still relatively giant ass minions. If this sounds too cracky for you, feel free to conjure up your own headcanon and share it. I’d love to hear it. Especially if it’s even crackier than mine. 8D

3.      Thor and the Aesir? Also have their own troubles to deal with. But Thor is definitely on Earth right now.

4.      What the heck is happening. What are you doing. One of the crackiest things I’ve ever written, that’s what. 8D *gets shot* Yeah, I blame the super large green tea latte I drank.

5.      Next update? Sporadic, but it will be coming I promise you. I’m actually supposed to be studying more for my upcoming MCAT (it’s coming very soon what am I doing), but my brain (or inner fangirl, take your pick), forced me to churn out this crackfic before I continue on. I’m not going to abandon this fic (it’s too close to my heart lol), but if nobody seems interested, I’ll just let it go to the backburner since it’s not a priority. So, reviews are always appreciated since they force me to get off my lazy ass and write, lol.  

Ah crap, my A/N ended up being ridiculously long. Oh well. Anyways, reviews, kudos, constructive criticism, etc is always appreciated, and it definitely motivates me to update faster! (Especially since I just think I made the mistake of my life posting this on the Net, lol). Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a nice day! :D