Rise of the Phoenix ✦⋆⭒Barnes⭒⋆✦

✦⋆⭒Six⭒⋆✦

Sweat dripped down my forehead while I ran and ran across the rooftops of Washington DC, the night air did nothing to cool me down. Ahead of me, I could see Bucky, covered in a familiar black suit, his metal arm glinting in the moonlight. I wasn't sure how I had gotten here, but I was familiar with this situation like we had already lived it as we ran from a figure with a shield. 

Steve.

Why were we running from Steve?

Bucky sped up leaving me behind to trip over my own two feet causing me to crash to the ground as Steve caught up to me. 

"Bucky!" I shouted as I met the cold, hard concrete ground sending aches through my body. 

But he didn't respond, not even look back. What was wrong with him? 

"Bucky! Please don't leave me!" I shouted but the Winter Soldier kept running. My heart pounded in my chest as my body began to panic sending my brain into a fuzzled mess.  

If she slows you down leave her.

"Please! Bucky," I shouted as a pair of harsh hands grabbed my shoulders dragging me back with them. 

I blinked and suddenly I was no longer on the rooftops but in a large white room with a window looking into a viewing room. I looked around the room I was in with panic as intrusive thoughts filled my head making my heart beat louder. 

This was all too familiar.

A grunt suddenly came through the speaker situated on the wall of the white room making me jump but catching my attention enough that I looked into the viewing room to see Bruce Banner sitting behind the screen. 

"Aurora, I want you to show me your powers," Bruce instructed. 

"Where am I? Why are you here?" I questioned trying to find the sense in all of this. 

"You're in the Avengers Towers, we've been looking for you and I'm here to test your powers," Bruce explained motioning to the room I was in and the tower around us. 

"I don't understand," I said raising my hands to him and the room. 

"You will," Bruce looked down at the control panel, pushing a few buttons, "now, fight the fire," 

My eyes narrowed, eyebrows furrowed but before I could say anything a huge tornado of fire roared up into the simulation room. Startled, I fell back before the fire could reach me as it filled the room with heat. 

I gathered up my strength once again and stood up to go towards the fire, "It's not real," I told myself. My hand reach out to the flames as I continued to tell myself it wasn't real and when my fingers met the flames I drew them back quickly at the burning sensation. 

It was real. 

Panic shot through me, panic and pain as I gripped my hand while looking at the realness of the fire before me. I had to do something.

For the second time, I mustered up my strength and power with it, reaching my burnt hand out to the flames to control it. The fire tornado jolted as my power attempted to rein it in but it was like a wild animal and no amount of control would bring it down. 

As my powers started to give up the tornado got bigger as if sensing my fear and weakness within me. My hands dropped beside me realizing nothing was going to work as I stepped back into the wall while the fire burned closer. 

Without warning the fiery tornado reached out like a pair of hands and engulfed me in its flames. My screams filled the room as the fire burned to keep me paralyzed in the eye of its tornado shutting out anything that looked like the outside world.