Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You ready, kid?”

Marlow looked up from where she was examining her suit in the mirror to find Steve approaching from behind, eyes worriedly focused her.

She knew he was still kicking himself for agreeing to this—for splitting the mission with her. He fought tooth and nail that night a week ago, trying to convince her that she should stay back, to let him take care of it.

He pulled every excuse he could; that she was only twenty-two—which she reminded him that he was the same age and trying to volunteer for war.

That she was being reckless—which she reminded him that he was being reckless by not accepting help.

Finally, he tried to convince her not to go because she didn’t know what to expect.

“The only…” she let out a short breath, willing away the burn at the back of her throat. “The only ones left that know what to expect are either injured, off-world, or with their families. They’ve given everything already, let me help. Let me do it for them," she'd told him. 

Thankfully, that was all it took to convince him. 

“Ready for anything,” Marlow nodded as she turned, bouncing on her toes in excitement. She was about to time travel—how could she not be excited?

But Steve didn’t share her enthusiasm, he just watched her with tight lips before stepping towards her. “I need you to do me a favor.”

She cocked a brow in defiance and he waited, likely for her to challenge him, to say something along the lines of ‘what’s in it for me?’ like she had so many times before, but instead she remained silent, not wanting to stress him out more than he already was.

“When you go to Lehigh, I need you to put these back,” he explained, passing her a handful of red vials identical to those already in her belt. “I figure we should return the vials I stole when we jumped the first time. You know; in case I set off some mess of events.”

“Bruce already explained that that’s not how it works,” she lectured mockingly but dropped the four red vials into a compartment on her hip nonetheless. “Why four?”

“We had already lost a stone once, I didn’t want to risk getting stuck somewhere,” he offered.

But Marlow saw his eyes squint in the way she’d learned meant he wasn’t telling the whole story. It was like he was trying to force the truth through his eyes, but it only served as an indicator to some falsity.

She’d first seen it a year ago, when he claimed he had no personal connection to the mission.

Six years, she reminded herself.

Six years because she’d been gone for five. Dead for five.

Whatever half-truth Steve was telling her, she wasn’t going to push it. She couldn’t imagine the storm within his head right now, dealing with loss after loss over the last five years. She’d have all the time in the world to ask him about it when they were finished for the day.

Right now, they had a job to do.

“You ready?” she asked instead, repeating his earlier question.

His mouth opened as if he were about to agree before he clamped his jaw shut again, dropping his head in a way that showed how tired he was. She’d learned in their time that that meant he wasn’t ready. Nowhere near it.

So, she immediately stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his torso and squeezing when she felt his arms wrap around her.

“You know I’m proud of you, right Marlow?”

She froze against him

In the year and a half she’d known him, he’d never spared to show that he supported her, that he would fight for her, that he was proud, but he never said it. No one, in fact, had ever told Marlow that they were proud of her, but she always knew that he was. They were work associates that became friends that became the closest thing possible to siblings in their short time together, and so he never had to. She just knew.

But him saying it now—moments before they embarked on the most insane mission she’d ever planned with him—made her blood run cold.

“Please don’t,” she begged quietly. She didn’t know what she was asking him not to do, but she couldn’t bear it.

“I won’t be gone. Not really.”

“Please."

“It’s alright. You’ll be alright… Just take care of yourself."

Marlow didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. If she did, she would start crying and that wasn’t something she was going to do. Not in front of him. Not when she knew he had already decided to follow through with his plan, and she wouldn’t make him feel more guilt than he already obviously was.

It took a few minutes for that burn to disappear. A few minutes of the two standing silently in the locker room of the pop-up military encampment they’d been staying in since their fight against Thanos. Since so many lives were lost.

The burn was back.

“I’ll try my best,” she said finally. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I won’t be gone long. It will only be a minute. I promise.”

“Okay,” she nodded. “A minute.”

⁂

Now in the clearing a half-mile from the ruined Avengers Compound, their small team ran through final checks for the mission.

“May 4^th, 2012, 3:43 PM, 177A Bleeker street, Manhattan,” Marlow repeated from memory.

“On the rooftop. She’ll be expecting you,” Bruce added, his meaty finger pointing at her as he spoke.

“Right. Then to Stark Tower, same time and day to return that bad boy,” she listed, nodding to the heavy weapon leaning against the side of their time machine.

She still couldn’t quite get over that.

“They’ll be expecting me with the scepter, so make sure to—”

“I know, ‘the Captain sends his regards, Hail Hydra’ and all that.”

“And get out of there as soon as you can.”

“Mhmm,” she agreed for the umpteenth time.

That would be the most dangerous part of the mission. Steve wanted to take that location as well, but Marlow insisted. They split the stones 50/50—she could handle it, and if it got heated, she could drop the scepter and go quantum.

“Then to Lehigh,” she finished.

“I made a call to Hank at 4:34 PM and he would have had to get to the shipping dock— that should have him distracted for a few minutes, but get in and get out as quickly as you can. And remember not to interact with us when you’re there.”

“Copy that. You wanna run through your mission, Captain?” she teased.

“My coordinates are a little more complicated. Focus on yours, kid.”

With that, Bruce redirected their attention to where he was snapping open the larger of two cases that held the three stones Steve would be returning.

“Remember, you have to return the stones to the exact moment you got them or you’re gonna open a bunch of nasty alternative realities.”

She nodded, taking the smaller case from the table and hooking it onto her belt.

“Don’t worry Bruce,” Steve agreed quietly, “we’ll clip all the branches.”

Bruce nodded, a solemn look overcoming his face. “You know I tried… When I had the gauntlet, the stones, I really tried to bring her back.”

The quiet words sent shocks of discomfort through Marlow. Enough that she had to step away. Away from Steve, away from Sam, away from the time machine that even if they tried, couldn’t bring her back.

Her glassy eyes stayed focused on the trees, trying to keep her emotions from bubbling over.

“I know you’re going to miss me, but there’s no need to cry.”

A sad laugh escaped her as she turned, glaring at the dark-haired man with his hands in his pockets.

She’d only met him a few weeks before—her time—in the lead-up to the Battle of Wakanda, and then again during the fight against Thanos. She remembered first seeing him fighting and thinking he was a terrifying sight; teeth barred, wielding a machine gun as if it were an extension of his own body before ripping the arm off of one of those alien-dog-things with his bare hands.

Of course, she knew who he was; her school years and then subsequent work with Hydra files would have given her enough information on his past, even without the news to keep her up to date or quick introduction prior to the alien onslaught. But she learned who he was from Steve.

Sergeant James Bucky Barnes, the man who always hated liver, never failed to charm a girl off her feet, and would drive himself insane chasing after Steve.

He also had a tendency to tease her mercilessly for just existing.

“Actually, I think some quiet will do me good. Might even hang out in the seventies a while so I can get some peace before jumping back.”

“You wouldn’t survive; they didn’t have cell phones back then.”

She sent him another glare; this time not half-assed. “Bite me, Barnes.”

“There she is,” he chuckled, “charming as ever.”

Behind her, Sam and Steve approached, and she didn’t miss the spark of sadness that erupted in Bucky’s eyes as Steve stopped in front of him. With that anxiety coiling inside her again, she wandered away, allowing the life-long friends a moment while Sam swung an arm over her shoulder.

“So, I know you’re going to be tired when you get back, cause of jetlag or whatever, but I was thinking; movies and bottomless Chinese?”

“From Nanking?”

“From Nanking.”

“You know me so well,” she sighed, smiling with a nod.

“Good luck and stay safe. Watch you six. Be aware of your surroundings. Keep an eye on exits and weapons," he listed. "I wasn’t in New York in 2012, so I won’t be able to fly in and save your ass.”

“You know, I question sometimes why I stick around you all when your main objective in life is to annoy me,” she grunted, stepping from under his arm.

“Because you secretly love it?” Sam suggested, an annoying smile on his face.

“I think it’s because I have a soft spot for senior citizens.”

“I’m not even half their age,” he protested.

Marlow just shrugged. “I said what I said.”

“Careful, you don’t want to get grounded,” came Bucky’s teasing voice as he passed her.

“Bruce, wanna zap us away now? Thank you.”

Marlow followed Steve as he climbed the stairs to the platform and engaged her suit, picking up the larger case holding the tesseract, then grabbing the scepter—both restored thanks to whatever freaky time magic Doctor Strange used on them.

“How long is this going to take?” Sam asked, voice more clipped than he probably intended.

Marlow could understand why he would be nervous; two of his friends were relying on a technology that they’d only really been working on a few weeks. On top of the fact that one of them was going to travel to different planets.

“For them, as long as they need. For us, five seconds,” Bruce explained as the machine whirred, sending new jolts of excitement through Marlow. “You both ready?”

Steve nodded and Marlow let out a rushed ‘mhmm.’

“Alright, we’ll meet you back here, okay?”

“You bet.”

This is it.

“Going quantum in three…”

Don’t mess up.

“Two…”

She turned to look at Steve, sending him an almost imperceptible nod.

A minute.

“One.”

The feeling that overtook her body wasn’t describable. Somewhere between dropping and weightlessness; flying and motionlessness. She was everything and nothing.

Then she was gone.

Chapter Text

She slipped off her pants, pulling down the pencil skirt she’d tucked into them before shrugging off the blue jacket with PRESS printed across it big grey letters. Beneath, she wore a long sleeve white button up, her fingers begrudgingly tying the dangling fabric from around the collar into a bow; making her feel like a gift; wrapped and on display.

Last one.

Running her fingers through her hair, she stepped from behind the barracks she’d appeared at. After checking for passersby, she rounded the corner, walking straight to the key pad where she punched in the code Steve promised would work.

If it didn’t…

Before she could think that far, the pad blinked green and she slipped inside, shoulders relaxing as the elevator started to drop.

She descended to the fourth level, following the vague instructions Steve gave her into a ware-house-like space, packed to her shoulders with stuff—unrecognizable tech, experiments, and schematics.

A giant underground workshop.

She was weaving her way past boxes and desks when voices drifted towards her, urging her to slip behind a machine just in time to see Tony and Howard Stark pass her. They spoke about something she didn’t catch, but her mind wasn’t focused on their words.

She hadn’t known Tony, but she watched him give the ultimate sacrifice so the rest of the universe could continue. Watched as each person around him took a knee, grief thick in the air. They knew it wasn’t enough, but it was all any of them could do.

Seeing him was a surreal moment that had her head spinning.

He’s alive.

But also not.

Not for long.

A bark of laughter knocked her from her stupor, and she pressed on, trying to retrace the steps to wherever Tony had just came from.

Alive, her mind repeated.

If the name plate above the large storage unit wasn’t indication enough, the red hot and still smoking hinges were the tell-tale sign that she’d found the right desk. Pulling open the unit, she found a void shaped perfectly for the cube within her case before her eyes landed on a pair of heavy duty pincers she assumed had only one purpose.

Opening the case, she pulled the cube out carefully, sliding it into the void and not wasting another moment to push the unit closed and split.

Her eyes watched the clock in the elevator as she descended further into the base, running through the directions Steve gave her to get to Pym’s lab.

“Sixth level, straight from elevator D, left at the fork, it’s on the right, double doors; can’t miss it.”

“Would you like to draw me a map?”

“I just want to make sure you’re prepared.”

“It’s one left turn from the elevator. I think I’ve got it.”

She followed the instructions, stopping herself at a cork board as she made herself look busy, waiting, only moments, for a shaggy haired doctor to run from the lab. After him, she watched Steve slip through the door.

Alright, hurry up old man.

A few moments passed and he was back out, so without hesitating, Marlow went straight for the door, slipping in undetected.

Her eyes scanned the room; from the tables piled high with ant paraphernalia, bottles, and notes, to the different glass chambers that seem to make up half the walls in the lab. Then she caught sight of the red vials on the far wall to her left.

Gotcha.

Skirting past the table, she engaged her suit, immediately pulling the extra vials from her belt and carefully replacing it onto the narrow platform. She was just returning the last one when the door clicked open.

Shit.

She pulled her last vial of particles from her pocket before disengaging the suit, dropping it into the breast pocket of her shirt and fluffing the blow across it, hoping the person didn’t notice her sudden change of outfit.

“Who are you?” a voice demanded. “And what are you doing? Get away from there!”

She turned slowly, pulling a look of excitement to her face. “Oh my goodness, Doctor Hank Pym!” she squealed, “hi, uh,” she paused, clearing her throat as if to composer herself. “Hi, I’m Esther Jacobs. Wow. Sorry, I’m just a really big fan. I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

“What are you doing in my lab?” he asked bitterly, obviously unaffected by her fanatics.

“I came looking for you. I’ve heard that you’ve been working on a project that would link your mind to an ants, and wow, I just couldn’t get over it. It’s wicked.”

“How do you know about that?” he asked lowly.

Double shit.

“Word gets around,” she shrugged casually, not letting the smile drop from her face.

He shook his head, starting towards her menacingly. “You shouldn’t know about any—”

A beeping interrupted his words, halting his steps as his hands crept beneath his lab coat to pull out some device. He looked from the device to her before anger grew on his face.

“So, you’ve already taken the particles, huh?”

“Doctor Pym, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb, girl,” he seethed, surging forward and stopping barely a foot from her.

Despite wanting to recoil, she stayed planted in her spot, unwilling to back herself into a corner.

“You have the residue from my particles all over you—you’ve used them recently. Where’s your suit? And where’d you get the particles?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she repeated, stronger this time as her hand moved to rest innocently on her chest.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

It would have only taken a heartbeat to engage her suit, one more to get the particles into the gauntlet, and barely another to disappear, but she never got the chance.

Because as she was preparing to do just that, the lab door burst open and a security agent stepped in and began scanning the room with his gun raised.

“There is a security breech on this level, we’re looking for two—”

Without warning, Hank advanced on her, spinning and wrenching her arm behind her back painfully. “She broke into my lab and has stolen my research; she needs to be detained and questioned.”

“Doctor—”

“Quickly!”

The man rushed over, but Marlow never took lightly to being manhandled. She shoved her other elbow into Hank’s nose, sending a silent apology to the man back home who so nicely mass-produced vials of Pym particles, then ripped from his grip.

The guard was too close for her liking so she vaulted to the side and slipped under the lab-table, rushing towards the door before knocking it open hastily. Considering she wasn’t looking where she was running, it could be considered a success that she made it four feet before slamming into a body.

“Sorry sir, didn’t see you there,” she mumbled, pushing herself away from the bystander.

Unfortunately, he didn’t let go. She snapped back towards him like an elastic band, annoyance surging through her as she slammed a heel onto his toes and wrenched from his grip.

In his defense, he barely winced before spinning her to wrap a thick arm around her throat and heaving her backwards.

“Remember, if someone gets you around the neck—”

“I know, I—”

She grabbed hold of the arm, springing off the ground to swing her legs up before slamming them down again, knocking the pair forward. Her assailant hit the ground behind her, and she spun, palming his forearm hard to the left and ducking her head from the grip. She popped up, taking a step only to have her ankle grabbed and yanked back violently enough that her temple hit the concrete flooring before the rest of her, knocking her into a daze.

“Nice try,” the man chided, hauling her up and yanking her arms behind her back to cuff her.

“I thought it was pretty good,” she agreed hazily, earning a rough tug to the wrists.

The daze slowly cleared as she was escorted through halls, then into an elevator, then through more halls, all while trying to tone out the annoying chatter from curious onlookers that amplified the pain in her skull. Eventually, they arrived at a heavy looking door, which, as it was unlocked and she was shoved inside, Marlow realized les to an interrogation room.

As her cuffs were attached to the table, she unassumingly reached a hand up to scratch her chin, gauging her range of motion.

More than enough to reach the particles.

I just need a moment when his gun isn’t near me.

Footsteps approached before Hank stormed through the open door, two agents following behind him and settling along the side wall. The man who dragged her to the room shut the door, walking around the table and stopping in front of Marlow, who was finally able to look him in the face.

Light hair, soon to turn grey, tall, strongly built. His eyes looked tired, like he was running on coffee and cigarettes, and he watched Hank with something along the lines of disdain.

Unassuming among the rest of the base, yet for some reason, he stood out to her. She searched through what she knew of S.H.I.E.L.D. history, what she’s learned over the past handful of years, but she couldn’t place him.  

“Where did you get access to my research?” Hank demanded lowly.

“I already told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re radiating traces, where did you get it?”

She let out an annoyed huff and looked away, scanning the room boredly.

“Doctor Pym, why don’t you let me lead this interrogation,” the man said, leaning himself on the back of the chair across from the girl. “What is your name young lady?”

“Esther Jacobs.”

“Miss Jacobs, what are you doing on this base?”

“I work here,” she stated in an obvious tone. “Archives. Clearance level two. Employee number 77121.”

“Someone want to verify that?”

“Sir.” One of the agents slipped out the door, leaving only three men.

Doable, she thought.

“What do you know about the two suspicious men on base today? On the level you were on?”

“Nothing; I heard something briefly about a security breach from the security agent when he burst into Doctor Pym’s lab. I don’t know who they are or why they were here.”

“Why did you run?”

She let out a huff, not breaking her eye contact. “I apologize for getting scared when one man was detaining me while the other held a gun to my face. Next time, I’ll be sure to sit quietly.”

“She’s lying.”

“Doctor Pym,” the agent sighed, but he was cut off before he could say anything else.

“She is. She is covered in residue from my work, and she knows too much; she’s involved in something.”

“Knows too much? I’m going to need more information than that if I’m going to interrogate her Pym.”

“That’s all I will say. The only ones with clearance to that information are the Director and Howard Stark.”

“Right, well, Pym, we can’t very well keep her locked up in here all day. If her I.D. checks out, we have to let her go.”

“She had her hands in my work. If she hasn’t already, she was going to steal something,” he pushed.

“Miss, can you verify if that’s correct?”

“It’s true… but I wasn’t trying to steal it, I swear,” she said, trying her best at dumb innocence. She was never very good at that… “I was just curious. I’ve never seen anything like that before and I wanted a closer look,” she added.

“A closer—you’re not buying this are you?”

“Pym.”

“No, Richardson, she could be dangerous. We have no idea who she could be working for or why she wanted that information.”

Richardson.

She ran the name through her mind, leafing through her mentally logged information as if it were a file she was searching for.

“Did she actually steal anything?”

“Well—”

“Yes or no.”

“I don’t know, haven’t had the chance to check.”

“Well, if she hasn’t then all we can do is put her on watch.”

Hank let out an annoyed growl but nodded. “Go ahead then.”

Marlow’s heart skipped and she let out a dramatic gasp. “Excuse me?”

“Miss, please just cooperate. It’ll be over in a moment,” Richardson grumbled, waving at her to stand up.

“You are not pawing me down,” she bit.

“If you have nothing to hide there shouldn’t be an issue,” Hank countered.

“This isn’t about hiding something.”

“Miss, stand up or I will force you to stand up.”

Her mind ran over what she could do. Whether she could grab the vial with enough time to engage her suit while avoiding everyone in the room.

“Can I at least have privacy. I don’t need an audience.”

“You heard the lady, into the hall.”

The two men exit, the latter barking about it not being a show, before the door shut.

“It’s protocol Miss,” Richardson said, almost apologetically.

She nodded stiffly, everything moving in slow motion as his hands began their pat down. He didn’t linger, didn’t squeeze, but as he brushed down her chest, his eyes flicked to hers.

“Tampon.”

His face, however, didn’t become struck with discomfort as she’d hoped. Instead, he stepped back and nodded, silently asking her to take it out.

Now or never.

She bent down, giving herself enough room to reach into her pocket and wrap her fingers around the vial before engaging her suit, hearing a bark of surprise as she inched to load it into her gauntlet.

To her annoyance, before she could slide it in, her hand was batted away, the vial flying out of her grasp at the impact before she was shoved into the chair with a harsh hand. Then she heard something shatter against the wall.

That something, she knew, was her key out of here.

“Stand down,” Richardson ordered, hand not moving from her shoulder as the screeching static of a walky-talky erupted beside her. “Elmer, this is Richardson, please escort Doctor Pym back to the lab, I have this under control.”

The hand released her shoulder, leaving an ache as Richardson rounded the table and dropped into the chair, demeanor changed from a tired, seasoned Agent to what Marlow could only liken to a dangerous animal; eyes sharp, mind assessing, and body tense for a fight.

“Miss, you’re going to tell me your name again, and for your sake, I hope you tell me the truth,” he said, fingers threading over his mouth.

Oh, is all she could think.

Because now that she was looking at him, half of his face construed like it was by a thick beard in later photos she’d seen, she knew who she was looking at.

Joseph Richardson.

A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who, among many others here, was also a Hydra agent. An important one at that. One that answered only to the highest ranking officers of Hydra.

This is going to take some smooth talking.

Chapter Text

“Well?”

“I’m trying to decide if I should trust you,” Marlow said calmly.

No cameras… she thought, but that didn’t mean there aren’t bugs.

“Trust has nothing to do with it. You are being interrogated, right now peacefully. If you want to keep it peaceful, you’ll start talking.”

She knew she couldn’t tell the truth. Knowing the shit they were up to, there was a good chance they would believe interdimensional time-travel, and the last thing her timeline needed was Hydra jumping into it.

“Hail Hydra,” she said simply.

His posture didn’t shift, but there was a spark of realization in his eyes. Like he was trying to determine whether he could believe her to actually be Hydra. Whether it was safe to pull down his own façade.

“What base are you stationed at?”

Safe question. Safe enough that if someone were listening, it would merely be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent trying to crack one of their biggest rivals.

Her mind worked quickly, pulling up a location far enough away that he likely never interacted with, but large enough that he would know of it. “Nevada.”

“What is their function?”

He’s not dropping.

“Intel and outsourcing.”

“How did you breach their security to learn that?”

“I didn’t. I’m telling the truth.”

“That information isn’t hard to come by; any half-able grunt could have figured it out. Tell me, how did you figure it out?”

“I work there, is how.”

“You wouldn’t have come by that suit in Nevada.”

She’d forgotten she was no longer only wearing the pencil skirt and blouse. No, she was covered by a black suit, bedecked with white armor plates and a black A emblazoned on the breast.

“And if you had, anyone befitting a suit like that wouldn’t have been caught.”

“Unless I was fed the wrong information,” she evaded. “My orders were to come here and extract one of those vials. I was told Doctor Pym would be out, and that the base would be expecting me. Low and behold, I get here and I’m faced with the barrel end of a gun, Joseph.”

His head cocked to the side as he watched her, irritation evident on his face. “What little you know of me means nothing. Am I supposed to believe you because you know my name? Because you have basic information on a base?”

“I know quite a bit. I know that after the war, 1500 Nazi scientists were hired into federal positions under the US government in exchange for being pardoned. Thanks to Arnim Zola, Hydra grew within S.H.I.E.L.D., and that’s why you’re here, at Camp Lehigh—the birthplace of S.H.I.E.L.D. and an undercover Hydra. Since then, we’ve grown, we’ve assassinated people; Kolchak, Kennedy, Rostov, Hauser. I know about Operation Iliad, I know about Project Elemental, we orchestrated the Cuban Missile Crisis, I know about the battles of Henry. Are those things a random grunt would know? That a random enemy grunt could find?”

He continued watching her, resolve evidently chipping away but not without annoyance—likely for being kept out of the loop about such an infiltration. Silently, he stood, hands going behind his back before turning, pulling in a slow breath.

She used the moment to tap on her gauntlet, hastily inputting the coordinates home before he turned again, eyes once again boring into her.

“I can’t deny you know quite a bit, although much of it seems… related. Tell me, what happened during the Korean War.”

The war?

She wracked her brain.

“Hydra had a hand in it. Different Op’s,” she said carefully. “They orchestrated it, like a lot of wars.”

“With your knowledge, I’d have thought you would know exactly which Op I was referring to. Would the date spark something maybe? July second, nineteen-fifty-one.”

“That must have been above my rank,” she covered coolly, trying to keep a level head at being found out. Because she knew. And she had little wiggle room left to talk her way out.  

“Interesting, considering the Kennedy and Kolchak assassinations, Operation Iliad, and two battles of Henry were all the same clearance level—and all have one thing in common.”

The Winter Soldier, she realized.

There was a banging at the door then, and Marlow jumped, eyes tearing away from Richardson’s, who stood with a satisfied smirk on his lips. He stalked to the door, not sparing a glance at the still dripping mess of red liquid on the wall.

This is an Ant-Man suit right? Couldn’t I just shrink if I have a little juice left?

Maybe. Or I could get stuck in the Quantum Realm because I don’t have enough.

Really should have asked for a crash course on this suit.

The door opened and a million thoughts ran through her mind.

“Well?” Hank’s voice asked pointedly from the hall.

“You were supposed to be returned to your lab. Anyways, she’s confessed and is a threat to this base. We are transporting her to a secure location for questioning. Thank you for bringing her in. Erik, make sure he goes and stays in his lab.”

“Figure out who sent her—my research is too dangerous to get into the wrong hands,” Hank ordered, voice growing quieter.

Fuck.

It was the only word within in her head, repeating over and over.

“Now,” Richardson said, shutting the door and turning back to Marlow, “you have thirty seconds to explain who you are. It won’t change anything other than how much pain you’re going to be in.”

“I’ve told you who I am.”

“No, you’ve told me lies. Who are you and who sent you?”

She remained silent. Easier than lying and safer than opening her mouth. It also gave her time to glimpse the gun in his pocket, along with the ring of keys.

If she could get away from him, she could disengage her suit, maybe get back to the lab and explain to Hank what happened. She knew stuff about him and his research that she could possibly convince him. Better chancing it with him than anyone else, and better than sticking around with this guy.

“Fifteen seconds.”

She kept her silence, psyching herself up mentally.

“Not going to talk? That won’t last long.”

He grabbed for her, and she let her body’s movements turn instinctual, imagining herself training with Nat in an abandoned building, hands chained down in case she were ever in this exact situation.

Marlow stood from the chair, kicking it aside before wrapping her foot around Natasha’s ankle to pull her close to the table. Before Marlow could wrap the chains around her neck though, Natasha slunk away, grabbing her by the back of the head, and directing her into the table.

She ducked to the side, avoiding getting the table to the nose—

Except she didn’t this time.

She hit hard enough that her vision flared white, but she didn’t let it stop her for long. She let one hand remain on the table while the other reached behind her, grabbing for the gun at the agent’s waist. Instead, her fingers wrapped around keys.

Good enough.

As the agent kicked her leg from under her, Marlow unclipped the ring and shuffled the keys, letting them settle between her knuckles before throwing her fist back and catching the agent in the side. He let out a pained grunt, backing off an inch before wrapping an arm around her throat. She attempted to hit him again, but his other hand blocked the keys from landing a hit to the face before it started squeezing and twisting until there was a searing pain in her hand that made it go limp.

She threw her head back, catching his lip and wiggling, but his grip didn’t budge. She repeated, but the agent learned, forcing her chest-first against the table, trapping her arms beneath her while her face pressed into the cold metal. His arm tightened around her neck and she tried to take a breath but it only ended in her gaping like a beached fish.

Her heart hammered in her ears, arms weakly trying to escape—so she could escape.

But she couldn’t.

“That’s right, go to sleep.”

Chapter Text

“You’re doing well,” Natasha said as she passed the girl an icepack wrapped in a t-shirt.

“Thanks,” Marlow muttered sarcastically. “I thought so too. My face makes a great target, huh?”

“You really are improving. This was a difficult scenario.”

She let out a disbelieving chuckle, leaning against a long-forgotten filing cabinet as she pressed the ice pack to her throbbing lip. “How should I have gone about it? How could I have won?”

“I can’t tell you exactly because each situation will be different, you have to—”

“Evaluate your surroundings, I know,” Marlow droned.

The blond woman sent her a scornful look; one that had Marlow shrinking.

“Sorry. Continue.”

“I would have tried to get the person’s neck as near to the restraints as possible and either used them to choke my attacker, or gotten my legs around them. If they had a gun or stun-weapon, I would try to keep them there until I got a hold of it…”

⁂

“Fuck me,” Marlow hissed as she rolled onto her side, searching for a position that would lessen the pain she was feeling across her entire body.

It felt like her and Nat went one too many rounds… But Nat wasn’t around anymore. And she wasn’t on a jet. Or at a safe house. Or at the pop-up.

Her eyes opened and she found herself laying on cold cement, hands cuffed in front of her with a chain leading out of her line of sight.

Fuck me, she repeated in her mind.

They took me.

Where the fuck am I?

With a huff of effort, Marlow pushed off her side, using the little strength in her arms to lean against the wall behind her.

A room.

Cold, dark, damp.

Guarded, she noted mentally, eyeing the two men in front of the door, demeanor unchanged despite her new state of consciousness.

She sized them up, humoring herself with the idea of fighting them. Even without her body feeling like a million pounds, she probably couldn’t considering their biceps were the size of her head.

Bigger maybe?

She readjusted, body laggy like she couldn’t quite wake it up.

“Did you guys drug me?” she bit, running a heavy hand over her face as if it would clear her mind. She didn’t get a response, although she really wasn’t expecting one—it just would have been nice to break the hovering quiet. The silence meant she was left contemplating how fucked she was without their input.

Very, she concluded.

She sat in the stillness of the room, occasionally asking the guards the time or when meal would be served. And on that note, whether she could put in for something—she was pretty picky.

She was questioning whether the men were even real when there was a sound from the door. A moment later, it opened and Richardson walked in, a scowl on his face that made Marlow want to roll her eyes.

“So, is this what S.H.I.E.L.D. prisons look like?” she wondered out loud, looking around the dim room while holding back the shiver that threatened to shake her body when a cold draft reached her from the open door. Despite only wearing the thin blouse and pencil skirt, she refused to ask for a blanket or even show her discomfort. She wasn’t interested in giving them the satisfaction. Even her asking about food was done in such a sarcastic manner as to appear like she was simply bored; making light of the situation because she couldn’t care less.

Something, Steve always told her, reminded him of Tony.

“I’ve had some men looking at your suit. It’s advanced; they’ve never seen anything like it. How does it work?”

“Funny story, that,” she said, adjusting herself against the wall, “I have no idea.”

“Where did you get it?”

“New York.”

“Where in New York? Who made it? Who gave it to you?”

“Upstate, not exactly sure, and Captain America.”

I’m not lying.

An annoyed grunt came from Richardson, and he stalked towards the girl, stopping to crouch in front of her and grab her face roughly. “I don’t think you realize the situation you’re in. No one is coming to get you. S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t protect you. Whoever you’re working with can’t protect you. You will not escape. It’s in your best interest to come forward with the truth. It will be far less painful that way.”

She pondered his statements, feeling the cold truth sink into her bones.

Sam was right; he isn’t getting me out of this one.

It’s me and that’s it.

But you’ve relied on yourself for twenty years, you can do it again.

So, she shrugged and told the same lie she’d repeated her entire life.

“I always tell the truth.”

Chapter Text

She wasn’t sure how long had passed since she was brought to that God forsaken cell, but she knew how many times the door had been opened.

Four times.

Twice for food, which consisted of a measly piece of hard tack and paper cup of water, and twice for Richardson to interrogate her.

You’d think he’d give up by then, seeing as she had given them nothing more to go off of other than what she said on her first day—but no. They were determined.

And that was a terrifying thought.

Not that she let herself think too much about that. She maintained, however naïvely, that she was getting out of there. Because she was. She just hadn’t figured out how yet.

Sure, this was objectively the worst situation she’d been in—and yes, she was including fighting the purple alien who genocided half the universe because unlike then, right now she was alone. Utterly alone. And so on that front, she would allow some self-pity. But only enough that would spur her to get out of this situation and back to her friends—her family.

Because she was also determined, and when she was determined, it was more often than not driven by spite. Sam always said when she got into those moods, she could prove a round room had a corner if she had enough time.

And hell, in here, she had time.

So that’s what she was running on; self-pity, spite, and whatever the hell hard tack was.

⁂

“So, are you going to talk yet?” Richardson asked, crouched in front of her.

This was the first time he'd spoken. He just strolled in, not even sparing her a ‘good morning’ before punching her straight in the gut.

Rude, she thought as she doubled over in pain before he continued his assault for a few more minutes.

“I could talk… but you’re not going to like what I say,” she mumbled, resting her head against the wall behind her.

“I have something that might make you talk,” he countered before standing and turning. “Send in the Asset.”

Marlow didn’t need to wait to know who he was referring to. She’d read enough files to know that there was only one person in Hydra history known as the Asset.

And that thought was enough to shake her. To send her begging to whoever might be listening.

Not him, she thought, as if that might make any difference. As if through sheer will, she wouldn’t have to endure whatever was to come by the man she’d become friends with. Who only smiled politely when Marlow’s reaction to meeting him was starstruck, cautious, and bashful.

She remembered her fingers getting shaky and her words getting tied together as she tried to introduce herself, and although she blamed it on the weight of oncoming battle, she knew it wasn’t just that.

She’d heard the stories of Sergeant Barnes, seen the grainy black and white photos in her history textbooks that did little to cover the dashing looks he was all but known for. Then, that cocked smile leapt off the page and became a tangible thing in her recent life. It sent butterflies into her stomach, and she had to learn to calm them the first handful of times it had been directed at her.

She wouldn’t call it a school-girl crush; even if she weren’t stuck in 1970’s New Jersey, she wouldn’t pursue it—and not that she had been thinking about it, but Bucky showed no interest in a relationship, especially with a girl somewhere around ten years younger. Or eighty, depending on who was counting. She just recognized an attractive face when she saw one.

But regardless of his dating status, she knew his face. She felt she knew it like the back of her hand by that point, so she tried her hardest to prepare herself in those infinitely long moments after Richardson spoke.

It didn’t matter though; she couldn’t help the hiccup of her heart as he walked in, dressed in leathers, with his hair significantly shorter than she’d ever seen in person. As his eyes landed on her, she tried not to expect his face to be the one she knew. She tried not to expect it to shift into a look of realization, then to worry, then to protection.

Because he wasn’t the Bucky she knew.

It didn’t matter how hard she tried to avoid feeling any shock—she did. She felt it like the earlier punch to the gut. Then she felt a wave of terror ripple through her body as he stepped towards her.

Because he wasn’t the Bucky she knew.

“Good to know you’re smart enough to be scared. I was starting to worry,” Richardson quipped, but she couldn't find it in herself to rebut. “You mentioned our asset a few times during your attempt to fool me, and I thought you might have some affinity for him. That maybe you wanted to meet him; up close and personal,” he said voice sickeningly joyful.

Of course, he would enjoy this.

“We’re going to do this again. I’m going to ask questions; you’re going to answer. If I don’t like your answer, the Asset will deal with you. Understand.”

Her eyes didn't tear away from Bucky’s; shockingly blue and undeniably his, but they relayed no teasing spirit—no emotion.

“I’ll take that as a yes. What is your name?”

Chapter Text

They stood above her, although Richardson knew Marlow had no idea.

He made sure of it.

Right now, she was riding the high of a good beating from the Asset and a sedative from their resident doctor, both ensuring her transfer would go smoothly.

“This base isn’t equipped to keep her. At least if she goes with you, someone might be able to crack into that skull of hers and figure out where she’s gotten her information.”

“We also have the best mechanics and engineers in the world; they will find out how the suit works. I have no worries,” the other man claimed, voice thick with a Russian accent.

“Just know what you’re getting into with her,” Richardson spat. “She’s a bloody pain in the ass, and has a habit of not answering.”

“That is good,” the Russian nodded, looking down at the girl who had barely any skin not discolored by bruising, blood, or dirt. “It is boring to get information from someone who speaks easily. I like the challenge. I will make the little bird sing, don’t worry.”

“Well do it quickly, we need to find her source before it festers.”

“Yes, yes, I will. Hail Hydra brother.”

“Hail Hydra.”

Chapter Text

When she’d awoken, she had no idea she was in a new location. In truth, it’d taken her a few hours to realize she was in a new cell. This one had a cot, and the toilet was in a different corner.

She figured at first, it was just a different room in whatever base she’d been kept at before, but it was different. The floor, the walls, the sounds. Although she never saw the building she was in before, this one felt… low. Like a basement or a sublevel. She wasn’t sure how she could tell, but she was almost certain she was underground.

That wasn’t much help though, it didn’t give her any information to go off of, like how far from Pym particles she was, or how she would possibly get back to that S.H.I.E.L.D. base.

Another terrifying thought.

One that she did her best from overtaking her, although the pit of helplessness grew.

And it grew for what felt was years without the help of a clock, light, or schedule to keep her temporally positioned.

The only time she came in ‘contact’ with anyone, was when the slat beneath the door slid open for food.

It was no longer hard tack, but some type of loaf that Marlow was pretty sure had meat in it, but she couldn’t be sure. It was bland and dense and every once in a while, she’d get a hard chunk of fat that would make her gag.

She’d always hated the chewiness of fat.

So, she tried to let her worries be of the little things; the nasty chunks of fat in her loaf, the lumpiness of the mattress, the inability to scroll through Twitter.

If she focused on those things, the thoughts of being stranded in 1970 were pushed to the peripheral and she could continue being naïve.

Because she was getting out of there. She just hadn’t figured out how yet.

⁂

She decided that it had only been a week since she’d arrived when the cell door finally opened.

A week because she could mentally deal with a week. She knew she’d been fed at least seven times, but no more than fifteen based on the paper cups she piled into triangle towers near the door. A week, because if she pretended that these people weren’t complete monsters, she could say they fed her at least twice a day. Right?

Right.

A nagging at the back of her head reminded her that they were, in fact, monsters, and they most certainly hadn’t fed her twice a day—let alone once a day—but she held her calculation.

The words barked outside her door though, were another issue entirely.

What Cold War era groups in the America would be speaking Russian?

Fanatics, she suggested to herself.

Fanatics who followed Hydra and who are camped out in America and awaiting orders. Because that made more sense than her being in Russia. That made the ball of anxiety in her stomach calm down a little.

“Good morning, ptichka,” a dark haired man drawled as he walked into the cell, eyes landing on the spot where Marlow sat against the wall.

“Finally,” she wheezed, voice rough from disuse, “I’ve been waiting to place my breakfast order for hours.”

Interestingly, the man laughed, apparently amused by her antics. “I heard you were… boltlivyy, that you talk too much, but never say the right things. Lippy, I think the word is in English.”

“That’s an understatement,” she agreed.

“I am going to explain something to you, ptichka. I am going to ask questions, you answer. That is it. You know how this works. If you do not answer, you talk to the Soldat. I will give you a chance to answer without him, but it won’t last. If the ptichka doesn’t sing willingly, I will find a way to make her. Understand?”

“I never had much of a singing voice.”

Finally, a spark of anger.

He reached forward in a flash, grabbing her cheeks the same way Richardson had.

What’s with men grabbing my face?

“I only have so much patience for naglost. Make it easy for yourself, uh?”

Now that he was close, she saw he had pale blue eyes, so pale that they barely looked like they had color. And his startling features were only made more severe by the scar that tore from the middle of his jaw up to his right ear.

But she didn’t let that sway her.

She just smiled beneath his fingers, cheeks pushing into her line of sight.

“Where are you from?” he asked before ripping his hand away.

“I was born in Sandusky, Ohio. Lived there before moving to Germany for work at eighteen. Stayed there a few years before going to New York. Wasn’t even there a month before I was so rudely taken against my will.”

“When were you born.”

“January 14th, 1948.”

“Where did you get your suit?”

“Captain America gave it to me.”

“Captain America?” the man laughed, “you Americans are so uncreative with your names. Now, who gave you the suit?”

“Captain America,” she repeated pointedly.

There was a pause before she got a swift backhand to the cheek.

“My patience is dropping ptichka. How does the suit work?”

“You think I know?” she asked airily, still partially dazed from the hit.

“Richardson said that it appeared on you. How did that happen?”

“All I know is that the suit is made of tiny little robots. Not sure how it works,” she answered, hoping her response was outlandish enough for him to not believe her.

She didn’t know much, but she knew that the suit was linked to her EEG’s, meaning she was the only one who could activate it, but past that, she was telling truth; she had no idea how the technology worked. It wouldn’t be hard to reprogram it though, even in this time period.

“Tiny robots? Were the tiny robots made by elves?” the man chided.

“Not that I know of.”

Another back hand.

“What is the suit for?”

“It’s based off Hank’s design,” she said evasively.

“Who made it?”

“I—don’t—know,” she grit, each word emphasized.

The man let out a roar, grabbing her neck and hauling her up without warning, not giving her even a second to take a breath before she was slammed into the cinderblock wall behind her.

“This is your last chance, who do you work for and who made that suit.”

He released the pressure on her neck just slightly, enough for her to gasp out a response.

“I don’t work for anyone, and I don’t know who made the suit.”

Her vision was a blur as she was thrown to the ground, shoulder and hip hitting cement before she could even think to catch herself. A whimper of pain escaped her as heavy footsteps receded, giving her a few moments to catch her breath and feel the full force of that fall.

“Zimniy Soldat, idite syuda!”

Once again, she was shocked by the eyes that met hers. They were so empty.

Last time she’d been too focused on the fact that it was her friend that she hadn’t even processed that it was her friend without will or agency.

As she watched him come to a stop beside the Russian man, she was hit with the inhumanity of what was happening to him.

It may not have been her Bucky, but it was Bucky.

In forty years, he would escape, he would be on the run, framed for murder, he would meet her, fight in Wakanda, fight in New York.

But right now, he was a slave to them, and not even given the dignity to know it. He was a vessel. And she could see it in his eyes.

“The Soldat just returned from a mission. We thought that before he went under, he could partake in this little interrogation,” the Russian man explained, looking at Bucky with pride. “Soldat,” he said simply, spurring Bucky to stalk towards the girl, flesh hand reaching to pull her up by the hair.

Once standing, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Bucky’s.

It’s not him, is all she could repeat in her mind.

Not Bucky.

Not Bucky.

Not Bucky.

“Who do you work for?”

“No one,” she hissed, partially at the pain in her scalp, and partially in indignance.

“Soldat.”

She couldn’t imagine getting shot was much different from the pain she felt at being punched by Bucky’s metal arm. Or the burn she felt in her rib cage that she suspected was a broken rib.

Richardson had kept the beating rather clean; no metal arm for the only reason that Marlow could assume was as not to kill her.

This guy was obviously not worried.

She didn’t even think that was the hardest he could punch.

“Who do you work for?”

“No one,” she wheezed, “I don’t work for anyone.”

This time, the Russian didn’t have to say anything. Bucky just forced her face downwards and into his awaiting knee.

She practically went limp at the impact, knee’s giving out and having to grab at Bucky to keep herself somewhat upright. If he cared about the contact, he made no indication, only standing menacingly still as the room filled with Marlow’s gasping breaths.

“I’m telling you the fucking truth, God damn it,” she grunted, finally getting herself righted. Only to be thrown backwards into the wall, Bucky’s hand moving to the front of her throat to keep her still.

Tears burn her eyes at the radiating pain from her spine and skull, mouth dropping open but unable to even make a sound because of the pain.

“Where did you get the information on the Soldat. And the rest of the information you have on Hydra?”

She tried to make sense of the words, to form a coherent sentence that didn’t involve time travel, but she couldn’t. Her eyes squeezed shut as she thought, trying to force her brain into submission.

“Where did you get your information?” he repeated.

She stayed silent. Unwilling to risk them learning about the suit. It’s easier than she thinks, what with focusing on the pain that comes with Bucky slamming her into the wall again.

She was pretty sure that the Russian asked questions, but she was also pretty sure she has a concussion, meaning his words held no weight. Even as each hit risked a broken bone or bleeding out, she didn’t answer. Maybe he was actually speaking Russian, she wasn’t sure. She was too dazed—so close to blacking out but never getting the satisfaction—to even try to think about what he was asking.

The minutes that stretch until the hits finally stopped were indeterminable, but when she was finally left to lay on her side, she was unable to keep her eyes open any longer, letting the pain pull her into a state of unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

Somewhere behind her, she registered the sound of the door opening, but she was too tired to really understand. Not even the footsteps roused her from her half-sleep, once again not feeling completely in control of her body.  

The hands that pulled her off the ground were slightly more alarming, but she still could only muster a look of slight annoyance as she turned to face the Russian.

“How are you feeling this morning, ptichka?”

She tried to open her mouth to speak, to send him a snippy retort, but for some reason her mouth refused to form words.

A firm slap to the cheek sent a little life into her, and as her head lulled to rest on the shoulder of whoever held her, she was able to muster a glare.

“Teechkah better not mean bitch,” she mumbled, earning a hearty laugh from the Russian.

“No, but that would be another fitting name for you, uh? Now, are you going to cooperate today?”

“Probably not,” she huffed, barely above the whisper.

“I guess we will have to see. The Soldat will not be joining us for a while, so if you want to avoid dealing with him you will answer me today.”

With that, who ever held her sent a hard punch to the base of her spine, forcing her legs to give out before she could even blink. As her knees hit the ground, a hand was wrapped around her neck, the pressure not enough to cut off her air flow, but enough to keep her still.

“Where did you learn that the Soldat assassinated Kennedy?”

She swallowed, the hand around her neck constricting the longer she didn’t answer.

They can’t know.

So, she didn’t respond. To any of the questions.

She kept her mouth shut, even when their hits got harder. Even as she felt her arm snap beneath the weight of a heavy boot. Even as they decided to bring out a pocket knife, seeing how much red they could add to her cell floor. Even as she was forced into unconsciousness then ripped back to reality, seeing the sneering face of the Russian, she said nothing.

That became their routine. He would come in, question her, get nothing, then leave in a blaze of anger. She wasn’t sure how long passed, but she knew days and sometimes even weeks had gone by between visits, because her bruises would all but disappear before he returned.

Why he bothered to keep her alive, she wasn’t sure. It’s not like she was helpful; she had given him no more than what he believed to be facetious answers, and he was obviously close to snapping.

There had been more than once that she’d wished he’d squeezed a little longer, or cut a little deeper, that he would snap, but it didn’t come.

Long past the point of her arm healing, and then her finger—which she agonizingly had to adjust so it didn’t bend at an awkward angle—and even after the deepest cuts had healed—no thanks to the vodka they’d so graciously poured onto the wounds ‘to avoid infection’—she was still alive.

Because they couldn’t know.

She wouldn’t be the reason Hydra started jumping through time and fucking up the sacred timeline as the Ancient One had told her it was called. At least, Marlow thought she had told her that. Maybe it was Bruce. Or maybe she was imagining it ever happened.

It was hard to tell between the dream-like states she sat in in-between visits from the Russian and her actual dreams.

She read once—or she thought she read—that if someone sat in darkness and silence for long enough, they would start hallucinating. She hoped she’d read that because that’s what had been happening to her.

Most times between visits now, her lights were turned off, leaving her to sit in darkness for however long until he came back in.

She never knew if the figure in the corner was the Russian trying to taunt her, or part of her imagination. Or whether she was actually hearing someone hum one of Steve’s favorite songs. Maybe she was the one humming it, she didn’t know.

She misses him. And Sam. And God, she missed Natasha. She never had a chance to say goodbye. The last time she’d seen her was when she was trapped beneath a cropping of rocks Thanos had materialized, trying to block his way to Wanda, who’s sobs echoed through the forest.

She could hear those sobs now, loud as if Wanda were beside her. She could hear the absolute gut wrenching heartbreak within them that Marlow had wished to take away, but knew she couldn’t. Those sobs erupted again when the dust settled and Wanda had to come to terms with what she’d done. That despite what she’d done Thanos only had to reverse time so he could rip the stone from Vision’s head himself. That Vision was gone.

And although everyone else got to come back, he didn’t.

It was as if the battle—technically two, separated by five years—was happening around her then, in that dark, cold cell. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the dirt beneath her nails, hearing the clank of weapons and the surges of cold energy. She’d had nightmares about it, but this was something else. She was awake, and she couldn’t escape it. Even as she tried to knock herself unconscious using the cinderblock wall, she couldn’t escape it.

She didn’t know though, that it wasn’t a surreal flashback; the clank she was hearing was of her cell door opening, and the energy she felt was only a draft of air.

She didn’t know that the footsteps approaching weren’t of the Mad Titan, but of the man she’d known once in the past. Or the future.

When she finally opened her eyes, she was so convinced she was back in that fight that the room itself was invisible to her. All she saw was the familiar face of her friend.

“Bucky,” she gasped, pushing herself to stand and wrapping her arms around the blue eyed man as if to commiserate in the horrors of battle. “We need—we need to get out of here, they’re coming, they’re going to—”

Suddenly she was pushed back, a metal hand squeezing her neck that she scratched to get off, mind scrambling to understand.

“B-bucky, stop,” she gasped.

And just like that she realized. Remembered.

She might not be in the midst of a battle, but she was still fighting for her life.

“Soldat!” that familiar voice barked, and even without a command, Bucky dropped his hand, stepping aside.

She found the Russian, his face a mixture of confusion and anger, barging towards her.

“How do you know that name?!”

“W-what?” She shook her head, trying to make it catch up.

“Ne zastavlyay menya povtoryatʹ eto snova,” he bit.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she panted.

“Chert voz'mi—how do you know his name?!”

“I—I,” she stumbled unable to think clearly.

“Was it Stark? That man knew him—that is who gave you the suit, is it not?” the man said, realization overcoming him. “That is the only possible answer; you are protecting Stark.”

“No,” Marlow shook her head. “No, I’ve never even spoken to him before.”

She knew Bruce said that once the stones were back, their timeline would be okay, but that didn’t mean she wanted to start getting people killed. She had no idea what that might do.

“Then how do you know his name?” he asked, grabbing her shoulders and slamming her into the wall for emphasis.

“I read about him!”

“Where?”

“History class,” she blurted airily. “He was in the books. I—I didn’t recognize him before, but I do now. He’s James Barnes, from the war. He was friends with Steve Rogers, part of the—”

Suddenly she was cut off by a punch to the mouth.

“Never say those names again, suchka. If you do, I will gladly pull your tongue from your mouth.”

She wasn’t sure if it was the way he said those words, or whether it was her earlier flashback, or maybe the blood that was dripping down her chin, but all she could manage was a meek nod. She was scared. Terrified, really. More than she had been before this point—which was probably stupid on her part, but that was the naivety. Now though, she couldn’t help the shake of her hands as the Russian ordered the Soldier from the room, eyes not leaving hers as if to dare her to call that name again.

Then, they were alone.

“We have looked into the name you gave us, but there is no Marlow Hendrix born in Sandusky, Ohio, on January 14, nineteen-forty-eight… In fact, we could not find any Marlow in all of Ohio. Special name, uh?” he asked, before a left hook caught her in the cheek bone. “My patience, ptichka, is gone. This is your last chance. Who are you, and how do you know what you know?”

“I am Marlow Hendrix,” she said, before shutting her mouth and looking past the Russian.

The terror within her didn’t wane.

She didn’t want to die. That’s why she’d fought so hard against Thanos’ armies; not just to protect the world, but because she wanted to live. But this, she’d realized, is part of her fight. Dying. She was sure that either way, they would have killed her. Even if she told them everything they needed to know about the suit, about time travel, about the future—they would probably kill her. Or torture her until she wished she were dead.

But as the Russian’s hand wrapped around her throat, she wished she could live.

Then again, so did a lot of people who lost their lives over the last six years. She just wished the people back home would have gotten some type of closure.

That they knew that her last thoughts were of them.

Chapter Text

Bucky, Sam, and Bruce stood around the platform, just a heartbeat since they’d watched their friends disappear.

“And returning in five, four, three, two, one.”

Nothing.

Bucky’s eyes flew to Bruce, watching as he stared at the monitor, confusion and worry bubbling up.

“Where are they?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. They both flew by their time stamp. They should be here.”

Bucky’s eyes moved to the platform as if he could stare her into existence.

She was supposed to come back…

What if something happened?

“Get them back,” Sam bit out.

“I’m trying.”

“Get them the hell back.”

“I said I’m—I’ve got Marlow’s signal. She input the wrong time into her coordinates; she’ll be through in three minutes.”

Bucky felt his shoulders relax and he turned, eyes shutting as he let out a breath.

She’s okay.

After a moment, he opened them again, gaze wandering over the peaceful forest and hearing Sam ask something along the lines of ‘what about Steve’. But Bucky wasn’t focused on that. He was focused on the figure ahead, sitting on a bench in front of the water.

“Sam,” Bucky called, nodding to the bench.

Steve is okay too.

He hung back, having already shared the words he needed to with his friend. This was for Sam; for the annoyingly good man that Sam was—no matter how much Bucky pretended to hate to admit as much. He really couldn’t imagine anyone else that that shield should go to.

As he watches the two speak quietly, he caught glimpses of his friend's face and couldn’t help but be glad that Steve finally looks his age.

He’s gotta be what? Two hundred?

Bucky would have to run it by him when he saw him next—no doubt over morning coffee like the two old men they were.

Turning, he returned his gaze to Bruce, who worked at the computer, every so often glancing up to look at Steve before looking back down with a disbelieving shake of his head.

“Alright,” he called, straightening from the monitor. “Marlow is back in five, four, three, two, one.”

The moment the woman appeared, Bucky knew it wasn’t her, and if the red skull and tentacles on her breastplate was anything to go off of, they were about to have one hell of a fight.   

Chapter Text

She wasn’t sure why, but she was surprised when her eyes opened.

And then confused when she saw the ground passing beneath her despite her feet not moving.

She tried to catch each tile with her eyes, but it brought an ache to her head, so instead she squeezed her lids shut and tried to breathe. When she finally opened them again, she was careful to look around.  

Oh, she realized, I’m in a wheelchair.

Although it bobbed, she eventually turned her head to look above her, finding the face of someone unrecognizable.

That’s when she remembered what happened to her, and the sudden spark of adrenaline had her surge against her restraints.

Nothing good ever comes from being restrained in a wheelchair.

She yanked at her wrists, but the tight cuffs held her back easily.  

“Uspokoysya, vse v poryadke,” the young man’s voice said calmly.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re saying, but let me the fuck out,” she argued, pulling at her wrists despite knowing it wouldn’t do anything.

“Mayor zovet tebya, ptichka, verno? Nu, ptichka, stoboy vse budet poryadke. You, okay,” he said, accent making the English words clunky in his mouth.

It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

“I am not okay,” she huffed in indignation, giving her best glare to the man above her.

He continued talking as if she hadn’t said anything, his words soothing as if he was trying to console a child.

A few moments later, she was wheeled into a room, barely catching sight of the guards before hearing the sound of doors shutting and locks sliding into place behind them. The room was dark and she could barely distinguish shadow from object before she was stopped in front of a small group of men.

“Hello, ptichka, how are you today?”

She didn’t deign to acknowledge the Russian’s words, eyes focused instead on the empty space beside him.

“Ah, but you had behaved so well the last time we spoke,” he taunted sarcastically.

Still, she said nothing, hoping it would embarrass him in front of his friends. To show that despite everything he had done, she still wouldn’t answer his questions.

He just smiled, although it didn’t seem annoyed. It seemed… satisfied. And that made her worry.

“Gospoda, this is who I have been working with these last months,” the Russian said, and Marlow didn’t miss how he spoke English. “She has had broken bones, stab wounds, taken beatings that would make most grown men cry, yet she has not broken. My little ptichka has not sung,” he explained with an air about his words that she could only liken to pride.

The disgust she felt at his tone was only overshadowed by his words.

‘My ptichka’.

I am not yours.

“That is why I have suggested we integrate her into our ranks.”

Marlow’s eyes shot up at that, meeting the Russian’s and knowing then for certain; it didn’t matter if the others understood his words, he wanted her to know. He wanted her to be scared.

“We already know that our device works, so I suggest we use it on her. We need to know where she got her information, whether there are copies, determine who else may know. Afterwards, I believe her resolve would be beneficial to make use of. She has told us her name is Marlow Hendrix, and if that is true, there are no records of her. When we take care of her counterparts, no one will come looking for her. She will be a ghost.”

“Smozhet li ona vyzhit' v ustroystvo?” one of the men asked.

“If they are careful, yes, she will be fine.”

“Khorosho, prodolzhay.”

“Privedi yeye syuda, Denikin,” the Russian nodded towards her.

Or, to the man behind her, because he started wheeling her towards the group of men, and then behind them, where she was directed toward a machine that made her entire body recoil.

“No, no—no—no, you’re not putting me in that thing!” she bit, trying to push herself out of the chair, wrists burning at her attempts to wrench away. “Don’t!”

“Ah, so my ptichka recognizes this device?”

“Stop,” she growled, honing in on the Russian. “Don’t fucking do this.”

“I gave you a chance yesterday. You did not want to answer, so this will make you. I told you I would make you sing.”

She was stopped sickeningly close to the machine before guards surround the chair, blocking any escape, but that didn’t stop Marlow from trying. From barreling shoulder first into one of the men wearing an olive green uniform. From punching, and clawing, and kicking, much to the apparent delight of the Russian behind the guards.

Her heart beat hard enough for her to feel it in her ears, watching helplessly as she was forced into the chair, feeling leather straps squeeze her chest and legs while her arms were locked into metal restraints.

“Don’t fucking do this,” she seethed, as if her words would suddenly shock the Russian into changing his mind. “Don’t,” she panted, “do this.”

“Do not worry, my ptichka, it will be over soon.”

“I am not your ptichka, you fucking bast—”

She didn’t know what to expect, but nothing could have prepared her for the feeling of having her brain scrambled. Fried. Blended.

There were no words that could describe it—not that she could even attempt, considering all she could comprehend was blinding pain.

⁂

They stopped the machine not long after they’d started it, not wanting to hurt her brain.

They knew the risk of it, the doctors had been briefed, they’d made the calculations because unlike the Soldier could withstand the device, healing any synapses that were destroyed, she could not.

So, they let the machine run for half a minute before turning it off, unloading her, and dropping her back into the wheelchair.

“We will continue sessions daily until she shows signs of compliance. Then we will question her,” the Russian explained, speaking now in his own language.

“You are too stubborn for you good,” one of the men laughed, clapping the Russian on the back.

“Probably, but with the excuse of leaked information, it is worth it. We have no idea where she got those details—we need to do everything to find anyone else who has it, and eliminate those threats,” he said, cautious of his words.

If she hadn’t stolen files, there was a rat, and it was possible that that rat was with him now.  And if there was, he wasn’t willing to give him time to escape.

⁂

Every morning, the girl was woken up, anger and fear coursing through her only long enough to be wheeled from her cell, down the halls and into the chair. But soon, she couldn’t remember why she was angry or afraid. She only knew that her body was screaming for her to not sit in that wheelchair. To not go with those men.

Every morning, the world got a little hazier, a little harder to understand.

Every morning, she was forgetting how to be alive.

It wasn’t long before couldn’t remember not remembering. She didn’t know what happened before that moment, or what would come next.

Then, she just didn’t know.

She simply was.

People spoke to her, and she might have spoken back, but words had a mind of their own, leaving her body without her control.

⁂

“You fried her brain!” the Russian snarled, face only inches from the lead doctor.

“No, no we were sure, we were careful.”

“Then how do you explain her story from fifty years in the future? Her talk of aliens and time travel?”

The moment the girl started with her extravagant tales, he’d told her to stop; he was too livid to listen another moment.

“I don’t know, Major.”

“Because you fucked her brain! What are we to do now? I wanted to use her, I wanted to put her on delicate operations, and now what? Huh?!”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Fuck. Now we won’t know where she got that information.”

He braced his hands on the steel table beside the device, chest heaving.

His only explanation for all of this was that she had been telling some truth when she dropped those small pieces of information. Her birthday didn’t change, and neither did her name—there was probably some fucker out there who had the code name Captain America. The rest was likely some electro-induced fever dream. Or something. Maybe it was some American movie she’d watched, or a story she’d read, but that damn doctor fucked up what may have been a perfect recruit.

“Is she salvageable?” he asked, moving his eyes to the girl, who stood a few feet away with the blank stare he’d come to recognize from the Soldier.

“The electroshock should not have damaged her brain significantly—we can run some tests, but it may be possible to induce similar effects using chemical means.”

“She would be complaint?”

“There may need to be some type of physical conditioning, but yes, she should maintain obedience under their influence.”

“Are you speaking hypothetically, or do you have the drug?”

“We have such drugs in the works. We’ve been interested in testing our hypotheses for some time, we just needed approval.”

“You have my approval. But, doctor, if you fuck her up more than you already have, it is on your hands.”

“Understood, sir.”

Chapter Text

The doctor had been lucky. The three chemical compounds he’d tried on her all showed success—but the third had enough promise that they started the girl on regular injections immediately.

It took a few months, and in that time, she had become increasingly aware of the world around her, though they didn’t let her slip into her old habits. Behavioral conditioning is what the doctors called it; re-teaching the basics—or at least the basics that the Russian wanted her to know.

Obedience, loyalty, subservience, silence.

Relatively easy considering she was a shell of a person thanks to the electricity frying her brain. One silver lining.

By the third month on the compound, she proved herself an asset, spurring more resources funnelled to the Russian and his pet.

The chemicals that they pumped into her kept her mind sharp; able to do quick calculations, answer riddles, make split decisions, but they inhibited the areas necessary for control, personal motivation—even fear.   

She was yet another scientific marvel that Hydra turned out, but there were dozens of recruits at their facility alone who didn’t need that conditioning. Who were already loyal and subservient.

The only thing that made her special was her knowledge of how to use the suit that had accompanied her to Siberia.

Although, no matter what the engineers tried, they couldn’t understand how it worked. How, as Agent Richardson had told the Russian, it had appeared on the girl in less time than it took to blink. They didn’t bother asking her—a mistake on their part, when she would have explained that it could have been reprogrammed to work for any of them, along with the fact that it was made of nano-bots.. Although considering it was common knowledge that the doctors had made some type of mistake during shock therapy, they probably wouldn’t have listened to her anyways.

But they hadn’t even considered asking, and the Russian paid little mind to the tinkering’s in the bowels of the Siberian facility—he was too occupied with perfecting the girl to bother with their research.

So instead, they sought information from more difficult places; Richardson.

It was a good thing that the agent was still stationed at Camp Lehigh, because it meant he could steal information. Over the months that they’d been working on the girl, Richardson was tasked with collecting information on the suit she claimed Pym had, along with any other research that may be helpful.

He’d had trouble; Pym’s lab was filled with research, but nothing about a suit—other than a gaudy helmet that looked more like a kids Halloween costume than anything else. There were no traces of schematics or programs to be seen—that is until the mission in February of 1971 that went slightly wrong. The details around what happened, Richardson didn’t know, but Hank had ran from his office in a storm, files and loose leaf papers tucked poorly between his arm and his suit case.

One file, by chance, had fallen from the stack. One file, that by sheer luck, happened to have everything Richardson needed to know. He copied the papers hastily, then dropped them just inside the door of Hanks lab, allowing the papers to scatter before re-locking the door.

Pym, who’d rushed back to his office later, was none the wiser, only frustrated with himself for dropping such an important file.

That file though, did little to make sense of the girl’s suit. They couldn’t even get the compartments on the utility belt to open, let alone understand how it turned on or even shrunk.

They knew they needed the haughtily named Pym Particles, but they argued that suit should still react to stimulus. So, they started their own research into Quantum physics, testing and growing their knowledge.

All of this done while the girl was undergoing her own testing.

  ⁂

She didn’t quite understand the world around her, but she knew her place within it, knew her purpose: to comply.

“To help,” the Russian had told her.

What she was supposed to help with, she wasn’t sure.

She’d guessed she was helping all the times she was brought from her cell to the testing room. Where, though she wasn’t sure why, the Russian always seemed pleased when she did anything. Called her ptichka in an affectionate tone—or what she thought was affectionate—all because she’d done something correct.

