6

After

Warm blood dripped down her face as her screams died on her lips, her hands shaking as she sat with her body pushed back into the cushions of Santiago's couch. Blood was already seeping into the pillows and the carpet as it rolled over her shoes and left spots scattered across her clothes.

She had seen bullet wounds before, she'd seen bodies in worse condition than this before but the red was so dark that it looked nearly black. She raised her hands up, wondering why her hands were shaking this badly, why she was this terrified.

He's been shot, Santiago's been shot, he's bleeding, there's blood everywhere. What am I going to do? What am I supposed to do? There's blood everywhere, it's all over me, how do I get it off me? 

I'm covered in fucking red and it's hard to see and I'm scared, I'm completely out of my mind terrified, how do I help? What do I do? 

Someone tell me what to do-someone-someone--

She couldn't control her breathing, her breaths coming in sharp and short as she closed her eyes to stop from crying. When she opened them again, she got to work, dropping to her knees in the pooling blood to press her hands to Santiago's neck as he choked. He he was gripping her arms, his touch warm against her skin as he tried to speak.

"Don't," Torrance tried to whisper, shaking her head as tears ran down from her swollen eyes and they dripped off her chin and onto the ground and she noticed they were a soft pink as her tears washed her face of blood. "It's okay, you're okay."

Liar, you're a fucking liar, Torrance Avery.

She felt him, his thoughts consuming her for their first time. She had promised herself not to let herself in, not to take control of her powers and understand him fully. He trusted her, so she trusted him. But she let him ooze into her, like a thin wisp of something cold, feeling and knowing everything at once.

I'm scared. I'm scared. Torrance. Torrance is here. She can't help, she can't help, I need help.

He was shaking his head and blood was seeping through her fingers and she was suddenly very aware that he would not make it and he would die before she got the chance to call an ambulance. She wouldn't be able to call for help without loosing the pressure she was applying, but which was more important? 

It was hot in his living room, the air sticky and smelled of copper and cigarette smoke. She kept the pressure on his neck and she felt how warm the flesh and muscle were from the jagged mark the bullet left, tearing skin that was once whole and snapping it in two. Severed like a limb.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry I haven't been understanding. I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused. Torrance, I'm sorry. Don't cry, don't cry-my mom is waiting for me, my father is waiting for me, it's over. I can't be saved, saved, I want to be saved, save me, please.

Torrance looked around wildly, yelling, "Help! Somebody help!"

Her eyes found the window and she spotted someone standing on the rooftop across from their building. He stood alone, silhouetted against the dark sky and the moon, a sniper rifle slung over his shoulder like a prize.

"Help!" she screamed again, her voice going hoarse as she screamed again and again as the blood got thicker and warmer and his hands fell from their grip on her arm and she was now cradling his face and whispering with such gentleness it frightened her, "You're okay, you're safe. You can go, you can go-I love you-you're my best friend--" Her voice caught and his eyes were already dulling as she whispered again, "You're my best friend, Santiago, my very best."

Best friends. Best friends. Best friends.

I love you, you're loved. I've been loved. I'm scared to go, keep holding me, don't let go, don't let me go. Torrance, be careful. Trust no one. You can't even trust yourself. I love you, I love--

She watched him leave her as he stared up at her with vacant dead eyes. His head lulled to the side and her breath hitched in her throat, choking her like his blood did to him in the end. She released her hold on the wound, sitting back on her knees, feeling swollen with emotion. She wiped her eyes with the her arm, her hands covered in his blood. It almost looked like paint, thick and so red that she felt as if she were a child about to press her palm to a sheet of paper, hand turkey art, that's what the kids did. 

The thoughts of childhood threatened to push their way into her head but she couldn't think about that, not now. She looked back up at the window and saw the man still standing in wait as she stood, eyes narrowed and suddenly very angry. 

You killed him, you fucking killed him! You're dead, you're going to die for this.

She tore across the room, throwing open Santiago's front door and racing to her apartment, going inside quickly and tearing it apart in search of her boots. She was on her hands and knees digging through her closet when she found them. She had forgotten she had put them here after her experience with Valaria in the Hydra warplane.

Sliding into her boots and tying them tightly she ran back into her kitchen, grabbing her gun from underneath the sink and her jacket. She made sure her gun was loaded, noticing she only had ten rounds and she didn't have time to go searching for more as she opened up her window and slid out of it and onto the fire escape. 

