8 Arc III Age of Ultron - Birth of Ultron

[AN: I do a lot of research to make sure I get the dates and timelines right or at the very least in the right ball park. But for Age of Ultron, I found no concrete clue when to place it all. I'm going to assume it's 2015 and by the weather, I will place it in Summer starting in mid-May. If I messed it up and there are dates for the movies... consider this AU, I guess.

Also please don't shit on Natasha's baby father, if you figure out who it is with my very obvious hints. Or do, I won't care. It took me a while to figure out how to send the Hulk to Sakaar without him rampaging during the Ultron mission, which also means without the Banner-Romanoff romance. Thor needs Hulk in Sakaar during Thor:Ragnarok for the timeline I envisioned to keep making sense.]

"Remember, don't be weird around Thor," Eli warned as they slowly floated towards Anvengers Tower's top floor.

"I still don't get why you won't just tell him. I'd kill to get my family back," Jessica said as she was hugging Eli from behind. The couple wasn't going to broadcast to the world what her powers were just yet. Classic counter-intelligence move.

"I'd kill to get my mom back, too. But Thor didn't want me, didn't want my mom's affections, everything surrounding my birth was done against his will. He shouldn't feel any obligation to be my father just because I exist," Eli replied with a sigh.

"You're not giving him a chance to decide that on his own," Jessica insisted with a frown Eli couldn't quite see, but feel.

"It was my mother's last wish?" Eli weakly added after a few moments.

"You're just using that as an excuse. Did she give you a time when you could reveal it? Did she give you a year, at least?" Jessica was going to be stubborn about this, wasn't she?

"Ugh, okay, I'll think about it. Just not today, okay Jessie?"

"Hmpf, don't Jessie me if you're going to act like a child," Jessica harrumphed.

"Pretty please? With sugar on top?"

"Fine! But unless a miracle happens, you're sleeping on the couch today."

"Please no mention of our sleeping arrangement either. Nat is going to tease me relentlessly for weeks if you mention even the least juciest of details," Eli said with a shake of his head.

"Nat's gonna come? Who's watching her kid?"

"She didn't say, but I'm thinking Misty is going to look after Eliza. She looked giddy about something this morning," Eli shrugged.

"You never told me who the father was. You know who, right?"

"I do, but this is your first time meeting the Avengers. Get your head in the game. I'll tell you after the party if you join me on that couch," Eli teased with a wink as he looked back to Jessica.

"You're impossible, Thorson."

"Ugh, Jessie, we're almost there. You know Tony put mics all over the building and probably a few blocks around it. Please don't make me drop you last second for emergency flight training."

All Eli received as a response was a pinch with superhuman strength.

"Hey kid, you know we have elevators, right?" Tony shouted from the balcony as Eli and Jessica drew closer to the tower.

"Oh yeah? How often would you use these elevators if Pepper allowed you to wear your suit 24/7?"

"Alright, you got me there. Probably never again. Now, who's the lovely lady clutching your neck like a koala?" Tony said as he stared at the pink haired woman on Eli's back.

Yeah, she had dyed her hair pink with a purple-ish highlighting for the party after she lost a bet with Eli. It looked really cute with her 'formal' leather jacket and jeans combo. She also had a magical earring that turned into a scarf to hide the lower half of her face like Eli did. Hers was purple, a little darker than her hair. It matched her blouse under the jacket. Eli still wondered how Trish was able to convince Jessica to wear those black high heels though. Was it another bet she lost?

Eli himself wore an elegant, dark-green and black suit with a handkerchief in Jessica's purple color to show they were together. As if the matching scarfs weren't a dead giveaway already. If people misunderstood, they might think he was here to support the Hulk with the green and purple combination.

"Tony, meet Jewel. Jewel, meet Tony," Eli, again, received a hard pinch on his side.

"By his little jump and the pinch I just saw, I'm gonna assume that's not your name?" Tony asked with a raised brow as he offered his hand to Jessica.

"Call me Alias. Jewel was a codename my sister came up with. The idiot likes to tease me with it," Jessica said as she shook Tony's offered hand.

"Codename, huh? You came up with yours yet, 'Emerald Blur'?" Tony asked as he pumped his eyebrows.

