The Avengers Weakness

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Penny's eyes fluttered open, she realized she was lying on the floor; did she have another panic attack? she pushed herself up to a sitting position. Her ears were ringing and she had a slight headache; it was cold, really cold. She looked around her and realized she didn't recognize where she was. The room was filled with shadows, she could see sunlight peeking through a window that was boarded up from the outside, where was she? There was nothing in the room, it was bare of any furniture. She knew almost every part of the compound, this wasn't the compound. The floor was dirty, she could feel the dust and dirt on her hands, it coated the walls and the floor of the room. She shivered, she could feel the cold concrete through her tights and skirt and against her back.

"Pete!" she called out, she could hear her voice bouncing around the room. "Peter! Pete, are you here?"

She got no response, her voice was bouncing around the room, keeping her company. What happened? she wondered. She closed her eyes and pressed her palms against her eyelids as she tried to remember what happened. Her eyes flicked open, she remembered. There was Tony; he'd come back with the others. She remembered him seeming off, like there was something different about him. She remembered his hair wasn't peppered with little bits of gray; he had less wrinkles. She remembered the blue lights that peeked out from under his shirt, how it struck her as odd because she never saw the light unless he'd tapped on it. But this one was different looking, the triangle in the center was smaller, it had more black in it than the one she'd seen him always wearing. She remembered his cold hands, how they felt like ice when he touched her while they walked down to the second floor. The last thing she could remember was how he brushed his fingers against her temple, then everything went dark. She pushed herself up from the floor, that wasn't Tony, that wasn't her dad. She started to try to walk over to the door; she got halfway to the door when she felt something pull her back. She looked down at her right arm, there was a thick metal band around it with a chain on it. She traced it back and found it was bolted to the wall. She felt her vision getting hazy, her chest growing tight. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, now wasn't the time to panic. She needed to get out. She started tugging on the chain, trying to pull herself free, but it didn't work. She didn't have her phone with her, she'd left it on the couch, meaning no one knew where she was; she did the one thing she could do then; she started screaming.

Across the abandoned warehouse, the two men were sitting at a table. The younger looking of the two was leaning back in his chair, squeezing the bridge of his nose. The sounds of the yelling teenager were growing more and more annoying by the second. Couldn't she just shut up?

He leaned forward, "Can I enchant her again?" he asked, the green magic dancing at his fingertips.

"She'll give up." the other man replied.

"She's giving me a headache." he snapped.

The man stared at him, he seemed unimpressed by the girl and their situation, "Her brother was a headache, he still is a headache. We'll fix both of our headaches soon enough." he replied, a slow, slight smirk tugging up on the corner of his lips.

"What do you want with her anyway? She's a stupid child."

He let out e low laugh, "Her brother is a stupid kid and look where that got me. I should've killed him when I had the chance, not try to make it an accident. Like a bug, he survived." he replied, a deep scowl imprinted on her face.

"Pete, help me please!" a voice carried down the hall, "Nat! Wanda! Anybody please!"

The man scowled, "Why don't we go visit our little guest." he replied, pushed himself up from the chair, he still had a slight limp as he started walking to where the girl was.