"Don't make me ask you again!" The super soldier shouted across the sound of an approaching hovercraft. A ladder was lowered down from the bulk head of the jet. The mysterious gentleman climbed the first few rungs, then stopped to yell down to the angry avengers below him.
"I was merely distracting you long enough to acquire your newest asset. Or should I say now our newest asset." The man cackled as the hovercraft lifted up, taking him away from the battlefield.
Neither the genius, nor the super soldier made any attempt to stop his getaway. The couple remained frozen in place, eyes locked in a look bursting with worry and heartache, whilst they whispered to one another in unison, "Charlie..."
The superhero husbands continued to share this look for what felt like forever. Once their minds had registered what had happened, and remembering that there was something that they needed to see, they took off towards where Clint was waiting for them. Too impatient to wait on Steve getting there on his own, Tony grabbed him around the waist and lifted them both in to the air.
"Tony, let me go!"
"Honey, this is the fastest way to get to Clint! We don't have any time to lose. Charlie…" He was cut off as the tears that had been building up in his eyes finally spilled over. Steve stopped struggling and just held on for dear life as Tony pushed his suit as far as he could.
"Clint, please tell me you have eyes on the girls. Tell me that bastard was lying, tell me that Charlie is safe," Steve begged over the comms. There was just silence in response.
"Clint!" Tony and Steve shouted in unison. They were desperate for an answer, even though deep down, they knew that their anonymous assailant wasn't playing games with them.
"I'm sorry guys. He wasn't lying. I've found the girls' holsters and weapons. There is no way they would willingly take them off and leave them behind. Their comms units are here too. You know what Nat is like. She only takes that thing out to shower, and that's only because of the shocks it would give her otherwise. "
"Shit," Tony cursed out load. Fuck, shit, bastard, wank, he thought. The genius wasn't about to start his usual string of expletives and being told off by Captain America about his language, even though he was pretty sure Steve was thinking pretty much the exact same thing.
"Guys, there's something else. That necklace that you gave Charlie, the one with the tracker in it? It's been snapped off and destroyed. I know Nat doesn't carry one, in case it can be intercepted by someone else, namely the Red Room. There is now no way for us to trace their location. We have to wait for them to contact us. If they can," Clint explained with a hint of sadness to his voice.
How does he know about Charlies' tracker? No one knows about that, not even Charlie, Steve thought fleetingly, then quickly focusing on the bigger issue.
They had now reached Clint, and took in the scene before them. Nat and Charlies' weapons and holsters were thrown down next to a dumpster, their comms units next to them. If they had taken them off themselves, they would have hidden them, Tony processed what that meant. He looked around and saw blood on the ground, and quite a lot of it. He took a sample to analyse when they got back up to his lab on the ship. Maybe we got lucky and our little fighter got some hits in. We can use this to figure out who has her, and Nat.
Clint was holding the remnants of Charlies' necklace in his hands. The chain had been snapped from around her neck. The diamond heart containing the tracking chip was completely destroyed. Clint was right, there was no way for the avengers to track their missing team mates. There was no way for Steve and Tony to find their missing daughter.
"Tony, wh-what are we going to do?" Steve's voice broke as he looked to his husband for answers.
Tony looked at his other half, tears falling down his face. He could see the tears escaping the beautiful baby blue eyes he loved so much. Steve, who was usual the stronger of the duo, was becoming a crumbling mess in front of him. This made Tony's heart break even farther. Something he didn't think was even possible. "I don't know, sweetheart," he admitted honestly, taking the taller blond in to his arms, to comfort himself as much as his husband.
"Why don't you two head back to the hellicarrier? Check in with Fury, go over everything that has happened. See if there is any clues as to who those bastards are, and what they want with our girls." Clint suggested. Tony and Steve were still locked in their embrace, pulling strength from each other. They nodded and started to untangle themselves but held on to each other's hands. Clint nodded at the lost men in front of him. "If you can wake him, could you send Banner down? I'm going to need some help to free Thor. It might be brain power, it might be pure muscle I need. Either way, I could use him."
"Yeah, sure," Steve replied, wiping a fallen tear away from his cheek. Tony embraced his husband once again, getting ready to head back up to the hellicarrier. "Hold on tight, honey."
Steve wrapped his arms around the shoulders of his partner suit, preparing himself for one of the quickest flights to the ship he has ever had. He knows that they should feel bad about not helping with the freeing of Thor, but their heads just weren't in the right space at that moment in time. They needed to be doing anything and everything to get their daughter back home safely.
