17

Why? Why? Why?

Ana's voice was now the one echoing through Torrance's control. She struggled to keep her mind from splitting back to its designated ruler for the time being.

You don't need to be wiped, you can be free! Ana cried, pounding fists against her skull. She was trying to break free, or to break out. To break out and scream and scream until she was empty again.

Torrance ignored her, grimacing as she gripped the edge of the counter with one hand to steady herself. "Hydra won't stop coming after us, even if Ana wipes herself completely away. I'll still know the code, I'll still know what it takes to reproduce the serum. Even with Ana gone, I have the knowledge they need and they'll torture me to get it."

The group sensed the shift in speaker, taking in her words even more deeply.

"Torrance, we just got you back," Steve whispered, looking like he wanted to take a step forward. She almost wanted to dare him to.

"They'll kill me too, if they even think for a second I know about them as much as I do, they'll kill me," she murmured, rubbing her head in order to somehow stop the pounding. "But if I'm a blank slate, if I'm just who I was before without all of my memories, they won't hurt me."

"You won't know that for sure--"

Ana broke out, seeping and Torrance was gone, shoved back inside. "They only want Venus, they want me and the information I have but if I'm gone and Torrance has no recollection of me, they'll step back." She turned to Fury. "You'll be able to get the word out, broadcast it, I don't give a shit, but you'll find a way to announce to the world to Hydra that we're gone. That Torrance is a nobody again."

"Can't we just think on this a little longer?" Steve begged, his shield now resting against his leg. "We don't have to do this now--"

"Yes, we do," Ana sighed. "Torrance is...right. If I'm gone and she still has her memories, nothing will stop our enemies from coming for us. But, if she's forgotten again, she'll be just like you and Buck, clueless to what's actually running through your veins."

"Wanda, can't you just remove the information about the serum?" Steve whirled on the other girl and she shrunk, taking a step back.

"I-I--" 

"Can't we just take out that information and keep the rest of you? You can't just do this after we just got you back."

"Steve, maybe we should talk alone," Ana whispered. "You and Torrance, you need to talk." She looked over to Bucky. "We'll have a moment together too, don't worry. You and me, and then you and Torrance will have your moment."

He only nodded, now having made his way to a chair. "Can we, um, talk first?"

Ana nodded and she went to his side, easing him up from the chair. He stood firm and once he had the right footing, the two found their way through the room towards the next, which was one of Tony's and Banner's old research rooms.

Ana didn't drop his hand, clutching it so close to her own heart that she could barely breathe. He had been near dead, the blood had turned a near black against their clothes and she thought, god, she thought...

His face was pale but he was here, he was alive, holding onto her hand weakly but he was there. His chest rose and fell softly but did not still. Not once. Not again.

"You're okay," she whispered, reaching out to brush his sweaty strands clear of his face. He grimaced, trying to sit up but she stopped him, shaking her head. "You need to rest, I've already contacted our supervisors, they're going to send a medic but keep you here. Just for a few days, we can't risk moving you."

"S'hurts," he groaned.

She nodded, shushing him as she continued to run her hands over his hair to soothe him. "They'll be here within the hour, you have to stay still. The stitches-they-they're not my finest work."

He laughed, wincing through a smile. "What--" he swallowed thickly, licking chapped lips. "--what happened?"

"You got in front of me," she whispered, the tears that had been pooling now fell with ease. "We didn't see his gun and you jumped right in front of me and took it to the side. You-you lost so much blood, I was so scared--"

"I'm okay."

She shook her head. "CPR almost didn't bring you back, you almost died and I couldn't--" she shuddered, clutching herself. "--there was nothing I could do!" She bowed her head, resting her brow so gently against his chest, just so she could feel that rise and fall of his breath. "You could've died."

"I'm not going anywhere," he grunted and she saw a different life, flashing in brilliant colors before her eyes. A soldier. A girl. Lovers. No, perhaps husband and wife. Fiancés. Love so strong it blinded her. 

