Light Up The Night

In the end, it was Pietro’s trip line around the perimeter that gave them the warning they needed.

The alarm, such as it was – a shake of coke cans by the bed – woke Wanda – well, honestly both of them - with a start. Pietro quickly covered her mouth with his hand, as though afraid she would make a sound. He held up one finger, indicating she should remain quiet, and she nodded.

The two of them made it out of bed, padding through the room on bare feet. Pietro paused in front of the television, quickly pulling up the screen to check the security footage. Two black cars with tinted windows moved up the driveway. Their pace was determined and focused but careful and cautious – just slowly enough that the two of them still had a chance. Pietro turned the television off and insisted on taking point in front of Wanda, despite her attempts to step in front of him. He gently but firmly remained in front of her, then leaned out into the hallway and checked before moving forward towards the stairs.

In the darkness, the house felt different; heavy, smothering. The moonlight seemed fractured through the windows. Wanda wished for pure black, rather than this half-light and frightening shadows. Every sound was a warning – could that be broken glass tinkling against the floor or the creak of a door being forced open? – and soon she couldn’t distinguish between false sounds her mind created and actual threat. She kept reminding herself that no one could have moved that fast, given where the cars had last been.

Pietro paused long enough to turn back to Wanda to mouth, “The panic room” and she nodded her understanding. As they moved down the hallway and started down the stairs, she tried to remember the quickest path there. She thought it might involve turning left and down the hallway but she wasn’t quite certain. It was hard to think with the blood pounding in her ears. All of her energy was going towards controlling her breathing to prevent herself from audibly gasping or panting as they made their way downstairs.

They had a head start. That was the important thing. No matter what tricks her ears played on her, they had been alerted. With Tony’s extensive security system, there was no way they wouldn’t reach the panic room in time. Either the intruders’ attempts to break through the security would set off alarms or it would delay them. Regardless, it would give them a few more precious minutes.

As they turned at the bottom of the stairs, she realized that there were few windows in the hallways leading up to the panic room. They had to move through complete darkness. She reached forward, grasping at a handful of her brother’s shirt, in an effort not to lose him, no matter how unlikely that would be. Instead of focusing on the hallway enveloping them, she tried counting each footstep. One, two, three – and she tried to remember exactly how many steps it took to reach the next turn, and then how many steps from there it would take to reach the panic room.

The counting gave her something to focus on and that helped, truly helped, because without it, she would have frozen when she first heard the footsteps. Instead, she shifted to counting how many pairs of footsteps were moving towards them. No, not towards them. Towards the stairs. Towards the rooms. Spreading out to most quickly cover the area. She felt Pietro stiffen and quicken his steps and she struggled to match her pace to his because she wasn’t about to lose him in the darkness. Each floorboard threatened to creak, every footstep sounding far too loud to her ears, but there was no other choice except to keep moving forward.

Then, without any warning, her brother stopped moving and pushed her in front of him. Caught unprepared, she stumbled, nearly falling, and barely managed to catch herself.

Pietro hissed, “Put in the code, Wanda” and suddenly she couldn’t seem to recall those series of numbers Tony had repeated to them more than once.

She typed in the code once and hit enter, only to receive an error messaging indicating some part of it was incorrect. She took in a deep breath to calm herself, trying to figure out where she went wrong, and that was when she heard the horrifying sound of multiple sets of footsteps accurately approaching.

That came only a moment before lights were trained on them and several voices yelled at them to stop.

“Keep trying, you can do it,” Pietro whispered in her ear, as he leaned closer to shield her. Somehow, someway, she forced herself not to listen to anything and focus solely on putting in the numbers once more. There were only so many attempts allowed. If she messed up enough times, the two of them would be completely out of luck.

She checked, then double-checked the number before hitting enter. In the same moment it flashed green, there was the sickening sound of a gun firing. Pietro gasped and stumbled against her back. She spun around, more than ready to see the worst for the second time – her brother choking on his own blood, his shirt soaked with it.

Her heart seized in her chest, even as realization washed over her. There was no immediate injury but Pietro swayed on his feet, barely standing. A moment after that, her eyes fell on the dart sticking out of his thigh and the pieces fell together.

They weren’t targeted to be killed. They were going to be taken back to their father.

She almost wished these men had been sent to kill them.

