Vengeance [Avengers Fanfiction]

[Chapter 27]

[A/N]: Here's a quick clarification for how to pronounce Talia. Ta-ah-lee-a. The stressed a after the T is said like you're sticking your tongue out at the doctor's, it's an ahh. In Tally, though, it's pronounced like tally in 'tally mark.' I hope I'll remember to explain this later!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Quinn]

    Silence. My cheek pressed against the cool, concrete floor as thick silence hung in the air, pressing on my eardrums. Head pounding mercilessly, my eyes fluttered open.

    My surroundings blurred in and out of focus as I looked through the bars of the cage from under a curtain of dark, tousled ringlets. Shards of glass glittered on the floor like frost in the flitting, dancing light flickering from the broken lights hanging from the ceiling. The glass cell that encased the cage was shattered as was the window, glass strewn on the floor all around the cage.

    I was the center of the hurricane, the eye of the storm in my destroyed surroundings, an empty shell of what it was moments ago.

    Fear struck my heart like a dagger as my breath caught in my throat, choking me as blood pounded loudly in my ears. The others. Where were they? Did I kill them?

    Waves of nausea pounded me as I shakily rose to my knees, bracing myself of my bloody, stinging hands that left a dark crimson smear on the gray concrete. Gasping for air, my breaths became shallow and labored as my eyes darted wildly around the room, searching for any signs of life.

    A low moan came from the corner of the room, followed by a hacking cough. Vincent Crowe was sprawled against the wall under the window, blood dribbling down his chin and onto his expensive suit. His hand loosely clutched his stomach, where blood pooled around a jagged sliver of glass coated in warm, sticky blood that protruded from his torso.

    Crowe's beady eyes caught mine and he smiled gruesomely, his teeth stained red. Anger simmered inside of me, a burning hatred for the man bleeding out on the floor. He tortured people for fun, created new methods of drawing out pain but not bringing death. Without a doubt, some of the methods he discovered were passed on to my father, who then used them on innocent people, on me, on...

    My smoldering thoughts were cut short as a faint voice came from the hallway.

    "Everyone okay?" Phil Coulson asked.

    A breath that I didn't know I had been holding escaped me as relief weighed me down. I wasn't the bringer of death to people that were heroes, had saved lives unlike me, who seemed to just take them. I don't want to kill, my past and present were already dripping with blood and anguish. I make exceptions, though. And Crowe is one of my exceptions.

    "What the hell happened?" Stark moaned, followed by the scraping of footsteps as people rose to their feet. From the window, I could make out their silhouettes in the fleeting sparks of light. The broad figure of someone was running down the hall towards the lab, followed by other footsteps.

    I returned my scorching gaze to Crowe, whose skin was tinted a grayish green, as Captain America appeared in the doorway, followed by everyone except Stark and Banner. Silence fell as they took in the scene, the quiet murmuring of someone in the background. After a moment. Tony joined the party, supporting a green tinged Doctor Banner on his shoulder who slowly started to calm down and return to normal, although still frazzled.

    A yell came from down the hallway and Thor came into view, his heavy footsteps echoing and bouncing off of the walls as he sprinted towards his team, hammer raised and a shocked, bewildered expression on his face. He slowly came to a stop, standing in the window as his hammer was lowered slowly.

    "Did you like the friends I sent you the other night?" Vincent asked. "I call them banshees. They were my suggestion. Take more than one soul to create, but they're so much more fun."

    "You have such an imagination." I spat.

    "Poor Tally." Crowe crooned. "Did I ruffle your feathers?" Under the taunting gleam in his eyes was a glint of fear.

    "He doesn't tell you much, does he?" I asked him as I slowly raised myself from the floor and stood, every cell of my body burning in pain.

    "He tells me what I need to know." Crowe replied, face strained.

    "Lies. He didn't tell you the full extent of my powers and here you are, bleeding to death. He didn't tell you why you were doing this, did he? Did you ever wonder why he told you not to kill me, why he didn't kill me himself?"

    My hushed voice cut through the air like a knife, stabbing Crowe's curiosity with each word.

    "You don't know anything, you useless bitch." he spat, venom dripping from his voice. "You were a failed experiment, he was going to dispose of you, but then you escaped.

    A bitter chuckle escaped my throat, harsh and cold. "Oh, is that what he told his pet? There's much more to it than that."