Chapter One

"Pietro, where are we going?" Wanda demanded as her brother gathered her in his arms and geared up to run.

Pietro looked down at Wanda in surprise. They had just seen half of their village burned to the ground by outsiders looking for them. They were no longer protected in the remote area they had tried to escape to. They were once again in danger.

"Somewhere safe." He muttered, affording Wanda a reassuring smile before taking off running.

"Bruce, think you can stitch Barton up? He's bleeding all over his suit." Tony complained on the flight back from the Avengers' latest recovery mission. Bruce looked up from where he had been resting in surprise.

Clint snorted loudly from across the jet. "Don't worry, Stark. I'll have the precious costume dry-cleaned tomorrow." He turned to look at Natasha with an amused smile. "Who put him in charge of uniforms, again?"

"He put himself in charge of it." Natasha answered with an eye roll. "Which is probably why Steve and I are stuck with spandex."

"It isn't spandex," Tony groaned in an agitated tone, "It's a special synthetic material fabricated from -"

"Nat, don't antagonize him. Tony, the suits are great. Clint, you should get stitched up when we get back to the tower. Dr. Banner, do you think that you'll be up for the job?" Steve questioned, pacing the length of the plane and looking around at all of his teammates.

"I can stitch him up. I've been doing it for years." Natasha interjected with a small smirk in Clint's direction. Clint smiled back sheepishly.

"Hey, can we just take a minute to celebrate the fact that our search is over? We finally got the scepter. If that's not a reason to go out for drinks, I don't know what is." Tony remarked, looking around expectantly. Everyone exchanged bemused looks before rolling their eyes and shaking their heads.

"Drinking...yeah...not the best idea for me." Bruce mumbled.

"I'm going to have to side with Bruce on this one; drinking after stitches is a mistake I'm not particularly eager to make again." Clint added.

"Especially not after what happened in Budapest." Natasha agreed.

"I wouldn't mind passing on drinking. I never get drunk anyway." Steve said with a shrug.

Tony let out an irritated noise and looked at Thor for some sort of ruling. Thor looked puzzled.

"No ale tonight?" The demigod sounded disappointed.

"That's what they're telling us, Hammertime." Tony confirmed dismally.

"Well, you guys could drink," Steve said, "I'm not going to stop you. Hey, I know. There's this great pizza place in Brooklyn. Buck and I used to -" Steve suddenly became very quiet. Everyone else looked at each other uncomfortably.

Steve had been searching for Bucky Barnes for months now. Tony and Bruce had tried to help him by using every tracking device accessible, but none of it helped. Bucky didn't want to be found. Steve blamed himself for that. It had been tormenting him for months now.

"Do they serve drinks?" Tony asked in an effort to distract Steve.

Steve's eyes shifted from the ground to Tony's face. He was momentarily surprised by the question but nodded his head after a few seconds.

"Drinks? Oh, uh, yeah. Well, the serve beer. I don't know if they'll have any of your fancy margaritas or martinis or whatever it is that you drink." Steve responded. His mouth crooked into a smile and his nose wrinkled a bit in an effort to look disgusted by Tony's drink preferences. Tony pretended to scowl.

"Beer is fine. Uh, Nat, how far out are we?"

"About five minutes. Don't worry boys, we'll be eating pizza before you can say -"

"Cheese," Steve decided, handing the waitress his menu and looking around the small pizza shop curiously, "Thank you."

"Cheese? Where's your sense of adventure, Cap?" Tony mocked as the waitress walked away to place their orders.

"I think I've had enough adventure for one lifetime. Cheese is nice. It's familiar." Steve responded contently.

"I don't really think it matters what you order here," Clint proclaimed from across the table, his mouth full of the free bread they had been given the second they were seated, "If their pizza is even half as good as their bread, it's gonna be the best pizza I've ever tasted."

"Better than Pete's?" Natasha looked at Clint in surprise.

Clint swallowed his mouthful of bread and nodded. "Better than Pete's."

"Wow." Natasha's eyebrows raised. "That's high praise coming from him."

"Glad you like it, Clint." Steve chuckled.

