Awakening

I own nothing! *hides from lawyers behind Hulk* Go away!

Tony's POV

Hel did something to me, something to ease my mind. She denied it, but I knew she did.

For one, I was now thinking coherently...sorta; at least I wasn't muttering to myself anymore. The dark abyss was still present in my mind, and I could sense the edge nearby but I was no longer about to fall. However, the fact that the abyss was there wasn't a big deal, I have been able to sense the edge for a while now.

Though my mind was a bit more stable, my heart was still a bleeding wound. But this would remain locked away until my daughter returned. I had long ago perfected my masks, and the need for my strongest ones returned.

Hel was sticking around, even though I knew she was busy. She hadn't seemed very happy about it, and I had a feeling that it was because Mortem told her to. Either way, I was glad that she wasn't just ditching me as well. At times everything felt surreal, and Hel's presence reminded me that it was real, and that Penny was coming back.

The world around me just felt so surreal, knowing that Penny was no longer by my side but would soon return. Hel's presence was perhaps the only thing that let me know that my baby girl was going to return to me.

I just knew that my nightmares were going to get return even worse than before. Three months since the incident, and almost a full year since Afghanistan, most of my nightmares had started to fade. But my nightmares about losing Penny had never truly gone away, and now, I knew they wouldn't.

I realized that perhaps the reason why I couldn't hear Mortem was that I wasn't supposed to hear him. I was already not supposed to see him; we were confused as to why I could. I realized that maybe humans just weren't supposed to know about...whatever Mortem's species was. Chaos seemed to love them, and through whatever strange connection she had to them, it loved Penny as well.

I still didn't know how all of this really connected to Penny, but from what I gathered Penny wasn't supposed to die. Someone had snagged her Soul, for whatever reason and it pissed Hel and Mortem off beyond comparison. From Hel's five minute, but vague, rant on the matter, Souls were their job. No one was supposed to mess with them; jurisdiction or something like that.

Mortem had been able to physically heal Penny without a problem, but he couldn't revive her without her Soul. Which somehow, he had to get back.

I was really trying not to think about it, Souls just made everything even more complicated.

Through Hel, I discovered that Mortem was frothing at the mouth for another reason as well. He hadn't been able to sense that Penny was in danger; and this was something that worried both of them even though they tried to hide it.

Mortem had taken Penny's body, saying that it had to be kept safe until he could return her Soul. I understood, considering SHIELD wasn't exactly safe, but it was still hard to see him vanish with my daughter.

Hel kept telling me it was ok, silently and verbally. But even with whatever she had done to me, it didn't make my worry go away.

But who wouldn't be worried? I was caught up in some huge mess involving entities of the universe, along with this alien mess, and my daughter was caught smack in the middle of it! I had watched the footage of Loki and Pen talking, and if someone was controlling Loki, it wasn't too difficult to think that someone took Penny out of the picture on purpose.

I didn't have proof yet, but it already caused my blood to boil. No one hurt my daughter and got away with it.

"Tony," Hel's voice caught my attention.

With a sigh I rubbed my temples, pushing my wandering thoughts away. Now wasn't the time to dwell on my mental state, or the mess that we were in. It was time to play the game in front of me.

Hel was about to wake up the rest of the 'Avengers'; and I had a feeling that today was only going to get worse from here.

"You ready for this?" Hel asked me; light concern leaking into her voice. Her eyes were a bright violet at the moment, tinted with red, but calming to me all the same.

I nodded simply. Dealing with SHIELD and their idiots wouldn't be too much of a challenge. I was too good of a player to fail this game.

"Wake 'em up." I stated as I clapped my heads behind my back and leaned back against the wall. My masks were in place, it was game time.

Hel eyed me for a moment, before glancing over at Thor, who simply nodded slightly at his niece. The Asgardian hadn't spoken much, but that made me feel more comfortable around him. He didn't pity me, and he wasn't trying to consult me.

Point Break got Brownie Points for that.

The red in her eyes increasing slightly, Hel waved her hand and those collapsed on the floor awoke almost instantly, feeling dazed and slightly irritated.

