As the Sky May Fall

by EirlysLavellan

[XPosted on AO3] Alice was always sure of the way her life would turn out; though her entire perspective shifts upon being forcibly added to the Avengers. She never thought she could be strong especially when faced with a love she thought had died in 1945. She'll do anything to keep him safe even if that means turning against the new family she's built. [Slowburn Romance][RatedT/M]

30. Aerials

As the Sky May Fall EirlysLavellan

The Avengers Marvel Comics

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Summary: Alice was always so sure of the way her life was going to go, however, her entire perspective is changed upon being forcibly added to the Avengers. After the Invasion of New York things quickly change and she realizes that everything she thought she was, is nothing close to what she ever imagined especially when she realizes that the man she had thought was dead turns out to be forcibly working for HYDRA as their Winter Soldier. She swears she will do anything to keep him safe even if that means going against the new family she has built.

Disclaimer: I am a poor college grad and am receiving no payment whatsoever to write this fiction. If I was, in fact, getting paid for this, I would not be a poor college graduate that I can assure you. All rights are reserved to Marvel, D.C. Comics, and Walt Disney Pictures and Columbia Studios as well as the amazing screenwriters, directors and producers, and actors who created this film. I only own the subplot as well as Alice Alexander and any other unrecognizable character throughout the plot.

Warning: Spoilers, character death, violence, suggestive themes (such as sexual assault/self-harm/depression) and vulgarity.

P.S. I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes you may see throughout this story. I tried to catch what I could, but I'm only human and I'm positive I missed things, haha. Thanks again for sticking with me everyone!

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As the Sky May Fall
Deadpool
30

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** TRIGGER WARNING: THIS CHAPTER HAS THEMES OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AS WELL AS MENTIONS OF SUICIDE AND ATTEMPTS AS WELL AS MOMENTS OF QUESTIONABLE VIOLENCE. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION **

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-0-

A few weeks earlier…

~ "That's Nurse, Second-Lieutenant or ma'am to you, Sergeant Barnes, and you'd do well to remember that." She told him with a flick of her bangs and a look that sized him from head to toe.

~ "Can you hold him!?" Her eyes searched his for a moment, the soldier writhing between the two of them and her smock dyed red with gore. He had nodded and asked what he had to do, "I need you to hold him down however you can while I remove the shrapnel, otherwise he'll go into shock. We'll then need to stitch this up as quickly as possible so he doesn't bleed out. Johana go get Doctor Collins!"

~ Dark hair, darker than his and cooler in tone, pulled back into a bun at the base of a slender neck and frizzy from the humidity gleamed in the sun. Loose strands and a light fringe brushed against sandy skin and warm hazel eyes danced in amusement looking like whiskey through a glass tumbler, a flush blanketing her cheeks and a small smile pulling her rose pink lips. She was a picture of beauty in the cool morning air.

Longing

~ "C'mon, Doll, at least give me a chance!" he had called to her with a boyish smile – "In your dreams Sergeant Barnes!" she had replied with a smirk. It had been the first time she had ever joked along with him, the barbs that once coated her words seemed to have been disarmed.

~ "Here," her voice was soft as she gazed at him, "this will help your stomach." He took the offered candy, frowning at her softly in confusion. "It's candied ginger root. Candied more for taste rather than to actually help, but the ginger will help settle your stomach."

Rusted

~ "What're ya reading?"

She glanced down at the book in her hands before hugging it against her chest, "The Hobbit. Daphne picked it up for me a few weeks ago and I've only managed to get time to read it now."

Bucky studied the smaller woman. Her hair – which she normally wore pinned back – was left down and fell in loose waves and not the careful curls that most women sported, he noticed immediately, her light fringe curtaining her forehead and falling just above her hazel eyes. She wore a thick leather jacket that appeared to be a size too large and a scarf around her neck and a dark cream sweater was tugged over her green issued button up, the lips of the collar wide and framing the column of her throat. She looked comfortable despite the issued army pants and boots, a true beauty if he had ever seen one especially against the frozen Italian backdrop.

"Do you mind if I sit with you?"

~ "Alice…" His eyes searched hers. Her eyes were sunken and her skin smudged with dirt and blood. A few cuts lay scattered across her cheeks and neck from where she had clearly been fighting against branches and the elements of Austria, the marks standing out as angry red welts across her features and her bottom lip split. Her hair was wild and matted despite the braid she had forced it into and clung to her features in damp strands from the moisture that clung to the cool March air. "How…what're you…why're you here!?"

Seventeen

~ "You don't always have to play the hero you know," She remarked as she stitched the wound on his shoulder, her hands gentle despite the warning in her alto, "you don't always have to take unnecessary risks."

~ "I should have told you!" She wailed, tears falling from her eyes faster than he could catch them or brush them away. He always hated making her cry even if it was unintentional, "I should've told you how much you meant to me before you went and got yourself captured. The fear of losing you nearly killed me, James," She only used his birth name when she was serious; "I can't do that again." He had kissed her then and promised her that he would be more careful.

Daybreak

~ "You're a right idiot, James Barnes!" She had snapped at him, eyes a blazing cinnamon though her touch was gentle as she dabbed a cool rag to his eye, "What did you expect me to say!? Hi love, welcome back. Oh you hero, taking a fist to your face for your friend. Why wouldn't you listen to the tactical expert on the team!? No, instead run head first into a fist fight with the human equivalent of an armored tank because god-forbid Steve goes by himself. He's a goddamn super soldier, and he's got a shield for Chrissakes! You do not!" She ranted at him with narrowed eyes and he tried his best to hold his laughter behind the stoic expression he had learned since becoming a soldier – she resembled a spitting, angry, alley cat and he couldn't help but think that she represented her pet name more accurately in that moment than she ever had before. His Alley Cat and the Hellcat of the Western front (thanks to Howard Stark) – a truly terrifying force of nature and she was his girl. "You're an idiot and so is Captain Rogers – that's right, I'll be with you in a moment, Captain – super soldier my left buttock," She grumbled to herself before reaching back for another piece of gauze that had been sitting in a mixture of her own making, ignoring the blonde haired man who sat on his other side, the man's frame slumped at the nurse's continued admonishments. Bucky couldn't stop the grin that twitched at his lips, nudging his friend in the shoulder as if saying that everything would be alright. It was as if they were children all over again, "I swear if he jumped off of a bridge you'd be right there with him cheering him on and asking to go next!"

"Nah, Doll, we all know I'm afraid of heights."

She had smacked him in the back of the head for the comment and earning a snort of laughter from Steve.

Furnace

~ "Please…" Her voice wavered slightly. The setting was much nicer than the battle field especially with her wearing that green dress and her hair curled so beautifully, light traces of makeup highlighting her natural features with the exception of the rouge on her lips. It was wintertime and she was bundled in a thick coat. "Please don't say that about yourself, Bucky…you're the smartest man I've ever known."

~ "I love you, you idiot." She informed him; her brow arched challengingly when he went to rebuke her, "Chose your words wisely, Barnes, because while I love you it doesn't mean I have to put up with your shenanigans…you charlatan." She said teasingly and with a look of pure adoration and affection.

~ Dark hair fell through his fingers from where she slept curled into his side, unable to stop himself from playing with the long, wavy locks. It was her last day with the SSR for a while as the 107th was moving out in a few hours, but he hadn't the heart to wake her – not just yet, anyway. He wanted to relish the time he had as her leave was ending and he would be continuing with the SSR instead of the 107th infantry. They would be separated – for how long he couldn't say, but he didn't want their time to end. He studied her features from the smooth line of her jaw to her chin before following the lines to her full lips, blunt nose and lightly freckled cheeks; her dark lashes brushing against the slopes of her cheeks and hiding hazel eyes from view and hooded by her thick but groomed brows, her forehead curtained by her light fringe. She had left her hair down after she had cleaned herself up from the long surgery she had assisted with for one of the SSR agents who had gotten wounded on their recent mission. He smirked down at her from where his shirt was fisted in her hand, her head resting against his chest and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

Nine

~ "I'm gonna marry you, Alice Elizabeth…you mark my words." She smiled, a blush blanketing her cheeks as she ducked her face for a brief moment, his fingers curling under her chin to raise her gaze and when her eyes met his, he felt his heart stutter in his chest.

"I'll hold you to that promise, James Barnes."

He grinned at her, slating his mouth over hers in a gentle kiss and she welcomed the ministration warmly and returning the kiss with enthusiasm.

Benign

~ "You can't stop me from this!" She had shouted at him – they were arguing – her eyes flashing dangerously as she threw another dress shirt into her musette bag, "I'm under orders of Colonel Phillips to aide in this mission!"

"You can't go, Allie!" He had rebuked, running a hand through his short hair and earning a loud snort of derision from the petite woman across the room. "You'll get yourself killed!"

"It doesn't matter what I want here, Bucky. Colonel Phillips thinks that this mission would benefit from my expertise and frankly I believe he's right. This isn't about us!"

"Isn't it!?" He had howled in response, his eyes narrowed on her as fear began to grip him as he thought of all the ways that he could lose her, "This mission, Alice, is the end all be all for everything we've been fighting! If I lost you…" For as angry as she was she stopped her fluttering movements, hands stilling at the slight crack in his voice and he hated himself for it. "If I lost you, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. I'm a selfish man, Alice, I know what I want and I know that I can't control you, but please don't do this."

"Bucky, I love you, but there isn't a choice for me here." She frowned at him and suddenly his anger flooded forward as he ripped one of his jackets from the hanger in his closet and shoving it aggressively into his own musette bag. She remained still, though her hands clenched and released as if frustration was keeping her rooted in spot as she watched him, his blue eyes dangerous and sharp as flint.

"I don't think you understand what this means! You could die!"

"Well so can you!" She finally snapped, her voice breaking as the tears that had been steadily welling in her eyes finally overflowed and ran tracks down her cheeks, "Have you ever thought about that!? About how I feel in this!? This war isn't singular and we're small pieces, love, can't you see that?"

"Can't you?" He rebuked, his chest heaving. "I'm not going to let you go."

"LET ME!? You're not going to let me?!" She snarled suddenly, batting his hands away as he approached as if trying to sooth her and dropping them to his side. "I don't get a choice. I'm not a Commando; I'm a nurse of the 107th field hospital that gets called in to patch you all up when wounds are too severe for Morita to do it! I don't get choices in this war! I'm expected to do my job because at the end of the day I'm a soldier of the United States Army Nursing Corps. I'm not an agent of the SSR, nor will I ever be and you have made that perfectly clear, James!" Her chest heaved, tears still running trails down her cheeks, "I can promise you one thing, however. If you walk out that door without me…don't you dare expect me to be waiting quietly for you to get back!"

He reeled away from her as if she had slapped him, his eyes staring at her unblinkingly and welling with tears that he blinked away violently and suddenly she felt awful, but knew the words were said and couldn't be taken back. He turned from her, clipping his musette bag closed before looking up at her.

