“Push it, Lith! C’mon! You got metal in your skin for crying out loud, you can do this!” Sam urged her, and beneath him, the brunette woman exhaled sharply, briefly, as she fought to push the bench press bar back up into the carved out notch, holding it again as the weight and gravity fought back. Her arms began to quiver ever so slightly, but grinding her teeth together, Lithium pushed again and managed to click the bar into place above her head, gasping for air the moment it was safely out of her hands, her arms falling down to her sides in exhaustion. “I knew you could do it! See? Don’t doubt my expertise, Lithium!”

From the other side of the room, Steve watched them warily, but kept himself out of their behavior for now. The best way to let them trust each other and grow their relationship was to allow them interaction that didn’t require mediation. Lately, it had been much better than it had been in the first few days. It was a promising sign to see the banter of comrades develop between the both of them, rather than the arguments of enemies. If the time came, they would trust each other enough to fight side by side, back to back on the battlefield.

Lithium was still trying to catch her breath as she sat up. “Having . . . Metal . . . In my skin . . . Does not mean . . . I have . . . Metal . . . In my muscles . . . You musclehead!” With a gasp, Lithium put a hand to her chest, trying to to calm herself back down, trying to steady her breathing. Sam only smirked confidently.

“But you did it, didn’t you? It’s not like I’m going to let the bar crush you, Lith! I mean, really? Is that what you think of me? You saved my life. No way am I letting anything happen to you, Lithium. We’re teammates. Partners. We take care of each other. I will push you, but I will not harm you,” he told her confidently. “Now get up. We have sparring to do.”

She groaned, rolling her head back lazily. “But it hurts,” she complained, dragging out the last word for emphasis. “One more minute to recover. I’ll do double in a minute. Just let me rest a little more, Sam.”

“Will the enemy give you one more minute to recover?” He asked seriously, but he was still smiling. “I think not! Now get yourself up, fight through it, and do double for questioning me! Get it. Got it? Good! Now let’s go, Girl! You’ll be ready to give Romanoff a run for her money when I’m done with you!”

With another groan, Lithium reluctantly stood up. “Captain,” she whined, already feeling a few fresh bruises and aches settling into her skin and muscles.

“Don’t fight him on it,” Steve told her, starting another set of squats. “You need all the training you can get, he’s right about that much. You’ve got years to make up for. It’ll pay off in the end, trust me. Suffer now and excel later.”

Sighing, Lithium stepped into the sparring circle with Sam, a smirk across his face, a neutral expression across hers. She was trying to get her fire going, to make it so she felt the adrenaline and passion of the moment. So she could own this drill and give Sam a run for his money.

~~~

And she did. This had been only her second practice since coming back, but she’d picked up her old reflexes, tuning back into her old moves. Four times out of five, Sam managed to swipe her feet out and Lithium found herself on the mat, staring at the ceiling, but those other occasions . . . Lithium managed to return the favor.

The practices were starting to get more intense as her skills became more refined and her moves became smoother, faster, more precise. It was becoming an art rather than a struggle, the motions careful and swift. Unfortunately, she was still a bit too cautious, rather than calculated.

“You’re taking a split second too long, Lith,” Sam instructed, his next blow coming swiftly, his palm striking her shoulder, throwing off her balance enough for him to capitalize.

For the twenty-third time today, Lithium found herself staring at the ceiling, a small ache in her back. Lithium took a moment to just lie there and take the time to relax for now, trying to take what time to recover she could manage. Three days in bed had been anything but kind to her physical form, and she was still trying to recoup the bit of strength and durability she’d lost. Sighing, Lithium pushed herself back up and looked Sam dead in the eye.

“How am I taking too long? My reflexes are faster than they’ve ever been!”

“Then stop being afraid of hurting me just because we’re on the same team, Lith! I can take a few bruises, just like you can! I might not have metal in my skin, but I can take a little bit of pain. Now stop pausing just because it’s my face. You might have to fight someone you know in the future. Hell, that’s practically guaranteed!” For a moment, Steve paused, thinking about Bucky. Sam’s words struck home. “It may or may not be someone you care about, I don’t know and I can’t say for certain what the future holds. But I do know that you can’t allow someone else the upper hand just because you’re unsure if you’re okay with hurting them. Now fight me, Lith. So long as you don’t break anything or cause internal bleeding, I can take it. But if you keep fighting like you have been, I highly doubt you can! Now fight-!”

A crack resonated around the room.

Sam fell backwards onto the mat.

The door closed shut quietly.

Lithium’s hands flew up to her mouth.

“Oh my-! Shit! Sam!” She exclaimed, kneeling down next to him, the sound of the door having opened and closed not quite registering in her mind. “Sam!” Carefully, she reached for him, her hand receding as she noticed him clutching the side of his jaw, a deep bruise already starting to form. She gasped at the sight of it, a dangerous remnant. “Oh man! Sam! I’m so, so, sorry! I didn’t mean to-! I just-! I’m sorry!”

He groaned, rubbing the aching spot slowly, his pain visible on his face. “Damn,” he muttered, keeping his eyes closed to prevent himself from looking at spots. “What the hell are you sorry for, Girl? For having a hell of a hook? That could save your damn life one day,” he assured her despite the pain the words caused him. “Did you use your freaky metal power on that one?”

“I, uh, no, Sir,” she admitted timidly, looking down at the floor.

“Well that’s good,” he told her with a groan. “If you had, you would’ve split my damn jaw in half! Shit! Get me an ice pack, would ya?”

“Of course, Sam,” Lithium complied, nodding. Standing up, she noticed what both she and Sam hadn’t noticed as of yet. “Sam . . .” Lithium began slowly. “The captain’s missing . . .”

