#oyli

I didn’t know what to expect of the cell Orion was being held in. You couldn’t see much of it from the security camera, so I was a little surprised to see us being separated by a transparent energy barrier. Fair enough; I didn’t want him attacking me again anyway. I slid into the seat on my side of the wall crossing my legs and looked over at him.

He looked dreadful. He sat hunched over, either in pain or in fatigue, with his face in his hands. His dusty blonde had been pushed back in stress. I coughed slightly to get his attention. His head snapped up, an irritated frown greeting me. However, after registering who was visiting his cell, his eyes briefly widened, and for a second I swore I saw a flash of hope on his face before his face returned to a more neutral one.

“Sorry about… earlier…” I grimaced, referring to when we last saw each other. I knew he wasn’t going to spit anything out if I was as stoic as he was. “I panicked.”

Orion raised an eyebrow.

I shrugged.

“That’s an understatement, Y/N.” He responded. Good, he was loosening up a little, or at least to make conversation with me.

“Hey, I didn’t kill you, so that’s not a problem.”

“But I’m in a cell in the Avengers tower, and I doubt I’m going to be able to go back anytime soon.”

He gestured to the room around us.

“The problem is that you’re not in a cell.”

Oh.

Yeah.

I had forgotten that I was potentially ex-H.Y.D.R.A.

“I’m sorry.”

He sighed, pushing his hair out of his face again.

“What did you do Y/N?”

“I’m not comfortable following H.Y.D.R.A.” I scratched the back of my neck.

“You could’ve just said that before-” He stopped himself, looking up at the camera in the corner.

“Does this mean you’re chummy with them now Y/N?” he frowned.

“Yes…No, I don’t know?” I bit my lip, looking at my feet.

Saved by the bell, my timer went off in my pocket indicating that this session was over. He seemed to understand what the sound was. He resumed the position he was in when I came in and I got up out of my seat. I don’t know if he had cottoned onto the fact that the session was meant to be an interrogation.

“I’ll see if I can come again Orion. Goodbye.”

Nat and Wanda are both giggling at your antics and sorting through your collection of way too many lipsticks to find the perfect shade to match your dress.

Wanda gives a triumphant shout as she holds up a deep red lipstick.

“I have found the one!” She shouts throwing it to you. You catch it easily and turn back to the mirror to apply it.

“So,” Nat says coyly from behind “Are you finally gonna tell us who the mystery guy is? This is what, date number 5?”

You groan and turn to send her a faux-irritated look. “Yeah, no. I know that as soon as I give you his name you are going to start running background checks on him and start acting like super overprotective big sisters.”

“Only the best for our (Y/N),” Wanda replies with a grin.

As she says this the doorbell goes off and everyone looks to the bedroom doorway.

“No!” You shout but you are too late; Nat and Wanda are already running for the door.

You run after them and turn the corner as they yank the front door open.

Nat leans against the wall and says seductively to your shocked looking date “Well hello handsome.”

At this moment you move through the door, pulling it shut behind you and shutting your meddling friends inside.

“Hi Peter!” You say, grabbing his hand and pulling him to the elevator which thankfully is already there.

Once you are in the elevator Peter turns to you and sends you a questioning glance.

“My friends are incorrigible.” Is all you say in way of explanation.

“Ah,” He chuckles. “now that I understand.”

As you and Peter leave the elevator hand in hand your phone chimes signalling a text. You pull your phone out and see a message from Wanda saying:

We heard you say his name! The hunt is on!

“So I’m here...what now?”

“We’re hoping your presence will make her settle,” Bruce spoke next. “Although overall she’s been stable as I told you earlier, every hour or so she’s had outbursts where she rapidly deteriorates /and almost wrecks all the tech/. Seeing as she’s been thinking your name, we might as well see if you just being here helps her.”

I guess they’d exhausted everything else. It couldn’t hurt to try. I took a seat next to Y/N and Bruce passed me her limp hand. It was cold and clammy in mine. According to Bruce, just this much contact with her was improving her state much more than it was before. I was a little sceptical, but still, I sat there, holding her hand.

