I've gotten a lot of threats since I published my last chapter. Seriously, I love hearing about your love for this story! It's almost like the threats are a motivation while I write all this action. Kind of weird, huh?

And I just have to point out...almost FOUR-HUNDRED reviews! I can't even believe it, and I look at it all the time. I never would have thought my story would come this far. And with still more chapters to come! Thanks, guys! You're the best. And without further ado...

Enjoy!

Chapter Forty-Five

Steve's P.O.V.

It was hard trying to wake up. When I tried to open my eyes, my vision was blurry. I tried to focus all my energy into waking up, but it was a struggle.

What's wrong with me?

When I finally did come to, I almost wished I hadn't. I was in a dark room, almost like a dungeon, but with a cold, modern feel. The walls were grey and the floor was just the same. A single light bulb dangled in the middle of the ceiling, the light so bright that it made my eyes sore. I tried to rub at my eyes, only to find them pinned to a wall. I jerked at the confines again, but they wouldn't budge.

Before I could give another good yank, a voice spoke.

"Nice to see you're finally awake, Cap." I jerked my head to my right to find Clint beside me. He was stuck to the wall like I was; he was in the same magnetic cuffs that had been used on me when I was jumped in an elevator at the Triskelion. That's when my personal light bulb turned on.

"HYDRA." I breathed.

Clint nodded to me.

"They got us."

I looked past him and found the other members of the team in the exact same position, me being stuck at the end of the row.

"How'd they get you?" He inquired.

"Some sort of grenade."

Nat nodded, sticking her head out to see me. "Us, too."

I could see Dr. Banner and Thor were still out cold, a mop of golden hair covering Thor's face and Bruce's glasses long gone. I was surprised that I had been one of the members of the team to to wake up so slow. And now, Thor and Bruce, the strongest of us all, were hanging limp against the wall. I could attribute this to added drugs in the grenade. HYDRA had to keep our strongest players out for as long as they could.

I tried to peek past Tony to see if Hannah was anywhere. If they had us, they most certainly had her.

"Hannah?"

Clint gave me a worried glance.

"I don't know."

"And Pepper's gone." Tony replied, a grim expression hung on his face, a contrast to his usually cheerful smile. "She was right there with me when I was knocked out cold."

And, sadly, in Pepper's pregnant state, HYDRA would be more than happy to take advantage of her vulnerability. And Hannah-I wish I had had more time to train her.

"My babies." Nat was suddenly scared stiff as she came to her stark realization.

"If they lay one hand on them, I swear I'll end them." Clint told her with deadly assurance, his face matching his venomous threat.

"You mean we'll end them." She growled. He gave her a nod. I felt sorry for the poor fool that messed with their kids.

"I highly doubt that." The voice that reverberated off the walls was oddly familiar as the door creaked open. A pair of black boots entered the room, the body above them clothed in full combat gear. I allowed my eyes to rest on the man's face and was dumbfounded.

"Rumlow?" My body stiffened, my jaw clenched. "I thought we took care of you."

A sinister grin appeared on his face, now scarred with burns from our last encounter at the Triskelion.

"You aren't the only one that can take a hit, Rogers."

He advanced toward me, the confidence in his stride insulting. Before I knew it, his fist slammed into my cheek. Even with the serum, a punch like that smarted.

"That's for HYDRA." He mouthed cheekily. He advanced towards Natasha.

"You touch her, I'll kill you." Clint snarled. Rumlow sneered at the archer, his face daringly pressing close to his.

"How, Barton? Just how do you intend to kill me?"

"Let me out of these cuffs and I'll show you." He spat back.

"Somehow, I don't think so." He turned from the archer to the master assassin. "Besides, I don't need to touch you to hurt you."

The HYDRA operative pulled out a phone and Nat's face grew horrified. After about ten seconds, Rumlow stuffed his phone back in his pocket.

"Not feeling so tough now, are you Romanoff?"

Indeed, Natasha looked anything but her usual self, her expression a cross between hopelessness and horror. What had he shown her?

"Don't hurt them." She silently whimpered.

The twins.

"I won't hurt your precious twins," He replied, "as long as you are compliant."

"Where's Pepper?" Tony cried in outrage.

"Oh, I forgot about your girlfriend." He whipped out his phone again. "I think she's waking up now." Rumlow showed him the screen again and Tony was mortified.

"Don't you dare touch her!" Tony seethed, his body twitching, threatening to jerk right out of the cuffs and lash at the man in front of him. If only he stood a chance of doing so.

"I don't think your attitude is good for the baby." Rumlow tsked.

Tony's mouth clamped shut, the direness of the situation setting in. If he said one wrong word, it might cost him something more precious than any fortune he possessed.

Rumlow turned on his heel and faced me. "And Cap, I didn't know you were such a passionate lover."

