SHE MADE A mistake.

She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be on Terra. She shouldn't help them, the Avengers.

Leena's heart had failed to beat at a regular pace from the moment she had stepped over the threshold of the Compound. Nebula had shown her to an unoccupied bedroom on the second floor and told her to not cause any trouble while they awaited the arrival of the three men Leena had encountered on Droag, the two Soldiers and the God. Nebula had briefly mentioned something about Natasha and Peter. Leena had been more concerned with the fact that she felt sick to her stomach than to pay attention to the other two Terrain's.

She shouldn't be here.

Thanos would be disgusted with her. Leena felt disgusted with herself.

Breathe. She had to breathe.

She tried to distract herself by cleaning herself up, the carcasses from Droag left an unsettling stench on her body and grease from the fumes clung to her skin along with the dried blood. She quickly washed, feeling jittery at the slightest sound, and made sure to smudge the area around her eyes in black, wiping the residue on her trousers. She looked at her fingers, two fingertips stained with the black make-up while the others were a faded grey. Shifting through a bag she had brought with her, she grabbed a pair of gloves and pulled them on.

Leena could barely sit still after cleaning herself up. She decided to leave the bedroom and enter the quiet hallway where the lights lit up with her presence. Glancing both ways, she quietly walked towards the staircase and made her way down, passing the first floor, where she heard a slight hum from a shower, until she reached the ground floor.

It was as silent as the dead on the ground floor. There was not a soul in sight. Leena felt at her waist, feeling comforted by the swords that pressed against her belt as she walked around. She came across a large room that appeared to be a conference room. The lights were dim as the sun peaked through the large glass windows and glistened off the table where a thick booklet lay. Leena walked towards it and glanced over the front page.

THE SOKOVIA ACCORDS

She had no idea what the Sokovia Accords were but didn't dwell on it for too long and left the conference room. Continuing with her discovery of the Compound, just beside the conference room, Leena came across a large kitchen and lounge joined together, but the room that took her interest was one that appeared to be a smaller lounge, cut off from the others.

The lights dimmed in the corners of the room as she walked in, the blinds automatically lifting up to reveal the sun across the fields and the lake. Leena presumed this room was used the most for there were left over coffee mugs on the table, notepads on a sofa, and a jacket thrown over a chair. Her eyes skimmed across each crevice of the area that appeared well lived-in, and widened them when she noticed a small workshop attached behind glass panelling.

She walked towards the workshop and placed her hand against the doorknob only to pause, she needed a code. She still tried the doorknob regardless but it didn't budge.

"You'll have to ask Peter for the code."

Leena froze.

She glanced around, her eyes quickly looking for the owner of the voice only to slowly lift her gaze up to the ceiling.

"Hello, I'm F.R.I.D.A.Y."

"Oh, hello," Leena said slowly and dropped her hand from the doorknob. She cleared her throat as she looked around the room once again, "A.I?"

"Tony Stark designed me, I function this building and any other systems that Peter wishes to use me for since Mr. Stark is no longer here."

Leena felt her stomach flip.

"Oh, right. I'm Leena." She mumbled, heading towards the door to leave when the table suddenly lit up with holograms. Leena glanced up at the ceiling. "Am I supposed to look at that?"

"I'm afraid I do not know what you are talking about, Leena."

Leena felt her lips pull upwards but rolled her eyes as she walked towards the table, "you're advanced for a Terrain A.I."

"I know."

Leena couldn't help the small smile on her lips at the A.I's reply but it fell immediately once she locked eyes with the holograms. Tony Stark's face appeared with the title "MISSING" in bold letters above his head, and his name just below his face. On another hologram, there was a photo of Drax, which then flipped to Mantis and then to Groot. Leena felt her chest tighten. They were Gamora's family.

The third hologram sensor flipped through faces that Leena had briefly seen and others she had never seen before but all of their names rang clear in her mind.

T'Challa.

May Parker.

Bruce Banner.

Wanda Maximoff.

Sam Wilson.

"Stop." Leena said, closing her eyes before she could see anymore faces and names. "Just stop it."

The holograms dimmed. Leena felt her gloved hands clench as her throat tightened. She slowly opened her eyes again and noticed that one hologram stayed up, it was the coordinates of a place on Terra in Wakanda. Leena recognised it as the place where Thanos had snapped away half the Universe.

"Is that the energy?" Leena asked, tilting her head as she enhanced the hologram with her fingers. "Residue from the Snap?"

"Yes. Rocket located the energy from when the Infinity Stones were last used in hopes of finding them again. I'm afraid my system was unsuccessful in finding their position."