Three or four hours passed by. Steve brought in a couple of books for me to entertain myself with. Pietro brought me some macaroni at dinner/ish/ time. I had no clue how long they actually expected me to sit here, but I had nothing better to do. Hours stretched on, and Y/N and I stopped getting visitors. As it got dark I did get a brief visit from Clint bringing a blanket. I guess they did expect me to seriously stay with her. I moved into a comfortable position on the chair, still lightly gripping Y/N’s hand, and let myself drift off to sleep.

For one of the few times since I became the Winter Soldier, I had a dream and a good dream at that. I dreamt that Y/N and I were ballroom dancing in the gym together. In reality, I’m pretty sure I have two left feet, but here I glided across the floor like a professional. I dipped and lifted her to the music. I swung her round after the final lift, Y/N giggling. As I put her down, I noticed how close our faces were. I could feel her breath on my face. Our noses brushed against each other as I leant in and-

My head snapped up as I abruptly awoke, bright red in the face and flustered. What the hell? Where did that dream come from? I looked over at Y/N, still nonplussed. I had known her only a few days, so where were these feelings coming from? Unlike yesterday, she looked like she was sleeping. I guess Bruce and Wanda were right when they said that me being with her might help stabilise her condition. She looked so peaceful. I let go of her hand, flexing a little before going to brush a few strands of H/C hair out of her face. Her heart monitor began to speed up, along with a plethora of angry beeps from other machines. Quickly realising that her condition was fluctuating again, a returned my hand into its place with hers.

It looked like it was the morning, so I wasn’t surprised when I heard approaching footsteps. However, my feathers were still ruffled from the dream and I was still blushing profusely. Taking a few steady breaths I tried to concentrate and not let my thoughts drift to Y/N. I picked up one of the books Steve had brought me and made it look like I’d been burning time by reading.

It was Bruce checking up on Y/N’s condition. I was glad it wasn’t Steve or Wanda. Both could read me, even when deadpan, like a book, and I really couldn’t face them knowing about this current development. Bruce’s visit was brief, which was a relief. However, when Steve came round to bring me some coffee and some breakfast, I had a dilemma. As soon as he came into the room he could tell that something was wrong, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to pry or not.

“You okay Buck?” Steve asked as he placed a mug of coffee and a plate of toast on Y/N’s bedside table.

Of course, he noticed.

“Yeah.”

I answered that too quickly. I needed to chill.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Bucky.”

I sighed, deciding to leak a little information. I mean, we’re best friends so it’s only fair that I don’t keep everything from him.

“I had a weird dream, OK?” I pouted. “I don’t want to to talk about it.”

I could feel the blush returning to my cheeks. Hell, I felt like a schoolboy again, and I didn’t think I liked that sensation. I was used to being strong, not vulnerable like this.

“You know you can talk to me about anything Buck,” he reassured me, placing a hand on my shoulder, “And you know I can tell when you’re hitting on people.”

I turned bright red and tried to hide in my hair.

“What makes you think that?” I shot back, way too quickly.

“I guess that would make sense,” I said grimacing, passing the tablet back to Tony, “If you want to lock me up to keep an eye on me, I wouldn’t blame you now, but if you want me, I’ll be in the gym mulling over my thoughts.”

They made no move to stop me as I made my leave. As I reached the stairs I remembered that they’d been blown apart in places. Hesitating for a moment, I made the probably reckless decision of heading down there anyway. It was as dim as it was before. Lighting up my hands to give me a little more visibility, I began to take the stairs by two. When I reached the gap that I had fallen down I just leapt over it and landed safely on the other side. It didn’t take me long to reach the gym, though part way down there I almost tripped over a discarded gun that hadn’t been collected. The gym was pitch black, but with a flick of my hand, I hand sent power to the lights.

I returned myself to the treadmill, quickly turning it on and getting back into jogging. The sound of my blood pumping in time with my breaths was soothing and calmed me from the former stress that had been eating away at me. I lost myself in running, gradually speeding up the treadmill until I was at a comfortable but still fairly fast speed. Suddenly everything faded away…

I found myself running in a field. Next to me, a younger me ran, much more flustered. In her hand was a gun. Every minute or so she blindly aimed behind her and released several shots. I heard a few cries of pain, and thumps as their bodies hit the ground. Risking losing speed with myself, I turned to see who was chasing me. There were half a dozen armed men and women in black racing after me, trying to get a good aim on her. Turning back, I picked up speed to catch up with this poor memory-me. She was losing ground and honestly looked like she could drop there. Nevertheless, she continued to plough through the grasses, careful to keep an eye on her footing. Behind us, the group drew fire. Neither of us took any chances as I felt the air around us electrify. I flinched as bullets flew around us, their paths bent so they didn’t hit us. That was close. I had my hopes up as we sprinted across the field when memory-me tripped. Everything began to fade again, and too soon I returned to the present day.

Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I switched the treadmill off. Honestly, I was dying to know what had happened to me after I’d tripped, but I knew that I couldn’t force my memories to return. After that memory, and after Steve’s theory, the world seemed a hell of a lot darker. There was the glaring notion that I’d probably killed in the past since I was HYDRA, and probably in cold blood. The thought made my stomach churn.

Ugh.

I glanced at the clock on the wall at the end of the hall. 10:30 PM. When did it become this late? The realisation of the time freed my repressed exhaustion, and the journey to my room was a blur. As much as I was tired I was sweaty, so I stripped in record time and slid into the shower. The warm water soothed my aching muscles as I washed. I had no idea when I had last previously washed, so I was glad to have made up my mind to do so. I had no idea how dirty I was until I saw the water change colour slightly when it ran off me. How grimy did I get from fighting on the stairs?

I was about almost done showering when I heard someone enter my room. Instinctively I dropped into a defensive stance, the water still flowing down my back. The door separating my room and my bathroom was shut, but I hadn’t bothered to lock it, so whoever was there could walk in on me at any moment. Carefully stepping out of the shower, though leaving it still running, I snuck over to the towel rack and wrapped a F/C towel around me. Arming myself with a hairbrush and making sure I had a firm grip on my towel, I slowly stalked towards the door. The sounds of movement halted as approached the door. Holding my breath, I pushed the door open.

The intruder was none other than Bucky, sitting on my bed, reading a book.

“What are you doing in here?” I quietly screeched, ready to bat him away with the previously mentioned hairbrush. He looked up at me, dog-earing the page he was on.

“I wanted to chat with you.”

“I was showering!” “And now you’re not.” He gestured back towards the bathroom. “You probably want to turn it off when you’re not using it, though; you wouldn’t want to raise the water bill.”

“Ugh.”

As soon as he was out of the gym, I headed out to the locker room. I flicked my black locker open and changed into a pair of cream tactical trousers, a white shirt and jacket, and black combat boots. I slipped into the meeting room as Natasha was just sitting down. She slid a file over to me. I caught it, briefly flicking through it. Looks like it was a infiltration mission to recover some dangerous stolen weapons; a gun of some sort and a bomb. We briefly discussed our strategy; basically I would freeze time as we entered the facility and then Bucky would break off from Nat and I and would recover the weapons while we dealt with security. We left shortly after.

As the quinjet touched down in the safe zone hidden just inside Hydra’s territory, I fitted myself with an earpiece so we could hear each other if we got split up and got ready to leave. We had a short hike through a seemingly barren area, and to anyone else, it would be impossible to cross it without being caught. However, these two had me. From what they knew, I was born with the powers to stop and slow time in small bursts. S.H.I.E.L.D had taken me in a year ago, training my strength up before sending me off to join the Avengers. All they had really done was shelter me from HYDRA from getting interested in me and gave me a place to live, but they didn’t need to know that. Not yet at least.

A force tugged at my gut as I summoned my powers. Our surroundings shimmered as time froze around us and the quinjet left. To anybody who wasn’t under the effects of this power, it would seem that we were running extremely fast or we weren’t there at all. We journeyed at a reasonable pace, covering the distance pretty quickly. The sun beat down on us relentlessly and I was glad I wore light colours. Bucky on the other hand refused to wear anything light and so was dripping with sweat. I shaked my head and sighed. He was so stubborn. Natasha seemed indifferent to the heat and from the looks of it wasn’t even sweating.

The dark building loomed on the horizon as we got closer to the Hydra base, shimmering like a mirage. The sweat from the heat dripped off of me in buckets, though not as much as Bucky, giving me the effect of being worn out from using my powers for such a long period of time. I felt Nat pat my back and I turned my head to see her giving my an understanding smile. Hah, she didn’t know half of it.

I gulped as we entered the facility. It was deadly quiet, since you know, time was frozen and all.