"If you must call me something other than Eli, call me Tempest I guess," Eli shrugged.

"Okay, kid tempest. Has a nice ring to it," Tony mused as he turned to usher the two newcomers toward the party.

"Whatever, Anthony," Eli countered in a playful tone as he followed Tony.

"Just mingle, okay? This is not a ball. I won't announce your arrival," Tony said as he ran towards a group of veterans for another drink.

At the side, Eli saw Captain America, Steve Rogers, out of uniform talk to a fit black man in his early 30s.

"Hey, cap! Long time no see," Eli greeted as he moved closer with Jessica.

"Long time no see indeed, kid. Meet Sam Wilson, Sam, meet... Emerald Blur?" Steve greeted back, though he wasn't sure what to introduce Eli as. Tony had made sure they wouldn't tell anyone his name was Eli. Tony also told them his age to bring home the point.

"Hey Sam, call me Tempest," Eli introduced himself with a handshake.

"This here is my partner, Alias. Alias, meet Sam and Captain America," Eli added.

"Please, call me Steve," Captain America offered as he shook Jessica's hand, too.

"Hey Tempest, big fan. The way you held the first line of defense on that portal was amazing," Sam said, no gushed as he shook Eli's hand with a lot of genuine enthusiasm.

"Anybody with my abilities could have done the same," Eli said as he scratched the back of his head with his free hand.

"Yeah, but only you stepped up. That was a good thing you did, Tempest. You saved countless lives," Steve praised as he patted Eli's shoulder.

They did a bit of small talk until a blonde woman came close and held Steve's arm intimately. Well, intimately for Steve Rogers' standards. She was introduced to him as Sharon Carter. Apparently, she replaced Natasha on the Avengers roster after the Black Widow announced her pregnancy at the end of October 2013 and dropped off the radar for a year.

Well, Eli knew where she was at the time. She was in his home, hidden and made to look like someone else with magic. Natasha and her baby had moved out before Jessica moved in. Still, Natasha wore an earring to hide her true face like Maya Hansen did when she was outside with her baby.

It was the only way she could live a life without completely falling off the grid and she was eternally grateful to Eli for it.

The five eventually split up, and Eli and Jessica socialized with a few more people, mostly veterans thanking Eli for his actions in the battle of NY. Though one of the veterans was a little weird. The old man with a mustache and sunglasses looked Eli up and down with a scrutinizing gaze and left with the words: "Not what I would have done, but you'll do kid."

That left both Jessica and Eli puzzled. Especially when later in the party the serious old man was completely wasted and was carried out by two men while slurring the word 'Excelsior'.

"Alias, so good to see you! Love what you have done with your hair," Natasha greeted the two when she found the couple in the masses.

Natasha herself was dressed in a skirt-blouse combo that screamed dinner party in the 1930s, and she too had a pink strand of hair in a sea of red neatly combed behind her ear.

"Did you also lose a bet, just not as hard, or are you mocking me?" Jessica said with an eyebrow raised.

"I wanted to try something different, and Misty showed me a picture earlier. I liked the look," Natasha defended herself with a shrug after she was done hugging Eli and Jessica.

"She took pictures? Ugh, I bet she will frame it. Please use magic to hide it from my eyes and yours when she hangs it up, Blur," Jessica pleaded as she turned to me.

"Blur?" Natasha asked.

"Haha, I introduced her to Tony as Jewel earlier. This is just payback, I guess," Eli said while patting Jessica's head.

"So you're sleeping on the couch tonight?" Natasha asked, watching Jessica slap away Eli's hand with a bright smile.

"Y-" Eli covered Jessica's mouth before she could deny or confirm.

"You two are the cutest. When will you give my Eliza a playmate?"

"Before we even consider that, both of us should be of age," Jessica declared in a whiny tone. The fact that she was older than Eli by eight, almost nine years was a sore point for her, even if he behaved more mature than her most of the time.

"You heard the lady. My mom waited until she was 1969 years old to have me. How could I face her in Valhalla if I made her a grandma before she would have turned 2000 years old? I mean before I turn even 20," Eli added with a laugh.

"Did I just hear correctly that your mom was almost 2000 years old?" the three heard someone ask from behind in an incredulous tone.