Hannah.

And he'd been watching us. He had eyes everywhere in the Tower. Every move that we made, every word that we said, he had been watching us.

How did he get eyes inside?

"Such a shame. She chose to love a man that's going to be dead soon."

I narrowed my eyes at him.

"You won't get away with this."

He laughed with enough gusto to break the doors down.

"Face it, Cap. Your whole team, you superheroes are no match for HYDRA. And if you make one move, we'll kill everyone you love. So yes, I really will get away with this."

He spun around, an undeniable joy in his step as he slammed the door behind him.

"What are we going to do, Cap?" Tony voiced the thoughts of the whole team, all eyes looking on me to lead them.

For once, I didn't know. Without the added strength of Thor or Bruce, and without any hope of rescue, our situation was starting to look worse by the minute.

Hannah's P.O.V.

"JARVIS, where are they?" I asked the machine nervously as I paced in the elevator on the way down to my aunt and uncle's floor. I had walked over to the elevator in a daze, probably shoving a few men in tuxedos and tripping over a few glittering dresses as I went.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," The A.I. replied, a dismal tone unmistakable in his voice, "I cannot see them anywhere."

Everything was a blur then. And now, alone, I had shifted into a panic.

Something terrible has happened.

It was like the Dark Hand had happened all over again. They'd taken someone close, and now, my family was in serious danger.

They're dying somewhere, just like I was.

I imagined them all strapped to chairs, bleeding to death. Steve and Thor might make it longer because their bodies would keep producing blood. But the rest of them, they were just as human and vulnerable as I was.

Stop it, Hannah. You can't force yourself to think like that.

I wanted to curl into a ball, pray that somehow they would magically appear unharmed. Maybe this could all be one bad dream and Steve would wake me up and hold me in his arms, telling me how silly a nightmare it was.

But I forced myself not to curl up into a ball. I couldn't. I had to face reality. I had Barney and Natalia to think about. If someone was after the Avengers, they would be after those close to them, too.

Pepper.

I hadn't seen her at the party. And she was pregnant. A perfect target.

No, no, no! This could not be happening.

"Can I help you?" I didn't even notice the elevator stop. Now there was a gentleman with mid-length (and kind of scraggly) brown hair and white gloves standing in front of me. His face reminded me of someone, but I couldn't quite put a name to them.

"Sorry. Just...muttering to myself."

He stepped in beside me, pushing a button for another floor. He then leaned against the back of the wall, his legs crossed nonchalantly as the machine shifted downward.

I couldn't help but notice how muscular he was. The tux looked way too small for his figure, like he'd gotten the wrong size in fittings. And there was something about his left arm; his forearm seemed so hard and stiff, unlike his right that bulged out like the rest of his body.

"Some party." He commented as the elevator continually dinged with each floor that we passed, the sound adding to the awkward silence of the elevator.

"Yeah. No kidding." I mumbled. I fiddled with the fabric of my dress, my nerves getting the best of me.

"You seem upset." His eyes were like Steve's: hard. But they betrayed a softness within themselves that only the most attentive person could notice.

"I'm fine." I lied as I looked away. I knew that was a dummy move. When you're lying, you look someone straight in the eye. If you looked away, that moved you into automatic liar.

He was quiet then. He watched the buttons as they lit up each floor as we continually descended down the man floors of the building. I shifted my eyes to the floor and didn't look at him. That is, until the doors suddenly opened. Expecting it to be my aunt and uncle's floor so I could look for clues to their whereabouts, I started to walk out, only to walk onto Steve's floor.

"What?" I looked around in confusion. And I wasn't just confused by the floor in front of me, but by the man standing beside me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked the scraggly, brown-haired man.

"I think the more appropriate question is what are you doing here?"

I was immediately scared by this guy as his eyes narrowed at me. I could see the fabric of his tux start to tighten as his muscles tensed.

"I...I live here." I stammered.

One of his eyebrows quirked into an arch in disbelief.

"I knew Cap had a girlfriend. I just didn't think she lived in the same apartment. His mother would faint if she knew." I wanted to reprimand him in his thinking, knowing my uncle would do the same, but my mind was preoccupied on more important matters.

"How'd you know he had a girlfriend?" We'd kept our relationship so well-preserved, save for the family and Derek. How could this stranger know about us?

He immediately straightened his posture, his back erect, and stuck out his arm.

"My name is Bucky Barnes. I am...or was...Steve's best friend."

Bucky Barnes. HYDRA. Murderer. Metal arm that could strangle anyone it came in contact with.

I immediately backed away from him, scared. He was probably going to kill me. Despite what little Steve had told me about his rescue, since bringing up Bucky caused him great pain, I couldn't see anything other than the video footage from D.C. when Bucky had tried to murder my boyfriend. And the documents spilled on the Internet of him as a HYDRA tool only filled my mind with terror.

