Tony's POV

To my left I heard Peter dry retching. I felt like doing the same, but I knew from experience that throwing up in the suit is 1. Not Pleasant, with capitals N and P, and 2. A horror to clean up. Nevertheless, the sight that beheld us was not a pretty one.

There was a Chitauri on the ground a couple of yards away. It was obviously dead, a knife of some sort embedded in its neck, the wound still oozing the black sludge that was the Chitauri's blood. Its hand and a patch on its leg, though, were covered in red. It was obviously larger than the ones we faced in the Battle of New York, and had more armour, but I dismissed the corpse and turned to the alive intruders.

The two figures were closer, both on their sides and now unconscious, though the male was awake for a second when we first came. There were metal shackles around both of their wrists, restrained in the front, and as I examined them, I noticed they had engravings around them, and also that the girl was wearing a silver ring, with a small tear-shaped ruby embedded into the metal, on the middle finger of her right hand. The male was tall, and, though this could be from the many layers of dirt, had dark, messy hair that came below his shoulders. He looked pale skinned but it was hard to tell. The only clothes he wore were black pants with threads of red through them, coming down above the knee. They didn't seem to be made from any fabric, or anything else I recognised.

His body was a mess. Not only was he slightly emaciated, but on his arms, legs, back, and torso there were multiple horrific wounds. Long and deep cuts, severe bruising, nasty-looking scars, stab wounds, one of which was recent with small rivulets of blood sluggishly flowing across his side, and even bites from large, sharp teeth. In places, some flesh was missing, while in others the skin seemed to have been pulled back exposing raw muscle. Most wounds had either closed or scarred around the edges. I didn't examine them for very long.

The girl had much the same injuries, though she was more severely emaciated, the bones showing prominently beneath her skin. Looking at her, she couldn't have been older than about 16. Her hair was also covered in grime, and so was difficult to attribute a particular shade, though it seemed a dark red. It reached down to her hip, but was completely matted.

She wore mini-shorts and a sleeveless crop top, made of the same black and red substance as the male's pants. The top had thick straps around her lower back and shoulders, leaving most of her back exposed. It was almost as if something was missing.

Strangely, there were two matching raised lines of skin close on either side of her spine, about a quarter of an inch thick, starting near the top of and continuing to just below her shoulder blades. They looked like old scars.

That wasn't the worst of it though. Further from her spine, beside the raised lines, a tip of each rib was protruding from her skin, so it looked almost like a mockery of short wings. Every single one was broken and jagged.

"Who…what…who would do this?" Peter was still retching, but managed to stutter out the sentence we were all thinking.

"Tony, are they still alive?" That was Natasha. Even the assassin wasn't unaffected by the sight. Her face was blank, but the muscles in her neck were held tighter than normal.

"Uh…let me scan." My own voice sounded distant.

"Both are unconscious and weak, but they are breathing, though shallowly, and their hearts beat steady."

"Yeah. They are. Somehow. Hey Peter and Vision, can you get two trolley tables from the infirmary up here in the elevator? And T'Challa, get Helen to the infirmary and help her prepare what she will need."

"Certainly. Come, Peter." The two of them floated or swung back inside, and T'Challa gave a small nod then walked off.

Once they were gone, Natasha murmured, "Tony? I can't be certain under all the grime, but the male looks like Loki."

"Didn't Thor tell us he died?"

"Just look." I moved closer to where she was so I could see, and then scrutinised his face. He was gaunt and the dirt made his skin grey and black, but sure enough, the resemblance was uncanny.

Actually no, it was definitely Loki.

"Ah, shit."

Peter and Vision came back with trolleys after a few minutes. Natasha and I were still yelling at each other. Or more, I was yelling and she was talking to me like I was an idiot.

Which I'm not.

"Nat, he threw me out a window. That window. Right there. He killed more than 80 people in 2 days, forced Clint to kill innocents and other agents, threatened you, released the Hulk on the helicarrier, and brought an army of aliens to conquer the Earth. We should kill him now, or at least not help him. He can die of his injuries and no one will know any better."

