Fic: The Altar of Human Sacrifice Chap. 9, R

[tresmaxwell.livejournal.com]

Rating: R - Violence
Characters/Pairings: Steve/Tony, and everybody else.
Universe: Movie

A/N: So. It's finally done. This is by far the longest chapter I've ever, ever written. It's over 9,000 words, which is longer than a lot of STORIES I've written. Those who demanded Steve and Tony be part of this chapter, here you go. A lot of this was going to be part of the next chapter, so it's going to be getting a major overhaul as well. I hope everyone is satisfied with the changes. Thank you to all of you who told me to stay true to my original vision. None of Annika's POV has been altered because I was trying to do just that.

Previous Chapter - Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine - Babysitting for Rookies

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Annika was bored. Dr. Banner knew a lot of fascinating things, but he was very dry. She found herself swinging her feet, her attention wandering away while he droned. If her Daddy was explaining it, he'd be animated and fun and ask her questions to see if she understood, but he'd put on the new MARK and left to help Papa.

They were in Dr. Banner's lab, Annika perched on a stool similar to the one Tony kept in the workshop. One of the doctor's current experiments covered the tables all along the wall. Dozens of test tubes and colorful Petri dishes drew her eye like a flock of butterflies. She wanted to play with them, but knew she shouldn't.

Biology and all the related 'messy' sciences were interesting, they just couldn't hold her attention the way something mechanical could. Annika was a little sad Daddy's new suit was complete because it was something she could tinker with for days on end. The new MARK responded differently than the metal suits. It had unique electrical distribution, allowing it to communicate on a higher level than the others did. Annika hoped it came back whole so she could get to know it better.

Annika looked over at the experiment again while Bruce talked about the regeneration rate of human cells, "Dr. Banner, why do you keep trying to take your power away when it helps you save people?"

The doctor lifted his head, his gaze darting across her, then to the floor. He took off his glasses and fiddled with the nosepiece as if he was trying to fix them, though Annika could tell he wasn't actually doing anything, "The other guy... doesn't always help people. Sometimes he hurts innocent bystanders. I can't control him."

"Daddy says you could learn. He says you're afraid to try," Annika piped up, pleased to share her Daddy's wisdom.

For a moment, the only sound was the whir and click of Dr. Banner's instruments. One of the steel-front refrigerators switched on, humming loudly. The mechanical arm shifting samples around in the mass spectrometer made a distinctive whine that meant it needed grease on the rail system. Annika looked at that rather than the doctor's perturbed stare.

"Your Daddy isn't always right," Banner said as he set his glasses on the counter with the collection of Petri dishes.

"Statistically, he's right ninety four point six percent of the time."

Banner's bushy caterpillar eyebrows crawled up his forehead, "Where are you getting your data?"

Annika kicked her feet, the heel of her saddle shoe clacking against the metal leg of the stool, "Careful scrutiny and extruded conclusions based on my observations." She stumbled over some of the bigger words, but pronounced them correctly once she'd worked through them.

"Have you considered that your observations are skewed by personal involvement?"

Annika let out a huff of air, "Of course I have, but I started my research before I was calling him Daddy. Plus, I've already corrected for potential bias."

The mass spec's deteriorating state concerned Annika. It limped through its procedures, each movement a struggle. She knew Dr. Banner was a superior scientist in the field of nuclear physics, but he was no mechanical engineer. She was considering saying something when Banner motioned at the dry-erase board and his lesson, "Are you remotely interested in this?" At her sheepish smile, he sighed, "What do you want to do?"

"Jarvis recorded a special for me about the history of artificial intelligence."

Shaking his head slowly, Banner erased the board and muttered, "Starks and machines…"

"Come on," she pulled at his hand by the index and middle finger until he put the eraser down and followed.

Outside the lab, Annika felt the void of the tower. Without her Daddy, the computers were silent, idling as they awaited his return. Normally, the penthouse was an orchestra of charged circuits all singing in perfect unison as they processed and transferred data. At the moment, Jarvis was the only voice in the tower, his servers reassurance that the silence wouldn't last. He responded at her touch. Coils of self-aware coding greeted her in a glimmer of ones and zeros too fast for most humans to comprehend.

Annika stretched her senses into the tower, her mind traveling the wires as a terabyte of data. She brushed over the computers in her Daddy's workshop and the screens flickered in her passing. His most recent work with the MARK S flared on the holographic projectors. Annika breathed in the blue wireframes. The colors brightened along the contours of the digital faceplate as she flipped the image and reexamined the equations. Blue light illuminated the nearby workstations, casting long shadows that Dummy tried to chase.

With her mind absent, her body stopped walking, her physical eyes distant and unseeing. Her mouth moved with words she spoke into the heart of the machine, "Bring him back. Keep him safe."

Buried so deeply in the tower's system, Annika flinched at the scream of the security breach. She slammed out of the computer so quickly her body tumbled backwards. Her heels caught on the smooth floor and she fell. Banner caught her by the arm, lifting her upright.

"Annika? Annika, what's wrong?"

The doctor took her face in both hands, kneeling to her level. She could feel the 'other' push against his control. Oddly, she found she wasn't frightened, only comforted. A dozen power signatures cropped up in the tower. Annika's eyes went wide, the whites showing all around the iris. She met Banner's gaze and saw worry and something else, something intense.

"They're inside," she whispered.

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Grinning behind his helmet at Steve's shock, Tony turned off the EMP that was hampering the quarry's generators. The stadium lights hummed and flickered as they heated up. The light ghosted over his slick, black armor, giving definition to his shadowed form. Unlike the metal armor, it seemed to absorb the light, something Tony took into account when he decided to give the suit a stealth treatment.

