Melody was placed right by Steve in the van they were being transported in. Natasha was in the middle of Clint and Sam, but everyone felt so betrayed and confused, they didn't know how to communicate it all. "It was him." Steve finally spoke. Melody just continued to look down, trying to process all of this. Her grandfather was used as the Winter Soldier to kill his "widowed" wife and friend. Then his own son. Then the woman his son married. Now who was next? Her and Steve? His best friend and his granddaughter? "He looked right at me." Steve continued, Melody feeling tears poke at her eyes. "And he didn't even know me."

"How is that even possible?" Sam interjected. Melody's eyes drifted over to Clint, wanting to rest her head against his shoulder more than anything in the world. "That was like seventy years ago."

"Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him." Melody turned to Steve, a thought passing through her. If what she pulled out of her blood was what she thought... "Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall."

"That makes sense." Melody whispered almost to herself. Everyone looked to her, Melody looking up, realizing she was going to have to explain this. "By the way, I think I'm a super soldier." She turned back to Steve, him being the only one who's wide eyes weren't fixated on her after that revelation. "But we can figure that out later. Continue."

Steve continued like nothing had interrupted him in the first place. "They must have found him and – "

"None of that's your fault, Steve." Natasha spoke, her eyes seeming to get heavy from the pain she was having in her shoulder.

Steve then looked away, not taking what she said into any consideration. "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."

Melody continued to look at Steve. She never knew Bucky, neither did her father, but almost from the moment she was born, she was taught to love and worship him. Why? She knew him for a few days and he already seemed poisonous. Sure, she knew that he was being controlled, but there had to be some bit of him in there. Some part of him that knew. She was going to try to save Bucky, but she was going to do it for Steve, no one else. And no one else needed to know that.

Natasha's head fell back from pain, alerting Clint automatically. He couldn't let the one person he had done right by bleed out right here. "We need to get a doctor here." Clint told the one guard nearest to him. "If we don't put pressure on that wound, she's gonna bleed out right here."

The guard brought out it's electrified taser, waving it at Clint to make him feel threatened. Everyone looked to the guard, not sure what it was going to do next. That's when they slammed the taser into the other guard before kicking him in the face, everyone moving their legs so he could fall.

They all then looked back to the first guard as she was taking off her helmet. "Ah." She sighed out, making Melody smile widely. God, she never thought she would be so happy to see Maria Hill in her life. "That thing was squeezing my brain."

Everyone kind of just looked at each other, not sure what to do. They were all possessed by shock. That's when Maria looked to the opposite end of Natasha before looking over to Steve and Melody. "Who's this guy?"

They got out of the car at an out of work dam, Steve being very careful not to hurt Natasha any more while helping her out. When Clint and Melody came out, Clint made sure to hold Melody very close to him with his arm around her shoulders tight. The two looked around, not sure what to do anymore. So much had changed in these past few days; how could they even trust Hill right now?

They walked through the workings of the dam, finding it incredibly silent. Even for a secret facility of remaining SHIELD agents. A man came running towards them, Melody suddenly tensing up. She felt like she was going through New York all over again. The same anxiety symptoms came rushing back. "GSW. She's lost at least a pint, maybe two." Maria informed.

"Let me take her." The man responded while hurrying to catch up with them.

"She'll want to see them first." All of their heads snapped to Agent Hill, not sure at all what she was talking about.

Maria led them into a room that had a lot of outdated medical machines covered by a falling, clear shower curtain. In the two beds were Nick Fury and Emily Carter hooked up to the old machines with Rhodey standing by Emily's side. Melody didn't know if she was filled with sudden relief or rage. "Well," Fury spoke in a raspy voice as he began to sit up with a grunt. "It's about damn time."

Melody decided to forget the rage for a moment. She was devastated about her mother's death and now she was here. Her anger could wait. She wanted to be her mother's daughter again. "Mom!"

Melody wrapped her arms around her mother's neck, giving her the tightest hug Emily could bare while tears fell down her face. That's when she remembered Rhodey behind her. She broke away from the hug to push him back. "It wouldn't have killed any of you to pick up a phone!"

The doctor came out and began working on Natasha as everyone else stood around – Clint going right back to Melody – to hear what happened since Emily and Nick "died". "Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum," Nick began listing off what was wrong with him.

"Shattered collarbone," Emily jumped in with her injuries. "Perforated liver, and one bloody headache."

"Don't forget your collapsed lungs." The doctor spoke while continuing with the pressure on Natasha's wound.

"Yeah." Nick scoffed sarcastically. "Let's not forget Emily and my matching collapsed lungs. Other than that, we're fine."