She forced herself to nod, sitting up and giving him something to remember as he drifted in and out of sleep. His words, spoken through the same mouth but with a different face, echoing in her head like the promise of something greater.

Bucky sat down against one of the tables, facing her. "Ana..."

"Do you remember?" she asked, stepping forward. Torrance was no longer present in her head, and she thanked her, silently, for giving her this moment alone. "Do you remember what we did together?"

He looked up at her slowly before nodding. "I remember everything, all of it."

She came closer, stepping between his legs to place her hands on his chest. "Then you understand, why I have to do this."

He nodded again. "If I had the chance, to wipe it all from my mind. The torture. I would."

"But the rest?"

He looked away. "There are things I need to make up for, atonement, apologies." He rested one of his hands over hers, the metal she so daringly craved. "But, aren't there people you'd like to do the same for? Memories to go further into? To made amends?"

She shook her head. "Not with the information that lies dormant in my mind. Hydra can capture me, break me all over again, mold and perfect me, just to get what they want. They'll turn me into a killer, over and over again, just like what they did to us back then--"

"And there's no way to separate the two of you?"

She shook her head. "We're two people with the same mind, same heart apparently too."

He smiled, brilliantly, reaching up to hold her face in his hand. "It's funny, we ended up finding each other through it all. It didn't matter who we were, what we were, we always found each other."

"And I'll find you again, in the next life," she whispered, leaning closer, inches away. "And the next, and the next, and the next."

"Swear it."

She smiled, his lips a breath away. "I swear it."

He closed the gap, kissing her with as much tenderness and love a pair of killers could. She ran her hands up, running them through his long hair and clutching him with a desperation that sent her blood boiling. 

She never thought they'd have this moment, that she'd ever get the chance. "I don't want to leave," she shuddered against his lips and he sighed against hers. "I don't want to leave you, I need you to know that."

"It's what has to be done," he said, pecking her lips once, twice, before pulling back. He brushed her hair back with both hands and she ran one hand up the metal, feeling it shift and grind. "To keep you safe."

"I'm hoping, with time, there will be a way to bring us back," she whispered. "To bring me back."

"I'll find you, always."

"Always."

He kissed her one last time. Kissed Ana, soft and savoring the slow moment before pulling away and clearing his throat. "And Torrance? Does she still...?"

Ana nodded. She closed her eyes, stepping back and giving the wheel to the other girl before falling into the darkened sleep of her own mind, lulling herself into a motionless and empty sleep. Giving them their own moment together, completely alone.

Torrance opened her eyes, heaving deep breaths as she flexed her fingers and toes. She hated goodbyes. More than anything. She flung herself at Bucky, wrapping her arms around his neck so tightly that he gasped. She buried her face into his hair and into his neck, his big arms wrapping around her with the same urgency.

"Bucky, I'm so sorry--"

"I know, Tor," he breathed out, the pair still clutching each other. "I know."

"I have to tell you something, tell you about--"

"You and Steve?" he questioned and she gasped, pulling back and nodding slowly.

"How did you...?"

"You're giving him the same looks you used to give me," he whispered, something unreadable across his eyes. He reached out, taking her face into his hands, like he was trying to memorize her features. "We were going to get married, do you remember that?" His voice was light, lighter than she had expected for this conversation.

We were together, we were in love. We were together, we were in love.

It was chanting inside his head, like he was trying to remind himself of what had happened between them during the war. But how could they ever forget? How could she?

"I had found a ring, even had it on me during...during the fall. I planned on giving it to you, making it official but--"

She let out a cry, bowing her head as her lips parted in something ugly. "I wanted to marry you, to be with you, I only ever wanted a family and I found it in you."

"You were what brought me back from it all, from being captured," he said, his hands snaking around her waist. "When they injected me with everything they had, you were the only name running through my head."

Torrance. Torrance. Torrance Avery.

"I wish we had had more time--"

"I wish we had been normal," he laughed and she nodded, laughing through the tears. "Do you think we could've been together in this life?"

