Imitations Carved Deep: Chapter 12

I just love waking up at 2am with a fever before finals week. -_- Can it be break already?

Please enjoy!

Again, dialogue heavy...and short. Sorry!

Disclaimer: I don't own them...so sad.

Warnings: Severe angst. Stupid/Bad Thor (temporarily). Torture (in the past). Implied rape (in past). Don't read if any of these trigger.

Jarvis Makes an Executive Decision

The Avengers watched Kira slowly wake before the panic set in. They had waited for her to open her eyes, but as soon as Kira realized she was cuffed to the bed, she started to struggle like a cornered animal. Steve, Tony and Bruce rushed forward to calm her. Unfortunately, it appeared that their efforts were doing the exact opposite. Kira continued to scream and tear her wrists up as they tried to talk her down or hold her still.

Pepper and the assassins stayed back so as not to get in the way. Thor, on the other hand, had a different idea. He stepped forward and pushed Steve and Tony out of the way to get to Kira. The Golden Prince had a determined set to his jaw as he grabbed Kira's shoulders.

"Loki! Calm down!" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Thor lifted his hand and smacked Kira right across the face. The room went dead silent.

The next moment, Thor's head snapped to the side as Steve's fist collided with the Thunderer's face. The look of utter shock and betrayal in Thor's eyes did nothing to quell the anger burning in Steve's chest. Tony, Bruce and Pepper looked like they wanted to take a crack at Thor as well. Clint looked pretty shocked at the turn of events. Natasha's brow raised in surprise, though she at least seemed to understand what Thor had intended.

"I was merely trying to calm Loki, Captain. Why do you attack me?"

"Thor, that was not the way to go about it," Bruce growled. Kira was completely silent and shaking violently on the bed. She had curled up as much as she could given her injured and restrained condition. Bruce's skin started to turn green as he saw the split lip and large bruise slowly blossoming across the entire side of Kira's face.

"Bruce, why don't you take a break, yeah?" Natasha spoke softly and stayed calm as she saw the Other Guy start to show. The doctor, however, looked between Thor and Kira, took a deep breath and shook his head. Natasha tilted her head in acknowledgement. "Alright then, why don't Thor and I go have a chat about appropriate use of strength, hm?" Thor was confused, but as his own eyes finally caught on to the reaction he had brought out in Dr. Banner he quickly agreed.

Once Thor was out of the room, Bruce turned a little less green, but he wasn't any less angry. That man just couldn't see how much he was hurting his own brother/sister!

"Kira, could you look at me, please?" The young woman on the bed continued to shake and curled up tighter when Bruce spoke. "Kira?" Bruce took a chance and pressed a gentle finger under Kira's chin to make her look up at him. Kira flinched away from the contact at first, but eventually lifted her eyes to meet Bruce's.

Tony and Steve growled at the now pronounced bruising on Kira's face.

"That son of a-"

"Language," Steve muttered. Tony couldn't help the incredulous snort and shook his head. Bruce's next words got their attention.

"Kira, I'm going to unlock the handcuffs now, alright? Just hold still."

"What?" Steve narrowed his eyes at the archer, who dared to protest the doctor's decision.

"The cuffs are coming off, Clint. And they will stay off unless I say otherwise." Clint definitely wanted to argue that point, but surprisingly let it be…for now. Kira started at her hands as Steve carefully un-cuffed her. As soon as the man was done, she pulled her wrists close into to her body, wincing as the movement jarred her shoulder.

"Kira, I'm going to need to put your arm in a sling to stabilize and immobilize it so it can get better, okay? It won't hurt at all. I promise." As Bruce turned to grab a sling, Kira spoke for the first time.

"You did not hurt me," she mumbled. "You do not have to worry yourselves so much." Pepper did not hesitate to lay a gentle hand on Kira's uninjured shoulder.

"Kira, we care about you. We are not doing this out of some kind of misplaced guilt." A little fire sparked in Kira's eyes as she looked up at the Avengers around her.

"Yet as soon as you heard my other name I was scorned. I did not do anything to you! But as soon as Thor says anything, he speaks only truth and every word I say is a lie." Steve sighed.

"Kira, we believe you now." Kira rolled her eyes and scooted up against the wall.

