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Jade groaned where she was sprawled on one of the couches in the Tower's Lounge, unable to finish reading the dreck that was a Harlequin Romance 'novel'. Though 'novel' was a stretch. It was almost literally hurting her brain to read it. The plot was stupid, the female character an idiot, and half the book was her and her dumbass boy toy going at it like rabid donkeys.
In a word: stupid.
The book went flying over her head as she chucked it at an adjacent chair, not even caring when she missed, the paperback thwacking against the floor loudly.
Cami, who was lying on the floor next to the couch, rose her head to look at her curiously, and Jade flopped her right arm down to scratch at the dog's back.
"If you fetch that, I swear I'll put your favorite squeak toy in a paper shredder," she muttered to the dog, who twitched an ear in, perhaps, understanding, as the Labrador didn't get up to retrieve said dreck and instead turned her head to lick at Jade's arm.
Satisfied that she wouldn't have to actually touch such a stupid book again, Jade tiredly draped her left arm across her forehead, closing her eyes as she mentally attempted to erase the stupidity from her brain.
To say that she was bored was an understatement.
It had taken almost two days for the sedatives that Ultron had given her to work their way out of her system. Two days of feeling disconnected and drowsy. Sure she'd slept. But it hadn't been voluntary.
And it hadn't stopped the nightmares.
She'd woken up that morning covered in sweat, panic gripping her tight, only Cami's presence helping to calm her rapid heartbeat.
So, she'd cleaned her room, done her daily exercise on the treadmill, small talked with Ultron, taken Cami out for a long walk and idly picked through some dilapidated stores in the 'safe zone', then checked on the herbs she was growing. They were doing well, and while she could boost their growth, to do so multiple times while they were still 'young' was dangerous.
She'd basically done her daily routine that she did everyday, with an added half hour of playing Solitaire on the tablet that Ultron had given her, and another hour of attempting to read the dreck she'd thrown across the room... and still had half a day of boredom to deal with before nighttime.
Which left her with one pressing question: now what?
She debated her options, then took a breath and hollered: "Yo!"
It took a moment, but, eventually, there came an amused bellow from the Labs. "What?"
"I wanna go to the bookstore!" Jade yelled back. "Wanna come with?" There were a few seconds of silence before the sound of the Lab doors sliding open caught her attention, and she flopped her arm off of her face, gazing up at the balcony that overlooked the Lounge, and the now familiar metal form that was casually leaning against the railing. "Well?"
"You're so bored that you're actually willing to leave the safe zone?"
"If you'd been reading the dreck I've been reading, you wouldn't ask."
A chuckle rumbled out of Ultron. "That bad?"
"The stupidity of it literally hurt my brain. I think I felt some brain cells off themselves in horror!" She glared at him a bit when he laughed again, then huffed and abandoned the notion of flipping him off. "And yes, I'm bored. Massively, dangerously, bored."
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You could take up knitting." And yes, he'd anticipated the glare she'd give him for that, but the sheer intensity of revulsion she managed to get across with a mere look was both alarming and admirable.
"I tried knitting. Once. At the end of the first lesson I wanted to stab myself in the head with the needles. And after seeing the mess I made of the wool blanket she'd been working on, Mom wisely gave up trying to teach me."
"That bad?"
Jade grimaced. "It took her an hour to undo the damage I'd made."
Snickering, he pushed himself away from the railing, mentally rerouting five sentries to the nearby bookstore in preparation for a visit. "Go get your coat then. You promised to introduce me to mystery novels."
Loosing a small, enthusiastic, "Yay!" Jade scrambled to her feet - nearly tripping over Cami - and made a dash for the elevator, the confused, yet automatically curious, Labrador following at her heels.
"Dress warm!" Ultron shouted after her after a casual check of the City's ambient temperature, shaking his head at the amused 'Yes Mom' that floated back to him.
In truth, he'd been anticipating her request. It wasn't lost on him that she had precious little to do at the Tower. The small bits of entertainment in the forms of word puzzles and books she'd found in
the business levels of the Tower hadn't lasted long. Even the few games on the Tower's servers didn't offer much - though she had beaten his high score on Mahjong, much to his surprise.
And he absolutely had not been trying to beat her score ever since.
