So disclaimer: I do not own the characters and only created an additional character, I do not wish to make any money off of this, I just like to write.

Warnings: There are malexmale couplings, I think I made that clear but sometimes people don't listen. IF YOU AREN'T INTERESTED IN READING ABOUT GAY MEN, STOP NOW. Okay, you have been warned. There is bad language and pretty gory, spoilers... There will be no vivid *cough* love scenes unless I get a demand for them, space will be left to insert those chapters if the need should arise.

I know I said that the OC would be nonromantic but hey, every one else but Bruce has a hookup. Girl needed some love. Sorry! Don't shoot me with fangirl darts!

This is my first Avengers fanfic, don't kill me.

Enjoy

Steve looked worriedly between his daughter and his fiancée. An hour earlier, Clint had carried her in, mumbled something about bad interrogation and gone off again. He knew that Sarah had gone to watch, with Loki, in case anything magical occurred while the two assassins questioned their captives. The Captain had tried to protest but Tony had started to stir and he didn't want to cause him unnecessary stress. Surely, Loki would protect his niece… It appeared that this was not the case.

Suddenly, Tony gasped and sat up.

"It's okay, Baby, you're safe."

Tony turned to him and seemed to really see him for the first time since they had found him twenty-four hours ago. His brow wrinkled slightly and then he was diving, well much as he could, into Steve's arms.

"I know."

"You know?"

"Something happened while I was asleep."

"A lot of things have happened recently…"

"I know." Tony turned his face up to Steve and tentatively kissed him, just a simple contact of lips on lips. At first, Steve didn't respond, he was shocked. When Tony didn't pull away, he lightly pressed back.

Tony pulled away first, looking flustered and scared at the same time.

"Hey, it's okay. Don't push yourself. We have all the time in the world."

"I guess I am just scared that this was another dream."

Steve waited a second for Tony to go on but when his eyes started to fog over and Steve could see his mind start to wander, he knew he had to do something.

"Another dream?"

Tony looked at him again. "Yeah, my nightmares started again and then… Sarah was there. She stopped everything. She saved me, tore those things to shreds and then took my hand. She said she was going to lead me back to you and then… I woke up."

Thor hurried into the room, stopping when Tony flinched.

"Friends," Thor spoke in a voice much softer than his normal boom. The familiarity seemed to sink in and Tony relaxed slightly.

"What's going on? Did something happen?"

"Our captives have perished."

"What-"

"Sarah." Tony cut him off, turning to the unconscious girl. "Why is she unconscious? What happened to her?"

Tony was getting anxious. Steve put his hands on Tony's shoulders. "Calm down, Sweety."

"It was real." The sureness of his voice threw the other two men off for a moment. He hadn't sounded this sure since before he was taken. Something seemed to unwind in his body as Tony reached his hand out toward his daughter.

Her body seemed to stir but Sarah didn't wake up, lost in a world that no one could see.

"Man of Iron." Tony turned to Thor. "She took the interrogation too far. Loki cast a spell of some sort to render her unconscious for a time. When he cast the spell… she resisted its influence. My brother is not sure when she will wake up." He sighed and walked over to the bed holding Sarah. "Somewhere, in her mind, I can sense that she is fighting a difficult battle. I do not know who her opponent is, but they are strong… It may even be herself." Thor ran a gentle hand down her arm. "We can only pray that she returns to us soon, in one piece."

All three men looked at her form as it seemed to twitch minutely every few minutes.

"She saved me, somewhere in there, she is still saving me. Somewhere in there, she will always want to save me." The other two in the room turned their attention to Tony while he seemed absorbed in his daughter.

As he drifted back into a drugged sleep, Loki entered, looking worried.

"Is she still-" he stopped, his question answered by his own eyes.

"Brother."

"I do not know what to do, Thor."

"What if she never wakes up?" Steve looked as if he were about to cry, his life being torn to bits before his very eyes.

"Captain." Steve turned to Loki, holding tightly to Tony's hand as if letting go of it meant letting go of everything he had ever had. "We should not ask if she will ever wake up, my spell has already worn off. The true question now is who she shall become upon waking."

"What do you mean?"

"Deep inside her there are scars, fractures in her very mind and personality. Until now, they have never been an issue. She was safe. When they took Tony, those fractures started to spread. Her very life, a family that had built itself up around her, was threatened. During the interrogation we watched her break. The witch that SHEILD feared was not Sarah, but the thing that she became when broken." Loki touched Steve's arm carefully, he quickly showed him just the moment in which Sarah had lost all sense of who she was.

"So what are you saying?"

"When she wakes, and she shall in her own time, she shall either be the Sarah that we have all come to know and love or she shall be the Mad Witch."

"What are we going to do?"

"Fury is wondering the same thing at this moment. He is downstairs, wondering if she will have to go back into captivity. No one wants that," he hurried one, seeing the stricken look in Steve's eyes. "You know that we all wanted her to join the team when she turned eighteen, be the new face of the Avengers, but if she is gone… there will be nothing any of us can do to save her this time."

"How can we help her?"

"Right now, her sane mind is multitasking. She is trying to track down Thanos and regain control."

"So we destroy Thanos."

"We can't."

"Why not?"

"In all honestly? It is because not even I can find him. He has completely hidden himself."

"Then what? We give up?"

"Not necessarily. There is a young mutant that SHEILD has found."

"Found like they found Sarah?"

"No. The young man was found a few days ago, immediately following the event that made him… unique. They are bringing him in now."

"What does that have to do with this, Loki?"

"I believe that the influence of a younger presence will focus Sarah's mind. She knows that we shall all be able to continue on without her, no matter how sad that would be. A young person, like herself, that feels abandoned and heart broken would benefit from her presence."

"Who is it then?"

"His name is Peter Parker. They bringing him here as we speak."

"Tell them to hurry." With that, the Captain seemed to dismiss the other two, focusing completely on his shattered family. Thor and Loki heard the gentle sob as they crossed the threshold. Something needed to be done, quickly, or Sarah and Tony wouldn't be the only ones damaged and lost.