~~~

Aimlessly, Lithium and Sam had begun walking around town, hoping to find some sign of the captain, Sam’s jaw being nursed by an ice pack. “Should we split up to cover more ground?” She questioned, not wanting to cause any trouble by making any decisions without his consent and cause him to worry about another of his teammates.

“That would probably help,” Sam admitted, giving her a nod to go ahead.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to a hospital?” Lithium asked for about the fourth time since they’d left the hotel. “I mean, you could have serious damage done to your jaw, or a concussion, or something and I don’t want you to be hurt, Sam! What if you fall asleep and don’t wake up? Sam!” Her eyes were pleading as she looked up at him, genuinely concerned for his health, especially if she wasn’t around to monitor him.

“Maybe after we find the captain,” he conceded, though he had no intention of fulfilling that insinuated promise.

~~~

Biting her lip, Lithium began to cross through another alleyway from one street to the one parallel through the buildings that lined the space between. Her mind was racing with worry about Sam and Steve, wondering what had happened to the captain, and what would happen to Falcon. The last thing on her mind, though it occasionally flitted across her thoughts, was James.

So when he appeared, seemingly from nowhere, she was startled to say the least. Truthfully, Lithium had felt like jumping out of her skin when he was suddenly standing against the brick wall of the building, his arms crossed defensively, eyes down on the paved ground. Letting out a small shriek, Lithium jumped back, her heart racing as she turned to face him, relaxing a bit when she recognized his appearance as that of someone who didn’t want to kill her. At least, not because he’d been ordered. His expression indicated he was currently less than pleased.

“Oh my God! James you nearly gave me a heart attack! . . . James?” Frowning, she stepped a bit closer to him, reaching for him a moment, but he swiped her hand away, refusing to look her in the eye. “James . . . ?” She asked again, her voice more timid than before, her heart sinking into her stomach. “James what’s wrong . . . ?”

His frown etched deeper into his face at the sound of the cluelessness in her voice. How could she possibly be so clueless? Surely Hydra had informed her of he and Steve being friends in the past. Surely the file spoke of how he had, on multiple occasions, nearly caused Steve to lose his life. How he had been forced to hunt down Steve and his comrades because of Hydra’s twisted agenda.

Surely she could logically conclude that it was impossible for Bucky to look at his friend the same way again. The guilt that knotted in his chest every time he saw Steve . . . It was unimaginable to anyone who hadn’t suffered in the same scenario.

“I’m leaving town by next week,” he told her coldly, still refusing to look at her. “Don’t try to follow me. Or I’ll knock you out.”

“Why would you want to do that . . . ?” Lithium asked quietly, reaching for him again, frowning when he shook his wrists from her hands, a bit of her breaking. He still refused to look at her, or in her general direction. “. . . James . . . ?” She called softly, grabbing at his wrists again, tightening her grip when he tried to shake her off. She refused to let go of him, of his flesh, and of his metal. “Talk to me, James. Please. Please. I’ll listen. I promise. Just talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Maybe you should go ask Steve what’s wrong, Celeste,” he hissed her name, her real name, like it was a bittersweet poison on his tongue.

“James . . .” She murmured with a frown. “You heard that . . . ?”