“Don’t touch ANYTHING unless you really need to,” I warned, clicking my neck and flexing my fingers.

Bucky and Natasha nodded. They’d been over the rules of time freezing time and time again: Don’t touch anything unless you want people to know that you’ve been there, especially if there is high security or the people specialise in individuals with powers. Don’t freeze time on top of time freeze - it will cause the freeze to time out and break. You can’t time manipulate a person if they are not with you. Bucky took my hand and kissed it as we got ready to part ways. Nat rolled her eyes. Bucky and I were rather sappy. Yes, romantic relationships were dangerous and can be considered a weakness, but we went from banter to kissing within a month of meeting. Even Steve jokes that we were made for eachother.

As Bucky skirted down the corridor adjacent to us, I unfroze time briefly, freezing Bucky in mid jog. His hair was frozen flowing in the air. I sighed as we passed him, a blush rising on my cheeks. Nat just shook her head and chuckled.

The facility was air-conditioned, or at least it would be out of this time stop, and so I was quite relieved to find my sweat had evaporated, and the smell beginning to dissipate since we arrived. We navigated our way though a maze of corridors and stairways. I had no idea how Natasha managed to memorised the layout, but I had even less of an idea how the HYDRA agents knew where they were going. However, before I even knew it, we were at the control centre.

The control room was a small hall, lined with large screens and computers. Men and women alike sat at rows of computers, frozen mid sentence in typing. Some were partway through speaking to other agents through their headsets. On each of the large screens adorning the walls was a different camera angle. Three of the cameras displayed Bucky at different angles, although they wouldn’t have noticed that yet. Now it was time to get to work. Natasha and I had to carry and tie all these agents up and lock them in the cells on the next floor. I was glad I had built up my upper body strength.

It took about an hour to transfer all of the agents in that room into cells and get back to the control room. Natasha rechecked the room three times just to make sure we had got everyone out of there. When she gave me the clear, I released the time freeze. Bucky had three and a half minutes to get to the weapons and meet up with us before all the facility were going to be after us. My fingers danced across the keys as he raced down the halls, opening doors and shutting down security protocols for him.

“The weapons should be in the next lab to your left, but be careful, there aren’t any cameras there, so be careful Buck,” I warned Bucky through my earpiece.

I saw him nod, and I opened the door. He slipped in.

“What do you see?” I asked.

Silence.

“Bucky?”

Nothing. His connection had been cut off. They knew we were here. I strained my ears to hear quiet grunts of pain picked up by the weak camera microphone. Ugh, I knew this mission was going to go down hill! Suddenly a group of about six agents burst into the control room. They evidently had powers, and this was even more evident as with a wave of a hand, the man at the front had Natasha pinned with half melted computers. She cried out in pain and I had a feeling that we weren’t going to make it if I didn’t reveal my true potential. I tried summoning my time powers. Damn! I didn’t know why, but they weren’t working. This must’ve shown on my face, because one of them grinned at me. Of course, someone had a type of power cancelling abilities. Great, I would definitely have to bite the bullet here.

As computer man lifted a hand to have a swipe at me, I opened up a mini wormhole beneath them, dropping the majority of them into a cell. Unfortunately some of them jumped out of the way before they dropped down. Closing the wormhole, I threw a punch to block the power preventer from knocking me out with a computer. They staggered back, blood dripping from their jaw, before running at me again. I guess they could only prevent the power that they had prepared themselves for. I blocked their punch and countered with a sharp knee to the stomach. They tripped backwards away from me, and with one wormhole they were gone. I was quickly grabbed from the behind by the other. He began to heat his hands on my mouth and my hip. Gritting my teeth in mock pain to give him a false sense of security, I focused on manipulating the matter around him. A cry of pain and the release of his hands told me that I had managed to heat up the matter around his skin and burnt him badly. He promptly found himself in a cell.

I ran over to Nat who was still pinned on the wall with mangled computers. I manipulated the matter around her while I froze time and threw them off of her. She landed on the floor with a thud and led against the wall for support while she brushed off her clothes.

“Are you alright Nat??” I frowned, offering a hand. She took it and I helped her up.

“I’m fine,” she replied, brushing a few stray wires from her hair, “ But what’s going on with you? How the hell did you do that [Y/N]?!?”

“Well,” I chuckled, “I’ve been able to do that since I first got control of my powers when I was a kid.”