"STARK!"

My eyebrow barely twitched as I watched the director climb to his feet. Ok, maybe Fury was a bit more than slightly, irritated.

"Yes?" I drawled out with a smirk as everyone clambered to their feet in confusion. Banner's eyes flickered back and forth between me and Hel, and I could tell from the slightly green tint in his eyes that Hulk wasn't very fond of Hel.

It was probably the fact that she was Death's Right Hand.

Romanoff looked extremely confused, as did Rogers, and I briefly if Hel had cast a spell to alter their memory, but pushed the thought away. Either way, I didn't care as long as she didn't touch my memory.

"Won't happen." Hel muttered as she appeared by my side. She patted my arm reassuringly and sighed, "Pen would kill me."

I allowed myself to chuckle lightly, it was true. Penny would kill her.

"You have some major explaining to do!" Fury hissed, stalking forward until his face was only inches away from mine. His one eye flickered between the two of mine and I rolled my eyes.

Shifting my stance slightly, I pretended that Fury wasn't invading my personal space. He was annoying, and I wasn't in the mood for annoying.

"Whatever for?" I drawled with a smirk. "It's all so obvious." Sarcasm dripped from my voice, but it was hidden beneath my usual quip. It was there, it just wasn't obvious.

I grinned as I saw Fury's eyebrow twitch and I mentally chuckled. My life was all screwed, but Fury would always be Fury.

"Who are you?!" Romanoff hissed as she jumped to her feet. I ignored her, and it seemed that Fury and the other agents in the room where slow, because they weren't paying attention to her.

I smirked again; yup Hel had messed with their memories.

"Obvious?" Rogers asked, glancing at Hel in hesitation. "How is anything that just happened obvious?"

Finally, it seemed like Romanoff's previous words registered to them and suddenly Fury, the SHIELD doctor, and Romanoff all stepped towards the young Asgardian weapons drawn.

Hel rolled her eyes with a sigh as I tried not to snicker. I had seen what that girl could do, and boy did I never want to get on her bad side again.

"Lower your weapons!" Thor boomed as he stepped up and stood by his niece's side. I peered at the two of them and shook my head; Thor was protective of the girl. Not to mention, that she actually had a very strong resemblance to Loki, I hadn't seen it before.

I narrowed my eyes as no one lowered their weapons; Rogers even took a step forward. Coulson and Bruce were the only two not attacking; they were just standing off to the side watching it all happen.

"I said lower your weapons!" Thor thundered darkly, his expression resembling a storm front. "She is my niece; not your enemy!"

"What?!" Rogers and Fury exclaimed in shock, and slight horror. Coulson hummed and shook his head in amusement. He had met both Hel and Insania before.

"Your niece?!" Romanoff exclaimed, barely masked surprise on her face. Her eyes widened as she connected the dots. "That means that your Loki's daughter!"

Everyone's guns were suddenly pointed at the girl once again.

"You know," I drawled trying to defuse the situation. "Thor might have another brother, or sister."

Thor and Coulson chuckled since they both knew that it wasn't true. So did I for that matter, but still.

"So what if I am?" Hel snipped crossing her arms over her chest and glaring lightly at the idiots. Her eyes flashed red and I shook my head.

She wasn't one to mess with, it was one reason she and Penny got along so well.

"I have said, lower your weapons!" Thor practically hissed, and I saw sparks starting to appear around him.

I winced, yeah, he was losing it.

Thankfully, I wasn't the only one who noticed.

"Stand down." Coulson stated as he stepped forward and narrowed his eyes at Rogers and his fellow agents.

The doctor was the only one who stood down, and he did it with hesitation. I had a feeling that it was only because Coulson was his superior.

Hel sighed and shook her head when Thor's hand holding Mjolnir twitched.

"Uncle," She said softly, with a touch of power. "There is no problem. These foolish Mortals cannot hurt me even if they wished."

Thor relaxed slightly and I sighed. That was a disaster averted.

After calming her uncle down Hel turned towards the others who were still aiming at her.

