|Queen of Disaster| Pietro Maximoff

/never took you for a con man, stark/

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"He's all over the globe." Maria said as Magnolia and Steve walked out of the elevator with her, "Robotics labs, weapons facilities, jet propulsion labs. Reports of a metal man, or men, coming in and emptying the place."

It was the next day. Magnolia apologized to Steve for snapping at him, saying that this whole thing was being up stiff from her past and he forgave her, knowing how that felt. They walked up the stairs to the left while Steve asked, "Fatalities?"

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

"Maximoffs." Magnolia said, knowing before neither of them could say, "That makes sense he'd go to them. They have someone in common."

"Not anymore." The Shield agent held her tablet between the two to see. It was Baron Von Strucker, dead, with the word peace spelled in his blood along the wall. A message from Ultron.

They continued up the stairs and looked down the hall to see Clint talking on the phone with someone, his back to them. Magnolia had a feel she knew who it was, more then most.

"That's a negative. I answer to you. Yes ma'am." Clint said to whoever was on the other side.

"Barton. Might have something." Steve said as they looked at him.

"I gotta go." He said to the phone before ending the call quickly.

"Who was that?"

He stalled for a second before saying, "Girlfriend."

Technically, technically, he wasn't completely lying.

***

Steve had found something on one of the tablets, well Magnolia found it and she handed it to him to hand to Thor as she didn't want to get up from her chair. All of them had moved to a different room were Natasha was scanning facial recognition.

"What's this?" Tony asked as Thor took the tablet and was looking over it.

"A message. Ultron killed Strucker." Magnolia answered from almost the complete other side of the room. The demi-god slammed the tablet into Tony's chest for him to look.

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

"This is a smoke screen. Why send a message when you've just given a speech?" Natasha asked.

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss." Magnolia said from her seat, sipping the coffee she had found, most likely Tony's.

"Yeah, I bet he...Yeah. Everything we had on Strucker's been erased."

"Not everything."

***

The seven of them moved to a different room where Tony had different boxes of files, papers, newspapers, anything they had collected on Strucker. Magnolia had already perched herself on top of one of the tables and was rifling through a box. The others were doing the same thing but standing around the tables and throwing lids off of boxes.

"Known associates. Baron Strucker has a lot of friends." Steve said as he opened a labeled box.

"And a lot of enemies as it seems." The blonde girl commented as she picked out a file with the name Gregori H. Ivanov. She grimaced at the name before quickly putting it back down.

"Well, these people are all horrible." Bruce said, thankfully nobody noticing Magnolia face the moment it had changed.

"Wait. I know that guy," Tony said pointing to the file Bruce had in his hand before grabbing it from him and continuing, "From back in the day. He operates off the African coast. Black market arms."

Steve raised his head to look him dead in the eye as he gave a disappointed look before he explained himself, "Look, there are conventions. All right? You meet people. I didn't sell him anything,"

Magnolia smirked before saying, "Never took you for a con man, Stark."

He shook his head and threw a pen at her, it hitting her in the side, making her laugh as he continued, "He was talking about finding something new, a game-changer. It was all very Ahab."

Thor and Steve were both looking at the file as the demi-god pointed to the marking on his neck. "This?"

"Uh, it's a tattoo, I don't think he had it."

"No, those are tattoos, this is a brand." He gently grabbed Magnolia's arm, stopping his movements to ask her if it was okay with his eyes, and when she nodded, he turned it over to show the branding she had since she was born. It was a bar code with the date of her birth under it.

Thor held her wrist up to the photo to shot the difference in the mans tattoos compared to a brand.

"Oh, yeah, it's a word in an African dialect meaning 'thief'. In a much less friendly way." Bruce said, having looked up the meaning on the computer system.

"What dialect?"

"Wakanada...Wah-Wakanda." He struggled to say the words but finally said it correctly.

Magnolia seemed to straight up at the name as Tony looked at Steve for a second before saying, "If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods.."

"I thought your father said he got the last of it."

Bruce stood up and asked, "I don't follow. What comes out of Wakanda?"

The blonde man looked over to the red, white and blue shield that was propped up against wall with the rest of them.

"The strongest metal on Earth." Magnolia said, slipping down to the ground from the top of the table.

"Where is this guy now?"
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