Whaaaaaat, I'm posting a new chapter so quickly?! Well it's Easter and this is my gift to you guys. And I have an assignment coming up that I'm ignoring for now. Please review!

Chapter 42

The whack, whack, of the punching bag sounded from the gym. Steve stalked through the dark hallway and curiously peeked through the door to the gym. Who else would be up at 2am? Sure Tony never slept but he spent his nights hidden away in his workshop not the gym.

Bucky, in a sleeveless exercise shirt that showed off the bionic arm he usually tried to hide, swung at the hanging bag like he was fighting for his life. Sand poured from a series of wholes worn into the thick material by rigorous wear.

Still unaware of Steve's presence, Bucky let out a frustrated roar and he let a final slam of his fist rip the top off the bag. The ripped bag flying to into the exercise bike.

"The extra punching bags are in the storage room," Steve pointed to the left while leaning casually on the door frame.

Bucky just breathed deeply, not turning to address Steve. Steve sighed. He had thought when they had found Bucky that the two would become best friends again but his old friend had been distant. Steve had tried over and over to make him feel comfortable and renew their relationship. He just desperately wanted him to remember. To stop treating him like a stranger.

"Buck?" Steve called again, uncertain. But Bucky still hadn't moved.

Steve decided to come to him, walking around Bucky's still body. Bucky's growing hair hid his eyes but noticeable tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Buck," Steve breathed, trying to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. But Bucky nudged it away and tried to exit the room.

"It's about Annie isn't it?"

Bucky froze. His shoulders stiffened. "Its my fault she's in this mess."

"If you're looking for blame, it's on me. I was the one who got both of you into this whole mess. Just because I couldn't run away from a fight."

Bucky finally turned to face Steve. "If she was here, she'd hit you in the head and tell you to get over yourself," Bucky said with a ghost of amusement in his tone.

"You're right," Steve signed as he ran his hand through his hair.

"She talked about you a lot, about how much she missed you and how annoying you were."

Steve chuckled for the first time in nearly a year. "Yeah that sounds like Annie."

Bucky allowed himself to get closer to Steve, "She took me to your exhibit. Told me about how we ran around constantly as kids and got into fights almost everyday. She wanted me to remember you. I think it was so she didn't have to hold onto you alone."

Steve felt a dam break. He needed to know, "Why didn't she come to me? Why did she let me think she was dead?"

Bucky sighed, the sound abnormally loud in the large empty space of the gym. The fingers of his metal hand twitched comfortably. "We weren't safe from HYDRA. They knew she was important to me, so when she was alone they took her. Her face, Steve-" Bucky shuddered, "She looked so scared. They wiped me into the Winter Soldier again and sent me back to kill her. I almost did but she brought me back. She didn't want you to have to lose her all over again if they found us. She didn't want to cause you more pain."

Steve's voice shook as he stared at his feet, "She must've known I didn't see it that way. It was- It is my job to look out for her."

Steve's eyes widened as he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. Steve wanted to crush him in a hug so bad. But he didn't want to push the progress they'd made.

An hour later they sat cross-legged on Steve's floor surrounded by cardboard boxes filled with Annie's things. Steve held up a record, telling Bucky how they had secretly worked at a barbers as sweeping boys for weeks to save up for one for her birthday.

"Annie thought we were off fighting in an alley somewhere and she got so mad. Then we gave it to her and almost broke my ribs because she hugged me so hard," Steve laughed.

Bucky intently jotted down notes in his book.

"And she gave you a kiss on the cheek and you grinned like an idiot for a week. Every time I teased you about it you made up some excuse."

"-and you believed it like a punk," Bucky added at the end off-handedly while scribbling in his book.

Steve snapped his head to Bucky. "Buck, did you just call me a 'punk'?" he said and tone higher than usual.

"Ah yeah?" Bucky answered hesitantly.

Steve's face broke out into a content smile, "Nothin' Bucky. I'm just glad you're here."