She tied her coat closed as it flapped in the wind, her heart racing as she climb the stairs to the roof, the bars slippery from the blood still on her hands. Santiago's blood. With her gun in her waistband, she was able to climb more quickly, seeing the roof getting closer and closer as she went until she was climbing to the top and was pulling her gun out and aiming.

The man stood where he had been moments before and she noticed how he looked like a shadow. Like there was no body connected to him, just a dark mass that shifted with the lights and the dark but as he raised his hand in a silent salute, he turned and started to run away.

"Hey!" she screamed, rough and harder than she intended but there was a rage fueled inside her now. "Hey, asshole!"

She held her gun up with two hands to steady her shakiness as she fired a round at him and snarling when it didn't seem to hit before taking off after him. She sprinted to the other end of her roof before stepping off it in a giant leap that landed her safely on the other side, rolling onto her side and getting to her feet easily as she sprinted.

She had nine rounds left, so she had to make them count. The man kept running before getting to the end of his long sprint, jumping off the roof and disappearing over the edge. Torrance ran to a stop, her body ramming into the ledge as she looked down and saw nothing but an empty street. 

Searching the ground she leaped up and over the ledge, clicking her heels as she went and her silver board slid up underneath her, keeping her afloat in the air. Torrance made sure to look everywhere carefully, her eyes scanning dark windows. She got halfway down when she decided to peer into one of the windows that was half open, scratch marks covering the window sill. 

With a hand on her gun, she looked inside carefully, cupping one hand to the side of her face to help her see. When she thought she saw nothing at all, about to back up, when something caught in her reflection and she spun around, dodging a bullet as a gun went off behind her. 

"Like what I did there?" the voice called out with a thick Russian accent. "Throwing you off with the marks?"

She looked around for the man, spotting him perched on the window sill only a one story above her. She reached his eye level easily, hand still on her gun. "You killed my friend."

"Was aiming for you, but turns out I'm sort of a lousy shot," he retorted. 

"You killed my friend," she repeated. You killed him, you killed him, you killed him--

The man smiled, "Cut off one head, two more shall appear. I have men stationed in some of these rooms, hiding behind closed windows and ready to strike if you try anything." He held his large rifle in his lap, ankles crossed and hands folded nicely over the other like he was better than her. "But you should expect this from us by now, we're here to kill you. We've always been here to kill you, little assassin."

She watched him carefully, getting distracted only for a second to see and hear police go zooming past them on the main road and in the direction of the bar. She looked back up at the man, gun now out my her side. "You killed my fucking friend."

Her gun went off before he had the chance to say hail Hydra, blood splattered against the window that cracked from where the bullet pieced his skull and ricochetted out and into the room behind him. His body falling uselessly to the ground below as gun fire erupted around her as she dodged and flew as quickly as she could up and away from the mess that could have been her sprawled out on the concrete bleeding and broken. 

She watched from her spot in the air as Hydra agents came crawling out from broken windows, looking for her with guns raised like wands. She only had eight rounds left and there were more than eight Hydra agents looking for a fresh kill, but she thought to herself oh what the hell and dove down into the mess of bullets.

Taking one of the Hydra agents by the shoulders, she pushed her back into the window sill in which she came, sending the agent dragging across the floor and into the wall. "Who the hell are you!?"

"Hail Hydra," was all the woman said, pulling a knife out and trying to slash Torrance's throat. 

Torrance clicked her heels and moved back, dodging hits and using her arm to stop the oncoming attacks. Just as she thought the woman was growing tired, two more Hydra agents came crashing through the windows yet to be broken. They were all dressed in black, but Torrance noticed that when the moonlight hit them just right, their clothing was dark green. 

She took the opportunity to use her gun and shoot the woman in the gut, watching her drop her knife and clutch herself as she whimpered and wailed, all the while seething, "Hail Hydra, you filthy, goddamn bitch!"

Torrance picked up her knife and charged at the two next victims, swinging her arm forcefully and catching one of the agents by the cheek, watching the blood run down his skin, resembling a waterfall. 

You're a machine and you must kill, kill, kill.

