Hi everyone! I know it's been a while and I left this so open ended. Every so often I'd come back to this story wanting to finish it, because I've had it all mapped out this whole time. I just didn't have the time and eventually lost the motivation. But I kept coming back to it because I didn't like that it was unfinished.

So I'm going to release the notes and summaries I already had of where things were going, and how things were going to end. It's not going to be perfect, and I'm going to try to make everything as clean as I can. But I did want to give anyone that has read or is reading this some closure.
This is part one and goes through to Infinity War, because my notes are a little long. I'm going to clean up part two over the next few days and upload that, it will go through Endgame and then wraps up our story.

Only a few days before the lab had been state of the art, clean, impressive. Now it was filled with drones unmaking and making themselves new again. Wanda held Pietro's hand as she walked through the familiar lab following this thing that called himself Ultron, claiming to want what they wanted. In the center hooked up to a computer lay a strange colored woman. Ten feet and Pietro stopped, looking down at her with a level of suspicious contempt.

But Wanda moved to her side finding her mind filled with a familiar warm buzzing. She didn't recognize her yellow face but she knew her mind. Wanda reached a timid hand to the crown of her head, gently smoothing her red and blue hair. There was a moment of calm wondering before Wanda's face turned in on itself and she pulled away.

"She is in pain," Wanda said turning to Ultron.

He looked down at Elara with an air of sadness. Deciphering the strange and unearthly code to her skeletal mainframe was proving slow, slow enough it might kill her before he could get through it. But if he could disconnect the sentient part of her he could access her skeletal mainframe and wire himself into her coding to use her as an extension of himself. "Yes, it's taking longer than I was expecting to undo what Stark did to her."

It was smart telling Wanda this pain was Stark's doing, considering the name alone sent her into a blind rage, but she got the distinct uneasy feeling it was a lie. The last thing this woman had felt was an overwhelming sense of fear. Wanda looked to her brother seeing he was about a foot right of where she'd left him, having seen the flash of pain on her face and knowing it'd come from this strange woman. Suddenly a green dot at the corner of the computer she was hooked up to began to blink,

On the other side of the world the country's best tech analysts worked to locate any foreign signals that came through. Sam spent the last few days going from worried pacing to defeated stillness as the hours drew longer and they'd still found nothing that could be Elara. As an unknown string of code was suddenly located and found to be undecipherable, Sam called Steve to tell him they'd found her.

Hundreds of miles away a stoic man with cold blue eyes was moving to the laptop he'd stolen that had picked up the signal she'd suddenly put out. He wasn't smart enough to know how to track it so he found a young man who did and hovered over the scared kid as he traced her location.

...

After the Avengers take Vision's body Ultron moves Elara to keep her safe, now planning to use her as a final body once he was able to get rid of what made her her. After they defeat Ultron Steve and Sam go to the place Elara is being held, seeing all of the left over drones smashed to pieces and the table she'd been laying on empty with the cable she'd been connected to frayed as though it'd been ripped out of her.

Several miles ahead of them Bucky walks through the woods with Elara slung over his shoulder. It takes her system a few days to reboot, enough for her to wake up, the way he'd ripped the cord out had done something close to short circuiting her. She has seizures every so often from it, Bucky can tell because her coloring will start changing. She's weaker and her hearing isn't as good, she moves slowly as she relearns how to do things without the central processing unit that'd been programmed into her.

BEFORE AND DURING CIVIL WAR

Two months before the start of Civil War

At lunch Bucky finds Elara sitting with a small group of older women she'd been visiting almost every day, they were teaching her to crochet and how to gossip. She had the front of her long brown hair pulled back out of her face, and was wearing a dress the same red as her natural hair color – he thought she looked nice. He sneaks up behind her and gets his arms around her, asks the ladies if they mind if he steals her. They wave the two away with knowing smiles.

They get lunch, he eats a sandwich while she brushes the hair behind his ear and sticks a flower in it. He turns to her with a smile that's been steadily growing warmer each passing day. Before they leave he catches her gaze straying often to a family at the park across the street.

He finds her after work cooking, having pulled the rest of her hair up. There's a candle burning, it's a new scent he likes. He looks through what she bought; finds she has a perfume, candle, big lotion, and small lotion all of the same smell. He asks, you needed two lotions? She tells him she got the little perfume and when she checked out the lady told her the small ones were buy one get one free, and she panicked. He bites back a smile as he comes around to where she's standing by the stove, asks which one she wanted. She tells him a pink one that smelled like flowers and sugar. He asks why she didn't tell the cashier – she shrugs saying she already scanned it. She looks at him seeing his smile and tells him not to laugh, while laughing.

