A/N: Still don't own anything. Still sad that is required on every chapter...


"Wakey, wakey!"

It was the slaps to his face that got his attention, the words and their meaning a distant second.

"Ahh, welcome back, Captain!" The flash of brilliant, white teeth filled his vision and Steve was hard-pressed to figure out what he was looking at. It took a minute, but Steve's brain finally started to relay information to him - there was a man squatting down in front of him with a cheshire-cat grin and maniacal eyes. The man took up his entire vision - or at least the middle; the edges were blurred and pulsated - but he could hear others moving around. Lethargy and lack of coordination were his next sensations. Drunkenly moving his head so he could look down, he saw that he was seated with his arms and legs tied to the chair he was on, a needle dripping some kind of clear fluid constantly into his arm. He frowned at it.

A hand came into his vision and pulled his head back up so his eyes met that of the man's again. "Don't worry, Captain. We've taken special precautions to ensure that your body won't be able to metastasize the drug. You'll be as helpless as a kitten while we have... mm, well - a talk - shall we say?..." the man giggled at his words, "with your friend over there."

The man kept Steve's head propped up as he moved out of the way, revealing the crumpled form of Tony Stark. The hand left and Steve's head dropped back down to his chest, but his eyes stayed on the moving pile that was his friend.

Tony was on the ground, groaning, trying to push himself up onto his knees. He succeeded in getting onto all fours, his head resting on his right bicep, when a boot connected with his chest and sent him back on the ground; mouth open, gaping for air.

"Nooo..." Steve was only able to slur out the syllables. He wasn't even sure they were audible. "Sssstop." Steve tried to move uncooperative limbs - anything - to help his friend. The hand was back, holding his head against the high-back of the chair. Something that felt like a bandage tightened around his head.

"Now, now, Captain. Don't worry. We won't kill him," the man signaled to his comrades who took turns kicking the semi-conscious man's body, "yet." The sadistic laugh chilled Steve to the bone even in his hazy state.


Pepper Potts was frantic. She knew the man she loved would always challenge her in some way and make life miserable more often than not, but she didn't envision it would be because he was once again kidnapped! She had thought that after Afghanistan and becoming Iron Man and defeating space-invading neanderthals that the world and its crazy "super-villains" would back off. Apparently, she was wrong. And this time, poor Steve Rogers got mixed in as well. Pepper wasn't sure if she was comforted by that extra variable in this otherwise complicated equation or more frightened. Frightened that these people could not only take down Iron Man (despite Tony not being in his suit, it was still hard to catch him unaware or unprepared), but also America's Golden Boy as well.

After news of the explosion in the Lower East Side circulated the airwaves and internet, Pepper's worry over her missing boyfriend turned to blind panic as she watched a clip of him and Steve being carted into an unmarked, black sedan. With a worried Happy next to her, she knew that it wasn't one of their cars that had helped the obviously wounded men.

News channels began bombarding her phone and email immediately, asking for an update or a statement regarding their health. She had been able to hold them off so far with vague replies and 'no comments' and the like, but the longer they remained missing, the more knots that formed in her stomach.

Luckily, JARVIS had notified SHIELD for her and the search was on. Happy had been keeping her company and trying to keep her mind off her missing boyfriend as much as possible while the rest of the Avengers were called in to locate their missing teammates. All she could do now was trust that they would find him before she lost him for good.