"You don't mean that, Doll…I know you don't mean that." He sniffled slightly, fixing his features into a stoic expression. "We'll talk about this when I get back."

He turned, leaving his room and ignoring the urge to turn back and smother her in affection when he heard her scream of frustration and the shattering of one of her items – he was certain it was a jar of herbs since he didn't have glass in his room – but he steeled his nerves and continued walking. He had a timetable to keep.

Homecoming

~ "I want you to have this," He had smiled softly as he looked down at her, watching as confusion colored her pretty features and her brows pinching. He watched with his heart swelling in his chest as she ran her fingers gently over the coin he had managed to fuse into a necklace as if it was the most precious thing she had ever seen before. She looked back up at him with a look that was both bewildered and affectionate he was certain that his heart was attempting to burst from his chest, beating a steady rhythm that he imagined betrayed hers. At her look he felt nothing but calm and while it surprised him, he found that it was the most peaceful he had ever felt looking at another woman.

"Buck…this is your lucky coin…"

"Couldn't let cha walk around without any luck for yourself, Doll," He grinned, his accent going unchecked as his emotions worked through his tenor. Her jaw was slack in her surprise and his grin widened, his hands cupping hers and closing them around the chain and coin. It took her a moment to meet his eyes, her gaze wide and searching.

"Are you…are you sure? I-I mean I don't have anything for you and –"

"If I wasn't sure I wouldn't have given it to ya. And you don't gotta get me anythin'…I got enough right here." His grin shortened into a soft smile, his gun-metal blue eyes twinkling, "Besides, I want you to have it."

A smile split at her lips and she turned her eyes back to the necklace in her hand and suddenly turning, tugging her braid over her shoulder and glancing back at him. "Well…help a lady put this on will you?"

"Sure thing, Alley Cat," he chuckled warmly, nearly smirking at the flush that raced up from her neck and rested against her cheeks at the pet name before taking the necklace from her hands and cinching the jewelry in place. His calloused fingers traced the gentle slope of her neck, her pulse jumping visibly at the action and admiring the baby hairs that curled away from where the rest of it was pulled back. She turned suddenly and offered him a breathtaking smile that showed her dimples and well-kept teeth, her fingers already tracing the charm.

One

~ "When this is all over…" He began as he watched her carefully from where they had decided to walk back from the speakeasy, leaving the Commandos behind. "We should see the Grand Canyon."

"The Grand Canyon?" She questioned with a quirked brow and smoothing down the pretty peach dress she was wearing, his coin flashing against her sandy skin and visible from the portrait-neck the dress sported. "I never thought you'd want to leave Brooklyn!"

"Well, I'd have to leave Brooklyn if I still wanted to see ya, now wouldn't I?" Her face lit with a blush and he felt a grin pull at his lips, her arm threaded through his own, "Besides…I hear Boston's rather nice in the spring."

Despite her blush she leveled him with a humored look that betrayed her dry tone, "Boston is nice all year."

"Only if they got pretty dames like you running around."

"Are you suggesting that Boston would only be good for chasing tail, Barnes?"

He snickered at her mocked outrage, "Oh yeah, Dum Dum assured me he'd show me around y'know."

"Well then," She pitched her voice sweetly and releasing his arm so that she could walk in front of him, turning sharply so she was now walking backwards, "Perhaps Dum Dum would like to take you dancing too!"

His mouth dropped open in surprise at her quip, almost forgetting that Alice was cheeky in her humor and certainly did not pull any punches while teasing – her offense betrayed by the smirk she tossed at him over her shoulder after she had spun back around to walk normally. He jogged to catch up with her, snatching her waist and earning a fit of giggles from her as he lifted her and swung her to a stop. Her hands rested against his chest, his hands settling on her small waist and she looked up at him and offered him a coy smirk and his brows furrowed at her in response.

"That'd be no fun if you weren't there; besides, I'd like to keep you as my dance partner for as long as I could…if you'll have me?"

Suddenly realizing that he wasn't teasing her, she searched his face as if gauging his emotions before allowing a small smile to twitch at her lips, "I'll have you, darling, make no mistake on that."

He smiled suddenly, taking her hands in his and forcing her to follow him. For every quick step he took she had to take two and he could hear her huffing in indignation behind him and he nearly laughed. After a short while he stopped, the population had thinned out in the twilight as many people had gone home to their families or were filling dance halls and speakeasies. He turned to face her, his smile still fixed to his handsome features. Her cheeks were flush from their quick pace, but she still looked well put together, her hair curled and twisted into a stylish updo at the back of her neck, her fringe falling gracefully around her features and she wore no traceable makeup that he could tell and her perfume complemented the natural clove and vanilla that seemed to cling to her skin. Her dress was a soft peach color, perfect for the spring and complemented her sandy skin and ochre eyes framed in dark lashes and winged liner, nude heels gave her a bit more lift and shortened the distance between their heights. She was natural and raw and she was his girl.

"I wanna make you a promise," He began earning a quirked brow from the nurse, but he continued unperturbed, "Alice Elizabeth, I promise to love you as the sky may fall."

"As the sky may fall?"

"Yeah," he released her hand and pointed up at the sky. "Because the sky can't fall, makes this more of a forever kinda thing, ya know? So, I promise to love you as the sky may fall."

She smiled wordlessly and leaned into his side, allowing him to rest his arm around her narrow shoulders, "As the sky may fall…I like it…our promise."

"Our promise."

Freight Car

-0-

Memories had been coming faster and faster for him as the months went on.

Each time a new memory appeared he was quick to write them down and he had taken to adding colored tabs to the pages with certain memories as he attempted to create his own timeline. Frustration burned through him regularly, but also a feeling of self-deprecation. He felt deserving of his consistently interrupted sleep – the nightmares that continued to plague him into his waking hours, his sometimes lacking appetite despite the hunger that gnawed at his insides due to his increased metabolism; he felt it necessary to suffer as memories of things he had done over seventy years played behind fluttering eyelids and the memories that were good lingered about the edges of his mind as if teasing him with reprieve.

Of recent, his memories had been of Benign, the specter he had named in place of his activation word in an effort to remember her, to chase away the fear that had been driven into him so long ago whenever he saw her face and embarrassed to admit that sometimes her name slipped from him like grains of sand through fingers. With her came a wave of comfort, of heartache and sadness that he couldn't understand. The traces of vanilla and clove would hang about him like a cloud whenever he dreamed of her, her smile an anchor and her throaty alto like a lullaby to him after years of abuse. She had become a balm to the wounds that lingered and festered against his broken soul and any time he had a dream with her in it, he was quick to try and record as much as he could recall when he woke. It was a continuous cycle, but now he had her name, finally had her name written along the margins of his most recent entry.

Alice.

Her name looked so strange written in sloping and sharp-lined cursive that made up his barely legible scrawl and bolded by how many times he had run his pen over the letters in an effort to commit her name to his memory. Glancing up briefly to the television in the small coffee shop he had found himself in that morning he found himself doing a double take as a familiar face was framed on the screen.

"Could you turn up the television?" He questioned in French and the barista nodded before doing as he asked, but he barely noticed as he traced the face of the woman from his most recent dream.

The angles of her face seemed sharper, her sandy skin paler than he recalled and her eyes almost appeared haunted as she stood in front of a reporter with a microphone shoved in her face. Her hair was pulled back in a practical bun at the nape of her neck and wearing tactical pants tucked into tall boots, the half-zipped athletic pullover was tucked into her pants and a vest secured around her torso. She had a harness that seemed to be attached to her belt that held pouches at her hips that no doubt contained medical supplies of some sort and in plain sight was the familiar white band with a red cross fixed to her arm and standing out against the charcoal and green that her outfit consisted of. He was then able to see, when she shifted slightly, the gleam of a charm centered at her throat and he felt his mouth suddenly run dry at the sight of a familiar coin – only visible because of the camera's focus on her.

She appeared to be annoyed – the furrow in her brow and the way her lips pressed to one another being very indicative of the emotion and he found his lips quirking in amusement as the expression felt familiar, as if he had been on the receiving end of that look more than once – her weight shifting as she leveled the man with a deadpanned expression.

"Are you and the Avengers going to take any type of accountability? And while we have you, can you tell us about the events of Washington D.C. that occurred just last year – by your account?

"I don't speak for the other Avengers." She replied, brushing away a curl from her face and tucking it behind a pierced ear, "I speak for myself and myself only. The Red Cross and Stark Relief Foundation are doing their best to treat and rescue the people of Sokovia and to ask questions about an event that took place nearly a year ago, one of which has already been covered extensively and in the wake of this disaster is not only disrespectful, but a complete waste of my time and energy. If you want to know about D.C. you should consult the hearing that had occurred with the U.S. Security Council and the Black Widow. Thank you."

Bucky found himself watching her closely as she turned to leave, her narrow shoulders tensed and her back almost unnaturally straight. She was quick to turn away from the camera to head back in the direction that a blue-skinned man stood with his arms crossed and his face contorted in a concerned look (donning what appeared to be a super hero suit of some kind with a bright yellow X created by two straps that crossed over his chest) and suddenly the reporter was moving. He reached out, shouting something and grabbing the woman's arm to drag her back – she glanced at him, her eyes alight with a fierce anger behind her nearly cinnamon colored irises. He seemed to whisper something to her before she smirked and swung a right hook into the reporter's jaw.

"That wasn't even my dominant hand," She commented, her lip curled in a snarl as she turned and made her way back towards where another building lay in shambles before the reporter faced the camera and continued his report before the feed ended and the original news anchors seemed to continue with the report. Bucky's interest waned as the reporters droned on, though he remained listening as they continued to rip the former nurse and the Avengers apart and saying that they needed to be checked before they caused the next natural disaster and so on. The story title that lingered behind the two anchors was: Hellcat Assaults Media Correspondent on Ground in Sokovia and he couldn't help the small smile that ghosted his lips as her hero name registered in his memory.

He wondered if she had chosen it or if it had been given to her much like it had been back in the 40s.

"She is a spitfire no?"

Bucky glanced up at the barista from beneath the lip of his baseball cap and gave a polite nod in acknowledgement.

The barista was a young woman, maybe no older than twenty-one if he had to guess, with a head of hair that was dyed a shocking electric pink, her brown eyes hidden behind a pair of octagonal frames that held her thick lenses in place and her lips sporting a lavender shaded lipstick that had had Bucky questioning the style for much of the morning. She wore a fishnet shirt beneath her apron and a pair of fitted pants that seemed to match the multiple piercings that littered the girl's face. She had been polite to people when they ordered before her face would fall back into a deadpanned expression as if she was merely counting the hours until her shift ended; however, when Bucky had asked her to turn up the TV she had been happy enough to oblige, watching the news report and the female Avenger with almost intense interest that he recalled to be one of both admiration as well as attraction and he found himself not blaming the young woman whatsoever.

