THOR
He came bashing through the hallways, stumbling around the already beaten helicarrier. Not a S.H.I.E.L.D. soldier stood in his way. All of Thor was bent on getting to Loki's cell. It wasn't for Loki, he knew his love well. The first thing she would have done was to figure out the enemies attack. Thor would bet every tankard of ale he had ever ingested she would be confronting Loki. And unlike Thor, she did not know his brother's ways.
True enough when he came barreling head first into the room with the cell Loki stood there over Avalon's crumbled form. "Loki!" Thor shouted, slamming himself into his brother, in hopes of gaining enough time for Avalon to wake up. It was a trick. The moment Thor's shoulder almost collided with Loki's chest the trickster disappeared. Thor's momentum brought him into the cell which was quick to lock behind him. Thor scrambled up onto his knees, not looking at the real Loki until he realized that Avalon now lay at Loki's feet.
"What have you done?" Thor snarled, standing with his hammer in hand. "What have you done to her?"
Loki chuckled, moving forward a step.
"All of S.H.I.E.L.D. around you, failing miserably to stop me, but all you care for is a pitiful woman." Loki full out laughed. "Oh how she has calmed you brother." Loki placed a foot over Avalon's hand, stepping down on it with all of his Asgardian strength.
"Remove your foot!" Thor shouted, slamming his hammer against the glass dividing him from his brother. If he could merely get to his brother, he knew he could save Avalon. Looking at the woman lying peacefully now made his blood boil. She was fiery and enchanting, not someone meant to lie at the feet of his mad brother.
As soon as Thor's hammer hit the glass his entire cell shook as the clamps released from the top of the container. "You will not harm her." Thor ordered, ignoring his own life being in jeopardy for the sake of his loved one.
"Oh," Loki chuckled again, looking his brother over before removing his foot. "No, brother, Avalon and I have plans…" The dark haired brother moved back to the computer panels to his side. Thor knew what they would do; he had seen it when the Fury man had been interrogating Loki before. He had not liked the situation his brother had been in before, but he would have preferred it to the one he was experiencing now. "And unfortunately you do not figure in…" Loki reached for a clear covered button, and lifted the case of it.
"You will not win this brother." Thor pressed his free hand to the glass, his eyes flitting from Avalon to his brother. "What do you hope to accomplish from taking her? You have wanted nothing but war and domination this whole time." He demanded, shaking his hammer. Thor ached to knock his brother around, just to try and knock some sense into him.
"Much brother." Loki answered, but he did not yet press the button. "I will admit…" Instead he moved back to kneel beside the girl at his feet. "You have found a rare jewel with this one." He grinned sickly, grasping a lock of the woman's hair just to annoy his brother. And Thor was annoyed as he growled from his prison. "She fought me of course, would rather become a bed mate then be my Queen. Have you told her what an Asgardian Queen does? That she'll be expected to bare children and rot away at your side, never your equal?"
"Her destiny is her own decision!" Thor shouted, his shoulders tensing at being called out. "Avalon knows I would never-" Loki cut him off, sticking up a mocking finger, laughing hoarsely and sounding very false.
"Ah, but it isn't your decision is it?" Loki mocked, standing up from his captured queen. "Hers might be to stay with you, but Asgardian tradition claims she must stay within the court, to guide over your home affairs. You would be taking a warrior and treating her like a house pet." Loki moved back from the jail cell and towards the button.
"Loki-" Thor thundered, already raising Mjolnir to break through the cell and right towards Loki, but Loki was quicker.
"One day, Thor, you will learn to hold on to your toys better. Maybe then I'll quit stealing them." And Loki jabbed the button, sending Thor to fall away from both the room and the helicarrier. Loki watched on in impressed silence. Perhaps, he thought, humans did have a use. At least as bargaining chips and distractions.
"As for you, my dear," Loki sauntered calmly to his kidnapped queen, and oh would he make her his queen, to pick up her prone body. He could just see the green of his magic flowing in her veins. "We have a tower to make our palace." He lifted up her body, smirking at her weight; he knew all of the weight was from her metal bones. Oh he knew much more then Thor about this woman.
Tony
"I've got nothing for you. I lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming." Fury spoke, but Tony didn't hear him, not really. They had all gathered around the table, he didn't even remember being led here. He knew he wouldn't have walked here, or even gotten out of the suit. He wanted to keep looking but JARVIS couldn't even find her suit.
