Chapter 10
Kidnappers do not like it when kids make messes or scream or cry. They do not like it when kids do not obey. These kidnappers are very very angry.
"The ground is lava!" Clint screams and so Tony and Steve climb onto the table and Natalia and Clint run away to someplace that isn't the ground. The grown-ups do not try to jump off the ground though. They just look angry. Yellow Suit Man is turning red.
"Stop that!" he shouts, but no one stops, and soon the whole room is loud and busy and they are making a big mess while the scientists turn in circles and shout at them. Yellow Suit Man does not turn in circles or shout. He marches up to the table where Tony and Steve are standing, and there's not a lot of places to run on top of a table. Steve picks up a tray but Yellow Suit Man doesn't reach for him. He reaches for Tony.
"Time out!" he shouts. He picks Tony up and squeezes him a little bit too hard and puts him in the corner of the room.
"I do not understand," says Tony in Russian. Then he says "You are a giant toad." He has to say that, because it is very hard to remember that he isn't going to listen to anything Yellow Suit Man says when the man is shouting and angry. Shouting grown-ups mean that Tony is in Trouble and he is supposed to Listen. He has to remind his feet that this man isn't a grown-up; he's a monster. Tony is not going to listen to monsters. So Tony does not stay in time out; he runs back to the table.
Clint and Steve and Natalia are not perfect angels anymore. Steve is on top of the table, using his lunch tray like a very wide bat. Clint is throwing things at him from the top of one of the shelves and Steve is hitting them. Natalia is throwing things too from another shelf, but she's throwing them at the scientist people, not at Steve. She's also collecting things that look sharp.
Mistress is very angry too. She is shouting at Clint and holding up a fist.
"I don't speak English!" Clint shouts back in Russian. Clint sometimes doesn't remember Russian very well, but he can still say somethings. Like: "I will pull out your intestines through your nose, you ugly pig!" They all know words like that because they are Natalia's favorite things to say when they play games. Clint is saying things like this, and other words that are much worse. The other scientist man makes faces at Clint's words. Or maybe he's making faces because Natalia just threw a wooden block at him.
"What did he say?" Mistress asks the scientist man, her fist clinched really tight. "I want to know how many swats he's going to get before I begin."
"Er…" says the scientist man. "I'd rather not repeat that kind of…" And then Natalia stabs him in the leg with a spork and he screams. Everyone is really surprised; Tony hadn't even seen Natalia climb off her shelf to get close to him. Even Steve and Clint pause in their game. Tony is halfway on top of the table when he stops too.
Then Yellow Suit Man grabs Tony by his shirt and screams, "Enough!" and Tony is pulled up in the air and his shirt is pulled really tight around his arms and neck and Tony doesn't like it at all. He swings his feet to try and kick himself free, but his legs are too short to reach and his breathing is coming hard and loud because it keeps getting caught in his throat by his shirt and his face is going very hot.
"If you brats don't stop this nonsense right now, this one is dead." His voice is not shouting now, it is almost quiet and the room is quiet too. Tony's heart sounds very loud in his ears and his breathing is loud and maybe Yellow Suit Man is going to kill Tony because he's too loud.
"You don't want to kill us," says Natalia, and everyone jumps because somehow she is coming up from under the table and also because she is speaking English. Her voice is hoarse from screaming earlier and she is glaring and holding a spork in one hand and a ruler in the other. "You need us for something. You want to use us."
"I already have one genius," says Yellow Suit Man. "This one's surplus."
No one says anything. No one moves. The scientist man whimpers a bit in a corner. At some point, Natalia had tied his hands and feet together with his shoelaces and stuffed a small teddy bear in his mouth. The other kidnappers don't bother with him. Yellow Suit Man just holds Tony up in the air and Mistress glares at everyone.
"Much better," says Yellow Suit Man. "Now…you were all very bad children. I think bad children should be punished. What do you think?"
