Agent Staves; Avengers Assemble [BOOK 1/?]

X - a fight and sheer stupidity

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Regina groaned, holding her head as she came to. The talking in her earpiece merged, sounding more like white noise than anything else as she tried to grasp onto her destroyed surroundings.

"Staves? Staves, do you copy?"

Regina groaned at the sound of Furys voice focusing in, lifting her hand to her ear as she tried to sit up. "I copy. Takes more than that to get rid of my stubborn ass." She said, her voice strained.

"Do you need urgent medical, Regina?" Marias voice took over.

She put her hand to her head for a moment. "No, no. Nothing urgent. I'll keep an eye on the sceptre." She groaned again, pulling herself up by the counter. As far as she could tell, she didn't have any obvious injuries. Yet, at least. Ignoring the searing pain in her head, she closed her eyes and focused on the counter on the other side of the room. She bit down on her lip hard, as she opened her eyes to see herself in front of the sceptre. She picked it up, doing a quick glance around at the destroyed lab, before edging around the massive hole in the floor. She grimaced, looking down. "Nat?" She asked quietly, seeing Bruce looking more and more well.... green. Natasha made wild gestures for Regina to leave, so she complied, walking out into the abandoned hallway. Of course, she thought. Everyone would be in defence positions now, and the Hulk was sure to divert some attention.

She didn't quite know where she was going, but she figured that she should keep moving away from where people would be. No doubt, Loki would come for the sceptre - which was currently felt like it was trying to commandeer her veins again. She tried to ignore the energy it pushed into her, to pretty much no avail.

"How fascinating." She whipped around at the vaguely familiar voice, swiping the sceptre across in an offensive motion. Loki ducked, grabbing the sceptre and making a move to yank it out of Reginas hands.

She followed through, lifting her legs up to kick his chest as she did so. He lost his grip on the sceptre, stumbling back, but did not fall. He laughed, holding his hands up. "You have skill." He said smoothly.

"And you have bad hair. They not have showers where you live?" She replied, taking a step back as she willed illusions of her to appear, walking to other spots around as if any of them could be her. She left an illusion where she was stood, and stood another foot away from it. "Saw you play this trick in Germany." She made one of them say, trying her best to ignore the ripping she felt in her head.

"You see, we're more alike than you think." He smirked, spreading his hands. "They don't appreciate you here, why do you put in so much for them if they don't do the same in return?"

"Don't mind game me." Regina said, one of her illusions moving as if to make a move at Loki. He flicked his hand, a knife shooting out, only for the illusion to disappear as it sliced through.

He laughed, looking at it with an odd admiration. "I can't believe I fell for that." He said.

"I can." Regina said, shrugging simply. "What's with you, anyway? I know power-hungry and textbook evil, but... you're not quite there. Too smart to be doing this but you're doing it anyway." She mused curiously. Loki didn't grace her with an answer, only surged towards her with yet another blade (she was really starting to wonder where he was keeping them about now), managing to locate the real her this time. Regina dodged it and kicked his hand, sending the knife skidding down the corridor. "Bad move. I want answers, not wounds."

"You won't get your answers." He seethed, grabbing the sceptre. He twisted it sharply, taking her feet off the ground. He didn't anticipate Regina to follow it through perfectly, landing on her feet and yanking it out of his grip, making him fall forwards onto the floor. She pointed the blade at him, narrowing her eyes. "So, it is more than you're letting on?" She narrowed her eyes, taking a tentative step forward. "If you tell me, I could help. Or use it against you, I haven't decided yet."

Loki pushed himself into a standing position and laughed, shaking his head. "You humans are so naive."

"Ha!" Regina scoffed. "The hell are you calling-" She cut herself off with a yelp, whipping around as the sceptre was yanked from her hands, slicing her side as it passed. She stumbled into Loki - or rather, the illusion of Loki. It disintegrated at contact, and  she was left facing the real him, holding the sceptre with a furious grin. "Naive. Okay, I get it." She said, nodding.

"I'm terribly sorry." He said, not sounding sorry sorry in the slightest, his grin turned sly as he pointed the sceptre to her chest, slowly moving it closer to her heart.

"Me too." She agreed. And, in a moment of what was likely sheer stupidity, she grabbed onto the blade to stop it from touching her chest. Of course, that did mean she had a highly sharpened blade being gripped in her hand, her other one burning as it held onto whatever the hell was in the centre of the sceptre. She and Loki both stopped, staring as blood dripped down her arm and off of her elbow, a puddle beginning to form on the floor between them at an alarming pace.

He looked back to her face. "That was just rather stupid." Regina nodded, biting down on the inside of her cheek. She couldn't feel her hands as much anymore, which would be good if she knew less about the human body. "Yeah, yeah, I got that. As the saying goes, tear up your hand before a homicidal God can brainwash you." She said, her voice increasingly strained.

"That's a saying?"

"Should be, I'm sure this happens a lot. I'm going to be lights out in a bit, so." She cleared her throat, nodding. "Good luck." She said, releasing all the pent up electricity through the sceptre, sending her and Loki blasting away from one another. As she wall, she felt all the air leave her lungs in one harsh go, not having a chance to regain herself before she fell back onto the floor.

"Extreme blood loss, Miss Staves. Many nerves appear damaged in your palms." Teri spoke. "Sending urgent alerts to Jarvis and S.H.I.E.L.D. Would you like me to play some music?"

"Got that. Feel that. No music, for once." Regina said, her breath unsteady. She rolled onto her back and put her hand to her earpiece. "It's Staves," She said, sucking in a breath. "Urgent medical is sounding pretty good about now. Lokis got the sceptre. I couldn't stop him."

"Staves, stay with me, medical is on it's way." Maria spoke urgently. "For once, I am encouraging you to keep talking."

"I should have listened to my mom when she told me not to cut my own bangs ten years ago." Regina felt she should be disturbed by the pool of blood growing around her, but she stared at the flickering lights on the ceiling above her. The absence of music was unnerving. The lack of company even more so. "I think that was my true downfall. She made me live with entirely uneven bangs for, like, a month, as a child. Explains a lot." She heard heavy footsteps a corridor or two away.

"I'm not sure all of your problems lie in your hair, Regina." Maria said, voice unusually soft for her.

Regina took a deep breath, shakier than she expected. "It's easier to talk about bad bangs than the fact that I'm pretty damn scared right now." She felt tears welling up, but couldn't move her hands to wipe them away. She didn't know if she wanted to die. She was so young. "Tag would think that I'm so stupid for dying for you assholes. He'll probably vandalise my gravestone." She laughed weakly, black spots appearing in her vision. She heard the footsteps coming closer, the medical team shouting her name.

"...It's okay to be scared." There was a long pause. "Staves? Regina, you still there?" She heard Maria ask a little more frantically down the earpiece. "Regina, come on, medical are close now-" Regina barely saw the medical team arrive, blocking the lights from her view as they leaned over her, asking her questions she couldn't even hear.

"Someone... someone tell Tony to give me fif... like, fifty bucks for this..."