I felt like this needed to be separate as its own given the content of what's happening with our Ava. I know I wanted to do something with Bucky and Steve first but this suddenly came to me as an inspiration so basically, I just went with it and I personally love it. I hope you like it too!

A few new flashbacks for everyone. This chapters a little dark so fair warning. :) This chapter takes places just before the chaos in Vienna. I think the next chapter will be everything to do with Vienna but I haven't fully decided yet. The Bucky/Steve convo will possibly be during that chapter or a little later.

Captain America: Civil War Shattering Relations Chained to the Memories of Three People

A woman sat on the edge of her bed with her elbows touching her knees. Her breath drifting out in deep gasps with sweat trickling down the sides of her forehead. Her eyes flickered to every direction in rapid darts as her mind tried to catch its bearings and force itself back to reality. Her fingers twitched. Her muscles felt a deep gnaw, an urge to do something violent, like punch a very large hole through a brick wall. Sirens could be heard outside a bedroom window that was only covered with a thin cloth curtain and the lights from the emergency vehicle flashed against the half-shattered mirror on the wall beside her bed.

She shook lightly and her throat clenched as flashes appeared before her eyes.

Avery was strapped to a thin mattress that contained barely any stuffing, and wrapped around her body five times over were remarkably sturdy chains that even with her being at full strength, she would have trouble getting out of them. She was only half conscious at this point but she was still as stubborn as she ever was.

"I'll die before I tell you what you want!"

A fairly familiar face smirked at her with a dangerous gleam in his eyes, "Oh, we're not going to kill you, Avery Rogers." He told her.

The man reached out to a silver metal tray beside her bed and chose an exceptionally sharp and precise knife with a delicately curved edge. They were handmade for custom designs. The man looked proud and excited to be using his tools for the first time since receiving them at Christmas. Slowly, he turned his attention back to her and noted proudly she stared at the knife with undeniable fear piercing her eyes.

"We just want to have a little fun before we put you back into the blender…"

Her own agonized scream echoed through her memories and it was enough to jog her back into the safe house. She lowered her head into her hands as a few tears streaked down her cheeks when her legs rose up to meet the rest of her body on the bed. She tried curling up into a ball, wishing she could escape the torment her head was putting her through. The urge to sob until there was nothing else left in her was great but she felt the need to hold it in, to prove that she was stronger than the demons inside of her.

She was scared.

Terrified.

For the past few months of hiding out in different places, the one thing that stayed constant was insomnia and night terrors she was forced to endure. There were black bags constantly hidden underneath her eyes and her skin was almost a deathly pale that was certainly unhealthy for her normal skin color. She no longer remembered what day of the week it was … let alone the date. All she wanted was for the memories to disappear again. A part of her almost wanted the shell of herself back instead - the one that knew what is and what was.

But no … she couldn't do that.

Not only would she be letting herself down but she'd be letting a lot of other people down too. The very people she was fairly certain were looking to the ends of the Earth to find her. She wanted to go back but it wasn't safe. It wasn't her safety she was all that worried about – it was for those she cared for most. She recalled that night so clearly as if it happened five minutes ago. Her eyes clenched tight as another vision appeared before her eyes, wishing the moving pictures would just leave her alone.

Avery stood at the window staring into nothing with her head tilted to the side slightly. Her eyelids barely blinked, as though she were in her own world within that head of hers. She gave no indication that she heard a pair of footsteps padding towards her from behind. Words were the only thing that traced through her subconscious. Single unrelated words that were following a dangerous path to a being without a soul.

Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Fright Car … Morning, solider.

None of them made any particular sense as a sentence, but if said one by one, in a clear voice, it brings nothing but destruction, pain, and misery to anyone who encounters the entity. The only thing for sure is that she has a track record for completing the tasks assigned to her to a T and she never … NEVER lets her target get away. She will get him or her one way or another and that's what's so unpredictable about her.

She will do anything to complete her mission.

The entity was jolted out of her worded thoughts by a subject's hand about to graze against her hipbone. Everything in her immediately tensed at the intrusion and her instinct reacted in a hostile manner. Her mechanicalized hand stopped the intruder from touching her skin just as it was about to complete its task. With using barely any strength, she flung the body with ease across the room and witnessed as it smashed into a wall, a large gash appearing against the temple of his head.

She noticed how the intruder's eyes fluttered with a dazed expression as he looked up in bewilderment. He wasn't unconscious yet … but he soon would be. The man's eyes were fluttering in and out of consciousness as black spots started appearing in his vision. His head had taken the brunt of the impact and it was hard to bounce quickly back from that.

"Ava?..." The words were followed with uncertainty.

All she felt was hollow inside with none of it feeling familiar. The echo of her orders subjected her to continue as she picked up a fallen brick from the shattered wall. The material bounced in a hand once before she took a step forward. Her eyes were set dead on his fallen figure.

"That's not my name."

