✔️|1| AUDACIOUS [AVENGERS:AOU] *slowly editing*

1.2

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"HE'S ALL OVER THE GLOBE." Maria stated as she exited the elevator with Steve on her left, "Robotics labs, weapons facilities, jet propulsion labs. Reports of a metal man or men coming in and emptying the place."

"Fatalities?" Steve asked, as the two walked up a small set of stairs. The man's eyebrows were scrunched in thought.

"Only when engaged, most of the guys left in a fugue state going on about old memories, worst fears and something too fast to see" Maria answered, giving Steve a pointed look.

"Maximoffs" Steve muttered, before looking up slightly. "That makes sense he'd go to them, they have someone in common."

"Not anymore" Maria interjected, handing her IPad to Steve to show him the gruesome scene of Strucker's dead body with the singular word of 'peace' written on the wall above the corpse.

Steve sighed lowly before continuing to walk through the facility. He stopped upon hearing a faint voice off the side. Steve poked his head around the corner of the corridor to see Clint talking quietly to someone on the phone. "Negative, I only answer to you" Clint chuckled into the phone, "Yes ma'am..."

"Barton, might have something." Steve stated, his tone lace with stern, Clint turned towards him in surprise, the phone still tightly held against his ear.

"I gotta go." Clint muttered into the phone, before hastily hanging up.

"Who's that?" Steve questioned, raising a suspicious brow.

"Girlfriend" Barton replied bluntly, shrugging his shoulders.Steve and Clint were quick to enter the labs, where everyone was occupied by doing some sort of research apart from Amber, who once again, sat quietly on the floor out of complete and utter boredom, playing with a small violet orb she'd created to try relieve said boredom. Upon seeing the two men enter, she offered them both a small wave, which seemed to go unnoticed by both of them. Steve swiftly handed Thor the IPad that Maria had possessed earlier.

"What's this?" Tony asked, looking up from what he was fidgeting with,

"A message." Steve announced, causing the Avengers to gather around the IPad while Amber sat mindlessly on the floor. "Ultron killed Strucker."

Amber's ears perked up at the mention of the man's name. The girl jumped jumped to her feet and stepped closer to the group in order to look at the picture, despite the fact Steve tried to hide the horrific image from her. Amber huffed loudly, folding her arms in annoyance causing some of the group to look down at her in confusion.

'What?" Amber said innocently, glancing around at the adults in front of her. "I wanted to kill him...this is no fun."

"-And he did a Bansky at the crime scene, just for us." Tony smirked, taking the IPad from Thor's hands.

"What's a Bansky?" Amber questioned, but to no surprise, the girl was ignored as Natasha began to speak.

"This is a smoke screen, why send a message when you've already given a speech?" The redhead spoke, exchanging glances with Steve.

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss" Steve pieced together, his eyebrows furrowing in thought.

"I bet he..." Natasha began before quickly logging into the computer, which was stationed on the table beside the group. "Yup, Everything we have on Strucker has been erased".

"Not everything" Tony said in thought, gesturing for the group to follow as he led them all into a big room, where multiple boxes filled with files upon files were scattered around the room..

"Every box?" Amber asked in disbelief upon reading the older man's mind as she looked around at the many boxes.

"Yup, so get digging" Tony replied cheerfully, opening a box and rummaging through it for any file or dirt on Strucker.

Amber sat next to a random box and began flipping through multiple files inside of it. It hadn't even been two minutes and she was already bored and tired of looking. She wondered whether or not it was too late to run away and escape, she could 100% outrun them if she wanted to.

"No associates...I don't think Strucker had a lot of friends" Steve stated,  as he looked through his second box.

"Well, these people are all horrible" Bruce remarked, reading one of the files.

"Wait." Tony spoke up, pointing at the file Bruce was holding, "I know that guy, back in the day he operated off of the African coast, black market arms".

Steve looked at the other man rather expectedly, "What? There are conventions" Tony defended himself as Amber pushed herself up from the floor to join the Avengers. "You meet people, I didn't sell him anything.He was talking about finding something new, a game changer, it was all very..."

"This" Thor pointed out, his finger hovering over the man in question- more specifically the black marking that littered his skin.

"Ah, Those are tattoos." Tony replied, glancing at the photo "I don't think he had it.."

"No, those are tattoos" Thor stated, gesturing at the black tattoos that were visible under his shirt, "This is a brand"

Bruce who had moved towards the nearest computer clicked a few buttons before glancing behind him. "Oh, yeah it's a word in African dialect" He spoke, reading the analysis from the screen.

"Ooh hand it over, I'll translate it" Amber grinned, earning some pointed looks.

"By all means" Tony sighed, passing her the photo of the man.

Amber took the photo, allowing her eyes to scan over the brand, nodding slightly as she pretended to study the file, "Ah, yes..It means, he's a jerk." she smiled, handing the photo back to Tony. Clint and Natasha seemed to be suppressing their snickers unsuccessfully, but Steve just shook his head in frustration.

"This isn't a joke." Steve reprimanded her, causing Amber to look at her feet, a small smirk lacing it's way across her face.

"It actually means thief in a less friendly way" Bruce enlightened them, his eyes never leaving the computer screen.

"What dialect?" Steve asked, folding his arms as everyone looked towards Bruce.

Bruce cleared his throat and fixed his glasses as he looked closely at the screen, "Wakanada... Wakanda" he tried to pronounce, looking back at them.

"Bet this guy, got out of Wakanda, with some of their trade goods" Tony muttered quietly, his words aimed at Steve,

"I thought your father said he got the last of it" Steve replied, his tone just as quiet.

"I'm not following, what comes out of Wakanda?"  Bruce piped up, walking towards the group. Steve and Tony turned to look at Steve's shield, which was propped up against a cabinet off to the side.

"The strongest metal on earth".

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Jeez, this book has gained a lot of reads since I last updated so thank you I salute you all.

Don't forget to vote + comment and Until next time ladies, gents and non binary pals ;)