They had made it out of Madripoor and back to Zemo's jet after a short ride, thankfully not running into anymore bounty hunters. 

'Donya Madani,' Sam said, holding his phone to his ear. 'She's a refugee.'

Clara sat opposite Bucky this time, watching as he wiped blood and dirt from his metal hand. 'So gross,' she muttered, her lip pulling back in a small show of disgust. Bucky glanced up briefly before dropping his attention back to cleaning. 

'Okay, let me know if you get anything,' Sam said after a short pause on his end. 'Thanks, Torres.'

Sam dropped heavily into a chair across the aisle. 'You good?' Bucky asked him.

'Yeah,' he sighed. 'Just thinking 'bout all that shit Sharon had to go through. 

Clara shuffled on the seat slightly. 'You don't think her story's strange at all?'

'What do you mean?' Bucky lifted an eyebrow. 

'Well, she said she was Blipped,' Clara shrugged. 'She had two years before that to build her whole art gallery thing she's got going on, she didn't lose anything the five years she wasn't there, and then she just came back and carried on? And didn't you see how she was skirting questions?' 

Bucky and Sam both shook their heads in denial. 'Nah, I trust Sharon. What reason would she have to lie?' Sam asked, the question rhetorical. After a moment, he continued. 'Nagel referring to the American "test subject" just irks me. Speaking like Isaiah wasn't even a real person. Just makes me wonder how many people have to get steamrolled to make way for this hunk of metal.' 

'Well, it depends who you ask,' Bucky told him. 'That hunk of metal saved a lot of lives'

'Yeah, I get that,' Sam levelled with Bucky. He looked down at the floor of the jet, pursing his lips. 'Maybe I made a mistake.' 

'You did,' Bucky agreed. 

'Maybe I shouldn't have put it in a museum. I should have destroyed it.' 

Bucky raised his brow, turning in his chair to face Sam. 'Look, that shield represents a lot of things to a lot of people, including me. The world is upside down, and we need a new Cap, and it ain't gonna be Walker. So before you go and destroy it, I'll take it from him myself.'

Sam didn't say anything in response to that, his phone vibrating in his pocket and he went to answer it. Zemo walked over to them as he did, balancing a few plates in his hands and passing them to the three sitting. 

Clara took it, then discarded it. She was starving, sure, but like hell would she eat anything Zemo gave her. She wasn't so hungry that she'd risk being poisoned. Plus, it's not like she was being paranoid, either - It's not like it hadn't happened to her before.

'Yeah?' Sam asked whoever he was speaking to, Clara assuming it was Torres already getting back to them. 'Okay, thanks. Good work.' 

'That didn't sound like he was giving you good news,' Clara commented, rummaging through her bag to find any food she may have forgotten about hidden within. 

'They found Madani... Dead,' he told them. 'She died in Riga, a city near the Baltic Sea.'

'I have a place we can go,' Zemo said. 'I, for one, am looking forward to coming face-to-face with Karli. Oeznik, we're changing course.'

Sam looked at Zemo, obviously not trusting the man at all after what he did in the laboratory. His words didn't help to ease Sam's worries either, the statement sounding not entirely dissimilar to a threat. 

Clara drifted away from their conversation, a thought scratching away at the back of her mind. 'What an Aether?' She asked suddenly, speaking over whoever was talking. 

Sam looked at her, puzzled. 'The Aether? One of the Infinity Stones. Why?' 

'As in what Thanos used for the Blip? As in what you guys used to bring half the universe back? As in what you used to stop him the second time?' Clara felt her heart beating just a little faster, and she fought to maintain composure. 

'Yeah,' Bucky nodded, repeating Sam's question. 'Why?'

'I just heard the name a while back,' she lied. 'I thought who better to ask then two of the people most likely to know about that kind of thing.'