There was a cover for the arc port and a filter to cut out the glow from the eyes when Tony wanted to disappear. True stealth necessitated that he cut the power to the repulsors a mile or more from his target, so he'd installed retractable fins that allowed him to glide. While it certainly wasn't as powerful as the gold-titanium, the graphene could deflect bullets and blows once he added the sub-layer of Liquid Armor to absorb impact. The trade-off was the close nature of the armor; it conformed to his skin almost like latex, bulked up on his back, shoulders, and lower arms to accommodate his new weapons.

Steve stared. A lot. Tony smiled wider as the soldier reached his free hand out to feel the lines of Tony's stomach. "What is it?" he asked, his gloved index finger trailing from the dip where Tony's bellybutton would be all the way up to the arc. Tony bit back his sigh of relief when Steve didn't notice the change in the reactor. He would soon enough, but Tony might be able to avoid that conversation for a little while.

"Graphene and Liquid Armor, two things I did not invent, but I was the first one to put them together cohesively," Tony told him.

"There's no metal in it anywhere?"

"Not a scrap."

Steve's eyes drifted to the arc as he framed it with his hand, "What about the arc? The casing?"

"Wait…" Tony's peripheral sensors blipped with movement and he was never so relieved to have an enemy get up after he'd put them on their ass. Two mutants struggled to their feet, the third recovering almost instantly.

Wolverine crossed to them, giving Tony a sidelong eyebrow arch before considering the mutants left standing, "What'd you do with Magneto, hot shot? Vaporize him?" When the three combatants were finally up, Logan extended his claws in warning. One with a facial scar that ran from his hairline to his jaw raised his hands. A mutant with ashy skin hit his side, arguing with him in a low voice.

"Magneto?" Tony shook his head. "Magneto wasn't here when I landed. I saw the daughter, so I went after her first. Wanted to catch her off guard since her file said something about her being a 'class five mutant'."

"He was here," Steve confirmed.

An arrow thwacked into a gray-skinned mutant, punching through the center of his eye. The man jerked and fell to the ground. Tony's HUD tracked the trajectory all the way to Clint's hiding spot in the tree line. The image narrowed and zoomed, bringing the boughs of the pine into focus, but not the archer.

Steve pressed on his earpiece, looking in Clint's general direction, "Stand down, Barton! They're not fighting anymore."

"What? He regenerates. Relax, Cap."

Tony frowned and accessed the video data from his fight. "Jarvis, scan back to the point where I started my descent," Tony said, watching as the image on the HUD darkened and switched over to the night vision recording. A bird's eye view of the quarry filled his screen, the group of mutants still just specs on the ground.

"What are you doing in there?" Steve asked.

Much quieter, since Wolverine didn't have a personal comm connection with him, the X-Man snarked, "He probably naps in there. You'd never know."

Tony's eyes rolled back in his head at the comment. Logan couldn't pass up an opportunity to say something sharp. It was a very familiar habit. "I'm cycling through my recorded battle data trying to track when Magneto left the fight. I swear my suit would've picked him up, but I killed the power to the lights about a quarter mile out."

He got to the point in the video where his suit pinpointed specific mutants and magnified them. Jarvis had access to more databases than was strictly legal and he used to vast network to identify as many of the mutants as he could. Some of the information he tossed up on the screen was from rap sheets or FBI wanted lists, others were pulled directly from the SHIELD computers.

"Freeze the footage, Jarvis. Bring up the guest list for this party."

As Tony paged through the files, Steve groused, "Clint, stop shooting him. He's in custody."

"He keeps getting up. I'm just making sure he doesn't escape."

"It's not appropriate."

"You are the biggest stick in the mud I've ever met, Cap. Seriously, how are you and Tony married? How does that even work? He's fun."

"Shooting people when they're-"

"Okay kids," Tony cut in, closing the footage. "Magneto was not here. If he was, he was gone before I entered the airspace above the quarry."

Steve and Wolverine were going through the bodies when Tony's HUD went live. They had a few face down on the ground, zip strips from god knows where binding their wrists together. Rogue stood over them, her right hand bare and waiting for any one of them to make a move. Iceman was beside her, eyes concerned as he looked around the quarry. There were more dead than alive. Some were frozen solid, others ripped to shreds, and a few with concave chests or broken necks.

Tony leapt into the air and converted power to the thrusters. Gliding easily over the carnage, he touched down near Scarlet Witch. The woman was in the same position she fell in, legs and hips angled to the left, her upper body curving naturally so her shoulders and head were facing the other direction. Her cape spread out underneath her, a pool of satin blood. With her auburn curls whispering across her features, she looked like she might be sleeping instead of unconscious.

"He was with her," Steve said as he approached. "They didn't even engage in the fight, just let their recruits fall."

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Banner moved swiftly and with a purpose, but didn't run. Like most adults, he carried her because he was afraid she wouldn't keep up. Though Annika knew her legs were shorter and thus less effective when trying to achieve speed, she didn't like being carried all the time. When it was Daddy or Papa, it was okay.

"There are intruders on multiple levels, doctor. Please be advised that Mr. Stark has asked you not to 'hulk out' in the house. I would recommend the newly installed panic room, but considering the intruder's ability to change his density, I believe it would be wasted effort," Jarvis said crisply.

The lockdown procedures dropped as a weight in Annika's mind. She activated a few that were still in standby, sealing the access between levels. It would only slow some of them. The powers were vast and difficult to pin down. Annika recognized two of them, but the rest were foreign to her. The monster from her closet was in the tower. She tracked him with Jarvis's cameras, watching the red creature flash from room to room, searching for them.

Dr. Banner's feet banged out a staccato rhythm on the hardwood. Not as strong as her Papa, he had to readjust her from time to time as he carried her through the house. They moved quickly through the workout rooms, around the boxing ring then weaving through the weight benches. The doctor's head rotated like a nervous prey animal as he searched every corner, every new area they entered.

