One More Time

The Meeting

Strange certainly was not looking forward to the conversation with Thor. Though he did have a little bounce in his step after threatening to magic Stark if he said a word about Loki. The two of them were in California at the teams designated meeting spot. Rendezvous point, though Stephen was embarrassed to say he couldn't pronounce the word. They had arrived in the fields near Clint's house, where a table had been set up. The first face they saw was that of Nat's.
"Strange, Stark. Glad you could make." She said with a very, very small smile.

"It was a choice! The king does not get commanded of anything." Stark clarified, referring to himself as 'the king' after taking down Thanos.                                   Screw Star-watch-a-ma-call-it, Tony basically came up with the whole plan. And he made sure that the whole team knew.

"Blah blah, we get it." Nat teased. For a moment, the two shared a warm smile of old friendships. Until it was rudely interrupted.

"Hello midgardians!" Thor's joyous voice boomed as he entered through a burst of lighting. It was a trick he was learning, and very fond of indeed. "I am here for the ceremony!"

"Meeting." Strange corrected.

"Yes, the meeting, if that t' was not what I said." Thor replied giving everyone bear hugs. Bruce was the only one who could escape them, telling the gullible Thor that he was radioactive. Thor didn't know what that meant, but also didn't want a lecture. A moment later Clint Barton came jogging in, with Wanda Maximoff close behind.

"Back from training?" Stephen asked the quickly becoming friends.

"You betcha! Wanda here is quite the sharp shooter!" He exclaimed as Wanda blushed. Natasha raised an eyebrow and smiled at Wanda. Clint walked over and planted a friendly kiss on Natasha's head as she swatted him away. Tony finally looked to Steve's direction, who was currently sitting and lost in though, probably about Bucky.

"I don't mean to interrupt the big mans brooding, but I believe you are the teams co-leader?" Tony asked cap, who shook his head and looked up.

"Leader," He corrected, glancing at Tony. "And yes. Thank you all for coming. There are still some matters that need to be sorted out in Wakanda. Today during everyone's designated patrols, did you find anything out of the sorts?"

"Well, What Tony filed in as a disturbance in Australia was just an oversized Kangaroo. Cap, before declaring something wrong that we need to go check on, actually make sure its not just one of Starks stupid ass pranks." Natasha told Steve with a roll of her eyes, as Steve, in turn, blushed.

"I'll, make sure it doesn't happen again, but, props for the most, uh, exciting patrol I suppose?" Cap replied shakily. Stark grumbled at that, knowing that what he and Strange were sent to check out was cooler. But, then again, he also didn't want a cat tail, so he didn't spill the beans.

"Nothing out of the ordinary in the nine realms, just had to take care of some stray aliens, you know how it is." Thor told the team, who nodded to spare themselves the hour long story. Clint and Wanda were training the whole morning, and Bruce was working on something that only Tony understood. That left Strange and Stark. Steve made eye contact with Stephen, who took a deep breath in.

"We saw something, peculiar." He said, biting his lower lip. "That temperature drop that we needed to check on? Well, it was something else entirely-" was all Strange could say before Tony interrupted with the news, in an annoyingly casual tone.

"Loki's alive."