1Ever since I can remember I knew what people were thinking or feeling, peering into all the little nooks and crannies that make them, well them. Usually it was just surface chatter, those thoughts you purposefully think at yourself, but when I really focused, I could open up someone's mind and have a proper rummage around; sometimes submerging myself so deep in their subconscious and uncovering things that, had I not gone looking, would've never seen the light of day.
I discovered the more time I spent around someone, the more I would find myself becoming them; absorbing their personalities through osmosis, picking up skills or languages I had never been taught. Pretty much, if they could do it, well now so could I.
Years later, long after they were gone from my life, I would suddenly find myself about to play the first seventeen bars of Clair De Lune or remember the secret to my old kindergarten teacher's grandmothers creme brulee; as if my mind would flick through all the bits and pieces of personalities I had collected over the past, and play them back to me like a record.
By the time I was six my mental shields completely protected me against the thoughts and emotions that would otherwise drown me; like a two-way mirror, I could look in, but they could never look out.
My mother was the other side of my coin; my cherished blessing, but her terrible curse.
A lifetime of self-medicating with antipsychotics and class A drugs in an attempt to treat something that can't be fixed; trying desperately to ensure I would never have to follow her footsteps, left her a broken shadow of my mother. She never stood a chance when a new "specialist" sold her the promise of a new drug trial that would finally end her suffering; not questioning for a second his suggestion that I accompany her to the first treatment.
Turns out the cure was as simple as a bullet to the head.
— *
My first year in captivity was spent being a lab rat; pushing my limits with painful and invasive testing and examinations in their desperate mission to replicate my abilities, but always falling short in their search for the source. Not helped by my refusal to cooperate. Apparently, it never occurred to anyone that a terrified eleven year old girl with nothing to lose wouldn't simply just submit and follow orders; so, sick of having to deal with the escape attempts and my fun little habit of biting anyone who came within chomping distance, it was agreed some incentive was necessary.
The Winter Soldier.
It took him three days to break my entire right arm. From my shoulder to wrist, before slowly working his way through every tiny bone in my hand down to my fingertips; ensuring to space it out so I was unable to pass out from the pain. Just as he reached the last knuckle, I looked straight into his eyes and spat, smirking as it sprayed across his face.
Nothing was said as he wrapped his hand tight around my neck, the warmth of the metal surprising me as it snagged on my hair; and I think it was that screaming silence that finally broke my hold on pandora's box.
In that second it seemed so easy to tear open his mind. To stop him. To kill him.
It would have killed us both had he not been so open and raw, laid out before me. I will never forget the second before our minds crashed through each other; that last breath when I was just a me and not an us. The overwhelming explosion of sensation of synapses melting together as his consciousness flooded through my mind, drowning me. The stickiness of my skin under his metallic fingertips, my blood pooling in my collarbone as it dribbled down from my ears, or the smell of his toothpaste as his breath washes over my face.
Our bodies went into complete shock, systems shutting down randomly as they became unable to cope with aftershock of my epic fuck up. The first two days my heart kept giving out, already struggling under the stress of the last three days, only to start up again without intervention. After my third spontaneous restart they noticed not only did we flatline simultaneously but once his healing kicked in and restarted his heart, mine would suddenly gain a normal rhythm until it lost momentum and failed again. Knowing my body couldn't take much more, in a desperate bid not to lose us both, they dosed me pulp fiction style with the new and improved version of the super soldier serum.
My body immediately trying to heal my extensive collection of injuries, only to going after muscle and my other less damaged organs as I was burning through the necessary calories faster than they could get them into me. While it only took a matter of hours for my body to completely heal itself after I was finally getting the right amount of fuel, the damage to our brains was far more extensive than either of our abilities could manage.
But no one could have ever predicted the full extent the scars left from my attack had left on us on us both.
