NOTES~~

Hi guys!

I have been working on this fic (spoiler: Series of fics) for quite some time. Most of these first few chapters were written in around 2016, just after Civil War, and as such, it diverges from that point. However, I didn't finish it then, nor did I stop. It has since become something I keep coming back to, switching between writing for this part or writing part 2, which tends to be more fun, (which doesn't make sense, seeing as how I can't share part 2 even if I finish it, unless part one is done.) But alas, that is how inspiration works, isn't it? These first few chapters are older, so they feel choppy, but I really don't know how to make them better, so I left them as they were. This fic (series) will pull from the MCU, both the movies, and Agents of Shield for plot points, but I know a lot of people don't watch it, so I will try to explain whatever is going on. Also, this series draws a lot of inspiration from music, and will include song lyrics. Sometimes they are in the chapters themselves, but most of the time they will probably just be at the beginning or end.

I hope you enjoy it. I am hoping that if I post part of it, and people like it, it will give me the courage and motivation to keep it up. As I said, been working on this thing off and on for two years now, I don't ~seem to be inclined to abandon it, I just have a hard time not hating what I write, and an even harder time believing anyone would want to read it. Let me know what you think!

His chrome fingers tighten. Fingertips digging into her throat, almost piercing the skin. He lifts her further up the wall, her fingers grasping at his arm as she runs out of oxygen. She looks down into his steel blue eyes, and can see him, the real him, just beyond the glass of his eyes. She stares into them, pleading with her own as she tries to strangle out a noise; any noise. Please, please just see me. Please. A choked garble escapes from her throat, and tears escape from her eyes.

In an instant, as if he could hear her pleading thoughts, he releases her, and she falls back to the ground onto her feet, coughing until she catches her breath. The adrenaline tells her to run, but she doesn't. She looks back at his face, looking up at him now. Even through the brown strands of hair that have fallen in his face she can see his eyes. His eyes. She sees his jaw clench, "Please…don't leave me here alone." It was barely a whisper. Barely even words. She can see his struggle with the voices; the pain in his eyes, the shaking of his hands. Before even thinking, she raises her left hand up to his cheek.

"I don't know how or when, but I will find a way to help you. I will come back for you…I promise." She leans up, and presses her lips to his. They are so soft, so warm…but unmoving. Like kissing a living statue, when she pulls away she can see the pain in his eyes even clearer, but before it could break her heart, she ran. She ran back to the rubble and knelt down to her sister, pressing a finger against her throat, checking for a pulse. Oh thank God. She slips her arms under her sister's knees and shoulders and lifts her limp body off the ground. She looks back over her shoulder, and he is still standing in the same spot, visibly shaking. Thank you. She squints her eyes, trying to block out her mind repeating his desperate plea. I am so sorry. She clutches her sister close to her body, and she runs.

"Oh my God." Wanda sighed, eyes still scanning over the file on her computer screen, re-reading the words over and over again. "This could mean…I have to make sure…Second opinion…Natasha!" She yelled, loud enough for her to hear from down the hall

Within a few moments, the red haired woman was making her way through Wanda's doorway, "Wanda, is everything okay? What is wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong… It's just, I was reading over some of the files on the Hydra program that led to…" She lifted her hand, red sparks curling around her fingers, "That's not important, just read these files," she gestured to her laptop, "And let me know if it means what I think it means."

Natasha gave her a questioning look, but sat down at the desk, and began looking through the open files. Wanda was pacing through the room, waiting for her to finish. Several minutes later, Natasha spins back around in the office chair, "These sisters went through the same mind control program as Barnes. But they were able to break it. Become uncontrollable." Wanda nodded, "You think they are the secret to getting Hydra out of Bucky's head?"

"I thought that might be the case, I wanted a second opinion."

"I think it's possible. And I think it's something Steve would definitely want to explore. We should tell him and see what he wants to do. Good job Maximoff." Natasha smirked. Wanda returned the smile, happy she might be able to help a friend.

Steve turned to look at Sam entering the conference room, "They called you here too?"

"Yeah," He grabbed another of the chairs from around the conference room table and sat down, "Do you think we should be worried? They usually invite all the team if it is a mission brief."

Steve looked around the conference room, wondering why Natasha had called an emergency meeting without any information, "Yeah, I don't know. This isn't normal."

As if on cue, Natasha and Wanda entered the conference room and closed the door behind them, "Good, you are both early." Natasha stated; using her tablet to pull up some sort of file and project it onto the presentation screen.

"Is that a Hydra file? Are we the only ones coming to this little meeting? What is going on, Romanoff?" Steve asked rather quickly; Sam just raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, we are the only ones coming. We ask that you try to hold off the questions until after we have presented you with all the information." She sat down near the head of the table, across from Wanda and closest to the screen. "Wanda, you go first."