It felt strange sometimes; that despite how small the world was within her mind, she’d known things that she didn’t remember learning. Like world histories. Or how to load a gun.

Where had she learned that?

And then there were the ways her mind would work through the problems they would give her. Like the blueprints they’d shown her, asking for the best route to a certain room. She’d seemed to ask all the right questions; number of people in the building, fire exits, whether there was bulletproof glass, when security had shift change.

How had she known to ask those questions?

She wasn’t sure, but when the Russian came to her cell, telling her she was to come for another test, she followed without hesitation.

That was her purpose, after all.

When they stepped into the unfamiliar room, the girl automatically began scanning the space, taking stock of exits, possible weapons, number of people. She continued until she came to a stop in front of the dark haired man, clad in a thick vest and dark pants, with an arm that she examined carefully.

Metal.

She’d never seen a metal arm before. Or maybe she had, and she just didn’t remember. The Russian said her memory wasn’t very good, seemingly her only fault.  

The metal armed man didn’t say anything, and neither did she; they simply minded their business, each silently assessing the other.  

She didn’t understand what the Russian said to the other uniformed man, but their conversation was over quickly, and then he was addressing her.

“Ptichka, join the Soldat in the ring. Do as I say; this is a test of compliance. Do not let me down.”

She said nothing but nodded, turning to where she saw the white circle painted on the floor and watching the metal armed man—the Soldat—stop near the center, chin tilted as his eyes followed her.

She thought, or maybe she felt—she wasn’t completely sure—that she should shy away from those eyes. That something in them should deter her, or that he himself should deter her. Like a quiet nagging that didn’t quite reach her ears.

She paid it no mind in the end, stopping a few feet from the Soldat and waiting further instructions.

“Soldat, fight her. Ptichka, do not fight back. Go.”

She knew her orders, so even as the Soldat stalked towards her, wound an arm back, and punched her in the gut, she didn’t retaliate.

Even as her face became numb with the hits, and groans of pain escaped her, she didn’t retaliate.

The test continued for some time, until it seemed like the Russian and the other man were paying more attention to each other’s jokes than the fighting in the ring.

“Okay,” the Russian called, stopping the Soldat where he was ready to punch the girl again. He let out another jesting chuckle, saying something in Russian before he finally addressed her. “Good, ptichka, good. Although now I feel like you should have some sort of retribution, uh? What do you say tovarishch? Dolzhny li my pozvolit' yey borot'sya snim?”

“Konechno. My mozhem pozvolit' yey poprobovat'. Eto mozhet byt' zabavno,” the man laughed.

“Alright, go ahead, my ptichka. Fight the Soldat. See how long you last,” the Russian ordered, waving a hand before looking back to his companion and jumping into another conversation. “Go,” he called, as if he had forgotten.

With that, the Soldat was after her again.

The ground was slippery with droplets of her blood, but she dodged the man in front of her, keeping away from his arms before spinning behind him and landing a few quick punches to his spine.

It didn’t seem to affect him much, but he spun, metal arm whipping through the air like a scythe. She ducked, kicking away from his hands as she watched him stalk her, not getting any closer, just tracking her movements.

She bounced up and mirrored his steps before he descended on her once again, movements too quick for her to avoid as he punched then kicked, catching her on the shoulder when she ducked.

She kept herself righted though, blocking a right hook before ducking away from the left and using the arm to pull herself behind him and subsequently climb to his shoulders. His hands grappled to yank her off, but she wrapped her legs around his neck tightly, ignoring the burning of her thighs where his metal hands scraped and banged.

She wasn’t able to last much longer atop his shoulders though, not as he ripped her legs apart painfully, crouched, and threw her forward into the mats. She bounced, registering both the jostling of her brain and the pain still radiating from her legs, but didn’t let it stop her from rolling away from where the Soldat pounced.

It only took a second for him to get to her position and straddle her; a hand around her throat while the other reeled back.

“Soldat.”

With that, the man froze, his pants mixing with her’s only a moment before he dropped his fist and pivoted on a knee, stopping in a kneel to her right.

“You continue to please me, ptichka.”

She got that sense again; that she should feel something, but she just nodded and sat up.

“You are proving your worth. Let’s go. You need to see the doctor.”

Chapter Text

The following months had the girl training with the best agents available at the Siberian facility.

It was a day in late summer when the Russian brought her into the interrogation room as usual, but this time he wasn’t interested in giving her imagined scenarios to ponder.

“At the end of this week we have a squad of agents infiltrating Berlin to extract a politician from his home. I am going to give you the briefing package given to the squad, and I want you to draft a plan of action.”

And so, she did. When she’d finished the plan, there were notes scribbled on the margins to account for even the slightest of plan change. Low gas, unexpected visits, suicide attempts. Her brain worked as if putting together a jig saw puzzle, focused on the pieces but always considering the bigger picture.

Something that she did ease, though again, she didn’t remember learning or even practicing. It was like instinct—like her life depended on it.

And maybe it did. Maybe if she hadn’t handed the Russian the dozen sheets of paper covered in neat, careful writing, he wouldn’t have let her return to the gym. Maybe he would have pulled the gun from his waist and let red mix with black ink. Maybe her mind, ever calculating and aware, knew that there was strategic risk in failing, and so it ensured that she never did.

She didn’t know though. She simply did.

At the end of that week, the squad followed the plan she’d laid out, even relying on one of her margin suggestions when the schedule didn’t fall exactly on time. But just as she’d predicted, the politician was dealt with, the world not even questioning the “accident” he’d had; he was known for overindulging on a certain white substance, after all.

The following day, their pawn was moved into place; Hydra’s symbol slowly overtaking the board.

After that it was routine to have her examine missions—to test her mental prowess at any chance available. And the Russian was glad for it; he wanted to show her off, his little ptichka.  

Because while her physical abilities were excellent, they were commonplace among the first-rate recruits and agents who walked the halls. Her mind though—the mind that he had bent and broken to his will without affecting its intellect—that was special.

Of course, there was the issue of her memory, which the Russian frustratingly realised occasionally struggled to remember recent events. Possibly a side effect of the drugs, possibly a side effect of the electroshock, the doctors weren’t certain. Her mind hadn’t been her own for the better part of a year, and once they started tampering, they didn’t stop, meaning there was no way of knowing if taking her off the drug would make a difference.

But the minor side effect was worth the result and so she was kept on a steady flow of whatever compound the doctors concocted, getting injections every ten days to keep her mind pliable.

Then, when fall was in full force again, it was agreed to send the girl on her first mission.

The other officers couldn’t deny her worth, and considering she’d shown her obedience time and time again, they had no reason not to let her partake in the mission along side the Soldat. For curiosities sake at least.

A simple mission, they’d all agreed in the briefing room. One where she could stay among agents, observed for her field ability as well as for any sign of retroaction—because the last thing they needed, was her to revert back to her arrogant, lippy, knowledge-filled self. For that reason, the night before she shipped out, she was injected with a micro-dose of the chemical concoction, a booster, the doctors called it—and then was fitted with a shock anklet.

The engineers and doctors explained it would stun her, causing muscle contractions that would incapacitate her until agents could retrieve her. Although, if there was a chance of being exposed, they could engage a setting which would kill her almost instantly.

The Russian made sure every agent knew that if they had to kill her for whatever reason, they would be answering to him.  

It was an unnecessary precaution, of course. The mission proceeded exactly as it needed to; her and the Soldat removed the issue of exterior security while an agent extracted the computer disk drive.

Big, she’d thought when she saw it.

The Soldat carried it in what that resembled a suitcase, yet from what she’d been told, there were seventy megabytes of storage within it. For some reason, that number seemed so small. Such little storage for something so big.

Her brain told her that that wasn’t even enough for five songs, although she wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. She hadn’t listened to a song in… well, the only song she remembered ever hearing was an anthem played by the agents sometimes, and that was from a vinyl record—those weren’t measured in megabytes.

Despite seeming like a small amount of data though, it was apparently all they needed. A successful mission.

She sat through the debrief beside the Soldat, recognizing but not really comprehending the approval from the Russian, or the satisfied comments from the others around the table.

Comments meant little to her though; she was fulfilling her purpose as necessary, as required. So, when she was called on for another mission, she followed orders. Never arguing or commenting unless she was asked to analyze an objective or find a solution. She wasn’t glad to do it, nor was she opposed to it, she simply was.

With each mission, her status grew, being recognized not necessarily at the level of the famed Zimniy Soldat—she was nothing more than a foot soldier, after all—but enough that the Siberian personnel weren’t the only ones to know about the Russian’s ptichka.

And while she rose in ranks, Siberia’s engineers worked on a suit.

They needed more information, though. They were close—so close that heated debates often erupted, ending in curses being thrown in every which direction before everyone would have to take a breather.

This wasn’t just about getting the girl a suit—it was obvious she was capable without it—no, they were nearing understanding a type of energy no one, save Hank Pym, had even come close to harnessing.

And if there was anyone being cursed regularly within that lab, it was Hank Pym.

After what happened with that Jacobs girl, Pym had decided to up the security around his research, and in particular, the Particles. He no longer left them in his lab but travelled with them, carrying them in a case which he was never seen without.

This, of course, caused headaches for Agent Richardson, who was still tasked with sending information on Pym’s experiments when he could.

The constant hounding from the engineers frustrated Richardson more than the bumbling idiots he had to work with.

He went to Lehigh hoping for a nice, quiet desk job to ease into his retirement with—not to be a mail dog. Despite being disgruntled about it though, he did it. And in the early months of 1972, he’d gotten exactly what the Siberian engineers needed.  

Although he didn’t even know what it was when he found it.

He was one of the agents tasked with clean up after some brawl between S.H.I.E.L.D. Ops and a corrupt science foundation, though he didn’t have clearance to actually know what happened. As Richardson’s agents and the restoration crew began combing through the warehouse, a small piece of metal had caught his eye.

First, he thought it was a child’s toy; something from a science fiction movie he may have brought one of his sons to back in the day, but that red center was familiar. It almost glowed, similarly to that of the vials he’d seen in Pym’s lab.

He didn’t know whether the strange little disk was actually something important, but he boxed it up and sent it to Siberia anyway, which, only seconds after analysis was complete, had the engineers toasting over schematics.

They now had Pym’s Particles—which they realized worked by decreasing the space between atoms, thereby making it possible to decrease the size of an object when saturated by those particles.

But they weren’t toasting because they now knew how to adjust the size between atoms—no they had bigger interests that that formula could bring into fruition. They wanted to understand how to harness the energy that radiated from the electrons of an atom—how to harness quantum energy.

Chapter Text

Once they’d understood the relationship between Pym’s suit and his Particles, it didn’t take the engineers long to start tweaking his design, making shells and mock-ups that soon filled racks along the walls of their workshop.

They were all fine. First drafts of a greater project. They just weren’t exactly what they wanted. But with them, they were able to chip away at how the suit interacted with Quantum Energy.

How, by their calculations, it was possible enter a dimension which was wholly made of that energy. It was dangerous though, because once the energy was put out to shrink to that size, there was very little to bring oneself back.

So instead, they sought a way to bring Quantum Energy to them. It seemed like a simple process—the universe was made of electrons and atoms, so how difficult would it be to bundle the photons to create transverse waves of energy?

Difficult. But not impossible.

It may have taken months and some of the largest computers on the planet to help with calculations, but those scientists finally found their answer; by manipulating the speed at which the electrons vibrated, they could stimulate production of energy. Brilliant and simple.

Over and over, they performed experiments; generating and manipulating energy; watching in awe as tangible objects would, as they understood it, become Quantum energy before returning to their state within this dimension—though not without side effect.  

So, with the first step of their work was done, it was time to incorporate the technology into a suit and create some type of protection so the object going Quantum wouldn’t lose matter. It wasn’t easy, and as the season changed again, they’d gone through two dozen suit designs, none of them capable of withstanding the influence of the of Quantum dimension.

That is until they created the Shield and the Quantum Receptacle; two devices which figuratively and literally worked against each other. The shield—aptly named—would surround the suit in negative ionized energy, which, ever so slightly, would repel the touch of similarly negative Quantum energy. Such a simple concept that children in primary school were learning about it—albeit in regards to magnets, but the principle was the same. The energy encompasses the suit while the barrier protected the suit from being over charged.

They’d made a number of prototypes, beginning with ‘suits’ that would cover inanimate objects, and then to deceased animals, then to living animals.

Batches of mammals were tested—from newborns to geriatrics—and the engineers and doctors were sure to look at every avenue for adverse effects. Yet, as each specimen was examined, even those who were subject to prolonged exposure in the suit, showed no health effects.

And that was enough for Hydra.

But, not for the Russian, who was still hesitant to put the girl in the suit. This was over two years of work they were risking, let alone the fact that someone else was giving her orders.

The Siberian base knew that she belonged to him, that her loyalty lied with him because of their proximity. Maybe that’s why Hydra higher-ups insisted she get into the suit; to show him that despite everything he had done, he belonged to them, and as an extension, so did she. To show that he wasn’t in control no matter how much he believed he was.

So, on a winter morning, she was led from her cell to the engineer’s workshop where she slipped into the suit. It was similar to those she had worn before, black, tight, armored in the important spots while mobile at the joints, but she could tell this suit was different—especially when they handed her the helmet.

After a vitals check and final safety review, she followed the Russian and the other men through halls, stopping only when they reached a wide door.

The cold hit her like a wall, immediately sinking beneath the thin material to numb her skin which did nothing to stop the bite of an alpine Siberian winter. Regardless, she was urged forward by men in thick jackets whose faces were partially covered by the hoods they’d pulled up to combat what she was ordered to brave. And she obeyed, silently at that, while pulling on the helmet that clicked into place at the neck of the suit.

“Nachat' predvaritel'nyye ispytaniya.”

She still didn’t understand Russian, but she’d picked up on a few terms.

Nachinat', she knew, meant begin, so that’s what she did.

She had studied the schematics of the suit in the week leading up to the test, familiarizing herself with its functions and capabilities, so she knew the first step was to engage the Shield, then the Receptacle, and then, decide the level of energy she wanted the suit to produce.

She started small, sending busts of energy from the ports in her hands, to the apparent delight of the onlookers. She knew it could do more though.

So, she increased the output and dropped her hands to the asphalt below, sending shock waves of energy into the ground that produced branching cracks around her.

From there, she put the energy output to its max, flickering for a moment before she phased completely between the tangible and Quantum dimension. She saw the world now, not as rays of light reflecting off of objects, but as the energy radiating from atoms. She moved through that energy—she was part of that energy—a feeling she didn’t know how to understand.

But only a few moments after she phased out, she returned, waiting for further orders.

“Dzhentl'meny, dobro pozhalovat' v budushcheye.”

⁂

Immediately after the first tests, the girl was brought in for a medical examination. Vitals, blood work, MRI’s; anything to determine if there was any type of side effect of the suit, but nothing.

That was exactly what the lead officers in Siberia had hoped for. Because without consequences, that suit could be used as much as they needed without the tedious need to replace users. Even better that the girl had some experience with that style of suit.

But she wasn’t ready for missions yet. The controls were simple, but she needed to move within the suit as if it were part of her, without delay and without the need to think. So, they started her on an obstacle style courses, helping her practice phasing in and out, as well as directing her energy into the objects around her.

It was quick learning curve, what with the time she’d spent training for the last year and some months, in tandem with the experience she had from… well, she still hadn’t figured out where she learned her skills, but it didn’t matter because she knew, and it made her perform well.

So well, in fact, that within days of getting the suit, she was already practicing hand-to-hand with her regular sparring partners.

It was made clear to her that she was not to harm them and especially, that she was not to phase through them, or even partially through them, lest she rip one of them apart and cost them a body.

She had always been very good at following orders; though not perfect. Over her time at the base, she’d of course hit too hard, or squeezed too long. Those times she was dealt with swiftly, sometimes getting a cane to the back or, on some occasions, locked in solitary without food or water. The latter was less preferred, as it would decrease the productivity of the girl, but it was effective.

She only made a handful of mistakes, but with that suit, she wasn’t allowed to make any, not with their agents. And so, she didn’t. She was careful to only phase around them, to only use her strength against them, and that meant she could keep fulfilling her purpose.

Though, they were curious about the unexplored avenues of her suit. So, they started bringing in the no-longer-useful test subjects from other projects; often half-conscious and malnourished from whatever experiments they’d been part of, and throwing them into the ring with the girl so she could practice.

It was messy. Something that the grunts hated because they would be the ones to clean it up, but it let her find techniques that worked well.

Like phasing out her fist mid swing until it was partway through the opponent’s skull before phasing back and following through. Or, one that amused the Russian for its grotesqueness; phasing into someone’s chest to crush an opponent’s heart.

That one the grunts appreciated because it was clean.

Her initial training period in the suit lasted barely two months before she was being prepped for a mission.

Like her first mission, she would be accompanied by a squad of agents and the Soldat, who, at the moment, was assessing her.

Always assessing.

The Russian and the other lead officers wanted him to know what to expect from her new suit since it was the first time he was active since the suits completion.

So, when they stalked each other inside the sparring circle and she made the first move by phasing out, his eyes were alight with confusion.

He had not been briefed.

It was a test.

She was focused, however, on how the energy radiating from him was two-fold; there was the warm, fast, flowing waves coming from his flesh, and then the cold, slow, and stiff pulses that came from his metal arm.

She skirted up beside him, watching the shifts in his breathing, the shot of adrenaline that warmed his body, the pump of his heart as she phased back into the world and wrapping her arms around his shoulder, swinging her legs up and using her momentum to knock him to his back.

He reacted immediately, wrapping his arms around her and flipping her, but not before she phased out again, allowing herself roll away and leave him with empty arms.

His eyes scanned right past her, giving her the space to zip behind him, phase in, and land four jabs to the spine before phasing out again.

The Soldat, she could tell, was angry. If not obvious from the roar that ripped from his lips, then from the pumping of his heart and the tense of his muscles. He spun, lips pulled into a frustrated scowl as he searched for her, demeanour that of a caged animal.

She wasn’t sure how she’d known that, but she did.

She phased back in once behind him again, kicking out the backs of his knees so he’d drop to the ground before she wrapped an arm around his neck and brought him to the ground, wrapping her legs around his arms.

As if that would do something.

It was easy for him to escape her legs, and just as easy to pull from her arms, but not before giving her a hard butt to mouth.  

Blood filled her mouth at the impact, putting her into a daze that was enough for the Soldat to spin and land a punch to her temple—pulled significantly and with his right fist in order to avoid any proper damage.

He’d been ordered by the Major and his own handler not to injure her significantly, as well as not to wreck the suit. Meaning he had to watch in frustration as she disappeared from beneath him again.

She moved around him, but rather than being unsure of where she was, he reached out confidently in her direction. His hand caught nothing except air obviously, but the girl grew increasingly unsettled as the Soldat tracked her evasive movements; confused as to how he would follow her looping circles.

She was going to fail.

What she was doing wasn’t working.

In an attempt to stun him, she decided to send a pulse of energy from her hands before phasing in, jabbing the Soldat’s chest while avoiding his hands.

Eventually, he grabbed hold of her, spinning her while looping her arms across her torso and pulling her against his front. She tried to kick, but she didn’t attempt to yank her arms away; she knew she’d been caught.

If he weren’t so strong, she would have been fine, but whatever they’d done to him made him the only one she couldn’t beat.

“Khorosho,” the Russian called, putting an end to the sparring session.

The Soldat immediately released her arms, letting them uncross while the girl stepped away, rolling her shoulders before turning to look at the man.

“You could see me?” she asked, voice scratchy from how little she’d spoke lately.

Maybe she wasn’t giving the suit enough power, or maybe there was something wrong with the suit; he shouldn’t have been able to tell where she was…

The Russian hadn’t said anything, but maybe whatever the Soldat saw wasn’t visible from the sidelines.

After a few moments of staring, the Soldat finally responded. “I felt an energy,” he said slowly, as if forming the words took concentration.

Maybe it did, she’d only heard him speak a handful of times, and only ever in Russian, but his words weren’t tilted by an accent like the Russian or any of the others who spoke in her language. In fact, he sounded like she did.

But that observation wasn’t as important as his words. He felt the energy she put out. No one else she’d fought seemed to feel it, neither did the objects that she would interact with when surrounded by that Quantum field.

Yet he did.

It wasn’t until the Russian was escorting her back to her cell that he relayed what him and the other officers discussed after her sparring session, and about the observation she’d made.

“His senses are heightened; his body absorbs stimulus differently than us. We believe that that, mixed with the mechanics of his arm allows him to feel the Quantum resonance,” he explained. “Beneficial, because he will know where you are when others do not.”

She just nodded, waiting as he unlock her door.

“Tomorrow, you will receive the briefing package for your mission. Do what you do best, my little ptichka.”

Again, she nodded, stepping into the cell and walking straight to the bed.

⁂

Although she had to study that package ceaselessly in order to commit it to memory, the mission objective was simple; retrieve the politician from an enemy government whose beliefs threatened their regime. They were to infiltrate the seat of government, deal with whatever witnesses, then take out the politician before checking for any possible intelligence. American Agencies were now meddling, calling for his resignation, so it was necessary to move quickly and discreetly. They were not to be seen or heard, and that’s why the girl went in first.

She’d snuck through the second floor window of the east wing, keeping her steps light as she moved down the dark hall and past closed doors.

It was almost midnight, but the man who they’d come for had a habit of staying in the office late, and even overnight sometimes. Not uncommon, apparently, because she had to take a step back when she saw a woman cross the hall and slip into a room up ahead, shutting a wooden door behind her quietly.

She expertly scoped the floor, and then the lower, counting four people not including their target within the private wing. She explained as much to the Soldat and the two agents, who at her signal, climbed into the same window she had.

“Three on this level. Take out the one below and make sure no one comes down,” she said to the agents before her and the Soldat made their way down the hall silently.

He stood guard while she phased out, passing through the door of the room she saw the woman enter earlier. It looked like a waiting room, with small couches and tables near the center, and behind them, a desk occupied by the woman. She didn’t look up from the manila folder she was flipping through, making notes with the shiny pen in her left hand beneath the light of a small lamp to her right. She didn’t look up when the girl rounded the table, watching her make looping symbols against the paper, each movement sending puffs of radiant energy into the air. She still didn’t look up when the girl unphased, seeing now that the woman had on a flowery blouse and a brown skirt.

It wasn’t for a few more moments that the woman’s brows would bunch, sensing that she was no longer alone, but even when her pen froze against the paper, she didn’t look up. With every heartbeat, the telltale signs of fear overcame the woman’s body, and the girl watched.

Sometimes she did that; watched. She didn’t quite understand what they were feeling in those moments, yet they almost always acted the same. Their bodies got tense, their breathing got quick, their pupils got dilated. So similar to anger or frustration, but so different.

She could see the pen begin to shake in the woman’s hand before she said something in a language the girl didn’t understand. It didn’t matter anyways; she would be dead in a few seconds regardless of the words.

The woman was apparently not willing to go without a fight though, because just then she lashed out, metal pen gouging from the left side of the girl’s waist to the right hip bone.

The act was in vain, as it only took a second for the girl’s hand to reach inside the woman’s chest and squeeze her heart until it stopped.  

When she pulled it out, it was covered in blood, but it didn’t matter to her. She just turned, making her way silently out the door where the Soldat fell into step beside her. Within seconds, cheerful voices carried towards them, and she immediately phased out, although something was wrong.

She was flickering, from tangible to intangible, her sight moving from light rays to energy radiation.

But she had a mission she had to focus on.

The Soldat stepped into the shadows, watching as two men rounded the corner before their laughter died as they looked down the hall in confusion.

It must have been a terrifying sight; a black figure, stalking down the dimly lit hall, flickering in and out of existence. Maybe that’s why their jaws dropped in fear, hands scrambling for purchase on each other as they let out cries of ‘fantasma!’

Screeching voices were a risk when trying to evade detection, so she descended upon them quickly, phasing in before throwing one man to the awaiting hands of the Soldat before grabbing the other and knocking him to the floor. It was easy work to twist his head until it cracked. She’d practiced enough.

When she looked up, the other was gasping a final breath beneath a metallic chokehold, face red and eyes redder.

His body dropped hard as he was released, and the pair didn’t spare a second glace before making their way down the hall in the direction the two men had come from. Where their target’s office was.

As with the others, he wasn’t expecting the intruders, in fact, he barely even had time to look up before her hand was in his chest, squeezing until the blood had no where else to go but out.

The rest of the mission went smoothly; they’d copied a few important documents before reconvening with the two agents on the ground floor, moving out the back door and through the shadows to an awaiting van. From there, they made their way to the rendezvous point with the jet and were on the way back to Siberia before the hour was even up.

When they arrived back to base, the girl was immediately brought for a medical examination, the scientists worried that the damage to the suit could have led to some type of adverse Quantum exposure. By some chance, only the Receptacle was slightly damaged, meaning that although there was issue regulating the amount of energy the suit was letting off, the Shield remained undamaged, so, so did she.

A minor hiccup on a successful mission.

Another successful mission, the Russian had said as he began the debrief, voice pleased as he nodded at the girl.

And no one interjected. Sure, the obsession the Russian had for the girl was sometimes aggravating, and he’d certainly created a few enemies by convincing the higher-ups to move funding to his own passion project, but they couldn’t deny the results. She was certainly something special.

“I am so proud of you, my little ptichka,” the Russian had said as he escorted her back to her cell. “When you came here, you were out of control, so wild—but look at you now, uh? The perfect soldier… I knew you would be worth it,” he smiled. “That spirit was amusing but unnecessary, you see that now, yes? After everything I have done, everything I have made you to be, you see this was your purpose? To obey. To serve. To help. I am proud of you, ptichka.”

Then, she walked into her cell and went to her cot.

A few weeks later, she was given her next orders; to extract a political enemy. It was a success, of course. And so, she waited until her next mission was announced the following month. And that’s what she did.

Months eventually turned to years, and the Russian wouldn’t spare a chance to show the girl off, because to him, she was a trophy. A trophy that, on approaching his third decade of being part of Hydra, screamed his success. Hydra owed him for their successes. Very few amongst their ranks and even in their history could claim that, but he would. Because she was his.  

And she would continue bringing successes to Hydra with every mission; shaping history through covert operations oftentimes along side the Soldat, who’d become a reliable partner for her. He wasn’t always with her; she would only see him a few times a year, but they learned to work with each other like two interlocking mechanisms, falling into step with each other every time he became active.

It wasn’t friendship, or camaraderie, or even tolerance, they simply were. Together.

And together, they fulfilled their purposes.  

Chapter Text

She wasn’t sure exactly at what point she’d been given the name Prizrak.

The Russian didn’t call her that, but everyone else seemed to. Even those who saw her moments before their death, faces white with terror before they themselves became nothing more than prizraki, used the name.

The majority never actually yelled prizrak—they didn’t know Russian. Sometimes they yelled szellem, or obake, or multo. She’d caught on fast enough that those words all meant the same thing: ghost.

The engineers seemed to enjoy the name as much as the field agents, who would laugh as their victims screamed in terror, so after what happened to the Receptacle back in ‘73, they’d decided to play into the phantomania. There was no purpose other than aesthetics to create a setting where the output of energy would fluctuate, creating the flickering effect that spooked so many. It was simply to spark fear in the moments before death.

The girl never argued that the flickering made it hard to concentrate or see, as her vision would alternate blindingly between light and energy, or that it risked getting tangible objects stuck within her—like the bullet that caught her side in ‘75. No, she just followed orders, more often than not, using the flickering as a scare tactic.

Unlike the Soldat, Hydra wanted her to be seen. They wanted stories spread about the girl who was a waking nightmare, who would only appear to kill you.

While some had taken to calling her a demon, or wraith, or devil-reincarnate, they knew who she was, and that is all that mattered.

It made the atmosphere through the 1970’s all but driven by terror. No one knew who would be next or how to avoid her, and no knew where she’d come from. The few who survived an encounter with her were often only alive because she had more pressing matters to deal with, and they never saw her face. It was always covered by a dark mask who’s only features mimicked the contours and shapes of the girl’s face, just enough to offer an eerie resemblance of a visage.

Right now, a fresh-faced recruit was staring at that mask, apparently forgetting there was someone within, staring right back.

“Ne smotri slishkom dolgo, ona mozhet ukrast' tvoyu dushu,” Semenov said lowly, knocking his shoulder into the young man.

Over the years, she’d learned quite a bit of Russian, although she still had trouble with certain words, certain phrases, especially when spoken through the headset of a jet.

‘Don’t stare too long, she might steal your…’

“Dushu,” she said, looking at Semenov. “Chto eto znachit?” What does that mean?

“Soul,” he answered, directing a deep, teasing laugh at the young man who was now avoiding looking at the girl at all. “I said you would steal his soul.”

She had heard that before, she realized. Another tactic to apparently instill fear in those who heard of her.

Incorrect.

“Ya ne zabirayu dushi. Tol'ko zhivet.”

The agent let out a raucous laugh at that, nodding and slapping the recruit on the shoulder. “Da.”

She didn’t know why he was laughing.

‘I do not take souls, only lives.’

It was a true. 

She pondered what was funny—what funny even meant—the rest of their short flight. She wondered whether the Soldat understood what was funny, but through the entire interaction, he just sat silently beside her.

She didn’t ask him though. She never did.

The only words they traded were those related to their mission. Short, clipped sentences that were often whispered in darkness.

Despite her thorough ability in Russian though, they always fell back on their native language, words coming easier and quicker than those they’d learned.

So, as they landed and made their way to the mission site, they ran through their roles quietly in the rear of the van.

The first phase of the mission was infiltration of an intelligence agency in order to locate a recently-arrested scientist. In the months prior, he had been charged for crimes against humanity, apparently performing unethical experimentation and research that the world felt was unacceptable, but that Hydra felt was profitable.

After that location was determined, they would enact the second phase of the mission; extraction. And if he refused after their efforts to free him, well, he would be shot between the eyes, along with anyone he loved, liked, or even knew.

Phase one was easy considering it was more of a theatrical performance than anything else. Theatrical, because it was to happen on domestic land—within the USSR and at the core of State Security; the KGB.

Of course, Hydra and the KBG worked together, often having a hand in the other’s successes behind closed doors, but this was going to be public.

Tensions between the Soviet Union and other countries was high, and so movements had to be made carefully. Strategically. The KGB couldn’t risk just giving Hydra the location of Doctor Balakin, that would be suspicious. There were only a handful of people who knew that information and they would be flagged immediately if the doctor was randomly spirited away. But if the information was stolen, well, there wasn’t much they could do about that.

So that was the ruse; unknown and dangerous operatives would infiltrate the archive branch while it underwent an audit, forcing on-duty agents to the vestibule three rooms away while a senior officer would perform checks. That officer, who was briefed by his superiors, would know that he would be attacked and rendered unconscious by the operatives, unable to give warning to those waiting at attention a few doors away. Who, as he laid unconscious, would be unable to stop the operatives from seizing the newly transcribed data discs that held the location of a corrupt doctor.

At least that was the plan, until a junior officer interrupted the operation in order to warn his Senior of the arrival of the First Chief Directorate on campus.

Semenov was in the process of ejecting the second disk when the door opened, junior officer beginning to announce his entrance when his eyes landed on the team.

The Soldat reacted immediately from his post beside the door; grabbing the officer from the doorway before slamming it shut and wrapping a meaty arm around the young man’s neck until his gasps went silent.

Everyone else paused, listening, waiting to hear any of the other doors open or close that would tell them they had been made.

Silence.

She let out a breath as the Soldat dropped the officer, turning back to see Semenov slide the second disk into the case and shut it. Next, the young one planted the small but effective explosives beneath the computers, engaging a timer which, after three minutes, would destroy the machines to stop anyone from learning what data they’d taken.

 “Poshli.”

The Soldat moved, ear to the door a moment before cracking it open and scanning the empty room. With a nod, he lead the three others out, pulling the door on the right wall open and scanning the hall.

The recruit went first, only to drop mid-step when a bullet whizzed through his neck. Everyone turned to the door opposite of them where a uniformed man held a gun, window of the door now missing its glass. The Soldat made quick work of him, landing a shot in the forehead just as the other door opened, letting in a flood of agents. Semenov dipped behind the door frame, unable to draw a weapon with the two cases in his hands, but that didn’t matter; they needed that information safe.

The girl sent a blast of energy at the oncoming agents, knocking them into the wall hard enough that the majority of them were rendered unconscious—but there were still a few standing.

At the pre-op debrief, they were told to use as little deadly force as possible—their partners were uninterested in losing bodies when there shouldn’t be a fight at all.

So, as the girl phased out, she sent another burst of energy, long enough for the Soldat to follow her steps, grabbing two agents and knocking them unconscious while she did the same to the last.

When the room was silent, they moved their gaze to Semenov, who nodded in confirmation that the drives were unharmed.

Hopefully one dead agent was acceptable considering he shot first.

They stepped carefully over the unconscious bodies, making sure none would awaken soon enough to alarm the rest of the base before joining Semenov in the hall.

As they made their way away from the carnage, none of them noticed the man behind the door, crouched beside his fellow agent with a bullet in the head. None of them heard the shing of a pin being pulled from the grenade in his hand. And none of them saw the man rise and throw the grenade into the hall they were retreating in, so close to the end.

But they did hear the grenade hit the ground.

From there, it was a blur of movement; the girl’s feet automatically pushed her forward, with one hand moving behind her to push the bomb away while the other went in front of her, knocking Semenov and the disks the rest of the way down the hall. She didn’t have time to phase out, but as the bomb exploded, the Soldat pulled her down, attempting to cover her body with his own, though despite his actions, she immediately felt the burn of fire and the stabbing of shrapnel embedding in her flesh.

She couldn’t focus on that though, because she knew more agents would momentarily be flooding those halls and their chance at escape would be gone.

So, she nodded at the Soldat and pushed herself up, catching the eye of Semenov who, although was bent to the side slightly, nodded again that the disks were undamaged.

It was less than a minute before they were out the door, the gate that they’d entered from still open thanks to the orders from above, then, they were in the van, down one man but having gotten the information they needed.

It was then, in the jostling, rumbling van, that her body began to register the damage it had taken.

She’d been in pain before; had broken bones, had been stabbed and shot, but this was definitely the worst pain she’d been in. It only took her a few seconds from sitting down for her hands to begin to shake, for her entire body to begin to shake, for her trembling breaths to be halted to avoid the stretch of her side.

She slipped off the bench and onto the floor, unable to keep her leg bent at such an angle, and the moment her back hit, she felt her body tense up. Her right side felt like it was on fire, like there was fire within her, so when she craned her neck to examine herself, she wasn’t surprised to see her suit threadbare and her skin burned. Blood leaked from a number of gouges, and when the van rolled over a rough bump, her head fell, a stifled groan of agony leaving her mouth.   

Although it had felt like hours since she’d dropped to the floor, it had barely been a few seconds, and in that time, the Soldat had pulled the medical kit from beneath the seat and began examining her.

She knew trying to remove any shrapnel was too risky within the moving vehicle, but he could remove the suit and cover her wounds in anti-bac.

So that’s what he did, and she let him. Even though it felt like he was slicing into her leg as he peeled off the thin suit, she refrained from batting him away. Or voicing her pain.

By the time they arrived at the outpost, the suit had been removed from almost half of her body, now only scraps of fabric and charred metal.

Unlike the Soldat who almost exclusively wore thick leathers, her suit was made of thin, flexible materials, so while the areas of her body that he blocked were uninjured, her right side was essentially naked to the explosion. Her leg took the majority of the damage, with severe burns and a heavy spattering of metal and wood fragments, while her arm and side were slightly better off, with only a few burns and significantly less shrapnel.

The on-site paramedic team immediately whisked her away, leaving Semenov and the Soldat to debrief the Siberian base over radio.

The Russian was obviously upset. His work, his time, his ptichka, was at risk. It was clear that he was hardly upset for the reason that she was hurt; no, he held no empathy for the pain she was enduring a hundred kilometers away, where doctors dug out every foreign object from her body without so much as a shot of vodka to numb her. No, he was upset because his greatest achievement, his greatest weapon, was damaged. Not to mention his ego.

And he wasn’t the only one who was angry. The engineers in the bowels of the Siberian base cursed whoever threw that grenade, because their perfect suit was destroyed. They’d never made another, as the Prizrak never needed one. She never failed.

Sure, they had accumulated pieces of the suit, parts that they’d repaired or switched out, but they weren’t enough to form a whole suit—and certainly not in the ten hours they had before the second phase of the mission was to begin.

Because she was going on that mission.  

After stitching her up and wrapping her right side like a mummy, they started pumping her with meds, enough to dull the pain so she could operate, but not enough to let her get loopy. They needed her mind sharp.

As she sat with the team to prepare for the next phase, reviewing the information of the prison Balakin was being held in, the engineers were brainstorming.

How fast they could re-build the suit, whether they could skip the Shield and just use the Receptacle, whether they could ditch the suit completely and just give her a temporary device.

No. Each of those options led to disaster.

They had no idea the health risk.

They didn’t want to chance rushing their calculations and accidentally programming the receptable with an unsafe output of energy.

And despite trying, they didn’t even have time to make a new Receptacle because they still had to fly the suit to the outpost.

And now they were down to eight hours. Technically six, excluding travel time for the suit and the team to get to the prison.  

The best they could do was give her a regular suit, possibly slap together some type of gun or attachment that would let her discharge some amount of Quantum Energy.

But that wasn’t good enough for the lead officers. They were relying on her to get into the prison’s security hub to neutralize the guards, and then to take care of any on-duty officers that crossed their path. She couldn’t do that with a regular suit. Not, at least, in the few minutes they had, and without raising alarms. She couldn’t be seen.

So, they continued brainstorming, until the senior engineer’s face turned to annoyance.

“We have time to make Pym Particles,” he said, spitting the enemy scientists name as if it were bitter in his mouth.

The others were confused a moment, before looks of realization came over them.

“We never learned how it worked,” one said, hands braced on the metal top of a table.

“No, but the girl knows; she made it work before. The Major said it was based off Pym’s design, not that it was exact. Maybe it needs the Particles to activate.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“We either send them a suit that will possibly work or send them nothing.”

“We’d better start then.”

So, while half of the team dug into the files from the beginning of the decade, searching for the formula they’d taken from beneath Pym’s nose, the other half found her old suit in storage, beginning the process of making it unrecognizable.

With only minutes to spare, the engineers handed the jet pilot a large case with a suit, helmet, and six vials tucked safely inside—that within the hour, was being handed to the girl moments after she’d been given a shot of adrenaline.

It made it easy to slip into the suit; her body no longer focusing on its stiffness, the dull ache no longer pulling her attention or slowing her movements. When she pulled the suit over shorts and fresh bandages, she didn’t question how she knew the compartment on the belt would open for her, or how she knew where to load a vial into the gauntlet.

“Ptichka, you remember how to use the suit?” the Russian asked through the radio, voice staticky and rough.

“Yes.”

It was one of those instinctual things. She didn’t know how she knew, or what the suit would do when she activated it, but she trusted her body to know what to do. As it had done for so many other skills.

“Ypolnit' testovyy zapusk—tam chastits dostatochno, net?”

Her brain was slow to translate the question, but eventually, she made sense of the thick words: do a test run—there are enough Particles, no?

“Da, boleye chem dostatochno, soglasno Pym zapisyam.”

More than enough, according to Pym’s notes.

“Khorosho, go ahead my ptichka.”

She nodded even though he couldn’t see her, taking a few steps back as she scanned the room. Everyone stood a good ten feet away, so she was confident she wouldn’t wound anyone if something were to go wrong.

As she did, she caught the eye of the Soldat, who stood at attention as usual, before her eyes landed on Semenov, who gave her a thumbs up. An action she didn’t understand, so she ignored it.

She engaged her helmet with a thought, watching as the faces before her turned to surprise, then, with her fingers over the back of her fist, she counts down.

“Three, two, one—”

And then she was gone.

Chapter Text

The moment the woman appeared, Bucky knew it wasn’t her, and if the red skull and tentacles on her breastplate was anything to go off of, they were about to have one hell of a fight.  

And he was right.

The girl was confused, but she wasted no time in honing in on a giant green man.

He stood behind some type of small computer, an arm in a sling and glasses sitting on his nose.

Was she hallucinating?

Was it a test?

She settled on a test. A test that the Russian wanted her to pass. To prove that even when injured or confused, she would succeed.

So, she lunged off the platform she’d been standing on, only needing to take a few strides to hop over the computer and wrap herself around the green man’s thick neck. She reminded herself that she couldn’t phase as large hands wrapped around her thighs, pulling her off and throwing her behind him.

She rolled to a crouch, barely registering the burning that started in her leg again and with a yell, ran at him, this time setting her sights on his obviously injured arm.

She tried to jump at him, but the moment she was in reach, he grabbed hold of her waist, hauling her up and tossing her away to make her airborne until she slammed into one of the shafts that stretched up from the platform. Her side took the majority of the impact, forcing the air her lungs before she lifted herself to her knees.

Looking to her right, she was certain it was a test. The Soldat stood there, except he was dressed in unfamiliar clothes, and his hair was longer, and his hand was black.

Something must have gone wrong when she tested the suit; that was the only explanation. Wrong enough that he needed repairs and she’d been knocked unconscious. Or something.

Regardless, the Russian was testing her, and she wasn’t going to let him down.

She decided that the Soldat was her opponent, like he had been so many times, along with the green man and the slowly approaching black man who held a colorful shield.

He barked a ‘stay back’ behind him, and when her eyes moved in that direction, she noticed an elderly man.

She didn’t know what to make of him; she’d never fought someone that old before.

Was she supposed to fight him?

Or was supposed to protect him?

It didn’t matter, because a moment later she was slipping out of the way of a poorly thrown shield.

Turning in a slow circle, she regarded her opponents, looking for weaknesses. The one who threw the shield seemed like the most normal out of all of them, so she feigned right, watching the Soldat follow her movements before bolting left, directly for the normal one.

He didn’t back away, but dropped into a defensive stance, ducking as her arm flew towards his face.

Before he could follow her movements though, she spun around his back, jabbing him in the spine before letting him turn and sending a hard kick into his gut. He rolled backwards, popping back up and running at her before letting off his own barrage of punches.

They went back and forth a few seconds before a figure darted behind her, grabbing hold of her arms, and yanking her against his chest.

A metal arm wrapped around her throat, and she grabbed it, kicking her legs into the air before pulling them down swiftly, bringing them rolling to the ground. In the flurry, she slipped from the hold, spinning and rolling to climb onto his back, her own arm wrapping around his neck.

She wasn’t expecting his metal fist to begin hammering her leg, so when blinding pain erupted in her thigh, she immediately recoiled. Then, something sharp hit her right in the neck, knocking her off the Soldat.

She scrambled away in a panic, gasping and hissing at the choking pain.  

“Watch where you throw that thing!” she heard the Soldat bite somewhere behind her, but she was focused on her breathing. On trying to breath.  

Disengaging her helmet, her hand flew to her neck, checking for the blood that must have begun dripping. It hurt too much not to. Somehow though, her hand came back clean, so she sucked in a breath, eyes falling the colorful shield beside her. Gritting her teeth, she dragged it toward herself and stood, turning to set her eyes on the black man.

His own eyes blew wide at the sight of her, chest heaving as she sent the shield slicing towards him with exact precision. Although he caught it, he was sent to the ground, mouth gaping as he shook his head in what the girl thought was confusion.

“Marlow,” the Soldat said as if he were saying something obvious.

She started towards him, planning on ramming into him, but he took a step back, hands raised to stop her.

“Don’t fight me.”

She skidded to a stop, eyes on his. “Understood, Soldat,” she said, then turned, eyes back on the black man.

She rather fight him than the green one, and since she still hadn’t decided what she was supposed to do with the old one, she took off in a sprint towards him. When she was two feet away, she dropped, kicking his legs out from beneath him before straddling his hips and raining her fists down on him.

“Marlow, stop!” he yelled, hands fighting against hers.

She didn’t.

She didn’t know what that Marlow word meant, but she wouldn’t stop.

Hands wrapped around her again, pulling her off and stopping her from having any range of motion in her arms. She tried to kick, but the green giant just took a step back and out of the reach of her feet.

“Stop fighting,” he grumbled, squeezing her harder.

It brought pain to both arms, but especially the left, where it felt as though she were being burned. But her need to get away was more than her need to stop the pain, so she continued wrenching herself in the man’s grip.

“Marlow!” the Soldat yelled; brows drawn.

She stopped, thinking it must be the end of the test. Maybe Marlow meant stop in some language she didn’t know. Or maybe it was a codeword they hadn’t briefed her on.

“Soldat, I do not know what that means.”

The utter confusion that came over his face was something she’d never seen before. In fact, she’d never seen any significant emotion on his face. It made her think she’d done something very, very wrong.

“What it means—that’s your name,” the black man grunted, a hand wiping the blood from his lip as he stood.

“That… that is not my name,” she said, looking back to the Soldat. “They have never called me that before.”

The two men looked between each other as if the other would have an answer. An answer to what, Marlow didn’t know.

Behind them, the old man was making his way closer slowly, eyes assessing. He must be a retired agent. Or possibly soldier. She would have to be wary of him.

“What do they usually call you?” the Soldat asked.

“Ptichka,” she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Or Prizrak.”

Again, he had the look of confusion, and she was reminded that she’d done something wrong.

“I failed, correct?”

“Failed what?” the black man asked.

“The test.”

“What test? What do you mean Marlow?”

“Sam, this… I don’t think…” the Soldat said, words dying off.  

“What test?” Sam repeated.

The Soldat’s face turned stony, like he suddenly understood what was happening—and that made the girl shut her mouth tight.

Something was wrong but she couldn’t decipher what. Something was missing. They’d never done any test like this before.

She looked around, analyzing her surroundings; the reaching lake, the forest around her, the dirt beneath her feet.

Northern Hemisphere.

Not Russia…

Not Russia, so where?

They spoke in accents like the man she’d killed in ‘77. He was from North America.

So, possibly North America, likely somewhere near a coast—not like the accent she’d heard when she was looking for intelligence on a senator. No, he was from the center of the United States, they sounded different.

Possibly Canada, but they didn’t speak in that lilt. Especially not the unique lilt of Canadian Coastal towns.

So, the coastal region of America.

Why was she in America?

Why was she surrounded by Americans?

Then, her brain begins to put the pieces together.

The Soldat looks significantly different. Longer hair, different hand—changes that would take time.

Not to mention he was acting among them.

In that moment, she has three, unsettling questions hit her at once.

First, did her memory fail her? She had never lost time like that before—or maybe she had, and she just didn’t remember.

Second, was this a deep-cover infiltration? Were her and the Soldat sleeper agents among foreign nationals?

And third, were they made? Did she just expose them, dooming the operation?

“Ya zabyl, ne tak li?” she asked the Soldat. “I teper' my sdelany.”

‘I forgot, didn’t I? And now we’re made.’

She ruined it.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

He was trying to cover it up. He was trying to keep their cover. He was trying to—

“Mission report of your most recent operation,” he ordered.

“Operatsiya nizhnyaya al'fa. November eighteen, nineteen-seventy-nine. Infiltrate Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti archive wing to retrieve disk drive that held the location of Doctor Aleksandr Balakin. Drive was successfully extracted but an explosion damaged my suit and caused bodily injury. Rendezvous was successful. Phase two was… I do not know what happened during phase two.”

She said nothing else, waiting for her next orders. Waiting for the Soldat to confirm if they were made.

“Repeat the date of the operation.”

“November eighteen, nineteen-seventy-nine.”

“Someone better start making sense of this,” Sam bit, taking a step back and pressing a hand to his face. “Marlow, what the hell is going on?”

Behind her, the giant man released her arms, finally letting her stand on her own. Without the support of his hold though, she had to lean herself on her right leg, keeping as much weight off of her left side as she could.

“Sam—”

“Marlow, what do you mean 1979?”

“I should answer to Marlow?” she asked the Soldat, head tilted.

“Yes,” he said airily, jaw clenched. “Your name is Marlow.”

“It is safe to speak freely?”

“Yes.”

She nodded.

They must be among partners. The North American operatives.

“When was Marlow assigned to me?”

“It’s always been your name,” Sam answered. “You’re Marlow Hendrix.”

“I apologize. I have issues with my memory,” she said. “What operation is this? I cannot remember what happened before.”

She wasn’t used to talking so much, but she needed information so she could make sense of her situation.

“This isn’t an operation, Marlow, you’re home,” Sam said, voice softer than before.

She knew the word, but it made no sense to her. She didn’t have a home. She figured he’d meant headquarters, wherever she was stationed.

“This is not homebase. Homebase is in—” she stopped short, eyes moving to the Soldat’s, unsure whether she should reveal that information.

He just nodded.

“Siberia.”

“Si—what happened in there?” Sam asked, voice hard once again.

She was confused by the question; in where? In Siberia? Before she could ask him to elaborate, the Soldat was speaking.

“You know me?”

She nodded.

“You know me from Siberia?”

“Yes.”

“Who am I?”

“Zimniy Soldat.”

She noticed him clench his jaw, possibly in frustration, but she wasn’t sure. “And who are you?”

“I am called ptichka. But my codename is Prizrak.”

The man who’d been holding her moved around her side, stopping once he could look at her. “What does that mean? Preezruck?”

“Ghost,” the Soldat answered, and the girl nodded, but she was still confused.

“I do not understand what is going on.”

“How long were you with Hydra?” the Soldat asked.

“With Hydra?” Sam scoffed, “she isn’t with Hydra. No way. She hates them, everything she’s done the last five years has been to destroy what was left of them.”

Her eyes turned to him and she surged forward, hands wrapping around his neck to push him against a tree.

The sudden movement made the pain in her leg and arm skyrocket, but that didn’t stop her.

He was not with them.

He was a threat.

She needed to eliminate that threat.

“Prizrak, stand down!”

Immediately, she did.

Despite the urge to continue until he stopped breathing, her hands released Sam’s throat and she took a step back. Though she didn’t let her eyes leave him; she didn’t trust him.

And at the moment, it didn’t look like he trusted her either.

“What the hell, Marlow?” he spat, hand rubbing his neck.

She watched the movement, how he tried to sooth the pain, and it made her think to do the same for herself. To sooth the growing burn she felt on half her body, but she remained still. To do that would show a weakness, and she was unsure of whether she was actually among allies or not.

“Sam, it’s…” the Soldat trailed off again.

“She’s like me,” another voice said from a few feet away.

The old man.

He walked closer to her; looking at her in almost the same way the Russian would when he called her his ptichka. Though there was something more in his eyes, something she couldn’t name. “She’s lived a life away from you. Only, I don’t think it was her choice.”

“I do not understand,” she said.

“You have been with Hydra?”

“Yes.”

“Did you choose to be?”

“I do not understand.”

“Was it your choice to be with them?”

“I do not understand,” she repeated, shifting in discomfort at both the pain and her lack of knowledge.

She wasn’t used to not being able to answer questions.

“What do you want?”

“I do not want. I only do. I fulfill my purpose.”

He nodded at that, as if finally understanding. “What is your purpose?” he asked quietly.

“To comply. To obey. To do whatever is asked of me.”

That made the Russian proud of her. That would make them proud of her.

Bur his reaction was not what she was expecting. She thought he would agree, maybe clap her on the back, or call her ptichka—but he didn’t. Instead, he nodded faintly, brows drawn and lips set in a hard line.

“How long have you been with Hydra,” the Soldat asked.

“I have always been with them. They made me.”

The old man’s mouth opened like he was going to ask another question, but nothing but air escaped. His head dropped slightly, eyes searching the ground before eventually looking back at the girl. “Do you remember your first mission? When it was?”

“October thirty, nineteen-seventy-one.”

A shaky breath escaped the man at that. “Do you remember what happened before that?”

“They tested me. And trained me.”

“And before that?”

“There was nothing before that.”

He nodded again. “I think we should head back to base. Everyone could some time to re-group.”

“You’re coming Cap?” Sam asked, to which the old man nodded.

Before she made a move, she found the Soldat’s eyes. “The base is secure?”

“Yes.”

She nodded, taking a shaky step forward.

Why was she in pain anyway? Surely, she’d healed since her last mission, if the Soldat’s hair was anything to go off of.

“What happened before this?” she asked again.

The men froze, and she was thankful because it was difficult to move her left leg.

They didn’t seem to know how to answer her, so she realized it must not be information for her to know.

“I apologize if it is classified. I am trying to orient myself. Do you know how I was injured? Or when?”

“Injured?” Sam asked quickly. “You’re injured?”

“Yes. My right side. It is possibly related to my last mission, but I am unsure.”

“How long ago was your last mission?”

“I do not know. I have no memory of anything between the night of November eighteen and today when I attacked you.”

“What were your injuries?”

“Second degree burns to my right leg, side, and arm. Metal shrapnel and wood fragments in the same areas.”

Before she was finished speaking, Sam was on her, eyes searching her body.

“You’re walking around with second degree burns and shrapnel in you?!” he bit out.

“The shrapnel was removed. And I am unsure of when I sustained these injuries,” she clarified, “it may be unrelated to that mission.”

“Bucky, get the truck started, Bruce, contact the base and get a med team ready. Marlow, when we get into the truck I need you to take off the suit. The ride is only a few minutes, but I want to check how bad your injuries are.”

She just nodded, glad for the familiarity of an order.

“I’ll be in the truck,” the old man said, moving through the clearing, now holding a large leather carrying case. 

“There’s not going to be room for me, so I’ll meet you back at base,” the green one said before taking off in a run.

“How are you walking around? You must be in pain.”

“Yes. But they likely gave me medication and adrenaline. They did that before phase two of Operatsiya nizhnyaya al'fa.”

“That’s only going to last so long—come on,” he said, putting an arm under her shoulders to lead her to the truck.

She wanted to tell him it was unnecessary, that she could walk fine, but considering the Soldat took orders from him, she was in no position to argue against him.

Maybe that’s why he’d told her to stop attacking him.

She was still wary of him, for the way he’d spoken about Hydra, but she was too out of her element to know what to do.

So, as he loaded her into the bed of a military truck, she complied, disengaging the suit to reveal a mess of blood soaked bandages.

It was from the last mission…

Then how was the Soldat so different in such a short period of time?

“Shit, Mar!” Sam barked, eyes widening as his hands reached for her leg. He froze, eyes moving between her body and her face. “It has to hurt.”

“It does,” she agreed simply.  

“What happened?” he asked, looking over the rest of her body for any injuries.

“Someone threw a grenade into the hall we were in. The Soldat took as much as the explosion as he could, but my side was exposed to the blast.”

She didn’t miss how his eyes flicked past her head to the back of the cab before meeting hers again. “That Soldat, he protected you?”

“His clothing offered better protection than mine,” she said as if that were the only explanation necessary.

“You were friends with the Soldat?”

“Friends?”

“Yah, friends.”

“I don’t understand…” she shook her head, unsure exactly what friends meant. “We were often partners on missions.”

“So, you looked out for one another, were teammates—God damn, what the hell am I saying?” he grunted to himself. “You’ve been gone a decade, Marlow? They’ve had you tied to them for a decade?”

She wasn’t sure what he meant.

Gone. Tied.

So, she remained quiet, trying to hold herself off the wall of the truck to avoid its vibrations that made the ache in her side worse.

His fingers pressed into his eyes before he let out a slow breath, and when he pulled his hand away, his eyes were glassy and red. “What did they do to you? You just left. You were only gone a few minutes. How… God…”

Again, she wasn’t sure what he meant. Or why he was reacting that way.

She’d seen people’s eyes get like that when they realized they were going to die. When she approached them, hands bloody and body flickering.

“I am not going to kill you,” she reassured.

“What?”

“I am not about to kill you. You look afraid. The way people look before I kill them.”

Her words seemed to have the opposite affect than she’d meant them to have, because his mouth parts, eyes widening the same way many did before they screamed.

“I said I am not about to kill you,” she repeated.

Still, he didn’t say anything, and as they came to a stop, he broke his eye contact, shuffling down the bed before hopping out.

The doors of the truck opened a moment later, and as the old man and the Soldat came around the back, Sam sent them a warning look.

She did something wrong.

Her eyes landed the Soldat, waiting for him to announce her punishment, but he only scanned her body with dark eyes. He reached for the latch to pull the gate down, but Sam caught his arm, mumbling something that had the Soldat nodding his head. She saw his lips form the words ‘I know’ before he opened the gate, climbing in and crouching in front of her.

“You said someone called you ptichka. That’s a nice name, huh?”

She just shrugged.

She really didn’t know. She still didn’t know what it meant.

“Well, ptichka, you’re free now. And we’re going to help you. It’s not going to be easy, but we’re going to help.”

There was so much she didn’t understand. So much about the last thirty minutes that just didn’t make sense.

“Soldat, I do not know what you mean. I am failing. I do not understand any of this.”

“It’s alright. You’ll learn. It will come back.”

“Come back?”

What will come back?

She didn’t understand.

But she knew she was doing something wrong.

She wanted to ask what she could do to make it right, but the medical team appeared from the pop up, gurney rolling to a stop at the end of the truck bed before they locked it into place.

“Hey Marlow, we heard you got into some trouble,” one of the women said, her tone unfamiliar as she sent the girl a smile before catching sight of her side. “Oh, trouble seems like an understatement. On a scale of one to ten, what is your pain at the moment?”

She was confused.

Why did everyone know her new name except for her?

And why was this woman acting the way she was? She didn’t know how to explain it, except high. High energy, high pace, high voice. She’d never interacted with someone who acted that way.

“Come on, Marlow, one to ten.”

“Four,” she answered finally.

She wasn’t sure if she’d answered correctly, but the woman nodded.

“Only a four? Alright. Can you get to the gurney, or do you need help?”

“I do not need help,” she said, unsure as to why the woman would even ask.

So, she stood, albeit on wobbly legs, and made her way off the truck before taking a seat on the gurney.

“What happened?” the woman asked.

“I was caught in the blast of a grenade. Shrapnel was already removed, and the burns were treated. I was administered a low impact pain medication and a shot of adrenaline, but I cannot say how long ago.”

“Grenade?” the woman faltered, voice finally losing some of its height. “Well, hopefully the damage isn’t too bad. Let’s get you checked out.”

Chapter Text

It was familiar being taken through the medical tests, although the equipment they were using was different from what she recognized.

She was used to cold, shiny metal, but here, everything seemed to be… plastic. She obviously knew what it was, but the abundance of it was strange to her.

Regardless, the speed the medical staff worked was familiar too. They asked her questions, giving her strange looks when she couldn’t answer; like when they asked her to confirm the date. Although, even when she could answer they looked perplexed. But as they prodded at her, taking samples of blood, putting her into an MRI machine, she finally felt she was in her place.

It took some hours until they finished with her, and through all of it, the Soldat waited patiently, just out of sight.

“Is he to be my handler?” she asked the woman she decided was the head doctor.

Her brows scrunched before looking over to the Soldat’s shadow that was being cast on the privacy blinds from where he stood in the hall.

She didn’t seem to know what to say. It was the same when the girl explained what had happened to her in more detail. Why she was near a grenade, who was with her, when it had happened.

“Something like that,” the woman said, finally looking back to her. “But no one is your handler. You decide what you do now.”

The answer sent alarms through her; that something was wrong. The basis of her existence was to serve, to obey, and this person was telling her not to.

Enemy, she decided.

So, without a second thought, she slipped off the medical bed, pulled the clipboard the woman had been using from her hands, and swung it over her head. She didn’t go down, but it was enough to faze her, enough that the girl could grab her neck and spin her, pushing her backwards onto the bed where she started to choke her.

Enemy, her mind repeated.

It didn’t last long before hands were pulling her off, and a familiar voice was barking.

“Stand down!”

She’d been ordered that so much today, and she didn’t understand why. But she followed the direction.

“Soldat, ona vrag,” she said.

“No, she isn’t. No one here is an enemy.”

“She says I have no handler, that I am to make my own decisions. That is not possible, so she is an enemy,” she said, unable to make her mind form the words in Russian. Even in her own language, she had difficulty putting the issue to words. It went against everything the girl knew, everything she’d been taught.

It went against her very being.

“No one here is an enemy, is that understood? You are not to harm any of them,” he ordered.

Ordered.

Good.

“Understood, Soldat.”

He let out a breath, hands releasing her shoulders before nudging her to move out of the way. “Are you alright?” he asked the doctor, helping her up from the bed.

“I’m fine, nothing I haven’t experienced with other shell-shocked,” she nodded, eyes jumping to the girl. “Think she’ll follow what you said?”

“I think it’s the only thing she knows.”

“Right. Well, want to tell her to stay in that bed? She can’t be jumping around like that with her leg and arm in that state. I’m not even sure how she’s functioning, but I just gave her a top up of pain medication, so it should start kicking in soon. I’ll be back in four hours to replace the bandages. And, I should have her test results by morning.”

“Alright. Thanks, Doc.”

“Of course, Sergeant,” she said before turning to the girl. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Marlow. No hard feelings, yah?”

She didn’t know what that meant, but she nodded anyways.

When the woman slipped from the medical room, the Soldat let out a sigh.

“I know how hard it is to understand right now, but I promise you’re safe. You’re not among enemies. Now, could you please sit down.”

She nodded, walking past him to sit in the bed. “Understood, Soldat. But where are the officers? The Major?”

“The Major?” he asked, taking a seat on the chair beside the bed.

“My handler, the Russian. And where is your handler? Where are we?”

He looked at her the way agents did when they were deciding if she would be given information.

She kept asking too many questions.

She thought she was supposed to. The Russian always nodded when she’d asked questions, pulling as much information from her environment so she could find the best course of action. But this felt different; she had yet to be given confirmation of a successful analysis.

“You were reassigned,” he said eventually. “Our mission is to remain at this base, in New York, until we are given further instructions.”

“Reassigned?” she asked.

She didn’t know what that meant. No, she did, she knew the word and its definition, but she didn’t know how she could be reassigned. It just didn’t make sense. It wasn’t possible.

Reassigned from the Russian? From the base? From the only thing she knew?

“Am I not to return to Siberia? To the Russian?” she asked slowly.

“No,” he shook his head. “You’re to stay here.”

Again, that didn’t make any sense. Her mind knew only him. Only that place.

How was she supposed to succeed?

Fulfill her purpose?

“Marlow—”

“Was I given the new name when I was reassigned? Why? I do not understand Marlow. I am ptichka. Or Prizrak.”

“Okay, okay, ptichka. I can call you ptichka.”

It almost felt wrong for those words to come from his mouth. He’d only ever called her Prizrak, and only on the few occasions he addressed her.

“Only the Russian calls me that. I am his ptichka.”

“The Russian…” he said quietly before realization comes to his face. “Major… Sokolov, right?”

“I do not know.”

“Sokolov, he was tall, light eyes, scar from cheek across?”

“That is the Russian, yes.”

“He was kind to you?”

“I do not understand.”

“He… protected you? Watched over you? Is that why you don’t want to be reassigned?”

“He is my handler. He is the only one I have ever been with,” she said, as if that answered the question. Because she wasn’t sure what else to say. “If I was reassigned, then I must comply.”

“Is it alright if I call you ptichka? Instead of Marlow?”

Why was he asking her permission? He was obviously the one in charge.

“The Soldat can call me whatever he wants.”

He let another sigh and nodded. “Alright, ptichka. I’m gonna call the others back in. They’ll bring you something to eat.”

She nodded and followed his movements as he pulled some device from his pocket, tapping on it with his right fingers before tucking it away.

