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chapter eleven

11 x it's meeting time

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"All right. We're all here, right?" Steve called out over the room.

"Yes!" came from everyone at a different volume, and tone, at once.

We had all come together in Tony's workshop, which was considerably rare given how exclusive he was about it, but given the fact that he had so much information pulled up everywhere, it didn't make sense to try and meet elsewhere. Though, as usual, Steve was leading said meeting.

I was seated beside Wanda on top of a relatively clustered table, Pietro at my side leaning against the table, Vision standing straight at her side. Steve was standing by Tony in the midst of a lot of holographic projections, Rhodey leaning against a table on the outskirts of said projections. Sam and Bucky were both looking at the holographic images with immense curiosity, despite being told not to touch anything . . . and meanwhile Clint had returned home a few days ago (before the issue with Robbins had even started) because he had a family to tend to.

Not like any of us blamed him. It just would've been nice to have as many Avengers as possible. It was weird, even for me, to have our team so small. And yes, nine of us is small. Go figure.

"Okay," Steve said then, rubbing his hands together, "Stark, let's start with you. Find out anything from Dr. Foster about shapeshifters?"

Tony shook his head almost instantly. "No. From what she knows of her visit to Asgard, and her conversations with Thor, they don't have shapeshifters. At least, not like I explained to her."

"How about the search you did on Robbins?" Bucky asked, leaning around a whole ton of script to peek over at me, a look of wariness in his eyes despite his generally composed face. He was registering my reaction . . . just in case.

When I glanced over at Pietro because I felt his hand slide around my waist, I realized he was, too. 

And then I slowly looked around the rest of the room and it occurred to me that all eyes were on me, and I let out a sigh and suppressed an eye roll. "I'm fine now, guys," I pointed out. "Go ahead with whatever you've got, Tony."

"All right, you heard shortstop," Tony said, clapping his hands together. Then he pulled up an image that had script attached to it, waving it in front of all of us as he began to explain. "Parker Robbins has had a criminal record far longer than he's had his mystical cape of invisibility -- which I mean, c'mon, he could've stolen it from a cracker box magician -- but since then it's tapered off . . . though I'm sure the activity's picked up, they just haven't been catching it because he can now turn invisible."

"I'd agree to that," I nodded.

"What is a cracker box magician?" Pietro asked.

"It means they do cheap and unimpressive magic tricks," Bucky answered passively.

Tony continued, "Most of his record is assault, vandalism, theft . . . and a crap ton of violence." He shrugged, flipping the first image aside and pulling up more information. "There really isn't any information on whatever time he spent with you though, small fry," he informed me. "Which is a good thing, because I enjoy that I don't have to go through all the information on the internet and other databases and clear a criminal record for you."

"It's touching to know that he does that," Sam mused with a slight smirk.

"Anyway, that's really all I've got on Robbins," Tony said. "I've got J running facial recognition in the city now, though, but nothing's come up so far. He must be off-grid somewhere. Or still invisible . . ."