🖤EMERGE🖤

Chapter 5

I grabbed my head and stumbled back a little and I was back in the compound with Dad, Steve and Fury arguing. What the hell was that? The egos of these people keep rubbing off each other and I feel like shit is about to hit the fan.

“You speak of control, yet you court chaos.” Thor says.

Banner tries remaining calm. “It’s his M.O., isn’t it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We’re a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We’re… we’re a time-bomb.” he says.

“You need to step away, Dr. Banner?” someone asked, looking at him as he ignored them.

Dad put his arm around Steve. “Why shouldn’t the guy let off a little steam?”

Pushing dad off they go face-to-face with each other. “You know damn well why! Back off!” 

I grabbed dad’s arm. “Come on, dad stop.” he jerks my arm away.

“Oh, I’m starting to want your lover boy here to make me.” 

“Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?”

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.” 

I grabbed Steve’s arm and tried pulling him away. “Get off of me!” 

Dad growls. “Hey, don’t talk to her like that!”

Right back in the face. “I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. Yeah, I’ve seen the footage.” he paused for a moment. “The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you. Your daughter has more balls than you! At least she fights for everyone else!”

“I think I would just cut the wire.” Dad crosses his arms.

Steve smiles annoyed. “Always a way out… you know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.” 

Dad practically gritted his teeth. “A hero? Like you? You’re nothing more than a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!”

Steve puffs up his chest at him, who just stands there, unmoving. “Put the suit on, let’s go for a few rounds.”

Thor laughs at them. “You people are so petty… and tiny.” Dad rubs his head. Moves away from Steve.

“Yeah, this is a tee…” 

“Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his…” 

“Where? You rented my room.”

Fury cautiously answers. “The cell was just in case…” 

“In case you needed to kill me, but you can’t! I know! I tried!” We all stopped and looked at him. “I got low. I didn’t see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out! So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!” Banner slowly gets upset as he looks at Romanoff, who gets unnerved. “You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?”

Fury and her have their hands down to grab their guns. “Doctor Banner… you need to put the scepter down, please.” I say as Steve pulls me behind him.

Banner looks down and is shocked to see he’s holding Loki’s scepter. The computer beeps. We all turn to it. “Got it.” Banner puts down the scepter and walks over to the computer. 

“Located the Tesseract?” 

“I can get there faster.” 

Steve puts a hand out. “Look, all of us…” 

Thor cuts in. “The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it.” Dad turns to leave, but Steve stops him.

“You’re not going alone!” 

“You gonna stop me?” 

“Put the suit on, let’s find out.” 

At that moment Banner who’s looking at the monitor notices something about the Tesseract. “Oh, my god!”

Next thing I know everyone is thrown in every direction Steve, Fury, Thor, dad and I are thrown across the room while Natasha and Banner are down in the lower equipment room. Steve grabs me and rolls where he is on top of me so I didn’t get hurt.

“Are you alright?” he asks, looking at me as I nod. “Put the suit on!”

“Yep!” Steve helps dad up and out of the lab.

‘There’s my ride.’ I looked back at Loki.

Then I looked at the ceiling. “Barton… Barton and his men are in the air ducts.” 

Thor gets up and helps me up. “Go to Natasha and Bruce.. Just in case. I’m going to dad and Steve.” We nod and go our separate ways.

I caught up to Steve and dad as we ran through a dim, debris-filled hall. “Find engine three. I’ll meet you there.”

Steve and I peel off and find the door. He pushes with all his strength the door to the portside. I help and we finally get through, SHIELD tech in full oxygen masks shoot fire extinguishers and cover from sparks -- largely unable to do anything. 

“We’re here!” 

“Good. See what we got.” Dad flies in and gets a close look at the damage. “I gotta get this super conducting cooling system back online before I can access the rotors and work on dislodging the debris.” he begins pulling on the stuck rotors. Look over at us. “I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload and position.”  Steve jumps over to the other side of the broken railing. “Alex, make sure that asshole doesn’t escape. Don’t go in alone!” 

I run down to see Thor locked in the cell and Loki smiling. “Should we test how durable this cell is?” he asks as he walks over to the control panel.

“Move away.” I command as Loki moves away from the switch. I hear someone behind me and I turn, swinging my elbow, hitting the real Loki in the face. “I knew you would do that.”

“Why can’t you just die?!” 

“Why can’t you just shut up?!” I shout as he summons his scepter. “Oh, I’m so sc--” I looked down, seeing red slip out of my exposed torso. I collapsed to the ground gasping, putting pressure on the wound as blood steadily pours out, trying to stay calm.

Thor cries out. “No! What have you done?!” 

I slowly drag myself to the wall. I slump down breathing fast. Loki has no remorse as I watch him look down as Thor plummets. He closes the hatch and proceeds to leave.

“You’re not going to get away with this.” I say weakly.

“I think I already have.” Loki turns around and kneels next to me. “Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky… where is my disadvantage?” he sees my wounds. “Are you not healing? *he looks annoyed* perfect.” 

He leans me forward as I wince in pain and puts his hands on both sides of the wound holes. “W-what are you doing?” I weakly clench his wrist as he looks at me. “Why can’t you let me die? Is there some kind of amusement in watching me suffer?”

“Please, for my sanity, shut up and stop moving.” 

I comply but rolled my eyes. “That’s been long… gone, Laffy Taffy.” 

Loki looks as if a small smile plays on his face, but quickly disappears. “Barely alive and yet you still have to get the last word? You really are your father’s daughter.”

“You know it.” I laugh and then cough. “You’re an asshole, this hurts like hell… Why do you keep messing with my head? Let me die or don’t try killing me.”

Loki shrugs. “I don’t know. Let me focus.” he presses on my wound and I scream out tightening my grip on his arm and before I knew it he was gone and I was healed.