Helicopter blades beat a drum beat against his heart. The next few hours passed like an existential experience. The monsters around them faded from existence, as though they had drawn their life force from Miranda and as her ties with this world severed, so did theirs.

Three of the Watchmen had fallen during the attack, and those that remained were bloodied and unsteady. One girl, her platinum curls stark against her dark skin dropped beside him, shaking fingers pulling free a curl that had been entrusted in blood against Miranda's temple.

"She will come back." The girl said quietly.

"Yes. But will she be who I fell in love with?"

The girl's eyes went wide as she looked up at him. And then she was being pulled back by Aristelle as Rhodey and Clint crowded in. They tried to take her from his arms, but Bucky pulled back, staggering to his feet. And then Sam was there, reassuring him with quiet words that never penetrated the fog of panic around his mind.

"We need to take her somewhere safe." He could hear the echo of Aristelle's voice. "Somewhere we will be safe from her."

And so he found himself in an underground bunker constructed beneath a Rocky Mountain peak, seated on the other side of an observation window.

"This entire structure was built in service to that prison," Bruce explained quietly.

Beyond the small observation room, beyond the glass and long expanse of sickly white tile was Miranda. She was on her knees, hanging limply from long iron pillars that dropped from the ceiling to encase her arms from fingertips to elbows. Blood slowly seeped from the wound in her chest, but the gunshot in her forehead had closed.

He tried to ignore the way that the pool of crimson was slowly staining black. Tried to not to look too closely at the pale fabric of her shirt that looked as though it had been dipped in ink.

Aristelle had watched her quietly, lips drained of color as she pressed them into a hard line. He had tried to gauge his own concern off her reactions, but she had been a closed book. And that scared him more than he cared to admit.

When she comes back, who will she be?

Her father's daughter...

But what did that mean? Did it mean her blood would run black? That her hair would slowly creep longer, curling around her ears and down over her forehead as it had been doing in the passing hours?

"It's proven it's worth on more than one occasion." Rhodey explained to her. "It's the birthplace of Veronica."

"That means nothing to me." Aristelle's blue eyes ran cold as the Arctic sea.

"She won't get free."

"Or," Aristelle looked back towards Miranda, "She will bring this whole place down on top of us."

Bucky glanced up at her then. And that was when he saw it. Just a flicker, but it was unmistakable. A look that he had seen on countless faces over countless decades.

Fear.

"Have you evacuated your personnel?" Aristelle asked quietly.

"If she is as dangerous as you say," Rhodey said, "We would be fools to evacuate our soldiers.

"It will be a slaughter," Aristelle warned.

"We have calls out to bigger guns. In preparation for that eventually." Clint said from where he leaned against the back wall, arms carefully crossed. "If it even comes to fruition."

"Bigger guns?" Bucky asked, looking back towards Miranda.

"It's just a precaution," Sam said. Shifting beside Bucky. "We have no idea what we are walking into."

"So what now?" Rhodey asked, pushing back from the observation window.

Aristelle shrugged a shoulder, seeming to have given in. "We wait."

Minutes crawled into hours. One by one the others left. Bucky settled back into his chair, leaning his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Maybe he could manage a few hours of sleep.

"There must really be something special about you."

Bucky shifted. He had not realized that Aristelle had remained. She stood near the observation window, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as she watched her sister. He could see the reflection of her expression in the glass. The slight down turn in the perfect curve of her lips. Dark, tired eyes.

"We have lived on this Earth a very long time, and she has never attached herself to anyone. Not even me."

"That's not true. You are her sister."

She glanced sideways at him, throwing him a weary smile. "I am not foolish enough to think her love for me is genuine. I accepted that a very long time ago. I am not smart in the way that she is. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I expose it to the world and let it get dirty and bruised. Mor… She's always held it close, protected it from the imperfections life brings with it. Maybe it is because our father broke it a very long time ago, and she's afraid of losing the pieces."

"She lives in his shadow."

"We all do. Stand within striking distance of my father and you are bound to bear a few scars."

