2013, the year of change. It was the year that Steve, Natasha and I went to DC, the year that Clint went deep undercover somewhere, the year the Avengers were still getting over the fact that Tony had destroyed all his suits—some part of me would always blame Pepper for that.
"And so it begins,"
Fury didn't even twitch at the suddenness of Hope's voice behind him. He just frowned at the screen in front of him like he didn't hear her.
But he did, and he knew. Hydra was making their move.
"I'm going to protect him," she informed him easily, though he could see the tension in her shoulders from the reflection off the screen.
She wasn't as at ease as she was making herself out to be, but Fury couldn't really blame her. She was finally going to confront her torturers and was going to act as Rogers' shield as she did because they both knew that Hydra would be gunning for Captain America.
"Will you be alright?" he asked almost blandly and he saw her smile in the reflection.
"Does it really matter?"
No, not really. As long as she did her duty, he didn't mind. If that made him heartless, well so be it.
Did it honestly matter if I was alright? I was going to be facing Bucky, my friend and teacher, and part of me hated the thought of facing him because I knowingly left him in the hands of Hydra, I spent the last few years with relative freedom while he was probably being tortured. And I hated myself for that.
Guns had never been one of Hope's friends. They felt too heavy in her right hand and part of her would always cringe at the sound of it going off—stirring up of memories of cool metal pressed against her forehead, the panic that made her heart almost burst, the ringing that barely echoed in her ears as a sudden pain destroyed her, a brief moment of nothing and then pain as her brain healed, repaired and new breath filled her lungs.
Most people would think she would prefer guns as they made killing almost impersonal and yet she preferred knives. Knives she could control and aim properly, guns were a hit or miss in her hands.
She liked her knives, liked that comforting feeling in her hand. She didn't like when the slick blood made it difficult to grasp the handle, didn't like her hands slipping as she stabbed down as blood splattered her face.
She didn't like that she was a murderer, but she was what they made her, what she made herself. She was a survivor and something she thought she would do anything to make sure she survived and that scared her.
Would she let her friends, family, die just so she could survive? She liked to think no, she would throw herself in front of them to protect their fragile bodies, and if she died for one of them so what? Well, at least she died doing something right and good.
Xavier once told me he didn't think I could really die until I did what I was meant to, like I had some type of destiny to fulfil.
What type of destiny could I have? I had just been a simple girl until I died and then I was stuck here.
Not as fun as most fans believe. Trust me.
Steve was a soldier, a soldier from a time where people were more honest and open. He wasn't a spy, he would always feel uncomfortable around them because they watched, always picking out weaknesses, and they hid secrets. And they lied so easily, too easily.
Steve didn't like Fury, didn't trust him much either. Steve liked Natasha, or the face that she showed them, and he mostly trusted her to have his back. He liked Clint and trusted him about the same as Natasha.
Hope was his partner, she wasn't really a spy though she had her own secrets. She lied easily when she had too, but was mostly bluntly honest in a way that he liked because he missed good old fashioned honesty—he could have done with her being less blunt though.
But she wasn't a soldier like him, she didn't turn off her mind and followed orders like he had learnt to in the war. She kept aware, kept wary eyes open and he knew she questioned orders, that she would undermined them if she thought she needed too, though he also knew that she would follow orders well-enough, she knew that others had more experience than her and gave certain orders for a reason.
She wasn't loyal to SHIELD—Steve wasn't that loyal either but they had found him, given him a place in this crazy world and Peggy had helped create it so it couldn't be all bad, could it?—and he was almost certain that if a time came that she had to choose, she would always pick Xavier's.
Steve liked Hope, trusted her a lot, and he liked to think he knew her well.
He didn't buy her excuse for her mild freak-out when they were assigned to DC, he knew she knew something was going to happen, but he kept his silence. He was good at playing dumb.
He didn't say a word about Hope pushing so they had a double apartment for them, didn't say a word when Hope made sure he was always wearing a com and took a gun everywhere, turned a mostly blind eye to the number of blades that she strapped on her body.
He knew she was aware that he wasn't as dumb as people thought, knew that he was aware that something was going on but he didn't yet know what.
And he wouldn't until Fury appeared near dying in their apartment, Hope's gaze wary and guarded though not surprised in any way.