"Dr Cho, Dr Banner - good to see you."

They all introduced themselves to each other before Eli came back to answer the initial interruption.

"Yeah, my mom was Asgardian, same as Thor. When he says he is over a millenia old, you can believe him. He didn't inherit his name from some Thor that visited the vikings in the olden days. He was the one who came to Midgard to fight off an invasion of frost giants from Jotunheim," Eli explained with a scratch of the head.

He decided he would explain some of his origins because his reveal as the son of Thor was inevitable. Explaining some of it before would make it easier on those in power.

"That myth is true? What else is true about Thor?" Helen Cho asked with a little too much interest.

"Did you read the tale of Loki burning Thor's beard off with the breath of a baby dragon? Or the one where Loki turned himself into a snake and bit Thor's hand? Uhh, there's more of Loki's 'pranks'... but other than that, I wouldn't know much more than you. I grew up here on Earth. Think of a myth, and it will probably be true. Even the eight-legged horse."

Four people gasped. Not even Jessica knew that Sleipnir, Odin's legendary mount was real.

"I've only been to Asgard once, and that ended in a bloody invasion from an enemy army long thought extinct. So I can't share with you from my deep well of experience," Eli shrugged.

"How did that come to be? You growing up on Earth?" Bruce asked, tilting his head.

"My mom did something she shouldn't have. So Odin, Thor's father exiled her almost 19 years ago. Don't worry, though. She wasn't an irredeemable villain. She just acted in self-preservation and with too much arrogance for her own good," Eli said with melancholy. Jessica put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"Huh, so she was less bad than Loki?" Bruce inquired cautiously.

"Weird way of putting it, and I may be biased, but no, my mom would never have tried to r...ule earth," Eli kind of trailed off at the end.

"Not getting good vibes from you trailing off there at the end, kid," Bruce said with a good deal of skepticism.

"Uh, rest assured. My mom would have used softer methods. Also, she liked scheming too much to be the one on the throne. Wow, wait, that does not sound better, does it? Haha...ha," Eli tried to laugh it off.

"You keep talking about her in the past tense. Is she gone then? Wait, wait, wait. That sounded way less harsh in my mind, sorry," Bruce apologized immediately.

"Yeah, she died four years ago, effectively halting all her plans for world domination, Bruce. You have nothing to worry about," Eli deadpanned, though he chuckled shortly after the statement to lighten the mood.

"That's good, that's good, uh I mean, I'm very sorry for your loss. Sorry, man, I just had enough Asgardian overlords for one lifetime. It's not helping my blood pressure. I'm just gonna shut up now," Bruce weakly offered.

Eli narrowed his eyes in a tight frown for just a second. He put none of his displeasure for the insults for his mother in his voice as he reassured Bruce that Loki wasn't even technically Asgardian but instead a frost giant raised in Asgard.

"Hey, have we seen each other before?" Just as they were about to split, Helen asked Eli with a tilted head.

They had indeed seen each other a few times already, so after a short contemplation, Eli leaned in to whisper into Helen's ears in perfect Korean, "You've seen me with your benefactor, Misty."

"So what, you speak Korean?" Jessica asked with a raised brow as the two moved around.

"I mean, if we're going to be technical, I know Allspeak. So I speak all languages," Eli explained with a shrug.

"Shit, every time I learn something new about Asgardians, you become even more ridiculous," Jessica scoffed.

A few hours later, Eli and Jessica had mingled with most people present, except for Maria Hill, who Eli actively avoided with spells because he didn't want to think about every single word coming out of his mouth in front of the super spy and Thor - who appeared to be avoiding him.

At least they made a great first impression on Rhodey, or War Machine, because they had laughed at his War Machine story. To be fair, it might not have been as flashy as a Thor adventure, but the punch line landed nicely.

Tony had asked Natasha, Eli, and Jessica to stay behind with the rest of the Avengers as the guests started leaving and the latter two did - though Natasha left after looking at Steve Rogers with Sharon Carter on his lap. That level of PDA only started once Sharon was more than a little tipsy.

"We're just with friends now. Why don't you take off those scarves?" Helen Cho asked Eli and Jessica curiously as they all lounged around some couches.