"Now," She hissed, stepping forward and letting her power flare around her briefly. "Would you like to speak civilly, or with your limbs frozen?"

I let out a short laugh as Fury's eyebrow twitched.

"I recommend you listen," Coulson stated as he shook his head, looking really amused. "She's known for her creative schemes."

Thor, Coulson and I all shivered. At one point or another we had all experienced her wrath.

Fury glared at Coulson before sighing and lowering his gun, which caused Romanoff to follow.

"Will someone explain what is going on here?!" Rogers exclaimed again and I rolled my eyes. He really was an idiot.

"Once again, Rogers. I thought that," I stated slowly like I was talking to a young child. "It would be obvious."

Banner let out a small laugh as the agents and Rogers all narrowed their eyes at me.

"Rogers, just be quiet." Coulson snapped and I looked at him in surprise. Phil practically worshiped the ground that man walked on, and he just snapped at him? That was weird.

"My name is Hel; yes, I am the daughter of Loki. But I don't care about Midgard. I'm here because my Boss asked me to help, and because Penny was my friend." Hel stated as she crossed her arms over her chest and her violet eyes flashed blood red again.

I winced at the past tense but knew that Penny was coming back...she had to…

"How do we know you're telling the truth?!" Romanoff asked coldly, "For all we know you could be working with Loki, and could have Stark under your control."

Hel narrowed her eyes, and with a flick of her hand, Romanoff's weapons all vanished.

"I suggest you keep your idiotic ideas to yourself, or use your head!" Hel snarled and I agreed with her.

There was a moment of silence before Fury turned to me and said, "Stark, we need to talk."

"About what?" I mocked him. There was no way I was having a conversation with that man. This whole mess was because of SHIELD after all.

"Don't play games with me!" Fury snapped, his patience clearly gone. "We need to discuss the fact that you blatantly lied to us on multiple accounts, withheld important information, jeopardized everyone on this base, and associated yourself with Asgardians without our knowledge!"

My eyebrow twitched as I clenched my fists as fury flooded me. Not even whatever spell Hel cast would keep me from tearing Fury a new one. He deserved that and more.

"Fine," I hissed as I stood up to my full height. "You want the games to end? Then why don't' you tell me why SHIELD was messing with the Tesseract in the first place. I know all about Phase Two, you one eyed asshole; and I'm not happy with the fact that while you were building Weapons of Mass Destruction. I don't give a damn about your excuses so don't even try."

Fury had tried to interrupt me but I instantly shot him down.

My eyes narrowed and I continued.

"Your actions, today and beforehand, have caused nothing but trouble and grief for me and my daughter. I don't know why I even bothered to deal with you Fury. Whenever your people get involved with something, my daughter pays the price! This is the second fucking time that you've caused me to hold my dead daughter in my arms. The SECOND TIME!"

"You don't have a daughter." Rogers stated, interrupting my rant that was starting to become slightly hysterical. My eyebrow twitched again and I could feel Hel's spell trying to fight my anger, and the abyss that was fuelling it.

"Yes, yes I do." I hissed, my voice quieting dangerously. "Her name was Penella Piper Maria Stark, she was sixteen; and one of your bloody people shot her!"

The magic and abyss in my mind were fighting, and pain shot through my head. I winced, but ignored it. I had dealt with worse, and right now I wanted to beat some sense into Rogers.

"Then you shouldn't have brought her along." Rogers stated in a disappointed voice that caused me to hiss. "You should have known better than to bring her on a dangerous world threatening mission. It's no wonder she got shot, she had no right to be here…"

My eyebrow twitched again, and the abyss in my mind won the war for a moment.

"Shut up you self-dignified ass!" I yelled as I flew forward, and my fist connected to nose.

Rogers stumbled back and my hand throbbed. It felt like I had punched concrete.

Coulson appeared at my side, and pulled me away from Rogers as Fury and Romanoff both started yelling, but I tuned them out.

My head was a warzone, and I didn't give a damn; that had felt good.

