It took several tries before Pepper finally stayed awake, and even then her eyelids fought to remain closed. Her will, fuzzy as it was from whatever she'd been sprayed with, decided the battle.

Pepper looked around, searching for any clues as to where she might be. A room, not a cave - or at least a cave with finished walls and doors. No windows. Bright caged lights along the walls - stone, she thought, or maybe brick. One large door with a small barred opening, presumably locked. And - oh, God, what now? - trays of surgical tools and equipment.

Only then did Pepper focus on herself. Instead of the business suit she'd been wearing, someone had stripped her and gotten her into a hospital gown. She lay on an adjustable hospital bed, her wrists and ankles secured to it.

Too bad your training didn't cover how to fight when restrained, Steve.

Okay, that was certainly the anesthetic talking. If anyone were going to teach her about fighting while restrained, it was going to be her soulmate.

And that, too, had to be the anesthetic. Why else would she be having weird, unconnected thoughts like that? She had to concentrate, figure out how to get out of here. Then she had to figure out where here was and then find a way home.

Pepper tested the restraints. They felt solid, at least to her test. She hadn't tried yet, not with her full Extremis-enhanced strength.

But even the effort of looking around had her feeling exhausted again, and she lay back on the bed with a promise to herself of a few minutes' rest, and then a full effort to escape.

Noise at the door drew her attention, and she looked up as it opened and a man in medical scrubs came into the room, followed by an armed guard. Armed with some kind of automatic rifle, Pepper thought.

"Ms. Potts," the man in scrubs said. "My apologies for any discomfort you may be feeling, but those who brought you in were perhaps a bit overzealous in administering the anesthetic due to your … enhancements. I am glad you survived it."

His phrasing caught in Pepper's mind. "Cardona - my bodyguard. Is he -?"

"He should be fine," the man said. "He is, after all, only human."

Memory flashed - or maybe it was the drugs she'd been given? - and Pepper thought Cardona had been the one to spray her. Could that be right?

Whether it was or not, right now she had other priorities. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Nothing much," the man assured her. "But you are the only person to survive being injected with the Extremis virus. Of course you're of interest to us."

"Interest in the same way Nazis were interested in twins?"

The man looked offended. "Please, Ms. Potts. We are not nearly as barbaric as they were."

He pressed two fingers against her wrist, and the movement exposed his forearm, where a familiar tattoo rested.

"Ten Rings," Pepper said. "Are you the Mandarin?"

"Hardly." The man chuckled. "I am merely a researcher."

"Am I going to survive your research?"

"I hope so, very much."

If the circumstances were different, Pepper thought, he'd be the kind of doctor she'd want - confident and reassuring. Now, though, she took his words to mean probably not.

That just meant she'd have to escape sooner than later.

"For now," the man continued, "I merely wish to draw some blood and run some tests. Are you hungry?"

"Yes." No sense denying it, Pepper thought. She hadn't made it to Tavast for dinner, and she had no idea how long ago that was.

"After I draw your blood, I will have something sent to you." The man smiled again. "As I said, we are not barbarians."

There was no point replying to that, so Pepper lay back, letting her eyes fall closed as the man tied a tourniquet around her arm. However much or little blood he actually drew, she'd be weak afterward, at least until she ate. Conserving her strength made more sense.

She'd read somewhere - likely during those agonizing months when Tony had been missing - that a prisoner of war's first duty was to survive; his second to escape. She'd managed the first, at least so far. Now it was time to focus on the second.

#

It was almost noon by the time they arrived at the Grand Hotel. The asset chafed at the delay; Bucky understood Natalia's insistence on being dressed for the job.

"This is Europe," she'd said as he was bringing the quinjet in for landing. "Everything moves slower here than it does in the States, and more formally. The hotel staff won't even give us the time of day if we go in dressed in jeans and looking like we haven't slept in several days."

So they'd secured the quinjet and caught a couple of hours' nap. Or Natalia had, at least - Bucky lay awake, focused on the words at the base of his spine, thinking of the woman who'd spoken them to him and wishing they'd bonded that first night.

If they'd bonded, he might be able to track her through that shared awareness. But they hadn't, and it had been his decision not to. He'd thought at the time that not bonding was helping him keep her safe. Now -

No second guesses. That was the asset's pure thought. It was right in the moment, with the information we had. Now we find her and we make the sons of bitches who took her regret they were ever born.

Bucky wasn't certain whether the asset's "we" meant him and Natasha, or the two parts of his personality. In the end, he supposed it didn't matter - the result would be the same.

