𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐬

1) The Hostage

"He's taken one hostage."

"Information on them?"

"Yeah. HYDRA volunteer. Apparently Loki made a partnership with them for the scepter, they backed out, so he took one of theirs in hopes of getting the scepter back."

"Isn't that fun." Steve sighed.

"Completely. Her name is Wanda Maximoff. One of two surviving volunteers."

"Maximoff?"

"Yeah." Natasha mumbled.

"Does Pietro know?" Steve asked.

"Not yet, and I'm not sure how he'll react when he does."

The two Avengers walked down the tower's path towards the meeting room. Natasha had called a meeting a few moments prior due to the new information she'd received.

They walked into the room. Everyone was there except the obvious, Bruce Banner. He'd been located to a safer place when they learned Loki was back. He'd been going through a difficult adjustment and needed quiet anyways.

"Took you long enough. Isn't the person who calls the meetings supposed to be here first?" Said the accented blond from Sokovia.

Clint rolled his eyes at Pietro and Steve went and sat down next to Clint.

Natasha went over to the back of the room. It held a screen that was linked to a tablet, so everything playing on the tablet would upload to the screen.

"We've received news from our insight, Agent Munson, at HYDRA." Natasha started. "This was taken from a body cam during an attack."

She clicked a few buttons and moved out of the way of the screen so the rest of the team could watch.

A blurry, but reasonably watchable clip played, shown like it was attached to the shirt collar on a person from how it was angled.

A figure, one the team knew as the God of Mischief, was holding onto a different figure, one younger and feminine.

The female's face was blocked from the camera's view, but the god was saying something that was muffled thanks to how the camera worked.

Thankfully, there were lip reading scanners in the camera and subtitles appeared at the bottom of the screen. A few words were cut since the god occasionally turned his head, but most of what he said was picked up.

'You may ............ over this arrangement you're planning. ........... scepter by tomorrow at sundown or .................. never see the light ...........'

After the subtitles played, a flash of blue covered the screen and Loki and his female kidnappee had vanished.

Natasha turned off the screen and moved back to the end of the table.

"With the information that Agent Munson has given us, we know that Loki and HYDRA recently had a partnership, one in which Loki was granted access to the scepter." Natasha repeated what she had said to Steve previously.

Clint grimaced, remembering his time under the spell of that scepter. Pietro frowned, remembering how he got his power from that scepter.

"However, in the time of holding the scepter, HYDRA changed their minds and took the weapon back, resulting in a lot of blood shed. They had it back for less than 36 hours when Loki attacked. He wasn't able to find the scepter, so he took the girl."

Tony sighed.

"So are you suggesting we rescue a HYDRA guard? This seems kind of like a them problem." He said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.