Who are you? (A Loki Love Story)

Chapter Forty Five - Rescue

A/N: Ok, so this is going to be one of the last few chapters, and then I am going to write a sequel, along with another avengers story. Gah! My brain. Anyway, back to the story.




        My head is on its side, my cheek lying against the cold, bloodstained table. Everything is in so much pain. All of my energy is gone, and I'm barely awake, the pain keeping me floating on the edge of consciousness. I can't even move my head, I'm in so much pain. I never remembered it like this. This is so much worse than anything that's happened. there isn't a part of my body that hasn't been cut on. My arms, my face, my chest, everywhere. The knives had been dipped into something that put an unbearable pain in me, one that refuses to leave.
        I had seen Clint and Nat at the presentation tonight. They had had no idea that I was there, that much had been clear by their reactions. Skye and Ward had been there too, obviously having not told Clint and Nat that they were coming. They had all looked eaquily shocked by my state. I had tried to warn Nat away, tried to tell her not to come after me, but knowing her, she would. I didn't want them to have this done to them. They needed to stay away, to stay safe.
        Fuller is at a sink in the room, slowly and methodically cleaning the various knives of my blood. I don't know how I haven't bleed out but I wish I had. "We did well today. Almost five million dollars in donations." Fuller says. He has a habit of talking to me, even when I can't talk back. He acts like its casual conversation. Like he isnt some sadistic crazy billionaire that tortures me on a daily basis.
        He dries off the last knife, placing it carefully back onto the cart. "People were most impressed with you, though we did have quite a few suggestions to keep your existence quiet." He chuckles lowly. "As if we werent already." It is silent for a few moments, and then we hear a sound in the background. "What is going on?" Fuller wonders, going over to the intercom on the wall. The sound is getting louder, and I realize it's an alarm.
        "Security!" He barks into the intercom. "What is going on?" Only static comes through. The alarm suddenly cuts out, and Fuller's head jerks up at the sudden loss of sound. There are pounding feet through the hall on the other side of the door. Yells and shouts that don't make much sense until one voice screams out above the others.
        "INTRUDERS!" I see Fullers eyes go wide, and he hurries over to the counter. He's muttering to himself as he pulls back a cabinet door that is full of the injections. He goes through them quickly, not caring if they break or not. Outside the door, we can start to hear fighting. Someone was coming.
        "Here we are." Fuller mutters, grabbing a vial. He grabs a syringe a carefully fills it, watching the measure of the liquid as if it's the last thing he will do. He finishes filling it, and sets the vial down. He starts to walk over to me, and I suddenly hear a loud bang come from the other side of the room. I realize that the door must have been kicked open. Fuller starts to rush over to me, almost making it before a familiar dirty blond brings the butt of a gun down on his head, knocking him out.
        Clint turns around, and utter horror fills his face. "S-Sophie?" He stutters out, looking at my bloodstained and cut up figure. My eyes fill up with tears, and I'm suddenly crying, in both happiness and in fear. They needed to get out of here. "What.... What did they... Are you...." He can't get a full sentence out. He slowly brings his finger up to his earpiece. "I-I found her."
        I start to struggle against my bonds again, but I can still barely move my head. Clint finally snaps back into the moment, as if he is just now remembering where we are. "How do we get you out of here?" He asks, and I look around, panicked.
        "Sophie?" Another voice cuts through the room, and Clint's head snaps up. Not him too.
        "Help me get these off of her."Clint says. Loki rushes into my view, looking at my bonds.
        "This will sting." He says, looking at me as if he needed to ask my permission to free me from this hell table. I try to nod, and I succeed in moving my head slightly, which he understood. "Stand back, Barton." Clint doesn't move, and Loki sighs. "Alright then." He mutters.
I watch as his skin slowly turns blue, and his eyes bloodred. He grabs one of the straps, careful to not touch the bare skin and cuts along my chest. Ice starts to form on the strap, and he is able to snap the frozen strap in two. I realize that the straps are becoming brittle enough to snap at the freezing temperatures. He goes through all of the straps, until her comes to the one around my neck.
        "I- I don't want to accidentally hurt you." He says, hesitant. I look up at him with pleading eyes. He still hesitates, and I look over at Clint.
        "We have to get her out of here. Now." He says. Loki hesitates again, but then grips the last strap. I feel a quick flash of cold, but then its gone. I slowly reach my hand out, grabbing Loki's as it draws back to his side. where we touch, his skin starts to change back to its normal color, his eyes back to their piercing green. He slowly pulls me up so that I'm sitting up, and I cant help but wince at the pain that starts up whenever I move.
