Disclaimer: Sadly, I own nothing related to Marvel, either the comics, movies, TV shows, etc. All of that belongs to the Disney Corporation (though I might try kidnapping Captain America and Hawkeye some day, just for fun).
AN: Things are going to be a bit rough for Adena in this chapter, so be warned. Thanks for reading, and please don't forget to review.
Chapter 14: The Hands of Madness:
My first few thoughts when waking up were as follows: 'damn, am I in pain;' 'what the hell happened;' and finally, 'damn it, I've been kidnapped again!'
Of course, none of these were good things, and for the most part, I was scared out of my wits. But part of me was also angry, annoyed, and frustrated that this had happened for a third (and hopefully last) time. I was sick and tired of being the damsel-in-distress, and when Cap managed to rescue me – as I knew he would – I was going to ask Natasha and Barton to give me some self-defense lessons the minute I got back to New York.
Right now, though, I was tied to a chair, with tough ropes around my wrists, arms, legs, and upper body. Lucky for me, the ropes were soft nylon, but they'd been wrapped tightly around my appendages, almost to the point of cutting off blood flow. The chair I was sitting on was metal with metal armrests and no cushioning. My head was flopped forwards, resulting in a serious ache and cramp going up the right side of my body. I was hurting and uncomfortable everywhere, and seriously wondering what the hell was going on now.
A shot of white-hot pain going up my back and neck caused me to wince. Obviously, I couldn't stay in this position forever, and I really did want to look at my surroundings. So, slowly and carefully, I raised my aching head, my eyes trying to blink away tears as I tried to gain my bearings.
Somehow, I wasn't surprised to find that I was in a dilapidated warehouse, again. Seriously, what was it with evil-doers and abandoned warehouses? Didn't they know how dangerous these places were, since the roof could fall in at any second?
That was when I realized my mind was wandering, and that I might be suffering from some kind of concussion or head trauma. I didn't think I'd been hit by something, but I'd clearly been knocked out somehow, and the aftermath was painful.
Blinking, I had no choice but to let the resulting tears run down my face, where they dried and grew disgustingly crusty. But with my eyes clear, I was able to look at my surroundings.
Not that there was much to look at. The place was run-down, and void of any sort of furniture except the chair I was in; a small table nearby with a metal tray covered with objects I couldn't make out; and another chair across from me, which was vacant.
'Am I alone?' I wondered, eyes darting around. I very much doubted that anyone who had been watching me and Cap so closely would ever leave me alone somewhere.
"Awake I see," said a cool, calm voice behind me. "I guess the shock I gave your system wasn't strong enough."
Shock to the system? Oh, I definitely think the trauma was more than enough. Unless a different kind of shock was being implied…
I vaguely remembered feeling as though a bolt of lightning had hit me, back in my room at Tony's house. Had a taser been used on me? Just the thought of that pissed me off.
"You're lucky you didn't kill me," I managed to whisper. My words came out rough, thanks to my dry throat, but it was still loud enough to be heard.
The voice chuckled, and footsteps carried my captor directly into my line of vision. I wasn't surprised to find it was Agent Sharon Carter, though she looked very different from the other times I'd seen her. Before, when she'd been following me and Cap around and we'd managed to spot her, she'd been in civilian clothes, like dresses, shorts, skirts, and fashionable tops. She'd looked like any other gorgeous blonde in the crowd.
Now, she looked like a SHIELD Agent. She wore an outfit similar to the one Natasha had worn during Loki's attack on New York: black, skin-tight, and provocative. But rather than Natasha's curves, Agent Carter was tall and thin, like a steel sword –and easily just as deadly. Her eyes were hard and shining, like blue ice from the Arctic, and that did not mean anything good for me.
"So, Miss Philips," she said, taking the chair across from me. "One has to wonder how a girl like you managed to get a hold on a man like Captain Steve Rogers."
A girl like me? What the hell did that mean? Licking my lips, I winced as they cracked and bled. I was thirsty, too, but I doubted that Agent Carter would give me some water. 'Even if she did, I wouldn't drink it.'
"It's an annoying puzzle for me. But even though I usually enjoy puzzles, you're one that I don't like looking at," she said, stretching out long, strong legs as those eyes lingered on my aching form.
