Bucky entered Lana's hospital room without knocking and went to the bed, letting all the cups of jell-o in his arms fall on the bed.

"How did the x-ray go?" he asked expressionlessly, placing the bag with Lana's items next to the bed.

"Fine. Where the hell did you get all these?" she asked confused, unsure how he even carried so many. Bucky shrugged, sitting down next to her and grabbing one from the pile while he smirked.

"They don't really have much security here," he told, before looking up; "Actually, surprisingly, they do, there was a guard by the kitchen and shit, but-"

"But you're James Barnes?" Lana suggested, making Bucky smile smugly as he pulled the lid off.

"Why go through all that trouble to steal a bunch of puddings, though?" she asked, removing handful after handful and placing them on the table next to her. Bucky shrugged as he put his finger in the cup before in his mouth.

"You seemed to like them," he pointed out.

"Ew, use a spoon, you git," Lana commented, tossing a plastic spoon at him. He rolled his eyes but nonetheless grabbed it.

"You did it just to be sweet?" she continued, taking a cup herself.

"Don't push it, I did it to get you to stop whining," he muttered, attempting to hold the cup between his legs, allowing his metal arm to go unused.

"To get me to stop whining? I mentioned them, like, once!" Lana argued.

"Yes, and it was annoying, so just take the stupid cups and shut up!" Bucky retorted almost aggressively.

"You are such a jerk," Lana muttered with a shake of her head.

"Most people say 'thank you'," Bucky informed her.

"Most people don't raid a hospital kitchen," she commented, rolling her eyes before putting a spoon in the pudding. They ate in comfortable silence for a while before Lana bit her lip.

"How bad is it? Your arm, I mean," she added when Bucky looked at her confused. He focused on the cup again.

"Not bad. It's fine," he claimed.

"Is that why you're holding that with your thighs?" she asked, nodding at the pudding cup.

"Doll, it's fine, there have just been more important things to worry about," he assured hardly before taking a deep breath. "What did they say about your leg?"

"Apparently it's broken, and apparently, you are not supposed to go for a hike with a broken leg, so they're gonna cut it up and see what they can do," she told as she finished her dessert.

"See what they can do? I thought doctors could heal anything today," Bucky muttered.

"They can. I mean, the broken leg isn't the issue, the issue is that I've apparently royally fucked up my chance of making a full recovery by using it as if it wasn't broken," Lana admitted.

"Speaking of, how did you do that? I know how much a broken bone hurts, how the hell did you walk 10 miles with it?" he asked curiously.

"I didn't realise I'd walked that far," Lana just excused it. Bucky just hummed in response. The door opened and Fury appeared in all his glory, looking at Lana.

"Hey, Nick," she greeted carelessly; "Care for a pudding?"

"You've been back for over 24 hours and have yet to make a report," Fury just stated.

"Can't it wait 'til she gets back to the tower?" Bucky challenged.

"Agent Barnes. Feel free to wait outside," Fury said. Bucky looked at him as he leaned back.

"She just got back, you can't even wait 'til she's out of the hospital and home?" Bucky repeated.

"Actually," Lana interrupted, looking down; "I'm not going back to the tower.

"What?" Bucky exclaimed loudly, looking at her in disbelief.

"What am I supposed to do, James?" she asked frustratedly; "Whatever I do I can't stay at that place!"

"So you haven't decided?" Bucky checked, making Lana sigh.

"Agent Barnes," Fury interrupted; "Please allow miss Williams and I to talk. In private."

Bucky looked at Lana, who just nodded slightly, before getting up. He sent Lana one last glance before leaving her room.

"I'm gonna need you to tell me everything you remember," Fury stated.

"Alright. Well, when I was nine I had a frie-"

"Let's start with the abduction, miss Williams," Fury interrupted.

"Oh, alright. We'll get to the other stuff after?" she checked, making Fury have a look in his eyes that matched his name.

"This is a highly unusual story," Fury mentioned as Lana finished her tale; "Nonetheless, I'll make sure to an official record of the events is created."

"Thank you. There's something else I need to talk to you about," she admitted, breathing deeply. Fury raised his eyebrow and waited for her to continue.

"I might be going back to England," she informed. Fury scoffed.

"Why do you think so?"

"Because it's the truth. I don't have anywhere to stay here," she told, looking down.

"I was under the impression you were currently living at the Avengers Tower?" Fury asked.

"I was, but, I'm not anymore," she explained.

"Why not?"