        "Barton, she can barely sit up, she will not be able to walk." Loki says, worried.
        "I figure that out, thanks." Clint says sarcastically. "You need to carry her. Ill cover you both." He says. Loki nods once. He turns too pick me up, when I suddenly jerk. Fuller wasn't unconscious. He had just stabbed the syringe into my thigh, pushing the contents into my body. I cried out at the sudden pain, not that they could hear me, but then I realized that it wasn't like the others. This was a slow, strange sort of dulled down constant pain, seeming to stay in that one spot.
        Clint kicked Fuller in the head, getting to him before Loki was even able to let go of my hand. He leaned down, and stuck a tracker on the back of Fullers neck. "Tony, I put a tracker on someone. They just injected Sophie with an unknown substance, so when we get out, you need to pick him up." Clint says, talking into his earpiece. He listens. "Yea, we're leaving now."
        Loki carefully puts one of my arms around the back of his neck so that I can hang on, as if I had the strength to do that, and picked me up, bridal style. I winced when quite a few of the cuts rubbed up against his armor. My head leaned on his shoulder, and he carried me over to the door where Clint was waiting.
        "Stay close to me. I'll hold people back, you get her to the bus safely." Clint says, turning the door handle. Loki nods once. "Then let's get the hell out of here." Clint opens the door, scanning the hallway before giving the all clear and started to move forward, keeping an alert stance as we moved quickly through the corridor. Loki follows closely behind, and every step he take hurts, his armor rubbing against my cuts even more. I try to hide it, but at one point Clint looks back, and must have seen the pain in my eyes, because he slowed down a little.
        Clint seemed to be retracing his steps from earlier, knowing which way to turn. We went down three hallways before we encountered anyone. Suddenly, Clint begins firing arrows at a group of guards that appeared around a corner. Loki turns, curving his body protectively around me so that their bullets ricochet off his armor. The firing stops, and Loki slowly straightens back up. Clint is pulling a few arrows out of the guards bodies, quickly wiping them off and placing them back in the quiver. He seems to be ignoring the fact that his shoulder is bleeding pretty heavily.
        "Your arm." Loki points out.
        "Shot clipped me, nothing to worry about." I roll my eyes, and Clint smirks. "Don't roll your eyes at me! We're rescuing you! Appreciate it!"' I roll my eyes at him again, and he chuckles, starting to move forward again. We go through more empty hallways, which is confusing considering this place is normally busting with activity. Loki sees my confused expression.
        "They dropped everything and evacuated when Stark started to attack the guards on the rooftop." He explains. "They are sending in guards. Like that'll stop us." I smile, though he can't see it.
        We continue down the mostly empty hallways, Clint having to take out a few guards here and there, but mostly it's an easy way back. "Almost there." Clint mumbles under his breath. we just went down several flights of stairs. "The others are already out, all waiting on the bus." He says. "Except Tony and Thor. They're both in the air making sure we get out ok, and keeping watch on who all enters the building." he pauses and listens again. "Tony already got that Doctor out. Hes in the containment cell on the bus." I tense at that, and Loki notices.
        "He won't be able to hurt you now." He murmurers into my ear. I relaxed slightly, trying to save what little strength I had. We came into the lobby, and I looked around, slightly stunned. It looked.... like a normal lobby. A front desk, chairs and couches, a few TV's around the room. Anyone who came in here would be completely oblivious to the horrors that truly lay inside.
        Outside the glass front doors, I could see a bunch of guards and attack dogs. They were cowering between cars and running around, lightning coming down and Tony swooping in, shooting at them. Clint turned, going down a small hallway off to the side. "This is the side entry we came in. A few buildings down is where we hid the bus, c'mon" He says. He slowly opens the door, checking for guards on this side outside the building.
        We step out into the sudden bright light, and as my eyes adjust, I start to cry. I haven't been outside in almost a month. The fresh air hits me like a wave, and I can smell the rain in the air. The sky looks like it's about to open up and pour down, and I want it too. To wash away the memories and the blood.
        "We need to hurry, this way......." He trails off, turning and seeing me sobbing into Loki's chest, and Loki trying to comfort me.
        "It's okay, it's okay." Loki whispered into my ear. I couldn't help it. I was just so happy to be out of there. They started to sprint through back alleyways, dodging trash and boxes. It only took them a minuet to find the bus. They slowed down when it came into view, and I saw the tail end of Tony and Thor walking up the ramp into the bus.
        We walked up and into the bus a moment later, seeing everyone in a group anxiously waiting. They all looked battle worn, except for Fitz, Simmons, and Skye, who just looked plain worried.
