Strings - A Winter Story

-14-

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have it thrust upon them"

Autumn quickly arrives at the conclusion that crawling through vents is a lot easier in the movies. At the back of her mind,  she feels slightly bad for probably breaking Bucky's nose, but she takes comfort in the fact that he is a fast healer. She certainly doesn't regret hitting Tony, she enjoyed that but she has to concentrate right now as there are many looking for her. She has her mission and it has a very minute chance of success. Her biggest obstacle are the freaky duo of Vision and Wanda. Vision could track her and Wanda would be able to read her mind, she swears she won't let that happen.

Autumn is trying to crawl as quietly as possible but it isn't  working very well. The metal vents make her sound like an elephant to anyone walking below. She doesn't know where she is going, she just hopes it is the opposite direction to where she originates from. She crawls frantically for another three minutes until she could hear voices approaching, she slows and shimmies along the vent before hovering above the noises. It is Steve and Tony.

"Tony, everyone is looking for her. She won't get out of the compound"

"She nearly got in, hell she did get in Steve. She is dangerous, arrogant and annoying. When we catch her which we will, we have to hand her into the authorities. I'm sure Ross has a nice cold cell with her name on it" Tony yells, visibly frustrated by her actions. Autumn raises an eyebrow at Tony's level of hatred for her, he kind of made her head butt him. She continues to listen.

"We can't just hand her over like that Tony, we can't" Steve plays good cop.

"Why not? Hmm, why not? We will discuss this later, we have a rogue assassin to catch" Tony abruptly ends the conversation. Autumn listens closely as she hears them leave the room, happy they are gone she releases a deep sigh. After a few more seconds she decides to keep moving. After two meters, Autumn places a hand down to continue but it isn't the vent she feels. Suddenly a red and gold piece of metal which resembles an arm flies up in front of her and tries to grab her, scaring her in the process.

"Come here you" she hears Stark growl as she fights with the armored limb. Autumn falls back onto her back and uses her legs to quickly kick the crap out of the arm. After doing a minute amount of structural damage, Stark retracts his arm and Autumn makes her move. Forgetting about making noise she scrambles as fast as she can, her heart now successfully panting rapidly. She swings a left and then a right then another right. Just when she thinks she is clear, the vent behind her explodes from Stark firing at her using his suit. She curses aloud as she realizes how close it was to hitting her. However, the shaking of the vents causes Autumn to tumble and fall forwards, not knowing the vents change and angle downhill. She starts to roll uncontrollably down the vent at an alarming speed. It hurts like hell but she can't stop herself from rolling.

Suddenly she cannot feel the vents anymore, she can't feel anything. She is free falling for what feels like forever but is in reality only a few seconds. Autumn comes crashing down on to the hard floor and winces as she hits it with force. Autumn momentarily loses her sight and it all goes black, but it comes back when she starts to come back around to herself. She is required to, she doesn't have the cover the vents provided anymore. Autumn quickly forces herself to her feet, feeling where she has busted her bottom lip open. She takes in her surroundings and concludes she is in some kind of dressing room or changing room, a vacant one. Stark and the rest of his crew will be onto her soon so she needs to get going. She can see clothes, shoes and ammo scattered on the tables. Ammo means gun. Gun means a chance.