Hi again. I know I'm horrible for taking so long to post again. But I had to build up the angst for this chapter. It's ging to get dark kiddies.

Oh and I have added some extras to the earlier chapters just t fill them up a bit and build up a relationship between the characters better. I think I made three additions in chapter 2, 7 and 10. But if you want to re-read the whole thing than go head my friend!

Warning: Torture, injury and depersonification (is that a word? like treating someone as an object, not human)

Chapter 37

Dr List scurried into Baron Von Strucker's office, full of anticipation. Strucker stood on the other side of the large room looking out a wide window over the make-shift lab they had constructed. The vast lab was crude, makeshift and cluttered with pieces of stolen technology. Strucker's office was the opposite and incoherent with the rest of the medieval structure. The lavishly decorated office resembled the aristocratic man who owned it. With his hands comfortably perched behind his back, Strucker questioned without turning, "Is the wiping process complete?"

Dr List would have been nervous about this question if the result had not just propelled forward their experiments. "No, the wiping was interrupted." List could sense Strucker growing angry and quickly added, "But do the issue we have discovered how to unlock Project Fusion's abilities." Dr List could see Strucker's interest peak as his raised brows wrinkled his bald head.

List continued after Strucker did not add anything, "The pain from the memory removal machine seemed to have activated a survival response from the tesseract mutation. The fused elements of the tesseract appear to share the body's desire to keep its host alive. After the removal of pain, the radiation characteristic to the tesseract lowered to almost the original level. This suggests that the pain had slightly activated the tesseract element of her genes."

Strucker sighed impatiently, "Get to the point."

"I believe that if we continue to force the tesseract elements of the genes out to protect its host than the fusion may become completely active, allowing the host to manipulate space at will."

A small jut of Strucker's cheek suggests that he is smiling, "Every good doctor. Continue your experiments. I want you to test the limits of our weapon's power. If it remembers, wipe it again."

"But due to the nature of Project Fusion's abilities, the wiping cannot be completed."

"Then wipe it again! Do it as many times as it takes. Project Fusion cannot remember." Strucker announced with no room for argument.

Dr List sighed as he exited the office. Memory removal had always been ambiguous. The wiping never completely permanent and was often disrupted by familiar stimulus. Project Fusion's would never be secure. This could lead to troubling jumps in thought and distractions. Dr List frowned as he wrote these worries into his observation notebook.

BBB

She sat on her bed staring at the metal door. It was huge, taking up a third of the wall. She had gotten through the metal restraints somehow. Maybe she could get through the door and avoid any more of those painful sessions with the arachnid looking machine. She squinted her eyes shut trying to recreate the events. She could not remember much other event or nearly anything from before it but she could recall an ethereal buzzing beneath the skin. She blocked out the outside only focusing on the sounds echoing within her. She could hear the rhythmic thumping of her heart and the swish of air traveling through her lungs, up her windpipe, and out her nose. She tried to move past the basic noises and go deeper. Eventually, she recognised the subtle pump of her vein, resonating softly the beat of her heart. The noise was different, though. As if the journey throughout her cardiovascular system had changed the sound into something else.

She felt the buzzing more than heard it. It was faint but it was there, swirling through her veins and disappearing into the muscle and tissue that surrounded it. The energy did not belong with the rest of her but it seemed to be weaving itself into her. Stretching itself into every vital part of her it tiny doses.

She called to it like she had done before but it did not listen. The energy did not seem powerful enough even if it did listen. It was weaker than before. She opened her eyes to find what she already knew, her attempt had failed. Whatever it was that saved her from the piercing pain of that machine was not helping her now.

She sighed. She had no idea how she got to this place nor could she imagine anything outside of this room and the one that horrible chair was in. All she truly knew for sure was that she did not like this place and she needed to get out before they give the chair another go.

Her brain did not feel barren but like there was something blocking her from…something. As she focused she could feel somethings cluttering the empty space. They were plans. Tactics. As well as training in hand-to-hand combat and firearms. She could not remember the details but it was more a feeling of experience. As if the knowledge was locked into her body.

