I have a few things to say before you cupcakes get reading.

1) The italicized blurb is from Ch. 10: Anna Shot a Nazi in the Ass

2) I cried when I wrote the ending. I'm not kidding. I'm sniffling and hugging my Captain America teddy bear right now.

I love you all to crumbs, cupcakes! ;)

~Christianne

Anna POV — The Day After the Battle of New York

I woke up around noon.

I lazily got out of bed and frowned as I touched my hair. It was curly again.

"Hey," Steve said from my couch. "You missed Thor takin' Loki back to Asgard."

"Hm." I grunted as I got a mug from the cupboard and stuck it under my coffee maker. I punched the buttons with my thumb and leaned on the counter.

"Your hair's curly again," Steve spoke up again. "Nice to see the Annie I knew."

She's gone.

"Hm."

Steve got up and leaned on the breakfast bar. "Agent Fowler caught me last night before I left," he started.

"Let me guess," I sighed, taking my mug. "He told you, to ask me, if I wanted to get a drink sometime."

He chuckled once. "He's asked you before?"

"Every time I go to the Triskelion." I groaned, taking a drink of the strong black coffee. The frown Steve had on his face didn't go unnoticed by me.

"Cream and sugar aren't really accessible where I've spent my time." I switched topics. "I learned how to take it plain."

"I...I think you should go to get a drink with Fowler." Steve said after a moment.

I snorted. "What? You were my beau's best pal, shouldn't you be all," I paused and started talking in a deep voice, mimicking Steve. "No one will ever be as good as him. You deserve better, Annie. You went with my best friend and now you're with that dumbass?"

"I don't sound like that," Steve snapped at me, crossing his arms. "And you know he wanted you to find someone and be happy...Hell, Anna I want you to be happy."

Ellie said that all the time.

"I am happy." I mumbled as I sipped my coffee. "And...Me finding someone else...Never came up between us."

Steve's brow furrowed. "Didn't you find his note?"

"What note?" I asked as I yawned.

"He wrote you a note in case he...In case this happened," Steve explained to me slowly. "Didn't you find it?"

"He didn't leave me a note." I said firmly, staring at my coffee. "I went through all of his things, Steve. Twice."

"He said he put it in some book," Steve added on.

I dropped my mug.

It fell onto the floor and broke, sending hot coffee everywhere. I didn't feel it hit my bare legs; I was already running to my storage room.

I pounded the code in four times before it was accepted, and made a beeline for the wardrobe at the back. I threw the door open and searched through the books I had neatly stacked on the bottom. They were all in airtight bags; I found the one I was looking for and ripped the clear plastic off.

When Bucky couldn't sleep, I would read to him. Lewis Carroll was our shared favorite. He was, after all, the author of the book Bucky tried so hard to understand so he could sound smart when we danced. Since he died, I couldn't bare to read any more of his work. Or, poetry of any kind really.

The book I grabbed was the Margaret Sackville book he got for me; the one he wrote in. I flipped through the pages quickly before I tossed it to the floor. I did this to every book in the wardrobe until there was only one left.

The Jabberwocky

I opened it up to the back cover, and pressed my thumb to the pages. I let them fly past each other until it stopped. A weathered, yellowed envelope was stuck between the pages of the poem he memorized for me.

Slouching down against the wardrobe, I let the book fall into my lap as I looked at the letter. I didn't even try to stop myself from crying.

On the back of the letter were three words in familiar scrawl, written with a fountain pen with a thin tip; the one he took out of a HYDRA officer's office. It was 24 carat gold and had a mother of pearl inlay on the cap. I had it on my desk in my bedroom now.

I traced my fingers over the words and sicked in a breath.

To my Glow

Omniscient POV

Once back in New York, everyone seemed to go their own way. Dr. Banner and Steve took Ellie to the infirmary. TJ was aimlessly wandering, until Clint steered him in the direction of his bedroom. Thor was still doing God knows what, leaving Kára to be the only non-human in the tower; she took to her bedroom and shut the door tightly. Tony buzzed around his lab, trying to get ahead of Ultron's plans. Emilia seem to disappear once she got off the quinjet. Wanda and Pietro Maximoff were lead to an open living space, complete with a kitchen, large TV and many plush sofas. They were told told they had the run of the place, but the tone in Maria Hill's voice strongly implied that they should remain in the designated floor.

