Chapter 8
Woman of Letters

Toni woke with a groan. Her head was still pounding and a blindfold of sorts was tied snugly around her eyes. Her hands and feet were bound tightly around the back of the room was dark with no windows. There was only a single crack of light emanating from below the door in front.

Another muffled groan behind her had her sitting up straighter. Relief filled her; Rhodey was still alive. Unfortunately taken along with her, but alive nonetheless. "Rhodey? Is that you? Are you okay?"

A loud thump and another groan echoed through the room. Rhodey's voice was muffled but Toni could still make him out. "Yep. So much for trying that."

"...did you fall flat on your face?"

"It wasn't my brightest idea," admitted Rhodey. The scraping of wood on the ground drew nearer and Toni could hear Rhodey curse. Toni squinted and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see that Rhodey managed to tip himself over onto the floor. Rhodey sighed. "There. All the blood is gonna rush to my face, but at least I can breathe."

Toni wriggled her hands, loosening them as best as she could. Slowly but surely, Toni wiggled part of her wrist free. "Gimme some time and I'll see if I can untie us."

"Great, cause my hands are starting to go numb."

"You're closer to the door. Listen and see if you can hear anyone close by while I untie you."

"Wait, you've already untied yourself?"

"Mama and Aunt Peggy always made sure that I never left the house with some sort of lockpick sewn into my clothes."

Rhodey groaned. "Right. Kidnappings is considered normal for you. I always forget your childhood sometimes makes me wanna cry until moments like these."

"Yep," replied Toni. She tipped Rhodey back up before loosening the ropes entirely. "Got a giant laundry list of issues, even without the whole supernatural business. There- try not to stand up yet if your feet are still numb."

Toni pressed her ear to the door. She could barely make out a few sets of muffled voices, but not what they were saying. A crack of wood had her jumping. Rhodey was at her side a second later, offering her a broken chair leg. "Better than nothing. Hopefully they don't have guns."

She side-eyed him as he simply nodded. "You're taking this a lot better than I thought you might."

Rhodey shrugged. "After Halloween, us being kidnapped somehow seems normal in comparison."

With a click, Toni held her breath as the door unlocked. Holding her breath, she cracked the door open. Two guards stood watch in front of their door, facing the opposite way. She motioned to herself, then to the left. Rhodey nodded, taking his place behind the guard on the right.

After a silent count to three, both of them swung their broken chair legs over each guard's heads, watching in satisfaction as they both crumpled to the ground, unconscious. "Come on," said Toni as she dragged her guard back into the room.

With Rhodey's help, they dragged both guards back into their cell with them, shutting the door for good measure.

Rhodey wrinkled his nose. "This is gonna be a tight fight."

"At least it'll fit you," said Toni as she quickly stepped into the stolen bulletproof vest and uniform. "Come on, we might not have much time left before they switch shifts."

Rhodey secured the rope tying both guards together with a final tug. "I'm coming."

Rhodey just finished tugging on the face mask as a loud alarm echoed down the hallway. Toni stuck her head out the door. "We're out of time. Let's go."

Mick's eye twitched as he glared at the giant stack of paperwork on his desk. How was it that no matter what he did, the damn pile only got larger? He sighed, pushing back his chair and stretching with a yawn.

The alarm blared, ringing loudly as it flashed a bright red. Gwen popped her head into his office with a frown. "You'll wanna see this Mick."

He squinted at the blank typewriter. "Nothing yet. This about the alarm?"

Gwen stood around her typewriter with a frown. She motioned for Mick to take a look over her shoulder. "It was one of Ketch's. Remember Maria's girl?"

Mick frowned. "Toni?"

Gwen nodded. "That's the one. The potential recruit. Ketch was assigned to keep an eye on her at MIT-"

"Wait, wasn't she like a kid when we last saw her. How old is she?"

"She's 16 but is enrolled in her first year. Kid genius." said Gwen reading off her file. "Anyways, Ketch was sent to keep an eye out on her-"

"Babysitting duty? Oh I bet he was steaming mad-"

"Well the boss is going to be even more angry if anything happens to her." Gwen's eyes narrowed. "Ketch warded her dorm room in case anything happened, and the alarm went off. According to his first reports, it looks like both her and her roommate were kidnapped right under his nose."

Mick whistled. "That does not bode well."

Gwen shook her head, flipping through the rest of the folder. "According to his initial report, the girl and her roommate were both taken by in the middle of the day. Black van, stolen plates, even the two STAKE agents that were tailing her were knocked out. Most notably though was that not even Ketch was able to get to them in time, so likely a professional job."

The typewriter started tapping away and both Mick and Gwen leaned in to read the message.

TARGETS LOCATED. LOCATION OBTAINED. EXTRACTION TO COME.

-A. K.

Coulson scanned the dorm room with a critical eye. At first glance, nothing seemed out of place. It had the general mess of two college students strewn about the room, with clothing in a pile on the ground and textbooks strewn all across the desk and beds. "Report."

The agent beside him twitched, tugging at the collar of the janitor's uniform he wore. "Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when we scanned the room. No cameras or bugs of any sort."

Coulson walked towards the middle of the room, stepping over a pile of clothes off to the side. He frowned at the agent, pushing him aside for a moment, off the welcome mat at the entrance that was a little too neat. Without a word, he squatted down and flipped it over. Small pieces of burnt paper stuck to the bottom of the mat.

Coulson frowned, gathering the small pieces carefully into a small plastic bag with his pen. The agent leaned over his shoulder. "What is it?"

Coulson lifted it to his nose. "Traces of incense. It's not ordinary paper. This was some sort of ward."

Three short beeps had Coulson standing up and unclipping his pager from his belt. He handed the bag over to the agent. "Collect the rest of this carefully and get it to the lab as soon as you can."

"Yes sir."

Closing the door to the payphone behind him, Coulson lifted the phone of the receiver. "Yes?"

"Howard Stark received a ransom note ten minutes ago," said Fury. "Ten million within the next 48 hours for the return of his daughter. Do you have anything, or do I need to hand the case over?"

Is the STRIKE team needed or not?

Coulson closed his eyes, contemplating the unanswered question. "I think I might have something to look into."

"Director Carter is on her way and is bringing in the main strike team. I can hold them off for 24 hours before they will take the case from your hands. All hands on deck."

Coulson closed his eyes. "Got it."

"Good luck Agent Coulson."

"Understood. I'll do my best."

I know it's been a long time! I've been working on a bunch of other projects, but I'm hoping to work a bit more on my WIPs this year, so we'll see how things go!

A lot of pieces are coming together here. Any guesses on who will get to Toni & Rhodey first? Please let me know what you think! If I don't get any response, I'll assume that either no one is reading on here anymore, or you've migrated to ao3. In that case, I will likely upload one more chapter here and migrate over to ao3 for the rest of these updates.