Behind her, the door to the panic room and opened. Wanda turned, grabbing her brother and dragging him back, hoping against hope that if she kept him in front of her as a shield the men wouldn’t fire again because they wouldn’t want to give him too high of a dose. Already, Pietro slumped as nearly dead weight, his legs barely offering any help as she forced him to take a step, then another, as the men with the tranquilizer guns yelled for her to stop.

A step. Then another. Then one more.

And as the men rushed forward, Wanda shoved her brother inside.

Arms grabbed her from behind and she reacted without thinking. She kicked both her feet against the door, letting whoever was holding her take her weight, and heard the satisfying click of the panic room door locking as she slammed it shut. Her heart hammered in her chest as the full weight of everything came down on her; her last chance to escape was gone.

But Pietro was safe. They weren’t going to take him. Talbot wasn’t going to take him.

“What’s the code?” the man holding her snarled.

“I… I don’t know. The one to open it once it’s been activated is different. Stark said that it changed from the outside every time the door locked.”

“What’s the code?” The man twister her arm behind her back roughly enough that Wanda couldn’t help crying out. “Tell me now, unless you want your brother to die. Those drugs shut down a person’s system and the reaction needs to be monitored. If we leave him in there, he’ll be dead within an hour or less.”

Her heart seized in her throat and she almost blurted out the code. Then, the reminder of the last time Talbot had beat her brother – and how he looked afterwards, covered in bandages, with tubes coming out of him – came into her head. She swallowed the numbers back. Maybe the drugs would kill her brother. But better he die here than suffer for as long as Talbot would put him through hell.

“I don’t know,” she insisted, not bothering to fight the tears now streaming down her face. “I swear, I don’t know!”

“We have the girl,” another one of the men said. “That’s enough. We can’t wait any longer. We don’t know what alarms or calls to the police using the panic room might have triggered.”

“Yeah,” one of the others said. “Stark didn’t warn us about that.”

Whatever vague relief Wanda felt when she realized her brother would be kept out of their father’s grasp, at least for the time being, dissipated with those words.

“He wouldn’t do that!” she cried out before she could stop herself. “He wouldn’t have warned you!”

The man holding her sighed. “You never should have trusted a Stark. Everyone’s got a price.”

Before she could struggle, a pair of thick metal cuffs were hooked to her wrists and a hood was shoved over her head. She was dimly aware of moving forward – of being carried when she refused to walk on her own – and then they were outside, the night air freezing against her skin, and her brother left behind.

-~-

When Steve’s phone rang, flashing Pepper’s number, he wasn’t even surprised. He glanced at Bucky, who had resorted to pacing around the house like a trapped animal, and answered.

“Hey, Pepper. Any news?”

There was a beat of silence before Pepper spoke, more uneasy than he’d ever heard her sound before. “No news on Tony but I just received a text message with an address and a series of numbers.”

“You think it’s from the people who took Tony?” Steve asked. “Why the hell would they send you that? Is it a trap? Was the number a ransom amount? Something like that?”

“No, no, it’s not that,” Pepper said hurriedly. “It’s a bit more complicated than that, I think. Tony told me there was a panic room in the house where the twins are being kept and if it were ever activated, I would be sent a text message with the address, plus the code. He made me sure I knew the phone number that the message would be sent from and… and, well, it all lines up.”

“And what exactly did Tony tell you to do if you received this text?” Steve asked, shoving back the flash of anger that sparked at the thought of Tony making things more complicated. Not now. Now was not the time for that.

“All he ever said was to let him know. I guess it was a fail safe to have me on the message, even though this is Tony and he obviously would have also made sure the message would be sent to himself – but maybe he never considered the possibility that he might not be around. That’s why I’m calling you. Because Tony’s always trusted you and I don’t see any other option: I’m going to have to go to this address and I don’t want to go alone. Not with everything that’s going on.”

“Or you could call the cops,” Steve pointed out, not because he honestly thought that would be a good option but because someone had to suggest it.

“You know that’s not going to happen,” Pepper firmly stated. “I’m going and I’d rather have you with me.”

“Okay, okay, of course I can go with you,” Steve agreed, ignoring the questioning look that Bucky sent his way. “This isn’t something to do on your own.”