"Well, I didn't want it to become awkward, but one of you is my father, and I hide because I pretty much look like a blonde, green-eyed carbon copy of him. So, I cover my face," Eli admitted with a sigh.

As he reached his earring to undo the scarf, Jessica and every man in the room tensed up, especially Thor.

When the scarf was gone, everyone but Tony spit out their drinks and started laughing.

"It all makes sense now," Tony muttered with a good-natured chuckle. Well, Tony was in on the joke since he knew what Eli truly looked like under the scarf.

But the others didn't, and they were teasing Tony because Eli looked like a blonde, green-eyed, 12-year-old version of Tony with a sharpied-on trademark-Tony-Stark-goatee thanks to his magic.

"Okay we get it, you want to act mysterious. Put the scarf back on, it's unsettling to look at," Clint said as he threw a towel at Eli's face.

The chuckling continued, though Thor's chuckle sounded a little forced.

A few moments later, they played the game of who was able to lift Thor's hammer. Eventually, Steve had his turn that had both Thor and Eli look at the hammer with wide eyes. It moved, they were both certain.

Eli tried his luck but he, too, wasn't worthy. Makes sense if you were raised by a two millenia old narcissist.

Jessica couldn't move it either, but Eli thought it might have been because she went into the whole thing thinking that she couldn't possibly be worthy to lift it.

The group was hazing Steve because someone said a 'bad word', most likely an inside joke from an earlier mission and Tony quipped that it might be a highly advanced fingerprint system that's hindering the team from taking the hammer. He couldn't let go and was brainstorming solutions with Bruce on the side.

In response, Thor stood up, walked up to his hammer and picked it up with ease.

"That is a very interesting theory. I have a simpler one: You're all not worthy."

A high pitched noise sounded out for a few seconds, interrupting the groups chuckles.

"Wooorthy...," a distorted mechanical voice sounded out, followed by stuttering, clanking footsteps.

"No, how could you be worthy? You're all killers," a broken Stark Legionnaire said.

"Stark," Steve said to get an answer on what is happening.

"Jarvis," Tony redirected the implied question, but there was no response.

"I'm sorry, I was asleep. Or.. I was a-dream. There was this terrible noise... And I was tangled in...in... strings. I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy," the broken robot monologued.

"You killed someone?" Steve asked in worry.

"Wouldn't have been my first call. But down in the real world, we're faced with ugly choices," the robot said with a single shake of his head.

"Who sent you?" Thor asked, Mjolnir at the ready.

"I see a suit of armor around the world." A recording of Tony Stark sounded from the robot.

"Ultron," Bruce said in realization.

"In the flesh. Or, no, not yet. Not this... chrysalis. But I'm ready. I'm on mission," Ultron explained.

"What mission?" Sharon asked.

"Peace in our time," said Ultron as the wall behind him broke and more robots shot out.

Taking out all the compromised legionnaires was a team effort that lasted a good three minutes with no casualties. Thor demolished most of the robots, while Helen Cho and Bruce Banner huddled under a piano, guarded by Jessica who held up an ornate dagger in defense. It was sharp enough to dismantle the robots effortlessly combined with her considerable strength.

Smashed glass everywhere, no piece of furniture left complete and in place, the team gathered on the main floor to face the last, broken legionnaire that had talked earlier.

"That was dramatic," Ultron started after the legionnaires in the penthouse were dealt with. "I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through. You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved, if it is not allowed to evolve?"

"With these? These puppets?" Ultron sounded angry as he asked.

"There's only one path to peace. The Avengers' extinction," Ultron concluded which earned him Thor's hammer to smash this robot apart.

"I had strings, but now I'm free," the broken remains...sang before they powered off.

They had a discussion after they gathered up when they noticed the scepter was missing. They sent out Thor to look for it and eventually they found that Ultron had messed with their files.

"Uh, alright guys. The both of us aren't Avengers so I think we should move out now. You guys don't have to hold back your words once we're gone. If you need help, Tony has my number. Don't hesitate to call before this turns into an...extinction level event," Eli said as he scratched his head and left with Jessica.

Only Steve looked like he wanted to stop the couple, save for Tony who was concentrating on some monitors. The others looked relieved that they left.