Don't forget to VOTE and COMMENT x enjoy

Important A/N at the end, so plz read x

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐒𝐢𝐱: 𝐋𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐝 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠

Bucharest, Romania

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Allie often felt as if she was an unmatched piece of a jigsaw forced to fit into a picture that she wasn't made for. Her edges cut to fit the space she was contrived to occupy, the pieces of her morality shaved away to become something she wasn't. She was forced into a place she didn't belong, and that was the 21st century.

She was no longer whole, only chipped pieces of the person she was before. The ugly, destructive storm that used to be the warm summer's wind. The unwanted bits and pieces of junk that used to function as a beautiful machine.

Even here, laying in Bucky's arms, a place that was supposed to bring her warmth and comfort, didn't bring her that same feeling. She felt dazed and discombobulated, almost as if she was a ghost walking amongst the living. A darkness swirling beneath her skin, leeching the life from her body like a parasite.

It was almost as if she was in a state of numbness, completely unfeeling. She felt detached from the world, her body falling into an endless limbo like a comet shot through the sky, falling, falling, falling until it fell out of sight. Unknown in whether it just kept falling or crashed into a million little fragments. She was completely anesthetized from the world.

And yet she also felt everything.

She felt like letting that agonizing strange cry pass from her lips, letting her depressed tears drench the pale skin of her cheeks. She felt the broken fractures of her soul pierce the soft flesh of her heart, tearing limitless fissures into the organ until it felt like it was but an empty cavity. Anger rattling in her bones, and misery freezing her bloodstream into empty caverns.

She was a dying supernova, her light being snuffed out and leaving the once bright sky cloaked in darkness.

And yet Bucky didn't even know he was the single flame keeping Allie's entire being from burning into a pile of ash. He could sense her internal torment like it was his own, as if her pain tore into his heart as well. Watching that strength that she had built up over the last few weeks wither away into oblivion. Having no cure to treat the poison that festered in Allie's veins, corrupting the parts of her that kept her sane.

The second she had walked back into their home, eyes hollowed and bleary, skin trembling like she was frozen to the core, he had known his reservations about the missions were right.

Almost immediately he had wrapped her trembling body in his arms, encasing her in a comfort that barely managed to stave off the self-destruction brimming in her bones. Calming the violent storm of her turbulent mind and freezing time until it felt obsolete. Holding her as if the second that he would let go, she would fade into a shadow and wither away from the world.

He guided her over to their bead, softly stroking at the pale skin of her cheekbones and gently tangling into the soft curls of her bronze hair. Cradling her like she would break if he let her go, softly peppering her forehead with kisses as if it were the cure to all her anguish. He did everything in his power to try and ease the torment that seized her soul, to offer her some form of relief that came in the form of human consolation.

Because as he already promised, he would pick up every broken piece of her soul like they were diamonds fallen amongst hay bales and piece her together until she was whole again. No matter how tedious the task was or how long it would take. Because for her, it was all worth it.

Eventually, they had both fallen asleep in each other's arms. Her head falling onto his shoulder as his arms wrapped themselves around her body, vainly trying to fend off the demons that coveted for her demise. Trying to protect her from the harsh world outside even in his deep slumber.

But alas, not even Bucky was strong enough to fend off the demons that plagued her unconscious mind.

She was running down the blackened hallways of her base, her short legs barely covering any distance as she sprinted. Her youthful laughs echoing into the air, her short hair flicking across her vision as she turned her gaze back to the boy that followed after her. Their jubilant shrieks reminiscent of her favorite times back at HYDRA, before the cruel outside world corrupted her innocence.

Her stumpy 10-year-old legs pumped harder and harder as she fought to escape Mikael's touch, trying to avoid being it. She gazed back at Mikael, eyes shimmering with childlike delight, watching as his slightly longer legs closed the distance between them with each step he took.

But then the dream morphed into a true nightmare.