His mouth opens and he gets far as "I l-" before the voice died in his throat. A strand of hair had fallen from her bun and it hung over her shoulder, he gently pulls it from where it was stuck between her neck and shoulder and tells her he likes the one she picked. He kisses her shoulder seeing first the way that made her smile then the way her head tilted toward him and he kisses her cheek.

They have dinner, he's impressed with the dessert – she took her time decorating it, she's proud of it too. While eating her coloring starts to change. First her hair turns red then her skin green, then she turned blue, then violet – he sets his fork down and watches her. The moment she started shaking he reached for her and lowered her to the floor, stroking her hair until it stopped. She continues the conversation from where she left off, having not realized any time had passed at all.

As they lay sleeping a low whine reverberates through the apartment, his arm tightens around her middle and she reaches a hand to the arm he had around her as she sits up. In a box in the back of the closet she finds the bracelet Nebula had given her glowing. Elara tells Bucky she has to at least try. He's disappointed but he takes her out of the country to where it's secluded and they're less likely to be seen. Elara presses the glowing transponder sending Nebula her location.

Bucky asks if he should expect her back, his voice soft and his eyes unable to meet hers. She slides the bracelet cuff around the wrist of his metal arm telling him to call if he needs her. He reluctantly leaves her there, knowing after she'd been picked up the area would be thoroughly searched.

Nebula picks her up quickly, having arrived in earth's atmosphere and gone to where Elara's beacon was fast enough that they were gone before the military could get there to investigate what had come through their atmosphere. Nebula sees Elara's hands start shaking, sees her coloring flicker and she quietly asks what they did to her. Nebula hooks Elara up and manually reboots her system, having to stop at a scrap planet to get things to repair the parts of her internal system that had been damaged. She gently touches Elara's hair while she's unconscious. It takes about a month before Elara is back to normal. Nebula catches her up on what she'd missed, of Gamora finding a stupid family she stayed with – Elara can hear it hurt Nebula that Gamora hadn't chosen her. Nebula wants to kill Thanos, and while Elara doesn't agree, she helps Nebula find where he is. She herself wants to see how far into his plan with the stones he'd gotten.

...

When Steve finds the place Bucky has been staying, he notices the flowers on the windowsill – later he asks Bucky where Elara is. When Bucky's arm is crushed it breaks the transponder alerting Nebula, and Elara tells her she has to go back. Nebula is angry, something close to jealous. Elara tells her to come with her but Nebula pushes her away and goes to leave. Elara stops her and tells her that after she leaves Neubla will regret the way this ended, Elara tells her she doesn't have to, she'll always welcome her. Nebula crushes the transponder in her hand, Elara gently holds her clenched fist telling Nebula, you know where I'll be. She kisses her cheek and they part ways (showing affection how she'd learned from Bucky).

Elara gets back for the fight at the airport and is confused at seeing they were fighting each other. After Sam's drone knocks Peter out of the terminal, Rhodes comes to apprehend the two men currently stuck to the floor by Peter's web. Elara knocks him out of the building and tumbles on the floor ending up over Bucky. She smiles down at him and says, hi. He returns a soft hey beautiful – Sam lays beside them seeing the warm way they look at each other. Elara rips the webs off them and helps them up. Before they run out Bucky stops her and with a hand cupping the back of her head - still treating and holding her how he used to when she'd been weak, like she was a delicate thing he wanted to keep safe – he tells her she's not gonna understand but he needs her to do what he says anyways. When she nods he tells her, don't kill anyone. He sees her confusion and pulls her closer, readjusting his hold on her, "that's not what this fight's about." She doesn't understand but she agrees anyway - "that's my girl," he says and they rejoin Sam and the others.
***At some point she goes against Peter, finding him as strong as she is, but she gets him down and grabs his head pulling his mask off. She gasps looking at the limp wrinkled thing in her hand and whispers, "I pulled his face off." But Peter quickly tells her "no, no, my face is right here." She looks at him relived and says he is a little boy***
She intervenes in a lot of the fights but sticks close to Bucky and eventually takes over keeping T'Challa at bay. She's about to knock him out and Natasha throws a charge at her, it short circuits her system and she falls to the ground convulsing.
When Tony gets to where everyone who'd helped Steve and Bucky are being held, he finds Elara's strapped to a bed with an IV in her arm, twitching – her coloring has reverted to normal. He asks Ross why, and is told it was the only way to get her to stop screaming.

