HEY GUYS I'M SO SORRY FOR THE EPIC LATENESS! A lot has happened since the "interlude" oneshot. I went through a really depressed funk and I thought all my writing was crap and nobody appreciated it and I was really tempted just to scrap this whole thing but luckily with some help with my friend (and Thor: The Dark World Blu-Ray :D) I managed to get back on track with this chapter! So yeah, I wanted to make this chapter extra long to make up for the wait. Almost 2,000 words just chapter text!
Review Replies from Chapter Fifteen:
Thank you to all who reviewed, it made me really happy to read all of them! Special thanks to Concrete63, CrystalClear98, Liberty Bell(guest), Princess Unikitty, SassyFruit, the two unidentified Guests, RandomCitizen, and JBethH! This is for you guys!
Liberty Bell asks Dr. Erik Selvig: If you knew Tori and realized how she's a (super strong) ticking time bomb at Stark Tower as of late, would you have let Tony, Steve, and Thor stay and save him or make them *cliche mode: on* "GO ON WITHOUT ME" to help their young friend?
Selvig: If I had known anything that had been going on, I would ask them to help Tori. No, wait, I'd ask them to kick Loki's ass, which is if I'm not mistaken an indirect way to help their young friend. But in all honesty I remember barely blurs of the past few days events.
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel Cinematic Universe or any of its characters! I only own Tori and this plunny!
Avenger'd
Chapter Sixteen
About 45 minutes prior, in the Helicarrier hangar...
Nick Fury was absolutely bewildered when he received the call from Agent Romanoff alerting an emergency, but none more so disgruntled when said agent refused to describe the details, only requesting a Quinjet to pick them up at Stark Tower.
As soon as they arrived, Fury and Hill met them on the loading bay and were both shocked to see Dr. Banner carrying the girl that Barton had called Lois unconscious in his arms, with her hands tied behind her back with a piece of rope.
Agent Barton and Dr. Banner looked stricken and Agent Romanoff's cheeks were sullen and sunk tightly in, lips drawn in a fine line.
"Care to tell me what the hell happened?" the director inquired harshly. If it weren't for his superiority and, well, fury, he might have actually been shot sick with the glances that he had been given in response.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Hawkeye revealed a glimmer of affection for the girl by gently patting her shoulder. "We need a place to take her," the archer muttered sternly, looking briefly at the director. "Then we can talk."
Fury tightened, and looking from one hero to another, exhaled with a clenched jaw.
"Fine," he conceded, and he sharply turned on his heel, indicating for the three to follow, leading the party away.
They entered a hall that was unfamiliar to the party of heroes and Fury stopped at a sealed door. On the wall next to the entrance, there was a keypad and a fingerprint scanner and he keyed in the passcode and pressed his thumb on the pad. The door unlatched from the wall, and the director opened it, revealing a sterile, white interrogation/holding chamber.
Bruce placed the girl down carefully on the chair and Natasha positioned her hands behind the chair's back.
Clint was the last to approach the girl, a grimace donning his face. He leaned over and Fury could have sworn he heard the archer whisper, "I'm so sorry, Tori."
"Alright now," the disgruntled director said in a low voice once the five were back in the hangar. "What happened?"
The trio sat with scornful expressions around the table. Dr. Banner had chosen to keep quiet, not making eye contact with anyone; Agent Barton had his arms crossed; Agent Romanoff glanced at her companions, at Fury and Agent Hill, and then down.
"It's a bit of a long story," the spy started curtly. Fury raised an eyebrow, saying nothing in reply. "And it's a bit complicated."
"Agent Romanoff, you realize you're saying this in context with gods from other worlds and aliens from outer space attacking Earth for a Cube that gives unlimited energy and power, correct?"
The spy nodded slowly and detachedly. Fury crossed his arms.
"Then I suggest you start explaining," he ordered. Natasha remained silent. The archer repositioned himself before looking up at his superior.
"Before, we weren't exactly being truthful," Barton began evasively. Fury snorted as if to say "That was already assumed." Clint nodded and continued. "We were trying to protect the kid as much as we could, although it didn't end up so well."
