The girl sat at a table in Tony's lab. She stared watching while he worked on spare parts rebuilding a new suit. Her eyes seemed to follow each stroke, each turn, each movement he made. She had been silent the entire time. Bruce was watching her as she watched Tony. He noted the way her eyes perceived human movement but not really the person. She wasn't watching him to get to know him or open a conversation, she was watching what he was doing. Her entire body was rigid, sitting in a chair at the table, hugging her knees with her chin resting on them. It was terrifying. It was like she was memorizing his movements and sizing him up as a threat, or at least a just being ready if he were to attack her. It made Bruce hurt. She was watching Tony in case he attacked. He sighed as Tony hissed pulling his arm back from a piece of metal that he'd burnt it on while welding.

"The seams not straight." She whispered. Tony raised an eyebrow turning to face her.

"Yeah? You think you can do better kiddo?" after a long pause the girl nodded. A few strands of her long messy brown hair fell in her eyes.

"Yes." She replied her voice small. Stark debated handing the girl a weapon that spit fire; he wasn't sure that it was a great idea, seeing as their recent run ins weren't pleasant.

"Come on then." He gestured to the suit holding the welder. "Give it a go." She hesitated. Slowly, she got up her bare feet padding over the floor, and made her way over to him. He noticed that she positioned herself facing him at an angle and stopped about a foot away from him. She placed her hand out for the welder.

"I don't need gloves." She said as he started to take one off. "I won't feel it with the hand I'm using anyway."

"What do you mean you won't feel it?" he asked.

"When they put the metal inside my bones, I lost some feeling in places. My right hand was one of those." She said matter of fact. He handed her the welder and she clicked the flint to ignite it.

"You have metal in your bones?" he clarified watching as she began matching the seams back together in a much straighter line than he had done.

"Don't stand at my back." Her voice was terse and he immediately moved into the side line of vision for her. He noted that her back relaxed just a fraction.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot kid." She eyed him sideways while working.

"I don't like you." Bruce laughed sitting in the chair she had been in.

"At least she's honest."

Hours after they'd resurface from the lab and one suit fully seamed down the side later, the girl made her way into a main living room area of one of the floors. She felt lost. Her body felt tired and wired all in the same heartbeat. Everything here was new. Everything new meant it was a threat. There was no mission here. She didn't know how to operate without a mission. She felt her heartbeat begin to race. Mission. She had no mission. What was she supposed to do? There had to be a mission. There was always a mission. Barnes. She stopped suddenly gripping a chair she'd started to pass by near the windowed wall viewing the city below. Barnes was her mission. These people wanted to use her just the same as Hydra. She was just a weapon for hire. They owned her now because they had found her. Another shot of adrenaline jolted through her chest. Her eyes grew wide. What if these men were Hydra as well. What if Hydra was just moving her under the government's noses again. Again? She couldn't really remember being moved before to other places, other countries for missions, for safekeeping…but at the same time she knew that it had been done. She knew that she'd been taken to many different places as a cover. Who was she a cover for? What had they made her do…her knees started to grow weak.

She sunk down on the plush cream carpet and stared out through the window wall. Where was the last place she remembered being except for the lab? She tried…she tried so hard…but only pieces of black fuzzy images stretched through her mind. Suddenly she jerked upright her jaw tensing. Within the moving black images there was an intense bright flash of red and she screamed. There was so much pain accompanied by this memory that was only a color she couldn't keep it inside. She ground her teeth together so hard grinding them against one another to keep the scream inside her throat. What was that? What was that red pain? Who was she…what did these people want her for…Barnes. Her mission was to find Barnes. Then they would wipe her again…they'd wipe her and start over.

Steve entered the living room after hearing the strangled scream to find the girl in bad shape. She was huddled on the ground, knees pulled to her chest, gripping the sides of her head with her eyes squeezed shut tightly. He approached her slowly. He knew that rushing to get near her would only startle her. He wasn't even sure if this was a good idea either. When he'd reached Bucky the man had only attacked him with more fervor. Gently, he knelt down beside her and put one finger to her wrist. She jerked away from him catching herself against the side of a white couch. She grabbed for something from the table that could be used as a weapon.

"I am not an enemy." He said taking his hand back from her body. She paused looking at his eyes. He had her attention. Her hand was still stretched mid-way to grip around a vase.