“Steve…” There was a moment of hesitation before she asked, “Do you honestly think I should call the police instead of going myself?”

“Definitely not,” Steve said. “That wasn’t a good idea, just something I had to suggest. We don’t know who we can trust in the police force. I mean, I guess I could try to get ahold of Detective Coulson but I doubt he’d be able to come with us immediately. No, we should go on our own. Tony trusts you and you trust me. It makes sense for us to go and see what’s happened.”

“Alright,” Pepper said, her voice no longer hesitant but now cool and collected. “I’ll be over as soon as possible. Where should I meet you?”

“I’m over at Natasha’s still. But Pepper… are you sure you shouldn’t just stay put? In case something happens with Tony and you’re needed here? You could just forward the text to me and let me and Buck handle it.”

“No. Tony wanted me to be alerted for a reason. I’m going with you,” Pepper said firmly.

“Alright. Then we’ll be ready to go when you arrive.”

“See you soon, Steve.” With that, she hung up, and Steve turned to meet Bucky’s wary, watching gaze.

“Pepper received an address. She’s pretty sure it’s where the twins are. Seems like they must have used the panic room, which suggests something went down. She asked me to go with her. I figured you’d come along as well.”

“You’re damn right about that,” Bucky agreed. “I’m not letting the two of you go alone.”

“I figured you’d say that. She’ll be here soon.”

Bucky nodded curtly and headed straight for the stairs. Steve took the opportunity to try Tony’s number, despite the fact that it continued to go straight to voicemail. Even if it was pointless, it was something to do, other than wait and wonder and feel goddamn helpless. It irritated him that in this immediate moment, there was nothing he could do except wait for Pepper’s arrival.

Already, Clint, Natasha, and Sam were trying to gather information on Tony’s whereabouts. There was no point in sitting around and waiting for them to return. For an instant, just an instant, he considered texting or calling one of them, just to let them know what they were doing but the thought that Natasha might stop them or intervene made his fingers still on the phone. They were already occupied and letting them find the information on Tony was the important thing. In the meantime, Steve, Bucky, and Pepper could help the twins and keep them safe.

It was better than sitting around and waiting. That was something Steve absolutely refused to do from here on out. He’d spent too much time over the past several months waiting to see what would happen and dealing with the aftermath. Not anymore.

Footsteps on the stairs alerted Steve to Bucky’s return, as he came into view, now clad in all black, from his pair of jeans to his sweatshirt. He held a gun in his right hand.

Steve’s gaze fell heavily on the gun and he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, even though he didn’t audibly question it.

Bucky bristled. “What? I can still shoot with one hand.”

“I have no doubt,” Steve assured him. “I was just… not expecting you to have that. But I guess it’s good we’re going in prepared. Any chance you have one for me?”

“Last time I checked, you don’t know how to use a gun,” Bucky pointed out, although his tone was gentle. “Giving an untrained person a loaded weapon is asking for one of us to get shot.”

While there was logic to the statement, it still set Steve’s teeth on edge. He’d known from the start this was going to be the response but it was infuriating to once again be told that he couldn’t do something.

“What about something else then?” he couldn’t help but ask. “Something like a knife? It seems pointless for only one of us to be armed, especially given the situation we might be going into.”

Bucky studied him for a moment before nodding curtly and heading back upstairs. This time when he returned, he carried a small metal object in his right hand. He handed the object over to Steve and then showed him which area to touch to spring the blade open. Steve practiced a few times on his own before determining he felt comfortable with the knife.

“So, what do we do now?” Bucky asked.

“We wait for Pepper to arrive. What else can we do?”

-~-

“Are you sure we should be here?” Sam asked warily as the two of them crossed the motel parking lot and headed towards the door to Barney’s rented room.

“What other choice do we have?” A tinge of frustration edged into Clint’s voice. “We’re not talking about this over the phone and we don’t have any other leads.”

He knocked on the door and a few moments later, Barney opened it to reveal a room in its usual disarray. The only difference was that this time, in addition to the various fast food containers, empty bottles, and assorted weaponry visible, there was also an uncomfortably familiar bow propped up against the wall with an equally familiar quiver filled with arrows beside it. Clint froze without meaning to as his eyes locked on the sight. The room around him fell away. All he could hear were incomprehensible shouting and the thudding of boots against his body.