"I told you they don't need coddling, sir," says Mistress. "What they all need is a good hiding. Maybe starting with their little ring leader here." She's looking at Tony and smiling and it's scary because she wants to hurt him and his chest feels really tight and maybe it's because his shirt is too tight and maybe it's because he was bad and is in the hands of monsters. Then she goes and picks up a ruler and she comes back towards them and Yellow Suit Man is still holding Tony's shirt and the world feels a bit swimmy and weird.
"Don't you hurt him!" Steve screams. Then he throws his tray at Yellow Suit Man. He throws it like it's a disc, and the math in Tony's head says that shouldn't work because it isn't round, but it tumbles through the air anyway and then Yellow Suit Man is dropping Tony and falling backwards. At the same time Mistress screams very loudly and maybe she's angry and maybe she's hurt. Tony didn't see what happened but when he looks he sees a pencil sticking straight through her raised hand that was raised to hit him and she isn't holding the ruler anymore.
Tony sits on the ground and coughs because his throat still feels tight even though his shirt isn't pulling on it and he stares at Mistress's hand and then turns to see Yellow Suit Man has a bleeding head but he is sitting up and he still looks very angry.
Yellow Suit Man looks at Tony and his eyes look so angry that Tony decides to stand up and run away even though his legs feel heavy and getting up is hard. He runs to where Clint is up on a shelf. Clint has the toy bow but he doesn't have toy arrows. He is crouched next to the art supplies. He puts his bow down though when Tony runs up to him and he leans down with his hands because maybe climbing up shelves is hard and Tony needs Clint's help.
"You!" Mistress shrieks and she yanks the pencil right out of her hand and charges towards them, holding the pencil in the hand that isn't covered in blood.
Clint looks pale but he doesn't drop Tony even though Tony is moving really slowly up the shelves and Clint is pulling as hard as he can but Tony is heavy and his legs don't reach very well to help push himself up.
"You know what we think?" Steve shouts. "We think you are very bad grown-ups and you should be punished!"
It turns out, Steve had more trays on the table than the one he threw at the Yellow Suit Man.
It also turns out that there was a trip wire tied between the table and a chair. Tony thinks maybe Natalia did that but he doesn't know where she found the wire. Yellow Suit Man is hit with a tray right in-between his legs while Mistress trips on the wire and then has the chair fall on top of her. She shrieks again with rage while Yellow Suit Man crumbles to the ground.
Tony finishes climbing up onto the shelf and Clint picks up his bow and another pencil.
"Aim for the eye," Natalia shouts up at him and Steve says, "What? No, that would kill them!"
"We have to tie them up," says Tony, "And then we lock them in the dark and we go and get Bruce." He doesn't shout because his voice comes out all hoarse like maybe he had been screaming like Natalia except he wasn't screaming.
Steve hits Yellow Suit Man on the head again with another tray and he stops moving. Mistress tries to untangle herself and then Clint jumps all the way from the top of the shelf to the ground, and that's a really big jump, and he marches right up to her and aims his pencil arrow right at her eye.
"Don't move," he says, "Or we punish you."
Natalia ties her up with more trip wire. It turns out to be wire from the robotic toy section. Maybe Tony didn't need to hide robot parts in his shoe after all. There are lots in this room.
"Now what?" says Clint, after Steve drags all the kidnappers together and Natalia makes sure none of them can move even a tiny bit or shout for help. Tony wants to hide them in a closet but there isn't a closet in the room and they are too big to hide inside a shelf.
"Now we get Bruce and escape," Steve says firmly. "Does anyone know how to open the door?"
They all know where the secret door is to the room even though it looks like a wall, not a door, because they all came through it. They don't know how to make it open.
"We don't need door," says Natalia. "We have window. Windows break."
"If we break a window, they'll know we're escaping," Steve protests. "We should try to make the door open." He pushes on the wall. It doesn't move. Then, suddenly, there's a really loud noise, like a siren.