We knew the second we awoke, simultaneously, that something was very wrong. It was a lot of trial and error relearning exactly where either of us now started or other ended along the parts that are now just _us, while suddenly being bombarded with sensations and emotions that neither of us could pin point who's they were first. While I was used to having voices in my head, it was a deeply alien feeling having one that answered back; but as our bond grew stronger, their programming started to unravel.
He quickly became violently protective over me, attacking anyone he deemed might be a threat, while flat out refusing to follow any order that might put me in danger, even while under the influence of The Red Book.
The Winter Soldier and that scared, angry little girl were long gone. Dead and forgotten memories of a life no longer lived.
And out of their graves clawed Jamie and Ivy; two people forever bound as one.
—*
6 years, 3 months, 24 days and 9 hours later
"I remember being on a Ferris Wheel" Jamie said to me one night, through our bond.
"Before you came here?" I asked, trying to get comfortable as the feeling of his hard cot made phantom aches shoot across my hips.
We had both accepted long ago that he was someone else before he came here, but with so few fragments left it sometimes seemed easier to let go and grow, together, into who we are now.
"I can still smell of popcorn and feel the spray of salt water itching my face" he says, sadness boiling over into rage "They took everything from me! The second I think I might finally have a grip on something, anything, they just rip it out of me over and over again" he screams, pacing around before roaring and punching the concrete wall of his cell, leaving an impressive crack behind.
"I promise you we will get back everything they've taken from us. No more heads will grow after we burn it all to the fucking ground" I vow, unaware I had just drop-kicked the first in a very volatile line of dominos.
I saw through his eyes as Hydra began to crumble.
Feeling his desperation and fear while he tried to find out where they were keeping me.
The shrieking of metal as the door was ripped off its hinges, screams sharply ceasing, flinching as blood suddenly sprayed across my face.
Being pulled into someone's arms, curling into the warm metal, as my vision blurred black.
The throbbing pain in my head eventually wakes me and opening my eyes, thankful for the soft lighting, I realised I was in the medical wing and quickly began pulling off the wires attached to me. I rush towards the door as the alarms start blaring but am knocked to the floor wave of dizziness; choking as I vomit suddenly, bile dripping from my lips. I could see a pair of shoes in front of me; the ringing in my ears and the lingering feeling of the sedative preventing me from sensing their approach.
"You should not be out of bed" a firm voice told me as they picked up and carried back towards the bed. Thrashing around, I manage to get free and flee into the hallway.
Shaking my head I feel the haze thankfully dissipating, allowing me to reach out with my mind and avoid crossing anyone's path until I find a pretty good hiding spot in an open-air duct. Crawling around I try to map out my surroundings, spying the security teams rush around below me, when I suddenly sense I am not alone in the vents. Looking over my shoulder I see a man commando crawling towards me from around a corner, surprise on his face.
"Hey kid, what the hell are you doing in here?" he yells and reaches out to grab my ankle. I shriek and kick out, connecting with a satisfying crunch. While he's distracted I scurry back the way I came and find an empty room that I can drop into, my landing a little messier than I had planned, but still mostly intact.
Looking around I see I'm in some sort of garage or workshop, tools and half built machines lying around everywhere. A man with a grease stained band t-shirt and ripped jeans comes in through the door and briefly makes eye contact before looking back down at his phone. It takes him almost a minute to fully register that he isn't alone, but before he can do anything, I've already got a shard of jagged metal pressed against my neck.
"You won't take me prisoner again; I figure I should bleed out before you can do much to stop me" I scream and back into the wall.
"What the hell are you on about, why would I want to keep you prisoner? You broke in here, remember?" he says, taping angrily away at his phone again.
"Bullshit; You would never let me go after what Jamie did" I shout, trying to ignore the annoying itch of the sticky blood already dripping down my neck.
"Look, I don't know who this Jamie is or what they did, but it's not in my interests to kidnap kids" he says as he starts walking slowly towards me, hands up, realising that I might actually follow through on my threat.
Just before he reaches me, the man from before drops down from the same vent as I came in through and wraps his arms around my waist. I jerk and swing the metal round and slash it into his arm, trying to break away.