Sam’s voice – saying his name loudly and sharply – brought him back to the present. He sucked in a deep, ragged breath before pulling his eyes away from the bow and onto his brother. While Clint had checked out for the moment, Barney had sprawled out on the bed with a fresh bottle of beer in his hand. Clint shifted his attention over to Sam, whose eyes were narrowed and filled with worry, and focused on taking in a normal deep breath and hoping against hope his heart would stop pounding out of his chest.

“You look like you could use a drink yourself,” Barney commented. “There should be a couple left in the mini-fridge.”

Against his better judgment, Clint accepted the offer, taking one of the ice-cold bottles out and easily popping off the top with a quick, practiced move and the assistance of the bureau’s edge. It wasn’t as though another scratch was going to make a noticeable difference. The chill of the beer moving down his throat calmed him all the more and a few gulps – and half a bottle into the drink – and he couldn’t even remember why his heart had been trying to punch its way through his ribcage.

Sam cleared his throat rather pointedly when neither Clint nor Barney had spoken in a few moments. Clint did his best to ignore the worried, somewhat irritated look on Sam’s face in response to the drinking. Maybe it was a mistake but he’d be more clearheaded with a little alcohol in his system.

“You gonna introduce your friend, Clint?” Barney asked.

“This is Sam,” Clint offered, before considering that maybe it would have been a better idea to give his brother a fake name. “He’s a friend. I trust him implicitly.”

“Well, that’s good, I’m always glad to hear you have that level of trust in someone who you brought to the room where I’m technically hiding out.” Barney extended his hand. “Anyways, I’m Barney. Clint’s brother.”

“Yeah, I gathered that much.” Sam somewhat reluctantly accepted the offered hand. “Why did you call us?”

“For starters, I called my brother,” Barney pointed out. “And I called him because he’d asked me to see if I could find out anything regarding who has Stark.”

“And have you?” Clint asked. “Or did you just call me over here to shoot the shit and drink a beer?”

“I called you over because the last thing I wanted was for you to be on the streets tonight, trying to find intel on your own. I can tell you that it’s not the Russians, the Irish, or the Italians, because right now each of those groups is accusing the other one and a whole lot of fighting has broken out. Everyone’s pointing fingers and accusing everyone else and then accusing them of lying when they deny being involved. ‘course, there’s also a sense of relief because none of them wanted to be the one gunning for someone as big as Tony Stark. I don’t know exactly what it is about the man but given that there have been quite a few successful assassinations by the higher ups in these organizations, the fact that they’re afraid of making a move on him speaks volumes.”

Clint cut in at that point. “Alright, so if it’s not the Russians or the Irish, then who? The Italians, coming in from Jersey? Who else is on the playing board?” When Barney still didn’t offer up the information in-between the time it took Clint to take a breath before speaking again, he pressed on. “I need something and I need it now.”

“It’s no one on the street,” Barney slowly said. “It’s someone new. Someone that even the others are afraid of.”

“Given that time is of the essence, could you be a little more direct?” Sam spoke up. “Do you have a name or are you just gonna keep stringing us along?”

Barney was quiet for a long moment. “Why should I tell you? I still don’t know this guy you’ve got with you, Clint. I’ve already said more than enough. For fuck’s sake, for all I know he’s a cop. I already know you’ve gotten involved with them. Maybe this is all a set-up and you’ve finally come to take your revenge on me by getting me arrested.”

Clint downed the rest of his beer before running a hand through his hair. “Seriously, Barney, now is not the time. I’m not here to set you up. That’s not the type of thing that I do. There’s nothing in it for me to do that. Sam’s a friend. That’s all.”

“Seriously, I’m probably the most trustworthy person in the room,” Sam commented, crossing his arms over his chest. “The only thing I care about here is making sure no one else gets hurt. So give us something or we’ll go hunt down the information ourselves. And I do recall you saying that you didn’t want Clint out on the street.”

Barney let out an amused laugh at that. “Seems like a pointless threat, depending on whether Clint’s self preservation is actually working. After all, Clint might know his way around the streets but I don’t get the sense you do.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Sam said, and there his voice turned the slightest bit cold. “If you think the streets of DC scare me, you’re not taking into account that I’ve seen a whole lot worse overseas than anything that could happen in this country.”

