Who Forgot To Alert the Girlfriend?
“H- hi. I- I- I’m- I need to talk to Tony Stark, please.”
The front desk secretary looked her up and down like she was crazy, and picked up the phone on her desk. “Riiiiight. I’ll just call someone to help you with that.”
“No, listen, I- okay, look if you’re going to call security on me, call Happy Hogan. He knows me. Please”
“Sure. Hi, yeah, security? I’ve got a girl down here-”
Addy bit her lip and glanced quickly to the elevator, and then back to the secretary. She took one slow step backward, adn then two, keeping her eyes glued to the woman, before bolting to the elevator, slamming the button and leaping inside and shouting, “JARVIS, penthouse, please.” She leaned against the back wall of the elevator, breathing heavily. “JARVIS?”
“Yes, Miss Collins?”
“Can you tell me anything about what’s going on? Is Sage okay? What happened to Loki?”
The AI hesitated. “I am unsure how much information Sir will allow me to disclose. You are not yet programmed into the security protocols beyond your residential floor clearences. I apologise.”
“That’s… fine. He’s got a lot on his plate right now.”
“Indeed.” The AI was silent for the rest of the ride.
When the doors slid open, her heart dropped. The floor was empty.
“JARVIS? Is anyone still here? Are they all… out looking?”
“Doctor banner and Sir are still in the building. Sir is… sleeping, and Doctor Banner was with him, but he is on his way up.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“Of course.”
“Adeline.” Bruce stpped out fo the elevator looking haggard and exhausted. “I am so sorry that no one called you sooner. It’s been… a hell of a week.”
“It’s fine. I just- what’s going on? I saw the fight on the news, but…”
“There’s not much to tell you. Sage, she… She got kidnapped. We’re doing our best to find her. We’ve got… Everyone out looking. We think that she and Loki are in the same place, but… Well, at this point there’s really no way to be sure. You’re welcome to stay here, if you’d like. That way you’re not out of the loop anymore. I wish I could tell you more, I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s- that’s alright, really. It’s more than I knew before. When- uh. When was she kidnapped?”
Bruce’s eyes softened. “Tuesday. We didn’t find out until Wednesday. God, we shoudl have told you sooner.”
Adeline sunk to the couch. “That’s why she stopped returning my texts. I mean… It makes sense. I just hadn’t quite… Put it together. I- I just thought that she was being passive aggressive or something. Fuck.”
“Look, I’m gonna go check on Tony. He’s… Not handling this well. This might be the first time he’s slept since this whole mess began. He hasn’t really had to deal with being apart from Loki since they got together, and with Sage having only been adopted for a few months… He’s understandably stressed.”
“Yeah, no kidding. He hasn’t slept in three days?”
“Well, that’s far from being a record for him, but he’ss been so emotionally drained… I’m surprised he lasted so long.”
“Jesus. Ell, you go. I’ll just… Be here, I guess.”
---
Addy looked up from where her eyes had been glued to the split screens that she’d had JARVIS pull up of every news station that she could think of when Spider-Man swung onto the balcony, and then staggered into the penthouse, ripping off his mask and collapsing face first onto the sectional just feet away from where Adeline was sitting.
“Um. Hello.”
Peter’s head shot up, and his eyes grew huge as he realised that there was a stranger sitting on the couch with him, and that she’d seen his face. He was still in the suit. Oh shit, Mister Stark was going to kill him, and-
“So… You’re Spider-Man?”
“Y-Yeah. What’s it to you? Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I’m… Sage’s girlfriend.”
“Oh.” Peter breathed out a sigh of relief and sunk back into the couch. “You’re Adeline. Hi, Adeline. Goodnight, Adeline.”
Adeline blinked a few times, still not quite understanding what had happened as Spider-Man fell asleep on Tony Stark’s sectional. What the hell…
---
Peter jolted awake when Thor landed on the helipad with a loud thud. “Mister Thor!” His voice cracked slightly, and a quick look over at Adeline showed that- yep, she’d definitely heard. Shit. This was not a good first impression.
The heavy, troubled look on Thor’s face only lightened slightly at the sight of Peter and Adeline on the sectional. “Ah, young Peter. Adeline. How are you both?”
“I’ve been better. I was swinging around the city all day looking for her, Bucky’s teaming up with Deadpool, Pietro hasn’t stopped running, he and Wanda are just looking for Sage. Phil’s using every SHIELD resource that he still has access to, and I don’t even know what happened to Clint and Natasha. Cap is still out looking. I don’t think anyone has really had a wink of sleep since this whole thing started, so there’s that.”
