"Striga, you've gotta wake up, Doll," Bucky informed you an indeterminate amount of time later. You groaned as you rolled over and slowly, stiffly sat up. You were a mess of aches and pains from the previous day's activities. You noted as you sat up that the pillow had been placed back under your head and the blanket had been over you until you sat up. Yup, Bucky was definitely Cap's friend.

"Striga?" you asked as he pressed a bowl of porridge into your hands.

"I got you something to eat. It's not much, but this isn't exactly a five star restaurant... as to Striga..." he flushed a little. "You needed some kind of nickname, and it's the name of a type of vampire in Romanian," he explained a bit sheepishly. He really was just like the rest of the team under all the brainwashing. They all loved pet names and determining levels of friendship based on different pet names and nicknames. They were serious about the nicknames too. As far as you knew, the reporter who tried to call Nat 'Tasha' was still in the hospital months later...

"You're gonna fit in with the Avengers just fine. They're all obsessed with nicknames too," you told him dryly, giving him a smirk as you dug into your porridge. He actually gave you a small smile. "I thought you weren't allowed to leave me alone?"

He shrugged. "You were dead asleep. Besides, the actual order was the keep you from escaping. I'm choosing to keep you from escaping by feeding you, but we have to hurry, there's not a lot of time..."

"Time before what?" you asked concerned, especially with that tone and that haunted look in his eyes.

"They want to start training you for field duty as soon as possible," he explained sadly. You blanched. That sounded terrible and horrible and about a zillion other synonyms for awful. "We can't escape. Not yet. I can't break orders and they'll be keeping too close an eye on you for a long while yet. If they think I'm helping you in any way, they'll put my brain back in the blender," he reminded you firmly before you could try to convince him that you should try to escape. "And don't even think about going alone. If you get too far from someone carrying one of the remotes, that thing will go off," he gestured to the obedience disk on your neck. "You're safe in the compound, but..." you nodded, you'd be doomed trying to escape without dealing with the obedience disk first. "We have to wait until we have an opportunity,"

You nodded and steeled yourself for hell.

And hell it was.

You prayed that Loki couldn't feel what they were doing to you. You remembered the sunburn on his arm from yesterday and hoped harder that Loki was free of sharing this pain.

It was days, weeks, months? of near 24-hour combat lessons, brainwashing, torture, training. Hell. They fed you barely enough blood to keep you alive and ordered Bucky to keep from feeding you again. All the while they were trying to mess with your mind, you were slowly rebuilding Bucky's. You were immune to most of their mental meddling because of your telepathic powers being able to shield your mind. They couldn't blend your brain like they'd done to Bucky. It didn't stop everything, but it let you keep yourself despite everything. Despite the torture, pain, attempted brainwashing. You stayed you and Bucky commented more than once that you managed to remain a ball of sunshine despite everything.

Slowly, slowly, Bucky became himself again, and slowly you defended and strengthened his mind as you put it back together.

You lost all track of time as the days and days of nearly no sleep blurred together.

You couldn't contact Loki again, though you tried in fits of desperation. There just wasn't enough power to go around and you couldn't gather enough power to do anything useful. You disabled any listening and surveillance device they placed in Bucky's rooms. He was impressed with your skills with the bugs, since you managed to disable them while making it look like you hadn't done anything. Your big brain was good for something at least.

It took awhile, but you finally convinced Bucky that he could sleep on the bed too during what sleep you were actually allowed. Neither of you were interested in the other and that was very firmly established and agreed upon. You even let him have the pillow on the condition that you could use him as your pillow. He seemed to sleep easier having your head on his chest and he sheepishly admitted one morning that Steve used to sleep like that all the time when they were kids and he always slept better on those nights, considering Steve's multitude of medical conditions. He was also warm so you slept easier curled where you could steal his warmth. He didn't mind since he knew you couldn't regulate your body temperature yourself.

*

"Come, Scarlet," Bucky told you one afternoon after you'd changed from workout clothes to the blood red knee-length dress they insisted you wear. They didn't give you shoes or a jacket so you could have sleeves around the compound, claiming that vampires who weren't trying to escape didn't need such things. The lack of shoes made you look even tinier, innocent, and adorable especially next to the hulking Bucky.

Bucky's voice was gruff when he spoke where you could be overheard. He was also careful to call you Scarlet, since Hydra decided your name was supposed to be Scarlet Death. Stupid name really. You were both keeping up appearances that he was nothing more than your keeper, that he was still a brainwashed zombie. You were impressed with his acting skills. You just had to pretend to be an adorable ball of sunshine, which wasn't hard. It made the Hydra agents uncomfortable to see what was being done to you, when you were so tiny and small. Even they didn't like the innocent being harmed.