Barney’s look contained some grudging respect in response to that statement. “Well then. Maybe I am underestimating you.” He took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I don’t have much. Just a name. A name I haven’t been able to pull anything up with. If I tell you this, Clint, I don’t want you doing something stupid. You think the Russians and Irish and Italians are a threat? From everything I’m hearing, they’re nothing compared to this man.”

“Just spit it out, Barn,” Clint said, and instead of the adrenaline he expected to surge in response to everything his brother had just said to him, out of the fact that his brother actually looked worried and perhaps even frightened about disclosing this information, all he felt was exhaustion.

“The Baron,” Barney said, after a long enough moment of silence that Clint had wondered if he’d actually disclose this information.

Clint exchanged a look with Sam, who looked as confused by the title as Clint himself felt.

“The… Baron? What am I supposed to do with that? Find a man with that title? Who the fuck even uses titles like that these days?”

“Definitely no one in America, unless it’s a code name,” Sam said.

“I don’t have any more than that to offer you,” Barney replied. “Like I said, I couldn’t find anything on him. No one will speak about him. But the others are definitely afraid.”

“Thank you,” Clint said, his tone genuine. “I know it’s not much but it’s still something to go on.”

Barney looked troubled. “Just be careful, alright?”

“I appreciate the brotherly concern but now isn’t the time to go all protective on me. I’ve been dealing with this shit on my own for long enough. I can handle it now.”

“I hope you can,” Barney murmured. “And even if I can’t trust you on that, I think your friend isn’t going to let you run off with a half-cocked plan of some sort.”

“You’ve got that right,” Sam agreed. “I probably don’t have to say this but I’m gonna – I hope Clint’s trust in you isn’t misplaced and that if you find out anything else, you’ll let us know.”

“What other choice do I have?” Barney said with a shrug. “That’s what brothers do, right?”

“Right,” Clint agreed, taking a step back towards the door. “That’s what brothers do. Hopefully you won’t forget again that that’s what we are.”

He didn’t give Barney a chance to respond, just followed Sam out the door. The name wasn’t much to go on but at least it was something. At this point, something was better than nothing. It wasn’t until he settled himself in the passenger’s side of the car that his gaze drifted back to the motel and immediately was drawn to the door of his brother’s room, where Barney stood, watching as Sam backed the car out of the spot.

Clint tried not to examine the look on his brother’s face. The last thing he needed to consider was that Barney actually worried about him and his well-being. With everything else going on, he didn’t have the energy to examine what that might mean.

-~-

The silence in the car crawled over his skin and set the last of Steve’s nerves on edge. Aside from an automatic, emotionless greeting from Pepper, there had barely been a word exchanged between the three of them. Pepper already had the address plugged into the GPS and Steve watched out the window as the city slipped away and the highway took them across state lines.

Bucky claimed shotgun and sat quietly in the front seat, tapping his fingers against the doorframe beside him. He only broke the silence to ask Pepper for the address, which he followed up by saying that he would send it to Natasha shortly before their arrival, just in case something happened. Then he lapsed into silence once more. Something about how his eyes shifted to the window and his breathing became more controlled and rhythmic made Steve marvel at how easily Bucky was able to fall back into the same routine he must have during his time in the military.

There was something far too practiced and preparative about these changes; there was a spark in Bucky’s eyes that didn’t match any look Steve had seen before. Bucky might have been anxious – must have been anxious, if Steve’s own feelings were anything to go by – but the adrenaline clearly overpowered any sense of fear. He might have been operating with only one arm but Steve could easily see that there was a part of him that thrived off the danger they might be about to face.

As the car took an exit and moved off of the highway, Steve, for his part, only felt restlessness building up inside of him. Each minute seemed to last an hour and didn’t seem to be ticking down quickly enough to match the miles unfolding beneath the car’s wheels. The weight of the switchblade in his pocket brought some comfort but nothing would allow him to actually feel prepared to handle this situation. Not when the people they might be facing could have any variety of weapons and between the three of them, they had a knife and a gun.

Outside the window, the land became more rural, unfolding with rows of trees and patches of land that would be green in the coming months. The space between the houses increased as well, becoming more and more spread out. The houses varied from one to the next, with a tiny cottage in one yard to a sprawling McMansion in the next. Some had basic wooden fences to keep in livestock – it seemed to primarily be horses, given the jumps set up in the fields – and others had stone walls that met together in an impressively secure, locked gate, looking less like a house and more like a fortress.