Pietro was rifling through the fridge, looking for something to eat, and had his back to the counter. He didn't see Emilia come in, and walk to the granite counter silently in her bare feet. The only sound she made, which Poetro didn't hear, came from the linen material of her skirt; the hem scraped softly against her bare legs. Said hem was uneven, and brushed the middle of her thighs. It peeked out from under the men's, red cableknit sweater she wore over it (it belonged to one of the boys from her community, he claimed it was good luck, and Emilia need as much of it as she could get), allowing only a few inches of the faded floral pattern to be seen. She's taken a long, hot shower when she returned to the tower; her hair was still damp against her back. The braids, beads and thread woven into parts of her hair stood out prominently against her wet hair, which was darker and had much less body than it normally did. Emilia waited patiently for Pietro to turn around, playing with her tarot cards.

When the Maximoff boy turned around, he let out an involuntary sound of surprise around the pear he was biting into.

"What are you doing here?" Pietro said to the gypsy girl, his tone was more harsh than he intended it to be, but not by much.

"Your sister is asleep on the couch," Emilia responded simply, her voice calm. "You should cover her with a blanket."

A blue flash was the only sign that Pietro moved at all. Emilia looked over her shoulder and saw the Maximoff girl soundly asleep, now covered with a slate gray cashmere blanket from toe to chin.

"Why are you here?" Pietro asked again. "Does Stark not have a floor for you to? Why spend time in a kitten when you can count the jewels you have, eh?"

Emilia rolled her eyes, but couldn't keep in the muttered response she let out in Romanian; "The only precious stones I have are on my mother's bracelet, you child." Pietro scoffed, and waited for her real response. Emilia had a real question to ask him, and pissing him off (while quite fun) wouldn't get ensure an answer.

"Did you have a history class in school?" Emilia asked, continuing to speak in Romanian. Pietro took a split second to consider her voice while she spoke in a language that sounded much more native to her. Her English as husky and strong; it made her appear even stronger than she already did, and gave her a mischievous edge. While speaking Romanian, on the other hand, Emilia sounded younger and less life-hardened. Her tone was the same that Pietro's held before Wanda and him went to HYDRA, at least, that's how he imagined it.

"Yes, we did...I was terrible at it all," Pietro responded in equally fluent Romanian, biting into his pear. Fruit, fresh or not, wasn't very common in Sokovia, so in the days he'd been away, he ate as much of it as he could. "Why do you want to know?"

"I never went to much school...When I did, I was excellent at history," Emilia paused and glanced up at Pietro with a glint in her eye. "I was there for most of the major things."

"I'm trying to understand you," Emilia explained, looking at Pitro fully. "I am trying to understand your choice to willingly join HYDRA."

Pietro made a 'Pfft!' sound and shook his head. Captain America had given both Maximoff twins a stern lecture about their choice to allow HYDRA to experiment on them. "Say whatever you want," he grunted. "It does not matter...What's done is done."

"Do you know what HYDRA did to us?" Emilia asked, briefly confusing Pietro. He was under the impression that, along with having no personality similarities, they shared practically no cultural similarities. The only possible one he could think of was religion; Pietro was raised as an Orthodox Roman Catholic, that is, until their oval church was bombed and subsequently condemned. Not that it bothered Pietro much, since he'd stopped attending long before due to his wavering belief that there was anybody watching over them all. He wasn't sure what religion gypsies followed, or if they were religious at all. When he was a child, his parents took him and his sister to a carnival a few towns over. There was a gypsy fortune teller there who read his sister's palm and spoke about what 'the Gods' had in store for her. It was all bullshit, of course. But Emilia didn't wear any religious jewelry, so Pietro could only vaguely guess.

"Do you know what HYDRA did to us?" Emilia asked again when she only got a thoughtful look from Pietro. She elaborated by adding "What they did to our part of the world?"

The blond boy remained silent; he almost preferred the captain's lecture to the questions Emilia asked him.