He led you to the cafeteria and gestured to your table, the one set a little apart from all the others. You sat obediently. He'd shocked you once in front of all of these people for show and apologized for like an entire day over it, but none of the Hydra agents had liked seeing you shocked either. It was a dangerous game you were playing and you both knew it. So you sat and waited while Bucky went and got you both something to eat, keeping one eye on you the entire time he was away from your side. He dropped the tray and it's unappealing stew, slice of bread, and an apple in front of you when he returned. "You're to stay in the bunk after you've eaten. Your first mission is tomorrow," Bucky told you while you smiled and dumped half of your stew into his bowl. He growled at you to stop it, but it was for show, part of the cute innocent act. Also, he needed more calories than you did, plus you didn't really need much human food to survive, so it was a good addition to the act.

After Bucky's statement, the rest of the meal was in silence.

"We're supposed to be terrified of her?" one of the agents asked incredulously as he looked you over. His voice was soft and you weren't supposed to be able to hear it. You wouldn't have if you weren't a vampire with heightened senses. You offered him a bright smile and polite head nod as you passed him and his friend. "The girl at my daughter's birthday party who played Tinkerbell-"

The next thing you knew you were jolting upright on Bucky's bed, panicked. "Easy, Doll," he told you gently.

"What happened?" you demanded, panicked and terrified. You didn't remember anything after nodding to the agent on your way out of the cafeteria.

"It looks like they affected your brain after all. The trigger word worked," Bucky explained. "After what he said, you dropped like a stone," he explained. After he said 'tinkerbell', you realized. Oh gods. If they got that through your shielding, what else had they done? You pulled your knees to your chest and sobbed helpless tears. After an awkward moment, Bucky's arms wrapped around you. "You'll be ok. We both will. We'll get through this," he promised and held you while you sobbed yourself to exhaustion. "Get some sleep, Striga," he told you and pulled the blanket up over you. "Tomorrow's going to be rough on us all and you haven't slept properly in...ages,"

*

"Y/N! Thank the Norns!" Loki greeted you. The world around you was hazy, but focused. Loki was  standing in front of you, dressed oddly in a green tunic and black pants. The room was unfamiliar too, but that wasn't a concern right now. Right now all that mattered in the entire universe was that Loki was here. You ran the few steps of distance between you and threw yourself into his arms. He held you as tightly as he could, his arms around your waist while you stood on tiptoe your arms around his neck.

"Loki, how?" you asked, whispering against his neck as you took in his scent, ran your fingers through his hair, held onto him like he was the last real thing in the world.

"This is a dream, love. I'm sorry it took so long for me to learn, but I finally learned to dreamwalk. Thor has been annoyed to no end that I've been practicing on him," he added lightly. You laughed at that, imaginging Thor's grumpy expression of having magic practiced on him.

"Poor Thor," you said and dropped back to your feet to look over Loki. He looked you over too. You reached up and touched his neck, there was a burn mark there in the same place the obedience disk was on your neck.

"I'm fine," he told you before you could start fretting.

"But how-?"

"Your power latches onto mine when they hurt you," he explained. "With unpleasant side effects. It's atypical, but not unheard of, especially since I am the one teaching you magic, and you've been trying to make the telepathic link. It's not surprising there's bleed-through. And don't you dare try to stop now that you know, either, sweetheart. It's one of the few things letting me know you're still alive," he told you firmly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" his finger pressed against your lips.

"It's alright, darling," he told you. You leaned up and kissed him when he dropped his finger from your lips. It didn't matter that this was a dream. He broke the kiss. "Darling, even my power has limits. I know you're alive, and in one piece, but are you ok?" he asked softly. He didn't want to hear that you weren't.

"I'm in one piece," you agreed. You didn't want to tell him what they were doing to you. That wouldn't help anything and would just make him angry. He understood though. You weren't alright.

"I hate to push, but have you learned anything that might help us find you? They're blocking me from finding you somehow, even through dreamwalking I can't get a lock on your location," he growled in frustration.

You pointed to the obedience disk in your neck. "This thing somehow casts interference so you can't find me," you explained. "Tomorrow will be the first time I'm leaving the compound since I was taken. Some kind of mission for Hydra. I don't know what it is," you told him, fear in your voice as you held onto him too tightly. "This stupid disk in my neck. Whatever this mission is, I have to do it," you sobbed into his chest.

"It's not our fault, sweetheart. Whatever they make you do, it's on them. It's not your fault,"

"But I'm choosing to do it. Choosing whatever awful task to avoid a little pain," you whimpered, telling him your fears of becoming a true monster.

"It is hardly a little pain, darling. Not with how much bleedthrough I've felt. That much pain is torture, and your actions under torture are not your fault. You're not a monster, sweetheart, no matter what they make you do. I'm sorry, love. My magic is coming to an end. We're coming for you, I swear it. We'll put all of our resources out tomorrow when you'll be out of that compound. We'll find you and I will kill them for hurt you,"

You kissed him again. "I love you, Loki,"

"I love you more than anything, sweetheart. Stay strong for me, dearheart,"

"I'm trying, Loki. I'm trying," you whimpered as more tears came unbidden to your eyes.

