The afternoon progressed much as expected. All the traditional high points being hit. Rinn had her dance with her brother, danced several times with her Gramps and even dragged me out to stiffly muddle my way about the parquet that had been set down. Slow songs where I wouldn't risk stepping on her toes too much. I still hadn't learned how to dance, on purpose at this point, and Rinn knew it, knew why and made sure not to even hint that I do otherwise.
Foolish perhaps given the reason had passed on, but I couldn't seem to move beyond it. Rinn was kind enough to allow me to honor the woman I loved the only way I could figure out how to. So I shuffled, while she twirled, the red dress flaring out much to the delight of some of less than fully committed men and the chagrin of the women with them.
Rinn looked lovely indeed, but made it quite clear through every action that she had no interest in anyone else, and given she had no interest in me, I had to wonder if she would ever allow herself to fall for anyone. Being willing to have a romp or three with someone definitely not the same as falling in love. I tried to not judge her, understanding her reasoning as much as someone out of step with the current mores and morals could.
Her life, her choices.
I just wanted her to be happy and most days she seemed content enough, but on others I could see her need for more, a need she denied to herself.
She spent a fair portion of her time healing the broken hearts and minds of her friends that I realized she possibly spent none on healing her own.
When she spun back into my arms I dipped her, more carefully than the last time where she'd damn near ended up on her ass on the floor due to my unexpected clumsiness.
She looked up at me, the laugh fading at the serious look I must have had on my face. "Hey, what's wrong?"
I got her upright and her hand came up to rest against my cheek. "Nothing that can be fixed here." I glanced over the room, noting the death stares from her mother and other siblings, who had clearly chosen to continue being assholes, blaming me for breaking up the family and for being here. I doubted it would have been any better for Rinn had she come with anyone else, including some of the Wakandans, but it might have been easier. Might have permitted them to back down if only for the day and pretend they hadn't ripped a part of their life off in an effort to make a point.
Proving, I guess, exactly where she got her stubbornness from.
I wanted her happy. She would never be happy without her family. So, I decided that I would fix that… somehow.
"You sure?" She tipped her head, watching me with narrowed eyes.
"Very. Food? Drink? More horrible dancing?"
"The first two, methinks." She twined our fingers together and led the way through the other dancers and back to the table where her Gramps had been watching the festivities with a fond smile on his face.
"You two are putting the rest to shame out there and you're not even a couple."
"Oh we're a couple all right," Rinn snarked.
"A couple of whats, is the question," I finished, chuckling softly as I sat down.
Rinn picked up her clutch and patted me on the shoulder. "I'll be right back."
I moved to stand and she looked at me oddly.
"I don't need an escort to the ladies room."
I opened my mouth to argue, but closed it with a snap. Wasn't the first time she'd taken a pee break and on none of the other occassions had I felt the need to tag along. Why this time did I feel an odd sense of dread deep in my gut if she were to be left alone for more than a few seconds. I looked over the room and saw nothing odd until I locked eyes with her brother, the groom, who sat stiffly while his new bride smiled and chatted with the maid of honor who sat next to her.
"Steve?"
"No, you're right, sorry."
She gave me a confused smile, not about to complain at me doing my job no matter that she should be reasonably safe here in the haven of family and friends. Except that much of her family could be seen as potential enemies, which I hadn't overly considered until this moment. When discussing this trip with the rest of my team all had agreed that it would be comparatively safe.
Who would try something at a wedding?
Which made it a potentially perfect venue.
Geoffrey shot me an odd look. "Why does he look like he just went on alert?"
Rinn leaned over to kiss her great-grandfather on the cheek, mostly diffusing his concern with that move alone. " 'Cause, Gramps, he's also my bodyguard." Before the man could make a comment on that bombshell she escaped, heading for the main doors.
The public restrooms less than twenty feet away down a side hall. At full speed it would take me less than ten seconds to get there. She had her phone and a tracker worked into the cartilage piercing she had through the upper part of her left ear. The nanobots in her just loved when she decided on a new piercing, but she liked the jewelry she could wear with each new addition.
Then her Gramps cleared his throat. "Bodyguard?"
I nodded, not certain how much the man knew or how much I should tell. Didn't want to give the man a heart attack with worry over his great-grandchild. "There have been some… incidents the last few months. She doesn't travel anywhere without at least one of us nearby." Except when visiting Tony, but Geoff didn't need to know that.
