Steve's POV

"Because I'm next."

As the words were said it felt like a bomb had just exploded. The whole room was stunned into silence. Natasha opened her mouth to speak when a new voice roared from the sound system.

"What do you think you're doing?"

" I- I was just looking something up, I swear!" The girl rushed out in a single breath.

"Get up!" The voice yelled angrily causing Nat to pull the headset away from her ears a few inches.

"Y-yes m-ma'm." The girl spoke timidly and her voice grew harder to hear. She had stepped away from whatever she had been talking into. There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

"Can you track the call?" I whispered to Tony.

"I'm trying." He replied. Nodding I turned my attention back to the talking.

"Liar!" The other person cried.

"N-no I promise....please no! Don't!" The little girl's words were followed by a loud smack and a heart breaking whimper. I closed my eyes taking deep breaths to quell the anger that was slowly growing in intensity. That girl was hit. No girl or child should be hit.

"Out!" The voice shrieked. Receding footsteps were the last things we heard when all of the monitors came back on line. Everyone remained frozen not knowing what to do.

"Tony did you trace the call?" Fury asked being the first to make a move.

"I tried but by the time I was close to a trace the conversation ended." He said closing different tabs on his watch.

"Damn it! I should have stalled." Natasha breathed leaning back in her chair and pulling off her headset in frustration.

"If you had said anything the girl would have been in more trouble. Don't beat yourself up." Tony replied in the most relaxed tone I think I had ever heard from him.

"What is it that we do now?" Thor asked.

"That's for you to decide not me, but if I follow the feeling I have in my gut, it's that a few of you might know where to start." Fury said before turning and striding out of the room in the direction of his office. Slowly everyone started to clear out leaving us and Maria alone.

"I think we should have a meeting. Just because Fury won't help you doesn't mean I won't." Maria said crossing her arms and looking at each of us in turn.

"All right, let's go." I said following her out of the room with the others close behind.

Once we were all comfortable and sitting in our respective seats Maria strode in with her arms full of folders and other objects. She had taken a moment to visit Fury's office and managed to weasle her way into getting a few resources.

Tossing the objects in her arms onto the table I noticed the blue box amongst the folders. Glancing sideways I noticed Nat flinch, her skin taking a paler tone at the sight of it. Scarlett must have seen this too, seeing as how she quickly snatched it off the table and rested it in her lap so that it was out of sight.

"Where do you want to start?" Maria asked taking her seat towards the center so everyone could see her clearly.

"Well how about, how on earth did that kid get past my security?" Tony called still frustrated that he was outsmarted by a young adolescent girl.

" She was obviously trained if she was able to do that kind of work." Clint said swiveling a full circle in his chair which he had been spinning in for a few minutes, obviously bored.

"Yeah but what kind of program teaches kids her age how to hack into high security companies and government buildings?" I implored.

"That's the thing, from what I could find no one in the US could have done this." Maria said shortly pausing with a glance at Tony before continuing. "Yes the girl is Russian but she could have immigrated here."

By Tony's look I could tell that Maria had avoided one of his sarcastic remarks. It probably would have been something like this; No really I couldn't tell by the fact that she speaks another language?, or,Well I'm glad you pointed out the obvious, or maybe, No I'm pretty sure all Americans speak Russian!

"Are there any other programs that are legally aloud to teach that kind of stuff outside of the US?" Clint asked completing another full spin before resting his arms on the table and finally sitting still.

"I've searched everything and there isn't a single program that catches my eye. Some of them teach pretty advanced courses but nothing that requires the intelligence that we saw earlier today. The only people who would know such things are government personal and even then its risky to do." Maria replied answering the question while flipping through her stack of papers. Grabbing a folder myself I scanned its contents.

"Let's think about this logically. What countries are the most technologically advanced? Chances are most third world countries are out of the picture. What if it wasn't just about intelligence but the technology at the girl's disposal?" My question hung in the air for a moment as Tony pulled up a holographic sheet of paper and started the list.

"Guys you're missing the point. The girl is Russian." Scarlett insisted. "Logically speaking a Russian girl would most likely be in Russia."

"Yeah but you're from Eastern Europe, and yet you're all the way over here in America. And Widow is Russian but she's also all the way over here in America. Thor is Asgardian -and oh look at that- he's in America." Tony informed making his point clear.

"You have a good point Tony but so does Scar. Most Russians would live in Russia, and most Americans live in America. Nat and Scar are just a few exceptions." Scarlett smiled in approval as I backed up her claim.

"Okay then. I guess I'll scan the web for young Russian female government hackers." Tony muttered sarcastically before exiting the room and bringing in a tablet." Jarvis scan."

"Scan complete. No matches found." Tony put on his thinking face, eyebrows scrunched together, and lips in a thin line.

"Jarvis all hackers have their own style, their own way of doing things it's unique and different, no one does the exact same style. See if you can cross reference the hacks used on the computers with other hacking styles used world wide. Tell me when you have a match." We waited patiently for Jarvis to finish his task. It was a good ten minutes later before he reported back.

"Sir, there are no matches. It is most peculiar."

"That's impossible. There's clearly someone behind this, like I don't know, the girl!" Clint protested.

"Not exactly. A computer can be programmed to hack ,the girl might not have actually hacked into the tower. Then there would be no significant style of hacking since the computer followed a specific coding system. Jarvis see if it was a computer that did this, maybe you can follow a lead back to its location?" Tony questioned.

"No sir. It was done by human hand alone. The girl did it this I am sure of, what you must ask now is where and how?" Jarvis replied calmly.

"I don't understand. This doesn't make any sense! I don't know about you but this is really weird." Scarlett vented.

"Indeed it is Scarlett." Thor mused. "If this internet world does not hold the hacker, perhaps they do not exist at all?"

Having been listening intently Thor's words sparked an idea. He was right in every way possible.

"That's it! We're not going to be able to find this person with the internet at all. You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found!" I said enthusiastically.

"From what it sounded like the girl did want to be found." Clint interjected.

"That's not it. The other person wants to keep whatever is going on in that place a secret. Don't you see? No one knows where they're at!" As I looked around the table I noticed that most people still didn't understand. "The girl said they were in the woods right? Well, most of the time there are certain portions of the woods that haven't been explored. No one would know where this place is because no one has been there before!"

Tony leapt to his feet excitedly finally understanding what I meant.

"All we have to do is figure out what wooded areas haven't been explored. It narrows the search so that we aren't looking at all of Russia, just sections of it!" He sighed looking at me with a glint of admiration. "Cap you're a genius!"

With everyone finally on the same page I could see they were getting in on the idea. As Tony punched a few things into his tablet a map appeared hovering over the table with color coded sections. The ones colored red were unexplored territory. Eager faces lit up the room at the possibility of finally getting an answer. With an excited and mischievous glint in his eye Clint stood resting the tips of his fingers on the table.

"So, where do we start?"