"So Thor, what are you going to do with the scepter now that you've gotten it back from Hydra?" Bruce asked Thor, who was already on his fifth frosty mug of beer.

"I will take it back to Asgard where Odin will guard it. I do not believe that it will cause Earth or any other realm any trouble now that Loki - rest his soul - has perished." Thor answered immediately.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're not going to take it back tonight, are you? I just started a scan on the thing back at the tower. I was hoping that I'd be able to find out a little bit more about it. I mean, Hydra has been using the tesseract's powers to kick our asses for years. I just want to know how it works." Tony said from across the table.

Thor looked at Tony for a moment. "How long will your scan take?"

Tony looked at Bruce and shrugged. Bruce shrugged back.

"About three days, give or take." The billionaire answered.

"Very well," Thor allowed, "In three days' time I will return the scepter to Asgard. Until then it is in your care. I trust that you and Dr. Banner will behave wisely."

"Don't we always?" Tony asked.

Thor looked skeptical.

"I'll keep an eye on things." Bruce assured him.

Thor relaxed.

The Avengers wound up occupying the small pizza shop for about two hours. In that time, Steve ate three large cheese pizzas, Thor drank twenty-four mugs of beer, Tony drank ten mugs of beer and soon found himself slumped over under the table, Clint ate four baskets of bread, Bruce almost dialed 911 seven times, and Natasha called them all idiots forty-eight times. There was no telling how many autographs they each signed in those two hours. Well, Clint knew how many autographs he signed. Five. No one seemed to recognize him. He was extremely offended by that.

"s'prolly 'cause you're always up on some rooftop shootin' arrows." Tony rationed drunkenly as they walked back towards Stark Towers.

"You fight in a metal can the whole time." Clint grumbled.

"Genius, playboy, philanthropianist," Tony drawled.

"Philanthropianist?" Bruce echoed in an amused tone.

"Don't antagonize him, he's drunk." Steve chuckled.

"Yes, you mortals seem to have a much lower tolerance for alcohol." Thor agreed smugly, tossing his hammer up and down as they walked through the darkened city streets.

"No I dun'. Watch this." Tony slurred, lurching over in Thor's direction and attempting to intercept his hammer. He successfully caught the handle but was immediately dragged down onto the ground. There was a dull thud as he fell onto the pavement face-first.

"Ow." He murmured, his voice muffled by the sidewalk.

"Jesus Tony, you'd think that of all people, you could hold your drinks. Come on, get up." Clint said, walking over to Tony and attempting to lift the hammer. He was surprised to realize that it would not move. "What the hell is wrong with this thing, man?"

Thor shrugged with a smug grin. "You are not worthy."

"Is that how it works?" Bruce wondered, walking over to where Clint and Tony were struggling with the hammer and eying it curiously. "You only get to lift it if you're worthy?"

"Yes. And it would seem that I am the only one who is." Thor answered.

"Give it a try, Bananner." Tony insisted, struggling to his feet and pointing at the hammer a bit emphatically.

"No, that's okay, I really don't…"

"Do it." Tony demanded.

Bruce sighed and shook his head. "Fine. I think we already know the answer to this question, though."

Sure enough, he gripped the handle of the hammer, pulled upwards and did not have any results. Tony hooted with laughter. Clint scowled. Thor continued to grin proudly.

"Stebe. Stebe, you're worthy. Worthiest guy I ever know. Do it." Tony said, stumbling over to Steve and attempting to push him in the direction of the hammer. Steve let out a loud sigh.

"This isn't really a question I want answered." He grumbled.

"Stebe, Stebe, Stebe, Stebe, Stebe, Stebe, Stebe, Stebe, Stebe." Tony chanted as Steve approached the hammer. Steve couldn't help but laugh.

He ducked down at gripped the handle of the hammer as Tony, Clint, and Bruce had before him. Unlike the three men before him, the hammer began to move under his hands. It was light - surprisingly light.

Steve glanced up and saw the panicked look on Thor's face. The hammer was Thor's thing. It was one of the reasons he continued to fight for justice. Steve didn't feel quite right about taking that away from him.

Steve also saw the amused smirk settling on Natasha's face. She was obviously enjoying Thor's momentary panic. Steve cast her a tiny smirk of his own before pretending to struggle with the hammer. After a few seconds of pretending, he stood upright and shook his head.

"Guess I'm only slightly worthy." He sighed.

"Too bad." Thor replied, his tone soaked with relief.

"If you're not even worthy, maybe Thor should be the one leading the Avengers." Clint suggested to Thor. Thor nodded his head thoughtfully and followed Clint down the street to discuss his potential leadership.

"I thought you were special, Stebe." Tony complained as he struggled to follow after Clint and Thor. Steve just laughed, took one of Tony's arms and draped it over his shoulder in order to help the hopelessly drunk billionaire back to the tower.

"Don't take it too personally, Steve. There's got to be some kind of physics to it." Bruce said thoughtfully.

"Hey, Thor!" Natasha called from behind the group of men. "You forgot your hammer."

Thor spun around and raised his hand to summon Mjolnir. That turned out to be completely unnecessary. Natasha was already walking towards him, tossing the hammer up and down casually as Thor had done just a few minutes ago. She made it look as though it weighed no more than a feather. All of the men stared at her in complete awe. She just smiled right back at them.

"Bruce! Bruce, the scan is done!" Tony hollered the moment the Avengers returned to the tower. Bruce let out a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes before wandering up to the lab where Tony was running around.

"Tony, don't you think that we should wait until morning to look at the scan?" He asked.

"No time. If we're gonna make this thing work, we've got to start right now." Tony answered, rushing around the lab frantically. Bruce raised an eyebrow at him.

"Start what right now?"

"Ultron!"

"Ultron? Tony, that was just a fantasy…"

Well, maybe fantasy was the wrong world. It was just a discussion they'd had when Tony created his suits. A robot with a working mind. Something that could guard prisons, do police work without any type of bias, and serve in military positions that were too dangerous for humans. It was a pipe dream.

"But what if the fantasy could become a reality?" Tony persisted, rushing over to Bruce's side holding up two holographic blueprints. "This is JARVIS' program. It looks normal, right? Now look at what I pulled off of the scepter." Tony displayed both of the holograms side by side.

"That's amazing," Bruce whispered. "It almost looks like it's…"

"Thinking. I know. Bruce, this could be the key to Ultron. We take this mainframe, stick it in one of the suits...we could have the ultimate protector at our fingertips." Tony rambled, bouncing up and down on the heels of his feet excitedly. He seemed to sober up the minute he saw the blueprints.

"What's Ultron?" Steve asked as he walked into the lab. The rest of the Avengers followed him.

Tony looked at Steve and let out an annoyed little huff. Still, he hastened to explain. "Ultron could be a program. We'd stick it in a suit and send it off to do our dirty work. It could protect us. Save us. It could be the final step to stop the fighting. That's what all of this is for, isn't it? We're fighting to stop the fighting. We could end it all today."

"Artificial intelligence." Natasha clarified.

"Yes." Bruce nodded.

"Artificial intelligence? I don't know, Tony. That sounds awfully…" Steve objected, running a nervous hand through his hair.

"No, it isn't! Look at the schematics!" Tony insisted, running over to one of his many dry erase boards and beginning to rant and ramble about how Ultron might work. While he was doing this, Steve slipped over to Bruce's side.

"Would, uh, would this program be able to work on missing persons cases?" The super soldier questioned awkwardly.

Bruce smiled at Steve good-naturedly. "If we were to get Ultron to work, he would be a useful tool to find Bucky. We're going to do everything we can to find him, Steve. You know that."

"I know." Steve agreed with a small smile. "Sometimes I just feel like I'm not doing enough. Like I'm letting him down." His smile faded. Natasha noticed.

"Why don't we talk about it in the morning?" She suggested. "Thor is leaving the scepter here for three days, right?" Natasha looked at Thor, who nodded. "Good. You boys go to bed; we'll talk about your robot army when you're all sobered up."

Okay so sue me - I'm not exactly satisfied with Age of Ultron as is. Instead of whining and moaning about what could've been, I'm just making my own version and sinking deep down into the depths of denial. Please feel free to join me. It's going to be a bumpy ride, but it's always a fun one with these guys.