"If you're not careful, I'll kill you all," Torrance hissed, twirling the knife in her hand. This was all second nature to her, wasn't it? The yearning to throw her arm back and launch the knife like a javelin into the nearest skull?

"There's only one of you, what do you think you're going to be able to accomplish with a one man team?" he sneered, touching his cheek and watching his fingers come off red.

"She's not alone," said a voice from the shadows behind her and she got the chance to look back and see who was speaking, surprise catching her body.

He's here, he's here to save me.

Steve Rogers emerged from the dark, partnered by a pretty woman with sullen eyes and magic red hands, the energy around her churning the air with deadly force. Steve smiled at her, shield in hand, "Thought you could use some help."

"Fury send you?" she asked, side stepping as one of the two agents tried to charge her and four more swooped in from the outside, another three shooting through windows for a kill. They were all the same here, all on the same ground looking for the same thrilling fight.

"Called as soon as he got the call about you neighbor, wasn't hard to find you, anyway," he said, raising his shield as one of the agents fired at him. "Just followed all the bullet fragments and shattered glass."

She gripped her knife tighter, noticing how sticky her hand was against the handle. Santiago's blood, now nearly dried, was a vibrant reminder of what she was running from. She grimaced, ducking to the ground as bullets rained overhead.

"Three against, what? Nine?" Torrance said with a tight smile, "Definitely a fair fight."

Jumping up to her feet and swiping one boot underneath the rushing feet of a man with a dark scar across his eye, she watched with triumph as he collapsed with a horrible thud onto his back. She swung with her knife, slicing through flesh and watching blood run down broken fingers, the agent now laying back in a growing pool of his own blood. He gurgled, blood bubbling up from his mouth like a frothy fountain. His blood was just another splattered pattern added to her collection across her clothes and skin.

The liquid was warm against her, comforting even as she tackled an agent to the ground, raising her knife and bringing it down over and over against into his chest. This is for my friend, this is for me! He was already gone by the time she stopped, wiping sweat from her brows as she looked around to see red magic swirl through the air and hit two of the agents, raising them up and above the ground before they were flown into the wall, Wanda Maximoff smiling as she knocked them out. 

She didn't think she'd ever be in the same room, willingly, with the witch. How many times had she turned Santiago away with his thoughts of her? With the little, sly remarks? But she watched her now, effortless in the way she moved both hands and arms.

We're all machines here.

Torrance stood, raising her knife and throwing, watching the blade catch easily in one of the Hydra agents thighs, sending her crashing to the ground. Torrance moved forward, picking up one of the fallen guns and holding it in front of her as she prepared to take another life, rage flowing through her like waves. 

When she fired the gun, it was heavy in her hands. She had never used a weapon like this before, to her knowledge. Its weight felt familiar in her hands, heavy and wrong, like war. She tossed the gun aside, watching the crimson blood spread out from underneath the body, seeping into the woman's hair, turning her once blonde hair into a deep shade of red. 

Torrance was distracted, she knew this before it struck her. She was staring off at the blood, the way it moved through the woman's hair like velvet. Like silks, something so godly and rich that it shouldn't even belong to someone like her.

She was so lost in her own thought that when she finally turned to find a new target to turn her body into a weapon for, she was blinded. There was a yelp as pain exploded in her face, the voice crying out, "I didn't see her standing there-Steve--"

Her body felt heavier than the gun she was wielding moments before, and she felt herself fall sideways like her whole body was falling into slow motion. When she hit the ground, she felt the blood from the broken body besides her spread out and wash over her in a sticky, hot mess. Her head was thick and foggy, like she had been drugged. Her mouth was dry, metallic.

Fear enclosed around her, squeezing and compressing her into a dark hole as memories flashed before her eyes that left her screaming, body shaking as words tried to activate her in a way she thought she would suffocate and die altogether. She felt like there were hands tearing down her throat, reaching and pulling for something to grasp onto, to rip her from the inside out.

Strapped down on a table she could hardly move, her consciousness pushed back into the farthest corners of her mind, something else was controlling her. Someone else. She trusted her though, she felt like they were one of the same, they were-they were the same.

We have always been the same.

More gunshots rang out around her as Torrance forced herself out of the memory, heart racing. Hands were gripping her, rolling her over onto her back and then she was gone, once more sucked further in.

"First."

"Dormant."

"Cordwainer. Sister. Doxy."

