I woke up sometime later standing in the middle of a forest. It was night now and I heard crickets chirping around me. I had a splitting headache.

I gasped and recoiled, realizing I had metal plates all over my arms and a thought flashed through my mind that I had gotten impaled by something but when I clawed at them and they instantly fell off of me. The pile of metal that had clung onto my skin looked like pipes and black sheets of steel. I noticed a license plate among the scraps.

Fear rose in my belly as my eyes scanned the dark woods around me.

I had no idea where I was.

Head throbbing, I padded cautiously through the moonlight woods. Blood dripped into my eye and I wiped it off on the back of my hand. I was too scared to call out, scared that the crystal covered man might be in here somewhere too.

A gust of night air blew past me and I thought that I heard a voice.

I whipped around and saw a split second of movement as someone darted out of my vision.

"This way…" the voice whispered.

What the fuck no.

"Why should I?" I hissed back.

"…He's still here…" the voice rasped. "Hurry…"

I heard an animalistic scream somewhere distantly and I flinched. I decided that between the whispering creature and the crystal monster, I would take the quieter of the two.

I followed where the voice led me, catching glimpses of something white in the woods ahead of me every so often. It took me several minutes to work out who I was following through my pounding headache.

"Ghost?" I asked softly.

"Keep moving, girl…" she answered in a quivering voice.

"Where am I?" I insisted.

"I'm trying to help you, just keep quiet…" she pleaded, unhelpful as usual. Fear colored her high voice and I couldn't help but shiver.

I heard a loud snap behind me and I turned around to see something barreling through the woods after me, gaining on me quickly.

I felt something grab my wrist and I whipped around to see Ghost as she started pulling me through the woods.

"RUN!" she shrieked and the monster chasing us bellowed.

I ran after her blindly, thorny bushes cutting my legs and branches whipping my face. I eventually had the misfortune of tripping over a root and I crashed headfirst into the ground.

I saw the thing stampeding through the trees like a bull and I froze for an instant.

"GIRL!" Ghost shouted, heaving me to my feet and throwing me behind a tree and wrapping her arms around me.

I gasped out loud; it was like falling through a sheet of ice into the arms of a frozen lake.

She clamped a frigid hand over my mouth and hissed at me to shut up.

The crystalline beast skid to a halt right next to us, baring its needle pointed teeth and sniffing the air. It swung its head to look right at me, but its blazing eyes seemed to pass through me.

It growled and lumbered away, and I noticed that it had sharp spines made out of the same peridot crystals protruding out of its back.

Ghost and I stayed frozen for a few minutes, too scared to move.

"I think it's gone," Ghost whispered, letting go of me.

I shivered violently and hugged myself. I felt like it was winter all over again and I was asleep in that snowy barn, waiting for Bucky to come back and knowing he never would.

"Sorry," Ghost apologized, her ice blue eyes flitting around nervously. "I know that's not pleasant, but it was that or that thing was gonna catch you."

"Wh-where are we?" I asked through chattering teeth.

"Oh, um," she glanced around and shrugged. "I have no idea. Still in New York, like the state. Out in the middle of nowhere."

"What happened to me?" I asked. "I remembered that guy grabbing me and pulling me out of the window, but that's it."

Ghost's eyes wandered to the sky and she chewed on her lip. "Well that thing wasn't alone. They threw you in a van and I followed you guys for a while and you made them crash. All the human people died, but that thing didn't and neither did you."

My throat tightened. "What? I don't remember that."

Ghost shrugged exaggeratedly. "I dunno man, I'm just telling you what I saw."

I wanted to prod her more, but the cold was making it hard to focus. The night was wet and the wind was biting and all I had were the shorts and tank top that I had fallen asleep in.

"Well…" I said after a minute. "Let's start walking I guess."

We walked for an hour until we found a road and it started to rain. I couldn't feel my feet or my hands but I didn't let myself stop. Bucky and Steve had to know about that monster. What if it went back after them?