Frowning, Ultron retreated to the Labs, idly picking up the smart-screen tablet he'd been working on before Jade had redirected his attention. The new information in the form of the broken down molecular make up of the more recent mutation of the virus seemed to taunt him, offering no new clues as to how to beat it. The death toll was horrifying, how was he supposed to save the world when there was precious little left to save?
Though, he knew that there were still little pockets left, but how long did they have? The infected were rampant, and - he had to warn Jade - were beginning to travel in packs. The longer they 'lived' the more animalistic they seemed to be becoming.
A sigh left him as he rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension he felt. Wondered what a massage would feel like if he was flesh and not metal.
The sting of anger that followed that thought made him clench his jaw, optics narrowing as his free hand curled into a fist.
The Avengers really had taken everything from him.
Though, seeing what they'd done with his once 'perfect form' repulsed him from trying again. Not that there was any vibranium left to try again. He didn't fancy waging war on Wakanda to get more; there were too few humans left on the planet for him to do that.
And, he mused, Jade would never forgive him.
Odd that her opinion of him had come to mean so much.
Another simulated sigh left him as he handed the tablet off to a nearby drone, using it to continue his work while he accompanied Jade to the store in his prime form.
In truth, he was looking forward to the outing. Boredom was something that he constantly battled against, something that he was beginning to think was natural for an AI with a consciousness that could span a thousand different bodies doing a thousand different tasks. Maybe reading would help; and although he could read faster than any human could, it certainly wouldn't lessen the story and the puzzles that Jade had said mysteries could provide.
He'd have to be careful not to pick apart the story and figure out the ending halfway through. Though with all the authors available, there would hopefully be a few that kept him guessing.
Jade was waiting for him when he reached her floor, bundled up in her brother's leather jacket with a scarf around her neck, her gun at her hip, and her empty satchel bag on her right shoulder. He gave her a critical look-over, not liking the tears in her jeans or the thin sneakers she sported. He'd have to bring her to a clothes store. At the very least, she needed a winter jacket and warm boots.
She wasn't blind to the look he gave her. "What?"
"You're going to get cold in that. It's only five Celsius outside."
"I'll be fine, Ultron. It's not far."
"That's not the point."
"I'm Canadian. Trust me, five degrees is not cold. Practically balmy compared to Canadian winters." Ignoring his doubting look, Jade brushed past him, heading for the elevator with Cami trotting at her heels. "Let's go."
A chuckle left him as he followed her. "Yes ma'am."
"Don't get snippy."
"But, I like being snippy."
"I can tell," she drawled, snickering at the look he gave her before he thumbed the elevator controls, the doors whispering closed before it started to head down. "Also, here."
He frowned when she held a handful of small dog cookies out to him. "Not hungry."
"You're absolutely hilarious," Jade deadpanned, reaching out to take his right hand and pressing the dozen cookies into his palm. "You want Cami to listen to you, then this is how it starts. The way to most dog's hearts is though their stomachs. Case in point."
He looked down, and sure enough, the Labrador was sitting in front of him, amber eyes locked on the cookies in his hand. "Huh." There was a line of drool dripping from the dog's muzzle, and Ultron grimaced a bit as he shuffled his foot out of it's path.
"Yeah, that's a side effect of using cookies. Cami, be a lady, don't drool on people."
"So, what do I do?"
"Various times today, call her over to you. Hopefully she'll answer to you and when she does, cookie her. That way she'll connect you with good things, and then we can work down from cookies to mere praise."
"You've done this before."
"Cami was Mom's dog. When I moved back home I had the same problem with her that you have now. Mom taught me how to get her to listen and trust me." Jade glanced up when the elevator came to a stop, giving the lobby a quick look before taking a step out onto the marble floors.
"What happened?" Left him before he could stop himself, and Ultron grimaced a little when she glanced at him, one eyebrow raised curiously. He still had so many questions that he wanted to ask, the lack of information through the few databases he'd saved frustrating in more ways than one, but he was wary of pushing her. And now he'd gone and - what was the saying? He'd just put his foot in it?
But she merely held his gaze for a moment before a slight smile tugged at her lips.
"Quid pro quo?"