Her voice came out as emotionless as her lifeless hazel eyes. She stared at him for a moment as if she were snapping a mental picture of his face. Knowing that the enemy could retrieve his strength quickly - she took the chance to complete her mission. The brick collided with his head with a hard snap that resonated in the room. If the man didn't have that super soldier serum running through his veins - she was sure his neck would have snapped off his spine just by the sheer force of the blow.

She felt like tearing her hair out when her fingers wrung through the strands of her unruly hair. She started pleading under her breath as another round of tears welled up in her eyes. She begged for the images to leave her alone but they just wouldn't listen to her. It almost felt like she was being torn apart by other people. She was no longer a shell, obviously, but now there were too many people trying to seize the body that used to be nothing.

"Get out of my head … please, please, just get out of my head…"

"It's such a pity." The woman with long dark hair stared at the young man sitting in front of her with a piece of duct tape strapped across his mouth. A hollowing dark laugh escaped her lips as he tried with all his might to get out of the binds that stopped him from retaliating. "If attraction was in my programming, you'd be a good contender considering that wonderful head of hair you possess."

She slowly pranced around him like a predator as she talked. Her eyes stalked his immobile body to every inch and noted every movement he made and did not make. She reached forward with her human hand and gained a tight grip on his hair before giving it a harsh enough tug that she felt many of the strands rip from his head. "Wonderfully long enough to grip."

The young man hollered in agony and his eyes clenched shut. The tears he had tried to withhold fell over the barrier and trailed down his cheek. The lingering pain resonated throughout his entire skull as many of the roots from his hair were ripped out. The pain became too great that he felt an additional wetness crawl down the side of his face. He honestly wasn't sure if it was blood or tears at this point.

"You can save yourself the misery little boy." She continued with her voice suddenly turning soft, like she was ultimately concerned for his wellbeing and that she really didn't want to resort to violence and torture. She took her hand away from his hair and moved to crouch in front of him beside his knees. He flinched away from her touch the best he could when her hand rested against his left knee.

Despite her voice changing, her eyes didn't. They were still as cold as ice with an eagle-like gaze attached to them. "Tell me what I want to know and you can leave as free as you were this morning."

The tape was suddenly and harshly ripped from his lips and a pained croak came out in response. He draped forwards against the chains that confined him to a wooden chair. He wished he could feel a blood flow coming from his hands but at this point, he could barely feel anything but pain ricocheting through every inch of his body. Bruises and cuts marked his body like a painting. Each one was specific and carefully thought out.

She tilted her head toward him as she waited for any kind of verbal response.

The woman would keep on until she gets the answer she needs. This was her mission. A task she would not stop until it is complete. This child was the one who would know the information she needed in order to stay quiet and under the radar. As everyone knew - the secretary was always the one who knew the answers to their employers' everyday schedule. No one would suspect a thing because after all … it's Christmas in two weeks and vacations were in session.

"When will Howard Stark be moving the serum?"

She thought she had remembered the majority of her memories but as it turns out – that was not the truth, it was by far the truth. Granted, there were always a few black spots in her memory she wasn't able to access but she thought that was ordinary. Everyone had dotted memories of their lives both as children and an adult, some vivid and others sparse and vaguely recalled. There had always been this constant nagging in the back of her brain, an inkling that something wasn't right but she could never quite get a grip on what it was.

Single words would come and go but they never made any sense. She knew something was missing, a web in her brain that was disconnecting from who she really is. Even now as all these other memories decided to surface – she still couldn't quite clearly remember what the words were or what sequence they were supposed to be formed into. She didn't want to remember but that urge was building her up to grab onto it. To force her back into darkness no matter how much she tried to fight it.

It was on the tip of her tongue and this time … that was a very destructive thing to know.

…

Avery Rogers let out a deep but struggled breath as she continued to calm the never-ending nerves growling inside of her. She felt her heart start to calm as the flashbacks ceased haunting her at every waking moment. She finally looked up from her hands to see a stream of daylight crashing into the dinky little apartment she managed to procure.

It wasn't pretty by any means; the wallpaper was no longer sticking to where it should be and it hung down in drapes towards the floor. The floorboards were squeaky with a few nails sticking out and there was an annoying drip from the rusted tap in the kitchen that was driving her insane. However, despite the nuisances, the place was still a roof over her head and a place she could hide away for days without any interruptions or people banging on her door.

She was paying for the room with stolen money she took from some bastard who thought it was right to hit on a girl who was clearly not interested in his advances. She still had about a hundred left and she knew it was probably about time to gather some more supplies from the vendors across the street. After vaguely remembering the last time she looked into her one cupboard, there was only one tin of beans left and an apple.

Stealing had become a necessary skill she needed in order to keep herself hidden from the world. It's not like it's the first time she's had to steal something from another. There are many instances in her very long life that she could recall using that asset. It's become essentially a second nature. It was seared into her brain along with the knowledge of hundreds of ways to torture a person to reveal their deepest and darkest secrets.

