Erased. Everything I knew, everyone I ever loved, all gone at the snap of a finger? It suddenly dawned on me that I was all that was left of my world.

The truth of that settled on my chest like a ton of bricks and I began having a panic attack. It was hard to breathe, my chest was hurting and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.

"Breathe Madison, you have to breathe," came Wanda's soft encouragement. I could feel her hand begin to make slow circles on my back to comfort me. Wanda was quickly becoming one of my favorite people as she had offered me friendship from the moment I had opened my eyes this morning. She couldn't have known what my story would be and yet she wasn't willing to prejudge me.

But it wasn't her comforts that had my attention it was the sturdiness radiating from the man sitting beside me that had me transfixed. His right hand was warm and held a strength to it. I could feel the slight callousness of his palm as he lightly gripped my own. His fingers were long and slender with surprisingly well manicured fingernails. I don't know why I focused on that or why it made me smile but I felt myself beginning to calm down as I focused on him.

"There ya go," came his soft whisper near my head, "just breathe. We won't let anything happen to you. Just breathe."

I looked up slowly and became transfixed with the most vibrant blue eyes I had ever seen. I always thought my dad had the most beautiful blue eyes, but his had nothing on Bucky's. They looked like the ocean had churned the waters and placed small little pools in his eyes.

He stared at me, holding my gaze and I couldn't look away. "There you go doll," he said as his thumb slowly stroked my wrist.

"So you are telling me that Madison is a variant that she can't be in our timeline. Our universe," Steve broke the trance I had fallen into as he stood from his seat and walked slowly to the holograph.

"Well, that's what originally I thought too," Fury spoke up. "Turns out that there's a loophole in the rules."

My fixation on Bucky and how close he was to me was broken by this news. I was certain that I was going to be taken into custody. I wasn't in the right timeline or the right universe for that matter. I was literally breaking the rules of time travel.

"You see, on the one hand, yes Madison is a variant. She has multiple strikes against her existence in this universe. She doesn't belong here as this isn't her universe and she's traveled back in time with knowledge of the possible future." Mobius placed specific emphasis on the word 'possible' before staring hard at me as if reading my face to see if I understood the severity of what he was saying.

He paused for dramatic effect, taking a seat on the other side of the table directly in front of me his back to his chair, folded hands in front of his face deep in thought as he analyzed me.

"But," Clint shot out, anxiously waiting for the rest of the explanation.

"But," Mobius continued "she's technically not breaking the rules of time travel right now."

"This isn't confusing at all," Natasha said, "I think I'm going to need a drink after this," She moaned, running her fingers through her hair trying to understand everything that was being said.

"Wait, so she's not breaking the rules because technically she didn't travel back in her time, she traveled back in ours." You could practically see the wheels churning in Tony's head as he contemplated what this all meant.

"Exactly," Mobius answered, pointing his finger in Tony's direction. It was like he was guiding a student in their line of thinking to work out a complex equation.

"I hope you understand all of this," Clint whispered to Steve.

"It's so simple," Tony said exasperatedly as he quickly cleared the hologram and drew two new lines by themselves.

"Time Travel follows the quantum mechanics interpretation," Tony's excitement was palpable. "That the universe is always splitting into parallel universes. Key word being, parallel."

"Like the graph you just had up with multiple universes side by side but never touching. Running alongside each other but never interfering with the other," I chimed in.

"Exactly," Tony said, pointing a pencil at me. "Therefore, change/alter the past by going into the past, a new reality branches off. Essentially, every time displacement to the past in your own time stream creates a new timeline."

"But Madison isn't in her own timeline, she's in ours," Bucky offered as he followed along with the explanation.

"Hot damn even the Manchurian candidate is playing along," Tony quipped.

Bucky smirked Tony's way as Tony gave him a supportive smile and nod of his head.

"But Madison isn't creating a new branch. In fact, her being here is still technically playing right along with our current timeline with only a slight addition, not really an alteration." Tony was practically vibrating with excitement as he thought this through.

"What?!" Pepper exclaimed exasperatedly.

"Madison being here isn't changing our past, because for us this isn't the past. It's current, everything happening now hasn't happened before, so her being here isn't changing or creating an alternate future. Right?" Tony spun around to face the TVA Agent.

"You are correct," Mobius offered quiet impressed with Tony's deduction skills.

"But you said that Maddie has knowledge of the past," Wanda spoke up. She gave me a small smile acknowledging her use of my nickname as my friend.

"Yes," Mobius said, "a possible past. Of which she cannot tell you about."

"Wait, if she knows things that are going to happen, why can't she tell us about them?" Natasha asked.

"She can't tell you about them because you might change what you do based on that. That can create ripples and alternative time streams. You have to move forward in your time stream as you were intended to, your reality when certain actions take place is unalterable."

A light thudding sound from the end of the table could be heard as we all turned to see Clint banging his head gently on the table top.

"Well duh," Peter joked after having laid a hand underneath Clint's banging head. "If she tells me I'm going to get hit by a bus don't you think I'd be smart to avoid schools and the bus authority for a while?"

"Exactly," Mobius smirked at Peter. "If she tells you what will happen to you then your future won't play out as it should and will be molded in the manner to which she sees fit."

Peter just scoffed. Apparently Mobius didn't have a clue how helpful my knowing could be for everyone.