Something told me that she was just trying to get a reaction out of me, either for fun or to study and figure out the sort of person I was. Well, I wasn't going to play her game, so she'd have to settle for throwing words at me while I focused on dealing with how crappy I felt.
Heaving a sigh, I closed my eyes and took a mental inventory of what was happening with my body. Besides the cramp going up my right side, from my arm up to my neck and head, I tried to deduce if anything was broken or sprained. Nothing was in serious pain, and since I could wiggle my toes and fingers, I figured that I didn't have a broken ankle, leg, or arm, which was a good sign. My head ached, I felt drained and tired, not to mention thirsty, but other than that, I was sound and whole.
Fingers reached under my chin and gripped it, forcing me to look up. The ice in her eyes had intensified, but the tears still lingering in my eyes caused them to look shifty and a little blurry. That was okay, though –it kept me from feeling the full brunt of her glare.
"You're not paying attention to me," she angrily stated.
Blinking the last of the tears away, I leveled a glare at her that, to put it lightly, clearly said bite me.
A sneer spread across her mouth, and for a second, I thought she'd punch me. Something, however, held her back, and instead, her hand flexed, cracking knuckles rather than my face. "Nevermind. We'll carry on later, when you're a bit more…recovered."
I watched very closely as she reached back, retrieving something from the floor behind her chair. I hadn't noticed anything there before, but then, thanks to my blurry vision and forming migraine, my eyesight wasn't the best right now.
"Here," she said, offering me a small canteen. "Have a drink."
Uh-uh, no way. No matter what was in the canteen, I wasn't going to swallow a drop of it!
"You can either do it willingly, or I can make you," she said, twisting off the top and pressing the cool metal opening to my lips. "What's it going to be?"
Now, I'd seen spy movies, where they made prisoners drink stuff, so I knew that she could hold my nose shut until I gasped for air through my mouth. That was when she'd pour the water in, and I'd have to swallow or spit it out –and I very much doubted that she'd let me do the latter.
So, opening my mouth, I made sure to take tiny sips of the liquid inside. It tasted like water, and nothing else –no metallic aftertaste, or chemicals, that I could tell. My thirsty body welcomed the hydration, and soon, the canteen was empty. As she put it away, I silently hoped that she'd let me use the bathroom later –all that water had to go somewhere, after all.
"Why don't you take a little nap, and we'll talk later," she said, turning to leave.
Then I was alone, my brain struggling to work this whole situation out through the fog that my kidnapping had brought on. I was mentally and physically drained, and a nap did sound good, even in the painful position I was in.
Even though I wanted to stay awake so that I could try and work out an escape plan, my beat-up body wanted rest, and my brain agreed. And so, reluctantly, I closed my eyes and let myself doze off.
I came to when I felt the presence of two people in the room, looking at me. And once I was awake, the kink in my neck and back caused me to wince.
Slowly, I straightened my head up, to ease the pain. It didn't help entirely, but after a few seconds of rolling my head around and "popping" some of the muscles and vertebrae back into place, the kink faded to an ache and a few muscle twitches. Not perfect, but a bit more comfortable than before.
"Good evening, Miss Philips," Agent Carter greeted me.
Daring to open my eyes fully, I found that my tears were gone, and I could see clearly again. Not entirely a good thing, since there was a chilled look on her face as she looked down at me. That was when I noticed the taser on her right hip, and a gun on her left.
'Nothing good is going to come from this conversation,' I couldn't help thinking, worry and more than a little fear creeping into me.
Tearing my eyes away from her, I glanced around the room, wondering where the other person was. "Where's your friend?" I asked, my voice still hoarse, but clear enough to be understood.
She sniffed. "They're all gone. It's just you and me and the birds on the roof."
No, there was definitely someone else in the room. "I may not be a spy, but I'm not stupid," I calmly replied. "I know there's another person here. There's no way you could have taken me from Tony Stark's place on your own. So where's your partner?"
"I said they're gone!" she snapped, staking a threatening step closer. "Once you were tied up, I paid those Neanderthals and they left. Got it?"
Was she telling the truth? No, she couldn't be –I know I felt another pair of eyes focused on me. Maybe they were watching through a camera or something? But I could swear the person was here, in the room with us…
Something tickled and pulled at the back of my mind, causing my head to ache again. I closed my eyes to try and get myself together, but when I opened them again, I saw that Agent Carter looked rather strange. Chalking it up to the after effects of the taser, I chose to ignore it, and to keep my mouth shut about her accomplice.
