Lithium shivered, wrapped in a thin blanket, her breath clouding in front of her as the snowflakes began coating the suburban town. It was unseasonably cold for late September and the snow had started early. Of course, none of it was sticking to the ground. Every piece of frozen water melted as soon as it touched the ground, the buildings, or the people who strode along the streets. Quietly, Lithium kept herself isolated in the little alleyway, terrified.

        As people passed by, she heard the annoyed murmurs over the early snowfall and the muted footsteps against the damp sidewalk. No one noticed the distraught young woman with her knees curled up against her chest, hair a tangled mess, clad only in a tattered dress, a single stiletto and a blanket that clearly wasn’t meant to hold up in the cold.

        No one noticed her, and she was glad they didn’t. Celeste was terrified. She remembered nothing of the last week. The last thing she recalled was the night of the last fight between Bucky and Steve she’d witnessed. How terribly she’d missed Iris . . .

        And then nothing. Just an absolute blank. Every once in a while, the flash of blood and bodies would torture her, but Lithium had no way to know if it was something that had truly happened, or if it was just a nightmare. If her watch didn’t keep track of the days, Lithium wouldn’t even know how much time had passed.

        Six days. Lithium shivered again, her toes curling against the stones as she pulled herself closer in. Where was she? Where were the Avengers? How had she gotten here?

        She tried to take a deep breath in order to calm herself. Somehow she would figure it out. Wouldn’t she?

        “ ‘Leste.” It was little more than a breathless murmur, but her head shot up immediately at the sound of his voice. “We found you.” Steve immediately rushed over, dropping to his knees next to her. It didn’t escape her during his approach that a bruise was healing against the Captain’s temple and under his eye. “Are you all right?” He asked immediately, looking her over, apparently assessing if she’d taken any damage. It made her question what sort of danger she’d been in. “You must be freezing. Let’s get you back to headquarters.”

        Lithium just watched him as he stood, utterly silent. She was frozen, not in body but in mind. A mental block kept her from moving, kept her from speaking. Steve frowned, kneeling back down, watching her, silently pleading with her.

        “Celeste, are you all right?” He asked quietly before shaking his head. “No. Stupid question, I know. You’re not all right, but are . . . Are you better? Do you remember who I am?” Still, Lithium said nothing, just watched him with her pale blue eyes, unsure of what to say or how to say it. Steve’s expression dropped then, the hope visibly diminishing in his eyes. In his chest, his heart skipped a few beats as it plummeted. “ ‘Leste, please . . . Just . . . Say my name . . . Can you do that?” His voice caught in his throat a moment as he watched her, his eyes pleading that he hadn’t been forgotten.

        Stark had warned him that she might suffer severe memory loss.

        Steve was now facing that very tangible reality as he was trapped in a too-long silence with Lithium. “ ‘Leste, if you know who I am, please just . . . Please tell me you didn’t forget the team.”

        A few more moments of silence enveloped them, wrapping closer than the blanket Celeste held.

        “Steve,” she murmured quietly before wrapping her arms around his neck. Relief flooded over him as he returned her embrace tightly, burying his face in her tangled hair. Somehow, she still smelled like he remembered, just a light scent of shampoo and lotion. Citrus and some sort of flower or other plant. She was still here. She hadn’t forgotten him.

        Yesterday, he’d been terrified that that had indeed been the case.

        ~~~

        Lithium was finally stirring after she’d plummeted to the ground moments after murdering three men. It had been days since she’d been awake. Stark theorized that the stress had sent her under just as much as the fall, if not more so. He’d also warned that when she woke, she could suffer memory loss of varying severity.

        When Lithium had come to, it appeared to be exactly that: memory loss.

        Because when Lithium had stirred and her wits had come back to her, at least involving her motor skills, she’d immediately thrown a punch at the nearest target: Captain America himself. He’d caught her by the wrist immediately after the blow had landed, but she’d followed it with an elbow to his temple. It had dazed him enough that she’d made a break for it, and escaped, taking a single stiletto that had been removed, apparently as a weapon should she need it.

        She’d run for miles, winding up here with the blanket from the bed she’d stayed in while unconscious. Her dress had been tattered from the fall and hadn’t been removed while she’d been out so as to respect her privacy. Bucky had insisted upon it.

        It had been a long few days waiting for Lithium to return to them. And the return had been a dangerous one. It had been nearly as devastating as when they’d found her on the sidewalk, a small crater made from the impact of her crash.

        ~~~

        After her injury and during her recovery, Steve and Bucky had had the time to talk to each other peacefully for the first time in a while. It took a bit of effort on both sides, even though there was a fair amount of relief for both parties. They had both come to a peaceful understanding that if they were going to survive in the future, it would require putting aside the negativity, though that was easier said than done for Bucky. Steve had wanted this for quite some time and accepted it easily, but Bucky still felt the massive weight of guilt crushing him.

        “I know you wouldn’t hold it against me if I had been in your situation, Buck, why would I do the same to you?” It was the only argument Steve could think of that might speak to him, and thankfully, it had.

        In that moment, something dark and fearful had lifted itself from Bucky. The past was behind them, and the future wasn’t going to get any easier.

        ~~~

        Steve and Bucky sat in the front of the car, Lithium in the back. A heavy silence surrounded them. Lithium’s was from a mental freeze, and the men in the front of the vehicle were simply comfortable in the quiet.

        She kept her eyes on the changing scenery outside the window. It wasn’t a long ride, really, but she had nothing to discuss right now. A thousand questions were spinning through her mind, but she couldn’t voice any of them.

        Carefully, she curled up on the seat, trying to regain some of the body heat she’d lost. She quietly watched Steve and Bucky a moment. There was very little tension between them right now, just silence.

        Lithium observed them a while longer. While there was nothing between them to say they were distinctly getting along, it was obvious that there was some sort of understanding between them. Even if they weren’t friends, they were now comfortable with being allies.

        Lithium spoke for the first time since Bucky had joined them, the words feeling almost foreign on her tongue, her voice raspy and quiet: “Are you fixed now?”