i'm dancing | bucky barnes

t w e l v e

I walked into a room where the 'Avengers', as they called themselves, were gathering to discuss our next move. Steve passed an iPad to Thor, who inspected what was displayed on it.

"What's this?" Tony asked, I only rolled my eyes.

"A message." Steve deadpanned, unusually frustrated. Thor smacked the iPad into Tony's chest. He let out a grunt as the device crashed into his ribcage and i had to conceal my amusement with a scowl.

"Ultron killed Strücker."

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us." Tony inspected the photo as Bruce crept around his shoulder to peer at it.

"This is a smoke screen. Why send a message when you've just given a speech?" Natasha looked around the room as if the answer were to pop out of the toppled bookshelves, as if it were to jump out of the file cabinets, or the mini fridge by the desk.

"Strücker knew something that he wanted us to miss." I realised, earning a questioning glance from everyone. They all seemed to peer down at me with sympathetic eyes, as if i were some fragile thing.

"Everything we had on Strücker's gone. It's been erased." I internally thanked Natasha on her incredible timing; she had been typing away on the computer behind me.

"Don't you guys keep hardback copies?" i asked, becoming increasingly frustrated by the frequent wandering eyes.

"Kid, you are a genius!" Tony cheered, pointing a finger in my face.

"I will shoot you." I spoke with a flat and monotone voice, growing more agitated by the use of the patronising nickname, and the stubby finger poking into my space.

Tony chuckled nervously, "You don't even have a gun."

I tilted my head, almost challenging the billionaire. He couldn't meet my eyes, and i could almost read a sort of fear on his face.

***

"Wait, i know that guy." Tony looked relieved at a sudden lead.

"Of course you do." i scoffed, meeting his gaze. He was pointing at a black arms dealer, one responsible for many lives lost.

"Back in the day- he operates off the african coast, black market arms" he said, earning a stern look from Steve.

"There are conventions, alright, you meet people, i didn't sell him anything. He was talking about trying to find something new, a game changer, it was all very-." Thor interrupted the bearded man.

"This." he pointed to the picture attached to the file.

"That's a tattoo i don't think he had it when-."

"No, that's a tattoo, that is a brand."  i pointed to each mark in turn. Bruce cross referenced the brand with different languages and got a hit.

"Oh yeah. It's a word in an african dialect meaning 'thief' in a much less friendly way."

"What dialect?" i asked.

"Wa- Waka- Wakanada? Wakanda." Steve's eyes lit up in shock before they dulled down into a much simpler concern.

"If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods-." Tony spoke lowly, as if his words had some sort of threat lying wait within.

"I thought your father said he got the last of it." Steve folded his arms across his chest with an almost frustration to his voice.

"I don't follow. What comes out of Wakanda?" I followed Steve's eyeline to his shield.

"The strongest metal on earth." Steve spoke flatly.