"Well, to be entirely honest, Tony kicked me out," she told flatly. Fury scoffed again.

"Seems we never got around to brief you on your new position with shield," he remembered, almost smiling.

Bucky entered Lana's room wordlessly, falling in the chair next to the bed as he'd done so often lately.

"Did you bring my phone?" Lana asked, smiling as Bucky pulled it out of his back pocket and handed it to her.

"Natasha said to bring the charger, too," he told.

"Right. I kind of assumed you'd bring it. Sometimes I forget how old you are," she admitted, holding the power button down to turn it on.

"Well, you're not that smart," Bucky claimed.

"And you're not that nice," Lana replied. Her phone didn't turn on and she reached for the bag, Bucky immediately grabbing it from the floor and placing it on the bed next to her.

"I still brought you your stuff," he mentioned.

"Guess you did. Thanks," she muttered, unzipping the bag to see it overflowing with jell-o's. She widened her eyes but decided to ignore it, rummaging through the sea of desserts to find her charger.

"This shirt isn't mine," she mentioned, pulling a piece of fabric out.

"What?" Bucky replied in a mutter, attempting to clench and unclench the hand of his still malfunctioning hand.

"This shirt. It's not mine," Lana repeated, holding it up for him to see.

"Huh," Bucky just hummed, only looking at his hand.

"James, this is your shirt!" she realised as she held it out in front of her.

"Guess I got it mixed up with your stuff," he claimed, finally looking at her.

"And you couldn't tell my clothes apart from your own?" she questioned with raised eyebrows.

"Maybe if you didn't leave your clothes around the entire room I would've noticed," he suggested.

"Yeah, or maybe if you made use of those stupid eyes of yours," Lana retorted, putting the shirt back and grabbing the charger moving it had unveiled. "You mentioned Nat. How is she?"

"She's alright. Worried about Clint, worried about you, but happy you're back. They all are," he added casually.

"I don't think she has to be all that worried about Clint," Lana admitted, picking at the skin around her nails after she'd plugged her phone in.

"What do you mean?" Bucky asked, furrowing his eyebrows; "He's with Loki."

"I know, it's just... Loki has no reason to hurt him," she claimed, looking down.

"Besides the fact that he's evil, you mean," Bucky reminded her, making Lana sigh softly.

"You're gonna have to tell everybody what happened at some point, you know that, right?" he asked, his voice suppressing any emotion he might be feeling.

"I know. He still has Clint and it's an avengers mission, so I have to tell all of them. All of you, I mean," she corrected. Bucky bit his lip before placing his hand on top of hers, looking straight ahead instead of facing her curious look.

"We'll tell them together," he told.

"You don't even know the story yet," she said, laughing slightly.

"Doesn't mean I don't have your back," he told immediately. A noise sounded, alerting Lana that her phone had finally turned on. She grabbed it from the nightstand, biting her lip as she opened messenger.

"What's wrong?" Bucky asked, quick to sense her discomfort.

"I want to ring my friends," Lana admitted; "But I'm not sure how they'll react."

"Only one way to find out," Bucky reminded her. Lana nodded slightly.

"Do you want me to wait outside?" he then offered.

"No, it's fine," she assured absentmindedly as she found her chat with Sarah and pressed call. She did have Sarah's number, but an overseas call did not sound like something she wanted to pay for at the moment.

"Sarah speaking," Sarah replied cheerfully, clearly not having checked the caller. Lana chuckled slightly.

"Wait, Lana? Is that you?" Sarah realised, squealing in excitement.

"Hey, Sarah," Lana replied, smiling brightly.

"God, I have been dying to hear from you! It's like, you travel to another country and suddenly there's just no reaching you!"

"Yeah, it's almost as if I'm on another continent," Lana agreed, smiling at Bucky who pretended to be caught entirely up in eating jello. "Actually, there's another reason I haven't been very reachable."

"What? Don't tell me I've already been replaced!" Sarah joked.

"Oh, you know I could never replace you. Actually, I was sort of... You know, kidnapped?" Lana tried explaining.

"I'm gonna need you to repeat that, mate," Sarah told confused.

"Well, it's a long story, but this guy, well, not guy, alien, I guess, but guy alien, he looks human-"

"Lana, are you saying you were kidnapped as in you were kidnapped?" Sarah interrupted the rant.

"A little," Lana admitted shamefully.

"Where are you now?" Sarah asked, suddenly sounding worried.

"I'm alright, I'm home again. Or, I'm at the hospital, but, I got away. Don't worry Sarah, I really am okay."

