The Seventh Avenger: Playing With Fire

Chapter 19: Shadows

          Ava is beyond exhausted.

          It is bad enough that she has already been robbed of a much-needed and well-deserved sleep when she had been called downstairs by her grandparents, but now the gut-wrenching worry that eats away from her on the inside also prevents her from giving into sleep-filled oblivion completely. She has spent the past two hours laying in her bed, her round, green orbs focused on the dark ceiling above her. Her body is tired to the bone, but her mind is alive and electric, refusing to calm down long enough to grant her a little bit of peace and quiet.

          Every time she feels as if she is on the brink of falling asleep, Tony's bright laugh will echo in her ears like a chiming bell, and Lydia's warm and welcome smile would flash behind her closed lids, and the fear festering inside her body would only continue to grow. Unwanted images of Lydia's body burnt to a crisp and laying in the rubble of what was once the Malibu mansion and Tony's body, bloated and grey from the cool seawater as he rests at the bottom of the ocean plague her mind in flashes and makes her feel sick to her stomach.

          She knows that the two heroes are more than capable of holding their own and that they have been through much worse than something as simple as a mansion being blown up around them, but it's been more than six hours since the attack. She knows that they would have called her between then and now to let her know that they were alive. But her phone has only remained silent and still on the bedside table for these past few hours, taunting her as Ava waits impatiently for it to ring.

             Running a tired hand down her face, she rolls onto her side. Hand flailing about in the dark, she eventually curls her fingers around her phone and brings it closer to her face. She winces as the bright screen light illuminates the room and stings her drooping eyes, and it takes everything within her not to squeeze her eyes shut and turn away from the harsh light. Her eyes scan the screen as quickly as they can, but disappointment spreads through her as fast and as hard as a flood when nothing but the home screen and the time greets her.

          No messages, no missed calls; nothing.

          If they were alive, they definitely would have called by now.

          She resists the urge to let out a desperate scream. Damn it!

          Not only is she disappointed that there isn't any word from Lydia or Tony, but she is also devastated to find that there isn't anything waiting for her from Clint either. Lydia's uncle had been the first person that Ava had called when her calls to Lydia and Tony went unanswered, as she knows that Clint would want to know the moment that anything life-threatening or horrible had happened to his only niece. But Ava's call to him had only gone straight to voicemail. As did the second. And the third. And the fourth, and all the other dozens of panic-ridden calls and messages that had followed after that. She doesn't know why it is that he isn't answering his phone, but she does know that he will be out of his mind with worry when he does find out what happened. She can only hope that he will pick up the phone and return her call so she can tell him herself, rather than having to hear the news in the form of a heartless report on the new station, which would undoubtedly not hold back on any and all gruesome details.

          She tosses the phone on the bed beside her and lifts her hands up to massage her aching temples. This is not how she imagined the holidays would go at all.

          "Trouble sleeping?"

            She swears at the all too familiar – and unwelcome – voice somewhere from in the corner of her room, and bolts upright in the bed, her limbs getting tangled with the pale sheets and grey doona cover. Scrambling, her hand reaches for the lamp on her bedside table and this time she can't stop the way her eyes squint as the room is flooded with a pale, yellowish light. But she can still make out the sight of none other than Loki standing in the corner of the room, a yellow and green tinge surrounding his form like a halo from the enchantment he uses to conjure up a projection of himself here on earth.