Chapter Eleven

Arianna woke up in the backseat of a car. She was no longer in pain, but her body was sore. She felt as if she'd run a marathon and now her body didn't want to cooperate. She was between her captors. Their masks were off. She would see their faces; they weren't planning on her coming out of this alive. And . . . they weren't professionals. They didn't have guns trained on her, plus she could feel her phone in her back pocket.

Professionals would have removed it or destroyed it. GPS, hello. But this was good. Someone would report her missing, and Tony would find her. She hoped Happy and Loki were okay. She couldn't remember much after the pain had started.

"We should search her," the leader guy said. He had blond hair, ice blue eyes. She would henceforth call him Blondie.

"Now?" the other guy asked. "In the car?" This guy also had blond hair, but his eyes were brown. Maybe he could be Brown Eyes.

"Yes, in the car. She's an Avenger, and she lives with Tony Stark. She could have some kind of toy on her that'll lead to us."

Arianna stiffened as Blondie turned to her. His eyes dared her to try something. She jerked away as he began feeling over her chest and stomach and then her sides. Blondie got joy out of her fear – and she was afraid.

"I don't think she likes that," Brown Eyes said. "Leave her alone. She's clean."

"She better be, or it's on you."

Blondie jerked her head back, and Arianna glared at him even as she flinched.

"You be good. Or I'll shoot you again."


Tony's head had just hit the desk he was falling asleep over when he saw Happy, Loki, and Natasha heading toward the door to the lab. He opened it for them so they wouldn't have to use their prints to open it. None of them looked like they were having a good day, and Natasha looked downright worn out. She was also limping.

Why had he stayed up so long? He felt as if his eyelids were made of sand paper and whatever had happened, he wasn't sure he was mentally capable of dealing with it.

Happy was there with Loki, who had been on a date with Arianna, and Natasha had been security detail. He wasn't even sure Arianna and Loki had realized they'd had security detail.

Three of the four people that had gone to the café were in his lab looking unwell, so . . .

"Where's our littlest Avenger?" He slipped a metal band on either wrist. "Please tell me you didn't lose her."

Nobody said anything and Tony felt his chest tighten because this was bad. No one was answering, so this had to be bad.

"She was taken," Natasha said. "Whoever it was shot Loki and Happy with tranqs and took her. They shot her too, and me, but it was with something else."

Loki stepped forward then. He held a dart carefully in his right hand.

"I don't know what it is," Loki said. "But it made her whole body flare up with pain."

Some chemical that messed with pain receptors in the brain, Tony assumed.

"By the way, thanks for not answering your phone," Happy said.

Tony rolled his eyes and gestured for the dart. Loki tried to hand it to him, but since Tony didn't like being handed things, he told Loki to put it on the table.

"You were dosed with this too?" he asked Natasha. "Side effects?"

"Other than the pain? Exhausted. My muscles are sore and twitchy."

"Hm. Trackers. I am making trackers for you guys so I'll always know where you are."

He began running tests on the dart – or more specifically the chemicals the dart would have held.

"Do you have her phone?"

"No, it –" Natasha's eyes widened. "It wasn't there. It wasn't removed at the scene, and even if it was removed later, we'll at least have a direction to start in."

"Definitely making trackers."


Arianna had arrived at a warehouse moments ago, and she was now tied to a chair. They hadn't hurt her anymore, but she wasn't letting her guard down. Not now that she knew what their darts could do.

Whatever had been in the darts had attacked her nervous system. She'd never felt that much pain before. What kind of monster would invent something like that?

"You have a lot of people scared," Blondie said. "You have so much power, and you're supposed to be on the good side, yet you side with a terrorist."

Loki.

"There are extenuating circumstances there. He's not . . . He was pushed into that."

"Is that what he said? And you being a naive little girl believed him."

She wasn't going to go into how she'd seen why he'd been pushed into it. Besides . . . Loki wasn't the problem here. If they'd wanted him, they would've taken him too. And yet . . .

Blondie's fist connected with her cheek, and her head snapped to the side from the force of it. If she hadn't been tied to the chair, she would've grabbed her face. It would bruise and there was a trickle of blood flowing down. The man must have been wearing a ring.