"It's an alarm!" Clint shouts, "They know we're escaping! We have to go now!" Steve doesn't answer because he is covering his ears and squinching up his face. Natalia throws a block up at the window above them. It bounces off with a loud bang that makes them all jump even with the sirens being really loud.
Suddenly, the door slides open. Everyone jumps. Clint grabs up his bow and pencil arrows. Steve grabs up his tray. Natalia shoves Tony backwards, which isn't nice because he trips and sits down, and then she steps in front of him so he can't even see properly.
It isn't a scary person, even though it is one of the kidnappers. It's Andrew. He stares at them for a second, then raises his hands in the air.
"It's okay!" he shouts over the siren noise, "I'm not going to hurt you! Please don't hurt me!"
Natalia makes a growling noise and starts to swing her hand. Tony thinks maybe she's going to stab Andrew with another spork.
"Wait!" Steve tells her, and then he says, "He can open doors. Let's kidnap him and make him our prisoner and we can go get Bruce." So Natalia doesn't stab Andrew. Tony thinks he's glad about that even if Andrew is a kidnapper because at least he isn't a mean one.
"Right," Steve says after a moment, "Natalia, you watch him. If he tries anything, stab him. Clint, you watch behind us and shoot anyone who approaches."
"What do I do?" Tony asks. He doesn't have anything to shoot or stab with, and there isn't time to build a fighting robot. Steve looks down at him for a moment. Tony has to look up a long way to see his face because Tony is still sitting on the ground. Escaping is exciting and fun but also scary and his legs are still sore from standing so he was still sitting from when Natalia tripped him.
"You can help keep watch," Steve says. "I'll carry you on my shoulders so you're up high and you can see if anyone is coming and tell us."
Tony is not a stupid baby, and he doesn't need to be carried, but keeping lookout sounds important and he will see a lot more if he is up high on Steve's shoulders. Steve is tall.
"Okay," Tony says, and Steve smiles and Clint helps Tony climb up and doesn't even call Tony short. They are both short compared to Steve anyway.
The sirens are still going all the time they race down the hall. Andrew runs in front and he doesn't run the wrong way so soon they are to the door to the doctor room. Andrew doesn't do anything but the door opens anyway.
Bruce is still lying on his bed with all the wires and doctors are around him with their doctor things saying things like "prep for transport", but they all stop and turn around when the door opens.
"Andrew?!" the doctor shouts, "What are you…" And then Andrew pulls a gun out of his pocket and shoots him. It doesn't go bang. It goes zap and the doctor man falls down even though there isn't any blood.
"Sorry," says Andrew, "You can tell my uncle I resign." A doctor lady has grabbed a scalpel but Clint shoots her arm with a pencil and she shrieks and drops it and Natalia takes her out at the knees and she crashes onto the ground and doesn't move.
"You have a gun?!" Steve demands, and Andrew sort of shrugs and says, "Sorry. I really won't hurt you. I want out." And he puts his gun down on a bed before Natalia can decide to attack him too.
Then they all go to Bruce and Andrew and Steve pull away all the wires until it's just Bruce but Bruce is still sleeping. Tony climbs off Steve's shoulders and sits with him. He feels really sleepy and wishes he could sleep too, but they are still kidnapped and it isn't a good time to sleep. He wishes Bruce would wake up instead. He pokes him. Bruce doesn't move.
"It'll take a while for the sedatives to work their way out of his system," Andrew explains. Then they go to leave the room. Steve pushes the bed with Tony and Bruce on it because he doesn't trust Andrew to carry him. He tells Tony to stay up there too so that Tony can protect sleeping Bruce.
Except at that moment the sirens suddenly cut off and the door shuts and it won't open, not even when Andrew pulls out a card and waves it in front of it.
"I think they've put the building in lockdown," he says. "They must know you've escaped." His voice sounds really loud in the sudden silence. Natalia says something not very nice in Russian.