Wanda took a deep breath, "Okay, well. I have been looking through all of the released SHIELD and Hydra files, looking for any information on the project that made me what I am, and I stumbled across this project, and began to work on decrypting all of the files associated with it." She points to the information on the screen, "This was a human enhancement program, starting in the late 40's but taking place primarily in the 50's, and it is basically the predecessor to the project that I was a part of…They created a serum, much like the one that enhanced you," She looked at Steve, "except rather than a super soldier, they wanted a walking nuclear bomb." Steve and Sam looked at each other with wide eyes, "It gave the user the ability to break down matter into its energy, and bend that energy to their will…However, there were some…catches." Wanda looked at Natasha, silently asking her to take over.

Natasha began flipping through files of patients, all marked 'Deceased.' "Basically the mental capacity required to use the power was too great, all of the patients that the serum actually worked on, ended up dead, either by brain aneurysm or by vaporization."

"Sounds like Hydra," Steve muttered under his breath.

Natasha ignored his comment and kept on, "So they changed the serum, split the load in half. Make one to give the user the ability to create the energy, and one to give the user the ability to control it. The mental strain was now manageable, but there were a whole new set of problems. Mainly the issue that it required instantaneous communication, or the creator would generate too much energy before the controller even realized it, and they would both end up dead." The files of deceased patients were appearing in pairs now. "They started with strangers, then couples, siblings, twins; all with better performance, but still resulting in the explosive death of both subjects." She briefly showed a black and white photograph on the screen, two charred corpses; one with missing limbs. She then flipped to another side-by-side file, of identical twin sisters. These were the first ones not marked deceased. "This is Emily Annabelle Lee Carmichael on the left, and Edna Lenore Carmichael on the right. Although you wouldn't know that from these files... they only refer to them as 'Left Twin' and 'Right Twin'."

"Isn't left and right a weird way to identify them?" Sam asked. Natasha gave him a light smile.

"That's what I thought too, that is why I looked deeper." She changed the screen to a page from a medical journal. There was a black and white photo of twins conjoined at the head, smiling into the camera in front of a backdrop of grass, trees, and sky. Natasha looked back to Wanda.

Wanda began to speak, looking at the picture of the twins, "This is what they were like before Hydra got to them. They erased every other record of their existence, no medical records or birth certificates or anything. They must have not even known about this article. It was only available in print up until a few years ago, when the journal's archives were put on the internet for researchers. From the article we know that they were born in 1944 to Clarice and Jesse Carmichael of Welch, West Virginia. They were their parents' miracle." Natasha changed the screen to a side by side of the picture from the article, and the pictures from the Hydra files. Steve looked at the photos, they were definitely the same girls, just older, and with hollow, pained eyes, Just like the one in Bucky's file. Wanda continued speaking, "To say that these girls were a medical marvel is a vast understatement. Conjoined twins are very rare, conjoined at the head is even rarer, and at this period of time, the idea of them living a full life was unlikely. That isn't even the special part, most twins conjoined in this way are just conjoined at the skull, with the brains often sharing a blood supply, and they usually have some sort of mental deficiency."

"I am gonna guess this was not the case with these girls." Steve leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms across his chest.

"You are correct. Their brains were actually connected. They shared neural pathways. They were two very different people that could function as one, and not only that, but they weren't mentally deficient, they were mentally gifted. In this photo they were eleven years old, and they had already graduated highschool, top of their class. Emily had been accepted to study Mathematics at MIT, and Edna could play guitar and piano on a professional level by ear, and some of her paintings are really beautiful. They were the perfect candidates for Hydra's experiments."

"Is this like the whole left-brain, right-brain, thing?" Sam asked, leaning forward, putting his elbow on the table, and his chin in his hand.

Natasha raised her eyebrows slightly, "Yes, actually a lot of the data supporting that theory comes from these two, it discusses that in the article."

"Wait what are we talking about?" Steve piped up, looking between Sam and Natasha.

"The theory that the two sides of your brain control different things, and people usually have a dominant side. The roughest summary is the left side of the brain is intellectual, and the right is creative." Sam answers, "You gotta learn basic psychology when you run a support group." Steve nods.

Natasha fakes a cough, "And now back to the point of this presentation, these girls." She changes the screen to the information in the files. "Here is where things get a little fuzzy, but they also get interesting. The files begin in 1960, so we are thinking that is when they were picked up by Hydra. Both Edna and Emily went into the same mind control program that Barnes was in after they were separated and given the serum." Natasha sees Steve open his mouth and holds up a finger, "The record of cryo freezes and unfreezes seems normal for Hydra assets up until late 1962, when Edna receives a procedure listed only as 'Mechanical Replacement', after that Emily is unfrozen much less that Edna. And the amount of 'Disciplinary Infractions' that Edna received had increased exponentially. There is a note in the file that mentions doubting the mind control's effectiveness. It mentions the memory wipes not working completely, and the trigger words having to be said several times before working, and eventually not working at all. Then in 2000, they are both unfrozen and the file lists an 'incident'. Then in 2005, it lists a 'capture' and they are both refrozen."