"Shut up!" Torrance howled, eyes wide as she screamed for it to all stop, clutching her head with dagger like fingers as the voices continued in her brain, memories coming back to her in tidal waves.

It felt like a fire had been set deep within her, burning at her lungs and soaking her heart in gasoline. She was going to die from this, she was going to die--

"Fourteen. Malignant."

Her memories faded into something darker and Torrance tried to slam her head back into the concrete, hoping to stop this from continuing, to stop the painful vibrations forming in her skull. Her head hit the ground and she was blinded by white. 

"Anastasia? Are you in there?"

Zola was speaking to her and she nodded, her face turning up into a devilish smile. "It's me, only me."

Her memories didn't get her through the rest of the trigger words that sent her blood cold. But it didn't stop her from slamming her head back into the floor, seething and spitting like a rabid dog. She would not give in, she would not stop until the pain did.

"You're my best friend," Steve said to her, hand on her shoulder as they looked out over the battle field. The wind was cold on their cheeks and their suits were dirtied from the war. 

"And you're mine," Torrance said back with a smile. The pair stood a top the rubble, gunfire echoing in the near distance. She watched Peggy Carter wave to them from their base down the hill behind them and Torrance smiled, waving back. Standing next to Peggy with a map and compass in his hands was Bucky Barnes and Torrance felt her smile widen at the sight of him, it always widened when she saw him. "Not much longer until this is all over, where do you suppose we go then?"

"Maybe buy a nice apartment in New York," Steve said back with a shrug. "As long as I have you, Bucky, and Peggy, I'm all set."

"I guess we gotta save the world first then," she grinned, touching his arm and backing away and back down the hill to their base. 

Bucky had the map spread out, pointing at the dots they had made days before at their original base, where she had helped Erskine choose Steve for the trial...how she helped choose the man that would save them all in the end. 

With his eyes still on the map, Bucky pulled her into him with a grin, "How's my girl?"

She brushed a hand over his cheek, her fingers tingling against the warmth of his skin in the cold and she felt all of him. How much love could fit inside a man like him was beyond her, she was afraid she would never meet another like him. 

"What the fuck is going on?" Torrance said between pants, Steve's hand on her back as she sat on all fours, trying not to vomit. Her head was burning and she closed her eyes tightly, whimpering as she cried, "What did she do to me?!"

"How long until this wears off?" a new voice said beyond her she didn't recognize personally, but one she recognized from videos and speeches. 

Someone was stammering, rushing out unreliable answers, "I don't know, could be-could be hours--"

Anastasia stood in the dim office, the lights shining through the big open windows. She was naked, standing with her back to the man on the bed. Her silencer was heavy in her hands and the blood she had gotten in her hair would be difficult to get out later, but she lived for it. 

The mess. The blood. The anger.

She closed the window with both hands, cutting out the noise from the city below as she turned. She grabbed her bag from the chair at the end of the bed, opening it and slipping into her underwear and bra as she picked up the man's brief case from the floor, still half opened when he had woken to see her rummaging through it like the little thief she was. 

When she stood, she smiled down at the work she had done. There was blood already seeping deep into the white sheets of the bed, only a one blanket was thrown over his waist, concealing him from the outside world. There was a single bullet wedged deep into his forehead, leaking pink and red and white.

This was just another job for her, another day at the office so to speak. She would never be free from this, her hunger for the kill would never end, it was hot wired into her brain...into her soul.

She was a machine here, and she liked it.

Everything was spinning around Torrance like a whirlwind of emotions. She could hardly focus on one simple thing as she brought her hands up to her face and saw the amount of blood covering them. God, why was there so much blood? Her head was still pounding and she looked over at the man staring at her and recognition from years before passed over her face as she whispered desperately, "Steve, what's going on?"

"You're experiencing your memories," he whispered back. "One of Wanda's power is telepathy and she opened up your subconscious and is bringing back things you've forgotten."

No, she wanted to grunt, to pull the magic out of her with her bare hands. No, no, no.

"She cracked my brain open like a fucking walnut," Torrance said instead, feeling another wave of pain rush over her. It felt like someone was stabbing her, slipping a warm knife in between each rib like a game.

Torrance was screaming.

Screaming and screaming and screaming.