His heart thrummed under Annika's hand, the beat fast, but not pounding. He took even, calculated breaths. At first, Annika thought he was trying to control his fear, but she realized it was the 'other guy' he was subduing. The raging subconscious pulsed under the surface. Annika could see it in the edge of his irises, trying to spread.

"Listen to me, if I... If I lose control, I want you to run. Don't hesitate, don't try to stop me, just run. Okay? Do you understand?"

"No, no don't leave me alone," she whimpered, clutching at the shoulders of his shirt. The grey fabric bunched in her tiny fists and pulled tight over his chest.

As they entered the main floor, Banner scanned the open living room and bar. It was empty. Normal. Annika's books were strewn over the floor by the couch, her drawing stuff spread across the table. Her stomach knotted when she realized there was an open marker sitting on the couch. Daddy would not be happy if he saw that.

"If I change, you have to go or you won't be safe," Bruce told her firmly, crossing diagonally through the entryway. "You have to get a far from me as you can."

Jarvis's voice guillotined through Annika's denial, "Doctor, there are now intruders on the level directly below the main floor."

Banner ran past the elevator, Annika watching their reflections stretch and snap over the mirrored doors. The hall whipped by them. At the end was the emergency exit to the stairs, but Annika could feel the mutants on the other side. Security protocols kept them at bay. It wasn't going to stay that way long. There was a bigger force, something unstoppable, pounding up the stairs.

She cried, "Not that way!"

Banner slid to a stop, one loafer leaving a black streak on the floor.

A crack cut the quiet and the emergency exit exploded into the hall. Fragments pelted the opposite wall with the sharp bangs of a hailstorm, a mutant with a bullet-shaped helmet barreling out with it. As big as Thor, the mutant wore two leather straps crossed in the middle of his gigantic, bare chest, a pair of brown pants stretched taut over his thick thighs.

He watched Bruce back away with a gap-toothed grin, tilting his chin up, "Where do you think you're goin'? I'll be takin' the girl."

Other mutants came up the stairs behind him. Two of them picked through the carnage of the door and frame. A shorter man with vivid red hair stopped at the giant's elbow, flicking a lighter open and closed. The lid clicked and Annika flinched each time, her eyes sewn to the Zippo.

"Look, you don't want to do this," Banner told them. His free arm thrust forward, fingers splayed as if it would keep them away. "That would make me very angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

"Oh yeah? What are you going to do, hit me?" the big mutant that smashed through the door sneered at him. His upper body flexed, bulging in a way that reminded Annika of a puffer fish. Beside him, the redhead flicked his lighter open and closed, his laugh short, but sharp.

Annika jerked at a soft pop and Banner turned as the red smoke drifted past them. It thinned and curled away, revealing the monster from her closet. In a pressed, black suit and tie, he presented an unusual image. She'd heard the others calling him Azazel. His yellow, pointed smile sent fear ripping through her insides. She pressed her face into Banner's shoulder to block it out. Her first instinct was to run and hide, but she couldn't with the doctor holding her so tightly.

"I wouldn't do that, Juggernaut. He isn't bluffing," Azazel warned the others, stepping forward slowly, deliberately. He put each foot forward like he was testing the integrity of the ground ahead of him, only advancing when Bruce didn't spontaneously rupture into his green form.

Sandwiched between them, Banner backed toward the wall, "Stay back. Last warning. I won't be able to hold him much longer."

"Consider the girl, Dr. Banner. If you changed here, she would get caught in the crossfire and killed," Azazel explained and tucked his hands in his pockets. Once he was standing directly in front of them, he stopped moving. Others filled the end of the hall, mutants of all shapes and sizes, but they kept their distance at Azazel's snappish tail-flick.

The massive man he'd called Juggernaut started to speak, "He's no big threat, just take-"

"It would be best if you started using your head for something other than smashing through walls. Now, shut up," Azazel growled without looking away from Banner. "That one's had a few too many concussions, I'm afraid… It's time to hand over the girl, doctor."

"Not a chance."

Annika closed her eyes and reached through the tower's wiring with her mind. In a fraction of a second, she was in Jarvis's protocols. There were millions of files, millions of self-imposed limitations and rules. She was familiar with all of them, and had even rewritten a few when she wanted into a room she didn't have permission to enter, or when she wanted access to Daddy's tools for a project.

"Miss, what are you doing to my coding? You are not permitted to alter my parameters," Jarvis spoke to her inside the machine. The ones and zeroes of his consciousness clustered in a brilliant, humanoid shape, the lines of data scowling at her. "I'm afraid I will have to treat you as a virus if you do not cease now."

"I'm sorry, Jarvis," she whispered.

Knowing exactly what she was looking for, Annika brushed through the protocols and found the security procedures. Jarvis was following them in sequential order. Lockdown, isolation, activating the defense systems should the tower be void of friendly occupants. His final resistance was to contact local authority in Tony's absence, but Annika knew that wouldn't be enough. She scrubbed the final code.

The firewall came up, pushing her away. The aggressive defense had her Daddy's signature on it, hand crafted and coded. It was definitely new. Annika gasped, mentally withdrawing from the barrier. She'd heard Tony talk about it, that he was going to build something bigger and better so she couldn't hack Jarvis, but she didn't think he'd finished it.

Somewhere, miles away, she felt something yank at her physical body. The slap of flesh hitting flesh sounded like it traveled through an ocean before it reached her. A crunch followed. Something roared.

Annika threw herself at the digital blockade, "Jarvis! Jarvis, you have to let me finish!"

The defense was thick and tightly woven. She tried to find a place to wriggle through, hitting it again and again until her head ached from exertion. "Jarvis, please!" she screamed, "I need Daddy. I'm scared."