BBB

Without a place to go, without anyone to find, she let the force within her sweep her away from the wave of blaring traffic. She followed something warm buried deep within, desperately pulling on any strand she could to find somewhere she belonged.

The light of her portal dissipated with show faded yellow walls. Paint that hinted to once being warm, was peeling off the walls from a lack of maintenance. The whole room spoke of being left for time to eat away at it. For some reason the scrapped wooden floors, the dusted aged furniture, and the cracking walls made her somehow miserable and comforted at the same time.

Her hand unconsciously brushed the wall. Flakes of paint falling as she did. There was a nail wedged in the plaster with a pale rectangular stain around it. There was a photo here. Of a man with curly blonde hair in a miss-fitting suit and a woman with bright eyes and a faded white dress. She held miss-matched wildflowers and smiled brightly at her. Or the camera she supposed. The man wore a small grin he directed to the woman. Like she was sunshine in a storm.

How did she know a photo that wasn't even there so well? It was like she had spent a large amount of her life staring at it.

She continued to trace along the wall. Every step smothering her with blurry familiarity. She came to a door frame that jutted out of the wall. The room had a small window that light pilled through due to the time of the late afternoon. It only had an empty worn desk and a lumpy mattress sitting on a chipped wooden bed. She noticed there was also a wobbly chair in the corner of the room.

She moved it to the side of the bed and sat down. Why, she didn't know. It felt like the thing to do in this room. Elvira stared at the bed. Someone was sick in this room. And lonely.

"I used to sit here and talk to you. But I can't remember who you are… but you were so happy when I came here. We- I think we played cards. I can't picture what you looked like but you were smaller than me or the same height? Maybe you just seemed smaller than you were. No one understands how unreliable memories are more than me." She sat there in silence for a few minutes staring out the window. The house next door was nestled close to this one but a tree had been planted between the house so the view from the window was framed by green leaves. "Sometimes there was another boy here. He slept on the floor on couch cushions. You two laughed most of the night. He made you happy and that made me happy."

She froze at the last word. Her eyes stung as tears started to form. She was happy once. She cared about someone and they had cared about her. A small smile formed across the tears that tipped down her cheeks. It was crooked, like her muscles were rusty, unused to the pull of her lips.

"So fill to me the parting glass and drink a health what ev'r befall. And gently rise and softly fall-". The words to the song she hummed! Well some of them. She can't remember who was singing it to the boy in the bed. Was it her or the woman in the picture. Had she learnt it from her? She could faintly hear a shaky voice try to reach the higher notes. She still enjoyed the soft voice and the weak accent that twinged over the words. The boy closed his eyes and smiled faintly as he listened. No matter how sick the boy was, this was a happy place. Which was something she needed.

So she sat in that chair with one leg that was too short for hours. Trying the pluck everyone memory of the boy she had sat beside. He was blonde with kind eyes but she wasn't sure of the colour. He laughed even when he didn't feel too good because he wanted to make her feel helpful and happy.

She only noticed that the room had become dark when the deep roar of heavy vehicles outside rang through the improperly sealed window. Elvira darted to what had been the living room of the house, peeking through the drawn blinds of the front windows. Elvira saw what she had expected and feared. Three of HYDRA's SVUs pulled up, black figures racing out of the backs. Right in front of the house a device had been set up. A force field.

They were going to ruin the only happy place she knew. But she wasn't going to let them take the memories she had just gotten back.

BBB

"Cap!" they heard a frantic call.

All eyes darted to Sam Wilson who tumbled through the door with surprising urgency. "Cap! Annie! I saw her. She's not with HYDRA." With the words out of his mouth he leaned on his knees as jagged breaths escaped his gap-toothed mouth.

He was only given a moment to recover before Bucky had his neck in the lock of his tightening bionic arm. The room erupted in shock. "This isn't something you fucking joke about," Bucky darkly warned through clenched teeth.