She was going to ask what it was, but the door opened, and two familiar men walked in. She wasn’t sure where the green one was, but Sam stopped at the end of the bed while the old one dropped onto a chair beside the Soldat, hand holding out a plate for her.

She took it, taking off the cellophane wrap to examine the food; a bowl of brown mush was somewhat familiar—meat or beans or something of the sort—and there was bread, which was also familiar, but she had no idea what the orange and green cube-like things were.

So, she ignored them and used the white plastic fork to take a scoop of the brown mush.

Beans.

The men asked her questions, just small things, like how bad her injuries hurt, and if she could remember anything else, and she answered, short, quiet responses. When she’d finished everything except those strange, colorful cubes, she sluggishly moved the plate to the side of the bed.

Why did her body feel so heavy?

She ran that question through her mind over and over as she waited for her next orders.

“What are you doing?”

She turned to Sam, seeing him nod to the plate with a confused smile.

“The melon is your favorite part.”

She just looked at him, and he seemed to understand what she was communicating.

She did not understand.

“The melon, it tastes good. You always liked it.”

“It’s true,” the old one said. “You used to make us pull detours if you knew a market was selling them.”

“It is melon?”

“Yes.”

“I can eat it?”

“Well, yah,” Sam said.

She nodded, stabbing one of the green pieces and taking a bite.

She didn’t know what to make of it. She’d never really thought about the food she was eating, just that she needed it to survive, so when her body’s reaction was something she hadn’t experienced before, she swallowed the chunk and dropped the fork to the plate, uncomfortable.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” the Soldat asked. “The food. It’s different from what they’d give you.”

That was the right word. Different. It felt different.

“Yes.”

“I had the same reaction… Everything had too much flavor.”

Is that what it was? Flavor?

“It is too much,” she agreed.

“It’s alright. You’ll get used to it.”

“You got used to it?”

“Mhmm.”

“How long did it take?” she asked.

It seemed like too intrusive a question, but she needed as much information as she could get.

“A few months.”

“I am confused. Is that how long we have been reassigned?”

“It’s been a little longer than that.”

“How do I still have the injury from my last mission?”

“It’s complicated...”

But she was good at making sense of things that were complicated. That’s why the Russian was proud of her. Maybe she shouldn’t push for answers though... So she didn’t.

In fact, she didn’t ask anything else because she couldn’t even keep her eyes open.

⁂

The three men said nothing as the girl’s head dropped against the pillow, pain medication finally kicking in.

What could they say?

Bucky had only known the girl a few weeks, yet he seemed to be the only one she trusted. He didn’t know what to do with that.

Steve, well, he looked between the girl in the bed and his friend beside him, and Bucky wasn’t sure what was going through his head, but it made him worried.

Sam though, was so clearly still in denial. Or maybe shock. He wasn’t completely sure, but he stared at the Marlow in confusion.

Steve was proof that it was possible, and the girl herself, who’s face now held the telltale signs of adulthood, was proof that it was possible, yet, he didn’t seem to believe it.

“She told me she killed people,” Sam said eventually, arms tight across his chest.

“She was like me,” Bucky mumbled in agreement, eyes still on her. “She had a handler, was trained to obey… We need to help her remember, who she was, that she’s her own person.”

“Realizing is going to be hard on her… That she was with them, I mean,” he clarified. “She… she hated Hydra,” Sam puffed. “She spent four years digging in their files and finding anyone left… to expose them.”

“Why?” he asked, looking to Sam. “Did they go after someone she knew? Did…”

He wanted to know, but he didn’t want to ask; had he hurt someone she knew? Was her digging revenge? Did she ever want revenge against him?

“No, that’s just the type of person she was. Is. She wanted to bring down the organization who hurt innocent people,” he explained before letting out a quiet chuckle. “You would have thought they had hurt someone she knew with the way she would act when she decrypted a file.”

“Reactive,” Steve agreed. “Even on the runs against non-Hydra targets. She would scold people if she got close enough. And she did; a number of times.”

Bucky knew as much that she was reactive. He’d seen it enough in the short time he’d known her, but the way she was now.

It was disturbingly familiar. That emptiness.

“It’s going to take time for everything to come back… If…” he trailed off, letting out a breath rather than voicing his thoughts.

“If what?” Sam pressed curiously.

“If it does.”

“If it does? Why wouldn’t it? You came back,” Sam argued, arms dropping to his sides stiffly.

“She’s not like me, Sam,” he said, voice painfully low. He knew as much from fighting her; she wasn’t enhanced. And that’s a scary variable considering Hydra’s less-than-gentle techniques. “I don’t… If they did the same thing to her as they did to me, I don’t know how she survived… And I don’t know if it would be possible for her to come back from it.”

He often cursed that part of himself, if not for what it allowed him to do, then because it kept him alive. But despite that self-hate, he almost wished they’d done it to her. At least to protect her from harm.

“What did they do?”

Bucky didn’t want to say. Because he didn’t want to tell this man that his friend went through unimaginable pain. Because he didn’t want it to be true. And because he didn’t want to think about what they did to him.

“Sorry,” Sam blurted, pulling some of the defensiveness from his voice. “You don’t—it’s not my business. I’m just…”

“I know,” Bucky mumbled with a nod. “I don’t know much about it, but it was… electroshock. A machine: I’d heard it called a Memory Suppression Machine a few times. It wiped you. Me. They didn’t do it regularly, but it kept me… complicit. Empty,” he explained, eyes falling back to the girl.

God, I hope she didn’t have to go through that.

“The doctors are checking for brain damage?” Sam asked as his hands fell to the lip of the bedframe, clearly trying his best to keep his voice level.

“Yah, Doctor Green said she should have some results by tomorrow…”

“Okay… Maybe… maybe we can get more of her story tomorrow. I still…” he cut himself off with a scoff, his hand flying to his face to scrub it. Like he was trying to clear his thoughts. Or possibly, clear the situation. “Is this not insane to you two?”

“What? The last month of your life wasn’t enough to make you believe in the impossible?” Steve asked, voice light.

“I don’t want to believe that this is possible,” Sam shot back. “I don’t want to believe that she got stuck in the ‘70’s and was made into one of Hydra’s dogs. She was only gone a few minutes.”

Steve flicked his eyes over her. “She was gone longer than that… Now we need to help her.”

“What if she… has something that will activate her?” Sam asked warily. “There are people here and at ground zero that could get caught in the cross fire…”

Bucky shifted, “Well… the timeline she jumped to wasn’t the same as this one, right?” he pondered, “so whatever events happened there didn’t actually happen in our past. That means that the Prizrak wasn’t made in this timeline, so no one here would know those words. And there wouldn’t be evidence today for anyone to find to activate her…” Bucky wasn’t positive, but as he mulled over the explanation of time travel that Bruce had given him over tea one night, he thought he might be right.

“And you think it would be impossible for someone to say those words by chance?” Sam retorted, sending the metal-armed man an incredulous look.

“The words they used on me weren’t the lyrics to a Beatles song—they were random; just words they’d strung together. She was at the same place I was; I doubt they would have changed their techniques much.”

“And you can guarantee that?”

“No, Sam,” Bucky bit back tone sharp, “obviously I can’t, but I’m hoping, okay? I don’t want this girl to be activated either, except I’m not only focused the possibility of her hurting people. I’m thinking about what it would be like for her. Because I know what that feels like.”

“You don’t think I care about that?” Sam snapped back, anger clear in his voice. “Of course, I do. But we need to take peoples safety into consideration.”

“She won’t hurt anyone.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ll stay with her,” Bucky stated. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone. She knows me… she’ll listen to me.”

“She knows us,” Sam retorted.

Steve shook his head at that, trying to calm the tension in the room. If not for his own head than for the girl who was sleeping. “Sam…”

“It’s true Steve. She knows us. We were her team. You, me, Nat, and Wanda—she needs to be reminded of that.”

“And if she can’t?” Bucky asked.

“Don’t say that,” Sam grit, “she’s going to remember, and we’re the ones who can help her.”

“Maybe in a few months, but the only one of us she’s been listening to, is me. She doesn’t understand what’s going on, she doesn’t know who to trust, but right now I’m the closest thing to familiar.”

“She needs to be reminded of her life,” Sam pressed, albeit quietly, like he was losing energy. Losing fight.

Bucky let out a sigh at that. Arguing was going to do nothing. Sam was scared.

So, Bucky relaxed his shoulders and lowered his voice. “I know what it’s like Sam. It’s not like waking up the morning after too many zombies; it won’t come back to her with a cup of coffee. If it comes back it’s going to be hard and slow, and to make it as easy as possible, we need to keep her calm.”

Sam nodded; eyes shut as he tipped his head back. “Alright. You’re right. You should stay with her until she gets her bearings.”

Bucky nodded at that, not pressing the fact that it wasn’t guaranteed that she would get her bearings. He didn’t want to make Sam more upset, and there was no use in arguing further.

So instead, he stood, letting Sam take the chair while he moved to the wall, leaning against it and trying to keep his mind steady. Away from thoughts of Hydra.

From that point on, they sat in silence, taking shifts to let the others head to the bathroom or grab something to eat, but through all of it, none of them said anything.

When Doctor Green returned that night, she made small talk, asking a few questions about the girl and trying to piece together what had happened to give her a clearer picture of her patient.

Bucky was still in partial awe over how normal she’d acted when she saw Marlow, how collected she was. How she pretended nothing was wrong; keeping her voice cheery and her hands from shaking. He knew she’d done tours with the military, and she said herself that she’d dealt with shellshocked soldiers, but this wasn’t someone who saw the horrors of war. She knew Marlow—knows Marlow—and this wasn’t Marlow. Her face didn’t have the traces of youth anymore, not like she had when she stepped onto the platform.

He didn’t know how she’d done it, but he appreciated it.

And so, as she packed up her supplies, explaining that she was still waiting on results and that she would be back again in four hours, he thanked her. He wasn’t sure if she understood why he thanked her, that it wasn’t just him being polite. And really, he wasn’t sure it was even his place; Steve and Sam knew her, they were the ones watching their friend, their partner, live through this. But Bucky didn’t have a Doctor Green when he’d gone through it.

He was alone, hopping between trains, freight ships, and back alleys. No one treated his wounds, keeping themselves steady and understanding as he tried to make sense of the world around him.

But it seemed like she understood when he walked her to the door, mumbling the quiet words before she looked at him knowingly and nodded, then slipped into the hall.  

She was smart like that. Observant. That’s why she did such a good job with Marlow. Why she was such a good doctor.

Before she had left, she’d given Marlow another injection of pain medication, meaning she would definitively be out the rest of the night, so it was agreed that Sam would head back to his quarters for some sleep before switching off with Steve in the morning.

Sam tried to let Steve go first, he was the centenarian after all, but Steve shut him down, reminding him that he was still a super soldier—even if he had wrinkles. So, Sam conceded, saying he’d be back at five to switch out.

Bucky, because of his apparent sway over Marlow, would stay overnight. And, until she was…

Well, he would stay. As long as he needed to.

He wasn’t tired that night anyways, and he said as much to Steve when he’d offered to stay with Marlow so Bucky could get some sleep as well. But Bucky just shook his head again before sending his friend a knowing look.

“We have a lot to talk about. So, I’m headin’ to the commissary to get some stale sandwiches—and maybe some pudding—and when I get back, you can give me the low down on all your adventures. And maybe even tell me about a certain dame in particular?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“You gotta tell me you finally made a move,” he laughed. “Some of that old Barnes charm must have rubbed off on ya?”

And then he was out the door, a smile on his face at the thought of Steve finally working up the courage to ask Peggy out.

He understood the hesitance; that broad was scarier than Adolf, but even a blindman could see that she was as smitten with him as he was with her.

Of everyone on this damned planet, he was glad it was Steve who got a second chance. That he found someone who respected and appreciated him for the man he was, and of course he was glad for Peggy too. She was a force; so comfortable within herself, so uninterested in moving through the world gently or quietly… And that’s why her and Steve worked so well. They were both underestimated, looked down on, yet it never swayed their resolve, and it never swayed them from doing right by the world. They understood each other on a level that no one else could because they saw each other for their very beings, not what the ugliness of world perceived them as.  

Bucky always knew it would happen, that someone would see him, and he couldn’t have imagined anyone more perfect than Peggy Carter.

But while Bucky was left to eagerly ponder what happened over their lifetime together, Steve was left in the near silent room, mind warring over the choices that led to that moment.

It was only when he was alone that he let his shoulders drop, that he let out the shaky breath he felt like he’d been holding all day, and reached for the girl’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He knew she wouldn’t hear him, and that even if she did, she wouldn’t understand, but he had to say it. “I’m sorry kid.”

Chapter Text

When she awoke the next day, the girl needed a moment to let her mind catch up.

Reassigned.

New York.

With the Soldat.

Waiting for orders.

There was still a dull pain across her body, but she pushed herself up, meeting the eyes of the Soldat who sent her a nearly imperceptible nod.

She wasn’t sure why he was on the floor. Like so many other things since she’d… come off the platform, it was odd to see him propped against the wall, metal arm resting against his knee.

He was no longer wearing the jacket he was yesterday. Now, only a shirt with short sleeves covered him, giving her a full view of his arm. An arm she did not recognise.

It was completely different, made of shiny black metal with gold between its plates. There was no silver and there was no red star.

It didn’t make sense. How long had it been since her mission? She couldn’t remember if he’d told her a date, nor if he’d said how long they had been reassigned for, but it had to be some time if he had an entirely new arm. And extra inches of hair that, at the moment, were pulled away from his face.

“Morning,” he said, pushing himself to stand. “How are you feeling?”

The words didn’t make sense either.

Nothing made sense.

“Soldat, permission to speak freely?”

“Course,” he nodded.

Course.

What did that mean?

He nodded though, so she assumed it was permission. “I do not understand what is happening. Your arm. It’s different.”

His eyes didn’t stray from hers as his jaw tightened. “I lost the other one in a fight.”

“How long ago?” she asked, brain trying to work out a timeline. “I am confused as to how long ago my mission was.”

“I got this arm about a… month ago. But your mission happened before that.”

“What is the date, Soldat?”

He assessed her.

Familiar.

What he was looking for, she didn’t know.

“The last date you were active was November eighteenth, nineteen-seventy-nine.”

“Yes. That was my last mission date,” she confirmed.

“What do you remember of that night? After you were injured?”

“After I was treated, we drafted the action plan to retrieve Doctor Balakin. Then, I was given the new suit and ordered to do a test run to ensure it was working.”

“Then?”

“That is all I remember.”

“And the suit you wore, it was the one you were wearing yesterday?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Were you ever briefed on where I was when I wasn’t on a mission?”

“I was told you were inactive. That is all.”

He nodded again, fists tight at his sides. “I was kept in a cryogenic chamber. They froze me between missions.”

Her brows furrowed at that. “You were frozen?” she asked, her words slow.

“Yes. That way I would live longer. But that’s besides the point. Do you understand what I mean by frozen?”

“In… stasis?”

“Yes. The night you remember is the last night you were active… before you were put into stasis.”

“I was put into stasis,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“I was frozen? And that is why I do not remember what happened before I attacked you.”

“Yes.”

“How long was I inactive?”

Across from her, Bucky watched her, the eerie calm about her unsettling to him.

Was I the same way back then?

No… This was different.

Even when she was… upset—if that was the word he could use—she didn’t show emotion. It was like she simply couldn’t process the words she was being fed.

She was so empty.

He kept watching for signs of fear, anger, anything that would show she was about to become dangerous. Although when she’d attacked Doctor Green yesterday, there wasn’t anger. It was simply the required action.

The closest she’d come to showing emotion was when he’d told her she was reassigned, and even then, it was only confusion. She didn’t understand.

“Todays date is November fifth, two-thousand-and-twenty-three.”

That was the lie him and Sam strung together in the early morning of that day. Something that would explain her injuries, and why her handler wasn’t around, and why everything was so different.

He thought the words might elicit something, and her gaze did shift to the bed, eyes darting back and forth as if she were reading the words he’d spoken. Processing. Then she looked back at him and nodded.

“That is why my injuries are not healed.”

He let out a breath. It was a strange mix of relief and disappointment; because she’d just been told she was frozen for four decades, and she didn’t care. There wasn’t enough inside her to care.

“Yah.”

She nodded again, not glad, but… comfortable? Satisfied? He didn’t know the word to describe her reaction.

She understood, he realized.

She was quiet after that, just sitting, looking around the room as if the new piece of information was all she needed.

⁂

It wasn’t long after their short conversation that Doctor Green knocked on the door, asking Bucky to join her in the room across the hall to discuss Marlow’s results.

Sam and Steve were already there, sitting at a round table set with paper cups and a metal carafe. They’d pulled the blinds of Marlow’s small window back, giving them a direct view through the open door to where she sat in her bed.

“I told her that she’d been frozen,” Bucky said as he filled a cup with hot coffee.

Sam’s eyes darted to the girl. “How’d she take it?”

“Like she’s taken everything else; blankly. Although she doesn’t seem as on edge now…”

“I think I can explain that blankness,” Doctor Green said gently, fingers tapping a tablet before the screen across from them came alive, bringing forth an image of peaked and valleyed lines. “All things considered, the results are positive,” she started, voice cautiously optimistic. “This is an illustration of Marlow’s activity from different regions of her brain. On almost all fronts her activity is normal, and the MRI scans supported those results.”

“Almost?” Sam pressed.

“Yes… almost. There are a number of sites within the brain that had slightly lower than normal activity, although her frontal lobe was significantly more idle than anywhere else.”

Sam dropped his head into his hands at that, letting out a long sigh that made Bucky feel like he knew exactly what Doctor Green was about to say.

He, on the other hand, did not.

“So, what’s that mean?” Bucky asked.

“The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that regulates emotions, personality, motor functions, language skills—it’s essentially the hub for traits that makes humans, humans. Damage to it… can seriously affect someone’s behavior.”

“Can that be fixed? Is there treatment for it?”

“The brain is delicate… damage to cells is often not reparable—but I don’t think this is a result of trauma destroying neurons, at least not the majority of it,” she recovered, as if trying not to make Marlow seem doomed.

Get to the point, Doc.

“The blood test we took showed that she has a drug in her system, something I’ve never seen before. I believe it is… stopping her brain from functioning properly, especially within her frontal lobe. But what’s interesting is it’s not her entire frontal cortex, it’s—”

“Only the areas that control emotion and self-control,” Sam offered knowingly.

Doctor Green nodded. “Exactly. What ever compound she was given doesn’t affect her motor skills, or her object awareness, or language, and it’s unlike anything I’ve seen before… By chance, have any of you heard of Phineas Gage?”

Sam nodded, but both Steve and Bucky shook their heads.

“Gage was a railroad worker who had an accident where a tamping iron—an inch thick rod of iron—went through his skull. He survived, but his frontal lobe was damaged, and although he went on to live a relatively normal life, his demeanour changed completely; he had issues controlling his anger, lost his ambition, lost his empathy. That is what frontal injuries look like. That is not Marlow. The drug in her system appears not to be destroying the neurons within her brain, but to be blocking them from firing.”

“So, it’s not… permanent?” Bucky asked, trying to understand what she was saying.

“I’m not sure. Drugs such as opioids decrease synaptic transmission in certain areas of the brain like grey matter, however they are known to have lasting effects on brain function that can take years to resolve… These first tests have already shown that there is significant build up of the drug within her body; her liver, in particular, is showing signs of degradation and will need monitoring and treatment. At this point, I have no idea how this drug will affect her in the long run. Not cerebrally, and not physically. We will continue with tests and hopefully as her body flushes out the compound, I will have a better idea of the side effects. In the meantime, I will monitor her extremely closely and have already drafted a plan in case she exhibits signs of withdrawal. There are a number of routes we could go, but hopefully it won’t be necessary.”

Bucky shook his head in confusion. “Withdrawal? Why does that need a plan? You think she’s going to crave the drug?” he asked, words sharper than he’d intended.

“It’s not that simple, Sergeant,” Doctor Green said softly. “Withdrawal is not just cravings… When someone is addicted to something and has been long-term, the body relies on it. Removing that drug can be dangerous, even deadly, especially when it’s done abruptly.”

“Oh,” was all he could manage to say.

“Depending on the substance, detox can take up to twenty-odd days, but I can’t say what the timeline for this will be. If it does happen, I am confident that I can keep her from extreme harm, although it may be necessary to move her to an actual hospital if her symptoms become too severe.”

“Whatever you have to do,” Sam nodded.

Beside them, Steve spoke for the first time. “You said that the majority of inactivity was not from physical damage—but there was physical damage?”

“From first looks, yes, there is physical trauma. Some of it is likely caused by blunt-force, but there are areas where it seems like the neurons died. What exactly caused that, I cannot say, but I have a colleague who is familiar with electroshock therapies, and he said her imaging reminded him of early cases when the practice was unregulated. Treatment was experimental, and so the levels of electricity used was unsafe and often resulted in damage to patients’ brains.”

Bucky’s teeth hurt from how hard he was clenching his jaw. “They did it to her too,” he grit, voice coming out quiet and forced.

“Sergeant Barnes?”

“That’s what it was, electroshock. They did it to me and we hoped they didn’t do it to her, but—” he stopped, taking a breath.

“Is there any way to know if she’ll be alright?” Sam asked, his voice so close to wavering.

“It didn’t seem like there was much physical damage; so hopefully it doesn’t have a significant impact on her.”

“But it might?”

Doctor Green nodded at that. “Yes. It might.”

“So, what can we do to help?” Steve asked.

There he was, Captain America, not focusing on the problem but the solution.

It made Bucky feel like a child.

If Steve was able to keep a calm head while being given news about one of his friends, why couldn’t he?

He needed to calm down, so he focused on the coffee in his cup, on the minute ripples that danced across the drink’s surface from the shake of his knee.

“This transition will not be like anything I’ve seen before, so to be honest, I’m not entirely sure. Keep her calm, possibly keep her sedated, but I was hoping for your advice,” she said.

It took Bucky a few moments to realize she was talking to him. He probably wouldn’t have noticed had he not seen Sam and Steve’s heads turn to him from the corner of his eye.

He jerked his head up, meeting her eyes. “My advice?” he mumbled before nodding.

Focus.

“Well… I think we should let her come back slowly. She knows me from her time with Hydra, so I thought I would stay with her. When she starts to remember more about her and her life, we could get her talking to Steve and Sam. To jog her memory… That’s what helped me, but I wasn’t given drugs—I don’t know what that will be like…”

“I think a lot of this process is going to be trial and error, but the most important thing is to keep her comfortable and calm. I agree that you are probably the safest bet to keeping her that way, and it’s a good idea to keep her interactions with others to a minimum. You two might be alright because she’ll recognize you, but others should keep their distance.”

Doable, Bucky thought.

Most of the base had already moved on to help with humanitarian efforts for half the planet. Those that were left were there to keep contact between the U.S. government and the remaining Avengers—although even the Avengers were low in numbers right now.

Rhodes was keeping himself overly busy with the Air Force, Wanda had left the base saying she needed time away, Clint, Peter, and Scott all went back to their families. The… aliens left the planet, along with Thor, and that left Sam and Steve.

Which meant it was quiet there—a deafening quiet, some days—but that would be good for Marlow.

“The most pressing matter right now though, is watching for symptoms of withdrawal. I’ll be keeping a close eye on her vitals, but Sergeant, I’ll brief you on the signs and if you see any, contact me immediately.”

“Of course.”

⁂

No one seemed to breathe for the next seven days. It was like they were all waiting for the inevitable moment where Marlow’s blood pressure would rise, and her hands would start shaking, and she would start sweating, but it never came.

Bucky had told the girl to let him know if she was feeling any of the symptoms Doctor Green had listed, but she was so quiet he wasn’t sure if she actually would.

Even in the late hours of the eighth night as she’d held her breath from pain, she didn’t say anything.

But Bucky heard her change of breathing from where he was lying awake in his cot on the other side of the room, sending his heart thumping and mind jumping immediately to her going into shock. But thankfully when his eyes landed on her carefully shifting figure, he was able to breath again.

She’s in pain.

“Ptichka, are you alright?”

“Yes, Soldat,” she said, trying to mask the scrunch of brows and the clench of her jaw in the lowlight of the room.

He remembered that. When he was forced to bear pain without making it obvious. That showed weakness: cracked the image of indestructability that Hydra tried to maintain.

So, he stood and approached slowly, making sure she knew he was nearing. “Do you need more pain killers?” he asked.

“No Soldat.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Yes.”

“It’s your leg?”

“Yes, Soldat.”

He let out a sigh. “I know the people in Siberia would have told you not to show your pain, but you can tell me. I can get the doctor to help. To give you medication.”

Her brows scrunched more at that. Not in pain, but in thought. “Why… why do you give me medication for the pain?” she asked.

He realized then she’d probably never been given them. “Because you don’t need to be in pain,” Bucky said quietly. “You’re not among enemies, you don’t need to pretend.”

“I am not pretending,” she shook her head.

“Then why don’t you tell me if you’re in pain?”

“Because it does not matter if I am in pain. It makes no difference.”

“It matters,” he opposed airily. “Okay? It matters. If you’re in pain again, I want you to tell me, alright? Or Doctor Green.”

“Understood, Soldat.”

He wanted to correct her, to tell her that his name was Bucky, but he just nodded, moving to where a tablet sat and tapping it a few times to bring the doctor to the room.

“You’re not in Siberia anymore. You’re going to start… remembering things and realizing things, and I just want you to know you’re not there anymore. You can ask for help. I’ll… We’ll help.”

“I do not understand.”

“I know,” he said airily. “But you will.”

Chapter Text

Doctor Green was on edge on day ten.

When she came into the room that morning, Marlow had presented her arm expectantly, and it was only after prodding with some questions, that she explained that every ten days she would be given an injection, and that day was day ten. 

Doctor Green immediately drew blood samples, sending it with her lab techs to do analysis while she checked over Marlow’s injuries with an anxiousness that Bucky had never seen before.

When the techs returned a half hour later, passing the doctor a paper with a mess of letters and numbers, he hoped he would see her shoulders relax. But she only nodded, fingers tapping the back of the clip board before letting out a puff of air. A few minutes later, she was in the room across the hall with him, Steve, and Sam, air thick as they waited for her to explain.

“The blood samples are showing that the compound in her body has reached its half-life, meaning if there’s a point that any withdrawal symptoms would begin, it’s now,” she explained.

They could only nod, preparing themselves for the inevitable and trying to keep themselves from spiraling.

Somehow though, the day passed without incident, with Doctor Green stopping in every hour while Steve and Sam stayed in the room opposite, wanting to be near in case anything happened. Then, as Bucky convinced them to head back to their rooms to sleep and he sat unable to focus on his book, the night passed without incident.  

When morning came around and still nothing had changed, Bucky was finally able to take a breath.

Sam and Steve said they’d take a break from their scavenged duties around the base to watch over her, but he was only gone long enough to jump in the shower, scrape off the mess of a beard he’d grown, and catch a few hours sleep before he resumed his post.

Then as afternoon turned to evening and then to night, and there was still no change in Marlow’s vitals, he was able to settle into his book.

⁂

The next morning, the girl awoke to find the Soldat asleep, a book resting on his chest.

She’d seen him with it the last couple days, although he seemed to bend and wring it more than read it.

She noticed he read often—if the changing books he’d carried were anything to go by…

He never did that before.

No… maybe he had.

She’d seen him reading schematics and mission plans, flipping through manila folders, or examining maps, but she also thought that she’d seen him with books like the one sitting atop him now.

She wondered if their next mission was written inside… She couldn’t make out what was on the cover from her spot on the bed, but surely it had to be something important.

Maybe it was some type of manual, like she’d seen the engineers flip through as they worked around her. Those books looked similar; small and thick, with worn edges and finely printed words.

Not that she’d ever read one. She’d never even held one. But she’d catch glimpses of the words, at first illegible until she was brought in for language sessions. Though, the book on the Soldat’s chest didn’t look to be in Russian—but that made sense; they were in America now.

As she wondered, she found herself standing up, ignoring the slight ache in her leg as she made her way silently across the room. The closer she got, the clearer the embossed title became.

‘Terry Erving.’

Her brows bunched in confusion.

Oh, she realized, eyes scanning the rest of the cover, that is who wrote it.

‘The Necessities of Creation.’

So, she was right; it was some type of manual. For what though, she didn’t know. She also didn’t know why there were illustrations of towering rocks across the cover. The manuals she had seen didn’t have illustrations unless they were of mechanical components—although she hadn’t studied them, so maybe she was mistaken.

She pondered it a moment more, before she noticed the Soldat’s body stiffen.

His eyes popped open, hand obviously searching for a weapon when he met the girl’s eyes.

“Hell, Marlow, you really have to do that?” he bit out, hand dragging down his face.

“I scared you?” she asked, though it was more of a statement.

He nodded, pushing himself to sit up. “Yah, that usually happens when you hang over someone when they’re sleepin’. What are you doing anyways?”

She cocked her head at him.

She’d never seen the Soldat get scared. Actually, she’d never seen the Soldat act in the way he had been the last week and a half. He was active; more active than she’d known him to be… He almost acted like the agents did… But what she found the most different, was how much he spoke. He had always been like her, silent, assessing, but there—especially with Sam and the old one she’d learned was called Steve—he spoke. A lot.

Which reminded her.

“You said you would call me ptichka.”

“Oh, right, sorry. What are you doing hanging above me, ptichka?” he asked pointedly.

“I was looking at the book,” she explained. “It is a manual, correct? About creating something?”

“What?” he asked in confusion before looking down to where the book had dropped to the blanket. “Oh, no. It’s, just a book. Science fiction.”

“I do not understand.”

“Tell me what part you don’t understand.”

“What do you mean by science fiction?”

“It means it’s a story based in science, but that is still imaginary,” he explained.

“But it is not a manual?”

“No.”

“So, what is the purpose?”

“Enjoyment,” he shrugged.

“I do not understand.”

He nodded at that, letting out a sigh. “I guess you wouldn’t… That’s one of the things you’ll learn.”

“How do I learn it?” she asked.

She needed to show that she could still fulfill her purpose. That she would make them proud. That she could succeed.

“Well, do you want to read it?”

“Like a test?”

“No, just, if you want to read it you can. You’re probably bored…”

“I do not understand. Bored?”

“You’ve had nothing to do, you probably want something to do,” the Soldat clarified.

“Oh. I… do not want,” she repeated her words from days ago. “But if you give me something to do, I will do it.”

He didn’t seem to like her answer, but he nodded. “Read it then. And let me know if you like it.”

So, she did. From the moment she took it from his hand, she didn’t put it down; she read it through her check-ins with Doctor Green, and as the Soldat brought her meals.

She finished it some hours into the night, wondering if she did a good job. If she’d succeeded.

“Did you enjoy it?” the Soldat asked her as she handed the book back to him.

Was this a test?

Was this one of the things she was supposed to remember? Or learn?

“Should I?”

He chuckled at that. And she froze.

She’d never seen him do that before.

No… maybe she had.

She’d definitely seen and heard Semenov and the Russian smile and laugh, but it was different when he did it. His seemed gentle, whereas theirs were burley and rough.  

But she couldn’t be sure if she’d heard it before.

“It’s up to you whether you like it or not. Everyone likes different things.”

“Did you… like it?”

If he liked it, she could only assume she should like it as well.

“Haven’t finished it yet; I’m only about halfway through.”

She nodded. Then, sensing the conversation was over, she turned and made her way back to the bed.

The next day, she thought about the book. It seemed to be the only thing she could think of. Maybe it was because it was the only thing she’d done in the last two weeks other than be examined by doctors and technicians. And answer the occasional question asked by Steve or Sam over meals.

“Why did Ollie stop the General from killing Mathilde?” she asked suddenly, pulling her eyes from a squirrel in a tree. Her and the Soldat were in an office a few doors down from the medical room. He said it would do her good to get out of that room since she’d been stuck in there so long.

She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she followed him in, taking a seat in front of the window while the Soldat sat at the table to read.

“Thanks for spoiling it,” he mumbled, flipping the book over. “I, uh, I’m not sure because I haven’t read that far, but I’m assuming it’s because he finds out she’s innocent.”

“But it held no strategic benefit. He almost died doing it, and she offered nothing in return.”

He was quiet a moment, hand brushing the scruff of his jaw. “Innocent people shouldn’t be killed. The General would have been doing something wrong by killing her, and Ollie likely felt it was his responsibility to get her out of the situation since he accused her in the first place.”

She was still confused as she watched him. “We killed people who said they were innocent.”

His body froze at her words. “Yes,” he choked out, “and it was wrong.”

“But they always told us we were successful. That must make it right.”

“Being successful and being right aren’t the same thing.”

She turned to face him fully then. “But being successful is part of our purpose. If we are not successful, we are not fulfilling our purpose. That is wrong.”

“This is something you’ll come to realize, ptichka. But the people we served…” he trailed off.

The girl waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. So, she turned back to the window, mind thinking about the book once again while her eyes ran over the trees.

Later, after they’d returned to the medical room, Steve brought them lunch. Again, those strange colored cubes, melon, were on her plate, but she ignored them, instead eating the yellow stuff.

She wasn’t sure what it was, but it was familiar.

How could that be? How could something be unknown yet known? It reminded her of the skills she inexplicably had.

Ignoring those thoughts, she took a bite of the small soft arched tubes covered in a yellow sauce, unsure of her reaction at the food. It was similar to when she’d eaten the melon, only this time, it wasn’t overwhelming.

She found herself scooping another forkful into her mouth before she’d even finished the first.

When she finished the bowl, she’d felt… disappointment?

Is that what that was?

It felt like the right word.

She didn’t think she would feel that way had there been more of those little arches in her bowl. Although she wasn’t hungry anymore, she was just disappointed it was gone already. And she didn’t know what to make of it.

Strange.

When she moved her plate to the table beside her, she caught sight of Steve and the Soldat, no longer chatting between themselves, but watching her.

Her brows furrowed, wondering why they’d be looking at her. Then she realized. “I still do not want to eat the melon.”

Steve’s face turned into a smile at that. “It’s alright, kid. You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.”

Kid?

She wasn’t a kid. She was… well she wasn’t entirely sure how old she was, but she certainly wasn’t a kid.

Again, it seemed that he’d called her that before. She’d heard him say it, saw him say it. But she didn’t know when.

She watched him a moment, scanning his features, the lines around his eyes, the white of his hair, the line of his nose. Something felt familiar, but also different.

Having those moments over and over was getting… frustrating. She was pretty sure that what she was feeling was frustration. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt it last, but she knew she’d felt it before.

And that made her even more frustrated.

Analyzing her surroundings was normal—habitual—but now it felt like there was too much around her. She didn’t know how to understand it.   

Was this what the Soldat had meant when he said she would start realizing? Remembering?

She thought about it as the two men finished their own lunches, Steve sending her a goodbye which she answered with a nod before he made his way out of the room alongside the Soldat who carried the three empty plates.

The quiet of the room was much easier to sit within; it made her thoughts less scrambled. Made the frustration ebb.

So, when the Soldat came back in and sat himself on the cot to read, she let her mind wander back to Steve calling her ‘kid’. And the familiarity of his face.

She tried to place him, but he never seemed to fit.

“Soldat?”

“Yes, ptichka?”

“Steve… How old is he?”

He let out an airy chuckle. “That’s a difficult question. Biologically, somewhere over a hundred.”

She wasn’t sure why he had to specify; of course she’d meant biologically. How else did you measure age?

But she didn’t dwell on that, or the fact that he was over a century old—instead she shook her head at the confusing thoughts in her mind.

It was telling her she’d known his face when it wasn’t lined with wrinkles or spotted by the sun.

“What is it?” the Soldat asked, apparently seeing the confusion on her face.

“Was Steve in Siberia?”

“No,” he said, shifting to face her.

“Ever?”

“No, he’s lived in America his entire life.”

“He… I know his face, but not that face. I know his face when it was young,” she mumbled, trying to make sense of it. “But I do not understand how because I do not remember. I just know.”

He nods at that, lips pulled into a worried smile. “You do. It’ll come back.”

“It is difficult,” she mumbled before her body froze.

She was showing weakness. She wasn’t supposed to admit that she was struggling, even to an ally. Her eyes flew to him, expecting disappointment but the worried smile hadn’t left his face.

“It is,” he agreed. “Why is it difficult?”

She wasn’t sure if she should tell him. She wasn’t supposed to find things difficult. She was supposed to be successful in everything, that’s why the Russian was proud of her.

So, she shook her head, turning to lean her back against the headboard.

“It’s alright, you can tell me when you’re ready.”

She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she was relieved that he hadn’t made her admit her flaw.

Not when a mission was looming above them and she needed to be successful.

Chapter Text

When Doctor Green came in the following morning, she seemed pleased with the girl.

She wasn’t sure why, but the threat that the girl noticed hanging above the woman in the days prior was all but gone.

“What happened?” she asked after swallowing a small pill. She’d started taking it daily twelve days before, but she wasn’t sure what it was for…

It was not her place to ask.

“What happened with what, Marlow?”

“You. You were unhappy the last five days. You seem happier now.”

“Ah,” the doctor nodded, a smile on her face. “I am happier; your vitals have stayed stable. I was worried that your body would react negatively without the regular injections you were getting.”

“What was the purpose of the injection?”

She paused at that, eyes flicking to where the Soldat sat. “We aren’t completely sure. But we’ll make sure that you stay healthy without it, alright?” she asked, her voice returning to its usual height.

The girl realized it was… excitement. She wasn’t sure what was so exciting, but this doctor always seemed to be excited.

“Alright.”

When Doctor Green slipped from the room, the Soldat walked over, pulling her attention.

“I have two options for you,” he said. “I can give you another book, or, I can put a movie on.”

She let out a heavy, frustrated breath. “I do not understand.”

“What part?” he asked calmly.

“Why are you giving me options?”

“For you to decide which you want to do—and before you say it, I know you say you don’t want stuff, but I was hoping you would start thinkin’ about things you enjoy. Like we talked about the other day. The things that make you feel good.”

Things that make her feel good.

She wasn’t sure she understood what that meant.

“You know the macaroni we had for lunch yesterday?”

“The yellow stuff,” she clarified.

“Yah. You enjoy that.”

“Oh,” she said thoughtfully.

That is what that was?

“Alright.”

“So, which do you think you’d enjoy? A book or a movie?”

She felt she knew what a movie was, but she couldn’t remember exactly. Maybe she should choose that so she could learn what it was. The Soldat wanted her to learn.

“Movie,” she said finally.

The corner of his mouth pulled up slightly and he nodded.

There it was again. His smile.

She thought about it as he brought her to the room across the hall where she’d seen him, Sam, and Steve talking sometimes. Then, she thought about it while she sat at the table, and he tapped on the device she learned was called a tablet.

She thought maybe she enjoyed his smile.

She wasn’t sure why; it offered no benefit, but she did all the same.

A moment later, the screen across from her turned on, beginning to play a video.

“I know you—” the Soldat cut himself off, “just let me know if it’s too much and I’ll turn it off. Okay?”

She nodded, eyes not moving from the screen.

She’d definitely seen video’s before, but this was different. It was… animated. A night sky, then clouds, then a castle. A man started speaking, explaining the ways of ancient Greece before he was cut off by a woman’s voice. After that, the video turned to a display of color and sound.

Music, she realized

This was nothing like the anthem she’d hear in Siberia.

“Is this alright?”

“Yes, Soldat.”

It was definitely alright. Maybe she enjoyed this too.

As the video—movie—played, she found herself in a trance. It was too unlike anything she’d seen to not study every detail. Then, when the blond and brunette boys came on screen, she somehow knew they would turn into the blue and red creatures from the beginning.

Her mind somehow told her the beats of the movie before they happened, and at first, she thought that that meant she was succeeding; this was a test where she was supposed to predict the coming events.

But then she realized it was too familiar.  

She’d seen it before. She knew it.

But from where?

It was certainly not Siberia…

So, it must have been somewhere before Siberia.

But there was nothing before Siberia.

But then where?

As the storyline picked up and Hades approached Hercules with a deal, the girl knew he shouldn’t shake his hand. She wanted to tell him, do not agree, it will put you at a disadvantage, but she kept her mouth shut, instead watching in discomfort as he made the mistake she knew he would.

As the tone of the movie shifted again and the world fell to war, she had a sudden feeling that she’d been part of something similar.

When had she been at war?

For the first time, she pulled her gaze away from the screen.

“Soldat?”

“Mhmm?”

“We have fought together, correct?”

“Well…”

“In a battle such as that one,” she continued, nodding her head at the screen.

He looked a little surprised. “Yah, we did.”

“What was it for?”

“Someone wanted to kill innocent people.”

There was that word again.

Innocent.

“And that is wrong,” she said slowly, repeating what he’d said.

“Yes… We couldn’t let them hurt people who didn’t deserve it.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Steve… and Sam were there too?”

“Yah, they were,” he nodded.

“Hmm. When was that?”

“Before you were with Hydra.”

“But there was nothing before,” she said with a shake of her head, trying to convince herself as much as the man beside her.

But then where were those memories from?

“There was time before Hydra, you just don’t remember it yet.”

What?

Why wouldn’t she remember it?

Had she been hurt? Had the cryo damaged her brain?

But…

She ran the situation through her mind, everything that she’d been told, the strange memories, the familiarity of people. She did what she did best; analyze to determine the best course of action. And despite it not making sense, maybe the Soldat was telling her the truth.

“Is…” she started before stopping herself short, words getting caught in her throat.

“What?”

Her fingers traced the shape of her nails, and although she felt she shouldn’t speak, she did. “Is that why I remember things that do not make sense?”

There was the smile again. Smaller, barely visible, but there. “Yah. What are you remembering?”

“I am not sure. This movie is familiar. Steve is familiar. Your smile is familiar. But it does not make sense because it is not from Siberia. Not from Hydra. But if you are telling me there was something before Hydra, then maybe that is where I remember those things from.”

“You’re right… And it’s good that you’re remembering… But… as you do, it might get harder…”

Harder?

“Soldat, I do not understand.”

“No… but you will soon, and I want you to know you can talk to me about it. Or Steve and Sam… you and them were close before.”

Oh…

“Why?”

“You used to run operations with them… and they were your friends.”

She nodded in understanding. “I do not remember knowing them… I remember you. But you were different…”

“I can imagine I was.”

“Why have you changed? Were you promoted?”

“Ah, I wouldn’t call it a promotion… More of a change in career paths,” he explained with a tilt of his head.

She wasn’t entirely sure why that meant he would change, but she nodded.

“So, do you like the movie?” he asked, pulling her attention away from her thoughts.

“Enjoy it?” she clarified.

“Yah,” he chuckled, “enjoy it?”

“Yes. Did I enjoy it… before?”

“It was one of your favourite movies according to Steve.”

Her brows scrunched at that. “I had a favorite?”

“Yah,” he said quietly. “I can show you more of your favorites, if you want? If you would enjoy that.”

She nodded, mind turning over the fact that she had a favorite. According to the Soldat, multiple favorites.

She knew the word; it had been thrown around the base. The agents within her squad would know which weapons the girl would want because ‘they were her favorite.’ She’d also been called a favorite—more often than not it was spit at her when she wasn’t teamed with her squad or accompanied by the Russian.

‘The Majors favorite science experiment,’ or ‘The Majors favorite toy.’

She didn’t understand what it meant then, but now it made sense. Although the way that the Soldat was explaining it made it seem like something positive, so why had those agents spoken about her so negatively?

She couldn’t be sure…

But it still surprised her that she had things that she favored over others. Sam had said that the melon was one of her favorites. Maybe she would have to try it again…

And as the movie came to a close, she wondered what else she’d forgotten that she enjoyed.

⁂

She awoke that night, room only illuminated by the medical machines and the dim light that leaked through the blinds from the hall.

She was hungry.

It was strange that that was what woke her up, but in a post-sleep haze, she swung her legs over the bed, feet treading silently as she passed the empty cot along the wall before slipping through the door.

Her feet directed her to the commissary, weaving her past long, benched tables before bringing her to the kitchen where she found granola bars in a cupboard and apples on the counter. Grabbing one each, she tucked the apple into the pocket of her zip-up then ripped the wrapper of the granola bar and took a bite, heading out of the kitchen again.

The halls were deserted as she wandered through them like a ghost, wondering where everyone was. There had always been people hurrying to one job or another, what made that night any different?

It was not her place to ask.

After taking a right at the fork, she found herself pushing through the last door on the right, only one step into the room when she paused.

This was her room… but she didn’t know it.

It was small, only a handful of feet larger than the cot in the left corner. Across from it she noticed a black plastic bin with papers strewn across it.  

She did not understand.

And then, it was as if her mind shut down, unable to receive anymore information let alone process what it had already absorbed.

“Ptichka,” she heard a deep voice say from behind her, and it was as if her mind decided what was happening.

This was her room.

She was to go to the bed and wait.

So, she did. Like she had done so many times in Siberia. Although this time when she sat, faint alarms went off within her mind.  

“Hey, are you okay?”

The voice pulled her from her thoughts, and she looked up to the Soldat.

He had never come to her room before.

She watched as he moved toward her, dropping to crouch in front of her as he sent her a concerned look. “What are you doing in here?” he asked gently.

“I do not… Is this my room?”

“This used to be your room,” he said with a nod. “Did you remember it?”

She did not know.

Now that she was talking to the Soldat, she didn’t even know how she’d gotten there.

“I… do not remember coming here,” she whispered, as if her volume would soften the blow.

The Russian would get upset when she forgot things. It never bothered her before, but now she was… worried about the Soldat’s reaction. She didn’t want to upset him.

“It’s alright, I’ll bring you back to the room,” he said, standing.

He was not mad.

But—

She cocked her head at him. “We are not staying in here?”

“No, ptichka, we’re going back to the medical room. You need to stay in there a little longer.”

Oh.

“Alright.” She stood, following him quietly.

“Were you hungry? Is that why you got up?”

Was she hungry?

She registered then, the granola bar in her hand, and then the weight in her pocket, and then the void in her stomach.

“Yes, Soldat, I think I was hungry…”

“Maybe next time, find me before you go walking through the halls. I know this place isn’t very big, but you might still get lost,” he chuckled.

“You were not in the room,” she commented.

“Yah, I, uh, stepped out for a minute. Just, next time wait, alright?”

“Alright, Soldat.”

Her body seemed to relax when she saw the familiar hall, finally back in a known environment. As they entered the medical room, the girl went to her bed while the Soldat went to his cot.

He always did that.

Another thing that confused her.

She let that thought go though, pulling an apple from her pocket before dropping it and the half-eaten granola bar to the table. Without another word she slipped back into her bed and pulled the covers to her ears.

⁂

Adrenaline pumped through her body, spurring her towards a wall of oncoming figures that she really didn’t want to be running towards.

Not human figures; they had too many arms, and ran on all limbs like a dog with their mouths snapping as they neared.

Looking left and right, she realized she was alone. Alone facing a hoard of those creatures with nothing in her hands. But still, her feet pushed her forward.

She wanted to stop, to turn and run, but continued and they got closer and closer until one jumped, knocking her onto her back, its jaw gnashing—

She threw herself up from the bed, blood pumping and chest heaving as she tried to orient herself, tried to figure out where those familiar creature went. Where the threat was.

“Hey, ptichka—”

She was out of the bed then, eyes searching as she backed herself into the wall, giving her a complete view of the dark room.

“It’s alright,” Bucky said, stopping on the other side of the bed. “It was a nightmare.”

“They’re back,” she argued, trying to warn him of the impending danger. They had to find weapons, had to get to high ground to scope. Maybe barricade themselves in… something. “We have to,” she panted, eyes still scanning frantically, “we have to go, they’re coming.”

“It was a nightmare,” he repeated gently.

Her mind finally settled enough to register that they were alone in the room. There were no creatures, no battle, just them in silence. Her mind settled back into the familiarity.

But then, she processed his words.

Nightmare.

That was one of the words that she knew, but couldn’t understand.

He started moving towards her slowly, as if she was a caged animal and he would scare her.

A spark of frustration ignited within her.

How did she know that?

How did she know that a caged animal would act the way she was?

Why was she acting that way?

“I do not understand, Soldat,” she grit, hands rubbing over her face. “I do not understand.”

“What part don’t you understand?” he asked gently, stopping a few feet away.

“Everything,” she panted, her next words coming in a flurry, “I know things that I do not remember learning. I remember moments that I do not remember happening. I am supposed to be successful; I am never supposed to fail, but I do not understand and that means I am failing and I am flawed and I am useless because I cannot—

“Hey, hey, you’re not failing and you’re not useless. Don’t say that,” he shook his head.

That sparked her even more, except now she had a burn in her throat that she didn’t enjoy.

“I am useless because I cannot even follow an order anymore. I cannot ignore the truth about myself even with you telling me to. What else does that mean other than that I am failing?”

“It means you’re remembering. And that isn’t your fault—what you’re going through; the confusion, the memories, it’s not your fault.”

“It is my fault because I was made to be perfect. I was supposed to be perfect. But I cannot and the Russian would be so disappointed that I am failing him.”

“No,” he said gentler. “You were never supposed to be Hydra’s weapon. You were never supposed to be taken and made to believe that you’re a perfect weapon.”

“I do not understand,” she bit through her teeth, body reacting in a way it never had before. Or maybe it did, she didn’t know.

“I know, but you will…” he said quietly. “I know how hard this is. I went through the same thing, but it’s not your fault. None of this is.”

“It is—”

“No,” he said, taking a few more steps to stand directly in front of her. “It’s not your fault.”

“I should work, I should be able to function—”

“You’re not a machine, Marlow,” he interrupted.

Marlow.

Marlow—Marlow—Marlow.

It was so familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

“I do not understand,” she said weakly. “Who is Marlow?”

“You,” he whispered.

“Then who am I?”

The Soldat let out a puff of air, jaw tight as his eyes searched hers. “I’m going to help you remember.”

“Why did I forget?”

“Because people made you. It is not your fault,” he repeated.

Her brain hurt, her jaw hurt. She just wanted it all to stop.

The Soldat must have sensed as much, because nodded his head toward her bed, stepping aside to give her space. She took the gentle command, moving back to the bed where she sat and pulled her knees to her chest.

Why was everything so confusing?

She stared at the wall for some time, unmoving and uninterested in trying to sleep when the Soldat stood from his cot.

When had he moved?

“I, uh, don’t have another book, but I could read the last few chapters of this one out loud; give you something else to focus on?”

She turned to where he stood, body stiff as he shook the book in his hand once. She nodded and he sat in the chair still positioned beside her bed, shifting once before opening the book.

His words started a little wary, and his eyes darted up to her every few moments, but soon he fell into a rhythm and the girl was submerged into the familiar science fiction story that she had read just days ago.

This time, as she listened to the Soldat narrate the events of Ollie, Mathilde, and the General, she was not so confused as to why there was a daring rescue. She still felt there was little strategic benefit, but she had a vague sense that killing Mathilde would have been bad.

She didn’t think she would have enjoyed Mathilde’s death.

That made her wonder whether she ever enjoyed the deaths of those she had killed. There were many, and many had pled their innocence, but it made no difference because she was doing what she was supposed to—what she had to.

Thinking back to those faces, she realized that she didn’t enjoy it. She wondered how differently those nights would have gone if they’d had an Ollie. Whether she could have been Ollie; stopping their death moments before it was supposed to come.

And now, there was a feeling within her stomach that she couldn’t place.

She didn’t enjoy what she’d done, so she didn’t want to think about it. But now it was all she could think about.

The faces of innocent people. Scared faces.

Why had she killed them? Surely if Hydra knew that they were innocent, they would not have sent her.

Why had she not told them?

What was that feeling?!

She dropped her forehead to her knees, hands scraping through her hair as frustration mixed with whatever sourness in her stomach threatened to take her breath away.

“Ptichka?”

“Why did I do it?” she asked, words muffled by her knees.

“Do what?”

“Why did I kill them? They were innocent, I should have helped—done something. If Hydra knew that they were innocent, they would have stopped me, but I killed them. They were like Mathilde.”

“Hydra… they would have done it anyways. Made you or some other agent do it,” he said, though his voice was barely audible. “Hydra wasn’t good.”

“No, no they are,” she argued desperately, lifting her head so she could eye him. “They made me; they are helping the world by stopping bad people. You said yourself that the Russian was kind to me. That is good, is it not? He was proud of me, he told me—he told me I was good. Everything he did, was it not good?”

She didn’t understand anymore. How could everything that the Russian did not be good? It had to be. She had to believe it was. She was his ptichka.

“The kindness from one person doesn’t change the evilness of the organization,” he sighed. “Hydra hurt people. They hurt you.”

That didn’t make sense.

“If… if I was hurt, it was my fault. It was because I didn’t protect myself.”

“No, God no, none of what happened was your fault. They did those things to take advantage of you, to use you.”

“But they told me it was right,” she pressed. “They told me I was doing good. Those things cannot be wrong. It was my purpose.”

“A purpose they created to exploit.”

Something in the back of her head was screaming, screaming that the Soldat was right and that the things that happened were bad. That she didn’t enjoy what was done to her.

And that scared her.

She was scared, she realized.

Not the adrenaline that pumped through her when she was facing an opponent, but the fear that she saw in the eyes of those she was killing.

She realized she’d felt it before; during the battles she’d fought along side the Soldat, the one’s she couldn’t quite remember. She might have felt it other times as well, though she wasn’t sure when. She thought of a dark room—a cell. A wheel chair. A house with a brown carpet. There were other times, where the reaction wasn’t as strong, but there was still fear.

Memories seemed to come in transparent waves, none clear enough to understand, but they were there, teasing her along the periphery as her heart began thumping in her chest mercilessly.

“Soldat, I do not want to talk about this,” she said, hands gripping her hair as she dropped her head again, squeezing her eyes shut. “I do not want to think about this anymore.”

“I know it’s hard, but it’ll get easier as you remember.”

“No—I don’t want to remember,” she bit, “I don’t want to remember. Make them stop.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Soldat,” she pleaded, “I don’t want to remember.”

“I know…”

Everything seemed to be too much. She was feeling too much.

“Soldat, please, you said to tell you if I was in pain—please, I do not want to remember. They hurt, I don’t want this.”

“I—” he let out a pained breath, “I can’t stop it.”

“Please.”

“I’m sorry.”

She pushed her face further into her knees until colors exploded behind her eyes—as if she could push the thoughts away.

Was this what her mind would feel like from now on?

Like it would explode at any moment?

Like if she were to have one more memory float to the surface, everything would burst—like blood from the hearts she crushed.

Maybe if it did, she would forget everything she’d learned, and she could breathe again. She wouldn’t have the feeling of something pressing down on her and threatening to snap her in two.

Why was she feeling like this?!

“Ptichka,” the Soldat called quietly, before the bed sunk in front of her feet. “I need you to look at me.”

She didn’t want to.

She’d never wanted before, didn’t know what it even felt like, but now she knew that she didn’t want to look up. She wanted to let the darkness behind her eyes consume her very being.

It was too much.

“Come on, look at me.”

Eventually, she did. She pulled her head up, meeting the eyes of the Soldat who looked to be in as much pain as she was.

“I want you to stop thinking about the memories and think about your breathing, okay?”

“My breathing?”

“Mhmm. You’re gonna start counting your breaths. In and out. Until you get to ten. Okay?”

“I—I do not—”

“It’s okay, I’ll do it with you, just follow me, okay?”

She nodded.

He pulled in a breath, and she mimicked him, holding until he let it out.

“Good,” he nodded. “Again.”

She did.

Bucky wasn’t sure if what he was doing was right, but he didn’t know what else to do.

In Wakanda he worked with Elders who preached the importance of breathing. Of following the breath and the energy that flowed with it through the body. He tried to make their lessons a habit, but he knew how quickly those feelings could sneak up… How it felt like nothing would make them go away. He also knew what it was like to be barraged with memories that were painful, out of order, or both. How confusing it was to make sense of those memories, and how even the slightest detail could spark a flood.

But she was experiencing something different from him. She didn’t seem to understand her own humanity. That she was a person who could and should feel. He’d been wiped, told that Hydra was helping the world because he understood enough of the world around him to be swayed. He may have been ruthless, but there was a man behind those actions. And when he came out of it, he understood what he was; a person, who had done monstrous things, but a person nonetheless. He understood that he could be. He didn’t sum his existence up to being an object for use.

But she did.

Tonight was the first night that he’d seen Marlow put energy into her own survival. In the two weeks she’d been there, she’d never sought out food or water—and it wasn’t out of laziness or fear of her surroundings, it was like she just didn’t think of it. Like she didn’t realize she needed to eat.

He continued his slow breaths until hers were parallel, and them some time after until it seemed she was calm.

“Remember what I said last week? I’ll help you,” he mumbled. “I can’t stop it, but I’ll be here, okay?”

“Okay, Soldat.”

He hated that name. He hadn’t heard it anywhere except inside his head for years, but he couldn’t find it in himself to stop her from saying it. It was something familiar, he could let her have that. Just like the name her handler had given her in some small act of kindness.

“Do you want to go back to sleep?”

“Want…” she repeated, like she was tasting it. “I do not know what I want…”

“I could take you outside… You haven’t been outside since you arrived. It might be good to get some air.”

She was silent before nodding. “Did… did I like going outside before?”

She almost sounded hopeful, like she wanted it confirmed, but he hadn’t known her well enough.  

“I’m not sure, do you think you did?”

“I think I did…”

“Well then, let’s go.”

She nodded again, waiting for Bucky to stand before following him across the room and through the halls. She said nothing as they reached her old room, and still nothing as he flipped the light on.

He dropped beside the bed, pulling a pair of leather combat boots from beneath it before standing and moving to where her brown leather jacket hung on a hook in the corner. Then, from a small standard issue dresser pushed into the corner below the hook, he found a pair of socks and turned, handing her the cold weather necessities.

But rather than reaching for them, she just looked at him with furrowed brows.

“These are for you.”

“Me?”

“Yah, it’s gonna be cold out there, you can’t go out in just that,” he said nodding to her t-shirt and sweatpants.

“I will be fine,” she shook her head in confusion.

“You’ll freeze,” he argued gently.

“Is… is that another thing that they did wrong?”

His fingers tightened on the leather, suddenly feeling like it was about to crawl up his hands to surround him—muzzle him—like it had for so long.

“What did they do?” he asked lowly.

“Let me be cold.”

He had to focus to keep the bite from his voice. “Yes. That was wrong.”

She nodded as if she were being told a fact that she wanted to remember for later. Then she took the socks, boots, and jacket and pulled them on as if nothing had happened.

They stopped in his room next, only taking a moment for Bucky to slide on his own jacket before he led them out one of the exits around the corner from the bed quarters.

The sun still hadn’t risen when they stepped out, but from the orange that was beginning to bleed into the sky, he knew it wasn’t far off. They didn’t speak as they started walking from the encampment, past the Humvees and trucks, and towards the path Bucky knew had been worn into the forest from the constant traffic.

He wouldn’t bring her to the ruins of the Compound, but just off the main route there was a small natural clearing that led to the water. He thought that would be a good spot to stop since it was quiet and facing away from anything reminiscent of a military, and by extension, Hydra. Thankfully, the portion of the meandering lake that was visible was in the opposite direction of any destruction, meaning last months battle was invisible, and at the moment, non-existent.

He knew she was starting to remember the battle—and that before she’d left, she was having nightmare about it—but he didn’t want to make it worse by bringing her around such an obvious reminder.

So, for now, he let himself and the girl beside him live in ignorance of what they’d faced five weeks ago. Or in her case, a decade ago.

He just wanted her to have a break from her thoughts and memories.

Chapter Text

They sat by the edge of the water, neither speaking as the sounds of the forest surrounded them.

Every so often a helicopter or jet would pass overhead somewhere, and the girl would look, expecting to be picked up by agents. Although now she was confused; she wasn’t sure if she should want to be picked up.

She was torn between believing the Soldat who told her that Hydra was bad, and her mind that told her that she belonged with them. To them.

And her feelings that made her afraid of them didn’t make it any clearer.

It was all so confusing.

So as she sat she’d done her best to focus on anything other than her inner storm, but unfortunately, her will alone wasn’t enough to keep her mind clear. Memories assaulted her when her mind strayed, like when she’d sat down on the rocky shoreline only to be met with the images of people dressed in black and standing in front of a dock. She didn’t know what it was, or when it had happened, but she didn’t like that memory. It felt… bad.

When her mind wasn’t being bombarded by unplaceable memories, it was darting back to her time in Siberia and the things that she realized might have been wrong.

Those thoughts were worse than the memories.

She felt uneasy—scared—and she wasn’t sure how to stop it because it she was no longer there.

How do you stop fearing something that cannot hurt you?

So that was how she spent the hour; stewing in her mind, unsure of how she should be dealing with any of it.

“Ptichka, we should head inside.”

“I like it out here,” she said simply.

She did. She didn’t feel so… trapped. Nature didn’t remind her as much of the halls of Siberia, but she knew the encampment would.

“You’re shivering, you need to get inside.”

She knew that, distantly, but she didn’t care. “I do not mind the cold.”

“No, but your body does. Besides Doctor Green needs to check you out. She’ll be on her way any minute.”

Bite me, Barnes.

The thought came out of no where, and it physically froze her.

For a moment, she was afraid he could read her thoughts, that he would know what she had said in her mind. She wasn’t entirely sure what the Barnes part was, but she was certain that if she’d said that in Siberia, she would have been placed in solitary. Or beaten.

“What’s wrong?” the Soldat asked, leaning forward so he could see her face.

“I… nothing. I just thought of something.”

“A bad something?” he asked quietly.

“I am not sure… It seems both bad and not bad,” she explained, turning to look at him. “I do not understand it, but I think it would get me in trouble.”

He looked at her confused before shrugging. “Bad and not bad, but it would get you in trouble? I’m definitely interested to know what that is.”

“I cannot; I will get in trouble.”

“I’m not going to get you in trouble.”

She shifted. “You will not?”

“No. Promise.”

“Promise…”

He opened his mouth, but she nodded before he could say anything.

“Alright... I thought bite me,” she explained, and he let out a bark of laughter. “I do not know why I thought it, but I thought, bite me, Barnes.”

His laughter quietened at that, but he was left watching her with a big smile.

Yes. She was sure she liked his smile.

“Is that not a bad thing?” she asked in confusion.

“Well,” he hummed, nodding his head side to side, “it’s essentially a way to tell someone to shut up.”

“To what?”

“To stop talking.”

“That is bad then. I should not be telling people that, I apologize, I—”

“No, no, ptichka, it’s alright. You used to say it all the time. It’s… it’s good to hear you say it again.”

“Why is it good to hear me telling you to be quiet?”

“Because you’re getting back to your old self,” he said gently.

“Oh… So, there are good parts to this as well? Becoming my old self is a good part?”

“Yes. And there are a lot of good parts. You’re going to remember your friends and family, your memories, the things you liked to do, the places you liked to go. You’re going to remember your life, and that’s a good thing.”

“Hmm… That is good to know… because I am scared,” she said quietly, dropping her gaze to the water.

“If you’re scared about something you remember, you can talk to me about it. Steve and Sam too. We’re here for you.”

“Is it… wrong that I do not want to talk about them? It makes them…” she trailed off, unsure of how to describe it. How to express that if she acknowledged the things in her mind, they might become even scarier.

“Feel more real?” the Soldat offered.

She felt her body deflate and she nodded. “Yes. They would feel more real. It scares me, and I know I should not be scared, because it is over and only in my mind, but I am still scared.”

The Soldat was quiet a moment, flesh thumb rubbing over the plates of his left arm. “I’m still scared of the things in my mind too,” he said lowly. “I know that the things that made me the Zimniy Soldat are gone, but it still scares me.”