SHIELD was compromised and the only one that Steve really trusted had been subtly—or as subtle as she could ever be—getting him ready for the whole year they were in DC.
"You knew," Steve stated as he stopped behind where Hope was dangling her legs over the edge.
She didn't ask what it was that she was meant to have known and he didn't clarify as they both knew at the moment he didn't care about SHIELD or Hydra, all he cared about was Bucky Barnes.
"My first memories are being taken by strangers," she told him, her gaze distance. "Hydra used me as an experiment for two years, during that time the Winter Soldier was assigned to teach me how to fight. He was my teacher, protector and friend."
"Did you know he was Bucky?" he asked though he knew the answer, she hadn't been surprised when he said that the Winter Soldier was Bucky Barnes.
"Yes," she said almost simply and rage flared in side of him.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked after a moment as betrayal stung him.
"Because I'm still the coward that didn't want to open my eyes and face reality," she paused for a moment and tilted her head back to see him. "I won't let either of you kill each other."
Steve believed her, it was clear in her duo-coloured eyes that she would do anything to save them both. He could imagine her standing between them just to stop them fighting.
He still hadn't forgiven her for keeping Bucky a secret from him.
He was used to mind-wipes though he hated them, he had learnt not to resist though after god knows how many years he had been in their grip.
There was one person that they had never completely wiped from his mind was Hope, Hope that had been missing and had been taken by their enemies they told him when he asked about her.
Hope that had been with Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff, Hope that had been saved briefly before being taken again apparently.
Hydra wasn't a walk in the park, they weren't kind, but they valued Hope and he had no idea how Hope was treated with this SHIELD, with Steve Rogers—and his familiar eyes—and Natasha Romanoff.
So despite the fact that he was meant to be hunting down and killing the enemies, he was really searching for Hope and if he had to beat or torture the information out of Steve Rogers, so be it.
Two years she had been under Hydra's hands, had suffered through experiments, training and simulations that had twisted her, hardened her.
Hydra had been grooming her to be a weapon, to be the partner of the Winter Soldier, and SHIELD had continued with that.
They wanted her as a weapon as well though instead of killing off targets that threated their plans they needed her to fight terrorists, aliens and such as Fury waited for Hydra to make their play.
Xavier's hadn't wanted her to be a weapon, they had wanted her to be Hope. They only trained her so she could defend herself and others if needed, they wouldn't ask her to fight but she would have and did for them.
They were amongst the first people that had actually wanted her to be herself, that didn't want her because she was a weapon but because she seemed to need their help and they offered it.
They were kind in a way that Hope hadn't really encountered before in her life.
So that was why she was loyal to Xavier's, that was why she would fight for them and stay away from them to keep them safe, why she would always have a soft-spot for mutants. Because they had wanted Hope, not the weapon she could be.
But Bucky, Wanda, Pietro. Their bond had been build and forged in the depths of Hydra, they understood the torture, the horror, that each of them faced and they had defended each other many times.
Their bond was strong, build on blood and sweat, on kinship and shared experiences. And that was why she would always have a strong bond with them because they were alike, they were closer than family.
And that was why though she wanted to knife the fuck out of Hydra agents, she waited on the carrier where Steve and Bucky would clash.
Steve may have been her partner, he may have been her friend and her team mate, but Bucky was more and that was why she was really here because she knew that if he accidently killed Steve and got his memories back it would destroy him.
It would hurt him a lot just beating into Steve after getting his memories back and she didn't want him to go through that. Also she kind of liked her partner out of the hospital so she would interfere.
"Bucky," Steve turned and stared into the eyes of his best friend, there was no recognition in their depths and his heart clenched.
"My name is not Bucky," he denied as he stepped forward and Steve realised that he would be fighting his friend, again.
"Yes it is,"
It wasn't Steve that said that but Hope that swung herself up on to walkway with ease though there was a grimace on her face, mostly likely because of the height she had to confront as she waited for them.
Something burnt in his chest as he watched as Bucky's blue eyes lit up with recognition as they met Hope duo-coloured eyes, his hand automatically moving out and she easily slipped her metal hand in his flesh one.