Mikael's previously childlike and innocent features wilted away, dissipating in thin air. Leaving behind the Mikael she knew now, encased in raw evil, eyes hollowed with cruelty. A human serpent, coiling ready to strike, to sink his long fangs into her soul and leech it of life.

And as Mikael underwent his metamorphosis, so did she.

Her previously short and stubby legs grew, covered in the black leather of her old HYDRA uniform, Trickery's uniform. The ruby soviet star burned on her chest, a molten reminder of her previous allegiance. That childlike naivete gone, replaced with wilting hope, a shadow of faith that was dying with each second that passed.

She was still running, her muscles straining as she pushed herself to go faster. To get further away from him. But this time it wasn't a game, she was trying to outrun death. To escape the gun that was aimed at her chest that Mikael held in his hand. Trying to outrun Mikael down an endless hallway with no exit, only running meters away from her inevitable demise.

But she couldn't escape fate.

Mikael's finger pulled down on the trigger, releasing a cacophony of screams falling from her lips, a thousand decibels louder than anything she had ever heard before. The bullet hurtled through the air, ripping through the soft flesh over her chest, tearing a hole into the place that her heart resided.

A pain that she had never known before exploded in her abdomen, oozing like an unwanted disease, slick with venom that sent her crazed mind quiet. Blood escaped from her like an ocean, trickling down in thin streams and seas of pure crimson. It was everywhere, tainting every surface it could get its hands on. She could even taste the acrid substance on her lips, bitter-tasting iron that was the preemptive warning of her impending doom.

She could feel the shadows begin to claim her dying figure, to remove her from this world and take her into the next. But as the world began to fade into darkness and the silence festered around her, Allie heard a single sound. A sound that made her dream into a true nightmare.

Until next time, my love.

After that, Allie could not return back to sleep, too mummified in the feeling of death to even contemplate returning back to her slumber. She could still feel the sensation of pain tingle across her chest and the lingering taste of blood on her lips. Sweat gleamed across her body, burning against the cool midnight moon as her breaths came out in forced exhales.

As silently as she could, she rolled out of Bucky's overly warm embrace, trying to stifle her trembling body that made a relatively easy task quite difficult. Eventually, she had freed herself of his hold, her bare feet shuffling as she made her way into the bathroom. Almost immediately her slim fingers curled around the edge of the bathroom sink as her body slumped forward, eyes blurring as tears threaten to roll in thin streams down her gaunt cheeks.

But when she looked in the mirror, she didn't see herself, only a figure that looked like her. The phantom that stared back shared her face, the dark eyes, her hollow cheeks, and rosy lips. The pale gaunt skin covered by the black combative uniform with weapons hanging from her sides, it was all the same. But behind her chocolate eyes, she saw pure darkness, coiling inside her and crushing her light. Abandoning her to affliction, her body stained with misery and malevolent sorrow.

It was her, she knew that. But it also wasn't her.

It was Trickery.

Nausea erupted in her stomach as she realized what she looked like, the monster that she swore never to be again. Her pale hands gripped the edge of the sink as her brain was rendered static, a strident whine drowning out all other sounds. She had to forcibly tear her gaze from the mirror, resisting the urge to send her fist pummeling into the glass, shattering the image into shards.

She pushed the memory from her mind, trying to convince herself that this was different, she was different now. That she would never be Trickery again, no matter what.

But as much as she tried to shut off her brain, to silence the thoughts that consumed her, she couldn't bury the memory. It refused to surrender, feeding off her like a parasite.

Only ceasing when she felt a calloused hand wrap around her waist, instantly causing her to jerk out of its touch and slam into the sink painfully.

"Allie?" Bucky questioned perplexed, his voice still thick with sleep. "Doll what's wrong?"

Bucky had been violently awoken to a bed that did not share Allie's presence, only a remnant of heat flickering on her side of the mattress as proof that she had previously lain there. Instantly sensing that something was wrong, he had darted out from the silken covers and scoured the apartment for Allie, anxiety diluting his blood until he found her cowering figure hunched over the bathroom sink.