“What were the things that made you the Zimniy Soldat? Are you no longer the Zimniy Soldat?”

“No, I’m not. The same way that you’re not the Prizrak anymore.”

“Am I not? What am I then?”

“Right now, you’re ptichka. Soon, I think you’ll be Marlow.”

That was a strange thing to think about. Changing in that way.

“What are you now?”

He let out a long breath, head turning back to the water. “I’m not entirely sure. I have a few names, but I don’t know which one I am.”

“That must be confusing.”

“Yah…”

Then she had a thought. “Do you want to talk about the things that scare you?”

She felt it was the right thing to say. She wasn’t sure why, but since he’d offered it to her, so she thought it was only right to do the same for him.

And the way he smiled, she thought she must be right.

“Not right now. Right now, I want to get you inside because you’re going to freeze to death,” he said, voice turning pointed.

She wasn’t sure what that tone was, but this time, she didn’t hold her thought in. “Bite me, Barnes.”

He just looked at her, lips cocked into a sideways smile as he sat there a moment. “There she is… charming as ever.”

She wanted to ask who she was, but her mind took over.

She sent him another glare; this time not half-assed. “Bite me Barnes.”

“There she is,” he chuckled, “charming as ever.”

Behind her, Sam and Steve approach, and she didn’t miss the spark of sadness that erupted in Bucky’s eyes as Steve stopped in front of him. With that coil of anxiety, she wandered away, allowing the life-long friends a moment while Sam swung an arm over her shoulder.

“You said that before,” she mumbled, trying to place the memory. “Sam was there. And Steve.”

The Soldat nodded. “Yah, that was just before you left.”

“When did I leave?”

His smile faded at that. “You were with Hydra almost ten years… And you left, but you weren’t supposed to stay away that long. They took you and didn’t let you come back.”

“Oh. I do not remember that… Will that be scary? To remember it?”

He pursed his lips and somehow, she knew.

“It will…” she nodded in understanding.

“Not everything will be good.”

“No… It is confusing; even though what they did is scary, but I still feel like I need to go back—Soldat,” she realized, back straightening, “when are we going back to them? You said we were waiting on our next assignment; do you know when we have to go back?”

The fear in her body was now of something coming, not of something from the past. She was afraid of returning, to face the things she’d realized were bad.

“We aren’t going back to Hydra,” he said darkly.

“What?”

“You don’t ever have to go back to them, alright?”

“But… if I do not go back, what do I do? What is my purpose?”

He shook his head, “your purpose is not to be their weapon. That was what they wanted to make you believe, but now you’re free to choose. And I know that sounds scary, but we’ll help you through it. You don’t have to be afraid of Hydra anymore, okay?”

She wasn’t sure if she felt relieved or not; Hydra was all she knew with any certainty. Everything else was just there.

“Alright, Soldat.”

“Now you really do need to come inside, come on,” he said, standing up and reaching down a hand to help her up.

She stared a moment, slightly confused before grabbing it and standing. Then, as they made their way up the slope of the waterfront, he hovered a hand behind her, never touching, but there.

Why was he doing that?

It reminded her of when Sam helped her to the truck.

Thinking back, she didn’t feel so unsettled by his actions. And even with the Soldat, she wasn’t. It was something she couldn’t name; a feeling that she recognized but couldn’t pinpoint.

Strange.

As they reached the end of the path and approached the building, the nearest door swung open, and the large green man ducked through. He was reading something on a tablet before apparently noticing the two approaching figures and looked up.

A look of surprise came across his face as he met eyes with the girl. “Morning, how, uh, how are you feeling? I hope not like you wanna punch me in the face?”

“I do not enjoy punching people,” she stated.

“Good to know…”

“How has clean up been going, Bruce?”

So, his name was Bruce.

That was familiar, although she couldn’t place why.

“It’s going slowly. We got the last of that water dammed, so we’re able to reach the main building now, but… it’s uh… not easy. I didn’t spend much time there, but…”

The Soldat let out a sigh and nodded. “They did.”

“Yah,” Bruce whispered, body drooping some. “It’ll get easier, and it’s good to keep busy. Plus, someone has to do it. Tony would have wanted someone overseeing who would at least try to salvage what was left.”

The Soldat nodded. “We’ll let you get back to it.”

“Yah… Good to see you’re feeling better Marlow,” he called before giving a small wave and heading around the corner.

She hadn’t seen the green man—Bruce—since arriving, but apparently, he’s been busy cleaning a building up…

She wondered if she was friends with him as well… he seemed familiar, but less so than the others. She hadn’t had any memories of him flit past her mind, but he obviously knew her.

The Soldat led her inside, and this time the halls were familiar enough that she could have found her way back herself. She even thought she could find the commissary, her room, and maybe even the armoury if she needed to. Though she didn’t know why she would know that…

When they arrived back in the medical room, the Soldat got her to drape the jacket across the chair then tuck the boots beneath her bed before she climbed on top, pulling the blanket over her crossed legs.

“I’m going to grab breakfast, is there anything you would like?”

She realized she didn’t like the eggs she’d gotten a few days ago; they were gritty and the Soldat had even said that they weren’t good, but the… sausage was good, and so was the muffin.

So, she told him as much before pulling her knees to her chest.

“Can you also bring the… melon. I want to try it again.”

“Course I can,” he said, a hint of a smile on his lips. “I’ll be back soon.”

⁂

She was distracted through breakfast. It felt as if everything were on her mind at once—less suffocating than earlier that morning, but she found herself staring into space occasionally, focused on the thoughts and feelings coursing through her rather than her surroundings.

The Soldat noticed at some point, calling a quick ‘I’ll be right back’, as he left the room with their empty plates.

The realizations weren’t like the aggressive waves that knocked into her before, now it was like a constant stream of input, like she already remembered, she just hadn’t thought of that memory yet.

Faces, places, events; they all seemed to seep from the cracks of her mind.

But then there was everything from Siberia. She remembered feeling so much pain… enough that she wasn’t sure how she bared it. When it happened, she didn’t understand, or care to understand, but now she wished that they had given her the pain medication she’d gotten here—although she knew there was no way they would. She had the feeling that it would be… a waste. They’d never said that, but she knew. The only time she’d been given any was after Operatsiya nizhnyaya al'fa, and that was only to ensure she would finish the mission.

The door opened and she watched the Soldat enter, something peeking through the cracks of his fingers as he approached. She stared at it, catching glimpses of red and white before stopped beside her bed.

“I thought we could try something else that you used to enjoy,” he said before opening his hand to show a small box, “cards.”

“Cards?”

“Mhmm. We can play simple games until you get the hang of it.”

“Play?”

“Yah, play. It’s… when you do an activity for enjoyment.”

“So watching a movie or a book is play?” she asked before shaking her head. “No. No, that is not right… play is…”

She knew the word, knew what it was, but couldn’t quite make it clear in her mind.

“It can mean a lot of things, but you play something that has rules and steps, and you do it to have fun. There is always some type of objective and who ever is playing needs to get to that objective before anyone else.”

That made sense.

“Alright. What do we play?”

“I thought we could play Go Fish.”

“What is its objective?”

The Soldat opened the box, fanning the cards out and showing her the illustrations and numbers on them.

“You see how there’s numbers or letters on the cards? There are four of each, and they all have their own symbol. You want to get all of the same number or letter,” he said, looking at her. When she nodded, he continued. “You do that by asking the other player if they have a certain card. You each have five cards, and if another player asks for a card that you have, you have to give it to them. If you don’t have it, they Go Fish, and take a card from the pile in the middle. The first one to get the most like-cards, wins.”

“Wins?”

“Yes… I guess it’s like being the most successful.”

“Hmm. I want to win.”

“From what I’ve heard, you always did. You were very competitive.”

“Did I win often?

“You did.”

“Hmm.”

She liked that.

“Can I sit?” he asked, pointing to the other end of the bed.

She wondered why he was asking, but nodded.

He settled himself across from her, crossing his own legs as he began mixing the cards, shuffling and bending, before dropping ten cards between two piles.

“Don’t show me what you have,” he added as he placed the largest pile of cards between then, then picked up his five cards.

She nodded, doing the same.

Immediately, her mind began working, deciding which cards to pursue and which she didn’t want.

“You go first,” he ordered.

“Do you have a four?”

They went back and forth, picking up and dropping cards. Eventually, she dropped the last four cards and he told her to count.

She won.

“Again?” he asked, a brow cocked.

“Yes, I think I like this.”

“Is it only because you’re winning?”

He had that smile on his face as he asked, eyes on hers while his hands collected the cards.

“I think that is part of it, but this is enjoyable… there is another word…”

“Fun?” he suggested, reminding her that he’d said the world earlier.

“Yes, fun. This is fun.”

“I’m glad,” he nodded, hands mixing the cards again.

She watched his deft fingers, flipping and bending, only a moment later to be hit with another tangible memory.

She sat on the lumpy couch, hands raised in defence.

“I didn’t cheat—”

“You definitely cheated,” Sam opposed, eyes locked on her has he dragged her cards toward himself.

“No, I’m just good and you’re jealous.”

“No, you cheated, because I cheated and the only way you could have beat me, is by cheating.”

Her mouth dropped into a surprised smile at his confession, “I didn’t cheat, and you just admitted that you did!”

“How’s that hole coming, Wilson?” a blond woman asked with an amused tone. “Need a ladder or do you want to dig a little further?”

“I only cheated because she cheated,” he argued.

“Except I didn’t cheat. I cheated last hand, but not this one.”

“You—”

She blinked, coming back to the room with an unending train of questions erupting in her mind.

What did it mean to cheat?

Was that a bad thing?

Who was the blond woman?

Where was she now?

“Ptichka?”

“Memory,” she said simply, brows furrowed as she stared at the blanket in thought.

“Bad?”

She hesitated. “No… I do not think it was bad. Everyone was loud, but we seemed to be enjoying it.”

“What was it about?”

“We were playing with cards… Sam… said I cheated, and I said I did not. And then he said he cheated because I cheated, and then some blond woman was asking him about a… hole? I do not understand, but she asked if he was going to dig a little further…”

His smile returned and he nodded. “You used to play cards with them to pass the time during operations.”

“I do not remember Steve being there…”

“He might not have played that game with you, maybe he was off doing something,” he shrugged.

“And what about the blond woman? Who was she?”

This time, he was the one to hesitate. “You’ll remember soon enough. I don’t… I don’t think it’s my place to tell you.”

“Your place?”

“I don’t think it’s right,” he clarified.

“Alright. Should we start again?” she asked, nodding to the cards.

“Yah. Yah, let’s start.”

⁂

They’d played a few more rounds, but it was obvious that Marlow was tired. She’d tried to keep her eyes open, tried to continue playing, but Bucky eventually pulled the cards away, telling her to go to sleep for a little bit.

She didn’t seem to want to stop playing, but she nodded, sinking under the covers and barely lasting a minute before her breaths were light and even.

He’d cleaned the cards up, sliding them back into the box before checking that she was alright and slipping out the door quietly. He made his way back to his room, where he grabbed one of the unread books stacked beside his bed for when he finished the last few chapters of the one in the med room.

In the first ten days that Marlow had been back, he’d gotten though seven books. He was worried about continuing his tasks like Sam had, but he still needed to keep himself occupied somehow. Before her and Steve went off, he’d been helping with the aftermath of the Blip; doing interviews, connecting with government agencies, coming to terms with what had happened to him.

Five years.

Another five years taken from him.

Really, he had no reason to self-pity; half of all living beings across the entire universe had experienced the same thing, but it felt like a cruel reminder that he didn’t have control of his life. Not his actions and not his life.

That threat is gone, he reminded himself.

Thankfully though, even without work, staying with Marlow seemed to keep him distracted enough. It let him focus on someone else, so he didn’t have time to focus on his own inner turmoil. It was hard though; every time she had a memory, or would ask him a question—like the one about Natasha—he never felt sure of what to say.

What was he supposed to say to ease her guilt?

How could he tell her that her friend was dead? He didn’t want to tell her that.

Maybe he should have told her, so that the memory of it wouldn’t be so shocking when it finally surfaced. But he was selfish, and he didn’t want to be the one to tell her. He was already associated with that place and what they’d done to her, he wanted the rest of their interactions to be good. To not make her sad or scared or upset.

As he rounded the corner, still entranced in his own thoughts, Doctor Green caught his attention with a gentle smile.

“Figured I would give you a little longer after this morning,” she said, referring to the text he’d sent her when him and Marlow were outside. “Is now a better time?”

“She just fell asleep, so maybe it’s better to come back in a few hours? She didn’t get very much last night…”

“No worries, the burns seem to be healing well, so I don’t think that’ll be an issue. But tell me about what you’ve been noticing with her, the changes?” she asked, gesturing to the room opposite of Marlow’s.

He nodded, following her in before they both sat down. “She’s been remembering stuff; like being around Steve and Sam… she even talked about the day she left… What she remembers seems brief, like she only knows moments, but it’s something.”

“It’s definitely a good sign. Especially that she’s remembering events before the drug and possible electroshock. Does she speak about her time with Hydra?”

He pursed his lips, brows drawn. “She’s feeling guilty, but she hasn’t told me what she did… I have an idea, but I’m not entirely sure.”

She nodded, then her brows furrowed, and she tilted her head. “The whole time-travel thing is still a little lost on me—so you didn’t know her? Like you never met her back then?”

“No… The way Bruce explained it was… a separate timeline. After the stones were taken from whatever point in time, a branch timeline was created. Like… a different universe, I guess. That timeline, where the stone was taken, was different from this one, but once the stone was returned, that timeline was erased.”

“So Back to the Future got it wrong, huh?” she mused.

“I… haven’t seen that one yet,” he mumbled, shifting in his seat.

“It’s a good one, but apparently not accurate,” she chuckled. “But I’m a little confused; if she returned the stone which stopped the timeline from branching, wouldn’t that make the timeline she lived in this timeline?”

He paused at that.

Would it?

“I’m… I’m not sure. You would think it would, but then again, it wasn’t part of our history… Neither was what happened to Steve…”

“Maybe a question for Doctor Banner.”

He nodded, his mind straying to the fact that he had no idea what happened to her, and moreover, that he didn’t want to make her relive those events by telling him. “I don’t know how to help her,” he said quietly. “She remembers everything that Hydra did, but it’s only now she’s realizing that those things were bad. She’s learning her emotions through traumatic memories…”

“Do you think having Steve and Sam around more would help? At least now that she recognizes them?”

“It might, yah… They come in for lunch and dinner sometimes, and she never seems to feel threatened by them, so maybe having them do stuff together will be good. It’ll distract her from the rest of it…”

“We should also think about setting her up with a therapist. This is going to take a major toll on her mental health, and she’s going to need help coping.”

He felt himself stifle at that.

He’d been told the same thing, but the thought of going in to talk to a shrink… He didn’t need it. He would be fine without one.

But maybe she wouldn’t…

“We can bring it up soon,” he nodded.

“And everything else is normal? She hasn’t been complaining of pain or anything, right?”

Her words from early this morning rang through his ears, but he shakes his head. “No, no she’s seemed alright. Her burns don’t seem to be bothering her anymore, although the spots with the stitches are obviously still tender.”

“Yah, they will be a while longer. It’s a good sign that she’s able to walk around though, so we’ll keep monitoring and having her stretch the areas out.”

“Alright, thanks Doc.”

“Of course. I’ll be back sometime after lunch to check her over.”

Bucky nodded, watching her leave before peering out the window to where the girl still slept in the bed.

The fact that she knew him, trusted him, was so strange. Especially because he was the Soldat and not him.

We’re the same person to her, he reminded himself.

The book crinkled loudly, so he loosened his grip, pushing his chair out to stand up. He was quiet as he made his way back into the room, dropping to his cot and leaning his back against the wall while propping up his knee.

We are the same person.

He dropped his new book and grabbed the one from beside his pillow, cracking it and letting himself focus on the words.

⁂

Bucky was only a few pages from the end when he heard an intake of breath. His eyes flew to Marlow, dropping the book while he stood and made his way to the end of the bed.

“Marlow,” he said quietly, trying to rouse her from whatever nightmare she was clearly having. “Ptichka,” he corrected, voice a little louder.

Her eyes flew open, but unlike last night when she’d sat up, this time she threw herself backwards, hitting the headboard hard enough that he heard the plastic creak.

“Ptichka, it’s—”

“Don’t,” she pleaded, voice quiet.

“It’s me,” he eased, backing up. “You’re safe.”

Her eyes searched his as they welled with tears.

She was terrified.

“I didn’t want to—but it didn’t matter.”

“It’s over, they can’t make you do anything else.”

“I couldn’t tell him no, Bucky,” she gasped, hands flying to her face. “He never let me say no.”

He wasn’t sure what she had a nightmare of, but he tried not to focus on the fact that she’d said his name.

His name.

Was she remembering me?

“Ptichka, it’s alright, its—”

“Don’t call me that,” she bit out, voice desperate. “He called me that—don’t call me that.”

“Okay, okay, Marlow, it’s over.”

She was panting, looking around as if searching for the threat. “It’s not, it’s—it’s in my head. It happened. I remember it. I could not say no. I did not like it.”

“I know it’s hard, but it’ll get easier. Do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head immediately, looking around the room, tears still dropping down her cheeks. “I did not want it to happen,” she whispered, voice so pained his fists clenched.

“I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Soldat. It was not you. It was never you.”

It’s gone.

Whatever fleeting recognition she had was gone.

“I’m sorry it happened… You didn’t deserve it. You were innocent,” he clarified.

That sparked her attention.

“But I was not. I killed people. I am as the General is; I killed the innocent.”

Bucky shook his head, knowing exactly what she was feeling and hating that she did because she didn’t deserve to. It was…

She was different. She was taken, and drugged and made to do things. She was good; had always been good, even before she was taken.

He was… it didn’t matter, it was just different.

“They made you do things. You didn’t have a choice because they took it away.”

“I did not even try to fight,” she argued, voice cracking.

“There was nothing left of you to try, Marlow. They took it all away.”

“Marlow did not kill those people. The Prizrak did. Marlow was… I do not know what Marlow was, but I am not Marlow. I am a killer.”

“I know what you’re feeling right now, but please, don’t blame yourself. You were made to do things; you couldn’t stop them.”

Her face broke at that, and a new wave of tears fell. “I know. I did not want it. I could not stop him. But I did not even fight, I just obeyed. Let it happen.”

“Because you had no way of opposing them. They were drugging you—that’s what the injections were. They stopped you from being able to oppose them. They had control of you completely.”

She looked down to her arm, as if watching a needle approach. “And I let them. I let them give me the injection; I let them control me.”

“No, Marlow, no,” he started, moving around the side of the bed, “they hurt you and made you into something you were not. It is not your fault. None of it is your fault.”

“It feels like it is.”

“I know,” he nodded. “It’ll get easier though. It’ll take time, but it will.”

“I want to forget. I do not want these feelings.”

He watched her, face tear streaked and body stiff, and all he wanted to do was wrap her in a hug. But he knew he couldn’t.

I’ll scare her.

She doesn’t want a hug from me.

“What do you need right now?” he asked gently.

“What do I need?”

“What would make it easier? What would make it better?”

“I am not sure… I do not want to think about it…”

“How about another movie? Maybe this time, I’ll get Sam to bring in lunch and we’ll all watch a movie?”

Her head shook before he’d even stopped talking. “I do not want him. He—he might be like them, I—”

“Okay,” he interrupted worriedly, not missing the flare of terror behind her eyes. “I won’t bring him in. Do… do you want me to leave? Do you want time by yourself?”

“No. No you… the things that they did, it was never you. I am… scared that it might happen again. But I know it was not you.”

“It wasn’t Sam or Steve either, but I won’t bring them in if you don’t want them around.”

“I know it was not them, but… even the ones that were… good did those things.”

“The Major never stopped them?”

Her body seemed to recoil at the name. “He was who started it. It was him that hurt me the most; he would not stop.”

“What did they do?” he asked voice barely audible. He didn’t want to scare her away with the question, but he also wanted to know. To know whether there was someway he could help.

But she shook her head, mouth closed tight and brows pulled in pain.

“It’s alright, you don’t have to tell me. Just… I’m serious Marlow, if you want to talk, you can let me know.”

“Soldat, that name is not mine,” she said sadly.

“But you said you didn’t want me to call you ptichka.”

She paused at that. “I do not remember telling you that… It is just…” she let out a frustrated breath. “You can call me that… ptichka…” she said quietly, as if she didn’t want to say it too loud.

“Are you sure?”

“I am not Marlow; it does not make sense for me to be called Marlow.”

“Alright… But tell me when you want me to call you something else, alright?”

“Mhmm.”

“Good. Now, how about another movie?”

“Yes. I would like that…. What movie are we going to watch?”

“I thought maybe another cartoon. Something happy.”

“Something happy would be good.”

So, they settled on Finding Nemo, something with no killing or war or fear.

And as they watched the movie in the room across the hall, with Marlow wrapped in a blanket and pressed against the table as if she wanted to be as close to the screen as possible, Bucky’s mind turned. Thinking over what had happened, of when she would open up—or rather, if she would open up.

He really thought it would be a good time for Sam and Steve to start coming around more, that they could start jogging her memory and bringing her back.

He poked at the stew in his bowl, uninterested in eating and uninterested in the movie.

That nightmare seemed to push her back a dozen steps… And now he really didn’t know what to do.

Chapter Text

She felt slightly better as they watched the movie.

At least her mind wasn’t so focused on the nightmare that—

No.

She wouldn’t think about it.

About halfway through, the Soldat met the Doctor in the hall, exchanging quiet words before he returned with her medication and a cup of water. She wasn’t sure why Doctor Green hadn’t come in herself, but she couldn’t help feeling slightly more relaxed that she wouldn’t have to face her.

As she swallowed the pill, the Soldat explained that as long as her healing continued, she would be released from the medial wing sometime soon.  

She wondered where she would go. Maybe her old room? She thought she might enjoy staying there more than the med room… There was something familiar about it, although she didn’t actually remember it. What exactly about it she enjoyed wasn’t clear, but she didn’t let herself think on it much and instead, focused on the orange and purple fish on screen.  

To her discomfort though, as it came to an end, she found her earlier thoughts returning and once again she was left to the buzz of her mind.

The Soldat was quiet beside her as they walked back across the hall, and she was aware of his eyes following her path to the bed, and then to where she curled up. It felt like if she could block out the rest of the world, it would keep her in that room, in that moment, and breathing.

“Is there something you want to do now?” the Soldat asked.

More distractions, she thought.

“Can we play again? With the cards?”

“Sure, do you want to play the same game again?”

“How many games are there?”

“Oh, hundreds,” he said gently, picking up the cards from where he’d left them on the side table. “How about Twenty-One? Well, not exactly Twenty-One, since its only us, but the premise is the same.”

“What is the objective?”

“To reach twenty-one. Each number card is worth its numbered value; one is one, two is two, and so on, but the cards with faces, Jack, Queen, King, are worth ten.”

“What about Ace?”

“Ace, is worth one or eleven. You decide depending on what you need… You start off with two cards; for example,” he said, pulling two cards off the top, “eight and seven. So that hand is worth fifteen. The player decides if they want another card to get closer to twenty-one.” The Soldat pulled the next card off the deck and flipped it, showing a red King. “See, that would have pushed the hand to twenty-five and the player would have lost.”

“So, you want as close to twenty-one as possible and cannot go over?” she clarified.

“Yes.”

“Alright, I think I understand.”

So, he dealt them both hands, and when she flipped her cards, she nodded.

Seven and one.

“Do you want another card?”

“Yes.”

He dropped one face down and she picked it up, seeing it was a nine. He did the same for himself, before looking back to her. “Another?”

“How many can we get?”

“As many as you want, but you risk going over.”

“Alright… no more cards.”

“Okay,” he nodded, drawing himself another. “Now, we can show each other our cards to see who wins.”

She nodded, turning her cards over for him to see.

“My twenty beats your seventeen, sorry,” he shrugged, looking up at her with that smile.

“Again.”

And so, they played, again and again.

She liked the speed of this one, it kept her focused and calculating, deciding whether the risk was worth taking or not. It reminded her of the missions she’d been on, of drafting plans—but not just for Hydra.

With Sam, and Steve, and the blond woman. And now she thought there was a brunette woman as well. Or maybe she had reddish hair, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that there was another woman who she would see occasionally, her words tilted in an accent similar to the Russian, but not quite the same.

The Russian…

She pulled her thoughts away, focusing on the twenty-one she had in her hand.

“Flip?”

“Mhmm,” she nodded, before dropping her cards and watching him with a look of victory.

“You’re beatin’ me at my own game,” he shook his head, though his face wasn’t upset. “How many hands is that now? Cause maybe we should go back to Go Fish so I have a chance at winning…”

Suddenly she had a memory, of laughter with Sam, while Steve watched them with a tired look.

“I have a game we can play,” she offered.

“Alright,” he cocked a brow, “what is this game?”

“I am not sure of the name, but we need to stand up.”

He gave her a confused look, but conceded, stepping off the bed and she did the same.

She held the cards in her hand, moving—shuffling—the way the Soldat had.

Was it necessary to shuffle them?

She wasn’t sure, but he had done it for both games they’d played, so she could only assume she should.

“What’s the objective?” he asked, echoing her words.

She felt enjoyment rise in her chest—no, that wasn’t the word… she was… excited. Not quite as excited as Doctor Green, but excited, nonetheless. Although she tried to tamp it down, not wanting to spoil the game.

“Ptichka?” he asked, voice light with a smile on his face.

She tried not to stifle at the name, instead holding tight to her excitement and looking at the Soldat dead in the eye before taking the cards into one hand and bending them into an arch.

“To pick up the cards,” she said, before letting the cards jump from her hand. They flew into the air around them, dropping like leaves off a tree and she couldn’t help the smile that came to her face at the sight of his.

He looked at her in amused confusion, head tilting as laughter escaped his throat.

The last of the cards dropped, and she felt her smile widen.

He is enjoying it.

So was she.

Her breath hitched, and a sound she hadn’t heard before escaped her.

Her laugh.

She didn’t have time to be stunned; she enjoyed it too much. It felt good—especially after the night and morning she had—and as the giggles didn’t cease, she found herself leaning against the bed, a hand pressed to her tummy as she looked from the cards to Bucky.

She couldn’t describe his smile; it was wide but gentle, and though his laughter had stopped, it was clear that he was still enjoying himself.

Good.

“Sam,” she giggled, trying to stop so she could explain, “Sam did that to Steve one time. He—he was not happy with us, but we laughed. It was in a jet, and I think he said that he was finding cards for a long time after. They got wedged behind seats and boxes, so we had to buy a new deck,” she said, chuckles slowly dying.

“You and Sam always loved to drive Steve insane…”

“A good thing?”

“Yah,” he breathed, “and it’s good that it’s coming back to you. It’s good to hear you laugh again.”

“I have not in a long time, have I?”

“I don’t think so,” he said sadly, although a gentle smile was still there.

“It feels good. I like it.”

“We’ll have to find you things to laugh about then.”

She nodded in agreement. “Yes.”

The smile dropped and he cocked a brow. “But now you have to pick up the cards.”

“That is not part of the game,” she argued, lips still pulled up.

“It definitely is.”

“Well, that is not fun,” she huffed, trying to push her face into something of unenjoyment, but the Soldat just laughed.

“That’s the risk of Fifty-Two Pick Up; sometimes the sucker doesn’t pick up the cards,” he shrugged.

“Does that make me the sucker?” she asked.

He let out another chuckle and nodded. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Well,” she huffed. “Can you help a sucker out?”

He frowned a little before grumbling, “Yes.”

She felt there was something she was supposed to say, and she wracked her brain as they started collecting cards, scraping and flipping until the messy handfuls were in one neat pile.

Then she remembered.

“Thank you!” she exclaimed, excited that she’d remembered the word. “Thank you,” she repeated, words gentler as she looked at where Bucky was sitting on the ground across from her, the box of cards in his hand and a startled look on his face. “I remembered the words and I got excited,” she explained as a new feeling sent warmth to her cheeks.

Bucky smiled.

He smiled a lot.

She liked that.

“It’s alright, I just figured you were passionate about thanking me.”

She bunched her brows, staring at him in question. “What is that tone?”

It was his turn to look at her confused.

“That tone, of what you said. It was the same tone the blond woman had spoken to Sam in, and I think you have used it before, but I don’t know what it is…”

“Sarcasm, I guess,” he shrugged. “It’s like you’re mocking your own words. Like if I were to say, wow, you’re really tall, I would be being sarcastic.”

“So, it is when you say a lie?”

“No, not necessarily, just when you are saying something that isn’t necessarily what you mean. Or when you want someone to know something without saying it explicitly. Or exaggerating… Damn, it’s difficult to explain, actually…”

“Did I say sarcastic things before?” she asked, shifting to lean her back against the bed.

“Hell, you may as well have only said sarcastic things,” he chuckled, propping a knee up and laying his arm across it “That’s why you and Sam got along so well; you two were always going back and forth.”

“Oh… Was I that way with Steve?”

“No, Steve is… more serious, I guess. You two are kind of opposites actually. But you worked well with each other and balanced each other out.”

“Hmm… And what about you and me? Before Hydra we knew each other, right?”

“Briefly. I met you the same day I got my new arm. It was the day that we had a battle. Do… do you remember those beasts? They had six arms and two legs and—”

“Yes,” she cut him off, mind traveling to her nightmare.

“That’s when we met. You were gone about three weeks later.”

That didn’t make sense.

“I am confused. You said you got your arm a month before I returned. If we met when you got your arm, and but I was gone for ten years—that just doesn’t make sense.”

His jaw tightened and he nodded. “It’s confusing. Do you want me to explain, or do you want me to let you remember?”

“Will it be easier to remember?”

“It might be less… confusing. There are things you’ll need to remember in order to understand.”

Frustration coursed through her. “Alright…”

“We were friends though,” he said gently, bringing her back to her previous question. “I teased you, probably more than I should have, but you always bit back.”

“That was a good thing?”

“Yah, it was.”

“Hmm. And what about the green one? Bruce?”

“You met him the same time as me, but before you left, he was busy helping build… a machine. To help with the aftermath of the battle.”

“So we were not close?”

“No, but you knew him.”

“And there were others too? That I knew? That are not around.”

“Yah, a lot went home to their families,” he explained. “Some we lost…”

“They died?”

“Yah,” he breathed.

“I don’t remember them…”

“No… but you will…”

The way he said that made her think it would be hard. She wondered what it would feel like; whether it would be similar to how she feels about killing innocent people, or whether it would be a different feeling.

It was unsettling not being able to remember… everything was so confusing, and more so as she tried to organize the thoughts already in her head.

“Did your memories need to come back? After Siberia?”

“Yah…”

“How did you keep track of them? They go by so fast, and I don’t know when they took place, it is so confusing…”

“For a long while, I didn’t do anything, I just let them float back. But I eventually got a notebook, wrote some stuff down, figured out a timeline for myself. There was so much, it probably wouldn’t have all fit anyways, but I only wrote a few things down, like markers.”

“That might make it easier… It just feels like so much; and it is not even all there yet.”

“It’s frustrating,” he nodded, “especially when something is so close, but you can’t pin it down.”

“Yes. That is what it all feels like; nothing before Hydra is clear…”

“But Hydra is?”

She just nodded, not trusting her words to come out without wavering.

“It’s alright if you don’t want to answer, but… when you were there, did they use a machine to clear your memories? To wipe you?”

She cocked her head, mind turning. “I am not sure… I don’t—”

And then she remembered it.

The fear.

“No, no—no—no, you’re not putting me in that thing!” she bit.

“Ah, so my ptichka recognizes this device?”

“Stop,” she growled, honing in on the Russian. “Don’t fucking do this.”

Her heart beat hard enough for her to feel it in her ears, watching helplessly as she was forced into the chair, feeling leather straps squeeze her chest and legs while her arms were locked into metal restraints.

“Don’t fucking do this,” she seethed, as if her words would suddenly shock the Russian into changing his mind. “Don’t,” she panted, “do this.”

“Don’t worry, my ptichka, it will be over soon.”

“I am not your ptichka, you fucking bast—”

She remembered the pain.

She didn’t know what to expect, but nothing could have prepared her for the feeling of having her brain scrambled. Fried. Blended.

There were no words that could describe it—not that she could even attempt, considering all she could comprehend, was blinding pain.

She remembered the emptiness.

She was forgetting how to be alive.

It wasn’t long before she couldn’t remember not remembering. She didn’t know what happened before that moment, or what would come next.

Then, she just didn’t know.

She simply was.

She remembered how that emptiness faded slightly, only to be replaced by a new type of emptiness. One that stayed for years; where she couldn’t speak out, couldn’t argue, couldn’t decide.

“I’m sorry,” the Soldat said.

“They did,” she nodded, not even hearing him. “Over and over, until I was nothing. They just kept doing it—I was so scared every time, but I didn’t know what was coming. I just knew it was bad. And it hurt.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“They… they did it to you too, didn’t they? I think I knew. I don’t know how, but I knew that they did it to you.”

“Yah, they did it to me too…”

“I am sorry. I wish I could have stopped it from happening to you. If I knew, I should have tried.”

“What happened to me was not your fault. I’d been with them for years, long before you came—my mind was gone when you came.”

Her brain once again started to feel overwhelmed. “How could you have been there longer than I was if I left you? When did they take you?”

He looked so at war with himself, whether he should answer or not.

“Is this another thing that will come with time?” she bit.

He nodded. “What happened… it’s so difficult to explain, I don’t know if I could do it in a way that you would understand without you remembering it…”

“Alright,” she whispered, the feeling of being lost almost suffocating.

But then her mind returned to the memories that just reappeared, and her heart sunk. She could almost feel the pain now; the sharp ache that threatened to split her skull. The feeling of nothingness that came afterwards.

How had she lived like that for such a long time?

How could she have obeyed them?

What if they find me again?

She wasn’t sure if the Russian was still alive, but others could have carried on his work, they could know about her, they could track her down. She didn’t want to go back—couldn’t go back—but she’d tried to fend them off before and it hadn’t worked. They broke her. Like the Russian said, he made her into the perfect soldier. Made her do whatever they wanted.

And they could do it again.

Someone would—

“Ptichka, take a breath.”

They were coming.

“Come on, I know you can do it, count your breaths—"

“They’re coming,” she argued. “They’re going to take us again, they’re going to hurt us again. I don’t want that—but they can—"

He was suddenly in front of her, eyes locking with hers. “They’re not coming, I promise. They can’t hurt us anymore.”

“But what if they do? I tried to fight them, I didn’t want to be there but they kept me. They can do it all again—I don’t want to become like that again,” she said shakily.

“They won’t—”

She shook her head, not wanting to be placated when there was such a big threat behind them. “They could find a way! I cannot go back, I cannot,” she pleaded.

He reached forwards then, grabbing her cheeks gently to keep her still. “They’re gone.”

She froze. “What?”

“They’re gone. Steve got rid of the main players and then you guys tracked down the last of them,” he said before his face fell and he shut his eyes, letting out a frustrated sigh.

How… how could she have tracked down the last of them? She’d only just arrived; just became active, just—

More memories flooded her brain. Like his words were all it needed to unlock a history she had no idea was there.

It was still only flashes; working on computers, sneaking through halls, nights on uncomfortable couches, but she knew that it was all to track people down. She remembered time in hot, stuffy rooms within sand colored buildings, and drinking apple tea on rooftops at night.

She remembered finding people, not just Hydra, but others, and stopping them. Trafficking rings, weapons manufacturers, larcenists—anyone who was profiting off injustice.

Sam, and Steve, and… the blond and brunette women. Their names were so close… but she couldn’t think of them.

But it wasn’t their names that were making her head spin. It was that the memories she had that looked recent. Modern.

The technology, the clothing, the world looked recent.

The buildings she walked through weren’t carpeted in brown shag or yellow linoleum, there weren’t large computers or boxy machines. It all looked like it did today.

How?

The word repeated in her mind, over and over.

I was frozen in 1979.

How could the memories with Steve and Sam be from before that?

Wait—how could they be from before that? They were young. They looked the same.

How?

She thought back to Hydra, to those early memories where she’d been put into that machine.

What was before that?

She squeezed her eyes shut, the hands slipping from her cheeks as she forced the back of her head into the mattress. Her mind was a hurricane and she couldn’t find the center. Memories flew past, but it was like she was trying to catch the storms water with her hands; she could get drops, but it wasn’t enough.

“I don’t understand,” she grit.

“Do you remember the stones?”

Stones.

The word sent a whole new frenzy of memories, of battle, clearer now that it had been, and a large purple man with a golden glove—no, gauntlet—that had colorful jewels inlaid within it.

She knew those stones had awesome power, and that she was afraid of them.

They killed me, she remembered.

That man killed me. But I am alive.

She was in a forest but then she was being brought through a golden ring of sparks to continue the fight in the wake of some explosion.

Stones.

They ended up on the hand of a man in a red suit.

‘Return the stones.’

‘Remember, you have to return the stones to the exact moment you got them or you’re gonna open a bunch of nasty alternative realities.’

What did that mean?!

Return the stones.

Return the stones to the exact moment you got them.

1970, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2023.

1970.

1970.

1970.

That is when they took me.

I… was in a cell.

That is when I saw the Soldat for the first time.

But I called him something else. Something else. But that is his name—no, he has a name. A real name.

But he was the Soldat then. He hurt me. They were asking me questions and they hurt me to get answers.

What did they want me to tell them?

“They took me,” she mumbled, opening her eyes and focusing on the ceiling. “They took me into a room, and hurt me because I would not tell them… I would not tell them who I was, but I could not because… because… I don’t—”

The suit.

It let her travel. To that location. To that… time.

I could not tell them about the suit.

“I could not tell them about the suit, about how I got there, so they took me. They wanted to know who I was. What the suit could do. How I knew things… There were different rooms… I was not always in Siberia, but they moved me there,” she explained shakily. “They hurt me. To make me tell them, but I knew that if I told them, something bad would happen. But then the—the Russian, he thought I would be helpful. He put me in that machine, and I couldn’t get away—I tried to fight them, but they put me in it, and I couldn’t think anymore. I was so empty, I wasn’t me, Bucky, I was…”

Bucky.

That was his name.

She looked up, meeting his eyes. “Bucky,” she repeated. “That’s your name.”

He watched her sadly but managed to push a shadow of a smile to his lips. “Yah.”

“They made us train together. We went on missions together. You were like me; you were the only one like me… But,” she realized, “it was not you, was it?”

He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t me.”

“But you said that those things happened to you,” she argued, worry building in her stomach.

If it wasn’t him, who is he?

“I know it’s confusing, but the Soldat you knew was me before, but not me now. When I was in Siberia, you weren’t there.”

“What do you mean you but not you? How was I not there?”

“The suit let you—”

“I know, travel to a different time,” she interrupted. “But you were there with me.”

“It was… a different me. It didn’t happen in this time, it happened in a separate time.”

His words reminded her of what Bruce said, and suddenly, it made sense.

‘Remember, you have to return the stones to the exact moment you got them or you’re gonna open a bunch of nasty alternative realities.’

“Separate reality,” she mumbled. “I was in a different… timeline?” she asked as a hazy conversations bubbled up in her memory.

“Yes… and so the Soldat you knew wasn’t me. I don’t know what happened in Siberia when you were there… I wasn’t there with you.”

She felt something inside her break. Because the one person who she thought knew what happened—what she did, what they did—actually didn’t. She was alone in what happened.

She remembered feeling alone in those cells—she knew no one was coming for her, but she held some type of assurance that she would get out.

But she didn’t.

And now she was alone again.

Her eyes welled with tears for the second time, hating the emotions she was feeling. Hating that she couldn’t make them stop.

In that moment, she wished she was back in Siberia; empty.

“I have to remember alone,” she whispered, voice cracking as tears dropped.

He moved immediately, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against his chest. Her hands fisted his shirt as a sob was muffled into his shoulder, and they didn’t stop when his hands tightened around her.

“I’m with you. You won’t be alone.”

“I don’t want this,” she cried. “I don’t want to remember. Everything they did and everything I did, it’s… I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not alone, I promise you’re not alone. I’m here, Sam, Steve, they’re here. I might not know what exactly happened, but I know Siberia. I know the pain.”

“But you have no idea what I have done,” she said, voice breaking.

When he found out, he would look at her like a monster. Like Hades, who wanted people to suffer. Because when she was with Hydra, she hurt people, made them afraid, dragged out their deaths for the amusement of the agents.  

“No, but I know what they made me do. I know it wasn’t your choice, but I also know it doesn’t matter what I say. It still feels like you. It hurts—I know.”

“Why does it hurt?” she asked, voice so faint. “I don’t want it to hurt, I want it to go away. I want to be empty again.”

“No,” he shook his head, “you would miss out on your life if you were like that again. You’d never get to laugh with Sam, or irritate Steve. Or eat melon or drink coffee. If you were empty, you would never get to enjoy those things again. I know it’s hard, I know, but you’ll make it out the other side. The pain will get easier, you’ll find ways to manage it, to start moving forward. You will. You’re strong; if one of us makes it out, it’ll be you.”

She pulled back to look at him. “Me? I—I don’t understand, you do all those things, has it not gotten easier?”

His jaw flexed over and over, as if he were biting back his words.

Her throat burned. “How could I get past it all if you can’t? You’re—you’re a fucking superhero for God’s sake, I cannot—I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want this,” she shook her head.

“You can. You will… You’re strong.”

She shook her head again. “And you’re not?” she whispered.

His lips pursed as he watched her. “I’m trying, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get past what I’ve done. If I’ll ever stop being that man.”

In that moment, he looked broken. As broken as she felt. It was like he’d given up and was just living with the things Hydra had done to him.

Maybe that is what he was doing. Maybe that’s what she should do.

But he had so much faith in her. He barely knew her, and yet he believed in her. Maybe he needed the same; someone to believe in him. Someone who understood.

“I am not strong enough to get through this alone—I don’t want to be alone again… and so the only way I’m trying is if you try with me,” she said, throat still tight with tears.

“It’s not that easy; the things I’ve done, I can’t just come back from that. There are consequences.”

“But I did the same, how could I come back from it?”

“Those things don’t exist here,” he said gently, reaching to wipe a few of her tears away. “Here, you’re Marlow Hendrix, the woman who helped save the world, the woman who fought with Captain America to stop bad people. You haven’t hurt anyone here.”

“That doesn’t mean I can forget what I have done,” she bit weakly. “Those things are real, they were real people that I killed, that I tortured, only, I don’t know how to get back to face what I’ve done. How I could get back to—”

“You’re not going back,” he interrupted, hands tightening around her slightly as if he was trying to keep her from walking back to the machine. “No. You’re not risking it.”

“So I’m just supposed to live with what I’ve done? You want me to move on, ignoring the blood on my hands?”

“I… I just want you to do better than me. To live. To not be stuck in the same hell.”

“And I want you to have the same chance. I can’t do this by myself—”

“You won’t be by yourself; you have the others—”

“They don’t know,” she whispered weakly. “They never could. But I won’t just leave you behind. As selfish as I’m being, I need someone... Please.”

“I don’t think I’m the person you need. I’m not… I’m not good. Or a good support. I won’t be able to help you in the ways you need.”

“Please.”

His eyes flitted between hers, and she could almost feel the look of pain that was written across his face. After what felt like an eternity, he nodded.

The action had her wrapping her arms around his neck and a wave of relief flowing through her.

“You’re not selfish,” he mumbled into her hair. “I…” he trailed off, shaking his head slightly, “I need someone too,” he whispered.

He sounded ashamed of the fact, and she nodded, trying to convey that she understood and that it was okay. “And you are good. You have not left my side, you have watched over me, helped me learn. You help just by being nearby… There is more good in you than you believe.”

He didn’t say anything, only buried his head into her shoulder while his arms tightened around her torso.

⁂

Neither of them knew how long they’d been on the ground for, just breathing through the stress of what had just happened, but eventually they pulled apart.

In that time, the girl’s memory had become sharper and sharper, until she was able to create a rough line of her history.

The oldest ones seemed to be deeper rooted; not necessarily clear, but the most… tangible.  

She remembered flashes of her family—or what would be considered family. A mother and a man she thought must have been her father, although she wasn’t certain. She remembered her childhood home, the carpet that smelled musty, the TV that hummed with electricity, the closet door that never stayed shut. She also remembered the screams that echoed through the halls, and the creek behind her house that she would escape to when they got too loud.

When she was older, she left that house, moving to a country where she spoke little of its language. She remembered being in front of computers, being bored. And then she remembers being angry. Always angry. That people were being hurt, that for so long the people responsible got away with it.

Hydra, she realized. She was mad at Hydra.

She wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing, but she knew it had something to do with what the Soldat—Bucky—had said about her tracking down the last of them. Because her next phase of memories were of Sam, Steve, the two women, and passing faces. Some were friendly, some were not. Some helped them; letting them hide away and offering them food. Others, tried to kill them, but that seemed normal.

Her time with them didn’t seem long. It was fleeting, really. But there were such strong emotions connected to that short time, and it was unlike anything she’d experienced before. She’d never felt the need to throw herself into danger to protect another altruistically, but she knew she had. And she believed she would do it again. It was a strange feeling to know that that was there, but being unable to remember why.

Fear and heartbreak came after that. Fear that she knew was connected to her nightmare of those creatures, and heartbreak that was connected to the losses of battle that Bucky had mentioned. But again, she couldn’t remember why she felt it. She didn’t know those who had died, so all she was left with was a hollow ache and questions.

And then, her memory brought her to Hydra. She still wasn’t sure exactly how or why she’d been brought into their clutches other than travelling back in time, but she remembered pain. Drawn out, deliberate pain.

To get answers, she reminded herself.

They needed answers because she’d told them secrets she wasn’t supposed to know. They were determined because she’d stupidly and unwittingly convinced them that she was a spy. And then somehow, they became aware of the suit. Again, she couldn’t remember exactly how they found out about it, but it seemed that every time they interrogated her, they wanted to know about it.

She could only assume it was those questions that led them to creating a suit of their own. One that made her nauseous to think about. One that in training, had her tearing through people like they were nothing more than fog.

She realized, or rather, remembered, that the feeling she had about killing people was guilt. So much guilt she couldn’t understand it.

She didn’t know exactly who she was before Hydra, but she knew as if it were her very essence that she never wanted to hurt anyone. And that made remembering all of those faces so much worse.

It seemed that everything around her reminded her of someone. The color of the blanket on her bed was the color of a man’s suit that she’d chased through halls before ripping out his throat. The near silent beeping of a machine next to her sounded so much like the tone of the telephone that had come off its receiver after she’d smashed someone’s head into their heavy oak desk.

Her victims were everywhere around her, but no matter how painful, she didn’t want to be blinded to it. The least she could do was endure a reminder for what she’d done.

And so she sat, almost numbly, for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

When Bucky brought her food, she impassively took it, eating only because she knew she needed to. And when he asked her questions, she did her best to answer; if only to keep up her agreement to him, but everything in her mind distracted her.

He didn’t seem to mind though; he just sat on his cot, checking in with her everyone once in a while to see if there was anything she needed. She was glad he didn’t push her to talk about what she was remembering, although she wasn’t sure she could even if he did.

It wasn’t long after she’d curled up under the blankets that he’d shut the lights off, calling a quiet good night before his cot squeaked as he sat back down. She suddenly felt more aware of herself and him in the room. Not necessarily discomfort, but she realized how strange their situation was. How he might feel uncomfortable for needing to stay in the room with her.

But despite those feelings, she didn’t say anything. She just squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to escape her reality for at least a moment.  

⁂

Bucky knew she was asleep by her breathing, and although it was like she was teasing him, rubbing it in that she could sleep, his mind wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Part of it may have been because he didn’t want another nightmare; last nights was enough to make him wish he would never sleep again, but the other part was because he was nervous for Marlow.

Her memories were hitting her hard—harder and faster than they’d hit him, and he had no idea what to do. He expected it to take months, but in the last twenty-four hours it was like she’d turned into a new person.

The way she acted, the way she spoke, she was more and more like her old self, but it was happening way too quickly.

And whatever she was remembering… God, it seemed bad.

He rolled onto his back, mind turning.

He remembered the 1970’s; the missions he ran, the agent’s he worked with, and he wondered whether any of them had been the same as in her timeline. Whether they did actually share some experience stalking through the same halls and tracking their victims.

It was a morbid thought, made worse by the slightly relieved feeling that accompanied it. He couldn’t help it; it was some instinct to want to be together with someone—to share the same experiences, the same traumas—in the hopes of having some mutual understanding of pain.

Morbid, his mind repeated.

He wouldn’t wish his experiences on anyone, yet it didn’t stop his mind from finding some comfort in the fact.  

I’m probably going to Hell…

What am I thinking? I’m definitely going to Hell. If not what I did for Hydra, then for everything I did in the war.

He sat up then, letting his legs swing over the edge of the cot while he dropped his head into his hands, elbows resting on his thighs.

He already knew it was going to be a long night.

Chapter Text

Her dreams had been a flurry of hazy memories; so many it was like she was reliving her life. They didn’t set off an erratic thumping in her chest, or cause her to wake up in a panic like she had before, but she wasn’t at ease through the night.

She remembered enough that before her eyes even opened, she was filled with dread. Enough that all she wanted was to fall back into unconsciousness; to be away from the guilt and fear and burden of her past. And she tried; letting her mind fall quiet and refusing to move her body, but despite the tiredness that seemed to weigh her down, it wasn’t enough for her to fall asleep again.

So, she sat up, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes as she pulled in a slow breath. The quiet beeping beside her reminded of her of the dial tone of a phone beside the bloody mess on an oak desk, and she wished she could turn it off.

Selfish, she thought.

“Morning.”

She flinched a little at the voice, slowly dragging her hands down her face and looking over to where her companion sat on his cot.

“Morning, Bucky,” she mumbled, trying to push even a hint of a smile to her lips.

She couldn’t.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, standing and walking towards her slowly.

She knew he was gauging her, whether she would remember what happened, whether she would be scared of him. She watched as he stopped behind the chair, bracing his forearms on its back.

She thought of his question. “I remember you,” she whispered, pulling her knees up to rest her chin atop them. She could barely get her next words out, “I remember what I did.”

He nodded, dropping his eyes a moment. “Do you remember you?”

“Some of me. I know… My mother. And her boyfriend, and what they did. I remember leaving… going to Germany. I worked at a tech agency, doing security support. And then being with Steve and Sam… then fighting—dying. It was… tense for a while and then I was with Hydra… And everything they did is… clear. Everything I did is clear,” she muttered.

“The worst always finds a way to stay with us,” he said quietly, moving around the chair to take a seat. He leaned forward, opening his mouth before closing it again, clearly hesitant about whatever he was about to say. “Do you… remember how Hydra got you?”

She wished she didn’t, but she nodded. “I was caught returning the Pym particles… There was a security guard looking for intruders, Steve and… Tony, I think. Hank and him chased me out of the lab but I was caught by an agent. By the time I realized he was an undercover Hydra agent, it was too late. He pulled me in for questioning and I…” she let out a huff of annoyance, “I engaged my suit to try and escape, but he destroyed the vial I had. I tried to convince him I was a Hydra operative there for a mission; I told him secrets, stuff no one should know but… he sussed me out and got me unconscious. When I woke up, I was in a cell… he questioned me and—” she stopped herself short, not wanting to say what Bucky had done to her. Not him, but him. “I’m not sure how long I was there, a week or so, but I was moved to Siberia. They needed to know where I got my information, who else knew, and where I got my suit. I knew I couldn’t tell them. I was there for a while; few months, a year, no idea, but one day you—or, the Soldat came in, but I thought it was you. I thought we were back in Wakanda, and I was so relieved to see someone that I—” she let out a puff of air, embarrassed at her stupidity. “I called you Bucky, and when the Russian heard, he got upset. Told me never to say that name again and started questioning me. I wouldn’t answer and I thought he was going to kill me… But when I woke up, he told me I was joining them, then he put me in that… machine. It…” she shook her head, frustrated with the rabbit hole she spiraled into. “It doesn’t matter. That’s how I was caught. Because of my stupidity. If I hadn’t of—”

“This isn’t your fault Marlow,” Bucky interrupted, leaning forward. “None of what happened is your fault.”

“If I hadn’t of said what I said, I could have gotten out. And then I wouldn’t have done the things I did.”

“That they made you do.”

There was a spark of anger within her that she couldn’t douse before her mouth opened. “Those people still died, regardless of who was pulling the strings. You know what that’s like, don’t try to coddle me by telling me the shit you don’t believe yourself,” she bit.

He didn’t back down though. “I’m telling you the truth…” he countered, voice hard. “I know you well enough that if you had the choice, you wouldn’t have done those things; wouldn’t have let those things happen to you. They were forced onto you.”

She felt the truth bare down on her further, reminding her that she didn’t fight them. Her mind broke and she became theirs, free to do with or make do whatever they wanted.

Her throat burned but she forced her voice to be steady. “So that means I shouldn’t feel pain or guilt? Your guilt is gone because they forced you?”

“No,” he breathed, “but that… it’s different. It was war. You were innocent, you couldn’t control what happened to you.”

“No,” she shook her head, “you were dragged down a mountain after falling off a train; you couldn’t control what happened. You didn’t deserve what happened just because it was war. But I dug myself into a hole that I couldn’t get myself out of; that is my responsibility. If I had of gotten that agent’s gun, or waited to get the vial or something, I wouldn’t have been turned into the perfect soldier who murdered innocent people. I made the first move by putting myself into the situation, they just took the opportunity for a free body.”

“Listen to yourself; they took advantage of you. They did that.”

Hearing those words sent a cold wave through her and a pit formed in her stomach as she shook her head. “I did it to myself. I walked right into their hands. I became what I tried to destroy.”

“Marlow—”

“I need a minute,” she interrupted, pushing the blanket off and standing.

“Marlow, wait,” he opposed, but he met her eyes and the exhausted look she gave him was enough to knock some sense into him. “I’m sorry,” he said guiltily before taking a step back, “I… I don’t mean to push, I just want to help.”

She nodded. “I know that. But sometimes there isn’t anything to be helped. Nothing is going to change what I’ve done,” she mumbled, moving to pass him.

“It will get easier,” he said gently.

She paused beside him, eyes downcast. “I don’t want it to,” she shook her head. “That would mean accepting. Or forgetting. What I’ve done doesn’t deserve that.”

She didn’t wait for his reply before stepping away, but heard him let out a quiet sigh as she slipped into the hall. From there, the path she walked felt habitual, letting her mind go on autopilot until she reached a closed door in a far wing.

Her room.

She walked in, looking around the nearly empty room before dropping onto the bed and letting her head fall into her hands.

What she’d told Bucky was true; she didn’t want it to get easier, but at the same time, she did. Of course she did. She didn’t want to be reminded of what she’d done, didn’t want to remember that she’d tortured people and scared them. That wasn’t her. That wasn’t what she believed in. But it happened, so how could she ever wish to forget? That was selfish.

She knew what she felt still wasn’t enough consequence for what she’d done, but what else was she to do? What she’d done hadn’t happened here; no one would charge her let alone believe what she’d done.

She was free; and that was the worst punishment.

She pulled her hands away, eyes landing on the black plastic box in the corner. The papers on top were in a messy pile, corners and edges peeking out as if she’d dropped them in a hurry.

She thought that she did. She remembered how they were about organizing resources for those who had been snapped, and she remembered reading it and feeling overwhelmed. She wasn’t sure now whether it was because she had been snapped, or maybe because of all the people displaced and confused. It also could have been all of the work that needed to be done that she wasn’t sure she could do.

Maybe it was all of it.

And although those worries felt so far removed from herself in that moment, they weren’t. Nine years ago was now. She hadn’t escaped the work or proximity to the aftermath of an apocalypse, she just now had to deal with that on top of Hydra’s bullshit.

Great.

She slipped off the bed and inched forward, pushing the papers together before dropping them to the ground and opening the box.

There wasn’t much inside; a tablet, some clothes, a bag.

She knew she didn’t own much. She had to live scarcely before everything went to shit, so she’d left her apartment with the majority of her belongings still inside and went after the rogue Avengers.

Pulling the tablet into her hands, she pressed the button on the side despite the quiet thought arguing that it wouldn’t work. But then, as the AI chimed out a “retinal scan complete,” she reminded herself that it had only been two weeks since it had been used. The tablet seamlessly unlocked and brought her to a hub of applications, and as her eyes scanned over the array, she found herself reminded of each one and its location.

It was like a life line back when she was with Steve, so it was comforting to have it back in her hands. To have something tangible from that time and even before then.

The tablet itself was nearly a decade old, but it’d gotten so many repairs and upgrades through the years that it was hardly recognizable to its original state. The operating system for example, was barely two years old; she’d worked with a reliable contact to design the apps, making sure they weren’t traceable or hackable. She was good with programming, but they were better. They installed firewalls and virus’, made sure her location wasn’t discoverable, protected them from remote and direct access. She wasn’t sure what happened to that contact, or even who they were, but she hoped they were alright.

Her fingers tapped one of the inconspicuous squares on the right side of the array, letting the tablet scan her features once again before it loaded a chronological timeline of her operations.

She knew the risk of keeping notes like that, so they were minimal, short details about targets, what they were doing, where they were sent after arrest. She started logging back when she started decrypting Hydra files at eighteen, and didn’t stop until she was forced to by a purple alien.

She scrolled down, getting closer and closer to the summer of 2016.

In the years leading up, she’d started to make a name for herself in the anti-Hydra servers where people traded decrypted tidbits. They didn’t know her, but they knew her work; like how she could weasel herself into government records to pull information when the Hydra files couldn’t offer something. She wasn’t sure how many people she’d demasked living the quiet suburban life after their years of terror with that group, but she never felt it was enough.

Someone sought her out to help with a difficult firewall, and next thing she knew, she was realizing she was an accomplice for some vigilante who obviously had the same interests as her. So, one day, she faked a communication from a target.

It was some bull about a secret meeting or something, but it was enough to bring the vigilante—or vigilantes—to par.

She remembered the office; the burgundy faux wood desk, the black leather rolling chair, the stuffiness of the room despite the bitter draft that leaked through the old window. That was where the only light came from as well; it was just enough for her to see the space around her, but nothing past the open door. The worst part was how deadly quiet in there—apart from the annoying clock on the wall.

She always hated analogue clocks.

Was digital so bad? At least they didn’t make noise.

She sat on the edge of the desk, one leg crossed over the other while an arm was propped behind her, making her look as if she were lounging in the sun—not waiting to ambush someone.

It wasn’t really ambushing, considering they were… associates.

In the months that they’d been working together, she assumed that’s what they were. Though she was sure that the person she was working with wasn’t just one person; there was no way someone alone could deal with that many goonies and targets without being taken out themselves.

It also wasn’t an ambush, because she wasn’t attacking, she wanted to talk. Wanted to offer close-contact assistance. No more working remotely from behind her computer and waiting hours for communication back and forth—she wanted in.

Directly in.

What else did she have to do?

Working at the Berlin branch of TSI was too mundane, too boring. And while helping companies block people from hacking into their records and data was… paying the rent, she was really good at hacking into records and data. It felt like a waste of time when during her spare hours she was actually making a difference—not just protecting some 1% asshole-CEO’s company. Besides, she only had so much time in the evenings and on weekends to be helping, so why not just do it full time and in person?

She had to admit, she didn’t think the plan through.

There was a good chance that she would get the shit kicked out of her for crossing whoever she was meeting, or even by accident if they thought she was a target, but she figured she would be able to talk her way out of it.

She was good at that.

Sometimes.

Sometimes she got her ass beat, but other times, she got away.

It was 50/50… She could roll with that.

Of course, she tried to imagine the person on the other side of the screen every time they communicated, but she definitely wasn’t expecting a bearded man with more muscles than she thought humanly possible to appear in the door way.

It happened quickly, but not too quickly for her mind to not scream ‘Captain Fucking America is standing in front of me.’

He’d sent her a worried look, scanning the room quickly before his chin tilted up with the realization that there wasn’t a threat against her. She was the threat.

“Care to explain what’s going on here, Miss?”

She just stared at him; the blue eyes, round lips, chorded arms—

At least try to focus, she scolded herself.

She’d prepared a speech—she was always prepared—but the words seemed to disappear from her mind in a heartbeat.

Helpful.

“I’m Marlow. And you’re here to hire me.”

Steve Rogers cocked a brow, fingers looping into his belt. “I’m assuming you’re the one we’ve been working with?”

She nodded.

“So, why would we hire you when you already work with us?”

“Because you need me in person, and I want in. Officially.”

Only a beat passed before his hands fell to his sides. “No, it’s not going to happen kid. Go home,” he said before turning.

“Captain, I wasn’t asking.”

“Oh?” he hummed, turning back to her with his brows raised. “And what was it? An order? You are out of your element. Forget you saw me.”

“I want to help,” she called, hands gripping the edge of the desk. “I can help.”

“How old are you?” he asked quietly.

“Twenty.”

“There is no need for a twenty year old to be involved in what we’re doing.”

“I’ve been involved for the last four months.”

“Yes, and there was no way for anyone to trace you to us, or us to you. But now you’re putting all of us at risk.”

She hadn’t thought of that.

“I’m sorry. But I want to help. Communicating has been too difficult, especially with how often your location changes and how many burners you drop. If I worked with you, I would be able to help constantly; there would be no lag time.”

He shook his head. “You would be putting yourself into danger—not to mention throwing your life away. If you were caught helping us, you would be branded an accomplice and enemy of the State. You don’t need that, and I won’t be responsible for letting you put yourself into that situation. Go home and keep yourself safe.”

“You’re not responsible for anything,” she stated. “I make my own choices; I want to help. The world has too many bad people who get away with their crimes because there either aren’t enough protective services in place, or because those that are, are corrupt. I can’t just sit by while that happens. I want to help—that’s why I helped the first time and why I’m not taking no for an answer. Imagine how much more could be done if I could tell you, real time, when a threat was going to appear? Or when a target was moving, or when they communicated with one of their contacts? You’ve already lost trails because I couldn’t get a hold of you before they split.”

He just watched her, brows drawn and obviously unconvinced.

The clock ticked obnoxiously, and she was ready to argue some more, but then there was another voice.

“She has a point,” someone said, before a blond woman appeared from the darkened doorway. “Having her around would fix a lot of our issues.”

“Not without creating more,” Steve countered. “For one thing it’s physically dangerous; people could get a hold of her and hurt her, and for another, if law enforcement finds us, her life is gone. Do you understand that?” he asked, turning to her. “You could spend the rest of your life in prison if you were caught with us. There is no amount of bail that would get you out, no community service to make your sentence shorter. It would be you in a jail cell the rest of your life.”

She thought it over before shrugging. “Might as well go out with a bang. I think working with the Avengers would be a pretty good cell-block story.”

He let out an annoyed sigh, but the woman, Natasha Romanoff, smirked. Just barely.

“I want to keep helping,” she continued, “and I think the best way for me to help is to be with you guys. I can protect our communication lines and our tech.”

His jaw was tight as he watched her before shutting his eyes a moment. When he opened them, she knew she was in.

“It’s not glamourous,” he started, crossing his arms over his chest, “it’s not even comfortable. We’re risking our lives when we go after targets, and we get banged up. If you’re caught, you could be killed. You’ll need to keep up—that means training with us, and letting us test you. Proving yourself. We don’t always eat, and we don’t always sleep, and almost never on a comfortable bed. You’ll be giving up access to the world and living off the grid. No contact with friends, family—no one. You won’t be able to use the money in your bank account, you won’t be able to go home for holidays, it’s either you’re in 100% or you’re out. There’s no between.”