My had cleared enough to see that I was now behind Hel, Thor, Coulson, and Bruce, while the others were all glaring and pointing weapons at me.

"Leave the Man of Iron alone." Thor stated coldly. "I shall not let you harm Lady Penny's father."

"For Christ's sake, leave him alone!" Bruce yelled a growl-like undertone to his voice. "He just lost his daughter!"

"Which we should have known about!" Fury yelled before turning on Coulson. "Why didn't you report this? You've spent hours at Stark's place!"

Coulson shrugged his face blank. "It didn't seem relevant."

Fury's eyebrow twitched and I wanted to punch the man.

"Not relevant?!" Fury hissed, "How is another Stark NOT RELEVANT!"

Coulson shrugged and Hel's eyes flashed again.

"Would you all cease acting like mindless apes and calm down!" She yelled and I had to hold back a snicker.

"Why should we listen to you!?" Romanoff barked, and I realized that the SHIELD doctor was no longer in the room.

He must have booked it when I wasn't paying attention.

"If you don't want to listen to her," I sneered, "Then listen to me; because I'm only going to give you one warning. Don't test me."

I took a deep breath and glaring around the room I continued. "I'll ask you once. Who shot her?"

I watched everyone's faces, and saw determination on everyone who knew my daughter.

"I didn't see." Coulson said coldly, his mask still in place.

"Nor did I." Thor stated crossing his arms over his chest.

"We were otherwise occupied." Bruce stated and I looked at the man in worry. He usually didn't refer to himself and Hulk at the same time, it was worrisome.

I glanced at Hel, hoping that she knew something. But the young Asgardian just shrugged.

"I was preoccupied at the time interrogating Souls. I don't have a clue." She stated casually, causing Rogers to shiver.

I sighed, well. I guess we had to do this the hard way then.

"Jarvis." I called out, knowing that no matter how hard SHIELD wouldn't be able to remove the AI from the system.

"Yes Sir?" He replied and Fury's face contorted in rage.

"I want that AI out of our system!" He hollered, though if he was talking to me or someone else was unknown.

"Good luck with that." I told him with a smirk before turning my attention back towards Jar. As I stuck my hand in my pocket and felt the bullet there, I had almost forgotten about that.

I couldn't believe that I had though, now that I remembered, it was like it was burning a hole into my leg.

"Jarvis, I want you to start analyzing the security footage of the incident." I didn't feel right calling it an accident, for it hadn't been one. "Pull it apart if you must. Find out who's responsible."

"Of course Sir." Jarvis replied, his voice colder and harder than usual. I really had no idea how I had managed to make Jarvis so lifelike.

"Stark, that isn't important to the current crisis…" Fury started, but I whipped around, my eyes narrowed and the burning fury rising up once again.

"Not important?!" I screamed, and Coulson had to hold me back as I tried to charge the man. "Like hell it's not! One of your agents just shot a child, my child; and you don't freaking care!"

"Mr. Stark, calm down." Rogers said, using his infuriating grandfather, 'I know everything' voice.

"CALM DOWN MY ASS!" I snarled as a small, warm hand settled on my shoulder.

I knew it was hell because instantly soothing waves of magic started coursing through me, and I felt my anger ebb away without my consent.

I whipped around and narrowed my eyes at the black haired Asgardian who was looking at me with something flickering in her eyes.

"Tony, I know that this is difficult, but losing it isn't going to help." She said softly, so only those around us could here.

"Stop messing with my head." I muttered as I felt the abyss drifting away once again to the opposite end of my mind.

Hel smirked, "I wouldn't need to if you at least tried to keep your head."

I sighed, and nodded. After a tense moment Coulson released me and I rolled my shoulder. Keeping my masks up seemed to be much harder than I had thought.

The next moment though, everything blurred as Fury muttered something under his breath. Hel stiffened, Bruce growled, and Thor narrowed his eyes.

I had caught what he said, but now his words were only a garbled memory. The next thing I knew was that I surged forward, ducked under his defense, and slammed my fist into his nose.

Satisfaction flooded me as well as smugness as I heard the crunch that signified Fury's now broken nose.

