The toad on the table raised its single eye to glance at Tony, flicked out its tongue, and swept a mosquito into its mouth. It smacked its lips.
Tony took a deep breath and turned to Hill, his voice sinking. "Who's cleaning up this mess?"
Hill closed the folder in her hands and set it on the table. Her gaze settled on the black dragon on the screen, and she waited two seconds before speaking.
"Someone has to go to the Arctic."
The air in the conference room seemed to freeze. Tony leaned back in his chair and looked away from the screen toward the skyline outside, saying nothing.
Everyone around the table looked at one another. Their gazes passed back and forth a few times before they fell into a remarkably unanimous silence.
It was the kind of awkward silence where everyone knew the truth, but no one wanted to be the first to say it.
S.H.I.E.L.D. really was short on capable people now.
Dr. Banner sat in the corner. He had not said a word since the meeting began, spending the entire time looking down at his interlaced fingers on the table.
He had not even glanced at the image of the black dragon on the screen. Clearly, he had no interest in fighting.
Thor was even harder to track down. The last time anyone had seen him, he had been helping someone repair a ceiling on the roof of an apartment building in Queens.
After finishing the job, he had drunk an entire case of soda and vanished into the streets of New York. No one knew which pizza shop or whose couch he was sprawled on now.
All things considered, only one person in the entire Avengers network could face a threat of this magnitude head-on: