Premise: Y/N Rogers was sent away as a child, her powers deemed dangerous. After years of brief summers with Steve and Bucky, she returns for good when their mother dies—just as war begins.
As her abilities awaken, she draws the attention of Loki, the trickster god, and faces growing fear from those around her. Caught between destiny, war, and forbidden ties, Y/N must decide who she truly is—and who she’s willing to fight for.
Warnings/content: slight angst, brief mention of death/dying, jealousy, fluff, swearing, unstable parental relationships, follows the plot of the MCU timeline, with small changes.
[Masterlist]
[Part 3]
(Chapter 82)
The Price of Freedom
The Triskelion was already under siege. Steve, moved through one helicarrier and Y/N moved through the other, hiding in the shadows of chaos with one goal—stop Hydra before the Helicarriers launched.
Y/N should’ve felt steady. Her powers pulsed under her skin, sharper than ever. Hydra had shaped her to be a weapon—but they didn’t own her anymore.
Still, her hands trembled. Not from fear, but from something deeper. A whisper in her chest she couldn’t shake.
Steve’s voice echoed through the building as he addressed SHIELD: exposing Hydra, calling agents to choose a side. As the message ended, everything shifted. Some ran. Some fought. The war had begun.
Y/N barely heard the chaos. Her mind was reeling.
He was here, somewhere.
Bucky.
She’d buried the hope, forced herself to let go. But now… now it was back, rising like a tide she couldn’t hold back. And with it came fear—not of the battle, but of what came after.
Steve voiced to her through the comms, resolute. “Now we finish this.”
Y/N nodded, jaw tight, heart pounding. She wasn’t sure what scared her more—facing Hydra, or facing him again.
The next few minutes were a blur of combat. Y/N teleported, striking down Hydra operatives with bursts of energy. She used her mind to manipulate enemy thoughts, making them turn on each other.
Y/N burst onto the top deck of the helicarrier just in time to see Natasha slam the disc into the console, electricity coursing through her body. The surge lit up the dark sky, crackling through the air like divine fury. In the chaos, Nick Fury raised his weapon and fired—two precise shots into Alexander Pierce’s legs.
Pierce crumpled to the floor with a grunt, blood already staining his tailored suit. Fury stepped over him, looming like judgment day.
“You know,” Pierce hissed through clenched teeth, gripping his wounds, “I wouldn’t have hired you if I knew you were such a terrible shot.”
Fury tilted his head slightly, eyes cold. “Maybe I am…” He glanced sideways. “But she isn’t.”
A flash of light—then Y/N materialized behind him, eyes glowing, hands still humming with residual power. Her chest rose and fell with fury barely contained, the remnants of battle still fresh on her.
This was it. Him. Alexander Pierce—the architect of her torment, the man who turned her life into a run. Head of the organisation that turned her into a weaponized experiment.
Pierce looked up at her, face contorted with disdain and defiance. “You could’ve been so much more,” he sneered. “HYDRA’s ultimate weapon.”
Y/N stepped closer, eyes locked on his. Calm. Dangerous. They had messed with her life too much. Taken her normality. Taken Bucky.
“Maybe I could’ve,” she said coolly. “But instead—I'm your final mistake.”
Without another word, she raised her hands and unleashed twin blasts straight into his chest. The force lifted him off the ground before slamming him back down, lifeless.
Silence.
She stood there for a second, breathing hard, the air around her still charged. Killing never got easier—but this one felt necessary. Inevitable.
She turned away from the smoking body, brushing hair from her face as she passed Fury.
“Hail HYDRA,” she muttered, dry and laced with venom.
Fury just gave a faint, grim smile. “Hell of a punchline.”
Just as Fury knelt beside Natasha, checking her pulse, Sam’s voice crackled through the comms, strained and breathless.
“Y/N—yeah, we’ve got a bit of a situation here.”
She could hear the tension in his voice, the barely-contained panic beneath his usual calm. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t good.
“I’m on my way,” she replied, already turning.
Before she left, she grabbed Fury’s arm. “Tell Hill to redirect the helicarriers—target each other and fire.”
“Just do it, Nick!” she snapped, her voice sharp with conviction. “Trust me. For once.”
A long pause passed between them—years of suspicion condensed into a single moment. But Fury saw something in her eyes. Resolve. Clarity. Purpose.
He gave a tight nod.
And in a shimmer of energy and light, she vanished—teleporting to the other helicarrier, straight into the firestorm.
When Y/N arrived, it was chaos.
Smoke curled through the fractured air. Alarms blared. Gunfire echoed like thunder. Sam weaved through the sky, wings flaring as he deflected a hail of bullets, moving with sheer desperation.