He'll kill me like he probably did my family.

No, don't think that now, Hannah. You can't afford to give up hope on them.

"Please," he took a step toward me, arm still reached out to me, "I'm here to help."

"What could you possibly help with? Killing me? Hurting me because I'm his girlfriend?"

My muscles tensed once more. I forced myself to ready for a fight, no matter how weak I looked next to him. Steve had a gun hidden in the cabinet below the sink. If I was fast enough...

But he didn't budge from his spot. He just looked at me with pleading eyes, begging me to trust him.

I couldn't trust him. He worked for HYDRA.

He worked for HYDRA. He saved Steve. He's changed.

But that's only what he'd want me to believe, right? He wanted me to think he was harmless, that he'd changed and somehow he wanted to save the enemies of the group that had made him into a killer.

Steve's words echoed in my mind,

"People do change, Hannah." He said into our second week of training. "You've got to know when they're telling the truth."

I looked into his eyes again. They were still their deep brown color. But they weren't hard on the outside anymore. In fact, they were everything I didn't expect from a hardened murder; weak and begging. He wasn't the killer I'd pictured him to be.

"If you're really here to help," I replied shakily, "then prove it."

He gave me a curt nod before moving over to a picture on the wall. It was a picture of him, though it had to be one from his army days. Now I recognized him fully. How many times had I stopped and stared at that picture, along with Peggy? The times had changed Bucky. In the picture his hair was short and well-maintained, not the slightly scraggly look that he had now. His face in the picture was clean-shaven, compared to the five o'clock shadow he was sporting.

"What are you..." He lifted a hand to shush me before removing the picture on the wall.

"What better place to store them then..." He muttered to himself as he looked behind the frame, unfastening the little straps on the back that held the cardboard behind the picture secure. He laid the picture on the bar counter, removing the cardboard.

"There they are." He removed what looked like a few pieces of paper.

"What are these?" I asked as he handed the papers to me. The top of the letters read: "Dear Steve."

"They're letters." He replied incredulously.

I huffed. I knew they were letters.

"I mean what do they prove?"

"Just read them."

I gave him a weary gaze before I finally shifted to one of the letters. The first one in front of me dated about eight months back, not long after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Dear Steve,

I know the last time we met, we didn't exactly leave on good terms. I wanted to apologize. I've done some research about us and about my past. It's starting to come back to me now. We were best friends.

I don't know if this sounds believable, but I remember us together, clear as day, when we got into trouble that one winter day in '37. I think it was the day after Christmas and we decided to use the new-fallen snow to our advantage. Poor Ms. Withers, the landlady, got knocked on the ground by my snowball. We felt so bad but we laughed so hard as we hid behind some of the garbage cans. Do you remember that?

As more memories come back, I wish I could go back; back before the war and the pain. I remember being strapped down in that HYDRA facility before you found me that time you went on your first mission as Captain America. And then I remember almost falling to my death and being frozen just like you were until now. I feel like such a fool, believing the lies that they told me. I almost killed you, but you never gave up. You never change, do you? One day, I plan to earn your trust back. But for now, I still have to work out some of the kinks.

I want to let you know that I am spying on HYDRA. They are working on something, I'm just not sure what. I'm going to get a closer view, but I just needed to write to you. It's been too long; seventy years too long, in fact.

Your (Hopeful) Friend,

Bucky

There were a few more letters, ones that became longer and more detailed as the months passed. There was one that came a few weeks ago, but I didn't need to read any further to know for sure who I was dealing with.

"Hannah." I stuck out my hand to have my gesture returned in an instant. He had taken off the gloves while I was reading, the cold metal of his arm making me almost gasp in surprise. He gave me a small smirk before letting go.

"Do you know what's happened?" I asked him. If he had been spying on HYDRA, that meant they were up to something; maybe this.

"I believe I do. Where's your security system?"

"That's JARVIS. Anything you need to know, he'll know."

"Then get him." He must have thought JARVIS was a live, physical human the way he asked the question. Boy, was he in for a surprise.

"JARVIS?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

Bucky wasn't as surprised as I thought he'd be; a small raise of the eyebrows before looking as nonchalant as in the elevator.

"Pull up the camera footage for the last two hours." That should give us plenty of time to show what was going on.

There was a moment of silence. It was awkward standing there, waiting for JARVIS to pull it up. Usually, he would have pulled it up in the flick of a switch on my phone, but this time it took a little too long.

Finally, the A.I. responded, "I'm sorry, ma'am. But I have no video from the last two hours."

What?! What was going on?

"They did it." Bucky replied, a look of horror covering his face.

