The Escapee

Part 3

The next morning you wake up. For the first time in a while, you are well rested, and not worried about having to watch your back. You walk into the bathroom and do your normal morning routine. After that you look at the clock that is seated next to your bed and it reads 6:45. You decide to get dressed in leggings and an over size sweat shirt and head to see what you can put together for breakfast. You walk out and all the lights are off. Well except for one, someone is at the refrigerator and in the light you can see their silhouette. You can't make out who it is. You know the person is not Bucky or Tony. You stay back for a couple minutes to read the room.

"I can tell someone os behind me. And Im guessing it's Amelia?" The man says turning around to face you.

"How did you know it was me?"

"I haven't heard footsteps like yours before."

"You can tell who I am by my footsteps?"

"When you have been through all that I have, you learn a trick or two. I'm Steve Rodgers by the way." He sticks out his hand to greet you.

"Nice to meet you Mr. Rodgers. I'm Amelia, but you already knew that."

"Please call me Steve. You hungry? If so, there is a ton of pizza it appears." He says laughing.

"Yeah that was Bucky. He remembered I like pizza from when we were locked up together."

"Well, how about we make pancakes? You like pancakes right?"

"I love pancakes!" You say with a big smile.

You and Steve begin to make pancakes. While making the pancakes, you just have some small talk. What your favorite color is, where you have lived, how you got here, and so on. You find out about his past. Who he is. His "powers". But he begins to ask you about your past and powers.

"Uh, I'm not comfortable sharing that yet. I'm still trying to find myself."

"No rush. It took me a while to feel comfortable to talk about mine."

"I'm supposed to meet with Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner later today, and I don't know how I am going to do it. Last night was the first night in a while where I hadn't had a nightmare since I can remember. I think it is because I didn't have to talk about my past or watch my back since I was 6. And I don't want to ruin that." You say looking down at your plate that is now in front of you with pancakes covered in syrup.

"All I can say is, sometimes talking to people helps, but don't force yourself to reveal your past if you don't want to. Now, let's eat!" Steve says with a smile on his face.

You don't know what it is but you feel like you have met Steve before. You can't kick the feeling. Could he have been on one of your missions before? Could he have been the mission? You just can't think of it. Your brain feels blank. But you know you have met him before.

When you are almost done with your pancakes, Steve throws more on your plate.

"Eat up buttercup! You've got a long day ahead of you!"

"Buttercup? Well that was fast to get a nickname. Took all of what 45 minutes after first meeting each other?"

"Steve is good at giving nicknames, he's got one for each of us." Bucky says walking in talking a pancake off your plate.

"Hey now, that was mine. Make your own James!"

"James? The first name really? Had to go there?" Bucky says in shock.

"Why yes, yes i did. I hadn't had pancakes in over a decade, and you take one."

"Oh sorry. I didn't realize it had been that long." Bucky says with sad eyes.

You, Steve, and Bucky finish breakfast and clean up after yourselves. You look at the clock and realize you should go and find Tony and Dr. Banner. You leave the guys to it and find your way to the lab where Tony told you to meet him.

"Morning Amelia, this is Dr. Banner. He's here to help you."

"Nice to meet you Amelia." He says shaking your hand.

"If you are comfortable with it, before we start to learn about your past, I'd like to get some labs done. Just to see exactly what we are working with." Tony says guiding you to a chair.

"That would be fine. But I have to be honest with you. I don't know if Bucky has told you anything about my past yet."
"He has only told me that you and him met a few years ago, and that you may have had some experiments done on you." Tony says.

"Ok, well, I am, uh." You take a deep breath, steading your voice. "I was with Hydra. They gave me the super solider serum. I am Metis, or was. The serum Bucky received is what I received, but a new formula. I don't know my full power potential."

"Thank you for telling us." Dr Banner says squeezing your hand out of empathy.

the begin by taking a blood sample, and with your permission they do a full body scan. After then they sit you down to talk.

"Amelia, what do you remember before you were kidnapped by Hydra?"

"I remember the day like it was yesterday. My family and I were at the beach, at our beach house. It was our normal summer vacation, or so I thought. We were winding down for dinner when there was a knock at our door. Five men dressed in black, came in, knocked my parents and my sister out cold, and then the same to me. I woke up in the back of what I presumed to be a van, but I couldn't get a good look because I was knocked out again." You pause to hide back the tears.

"Amelia, you don't have to continue if you don't feel like it." Banner looks at you.

"Amelia, how old were you and your sister?" Tony asks with a questionable look on his face.

"I was ten, my sister five."

"Do you remember anything else?"

"I remember getting to the base they kept us at for the first year. They kept my parents apart, but left my sister and I in the same cell. We could see everything they did to my mother, and her the same with us. But they left my father alone. Never touched him. We were in the cell for three months when they first started injecting me with the serum. It mad me sick to my stomach. Each time they added a component to the serum to make me stronger. By my sixteenth birthday, they though I was strong enough to fight their strongest solider. I fought Bucky, and lost. They tortured me that night. in ways I never want to think about again. The next morning they gave me another injection and with in two hours I had Bucky pinned. So they decided it was time for me to go on their missions."

"Amelia, how long were you there?"

"Until two weeks ago when I escaped. I had learned to fight through the Metis part, but keep my strength."

"When was your last mission?"

"Two weeks and one day ago. I escaped because they let me outside to breath. I took down my guards and ran."

"Do you remember anything?

"Thats the thing, the super solider serum doesn't just enhance your body, it enhances your brain too. Thanks to the enhancement in my brain, super soldiers have perfect memories as well. I can see, hear, and smell every little detail as though I were reliving it for the first time again. Which means I remember every victim, I can perfectly see the light going out of their eyes, smell their blood, fell their bone breaking as if I were doing it all over again. Which means I relive every trauma, every time I remember it, as though I are redoing it all over again but this time I have control. Not to mention reliving my own torture." You say as you begin to break down.

"Amelia, I think that is enough for today. Why don't you go back to your room, take a warm shower, and relax for the rest of the day. Tomorrow we will run our labs we collected today, and begin your training." Tony says looking over at Dr. Banner in disbelief.

"That sounds like a plan. I am sorry I was no more help. I just haven't ever told anyone this, not even Bucky." You say with your head in between your knees.

You head back to your room, take a shower like Tony said. You come out to your bed and notice a note on the pillows.

"Today is the first day of the rest of your life. -Steve"