"All our work is gone, Ultron cleared out and he used the internet as his escape hatch," Bruce explained.

They were all in the lab now. Tony stood over the parts of Ultrons's suit with a blank, unreadable expression. Irena sat in a chair next to Maria who picked small pieces of glass out of her own feet as well as Irena's legs with blue plastic tweezers. It wasn't the most enjoyable experience, but it was as normal for Irena to do after a fight as it was for Nat to use guns during one.

She somehow always managed to get glass in her skin.

"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. He probably knows more about us than we know about each other." Nat announced from the other side of the room.

"He's in your files, he's in the Internet, What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodey questioned.

"Nuclear codes." Maria put it together as she plucked a shard of glass from Irena's leg roughly, leading her to wince. "Sorry honey." She apologized.

"'S fine." Irena softly smiled in response.

Irena thought that Ultron was a sort of silent shadow. He could creep up on them at any moment because he traveled through wifi and the internet. The feeling made her uneasy.

"Nuclear codes," Rhodey confirmed. "Look we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."

Irena was beyond concerned. Ultron knew everything about her and everyone in this room. He knows what she's done, where she's from, what she is. What was to stop him from sending a signal to the Red Room telling them where she was? Like a big glowing sign that read "IRENA'S OVER HERE COME GET HER!!"

"If Ultron knows everything about us then he's obviously gonna use it against us." Irena pointed out.

"Exactly," Tony mumbled as he rested his chin on his hand, still looking like he was in his own personal world.

"Nukes? He said he wanted us dead." Nat circled back to Rhodey's concern.

"He didn't say dead, he said extinct." Steve corrected.

"He also said he killed somebody." Clint pointed out from behind a railing.

Irena honestly forgot he was even here.

"There wasn't even anyone else in the building," Maria argued.

That's what Irena thought as well. She didn't think anyone was there besides them.

"Yes, there was." Tony finally said as he threw out an orange orb that floated in the middle of the room. An orb is formally known as Jarvis.

Irena was no AI expert, but Jarvis definitely didn't look like that when she saw him yesterday. His orb looked tangled and broken now and didn't twinkle like it did in the past. How did Ultron manage to kill him if Jarvis wasn't even human?

"What?" Bruce muttered in disbelief as he evaluated Jarvis's broken frame. "This is insane."

"Jarvis was the first line of defense, he would have shut Ultron down, it makes sense," Steve said as he looked down at his shoes.

"No, Ultron could have assimilated Jarvis, this isn't strategy this is rage." Bruce corrected.

At that a very angry Thor marched into the room with his hammer gripped tightly in his hand. In one swift movement, he was across the room and had Tony off his feet, his throat wrapped firmly in his hand.

He had gone out to follow the small lead they had on Ultron. Irena didn't even hear him come in.

Everyone around moved towards the two to break up whatever feud was happening before it evolved. Irena simply watched with her eyes wide at the tension in the room. Every single person seemed on edge- rightfully, but now with Thor expressing his anger towards Stark, she was worried people would turn against each other.

"C'mon, use your words buddy." Tony choked with his hands now gripping the giant one that pressed on his trachea.

"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark." Thor seethed.

This all seemed so sudden. Before this Tony and Thor had no major problems besides the 'imposter hammer' debacle an hour ago. To say Irena was beyond confused was an understatement.

"Thor, the legionnaire!" Steve shouted.

"Trail went cold about 100 miles out but it's headed North,"" Thor announced. "And it has the scepter, so now we have to retrieve it again."

"Genie's outta that bottle, clear and present is Ultron," Nat said.

"I don't understand, you created this program so why is it trying to kill us?" Helen Cho asked Tony as she finished inspecting the legionnaire pieces.

"Technically not you," Irena mumbled to herself so softly that Maria was capable of listening.

At Helen's words, Tony started to hysterically chuckle like a teenage girl who just found out her crush liked her back. It was bazaar to Irena, how he could laugh at a time like this.

"Great he's insane." Irena sighed and threw her arm in his direction exasperatedly.

Bruce rapidly shook his head and mumbled multiple 'Mmm-mmm's to Tony as a warning to stop.

"You think this is funny?" Thor asked.

"No, it's probably not, right?" Tony said in a confused tone filled with fake confidence."Is it so terrible, is it so... terrible?"

Now Thor has riled up again, "This could have been invaded if you hadn't played with something you don't understand." Thor made a point

"No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this." Tony said with more force than needed when he said the word get.

"Tony, maybe this might not be the time," Bruce said in a testy voice to attempt to prevent another outburst.

"That's it? You roll over and show your belly every time somebody snarls?" Tony turned to Bruce.

Irena didn't know why Bruce would need to roll over and show his belly but she knew she didn't want to see it. She made a small cringing face in confusion at this conversation's direction.

"Only when I've created a murder bot." Bruce retorted.

"We didn't. We weren't even close." Tony said with open arms. "Were we close to an interface?"