"I—I..." She stuttered, her thin hands wrapping around her own midriff as if she was trying to reassure herself that she was okay, even when she knew she wasn't. "What's wrong with me Buck?"

"Nothing doll, absolutely nothing at all." He soothed gently, frowning deeply as he noticed the slight quiver of her rosy lips and constant tremble of her body.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take. I just want it all to stop." She choked, her entire body shuddering as she let those very dangerous thoughts enclose on her mind.

"Allie, you can't think that way." Bucky reasoned, swiftly pulling Allie into his arms and nuzzling her head against his bare chest. "Every single one of those thoughts means that HYDRA has beaten you. It means they have suppressed your will to live and ability to fight. And you can't let them win, love. You need to keep fighting so that HYDRA can never say they conquered you."

"But I can't." She whispered, rendered a fragment of the women she used to be. "They broke me, Buck."

"You may be broken, Allie. But you are not irreparable." He argued with startling conviction, anger and grief swirling in his cobalt eye, molding to form Allie's very own voice of reason. "You can be fixed, but you have to be prepared to put the effort in."

"Well, what can I do Buck? Because from where I stand it seems as if there is no way to overcome this. There is nothing that I can think of to stop my own mind from betraying me." She spluttered, feeling those tears she had fought so hard to contain break past her defenses, dripping down her skin and falling onto Bucky's own.

"I can't answer that for you, doll." He spoke, his voice low as he softly stroked the knotted tendrils of hair that fell down onto her shoulders. "But after everything we have been through, the horrors we have seen, its hard to envision a future deserving of our past. But you just have to take one day at a time, making up for everything we have done."

"I don't know if I can Buck." She croaked, helplessness oozing from her voice like an infection.

"You just have to try."

Bucky's words were echoed in the air, howling in her mind with iron conviction. Bouncing off the walls of anguish that had made its home inside her, a reminder that she had to keep going. A reminder of everyone that she owed it to, everyone that made it all worth it for her.

And if she was going to do it for anyone, it would be Bucky.

"I had a nightmare." She murmured, fighting off the constriction in her throat that made it hard for her to speak. "It was of Mikael, of us as kids. And then we grew up, we became who we are now."

"You're not that person anymore, Al." He swiftly interrupted, peeling her from his body as he gazed into her chestnut eyes imploringly.

"I am though." She shook her head, her red eyes gazing back into him with equal force. "I am still that soldier HYDRA made. I have the same nightmares, I still can't control my powers, I still kill people because of them, I still hurt those I hold dear. I am no different to what I was."

"Allie, you are not the same person you were then." Bucky answered deafeningly, voice dripping in dissent. "That person at HYDRA wasn't full of compassion, kindness and love. She wouldn't buy me plums just to see me smile. She wouldn't call her best friend to hear his voice and remind him that she was still alive. She wouldn't pass children on the street and craft an illusion of a butterfly just to make them happy."

"Trickery wouldn't do that."

She rolled in her lips at his words, sniffling as she tried to fight back the new wave of tears that threatened to fall from her eyes. Already missing the comfort of his arms, she threw herself back into them, burying her head back into the crook of his shoulder, ignoring the slight tickle of his own knotted hair against her skin.

"I am just so tired, Buck." She mumbled, barely audible as she spoke against his skin. "I am sick of my mind."

"Allie, I can't fix that. And as much as I want to help you, there's nothing that I can do." Bucky sighed morosely, tightening his hold on her as he traced faint shapes into her clothed back.

"You need to see Tony."

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The next day, Allie did as she was told and called Tony. She told him about her ailment, the long-lasting trauma that afflicted her soul. The motley of pills that he had previously given her to ease the internal anguish and suppress the memories of her past not seeming to control her overworked brain.

Tony had immediately insisted that she fly out to New York and he would find a solution to her problem, as he called it. Merely a slight predicament that he and his monumental IQ could solve. But as much as she despised him calling her undiagnosed PTSD and retrograde amnesia a problem, she hoped that was all it was. A problem that the great Tony Stark could fix.