Blondie hit her twice more, seeming to get angrier every time he looked at her. Maybe he really believed she'd betrayed humanity by befriending Loki. She had pretty much been on Loki's side since she'd seen the torture he'd been through; she'd even felt some of it.

Blondie pointed the gun at her again, the one with the dart that caused pain, and Arianna lost control. She didn't want to feel that again. She couldn't, not if it was going to affect her whole body.

The air in the place thickened and Blondie grabbed his throat. She realized then that he couldn't breathe. She was suffocating him. She didn't know how, but she was.

Something in Blondie snapped – a bone, that was what it sounded like – and he doubled over, dropping the dart gun. His ribs . . . She was crushing him. Crushing him like she'd done David.

She was smacked across the face again, and everything stopped. Brown Eyes was staring at her now, fear in his eyes. She was scaring him.

"I'm sorry," she cried. "I can't always control it. I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt anyone."

"I believe you," Brown Eyes said. "And I'm sorry too. But you can't be allowed to concentrate."

He grabbed the dart gun that Blondie had dropped. The dart he fired hit her in the chest, making pain flare from there.

She wanted to curl up in the fetal position and die. As it was, she could feel her heart acting erratically, and if the pain kept up it might actually give out on her.

She might even welcome death if it meant never feeling this pain again.


Tony crashed through the door of the warehouse he'd tracked Arianna to. He was surprised to find only two men, one of whom was pretty beat up.

Arianna was tied to a metal chair in the center of the room. She'd been interrogated – she'd been tortured, and she was still screaming. He quickly realized the reason was because of the dart thing in her chest.

Panic seized Tony's own chest and his heart felt as if it were being squeezed. Not a good feeling.

"Aries," he shouted, and landed by her. She wasn't coherent enough to even realize he was there.

The two men had begun to run, but Tony took care of them with an energy blast to each of their backs. Neither was dead, but they would be locked up a long time once Tony made a call to Fury.

"Mm . . ." Arianna stopped screaming and was now only whimpering. "Tony?"

"Yeah." He was relieved she was aware enough to notice him now, but he needed to be out of his suit right now.

"Next time you want coffee, you can just go to the kitchen. Or I can order it from anywhere you want it. Being Tony Stark has its perks, you know."

Tony untied her from the chair and quickly, if not a little awkwardly, pulled the dart from her chest.

"Oh, I – I knew you'd come," she said breathlessly, voice hoarse.

That was when Tony realized that Arianna had faith in him, and he really didn't know what to do with that. Panic was high up on his list.

"Ready to get out of here?" he asked. All she did was grunt. "How do you feel about flying?"

"Mm . . . do you mind if I pass out?"

"Go ahead as long as you promise to wake back up. Though, you might have a concussion. Bruises on your face and all. What about your head?"

"They didn't hit my head. I'm just woozy 'cause –" Her voice caught and she closed her eyes. This was the moment she was going to start crying, Tony just knew it.

Tears were indeed beginning to fall, and her body began to quiver, and this was so not Tony's area. What was he supposed to do? Why hadn't he brought someone with him? Clint or Steve, Natasha even? She couldn't have fought, but she'd be able to help with this.

Not knowing what else to do, Tony suited up and drew her into his arms before taking off out of the building. This was as close to a hug as he could give her at the moment.

He hoped it was enough.


Loki was waiting outside on the balcony when Tony landed with Arianna in his arms. She appeared to be asleep. He hoped she was just asleep.

Steve was there, as were Bruce and Clint. Natasha had tried staying awake, but the trauma had finally caught up with her and she'd gone to bed.

Tony placed Arianna on the couch in the living room before stepping out of his suit.

"She's wiped out," he said.

Loki noticed the bruises on her face, the slice on her right cheek. Her wrists were damaged from having been bound, from struggling against whatever had been binding her.

"Her wounds need to be cleaned," Loki said. "Warm water should do for now."

"She's gonna be down from the night," Tony said. "They . . . dosed her again."

Loki had no clue what to say or do. He knew what he would have done before, when he'd had his powers. He would've found those men, and he would have killed them for hurting her.

Now he didn't have powers. The only thing he could do was clean her wounds and sit with her until she woke up, because she didn't need to do that alone.

