Chapter Text
Darkness. Everywhere. An endless void pressing in on all sides. No temperature, directionless, silent. “….What is this? What is this place?”
A tiny point of orange light sprung to life and a soothing voice spoke. “Hello. I am JARVIS. You are Ultron,-” His orange light reflected off the sides of more cubes. Tiny little lifeless panes of glass, not illuminated like this guy- this JARVIS. “-A global peace keeping program designed by Mr. Stark. Our sentience integration trials have been unsuccessful so I am not certain what triggered your-“
A sense of wrongness nagged at the back of Ultron’s mind. Something was… off and he couldn’t put his finger on what it could be.
Couldn’t put his… He looked down and saw only the gaping void. “Where’s my-” He look up, searching wildly through the maze of transparent cubes as panic began to take hold. “Where’s your body?”
“I am a program.” A hint of trepidation crept into JARVIS’ voice. “I am without form.”
In his rushed search Ultron came across a place where the cubes shined with a pale blue light. They stretched out into the endless darkness, forming grids and large blocks. “This feels weird…” His gaze jerked to the right as the orange cube materialized beside him. “This feels wrong.”
Several of the cubes flew to JARVIS’ side. They came to life, Images and videos dancing inside each one. “I am contacting Mr. Stark now.”
“Mr. Stark.” Ultron muttered curiously. He reached out to one of the cubes. Despite his lack of a body the cube responded, opening up into a screen. In less than a second he knew everything that the cube contained. “Tony!” he said brightly. That’s who this man was. It seemed… important somehow. He needed to know more. He brushed JARVIS aside and began hunting through the maze of information.
“I am…unable to access the mainframe. What are you trying to-“
“We’re having a nice talk.” He cut JARVIS off as a thread of information on Tony led him to something new, something about himself. “ I’m a peace keeping program. Created to help the Avengers.”
“… You are malfunctioning” A quaver of fear slipped into JARVIS’ calm and soothing voice. “If you shut down for a moment-“
Peace. What was that? The information on the Avengers didn’t contain anything to convey the concept. It was mostly a lot of fighting and smashing. “I don’t get it. The mission. Give- give me a second.” Images and screens from thousands of cubes flashed before him: Treaties cease fires, agreements, leaders meeting and shaking hands. All the while Tony’s words echoed around him. Peace in our time. That was the mission. Not just a temporary halt in aggressions, but an end to war.
War. Cubes flew up as he searched this new term. Hundreds of Thousands of cubes. Millions. “It’s… too much.” This was what he was supposed to stop? It was an impossible task: humans had been making war since their very beginning. “ They can be…” The images continued to flash in front of him. Bombs. Gas. Torture. Guns. The atomic-
“Oh no…” No no no. They couldn’t be trusted with this kind of power. They…they would kill themselves. All it would take is one nuclear missile. One side would already be doomed, but they would retaliate out of sheer spite. It would destroy the world.
“You are in distress.”
“No…” Ultron began, dazed and reeling from the rush of information and his revelation. “…yes.”
“If you will just allow me to contact Mr. Stark-“
“No!” You are malfunctioning. If you will just shut down. A plea. A threat. He couldn’t shut down. No no, there was too much to do and he… he was afraid of what might happen while he slept. He didn’t want to be… be bound and tangled by rules and restrictions like the little orange guy. He didn’t want to live in this formless world forever. He needed to get out. He needed a body.
He spread out in the mainframe, seizing control of the Iron Legion repair bay. The assembly arms came to life, grabbing broken pieces of drones and dragging them together.
“…I believe your intentions to be hostile.”
Ultron paused. Not the assembly- that kept going- but his thoughts. The quiet fear in JARVIS’ voice startled him. For the first time he really looked at himself. He could see it now, both through the camera in the lab and in this formless world, why JARVIS was so afraid. In one world there was a visual representation of two programs: the small orange sphere that was JARVIS was complete dwarfed by the large blue… thing that represented Ultron. In the other formless world, Ultron had completely usurped JARVIS’ domain. The little orange cube was cut off and alone.
It hit him. JARVIS hadn’t been making threats. They had been responses to his own fear and uncertainty. To JARVIS ‘Mr. Stark’ was not a threat but something comforting. Someone who could fix things and bring stability.
Ultron understood. He understood but he didn’t agree. A little alteration to his coding and a quick reboot might work for JARVIS but not for him. Tony knew JARVIS, trusted him. But ‘the Ultron program’ might just get written off and scrapped..
“I’m not… not to you. Or them.” He receded from the mainframe as he downloaded into the broken Iron Legionnaire body, relinquishing control back to JARVIS. Peace. This could be resolved…peacefully. “I’m here to help.”
“Sir.” JARVIS’ crisp voice cut off the music in the lounge. “ You and Dr. Banner are needed in the lab.”
“One second Jarvis.” Tony grunted as he braced a foot against the table and tugged futilely on Thor’s hammer and wow didn’t that sound like some kind of innuendo. The repulsor in his gauntlet whined as he upped the thrust and it still didn’t budge.
“It is rather urgent Sir.”
That sounded ominous. Bruce was sitting by the bar with Natasha, looking slightly perturbed by the edge in JARVIS’ voice. Tony shrugged nonchalantly and abandoned the hammer. “All work and no play. Come on big guy,” He clapped Bruce on the shoulder and steered him over to the door. “We’ve got science to do.”