"This TJ still causing trouble?"
Well that informed me she'd talked to her Gramps about some of her recent problems. "We don't know with any certainty." That was the truth and still fucking annoying. We still hadn't been able to confirm who his real employers were, the connections tenuous at best and buried at worst. Someone with power and willing to expend it on acquiring Rinn by any means necessary.
And eliminate, in an exceedingly final manner, those that failed them.
He snorted. "That's a yes. Slippery little eel of a man. He's put Rinn through enough. I have some contacts, I could possibly arrange for him to be permanently removed from the playing field."
Did her… Did he just offer to hire a hitman to deal with TJ? That there told me how much this man cared for Rinn. If he would risk his freedom to take care of a problem for her in this fashion…
"I'd do it myself, but my eyesight ain't quite good enough anymore."
I laughed. "Actually I do know this rather exceptional assassin… Two in fact. So while I appreciate the offer I would rather he lead us back to the ones actually calling the shots. The devil you know and all that."
Geoff got this serious look on his face and nodded solemnly. "Understood Captain." He all but saluted me. "The offer stands if you'd prefer not to sully your hands with the task."
Christ. Why did the rest of her family not back her this way? Together they would be a god damned force of nature. "Thank you," I told him with all due sincerity. "Why didn't you join in on the disowning thing?"
He growled softly, clearly not happy with the rest of the family for abandoning Rinn. "If her father were still alive…" He shook his head a mixture of sadness, disappointment, and anger on his face. "I have nothing the government can take away from me. Yeah, I have my pension and medical bills and such, but I know Laurin would cover every bit of it without my even needing to ask should it become an issue." He waved over at the bridal table, Rinn's mother, who sat across from us, the dance floor a wide no man's land between the family members. "I'm supposed to be at that table, but since I knew they would not permit Rinn to sit with them, I chose to sit alone. Family is supposed to stand by you, thick or thin, they've forgotten that."
"Blood is thicker than water?" I questioned.
He shook his head. "Blood ain't got nothing to do with it. Family is family, related or not." He cocked his head in a way that was eerily reminiscent of Rinn. "You know that's why she stood by you and yours, right?"
I shook my head. "I hadn't seen in her months before this mess."
He stared at me, eyes oddly captivating, and, I suddenly realized, the same shade of green as Rinn's. "Don't matter. She was always there for you, wasn't she? Picked up whenever you called? Answered your questions?"
"Yes," I agreed as the reality sank in. She had always answered, whether a call or text or email, and I had clearly failed to appreciate the why of it. We hadn't seen each other mostly due to my being concerned she'd get dragged back into SHIELD, or after, the Avengers, which she had point blank stated she did not want to be a part of in any capacity.
And yet… yet she had still come to our aid when asked and without question. She made certain to keep solid ties with Tony and SHIELD and the Avengers no matter what else she did in her life. And she could have easily faded into our memories and history. Instead she stayed on the fringes, there in the background even if never actually there with us. "And now she's given us a home."
"And a sense of purpose, I imagine. She has an insatiable need to help those closest to her. She came to you because you needed her." He sipped at his drink, he'd switched to iced tea a while ago, though half the bottle of scotch remained.
"She needed me too." I hadn't recognized it at first, but over the months, with her regular visits to Wakanda since the Accords, I began to see that she needed us as well. That she needed me in her life, and that was pretty damn amazing.
"Yes, she does. And apparently Sgt. Barnes. Which is funny as hell given he's my age."
I snickered softly. He had a point, but I had a suspicion that her ability to understand me and Bucky had more to do with the man sitting beside me than her innate ability to see people as they are. "How much time did you spend with her when she was sick?"
He smiled brilliantly. "A lot. Told her every story she would listen to, helped her tweak those games of hers, encouraged her to keep fighting when she no longer wanted to, and by some miracle she came out the other side."
"That's why The Darkside battle scenes are so vivid." I had always wondered how she'd managed the emotional component to the story lines. She had someone who had been there in person.
Geoff shrugged. "It was a distraction for her."
"Which she needed at the time." Having dealt with her going through a relapse I could just barely imagine how difficult it had been for this man watching his grandchild wither away, trapped in her own body and having a full understanding of what was happening to her.
