I've planned through my chapters for this story, and it looks like there's going to be about 12 left. I can honestly say it's very unlikely I'll finish this by the time I leave for college, this sucks.
Avengers: The Age of Ultron | Saviours | Sending a Message After Giving a Speech?
The next day everyone was more or less rested up, each made sure to at least get some sleep and a nice warm shower before really getting to work this morning.
Today, after the disastrous after-party yesterday and the event 'kill Tony with words', the Avengers' were going to plan they're next move. Just like Bucky and Steve had said; they needed to figure out what Ultron was up to – and make their plans to stop him as soon as possible.
Ava sat beside Natasha, skimming through a laptop Tony had stashed in a closet for personal security – he figured that if something were to happen to his technology, he would need something to rely on in his time of need. While Ava searched through this computer looking for any possible tracks, Natasha was doing almost the exact same but just going through different records to see if any had been changed in any way since last night. The two wanted to figure out what Ultron was more interested in during his path to destruction.
Tony was fiddling with things around his secondary lab area, not allowed to touch his computer due to Ava's request. She didn't think he could be trusted after yesterday, and it was going to take a lot more than a damn apology to take that ban away. Bruce was staying away with him, honestly just not wanting to screw anything else up.
Thor was pacing around, waiting patiently until someone could find something for him to go on. He was a fighter, a warrior – it was beginning to be slightly irritating that he couldn't really do anything other than watch idly with nothing to do.
Bucky wasn't doing much either, just sitting perched beside Avery in a chair – his head leaning against the palm of his hand, his focus drifting between the screens Avery kept flicking through, and her. Unfortunately for his male mind, she was certainly out of the party clothes but was now wearing some black pants, a white tank top, and her usual black jacket. She didn't seem to notice the constant glances Bucky threw at her, being completely indulged into the computer in front. Avery Rogers had always been okay when it came to technology, but the Winter was better with them.
Suddenly, Steve finally waltzed into the room having been the last to arrive – Clint followed closely behind. Steve had a tablet in his hand, something that Agent Hill would have usually passed over if anything pertinent was on there. Everyone looked up as the two entered, but they were more focused on the tablet he held. Steve handed it over to Thor who looked down at it with a stare of confusion – wondering what could be on there.
But on the screen was something none of them could have surely predicted. It was Strucker; dead. He was splayed against his cot but leaning against the concrete wall. There was a large sprayed spot of dark pooling blood stained against the wall behind him, as well as the very large hole in his chest – that man had been shot with a very high caliber gun of some kind. Next to his body, the words, 'PEACE' were written in what appeared to be his own blood. This was a message.
"What's that?" Stark inquired, a frown on his lips.
Steve sighed when Thor slapped the tablet against Tony's chest; everyone was still a little on edge around the guy. "A message." He replied. "Ultron killed Strucker."
Tony looked down to the tablet before giving a small sarcastic snort, "And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us." Bruce peered over his shoulder, frowning at the picture – Natasha too was a little confused as to why Ultron would do this.
Natasha slowly shook her head, not understanding, "This is a smoke screen." She said, taking the tablet before holding it up for everyone to see – to prove her point. "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"
There was a moment of silence before Bucky spoke up, "Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss." He murmured in realisation.
Ava let out a sigh, bending her neck to the side to let out a satisfying crack. "All the files on these machines that were connected with Strucker have been erased." She told them, leaning back in her chair before crossing her arms over her chest.
"Not everything, though." Steve shook his head, an idea coming to mind. "There must be written copies of everything; a failsafe just in case something like this ever happened."
Tony's eyes lit up with his usual smirk forming on his lips. "And I know just how to get them."
…
Not even an hour later, everyone was digging into a dozen or so banker's boxes, all full to the brim of papers and files. They were looking through the files to find anything suspicious, but going through all this, it really makes you appreciate the beauty of modern technology.
"Known associates," Tony mumbled to himself, throwing another file that could possibly mean something to them on the table. He shook his head, looking at how thick the file looked – at least 5-7 inches thick from what he could see. "Baron Strucker sure had a lot of friends." Not good ones either.
Bruce couldn't help but comment, "Well, these people are all horrible." He mentioned, looking through a file he too had found. It had even more 'friends' inside this one that loved to get cozy in with the man.
Steve suddenly looked up, realising something that had been said in the past. He couldn't believe he had just remembered now. "Avery." He called over to his sister, walking in with another box in his hands. He moved closer to everyone so he could be heard.
Ava looked up to him, creasing her eyebrows with confusion. There was a tone in his voice that she recognised as remembering something. "What is it, Steve?"
"Isn't there anything you can remember on, Strucker?" He inquired. Remembering back in the hallway when she practically threatened Agent Hill, how she had mentioned Strucker and the twins. That she had been the one to recruit Wanda and Pietro into the experiments that really did change them in the end. "You recruited the twins, isn't there anything that might be helpful?"
Ava had been going through her own box, completely filled to the brim of anything personal related to Baron Strucker. When Steve asked, she sighed with great defeat, running a hand through her hair before shaking her head from side to side. "No." She said. It wasn't that she couldn't remember, it was the fact that she had only seen the man twice. Her work had mostly run through Hydra and she just went where they needed her to go. "I was only to recruit two people with a great thirst for revenge; I wasn't allowed to question anything." Her eyes flickered over to Natasha; it had nearly been the same even with the twins, but this time, the twins wanted to fight. She felt a great pit of sadness and hatred for herself build up – how could she have done that? She manipulated two children into Struckers life-threatening experiments. How could she have done something like that and ruin two children's lives forever?
