Sy

Her eyes blinked open to a bright light shining into her eyes, and a pair of arms wrapped tightly around her.

Light.

Cold.

White.

No.

Sy threw her body up, heaving against iron bonds tightening against her skin. Metal circled her wrists, covered her chest. Sound exploded against her ears, overloading her. Her back slammed back down onto a hot, rough surface. For some reason, the stench of hot rubber drifts through her senses, before the overwhelming scent of chemicals take over.

She's back in the lab and it's not safe.

Fear sends her hearing wildly out of control in a way they haven't been since she was a little girl.

It's too freaking loud.

Dozens, hundreds, no millions of unfamiliar heartbeats, filled her ears. The sound of blood pumping steadily in irregular, off beat rhythms through chests quickly grew overwhelming. Her hands made fists and claws as she fought back. Harsh panting, heavy breathing, the woosh of air from moving vehicles. Static noise. Screams, cries, the clatter of stones, the crunching footsteps. Screeching brakes, clunking, hissing machinery, bird feathers rustling mid flight in the wind. Fabric brushing against skin. Sirens wailing. Rubber crunching and the click click of shoes against pavement.

So many voices, all different sorts, all different notes and pitches and tones and languages and accents and She just knew she was in danger. She needed to escape.

Fear crashed over her head, and panic snuffed out every rational thought in her head expect the blind animal instinct to get out.

Music rose up inside of her, crawling under her skin. She opened her mouth, but the sudden sensation of heavy metal pressing against her lips made her gag and retch. Her music was gone, sucked away with her voice, and the metal pressing in on her was just another sign of her capture. Sobs broke out of her chest, her pride shattered and gone. Let them see her fear, the only thing She knew was that she needed to get out.

Jerking against everything holding her down, she broke free.

Suddenly She was moving.

Her eyes were wide as She stared around herself. The door. She broke into a sprint for the door, metal jangling from her wrists, footsteps unbearably loud. She needs to get out. Freedom is so close she can taste fresh air in her mouth, and feel grass under her feet and music rises inside her like a warm draft lifting her in flight. Hope so bright it's tangible.

She collided with a solid figure, and the sound of two bodies meeting, of her crashing to the metallic ground with an ear shattering clang, the vibrations of sound around her became too much. Hope shattered inside her and nothing but pure unadulterated rage was left.

She screamed and screamed and screamed, clawing at herself, at anyone who was reaching for her. She fought off the hands, fought the restraints around her body, fought against the red light filling her vision, fought the explosion of wind. For a few brief moments, she was untouchable.

She'd promised to fight.

But she was tired and everything in her ached with defeat. There was so little left to fight for anymore, her mind have gone and whatever was left was clouded.

A hazy face drifted into her mind. Wide blue eyes creased with fear, she reached towards the dream. Fight.

"No, you can't be here. You aren't." She begged him. They stole everything from her, but She didn't want them to have him. She'd fight back, get him out, keep him out. They can't have him. Only her. They can have only her. Fight.

Red light wreathed her, stabbing at her defenses. She fought, kicking, screaming. Noise. There was too much noise. Shouting and fear and so much more that she wasn't processing any of it. There was no way to identify all the different sounds out of the chaotic cacophony assaulting her ears.

A soothing voice broke through the racket. Like a single beam of sunshine breaking through a storm. Warm and bright and safe.

"Sy. Sy. It's ok. You're safe. Sy, you're going to be ok. They can't hurt you." The man with the blue eyes and the safe feeling he carried with him whispered in the back of her head. She knew if she opened her eyes he would be there. She didn't want to see him in this place. In this hell. Her breathing was growing ragged, exhausted and uneven.

"No, no, no, no." She moaned. "They can't have that too, they can't have you." She begged him. Tears pooled in her eyes and she shook her head, ignoring the increasing pressure building behind her temples. He had to listen to her. He had to go, leave. it wasn't safe. Fight.

"Let us help." A new voice asked her, and two more hands grabbed onto her. Her breathing was out of control and she was fighting, fighting like she promised.

But it was hard.

Nothing was working right. Her limbs had grown heavy and uncooperative. She needed to fight but she had nothing left to fight with. She tried to scream around the metal pressing down on her, pressing down on her face, on her hands, on her chest, around her wings. But she couldn't breath in. Everything was too tight. Too close, too tight, too loud, too much.

Danger. She's in danger. And She always fights. That much she remembers.

Fight.

"Sy, it's ok. You're safe now. I promise." The voice is desperate and warm and almost comforting.

Steve.

A single lightning bolt of clarity shot through her mind, and she managed to reach out a hand, closing it over a warm wrist. She desperately tapped on the inside of Steve's wrist. ...-...

SOS

But her sudden mental clarity wasn't enough as she choked on air, her chest heaving, her mouth gasping desperately for oxygen she wasn't receiving. And Sy was drowning again, in sound, in light and in memories.

Red light washed over her again and this time Sy drifted into a cold, almost comforting, blackness.