"I'm not joking." Sam strained before Bucky loosened his grip to hear him talk. "What kind of person do you think I am?" Sam returned the hostility. "Jarvis, show car accident at 2:38, M Street and 11th Street Southeast intersection, DC."

Sam was released as Bucky turned to the video that appeared at the front of the room. An intersection Bucky knew very well was projected. It was where he saw Annie for the first time after 70 years of brainwashing. Where had shot her and made the decision to leave HYDRA. He could see Sam in his car just entering the corner of the screen. The middle of the video suddenly fills with blue light and dissipates the next moment to reveal the blonde head he had longed to see more than he could have realised. Her hands land on the front of Sam's car denting the metal as she stops the car from running her down. Her head darts around before another flash light and she's gone. The video continues but Bucky's eyes unfocus. He doesn't know how long he stays frozen with blurred vision. His brain was just trying to catch up. Was this good or bad. She was free from HYDRA but now she would be harder to find and vulnerable to other dangers, especially without her memory.

When he finally shook his head, returning to reality, all eyes were worriedly watching him. The gazes were removed with a swift glare in all directions. The silence started to break with Tony's voice, "How do we even know Annie's not with HYDRA anymore? They could be putting her out on killing sprees."

"She didn't kill anyone," Steve asserted with an edge in his voice.

Natasha cut in quickly hoping to distract Steve from Tony's poor choice of words, "No this wasn't HYDRA. They're more organised than this. She was impulsive and confused… and scared."

Tony's jaw tightened, a clear sign that he knew he lost the argument but was too proud to admit it. "Jarvis show me any sightings or reports of a flash of blue light."

"I have found a few reports of flashes of blue light and gun shots in 97 Tapscott st, Brooklyn, 27 minutes ago. I need time to categorise more," Jarvis' clear voice informed.

"Does that ring a bell?" Tony twisted around.

Steve tensed, "That's our childhood home."

BBB

When they arrived at the scene police were still busy trying to figure out if the one call and two facebook posts were something serious or a party out of control. With the latter more likely and the business of the night, they had not yet investigated.

The Avengers looked nervously at one another as Steve, with a hard look in his eye, marched straight into the house that was once his home. Bucky was the next to enter and the inside was just as he had feared.

Two dozen dead bodies littered the floor of the house. Red staining the hardwood floors and faded yellow walls. His eyes turned to his friend standing in amidst the bodies with his head dropped and hands fisted. "She didn't do this," Steve whispered, more trying to convince himself than anyone else. Bucky knew better.

Bucky looked at the bodies, all clad in HYDRA's generic battle uniform. Guns were scattered about next to the bodies. Many of them had a bullet wound in the head or heart. This wasn't Annie's normal shot to incapacitate. All of these were with the direct intent to kill as efficiently as possible, like the Winter Soldier.

"Oh no," Natasha murmured from the corner of the room. Bucky dodged the bodies as he made his way over to her. The assassin was staring at a body that lay beside its removed spine. Bucky squatted down beside the body and turned him to view his back. No sign of removal. "She has full control of her powers," Bucky informed Natasha.

"Her powers have much worse application than I thought," Bruce muttered staring at the divided body by the door they had all missed. The perfect cut, separating one half of the torso from the other allowing the organs to escape.

Natasha felt her frown deepen into her features. Wanting to look anywhere but the floor, she saw Clint in the corner of the main room, his head trained on the floor. He didn't show it as much as Bucky and Steve but Natasha knew this situation was killing him.

She put her hand on the archer's shoulder with a sad smile in a horrible attempt to make him feel better. She wasn't the best at comforting people.

Clint's lips tweaked in her direction but never formed a real smile. "You think I'd be happy at how good her aim has gotten."