"I was very young when they first attacked our community," she continued in a low, calm voice as she began looking at her tarot cards, which she began to artfully shuffle over and over. "I'm still not sure if they were HYDRA or SS...Whoever they were, the killed my entire family...My parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles...The families of my friends were killed to...I was with the rest of the children, picking berries in the woods, and every adult back at the caravans was slaughtered...They waited there, for hours, for us to come back...Some weren't even dead, and they just stood there, letting them suffer..."

Pietro snapped his gaze back to Emilia, looking away from his pear, as she spoke. He knew she was odd, but took it to be apart of her gypsy heritage. Now he knew that it was because Emilia was much older than she looked.

"My brother and I, along with all the other children, were put in train cars...We got to one of the camps," Emilia said, pushing her red sweater sleeve up, revealing a warped, faded row of numbers, 10443Z, on her left forearm. "I was three when I got this," she commented softly, brushing her fingers over her tattoo.

"I was taken with my older brother and held in a room with other children and their older brothers, while the rest were shoved into the gas chambers..." Emilia's voice got thick, but she swallowed twice to get rid of it. Pietro could still hear it in her voice. "My brother fought with the monsters who killed everyone we loved to keep my safe...He was one of three hundred boys who did the same, and the only one to live through it...He needed a cane for the rest of his life because of an injury he got during then..."

Pietro didn't say a word as Emilia spoke; he even put his pear down. He couldn't think of something to say, even if he wanted to speak.

"He fought with them for three years to keep me safe," she sighed. Emilia looked up at Pietro with wide eyes that were so contradictory to what he was used to seeing. They were usually a guarded, cold, mischievous brown, opposed to the oddly childlike wonderment, curiosity and sadness they were filled with as she looked at him now.

"Why did you let them do that to her?" Emilia asked. "She was your sister, Pietro...Even if you were bad at history, you must have known what HYDRA did. You let them experiment on her, on you...What were you thinking as you let them put stuff in your veins?"

Pietro worked his jaw, trying to work out an answer.

"It's not your fault...Not at all," Emilia said, switching back to English. "I just want to understand how you let them do such awful things to your and Wanda."

It was late that night, but with the residual energy from the train still inside her, Emilia was wide awake.

She'd read Wanda's cards when she woke from her cat nap, and even though she left the twins' floor, Emilia continued to play with her old, worn, well-loved cards.

Absent mindedly, Emilia started a seven card spread for Pietro. The first six cards were mundane at best, saying nothing out of the ordinary for him. The seventh card was always the most exciting for Emilia to turn over in a seven card spread like the one she had before her now. The first six told about a person's past, present and immediate future, giving them advice for each one. But the seventh card was the final outcome. In Pietro's case, going by his other cards and Emilia's gift, the last card would be about the final outcome of him and Ultron.

"Pack it up Dalca!" Steve called through Emilia's open door. "We're going to Sokovia!"

"What's happened?" She asked, catching the clean, un-ripped tactical clothing the captain threw at her.

"Ultron," he said simply before walking away.

Emilia had already closed her door and pulled her sweater off when the seventh card caught her eye.

Quickly, she turned it over,

One of the first things someone it taught while learning to read tarot, is not to judge the cards in such a literal way. Emilia's grandmother told her that. She explained how her gift worked as well; in simple terms, Emilia had a gut feeling towards the cards, and knew when they told the truth or lied.

As Emilia looked down at the card in her hand, Pietro's final outcome, she knew it was true in the literal sense.

Kára knocked on Emilia's door, shouting for her to hurry up, but her voice was barely heard.

Emilia, in her hand, held the thirteenth Major Arcana.

Pietro's seventh card, his final outcome, was Death.

James was seated on the edge of his bed, staring intently at his thumbs. Anna was lounging on her own bed, sprawled out against the headboard. Her brown eyes stared at the grainy picture displayed by the TV, disinterested, as she took handfuls of cereal from the box in her lap and poured them into her mouth. Every few handfuls or so, Anna chased the cereal with a swig of milk from the half-empty glass bottle they got that morning from the owners of the hotel.

"Why?" James asked, only half aware that he spoke out loud.

"Why what?" Anna asked in return,bringing the milk bottle to her lips.

"Why did Bucky love you?" He barely breathed the words out; it was a miracle Anna heard him at all. James knew she heard him by the half-gargled sound she let out. Anna choked on her milk.

