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Chapter Ten

Communications came back up after Steve and the Hulk got back to the aircraft. It had been signaled by Agent Hill who said that technicians were working on the problem. The Hulk had gone around the aircraft and changed back to being Bruce. He came around to the front, holding up his ripped pants around himself to cover his body.

"Hey, Captain, could you hand me those clothes in the back there?" asked Bruce. "I brought them along just in case."

"Yeah, sure."

Steve fetched the clothes and gave them to Bruce who muttered his thanks and went behind the aircraft to change.

"I think the explosions have stopped," came Tony's voice.

"Yeah," agreed Natasha's. "I say we fall back to the aircraft."

"Did anyone find Loki?" asked Clint.

"I think I did," answered Steve. "But he got away."

"Damn," came Tony's voice. "I really wanted to get a punch at him. He destroyed the shawarma place."

Steve rolled his eyes as he waited for everyone to come back. Bruce came around in his new clothes, a purple shirt and black pants, and began looking at the monitors again. It felt like ages before anyone returned, the first being Thor.

"I was unable to stop one of the spears as it hit the floating fortress," he stated. "I believe it may have caused damage."

Steve simply nodded. He couldn't make his voice work.

Clint and Natasha then came, both of them sporting a few cuts. Clint's lip was bleeding. When the walked aboard, Bruce got a few medical supplies and began tending to them.

And, of course, Tony arrived last. He landed on the ground in front of the helicarrier and climbed inside. His mask shot upward, revealing his face.

Steve decided it was time to speak. "Isn't Gwen with any of you?"

They all turned to him and look around as if she were on the aircraft somewhere, hiding.

"Wait," said Tony, turning around, his brow furrowed, "since when do you call her Gwen?"

"We thought she'd be with you," answered Natasha.

"There was an explosion and we got separated," explained Steve.

"She never lets me call her Gwen," continued Tony.

"I've been looking for any trace of her," said Bruce. "I can't find her anywhere."

"D'you think Loki took her?" asked Clint.

There was silence as they all had the same answer in their heads. There was no doubt that Loki had taken Gwen. Steve could feel his heart squeezing in his chest like someone wringing a washcloth. It was his fault she was taken. If she was hurt, or even worse, then it would be all his fault.

"Steve," said Bruce softly, "there was nothing you could've done."

The soldier hadn't realized that everyone was staring at him. There was a frown on his face as he took a seat inside the aircraft.

"Just get us back to the helicarrier," muttered Steve.

There was a slight hesitation before Natasha and Clint took the pilot seats again. Tony and Thor decided to stay onboard. It was completely silent the entire flight back to the helicarrier, even though it was short. It seemed they had flown it close to New York just in case help was needed, which explained how Loki had gotten a spear close to it.

When they landed inside the helicarrier, Steve got out first. He headed straight for the command center, not even bothering to change or clean up. In the center stood Fury. Steve approached him before he knew what he was doing.

"Why did you let her go?" he asked, clearly angry.

Fury turned around to look at Steve but didn't say anything.

"Rodgers, you need to rest," said Fury at last.

"No, I don't," answered Steve. "Gwen got taken by Loki and you look like this isn't a big deal."

"It is a big deal, but we have to repair the helicarrier and tend to the injured citizens of New York."

"But what about Gwen? Are we just going to leave her then?"

"We are already searching for her."

"But it's not your priority, is it?"

Fury did not answer. Instead he sighed and turned back to his monitors.

Steve fought the urge to throw a fit. They weren't doing anything extra to get Gwen back and it was fustrating. And Steve had to get her back. Not just because he felt guilty, but because he genuinely wanted to be with her.

They watched as Steve stormed off to what seemed to be the command center, but no one stopped him. They all knew he was angry and guilty. It probably wasn't a good idea to try to stop an angry, guilty, super soldier.

Tony approached Bruce and the monitors once Natasha, Clint, and Thor had left.

"Do you think he's going to use her?" he asked. Tony was never really serious, but this was one of those rare situations in which he was actually worried about someone.

Bruce nodded. "Yeah. How, I don't know."

"He's made it personal again," added Tony.

There was silence for a moment.

"Did you know that the Capsicle calls her Gwen?" asked Tony, all seriousness gone now.

Bruce laughed. "I heard him call her that once."

"But why?" Tony sounded like a five year old who was being told no by his parents.

"Well, obviously Gwendolyn likes Rodgers."

"More than us? Banner, she's known us longer."

"Just let it go, Stark. She's had a rough time. She's probably getting over it if she's letting someone call her Gwen again."

Tony couldn't believe himself. Why did he feel so upset about this? Was he really overprotective like Gwen had said? But then he thought of something else.

He was jealous.

Not in a romantic sense, of course. Tony only had romantic feelings for Pepper. But in Gwen's case, she had always given him her attention. She always looked at him when he talked, always listened to him. But ever since she met Steve, she was always paying attention to him.

It was stupid and Tony knew it. It just bothered him that Gwen was letting someone she barely knew call her "Gwen" while no one else could because she wasn't ready to be called that again.

Tony was going to scoff, but sighed instead before leaving the aircraft. Maybe he could actually use this to his advantage.

At first when Gwen started coming back to consciousness, she half expected to wake up in her bed in Chicago. That everything that had happened was some sort of bizarre dream. But unfortunately, when Gwen opened her eyes, it was not a blue room she saw.