After what felt like another hour we stumbled upon a gas station that was glowing like a grimey miracle.

The woman at the desk was bewildered to see me, soaked to the bone in my pjs, but she let me use her cellphone to call Steve. I noticed that Ghost hadn't followed me into the store and she was nowhere to be found.

Steve picked up after two rings. "Hello?"

"Hi, Steve. Uh. It's Stella. I'm in… um…" I pulled the phone away from my mouth. "I'm sorry, where-where are we?"

"…Arietta," the woman said, still staring at me like I had two heads.

"Arietta," I repeated. "I don't know how I got here."

I heard a shuffle and muffled yelling for a second and then Bucky's voice came through the phone.

"STELLA?!" he shouted and I recoiled away from the phone. "WHERE ARE, YOU ARE YOU ALRIGHT?"

"Yes, I'm fine, I'm in Arietta," I said, rubbing my bare arms to warm them up. "I'm just cold and I don't know how I got here."

I glanced at the woman on the other side of the counter. "Just get here as soon as you can, okay?"

"We're on our way," he vowed. "Stay where you are, Sam will be there before us."

"Okay," I said, giving the cashier an awkward smile.

Bucky fussed and grilled me about my condition and how I had gotten there, but I didn't have anything to tell him. He wanted to stay on the phone with me, but they were 3 hours away even if they sped the entire way.

The woman was very kind, she gave me a sweatshirt that she found under the counter to wear because I was still soaked and trembling from the cold.

Sam arrived half an hour later and marched into the gas station in full Falcon gear and the woman's jaw dropped at the sight of him.

"Hey," he said casually.

"Hi Sam," I smiled at him and he moved the red goggles away from his eyes.

"Here, your boyfriend gave me some of your clothes because you said you were cold." Sam said, handing me a backpack he had strapped to his stomach.

"Oh good, I'm freezing," I said gladly and I grabbed it and scurried into the bathroom to change.

It felt amazing to get out of my wet clothes and I noticed that I had a large angry cut on my forehead in the mirror. I had blood smeared all over my face and when I leaned closer to the mirror I saw that little pieces of glass stuck out of the gash on my forehead.

I decided I would ignore them for now and I padded out of the bathroom in jeans and a sweater. I still didn't have shoes but this was a significant improvement.

There were booths in the closed sandwich shop built into the gas station and I slunk in there while the cashier was chatting Sam up and I put my head on one of the tables.

I drifted off into sleep, curled up in the booth.

I woke up sometime later in a warm car and for a second I panicked and thought that I had been captured again and I sat bolt upright.

The car radio screeched static for half a second and the car swerved a little bit and I felt someone scoot close to me.

"Stella?" Bucky's voice asked a bit loudly and my tensed muscles relaxed. I was okay.

"Hi," I said quietly and Bucky looked me over.

"What happened, who took you?" he demanded. He was livid and he was talking loudly but when he reached out to touch my face he was gentle. I put my hand over his hand and leaned into his palm.

I heard Io barking from in the trunk and I loudly assured her that I was alright and she settled down.

"I don't know who or what it was," I began tiredly. Sam and Steve were listening intently from the front seat and Steve glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

I told them all about the strange armored creature that had attacked me and pulled me through the window of Steve's apartment. I rationalized that it had likely been allied with HYDRA because Ghost had said it wasn't alone. I didn't know how to tell them I got away from it and ended up in the middle of the woods because I still had no idea myself.

"Maybe Ghost got you out somehow?" Sam offered. "Maybe she can do more than we thought she could."

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well for now it's not a good idea to go back to my apartment," Steve mused. "I don't know where –"

He stopped abruptly to swerve around the crystal monster that had leapt out in front of the car and I let out a scream.

The crystal plated creature shrieked and thundered after us, overtaking us easily.

I felt Bucky grab a hold of me and brace for impact and Steve attempted to shake it off, but it caught up to us and swiped at the back tires, sending us spinning out of control and into a ditch with a crunch of metal and glass breaking.