Tony's fists clenched in his lap. Steve Rogers sat two sets away from him, the only other member that survived through the battle. Bruce had hulked out, Natasha lost somewhere in the endless helicarrier. Thor was lost in the cell, his girlfriend stolen by Loki. And Anna was-
Tony's clenched fists came up to rest on his temples.
"Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract." Fury sighed, watching the distraught billionaire. He remembered what happened the last time that Stark had been this reckless. "I never put all my chips on that number, though…because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea; Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people," Fury walked slowly around the table as he spoke. "To see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Anna-"
"Don't." Tony snapped at the mere mention of his fiancé's name. He stood, not bothering to say another word. Even as destroyed as he felt right now, he could tell what Fury was trying to do. How could Fury even think he was interested in this little fight any more? Anna was the only reason he even bothered to hear Fury out and she was-
Tony slammed his fist against the nearest wall in the hallway, not even breaking stride as he tried his hardest to get the hell out of there. There was only one place he was going to get air with no interruptions.
The billionaire punched the button to be let in to the jail cell room. It was more just a hanger now with a slight breeze going through it from the lower decks. With no cell actually still in it, the room was left seemingly gutted, missing something. It reminded Tony of himself.
The man pressed his hands against the railing, ignoring the ache in his knuckles. Instead he slammed the same hand back down on the railing. None of it felt right, because Anna wasn't there to scold him. She always scolded him about hurting himself.
"Come on, Tony," Anna teased him, tugging on his jogging pants.
"Hmmm, in a minute." Tony muttered, squinting to see the hologram in front of him. Every few seconds he could feel his eyes get blurry, but he had to keep going. If he could revolutionize this one product, a laser durable enough to heat even underwater baddies, then maybe he would re-buy the stupid art collection he'd given away. He felt a lot worse about the art collection that he'd given to the boy scouts when the press had lit Anna on fire for it.
He was brought out of his thoughts and planning pleasantly when Anna slid her smaller arms around his waist, and pressed herself against his back. She laid her head on his back and Tony felt a sigh leave her.
"Please?" She pouted. Tony turned his head from the hologram to look back at her over his shoulder. True enough she was pouting, one lip stuck cutely out and her eyes wide. "I don't want to sleep by myself…won't you sleep with me, Mr. Stark?" Anna teased, her tone dropping in the last sentence. All plans Tony had been thinking about flew out the window at her words.
"Hmmm." Tony turned around, breaking her grip so he could tug her into his lap. "I don't know future Mrs. Stark; I'm pretty tied up down here." He nuzzled into her neck and Anna laughed at him, tickled.
"Come on, Tony," She repeated abandoning her other tactic. "Don't make me tell JARVIS to lock the lab up again. You know I will." Anna threatened, leaning down to pepper cute little kisses all over Tony's face. Tony snorted in return, tightening his grip. "You've been working for hours now, come upstairs and we'll take a bath. We'll get some sleep and you can work some more in the morning."
"You just want me all to yourself." Tony smirked, letting one hand sneak to her lower back. Anna squeaked and flushed, like she always did when he made an inappropriate advance. It only made Tony feel all the more daring, almost like a teenager again.
"Tony Stark!" She wiggled out of his hold, grasping his hand instead to try and pull his weight up off the chair. "Tony!" She huffed, giving up after a few seconds of tugging. Tony eyed her a moment before taking pity and getting up. He looped an arm around her.
"Just a quick shower, I've got something in mind for the night." Tony compromised.
Anna laughed at him.
She couldn't have been dead. He knew for a fact that the suit was made of tougher stuff. Anna had been part of the making so no corners were cut. The suit could have sustained flight in the middle of a volcano, but he couldn't quite reassure himself. Things went wrong, plenty of things have before. Stane, Potts, and even the arc reactors were examples.
He could almost picture what she would have said to him, if she saw him now.
'Don't be rash Tony, I'm fine.' She would ramble. 'Why aren't you out finding Loki?'
She wouldn't give a damn about her own safety, and would expect him to do the same about her. She was selfless like that, no matter what the woman claimed. How could he help find Loki, stay on task, when she wasn't there to keep him focused. If he could just go out and find her Tony would be able to focus. He focused best when Anna was with him.