Anna coughed twice, set the bottle down, and cleared her throat once before she spoke. "Wh-What?"

"I-...I've been remembering things more since...since we saw the orphanage," James explained. Every muscle in his body was coiled tight and his eyes were wide as he watched his right thumb rub over his cool, metal left one. "Just little things...Bits 'n pieces all mixed up and out of order...I'm doin' ok at puttin' them in place...He-He helps me...I've asked why he loved you lots'a times...Gave myself a headache..."

Anna just gaped at him, eyes wide and unblinking as they stared at the back of his head. He hadn't said anything about her loving her since Greece a few days prior. She'd almost hoped he'd forgotten about it.

"You...You shouldn't give yourself a headache, baby," Anna said thickly. "You know that force-forcing it doesn't help...You know that..." She trailed off, stunned.

"Why?" James asked again. "I know B-Bucky loved you, and I know I love you. I know why I love you, but I don't know why B-...Why he loved you...I need to know."

"Honey...Baby, please don't make me answer these questions," Anna said tightly; her throat was tightening in preparation to sob.

"I need to know, Anna," James said, his voice the smallest amount more commanding. "I-I want to know...I want to understand why I c-care about you so much, even before I loved you...I want to know why you're helping me after the-the...after the things I've done."

Anna tossed the box of cereal to the side table, eating them fall to the floor. It would almost definitely bring mice, but Anna was too preoccupied to care. James heard her move against the bedding. The faint reflection on the bright TV showed James Anna's new position; curled close to herself, one knee hugged to her chest, her head resting on that knee as her shoulders took an unsteady rhythm.

"I-I don't know," Anna whispered a moment later.

"You don't know what?" James asked softly, turning around. Now that his Glow couldn't see him, he was more comfortable facing her. "You-You don't know why you're helping me? Why you care?"

She shook her head, making her wavy hair fall over her huddled form. It upset James to see Anna this way. He liked it when she was strong and bold. Sure, it made him worry about her sometimes, but but it was better than seeing Anna all small and helpless looking.

"What don't you know, Glow?" James whispered to her.

He called her Glow.

When the pet-name that she held so close to her heart was spoken, Anna choked and half-sobbed out her answer. "Wh-Why Buc-Bucky l-loved me!"

James sat, stunned, on his bed as he listened to the breaths Anna took and held, trying to stay controlled. They would begin by Anna sucking in harshly and held the air in her lungs for a time. When she let the air out, it was in jagged, hard sobs that couldn't be controlled.

"What-What do you mean?" James' mouth asked involuntarily. His voice was just a pitch or two higher as he spoke. He thought that, maybe, he was speaking.

Anna took slower breaths, and calmed down some. She raised her face and pushed back her hair. James felt an angry churn in his stomach as he looked at her red-rimmed eyes and shiny cheeks. He watched as she roughly wiped her cheeks dry, let out a breath, then looked at him. She gave him a sad smile, patting the place next to her on the bed.

That gesture meant 'come sit next to me.'

James went to her side so fast that Anna's teary eyes could hardly process it. He looked at her with his eyes wide, waiting. Anna watched those familiar cerulean blues dance around quickly, taking her and their surroundings in with sharp glances that held a childlike curiosity.

"I-I was a real mess and broken when Bucky met me," Anna began to explain. "I'd been raised in a home that squeezed out most of my self-esteem...I didn't think such a handsome man like Bucky would ever take a second look at me, let alone chase me like he did..."

"I-I was handsome?" James asked softly; this was new information.

Anna let out a weak, wet laugh. She put a hand on his cheek, and stroked the stubble covered skin as she smiled sadly. "You're still a real looker, darlin'."

James felt a rare smile twice and tug at his lips as his cheeks were suddenly hot. He ignored it when Anna started talking again.

"He...Bucky was an amazing man," Anna said softly, leaning back on the headboard. Her face turned to look out the window at the setting sun, and her hand fell from James' cheek to his neck, where her fingers gently prodded at his skin and played with his hair.

"I was really shy...Hadn't ever been on a real date before, and never even had a man give me a glance of any kind..." Anna said wistfully. A smile flickered over her lips. "He thought it was pretty funny how I could walk while looking at my shoes the whole time and never run into anything...He was everything a girl could ask for and everything a man wanted to be...God only knows what Bucky saw in me back then...I could hardly look him in the eye in the beginning..."