"I know what you're trying to do," she whispered, leaning in to look me in the eye. "You're trying to confuse and distract me. I wouldn't say it's a clever move; more like a tactic our rookie agents try to use out in the field. It hardly works then, and it certainly won't work now."
Trust me, if I were trying to distract or confuse her, I'd be using completely different means to do it. But since she put the idea in my head…
"You do realize you won't get away with this, right?" I said, deciding to go cliché when it came to being kidnapped by a crazy person/agent. "I mean, some of the most powerful people in the world are going to be looking for me, and if you kill me, you'll be blasted into dust for doing it."
"Oh, I don't plan to kill you," she replied, smiling. "That'd be too easy. And like you said, your friends would hunt me to the ends of the earth and turn me into mulch if I did."
She leaned close, leveling her eyes with mine. "No, dying isn't in your immediate future, Miss Philips. However, I do have something else in mind for you."
'Please don't say torture, please don't say torture,' I silently prayed as she stepped back.
Taking a deep breath, I swallowed hard. "Why are you doing this?" I asked, watching her movements closely. "What have I done to deserve this?" I hadn't meant to say that last part out loud, but it was something I couldn't help asking, either to myself or aloud.
There was a long moment of silence, and when she answered, it wasn't what I expected. "You're here because, whether you know it or not, you don't deserve what you've got."
I couldn't help it; I stared at her, confused by what she'd said. What did she mean by that?
"I don't know what the world's superheroes see in you," she sneered. "You're just a weak, helpless, silly girl who got lucky enough to be pulled into the mess that happened in New York!"
"Oh, I wouldn't call myself lucky," I muttered. "Trust me, being abducted by aliens isn't fun."
Fingers grabbed at my hair, pulling it until tears filled my eyes again and a cry of pain burst from my mouth. "But you still got rescued, didn't you? They saved you, brought you into their group and began treating you like you belonged with them."
The grasp on my hair tightened. "I know Stark invited you and Captain Rogers to parties, dinners, and fun nights out. You spent months squirming your way into the Captain's affections, and now he's all over you."
Just when I thought she was going to rip half of my scalp off, she let go. But my head still hurt like hell, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little bit of bleeding going on.
"Things are going to change, though," Agent Carter declared. "You really aren't his type of girl, you know. He's a brave soldier who's willing to give his life for his country, and even his planet. He needs is a woman who'll stand next to him, toting a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, ready to face down evil and, if she can, help get him out alive."
She smirked. "Trust me, dear; that isn't you."
I smiled back, which seemed to surprise her. "Well, no argument from me on that one. I don't know how to fight, nor do I have the makings of a spy." Still, I had to smirk as I said, "But he still loves me."
That's when she hit me, splitting my lower lip. Flicking out my tongue, I licked some of the blood away and couldn't help but feel better, even if I'd been on the receiving end of the smack. I may have pushed it by saying Cap loved me, but I knew that he more than just "liked" me.
"Don't say that again," she whispered, turning to leave. "I'm going out for some air."
Left alone, I shifted back and forth a little on the chair, trying to get a tiny bit more comfortable. That's when something moved in my back pocket.
For a second, I thought Agent Carter had slipped some kind of torture device on me, but once my brain kicked back into gear, I remembered what was there. JT!
"JT, can you hear me?" I whispered under my breath. "I think we're alone, but I'm not sure, so don't vocalize a reply."
Instead, I got a buzz, like when a phone is set on vibrate. "Good. Now, I know Tony's going to try and locate me, so if you can get a bit of a signal out of here, send a message to let him know where I am. Can you do that?"
Another buzz, and I was sure that JT was going to be hard at work, trying to get me out of this mess. Meanwhile, I began to flex my fingers and try to figure out why the hell this was happening again. It was obvious that Agent Carter was jealous of my relationship with Cap, but she couldn't really want him for herself, could she? She didn't even know him!
'Well, if I don't get out of this soon, I'm totally screwed.' After what had happened just moments ago, I seriously doubted that Agent Carter was going to let me out of this completely unharmed. 'And I have a feeling that, if I do get out of this alive and well, she won't let me go back to Cap. She'll probably disfigure me first, then hope that Cap is so disgusted with my appearance that he'll ditch me, leaving him open to her.'