I was dazed but unhurt; Bucky had shielded me from most of the impact, but when I nudged him he didn't react and panic gripped my stomach.

I heard the humanoid creature snort outside as it circled the car. I checked Bucky over to find that he was still breathing but a bloody wound on his forehead had left him unconscious.

There was a loud scream of metal as the creature ripped a hole in the door and seized me in a taloned claw. It dragged me out, kicking and screaming and stuck its horrible snout in my face to look at me. It nodded to itself, seeming satisfied, and it started to lumber away while it carried me.

Io had wriggled out of the wreckage and leapt onto my assailant's head and tried to sink her teeth into its neck, but she might as well have been trying to chew through diamonds. The creature got annoyed and seized her in one of its hands and twisted her, snapping the frame of her body and he tossed her to the side.

'IO!" I screamed, beating uselessly on the creature. "LET GO OF ME!"

I heard a whine of energy and a blue blast hit the creature and it was thrown several feet away and it dropped me heavily.

I whipped up to see Tony Stark in his suit as he zipped by me and continued assaulting the monster with blasts. I realized that there were other suits too, blaring lights down at me and telling me to remain calm.

They landed and closed in on me, their metal fingers reaching out to me, and I started screaming again.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" I screeched.

"Remain calm, we are trying to help," the suit told me.

I kicked it as one of the other ones caught my arm and I desperately tried to get out of their holds, but it was useless.

Steve had pulled himself out of the wreckage of the car and he shoved the robots away from him and stalked up to where Stark had managed to hit the crystal monster into unconsciousness.

"What the hell are you doing, Stark?" He demanded, ripping his arm out of the grip of one of the robots. "Let go of her, she's dealt with enough for tonight."

"Well gosh Cap, I would, but as it turns out she's a HYDRA agent," Stark replied, the suit of his armor making his voice sound slightly auto tuned. "So…" Stark shrugged. "I'm gonna have to take her."

"Like hell you are," Steve growled and stalked up to me, throwing the robots off of me. I landed on the ground heavily and Steve helped me up and shielded me from Stark while he argued with him.

I saw the robots scooping up the warped body of Io and I saw them using a laser to cut into the car.

Sam pushed past the robot the instant that a hole had been cut into the car, looking dazed but unhurt. I saw them drag Bucky out where he landed on the ground with a thump and didn't move.

My throat constricted and I darted away from Steve and ducked under the outstretched arms of the robots and I knelt in the mud next to Bucky.

"Bucky," I whispered urgently as I shook him. "Wake up."

He grimaced with his eyes still closed and I breathed a sigh of relief. He blinked several times and sat up, confused.

I noticed that Stark and Steve had stopped arguing and they were looking at us.

"And then there's him too," Stark said, landing on the ground and walking toward us. "'The Winter Solider' with about 29 assassinations under his belt including but not limited to: John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr."

Bucky got to his feet and moved like he was going to run at Stark, but I got in front of him and pushed him back.

"I'm taking them both into custody," Stark sniffed nonchalantly. "They're fugitives, HYDRA agents, and they're both a liability."

Five of the suits had lifted up the crystal coated monster and were flying away with it. I heard a weird ringing in my ears.

Steve stepped in front of Stark as he walked toward us and I noticed his hands shaking. "Step back, Stark," he said in a dangerously calm voice. Sam was stalking around slowly by the car and I realized that we were going to have to fight if we were going to get out of here.

The suits were closing in on us and I started shaking.

"I'm taking them no matter what you do old man, you might as well get out of my way," Stark said simply.

Two things happened at once then; one of the suits grabbed my arm and Steve shoved Stark hard enough to send him back several feet.

I whipped around and lashed out at the suit. I don't know why or how it happened, but the suit let out a weird screech and the plating on its face crumpled inward and it fell to the ground.

Bucky had gotten ahold of a gun somehow and was shooting at the suits and I heard a lot of yelling.

