After getting a bit more to eat she headed to see what was happening with the Tesseract. On the side she saw her earpiece from S.H.E.I.L.D. Everyone was so busy working they'd never notice if she used it. Placing it in her ear she pressed down to start talking but as she opened her mouth nothing came out.

She'd made a promise to stay. As soon as she let the others know she was alive, and not being mind controlled, they'd send someone to get her. He may be the villain here, but she never broke her promises. No matter who they were with. And with that she placed it back on the counter top and started to wonder around the base.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been walking for when Selvig came to get her.

"We need to go." He said simply, pulling her along with him.

"Why what's happened?" She followed, but even so he didn't let go.

"Our master has been captured, you must go and help free him." He shoved her into an aircraft and walked away.

"Wait!" Rose had no idea what she needed to do. How would she free him? Where was he? She looked over to see Clint sat opposite her and sighed. "I do wish you were in your right mind you know." She muttered to herself.

"I am." Clint replied. Whoops, he'd heard her then.

"No you're not. You're not the Clint I know and love. If it was my life or Loki's who would you save?"

"Loki's." He said without any hesitation.

"Exactly." She knew it wasn't really Clint talking, but even so that stung a little.

They arrived at the S.H.E.I.L.D base a few hours later and Clint directed them all inside pointing the way for Rose to go to find Loki. She ran through the seemingly endless corridors and ran smack into Tony, in his Iron Man suit. She went flying backwards hitting the floor.

"Rose? What the hell?" He helped her up pulling her into a giant hug.

"Ow! Tony… you're crushing me." She giggled a little as he placed her down.

"My bad. You're alive! Look I'd love to talk but engines down gotta go save us all. You know how it is." He winked kissing her cheek and running off. She smiled watching him leave before coming back to her senses. If the engines were down she needed to hurry.

She ran into the room that held Loki just in time to see the cage fall from the sky.

"NO!" She screamed running towards the edge. "LOKI!"

"Rose?" Loki looked over at her moving away from the control panel. She turned to see Phil slumped against the wall and Loki standing in front of her. Her emotions went wild. From relief and happiness at seeing Loki alive to despair on seeing Phil so badly injured.

"What the hell happened?" She ran to Phil's side inspecting his wound. It was bad.

"You'll never win you know." He said to Loki. She didn't listen to the rest of their conversation as Phil held onto her hand and she tried her hardest to remember any of the first aid she knew that could help him. The sound of him firing the gun at Loki pulled her back to her senses to see Loki being blasted out of the room.

"So that's what it does." He smiled. "You're alive." He turned to her holding her hand tighter.

"Yes, yes I am. Oh Phil please don't die." She tried to keep herself calm but tears were streaming down her face.

"I'll try." He smiled weakly. "Go catch Loki. Don't let him get away. Okay?" She nodded kissing his cheek and running through the rubble. Loki was nowhere to be seen. Following the corridor she ran as fast as she could seeing no sign of him. As she turned the corner a hand flew out and slammed her against the wall. Loki came out from his hiding place about to swing his staff and hit his follower. When he saw Rose he dropped it and leant down to her.

"Are you hurt? I did not realise it was you following me." He lifted her chin gently to look at her. She groaned in pain.

"I'm fine. You have one hell of a swing on you though!" She smiled at him getting up with his help.

"Why are you here? I thought you were going to stay." He picked up his staff avoiding her gaze.

"Clint brought me with him to free you." She moved closer to Loki, holding his arms gently and looking up at him. "I did stay." He smiled taking her hand and leading her back to the aircraft, which took off leaving Clint behind this time.

Rose sat examining the God in front of her, checking for any sign of serious injury when she noticed the blood coating the top of his staff. Looking down at her hands and the blood that covered them from Phil's wound tears began to well in her eyes.

"Tell me that's not Phil's blood… tell me you weren't the one that killed him." She looked up at him, her face full of despair and sorrow. Loki looked away cleaning off the blood. "Oh god." She whispered. "Why! He was a good man he didn't deserve that!"

"He threatened me." Loki said quietly still not able to look up at her.

"And so you impale him?" She was shouting at him now. Phil was such a wonderful person, and now he could be dead.

"I did not know what the weapon he had would do. Neither did he... It was within the moment that I acted. I could not think of another way to stop him… I did not think it through."

He knew there was red on his ledger, as Agent Romanoff had described it. There were times when he did regret hurting someone, usually when he sat and thought about the aftermath of his actions. Which is why he had stopped thinking about it. But when Rose was sat so distraught at his actions he had no other option but to face it.

"I apologize. I know that does not make up for my actions, but I am also aware there is nothing I can do that will." Finally he met her gaze. The heartbroken look on her face made him flinch. "Please forgive me." His words had come out a little more desperate than he had hoped, but he didn't want to loose the one person that could understand and accept him.

"I can't." Rose whispered. "At least not right now. At some point I will though." She moved over to sit next to him taking his hand. "And thank you for your apology."

Loki sighed with relief. She was not lost to him. As he looked down into her tear filled eyes a strange compulsion overwhelmed him. He wanted to prove himself to her, not in the same way he had wanted to compete with Thor in order to prove himself to Odin. But he wanted to prove that he could care for her, that he would not hurt her in this way again.

Gently he wiped away her tears, resting his hands on her cheeks. Then, ever so slowly, he leant in and kissed her.