"I know, my darling," his fingers ran through your hair. You kissed him again. You couldn't keep your lips off of his, not when he was finally here. The kissed broke momentarily, and his spoke, his lips brushing yours. "I love y-

*

"Come on, Striga, it's almost dawn," Bucky told you and shook you harder. The tears were still in your eyes, and you could still feel Loki's lips on yours. "You ok, Doll?" he asked when you didn't wake as fast as usual.

"Sorry, magic and dreams," you told him as you disentangled yourself from the blanket. "Loki... came and visited my dream," you explained at his confused look. He still didn't seem to understand, but nodded his agreement anyway.

"Get dressed quickly, we leave at dawn,"

"I can't see in the sunlight," you reminded him as you ducked into the bathroom to change into a clean blood-red dress that had been laid out for you. Bucky handed you a black leather jacket as soon as you stepped out of the bathroom. You slipped it on and sat on the bed to tie on the black combat boots.

"I know you can't. So do they. It'll be alright," Bucky told you, but wouldn't clarify past that. When you were dressed he pulled out a long ribbon the same red as your dress. "Close your eyes and trust me, Striga," Bucky bid you. You balked.

"No, nonono," you told him firmly, scared of being even more blind.

"Doll, you have to. They aren't leaving anything up to chance," Bucky told you and you could hear the hurt in his voice of what he was making you do.

"Buck, I can't," you told him. Balking at this final straw.

"Y/N, neither of us has a choice. I'll be there the entire time and will do everything in my power to make sure you're safe," he reminded you firmly. "But if we don't hurry, they're going to come in here and it's going to be a lot worse and a lot more painful for both of us,"

You sighed, trapped again, and nodded, stepping over to him and turning around so he could tie the stupid ribbon over your eyes. He fastened it securely and touched your hand with his when he was done. You gripped his arm automatically, too tightly, but he wouldn't complain

He led you through the compound, through the maze of hallways to the exit. You couldn't remember the last time you breathed fresh air. You were loaded onto a jet with Bucky at your side. He stayed beside you the entire trip to wherever this mission was going and let you hold his hand, knowing you were terrified to be out in the day, that you were scared to be without your vision even worse. It was a long, long trip before the jet landed again. You dozed off on Bucky for part of it, and they actually gave you a coffee cup of blood to drink on the way. It was human, you noted and you briefly wondered whose. You weren't going to turn it down regardless. You'd been surviving on teaspoons of chicken blood, which was gross and not enough. An entire coffee cup of human blood was desperately needed.

Bucky removed the ribbon from your eyes once the jet had landed. It was dusk. German man, whose name you never actually got, ordered you from the jet. Bucky trailed behind you as you followed the German man, trying to tell yourself that whatever you were forced to do was force and not your choice, no matter how it might seem.

You were led to the edge of a village where a bunch of Hydra agents were waiting in fancy suits. They all had chairs like they were here to watch a show of some variety, and big screens with security camera footage of the village in front of them. It looked like the entire village was on display. "Gentlemen, thank you for coming to this little demonstration,"

"This better be good Herr Schneider. We were promised a powerful new weapon," one of the men said, shaking German man's hand.

"I think you will be most impressed with this demonstration," German man, Schneider, pushed you forward. "It doesn't look like much, but this is the weapon. Scarlet Death we call it. It's even more powerful than the Winter Soldier, and will be more so after we train it up a bit more. Now, let me show you what it's capable of," Schneider told the men. "It's been trained with activation words, naturally. So. Shall we begin?" The men nodded and took their seats, intently watching everything, including the screens. Schneider turned to you. "Hugin,"

*

"Munin" said the Schneider and the world came back into focus slowly. You were wet. Why were you wet? You looked down and saw that you were soaked. Drenched in so much blood that your blood red dress looked black. Your skin was smeared in blood too. It was sticky and still hot on your skin. It was also very much definitely blood. You were a vampire. You could tell.

It was then that you looked around you and your hands went to your mouth in shock and horror. You were in the eye of a storm of carnage. There were bodies surrounding you. Men, women, children. The village around you was burning. But it was the bodies, bodies you knew that you were somehow responsible for that held your attention and horror. A hundred people? More? You couldn't tell from the pile of carnage around you. They were dead, so very, very dead.

You fell to your knees, the ground squelching beneath you. Tears of shock and horror streamed down your cheeks, dripped to add more blood to the already blood soaked earth.

You had killed all of these people.

You couldn't remember doing it.

One word and you had.

You were viciously, violently ill at the knowledge of what you had done. It didn't matter that it was against your will. It didn't matter you couldn't remember. It didn't matter you had no idea what you were doing.

You had done it.

They succeeded.

They won.

They had succeeded in turning you into a monster after all