"Well you did something right, and you did it right here." Steve jutted in, obviously annoyed at Tony's attitude. "The Avengers are supposed to be different than SHIELD."

"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" Tony bragged.

"No, never." Rhodey shrugged.

Irena was getting tired of this. "Anybody remember who stayed on a burning hellicarier to die after saving millions of people, or who fought in World War II?"  Irena said in a voice full of fake questions.

"Shut it little Romanoff, the adults are talking," Tony ordered with a point of his finger without even looking at her.

Irena's face morphed into a very noticeable offended scowl. Could he stop pointing like he was in charge of her?

"Hey! She has as much a say in this as you do Stark, she's involved too." Nat snapped back almost immediately.

"Is she an Avenger? No." Tony rhetorically asked.

"Ultron himself said she was a part of this, Avenger or not." Nat continued to argue.

"Alright, my mistake, don't go all mama bear on me Romanoff," Tony mumbled with his hands up in surrender.

Nat didn't smile, snicker, or smirk at his comment. Instead, she kept the same displeased glare on her face as she backed up into her former spot. Irena on the other hand wore the smallest smile it was barely visible. She felt cared about, no one ever defended her growing up. It was a strange feeling, a feeling of warmth that was uncoiled inside her chest. Was it trust? Irena didn't know, but she knew she liked it.

"Anyways, a hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space, we're standing 300 feet below it. We're the Avengers, we can bust army dealers all the long day, but that up there, that's the endgame." Tony expressed. "How were you guys planning on beating that?"

The room was silent before Steve spoke for all of them. "Together."

Tony twisted his head at Steve's words and took a few steps towards him. "We'll lose."

"Then we'll do that together too."

Irena liked the sound of that. Together. Whether they won or lost, they'd have each other. That's all that truly mattered to the girl.

"Thor's right, Ultron's onto us. I want to find him before he's ready for us." Steve announced. "The world's a big place, let's start making it smaller."

Irena snapped her head back in surprise. "Like a bomb? Why would we do that? She asked in a genuinely concerned voice.

"No Doll, he means we're gonna make a list and scratch places off till we find the right one," Natasha explained as she bit her tongue so hard it almost bled to avoid laughter.

She glared at everyone simultaneously to send the same signal to contain their giggles. She also made a silent note in her head to work with Irena on her social cues and American customs.

"Oh." Irena deadpanned. She really should pay closer attention to her schoolwork.

ⴵ

Irena sat on the bar counter on the same glass-covered floor that was just broken into last night working on her math.

She was just about ready to give up, why did she need to know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions if she was a trained assassin?

Irena wasn't a dumb girl, she just needed to relearn all the basic math she missed out on. So there she sat with only 3 questions left on her worksheet.

Besides Steve and Clint, the rest of the group was there with her trying to get what they could out of the hijacked computers. She could hear Steve walking up the stairs with who she guessed was Maria based on the footsteps and distinct ring of voice.

She was desperate to join what the adults were talking about. She wanted to know more about the situation at hand and what she could do to help. All she had to do was finish these stupid math questions.

At that moment Steve, Clint, and Maria decided to grace the group with their presents finally. This caused Irena to get distracted yet again from her work.

As soon as Steve was close enough he slapped a tablet against Thor's chest. He looked stressed if Irena was being sincere.

"What's this?" Tony asked as he walked towards the device.

Irena could see what was on it but she still craned her head and body to make a half-hearted attempt.

"A message, Ultron killed Strucker," Steve answered.

"What?!" Irena called out her secluded table.

"Hey, you finish your math," Natasha instructed with a dismissive wave of her hand as she took her turn to check the tablet.

" And he did a Bansky at the crime scene, just for us," Stark said as he saw the photo.

"This is a smoke screen, why send a message when you've already given a speech?" Natasha pointed out.

Irena was thinking the same thing. This wouldn't have been out of the ordinary if he hadn't pulled when he did yesterday. But since he did, it was odd. It's almost like he killed just for play and added a little joke for them on it.

"Strucker knew something Ultron wanted us to class," Steve said.

"Yeah I bet he-." Nat started before she was cut off by the beeping of the computer in front of her. "Yep, everything we had on Strucker has been erased." She said.

"Not everything." Steve put forth.

That sounded ominous without the follow-up on context to his plan, Irena thought to herself. She had to know what was going on. With that, she took a small glance at each of the problems and mindlessly scribbled a solution that barely made sense.

"I'm done, Nat!" Irena exclaimed as she shot up from her seat to run to the woman while she waved her paper in her hand like a maniac.

"Really wow, you finished them oddly fast after just threatening to kill the paper not even 10 minutes ago," Nat said skeptically.

She knew the girl didn't actually do the last few correctly, but she didn't care for fractions as much as Irena didn't and she didn't have the time to check them.

"Yeah me and the paper sorted out our differences we're cool now, so can I help?" Irena asked quickly.

