"You ready?" Loki glanced over to Sam. He was conscious of a slight twitch in her left eye.

"Yeah. I'm… just… fine!" Sam said the words as if they hurt. She was clenching and unclenching her right hand whilst scratching binary digits into the wall beside her with her left. Loki didn't know if she was feeling pain, he didn't understand anything about this kid, apart from the fact that she wasn't stable; that was for sure.

"Ok, well don't mess this up."

"Or you'll do what? Kill me? Who cares? Not me, not anyone!" Sam shouted at Loki with such ferocity that he took a step back.

"Calm down, if you mess this up S.H.E.I.L.D will win. I don't want that and I know you don't want that, so calm down." Loki tried to be reassuring, not that he had much practice. Sam regained her composure and shook her head, as if she was trying to shake something out. This charade was worrying Loki, he didn't need the child breaking down mid-fight.

"Ready?" Black Widow addressed all the Avengers. Everyone nodded faces displaying complete focus. "Ok, let's move."

The door wasn't kicked down; Tony Stark burned it to ash.

"Right, Stark, Captain you move down there, try to find Miss Potts." Romanoff was pulling the shots. "Clint, you're with me we'll look for Pepper as well. Thor you're on your own, try to find Loki. Banner stay here, we'll call you if we need you." Black Widow led the team and no one argued with her, they all did as she instructed.

Black Widow and Clint moved off; Sam saw them through her cameras. She was crouching Pepper's room, desperately trying to block out the voices that were trying to force their way into her mind. They were strong today, loud. Pepper saw her face contort as with pain mixed with concentration mixed with defiance mixed with desperation. She was a girl on the edge, and Pepper didn't know if that was an advantage or a disadvantage.

Sam franticly tried to concentrate as she saw Black Widow and Hawkeye enter her corridor. She switched the lasers on.

Stark and Rogers moved through the house in silence, trying to hear anything that would lead them to Pepper. They were tense they knew what Loki could do, but worst, they weren't sure whether they knew the extent of what Lithworth could do. They turned and scanned and listened, and then:

"Help me! Oh god, please help me! Tony, are you there? Help me!" Pepper's voice ran clear through the house and Stark turned to its source: a rickety little door… that he promptly incinerated. The two men ran through the smoke and into the room. There at the other side was a speaker.

Bang!

A steel shutter sealed the entrance behind them. Iron Man and Captain America were mice in Samantha J Lithworth's cleverly designed trap.

Thump! Romanoff and Clint hit the floor. They were surrounded by lasers; trapped. Sam laughed at them. This unnerved Pepper as Sam's screen was, as usual, in her mind.

"What are you laughing at?" Pepper plucked up the courage to speak.

"The failure of others." Sam snapped back.

"What do we do?" Romanoff turned her head so she could see Clint.

"I don't think we can do anything. Even if we get passed the random lasers there's no way we can get past those." He nods to a neat wall of horizontal, red lasers.

"Try to call the rest of the team." Clint presses his earpiece.

"Clint to Avengers." Static. "Dam. She's cut off the signal."

"That's impossible." Replies Romanoff.

"Not for little miss Lithworth." Snaps back Clint, annoyed at the way this whole mission has turned out.

"You think they're coming, don't you?" Sam turns to Pepper, malice burning in her eyes.

"They'll always come." Pepper replies.

"Hum. Bet your boyfriend is on his way right now. Lets she shall we."

Thor wielded his hammer, looking down each decrepit corridor, looking for any sign of Loki; his head moving constantly.

"Brother dear. Over here." There was Loki, standing in an open doorway, scepter in hand. Thor charged at him, ready to smash his brains in for what he'd done to him. But suddenly Loki flickered and disappeared and Thor crashed through the doorway, sprawling out on the floor like a baby horse that has failed at trying to walk. Loki casually stepped through the door a metal shutter sealing the doorway behind him.

"Shall we begin?"

Sam turned a computer screen to Pepper and sent the image in her mind to it. Suddenly Stark and Rogers appeared before Pepper. They both looked angry and agitated, two trapped animals on the brink of an all-out fight.

"Well done Stark, truly, only you could get us into a mess this big!" Rogers was the first to turn.

"Don't blame this on me, we were meant to be a team!" Snarled Stark.

"Oh so that word is in your vocabulary!"

"Cut the sarcastic crap Rogers!" Shouted Stark. "Maybe if you hadn't kissed me we I would have been able to work with you!" Pepper took a sharp intake of breath, like she'd just punched. Sam just grinned 'The best is yet to come!' She thought.

