“They never told me how to fix it,” Lithium told Steve defeatedly, her emotions numb and cold underneath the surface. Her entirety felt separated from the world as she knew it, and she didn’t know how to get back to it. With a sigh, she simply turned herself over onto her other side and stared at the wall, at least until the captain walked around the bed and put himself in her line of vision yet again. Lithium frowned, her eyes watering. “They just made it better and went away,” she protested, only half her heart going into the words.

“Did they do anything special to help you?” Steve asked, watching her expression for something that would insinuate she would be okay. “Anything at all that we can replicate? We’re willing to aid you, Celeste, just give us a means.”

“I don’t know what they did,” she muttered, turning over again. “I don’t remember much of anything from then. All I know was she was gone and then it kicked in and I was just so . . . empty . . . Like something had swallowed my soul into this vastly empty space and it was never coming back.”

“Who’s ‘she’?” Steve questioned.

“Do you remember anything that may help us?” Sam asked, watching her intently, their priorities laid out differently..

“I . . . All I remember was coming back to the world and Pierce explained why it had happened . . . The scientists forgot to factor in large bursts instead of small spurts . . . And now it can’t turn off . . . I’m doomed if I ever get too happy and run too long . . . Or if I watch her die . . . I was helpless . . . Th-they just took her and made me watch because if I watched I’ll never turn on them, but I did turn on them then they’re going to kill me like they did her! They’re going to use the silver! Don’t let them! Please!” Lithium’s hands pressed close against her skull as she succumbed to an onset of panic, her hair tangling between her fingers and against her palms.

“Celeste,” Steve called gently, edging onto the bed, his weight shifting the mattress. Carefully, he reached for her, pulling her to him and holding her against his chest, breathing slowly so as not to startle her by causing her to think he was unsettled by the turn of events. “I’m never going to let anyone harm you. You’ll be okay. Tell me what happened. We’ll help you. All right? Just trust me, Lith. Trust me. Sam and I are here for you. You’re part of the team now, and that’s not going to change. We look out for each other.”

Slowly, tentatively, Celeste, Lithium, nodded, and she dove into the tale of how she’d sacrificed her identity, her very being to Hydra, becoming Lithium, and losing it all when they wedge a knife deep into her back after they’d killed Copper -- Iris.

But all the while, her mind ventured back to the dark nights she’d spent in her room, alone, until her visitor came. Her mind was growing clearer each moment.

~~~

It was the first night she’d been alone when the window had slid open, just barely bouncing off the upper frame as it moved, a shadow against the moonlight slipping into the carpeted room. Lithium’s back was turned as he entered, and a sole thought was running through her mind when she realized she wasn’t alone.

One of Hydra’s operatives had found her after her risky little trick. And she was going to die tonight.

She was half right. Or perhaps a quarter right. Lithium was not dying tonight. But one of Hydra’s operatives, former operatives, had indeed found her lying silently in her bedroom. After her vanishing act, it was a relief to see that Lithium was alive and well, albeit uncharacteristically still, even if she was supposedly asleep.

Bucky stepped across the room a few times, pacing while her back was turned, his footsteps so light on the threads beneath his feet they were hardly audible at all. Momentarily, he questioned what had happened that she was alone like this. He knew what had happened with Copper, Iris, and Lithium’s entire history with Hydra, but something in her body language suggested that this was a different sort of being alone.

And something about that disturbed him. Bucky wasn’t fond of someone being alone to the point of socially isolated. He’d experienced that for years. He’d noticed in it her before, and that was why he’d decided to befriend her, or at least, socialize with her on occasion. However, looking at her now, the isolation he’d witnessed before was amplified. Lithium wasn’t just alone, she was stranded. Her tense body said everything he needed to know. She was restless, some distant part of her broken. For months, he’d fought the same battle. He still did.

But the possibility of healing her gave him some hope, some purpose. Slowly, Bucky walked over to her, his hand reaching for her shoulder, pausing just inches away. He wanted to turn her over and look at her, to confirm his suspicions that she was unwell. The grease starting to gather at the roots of her hair confirmed it for him. Slowly, rather than turning her towards him, James moved his hand down to her back, hovering over her spine in the center of her chest a moment before pressing down, focusing on the beat of her heart.

It was slow. Heavy. Similar to that of a man who’d been poisoned and was now awaiting his heart to come to a stop. Lithium was dehydrated at the very least, quite possibly with an empty stomach to boot. Bucky didn’t want to risk it.

He walked out of the room, returning a few moments later with a water bottle and a bowl of applesauce, setting both on the nightstand as he carefully turned her over, pausing when he realized her eyes were open, but unfocused. A deep sigh and slight shudder from Lithium was his only indication that she was conscious and uncaring, rather than dead. With a frown, James propped her form up so that she sat on the edge of the bed in her old clothes, her hair a mess, but nonetheless in a favorable position for what he had in mind.

Carefully, Bucky pressed the water bottle to Lithium’s lips, allowing the water to drip into her mouth, exhaling a bit of relief as she swallowed the fluid, her eyes still glazed over. After coaxing half a bottle down, James focused on the nearly liquid food he’d brought with, pressing the spoon to her lips tensing when she didn’t move, relaxing a bit a moment later when she accepted the substance, swallowing the thick semi-fluid spoonful by spoonful.

Once it was gone, he laid her back down on her bed, cleaned the dishes and put them away. Taking one last glance at Lithium before the sun began to rise, Bucky slipped back out the window, leaving her in her isolation with second thoughts.

But he returned the next night for her, his visit nearly uncovered by the captain and his partner. His new partner. The one who would likely never give him cause to fear for his life.

“I won’t fight you, Bucky.”

Those words still rang in his head when he saw Steve’s face. He’d been so close to killing his oldest friend. If he had, he wasn’t sure he could ever forgive himself. He still couldn’t look him in the eye when death had been so close.

Perhaps Bucky had saved Steve’s life, but he’d also been seconds from taking it. All he’d done was attempt to right a wrong. But it didn’t feel like nearly enough when he thought about the weight of his betrayal.