"He hasn't used them again?" Leena queried, her eyes focused on the hue of colours of the screen that the A.I had used to create the illustration of energy from the Stones. Leena couldn't help but admire the intrinsic intelligence held by the system.

"Not that I have been able to detect."

"Your system is extremely advanced. You can detect the energy current of the Infinity Stones being used." Leena said, her eyes wide. "Most civilisations that seek out the Stones have tried to utilise technology to do just that, and here you are, on Terra of all places."

"I cannot seek out the Stones when they are used on their own, only when used together, I'm afraid."

"But still," Leena shook her head, unable to hide her amazement, "even with Rocket tinkering slightly, you already had this wired into your system. Terrain's are the one of the lowest forms of civilisations in the galaxy, so it's pretty incredible. No offence."

"Mr. Stark liked to exceed all expectations."

"If Thanos knew about you I'd have been out of a job," Leena joked darkly.

"That is quite funny," F.R.I.D.A.Y said monotonously.

Leena couldn't help but stare at the blur of colours on the screen. She supposed Thanos had no more use for the Stones now that he had completed everything he had hoped to do, he had wiped out half of life. He's fulfilled his destiny. Even with the word 'destiny' playing around in her mind, Leena couldn't shake away the feeling that something about this wasn't right. It still felt like Thanos had unfinished business. It was probably because he still wanted her. She was his unfinished business.

With a hesitant glance at the hologram, Leena pulled up the missing faces again and it filled the three spaces. She glanced at each and every face and forced herself to look at them. She had to look at them. She helped Thanos do this and now she was going to help the Avengers undo it.

The unsettling feeling in her stomach eased slightly but she still felt like an imposter. Her entire life had been leading to that moment, she knew no different than the four walls of the Sanctuary II and the words spoken to her in those confines were words she took as the truth of the Universe.

With a heavy heart, she knew it would take her a while to accept completely that she could decide her own path. She wanted to help remedy the sickness she had caused.

Leena had no idea who she was but she was finally willing to find out.

___

"You're lost." Bucky deadpanned as he stared at Thor who was scratching his tense jawline. "You're lost in Space."

"I am not lost," Thor gritted out. "We're just going the long way round."

"Long way round?" Bucky asked incredulously, "we're in the middle of the black abyss!"

Outside the window of the spacecraft was the black abyss Bucky had mentioned. It went on as far as the eye could see and further. Small, glistening hues of colours blurred together in the distance, planets that were out of their reach and far from their home. They were an entire galaxy away from their home and it sent an unnerved feeling over them which burned with their tiredness and left them irritable.

"Hey, that's enough!" Steve cut in, glancing between the two agitated men. He landed his soft blue eyes on Thor, "are you lost?"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Thor." Steve said sternly, his brows sinking into his usual frown. "It took us eight hours to get to Droag, and now it's taking us fourteen hours to get home."

"I am not lost," Thor stated irritably as he fiddled with the console, attempting to locate the correct Jump to get them safely back to Earth. "I'm just thinking."

"You've been thinking for the last hour," Bucky muttered under his breath as he rolled his tense shoulders. Steve shot him a look. "What? We haven't slept for a day, we don't even know if Nebula managed to get Leena on our side. For all we know, Leena could have killed her—"

"She wouldn't do that," Steve cut in, his defence wavering slightly. He didn't know that for sure, he could only hope that she wouldn't do that. She didn't seem evil.

"We don't know her, we don't even know Nebula," Bucky retorted, standing up from his seat to walk a few steps to wake his legs up. "And we're in Space!"

"Gamora trusted Nebula." Thor said quietly and the two Solider's turned to face him. "She even trusted her, Leena," his hands clenched around the console, "she spoke of them when I briefly met her."

"Do you trust them?" Steve asked Thor, glancing behind at Bucky who had stopped his mumbling about the insanity of the situation and how they were in Space.

"Nebula despises Thanos, we have no qualms about her loyalty. Leena—" Thor paused, his blue eye darkening while the orange eye dimmed as he remembered the story his family told him a long time ago, it was a story he had yet to tell the other Avengers, "— I don't know. She's his weapon."

Bucky suddenly tensed. A weapon. He glanced down at his metal arm as his fingers curled and uncurled. He felt a pinch of regret from his words earlier about Leena. He had been a weapon. He refused to meet the concerned look that his best friend was undoubtedly giving him, so he kept his gaze on his arm.

"She had no choice," Steve spoke up, his eyes never straying from Bucky's tense figure. He felt his chest tighten, "she had no choice and she knew no different. We can't judge her too harshly."

