A/N: Thank you so much to my lovely followers and reviewers. I love how many of you commented on that terrible cliff hanger I left. Also, I'm so glad you're all attached to Sam. And I love the poorly veiled threats I received from amillionthanks if I was planning on killing off Sam. On a completely unrelated note, I have read so many fanfics where Clint walks in and interrupts whatever is going on that I think we need to make a new "Interrupting Clint" meme. Someone get on that. This is your assignment. Also, I am dreadfully bored on Mondays and Wednesdays when I sit around the campus for hours between classes, so feel free to drop me a PM. Let's be friends. ;) I think I've made enough suspense, so here's the next chapter. Disclaimer: Having finger puppets of all of the Avengers that you made yourself does not constitute as owning the Avengers, so they're still not mine.

"Tony, I know you guys are all cool and saving the world and stuff, but would it kill you guys to at least let me know that you won't be picking me up on time," Amber complained into her phone. Sam was now half an hour late and wasn't answering any calls or texts from her. She figured they were in the middle of something important, so she called Tony instead. He almost always answered.

"What," Tony asked. "The only thing I'm saving is my level on Call of Duty. Why, what's going on?"

"Oh," Amber frowned. "Sam never showed to pick me up, and she's not answering."

"Maybe she's just busy. I'll try giving her a call," Tony told Amber and hung up.

Sam phone rang for a few seconds before going straight to voice mail. Tony tried it again and hung up after getting the same results.

Hey missy, you're supposed to keep your phone on you in case there's an emergency, Tony texted her. He smiled as he felt incredibly dad-like in that moment. He should have tacked on 'or you're grounded young lady'.

Give her a few more minutes. She's probably working on something or fell asleep, Tony texted Amber.

Half an hour later he got another text from Amber. Okay, she's usually not this late. Seriously, what's up?

"Spandex," Tony called into the living room where Steve was sitting with Natasha and Clint. "Do you know where Sam is, because Amber called and said that she's an hour late?" He had the full attention of the room now.

"Sam never said anything to me," Steve said as he got up from his seat. There was something wrong here, he knew it. Sam would never be late, especially to keep Amber waiting. Natasha and Clint heard something in his voice, and they wordlessly got up as well. This was a team issue now.

Ten minutes later the word had been spread to the entire team, and they were all gathered in the meeting room. It was determined that if Sam refused to respond for another hour, they would go. Steve wanted to go immediately, but he held off for another hour. He knew something was wrong. She had been acting odd for a couple of days now, and he had fallen for her saying it was about her parents. Why had she lied to him? Whatever this mess was, he could have helped her.

Among the search party, Bruce had opted to stay back. They didn't want to bring him along in case it put him in a situation where he might Hulk out when it would be dangerous, and someone had to stay behind with Loki.

After another hour had passed with several more missed calls, texts, and voicemails, the team called it. They told Amber to remain in a public area and Thor transported them all with Mjolnir.

They went to Sam's house first, as it seemed like the most likely place to find answers. It didn't take very long; Natasha went through the open mail on the coffee table and found the greeting card. Sam hadn't even bothered to hide it, but then again perhaps she had done so intentionally.

"It sounds like the same person," Clint said as Natasha finished reading the card out loud.

Steve felt both fearful and angry. How could Sam think she could do this? They were a team, and more importantly the two of them were a couple. She should never have thought she could go alone. He remembered how it seemed like Sam had been hiding something; she purposely left them out of this. First he was going to save her, and then he was going to yell at her. He never thought Sam could do something so incredibly stupid.

The Avengers hurried off to the meeting place in the card. It wasn't very far from Sam's house. Once there they covered the entire roof of the building, but there wasn't a clue anywhere. In fact, it didn't look like anyone had been up there in over a week. Frustration began to creep up on Steve, but he couldn't let it show. He was team leader, and even when things became extremely personal he couldn't let the team down.

