Graduated Time [ 00.00 ] - StevexTony AU

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟰 - 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 ⎊

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Are you crazy, Tony?! What the hell's gotten into you? Tell me what the hell you wanted to do when you leaned in you dumbass—WHAT were you thinking? That's right you weren't, shut the hell your mouth and go to sleep.

Okay, I can't sleep. The things I see...

The man with the metal arm, standing in the background watching as Steve approaches me. Saying he could do this all day, it cuts to him jumping on me and sitting on me...slamming his shield into my arc reactor.

The fear of him killing me in doing this had slightly subsided since I got the shrapnel removed, but I'm still confused as to why he even slammed his shield into my arc reactor at all.

And I see..the vision or...whatever it was, that I saw while I was taking the scepter. The team being killed because of me, the pain I felt in my chest as I saw them all impaled while I was completely fine. And I saw the chitauri coming back to Earth, and this time we wouldn't be able to save it.

And Cap's words to me, his last words to me before he died: You could've saved us. Why didn't you do more?

And since then I haven't been able to get it out of my head, which was why I went out to the platform at all. To avoid sleeping, then Steve comes out there to comfort me because he's so goddamn nice.

I fuck up and he still comforts me, sometimes I wish he would just scream at me. Yell at me or something, to leave behind his empathy for just a moment.

I regret how it turned out, Ultron will be a real threat...but what I saw in that vision. The chitauri invading earth again, my friends dying and my soulmate dying...I can't risk it. But they don't understand that, they don't understand what can happen and what will happen eventually.

Everyone has their battle scars from 2030, but it felt like I was the only one wanted to really protect the rest of the planet. We're 6 people, we can't take all of it on our own. I can't let more people die because of me, I can't.

I tried to sleep the best I could. I woke up every hour and it was too hot to use the blanket—oh and then it was too cold not to use it and then I had to rest with one leg out and on the cold side of the pillow.

When the morning came and the team was going to meet to find out where Ultron is located. I dragged my sleep-deprived ass out of my room and strolled along to the lab where the rest of the team was.

I watched how Steve handed a tablet to Thor.

"What's this?" I asked, meaning the content on the tablet. Thor slammed the tablet against my chest and I took it while raising my eyebrows. I guess I understand why he's mad, he's been looking for the scepter for years and we only have it for 3 days and then it's lost again.

"A message," Steve answered, looking at me with the trademarked Steve look: this is serious, Tony don't you dare joke about it.

"Ultron killed Strucker." He then informed as I looked at the picture on the tablet, Strucker is dead and written in his blood is the word: PEACE. How nice of Ultron.

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene," I commented. "Just for us."

"This is a smokescreen," Natasha began. "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss." Steve answered. Nat discovered that Ultron had deleted every digital file we had on Strucker, which was probably all we could go on which meant we are now screwed?

No...hold on..we don't only have digital files? You can't because that would obviously be idiotic, there are physical files in the tower. Some of them have to be connected to Strucker, they have to tell us something.

"Not everything." I said.

Everyone were scavenging for files of people that had had a connection to Strucker, anyone at all. Thor was throwing the irrelevant ones around, causing a mess.

"Known associates...I bet Strucker had a lot of friends." Steve stated. I bet. He was Hydra's number one thug and the hardest one to catch.

"Well these people are all horrible." Bruce commented, it made me look at the file he was reading. Ulysses Klaue. I remember him. Very interesting character, Irish..maybe Scottish? Probably Irish.

"Wait. I know that guy."
I took the file from Bruce and examined it, explaining why I would know him at all.

"Back in the day he operated at the African coast, black market arms."
I saw in my periphery how Steve looked at me, clearly not amused by what I had said. It kind of made me want to laugh 'cause he's such a righteous little prick.

"There are conventions, okay? You meet people, I didn't sell him anything." I reassured, Steve turned away from me.

"He was talking about finding something new, a game changer."

Thor looked at the files and pointed to the tattoos Klaue has, I wondered why he thought anything of them. They're just tattoos, or maybe Thor knows something else? I mean maybe but I'm not sure.

"This."
He pointed to the tattoos, I decided to answer since no one else knew this guy.

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

"No, those are tattoos. Those are burned."
Thor then pointed to a burned in sign, either a language or just a type of symbol.

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

"What dialect?" Steve asked.

"Wakanada? W—Wakanda." He corrected.

Wakanda...that's where my dad got Vibranium from. To make Steve's shield, he got it from Wakanda. So what is Ulysses Klaue doing there? I thought my father bought the last of it?

And Steve must know if it too. He looked to me.

"If this guy got it out of Wakanda..." I began.

"I thought your father said he had the last of it?" Steve asked, slightly dumbfounded.

"I don't follow. What comes out of Wakanda?" Bruce asked. I looked behind us, to Steve's shield that was leaned against the wall in all its glory. Like the landmark it is.

"The strongest metal on earth."

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This chapter was more of a filler chapter I guess so I'll be posting two chapters today🥰