"Why do I have the feeling this a terrible plan." Lucy grumbled from beneath the furry lining of the hood pulled tightly around her face.
"Because it is a terrible plan." Bucky answered. Robin pulled her coat closer together, shielding her face from the blowing snow and wind. "But of all the terrible plans we had the option of choosing between, this one was the least terrible."
Lucy just groaned and trudged further through the ankle deep snow. "Why did it have to be the Artic? It couldn't be Australia, or the Caribbean, or even a South American jungle. No, that would be absurd." She muttered grouchily.
"Looks like our company has finally arrived." Bucky noted, at the two women looked up ahead to see a trio of black dots approaching on the horizon. As they grew closer they could see they were vehicles, specially outfitted to endure the harsh weather.
"Remember, fight back enough that our resistance is believable, but don't take them out unless you feel like walking the rest of the way." Robin said as the three formed a group. "And try not to get yourself shot." She added.
"You ready?" Bucky asked.
"As I'll ever be." Lucy sighed back.
The landscape rested in the silence of the whistling wind as the three vehicles came to a stop surrounding the three figures. The sound of car doors opening and slamming shut echoed across the white expanse, and Lucy tensed in anticipation as half a dozen figures rushed towards them.
Bucky kept his feet planted, not moving a muscle, as two of the men scuffled towards him, their guns trained directly at him. The first hesitated a moment, a moment which Bucky quickly pounced upon. The guard was sent reeling before he had to chance to process Bucky's metal arm striking him hard in the shoulder. Swinging low, Bucky landed a hit on the other man.
Facing two opponents of her own, Robin lunged forward, sending on of the guard's firearm sprawling out of reach. Seeing the other raising his gun to fire, she dove, narrowly missing the bullet. "I don't think so." She muttered before she leapt towards him and kicked the piece from his grasp.
Lucy considered how easily she could rid herself of her aggressors if only she got a hand on them. Robin's warning flitted through her head as she dodged a punch aimed for her head, reminding her she didn't have that luxury. "I guess we'll have to do this the old fashioned way." She mumbled to herself before heaving her shoulder into the man's chest, knocking him down.
A few minutes later the three were sitting cramped in the back of one of the vehicles, Robin nursing a broken nose. "Did you really think you could just walk into a sealed HYDRA base?" One man asked snidely.
"I don't know, did you really think that mustache would make you look manly?" Lucy retorted, and the driver stifled a snicker. The mustached man's face quickly deepened three shades of red as he self-consciously lifted his hand to his face. Irked by Lucy's grin, he angrily struck her across the jaw with the butt of his gun, an action she didn't bother dodging but rather continued to smirk at him, busted lip and all.
"Calm down Richmond. Strucker says he wants them arriving in one piece." The driver reprimanded. The man named Richmond grumbled but relaxed back into his seat, keeping a glaring eye trained on Lucy for the remainder of the trip back to base.
"I'm afraid you'll find we're not as hospitable as one might hope." One of the guards said as they filed their prisoners out of the vehicle.
Richmond took Lucy's arm and firmly dragged her along with him towards the entrance. She hesitated as she passed Robin's shoulder. "Remember, if something goes wrong and they wipe me, you take me out, no excuses." Lucy whispered, so only Robin could hear.
The blonde gave a look of concern but nodded to satisfy her partner. "Promise." Robin swallowed hard as Richmond impatiently shoved Lucy inside.
"Whatever she just told you to do, don't." Bucky said, pausing beside her.
"Wasn't planning on it." Robin replied, reassuringly.
"Well, if I'd known you were stopping by I would've gotten the place ready." A man whom Lucy had gathered was Strucker said." He smiled, reveling in his humor. "I hope you don't mind waiting your turn. We've got something nice and special reserved for you don't worry, Fox." He said with a grin that sickened her to her stomach.