Lana's eyes shot to Bucky as he furrowed his eyebrows when something made a sound from his pocket. She rolled her eyes dramatically.

"I'm gonna have to call you back Sarah, I'm desperately needed for tech support," Lana told her friend, who immediately objected.

"Lana, you can't go now! You need to tell me everything!" she complained.

"I know, I'm sorry. Listen, I'll ring you later and we'll have a proper chat, yeah?" she offered, hardly listening to the acceptance her friend offered before they hung up.

"James," she then said patiently. Bucky looked at her, still confused. "Since when do you have a phone?"

His eyes widened as he realised what had made the noise, and he pulled a Stark phone out of his inner pocket. He turned it around, trying to see why it had made a noise.

"This is painful," Lana claimed before showing him how to turn the screen on and go into messages.

"It's Fury. He's ordering everyone to come to the hospital to hear you tell what happened," Bucky informed, putting his phone away again. Lana took a deep breath.

"Guess it's happening," she muttered, Bucky only sending her an understanding smile.

Tony had reluctantly agreed, and all the avengers minus Clint was gathered in the room Lana still occupied at the hospital, at least for another few hours. Her leg had been placed in a cast, which she already found itching and downright horribly annoying.

She was sat on the bed leaned against the pillows behind her; one of the positions that irritated the stab wound least possible. Bucky was, as always, next to her, and the rest of the team was scattered around the room, focusing around the bed. Tony was a little further back, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed.

"So," Lana began; "Fury called you all here so you could hear what happened when I was kidnapped in case it can help the mission."

No reply sounded. Natasha had an intense stare aimed at her, Bruce's eyes were mild and darting between the people present, and Tony seemed to not even pay attention. Bucky was looking down, not allowing anyone to see whatever emotion he was feeling.

"Is there anything particular you'd like to know?" Lana asked slowly.

"We're gonna have to hear the whole thing," Natasha informed.

"I know, I'm just, I'm not sure how to explain it all, where to start," Lana replied, biting her lip.

"We'll take it one step at a time," Bucky promised, looking at her and her only; "How about you start with what you did to my arm?"

"W-What did you do to his arm?" Bruce interjected. Lana opened her mouth to reply but closed it again.

"I'm not entirely sure, I only know what Loki told me," she tried explaining it.

"Which was?" Natasha prompted.

"Well, he, Loki, he... He took me because he thought I'd stolen something from him. How much do you know about what happened in the desert?" she then asked, looking between them.

"We saw that Loki dropped something, we saw you taking it, we saw Clint... Betraying you, and we saw you lie to Loki before he took you," Bruce told.

"We also saw you call Fury a dickhead," Tony added, speaking up for the first time since arriving; "Personally, that was my favourite part."

"He didn't betray me, the staff did something to him," Lana claimed, ignoring Tony; "Loki had, still have, him under some sort of mind control."

"That's what he was doing with the staff," Natasha realised.

"But why wouldn't he put you under mind control?" Bruce questioned.

"Because I said something about the mind control causing short term memory loss," she admitted.

"How does it cause short term memory loss?" Bruce asked confused.

"Maybe it controls the victim thro-"

"It doesn't," Lana interrupted her father; "At least, not as far as I know. I lied."

The group silenced as they looked at her again. "I pointed out that Clint hadn't pointed out my location until he saw me again, and I convinced Loki that he hadn't because he'd forgotten about me. I assumed Loki hadn't really studied the effect in detail and that it was important enough to ensure he wouldn't risk me forgetting it." She looked down as she continued.

"But not long after, I figured out why Clint really hadn't told him about me," she admitted, biting her lip.

"And why is that?" Natasha questioned. Lana felt a hand place itself on hers and looked to her side to see Bucky send her a single, assuring nod. She took a deep breath.

"Because he's fighting against Loki. Loki told him to get me to confess after we'd reached the new location, and Clint... He, um, he kind of... Tortured me?" Lana stated, it almost sounding like a question. The entire room froze, including the thumb that until then had been drawing calming circles on her hand. She looked down at it and at Bucky, who didn't seem to even be in the same room as her at that point and squeezed his hand slightly.

"You were tortured?" Bruce questioned, clearing his throat slightly.

"Just that once, and Clint could have done so much worse. He beat me up, he stabbed me, but." She paused to take another deep breath and looked at Bucky, who's jaw was tightened.

"He stabbed you?" Tony asked, his voice shaking slightly.