"Oui," he agreed as he cleared his throat, "she seems to be."

"She's my favorite…" the barista was quick to comment as she fished her phone from her apron and showing him an image of Hellcat with what he could tell was a modified AR-15 held against her shoulder set as the background of the smartphone's lock screen. Graphics had been added to make the image more of an art piece as the image was sharpened and edited to make her defining features stand out (namely the bright ochre of her eyes). "No idea why they call her Hellcat, but the way she fights is incredible! She uses knives and guns, but she's got this knife on a chain that she uses and it's just sexy. She's not like the other Avengers too…seems to actually care about what happens to people afterwards. Apparently Tony Stark created a robot that wanted to destroy the world and what happened in Sokovia is the result." She shook her head sadly, "Hellcat's been there for, like, a few weeks helping the X-Man Nightcrawler with search and rescue."

Bucky considered the girl's words carefully before glancing back up at the TV to see that they were now speculating the former nurse's identity and sighed softly. He found himself curious and glancing back up at the girl he cleared his throat to garner her attention once more, "How much do you know about her?"

"Well…not much is known about her actually. She and the Avengers keep a tight lid on who she actually is, but there are a lot of rumors online that she's Captain America's secret girlfriend and some even theorize that she's the famous nurse from World War II."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," she answered with a small shrug. "I mean she has the same nickname as Captain Alice Alexander and she looks like her down to the beauty mark on the side of her neck if you're actually looking for it…she was a pretty big deal in France after the war ended so we learn quite a bit about her in school." At his blank expression she elaborated with a small roll to her eyes, "Ya know…like, how she helped teach locals how to use localized herbs in place of more modern medicine since it was being used for our rebellion. She also was one of the few women in charge of a local field hospital when they found the Jews in Camps…my grandfather talks about her a lot since he was liberated from Camp Vernet during the war. He's even said that this Hellcat bears a striking resemblance to Captain Alexander. He had always talked about her like she was a fallen angel or something…like; she was some beautiful tragedy or something. I mean, if this is the same woman it makes sense why she'd be hanging out with Captain America…that's if it's even the same guy from back then."

Bucky was quickly putting pieces together as the barista spoke. His timeline from a few years ago in Washington D.C. making a little bit more sense despite the gaps that remained. He wondered, however, that if this Hellcat was the same woman he had known in the 1940's, how was it that she was still alive? Steve, he had learned had been frozen in ice after sacrificing himself – the idiot – to help stop HYDRA's plan (which he knew obviously hadn't stopped it at all). It was in every single textbook or news article he had found when he managed to get into public libraries or catch whatever story was on the news that day (as a lot of the news sources tended run stories about any type of appearance that Steve seemed to make of late); however, information was limited when it came to the Iron Ladies of the 107th, despite their popularity and fame, and especially so on who he remembered to be Second-Lieutenant Alice Elizabeth Alexander.

He offered the young woman a small lift to his lips, mumbling a quick thank you in French, before stuffing a bill in the tip jar and wishing her a good morning before disappearing back into the busier streets of Toulouse, Paris that he had considered home for the last two weeks. He glanced around the streets for a brief moment before he made his first spontaneous decision since first escaping HYDRA.

He was going to head to Sokovia.

-0-

Two weeks later…

Night had fallen quickly around him and he found himself comforted by the fact that he wouldn't immediately be noticed. He adjusted his jacket before crossing another street, his eyes tracing the silhouettes of crumbled buildings from when Novi Grad had been lifted hundreds of thousands of feet in the air; spot lights pierced the sky as rescue teams continued to work around the clock to save those who were potentially still buried and help treat those who had already been rescued. A small part of him wondered if that would be where she would be – his memory flashing back to a time during the war where the Commandos had met up with the 107th briefly and she had been running ragged treating people. The memory nearly surprised him with how easily it had come and he shook his head to dismiss it as he continued through the shadowed streets.

He was extremely aware of his surroundings as his eyes scanned for any movement within the shadows, but for the few people that were out this late at night, they paid him little mind as he tucked his cap further down his brow. Finding himself coming to a church he blinked as the door opened and a woman slipped through them, nodding to a few of the workers as she passed and closing her jacket around her torso as she crossed her arms. A pair of blue jeans clung to her legs, tucked into tall wool socks and what looked like a hiking boot that cut off at her ankles; a half-zip sweater was tucked into her jeans and partially hidden from where she had pulled her heavy bomber jacket around her torso and her hair free of the bun he had seen her wear in the news. She appeared deep in thought, deep in thought enough to not take immediate notice of her surroundings as she wandered away from the church.

"Alice…"

Her name fell from his lips as barely a whisper on the wind as he trailed her form with his enhanced vision. Her appearance had been surprising merely because he hadn't expected to see her so suddenly or find her so easily and yet the sight of her was like water to the dying man. The former nurse seemed to float as she walked, her pace lazy, but with an elegance that came from years of practice of learning proper posture. Her hips rolled as she walked – a natural movement of someone with high level of confidence but even he could see the cracks in that façade from the shadows of another building; her footsteps trained lightly and he could read that she knew how to dance as she walked from toe to heel with barely any noticeable pressure to her arch which he also took to mean that the petite woman was much faster than she appeared to be.

From his position, however, he could easily see that while she seemed to have others fooled by her aloof mask – she was much more fragile and broken than she was letting on and he was suddenly not seeing her in modern clothes anymore, but in a button-up top tucked into high waisted tactical pants which were synched at her small waist by a belt that was almost against regulation and a pair of combat boots; her long and waving curls trapped at the nape of her neck in a bun with flyaway strands creating a halo about her head, her fringe falling in unruly curls that refused to remain in the style she set it in no matter how hard she tried. He saw her with an aged, leather-bound book tucked under her arm with a pencil tucked behind her ear and another clenched in the fingers of her left hand as if preparing for when she would inevitably need to switch to a sharper utensil to properly write again; dark circles from sleepless nights and the stress of war clung beneath her ochre eyes. He was seeing, for perhaps the first time without any issue to his memory, Alice Alexander – the nurse who had bewitched him so easily during his youth. Without warning a small ball of anxiety formed in his chest as his mind wandered.

Would she remember him?

Would she expect him or the Winter Soldier?

Would she hurt him like his handlers always used to say?

Was she even the same person or just a very similar looking stranger?

That couldn't be true, his mind supplied him suddenly as the other thoughts faded away and were replaced with the silence of reason. The woman from Washington on those banks knew him and wasn't afraid of him; a stranger would be scared and have no reason to show him compassion, especially after he dropped the injured body of her friend along the shores. She had given him medicine, reset his arm and allowed him to leave with no strings attached and she had stayed true to her word as far as he knew. He knew when he was being followed and every time he had a stray sniffing his tail he had looped back to see who it was and not once had it been her. He had also not been blind to the number of HYDRA agents that were beginning to drop like flies. The Avengers had taken out many of the main problems and powerful ones at that, but a two person group had been taking out the more elusive ones: a red-clad smart ass and a smaller and quieter black and purple-clad woman. He kept abreast to what was happening, but as far as he was concerned that part of his life was over and he was going to reclaim what he could and all he wanted was peace.

Bucky was startled from his thoughts as she crossed the square and made her way into a small garden where she seated herself on one of the stone benches, her expression seeming light and yet troubled at the same time as she closed her eyes and titled her head upwards. He watched the way her long hair, loose and curling, was tugged by the breeze, her fringe tickling her brow as it too danced in the gust. She shuddered before nearly physically shaking her head as her brows pinched. He wondered what was on her mind to bring her such distress and he frowned as she seemed to take another deep breath, her chest expanding with the motion before deflating as she breathed out once more and he studied her carefully.

She was illuminated by a combination of streetlight and moonlight that made the strands of her hair shine in different hues of brown that almost had a silver-like quality to it and highlighted the rise and fall of each wave and curl; the shadows that hung about her face chased away the memory of softness in her features and gave way to sharp angles that made her look more like a tragic painting than a human and her lashes fluttering against her cheeks appeared like butterflies. She sat straight and her legs spread to balance her weight as her arms remained crossed over her chest; the sight of her sitting by herself among a garden of an assortment of flowers that had been blessedly untouched by the destruction around them was an image he tried to burn into his mind. His awareness fell away as he continued to examine her and so much so that he didn't immediately realize the change in her breathing as she stood and turned suddenly, her hands splayed at her sides and stance wide as if preparing for an attack and before he could pretend to be a random passerby she had met his gaze.

"Bucky?"

Despite the sounds around them, her whisper seemed to echo in the space between them as if she couldn't determine if she was dreaming or not. A sudden fear rushed through him, one that he didn't entirely understand that told his instincts to run and so he did.

Alice blinked for a moment before she gave chase as well.

It didn't take much for him to lose her; the fallen buildings and rubble giving way to plenty of places to hide. His chest seemed to heave in growing panic and anxiety, a familiar symptom to him of late; his eyes squeezed shut as he ducked behind a large dumpster as his heart thundering against his ribcage. He wasn't sure where this fear had come from, but suddenly seventy years of his handlers came back where they convinced him that she was the reason for his suffering – though he could never remember why; that she was the reason he had been left to rot in the bases HYDRA had entombed him in – his only reminder being the cold metal of the chair, of his chamber and of the concrete that greeted him every time he was awoken. He felt his hands trembling from where he pressed his left into the wall behind him and his right clutched at the space over his heart, his breathing hitched and quaking between his lips and his knees suddenly feeling too weak to hold his weight beneath them. He barely had time to fully acknowledge his symptoms as he heard feet pounding the pavement from where he had just come from. A moment passed and she came to a stop just passed his hiding spot and he watched as she spun in a circle before heaving an exasperated sigh.

"Seriously!?" She seemed to wail quietly to herself between panted breaths as she braced her hands on her knees, her fingers clenching around the joint in her frustration, "I could've sworn…"

Her face seemed to pinch as she pushed herself back to her full height, tucking a wind-blown strand behind her ear. There was an emotion he couldn't name that ran unbidden across her face, but the one emotion he could pick out was disappointment. His mind immediately supplied him with the visage of a physically broken woman, hair cut just above her shoulders and her clothing ripped, torn and waterlogged from her swim across the Potomac – her skin blanched beneath the dark bruising and blood that seemed to stain her hairline from her brow to her jaw as well as her split lip. That woman wasn't one to be feared. She had helped him and she had let him go. This was the same woman, just as broken as he last remembered her from less than two years ago, but broken in a way that he couldn't name immediately and maybe just as badly as he was.

Bucky frowned suddenly when he notice her pull out a device from her pocket before hitting a few keys and hesitating, her finger hovering over the call button from what he could now tell was a cellphone based on the dial pad that was opened on the screen. She breathed for a moment, her eyes screwing shut before she locked the screen and shoved it back into her pocket and looking around once more. There was a hope in the brown of her eyes, but awash with distress and turbulence that he recognized from staring in the mirror.