"Thank you for finding her, for bringing her back."

Tony shrugged. "She's . . . she's a friend, and the Littlest Avenger. Can't lose the baby in the family."

Tony cared for her, Loki realized, and she was more than a friend. Tony had called her part of his family. Joking aside, the Avengers were a type of family, and Loki was a part of it. They had accepted his pursuing of Arianna, so he had a family in them.


While Arianna slept Tony received a call from Fury. Tony had already gotten in touch with him on the flight back to the tower. Fury had already known that Aries had been taken. Tony had arrived before the SHIELD agents had gotten there.

"How did you know?" Tony asked. "You claim you're not after her, so how did you know she was taken?"

"Because a few of my . . . scientists hired people outside of SHIELD to get her. The guys were obviously not professionals. It was very sloppy, the whole thing.

"I'm . . . cleaning house, and these guys will never work in the field of science again. The ones who took her have been dealt with. I can't promise no one else will come after her."

"I know that. What did they use on her? I've got tests I can run, but is this gonna cause her any lasting damage?"

"No. She'll be sore for a few days, but other than that . . ."

"What exactly –"

"Our weapons department was working on a serum that could make someone feel as if they'd been shot without having been shot."

"You were working on a torture device. Did you know Agent Romanoff was hit as well?"

"I did. I assume she's fine."

"Yeah. Sleeping it off." Tony sighed. "Let me know if you need help cleaning house."


In the living room, Loki was cleaning Arianna's face of the little blood that had dried there. Her muscles were twitching even though she was sleeping. He knew that was because of the exhaustion the pain must have caused her.

Tony had just gotten off his phone and was now watching them with an odd expression.

"What?"

Tony shook his head. "She did that for you once, when you first became mortal. You were unconscious too."

"Hm."

That had been before she'd even begun to care for him. Though to be completely honest, she'd always cared about him – not as an individual, not as Loki, but as someone she had to heal and protect, yes, she'd always cared for him. Like she cared for everyone.

"Where are the others?" Loki asked, suddenly realizing he'd been left alone with Arianna.

"Rogers and Barton are watching over Romanoff. Banner is in his room. We've got Aries. And her swelling is going down. It'll be quite a shiner, though."

Tony sat on an arm of the sofa and Loki noticed he allowed himself to touch her hair.

"The ones who did this are dead. The ones who hired them are not. I don't know if she'd want any of them killed – it's just not her."

"Oh, I know," Loki said. "I'm here and alive. Relatively free."

He paused from washing her face and pulled the rag away.

"She was there because I wanted to go outside."

"She was getting stir crazy herself. No one expected an attack in public and during the day. And I provided the transportation."

Before either could say anything else Arianna began to stir. She groaned once and seemed to try to lift her arms. They didn't get very far and a frown found a place on her mouth. She was waking up even though she should've been asleep for at least a few more hours.

She opened her eyes, green but glazed over from exhaustion. She looked around frantically, as if she didn't know where she was, until her gaze fell on first Loki and then Tony.

She groaned again and tried to sit up, to which Tony stood up and basically pressed her back down.

"Hey, whoa. Easy. You're not at a hundred percent."

"Mm. Really? I hadn't noticed."

She had retained a sense of humor, Loki noticed. He also noticed how scratchy her voice was. Her throat had been made raw from screaming.

"She needs water."

"Got it," Tony said and went out of the room. He seemed happy to have an excuse, actually.

Arianna grabbed his hand then and Loki was grateful for the warmth of it. The proof it provided that she was in fact okay. Or would be.

"Did they hurt you?" she asked.

"No." Loki swallowed down the emotion he felt because of her caring whether he'd been hurt or not. "They used the tranquilizer on me."

"Hm. Good."

Good? Warmth spread through him at that one word. Warmth and a small amount of panic because he knew he didn't deserve her affection toward him, he didn't really deserve any of the things the Avengers had given him. A home, friends, a family.

It was all he ever wanted, but he knew he didn't deserve it


After Tony came back with water for Arianna he slipped away to his workshop. He just needed to get away, to get his mind off things, and working was the best solution for him.

Besides, everyone would know where he was – no one would have been able to find him had he actually gone to bed like he knew he should have.

