AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Dedicated to Joy, who will get angst and something special in this chapter.

Where is the cute? There is cute chapter after next, I promise you. First we need to get through Stryker and his evilness.

WARNINGS: Language, Sex, Innuendo, Violence, Blood, Angst

ENJOY!

xxxx

Steve was a super soldier—that meant that his metabolism was four times higher than that of an average, in shape man his age. That also meant that what he had been injected with, though a very high dosage to compensate for that, also wore off pretty quickly. Angel was still nowhere to be found, of course, but Steve was up before Joanna had come in, the front door open and her worried.

"What happened?" Joanna asked quickly. "Where's Angel?"

Steve hurriedly grabbed his leather jacket. "I have a feeling that Stryker figured it all out."

"You mean…" Joanna began, stopping as Steve nodded. "Oh God…"

"What do I do with him?" Joanna asked, pointing to the guy that Angel had manipulated. "And shouldn't you see someone about your bleeding wound?"

Steve hadn't even noticed him because the moment he had come to, he had wanted so desperately to get Angel and bring her back. He had half thought that they would never leave someone behind to get questioned, but when it came to making a quick exit because of the super soldier, they were only going to carry the one person out…Hell, they could have thought that the other guy was dead. Well, he was as good as dead once Steve was done with him.

"We're taking him to S.H.I.E.L.D.," Steve said with a nod, picking the guy up and swinging him over his shoulder like he was nothing. "Andy is there, and I'm sure she'd like to interrogate him—my wound will heal, I can handle it."

Joanna looked at Steve and swallowed. "I've never seen you like this before…not that I know you, but you just seem…"

"They took the woman that I love to torture her or worse," Steve responded, turning around and heading for the door. "She has never done anything but love and protect and I'm not going to let anything else terrible happen to her if I can help it. This has become personal."

"Right…to S.H.I.E.L.D. it is then." Joanna said as she hurried to the door as well. "I'll drive—it'll go faster and God knows that I want to help Angel too…I owe her so much."

xx

"Did it occur to you that you're being an ass?" Andy asked Clint nonchalantly.

Clint glared at her. "I really don't think that name calling is called for in a situation like this, Andy. This is very serious and I want you to be serious."

"Oh, but I am being serious," Andy responded, putting her hands on her hips. "You claim that you love Sharon."

"I do!" Clint yelled at her.

"Then stop…being…an ass…" Andy told him. "You have got to start realizing that you are not the one that is in control here. You have to let her make her own mistakes."

"THIS IS MORE THAN JUST A MISTAKE!" Clint bellowed. "I can't lose her, don't you get that?"

"Clint…acting like this is what's going to make you lose her." Andy responded with a shrug. "She is going to kill Stryker and you are going to let her do it and you are going to like it. Tell me…if you had been tortured for three years for being who you are, wouldn't you want revenge?"

Clint swallowed gently. "My father beat me and my brother constantly."

"And wouldn't you have loved to hit him with a bus?"

"He was still my father."

"Well, Stryker wasn't Sharon's father and he tortured her from age 7 to age 10, daily."

Clint was beginning to see what it was that Andy was saying and realized that he really was being an ass right now about all of this. Yeah, he and Angel had gone to Sharon for the right reasons, but Sharon had every right her to avenge what had happened to her—Clint should have gotten that before. His judgment had just been clouded by the fact that he loved her and he wanted to be the one to take away all her pain but he couldn't…there were things that she had to do for herself.

"Wow…I really was being an ass," Clint said hanging his head. "I'm so stupid."

Andy laughed and nodded. "Yeah, but you're a man—men are stupid."

"Should I take offense at that?" Thor asked Andy as he had just entered the room.

"Maybe," Andy replied with a smirk on her face. "I'll make it up to you later."

Thor beamed at that and even Clint gave a chuckle because he knew a solicit for sex when he heard one, but the smiling stopped the moment Joanna and Steve entered the room. Steve just kind of dropped the man down and he started to stir, anger and pain on Steve's face and suddenly everyone was alert, Thor grabbing Mjolnir just in case. Everyone wanted to know what was going on and it seemed to them that suddenly everything was about to become so much darker than it had been before.

Pointing to the man, Steve spoke. "He and a few other men came and ambushed us at the house…they took Angel."

"And you want us to find out where she is?" Andy asked him, rolling up her sleeves as Steve nodded to her. "Alright, one almost tortured man coming right up."

"What do you mean almost tortured?" Clint asked her.

"I mean he's going to think that I'm going to destroy him," Andy responded with a devilish grin. "If you want to watch a truly perfect specimen in action, Clint, this is your chance."

Clint laughed a little and nodded. "What are you waiting for?"

"This is going to be fun," Andy said smiling.

xx

Sharon was deep in research when she got the text from Andy, going straight to Ebony and wondering what it was that she was going to do and how. She knew that she had powers and she knew that she could take Stryker on—especially with the help of these other mutants—but she knew Stryker. She knew that he was going to be prepared to them because he had Angel and Angel could manipulate things, so how was he getting past that? What did he have on them?

"You look worried," Ebony said as she looked Sharon over a moment.

Sharon nodded gently. "Stryker wouldn't grab Angel unless he knew how to counteract powers without Anex…"

"Unless he has another mutant like Anex," Ebony suggested with a deep sigh. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to find Stryker and in turn save Angel—I don't really care about anything else." Sharon admitted.

"Alright," Ebony said with a smile. "I've still got your back then."