She was wondering if she was going insane.

He felt partially to blame as she turned once more, hiding her face from view as she raked a hand through her hair, pulling the strands away from her face before releasing them from her fist and allowing her hand to fall limply to her side.

"Okay…look at this logically…" she was muttering to herself. "Logically my ass," she snorted before sighing softly before her back straightened as she seemed to catch something further down the street.

Bucky's curiosity got the best of him as he glanced around the corner of his hiding spot to watch as she moved closer to a shadow that was huddled and he could briefly hear sniffling. Immediately he felt his gut sink as he worried for her safety at the potential danger, slipping out from his cover and maintaining distance in the shadows of the late evening.

"Hey! Hey are you alright?" She called at first, her stance appearing relaxed and casual, but the line of her posture told him that she was wary in her approach.

When the figure didn't seem to respond she switched to a language he barely understood, but could piece together based on the root being Serbian. She soon approached the sniffling figure that had revealed itself to be a child – perhaps no older than seven – with dirt smudged cheeks cleaned only by the trails his tears had left. Alice knelt before him and spoke softly, her brows furrowing now and again as she struggled with the language (Bucky had to admit that if she was speaking Serbian her accent was atrocious) before the child stood up and said something in reply before racing off into the darkness. Bucky then watched as the woman seemed to struggle with something for a moment before sighing in resignation.

"Well if this isn't a trap I don't know what it could be…" She glanced around once more, barely missing the former soldier as he dodged into the mouth of the alley he had sided up to, before pulling out her phone once more and dialing a number. "Hey Kurt, when you get this you may want to find me as quickly as possible. Pretty sure I'm walking into a trap…just uh…check your tracker…should lead you right to me if they don't try signal jamming. And yes, I know this is stupid and no I don't see much of a choice in the matter so I'll expect your lecture later…tschüss." She hung up before jogging in the same direction that the child had taken off in.

Bucky cursed at her mentally as he glanced around the area and was quick to follow. As much as he couldn't understand what made him fear her so suddenly, he didn't want to see her hurt.

-0-

Alice frowned softly as she came to a slow stop in front of a warehouse. The shock of potentially seeing Bucky and him bolting had faded in the light of a potentially new threat.

The child had clearly been sent as bait as the child had been so candid in telling her so as well as something about a sibling. Admittedly, Alice barely spoke Sokovian or any other language (with the exception of a few popular ones for that matter) and had only picked up on key words over the last few weeks. Dmitri had been very helpful in teaching her parts of the body so she could ask where the pain was so she could try and treat it, as well as basic phrases like please, thank you and you're welcome, but outside of that she was hopeless. She had learned French early on in her childhood and spoke it nearly as often as she did English. Spanish and Italian had faded over time from lack of use, but she still understood most of the language; German and Polish had become necessary during World War II and she had picked up on them with vigor, but nothing beat Sokovian in difficulty. She had studied many things over her time, but languages had been at the bottom of her list as she had very little interest in learning, but now she was definitely regretting such a decision. But she was able to tell that she was easily walking into a very questionable situation with no back up and barely any weapons.

She was aware that not all of the HYDRA agents had gone down when the Avengers had arrested Strucker. It wasn't like HYDRA was above manipulating children in the past and so she was certain she was walking into a trap. She rubbed her wrist where her bracer was pressed into her skin (as she never really went anywhere without it nowadays and especially since she began working with Wade), activating a signal that would feed directly into the device she had given Kurt the first week they had been working together. It originally had served for the two of them to find one another in the ruins, but now she knew it would be the only thing between her and a potentially very big problem.

With a deep sigh through her nose and her jaw clenched, Alice slid into the darkness of the warehouse and glanced around as she attempted to regain her bearings.

She was quick to work her way around the edge of the room, sparing only a brief moment to secure her hair into a quick bun at the nape of her neck before she was able to hear the sound of voices. They were soft and rushed and Alice wasn't foolish enough to not suspect her presence had gone unnoticed. As she slid around another corner she barely managed to catch a quick glance around the corner to see what looked like a garage of some kind with large glass cylinders pushed to the far side of the room containing glowing liquid. With furrowed brows she chanced another glance and frowned when she noticed the lab machines, most of it appearing to be the very same that had been in Strucker's lab that must have somehow survived; she also took note of the very few guards that seemed to be lingering, but no child was in sight. Alice knew very well that the men and equipment was a problem, but she knew her main priority was finding the little boy and keeping him out of harm's way if she could.

Glancing down at her bracer she set it to scan the area and cursed to herself as she noticed that the men in the opposite room were moving what appeared to be crates, but without being closer she couldn't discern the contents, however, the clinking of glass drew her attention. Lowering her bracer and covering it once more, Alice chanced a final glance and her eyes widened at the series of vials containing a red liquid. The needles attached to the vials were unmistakable and she began to realize with horror what she was witnessing.

She had accidently stumbled upon an outfit that was supplying Weapon X and HYDRA what looked like the mutant serum.

Her jaw suddenly clenched and she took a deep breath as she leaned against the wall and trying something she hadn't done in quite some time. She reached out for Charles Xavier in hopes he could hear her if she were loud enough. After a few moments of trying and receiving no reply she nearly groaned and instead glanced back into the room behind her only to hear that the movement had stopped and the warehouse had gone silent.

"Shit," she cursed before doing another quick scan of her area and finding a ledge that would at least put her out of immediate view.

Seeing no better place to hide, she moved as silently as she could and with practiced ease she managed to scramble out of sight just as the doors to the room she had been spying on were thrown open. Glancing around her cover, Alice could see a man clad head to toe in thick armor, wearing a face covering of some kind with two other men flanking him; one was a young man with blonde hair donning a trench coat and black ensemble with what looked like leather pants tucked into combat boots and the other sent ice racing through her veins. The second man looked no different than he had nearly forty years ago with eyes that haunted her more often than not; the only sign of his aging was the grey that peppered into his dark hair and the age lines that appeared at his brow and around his lips. It took Alice a full moment to tear her eyes away from him as realization set in that this man was not dead like she had originally thought and panic began to set in. This man was the very same who had tormented her during her time in Department K and she had to shake the nausea that appeared suddenly as she could vividly imagine the way his hands had once ghosted her skin like nails on a chalkboard and leaving her to cover her own mouth to avoid detection has her breathing hitched violently.

"She must be here," his voice echoed around her like metal grinding against a stone and raising gooseflesh along her exposed skin, a chill racing down her spine as she attempted to gather herself. "Spread out, find her. When you do…I think it's time we had a chat…also pay the child and send them on their way with their quarry. I've no interest in a weak subject."

"Of course Dr. Harlow," the younger man replied before stalking into the room and disappearing around a stack of crates that Alice had seen upon entering the facility. She could hear more than see the men as they shifted, the younger man's footsteps disappearing beyond her ability to hear before the clearing of a throat caught her attention.

"And you're still standing here, why?"

"Because I ain't your lapdog doc."

Rumlow? Alice thought immediately as she turned to get another look, conscious of her movements as she maneuvered herself into a better position to see. Glancing over her cover she could see the armored man staring at the doctor. He survived!?

Alice glanced around her once more and saw a way for her to get up to the rafters above her and with the movements taught to her by Clint she managed to gracefully swing herself onto a beam and perch before waiting to see if they had heard her. When Rumlow and the doctor didn't seem to react, she stood and began snaking her way along the beams and to where a window was cracked open that would lead into the next room. She cursed herself mentally, knowing that this was all a bad idea but knowing that she couldn't just do nothing and then cursing Steve's influence on her or at least that was what she told herself.

Shaking herself of the thought, she crept her way along the beams and slowly made her way into the other room. She knew she only had so much time to do what she needed; her goal was to investigate those vials and destroy them if she could. With practiced ease she managed to climb her way down into the other room, dodging guards as she did and silently thanking both Natasha and Clint for the extra training over the last few years and before long she found herself at the first truck. Using her bracer she was able to see that there was no one inside and with the comfort of knowing she wouldn't be caught just yet, Alice slid into the back of the truck. Once inside she crept to a spot she wouldn't easily be seen and with the ease of a master thief she flicked the first lock open and glanced inside. Taking a vial out from the many displayed, the mutant turned it over in her hand a moment before using her bracer to scan the serum before she released the knife she always managed to carry on her, slicing her thumb and smearing her blood into the port designed to compare DNA substances. It took moments before the result came back.

"Merde," she cursed as she double checked the result and frowned deeply. The vials contained a 89% match rate with her own DNA as well as other compounds that she was able to conclude made up the serum that was forcing the X-gene to surface in those that were carriers. Clearing the results from her bracer and setting it to scan heat signatures once more the mutant moved once more, sliding from the back of the truck and into the undercarriage. She was going to make sure none of this serum reached the outside world.

With a few keystrokes, Alice was able to recalibrate her bracer to show her how to create a bomb out of the materials that she could find in the undercarriage of the large truck, setting it with a Widow Bite she had learned to keep on hand since sparring routinely with Natasha and adjusting so that all she would need to do was slide her finger across the pad of her bracer to activate them. Once finished she slid from underneath the truck and to the next, silently commenting to herself that it was such a bad idea to leave trucks this closely parked. In total there were seven trucks and the mutant was quick with setting her makeshift charges before sliding back out from beneath the trucks, exchanging her hiding spot for a number of crates which she was able to tell were more duplications of the serum.

"Oh, how quaint," Alice whispered to herself after taking a quick glance around to see that someone had left what she could easily smell was napalm out in the open. Glancing about she was able to find a glove not far from where the napalm was stored (assumedly to handle the substance since it would and could stick to anything it touched) and with a stroke of good luck Alice was able to place the napalm strategically in areas it wouldn't be noticed with another Widow's Bite in order to spark it. It wasn't until Alice had finished her impromptu traps that she came upon the tall cylinders glowing an eerie yellow color that the mutant stopped.

With her heart in her throat she observed the beings inside of two of the three cylinders. The first was female, obvious from her naked form with long ashen hair that floated about her within the liquid. She was skin and bone and she floated lifelessly about the liquid she seemed suspended in. The second was a man of similar build and in similar circumstance with the exception of a large tattoo that seemed to stretch the entirety of the right side of his body. At first Alice thought he was completely human, but as his longer hair flowed out from his lifeless frame she could see gills just behind his ears. Glancing down at the monitors in front of each showed that neither of them was alive and the mutant could only wonder what they had endured before meeting their unfortunate end.

"Well…what do we have here?"

Alice turned only a fraction too late as she was physically picked up and thrown across the room, her body hitting the ground and tumbling and leaving her breathless. Just as she managed to get her bearings she noticed loafer-clad feet stop just before her and she looked up to see the grinning face of the doctor glancing down at her, his head titled to the side and his light eyes awash with glee and amusement.