There was a heavy, crushing pause before James spoke.

"Why...Why did he love you?"

Anna sniffed, and ran a hand over her face. "I can't give you anythin' more spesific than what I already told you, sweetie-pie."

James nodded slightly, looking at his hands. The question he asked next made Anna shut her eyes and let out a squeak-like sob.

"Why did you love Bucky?"

The hand Anna didn't have on James went to cover her nose and mouth in an attempt to hold in her sobs. James watched her shake for a moment, and wanted to hold her hand. Anna's hand was on his right shoulder, so he'd have to taker her breakable, flesh and bone and skin hand in his metal one. Metal slid and clacked on metal as James let the cybernetic limb to his left go completely slack. He moved it just enough to get his arm to the right place, and slowly curved his cold fingers around Anna's tiny, warm hand. Her crying choked off slightly, and started all over again when she watched him softly cradle her hand in his. The smooth, beveled metal plate that created the pad of his thumb stroked hesitant circles on the back of Anna's hand.

Anna took deep breaths until she could speak in a more understood manner.

"I-I loved Bucky be-because-" Anna cut herself off with a hiccuping sob. She took a breath before speaking.

"I loved Bucky for a lot of reasons, but-but...I knew I loved him when I realized that he loved me when no one else did...Including myself."

James couldn't believe what Anna was saying; how could somebody like Anna feel unloved? How could she not love herself?

Without his knowledge, his left hand curled tighter around Anna's hand. James still had problems initiating contact between Anna and himself, so holding her hand tighter was all he could do to comfort her.

It felt like forever to Anna until she stopped crying; James' near perfect mental clock told him it took Anna just under forty minutes to stop crying, but closer to fifty six for her breathing to return to normal.

"Why'd you wanna...know why he loved me?" Anna asked, breaking the silence. "How would knowing that help put your messed up melon back together?"

James looked away, his version of a shrug. "You were everything."

"Hm? Speak up, Jimmy baby," Anna said, cracking a weak smile.

"You were everything, to him, Anna," James said, looking back to the wide-eyed blonde next to him. "To-To Bucky...You were everything. You are his whole world."

Anna's heart swelled at his words. She knew James was only stating facts, but the feeling she got just hearing those words coming out of his mouth in his voice made her feel like it was 1944 again and Bucky was waiting to take her dancing.

James didn't even flinch when Anna put both hands on his cheeks. Every now and then when she did that, James felt...odd. Her big, deep, soulful eyes were unblinking as they stared at him. It felt like Anna as looking through him, not at him. The first few times she did that, James was convinced that Anna saw something different, something that wasn't him. Months ago, James realized she didn't see him when she looked at him so deeply. Anna saw Bucky, the man he once was.

When she held his cheeks and looked at him so deeply, James too the time to study the expressions vividly shown in Anna's eyes. He watched, studied and filed away every single thing he saw in her eyes, but James only concluded one thing; her eyes sparkled more when she looked at him like was now. They glowed.

It hit him like a freight train.

Love.

Anna looked at him with love. Well, through him with love. She was truly looking at Bucky. Not him.

She closed her eyes briefly, then stood up. "I...I wasn't planning on showing you this. Ever, really," Anna sighed, squatting down to search through a bag.

Anna was just about to stand up when a ping-ing sound came from her other bag. After a moment of deliberation, Anna grabbed the phone and answered it.

"Yeah?...Jeez—TJ, slow down," Anna said, standing back up. James could hear the frantic voice of a young man on the other Side of the line, but he wasn't playing attention. He was focused on the letter, made of heavy stock, in Anna's hand.

TJ rambled loudly in Anna's ear, and James watched Anna's composed face turn to a stoic mask of fear, anger and intense thought. She looked at him, and even though Anna knew James could hear what was being said by TJ, she turned to him and mouthed two words; It's starting.

Ultron had taken one of the Avengers; Romanoff, the woman. On top of that, there was about to be a massive hero-on-robot battle in a populated area.

Anna began taking very fast about their 'game plan.' This plan entailed her going into Ultron's lair under the HYDRA facility to free her friend, and James would begin clearing the building in the middle of the city.