"They cut you two open!" Natasha yelled at the two.

"Your hearts stopped!" Melody added, looking over to Rhodey who was still close by Melody. "And you cried!"

"I was brought in on this after the faked deaths. Don't put this on me."

"Tetrodotoxin B." Emily spoke, answering both Melody and Natasha's questions. "Slows the pulse to one beat a minute."

"Banner developed it for stress." Fury spoke it like he was just giving them quick trivia, not like he and Emily just betrayed their trust. "Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it."

"Why all the secrecy?" Clint finally asked, making sure they knew he was accusing them. "Why not just tell us?"

"Any attempt on the Director and Supervisor's lives had to look successful."

Clint shook his head, not sure any of them were getting what they put everyone in this room through. "Can't kill you if you're already dead." Fury spoke up as Emily just looked up at her daughter, giving her an apologetic smile. "Besides, we weren't sure who to trust." That kind of struck a nerve with Melody. She was sure they didn't mean it this way, but they were basically saying that Emily couldn't trust Melody. She had some doubt in her mind that her daughter was a traitor. And that hurt her more than anything.

In an abandoned bank somewhere, Bucky laid in his seat while people worked on the damage brought to his metal arm from Melody slamming the shield into it. While sitting there, his thoughts began to wonder. He thought back on his earliest memory, falling. Falling through the air in the tundra as the man on the bridge reached out for him. And he remembered something while falling. It was the girl who had done this to him. She had her hair pinned up in this memory with red lipstick on and she was looking up at him, her eyes filled with so much love. It wasn't that long flowing hair with barely any make up on and that murderous look he saw while they were fighting. But in his memories, they both called him Bucky.

He then thought what it was like when he was watching doctors saw what was left of his arm off, and then waking up to a new metal arm. He then remembered getting put on ice over and over again.

Bucky had an almost panic attack, punching the doctors that were working on him. He thought they would hurt him. Like that pain he felt when they were sawing off his arm. Men put guns up in his direction, but Bucky just continued to think of the two on the bridge. He couldn't stop it. No matter how hard he tried.

Alexander Pierce walked through the bank, his only thought on reaching the Winter Soldier. "Sir," one of the doctors tried as Rumlow and Rollins followed close behind Mr. Pierce. "He's unstable and erratic."

They just kept walking, though, not paying any attention to their wishes, only thinking about what they could do next with the Winter Soldier. They shut the door after him as Pierce walked right up to his weapon. "Mission report." He commanded, but Bucky continued to sit there, his thoughts still possessed by the two blondes. "Mission report. Now." Silence. He was still lost in thought. Pierce went forward a few steps, looking to him, but Bucky wouldn't look back.

That's when he slapped him across the face, some sort of sense popping back into Bucky's mind. He looked back to Pierce, finally able to put his thoughts into words. "The two blondes on the bridge, the man and the woman…" he trailed off for a moment, not sure which question to ask first. "Who were they?"

Pierce studied him for a moment, coming up with a lie on the top of his head. "You met them both this week on an earlier assignment." Well, it wasn't a total lie.

Bucky looked down at the information, processing his memory to find out which mission. That wasn't where his memories of the two lied. When he thought really hard on their faces, he could see a smaller version of the man getting beat up and the laughing smiling face of the woman as he pulled her close after spinning her out of his arms in a dance. "I knew them." He whispered, looking back up at Pierce as he sat down in front of him.

"Your work has been a gift to mankind." Alexander told him, Bucky just looked to him, knowing he was about to send him on another mission. "You shaped the century." But Bucky didn't know how much of a bad guy he was. "And I need you to do it one more time." Bucky looked away from him. He hated these missions. He couldn't let anyone know that, but it was true. Especially if the two blondes were going to be there. "Society's at a tipping point between order and chaos. And tomorrow morning, we're gonna give it a push. But, if you don't do your part, I can't do mine." Bucky looked back to him, afraid he was able to see the distaste in his eyes. "And HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves."

Bucky couldn't fight this. He didn't want to do this mission. Not because he hated it, but because he didn't want to be forced to hurt the two blondes. If he hurt him, he didn't know what he would do with himself. No one in there seemed to get that. They needed someone else to do it instead of him. Anyone else. "But I knew him."

He gritted his teeth before standing up and turning away from Bucky. "Prep him." Bucky got a terrified look on his face. This was worse than the missions.

"He's been out of cryo freeze too long." One of the doctors told him, shocked that he would give him the order. Usually he was so careful with preserving him for as long as he could.

"Then wipe him and start over."