Fury's eyebrow raised just the slightest bit higher. "Lois Lane?"
"First thing that came to mind," Clint admitted with a low voice, but not moving his gaze from the director. "To be honest, you might not have found her real name on your background check either."
This puzzled the director. "Why not?"
"Because she's not from around here," Natasha picked up smoothly, gaining Fury's undivided attention. "It's because she was the thing that fell out of Loki's portal-"
All of a sudden, there was a loud buzzing noise that erupted over the loudspeaker and the quintet looked around confusedly.
"I think that's quite enough you lot," Tony Stark's voice admonished. "We've got a serious problem on our hands, and you guys can't even babysit properly!"
Bruce, Clint, and Natasha were startled by the billionaire's patronizing remark, and Fury narrowed his eyes, raising an eyebrow higher than any eyebrow should be raised, temporarily pushing aside the previous statement made by Natasha.
"What happened, Stark? Did you retrieve the Tesseract and Loki?" the director asked after none of the heroes decided to respond.
"Unfortunately, no, but we did get Selvig and the portal generator back, so that's a benefit on 'Avengers Insurance', right?"
At this, everyone was taken aback.
"Selvig? And the generator? How did you pull that off?" Hill inquired incredulously, crossing her arms, an expression of restrained surprise on her face. Not that she would let anyone confirm her genuine surprise, of course. Tony took a sharp breath, audible over the loudspeaker.
"Yeah, Cockroach Head let him out in the open for us to grab him, and we didn't wanna miss that prime opportunity," Tony explained quickly.
"Well then how did Loki get away with the Tesseract?" the second-in-command replied with a biting tone. There was a notable pause on the billionaire's part.
"He didn't," Tony faltered, taking another notable pause. "We left to get back to the Tower after retrieving Selvig."
"You LEFT Loki behind?!" Fury seethed, his temper boiling over.
"Yes," Tony brandished with heavy emphasis. "But, without Selvig, he can't build another generator, and the iridium that they needed in the generator is still IN it, which WE now have!"
"And you think-?!"
"Listen, Nick, Loki's whole gambit was the epic showdown, the dramatic climax, the hurt in the heart, he's lost that now!" Tony interrupted acidly. "He's got no stage to romp on anymore, no alien army from another planet! He's got no plan!" The director's lips were drawn in a thin line as the billionaire continued. "The only thing he had was this army, he needed Selvig to build the generator since he knew all the stats of the Cube, he needed us to get riled up and he needed us to be off guard while he took center stage at Stark Tower."
"Our plan was to get Loki and the Tesseract, though, if you did that, Selvig and the generator would have come with it," Natasha commented with her wit somewhat restored. There was a very audible tch from the receiver.
"Speaking of Frosty the Glow Man," Tony replied in a dangerously casual voice. "The one thing he did have left was complete knowledge of our plan, not only what the three of us were doing, but you, Banner and Hawkeye back at the Tower! I mean he held us off for a bit, while jamming my server at Stark Tower! Really, I'm so grateful. You really helped so much. It's hard enough keeping Antlers and his lackeys occupied, but when he's pretty much directing chaos on your end that we have to worry about, that's just brilliant."
There was a pause as the billionaire's words sunk in.
"You know Romanoff," Tony quipped acridly, and Natasha glared at the speaker with has much venom as she could muster. "We might have been able to get everything if it weren't for Loki's clairvoyant last-minute plan that you guys followed perfectly."
"Shut it-!"
A huge explosion rocked the floor and the quintet all scrambled for balance. The com-link crackled and Tony went out of signal.
"Lost connection to SHIELD mainframe," JARVIS reported solemnly.
"Damn it!" Tony cursed. "JARVIS, estimated time of arrival?"
"Ten minutes, sir. Assuming you want to go supersonic, which would only last two minutes, as the power capacity is only at 43%."
"Right."
"What the hell was that?!" was mixed with other shouting by the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
"Director Fury!" an agent called over the com-link. "There's been some kind of flare-up in the lower detention level!"
