Part One: Sinking

Outside, it's getting colder

Why does it feel like I'm older than I asked to be?

But when you say my name

It all falls away so tenderly

-Sinking by Clairo

"Stevie, I want to go with you! Let me go with you!" A small blonde girl whined after she trailed off after an older and taller boy with similar blonde hair.

"You can't come with me, Carol," The boy named Stevie told her, looking quite annoyed with the short blonde girl. She pouted.

"Why not?" She questioned and he sighed tiredly.

"Because you're a girl," The boy told the girl who immediately looked hurt from his statement. The girl was dressed like a tomboy with jean shorts, a boy's Star Wars t-shirt, and a pair of converse sneakers. Her knees had various scrapes and bruises from often playing outside and getting into trouble. "We'll play with the Atari when I get back. You wouldn't want to come with me anyways. Me and the guys are just doing a bunch of boring boy stuff. You wouldn't be interested."

The girl forced the tears out of her eyes as her brother gave her an apologetic look. She didn't want him to think that she even more of a girl than he thought she was. The boy just gave her a sad look before running out the door, rushing off to join his friends to play a quick game of neighborhood baseball.

"Carol!" A man's voice shouted and the little girl immediately turned to the voice. An older gruff looking man in his late thirties stood there staring at her. "You don't need to be hanging out with your brother and those boys. You don't know the things people think about a girl who spends all her time hanging out with just boys."

"I just wanted to play baseball, dad," The small girl told him with an innocent look on her face but the man looked unimpressed with her statement.

"Baseball's a boys game, Carol. Why don't you go over to Suzy Michaelson's house? She probably has a barbie dream house or something you can play with," The man told her before turning back into the kitchen and disappearing. The girl sniffled as a couple tears fell from her eyes.

He didn't see her for who she was.

He saw her as a girl and unequal to her brother.

Emma Rogers woke up from her dream with a gasp only to realize she was in her bedroom at the compound. Safe and secure from whatever that dream or what it meant.

It had been four months since the dreams started and she didn't know if they would ever end. Emma wasn't even sure if they counted as dreams. They felt more like memories but not her own memories. It was like she was watching a movie in someone else's head.

Someone named Carol.

Emma didn't know why she kept having dreams about the woman she first saw in that dream about the tesseract all those months ago. She was positive that she never met the woman before. Not in real life but she kept having dreams about her for some reason. Emma didn't even know if the woman was real but something told Emma that she was. There was no way she could be having all these dreams about some made up character in her head unless she was as crazy as some people liked to think.

The blonde teenager sat up in bed, taking deep breaths as she started calming down from the dream. It wasn't a nightmare but these dreams still took a toll on her. Mostly because she didn't understand anything about them.

Emma was alone in bed that night.

It was the weekend so she and Peter were at the compound which obviously meant they couldn't share a bed. Her father often woke up from nightmares and tended to check on her during the night to make sure she was okay. Emma was certain he wouldn't find it cute that she and Peter were in the same bed so she and Peter decided to sleep in their respective rooms. He still came over during the school week when she was at the townhouse. Sometimes they'd have sex or sometimes they would just talk until they both fell asleep.

Emma decided that she really didn't feel like falling asleep again so she got up from her bed and decided to head for the kitchen for a glass of water. She passed Peter's room along the way and paused near his door. For a second, she contemplated going to him and talking to him about the dream but Emma didn't want to wake him up. Tony had him working late in the lab the previous night so she knew he was tired. Her dream was probably just nothing so Emma continued on her way to the kitchen.

The teenage girl walked into the kitchen and headed straight for the sink. She took a glass from one of the cupboards and immediately filled it with water. Emma took a long sip as she let her mind wander.

"Bad dream?" Bucky Barnes asked from his seat at the kitchen island. Emma leaned against the kitchen counter and shrugged. She supposed it would've scared the shit out of anyone else at how quiet her father had been but truthfully she knew he was in the kitchen from the moment she walked in.