"She could be responsible for affecting any number of things in your reality by telling you ahead of time the consequences of said decision. But then that can cause a bigger problem."

"So let's say that Nat has a slow leak in one of her tires," Steve offered. "You're saying that if Maddie were to tell me ahead of time that fixing the tire on Nat's car here at the compound could, yes, change the fact that she gets a flat tire later, but also could make it so the events surrounding where and when she got the flat tire to change."

"You know, I really need to start giving Earthlings more credit. You aren't half a dumb as you seem to be," Mobius smirked as he slowly rotated in his chair.

Steve's answering frown had no effect on the look of mirth that covered Mobius's face.

"Anyway, back to what I was saying," continuing on, "If she originally would have gotten the flat tire on the freeway and a good looking man came and helped with it, then by me fixing it here, that meeting never happens and she may never go on a date with him…,"

"You boys do seem to continue to find new ways to cramp my dating life don't you?" Quipped Nat.

Several of the men couldn't help but chuckle at Nat's quick comeback in answer to Steve's scenario.

"Exactly," Mobius said as he sat forward in his chair. "Then whatever lesson you could have learned from that, opportunity you would have gained, good or bad will never happen because that event is changed. All because she changed it. There will be repercussions you can't begin to figure out."

"This is like that really old movie I watched the other night where the people were jacked into a made up reality but they didn't really know they were jacked in and if you woke up then you were removed from the program," Peter offered excitedly, "Hey, that guy was named Mobius in that movie too."

"That was the Matrix you doofus, and his name was Morbius not Mobius," Rhodey scoffed, "and it's not that old, you are just really, really young."

Tony's eye-roll could practically be heard in the room as he tried hard to restrain himself from a witty comeback.

"So, Madison won't be removed from our timeline, right?" Tony asked. "Because she's not creating an alternative path by being here."

Mobius was silent as he sat there, looking me over. His gaze sent shivers down my spine. He felt threatening to me without saying a word.

Bucky's hand tightened around mine and Wanda's chair edged closer to my own.

Everyone seemed to be waiting to hear Mobius' final judgment on my future here. Would I be swept away back to my own universe that no longer existed or worse still, taken prisoner to some unknown location never to be heard from again? Best case scenario, I'd be allowed to stay in this timeline, which at this moment wasn't feeling all too likely.

"Would it be possible for me to speak to Madison alone for a moment before I make my final decision on that?" Mobius asked as he rose to his feet, naturally assuming his request would be met.

"No fucking way," Bucky angrily said, rising to his feet so fast his chair fell backwards. "You stay away from her."

"Buck!" came Steve's sharp retort to try to calm his friend down. "That's not going to help matters."

"What do you need to talk to her about that you can't say in front of the rest of us?"

"That would be my business and not yours, Mr. Rogers," Mobius said, not taking his eyes off of me. "I assure you, I wouldn't just snatch her away. You have my word on that."

Wanda had been strangely quiet for several minutes, "I would appreciate you ceasing the attempts to read my mind young lady," Mobius demanded before sending a scathing looking her way.

"I'll talk to you," I said as I slowly rose to my feet. My knees felt like jelly but somehow I summoned the courage to step up to the plate.

"You don't have to do this," Bucky turned and whispered to me, pulling me closer to him. He turned us both slightly so that his body was blocking the view of the agent. Being only 5'8 I was considerably shorter than him and appreciated the gesture. It continued to be lost on me why he was fighting so hard to protect me when he had only just met me, but I hoped to have time to think on that later.

"It's okay, I know that if I'm allowed to stay that there has to be rules. I need to know them or else I might break one without realizing it," I softly said to him as I rested my other hand gently against his chest. I could feel the heat off his body under my fingers even through his t-shirt.

Bucky stared into my eyes for several seconds before his grip on my hand loosened slightly and my fingers slipped from his. His jawline stiffened and I could tell he was gritting his teeth to stop from saying anything more as I slowly made my way around him.

"You can use the living room just down the hall." Pepper offered as Mobius made his way in the direction she had pointed. My feet felt like lead as I followed slowly behind, turning once to look back at all of the Avengers staring at me as I stepped around the partition out of sight.

"Bucky, what the hell man," Steve said as he walked around the table towards him. "What has gotten into you?"

Bucky continued his focus on where Madison had just left his line of vision. He didn't like this at all. She shouldn't be without protection.

Mackie eased alongside Bucky attempting to ratchet down the level of tension building in the room, "I think our boy has a little crush on the new girl," he added with a teasing laugh.

Bucky glared at Mackie before turning his attention back to Steve, "I don't like bullies, I don't care where they are from," he said before walking towards the living room entrance.

Steve remembered having said those very same words some 70+ years ago as part of his explanation for why joining the Army was so important to him during the war. Bucky understood then, it was his turn to attempt to understand this newfound devotion to Madison he was seeing in his best friend.

With cat light stealthiness Bucky made his way to the edge of the living room entrance, just out of sight of those inside, "We told them we'd give them some privacy, Buck" Natasha's brisk rebuke stopped him in his tracks.

"I wasn't going to go in," he whispered back to Nat.

Everyone else attempted to go back to doing what was being done before Fury and the TVA Agent had arrived which was to finish up breakfast. Although, at this point it was quickly coming on lunch time.

Bucky could barely make out the two voices coming from the room, but what he did hear left him completely puzzled.