"We'll get her back Clint. Not even HYDRA can take away our girl. She's made of marble." Natasha couldn't help the ring of her old headmistress' line. But for Annie it didn't seem like a cold, dead scarred image of the unbreakable stone. No, Annie was the type of marble that was carved into something beautiful and determined with the veins of the stone striking like silent lightening. The type of marble that seemed delicate but dared you to try and break it. HYDRA could not mould her.

Clint's face softened, "If I can't teach her how to use the copy machine how the hell are HYDRA going to brainwash her.

Bucky dared the trek up to Steve. His eyes were hard set. "Steve, these weren't innocent civilians. They were HYDRA soldiers here to take her back to HYDRA for another wiping." Bucky found not an inch of judgement towards Annie or her actions. Not a single body in this room was a good man. She did herself and the world a favour. But he knew Steve would struggle to see it that way.

"Buck, I can't believe she killed all these people. She ripped them to shreds," Steve was wide eyed as he glanced at amputated arm grasping a gun, he hadn't found the accompanying body.

"What do you think they have been doing to her for the past months? They have been tearing her apart and putting the pieces back how they want it and when she doesn't fit their perfect weapon they tear her apart again," Bucky tried to contain his voice. Steve doesn't understand how HYDRA is. These men deserved this.

"When we find Annie," he said with certainty, "she is going to be different and she'll need you. You can't be looking down at her from your tower of righteousness when that time comes. She deserves that much."

Steve stares Bucky right in the eye with that glint of endless determination mixed with stubbornness. Bucky was glad to see it. "No matter what she does I'll still be there for her Buck. She's always done been there for me." His certainty wavered, "What about you?"

"I'm the reason she's in this mess. I doubt she'll want me around."

Steve gripped his shoulder reassuringly, "I've known you guys for almost 90 years. You two have always stuck together. Sometimes a little too close for my liking but I doubt that'll change."

Captain America turned to the group with renewed authority, "Avengers, let's get out of here."

BBB

As she crumbled the force field device in her hands she knew she had to move. She didn't know where though. As she searched, Elvira felt a deep tug. It was similar to the one that and complied her to come to this house but it was stronger. It settled a want in every crevice of her being. It felt alive and it was calling for her with the promise of something familiar. How she craved familiarity.

She followed the call. Space opened up for her like a sure path leading straight home. As if this was the way it was meant to fold and bend. It coiled warmly around her body and took her through the journey to that lovely familiarity. Once wrapped in space she realised something felt odd. She walked and felt a wall. It wasn't like the barrier of force fields. This wall varied in strength. She moved along it until the wall wielded to the pressure of her hand. It was weak here. She pushed through and it gave way. She suddenly lost all orientation and tumbled through the barrier for what felt like hours.

She eyes cautiously opened after she felt a cool solid surface under her. Elvira immediately squinted her eyes as a light unlike any she had witnessed flooded her eyes. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the new brightness but the light retained a shimmer that it cast on everything. Not that her surrounding needed this added splendour, they were magnificent enough on their own. The large room had large golden walls that stretched for what seemed like miles to end in an elaborate flourish of impossibly intricate patterns and motifs that on closer inspection told a story and a woman. Columns of the same gold spiralled down to the ceiling in perfect symmetry. There floors were vast and made of pristine marble. There were no windows but Elvira had to imagine the outside was just as grand.

In the centre of the room stood a pedestal of crystal that appeared to have grown up out of the marble floor a sprouted a beautiful ensemble of gold tipped leaves. On this plinth sat a glowing cube covered by a dome of pulsing energy. The white energy throbbed softly but held a silent power.

Elvira's eyes couldn't help but fall again on the cube. The same feeling of familiarity wafted through her. Had the cube been calling to her?

She then realised she had stood up and moved closer to it. When had that happened? It was not the cube that was glowing with was something inside that radiated the unnatural glow. It drifted about the cube. The colour was familiar but alien. Elvira imagined this would be the colour of lightning if it was slow enough to observe it. The almost blinding light swirled with a void black reminding her of a storm cloud in the instant the raw, chaotically precise power of lightning struck through it.