"No," he said suddenly. Anna turned to face him, surprised.

James took one of the blue, white and black bandanas from Anna's bag. He held it in his flesh hand, feeling the malubul, soft, light cotton between his rough fingertips. Repeating a mantra of words, James lifted the bandana to his face. He tied it around his head, covering his mouth and nose, with the knot at the back of his head. James looked at Anna as he slung his heavy tactical jacket over his shoulders. "I-...I'll go get her. You clear the city."

Anna nodded slowly, surprised to see him volunteering to take on the part of the plan that involved interacting with a specific person.

"You'd be better at getting people out...to safety...The woman is an agent...I-I interact with agents better than normal people," James explained under his breath.

"I want to do one more thing," Anna said, taking a metal pick from the table; she'd worked on his arm earlier. She took his palm and skillfully pushed the plates back to reveal the components. Using the pick, Anna turned a small gauge until she couldn't anymore.

"I turned the strength regulation down as far as I could," Anna explained, pushing the plates back. "Be careful around people, ok? You should be able to punch and rip right through robots with this thing."

James nodded, understanding.

The pair stepped out of the building minutes later, wearing identical bandanas over their noses and mouths.

"Oh! I don't wanna forget to give you this," Anna said, catching James' shoulder. She held the envelope out to him, and ran her thumb, exposed in fingerless gloves, rub over the back of the envelope and the words written there. "Read this," she said with a nod.

"Just...Please come back with it," Anna mumbled, her eyes wide and pleading. "I'm pretty sure I can't be with you when you read it, but it's important...Just bring it back to me, please? Ok?"

James nodded firmly, taking the letter and shoving it carefully into an inner pocket of his jacket.

They parted ways; Anna going to the center of the city, and James going to the outskirts. James stopped after only a few steps, and looked over his shoulder. He watched Anna walk away until he couldn't see her anymore.

Natasha was pacing around her cell, crowded by obsolete technology. She'd sent a good five hours sending out a signal to Clint, and if he didn't get it then, he was an idiot and she was going to die here.

The redhead jerked to a stop when she heard the metallic clang of metal hitting metal. Her first thought was that Stark had come for her, but the sounds weren't right. If Tony and his suit were heading her way, Natasha would be hearing the sounds of his flight stabilizers/blasters and the metallic clangs as they hit their targets. His loud mouthed, robotic laced sarcasm would also be heard. Instead of any of that, Natasha heard only more metal-on-metal hits, and the occasional grunt and groan.

The fighting sounds stopped soon enough, and heavy sure footfalls echoed through the dungeon halls. Ready for, well, something, Natasha stood at attention.

The first thing she saw was a large silhouette. She first placed the tall, broad shouldered man as the captain, but the hair was too long. Natasha's second guess was Thor, but their hair was too short. The unidentified man continued walking towards the cell that held the battered, red haired woman.

"Because they won't stop," the man said once within earshot. His words were partly muffled by the bandana across the lower half of his face, but they were clear enough for Natasha to pick up on the low, rough-edged, calm voice, and commit it to memory.

"Excuse me?" She asked, cocking a hip defiantly.

"She told me to tell you that," Bandana Man said, grunting effortlessly as he shoved a crate away with one foot; the crate easily weighed six hundred pounds.

"Who's she?" Natasha questioned, cocking her hip to the other side and crossing her arms.

The Bandana Man stood in front of the cells doors. He was just out of arm's length, so Natasha couldn't grab him through the bars. She had a similar distance between herself and the bars, so she couldn't really blame him.

Bandana Man's eyes were partially covered by curdle cut, shaggy brown hair, and were darting around rapidly, his fingers twitching; Natasha could tell he was uncomfortable. He closed his eyes, and Nat watched as his shoulders rose slowly as he inhaled deeply, and fell with his exhale.

"Before you were released from Barton's custody to train for S.H.I.E.L.D., Anna Brightman asked you why you were going against everything you knew to help people you never met...One was actually trying to kill you...Anna thought you'd say it was because they ruined you and you wanted revenge," Bandana Man explained.

