WARNING, maybe. It's gonna get a little bit violent in this chapter so, be warned. Take this warning, consider it, and react appropriately. I, personally, don't think it's too icky, but if possibly scary situations and some violence bothers you, then you should proceed with caution. I guess.

I'm totally a professional, you guys.

The next day I meet with Carson to tell him that I can't be more than friends with him, at least for now. It had become more and more clear that he wants a romantic relationship with me and that wouldn't be fair to him when I'm trying to get over someone else. He seemed disappointed at first, but he's actually a lot more understanding than I was expecting. Carson even asked if we could stay friends, which surprised me. But maybe I watch too many movies where the girl wants to be friends and it's never what the guy wants. I'm glad he wants to stay friends though; he really is a nice guy.

He mentioned that he's moving this weekend to share an apartment with his friend. I, being a dipstick, offered to help him, never mind the fact that I have no upper-body strength to speak of.

It wasn't until after I volunteered myself that he mentioned the van would be there at eight in the morning and could I be there about an hour earlier to help pack the last of the boxes?

Goodbye day off. Farewell sleeping-in.

When I later tell James and Steve of it before our movie night starts, they laugh at me like the good friends they are.

"If you didn't want to help, why offer?" Steve asks, smiling at me like I'm a child who asked to lick a light socket.

"Because-" I cut myself off. I don't want to tell Steve that, because of him, I had essentially broken off whatever my relationship with Carson was before, and now I feel like I owe him something. "-I'm a nice person?"

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that they laugh at that as well.

"Hey, I'm a nice person! ...Aren't I?"

"Sure, Anne." James practically pats my head in condescension. "You're 'nice'."

"You know, I was going to introduce you to Double Stuf Oreos tonight, but just for that, no. No Oreos."

≈o≈

Saturday came quickly. I have to leave extra early to catch the right bus and walk the remaining couple of blocks to make it to Carson's building before eight. Thankfully, the boys are gone on a mission or something for a couple of days so they aren't home to know exactly how early I have to leave.

Carson lives in not a scary neighborhood, precisely, but I'm glad I'm not here alone at night. I hope his new place is somewhere that looks a little safer.

He buzzes me up and I find his apartment on the fourth floor- no elevator. Looks like today is leg day.

"Hey Anne!" he greets me happily. "Come on in!"

I drop my purse by his front door. "Hi Carson. Wow, looks like you've done pretty much everything already."

The room is only boxes; there isn't even any furniture.

"Yeah, I got more done last night than I expected. But it'll still take several trips to load everything up."

I try not to grumble as I had hoped I would be able to pack boxes while he did most of the lugging to the van. "Right. So, what would you like me to start on?"

He directs me to his kitchen where he still has a cupboard that needs to be packed. I'm just taping the box closed when the van arrives.

"Great timing!" Carson laughs and hands me a box. "Go ahead and take this down to the van. We'll start with the stuff from my bedroom."

I take it with a nod and he follows me out the door, carrying a box as well.

The van is from some company I've never heard of and it looks kind of small. "Do you think it'll be able to hold all your boxes?"

He smiles. "Yeah, it's big enough."

The driver is at the back, opening the door for us.

"Anne, why don't you stay here and load the van? That way you don't have to make all those trips up and down the stairs." Carson suggests.

"If I wasn't holding a box, I would hug you," I answer with a grin. The driver slides the door open and I set my box down inside so I can hop in. "Now, how do you want these stacked?" I ask Carson.

He climbs in after me to show me.

At least, I thought it was to show me.

"Thank you for your help, Anne," I hear him murmur from right behind me. Suddenly, he grabs my head and tilts it to the side, jabbing a needle in my neck. I drop the box and try to fight him off, but it must be a heavy sedative because I can already hardly move. He lets me fall face first to the floor and the van goes dark as I hear the door slide shut.

≈o≈

You know how in a lot of movies when the main character has been knocked out, whenever they wake up, it takes them a while to remember what happened? I don't have that problem. While I do wake slowly, Carson drugging me is the very first thing that springs to my mind. After that is how cold and uncomfortable I am.

I manage to slide my eyes open, but I immediately snap them shut again.

'Of course there's some sort of a blinding spotlight.'

By now, I'm awake enough to feel that my torso, wrists, and ankles are clamped with metal bands to the chair I'm sitting on. If the kink in my neck is anything to go on, I've been here for a while. The air smells damp, which could explain why I'm so cold. As I shift slightly and try again to open my eyes, I see that the dim room around me is spinning. Or maybe that's just my vision.

A shuffle from the far side of the room catches my attention and I spy a shadow of a man. He's swirling like a pinwheel.

"Wha-what did you do to me?.." I can taste my tongue.

"We gave you something like a truth serum. It speeds and strengthens neural connections by over 100 times. At least, that's what we hope it does. You're the first human trial." A male voice floats through the dark.

