Sorry it took so long, it took me about a week to start and with all the Civil War chaos, I haven't had a lot of time to do so. And this chapter is really long.
Yay! Moriartsmajor got the fandom guess right! The quote was "All magic comes with a price." from Once Upon a Time! Congrats!
Thanks to my 4 reviewers:
Lydia: Glad you like it!
Katdog: KUDOS TO LOKI! KUDOS TO EVERYONE IN THE MCU! Sorry, fangirl moment there. ;3 Cliffies are the best if you write the fanfic and you know what is going to happen next. *evil laugh*
moriartsmajor: Fandom guess right! Thanks for the support!
megtries: I loved your story. It was awesome to see family Avengers.
I HAVEN'T SEEN CIVIL WAR YET AND I'M GOING CRAZY I CAN'T SEE IT UNTIL NEXT WEEKEND SO PLEASE DON'T REVIEW WITH SPOILERS!
I HAVE SEEN SUPERMAN V. BATMAN THOUGH SO FEEL FREE TO REVIEW ACCORDING TO WHICH IS BETTER!
Sorry... fangirl moment... BUT STILL!
I'm going to do another fandom search in this chapter! BEWARE! (And no, it's no the note in the middle, for those Shrek fans.)
We are back to the usual two parts. 2nd half will be special... ehehehehehe. The first part will be pretty short, not much whump. The second part will, though... ehehehehehe... hahahahahaha... EHAHEHAEHAHEHAHEHAHEHAHEHA
I only just realized you can name the chapters... is that weird? Probably... oops.
Read and review!
Tony hissed through his teeth as he prodded his leg again. At that point, all of his clothes were covered in either dried or wet blood. Not that his shirt really existed anymore. It lay in strips around him, some covering his cuts and gashes. Not that there was much to do with the bruises. The gigantic, purple, deep bruises. The ones that lay everywhere on his body.
And the deep knife wound in his leg. Tony couldn't really feel it anymore. Still not sure if that's a good thing, he thought. He took his fingers away from the gash, to bring his hand away covered in hot blood.
And the broken ankle, which throbbed when he tried to move it.
He was laying flat on his back (not that he could sit any other way) in the cold cell. Tony drew a shuddering breath which stung his lungs like wildfire every time. His arms ached from the chains holding them above his head. On a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the worst pain he was feeling, Tony was an 11.
Footsteps echoed past the door, and Tony heard a conversation through it. "...prepared. Found us... coming any minute now..."
The people were cut off by a scream and a crash as the footsteps receded down the hallway.
Tony's eyes drooped, his chin dropped to his chest, and he started to tremble. Muttering the words he had dreaded into oblivion, "It's a trap."
And the door creaked open to reveal five large figures.
One with a shield...
One with a hammer...
One with a gun...
One with a bow and arrows...
And another unarmed...
The Avengers.
They had fallen right into the trap.
Hehe... cliffie... :3
4 and a half hours previously...
"Captain Rodgers! Care to explain what's going on?"
Steve spun around to face Fury. "We found Tony. We're going to find him."
"How... how did you..."
"We tracked the arc reactor. Problem?" Steve asked.
"No..."
"Good," Steve said.
He made to push past Fury, who caught his arm. "Where? We'll help."
"I'm sure we can handle it. It's just Loki, we beat him last year."
"Yes, but this time, you're one member short," Fury said. "Comm us if you need backup. Give us the coordinates."
Steve rolled his eyes. Clearly annoyed, he growled. "I'm sure we'll be fine..."
"Just do it, Rodgers."
After a moment, Natasha sighed and slapped a hard drive into Fury's hand. "We'll only call if we need help." She eyed Fury dangerously. "Only if we need help."
Fury nodded and backed out of the doorway. The Avengers dashed through the door. "Suit up, team," came an order from Steve.
Ten minutes later, the Avengers stood outside the doors of an open quinjet.
Inside, Bruce glanced around the back of the quinjet, looking for the shadows that had haunted his dreams since Tony had been kidnapped.
He saw Thor and Natasha do the same thing. The three exchanged glances, obviously thinking the same thing.
Clint hopped into the pilot's seat and flipped switches and turned dials.
"How long will it take us?" Steve asked.
"Five hours, guessing," Clint claimed. He turned around and flashed an evil grin at Steve. "Four if we hurry."
Four hours later...
"We're here. Just in time," said Clint as they spotted a structure jutting out from the side of a sea stack in the middle of the ocean. From what they could see, it was relatively large, most likely being able to house about a couple thousand people.
"So that's why they weren't dressed for cold weather like normal people do. The sea mist would have weighed them down," Steve said.
"It's big." Bruce frowned. "Why would Loki need so much space?"
Clint shrugged. "I dunno. His wardrobe?"
Bruce chuckled, only to be silenced by a glare from Thor. Clearing his throat and regaining himself, he spotted something else. Pointing, he piped up, "Look, it's a landing site."
"Okay, then," Clint started steering towards the helipad. "Let's go knock on the front door."