"Jarvis, keep an eye on Agents Romanoff and Grace. If anything changes for the worse, let me know immediately."

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Other than that, no distractions."

He had an immediate problem in that dart thing that had hit two of his team members, two of his friends. No one else could be allowed to be taken down by this new weapon.

Tony had been working on this new liquid body armor, planned on making a suit of it for each of his team members. It was flame resistant, bulletproof, and would have definitely kept Natasha and Arianna from getting hit with those darts.

He really needed to work on that now. He wouldn't have his friends tortured, not when he could stop it. Sure, everyone was safe, and they had found Aries relatively easily, but what if it happened again?

They had to be ready.


After Arianna got her motor functioning skills back she decided to go to bed. She'd be more comfortable there, and she'd be able to sleep. She needed sleep. She was so exhausted and she didn't think she could stay awake much longer.

"Loki, I just wanna sleep. Help me to my room?"

"Okay."

Good. She still couldn't move much on her own, and she still felt as if she had pushed her body to the max.

Loki helped her off the couch and, because she refused to be carried, helped her to walk the distance to their hallway.

"Uh . . . you might have to come in. The bed covers need to be folded back, and a lot of other things that you probably didn't ever have to do as a prince."

"Mm. And how shall I serve you tonight, Miss Grace?"

Her heart stopped – or stuttered – at the innuendo in Loki's voice. This was the first time he'd ever used that voice on her, and if she hadn't been hurt she'd have been even more affected.

As it was, she knew Loki was only messing with her, and he really meant he was going to do whatever she needed him to.

"I do need you to pull down the covers. I . . . I may need help changing. Okay?"

"I am centuries old. I promise not to lose control at what is probably a perfect body."

"Don't feel too perfect at the moment."

Loki opened the door and helped her inside and onto the bed. He glanced at the dresser and then back at her.

Arianna realized then that this was the first time Loki had actually been in her room. She was glad she kept things relatively neat. The worst thing that she had out was a t-shirt draped over the edge of the bed. It was one of her sleep shirts, actually.

"This is okay," she said, gesturing to the shirt. "I just need –"

She lifted her arms, winced, and Loki stepped forward. He grasped the edge of her shirt, brought it up and over her head.

She let her arms fall back to her sides, where they remained until one of Loki's hands found its way to the cleavage of her breast that showed over her bra. She jerked away and ended up leaning back against her elbows and on her back.

"Don't touch me!" she snapped, to which Loki's eyes widened. He stepped back, hands fisted at his side. She could tell she had hurt his feelings. She immediately felt remorseful because she hadn't meant to react that way.

"Oh, Loki, I'm sorry. I don't – Sorry. I just . . ."

"I should have warned you. I saw – there's something on your skin."

"What?"

She glanced down only to notice that where the dart had struck her were now lines veining out from it. It looked like blood poisoning.

"Loki. My back, there's one on my back. Is it the same?"

"Uh . . ."

"It's okay to help me sit up. I won't freak out. I just – I shouldn't have before. I just – it surprised me."

"Sorry." He sat beside her and began helping her up. "Do you not like being touched in general?"

"I do like some warning. Sorry."

Loki stroked the bare skin of her back and she flinched. She could tell the injection site was fevered. She was probably infected with something.

"It is the same – maybe worse."

"Great. Makes sense, since that was where they original wound was." Arianna groaned. "Jarvis? Will you alert the others that Natasha needs to be checked over, and we all need to meet in the lab. Get Bruce down there, and tell Tony we're coming."

"Yes, Miss Grace." A pause and then, "Is this about your condition? Mr. Stark doesn't wish to be disturbed. New project."

"We need tests run. And yes, it's about my condition."


Tony had finally lost himself in his work when everyone showed up outside his lab. Natasha was sandwiched between Steve and Clint, and Loki was helping Arianna along. Both women appeared to have been through a war.

Arianna was holding a shirt to her chest, but her back had no cover aside from the thin line of her bra. Tony didn't even want to know why that was or how it had come about.

Tony didn't want to deal with it.

Bruce came in behind the group and stopped right as he reached Arianna. Tony could tell he asked if she was okay and she nodded, though Tony could see that Arianna was nervous and just a little twitchy.