"Not really," Emma told him as her thoughts kept drifting back to that dream. She felt her father's eyes on her face and she knew he was trying to get a good read on her. "You?"

"Same as usual," Her father told her. Emma knew her father didn't sleep much at night. Maybe four or five hours. Six hours if he was lucky. Yes, Shuri had managed to erase all of Hydra's brainwashing from his mind but she couldn't erase the bad memories. "What was the dream about if it wasn't bad?"

Bucky was honestly curious about what was going on inside his daughter's head. She walked around in a state of confusion these days. It seemed like she had a lot on her mind. Not in a bad way or anything but it just seemed like something was bothering her. He didn't think it had to do with the stuff with Rumlow and Hydra or Steve going on the run again but he knew something was eating away at her. He just didn't know what.

"I don't know. It's kind of hard to explain," Emma mumbled, her eyes distant as she stared at the glass of water in her hands. "If I tried to explain it aloud, I don't think it would make any sense."

"Try me," Bucky told her, wanting to understand what was going on with Emma. She looked up at him, her eyes meeting his. Emma swallowed hard before answering him.

"I keep having these dreams about this woman," Emma finally said much to her father's curiosity. "I don't know who she is but I see her in my dreams. I think her name's Carol or something. It's so weird because I feel like I've known her for the longest time but I'm positive I've never met her before."

"Why do you feel like you know her?" Bucky asked and Emma shrugged.

"I don't know. I just do," Emma said quietly, her fingers tracing the rim of the glass. "Sometimes I think I see her memories. When she was little and everything. Her dad was kind of a dick. It makes me grateful I have you."

"I'm honestly a better father? Me?" Bucky joking asked and Emma smiled at him.

"You don't look at me differently because I'm a girl," Emma explained as the smile faded. "You never told me to go play with my barbie dream house."

"I hate to think what would happen if I did," Bucky retorted and Emma laughed. "You probably would've ripped off my other arm."

"I just don't understand these dreams. I feel like the woman's real," Emma said, growing more serious as her mind still seemed to be on those dreams. "I can't explain it. I don't know. This all probably sounds crazy."

"I don't think so," Bucky said softly as he considered everything thoughtfully. "Maybe this woman is you in a sense. What did Dr. Wallis say?"

"She said that these dreams could be because I'm in a new phase of my life. I'm moving on from my past and blah, blah, blah," Emma said, rolling her eyes at the thought of the resident psychologist at the compound. Tony hired Dr. Gabriella Wallis a few months ago as a requirement for Bucky's house arrest but he also hired her as a psychologist for all the Avengers. Apparently Ross now wanted updates on everyone's mental health as part of the accords. Emma honestly didn't know how Tony was passing all the tests.

"You promised you'd try," Bucky reminded her and Emma gave him a displeased look. "I don't like talking to a shrink either but I think this will be good for us in the long run. Dr. Wallis is probably right. Maybe you've actually moved on and these dreams reflect that."

"So you think I have an imaginary friend now?" Emma questioned sarcastically and Bucky rolled his eyes. "I already have more friends than I care to have. I'd rather not start imagining ones."

"Well, these dreams aren't nightmares, right?" Bucky asked as he moved the conversation forward. "You used to have nightmares all the time. Now you're having dreams that you don't wake up screaming from. I'd say that's progress."

"Maybe you're right," Emma admitted. She knew her father made a lot of sense. Did she honestly think the woman in her dreams was real? That just wasn't possible. It was almost insane that she believed that. "I guess I really am going crazy."

"You're not crazy. You've just been through a lot," Bucky told his daughter, giving her an affectionate look. Emma smiled at him.

"I wish you would think that way about yourself," She said softly and Bucky just looked down at the counter.

"You believe that about me and I think that's enough," Bucky told her quietly. Emma seemed to think the world of him and Bucky didn't think he would ever feel like he deserved her adoration. She was too good for him and the only person who didn't know it was her.

