Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers. The Avengers belong to its respective owners. I am writing for fun, and not for profit. I just own my OC.
Chapter 49: Smoke Screen
As soon as the news hit of where Ultron had made his statement known, Maria Hill had contacted Steve. Steve joined Maria in seconds. He was all about the mission, and he wanted to get it done. Maria didn't blame him, and that's one of the things she admired about Steve at his tactful approach to the things that mattered and were of national and in this case international security. They walked out of the elevator and into the bright lounge room, sun's rays glowing inside that showed glass shards everywhere. It had been two days since Ultron's crashed the Avengers' farewell party and the cleanup sweepers were still cleaning the mess.
"He's all over the globe," Maria explained. "Robotics, labs, weapon facilities, reports of the metal man, or men coming in and emptying the place."
"Mentalities?" Steve asked, looking at her as they walked up the staircase that turned onto a wooden platform and turned the second floor staircase, very modern and sleek looking.
"Only when engaged," Maria replied. "Mostly guys left in a fluke state going on about old memories, worst fears, having near death experiences and something too fast to see."
"Ava and the Maximoff's," Steve said. "Well that makes sense he'd go to them; they have someone in common."
"Not anymore," Maria said, showing Steve a picture of what just came up in the news on her tablet.
Steve took the tablet away from her and furrowed his brows at the picture. There he was, lying dead in his cot, Baron Strucker. Next to him was a message written in blood that had dripped like rain, and the message was: PEACE…
Steve had a weird feeling swirl within his stomach. That didn't look like peace to him at all. He let out a small sigh. This was going to break Zoe's heart and she didn't need anymore heartache.
It was time to give Zoe a call, Steve thought.
"Can you contact Zoe for me?" Steve asked.
Maria smiled slightly, as he handed her the tablet back. She hugged the tablet in her arms and she nodded. "Already on it," she said, turning the tablet around in her hands. She started to contact Zoe on the tablet.
"Thank you," Steve said.
Maria nodded and started to contact Zoe, pivoting on her heels to face the other direction.
Steve walked down the hallway in search for the remaining Avengers that had stayed over night from the party, well into two days of trying to find Ultron and what his motives were.
"Mhmm, that's a negative," Clint was saying into his cell phone. He was huddled in a corner, hand rested upon the wall. "Yes ma'am."
Steve furrowed his brows at him, wondering who Clint was on the phone with.
"Barton," Steve said. Clint looked up, turning his cell phone away from his lips with questionable eyes.
"Might have something," Steve said.
He turned into his phone, "Gotta go," he said.
"Who's that?" Steve asked.
"Girlfriend," Clint said with a wave of his arm, phone hidden in the palm of his hand.
Steve tightened his lips, "If Zoe's heart shatters to pieces, I will tear you to shreds," Steve said.
Clint arched a curious brow at Steve'e interesting choice of words and he chuckled lightly. "Oh, you don't have to worry about me, Cap," Clint said, clamping a hand around Steve's shoulder. He gave it a tight crunching squeeze, not that it fazed Steve at all. "The only heart I plan on shattering, is Ultron's."
Steve's eyes slanted toward Clint's face, as they walked toward the lab. He wasn't worried about Clint, he was worried about Zoe.
By the time Steve and Clint walked into the room, Thor was looking at the picture on the tablet Steve had given him.
"What's this?" Tony asked, walking up to Thor. Natasha was sitting at the computer, while Steve stood on the other side of Thor.
"A message," Steve replied, looking at Tony.
Thor smacked Tony in the stomach with the tablet. Tony closed his eyes and winced slightly at the hard impact of the tablet. Tony took it in his hands to look at the screen.
Bruce walked in at that moment and stood beside Tony, looking at the horrible image on the tablet. The message was PEACE written in blood, red dripping blood on the wall of the prison cell. Strucker was killed and mangled against his bed.
"Ultron killed Strucker," Steve said.
"And he did a bank seat at the crime scene just for us," Tony said.
"This is a smoke screen," Natasha said. "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"
"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss," Steve said.
"I bet he…" Natasha said but then looked at the computer screen in an instant. "Yep," she said. "Everything we had on Strucker has been erased."
Tony looked up from the screen, "Not everything," he said.
