King Loki

Chapter 35
It hadn't been the commotion that had Cephera venturing down Tony's hallway, she'd intended to see him and Pepper before she was returned to the kitchens.
She'd just turned down the hall when a guard came running passed her, almost knocking her to the floor. Confused she noticed Tony's room door slightly ajar. On days Pepper stayed with Tony she was able to leave his room at a certain hour the next day and a guard was usually waiting outside to escort her back to the kitchens. The fact the door was open early and the escort guard had run past Cephera made her start her own run toward her friends room.
Inside, Pepper was on her knees calling Tony's name with the inventor's head nestled in her lap. She was patting his face and telling him to wake up.
"Pepper!" Cephera rushed over. "What's happened?" She asked, attempting to hold back her panic.
"Cephera he tried it, he tried. I told him not to," she said shaking her head, clearly distraught.
"Tried what?" Cephera noticed Tony was burning up. Sweat was running off his face and a bloody cloth was wrapped around his right arm.
"That timekey he was playing with. I didn't think it would work. I told him it was stupid and dangerous, but he tried it anyway. For a second he seemed to disappear but then he was standing there, the key was gone and so was...," she trailed off her eyes locking onto the bloody cloth.
"Oh no," Cephera reached for the cloth and realized that from the elbow down, Tony's arm was missing.
"So this was why you were so interested in time travel." Loki growled. Cephera hadn't heard him arrive, but he was clearly there a little while listening.
Ignoring the Kings irritation, Cephera removed the cloth revealing the bloody mess. She heard Pepper suppress a gag. Cephera couldn't make a new arm grow, but she could heal the wound so she did. She felt the energy pulling from her as she did so, making her weak in the process, but with the bleeding stopped Tony would live.
"I saw it. I was younger...," he muttered his head rolling to the side.
"He's hallucinating." Loki commented. "The fool should have never played with things he doesn't understand." Loki's apathy for Tony's condition angered Cephera.
"He wouldn't have felt he needed to if our situation here wasn't so dire." She retorted unable to help herself.
"Had he been more cooperative maybe he could have been more useful to our current situation." Loki glared down at them. "Put him to bed, I'll have a medic check on him within the hour. It looks like your healing has been sufficient enough to save him. You and I will have a chat later regarding your secrets."
Cephera glared back at her lover as he stalk out. He was one to talk about secrets. How many had he held back? How many more did he have?
"Help me get him to his bed." Cephera told Pepper who was already preparing to lift her heavy partner off the floor.
XxX
Wanda watched as Strucker handled the glowing cube known as the Tesseract. His heavy gloves making it almost awkward to hold it, but he managed.
Earlier that morning their plan had been placed inti action. Pietro, with the help of Krystoff, managed to get into the vault where Loki kept the Tesseract, where it pulsed with power.
Pietro smuggled it out and no one in the tower was none the wiser. Dr. Whitehall had given word to his HYDRA men on the inside and most of the guards were no longer a concern. They waited now for the signal.
"It's damaged," one of Struckers scientists commented, looking at the cube from off to the side.
"I would seem so. It still shines with power, do you think you can still move forward with our plans?" Strucker asked.
"There is only one way to find out. By later this afternoon, hopefully I'll be able to use our technology to have the Tesseract open portals within the Spire and seize it."
Wanda looked across the room where the elaborate set up was ready to test the cube. Early on, Strucker had his smartest people working off of SHIELD's original Tesseract research to recreate the portal that allowed Loki to come to earth in the first place. At the time they hadn't been sure what they'd use it for, but now they did.
Wanda just wanted this to be over. She wanted to watch the world mend, free of the war criminals rule. The Tesseract would help with that and hopefully before Loki noticed it was missing.

Notes