Man, why did life have to be so complicated for me? I guess I could count myself lucky that I had a boyfriend that other women wanted and envied me for, but getting abducted because of it was something I could live without.
The sound of approaching footsteps drew my attention. My captor was back. Sighing, I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair, my wrists and ankles aching from being strapped down for so long. Even though I couldn't see who was coming, I knew one was Agent Carter –there was the feeling of another person with her, but I didn't want to open my eyes and see who it was, since it might just freak me out even worse than I already was.
A foot kicked the leg of my chair, making my eyes snap open in surprise. Looking up into blue ice, I sensed the presence of another person nearby. Pulling my eyes away from hers, I glanced around, searching for the other person. However, Agent Carter was the only one in the room with me. But I could have sworn…
"Where's your partner?" I blurted out. "I know they're here; I can feel them watching!"
She opened her mouth, probably to deny it again, but I didn't let her. "I know you're here!" I yelled, pulling against my restraints. "You aren't fooling me!"
A hand met my face, causing my lip to break open again, and more blood to flow. "Shut up! There's no one but you and me, so stop yelling."
There was someone else; I knew it. But Agent Carter was adamant that there was only her, so either she was telling the truth, or there was something seriously wonky going on here. And if there was something else behind all this, I really needed to get this woman on my side if I wanted to get out of here alive.
"There is!" I insisted. "I can feel it. You should know the feeling; you're a spy, after all. It's the one where a person can't shake a feeling if someone's watching them?"
I licked the blood from my mouth, the thick liquid moistening my throat enough for me to keep talking. "Haven't you wondered how I figured out you were tracking me and Captain Rogers? I've known someone's been watching me for weeks, that's how."
She made to slap me again, but I kept talking. "Phil Coulson said you're a model agent." She paused, obviously flattered by the praise. "So how could one of Director Fury's best agents get herself found out, almost from the very beginning of her assignment? If professional spies couldn't make you out in a crowd, so how did I, a plain, unskilled girl, do it?"
My captor's eyes narrowed, but she didn't say anything. I took that as a sign to continue. "Something else is going on, Agent Carter. You have to know that! Just think about how things have been since you took this assignment on. Think about all of the rash things you've been doing. How could an agent of your skill level do something that only the most clumsy mafia goons would do?"
As I said that, I grit my teeth, waiting for another slap, but received none. Instead, I watched thoughts and emotions race across her face. While that happened, I silently prayed that I hadn't pushed the wrong buttons.
"Hey! I'm getting a signal from JT!" Tony yelled, his voice echoing around the room where he, Rogers, Phil, and a dozen SHIELD agents were holed up.
Everyone within hearing distance came running, Steve Rogers being the first one there. "Where?" he demanded, almost drilling a hole in the computer screen as he focused his gaze on it.
"Industrial district on the outskirts of San Francisco," Tony replied. "Jarvis, anything we should know about that area?"
"Nothing that I can find, sir," the artificial intelligence replied from his portable computer. "The warehouse she is in is surrounded by empty buildings, all owned by the same company."
"That's because that's how we wanted it," Phil said with a groan.
Steve looked over at him. "What do you mean, that's how you wanted it? What is that place?"
Phil looked like he was going to be sick. "That area is owned by a shell company, created by SHIELD. Agent Carter is using one of our facilities to hold Adena captive."
Tony watched as Rogers went pale. "Does that mean people have been interrogated in there?" Steve asked, his mind clearly imagining the worst.
At that question, Tony felt himself grow nauseous. "Please tell me that you haven't left any unpleasant toys lying around for your rogue agent to use on my friend."
Several agents had to restrain Steve as he tried to charge out the door in an effort to get to his girlfriend. Rushing to stop him, Phil struggled to get his attention. "No, the place is cleared out," he said loudly. He put a hand on Steve's shoulder. "Trust me; there's nothing there for her to use on Adena…unless she brought her own."
For several minutes, Steve continued to struggle against the people holding him back, but eventually, when he saw that fighting his way out wasn't an option, he managed to calm himself down. Taking a deep breath, he seemed to pull himself together as everyone watched him carefully. A few agents seemed to reach for their tasers, just in case.
"Phil, get everyone together," Steve ordered. "I'm not leaving my girlfriend out there any longer than I have to."
No one was dumb enough to argue with him on that.
AN: Thanks to everyone for reading, and please don't forget to review!