She continued to search for anything. She then found a vague… memory, yes that is the word, of a man with lengthy brown hair dressed in black holding a gun to her. She could remember the pain she felt from the shot. He stared at her with icy eyes as she died. Is that how she got here? Had they saved her? Was this man still after her?

Her questions were interrupted by the creak and whine of the large door.

The door revealed the old man from before, the one who wrote in his book. He smiled at her but it did not reach his eyes, "Hello Project Fusion. You are HYDRA'S tool to save humanity. We rescued you, do you remember?"

Project Fusion. Was that her name? It did not feel right but nothing really did.

Project Fusion hesitated before answering, "There was a man with dark hair and black clothes. He shot me and watched me die."

"Good, good," the man nodded. "Do you remember anything else?"

"No," Project Fusion cringed, trying to find anything else formed in her memory. Wait should she trust this man? He had hurt her. "If I died, how am I here?"

"You did not die," he answered surely, "You were shot by a dangerous assassin called The Winter Soldier. We found you and saved you. If this assassin were to find out that you were still alive he will try and kill you. You must avoid him and not listen to a word he says. He is a master of deception. He will make you believe he means you no harm. If he does confront you, you must kill the Winter Soldier immediately." Project Fusion nodded taking the information in. It was difficult to judge if she could trust this man without any other information. "HYDRA are your saviours and in turn you must help us save the world."

The grey-haired man turned to the silent guards, who waited for instruction as still as a stone, "Now bring Project Fusion to the lab. We have experiments to run."

BBB

Strapped into this chair once again was the last place Project Fusion wanted to be. The cold metal a constant reminder of the frenzy of her nerves. Her only consolation, the helmet that had nearly torn her mind into pieces was left dormant, away from her head.

She still hated the restraints that nipped at her arms and legs. The small room they kept her in was bad enough. The silence of the room was painfully present with the lack of sounds other than the aged man's typing at his computer, bouncing off the tiled walls.

He finished his typing and reported into a small recording device, "Project Fusion test #1: With the knowledge that the mutation responds to the pain and possible threat to the host, we now begin the gradual escalation of pain to investigate at what point the mutation becomes dominant. First test, electrocution."

She didn't have much time to panic over his last word before the terrifying scorpion-shaped machine behind the chair was lowered over her and shot pain through her spine and burned her legs.

BBB

Dr List closely observed Project Fusion's physiological reaction to the pain, tuning out the ruckus it was making. He leaned into his recorder again, "Power level 4/10: slight, temporary translucency of limbs. Increased illumination of veins suggests the mutation is becoming more dominant in blood cells."

Dr List gradually turned up the power, delighted to find the reactions of the mutation increasing with it. His frown returns as Project Fusion's screams interrupt his note making. He motions for the guards to give it something to bite down on. Maybe then it will quite down. "Power level 7/10: faint blue aura appears around subject, resembling the Tesseract. Radiation has dramatically increased within subject. Entire body becomes translucent but only for a moment. Subject shows no control over abilities."

He turns it up one more level. His aged, objective eyes watch her withering form for any new signs. She strains her hands against the restraints causing the skin to bruise and tear. His salt and pepper eyebrows shot up as half of Project Fusion's arms were consumed with the blue signature to the Tesseract, before fading away. Its muted screams grew more aggressive. The remainder of its arms lifted up, past where the restraints had originally allowed. When its arms once again became whole they were free of the metal bindings. It looked at them in awe and confusion before being shocked senseless once more. It clawed at the remaining restraints like a caged beast. Project Fusion was clearly not in control of its abilities or possessed an understanding of them.

Dr List turned off the electrocution device and hastily made his notes. He scanned it once more. The radiation admitted by the Tesseract and to some level Project Fusion had lowered back down with the pain or sense of danger. Though the levels were slightly elevated from those recorded before the test. Dr List smiled.