The team had been stir-crazy the entire four-hour trip to the base. The jet had adopted a grim, contagious feeling during the time, and nobody had been able to sit still.
Clint parked the quinjet on the edge of the helipad, which was larger than anyone else realized. Already there were about ten other quinjets, and no people except for the guards near the door. The quinjet landing had gone unnoticed.
"Those guards don't look very protective of the doors," Natasha muttered. Her comment went unnoticed by the other Avengers except for Clint, who frowned and nodded.
The team prepped themselves, Natasha still looking uneasy. Clint turned on the reflective panels on the jet as Steve pulled his mask over his face and grabbed his shield.
"Okay, team. Let's make this as clean as possible. We get in there, find Tony, get out. Hopefully, we'll run into Loki and Thor can handle him. I'm guessing that Loki may have backup, seeing as he's Loki, but nonetheless, we should avoid hurting unarmed civilians. We good?" he asked Clint.
Receiving a nod from the archer, Steve turned to Bruce. "You're coming with us. There may be a need for medical assistance, but hopefully we won't have to bring out the other guy."
Another nod, and silently, Steve signaled for the team to move out. Soundlessly, the quinjet doors opened to reveal open ground before them, about fifty yards away from the guarded entrance. The only noise they heard was the roar of the ocean, but even that wasn't enough to drown out their landing.
Natasha noticed the nonexistent movement from the guards. She narrowed her eyes as the Avengers stepped out into the open and there was still no movement. Shouldn't they have at least noticed us by now?
"Clint, knock out the guards," she hissed, and Clint quickly nocked an arrow, also uneasy of the unmoving guards. Steve looked at them both with a questioning glance.
"They haven't moved." The assassins whispered simultaneously. Steve's mouth made an "o" and he gave a nod to Clint, who was quick to fire two arrows into the chests of the guards, who fell to the ground without a noise.
Thor and Bruce narrowed their eyes at the lack of noise and quickly jogged after the others towards the unmoving guards.
When Steve reached the guards, there was none of the expected blood. He flipped the bodies over and gasped in surprise.
"What is it?" asked Bruce.
"They're not real," murmured Natasha. "It's a trap."
True to Natasha's words, the guards were just two dummies, both with arrows sticking out of the chests.
"What should we do?" Clint asked. Receiving a skeptical look from Steve, he was quick to rephrase. "I didn't say we shouldn't get Tony. Not what I meant. I mean, how should we proceed?"
"Carefully," said Steve. "And quietly."
"Good." Pointing, Clint continued. "Vents?" There was a sizable vent just to the left of the gigantic double doors. The team nodded grimly, and continued.
Hearts racing and pulses pounding, they crawled into the vents just big enough for Thor. Grunting, they continued through the maze of vents.
Pausing once or twice, Clint finally stopped at another opening, this one inside the building. "This looks right. You think this looks right, Tash?"
Natasha nodded, and the team crawled out, having to pull Thor out because he couldn't fit through.
They found themselves in a long hallway with many doors along it. At one end, there was a large door, and at the other, the hallway continued either way.
Suddenly, voices were heard from down the hall. Two guards walked down the hall as the Avengers rushed into an empty room to hide. The two guards walked past them on the way to the large door at the end. A snippet of their conversation was heard as they walked past the door the Avengers were hiding in.
"We should be prepared. Loki has set the trap and they should be coming any minute now."
Steve suddenly jumped out the door behind the passing guards and threw his shield like a frisbee. The guards gasped and turned around to get a face full of vibranium.
As the unconscious guards were dragged out of the way, Bruce was staring at the large door in front of the group.
Steve rested a hand on his shoulder. "Got that feeling?"
"Yeah." Bruce pulled away and walked towards the door. The metal was cool to the touch. The handle easily turned. Bruce frowned. "I expected it to be locked."
He opened the door, took a look inside, gasped loudly, and promptly vomited.
Inside the dark and damp room lay a body in a large pool of blood. The figure was curled up in a fetal position and covered in more bruises than countable, the ankle protruding at a strange angle.
Steve gasped and whispered in a soft and terrified voice. "Tony?"
Tony groaned, probably unable to make any other noises. Steve rushed forwards and knelt down beside him, not caring how much of the engineer's blood he got on his suit.
"St-Steve?" The voice was so soft Steve doubted he even heard it.
[A/N: At this point, I want to just yell out: "DONKEY!" Welcome to my head.]
"Come on Tony, we're going to get you out of here." The rest of the team, who had either been staring in shock or helping Bruce stand, snapped out of their trances.
Bruce stumble forwards and collapsed at the billionaire's side on his hands and knees. "What did that sick god do to you?" Bruce scanned his friend's extensive injuries and fought back the vomit threatening to climb up his throat again as he laid eyes on his leg. "Oh, my..." he faltered, unable to say it. "Tony, your leg." Sure enough, the stab wound in Tony's leg was still bleeding.
Clint just kept staring, his heart threatening to shatter his chest from the inside. His brain seemed unable to process what had happened before his eyes. He glanced over at Natasha, who was also staring and struggling to keep her stoical mask in place. Thor's grip on Mjonlir was so tight, his blood was dripping from his palm, where his fingernails were cutting deep into his skin.