Natasha furrowed her eyebrows.

“But you were only picked up and trained a year ago…”

“Picked up: Yes, Trained: No. S.H.I.E.L.D got me up off the streets and stopped me from stealing, but what they didn’t know didn’t hurt them.”

“Does Bucky know?”

“No,” I sighed, “I haven’t revealed the true extent to my powers in years. I’m actually surprised that you guys haven’t figured out there was something more than time stopping to me.”

“There weren’t any records of other powers that you presented, so we just assumed…”

I nodded. It was understandable since I hadn’t exactly displayed my other powers before. Natasha’s comment brought Bucky back to mind. Crap, we had lost contact with him before those Hydra agents burst in. Nat read my face and gave a sharp nod towards the door. I shook my head in reply. I hand something different in mind. I envisioned the corridor where Bucky was last seen and opened up a wormhole on a wall. I jumped in and Nat followed wearily behind.

I took a sharp intake of breath. The sliding doors to the laboratory were shattered, blood lacing some of the shards. I could see Nat grimacing too. This was bad. I stepped over the glass and scanned the lab for Bucky. It didn’t take long to find him. He was in mid flight from getting thrown into a glass cabinet full of specimens. There were several lacerations on his face and non-metal arm and he was definitely in a lot of pain.

With some help from Nat, we brought him onto the ground and got ready to catch him when I unfroze him. When I did, he went flying into me, and I almost fell with him. At first he was confused, but when he realised what had happened his face lit up.

“Hey nerd,” I grinned, looking down on his face, kissing his forehead, “Lemme fix you up. You aren’t as tough as you think you are.”

He rolled his eyes and grinned, giving me a little peck back.

“Fine,” he laughed, wincing slightly at the pain.

With a wave of my hand, the glass crunching beneath us disappeared. Nat’s eyes widened slightly, obviously still not accustomed to the new powers that I had.

“Now, Buck….try not to freak out…”

“Wha-”

His voice cut off as I made his body levitate, lying in mid-air at hip level. It was simple molecule manipulation, but no one was ready for it. Bucky flailed painfully a little and his jaw dropped. Nat just rolled her eyes muttering under her breath how of course I could levitate people.

“I can do more than freeze time,” I anxiously chuckled. How badly was he going to take this? A relationship is based on trust and honesty, and I didn’t tell him something this important. I chewed on my lip a little.

“You don’t say,” he joked, closing his eyes, putting his arms behind his head and taking a large breath, “[Y/N], How long?”

“I’ve always been able to do this,” I cringed, “Don’t be mad…”

He rose an eyebrow and opened one eye.

“Who said I was upset about this?” He gave me a lopsided smile, “I knew you were hiding something from the start hun, but I respected your choice. And, hell, why would I be mad about more powers? Seriously, the others will FLIP when you tell them.”

He took a glance at face to gauge my reaction to his reaction.

“IF you tell them, though I doubt we’ll be able to keep it a secret for long.”

I waved my hand over his body, sealing his wounds. He would still hurt like hell but he wouldn’t be bleeding to death. Both Natasha and Bucky had taken that pretty well. I lowered Bucky back onto the floor, back onto his two feet.

“They need to know. We’ll get them to assemble as soon as we get back,” I replied, “Now, where’s those weapons? Can you two grab them while I prepare our… transport.”

Bucky had no clue what I was on about but shrugged and followed a slyly grinning Natasha to the weapons. I rubbed my hands together and created a wormhole home

“So why are we assembled?”

Tony was more preoccupied picking at a thread on his suit than concentrating on Bucky, Nat and I. We’d assembled Steve, Tony, The Vision, Wanda, Bruce and even Nicky Fury for this little announcement of ours. I was slightly uncomfortable with most of their gazes on us. I cleared by throat a little.

“As you know,” Bucky began, grinning with excitement, “[Y/N] has the powers of stopping time.”

“What we found on our latest mission,” Nat continued, with a kind of smug expression on her face, “She’s been holding back.”

I scratched the back of my neck.

“I can stop time, yes, but I can also create wormholes, manipulate matter…” I tried to elaborate "Basically I deal with space and time, and I’ve been doing this since I can remember. It’s hard to explain… maybe I should just show you.”

Bucky and Natasha’s eyes lit up.