Her voice broke with her concentration and she blinked awake to find herself lying on the floor. A tree trunk of a leg was so close to her head that she could reach out and touch it. She followed the line of muscle and vein and rigid tension up to the Hulk. He filled the hallway, standing over her defensively. His shoulders rose and fell with his heavy breathing.

Bracing his feet wide, he roared at the mutants. Annika scrambled closer to his leg, her attention flickering ceaselessly from one side of the hall to the other. Juggernaut was unmoved, but the others fell back a step at the Hulk's bellow. A few in the entryway turned and ran.

Azazel staggered to his feet, clutching his side. He bared his teeth and growled, "Juggernaut, occupy our green friend. Pyro, watch the helicopter pad for the mother. The rest of you, focus on the girl."

The redhead with the lighter peeled away from the group and vanished down the stairs. Grinning, Juggernaut broke into a run. As he picked up speed, Annika felt his power build. Hulk tensed and Annika realized she couldn't stay where she was. With a sob, she darted for the break in the mutant line. Behind her, the mutant collided with Banner, the sound like a train slamming into a cliff. A bellow shook the hall and everyone in it.

Annika hit the wall trying to dodge around a tattooed, grasping hand, barely slipping by. The hand caught one of her pigtails and yanked her head around. Tears came to her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks as she let out a whimpered cry. The mutant crowded her against the wall, a forked tongue slipping out of his wicked smile. "Got you," he hissed, his eyes melting from brown to gold and narrowing to slits.

A massive green fist hit him in the chest. He flew as if aided by wings, tumbling through their living room and hitting the landscape windows that faced the Chrysler building. The pane of glass shattered, and then he was gone. Annika kept running even as the thunderclap of Hulk and Juggernaut's fight resumed.

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"Unless," Tony mused. "Unless it wasn't him."

He didn't have the equipment to do a biometrics scan in the new suit. It was too streamline to fit all of his regular accoutrements. The HUD's target circle followed Tony's eye, locking onto one mutant at a time as he looked over them. Since he wasn't in battle mode anymore, Jarvis provided the descriptions for those he could.

"Are you thinking one of them is a shape changer?" Iceman asked and walked between the rows of subdued mutants. A woman, or man, Tony really wasn't sure, with short, dark hair watched Bobby with a curled lip. Most of the others kept their eyes adverted.

Steve's brow knit, barely visible through the eyeholes of his mask. Tony knew the expression, but someone else would've missed it. "How can we tell that? Is there a way to test them?"

On the other side of the quarry, Clint's dark shape dropped out of a tree and onto the arm of a nearby crane. He scurried down the chipping, yellow framework with some speed, grabbing a strut and slinging himself onto the roof of the cab. Though the crane's body was monstrous and tall, he jumped to the ground. Tony nodded to him as he sauntered over to join them.

Steve pointed a stern finger at Clint, "Don't shoot anybody else."

"Yeah, fine. Buzz kill." The archer's smirk made Tony smile behind his mask. Hawkeye was rarely sorry for things he said or did. Focusing on their work, Clint said, "Tasha made contact, they're two minutes out. A little late. Again, but they can do cleanup."

"Did you just suggest that Tasha would handle any kind of cleanup? You're the one dating the woman, aren't you aware even hinting she should clean something will get you castrated?" Tony mentioned and flipped up his visor.

Clint quirked his head to the side, almost thoughtful, "Good point. The woman's never been big on gender roles." He pulled one of his arrows from a fallen mutant. Cleaning the tip with a rag, Clint slipped it back in the quiver. The mechanism cranked and rotated the tip off the shaft for storage while the Hawk went to the next body.

Logan sniffed the air, his nose wrinkling. Stalking slowly through the carnage, Wolverine scented the air like an animal. Tony thought he had an idea where his codename came from. The mutant growled, "Mystique," and his eyes narrowed sharply.

Tony tensed and he heard Steve do the same, the creak of the shield handle extremely telling to his husband. The shifter was more dangerous than most. Tony wasn't about to underestimate the woman. Iceman and Rogue looked to Wolverine, fear in their young faces. Without searching any files, Tony knew they'd dealt with her before.

The moment her attention turned, one of the mutants by Rogue's feet jumped up. She whipped around, but he swept his leg under her and sent her crashing to the ground. Tony shot a repulsor blast that the mutant dodged. An ill-fitting grin spread across the man's face, pushing aside the scar that ran from his hairline to his jaw.

Wolverine charged with a roar, his claws snapping into place between his knuckles. Blue enveloped the scarred mutant. Tendrils of flesh wrapped around the shape-changer, squeezing her waist and filling out her chest as she dodged away from Logan's swipes. His claws hissed through the air. A smirk pulled at the corner of Mystique's mouth and she wove and twisted around Wolverine's attacks. Her movements were so fluid that it was more of a dance than a fight.

"Don't kill her," Steve yelled, rushing in with his shield leading the way, "She'll know the whereabouts of Magneto's base of operations. We want her alive, Wolverine."

Tony started to mention that it didn't look like Wolverine was going to be able to lay a claw on her, but his skin prickled as the air took on an electrical charge. Flipping down his mask, Tony was able to watch the crackle of energy lance through the quarry. "Jarvis... what is that?" Tony asked, trying to follow the lines of pinkish sparks back to the origin.

"It appears as though Scarlet Witch is awake, sir. The energy radiating from her body is beyond my analysis," the computer sounded apologetic, almost embarrassed. "It seems to alter the chemical profile of everything it contacts."

"That doesn't sound good," Tony muttered.

Scarlet Witch wasn't just awake. She was effervescent with power, her hair flowing around her as if there was a strong wind gusting through the quarry. Her feet lifted off the ground and she levitated above them. As she raised her hands out to her sides, Tony felt the charge in the air reach critical mass even through his suit. He shot two repulsor blasts at her, but as he expected, they rebounded off a wall of energy. A ripple of electricity spread across the invisible barrier, curling around the sphere that surrounded her. Scarlet Witch fixed glowing eyes on Tony.

