Chapter 23: Breakdown

Life was just like that. When you complained about the boredom, the events would come faster than ever, whether you were prepared or not.

That was exactly what happened to Sylvia when she thought she has got nothing to do.

She asked Shuri to help her make something to restrict her powers so that she wouldn't lose control of them again and kill anyone else without meaning to. But the sister of Black Panther wasn't the only one doing it.

HYDRA, the greatest enemy of SHIELD, has been setting its eyes on the younger Avengers, trying to get to their weakness and destroy the superheroes all at once. Thanos has kind of helped them in a great part, killing Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff, making Steve Rogers really old, causing Hulk to lose one of his arms, and sent Thor into space with the Guardians of the Galaxy. That left Earth with nearly none of the original members available.

In fact, there were only Sylvia, Parker, Dr Strange, T'Challa, Hawkeye, War Machine, Winter Soldier, Ant Man and Captain Falcon left to protect Earth. They were separated around the planet and haven't got together in a while. Spidey's identity was revealed by the villain Misterio and he was busy dealing with it.

Wanda hid herself in West View, in her own made-up world. She recreated Vision and Pietro to live with herself and overcome her grief. She was fighting with SWORD, yet another organization, from the latest news Sylvia has got.

Sylvia knew that she appeared vulnerable to the people who didn't know her very well. She has been restricting her power form its full limits when she fought with the Avengers in her time-travel, in case she got caught up in the fights too much and changed things that were supposed to happen. She could fight normally now, but no one knew what she could actually do.

Her friends in the Wizarding World didn't know much about her powers and saw them as wandless magic. Her team-mates in the Avengers didn't know much about her magic and saw them as her powers. The people who watched the news would only think that she was nothing more than a normal superhero that couldn't do anything without the others' help.

Only she herself knew what she could do. She could destroy this small planet with a thought in her mind, tearing the ground apart like they were nothing more than dust. She could cause earthquakes and tidal waves easily if she wanted to, or cause Earth to move its track and go to orbit around another sun. she could make the Moon scatter into nothingness or take out the oxygen in the air. She could make the forests on earth burn down piece by piece with fire unable to be put out.

That was why she needed to restrict her powers. She had no idea when she would lose a tiny bit of control of it and it would destroy this world.

And that, was why HYDRA made her a target.

Sylvia only wanted to hang out for a while before going back into that dark house again. Grimmauld was better than it had been since the first she came here, especially with the mad portraits and furniture that would scare the living daylights out of anyone. But still, it was too grim for her. Not for Wings, obviously, but she wasn't that much of a grim person.

Her mind wasn't on what she was doing and where she was going. She just walked into an alley without realizing that it was a perfect spot for an ambush.

When she snapped back into the reality, it was too late. A masked man grabbed her wrist and attached something to it. A sharp pain followed. She yelped in shock and surprise when another man covered her nose and mouth with a wet towel in his hand. The smell on that towel was stingy, and it made her head fuzz before her vision went black.

Great, just great. I'm kidnapped.

The last thing she felt before she lost consciousness was her wrists being tied together at her back. She couldn't use her powers to defend because of the devise that was attached to her arm.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself tied up in a chair by metal cuffs. She felt weak and tired, and she was without her powers.

"Hello, Sylvia Black, or should I call you Bluebell?" A blond man turned to look at her. Bluebell was the name she made up for herself as a superhero, but she never used it and preferred Gloomy. "I'm Dr Marsh, by the way."

"I'd go with Gloomy. What are you going to do with me?" She asked calmly, not trying to do useless struggles, "Let me guess, torture? Pain? Agony? I can just ignore all of them, you know."

"Oh, no, no, no. We're not going to do any of that. Not like it'll be any use on you." Yeah, right. She was of Asgard, which meant that things like guns and other Midgard weapons couldn't hurt her, unless they were made to hurt people like her.

"We just need something from your mind."

"What do you mean?" She narrowed her eyes, trying to pretend that she didn't understand what he was referring to, "There's nothing in my mind that can be taken away."

"Stop your little stupid lies and face the truth." Dr Marsh snapped, "You know what I mean."

"Oh, so you mean Wings." She said airily, "She's not someone who'd surrender though. Since you made me talk, I'd better tell you that I know what you need her for, HYDRA." Chuckling as she saw the Doctor's face went pale, she continued, "To make a weapon, I suppose?"

"That's why we'll tear her out." He avoided her question and pulled a handle down. That made her notice the curved device above her head.

She used Occlumency to fight back the force trying to enter her mind, but it was useless. She knew now why the Wizarding World should have stopped hiding from the Muggles. Muggle technology was getting more and more like magic, and in some ways, better than magic.

She could feel the device messing with her mind. She could feel Wings fighting fiercely against the force that was attacking her. But nothing worked. Sylvia snapped open her eyes which were closed from concentration and saw Wings' spirit being tore away from her body.