They. And I know who 'they' were. HYDRA.

They had gotten into the system, made it impossible to see for the video footage to be up. We wouldn't be able to see who took them or what direction they went. And that's why JARVIS's systems had been funky. They had found a way in.

The first thing that came to my mind was...

"The twins."

I rushed over to the elevator, punching the button to their floor several times in panic. I didn't even notice Bucky beside me until he grabbed my wrist gently.

"Stop."

"But they took Steve. They took all of them."

The Avengers. The only people that could stand in their way. And they might already be...

No. Quit thinking that. You have to force yourself to believe they're okay.

But how could I believe that? HYDRA was nothing but a terrorist group full of sadistic monsters.

My aunt, my uncle, my friends and Steve. Steve. They had him, and he was their biggest enemy. What they would do to him-I shuddered.

The doors finally opened and I rushed in, only to find the twins as I'd left them: fast asleep.

"You need to move somewhere safe. HYDRA's got eyes everywhere."

"And where do you think we should move them?"

"You mean 'you.'" He pointed to the two sleeping toddlers and myself. I shook my head.

"No. I'm going to try and save them."

His face turned into a frown, but I would hear no argument about it.

"Look, I don't care what you say. I don't care what happens. I will go help rescue my family."

"You'd be blown to smithereens within thirty seconds."

I huffed for a second time.

"My boyfriend, Captain America I remind you, has been teaching me how to fight. I can handle myself if I keep mostly out of sight."

"Well, I for one..."

"Am not going to stand by and let me get massacred." I finished his sentence. "Alright, it's agreed. We find where they're at, and you'll be right beside me. Sounds good." He gave me an annoyed stare before shifting to the most logical obstacle in our way.

"And how do you think we're going to find them?"

"Ma'am," JARVIS said right on cue, "I hate to interrupt, but I do have a tracking device for one of the team: your uncle."

"That'll work." Bucky replied as JARVIS pulled up a holographic scene. There was a beeping red dot on the screen.

"Missouri." The words shot out of our mouths simultaneously and we looked at each other in disbelief.

"How are we supposed to get to Missouri?" Bucky asked in disbelief.

"I do believe Mr. Stark keyed in your prints for emergency access to his suits." The A.I. addressed me.

Tony, you're a genius!

"Looks like you're stuck needing me after all." I grinned cheerily.

The annoyed look on his face only became more apparent with each passing moment. I almost felt bad that he felt so unsure about bringing me along.

"Well...what are you going to do with them?"

He looked to the twins who were immune to the sounds of the chaos around them. They were so peaceful, so innocent.

But they were also in danger. If something or someone ticked HYDRA off, they'd be after them. And that was a thought I couldn't bear.

I quietly walked beside the couch, Natalia still curled up under her favorite fuzzy red blanket. I slowly pulled a section of bouncy red curls behind her ears, revealing her rosy red cheeks. She was the spitting image of her mother. Barney was formed into a ball, still in his little man tux. His shoes were still on, even though he had complained about how much they pinched his toes.

I ruffled his dirty blonde hair, the little boy wriggling in his spot ever so slightly. I quietly started to undo the shoes from his feet. As I untied the shoelaces to the second shoe, he opened his eyes blearily.

"Auntie Hannie, where are Mommy and Daddy?"

"They went out for some ice cream and they're going to bring you back some once they get back." I replied with a comforting smile.

The toddler half-smiled in his dreamy state, his eyes forcing themselves open a centimeter or two wider.

"I like mint chocolate chip." I laughed lightly at my nephew, rubbing my fingers through his hair.

"Yes, I know. Go back to sleep and you'll get your ice cream."

"I love you, Auntie." He said before drifting back into a peaceful slumber.

I lifted myself off the couch, watching the inseparable pair in their own dream worlds far away from here. I had watched them as they had come into the world. They had made into an aunt, a big sister. They had come to me for some of their first steps, had had multiple naps as they laid on my stomach and even pulled some pranks with me on their aunts and uncles.

And now someone was threatening to ruin their precious existence. They were trying to destroy my world and everyone in it.

Any fear that I had for HYDRA suddenly vanished and was replaced with a fiery hatred for HYDRA's evil actions.

I won't let them do this. I'll fight to the last breath and longer. I'll die before I let them kill my family.

I looked to Bucky, who had been watching me with a steady gaze.

"I've got us a babysitter." I replied. "JARVIS, call up Colonel Rhodes."

"Ma'am, are you sure he's the best for this mission?"

I nodded. "Tell him it's an emergency. And please fire up two of your suits while you're at it."

"Yes, ma'am."

I would get my family back, no matter the cost.

I'm seriously loving this part of the story right now. I just love the action! Sorry guys. I'm a thrill lover when it comes to literature. I hope you enjoyed!