"You have no idea." He glanced at his watch, a frown creasing his brow. "She's been gone a while."
My internal clock said she'd been gone about twenty minutes, twice the time it had taken on her previous trips. I pulled out my phone and checked for a text, as she could have run into someone and stopped for a chat. If so she would have let me know, but there was nothing. I shot off a quick text; my worry upping a notch, but not overly concerned yet.
Geoff shot me a quizzical look.
"Five minutes. Rinn gets cranky when I assume the worst first."
He snorted. "Sounds about right. You worry about her a lot I take it?"
"Oh hell no. She'd hurt me. Laurin can take care of herself. I don't let her spar with Bucky to boost her ego."
His snow white eyebrows rose at that. "She can keep up with super soldiers?"
I nodded. "Not at full power, of course, and we make her pull her punches with the trainees, but she's damn good and fast as hell."
He just looked at me in amazement. "Not much slows her down these days."
"Not really. Works seven days a week on one project or another, plus conferences and other events, meetings with prospective clients, maintenance for existing clients. She has a staff, but takes on the lion's share of the work. I swear she never sleeps."
"Always pushing forward that one. Too much in her mind trying to get out. Would be nice if there was someone out there to ground her once in awhile." He gave me a wistful smile, still hoping to add me to the family tree, which wouldn't happen, but who was I to disappoint the veteran seated next to me.
I would be there for her, as much as she would permit me anyway, but our relationship would never be more than it was now. And that was fine with me. I hadn't expected her to show up in Wakanda, but had no reason a regret a single moment after. Even if it had been a tad complicated on some days.
She'd given us a purpose and a home and there was no way I could ever repay her for any of that. And then she'd saved Bucky. He had his bad days, those when the memories of what he had done outweighed the good ones, the times he'd been a hero or a friend. He still spent time alone, possibly too much of it, but he no longer had to be forced to interact with the rest of the team. And he'd turned out to be one hell of a teacher; he had a lot more than just how to kill in his head and he had just begun to explore the depths of what his own mind contained.
I looked down at my phone. Still no response from Rinn. The worry had become official. I picked up the phone and stood. "I'm going to see if I can find her."
Geoff nodded, look solemn. "Let me know if I can help?"
"She probably just got distracted and hasn't checked her phone."
"You don't believe that any more than I do."
I had no response that wouldn't be an utter lie. I had the horrible feeling Rinn had fallen down the rabbit hole and not even the Alice could save her. I left the ballroom and went straight to the restrooms and there I froze. I needed to get inside, but couldn't bring myself to just barge in. A couple of women came out as I stood there waffling, both dressed up so I made the presumption they were from the wedding. "Any chance you saw Laurin in there?" I asked, getting wide eyes and confused smiles.
"No, sorry. Haven't seen her since you two were on the dance floor." The brunette giggled and blushed.
"Anyone else in there?" I waved at the ladies room door.
They both shook their heads and wandered off, giggling and talking to each other in hushed tones. I pushed open the door and stepped inside to find a rather luxurious bathroom including a vanity area for the women to pretend to fix their makeup and hair, but far more likely to talk about the men-folk they were hiding from.
"Laurin?"
I got nothing but my voice echoing off the tiles. I stepped back out into the hall, pulled out the cell and started the program that would track her phone. The app started fine, but it refused to connect, the signal unable to find anything. Even if she were out of range it would let me know exactly that, instead there was nothing and that was extraordinarily suspicious.
So I started another app that would check for unusual signals in the area and got an immediate hit on a jammer, one that would effectively keep cell phones from sending anything, both wifi and LTE of any stripe offline, and it was not the resort doing it to push their own pay for wifi, even that had been blocked. The entire area taken off the grid, a giant black hole for any signal. Only a private channel outside the excised frequencies would stand a chance of working.
"Shit." I scrolled through a few screens and gained access to the blocking signal and, with the simple tap of an icon shut it down. Instantly, my phone began to vibrate in my hand and I could hear dozens of others go off as well, all the data and calls and texts that had been trying to get through, but had been dammed behind the jamming signal, arriving in a flood of noise and vibration.
