The darkness chased through her brain like a tracer bullet.
She had to wake up from this nightmare, from this living hell.
And so, here, in this prison of her mind and her physical surroundings, Grace Louise Alburn remembered.
No, no, no, she had to stand up, had to shake it off- had to forget.
"I'm Grace Alburn, 22 years old, Washington D.C. Native. I was born on June 17th, 1993. My parents are Shailene Alburn and-"
She couldn't remember her father's name. Dammit, why couldn't she remember? His face- she remembered his face, remembered him yelling at her. That was inconsistent with her other memories, which she still could recall so clearly. She remembered how it hurt when she'd smacked her shin against the metal roofing on the mid-level of the SHIELD building, how loud the sirens had been when the alarms had gone off when she'd smashed the window-
it was like a scene from a movie, every last detail as clear as if it had happened moments ago. It played over and over again in her mind, flawlessly.
Every fiber of her being was screaming to her that something was horribly wrong, and that the files she'd seen had been right. The life she'd known, so tame, so simple, not that hard, really, was a lie. This was the second time she'd faced this, but it was still too much to take in. Slow, heaving sobs overtook her, as her mind was slowly being liberated of the traps, illusions, and hallucinatory facades that had been so expertly put up- were now beginning to crumble.
HYDRA had done its work well, that was for certain, but now, in her apparent old age and connection with Barnes, it had overwhelmed her utterly. The files said it had been 24 years since she and Barnes were last in contact- though both were insensible and didn't recognize one another, or so the report had claimed.
Grace knew that the report was wrong- someone in HYDRA had falsified it to keep the Soldier program going. There had been a snag 24 years ago, in a cold desolate place. On that day, the old Russian witch had come back to make good on her threats.
Now, Grace put her head in her hands, and screamed in agony, clenching her fists- Grace had to escape- had to go far away before anyone else got hurt, but above all, she had to go back. Go back to the place where the old Russian witch was, and tear the place to the ground.
Barely remaining in control of her consciousness, she felt she had to set it aside for now. Something had to be done about the evil man with the red book, the evil man with the shifting, soulless eyes, and James, who had seemingly vanished. Where was he now? Was he in control of himself? Was he conscious? Was he hurting anyone?
"T'Challa, you have to let me out." she said.
..............................
Grace POV:
The metal door opened, and T'Challa was standing in the doorway.
"We have to act quickly," he said. "Barnes has escaped and Captain Rogers seems to be helping him again, and so are many of the other Avengers." T'Challa informed me.
Great, just great. Civil-fricking-war amongst the Avengers. I could tell by his tone that Tony was probably not that happy about all of this now. I knew that tensions between him and Steve had pretty much reached the boiling point, and that it could only go downhill from here.
As to whose side I was on, I was on the side of putting this whole stupid mess aside, getting James back, helping T'Challa out since he'd been somewhat understanding and close to sane throughout all of this dumb drama, and then, I honestly didn't know.
I just wanted to be made whole again- to be me for the first time in seventy years, not this fake me that had been implanted in my head, making me feel always sad, empty and guilty. I always thought that it was my dropping out of school and the death of my mother that made me feel so infereior and miserable-
But it was a lie, all of it. Every last damn bit.
"Alright, I'm in." I told T'Challa after a long pause. He seemed to relax only a hair when I said this, his posture still as a statue, of which, I thought, following him, the people of Wakanda had probably made many of. What would it be like to look at a stone version of T'Challa, I wondered?
Nah, his eyes would probably look weird. More than that, what did Wakanda even look like?
Probably just like the rest of Africa, I thought. Dingy, poor, and unsafe, but, then again, it was the richest nation in the world, second only to Qatar, so maybe not.
I just had to live long enough to see it, when all of this mess was over, if it was ever over.
"Hey, where's Wanda?" I asked T'Challa as we jogged down the hall and up a flight of stairs. He didn't answer me at first, a thick silence that seemed to be telling me what I already suspected.
"She's on Steve's side, isn't she?"I asked. T'Challa's silence was more or less affirmative. I sensed that she wasn't present in the building, and I missed her terribly.
