In The Shadows | Loki

OPHELIA?

Bruce~*~*~*~*~*~*~

        "Well, and I think if you callibrate-"
        "DR. BANNER!" Bruce turns at the shout, startled. A group of people burst into the lab, including Natasha Romanoff, each of them helping to carry someone. A.... seizing someone?
        "We need help. I think the medical bay may be too far." Natasha says quickly, the words almost blurring together. They place the woman on the only clear table, and the second she touches the cold, hard surface, the seizing gets worse. She's making gasping noises, and her  eyes are rolled back so that I could only see the whites.
        "Holy-"
        "Her normal doctor is coming, but I think we need help now." Natasha interrupts Tony's swearing. She tosses something at me. "Put those on and help. Please." I look down at the gloves in my hands, startled. "Now!"
        "When did this start?" I ask, snapping on the gloves. The seizure becomes more violent, the woman's back arching off the table. "And what is that?" There's a green mist spilling from her hands, and as it hits the floor, it dissipates. I grab her wrist, checking the pulse.
        "No skin on skin contact." Natasha says, moving by my side. "I'm going to kill him." I hear her mutter.
        "Why can't I-"
        "What happened?" Another woman rushes into the room. Her long blond hair fluttered around her face as she looked over the other woman's seizing body. "Help me hold her down." She says, looking at Natasha and I. She glances towards Tony. "Has she..?" When Natasha shakes her head, she nods. "Fine. You don't touch her. I need a heart monitor, can you handle that?"
        "Wha-"
        "Now!" Tony's so startled that he just nods and rushes out. Natasha is already helping to hold the woman down, and I move forward. "Grab her arms. Steer clear of her hands. We need to keep her still." I nod, pinning the woman's arms to the table. I didn't remember if this was the normal procedure for a seizure, but I had a feeling that if it wasn't, this wasn't exactly a normal seizure. "What happened?" The doctor asks, checking the shaking woman's eyes.
        "Loki. He forced energy into her." The doctor looks up sharply.
        "Nat, she's never had energy forced into her. Hell, she's never reacted this way to anyone. I don't know-" The woman on the table jerks, her mouth opening in a scream as her back arches.
        "You have to do something Bobbi!" Natasha yells back.
        "Can someone explain what is going on?" I interrupt, looking between the two women. They glance at each other.
        "I'll catch you up to speed when this is over, but now isn't the best moment to sit you down and explain." Natasha says, clearly stressed. I nod as Tony rushes back in, a small portable heart monitor in hand. The doctor, Bobbi, snatches the device out of his hand, hooking it up as quick as she can.
        Natasha and Bobbi, I noticed, didn't bother with gloves. Natasha kept an eye on me though, making sure none of my skin touched the seizing woman. I hear Bobbi curse, and one glance at the heart monitor tells me why.
        "Her heart is racing." She says, moving around. Green mist was still pouring out of the woman's hands.
        "What the-" Tony begins, but Fury walks in.
        "How is she?" Coulson is on his heels.
        "Her heart is racing, she's seizing uncontrollably, the mist hasn't stopped flowing out of her hands since I got here, and it's been at least five minutes since Loki started this." Bobbi glances up. "I don't know how to help her."
        "What is going on?" Steve walks in, as does Thor. I'm surprised when he looks at the seizing woman with recognition.
        "What is wrong with Lady Winters?"
        "Your brother." Nat spits. Thor looks slightly taken aback, taking a step back.
        "I've got an idea. Move." Bobbi says, unceremoniously pushing me to the side. "She told me once that if you pressed the right pressure point...." Bobbi trails off, squeezing one on her neck. The woman on the table slumps, her entire body going slack. For a few more seconds, green mist pours out of her hands before it finally fades. Her eyes close, and she looks asleep.
        Bobbi checks the heart monitor. "Heart rate is returning to normal..." She says with a relieved sigh. She glances up at me. "Do you have a light?" For a split second, I'm slightly confused.
        "Oh, yeah." I turn, grabbing a tiny flashlight off the table. Bobbi takes it, checking the woman's eyes. You could see her pupils now. Actually, now that she had stopped seizing, I was able to get a good look at the woman. There were three large scars across her face that I hadn't noticed before with all the mayhem. Her short silver hair was splayed out around her face, large pieces stuck to her face with sweat.
        "Okay, who is she, and what the hell just happened?" Tony asks. "And what happened to her face?" Natasha sends Tony a glare so fierce that Tony immediately takes a step back, hands raised in surrender. Natasha turns, using a blank screen to pull up a video feed of Loki's cell.
        Everyone in the room watches as the woman currently laying on the table opens Loki's cage just enough to slide in his food tray. Loki grabs her wrist, and for a split second she struggles. Then she collapses to the floor, the seizure starting. "I'm going to kill him." I hear Natasha murmur.
        "What did he do?" Steve asks the question most of us are thinking.
        "He forced energy into her." Natasha repeats her statement from earlier.
        "Yeah, you said that earlier, but it makes no sense." I reply, peeling the gloves off my hands. "Not to any of us anyway." Natasha glances towards Fury, who gives her a slight nod.
        "She's a mutant." Natasha sighs. "And if she  was conscious, she'd yell at me for not letting her tell you. But... Thor knows. The rest of you might as well."
        "Wait, blondie knows, but we don't?" Tony interrupts. Thor cast's Tony a look, but Tony doesn't acknowledge it.
        "Her name is Ophelia, and she's a mutant." Natasha finally reveals. "A strong one. Skin on skin contact with someone makes it so she absorbs their most powerful... talent? That's how she describes it. No harm is done to the other person, but if Ophelia want's to refuse their... she calls them energy- it's painful for her the first time. After that, her body becomes slightly used to rejecting that energy, and it's not nearly as painful."
        "And you two....?" Tony trails off.
        "She's accepted our energies. We're fine. Our touch does nothing to her now." Bobbi answers. "And in the state she's in, I don't know what new energies would do to her. It's better to stay safe, and have you four not touch her." She gestures to Tony, Steve, Thor, and me.
        "Wait." Everyone looks at me. "She shouldn't be in here. If I accidentally touch her, she could get...." I glance around, and then down.
        "Wait, a second rage monster? I'm in." Tony says, raising his hand. Everyone else glares at him. I just sigh and shake my head. A few days in this lab with him, and I had grown a little used to his comments.
        "I'd rather not move her, actually." Bobbi says, looking at me. "At least until she's awake." I nod in understanding. It made sense, even if I didn't like the idea.
        "Do we have someone else in the room with Loki?" Natasha asks, turning to Fury. He just nods.
        "I've got a few higher level agents in there." Fury looks at Bobbi. "She'll be okay?" He asks, and I'm surprised by what almost sounds like concern on his voice.
        "As far as I know at the moment. I'll stay in here with her and monitor her vitals, make sure everything is stable." Fury nods once.
        "Keep me updated." He orders before leaving. There's a tense silence that falls over the rest of us in the room. A silence that Tony breaks.
        "Ophelia?" All of us turn. "And I wasted my Shakespear joke on you." He says, shaking his head as he pats Thor's arm.
        "When Ophelia wakes up, I think Stark might make her snap." Natasha mutters. "Forget Loki."