The edge of the cup made its way to Jennica's flushed lips. Loki held the glass steady, eyes shifting from the water and to Jennica's glossy eyes. Hers were filled with as much uncertainty as he had been carrying in his heart. The hollowed, aching heart that was progressively trying to fix itself.

He was puzzled over the Fractals, how they attacked their host, lashed out with such rage. It was rage, he was beginning to feel it. Their magic tickled his veins. He could still detect it, like a flavor on his tongue, despite having no magic himself. Odin had taken it but it was still a part of him. The universe would always know. The Norns had made him one with the science of the Nine Realms.

But why?

What was to become of Jennica if this persisted? Without magic of his own, how would he protect her?

That was the problem, wasn't it? Everything was beginning to be for her, less of himself. She had given up, but he was still clinging on, hoping for that light to seep back into his soul, a glimmer of hope that he was a creature worth something more than just the cold.

Even with these thoughts, his mind regressed back into the dark corner of doubt. Of fear. Of anger. He could still feel Wanda's gaze burning to the back of his head, keeping watch. He was still an outsider, an outcast. A villain in their eyes. Nothing more.

"Something's wrong." Jennica managed to whisper through her tightened throat. She slipped her cold fingers into his hand, startling him out of the depression.

"I can feel it." Loki muttered, his eyes only resting on where her hand sat in his. There were whispers in his ear. The dark magic was back. "I haven't felt this in a very... long... time."

Fingers scratched up his spine, invisible fingers. No one saw, but he could feel. They dug, they clawed, cutting through to the bone, forcing tears to the corners of his eyes. If he did not obey their call, the insanity would grow. It would persist, never dying.

Something really is wrong...

He had to know. He could not just sit there in the silence and confusion.

Standing, he rushed from the room, his boots thumping down the halls towards the front gate where Tony and Steve had departed. His mind was in a fog. He could only feel the pull to the front. Someone was here; somewhere, magic was at work.

A chilling shriek met his ears, freezing his feet to the floor. He was close enough to see, but the sight left him unnerved.

Having been pulled through the front door was a young woman, her face streaked with tears and sheer horror. No one bothered to ask how she passed the gate or why she was covered in the scars that decorated her body, for her hysterics were enough of a matter.

"Don't let him take me back!" The woman cried, her hands shaking in fear.

Steve held her up gently, looking over her muddied and bruised body. Loki stood across from them, wondering if he should help. No one asked, as if he was invisible. The scratching on his back had disappeared and the whispers faded away. Was he supposed to just stand there? There was significance to the presence of this woman...

"Hey hey," Tony tried gripping the woman's shoulders, "you need to breathe, yeah? I don't know what's happened to you, but–"

She erupted in screams and began attempting to claw her way out of their hold. They were screams of horror, straight from the pits of Hel, even Loki was unnerved.

"It's him!" She wailed, pointing a frail finger at Loki as soon as she caught sight of him. "Don't let him take me back!"

"We need to take her to the medical wing, she may be hallucinating." Steve was stern, trying to pull her back into his arms again without harming the woman.

"She's hyperventilating over Loki, I don't think–"

"Just help me take her there!" There was no time to be suspecting Loki of any other evil. This woman was fighting like a wild animal and needed sedation.

Monster... she's afraid of a monster.

Loki shook the voice out of his head that was not his own. His temples began to pinch and he watched as even Thor pushed past him to help. Everything became a muddled blur. A dream. Just him and the voice.

The voice... Who was it?

...

"So who are you?"

There was a lifelessness to her eyes, a corpse with breath in its lungs. The medical bay provided the comfort of a soft bed, fluids for her malnourishment and a safety she seemed to have been lacking. None of these things brought any light back into this human. Sam learned that to be true as he worked to bring a voice out of the woman. Something, anything. A word or two would be enough. The subconscious had a strong hold on her mentality, that much was obvious.

Sam had been called in to work with her after the sudden outbreak, this tortured soul dropped at the front door of their Avengers facility. His experience counseling veterans with PTSD ruled him to be the one fit to work with her, at least to break through. He had her moved into a room with windows. The atmosphere was more welcoming with natural light and a breeze blowing through. No more fluorescent lights and cold air conditioning. A promise of a safe space always helped break down the walls.

"I have forgotten." She mumbled, catching Sam's attention with an eagerly awaited reply. Her eyes would not meet his.

Sam looked up at Natasha, the only other occupant in the room with him. The lifelessness in the woman's voice unnerved the both of them.