Actually, she wasn't really sure where she was.

There was garbage all around and it seemed parts of the walls were coming down. There was dust all over the ground and a table not to far from her with something on top of it, but she couldn't see what. The only light was given off by a dim lightbulb hanging by a wire from the ceiling.

She quickly realized she was sitting on the ground and that her hands were bound behind her back. Gwen instinctively tried to free herself, but it was no use. She was stuck.

Gwen tried to stand up, but found it was rather hard to as she had no use of her hands. So instead she tried to look around for some sort of weapon. She hoped maybe she could find something sharp to free herself and possibly use it to attack whoever brought her here.

And that's when she remembered who had.

Gwen suddenly remembered Loki appearing after being separated from Steve. And now she was vulnerable to anything Loki did. She wondered if maybe she could repeat the accident, but she didn't know if there were other people in the building or if there were some outside.

She heard footsteps approaching and quickly snapped her head to her left to see who it was.

"I see you have finally woken up," said Loki as he came to stand in front of her. "Took you long enough."

"How long has it been?" she asked calmly.

"About a day," answered Loki. He turned to the table to hide a smile.

"What do you even want from me?" asked Gwen.

"You know very well what I want." He picked up the tesseract which had been sitting out of sight from Gwen. Loki turned around and showed it to her.

"When I arrived back here on Midgard," continued Loki, "the tesseract brought me to a land which you call Chicago. I found you, walking from your home to your metal carriage. Mere humans could never feel the energy you possess, but a god could. Then I found that Agent Maxwell. I used the tesseract's power to take his apperance and give him mine as well as send him in my place to Asgard. I then watched you, saw you as your power started to grow without you even knowing it."

"You were watching me?"

"Oh, yes Gwendolyn." Loki walked forward. "I have been watching closely. And I noticed something. Every time you became enraged, your energy became stronger, as did your head pains. So I decided to test your ability."

Gwen looked at the floor, deep in thought. "So that's why you provoked me? To test me?"

"I had to know exactly what you were capable of."

"I hurt people, Loki! That didn't have to happen!"

Loki smiled. "But it did. It would have happened eventually. Your anger had been building up your entire life. I just gave you the push."

"You pushed me over the edge."

"And now you are aware of what you can do. Now you can learn to control it."

Loki turned around to face the table again.

"But what about Agent Thorn?" asked Gwen. "You were supposed to be on that plane and it crashed."

"Oh, James," answered Loki, shaking his head. "I allowed him to cover up for your accident, but he was starting to realize that I was not Agent Maxwell. I could not allow him to ruin my plan."

"So you killed him? Just like that?"

"Just like that. I made sure that the jet that was sent was property of Tony Stark. I...tampered with it. That way when it crashed and killed those people, Stark would be to blame."

Gwen wanted to ask why he wanted to frame Tony, but she realized she already knew. Tony had even said so himself.

Vengence.

Gwen could've laughed if the situation hadn't been so grave. How could none of them have seen this before? Her thoughts suddenly changed to Steve. Her heart became heavy with guilt as she realized that he was probably blaming himself for this. It wasn't his fault, it was hers. It was like a never ending cycle of blame, he blamed himself, she blamed herself, Tony blamed everyone but himself...

Okay, so maybe Tony might blame himself as well having finally agreed to letting her go, but she couldn't help but wonder what they were doing at the moment.

"So I'm guessing you're not gonna let me go, are you?" Gwen asked Loki.

The god laughed. "No. Like I said, you can learn to control your powers. But I have decided I am going to give you a little help with that."

Gwen didn't like the way this sounded and her heart started racing. What did he mean by helping her?

She watched as he picked up the unknown object and brought it into the light so that Gwen could see it.

It was a syringe. With a very long needle.

Gwen started wondering how in the world Loki had learned what it was and how to use it, but she rememebered he had spent several months on Earth and most likely had done some research.

She started squirming as he slowly approached, almost savoring the moment. In a desperated attempt to get away, Gwen almost fell over on her side, but she found it was no use. She couldn't get away.

She would've preferred him to hit her, shoot her, anything but using a needle. They were like sunlight and she was a vampire, a silver bullet and she was a werewolf.

It was the one thing that made her mind go completely blank and there was nothing she could do about it no matter how hard she tried to get away. Because when she was at that dreaded hospital and they used needles on her, there was no escape, just like in this situation with Loki. There was no stopping him.

She wondered for a split second as to why he waited for her to be awake to do this. She come up with the answer almost immideiately.

He wanted her to see this.

He wanted her to squirm.

Gwen became still just before the needle made contact with her skin and entered a vein. She knew it would make things worse if she was moving while he injected her with whatever was in the syringe.

She closed her eyes and gave a short cry as she felt the pain of the needle breaking the skin. It wasn't in there a long time, but once whatever was in the syringe was in her veins, it felt as if her body turned cold. It was as though cold water had been injected into her bloodstream and everything turned to ice.

Everything felt strange as though there was someone else in her body. She could still use all the senses, but something was off. Something didn't feel right.

"Let us see if it worked," said Loki who wore his smirk. "Rise."

Gwen felt herself get up off the ground without her making it. Her heart stopped racing, but her blood still felt cold. And then she realized what had happened.

Loki had control of her.