Taking a deep breath, Agent Rogers clicked on the lighter above his head.
The yellow flame flickered uncertainly, as if even it didn't want to be discovered. With the scarce light he took the opportunity to take in his surroundings, as his soldier's instinct demanded. He was in the center of the hallway, facing the opposite direction from the sabotaged electrical panel. Behind him and to the right crouched Hawkeye in the doorway, an arrow with Kinners' name on it nocked and ready. Loki and Natasha were already gone. He turned around and peered down the hallway at the panel, trying to discern Tony's shape in the dark. Either the light must not have been strong enough to reach down the hall or Tony had suddenly learned how to be totally motionless since his life depended on it, because he could not be seen. He turned back, facing down the hallway. Waiting for the signal.
There. Faint, but real. Agent Barton was drumming his fingers on the doorjamb.
"Hey!" he yelled, surprising himself with his own volume. His cry echoed down the hallway, filling the helicarrier with reverberating sound. There's no way it wouldn't have heard him. No turning back now.
"I know you're out there!" he continued, with a slightly lesser volume. Get to work, Tony, I don't have long. "Think you're the big bad wolf, eh? Think you can scare us?"
He had no idea where he was going with this. But the important thing was that she heard him, not understood him. Gotta keep talking, gotta stay loud. Louder than Tony, or he's dog food. I'm dog food anyway.
Then he realized something. He really was scared. Scared out of his wits. In all his years of war and ruin, he'd never been so terrified. Adrenaline coursed within him, boiling his blood and addling his brain. What to do, what to do? It was his job not to be scared. It was his job to be brave. He was failing. if he didn't do this, the wolf would tear them all apart.
Brave?
Bravery isn't lack of fear. Bravery is controlling your fear.
But what about using it?
"Well, I'm right here!" he bellowed, kicking the wall with a booming metallic ring. "Right! Here!" Twice more he kicked the door. Everyone was scared now, him most of all. "So come and get me! Big Bad Wolf! Ha! Come huff and puff and rip me to shreds, why don't ya?"
Silence. The wolf didn't answer. All it did was watch Tony work furiously at the electrical panel from around the corner and wonder why the heck he was fiddling around with that thing instead of trying to run away like the others did.
Agent Rogers turned around at the sound of a muffled thump.
Tony was gone.
"Stark!" he cried desperately, running out into the dark. But in his haste to rescue his friend, he'd forgotten the frailty of his light. The lighter winked out, and instantly he was surrounded by blackness.
"Rogers?" called out Hawkeye, fumbling for his flashlight. What good were eagle eyes without light to see with? He heard a stifled cry and a thud on the ground before him. Faster than he could even comprehend the horror of what his ears told him, he brought up the flashlight and shone it right into her eyes.
She recoiled from the sudden intensity with a growl, holding up a paw to shield her eyes. She stood over an unconscious Steve, her other claw on his chest as if she were about to drag him away. Or rip him open to eat him alive. Neither were optimal scenarios.
As she began to blink and squint, Hawkeye pulled up an arrow faster than was humanly possible. Problem is, for once in his life, he didn't bother aiming, and it went wide to the left and made a cobweb print of shatter marks in the window across. The wolf spooked at the sound of the glass and the whoosh of the arrow past its ear, turning and bolting down the other end of the corridor. Hawkeye scrambled to his feet, heart thundering and lungs churning. Taking a moment to calm himself to the point of intelligible speech, he tapped his ear-comm.
"Natasha, Cap's down," he reported grimly. She swore to herself out of fear, drawing a quizzical look from Loki as he jogged beside her. "but the wolf's gone. Watch your backs, it's almost definitely coming for you."
"What's his status? And what about Stark?" she asked briskly, diverting her concern to her team for the moment. She and Loki were alive, presently, but the same could not be said for Tony or Steve. Hawkeye put his fingers in to check for Cap's pulse, felt a steady throb. But when he pulled his hand back it was covered in blood.
"Lacerations on neck and shoulders, looks like he was pulled backwards from behind," he reported, not discovering further wounds. "must've hit his head on the floor and gotten knocked out cold. Searching for Tony now."
Remembering Hawkeye's warning, Natasha turned around and scanned the dark with her flashlight. At first she thought she saw a shadow move, but upon closer inspection there was nothing there. Loki sensed that there was some bad news he was missing, but appeared nonchalant and made a left turn. Only one more intersection until Kinners' quarters. It had to be there. If it wasn't, then what option was left for them?
Clint caught his breath when he saw the blood pooled by Tony's unconscious head, but let out a sigh of relief when he found its source: an innocuous but profusely bleeding cut on his temple. Tony had wounds similar to that of Captain America, with mild gashes on his back and shoulders leaking additional blood onto the floor. Sure didn't look pretty, but at least he was alive.