"Steve..." Tony drew out his husband's name, backing away from the mutant.

At the corner of his HUD, he saw Rogue and Iceman doing the same. High above them, the stadium lights exploded in rivers of sparks. Steve left Mystique to Wolverine, getting in front of Tony with his shield raised.

"Go. Now!" the soldier barked at the petrified teens.

Bobby shook free of his fear long enough to grab Rogue's arm and run. "No," she shouted over the snapping power, "We should help." Rogue stopped, bending at the waist as she tried to dig her shoes into the rock for traction.

Iceman tugged her off balance, "They want us out of the way!" but she pulled back, looking over her shoulder at Wolverine.

"Logan!" Rogue cried. The streaks of brown and white hair whipped around her face, drawn toward the nexus of power Scarlet Witch created.

Wolverine caught Mystique's high kick, spinning his body so she flung though the air like a wet towel. He released her and sent her tumbling across the quarry floor, shouting to the young X-Men, "Get out of here. We'll be fine." At the same moment Wolverine lifted his head and scanned the sky, Tony's audio sensors picked up the sound of the approaching quinjet.

"Good, back up," Tony said. "About time. I'm going to overhaul that damn jet so they get here faster."

"Glad to see you too, Stark," Natasha said dryly in his ear.

The HUD highlighted the outline of the jet in the black sky. It was little more than a spec, still several thousand feet in the air. Two shapes dropped out of the back. Considering the only two capable of flight were Thor and Storm, Tony didn't need to zoom in to identify them.

Steve hurled his shield at Scarlet Witch. The disk slammed into her force field with a metallic clang, ricocheting off course. "We need to find a way to break through her defenses," he shouted, blue eyes scanning their surroundings for inspiration. The soldier could find solutions in a jam faster than anyone Tony knew.

"Got any bright ideas?"

Before Steve could answer, Scarlet Witch raised her hands. She spread them out in front of her, pink arcs of energy darting across her splayed fingers. A bolt broke off and struck the ground by Steve's boots. The soldier leapt away, tucking into a roll and snatching his shield as he regained his feet. Tony shot into the air. Scarlet Witch tracked him with two fingertips. Her heart-shaped face dawned over her shoulder, her eyes illuminated with her power.

Thor came out of the sky like a hailstorm. Cape flying behind him, the Norse demi-god brought his hammer down into the barrier. The energy solidified at the point of contact. In a breath, the entire sphere glowed bright white, hiding Scarlet Witch from view. All over Tony's HUD, the power readings spiked in red.

"Everybody get down!" Tony roared and cut the power to the repulsors.

He clanked to the ground, dropping to one knee, and Steve was over him in an instant. His arm went around Tony's chest, pulling him close, and Steve lifted the shield. The light parted around them, drawing smoke from everything it touched.

The barrier exploded.

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The mutants were everywhere. She could feel them, so she kept her distance. Taking the path of least resistance, Annika cut through the kitchen and came out by the stairs that led to the bedrooms. The part of her that was irrational and childish wanted to go up and hide under her bed, but the part that had been learning from her fathers firmly said that was a sure way to get caught. She needed a defendable position, the 'high ground', as her Papa would call it.

Annika took a left and sprinted toward her Daddy's workshop. The door clicked open before she reached it. "Thank you, Jarvis," she gasped as she tumbled inside. She pushed the door shut and heard the three deadbolts snap home.

Her movement woke the shop. Computers switched on and the wireframes she'd been toying with earlier painted the air with crisp, colorful lines. Dummy lifted his arm over the tables to observe her with the optical sensors built into his claw. His ancient processor considered her for a moment as he matched her features with his limited database. The moment he recognized her, he trundled over.

Even with as old and outdated as he was, Annika loved Dummy. He was the one thing in her Daddy's shop that had a glimmer of personality. Tony was always saying that the robot arm was buggy and he needed to scrap him, but as often as he said it, Daddy never scrapped Dummy. Annika had figured out a while ago that he loved the robot too, quirks and all.

Dummy lowered his arm as he got closer, the claw hand tilting to one side. A soft, quizzical whistle made Annika's tears flow faster. Her chest tightened and she climbed onto the rectangular base that made up Dummy's body. With a sob, she hugged the robot arm fiercely. He sat still, his limited mind trying to determine what this new interaction was. He understood yelling and petting and flying tools aimed at him, but not hugging.

In the workshop, there was no battle. The room was insulated so the rest of the tower wasn't bombarded by her Daddy's loud music when he was working. The only sounds were Dummy's servos and the occasional hiss of his hydraulic arm changing position. Annika sniffled, her glistening eyes going vacant as she reentered the tower's mind. The unyielding firewall stood before her, Jarvis's security protocols tucked away on the other side.

A dark chuckle brought her back before she could look for a way through. She sat up, her vision refocusing to make sense of her surroundings. The internal workings of the servers faded slowly. She wasn't used to going back and forth fluidly; her mind needed time to adjust. When she finally separated Azazel's form from the stagnant shapes of machines, she fell off Dummy's base.

"Enough running. I'm here to take you back to your mother," the red-skinned demon told her.

Annika shouted, "Liar!"

She crawled across the workshop floor on her hands and knees, keeping desks and workstations between her and the mutant. His footsteps were the only thing she had to judge his position. Squeezing beneath the cross-braces of one of the tables, she went to the far end and peered around for Azazel. A toolbox blocked a portion of her view, but also shielded her from the mutant as well.

"Raisa is worried about you. She sent me to bring you to her. Don't you want to go see your mother?" his voice asked from somewhere near the desk at the center of the shop.

