Chapter 22.

"Good, Skye's obviously watched us coming in," May said as they drove up to the Bus and she saw the cargo ramp was down. "Any sign of movement back there, Tash?"

"Not after eight ICERs, my love," Natasha said comfortably. She was sitting on Barnes' chest with her gun under his chin. The slightest twitch and she intended to load him up with another magazine's worth.

"Good. Let's hope he stays that way until we get him into the Cage," May replied, parking the SUV.

"You're sure it will hold him?"

"It held Lady Sif. And she's not only Asgardian but pretty damn badass."

"Huh," Natasha raised her eyebrows, impressed. "All right. Here's Cap. He can carry the heavy bastard up there." The two women exchanged grins as Steve and Sam pulled their motorcycles up on the ramp alongside them.

"Where's Fitz and Skye?" May wondered as they followed Steve, hauling the still very much unconscious Barnes over his shoulder, up the stairs.

"Yeah, I need to get my wing looked at soonest," Sam grumbled, behind them. His right wing had only partly retracted and had been dragging him off balance all the way back, slowing them down. He'd taken the pack off and left it on the lab bench until they found Fitz.

Natasha suddenly stiffened as they walked through the Bus. "Stop! Get back!" she whirled and pushed May and Sam back. "Steve, do you smell that?"

Steve paused in his stride towards the Cage door. "I smell – something?"

Natasha was stalking towards the command centre, sniffing at the air. "Stay back, you two," she pointed at Sam and May. "It won't affect us, but you two aren't enhanced."

"She's enhanced?" Sam whispered to May as they watched Natasha. Steve looked at her for a moment, then continued to the Cage. Best to get Barnes locked up safely before he came round.

"Russian version. Same as the Winter Soldier, she thinks," May murmured back. "Not as effective as the Captain's, but a pretty good knockoff."

"Wow." Sam looked at Natasha with a new respect. She turned and came stalking back towards them.

"Serious problem. Faint traces of an aerosol drug HYDRA like to use, in the command centre. A small dose will knock an unenhanced human down for hours. Can you adjust the airconditioning to fully flush the plane?"

"Er," May looked thoughtful. "Fitz could…"

"We have to assume they took Fitz and Skye," Natasha said coldly. "Come on, Melinda. Figure it out. We need to flush it now."

"They took Skye?" Steve came striding back from the Cage, his face pale. "Who?"

"Good question. Sam, help May figure out the aircon. Steve, get in here." She gestured at the control centre. "We can use the cameras to figure it out."

Steve paced impatiently as Natasha messed with the screens, flicking through menus until she brought up the Bus's internal monitoring. Skye. In the hands of HYDRA. He felt sick. He knew only too well what those bastards were willing to do. In his mind's eye he could still see the tortured, damaged bodies of the men the Red Skull and Zola had been experimented on in that horrible lab. And that was seventy years ago. What ghastly advancements had the bastards made since then? He thought of the file on Deathlok and the others who had been implanted with the Cybertek control eyes and shuddered.

"Here we go," Natasha said, snapping Steve out of his reverie. He looked up on the screen and saw what Natasha was replaying. Fitz, in the lab, turning around startled as the doors opened, only to be shot with what was clearly a Taser. Fitz collapsed, twitching, and was hauled off by two black-clad goons.

"Another angle, it wasn't one of them that shot him," Steve said sharply, and Natasha swooped her fingers across the panels.

"Fuck!" both Natasha and Steve said in unison as they recognised the man on screen. Brock Rumlow smirked as he shot Fitz, before nodding to his men and turning to mount the stairs.

Natasha looked at Steve. "First time I've heard you swear, Cap."

"Shut up," he said tersely, watching as she brought up the cameras in the control room and they watched Rumlow stop Skye at gunpoint, then say something that made her face twist with rage before pressing the aerosol under her nose. He carried her off, smirking.