I called Rinn's phone and mere seconds later heard my ringtone for her phone, that USO song, from inside the bathroom. I charged back in, tracking the sound to find her clutch stuffed into the garbage can, paper towels heaped atop it. A frisson of fear sizzled down my spine. I tucked her bag under my arm and went to the tracking chip app. It took a moment to zoom in and it placed the device exactly where I stood. With despair knocking at a closed door in my mind I dug deeper into the trash and found the industrial, blood on it from them simply ripping it from her ear.
"Son of a bitch," I snarled, tucking the earring into my pocket, quickly searched the rest of the room, and found subtle signs of a struggle in a door that had been knocked out of alignment and a cloth on the floor that had been kicked under a chair in the sitting area. I gave it a sniff and recognized chloroform instantly.
It wouldn't put her down for long, if at all, which meant they would have mere seconds at most to hustle her from the building unnoticed. I stepped back out into the hall, bringing up the layout of the resort in my mind. There was a delivery entrance not far from here that would be the place to start. The employees only door required a key card so I simply shoved into it with my shoulder, easily forcing it open. Back here the decorating style far more utilitarian, as expected. I ignored the employees I saw and that gave me odd looks, but didn't try to stop me. Two turns and the hall doubled in size, as did the doors at the end of it. I pushed through them, noting that the locks had been broken and recently at that. A loading dock, between this ballroom and the next one over. There wasn't much to see, not even dumpsters, just some empty boxes, most from the liquor brought in for the reception based on the names I read on the sides of them. One pile had been knocked over, the only obvious sign of… anything frankly, the ground older asphalt that retained nothing except maybe the heat of a vehicle if I had gotten here faster.
So I walked to the tipped over boxes and began picking them up, under the third I found a shoe. Her shoe. The dark blue of the heel nearly black in color. When I touched it my hands came away red, the blood not quite dry yet, nor frozen, which meant it had not been here for all that long. I'd missed them by minutes.
And she'd done her share of damage, injuring at least one of her captors before being stolen away.
Shoe in hand I stalked back to the ballroom, intending to talk to the one person who had been acting oddly since our arrival.
I strode in, Rinn's belongings in my hands, heading straight for the wedding party table. Lucas spotted me and went dead white. He leaned over to his new bride and whispered something in her ear, probably excusing himself, before rising and walking quickly away, heading for a side door the resort staff had been using.
I followed, not about to let him get away.
Once in the back hall I broke into a run and caught up with him far faster than he had been expecting. He yelped and flattened himself to the wall, hands up in surrender. "What did you do?" I growled.
"I didn't have a choice," he said at a harsh whisper.
"Didn't have a choice with what, son?"
My head snapped about to see Geoffrey standing a dozen feet away, a frown on his face. "You shouldn't be here." Last thing I wanted was for this man to see me beat the crap out of his grandson over Rinn.
"Neither should you, but you seem to think he has done something." He waved at Lucas. "And it appears you are not wrong."
"Gramps," Lucas whined, looking to his relative for any hope of succor.
There was none to be had. "Talk."
Lucas shook his head, eyes going wide in fear.
I tucked Rinn's clutch under my arm, grasped the lapels of Lucas's jacket in one hand and lifted him off the floor with ease. He squeaked, shocked at being lifted so simply. Clearly he had forgotten exactly what I was.
Plus, I was more than a touch motivated.
"They threatened everyone. Said they'd kill them," he squalled, finally realizing I would not be swayed into letting him go with pleas.
"Who? Who threatened you?"
"I don't know," he shouted. "I got a burner phone delivered to me via courier and he used a voice changer. I don't even know if it was a he. Told me to get Laurin to the wedding by any means."
"How do you know they weren't bluffing?" Geoff questioned, not having even commented on my holding the man well over a foot off the ground.
"Sara was in a car accident a few weeks ago. Just bumps and bruises mostly, but it was them. Proving they could get to any of us." He hung in there limply, not fighting my grip, the guilt obviously eating at him. "I. Had. No. Choice."
"Of course you did," I snarled. "You could have warned her."
He shook his head violently. "They would have known."
"You could have warned me," I hissed, angry as I had ever been in recent memory. Nomad Security's number wasn't exactly in the book, but it also wasn't all that hard to get into contact with us. We had a Facebook page after all, though the nerd in charge of it took all due care with what got posted there. It was little more than a way to get into contact with the company and general information of what we would do.