Silence fell between them, yawning on and on. Bucky settled back in his chair and closed his eyes.

"I could never stop myself from love. Not like she has." He could hear Aristelle shift. "She did not even love herself. But how could she? She was not like the rest of us. Her gift was far darker, far more destructive. She always knew what she was. What she would one day become."

"A destroyer of worlds," Bucky said quietly.

"Yes…"

"She's not a monster." Bucky snarled, sitting up.

"She is. But that's not the part of her that makes us love her."

Bucky looked out at Miranda. Her limp form hung from between the pillars. Goosebumps raised a chill that raced across his skin.

"This is all my fault...really." Aristelle dropped herself down into a chair, long legs stretched before her. "I got us into this all those years ago."

Silently, Bucky watched her. It had been too horrible of a day for him to care even slightly about easing the silence between them.

"We've never really elaborated much on who we are," Aristelle said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. It was dark with dirt and ichor. One of her fingernails were cracked, and blood had dried into the creases of her skin.

"You are the 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," Bucky said in mock horror.

Aristelle leveled him with a glare. "That name was given to us. We do not care for it."

"It's not entirely untrue."

"No...No it's not."

And still Aristelle had not elaborated on her previous statement. So Bucky waited.

"All four of us have different abilities. Mor, as you have seen, can summon demons, command the shadows, move things with her mind, etcetera. But the thing that she was created to do was to sever the tie between the soul and the body."

"A reaper of souls," Bucky murmured.

"So many elaborate stories created in her image," Aristelle said, waving off his comment. "She was always father's favorite. He trained her to be ruthless. To have no weakness. I, on the other hand, constantly disappointed him."

"Which horseman are you?"

She smiled lightly, "War."

"And that means you have the ability to teleport?" Bucky asked, raising a brow.

"A general must always be where her soldiers need her." Aristelle traced a thumb over a split in her lip. "I also have the ability to influence emotion. To enrage a crowd or make a unit feel invincible."

Bucky's eyes flicked to Miranda. "What did you do?"

Aristelle took in a shaky breath. "I am the second daughter. Terra was the first. A daughter of the earth. I was a daughter of man. He thought we would be enough, but we alone could not wreake the havoc that he sought. I was the disappointment. I could not do what he had created me to do. So he created Olcora. Who could command the mind, not just influence it."

Aristelle paused. "But what he came to realize was that we would never achieve what he could do. We were meant to destroy worlds in his place, to allow him to rule over the ruined souls we created. But we were not enough. So then came the fourth and final daughter."

"Miranda."

Aristelle glanced at him. "Mortekaia. Created in his image. We were sent here with the intention of obliterating life on this planet, to send the souls to his realm to be ruled by him. But...I fell in love. I fell in love with this place and its people. I couldn't just stand by and let it all be destroyed."

Bucky pulled his jacket closer around himself, shivering slightly.

"At that time, Mor was in a very bad place. She was experiencing the full force of father's focus. And what my father wanted from her was not a warrior, but a rabid dog. He liked to rattle her cage and set her loose to enjoy the damage.

So one day, I offered her a relief from the feelings that were drowning her. A temporary reprieve from the anger, self hatred, and disgust. Pseudo happiness. And with that, I would plant a little seed of my own."

Aristelle took in a long, shaky breath. "It was horrible of me. But every time I left, I left her worse off than before. I wrecked any amount of emotional stability until one day when I came to see her, she had done it. She had slit her wrists and bled out on the floor."

Bucky flexed his metal hand, the whir of the mechanisms loud in the quiet room.

"But she does not die. Not the way humans do. But the blood loss was significant, and it bore the same effect as a gunshot to the head. She experienced a complete mental rest and my fathers claws were removed. His influence was no longer pushing me out. So I waited. And when she came to, I pushed on her every ounce of influence I had until I pulled her to my side, and made her believe what I believed. That this planet needed to be saved."

"That's what you are going to do again," Bucky said, pushing up to his feet. "You are going to control her. Use her to do your bidding."

"No. It's not always like that," Aristelle countered, getting to her feet. "You don't understand."

