Chapter Nineteen : Valencia's Worst Fears

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     After everything that happened with Ultron, there was no way Valencia could sleep for the night, not when Ultron was most likely planning to wreak havoc putting everyone in danger. When the sun started to rise, she didn't even realize how long she and the others had been awake trying to see if they were able to get back anything Ultron deleted. Steve walked in holding a tablet and handed it to Thor. "What's this?" he asked as he looked at the screen.

     "A message. Ultron killed Strucker," Steve answered as Thor gave the tablet to Tony.

     Valencia looked at the screen as well and saw the image of HYDRA's thug lying dead with the word "peace" written on the wall with his blood.

     "And he left a little Banksy at the scene just for us," Tony said.

     "This is a smokescreen. Why send a message when you just gave us a speech less than twelve hours ago?" Natasha asked after looking at the image of Strucker's dead body.

     "Strucker knew something that Ultron didn't want us to find," Steve said as Natasha kept working on the computer.

     "Everything we had on Strucker has been erased," she sighed.

     "Valencia, did you hear anything while you were in there?" Bruce asked and Valencia tried to recall everything she heard while she was inside the HYDRA base.

     "Right after his men caught me, all Strucker said was that if he found the Winter Soldier afterwards, the four of us would be very useful to him. Me, Barnes and the Maximoff Twins, which means he might've had a plan for us but I don't think that's what Ultron is looking for. Barnes has been in hiding ever since the fight in D.C. he probably wouldn't be of any use to that metal man right now so I doubt he would waste his time," she said as she stood there with her arms crossed.

     "Well, Ultron didn't get rid of everything. We still have the files," Steve said and everyone started looking through the many boxes of file folders hoping to find something on Strucker's associates since he had many.

     "These people are all horrible," Bruce sighed and Valencia scoffed.

     "That's an understatement," she said as she looked at what kind of things they were involved with.

     "Wait a minute. I know that guy from back in the day. He operates off the African coast. Black Market arms," Tony said as he pointed to a file Bruce was holding and he handed it to him. Ulysses Klaue. Steve looked at the man's file and then looked at Tony. "There are conventions, alright? You meet people. Look, I didn't sell him anything but he was talking about finding something new, like a game-changer."

     "What's this?" Thor asked as he pointed to a mark on the man's neck.

     "That's a tattoo. I don't think he had it back then," Tony answered as he shrugged his shoulders.

     "No, this is a tattoo," Thor said as he pointed to the ink and then pointed at the scarred flesh. It was roughly the shape of a rectangle but the edges were slightly curved inwards. On the long edges, there were four curls, two on each edge curling towards the closest short edge. "This is a brand."

     "It's a word in an African dialect that means 'thief'," Bruce said when he found a match on the computer.

     "I'm assuming in a much less friendly way," Valencia said.

     "What dialect?" Steve questioned.

     "Wakanada. W-Wa-W-Wakanda," Bruce replied after she stammered over the word.

     "Wakanda? I've never heard a place called Wakanda before," Valencia said as she looked at the computer screen over Bruce's shoulder.

     "They didn't teach you this in school?" Bruce asked as he looked at her but all she did was shake her head.

     "Not that I remember," she answered.

     "If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods . . ." Tony trailed off.

     "I thought your father said he got the last of it," Steve said.

     "I'm a little lost here. What comes out of Wakanda?" Bruce asked as he stood up.

     Steve and Tony looked at the round red, white and blue shield sitting on the floor against the wall. "The strongest metal on earth," Tony said.

     "I thought titanium was the strongest. That was the metal they used to make Barnes' arm but your shield still managed to damage it," Valencia said. "What is it made of?"

     "Vibranium. Are they seriously not teaching this in schools?" Tony asked with his eyes squinted in confusion.

     "Listen, Tin Man. I graduated high school three years ago and haven't had a formal education since then so why don't you cut me a little bit of slack?" she asked with her head slightly tilted to the side as she looked at Tony.