"Tony's fine," he told Natasha. "Same thing happened to him as Steve. That thing is definitely smart."
"Told you," muttered Loki to himself, putting his back to the wall as he peered around the corner. Agent Romanoff checked behind them again, then gave the all-clear to Loki for them to continue.
"We're at Kinners' quarters," she informed, picking up her pace now that the end was in sight. "Hold tight. Romanoff out."
"If the big bad wolf comes blowing down your door, give me a call," grunted Hawkeye as he dragged Tony's body back into the med bay. Convenient that they had gotten trapped in there. The wounds weren't serious, but if untreated the blood loss would have serious medical repercussions.
"Will do," she responded shortly, asking Loki why he wasn't opening the door with a querulous look.
"Ladies first," he offered, raising an eyebrow. The look turned into a mild but definite glower.
"In your dreams," she growled.
He swung open the door.
Though the room held many memories of Speed games and pointless debates, in the dark it seemed haunted. The full moon cast a square of silvery blue through the window beside her bed, looking out over a void of air. Natasha ran the flashlight over the room, not finding anything dangerous but not completely satisfied, either. She walked in and Loki shut the door behind them, not wanting to be snuck up on by something that could disembowel him without making a noticeable noise. He tried the light, but apparently the power outage was prevalent throughout the helicarrier. He turned to find Natasha checking under the bed, raising his eyebrow at her.
"Any monsters under the bed?" he jested, drawing another glower from Black Widow as she got to her feet.
"No, just the one," she replied testily. Ouch. He struggled to find something to say in response as she turned away to continue her perimeter check. Finally he gave a relenting sigh.
"Oh, all right, I deserve that one," he murmured to himself. He decided to look in the bathroom, using his own light seeing as Agent Romanoff didn't seem willing to share. The only thing he found in the medicine cabinet was a slightly stale toothbrush. Nothing under the sink except spare toilet paper. Where could she be keeping it?
He straightened, narrowing his eyes at himself in the mirror. It had been foolish of him to expect to find it in the bathroom-that was much too obvious. Even when she wasn't a predator, Kinners was smart. A substance of such sensitivity would be kept somewhere equally covert. Yet she was simultaneously a practical person, so it would have to be somewhere where it could be easily accessed. Think. You're a werewolf, tonight's a full moon, you have to guzzle your wolfsbane before your friends notice you're missing and go looking for you. You only have time to duck through the door, they're right around the corner down the hall. Where is it?
When he turned to reinspect the door, a glimmer of glass caught his eye, reflecting his light's glow.
Exulted by his discovery, he pounced at the same time as the wolf.
For once, it was the Hulk that saved his life. The green behemoth intercepted her mid-leap with a forceful bellow, scaring them so badly that Natasha fired a wild shot through the window and the glass bottle almost slipped from Loki's fingers as he seized it from the secret compartment. With a clipped breath he caught it and held it closer to him, thanking what gods existed that it hadn't shattered in his moment of distraction. A yelp of pain from the hulk, accompanied by a particularly lurid gushing sound, reminded him of his potentially lethal situation. Not a moment too soon.
In a surreally close moment, the wolf careened through the hallway window.
Growling almost akin to a sentient groan, it gave a hearty shake to free itself of the glass shards scattered in its pelt. Despite the thousands of prismatic points, they hadn't pierced her, not being made of silver. Ever the trigger-happy agent, Natasha emptied three rounds into the back of its head with little effect other than its worsened mood. Desperately calling for backup, she was powerless to save herself as the wolf turned on her and lashed out with already bloodtipped claws. She fell with a truncated breath and lay still, the wolf unmoved by the violence. Loki gave a cry of terror, he didn't know for whom, but it had the desired effect. The wolf turned its head to fix him with an all-too-familiar gaze. He didn't know whether to trust it or fear it. He knew he should have feared it, but betrayed in his eyes was a still glimmer of faith. Unfortunately, the wolf saw it as fear. Fortunately, there was a more pressing predicament upon them.
The Hulk, having had no luck with the door, had decided to try to force his way through the way the wolf came. Despite a chorus of pointed shrieks and whines of stressed steel, he only managed to get his head and shoulders through the window frame before he became stuck. The wolf bristled and snarled a challenge, crouching in front of Loki with fangs bared. Frustrated at his self-inflicted captivity, the Hulk roared in their faces, literally blowing Loki back into the wall with the raw force. And then three things happened.
Kinners heard him collide with the bed.
She turned her head at the noise.
And Loki went crashing through the far window into the night.