Intertwine

97 - She Was Never Yours

Trigger Warning

ADITI

I awoke on a cold floor, lying sideways, my cheek pressed to the ground. My hair had clearly come out of its braid and was spread all across my face like a curtain. I felt achy all over, my head hurt, and I wanted to throw up. 

"Peter?" I mumbled as I pulled myself upright and rubbed my eyes. His name was, as always, the first word out of my mouth.

I swept my hair out of my face and tried to get a hold of my surroundings. For a second I didn't really take in where I was. I was in a cage. Well, it wasn't really a cage. It was more like a box, with three of the sides made out of metal and the front wall was made out of glass. Through the glass I could see even more cells, lining the walls of the main room. In the very centre of the room, was a cell on its own, the only round one without any metal walls. Inside was Loki with his back to me, sitting cross legged on the floor. 

I thought that the horror and fear I was feeling couldn't be matched. And then I turned slowly to look to my left. And everything else fell away.

"PETER!" I screamed, running over to him. "Please, oh Jesus, Peter." He was lying on the floor, his mask off, half of his face and body a burned mess. I pulled his head onto my lap as my breathing quickened. I couldn't fix this. I'd only been able to heal Alina because I was combining our powers. I couldn't fix this! 

"SOMEBODY!" I looked out of the cell desperately, trying to find a guard or a soldier, someone, anyone. "PLEASE, HE'S DYING!" I yelled, forcing my tears back. I'd never stopped myself from crying before. I knew it wasn't productive to push emotions away, I'd seen the repercussions of it in other people, the way it knotted their threads together. But if I cried it meant it was all real. If I cried I would break down and I needed to be strong.

"It's no use kiddo." Came the voice of Tony Stark through the metal wall to my left-hand side. "Nobody's coming."

"You don't know that!" I turned away from Peter's face to look back through the glass front of my cell. "PLEASE, HE NEEDS MEDICAL ATTENTION! WE'RE PRISONERS, YOU NEED US ALIVE!" 

I frantically held my ear over his lips. A small rattling noise was coming out of him, like a quiet wheezing, but worse. I pressed my ear to his chest. His heart-beat was faint. The tears were slipping from my eyes easily now. So much for staying strong. I lifted my head up and let out a high pitched whining noise, I couldn't help it. 

"Aditi, you need to stay calm." It was Clint's voice. I located him quickly, he was a few cells over from me. 

"Don't tell me to stay calm." I rasped. "Don't you dare." My voice cracked as I looked back at Peter resting in my lap. His eyes were closed and he looked almost peaceful, apart from the horrific burns across his face. With a gentle finger I moved locks of his hair out of his face. 

"It'll be okay." I whispered to him. "You'll be okay, I promise. I'm going to make sure you're okay." I pressed a shaky kiss to his forehead. His skin was damp with sweat, and he had a raging fever. I pressed my hand to my mouth, trying to stop myself from screaming as my entire body shook with rage and grief. 

I couldn't hold it anymore. I let out an animalistic cry, the loudest noise I had ever made in my entire life, my scream ricocheting through the walls of my cell. It echoed back to me, until a chorus of my cries were filling the entire room of cells. I screamed until my throat was burning and the noise died out on my lips. He couldn't die. I didn't even know what had happened to him. I didn't even know how I had got here. All I knew was that he couldn't die. 

A banging noise made me look up. A door on the other side of the room had opened, the only door in and out of the prison-like room. The man who had dragged me out of my bed in the middle of the night entered the room. Gunn. The man who had set me on this new course of my life.