Stark knocked Steve several feet out of the way and flew at us, tackling Bucky and throwing him against the car.

I moved to grab onto Stark, but one of the suits grabbed me from behind and I heard an electric whir and the suit's hands shocked me enough that I lost control of my limbs and I slumped over.

I heard Bucky scream angrily and I blacked out.

When I woke up I was in a brightly lit cylindrical room and I sat up and gasped.

For the second time today I didn't know where I was and I couldn't hear anything. I scooted back until I bumped into the back of the glass prison and my eyes whipped around wildly.

I saw Bucky next to me in a glass tube like mine and I stood up and called out to him.

Bucky didn't seem to hear me, he was focused on something outside of his cell, but I caught his eye and he strode up to the glass of his cell and put his hand on it.

His lips moved but I couldn't hear him. My eyes widened and I briefly thought that I had gone deaf until I heard a shift in fabric and I whipped around to see a girl with dark brown hair and blue eyes. She was wearing black boots and a red shawl over a black dress and she was frowning at me. She looked vaguely familiar. She must have been what Bucky had been staring at.

"Wh-where-" I stammered.

"You're in the Avengers facility," she said in a thick accent. "Stark brought you here."

Relieved that I wasn't deaf, I looked around me and I noticed the crystal humanoid sitting in the middle of a cell to the left of me, staring at me unwaveringly.

"He brought that here too," she said, crossing her arms. I assumed she meant Stark. "What is your name?"

"…Stella," I said quietly, deciding that they already knew who I was.

She stared at me as if she was waiting for me to say something else.

"What's yours…?" I asked after a minute.

"Wanda." The woman said.

She was the enhanced girl that had been all over the news.

"Is it true that you work for HYDRA?" She asked, her eyes glowing in the harsh fluorescent lights.

"…I used to." I said.

"What about him?" She asked, jerking her head over to Bucky.

I swallowed. "Not of his own volition."

I couldn't tell if she believed me or not.

"And him?" She asked, nodding to the monster.

His eyes were burning through the glass straight into my skin and I shivered, unable to look away from it for a minute.

"I don't know." I said quietly. "Probably."

I turned around to talk to her but she was gone and a door in the middle of the room opened and Tony Stark sauntered through it.

"Oh good you're up." He said nonchalantly. "Hungry?"

My eyes flickered to the plate of eggs, bacon, and toast that he was holding. I didn't say anything.

Stark waved his head back and forth a little bit. "So no? Not really?"

I watched him and didn't respond.

He shrugged. "Alright."

He waltzed over to the crystalline creature's cell and a small chute opened that he dropped the plate into.

The creature whipped around and crawled madly to the plate and wolfed it all down, belched loudly, slunk over to the other side of the cell, and flopped onto the ground.

Stark sniffed and looked away from the creature back to me.

"Cap's already told me at least seven times that you don't have anything to do with that tall drink of water over there," Stark said, nodding to the crystal creature. "But frankly, I just don't believe him."

I still didn't say anything.

He just looked at me and bounced on his toes a little bit. "Uh. Russian? Is it Russian you speak?"

He turned around and tapped on a counter and typed into it.

"Ваша любовь убила много людей и сломал много вещей." A voice said through the interface Stark was using and I blinked and shook my head.

"No, I – I speak English." I stammered.

"Oh okay that makes things easy." He sniffed. "Uh, first, I'd like to clear something up."

I didn't answer so he went on talking. "Is Cap your boyfriend or is Buckshot over there your boyfriend or is he Cap's boyfriend? I know it's rude to ask but I honestly can't tell."

"I – none – none of us are dating." I spat out, blood rushing to my face.

He raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure? That seemed like sort of a weak answer."

I blinked and shook my head and stammered and he nodded like that made sense to him.

"Alright, since that's all cleared up." He said mockingly. "Is that armored enhanced a HYDRA experiment?"

