Caught in Storms

Locked and Beaten

-Emma-
I wake up on the dark on a cold, hard floor, feeling like a different person, I can't tell if that's good or bad though.
I try to move to stretch and get some blood flowing through me, and I realize there are arms around me, one vibranium and the other skin. I let my eyes adjust to the dark and I turn in Bucky's arms, him clinging to me hard as he sleeps.
As my eyes finally adjust, I see Bucky's bruised and bloodied face, looking like he took a major hit. I tear up and I run my fingers through his hair gently. I don't know how the fuck we are going to get out of here, wherever we are, but we have to try. I dig through my pockets and find that my bandana I carry with me is still in it and I start to carefully wipe away the blood on Bucky's face.
"Im so sorry my Bucky," I whisper softly and just pet him softly as he sleeps. I don't know how long it is before lights slam on in the room we are in and the door unlocks loudly. I sit up and guard Bucky as a couple of Hydra agents walk in.
"Hydra Supreme has requested your presence. I am to take you to him," one says in a harsh tone.
"Well I'm denying his request," I say standing up in front of Bucky. One of the agents tries to grab me by the arm and I grab it and snap it hard and knee him in the stomach hard. The amount of strength I have to do this scares me and I look up at the other agent who has his gun trained on Bucky.
"Bitch step off. If you don't let me get these cuffs on you and you come with me, I will kill him right now," he glares at me, but there is still a hint of fear in his eyes. I glare back and I hold up my wrists as he gets closer and slams the handcuffs on me hard.
"Move your ass."
I flip him off and walk out of the room with the agents, letting them lead me to wherever Hydra Supreme is.
I watch the hallways and surroundings, trying to commit as much as I can to memory for later. I am taken into a large observation room that looks over the rest of the facility I'm in, there are agents gathering weapons and getting them loaded into boxes. There are so many weapons, like they are preparing for a war bigger than we've ever seen.
"Exciting isn't it?"
I turn around and come face to face with Steve again, hands behind his back and a smirk on his face like he's a god.
"By exciting you mean disgusting?"
Steve chuckles and comes over to me and faces me towards the window again.
"Rafferty has done a great job gathering everything we need to enact my plan on your reality. We would be done already if you and your team hadn't kept stopping him from getting his job done."
I laugh softly and shake my head. This guy is insane. There is nothing left of this person except his lust for power and control of others.
"What's so funny Emma?"
"What's funny is that you seem so sure that you are going to win this. That you actually think that people are going to just bow down and let you turn this world into the ultimate Hydra reality. I'm going to tell you a story, can I do that?"
Steve sits in a chair mockingly and lets me speak.
"About 6-almost 7 years ago, a tyrant from another world was discovered to have just decided that his life's pursuit was going to conquer every planet in the galaxy and wipe out half of the living population to save on resources. He truly felt that he was doing good and that people should thank and worship him. People in every world fought him tooth and nail to keep that from happening. He won. For a little while. Then a small group of people found a way to take away from him the tools he used to wipe out 50% of the universe's creatures. And the people, everyone that lost their freedom, their lives, their loved ones, their hope...stood behind this team and fought for what they believed in. There is no reality or universe in which you come out on top. Do you want to know why?"
Steve rolls his eyes at me and crosses his arms, "please enlighten me Emma."
"Because every time someone like you and Hydra show their faces and try to step on the human rights of others for their own gains, people step back on you hard. They may get scared, or bide their time, or submit for a little while, but it will be out of survival to put an end to the evil. And even if you did win, you can be damned sure that there will be a revolution the likes of which no one has ever seen to take down your regime. That is why groups like the Avengers continue to work and change and add, they find ordinary people with extraordinary strength to make positive changes and help those that can't fight for themselves."
"Groups like the Avengers are a fucking cancer. The sooner you and your husband realize that, the sooner you will be free to be bigger and better than those you work under."
I burst out laughing at that without meaning too and I just hold onto the window for support as I laugh.
