Stay With Me (an Avengers fanfiction)

Chapter Nine: So Much For The Luck Of The Irish

After work the next day, I come home and order a pizza, flopping onto my couch with a sigh.

Fifteen minutes later the doorbell rings and I grab a twenty dollar bill.

"Hi," I say, giving the pizza guy a friendly smile.

"Hello," he says in a faint brogue. Irish, maybe? "I've a large cheese pizza for Elora Antelbry."

"That's me," I say, handing him the twenty dollars. "Can you break a twenty?"

"Aye," he says, handing me the pizza box, then placing my change on top.

Suddenly the shattering of glass resounds from the kitchen.

"Having a party?" The pizza guy asks with a smile.

I turn, placing the pizza box on the floor. "No," I grab my gun and release the safety. "I'm the only one here."

I creep back into my apartment turning back to the door, "You should go."

The pizza guy shakes his head, following me. "Can't leave you here alone with whoever or whatever's in there, now can I?"

"Trust me, the only one you should be worried about is yourself," I whisper, holding up my hand as he tries to respond.

I step out from behind the wall, aiming my gun into the dark kitchen as I flip the light switch.

The kitchen is empty, then a shot goes off and I spin in time to see the pizza guy's body falling to the floor, blood pooling around his head.

I dive to the side, rolling underneath the kitchen table. Desperate, I try to turn invisible, despite the pain I know it will cause, but my regulators are malfunctioning again, firmly keeping my form visible.

"Tony!" I growl. He was supposed to fix my regulators, but no, he just had to put it off.

I hear the thump of footsteps draw near, and steady my gun in my hands. Sliding out from under the table and standing in one fluid motion, I lay my finger across the trigger, firing as soon as the figure steps around the corner, wearing a black mask that covers their entire face.

The masked figure steps sideways and the bullet hits the wall.

I curse and begin to fire again, but the figure leaps forward, twisting my wrist so that I'm forced to drop the gun with a pained gasp.

Spinning toward the masked form, I stomp hard on their foot, getting no reaction other than their hand flying up to cover my nose and mouth with a white cloth. I struggle briefly, my eyesight starting to go blurry at the edges before I succumb to the drowsiness that is making it harder and harder to think clearly.

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I wake up in what I assume to be a dimly lit SHIELD interrogation room, facing a woman in a white lab coat, with a clipboard in hand.

I groggily shift in the hard metal chair, realizing that my hands are cuffed to the chair's arms.

"Bonjour, Mademoiselle Brantley," the woman says in French before switching to heavily accented English. She is about the same age as my mother, with platinum blonde hair pulled into a tight bun. She has a pale, narrow frame, so pale it is almost hard to tell where she ends and her lab coat begins. "I'm going to ask you a few questions."

I nod, seeing no reason to resist since that will just get me in more trouble with SHIELD.

"When was the last time you had contact with any of the Avengers?"

"Three or four days ago, depending on how long I've been knocked out," I reply, with a hint of resentfulness.

The woman jots this onto her clipboard, looking back at me when she finishes. "And when was the last time you had contact with the being known as Loki?"