Nat was fine with it, she didn't see what the harm was in her scouring through tons of files. Maybe it would improve her reading in English. She looked at the rest of the team for their approval because, after all, this wasn't just her mission.

"I don't see why not, the more help the faster this will go." Bruce shrugged.

"Great! I'll be very helpful." Irena smiled. "What exactly am I helping with?"

Natasha chuckled and threw her arm over Irena's shoulder as they all started to walk towards the store room where all the files were kept.

"Oh, you're gonna regret asking to help Doll."

"Why?" Irena questioned in an unsure tone.

"Because we're gonna be reading through dozens of old SHIELD files to look for information on Strucker." Steve finally broke to her as he walked ahead.

20 minutes later they were in the meeting room plowing through multiple boxes of files, write-ups, and important papers, to look for anything they could.

" Known associates, Baron Strucker had a lot of friends," Steve said rather annoyed.

"Yeah well, all of these people are horrible," Bruce replied.

Irena frowned at the photos of men she most likely would have been sent to eliminate sooner or later, had she not escaped the Red Room. They all had the sole intention of making the world a worse place. Irena hated people like that, she was raised by people like that. She swore to stop people like that.

As she sifted through file after file, she grew more and more bored. Her second helping of a rice cake with Nutella spread thickly on top was growing smaller and smaller as time passed and Nat continued to take bites every so often.

With an overdramatic grown Irena dropped her file and slammed her head down on the table.

"Someone's over it," Nat stated the obvious.

"I can tell." Steve joked and turned around to ruffle a slumped Irena's hair before he returned to his file.

"This is so tedious, and hard cuz I suck at reading American," Irena mumbled due to her right cheek being squished on the table.

"It's English honey." Nat corrected without bothering to lift her head from the file as she helped herself to another bite of the snack they now shared.

"Whatever." She grumbled in response.

"Hey, complainerena stop whining and help me over here," Clint called for the teen.

Before Irena could continue to live up to her newfound nickname, Tony exclaimed a recognition he had with someone in a file. At that, everyone now stood up and encircled Tony to get a peak at the file.

"From back in the day, he operates on the African Coast. Black market arms." Tony explained to everyone as he passed. Paper to Bruce.

A look of dissatisfaction towards Tony washed over Steve's face at the mention of the illegal ring of weapons.

"There are conventions alright? You meet people, I didn't sell him anything." Tony deafened himself. "He was talking about finding something new, a game-changer, it was all very Ahab."

"Spooky," Irena said with the lack of any emotion, as per usual. 

Natasha had to hide an upside-down smile at Irena's bluntness. She found her small quirks such as the "emotionless words" hilarious.

Thor inspected the photo intensely before she pointed to something on it. "This."

Upon better inspection, Irena saw he pointed to an oddly colored tattoo on the man whose name looked to be Ulysses Klaue's neck.

"Ah, it's a tattoo, I don't think he had it," Stark replied.

"It's not a tattoo, it's a brand." Thor corrected.

Irena's expression hardened at the word. Unwanted memories of the Red Room flooded her mind. More specifically the one when they took a scorching hot piece of metal in the shape of a circle with an hourglass in the middle and placed it in the middle of her foot.

The pain was indescribable and the smell was horrendous. She smelt her skin melting off as the design embedded itself into her forever. She wasn't there anymore, Dreykov and the widows were far away, She reminded herself to escape the thoughts.

Once she was free, she noticed Natasha's eyes that were focused intensely on her, and Bruce at the computer, searching up the origin and meaning of the symbol. She didn't know how, but Nat always knew when something was wrong with her, whether it was little or small.

Once the computer stopped on one specific choice from the dozens it flicked through, it made a successful beeping noise.

"Oh yeah, it's a word in an African Dialect meaning thief in a much less friendly way." Bruce educated the group.

"What dialect?" Steve questioned after all the men hmphed and nodded at each other.

"Um, Wakanada, w-w-w-Wakana?" Bruce answered with multiple stammers as he completely butchered the word.

At the mention of the unknown dialect, Tony turned to Steve wielding a knowing look.

"If this guy got out of Wakanda with some kind of trade goods." Tony softly mumbled without the intention of ever finishing his sentence.

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

"I don't follow." Bruce pointed out rather confused as he walked from the computer.

"Diddo." Irena agreed as she slightly raised her hand to her shoulder height.

"What's in Wakanda?" Bruce questioned.

"The strongest metal on Earth." Tony answered grimly.

Steve sighed and looked to his shield before he asked his question. "Where is this guy now?" He asked.

There was a long silence in the room before Irena decided to break it. "So I guess we're going to South Africa?" She asked the group with dread evidently laced in her voice.

"You guessed right kid." Stark replied. Again his eyes showed that he was zoned out.

Irena let out another large groan and threw her head back. "It's gonna be so hot there." She grumbled.

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3042 words ~ 1:34 am
February 17th 2024