On the Run (An Avengers Fanfiction) ✔️Completed (under editing)

HYDRA

Astrid's p.o.v.

I kept drifting in and out of consciousness so I knew I wasn't dead yet... Not quite anyway.
I heard some shouting and an exchange of gunfire, soon followed by several wailing police sirens. I desperately hoped the others had escaped...

...Someone was dragging me along the ground, the concrete scraping along the lower half of my back and my legs. I struggled feebly, trying to wriggle free of their immovable grip but I was far too weak now. Then I was lifted and dumped into the back of a truck. I tried to see who had been dragging me along but it was too dark and It started to go black again. I tried to resist the darkness but couldn't and drifted once more...

... I saw the almost cloudless sky above me. So many stars, so beautiful, if that was where I was going I would have been contempt, almost happy to die.
My body had gone into shock a long while back from me being shot so somehow death was far less scary. I continued to gaze up at the sky, smiling.
Then my view of it was obstructed by a canopy of trees and I snapped out of my stupor. I wasn't dead yet... Had my accelerated healing process started? I was still to confused and weak to make sense of much and couldn't sit up yet. When I tried I realised that even if I regained the required strength it was pointless because I had been tied up. Where was I being taken? Were we in the woods so that whoever it was could kill me and dump the body somewhere hard to find?
I wondered who wanted me dead in the first place, I doubted it was S.H.I.E.L.D. because this really wasn't their style. I wouldn't have known what had hit me if it was them, a sniper was far more likely, no attention drawn to it and certainly no attack on me in public. The more I thought about what had happened to me in the last few months the more I realised I was extremely lucky to have made it this far. I ran through the times I'd nearly died...

1. When I'd been fired and Amy and I were in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Jet in which the systems shouldn't have failed merely due to a bad storm...

2. When I got trapped in Loki's glass cage and Julie made it drop. Fortunately we were saved by Stark and Thor...

3. After my little magical mishap when everyone wanted to kill me...

4. Possibly my seizure after we blew up the hangar and made our escape from the helicarrier...

5. Then we were shot down with missiles after bailing out our fireball of a crashing jet, which sort of counted as two...

and now I was fighting death again...

At that point I decided that I wasn't going to die this time either. I wasn't going to waste my powers by dying before I'd done anything really useful with them! Sure I'd bide my time, just to rebuild my strength, but then I was going to give these guys who were out to get us a run for their money. I was going to show them all what I could really do and if that did get me killed so be it; at least then no one could say I hadn't tried. I remembered something my grandma always used to tell me when I was frustrated with schoolwork I couldn't do, usually maths, or if I was disappointed because I wasn't improving at swimming...

"You're a part of the Carter family Astrid, we don't give up and we certainly don't let anyone tell us what to do!"

I smiled privately to myself, they would regret pissing me off!

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Couslon's p.o.v.

By the time we reached the store that the two agents and Loki had been spotted at it was swarming with the police and the fire department not to mention lots of reporters. The reason it had attracted such a large amount of attention so fast was because the damn thing was already a fireball.

"Oh shit" I muttered quietly, Fury was not going to be amused.

To make matters worse I'd have to come up with some excuse to try and get them to leave...

"Tell them it's a gas leak?" Hill offered, practically reading my mind.

"Yes."

She ordered a couple of guards to go and tell the police our poor cover-up and turned back to me.

"So what do we do now Couslon? We have to find them... Fury knows he made a mistake doesn't he? That's what we out here for: Those kids as well as Loki and the sceptre which the media will go crazy over if they find out either are not with S.H.I.E.L.D."

I nodded in reply.

"We can't search the building whilst it's like that and I don't think whats left will be of any use to us either... can we tap in to that security camera feed that we saw them on before?"

"On it" Hill answered rushing back into her Quinjet and furiously tapping away at one of her laptops.

The agents who were selling our cover story returned looking anxious and I saw a bunch of reporters rushing towards my team.

"We need to get out of here. NOW!"

The agents outside rushed back in to the safety our our aircraft and we set off immediately. Since I was on the other jet to Maria we spoke over our radios. Once she found something useful she sent it straight to me. I watched the footage and was surprised to see Astrid and Norman working with Loki and another man we didn't know and a dog to fight off the mercenary soldiers and doing pretty well at not getting shot to pieces. I calculated that with more training Norman could quickly become at least a level five agent maybe more; he showed great potential. As for Astrid I could see that she wasn't afraid of her abilities anymore, which was just as well because they saved her life more than once and were a great asset to her... if only Fury had set her up with some sort of trainer earlier. Then perhaps this situation would have been avoidable.

I could see after a while that their pace slowed as the opposition wore them down a lot but they never stopped fighting and, in the end it seemed, succeeded against the odds. I was relived until Hill sent more footage which was extremely worrying. They were slipping out of a door when Astrid was shot. It showed her slumped on the floor going in to shock and then the camera blacked out as the flames reached it. I felt my heart sink slightly.

"Do we have anything else to go on at all, anything? Do we know what happened after that?" I asked frantically.

"Only a truck smashing through the barriers and heading North East towards the forest, it seems worth following up."

"Right, we need to intercept it before it reaches the forest or we'll lose it! If we can't stop it we have to put trackers on it, at least then we can follow it."

"Setting flight path" shouted the pilot of my quintet as he and his co-pilot fiddled with the controls.

"Asking base for any sightings and an aerial view of our target" said another agent as she rushed to a computer.

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Loki's p.o.v.

When I slowly started to come round, trying my best to recall what had just happened to me, I felt something wet rub against my face. It was Lola's nose, she started to whine and tried to get me to follow her. I looked up and waited for the night sky to clear so that I was certain my vision had fully returned before sitting up. I slowly got to my feet, still puzzled as to what had happened and followed her down an embankment past serveral vehicles. I wondered where she was taking me...

As we rounded the corner of a small building I saw why she was distressed. It was her master, Brian. his situation looked considerably dire... I tried my best to care more but in truth the majority of my thoughts were preoccupied with wondering if she was alright. I still couldn't quite remember what was going on. Why had we been left? Where was she, where was that annoying boy too?
I looked down at Brian and wondered if my magic would be of any use in healing him... He looked like an injured animal, his eyes full of pain and terror he glanced in my direction. I sighed, Astrid would never forgive me if I went after her now and left them but every moment I spent there she might be in grave danger... For a brief second a dark thought crossed my mind; I could leave them and she would hate me again and I could make sure she was safe. It would be killing two birds with one stone after all. I knew I was no good for her and she couldn't see it. I was torn between my desire to do right by her and my desire to be with her which meant I would have to use my moral compass which was rather broken...