Branded For Ruin

Part 16

You stretched out your arm lazily, feeling for Mark, but his side of the bed was cold. You sleepily opened one of your eyes and saw that Mark was gone. With a groan, you heaved yourself up and rubbed your eyes. You decided it today was the day you and Grace were going to escape. You both needed to go about your daily routine as to not raise suspicion. By the time you ambled out of your bedroom, Mark was nursing a cup of coffee.

"There she is!" Mark beamed. "How'd you sleep?"

"Really well, thanks for asking, sweetie. How about you?" You asked as you opened the fridge.

"It was great. I'm going on patrol today; I hope that's alright."

You picked up a muffin Mark had grabbed from the bakery. "Of course. I was thinking about visiting Grace today anyway."

Mark smiled, set down his coffee, and walked toward you. He pulled you into a hug and nuzzled into your hair.

"I'm glad you're making friends, baby. Tell Grace I said hi."

"I will. You'll be home for dinner though, right?"

Mark nodded. "Yeah, I'll have one of my guys take a night shift. I need to spend some more time with my girl."

~~~~~

"Thanks again Charles for letting us use your plane." Bucky said looking out the plane window.

Charles sipped his drink with a nod. "Anytime. So, where are we going exactly?"

Sam looked up from his laptop. "A little town called Sanford. I got some readings that Mark might be there."

"How much is little?" Bucky questioned as he sat back down.

"Under one thousand people. About 870. It shouldn't be too hard to find something." Sam said as his eyes scanned the laptop screen. "But it does look like they have men that patrol the town. A bit suspicious if you ask me. We're probably going to have to go into stealth mode."

"How about we just confront the patrol guys, if they attack us, then we attack back." Bucky suggested.

Sam shook his head. "There's a lot of guys. "

"I've got a vibranium arm. I'm pretty sure I can take them." Bucky argued.

"I think stealth is the way to go. Or we can create a diversion..." Sam said turning toward Charles.

Charles lowered his cup of coffee. "Why are you looking at me?"

Sam waved his hand between Charles and Bucky dramatically. "In case you guys haven't noticed, you look a lot alike."

Bucky leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "And your point is?"

"We can disguise Charles as you and then you and me can slip past the guys. Charles can throw a grenade or something to distract them." Sam explained.

Bucky crossed his arms. "What if I want to throw the grenade? Besides, I can fight better than Charles."

Charles nodded quickly. "Yeah. I suck at fighting. The only superpower I have right now is being rich."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled loudly. "Whatever. Let's just figure out a decent plan and stick to it."

~~~~~

"We're escaping today." You said as Grace nearly dropped her mug.

"Wh-what? Today?" Grace sputtered.

"Yes. Don't worry, I have some plans. Mark keeps an extra truck in the garage. We can use that to get outta here. We just need some sort of diversion before we high tail out of town, that was the company can be focused on that."

Grace sat down slowly and stared at the coffee table. "Is this really a good idea? If the company catches us, we're toast. And Brock doesn't take to kindly to mishaps."

You sat beside Grace and sighed. "We'll find a way out. We have to. I'll protect you, don't worry. Mark keeps a gun in the top drawer in our room. He says it's only for emergencies, but we can use it to defend ourselves. I don't have a very good shot, but it's something."

Grace took a sip from her mug before she let out a shaky breath. You could tell she was thinking about the whole thing, but you could mainly tell she was scared. Scared of what Brock and the company would do if you guys got caught. Would they kill you if they figured out you were unloyal? If not, what kind of punishments would there be for attempted runaway? You looked at Grace and gently touched her knee.

"We got this. Don't you want to be free again?" You asked.

Grace nodded and set her mug on the coffee table. "I'll do it. We just need to do this quickly and effectively. I don't want to risk getting caught."

"Alright. Let's come up with a game plan."

~~~~~

"We have to jump. We don't want to risk landing the plane and giving away our location." Sam said as he tightened his gloves. "Charles, you're with me, Bucky...you can handle that jump right?"

Bucky grumbled something under his breath before glaring at Sam. "Yeah, sure. Whatever you want."

Sam jumped from the plane, a screaming Charles clutched close to his chest. Bucky watched as they safely landed. Bucky grumbled some curse words as he looked at the forest area below.

"I just gotta do a superhero landing. It can't be that hard. Heroes do it all the time." Bucky breathed as he looked down again. "Alright, I'm going for it."

Bucky yelled as he jumped out of the plane. He didn't consider the branches of the trees hurting so much, so he grunted as he toppled toward the earth. He crashed through a bunch of branches before falling flat on his back with a loud boom. A small groan escaped his lips as he tried to assess the damage done to his body.

"Superhero landing." Bucky grumbled to himself. "Close enough."

"Red Wing caught all that on camera." Sam chuckled as Red Wing hovered above Bucky.

"Get that stupid robot out of my face Sam before I crush him." Bucky growled.

"Come on Grumpy Gills. We've got your girl to save."