He took a step to his left and reached up to the iron hinge on the door with his gloved left hand. His fingers curled around it, and with a sharp tug, paired with a grunt, Bandana Man ripped the hinge clean off the door.

Natasha wanted to say something smart and flirty, but she was too rattled by what Bandana Man said was saying to say anything. What she was being told was known by three people; Clint, Anna, and herself. If the point of his little speech was to prove he was with Anna, he was doing a pretty damn good job.

"But you didn't say that," Bandana Man continued. Natasha blinked a few times, having a hard time recalling what he'd said before ripping the hinge off the cell door. "Anna asked you why, and you told her it was because the people-...The organization that trained you-"

"-wouldn't stop," Natasha finished for him. She was experiencing a rare moment of vulnerability; that, paired with being injured and kidnapped, put her in a near daze. "I-I told her that the Red Room wouldn't stop, and I wanted to help bring them down."

Bandana Man nodded. He stepped closer again, and grasped a bar with his right hand. He brought his foot up and slammed it down, snapping the bottom hinge clean off. The grip he hand on one bar yanked the door out of its iron frame. Natasha couldn't hold in her slightly impressed expression.

"C'mon," Bandana Man said, reaching towards Natasha. His left hand was just about to close around her hand, but stopped in midair. Bandana Man hesitated, then reached up to slowly close around her forearm. "I'm supposed to take you to him."

Natasha instantly doubled her suspicions. Bandana Man still lacked a name, but it was clear he knew Anna, or Barton, really, but he said 'she' told him to speak of Natasha's history. The grip on her arm was steel, so there was no point in wiggling to try and get out, and with how easy he ripped apart her cell door, Natasha (fully rested, no wounds, hopped up on carbs and with one HTH weapon of choice) would have one hell'a'va fight ahead of her, and her odds of winning would be slim.

"Who's him?" Natasha demanded, definitely keeping up with the quick pace Bandana Man was dragging her along with. She thought about just not keeping up at all, but the idea of being dragged along or thrown over his shoulder appealed to her a lot less than jogging to keep up.

The sound of footsteps got her attention. Natasha was shoved forward slightly, and when she spun around to see where the mysterious Bandana Man went, she saw nothing.

"Natasha!"

She spun around again when he name was called in a familiar voice.

"Tasha, oh my God, thank God you're ok," Bruce said once he quickly approached the redhead. He knew Natasha wasn't really one for physical contact (fighting excluded), and neither was he, but Bruce went on instinct and grabbed her into a hug.

Natasha hugged the scientist back in her own way; her nimble hands resting on his back gently, pressing harder now and then. "Tasha?" She asked, her voice muffled by his shoulder.

"Yeah...Is-Is that ok?" Bruce asked, keeping her in the hug. It'd been awhile since h hugged somebody. It was actually pretty nice.

Once pulling out of the hug, Natasha gave Bruce one of her half-smiles; one corner of her mouth was pulled up higher than the other, and her eyes were full of a mischievous, almost devious, sparkle. "Maybe...I think you should keep it up so I can see if I like it."

Once Romanoff was safely escaping Ultron's bunker with the Hulk, James found a sturdy corner by a large window, for light and an escape, and pulled out the letter Anna gave him.

The elegant scrawl on the envelope addressed it to To my Glow.

James slowly removed the folded papers from the envelope, opened them up and began reading.

My Dearest Glow,

If I am still with you, breathing, stop reading. Stop reading this letter right now. I mean it, Anna. Fold this back up, take it to the sink and put a match to it. Don't stop until it's ash.

If I'm not...Darling, if I'm not breathing anymore, read this letter. If I'm not breathing anymore...

I'm sorry, Glow. I'm so, so sorry.

James blinked at the first few lines, taking the information in.

This was written by Bucky for Anna, and James felt almost uncomfortable reading it. It was like reading the mail of two strangers.

I knew a few guys who wrote letters like these. They had a plan for their girls to get them if something happened to them here. I mailed seven of them; Rosie Alberta in Pittsburgh, Belle Jamison in St. Paul, Minnesota, Clara O'Riley in Boston, Virginia Bloomberg in Queens, Mary Jane Tucker in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Lily Smith, she lived in Florida. I can't remember the city, but it was by the ocean. I had a letter to you, back then, you know? It was a short little note, really, saying thank you for your letters, friendship, and those big brown doe eyes and corkscrew curls. I had to write you a new one, though, after all we've been through together.

