I Need A Hero [Bucky]

“Yes, Sue. I understand, Sue. I’m on my way, Sue.”

Kate clicked her phone shut then took a deep breath and let it out, doing her best to stay as patient as she could. Her sister had every right to be upset with her. It had been about a year since Sue had gotten married which meant it had been about a year since she had been with the Young Avengers. She had actually lost track of how many times she cancelled on her sister or had to stand her up for whatever reason.

Yeah the unexcused absences had been because she had become Hawkeye as part of her whole ‘saving the world’ scheme, but she still felt bad about it. Her sister didn’t know what she was doing or how important she felt it was, all she knew was that Kate kept blowing her off time and time again. That her sister didn’t see her as a priority in her life. Ever since …the incident… that had caused her to take a rather abrupt hiatus from the team- she hadn’t actually officially decided she was never going back- she had done her best to try to make up for all the lost time.

In this case, she was meeting her for lunch.

Or rather, she was supposed to meet her for lunch.

Everything happened so fast after she hung up the phone. It was her own fault really. She should have noticed the dark green van parked near the end of the street but she had grown somewhat complacent in her months off active duty. Whoever they were must have been watching her and known she was going to walk past. Whatever the case, just as she passed the van she was suddenly surrounded by five men.

Two of them had her arms and another had a hand over her mouth before she could cry out. The other two grabbed her legs and she was dragged backwards into the vehicle and the van was moving away even before the door had shut completely.

Kate was furious with herself for allowing herself to be nabbed and abruptly bit the man’s hand that was still covering her mouth. He yelped in pain, jerking his hand back. She tried to wriggle herself loose but the other men had her arms tightly restrained. She frowned inwardly. There were only five of them and she could potentially get herself free but not without revealing that there was more to her than met the eye.

She’d just have to bide her time and keep looking for an out. She cursed herself again for allowing them to get the jump on her at all. She struggled again as she felt them trying to tie her hands for the first time wondering why they had bothered grabbing her. Were they part of some organization she’d pissed off in battle? Was it one of those ‘faux young avengers’ that had figured out her identity?

“Sorry little rich girl. You’re not going anywhere.”

Little rich girl. Of course. They weren’t after Hawkeye, they were after Derek Bishop’s daughter.

“Who the hell are you people?”

“Someone your daddy is going to pay a lot of money to if he ever wants to see you again.”

Apparently she was going to miss yet another date with her sister.

He’d been taking a well-deserved nap in his apartment when the call had come in. He had groaned inwardly, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. His mind instantly snapped into focus, however, as soon as he heard that Hawkeye had been kidnapped. His mind had instantly gone to Clint, before being corrected by the person on the other end of the phone that it was the second Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, and that she’d been kidnapped in her civilian identity. He had heard somewhere that she was a rich girl. Seemed like everything in life came with its pros and cons, some more than others, though.

It didn’t take long for him to catch up with the van. They had sent their request for a ransom via a mobile device, giving SHIELD the perfect opportunity to track them and relay it to Bucky. He watched as the ugly, green vehicle pulled up to a warehouse- ‘cause no one expected that –and parked. The van’s rumble quieted as the motor was switched off. Sticking to the shadows, Bucky jumped down from the roof he had been perched on. And stooped behind a trash can, eyes narrowed. He watched as they dragged Kate out from the van and into the warehouse. He had to admit, the girl was doing a pretty good job at acting helpless. She wasn’t kicking their asses like he knew she could, but she wasn’t over exaggerating it either.

The driver of the van stayed behind, stating that he’d catch up with his buddies later. Winter Soldier made his move at that moment, slinking up behind the van. The man was on his phone, so he didn’t even notice Bucky’s approach until it was too late. One hand grabbed the man’s hair, while the other grabbed his throat. The man gasped, dropping his phone. Bucky then dragged the muscled man out from the side window. He let go of his hair with one hand to take out one of his guns and point it at the man’s head.

“Keep quiet and I’ll think about not shooting.” The man nodded frantically, face paling from the lack of oxygen. Bucky loosened his grip on the man’s throat. “How many more are in the warehouse?”

“F-five” the man stuttered out after a moment of gasping for breath. Bucky gave a nod. So there were nine other people in the warehouse? Looked like he’d have time for that nap after all. He slammed the man’s head against the concrete, knocking him out and most likely giving him a nasty concussion. He turned his attention to the warehouse, moving onto the next phase of this little rescue mission thing.

It took willpower Kate didn’t know she had not to start beating the crap out of her captor’s. Realistically she could have maybe taken out two of them without raising suspicion but all four of them dragging her away now? Not likely. Plus as much as she didn’t want to admit it to herself, she wasn’t entirely sure she could handle five of them on her own without her gear.

It didn’t help that they had decided to blindfold her at some point during the drive which Kate did not appreciate. She hadn’t been able to see out through the windshield and the rest of the windows in the van had been painted over anyway so it wasn’t as though she could see where they were going was missing anything it was just the idea of being further disoriented.