I blinked and tried to answer before he said anything else. "I mean probably. I wasn't introduced to it when I worked with them but there was a lot of stuff HYDRA did that I didn't know about."

"Yeah because it's not like you ever worked with physically enhanced killing machines, right?" He fired back.

He paused in his barrage of questions and just stood there for a minute, studying me.

The door behind him opened and Steve stalked out, looking utterly livid.

"You've got no right to keep them here." He barked at Stark instantly.

"It's not like they're law-abiding citizens." Stark retorted. "They're killers and I'm surprised you were harboring them."

They got into a heated argument and I glanced over at Bucky. He was watching Stark.

I noticed that I had become a point of their argument and they were both looking at me now.

"She's another problem altogether." Stark was saying. "She's an enhanced HYDRA spy, and while you're smitten with the 'cute little girl' clichés, I'm not."

Anger spurred my belly. "What are you talking about?"

"Your acting is poor." He explained and I felt my face burn in embarrassment. "At the very least you could have taken an acting class to prepare for tricking Rogers, or whatever it is you're trying to do."

I couldn't think of a comeback and I felt my nails biting into my palms. Steve was staring at me. Was he listening to Stark? He didn't believe him… did he?

I had to focus on something else. Anything else.

"She's not enhanced, Stark." I heard Steve say. "And she isn't a spy."

"I have proof that she's enhanced." Stark said. "I guess I don't have proof that she's a spy, yet, but I am swimming in evidence of her being enhanced."

I was biting at my nails again and I was shaking, staring at Stark intently. "What…"

"Well for starters there's this… thing." Stark said, bringing up a picture of Io on one of the see-through screens that were pretty much everywhere. Io looked like she was back in shape, like he had fixed her and she was pacing around in circles and looking around at everything. I noticed Cirrus wasn't strapped to her back anymore.

"This thing," he said, pointing at the screen. "Should not work."

Steve shot a glare at Stark.

"There is not a reason in the world that this thing should work. It's made of about 95% scrap and three pieces of stolen tech. It's garbage."

I was taken aback.

I got to my feet and stalked toward the glass. "What?"

"This is trash," he repeated. "It shouldn't work. But it does." Stark crossed his arms. "It works because you want it to."

I just glared at him for a minute and I felt my left eye twitch.

"YOU made your first suit in a FUCKING CAVE!" I barked loudly enough that I noticed Bucky twitch out of the corner of my eye.

"Yes," he sniffed. "I did. But you're not me."

Had I not been in a glass cage I probably would have strangled him.

"Anyway," he said, turning back to Steve. "She also managed to rip apart two of my suits with her bare hands. She touched them and they crumbled apart. So, all in all, it's good and convenient that you couldn't handle that guy over there," He nodded to the crystal monster. "Or I would never have caught up with these two."

"You're not keeping them here," Steve growled.

"Well you're not taking them."

They started arguing again and I looked over at Bucky. He tried to say something to me but I still couldn't hear him.

I heard a metallic ping and suddenly I could hear Bucky, as if his cell had been sound proof before.

"–ou okay?" he was asking and he paused and looked over at Steve and Stark again.

"You know you're dangerous, right?" Stark asked. "You understand why you can't be let out into society, right?"

Bucky glared at him and I noticed his fists clench. "I don't do that anymore." He growled.

"Wow!" Stark exclaimed mockingly. "That very nearly makes up for all the murder. Beautifully spoken."

Steve barked at Stark that HYDRA had been brainwashing and torturing Bucky for nearly 70 years, but Stark didn't seem to care very much.

My stomach was burning in rage and humiliation.

Bucky was reminding me of the storm I saw when I first met him. Bucky always looked hard and angry but it was rare that he showed this level of rage.

I on the other hand felt like I was going to cry.

I heard a booming crash and I flinched enough that I hit the side of the glass tube.

The crystalline monster was throwing himself against the glass in my direction, attempting to break through it.

I cowered as it thudded against the glass again and I looked at Steve desperately. Stark brought up a screen and typed furiously on it, throwing glances up at the creature.