"Now isn't this an interesting reunion, 87563?"

She didn't have a moment to reply as she was hauled to her feet, her arms restrained by two guards flanked by who she could only assume was Rumlow as his eyes glared at her from behind his facemask that bore a skull of some kind. She bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes narrowed as she gazed at the man that had violated her for nearly fifteen years of her twenty six years of her captivity. He had aged for sure, but barely and she couldn't help but wonder how he was still alive as he had been one of the first she had hunted when she had broken out from the lab.

"I'm sure you're wondering how I'm even alive, eh?"

"Popular to the contrary I don't know everything," Alice snorted in reply. "Generally when I slit someone's throat and drive an icepick through their heart they tend to stay dead."

Doctor Anthony Harlow snickered quietly before narrowing his eyes at her and removing part of his shirt to show the scar that lingered against his skin from where she had driven the tool into his chest, his smile sarcastic. "Yes…they do. That is until you came along my dear. We had been trying for ages to discover the Road to Immortally, the Fountain of Youth as it were. I grew up on stories of the legend and I became motivated to find it."

"Obsessed, you mean."

"Tomato, Tomato," he enunciated the different pronunciation between the singular word as he shrugged in reply. "Either way I spent many years frustrated by my continued failures…that is, until you came along. You see, the mutation you have is so much more effective than you could ever imagine. In fact, there has only ever been one other person with such power, but unfortunately he outlived his usefulness especially when he learned we had you in our…custody."

Alice leveled the man with a glare, not even bothering to fight off the two guards holding her and barely even noticing when the other man had reappeared at Harlow's side. "I'm sorry, is there a point that you're trying to make here?"

"Oh dear, you're so impatient…seems that the years really haven't changed you." He grinned madly before waving his hands and gesturing to the crates that seemed to circle the room, the very same that Alice had rigged to explode. "You see, your blood became the key! Cellular manipulation with a dash of regeneration," he giggled manically, "I had been testing myself with serum after serum made of your blood until I came to the breakthrough and I must say…I still look just as good as I did forty years ago…a little grey and aged in some areas, but not everywhere."

"You're honestly disgusting."

He cackled, "You're not the first to say such. Spent a little time with your boyfriend…you know, the Winter Soldier, back in the 70s and honey I can see why you picked him. He's…ahem, quite the specimen."

Alice knew he was trying to get a rise out of her, she knew it in her heart but try as she may she couldn't not react to the words and she growled lowly in her throat, a guttural sound that actually made the guards holding her glance at each other over her head. "You speak of him one more time like that and I'll make sure you die slowly this time."

"Don't you see, that's what I'm trying to tell you?!" Harlow laughed wildly as he threw his hands out on either side of him, "I'm better because of you. Your blood in my veins has made it so I've de-aged and the part of my brain that is in control of healing as grown so large that I've got a natural resistance now. Face it, darling, I'm your antithesis."

The mutant glanced around between them before allowing her head to drop forward as she tried to come up with a plan. She could detonate her charges now and risk getting caught in the explosion herself, which she knew she could survive, or she could fight her way out to a safe area before setting off her bombs. With her heart beating against her throat, Alice made her choice and lifted her head only to grin up at the man that haunted her waking moments, "I mean I could agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong now wouldn't we? You see, Doc, can I call you Doc? The thing you always seemed to overlook when I was your lab rat was that you never let me reach my full potential, but now? Lemme show you what I'm capable of."

Alice kicked her leg out, catching Harlow in the nose and pushing him backwards before pulling her arms closer to her body and wrestling one of the two men for their night stick (which she was sure was actually a taser) and finding the switch to ignite it before hitting the opposite guard, leaving him to crumble as she smacked the last man holding her in the nose and freeing her wrist long enough to twist his, flipping herself and him onto the ground and snapping the appendage easily before rolling onto her feet. She blinked as the figure that had been standing at Harlow's side moved, intercepting Rumlow as he went to swing at her and fighting him off the only indication that this person was actually on her side was the flashing of yellow eyes and Alice snorted.

Of course Mystique would be here.

Alice moved forward once more, twirling her knife in her hand and aiming for Harlow, her eyes burning cinnamon as she stalked after him. She was a changed woman: she wasn't weak like she had been back when he had taken advantage of her and she was stronger than she ever had been. Wanda's vision had certainly done many things and proving that she was more than her fears was one of them. Harlow had since pulled a gun from beneath his lab coat and begun firing it at her, but Alice was unmoved as she continued to stalk forward, fully intending to make this man fear her the way she had feared him for so long. No longer was she going to let this man intrude her thoughts and instill fear into her life – what she hadn't anticipated, however was being knocked off of her feet by the equivalent of a bullet train as she was pushed out of the way of the incoming rain of bullets.

"Are you trying to get hit!?"

"I wouldn't have if you hadn't –" Alice's sentence cut itself short as she gazed up at the person who had effectively knocked her off the course of her quarry, her mouth running dry. Above her, tucked behind the crates he had knocked them behind was Bucky Barnes.

"What's the matter 87563!? Need everyone to fight your battles for you!?" At the sound of Harlow's voice Alice's ire reignited and she turned a sharp glare on the former soldier despite him saving her.

"I wouldn't have gotten hit!"

"You were walking right into gunfire last I checked."

"Awfully talkative for someone who's been hiding out for nearly a year."

"Yeah and I'm very suddenly remembering why!"

Alice cut an annoyed glare at him before pushing him away from her slightly so she could see where he went. "I'm gonna make sure this bastard is dead this time. Find a different guy to take down and don't hit any of the crates if you can avoid it. They're rigged to blow."

Bucky stared at the woman for a moment, his eyebrows disappearing beneath his hat in his surprise at her mention of her rigging the place to explode. "You couldn't have mentioned that before you started having men shoot at you!?"

"Well I was pretty sure I didn't have back up and now that's obviously not the case!"

"You would've risked your life!?"

"I wouldn't have died!"

He rolled his eyes, "Enough explosives to take out a small camp and I wouldn't have died, she says."

"God now I know why you and Steve were friends! You're both punks!" Alice snorted before leaping over the crate they had been behind and stalking towards where the Doctor had run off once more.

Alice found him near the trucks and yelling orders at his men before the mutant stalked forward grabbing the back of his jacket and slamming him into the front of the truck and smirking wickedly at him. "Found you, little mouse…isn't that what you always liked to say during those games of hunter and prey? That's what you liked to call it, isn't that right?" Her smirk fell and a snarl replaced it easily enough. "You mention that the part of your brain that focuses on healing has grown right? Wanna know the easiest way for people like us to die? Allow me to demonstrate." With a ruthlessness Alice normally chose not to exhibit, she drove her knife into the base of his skull before dragging him towards the third and final tank where she tossed his stumbling body inside, removing her knife and sealing him into it. With a few quick keystrokes she set the chamber to fill watching as the doctor's eyes finally widened in realization.

"You don't know what you're doing!? P-please…maybe we can work this out!?"

"Funny thing about being the antithesis of anything, Doc…you can never copy an original." With a smirk she hit the button that would fill the chamber and setting it to zero oxygen. Alice knew above all else the best way to kill her and it was simply by drowning and being deprived of oxygen for too long. It was a painful way to go, she knew that from partial experience before she had backed out of her plan and allowed herself to breathe. Drowning took longer for her by principle because her cells needed to die and be completely starved of oxygen in order for her to meet a permanent end. She waited and watched as the chamber filled up, the man gasping and floundering as he suffocated and she made sure the heart monitor was on so she could make sure he was completely dead this time. She would not make the mistake of leaving without confirming his death again.

He would not live to torture another soul.

Sounds faded away as she focused on his heartbeat, the sound being the only thing filling her ears as Bucky and Mystique continued to battle behind her. As his heart finally flat-lined, Alice released the water and allowed the chamber to open once more before she retrieved a gun from the side and shot him directly between his eyes and following suit with his heart before she joined the fray as well. As her attention finally refocused she noticed Rumlow had seemingly escaped and she glanced to where Bucky had kicked a man clear through a wall before she nodded to him and the two began racing towards the entrance of the warehouse in a silent understanding that it was time to go. Mystique was quick to join them, still donning the appearance of the person she was meant to play and racing out into the streets just as Alice slid her finger across her bracer and sending the entire warehouse up in flames just as she and Bucky crested the next rooftop across from the building.

Alice hadn't anticipated the force of the blast as she and Bucky were thrown from the roof, the super soldier quick to snatch her to him with his left arm, catching them on the opposite roof with his right. The scream that left his mouth had the mutant panicking and she was quick to scramble up the side of the building with help from an extremely uncomfortable Bucky before helping him onto the roof as well. The two watched as the building went up in flames and soon they were joined by Mystique just as Kurt apparated next to them and zapping them away just as the building let out a groan another explosion of the secondary charge that Alice had placed to ensure that the serum that had been created from her blood was destroyed for good.

-0-

As soon as Alice's feet touched the ground she ignored the fact that Kurt and Bucky were there and spun on Mystique with eyes narrowed in a glare, the shapeshifter brushing herself off and meeting the elder mutant's ire with a glare of her own. The two women were locked in a standstill, yellow eyes locked with cinnamon before her skin shifted from its normal royal blue to a fair ivory, her shocking red hair changing into a curly blonde mop and her amber eyes shifting into a pair of blue. No longer was Alice looking at Mystique, but at Raven or the girl she preferred to appear as when hiding her true form.

"You have some serious nerve interrupting my operation," Mystique finally snorted, her lip curled in a snarl. Alice guffawed, the sound short and biting and expressing her disbelief with the woman's gal.

"You are hilarious, Mystique, really. Did you ever think to drop out of vigilantism and become a comedian? You'd be great."

"Watch your tone with me; I'm not one of your little friends."

"Nor do I plan to be." Alice snorted as she began to pace, "What were you even doing there!?"

"I was undercover until you showed up! Charles told me to keep an eye out on oddities and I did."

"Oh bullshit. You know those chuckleheads are a part of Weapon X and HYDRA. You've moved quicker in other situations and damn the consequences so who're you actually doing recon for because you and I know that Jean is supposed to be heading up that investigation."

Mystique snarled, her eyes narrowed dangerously, "I don't believe that's your business and even if it was you've got no right – no idea what's going on around here!"

"Excuse me?" Alice growled as she met the woman's glare, her fists clenching and unclenching at her sides. Kurt sighed softly before glancing at the former soldier and shaking his head.

"You may want to have a seat…these two are gonna go on for a while, Freund."