Then it was daylight and they were preparing for - well, for whatever it might be. They couldn't know, so they prepared for a fight.

"Once the stores open, we'll buy suits," Natasha said as they finished a breakfast of rations and bottled water. "Then we'll go to the hotel and see what we can find."

"Off the rack is good enough." Bucky let a little of the asset show in his voice.

"I don't like the delay, either," she said, apparently unperturbed by that tone. "Discretion matters, to Pepper if not to you."

"It matters." No need to explain why, that while he was mostly Bucky Barnes again, the asset would always be part of him, and most of the asset's work demanded discretion. Maybe the asset wasn't entirely a burden.

Burden or no, the asset cataloged everything and everyone they saw once they stepped into the lobby of the Grand Hotel.

Marble tile on the lobby floor would make it more difficult, though not impossible, for anyone to sneak up on them. Minimal furniture, a few pillars that looked more decorative than structural, so no cover there. A double handful of people coming and going, none of whom seemed to show much interest in them.

Still, Bucky hung back, allowed Natasha to take the lead as they approached the front desk. Like the floor, the counter and the wall behind it were covered in marble. The clerk on duty wore a gray suit, and he gave them a polite smile as they approached.

"Dobroye utro," she said, then repeated the greeting in English. "Good morning."

"Good morning," the clerk responded with only a trace of an accent to his English. "How may I assist you?"

"Would you be kind enough to call Ms. Potts' room?" Natasha gave him a smile. Bucky thought she didn't intend it to be seductive, but she was Red Room, and a hint of seduction seeped into almost everything she did.

Natasha slid a Stark Industries identification badge across the counter. "We've just landed, and she's expecting us."

"Surely, then, you know her room number?"

Natasha's smile never wavered. "We called her cell phone. It went to voice mail."

While Natasha spoke to the clerk, Bucky pulled out his cell phone. Whatever his gut might say, there was still the chance they were overreacting. He touched Pepper's number again, listened as the call went again to voice mail.

Automatically, he tapped in Cardona's number next. Once more, the call went to voice mail.

That chance that they were overreacting was approaching zero.

When he returned his full attention to Natasha, the clerk was shaking his head.

"I am sorry. I cannot reveal her room number. I can send a message to her, or have something delivered."

"Can you send someone – housekeeping staff, or security – to knock on her door, please?" Natasha asked. "Just to see if she's all right."

"Has she been ill?"

"She's recovering," Bucky said, the first time he'd spoken to the clerk. Even now, though, he stood half-turned away from the desk, surveying the lobby.

"In that case, I can ask security to check."

"Thank you." Natasha didn't look at him, instead giving every appearance of being the concerned employee. It was only half a lie.

Hotel security was going to check on Pepper. Soon, they'd know what was going on. Bucky held onto that thought, repeating it in his mind like a mantra, calming the asset who wanted to leap the counter and beat Pepper's room number out of the clerk. Or get it from the hotel computer, but that would be much less satisfying.

"Someone is on the way up right now." The clerk's statement and Natasha's acknowledgment registered in his awareness, but movement at the door drew Bucky's focus.

It wasn't unusual for someone to come into a hotel lobby. It was unusual for that person to be staggering in at noon, wearing a rumpled business suit, his head down as though holding it upright was just too much effort.

Then the man raised his head just enough to look around the lobby, and Bucky's gut clenched.

Cardona.

Cardona's gaze landed on him, and for the briefest moment, confusion showed in his expression. Then it shifted to an emotion Bucky knew very well: fear.

Bucky started toward Cardona, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor. Cardona's gaze darted right and left, but then he continued forward, staggering toward Bucky.

"Where's Pepper?" were Bucky's first words as soon as they were close enough to speak quietly.

"I don't know."

"You're her bodyguard. How can you not know?" His metallic hand was clenching at his side. If it were flesh, it would be itching to wrap itself around Cardona's throat.

"We were attacked," Cardona said. "The driver sprayed us with some kind of anesthetic. I woke up in the car, and she was gone."

"And you didn't report it?"

"I couldn't find my phone. Or hers."

"Come on," Bucky said. "We'll call the local police. You can tell them, and us, everything."

"Us?"

"Romanoff's here, too." Bucky nodded toward the desk, and Cardona went pale.

"Come on," Bucky repeated, grabbing Cardona's elbow to support him.

They were halfway across the lobby when Natasha turned away from the clerk. Even at this distance, Bucky saw her eyes narrow as she recognized Cardona.

Only the discretion that was long habit kept him from speaking until he was at the front desk. "Call the police," he told the clerk, his voice flat. "Ms. Potts has been kidnapped."