She's taken to Wakanda, they scan her finding most of her body is cybernetic – they find the port on the back of her neck and if they can download her mainframe they might be able to figure out where the problem is. To do that they have to wake her up. She wakes up screaming and thrashes, Steve holds her and yells for Sam to grab her legs – they 'plug her in' and Steve tells her what's happening, he knows it hurts just give them a little time they'll make it stop, all the while she screams. Her screams turn to that of a child breaking off into terrible sobs. It finishes it and they sedate her again and Steve lets her go.

Bucky moves beside her with wide eyes clearly shaken by her shrill screams, saying softly she came for him. He had a bracelet, he's not really sure what it was, it broke. She only came back for him. As Bucky reaches his hand to her hair, Steve tells him they'll fix her.

He's put under before she wakes up. She stands in front of his stasis pod and tells him he's an ass, he could've at least waited to say goodbye. Now that Steve, and those who'd sided with him, are fugitives he expects Elara to come back with him. She'd been gone for a year, he expected her to miss him. But after the others had packed up and were ready to go, Steve found Elara in Shuri's lab sitting by where Bucky lay sleeping. Steve understands she's staying.
He thanks her for looking after Bucky, understanding whatever devotion he'd seen in Bucky earlier existed in Elara too.

BEFORE INFINITY WAR

While in Wakanda T'Challa tells Elara she doesn't need to hide. It's the first time during her time on earth she gets to live as herself instead of hiding her coloring.

During Black Panther she's usually in the lab with Zuri who teaches her new things, is constantly telling her not to touch anything. During the fight Elara helps take out a ship, but when she realizes another ship is going after Everett in the lab she goes back and gets Bucky's pod out. She goes back for Everett and shoves him out before the lab explodes taking the brunt of the blast which knocks her out for the rest of the fight.

Bucky is woken shortly after this. Elara doesn't come find him until he'd had time to get settled, to understand how he now felt – she knew how confusing freedom was. So she gives him space to breathe and finds him later in the day. He looks up at her seeing her natural coloring, and tells her quietly "hey beautiful." It makes her smile.

They live here for two years, they heal. It's a simple quiet life.

INFINITY WAR

When they go to give Bucky his arm he's tending to the goats. Elara comes a short while after with a rope tied to a particularly mischievous goat that had run away. Her face brightens when she sees Bucky, but when her eyes find the vibranium arm he watches it seep out of her as if she knew this day was coming.

Steve talks to her alone and she tells him he can't let Thanos take her. Steve tries to say her name to quiet her, thinking it was just her being afraid of her father – but she holds his eye and calmly tells him Thanos cannot have her. Steve looks at her tired eyes and agrees.

Elara and Bucky stay close during the fight, it's the first time he's really seeing how lethal of a fighter she could be. He notices that none of the creatures are attacking her, when they did get to her it was almost like they were trying to drag her back to their ship.

When Wanda's trying to destroy the stone in Vision the others attack Thanos to protect them but he easily knocks them aside. It isn't until Steve is the last one standing between Thanos and the last stone, holding back the gauntlet with everything he had, that Elara finally comes forward. Thanos raises his other hand and is stopped by Elara's hand small on his wrist. "Leave him," she tells him gently, "he's not what you want."
Thanos looks back to this human, who he'd planned to fling hard enough into a tree to break something to get him to stop, understanding he meant something to Elara. He reels back and brings his fist down over Steve's head knocking him out.

He turns raising the gauntlet as though to cast her aside, but the reality stone washes her human coloring off and they stand facing each other. "You left me," he tells her softly. A small shivering smile lifts the corners of her mouths. "I was always too soft for you." He raises a hand to her chin, hearing Wanda's useless efforts to destroy the last stone. Elara looked up at him with her big kaleidoscope eyes, and for the first time it wasn't in fear. "My sweet girl," he said with measured fondness. He raised the gauntlet and blue washes over her as he put her to sleep, lowering her gently to the ground.

When Thor knocks Thanos back he lands by her. When Thanos takes himself away he brings Elara with him. She wakes on the planet with him, pulls away from the hand he reaches to her. He sighs sadly and steps away, limping, his breathing ragged. He reaches a hand to the wall to hold himself up and she slips under his arm bearing his weight and helps him. She sits beside him watching the setting sun hearing the wind rustling through the grass and leaves, found the quiet to be so loud. Her hands are around her ankles, holding herself again. Everything she'd done, the life she'd given up, the one she'd made on earth; trying and failing to avoid this end.
This is the way Thanos had orchestrated it to end, with this girl. He'd known upon meeting Elara she wasn't made for the life he would give her, she was made for kinder things – sweeter things. The way she cared for Gamora, tended to Nebula, could reprimand the black order, could even calm himself – she was made for motherhood. In a universe now fit for a child to flourish, one that wouldn't make the same mistakes.