“I mean… I’m not great. My girlfriend and her dad are kidnapped, and no one knows where they are. Any new news?”
“Not much, I am afraid. Either Loki has not yet used his magic, or I am less proficient than we thoguht, for I cannot feel him.”
“But… I thought that the cuffs you handed him over in blocked his magic.” Adeline looked to Spider-Man for confirmation, but the other kid was looking at Thor, and seemed just as confused.
“They do, for the most part. They allow him to utelise just enough magic to be tracked, but not enough to escape his bondage. A safeguard implemented in all Asgardian restraints in case of the event of a jailbreak or someone kidnapping a prisoner.”
“So… you know where he is?” Peter asked, his brow furrowed.
“We will. As soon as he uses his magic.” Thor fixed them with a steady look. “We will not rest until we find them, Adeline.”
Peter nodded solemnly, pulling his mask back on.
---
A few more of the Avengers came and went while Adeline was in the tower. Most of them told her different variations of the same thing. They were looking. They would find them. When Tony came and sat by her, it was almost a relief.
“I’m sorry that we didn’t contact you sooner.”
“It’s okay. I get it. You’ve all been focused on finding them, that’s what’s important right now.”
“Yeah.” Tony scoffed, staring down at his hands. “Meanwhile, Cap has me benched from looking for my own family because I’m too emotionally unstable.”
“Yeah, but… you know he’s right, don’t you? Subconsciously, I mean. And I’m not… Saying that to be an ass, what I’m saying is… I don’t think that even Captain American can tell Tony Stark ‘no’ once he’s sat his mind to something.”
Tony gave her a considering look. “You know… You’re more perceptive than I gave you credit for.”
“Thank you. You know, while we’re having this heart-to-heart, you could write me into your security protocols concerning your daughter.”
Tony let out a startled laugh, but it sounded hollow. “That’s fair, I suppose. I took care of the security FUBAR that you created earlier, by the way. Good to know that my current security team is practically useless.”
“In all fairness, I doubt I would have gotten so far without JARVIS. But he’s a great guy who’s supportive of the gays, so he let me up.”
“Fair enough.”
---
“Sage? Sage, darling, can you hear me?”
The blonde groaned and stirred slightly, but not enough for Loki’s liking. The girl had been drifting in and out of consciousness for the past three days, and he wasn’t sure how long it would take for these kidnappers to decide that death was better than continuing to use up sedatives and some form of artificial hydration on his daughter. He carefully laid a thin glamour over himself to conceal the myriad of injuries covering his body. Not only did these damn cuffs keep him from lashing out or protecting himself at all, they slowed his healing significantly, and damnit, it hurt, but he couldn’t let Sage see him like this. Thor should have been here by now. Something must have gone wrong. What could have gone wrong? They’d had such carefully laid plans, and yet-
And yet. Loki knew as well as anyone how his husband was when panicked. And Anthony in a panic was enough to set anyone off. No doubt, the entire team was out searching for them. That would be useful, if they weren’t currently in an entirely seperate dimension. It looked like this was completely up to them, then. That was fine. He could do this. He’d located a nail on the back of the chair he was currently bound to on the first day that he’d been brought here. He’d been working it out slowly but surely, and he was just on the verge of extracting it. His fingers were bloody, and he couldn’t stop sweating, but he was nearly there.
Sage groaned again and roused slowly, lifting her head and opening her eyes blearily as she slowly drugded through her drug-induced haze. “P- Papa?” She asked, her voice scratchy after not being used for three days. “Is that you?”
Loki couldn’t help the relieved smile that broke out across his face. They would be okay. “Hello, darling. How are you today?”
“Well, I’ve gotta admit, Papa, this wasn’t how I was expecting to spend my Tuesday night.”
“It’s Friday, love.”
“Jesus.” She leaned her head back against the chair, eyes carefully taking in their surroundings. “I- I didn’t see it, before. They had me blindfolded.”
“I am aware. We saw… a video. It distressed your father very much.”
“Aw, he shouldn’t have worried.” She tensed her hands slightly, testing the give in the zip ties. Yeah, there was no way she was getting out of these. “We’ll be fine.” She bit her lip and looked down at her own lap, and very quitely asked, “We will be fine, right Papa?”
“Of course we will, my love. There is absolutely no reason to be alarmed. I will protect you. I promise.”
“Okay.” She whispered, head hanging forward, her eyes squeezed shut. A few tears still escaped, and dripped to her jeans, and Loki’s heart shattered.
She was being so brave. He was so proud of her. They were getting out of here. Norns help them, they were getting out of here tonight.