Blood was rushing to her head and pain was coating her body like fresh paint. Numbness settling in from her toes and creeping up her legs as she sobbed, howling up at the ceiling as black dots flashed across her vision. "Please!" she wailed. "Stop this! Please!"

The doctors stood around her, pumping her body more with fluids and the serum. This one was different, one meant to wipe her from existence and she was already forgetting what she had been doing the night before. 

"Stop! I won't tell anyone! Please!"

The memory shifted into another nightmare, Anastasia holding a gun out in her hands like a promise, firing it into the crowd of men rushing towards her with guns larger than hers. She took out the runners in the front of the pack, watching their bodies collapse in front of the others.

She dodged the others like a game of tag, hands and knives escaping her by mere inches as she slashed with her free hand with a knife smaller than theirs, leaner and sharper. She cut throats like it was a hobby, giving her more satisfaction than a man or woman ever would. She smiled as their bodies fell, blood pooling out from underneath them like they were leaking towels full of water. 

Did you just come out of the shower? she laughed, dancing between corpses. All wet and raw for me?

She grabbed one of the men's keycards, walking it to the locked door in front of her and swiping it over the control pad and watching it light up green. The doors opened and she stepped inside, knife back in its sheath on her side and keycard tossed aside with her gun still in hand. 

Bullet or blade, bullet or blade...

Standing over the control panel and overlooking the screens, she began to type. She had gotten the codes from her kill the day before, the woman she had stuffed into one of the closets back at the hotel ready to frighten the maids. She always did love a good scare.

When she left the room, she had already sent the coordinates back to Zola and her partners back at their home base and she felt proud of herself. 

She was one step closer to killing them all.

Torrance rolled over onto her back, out of breath and feeling weak. Her head was spinning and there were black dots coating her vision like a blanket and she opened her mouth to speak but she was already too far gone to do anything else.

~

She woke laying on a coach. 

Her body was stiff and her head was spinning as she tried to sit up, but hands held her down, a calming voice she hadn't heard for years lighting up her ears. "Whoa, slow down! You need to rest--"

She couldn't help herself, launching herself at Steve Rogers like he was the last man on earth. He held her close and she shuddered against him, pressing her face into the crook of his neck and feeling all of him like a dream.

"You're here," she whispered. "You're really here."

He hugged her tightly, squeezing her and nodding against her face. 

"My last memory of you was thinking you were dead, I was taken after your plane went down, Steve--"

"Tell me everything you remember," he said softly, guiding her back down to the couch and sitting next to her. 

Torrance looked around, spotting an apologetic Wanda walking to them with three cups of hot, steaming coffee. She placed them down on the table in the middle of the comfy couches and chairs, taking one for herself and sitting at one of the chairs across from them. 

"You didn't mean to," Torrance said as Wanda opened her mouth to speak, looking guilty over in her solemn chair. "If anything, I should be thanking you for finally allowing me to see the truth that's been sitting in front of me for years now."

You were stupid, Torrance told herself. All this time, running and hiding from the people you loved.

Wanda smiled, her lips curving up in a grin that she hid behind her cup.

"So, who wants a real drink?" a new voice said behind Torrance's seat on the couch and she turned to look behind her, shocked to see who was standing there. "Because I sure do after the night we just had, maybe I'll make it two, anyone else up on that offer?" Torrance raised a hand and Tony Stark got out two glasses for them, filling them up almost to the rim as he handed her the glass, "Cheers."

Torrance took a long sip of the drink, feeling like this had been the first for over seventy years since she had forgotten so much about her time. She turned to Steve and she couldn't speak for a moment, lips parted in astonishment. This was him, her Steve. Blonde, bigger than he was in the war, and still looking at her like she was something better than who she was. Blue eyes, soft and concerned and happy, god, he looked so happy.

 She cleared her throat, answering his question with her eyes only on him, "I remember the war, when you jumped onto the plane to stop Schmidt. I remember us and Dr. Erskine, I remember when you had to dress up in that ridiculous costume, I remember it all Steve. I remember everything."

"Then you must remember what happened to Buck--"

Her breath caught in her throat and his voice died. She nodded, slowly, because of course she remembered. It was him, it was him, he was hers. "He fell and we couldn't reach him," she whispered hoarsely, coughing to hide the fact it was hard to speak about him suddenly. "He was gone in the blink of the eye, my boots weren't working so I couldn't get to him, we couldn't get to him--"

Steve grabbed her free hand, she was trembling as he said in a gentle voice, "We still got him back, over seventy years later, we got him back to us."