The power of the Tesseract was slowly coming out of hiding and its will will bend to HYDRA.

BBB

Project Fusion remained splattered on the floor for another moment, desperately sucking air into her lungs. It wasn't enough. Her lungs felt like they had been stretched to their limit and popped like a balloon. The whole released all the air she was gasping in like a dying fish.

Electrocution had not been anything close to a pleasant experience but it had been nothing compared to the tank.

Project Fusion after another fun round of shocking, great all the tests were making her sarcastic, had come in for the third to find a large tank filled with water instead of the chair. She now regreted the relief that had flowed her at its absence.

Apparently, Dr List wasn't getting the long-term results he wanted from the first two tests so the third took a more life threatening route. He was trying to coerce her powers out through self-preservation. For that, he needed to convince her body she was dying.

And she felt like it every second in there.

They had launched her into the tank with a large breath and to her instant distress, they had placed a seal over the top of the tank. No air. No escape.

That minute had stretched out to an eternity. The lack of air and the promise of even less with every second had sent her body into a frenzy. She remembered thrashing and banging on glass. Black dots in her vision. And then someone hoisting her out of the tank and into a beautifully oxygen-rich environment.

A few minuted were given before test four. This time she remembered to cram in as much air as her lungs would take. Her heart once again painfully bashing into her torso as her lungs continued to constraint and shrink. She was sure it was longer this time. At one point, she swore the gravity around her lung changed. No longer slowed by water but kicking as one would through the air.

Men watched with interest as she begged for help. For air.

Two more times and here she was lying on the floor with water dripping off her skin and clinging to her hair. The clothes they had given her seemed kind of waterproof but eventually the water found a way in to soak her bones.

Her chest swelled with air before puffing it out unevenly. Her hands were bruised, she frowned. They were starting to go a sickly yellow and blackish blue.

She could hear Dr List talking but she could not find the energy to listen. Rough arms clenched around her arms and hauled Project Fusion up and to her room, or cell. She was carelessly dropped on the floor but she did not bother to show outrage or to stand herself up. She continued to lay limp. Just breathing. It didn't matter anyway. She was locked up. There was nowhere to go and she had no blanket to dry herself with. She might as well drain out onto the tiled floor.

BBB

Project Fusion thought she had been given respite from the torture but after how many days of not contact, stimulation and minimal food, she realised that it had never ended. The lack of food was likely to have the aim of switching her body into survival mode.

Her only stimulus was the repeating drone of a recorded voice, "You are Project Fusion. You are HYDRA'S tool to save humanity. Obey and we will rescue the world its corrupt order." The voice was thickly accented with a sharp, direct end with every sentence.

She ran her hands roughly over her face as the words echoed throughout her brain. She did not know if she believed them but she did not like the growing familiarity of the lines.

BBB

The isolation had stopped and the tests began. A cycle of electrocution, drowning and seclusion. The brainwashing had not had much success. She still did not accept what the words ordered her to but she did feel the repetition doing odd things to her mind that she did not understand. So far it had not affected her conscious mind. The tests on the other hand, were slow but progressive. Project Fusion could tell that whatever HYDRA wanted was working with every grin from Dr List as he scanned her radiation levels.

She could feel it now coursing through her veins, twisting through her muscles. She was stronger now. The restraints whined as she pulled against them with all her might. The wall of the tank shook with the throw of her fists. It was not enough to break free.

With her development, a whole new set of tests began. Dr List had noticed the abnormally fast healing of her bruises and scabs and theorised the accelerated reproduction of cells. Project Fusion ran her hand over the blistering, inflamed skin of her forearm. It stung to the touch. She smiled bitterly at the healing burn.

To test her healing ability, they first had to break something. At firs,t it had been a cut across her shoulder. With positive results, it turned into a dislocated finger. The joint had not righted itself. She stared at the finger looking for any signs of abnormality to her other fingers. She couldn't see any other than a slight bump. The medical doctor had relocated it when the digit remained slanted and swelled.

