He found himself in a wide corridor, dark and dank, with the same dirty greenish color that had covered the walls in the room he woke up in, except for the occasional flicker of the broken halogen headlights every four to five seconds. He hesitated for a moment, it felt as if his legs just didn't want to move. He leant against the wall next to the door, panting even though he hadn't moved much. It was as if his heart was beating violently in his chest but when he checked, his pulse was calm. Of course it was calm, he was trained for situations like those.
The hallway was empty except for the halogen lights on the ceiling every few meters. Once every 30 meters or so, there was a door, placed deep into the concrete. When he got closer, he realized that those also didn't have a handle on them, just like the door to the room he was in. He tried some of them but they didn't open. Half-heartedly, he moved forward. Why was there nobody around? Where had everybody gone? When he had come to this facility, he had been amazed at the size and open layout of the complex but he had never seen any of those endless passageways.
He knew he needed to move on. Something had happened and he had absolutely no idea. He didn't know if he was in danger, he didn't know if there were people in need. He had been totally oblivious to what was going on around him during cryosleep and woken up to utter silence and complete absence of people. There was no trace of anything living anywhere around him, and that bothered the hell out of him.
Suddenly, an icy shiver ran down his spine. What if he wasn't in the facility anymore? He knew that he had been moved while inside the cryotube, it was more than obvious, but until now he hadn't even thought about the fact that he might just be in a totally different – and unknown – place. He needed to get out of here and find his bearings.
Where had everybody gone? As far as he knew, he was not where he was supposed to be. But still, the many people he had seen when he had come in couldn't just have vanished. This had been a working facility, according to T'Challa they were processing most of the country's vibranium resources here. But right now, it didn't look like anything was being processed here. This was a dead place. He knew a dead place when he saw one, he had lived in several of those for quite some time before he was caught by the Avengers.
He finally realized that he couldn't possibly be in that same facility where he had been put under. Steve would have found out, and he didn't take T'Challa for a man who would not be true to his word. And even if he was such a man, Steve would not have let him. That was just who Steve was.
Ever so slowly, he crept through the dimly lit and seemingly endless corridors, turning left and turning right. But there was no exit. With his back against the wall, almost tiptoeing as he went, he tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. Now, with his left arm gone, he felt that the just couldn't go about dangerous business as usual. He still had all his skills, but he was very aware that his strength was gone.
Again, he tried a couple of doors while moving – faster and faster all the time - further down the corridor which seemed to be going on forever. He glanced backwards from time to time just to make sure that he didn't miss anything. But there was nothing, just the greenish walls and the doors with the bad paint job.
Now he came to a sharp turn. The flickering of the lights was much heavier here as if the wiring was somehow on a slight but constant overload. He slowed down and once again, pressed himself against the wall, listening intently with his eyes closed. But there was no sound at all, just the hard and loud beating of his heart. It beat too hard that he thought it would break out of his chest. Consciously concentrating on breathing in and out, he tried to still his heart but it was harder than he thought.
Right after this turn, there was an intersection, where each of the corridors had two doors right before the end of each wall. He tried the one on his side – locked – and then slowly reached around the corner to try the one closest to him to his right. Suddenly, a sharp pain flamed up in the palm of his hand as he pulled it back hurriedly whilst flattening himself against the wall. There was a cut right in the middle of his palm, oozing blood. It stung and burnt but didn't appear to be too deep. He clenched his hand into a fist until his knuckles turned white. What had happened? He inched forward again, back still pressed hard against the wall, slowly peering around the corner to find out what had cut him.
It was darker in that corridor but the flickering lights from the one he had come from extended enough to reflect on the shards of metal sticking from the door handle where he had cut his hand. There was some blood handing on the sharp tips and pooling in the craters. He stared at it intently. It looked like somebody had fired a shot at it…trying to get in maybe? A stray shot maybe? But…it was too perfectly positioned to be a stray bullet, from how it looked it seemed to be a close range shot right in the middle.
Carefully, to not cut himself again, he took the blasted knob between two fingers and turned it. Miraculously, this door popped open.