Tony had given Allie his private jet to take over to America, bypassing most of the international security that she would have to stealthily try to evade if she came in commercially. And despite her insistence that using his private plane was a bit much, Tony had won out. Informing her that he had already told the pilot to fly out to Bucharest and that it would be there regardless of her objection.

So once again, in a new familiar tradition, Bucky and Allie said their goodbyes. She already missed the way their hands toyed with each other, the pads of their fingertips burning as their skin collided. The way their kiss was drowning in bittersweet melancholy, wanting her to go and find a way to heal, and yet begging her to stay all at the same time. How they embraced like a pair of stars collided, burning more gloriously than even the brightest supernova dancing in the sky.

She missed him. Whenever she was away from him, she would miss him. She would always ache for the missing piece of her heart, the best version of herself that she left behind with Bucky.

But she had to leave, they both knew that.

She flew to New York, equal parts anxious and excited. Very much eager to see the infamous legend that was Tony Stark again, the man that was very selective of the people he revealed his true self to. The man that had opened his soul to Allie and allowed her to become one of his close acquaintances, a role that was envied by many.

And yet she didn't want to relive the terrors that had been plaguing her mind, afraid of any revelations that would send her familiar nightmares cowering in significance. Beyond terrified that Tony would unearth memories of her past that would be the tip of the iceberg for her sanity, sending her plunging into an ocean of suffering with no lifejacket. No way to pull herself out.

Because as the sentiment went, better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.

When the plane finally landed in New York, Allie had never been happier to escape the opulent plane and finally feel her feet touch the cement runway. Spending the entire flight too afraid to touch any of the food offered to her in the fear that she would stain the leather couch or white carpet.

As she climbed off the plane, Allie had been greeted with the all too familiar impish chocolate eyes and trademark Stark smirk of Tony. He was donning his signature dark shades and rock teeshirt that barely hid the luminescent blue glow of his arc reactor. He was leaning against a black limousine because of course Tony Stark could never travel in anything less than pure luxury.

But by his side was a man that Allie had never met before. The man was quite tall and stocky, almost looking as if he could squash Allie with the palm of his hand due to her own slight stature. The man was decked out in a fitted black and white tuxedo, wearing a stern expression on his face as his gaze fell on her own. Observing her as if she was a potential threat.

"Allie." Tony interrupted her silence, walking up to her and gripping her shoulder amiably as he guided her towards the car. "Long time no see, my friend."

"What can I say, I missed you." She grinned softly, Tony's presence warming her like a mild summers breeze.

"Of course you did, just like every other female on the planet." He chided, once again giving her that infamous Stark smirk that reminded her so much of his father.

"I can definitely say I didn't miss that ego." She replied playfully, smiling gratefully as Tony opened the door to the limo and gestured for her to get inside.

"It's a package deal, you can't have one without the other." He smirked as she took her place on the lavish back seat of the vehicle, closing the door behind himself and sealing Allie's joyous laughter inside the car.

Realizing that Tony had yet to introduce his two friends, he pulled down the window separating the trio and gestured to the driver. "Happy, this is Allie Williams."

"Nice to meet you, Happy." Allie offered the man a warm smile, awkwardly waving her hand as he looked at her through the rear mirror.

"And you too, ma'am." He returned stiffly, turning his gaze back to the road as he began to exit the airport.

"Please, just call me Allie." She smiled meekly before turning back to the man by her side. Grinning at him brightly as they locked eyes. "So how are you, Tony?"

"Just peachy." He responded briskly, startling Allie who had expected a little more warmth in his tone. "Now, you said something was wrong?"

Allie sighed at his question, quickly realizing that his impetuous attitude was as a result of his down to business manner. Obviously wanting to become her personal shrink and diagnose all of her problems rather than entertain any small talk.

"Are we in the right company to be having this talk?" She whispered, nudging Tony and gesturing to Happy who was quite blatantly listening into their conversation with little concern.