"Tori…" Hawkeye breathed, and with less than a quick glance to his teammates, he shot up into the rafters and swiftly began making his way to the detention level. It took the skilled archer merely moments to crawl his way above the hallway that led to the interrogation chambers.
Dropping down, he saw the remnants of the blast. And the person standing in its wake.
Tori Matthews was hunched over on the ground in the center of an apparent outward blast, the walls and ground surrounding her blackened, and several SHIELD agents knocked out. For a moment the archer could have sworn he heard crying. Gingerly, he stepped forward towards her.
"Hey, Tori…" he coaxed, holding his hands out in a peaceful gesture. His words made her flinch, and he watched as she slowly turned around. Hawkeye gasped and tried very hard not to curse and blow up in anger.
The girl's expression was blank, but her eyes were glowing; that sickly blue color that he had grown to despise was pulsating from where her normal hazel irises and pupils should have been. She merely stared at him, unmoving. Barton decided to take his chance.
"Don't worry, Tori, I'm here to help you," he said in a low voice. Her expression twisted into rage, startling the archer.
"NO, STAY AWAY!" she screamed in an echoing voice, and the minute Barton stepped just the tiniest bit closer, she took off in the other direction.
Grudgingly, the agent took out his bow and arrow, and shot an arrow that hit the sleeve of her shirt as she was about to turn the corner, pinning her against the wall. He breathed a small sigh of relief. Quickly he shot one more at her other sleeve so she wouldn't escape. As Hawkeye approached Tori, she began to writhe and struggle, releasing pulsations of blue energy, which reminded the archer of the Tesseract in the NASA lab.
"I'm sorry, kid," he whispered gently to her, but all he got in reply was a blank glare.
"Stay away!" she repeated, struggling harder. "I WANT TO GET OUT! I WANT OUT!"
Before Clint Barton could so much as blink, a blinding energy surge erupted and blew up the wall, which unfortunately for the archer, led outside. He was grasping onto a pipe ladder for dear life, hanging out of the side of the Helicarrier. Tori was nowhere to be seen, in his field of vision.
"Hello?! Hello?!" he called, when he realized there was no com piece in his ear. "Dammit!" Looking directly below him, the archer saw Tori, hovering in a sphere of blue light. Unfortunately, something knocked the pipe he was holding onto, shaking his balance and he shut his eyes tightly.
When Clint could feel the last muscles in his hand weaken, and he prepared for the worst, he suddenly felt another hand touch his. He opened his eyes and looked up into the emerald greens of the Black Widow, who was reaching out extremely far to grab him, almost hanging off herself.
"Nat!" he exclaimed.
"Clint," she breathed in reply. "I got you."
Then in that moment, the both of them were falling, hand in hand, when all of a sudden-
"IRON MAN ex machina!" Tony crowed in pleasure, grabbing the two agents out of the sky. "Or would that be deux ex Iron Man?"
Relieved and grateful, but still alert, Clint looked up for the glowing girl. "Tori?!"
"Sorry Legolas, but the maestro went AWOL into a little ball of light right before I caught you guys. It was either you or her, and well, you know, priorities."
"Shut it, Stark," Natasha grumbled, trying to hide her emotions. Tony grinned from inside the suit.
"I'll take that as a 'thank you' and an 'I'm-sorry-for-messing-up-the-plan'. You're welcome, and I forgive you," the genius billionaire bantered mockingly. Tony got to the hangar just as the Quinjet carrying Cap, Thor, Selvig, and the generator arrived. As the heroes exited the jet, Cap glanced at Tony, Natasha and Clint.
"Where's Tori?" he asked cautiously.
"She's gone," Barton replied flatly. "And I think we all know where she's headed."
DUN DUN DUN!
AND SCENE!
Sorry again for the lateness of this chapter, I hope the length, and the content, makes up for it!
Loki is going nuts inside my brain because he wants me to write the next chapter already XD
Alrighty then, I'll try to get 17 up as fast as I can!
-DMRA, signing out!