"Yeah, and I lost consciousness, but think about it for a sec. He was meant to torture me for answers, so why the hell would he let me off so easily?" Lana reasoned, looking at the others for confirmation.

"You think being stabbed is easy?" Tony asked.

"She's right," Natasha interjected, almost flatly; "Clint's good, he knows the exact line between conscious and unconscious, and he just beat her up to make it clear that he'd done as Loki hard ordered, and then he stabbed her instead of continuing."

"You might be onto something here, Lana," Bruce realised slowly.

"And he shot Fury, but he shot him in the bulletproof vest, which he knew he was wearing. We're talking about Hawkeye, he could've hit him in his bloody eye socket, why would he shoot him the one place he'd suffer the least injuries if not to protect him?" Lana continued, wetting her lips with her tongue.

"Why didn't you just give him what he wanted?" Bucky asked with a gravel voice, not looking directly at her as she shrugged.

"Well... It seemed important to him, so I figured it was probably dangerous," she explained.

"What did you do with it?" Bruce asked, moving momentarily on from the 'Clint fighting against'-theory.

"I put it in my bra," she admitted with a shrug; "I figured with how old fashioned he is and how he generally looks down on women, he wouldn't really check there. Luckily, I was right."

"That seems to be a general theme here, Doll," Bucky muttered, eyeing her sideways with a smirk she shyly reciprocated. He sat himself up straighter, taking his hand back in the process.

"Anyway, when I woke up, Loki had saved my life. I apparently almost died in my sleep, but he healed me as much as he could," Lana continued the story.

"He still needed to know where it was," Natasha agreed with a slight nod.

"I... He apologised for the torture, called it a misunderstanding," Lana told before biting her lip gently.

"Trying to gain your sympathy," Natasha explained, cocking her head slightly to the side while simultaneously raising an eyebrow; "I've used that one."

"He kept healing me," Lana told quickly; "He'd leave, gather energy, come back to heal me again. He kept doing that."

"How often would he come to see you?" Bruce asked, taking off his glasses.

"About once a day, I think."

"And you never told him where it was?" Natasha asked, furrowing his eyebrows in an expression that almost seemed impressed.

"He didn't really ask much. He told me he could smell lies, and I didn't know if it was true, so I made sure everything I said was technically true without giving up that I had it. Clint would come by with some food and water once about every two or three days without saying anything, but besides that, all I really experienced was waiting for Loki to come to heal me before leaving again."

"He isolated you. Made you desperate for human contact, tried to force you to talk to him by becoming lonely," Natasha told, just shrugging when Tony looked at her; "I might've used that one once or twice, too."

"I guess, it's just." Lana silenced as she realised she had no way of explaining her feelings in a way that would sound logical. "Anyway, one day he came and asked me if I'd stolen anything from him, and I said yes."

"Why? You'd gotten away with lying so far," Bruce pointed out, crossing his arms.

"Because what was my other options?" Lana asked, smiling unhappily; "stay up there for god knows how long, wait until he had mercy on me and killed me?"

"What happened next?" Natasha asked when Bruce just looked down.

"Well, at first I thought that was it, but then I realised that he fully accepted that I'd lied to him. I'd always claimed to not have taken anything, and I'd avoided technically lying, but he didn't know that, and he didn't seem surprised at all that I'd gotten away with lying, so that's when I realised the whole 'smell lies' must have been a trick. I told him I'd hid it in my shoe," she explained; "I needed to lie directly, without concealing a hidden truth somewhere in the words, and when he didn't have a reaction, I knew for a fact he couldn't tell lies apart from anything else I said. He said he needed it back, so I told him to kill me. That's when the aircraft landed and Clint carried me out to the forest. Loki said he wouldn't kill me, and I gave him what I'd taken."

"You what?!" Tony said loudly, glancing between his team members; "Tell me you're hearing this, guys!"

"Shut up, Stark," Bucky warned sourly.

"He wasn't prepared to kill me for it, I'd told him it wasn't in my shoe and that I still had it, and he was still going to let me go!" Lana argued, raising her voice, too, before taking a deep breath; "Clearly it couldn't have been that important, so I tried giving it to him, but he gave it back."

"So you still have it," Bruce realised.

"I do," Lana admitted, grabbing the once again plain metal ring from the pocket of the hoodie she was wearing; Bucky's hoodie.

"Do you know what it is?" Natasha asked while Bruce stepped closer to inspect it.