"Now what?" Clint asks. "This room doesn't even have windows to break!" They look around the room. It has a lot of doctor things, and Natalia is busy picking up sharp things like the scalpel but they are still trapped.
"Is there a phone?" Tony asks, because if there is a phone then they can try to call for help. Tony knows a lot about phones because Miss Pepper let him look at her ear phone and she let him see her tablet, which is a future computer that's really tiny. There isn't a phone and Steve can't pry the door open with a scalpel but there is a thing high up on the wall that has a covering and air comes through it.
"That's the vent," Andrew explains. Clint thinks maybe they can escape that way but he tries and he's just a little bit too big and Steve is completely too big and their prisoner Andrew would never ever fit. Natalia can almost fit. She tries to suck her tummy in all the way and wriggle into it but it doesn't work and she gets stuck and Steve has to pull her out again.
"It isn't designed for people to crawl around in it," says Andrew. "In fact, I think they made sure it was too small for people. They may be stupid in some ways, but they do learn from past mistakes."
So Steve is too big and Clint is too big and Natalia is too big. Bruce might not be too big but he's also sleeping. Tony stares into the tiny vent. There are no lights inside. It's dark and tight and even thinking of crawling away from his friends into the dark makes Tony's heart thud hard against his flashlight.
"The lady gave me a gift," he says out loud, his hand coming up to his chest.
"Tony?" says Steve, but his eyes are still looking at the door and around the room like he is thinking about how to open the door and not about what Tony is saying.
"I'm small," Tony says, and then, "I'm the smallest person here. I'm even smaller than Bruce."
"It doesn't matter," Steve answers, "Even if you did fit, none of us do. We can't get out that way."
"But I can find a phone!" Tony answers, "I can find the control room place and maybe I can make the door open!"
"I don't think you need to," Andrew said, "I think your friends are already…" but he doesn't get to keep talking because Natalia shoots him with the zap gun and he falls over and goes to sleep. Everyone looks at Natalia.
"I don't trust him," she says simply.
So they tie sleeping Andrew up and they look around the room and Steve says, "Maybe I can break the wall?"
"I can get out," Tony insists. "I can get out and I can help. I'm smart! I know about things like phones and…and…machines and…"
"Can you make these machines help us?" Steve asks, looking at the doctor machines. Tony looks at them and he thinks maybe he can do something but he doesn't know what he can do that is helpful. The machines aren't door opening machines.
Then the door opens all on its own.
There are three big kidnappers in the doorway, all wearing their alien bug outfits and holding guns.
"Got you!" one of them shouts triumphantly. At least he is triumphant until a voice shouts, "Bad men!" and one of the big machines that Tony had been looking at is thrown across the room. Bruce isn't sleeping anymore, and he isn't little Bruce.
The three men shriek and one of them tries to shoot at them. Big Bruce keeps throwing things at the doorway. Soon it isn't so much a doorway as a pile of medical machines. They are safe. They are also trapped.
"Bruce!" Tony says, and he feels happy because Bruce is awake even if he feels scared because they are trapped. "You're awake!"
But now they can't go out the door because there are kidnappers outside and Tony definitely can't make something with the machines because they are all broken.
"I have to go now," Tony says, his heart beating heavy and his breath feeling heavy. "I'm not a baby. I can get help."
Steve is frowning like maybe he wants to say no, and that isn't fair because Steve is a kid too, even if he's a big kid.
"He can go," Natalia says carefully in English. Clint and Steve look at each other and then at Tony.
"I always said you were short," says Clint. "I always said we are the super babies!"
"We aren't babies," Tony says, "We're…we're monster fighters!"
In the end, Steve helps Tony climb up because the vent is really high. The opening is tiny and Tony suck in his tummy and pulls himself forward into the dark. The vent is tight and he can't even be up on his knees and he has to wriggle like a little snake or a worm but he wriggles and wriggles until he's all the way in and he doesn't get stuck like Natalia and soon he's alone inside the vent in the dark.