Bucky met the mutant's deadpanned golden gaze and sighed deeply. This isn't how he pictured everything happening and he certainly hadn't thought that he would've had to step in to help, but he had found himself unable to leave the short woman to her fate and even now he knew he could leave, should leave, but something held him in place. He wasn't certain if it was his curiosity or if it was because of the vertigo that still swam in his vision from being teleported so suddenly, but he decided to follow the man's advice and seated himself on an overturned desk of what must have been an office building of some sort before Ultron had destroyed the city. As he examined the scene before him he could easily tell that neither of these women would easily cave to the other. He wasn't certain if it was their pride or their apparent dislike of the other that kept the two locked in a battle of wills.

Alice stood with her back straight, legs parted shoulder width and hands trembling at her sides as if she needed to move but was too stubborn to, meanwhile Mystique (what the hell kind of name is that? He found himself wondering) while tense had a relaxed posture to her stance and a comfort in her own ability. Should this become a physical altercation it was clear that while the former nurse was scrappy and knew how to press her advantages (as he had observed during the fight at the warehouse), the shapeshifter had experience that went beyond the other woman's knowledge. He couldn't help but liken the two women to stray cats that found themselves gearing up for a fight in a back alley over a scrap of food. The comparison shook him for a brief moment before his eyes flicked back to the scene to see that Alice had stalked forward; her head tilted up to meet the other woman's narrowed stare and her stance defiant.

"I have no idea what's going on? Remind me again, who was the one who tipped you and your little team off that this was going on? Those vials that they were transporting is my blood made into a serum to further both Weapon X and HYDRA's agenda. And while we're on the subject, of the two of us, who was the one that was locked away in a lab for twenty six years at their mercy because if I recall that was me and not you."

"You've no idea what I've been through," Mystique snorted, her arms crossing over her chest. "To be hunted by the likes of Trask so they could use my DNA to wipe out the entire mutant population and those who would carry on the X-gene."

Alice scoffed a laugh, her eyes narrowing dangerously as she gazed at the shapeshifting mutant, "And take a wild guess who ground zero was…it wasn't your friends: Frost, Azazel, Salvadore or Banshee –"

"Watch your next words very carefully, Override…"

" – and it certainly wasn't you," the older mutant finished despite the interruption. "So, before you try telling me about what's going on and suggesting I know nothing, I suggest you check yourself because while your lectures may work on your students, they won't work on me. You know nothing of what these men are actually capable of and you know nothing of what they're willing to do. Don't pretend you know anything about me."

"Or what?"

Alice glanced at the woman, her eyes narrowed in a glare that was sharp as a blade and her lips trembling into a snarl, "I'm sure you're already aware of what I'm actually capable of."

"Oh-kay, I think we've got the idea, ja?" Kurt finally interrupted as he stepped towards the two women and slowly pulling Alice away from the other mutant and deeming her less threatening at the moment before nodding to where Bucky remained sitting and watching the entire scene play out with a tension that said he was debating deeply about whether or not he should just simply disappear. "I believe, Miss Mystique, that it is time to give these two some privacy while we get in contact with the Professor. I've also brought your medical kit, if that's helpful."

"Thanks again, Kurt."

He merely nodded at her before beginning a rushed conversation with Mystique as they disappeared beyond the broken doorframe and into another room. It wasn't lost on her that Kurt thought very highly of the shapeshifter as she was the one who had saved him many years ago now and had also been the one to train him. While Alice could respect what Mystique stood for within the mutant community, she and the shapeshifter rarely got along long enough to form any kind of relationship outside of cold indifference. Shaking her head she ran a hand through her hair, tossing the strands over her shoulder and grabbing the medical kit that had been left for her – anything to distract her from the man that sat watching her with an intensity that made her nerves stand at attention.

Despite the anxiety bubbling in her gut she strode towards him, not meeting his eyes until she was standing only a few feet from him. She was surprised, however, when he spoke first.

"You're bleeding."

Alice looked up at him and he gently rubbed his cheek to indicate where the scrape was on her face and with a nervous snort she allowed her body to heal – having not thought to do so sooner – and watching as his eyes widened fractionally. It was nearly impossible to notice, but given their proximity she had caught the emotion flickering through his now narrowed eyes easily enough. He was debating if what he saw was real and if it was he hadn't determined what that meant. Alice was having a hard time just realizing that she wasn't going completely insane and that Bucky was actually sitting in front of her.

If Steve ever found out, she'd never hear the end of it.

Clearing her throat, she drew his attention once more, "It's um…nothing. Are you hurt?"

She realized after she had said it that it was a stupid question. From beneath his baseball cap she could see the steady trickling of blood from his temple as well as the way he was awkwardly carrying his right arm from when he had caught both himself and her from falling off of the roof during their getaway and his expression told her that her answer was obvious, though he didn't say it which she wasn't sure if she appreciated it or not. With a small sigh she moved closer only to pause when he tensed at the action and she met his gaze evenly.

Bucky watched her carefully, studying her in the dim lighting barely afforded to them in the dilapidated office building that Kurt had transported them to. Despite the stoic mask he hid behind in that moment, his mind was working quickly in an effort to fully understand what was happening around him. The woman standing before him was different than the woman he remembered, though the taciturn mask was something that he was familiar with when it came to her, but it left him feeling uneasy. This was the same person that HYDRA had convinced him had been a key part of his suffering and that she would never care and that she would never come for him. But, a small voice echoed in the back of his head, you heard what they said in that warehouse…she was as much a victim of HYDRA as you were. She didn't ask to be torn apart.

From this distance he could see the freckles that dusted her nose and cheeks as well as the beauty marks that appeared on her throat just beneath her jaw and the second one that sat against the well between her collarbones. Sitting against her collarbones, exposed by the sweater she hadn't zipped up, was a familiar charm that seemed to gleam in the dull light. With sudden bravery he stepped towards her again, and again, and again before stopping before her. Meeting her eyes for a moment, his gaze settled on the charm, his brows furrowed before flicking back to hers as if asking for permission. It took her a moment before she steadily raised the charm from her skin and gesturing for him to get a better look. His gaze was wary before his eyes moved from hers to the necklace and taking it from her and pinching it between gloved fingers.

"You gave me this in 1943 just before you were captured in Italy with the 107th U.S. Army Regiment."

Her soft and throaty alto broke the tension between them, his eyes flickering from the coin back to meet her gaze to see she had politely turned her head away from him and exposing her now unblemished cheek to him instead, her eyes closed and lashes brushing her cheeks. He swallowed thickly before his eyes traced the charm from the smoothed over edges from fingers constantly smoothing against the metal of the helmed woman and the word Liberty haloing her profile; the year stamped into the metal read 1923 and on the opposite side it read In God We Trust as most U.S. currency had. He traced the ridges that made up the outside of the coin, smoothed as well from years of fingers playing with it and the metal loop that held the charm to the chain was clearly man-made and hardly perfect, but a brief memory played before his eyes of a man who looked much like him constantly pressing a sharpened pick into the top of the metal to make a hole to thread a chain through.

A gift.

Coming out of the memory was jarring and slightly disorienting, but as he blinked the image disappeared and he found himself staring into familiar hazel, her eyes almost appearing like whiskey in the dim lighting. In that moment he knew that this woman was not just a very convincing doppelganger, but Alice Alexander herself and the very same he had known all those years ago. His mouth ran dry suddenly as he searched her eyes, noticing for the first time that her mask had dropped and that she was trying to let him search for what he needed and with the way her eyes met his, he could only assume she was doing the same.

"How're you…" He began after clearing his throat, his tenor raspy and creaking from disuse.

"How am I here? How am I alive?" When he nodded she sighed softly, not breaking the eye contact between them before she shifted slightly and he dropped the coin from his grip watching as the charm fell back against her chest just under the well of her collarbones. "Let's get you fixed up first…then I'll explain."

While Bucky didn't necessarily like the answer, the tremor in her words made him reconsider. She was afraid – that much was obvious, but he couldn't determine what she was afraid of. Was it him? Was it of her circumstance? He couldn't be sure, but he allowed her to lead him back to the overturned desk he had originally been sitting on and began tending his arm first, easily sliding it back into place much like she had nearly a year ago on the Potomac, but this time he felt every bit of what she was doing despite the mask he fell back into to hide it. He watched as she reached back into her medical kit, after setting his arm, and removing a bottle and gauze swab and gesturing for him to remove his hat.

Alice was hyperaware that Bucky was watching her very closely and it did nothing to settle the anxiety that had sent her heart straight into her stomach. Her pulse fluttered against her neck and the only thing preventing her hands from shaking as she put the former soldier's arm back in place was the years of practice she had from being in the medical field. Swallowing thickly she ran through the possibilities and scenarios that could happen at this point. It was clear Bucky wanted to know how she had survived so long without aging a day and she knew that he knew that HYDRA may be partially responsible, but she wasn't certain how truthful the truth would actually sound. Sure, the Avengers had taken her mutation in stride and Tony and Clint had even made jokes at the expense of it, but this was something completely different.

Her first husband had never known what she was; he had died before she could even fathom to explain it to him. Logan had been just like her and so that relationship had been almost easier than breathing as they understood each other down to their very foundations. Of course, that relationship had spanned many years from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, and sure, Alice had thought that forever with him could be achievable despite their obvious and volatile personalities, but ultimately they had agreed to remain friends and Alice had never begrudged the other mutant for that. It had led her to Bucky and that was something she would never change no matter how many lifetimes she had to live through. But confronting the current problem was what she was struggling with. Would Bucky be receptive to what she was? Her secret was what had kept her safe for the better part of her long life and she was very self-aware that her circumstances were odd at best – granted being cryogenically frozen, tortured and frozen again certainly couldn't be considered normal and neither could freezing in the artic and thawed, but she also wasn't sure if he would be receptive to the idea that she wasn't just Nurse Alice Alexander of the Iron Ladies. Ultimately she had led him to believe she was something she never could be and that was normal and the idea of trying to explain that she was nearly three hundred years old terrified her.

Bucky removing his hat disrupted her thoughts and she cleared her throat as she looked at the cut on his temple from where he had barely managed to miss a knife that had been aimed for his head. Gathering her courage she began to speak.

"I, um, remember how much you hate stitches so I'm not gonna bother with them…the serum that you were given should heal that up fast enough without my direct interference."

He wondered if he should call her out for stalling, but before he got the chance she began speaking once more.

"I won't lie to you when I say I'm not entirely sure how to start this conversation…but all I ask is that you try to let me get through it before you make any decisions." She flinched away from him slightly, using the antiseptic and gauze swab as a distraction before gently pressing it against his temple. "I was born November 1st, 1753…nearly two hundred and sixty three years ago…the reason I'm still alive is because I have a genetic mutation that prevents me from dying of most natural causes. They call people like me mutants…actually the man and woman who kinda got us out of that whole mess a bit ago are mutants too. We're basically people who are born with natural powers. Mine is what I've come to call regenerative biological and cellular manipulation which is just fancy for saying I don't age and I don't die if someone shoots me."