She had been able to feel out the direction they were traveling in for the first two turns but quickly lost all concept of where she was and the direction they were headed. Kate also had no concept of time during the trip. On one hand it felt like hours sitting there restrained, on the other hand it felt like they had just slammed the door shut when they were opening it again.

“Can you at least take off this stupid blindfold now?” Kate asked. The van had stopped and she had been dragged out in a similar manner to which she had been nabbed initially then taken inside a building of some sort and dumped rather unceremoniously in a corner on the cold floor. It was killing her that she couldn’t see what was going on around her. “You’re all wearing lame-a-zoid masks anyway.” She muttered under her breath.

She heard some murmurings as they conferred and then felt a hand roughly jerk the fabric from her face, catching some of her hair in the process. “Ouch!” She cried.

“That’s enough out of your or we’ll stick this in your mouth so we don’t have to listen to you anymore.” The voice was unfamiliar. She took in her surroundings. It was a big warehouse of some sort. How creative. It wasn’t empty but it wasn’t exactly overflowing with crates either. There was a giant open space in the middle and then piles scattered around the perimeter.

If she could get her feet free she could maybe try to hide among the crates until she could get to one of the exits. There were a couple of problems with that plan though. There weren’t a lot of crates and there were a lot of them so chances were they’d catch her without any trouble. She also didn’t know where the exits were and it was dangerous to just take off running without a more decisive plan. The further complication was the fact that many of them if not all of them were armed and Kate? Well, she wasn’t.

Then men started discussing the ransom and who had sent it out or who was going to send it and how. Kate was trying to listen but they were speaking at a barely audible volume. Inconvenient much? She felt her stomach twist at the thought of her father getting the call and how worried he might be. As much as he was devoted to his work he loved his daughters. And of course her sister was probably angry at being stood up. At least Kate had a legitimate excuse this time. Frowning Kate went back to assessing her situation and trying to form some sort of escape plan.

Entering the warehouse was the first obstacle. Door or window? That was the question. He walked up to the doors and gently pushed one open the slightest bit, just enough for him to peek inside and get the general layout. There were a lot of crates scattered around the perimeter of the warehouse, something he could use to his advantage. The nine men were huddled in a group off near the far end of the room, and they appeared to be talking quietly among themselves. Kate was in a corner, bound like any other captive he’d seen. He slipped through the door, a light creak coming from it as he opened it wide enough to fit his body through. By the time the men turned around to look, the door was shut and the Winter Soldier was hiding behind one of the crates.

He eyed his surroundings briefly, before slipping behind another crate. The warehouse was lit fairly well, which was slightly irritating as it meant he’d have to pay extra attention to being stealthy, but other than that it was definitely an environment he could work with. He quickly slipped behind another crate, one that blocked him from the men’s line of sight, but not Kate’s. He made eye contact with her, the slightest of smirks on his face, before taking out one of his guns and cocking it. He then gave Kate the slightest nod, to let her know it was go time and some asses were about to get kicked.

He gave a grunt as he kicked one of the crates. It slid, stopping right in front of Kate and blocking her from the men’s sight and any possible gunfire. He then dived behind another crate, shooting three shots as he did so and taking out three of the nine men, before they managed to return fire.

Time felt as though it had rolled to a standstill. Even though very little time had passed since they had removed Kate’s blindfold, it felt as though she had been sitting there for hours as her captors tried to decide the best way to handle her. It seemed as though they had originally had one plan but a few dissenters were offering new suggestions that were not well received or even welcome. Unfortunately despite the dissention in the ranks, most of the men were at least angling themselves in Kate’s direction to keep their ‘prize’ in their line of sight.

It was irritating to say the least. Clearly they really wanted her father's money.

Kate had tried to play the good prisoner and keep quiet in hopes that they were leave her alone long enough to wiggle or otherwise maneuver herself free from her restraints but that strategy was presenting a few problems. The first being that her ‘guard’ had been pretty diligent in their vigilance as, she'd already noted, and not giving her as much privacy through neglect as she wanted, which lead to her other problem which was that they apparently knew how to tie a proper knot and it was proving difficult to subtly try to work the knots.

A sudden movement out of her periphery almost caused her to start and jerk her head in that direction to see who or what else had decided to join this party. She managed to keep her composure however and simply looked over to where she'd seen what had looked to be a figure entering. There was nothing there now but she was certain she had seen a sliver of light where whomever it was had slipped into the building and a dark form disappear into the shadows.

She let her eyes shift back to the warehouse and scanned for any signs of the figure she thought she had seen enter the building. She could feel her stomach starting to twist with the anxiety of the unknown. Kate at least could see what she was up against here but some sort of unknown variable now entered into the equation made her uneasy.

For a brief fleeting moment, she wondered if it was one of her former teammates then started ruling them out. Hulkling probably would have been a lot more stealthy and shape-shifted into someone else before entering or would have just flown in punching. Wiccan would have definitely made more of a scene. She and Speed would already be having ice cream somewhere together because he would have grabbed her and been out of there before even she knew what was happening. Eli maybe? Patriot? No. He wouldn't have come.

Kate continued to shift her hands against her bindings and could feel them digging into her skin. It might have been her imagination but she could swear she could feel them loosening as she continued to work with them.