"Fuck! Tony grab her" he yells as he falls to the floor, blood pooling around him. The other man quickly reacts and tackles me, disorientating me enough that he succeeds in pinning me to the floor.
Suddenly, the room is full of people, someone's shouting orders and from my position I can see the shoes of the man I escaped from in my hospital room.
"We need medical down here now; she hit an artery" he says, crouching over the man I hurt, Clint.
"Tony, for gods' sake, she's been through god knows what and the first thing you think to do is sit on her?" a tall blond man yells, yanking him off me.
"Hey in my defence she breaks into my lab, shanks Clint, then accuses me of keeping her prisoner, and you're yelling at me? Wow Cap, really got your priorities straight" he responds.
"To the end of the line" Jamie, wait no, Bucky? says as he slips into my consciousness before fading away.
"What did you just say? Did he tell you to say that?!" he demanded, clawing at my shoulders tightly and shaking me.
"Oh so I can't restrain her in my own lab, but you're allowed to shake her? Total double standards Steve"
The heightened emotions around the room start to bombard me, making me ache with overstimulation. I shove him off me, sending him crashing into a through a wall, screaming as curl up and wrap my arms tightly over my head in an attempt to shut everything out.
"EVERYBODY SHUT UP! Tony, get out and take Steve with you; neither of you are being remotely helpful." The room hushed in a second.
"Wow Bruce should we be worried, not feeling a little green around the gills are you?" He teases.
"Now" he said, making it apparent the conversation is now over. Tony, still chuckling at his attempt at a joke, grabs Steve by the elbow, and with a lot of effort pulls him up and drags down the hall. Some nurses rush in with a gurney a second later, quietly and efficiently removing Clint from the room.
"I am going to sit right here, for as long as it takes, while you to work through whatever you need to" Bruce says quietly, sitting crossed legged against the wall opposite to me. I desperately soak up the soothing calm he emits, and try focusing on strengthening my shields.
I have no clue how long we stayed there, but I'd managed to get back to being just me, well us, without the screaming fog of the others clouding my mind.
"Are you HYDRA?" I whisper, unsure if I could handle the answer.
"No, I promise" he says, his mind confirming it's the truth.
"How did I get here?" I ask, slowly sitting up and curling my knees to my chest "And where is here?"
"Four-ish hours ago, a man named James Barnes walked into the lobby of the Avengers Tower. Without saying a word gently placed your unconscious body down on the welcome desk at reception before walking out" he explained. Reaching into a first aid kit he must have grabbed in all the commotion, he pulled out some gauze and a bottle of iodine before gesturing the gauze in the direction of my throat. "May I? Tony's lab isn't the cleanest, and we would want it to get infected"
"It's not like I have much choice" He doesn't rise to the bait. I pull my hair out of the way, wincing as he pours the iodine on the rapidly closing gash.
"Both of you were completely drenched in blood, the poor intern working at the assumed you were dead until security checked your pulse" he continues, pausing to unwrap a transparent dressing.
"I wouldn't bother with that, it'll have already finished healing before you get it stuck down" I tell him, already feeling the itch of fresh scar tissue.
"I have that nifty little trick too, though mine comes with some interesting side effects I like to try and avoid" he comments, cleaning blood and iodine off my neck with an alcohol wipe.
Neither one of us said anything as he guided me back to medical, but I found his silent presence comforting. He introduced me to Dr Cho, who diagnosed me with mild dehydration, malnourishment and in need of about three life time's worth of therapy, before showing me to the room they had quickly set up for me.
Then, for the first time in a very long time, I was completely totally alone.
Hi, so this is the newly updated version of fic I posted on Ao3 a few years ago so if you want some spoilers go check it out, it's under the same name, but all the reuploaded chapters will be updated here as soon as their done.
Reviews are always appreciated and I promise I'll never threaten to hold new chaps hostage it you guys don't meet my quota haha but I will be just as happy with fav/follows