"SO, BASICALLY," TONY RECAPPED after the Cap, "basically what Capsicle here means to say is that we aren't really ordering you, a small-time hairdresser, into rooming with the evillest supervillain of the universe who is also immortal and slightly...
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06. I can handle pain
Pain. Smell of burnt skin and hair. Blood, definitely something metallic tinging the air. The outline of Loki's face as he looks up from a book, eyes filled with scepticism and-ringing ears, someone screams in the distance.
Naz covered her mouth with her hand, forcefully shutting off the unintelligible sounds that were tumbling out. The screams stopped but the ringing didn't.
A continuous note cutting across her head. The outline of Loki's face as he registers something-shock and a word, a half-gesture as he reaches out only to be pushed back. A wall of smoke and stars, or maybe its fire. Stinging face, arms and legs; anything uncovered is burning.
She heaved herself on her hands and knees, coughing through the smoke, praying that she hadn't-that he was okay. A single sob escaped her body before she crawled ahead, stubbornly, unwilling to give up.
A small creak and the distant voice of someone.
She couldn't care less.
Loki, Loki, Loki, every breath a dangerous echo of the same word, as she called out to him with her heart. Where are you?
The visibility increased and suddenly she felt lighter. Death, is this what it feels like?
A convulsing figure on the floor, eyes rolled back, mute.
She pushed the image out of her head, closing her eyes and she was back on ground, crawling ahead, falling over the upturned table, and now she could see his figure. She croaked a word and got up, swaying slightly as she rushed to his side.
Loki lay convulsing on the floor, silently calling out, only the white of his eyes visible.
"No!" she cried out. "Loki, Loki!" Her hand jerked back as several volts of electricity jolted from Loki's body to hers. Mad, unthinking, her eyes picked out his handcuffs, still in place with the last of its wires. She pulled at it, only to feel a surge of dizzying power.
She scrambled back to the table and wedging her foot across the upturned table's rickety stand, pulled. With a shriek of polished wood against polished wood, a nail dragging its arm between them, the piece of wood broke free.
Quick as a flash, she was back by his side, twisting the small wooden spike into the wire and wrenched it towards herself.
With a click, the smoking cuffs broke apart and Loki lay motionless, cold as stone, a deathly blue creeping across his body.
The door opened and Tony pushed through, hardly able to stand on one leg, dragging the other behind; the effort evident on his flushed, sweaty face.
"WHAT THE FUCK?"
She reached for him, "Help him!"
Her fingers must have tightened around his for a minutest moment and yet, she drew a raspy breath as a vision rocked through her, now of all times.
