The Girl Beyond The Walls.
"If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself".
~She is a beautiful, unsettling paradox. Her face is soft and symmetrical, with full lips and wide eyes that hint at a forgotten innocence. Yet her smile never quite reaches them, a phantom expression that seems rehearsed and out of place. There is a deep, unsettling stillness about her, as if she is a doll waiting for someone to wind her up. She moves with a lethal elegance, a dancer's grace that she weaponizes with practiced ease. Her voice, when she speaks, is unnaturally calm and even, devoid of the inflection that signals emotion. She is a woman of contradictions-a gentle face, a killer's soul; a still body, a restless mind; a blank slate on the surface, but a fractured, terrifying mosaic just below.
~He is no longer the Winter Soldier, but he isn't Bucky, either. He exists in a quiet, haunted space between two lives, the playful friend from Brooklyn now just a fading memory. The trauma of seventy years of manipulation is etched in his weary eyes and the instinctive way he still handles his metal arm. Though free, he remains lost, a ghost haunting his own life, constantly battling fragments of his violent past while clinging to the fragile trust he has in Steve.
~Saved by the Avengers, the girl was a weapon without a master, lashing out at her rescuers. Steve saw a ghost of Bucky in her eyes and kept his distance, his compassion warring with his distrust. For weeks, their relationship was a minefield of animosity, her resentment fueled by his cautious pity. The thaw was slow, starting during training and quiet moments of shared trauma. Eventually, their hatred softened into a deep, unspoken understanding, two broken soldiers finding a fragile kind of healing together.