She pursed her lips and nodded. “Good thing I’m an impulsive decision maker. Let’s go.”

She scanned the screen, eyes running over the numbers and words, but her mind didn’t register what they said because she was focused on the blond woman in her memories.

Natasha, she remembered, Nat.

Why can’t I remember more about her?

It was Natasha. She knew her, she remembered laughing and training and talking, but it was all so… blurry.

It was the same for… Wanda… She remembered her having auburn hair, but it hadn’t always been that color. It was brown before. And she wasn’t around in the end as often as she had been when she first met her. She started disappearing for days, then weeks on end, not telling anyone where she was going. But the time she had been around her was still unclear… it seemed like everyone except Bucky, Steve, and Sam were unclear in her memory.

There were others she was pretty sure she knew but didn’t remember well, like James Rhodes and Clint Barton. And then there were others she couldn’t place that she only knew from TV or in passing from battles. All she knew was that they were around her at some point.

It was such an unsettling feeling—being almost herself. Like it would only take one small shove and she’d be the girl who stepped onto the platform nine years ago.

But she wasn’t sure if that shove would ever actually come.

She wasn’t that girl anymore—she was a woman now, a completely different woman who was lost within her own mind.

And she hated that thought; that she was lost. She hated the self-pity and the self-loathing and the self-animosity that was filling her entire being.

That wasn’t her; she wasn’t one to dwell on her situation but to find a way to get through it; that’s what she did her entire life. But she had no idea how to get through what she was feeling at that moment. She had become the thing she once fought so hard against; she brough terror and death to people on behalf of the organization she hated.

Now, thinking back to Hydra, it felt like a whole different life.

I guess it was.

She wasn’t herself; she didn’t even know what she was, she just did.

Another wave of cold dread passed through her body, making her wish she could curl in on herself.

Everything she did.

Everything they did to her.

Everything.

All because of one stupid mistake.

She blindly replaced the tablet into the bin before snapping the lid back on, then picked up the sheets of paper, hoping for something to occupy her mind. She started reading through the document, the vaguely familiar words explaining how some of the world governments were creating an organization to support victims of the Blip. There were dozens of plans and ideas as to how the world should move forward, but nothing had been decided yet. There was still so much that was unknown.

She heard in passing what the last five years were like. It sounded… dreary. Depressed. Empty. Like everyone was moving forward because they had no other choice.

Maybe that’s what I have to do.

Just… move forward.

She almost jumped when there was a knock at the door, and when she looked to the side, she found Bucky leaning against the door frame.

“Doctor Green wants to check in with you. I told her I’d let you know, but there’s no rush.”

She nodded, trying once again to push a smile to her lips. It was almost there, but probably looked more like a grimace. “I’m coming,” she mumbled, straightening the papers in her hold, and standing. She was only a few steps into the hall, and she already felt the day looming over her. Of everything replaying in her mind, over and over. “Bucky?” she asked, voice louder than she’d meant.

If he was startled, he didn’t show it. “Mhmm?”

“You… you have books right?”

“Yah, you want to read some?” he asked, lips turned up slightly.

She nodded. “If you don’t mind. I need stuff to keep me… distracted,” she said honestly.

“Course. I get it. You can read which ever one’s you want.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded to his door a few feet away and she followed him over, hovering in the hall as he slipped into his room. “How many do you want?”

“Just one for now.”

“Which one? You can read the synopses if—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she interrupted gently. “Just anything.”

“Okay,” he hummed quietly, grabbing one from his dresser before rejoining her in the hall. “Read that one already,” he said, handing her the paperback, “let me know if you see the ending coming; I definitely didn’t,” he chuckled.

She was glad he was smiling and laughing around her, because it was at least a short moment of respite between stretches of unease.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, though it really wasn’t for the book. She couldn’t bring herself to explain what she was thanking him for, let alone identify what else was behind those words, but he met her eyes and she thought he must know.

“I’m sorry I pushed earlier… I understand what you said, about not wanting to forget… I haven’t forgotten what I’ve done, the people I’ve hurt—I never will. And I know…” he let out a frustrated sigh, eyes darting around the hall in unease, “I know how hard it is to be told that it wasn’t your fault, but I also know that I would never do the things that the Winter Soldier did… So even though he’s still there, I believe—try to believe that it wasn’t completely my fault… It’s not much, but it’s something.”

“But I put myself into the situation,” she argued again, although her voice was tired. She was tired.

“It’s not your fault,” he repeated firmly. “They made you do those things. They hurt you.”

Her throat burned and she shook her head, so frustrated with everything. “In the end, them hurting me was justice, for what I did to innocent people. Survival is my sentence… and remembering is my punishment.”

“You were hurt before you hurt anyone else.”

She shrugged. She didn’t know what to say to that. All she knew was that a voice inside her was screaming that she deserved everything that happened in Siberia. All of the memories that plagued her, the scars across her body and mind, it was all well-deserved. And none of it would have happened had she not been caught at Lehigh, so it must have been meant to happen.

“I’m sorry it happened to you. You shouldn’t have been the one to go. We should have figured something else out; had you go with a partner, or—”

“Please don’t,” Marlow pleaded, her voice cracking as her fingers tightened around the book.

He furrowed his brows in confusion.

“Don’t make me imagine a life where none of it happened. Don’t do that to me. Please.”

He let out a shaky breath and nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. None of this is your fault, I just don’t know if I could take it…”

“None of it is your fault either,” he stated and when she shook her head, he continued. “You said last night that we were going to get past all of this together. It doesn’t have to be today, or tomorrow, but you promised—so if I’m doing this, I’m bringing you with me. That means me being a pain in the ass and making you stop blaming yourself… Because it wasn’t your fault,” he added gently.

She pushed herself back until she hit the wall, bringing a hand to her face to shield the pain that was written across it. “I—I feel like I’m being torn apart,” she admitted, sliding down and letting the book drop to the floor. Her elbows met her knees as she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to suck in a breath. “I want it all to stop, but if it stops, then the only consequence I have for hurting those people is gone. I don’t deserve to feel better… And God, I feel so guilty for wishing it would stop,” she mumbled.

A moment later, she felt Bucky sit beside her before an arm wrapped around her shoulder to pull her into his side.

It was comforting, and that made her even more guilty. Because she could feel comfort while those she’d killed felt nothing.

It wasn’t fair.

“I wish I had of been killed in that explosion,” she blurted quietly before shame filled her. “Fuck.”

She shouldn’t have said anything. It was such a pitying thought, such a devaluing feeling, but once she’d said it, she realized how true it was. And that hurt.

She didn’t want him to know she felt that way. She didn’t want to know she felt that way.

To her surprise though, Bucky’s arm tightened around her, and she heard him let out a breath. “I understand,” he said quietly. “For a while after I’d gotten out, I wished that I had of gotten trapped on one of those carriers. Or maybe that Hydra would send someone after me… I wanted it to stop and I… I couldn’t do it myself. But I’m glad that didn’t happen; I’m glad I got a second chance.”

She pulled her hands away, turning her head to look up at him. “I can’t see how I could ever be glad for surviving. Not when I’m surviving in Hell.”

He reached his hand down to wrap his fingers around hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Because it won’t always be Hell,” he whispered.

Chapter Text

Even with the check in with Doctor Green, Marlow had gotten through a good portion of Bucky’s book by noon. She was somewhat surprised that she was able to keep her mind on the book, but somewhere along the way she’d gained the skill to hyperfocus on a task.

That meant she could immerse herself in the story about a princess who fled her kingdom to avoid marriage to a rival prince. The young woman was now on the other side of the kingdom’s territory, disguised as a peasant as she ate in some small cafe.

“Hey Marlow?”

“Hmm?” She pulled her eyes away from the page to where Bucky had just come into the room.

“I was talking to Sam and he was hoping you would have lunch with him… I know yesterday you didn’t want him or Steve around, but I think it would be good,” he suggested hesitantly.

“I… yah. Yah, it would be nice to have lunch with him again,” she said quietly, realizing she missed him. Now that she remembered him, she felt the void that was left without him. It was the same as with Steve, Natasha, and Wanda.

They’d become her family, but then they were gone—no, she was gone.

She left them.

She looked back to her book, hoping it would suck her in again, but instead her mind wanted to remember Sam. All of the jokes they shared, the missions they went on together. She remembered bickering often, but what they were bickering about wasn’t clear.

She knew that wasn’t because of the things Hydra did—it was because time makes you forget. And although their missions and antics were only weeks ago in his memory, they were nine years ago for her.

That was a long time to not see someone.

Suddenly, she felt anxious, not from the things she’d been agonizing over all morning, but from the thought that because she’d changed so much, her friendship with Sam would also be changed.

How could it not?

She couldn’t even remember what they would talk about, or what their jokes were about. She didn’t remember how they were friends. She didn’t remember how to be a friend.

She hadn’t had one in so long.

She wasn’t even sure if Bucky was her friend… He’d stayed with her because he was the only one she trusted and took orders from; it was a safety thing. If anything, she was more his babysitting job…

And even though she considered him a friend before she left, now… it felt wrong to just assume. Especially when she’d offered nothing to the friendship in return. At first, she was a shell of a person, then changed into a mess of fear and guilt. Not exactly a fun person to be around.

Although he’d shared details of his life that she doubted he would share with someone who wasn’t his friend.

On the other side of the room, her door opened, but rather than seeing the man her thoughts were occupied by, it was Sam, carrying a brown paper bag in his arms.

“Stop squirming,” she bit, grabbing hold of his bare shoulders to keep him still.

“That stuff burns,” he countered, leaning away from her.

Sam had been knocked off a platform a few hours earlier, but not without catching the edge and scraping his shoulder to hell. According to him he didn’t need stitches, but it had to be bandaged.

“You’re the one who told me to put it on.”

“Yah, well I was hoping you’d be a little gentler.”

“How am I supposed to be gentle with rubbing alcohol? Want me to dilute it? Maybe switch it for some water?” she asked pointedly.

“How about go slow? Not just press the cloth right into the scrape,” he suggested just as pointedly.

“Fine,” she mumbled before he relaxed, and she went back to tending it—gently.  

A few moments later, she was grabbing the bandage, getting him to pull an arm up as she began wrapping it.

“You in Girl Scouts or something? Where’d you learn first aide?”

She was glad he couldn’t see her face because she was frowning at the comment. “Just learned, not sure exactly where,” she said with a shrug.

“Well where ever you learned from did not teach you bedside manners—you are so rough.”

She let out a guffaw before letting her grip loosen.

She felt a wave of comfort fill her at seeing him. She was glad—really glad—she remembered him.

He sent her a small smile and the familiar look brought another memory to her mind.

She couldn’t help the loud gasps that escaped her mouth as she threw herself off the bed and began pacing its length.

The nightmare she just had was… well, it was shit. She was in her room, pressed against the door as her mother’s boyfriend banged and kicked at it, trying to get in.

She knew what would happen if he succeeded; she would be left bruised and aching, likely for some bullshit excuse like drinking his liquor or eating the last of his food. It didn’t matter that he knew it wasn’t her, he just needed an excuse.

But she wasn’t there, he wasn’t behind her, and she never had to see him again.

She scrubbed her face before the sound of hasty steps flew towards her. Her blood ran cold—mind going to the impossible before a worried-faced Sam appeared in the open doorway.

“Are you okay?” he rushed, eyes searching her. “You sounded like you were hurt.”

She shook her head. “Nightmare,” she rasped.

His body calmed, and he leaned himself against the frame. “Want to talk about it?”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.”

“How about a distraction then? I can go grab us a tea from the vendor downstairs and you can try to teach me about the constellations?” he teased.

In previous clear-skied nights, she’d touted about her knowledge of the stars—only to find out she was completely wrong about all of them. She was lost in the clarity of the stars here, unused to seeing so many in such a rural area.

“I’ve been reading up on them, so prepare to be schooled.”

“You will never imagine how long it took to get this food—the line was out the door when I got there,” Sam tsked before dropping into the chair beside the bed and pushing the bag onto the table.

The tone reminded her of their time together.

“Ow,” she bit, elbowing the man beside her in the rib to move him over.

“Watch it,” Sam bit back, swatting her arm away.

“You stepped on me.”

“I’m so sorry,” he droned, “next time I’ll look where I step—oh wait, it’s pitch black in here.”

They had been stuck in a tiny electronics closet—meant to house a processor, not two people—and unfortunately, the blinking lights of the machine behind them weren’t enough to light the space up usefully.

“Stop moving and it wouldn’t be a problem,” she countered.

“I’ve been balancing on one foot for the last two minutes.”

“I thought birds were supposed to have good balance.”

“You take that damn name way too seriously. I don’t even have my wings—”

At that, the closet door opened, revealing the unamused face of a security guard.

“Hey…”

Her mind finally escaped her memories as she remembered Sam’s promise before she left. “Nanking?”

“Of course,” he nodded, face softening from its previous mock sternness. “Got you orange chicken.”

Her mouth practically watered at the thought. “I missed that stuff,” she sighed, eyes moving to the bag.

“Well, there’s loads—so you can fill up on that, or get some of the wontons.”

She nodded, crossing her legs under her, “everything. Give me everything.”

And he did; he dished out rice, noodles, wontons, chicken, and vegetables and beef—as well as a few packets of hot sauce. It was like a buffet for the two of them, and she happily dug in.

A comfortable silence hung around him, but for the first time in what felt like forever, she wanted to talk.

“How… how is your sister doing?” she asked, remembering him speaking of her often, “and nephews?”

He smiled, nodding as he swallowed. “They’re good, I’ve been video calling them everyday and… God, they’ve gotten so big, I can’t wait to see them.”

“Are you going soon? To see them?”

“Yah, I’m heading out once you’re settled.”

She frowned a little at that. “I don’t want to keep you away from them, go see your family.”

“You’re my family too. Besides, they’re fine—you need me more than they do right now.”

“But you haven’t seen them in five years,” she argued quietly.

“I can wait a little longer. I couldn’t just up and leave you, could I?” he chuckled. “I’ll get a flight sometime in the next few weeks,” he said, spearing a piece of chicken. “And I was thinking, maybe you can come with me?”

She dropped his gaze, twirling the white plastic fork in her noodles. “Maybe,” she mumbled, “I don’t want to intrude, especially after such a long time of not seeing each other…”

“You wouldn’t be intruding; Sarah’s always wanted to meet you, and I know the boys will love you.”

She shrugged.

“Come on, you’re gonna need a crash pad. You can come to my sisters until you get back onto your feet. Or longer, there isn’t a time limit.”

“I’ll think about it…”

“Good, because I’m sure Sarah would like another woman in the house.”

She hummed, pushing her lips up slightly in an attempted smile, but didn’t feel genuine. She doubted it looked it, but she tried anyways.

“I want you to know you’re always welcome,” he added gently. “I know before you left you hadn’t thought much about what was going to happen next, but you have a place with me.”

“Thanks, Sam… I,” she sighed, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can barely process my memories, let alone what’s happening next.”

He nodded. “Bucky said everything was coming back quickly.”

“It’s so hard,” she whispered, “remembering myself. Becoming myself again. If it even is myself. Realizing what I did has been… almost as bad as realizing I can’t go back.”

“Go back?”

She hesitated. “To face some sort of justice for what I’ve done.”

“You’re not the one who deserves to face justice. You deserve some sort of justice; for them taking you, for what they did to you.”

She shook her head, not wanting to get back onto the topic. “It doesn’t matter. Tell me about what you’ve been working on the last few weeks.”

“Marlow—”

“Sam. Please.”

“I’m not telling you you shouldn’t feel guilt for what happened, or that you should just get over it, but you had no say in what you did. You weren’t you, you were just…” he shook his head, like he was unable to finish. “I think you need to find a way to deal with what you did, but you don’t deserve to be punished for it.”

“Sam.”

“You are a good person. You would never hurt someone who is innocent, and you even find ways around hurting the ones who aren’t. You don’t deserve punishment for something that wasn’t you.”

“Sam,” she bit, meeting his gaze. “Stop. Just stop. It’s been nine years. You have no idea what I’ve done or who I am. It was me. Regardless of whether I chose to, it was my hands—I remember, okay? I have to remember murdering people for the rest of my life. How can you tell me it wasn’t me and expect me to believe you? Would you not feel guilty for killing someone even if it was an accident?” she seethed. “Well, the last decade of my life was an accident. You knew me before. You don’t know me now. So please, just stop.”

Her words were sharp, sharper than she’d meant, but they were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

And God, she believed them.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said quietly, pulling her from her thoughts. “I’m still having a hard time wrapping my mind around what’s happened and… seeing you like this… I just want to make it easier. I don’t want you to feel the way you do. I’m sorry.”

She nodded, guilt gnawing at her stomach for snapping at him. “I don’t know if it will become easier…. I can’t imagine it ever becoming easier,” she admitted.

“I know it feels that way, but at some point it will.”

“Bucky said the same,” she mumbled. “He said he understands, but I don’t think he does. Maybe some of it, but not all of it.”

“What doesn’t he understand?” he asked, voice gentle… cautious. Like he was trying not to scare her away.

She pursed her lips, dropping her gaze to the blanket. “That unlike him, I put myself into the situation. That what we went through was different—or at least I hope it was… I hope he didn’t go through the same things I did. That he wasn’t their…” she couldn’t even finish it.

The words danced through her mind; the Major’s toy.

It made her stomach turn to be likened to an owned object. But despite how much it hurt to admit it, it was a fitting title.

She was his. To do with as he pleased.

“You think it was your fault?”

“It was. I was caught at Lehigh then made the wrong call and it ended in me being taken. I tried to fight my way out, but I wasn’t good enough. That’s on me.”

He didn’t oppose, just let out a quiet sigh.

Maybe if she had of trained more, she would have gotten out.

But she had. She’d started boxing when she was young—well, when her mother started dating Anthony. She never actually fought against his assaults, but knowing she could protect herself if he tried to seriously hurt her brought her some comfort. She continued to box after she left, then trained with Nat steadily, pushing and perfecting until they could spar with each other for hours.

But then why couldn’t she avoid getting caught? Maybe Nat didn’t push her hard enough. The goonies they were fighting against weren’t exactly top fighters, so maybe she didn’t feel she needed to go full force.

Really, it didn’t matter. What happened, happened. Like she’d told Bucky, she didn’t want to imagine what could have happened if something were different. That was its own type of torture.

Maybe I should think about it.

She dropped her head into her hands, exhausted from the day already.

“Marlow, you know I’ll support you through anything, and I’ll support you through this. Whatever way you need. And if you don’t know what you need… I’ll just try to be here and help you. Okay?”

She let out a shaky breath, running her hands up her face and through her hair before looking at him. She didn’t want to cause more pain to another person, so she nodded. “Okay.”

But the moment she agreed, she regretted it. She knew there wasn’t something he could do that would make it better, and letting him sit beside her through the rest of her life would burden him. He would keep putting energy into something doomed to fail.

But she missed him. She missed being around him. And that made her so selfish. For making him put up with her, and for giving herself moments of happiness when she knew she didn’t deserve them.

“Come on, your food’s getting cold,” Sam said, a small, satisfied smile on his lips as he took a bite of beef.

Looking down to the plate, she saw it wasn’t even a quarter eaten, but it no longer looked appetizing. With a nod she picked up the fork, absently twirling the noodles around again but not letting its tines leave the plate.

If Sam noticed her disinterest, he didn’t mention it. He also didn’t push for her to talk; he just sat quietly beside her, fork hitting the paper plate occasionally as they—he—ate.

Although it wasn’t exactly comfortable, she was glad for the silence; it was tiring having to repeat her thoughts and feelings only to be rebutted, so when there was a knock at the door, she wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or not.

The door opened and Bucky stepped in carrying thick folders, but her attention skipped behind him to Steve, who’s face brought a burning to her throat.

She wasn’t sure why she felt like crying, whether it was because he’d grown old and she missed it, or because she missed him, or maybe because she hated that he knew what she’d done.

But then her eyes jumped to the man behind him; dressed in a pressed suit, with his hair combed back neatly, and his arms behind his back.

She knew him immediately: Secretary Ross.

Although, she also knew he’d been snapped, so she wasn’t sure if he was still called Secretary.

Regardless, she felt a stoke of anger at the sight of his face; he’d imprisoned her friends, not to mention could be blamed for breaking the Avengers apart because of some bullshit legislation. The break up that left the world defenseless against Thanos.

“Afternoon,” he called, stopping a few feet away.

Sam stood from the chair, placing his plate on the table before stepping to the side. “Ross.”

“I hope you’re feeling better after your… accident,” Ross said, looking from Marlow’s eyes to her plate, and back up. As if assessing.

Familiar.

“Mhmm.”

“Right well, I have good news. Ms. Hendrix, Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Barnes, on behalf of the United States government, I hereby pardon you of your crimes against the country. I will not bore you with the details, but we are grateful for the things you have done for the world, regardless of your previous activities.”

She cocked an eyebrow.

He found out it was me…

“However, Mr. Barnes,” he said turning to Bucky, whose face was stony. “Because of your history with Hydra and the trauma you underwent, your pardon is conditional on your continued work with a therapist who will evaluate you to ensure you are no longer a threat to yourself or those around you.”

What the—

She couldn’t hold her tongue, “Sergeant,” she corrected with a hiss, “and whatever Hydra put in his head is gone. The least you could do after what he’s done is leave him alone.”

She was surprised at her own outburst, but not enough to drop the glare she directed at the man across from her.

“We understand as much; we’ve read the reports from Princess Shuri, and he has been cleared of charges for his work with Hydra, but that doesn’t mean what he has done can be ignored. Or the effects it could have on him. There will be no trial, so this outcome is rather beneficial. So, Sergeant, the stipulations are detailed within your folder, please contact us with your decisions by the end of the week so we can make the necessary arrangements… I will see myself out.”

With that, he turned, polished shoes tapping the floor quietly as he made his way out the door. He was gone so quickly it felt like he was never even there.

“Now… I’m not saying he’s right to insinuate you’re dangerous, but therapy is a good idea,” Sam shrugged.

She didn’t miss how his eyes flicked to her, but she ignored him.

“I don’t need a shrink,” Bucky mumbled, looking down to the files in his hands, passing Sam his, then moved around the bed to give Marlow hers.

She opened it, uncomfortable with the amount of information they had on her. She scanned the biographic bullet points on the first page, noting that her mother was listed as alive and not snapped.

She wondered if her mother mourned her. If she even looked to see if she was alive… Or if she knew what she’d done for the world.

It didn’t matter.

I don’t need her to know, and I don’t need her approval.

She kept reading, unsure how they learned so much about her.

“After the Blip, those of us that had been on the run were pardoned,” Steve explained, likely catching her confused look. “We explained everything that we’d done, including your roles. You were honored when you died, being ones that we lost during the Battle of Wakanda. I can only assume the pardon took until now because it wasn’t priority…”

She almost wished she wasn’t pardoned. That they had of arrested her.

There was a voice in her head that yelled at her for wallowing in her pity, but she couldn’t help it. She would take any type of punishment at that point.

She flipped to the next few pages, reading that even though her name wasn’t known, her entity was branded a fugitive. Once she was identified that title followed her despite no longer being alive, so an official pardon was apparently necessary.

From the corner of here eye, she caught Bucky running a hand through his hair as he flipped through his own folder.

“What are you going to do?” she asked quietly, turning to look at him.

“I don’t have a choice; I need to go. If I don’t, they’ll arrest me.”

She frowned. That seemed unnecessary… He’d been living in Wakanda for years; he obviously wasn’t a risk. “What are the stipulations he was talking about?”

“It looks like they’re giving me a choice in who I go to… And where,” he explained, flipping a page. “There’s gotta be three dozen names on this list; all different states, different cities.”

“That’s good,” Sam said from the other side of the bed. “That they’re giving you choices.”

“I guess…”

“Any chance there’s a therapist in Brooklyn?” Steve asked, sending his friend a small smile.

Bucky let out a puff. “There is actually. Raynor. Doctor Raynor…”

“You always said you wanted to go home…”

“Yah…” he hummed, reading more. “They’re putting me up too,” he said before his head flew up in surprise. “Is that how much rent is now? Five grand a month?”

“Depends on where you are; most one bedrooms are a lot cheaper than five, but they’re likely giving you some extra for living expenses,” Sam said with a shrug. “New York will definitely be on the higher end though.”

“Hell, and I thought rent was expensive back in the thirties.”

Steve nodded. “You could always come stay at my place… I have couch cushions and shoes that need polishing.”

She could see Bucky shake his head from the corner of her eye. “Good to know you’re still a punk.”

“Ah…” Steve smiled.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll be alright. It would be good to go back home though… Be somewhere familiar… The whole shrink thing though…” he sighed.

“I think it’ll be good,” Marlow said quietly, turning to Bucky. “It’ll help,” she added, referring to their conversation last night. About the guilt he carried and how he felt he wasn’t good.

He deserved to move on.

“I guess we’ll see…”

She looked back to her papers, skimming them and seeing she was also getting an allowance for room and board.

She didn’t know where she was going to go. She had no where to go.

That was a scary thought.

Her and Bucky said they would help each other, but she didn’t think about the logistics of it. She knew Bucky wouldn’t be staying at the pop-up—hell, he wasn’t even allowed to anymore, and she wouldn’t try to stop him. Not only because he legally had to go, but because she wouldn’t hold him back from getting help.

And she already established that she wouldn’t be going with Sam to Louisiana.

So… she would be alone. Somewhere.

Maybe that was a good thing. She was alone before—before Hydra and being a fugitive—when she was in Germany. She liked that; she had some casual friends, travelled when she wanted, cooked when she wanted… but the idea of going back to that seemed daunting now.

And then guilt bubbled up, because now she wouldn’t be there for Bucky like she said she would. They wouldn’t make it out together… But maybe he stood a better chance that way, because he would have the help of a therapist. Not her, trying to keep calm long enough to have a conversation, but someone who actually knows how to help someone.

So, she would manage; being alone might be daunting, but she could keep herself busy.

She dropped the folder and picked up the papers from earlier, reading through the drafted plans for helping those displaced after the Snap.

Maybe she would stay here, help Bruce with the wreckage of the Compound… Or go to one of the refugee shelters that were scattered across the country. She would do something. Help with something. Maybe even go to help one of the other Avengers.

Scanning through a mental list of everyone she’d met in passing, she tried to remember what they said they were going to do, where they said they’d gone.

“Where did Wanda go?” she asked, remembering she hadn’t seen her since Tony’s funeral.

Sam shifted where he still stood. “We’re not sure… She said she needed time… after what happened to Vision. We haven’t been able to track her down though, and she hasn’t responded to any of our messages.”

“Oh…”

She’d only met Vision briefly; and she remembered now that the reason Wanda was disappearing while they were on the run was because she was spending time with him.

They loved each other.

A shiver went down her back at what she had to do to him, and the sounds of her cries after they finally defeated Thanos.

“She wasn’t okay when she left, was she?” she asked sadly.

“No,” Steve whispered.

“None of us knew she was leaving. Clint tried to get her to go with him, but she wouldn’t. She just needed time,” Sam explained.

“I hope she’s alright… I miss her…” she mumbled, putting the papers down. “And Nat… Did she leave a com line when she left?”

She knew Nat wasn’t at the pop-up, but she couldn’t remember where she said she was going. Her memories from after the battle were hazy, probably from the little sleep and general havoc that filled the weeks before she left. Knowing her, Nat would have run off to help in some way; maybe something with Nick Fury, or possibly even international governments. Because despite not liking it, she always had a way with them.

“Mar?” Sam asked quietly.

“Did Nat leave a way to contact her?” she clarified. “I… I’m still having a hard time remembering everything. I think because I haven’t seen them, stuff is missing. I remember all of you, but not them, and I can’t remember where Nat said she was going. Or whether she even told me…”

“Marlow,” Sam started, “Natasha…” he stopped again, and it made alarms go off in her head.

“Please don’t say she went AWOL,” she whispered, brows drawn as she looked at him.

She said she wouldn’t do that.

“She… You don’t remember?” he asked, voice tight.

Her stomach sank. “No, where did she go?”

“Marlow…” Steve started, dropping his head slightly. “When we were collecting the stones, her and Clint went for one of them… She didn’t make it.”

Didn’t make the stone?

What the hell did that mean?

She didn’t—

No.

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

The last time she’d seen Nat was when she was trapped beneath a cropping of rocks Thanos had materialized. In Wakanda. Then she and a mass of people travelled through portals, joining everyone for a second battle. It was a mess, there were so many people, so many enemies.

But then the fight was over, and she searched for her friends.

Smoke burned her eyes, although she was pretty sure they also burned for everything that had just happened. She wasn’t exactly sure what happened, but she knew that Thanos was gone. His armies were gone.

She let her gaze travel around her, seeing the metal and wood and other debris that seemed to stretch for miles atop burned soil—but she couldn’t look at Pepper Potts. She was still heaped over the body of Tony Stark, her quiet sobs barely audible over the hum around them. A few feet away a young man sat hunched on the ground, red eyes staring blankly ahead.

I need…

She pulled herself away, stepping back until she could hide herself behind some piece of building, dropping to a crouch as she tried to breath.

It was some time later that she finally looked up, scanning the horizon to see other’s mourning their own friends, or taking care of wounds, or standing alone.

She wished she could go to them. Help. Let them know they weren’t alone. But she couldn’t find the will.

Somewhere behind her there was a murmuring and she stood, turning and taking a few steps to see Steve going from person to person, checking them over before moving on. He was badly roughed up; covered in blood and dirt, but when his eyes landed on her, he moved as if he was fine. Once in arm’s length, he pulled her into a crushing hug, squeezing the air from her lungs.

She didn’t mind though, she just pressed her head into his chest, relieved that he was alright. After a few moments she tried to let go, but he squeezed her harder, keeping her trapped against him.

“I’m alright,” she said with a chuckle, trying to reassure him. “It’s okay, it’s over.”

“It’s… I missed you.”

“Steve, it’s alright. Not really sure what happened, but it’s good. I’m fine.”

He still didn’t let go.

“Did you hug Sam this long? Jesus old man,” she chuckled.

“Yes, yes I did,” he said matter of factly before sighing into her hair. “Marlow, you’ve been—” he cut himself off.

“What?” she asked, finally pulling away.

“It doesn’t matter right now, I’m just glad you’re back. You’re alright.”

She wasn’t really sure what he meant by back, but she nodded. “I’m glad you’re alright too. Everyone else good?”

She turned, eyes jumping from one person to another, before pausing on a woman who had black eyes and… antenna sprouting from her forehead. And then a blue woman… and a green woman…

“What the hell is going on?” she asked, looking from the women to Steve.

“I’ll explain everything soon, but… let’s just get through this,” he said, face wavering as his eyes passed over Pepper.

“I’m sorry,” Marlow whispered, reaching down to wrap her hand around his.

He just watched his friend die. She wasn’t sure if they got to say goodbye to each other—hell, she wasn’t even sure how Tony had gotten there. Last she heard, he wasn’t in Wakanda. Although, she was pretty sure she wasn’t in Wakanda anymore.

She decided to just not think about any of those things and focus on making sure everyone was alright.

So, she continued searching the crowd, mentally noting each person, and feeling a relieved smile came to her face as Sam turned and started towards them.

Her eyes jumped to the last few people around them, but someone was missing.

“Where’s Nat?” she asked, spinning to search the horizon. “Oh shit, where’s Nat? We have to find her, we—”

“Mar…”

She looked at Steve, at the way his face broke as he shook his head.

“No.”

“No,” she repeated, being hit with all of the same emotions from that day. The panic, the denial, the heartbreak. “Fuck,” she hissed.

Natasha died bringing me back.

She died bringing everyone back.

She sucked in a breath, trying to keep herself from sobbing—from becoming a mess of tears and wails when she already knew. God, she hated this. She hated being able to feel everything again She wished she could go back to the way she was before.

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispered, but it only made it worse.

She didn’t want to feel this again.

“I need—” she shook her head, unable to get the words out as she stepped off the bed, past the chairs and towards the door.

She didn’t want to be watched. She didn’t want to be around people with pitying eyes. She just wanted to be alone.

And God, she wanted her feelings to go away.

Her body carried her to one of the pop-up’s exits, and a moment later, her socked feet met the forest floor. She hurried forward, uncaring of where she would end up, and honestly, barely acknowledging that she was moving at all.

How could I forget?

How could I not remember that she died?

It was a crushing feeling; her death hitting like a brick wall despite knowing she knew. 

If I knew, why does it hurt so bad now?

It felt like someone was hollowing out her chest. That was the only way she could understand it; like someone was ripping out her heart and letting her gasp while she writhed in pain.

Why does it hurt so much?

Why does everything hurt?

Everything starting to become hazy, and she sucked in a haggard breath in the hopes of stopping what she thought was an oncoming panic attack, but the world around her continued to bleed away.

Not darkness, but a dullness that made her feel like she was no longer in pain. No longer there. No longer herself.

Chapter Text

An aggressive tremor wracked Marlow’s body and she registered how badly she was shivering. She was on the forest floor, the bitter cold easily blowing through her t-shirt and sweatpants.

When did I end up on the ground?

She couldn’t remember. But Bucky’s words from yesterday about wearing a jacket echoed through her mind…

Was it really yesterday?

Yesterday morning that she’d woken up from a nightmare, only to drop into hysterics about remembering what she’d done.

It took everything in her not to scoff. Bucky was wrong; she envied her past self. The one who a week ago, moved through the world blindly, unbothered by emotions or pain. Like the pain in her fists from the frosted ground.

It seemed as if now that she mentally acknowledged the cold, it physically got worse, meaning her skin burned and her teeth clattered uncontrollably.

At one point, she wouldn’t have cared, or even noticed, but now she did. So, more in what she thought was survival instinct than seeking comfort, she sat back on her calves, taking a long breath before standing and looking around. Through the trees she could see the pop-up, but she wished she didn’t have to go back.

Really, she didn’t have to. No one could stop her if she turned the other way and walked.

And God, she wanted to; to just walk away from it all… But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t just disappear—not after what everyone had just been through. Not when they were doing so much for her.

She was being selfish wishing she could walk into the forest and never come back.

So, she started making her way back to the building, every step like a punishment as her feet pressed painfully into the sticks, rocks, and pine needles that littered the ground.

When she pushed the door open, she noticed her fingers were pale and stiff, but it wasn’t the cold that froze her mid-step.

Steve was a few feet away, leaning against the wall with a blanket in his arms as he watched her with a pained expression. She dropped his gaze, waiting for him to scold her, or ask her if she was alright, or say something, but he didn’t.

Even as he approached, he stayed silent. And when he was in front of her, she focused on the zipper of his sweater, unable to look him in the eye as he draped the blanket over her shoulders and let his hands come to rest atop them. And when he still hadn’t said anything, she expected him to step away, but a moment later he pulled her into his chest gently, wrapping his arms around her in such a familiar way.

But it felt unfamiliar. She let out a puff of air, wrapping her own arms around his torso and trying to ignore how frail he felt against her. He was definitely unnaturally strong and sturdy for a hundred year old, but his age still showed.

He wasn’t the Steve she knew. And she wasn’t the Marlow he knew.

The last time she’d hugged him, she was begging him not to follow through with whatever plan he had. She never thought it would be… him leaving.

She tried not to be angry at him, or resentful for his choice; it was his life and if he was happy, then so was she… But she wanted to be there. She wanted to grow old with him by her side. Another selfish thought, yet she thought it anyways. She needed him.

She squeezed him harder, scared about losing so much time with him, and now being hit with the finiteness of time that they had left.

“It’s going to be okay,” he mumbled into her hair.

She wasn’t sure what exactly he was referring to, but she hated his undying optimism; nothing seemed like it was going to be okay—how could she ever be okay again? It felt like the world was crashing around her, and everyone just kept saying it would get better; that one day it would fall back into place—but no one seemed to understand that it was shattering apart. Into pieces that could never be put back together. All while she was bound and being torn along with them.

“Come on, we can get you a tea to warm up,” he said, pulling back and running his hands up and down her arms.

She wasn’t shocked by his face, but it was like a stab to the heart each time she looked at him.

“I’m fine,” she shook her head, uncaring about the cold that filled her.

“You’ll get sick.”

“That’s an old wives’ tale. I’m fine.”

Again, she hadn’t meant for her tone to be so biting, but the words were already out.

“Then at least another blanket. Come on,” he said, not leaving room for an argument as he pulled her forward gently.

She let him guide her back to the med room, seeing Sam and Bucky both inside still; Sam on one of the chairs by the bed, while Bucky was hunched over on his cot.

Both men turned to the door when they walked in, and although Sam sent her a smile that she knew was supposed to be reassuring, it made her want to turn around and leave. Unfortunately, Steve’s hand was still firmly pressed against her back, so she had no choice but to keep moving forward.

Eventually, she dropped onto the bed, catching sight of her muddied socks which she quickly pulled off and dropped beside the bed before bringing her knees to her chest. The three men’s stares were like laser, and it took everything in her not to snap at them, so instead she clenched her jaw and wrapped the beds blanket around her legs.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed, but suddenly she became hyper-aware of her earlier actions. “Sorry I ran out,” she mumbled, eyes focused on a ball of fuzz on her left knee.

“It’s alright. Sorry you had to find out that way,” Sam said gently.

She shrugged. “I should have remembered, but I don’t know… I didn’t for some reason…”

“How much do you remember?” Steve asked.

She shrugged, looking up to see that he’d dropped into the chair beside Sam, while Bucky was now leaning against the wall at the end of the bed, head nodding once as her eyes met his.

“About what?” she asked.

“Your life, what happened with Hydra, all of it.”

“I remember… most of my life. There’s stuff that isn’t as clear, and certain periods of time that I don’t remember, but most of it is there. And as for Hydra… I remember all of it,” she whispered.

Steve nodded. “If you’re alright to talk about it, we need to make sure what they did to you isn’t the same as what they did to Bucky.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know if they ever gave you an activation phrase? Or something like it?” he asked slowly.

“They didn’t,” she shook her head.

“You might not remember it,” Sam added. “They could have made you forget—”

“I don’t have an activation phrase,” she bit. “I remember all of it. They didn’t need to activate me because I followed whatever they said. I just complied.”

“There was nothing else like activation? No conditioning or behavioral retraining?”

She clenched her jaw, mind flowing through everything they did. Everything the Russian did. “When they put me in the machine, they… I don’t know, they made me act the way they wanted me to act. They molded me… But it was because the machine wiped me. They told me they were… helping me… I needed to do what they told me because they were protecting me. I knew as much as I was theirs. I understood more than I did when they started with the drug. That was… God I don’t know how to explain it… I was just a… body. I didn’t know anything other than to obey them. To—to do what they told me. I didn’t feel, I didn’t know, I—I was just a—”

She couldn’t finish her sentence because her breathing hitched again. She didn’t want to think about what happened, but those memories were at the forefront of her mind now.

“I couldn’t—”

I don’t want to remember.

“I didn’t—”

God, I don’t want this.

“I’m sorry, Mar… I shouldn’t have let you go,” Steve whispered painfully.

Her head flew up, immediately focusing on Steve’s guilt-ridden face. “No—it’s not your fault,” she argued. “Don’t do that.”

“I shouldn’t have agreed to let you go on that mission.”

“It wasn’t your choice; I put myself on that mission… It doesn’t matter anyways,” she mumbled. “But, no, they didn’t give me an activation phrase, I’m sure. There was no need.”

“That’s good. That’s one thing we don’t need to worry about,” Steve nodded, and Marlow was thankful he didn’t push on the topic of blame—she didn’t think she would be able to argue more. “Now… We don’t mean to pressure you, but with the pardons coming in and everyone heading their own ways, we need to figure out what’s going to happen next. You can stay at the base but… none of us think it’s a good idea for you to stay here alone. If you want, you’re more than welcome to come with stay with me for the time being.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, hoping she sounded confident. “I was thinking of helping Bruce. Or finding an outreach center that needed help.”

“Marlow, it’s not a good time for you to stay by yourself,” Sam opposed gently.

“I’m… I’ll manage. I won’t intrude on your lives.”

“We want to help, it’s not intruding.”

“It is though,” she said honestly, hoping to make him understand. “I need to figure myself out, and I think it’s better that I do it alone so I’m not burdening any of you.”

“You won’t be—”

“I will. I’ll be on the couch, and in your space, and you won’t be able to get away from me and you’ll want to help and I just—I won’t do that to you. I won’t intrude on you.”

Sam let out a quiet sigh, running a hand down his face. The room was silent, and she wouldn’t look any of them in the eye. If she did, that weak part of her that wanted away from the pain might end up agreeing, and she wouldn’t let that happen.

“What if we went in on an apartment together?”

She snapped her eyes to Bucky, brows furrowing in question.

“We can get a two bedroom somewhere, that way you’ll have your own space and so will I. We could keep each other company.”

“But you’re going to be going through your own things… I don’t want to add more for you to be stressed about.”

“Remember what we agreed on yesterday?”

She nodded minutely.

“How are we supposed to do that if you stay here? Alone?”

“I…”

“You don’t have to decide right now; you have time,” Sam said gently. “Just know you’re welcome with any of us. We’ll help any way we can.”

“Mhmm,” she mumbled, wanting to drop the subject and never think about it again. She didn’t deserve their help, although she had a feeling that regardless of any protests she might put forward, they were going to force it on her. It made another ball of anxiety form in her stomach, and she wished they would decide to leave her here and just check in with weekly phone calls—she could deal with that.

But knowing them, they wouldn’t. They were frustratingly stubborn and good, but she didn’t need good, she needed… She wasn’t sure what she needed, but help didn’t seem to be it.

Those anxieties kept swirling in her mind as the three men chatted quietly, trying to include her but slowly realizing that she was in no mood to talk.

And she hated that she wasn’t. She wanted to talk, wanted to catch up, and especially wanted to talk to Steve about his life—but she couldn’t. She felt like such a horrible friend—no, she was a horrible friend. Even as her mind screamed to respond, she couldn’t.

What is wrong with me?

“Marlow?” She heard Bucky ask gently, now apparently beside her.

She looked at where he stood to the left of her bed, noticing that Steve and Sam were no longer in the room.

How did I not notice them leave?

What the hell is wrong with me?!

“I’m gonna leave you in here—”

Her eyes widened slightly at the thought of him leaving—immediately jumping to extremes.

Is he leaving the pop-up already?

Did he already give his decision?

Is he going to New York?

“I’m just gonna go across the hall,” he said reassuringly, and she felt a burn rise to her cheeks.

She can’t become dependent on him being around. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t put that burden on him.

“It’s fine,” she forced from her lips despite it making her nerves protest, “you don’t have to stay close; you can do whatever you need to do.”

He shook his head. “I’ll be right across the hall. I want to give you some space… I know how suffocating people can be—even when they’re trying to help.”

She deflated at that, like her body had been putting up a front for everyone and now she was able to drop it. “It’s exhausting,” she mumbled. “Everyone telling you it will be okay. Or that they’ll help you. I just…”

“I get it,” he nodded. “It’s like all of your energy goes into feeling that trying to think of anything else is too much…”

“Exactly,” she breathed.

He leaned forward a little, hand running through his hair. “Let me know if I do that, okay? If I overwhelm you or I push—tell me and I’ll back off. I’m trying to do the things that I think would have helped me, but I’m not very good at the whole… knowing what to do thing,” he mumbled, sending her an awkward smile.

She couldn’t help but argue silently within her mind that she didn’t deserve that thoughtfulness, but she nodded none the less. “Thank you… I… I appreciate it. I just have so many… conflicting emotions, I guess. When I’m told that it wasn’t my fault I—” she let out a breath, “I feel worse. I don’t—I don’t want to push you away, or Sam and Steve, but I feel like I will because I don’t want to hear the things that will make it better. But at the same time, I wish it would stop.”

“You’re allowed to want it to stop.”

I don’t think so.

How could I?

“I felt the same way… And felt ashamed for it.”

She furrowed her brows at him, his words surprising her. “You did?”

“Yah,” he answered airily. “For a long time.”

Oh.

She let out a breath, looking down to the blanket. “How long did it take for you? To accept that it was okay to want it to stop?”

“Until I stopped being Hydra’s…”

Oh.

“When they were destroyed,” she nodded in understanding. So sixty years? Seventy? It was only a few years back that Hydra was taken down, so he had to live with those feelings for over half a century. That made her nine years look like nothing…  

But he shook his head. “When everything they did was out of my head. When they stopped having control of me.”

Oh…

That pit burrowed a little deeper at the realization.

“So you think now that I’m not theirs anymore, I should move on?” Her words were bitter, but her tone was weak.

“No. No I think you’re allowed to have those feelings as long as you need. I just hope they don’t drown you.”

She scoffed. “There’s a lot of metaphors about being fucked in the head, huh?”

“That’s what it feels like though, doesn’t it? Drowning in your own mind and emotions, like if you stop trying to keep yourself afloat, you’ll sink.”

She shook her head. “Poetic.”

Why use pretty words for something that feels so grotesque?  

“There she is, feisty as ever,” he mumbled.

She flicked her eyes to him, catching the hint of a smirk on his lips that made her want to smile. If only she could.

She was grateful he was teasing; it almost made her feel like it was a decade ago, and his smirk was certainly unchanged from that time, but the dark circles were new.

Worry overcame that flicker of cheer as she thought back, realizing she’d only seen him sleep… once. Every other morning, he was awake before she was, more often than not with a book in front of him.

How much has he slept since I got back?

She gave him another chore, kept him from his own room, stressed him enough to keep him from sleep.

Despite it feeling impossible, another wave of guilt overcame her, building on top of what she felt for practically forcing him to agree to helping her yesterday. He had his own problems he needed to work on, his own traumas, he didn’t need the extra baggage that she brought along. Regardless of how much he helped her… Regardless of how comforting his presence was to her…

He didn’t seem to know that though; arguing that he couldn’t help her, that he was a bad person… But… maybe that was his way of telling her he didn’t want to help. Or mentally couldn’t. He deserved to see he’s wrong about himself; that he’s good and shouldn’t feel misplaced guilt—and he deserved to see that without her dragging him down.

And I don’t deserve the comfort he offers.

“Bucky, you don’t have to stick around with me… You should go to New York, see the therapist—I’ll be okay… Thank you for everything you’ve done, but I won’t…” she sighed, “I won’t get in the way of you getting help. It was selfish for me to even ask, especially knowing that I could never return the help or repay you for what you’ve done for me.”

He nodded, rubbing his knuckles against the scruff under his chin. “I… I was telling you the truth when I said I needed someone,” he spoke quietly, and despite the gentleness of his tone, his words shocked her. “If either of us was being selfish, it was me—you just started remembering, you were struggling, but you said you wanted to help me and I latched on… I don’t know if it’s the best idea, but I still think we could help each other. We understand each other, and I want to help. If I can make everything easier for you, I’m willing to stick around. Really, I’d be willing to stick around anyways for your dazzling personality, but that’s besides the point,” he teased, sending her a tilted smile.

It was comforting and distracting enough that she didn’t have time to oppose him before he began speaking again.

“Like I said, I won’t force you into it—I want to help, not make it worse, but I definitely agree with Steve and Sam; you shouldn’t be alone. I know what that’s like, and it’s horrible. It makes everything harder—and I know you say you don’t want it to get better, but…” he sighed, as if deciding to change his words, “you don’t want to be alone.”

And apparently, she didn’t. He barely got five words in to saying he was crossing the hall, and she panicked.

Doesn’t matter.

I can’t do that to him.

I’ll pull him down. In some way or another. He would be worrying, or annoyed, or upset and—

“Stop that,” he said, moving to crouch beside the bed and looking up at her with those big, blue, genuine eyes. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

“What?”

“You’re overthinking it. Caving in. Don’t, just… I’ll help you through it, okay? I’m making the choice to help you, so if you take it, whatever happens is on me.”

His move.

I’m just reacting to it...

So, what am I going to do?

God, I—

“Like Sam said, you don’t have to decide now. You go as slow as you need to, alright?”

She let out a puff. “I hate everything.”

He let out a chuckle and nodded, and despite wishing his attitude would rub off on her, she just felt anger.

“I hate how supportive you all are. I hate what I did. I hate Hydra. I hate that I helped them. I hate that I can’t change it. I hate that I can’t think. I hate all of it.”

“I know,” he whispered.

“I also hate how emotional I am,” she muttered. “Like fuck, it’s annoying—and don’t say something along the lines of you’re allowed to be emotional, cause I don’t care. I don’t like it.”

“It’s understandable why you are… It’s been a rough ten years.”

“Nine,” she corrected, as if those few months made that much of a difference.

“I wasn’t only talking about that; being on the run and then fighting Thanos weren’t exactly walks in the park.”

“No… But it doesn’t matter, it’s happened, now I just have to… survive.”

“What about living?”

Living didn’t seem to fit her anymore… Living meant enjoying and thriving; she couldn’t see how she could do that again.

“Maybe one step at a time?” he suggested when he noticed her discomfort.

“Yah,” she nodded absently, more to appease him than anything else.

I hate that I feel like this.

I hate that I can’t just… get over it.

“I’m gonna head across, just give me a shout if you need anything, alright?”

“Mhmm,” she mumbled, a cold feeling coming over her.

Dread, she realized.

She dreaded being alone.

God, what is wrong with me?

“Or do you want me to stay in here?”

“It’s fine,” she shook her head, “you do whatever you need to do.”

“I was gonna read, but I don’t want to leave if you don’t want to be alone.”

“It’s fine, you can have a break from watching me, I don’t want to stress you out…”

“Do you want me to stay or go?” His voice was gently commanding, a strange combination that reminded her of Steve. “I want to know what you want.”

What I want.

I don’t want you to leave.

I want to sleep.

I want you to sleep because I don’t think you have.

“When was the last time you slept?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and again, she felt a burn come to her cheeks.

He looked surprised, his mouth parting slightly as he shook his head, and it took him a moment before he finally spoke hesitantly, “It was, uh, the day before yesterday, I think…”

“You need to sleep,” she muttered, pulling the blanket off her knees and grabbing the book she borrowed from him. “You stay here, I’m going to go across and you can sleep.”

He stood, shaking his head. “Marlow, no, really, it’s alright. I don’t need that much sleep, stay here.”

She mirrored him. “You need more than you’ve been getting. I’ll be fine, just get some rest,” she said, stepping between the chairs.

“Marlow,” Bucky called hesitantly.

She turned back to him, and he looked… uncomfortable.

He opened his mouth, but seemed to decide against it and nodded. “Just come get me if you need anything, okay?”

“I will. Thank you for everything, Bucky.”

He sent her a nod and then she was out the door.

⁂

He didn’t sleep.

He had tried; doing everything from counting to deep breathing, but despite the exhaustion that weighed behind his eyes, he couldn’t.

He didn’t know if it was the nightmares or stress, but whatever it was, his body didn’t let him.

After a few hours, he’d sat up, peeking through the window to see Marlow on the ground, curled in the corner of the room with the blanket still around her. He realized she was reading, so he didn’t disturb her until he’d returned from the commissary with dinner; something akin to wieners and beans.

While Marlow had taken the food with some gratefulness, he missed the food from Wakanda. There was something about its freshness and… difference from what he’d eaten his entire life, he found himself craving it. But regardless of disinterest, he’d eaten the food, then genuinely enjoyed the chocolate pudding he snagged before they both seamlessly fell into their books.

And stayed like that the rest of the evening.

Neither of them seemed to notice the passing of time, and it was only when the hall lights turned off, leaving the space outside the room lit dimly by the overhead guides, that Bucky looked up.

He blinked a few times to get rid the stain that the white paper and black letters left on his vision, then flicked his eyes up to the clock.

Midnight.

Turning, he found Marlow with her head propped against the wall, still completely entranced in her book.

“Hey,” he whispered, voice rough from his stint of silence, “you should probably head to bed. It’s getting late.”

She flicked her eyes up to him, then to the clock, then back down to her page. “Yah, I guess…” Her eyes skimmed a few words before shutting the book and letting out a quiet breath. “It’s a good distraction,” she mumbled.

He nodded. “I spent a lot of time reading when I was on the run… and in Wakanda.”

“What were your favorites?”

“I don’t know if I have a favorite book, but I really like science fiction… And mysteries.”

She hummed in agreement as she stood, pulling the blanket closer.

He wanted to ask if she was cold, and almost offered his jacket—which he wasn’t wearing—out of old habit.

It was strange; the things from so long ago that stayed with him… like his worries about using too much sugar, or reaching to tug his cap when he greeted someone.

There were things he missed too, things that he hasn’t realized were things until he started remembering his life. Like the sound of a window rolling down in a car—now considered a very old car—or thwip of someone striking a match. But something he missed even more was the feeling of a dame’s stockings against his finger tips. The sound of her laughter as he pressed a kiss to her collar bone. Her breaths mingling with his as he whispered sweet nothings to her under a clear night sky.  

Giggles and flirting were the last thing he needed to worry about, but that didn’t stop his mind from wandering.

So often he found himself asking what his life would have been like had he returned from war. He wondered what his wife would have been like, what their kids would have been like… their house, their time, all of the things he dreamed of while growing up.

It was the torture his mind liked to put him through—although, that was better than the spirals he would get into about his morality. At least with the former he could imagine scenarios that he knew were impossible, not focus on what he’d actually done.

He could imagine himself as the man he was before the war. He was a good man. He was happy, polite, charming, charismatic. Bucky now felt a lot sharper, a lot less quick with a joke but a lot quicker to shutter up. He wasn’t open, he wasn’t playful, he, in truth, wasn’t kind. He often gave people a cold shoulder—especially those who tried to help him—and he hated talking about himself.

And that made him question himself for opening up to Marlow.

It wasn’t like he’d told her much; in truth, he’d barely said anything, but he’d felt himself soften around her. He revealed parts of him that he hadn’t even had the chance to show Steve; like his admittance that he needed someone. 

He thought it must come from those shared experiences; the morbid camaraderie he felt towards her. Or maybe it was his apparent need to protect someone—although unlike with Steve where he just needed to kick an ass or two, with Marlow he needed to open himself up to her.

In all other situations, even the thought of that sent a deep discomfort through him, but not with Marlow…

Because he understood what she was going through.

And damn, he understood her fear of being a burden—he’d felt the same way for everything Steve’s team did for him back in 2016. And to those in Wakanda for hosting and healing him. He even felt like he was burdening Marlow for being around and trying to help. She clearly wanted space, and maybe he should step away, but he wouldn’t let her cave in on herself. It felt like a very thin line that separated supporting and overstepping, and he hoped he would be able to keep himself on the right side.

He stood from his chair, following Marlow back to the room where she dropped the blanket and book onto the side table before slipping into the adjoined bathroom.

He shifted, eyes jumping from the door to his cot, now rendered unnecessary. Marlow was Marlow again. There was no worry about her being a threat or need to watch her.

He picked up the blanket and folded it, laying it neatly at the foot of the cot when the bathroom door opened once and Marlow stepped out, running a hand through her hair.

She scanned the room, arms crossing over her chest as her eyes landed on the machines around the bed.

He wasn’t sure if she realized she’d stopped walking, but he knew by the knit of her brows that her mind was occupied. He wondered what she was thinking about… Or rather, what horrible things that Hydra did were replaying in her mind.

So, he shifted, just enough to pull her attention. Then, her eyes landed on his cot.

He swore her eyes flashed with something of fear, but it was so brief and small, he wasn’t sure.

“You’re going back to your room?” she asked, voice not giving away any emotion.

He tried not to liken it to her demeanor the last two weeks, but she seemed empty again. “I, uh, thought you would want me to, but I don’t mind staying.”

She shook her head. “It’s fine, you probably want to sleep in your own bed.”

My own bed.

“I haven’t slept in my own bed in seventy years. This one’s no different from the one my room.”

“You don’t have to stay; I won’t hurt anyone. Promise.”

“That’s not why I want to stay,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to leave you alone if you don’t want to be.”

“I don’t know what I want,” she said, equally as quiet. “I don’t want to sleep, I know that. But I don’t want to keep you up.”

“What’s going through your mind right now?”

She let out a puff, shifting and looking around the room. “A lot of things… Like how the tests they put me through when I got back were comforting… because they were familiar.”

“Were you put through a lot of experiments?” he asked, but the moment the words were out of his mouth, he wished he’d bit them back. “Sorry, it’s not my business.”

“It’s alright…” she shrugged. “I keep forgetting it wasn’t you with me. It feels like you already know… But, no, not really. After they put me on that drug, I didn’t go through much testing or anything. I was just always getting patched up by doctors. The buzz was familiar.”

“You went on missions, right?”

“Mhmm. A lot of them.”

“With… me?”

“Sometimes. You would be activated a few times a year and we would run operations. But I was doing them without you too…” she explained, arms stiffening across her chest as her words tightened. “I went out at least once a month, sometimes three or four times. Depended on what needed to be done.”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he said, hoping to end her discomfort. “I know how hard it can be.”

“Like I said, it feels like you already know.”

“I still don’t want to make you relive it.”

She dropped his gaze, and he felt like he’d done something wrong.

Damn it.

Maybe she wanted to talk about it and I just stopped her?

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, hands pushing into the pockets of his pants. “I didn’t mean to stop you, I,” he let out a frustrated breath. “I want to say the right thing, but I don’t know what that is.”

His eyes looked everywhere but her, and his teeth were clenched something fierce, and he wished he knew what to say but he just didn’t.

“Bucky, it’s alright. Really. You don’t have to say the right thing… I don’t even know… I don’t know what the right thing is. Nothing feels right.”

He finally looked at her again, trying to convince his body to relax, but it wouldn’t. And then he was kicking himself in the ass for losing his cool again—she needed him to be a support, not fumbling for words or unsure of himself.

Get it together, James.

“You said you weren’t tired?” he asked, and she shook her head. “Then we won’t go to sleep. What about a few hands of Blackjack?”

Her shoulders dropped a little and she nodded.

Chapter Text

"I hate the stuff... my mom used to add ketchup to everything—and make anything out of it... It was cheap in the depression, so most people relied on it," he explained, contemplating his cards.

Nine and King.

He flicked his eyes to Marlow across from him, seeing the slight quirk of her lips at his story. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"Hit," she mumbled. "But not even on fries?"

"Not even on fries," he shook his head, sliding a card face up towards her. "I got sick of it... Same as whole grain bread—can't stand it now."

"And I bet being a super soldier means you never have to worry about eating too many carbs," she quipped quietly as she scanned her cards. "I'm out."

He had to withhold his sigh.

He knew it wasn't that big of a deal, but she wasn't even trying. He didn't blame her, he probably would have sent the pack of cards through someone's head if they suggested playing back when he got away from Hydra, but he'd hoped the game would be good for her. Or, more so, the competition. So briefly a day and a half before he'd seen that spark come back to her eyes.

He wanted to see it again... but he knew he couldn't push for it.

"What about you?" he asked, dropping his cards to the side before dealing a new hand. "Any food your parents make that you can't stand now?"

She sent him a grimace of a smile and dropped his gaze, waiting for him to deal the cards. "My mom wasn't much of a cook," she breathed, sliding her cards towards herself. "Never knew my dad. And my mom's boyfriend... he... he didn't cook either. Ate a lot of frozen dinners growing up—but if it counts, I don't like them anymore. Well, I never liked them back then, but I really don't like them now."

Good one, Barnes.

"I'd say that counts," he nodded, looking down to his hand. "What about what you cooked for yourself as you got older? Make yourself sick of anything?"

"I loved everything I cooked," she tutted, "I would never get sick of it."

A smile rose to his lips at her haughty tone, and he nodded.

Five and three.

"What's your favorite thing to cook?" he asked, flipping a card for himself before looking at her in question.

She nodded and he slid her one off the top off the deck and flipped it. "I loved making fresh pasta... and stews and soups... roast vegetables and fried chicken... I loved trying new recipes, but I somehow usually burned whatever I made," she explained, voice lighter than it had been all day.

"I'll have to get you to cook for me sometime," he suggested.

She hummed in response, but he had no idea whether it was agreeance or not, and her eyes gave nothing away as they focused on her cards.

Rather than push, he looked down to the card he'd pulled.

Five, three, five.

What a shit hand.

He took another card off the top and looked if she wanted another, and when she shook her head, he looked down to the Jack. "I'm out."

"If only we were betting," she mumbled, laying down her hand of 21.

She won, yet she didn't care. He bit down on his molars and finally admitted to himself that his distraction wasn't working.

So, he put his cards down and looked across at her. "If your mom didn't teach you to cook, where did you learn?"

"Mostly the TV; I'd have the food network playing all the time growing up, so I learned a lot from there. And moving helped as well, it introduced me to new styles of foods and then I just experimented until I found recipes I liked."

"You were in Berlin, right?" he asked, not bothering to deal another hand.

"Yah, I moved when I was eighteen, and was there until I met up with Steve and the others."

Right.

"How did you even get tangled up with them? I heard you were tracking down Hydra, but how did that happen?"

The name tasted sour in his mouth, and he immediately felt he shouldn't have brought them into the conversation, but she didn't seem bothered by it; only shrugged passively, eyes scanning the ground behind him.

"I was always good with computers and hacking, so when Hydra was taken down and their files were released in 2014, I started to help with decryption. The more I did, the more I pushed the boundary between decryption and... unmasking. I ended up revealing a lot of people who tried to escape what they'd done..." she explained, eyes darting to his before dropping again. "Anyways, in 2016 they approached me to help with some difficult programming, and then again a while later to help with another issue, and eventually, I became their primary contact for hacking. I helped for a few months before I got tired of being in the dark and ended up faking a meeting. I convinced Steve and Nat to bring me onto the team—well, I convinced Nat, and she convinced Steve... She was good at that—leveling with him. She..." Marlow let out a long breath, running her hands down her face and squeezing her eyes shut. "I..."

She left her words unspoken, but he knew what she was going to say; she missed her.

"I wish I had of known her better," he said quietly, "from what I've heard, she was one hell of a woman."

"She was," Marlow agreed. "She was so good. I don't think she believed she was, but she was. She loved her family so much and would do anything for them—and helped me, protected me..." she let out a shaky breath, "she didn't deserve what happened. She deserved to live."

"It always seems to go that way, doesn't it?" he asked quietly. "That good people are lost when those who don't deserve it continue living..."

"That's... that's why I worked on those files and joined Steve and her and Sam and Wanda. To bring some type of justice to people who slipped away. And then I—" she stopped herself, shutting her mouth and shaking her head slightly, seemingly annoyed at her own words.

He had a feeling he knew what she was going to say, so when she met his eyes, he nodded, urging her to continue.

But instead, she shook her head again. "If I say what I'm thinking, you're going to argue with me."

That's when he knew. "I feel the same," he stated, and she flicked her eyes to him, holding his gaze in surprise. "You fought to bring in those people, and now you feel you've become one of them? I understand. I thought I was going to destroy Hydra back in the war, but I became their greatest weapon. After everything I did, I made it out, survived another war, and now I'm being pardoned, when really, I don't deserve to. It doesn't seem fair."

"But it is; you've helped the world, protected so many people—you've shown that you're not dangerous, that you're not that person anymore. You don't deserve to be treated like you are."

"And neither do you. I saw the way you looked at the pardon earlier; like it was all lies. You deserve to be free after what you've done for everyone."

"That's different. What I did will never actually be pardoned. My victims' families will have to live knowing how their loved one was murdered—they'll have to live knowing it was me, but they'll never get justice because I'm here. That's unfair."

Wait, what?

"How would they know it was you?"

Her body seemed to stiffen at the question.