Robin's eyes flitted around the room anxiously, looking for any clues that would aid in the finding of her niece and nephew. Cots lined one of the walls, IV bags and various equipment surrounding each one. She strained to take in as much as she could as the guards pushed them on, down a cement lined corridor. Robin gulped as her eyes landed on the walls of the passageway riddled with scratch marks. Her heart beat faster at the thought of Lucas and Daniella being tortured to the point that they could have been the ones to leave them there.
"Hurry up and get them locked away." One of the guards said rounding the corner after them. "Boss wants you back at the bridge, something about the new recruits." Richmond and the two other guards holding Bucky and Robin nodded and shoved the three into their corresponding cells.
Lucy waited for the three guards to leave before picking herself up off the hard floor and set to exploring her newfound environment. "It seems HYDRA has upgraded to giving us windows now." She commented as she ran her hand along the smooth glass that lined the front of her cell. "How thoughtful."
"It's an aluminum and silicon dioxide, I've seen this before." Bucky said, testing the glass in his cell for himself. "Not even I could break my way through this."
"So we're stuck in here until they come back for us?" Robin asked, pulling at the restraints around her wrists.
"Relax," Lucy answered, "they may have improved their prisoner visibility, but their locks are still as crappy as ever." She said, inspecting the lock on the cell door. "Child's play." She added with smirk, reaching into her boot to retrieve two thin pieces of metal and slid them into the lock. Half a minute later she was swinging open Bucky's door and moving onto Robin's.
"How did you do that so fast?" Robin asked in bewilderment as she stepped out of her cell.
Lucy raised an eyebrow mischievously, "Don't you know? Foxes don't like to be caged." With a smirk she turned on her heel and headed for the door to her right.
Robin turned her focus to Bucky, her expression still questioning. "She has her hobbies." Bucky offered with a shrug indicating he wasn't surprised in the least.
"Is using overly dramatic metaphors one of them?" She asked and Bucky just laughed.
The trio fell silent upon entering the next room to find four guards turning towards them. Bucky didn't bother wasting any time before hurtling in their direction, the two women following closely behind.
Robin had just sent one of the men sprawling to the floor with a forceful kick to the sternum when she heard her name being called by a pair of young voices. Her heart skipping a beat she whirled around to see two familiar figures strapped to cots in an alcove of the room she hadn't noticed before.
"Lucas! Daniella!" She breathed, her mind barely believing what her eyes were showing her.
"Go." Lucy ordered, motioning to the two kids fighting at the straps around their wrists and ankles. "We can handle this." Robin nodded gratefully and rushed across the room to her niece and nephew's side.
"You're alive, I can't believe it you're really alive!" Robin exclaimed, shakily running her hands through Daniella's hair. With fumbling hands she reached down to undo the straps and pulled the six year old into her embrace for a few moments before moving onto Lucas's restraints.
"Are they okay?" Lucy asked as she and Bucky hurried over to Robin, the four HYDRA guards all lying limp on the floor. Both had lifted the handguns from the men and were now in the process of securing them to their persons.
"Not without a few scratches, but I think they'll pull through." Robin said as she slid the IV line out of Lucas's arm.
"They don't look like they've been operated on, there's no hardware." Lucy noted. "That's a good sign." A flash of movement caught Lucy's eye and her hand instinctively went for her gun as she twisted towards it. She relaxed when she realized it was only a young girl, not more than a toddler.
"Where did she come from?" Lucy muttered quietly and Bucky shrugged. "Hi, I'm Lucy. What's your name?" She asked softly as she approached the barefoot girl.
The little girl beamed, "I'm Addy, and I'm four!" She proudly held up four of her stubby fingers to show Lucy.
The red head smiled and knelt down to the girl's level. "It's nice to meet you Addy who is four years old. Now tell me, is that short for Adaline? Adelheid maybe?"
Addy giggled and shook her head. "No, that's silly!"
"Hmm, Addison then?" Lucy countered with a grin. This time the girl bobbed her head up and down enthusiastically.