"I do not want to hurt you." He whispered. "What happened?" he asked still kneeling in front of her. A brief image flashed through her mind. An image of the soldier they kept calling Bucky. She saw him sitting in front of her on the tiled lab floor reaching out to touch her chin.

"I didn't mean to hurt you that bad." He'd said. She flinched back from Steve trying to meld herself into the couch.

"What is my mission?" she asked. Steve saw slats of moonlight fall over her face from the window as her eyes met his. She had yet to comb her hair, and had flat out refused Natasha's help to brush it. It was snarled in places, tucked behind her ears, and tied in a knot at the back of her head. It was in a sort of snarled bun.

"There is no mission." He said reaching forward again to take her hand. He did it in a manner that she saw it coming. It was not a surprise when his hand touched hers. She tensed but didn't jerk away this time.

"You're lying." She grit out through her teeth eyes scared. "You want to make me find him…you'll use me to find him…then you'll do it again." She whispered. Steve tilted his head confused.

"Do what again?" she tried to move her hand but he wouldn't let her. He kept her eyes on his.

"Make everything go black." It was in this moment that he realized just how young she really was. It wasn't like Bucky who'd been kept alive for nearly seventy years to endure this. Every form of torture they'd subjected her to was freshly imprinted into her physical and mental state. Even if she couldn't remember it, it was there. Her reactions were so purely acute because they'd done what they'd done to Bucky to her in a shorter amount of time. They'd also started at an earlier age; she'd only been six. She couldn't be much older than twenty something now as it stood.

"We will not hurt you." He stated firmly. "We want to help you. You are not on a mission. There is no mission."

"There has to be!" she snapped closing her eyes again shaking her head. She ripped her arm from his and shot to her feet. "There is always a mission!" she snapped her hands shaking at her sides.

"Your mission is to find out who you were." Tony said entering the room. He eyed her down.

"Who I was?" she asked confused.

"You're part of our team. It's our mission too. We are uncovering Hydra files to find out where you came from and who you were. What your purpose was…why they created you." The instant he suggested she had a mission Steve watched her relax. It was built into her. Without a mission she couldn't understand the world around her. She couldn't understand herself.

"Ok." She whispered standing still now. Her attention was like that of awaiting orders.

"You need to get some sleep." He told her. She remembered they'd given her a small room on another floor. "Do you want help finding it?" She shook her head and turned to leave.

"Wait." Steve said taking strides to catch up. "I wanted to ask you something." She turned to glance at him. It was as much of a response as he would get.

"What do you want us to call you?" there was apparent shock on her face.

"I don't have a name. I am Soldat." She was only known as soldier before. He shook his head.

"For this mission you will need a name." Tony interjected. "What do you want to be called?" it was clear that she'd never been given control of herself before. She made a face looking completely lost.

"Anya." She said suddenly. It came out of her mouth without her even realizing it. "I want to be called Anya." She surprised herself.

"Well, goodnight then…Anya." Steve smiled at her as she walked towards the elevator.

When the doors shut he turned to face Tony.

"What was that?"

"The doctor's said that she won't respond to anything that isn't mission driven. She has to have a reason to function. We take that away and she will fall to pieces. So, I gave her a mission. If we find Bucky on the way, then all the better, but she needs to believe that we're in this for her Captain. If we don't have at least her cooperation, I'm not saying trust because I don't think she'd capable of that yet, but without her hand in this you won't find him." Steve had to admit that he was right. They needed her.

"But we're lying to her." He said rubbing the back of his neck. "That might break her more than anything else."

"Who's more important Cap? Anya or Bucky? Ask yourself that one…I can answer who matters more to me. You or Pepper? She would win every time bud. Sorry."

"That's not right." He started shaking his head.

"You mean it's not fair. Life isn't fair. You have to pick and choose. It's your call Captain. Bucky or Anya?" after a moment Steve looked at the floor sighing.

"We have to find Bucky. I promised him…"

"Then there's your answer. You'll use her because she can help you find a person you care about. That's what life comes down to sometimes." He shrugged. "In the end, hopefully we'll be able to fix her up after we find Bucky. They can both be rehabilitated soldiers together Steve…."

The captain eyed the other man with sadness. It was of lost hope.

"The world shouldn't be like that."

"Welcome to the twenty-first century. Everybody has to look out for themselves." Tony replied before waving a hand over his shoulder to leave the room. "Come on, let's get some milk."