Then the smaller houses became fewer and fewer, replaced by longer spaces between the buildings and increasingly intricate huge, gated entryways. The houses, previously visible in the distance beyond the security systems, now slipped away into darkness, with driveways reaching as far as the eye could see without any clear housing beyond it. Steve idly wondered how much these houses might go for – probably double or triple the price of his student loan debt, at the least – and quickly determined that it was a number he could not begin to comprehend.

Steve wasn’t even surprised when Pepper slowed and turned into one of the longer driveways. By his estimates, they had driven at least several minutes without seeing another house before reaching this one. She rolled down the window and tapped a code into the keyboard at the gate. The gate obligingly opened and Pepper continued on her way down the drive.

Steve’s breath caught in his throat as the full reality of the situation fell over him; they were really doing this, they were going in there without any backup, and he was fine with that, despite the pounding of his heart in his chest. After all of the shit the twins had gone through – hell, given the hell Tony must be going through in this moment, if he was even still alive, and Steve wasn’t about to let his thoughts go any further in that direction – he was ready for a fight.

In the front seat, Bucky sat up straighter, carefully scanning the area as they approached the house. Given that he remained quiet, Steve had to assume that he saw nothing out of the ordinary there.

At least that was his thought until Bucky tensed and said, “There are two sets of recent tire tracks and the front door is open.” Steve couldn’t imagine how Bucky could see that clearly, despite the darkness, but he didn’t doubt him or his words for a second.

Steve reached for the door handle, ready to jump out, until Pepper’s voice stopped him. “Wait. Let’s get closer and park.”

“Agreed,” Bucky said. “And once we get there, I need you both stay back until I assess the situation.”

“I’m not letting you go in alone,” Steve quickly said.

“Neither am I,” Pepper said.

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. But the two of you are going to follow all of my orders and stay behind me the entire time.”

Both Steve and Pepper – grudgingly in Steve’s case - murmured their agreement as Pepper eased the car to a stop. The silence felt heavier without the background noise of the engine and GPS to mask it. Now there was nothing, save for their breathing – slow and steady from Bucky, more ragged from both Steve and Pepper. The creak of Bucky opening the door all but sent Steve’s heart into overdrive, as though it were trying to beat it’s way out of his chest, and his throat tightened and closed. For an instant, panic flashed through his system; he could see his inhaler clearly back in the medicine cabinet at Natasha’s cabinet. If he had an asthma attack – which seemed to be more of a possibility when his throat seemed to be closing up – he would be, in a word, fucked.

Instead of focusing on that, he kept his gaze locked on Bucky, who swung his legs out of the car and rose to his feet. In almost the same motion, Steve caught a flash of movement, followed by a distinctive click, which could only be Bucky easing back the safety on the gun. Ignoring his own ragged breathing, Steve scrambled after him. Pepper pocketed the keys and following behind. The only pause in movement came from Pepper starting to hand over a flashlight to Bucky before pausing and passing it to Steve instead. Bucky motioned for them to stay behind him, as though they might have already forgotten his order, and then turned his full attention to the house in front of them.

Just as Bucky had said, the front door was open, the house in darkness beyond. Bucky approached cautiously, pausing right in the doorway, and stood there listening intently After several drawn out seconds, he nodded and moved forward. Steve tried to mimic his movements, noticing how Bucky kept his back to the wall at all times. What Steve couldn’t figure out was how Bucky moved soundlessly through the house, when Steve’s own feet – not to mention Pepper’s – seemed to find every bit of creaking wood. When Bucky gave the signal, Steve turned on the flashlights, carefully directing it around Bucky and panning it from side to side depending on the direction Bucky looked in.

The house stayed unnervingly quiet, aside from the ticking of the clocks spread throughout. Nothing seemed to be out of place or disturbed; there were certainly no signs of a struggle. As they moved from one room to another, Steve half-expected a figure to jump out at them from the darkness. With no streetlights around, it wasn’t particularly easy to see even a foot in front of them without a direct beam from the flashlight. His thoughts drifted to images from the final scene in Silence of the Lambs as he considered the possibility that the people who had done this just might have night vision and be waiting to make their move as soon as the three of them were lulled into a false sense of security.