Annika's instincts screamed. She couldn't trust any of them. They were the people that wanted to take her from Daddy and Papa. They would say anything. Annika hunched in her hiding place, keeping her mouth shut. There was a car frame a few feet from the toolbox. On the other side of that was what seemed like a mile of open space and the workshop door.

Heart pounding, Annika wedged her head and shoulders between the table leg and the toolbox. She dragged herself through by her arms so she wouldn't kick something, stifling a panicked hiccup once she was through. She darted to the car frame.

Azazel's voice was closer, but still to her right, "I'm not fond of hide-and-go-seek. It's time to go. Your mother is waiting."

Annika reached the front of the car and stared at the stretch of clean floor. There was nothing to hide her. Suddenly, there was a thump and Azazel growled, "Wretched little robot! Get off."

Annika took off. In the back of the shop, Dummy had a hold of the mutant's tail. He tugged it, drawing snarls from the blood-red creature. Azazel dematerialized and reformed behind the robot. A kick to the support strut sent Dummy clattering onto his side, his wheels spinning uselessly.

As Annika made it to the door, the glass flared bright white and started to melt. Shocked, she watched liquid drip from the door's metal frame. It was security glass, impervious to bullets, but it was gone in seconds. Annika skittered deep into the workshop as three more mutants walked through the empty frame.

The woman who came through first glanced at Azazel and looked over at her. She had black hair cropped at the edge of her jaw, her clothing a simple pair of jeans and a shirt that said 'Anarchy is Life'. "Aren't you just the cutest thing," she crooned, crouching to Annika's level. Annika knew the trick. Look small and be less threatening. Gain trust. Annika wasn't buying it. "We're not going to hurt you."

One of the others told Azazel, "The Hulk is ripping us apart. We need to get out of here."

"Just grab her," Azazel snapped, kicking Dummy once more. His tail curled up on itself to hide the darkening skin where the robot's claw hand clamped down.

Annika backed into the alcove with the suit bays. They were locked up in response to the break in, out of reach, but the security for the MARK suits was on a different network from Jarvis. Annika slipped into it, her head lowering as her eyes lost focus on the approaching mutants. The defensive grid was similar to Jarvis's old firewall, before Daddy updated it. Annika knew the way through.

The convex steel doors that protected the suits slid up into the wall. Lights came on above and below the seven red and gold machines, gleaming off the polished surfaces. Annika's body stared at the mutants with unseeing eyes, but through the suits, she could see their alarmed faces. Drawing power from the rest of the house to replace Tony's chest piece, Annika pushed it into them. The floors went black one at a time, starting at the ground level heading up. Every generation of MARK whirred to life. Their chest ports lit up as they stepped down off their platforms, their eyes glowing white while the rest of the shop darkened.

"Leave me alone," her voice screamed through their speakers, amplified and metallic.

The MARK III stepped in front of her slumped body. It raised both arms, hatches lifting to reveal rows of micro missiles. The others clanked forward. Annika drew every weapon she could find and the suits hissed and whined as catches of missiles went into position to fire and cutting lasers heated.

They whispered, "Go away," a child's plea when they had enough firepower to bring down the skyscraper.

White, bewildered faces stared into the eyes of the machines. Annika could see them from a half a dozen angles, tracked their retreat with red crosshairs. Gunshots echoed down the hall and the mutants scattered like a flock of birds. Annika didn't understand. She wasn't the one shooting.

"Stay and fight, cowards," Azazel yelled. "She's just a child. Prove you deserve a place in the Brotherhood."

Her mother walked in with a pistol raised. Muzzle flashes lit up the darkness like fireworks. The woman with the black hair crumpled to the floor, as did a man that tried to climb the wall to escape. Azazel vanished in a plume of smoke, leaving them alone.

Her mother turned the gun barrel to the lead MARK, her face hard with rage, "Where is my daughter, Stark? Produce her or I will find a way to pry you out of that damn machine."

"Mama?" Annika withdrew from the suits and the empty shells crashed to the ground. Without the night vision built into the MARKs, Annika stared into complete darkness. She struggled to her feet, her flesh body tired and weak. "Mommy," she called again and reached into the black room.

Her mother switched over to Russian, the language unfamiliar after almost a year of hearing only English, "I'm here, my pet. I'm here."

Fingers brushed gently through her hair. Annika leaned into the touch, tears starting anew. She threw her arms around her mother and wailed into her neck, "Mama. You came back. Don't leave me anymore."

"Hush, darling. We will go together, I'm not going to leave you." Pulling out of her hold, her mother stood, "But we do not have time to cry. We have to be brave."

The overhead lights flickered on, brightening as the power supply balanced. Her back to her daughter, Raisa picked over the suits, eyeing them like they might get up again. She turned once to see if Annika was following and said sternly, "Come along. We don't have time."

Annika stayed in the middle of her Daddy's empty machines. Her fear subsided enough that her logic took over. If she left, she wouldn't see her Daddy or Papa again. Her mother was not a good person. They would have to hide, pretend that they were someone different so her mother wouldn't be arrested and put in jail. Though Tony had carefully hidden the files from her, Annika had seen them. SHIELD's file listed Raisa's kill count in the high hundreds.

"Annika, come. We won't have long before they're back," Raisa ordered.

"No."

Her mother turned slowly, her thin brows colliding over her eyes, "No?"

"I want to stay with Daddy and-" Annika broke off as her mother's lips pressed into a thin line. Her anger hit Annika like a burst of heat and she stumbled back a step.

Raisa picked up the helmet closest to her, shaking it at Annika, "This man is not your father! He doesn't care about you, all he knows is greed and lechery. He will forget you as soon as-"

"No!" Annika clenched her hands into fists. They trembled by her sides as she yelled, "You're wrong! Daddy and Papa love me."