Sam continued. "Can you tell me how you got here?" Nothing. "Who hurt you? Those bruises and scars look inflicted." Still nothing. "Were they self-inflicted?" He hoped they didn't have a psychopath on their hands. Either way, they needed answers.

"What's your name?" She asked.

Sam folded his hands. "I told you this when we started. My name is Sam Wilson and I'm here to help you, along with the rest of us here. All I want is some clarity so we know how to help you best."

She scratched at her arm, unnervingly. A thought played in her mind, Sam could tell by the tension revealing itself across her body. Her sleeve was pulled back as her fingers gripped the fabric and she offered her wrist. On it was inscribed a tattoo of her name: Hope.

"This your name?" Sam refrained from taking her wrist and just looked from a distance. She nodded. "Hope... Any last name?"

"Just Hope." She responded, much quicker than previously.

Natasha, being the witness, took notes on a tablet. She could sense Sam's disturbance and felt some of her own.

"All I'm looking for is an answer to how you got here." Sam said. "We can worry about the 'why' later."

Thought lit up Hope's gaze and she seemed to regain a hold of her consciousness a bit. "I don't remember how I got here." Now that volume had been added to her voice, the frailty of it and hoarseness from yelling was clear. "I just know that he must have followed me."

"Someone followed you?"

"The man that hurt me, yes." She started regressing back into her hollow state.

"Hang on, who? What did they look like?"

Hope had taken her gaze and averted it away from Sam again. This back and forth made her instability very obvious. "He was the one standing behind your friends. Dark... evil..."

"Loki?" Sam sat straighter.

"If that's his name." Hope picked at the ends of her knotted, thinned hair and bit her lower lip. "He tortures. If I stay here, he will kill me."

"No no, we won't let that happen." Sam felt nauseous. There was a pause as he searched for what to say next. A careful choice of words was key in this situation.

Natasha wanted to say something but kept her mouth shut. Talking wasn't her job right now, but she wished that she could have been an Avenger with telepathy in this moment.

"I don't want to talk anymore." Hope's voice sounded dry. There was no objection to this because these spoken words sounded more real than anything else she had said before. There was inflection, there was heart, there was sincerity. The real Hope was tired and needed to rest. Someone had broken her.

Sam stood, his voice softening as he said to Natasha, "We're done here. Have the nurse come back and get Hope comfortable. We'll contact authorities and get her somewhere safe."

Natasha rushed to his side, stopping him right outside the door. "What are we doing about Loki?" She whispered. "I don't think its wise that we keep him. Not after what this girl says he's done."

"I agree but what about the mission?"

"What? The Fractals? Do we really need Loki here for that?"

"Thor insisted on keeping him here." Sam's head was starting to hurt. "We can try to find another option because I also don't like the fact that Loki is here, with us, but I'm also not the one calling the shots on this mission. Neither are you."

Natasha's back straightened. She didn't like hearing that last sentence but she knew it was true. "Then let's find someone who is."

"I'll talk to Thor. You work on getting Hope secured and safe."

"They'll only put her in some psych ward." Natasha kept her voice low. "It's obvious that she's mentally unstable."

Sam shrugged. "Maybe she's got family somewhere. She doesn't have to leave today but we can at least get the process going."

Natasha dropped her arms from the crossed manner they were maintaining. "Fine. I'll get it started. You go and talk to Thor, I don't want another minute to go by without a lead on this new case."

Despite their equal status in terms of the Avengers team, Natasha's tone could always carry a sense of authority. Sam respected it.

"Yes, m'am." He nodded, earning a hint of a smile from Natasha in return. Times like these created tension and made it easier to forget that some of them were friends.

But before Sam could turn to part ways, the soles of his boots remained planted as he watched Natasha's gaze meet the floor, her face turning white.

She swallowed. "Sam..."

Seeping out from underneath the door to the medical wing was a pool of dark red blood. Sam immediately took a few steps back, leaving tracks of blood with his boots. He had been standing in it.

"Oh my God, what is going on?!" Natasha immediately opened the door, hitting it against the dead body of Hope who was sprawled across the floor. Sam never left his place, but he tasted the bile in his throat as Natasha covered her mouth with a trembling hand.

Hope's stomach and back were sliced open, leaving blood and entrails in a mess on the floor. It had happened so suddenly, so silently. Not a shriek or a rustle from behind the door.

Eyes watering, Sam lifted his wrist to his mouth, the intercoms activating. "Steve–" his voice broke. "Steve, we have a situation."