Secrets of Iron

to the resucue (it would have been too easy...)

Walking out of what was once supposed to be an apartment Emma nearly tripped over some rubble laying around.

'Scan incomplete'

She rolled her eyes. It would have been too easy. “What blocked your scan?” she asked seemingly the void.

“There seem to be walls resistend to my scans.” Her AI marked where the scan had stopped on the hologram of the building floating in the air right in front of Emma's eyes. It grew until the hologram was life sized. The red marking under her feet didn't lift her mood. Considering to explore the higher floors first she zoomed in on the blueprints in front of her. There were no lamps or any other kind of electricity up there, no sign of a human being or even the Avengers. No need to search there for anything but rubble.

She set the little glowing building aside as she looked at the staircase. There was nothing but the steps leading down. Without her tech she wouldn't see anything down there. It was pitch black. She grabbed one of her knives and walked down step by step. Always ready to defend herself against whatever or whoever the Avengers had faught here.

Emma had reached the floor as a sound from a floor down made her nerves freeze. It wasn't very loud but the muffled voice didn't belong to any of the heroes. Cautiously she walked down the next flight of stairs. She had just settle on the next step as suddenly a new little dot appeared on her map.

“What-?”

“I was able to track down one of the Avengers comms and marked its location. It appears that Hawkeye got a new arrow he recently activated trying to communicate with the Avengers Base.”

So he did put the new arrows Tony had made into his quiver. They had been Cap's idea. The purple dot seemed to float under the digital buidling on her screen. It was close to the red one but it seemed to be a bit deeper.

“Can you mark my position?”

Another dot blinked by the hologram. This time a dark green one. “

Sketch the floor I just came from.” A light blue rectangle devided the three dots. The red one glowing above and the purple under it while Emma's mark was crossing the surface at the moment. She went down another step. Her dot joined Clint's on the lower floor. The grip around her knife tightened as the voices spoke up again. They were louder this time. She was getting closer.

As she reached the half of the staircase she stopped. Light flooded the hallway which looked like it didn't belong here with the plain white walls and icy grey floor. She took out a little disc from her belt and threw it down the hallway. Just before it hit the ground a light blue glowing thruster pulled it back up again. Gladly Emma had been right. The walls and literally everything was stabilized with some sort of metal. The little disc blended in with its surroundings as it stuck to the ceiling with a magnet.

Taking advantage of the darkness Emma stayed where she was while a new floor began to build around her and the Archer's dot on her screen. Luckily whoever had built this didn't think anyone would find their way down here. Big cables that provided the electricity for the biggest part of this hidden base were just under the staircase she was on.

Emma went down a few steps further before jumping down at the side and searching for cover under the stairs she had just been on. Someone looked out of the room they were in down the hall but went back in as they couldn't find anything. By now the voices seemed to discuss something since they didn't stop talking. But the muffled noises constantly reminded Emma that this was porbably a rescue mission or the Avengers were long gone and it had been a false alarm. She hoped it would turn out to be the latter.