Bucky looked so helpless as Pierce began to walk away from him and the doctors moved to restrain him. Bucky knew all the movements, performing them before they could tell him. He wiped all emotion from his face, wanting to just get this all over with. He wouldn't have any more emotions once they were done with him anyway. With the electrotherapy, you could hear his screaming throughout the whole building.

The group had files all around them, Nick looking at a picture of his old "friend" Alexander Pierce. "This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility." Everyone was looking to him as he threw the picture down. "See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

Melody rolled her eyes before looking back down at her file. It was detailing the death of James Steven Barnes. She began to rub the corners of the file, taking a deep breath with the action, remembering what it was like when her father was alive. Before he was ripped away from her by her brain washed grandfather. "We have to stop the launch." Natasha spoke, making Melody pick her head up. She was right. They had to.

"I don't think the Council is accepting our calls anymore." Emily spoke before opening up a brief case that the doctor had just brought up.

"What's that?" Sam asked.

Maria turned her laptop around for everyone to see. "Once the helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized."

"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own." Emily spoke through a big gulp of coffee.

"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational," Maria paused before voicing the worst scenario "a whole lot of people are gonna die."

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA." Nick spoke in clarification. "We have to get past them, insert these server blades. And maybe, just maybe we can salvage what's left – "

"We're not salvaging anything." Steve spoke suddenly, Melody looking up from her file to look at him. "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick. We're taking down SHIELD."

"SHIELD had nothing to do with this." Emily spoke through a laugh.

"You gave us this mission." Melody spoke before looking back at Steve before facing her mother. "This is how it ends. SHIELD's been compromised. You two said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."

"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed."

Clint looked to his old mentors before rubbing his chin, seeing Melody's side a lot more than ever before when it came down to this. "How many paid the price before you did?" Clint muttered before making eye contact with the two. Melody turned around to look at him, giving him a slight smile before lipping: thank you.

"Look, I didn't know about Barnes," Fury took a deep pause "or your father, Melody."

Melody leaned forward, a thought coming through her head. "Even if you had, would either of you have told us? Or would you have compartmentalized that, too?" They both stayed silent for a moment, Melody knowing she was right.

Steve took a deep sigh before talking again, knowing this was going to be hard. "SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes."

"They're right." Maria spoke, giving the two an encouraging nod. This was going to be hard for all of them, but they had to do what they had to do to protect the world.

Fury and Carter then looked over to Natasha. She wasn't going to back down either. They then looked over to Sam, knowing he wasn't in the SHIELD world, but maybe he would have some kind of opinion. "Don't look at me." Sam spoke with a shrug. "I do what he does, just slower."

They both looked back to the two, Emily getting a small smile on her face. She had never been more proud of her daughter. She was so independent, and she was making all the right choices. She was being an actual leader. That's all she had ever wanted for her. To find something she excelled in. "Well...It looks like you two are giving the orders now."

Steve and Maria were going up to their now empty apartment, Bucky following close behind, wanting to talk to the two, but neither of them were really saying anything. "We looked for you, after." Bucky finally tried again. "My folks wanted to give you a ride to the cemetery."

Maria looked over to her small big brother, knowing he would know what to say when she didn't. "I know, I'm sorry."

"We just kind of wanted to be alone." Maria finally spoke. Bucky gave her a slight smile, loving the sound of her voice which he felt like he hadn't heard in forever.

"How was it?" Bucky kicked himself for not coming up with anything better.

"It was okay. She's next to Dad."

When they finally made it to the door of their apartment, Bucky decided to do what he was really here to do. "I was gonna ask..."

Maria turned around to look at him. "I know what you're gonna say, Buck."

Bucky sighed, knowing she would always know what was going on in his head like he would with hers. "I just...We can put the couch cushions on the floor like when we were kids. It'll be fun. All you got to do is shine my shoes, maybe take out the trash. Maria, you can cook."

While he was talking, both Steve and Maria were trying to find the keys to get in the apartment. Bucky smiled a little bit before turning to the brick he knew the spare key was under. "Come on."

Maria took the key from him, looking at it, rubbing it with her thumbs slightly, thinking about her and her brother turning into orphans. "Thank you, Buck," Steve finally interjected. "But we can get by on our own." After he said that, Maria looked to Bucky, not sure if that's what she wanted.

"The thing is," Bucky put his hand on Steve's shoulder as he put his arm around Maria's waist, pulling her towards him. She looked up at him like he was the best thing she had ever seen in this life. "You don't have to." He gave Steve's shoulder a little squeeze, Maria looking back to her brother with a bit of a smile, knowing this was going to be a good idea. It could really help them, and it also helped that Maria had a crush on Bucky for as long as she could remember. "I'm with you to 'till the end of the line, pal."