"There's an Addison Harper." Bucky said, reading from one of the computer monitors as he scanned through lines of text. "It says Burlington Iowa, she's been here two months."
Lucy turned back to face Addy who seemed un-phased by the fact that she was being held captive and being tested on by HYDRA. With an inquisitive look she asked, "Where are your parents Addy? Are they here?" She knew full well they wouldn't be, but she was curious how the girl would respond.
The girl looked thoughtful, then replied matter of factly, "Miss Tricia says that mommy went to be with Jesus, and that daddy likes to drink so much that he might as well have."
Lucy furrowed her eyebrows, "Who's Miss Tricia?"
"She takes care of us all. She told me that if I'm a really good girl that someday someone will adopt me. She said that means I get to live with them in their house and that they might even have a dog!" As the young girl spoke Lucy connected the dots and realized that Addy had been living in a youth home before HYDRA got a hold of her and she let out a long breath. There was so much to process and no time to do it. They needed to get out of there quick; she could worry about finding Addy's rightful guardian later.
"Auntie Robin, I don't feel so good." Lucas piped up uneasily, and he looked pale. Robin bent down just in time for the boy to turn and wretch all over the floor.
"It's okay sweetie." Robin said, rubbing his back reassuringly. "We're going to get you out of here, and we'll get you feeling better in no time.
Lucy offered her hand, and Addy accepted it, placing her own inside. "This is my friend Bucky, he's really nice." Lucy said as she led the girl to where he stood.
She looked up at him with large eyes and Lucy wondered for a moment if she was going to be afraid of him. Her worries were silenced when a second later Addy was excitedly introducing herself. "I'm Addy, and I'm four!" Bucky just laughed and lifted her up into his arms as she giggled happily.
With Addy occupied Lucy marched over to where Robin and Daniella were consoling Lucas. Lucy tilted the IV bag towards her face and read the label. "Damn it, I was afraid of this." She muttered under her breath.
"What is it, is he going to be alright?" Robin asked nervously. By the look on Lucy's face she wasn't feeling hopeful.
Lucy dropped to her knees and pushed her sleeves up to her elbows. "They're dosing them with the serum trying to get the results they did when they tried it on me. The only problem is that's a very delicate process and not many can survive it. The younger they are the harsher the effects."
"But you survived it, didn't you?" Robin said, not wanting to think about what she was going to do if Lucas didn't pull through.
"Only just barely." She answered, shaking her head. "The side effects were so bad I nearly died several times. The only reason I made it was because of the hardware they gave me which acted as a buffer for my system so I didn't continually go into shock. They're apparently trying to bypass that step now."
Lucy gently placed her hands on the boy's arms, feeling the scars from repeated injections. "This is going to feel a little funny, but don't worry it won't hurt, okay?" She said looking into his glistening eyes.
"What are you going to do?" Robin asked, reaching out in hesitation.
"If you want him to live, then let me do this. Let go of him." Lucy said sharply, her patience running thin. Slowly Robin agreed to let go of Lucas and took a step back, pulling Daniella into her arms.
"It's going to take a few rounds." Lucy announced, taking her hands off the boy to recover a moment. "This stuff is pretty heavy duty."
"You two find a way to get the kids to safety, I'll head to the south wing to make sure everything is in order." Bucky said turning for the door.
"You're leaving?" Lucy questioned. "It's safer if we stay together." Bucky set Addy down and pulled out his gun.
"Someone's got to make sure we've got a ride out of this god-forsaken place." He answered. "I'll circle back around and pick you up at the east entrance."
Lucy nodded, knowing he was right. "Come on, let's get them out of here." She said, her hands returning the young boy's pock marked arms. "Addy come stand over here, you're going to stay with me okay?" The little girl nodded approvingly and bounded over to Lucy's side.
"How's Daniella? Is she fine?" Lucy posed the question to Robin who then checked the girl over.