She didn't need to think about it. Even with Steve, if they had all met now, she knew where she would have gone, where she always would've gone. 

"Wh-what about Ana?" she croaked out, sniffling, wiping her nose with her sleeve. 

"I guess, it's just different," he shrugged, breaking their eye contact. "She belongs with that part of me Hydra had control over, just like, when I was free of that, I felt as if I belonged to you and you only."

"Technically, you've always belonged to me. In a way." She smiled.

"And Steve? You love him, don't you?"

She nodded, slowly. "After you died, things shifted. Things are still that way but he's not you, he wasn't the soldier I had fallen for first." He would never be you, Bucky, he would never be the man you are.

"And if you got to stay? Who would you find yourself being with?"

She thought for a moment because she knew what her answer was, from the start. 

"You've be with her, wouldn't you?"

"My sister," she finally breathed, tapping her head. "Off somewhere, finally learning to be ourselves." She looked away, sniffling. "With Ana, it's all just so different. She feels like my sister, in every way. I'd hoped, when I was more naive about this, that we'd be off on some new adventure together. But, we know it wouldn't work, not when she loves you and I--"

"Love Steve?"

She shrugged, trailing light fingers over his arms. "I love you, Bucky, and I love him, for what he gave me when you were gone." But he wasn't you. You gave me everything.

"We'll find each other again, the two of you will find us again," he murmured, leaning up to rest his head against hers. "We'll find a way."

She nodded into his hair, breathing in him. Oh, to be his wife, to be his partner like they had dreamed of since the war. Since when things had all gone wrong. 

I love you, I love you, I love you, wife-wife-wife-wife-forever-don't go-don't go-go peacefully. It won't hurt, you'll be free, we'll all be free--

She leaned back to kiss him one last time, the kiss of a farewell.

A good bye.

There wasn't much else she could give him but that.

~

When the pair returned to the other room, her eyes and face obviously puffy from tears, she gave the other man a look and he sighed.

Steve ran a hand through his hair but stood and she followed him from the room. They went into the stairwell, ignoring the few bodies still strewn across the floor as they went down a flight to talk more privately. 

Torrance frowned, flexing her fingers to show herself that she was here, that she was in control, this was her. "Steve, I'm sorry."

He frowned, crossing his arms. "You're taking the easy way out and you know it."

"It's the only way--"

"It's not!"

"Then give me another way! Give me another way to fix this! To make sure I'm safe, that we're all safe!"

"You can go into hiding, you can stay at the Avengers Facility, hell, you can even stay with me!"

She shook her head. "I won't hide myself away forever, and that won't stop them from finding me. You know they won't stop until they have me killed or they have the serum. I won't let myself be trapped again, to be controlled by them."

Torrance Avery would never be someone's slave ever again. She would not be controlled. She would be no one's puppet, she would no longer be property. She belonged to no one but herself.

Steve ran his hands over his face before taking two strides and encasing her in his arms. She pressed her face into the nook of his neck and breathed him in as deeply as she could. She would forget him, everything that made him him and what made him hers. 

"How can we be okay with this?" Steve whispered, looking off towards the rubble. "How can we destroy without another word but saving someone is a crime?"

Torrance shrugged, kicking at the dirt. She'd been at this longer than him. "It's not that easy. Those men...they want to kill you, Steve. They want you dead."

"But one of them could've been good-"

"It's war, what do you really expect?" She sighed, resting a hand on his arm. Without Bucky, it was hard on him. The weight of this war was settling heavily on his shoulders, as it did hers. "We kill and we hunt to save our families back home. This is bigger than us now, bigger than Hydra."

"It's not fair."

"It never is."

He took her hand as their trucks came rolling in. "You'll stay with me again, won't you?"

She nodded, feeling a phantom chill rest next to her as if the fates were missing her other half as much as she was. Torrance swallowed the growing emotion in her throat and nodded again. "Of course, once lights go out I'll come to you."

"I can't be alone again."

