Who am I? (A Sequel to 'Who are You?' A Loki love story)

Chapter Twenty Two - Missing

"M-Missing?" I stutter out. Fury gives one slow, sad nod. My mouth has dropped open in disbelief. They can't be missing. They just can't.

"We tried to contact you, but Asgard is a hard place to get in touch with." Maria says. My gaze drops to the floor. I knew why they were missing. It had to be because of me. Because of the trouble that I attract. Thor seems utterly stunned, and Loki and Clint both show no emotion. I'm barely holding back tears. This isn't happening.

"We think that they were taken the day after you left. We tried to call them in for a minor mission, and we couldn't reach any of them. When we came to the tower, it was completely abandoned. We have no footage of what happened. We had to restart Jarvis. He had been shut down." Fury explains.

"This is all my fault." I mutter, shaking my head. I take a few steps back so I can lean on the back of the couch. "They were after me, and they... they took them. Ohmygosh." I put my head in my hands. "I don't know what they could be doing to them." My breathing becomes rapid. "What if... what if they're already dead? This is all my fault." Loki wraps an arm around me, but I can't even look up from guilt.

"We're working on finding them. But nothing has come up so far."

"Of course it hasn't!" I snap. "When I was taken as a kid, It took you YEARS to find me!" Coulson and Maria both look shocked at my outburst, but Fury remains emotionless. Phil's team have just been in the back observing. When I see the shock, the guilt comes back. "I-I'm sorry... I didn't... I didn't mean..."

"We weren't looking for you at that time. We didn't know you, or what you were, or that you were missing." Fury says.

"And taken the second time, it took months." I say quietly. "Fury... they won't last months. I basically died the second time, and I had been through it before." A thought strikes me. "It might not even be Fuller's people. It could be the Sirens... or the Fire spirits. Or the Frost Giants! They might not even be on this planet!" Fury shakes his head.

"They're still on earth. There hasn't been any bifrost or transport energies that have occurred other than yours when you left and came back. We're certain they're still here." I put my head in my hands again.

"We're going to find them Sophie." Phil says. I look up at him with sad eyes.

"Yes, but are we going to find them dead or alive?" I ask. "Or worse?"

Tony's POV~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The door creaks open, and Natasha and I both look up weakly. Bruce still lay in the corner, sedated. He hadn't been fully aware since we'd gotten here. The chains on our wrists didn't give us much room to move, as if we had any energy to after what they did.

Two guards drag Steve back into the room, one of them had glowing orange skin, and the other looked normal. Except for the piercing blue eyes. Sirens were deceptive. They looked too normal.

They throw Steve on the ground and snap the chains onto his wrists. He groans in pain as they put them on too tight. They quickly stand up and leave, not even looking at the rest of us. They must have deemed us to pathetic. Well, we weren't. None had broken yet.

"Steve." Nat calls out weakly, her voice hoarse. "Come on. Talk to us." We had started after every time one of us was taken out that we would make each other talk. We had to stay awake. Steve groans again. Nat looks at me and nods once. I shuffle over a little and nudge him with my foot.

"C'mon Spangles. Say something." I say. His eyes open slowly, taking a while to focus. His eyes flick from me, to Nat, to Bruce's slumped form. "Tell us something. Say something cheesy from the 1930's."

"Your dad failed at making hover cars. Badly." He mutters.

"That wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but okay. He did give up on the idea." Well. At least I got something.

They had been taking us in turns, trying to break us. Nat, then Steve, then me. Bruce was just given sedatives every morning. As stupid as they were to take us, they were smart enough to know that they wouldn't be able to take on Bruce as the Hulk. I see Nat smile slightly in relief as he talks. Steve was definitely getting the worst of it out of all of us. They seemed to think that just because he was super soldier he wouldn't die on them. Each of his sessions they took a few pints of his blood to experiment with. They did the same to Bruce, though he wouldn't know it. I wasn't sure what effect all of the sedatives would have, but I knew it wasn't good.

"I can see why Sophie hated those injections." Steve says. "The worst part is, I know that they couldn't have given me half of what they give her. It's horrible." His voice is getting quieter, and I know that he's slipping out of consciousness.

"Hey. Stay awake." I nudge him with my foot again. "We're supposed to get some sort of food today." That was a lie. We didn't get food. We got pills. They were some sort of substitute.

"No we're not, but nice try." He mutters. He tries to sit up but fails miserably. "I feel like everything in my body is on fire."

"How do you think Sophie feels all of the time?" Nat asks. "How did she even deal with this?"

"I-" I'm cut off by the door opening again, and a familiar figure striding in.

"So." She says. "Do you have anything to spill? Anything you want to tell me? Like.... I don't know.... Sophie's location?" We all stay silent. "Really?" She says in mock disbelief. "Not even you, Captain? I would have thought your last session would've changed your mind?" He scowls, and she shrugs. "Oh well. I won't need you for much longer anyway. Just give me information on Sophie, and we can stop all of this. You don't have to go through this pain."

She moves an kneels in front of Nat. "Maybe we can get Mr Barton here to give you company. Would you like that? All you need to do is tell us where he is..." She trails off. Nat gives her a hard stare before spitting in her face. "Well now. I think I'll make sure Barton will be here soon, now." She says, calmly wiping the spit from her cheek. "Did no one in the red room teach you manners? Shame. They get you into all sorts of trouble if you don't have them."

She starts to glide over to me when the door bursts open, a messenger running in. "Ma'am, you told us to come straight to you with news." He says, slightly out of breath. "We found her. The half-breed. She was on Asgard, but now she's back at Stark tower."

A slow, sadistic smile spreads across her face, and she looks back at us, triumph in her bright blue eyes. "Well, isn't that fortunate." She asks, walking back over. "I think I'll pay a little visit. Stop by and say hello."

"Stay. Away. From. Sophie." I hiss.

"But I'm her friend!" She says with fake innocence. "She won't think anything of it, letting me it for some normal girl to girl chat." She smirks. "Who knew colored contacts could fool so easily? None of you even knew. You followed me so easily..."

"Don't hurt her." Steve tries to command. She gets another smile and a little chuckle before twirling on her heel to leave the room with the guard.

"Oh don't worry Captain," She says, "I most certainly will."

And with that, Kim left us alone again.

*Evil author laughter in the distance*