The air was full of static as Elysia circled the practice dummy, sending another punch at the center of its head. While she attempted to lace the punch with an electric charge, instead the sparks came out in a fizzle, not much more than an accidental shock between two people after shuffling on a carpeted floor. As she brushed a stray strand of hair that had fallen from her ponytail out of her face, she took a deep breath, shaking out her hand from the force of the punch and turning on her heel to leave the training center, and the dummy still taunting her from the center of the room.

Rather than taking the elevator back up to the living quarters, instead this time Elysia had opted to take the stairs, in order to give herself a few more minutes with her thoughts and burn off a little more energy before she attempted to fall back asleep. However, when she reached the ground floor, she caught sight of a familiar head of blonde hair sticking out from under a black baseball cap as Steve's retreating figure headed for the compound's exit.

With a concerned look, Elysia followed after Steve, barely outside the building when she watched the burly super soldier take off in a jog towards the surrounding field. Without thinking, she broke into a run after him, her much smaller strides breaking into a sprint to try and catch up with his jogging form. However, after a few moments, her stamina began to slip away, and it became apparent that her human running was no match for his super speed, even at what he likely considered to be a light pace.

"Steve!" Elysia called out, in an attempt to get his attention. "Rogers, wait up!"

As her voice reached the man's ears, he stopped his jog, turning to face where Elysia stood, panting, and he jogged back over to her, waiting for her to catch her breath and regain her composure before they began to walk.

"What are you doing out here?" Steve asked, his eyebrows furrowing together in confusion.

"I saw you leave," she explained. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright. Were the training center treadmills not up to your speed?"

Steve shrugged. "Back in the Army, we always trained outdoors. After I woke up, running inside just never quite felt the same. I'm alright, just..." he trailed off thoughtfully. "A lot on my mind these days, with Bucky and all."

"That must have been quite the friendship you two had back in the day." she said, shoving her hands into the pocket of her sweatshirt as they walked, the crisp summer night air dark around them with the exception of the lamplights illuminating the path around them.

"You could say that again." he agreed with a small sigh.

"How did you two meet?" she asked.

"I'm sure you already know this, but I was quite a sickly kid." he began. "Before the, uh, serum, anyways. Kids in Brooklyn love seeing kids that look small and defenseless; it makes them easier to beat up."

"Oh my god, he beat you up?" Elysia asked in disbelief, her jaw dropping.

"No!" Steve assured her, a surprised chuckle escaping his throat. "No, no, no, no, no. One day while I was getting beaten up, Bucky walked by and stopped to help. We were probably around six or seven at the time. He told the bullies that should pick on someone their own size, and he fended them off, himself. Afterwards, he helped me get back home before anyone else could come after me. I wouldn't say we were friends that first time, but after the second or third, we decided we should be friends."

"So he saved you," she concluded.

"I probably wouldn't be alive without him." he admitted.

"That's sweet," she told him, looking up at the moonlit sky and counting the constellations she knew by heart. "I never really had anyone in my life that I could count on like that before Tony found me."

"What is your story?" he asked then, switching the subject. "Tony wouldn't tell us much, just that you're an old friend of his, but you're only... twenty-three?"

"Twenty-four," she corrected him, but then nodded. "When I was nine, my parents were killed in a car accident and I was put into the foster care system. I was living in a house just on the edge of Manhattan, and I was trying to get home from school one day after my soccer practice got canceled from a bad storm. I was around eighteen at the time. I had just gotten off the subway and was waiting for my foster mom to pick me up, but she was running late. So I was waiting for her and leaning against a pole when it was struck by lightning."

"Lightning?" Steve asked, having stopped his walk as he stared at her in disbelief, and she nodded.

"The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital." she continued on. "They weren't sure how I survived. But I healed, and everything was supposed to go back to normal. Except, even long after I was home, I kept shocking everything I touched, even other people. Which, let me tell you, took a while to get under control. I'm sure Tony can't even count the number of times I've shocked him on accident over the years."

"How'd he find you?" Steve asked.