"I couldn't risk it. They would have picked off the entire family one at a time." His tone had turned pleading, trying to convince me to understand that his betrayal was justified and ease his conscience. "If… if Rinn knew she would agree with me."
I growled deep in my chest, Lucas managing to go even paler somehow.
Geoff set a hand on my arm and I snapped my head about, my look surely hard. "He's right. Rinn would not have allowed anyone in the family to come to any harm."
"I know." And I did. "But then it would have been her choice, not this." I dropped Lucas, his knees taking longer than expected to do their jobs and he damn near crumbled to the floor before finding the backbone to stand and face me. I shoved the shoe into his hands, the blood smearing on his palms and making him gasp in reaction. "She fought back. You could have done the same."
The shoe fell from his nerveless grip and I picked it up, not about to let the one bit of evidence I had go unexplored. "I want that burner phone."
He shook his head. "I destroyed it." At my glare he added, "They told me to," he argued, now getting defensive.
I shook my head, feeling sorry for the man. "She came here hoping to begin a reconciliation, I doubt she'll want any part of you after this." I turned and began walking away.
Geoff looked ready to spit nails, though because of me or his grandson I had no idea. "You could have come to me, boy. I'm old, not dead. You had best pray that she is found unharmed or I'll personally take it out of your hide."
"What are you going to do?" Lucas asked, voice shaking on the words, though in anger or fear I could not be certain.
I paused and looked back over my shoulder at him standing there appearing to have found his spine somewhere in the last few minutes. "Find her, what else."
He gave me a sickly smile. "As soon as they took her they made an anonymous call to report you being here. You should be locked up within the hour."
His words told me two things: he'd been in contact with the kidnappers as recently as today and that he didn't want me anywhere near his sister. Falling in line with the majority of the family who had chosen to separate their lives from hers.
Fools.
I laughed at him. Harsh and bitter, but a laugh nonetheless.
"You really think they'll be able to hold him?" Geoff shook his head, clearly upset at this unexpected turn of events. "He broke into the Raft on his own. He'll get out of here and find Rinn." He turned to me. "Go. I'll take care of this one. Should I call the police?"
About Rinn of course. Had to admit I considered it, but when Lucas flinched I suspected he'd been given the whole 'if the police get involved' speech from the bad guys. "No, we'll handle it. Probably best to keep it quiet for now. To protect the family."
Geoff nodded. "Good hunting, Captain Rogers."
I gave him a nod and took off towards the nearest exit, tapping the comms device behind my ear. "Sam, Bucky you there?"
"Where the hell have you been, Cap? You went radio silent hours ago," Sam covered the worry in his voice the best he could, but I still heard it.
"I'll need a pick up ASAP. Should be incoming any minute."
"Someone ratted you out?" Bucky asked. In the background I could hear the engines revving up. Rinn had put them up in a nearby hotel, one quick quinjet hop away. We'd wanted backup just in case and I hated that it had turned out to be necessary. I wouldn't even have time to go back to the room and collect our belongings. Luckily, we'd prepared to cut and run if necessary and would lose no more than clothes and toiletries. I had our phones and she had intentionally left her laptop in the quinjet.
Wanting to pretend to be a real girl for a few hours.
Look what that had gotten her.
"That too. I took the jammers down not long ago." I headed for the grassy area behind the resort, the snow dampening the hem of my suit pants.
"Jammers?" Sam squawked. "What the hell happened in there?"
I sucked in a deep breath and told them the truth. "Rinn's been kidnapped."
"Shit," Bucky muttered under his breath. "Who?"
"Not a clue. Professionals that much I can say with certainty. I'll tell you all I know when in the 'jet. ETA?" I could hear that distinctive throbbing beat in the distance that signalled the arrival of at least one helicopter. Little chance it was a local aerial tour, those had a different sound to them. Might also be a couple quinjets, SHIELD or ATCU most likely. It would depend on who had a team nearby.
"Two minutes," Bucky informed me in a brusque tone. I suspected he was upset about the news, but focusing on doing the job. I could only imagine the mess he would have been if the programming hadn't been removed. He had control of those emotions now and that would be needed to find her quickly. "I'm going to hunt down and gut TJ," he growled, probably meaning it, and I had to agree it would be a good place to start.