"Gloomy!" Wings screamed at the top of her voice, which was really high-pitched. The spirit was locked up into a container by Dr Marsh and she couldn't get out no matter how hard she tried.

"She's a living creature! You can't make her into a weapon of yours -" Sylvia hissed in protest, only to be cut off by an electronical shock that shot pain through her. She couldn't bear the pain without Wings.

"We're not done here." Dr Marsh growled, "What is the Avengers' weakness?"

"How would I know? I fight with them without getting into their private lives." She shot back, panting from the shock.

"Very well, then." The Doctor went for the controller again.

Think, Gloomy, think. She tried her hardest to set her mind straight. Magic and power are two different things, which means…

There was no time to consider about exposing the Wizarding World now. She has got to get out of here.

"Too bad, you didn't do your research well enough when you targeted me." Smirking, she shifted into her Animagus form and escaped from the cuffs bonding her, then turned back to summon her wand with Asgardian magic.

Dr Marsh froze for a moment from shock, and then realized what she just did and grabbed a gun from the table. Sylvia turned into her Animagus form to hide from the bullets and fled form the lab using the glitch of shifting between the forms.

She grabbed her wand that flew to her on the way and faced the guards, taking them down easily as she went passed them. She used Shield Charms to black the bullets but forgot that her shield was only in front of her, not behind her back.

A bullet tore through the air as fast as lightning and caught her waist. Pain shot through her and she quickly Apparated put of the building with her remaining strength.

She landed in a forest. It was dark and she leaned against a tree, sliding down to the ground. She knew she didn't have much time left, with her wound and her blood loss. She used her last bit of consciousness to press on the earpiece.

"Sam… Rhodey… Bucky… Parker… Strange… Clint…" she tried her best to say between heavy breaths and called out to the six people she trusted most among the remaining members, "…help." With that, she closed her eyes and fell into the darkness.

Light came into her eyes and she opened them slowly, praying that she was rescued instead of being caught. Not that she needed to be rescued… alright, she had to admit that she needed it against her pride and independence.

She was lying on a soft white bed. Right, not caught, then.

Trying her best to sit up, she noticed the person sitter next to the bed. He was in dark green and…

"Loki?" She called out quietly, surprised to see him here.

"You could have been killed." The God of Mischief glared at her, "I could have lost you."

"I know." She clung to his robes and hugged him.

"Wait, do we hug?" He was surprised to her reaction.

Without answering, she felt emotion in her mind that hadn't been for a long time. She let her tears roll down her face as she wrapped her arms around Loki, crying into his chest.

"It's alright, Sylv, I got you." Loki tried his best to reassure her and hugged her back.

"They… they took Wings." She choked out between sobs, "They took her."

"Who?"

"Wings. The spirit in me. My other personality." She relaxed in his hold like a small kitten, feeling the warmth of his body. Loki felt how thin she was and knew why she always wore long-sleeved cloths with long trousers.

"Lay back, you'll hurt yourself." He warned her about her wound.

"It's nothing." She sighed before grabbing her wand and doing a Healing Charm. The pain went away at once and she cleaned the bondage that had blood on it. She was wearing a white T-shirt a bit too big for her and noticed the device on her arm.

"They tried to take that off." He explained, "But they couldn't."

"Curse HYDRA." Muttering under her breath, she charmed that off her arm and found her powers back, "It's so annoying without my powers." She formed a ball of fire in her hand and put it out by closing her fist.

"HYDRA's gonna pay for this." Loki seethed angrily.

"They'll pay for their idiocy." She smirked, "Wings' a great trouble. Who found me, anyway?"

"It was that wizard. What do you call him? Dr Strange? He told me about it, and I came at once."

"We're in the Avengers Compound, the rebuilt one, and you're okay with that?"

"Kind of, as long as they don't kill me."

"Well, I'm fine now, so -"

"You call that 'fine'? You've been captured for two days -"

"Wait, I've been out for a day and a half? Damn it -"

"Mind your language, Sylv -"

"- Kreacher's definitely gonna be really worried, and Hayley might kill herself."

"- and you're most obviously not going anywhere like this."

"Merlin's beard, Loki, you're talking like… an adult." She stared up to him, "For the first time in more than a thousand years, you're acting like my uncle."

"I have responsibility on you since Thor's not gonna do it." He rolled his eyes.

"Thor's not my uncle," she had fully recovered from the events, "only you are."

"Don't let him hear that."

"I don't care about it. Enjoy my times of being a child for the first time you remembered." Sylvia got down from the bed and smiled.

"I'm not going to be a babysitter."

"I'm not a baby, and you're only three years older than me, Loks."

"Of all the stupid things!" Loki stood up from his chair and sighed dramatically.

That afternoon, they played many games with the guards and went back to the building with laughter. Sylvia had her childhood back, after all this time.