Thor
For a moment after he landed Thor lay on the ground, his back dug into it. He did not know where on Midgaurd he had landed, what island or piece of land. Thor didn't much care. What he did care about was how far away he was from Avalon. She could take care of herself, sure, but why would she if he wasn't there. Thor would gladly give Avalon someone to fight for in her long life if she would let him.
Thor wasn't as stupid as people thought of him. He knew that he could not stand up to his mother or brother in a battle of wits; however he wasn't stupid. The Asgardian knew that Avalon's long life span was getting to her. He wanted nothing more than to keep that light in her eyes going. If Loki managed to extinguish that, then Thor would have no qualms about killing his brother. For Avalon, he'd do anything because he knew she would easily return the favor.
Thor pushed himself up, not bothering to brush the dirt from his armor or hair. Instead he slowly began to walk over to Mjolnir. It puzzled him to know that Loki had taken Avalon anyways. Yes, he was angry, downright furious, but he was worried as well. If Loki had spoken such poison in to Thor's ears, then had he said these things to Avalon? Thor hoped not.
His mother wanted Loki back in one piece and Thor did not have the strength of heart or arms to hold Avalon back if she so wished to kill Loki. It did not matter if he had the heart any way, if he could not find them.
Thor reached out his hand for Mjolnir, but it did not come. The blonde brother was not surprised. He did not feel as if he deserved to wield Mjolnir. He felt more as if he had failed. As if he had failed her in letting her be taken. Who was he to accept the throne when he couldn't even protect his Queen.
Tony
"Did she have family?" Steve Rogers asked.
Tony didn't jump, or flinch but instead almost chuckled hysterically. They just couldn't leave him alone to wallow could they? No. It had to be Steve Rogers they sent after him too. There was no way that Tony Stark was going to open up to the blonde flag-man.
"Yeah, a cousin but..." Tony answered anyways, not looking at the blonde as he faltered.
"I'm sorry." Rogers quietly said.
"Don't." Tony roughly repeated, not turning to the patriotic man. Instead he clenched his fists around the bars in front of him, trying to keep his hysteria in. Nothing had hurt this bad, not since the cave. Not since…
Tony's entire being locked up when he woke up. He wasn't on the soft silk sheets he was used to, and there was no JARVIS waking him up with the weather. Tony could smell the dampness where ever he was, but all of his senses felt cut off, like none of them wanted to work correctly.
When he opened his eyes he was met with a rock ceiling and a flood of memories. And something blocking his airways, some kind of tube like object. It didn't hurt worse than the pressure on his heart. It felt like he'd had metal jammed in his chest, and it took him an unusual amount of time staring at the ceiling to remember the bomb.
"Anna?" He coughed out, his eyes moving away from the ceiling for the first time. His eyes tracked around the dirty place around him, a cave. The only person in the room with him was an elderly, lanky man currently shaving his face. Tony squinted his eyes at him, trying to lift his heavy arms to drag the tube out of his nose. He managed to do so with a wince of uncomfortable pain.
"An-Anna?" Tony coughed out, his eyes going blurry as they sped up, looking around for his best friend. He couldn't find her and he hoped to God that whoever had taken him had left her to be found by the army. She could be alive; he knew she had to be. Tony lifted his hand again to reach for a cup of water beside his bed, knocking it off on accident. Frustration burned through his veins.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The older man commented, setting down his razor and picking up a towel. The man began to wipe off his face as he watched Tony panic over the battery leading to his chest. "Relax, I am not here to harm you. In fact, I'm the one that is keeping you alive." He stated, walking closer to Tony who looked up at him.
"Where's Anna? What have you done to her?" He snarled.
"Your chest is full of shrapnel." The man ignored his questions, sitting down to pick up a dirty and blood stained bottle with tinkling metal pieces in it. "That electro magnet is the only thing keeping you alive, I am afraid."
Tony didn't look at the vial as he took it from the man. Instead he continued to stare at the stranger as the older man spoke. "My name is Yinsen, I am a captive like you, kept here to keep you alive. They took me from my village." The old man looked sad, glancing away from the penetrating gaze. Tony said nothing, but his hands clenched in the coarse and thin sheets under him. The old man finally sighed.