~*A*~
Meanwhile, Zoe was back in her apartment, trying to figure out where Ava had gone. Where could she be? Zoe wondered, as she paced back and forth throughout her apartment. For two days, Zoe had combed through her apartment, A-Tower, and most of Manhattan in search for Ava. She had Maria sent out whatever remaining agents in search for her. Ava couldn't have gone far. Did she run away? Was she kidnapped? Was she scared? Zoe's mind was running on a tangent and she never felt more horrible in her entire life. She should've stayed home. Going to the party was a mistake. She thought that Ava could handle one night alone. Ava wasn't stupid. She knew right from wrong, at least that's what Ava told her when she was with their father.
Zoe sighed. She placed a worried hand over her forehead, as the stress elevated. She was now standing in her room, trying to keep the room from spinning.
Her phone finally buzzed into the silence and Zoe took her phone out of her pocket. A-Tower read across the screen and she answered it, "Please tell me you have something," she said in a rush.
"I do," Maria said on the other end of the line. "But, you're probably not going to like it."
Zoe looked out her window with horror in her eyes. "Is she…"
"The good news is that she's alive," Maria said.
"Okay," she breathed out a sigh of relief. "What's the bad news?"
"I'll tell you when you get here," Maria said. "Steve's asking for your assistance."
Zoe chewed her bottom lip. "Okay, he knows I can't find my sister, right? My priority is finding Ava alive."
"I know," Maria said. "But you have a job to do too, which is helping the Avengers deal with the current situation at hand with Ultron. All the data in our files is gone. Guess who gets the lucky task of doing that since you like being old fashioned and all?" Maria asked with a slight teasing tone in her voice.
Zoe wrinkled her nose in slight disgust. "Alright, fine, I'll be there. Give me twenty minutes."
"You have five," Maria chimed, and clicked off.
Zoe sighed. She took off her shirt, and started to get ready for another day in paradise.
~*A*~
Zoe made her way into the office area of the lab where everyone waited for her arrival. She was driving a cart of at least six boxes of information into the lab. The crew turned around to look at her as she steadied the cart on its feet of wheels. She kicked the stand down with her foot. She grabbed one box off and Clint grabbed a few more walking with her as she put her box onto the desk. Each Avenger grabbed one from the cart, taking their own places in the room.
She smiled, "Okay, you guys," she said. "Grabbed whatever I could find on Strucker. Something's bound to be in here. Let's start digging."
"Handy, having you around," Tony said.
Zoe just smiled at Tony as he, Steve, and Bruce started to pick the boxes out one by one.
"Alright you guys take these, we'll take this one," Zoe said. Zoe, Bruce, and Clint started digging through their box. Zoe had sat cross-legged on the floor, digging through hers, while Clint took a pile of files and leaned against the railing, nestled in his own spot.
Bruce took his stack and walked over to sit beside his computer against the wall.
Steve was searching through his when he looked over at Zoe, sitting beside her box.
She pulled out a file, and opened it up. She leaned the manila folder against the box.
Steve walked over to Zoe and Steve's shadow cast over her. She looked up and into his blue eyes. "Hey," she said. "Nothing yet, but we'll comb through it. I mean there's a ton of history here…"
"That's not why I'm here," Steve said quietly.
Zoe chewed her bottom lip nervously. She could feel it again. She could feel the walls closing in.
Steve saw the dark circles underneath her eyes. She was tired and most likely running on adrenaline. "What?" she asked. "Do I have something on my face because I've had like, twelve cups of coffee in the past two days. I'm good…for a little light reading."
"This is light?" Steve asked, looking around A-lab's floor that had become a paper mess. And she was probably going to have to clean it up.
She smiled. "Yep," she said. "This is nothing compared to what I did at the Triskelion," she said.
Steve sighed. "Zo," he said, kneeling down beside her. "There's something I have to tell you."
Zoe blinked at the serious tone in his voice. "What?" she asked, not taking her eyes off of her file in her hands. She could feel his eyes burning straight through her. Was he trying to leave a hole in her heart?
"Ava's with Ultron," he said.
Zoe swallowed hard, and froze in her trek. She looked up into his eyes again and they were filled with concern. Concern for her? Since when? She chewed her bottom lip. "Oh," she said softly.
