Radioactive (An Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 18: Everybody's Got A Darkside

"Yeah," I responded. "Have you seen Tony lately?"

She swallowed. "Um... Yeah, actually."

I perked up. She hadn't dismissed the question, or even left. Maybe I'd finally get some answers. "Great! Where is he?"

"No one told you?" She breathed, sounding as if she was making a statement instead of asking a question.

"Told me what?" I asked. When I didn't get an answer, I tried again, saying, "Ava, where is Tony?"

She seemed defeated. "While you were... Asleep, the Avengers went on another mission in attempt to stop Loki. Someone had sabotaged Tony's suit, and half way through the mission, it unlatched, leaving him completely vulnerable. Loki got him. We..."

Ava had kept talking, but I didn't hear her. Dia's victorious laughter in my head drowned out everything else.

Next thing I knew, Ava, Devon, Matt, Grant, and Leo were standing over me. "She's in shock," Leo whispered.

"We're getting him back," I whispered.

"What?" Devon asked, not quite hearing me.

"We're getting him back," I repeated, louder and more dangerously.

I heard a crash behind us. Turning, I realizing Jemma had bumped the table behind us and knocked a few pieces of equipment off the table. Grant visibly jumped a few feet, and his hand flew towards his holster.

"Don't scare me like that, Simmons, I nearly shot you," He breathed. I made a mental note about his ultra-alertness that made him jump.

Almost by default, I jumped up from where I was and began to help her. The year of Catholic school I had gone through was enough to make me do it almost automatically.

"Oh, Lyla, you don't have to help me," Jemma almost pleaded.

If she said anything else, I didn't notice, since I was too preoccupied with what I had picked up. It was small, only about the size of my fist, but it was flat and shiny. It was a metallicy red piece of armor, which I vaguely recognized as a piece of Iron Man. Had I been asked to guess where it belonged, I would have said it may have belonged to a piece of the leg. "What's this?" I asked suspiciously.

Jemma blanched. "It's just a piece of a prototype-"

"This is a piece to the Iron Man suit," Leo answered, taking it from me. "This would be one of the smaller pieces that would help lock the armor in place. Jemma, why do you have this?"

Jemma's expression became tight-lipped, unlike anything I had seen Jemma make before. One hand disappeared behind her back, and the other rubbed at her eye. "Leo, it's nothing, really," She pleaded with her partner.

Devon had already picked up on something else, though. "Do you where contacts?"

"What?" Leo asked.

"No, I mean Jemma. Does she need contacts?" Devon repeated.

"What? No," Jemma denied Devon's comment.

"Devon, we've kind of got bigger fish here," Grant tried to pull attention back to the piece of Iron Man's suit.

"Why would you think that?" Ava asked, lost to his point. I had turned around to face Devon, confused.

"Well, I've never needed contacts before, but I have worn colored contacts. They're pretty itchy, and I had a tendency to rub at my eyes when I wore them. Plus, I think I can see a tiny sliver of blue peeking out underneath your pupil. That doesn't really happen to someone who's not wearing contacts, does it?" Devon asked, tilting his head in an almost mocking fashion.