Steve looks between Wanda and Natasha for a few moments, before realizing what they are implying, and what this meeting was really about. "They know how to break the mind control." His voice is quiet. Hopeful.

"It would appear so." Natasha replies.

"They might know how we can help Bucky. That is why you only called me and Sam in here. Do you know anything about where to find them?"

"I got some intel from one of my contacts that there is a Hydra cryo facility in Brazil, there is a good chance that is where they are keeping them."

"Wait, how do we even know this will work? Or that we can trust these twins at all? For all we know they are even worse off than Barnes." Sam stated, looking at Steve, trying to reign in his raging hope.

"Well, we do have a little more information about what they are like." Wanda hesitantly pipes up, and Steve and Sam look at her expectantly. "When we ran them through SHIELD's facial recognition software and found the article, we also found a video."

Natasha pulls up a grainy video onto the screen, "This is from 2005, which is when their file says they were re-captured by Hydra. We think this video is how Hydra found them after five years." The title of the video appears 'When open mic night goes RIGHT!' and then the video begins, out of focus and shaky at first, but it clears up a bit. Natasha skips to somewhere in the middle of the video. It is a girl on a small stage, in what appears to be a bar; an acoustic guitar hanging in front of her. She is wearing a short black dress, black tights, and combat boots, and opera gloves? Well she did grow up in the 50's. The shiny, long black gloves briefly make him think of going to Expos with Bucky back in the 40's, but he pushes those thoughts away, focusing on the girl. Her graceful fingers sliding over the strings and frets, She is left handed. Her strawberry blonde hair is long, and bits of it are getting into her face as she sings into the microphone. He can't help but notice that she is beautiful, the Hydra mugshot doesn't do her justice. She sways on the stage, leaning into some words more than others, and then he really starts to pay attention to the words she is singing.

"Honey if you fall / Don't expect me to save you / You should know me better than that.

They say it's a fact / I made you from a rib outta my chest / And when you break I'll take the blame.

Maybe that's that / I'm too lazy to try to get you back baby / You're gone and I'm still the same."

Her voice is amazing, it's soothing, but you can hear the pain underneath the pleasant notes, and it makes the song that much more moving. She sometimes looks down at people in the crowd, and lightly smiles, but mostly just stares into the distance, She is probably thinkin' about whatever guy she wrote this about.

"You've heard it all before / I'm the kind of girl who keeps one foot outside the door.

Did you really think I'd stay? / Nothing like a good thing going the wrong way.

I never loved you / The way I wanted to.

I never loved you"

Natasha pauses the video. "She performs six other songs in this video, most of them are really sad lyrics-wise, however, the fact that she can express her emotions through music in front of a room of strangers leads me to believe she is more emotionally stable than Bucky is." She looks at Steve, "No offense." He shrugs. "Also, there is an entire website dedicated to her now. Some of the more avid fans of this video have tried to figure out who she is, and why she disappeared. From looking around the forums on the website, I have determined that nobody really seems to know much about her. People from the bar have mentioned that she was a regular there, usually singing covers of songs rather than originals, one person said they lived in the same apartment building, and that 'she and her sister were nice people'. That is about all we know about either of them"

"So we are going to go save an explosive starving musician and her genius sister from Hydra in the off chance that they can fix Bucky's brain?" Sam asked, in his signature sarcastic tone.

"If there is a chance they can help Bucky, we have to try" Steve turned to Natasha, "I want to wake Bucky up and tell him we have a lead. When can we leave?"

"Are you sure you should wake him up? We aren't even sure this will work, and even though we could use the help, is him storming into a Hydra base really a good idea?" Wanda asked, concerned.

"I think he would want to hear that we had an idea, and he would want to help us in any way he could. He wouldn't want us risking our lives for him if he couldn't risk his too." Steve replied.

"If that is what you think is best, I have the quinjet reserved for a personal assignment, so whenever you and Barnes are ready, we can head out." Natasha stated, turning off her tablet, making the screen go black.

"Are you in on this, Sam?" Steve turned towards his friend,

"You know I am, even if it is a stupid plan." Sam replied, and Steve gave an apologetic smile,

"Wanda. Natasha. I cannot thank you enough for this. You have no idea how much it means to me. And to Bucky." They both smiled and nodded, as the four of them left the conference room to prepare for the new mission at hand.

(Sucker – Queen Kwong)