"So are we joining Tony? Where's Vision? Where are the others?" I continued. We now came to a stop in front of a bolted door, which T'Challa waved an access card in front of, and he reached for the handle.
"So many questions, so little time." he said. "Never mind Stark- we're only going to get Barnes before he can escape."
Ah, gotcha. So we aren't on #TeamStark or #TeamCap, we're on #TeamWhateverT'ChallaWants, which is really great. It means that there's going to be the biggest bar fight of the century in less than fifteen minutes, and I'm somehow supposed to extract James from it, and not let T'Challa kill him while I'm rescuing him.
Sometimes I really hate my job. Sign up for the army, they said, it'll be fun, they said.
I never signed up for the army, never signed up for any of this. All I knew is that Grace Alburn had once been deeply in love with James Buchanan Barnes, and he with her, but that was all the way back in 1942, and the present Grace Alburn didn't know who the hell she loved or why she'd love them.
I only want to be restored, no matter the pain.
T'Challa turned the door handle, and we were out in a giant hangar-y area, and there was, surprise, surprise, a black Audi R8 parked and ready to go. What a subtle entrance to the impending bar fight of the century.
Oh god, Rhodey will be there. I had almost forgotten all about him- Tony, being the ass that he is, probably sent for the poor guy to be his 'bass player', his backup, his little silver insurance policy. Rhodey was no Geico, that was for damn sure, and he, god bless him, isn't as quick on the trigger or as light on his feet as Tony is, even though Rhodey is a military man. The Vision was probably going to do more damage than Rhodey was.
.......
T'Challa had already been suited up, with the exception of his panther mask, which he slipped on as soon as we stepped outside into the hangar thing, and then, boom, we were off. The car moved very fast, since, I guess, T'Challa drives with a lead foot, and there were no cops around.
And then the melee broke out when we pulled into the Berlin Airport. It was chaos- a mess, and I could barely see James, who was, indeed, standing by Steve's side. He didn't see me at first, but I saw him.
"Get him!" T'Challa growled at me, and apparently, by telling me to go get him, that meant he wanted to take a jump at him first. Yeah, sure, go ahead, try and scratch your kitty claws at my (former?!) fiancee, will you.
Nah, I won't stand for it.
"Barnes is mine!" he yelled.
Nope, nope, he's mine, actually. He can try and kick Steve out all day, but I've got to get James back. T'Challa told me to get him, didn't he? And his order to ' go get him' preceded his claim of 'barnes is mine', doesn't it?
I hate it when the team fights. Really, I do. Wanda and I are fighting back to back, now that I've found her.
"Wanda, you hurt Vision's feelings." Tony said, hovering over us.
"You locked me in my room." Wanda said.
"He did what?" I asked.
"Aww." Tony said. "I buy you both dresses and now look how you treat me. I was only trying to protect both of you." he said.
'Thanks for the dress, by the way, Tony." I said, picking up a car telepathically and throwing it at him. It glanced his shoulder, and Wanda threw more.
What we were coming to?
Behind me, I saw a flash of metal in the sun, and shoulder-length brown hair, punches and kicks being exchanged.
Shit, now James and T'Challa were fighting. I turned and ran to both of them.
"Grace!" James yelled, totally forgetting T'Challa, staring at me. In a desperate move, I tried to stop T'Challa's arm with my powers, before he could claw James's face off.
Now here I was in the midst of a battle between all of us, and two out of the three people I cared about (except for Wanda) were trying to kill each other. James wasn't trying to kill him- all of his moves were defensive.
"James, T'Challa, stop!" I screamed. I didn't want a goddamn love triangle, for pity's sake. I just want my life back- my personality and my own head back, not this awful drama.
In my last ditch effort to stop T'Challa from maiming or killing James, I dove in front of James, facing T'Challa, reaching out with a telepathic connection to T'Challa.
For a few seconds, but what could've been minutes (it felt like it) in slow motion, the connection started to work, but then it failed, just as one of his claws successfully (and unintentionally) connected with my arm.
I felt horrible searing pain, and the mental slip from control as the failed mental connection- and the cut on my arm, caused me to slip back into soldier mode.
Blackness closed in, and I could hear myself scream, as if from a long way off.
.................