Secretive - Bucky Barnes

73 || Electric || 🔪

[Nova]
It costs me less than five minutes to get to the ground floor. Blood soaks my suit, the floor, is dripping from the higher levels down, sprinkles my face, but it is not my own. I think about writing a warning for the habitants, avoiding several heart attacks, but I do not have time for such a thing. Hopefully, a curious kid is not the first one wanting to take the stairs; I really do not want to be the reason for their trauma.

Bullets buried themselves into the walls along with brain or skin or both - I think I can make out some splinters of bone in between all that red and pink -, and I need to clean my Shuriken again.

I love clear performances. No one down there needs another hint of my death stroke already being used.

»Tony found an entrance, but we still don't have suits.« Wanda informs.

»Depending on how much time you have, I guess enough in here are blood clean.« I respond, searching for anything that reveals where these men came from.

»I don't think there's enough to walk to you and back.« Natasha grunts, for once less arrogant but practical and professional. »We'll have to go like we are.«

The lights in the stairwell are still burning, making the search of mine easier. Finally, underneath the staircase in a free slot, I can spot a small square in the dirty-yellow wall.

Pushing it opens a secret passage with indistinct chatter and laughter, distantly. It is lit dimly with torches on each of the cold grey walls, like I just opened a path to the Middle Ages. It smells alike; feces. I wrinkle my nose in disgust.

»Seems like they thought me a small threat. The people in there sound like amusing themselves, being a little drunk, perhaps. Plus, there cannot be a general video room; each section must have one of their own, because I'm still lonely.« I report, walking in step by step, careful not to tap on anything that could release a trap. The door behind me closes as soon as I am in fully, almost noiseless.

It is a strange feeling to always give so many information to others; about what I am doing, what I am thinking, what is going to happen, what I can see. It feels unnatural. I do not know yet whether I like it or not.

»Didn't it seem like a big, round circle around the main building?« I ask, walking a few stairs down to come to the underground.

»Yes«  James's familiar voice answers, my heart speeding up a little. »We thought it as something like a rampart, with lots of people securing it. Tony's scan just couldn't recognize how many in the distance.«

»There were rooms in every four directions, right?« Sneaking along this first circle by turning right, not walking further into the building, I soon am done with Three hundred and fifty-five and Three hundred and fifty-six. Hiding them behind a barrel, I come on tiptoes to one of the named rooms, listening to the people and grinning when I prove myself right. »Do you got another then minutes?«

»We can't wait so long. It's riskier to stay at the same spot and be discovered, than moving into it.« Steve responds matter-of-factly.

»Trust me. I'll clear the path for you, so you can come in without any burdens. Just give me ten minutes, the area is big.«

I hear sighing and grumbling through the speaker in my ear, voices in doubt. In the end, my boyfriend shushes them all, somehow managing to convince even Tony Stark to give me a chance to prove myself. What would I do without him?

I am done in eight. Every of the four rooms has been for security, with lots of monitors observing their quarter. Stupidly, the first I entered has been the one to take a look at me, and was not able to send a call for help to anyone before I finished with them. One could not even get a clear shot at the monitors the moment I was done; everything painted in blood.