Not very long, but there's a lot of switching scenes and POV's in the previous chap and this one so I thought I'd make them a bit shorter so they flow a bit better :) Enjoy!
Loki had his men set up a CCTV camera in the lab where the girl was working; Splayed out in front of him was her papers on the virus. If it hadn't been for that pathetic old man begging for help in that back alley, he would have never found out about this wonderfully delicious virus.
'Programmed to do anything, cause anything.' The told him, and it was then that he knew he had to have it. The Chitauri would be waiting on the Tesseract, but as soon as he showed them what powers he could obtain through the use of both, he will surely be rewarded handsomely and no longer would he stand in the shadow of his oaf of a brother.
The scene before him shifted, as a remote wasteland replaced the clean angles of the security room.
"You're taking your time Odinson." The Other says slowly, pacing around a worn looking Loki.
"It's Laufeyson now," He corrected, "and I think that you will be pleasantly surprised with what I can do with just a bit more time. I could-"
"Thanos grows weary and tired of your games liesmith, if you are to claim Earth as your own then so be it. The armies grow restless, they thirst for war." Loki listened intensely as The Other circled him predatorily.
"Thanos has my sincerest apo-"
"You do not speak his name!" The Other spat in his face as his jaw clenched tightly shut, "You're time is running out Loki of Asgard, and this time, your silver tongue won't be there to help you out."
Loki felt a surge of pain sweep his body as he found himself back in the security room. Wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, he headed for the lab.
Penny poured a steaming liquid in a tube and started her stopwatch, hearing the door open and then close again quietly, she turned around.
Loki was reclining on a chair with his boots on the table, "What is the Virus?" He asked curiously, his ever inquisitive mind needed to know not just what it could do, but how.
Penny sighed quietly as she remembered explaining a similar question to the Avengers, "It's a T.O." She answered curtly, not really wanting to give away anything she didn't have to she decided to stick to a plan.
"And that would be…?" Loki asked as he moved his wrist in a circular motion.
"A techno-organic virus." Came her short reply, picking up a vial of liquid she placed it over what was basically a high tech bunsen burner.
"Do not play smart with me woman!" Loki snarled, and Penny decided to give in with her plan if she wanted to stay on his good side.
"It means that the virus transforms organic material into techno-organic material. Techno-organic material basically resembles both machinery and living tissue." Spinning the dial on a machine that held everyday bacteria in, she continued. "All techno-organic cells function like independent machines and carry both the virus and all information on their carriers, including memories and appearance. This, you see, allows a techno-organic being to rebuild itself from a single cell when destroyed." She finished and pulled the bacteria from the machine carefully.
"And this is what the Extremis virus is?" He questioned further.
"The basis of it yeah, but there's a lot more than that and I don't really have time or the energy to explain it all to you." Sighing she turned to face him nervously, she picked at her thumb. "Why do you care how it works anyway? I thought you would just want to know that it worked, not the ins and outs of everything."
Standing up, Loki smiled somewhat politely at her. "That is where you're wrong though." His smile disappeared and he walked over to the door, standing half in and half out he turned back. "You're running out of time Miss Green. I suggest you try and hurry things along." He closed the door and headed for the security room again.
"We have to narrow the field." Bruce mumbled as he paced to the other side of the lab. "Tony," He looked over at the scientist, "send a message to Fury that we need to narrow the field."
Nodding with a pen in his mouth, he placed it down on the table and walked towards the door. "Already on it."
Taking his glasses off Bruce pinched his nose and looked out of the window at the stars. He had quickly lost track of what day or time it was, the only thing he knew was that it had been nearly 19 hours since the attack happened. 19 hours since he'd held her safely in his arms.
"You needed to see me, Doctor?" Fury's voice pulled him back into the room and he spun to face him. "Uh yeah, we need to narrow the field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?"
Fury folded his arms, "How many are there?"
"Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking out-rhythm with a basic cluster mission; At least we can rule out a few places." Nodding, Fury relayed the message to someone on the other end of his earpiece.
Turning back to Bruce he frowned, "Do we know what he plans to do with her yet?" Bruce turned to face the stars again as he ignored the question; he decided that he found comfort in them. Knowing that at least she was under them too made him feel better, and the thought that she might even be looking at them too made him feel closer.
"Dr Banner I know this must be hard for you…" Bruce cleared his throat and turned around to face him again and answered his earlier question.
"I don't know, all we know is that it has to do with the Extremis Virus, we don't however know how." Pausing for breath, Bruce folded his arms as Tony walked back in.
"Without Penny here we're clutching at straws. We have no idea how this thing works or what it's capable of. I've read through every known paper on it and there are no clues in there…" Glancing at Tony for backup he continued, "The only hope we have of finding her is if Loki has the Tesseract with him. If we find that, then we find Penny."
Nodding in thoughtful silence, Fury walked out without a word and left Bruce and Tony to their thoughts.
Tugging his phone out of his pocket he pressed the home screen and stared at the picture for a few minutes before Tony walked over. Quickly stuffing it in his pocket, he set to work again.
Wandering aimlessly about the lab she waited as the final stages were being completed. She found it quite curious that Loki only wanted one batch, she had thought that with his plans for world domination he'd want a ton of it, but no; just one batch.
And that led to the question that begged an answer; who was he going to use it on? Surely not one of his cronies, perhaps Loki himself? But she wasn't too sure whether it would actually work on Loki himself, after all, he was an Asgardian God, and although he looked relatively human Penny doubted that he had human like DNA. Without that, they the Extremis solution wouldn't work. It needed the human DNA to bind to and alter, she remembered when she'd tried it with a lab rat; it had no effect whatsoever.
Hearing the alarm go off, she quickly worked on removing the stoppered vial from the boiling blue liquid. Holding it up to eye level, she peered inside at the blue substance.
"It is complete?" Loki had silently stepped into the room, placing it in a cooling rack she nodded stiffly.
"I did as you asked, now let me go Loki." She gripped the edge of the table and kept her back to him, facing him and seeing that evil smirk on his disgusting face would be too much; especially when she was this close. This close to going home.
"Yes you did." Allowing herself a small smile she straightened up, "But that was only phase one of my plan. And I still need to test that it works…" He trailed off, spinning around quickly Penny looked him in the eyes.
"I can't guarantee that it will work on you, you're DNA would be different to that of a humans so-"
Loki's menacing laugh cut her off, her face contorted in confusion. Why was he laughing? Surely he would be angered, not amused at the foiling of his plan.
"I do not plan to use it on me you pathetic quim, I need it for a test subject." Seeing that she didn't fully understand he elaborated slightly. "You see, my plan was to use the Tesseract to open a portal to another world. The Chitauri were to come and win the Earth for me to rule, but now," His gaze flickered to Penny as he licked his lips.
"Now I have an even greater plan. And it's all thanks to you Doctor." He began to slowly stalk towards her, Penny backed away and around the table as she kept her eyes trained on the God.
"As a token of my gratitude, I would like to make you the first ever honorary test subject for the Extremis Virus," Her eyes grew wide in fear as he lunged for her throat and pinned her to the wall.
Smiling gleefully he whispered into her ear, "You should be thanking me Doctor, isn't this what you wanted? Why you started in the first place? Why only simulate it when you can have the real thing?" Pulling back he stared into her wide, terrified eyes. "And the real thing you shall be."
Muahahahaaa! XD Poor Penny, she's having a pretty crap time. I tried my best to write Loki as close to his character and personality as I could, so if he seems off that's because I struggled with him a bit :/ But stay tuned folks!
-Readers Assemble!-