Wind rushes over the tarmac, dry and sharp like a blade. The heat bakes off the concrete, but I can feel the chill under my skin. the warning that my power is shifting, crawling, ready. It's powerful, I can feel it. I'm on the verge of an explosion.

Across the field, Tony's team emerges from the terminal, boots hitting the ground in sync. Sleek suits. Controlled faces. Weapons gleaming. Sam shifts beside me, almost uncomfortable. "What do we do, Cap?"

Steve doesn't hesitate. Expression hard, unmoving. And everything about him proves just how strong he is. "We fight."

A pause. Then Natasha's voice, dry as dust. "This is gonna end well."

Our line moves forward. No one runs yet. Not until they do. Not until Tony's voice cuts across the tension like a warning.

"They're not stopping," Peter says, a little too high-pitched.

"Neither are we," Tony answers, cold and absolute. And that's when it happens. We sprint.

I take off beside Steve and Bucky, the shadow of Bucky's frame at my left, Steve's shield gleaming on my right. For a second, it feels like I've run this path before. Hydra training fields. Screaming floodlights. Blood in my mouth, running by force.

But this time I chose to run. I chose them. I choose to stand up for what I believe in, for Bucky. To fucking destroy hydra. And to allow Steve to be able to help people, when he chooses.

Iron Man hits first. Steve blocks the punch, vibrating steel rippling through the ground. Falcon is airborne. Clint's already got an arrow in the air aimed at Vision. It detonates in a flash of blue.

I veer wide to avoid chaos. Peter's webs slice through the space above me. I duck, shadows tightening like armor under my skin, a whisper of defense I barely have strength for. It's tight, painful, muscles cramping as I throw shields of shadows in my team's direction. It wears me down a lot more than it should.

Bucky and T'Challa clash. claws against metal. It's brutal, rhythmic. Precise. I see Bucky take a blow to the shoulder, grunt, recover. I want to move to him, but he's holding his ground. Fierce. Controlled.

I throw out both hands, and the shadows answer. They ripple outward—not an explosion, but just enough to send vision back.

Scott flies past me like a tossed action figure. And I still don't understand his powers. Clint and Natasha are already going at it, clashing like thunder, movements familiar. Predictable at least to eachother. But their faces aren't angry. Not really. It's something else.

Desperation? I stumble a step back, chest tightening. This is too much. My vision dips, a dark edge crawling in. I can't do this without killing. Fuck.

"Hey," Bucky's voice cuts through the roar. He's close again. A flicker of sweat on his temple. "Your shadows good?"

I lie. My answer quick. Too fast. "Just pacing myself."

He nods once. just once. We both know what it's like to burn out. Hydra forced it upon us all too much. I push forward again, keeping behind him now. Watching his back. If anyone's going to touch him, they're going through me.

And still, the memory creeps in. Cold chambers. Fluorescent lights. The way I wrapped him in shadows when no one else would. When no one else could.

I fight now because I never got the chance to fight then. For me. For him. For something that looks like choice. I never got the chance to shield him properly. And maybe there's guilt that still lingers from when I could hear his screams but my shadows were too weak to reach the rooms, the chair he was strapped to.

I round the corner just in time to see Bucky and T'Challa locked in a savage grip—each of them with a hand at the other's throat. Blood on their knuckles. Determination in their eyes.

"I didn't kill your father," Bucky grits out.

"Then why did you run?" T'Challa snarls, yanking Bucky's hand free. He spins, then launches a brutal kick that sends Bucky staggering back.

No.

I move, instinctively, shadows coiling from my fingertips, and throwing up a shield around Bucky but Wanda's already there.

She lifts her hand without hesitation. T'Challa's claws slash down toward Bucky's shadow shielded neck, and freeze mid-air.

Her fingers twitch, and the energy around her crackles. With a single flick, she sends T'Challa flying into a passenger gangway with a satisfying crunch. She's fucking cool.

Bucky glances at us, breathless, nodding. "Thanks."

"Stay close," Wanda snaps, already stepping back into the fray. A blur of red and blue shoots past me, webbing arcing overhead.

Spider-Man. Steve's shield is bound in silk and yanked forward, his ankle caught. Peter yells as he yanks him forward his tone still just as excited to be a part of the action: "That thing does not obey the laws of physics at all!"

Steve braces himself, sliding. "Look kid. There's a lot going on here you don't understand."

Peter doesn't miss a beat. "Mr. Stark said you'd say that! Wow."

He kicks Steve hard in the chest. Steve skids, rollsstill controlled, still calm. I start toward them, but a sudden tug of instinct halts me.

Too much noise. Too much energy. I crouch behind a stack of luggage carts, trying to breathe, trying to focus. My fingers twitch and a wisp of darkness curls upward. gentle at first, until a stray thought cracks it wide. I don't know what I miss, but just for a moment I needed to focus on control. I pull back, launching myself back toward Steve.

Bucky stops beside Steve, breath misting in the warm air, sweat streaked along his jaw. Urgency drowning us all.

"We gotta go," he mutters, gruffly. "That guy's probably in Siberia by now."

I glance at him. The doctor. The one who turned our powers and pain against us. Again. And for a moment I'm reminded that may never stop. We will always be weapons to someone. Steve nods. "We need to draw out the flyers. I'll take Vision. You get to the jet."

From overhead, Sam's voice bursts through the comms, firm. "No—you get to the jet. Both of you."

My heart stutters. He knows. They all do. This is the line in the sand, and they're all choosing to back Steve. I hadn't realised up until now how much support he has... the family he has.

