Chapter Three
Alessia's mind was reeling. Six hours, she thought. If they don't do whatever horrible thing whoever this is wants them to do, we'll be dead in six hours.
Pepper seemed to be in shock, her face white and motionless. Jane was talking at about a thousand miles an hour, most of it didn't make any sense. Alessia could feel dread creeping up along her chest. I can get us out of here. She thought. I'll get us home and everyone will be okay.
None of this felt real to her, though. I should have known something like this was going to happen to me someday, she thought hopelessly. I just got lucky and instead of getting kidnapped for being a freak, I'm kidnapped for working on a superhero's ranch. How was I supposed to know that would happen? None of this makes sense. Her hands started to feel prickly. No, this can't be happening right now. Alessia thought desperately. She gasped for air, but her throat was squeezing too tight.
Calm down Alessia, it's all going to be okay, she told herself. She had only had a few panic attacks in her life, but she could tell this was one of them. However, no comforting words were going to help her. Nothing was going to be okay. How did she get herself into this mess? I should have just burned the house down. The kids would have known to leave. Cooper or Lila would have gotten Nathaniel and everything would be fine now...
Alessia told herself this, but she knew it wasn't true. There was no way the kids would have gotten out of their second story bedrooms if she'd lit the place up.
After a few minutes of this, Alessia began to calm herself down. She sat up, and glanced at Pepper and Jane. Jane had stopped talking, and was trying to work the knots out of her rope with her teeth, and Pepper stared at her lap, looking defeated and hopeless. I'm going to get us out, Alessia thought, determined. I'm going to bring Pepper back to Tony. She recalled how worried Tony had looked on the monitor. All of them actually had looked worried.
Alessia glanced back at the man buckled to the wall. To her surprise, he was awake and staring silently at her. When did that happen? She wondered.
He had clear blue eyes and youthful, boyish features set on an angular face. Remembering what the blonde man had said, she spoke softly to the other prisoner:
"Bucky?"
The metal armed man blinked at her, then looked away. His face was set in deadpan, making Alessia rather uneasy.
"Uh, is your name Bucky?" She asked again. He remained silent.
"I'm Alessia," She tried again. "This is Pepper, and that's Jane."
He looked back at her, his expression still unreadable.
"How do you know my name?" He asked. His voice was level, but like everything else about him, it was intimidating. Now that he was awake Alessia was nervous. So he was friends with a superhero- that meant he was good, right? God I hope so, Alessia thought desperately. She glanced back at the other two, and Pepper answered his question.
"We had a live feed from the Avenger's bunker a few minutes ago. Steve mentioned your name."
Steve? Alessia thought. Of course Pepper's on first name basis with the Avengers. She LIVES WITH to one of them.
"Where are we?" Bucky asked. He was examining the brace his arm was secured to.
"We're not really sure." Alessia said. "Somebody's using us as a bribe to get the Avengers to do something..."
Bucky looked back at her. "'something'?" He asked.
"Yeah. Nobody's told us anything more," Alessia replied, bitterly.
"They said they were going to get us out." Jane said, joining the conversation, "Do you think that they'll meet their demands?" She asked, nervously.
"They're not going to have to," Alessia said firmly "We're going to escape here ourselves."
Bucky laughed bitterly from the wall. "Oh really, and how are you planning to do that?" He asked.
"How strong is your arm?" Alessia asked.
"Not strong enough to break out of these- at least not at this angle." He said.
"Thats not what I asked," Alessia said. "I think I can get you out of there, but I'm not sure about the door. Can you open it?"
Bucky looked at her very seriously for a moment, as if trying to decide if she was crazy- or maybe trying to decide if he could trust her. "Well, there's one way to find out." He replied. Alessia nodded. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, concentrating on the feelings that were swirling inside her- fear, mostly. A bit of confusion. A lot of worry. She channeled them to her core, and felt warmth immediately radiate throughout her body. She pushed harder, and concentrated it to her wrists. The smell of plastic melting hit her nose and she easily brought her arms apart.
Alessia quickly untied her ankle bindings and undid the knot around Jane's wrists, both women gaping at her. Jane at once set to work on Pepper's rope, and Alessia moved over to Bucky. There were three of the braces on his forearm, and two on his bicep. If she got the three from his forearm, it looked like he'd be able to straighten his arm and slip it out of the wider two. Alessia knelt next to him.