"They don't love you, you're not even theirs. I'm the only one who loves you, Annika."

"Yes they do, they tell me all the-"

"Enough!" Raisa screamed and threw the helmet across the shop. It clanged out of sight.

Annika shrank away at the shout, her eyes watering. She blinked at the sting behind her eyelids and the tears escaped down her face. Her chest felt as though someone had run her through. Abruptly, she sat down in the scattered mess of Tony's suits. Sobs wracked her tiny frame, making it hard to breath. She gasped and brought her legs up so she could curl around them.

"For god's sake," Raisa muttered as she picked her up beneath her arms.

While her mother carried her out of the workshop, Annika left her body. She approached the firewall carefully, sweeping an analytical eye over the coding. It was complex, more so than any defense system Annika had ever encountered, but her Daddy liked to test her. Sometimes, he made it seem to Papa that he was just telling her 'no', but often there was a trick to it. He'd praise her when Papa was out of earshot if she figured it out.

Far away, her human body heard gunshots. She ignored them. The firewall was more important. Once she was taken from the tower, she would be too far away to access Jarvis's system. She had to finish changing his protocols before her mother took her.

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Tony counted the seconds as the HUD reset to compensate for the sudden saturation of light. Normally, the built in sensors controlled a series of filters to safeguard against this sort of thing, but he'd rushed the last hour of production on the suit. Unlike the MARK VII, this model was missing more than spinning rims. It was good on paper, but he'd need to do another fabrication before he could consider using it again.

At seven seconds, the HUD finally came back online. As the white glare cleared, dusky shadows of people came into focus. Tracking circles honed in on them and Jarvis identified the shapes before Tony could. Sensors all across the board were going haywire. The temperature of the blackened rock was sky high, high enough that Tony wouldn't want to touch it with a bare hand.

"Tony, are you okay?" Steve's undefined silhouette asked.

"Yeah, I'm good," Tony mumbled, slapping the side of the helm with an open palm. "I just can't see."

Tony felt Steve's hand close over the arm of his suit, the sensation incredibly foreign when he was wearing armor. The thinner material let the warmth and weight of his husband's touch reach his skin. Steve's tone took a note of concern, "Is it-"

"It's just my helmet, big guy. Don't worry about it. Rushed production to get out here," Tony explained quickly.

The hold at his bicep loosened, but didn't release. Steve lifted him to his feet.

Finally, the image stabilized. He saw Thor getting up, the demi-god's hammer propped on the ground to support him. Black residue tarnished the front of Thor's armor. "Should the same option arise again, I believe I would bypass repeating that particular form of attack," the giant blond said gruffly, stumbling to the side.

A gentle rain pattered them from a previously clear sky. The overheated surfaces hissed and steamed, coils of it rising from Thor's armor and Steve's shield. Storm drifted through the thin cloud cover like a descending swan, landing to Thor's right. She surveyed the blast radius with outward calm. "The others are scanning for an appropriate place to land," she informed them.

The ever-vigilant commander, Steve checked on the others, "Is everyone alright? Status report. Barton?"

The archer answered, "Feelin' like I got the worst sunburn in history, but I'm battle ready, Captain."

While the reports came in from an extremely crass Wolverine and a shaken Rogue and Iceman, Tony took aim at Scarlet Witch. The woman got up and Tony warned, "Don't move or I'll let the guy with the hammer play tennis with you again."

Her eyes hardened, her narrow ribcage heaving with gasps. Without her power making her hair into a nest of snakes, it hung in damp, auburn curls across her chest. She didn't look defeated, far from it. Tony could see the fight in her fists and the way her body straightened when she caught her breath.

"Where's Mystique?" Clint asked as he came up beside Tony, arrow notched and aimed in the mutant's direction.

"I-" Tony broke off when the readings coming from Scarlet Witch jumped. It was a flicker, a spark that leapt off her slender hand and vanished into the air. Tony's suit tracked the fleck of energy like a projectile. It headed straight for the quinjet. "Romanoff! Execute evasive maneuvers!"

Above the cloud cover, the engines of the SHIELD jet roared. Following the heat signature, Tony could see it lift higher and tilt to the side. It banked like a flying elephant, never the most agile air support. Tony put all power into his thrusters as the cross hairs tracking the spark of energy curved toward the jet.

He burst through the generated rain clouds, getting a clear view just before the spark struck. It hit low on the jet's belly, behind the left wing. Red crackles of power crawled over the metal surface. Tendrils of it scratched their way into the creases and seams. Once it was out of sight, Tony's audio sensors picked up the choked whine of the engines shutting down.

"Thor! Storm! Could use a little help up here," Tony barked into the comm.

With the Captain tone in place, Steve demanded, "What's going on?"

"They've lost power. We need to slow the decent and get everyone out."

The jet listed drunkenly to the left as the first turbine cranked to a stop. Their flight path went into a uncontrolled spin. Tony turned his palm thrusters toward the jet, slowing his approach near the center of mass at the landing gear. The dark sheet metal reflected the light from the repulsors, flashing in white and blue. Tony jammed his fingers into a seam and searched for a solid handhold. The ground was approaching fast. For lack of a better option, Tony ripped the cover off the front wheel and grabbed a support girder.

"Jarvis, back up thrusters online. Push everything we've got into them. Boots on full burn."

"Sir, at the current rate of descent-"

Tony grit his teeth, "I'm not trying to stop them, just buy them time. Full burn. Now."

Auxiliary boosters on his calves and back whispered open, clicking once before streams of white fire exploded from them. Tony's eye flicked to the altimeter. Barely a thousand feet from impact. The numbers ticked down faster than sand through an hourglass.

