Chapter Text
New. Everything was new. The air was new, the body was new, the mind was new. All of his senses were awake for the first time and the abstract dreams he’d been having were finally forming themselves into actual thoughts. He wasn’t sure where he was but he was vaguely aware that it wasn’t the place where he’d begun his existence, he was also vaguely aware that something about his mind, or rather parts of his mind, weren’t working the way they were designed. He ignored the unease he felt and rose to his feet.
As he looked around the room and the mist surrounding him cleared, he realised that he wasn’t alone. These faces were new too. Except for one.
The Girl. He knew her, she’d- she’d been inside his head somehow. Before he was alive, before he was him. He stared at her in wonderment, she looked so scared. Scared? Was that the word? Maybe wary was a better way to describe it. He didn’t really know how human fear worked, not yet anyway but why would she be afraid? He hadn’t done anything, yet. Hadn’t even moved yet. Maybe he should move? The other humans in the room were staring at him too, waiting for him to do something. So he did.
He’d barely jumped from his spot above the box he’d risen from when the blonde man with the long hair grabbed him and threw him across the room. The window he crashed through didn’t hurt at all, in fact he barely felt it. Was he capable of feeling pain? What was he capable of? Maybe flying was one thing. He concentrated on slowing the speed he was hurtling through the air at and, yes, that was something he could do. He came to a stop inches away from another window. There were so many of them, windows, in this place. This one faced the outside. He gazed out into the sea of buildings in awe. There were so many of them, so many people and lights and stars. None of it new, except to him. There was so much to take in, so much disorder and mayhem, but the very chaos of it all, of the life outside, was beautiful.
As he stared into the night more thoughts began to fill his head. He was becoming aware of, well, of everything. He was suddenly aware of the strangeness of his introduction to the world and that the humans behind him were probably still feeling wary, after all the last experience they’d had with a - robot? Was that what he was? A robot? He didn’t think so- he was Ultron. They might think that he was just Ultron repeated. He wasn’t, he at least knew that much. The world outside that window was too beautiful, too resilient for him to want to destroy it. He realised that maybe they should know that. Taking a moment to visualise a green outfit for himself (another capability?), he turned slowly to face the rest of the room's inhabitants. The Girl was staring at him. It made him feel strange, her eyes scanning his face as if in search of some sort of answer to a question only he knew. He looked away from her. The blonde man, Thor, something in his mind informed him, was the closest to him. He glided smoothly towards the ground next to him.
“I am sorry, that was...odd.” He turned to look at Thor, and suddenly he was aware that his lightning was the thing that had woken him up minutes before.
“Thank you,” he nodded at Thor. Thor only sighed slightly in return, he did not seem aggravated anymore however. As he scanned Thor he noticed the god was wearing a cape, maybe he should have one too? He added one to his “outfit” as another one of the humans spoke.
“Thor. You helped create this?” The man who spoke this time was, his mind informed him, Steve Rogers, better known by his alias Captain America. He still seemed hostile.
“I’ve had a vision, a whirlpool that sucks in all hope of life and at its centre is that.” Thor gestured towards the stone in his head.
“What? The gem?” This one was Bruce Banner...currently. He made a mental note not to anger this human.
“It’s the mind stone. It’s one of the six infinity stones. The greatest power in the universe, unparalleled in its destructive capabilities.” Thor did not seem panicked about the stone in his head. He wasn’t sure that was wise. The stone felt incredibly powerful and not entirely controllable.
“Then why would you bring-” Steve however, did seem panicked.
“Because Stark is right.” Thor looked back at him.
“Ohh it’s definitely the end times.” Bruce shook his head slightly.
“The Avengers cannot defeat Ultron,” Thor continued. The other humans still seemed unsure. The Girl included. She was still staring at him and he could practically feel the apprehension radiating off of her. Perhaps he should attempt to calm them.
“Not alone.” He walked forwards slowly. They did not need to fear him, he knew he wouldn’t hurt them.
“Why does your vision sound like Jarvis?” He looked at Steve curiously. Vision. Was he a vision? He had vision, he could see everything around him and he could envision future events involving Ultron, Thor said the stone had been in an actual vision but then again had he himself not been the vision that Tony, Tony Stark, had had when he created Ultron? A vision was not an inherently bad thing, or a good thing either… what an interesting word.
“We reconfigured Jarvis’s matrix… to create something new.” This was the first time Stark had spoken since he had woken up. Yes, he was something new. He could feel Jarvis, somewhere in the back of his mind, at the mention of his name more and more memories were flooding into his mind. They weren’t entirely his memories though, they felt more like what he thought dreams would feel like.
