Temper in Red *Editing*

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

"Falconeri, we got something." Natasha alerted me as I sipped at a cup of coffee that I'd made for myself.

"Oh joy," I sighed as I followed after her to find that all of the others were already gathered.

"What's this?" Stark asked as Steve showed all of us a picture of something that I was all too pleased to see. A picture of Strucker's dead body.

"A message. Ultron killed Strucker." Steve told everyone.

"Remind me to send Ultron a thank you card." I chimed in, earning a sharp look from Natasha, but I only shrugged it off. Strucker had kept me prisoner for nearly a year, I wasn't going to pretend that I wasn't happy that the man had finally gotten him karma.

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us." Stark pointed out in the photo as Natasha moved over to one of the computers.

"This is a smokescreen." Natasha shook her head. "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss." Steve guessed before looking over at me. "Do you know what it could have been?"

"I was his prisoner, not his best friend." I pointed out. "The only time I ever spoke to the guy was when he wanted to try and get information out of me. He didn't go handing his own out for trade. Trust me, if he had then he would have gotten more out of me than some choice words."

"Yep. Everything we had on Strucker has been erased." Natasha looked up from the computer.

"Not everything." Stark shook his head as he led the way out of the room and into another that was filled with paper files.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"If you all had this information on Strucker then why did it take eight months for someone to save my ass?" I questioned after an hour of going through all the files.

"We thought you were dead." Clint reminded me. I couldn't help but glance towards Natasha, Steve, and Hill at this. They had all known that I was alive and well, yet had made no move to try and see what had happened to me after my mission. They had all just left me for dead.

"Known associates." Steve tried to get us back on track. "Well, Strucker had a lot of friends."

"Well, these people are all horrible." Bruce sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Wait. I know that guy." Stark took a photo from Bruce. "From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms."

"Tony Stark people." I gave a sarcastic clap as Steve sent him a glare.

"There are conventions, alright? You meet people, I didn't sell him anything." Stark defended himself. "He was talking about finding something new, a game changer, it was all very "Ahab.""

"This." Thor pointed out the tattoo on the guy's neck.

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

"No, those are tattoos, this is a brand." Thor shook his head as Bruce started to type away on the computer, checking about the mark on the man's neck.

"Oh, yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning thief, in a much less friendly way." Bruce confirmed.

"What dialect?" Steve asked.

"Wakanada...? Wa...Wa...Wakanda." Bruce struggled to pronounce the word.

"If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods..." Stark started off.