"You don't have to tell me, sorry—"

But before he could continue, she was speaking again. "Hydra needed you to be a secret. They wanted me to be known. People knew who I was when they—when I killed them. I was used as a scare tactic, and even if no one happened to see me when I did it..." she let out a shaky breath and dropped her gaze to the bed, "they would know. That it was me... because of the body."

Hell.

Her legs pulled toward her chest, and she ran her hands through her hair, chin pressed to her knees as she stared at the blanket in front of her. "You..." she trailed off as if she was at war with herself. "God, I feel like you already know, but you don't and you're going to think I'm a monster for what I've done—but if anyone understand it will be you, but you're going to hate me for it. God, you're going to think I'm horrible. Bucky, I murdered people. I murdered people."

"I would never think you were a monster," he said, trying his best to keep his voice gentle. Because he really wanted to find someone from Hydra and show them what they've done to her. To show them how much they've hurt her. And then choke the life from them.

"You have no idea," she shook her head.

"I do because I know Hydra. If you want to tell me, you can, but I won't make you. I promise though, I won't think you're a monster."

She flicked her reddened eyes to him, watching carefully. "I... They..."

He nodded once, hoping he conveyed that she had time, or even, she didn't need to say anything at all. He knew how hard it was to speak about those things, and how ridiculous he felt when he couldn't. He would get so frustrated when the words would get caught in the back of his throat; it felt like he was choking on them, and if he could only get the words out it would be alright. But he almost never did. He was a grown man, why couldn't he do the simplest thing and just speak?

Although the few times he did, he never seemed to feel much better. He felt the same way Marlow was feeling; ashamed. And... scared, that whoever he was telling would think he was a monster.

He knew exactly what she was feeling, and he felt horrible that she had to go through it.

"They made a suit," she said quietly, letting her hands fall from her hair. "It could... manipulate Quantum Energy. They modelled it after my suit but they could never understand the technology behind it, so they made their own. It turned my body into Quantum Energy, I guess. I'm not entirely sure, but I turned invisible. Intangible. I would phase out of this world and be untouchable... That's why they called me Prizrak," she said quietly. "The name came from the stories that were spread about me... by my victims and the ones I left behind... The first time someone called me that was my first mission with the suit in seventy-three... the machine that regulated the energy was damaged, so I couldn't keep myself stable and I was... flickering. Phasing in and out. I was going after two men, and they thought I was a ghost... Hydra caught on and kept the name, let it spread so people would know who I was and be afraid..."

He'd known as much that she wasn't enhanced—the tests from day she got back showed that, but he figured she was just another agent...

"So, you were a special operative?"

"Mhmm."

"And that's why we worked together."

"Yah. Usually on missions that needed extreme skill and lethal force. Extractions, breaking in, assassinations, that sort of thing..."

"Why did they choose you? Why go through the trouble of keeping you medicated when they had willing agents?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. When it all started, the Russian said it was because I had a strong will or something; because I didn't break during interrogation. He thought it would be a useful trait if I joined them... But... I think they kept me around for..." she grimaced and shook her head again, mouth moving but unable to speak. Her next words came out bitter and stilted, like it was difficult to get them out of her mouth. "For fun. Shits, you know? Mostly for kills, but also..."

He noticed then the blood drain from her face, and her hands fisted the blanket. "You don't have to tell me."

She just barely nodded; face pained and eyes not moving from the cards. "I never even fought them," she whispered. "I let it happen. They..."

"I'm sorry they took so much. I'm sorry they hurt you."

"It feels like I did so much worse though... The suit... I was made to bring fear to people. I didn't just kill someone; my job was to scare them. To draw out their last moments. To make their deaths as... God, as gruesome as I could. I could phase through things," she explained again, lifting her head a little. "People. I could phase through people. And phase back when I wanted... so I... would rip people apart from the inside. Squeeze until t-their hearts e—" she sucked in a breath, "exploded. I would scare them—toy with them before destroying their bodies. They knew who I was; they knew how they were about to die, and they would beg, but I never stopped. Never even thought about it. The only thing I was concerned with was finishing the mission because that's what I needed to do. I didn't know anything except killing, so I tortured people while my team watched and laughed behind me... I had to deserve everything they did to me. If..." she shook her head, "I had to."

"You didn't," he said quietly. "They hurt you long before you hurt anyone else; you didn't deserve it."

"Don't."

Her words echoed those from yesterday, when she'd told him that she didn't want to imagine a life where none of it had happened. But he wouldn't let her believe she deserved it.

"Marlow, you were innocent, you didn't deserve it."

"No, I did—I had to, because..." she let out a puff of air, shaking her head. "If I didn't, then why did it happen?" she bit weakly. "I must have deserved it. There has to be a reason."

He felt his shoulders tense a little at the question. He asked himself the same thing a lot the last four years... and he never liked the answer.

"Because they were bad people. It was ... senseless violence."

She shook her head. "That's not fair."

He let out a long breath and nodded. "I know."

"I wish that drug never wore off, I don't want this. Whatever those doctors gave me was a fucking mercy because I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know I should be afraid or guilty or in pain. I don't care that I remember everyone now or have my mind back—I don't want this. I don't want to know what I've done. I don't want to know what they did. God, I don't want this."

He nodded. "I know... Everything they did... I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry you had to go through it alone," she choked, taking him off guard. "At least I had you. You were always familiar, I knew you were like me, and you didn't do the things they did. But you had to go through it alone."

"I didn't know I was alone," he shrugged. "I thought I was part of something. They told me what we were doing was right, and I believed them."

"Still, it would have been nice to have someone with you..."

"I wouldn't wish that on anyone," he said airily. "Although I wish I had of been there with you so I would know how to help."

"I don't know if anything will help, but you've kept me from having like, six meltdowns, so count yourself successful," she said, voice so close to playful.

He was glad he was somehow helping, but he didn't feel like he was. He second guessed every interaction, not knowing if he was pushing too much or not enough, and nothing he said felt right—like this damn conversation.

"Just tell me if you want me to back off, alright? I don't want to overstep."

"If I'm being honest, I don't think it's possible for you to overstep. Not considering what's already been done."

"I don't want to be like them," he stated sharply. "You tell me if you want me to back off. I'm serious, I don't want to make you uncomfortable, or make it all worse."

"Okay," she nodded, "I will. As long as you tell me if you need a break from this. Me," she clarified. "It doesn't matter what's happening, if you don't want to deal with me, you don't have to. You can leave. I know you have your own demons to deal with, and I don't want to make it worse by reminding you of what happened or by draining you with my problems."

He nodded, holding a hand out in front of him. "Deal."

She nodded faintly before reaching forward and shaking his hand.

"And we'll go in together on an apartment," he added before she pulled her hand away.

"Bucky."

"What? We shook on it, no backing out now."

"Did you not hear anything I just said? You don't need my baggage."

"And you don't need to be alone," he countered. "I think the company will do us both good. We understand each other..." he reasoned, and although he forced his voice to stay calm, he felt desperate. By helping her he found... some sort of objective. He wanted to believe that even without that, he would still help her, but by being a shoulder for her, he felt he was contributing to something. Had something to wake up for. Was needed.

He'd been merely existing for years, so this—she—was like...

A purpose.

Maybe it was selfish to find purpose in a traumatized girl, but he couldn't help it. She needed someone and... maybe that someone was him. Although he also felt that he needed her. He wouldn't ask her to sit and listen to his stories—especially not any time soon considering she was struggling with her own memories—but it felt like helping her would help him. And it was comforting being around someone else who understood.

Morbid, he thought again.

But there was something inside him that kept insisting that they could help each other.

And be a distraction from my own mind...

Was that selfish too? Maybe this whole thing was a selfish traipse that he shouldn't even consider. Maybe he should forget all of it; let Steve or Sam help her because the Lord knows they could probably do it better...

But he wanted to.

Maybe, this was a good idea. Maybe he could be good.

"I won't force you, but I think it'll be good."

"And maybe it'll be bad," she countered.

"Yah... but we won't know until we try."

She watched him a moment before nodding. "Alright. But tell me if you need space. I don't want to get in the way of you getting help."

"Alright," he agreed, feeling some of the stress leave his body.

What is wrong with me, getting all high strung like this?

In the quiet moments following their agreement, the weight of the conversation hung over him, and his mind was silently urging him to cut the tension. To create an atmosphere of... well, anything other than grief, or whatever the hell they were sitting in. That was another old habit; he was never very good with serious topics, so, more often than not, Bucky would offer a sarcastic—or even brash—remark to ease the air.

And in that moment, he felt Marlow could use the change of topic.

"So, I should expect some gourmet cookin' from you once we're roommates, huh?"

She let out a hum of a laugh that sent a spark of pride through Bucky, then shrugged. "It's been a while since I've cooked anything..."

"I'm sure it's just like riding a bike," he suggested gently. "So, what's the first thing you're gonna make?"

"You're going to be my guinea pig? No complaining?"

"Promise," he nodded, noting the slight challenge in her voice.

"Well..." she hummed, "maybe pasta."

"Love pasta."

⁂

"Ptichka, you failed," the Russian said, his voice deathly calm.

She'd just returned from a mission where she was meant to extract a politician without witnesses, but somewhere along the way, she had attracted attention. While no one survived seeing them, there wasn't supposed to be any traces of their presence. This was the Soldat's mission, and she'd messed it up.

Now, anyone investigating would know it was her. And by extension, Hydra.

"You do not fail."

She said nothing as he approached, grabbing her cheeks roughly and pulling her face up so he could glare into her eyes.

"Do you understand why you cannot fail? Because if you fail, I fail. And I do not like to fail."

He pulled his hand away, but barely a second later he sent it across her cheek, hitting hard enough that blood immediately began coating her front teeth.

"Do you understand?"

She nodded, eyes dropping to the boots of an agent behind the Russian.

"I wonder if you really do not feel anything," he grunted, knocking her beneath the chin to bring her gaze back to his. "Do you feel fear somewhere inside you? Somewhere behind those pustyye glaza? I do not know, but I know you still have the instinct to survive. Soldat," he barked, and in her periphery, she could see him move among the bodies of agents, "until I tell you to stop, you are to treat her as an enemy. Show no mercy but do not kill her. Make her understand why she cannot fail."

The Russian stepped away and without pause, the Soldat took his place, a metal hand immediately wrapping round her throat without stopping his steps. The force pushed her backwards, but the metal grip kept her from falling as her hands grabbed at his, trying to ease the choking pain.

"No, Ptichka, no fighting back. I want you to suffer."

Her fingers slipped away obediently, but she didn't want them to.

Get him off.

I can't breathe!

Her eyes grew wide with the sudden will over her mind and body, and she disregarded the Russian's words, trying to wrench from the Soldat's hand—Bucky's hand.

It's not real, her mind screamed, realizing it was a memory. She wasn't there. It wasn't real.

Her back hit a wall and she choked further, the metal pressing into her windpipe while the cinderblock held her still. Blood was already pumping painfully behind her eyes, and she reached for Bucky's face, trying to scratch him off, but he wouldn't move.

Suddenly, there was space between her back and the wall, but only for a moment before she was slammed back into it, forcing a wheezing cry of pain from her throat.

"S-stop," she hissed, kicking her leg out and catching him in the stomach.

He didn't even seem to notice as he reeled back an arm and slammed a fist into her chest, shocking her lungs to a point of stillness before following it with a blow to her stomach.

She barely even registered the next few hits, still focused on the burning feeling within her lungs, but she recognized when her body was flipped and slammed into the ground back-first. Something snapped on her side, leaving her gasping and frozen as the Soldat dropped beside her and pulled his fist back again.

"Not her face," the Russian ordered, and the Soldat redirected, landing the hit on her collarbone instead.

He stood then, staring down at her before he raised his leg and brought his foot down hard on her side. She didn't even have the energy to move as pain shot through her, and then it happened again.

"Bucky... stop," she rasped, hoping she could break through to him, but she knew she couldn't. She also knew none of it was real, but it felt real. So real. And she was trapped within it.

She saw his foot coming down again and she pushed away. Although she avoided him, he was quick, crouching again and reaching to wrap his hand around her neck to easily stop her retreat. Her hands swatted at him weakly, desperate to fill her lungs after the agonizing blows, but he wouldn't let go.

She gasped beneath him, trying to get herself away from the memory.

It had to be a memory.

She squeezed her eyes shut, half in an attempt to rid the growing spots in her vision, and half to rid the memory, but when she opened them, the dark haired assassin was still staring at her.

No.

She let her gaze wander, blinking to clear her vision but nothing was working to clear the increasing blurriness. She wasn't sure if her the blankness was due to lack of oxygen or if her eyes were closed, but a few moments later she caught sight of two empty chairs.

Finally, she sucked in a deep breath, mind reeling at the dream.

It wasn't real.

It wasn't—

"You're safe."

She whipped her head to where the Soldat was sitting on his cot.

Bucky.

That's Bucky. Not the Soldat.

Relax.

She tried not to let her heart beat harder, or her body burn with adrenaline, but it seemed to be running on survival instinct.

Like the Russian said.

Bucky stood slowly and without even registering her movements, she was off the bed, only stopping when he did. She looked down to the bed that separated them then flicked her eyes back up to Bucky, seeing the exact moment when he realized what was happening. That she was afraid. Of him.

His face fell and he stepped back, eyes refusing to meet hers. Despite barely moving, he looked like he was shrinking—caving in like he wanted his body to just disappear beneath itself. He took a step back as if to leave, but stopped, standing with his body turned slightly so she could only see his right side. Like if he needed to, he could be gone in a moments notice.

"Fuck," she bit, wishing she could control herself, "I'm sorry, I—it's just... I dreamed about... you, and I'm... trying to calm down but..." She couldn't finish, her words broken by her pants as she tried to catch her breath.

"Don't apologize, I'll go—"

Despite the fear that pumped through her from the nightmare, she stepped forward. "Don't. Please."

His gaze snapped to hers and his brows furrowed. "You want me to stay?"

He sounded dumbfounded. Absolutely confused.

"I... Yes. I'm sorry, I'm alright."

"I don't want to scare you," he all but whispered, his voice barely travelling across the room despite there only been a handful of feet between them. She had a feeling it wasn't only not to scare her, but to not betray his emotions. How much she'd hurt him, regardless of whether she meant to or not.

And she didn't want to. Not after everything that he'd done. And despite the urge to self-destruct, to let herself be alone and afraid, she didn't want him to leave.

"Please. I'm sorry..." she breathed, eyes jumping from him to where he'd stood from. "Did I wake you up?"

"You have nothing to apologize for," he opposed, eyes scanning over her worriedly. "And no, I wasn't sleeping."

She wanted to press that yes, she did have something to apologize for, but she didn't have the energy to argue. So, she nodded, running a hand down her face with a sigh.

Relax.

Her eyes wandered the room, shame biting at her stomach as she tried to distract herself. "What time is it?" she mumbled, forcing her gaze back to Bucky.

His usual demeanour returned some, but she didn't miss how he hesitated before pulling his left arm forward to glance at the inside of his wrist where his watch was strapped. "It's uh, just after five. You only slept an hour or so, are you gonna go back to sleep?"

She immediately shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself and half expecting a burst of pain at the contact, but obviously, there was nothing.

When it had actually happened, it took almost two months to heal the broken ribs, fractured collar bone, and bruises that left her more blue than her own skin tone. It was the roughest punishment she'd ever gotten, since they never wanted her hurt enough to affect productivity, but that failure was big. They forced her onto missions despite her injuries, which she assumed was in the hopes that she would learn a lesson, but the beating meant nothing to her. Pain meant nothing to her. She was more concerned with failing than consequences.

Although she never messed up like that again.

That wasn't to say she never got beatings again, but a beating in an attempt to scare her off failing; that only happened once. They realized it didn't have the desired effect, so they changed tactics.

"Do you want to talk about the dream?"

She sucked in a breath; brows furrowed.

Did she? When she used to have nightmares, she hated telling people, but there was something urging her to tell him. Maybe it was because he might have a similar experience, maybe it was because in her mind, he already knew... She wasn't sure. But if he did have similar experiences, it was selfish to bring it up and make him think about what they did.

So, she shook her head. "I don't want to remind you," she mumbled, finally taking a seat back onto the bed.

"I'll be reminded of it regardless."

He said it so nonchalantly, and she wondered if that was what her future would be like; accepting what had happened. Being constantly reminded of those years. Never escaping them. Always feeling that guilt.

And God, if she told him about her nightmare, he would feel even more. She'd purposefully not told him about what the Soldat had done to her, because even though it wasn't him, she had a feeling he would feel responsibility for it.

"I... don't want you to feel bad about what happened," she said quietly.

"What did I do?" he asked lowly.

She clenched her teeth, needing to take a few moments to form the words. "It was... It wasn't you. It was the Russian, he ordered you to do it. I messed up on a mission, drew attention when it was supposed to be covert, and I was punished for it. Beaten. The Soldat... did it. That's why I was freaked out when I woke up... I..."

"Saw the Soldat."

"Yah," she breathed.

His jaw was tight as he took in her words, hands pushing into the pockets of his hoodie. "Did that happen a lot?"

"That only happened the once; they realized the pain didn't have an effect on me. But it was Hydra, getting hurt wasn't out of the ordinary..."

"So it did," he clarified.

"Mhmm," she agreed hesitantly. "It wasn't only you though, it was agents, higher-ups, targets..."

"I thought—" he cut himself off, shaking his head, "sorry, don't—it doesn't matter."

"What?"

He pursed his lips, gaze dropped from hers. "I thought I didn't hurt you," he said quietly, and she wished she hadn't said anything.

Shit.

"You... you didn't—not like the others did," she argued. "You were different, you—they... They were just different, okay?"

"But I still hurt you."

"Not like they did," she repeated. "You didn't have a choice, but they... did so much worse. They found joy in it," she spit.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be making this about me, I just... I'd hoped that I didn't hurt you. Just one person."

"Hydra didn't make exceptions," she said quietly. "But I promise I don't think of you as the Soldat, and I don't hold what happened against you. Like I said, it was nothing... compared to what they did."

Somehow, she was able to keep her mind away from the things the Russian did; like closing a door to those memories. Almost like a replacement for those blessed drugs they pumped her with.

"They were sick," he breathed. "The things they would do... or make me, us, do."

She nodded in agreement, her mind becoming occupied by the Russian's face. His pale blue eyes and reaching scar. And his voice. His tauntingly gentle tone tilted in that guttural accent.

Ptichka. Ptichka. Ptichka.

"S—Bucky," she started, wanting to slap herself on the wrist for almost falling back to that name. For wanting to fall back into the familiarity of Russian. "Do you know what ptichka means? You said it was a nice name but..." she shook her head. "I learned Russian, but I never learned that word..."

"It... it means birdie. I've heard it being used as a term of endearment... a pet name."

She almost shivered at his words. But it made sense; she vaguely remembered him saying something along the lines of making her sing, but she never thought to connect the name and what he was saying.

Birdie.

She hated that. It felt juvenile and innocent, and that made a nauseous feeling rise in her stomach because of the things he'd done. The way he'd owned her.

"He was a sick bastard," she mumbled, running a hand over her face.

Thank God for those drugs.

Chapter Text

Bucky was just placing his and Marlow’s breakfast on the desk when he saw Steve and Sam approach the door. He sent them a quick look and they paused, eyes flicking to where Marlow was seated in front of the window, staring into the browned forest.

When he saw them in the halls earlier, he very briefly explained what happened yesterday and agreed that it would be good for them to come see her. He could tell that she wanted them around, and they—well, not so much Sam, but Steve missed her. And was worried about her. And felt guilty.

Bucky was in the meeting nearly two months ago when they decided how the mission would happen. Steve was worried then, looking to the few who sat around that table for support to stop her, but no one opposed her. Why would they? She was a grown woman who wanted to help, and Steve, regardless of what he said, could use it. It was a lot for one person, and Marlow was eager to go.

Looking back now though, even he felt guilty. He didn’t want to go on some trip through time and space; that sounded almost as bad as having to deal with Thanos again. So, he let her volunteer. He was finished fighting incomprehensible threats, and he didn’t understand—let alone want—to use some super advanced jet to fly to different planets and wager with a ghost from his past. He just wanted some quiet. Some simplicity.

And because he was right, his cowardice was laced with guilt because maybe if Marlow had a partner, none of that would have happened.

But he had been too afraid.

“Buck?”

He jerked his head to where Steve now stood directly beside him, watching him with a worried expression.

“Don’t frown, it’ll give you wrinkles,” he mumbled, repeating the line his mother used to tut.

“Yah, unfortunately the serum didn’t help much with that,” Steve chuckled, squeezing his shoulder.

Then from behind him, a quiet voice called out.

“Don’t worry Steve, you don’t look a day over ninety-eight,” Marlow quipped.

Steve inched his head to the left to see past Bucky’s, cocking a brow at the girl. “Didn’t I ever teach you to respect your elders?”

“Was that between punching them or tying them up?”

A gentle smile pulled at Steve’s lips, and he let go of Bucky, walking past him and stopping in front of the girl. “I’ve missed you kid.”

In response, Marlow stood, immediately wrapping her arms around him.

He couldn’t help but wonder how they’d gotten so close. And really, how she’d gotten so close to all of them in what, a year? Two? He was almost jealous—not of their relationship, but of her ability to fall into place with people. Steve, Sam, Wanda, Natasha. Sure, they all had the same principles, but they were different. He might not have known Natasha, but he knew she was closed off, a result of her up-bringing and profession, and from what he understood, it took years for her and Steve to reach a level of transparency to truly become friends. But she seemed to have done it in a matter of months. Somehow, she’d drawn her in.  

She even drew him in.

In the weeks leading up to the mission, they only had a handful of interactions, peppered with sarcastic comments and jabs in between, yet he was fairly certain they were friends. One night he’d been in the commissary, unwilling to go back to sleep after a nightmare, and she walked in. She must have noticed something was wrong because she started talking to him, showing him funny videos on her phone, effortlessly distracting him from what he’d been so focused on only moments before. And when he mentioned that he didn’t understand a movie reference or like a song, she insisted she show him one day or had him recommend a song that he liked.

She had a knack for drawing people in.

So, he guessed it wasn’t so difficult to understand how she’d done it, she was just a likeable person.

“Morning Buck,” Sam greeted beside him.

Bucky flicked his attention to his left where Sam now stood, a steaming coffee in his hand. “Morning,” he mumbled, giving a slight nod.

His almost grimaced at his tone, how sharp it sounded. He was not a likeable person. Not anymore, at least. At one point, he would have said he was a very likeable person, but that was a long time ago.

Maybe you should try to be more likeable, you crumb.

“You, uh, figure out when you’re heading home?” he asked, but he cursed himself for sounding so stilted and awkward.

“Why? You tryn’a get rid of me?” Sam teased.

Bucky let out a breathy chuckle, hands sliding into his pant pockets. “No, no, just know you miss your family.”

“I do,” he nodded, taking a short sip of his drink. “I also miss good coffee… I’m being flown out in a week,” he explained, before nodding his head to the door.

Marlow and Steve were talking quietly at the window still, so he followed Sam into the hall, pausing a half dozen feet from the door.

“I was hoping you would help me out,” he started, “I’m trying to convince Mar to come with me—I really don’t think it’s a good idea for her to be on her own, but I don’t know how to get through to her. That she won’t be a burden on us and that we’re happy to have her come. If she stays by herself, I’m worried she’s going to… I don’t know, get worse? Do something dangerous? She said she wanted to go back, as in, to whatever timeline she was trapped in so she could face justice—I don’t know how serious she is about that, or how possible it would even be, but she feels guilty for what happened. And I get it; I’ve done stuff that keeps me up at night, but I don’t want her to be alone. Not now. She needs help.”

I’m going to help her.

“She told me the same thing,” he said, trying to disregard the thoughts in his head. “She wants some type of repercussion, and right now, that means being in pain. Feeling guilt and fear.”

“I get needing to feel those things, but if it snowballs and starts taking over her life, she’s never going to get better.”

“You don’t get it,” Bucky bit before he paused, urging himself to relax some. “The things she’s done aren’t like what we did in war. Those things… they were bad, but what Hydra does…” he let out a breath. “You don’t get it; that’s where you can start. Not trying to relate, because pray to God you’ll never be able to. Just… I don’t know, be there? Sit with her, let her feel those things; don’t try to make it better right now.”

“Bucky, we can’t just let her stew in this,” Sam argued. “So fine, I don’t get it, but she’s going to spiral if we don’t do something. She has PTSD, she’s going to get depressed, and anxious, she might become suicidal—we can’t let her be alone in this, she needs to know she has friends, access to professional support, and that there is a way to get past it.”

He wanted to yell that she already was all of those things, and that he understood, and that right now she needed to be left alone.

But it wasn’t his place.

That wasn’t his to tell, so he bit his tongue on the matter. “Right now, she doesn’t want to get past it. Right now, there is a whole damn war going on in her head that is trying to process what happened, trying to find reason, trying to place blame, trying to find a way to rectify—trying escape what they did. There is so much you don’t understand, and I know she can’t be left alone, but throwing her in with a shrink isn’t going to help right now.”

That seemed to spark something in Sam. “I get that back in your day going to a therapist was a bad thing, and likely made a lot of things worse, but the practice has changed; they know how to help people, and they do. I’m not saying we force her into it tomorrow, but as soon as she’s ready, she should go.”

“Right, as soon as she’s ready. She’s not ready.”

“Yes, so until she is, I want her to stay with me. It’ll be a good place for her, the people in town are good, she’ll have my sister and nephews. She won’t have to worry about anything until she’s ready.”

He almost physically recoiled. He thought of himself, only weeks after getting away from Hydra, living in a house with a family he didn’t know as everything waged on in his head. The noise, the questions, the tension.

“That isn’t what she wants,” he snapped, no longer able to keep his composure. “Is that what you would want? To be in an unfamiliar house, with people you don’t know, trying not to disrupt them as they try to live their lives? How would you feel if you woke the entire house up with your screams because of a nightmare? Or being watched as you down a pot of coffee after not getting sleep for the fourth night in a row? What about the days she doesn’t want to get out of bed? Or smile or make conversation? You don’t think being surrounded by people is going to bother her on those days? You don’t think she’s going to fake being alright while inside she feels like she’s going to breakdown?”

“I don’t know,” Sam snapped back, obviously doing his best to keep his voice from carrying into the room. “I don’t know what to do and it’s driving me insane because I should. I don’t want to see her like this, and I shouldn’t be questioning my next steps, but it’s her—I don’t want to think about what they put her through, and how badly she’s been hurt, and all of the things she’s faced, but I’m not just going to let her deal with it by herself. I’m going to do what I think is right, and that’s making sure she isn’t alone. And to do that, I need her close. I need to make sure she’s alright.”

“She isn’t. And she won’t be.”

“You don’t get to decide that. She needs help and I’m going to give it to her, whenever she needs it.”

“And if your help isn’t what she needs?”

Sam seemed taken aback by the question. “You were serious? Yesterday. About you two staying together?”

“Deadly.”

“Bucky… I think that’s great, and I appreciate it, but—”

“It’s not yours to appreciate. Or your decision. I gave her the option because I know what she’s going through and at least I know what helped me.”

“Going to Wakanda helped you; going and getting support from them helped you. But how long did you suffer? I don’t want her to go through that, I want her to get help as soon as possible.”

“I want the same thing.”

“Then listen to me; she needs professional help. She needs someone who understands how—”

“No one understands.”

“No one except you?”

“Yah, no one except me. Because no one else went through it.”

“Bucky, you’re still having nightmares. You’re still struggling with what happened. You need to go to a therapist—and I’m not saying this with the intent of insulting you, but you need the help as much as she does. It’s just not a good idea for her to stay with you. Not alone anyways…” he paused and let out a breath. “I want you to know that you’re welcome at my house too; we can make the room. You both can get the help you need and support each other there.”

He froze at the proposition. At the fact that he knew, or at least had an idea, of what was going on inside his head.

Was he that see-through?

Was it that obvious?

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, “but Marlow isn’t. And I’m going to do what she needs, what makes it easiest for her. It’s her decision.”

“It is. But it’s your decision to encourage her to do the right thing.”

With that he walked past Bucky and back into the room, leaving him alone in the hall.

He let out a frustrated sigh, working his jaw before his feet pulled him forward. He ducked into the empty medical room, dropping onto his cot and letting his head fall into his hands as he replayed the conversation.

He didn’t know what to do.

The thought of being dropped into the middle of a family sounded like hell to him, but maybe it would help her—he didn’t know. The same went for seeing a shrink because Sam was right, all that stuff was normal now, nothing like it was when he was growing up, so maybe she should go.

Maybe him going wasn’t actually a bad thing.

It is.

The only thing worse than going through all of it again would be having to explain it to another person. He could see it now; him laying on one of those stupid couches while some doctor asked him questions about Hydra, probably satisfying their burning curiosity about what it was like.

People were like that; they would glorify horrors and pretend another person didn’t go through unspeakable things for the sake of hearing an interesting story. He remembered people doing it to the men that served in the Great War. The questions they would ask about missing limbs or mustard gas burned eyes. They would poke and prod about what it was like in the trenches, what it was like to kill.

He never liked those people. His uncle had served, but when he came back, he apparently wasn’t the same man. He’d never known what he was like before, but he’d heard that he was funny, always telling jokes and pulling pranks, helping out the neighborhood however he could. The uncle he knew was stern, spacey, lonesome, and easily startled. He didn’t understand it then, but he knew as much not to push or ask questions.

That’s probably why he’d gotten into fights the kids who pointed and laughed at the veteran who struggled to get into a store with his crutches. And the ones who mocked the man with scars across his face. And the one’s who questioned a man into a breakdown.

Little did they know, it would only be a few years until they would experience it themselves. They didn’t know what they were about to face, so they all puffed their chests and walked forward with the expectation of glory on the battlefront. Each of them were brave until the first bullet whizzed past their ear. Or worse, they were dead before they knew to even be afraid. And when those who survived were released from duty, they became the men having a breakdown in the street when asked questions. Because it made them relive those moments that haunted their minds. It made them become real again.

So no, he didn’t need a shrink. He didn’t want a shrink. It would be a bad thing.

And forcing Marlow into it didn’t seem like a good thing either… she didn’t want to talk about what had happened with anyone here, why would she want to tell a stranger? It was too soon. She just got back.

But then again, Sam knew about this stuff. He had worked with people who had trauma so maybe he should be the one to help her. Maybe if those veterans had of had a shrink right away, they wouldn’t have gotten so bad…

But if he’d been told to talk about what had happened three weeks after he’d escaped, he probably would have bashed his head into a table to avoid it. That may be a little dramatic, but he probably would have.

In a huff, he pushed back, letting his back smack into the wall as he looked around the room.

This can’t be helping, he thought pointedly.

Being in that room, surrounded by machines and sterile walls.

Marlow needed a home, warmth, comfort. Something this place couldn’t offer… And something he wasn’t sure he could offer either.

If they moved in together, it wouldn’t be a particularly pretty place. He wouldn’t be able to keep up with the newest trends, and really, he could care less about decorating. He’d lived with the bare minimum for as long as he could remember; that idea didn’t perturb him. But it might her.

He could imagine her in a home filled with warm wood furniture and bright green plants. Without clutter but with lots of blankets and pillows and windows—and he could only imagine that because she’d told him that that was what she would want if she owned a house one day. Something calm and minimal, where she could relax. That was big enough to have guests stay over, but not too big as she couldn’t manage cleaning it herself. Where she could spend evenings on a couch in the backyard, in front of a fire and surrounded by a forest.

He wouldn’t be able to give her any of that.

If she were to come with him, she would be living in a more-than-likely tiny apartment, without access to greenery or forests, and without the touches that would make it nice. He wasn’t sure he would have the energy to decorate even if he had a talent for it. The only thing that would suit her would be its minimalism, but it wouldn’t be a stylistic choice, it would simply be because decorating would be the last of his worries.

It wouldn’t be a home… Not like Sam’s.

From what he’d heard, it was a big farmhouse down south, right on the water and surrounded by trees. They probably had movie nights and ate dinners together, argued about dishes and played catch in the yard. That was what Marlow imagined her home to be like one day, and that’s not what their apartment would be.

He felt his shoulders weigh down with the acceptance that Marlow couldn’t go with him. That Sam was right, and he now had to convince her to go with him. It would be the best thing for her, and he wasn’t going to stand in the way of that. He would be fine alone. He’d done it before, and he was more than capable of doing it again.

Hesitantly, he pushed himself up, masking his face as he carried himself through the room and down the hall, finally stepping back into the office.

Marlow looked up from her plate, meeting his eyes and quirking her lips slightly in acknowledgment. He tried to do the same, but when it turned into a grimace, he dropped her gaze and leaned himself against the short filing cabinet in the corner.

“We were just talking about next steps,” Sam said. “I still think it’s best if she came to live with me.”

He saw Marlow shake her head from the corner of his eye. “Sam, really, it’s alright, I don’t want to—”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Bucky forced out, glancing to the table where the three of them sat, but unable to look at Marlow. “He’ll be able to help. He knows what to do.”

“But I—I thought…” she trailed off, and he honestly thought she sounded disappointed.

She’s not disappointed. Probably just confused because you’ve suddenly changed your mind.

“We have the spare room we can make up for you. It’s away from the boys’ rooms, and they’ll be gone during the day, so you’ll have time to yourself.”

“But I’m going to be intruding on your life. On their lives,” she said weakly. “And what are you going to tell Sarah? She isn’t going to want me around the kids when she finds out what I’ve done. And I can’t lie to her—I won’t—but she isn’t going to want someone like me around them.”

“We’ll tell her and she’ll be fine. She trusts me so she’ll trust you.”

“You can’t know that. And you can’t invite me without her knowing and accepting. That’s not fair. What if she’s not comfortable with it?”

“Then we rent a place in town—but Mar, I’m not leaving you, alright?”

“But I…” she let out a hitched breath and it took everything in Bucky not to take back his words.

She sounded so lost and frustrated. And it was his fault for backing out of their deal.

But maybe that’s what she needed; someone to push her to do the right thing. Despite his intentions, he couldn’t be that person; he wasn’t strong enough to do it for himself, let alone her. Even right now they were only talking, and he wanted to stop it all and pull her away, to let her have the time that he did. But she needed someone who would stand their ground and make sure she did what she needed to do to get better. Sam would do that for her, he would convince her to do the right thing and be there for her when it got tough.

So, he clenched his jaw to keep himself quiet. And he would have stayed quiet had he not locked eyes with her and seen how scared she was.

Before his mind even caught up to his words, a cool lie was slipping from his mouth, “Marlow, Doctor Green asked me to bring you to her office to check in.”

She immediately nodded, pushing her chair back. “I’ll see you later guys,” she mumbled quietly to Sam and Steve before making a beeline for the door.

She was gone before anyone could say anything else, and Bucky was following a few seconds afterwards, just barely catching a quiet sigh somewhere behind him before he was out of earshot.  

When Marlow turned down a connecting hall, he sped up slightly to not lose her despite the shame making him want to sink into the floor. He turned and saw her pressed against the wall with her face buried in her hands, only making his shame grow.

“I’m sorry.”

“You said earlier that you wanted me to come with you,” she asked shakily. “You said it might be good. Why are you making me—fuck,” she pulled her hands away, revealing reddened cheeks, “just… forget I said anything. It doesn’t matter. I told you to tell me to back off and you are and I’m sorry. It’s fine.”

Shit.

“No, Marlow it isn’t that—”

“It’s fine Bucky, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t expect you to drop everything to help me. You have your own life and things to deal with, and it was wrong for me to force you into that deal.”

He stepped towards her, shaking his head. “Marlow, listen to me, you did nothing wrong. You didn’t force me into anything, it’s just that… Sam knows what he’s doing. I don’t want to stand in your way from getting the help you deserve.”

She shook her head, desperation so clearly mixed with frustration. “I don’t. I don’t deserve that help. And…” she hesitated, eyes dropping, “I don’t want to go with Sam,” she breathed.

What?

“You don’t? Why?”

“Because…” she shut her eyes, “because he doesn’t understand. And he’s going to try to therapy me into getting better and I—I don’t want that right now.”

“But eventually you’ll need it.”

Her eyes were sad as she finally looked at him. “Bucky, I can’t see that far ahead—I’m trying to get through the minute without combusting. I don’t want all that. And he doesn’t get that. But you…”

“Won’t push you,” he mumbled, “and maybe that’s not a good thing. I don’t want to hold you back because I do the wrong thing. I know I wanted time, but Marlow, I don’t think time alone is going to make it better.”

There was a sudden flare of anger behind her eyes and she turned her head. “I don’t want everything to get better.”

He didn’t believe that. Not for a moment.

“You do,” he said quietly. “I know that because I did. Do. But it’s easier not to think about. Not to try.”

“You think this is easy?” she hissed, turning back to look at him incredulously.

“I know it’s not. But I also know that it’s a lot easier to force those thoughts from your head than to think of ways to make it better.” He took another small step towards her. “I get it. Remember what I said the other night; I want you to make it out. I want you to do better. As hard as it is to believe it, you deserve it.”

“But why? There’s no reason for me to deserve it if you don’t. No reason.”

He hesitated, looking down to the ground a moment before nodding and looking back up. “Then maybe we both deserve it.”

She frowned slightly but didn’t rebut him. “I’m so sorry you went through this alone… that you went so long thinking…”

She didn’t finish, but he understood. And once again, her words took him off guard. There was another reason people gravitated to her; even when she was struggling, she found a way to feel sorry for others.

“Don’t be sorry, that’s just the way it happened. Besides, I’m not alone anymore.”

She pulled her lips between her teeth and nodded. “I’m here if you want to talk.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’m not much of a talker.”

Not to mention I don’t want to weigh you down with my past.

“We could just sit in silence then. Or watch a movie…”

His lips quirked and he shook his head in disbelief. “You are too kind for your own good.”

“As Sam always called it: self-destructive tendencies. Can’t worry about myself if I’m worrying about someone else, right?”

“We’re a couple of self-destructing fools then, aren’t we?”

“There’s worse things to be called,” she hummed, and he saw that spark behind her eyes again. Dim, but there.

That playful spirit.

“What?” she asked suddenly, brows knitting together.

“What?” he repeated, before realizing he’d been staring. “Oh, nothing, it’s just good to see you joke around a little.”

She hummed, and again, he wasn’t sure what that meant. Whether it was positive or negative.

But either way, he was glad she was in a slightly better mood.

“Do you want me to send Doctor Green a message, or do you want to wait to see her?”

“I thought she said to come to her office?” Marlow asked in confusion.

“Not exactly,” he frowned. “I thought you wanted away from the conversation so I, uh, made that up.”

“My knight in sweatpants,” she teased, but despite her joking demeanor, he felt a swell of pride that he made the right call. That somehow, he’d helped.

Maybe I could—no.

Once she’s had some time to settle, we need to talk again about her going with Sam.

I need to convince her.

That thought hung over him like a cloud as they wandered to Doctor Green’s office and she walked Marlow through her diagnoses.

Apparently, their situation was best-case scenario; Marlow hadn’t gone through withdrawal, she seemed to have little side-effects from the drug, and at the moment, the only long-term issues she seemed to have was some trouble with her short-term memory, and minor liver damage. Nothing untreatable or worrisome, especially for her age and lifestyle, so, as long as it was managed her liver with medication, it shouldn’t impact her too much.

It was good news—much needed at that—and as they walked in silence to the commissary, she didn’t seem as drained as she had earlier.

When he pulled the door open for her and found the benches occupied by people in uniform, however, that calmness turned to tension. It was like the air around her shifted to something stiff at the sight of the troops.

There weren’t many—Bucky counted thirteen—but it was the most people she’d been around in God knew how long.

“Go back to the med room,” he said quietly as he stared ahead.

Her jaw stiffened at his words and she straightened her back. “We’re getting food.”

“Marlow, it’s alright, I can get us food.”

“I’m going,” she argued before sucking in a breath and walking forward.

He couldn’t help but think that was a bad idea, but it was her choice and he wasn’t going to stop her. So, he fell in step just behind her, watching those eating at the tables look up and nod as they passed. He did his best to acknowledge them but was more focused on the almost invisible tightness of Marlow’s shoulders and the forceful calm of her breathing.

They finally reached the kitchen door, but Marlow seemed to tense further as she came to a halt, almost as if she was preparing for an attack from inside.

She probably is.

But she didn’t move. She didn’t reach to push the door open, or even look to him to open it. She just waited.

“Marlow?”

“Yah—oh. Sorry, I was just…”

“You okay?” he asked, eyes following as she hesitated, then stepped forward, body stiff as she pushed in and let the door swing into the wall.

He could see it was empty, then noticed her head moving almost imperceptibly, and although he couldn’t see her eyes, he knew what she was doing.

Only one entrance.

Plenty of weapons.

Enough room to ambush someone.

He knew because he did it as well.

Assessed.

Weighed his options.

Mentally mapped a strategy.

“I’m alright,” she breathed, stopping at the far wall and turning around. Her eyes darted from his to the door behind him as he heard it quietly fall back into place. “I, uh… I don’t know, it’s going to sound…”

“It won’t sound silly,” he reassured, moving to the fridge while she stayed planted in front of a shelving unit.

“I’m not used to… opening doors,” she muttered, and immediately he knew what she meant. “Everything was locked and my movements were always… controlled. I don’t know what it was, why it just hit me, but I guess I… went back.”

He nodded in understanding, hand tightening on the fridge handle.

She needs out of this place.

“I was the same way. It wasn’t so bad in places I recognized, but places that looked institutionalized or reminded me of Siberia, it was like I was back there. Took me a while to remember I had autonomy.”

“Yah,” she whispered.

He grabbed a couple of ready-made ham sandwiches and dropped them onto the steel counter across from Marlow as the fridge doors thwupt shut. “I hated making choices,” he said quietly, moving to stop beside her where he looked over the snacks. “Even simple ones without consequences; they felt like a complicated math problem that would make my mind go haywire…”

“Choose the chocolate chip cookies,” she said, eyes still not straying from the door.

The corner of his mouth quirked up and he nodded, grabbing a couple packs of cookies. “I also had a really hard time making myself do things. For so long, everything I’d done was decided for me; what it was, when I would do it, for how long. There were days… where I wouldn’t get up after waking up because I hadn’t been told to. There were days where I wanted to pull my hair out because no one was giving me orders. It was like I craved them. I hadn’t been alone in so long that that silence was enough to drive me certifiable,” he explained, before turning and dropping the cookies beside the sandwiches. “The scars of that time show themselves in weird ways, but they’ll get easier to deal with. Then they’ll disappear. Those habits will become obsolete, and you’ll be able to get through a day without having to question your movements.”

“They have for you?”

He hesitated. “A lot of them have stayed quiet, yah…”

“But not all of them?”

“No... Since Thanos, some of those things have come back. The stress of the fight, I guess.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s to be expected.”

“But before that, while you were in Wakanda, it was alright?”

“Yah, it became good. It wasn’t always; the beginning was hard. Getting Hydra out of my head was hard. But it became good.”

She pulled her eyes to his and nodded. “I’m glad… Have you thought about going back?” she asked before she resumed her guard.

“I think I was overstaying my welcome as it was,” he mumbled, eyeing their sad lunch and heading back to the fridge. “But now there’s the order from the government, and that pretty well keeps me from leaving the country for any stretch of time.”

“That must be frustrating…”

He riffled through a few bins, grabbing a couple cans of soda, potato salad, and a container of fruit before letting the doors shut again. “I ain’t thrilled to be analysed by some smug quack, but it could be worse.”

“Doesn’t sound like it,” she countered, her fingers worrying at a bolt of the shelf behind her. “Therapists really aren’t that bad. I saw one when I was a kid; they’re actually helpful if you let them be.”

He dropped everything onto the counter, doing his best to keep himself from snapping. “I’m sure they are. But this isn’t something I…” he wasn’t sure how to explain it. Really, there were a lot of reasons he didn’t want to go; he didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t want to relive it, he didn’t want to feed into curiosity, he didn’t want them to be afraid of him, he didn’t want to say the wrong thing and get—

“I understand,” she said quietly. “It took me a long time to open up. And even then, there was a lot I didn’t talk about because they would have—it just would have made a mess of my life. But they did help.”

“I guess we’ll see…” He grabbed some forks then reached under the counter to pull two trays up, piling their lunch on top before turning. “Ready?”

Her body seemed to snap back to its previous state, but she nodded, stepping forward and sliding one of the trays off the counter.  

He balanced his tray on one hand before stepping in front of the door and pushing it open, letting the quiet chatter from the dining area reach them.

With her eyes focused on the exit, she started forward and Bucky kept beside her, passing the troops who again, nodded at them in recognition. As with the way in, she masked her nervousness well enough that unless you knew her habits, she seemed at ease. But he knew she was on edge. His eyes trailed across her profile, her shoulders, her fingers—all silently announcing her discomfort.

Roars of laughter erupted somewhere to Bucky’s right and Marlow froze, sucking in a sharp breath as her wide eyes flicked past Bucky’s shoulder to find its source.

He turned as well, catching sight of four young men still chuckling and joking back and forth at a table a few feet away. After a moment, one of the men’s eyes caught Bucky’s and the color drained from his face, immediately snapping his mouth shut and smacking his friends in an attempt to pull their attention.

By the time he realized he was glaring daggers at the table, it was too late; they’d all turned and went silent, backs rod straight as they watched him with wide eyes. He immediately relaxed his face, frustrated with himself for scaring them. Although he was also frustrated at them for scaring Marlow.

“Sorry Sergeant Barnes, we didn’t mean to be so loud,” one of the men called over, and Bucky felt every head turn towards him. And by extension, Marlow.  

Damn it.

“It’s fine,” he shook his head, turning to Marlow and urging her forward.

Her discomfort was much more obvious now; her hands were fisted against the bottom edge of the tray and her jaw was clenched so hard it looked painful. She didn’t wait for him to continue walking, and although it felt like hours, it only took a few seconds to reach the hall.

The moment the door closed she forced out a breath before sucking in another, dipping down the first hall they came across and crouching to drop her tray on the ground.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.”

She stood once again and spun, eyes searching the space around her before running her hands over her face.

“You did it,” Bucky said quietly, and her eyes snapped to him.

“That—” she panted, hand waving in the direction of the commissary, “that shouldn’t be an accomplishment. I should be able to walk though a hall filled with men without making it into something.”

“Just because you should doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

She huffed a breath in response, clearly agitated as her eyes scanned the hall again and she bounced on her toes. “I’m fine,” she repeated, but he dropped his gaze to where she was shaking her hands as if trying to dry them. “Fuck. Fuck.” She let out a breath, dropping into a crouch again and burying her face in her hands.

Bucky finally snapped into the moment and dropped his tray beside hers, inching towards her before pausing a foot away. “You’re not in there anymore,” he said gently. “Just focus on the now.”

“Fuck,” she breathed, hands pulling away from her face, “everything is so much, I feel like I’m about to burst.”

“It’ll pass. Just focus on your breathing. Count them.”

“Mhmm,” she nodded, letting her chin drop to her chest.

Like the other night, he began taking slow, paced breaths, hoping she would fall into the same pattern.

“I should be fine,” she said, voice muffled until she pulled her head up to look at him. “I should be fine.”

“It’s alright,” he whispered, “count. Focus on that.”

She frowned and dropped his gaze but conceded, taking level breaths that matched his.

He estimated it had been about ten minutes when most of the tension had left her body—although it was difficult to tell. She hid the physical sighs of her emotions well, no doubt a trait that was drilled into her by Hydra at the same as masking pain. But she didn’t need to.

“It’s alright that you’re not fine,” he mumbled, breaking the silence that hung around them.

She stood suddenly, turning away to pace a few steps as she shook her hands out again. “I know, but it’s such a basic thing. To walk through a room. I can’t avoid everything that makes me uncomfortable. I thought I would be okay but I… fuck, it was like I was back there. Tailing the Russian around the base. Hearing the agents… Oh fuck,” she bit, shaking her hands out harder. She bounced on her toes a few times and he stood, taking a cautious step forward.

“You’re not there anymore. The people here aren’t them. They won’t hurt you.”

She pulled her lips between her teeth and nodded, but she didn’t look convinced. Really, he probably couldn’t convince her; it wasn’t something up for debate, it was fear. Fear didn’t always make sense and it didn’t always listen to reason.

“Let’s get back to the room,” he suggested. “You need some time to relax.”

Her brows pulled more, this time in frustration, and she crouched to grab her tray before standing and marching down the hall, shoulders taut.

He watched her disappear, cursing himself for… well for not being able to do more. For not being able to fight her demons himself.  

Chapter Text

Marlow wasn’t sure if Steve and Sam were still in the office as her and Bucky slipped into the med room, but she didn’t push for it. She didn’t want to explain why her nerves were on edge and she couldn’t bring herself to feel at ease.

And thankfully, Bucky didn’t make conversation. The few times she let her eyes wander to him, he looked just as anxious as her; eyes cast to his plate and body stiff. She wasn’t sure why, whether it was because of her or—who was she kidding? Of course, it was her. She couldn’t walk through a damn dining hall.

What is wrong with me?

She dropped her gaze to her plate, jaw clenched as she scanned over her food in disinterest.

He got you lunch, eat it.

It’s not that difficult.

She stabbed a strawberry and bit it off her fork, but something about it felt wrong. She wasn’t nauseous, it didn’t taste bad, but eating just wrong. In frustration, she dropped her fork—much more aggressively than she’d meant—and Bucky’s eyes shot to her.

“Sorry,” she grit, “I’m just… I don’t…”

“It’s alright, you don’t need to explain,” he mumbled before he looked down to her food. “And you don’t need to eat the rest. It’s good you had some though.”

It shouldn’t be an accomplishment to eat!

These are basic things. Why can’t I do them?

God, it felt like everything was baring down on her, like no matter what she was thinking about, it was wrong.

It’s all wrong!

She needed… she needed…

Space.

Somewhere she could just… be alone. Completely alone. Away.

“Can I... I’m going—to shower,” she choked out. “I need…”

He nodded, staying silent when she stood and watching as she slipped into the small bathroom where she grabbed the towel that had been replaced after her last shower. She knew the way from her trips in the previous weeks, and her mind was so focused on getting out of the room that she didn’t even spare Bucky a ‘goodbye’; just let her hurried steps carry her away.

She didn’t register that she’d arrived until her hand was pushing open the door, the cool plastic snapping her back to reality. She was halfway through when her mind finally processed her situation, and it caused her to freeze.

They were communal showers.

When she’d been brought before, Doctor Green and Bucky had made sure no one would come in, both for their safety and her privacy. But no one was with her this time.

When she didn’t hear anything from inside, she pushed through the door hesitantly, rounding the corner until she found the row of shower stalls empty, their curtains pulled open and their walls dry.

Curtains.

Easily moved.

Not secure.

She stood stiffly, staring, frozen with the thought that someone could walk in when she was showering.

You’re fine.

You’ve showered beside people before.

For fucks sakes, with Hydra, you didn’t have a stall or curtain.

You just—

She turned, walking directly for the door. She could get a cloth and wash in the bathroom attached to the med room. She could wash her hair in the sink. No one could walk in or ambush—

There was a lock.

A big red button beside the door. A silent sign to stay. But still, her thoughts warred; she needed to shower and she needed to get over this stupidity, but what if someone came in?

Get over it.

You’ll be fine.

Although it made her stomach turn, she hit the button on the wall, not moving until she heard the thunk of the lock deploying. For good measure, she yanked at the door, struggling against the handle until she was satisfied it wouldn’t open.

Just do it.

She turned, rounding the corner again before ducking into the furthest stall and pulling the curtain closed, making sure there were no gaps—no space where someone could see in.

Foolish.

She was being completely foolish.

The door was locked, she was in the furthest stall, no one wanted to peep in.

But what if they did?

If someone came in, I have nothing—

Stop.

She hung her towel on one of the hooks at the end of the stall, then grabbed hold of the hem of her t-shirt and—

She froze.

Just fucking do it.

Why was it so difficult?

In a burst of anger she ripped the shirt off, hastily hanging it up before pulling off her pants and underwear and hanging them up as well. Her mind and body felt like they were screaming, and she had to force herself under the shower head.

She didn’t care about the burst of bitter cold that shocked her as she turned the shower on, but she immediately noted how loud the water was.

If someone tried to come in, I wouldn’t—

She dunked her head under the cold stream, trying to drown those thoughts.

Her hand went to the pump on the wall, letting the sickeningly-sweet smelling shampoo pool in her hand before scrubbing it hastily into her hair. As the suds slipped down her body, she reached for the body wash, rubbing it into the skin of her arms, then down her torso, and then her legs. She didn’t even care about the burning of her left thigh as she passed over the tender scabs, just covered herself in the soap before turning into the stream and rubbing all over again to get it off. Her eyes stung at the shampoo that leaked into them, but she didn’t care, only squeezed them shut and ran her fingers through her hair until she was certain there was nothing left. She turned again to rinse off her back before hastily shutting the water off.

She held her breath, waiting to hear anything outside the curtain.

Nothing.

Without wasting another moment, she grabbed the towel and began scrubbing herself, not even waiting an extra moment before yanking her clothes back on. She cursed the way they clung to her; inhibiting her range of motion and sitting uncomfortably on her damp skin. That was the least of her worries though as she once again held her breath to listen before ripping the curtain back to scan the room. When satisfied, she grabbed the towel and inched herself along the wall, giving her a view into each of the stalls.

Empty.

Her shoulders relaxed some, but she felt ridiculous.

I should be able to shower without acting like it’s a battle scenario.

Why can’t I?

Water dripped down her back from her sopping hair and she marched across the room, frustrated at herself, and her situation, and her emotions. She hit the lock button again and yanked the door open, almost letting out a yelp as her eyes landed on Bucky leaning against the wall across from her. His eyes flew up and he nodded in acknowledgement.

“What are you doing here?” she panted.

His brows pulled together, but he straightened. “I wanted to make sure no tried to get in.”

She dropped his gaze, embarrassment burning her neck at her baseless fear. “Thanks. The door locks though.”

“I know, but I didn’t want anyone pulling at the door and scaring you.”

“Hmm…” she let out another breath, running a hand over her still wet face. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

“I… I’m going to go back to my room to get changed. These clothes…”

He nodded in understanding. “Want me to go back to the med room?”

She nodded once.

“Alright, I’ll see you soon.”

He was gone a moment later, leaving her alone in the hall to collect herself. She squeezed the towel closer to her chest and turned, wandering back to her room and slipping in before locking the door.

She finally felt some of her pent-up tension leave her body, and she went straight to the dresser, pulling out fresh socks and underwear, then into the next drawer to grab the first sweatshirt she could, then into the bottom for a pair of black jogging pants.  

When she was out of the old clothes, she felt significantly better. Not great, but she was happy she finally felt clean. She maintained basic hygiene with Hydra, but she spent most of her time covered in grime, sweat, and ill-fitting clothes.

This felt… somewhat like her.

After dropping the clothes into the small hamper beneath the bed, she left the room, cautious of running into someone as she made her way through the halls, but less on edge than she was earlier. When she finally reached the med room, she shut the door quietly behind her, scanning the room until she caught sight of a head.

Not Bucky’s though—Steve’s.

He was sitting in one of the chairs beside the bed, turning to look over his shoulder when he heard her come in. “Hey kid.”

She frowned a little at the nickname, pushing herself to walk towards him. “Not really a kid anymore,” she mumbled, dropping onto the chair beside him and pulling her legs beneath her.

“You’re always gonna be a kid to me,” he chuckled, voice gravely and weak.

It sent a bolt of sadness through her because he was right. He would always be older than her, and now so much older and she was going to have to live without him for so long.

She’d barely gotten any time with him, and now he’s going to—

“Why did you do it?” she asked quietly, unable to keep the words inside her head.

Steve let out a long breath, eyes searching her face. “I never belonged in this time,” he mumbled, “if I’m being honest, I never belonged anywhere, except with her. I always thought that one day I would move on, but… I didn’t. And maybe, eventually, I would have, but when I had the chance to go back, I took it… I chose happiness.”

Her throat burned and she had to drop his gaze, nodding. “I’m glad you did. I really am. I’m just… I’m being selfish. I wanted you here. Forever.”

“And I would have loved to, but I wanted to be selfish. And if I had the choice, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“Good,” she said, looking back up. “I’m really happy for you. You deserve it—you deserved your happiness.”

And she was telling the truth, but tears were dropping, and she wasn’t sure why. Whether they were happy or sad—maybe they were both; a mix of melancholy and mudita.  

His hand wrapped around hers, giving it a tight squeeze. “Thank you. So do you.”

“After what I’ve done… I really don’t think I do,” she opposed. “And now I don’t know what to do. I just—I don’t know, Steve.”

“I wish I had the answer. But I’ll still help. We all will.”

“That’s exactly the issue,” she said as she scrubbed her tears away with the back of her fist. “It’s so selfish that I want it all to stop. I don’t deserve for everything to get better, and I don’t want help. But I do because I wish I didn’t feel like I’m going to explode at any moment. And that everything I looked at didn’t remind me of a person I murdered. And that every thought wasn’t brought back to the Russian and every other person who did those things to me. But it does, and if it all went away, every consequence for what I’ve done would be gone and that’s not fair. So, I don’t want help. And I don’t know what to do because I don’t know if I can handle Sam and imposing on his family, and I can’t put all of my problems on Bucky because he has his own shit to deal with, and I won’t push myself into your space because the last thing you need is my mess, but apparently, I can’t be alone so—fuck! Steve, I don’t know what to do,” she gasped, chest having at her outburst.

“There isn’t going to be an easy way around this,” Steve stated quietly after a moment of silence. “Whatever choice you make is going to be hard, and it will continue to be hard for a long time. But one day, it’ll start getting easier. And you are allowed that. Those things you did… I understand the weight that they carry, but you do not deserve to live the rest of your life in misery because of what those bastards did to you.”

She let out a shuddering breath and dropped her eyes to where her hands were fisted in her lap.  “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

“Whatever you think will make it easier.”

She grit her teeth at that, so many emotions swirling within her mind. Thoughts that replayed in her mind, feeling as if someone were standing beside her and screaming. Telling her all the truths about herself that she hated. She couldn’t handle it.

“Can you tell me about your life? Your family?”

She needed a change of subject—a distraction—and she’d been wanting to talk to Steve since she’d realized what happened.

He looked a little hesitant, his brows furrowing slightly before nodding. “Where do you want me to start?”

 ⁂

She stood in her room.

Her room. The one she’d stayed in before she left. Where she cried for everyone she lost. Where she came to terms with being gone for five years.

It was almost midnight, the day having gone by in a blur that she couldn’t quite remember. She talked with Steve for hours, letting him retell the things he’d seen, what he’d done. Then she finished Bucky’s book. Had dinner. Started another book. And now she stood in front of the bed, utterly alone and uneasy.

That seemed to describe how she felt most of the time now. Constantly uncomfortable. Constantly under the weight of her thoughts and memories.

‘Most of the time.’

It’d only been two days. Two days since she’d… come back to herself, yet it felt like a freaking month. Year. Eternity, maybe?

She scoffed at herself and dropped onto the bed, pushing her back against the cool wall as she wrapped the blankets around herself tightly.

She wasn’t tired, she just didn’t know what else to do… Well, she could read, but the new book wasn’t interesting her as much as the other had. Bucky was right about the first one; it did have a good twist. The prince being her childhood friend—the one she’d thought was killed in an uprising. But more than that, that the one she’d been wanting to marry was actually the son of the one who’d caused that uprising and was planning to kill her.

The one she was reading now was about a whiny space cadet who was trying to prove his worth to the team captain. Not exactly thrilling.

Her eyes searched the room, undecided of whether she should get up and read again or just sit in the darkness.

When she was on the run and couldn’t sleep, Wanda used to make her tea and sit with her, talking until she was tired enough to go to bed. She always felt… grounded around Wanda. Despite having her own struggles, she had a way of calming those around her. She cared for and supported them. Fiercely. But Marlow never had the chance to really get to know her. She saw less and less of Wanda until they’d only see her for a few days at a time between stretches of weeks. And then Thanos happened, and she wasn’t the same.

She threw the covers off, crawling to the end of the bed where she slid the bin towards herself and snapped the lid off. Pulling her tablet out, she swiped it open before settling against the wall, thoughts going silent as she focused on her task.

Her fingers worked at lightning speed, swiping through screens and sneaking past firewalls until finally, she got a hit.

Wanda’s last known location: Westview, New Jersey.  

But that seemed to be where the lead ended.

Scrolling between pages, she searched for the organization who filed the report, but almost everything had been redacted.

But it’s virtual redaction.

Meaning there is a virtual paper trail somewhere.

So, she started moving backwards through each page to sift through their data, frustration building with each click until she finally found a name.

S.W.O.R.D.

Fucking bingo.

While their cyber security was top-notch, a few of their pages weren’t as well protected, meaning once she had an entrance point, she could weasel her way through their system.

There wasn’t much information on the incident, but from what she could understand, Wanda had… taken over a town?

What?

This S.W.O.R.D. apparently dealt with similar threats as S.H.I.E.L.D… so, maybe they were their replacement? Or a backup?

But Wanda wasn’t a threat, she was an Avenger. She helped people—maybe she took over the town to protect them? Maybe there some other threat that hadn’t been released to the public? She didn’t know, but this organization didn’t know her current location.

Easy. She could do that.

Like she had done dozens of times before, she started activating her old programs, inputting the necessary data so she would be notified when Wanda appeared, as well as looking to see if there were any hits already.

She would find Wanda before that agency did. She didn’t trust them, not when it was so easy to hide corruption behind a false mask. Not since S.H.I.E.L.D. fell.

Hydra, she corrected.

Her mind tormented her with the possibility of Hydra being part of all this, but no, they were gone—she’d worked so hard to make sure they were gone.

And then you went and helped them.

It almost felt like everything she’d done before she left was for nothing. Or for dramatic irony. Like she thought she could make a difference when really, she became her own enemy.

Before she could even think about her actions, her fingers were tapping, typing in a name.

Salvador Allende.

The President of Chile until 1973.

The moment his image appeared, she felt nauseous. She could feel his blood on her hand, his heart between her fingers, his fleeting grip on her arm. It was so tangible that she had to look away from the screen, chest heaving as she tried to breathe through the memory.

The nauseated feeling didn’t go away, but she eventually forced her eyes back to the screen, clicking on a page that claimed to know his manner of death.

‘Suicide.’

That’s not right.

She scrolled, reading how he’d died by suicide in his office, but that many people thought there was foul play involved.

This isn’t right.

So, she started digging. Looking for more details about that night—looking for the truth—but everything she read fell back to it being suicide to avoid the growing instability of the government.  

These pages are useless.

Even with a decade away, it was like second nature to load up the sources she’d spent years datamining—the Hydra files.

It was only then that she found a grainy ink blotted scan of a document that detailed the assassination of the government head, and the three additional victims killed in the crossfire. There were no details around their deaths—she knew that in the mind of Hydra, they weren’t important—but their names were listed, likely so they knew whose deaths they were covering up.

She let out an exhausted sigh, realizing that Bucky was right; even if she didn’t kill those people, Hydra would find someone to do it.

Without thinking, she transferred their names to her notes, as if having them made a difference. From there, she started adding the names she remembered, those that she knew from mission notes or the mocking jeers made by agents. And although the list grew, most of those she’d killed weren’t targets; they were unnamed bystanders. People who happened to be in the wrong place at the same time she was. And then there were those she’d killed in her training… the ones whose names would be lost even if she hadn’t left that timeline.