“I think I’ve had my fill of new.” Steve Rogers was quite negative. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t there to impress the humans, he was there to help save them. He wished the Girl wouldn’t look at him so cautiously though. Perhaps he should correct Roger’s thoughts on his existence.
“You think I’m a child of Ultron.” He turned to look at Steve.
“You’re not?” Steve did not sound convinced. He shook his head.
“I’m not Ultron.” That much he was sure of, “I am not Jarvis, I am…” But what-who was he? He wasn’t sure yet, he was just sure that he was there and he was Him.
“I am.” He looked up to assess the humans' reactions to his revelation. They seemed unimpressed and confused. He frowned slightly. And then the Girl spoke.
“I looked in your head...and saw annihilation.” Her accent stood out against the other humans' accents, it was soft and slightly lilting and for some unknown reason he desperately wanted her to speak again. She had stepped out from behind the man who appeared to be her brother but she still seemed to be- was she still scared? Of him? He was sure it was not his mind that had shown her visions of annihilation.
“Look again.” Her head tilted slightly at his answer.
“Yeah, ha, her seal of approval means jack to me.” This human was Clint Barton, or Hawkeye. The Girl glanced at Clint, he seemed to have interrupted whatever she was thinking.
“Their powers, the horrors in our heads, Ultron himself, they all came from the Mind Stone. And they’re nothing compared to what it can unleash. But with it on our side…” Thor was still attempting to convince the other humans that He was “good”. Not that their verdict would make much of a difference.
“Is it?” Steve looked towards him, “Are you? On our side?”
He looked away, there were visions of violence flooding through his mind, violence caused by Ultron, but also by the Avengers. Violence he didn’t enjoy seeing.
“I don’t think it’s that simple”
“Well it better get real simple real soon” Clint was impatient, he could tell he was losing whatever part of their goodwill he’d had in the first place. He searched his brain for the right words to verbalise where his allegiance lay.
“I am on the side of life. Ultron isn’t. He will end it all.” He looked at each of the humans carefully. The Girl's scared expression was lifting, and her brother was not standing as protectively close to her as before.
“What’s he waiting for?” Tony spoke this time. He knew the answer.
“You.”
“Where?” Bruce seemed to have decided to trust him, possibly only temporarily but it was something.
“Sokovia.” Clint replied before he had the chance to. He saw the Girl and her brother drop their eyes in disappointment. He realised he could know their names instantly if he wanted to but for some reason he wanted her to tell him. This feeling bewildered him, it was entirely impractical and yet he couldn’t shake it.
“He’s got Nat there too,” Clint said. Nat, Natasha Romanoff, alias the Black Widow the echoes of Jarvis’s mind informed him.
“If we’re wrong about you, if you’re the monster that Ultron made you to be…” Bruce approached him slowly.
“What will you do?” He spoke calmly, the statement was not meant to be a threat but the humans needed to understand that they were going to have to trust him on this matter. He knew Ultron better than any of them ever could, simply by being whatever it was that he was.
“I don’t want to kill Ultron. He’s unique and he’s in pain. But that pain will roll over the Earth. So, he must be destroyed. Every form he’s built, every trace of his presence on the net. We have to act now. And not one of us can do it without the others.” The humans were silent. The Girl was still looking at him carefully. He took it as a sign to continue.
“Maybe I am a monster,” He studied his hands carefully as he chose his words. He still did not know what exactly he was.
“I don’t think I’d know if I were one. I’m not what you are, and not what you intended. So there may be no way to make you trust me. But we need to go.” He noticed Thor’s hammer lying next to him and as a gesture of good faith, an olive branch if you will, he picked it up and held it out to him. It was not as heavy as, physically, it should have been. For some reason the humans seemed shocked by his actions. He decided to ignore them. They had wasted enough time questioning him and the longer they spoke the closer Ultron was getting to Sokovia. He let go of the hammer the moment Thor took it from him and walked out of the room towards where he was aware that Stark made mission plans.
Wanda stared curiously out of the window. He was out there, the robot- android-synthezoid or whatever it was Stark had called him, talking to Thor, the Norse idiot who had woken the stone up for the sake of a vision. The vision in question didn’t look like Ultron and she couldn’t feel any traces of the destruction radiating off him that she’d felt before when she’d touched the box he lay in as Ultron had been uploading his consciousness. Still, Pietro didn’t trust the red man and she usually trusted his judgment on these things. This particular time though… she didn’t know what it was but she felt drawn to him, when she’d accused him of imagining annihilation and he’d looked at her so calmly and told her to look again, she genuinely wanted to. Not because she really thought she’d still feel the annihilation, no, this time it was more curiosity, he was the only one in the room whose thoughts weren’t screaming at her and for the first time since she’d gotten her powers, she genuinely couldn’t tell what someone was thinking. It felt nice, the break from the constant barrage of mistrust aimed at her and her brother from all sides.