"The rest of us aren't getting out of here," Sam says.

Clint's voice cuts in, dry as ever. "As much as I hate to admit it, if we're gonna win this one, some of us might have to lose it."

I flinch. Not at the words, but at how easily I believe them. Sam again, steady and sure: "This isn't the real fight, Steve."

Steve clenches his jaw. I can see the war in his eyes, the part of him that doesn't want to leave anyone behind and I guess that's just a part of him. Part of being a righteous soldier. He turns to the comm, voice taut. "Alright, Sam—what's the play?"

"We need a diversion," Sam says. "Something big."

A voice I wasn't expecting crackles in. "I got something kind of big," Scott says, and I can already hear the tremble of nerves behind the bravado. "But I can't hold it long. On my signal, run like hell. And if I tear myself in half... don't come back for me."

Bucky exhales sharply. "He's gonna tear himself in half?"

I manage a small breath of dry humor, simple. "I don't think that's the plan, exactly."

Above the terminal, a shockwave booms out, glass rattling in the windows. We look up just in time to see Scott, no, Giant-Man, towering over the concourse, swiping at War Machine like a child trying to catch a balloon. What the actual fuck.

"Holy shit!" Peter yells somewhere in the distance.

"That's the signal," Steve says. A silence falls between the three of us. I take a shaky step closer, shadows curling faintly at my fingertips like they're unsure of themselves. My knees aren't steady. But my voice is.

"I'm coming with you." I don't really know what I'm saying, what I'm doing. I just know that if they need me. I'll be there.

Steve turns, expression unsure. "Amara—"

"I know I'm not at full strength." My voice cracks, but I meet his gaze. "But neither are you. None of us are. Doesn't mean we stop."

He looks like he wants to argue. He always does when it comes to people getting hurt on his watch. But it's Bucky who speaks first.

"She's with us." His voice is quiet, but absolute. I glance at him. He's not looking at me, not directly, but his presence beside me says more than the words ever could. Something about it shakes my bones with a gentle violence.

Steve takes a breath, nods once. "Alright. Let's go."

We start to run, me, Steve, and Bucky, side by side as the battlefield roars behind us. And I don't look back. Because I've done this before. I know how battle fields work.

We're almost at the hangar doors. My lungs burn, legs screaming, but I don't stop. not when Steve's beside me and Bucky's just ahead. Somewhere behind us, the world's tearing itself apart. Scott's gone full shrek big man, Sam's shouting something into the comms, and explosions are breaking like thunder all across the airfield.

Then I feel it, pressure. A cold thrum at the base of my skull. My shadows feel a shift. Trepidation claws at me. I whip around in time to see it: Vision, hovering, precise, inhuman. His forehead gleams, and then a beam explodes outward with surgical precision.

The control tower lurches, groaning as metal snaps, foundations buckle. It tilts, massive, right toward us.

"Steve—!" He looks up. His eyes widen. We won't make it. Not all the way. Not like this.

My instincts fire before I can think. The shadows erupt. Without me meaning for them to. It burns, oxygen claws at my lungs and my heart hammers to hard it feels as if a stampede lives beneath my ribs.

Shadows roar out from beneath my feet like a tidal wave, snapping forward with unnatural speed. For a second, the world goes silent, then the air shrieks with pressure as the darkness slams into the falling tower.

The structure shudders midair. Time slows. My body tense and agony flooding me in waves.

I grit my teeth, arms outstretched, every muscle in my body clenched tight as I try to hold it, but something builds. Something I haven't felt in years. Not since Hydra. Not since the black room, the restraints, the injections. I haven't felt this since I was a killer.

The tower doesn't just slow. It stops. Mid-crash. And then something leaves my lips, a hoarse earth shatteringly sharp scream. "No!"

I shove it. The blast sends the crumbling remains flying outward, scattering across the edge of the airfield in a brutal wave of force and shrieking steel. For a split second, no one moves. No one breathes. Shadows disperse in huge waves of black.

Steve's staring at me like he doesn't recognize me. Bucky... Bucky's eyes are wide. Even Vision hesitates.

I can barely hear over the ringing in my ears. My arms fall to my sides, trembling violently. My knees almost buckle.

That kind of power, I thought it had been burned out of me. I thought I could only reach it when I was a weapon. I never thought I could still be that strong without becoming a monster again.

I haven't done that- haven't used them that fiercely since I escaped, since I was still a programmed killer. Pain lances through my skull, hot and sharp. Everything spins, the world around me turning.

"Steve," I breathe. Or maybe I don't. Maybe it's only in my head. My legs give out.

I'm falling— Then arms catch me.

"I got you," Bucky murmurs, steady and solid despite the chaos. One arm under my legs, the other around my back. I'm distantly aware of his metal fingers against my ribs, cool through my suit.

"Amara? Stay with me—hey—look at me." I can't. Everything's going dark. My vision blurs growing heavy, shadows dancing across my gaze.

I hear Steve's voice, low, urgent. "We've got to move. Get her on the jet."

Bucky doesn't let go. The tower's pieces still rain down behind us, but they don't touch us. Not now.

Natasha appears in the hangar, breathless, standing between us and the jet. "You're not gonna stop."

Steve looks her in the eye. "You know I can't."

Natasha hesitates. "I'm gonna regret this," she mutters.

Then she spins and fires a shock into T'Challa, who stumbles back with a growl. "Go."

And that's all I can make out as pain shakes my every muscle and darkness completely overtakes my gaze.