"I've never tried melting metal before, so I'm not sure if this wi-"
Alessia stopped up short with the look Bucky gave her. His eyes are so intense, she thought. She felt herself start to sweat. And he's handsome. How am I supposed to concentrate with him staring at me like that?
Alessia closed her eyes again, breathing deeply, and this time concentrating on her left index finger. When she opened her eyes it was glowing an orange color, like an ember. I hope it's hot enough. She started at the brace at his wrist. Dragging her finger along the the side of it, she was relieved to see the metal start to glow along the seam. She gripped the brace hard with her right hand, and tried to jerk it off. It stayed in place.
After working the metal of the first brace a little longer, Alessia was able to break it off. She moved down to the next one, in the middle of his forearm. She managed this one faster, and when she got to the last one before his elbow, Bucky spoke.
"I can break this one faster," He said. Again, when Alessia looked in his eyes they were intense, almost like he was angry, maybe, but his face was unfathomable. Alessia took her hands away, and slide back to let him finish the job. She hadn't softened the metal at all, but he brought his powerful arm down at the elbow, snapping the brace and causing a loud crash when it hit the wall underneath. When he lifted his arm to slip it out, pieces of the cement where his fist had hit the wall fell to the floor.
He slipped his arm out, and stood up. Alessia still at the floor, found herself suddenly terrified looking up at him. He looked down at her, and offered her his right hand- the one made of flesh- and Alessia timidly accepted. Once on her feet, she turned to look at Jane and Pepper. Jane seemed to be holding it together a bit better, Pepper was wringing her hands and refusing to look in Bucky and Alessia's direction.
Bucky strode across the room, and with a loud metallic clang that echoed uncomfortably in the tiny cell, punched the door.
Alessia covered her ears as the metallic vibrations washed over her. Bucky had put a pretty huge dent in the door, but after two more powerful punches from his robotic arm, the door swung open.
"Someone's going to have heard that," Jane shouted, but Alessia's ears were ringing so loud she almost didn't hear her.
"Let's get going then," Alessia shouted back. Bucky was already venturing outside the cell. Alessia followed, Jane close behind her. Pepper closed the laptop on the floor, and picked it up before following the other three out.
Outside of the cell was a long hallway, also of that smoothed cement that lined the cell they were in. Bucky was already making his way down the right of the long hallway, turning a corner and vanishing out of sight.
"C'mon, we should try to keep up with him." Alessia said, jogging down the hall after Bucky. However, when she came to the split in the hall, she turned back. Jane and Pepper were still by the door. Alessia glanced down the hallway where Bucky had turned. Nowhere in sight, but it looked like there weren't any more forks for him to go down.
"C'mon you guys, there's going to be some kind of security soon and I'd personally rather be with metal and muscles over there when they find us." Alessia said. Jane at once started following her, dragging a hesitant Pepper along with her.
Alessia turned down the hall at once. She couldn't worry about all of them. Bucky seemed feral, best to keep her eyes on him. If Jane and Pepper knew what was good for them they'd follow.
As Alessia turned the next right down the eerie white passage, she was relieved to see Bucky disappearing around another turn.
"Wait up!" Alessia called out, dashing after. Does he know where he's going? Alessia wondered desperately, hoping that following him wasn't going to turn out being a bad idea.
Alessia followed him blindly, hoping Jane and Pepper were behind her. At last, the hallway opened up to a large room with glass all along the rightmost wall. Bucky stopped short here. Alessia was finally able to catch up with him. Panting, she leaned against the wall of the hallway on Bucky's left and peered into the room. The window showed a view of pure snow and grey sky outside. They seemed to be a few stories up.
"What should-" Alessia started, in a whisper, but Bucky held up a hand, his metal one, to silence her. He was standing at attention, his feet apart so that he looked sturdy and unmovable in his canvas pants and combat boots. Alessia straightened up and, a step behind him and to his left, took a similar position. Better follow his lead, Alessia thought, looking up at him He actually seems to know what he's doing.
Behind them, Jane and Pepper finally caught up with them. They stood for a moment silently, watching Bucky stand tense at the entryway, before Pepper whispered.
"What are we doing?"
She and Jane looked expectantly at Alessia.
"Umm," Alessia murmured looking from them to Bucky then back.