"You won't be," she whispered, knowing it was a lie. They would always be alone, the gods willed it so. The angry serum in both their veins sensed it more than anything, the missing time and the growing separation.

It would always end with them walking different paths. There wasn't an ending where they ended together. She knew that, deep down, and she thinks it's why she gripped his hand a little tighter and smiled.

"You have me, Steve, you'll always have me."

His hands clutched at her back, his warmth pooling out from his palms and skin and body. She wanted to be lost in this forever, to feel this level of safety and security. She pulled back, just enough, to press up on her toes and kiss him.

It was gentle. Slow.

There was no rush, no lust. 

Just love.

Or what could've been.

He brought a hand up to caress the side of her head, fingers lost in the trails of her messy hair. Her stomach churned, in the way that always brought a flooding warmth to her core, her heart fluttering. He parted their lips and she let him take her, whole and hungry and for as long as he needed.

He tasted like mint and she groaned, wishing they could take it farther. To have him right where she wanted, just for one last time. But, she forced herself to pull back, licking her lips with a shaking breath. 

"Can't you wait?" he whispered, voice hoarse. "Just a few more days?"

She shook her head. "I don't want to risk it and I don't trust myself not to follow through." She would turn her back on this whole idea if she was given one last day. She would take off running and never turn back.

He brushed her hair back and she shuddered. "Torrance, I--"

I love you, I love you, I love you. Forever-always-we'll find each other-again-again-

She nodded, whispering so softly that it no longer even sounded like her voice, "I know."

"I just got you back," his voice cracked and she bowed her head to hide the welling tears.

She sucked in a deep, shattering breath, nodding as she breathed the truth of their situation, "I loved you, after the war, after everything, I loved you too." She could not help the desperate cry inside her heart.

He kissed her again. Heartbreakingly, so. 

She clutched the hand he pressed to her cheek, gripping his fingers as her chest rose and fell with the tears that finally left her closed eyes. 

"We'll find a way, we'll find each other," he said against her lips and she nodded back, over and over again.

It was true, she knew she loved Steve, just as she loved Bucky. He was everything to her after Bucky's death, her rock during the war, a best friend who found comfort in the small touches, the warmth of hands, pulling and tugging and gripping. 

But this was for the best, since her one heart belonged to two that she could not share. She would not allow them to suffer, to lust and love after her when she could only ever do so much. It wasn't the type of life she was willing to live, to be trapped, to be going back and forth.

We'll be okay, right? Torrance whispered into her head and Ana's little lights fluttered back on,  brushing against her skull like a kiss, like wings.

It'll be painless, like we never truly existed.

We'll be free.

Together, sister, together.

~

Torrance settled back on the table Wanda and Fury had set up after she said her brief but kind goodbyes to the rest of the people she had met. Fury gripped her hand and she gave him a watery smile.

"Thank you, for giving me a job," she said and he laughed.

"You were one of the best, even though you were a pain in my ass."

"I only made your job fun."

"Yeah, uh-huh," he rolled his eyes but gave her a smile like a father to their daughter. 

"Do me a favor, though," she murmured, knowing this would go against Ana's wishes and promises to be free from this earth entirely. "But, once this is over, offer me a job again, okay? I'll need to work, I'll need help, a friend. And..." She sighed. "...and don't stop looking for ways to bring us back, to bring her back."

Torrance, no, Ana snapped but she ignored her.

Fury nodded. "I won't stop until I do."

She squeezed his hand and he stepped back, their contact lost. She nodded to Wanda, giving her a smile but holding up her finger to give her a moment before everything was lost and gone. 

She understood that she had an amazing life, that she was apart of something so challenging and life changing, that others would be envious of her. But she also knew, that through all the victories, there was pain and death and loss. She had suffered, for so long and her freedom was now just reaching her finger tips, completely in her grasp. 

She would be able to finally forget the pain. The torture of being bound to those white tables in those white rooms. She would forget the burning in her veins, the blood being spilled, the lives she took without a second thought.