"Tony. Thor told us about that Heimdall person who can see everything. He probably already knows Loki's here, and will send Thor to us to figure out what to do with him. If we kill Loki now, we might start war with Asgard, or at the very least Thor will never forgive us."

"So what do we do with him? I'm not having a psycho god who tried to destroy the planet in our tower! He'll kill us in our sleep!"

"Tony, look at him. He couldn't even stay conscious, and he obviously saw us before he passed out. I'm not saying just leave him unattended. Keep him heavily sedated, restrained with more than just the cuffs on him now, and watched by one of us or Friday at all times."

I paused as I considered her words. She made sense, but I still wasn't happy about it. I mean, psycho god and all.

"Fine, but what about the girl?"

She thought for a second. "Sedate her too. Any friend of Loki's is not a friend of ours. She might be Asgardian as well, but as of yet we don't know her loyalties. Better for us to play it safe."

"Alright." I turned to Peter and Vision, who were awkwardly loitering near the hangar door. "Bring those over here, then help me lift these two onto them. Don't make their injuries worse if you can help it, as we don't want to potentially anger Thor or the other space warriors more than we have to."

It was a struggle to get them on the trolley beds. The girl was lightweight, in fact it was scary how light she was, no more than 55 pounds. To be honest, I didn't know how she was still alive. The difficulty was finding places to lift her without touching any of her ribs or other wounds.

Though not to the same extent, this difficulty was also present with Loki, as well as the fact that Asgardians are so much denser than a human. At least he didn't weigh as much as Thor. (We knew this as once Thor brought mead from Asgard. Apparently, our alcohol is too weak, and when he had his at a party, he got so drunk he passed out.)

Once they were on, we went down towards the infirmary to Helen.

NPOV

"I can't sedate him with an IV. No needle we have will pierce his skin, and the access will be unable to administer the drug. He will have to have oral drugs regularly for as long as it takes Thor to come. Whoever watches them will need to give him one of these," she held up one of many drug solutions she had asked Friday and T'Challa to help her prepare, "every 3 hours. Friday will tell you when each one is due." She looked around at the New Avengers in the infirmary.

They nodded in understanding, and Tony made a small hum, then asked, "and the girl? There's no IV on her either."

Helen took a breath. "I can't sedate her at all."

"What!? Why not?"

"I'll show you." She turned and walked toward the bed close to them, where the girl lay on her right side, hands still shackled together but near her head to take pressure off her back. Helen then took a small needle from beside the bed. "Watch."

She let the needle pierce the skin of the girl's upper left arm, then quickly withdrew it. Blood welled up, but it was not quite red.

They all stared. Her blood was a dark gold-red colour, and clotted quickly.

Helen then pierced the skin again in another place, and let go of the needle. About 5 seconds after the blood touched the metal, the needle glowed red and melted completely, leaving some beneath the skin. This was rapidly forced out, trickling down until Helen wiped it up with a cloth.

"Everything I try melts. I assume it would form a temporary blockage in a major wound, so she doesn't bleed out even if she should be fatally wounded. Unfortunately, even orally administered drugs don't work. I don't know how, though I think it has to be magic, but it is almost burned out of her system. Surprisingly though, her blood is not hot to touch. I got some on my gloves when removing a thicker needle, but it acted like human blood still."

Everyone was still looking wide-eyed, but T'Challa recovered first.

"Who will watch them now? If the girl is not sedated at all, she will wake up eventually."

"Yes, but I doubt she will wake before morning, so I want all of you to go to sleep and we'll make a proper roster when you wake up. Friday can watch them both for now in case their condition worsens, and she will wake me for the next two solutions when they are needed." said Helen.

The others nodded agreement as they filtered out. Natasha walked back to her room then said to the ceiling, "Friday? Wake me up first if she stirs okay?"

"Of course, Miss Romanoff. Goodnight."

"Night Friday."