Steve and Pepper stayed close behind as they reached the stairs, having exhausted the first floor and the basement, and moved now from bedroom to bedroom – the majority of which looked unlived in, only one of which where the flashlight lit up bedding clearly disturbed and mussed, a sign that it was the twins’ room. This was the first room where things looked somewhat out of place, as there were cans and bottles strung up, attached to what appeared to be fishing line, given that Steve almost tripped over one of the lines because he couldn’t see it. The majority of the lines, however, appeared to go somewhere outside the window. That brought up some hope for Steve; if the twins had advanced warning, maybe they managed to get themselves into safety.

Bucky took particular care in this room, checking under the beds and anywhere a person could have attempted to hide. Everything about Bucky seemed different; this was a far cry from the Bucky who had been sleeping fitfully this afternoon in the attempt to stave off and stop a migraine. This Bucky moved confidently and fluidly, with no hesitation, and no sign of pain or discomfort, even still missing half of his left arm.

After reaching the last bedroom, Bucky lowered his gun. “The house is clear. Where did you say the panic room was, Pepper?”

“It’s down on the first floor. I think I saw it as we were moving through.”

She turned to lead the way, then paused and looked to Bucky for confirmation. He nodded his agreement to this plan and took up the rear in order to let Steve continued to guide the way with the flashlight. Navigating the stairs still felt unnerving, even knowing there was no one in the house with them. Each step seemed to bow under their weight, the wood creaking ominously.

The panic room itself was made of solid metal, with an intricate security setup. Pepper took out her phone, then motioned for Steve to direct the flashlight onto the keypad, and tapped in several numbers. The door unlocked with a click and swung open. Steve felt his heart leap into his throat when the flashlight fell on the motionless form on the floor. Pepper gasped and Steve saw her fingers shift towards the emergency call button on her phone.

Bucky, who must have tucked the gun into the waist of his jeans – which Steve seemed to recall wasn’t exactly protocol for securing weapons – reached out to stop her and shook his head. Then, without missing a beat, he knelt down beside Pietro and softly but sharply said his name as he reached a hand towards his shoulder. No, Steve realized, not his shoulder but his throat. The thought that Bucky must be checking for a pulse turned Steve’s blood to ice.

Steve recoiled when, unexpectedly, Pietro snarled, “No!” and lunged at Bucky. Thankfully Bucky’s reflexes were intact, not to mention that Pietro’s movements seemed off and jerky. It didn’t take much for Bucky to twist enough that Pietro’s wild blow caught his right shoulder instead of his face or his still healing left shoulder.

Before Bucky could react or respond, Pietro scrambled away from him and slurred out, “Get away from me.” Or at least that was what Steve thought he said; it was a bit hard to make out the words clearly.

“Easy, kid,” Bucky said, his voice gentle but somehow still sharp and commanding. “It’s just me. I’m not here to hurt you.” The unexpected blow from Pietro must have hurt but his voice betrayed none of that. “It’s just me. It’s Bucky.”

“Bucky?” Pietro echoed hollowly. “What… how… where… where is Wanda? Where is my sister?”

Steve panned the flashlight around the panic room as though he might have somehow missed seeing Wanda there the first time. While the room was large – clearly designed to keep people there in comfort for however long it might take for safety to return – there was nowhere Wanda could have been hiding. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Bucky’s hand reach out to grab something, which was quickly placed in his pocket.

“They… did they take her?” Pietro slurred out. “Is she gone?”

Pepper knelt down beside Pietro, careful to keep her distance. “Pietro, Wanda’s not here. We don’t know where she is but we’re going to do everything we can to find her. In order to do that, we need to get out of here. Can you walk?”

“I… yes… yeah, I can walk,” Pietro said slowly, although he made no attempt to move.

“Pietro, is it alright if I put my hand on your arm? I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to help you up. Is that okay?”

Pietro looked a bit wary but merely said, “Yeah, that’s fine” in a far too resigned tone.

