15.

All that had happened seemed pointless now. Her, Steve, everything... Nothing seemed to have meaning anymore.

A few months had passed since that night and a lot had happened during that short time.

At the beginning, they were happy, really happy. Everything fit. He seemed to be the right person to bring her out of the dark, and he loved her. From that night on, they had spent most of their time together and for a while, everything was perfect again, for the both of them.

But everything that had happened with Hydra, ruined that silly idea that they had had.

Their relationship was not perfect. And it wasn't even their fault. Well, it definitely wasn't Steve's.

Anne thought that she loved him. She convinced herself of it. After a while though, she realized that something was still missing. Someone.

At the beginning, she couldn't believe her own thoughts. They were so absurd. Yet... They were so true.

The love she had felt for Steve was sincere as far as it goes, but it wasn't enough. They were too different. Anne was too broken and Steve still felt the pain of leaving his old life behind. And her heart was still latched on to someone else's.

But those feelings weren't what broke everything down.

A few months had passed. Hydra hadn't attacked them through that whole ark of time, and everybody started to think that they had actually captured the master mind behind it all and not just a simple scientist. The serum affected Anne only physically and hadn't changed her much. At least, that was what they all thought...

One night, she woke up in a cold sweat, shaking...

It was a nightmare, she thought. Only a nightmare. She turned around and looked at Steve. It wasn't important. Definitely not the case to wake him up. She didn't want to disturb him. Besides, watching him sleep made her feel better. He was just so peaceful. She smiled. How did he do it? Even when he was asleep...

Anne traced a finger on his strong chest and had a flashback.

She had done the same thing in the middle of the night when Bucky was asleep.

Suddenly, she found herself wishing he was there instead of Steve. But she just shook her head, as if that could get rid of that terrible thought.

No. She was happy. She loved Steve. She was firmly convinced of this.

Once the fear of the dream had worn off, she decided to go back to sleep, but found that it wasn't that easy.

She tried to concentrate on Steve's breathing, hoping that it would lull her to sleep along with the movement of his chest. Up and down, up and down...

After about an hour, though, Anne gave up and got up, trying hard not to wake him.

Once she was out of the room she made her way to the kitchen. Maybe some cookies and a glass of milk would help her.

She poured a glass of milk and pulled out some chocolate chip cookies that Pepper had desperately tried to make, and then she started to think about all that had happened.

Fighting with the Avengers was awesome. It had become a weekly thing since the Hydra attack. They went out, kicked some butt and did everything they possibly could to get more information about what they were planning. But those Hydra guys always seemed so desperately loyal and would only give them some vague reply.

Anne was in charge of the interrogations. Apparently, she was the best at it. Great. Just the thing to be proud of, she thought.

Yeah, the fighting was great, but it was just so easy to take those guys out now that she was so strong, and it never lasted more than a minute. That's why she loved to train with Steve. They were equals now and could go on for hours without one besting the other.

But even that had become boring, now. She had started going out at night again, but that hadn't worked at all. Steve would wake up and ask her questions and she would be forced to let it go.

"What's wrong? Aren't you happy that everything's okay?" He would ask her. He thought it strange that she seemed so anxious to fight.

Anne felt the need for it, though. She really had a physical need to fight. It had become an addiction since that day at the warehouse and she started fearing that maybe that had been one of the side effects.

Another one was all the anger. She had never been so angry in her life. Everything got on her nerves. Everything and everyone. So she spent most of her time alone in the training room, beating the punching bags with all of the strength she was capable of, busting most of them.

Steve had noticed this. Then again, he always seemed to notice, and he was worried about her.

She saw the look on his face. Genuine love. She was wondering of late if she actually deserved such a look.

Anne shook her head. That thought had been tormenting her for a long time. She didn't feel worthy, of any of their love and care.

She felt so out of place there. She wasn't good like the rest of them.

Little did she know that this was another side effect, that all of this was a part of a bigger plan.

Anne got up. She really had to go back to bed before Steve noticed she was gone. Though, she did love how he always worried about her.

She smiled and was going to put her cup in the sink when she saw a figure standing silently beside the couch, hidden in the dark.

Startled, Anne dropped the glass, that shattered into a thousand pieces, but recomposing herself, got into a fighting stance.

"WHO ARE YOU?!" She said in her most threatening voice.

The figure came forward.

Great. Just what she needed. Another Bucky bot. Anne just laughed.

"Well, I don't know what your Hydra friends told you, but recently they turned me into a super soldier like the real Bucky and I'm really pissed off!"

He just kept coming forward.

"Oh, come on! No comments at all to bring me down or make me feel guilty? I'm disappointed! You guys are really getting bad at this!"

Suddenly, the figure was standing only a few inches from her and Anne felt afraid. But why? She could easily shut that thing down.

She tried to punch the thing down, but his normal arm stopped her fist, and that's when everything broke down.

She felt the warm, pulsing hand that was holding her fist and shuttered and teared up. Anne stared up into his eyes, that were the only part of his face that wasn't covered and saw a fire inside of them. All at once, she started shaking uncontrollably.

"B-Bucky?"

He just tilted his head to the side and with his mechanical hand punched her in the face, knocking her out.

Bucky looked at the unconscious girl laying on the floor, wondering why she had called him that. But that wasn't his mission. They wanted the girl, so he picked her small figure up and put her over his shoulder.

Finally, he disappeared into the dark.