"Please don't ask me anything embarrassing, like what my email address was in junior high – tauriprincess93 – I was a major 'Stargate' fan. I still am, actually." I pause. "Oh. I see. This is going to get very annoying for you very quickly. Why am I here? Hey, I can only open one eye. I'm totally gonna kick Carson's little Scottish tuchus for this. Where is that pooplet, anyway?"

"You're going to answer some questions for me," the voice tries to use an intimidating tone, but-

"Actually, I think I'm gonna puke." I lean to the side as far as I can and say goodbye to my breakfast. After spitting out as much of it as I can, I groan. "Your drugs suck. Two thumbs way down. Would not recommend to a friend."

"If you think that's bad, just wait until you start having withdrawals. But if you play nicely, answering my questions, I can make it easier on you." He tries to soothe, stepping a bit out of the shadows. He's lean and slightly stooped. I can't see his face, but he's probably frowning.

"You're threatening me, aren't you? Little tip, don't give people drugs that make their brains buzz if you want them to answer questions. What do you want me to tell you, anyway? My bank account number?" I immediately rattle it off before I can stop myself. "This is very inconvenient."

"I don't want anything of yours, just information. What's your relationship with Captain Rodgers and the Winter Soldier?"

"Stevie and Bucky? Why would you want to know that? Is this some sort of militarization of a sleepover? We gonna paint each other's nails and chat about boys?" I grin cheekily.

A hard slap lands on my face, snapping my head to the side and making my swollen eye throb sharply. "French fried onions that hurt! Ow! Jeez! You barely even asked me a question! You're really bad at this. Is this your first time interrogating someone?"

The next strike is not made with an open hand. I taste blood and my lip splits. Blood begins to dribble onto my chin. "Seriously?! That really freaking hurt! You keep this up and I'll just be crying and good luck getting any intelligible words out of me then, you ignorant potato! You're going on my list, right after Carson. And that one woman that always tries to chat with me on the bus when I'm trying to read a book. Take a hint lady – don't interrupt the reading."

I hear him move towards me again and I quickly say, "Sorry! Sorry! This is what happens when you remove the inhibitions of someone with a spazzy inner dialogue!"

"Your relationship?" the voice grinds out.

"Right. I dunno, friendly, I guess? I mean, I think of them as my friends. Stevie probably thinks of me as a friend. Bucky probably just puts up with me because if he strangled me it would disappoint Stevie and he'd give him his big, sad blue eyes– and let me tell you, those are heart-rending –and they'd probably have to move and that'd be a hassle, you know?"

"So you're saying you're close to Captain Rogers?" The man sounds doubtful.

"Well, not at the moment. I mean, I have no idea where he is. He could be a thousand miles away and- oh, you meant in an emotional kinda way. Eh. I guess. They both know a lot more about my personal issues than I know about theirs. They're not exactly the mushy, 'let's talk about our feelings' kind of guys, you know? I feel like you do know. You're probably the same in that regard. But not in the interrogation kind of way. Stevie could make you confess to anything just by looking disappointed in you and Bucky can be fuh-reak-in' scary- he'd just look at you coldly and your heart would probably just stop beating in your chest until you spilled your deepest, darkest secrets. Or peed your pants. Probably both."

I catch the barest glint of metal in the faint light. "What's that? Is that- that's a knife, isn't it? Dang it, I'm sorry! Just interrupt me with more questions! I can't exactly stop myself here!"

"You spend a lot of time with them. Carson intimated that you are very close with at least one of them – most likely both. You must know something about them."

"Well, I know Stevie's favorite movie trilogy is 'The Lord of the Rings' (thanks to yours truly), he's really tall, his favorite ice cream is cookies 'n' cream, He cried when we watched 'Up' (which is my fault, I didn't know about the whole 'left behind girlfriend' thing at the time), he looks really good in blue, his best friend is Bu-"

"A weakness, a project they're working on, a plan to infiltrate Hydra, something useful?!" the voice cuts me off with a snarl.

"Oh. They're definitely planning something for what's left of Hydra. They really weren't happy about what do you did to Bucky. I'm pretty sure he's going to beat the crap out of all of you with that pretty metal arm you gave him, if Stevie leaves any of you conscious, that is. Um, oh!" I drop my voice to a whisper. "Bucky. If you want to get the upper hand on the Buckster, go for his neck. He's really ticklish! I totally got him to say that I was the boss and queen of everything. At least he almost said it before he kind of accidentally punched me a little. But I don't think he meant it. He looked sad afterwards."

The glint flashes closer and ends in my left thigh. I loose a roar of pain that ends in a whimper. I've never felt anything so agonizing. Tears begin to stream down my face. If I could see anything, it would be spots.

"I'm sorry!" I cry. "I'm not an agent, I'm nothing special to them." A sob interrupts my words. "They don't tell me what they do on their missions, I'm just their neighbor! Mr. McCarthy would probably know about as much about their secrets as I do!" I grit my teeth to quiet my screams when I feel a hand on the hilt of the knife start to dig it around in my leg.