"One day I lost control." she said, staring forward towards the end of the road. "I'd been shocking people for about a week or so nonstop. It got so bad that I wouldn't even leave my room unless my foster mom called me to come eat. My hair would get staticky, the lights would get weird when I was around, and I couldn't figure out what was going on. When I left the room, one of the other kids living in the house started taunting me, calling me a freak. He made me so mad, I couldn't handle it, and I kind of just..." she trailed off, searching for the right words.

"...lost it?" Steve finished for her.

Elysia nodded. "I caused a power outage that took out nearly half the city, and sparks flew everywhere. It nearly burned the house down. Everyone was stunned silent, and I didn't know what to do, only that it was my fault, so I ran. That's when I met Tony. It was shortly after he revealed himself to the world as Iron Man, and he and Rhodey were tracking the electricity signals, knowing there had to be something unnatural about the sudden outage. To this day, the city still thinks it was a freak act of lightning that took out the powerlines. I didn't have anywhere to go, so they took me in. Tony allowed me to stay in Stark Tower as long as I assisted with anything he was doing as Iron Man, considering me a valuable asset, and J.A.R.V.I.S. became my teacher so I could keep up with school. I was the closest thing to a daughter Tony ever had."

"What changed?" he asked, furrowing his eyebrows together. "You were a young adult in one of the most influential places in New York, with a spot working under one of the most powerful men in the world to save lives. What made you not want to be Voltage anymore?"

Elysia tried to hide her flinch as the words save lives reached her ears, and she instead looked down at the ground, finally moving forward to continue their walk. "There was an... accident." she said simply. "Something I'd rather not repeat. Anyways, it doesn't matter anymore."

Steve watched her with a curious expression, as if trying to figure out the meaning of her words but coming up short when he realized how upset the girl was. "I found out recently that I have a son." he admitted, changing the subject in an attempt to take the focus away from her, and she felt relief filling her chest along with the surprise at his revelation.

"You have what?" she asked, turning back to face him again.

"Back in the forties, after I went under the ice, the woman I loved had no clue she was pregnant," he explained.

"Peggy Carter," she concluded, and he nodded in agreement.

"She named him James, after Bucky." he continued. "She knew it's the name I would've picked, if I'd been there. Tony's father Howard Stark helped her raise him away from the public eye. The last thing everyone needed was to learn that there was a child super soldier, after everything that had happened with me. So they raised him, trained him to see what he could do, if he was like me, and he was."

"Where is James now?" Elysia asked, doing the math. If James was still alive, he'd be nearly seventy at that point.

"When news got out that HYDRA had a super soldier of their own, James knew he was the only shot the world had at tracking him down." Steve explained solemnly. "He was only fifteen at the time. So they put him on ice on and off over the years, whenever word surfaced again about the Winter Soldier. For the past fifty-five years, Bucky has been his mission, but he's only sixteen, give or take a few months. I want nothing more than to meet my son, for him to experience this world, but I have no idea how to navigate it yet, much less help him to do it. His mom's sick, and she hasn't seen him in twenty years. It kills me that he's still there, that I don't know him and that he doesn't know I'm alive. If we can help Bucky, get this thing out of his head and finish James's mission for good, then that's one less thing he'll have to deal with when he wakes up."

Elysia nodded, a look of understanding passing between the two of them. "We're going to fix this, Steve." she assured him. "We'll get that code out of Bucky's brain, and then you're going to go meet your son."

"Thank you," Steve said as a cool breeze blew past them, and Elysia shivered from under her sweats. "Come on," he said, gesturing back in the direction of the compound. "Let's get you back inside before you catch your death out here."

"Good idea," she agreed as they turned around, taking the trail back towards the compound.

The compound was quiet upon their return, everyone else having long gone to bed for the night. Elysia followed Steve back up to the apartments, the two of them pausing outside hers before she looked back at the super soldier.

"It's going to be okay, you know?" she said. "Everything with Bucky, and James."

"How do you know that?" Steve asked.

"Because I know how much he must care for you." she explained. "All that re-brainwashing, and he still found a way to remember you. If there's one thing HYDRA can't take from him, it's his heart. He loves you, Steve."

"Thank you," he said. "And Sparks?"

"Yes?"

"Whatever happened to make you want to put all of this behind you," he said, gesturing to their surroundings. "It doesn't define who you are. Don't let your past dictate the person you are today."