"Hydra is the fucking cancer, Supreme. You piggyback off the ideas of others and claim they are your own, only to twist those ideas into something that no longer has any connection to the original idea. You infect everything, you shouldn't be called Hydra, you should be called Plague."
Steve glares at me and rushes me, grabbing my neck and slamming my head into the window hard, making the heavy glass crack.
"What the FUCK is so funny, bitch?!"
"The Avengers isn't about being bigger or better, it's about people. It's about putting your life on the line for others in pursuit of safety and care rather than control and power. Bucky and I don't work for them, we work with them because we choose to. We will fight you because we choose to. You will not win because we are for everyone, not everyone for us."
Steve let's out a primal yell and punches me hard and knees me in the stomach, my head going through the glass this time.
I gasp out from getting the wind knocked out of me, holding my stomach as I lay sprawled out with my head hanging out the broken window. Steve steps over me and grabs my face hard.
"I am going to enjoy making you and your husband watch as I tear your reality apart. Then I'm going to make your precious Avengers kill one another, then I'm going to make you and Bucky kill each other. There will be no remnant left of the Avengers, I promise you that. I had such high hopes for you when I saw that footage. You are a hell of assassin, and I would have loved to see the work you could have done for me and Hydra."
I gasp out, still trying to breathe, but I can't help but smile at Hydra Supreme's foolishness.
"You can try, but you severely underestimate people, and for that you will fail Steve. I promise you that."
"Get this bitch out of here," Steve says and has agents drag me out of the room and back to the room Bucky was left in.
When we get there, they toss me in and Bucky has been pacing the room. He sees my face and holds it, kneeling over me worried.
"What happened, where did they take you??"
"Bucky...he's fucking insane...we need to find the device and send him back. Gunrunners have hundreds of thousands of weapons stored here...they are going to bring Hydra agents from different realities and destroy everything we have been working so hard to restore."
"Shit, do you still have your earpiece? They took mine."
I sit up and reach into my shirt and into my bra. I had stashed the earpiece in there when the car went in the water, not wanting it to be found. I pull it out and turn it on, a tiny blue light flashes, indicating it is working.
"Now we wait," I say softly and I collapse back on the floor.
"Are you okay?"
"Pretty sure my nose re-broke...I'm going to need you to set it," I say wincing as I think about it. Bucky nods and sits me back up and has me face him. He turns the sensors in his arm so he can feel the bones in my nose and puts a thumb on either side of my nose.
"I'm sorry Emma," he says and he pushes inward with his thumbs hard, making me scream out as he sets my nose back in place. Blood pours out again and he finds my bandana for it.
"We have to stop him..."
"We will Emma, the whole team," Bucky says and kisses me softly.
"Despite the serum, my head is pounding."
"Emma you're still human, you got you smashed in by another super soldier and a dashboard panel," he chuckles softly and kisses my furrowed brow.
"Don't laugh at me, my senses are on full overload right now."
"I'm sorry baby doll," Bucky says and rubs my back. All I can think about is getting out of here with Bucky to go get James. My head is foggy and I want to cry, but me being a big damn baby is not going to help anything.
"I saw down the hallways. There's a set of doors down the corridor we are on that lead opposite of the weapons loading bay we were standing over. I think the exit is that way, but I don't know for sure. The next time they come to get one of us I think we need to make a run for it."
"Emma we don't even know where we are."
"No we don't, but we have to try to get out of here. Steve has some serious shit planned for the two of us if we don't comply and part of it involves you killing me and the rest of the team. We can't just sit here and wait for them to beat us to death or make us kill each other. We have to try to rely on our stealth," I say stone-faced and tired. Bucky is watching me curiously, worried but there's a hint of pride in there. I can't tell what he's thinking and I don't try to, he will tell me when he's ready.
"Do either of us even have any of our gear?"
"No but I'm sure we can get one of the guys to help us find them."
"You sound like you're gathering a plan..."
"I am. But we have to be careful and ready, and you may not like it..."