The next thing I knew was that Rogers was holding me, my arms pinned behind my arms. But I didn't care as I watched with a smug expression Romanoff help Fury off of the floor.

That smug expression faded as Romanoff rolled to her feet, her gun once again pointing at me.

I sighed, god I despised SHIELD.

"Put it down, Romanoff." Coulson sighed as Bruce started rubbing his temples. I looked at the man in concern; we really didn't need him Hulking out right now.

"No." Romanoff hissed, "I don't like this. Not only does Electra randomly show back up…"

"Sneaking around our base all day." Fury added and I glared.

"…claiming to be Stark's daughter. But Loki's daughter also suddenly appears," She sneered at the Asgardian who simply narrowed her eyes. "Coulson's obviously compromised, and now Stark's lost it. I don't know about you Director, but I think that everyone needs to be put into isolation until we figure out what is going on."

My eye twitched and as I brushed my fingers against my pocket, my shield lip up once again and I managed to slip from Rogers grasp.

Her gun cocked but I just sneered at the spy.

"Shoot me if you want," I said coldly, "But I know for a fact that half of this room will side with me. I don't know what your problem is Romanoff, but I suggest that you fix it; and stop dragging my daughter's name through the mud! She didn't do anything wrong!"

Romanoff just sneered again, and I glared at the girl.

"Stop disrespecting Penny!" We all froze and turned to Bruce, who's eyes were glowing a bright green and he was shaking.

"Shoot." I cursed and slowly approached the man as Coulson backed away, and all of the SHIELD agents raised their weapons.

"Bruce buddy, you alright?" I asked, his eyes met mine and his shaking slowed. He took a deep breath and seemed to be muttering something under his breath.

"We're good." Bruce choked out, but no one believed him.

Suddenly, Hel froze and hissed, shadows dancing around her.

I spun around towards the angry looking girl and asked, "What's wrong?"

Before she got a chance to answer, however, a large purple blast of energy came out of nowhere and impacted Bruce, who collapsed onto the ground and started shaking.

"YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO INTERFERE!" Thor and Hel yelled together, their power swelling around them as confusion gnawed at me.

"…guys…" Coulson warned as our attention was drawn back to the now thrashing doctor who was only a foot away from me.

I knelt down as everyone else backed away, and almost jumped as Bruce grabbed my arm in a tight grip.

His eyes met mine as he managed to lift his head, and I stared into Hulk's despair filled, glowing eyes.

"Run." He whispered to me before grunting and his skin suddenly turned green.

"Shit!" I exclaimed as a large hand grabbed the back of my shirt.

"Get out of here!" Fury yelled and I tried to squirm out of Thor's grasp (which had somehow managed to get through my shield…that was something to work on later) as I was practically dragged out of the room.

"Help him!" I yelled at Hel who was watching the man with wide eyes.

"I cannot, as other Magic was involved." Hel stated as Thor dropped me onto the ground in the hall.

An ear-piercing roar filled the air, "FIRE GIRL FAMILY!" and I shivered. Hulk was awake.

"Detach Privet Med-Bay 4 now!" Fury screamed as Hulk ran forward and charged into the door.

"What do you mean other magic? Can't you do something!?" I asked desperately. Bruce couldn't vanish on me now too; I was going to need his help.

"It's beyond my power." Hel stated with sadness in her voice. Suddenly, Hulk's large green eye appeared in the small glass panel on the door, before a large metal grinding noise filled the air.

Time seemed to slow as Hulk's rage turned into pure sorrow as I watched with wide eyes as the whole med room fell away into open air.

I shivered as my mind moved closer to the abyss once again.

Well, there went another part of my family.

OMG I'm so so so so so so so so so so so SOOOO sorry for the lateness on this. I was on a school trip all week and then was babysitting all weekend. On top of that, I have standardized testing tomorrow. My school is one of the schools testing the new PARK test; and it sticks.

Hope you enjoyed it, I hope to have the next chapter up soon.

Thanks for reading, leave a review
Cp