Annabelle Jane Brightman, Glow, darling, there aren't enough words in any language to explain to you how thankful I am to have met you. When I smiled at you way back in New Jersey—that was the first real smile I'd given anybody since I got my draft letter. When I was in Italy, being poked and prodded like an animal, I would think of your face and I knew everything would be OK, because no God is cruel enough to put a girl like you in my life for a short time, then rip me away to die without seeing you again, dancing with you, or any of the thousands of plans I already had for you and I back then.

I knew I really loved you the second I laid eyes on you after Steve yanked me out of that hellhole in Italy. Sure, I thought you might be the one after you fixed my tie for the first time back at Camp Leigh, but it wasn't until after Italy that I knew for sure. Sometimes, I would lean in the doorway to your lab and just watch you work. It's amazing to me how effortless it is for you to do all those complicated baseball equations. But waking up and rolling over and seeing you cuddled up next to me...Waking up with you, the girl I love, not to me made me think I was dead a morning or two; no way did a guy like me, all messed up and broken, get a girl like you. But I did, Annie, I'm all yours and you're all mine.

I'm gone now, and I know you're going to be really sad about it. I know you're going to sob and cry and scream and that's OK—and if anybody tells you different, either tell Steve to set them straight, or get a seance going and I'll tell them myself. But, Glow, what's not OK, is you thinking you can be sad for the rest of your life, because you can't. I won't let you. I need you to think that, after you've had your time to grieve, you can be happy again. I was just a piece of your life, Annie, just because I'm over it doesn't mean that you are. Once you're done crying, I want you to pick yourself up, put on your favorite dress (you know which one I'm talking about, the dark pink one with the lace), stand in front of the mirror and say "I'm going to be OK." Say it until you believe it, because I know you do and you will be. You think the world has broken you after all you've been through, but it hasn't, darling. It smacks you down and you keep getting on back up because you're stronger than anything this great big, fucked up universe can throw at you.

There's a home waiting for you back in New York, Anna, and I'll be damned (I mean that) if it sits there for the rest of time, broken down and without a Glow to live in it. I want you to have horses, chickens and a pretty garden. I want you to have Christmas dinners and Thanksgiving meals in that big dining room. I want you to sit on the porch in a rocking chair with a glass of iced tea. But most importantly, Anna, I want you to be happy. If that means that you share that farmhouse with another man and have little kids running around, then that's what you need to do. I think I've shown you what a real gentleman is like, and you have enough knowledge to know what they should never, under any circumstances, do to you or your children. If it puts your mind at ease, have Steve meet the lucky guy and get his stamp of approval. I'd say Peggy, but she's as protective of you as I am and she might hit him. If you don't find a man to spend your days with, that's OK to. But don't be alone because of me. I can't enjoy Heaven (or wherever the the hell I end up) knowing you're all alone because of me. If you spend your days without a man, it needs to be because you just didn't find anyone—and not every man can be James Buchanan Barnes, Glow, so you might have to lower your standards just a little.

I love you, Anna. Please don't ever forget that—Please don't forget me. You don't need to cry every day, in fact if you do that, I'll be pretty upset with you, but...Glow, we both don't have many people. I could invite every close friend I've ever had to a dinner party and we'd only need 15 forks. So, Annie, if you could just keep a little picture of me around, or hang my medals up in the living room...Just don't forget me, Glow. Please don't forget me.

I'll be waiting in Heaven for you, Glow, with a kiss and a dance queued up.

Love forever,

Your Bucky

PS~ I wrote you that poem you asked for.

James unfolded the last page.

As I sit in Heaven
And watch you everyday,
I try to let you know, with signs,
I never went away.
I hear you when you're laughing,
And watch you as you sleep.
I even place my arms around you,
To calm you as you weep.
I see you wish the days away,
Begging to have me home
So I try to send you signs,
So you know you're not alone.
Don't feel guilty that you have
The life that was denied to me,
Heaven is truly beautiful,
Just you wait and see.
So live your life,
Laugh again,
Enjoy yourself,
Be free.
Then I know
With every breath you take,
You'll be taking one for me.