"I do," Lana repeated, slowly running it down her finger, letting it hide itself in a blur of green mist before appearing on her finger, back to the beautiful piece of jewellery she had somehow already gotten used to wearing. She held up her hand to show it to the group.

"It's a healers ring," she told; "It can heal people. He showed me how to use it on my leg and that's how I managed to walk so far on it. There was still some healing left in it, but I saved that for when the numbing effect would pass so I would be able to keep going even then. I wanted to make the most use out of it."

"All this must've been around the same time we finally tracked your location," Tony considered.

"It was. He showed it to you so you could come get me, but when you didn't come, I started walking," she explained, ignoring the look of shame that reached her fathers face. "Eventually, I lied down and fell asleep, and the next day I woke up and the healing had passed. I was really confused and out of it, so I didn't even think about using the ring. I think I straight-up forgot about it, to be honest."

"Common side effect of dehydration," Bruce hummed; "It sounds like you didn't get nearly enough fluids when with Loki, and walking so much must've pushed you even further."

"I guess so. I tried to keep walking but my leg was hurting, and I fell, and I remember something hitting my head, and I remember there being blood on my face. And I scooped it up as well as I could to drink some of it. I didn't know what else to do," she added quickly.

Natasha remained unreadable, Bucky looks like he was experiencing every ounce of pain he was hearing of, and Tony looked almost disgusted by what he had just been told.

"And that's when you threw up," Bruce realised, piecing it together before explaining; "There's too much iron in blood, if you swallow enough you're bound to throw up."

Lana furrowed her eyebrows. "How did you know that?"

"Bucky was trying to locate you, if you hadn't vomited he wouldn't have known he was on the right track. It's probably the only reason he knew where to go after that," Natasha told.

"And that's when we got you to the hospital," Bucky reminded her, unsure of her memory at that time. "And that's when you used your little magic ring to heal my arm."

"I'm sorry, what exactly was wrong with your arm?" Tony interjected offended; "I built that thing perfectly!"

"Yeah, and then you pushed him out of a bloody plane!" Lana scoffed in reply.

"Tony!" Bruce said strictly; "Why would you do that?!" Tony smiled awkwardly, trying to look innocent.

"Told you about that, did he?" He asked Lana.

"Yeah. Thanks to you, his arm has been malfunctioning and it was hurting the part of his shoulder it's connected to. I used the last energy from the ring to make it at least a bit more bearable for him," Lana told, sounding almost as if she was scolding the man twice her age.

"You should've used it on yourself, Doll. I'm not just human, you know," Bucky reminded her.

"I know, but you're also human, and I've been treated since the second you found me, while you're still walking around with an arm that's hurting you."

"Why didn't you just take it off?" Bruce questioned Bucky, who muttered something incomprehensible under his breath. Lana rolled her eyes before translating the words he hadn't even said.

"Because people would notice if he took it off and that would draw attention away from me, and he's convinced that I'm going to drop dead at any moment, and convinced that I, therefore, need all focus," she explained, smiling slightly annoyed.

"Not as much convinced you'll drop dead as hopeful," Bucky corrected, disconnecting his metal arm from his body with a small sigh of relief.

"God I regret ever meeting you," Lana told him.

"And I regret saving you," he said, smiling mockingly at her.

"I was saving myself! I got myself out of imprisonment, didn't I?" Lana pointed out with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah, and if it weren't for me, that would've been the last thing you'd done. You're welcome," he added, grinning at her.

"Okay, you two can shut up now," Natasha said uninterested; "I think we've gotten a few new leads to go on, we should try going the case over again."

"There's something else you should know," Lana said, stopping anyone before they could begin to leave. "Loki, he... I know this sounds crazy, but I think he's doing this for a reason."

The group silenced, even Natasha looking slightly worried.

"Uh, yeah, world domination?" Tony reminded her.

"No, I think it's more than that," Lana told.

"What could he want more?" Natasha asked confused.

"That's the thing, I don't think this is even what he wants. He said something about me being able to trick my villain, and not everybody being able to do that, and because of that he needed to do what he was doing," Lana told, repeating the words she'd heard from Loki. Natasha and Bruce shared a look that made Lana uneasy.

"You're saying... There's someone out there, worse than Loki, puppeting him?" Bruce repeated slowly.

"I don't know, it's just... Something isn't adding up, mate. I'm sure of it," she added.

"That's all great," Tony interjected unconcerned; "But Loki is the god of trickery. Who would he not be able to trick?". The group silenced once again.

"That's what I'm worried about," Lana admitted quietly.