The rolling motions of the power inside the cube mesmerised her. They twisted and glided for her in the most frighteningly beautiful dance she had ever seen. She felt the call again but this was consuming her more than a tug. It urged her soul to join in its dance. She could not even dream of her eyes leaving the spectacle.

She was so engulfed by the motion of the light, Elvira almost missed the deep humming. How long had that been there and where was it coming from? Listening intently Elvira noted that the humming was originating from the cube, or what was inside it. To more she focused on the noise that more it began to distinguish itself into phenomes and then almost words. It was calling a name. one she had not heard before but felt homely. The voice that spoke was as alluring as the rolling clouds of light. The sound wrapping her up like a blanket, promise and longing etched into it.

The almost words reminding her of a mother embracing her child home. She wanted to return home. To be safe and loved at last.

A blaring noise pierced deep into her eardrums. The communication of the cube broke away with the noise. Elvira realised that her hand was pressed against the cube with the light huddled towards the palm. She wrenched her hand away in panic. Her limb mimicking the same eerie glow as the cube even after being removed. Elvira frowned at the curious reaction. Wait, how had she penetrated the energy shield?

"Now isn't really time for those sorts of questions."

"Whose there!" Elvira shouted in the most dangerous tone she could manage.

The male voice spoke once more, "Again, with the pointless questions. There isn't much time so if you are wise, you will quickly travel 30 meters upward and 547 meters to the right."

There was no one around and despite the continuing alarm, the voice was clear and crisp just like when Wanda spoke to her telepathically.

She could hear the heavy, fast steps of a lot of very large people and decided it was best to follow the instructions given. In an instant space once again opened on her command, taking her exactly where the voice had directed. Not a single sign of her remained in the strange room containing the even stranger cube.

The blue energy of her trip vanished leaving her in a much less grand area that was more of a very long hall than a room. All the walls of smoothed rock were caved in, leaving small, individual, rectangular rooms spread down the dim hallway. Each room was surrounded by yellow energy like that around the cube.

"Oh good, so you can follow instructions," the voice from before drawled, this time outside her head. She twisted to the sound and saw a bored-looking man in one of the rooms. His physicality was strong and regal, with a hand stationed behind his back and the other perching open a book. The man had raven hair that sleeked to just past his shoulders and ghostly skin. Or did it just seem ghostly due to contrast of his dark hair?

He finally turned his sharp, seafoam eyes to her and commented with a hint of surprise, "For one that wields cosmic power, you are quite insignificant looking."

Elvira was surprised by the blatant insult but retorted nonetheless, "I would call that an advantage."

The man returned to his book but Elvira caught his raised eyebrow. "So, there is some intelligence in there."

"Where am I?" Elvira had to ask.

He finally put his book on a decorative little table and sighed exasperatedly, "You, little cosmic fusion, are in Asgard, the City Eternal." The name seemed grand enough to fit the first room she had seen but it did not ring any bells. The man understood this and added, "Home of your friend Thor."

She didn't have a friend with such a weird name. She only had two friends named Pietro and Wanda who she already missed. The tall, lean man quickly realised she did not recognise the name. "You have no memories," he stated with hidden surprise.

Elvira squinted at the face of the man wondering, "Why, did we know each other?"

"No. I am Loki, rightful heir to the throne of Asgard." His head tilted slightly higher with the title. Elvira smiled that the small action despite the man's manner that screamed dangerous.

"You can call me Elvira, Loki. Sorry I'm not going to say the whole title," she raised her hands in defence.

He rolled his eyes, "You are just as intolerable as my br- Thor's friends." Elvira noticed the slip up but didn't bring attention to it. There must be some issues there and she did not wish to get on his bad side. His good side had saved her ass.

"So why are you locked up?" She blurted. Good job staying on his good side.