"I understand perfectly," he growled, prowling closer, "I know exactly what it is like to be used, manipulated and mistreated. To be nothing but a tool." He was shaking now, the anger searing his skin.

"You don't understand." Aristelle reached out and touched him, soft and gentle. He felt the fight go out of him. "If I do not have even some amount of sway over her, it opens a door for him to take her back. We can't risk that."

It made sense, he supposed. He could understand how faced against an impossible decision, Miranda would choose the one with the least damage. Bucky looked down at the hand on his shoulder. Her thumb pressed lightly into his collar bone.

He jerked back as if her touch branded him. He snarled, "How can I trust you when you will not put aside your tricks for even a moment? I will never, never trust a thought that is not my own."

She reached for him again. "Bucky." The world rolled from her lips in a swirl of steam. Aristelle froze, watching it dissipate into the air. Then she looked out towards Miranda.

"She's waking."

"How do you know?"

"She pulls the energy from the air in the last moments before consciousness. Healing is the easy part. Awareness takes much more."

Miranda's shoulders rolled and she rocked back against the restraints. Aristelle threw herself towards the door, wrenching it open.

"If this goes wrong, whatever you do, do not let her see you. Step foot in that room, and she will kill you."

And then she was gone, disappearing through the doorway and into the room beyond. Even though he had intended to follow her, he found himself rooted to the spot. He could only watch as Miranda rolled her head to the side, stretching the muscles in her neck. So many times they had told him that for Miranda, death was a temporary condition. He had forced himself to believe what they said was the truth. Because the alternative was far more finite. He could understand the concept of it. But seeing it in person, to see her chest rise and muscle roll beneath skin, it left him feeling equally devastated and ecstatic.

Aristelle approached slowly, a hand outstretched towards her sister. "Mortekaia. Just relax. Allow yourself a moment to get your bearings."

He could see her lips curl back into a smile that was little more than a baring of teeth. "The shackles are far from appreciated."

"You know why they are there. You know exactly how this has ended before."

Miranda looked up then, and Bucky drew in a breath. She was savage. Every line of her face was sharpened into a single point and aimed at Aristelle. Her wolfish grin unmasked the sharp tips of fanged teeth. "Yes. Are you going to kill me again as well then? Press the reset button on my life? For old time's sake?"

Aristelle opened and closed her fingers at her sides. "Unfortunately, I don't think this is the sister I was hoping to talk to."

Bucky's stomach roiled.

"You were hoping I would come back weak." Miranda lifted one knee and set her foot firmly on the ground. "That you could mold me into exactly what you need."

Miranda pulled against one restraint, then the other. Testing.

"Our father does the same. But at least my control does not leave a hollow shell, devastated by the actions of your own hands."

"I am what he made me to be."

"I don't believe that. And neither do you," Aristelle snarled. "You can be so much more."

"Can I? Or is that just what you made me believe?" Miranda rocked slightly, pulling again at the pillars binding her arms. "We have side stepped fate a long time sister. Eventually she was going to catch us."

Bucky thought of the girl who had stood beside him and told him was the captain of his own future. That he needn't look to his past to dictate his future. He simply had to decide to be.

This was not that girl.

Aristelle had been too late. She looked back towards Bucky. Her features were pale and tightly drawn. Miranda twisted, and with a roar, wrenched down on the metal column encasing her right arm.

Aristelle's hand went to her hip and then she looked back at Bucky in horror. Her gun. Bucky whirled. It had been set on the observation room table beside his, and it had been forgotten in her rush from the room. He lunged for it.

The building shuttered and groaned as though they were in the belly of a great savage beast. The lights flickered and the metal structures holding Miranda in place gave way. At first it was a slow screaming bend of metal, and then they were falling, crumbling to pieces beneath the weight that had let loose.

Aristelle staggered back, disappearing amongst the burst of dust and rubble. She was screaming to her sister, but her voice was barely audible over the noise. The floor shuttered beneath Bucky's feet, and he stumbled to the floor. This was bad. He could feel it.