     "Setting that aside, where is this guy right now?" Steve asked.

     "He should be operating in South Africa. If Ultron cleared out everything we had on Strucker so we don't find out that he had connections to Klaue and vibranium, that could only mean that he has a plan to use the vibranium to make himself stronger and more powerful," Tony said.

     "Ultron even recruited the Maximoff Twins. He probably convinced them that what he plans to do is right," Steve said with his arms crossed.

     "I thought you said they can't tell the difference between who wants to help them and who wants to hurt them," Clint said as he looked at Valencia.

     "Ultron must have buttered them up real good," she replied.

     "One thing for sure is that we need to head over there now. Suit up," Steve instructed.

     Once the team was ready and on the Quinjet, they went over what was going to happen when they encountered Klaue, and possibly Ultron and the Twins. Valencia had no idea what Ultron could've promised them in order to get them on their side but she hoped that they truly didn't know what he had planned for the future. He may have said that he wanted the Avengers extinct but there was nothing keeping him from taking innocent people down in the process.

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     When the team arrived along the coast of South Africa where Klaue was supposed to be, Valencia made sure she was armed with a gun and a knife for backup. She was getting better at using her abilities for offence just as much for defence but she still liked to have a little extra in case all else failed. Bruce was told to stay on the Quinjet and wait for the signal to turn into the Hulk if it was needed. Valencia agreed that if the Twins were there, she would try to talk to them. Everyone else went onto the old ship where Klaue and his men were supposed to be and when they walked in, Ultron was yelling and calling Tony a sickness while the Twins stood behind him. Just as they all predicted, there they all were.

     "Aww, Junior, you're gonna break your old man's heart," he said sarcastically as he, Steve, Thor and Valencia stood in front of them while Clint and Natasha hid behind the corners for surprise attacks.

     "If I have to," Ultron replied as he and the Twins stepped closer.

     He was a lot bigger than the Iron Legion suit he possessed back at the Tower right before Thor destroyed it and he disappeared via the internet.

     "Nobody has to break anything," Thor said.

     "Clearly you've never made an omelet," the robot sassed.

     "He beat me by one second," Tony said.

     Valencia took a step closer. "Look, if anyone's gonna be breaking anything, it's gonna be us breaking you," she said.

     "It's so funny, Mr. Stark. Isn't it like old times?" Pietro asked as he looked at the weapons below them.

     "This was never my life," Tony replied.

     "You two can still walk away from this," Steve said.

     "Oh, we will," the young girl said with a scowl on her face.

     "Whatever Ultron promised you guys, it's not worth the destruction he's going to bring once he uses that vibranium," Valencia added.

     "And we know you've suffered," Steve said but Ultron fake gagged.

     "Captain America, God's righteous man pretending you can live without a war. I can't physically throw up in my mouth but if I could, that is what I would be doing right now," Ultron said.

     "Wanda, Pietro, listen to me. No one knows the position you're in better than I do. You were with HYDRA, right? So was I," Valencia said, hoping to get through to them.

     "We're not the same. You volunteered, we didn't," Pietro said.

     "We read your file," Wanda added.

     "That's where you're wrong. I didn't volunteer, I was coerced," Valencia said. "If you don't believe me, feel free to look inside my head and see for yourself."

     "What do they call you again? The Red Spectre? Over twelve kills in two years, one of HYDRA's deadliest assassins, can take you right out and disappear in the blink of an eye. Your parents must be so proud of the monster you've become," Ultron said tauntingly and Valencia clenched her fists to keep herself from letting this robot have a piece of her mind.

     "That's enough! If you really believe peace, you'd let us keep it," Thor said.

     "I think you're confusing peace with silence," Ultron said.

     "What's the vibranium for?" Tony asked bluntly.

