AN: Again, thank you for all the reviews and support. I really appreciate it. For this chapter, I will be honest I had a hard time trying to come up with a good threat, but I hope it makes sense. The story gets better. Thank you for reading!
Chapter Seven
The room was cold. Still tied to the chair, Pepper shivered through both her pain and anger for being stuck in this situation. She could feel the streak of tears dried on her cheek. This was not how she thought the result of breaking up with Tony would end up. Now she regretted the whole thing. She needed him now.
Pepper looked around the room to see if there were any means of escape. She knew she was being recorded at one point in time, she just couldn't find the camera. Looking around some more, she realized that Hammer could possibly be watching her right now. Pepper knew it was hopeless to even consider trying to escape. So she closed her eyes.
However, she only had her eyes closed for a few seconds before she heard the metal door clang open. Opening her eyes, she saw Hammer and another man walk in.
"Alright princess, we're moving you to a different room." Hammer told her and ordered the other man to untie her from the chair. As the man was loosing up the knots around her wrist, Pepper considered the amount of time she could try and escape from the room. Although she figured her odds were low.
"Where are you taking me now?" Pepper asked as the other man picked her up and placed her on her feet, then proceeded to wrap handcuffs around her already bruised wrists.
"Oh you'll see," Hammer had a sadistic smile on his face. "Now march."
Pepper did what she was told. The man took Pepper's arm and forcefully pulled her out of the room she was currently in and walked her to the new destination. With Hammer trailing behind them, Pepper tried to hardest to discreetly look to see where she was.
The building was dark and damp. Pepper couldn't exactly see anything of value, but she also felt light-headed from a lack of food and water. The man eventually dragged her to a pitch black room. It was so dark in the room, Pepper's eyes wouldn't adjust. It wasn't until Hammer switched the light on that she knew this wouldn't end well. Pepper could see some type of HAMMER TECH contraption that looked like a pure torture chamber, including it's own restraints.
"Come on Potts darling, I have a present for you." Hammer looked at her and signaled to the man. Pepper could feel him pull her closer to the machine.
"Hammer, what is this? What do you plan to do with me?" Pepper practically pleaded.
He came up close to her as she was being strapped into the contraption. "Oh, the whole world is about to see what Justin Hammer has in store."
Natasha had picked him up in record time. She and Tony had made it back shortly after Coulson initially called. The two walked into headquarters and went directly back into the room they had been in only hours ago.
"Coulson, what's going on?" Tony asked, looking at the agent.
"We just got another link to a video feed," He said and pointed to the visualizer screen. "We think it's going to be a live feed because it's been stuck on this image for the last ten minutes."
Tony looked up at the screen and saw the logo for HAMMER TECH frozen on the screen. "Does anyone know where this is being transmitted?" He asked.
"No, we can't tell if this is a private link, or if the world can see it." An agent told him.
"We're working on tracing the signal," another spoke up. "Hopefully it'll work better once the actual feed is working."
"If you want, I can hook up JARVIS and see if he'll find the signal," Tony suggested, but everyone disregarded him. Looking around, Tony couldn't find Steve, Clint, or Fury anywhere in sight.
"If you're looking for the others, you can come with me." Natasha told him and headed up a set of stairs. Tony followed and quickly noticed the others looking through Hammer's files on the computer.
"Stark, it's good to see you again, feeling better?" Fury asked. Tony knew that was Fury's sense of humor kicking in, but it still wasn't welcome.
However, Tony couldn't reply. There was commotion coming from below. Looking over the rails, the agents were struggling to start tracing the video feed.
"Sir, the feed is live," an agent called from below. Tony and the others ran down the stairs to see what the commotion was about. They had gotten down just in time to see Hammer's face appear on the screen.
"Turn it up," Fury ordered just in time.
"Thought you had me locked up good," Hammer spoke into the camera. "Well Fury, looks like you were wrong this time."
Everyone watched as the camera panned out and created a long shot view of Hammer in a lab of some sort.
"Well, I have some great news for you all. While I was locked up in prison and everyone thought all my weapons had been confiscated, I had some men working for me undercover to help me with my latest invention," Hammer walked out of the frame and it was black for a split second. Lights then came up and revealed to them what Hammer had been talking about.
Tony watched what happened frame by frame. He and everyone else saw this contraption that Hammer had built and saw the one person in real danger. Pepper was being restrained against her will while strapped into whatever sick machine this was. Tony noticed that she was completely immobile.
"I thought you'd like to have a look at my newest contraption. I like to call it, Redemption." Hammer said and pushed a button. The machine turned on and started steaming. Pepper looked around, trying to determine what was happening. She couldn't tell what exactly this machine did, until she noticed a giant weapon in her face. Tony and the others watched as this machine terrorized Pepper.
"Alright, switch it off," Hammer yelled and looked at his creation. The machine powered off and Pepper struggled to move around in the restraints. She was in tears and she was scared. Hammer looked back at the camera.
"Like it? I designed it myself." The machine moved itself back to normal. "Redemption is my new project, and I can't wait to show the world what it can really do." Hammer looked away from the camera for a second. "Hey, get a sample from her, will you." He told his assistant.
Another man came into the frame. He was holding a syringe and went straight for Pepper. Tony could tell she was resisting, but the man grabbed her arm and stuck the needle in. Pepper stifled her scream, but they knew she was in agony.
"Now, I hope I have your attention," Hammer looked back into the camera. "Because if you don't give me what I want soon," He paused and turned to look back at Pepper. "Well, I just know how important she is to you." He laughed and walked out of the frame.
Pepper looked as if she was going into shock, her body was still immobilized while strapped to the machine. She opened her mouth to say something, but the screen went black before anything happened.
Everyone stood in shock for a few minutes, before Steve opened his mouth.
"What does Hammer exactly plan to do with that machine?" He asked and looked at Director Fury.
"It sure doesn't look like much to me," Clint opened his mouth. The others looked at him.
"That machine can definitely cause some damage," Tony said. The attention was averted from Clint. "Hammer isn't going to show us everything the machine can do yet. He's trying to taunt me into coming because of Pepper." Tony looked at the others.
"Tony's right, I've seen what Hammer can do, and it might not be that good, but it can definitely do some damage." Natasha said.
Fury stared at his agents. He wasn't going to say anything because he knew they were on the right track to coming up with the solution.
"Sir, there's a hit on a possible location," Coulson spoke up. "There's a forty-three percent match coming from a tower right before the border near the Baja California peninsula,"
Everyone looked at Fury. "Well, it sounds like there's a road trip in your future." He said and looked at his agents. "Pack a bag, you're headed to the Baja peninsula."