"My people are dead," Thor's voice hardened with fiery rage, his cheeks burned with anger as his eyes narrowed with the memory of the screams that filled his nightmares. "She stood by and let her siblings slaughter my people."

"I understand, Thor, I really do," Steve murmured sympathetically, resting his hand on Thor's shoulder but Thor had drifted off to his place of nightmares. "But she knew no different."

Steve's words had barely registered to Thor for his mind had taken him back to the very moment Thanos had stepped foot on his ship and ordered the execution of his people. His brother's execution. Leena had stood by with her only concern being the Stone that Loki possessed. Thor attempted to fight back the nagging feeling that creeped up whenever his burning anger for Leena spiked, the nagging feeling that felt as if she had lessened his pain when her father tortured him with the Power Stone. Leena wouldn't help him. She couldn't have helped him.

"It doesn't change the fact that my people and brother are dead." Thor fiddled with the console as the ship lurched forward, Bucky stumbled towards his seat throwing the God a heated glare, "I've found the Jump. We'll be home in an hour."

Just as Thor had promised, the three men had stepped foot onto the familiar Earth ground an hour later. No words had been spoken between them since their tense conversation, for the two Solider's were treading lightly with the topic of Leena. Thor was striding ahead of them, still lost in his own mind, which left Steve to question Bucky.

"Are you alright?"

Bucky glanced at Steve, nodding his head as he moved his long hair out of his face. "We were in Space. I know I probably shouldn't be shocked given the fact that we're a hundred years old but we went to Space." An almost dreamy look cast itself across Bucky's face, "that would have been a crazy thought to us back in the forties."

Steve's lips pulled up in a smile, his eyes fogging with the memory of his past when it was just him and Bucky. Bucky had always been fascinated with the new technology that Howard Stark brought out, and the topic of space just blew his mind. Steve shouldn't have been surprised at all that Bucky was having a moment to process it, it made him smile as a reminder that the old Bucky was in there. He had never left.

"Yeah, I guess it all just flies over your head, nothing feels like a shock anymore," Steve admitted as he scratched the back of his neck. "We went to Space."

"We went to Space," Bucky repeated with a grin on his face.

The mood dampened slightly when they both looked ahead towards Thor who had just walked into the Compound. "He's right, you know."

"About what?" Steve asked confused, feeling the wind whip at his cheeks.

Bucky sighed, "about Leena. He's right to be wary and angry with her."

"She had no choice, Buck," Steve defended as their shoes squelched in the mud on the field. "Like you had no choice. Just because she wasn't wiped of everything like you were, it doesn't mean she wasn't psychologically controlled."

Bucky and Steve both halted their stepping, standing outside, just before the entrance of the Compound. Bucky glanced up at the cloudy sky as the sun tried its best to peak through the clouds. He pulled his gaze down to meet the concerned filled eyes of his best friend.

"Look what happened with Tony," Bucky's voice cracked slightly. He cleared his throat and shook his head, his jaw tensing.

"No," Steve said firmly, "that wasn't you. That was on me. He was angry with me for hiding it from him. I shouldn't have hid it but I did. That was my fault, Buck, not yours."

"But you hid it because of me!" Bucky retorted, his face contorting with pain, "just because Leena's past isn't a secret doesn't mean Thor is going to be able to look past it."

"Everything takes time," Steve insisted. "This has to work, Buck. We lost the last time because we refused to stand together. We can't lose again."

"You're being too hopeful."

"I don't want to think of the other side," Steve admitted, his gaze lowering as his voice thickened with emotion, "I can't think of living in only half a world. I need to get everyone back. I need Tony. He — he never deserved this, none of them deserved this to happen to them. If being too hopeful helps us get them back then so be it."

Bucky reached his hand out to grab Steve's shoulders, "alright. We'll try to make sure they don't kill each other." A teasing smile lit up Bucky's face but it didn't reach his eyes that were swimming in guilt.

Steve chuckled, "that's if she's come back with Nebula."

Bucky shrugged his shoulders, "I have a feeling she has."

The two Soldier's headed inside the Compound, and just as Bucky had predicted, Leena and Nebula were standing in the living area. Thor was standing beside Peter and Natasha on the other side. No one was saying a word.

Bucky looked at Steve with a raised eyebrow. "Told you," he muttered under his breath.

"Hi," Peter waved at Steve and Bucky when they entered the room. Bucky glanced at Peter and looked away while Steve offered the boy a small smile in greeting.

"Nice to see you guys finally made you way back home," Natasha said lightly, her eyes twinkling as she glanced at Steve who smiled at her teasing comment. "These two got here hours before you three, we thought you guys had abandoned us."