"I'm going to scout from the other buildings, see if someone had a better vantage point," Clint said. Natasha nodded and followed. Tony was having JARVIS run a scan over the building, and even Thor was "conversing with the inhabitants nearby". That left Steve with absolutely nothing better to do than pace the top of the roof to dispense his energy. Tony saw it, but thought better than to say anything.

"I think I've got something," Clint said into the earpiece. He was at the top of a law office across the street.

"What is it," Steve asked urgently.

There was a pause before the answer. "There's some cigarettes left around here, whoever was sitting up here must have waited around. I've also got some shell casings from a sniper rifle." Clint didn't say the rest, but he didn't need to. This was a trap, designed for Sam. Someone had sat there and waited it out.

Steve quickened his pacing. Just because it was there didn't mean she got hurt. It was impossible to dismiss the evidence sitting there, but that didn't mean she actually got shot. There could be a valid reason for her not having her phone on her, for not contacting the team. He refused to believe it. There was no way Sam could be…gone.

Natasha's voice broke the dead silence about five minutes later. She spoke quietly, knowing no one wanted to hear what she was about to say. "Guys, I've found something."

"What," Steve said into his earpiece urgently. He came out sounding harsh, but he couldn't find it in him to apologize.

"On the parking garage roof adjacent to your building…there's blood. Quite a bit too," Natasha said softly. There was a long stretch of silence as the words sunk in. Realization started to sink into Steve, and he was numb to everything else.

But…but she can't be dead, he forced himself to think. She heals, and she can escape. She has to have gotten out of this. She can't be gone. His eyes glazed over with the tears he refused to let escape.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Sam groaned as she tried to shift onto her side. It felt like she had been drop kicked onto a bed of concrete. As she moved, something tugged at her wrist. She opened her eyes and adjusted to the blurry brightness filtering in through her lashes.

She had never been hungover, but she imagined it must feel something like this. Sam had a pounding headache, her whole being was sore and her mind refused to work beyond a sluggish pace. All she wanted to do was pull a cover over her and sleep until she could process everything.

Why had she even opened her eyes? Oh yeah, her wrist. Sam glanced down and saw a metal restraint locking her wrist to the table. It was like she dipped her head into ice water. She was fully awake and alert now as her mind struggled to figure out how she got here. She started tugging on both the restraints around her wrists, and discovered ones around her waist and ankles as well.

Then came the pain. It appeared in a wave, and eclipsed every other thought she had. She closed her eyes against the sheer force of it and struggled to bite back any noise. Wherever she was, she was in danger.

She struggled to control her breathing, to slow it down. Breathing faster only intensified the sharp pain in her side. After a few minutes, she finally found the will to pick her head up again. She looked down at her shirt. Funny, she thought it had been white. Now it was a bloody mess, with a dark crimson color centered just beneath her rib cage.

She felt another pang of pain equally intense in her right leg. So she had been shot twice. This was not good. The panic was about to set in, and Sam started focusing on breathing in slow, shallow breaths to avoid moving much. Why wasn't she healing quicker? She tried to teleport back to the tower, to anywhere, but the energy needed to do that would completely take away from the energy needed to heal. She was barely alive as it was; to try that would mean openly bleeding again. She would probably bleed to death before she ever got any help.

Sam started to remember things. She remembered the top of the roof, hearing the phone start to ring. She remembered talking to everyone around the kitchen table this morning. If it was this morning….how long had she- the thought had her pulse quickening again. She shook her head to control her thoughts. She remembered the little blue envelope, and the card inside.

Oh no, what had she done? She remembered Steve holding her tight yesterday, telling her he was there for her. Why hadn't she told him? How could she have done this? She was trying to prove that she was still so strong, did this prove her case now? Was it so much better for her to end up strapped to a metal table than to admit she needed help?

Tears burned in her vision and she blinked them away, letting them escape and roll down her cheeks and into her hair. She didn't care about that anymore. In the back of her mind she noted the stinging it had caused; she probably had a cut on her cheek. Sam gave up caring. She was trapped here, in someone else's game. The worst part was that she did it to herself.