Distressed // Steve Rogers

22 - Six Hours

In their room Steve could feel the emptiness of her absence. It had been six hours and he couldn't bare to think of what could have happened in that time. He took a breath to steady himself as images of her beaten and bruised on the floor came into his mind unbidden and his heart ached.

Her phone was sitting on the dresser, switched off and left behind because she had felt safe enough to go without it. When he'd spotted it this morning it had made him smile to know she had felt that comfortable. When a couple of hours had passed and they hadn't returned it had made him sick to think he couldn't call her: couldn't find her. Now he stared at it with curiosity and gut-wrenching pain as he waited for the screen to come to life.

If he wasn't so afraid he would have rolled his eyes when he could access it without a password. He may have been the ice-pop but even he knew to password protect his phone, especially living in this place. Pulling up her recent messages confirmed what Steve had begun to suspect.

Sam is refusing to wake up for a run. Steve said you wake up early.
Want to run?

Suddenly Steve was fifteen again and the tug of envy pulled at the remaining shreds of his resolve. They were at the school dance, or the mall, or even just walking down the streets, and every pretty girl Steve wanted to talk to fawned over his much bigger, much stronger, more confident, more charming, more enamouring best friend. The man who was always just more than Steve was. Locking her phone he tried to push it down, push away the heat of tears, push his confusion and frustration to the back of his mind. He would find her first and deal with Bucky later, because whatever Bucky's intentions were, it was clear he wasn't being honest about his feelings.

*

Natasha rested against the back of the couch, staring at the ceiling as her mind span out of control and Bruce rubbed calming circles against her thigh. When Talia had dropped into her life so unexpectedly it hadn't taken her long to wrap Nat back up in the protective layer of sibling love and concern and now she felt untethered, lost. She had failed to protect her sister again.

"FRIDAY?" She spoke in hushed whispers as the team fractured off into small groups, preparing to fight or run or simply search. 

"What can I do for you Miss Romanoff?" The dulcet tones matched her volume, like a secret conversation that Nat knew Stark could and would access on his own whim later. 

"I need an update on the CCTV screening. Have you found her?"

"I'm sorry Miss Romanoff. I am currently searching over 18,000 security cameras in and around the city. I have yet to identify and locate your sister or Mr Barnes."

Nat closed her eyes as the pain came. Until FRIDAY found one image of her, a glimpse of where she might be or who she might be with, they were useless and Natasha Romanoff hated feeling useless on a normal day. Today, when it was the one person she failed to protect all those years ago, feeling useless was destroying her.

*

The ringing in her ears was incessant and debilitating. It was like she couldn't think past the high pitch emitting from her own mind, like it was warning her against something; something she could not place. She opened her eyes to the darkness and felt the heaviness of her body as she slumped against the floor, her skin was scratched and sore from the stones beneath her. Her eyes were unfocussed and pained and she squinted into the space around her, desperate to find a sign of what had happened, searching her mind for a hint of a clue.

She had been running with Bucky.

Bucky...

As panic consumed her she found herself desperately willing herself to see in the dark, to make out more than just lumps and bumps in the depths of the black that surrounded her. Eventually shapes became more identifiable; a door, an overturned chair, a broken table. There had been a struggle here. She pushed herself up, struggling against the groggy complaints of stiff muscles and a fuzzy mind and she froze. There he was, lifeless on the floor just meters away from her.

"Bucky?" Her throat tore as she croaked at him. "Hey Buck. Come on. Wake up." She dragged her torso across the cold, hard floor as tiny stones scratched at her abdomen, ripping through the light t-shirt now caked in dirt and grime. She needed to reach him. She could feel the sting of loss and guilt as he lay still, his arms outstretched beside him, his eyes closed. Was he breathing? She needed to know he was breathing. "Bucky please?"

Ice froze the blood in her veins and her muscles seized up as a familiar laugh rang out around her, bouncing off of the walls and burrowing into her bones. Matthieu stepped out of the furthest shadows and smiled at her as she shook beneath him.

"Ma Chère," he cooed as he crouched down beside her, brushing his hand across her cheek, "don't worry about your soldier friend. He still has some value."

She bit back the bile that rose in her throat at his words, her eyes locked on Bucky, her mind reeling and her body frozen from fear.

"If you want me dead," her voice trembled, "then just get it over with Matthieu. Do it."

His eyes widened in a toxic mixture of shock and possession as he pulled back slightly, raking over her body and drinking in the sight of her beneath him. 

"Why would I want that Talia?" He cocked his head to the side as a sickening grin erupted across his face. "It is Talia, isn't it? Last time we spoke so freely you were Taylor. My Taylor."

Talia said nothing. Her eyes shifted away from where her friend lay before her and met the icy green gaze of Matthieu as he lent in, his face just inches from her. She flinched away and her body recoiled, curling in on itself as he chuckled, his fingers reaching out to grip her chin, forcing her eyes to hold his steady gaze. 

"I never wanted you dead Ma Chère," he whispered. "I only ever wanted you. And now I have you." She pulled her face free as tears began to spill and he got to his feet, strolling over to where Bucky lay. She was trapped and afraid and she needed Bucky to wake up. "And your little bionic friend here," he kicked Bucky in the ribs, eliciting an unconscious groan, "well he is going to fetch me a lot of money."

Panic took hold as she tried to scramble towards Bucky, ignoring the callous laughter of the man who now held her captive, crying out as his boot connected with her stomach and sent her flying back into a wall. She knew Matthieu only did this sort of business with one group. A group that Bucky Barnes was not ready to deal with. A group that, although she knew people believed were disbanded and destroyed, still secretly coerced and controlled hundreds of people around them. A group that would stop at nothing to regain control of one specific mind; his mind.

Hydra.