With a final gasp, the electricity cut off and the mechanics around them stilled. For a moment they were in complete darkness. But Bucky could still feel her eyes on him. Through the black. Through the one way glass. And then the emergency lights lit the room in a strobe of red and white. No sirens sounded, leaving them in an eerie silence that lifted every hair on his skin.

Slowly the dust settled enough to allow him the struggling shape of Aristelle. She clawed at the floor, dragging herself back from beneath a great slab of concrete that crumbled over her.

At the center of the destruction was Miranda. She has already freed one hand, and he watched her peel back the metal that encased the other like it was little more than the lid on a tuna can. It dropped to the ground with a terrible clang.

Miranda moved towards Aristelle with the unearthly grace he had glimpsed in the cave of the convergence, stepping calmly through the wreckage she had caused. Her gaze was focused on her sister with a predator's intent. This had been the face he had glimpsed when Dominique had challenged her, enraged her. It had not been his imagination.

Her shirt clung to her skin, soaked through by the blood of by gone injuries. Muscles bunched and rolled, a perfect display of her deadly physique.

"My my, sister." Miranda's voice was everywhere at once. Too large for the space it pressed in on him, devilishly smooth and cavalier. "Not as quick as you used to be, I see. A little out of practice?"

Aristelle was on her feet now, looking a little unsteady. Blood rand from a gash in her arm, and angry scrapes marked the skin of her legs.

And then Miranda was upon her. Quick as lightning she struck out, landing a blow across Aristelle's face that sent her stumbling back. Miranda ripped a knife from the sheath at Aristelle's hip. What Bucky could only imagine was centuries of experience saved Aristelle from the blade that arced towards her throat. She twisted and rolled, kicking out at Miranda's feet as she went and missing.

Bucky surged forward, pressing his hands into the trim around the observation window. Whatever you do, do not let her see you. Step foot in that room, and she will kill you. Bucky's fingers curled around the wood, popping it loose from the wall as he watched Miranda drive her boot down hard. Aristelle rolled again and Miranda's foot connected with the floor, cracking the concrete where she had been only a breath before.

And then Aristelle was beside him. The air to the right of him folded in, vomiting her onto the floor of the observation room in an ungraceful pile of limbs. She was gasping for breath, her eyes wide as she gripped his arm and pulled herself to her feet. She was dusted in plaster and rubble, painted grey in the whitewashed room.

"I told them," The words sawed from her lips, barely managing them between rasping grasps. "I warned them."

The observation window burst apart, stinging his skin with dozens of needle thin cuts. He shielded his eyes, looking through his fingers to find Miranda little more than a dozen feet away. With a knee jerk reaction that Bucky could only describe as self preservation, he flung a knife. As hard as he could manage. Straight for the heart.

She caught the blade, her slender fingers curling around its edge. A lethal smile cut her face in a fanged grin. Black beaded and welled around her fingers, seeping down the blade to drip onto the floor. Ink swirled behind the surface of her eyes until they were nothing but endless black, swallowing whole any trace of the silver that had once been, snuffing out the last scrap of evidence of the woman he had woken beside days earlier.

He could understand now why Miranda had baulked at the name Mortekaia. Because this girl was not his. She was not the woman whose laugh lifted his heart. Whose touch made him come apart. This creature before him now, she was a monster. And it raised every hackle and alarm in his body.

He took a step back, pulling in an unsteady breath. Slowly, smooth as silk, she lifted a hand towards him. The ends of her fingers were smudged black, a thin wisp of smoke rose from their tips. He could feel it then. A tug in his chest. Humming filled his ears as something unnatural whispered to his soul. It was being coaxed from his body. Something sly slipped over its surface, ugly and grotesque. His lungs spasmed, pulled tight and he gasped.

"No," Aristelle rasped.

He waited for the severance, but it never came. All he could see was the gleam of her cheshire smile. She wanted him to know she could do it. That she could end the unnatural length of his existence like he was little more than a weed pulled from the ground.

The air grated over his skin seconds before the floor dropped out from beneath him, and then he was tumbling, gripping Aristelle as they fell through the space between existence.