"Of course you do, because Thor could not control his own strength, again. Now you pity me. If only I could change back, I would not be such a despicable weakling." Tony scoffed in indignation.

"Hey! Despite what you might think, we don't just blindly believe everything Hammer Time spouts off. Besides, none of us think you're weak. We don't pity you. Saw what you did to the handsy nurse, by the way. Nice job with the bed pan." Kira froze at Tony's last words.

"You- what?" Tony seeing he had freaked Kira out, tried to placate her.

"Jarvis did some digging. He was trying to back you up with some physical evidence we could see to prove that it wasn't you that attacked Earth." Before Kira could ask anything else, Clint threw out his own question from the back of the room.

"So, why were you hiding?" Kira rolled her eyes and glared at the archer.

"Why do most people hide, Clint? I didn't want to be found by certain people." Clint stepped closer, a scowl in place.

"Oh yeah? Like who? Us? SHIELD? Asgard?" Steve saw Bruce turning green at the archer's harsh questioning and growled at Hawkeye.

"Clint."Neither Kira nor Clint listened to him.

"None of the above! I was…I was hiding from the Chitauri. If anything, I wanted the Allfather to find me. I would have preferred a swift execution at his hands than the drawn out torture they would have inflicted upon me." Clint looked triumphant.

"Ha! If you didn't invade Earth, than why would you have been executed by your dad?" Kira gave him such a look, a complete "are you an idiot" expression, that Tony barked out a laugh.

"First, the Allfather is not my father, and second, I tried to destroy an entire race of people. Such an act typically warrants execution. Surely Thor told you?"

"Clint, that is enough." Steve used the tone that only rarely came out since World War II. The archer glared at his teammates, all wanting him to back off of Kira/Loki but did as he was asked. When Steve turned next to Kira, his tone softened significantly.

"Kira, why were you hiding from the Chitauri? What did they do to you?" Kira's eyes glazed over and all of her muscles tensed as she was suddenly thrust back into her terrible memories. Before they grew concerned over her prolonged silence, Kira blinked back to the present.

"I…I don't want to talk about it. Just…just know that, that I suffered great horrors. I never wish to see those monsters again." Before Steve could say that he understood or Clint could say 'I don't give a F***', yelling erupted in the hallway. It was obviously coming from Thor but Natasha had moved them far enough away from the door that they couldn't make out what the loud noises were supposed to mean.

The yelling stopped for a moment as if someone was responding at a much lower volume, and then footsteps could be heard coming to the infirmary. Three sets.

Tony rolled his eyes as Director Fury came into the room.

"Jarvis, security breach." The Director ignored Stark's comment as always and glared at Kira.

"Why isn't Loki handcuffed or, I don't know, in a containment area?!" Steve narrowed his eyes at Fury, as Natasha and Thor came hurrying into the infirmary.

"She was hurt. Thor dislocated her shoulder. Besides, Kira's not a threat."

"I don't give a damn what name he goes by. Loki tried to take over my planet. I thought his ass was in Asgard." Fury directed his glared over his shoulder at Thor, and the Crown Prince scowled back.

"Um, excuse me? Yes, hi, how did you know about this? It's not like Bird Brain or Widow had time to call you."

"I contacted him, Sir." Tony's eyebrows flew up so fast they knocked his head back to look at the ceiling.

"What?! Jarvis!" Kira could not help but be confused. Why would Jarvis act against Stark's wishes? Unless, the AI viewed Kira as a threat…but then why had Jarvis been helping her case against being the one to attack Earth?

"I thought it best Director Fury be in the Tower to explain the situation, rather than over an insecure line. I certainly did not call the Director for him to arrest Miss Kira." It was Fury's turn to look at the ceiling, surprised, then he turned his suspicious gaze at Kir. The young woman was obviously injured. Pinched lips and lines around her eyes spoke of the pain and fear she was experiencing. Fury scowled inside; it all seemed genuine…but this was Loki!

The Director took a breath and tried to shove that thought out of his mind. He could tell his Avengers weren't under any mind control; Clint would have leveled them if that were the case. Nothing about their personalities seemed different, belying any form of coercion. If Fury could just look at Kira and forget about Loki, he could see himself believing the woman innocent. The problem was, he didn't want to believe it. That would cause him an even bigger headache.