"Hydra is going to use him," Torrance whispered. "He's going to use him to kill us all, the Avengers will be done for if we don't stop them before they get to him."

Would he even recognize me? Or would he be too far gone?

"How do you know that's even true?" Tony asked, standing near Wanda with his arms crossed. "Who gave you the information?" Tony Stark was a powerful man and he stood like he wasn't. He had aced the art of relaxation, the lazy grin, the arrogance that she wanted to devour, too.

"My neighbor," she said, eyes narrowing. "He was killed because of what he knew. Hydra agents fired into his home and shot him dead, right in front of me."

"That was why we were in the old building down the block from her apartment," Wanda said to Tony. "You wouldn't know because you were the backup."

"Actually, I was the backups backup," he said. "And considering we got here without someone dying, I would say I was pretty important in our safety. Should've called me sooner."

Torrance ignored him, hiding her smile before turning back to Steve. "Why don't I remember anything? Why is it like I woke back up after the war?"

"Hydra wiped you like an old hard drive," Steve said to me in a soft voice. "Wiped you once before we met and then a second after, like they were trying to hide you from us. Like you were never supposed to know, but we all knew. We knew and we were sworn to secrecy, we couldn't tell you or we'd be compromised. They wanted to keep your true identity a secret, like you were the secret weapon all along. Fury told me everything once I came back, how you didn't remember anything from nineteen-o-six to about nineteen-forty, and that I was supposed to act like I never knew you, for the sake of your mind. He didn't know what you did between those years, but Fury and I had our suspicions...that Hydra replaced old memories with fake ones, creating a totally new identity for you."

What was real and what was fake? Or what had been real all along?

"It makes you wonder," Tony said, finally choosing a seat, this one next to her on the couch. "Is Torrance Avery even your true identity? Everything you've grown to know could all be a lie."

"I changed my name before the war," she said, eyes furrowing as she was brought back to a time where she wasn't exactly Torrance, but she wasn't exactly the other person. "Tolkin Moroz, my mother wanted me to be unique. I always believed my real name was Torrance after they wiped me, if I had known my true name, I would have connected the dots to Anastasia." Torrance buried her face in her hands, groaning. They had the same last name for godsake, the same fucking memories. "They used me like a toy and were probably planning on doing the same if they couldn't kill me. I'm not safe here, we need to keep moving, they'll be able to find me easily--"

"You're safe," Steve said with a smile, touching her arm. "We have armed guards on standby outside, we have Fury coming in an hour, and you have us--"

She finished for him, "Earth's mightiest heroes."

He smiled back bigger. "Tell me, what else do you remember. Do you remember when we went to the bar after getting Bucky back? Do you remember what the three of us did together?"

"Besides drinking ourselves into a stupor?" she laughed. "I remember Bucky, we-well--" A blush spread to her cheeks as a pit began to form in her stomach. "--I remember you and Peggy, flirting about dancing. I remember us and the boys, drinking some more. Although you and I didn't feel the affects of a hangover or much less the 'drunk' feeling, it felt like we were almost there. On the bridge of something we hadn't felt for so long." She sighed, rubbing her forehead, "I miss them. I miss the boys, the Howling Commandos we created together. I miss Dum Dum Dugan and Jim Morita, I miss them all."

She closed her eyes and pictured herself there in the tavern, the lights dim, piano music playing loudly in the background as people laughed. 

Steve walked back to them, sitting next to Bucky on one of the bar stools, Torrance on his other side. "You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?"

"Hell no," Bucky said, shaking his head with a soft smile. "The little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I'm following him."

Torrance grinned, patting Steve on the back. "I'm following the guy who actually said yes to being apart of the project that turned him into a major hunk that even Peggy can't stay away from," she said with a wink, taking a long drink from her beer. 

Bucky smiled to her before looking back at Steve, taking a sip from his own beer and asking, "You're keeping the outfit, right?"

Steve looked back, spotting his poster on the wall. "You know what? It's kinda growing on me."

The three of them laughed and in the other room, Torrance heard the soft click of heels as the men stopped singing slightly to probably stare at Peggy who walked towards them, wearing a red dress that made her look even more beautiful than she already was. 