Bucky grappled with the words that had been left in her wake, "What does that mean?"

"How do you mean?" She countered his question with one of her own as she gently continued cleaning the cut at his temple and wiping away the blood that stained the side of his face. Bucky nearly growled at her, but the fluttering of her pulse against her throat had him reining his frustration back into place. Was this why she was so scared?

"What does all of that mean…we didn't meet in the 1700s…"

"Oh," she swallowed as she realized what he was asking. "No we didn't…we met in early 1943 if my memory serves me right and it usually does, but…" She sighed softly before meeting his eyes. "I wasn't fully transparent about the finer details of my life – not that we got to speak much about my life since we were fighting a war at the time, but I never once lied to you about anything with the exception of my age if that's what you're wondering."

Bucky mulled over her words, forcing himself to remember everything she had ever said to him. He had been getting flashes of moments quicker than before as if seeing the charm on her necklace had released a dam on the memories that had been locked away and he wondered if that had been of his own doing or HYDRA's. Had he locked away those memories so that they would be protected and have longevity? Or had HYDRA blocked those memories from him in another effort to control him? He knew which answer was more likely and it certainly wasn't the first.

His mind immediately jumped back to the warehouse that Alice had snuck into less than an hour ago now. The scientist – Anthony Harlow – was a man that had worked on him briefly in the 70s, he recalled, and the man had wasted no time in throwing that fact in her face while also pointing out his own involvement as her tormenter. His eyes flickered back to where Alice had turned from him to reach back into her medical kit for what he only assumed was for a way to seal the cut on his temple, her hair curtaining her features as if to hide them from his observation. She had proven she was different and his mind flashed back violently to a little over a year previously when they were both in the bank in DC, the way Pierce had spoken about her. He had said that with her HYDRA would be able to unlock effective immortality. Pierce had used him against her and she had fought so hard against the men that had surrounded her, uncaring to her own survival, in order to reach him – to get him to remember and he felt shame settle in his gut as well as anger. The shame he knew he was deserving of, but he decided to focus in on his anger and try to understand why he felt angry.

Was it because she had hidden who or what she truly was? Or was it because, like himself, she had suffered at the hands of men who sought to rule the world by any means necessary? He tried to recall if he had ever known of her during the years between 1945 and now, his mind blanking with the exception of the incident in Washington and with finality he decided that he was angry because of the latter suggestion his mind supplied.

He was angry because, like him, she had suffered.

Though she didn't show it immediately, studying her movements in that moment he could see that she had already condemned herself and was merely preparing herself for the fallback of his reaction. Tension lined her shoulders and she pinched her features into a mask that was attempting to hide from him, the woman building up a wall in hopes that falling back behind it would protect her and it nearly broke his heart that she felt the need to prepare for a reaction he wasn't even sure he could give her.

Bucky was merely processing at a basic level of late – the only emotions he was familiar with were anger, guilt, fear and an unearthly panic that sent his heart scattering in his chest and even then he didn't understand them so much as he was able to identify them. Association was not his friend since he had slowly been putting his mind back together. He couldn't trust himself enough to put emotion into what he was feeling or experiencing as he tried to acclimate to a world that had moved on without him. He was equipped with enough knowledge to survive, but that was a far cry from actually living.

"I'm sorry…" She murmured, sniffling suddenly and throwing her head back to look up at the ceiling, her hands moving away from tending his wound to wipe at her eyes as she finally met his gaze. "This…isn't how I pictured any of this."

"How'd you picture it?"

Alice stared at him for a moment, weighting the question before realizing that he was genuine in his ask, "In a perfect world far from this one? I don't know." She sighed helplessly before she began fitting a strange bandage over his cut and slowly repeating the process with three other ones of similar size and make, "Maybe I wanted a happy reunion…one where I apologized for being such an awful, bratty shithead to you that night before you fell from the train and we picked up where we left off and things worked themselves out. Maybe I wanted you to hate me just like I've hated myself all these years for not doing something differently – told you what I am for starters, but even back then I didn't know the first way to explain what I am…I just knew that I couldn't die and that I was cursed with that knowledge." She frowned suddenly and he watched as she seemed to cave in on herself, her arms crossing in front of her in a self-hug as if the stance would help her hold herself together, "I didn't find out what the appropriate term for what I am was until just before Weapon X managed to capture me."

Bucky was silent as she ranted, her knee bouncing in anxiety. One thing he had gotten very good at doing was reading people and he could see the open frustration on her face as well as the fear – her pulse fluttering wildly against the column of her throat and her nose reddening as tears welled in her eyes. He wasn't certain what he could say to make any of this better for her or for himself. These kind of emotions were outside of his wheelhouse, but he couldn't help the sudden surge of affection or the fear that the emotion brought him and he could feel his heart breaking in his chest as she spoke about herself.

She wanted him to hate her – expected him to hate her, but no matter how much she wanted him to, he didn't think he could – not truly anyway. Not the woman that he saw so suddenly in flashes and not the specter in his mind that had haunted him these last few months and certainly not the woman who – despite being forced to face against him as the Winter Soldier – had shown him so much kindness on the shore of the Potomac in Washington, D.C. How could he hate her when he had just weeks ago remembered everything about her and all the wonderful things she had been capable of?

"I could never hate you…"

Alice stared up at him, brows furrowing in confusion, "How can you be so sure?"

"Because I think I hate myself more," He admitted slowly, his jaw tensing and the muscle jumping as his teeth clenched. "I remember you telling me that it wasn't my choice…what they had me doing all these years, but it was still me. I still did all of those things and maybe that makes me a monster…"

Guilt rattled against every nerve in his body and without understanding why he felt tears welling in his own eyes.

Alice looked back at him, her hands stilling from putting things back in her medical kit and before realizing that she was moving closer to him, her fingers were already tracing his cheekbones and her thumbs chasing away the gathering tears in his eyes. Her only hesitation came when he tensed, but as soon as he relaxed his stance and closed his eyes, she pulled him down into her as his body caved around her, dwarfing her. What started out as an unsure embrace became a desperate pawing as Bucky's face burrowed into her shoulder; his hands gripping her slight frame to him almost unrelentingly and leaving little space between them as emotions he couldn't name crashed around him, his arms caging her in. Belatedly he realized that he shouldn't hold her so tightly, but as her arms tightened around his neck and her hand traced soothingly at the base of his skull, her alto whispering words of comfort to him, he found he didn't want to let her go – afraid that she was merely a trick of his mind despite the evidence to the contrary. Tears slid past his eyes nearly as quickly as memories did and he wasn't sure how to process everything at once, the sensations overwhelming.

As if hearing his silent plea for the images to slow, they did and he began digesting what he was seeing and putting emotions to each image as if he was relearning how to associate and be a person.

Alice held him to her, ignoring the aches where his hands latched onto her in a bruising grip as she continued her gentle ministrations and allowing the two of them to slide to the ground beneath them when it seemed his emotions bore down on them. She fisted the thick canvas of his jacket; holding fast to the man who had gone through more than any one person had a right to – any person deserved to go through and blinking her own tears away and allowing them to track down her cheeks. Bucky didn't speak, he never once tried to tumble through words that may have given her insight into what he was or wasn't feeling because she knew he was feeling everything at once. The way his body shook as he pressed himself as close around her as he could, the way his knees had given out and dragged them to the floor, the way his breaths shuddered and heaved in his chest and the stains his tears were leaving against her shoulder told her more about where he was than his words ever would.

"Let yourself feel, Buck." She coached softly, her voice thick with grief she couldn't properly place. "Don't fight them…I'm here and I've got you, I promise."

His shuddered breath was his only reply and she found herself half sitting in his lap from where he had sunk to the ground bonelessly and pulled her with him. She continued to foster him through what she was certain were memories at this point as she felt her words initially wouldn't have created the spiral she was bearing witness to. Bucky clung to her in a way she knew intimately from when she was having her own flashbacks that he needed a physical presence to reground him in reality. The action was completely instinctual as she pressed a kiss to the side of his head and she allowed her body to move with the jerking of his own as silent sobs cracked like lightening through his lumbering frame. The Bucky from the 1940s never had issues with expressing emotions, but always preferred to do so in private – the Bucky that clung to her now was a fragment of his old self and was working off of a primal instinct to release and that cut her deeper than she thought possible.

Neither knew how long they stayed in that position, the mutant balancing herself between his knees and her own and the soldier pressing her to him, but as his breathing slowed she wondered what was going to happen next and she swallowed thickly, her mind tracing back to where he called himself a monster.

"Is that what you think you are? A monster?"

Her tone was patient, he read immediately, but there was a darkness lurking beneath that seemed to suddenly envelop her and he found himself tightening his grip on her subconsciously as if attempting to defend her from forces unseen. Bucky heard the danger in her voice, the self-deprecation that was sure to follow. He found himself scared not for his safety, but fearful for what lengths she would go just to prove him wrong about himself.

"I've killed hundreds of men and women with a conscious mind and without an ounce of regret for my actions. Were those people bad? Not all of them…some of them were and some of them were completely innocent. Did I prove what they believed by perpetuating my mutation into something that they could fear? Absolutely and I did so without thinking of the consequences or caring about them. You didn't get that luxury or the option to choose if you wanted to carry out a mission nor not, to kill someone or not. If we're going to start pointing fingers and referring to monsters then it's clear to me who the real monster is and it's not you. Did they use your face to generate chaos and use you as their scapegoat? Yes, HYDRA did and without any remorse." She paused, pulling away from him and allowing her hands to drop into her lap, "But would a monster…a real monster…feel any bit of remorse for their actions or spare the time to worry about whether or not they were a monster?"

He considered her point, tears still blurring his vision as he searched her face. He studied the tracks where tears had fallen on her cheeks, the redness of her nose and swollen eyes but there was an intensity in her gaze that pleaded him to understand, that pleaded with him to forgive himself. He knew it couldn't happen immediately and he got the feeling that she knew that as well, but if nothing else she wanted him to begin to heal and to become himself again – whoever that was supposed to be. A sudden frustration rose from his chest that he couldn't control at the thought and he briefly turned his face away from her as if to hide it, but when she sighed softly and shifted away from him he knew he had been unsuccessful.

"What is it…?"

"Is that what you want?"

Alice's brows furrowed in confusion, at a genuine loss of where this side of him had come from as if he was purposely trying to either push her away or change the subject – neither a comfort as he refused to meet her eyes. "I don't know what you mean, Bucky…are you asking me if I should consider you a monster or are you asking me something else?"

"To be the man I was…before this?"

The venom in his tone hissed between his clenched jaw and she had to physically hold herself still as his words slapped into her. "Is that what you think? That I have expectations on who you should be?" Since he refused to meet her gaze the mutant was forced to study the way the muscle of his jaw worked as if he was trying to prevent himself from reacting in a certain way and while it didn't give her much to go on she assumed that this is what was now currently bothering him. "If that's what you think you're wrong."