Fury pinched the skin between his eyebrows and sighed, head bowed. He could already feel the deep throbbing inside his skull. Fury sighed loudly and, keeping his arms crossed, looked to Steve.

"I will set aside the extreme skepticism for the moment. So, tell me how those injuries showed up." The Director clearly indicated Kira's bruised face and immobilized arm. The man was surprised at the severity of the glares aimed behind him. Fury turned his head to raise a brow at Thor. "Is this what Miss Romanoff was talking to you about in the hall?" Thor's eyes kept flicking to Kira's face, where the bruise had gotten significantly darker and more pronounced since he had been escorted from the room.

"Yes. I was informed that I was using too much strength when dealing with my brother. My teammates feel that I should control myself better." Fury looked back to Kira's face and his expressions shut off. Kira could not tell what the man was thinking.

"Yes…you should probably work on that." Kira was a bit surprised at Fury's words but didn't show it. Fury took advantage of having Kira's full attention at that moment. "Did you trick Stark into bringing you to this tower and then letting you stay?" The question seemed so out of left field that Kira's head pulled back and she blinked a few times, surprised. After a moment, she shook her head and scowled.

"No. In fact I wanted him to leave me alone. If anything, you could say Stark took advantage of me when I was injured and lightheaded from blood loss and pain." Fury raised a brow when the man in question snorted.

"It's kinda true." Fury rolled his eye.

"Of course it is. Fine. Then how do you explain that we have you, Loki, on multiple cameras attacking Earth and killing our people?" Kira's fingers clenched into a fist on her good arm as she glared at the Director of SHIELD. She didn't want to tell the man that she had no answer for him. It didn't make any sense to her either.

"Perhaps the simplest answer, Director Fury, is an impostor. I have found footage of Miss Kira being held against her will in Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pennsylvania for weeks leading up to and after the Battle of New York." Fury's face changed instantly, and he looked up sharply at the ceiling.

"Pennsylvania? You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," Jarvis replied indignantly. Just to prove it, Jarvis once again pulled up the footage of Kira being drugged and pushed around in a wheelchair. However, Steve saw something in Fury's expression that made him suspicious.

"What happened in Pennsylvania?" Fury slid his eye over to the Captain and didn't answer right away. Everyone picked up his reluctance to give up information, and even Clint crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at the Director.

"Sir?" Seeing even his top two agents pressuring him, Fury decided to give them enough to back off.

"We tracked something falling to Earth a few weeks before the Tesseract incident. Whatever it was landed in Pennsylvania. When our agents arrived, there was some wreckage but not bodies." Fury looked at Kira the whole time he spoke, as if trying to suck the information he wanted right out of her head with his eyes. Everyone else stood silently watching the battle of wills, tension climbing in the room as each second passed.

"I…I stole a small craft and just started going as far as I could away from them," Kira started. Her eyes glazed over a bit, but she quickly shook her head and focussed back on the present. She locked her green eyes on Fury. "I did not plan to land on Midgard. I just wanted to get away from the Chitauri. I ran out of fuel and drifted for I don't know how long, before I was pulled into this atmosphere. After that, I fell. I could not stay with the craft for fear that the Chitauri were pursuing me." Kira snorted then. "I made the mistake of confiding my tale to one of your Midgardian law officers. They assumed me crazy and…well," she waved her hand at the screen Jarvis still had up and let it speak for itself.

Silence settled over them for a minute or two, before Clint had to break it.

"Hate to break it to you, but none of this answers who attacked Earth. Fine, maybe I believe you, but who was the Loki that shoved himself into my head and ordered me around like a puppet." Natasha walked over to stand beside Clint and offer her silent support. Hawkeye visibly relaxed just by having her near.

Kira completely froze when Clint finished.

"You- this person took over your mind?" Bruce's brows pinched together as the heart monitor sped up.

"Kira, Kira what is it?" The urgency in Bruce's tone was enough to make even Fury slightly concerned.

"By the Norns…no."

So nothing against the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. I just googled psych hospitals that I could use in this story.

Thor's at it again! Oh geez.

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