Lithium struck at Sam again, nearly wincing through the motion, even though he blocked it easily, returning a blow of his own. She slid out of the way, his fist catching her hair but nothing more. “Come on,” Sam muttered. “Stop holding back, Lith!”

Biting her tongue, Lithium silenced herself, moving for another strike. The pause was noticeable, and Sam capitalized, taking that instant to throw off her balance. With a dull ‘thud’ Lithium hit the mat again. She sighed, shaking her head as she sat on the floor. “I give up,” she muttered. “It’s just not worth it anymore.”

“Celeste?” Steve asked, walking towards the pair, Sam stalking a fair distance away. “What’s wrong?” The simple fact that she was claiming she’d given up, despite the fact that she’d always insisted on the training without prompt, concerned him. Subconsciously, his gaze darted to the bandages around her wrists, then back to her face.

She was watching him and had seen his glance at the injury. “I give up,” she repeated quietly. “I’ve got nothing left, Sir . . . Iris is gone . . .”

“Celeste,” Steve called sadly, sitting on the mat next to her. “I don’t know what happened. You won’t tell me. I am clueless, and I don’t know how to help you. But I’m telling you right now, I’m here. You need to keep fighting with us. You know Hydra well. You know they’re a danger. Isn’t that why you threw the switch into the lake? You risked so much for us already. What’s wrong? What’s changed?”

“I can’t . . . I can’t say,” she admitted sadly, looking down at the floor, picking at her nails. “I promised to keep it quiet, Sir. I promised to keep part of it secret, anyway, and so I cannot say the part that upsets me so deeply.”

“Change the details, then,” Steve instructed her, his voice straining. “Change things, make it as vague as you can get away with, Celeste. But for the love of God, just let me know. I’m worried about you, all right? I’m concerned that you’re just going to fade away. I don’t want that. You’re a good person, ‘Leste. Talk to me. You can trust me, all right?”

“But . . .” Lithium closed her eyes for a moment, taking a slow breath. “What if you couldn’t trust someone you thought you could? Then what do you do?”

“Can you explain it, Celeste?” Steve asked, looking at her curiously, a part of him concerned that somehow Lithium had lost her faith in the Avengers.

“I thought I could trust someone . . .” Lithium began, pausing, not for suspense, but because the thought of what had happened made her heart tighten in her chest. “And it turns out he . . . He unwittingly caused me the greatest pain I’ve ever suffered. I don’t know if I can ever look at him the same.”

Steve’s anxiety spiked a small bit. He felt like she was referring to him. After all, she had never let on that she knew anyone outside of their current, small but effective, team. And it wasn’t difficult to discern that Lithium had trusted Steve from day one. Then she had vanished from them, a few times now, and recently to the point of self harm. “Celeste . . . ? Did I hurt you . . . ?” In an instant, Steve began running through the events prior to Lithium’s injury. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t identify anything that would’ve upset Lithium. Yet, she’d said it was unintentional. What could he have possibly done to set her off like that? Steve had never been anything but sensitive to her needs, hadn’t he?

“Oh, goodness, no Steve . . .” Celeste murmured, shaking her head as she covered her eyes with one hand. “It . . . It wasn’t you . . .”

“Then please elaborate as far as you’re comfortable, Lithium,” Steve told her, a bit of guilt relaxing in his chest, his concern still running strong.

“I . . .” Lithium sighed slowly. “I thought he was my friend, Steve . . . And then he . . . He didn’t mean to but he hurt me so much . . . And I didn’t know until recently . . .”

“What do you mean, he ‘didn’t mean to’, ‘Leste? He didn’t realize what he was doing would hurt you?”

Lithium shook her head slowly. “No . . . He knew what he was doing would hurt me, but he didn’t know until after who I even was. And it wasn’t his decision to make that made him hurt me. It’s very complicated, Steve. I can’t say any more.”

“I understand, Celeste,” Steve told her gently, taking her hand in his own. “I won’t press any further on the issue. But I’m still here to help you. We all are.”

Celeste gave a slow nod. “I know, Steve . . . Thank you . . .”