"You know something! You must!" The man yells into my ear to be heard over my own voice. He stills his movement of the knife to allow me to speak.

"I-I don't know! They're super soldiers! They d-don't have a weakness! I-If they did," I choke on another sob, "it'd be each other. They'd do anything for each other. But you already know that! I can't tell you anything..." My words dissolve into blubbering.

The voice is quiet and I hope he'll leave me alone now. The serum may remove logical and emotional inhibitions, but at least the pain keeps me from saying anything at all now.

"I see that you're telling the truth. You don't know anything."

My sobs bleed with relief.

"However, you will still be of some use." The rest of the lights flare on.

I clamp my eyes shut from both the blinding light and the blinding pain.

"Open your eyes," the voice commands.

I don't. I'm scared, too scared of what I may see in the light. It's safer in the dark.

The man grabs my hair, pulling my head up to towards the ceiling. His hand again grips the knife still in my leg, digging it deeper. My eyes jolt open in the fresh flame of torment. I cough on the blood in my mouth as I'm caught between a sob and a scream.

"Say your name!" The man growls into my ear as he digs once more into my thigh.

"Anne Johnson!" I cry through clenched teeth.

He releases me and steps away, leaving the knife in my leg. He moves towards a surveillance camera up in the corner of the room. I try my hardest to stop crying. I know they'll send this to the team. Stevie and Bucky will see it. They can't see me like this. They might do something stupid.

The man straightens and wipes his hand clean of a spattering of my blood with a handkerchief from his back pocket as he approaches the camera.

"You have seventy-two hours to send an agent, alone and unarmed, to these GPS coordinates," he holds up a paper, "with the tech you stole from our base. We aren't too picky who you send, but no one who's been in the news, no one in your special little club of superheroes. If an unknown agent shows at the location, we'll leave a second set of coordinates where you can find little Anne, alive. If you don't do as asked, we'll kill her. But not before sending you some of her better pieces – fingers, ears, you get the idea." He glances down at his phone, typing something before holding it up to the camera. "Today's headline. She's still alive. For now. Seventy-two hours. We see anyone from the Avengers or a known super, and we'll cut her into little bits small enough to mail in a jewelry box."

From the middle of his speech, I had sighed. He didn't want Stevie or Bucky. They'll stay away and stay safe. But would SHIELD let them swap their enemy's tech for a nobody like me?

The man finishes, glancing back at me, "Anne, say goodbye, Dear." He glances back to the camera. "Do be polite."

Tears continue to stream from my eyes as I realize they could never make that trade. Who knows how many other people would die if they did? I'm going to be left here. I swallow thickly and look to the camera, trying to be brave. At least I can say farewell to my friends. "Goodbye," I choke.

The man turns back to me. His green eyes cold and his face twisted. "Oh, Anne, that was absolutely heart-breaking. Now, we'll have such fun before they pick you up. Let's try to help you think of something important you may have forgotten, eh?"

I tug uselessly against the bands of metal that bind my wrists to the arms of the chair. "Y-you said you believed me, that I don't know anything!"

"I know, but I couldn't have you looking too bad for the camera, wouldn't want the boys to do something rash." He steps over to a table to my left. It gleams with tools that shine wickedly.

"Th-they won't make the swap ..." I whisper through tears. "They're smarter than that; and they won't rescue me. Neither would let the other do something so st-stupid for nothing." My adrenaline must've burned through most of whatever they gave me because my head is clearer and I'm not rambling nearly as much.

"Anne, that's terribly negative. You really should work on your self-esteem." He hums absent-mindedly as he looks over the tools on the table. Now that he's already tried being angry to get me to talk, it seems he's settled on being calm and almost friendly. What a flipping psychopath.

"Ah!" He picks something up, but with his body between me and the table and my eyes still blurred from tears, I can't tell what it is. "You know, I've always wondered exactly what it would take to break a humerus."

"G-goodness knows you can't crack a joke." Apparently the serum is not out of my system.

He glances at me over his shoulder, a nasty smirk curving about his mouth. "That's good Anne, you're getting your sense of humor back. I bet that means that you can't feel much in your leg at the moment. Adrenaline and shock." He waves it off. "But you'll be able to feel this, don't worry." As he turns, I see what he had picked up – a hammer.

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A/N: So, that happened. Sorry Anne.

Also, as I was rereading this, I realized that the description of the bad guy sounds a bit like Loki. It isn't Loki. I don't think I'm smart enough nor do I have a good enough grasp on Loki's character to write him well, so I'm not going to try.

Also also, I'm editing this whilst listening to a Pentatonix's Christmas album. It's ill-fitting. Good album though.

Also also also, it was physically painful for me to write 'Stuf' with one f, even though that's how those Oreo's are branded. I'm super dedicated to maintaining the integrity of the story, you guys.

Also also also also, isn't that just a fantastic description of pre-serum Steve? I love it. And yes, it again has zilch to do with the chapter.

I do what I want.