"Captain," she said when she saw Steve.

"Agent Carter," he responded back as she walked up to him, Torrance and Bucky standing close to them, wondering what would happen next.

"Ma'am," Bucky said with a smile as she looked at him for only a moment before looking back to Steve. 

"Howard has some equipment for you to try, tomorrow morning?" Peggy asked Steve, her eyes on him and only him. 

Steve responded with a casual, "Sounds good." His eyes staring deep into hers as if they had been lovers for years. Torrance envied that type of bond they shared, one they didn't truly communicate on, but they knew that was there subconsciously. 

The singing in the tavern erupted again, louder than before, the men laughing and cheering as they continued to chant. "Your top squad is prepping for duty," Peggy said to Steve. 

"What, you don't like music?" Bucky asked, and she ignored him, looking at Steve as she said, "I do actually, I might even if all of this is over can go dancing."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Bucky asked and Torrance knew he couldn't help but flirting with her, besides, she was as beautiful as a blooming rose. But Bucky didn't know how deadly she could be.

Torrance fought the urge to laugh at him as Peggy said, eyes only on Steve as Torrance should continue to clarify, "For the right partner." They looked at one another for a breath before she said, "Tomorrow then, Captain." 

"Yes ma'am, I'll be there," Steve said after her, watching her saunter away in her beautiful red dress. 

Bucky sighed, "I'm invisible. I'm-I'm turning into you, this is some horrible dream."

"Don't take it so hard," Steve said with a smile, patting his back as Torrance grinned. "Maybe she has a friend."

She smiled to him, pouting a little, patting his cheek and murmuring, "Don't worry, babe, you'll never be invisible to me." She kissed his cheek, moving to leave but he caught her arm with a laugh, spinning her back to him, his arms wrapped around her waist as he said in a whisper, "Knew I could always count on you."

They smiled at each other, having always had this unspoken thing between them that they liked to test. How he flirted with Peggy and how she was sitting on Dugan's lap earlier, the pair only close friends, chugging beers and hiccuping with foolish grins. It was all fun and games until they were this close to each other, their smiles soft and delicate and tempting.

"I was so angry before," Torrance said, shaking her head and turning to glance at the woman. "I was angry that my neighbor even considered I go find you, Wanda. To let you break down the wall that kept all of these memories from me made me so incredibly angry. I lashed out at him and was just so mad. But now that I'm here, remembering and knowing who I was and what I've done, it's just so...relieving." She grabbed Steve's hand tightly in hers and with a confident grin she said to the room, "We don't have much time, but we need to find Bucky before Hydra does. Keep him safe and stop Hydra once and for all, we can't keep running from them or even discovering them, like, lurking in our halls ever again. It's now or never, and I say now. We kill and stop them now."

"We do it now," Wanda said with a smirk, agreeing with me. "It's either that or we just keep sitting on our asses and they'll keep coming back, doubling in power."

Tony and Steve nodded together before Tony said after a sip from his drink, "Looks like we have a mission ahead of us, do I dare cancel on Fury or let him in on this?"

"He needs to know," Steve said, sitting back against the couch. "He's the only other person we can truly trust."

"He comes alone," Torrance told them, holding her glass tightly. "We trust no one but each other, here in this room and this room alone. But tell me this, how many more Avengers are even here?"

"Nat is in town," Steve informed them. "I could only assume she's with Fury now, but besides her? No one else."

"Vision is out of the state, country maybe. He's trying to discover more about his creation, the stone inside his head," Wanda told them. "And we haven't seen Thor or Banner since Sokovia, and Clint is with his family."

"We keep this between us then, and Nat and Fury," Torrance murmured, rubbing her forehead again, keeping pressure on her temples as they ached. "But until they show up, I think I could use a few more of these." She raised her glass, taking a deeper drink, swallowing thickly at the burn and ignoring how horrible it tasted with only a slight gag as it went down her throat like hot gasoline. 

She felt lighter when her glass was empty, not because she was drunk, because she hasn't been drunk for years, but because she knew everything. She knew about her past and she knew the truth, but was it such a good thing that she knew so much?

_______________

finally finding out her history !!!!!!!!!!!!!

real plot happening FINALLY

comment/vote and ill kiss every single one of u