"You will not enjoy this Stark." Yinsen seriously said, leaning forward as if he did not already have Tony's full attention. "Annabella is alive," Tony's heart missed a beat in relief, but what Yinsen said next made it plummet. "She is being kept in a separate room, where she is tortured almost daily. I see to her physical ailments when they allow me too. She will be happy to know that you have finally awakened, it's been three months." Yinsen hurried on after the boom shell he dropped, but Tony did not miss it.
"Tortured?" His voice broke. "Why would they torture her?" His hand broke away from the sheet to clutch just under the electromagnet. He felt significantly worse all of a sudden.
"They were attempting to use her knowledge to their advantage, but she has refused to do as they asked." Yinsen paused, hesitating before he spoke again. "Annabella is attempting to keep you alive, because she knows that if she were to give them what they wanted, they would no longer need you."
Tony's world narrowed and his breath started to shake.
He could remember that feeling so well. The pain of not having Anna there when he woke up, and then finding out what had happened to her while he had been uselessly sleeping was beyond physical pain. It made Tony's hands tremble around the bars in his hands. This moment, where everyone around him thought his girlfriend – fiancée now – was dead made him break out in a sweat. Jus the doubt of her living made his breath quicken.
"Is this the first time you've lost-" Steve tried softly to interrupt Tony's train of thought but by now Tony Stark couldn't give a damn about anything the soldier had to say to him. In fact Tony's hysteria was starting to turn into a familiar anger. He knew damn well that he shouldn't give into it; Anna would have calmed him down by now. But that's just it. She wasn't here to calm him down.
"She isn't dead." Tony snarled, barely turning to look over his shoulder at the Captain. "And you are the last person I want as a comfort, Cap. I suggest you run and hide behind your orders like a good little soldier." Tony released the bars from his hand, not caring for the sting of his circulation coming back to his hands. Tony knew the Iron suits backwards and forwards. He knew every glitch, joint, bold, and weapon in them. He knew the suit was capable of short trips into space, hell it could maintain flight in an active volcano, but he couldn't lie to himself and say that it would have protected Anna.
For one, he knew the suit had gone offline before she had hit the ground, as JARVIS had lost communications with her and her tracker. And then she had landed in an area full of trees to run into. He just couldn't make himself believe that she was alright, even if she was alive. And she had to be alive. If she wasn't…
"Stark, you aren't the only one to be upset by this news. We all cared for her-"
Tony finally turned around, his anger skyrocketing past his grief.
"Cared for her?" He laughed, throwing his hands out to his sides. "Captain, I think I know what you felt for her." Tony snorted. "And it wasn't care." Because he had turned around, he could recognize the look of anger as it also took over the Captain. Oh, the Captain was good at keeping the neutral face, but his eyes gave him away.
"Stark, you may be in grief, I understand that, but don't make claims you don't-" The Captain tried to get the situation back into control, but Tony was past control and quickly spiraling.
"What understand?" Tony took a step forward. "You don't even know her, Captain. All you've seen of her was a few videos and one meeting." Tony's hands clenched together, one absently resting on the arc reactor.
"Tony," The Captain's voice took on his anger.
"And now she's dead because I was too busy saving your ass." Tony barked, flinching at even telling someone else she was dead. He wouldn't make himself believe her alive or dead. He couldn't. One alternative made him nauseous, and the other gave him too much hope.
Tony didn't even care that the Captain looked chastised, and awkward.
"Do you wanna know the worst part, Captain?" Tony mocked. "She was screaming for me, but I couldn't get to her because I was fighting off guns for you. I didn't pull the lever in time and now she's out there either dead, or lying broken in the woods." Tony's hands clenched together tighter, wanting nothing more than to hit something again. His knuckles on his hand were broken up, he could feel the sting of the cuts, and the drip of the blood coming out of them, but they barely registered.
"I'm not going to march to Fury's fife, Captain. I should be out there looking for Anna, not wholed up in here fighting with you over something you are never going to have." Tony pressed his hand to his arc reactor again, before turning to walk up the stairs, to another exit out of the room. He needed to be finding Anna.
"I don't care about the problems between us, Stark." The Captain followed him, stopping at the bottom of the four stairs, Tony standing on top of them, paused. "But Loki is still out there." The Captain pressed his hand to the bars now, as if it would make him forget the embarrassment of being called out on his inappropriate crush. "And as long as he is, Fury won't let us go out to find Anna. He's got the same blood on his hands as Fury, I get that, but right now we have to put our differences aside. We won't get anything done bickering between each other."