"I'm okay." Daniella assured. "We were supposed to be taken to the freezer with the rest of them but they got too busy and left us here. They said they would come back for us." Her face was strong but Lucy could see the anxiety surfacing. The girl wasn't much younger than she herself had been when she had been given over to HYDRA, and Lucy's heart went out to her. Not only was she afraid for herself, but Lucy presumed she was probably feeling a sense of obligation to protect her brother. Lucy swallowed hard. That wasn't something any eight year old should have to go through.
"They're not going to get you, I promise. We're going to get out of here and I'm going to take you back to your mother, she's been dying to see you guys." Daniella forced a smile and pushed back her tears.
"What did you mean by the freezer, Daniella?" Lucy asked, contemplating the girl's previous words.
"The big room full of weird beds. They put us in there and close them over us. Then it gets really cold and we go to sleep for a while until they wake us up again." Lucy's stomach churned. She knew what Daniella was describing, cryo chambers. Lucy had no fond memories of the subject and it didn't sit well with her. Still, she didn't have time to think about it at the moment, more pressing things were at hand.
"Do you think he's stable enough to move?" Robin asked, motioning to her pale faced and drowsy nephew. "I don't think we have the time to find out." Lucy replied, not feeling entirely agreeable herself. "You get him on his feet, I'll get the guard's access card. Then we make a break for it and pray we don't run into any others."
Lucy scuttled across the floor to the unconscious pile of guards, Addy hopping along behind her. With the toddler clinging to her leg, Lucy rifled through pocket after pocket, searching for her desired item. Just as her fingers discerned the outline of the card her attention was seized by the sound of somebody approaching in the hallway.
"Get back!" Lucy instructed to Robin as loudly as she dared. Not wasting time thinking it through, Lucy grabbed Addy in her arms and lunged for the closet, latching the doors gently shut just as the line of men filed in. Breathing a ragged sigh of relief she turned to Addy, her messy and disordered braids illuminated by the thing strip of light peeking through the crack between the two doors. Lucy lifted a silent finger to her lips and Addy mirrored her actions, understanding to be quiet.
Carefully Lucy lowered herself to the floor of the cramped closet, and lifted Addy onto her lap. With heart pounding she cautiously peeked through the two doors. The air caught in her throat when the leader of the group turned directly towards Robin and the two kids cowering behind the cots. "No." Lucy breathed, realizing they'd been spotted.
"Get up." The HYDRA guard barked gruffly at the three individuals. Nervously Robin obliged, keeping her niece and nephew's hands firmly in her own. "Should've known we'd find you here."
"Please, you can do whatever you want to me, just let them go." Robin said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.
The man turned to his comrades with a laugh, "We did a bit of looking into you when you got here. Your sister's kids huh? How noble of you." Robin just gritted her teeth and continued to glare up at him in silence. One of the other guards was muttering something into his communication device and moved to relay the information to his boss. Lucy squinted to try and read his lips, but he was too far away to tell.
"But before we start discussing the terms of your imprisonment, there's something I'd like to know." Robin pulled the children a little bit closer to herself, and gripped them a little bit tighter. "Where did your two friends run off to? We'll find them either way of course, but it would do you well to make the process easier." Despite her pounding heart Robin fought to keep her stoic demeanor. "Right, well I'm a guy of second chances, so I'll give you one more try." This time he pulled his gun from its holster and pointed it in their direction.
Lucy scanned the room quickly, trying to find a way to get Robin and the kids out of there. She debated bursting out of the closet and taking on the men herself, but there was a very low chance of success in that plan. She was outnumbered eight to one, and even if she did manage to take down a few of them, Lucas, Daniella, and Addy would all be completely vulnerable, easy targets. She didn't have any weapons on hand and she concluded it was too much of a risk. Her pulse quickened. Time was running out and she didn't have a solution.