In the end, it took both Pepper and Steve to help Pietro stand, one of them tucked under each arm. Pietro’s legs barely supported his weight, looking almost boneless, but with their support, he managed to take one shaky step after another. Steve murmured encouragement to him, trying not to grimace in response to carrying half of Pietro’s deadweight. Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught that Bucky remained on high alert and continued to scan the area for threats, even if that was made a bit more difficult given that Steve could no longer man the flashlight and carry Pietro at the same time. Bucky, of course, couldn’t do much either, given that he needed to carry the gun in his one hand. Thankfully their eyes had adjusted enough that they were able to navigate the house and get Pietro out to the car and into the backseat with Steve.

The end result had Pietro half in Steve’s lap but he didn’t protest as Pepper slid into the front seat, Bucky settling back into the passenger’s seat. As Pepper turned the car on and pulled out down the driveway, there was nothing but the purr of the engine and ragged breathing. Steve pulled out the nursing training his mother instilled in him and checked Pietro’s pulse – somewhat slow, although not alarmingly so – and his respiration, which was a bit slower.

“Kid, I’m gonna need you to stay awake,” Bucky said from the front seat. “We don’t know how much they dosed you with and the last thing we need is for you to stop breathing on us. Got it?”

“Got it,” Pietro mumbled.

“Steve, keep an eye on him.” Bucky pulled out his phone and muttered a few curse words.

“What’s wrong?” Pepper immediately asked.

“Oh, nothing. Just Natasha not being too happy to see my message about us going AWOL.” He tapped out a message. “I’m letting her know I’ll call in a minute. I want to make sure that Sam and Clint will be back at the townhouse when we bring Pietro there.”

“I need to find my sister,” Pietro insisted.

“I know,” Steve quickly offered. “We know. But we need to get you there first to figure out the best course of action.”

He paid some attention to Bucky’s conversation with Sam – which mostly seemed to be confirming that they were back at the townhouse – and didn’t fully tune in until he heard Bucky’s phone beep. Bucky quickly cut his conversation with Sam off by saying, “Shit, I’ve gotta go, it’s Nat.”

Then he switched over. “Hey, Nat. It’s me. Yes, we’re fine.” A beat of silence. “What? Are you serious?” Another beat. “Fuck. Well, we have the kid. Yes. Only one of them. We’re bringing him to the townhouse. Yes, I’ll let Pepper know. We’ll let you know when we reach the townhouse. Be safe. See you soon.”

When he hung up the phone, he didn’t say anything. Steve could see the tension in his shoulders. He let a few moments go by before asking, “Buck, what did Natasha say?”

Bucky exhaled slowly and his voice was the slightest bit shaky. “She said they found Tony. That he was dropped off at the Georgetown Hospital.”

Steve saw Pepper’s fingers tighten around the wheel and when Bucky didn’t say anything further, she asked, “How bad is it? Did she say?”

Bucky nodded curtly. “She did. And it’s bad. He’s in surgery right now. It’s… it’s not looking good.”

Pepper’s hands clenched all the more and the speedometer moved up another five miles an hour. Still, her voice was perfectly even as she said, “Then I will drop the three of you off at the townhouse and head straight to the hospital.”

“We’ll go with you,” Steve said.

He couldn’t help it. The image of what “bad” might look like, the idea of what the emergency surgery might be for, all of those things after everything Tony had done to help Steve out over the years, after everything he’d done for the twins made Steve’s heart twist. He and Tony butted heads often enough but that didn’t mean Tony deserved whatever hell he’d gone through this evening.

Then he remembered the kid still half-sprawled in his lap and amended the statement to, “If that’s alright with you, Pietro.”

“That’s fine,” Pietro murmured.

“Sam and Clint are at the townhouse to take care of you,” Bucky added. “So… it’s settled then. We’ll drop you off there and then head to the hospital.”

No one responded to this statement and the car lapsed into silence. Steve just kept his focus, as much as he could, on continuing to monitor Pietro’s vitals so that he could relay that information to Sam when they arrived. He caught bits and pieces of what was going on in the front seat, with Pepper creeping the car up to speeds that were treading on ones that might lead to her being pulled over. Bucky’s shoulders slumped, as though all of his energy had left him, and he rested his head against the window.

Steve tried to keep his mind focused on the present moment and not move towards what might be happening to Wanda – or, hell, even where Wanda was at this point – or what they would find at the hospital.

Because the only answer he could come up with to those questions was nothing good.