But Steve—
Steve was the most bloodied and broken she had ever seen him. Blood streaked his jaw, his stance unsteady, but he kept fighting.
Then—
A shadow moved in the smoke.
A flicker of silver.
A flash of metal.
Her breath caught.
The Winter Soldier.
Bucky.
She knew he'd be here. Had prepared herself for it. But seeing him—seeing him—was something else entirely. Not the boy from Brooklyn. Not the man she once loved.
A weapon. A ghost.
He launched at Steve with brutal force, the two of them crashing through a steel railing and slamming into the floor below.
Y/N turned to run to them—
—but the helicarrier shuddered. An explosion rocked the deck beneath her. She hit the ground hard, metal grinding beneath her palms. Hill had done it. The helicarriers were falling.
She scrambled to her feet, heart hammering, just in time to see Bucky pummeling Steve—blow after relentless blow.
“Steve!” she screamed.
But he wasn’t fighting back anymore.
His shield lay discarded, spinning across the floor like a coin spent. Bucky raised his metal arm, the light glinting off its cold surface—and brought it crashing down again.
“You know me,” Steve rasped, blood trickling from his mouth. His voice was nearly gone, but the plea in it remained.
And for just a moment—Bucky froze.
Then—
“No, I don’t!” he roared, fury and heartbreak cracking through his voice like lightning.
Another strike.
Steve collapsed.
“You're.”
Smash.
“My.”
Smash.
“Mission!”
And with one final, devastating blow, Steve went still.
Then Y/N saw an opportunity. An idea.
Y/N moved. Fast.
She appeared behind Bucky in a flicker of light, her hands alive with pulsing, uncontained energy. Before he could react, she pressed her fingers to his temple.
And everything stopped.
A rush of memory surged between them—
Brooklyn.
Laughter echoing down sunlit streets.
A girl chasing after two boys, determined to keep up.
“Kid,” he’d called her, grinning as he ruffled her hair.
The war. Late-night whispers in the dark.
Soft hands, stolen kisses.
Love.
Pain.
Loss.
The cold silence of the Winter Soldier's mind, corrupted and hollowed.
The screaming.
The chair.
She saw everything.
So did he.
Bucky gasped, hands trembling, eyes wide—like a man dragged from the depths mid-drowning. His entire body shook beneath the weight of memory, of truth forced back into broken places.
They collapsed together, breathless on the torn metal floor, panting in unison.
Y/N had known—at least, she thought she had. She’d understood the outlines of what HYDRA had done to him. But seeing it—feeling it—was something else entirely. The cold. The screams. The void where his soul should’ve been. It was agony wearing his face.
And now it wore hers.
Silence settled between them. Heavy. Raw. The kind that only exists after shared trauma. Around them, the helicarrier groaned, steel shrieking as it tore itself apart above the clouds.
Then–
“Y/N...?” he whispered, broken and unsure.
Then the floor split beneath them.
The helicarrier was collapsing—metal ripping like paper—and they fell, swallowed by the dark.
Water met them with a violent crash. Freezing. Suffocating. Y/N fought the current, lungs burning. Through the chaos, she spotted Steve, sinking, limp.
She reached for him—
But another hand was already there.
Bucky.
He pulled Steve to the surface, dragging him toward the shore, muscles straining against the weight of it all.
Y/N swam after them, coughing as she hauled herself onto the muddy bank, collapsing beside Steve’s unconscious form. His chest rose—slow, steady. He was alive.
She looked up.
Bucky stood over them, dripping and silent, his eyes flickering with something human. Something real.
Recognition. Regret. Grief.
She reached out, barely a whisper on her lips—
But he was already turning. Already walking.
Not a word. Not a goodbye.
Just the sound of him disappearing into the trees, swallowed by shadow and silence.
And though he was gone, she knew—
He remembered.
Somewhere in there, beneath all the pain, the programming, the ghosts—
Bucky was still alive.
And he’d find his way back. He’d find his way back to a world completely changed, her world completely changed, and she didn’t know what she would do when that time came.
now lets see: loki was sent off to a place where he didn’t know anyone nor the place, and then had to see what his actions in future would led him to like the death of his mother or even his own death. he also saw the infinity stones used as paper weigh and, as someone said, he realized the TVA was a greater power than he’s ever known, obviously all of that would cause him some change? i do agree that they could have explored more of his past and his change should have been done with more time, but i think the main purpose of this first season was for loki to be confronted and well as see the consequences of his actions and also for him to understand their real motivation behind it. To be able of being vulnerable. At least to me it still felt like loki with all his playfulness but, as said, this season was a more emotional jorney for him. That comes in hand with his relationship with sylvie because he finally was able to find someone who he could relate to and ultimately trust. In the end it was all about his journey towards redemption, humility and self acceptance.