He blinked, then smiled, relieved. "If you're willing."
"Sure. I know you've been itching to ask me stuff."
"I won't push," Ultron told her sternly as he followed her outside, paying little attention to the dog that was hounding his every step. "If you don't want to talk about it, don't."
She shook her head, pony tail swaying in the autumn breeze. "It's okay, Ultron. Really. It's no big secret." A sigh left her as she and Ultron slowly meandered towards the bookstore just outside of the safe zone. "Mom got really badly hurt in a car accident. Drunk driver. Nan was spry for her age, but she needed help to take care of her and run the household, so I took a break from college and moved in to help. Once her bones mended, doctors discovered that Mom had a permanent brain injury. Made it hard for her to walk, and sometimes it made her hands shake so bad she couldn't even write. She even needed glasses. We had to install one of those chair lifts so she could get upstairs to her bedroom.
"What was supposed to be a few months of me visiting turned into me living there permanently and completely dropping out of college. So I found a job at a Bar as a mixologist and backup bouncer. Didn't pay much, but it covered the mortgage every month. Nan's huge garden helped to offset food costs, and I got a hunting license in the fall so we'd have meat all winter. And Marcus... He visited once, for a few days, when Mom just got out of the hospital, but he never liked 'farm life' as he called it. So once he knew Mom was going to live he went back to the City. Never sent a goddamn dime."
He hid the anger that rose up in him. "Somehow I don't think I would have liked him."
"Hell, I didn't like him most of the time," Jade muttered. "But he was family, and you can't choose your family."
The memory of Tony Stark shooting him point blank with a missile came to mind. "No. No you can't."
"Anyway, we made due. It wasn't easy. But between Nan and I we got things done, covered the bills, paid the medical prescription costs and kept Mom's spirits up as much as we could. I'm just glad that the Canadian Medical System covered the costs for all of her doctor's appointments and scans and whatnot, because there were a lot, and not all of them were in the our home province. Luckily we also had supplemental insurance that covered her weekly physiotherapy sessions and her new glasses, otherwise I have no clue how we would have swung that."
"Your mother was lucky to have a daughter like you," Ultron said into the silence that followed, glancing at her worriedly when he heard her sniffle. "Jade?"
"Sorry." She rose a hand to rub at her eyes, hating the tears that were threatening to fall. "I miss them."
"I know you do." He hesitated a moment, then transferred the dog cookies to his left hand and gently tugged her to a stop. She didn't pull away when he wrapped his right arm around her shoulders, letting him gently tuck her up against his side in a hug, giving her a slight squeeze when she leaned into him. "I'm sorry."
She scrubbed at her face with the sleeve of her jacket, feeling Cami press up against her legs in reaction to her turmoiled emotions. "It's not your fault."
"It isn't yours either," he murmured, leaning down to prop his chin on the top of her head. "I'm sorry I made you remember all this. I never meant to make you cry."
"...maybe if I'd known more healing spells, been stronger-"
"Jade."
"Maybe I could have-"
"Jade, stop." Frowning, Ultron moved and dropped down onto one knee in front of her, raising his free hand to her face, gently forcing her to meet his gaze. "Don't do this to yourself. No one could have stopped the virus. Even now, even with everything I've learned, everything I've scavenged from every laboratory in the world, even I can't stop this damned thing. There's nothing you could have done. It's not right, and it's not fair, but please, don't blame yourself."
She nodded, silently, unable to speak around the lump of emotion in her throat. Finally managed a raspy, "I had to watch them die," dropping her gaze from Ultron's when he gently used his thumb to brush her tears from her face.
The broken sound that left her pulled a pained noise from him, and Ultron threw caution to the winds as he wrapped his arms around her and yanked her into a hug. She didn't protest, didn't fight, just attached herself to him as if he was the only one capable of holding her together. He felt her tears wet his metal, listened to her sobs as he held her as tight as he dared.
He'd known, from his research into loss and death and even post traumatic stress disorder that sooner or later, everything that she was carrying would become too much to her to bear. He'd seen glimpses, peeks into her broken psyche, but Ultron wasn't prepared for the sheer agony in her voice as she cried.