"Can we interrogate him first?" I requested, the dusk settling in, the sky a brilliant orange off to the west and stars beginning to flicker in the east. Two of them moving uncharacteristically through the gloaming.
The choppers.
"Pain then talk… maybe." Bucky, or the Winter Soldier rather, had probably been damn good at dishing out the pain as well as taking it.
"Have to agree with Mr. Angry over here. TJ is the only one who we know has tried anything recently. I'll radio home and see if Wanda can find where he is right now."
"It's a place to start, anyway." I had the feeling TJ would have gone to ground and completely divorced himself from the dirty work this time around given his failures on the previous attempts. Rinn's utter contempt for the man ultimately made him useless for close contact endeavors. Feeding others intel on her, however... Given he knew her intimately, he could have some limited insight into how she would react in any given situation.
The quinjet arrived in a swirl of snow and wind. Settling down on the ground a few yards away, rear hatch lowering to allow me in.
"Steve Rogers, put your hands in the air and get on your knees." The bullhorn call came from my right. A half dozen men in full riot gear stood with weapons aimed at me.
I ignored them and walked to the quinjet.
"Rogers," the man barked, "we will open fire."
I stepped onto the ramp. "Go for it," I muttered, not caring what they wanted. As the ramp began to lift I heard the order to open fire.
"Way to make an entrance," Sam commented as the bullets pinged off the exterior of the quinjet. They wouldn't do any real damage, the armour completely resistant to normal gunfire, but we would need to repaint… again.
I settled into a seat, placing Rinn's items in the one next to me, and rubbed a hand over my face. "Fuck."
I felt the quinjet lift into the air. "I'm going full stealth, might as well keep them from wasting bullets." Bucky flipped the switches in question and Rinn's most recent upgrade made the quinjet fade from visible sight. They would not be able to see or track us.
The choppers appeared then, not regular SWAT or tactical ones either, but full battle helos, prepared to hit me with, miniguns, it looked like. Could have been worse, I supposed, could have been an ATCU strike team with full amber equipment. We'd pretty much determined that would slow me down quite effectively.
Not that getting shot felt too good, either. Especially when I wasn't wearing body armour. I might look good in a suit, but it wasn't bulletproof by any stretch of the imagination.
The quinjet dipped and swayed in the wash of the choppers, but once they had passed us Bucky punched the engines and we shot forward, putting as much distance between us and the tactical team sent to ostensibly arrest me.
Given how quick they'd been to fire, I had to wonder if their actual orders had been a bit more deadly in intent.
Buck spun his seat about. "What the hell happened?"
Sam shifted about as well, all eyes on me for a second before flicking to the few items I'd been able to retrieve.
"Is that blood?" Sam asked, gesturing at the shoe.
I nodded. "Not hers, I think. They tried chloroform, but I'm betting she came to quickly, if she went down at all."
"She fought back." Bucky stated, face a blank slate, reserving judgement and holding back those emotions that would be of little use at the moment.
"Looks that way," I agreed. I pulled out my phone, not having looked at it since discovering her cell in the trash only to find a half dozen messages from her. I remembered my phone receiving them once I taken the jammer down, but hadn't taken the time to look at them.
I skimmed the texts, which told the tale of her realizing she'd been forced into a corner and trying to warn me. Not ask for help. Just warn me. As if more concerned they would use her to get to me. It would be effective I had to admit, no matter how she protested that I shouldn't. Now way I would permit her to be harmed in my stead.
And in that instant I got why Lucas had done as he had. Who do you protect? Those who can't defend themselves or the single individual who could?
The family included babies and young children that would be easy to get to. Rinn would have walked into the starving lion's den, facing down their hunger and desperation with her chin high if there were the slightest hope she would save everyone else.
We were far more alike than either of us would willingly admit.
Then I noticed the video message.
I hit play and cranked the volume on the tiny speaker. The camera had a horrible angle, possibly having been set on a counter leaning against something to grant it partial view of the sitting area in the ladies room. I caught an arm and flash of red - Rinn's dress - then two men, based on build since their faces were covered, only eye slits in the masks they wore, appeared. They had weapons, shock sticks like I'd had used on me by the STRIKE team when Hydra had finally made it's move.