"Oh I kissed you now!" Barked Rogers as he involuntarily stepped forward; anger was rushing through him. "And there was me thinking we both kissed each other!"

"Don't pin this on me. Why would I kiss you? I have Pepper." Stark's reply was fast, and it denied everything inside his heart.

"Quick question, if you have Pepper, why are we on this god-damn rescue mission?" Rogers knew he'd hit a nerve, but it didn't fell like victory, just pain.

"You arrogant, out-of-date, piece of –" And they were kissing. Rogers pulled away.

"Is this love?" He asked.

"I think so." Replied Stark, and they were kissing again.

Sam turned the screen off and turned to Pepper, victory shining from her face. But it soon died as she saw Pepper's face.

Banner was alone, he'd made a pact with himself to wait for an hour before going in, but the tension was killing him. He knew perfectly well what Loki and Lithworth were capable of and he didn't want to leave the rest of the team to they're mercy, the two were dangerous.

"Fifteen minutes." He promised himself as the clock ticked away.

"Begin what?" Thor stood up to face Loki.

"To kill you all." Replied Loki with an aspect of 'duh' in his voice.

"You're a traitor Loki, I thought you'd changed when we, we –" His voice trailed off with pain. A flicker of something passed across Loki's eyes. Emotion?

"You fall for such simple tricks brother." But there was a shake in Loki's voice, which Thor leapt upon. "I do not love you Thor, I never did. It was all just a trick to escape, I never meant any of it, none of it. None. Of. It!" Those words killed half of Thor but the other half of him clung onto a slight tremor in Loki's voice.

"I didn't feel like it when we were kissing." Thor moved forward powerfully. "Don't do this to me and yourself, I given up my home for you!" Loki seemed to visibly weaken with these words.

"What do you mean? What do you mean about Asgard?" Trembled Loki.

"I've been banished, Odin found out about us." Thor knew he was forcing the inner Loki to gradually come out.

"No. Where will you go?" Dangerous Loki was gone, but Thor was well aware that with the wrong words he could bring him back all too soon.

"You were going to kill me just a moment ago." Thor raised his eyebrows.

"Well I was hoping Lithworth would do it for me." They both laughed.

"This isn't just an act is it?" Thor took a step back.

"No. I'll prove it, break the scepter." Loki looked serious, honest and happy all at the same time. So Thor split the weapon with his hammer, they kissed and they laughed. Then Loki pulled away for the last time.

"Thor, what about Jane?"

"Excuse my foul human language, but f**k Jane." Said Thor, quite simply. Loki grinned and quickly replied:

"But brother, you already have!"

"What do we do?" Clint was panicked.

"Wait. We just have to wait for the rest of them to get back." Romanoff wasn't talking to Clint, she was reassuring herself.

"What if they don't come back or what if Loki gets here first? We're fish in a barrel Natasha." Clint was paper-pale.

"We just have to hope." She grabbed Clint's hand "And it's not Loki we should be worried about, it's Lithworth."

Sam gawped. Pepper was smiling. Smiling!

"Why are you smiling? That was your boyfriend, kissing someone else!" Pepper just smiled.

"They're so perfect!" She whispered.

"What?!" Shouted Sam. Pepper should feel betrayed, heart-broken, alone; all Sam's daily emotions. She stood, marched to the end of the room and back, finally pulling Pepper up by her hair, pulling a knife out and holding it to her throat. "What did you say?!"

"It makes sense, they were practically made to be together!" Smiled Pepper.

"Why aren't you angry? Tell me! Why?"

Banner glanced at his watch, fifteen minutes was up. The hulk was coming. He laughed giddily.

Clint and Natasha heard loud footsteps running towards them.

"Banner!" Laughed Romanoff. The hulk came bounding towards them but came to an abrupt halt when he saw the lasers.

"Find Lithworth!" Shouted Clint "Make her take the lasers down." The hulk just nodded and ran in the opposite direction, the way that Stark and the captain had gone.

"Help! She's insane!" Shouted Pepper at the top of her voice. Sam quickly silenced her with a movement of the knife but hulk had heard and the metal door was soon bashed in, its reminents flying to the back of the room.

"Take down lasers." Grunted the hulk.

"Why should I listen to you?" Replied Sam, dropping Pepper.

"Me hulk, me smash!" He demonstrated this by punching a hole through the walls to his left and right, reveling two kissing couples, both quite shocked. A small, submissive digit flashed across Lithworth's iris. Hulk grunted his approval as Hawkeye and Black Widow jogged into the room.