Natasha decided not to tell Captain that she could lip-read. Telling him what Rumlow had said to Skye would be very much counter-productive at this point. She was glad to hear a sudden whooshing noise.

"May and Sam have got the airconditioning going." She was already bringing up more cameras externally on the plane. "Good. Because we're gonna need to fly." Natasha brought Steve's attention to the black van zooming away from the Bus and driving straight over to a small private jet on an adjacent runway. "It took off only about four minutes ago." She tapped a key. "May, we need to be in the air, right now!"

A few seconds later May went belting past, heading for the cockpit. "Get me a destination, Tash!" she shouted over her shoulder.

"Working on it, hacking the satellites now…" Natasha muttered.

Steve turned and stalked away. He needed to hit something, and he'd seen a punching bag stored downstairs. He'd set it up.

Sam found him taking out his rage on the bag a little while later. Sighing, Sam sat down with his back against the lab doors. He'd changed clothes, picking all the glass shards out of his skin, but he was tired and sore. And the night wasn't nearly over yet.

"Skye means something to you, doesn't she?"

Steve paused barely a moment before hitting the bag again. He noticed, gladly, that it was reinforced. Hopefully he wouldn't be dumping sand all over the deck. "She's a good kid. And it seems like – I just found Bucky, however damaged and conditioned he may be, we just got him back. And now we've lost Skye – and Fitz. They're good kids, Sam. The thought of what HYDRA will do to them if we don't get them back…" he shuddered.

"We'll get them back. We're heading for London now, only fifteen minutes behind them. Clint's there, Natasha's called him for backup. Natasha reckons they're taking them to the lab in London Jemma's being sent undercover at. But they have to transport them there from the airport, that jet needs a runway to land. Clint's going to try to set up an ambush so we have a chance to snatch Fitz and Skye back without having to storm the lab."

"Hmm." Steve's lips set in a straight line Sam knew too well.

"Steve, storming that lab would not go well for us with no planning and no backup. This isn't 1945. We try this Natasha's way first. Failing that – well, Thor's on his way too."

"Good," Steve nodded sharply. "It's just a shame we didn't think to bring Banner."

"That was your call, if you remember. Let me see, what did you say when I asked? Oh yes, you said you'd rather the Winter Soldier didn't get smashed before you had a chance to try and take him down peacefully."

"Yes, thanks for that, Sam, but if we'd left Banner on the plane we wouldn't have this problem now!" Steve launched another punch at the bag.

"Might not have a plane, though," Sam said dryly.

"I've got Clint up on comms," Natasha's voice crackled in Sam's ear, and he acknowledged and tossed Steve an earpiece.

"Can't you lot keep out of trouble for just a few days?" Clint said plaintively. "Honestly, I'm just trying to settle into nice domestic bliss with my girlfriend pretending to be an evil scientist and I get a call from you lot that you're dropping trouble in my lap."

"Thanks for the colour commentary, but this is serious," Steve snapped. "Rumlow has Fitz and Skye, and if they get them to that lab, there isn't going to be anywhere for Jemma to be undercover at, so let's get to work."

"As you wish," Clint gave an exaggerated sigh. "Well, I can see them coming in to land at London City Airport now." He was on a rooftop across the river, not far from the HYDRA lab, watching through his night-vision binoculars. "You've caught up with them a bit in the air, May says you're only seven minutes out. I'm gonna hack traffic lights to slow them down so you can catch up."

"Fuck," Sam muttered in an aside to Steve, "is everyone on the Avengers a multi-tasking genius?"

"Yes," Natasha said coolly, "that's why we let you join. Are you gonna be able to fly, Sam?"

"I sure hope so." Sam headed into the lab to collect his damaged wingpack. "Why oh why did they have to take Fitz?" he lamented glumly, putting it back on.

"Jemma's not at work, is she, Clint?" May asked then. "Just in case we do have to storm it…"

"She doesn't start work until next Monday. Right now she's safely tucked up in bed. And I would much rather be there with her, thanks very much, so if we can just get this lot tidied up quick smart," Clint riposted. He went quiet for a minute. "All right, the jet's at a standstill. There's a black van pulling up to it."