There was a moment of awkward silence; all the Avengers' knew that Ava's past was both complicated and sometimes horrific. Even if they didn't know to the full extent when it came to the dark side of her – but right now, they just couldn't picture her actually trying to bring two young people into being like her. A weapon. They also couldn't help but let a small build of curiosity churn inside of them when it came to her past – what kind of things was she made to do during her years in the dark?
Tony was about to ask something to her, but something else caught his eye instead. A file that Bruce was flipping through. "Wait!" He called over to Bruce, wanting the man to halt before he threw the file away to the side. "I know that guy." He realised, looking over to the familiar face. One that he hasn't actually seen for a while; it was just one of those faces you really couldn't forget.
Everyone stopped to stare at him, all wondering how Tony would know someone out of all these criminals. None of the acquaintances of Strucker had been on a good side, only bad. Tony reached over a grabbed the file from Bruce, taking a closer look to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.
"From back in the day. He operates off the African Coast. Black Market arms." Tony glanced up for a moment, feeling someone staring at him with something other than curiosity. It was Steve; looking to him with question – pretty much asking with his eyes, 'Why the hell do you know someone in the Black Market of weaponry?'. Tony suddenly got defensive from the look, "Hey, there are conventions. All right? You meet people. I didn't sell him anything." He promised. He would never do something like that!
Ava moved over to see what the man looked like, and a slight flutter of recognition flooded her but she couldn't quite grab a hold of why or how she knew him. She frowned with a crease in her brow, "I've seen him before." She noted that he looked a little different from the picture in her mind, the man had been younger and very cocky. She could feel everyone's gaze on her but her head shook slowly from side to side, "I can't remember where or why, though-" She may have all her memories back, but there were two lives worth in this head or hers and 75 years of them. Technically, she has 150 years of memories + stored in her crowded brain. "- but I can tell it's not good."
"He was talking about finding something new." Tony continued for her, deciding to take the unwanted attention away. He could tell she was starting to struggle, memory-wise. Even after the harsh words that were spoken yesterday, he could understand everything she had said – all the truth she had told him. Last night had given him a good amount of time to really relay everything word she had spoken.
He could understand that there were going to be quite a few blanks in her memory even after her episode of most/all of them returning. Her memory recall was still trying to balance itself and again, he completely understood just like Steve and Bucky could. "A game changer. It was all very … Ahab."
Thor squinted his eyes, noticing something in the picture given to him. "This." He pointed it out – a burn pattern on the back of the man's neck. An engraving of sorts.
Tony glanced over, "Ah, it's a tattoo." He explained, "I don't think he had it."
He shook his head at what Tony was referring too. "Those are tattoos." He agreed, pointing to the dark black lines covering the neck and arms of the arms dealer. He pointed to the burn mark that looked to be a wonky rectangle with two curvy hooks either side, "This is a brand."
…
Everyone was crowding around the computer while Bruce searched up the meaning of the brand. The computer itself did most of the work; cross-matching everything in its database with a cropped photo of the mark to begin with. Not even a couple of minutes in, a result pops up.
Result: Thief.
"Oh, yeah." Bruce nodded, narrowing his eyes before reading the passage quickly in his head about the mark. "It's a word in an African dialect meaning 'thief'." He turned back to everyone with a cringe, "In a much less friendly way."
Steve frowned curiously, "What dialect?" He questioned.
Bruce turned back to the screen, "Wak-wek-wakam-" He really couldn't pronounce it correctly, nothing sounded right through his voice.
"Wakanda." Ava guessed without him even finishing the struggling word, seeing the written words on the screen. She leaned against the table next to Bucky, her arms crossed against her chest with her head lowered. She shook her head, running a hand through her hair with a tightened fist – how could she had forgotten?! Everything about the man started coming back to her.
God! What had she done?!
No one else seemed to see the different shifts in Ava's emotional state – they didn't realise she had started staring out into space.
Tony was looking over to Steve and Bucky, and they were looking to him. Bucky's vision instead caught Ava, though, his eyes starting to fiddle with concern. "If this guy got out of Wakanda with some other trade goods." Tony started, his tone suggestive and not in a good sense.
"I thought your father got the last of it?" Steve said, looking confused but understood what Tony was insinuating. Clearly remembering Howard Stark stating that the last of the Vibranium went into both his and Bucky's shields – leaving nothing left, not even scraps.
Bruce was looking at them with confusion written in his features, clearly not understanding a word they were talking about. Everyone was pretty much mirroring that apart from Bucky and Ava. "I don't follow." He stood up from the computer chair, "What comes out of Wakanda?"
Ava finally gritted her teeth angrily at herself, her hands tensing over her arms – the pressure getting tighter by the second. "Vibranium. The strongest metal on earth." She replied without looking over to them, her voice turned almost emotionless. She glanced down at her own arm, and the red star posted on it practically stared at her. "It's what the shields are made of … it's what my arm is made of." She paused, now feeling everyone's gaze on her. "Iysses Klaue – Hydra didn't want my arm to be damaged in any way or to rust every time I came out of a stasis coma; so they ordered me to assist him in getting the Vibranium. Gaining just enough to make my new arm."
Bucky blinked, shocked, "How much was there?" He took another glimpse at her arm but for a really good inspection this time. Glancing at his shield sitting over to the side, it looked exactly the same. The same shine to it and at the same shade of pencil grey added to it. How did they not realise it earlier?
"More than a lot." She finally looked up to them. There was no way they could afford Ultron getting that Vibranium, it would simply be a disaster after another. They needed to get that stuff first and away from his metal, destructive hands as soon as possible.
"And I know exactly how to find him."
Tally – Movie after Saviours!
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