Yellow gas filled up the chamber and the creature stopped trying to break out and lumbered around drunkenly, screaming and howling inhumanly. The way it was acting almost made it seem as if it was excited about something…

There was an explosive crash and I was knocked backward into the wall of the cell.

I blacked out briefly due to hitting my head and I awoke a few minutes later to the acrid smell of smoke.

I blinked, dazed, and I heard someone grunting. Part of the ceiling had collapsed on top of my cell and broken it and I saw someone trying to get into my cell. It took me the better part of a minute to realize that it was Steve.

The glass broke finally and Steve kicked the shards out of his way and leaned his torso in, reaching toward me.

"Stella, can you crawl over here?" Steve coaxed and I shook myself and crawled over to him.

He pulled me out and set me down on the ground, worry in his eyes. "You alright? Can you hear me?"

I nodded and looked around. There was shrapnel and smoke everywhere and the crystal creature was gone. Bucky's cell had been flattened by more of the roof collapse.

I seized Steve's arm in panic and tried to call out for Bucky, but I inhaled a lot of smoke and coughed loudly instead. Steve shed his sweatshirt and gave it to me to cover my mouth with and strode to Bucky's cell.

Steve tried to lift the beams off of Bucky's cell, but they were too heavy for him.

"BUCKY?" Steve shouted loudly and I flinched.

"I'm fine!" I heard a muffled reply and my stomach twisted. "I'm stuck."

Steve's muscles bulged as he tried to heave the shrapnel off of Bucky, but it was futile. They were dug too far into the ground.

I got on my knees and tried to peer under it and I could just barely see Bucky as he tried to lift the metal enough so that he could get out from under it.

I felt useless.

"Bucky!" I yelled and then gave into a fit of coughing.

He stopped trying to lift the metal and noticed me and got on his knees.

"Stella you have to go," Bucky shouted and I felt my panic magnify.

"No!" I shouted back. "I'm not leaving you!"

I heard gunshots somewhere nearby and Steve knelt over me to shield me.

"We can't leave him here," I said desperately to Steve.

"I can get him out," Steve grunted, trying once more to lift the immobile wreckage.

"You have to leave though," Steve said through gritted teeth. "It's – HYDRA – They're after you and Bucky."

"I DON'T CARE!" I screeched and started coughing again, vividly remembering the bomb that had blown up part of HYDRA and nearly killed Bucky and I before.

I heard shouting and I heard a blast that had likely come from Stark's suit. It was desperate and hopeless, but I knelt down next to Steve and started heaving on the wreckage too.

My body felt strange, like my very core was being tugged on by something I couldn't see and I heard a ringing in my ears. I paid little attention to my body; all I could think about was Bucky and how we needed to get this wreckage off of him so that he would be safe.

There was a loud screech of metal and the tugging force on me magnified like my stomach was made out of lead, but I held myself up. Wires erupted from the ground, pushing against the wreckage alongside Steve and me. I noticed Steve staring at me like I had two heads out of the corner of my eye and slowly the debris shifted enough that Bucky was able to wriggle out.

I suddenly felt very weak and I collapsed down to my knees. Electrical wires wound together into thick cords had erupted from the ground and shifted the beam enough that Bucky was able to get out. Bucky and Steve were gawking down at me.

"Well Stark was right about one thing," Steve murmured, offering me a hand.

I heard gunfire and Bucky scooped me up and protected me with his body and I saw Steve pick something up and throw it and the gunfire stopped.

"We gotta go," Bucky warned. He stood up with me and his hands lingered on my waist to keep me steady.

Bucky put his hand on my face. "Are you hurt?" He asked.

I shook my head.

"Can you run?"

I nodded.

Gunfire filled the air around us as we sprinted through the smoke. It turned out that I couldn't run and I tripped over something in the blinding smoke but Bucky swept me up without missing a beat and pursued Steve through the smoke.