Sy woke up to a soft bed, and a white ceiling. The sound of Steve's familiar breathing pattern, and his warm hand gripped tightly in her own immediately soothed her. She turned her head slightly to see him sitting in a chair next to her. She glanced around the room, taking stock of the space before alerting him to the fact that she was awake. Her armor was sitting in pieces on the ground, the leather straps neatly sliced through. Sy noticed that in a few places even the metal had been broken through. They must have cut it off of her.

It was odd. Usually they waited for her to wake up and take it off herself.

She blinked slowly, trying to grasp at her hazy memories. The last thing she remembered clearly was a desperate flight, and Natasha hanging limp from a robotic grasp. An explosion. Being blasted out of the sky.

After that, very little made sense in her head. Mostly she remembered flashes of red light, and bleached blonde hair. Steve carrying her. A lot of mismatched noise that she didn't understand.

Her throat was more than a little sore, and she swallowed a couple times tightly before she squeezed Steve's hand gently, getting his attention. The super soldier seemed startled, pulled from whatever broody trance he was in. Sy peeked up at Steve's expression pensively before letting out a low groan. She knew what the look on Steve's face meant. His eyebrows were furrowed in just the wrong way. She's so in trouble.

"Don't say it." She warned resignedly.

"I told you so." Steve grumbled at her, even as worry faded from his eyes at the sight of her awake. She glanced over to the doorway, where the two Maximoff siblings were hovering. Both of their hearts were beating in a slightly erratic manner, each expression containing something both entirely unreadable while also being uncomfortably close to pity. They both left as soon as she caught Wanda's eye, guilt briefly flashing across the older woman's face. Sy turned back to Steve. She tried to shoot him a wry smile, but based on the look on Steve's face, it probably came out more like a pained grimace.

"And you said it."

"I told you to stay away, that you needed to recuperate. And now-" Sy interrupted him, frowning down at the bed.

"What happened?" She hated not being able to puzzle out her own memories. There wasn't anything in her head that was useful, and she felt a slight panic rise at the realization that there were blank gaps in her mind. Memories missing from where they should be. She ruthlessly stamped the fear down, focusing on Steve's response to her question.

"Ultron hit you, and you fell. Pietro Maximoff caught you before you hit the ground, slowed your momentum. He... probably saved your life. When you woke up, you were completely disoriented. You flashed back to HYDRA, Sy… it was all we could do to keep you contained. You were hyperventilating, and eventually you passed out. You woke up a couple of times, in a complete panic. We had to cut your armor off of you. The metal, it… it scared you." Steve told her quietly. Sy's whole body ached, like the pain had been baked deep into her bones. She could still feel the phantom tremors running through her body, and she could almost hear the echoes of her own pained screaming. She knew Steve was keeping the full extent of her panic from her, trying to protect her from the knowledge that he was right; Sy wasn't stable. She wasn't strong enough to be in the field with them. The realization hit her like a ton of bricks. Her shoulders tensed then relaxed, and she took a single breath.

"I'm sorry Steve… You were right. I'm not ready to be back." Sy stated, her hands fidgeting in her lap. She started to pick at her nails, gathering her thoughts.

"Sy-"

"But you still need me. We may not be at war, but the situation is still pretty damn dire. Thor is gone, probably took Loki with him. Nat is captured by the enemy, and the team barely functions. You. Need. Me." She swept the blankets off her legs, and surprised herself with the grace with which she had managed to do that. On the other hand, her whole body ached in protest of the movement. She reached towards the bag next to Steve's feet, but her pseudo big brother beat her to it.

Opening the bag he pulled out a square of ambrosia and the thermos of nectar. Steve handed her the godly food, watching her carefully. Ever since she'd warned him about the potential spontaneous combustion side affects, he was reluctant to trust the healing food. A few bites and a sip later, she was feeling much better.

"We don't know where Ultron is, or what his endgame is. Only that he has Nat. The Maximoffs think Tony is…. That he's going to…" Sy glanced up at her friend sharply. The fact that the two men didn't get along was no secret. But the battlefield trust in each other hadn't faltered.

At least, not until now.

"What are you saying Steve?" She asked him softly. He just shook his head, his expression carefully blank.

"Let's just hope they're wrong." Sy just shook her head as she got out of bed. There was no way. Tony wouldn't hurt her like that again. He wouldn't.

"Tony wouldn't do that to us. Not again." Steve sighed as he wrapped one hand around her shoulder, steadying her. Sy let him anchor her for a moment before shaking off the contact. She barely gave her decimated armor a second glance, unable to look at the ruined metal. She wasn't ready for human conflicts. And she didn't want to be. Sy took a deep breath and brushed away her thoughts. Decisions like that could be made after they defeated Ultron, not before.

Steve's next words chilled her to the bone.

"He would. He would if he thought it would save us."

AN:

For any continuity questions relating to changes in my AU of the MCU or any questions about my stories at all, please feel free to PM me. I try to to do too many authors notes because I feel like they can get annoying, so I won't answer questions here unless they're being answered by the story anyways.