"I think I'll try to get more sleep now," Emma said to her father as she placed the now empty glass in the sink. "Peter and I have to get up and train with Maria in a few hours."

Bucky rolled his eyes at the mere mention of Peter Parker.

"I can't believe you're still with that idiot," Bucky grumbled and Emma smirked at him. "You know what I caught your boyfriend doing the other day?"

"No, what?" She asked, thoroughly amused by her father's disproval of her boyfriend.

"He was watching The Notebook and bawling his eyes out like a baby," Bucky informed her and instead of Emma laughing like he thought she would, she looked concerned. Emma frowned as she looked at her father. "The sad part was that he wasn't even ashamed."

"He watched The Notebook by himself? I told him not to," Emma said, looking worried about Peter. "He can't watch sad movies like that by himself, Papa. He's very sensitive."

"Sensitive meaning a pussy," Bucky muttered and Emma glared at him. It was clear she didn't appreciate him insulting her precious Peter Parker.

Bucky wanted to groan in frustration at how sickeningly in love Emma was with that boy. A part of him hoped that she would get bored with the boy who was the most ordinary person Bucky ever met despite the kid having remarkable powers. However, Bucky knew, for some insane reason, the boy made Emma really happy so Bucky had long learned to tolerate him.

"Peter's one of the bravest people I know," Emma told him with a certain fierceness that always seemed to come in to play whenever she was defending Peter or her father. The blonde never usually felt the need to defend Steve since her grandfather was more than capable of defending himself. Her father and Peter, however, needed her protection. "Just because your generation's definition of masculinity is old fashioned and gives way to gender role stereotypes, doesn't mean that Peter's any less of a man than you are. In fact, I think it's very manly that he's so open with his emotions. It's attractive."

Bucky stared at her blankly for a moment. He wondered what it was about Peter Parker that attracted his daughter to him. Bucky supposed that girls would find him attractive with his Bambi eyes and innocent smile but the kid was the dorkiest person Bucky had ever met. That was saying a lot since Bucky grew up with one of the biggest dorks of all time. He told Emma jokes that weren't funny yet she still laughed at how unfunny the jokes were. Bucky then realized something about the kid.

Peter Parker was romantic.

He wasn't romantic like Bucky used to be either. Bucky had always romanced girls in his youth but Peter romanced just one girl.

Peter showered Emma with adoration and love. The kid was always holding her hand whenever he could. Whether it was them walking through the hallways of the compound or just at the dinner table, he made an effort to hold her hand. He was always giving her giving her little gifts whenever he could too. Sometimes it was a book she really wanted to read or her favorite candy but nevertheless, Peter was always giving her something. He didn't do it to get something out of it either. The only expectation Peter had was Emma's happiness.

Bucky really tried to find a reason to hate Peter but he wasn't finding it possible these days. What was there to hate? The kid clearly loved Emma and made her happy. Darcy was right when she asked him what was wrong with Emma having a boyfriend who would move mountains for her.

It just annoyed him that Peter Parker was so perfect.

"You've been spending too much time with Darcy," Bucky muttered and it was the only response he could think of.

"Why? Jealous?" Emma said, rolling her eyes as she began to leave the kitchen. Bucky didn't bother responding to her this time as she walked past him and left him sitting there glaring down at the kitchen island. He shook his head slowly.

"Smart ass."

A girl with blonde hair sat underneath a table in what must have been a kitchen. She sat there in fear as she trembled and struggled to keep her crying quiet. The table cloth obscured much of her view but there was no hiding the dead body of a red haired woman lying several feet away.

The woman's gaze was still and unmoving but somehow the little girl still had hope that her mother would wake up and save her. However, an adult would know there would be no coming back from a large neck wound like that. The wound was so bad that there was still blood pouring out from it.

The little girl let out a small whimper as she saw a pair of boots step over her mother. The person's footsteps were loud and echoed throughout the now quiet house. The child trembled even more as she watched the pair of boots get closer and closer to where she was at in the kitchen. It didn't take long for the footsteps to stop and when they did the kitchen table was sudden lifted up into the air and thrown against the wall with ease.