"If we find out what Ultron's planning to do," Steve said slowly. "I'm going to need you there. You'll be on Banner watch of course, but if we need you, I'm going to call you in to help. Ava's ability is dangerous. And if he's got her turned somehow…"
Zoe stopped him right there with a glare on her face. "I can handle it. I'll deal with her," she said. "She's my responsibility." She looked down at the files in her hands. "I shouldn't have left her alone."
Steve frowned at her rueful tone in her voice. He gave her a gentle squeeze on her shoulder. "I'm sorry I've been hard on you since we found you with Strucker."
Zoe looked up at him, and almost smiled, "Are you?" she asked. "Because I know you hate Hydra, and I don't blame you, but-"
"You can't run from your past, but you can change who you are," Steve said. "Were," he said with a slight wince.
"You're giving me a second chance?" she asked.
Steve just smiled at her, and for some reason Zoe wanted to smile but she didn't. She chewed her lip in confusion. She didn't think she deserved any kind of a second chance for how she's handled things so far. But if Steve needed her help on this, she was going to help, no matter what the circumstances were. She had to find Ava, and Steve was letting her come to help. That was a good sign, right?
"I'm gunna try to find something in this one, okay?" Steve asked, motioning a chin nod over to her unopened box. She nodded, and watched him take the box into his arms. He stood up and walked over back to the crew.
Zoe looked over at Clint who quickly looked back down at his own pile of information. He tossed the file away in his hands and started to read the next page. Zoe smiled and just flipped through the files as she tried to find something useful.
"Known associates," Tony said, flipping his file down on the desk.
Steve brought the box over and set it down next to Tony's.
"Strucker had a lot of friends," Steve said.
"Well, these people are all horrible," Bruce said, glancing down at his own set of photos that he thumbed through.
Thor opened up another box and tossed it across the room that nearly hit Zoe's nose. Zoe looked over at Thor. "Hey," she called after him. Thor looked up and raised his eyebrows innocently.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
Zoe looked over and they shared a small smile before she turned back to her readings on Strucker and his profile, which had just about everything including his family.
"Wait," Tony said before Bruce could discard his file away. Bruce handed it to Tony. "I know that guy. Back in the day he operates in the African coast, black market arms."
Steve looked from the file to Tony's face and frowned. Tony didn't like Steve's look, "There are conventions, alright? I meet people. I didn't sell him anything."
Clint and Zoe had gotten up from their spots to join the rest of the crew, huddled over the paper that Tony had found, which was now in Thor's hands as he looked at it with pure curiosity in his eyes.
"He was talking about finding something new, a game changer. It was all very bad," Tony said, sharing a small look with Zoe.
Zoe frowned.
"What's this?" Thor asked.
"Uh, it's a tattoo. I don't think he had it then," Tony said.
Thor pointed his finger at the tattoo on the arms dealer's neck behind his head, "No those are tattoos, this is a brand," Thor pointed to a red brand etched into the side of his neck, the man with dark hair, wearing sunglasses. His body was half-turned in the picture from what Zoe could tell.
"What's it say?" Zoe asked. Because as far as she could tell the brand didn't look like it was Hydra. So that was kind of a good sign right? No, this was a different kind of bad. And now Ava was out there with Ultron, traveling around the globe. How did Ultron even get to her?
"We can find out," Bruce said. Bruce took the photo from Thor and went over to his computer. He put his glasses on and started the search for different languages as to what it could mean. He started to search for the branded message on his neck.
"Uh, yeah," Bruce said as the data in his search engine popped up within seconds. "It's a word in African dialect meaning thief, in a much less friendly way," he explained, turning to face them.
"What dialect?" Steve asked.
"Wakinata, Wa-wa-Wakanda," Bruce read out loud, narrowing his eyes to read what it said.
Tony turned to Steve, "If this guy got out of Wakanda with some other tributes…"
Steve turned to Tony with a furrowed look in his eyes, "I thought your father got the last of it."
"I don't follow," Bruce said, getting up from his seat to join them. "What comes out of Wakanda?"
"The strongest metal on Earth," Steve said, turning to face his Captain America Shield that rested against a small accent filing cabinet.
"Vibranium," Zoe whispered.
"Where is this guy now?" Steve asked.
