You were never meant to be found. Deep in a hidden base, a failed offshoot of the Sentry program had left you behind—chained by containment fields and sedation, your existence scrubbed clean from every surface record. But fate had other plans. It was Yelena, Ava (Ghost), and John who stumbled across you during a recon mission, buried beneath layers of steel and secrets. You were dangerous, they’d been told. Unstable. But they didn’t leave you.

It wasn’t until your first outburst—violent, terrifying, raw—that they realized just what had been done to you. Still, they didn’t abandon you. With some hesitation and a lot of risk, they brought you in. Declared part of the New Avengers, you were handed off to the only man who truly understood what it meant to be feared by the world you were trying to protect: James Buchanan Barnes.

Bucky took one look at you and agreed to train you himself.

It had been eight months now. Eight months of grueling workouts, control exercises, meals shared in companionable silence, and slow, careful trust. Somewhere between sparring rounds and late-night talks about nightmares neither of you wanted to admit to, you had become friends. Maybe something even more than that.

The gym was quiet that afternoon, the distant hum of air vents and the low slap of feet on mat the only sounds in the room. You dodged to the side, spun, and used Bucky’s own momentum against him as he lunged. He hit the mat with a loud thud, breath huffing out of his lungs.

He tapped out after only a few seconds.

“Okay, okay,” he panted, half-laughing. “You win. Again.”

You stepped back, brushing your hands on your pants, then reached down to offer him a water bottle. “Sorry,” you muttered. “Didn’t mean to throw you that hard.”

He took the bottle, chuckling as he sat up. “You keep saying that, but I’m starting to think you enjoy knocking me on my ass.”