A New Player
Rogers had been gone for a little over a week now . . . and the whole world was falling apart.
“So, can you just explain where we stand at the moment,” Everett Ross asked, massaging his temple. The young CIA agent looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.
“From the top, sir?”
“Yes. Give me everything.”
He was staring at a smart board filled with notes, trying to makes any kind of sense of recent events. There must be a patter.
“Captain America and the Winter Soldier escaped after Lepzeig,” he began.
“Back track. Black Widow let the pair of them go—so that moves her position,” Ross said. “Also, we have Agent Carter providing Rogers and Wilson with their gear leading up to the fight,” he added, jotting down notes.
“Yes, sir. Then Rogers and the Soldier escape. Tony Stark visits the Raft where the other Avengers are being held until trial, and gets some kind of information from Falcon before disappearing.”
“Stark is a question mark. Go on.”
“King T’Challa of Wakanda brought back the new suspect for the Vienna bombing—a Zemo?”
“Why did you have Zemo,” Ross whispered. “Where do you fit, and where does Zemo fit?”
“The Vision has disappeared.”
“Question mark.”
“Colonel Rhodes is out, perhaps indefinitely, with injury,” he cringed, and Ross sighed.
“That’s the most tragic part of this whole debacle,” Ross said, shaking his head. Not enough people gave Rhodes credit for it, seeing him mostly as an extension of Stark, but he was a decorated soldier, a military strategist with real-world battle experience, and a head so level that he could pull Tony Stark back from his most dangerous ideas . . . usually. That was something the Avengers sorely needed.
“Sir, there’s one other thing,” the agent said, looking nervous.
“Please don’t tell me it’s more bad news,” Ross sighed.
He turned to face the agent more directly.
“Zemo’s missing.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s disappeared from his cell,” the agent said, barely avoiding cringing as he watched Director Ross’s face get progressively more blank.
**
“You wanted to see me, darling,” Loki said, with a languid smile from where he was reclining on Bucky’s bed.