Of course, half-naked and surrounded by testosterone, she would be. She was a rape victim and she was getting a lot of male attention. Add in she'd recently been held hostage and tortured, she was probably flashing back to . . .

Yeah, he didn't want to deal with that either.

Bruce let them all in and led the two women to a work station. Despite Bruce being able to turn into a green giant, he was best for this. He was kind and gentle, not abrasive, and he probably wouldn't frighten Arianna. He would be careful with her even though he did not know her history.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"You should see this," Bruce said. "Uh, we might have a problem."

Tony stood from where he was working and went over to Bruce. When he noticed what exactly Bruce had been looking at he cringed. There, on Arianna's back, near her spine was a small dot with lines of red around it. It reminded him of when his own body had been at war with him, when his blood toxicity levels had been off the charts.

"Is the other area the same way?" he asked, and she nodded. "Tash?"

The red-head shrugged. "I got shot in the leg."

"Maybe you should check," Steve said. "Then we'll know whether or not she's the only one it's affecting this way."

Without hesitating Natasha began taking her pants off. Tony rolled his eyes, Clint smirked, Bruce and Steven looked away, and Loki appeared as shocked as Loki could be. Tony figured most Asgardians didn't ever strip in front of a group of people.

"Tash, I don't think he meant for you to check in front of everyone!" Arianna said.

"Nope, definitely not!" Steve said.

"It's just skin," Natasha said, shrugging. "And it's not like Aries."

"Oh, great," Arianna muttered. "I really am infected or something."

"Blood tests," Bruce said, "checking for infections or viruses. Keep a list of symptoms you start to experience. We'll need antibiotics once we figure out what's wrong. And keep an eye on your temperature."


As Bruce continued one a doctor spiel Arianna's phone began vibrating in her back pocket. That was weird. Who would be calling her? Almost everyone she knew was in that room.

When she slipped her phone out she realized she wasn't getting a call; she was getting an ongoing list of text messages. Picture messages, really, of the two men that had taken her. They were dead, both with bullets in their foreheads, right in the center. There were other pictures of the man she had hurt, the man she would have killed had the other not stopped her.

Who was sending this to her? Why? She already felt bad for losing control; she didn't need this as a reminder.

"What's that?" Steve asked.

"Nothing."

"Aries," Natasha said quietly. "Give me the phone. Whatever is on there doesn't matter."

"Yes. Yes, it does!" She tossed her phone to Natasha maybe a touch too hard, and her eyes began to bun with tears. "They were scared of me! They were scared of me; that's why they shot me with that – that thing. They didn't want me to be able to focus. They knew I had to focus!

"Blondie enjoyed hurting me. He's the one that kept hitting me, and then when he stopped I hurt him like I –"

She clenched her jaw to keep from finishing her sentence. She would have hurt Blondie the way she had hurt David. She knew the guy hadn't been a solid citizen, had actually been a grade-A jerk, but she had never meant to hurt anyone.

"Aries!" Natasha stepped in front of her and grabbed her shoulders. Arianna hated herself for flinching. "Stop! The pictures don't matter. What you did doesn't matter. They were hurting you. They were either going to kill you, or they were waiting for someone to come get you. You had every right to defend yourself in any way you could."

She'd heard that in every therapy session she'd ever been through and in every self-help book she'd ever read. It didn't help then and it wasn't going to help now.

"I understand self-defense, Tash, but these men are dead now."

"But you didn't kill them."

"I could have. If they hadn't shot me the second time I would have." She shrugged. "I would have, and there are others after me from SHIELD who are probably responsible for these two guys. What if more people die because of me?"

Loki stepped forward then. "We really need to run the blood tests for you, Arianna. But to be clear, if these others are out to harm you, I'll be glad to see them meet the same fate as these two."

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Tony said. "Now, how about those tests?"


Okay, so there was a lot going on in this chapter, which I didn't realize when I wrote it, but hey . . . I think it fits. Not sure about the Tony/Arianna scenes. Not going for any romantic overtones of anything, I'd rather it feel familial, like he's taken in an orphan type person and just cares about her, but doesn't really know how to deal with that. Other than that . . . hope you enjoyed!