~~~

Bucky listened from outside the window to the explanation Lithium began rattling off about the infusion process, the reason she had a subtle glow to her skin that wasn’t quite natural, the way she was built differently, made differently, and how she’d consented to it because she’d believed she was doing something great and magnificent.

Because she’d believed that she would become like him. Like the captain. And she would be something greater than she’d ever imagined.

Until the walls came crashing down, and she’d learned all too well that she and Copper weren’t nearly as invincible as they’d thought, as they’d been told. And the silver bullets had pierced their skin like shredding paper, shattering the image Lithium had held about how strong Copper and her had become. Shattering the world she’d come to adore and depend upon, leaving her with a shadowy remnant that caused her to look over her shoulder whenever she was alone, wary of anyone who may be watching her from some unknown distance.

That thought had come to terrify her in her sleeping hours some nights, in her waking hours some days, but she’d always done her best to push it aside, though it was hard to suppress the paranoia that a sniper could be atop any building, waiting for the right shot.

“I didn’t realize until later how deliberately cruel Copper’s death was. I didn’t realize how incredibly drug out it was. I wasn’t being given a few final moments with my best friend, I was being given a traumatizing memory to ensure I would never disobey Hydra. But I did it anyway because I had to protect you guys . . . I had to protect my teammates . . . My new teammates . . . Because you needed my help to have more time before Hydra came after me. They knew where they’d sent me. And I led them off course, even though it meant leaving without a word because I couldn’t put you at risk. I . . . had to be bigger than just myself. That’s why I started this in the first place, but I became a sword for the wrong alliance. I wanted to change that . . .”

“You did well, Celeste,” Steve assured her, an arm draped gently around her shoulder. “You did very well. But you don’t have to fight alone anymore. We’re here to help you in your battles, as you are in ours. Just trust us, Celeste. No need to think you’re alone anymore. Copper, Iris, may be gone, but you are not alone. And you don’t need to go by the name they gave you anymore. You can just be you. In your name, your behavior, everything. It doesn’t matter. We’re going to support you indefinitely.”

“That’s another thing,” Celeste started with a frown, rubbing the side of her arm.

“What’s another thing?” Sam asked, having listened to her explanation of the early days, the same one she’d given Bucky not too long ago, but from where the Winter Soldier was outside the window, he listened just as intently as the first time.

“They . . . named me Lithium for more than just one reason . . .” She muttered, looking down at her lap with a frown. Celeste was less than ecstatic of her namesake. Half of it had been a wonderful, albeit painful, thing. The other half was dangerous to the point of possibly deadly, all because Pierce had found her overly sunny demeanor less than satisfying to his personal tastes and what was supposed to keep her mood in check went haywire.

“They said that I would be legendary for it one day, but the second reason isn’t something others would really notice unless they’re . . . like you guys . . . And see me often . . . They’re the reason I fall into this . . . This rut.” Lithium hated the way she’d always felt so helpless when it came to this terrible mood. How she felt powerless and controlled. This was only the second time it had ever actually gotten this bad.

Lithium never wanted to experience this sort of mood again in her lifetime, but suspected it was unavoidable. “I never had a problem with my moods before they altered me. And now because the scientists cut corners . . . It can’t tell the difference between adrenaline or panic, and the things it was supposed to suppress to normal levels: serotonin, dopamine and the like . . . Because of them when I get nervous and panic, I suffer an overdose . . . Thanks to them I also have metal infused into my skin.”