New York (Nico and the Avengers)

7. Zola

Steve's POV

"What was that?" I ask when we've dragged him back to the tower.  This whole kidnapping thing is really getting to me, it's too much like what happened to Bucky.  I don't want to force him to stay with us, but there's nowhere else for him to go and no one has been looking for him.

"Nothing," well that's not very helpful.

"Nico, it's obviously not nothing, what happened?"

He looks at us and seems to be calculating something.  "What happened?" Natasha asks just as he's opening his mouth.

"He snuck out again and fought some mist and a weird alien lady showed up and tried to get him to join them and they mentioned someone called Luke."

"Who's Luke?"

"From what I've heard, an idiot." Nico says staring at the ground like he's afraid to look at her.

"You haven't met him?"

"No." more one word answers it looks like.

"What's he like?"

"Blinded by pretty promises."

"What do you mean?"

"He wants to burn the world down to start anew, but he doesn't realize what his ally wants, or is stupid enough to think it won't matter."

"You seem to have a pretty low opinion of him, so why does he want you?"

"He wants numbers."

"But why you, you're just a kid."

"I'm not just a kid!"

"Yes you are," I point out, which turns out to be a mistake as they both glare at me.  Bucky always said to stay out of girls arguments as they'll just get mad at both of you, and I get why now, this is scary.

"Are we leaving soon?" Clint says as he comes in, "oh, was this a bad time?"  They both turn to glare at him and I breathe a sigh of relief.  "I'll go...check if our transport is ready." 

He backs quickly out and I see my chance to go.  "I'll go with him in case he needs help."  When I get into the hallway he's listening at the door.  "What are you doing?"

"I want to see what Natasha's going to do to him."

"Why didn't you get in the vents?"

"I annoyed her and she boobytrapped them."

"What did you do?"

"I just replaced her guns with stuffed animals, she didn't have to get mad."  by this point I was almost blue in the face from trying to hold in my laughter, even with the serum.  "Shh," he hisses before refocusing.

"I'll ask you one more time, what is going on?" Uh oh, Natasha's mad.

"I told you, nothing!" Nico seems scared, but he always was smart.

"That's an obvious lie, and it appears we can't trust you to be alone."

"Just let me leave."

"No."

"But I don't want to be here, why do you want me?"

"It's obvious that you're running, and it's our job to protect people."

"I'm not running."

"Then why don't you exist?"

"I obviously do."

"Not online, everyone leaves a trail, for someone to have one like yours they'd have to be able to hide among the dead or something."

"My family is private, we don't splash everything on the internet for everyone to see."