Caught In The Widow's Web

Ch 23

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

"Fatalities?" Steve asks.

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

"Maximoffs. Well, that makes sense he'd go to them, they have someone in common." Steve sighs crossing his arms over his chest.

"Not anymore." She tells him handing him a tablet.

"Who are these Maximoffs you guys are talking about?" I ask confused.

"They're twins. He's fast, she's weird." Hill explains.

I look over Steve's shoulder to see Strucker's dead body.

"Barton, we might have something." I say turning to the archer.

"Gotta go." He says hanging up his phone.

"Who was that?" Steve asks him.

"Girlfriend." He responds.

Steve gathers the rest of the team and shows them the picture.

"What's this?" Tony asks.

"A message. Ultron killed Strucker." Steve says.

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

"This is a smokescreen. Why send a message when you've just give a speech?" Natasha asks to no one in particular.

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss." Steve says.

"Yeah, I bet he...Yep. Everything we had on Strucker has been erased." Natasha sighs as she looks at a computer screen.

"Not everything." Tony says.

~

We're in a different room looking through boxes of old folders and files.

"Hey Sarge, did you know that in these files your name's Josep-

"Josephine. Yeah." I sigh cutting Stark off looking through other files.

"Is that your real name?-

"No and yes. On my birth certificate it's Joseph since my folks thought I was a boy but as I got older and hit puberty and I was more female my parents surprised me in changing my name to Josephine. It wasn't because they didn't like who I was or in shame. They thought they were doing me a favor. So when I enlist in the army it was under Joseph because of my birth certificate then Josephine 'cause of my ID but people call me J.D.- it's a whole mix up at first." I chuckle not looking up even though I can feel everyone's eyes on me, especially Natasha's.

"So your parents took this condition fairly well then." Thor says.

"...Yeah. They never treated me any differently. Received some tough love from my dad sometimes but I guess everyone goes through that." I sigh.

"I never got a chance to tell them how much they meant to me before I became a, in Stark's words Sargcicle." I add softly.

"I lost my parents in a car accident. My dad and I didn't have the best relationship but it still hurt. And my mom....I never got to tell them how much I loved them." Tony brings up and my conscious in the back of my mind was eating at me but I don't say anything feeling sadness for him as well.

"Huh, I guess we had more in common than we realized." He says turning to me.

"Yeah, except I lived through the Great Depression." I say.