Another roll of the eyes, he seems displeased with much of everything. "I have been imprisoned for saving Asgard from a foolish king and a race of resentful monsters as well as an endeavour to bring peace to a race of lower beings."

She quirked a questioning eyebrow at him, "Is that how everyone sees it?"

"If that were the case, I would not be in this situation, would I?" He muttered bitterly.

"You don't seem human, you look it but somethings off," Elvira wondered aloud.

He huffed, "Eloquently put. No, I am, in comparison to your race, a god. Though you have significantly risen from your lowly origin as a Midgardian. Not many beings have successfully fused with an infinity stone. Even if it is only a portion. Never a Midgardian."

"What is a Midgardian?"

"Descendent of Midgard, the middle realm. Earth as you put it. Human," He clarifies disinterestedly.

"Oh," She nods.

"Tell me," he raised a quizzical eyebrow, "were you able to touch the cube?"

She frowned that the silly question. Of course she could touch the object. "Yes," She answered, wondering if he was referring to the energy field around it but that had not been difficult to pass through.

His perfectly sculpted eyebrows shot up in surprise. "No Midgardian has ever possessed the power necessary to wield an infinity stone," he wondered aloud. It was very likely he had verbal diarrhea after spending a while in a cell.

"Why? what happens to those who can't wield it?" She had to ask.

"The unlimited power consumes them. Yet it did not happen to you little Fusion. Why?" his undivided attention was on her answer.

"I have no idea. It called to me and I came. Before I knew it the cube was in my hand and an alarm went off." She answered candidly. This man though hiding a deadly edge was more of a potential help than threat in his cell. He had already shown that he is willing to help her to a degree.

His eyes lit up with realisation. "The cosmic cube has bonded with you. I have only heard of it once but never to a lower being." She was getting rather sick of this lower being stuff.

"And that means?" she prompted.

He rolled his eyes once more. It appeared that he was growing tired of her lack of knowledge. "A wielder of an infinity stone does so by bending it to their powerful will. Lower beings have not ascended to that level connection with the cosmic to wield it so the infinity stone overwhelms them. But if the infinity stone choses a being to bond with than theoretically the will of the stone does not have to be controlled. It could instead move in synchronisation with the will of the bonded being," He tried to slow it down.

Elvira clarified, "So this cosmic cube is some magical stone that has bonded with me and that's where my powers come from?"

"To put it simply, yes," he responded.

"What is the infinity stone?" she needed to know for any of this to make sense.

"There are 5 infinity stones. They are physical manifestations of the universal, I won't get into the specifics. They contain unlimited power from one element of the universe. Your stone is space. It is everywhere in the universe at once and thus can go anywhere in an instant."

Elvira nodded, her powers were making more sense. But he had said she had bonded with only a fraction of the space infinity stone. That must remove the unlimited power part because she had gotten tired before from using her powers too much.

She carefully contemplated her response. "So if I have bonded with a portion of the space stone than can I travel anywhere in the universe or am I limited in where I can go?"

"Yes, you do only have a fraction of the power of the space stone within you but you are still connected to dimension of space. If space folds at your call than I do not see how distance will be an issue. Your presence here proves that you are capable of traveling between realms. But you cannot simply go wherever you wish in the nine realms if you cannot comprehend it. A map however would suffice. The stone knows all space so it can go wherever it pleases but the space stone power inside you is drawing its knowledge from your subconscious memory and your intertwined desires to go. That is what brought you here. You both wished to find its other half."

"Why are you helping me? Do you expect me to free you?" Elvira asked cautiously.

"You do not possess the blood or the skill in magic to open this cage." He looked away, his eyes go somewhere she could not follow as he more said to himself, "I helped you because I harbour no resentment to a fellow lost soul." He quickly regained his demeaner, "And I do not plan on staying in this cell forever. Perhaps when I am free you will return the favour?"

ooooooooh Loki got some screen time.

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