Chapter 4

Brant Corvin led them down a rabbit warren of hallways and doors, and finally, at the bottom of a flight of stairs, he knocked on a closed door.

"Cas?" he asked, knocking again. "Cassandra, I have a couple visitors here to see you."

There was silence from the room, and with a curse, Brant turned the knob, which gave easily under his hand. He turned on the lights, and Sam Wilson whistled faintly as they glanced around the room.

It was a tidy room, a small cot set up in the corner, blue blankets straight and unwrinkled. Several bookshelves, heavily ladened with volumes of all sizes, hugged one wall, and there was a beautiful picture of an older woman on the bedside table, but it wasn't any of this that got Steve and Sam's attention. It was the drawings.

The walls were covered in charcoal drawings, on huge watercolor papers, small printer papers, card stock, newsprint. Hundreds of detailed portraits of one single person.

Steve grabbed Brant by the coat, and dragging him from the room, he slammed him against the wall.

"What the hell is this, Brant?" he demanded, almost choking the other man. Sam put a hand on his shoulder, but Steve shook his off impatiently.

Brant coughed, feebly struggling. "Her name is Cassandra Lee Fletcher. She is a mutant," he gasped.

Steve let him go suddenly. "Well, she is obviously obsessed with James Barnes," he snapped. "Why? Who the hell is she?"

"Steve," Sam said warningly.

"Don't," Steve ordered, putting up a hand.

Brant straightened his sport coat and ran shaking fingers through his hair. "Cas and her parents were involved in a car accident when she was only thirteen. Her parents were both killed instantly, and Cas...well...Cassandra was in a coma for ten years. Head trauma. No one thought she was gong to wake up, until one day, she sat straight up in bed, screaming about somebody named Bucky. Everyone was convinced she was a lunatic, hell, even I thought she was. Until Washington."

"Wait, she knew he was The Winter Soldier?"

"I suspect so. She never said it outright," Brant explained. "She babbled constantly that Winter was Coming. We all assumed she was a fan of Game of Thrones," he laughed wryly.

"How did she come to be under your custody?" Steve asked, unamused.

"Custody?" repeated Corvis in surprise. "She is my ward, not my prisoner."

"She's twenty-five!"

"She was deemed to be insane," Brant shook his head. "And being her godfather, she was put in my care. She is here, now, because when she isn't obsessing about Bucky, she loves learning, and she is amazing with people-"

"Cut the crap, Brant. This was where you got the last tip that you 'dug up for me', isn't it?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"How long has she been talking about Bucky?" he bellowed in Corvin's face.

Brant sighed, raking claw-like fingers through his hair. "Two years."

Steve punched a hole in the wall, swinging away from Brant to catch his breath. Sam stared at this un-Captain-like behavior with wide eyes, wisely not remarking on it.

'Where is Cassandra now?" he asked after a long moment.

"I don't know," Corvin answered, staring into the room. "she was here right before you came."

"Did she say anything to you?" Steve asked, rubbing his eyes.

"No. Not about Bucky," Corvin answered distractedly. "I need to find her as soon as possible. She...she isn't stable right now, and certainly not on her own. With her...gifts, sometimes she has difficulty differentiating between the present, and the future."

"We'll find her," Sam answered quickly.

"Where would she go?" Steve asked, hands on hips.

Brant looked straight into his eyes for the first time in their conversation. "Honestly, Cap, I have no idea."