His breath almost caught as he finally saw them standing side-by-side and he realised that Hope had been changed to be like Bucky but better, she was meant to be his equal.
"Hope," Bucky's gaze took in all of her, to see if there was a sign that she had been hurt worse than she had ever been in Hydra and he crowed her with his tall form as a way to protect her from Steve.
"It's going to be okay," she told him as she reached up to touch his face, oh god how she had missed her teacher, her protector, her friend. "I'm okay."
She knew that was important to him, she didn't know what Hydra had told him but there had been a type of rage in his movements once he realised that she was with Steve and Natasha.
"Hydra's going to pay," she told him, a dark lit in her eyes that promised that their work wasn't done. "Steve's telling the truth, your name is Bucky Barnes, you are his best friend, and Steve really should be doing something to stop billions of people being killed."
Steve almost jumped as she glared at him around Bucky and hurriedly did as he had been told.
"We should go," he said as he walked over to them and his heart twisted at the wariness in Bucky's eyes as he stared at him, he had never looked at him like that before, but Hope tugged on his hand and the trio left swiftly while the carriers turned on each other.
Despite Tony's whining demands as he told them to get their asses back to New York, they stayed for a little while in DC as Natasha had to fend off the government and press, Hope a shadow beside her.
It was kind of funny that Hope was getting more wary looks than the Russian Assassin—an Assassin who had probably killed hundreds and regularly messed with her info so no one knew the truth about her.
Steve and Bucky reconnected and Bucky's memories came back, slower than perhaps Steve would have liked but they were coming back.
Steve was still slightly jealous and put-out that Hope was closer to Bucky than he was and had seemingly replaced him. Natasha had slapped him around the back of the head when he finally confessed what was wrong with him, and bluntly told him that Bucky and Hope had a bond much like she and Clint had, different than his with Bucky's and debatably stronger, and had also told him that she wouldn't be surprised if they started screwing each other.
Hope had choked on her water as she heard that particular comment as Natasha waltzed into the kitchen with Steve trailing behind like a lost, and sad, puppy.
There was an amused twist to Bucky's lips as he helpfully pounded her on the back and both looked at each other in a slightly different light.
They didn't love each other—well they did, but they weren't in love, they weren't like Pepper and Tony—but they understood each other and both were adults with needs. And they trusted each other, so why not?—at least that had been Bucky's argument later, followed swiftly by that he hadn't had sex in years and as far as he knew she was still a virgin and who better to lose it with? She had slapped him and told him bluntly that she wasn't a virgin as she was a twenty-first century girl and really he probably couldn't get up anymore in his old age.
(Bucky had been offended and decided to prove her wrong, she hadn't been complaining)
The girl, the one that had been a big fan of the Avengers, in the back of Hope's head died a blissful death at the thought of actually having sex with Bucky Barnes.
Life wasn't all sunshine and rainbows after Hydra had been dealt with a heavy-blow, I didn't suddenly fall completely and madly in love with Bucky and we decided to get married.
I very much doubted that the two of us would ever be a couple in that regard.
Life was harder for a time, Tony having to pull a lot of strings to keep the Avenger team together and running and to get the damn government to back off—well the parts of the government that hadn't been part of Hydra.
(Tony had told me when we got back to New York that he had almost pissed himself laughing at Stern being arrested and also added that he always knew he was a horrible bastard)
And we still had to deal with the wannabe super villains—whenever, where-ever a super-hero turns up a super villain, or its wannabe, always showed up soon after.
Mutants still wasn't being given fair rights, Sentinels were being built and all-out war was going to come soon, I knew.
I had made Bucky promise to find and save Wanda and Pietro, I made up a will with Phil that left most of my things with Clarice and James, a notebook filled with everything I knew about James Logan was left for Logan.
I prepared myself as I almost sensed my death coming near, I wanted things to be ready if I did die.
Perhaps I was being paranoid, I didn't really care.
AN: Right, next chapter will probably be the last of Hope's life. Now I have questions,
Should I start her life in the 1930s-1940s so she grows up being the same age as Charles and Erik? If I do, who should I get her to grow up with Charles and Raven or Erik?
Should I start her life in the 1970s and on-wards?
Or should I start her life so she's the same age as Rogue, Bobby and Kitty?
Which would you like to see?