Tony's eyes wondered off to the side. He knew the Captain was correct. The billionaire hadn't thought of Fury's reaction if Tony went out to find Anna instead of helping. But Tony didn't want to follow Fury like a good little lap dog, and Anna wouldn't have wanted him too. But, again, Anna wasn't there with him. Why did this have to happen? Why did Loki even bother to have someone rescue him when he seemed perfectly happy to…
"That's it…" Tony breathed, his eyes perking up. "That's Loki's play." The billionaire turned swiftly to the Captain, not going down the stairs. "He's made it personal. That's the point, that's Loki's point. It's why he took Avalon, and why he had to get rid of Anna." Tony smacked his hands together.
"He did it to tear us apart." The Captain caught on to Tony's thoughts.
"Yeah, divide and conquer is great but he knows he has to take us out to win, right?" Tony ran both his hands through his hair, tugging on it once before letting his hands fall to the bars beside him as he tried to think. If he could think of what Loki wanted, then maybe Fury would allow him to find Anna, not that Tony cared. At this point, he was trying to figure out Loki's scheme so he could get revenge for Anna. He'd find Anna, or she would find him. She was always good with that too. "That's what he wants. He wants to beat us; he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience, that's why he took Avalon to get one up on Thor." Tony swung around, leaning back on the bars. He couldn't stay still he felt so close to the answer.
"Right. I caught his act in Stuttgard." The Captain kept up but did not interrupt.
"That was just the previews. This is the opening night." Tony pointed at Rogers, and for once he didn't feel anger or suspicion when looking at the Captain. "And Loki," Tony smacked his hands together again, before lightly hitting them against the railings behind him. "He's a full-tilt diva, right? He wants flowers, he wants parades, a woman by his side. He wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered…" Tony stopped.
The Captain was no longer keeping up, instead he looked clueless, but when Tony met his blue eyes with growing horror, he knew something had just happened. "What? What does Loki want?"
"Son of a bitch!" Tony practically flew out of the room to get to Fury. Anna wouldn't let him live it down if he didn't fight against Loki, he knew that. Every part of him wanted to go find Anna, but he knew rationally that he had no idea where to start, or what to do. He wasn't a god, or a soldier. He had no military training and no way of finding her. But he knew his Anna very well. If she was alive and able, then she would know not to come back to the helicarrier. It would be long gone by the time Anna awoke, so that left one option. Anna would go to where she could get a hold of Tony, or to be safe.
The tower.
"She's smart." He rambled, turning only for a moment to see the Captain following behind him. "She's got multiple doctorates, Cap. She's going to wak up and her first instinct will be to get to safety, to find me. Now where would she go? To Stark & Vinci tower. She knows it's the safest place that she's close to, and she knows I'll eventually come back there. And that's exactly where Loki's headed."
"But what if Anna-" Tony stopped abruptly before Captain America could finish.
"As I'm being the genius here, let's not forget who knows Anna best." Tony spit, bracing a hand on the hallway wall. "Anna and I are connected like that, Captain. We know each other the best. So get your little crush out of your head, because Anna is mine. You made her angry, and I won't forget that Captain especially when she's not here to calm me down." And with that Tony and Captain locked eyes.
And the blue eyed Captain bowed his head.
Later, when Anna would ask why the Captain wouldn't look at her, Tony would blame it on adrenaline and tell her how much he loved her. Maybe he'd even take her back to Italy to make up for scaring off her newest friend. Or France, she was going to get tired of Italy if he kept messing up. And he'd say not going after her when she fell to the ground was as big a mess up as he's managed so far.
Plus she was going to be pretty pissed at him when she found out he'd threatened Captain America.
So sorry it took me so long, but I had to rewrite that last bit. I wanted Tony to finally show how much he cared for Anna. Because all through this story line, all the way back to Never a Shadow, it's been Anna who has been desperately in love with Tony. I thought it was about damn time that he showed how equally obsessed with her he was.
I hope you like it. I kind of like it like this.
Although I have to warn you not to expect something from me for awhile because I'm coming up on Finals and I don't know that I'm going to have any time to write. I want to, really badly because I want to finish this story for you guys.