“I heard a lot of things. I saw some things, too. I love how you never mentioned you knew Captain America. I thought that would be something you’d mention at some point. I know Hydra had to have informed you of at least part of the scenario. There’s no possible way you just didn't know,” he told her firmly. “But rather than be upfront with me, you kept it to yourself. How do I know you weren’t hired by Steve to make some up insane story to get close to me? How can I be sure I can trust you? How do I know that you haven’t been reporting to him this entire time? How can I ever trust you again, Lithium?”

“Be-because I . . . Because I never told him anything, James . . .” Underneath her palms, she could feel the warmth of his skin, the warmth of his metal in the summer heat. A bit of sweat was beading across her forehead. “He doesn’t know I know you’re here . . . He’s been trying to find you, but he came to a dead end in this town. I don’t know how you’ve been avoiding him so well, but he doesn’t know . . .  James I swear I’ve kept your information as safe as I possibly can. And who am I going to confide in, anyway? I know better than to spill it out to Steve and Sam.”

“Oh really? You had no problem confiding plenty of other things in them, Celeste. For all I know, you’ve only ever heard rumors of Hydra from Steve.”

“James!” Lithium scolded, raising her voice, starting to shake a bit from the emotions crashing around her. Accusations of being fake when all she’d ever been was sincere . . . “Do you really think so little of me? Do you truly believe that someone could make up the nightmarish images of watching their best friend since childhood get slaughtered on an empty street?” The metal began to shift itself in her skin, her arms solidifying, more so where she held his wrists, increasing the strength of her grip. “Do you really trust your oldest friend so little? Steve would never do anything like this to hurt you! Why would he want to hurt you? He refused to fight you even though he knew it might mean his life!”

“That is why I cannot trust him!” Bucky yelled back, his eyes glancing between where her arms had transformed to hold him down, and to her eyes, a passion burning inside them, along with a few tears stinging the surface.

“That’s why you can’t trust him, Bucky? Really? Or is that why you can’t trust yourself around him?”

“Let go of me!”

“Not if you’re going to leave!”

“Damn it, Celeste-!”

Before he could react, before he could run when she let go of his wrists, Lithium threw her arms around his chest, tears welling up in her eyes. “Please, James . . .” She murmured quietly against the threads of his shirt. “Please stop hurting so much . . . I’m not trying to make it worse . . . I’m trying to make it better . . . I’m trying to help you . . . Don’t push me away . . .”

For a moment, Bucky’s eyes widened a bit and he froze, contemplating her behavior. He’d yelled and become defensive. In return, she’d become vulnerable. Rather than fight him, she gave in to him in an attempt to wear down his defenses.

“Please stop fighting me, James. I’m just trying to take the pain away.”

Slowly, cautiously, Bucky wrapped his arms around her in turn, his hands brushing through the hair that still draped over her back from it’s place in her ponytail. Still, he could smell her skin, most likely a citrus scented lotion, her conditioner, both light scents, mixed with her body’s natural odor. She could smell similar traces from him, a slightly musky scent that was so light it could very well be a naturally occurring smell. Lithium gripped the back of his shirt in her bit of desperation to keep him here, in town, where he wouldn’t be alone.

Truthfully, despite her own body, Lithium was still a bit unnerved by the feel of metal pressing against her skin in an embrace.

So was Bucky.