'Right,' Sam nodded. 'When we came back from the Blip, Bruce filled us in on everything we missed,' he went on to explain, leaving some parts out after considering the fact that Zemo was sitting with them. He thought it best not to let loose about the whole time-travel thing. 'He said that the Aether changes matter into dark matter. It seeks out host bodies, drawing strength from their life-force. Destroys almost everything it comes into contact with.'

'Almost everything?' Clara swallowed nervously, not liking the description he offered. 

Sam frowned, wondering why she was so on edge all of a sudden. She looked breathless, like she had just sprinted a mile in stifling heat. 'Yeah. Well, the only example he had for it not killing someone it came in contact with was Thor's ex. He took her back to Asgard for his people to help her.'

'Asgard? The planet that doesn't actually exist anymore? And his people, the Asgardians, who are pretty much all dead now?' She clarified. 

If Simmons was right - which she definitely was, seen as it was Simmons - then she was dying, right? Clara didn't feel like she was dying... But then again, she didn't feel as though she had traces of an Infinity Stone in her body, so what did she know?

If this thing was in her blood, it was only a matter of time. How long had it been there? And how long had her father known she was dying and chosen not to tell her? The thoughts built in her mind, a paranoia twisting the facts she knew were true, and taking what Simmons had told her out of context. 

She didn't say the Aether was in her blood, she said there were traces of the Aether in her DNA. Of course, there was no reminding herself of that now panic had set in. The dark matter was in her body, killing her slowly, and she wouldn't be able to get to Karli. She wouldn't be able to finish the mission. 

'That's the one,' Bucky lent forwards in his chair, seeing her cheeks getting paler and paler, but an almost purple hue coming from her skin. 'What's up with you?'

She felt dizzy, lightheaded and nauseated. 'It's nothing,' she told them, the fragility of her voice saying otherwise. 'So, the Aether is, like, super dangerous? Super deadly? Anyone that comes into contact with it will probably, definitely not survive?'

'Not with the tech we have on Earth,' Sam spoke cautiously, slowly rising from his seat and taking a few steps towards Clara. 'Is there something you're not telling us, Clara?'

'No,' she told him, looking over to see Zemo watching her, his head cocked to the side. Turning back to Sam, who was now knelt in front of her, she could see his concern evident in his expression. 'What?' She asked, breathless. 'Why are you looking at me like that?'

She saw his eyes flit from hers, to her hands. Clara looked down, too, only now noticing the heat surrounding her hands, her arms and, well, pretty much her whole body. 'Just... Take some slow, deep breaths,' he tried, speaking calmly. 

She shook her head. She could hardly breathe now, far too overwhelmed to even consider being able to control how she was getting the small amount of oxygen she was affording herself. She could see the purple morphing to black, a darkness taking over it, panic reaching further into her. 

This was it, she thought, it was the dark matter he had told her about taking over. She heard an alarm, the sound hollow and distant. Bucky rose from next to her, moving away - rushing to be away from her. 'Sam?' She asked, even her own voice sounding far away. 

He reached out, a hand braced on her seat. 'Clara, listen to me, okay? Whatever's going on, you're safe. Nothing's going to get to you. You got that?'

God, he knew - he must know about it, otherwise what would he be talking about? And how can he stop something that was hurting her from the inside out? 

Suddenly, Clara was falling forwards, and Sam only just reacted in time to catch her. 

'What happened?' Bucky asked, coming back from the cockpit. 'The hell was that?' 

Sam felt his own heart pounding as he cradled the girl in his arms. 'I think she was having an attack of some kind?' He looked down at her, her skin having returned to its normal colour, no longer giving off the purple glow. 

'She passed out?' Bucky asked, looking over.

'Yeah,' Sam nodded. 'Engines came back as soon as she did. How far did we fall?' 

'Far enough,' he told him, watching the other man lift Clara back onto a seat and lying her down. 'Let me put it this way; it's a good thing we're not flying over any cities.' Bucky and Sam both looked down at Clara, their arms crossed. 'What do we do with her?'

'I have an idea,' Sam told him. 'But she's not gonna like it.' 

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