Blue on Blue - pietro maximoff

chapter five

later..

"He's all over the globe." Maria looks at her tablet, "Robotics labs, weapons facilities, jet propulsion labs, reports of a metal man, or men, coming in and emptying the place."

"Fatalities?" asks Steve.

"Only when engaged. Mostly guys left in a fugue state going on about old memories, worst fears, and something too fast to see."

"Maximoffs," mumbles Kai.

"Well, that makes sense he'd go to them," Steve nods to her, "they have someone in common."

"Not anymore," Maria hands her tablet to Steve, Kai looking over his shoulder, showing photo of Strucker's dead body with the word 'PEACE' written in blood on the wall next to him.

Kai and Steve walk around a corner seeing Clint talking on his cell phone to someone, "That's a negative... I answer to you.... Yes, ma'am."

"Barton, we might have something," Steve interrupts.

Clint looks at the two, "Gotta go." Then he ends the call.

"Who was that?"

He pauses, "Girlfriend."

A smile grows on Kai's face as Clint comes closer to them. After they have gathered the rest of the team they show them the photo of Strucker's body.

Stark looks at it, "What's this?"

"A message," replies Steve.

"Ultron killed Strucker," sighs Kai.

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us," he jokes.

"This is a smokescreen," Natasha looks up from the photo, "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss," Steve clues in.

"Yeah, I bet he..." she looks at the computer monitor, "Yep. Everything we had on Strucker has been erased."

Stark thinks about it, "Not everything."

-

The team go through the physical paper files they have on Strucker.

"Known associates," Steve reads, "Well, Strucker had a lot of friends."

"Well, these people are all horrible." sighs Bruce while flipping through a file.

"Wait," Stark points at a picture on the file Bruce was looking at, "I know that guy."

Banner passes him the photo.

"From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms." Steve looks at Tony accusingly, "There are conventions, alright? You meet people, I didn't sell him anything. He was talking about finding something new, a game changer, it was all very "Ahab.""

Thor points to the scar on the back of Klaue's neck, "This."

Tony inspects the photograph, "Uh, it's a tattoo. I don't think he had it..."

"No, those are tattoos," Thor motions to other markings, "this is a brand. "

Banner looks up the symbol on a computer, "Oh, yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning thief, in a much less friendly way."

"What dialect?" questions Steve.

"Wakanada...? Wa...Wa- Wakanda," Bruce stutters.

"If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods..." Tony looks at Steve.