Then acid and finally, they had burnt her arm. She was sure they would break her leg if the time it took to heal wasn't so inconvenient. Her healing was faster than average but not significantly. 'Yet' they would say.

BBB

The second-degree burn took six days to heal. According to Dr List the average was two – three weeks. The skin was smooth and pale. As if the pain had never existed. There was no remnant of what had made scream her voice raw. No acknowledgment of her endurance of the heat biting and digging into her skin. She received no scar.

They called her for today. Though she never knew when a new day of dread had begun. Time was measured by her tests, not clocks or sunlight.

If she was correct today was drowning. They now left her in the water for two minutes. She was normally heaved out once unconsciousness started to coat her senses. Her body only trembled lightly as Project Fusion approached the tank. Her mind still fell to panic. Her nerves jumping into an involuntary frenzy. An attempted escape from tests, would be punished with a jab of a taser before returning back to the tank. And there were six heavily armed guards surrounding the room to stop any mad dash. She had already calculated her low chance of escape. That didn't stop her body from begging her to run as far from the tank as possible.

Project Fusion slowly climbed the ladder leading to the top of the tank. She didn't know if her sluggish ascent was better, postponing the panic; or worse in elongating the dread. It didn't matter because soon she was at the top and the scientist shoved her into the tank when her feet forced a step away.

The familiar yet still completely panic-inducing sensation of being wholly surrounded by an uninhabitable environment washed over her. The water sloshed and bubbled as she twisted and thrashed, creating more chaos. There it was, her lungs tightened. The need for air becoming painfully apparent. Her body knew she had no way to get it and her blood rushed with adrenaline that offered no help. It only powered up her heart until it hammered against her constricting chest. The pulse vibrated right through to her fingertips.

She couldn't stop her mouth from opening in a scream, letting out her precious air. She clawed at the glass. Her blurred vision showing figures still in her turmoil. She could feel her body grow sluggish, conserving oxygen but her clawing grew more desperate. Rushing water was everywhere. She had no control over her body.

"Annie."

She spun around as fast as she could manage. There was no one there but the voice was right in her ear. What was Annie?

"Annie."

It was a man with a strong but soft voice. It was in her head she realised now.

"We're stuck with each other."

Bucky.

Bucky! She remembered. Oh Bucky. And Steve! She had to find them.

Annie felt a rush of energy with her new determination. She had never let anything stop her before what was a little bit of water and am evil organisation?

Her desperate clawing turned to resolute pounds on the glass. She felt her whole body light up like a firecracker she had watched with Bucky on their last night.

The build-up didn't stop. The energy continued to rise up until she felt like a supernova. Her eyes squeezed shut from the all-consuming light. The last of her air escaped as Annie's mouth tore open with a scream of something between pain, victory and actualisation.

Time seemed to stop.

The light was still there in its magnificence but it no longer blinded her. She could feel all the water around her and its presence no longer frightened her. It was under her control, no longer a hostile force.

A step away lay another world or rather another element to it that she had never known. She took the step, always the curious one, and was enveloped in space. Not stars and galaxies but distance or the lack of it. Annie was everywhere but nowhere. It was all within her reach.

It was like space had just torn open and welcomed her in as a friend. It was hers to use, manipulate and see. Every measurable and immeasurable element of space given to her senses.

It urged her to continue through. She could not stay here long. Space followed her will but she was not completely one with it.

Annie stepped and the testing laboratory flashed back but she was no longer in the tank but on the other side of the room. The tank was severely cracked with water leaking from every 45cm sections of the glass.

Wait. She could see the volume, circumference, height, and thickness of the tank. It was like her eyes came with a grid. She spun around; the chair was 3.479 meters away, the tiles on the wall varied between 15.635 and 15.9276 centimeters and the guard to the left takes up 0.085 m3. She knew the distance and size of everything. Her eyes widened. She could see physical space. That wasn't just some crazy hallucination from oxygen deprivation.