     "I'm glad you asked because I wanted to use this time to explain my evil plan," the robot said as he waved his hand but then he pulled Tony closer to him right before throwing him into the wall, leaving a dent in it.

     He got back up and started having a one on one with Ultron while three Iron Legion suits attacked Steve, Thor and Valencia. Pietro ran right past them as Thor threw one of the suits onto the ground and Steve kicked the one that held him by the throat. Valencia used force fields to tear apart the suit that held her up against the wall and landed on her feet while Wanda used her powers to knock Steve onto the ground. Valencia ran up to the young girl and she tried to do the same to her as she did to Steve but Valencia blocked her attack with a force field before making herself invisible. While Wanda was trying to find her, she had already kicked her legs from underneath her and knocked her onto the floor. Valencia knew that these kids were going to give them everything they had so she and the rest of the team were going to have to return that same energy.

     As soon as Valencia made herself visible again, another Iron Legion suit grabbed her by the back of her neck and bashed her head into the rail of the small bridge before throwing her over it. She was able to get herself back together and put a force field around her body to protect herself from the impact of the fall. Once she was back on her feet, she created two force fields and threw both of them at the suit that threw her off the bridge, smashing it to pieces. She ran forward and jumped as high as she could and while she was in the air she created a force field under her feet and used the surface of it to keep her from falling to the floor and jumped again so she was back on the bridge. She looked around for Wanda but she wasn't anywhere to be seen. She felt something run right past her and she automatically knew it was Pietro. She tried to trap him in a force field but he was too fast and she couldn't catch him. She felt a force hit her right in the back and she fell right onto her front from the impact. Just as she was getting up, her head started to throb and there was a loud ringing in her ears and she closed her eyes tightly.

     When she opened them, she was standing in her bedroom. She didn't hear anybody in the house so she left the room and went down the hallway to Daniel's room. When she didn't see him, she checked Jaden's room but he wasn't there either. She checked her parents' bedroom but just like her little brothers' bedrooms, theirs was empty as well. She went downstairs but the sight in front of her made her gasp and cover her mouth as tears filled her eyes.

     There was blood splattered all over every surface and there were three bodies on the floor, her mother and her brothers. The tears fell down her cheeks but she couldn't look away. She could hear their voices in her head, asking her where she was and why she wasn't there to protect them.

     "Where were you?"

     "Why weren't you here?"

     "Why didn't you protect us?"

     Her feet moved on their own as she ran out of the house but stopped when she realized it was dark outside. She saw a car driving down the road and didn't hesitate to run in front of it to grab the driver's attention. When they stopped, the person stepped out and Valencia's heart started beating faster when she realized it was her father.

     "Dad?" she whispered.

     "Sir, just put the gun down," her father said.

     Valencia was confused but then noticed someone standing right next to her pointing a gun at her father's chest. She couldn't see his face since he was wearing a mask but she still recognized him. He was the same man who attacked her in the hotel room before she escaped. He was wearing the same body armour with a white X on the chest and helmet that looked like a skull. She wanted to take the gun from him but it was like she was frozen in the spot, unable to move and all she could do was watch helplessly.

     "I was planning to kill that little bitch of yours, but that would be too easy," the armoured man said as he turned off the safety of his gun. "I'll just kill you like I did the others."

     The gunshot was deafening and Valencia couldn't even scream when her father's body fell to the ground, blood pouring out of the wound in his chest. The man disappeared but so did everything else.

     Clint was kneeling right in front of her as she leaned against the wall in a daze. He saw the tear stains on her face as he wrapped her arm around his shoulders and carried her out of the ship and onto the Quinjet. When she sat down, she pulled her legs into her chest and rested her chin on her knees as she wiped her red rimmed eyes. She knew that Wanda was able to manipulate people's minds but she never imagined it would have this much of an effect on her or anyone for that matter. She thought she would be able to talk to them but Ultron's influence on them was too great. She made one severe mistake and that was underestimating Ultron and the Twins.