Steve was looking off into the distance, remembering the Bucky he knew before the Winter Soldier took over when he saw Melody hurry towards the edge of the dam, gripping the railing while letting out deep breaths. They hadn't been given enough time to react and she assumed that's what it had led to. Her time in the shower with Clint was her only reaction time since this started. Now that she knew her grandfather had been used as a HYDRA slave and her adoptive grandfather and biological grandmother were killed by him along with her father, she couldn't take any of it. She was doing her hardest to stay together, but it was ripping her from the backbone she thought she had established. Nothing would ever be the same.

Steve moved towards her cautiously. He hadn't had time to talk to her alone, and he was worried. They hadn't even discussed this whole super soldier thing or the fact that they were kind of leading what was left of SHIELD. "Hey." He spoke once he got close enough to her that she wouldn't freak out from his voice.

"Leave me alone." Melody demanded as her grip tightened.

"No." He told her simply. She turned to look at him with wide eyes before looking back down, taking in the breaths as they came, trying to calm herself down. "Only because I know exactly what's going through your head right now." She shook her head and turned away from him. Steve was only reminded of when Bucky fell right in front of him, and only Peggy had come to talk to him after. He knew everything that was going through her head because every thought she was having was once his own. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't scared for her.

Melody, though, didn't believe that anyone could know what she was possibly feeling. She shook her head at him with a sigh, finding the panic attack blossom in her. "You know what it's like to find out your entire family has either been killed or manipulated by HYDRA?"

"No," Melody scoffed, desperately wanting to be left alone so she could panic in peace. Wow, how ironic. "But I have watched my best friend fall to his death and hear my sister's cries as I fell into the ice and woke up in an unfamiliar world." Melody just looked back down at the cold stone below her. "Now sounds like a pretty good time to jump, doesn't it?" She turned to him with wild eyes, surprised he knew that. "I told you." He whispered, the two sharing a scared moment.

"I wouldn't ever do it." She told him before looking back down.

"I know." He whispered while leaning forward to be right next to her. "But you thought about it."

"Why does this kind of stuff always happen to me?" Steve looked to her, knowing he hadn't heard her voice this shaky before, but at least her panicked breaths had calmed down. "How many more times am I going to lose someone I love because of who I am? Because of who my parents are? Because – "

"Because you're related to me." He finished in a sad voice.

She looked to him, her eyes growing sadder. "I was not going to say that."

"You should have." Steve shrugged like it was all his fault and he knew it, making her worry less about herself and more about him.

"I don't blame you." She insisted as her grip on the railing let go, and she put her hands on his shoulders. "What happened was not your fault."

Steve looked away from her, staring off with his hands still in his pockets. "Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I didn't take the serum."

Melody shook her head right back. "Germany would have won the war and we would all be screwed."

He shook his head with a dark laugh. Melody was suddenly becoming worried. This must have been how Steve felt not too long ago. "I don't think I made that much of a difference." His face went right back to wonderment. "Maria and Bucky would be happy, probably still alive."

"But then Tony wouldn't be born. Your nephew." She jumped in. "And I wouldn't know you." She grabbed his face, making him look right at her. "There's no use to sit around and think about what life could have been. There's no way to change the past. We can only fix the problems the past has caused and we are going to fix a huge problem made in the past. HYDRA. We are going to take them down, no matter what the cost." Steve could only stare at her, finding it amazing how much she could inspire him. "It's not gonna be totally dissembled today, but we're going to shove a huge bullet in their plan and take away a huge portion of them."

Steve looked at her, coming out to comfort her, but ending up being comforted and inspired by her. He also felt a sort of sadness, though. He was only reminded of his little sister. "I'm scared." He whispered, reminded of his talk with Maria before her wedding when she had said the exact same thing he just said to her.

"You don't have to be." Steve's heart began to twist, knowing what she was going to say next. "Because you're always going to have me."

He stroked her cheek, realizing she didn't remind him of Maria at all. It was someone different entirely. She reminded him of himself. "Your dad would be proud."

She leaned into his palm, feeling nothing but comfort in his touch. She shut her eyes and all Steve could do was smile at her. Not only would her dad be proud of her, but Steve was proud of her. He would always be proud of her.

"I love you." She breathed out as her eyes opened, causing Steve's smile to grow.

"I love you."

Please, please review! This chapter was kind of a filler, but the action will return in the next chapter when they begin to take down HYDRA! Thanks for the votes on the poll, but I would like to get some more opinions in there, make sure to continue voting. Thanks for all of the reviews so far and remember to continue them!