Those fucking hurt, but were not nearly enough to take me down.
Rinn, however…
Sam and Bucky had moved to hover about, the view from the sides probably sucked, but more than adequate to get the gist of what had happened.
Rinn fought as best she could in the confined space and improper clothes, using anything and everything at hand as a weapon. She managed to get one of the shock sticks for herself, mostly by taking the charge and then shoving her flattened hand up into the the wielder's nose. He caught the move barely in time and jerked his head back to prevent the full force of the blow, which would have killed him, from happening.
Of course, now with the weapon of her own she proceeded to use it on him, not to shock him, but to hit him upside the head and put him to the floor with the how viciously she'd swung the damn thing. She broke the baton in doing so, it spitting sparks where the internal controls had been damaged. She threw it at the other man, jumped over the one on the floor heading for the door, when two more entered.
The first wrapped his huge hand around her throat and shoved her backwards to stumble over the one she had put down, who had almost made it to his knees. She went down, but managed an awkward roll and got back to her feet quickly. Blood now trickled down the side of her face.
"You can never make it easy, can you?"
Bucky twitched, but didn't say anything.
Rinn just grinned, not about to go down without a full-fledged battle.
The speaker took that away, raising a gun and shooting her. It wasn't a bullet though, but an ICER, a non-lethal weapon like those at SHIELD used. She collapsed in a boneless heap, unconscious in an instant.
"This was a cakewalk," the one snarled, clearly in charge.
"Chloroform didn't work. And she fights like a hellcat," one off camera responded.
The man on the floor finally got to his feet with a groan. "No way an ord is that strong."
"Why do you think they want her. She's far easier to get to than Rogers."
I felt my heart skip a beat or three at that.
"Toss her stuff, straighten up, and let's get out of here. We're behind schedule as it is."
A glove covered hand shoved her phone into the purse and the screen went black though the video continued recording before the auto shut off kicked in a few minutes later.
I stared at the blank screen for several long minutes trying to absorb all that I had seen. She'd been taken, by someone who knew they couldn't get me, which made no sense whatsoever. I mean, as blackmail of one stripe or another, sure, but other than that… Rinn was indeed enhanced, but it bore no similarity to how I had been. Project Rebirth having nothing to do with nanobots and vice-versa.
Idiots.
"You know what this means, right?" Bucky pointed at the phone with a dangerous glint in his eyes.
"What? And be specific since it could go a half-dozen ways here," Sam requested earning a derisive snort from Bucky.
"She knew they were coming," I answered, getting a nod from Buck. "She had enough time to set up the camera to record before they got in."
"She probably cleared the room so there would be no incidental casualties," Buck added and I agreed. She must have realized the place was being jammed when she'd been trying to text me.
Texts I now went to look at in detail, reading every single heartbreaking line. The final one just the words: they're coming
Damning evidence that she knew she'd be taken and trying to warn me. Not asking for help, but warning me trouble had come to find her.
And she kept insisting she wasn't cut out to be a hero.
She could have run. Could have led them right back to the wedding reception, where I would have done anything to prevent her from being taken, which is why she hadn't. Others, others who had no idea what was going on or why, others who already hated me, would have been hurt at best and killed at worst.
She had protected all of them.
All of us.
I rubbed my hand over my face feeling exhausted and useless. "What did you hear, Buck?"
"TJ," he growled. "I've only heard his voice a couple times, but I'm pretty sure the one who shot her was TJ."
Can't say I was all that surprised, he seemed to be the common thread in the various incidents that had happened to Rinn in recent months. "Then I guess TJ is where we need to start." I handed the phone to Sam. "Send the vid to Nomad and have the system start analyzing it."
"You think there might be something useful?" Sam asked, taking the phone from me with a frown.
I shrugged. "Not a clue, but we have to follow every lead. Lucas said they contacted him through a burner he later destroyed. I think we can track down the calls, but it'll take some serious processing power."
Bucky picked up the shoe, the blood having dried finally, but it should still be viable to run against any database we could get into. Maybe, just maybe, giving a direction to turn to.
"We gotta get her back, Steve," he stated in a tiny voice, shades of the longing he'd been forced to feel in the tone and look.
I set a hand on his arm. "We will."
I only wished I could believe my own words.