"Let's go, stay close," Bucky said suddenly, before Alessia could figure out how to answer the question. He started a brisk stride through the much larger hall the corridor had opened up to, and Alessia wasted no time following him closely. They made their way to the other end of the large hall where another corridor split off into the mysterious building.
When they got to the corridor on the other side of the room, Bucky kept going on ahead to peer around the next corner. Alessia followed, a few strides behind, trying to stay close but not so close as to startle him. She looked around the corner after Bucky and was surprised doors all along both sides. She looked up at Bucky, hoping for some indication of what their next move should be, but his face was unreadable.
Alessia was about to ask him what they should do when she heard a shrill scream from behind her. She spun around to see what was wrong.
From the corridor on the other side of the arena, a dozen or so soldiers were advancing towards them. They were dressed like the others, and were carrying large guns.
Bucky was the quickest to react, rushing down the next hallway, Jane just a few paces behind him. Pepper seemed to shocked to make a move, so Alessia grabbed her wrist and dragged her along as she dashed after the other two.
They were rushing past doors now, and quite suddenly one of them burst open right in front of Alessia and Pepper. It was a man in a lab coat holding a gun. His hands trembled as he pointed it at Alessia, who had immediately put herself between him and Pepper. She paused only for a second, then realizing he wasn't going to shoot, disarmed him at once, grabbing the gun from his hands and with a fluid motion dropped him to his knees. She could hear footsteps from behind and see Jane and Bucky disappearing ahead, so, grabbing hold of Pepper's wrist again, she took off after the other two.
Bucky was running much faster than the rest of them, out shooting Jane by at least three strides, and turning corners so quickly Alessia was worried she and Pepper might lose sight of him, if it weren't that Jane were a few strides behind him. Finally, they turned another corner and Bucky disappeared into a door. Jane stopped outside, waiting for Alessia and Pepper to catch up. As they headed over, Pepper gently tugged her wrist away and Alessia realized she'd still been holding it painfully tight.
"Sorry, I didn't realize I was still..." Alessia murmured, her words drifting off as they peered into the room Bucky had stopped in with Jane.
It was empty- at least, nobody was in it. However a huge wall monitor showed a dull blue glowing screen. There were some desks with keyboards along the wall, and some rolling office chairs, but no other doors, no windows, nothing very hopeful. Bucky was at one of the desks messing with the keyboard. Unlike everything else he had done up until that point, nothing about his motions were deliberate, and Alessia had the feeling he had no idea what he was doing.
Alessia nudged Jane and Pepper in (they were all still loitering outside the door) making sure she was the last in, and taking a sweeping look at the landscape before shutting the door behind her.
"So... What's the plan?" Jane asked. She was peering over Bucky's shoulder, looking like she was thinking the same thing Alessia was: Bucky didn't know shit about computers.
Alessia, meanwhile stayed stationed at the door, gun in hand. She was afraid that if she moved away they would be taken too off guard if someone burst in. Besides, she doubted she'd be able to offer much in the effort to hack the computer.
Pepper inched up toward Bucky and glanced at what he was doing. She took a breath and said hesitantly: "do- you mind if I try?" Bucky glared back at her, but lifted his hands off the keys and stood up so abruptly that Jane jumped back to avoid being hit by him.
Setting down the laptop from the cell down on the desk, Pepper sat down in his place and at once started typing. Bucky moved toward the door where Alessia stood, and crossed his arms, his legs apart and standing up straight, standing like a guard. Alessia instinctively stood up a little straighter to mimic him. Jane was watching Pepper, occasionally glancing back at Alessia and Bucky. She looked nervous and didn't seem to know what to do with herself. After maybe about five minutes of Pepper avidly typing away, the screen changed from dull blue to white with a loading bar. Alessia and Jane exchanged nervous smile, but when Alessia looked at Bucky he was still standing like a sentinel, face unfathomable.
That's really going to get annoying Alessia thought, still looking at him. If he could see her in his periphery he didn't show it. He was just wearing his wife beater and army work pants and combat boots, his shaggy light brown hair hanging around his face. He was definitely the most innately intimidating person Alessia had ever met in her entire life.
The loading bar reached its full capacity and the screen changed again, now to a familiar desktop layout with folders and icons.
"what should I be looking for?" Pepper asked, highlighting different icons to read the description that came up.
"Who owns this place, for starters." Alessia replied. "Lets figure out where the hell we are."