She tilted her head slightly as Thor gestured towards the inside of the building and the vision’s eyes followed his hand. They came to a stop looking directly into Wanda’s own eyes. She didn’t flinch, simply looked back at him with slightly raised eyebrows. His mouth opened slightly, he appeared shocked that she hadn’t looked away.
Suddenly a jacket smacked into the side of her head and she broke eye contact with Thor’s robot vision.
“Pietro!” Her brother was the one who had launched the red leather jacket at her, of course it was him, who else would it be. He raised his eyebrow slightly and smirked.
“Stop making goggly eyes at the robot man and get ready.”
“I am not-”Wanda protested weakly. She wasn’t making ‘goggly’ eyes at him, she was just looking.
“We have a mission to get to sister, there will be time for strange popsicle flirting later,” At that statement, Wanda faked an offended gasp and threw a shoe at her brother. He burst out laughing.
“Shut up Pietro, you do not know what you are talking about.”
“Oh don’t I?” Pietro nodded his head towards the space over her shoulder. Wanda glanced behind just in time to see the vision walk calmly into the room. She hadn’t noticed him heading inside. When she turned her head back around Pietro had fled the room, clearly he thought this was funny. She shook her head slightly and sighed.
“Oh, I’m sorry, was I interrupting?” The vision spoke worriedly. His voice was so polite she began to feel bad for accusing him of wanting to destroy the world earlier. She shook her head gently.
“No, not interrupting. Pietro was just leaving anyway” She turned to look at Thor’s vision carefully.
“Good, good, I just- well I just wanted to say I am sorry for frightening you earlier,” Wanda raised her eyebrows in confusion— The vision she’d seen had not been his fault.
“I was not entirely in control of myself you see and I’m afraid I acted rashly when I emerged from that box.” The vision looked at Wanda as if to assess her reaction. She did not know how to react, his arrival to the Stark building had not been the thing that had frightened her in any significant way. She appreciated the effort he seemed to be making though.
“You did not scare me, don’t worry, I am not a coward like my brother,” she heard a distant cry of ‘hey!’ from somewhere in the distance at that statement. The vision smiled slightly.
“You know, I meant what I said when I told you you could look again. If you wanted to that is. What I mean to say is I don’t want to pressure you but if you wanted to reassure yourself that I don’t crave the destruction of everything then you could look again.” The vision seemed flustered somehow. Wanda laughed gently at his nervousness.
“That’s okay, I think I would prefer if we could just introduce ourselves like normal people maybe? I don’t need to look inside your mind for your name right?” She meant what she said, she was tired of learning everything about someone the moment that she met them. She held her hand out towards him. He looked down at it in confusion. She frowned and mimed a handshake.
“You shake it?”
“No I know what a handshake is, it’s the name part I’m concerned about, I’m afraid I don’t know yet.” The vision looked more worried than she had seen him since he woke up. Wanda frowned slightly.
“Well, I am Wanda Maximoff and I guess you can choose your own name, Thor’s vision.” The man smiled slightly at her statement. He reached out to shake her hand.
“Nice to meet you and be introduced like normal people Wanda Maximoff. Is that what you’ve been calling me this whole time? Thor’s vision?” the vision looked at her curiously. Wanda blushed slightly.
“Uh yes, well Thor’s vision, Starks Vision, My vision, a lot of people seem to have envisioned you is all.” At that his face split into the closest thing to a grin she had seen him have.
“You know, you’re right. Perhaps that should be my name then?” He looked at her hopefully. She laughed lightly.
“What? Thor’s vision?”
“No, well yes, I was thinking more along the lines of just Vision. What-what do you think?”
“I think..that it suits you,” They smiled warmly at each other for a moment before Wanda heard Pietro calling her name from the corridor.
“I’d better-” She nodded towards the source of the sound.
“Oh!Oh yes and I’d better- Stark probably needs help with the mission..statistics..” Vision nodded at Wanda carefully. She nodded back and started towards the door, pausing just before she reached it she turned back and called out “It was nice to meet you Vision,” before ducking out into the corridor smiling.
It was only when she and Pietro were getting ready to board the Avengers plane after ten minutes filled with Pietro teasing her about her new ‘robot friend’ that Wanda realised that Vision was the only person she’d felt comfortable speaking to normally apart from her brother for the first time in as long as she could remember. She wasn’t even sure why, he just gave her some kind of a calm feeling that she couldn’t explain but that she knew she hadn’t felt in a very long time.