"I'm afraid we're going to need Jemma anyway, Clint," Natasha replied. "We got Barnes. And we're going to need her expertise to help us keep him calm until we can break through his programming." She didn't say that they might need Jemma to help treat injuries as well, particularly to Fitz and Skye, but Clint heard the unspoken subtext.

"I'll send her a text to get ready. I have a spare face veil for her so I'll get her to the Bus as soon as I can." He went quiet again, but the comms were clear enough that they could hear him muttering under his breath and rapid typing.

"Landing in sixty seconds," May said crisply, "hang on to something, we're coming in hot."

It was a bumpy, rough vertical landing, but nothing Steve hadn't experienced before. Natasha came racing down to grab the other bike as he revved one off the cargo ramp, and Sam swooped out behind them. May would follow in the SUV as soon as she had the plane secured. They couldn't risk HYDRA boarding again and retrieving Bucky.

"All right Hawkeye, guide us in!" Steve shouted, picking up speed. They hadn't landed at the airport, but on a patch of undeveloped waste ground not far away. It would have cost too much time to get them through airport security, without S.H.I.E.L.D. to smooth the way.

Clint's voice was calm and steadying as he directed them, and Steve realised he really must be multi-tasking as lights turned green at their approach. "You're less than four hundred metres behind. I'm turning all lights red. The HYDRA guys won't realise for a few minutes, but no traffic will be moving. You can run the lights with impunity. I'll see you on the ground." There was a twanging noise Steve recognised as one of Hawkeye's rappelling arrows, and then suddenly, a small explosion in the distance.

"Just blew up a parked BMW as a distraction," Clint said merrily, "I never did like German cars."

"Try and keep the property damage to a minimum, Hawkeye!" Natasha snapped. She and Steve swooped through three red lights, weaving in between stopped vehicles, and suddenly there was the black van, right in front of them. Steve didn't bother with anything fancy, just screeched the motorbike to a stop and ripped the rear doors off with his bare hands. Bullets spanged off his shield, but a rain of arrows over his shoulder cut them off. Steve glanced over his shoulder to see Clint crouched on the roof of the car behind.

"Driver disabled?"

"They're not going anywhere. But – we might have a problem." Clint's face was grim as he gazed into the van.

Oh God, please say Rumlow hadn't shot his captives when he realised they were under attack. Steve lowered his shield slowly, almost unwilling to look, and looked into the back of the van.

Four dead goons. Slumped over the struggling body of Leo Fitz.

"Get me out of here!" Fitz yelped helplessly. His hands and feet were zip-tied together.

"Where's Skye?" Steve barked at him, even as Natasha hopped into the van and cut Fitz free.

"I don't know, they only put me in the van…"

Sam landed on the roof of the van with a thud. "What did I miss? I can't bank worth a damn with my wing like this!"

"Get me up there, my laptop's on the roof!" Clint pointed upwards, and Sam, with one glance at Steve, grabbed Clint under the armpits and lifted off again.

Steve stood in the street, his hands dangling uselessly by his sides. Seeing his face, Natasha put her hand on his shoulder. "We'll find her, Steve. We will."

"Rumlow's not here," Steve said dully. "He's got Skye. We've missed our chance."

The SUV came roaring up at that moment and May scrambled out, taking in the scene with one comprehensive glance. "Time to get the hell out of Dodge, unless you really fancy explaining all this to the Metropolitan Police?"

There were sirens in the distance. Steve shared a grim look with Natasha even as Fitz scrambled into the SUV.

"The Bus," Natasha said. "We need the computer support." She correctly interpreted Steve's glance upwards. "Don't worry about Clint and Sam. Clint's evaded police in more countries than years since you were born, and that's not an exaggeration. Let's go."

Uh-oh. No Skye and no Rumlow.

NOT GOOD.