When they landed on the flight deck, Tony stepped out of the Iron Man Suit, setting the command for it to go back to the armoury. He and Steve then took off at a run towards the bridge, yelling at random agents to get out of their way. As they burst through the door, Agent Hill and Director Fury looked up from their conversation. Hills' eyes were a slightly red, as though she had been crying a little. Fury looked at them, trying to gauge what they were thinking and feeling. Since he didn't have any children, he knew he couldn't even begin to imagine what the two warriors in front of him were feeling.
"Gentlemen," He acknowledged, standing up from his seat at the conference table.
"What did you manage to get? He said that they had blocked the comms. We couldn't contact Clint, or you," Steve babbled.
"When he blocked your comms on the ground, all of ours went down too. The last we heard before the silence, was you two and Thor looking through the rubble. From then, till when Agent Barton asked you to meet him at the blast site, we have nothing. We've gathered that Thor is trapped, and that agents Romanov and Stark-Rogers are M.I.A," Nick Fury explained. The director was not known for his delicacy when it came to his words, and this time was no different.
"They are not M.I.A!" Tony exploded. "They have been taken by this asshole and his organisation!"
"Whose been taken?" Bruce asked groggily as he walked on to the bridge. He had clearly just woken up from the effects of his "anti-hulk" antidote.
"Dr. Banner, " Fury greeted. "That was a quick nap. Are you sure you're ready to be up and about?"
"I'm fine. I'm getting better at controlling my anger, so I didn't need as much of a treatment today," Bruce explained. He was looking around the room and taking in the scene before him. He could sense tension everywhere, but it was radiating off of the hero husbands who were sat at the conference table holding hands. "Is someone going to tell me what is going on? Where is the rest of the team?"
"A-after you, uh, after you left, there was. We started going through the wreckage and um.." Steve tried to explain, but couldn't find the right words. Agent Hill stepped forward and updated the doctor for him.
"After the Captain sent you back here for your treatment, someone blocked all of our communications with the team on the ground, and they couldn't communicate with each other either. We tried everything to get the system back up and running again. Eventually, the block was removed, and we could hear what was happening again. From what we have gathered, there was two explosions. Thor is currently trapped under the rubble from the first one. Agent Barton has requested your assistance with his recovery," she stated calmly, but with watering eyes.
The doctor nodded, taking this new information in. "And the second blast? You said there was two," he pressed.
"We don't have all the details yet. What we do know, is that agents-" She broke off to catch her breath, tears threatening to fall. "Both Natasha and Charlotte are missing. Their weapons and their comms units have been found at the scene by Agent Barton," She finished.
"Nat and Charlie are missing?" He repeated, turning to look at the other two avengers in the room.
"They aren't missing!" Tony reiterated angrily. "They were taken." Sighing heavily, he began to fill them all in on what they had missed. "After Steve sent you back here, we started going through the wreckage. Thor found a blaster with a logo emblazoned on the side. We all looked at it and agreed that we had seen it somewhere before, but couldn't place it. I thought it was that group that keeps sending those shitty little threats to SHIELD and to us," he explained, motioning between his partner and himself.
"That's when the unsub walked out from where he had been hiding in the shadows," Steve took over. "We tried to find out who he was, but he wasn't for telling. He wanted to draw it all out, play games with us. Thor got pissed, started shouting at him, and that's when the first detonation came. Thor was buried under the rubble. We started to move the debris, but every time we did, the rest shifted. It was too dangerous to keep going without a proper plan. Jarvis checked him over, he was unconscious, but otherwise alright. The guy kept playing us, we were going round in circles. Tony tried to get a hold of Hawkeye. That's when we realised that the comms were down.
"He claimed that he and his organisation aren't terrorists, knew that we don't negotiate. I asked him what he wanted from us. He said he was distracting us. That's when the second blast hit, but this one was a few streets away."
"That's when I saw Barton jumping rooftops, heading towards the blast site. By this point, the block must have been removed and the comms were working again. Clint told us that there was something we needed to see," Tony picked-up. "A hover craft came in to collect the asshole, and he told us that he was distracting us so he could get "Our newest asset". Then he was gone. That's when we knew that he had Charlie, and most likely Nat as well. We raced to Clint's location, found all the girls tech and weapons, plus a whole lot of blood. Also, Charlie was wearing a necklace that we got her for her birthday a couple of years ago. It had a tracker in the pendant. Nobody knew about that except me and Steve. They took it from her and destroyed it, leaving the pieces for us to find. There is no way for us to find them. There is no way for us to find them. We have to wait and hope they find a way to contact us. Otherwise, we may never see them again," Tony finished, tears now streaming down his tan face. He wasn't even trying to stop them now, the pain in his heart was too great.
A/N - So this one was a lot longer. Hope you are all enjoying reading it as much as I am enjoying writing it. Would really love to hear your thoughts on it so far. Any suggestions you may have about where I could take this will be considered too. Chapter 4 is in the works, will hopfully be uploaded in the next few days!