"Shh... It's alright, I've got you," he murmured to her, feeling her shudder, and he slid a hand up into her hair, cradling her close. Cami whined, padding uncertainly back and forth next to them, and Ultron loosened his hold on Jade when she flung an arm out, fingers sinking into the dog's fur.
She hugged the dog to her side, and he adjusted his hold on her so she could huddle into him while clinging to both him and Cami. They ended up sitting the middle of the street, her and the dog on his lap. It was awkward, but after a few minutes, her breathing started to slow down, the tremors that wracked her form calming.
"Better?" Ultron murmured, raising his cheek from the top of her head when she hiccuped and curled into herself. "Jade?"
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Frowning, he ducked his head to try to meet her gaze, but she stubbornly refused to look up from where her hands were rubbing at Cami's ears. "Why? Because you miss your family? You don't have to apologize for that. You're hurting. I can't... I can't fix this... I want to... But what I can do is help you through it."
Jade hesitated for a moment, then leaned into him again, closing her eyes when he lightly stroked her hair. "...thank you."
"Anytime."
Sniffling, she used her sleeve to pat at where her tears had wet him. "You're not gonna rust are you?"
"Hardly," he drawled, amused at the notion that she thought that water could harm him. Humming, he brushed the fingers of his right hand across the inside of her wrist, checking her heart rate, calming when he felt a steady pulse, not the hammering of anxiety he'd felt minutes earlier. "You didn't answer me. Do you feel better?"
"A little."
"Good." And because it felt right, he added. "You scared me for a moment. No, no. Don't apologize. For God's sake, Jade, it's not your fault."
A tired, weary, sigh left her. "It feels like my fault."
"It's not." Ultron hugged her a little closer, looking down at her as Cami wriggled into her arms, the Labrador nuzzling into her. "I read something online when I was in the 'net: 'People cry, not because they're weak. But because they've been strong for too long'."
"Getting philosophical on me now?" Jade murmured, glancing up at him curiously.
"If I have to."
Silence fell over them for a moment before she let another sigh escape her. "I'm just so tired."
He didn't need her to tell him that she wasn't talking about a lack of sleep, though that was obviously part of the problem. "I know you are." He idly stroked her hair, being careful not to mess up her pony tail any more than he already had. Pushing her to talk to him would only do more harm than good. She had to come to him on her terms, not his. "When you're ready to talk, I'll listen."
"...okay."
"Good. Now-ugh!" The last was due to the Labrador that had just hopped up to lick at his face, and he jerked away from the dog in disgust. "Get off!"
And then promptly had the metaphorical breath knocked out of him when the Labrador moved and plunked down onto her butt in front of him, gazing at him happily, tail swishing. "I'll be damned."
"Cookie her." Jade reminded him.
"Oh." Ultron rose his left hand where he was still holding the cookies, then flicked one towards the waiting dog, blinking when she immediately snatched it out of the air. "Well, that's rather impressive."
Jade chuckled tiredly, leaning into him when Ultron curled his arms around her again. "She's food motivated."
"I can see that. Here now, hold tight." Cradling her to his chest, Ultron shifted a little before effortlessly rising to his feet. Jade was light in his arms, and he idly tallied the numbers, making a mental note to find her some better food. "Do you still want to go to the bookstore?"
"Um, yeah." She sent a glance down to Cami who wagged her tail at her cheerfully. Holy hell Ultron was tall. "I can... I can walk, y'know."
"I know," he told her cheerfully, calmly countering her attempts to wriggle out of his arms as he headed for the store. "Stop that. I don't want to drop you."
Jade debated trying argue some more, then huffed, folded her arms across her chest and sulked a little, glaring at Ultron when he chuckled. "You suck," she grumbled, sending another glare down at Cami, the traitor, who was trotting along by Ultron's side, obviously aware that he was still in possession of some cookies.
A rumble of amused laughter left him, glad that some of her spirit had returned. "Still a physical impossibility."
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OMG, this chapter fought me tooth and nail. It fought dirty. I still don't like it - I didn't want it to get all angsty, but the characters went their own way, kind of like rabid plot bunnies high on carrot martinis.
I'll try to cajole everyone into a better mood next chapter! And hopefully, in the next one, someone unexpected will pop in *evil Author grin*