"Someone got lost," Bucky mumbled under his breath with a hard look towards Thor but only Leena heard him for she was standing the closest to the man. She forced back a smile when Thor shot her a dark look.

"You're willing to help us?" Steve asked, directing his question towards Leena who had engaged in a staring competition with Thor.

"Apparently so," Leena replied, never breaking her stare. She felt her lips pull up into a teasing smile when Thor blinked. His jaw tensed. Leena turned her full attention towards Steve who had been glancing between her and Thor. "I presume you have ground rules?"

Steve breathed out a light laugh but it was humourless, "something like that."

"Everyone wants you," Peter piped up, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet. His eyes widened when everyone looked at him, "oh, not in like, uhm not in that way. But I mean — I guess everyone does want you, I mean — you know what I mean."

Leena titled her head in amusement as she looked at Peter's cheeks that burned red, feeling an odd sense of comfort after seeing the boy. "You mean they want me dead."

Peter's face suddenly paled, "I guess, yeah. I guess that's what they want. Or detained. They might want to just detain you."

"Regardless," Steve jumped in, folding his arms over his chest. "Your face is plastered all over, in every city, every news station. You might look slightly different to the photo they have of you but we can't risk it."

Leena reached up to tuck her dark, short curly hair behind her ear. She had cut it as soon as she had ran away from Thanos and covered her eyes with black tint, some days she wore a mask to hide the bottom half of her face when she had to travel to more civilised planets. The uncivilised didn't glance at her too closely.

"We're not exactly the most liked by the Government either." Natasha said dryly as she sipped on her coffee, leaning her back against the table beside Steve.

"So stay in the Compound, got it." Leena said with a nod of her head.

"Don't kill anyone," Thor's eyes hardened when Leena glanced at him, "pretty important rule."

Leena clicked her tongue, crossing her arms over her chest. "But what if they're trying to kill me?" She hummed with a defiant look lurking in her honey glazed eyes.

"Then that's self-defence."

Surprisingly, all the attention turned towards Bucky whose face was void of emotion. He held Leena's intense gaze, never faltering. "Don't kill anyone unless you have to."

Leena felt her chest lighten slightly, it felt as if she was being defended. Someone wasn't jumping to attack her but rather they were stepping up to her defence. She had never seen someone do that for her before. It made her feel unsettled.

"No killing, got it. Anything else?"

"Just keep your head down low," Natasha filled in. Leena nodded her head. She had only met the white-haired woman an hour ago, the two had barely spoken to each other but Leena had a feeling that she didn't want to get on her wrong side. "We've all got to do that, the whole world is looking at us after everything that happened."

"Stay here, don't kill anyone, and keep my head low. Doesn't sound too hard," Leena said lightly.

Thor scoffed under his breath, "probably too hard for you."

Leena cleared her throat, "I have rules too."

Thor shot her a hard look, almost in disbelief at her statement. Steve nodded his head, inclining her to proceed.

"If you try anything or even think about informing Thanos of my whereabouts, you will all be dead before any of you have a chance to see your life flash before your eyes." Her eyes darkened as she glanced over each and every face, skimming over Peter's before she felt an unsettling feeling in her stomach as his face dramatically paled.

"For the love of Mephisto," Nebula muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes and cutting through the tense atmosphere that choked them. "They're not going to tell Thanos."

"I'm just saying," Leena shrugged her shoulders, her eyes lighting back to their usual honey glazed brown. "I'll kill them. And you."

"How — how about no one snitches or kills anyone and then we're all happy?" Peter asked quietly, his eyes flickering around him.

"I'm with the kid," Bucky nodded, "for once I agree with him."

Peter nodded his head, a small smile working its way onto his face. "G—Great. Cool."

Steve acknowledged his agreement, alongside Natasha. Thor said nothing, deciding to walk out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Peter jumped slightly while the others shared a look.

"I'm guessing he's in agreement, too," Leena mumbled under her breath, staring at the door Thor had just slammed.

"Maybe he's off to tell Thanos," Nebula muttered back to Leena, ensuring no one else overheard her. Leena simply reached her foot out and slammed it down onto Nebula's, watching a flicker of pain grace itself on her sister's blue face.

"Sorry. I didn't see you there."

_____
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hii everyone, happy easter! i thought i would give you an early chapter, i hope you're all having a lovely weekend! let me know your thoughts on the chapter! i'm really excited now leena is with the avengers! and we're so close to 10K! honestly can't believe it! thank you so much for reading!