Artemis (A Steve Rogers Story)

5-Wakanada

The next day, Steve and I awake early, getting dressed, and I receive a message from Maria Hill, letting me know that she had info on Ultron to show us. "Maria just sent me a message, she has info to share with us" I tell Steve as I look up from my tablet, at him taking a sip from my coffee.

"Good, the quicker we find this Ultron and stop it the better" he says as he then places a plate in front of me.
"You did much better this time" I say as I take the syrup and pour it on the pancakes, he had made me.
"I made sure to wait this time around" he smiles at me, as I then cut into them taking a bite.

"Oh, wow, these are perfect Steve" I say smiling at him.
"That's a relief" Steve says as he sits down and joins me to eat breakfast.
"I started looking again by the way, for a place the two of us can call our own. I know I had my own place here years ago, and it is still mine, but I want something that will be just ours" I tell him as I finish up eating, and I bring up some of the places I had been looking at on my tablet. I bring a specific place up and pass the tablet over to Steve. He takes the tablet and looks at the house I was showing him, after a few minutes he looks up at me, "it's nice, a little out of our price range, but nice" he says to me.

"Well I actually have enough saved up to buy it. I mean even while you were gone, I still had jobs to do, and I have earned a very wealthy amount. I know you want to be the one who's able to buy something for us, but Steve I have the funds" I say to him. He looks at me for a minute taking this information in, unsure what to say, and before he can say anything the tablet starts to go off indicating an incoming message. "Looks like Hill is here" Steve says as he passes the tablet back to me. I send her a quick reply, as we then clean up our breakfast.

The two of us meet up with Maria in the elevator heading up to where the party had been the night before, "Robotics labs, weapons facilities, jet propulsion labs. Reports of a metal man, or men, coming in and emptying the place" she explains to us.

"Fatalities?" Steve asks her as we head up the set of stairs.
"Only when engaged, mostly guys left in a fugue state, going on about old memories, worst fears, and 'something too fast to see'" she explains.

"The Maximoff twins" I say as we continue walking.
"That makes sense he'd go to them. They may have someone in common" Steve say.
"Not anymore" Maria says as she does something on her tablet, before passing it to Steve and I. Looking at it, we see a picture of a now dead Strucker, the word Peace in what I am assuming to be blood on the wall, and in the corner of the picture we see part of Ultron.

"Thanks Maria, get in touch with you know who. We may need back up on this" I tell her as we take the tablet and head off to find the others. We spot Clint on his phone talking to someone on the other end, "Clint, we might have something" I call out to him.

"I gotta go" Clint says into the phone as he hangs up.
"Who was that?" Steve then asks him.
"Girlfriend" he tells Steve and I just smile at knowing who it had really been.

The three of us enter the lab, to see the others gathered in it already, as I pass Thor the tablet with the picture of Strucker, "What's this?" Thor asks us.

"A message, Ultron killed Strucker" Steve says as Thor presses the tablet into Tony's hands.
"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us" Tony says looking at the picture.

"This is a smoke screen. Why send a message when you've just given a speech?" Natasha asks us.
"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss" Steve says.
"Yeah, I bet he..." Natasha says as she types on the computer in front of her, "Yeah, everything we had on Strucker's been erased" she says to us.
"Not everything" I say to the group.

I get Steve and Tony, and we head to a room, where all the hard copy files we had on Strucker were kept. We all bring the boxes up to the main room, and the seven of us start getting to work, going through everything we can to try and find out what it was Ultron killed Strucker for.