Ebony smiled a little bit at the little girl in the cell with her, going up to her and sitting down. Sharon quickly curled her knees up to her chest, but she made eye contact with the other little girl and she swallowed. She had cuts on her that stung and when Ebony reached out to touch her, Sharon flinched, but she soon let the girl touch her cuts and bruises.

"I can help you, its okay," Ebony told her.

Sharon shook her head. "Nothing is okay…"

"I can make the pain stop."

"He'll just do it again."

"For now, I can ease the pain…"

Sharon wasn't sure that such a thing could be done, but Ebony was like a natural ice pack and as she touched and stroked Sharon's wounds, Sharon found the pain dissipating. She watched as Ebony worked, making Sharon feel more comfortable, but the fact of the matter was that Sharon knew that Stryker was going to hurt her and Ebony again and he certainly got off on it. He was a terrible man and nothing would make Sharon happier than harming him…even at 7.

"Thank you," Sharon said softly, wiping the tears off of her face.

Ebony smiled a bit. "Any time you need me to, I can do it again."

Sharon smiled a little bit at Ebony because the two of them had been through so much and then lost contact, mainly because Ebony didn't want to be found. Stryker had messed her up royally and she didn't want to have anything to do with the outside world because now she didn't just freeze things—she was also cooled down and sensitive to the sun and heat. Still, she wanted Stryker dead just as much now as she had before and she had found a place she was pretty sure that he was hiding out.

"So we have our target acquired?" Sharon asked as she grabbed her jacket.

Ebony nodded and looked at Loki. "Sharon and I can handle this on our own."

"I believe you on that, but there are others who want the satisfaction of being there," Loki explained, reaching out to cup Sharon's face and bring her in close to him. "You and Ebony, however, can lead the troops."

"I don't understand why you're doing this still," Sharon told him, stepping up close to him. "You're just handing him to me on a silver platter."

"Because you deserve to prove to him that you were always the strongest, just as you are," Loki responded with a smile. "Your power is something that he should come to understand in a less…controlled environment."

Sharon smiled and pulled Loki in for a kiss, thanking him for everything that he was doing for her because this meant the world to her. He as giving her the one thing that she had always wanted and now she was going to avenge Angel, Andy, all of the mutants that Stryker had ever tortured…and herself—William Stryker wasn't even going to know what hit him.

xx

Angel was feeling incredibly woozy and she certainly didn't like feeling the restraints on her wrists and ankles—that meant she was captured. The last time she had been tied up it was so that Anex could carve into her and just that thought made her heart start to beat a little more rapidly. She couldn't help but try and struggle even though she was far too weak and suddenly it dawned on her that she was very heavily drugged…and in pain.

"Oh God," Angel muttered, trying to struggle more and barely moving.

Stryker smiled at her. "Angela Stark…so good of you to join me. I'm William Stryker."

"Shit," Angel said, trying to shake her head. "What have you done to me?"

Her voice was soft and the words came out slowly, but they came out and she opened her eyes fully, but her vision was a bit blurred and her eyes were sensitive to the light. She closed her eyes again and groaned in pain, her head pounding and her whole body throbbing with dull pain. Angel had no idea what was happening to her, but she was beginning to panic and she wanted to get out of her and now…but she couldn't manipulate a thing.

"I've just made you more agreeable," Stryker told her grinning. "You won't be manipulating anything ever again—never expected the pure energy to start eating away at you though…"

Angel whimpered and let her head hang. "The serum…"

"Yes…I blocked your mutant gene with just a syringe of serum," Stryker said happily. "I'm going to do the same to the other when they get here and then I'm going to torture them until they beg me to kill them and that's just what I'll do."

xx

Andy and Sharon were more than prepared here, but Sharon was worried that Tony, Thor, Steve and/or Clint had followed Andy here. While she assured Sharon that it was just her and then the mutants Loki had assembled, even Andy was pretty sure that the boys would have found a way to track them because Steve was on a witch hunt. He was completely on board with what Andy and Sharon wanted to do and Andy had left the other guy in Steve's very capable, super soldier hands.

"He just snapped," Andy told Sharon as they got past the perimeter of the warehouse.

Sharon nodded gently. "Well, he loves her, Andy."

"I know he does, and I love that, I just—he snapped," Andy repeated shaking her head. "I have never seen Steve like this before."

"When you take something that someone loves and you threaten them, things happen to people," Sharon replied shaking her head too. "This is most definitely a trap."

Andy had been thinking the same thing, but she had hoped that for once they had the jump on the bad guy in question. It was getting old and obnoxious having to deal with the bad guy always being one step ahead, and so Andy abandoned the show and went straight for the prize, Sharon right behind her and ready to go because they both felt like they had their powers. All of the mutants listened to Andy, Sharon and Ebony and they all split up, ready to take down this warehouse for once and for all.

Barging into the room, Sharon and Andy stood face to face with Stryker and clenched their fists, seeing Angel in the chair with her head hung. She was trying to move, but the pain was increasing and increasing, making it almost impossible for Angel to do much of anything. They wondered how he had rendered her like this and new that though they wanted to just kill him right then and there, they had to know what he had done so that they could reverse it.

"Start talking," Andy said, narrowing her eyes at Stryker.

Stryker smiled at her. "You want an explanation or a demonstration?"

"I think you need to stop acting like we won't kill you," Sharon said strongly.

Note: That's a better cliffhanger…but still a cliffhanger. Um…next chapter I'll give you a cliffhanger that will segway into sexy and/or cuteness. This is a promise from me to you. Until then…feedback is always appreciated!