Victim names turned into names of those she’d known from then; Agent Semenov, Agent Kristoff, Major Sokolov.

The Russian.

She found it strange that she’d never picked up on his name. She knew him distantly as the Major, but he was never addressed by his name when she was around. She couldn’t help but wonder if that were intentional—as if he purposefully wouldn’t even deign to tell her his name. As if it were to further instill in her that she wasn’t a person who was interacting with another, but that she was something to be controlled. It was a one-way interaction, so what use were pleasantries?

Again, her fingers were tapping the screen at a lightening pace, but what she knew of him was too little. She searched through screen after screen of results, looking for any mention of him or other Majors in the 1970’s.

Her heart skipped as something caught her eye: Major A. Sokolov. Nov 1, 1965. Transmission. Partially redacted.

She clicked into the file, scanning over the familiar type. It wasn’t much; something about an incoming number of troops, but she was confident it was the right person, and that was enough for her. She pushed, honing her search parameters and bringing up almost a dozen already decrypted files.   

Recruitment list 1953: … Arkadiy Sokolov…

Appointment of Title of Major, 1964. … A. Sokolov…

Mission: Reign Eighteen. Appr: Maj. Sokolov…

The list continued, and she scrolled until she read the last entrance.

… Col. Sokolov retired 2004…

She clicked into it, but the file was mostly redacted, only giving a few legible details; that he retired on his seventieth birthday.

He lived to seventy.

He worked with Hydra until he was seventy.

How many more people did he hurt?

Was he still—

She dropped the tablet to the bed and shot up, only taking a few steps before throwing open her door and rushing down the hall. She needed out of there. Away from that tablet. Away from the thoughts of the Russian. And Hydra. And—

There was music playing.

She froze, listening to pinpoint where it was coming from.

Ahead.

She peered down the darkened hall, unable to find its source and debating whether she should try to find it—if there was music playing, that meant there was a person playing it. But forwards was a hell of a lot more enticing than going back to her room, so she took a few cautious steps, then more, until she was in the doorway of the dark commissary.

Her eyes immediately fell on Bucky who was leaned backwards against one of the dining benches, the phone beside him playing an old song she didn’t know. She felt herself relax as she watched him, still unaware of her presence at the other side of the room.

Her immediate thought was to question why he was awake in the middle of the night, but it didn’t take her long to piece it together. Probably a nightmare.

Definitely a nightmare, she thought, because now that she was watching him a little closer, she noticed the slight bunch of his shoulders and the uneasy tapping of his thumb against his leg. It was so like the last time she’d found him in here—only that time, she wasn’t hoping for him to distract her like she was now. But it wasn’t the time for her self-pity. He’d done so much for her the last few weeks, the least she could do was distract him.

With that, she took a step forward, forcing her mind to stay away from her earlier trip to the commissary when she froze.

What if he wants to be alone?

Her mind volleyed the thought back and forth, debating whether she should approach or retreat, but Bucky’s head turned towards her, no alarm on his face as he nodded her over.

Did he know I was here?

She followed the gentle command and made her way past the tables, weaving to drop onto the bench positioned opposite of him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he mumbled, reaching beside him to turn the music down. “What are you doing up?”

She tipped her head to the side. “Couldn’t sleep. You?”

“Couldn’t get back to sleep.”

“That bad?” she asked, although the answer was obvious.

“Hmm, yah. It was… yah, bad. Had it the other night too. Just doesn’t want to get out of my head.”

“I used to get a recurring nightmare as kid,” she said quietly, pulling one leg up to the bench and wrapping her arms around it. “The councillor I was seeing told me to think about the dream when I was awake and… create a new ending. Like rewriting a story. Then replay the new story in my head over and over so when I had the dream, it didn’t end in the bad way.”

“And that helped?”

“It did,” she mumbled, not wanting to say that once that nightmare was gone, another was quick to take its place. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“No, God, no. Not with everything—no. I won’t put you through that.”

She nodded, dropping her eyes to trail along the floor. She guessed it was a good thing, she probably shouldn’t hear about it, but she hated that he thought she couldn’t handle listening to his nightmare. Like she was a piece of glass ready to shatter.

I am.

No. No, you are not.

You’ve gone through shit, but you’re not broken.

You’re not broken.

“Marlow?”

She snapped her attention to Bucky, who was leaning forward now with his elbows braced on his thighs.

 “You alright?”

“Yah, fine. Just… fine.”

“You come to grab something to eat?”

“What?” she asked in confusion, before realizing and shaking her head. “No, I heard the music, thought I’d come check it out.”

“You heard it from your room?” he asked in alarm, immediately reaching to turn the music down further.

“Oh, no, no I was in the hall and heard it.”

He opened his mouth as if to ask a question, but a look of understanding came across his face, and he shut it.

“I like the music though, what is it?”

He smiled a little. “This is Glenn Miller, called Moonlight Serenade.”

“It’s nice,” she nodded before a memory bubbled up. “You recommended me a song… God, what was it?”

“Lili Marlene. By Anne Shelton,” he said, that smile growing.

“Yah… I think I liked it.”

“It’s one of my favourites… It was popular back in the war—made a lot of the guys hopeful…”

“It was about winning?” she asked slowly. “Sorry, I just… I don’t… remember.”

His face softened and he nodded. “It was about having a sweetheart. The song talks about a soldier and his girl meeting at a lamppost behind the barracks before he’s shipped off.”

“Did you have a sweetheart?” she asked somewhat teasingly, although it sounded sort of hollow to her ears.

But he smiled a little wider, shaking his head. “No, no I wasn’t one to go steady, so I didn’t have any dame waitin’ for me back home.”

She tried not to focus on the rise of his accent on his words, how she could have imagined that it was a man dressed in a well fitted suit from an old black and white movie speaking.

“So, the history books were right,” she mumbled.

He quirked a brow. “I don’t know, what did they say?”

“That you were a real charmer.”

“They said that, huh?” he smirked before shaking his head. “Yah, well, I was young, didn’t know any better. Figured I’d be home soon enough, that I’d be able to settle down with someone then.”

“No one caught your eye?”

His brows pulled a little and he leaned back. “It wasn’t that… I always found those relationships… fast. A guy would know a girl a few months and propose—that seemed too quick. How’d they know each other well enough to get married? And even if they were a good match, how could he—” he stopped himself, rubbing a hand along his chin. “How could he propose to her, get her hopes up for a life together when any day he could get killed? It didn’t seem fair, and I didn’t want to put someone through that.”

“That must have been hard… But, now that you’re back, are you gonna get out on the scene?” she asked, her lips quirked just a little. “I’m sure there are lots of women who’d love a date with Sergeant Barnes.”

He let out an awkward chuckle, running his tongue over his teeth in thought. “I’m uh, not sure if dating is really… I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“You never know, getting back out there might be a good way to help with everything,” she said gently, not wanting to push the subject too hard. “Find your happiness,” she added, thinking back to what Steve had said, “you deserve it.”

“My happiness.” Bucky the words repeated quietly, as if trying to taste the words. “Maybe when I get things under control.”

She nodded, knowing that that was his way of saying he wanted to drop the subject of his dating life.

“But what about you? Have anyone you need to check in with since the Snap?”

She almost laughed at that. At the thought of it. “No,” she shook her head, “definitely not.”

“Oh?” he asked, voice coming out more surprised than Marlow had expected.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she prodded mockingly, doing her best to make herself sound offended.

Bucky threw his hands up in defence, doing nothing to hide the playful glint in his eye. “Nothing, nothing, just would have figured you’d have guys linin’ up.”

“I mean being on the run isn’t exactly a great for building a strong relationship, but before all of that I had casual flings, just never anything long term.”

“So, what about now? Or when things settle down, are you gonna get on the scene?” he asked, repeating her words.

She stifled a little at the question, her mind immediately answering no. That the last thing she wanted was to go on dates and be around people she didn’t know. “We’ll see,” she mumbled, her mood dropping significantly.

She hated that; why couldn’t she manage her emotions? Why did she turn a casual question into a big deal?

“There’s no need to focus on it now; we’ll have all the time in the world to find our sweethearts.”

He said it lightly, but when she met his eyes, she could see the hurt there. The longing that battled to be listened to against everything that he’s been through.

“Maybe one day,” she agreed quietly.

One day, far, far away.

From the corner of her eye, Marlow saw the hall’s overhead lights switch on, and she turned, looking at them in confusion.

“We’d better head out, cooks are gonna be here soon to start breakfast.”

She turned back to Bucky, brows still drawn. “Cooks? But it’s—what time is it?”

“Five thirty.”

“Five thirty? But I…” she trailed off. “Damn, I must have lost track of time.”

A teasing smile came to his lips. “Were you reading?”

“No, I was—” she stopped, the Russian’s face flashing behind her eyes. “I was finding people…”

“Finding people?” Bucky asked before a look of realization came over his face.

“You were right,” she mumbled, letting her eyes drop to the floor. “Hydra killed them anyways. I don’t know how I should feel about that… whether I should be relieved or not because no matter what, they would have been killed. But it doesn’t make it easier.”

“No,” Bucky agreed, “I can’t imagine it would... And I know it’s hard, but maybe for now don’t follow those leads. Stay away from all of it.”

She let out a sigh. “I needed their names out of my head. At least the ones I could remember. If I don’t… I don’t know, it feels…”

“Like Hydra succeeded?”

She let out a puff of air. “Exactly. Like they succeeded in erasing them. I can’t forget them—even if here it wasn’t me, if I don’t remember them then… it feels worse somehow. I know the truth; I need to acknowledge it. Remember it.”

Bucky nodded, his own face holding pain as he looked around. “I’ve started doing the same thing. Writing their names down… And every time I open that book, I just stare at them. Like it’ll make a difference—like if I stare long enough, they’ll disappear,” he said before lowering his voice. “Or maybe I’ll somehow convince them to forgive me.”

She nodded in understanding, knowing there was nothing she could say. Nothing that would help or make it easier—at least that she knew of.

She was never good at consoling people, never knew the right words to say, and in moments like that one, she just sat, words replaying in her mind over and over like a tape recorder on loop, studying them as if she could somehow make sense of them. Find a solution.

How could she help Bucky?

By not putting your baggage on him.

Her teeth clenched at the thought. It was right; he didn’t need her issues when he was trying to figure out his own. She’d somehow convinced herself and him that sticking around each other would be a good thing, but she knew better. He was going to get help, he was doing the right thing. She needed to do the same.

She would go with Sam.

At least for a little. Until she could convince him she was alright enough to find a place to rent. And maybe she could find work an outreach centre near him…

He’s gonna fight me on it, but I won’t leach off him.

And I can’t… do the things he wants me to.

She didn’t want the help or resources to make it better, she just wanted…

She wanted…

God, she didn’t know. To be alone, but… with everyone. Without… problems or guilt like it had been a decade ago.

That’s what it was; she wanted her life to go back to the way it was before.

Because she missed them so goddamn much, but they just wanted to make everything better, and that made being around them hard. The apologies, the looks—all of it made her skin crawl. She wanted them to stop all of it and live their lives without worries for her, but she knew there was no way they would.

So she was stuck in a guilt-ridden limbo. But at least she decided.

“I’m gonna go with Sam.”

It took a moment for her mind to catch up with her mouth, and she almost cringed at how pained her voice sounded.

When Bucky didn’t say anything, she looked up, finding him watching her.

“I think it’s a good idea,” he said after an eternally long moment.

She nodded absently. “Yah…”

“He’s a good man.”

“Yah,” she breathed, “but for the record, so are you.”

“He’ll be able to help you in the ways you need. I… doesn’t matter, I’m glad he’s going to help you.”

She wanted to yell that he was good, over and over. She wanted to somehow etch it into his brain, but she knew that wasn’t something she could convince him of…

“Come on,” Bucky said gently, “we should head out before people start coming in. Maybe we’ll put on a picture and pretend we didn’t stay up all night?” He suggested with a quirk of his mouth.

A little bit of that stiffness melted away at the minute gesture, and she nodded, glad for the distraction.

And his company.

Chapter Text

As Marlow and Bucky made their way back through the halls, she subconsciously guided them to her room. She didn’t like the thought of going to the office or the room across from the med room, and she especially didn’t want to go to the med room. There was something unsettling about its openness, like she was unguarded. Vulnerable. Her room was safe and familiar.

To her at least, because when she’d dropped onto the far end of the bed and nodded for Bucky to follow, he hesitated. Even after she insisted, Bucky shook his head and settled on the ground with his back against the bed, while Marlow curled into the corner with a blanket.

With the tablet propped on top of the plastic bin, they sat and watched Pretty Woman; something that was easy going enough and somewhat familiar. She’d seen it years ago, and while she warned it may have been a little… vulgar compared to the romance movies he’d liked way back when, he assured it would be fine.

And it seemed like he was.

She found her gaze wandering to him every so often, to the small smiles and the subtle looks of surprise. There were a few times where she thought that those were more entertaining than the movie itself, especially when his ears turned a light shade of pink at certain scenes.

And although she did her best to focus on the budding relationship between Vivian and Edward—or of the bob of Bucky’s Adams apple when Edward pressed a kiss to Vivian’s stomach as she laid across a piano—she found the lack of sleep from the night prior catching up to her. Her eyes watered in attempt to keep them open, and in a short reprieve, she let them shut.

She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep until she heard quiet rustling in front of her, and when her eyes opened, she found Bucky placing the now silent tablet face down onto the box.

With furrowed brows, she straightened, catching his attention.

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” he mumbled, his eyes flicking down to the blanket then back up to hers. “Go back to sleep.”

Being too tired to argue, she nodded and ran a hand over her face. “Thanks for staying with me.”

He sent her a small smile and stood, eyes not straying from hers. “Course. See you in a little while.”

Between bats of her eyelids, he’d disappeared and shut the door, and it was only another moment before she pulled the sheet back and laid down, letting herself drift off again.

⁂

She had to run.

She heard voices, guttural and accented, and she heard growls. The clanks of weapons. The cries of the wounded.

She was running. But she needed to be faster.

Gunshots rang around her. People yelled at her to stop. She couldn’t tell which language they were speaking in, but it was a mess of noise and she had to run faster!

Something wrapped into her hair, yanking her backwards roughly. Her back hit the ground and she scrambled to get away, but she was held down, the sound of footsteps—so many footsteps—coming closer.

Her eyes opened and she threw herself up with an airy yell, eyes searching the room for threats.

Dream, she thought, just a dream.

But she jumped at the hollow knock from her door. That was real, and as she pressed her back against the wall, her mind was successfully convincing her that the threats from her dream were somehow bleeding into her reality.

“Marlow, it’s me, are you alright?”

Sam.

The alarm bells in her mind immediately shut off, and she let the breath in her lungs go, shutting her eyes to give herself a moment to remind herself that she wasn’t dreaming.

“I—I, uh, I’m fine. Nightmare,” she choked out.

There was a moment of silence before his voice called out again. “Can I come in?”

“Yah,” she hummed, pulling her legs under her as she watched the door open slowly.

When Sam finally appeared, he sent her a small smile. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

Her voice came out shaky, and although he’d seen her in the aftermath of several nightmares, she always hated how scared she sounded.

“I was in my room and heard you, just wanted to check you were alright.”

She shrugged, pushing a sorry excuse of a smile to her lips. “Like old times, huh?”

Old times.

Old to her, not to him.

“Well, like old times, do you want a distraction?”

This time, the shadow of a smile was genuine, and she nodded to the empty space beside her. He took the invitation and dropped at the other end, turning to rest his forearm on his leg.

“I was talking to Sarah earlier,” he started, and she almost told him to stop, “she was saying how AJ was telling all the kids at school that his uncle was an Avenger and that I was coming to live with them. And that I was going to bring Captain America, and Thor, and a bunch of other heroes to visit the school.”

She let out a breath—the closest thing to a laugh as she could muster—and nodded. “Well, you have to make good on that. Can’t leave him hanging.”

“You think Steve will get suited up in his old costume? You know, the original one? With the bright blue and red, that had the actual wings on the head,” he asked, gesturing above his ears.

“For a couple of smiling kids? Definitely. And if Thor were here, he’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“I bet Bruce would too—being all… not hulk-ish.”

“How did that even happen?” she asked, cocking her head to the side as she let her mind wander to their conversations. She remembered talking to him before she left, but she never asked—probably because it wasn’t her place, but maybe she was just too busy…

“Something about combining the two parts of himself… I’m not entirely sure, but it’s pretty damn cool.”

“Yah…”

“Anyways, Sarah already told AJ that everyone else couldn’t come because of being busy.”

“Oh no, he’s going to have to settle with his boring old uncle,” she teased.

Sam rolled his eyes, nodding. “His boring old uncle… and maybe his boring old uncle’s friend?”

She dropped his gaze, running over her decision. If she said it now, it was happening; she couldn’t back out.

“Have you… talked to Sarah?” she asked, looking back up to Sam.

He didn’t bother to hide the look of knowing as he nodded. “She’s already clearing the room. It’s on the other end of the house from the boys so it will be quiet, plus it overlooks the lake.”

“She… she’s not afraid of what I’ve done? Of me?”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of. But no, she trusts you because I trust you.”

“I’m not staying forever,” she said pointedly, “just… just a little while until I find a place.”

“As long as you’re comfortable,” he nodded. “There’s always a bed open to you.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. She was thankful, just nervous. She still hated that she was going to be in their space, but it would only be a little while… So she would… stay with Sam. At least that would force her to act like a normal human. Getting up, seeing people, socializing. “You should probably go warn her I’m coming.”

He frowned, noting the choice of words. “I want you to know I’m glad you’re coming. I’m glad you’re going meet my family.”

Another faint smile rose to her lips at that. She hated that she was the reason it was taking so long for him to see his family again, but she couldn’t lie to herself and say she wasn’t looking forward to meeting them.

Maybe staying with them would be good… maybe it would be the kick in the ass she needed to move on. See what life could be like away from Hydra.

“I’m happy I finally get to,” she agreed quietly.

“I’ll go give her a call,” he said before standing. “How about after we go and grab some lunch?”

Yesterday’s trip to the commissary floated back to her mind and she shrunk a little. “I… I tried to go… yesterday, and I…”

She let out a frustrated breath, hating how difficult it was to explain what happened. It was ridiculous that she couldn’t walk through a room—but now she couldn’t even explain it?  She clamped her mouth shut, frustrated with the whole situation.

“Mar, you have to eat…”

“It’s not that…” she shook her head, “I just don’t want to go.”

He let out a hum of understanding. “How about I bring lunch then?”

Despite the intent, his offer made her even more frustrated. She should be able to do those things! She should be able to talk and see and be around people without feeling drained after five minutes, without feeling like a bomb about to blow.

When she went it was going to be on him and his family, and they were going to try to help but nothing was going to help and they were only going to get tired and frustrated and—

She bit down her words and nodded once. “Thank you…”

“You’re welcome. I won’t be long alright?”

“Alright,” she mumbled, watching him reach the door.

With every inch he moved, it was like he was getting closer to being locked into something he didn’t understand. Something that he would continue putting energy into despite there being no payoff.  “Sam,” she called desperately, throwing the blanket off and standing, stopping barely a foot from him as if that would convince him of her coming words. “I can’t get past everything—I can’t get better,” she rushed.

He shook his head, brows drawn in confusion, “Hey, what do you mean? Where is this coming from?”

“I just know you. I know I’m going to be a burden, and you’re going to try and make everything easier and better, and I just want to say now that it’s not going to happen. I appreciate everything, but I’m never going to be who I was before, and I don’t want you to put all of your energy into trying to get her back because I can’t. I know you’re going to want me to see someone, and do the exercises, but just… I can’t, okay? I can’t.”

His mouth parted in surprise and the look of heartbreak that came across his face was almost enough that she wanted to take her words back, but she couldn’t. Because she wouldn’t give him hope that there was a chance.

“Mar,” he whispered, before taking a deep breath. “I just want to be here for you. I know what you’ve been through means it’s going to be hard, but I’m going to be beside you no matter what. I’ll do my best to help, but I’m not going to push you to do anything you’re not ready to do. Seeing a therapist is a huge step, it’s something that you decide for yourself when the best time to go is. I just want to be here to give you the options. And help you through it.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry all of this happened. And I’m sorry I’m making this so difficult.”

“You do whatever you need to do. You’re not making anything difficult, and it’s not your fault.”

She wasn’t convinced. “I’m going to be a burden,” she whispered.

“I want you to continue being part of my life, Marlow. I want to help. I don’t want you disappearing and living through this alone.”

Oh…

Something about those words brought a burn to her throat. He still wanted her around. She wasn’t sure why; she hadn’t been much of a friend lately, but he still wanted her around.

So, she nodded, letting out a breath. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. It’s just hard.”

“I know, so if apologizing helps, you can, but you don’t need to. You don’t owe me anything.”

Her shoulders sunk a little. “Okay…”

He watched her a moment, eyes sad as his mind seemed distracted by his thoughts.

And then he reached forward.

Something in her mind switched, and gone was Marlow and Sam. They were replaced by a scared animal and its predator, a predator she needed away from. Without thinking, she threw her palm against his chest hard as her foot caught his ankle, forcing him backwards while she recoiled, knocking into something before slipping and landing hard on the ground just as he did the same.

It all happened so quickly that it took her mind a handful of seconds to really comprehend what had happened. To realize who she was and who he was and what she did.

“Oh God,” she breathed, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—” she begged, staring wide eyed at Sam, who was sitting half a dozen feet away from her.

“No, shit, I’m sorry Mar, I shouldn’t have—”

“No, oh my God, I’m sorry,” she panted, hands scrubbing her face. “I thought you—I thought—fuck.”

“What happened?” came a voice from down the hall.

She pulled her hands away, just barely catching where Bucky was helping Sam up. “I’m sorry,” she repeated desperately, as if her words could change what happened.

Bucky moved to look into the room and his eyes widened at her state, immediately stepping through the doorway.

“Wait—she—” Sam started, but Bucky was already crouched beside her, looking her over for injuries before meeting her eyes.

“You hurt?”

“It doesn’t—fuck, I’m sorry Sam. I just—I panicked, I thought—”

“Mar, it’s alright—I’m sorry I scared you, I didn’t mean to,” Sam opposed, shaking his head. He seemed frozen in the hall, face pulled in worry as he watched her.

“What happened?” Bucky asked again, voice quiet as he looked from her to Sam.

“I reached for her and freaked her out,” Sam bit in frustration. “I shouldn’t have—I know better. I’m sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have—I know you. You would never hurt me—I…”

She didn’t understand. Her mind couldn’t fathom why she would do that, even if she were scared. It was Sam.

Sam. He’d saved her ass more times than she could count, why did she think he would hurt her?

“It’s alright,” Sam repeated, “but maybe I should go. Let you calm down. I don’t… I don’t want to scare you.”

She wanted to take the guilt away that seemed to be eating at him, but she didn’t know how. She could barely think past her own guilt, or the blood that was still pumping aggressively through her. “I’m sorry Sam,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry about me, Mar,” he reassured, pushing a smile to his face, “you just relax. I’ll see you later, alright?”

All she could do was nod before pulling her knees up and bracing her head in her hands, hoping she would disappear from that moment. Those brief seconds flashed behind her eyes, replaying over and over as she imagined doing it differently. Why hadn’t she just stepped away? Why did she freak out?

She hurt him.

“It’s normal,” Bucky said from beside her, reminding her that he was there.

She looked up at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was directed out the door, where Sam had just been standing.

“To be afraid of people. To get startled,” he clarified.

“But it was Sam,” she argued.

He turned to her then, shaking his head slightly. “It doesn’t matter. If you think you’re in danger, your body just… reacts. It’s normal; it’s only been a few weeks so your mind is still processing that it’s not there anymore.”

“But I hurt him…”

“I know… But at least it was nothing serious.”

“But what if next time it is? It was like I wasn’t me anymore, I was so scared and Sam… was one of them.”

The muscles of Bucky’s jaw flexed, and he nodded solemnly. “Those moments won’t last forever. That reaction will pass.”

“But it could happen again, and I could actually hurt someone. Badly.”

He let out a breath. “If it happens, it’ll be hard. But I don’t think you’ll hurt someone badly enough for there to be a lasting issue… That’s why it’s a good idea for you to be staying with someone; it means you won’t have to go through this alone. And you won’t be forced into situations that you’re not ready for.”

A new wave of panic came over her. “But what if it happens around his nephews? God, what if I hurt them?”

“They’re kids, I don’t think you’ll confuse them… but then you make rules. You give yourself space…”

“But they won’t understand… They get excited or scared or anything, and if I’m around them and something—” she cut herself off and ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t want to hurt them.”

“I know,” he mumbled, his right hand massaging the palm of his left. “And I get it… being afraid of the unknown. To be honest though, I don’t have an answer. Or a solution. You just have to take the day as it comes.”

No.

She didn’t want that. She just wanted to be able to live without being afraid.

“This is all bullshit,” she breathed.

“I know,” he sighed. “I wish I could help.”

She frowned, and when she met his eyes, she tried to force the truth with her words. “You are. You have no idea how much you’ve helped.”

His lips quirked up a little, but his brows stayed furrowed. “Glad I could…” he mumbled before holding a hand out for her. “Come on.”

She took a deep breath as he stood and grabbed it, pulling herself up to stand.

“Did you get any sleep?” he asked, moving to lean against the wall.

She shrugged, dropping onto the bed and pulling a pillow into her lap. “A little… Had a nightmare,” she added quietly.

He nodded in understanding, crossing his arms over his chest. “They’ll start going away, just might take some time.”

“I know… I’m sure they’ll be gone soon,” she agreed, although she didn’t actually believe it.

She always had bad nightmares. Her mom had said she had an overactive imagination, but she figured it had something to do with the abusive stepparent. After that, it was likely the aliens that she had to fight. Now, she had a decade of traumatic material to pull from.

Great.

“Do you want to try to sleep again?”

Her eyes flicked to Bucky, and her immediate thought was: but then you’ll leave. She immediately silenced that voice though, not wanting to fall into some habit where she had to be around him. So, she nodded.

But his brows furrowed and he inclined his head. Assessing.

Familiar.

“It’s alright if you don’t,” he said gently. “I avoid it sometimes too.”

“It’s not that,” she muttered before biting down on the inside of her cheek to avoid saying more. She just insinuated that there was something stopping her, and the last thing she wanted was him feeling the need to stay with her longer. Not when he probably wanted time alone. No, definitely wanted time alone.

But he was stubborn. “What is it then?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing. I do want to sleep though,” she added, but she didn’t mean for her voice to sound so clipped.

He pulled his lips into a thin line and nodded, dropping her gaze. “Right. Okay. If you need me, I’ll just be across the hall.”

He turned and her shoulders tightened with guilt.

“Thank you,” she called quickly, a wave of relief rolling over her when he finally looked back at her. “For calming me down.”

The corner of his mouth tilted up ever so slightly as he nodded before disappearing, shutting the door quietly just like he had before.

It took her a moment to build the energy, but she eventually shifted and curled back up under the covers, pressing her back against the wall as she shut her eyes. She kept her mind blank, away from what had just happened and the memories that wanted to bubble up. Then she counted. Focused on her breathing. Anything to clear her mind.

But she couldn’t relax.

It was like a tease, where her body refused to sleep despite her lack thereof. She laid there long enough that the light that once poured in through the small window had faded, although she wasn’t entirely sure when that had happened.

She also didn’t know when her mind finally did drift—but she knew when she awoke, panting and on the verge of tears from a nightmare. A nightmare where she was watching each of her victims’ deaths, their faces passing by along with the sounds of their final choking breaths.

She’d rushed from her room, and like the night before, she found Bucky in the commissary. They didn’t exchange words, just let the calming music playing from Bucky’s phone fill the silence.

Chapter Text

Her feet scuffed against the floor, her mind blank as she made her way through the empty halls and towards the comfort of the darkened dining hall. When she arrived, Bucky was inside, sitting with his back against the table as he had been the two previous nights—although this time he was reading a book. When his eyes met hers, he seemed to let out a sigh, but nodded her over.

She walked to the bench across from him, sitting sideways and pulling her knees to her chest, arms wrapping around them to cut away at the chill that didn’t seem to want to leave her body.

“You alright?” he asked quietly.

She didn’t answer, and he didn’t push.

⁂

She kicked off the blanket as if it were the thing that had been choking her. As if it had the power suffocate her.

It wasn’t enough.

She stumbled off the bed, landing on her hands and knees and letting the cool floor ground her in the moment.

She wasn’t there anymore.

Afternoon light filtered through the window, and she let her body relax, uninterested in climbing back into the unfamiliar plushness of her bed.

⁂

She knew she’d only been asleep for an hour when she woke up. Frustration mixed with anxiety pumped through her and she stood, shaking her hands out to get the nervous energy from her body.

She wondered whether Bucky was awake. Whether he was in the commissary.

Her body seemed to be moving before her mind caught up, and before she even processed, she was stepping through the doorway and into the dark room, letting her mind focus on a now-familiar song that was playing and not the nightmare.

Chapter Text

“Tomorrow?” she asked in confusion.

Sam mirrored her expression, leaning his back against the wall. “Yah. We… we’ve talked about it a few times. Our plane leaves at noon,” he explained slowly,  

We did?

She thought back, remembering that they had, in fact, talked about it.

Days ago.

It stunned her, realizing that days had passed. They were a blur, like she moved through them without actually being there. While most of it was spent in her room in a half-conscious haze, she’d spent some quiet meals with the guys, took a walk around the pop-up one night, even got cleared by Doctor Green. It was sickeningly similar to how she lived in Siberia, and that was enough to send discomforting waves through her.

“Uh, yah, right. Sorry, I didn’t sleep well last night, must have forgotten…” she mumbled as her hands buried themselves further in her blanket.

“Do you want any help packing?”

“No, I don’t have much anyways… I just… I’ll start now.”

“Alright. And when you want something to eat, let me know, I can bring something in.”

“Sure,” she nodded, only half registering his words. Her mind was now on the task of packing the few things she owned. She didn’t have any keepsakes, so it was only her tablet, the few pieces of clothing she’d collected after the Snap and… that was it.  

She pulled the heavy duffle bag off the bed and dropped it onto the now-empty plastic bin, eyes searching for anything she’d forgotten.

Wait.

She blinked a few times, mind reeling—she was just talking to Sam, now she was finished packing?

She let her mind wander back, and sure enough he’d said that he was happy she was going with him before disappearing behind the door. And then she started packing. But it was like she was in a dream—or possibly nightmare—where she wasn’t present. Her body just moved while her mind was idle within her.

What the hell?!

The fact that she could remember what happened but not doing it was terrifying.

I’m losing my mind.

Everything was supposed to be normal now; she was back from Hydra, it was supposed to be okay. Why wasn’t she okay? Why did she still not have control of her mind?

What if they’re still in control?

The thought was like ice water down her back.

That was impossible. She was back.

But was she?

Her body was back, her injuries had healed, but her mind? It was still there. And it didn’t belong to her.

She gritted her teeth and pushed those thoughts away, mind fighting against the feeling of drowning.

Grabbing the towel from where she’d left it on top of her dresser, she pulled the door open a crack, eyeing the empty hallway. There were no voices, no footsteps, so she stepped out, keeping her feet silent as she slipped down the hall. When she came to the shower room, she pushed the door open just enough to listen, and when she heard nothing, she hurried in and locked the door. The familiar thunk was like an immediate tension release and her shoulders slumped before she turned and rounded the corner.

She was much less on edge this time than she was the last—although she wasn’t sure whether that was because she felt secure by the lock, or because she just didn’t have the energy to care. But whatever the reason, her steps were lazy as she made her way to the last stall. When she stepped in and pulled the curtain closed, she didn’t feel that nauseated feeling that she had last time, just a lag that seemed to slow her movements. And as she rubbed the soap and shampoo into her, she found herself letting her eyes fall closed while her mind wandered to blankness.

The soap had long rinsed away when she finally turned the faucet off, leaving her body dripping and shivering from the cold, but she let her mind remain in its state of idleness as she reached for her towel and started drying herself off slowly.

She was gathering her hair to the side when her fingers brushed over a scar on her shoulder, but rather than recoil, she found herself tracing its smoothness in some strange form of curiosity.

She knew she had scars. That one, she was pretty sure, was from her mission in ’76 when a bullet grazed her. Or it may have been from a sparring session taken too far.

Her fingers crawled across her skin, trying to determine which it was, but another met her fingers and it threw her off. The one she was feeling now was long; too long for either of those injuries.

It was then that she was struck with a realization: she hadn’t seen herself in a decade. Not really. Not more than a glance.

Her eyes automatically dropped downwards, but she wished they hadn’t. The mottled skin of her left leg was enough to bring a grimace to her lips, but she still scanned the rest of her skin for old injuries.  

The sight was slightly jarring considering she never thought to look at herself when she was in Siberia, and she certainly was never given a mirror. The only time she would have looked at herself was to assess a wound, but they were never something to be… acknowledged past tending, so she’d forgotten about them.

In truth, her time as an operative didn’t leave her with many scars; it was rare that someone was able to injure her, let alone injure her enough to leave marks.

But her eyes fell onto the scar that snaked up and around her bicep. It was jagged, not one long, spiralled line, but jaunted straight ones that connected sloppily…

It was the time before she became an op that was visible on her body.

She was moving forward within a heartbeat, pushing the curtain aside as her breathing quickened. She knew that wasn’t the only scar they’d given her during her months of torture, and as she approached the mirrored wall adjacent to the showers, she finally saw those marks.

Burns in the shape of lighter heads and cigarettes, lines tracing her left side ribs, the X that was etched into her upper thigh.

She turned before her mind could advise her not to, and immediately nausea rocked her. The top of her back was a mess of scars, and now that she could see them, she could almost feel the knife carving through her flesh as it had a decade ago. The Russian’s jeer’s echoed inside her mind, the words she didn’t yet understand spilling from his lips in frustration as he tried to pull answers from her.

She traced the marks with her eyes, watching them dip and lurch. Then she noticed familiar shapes.

Letters. Cyrillic letters.

“No,” she groaned, “no, no, no.”

He couldn’t have written something into her skin. No.

The nausea worsened as she stared at her back in horror, feeling as if the Russian’s lips were pressed against her, whispering sick words across her skin.

She didn’t know what it said; she could barely make out the letters between the lighting and angle, so she spun, hurrying back to the stall where she pulled on her clothes and practically ran out of the shower room.

Her speed didn’t slow much as she made her way through the halls, not thinking as she stopped at a door and threw her fist against it loudly.

When it opened, Bucky’s eyes were pressed into a glare, but they filled with worry at the sight of her. “What’s going on?” he asked, searching behind her briefly before looking back to her.

“I—I need your help,” she panted, realizing how hard it was for her to breathe. “I n-need you to look at my back, tell—tell me,” she gasped, running her hands over her face.

“Take a breath,” Bucky said gently as he stepped to the side. “What’s going on?”

“Please, just look.”

“At what? Your back?”

She nodded, walking past him. “Y-yah. Yah, just…” she didn’t even get the rest out, just pulled her top off and pressed it against her chest.

“Marlow,” Bucky gasped as she heard his feet shuffle against the floor.

“Bucky, please,” she choked. “It says something—I know it does but I can’t tell and I need to know—please. Please,” she whispered as she squeezed her eyes shut.

She wasn’t pleading to him. She was pleading to whatever was listening that she was wrong. That it didn’t say anything, and he didn’t permanently tattoo himself into her skin.

A release of breath was followed by a quiet scuff of feet and then silence. That silence held for longer than she thought she could bare.

“Marlow,” Bucky repeated, but this time, his voice was pained. “What… God.”

Her legs threatened to give out and she dropped to kneel on the bed, letting her head hang. “Please.”

“It… does,” Bucky said quietly. “It… it says… shlyukha Gidry.”

She knew the word, heard it being passed between the agents, although she never learned what it meant. But considering Bucky didn’t translate, she knew it was bad.

She squeezed her eyes tighter as she tried to keep her voice steady. “Hydra’s what? I don’t know that word… shlyukha. What…” she let out a breath, “what does it mean?”

“Marlow…”

Her throat burned. “Bucky, please.”

He was silent for a few moments before he shifted. “Whore,” he whispered so quietly, like it could soften the blow.

But that’s exactly what it felt like; a blow. Like someone had punched her in the gut.

It made her want to rip her skin off, to scrape it off, burn it off—anything to get him off of her. It no longer just felt like his lips and words, now it was like the Russian was all over her, rooted into her.

Hydra’s whore.

The words repeated over and over, like it was the only thing she could think or understand.

She wondered whether he planned it all; whether he knew then that he was going to keep her. Use her. He must have; it would have been a waste of penmanship otherwise.

“Marlow, I… I didn’t know…”

She opened her eyes, glancing over her shoulder with glassy eyes. “How could you? I didn’t know… I don’t even know when it happened… I don’t know if it happened at once or on different days. That whole time is a blur. But I… I remember being in pain. They,” she huffed in bitter amusement, “they poured vodka onto them. So they wouldn’t get infected…” She clenched her jaw, dropping her eyes to the bedding. “I wish they did,” she whispered.

Bucky didn’t say anything, but she heard him move towards the wall. That’s when she clued in that she was in his room, on his bed. Without a shirt.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, fumbling with the shirt as she tried to flip it the right way. “I barged in here and yanked my shirt off, I’m sorry, that—that was,” she shook her head, finally pulling her shirt on. “I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, it’s just I panicked, and I needed someone and you—you’re safe, I don’t feel like I’m about to be attacked, and you know Russian, and I couldn’t go to anyone else, but that doesn’t mean I should have just ran in here and taken my shirt off, we barely know each other and—”

“Marlow.”

She stopped short, realizing she was standing, and when she let her eyes look up at Bucky, she felt the need to disappear into the floor at her rambling.

“There’s no need to apologize,” he mumbled. “But… is that true?”

She furrowed her brows and he elaborated.

“You’re not nervous around me. I’m… safe.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes as she pulled her lips between her teeth. “Yah,” she breathed as warmth came to her cheeks, “I mean I thought that was obvious…”

Why was she embarrassed? It was obvious, but for some reason stating it so bluntly… it made her worry that maybe it would scare him away. Either because she was becoming too attached, or because he didn’t want that type of commitment, or because it was weird.

God, she shouldn’t have said anything.

“I just—I’m glad,” he stumbled, a hand reaching to rub the back of his neck. “That you feel comfortable around me. I don’t understand, but I’m glad.”

“Don’t understand?” she asked airily, the previous moments of embarrassed distraction fading as her mind returned to why she’d come to his room in the first place. “You didn’t do this. You are the only thing that has been constant and not dangerous for ten years because you were like me. You never hurt me to be cruel or to control me; you were made to do things the same way I was… I didn’t understand much, but I understood that. I knew I could rely on you and that you were safe. But even now, how could you look at me and tell me you don’t understand when you’ve stayed by my side for weeks?” she asked, doing her best to ignore the burn in her throat that threatened to waver her words. “You’ve put your own life on pause and stayed with me night after night, and you don’t see how I could feel safe with you? Fuck, Bucky, open your eyes,” she muttered weakly, running a hand through her damp hair.

Bucky just stood there, apparently dumbfounded by her words.

“I just thought that after what I did…”

“I understood,” she repeated. “But even so, it was nothing like what the others did.”

His eyes flicked to her shoulder before coming back up. “No, I guess not…”

The skin of her back burned, and she wanted to get away from it, but she knew that she never could. It was always going to be part of her.

He would follow her.

Hydra’s whore.

Fuck.

She bit down on her teeth hard, forcing her eyes away from Bucky’s. “I—I should…”

“Don’t go,” Bucky mumbled, dipping his head slightly to keep eye contact. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Marlow, stay.”

After watching him a moment, she nodded, forcing her lip not to quiver.

She suddenly felt like a child searching for protection from the dark. There was no threat, but God, she felt afraid. And he was safe… Before she could think twice, she stepped to close the space between them and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his chest.

He seemed to have expected it, because he wrapped his around her immediately, his grip gentle despite the metal that pressed against her.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, words muffled by his shirt.

“Anytime. I’m glad I’m able to help.”

She shut her eyes, letting herself stay there a few seconds longer before pulling away. “Sorry… for jumping you…”

He smiled a little before shrugging. “Don’t get too many hugs now adays, so it’s kinda nice—now,” he said, changing the subject, “do you want anything to eat? Drink?”

She shook her head. “I’m really not in the mood to eat anything right now…”

“Is there something you do want to do?”

“I… maybe we could finish that movie? We never did, did we?” she suggested.

“Sure, but you’re going to have to put it on, I don’t have a tablet in here.”

“I’ll go grab mine,” she said, pulling open the door and heading across the hall quickly. She pulled the tablet from her duffle, before grabbing the blanket and pillow off her bed.

When she got back to Bucky’s room, he eyed the bedding, a brow shooting up before dropping to sit on the bed. She shifted her gaze to the tablet and loaded the movie, noticing how Bucky had pushed the black bin against the wall like she had in her room. After backing the movie up a minute or so, she propped the tablet against the wall then pressed play.

As Vivian and Edward talked quietly, she dropped the pillow to the floor and wrapped the blanket around herself—

“What are you doing?” Bucky asked.

Confused, Marlow looked over to where Bucky was sitting against the wall. “What?”

“You’re not sittin’ on the ground.”

“Well, I’m not going to make you sit on the ground,” she countered. “It’s your room.”

“Marlow, come sit up here. It’s alright.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

With a nod, she grabbed her pillow and crawled onto the bed, secretly happy she didn’t have to sit on the floor. After settling herself against the wall—a foot and a half from where Bucky sat—she laid the blanket across herself and pulled the pillow into her arms.

Her chin rested against it, letting her mind be absorbed by the movie… until Bucky’s voice cut above it.

“Were you alright this week? You seemed… off.”

“I…” she trailed off, unsure. “I don’t know… I’ve felt out of it. Like I’m not really here.”

“Like you’re still with Hydra?”

She clenched her jaw and shook her head. “No just… not here. In my body,” she whispered to clarify. “I don’t know, I’m just tired I think.’

“Hopefully sleeping will start getting easier for you,” he mumbled. “I’m sure getting out of this place will help too…”

She hummed in response, half agreeing that being out of this place would be good, but still unsure whether being with Sam was the right decision.

He didn’t speak after that, and neither did she, and she wondered if that was part of the reason she found herself fighting to stay awake. She didn’t even think it’d been twenty minutes since they’d started the movie when she let her eyes close, wanting just a moment to rest.

The movie dimmed from her hearing and the familiar feeling of falling came over her, immediately being replaced by the thickness of sleep.

⁂

Marlow shifted slightly, moving her right arm that had gotten trapped beneath her at some point. As she did, her hand brushed against something firm—but not the wall and definitely not the mattress.

Her first thought was that she was having a nightmare, so she shot up, eyes searching the space around her in an attempt to orient herself, but instead she found a bleary-eyed Bucky.

He was propped in the corner, a pillow behind him while his legs were splayed across the bed. Legs that she was clutching like a lifeline.

She released his calve as her mind reminded her that she had fallen asleep during the movie.

Wait.  

I was sleeping on him.

Her mouth opened to apologise, but then she was hit with a thought.

I slept.

I didn’t have a nightmare.

She was stunned, the half dozen thoughts ringing through her mind stopping her from forming any coherent words.

“I guess I fell asleep too,” Bucky mumbled, his voice gravely as he straightened.

“I slept on you,” she stated with her brows pulled together.

“Mhmm.”

“I… I slept,”

A look of realization crossed his face and nodded in understanding. “So did I…”

“Sorry I fell asleep on you, that must not have been very comfortable,” she said, nodding to the corner.

“Best sleep I’ve had in a while,” he muttered, rubbing a hand down his face.

She shifted to lean herself against the wall, trying to get over the slight embarrassment of falling asleep on him while also appreciating how much better she felt.

How long did we sleep?

“What time is it?”

Bucky twisted his wrist, eyes falling to his watch. “Quarter to four,” he breathed.

Quarter to four? That doesn’t—

In the morning, she realized.

“What time did we start the movie?”

Bucky shrugged. “I think it was around six…”

“We’ve slept ten hours?” she balked.

“Not sure the last time you had a proper sleep, but it’s been a while for me,” Bucky said, and although his voice was light, his face revealed exhaustion. Not like the dark circles that she’d seen before, but his energy. It was exhausted relief, like he’d been waiting for this. He probably had; he’d been awake every time she journeyed to the commissary, and stayed there with her until morning, so she doubted he’d even gotten as much sleep as she had the last week.

“I guess the exhaustion finally caught up,” she quipped half-heartedly.

She had a feeling they were both too tried to have given nightmares a chance to fester. They just knocked the hell out.

“I guess so…” Bucky agreed quietly, resting his head against the wall and shutting his eyes.

“Want me to let you sleep some more?” Marlow asked.

“No, just… feels good.”

She let out a hum of understanding. “Then do you want to go get breakfast?”

The corner of his mouth raised, and when he cracked open his eyes and tilted his head slightly to look at her, she remembered why she felt giddy the first time she met him. But quickly, she shook those feeling away; they were friends who had no time or mental capacity for anything else. Not to mention that they were both uninterested in a relationship with each other.

She just thought he was pretty.

That was normal. Especially considering the way he looked. Especially right now.

“I heard there was a shipment of fresh goods yesterday,” Bucky said mischievously. “I bet there’s some bacon and eggs like last time.”

“You think so?” Marlow asked hopefully.

She wasn’t sure when the last time she had bacon and eggs was—not fresh at least. It must have been before she left and Lord, they sounded really good.

“Let’s find out.”

“Let me change and then we’ll go. That okay?”

“Course.”

She slid off the bed, grabbing her pillow and blanket from where they were laying on the bed before shuffling across the hall and into her room. After dropping everything onto her bed, she turned to the duffle and pulled a new set of clothes from inside, changing into the leggings and crewneck.

When she stepped from her room, she saw Bucky waiting, and when he met her eyes, they quietly made their way to the commissary.

“How much of the movie did you end up watching?” Marlow asked as she leaned herself against the shelving unit in the kitchen.

Bucky went to the fridge, pulling it open and scanning its contents. “Hmm, about a half an hour, I think. I don’t know how you didn’t wake up, but you fell asleep and literally fell onto me, and then it was a few minutes after that that I fell asleep.”

“No, I didn’t,” she groaned in denial, rubbing a hand over her face. “I’m so sorry, I was really tired, I don’t even remember that.”

He turned to look at her, brows scrunched slightly as he sent her a gentle smile. “Hey, don’t worry about it, sometimes it just hits you.”

“Next time just kick me off,” she grumbled.

He let out a chuckle and shook his head. “I’m not going to kick you,” he mused, turning back to the fridge. He reached forward to grab a few things before elbowing the doors closed.

When he turned towards her she saw it was a flat of eggs, a huge pack of bacon, and a container of sausages.

Her mouth watered at the memory of those foods, and she had to yank her eyes away when Bucky spoke up.

“Hungry?”

She shrugged. “For something I haven’t had in a decade? Yes.”

His face fell slightly and she felt herself shrink, waiting to hear some apology or comment about Hydra, but he wiped the look off his face and dropped everything onto the counter. “Can you grab a couple pans?”

“Yah,” she breathed.

They set to work together, cracking eggs and turning sausages. After a half hour and a few slices of burned bacon—which Bucky insisted they couldn’t waste—they brought their haul to Marlow’s room to eat.

“I’m just going to change and I’ll be back,” Bucky said as he dropped his tray onto her dresser.

She nodded, placing hers onto the bin before turning and grabbing the blanket she’d dropped messily. After tucking it in properly, she grabbed her food and sat at the top of the bed, crossing her legs and resting the tray across them. She’d gotten a bite of her eggs when Bucky returned, grabbing his tray and nodding to the other end of the bed.

“Can I sit there?”

“Yes, Bucky,” she said pointedly, taking a sip of coffee.   

He sent her a small smile and carefully dropped to the other end of the bed, resting his tray in front of him while he propped a leg up. “Alright?” he asked, eyes flicking down to her food.

“More than alright,” she hummed. “I forgot how good food could be…”

“It’s weird, isn’t it? All the stuff that gets pushed to the back burner… The things it felt like you couldn’t live without that you forgot you needed.”

“What was it for you?” she asked.

“Cigarettes… and coffee—hell, most people survived off those two through the Depression and the war... Wasn’t getting any of that with Hydra.”

She took a bite of bacon. “Did you crave them?”

“The cigarettes yes; I remember seeing people around me smoke and I would… know I wanted something, I just couldn’t quite understand what it was. I would get antsy for them sometimes, but obviously, never got one… Coffee, well, didn’t really think about coffee much. What about you? What’s the thing you’ve missed the most?”

“My family,” she said immediately. “Sam, Steve… Natasha, Wanda… I’ve missed them.”

The ache of Nat’s memory was thankfully dulled from what it had been a week ago, but it was still there. It was an emptiness she was sure would stay the rest of her life.

His lips pulled to a thin line and he nodded. “That’s a lot more heartfelt than deathsticks…”

“I mean before the snap I was living pretty minimally, and before then… well, I’ve never been too attached to material things, but them… like you said, I forgot how to live without them. I never had anyone like that, where they just fit so well with me.”

“Yah,” Bucky mumbled, a gentle smile on his lips, “I know what you mean. That was always me and Steve; like two pieces of a puzzle that somehow fit together.”

“You’re going to stay close to him right? You’re going back to Brooklyn?” she asked, suddenly worried for their friend.

He nodded.

“Good. Good, you both deserve time to catch up. And he shouldn’t be alone… not… not when…”

She couldn’t say it, for her sake and Bucky’s. He had so much more reason to be heartbroken over Steve’s decision, yet somehow there was no resentment behind his eyes. No questions, just… understanding.

How could he be so good?

“I’ll be with him,” he whispered. “I won’t leave him.”

“Good,” she nodded, dropping her gaze to her tray. “I also missed coffee,” she added, taking a sip to cut at the burning in her throat.

“You can visit when ever you want,” he said quietly.

She flicked her eyes up to his and sent him a weak smile. “I’ll try.”

He nodded and took a sip of his own coffee. “How are you feeling about going?”

She shrugged, picking up a piece of bacon and taking a bite. “I still feel like it’s a mistake,” she admitted. “And dangerous.”

“If something happens… you’re welcome with me. I don’t think something will happen, but just know the option is there. I really don’t know how much help I’ll be, but you can stay until you’re back on your feet, alright?”

“Hmm, thanks… I’m going to try to be out of there before anything can happen though.”

His brows furrowed. “How long are you planning on staying?”

She tilted her head in thought. She hadn’t thought of a time period, just until she could find a new place. “I guess a week or so… a few, depending on when a place is—”

“A week?” he balked before shaking his head. “Sorry, I just thought you were going to stay a while, long term.”

“I can’t do that to him. Or his family; I’m way too much of a mess to have around, especially with the kids. So, I’ll find a place close, I know as much that Sam won’t let me go far—not that I want to be away from him, I just… He’s been away from his family, he deserves the time to be with them and not hyper-focused on me.”

He watched her before running his tongue over his teeth. “You keep talking about what everyone else deserves, what about what you deserve?”

She didn’t have time to be taken aback by his question, she was answering too quickly. “I deserve a lot less than what I’ve been given. I get to stay close to my best friend, I get paid every month by the government, I’m not locked away somewhere, I get to survive.”

His eyes were sad and she wasn’t going to sit there and be pitied by him.

“Your food’s getting cold,” she muttered, pulling her eyes away from his and stabbing a sausage.

“They’re excited to meet you,” he said quietly. “Sam’s nephews. He hasn’t stopped talking about it all week.”

She almost wanted to huff in annoyance that that comment brought her hackles down some.

“I’m excited to meet them too. I’ve always wanted to.”

“Focus on that. Focus on the good stuff…”

“What was your good stuff?” she asked quietly, hoping to hear something helpful. And although the guilt was there for searching for it, she let herself have it.

“My memories. A lot of them were bad, but a lot of them were good. And when you’re living in back ally’s, the past sometimes all that keeps you going.”

Chapter Text

“You ready?” Sam asked.

After breakfast, her and Bucky had gone outside, returning to the spot they’d sat over a week ago when she started coming back to herself. It was bitterly cold yet Bucky didn’t seem bothered by it—or at least he hid it. Her body had fallen into pinprick numbness after the first half hour, and even though she’d told him to head inside, he refused.

“Not with you still out here.”

She didn’t even notice the time passing as she watched the water.

Like before, helicopters would occasionally fly overhead, and at one point she almost asked to go see the ruins of the Compound. It was where Nat and Steve spent the last five years, along with the rest of the Avengers who’d been spared from the Snap, maybe she could find some type of comfort within it.

But she knew she wouldn’t. All she would see was death. Death of her friends, the deaths of strangers. The thought made her angry—because some man out in space decided that half of them didn’t deserve to live. And of the billions who survived, it was her friend that made the sacrifice—but no one would know.

And God, as much as that hurt, it made her proud to have known her. To have been even a fleeting moment in her life.

Bucky had to pull her away from the shoreline, like he had before, to bring her inside to stave off the onset of hypothermia, muttering all the while that that was why she couldn’t be alone.

“You’d lose track of time and be swallowed by the ocean if someone left you long enough,” he muttered, wrapping his blanket around her shoulders.

After that they brewed some tea and headed to the office with the window—somewhere that she could sit and not freeze to death according to Bucky.

She’d been so consumed by her thoughts that she didn’t realize when Steve came in, but the moment he took a seat beside her and she set her eyes on him, she felt a wash of guilt. She was leaving and she didn’t even try to find him. She was so caught up inside her head that she just… forgot.

Bucky slipped out after that, letting them spend her last few hours at the pop up alone together. And while they did speak a few times, they mostly just sat with each other, their comfortable silence echoing the many nights they spent on stake outs so many years ago.

But time went by too fast, because before she’d even realized that hours had gone by, Bucky was returning with Sam, and she had the urge to hide away.

But instead, she nodded to Sam’s question, fingers squeezing the strap of her duffle bag. “Mhmm.”

She stood, pulling the bag over her shoulder before turning to where Steve was now standing next to her.

“Have a good flight, Marlow.”

She frowned but nodded, wrapping her arms around him and shutting her eyes.

“Visit whenever you want, okay? And do me a favour and call; I want to know what you get up to.”

“Of course I’ll call. And I’ll come see you as soon as I can…” she agreed before pulling back a little. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, kid,” he smiled gently, pulling her back in for another hug.

When they finally separated, she turned to Bucky, who sent her a tight-lipped smile.

“Thanks for everything, Bucky,” she said, stepping forward to wrap her arms around him.

This time he seemed a little surprised at the hug, but it only took him a moment to pull her closer. “I’m only a call away,” he said quietly. “Anytime. Alright?”

She nodded, pulling away.

Everything after that moment seemed to blur together. Her and Sam walked through the pop up, meeting a pilot who would be bringing them to a New Orleans airport.

She knew she spoke quietly with Sam in the back of a small military plane as final checks were happening, but she wasn’t sure what they said to each other. She knew the plane took off, she knew her ears popped, she knew they coasted for a few hours before beginning the descent, but all of it was happening without her mind being present.

Even as they landed and loaded into a rental, she hadn’t really processed what was happening.

It was only when they pulled up to the doors of a hotel that she snapped back to reality.

“I thought your sister’s wasn’t far?”

“It’s not, but I wanted to give you a night to decompress. Thought it would be better to sleep here and then head out in the morning. Is that alright with you?”

She felt some of the tension leave her as she nodded. “That… that’s great, thank you.”

“Of course,” he smiled gently. “Let’s head up. We can order dinner and throw on a movie or something.”

She nodded absently, but her focus was on the older man dressed in a pressed suit who moved to the driver’s side door. He looked strong for someone over middle age and could easily hide a weapon beneath the folds of his suit jacket.

“Mar?” Sam asked as he ducked his head through the driver’s door.

She snapped her eyes away from the man and shifted. “Coming. Just… yah, I’m coming.”

Her fingers were quick to unbuckle her belt and she shifted to the right, scanning the entrance of the hotel that was dotted with attendants and a few people waiting beside luggage trolleys. Although her hand was on the handle, she was frozen, eyes focused on a young girl wearing a pink jean jacket.

She lazily followed the man dragging himself across the marble floor, not caring that her steps made little squelching pats as she stepped through his trail of blood.

As he turned to search the space behind him, she phased out, walking around and crouching in front of him before phasing back in.

He yelled in fear as he turned before she thrust her hand into his throat and squeezed, yanking her fist back along with a spray of blood and flesh. His body went limp immediately, and as he fell forward, his skull bounced once before lolling to the side.

Target eliminated.

The room was silent… Until she heard a sob.

Her eyes landed on the young girl, her brown hair pulled into a ponytail and dressed in a pink night dress. She was partially hidden behind the wall of a hallway on the other side of the room.  

“D-dad? Daddy?”

Witness.

She stood, watching the little girl a moment before stalking forward. Her shoes were tacky against the floor, and the sounds of sobs becoming louder and louder as fear overtook the child’s body.

She wondered whether she understood what just happened. Whether she understood death.

And as stopped in front of the girl, her head tilted as she pondered those questions. But that was not the purpose of the mission, so she pulled her eyes away and continued to the door.

“Marlow?”

Without missing a beat, she pushed herself from the car, pulling her duffle onto her shoulder as she stopped beside Sam who was holding the door open.

“Let’s go, please.”

Sam nodded, ushering her forward and into the foyer of the hotel. There were thankfully not too many people inside, only a few on couches and a few busy attendants.

The elevators were on the back wall, which had hallways sprouting from either side and disappearing into the belly of the building. To her left was the entrance to a bar, and to the right was a hall that led to a restaurant.

“I have a booking for Wilson,” Sam said somewhere beside her.

“Yes… two room suite, correct?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

A couple walked from the bar, talking and laughing as they crossed the wide foyer towards the restaurant.

The elevator dinged and an elderly couple walked out, turning down the left-hand hall.

“I don’t care!” someone bit, and Marlow’s eyes jumped to a woman on a cell phone who sat on one of the couches in the centre of the room. She shifted, and lowered her voice, speaking angrily but quietly enough that Marlow could no longer make out what she was saying.

“We’re good to go Mar,” Sam said gently before he guided them towards the elevator. When they stopped to wait, she turned, keeping her back against the wall as her eyes scanned the room.

When the elevator dinged, she turned slightly, not moving until she was sure no one else was in the cart before stepping in. Her eyes flitted to the screen every few seconds, checking to see if anyone called the elevator, but every time, only the top floor was highlighted.  

Finally, the elevator reached their floor and she held her breath, hands tightening on her bag as the doors opened. A figure stood just to the right of where the doors parted, and her feet immediately pulled her backwards, forcing her backside into the railing.

“It’s alright Mar,” Sam said quietly, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and ducking his head to look at her. He didn’t move, just watched her a moment until she forced herself to nod.

She was stiff as he pulled her forward, shielding her as they passed through the doors and continuing to walk until they reached the end of the hall where he tapped his card against the pad. He swung the door open and she stepped in, eyes darting around while she listened.

The main room was a living room and kitchenette with doors on either side that she assumed were the bedrooms. She stepped forward, moving along the wall until she reached the first door, which she pushed open and scanned.

The bed was flat against the floor, the white couch was pressed against the wall, there were two doors, one a few feet down from the entrance door, and one on the same wall as the bed. She slipped inside, pulling open the first door to find an empty closet, then shuffling to the further door that opened to the bathroom.

No one.

Her body relaxed a little and she turned around, wandering back towards the living room and finding Sam standing in the doorway across from her.

“Alright?”

“Mhmm.”

“You want to check mine?” he asked. His voice wasn’t mocking though, it was completely genuine, and she felt a deep comfort at his understanding.

“You do it?”

“I did.”

“I trust you,” she mumbled, leaning herself against the frame. “Besides, if someone was in here, you’d have had your ass kicked by now.”

He scoffed, sending her a glare before walking towards the kitchenette and grabbing something. “Take a look over the menu, we’ll call for food when you’re ready,” he said as he held out a leather wrapped folio.

She met him halfway and took it, rounding the couch and dropping onto its plush cushions to read through the options. She chose something at random, unfamiliar with most of what was written, and when Sam took the menu back, he went to the phone in the corner and placed their order.

Afterwards, he didn’t make conversation, opting instead to flick on the tv—which she was thankful for. She didn’t think she would be able to keep a long conversation going, so she was glad when they spent the evening on the couch, watching movies until long after the sun set and the streetlights came on.

Although, even with something so passive, she wasn’t paying much attention; every so often she would tune into the scene and let out a quiet huff of amusement, but most of the time her mind was elsewhere. Not occupied, just… blank.

She wasn’t sure when her head bobbed, but Sam seemed to notice.

“Want to head to bed?”

“Hmm?”

“It’s pretty late, do you want to head to bed?”

She glanced at the clock on the wall.

Midnight.

“Yah, I guess we should, huh?”

She stood, dropping the pillow back onto the couch as gently as she could. She felt out of place in the room—she’d never stayed at a hotel before.

Sure, she’d been to motels when she wanted away from her mom, and then spent a few days in a hostel when she first arrived in Germany, but never a hotel. For fucks sake, she didn’t even know elevators had screens instead of buttons, but apparently they do.

“Just call if you need anything, alright?” Sam asked, stepping into her field of view.

“Yah, alright,” she agreed, before forcing her feet to bring her to her room. She shut the door quietly behind her, letting out a breath before flipping on the light switch.

The windows still had their curtains drawn and she wandered towards them in curiosity, pulling the heavy fabric back slightly and peeking down to the street below.

People were still walking about down there, and as she looked towards the horizon, she was met with golden lights from streets and houses. It was pretty, but she let the curtain fall back into place and turned to the bed, unzipping the duffle to pull out a change of clothes for bed. She pulled her top off, grimacing when her thumb brushed along the scars of her ribs. And when she tugged her leggings off, she brushed over the bumpy skin of her thigh.

Her nerves shivered and she bit past the discomfort, yanking on the new clothes before slipping into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She kept the lights off and her back against the counter, only turning when she needed to spit and rinse her mouth out. She left the toothpaste and brush beside the sink and went straight for the bed, hitting the light switch beside the headboard before crawling under the covers in an attempt to find comfort. 

The firmness of the mattress was unfamiliar, and so was the weight of the blanket, and she could smell the gentle scent of lavender, and somewhere on the other side of the room, a vent started sending cool air towards her.

She felt like everything was happening and she squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to rid her senses of the stimulus.

⁂

A heavy boot pressed into her forearm, the weight of it almost unbearable.

“Who do you work for?” a man asked.

She was face down on the concrete and the dried blood that coated her lips made it painful to peel her lips apart. “I don’t, I’ve told you, I don’t work for anyone.”

Her voice was hoarse, like she hadn’t spoken in years.

Maybe she hadn’t; she wasn’t sure how long had been there for.

“You are a stubborn bitch, you know that?”

The pain in her arm increased as she felt him shift, and a moment later, she screamed through clenched teeth as her bone snapped before the other boot was pressed into her shoulder blades.

Her tears were dripping across her nose and to the ground, puddling beneath her cheek. “I’m telling,” she choked, unable to get breath unto her lungs with the man’s weight on her chest, “the truth, Jesus.”

“Jesus will not help. Not when I am enjoying this so much.”

“Fuck you,” she wheezed, squeezing her eyes shut. The searing pain in her arm was enough to send her stomach rolling, but the suffocation in her lungs was causing a fuzziness in her brain that she hoped would push her to unconsciousness.

The weight disappeared, but a hand reached down and took a handful of her hair, yanking her head back painfully.

“I would, but I have orders not to,” he jeered before throwing her face back into the cement.