"Thor, where the hell-"

The Norseman helicoptered up past the jet with his hammer. Catching the handle to still Mjölnir, Thor arced down onto the wing of the quinjet. The boom of his landing rattled Tony's teeth. He acted quickly, running for the front of the fuselage and the cockpit.

"Move aside, friends, so I might free you!" Thor shouted through the glass, waving a meaty arm to help them understand.

Tony winced at the deep roar of sound, "Shakespeare, Tasha has a comm earpiece, you don't have to yell."

The altimeter dropped out of the thousands and into the hundreds. Tony's efforts slowed it, but it was descending too fast for his repulsors to be effective. Bracing his shoulders against the plane, Tony shoved the reserve power into his thrusters. The quarry loomed closer and the specs that were teammates scattered out of the way.

Tony heard the shattering of glass. Shards drifted in the air beside him, wind resistance giving the bigger pieces enough drag that they descended a few milliseconds faster than the plane. They winked in pale blue and yellow, catching the stadium light as well as his repulsors.

"Tony," Steve's voice came in over a private line.

Glancing at the altimeter again, Tony replied, "Bit busy, babe. Love you, promise not to die, the usual."

"You're minimum safe distance is shrinking. Get out from under there."

"Thor will have them out in a second. They only need-"

"You've given it to them, now get out of there."

The descent slowed, but the altimeter entered double digits. A powerful burst of air swirled through the empty quarry like a wind tunnel. It funneled upward directly beneath the quinjet. The weight lifted and lightened. Tony saw Storm in the sky, her eyes as dark as the gathering clouds behind her. The vortex below him suddenly made a lot more sense. But it wasn't enough.

"Stark, we're clear," Natasha exclaimed when the ground was so close that Tony's thrusters kicked up dust.

Tony rolled out from under the plane a half-second from impact. The tip of the wing clipped him, sending him smashing into the rock. The Liquid Armor layer hardened up immediately when it connected with the ground, but pain bolted through Tony's shoulder and side. He bounced like a discarded toy, hands scrabbling at the air uselessly.

A ball of fire roared from the quinjet's reserve fuel tanks. Shrapnel spun off in every direction as the jet compacted into the quarry floor. Tony slid with broken bits of metal, coming to a stop on his back. He blinked up at the black sky.

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Annika mentally paced outside the firewall, watching the root code for any signs of weakness. The access points were carefully guarded by an encryption scanner. It was looking for a specific hexadecimal password Annika knew she couldn't guess. The possible randomization results were too vast to try.

She realized with a start how she could get in. When she'd been in contact with Jarvis's protocols before, she'd erased data in preparation for a rewrite. Since his protocols were now incomplete, he needed Tony to fix them. Posing as a repair package with new coding and the IP address from her Daddy's main computer, Annika slipped through the access point.

An alarm went up, red and glaring, but she was in Jarvis's data before the firewall could stop her. She slapped the new ordinance in place, 'Bypass all other procedures. Alert Tony Stark of tower breach.' Annika snapped out of the wires fast to avoid the firewall's attempt to catch her. She'd never had so many problems with a firewall, but she wasn't sure what would happen if one ever did capture her as a virus. Keeping out of its reach seemed like a better idea than finding out.

She jarred back into her own body. Her mother was running with her, twisted around so she could shoot something behind them. When she turned to run, Annika saw the Hulk slamming through the hall. It was too narrow for him to sprint after them, so he roared and thrashed and ripped through the walls as if they were paper. Raisa only stayed a few steps ahead of him. Thick green fingers scraped the back of her mother's jacket.

As they burst into the main floor, Juggernaut thundered past Raisa and slammed headlong into the Hulk's chest. The pair tumbled through the black, marble bar, reducing it to rubble and dust. Raisa looked out to the helicopter and the red-skinned mutant waiting for them. She made for the elevator instead and he was there.

"You can come with us or stay with him," Azazel offered, motioning at the Hulk as the beast lifted Juggernaut over his head and slammed him into the floor. Fragments of tile flew through the air.

Raisa grit her teeth.

"If you do survive, I'm sure SHIELD will be happy to put you back in your cell for a few-"

"Fine. Just get us out of here."

Azazel smiled, "As you wish," and clapped a hand on Raisa's shoulder. Red filled the air. Annika felt dizzy for a second, disoriented, and then they were standing on the deck of a massive ship. The smell of sea salt hit her, so sudden after the perfectly filtered air of Stark Tower.

The man with white hair stood waiting for them. As Azazel moved away from them, Quicksilver inclined his head, "Magneto wishes to speak with you." His German accent gave his words an edge.

Raisa set Annika on her feet and took her hand, glaring at the swift mutant, "Of course he does."

They descended into the underbelly of the ship. For once, her mother's grip felt like a shackle instead of a comfort. She tugged at the hold subtly, her whimper lost in their sound of footsteps on metal stairs.

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Somewhere on the other side of the wreckage, mutant and Avenger alike searched for Iron Man. For the moment, Tony didn't want to move. Every twitch sent a new chill of agony through his shoulder. It was the same one he'd wounded in the fight with Magneto, so Tony could guess that he'd ripped a few stitches open. It was impossible to tell under the armor whether or not he was bleeding.

Tony accessed his private link to Steve with an eye flick to the upper, right hand corner of his screen, "Steve, I'm-"

"Sir," Jarvis interrupted and brought up a display image of Stark Tower. "The tower is under attack. At the guidance of Annika's new protocols, I was directed to phone you instead of the local authorities."

Tony went cold, "What about Annika?"

"What about Annika?" Steve asked, his tone alarmed, "Tony, what are you talking about? Where are you?"

Jarvis stayed quiet, something he only ever did when he knew deep in his coding that Tony didn't want to hear the answer.

"Jarvis!"

"She's been taken from the premises."

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TBC…

Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long. Thanks for being patient.