        Nat saw us first, and when her eyes landed on me, she let out a sharp gasp. "Oh my... Sophie." everyone turned to Loki and I, their faces filling with a mixture of shock, horror, and relief. Loki walked through the group and to the medical room, slowly and carefully setting me down on the bed. I relaxed, but kept ahold of his hand. They all filed in the room, watching us, and Bruce hurried over.
        "We need to get these patched up." He mutters. I frown, and start motioning, catching everyone's attention. I weakly point to my shoulder with my free hand, and then to Clint.
        "My shoulder doesn't really matter right now." Clint says, catching on. I raise my eyebrows, glaring at him.
        "Fitz, why don't you patch up Clint over there while Dr. Banner and I work on Sophie?" Simmons suggests.
        "We need to get that freaking muzzle off of her first." Tony says.
        "We didn't have time to get it off earlier." Loki says.
        "Alright, I just have to look at the back of this..." Simmons mutters training off. I turn my head, facing Loki, and she moves my short, uneven hair out of the way. "There's an encryption code." She suddenly says, horrified.
        "What?" Bruce asks, looking over her shoulder. "We'll need Tony's help with that." He says after a moment.
        "My help with what?" Tony asks. He had left to take off his suit. "The hard drives that Nat and Capsicle got? I've got Jarvis working on those." I tense, my eyes wide.
        "Stark." Loki hisses under his breath. Tony looks up, and sees me staring at him with a little shock.
        "I..... thought you were asleep." He admits.
        "Really, Stark?" Loki sighs, looking back down at me.
        "No. We need your help getting this off of her. It takes and encryption code." Bruce says. Tony looks up, confused, and walks over.
        "What? Why does a muzzle need an encryption code?" He asks, talking to himself. He looks at it for a few moments, and I can feel his hand run over the metal. "No. this code isn't to get it off. There's a keyhole here to get it off. The code is for something else.
        "I can pick a lock quickly." Nat says, coming over. I can tell just by the look on her face that she is glad to be able to do something. She gets out two small tools from her belt, and suddenly, I can feel the gag being lifted off of my face. I turn so that I'm lying on my back again, and everyone is looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something.
        I opened my mouth, and was about to speak, when I remembered the pain of the shocks that I had felt when I had tried to speak before, at those small intervals where they fourced me pills. I quickly snapped my mouth shut, avoiding their confused looks. "Sophie, are you alright?" Simmons asks, looking down at me concerned. I frown, opening my mouth to say something again, but the feeling of the shock goes through me, and I quickly close my mouth again.
        Surprisingly, May is the only one to understand. "They can't hurt you if you talk here." She murmurers. "Trust me, I know it'll keep going through your head, whatever they did to you, until you just buck up and speak." There are a few surprised looks and a lot of confused faces, but I understand. It was like this the first time I got out too.
        I take a deep breath. "Youguysareallidiots." I say quickly, tensing immediately after, shutting my eyes and waiting for the pain to come. When nothing happens, I slowly crack open my eyes, getting bewildered looks from everyone but May. I slowly relax, letting out a shaky breath.
        "Excuse me?" Tony says. "I mean, I'm glad you're talking, but please explain why we're all apparently idiots?" He asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
        "You shouldn't have come after me. You all could have been killed, or worse..." I say, trailing off. "I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if they had gotten to you guys. you shouldn't have done that."
        "And you think that we could have lived leaving you with those... Monsters?" Loki says, putting a hand on my shoulder.
        "You just..... Shouldn't have." I mumble. There is a few moments of silence, before I notice Bruce's frown. "Bruce, what's wrong?" I ask.
        "That." He says, pointing to my leg, where a huge bruise is forming. It's where Fuller had injected me before we had left. I notice that the pain from it has spread, almost complacently in both of my legs. It's still just a muted, constant, throbbing pain. But I could say that for my entire body. "Do you know what he injected you with?" I shake my head.
        "No. He was looking for it pretty panically when the alarms first went off though." Nat moves, heading for the door.
        "I'll go get it out of him." Nat says angrily.
        "Wait!" I say, making her stop in the entryway. "I want to do it. I have the right too, after what he put me through, I should be allowed to interrogate him."
        "You look like you just went through a meat grinder." Ward points out. He gets on my nerves.
        "I feel like it too. Your point?" I snap. "Just put me in a wheelchair or something. I know him like the back of my hand." I say.
        "Who is he?" Phil asks, finally speaking up from the other side of the room.
        "That, my friends," I say slowly, taking a deep breath. "Is Dr. Ian Fuller."