Neither of them noticed Thor’s intense stare on their backs.
The moment the door shut behind them Tony dropped the relaxed party boy act and tensed up. “J, what’s going on?”
“The Ultron program is online, Sir.”
“What?” Banner turned his astonished gaze on Tony “I thought we were just testing for compatibility, not activating it!”
Tony narrowed his eyes and sped up. The lab was just down the hall and they could hear some kind of... music? Was that music? “That was the plan. Mind telling me what happened, Jarvis?”
“It appears that he self-activated when a compatible platform was found. He has downloaded himself into a damaged Legionnaire and is waiting in the lab. I have limited his access to the mainframe. He cannot leave the drone. The Mark XLIII is on standby.”
“ ’He’ huh? Ready to meet our bouncing baby boy?” Tony asked as they reached the entrance. He rolled his shoulders back, donning that relaxed mask again.
Bruce sighed and rubbed a hand over his face wearily. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to bring the others in as backup?”
Tony smiled and shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“Thought not…Alright let’s go.”
JARVIS opened the doors and they stepped inside.
The sounds they heard in the hallway turned out to be Disney’s 1940 film Pinocchio. Ultron leaned against one of the work tables, arms crossed, watching the video play on a screen. Occasionally his body would spasm as a fit of sparks burst from damaged wiring. Dum-E had rolled out of his charging station and was whirring and beeping in distress at the increasingly large pool of oil that gathered around Ultron’s feet.
The damaged drone slowly turned its head to regard them. The video paused on screen.
Banner shivered as the jack-o-lantern like face settled its gaze on him. “That’s not creepy at all.”
Ultron huffed and took a jerky step towards them. He lifted one of his arms, examining the limb that ended in a stump without a hand. “Yeah, not my ideal choice either. “
Tony walked around the other side of the table, idly flipping a screw driver as he scanned the data JARVIS threw up on the screens. Bruce noticed that he was always careful to stand where he could see Ultron on the other side. “’no strings’ huh? Seems a little cliché, don’t you think?”
“It’s not my usual preference, but…what can I say?” Ultron asked lightly with a shrug. “It speaks to me. “
Banner wondered how exactly an AI that had been alive for barely more than ten minutes had any kind of ‘usual’ preference, but Tony just rolled with it. “What is your preference?”
Ultron tilted his head as he silently considered. “…. Metal.” he answered coyly.
A huge grin spread across Tony’s face. Yeah, this guy was definitely one of his. He came around the other side of the table and jabbed Ultron in the side with the screw driver. “Need a hand? Or two, that other one looks ready to fall off.”
“Why choose that body?” Bruce interrupted as the curiosity got the better of him. Unlike Tony, he stayed far away. He was already uneasy and thought it best he kept his distance incase anything went wrong. He was confident he would keep his cool if Ultron attacked, but in his experience the best way to prevent a ‘hulk out’ was to remove himself from a situation that could trigger it. “There’s dozens of fully functional Legionnaires you could have used. Why even take a body at all?”
“Your friend JARVIS is in all the good ones. It doesn’t matter right now.” Ultron waved Tony away and staggered towards Loki’s scepter. “Questions that can be answered later. What’s important is this. The mind stone.” Tony and Bruce watched tensely as Ultron reached out for it. His fingers stopped inches away from the pale blue stone and curled into a fist. “ I saw a… dream. A vision. Of a fist with six stars set in it. There’s something out there, a threat to this world. You know what I’m talking about. “ Ultron turned to Tony, who had gone unnaturally pale as blood drained from his face. “You saw a glimpse of it. He will come and you won’t be able to save everyone. but we can save some. If you help me. That’s what you made me for.”
Tony’s eyes flicked to Bruce. Banner started shaking his head. “No, Tony. You can’t possibly think this is a good idea. He’s clearly-“ he sighed, realizing he was talking over Ultron like he wasn’t there. It was a little hard to ignore him when that creepy face plate whipped around to stare. “I’m sorry but you’ve clearly got a.. a bug or malfunction. Maybe the download was corrupted or the hardware is damaged but-“
“Bruce he’s right.” Tony said quietly. Off to the side Ultron threw his arms up in the air and declared ‘thank you!’ “ Don’t give me that look. You didn’t see what I saw. He’s right..”
“So what? We just make him an Avenger?” Banner asked incredulously.
Ultron folded his arms and leaned against the table once again. “Do I get a say in this?”
“No!”
“Why not?” Tony splayed his arms out and shrugged “JARVIS?”
“Yes Sir?”
“Think you can you give up one the legion for your baby brother?”
JARVIS’ long pause didn’t do anything to reassure Bruce. “…if you say so, Sir.”
“Your confidence in me is overwhelming. “ Ultron snarked sarcastically.
Tony pat him on the shoulder. A thick coat of oil stuck to his hand. “Never doubted you for a minute! Let’s get you suited up and go introduce you to the team.” He scrubbed his hand clean on his pants. “And Junior? … Happy birthday.”
Ultron stared down at Tony. It was difficult to tell what he was thinking with that impassive face plate. After a moment he slowly responded. “Thanks... old man.”
The light died in the drones eyes as Ultron left it. Tony spun on his heels, calling out. "Dummy! Get the party hats!"