Steve just stared down at the half-dead body of his friend. "We need to keep moving." He slid an arm underneath Tony's back and lifted him up gently, but still jarring a cry of pain from the engineer's mouth.
Tony's mouth opened, "S-Steve, i-it's a t-trap... you h-have to go..."
Steve shook his head. "Not happening." He tried lifting his friend again to a failed attempt. He grunted and said, "I'm sorry about this, I really am, Tony, but we need to get you to a hospital." And with that, he lifted Tony off the ground into a bridal style carry. Tony's eyes flew open and a mix between a scream and a whimper escaped his lips. Nonetheless, it tugged at Steve's heartstrings.
Bruce stumbled to his feet and followed Steve out the door, past Natasha, Clint and Thor, who looked like they were still trying to process it. "Come on," whispered Bruce. The three nodded and followed the already jogging Steve out to the front door.
Turning a hallway, Steve stopped in his tracks, causing Tony's limp arm to fall from his own chest and dangle in the air. Around the corner stood about ten armed men. The team rounded the corner as well and gazed at the men with guns trained on them. Natasha stepped forwards.
"Gentlemen, let's make this easy. You get out of the way, and I won't have to hurt you." The men exchanged glances, and started laughing.
Clint stared at Natasha, knowing she hated it when people laughed at her. One of the men snorted and started talking, "What makes you think you can get past us?"
Natasha smiled. Clint shivered at it, because it was her "don't laugh at me or I will snap your neck" smile. The one he knew so well from experience. Then, Natasha charged the men. They widened their eyes at the assassin making her way towards them and tried to run away before they were decapitated.
In less than a minute, all the men were dead or dying. Steve looked down at the reactor that sat in Tony's bare chest. It was growing dimmer by the second. "We need to get to the quinjet. Now."
In less than five minutes, the team sat around Tony in the quinjet, watching their friend struggle. "Those were HYDRA agents," Natasha said. She sat at the pilot's seat.
"I know," Steve said. "A mission for another day."
He felt the quinjet leave the ground of the base, this time with all six teammates in tow.
The sudden whirring of helicopter blades alerted them. Clint rushed to the window and paled. "Guys... you might wanna see this." The team rushed to the window and looked through, leaving Tony alone on the floor.
"All ten of the quinjets we saw before?" Clint's voice wavered. "They kinda had people in them."
Sure enough, the jets that had been parked on the landing pad were in the air, chasing after them. Natasha snapped into action and commed Fury.
"Fury? You know how you said we should call if we need help? I hate to admit it..." An explosion rocked the jet. They had gotten hit by one of the machine guns attached to the other jets.
Natasha cursed in Russian and shut down the message to Fury. "We're gonna have to loose them." She started steering around to the flank of the group of jets, before they were hit again. She cursed again, this time in English, raising a eyebrow from Steve.
"Shouldn't we-" He was cut off by a gust of air entering the quinjet and flipped around to see the same thing that had happened those days ago.
The quinjet doors were open and Loki was standing in the opening, with Tony dangling from his neck over the edge.
For a quiet moment, everyone in the jet stood where they were in silence, before Steve lost it.
"Put him down! You are a sick and pathetic excuse for a human being!" Steve screamed at the god of mischief.
"I'm not human. But you want me to put him down?" Loki was smiling.
Thor stepped forwards and raised his hammer and pointed it at his brother. "Put. Him. Down."
Loki just smiled wider. "As you wish." And his fingers loosened from Tony's neck as he plummeted, not to the floor of the jet, but the ocean.
As Loki disappeared, Tony felt himself falling. He had temporarily lost consciousness as his air supply was cut off. In a last attempt, he grabbed the edge of the quinjet door and hung on for dear life.
The strain was like fire on his sore muscles. He gasped, his lungs struggling to expand as he hung five thousand feet above the ocean, hanging by ten fingers... eight fingers... five fingers. He felt his fingers slipping one by one, and as a heavy gust of wind hit his face, one hand entirely slipped. Four fingers... three... two... and he fell.
Bruce gasped loudly as Tony fell. To his relief, fingers were seen just on the edge of the door. But they were slipping one by one. "Hang on, Tony!" Bruce couldn't hear his own voice over the roar of the wind as the doors remained open.
Just as his last finger slipped, Tony felt a hand grab his forearm. He looked up to see Bruce's face straining to hold him up.
Steve sighed in relief as he saw Bruce lifting a gasping Tony up to the quinjet. Loki had disappeared, probably knowing that he would have been killed in the most gruesome way had he stayed.
Natasha was still struggling to keep the quinjet upright as the machine guns on the enemy quinjets kept firing at them. Suddenly, she spotted something on the radar and screamed, "Heat-seeking missile!"
Bruce, Steve, Clint, and Thor snapped into motion too late. The missile found its mark and everything spiraled into darkness.
Okay, that was incredibly long. Sorry it took a while, but I have upcoming final exams and my teachers pack in as much homework as they can before. Next time... ;D