Her eyes flicked to the broken mirror, noting how the crack running through the reflection of her face embodied how she felt inside. Broken. Ripped in pieces by a force that wanted to keep it apart instead of solid and sane. Her hair was almost like a nest. There were strands of hair sticking to the sides of her face. The braid she had long ago put in her hair was pulled apart by the numerous twists and turns her body made during the night. The form was still there but was greatly loose and everywhere at the same time.

After all these years; she's never really taken the time to stare at her own reflection. She tried hard to picture herself back in 1942, back before everything turned dismal, cold, and dead. There were flickers of recognition but everything felt pasted over and dreary. There was barely a spark in her eye anymore. Gone was the girl who longed for an adventure in life. She was torn apart and put back together again in a way that was very different to who she wanted to be. The passion to see the stars and believe in a better world had greatly dwindled into near-nothing.

She couldn't remember the last time she gazed at her own appearance. She had almost forgotten her hair had been dyed back months ago to the closest she could call her original hair color. It didn't look as nice as it probably had done when she first did it. There were almost highlights lined through the locks, places where the coloring had clearly lost its hold within the follicles. The majority still held the strong texture of chestnut but parts saturated in a charcoal black.

Just like my soul I suppose, she thought with a heavy heart.

Who was she kidding? Did she even have a soul anymore? With everything that she's done … she was lucky to be free. To not have been found in a ditch somewhere or locked away for the rest of her life - however long that ends up to be.

As she finally took her gaze away from less than stable appearance, she reached over to the small table beside her bed and grabbed a tatty, well-used book with slightly crumpled pages and a thick banded cover. Her fingers brushed against the smooth texture of the navy-blue binding before opening it with a black ballpoint pen in her grasp.

This was new to her - keeping a diary of sorts. No, it wasn't a diary. It was a book of memories. Every night she'd either wake up from her own scream or awake sharply from her own frightening methods of torture and schemes. Some she'd quickly forget but others stayed with her just below the surface, just waiting to haunt her just that little bit more.

She wanted to remember them.

Not for pleasure or because she truly wanted to remember the horrific crimes she committed. But so that she'd remember the victims of the terrible things she's done. The people that were sacrificed so that she would stay alive to this day. She had been stuck in a horrible plot to take over the world. In a demonization plan so barbaric that the darkest parts of her gleamed in happiness to be a part of. It hadn't been something she could rightly call herself fully in control but she followed those orders anyway.

It made her sick to her stomach.

She remembered looking into the mirror just once as … her. All she witnessed was the destruction and urge to kill. It was so strong that it put even Winter to shame. She had no heart, no remorse, and no patience for anyone who dared to step in her way. It scared her that she became that woman. The woman with no soul. The woman who she can say with a strong possibility would kill anyone in her path no matter the relation. She would kill the two people she loved most without any hesitation because that's all she knew. It's all she cared to know.

Avery flicked through some of the first entries in her journal to find a few pictures she managed to draw. Despite the fact that when she first came out of whatever it was that she had gotten herself into, she wasn't in much of a fit state to be doing much other than contain herself from the public. The one that stood out the most was a small girl, not yet a teenager but certainly not below the age of seven. The hair was shaded but she vaguely recalled a brownish tone like a dark hardwood floor. She was staring up from the page with wide innocent eyes that were now scarred for life.

This was the one child amongst many that sat in her heart from the moment she remembered the majority of Winter's life.

There are many instances recorded in her memory journal that would scare even the strongest of people. Every time she remembered the name of a victim, she'd record it at the back and by now, it was nearly three pages full with three lines of names on each. Over a hundred names came back to her and she still wasn't done. Each night gave her a new nightmare to face – a new memory of the horrific things she's done in her life.

She turned the page and her eyes hung onto the two men in the photo that were laughing together beside an old army truck.

It was Steve and Bucky.

The two people that would keep her going strong until she could no longer pick herself up and fight. The two people that throughout her struggles with Hydra beating her into something else, always seemed to bring her back, even if it was a sliver at a time. Her finger brushed against the page as she got lost in her thoughts. Her heart felt the well-known feeling of longing as a tear peeked through the corner of her eye.

She wondered what they were doing right about now. She imagined Steve still trying to help the newly initiated Avengers, teaching them to fight and use the powers they have to best that he could. She pictured James trying his hardest to find her across the map but ultimately, he would not find a thing because if there was anything she was better at than murder, it was staying hidden, even if in plain sight.

And she couldn't let them find her … at least not yet.

She wasn't ready by any means.

Her mind was still unstable and erratic and she couldn't promise herself or them that she wouldn't fall off the deep end again. She hoped they were okay and keeping themselves safe. It was unlikely, of course, since trouble seemed to find them pretty well on its own … just as does did with her.

Follow, Fav, and Review!