The impact had her dazed, but she rolled over, struggling to sit up and push herself away from the man.

But she was alone.

She searched the darkness, but there was no one with her anymore.

I’m dreaming, she realized.

Wake up.

She tried to push herself to consciousness, but when she opened her eyes, she was still in the dark room.

Wake up!

The lights above flickered and she caught sight of someone standing a few feet away.

Fuck.

They flickered again and she pressed her body into the wall, her entire body going cold at the sight of the Russian. Her breaths came fast as she staggered to her feet, stumbling as she tried to move along the wall when a hand shot out and caught her round the throat.

“Where are you going, ptichka?”

She struggled to pull from his hold but couldn’t force her hands to push him away. “Let me go,” she bit.

“You need to answer me. How long will you lie for? Hmm?”

His fingers tightened, and she pressed herself further into the wall

“I’m not lying.”

His brows lowered as he watched her. “Make me proud of you, ptichka. Tell me who you work for.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw him reach for something at his belt line, but she couldn’t tell what it was.

“I don’t—don’t work for anyone,” she insisted, words no longer steady. Tears began to fill her eyes as her heart beat erratically in her chest.

Before she could fight it, he flipped her so she was pressed face-first against the wall, his hand now holding the back of her neck.

She could feel him shift closer, and suddenly his mouth was beside her ear, the scruff of his beard scratching at her skin.

“You will tell me, Marlow. And then you will watch as I gut your friends like fish.”

She tried to shake him off, but he was steady against her, squeezing her neck before the tip of the knife met her side. Not cutting but pressing deliberately. Like a threat.

And then it was slicing her skin, along the bone, and it pulled a guttural scream from her.

“Will you tell me, Marlow?”

She was too focused on the pain to answer.

“Marlow?”

She pressed her forehead into the hard wall, biting down on her cheek.

“Marlow!”

She turned her head and suddenly she was in a different room.

Her arm no longer hurt, and her side wasn’t cut.

Nightmare.

“Marlow, it’s alright,” Sam said gently.

Sam.

She turned to where he stood a few feet away, hands bared and eyes worried.

“It’s me, you’re alright.”

She tried to open her mouth, but a shaky breath ripped from her instead of words.

“You’re safe,” he soothed. “I’m going to get you a water, alright? I’ll be back in a second.”

She nodded, hands moving to scrub her face. When she pulled her hands away, she was reminded of the darkness of that cell. Of the shadows and figures she was never sure of whether they were real or not.

It caused a flare of panic to rise, and she threw a hand behind her, pawing the wall until she brushed over the switch and flicked the lights on.

A moment later Sam was stepping back into the doorway, holding both hands in front of him as he approached. “Do you want water?”

“P-please,” she nodded.

He closed the distance and handed it to her, backing up a few feet and leaning himself against the wall.

Her hands were the stillest thing about her as they unscrewed the cap and pulled the bottle to her lips. She could only handle a sip before she had to drop the bottle beside her and bury her face in her hands.

The speed of her breathing eventually slowed, and after a few minutes she pulled her hands away and flicked her eyes tiredly to Sam.

“I’m sorry for waking you up… Was I loud?”

“No, but I kept my door open just in case.”

She nodded. “I’m alright. You can—you can go back to bed. I’m just gonna get some breakfast I think.”

“Mar, it’s only two…”

“Oh… I thought I slept a lot longer than that… I… I’m going to stay up for a while then. Just… sit.”

“Do you want me to stay with you?”

She pushed the corner of her mouth up but shook her head. “It’s alright Sam. Thank you though… for waking me up.”

“Anytime. Want me to keep your door open?”

Immediately her head shook no.

“Okay, I’ll close it. Mine’s open though, if you need me.”

She nodded, pulling her knees up to her chest.

He slipped from the room, shutting the door and leaving her in silence.

She had the urge to walk, to leave her room and follow gentle music until she found a dark room where Bucky would surely be sitting.

But she couldn’t.

But…

She crawled forward to where her duffle was still sitting and rooted around until her hand wrapped around her phone.

Along with everything else, it felt unfamiliar; technology from the 1970’s was anything but small and sleek, so this felt… strange.

She unlocked it, hitting the message icon before clicking on Bucky’s name.

Buck y

Are you awake?

She dropped her phone, chewing her lip as she wondered if she should have sent the message. Maybe he was sleeping and that woke him up… Maybe—

Bucky

Yes.

Another one?

She let out a sigh and picked her phone back up.

Bucky

Mhmm

Woke Sam up

Want to talk?

Thanks, but it’s fine

 I just wanted something familiar, I guess…

It’s strange not having you around

Are you in the commissary?

No.

It’s a little lonely in there.

Got too used to the company.

Guess I ruined it for you

Sorry

No need to apologize, I’ll find a new haunt.

You going to be alright tonight?

She hesitated, unsure of what to say.

Bucky

I guess I’m gonna have to be

Call me if you need to, alright?

I’ll answer.

Thank you, Bucky

Night

Good night, Marlow.

She dropped her phone onto the bedside table, leaning her back against the tufted headboard and looking around the room.

It’s going to be a long night.

Chapter Text

“So, I thought we would stay another night?” Sam suggested as he brought their lunch tray from the hall.

“Another night? Why?”

“I want you to be comfortable when you get to my sisters. I know it’s stressful going into an environment you don’t know, so I thought giving you another day—or longer if you need it—would be good.”

“But your family…”

“Will be fine. I don’t want to thrust you into something, and I know that by bringing you with me so quickly I already have… I’m hoping this eases you into it, I guess. But it’s up to you.”

She dropped her gaze to the table…

He was trying to help… and if he thought this would help then it probably would.

So, she nodded. “Another night sounds fine.”

Although, from the back of her mind came a thought.

He probably doesn’t want you screaming and waking up the house.

She bit down on her molars, barely nodding in thanks as Sam passed her a plate.

He also probably wants to make sure you’re not going to hurt anyone.

She grabbed her fork and stabbed a radish, her mind becoming a torrent of cutting thoughts. So much so that after eating a few bites of her lunch, she quietly excused herself and slipped into her room.

Beneath a mountain of suffocating covers she found herself hoping the roaring of her heart would muffle the voices inside her head that were telling her she was making a mistake. A selfish mistake that could end in someone getting hurt.

But they were right; she was a dangerous burden. She should be working through her problems alone.

⁂

She felt like she was dragging her feet as she emerged from her room a little while after dawn.

She had fallen asleep twice over the last eighteen hours, and both times she’d been woken up by nightmares. And through some miracle she hadn’t woken up Sam, so rather than risking leaving her room in the early hours of the morning, she waited to a slightly more reasonable hour.

With all of the grace that Hydra had trained into her, she moved silently to the coffee pot, filled it, and hit brew before sending Bucky and Steve quick ‘good morning’ messages.

As soon as the pot was finished, she poured herself a mug and took it to the balcony, settling herself on one of the cushioned chairs and letting the morning sun warm her skin.

She stayed there as the sun crawled through the sky, and at some point in what she figured was the afternoon, the door behind her slid open and Sam walked out.

“Hey,” she mumbled, looking over to him.

“Hey, feeling any better?”

“I’m alright. When do you want to head out? I figured you would want to be on the road already.”

He nodded, letting his eyes move from her to the city that sprawled around them. “I thought we could stay another night. Give you some more time.”

Her shoulders tensed.

This was why she wanted to be alone; she was holding him here. Changing his plans. Stopping him from seeing his family.

“I don’t want to keep you.”

He turned back to her, moving to lean his back against the rail. “And I don’t want to put you into an uncomfortable situation. Another night is alright—actually, I think it’s a good idea.”

“I’m fine.”

“You haven’t slept.”

“I’ve slept.”

“Not without nightmares,” he pointed out in an almost exasperated tone.

She frowned, looking through the glass of the balcony to watch the cars in the distance. “How did you know that?”

Sam was silent for a few moments. “You told me…”

She flicked her eyes to his, confusion bubbling over. “I told you? When?”

“When we had lunch,” he said calmly, although his eyes betraying his worry.

She repeated his words, searching her mind for that interaction. Vaguely, now, she remembered him coming out with sandwiches and fries, and them exchanging a few words.

The lapse in her memory caused her stomach to curl in on itself and she pulled her lips between her teeth in an attempt to stop the tears that threatened to spill.

“We should stay longer,” Sam said gently. “I don’t want to keep throwing you into unknowns. At least if you go slow you’ll have time to adjust.”

“Right. Okay. Whatever you think is best.”

She hated those words. Hated that she was agreeing. Hated that she was keeping him here even longer.

“I’m gonna make us some hot chocolate, yah?”

“I guess they don’t have apple tea, huh?”

It was a weak attempt at joking, but Sam apparently appreciated it because a gentle smile came to his lips.

“No, unfortunately not.”

“Then hot chocolate sounds great, thanks Sam.”

⁂

It was the same nightmare as before; an unknown agent would start by breaking her arm, and then the Russian would come, choke her, threaten her, then begin carving her ribs.

The third time it seemed to drag out longer, a few more inches, then another rib.

And the next time she fell asleep, he smashed her forehead into the wall before letting her body crumple to the ground so he could begin his work on her thighs.

Her dreams weren’t the way it actually happened. Her scars were given to her on different occasions, spread out, but for some reason her brain was mashing them into one long, horrendous torture session.

So she decided against sleeping. She would fight it.

That evening while Sam was in the shower, she brewed herself another pot of coffee—with a few extra scoops of grounds—before pouring herself a mug and dropping onto the couch to watch whatever was on the tv.

By the time Sam got out of the shower, she was on her third cup, and when he emerged from his room, he sent her a sad look.

“It’s decaf,” she mumbled, focusing her eyes back on the tv.

It wasn’t, but she didn’t need the lecture he was sure to offer.

“I have a pack of cards if you want to play? Beats reruns.”

She almost shook her head but forced herself to nod him over. He was trying, he wasn’t leaving her; the least she could do was put the effort in to spend some time with him.

Her hopes of showing him she was alright were squashed however, as she went through hand after hand of poker, unable to focus enough to even recognize a straight.

It frustrated her; she should be able to do this. She knew how to play, she liked playing, but she could barely keep her mind on holding the cards let alone play.  

Eventually she gave up, mumbling an apology about being tired before topping up her coffee and heading into her room. She crawled onto the bed and sat against the headboard, letting out a puff of air as she felt the waves of exhaustion wash over her. But she was determined.

So she took a sip of coffee and pulled her phone from her hoodie pocket.

Oh shit.

Bucky (6 more messages)

Don’t worry about calling, just send me

a message when you can, alright? (3:00 pm)

She swiped open the notification, brows furrowing at the list of messages.

Bucky

Yesterday, 11:14 am

Hey, everything alright?

Sam said you were staying another night.

Yesterday, 7:41 pm

Hey, feeling any better?

Today, 1:30 am

If you’re awake, I am too, so let me know if you want to talk.

12:55 pm

Not trying to bombard you, I’m just worried.

Give me a call when you see these.

3:00 pm

Don’t worry about calling, just send

me a message when you can, alright?

Fuck.

Her jaw clenched as her fingers began typing, hating that she was making him worry.

Bucky

I’m sorry for not responding…

I’m alright

His reply was almost immediate.

Bucky

Don’t worry about it.

Just got me a little worried is all.

Do you want to talk?

I’m fine, just heading to bed

A bubble popped up before disappearing.

Bucky

You’re sure?

Yah

I’m good

How about we talk tomorrow?

Sure.

That sounds good.

Have a good night, Marlow.

Night Bucky.

She plugged her phone in and dropped it onto the side table, letting out a long breath of air as she buried her face in her hands.

⁂

A sob escaped her throat as she threw herself forward, gasping for air.

The Russian was burning her, then heating the knife and stabbing it into her flesh before ripping it from the cauterized wound.

Her stomach rolled at the memory, and she had to stumble off the bed and press her hands into the cool wood flooring before she could remember to breathe.

“Marlow?” Sam’s voice came before the door flung open. “Marlow, shit.”

She probably looked a mess; she felt a mess. But she had no capacity for embarrassment, she was just done.

She could barely get the words out between the tears and hitched breathing, “I can’t do this Sam,” she gasped. “I c-can’t.”

He dropped onto the ground in front of her, ever so carefully reaching for her hands. “I know it’s hard, but it’s going to get better,” he spoke gently, so polar to what she was feeling. Even his movements were featherlight as he pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her. “It will get better.”

“It’s only getting w-worse—every time it's worse. He won’t go away,” she argued as she pressed her forehead into his shoulder. “He won’t get out of my-my h-head.”

Sam didn’t say anything, but his hands rubbed up and down her back soothingly, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

A few minutes passed and her brain had finally stopped thumping, but it did nothing to quell the weight of her body. “I’m so tired, Sam.”

“I know Mar. I know... We’ll find something that will help. I’ll figure something out.”

Nothing will help.

“For now, maybe you should call Bucky.”

“Why would I call him?” she mumbled.

“You’ve spent the last month with him, you’re comfortable with him, and he’s been through the same thing; maybe he can give you some ideas on how to get through this.”

She shook her head, pulling back to sit on her haunches. “I just need a minute.”

“He’s been worried about you, I’m sure he’ll want to talk.”

She shook her head again. “It’s the middle of the night, he’s probably sleeping. I’m just going to take a shower and stay up a little. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“It’s not the middle of the night, Mar, it’s ten in the morning…”

“Oh.”

She wondered when she’d fallen asleep… she didn’t feel like she’d gotten much, but considering she’d barely gotten any rest the last few days, maybe she was just deprived.

“Do you want me to call him?”

“No… I’m going to take a shower… I’ll be out in a little bit.”

He looked like he was going to argue, but he let out a sigh and nodded, helping her stand. “Call if you need anything okay?”

“Yah,” she breathed, stepping away.

She heard his footsteps recede as she got to the bathroom before shutting the door and locking the world out. Her entire body felt on alert as she began stripping from her clothes, and the sight of her scars only made it worse; bringing her back to her nightmare.

It made her heart gallop in her chest, so she stepped blindly into the shower and turned it on, relief rippling through her at the cold water beating against her skin. It was soothing despite its sharpness, and as she pressed her back against the cool glass, she found herself finally able to fill her lungs for the first time in what felt like forever.

Eventually her mind drifted to the slow rhythms Bucky had her copy in the weeks prior, and to the steadiness of his voice and self.

Maybe I should call him.

She shook her head at her thoughts; he needed a break. He deserved a few days without having to deal with her.

She could make it through a few bad nightmares. He did it alone, she could manage.

⁂

Much like the last week, she hadn’t noticed the day passing her. She just wandered through it, stopping momentarily to talk or eat, all the while being caught within her mind. She found a kind of solace in the stretches where she was away from herself; that meant she wasn’t focused on the knot in her stomach that only got worse when she thought about how she was making Sam deal with her, or the impending meeting with Sam’s family.

Cruelly, the excitement for meeting them had passed, and now there was only anxiety.

What if she couldn’t get over the nightmares?

What if every night, she woke the house up?

What if in confusion, she hurt someone?

Thankfully, those thoughts only occasionally flitted into her mind, while the rest of the day, she kept herself lost within the fog.

Before she realized, the day had passed. And then somehow, the night did as well.

Once again, she was reminded of Siberia—but this time she was thankful for it; she much preferred the blankness to anguish.

Although Sam didn’t. She noticed how he kept trying to pull her back to reality; with movies, conversation—he even tried to get her to play cards again, but that time she couldn’t get herself to agree. She just wanted to be.

That was something different from Siberia; there she didn’t want anything. Now, she just wanted to be left alone. She was as close to happy as she could get. Content, maybe? Comfortable?

No.

Numb.

She was numb. And she was glad for it.

When Sam wasn’t directly in front of her, he seemed to disappear. What he was doing, she wasn’t sure. She did hear him talking on the phone, but she didn’t know with who. And even though he was only a room away, she didn’t know what he was saying.

Not that she was paying much attention; the sunset was too pretty.

Pretty enough that she grabbed a blanket and moved to the balcony, letting the cool evening air swirl around her.

She wasn’t sure the last time she’d seen a sunset—or rather, the last time she’d appreciated one. Her recent memories seemed to be in greyscale. Except for the red.

There was a lot of red.

Hers, theirs, everyone’s.

It was enough to drown in. To fill her throat with a choking warmth. To stick to her, drip from her, stain her.

She was covered in blood.

It’s everywhere.

It’s everywhere.

Get it off.

She knew she stood, but then she was in the shower, ice cold water soaking her skin, her hair, her clothes.

It’s everywhere.

There was no red in the shower, yet she could feel the blood beneath her nails. Could feel it dripping down her cheeks.

They made me into a bloody nightmare.

They put this blood on me.

They did this to me.

She wanted to scream and cry and pull her hair out, but she didn’t have the energy. They took it from her.

He took it from her.

This is your punishment for letting them do what they did.

She panted, her breath sending blood sputtering away from her lips. But it wasn’t blood. It was water. Water that was pouring down her face.

Then why did it taste like copper?

Why is it thick?

It wasn’t.

It wasn’t.

Her hand batted the faucet off and she shut her eyes, letting the cold sink into her bones before stripping from her clothes.

She left them pooled on the tile while she wrapped a towel around herself and flicked the light off, pushing open the door to her room. The duffle bag was open beside her bed, and she reached in blindly, pulling out a change of clothes. It seemed to take forever for her to pull on the crewneck and sweatpants, but eventually she dropped onto the bed and buried her face in the pillow, hoping to return to numbness.  

⁂

She knew every beat of the dream before it happened. Knew when the bone in her arm would snap, when the Russian’s hand would wrap around her throat, when he would press the knife into her skin for every question she didn’t answer.

The last she saw, her blood was on his face, smeared from his cheekbone and into his beard, clumping it together like glue. But she wasn’t sure when that was. Maybe he’d already wiped it away. Maybe that was a different memory.

All she knew was the cement was blissfully cool against her back, but it bit into her bones painfully.

“You know we will eventually find out who you work for, uh? You cannot keep your secrets forever.”

She said nothing. She couldn’t. Her throat was burning from the screams he ripped from her, so she just kept her gaze on the wall beside her, letting tears fall from her eyes as blood dripped from her skin.

“You are not getting out of here. Accept your fate, ptichka.”

He straddled her torso, using the knife to pull her face up to look at him. “You belong to Hydra,” he mumbled, patting the blade against her cheek before a grin slowly grew on his lips like he’d suddenly had a thought.

How she could grow even more afraid, she didn’t know, but her head shook weakly as he stood and used his boot to hook her side, flipping her onto her stomach.

She tried to get away—she tried—but he halted her movement with a foot to the back of the skull. Her nose scraped against the cement before her cheekbone and temple cracked against the floor, sending shocks of pain through her skull that brought more tears to her eyes.

The pressure disappeared as he shifted, but it was only a momentary reprieve because next he was taking hold of the back of her shirt and ripping, tearing the already torn and bloody scraps clear away from her skin.

“Shlyukha Gidry. Vot ty kakaya, ptichka. Prinyat eto.”

His voice was biting, almost as biting as the knife that started slicing through her skin.

She bucked against it, survival instincts taking over as a rush of adrenaline surged and ordered her to get away. But rough fingers threaded through her hair to push her head down while a knee was pressed into the base of her spine—she couldn’t fight against him. Couldn’t get away.

But her body didn’t give up. It lurched against the knife point, working to deepen the cut despite its attempts to get away.

The weight on her spine increased and her throat felt like it was coated with sand.

She was screaming.

God, she was screaming so loud, but no one would help her.

“Shlyukha Gidry.”

Shlyukha Gidry.

She couldn’t tell if he was saying those words or if they were in her head, but they were repeating, over and over.

Hydra’s whore.

Sobs were wracking her body, and with each spasm, the pain intensified.

Hydra whore.

At some point, the knife stopped cutting, but each breath was agony. It stretched the skin, tearing the flesh further and letting more acidic air wash over her exposed muscle.

“Vy ne chto inoye, kak telo, kotoroye nuzhno ispolʹzovat. Ty prinadlezhish Gidre. Ty prinadlezhish mne.”

The words were spoken into her ear, deathly calm, and it felt like a blackhole was sucking everything from inside her.

You are nothing but a body to be used.

You belong to Hydra.

You belong to me.

A hand slithered up her hips to her waist, and her body jolted, squirming to get away, to avoid the touch. But she couldn’t.

He shifted his knee and easily yanked her towards him, pulling her against him, inching his hands—

She flew forward, out of the bed and to the ground. Everything was burning. She could feel his hands on her, feel his breath on her. The words he etched into her felt like fire, and she cried out as the memory replayed in her mind.

She hated him.

She hated everything he did to her.

But mostly she hated her skin. How it kept evidence of her past, and how it worked with him to make sure she would always be reminded of him.

It hurt. It hurt so much.

Her hip pressing into the floor was a vivid reminder of being in that cell and of those months where she refused to speak. Of his knee pinning her down.

The tears that pooled beneath her cheek were the same.

As were the sobs that shook her.

Uncontrollable. Like he was still—

The door cracked open and she immediately shot upwards, pushing herself backwards to avoid whatever nightmare was coming in.

“No,” she begged, watching through blurry eyes as whoever was across from her paused.

“Marlow, it’s me. It’s Sam. I’m right here, okay?”

“S-Sam?”

“Yah, it’s me.”

“Sam,” she broke in relief, bracing her hands against the ground.

His steps were careful as he approached before dropping to kneel in front of her. “It’s me,” he repeated quietly.

“He—” another sob cut off her words and she bowed forward, her fists brushing against Sam’s knees. “He won’t get off of me. I can’t get away from him.”

“He’s not here,” he soothed as he reached for her hands tentatively. When she didn’t pull away at the touch, he wrapped his hands around hers and inched closer. “He’s gone.”

Her fists tightened and she let her head hang between her arms. “I can f-feel him. He’s never going to be gone… He’s i-in my skin.”

Sam was silent at that and she remembered that he didn’t know.

“When I was… being interrogated, he—” she panted, “he tortured—tortured me, and one o-of the thing… he cut me, my back, he—”

She couldn’t stop the wailing cry that pushed from her lips. It was a mixture of fear, anguish, pain, frustration—everything she felt then and was feeling now, and it stopped her from saying anything else. Of voicing what he’d done and what was left behind.

She was folded into her knees, unable to keep herself sitting up any longer, like her body was giving up.

But Sam wasn’t.

He pulled her gently at first, just enough to get her to look up, and then he shifted closer to bring her into his arms.

The gentleness of his movements made her emotions feel two-fold, and she crumpled against him, gripping one of his hands to her chest as she felt his other hand fall to the back of her head.

“You’re going to make it through this, alright?” he mumbled into her hair.  

How could she ever? How could she make it past the feeling of violation? Of Invalidation?

The Russian was right; for ten years, she was a body. That’s it. And really, that’s all she had been her entire life. She was a paycheque and wallet photo for her mother, a punching bag and servant for her mother’s boyfriend, a replaceable grunt for a security company.

The brief stint while on the run was the only time her purpose was more than to fill an allotted space, but even then, they could have done the job without her.

She wasn’t special. She wasn’t a superhero. She was just a body waiting for an order.

“Just breathe, alright? That’s what I need you to do right now, focus on breathing.”

She shook against him, breaths hitching to the point of her diaphragm hurting.

“My house in Delacroix is a big blue one,” he said quietly, the hand in her hair moving to stroke down her neck. “Not a bright blue, but a light blue, almost like the sky. It has a wraparound porch, and out back there’s a big old dock that stretches way out into the lake…”

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to picture the house.

“Me and my sister used to race down the dock. See who could get to the end first. Don’t know how many splinters my feet got from running it barefoot, but my mom had to keep tweezers in the bowl by the back door… We’d spend most of our spare time out on that dock, fishing, talking, eating… And at nighttime, the fireflies come out, make the place look like a Disney movie.”

She hadn’t realized, but the sobs had calmed, leaving her with near silent tears and shaky breathing.

“It’s quiet out there, one of the quietest places I’ve ever been. Makes you feel like the rest of the world doesn’t exist…”

She tightened her grip on his hands slightly and he squeezed back, like a silent reassurance that he was still there.

“I’ll show you the best places to find crawfish. And in town, where you can get the best biscuits. I’ll have to get you onto my parent’s boat, show you around the bayou and to the public docks… The town is quiet and friendly. It’s safe.”

Safe.

Safe until I go.

Until I get scared and hurt someone.

Her jaw clenched and she tried to hold back another wave of tears that formed at the reminder of her relocation.

And how she was still keeping Sam holed up in some hotel.

How was she supposed to stay with him? Her nightmares were only getting worse, if this ever happened around the kids, they would be terrified. Why would Sarah and Sam want that around the boys?

“Hey,” Sam mumbled, pulling their hands up so she would sit up. “I’m going to get you some water, alright?”

She nodded passively, letting go of his hand as he stood.

Staying with them is a bad idea.

She decided then that it was no longer a possibility. So, she stood, grabbing her phone from the side table and her duffle from beside her bed before sliding on her sneakers.

Sam was still in the kitchen as she stepped from her room, making her way silently through the darkness and towards the door. She was just passing him when he shifted.

“Marlow?”

She paused but didn’t turn. She didn’t want to see his face.

“Marlow, what are you doing?” His voice had hardened, shifting to something akin to fear.

She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to say she was leaving, but that’s exactly what she was doing; she was too much of a burden, and too much of a threat.

But because she couldn’t handle saying those things, she kept silent.

“Mar, let’s just wait until morning to figure something out. Don’t leave right now. Please.”

But if she left now, he could sleep. He could rest. He could leave in the morning and see his family.

“Go back to bed Sam.”

She didn’t recognize her voice, but once the words were out of her mouth, she continued walking. It felt like miles. Like the door wasn’t a dozen feet away, but on the other side of the city. She just wanted to be out of that room, away from people and in a place she could pause for a moment. Think. Figure something out.

But then a hand wrapped around her bicep, and regardless of how gentle it was, her mind turned off as she fell back onto her training.

She turned, sending her fist towards the person’s face, but before it could make contact, they caught it and pulled it down.

“Mar—”

She yanked her hand out of their grip and swung her bag into their chest, using the moment of surprise to kick it and the person over the back of a couch.

The Russian’s voice praised her, and she shook her head in confusion.

The Russian’s not here.

Where is he?

Where am I?

Hotel.

With—

“Oh God, Sam!”

Once again, she came back to herself, her heart immediately going erratic as she took a step forward.

“I’m alright,” came his voice from the darkness. “It’s alright.”

It wasn’t.

It was anything except alright.

She hurt him again.

It was Sam. How could she do that?

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t—I—

“Marlow, please don’t go anywhere, come sit down—”

“No,” she bit out as she took a step back, “I hurt you a-again—I need to go.”

“I’m alright, I shouldn’t have scared you,” he bit in frustration.

See? You’re making him mad.

This is your fault.

You hurt him.

“Mar, you need to breathe.”

She snapped her eyes to where Sam was only a few feet away now.

Breathe?

Suddenly she realized her lungs were burning, so she tried suck in a breath, but failed as it got caught in her throat.

“I n-need to g-go,” she gasped, taking another step back.

“I need you to stay here Marlow,” Sam opposed.

She shook her head, opening her mouth in an attempt to explain how dangerous she was, but the words wouldn’t come out. It felt like a hand was squeezing her throat.

Like you did to so many people.

The mental image was enough to cause her knees to buckle, and somewhere in front of her, her name was shouted, but she was more focused on the pressure in her skull. It was pounding, hard and loud enough she wondered if the rest of the world could hear it.

She tried to take a slow breath in, but it was jagged and not nearly enough to stop the burn.

Just breathe!

“One minute!” Sam yelled before lowering his voice, “Marlow focus on my voice.”

Too close.

He’s too close.

She scrambled backwards, heart pounding as she squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw.

“Marlow breathe, please breathe.”

The pounding was louder now. She thought her brain was about to explode. It certainly felt like it was.

And then there was a cracking noise and she was sure.

I’m going to die.

I’m going to suffocate.

I’m going to—

“Marlow, I need you to breath.”

Her eyes flew open at the proximity of the voice, body recoiling before she saw a pair of familiar eyes.

Bucky.

“Like we did before, just a small one,” he said gently, taking hold of her wrist to guide her hand to his shoulder.

She could feel his back expand as he pulled in a breath, and she did her best to follow, but she couldn’t get it down.

“Here,” she heard Sam say somewhere in her periphery, but she didn’t take her eyes off Bucky’s. “Marlow, I want you to hold this.”

Something cold was placed in her palm and she wrapped her fingers around it, following the familiarity of an order.

That’s what you’re good for.

“Again Marlow, in,” Bucky mumbled, taking a breath, “out.”

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t even follow an order. She couldn’t breathe. Her eyes closed as she felt her lungs refusing to work.

I’m going to suffocate.

“Hey sweetheart, come on, look at me, focus on me. Focus on my breaths.”

She blinked her eyes back open, vision blurry with tears.

“That’s it. Now, breath in,” he hummed, and she sucked in a gasping breath, “mhmm, you got it, now let it out.”

She followed again, letting out a sobbing exhale.

Her hand felt wet, so she dropped her gaze and opened her palm finding the remnants of an ice cube.

“Cold’s good,” Bucky explained, “now again, in.”

She felt his back expand and tried to follow, but again, she struggled.

Bucky looked lost for a moment, before hesitantly lifting his left arm and ever so gently wrapping his hand around the side of her neck, just under her ear. Her heartbeat thumped against him, but the cool metal was like a zap of calming energy.

“In,” he repeated gently.

She tipped her head in a subtle nod and pulled a short breath through her nose, the relief of air in her lungs enough that she shut her eyes and savored the moment before shakily letting it go.

“Yes, that’s it, now do it again, come on, in.”

Together they took a short breath in, and again, the feeling was like bliss. She pressed herself further into his hand, basking in the last dregs of its coolness.

“And out.”

She blew the air out before Bucky had her repeating the cycle.

And then repeating it again.

At some point, the tears that unknowingly started had stopped, and her brain felt slightly less like it was going to explode.

But when she opened her eyes and saw Bucky watching her carefully, her eyes burned again.

“Thank you,” she rasped, wrapping a hand over where his was still pressed to her neck. It had gone warm, but the pressure was still comforting somehow.

He sent her a sad smile, and his right hand squeezed hers. She wasn’t sure when he’d grabbed it, or whether it had been the other way around, but she was grateful for the grounding contact.

“Mar, you should drink,” Sam said quietly after a few silent moments.

Both her and Bucky turned, looking to where Sam was leaning against the wall on the other side of the room. She nodded and Bucky’s hand slipped away from her neck, but his right thankfully stayed wrapped around hers. 

Across the room, Sam pushed off the wall, moving past the couches slowly before crouching in front of her and handing her the bottle.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered before dropping his eyes and standing.

Marlow’s mind was too foggy to process his words at first, but by the time she tried to refute, he was speaking again.

“I’ll be back in a little while, alright?”

That sent alarms through her mind.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“Just down the hall. But don’t worry about me, just… I’ll be back.”

His voice brought tears to her eyes; it was so… hurt.

Because I hurt him.

He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something else, but turned, slipping from the room silently.

“I did it again.”

“Did what?”

“Hurt him. Attacked him. This is why I need to leave; I’m dangerous. I can’t keep lashing out on him.”

“You’re not dangerous.”

“Then what am I?” she snapped.

“Scared. You’re scared, and you’re allowed to be scared.”

She frowned at that. “I don’t want to be scared. Not when it ends in someone getting hurt. I need to leave.”

“Not right now. Right now you need to calm down. We can figure the rest out tomorrow.”

“There’s nothing to figure out,” she mumbled. “I’m not going with Sam. I’ll find a place to rent, and I’ll stay there until I get myself under control.”

“Marlow…”

“I can’t do it, Bucky. I can’t live with the risk of hurting him. Did you not see him? He hates me. He’s scared of me. But he can’t tell me not to come because he’s too good of a person to go back on his word. So I’ll go back on mine; I’m not going with him.”

“He isn’t afraid of you,” Bucky said desperately.

“He is—”

“Marlow, he’s afraid for you. He’s upset because he has no idea how to help.”

She shook her head. “No. Sam deals with this stuff, he knows what to do but I can guarantee that the people he’s helped don’t try to punch him when he does. He’s afraid of me. Or at least is afraid I’ll hurt his family.”

“No, Marlow, no, I promise, it isn’t you. It’s not your fault.”

He sounded genuine, but he was wrong.

He had to be.

Sam was trained in this stuff, has dealt with people who had worse issues than she has; he’s not confused, he’s scared.

Bucky could believe what he believed.

Bucky…

“What are you doing here?” she asked, finally realizing that he was here, but she was no longer in New York.

“Sam’s been texting us with what’s going on… Said you’ve had a rough couple of nights and asked if I could come to see if I could help.”

“You… you came all the way here because I’ve been having nightmares?” she asked quietly.

He shrugged. “More or less, yah. Sam said it’s been hard. Judging on what I walked in on, I guess it has been.”

She shifted her gaze, looking past him to the couches. “It hasn’t been that bad. I’ve been out of it most of the week…”

“Out of it?”

“Yah… just… not here. Not in the moment.”

“Is that what you meant before? About not being in your body?”

“Mhmm. Everything just feels like it’s passing me by, which is good. I’m not constantly being overwhelmed by my emotions or memories. It’s really only when I’m sleeping that they hit me full force.”

He let out a breath and nodded. “How much have you slept?”

“A few times. But I’ve been avoiding it,” she added quietly.

“Because of the nightmares?”

“Mhmm.”

“Do… do you want to talk about them?”

She contemplated the question, unsure of whether her mouth would cooperate long enough to explain. “It’s only one nightmare. But each time it gets longer…”

Bucky shifted, moving to lean against the wall beside her but taking care not to separate their hands.

“It starts with an agent… he breaks my arm. And then the Russian comes in… starts questioning me, then… cutting me. It’s all the times he cut me. T-this time, he was o-on top of me—my back—”

She stopped and shook her head.

But Bucky knew the rest.

Her stomach sank as he untangled their hands, but immediately he wrapped his arm over her shoulder, sliding his left hand into her grip instead.

“It’s over now,” he mumbled, pulling her into his side. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“But it’s part of me. He’s in my skin. I can’t escape that.”

He was quiet a moment. “That time will always be part of you. It’s not something you can forget or ignore, and a physical reminder makes it so much harder to separate yourself from the past, but you can’t let it… define you. Don’t give him that power.”

“He already has it,” she whispered. “He’s succeeded. What’s left of me is his. Nichego, krome tela, kotoroye budet ispolʹzovatʹsya.”

“No,” Bucky bit, pulling away to look at her. “Marlow, no, you’re not. You’re not nothing and you’re not just a body.”

She just shook her head, unable to even begin explaining how true it was. She didn’t want to explain it, she didn’t want it to be true. She didn’t want to prove to Bucky that it was true.

“Nothing he said was true, alright? None of it.”

“You have no idea,” she murmured.

His thumb brushed the skin at the base of her neck soothingly as he nodded minutely. “I do though,” he said gently,

“I really hope you don’t.”

She felt as if he was peeling back every layer of her soul as he watched her, and to her heartbreak, she saw how much he did understand.

His jaw tightened before he pulled her into his arms, wrapping an arm around her waist as the other braced her head, keeping her stable against him.

“I’m sorry.”

It was only when it was whispered it a few more times that she realized it was her saying it. That she was wishing over and over that he didn’t understand.

“It’s alright, Marlow. We’ll be alright.”

She let out a shuddering breath and pressed her eyes into his shoulder, letting the rise and fall of his chest influence her own.

Soon, their breathing was synced, and she felt the pressure release from her brain.

She shifted her head, letting her cheek rest against his shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispered again.

It didn’t feel like it was enough; the words were used for such trivial things, what he’d done for her deserved something much more significant, but she didn’t know what.

He didn’t say anything, just squeezed her a little tighter, and for some reason, she thought he knew what she meant.

But then he spoke up. “You should get some sleep, it’s almost four in the morning.”

Immediately she shook her head, pulling back to look at him. “I’m not sleeping. I can’t—I can’t see him again. It’s too—”

“I’ll be here, don’t worry. I’ll wake you up if they start.”

“But—I…”

“I know how hard it is. But you need sleep. I promise, I’m here, alright?”

She let out a short breath, clenching her jaw and nodding. “Please wake me up.”

“I will.”

They stood and she guided him into her room, but their entwined hands tugged her back as he stopped halfway to the bed.

Through the darkness she turned to look at him in confusion, finding him glancing between the bed and her.

“Please.”

She hated how scared she sounded, but it felt like if he let go of her hand, everything would fall apart. The world would slip away, and she would be back in that cell.

Her breath was caught in her throat until he nodded, squeezing her hand and stepping forward to encourage her towards the bed. She climbed on then shuffled over, letting out a breath as Bucky sat next to her and settled against the headboard.

Suddenly she felt a wave of humiliation; she’d practically begged him into her bed, and probably made him uncomfortable, and—

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, “if you don’t want to be in here, or on the bed, I don’t—it’s alright…”

“Marlow, I understand,” he whispered, holding out a hand between them.

She looked at it before sliding her hand into his, brows furrowing as she tried to stop her eyes from burning at the gesture.

“I didn’t have someone with me, I don’t want to make you go through that. I understand wanting someone… Needing something to… keep you away from those memories. I get it. And if I can be that for you, well… I’m glad.”

She knew that if she opened her mouth, she wouldn’t be able to string two syllables together before tears interrupted her, so she tightened her hold on his hand and nodded.

Bucky shifted slightly, lowering down so he was propped against the pillow and pulling Marlow to lay down.

The thought of her nightmare had her hesitating, but she conceded, dropping her head to the pillow and letting their hands rest between them. Almost immediately, the tiredness that hung in the air around her dropped onto her shoulders, willing her eyes to close as her body begged for unconsciousness.

But she fought it. Every time she would find her eyes closing for more than a few seconds, she would force them open, doing her best to ignore their burning.

She didn’t need sleep. Laying was enough rest. She would—

“It’s alright, I’m here. Try to sleep.”

“I can’t,” she breathed.

“I’ll wake you up,” he insisted gently. “I’m here okay? I’m not leaving.”

She let out a breath and nodded, trying to convince her brain to relax.

Trust him.

He’ll wake me up.

Trust him.

Chapter Text

The first thing Marlow noticed when she opened her eyes was the weight in her hand. The second thing was the slow rise of Bucky’s chest.

She looked up to find him still leaned against the pillows, his eyes focused on his phone, which he looked to be reading. He must have felt her gaze because he turned, sending her a small smile.

“Sleep alright?”

Oh, she thought, I slept.

“Yah,” she breathed in confused surprise, “what time is it?”

“Still early, only eight. You can sleep longer if you need to.”

She nodded, burrowing her face back into the pillow. “That’s good, because I’m still tired.”

He let out a quiet chuckle and she closed her eyes, almost falling asleep when a thought popped into her head.

“You’re probably tired,” she breathed, pulling her head back up. “You should sleep.”

“I’ll be alright, you go back to sleep. I want to be awake in case you have a nightmare.”

“No, Bucky,” she shook her head, pushing up to her elbows. “I’ll be fine, but you’ve been up all night.”

“Promise, I’m—”

“Bucky.”

“Marlow.”

“Sleep some.”

He turned forward, his gloved left hand raising to rub the scruff of his jaw. “Alright. Alright, I’ll sleep a little.”

She nodded once, letting her head fall back to the pillow. “Why are you wearing a glove?”

“The phone doesn’t work with the metal… And…” he trained off, looking down to their hands.

“Oh… sorry,” she apologised, although she didn’t let go.

“It’s alright. Lucky I had my gloves in my pocket though or else it woulda been a boring few hours.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, eyelids batting heavily as she watched Bucky shift to lay down.

She heard him say something along the lines of ‘you’re welcome’, but she was already drifting, too far gone to make any response past a pitiful nod.

⁂

Bucky was surprised when he woke up, not to a racing heart, but to the sound of his phone ringing in the other room.

It was the flip phone he’d gotten for… well for the calls and texts he didn’t really want to answer. And because he didn’t want the government somehow getting into his phone to see his conversations.

If that was even a sound worry. 

He still wasn’t versed in how easily they could get into his technology, but he’d rather them snoop through the burner than his personal phone, so he gave the government the number for the flip phone, leaving the smart phone for his friends.

Or really, for Steve, Marlow, and Sam. Although Sam had a tendency to mix up the numbers and contact him through both.

The ringtone eventually stopped and he contemplated getting up. It felt good—sleeping, that is—and honestly, he would have been happy to sleep longer, but instead he pulled his phone from the side table, blinking to clear his eyes to check the time.

Shit.

That call was from the shrink.

Shit.

He debated jumping from the bed and going to the living room to call her back, but his eyes landed on Marlow, and he decided against it; she was still sleeping, and if he moved she would definitely wake up.

But also, the thought of sleeping longer was too enticing. She made him want to fall back into that blissful relaxation, and so he slid his phone under the pillow and let his eyes close.

He drifted for a while, not quite sleeping but not quite conscious, listening to Marlow’s quiet breaths beside him.

He’d forgotten what it was like to sleep next to someone. That night before she left was different, they’d both fallen asleep before there was a chance to fully register what had happened. Now, he was half-awake, able to think and over-think their situation.

He really hoped he wasn’t making her uncomfortable. She was the one who had asked him to stay with her, to stay on the bed, but still… It felt… intrusive. Improper.

Definitely what his mother told him not to do.

But apparently it was exactly what he was supposed to do. She was sleeping, for the first time all week, let alone the prior week. Was it not the right decision?

He wasn’t uncomfortable with the situation—in fact, he felt strangely at ease. Likely the morbid camaraderie, but also… maybe…

It felt good to make someone feel safe.

Damn, I’m such a dim-witted romantic.

He shouldn’t be feeling gallant for helping her out, shouldn’t feel like a knight in shining armour—or sweatpants, but it felt good to be doing something good. For once. And for someone not to look at him and feel scared.

He let his eyes open and wander over the girl across from him.

How could she not be afraid of me?

He didn’t know what exactly he, or the other him, had done, but he knew the things that Hydra made him do. The interrogation sessions he partook in. The sparring and joy-fights and neglect he went through.

How she could stand to even look at him, he didn’t understand. She kept saying that he didn’t do the things they did, that they were the same, but even so, he hurt her.

He hurt her.

The familiar pressure of guilt snaked up his chest at the overbearing thought, and he almost flinched at the imagined scenarios that were being projected in his mind.

Of his silver fist coated in blood.

Of her futile attempts at fighting against him.

Of her crumpled on the floor.

Of the orders to continue.

He rolled onto his back, glad for the blankness of the ceiling to wipe the mental images from his brain.

In truth, it didn’t make sense for him to feel guilt; it wasn’t him. But in all sense of the situation, it was. It just hadn’t happened yet. Or it already did. Or…

I hate this time travel stuff.

Marlow shifted and he tilted his head to the side, eyes falling to their hands that somehow hadn’t come untangled. In her sleep she’d threaded her fingers through his and wrapped her other hand atop, pulling his hand—and arm—towards her to clutch against her chest.

He rolled back to his side gently, amusement playing on his lips as his mind strayed and he found himself longing to hold her that way. To be tangled up in each other and—

Get a hold of yourself, James.

Christ, have some respect.

He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the old Bucky back into the corners of his mind. Even if the old Bucky’s intentions were entirely innocent, that was not going to happen. They were friends. They were… co-workers. And they both were much too close to being certifiable that that was not possible.

He needed to separate those desires from his reality; it was fine to appreciate the contact, but the moment it strayed from platonic to something more…

I’m thinkin’ too much.

Although he was far too awake to sleep, he let his eyes shut once again, just letting himself lay in the quiet of the room. It was something he hadn’t been able to do in… well since before the Battle of Wakanda.

Should he count that as five years or two months? He really wasn’t sure.

At least she understands.

Or, I guess she doesn’t.

His eyes were open again as he regarded her.

She’s lived a third of her life in the past. That battle was… so long ago to her.

Ten years.

Ten years with those bastards and still beautiful.

He almost jerked at the thought.

No.

No, no, no.  

He pulled his eyes away from her, feeling in some sense that it was wrong to look at her any longer.

Sure, he’d always known she was an attractive girl, but she was practically a kid when they met—well younger than him—so it was never something he’d thought about. But it wasn’t misplaced to say she was pretty; you couldn’t argue it, she just was. So, was it so strange for him to think she was beautiful?

No? Yes?

No. No, he could appreciate that she was attractive.

Although he had a feeling that his sudden thoughts towards her had something to do with him being lonely and in proximity of the opposite sex.

Maybe it is time I find someone—no.

It definitely is not.

He let out a sigh, annoyed at how active his brain had become.

What happened to a lazy, carefree morning?

Although in truth, morning had since passed, and they were a little ways into the afternoon.

Again, he debated getting up, slipping his hand away and heading into the living room to brew some coffee, but Marlow shifted, pulling his arm closer. The action had him letting out a breath of amusement, and whether it was him or her just waking up, she opened her eyes hazily before shutting them.

And then her brows furrowed and she opened them once again, eyes moving down to where she was clutching his hand before widening.

“Oh,” she breathed, releasing her hold on his arm as her cheeks turned a shade darker.

That had him letting out a chuckle, which apparently only served to further her embarrassment.

“Why did you let me do that? Oh my God, you must think I’m insane—I’m sorry. That’s it, we’re not sleeping in the same bed again. I’m like a freaking koala or something—why didn’t you push me off? You should have—”

“Marlow.”

She stopped rambling, rolling onto her stomach and wrapping an arm around her face as if to hide. “Mhmm?”

“It’s alright. I wasn’t uncomfortable.”

“I was holding onto you like a little kid with a stuffy.”

“Could have been worse.”

“Not really.”

“Promise, it wasn’t bad.”

She grumbled something into the pillow before poking her head up and looking at him over her arm. “Next time, just shoo me off.”

“Oh, so there is going to be a next time?” he teased with a brow raised.

A look of frustrated surprise came over her face and she dropped her head back into her pillow.

“Careful, you might suffocate.”

“Let me.”

“Oh no, come on, we’ll make some coffee, order something to eat. Sam and Steve are probably getting bored.”

Marlow’s head popped up at that. “Steve’s here?”

“Yah, he came too. Wanted to make sure you were alright.”

And just like that, the light-heartedness seemed to be sucked from the room.

She sat up, turning to push her back against the headboard. “Yah… Thanks for coming… Although you didn’t need to, it was a long ride for no reason.”

“It wasn’t no reason, we were worried,” he said gently, moving to mirror her position. “It’s not like we had much else to do.”

“Well, weren’t you planning on going back to Brooklyn soon? Like in the next few days?”

“We changed plans. And it was a good thing we did.”

She nodded absently, running a hand over her face. “I appreciate it…”

“Come on, lets grab something to eat.”

Bucky grabbed his phone from under the pillow, sending Sam a quick text about being awake and ordering lunch.

“Want me to tell Sam and Steve to come over?”

She hesitated a moment before nodding her head. “Yah. Yah we should talk.”

He typed out another message as she stood, skirting around the bed and making her way past him to the bathroom.

The door shut quietly, and he felt like he’d done something wrong—only he didn’t know what else he could have done. Maybe let them live in a bubble longer? Ignored everything outside that hotel suite?

I should have. Because she was herself again.

Even though it was only a few moments, she wasn’t weighed down by Hydra or Thanos or anyone else, it was just her.

He slipped his phone into his pocket and wandered from her room, spotting the coffee maker on the counter before routing through cupboards until he found the grounds. By the time he’d set it to brew and found the restaurant’s menu, Marlow was joining him at the small table.

“The full breakfast was good,” she mumbled, eyes darting to the slowly filling pot before looking back to him. “So are the pastries.”

“Maybe tomorrow; they’re not serving breakfast anymore,” he said lightly. “It’s quarter after one.”

Her head dropped into her hands and she let out a sigh. “Damn. Yah I guess that makes sense. Didn’t sleep for like two days.”

His eyes shot to her, nodding in understanding.

He couldn’t tell her not to do it, couldn’t be upset or confused; he did it. There were times where he was pushing a week without sleep because of the thing’s he’d see.

While he was in Wakanda, they’d gotten a lot less frequent, maybe one to two a week—and almost never bad enough to push him into a suffocating panic—but now, they seemed to happen almost every time he closed his eyes. Last night was the first time he’d slept since… well since the night before Marlow left.

He just needed to find his calm again.

“They’ll stop eventually,” he said quietly, although, he didn’t know how true that statement was. He figured once she was out of the encampment she would start to feel better, but from what Sam had told him, she only got worse. She seemed to know it too.

“I know they will,” she mumbled, looking like she was going to say something else before shutting her mouth and dropping her gaze.

He debated pushing it, but he didn’t want to. Not when she’d have Steve and Sam no doubt asking her questions that she probably wasn’t in the mood to answer.

That thought seemed to manifest them into existence, because a moment later, there was a knock at the door.

Bucky stood, sending Marlow a nod before crossing the suite and pulling open the door to let the two men in. They hesitated, looking from her to him almost as if they were asking for reassurance before stepping through the threshold and wandering over to the table.

“Hey guys,” she mumbled, sending them a close-lipped smile.

“Hey,” Sam greeted, dropping into the chair to her left stiffly.

Steve passed behind her, dropping a hand onto her shoulder and squeezing gently. “Hey, kid. How are you feeling today?”

She shrugged, grabbing his hand and pulling it between her own as he took a seat on the other side of her.

“I want to apologize again Mar,” Sam said as Bucky approached the table.

Marlow looked at him in confusion, but before she could say anything, he was speaking again.

“I shouldn’t have grabbed you; I was just so scared that you were going to disappear.”

“It’s not your fault,” she shook her head. “But I’ve realized I can’t stay with you. I know I’m dangerous, and I’m not willing to put you or your family at risk—”

“Marlow, that’s not what—”

“Sam, I’m not coming with you,” she interrupted with a note of finality. “I’ll find a place here, or closer to you, but I’m not staying with you when I still can’t control myself.”

“You shouldn’t be on your own,” he argued.

“Well, I can’t be around people; especially not kids. It’s not happening.”

“Give it a few days, please, don’t make this decision so quickly—”

“This isn’t a quick decision. All I’ve been able to think about is coming to your house and completely changing your families’ lives. How would the kids react to me waking them up screaming? Or to me not being able to remember the last week? Or—God forbid—one of them scares me and I attack them like I have you? No, Sam, I’m not taking that risk.”

He watched her with a pained look of realization, like those possibilities hadn’t crossed his mind until she’d said them. “I don’t want you to be alone,” he whispered.

“Well, I do. I would rather be alone than be a threat.”

Bucky let out a sigh at that, understanding while simultaneously wishing he could convince her otherwise. Because even though being alone was a personal hell, it was a decision she was making. He knew how important that was, how that choice wasn’t only to grasp at safety, but agency. She was making the decision. She was drawing the line.

He understood that. But it didn’t make it any less bitter to watch.

Her gaze jumped to him, where her eyes stayed pleading. “You understand, right? I can’t—I can’t risk it.”

Bucky was taken off guard by the question, and especially by the two men’s eyes now on him, so clearly trying to communicate not to agree. But he did understand.

“I do…” he whispered.

“Then please don’t fight me on this. Please,” she begged, voice cracking.

Sam and Steve’s stares were like spotlights against him, but he did his best to ignore them; like it was just him and her.

“Okay,” he nodded, clenching his jaw harder than he thought he should. If only to stop himself from saying anything else or changing his words.

Because her please sounded exactly like she wanted them to fight her on it.

But she was saying no. And although he knew the feeling, he knew how hard it was to be around people when your mind felt like it was going through a hurricane. When you felt like a hurricane; liable to destroy and harm.

But she shouldn’t be alone.

But he had wanted to be.

But she could do better.

But he didn’t know how to help her do better.

But she.

But he.

God, he had no idea what the hell to do.

He didn’t know. He never knew. He—

“Bucky, does your offer still stand for Marlow to stay with you?”

Again, Bucky was shocked.

Of course, it was, but he wasn’t—

“Yes,” he finally spit out before looking at Marlow, “you’re more than welcome to stay, but I… I don’t know if I can help you—I don’t know how—Sam, he’s trained, he understands all that emotional stuff, I… well, I’m not exactly a role model when it comes to a healthy psyche…”

She nodded, although he wondered what he’d said wrong because it looked like she was trying to hide her disappointment. “I don’t expect you to open your home—I don’t expect that from any of you,” she added before looking back to him. “But I also know I’m not the best thing to be around you… I’m too close to Hydra, too close to everything you’re trying to move away from. I’m only going to bring you down…”

He frowned at that, wanting to tell her that that was the furthest thing from the truth, but a voice cut him off.

“Do neither of you honestly see what’s in front of your noses?” Steve asked, voice pointed and dripping with a sarcasm Bucky rarely heard.

“What?” Marlow asked, back straightening as she watched Steve with wide eyes.

“You’re both so clearly wrapped up in your own anxieties that you’re not thinking. Live with each other. Stop this goose chase of excuses. The only times I’ve seen either of you properly rested was after you’ve spent time with each other. You understand each other in ways that the rest of us can’t. You have both benefited from being around the other in some way, and there’s no reason for you two not to live together other than your own fears.”

Bucky wasn’t sure how many times he could be shocked into silence today, but he was beginning to think maybe he should just remain perpetually stunned. But then those fears bubbled up.

“Steve, I’m not… I’m not going to be good for her—or her situation, I’m sorry I—”

“Buck, I know you and so does she; I think you’re exactly what she needs.”

“But I’m not good.”

He hated saying that out loud. He hated that he was confirming the rumours and whispers and insults that he threw round in his own mind. He hated being vulnerable to someone he was used to being strong for.

“I know you, Bucky, and with every fibre of my being, I know that you’re good.”

Hell, he thought, why’d he have to hit me with that?

“Bucky,” Marlow mumbled, and he flicked his eyes to her. “You’re not bad. You’ve helped me so much—really—but I don’t want to be a burden on you. Not when you’re still trying to heal yourself.”

“You’re not—” he started, but again, he was being interrupted.

Everyone’s attention was pulled to the flip phone on the table that started ringing obnoxiously.

“Bucky, isn’t that—” Sam started, but Bucky cut him off.

“Yes, but it can wait.”

“It’s a legal matter, Buck,” Steve said quietly, “you can’t ignore the call”

He let out a long sigh, clenching his jaw over and over before feeling his resolve break.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he growled, snatching his phone from the table and walking towards Marlow’s room. He accepted the call as he shut the door behind him.

“Hello.”

“Hello, my name is Christina Raynor, I’m looking to speak with James Barnes.”

James.

“Speaking.”

There was a quiet huff of amusement on the other end, and he felt his patience running thin.

“Hi James, I’m calling so we can sit down and have a preliminary talk about what our time together is going to look like. We can discuss what you would like to address as well as the areas of focus that have been outlined for me by our superiors. I also want to explain my legal obligations, and those I have to you. If there is something you would like—”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but this isn’t a good time. I’ve got—well, let’s just say I have my own obligations right now and I can’t chit-chat.”

“Oh? From what I was aware your schedule was free. At least it was when we were connected through the agency.”

“Something came up.”

“Something?”

“Yes, something.”

“James, I want to make to clear that I won’t be like other therapists; I won’t be passive or soft or beat around the bush about your issues or expectations. Okay? Now, one of those expectations is communicating with me, because it is quite literally my job to listen. If there is something important happening in your life, that’s something you can share with me. Now, what came up?”

His tongue ran across his teeth as he thought over her words, and while there was a spark of annoyance at her prodding, there was an equal one of respect at her backbone. Maybe it was because it was something akin to his officers back in the army. Maybe he was just tired of people tip toeing around him.

But as for the question, he wasn’t interested, nor did it feel right to explain the situation he was in the middle of. So, he kept it short and sweet.

“I’m in the middle of figuring out living arrangements. It’s just not a good time.”

“Living arrangements, that great. Are you seeing places?”

His jaw clenched as he tried to keep his frustration at bay. “Not yet. But like I said, I don’t have time to talk. Can we find another time to do this?”

There was silence on the other end and he really hoped she’d hung up on him, but the sound of someone sucking their teeth told him she hadn’t.

“Alright James, I’ll let this one slide, but these sessions aren’t ‘come as you please’, they’re court mandated, meaning if you don’t attend there will be legal action taken against you.”

“I know, but like I said, it’s not a good time,” he sighed, forcing himself to cool off a little. “It’s just—everything is up in the air and I was in the middle of an important conversation and I need it to go well. So, excuse me ma’am for being rude, but I have to get back to it.”

“Well… I’ll be in touch and we can continue this conversation tomorrow afternoon. Two pm, no exceptions.”

“Thanks. Bye, doc,” he mumbled, not waiting for a reply before hanging up the phone.

He took two steps, dropping onto the end of the bed as he pushed a heavy breath from his lungs, his guilt biting him in the stomach for the way he spoke to her.

She was just doing her job—which is literally to help him. But the call couldn’t have come at a worse time. And now he was all worked up, ready more so to box than speak calmly.

He didn’t have time for that; he needed to go back out, to convince Marlow that she wasn’t a burden, to build up the courage to somehow explain why he wanted her to come with him.

But then there was a knock at the door.

“Yah?”

The door opened and Marlow slipped through, barely letting a stream of light leak into the room before she shut it behind herself.

“They wouldn’t stop staring at me,” she mumbled before he even had the chance to ask. “And I couldn’t hear your voice anymore, so I figured…”

She looked almost embarrassed, eyes jumping from him to the space behind him.

“It’s alright, it wasn’t a very productive conversation,” he sighed.

She nodded, hesitating slightly before walking to the bed. “Who was it with? If you don’t mind me asking,” she added as she sat down beside him.

“My new shrink. She called earlier but I missed it. She apparently wasn’t interested in waiting for me to return the call.”

“Is she nice?”

“The shrink?”

She nodded.

“She’s something, but not sure if nice is the word… She seems honest. Blunt. Little callous. Have a feeling we’ll be a good fit,” he joked, although it sounded hollow.

“I hope she helps,” Marlow whispered.

“I guess we’ll see…” he shrugged as his mind was brought to their interrupted conversation. “Come with me.”

His words felt abrupt, too out of the blue, but they were out of his mouth.

“Bucky…”

“I know what you’re feeling right now,” he started, tilting his head to look at her. “I get not wanting to be a drag on the people around you, and not wanting to hurt anyone, and not wanting to be around people because they can be so damn tiring—I get it. All of it. But I also know how scary it all is and wanting someone to be around. I understand the conflicting thoughts... I want to help.”

“But I’ll be a burden,” she pressed.

“You won’t be,” he opposed. “If… if anything, you’ll helping me out.”

“How? How could I ever…”

His voice was gentle when he spoke, “Because… you’re letting me help you.”

She was so clearly confused, head shaking slightly before it slowly seemed to click in her mind. “Oh.”

“Oh,” he repeated with a nod. “You can stay with me.”

He could tell she wasn’t convinced, and suddenly, he was desperate. Like he had been that day weeks ago, when they first agreed to go in on a place together. Before those fears Steve so blatantly called out had taken over, and before he went back on their deal.

He was desperate because she felt like the only tangible way to do something good.

But there was also something else there; something that went deeper than the morbid camaraderie.

Camaraderie, plain and simple.

He’d so briefly gotten to know the girl Marlow was, and the thought of seeing her again—of really getting to know her; the her that Steve and Sam knew—well that was enough to make him desperate.

He wanted to know Marlow. And the only way to do that was to stay with her. Help her. Be the friend she needed.

Be the friend that he never had.

“Please,” he echoed her, unsure of what else he could say.

But she dropped his gaze, looking as if she wanted to hide herself away while he felt the urge to kick himself in the ass.

He’d gone too far. He should have left it. He was being selfish for even—

“Alright.”

Her eyes met his again.

“Alright,” she repeated.

The relief that coursed through him was almost enough to stop him from speaking, but he let out a breath. “I won’t back out this time. And I’m sorry for that… for going back on our agreement. I just got worried that I would do everything wrong and Sam—he’s good. I thought that’s what you needed.”

She let out puff of air in amusement and shrugged. “I don’t know what I need… but you’re safe. And you help me a lot... Steve was right about that.”

“Yah,” Bucky breathed, the corner of his mouth pulling up. “He has his moments of wisdom.”

“And there’s no need to apologize,” she added. “You don’t owe me anything, especially after everything you’ve done already. Thank you…”

“Whatever you need.”

“But tell me if you need a break, alright? I don’t want to stress you out and—"

“Marlow,” he interrupted gently, locking eyes with her. “What ever you need. If it’s space or reassurance or anything else.”

“Tell me.”

“Alright,” he conceded, “I’ll tell you. But the same goes for you; if something I’m doing is too much, let me know.”

She nodded. “Seems like the key to this working is communication,” she joked.

Seeing her mood shift was like air in his lungs, and he felt grateful that he was able to see it. To be part of it.

“You sound like my therapist,” he chuckled, appreciating lightness of the room.

They seemed to reach an understanding where neither of them seemed sure of themself, but they had faith in each other—and that was all he needed.

He was going to help her. He was going to do his damn best to give Marlow whatever she needed to become herself again. Or, at least as much of herself as she could manage.

And maybe, along the way, he’d lose a little bit of the resentment he held against himself for what he’s done. Maybe he’d be able to bring back some of the old Bucky. The likeable Bucky.

Maybe…

Chapter Text

Marlow’s eyes opened as sun leaked through the balcony doors. She’d been dozing the last few hours, somehow avoiding falling into a deep enough sleep to dream, but still getting a little rest.

A weight on her side had her looking down, and when she did, she saw Bucky asleep. She almost laughed at the sight; his long hair covering her torso, his mouth slightly open, his legs splayed over the arm of the couch in a way that meant his feet must be asleep. He looked completely undignified, and she cursed that he still somehow looked attractive.

It didn’t seem fair, although she wasn’t surprised.

It was Bucky.

The tv was still playing quietly across from them, but she was uninterested in it, so she settled herself back against the mountain of pillows behind her and shut her eyes.

She didn’t fall asleep again, but instead let her mind wander. And it seemed to fall back onto her most recent topic of worry: Sam.

After the conversation her and Bucky had had in her room, she felt a shift in her demeanour—but also in Sam’s.

Staying with Bucky was different than staying with Sam; there was less collateral. Bucky could easily restrain her if necessary, she didn’t pose much of a risk against him, and there was no one else around that she could hurt. With Sam, there were too many possibilities.

But ever since that night four days ago when she’d lashed out at him after her nightmare, Sam had been off. He reassured her that nothing was wrong, that it wasn’t her or what she’d done, but she couldn’t help but think he was lying.  

She knew he must have been disappointed, but this felt like something more than disappointment, maybe fear, hurt, something, but he wouldn’t say what—in fact he wasn’t saying much of anything.

Their conversations waned before she watched helplessly as he moved his things to Steve’s suite, wishing to somehow make it better. And when her eyes widened at the round leather case that she knew held Steve’s shield, that weight around him seemed to get heavier.

“I didn’t… I’m sorry I didn’t know,” she’d mumbled in surprise, unable to understand how she’d missed it.

Of course Steve gave him the shield.

Of course he should be Captain America.

“It’s alright Mar, I know it’s been a hard time for you.”

“But I should have…” she had trailed off in guilt, ashamed of herself for paying so little attention to the world around her—to her friend—the last few weeks. “Are you excited?“

He seemed hesitant of the question, pushing a tentative smile to his lips. “I’m still not sure how to feel about it. It’s a lot of pressure.”

“It is… But I think you’re exactly what the world needs.”