Philophobia ➤ W.M.

| 24 |

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 "What does Capsicle need this time? I was trying to entertain my party guests," Tony Stark informed the group quite loudly. Apparently the billionaire had no control of his volume when he was intoxicated. The intoxication part was painfully obvious, especially the nose-wrinkling smell of alcohol on his breath. At that moment, she kind of regretted sitting next to him, because the smell it was basically wafting off of him.

  Maria Hill, who stood at the head of the table most of the Avengers already sat at, sighed in exasperation. "Do you always have to get drunk at parties?" She asked, but everybody already knew the answer. Even in his drunken state, Tony could tell it was a question he didn't need to answer. He instead ignored Hill and consulted a tablet in his hands while murmuring curses under his breath.

  "Tony didn't phrase it in the nicest way possible, but I was wondering the same thing. What is happening?" Wanda spoke up from Astrilde's other side. Astrilde could still see a pink tint to the other female's face, but she assumed it was just from the cold they had been in less than five minutes previous.

  "Steve will explain everything when he gets here," Hill responded kindly to the younger woman. Astrilde frowned, confused to where Steve was in the first place. Every Avenger that was available was present: Natasha, Vision, Astrilde, Wanda, Tony, Rhodey, and Sam. Steve was the only one missing, well aside from Thor and Bruce, but nobody knew their location. Plus, Clint had retired, so he was out of the picture too. Astrilde glanced at Wanda, who looked equally confused.

 "Is everybody here?" Steve asked as he entered the room a few minutes later. The man, frankly, looked stressed, which meant everybody automatically tuned in to his words. Everybody but Tony, but that was a normal occurrence.

 "Everybody we could find," Hill confirmed, glancing at all of the heroes gathered around the table. Steve nodded in thanks, but Hill had already moved to a nearby computer. The projection screen suddenly flashed on, displaying a video that was not yet playing.

  "This was filmed a few hours ago. It was flagged by some major agencies, so we looked into it, and found this wasn't the first occurrence. We don't know who the target is, but he's a threat."

  "This is a little below our paygrade, surely," Tony's voice spoke up, even though he hadn't seen the video yet. Hill ignored him, and pressed a key on her computer.

  Astrilde's attention was grabbed by the video, which had started to play. Wherever it had been filmed, it was dark, with a lamp or two lighting the street the camera was recording. The video looked innocent first, just a few drunk men pushing each other around as they walked in the middle of the street. There was nothing extremely noteworthy about them, so she just skimmed over their appearances before focusing on their surroundings.

  The video followed the drunk men for nearly a minute before anything odd happened. The lights on the street all disappeared like a candle being blown, which was disconcerting. The first yell then echoed out, but there was no visual to show who had uttered the sound. Astrilde could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up at the sound of pure anguish that had been quickly silenced. A few seconds continued with a deathly silence, and her heart dropped when the street lamps turned back on.

  The scene was gruesome. The once happy men who were swaying down the street were on the road... dead. There was blood everywhere, which reminded Astrilde of something a Jotun would do. Not that I have anything against them. Loki is... was one. What terrified Astrilde, though, was the uncomfortably familiar man standing in the middle of the massacre.

  The brunette male then looked at the camera, like he knew who he was looking at. He smirked, one Astrilde didn't want to remember. It held the appearance of something warm, but she wasn't going to be fooled. Astrilde glanced at her fellow Avengers when the screen went back, and she could tell they were also unsettled by him, and a little confused.

  "One of our teams arrived on the scene thirty minutes later. It was completely clean... except for two words," Hill said, and Astrilde shivered involuntarily. Wanda glanced at Astrilde in worry, but the Asgardian shrugged it off.

  The screen switched to a picture of the same road they had seen the massacre, except burned into the ground were two words that made her heart stop. She could feel tears of horror prickling at the corner of her eyes, and she felt like it was hundreds of years ago. As if she had barely reached 1,000.

  "'Hello love'? That doesn't give us anything," Natasha's voice broke the silence first. Astrilde felt like she was going to be sick. She started to become dizzy, and she started feeling like the room was becoming stuffy.

  "I, uhm, need fresh air," Astrilde murmured, before she shakily pushed herself out of her chair and exited the room. She didn't stray far, however, opting to slide down the wall just outside of the enclosed meeting room. Her head was in her hands, since it felt too heavy to hold.

  Wanda exited from the room not a second later, immediately bending down beside the Asgardian. Wanda, slowly made her way onto the floor next to Astrilde. Astrilde, not even thinking about the consequences of her actions, laid her head on the shorter girl's shoulder. A jolt of something similar to nervousness sent through Astrilde's body when Wanda's hand rested on the goddess' own. Astrilde didn't brush it off though.

  "Do... you want to talk about it?" Wanda's voice was soft, just like Astrilde's had been months ago, the days following the defeat of Ultron.

  "I should."

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