"Last chance." The man announced, his words only receiving blank stares from Robin.
"You wouldn't shoot us, your scientists need us for your experiments." She retorted.
"I think you overestimate your importance." He said flatly before rapidly firing off three shots. Lucy recoiled unconsciously at the sound and felt her heart plummet to her stomach. Fighting the tidal wave of emotion boiling up inside of her she quickly pulled Addy to her chest, shielding the girl's eyes. A hundred thoughts all raced through her mind simultaneously as she watched in dread as Robin and the two children crumpled to the floor, lifeless.
She fought to keep her ragged breaths quiet as she held her arms tightly around the girl in her lap. "Leave them." The leader of the group said before ordering his men to exit the room and start searching for the other two escapees. Even though she knew all the men had left, Lucy couldn't bring herself to get up; couldn't bring herself to look through the doors again.
"What happened 'Ucy?" Addy asked, looking up to her with large eyes.
Lucy felt tears forming and a pit in her stomach. She'd seen a lot of people die in her life, but this time was different. "Nothing, Addy." Lucy said trying to remain reassuring. "Here, let's fix your hair, okay?" Willing her hands to obey her mind, Lucy turned the girl around and began undoing the haphazard braids and redoing them. As she was looping the last hair band around, Lucy couldn't shake the knowledge that she was Addy's only hope of survival now. If she didn't get her out, no one ever would. She was entirely responsible for this young life.
Lucy finished the braids and gently brushed them in front of the girl's shoulders. In doing so her fingers came across a scar at the base of Addy's skull. Lucy's heart twisted again, knowing exactly what it meant. They'd given all of the kids GPS trackers, and she knew this meant they'd have no chance of making a clean getaway if Addy was with them. Unable to hold back the tears any longer she let out a small sob.
Suddenly the closet door was pulled open and light flooded in. Lucy flinched before realizing who it was. "Lou, thank god you're okay. What happened in here?" Bucky asked with obvious concern in his voice. He knelt down to help her up from the floor and Lucy saw the smear of blood on his hand indicating he had already stopped to check Robin's pulse.
"Is the jet ready?" She asked, knowing he didn't really need an explanation of what happened.
"Yes, but it won't be much longer if we don't go right now." Bucky answered.
"You have to go, Bucky. You need to get out of here." Lucy said, motioning him to the door.
He looked at her in puzzlement. "Without you? Lou, you know I'm not doing that." He said with a laugh, not knowing if she was really being serious.
"It's the only chance either of us have. Get out and find help and come back for me. I know we said we wouldn't contact S.H.I.E.L.D. until it was time, but I think now is going to be as good a time as ever."
Bucky just shook his head. "Lou, this is crazy, we're leaving right now, both of us." He grabbed her arm but she yanked it back defiantly.
"I'm not leaving here without her." Lucy said nodding to Addy who was still clinging to Lucy's leg. "They put a tracker in her— there's one in every one of the kids for that matter. I can't leave without them, there could be dozens more just like her." Lucy's eyes pleaded with him to go along with her plan.
Bucky thought a moment before shaking his head and answering decidedly. "It's too risky, I'm not leaving you here! What if they catch you? They'll wipe away everything that makes you who you are, do you really want that?"
Lucy stepped back from him slightly. "I don't care, I can't leave these kids Bucky. Find Coulson and get him to bring in a team to shut this place down. That's the only way we're getting everyone out, we don't have a chance just the two of us." Before Bucky had a chance to protest, Lucy grabbed the pair of handcuffs on the desk next to her and swiftly clasped one around her wrist and the other around the water pipe on her other side. "Go! Now!" She shouted, shoving the access card into his hand.
Bucky set his jaw in frustration before finally giving in. Still unhappy with the situation he dashed out the door and headed for his escape vehicle. "We're going to be alright." Lucy said bending down to Addy's level. Her words were as much an attempt to convince herself of the fact as to reassure Addy.