“Don’t ever give up, ‘Leste . . . And if he’s changed, if he didn’t mean to hurt you, then maybe you can find a way to forgive him. Maybe not right away, but sometime in the future. I hate to see you this way.” Steve gently lifted Lithium’s hand, kissing the back of it before standing and leaving the room.

A slow pause followed, the space only occupied by the breathing of Sam and Lithium. “It’s Bucky, isn’t it?” Sam asked bluntly, looking from the door to the girl on the floor.

Lithium tensed, but kept herself visibly controlled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sam,” she replied, a blatant lie.

He didn’t believe her. “Then why did he show up and tell me where you were? Are you going to tell me that he was just randomly being a good citizen, looking out for some random girl? How do you know him? Why is he a secret? You know we’ve been looking for him, Lithium. That’s why we’re on this wild goose chase, and yet you allow it to continue, even though you KNOW, don’t you?”

“He doesn’t want to be found,” Celeste argued, grinding her teeth. “He wanted me to keep his location a secret. Sorry for doing what he wanted.”

“Why does he want to be kept a secret?” Sam questioned, shaking his head. “More importantly, why do you even care if whatever he did made you hurt yourself?”

“Because it’s not like that,” Lithium insisted, her eyes filling with pain and anger as she looked over at Sam. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sam.”

“Then what is it like?” He asked, crossing his arms. “Please enlighten me.”

“Because he knows what it’s like, Sam. You have no idea what it’s like to have someone who understands what it’s like to be Hydra’s puppet,” she insisted, struggling to refrain from yelling. How was it possible to explain something so complicated to someone who’d never been in the same situation?

“Is that all it is?” Sam prompted. “That’s no reason to protect someone who hurt you so much you got put into a 72-hour psych watch.”

Those seventy-two hours had been hell. Celeste had been isolated and tortured with the silence that she’d wallowed in so often. It had taken so long to get through those long days, those long hours. Yet she’d endured it. The entire way, Lithium had entertained herself with the thoughts of how to best combat the twins. Optimistically, they had a fifty-fifty chance. That was if they played their cards right and lady luck had decided to put her money on them.

Pessimistically, they would be doomed. For a moment, Lithium had understood exactly why Hydra had better equipped her as far as ingrained weapons. She and Iris had undergone less dangerous alterations, which meant they were more likely to retain their conscious thoughts. The very nature of the metal in their skin made the machinery go haywire when the scientists attempted to ‘brainwash’ the pair.

To minimize the risk of the two ever turning against them, their alterations had settled at defensively based, rather than offensive. Hydra wouldn’t run the risk of them gaining a sense of duty outside the organization and turning against them.

That was something they hadn’t thought they would have to worry about with Bucky.

Bucky. Bucky was a different story entirely, wasn’t he? During her stay, she’d been entirely conflicted about Bucky. It was nearly impossible to decide how she should tackle the situation at hand. Frankly, Lithium didn’t want to take it on at all. She wanted to let it sit and back away from it, going back to the place she felt safest: away from the pain, wherever she could find that solace.

It simply wasn’t a wise decision to spend her time dwelling on the situation when she had no idea how she even felt about it. For four days, Lithium had been utterly clueless as to how she felt about it.

But when Sam called her out about protecting Bucky’s presence, despite the pain Bucky had caused her, Lithium knew exactly how she felt about it.

“Because he’s still my friend, damn it!” Lithium shouted, exploding on Sam, outraged that someone could question the fact that Bucky was a good person, even if he had caused her pain. Lithium’s heart was still pained as she made the declaration, but the truth that existed within it was full and overflowing. While James had hurt her, and broken her heart, he hadn’t meant to. It had happened a long while ago. He hadn’t meant to cause her damage.

More importantly, through thick and thin, Bucky had been there. He had to have been the one to take her to the hospital. He had taken care of her when she’d run from him and hurt herself. Despite the pressure and the scares, Bucky had cared enough to be there.

And he was her friend. The past hurt. The past would always hurt, but the only way to ease that pain was to embrace the present, and to embrace Bucky’s role in her life, as her friend. “He will always be my friend,” Celeste concluded firmly. “Doesn’t matter what you or anyone else says.” Sam just smiled.