"Is that right?"

"It is." She spoke forcefully and with a finality that she hoped would stop whatever argument he was trying to have. "I can't expect you to be the same man you once were when I'm not entirely the same woman I was once either. That'd be hypocritical at best for me. I only want to help you and whatever that means to you is up to you. If that means you want to be Sergeant James Barnes of the U.S. 107Th then that's who you strive to be; I'm not here to tell you what to do and I'm certainly not going to tell you who to be, it's not my place. You're a grown man and despite everything that's happened I'm sure you can make decisions on your own."

Bucky sighed softly through his nose to quell his annoyance. Of course he had assumed that that is what she wanted because it seemed to be what everyone wanted wasn't it? HYDRA had loved to remind him of who he once was, so why wouldn't she do the same? Steve had done the same when they had fought in D.C. the memory surfacing as his mind had slowly come back to him in the final moments of their fight – his face broken and bruised and not dissimilar to how the former soldier had found his best friend many, many times before that. As he looked at her he noticed she had moved away from him and was packing up her medical kit, zipping it shut and tucking the disposable pieces into her jacket pocket to get rid of later.

She wasn't wrong. Alice was not the same woman he remembered at least not exactly as he remembered her. There was a hard edge to her that, while it had been there before, was sharpened to a razor's edge. Gone was the softness that hid behind the hardened exterior of a war nurse and was replaced with a jaded bitterness and expectation that settled sourly in his gut. He hadn't meant to offend her, but the distinction needed to be set. He needed to know what she expected and to hear that she didn't have any specific hopes in regards of him and who he was had been a relief he hadn't known he needed. Sighing softly and releasing the surge of annoyance he glanced back at her to see that the woman was merely watching him, studying him as if she were committing his appearance to her memory.

"I'm here and I've got you, I promise…" He trailed suddenly as her words seemed to click into place. "Do you mean that?"

A humorless smile twitched at her full lips, "I don't lie, Bucky. I never have and I've no plans to start now after two hundred years."

He couldn't voice his question despite the words being on the edge of his lips, how can I trust you? He wanted to ask as he searched her gaze, the bright hazel her eyes had become open and meeting the steel blue of his own that told him that she was telling him the truth, but he still wasn't sure. It seemed he didn't need to ask the question out loud because her gaze softened and she ran a hand through her hair, her features sobering.

"The truth of the matter is that you'll have to determine if I can be trusted or not on your own and while I want nothing more than for us to move forward together…I also understand that my wants are secondary in this case. I've been adjusted to this world for a long time and I know who I am in it and how I fit into it…you haven't had the luxury of time to be able to do that and I understand that you need that time." She glanced down at the ground between them as if suddenly unable to meet his gaze as she played with something in her hands and after a moment he noticed it to be a tracer of some sort. "That being said…here."

Bucky glanced down at the device she was now holding out to him and frowned as he took it, his fingers brushing hers and he ignored the warmth that sparked through his hand at the gentle touch. She must have felt it as well as her breathing hitched and releasing the equipment with an almost bashful smile. After a moment he swallowed and met her eyes, his jaw clenching slightly as he tried to gather his thoughts, "What is it?"

"It's a pager of my own design…near untraceable to those who don't know what they're looking for. The only person who may be able to trace it is Tony Stark, but…he's got other things going on to look for a pager signal and even if he did it'd be masked by his other tech so you'll be in the clear. What I mean to say is if you need me, that is the way to do it."

"Isn't this…old fashioned for the times?"

Alice couldn't help the laugh that bubbled passed her lips at his dryly delivered inquiry and showed him a secondary one and shrugged, "I'm still a bit old fashioned, I suppose."

Bucky watched her for a moment before his eyes flickered down to the device that he held in his hand only now realizing that his shoulder – that had felt like it was on fire when she had first set it – barely hurt at all. She was still giving him the option to leave if he so wanted to, but now he had a way to reconnect with her if he so chose and he felt a relief settle over his frayed nerves. Glancing back up at her he showed it to her before sliding it into his pocket and offering her what he hoped was a small smile.

Alice's breath hitched as he slid the pager into his pocket, his head cocked just slightly to the side and a small smile tugging at his lips that so desperately reminded her of the man he had been so long ago now and sending her heart scattering through her chest. There was hope now and for the first time in a long time she felt like maybe, just maybe, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

---

Author's Note: Hey you guys...so we made it ;) We finally have some Bucky/Alice fluff and while it's still kinda angsty it's here! There's so much more planned for Civil War, but we'll get there you guys!

So let's talk because there's a lot to unpack...

Bucky has made his grand appearance in this story once again and tbh, I'm not mad by it. I had planned for him to show back up before Civil War's timeline, but I'll be honest when I say that this little bit wasn't fully planned to be a full meet up between him and Alice. I can spoil it now because the idea got thrown out and was deemed too awful and mean by my dear friend simmerandcry who confirmed this. Originally Bucky was not going to be Bucky at all...in my original outline in this story the Bucky she was supposed to see was actually Mystique meant to give Alice a little bite of reality...kinda like when you get ice water dumped on you when you're in a deep sleep because let's be honest Alice needed a huge slap of reality, but I'm glad for the change. Besides, we get some Alice and Bucky fluff, angsty as it is.

So a few things about that here: Bucky and Alice are extremely awkward right now and working around feelings that neither of them are really sure how to express. It always bothered me that in the MCU we weren't really able to see how Bucky managed his emotions and learned to reassign them to different memories he was recalling and you see a lot of that here. Also, there's a lot of mentioning of being fearful of Alice and there's a reason for it: in my canon Bucky has been convinced to fear Alice and Steve because they are the ones he drew his strength from to keep fighting. This is based off a LOT of trauma-based research as well as the way the human brain works. Our brains are hardwired to remember fear best, it's just a fact that that is the thing we remember before anything else. Fear is what prevents us from doing stuff and it is the hardest emotion to overcome. I truly believe that when HYDRA had been brainwashing Bucky they had been conditioning him to fear Steve (at least in the MCU, minus Alice here because that's just added in for razzle-dazzle for my story). The first time Bucky had been captured by them, Steve had saved him and had saved him from then on (as we see in the Commando montage), but I bet you he kept fighting because he knew Steve would come for him and would keep coming for him - that Steve would rescue him by any means necessary. But when Steve never came, he began to lose hope and that's when HYDRA had him (ya know, aside from the cryogenesis, but I digress).

In this story the same rules are applying - I'd wager my paycheck on that. We see in Civil War when Steve confronts Bucky in his apartment and he asks Bucky why he pulled him from the river, Bucky answers that "he doesn't know" because he really doesn't. He had been taught to fear Steve, fear what he represented and was manipulated into believing that he was doing good by being HYDRA's plaything. It went against everything he had been programmed to do. Here he's having a hard time associating with regular emotions and especially when it comes to Alice because he has two very conflicting ideas in his head and guilt for what he did to her as the Winter Soldier to match.

Alice on the other hand is struggling on a very fine line of sane and not as she believes he's a figment of her imagination for a bit before realizing that he's actually present and real. There's also a part of her that wants her Bucky back, but knows that it's not possible and she doesn't want to force him to do anything he doesn't want to do.

There's more, but I'll save that for a different day because if I keep going there's gonna be spoilers, lol.

Now, as far as Anthony Harlow is concerned...he's a dick. He is a large part of Alice's trauma and I wanted her to have the ability to overcome her fear of him. This is extremely important for a few reasons. A large roadblock that any survivor of sexual assault is learning to trust the partner they're with (as a survivor myself, I struggle with this largely) and moving passed that trauma and not associating the current partner with that trauma. It involves a lot of communication and that will become a different situation much later and maybe even into the sequel (omg she's got a sequel planned!? - yeah bish, I do!). And in conquering Harlow we learn a few things about Alice too:

1 - we get a glimpse at the type of ruthlessness she's capable of and was capable of when she escaped the lab (Wanda's nightmare anyone?)

2 - Alice can die in the most permanent sense. She's not immortal nor is she completely indestructible. Drowning and significant lack of oxygen will result in her permanent death if she's not careful.

3 - A HUGE hint to her mutation and why it prevents her from aging...(reread Harlow's diatribe again if you missed this).

4 - ANOTHER huge hint to Alice's mutation and how she can heal others (not gonna lie, if you get this one I'll be impressed because it's very vague...hint pay attention to Bucky).

Well, with all that said, I think we should get to the fun bits where I thank everyone for their support because that's my favorite part ;) Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk/Author's note...I know it was long lmfao.

A very special thank you to everyone who has favorited/followed/subscribed or just read this story so far! There's a lot here and I appreciate you all taking this journey with me!

Also a special thank you to simmerandcry, kyro232, T, Love. Fiction. 2021, psychosae, xdiexromanticx, Guest 1 and Guest 2.0 for their reviews of the last chapter! I really cannot say how much I appreciate you all for taking time to review my story!

Guest 1: Thank you so much for your review! YES WE FINALLY HAVE BUCKY AND I'M SWEATING, lol! I hope you enjoy the next chapters as well!

T:Thank you so much for your review and I can finally say that YES that is Bucky lol. I won't lie, at first I wasn't going to let it be him and then I decided against it because I needed some Bucky in my life and it honestly just works out better for what I have planned coming up so you all get the treat of getting some angsty-fluff out of me for a bit ;D Anyway, thank you again for your review and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Guest 2.0: Hey there and thank you so , so much! You have no idea how much that means to me. I'm not even going to lie, I have an anxiety attack any time I focus on a different character that's canon to the MCU because I'm so worried about whether or not they're in character and it's so nice to hear that I've done a good job on that, lol. My real-world anxiety thanks you, haha! And I keep a notebook for the plot because without it I'd be so lost, but I do allow for organic growth too because sometimes the spontaneous ideas are the best! Also, YOU'RE THE ONLY PERSON WHO GUESSED THAT THAT WAS HER BROTHER AND YOU'RE SO RIGHT BECAUSE IT IS! Excellent catch! As for what I have planned for him...you'll just have to wait and see ;) Thank you again for your review and I so sincerely hope you enjoy the next few chapters as well!

And if you haven't already - please check out my dear friend, simmerandcry's story "Show Me, Don't Tell Me"! It's an incredible and amazing and just truly wonderful Bucky/Steve/OC story and it's a real treat especially if you like some good fluff! She just finished this story and has JUST posted her sequel entitled "Only For a Moment" and I'm already just emotional about it. I'M SO EXCITED you guys!

Anyway, I hope to be quicker with updates in the coming weeks (work has been insane for me over the last few which is why this took so long too...sorry about that) and I'M JUST DYING OVER FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER YOU GUYS...I'M NOT READY FOR EPISODE 5 *crying emoji*

Love you all,
xoxo Eirlys