She would be able to breathe freely.

"Ana," she said aloud, ignoring the look from Wanda as she stepped back from the table. "Are you there?"

I'm here, Torrance, I'm here.

"Are you afraid?" she whispered, voice breaking. Her eyes were searching the white lights above her, trying to find a way to make Ana's sacrifice mean something more than just heartbreak and death.

Ana was nodding and Torrance felt her hands grasping her own, like a phantom. Terrified.

"I don't want you to leave," she confessed, feeling the burn in her nose that one gets when crying on their backs. It scorched down her throat and she sniffled, tears running down the sides of her face in hot, humid drops. "I don't want you to go."

We'll always have this time together.

"But we won't remember, I won't remember you," she croaked, her throat tightening. God, what was she doing? "I don't want to lose you, not entirely, not forever."

It's for the best, you know this, Ana sighed and Torrance closed her eyes, to finally picture the two. 

She stood across from her, her own face but morphed into what she always imaged Ana to be. Her hair, always shorter than Torrance's. The same blonde but her cut was sleek, sharp. Her eyes were dark, brown like her own, but she had scars flecked across her face. Little jabs and cuts from the lives she'd taken.

She was feline, almost, her eyes narrowed and her smile crooked. Dangerous.

Let me do this, Ana breathed, reaching out to take both of Torrance's hands in her own. Let me finally do something that makes this life I've lived worth it.

"But you'll be gone," Torrance sobbed, chest heaving, body shaking. Don't go, don't go, don't go.

But I'll live on, through the memories of your friends and I'm hoping, one day, through you, too.

Torrance heart broke, she could barely open her trembling mouth. She sucked in deep breaths, the crying making her break out in a warm sweat. "You're--" she shuddered, all over. "--you're my sister."

And you're mine.

"I'm afraid," Torrance whispered and Ana pulled her into an embrace.

The two girls, the sisters, hugged one another closely. 

I am so grateful they chose you for me to be with, Ana whispered, her voice smooth but Torrance could hear the rising emotion. She could even feel the tears against her own face from where Ana had tucked her cheek against. I'm so happy it was you.

"One day, we'll--" Torrance couldn't finish as a heavy sob racked through her body so hard she had to clench her fists together. She bunched her hands against her chest to keep herself steady on the table, trying to picture Ana as clearly as she could.

I know, I know, Ana soothed her, running her hands down her hair. 

Torrance wrapped her arms tightly around her, trying to imagine this was what life was like all along. That they weren't trapped within one mind, her mind, that they were to separate beings all along. That they truly had been sisters, bred and born together as twins. 

Long lost soulmates, perhaps. Best friends. Her very own twin flame.

The serum created me, Ana whispered, like one last confession before both of their lights were shut off and they were born anew. It created a second consciousness, something that had been perfected with the other doses. Doses that Steve and Bucky and every other person got after us. We were the prototype that went wrong but very seemingly right. We did everything correct but they wanted one mind, not the two the serum burned into us. The serum brought me to you and I'll forever be grateful for it. Grateful for our time together. 

"One day," Torrance whispered as her breathing calmed, "we'll find each other again."

In another life, she echoed.

"We won't be trapped."

Never again.

"I love you," Torrance finally breathed as she opened her eyes and gave Wanda a final nod. 

I love you, said Ana. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

Her touch and vision faded but her words remained. 

Echoing, triumphantly against the red that burned into their mind. Torrance let the redness swallow her whole as she drifted back, farther and farther into the depths of her own mind with only three words chanting over and over in a voice she could no longer remember.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

I love--

_______________

Notes:

ok, i lied, there will be ONE MORE upload after this one, you're welcome

also, we gotta love all this unedited content i'm word vomiting up for u guys, like wowza

how do you guys feel about this ending tho? the goodbyes and their choices so far?

hehe any feedback is good sooooo plssssss help a girl out !!!! (and if there's any specific I missed/forgot about too!!)

xx day