Annie looked down at herself. She was drenched, head to toe. She ignored this fact when she noticed the very obvious pulsing of blue light in the veins of her wrist. She didn't have time to search all of her changes as the guards and Dr List started to regain their composure.

She needed to get to Bucky and Steve. As Annie shot up she felt space move around her. The tear hadn't been closed. The first smile she had worn since leaving Bucky, stretched wickedly across her face. She leapt through space appearing beside a confused guard. With new strength, she slammed him into the wall. Within an instant, she dipped into the little breach in space and popped out beside another HYDRA guard. Annie swept his legs and punched him in the face. She did the same to another and another feeling a strength and stamina she had never before.

Finally, she appeared behind Dr List who scrambled to the radio. Annie's fist slammed down on the weaseling man, knocking him out promptly. Finally, she could get away. Find Bucky and tell him she would never leave him again. Call Steve and apologize for not telling him she was alive. She would reunite the two and they would all be together again.

The tear in space gladly opened back up for her in the burst of blue light she had not noticed before. The light rolled and moved like a sentient cloud around the rip. Annie envisioned Clint's house, where it was. She felt it. She stepped through but did not appear back at her destined location. Suspended in the gap in space she saw a semi-transparent wall 47.76 meters away. She strode toward it. Appearing beside the wall a moment later. Annie rested her hand on it and the energy echoed her touch before zapping it away.

"Ouch," she yelled to no one but space.

The wall circled her completely with a wide circumference forming a dome. Great, HYDRA has a force field and apparently, she can't teleport through it. She had to turn it off. The controls must be the complex somewhere.

She jumped out the opening, into a hallway she had never seen before but it fit in the rest of the facility. Her heart sank as an alarm thundered throughout the stone building. She had to find the controls fast. After that, they would never find her again. It was likely HYDRA knew this too, making them more desperate to catch her as soon as possible.

It became a random series of jumps within the force field. Hallway, lab, cells, communal bathroom. Annie paused shocked by a sudden glance at the lightly smudged mirrors. She postponed her frantic search to look closer at the mirrored glass. She doubted they would be searching the bathroom for her anyway.

Her reflection was the same as she remembered it but her cheeks had less of a plump to them, the rosy colour gone and dark bags encrusted her eyes. But that wasn't what drew her attention. Her eyes were glowing. No, not from happiness or tears. They were literally luminescent blue. If she put her hand close enough to her face, the blue light shed onto it. The colour was odd, yet familiar and otherworldly. It seemed alive as it twisted within her iris, covering her pupil. She almost looked blind but the colour hadn't disrupted her vision, in fact it had enhanced it. The only time she had seen anything like it was- the Tesseract. Wait, maybe that was why she could see space. It was a random shot in the dark, Annie was no biologist.

She shook her head. This was not the time to ponder. Bruce could figure it out once she escaped.

Jump after jump she appeared all over the base. She searched but she could not find the source of the force field. She could feel HYDRA catching up with her. They knew she couldn't leave. This made more jumps faster and more callous until she appeared right in the middle of a search party.

Before Annie had a chance to escape, six bodies flung themselves onto her. Annie scratched and kicked at the weight but they were still able to strap a collar to her neck. The bodies gave away after that and Annie took the chance. She called out to the tear but the connection was cut when a bolt of electricity shocked through her frame.

"Take her to the chair!" a commanding voice shouted. Her arms were once again latched onto and she was dragged down the corridor. A shrill of fear sizzled up her spin and zapped at her head. No, she didn't want to forget again. She didn't want to feel that pain again. All she wanted was to be with Bucky and Steve again. To hear their voices, feel the security of their embrace. But Annie knew the odds. No matter how resourceful she was, there was no getting out.

I know this is depressing but hang in there! Merry Christmas everyone.

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seriously the lack of reviews has been making it really hard to find motivation and confidence for this story. I don't care if it's feedback, reactions, predictions, ideas or questions about the characters, story or relationships. I just like hearing that you guys are enjoying and engaging with my story.