"Happy?" He gawked, almost appalled by the accusation. "He's fine. You won't even know he is there."

Allie shifted her gaze back to Happy who quickly averted his eyes, turning his attention back to the dark road and clenching his fists around the steering wheel anxiously.

Dispelling a sigh from her lips, Allie returned her own attention to her hands that nervously sat in her lap, coiling together to subconsciously stop them from trembling.

"The pills aren't working." She admitted, forcing her gaze up to meet Tony's. "I can't control it, anymore."

"Hmm, interesting." He muttered, more to himself than to her.

"It's getting bad, Tony. I need you to help me control my powers." She revealed almost shamefully, her cheeks ablaze in ruby humiliation.

But as soon as the words escaped from her lips, the car briefly jerked to a sudden stop. Allie winced as her head jolted awkwardly at the abrupt action. Both herself and Tony turned to Happy with an accusing look, wondering what in the hell prompted him to slam his foot so heavily on the breaks.

"Sorry, pothole." Happy murmured in response, cheeks blazing pink as he avoided their eye contact.

With a troublesome sigh, Tony turned their attention back to the conversation at hand. "So what caused it to get bad again? You seemed to be fine when you left."

"Steve wanted me to help him take down this HYDRA base, and I said yes." Allie admitted, a twinge of sorrow decorating her voice as she spoke.

"And?" He pressed expectantly.

"I hurt him, Tony. I didn't mean to but I did, I was just so angry and I didn't even realize that I had started using them on him." She continued shamefully, tugging at the dark sleeves of her jumper as she averted her gaze.

"You do realize I am not a chemist right? Studying the brain and pills are not my thing." Tony informed her pointedly.

"I know but I just need to stop hurting everyone around me." She explained, her dark eyes swirling with anguish as her throat threatened to constrict on her. "I refuse to be Trickery again."

But before Tony had a chance to reply, the pair were instantly sent jolting again. The car once again coming to a sudden stop that sent both Allie and Tony lurching in their seats.

"Sorry, lots of potholes on this road." Happy muttered again, averting his gaze as if to feign innocence from listening in on their conversation. "It really needs to be fixed."

Tony rolled his eyes at Happy's obvious excuse before turning back to Allie, his weathered features crinkling back into their usual smirk.

"Alright well you can stay the night tonight, and tomorrow we will start trying to fix whatever it is that is going wrong up there." He teased, tapping her forehead lightly.

"Thank you, Tony." She sighed gratefully, her lips curling up into an appreciative smile. "Thank you."

"Hush, it's not that big of a deal." He shook his head, passing off his kindness as if it was nothing. "My father would have done it for you."

And for the third time in a matter of mere minutes, the car jolted again. Although this time neither of the pair were startled or shocked by the occurrence, having expected the action. Instantly Happy's mouth had opened to offer another meager attempt of an excuse to hide the fact he was eavesdropping in on their conversation. But this time he was beaten by Tony's mocking voice shouting from the backseat.

"If you say potholes one more time, Happy, you are fired."

And needless to say, the car ride was smooth sailing from there onwards.

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Hey everyone!!!

I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE!

I just published my plot shop, Medicine, so please go check it out if you want!!

I promise there are actually some decent plots in there that I have low-key considered just keeping for myself I am that proud of them. I do know I don't have a lot of plots up but I will be publishing more in the coming days. But I did put a lot of effort into making Medicine so it would mean the world to me if you went and gave it a read!

On another note, sorry about Allie backsliding again but I promise this is actually her road to recovery and she is getting better (whether you guys see it or not). The next chapter is also really important for her recovery and it features a very special MCU character which you guys will definitely not expect, I can promise you that!

SO STICK AROUND EVERYONE!!!

Anyway, onto the questions!

1. What did you think of the chapter?

2. Who do you think Allie is going to meet next?

3. What would you guys like to see at the end of Trickery?

4. How has everyone's day been today? x

Until next time, my loves!!

— Grace xx