The girl screamed in terror as a man loomed over her with a sadistic grin on his face. His eyes were dark, holding a certain maliciousness that would fill, anyone who would stare into them, with unease. His smile was wolfish and terrifying.

To someone as young as the child, he was a monster.

"Come on, little girl," The man said tauntingly, causing the girl to start crying hysterically which only amused the man. "Don't be afraid."

"Y-You did something to d-daddy and m-mommy," The girl cried but the man just grinned at her.

"That's right and if you don't get up from that floor right now I'll do worse to you," He threatened, his smile unwavering until a small pool of urine suddenly appeared on the linoleum floor. The little girl sniffled, looking both terrified and embarrassed. The man's glee morphed into severe disgust as he sneered at the child.

"Don't worry. Once we're done with you, you'll never piss yourself again…not unless you want some broken fingers and I would hate for you to break anything. It would be a shame," The man said in a sickly sweet tone before roughly grabbing her and abruptly throwing her over his shoulder.

The girl screamed in surprise but she didn't try to escape the man's clutches. This was a man who had just murdered her parents. Even at a young age, the girl knew better. She just cried as the man walked her out of the kitchen, passing the bodies of two people the little girl knew all too well.

A woman, her eyes wide and dead as they stared up at the ceiling, with her throat slit and blooding soaking the carpet her body rested on.

A man lying at the bottom of the stairwell face down and his face unrecognizable from the multiple bullets wounds he too to the face. His hair used to be as blonde as the girl's but was now stained red with his own blood.

The little girl reached out to them from over the man's shoulder, looking desperate for them wake up and save her, but they didn't make a sound. They remained motionless, never lifting a finger to save her but only because they were already dead.

The man stole her from the house but he also stole from everything she ever knew in a ploy to turn her into a weapon. There would be no one left to save her or question her death. Her godfather would get drunk to forget her and her dead parents when he got the news while her grandfather was still frozen in ice unaware that he had a son let alone a granddaughter who needed his help.

The girl would never be the same again after that day.

Her carefree and peaceful life had come to an end at only four-years-old. It didn't matter if she found happiness later on. The next nine years of her life would always be there in the back of her mind for probably the rest of her life.

"She just didn't know if she accepted that yet," Carol Danvers murmured in her sleep before her eyes shot open as she woke up from her strange yet equally terrifying nightmare. The blonde woman sat up in bed on her quiet and small spaceship. It was a newer one she won in a bet she made with a male Astran several months ago. He hadn't had been happy to lose his ship but Carol was glad to have it.

Her mind was still processing the nightmare.

All the blood, screams of horrors, and crying.

Carol could still feel the panic and fear in her heart…almost as if she were in the little girl's shoes. She didn't know why she kept having dreams of that girl. Carol was certain that the little girl was the teenage girl she kept seeing in her dreams as well.

For the past few months Carol rarely dreamed of anything other than the girl. She didn't know why but she felt like she knew her. For what felt like forever, Carol searched for anything that could explain these dreams. Some people told her that these dreams were just dreams. The girl in them wasn't real and Carol was taking it too seriously. However, Carol knew that these weren't just dreams.

The girl was real.

Carol didn't know how to explain it but something inside her told her that the girl was real and just like her. Maybe not completely like her, given some of the dreams she had which she was almost positive were the memories of the girl.

Speaking of which…

The dream she had tonight of the girl was the most horrifying yet. Carol always caught glimpses of the girl's life in her dreams. Sometimes the memories were blurry and dark. There was a certain coldness to them that chilled Carol right to the bone. Somehow she got the feeling that the girl's life hadn't exactly been pleasant.

However, there were other nicer memories.

There were ones with a man with longish brown hair and pale blue eyes. He had a gaze which would always soften whenever he looked at the girl. The man also had a fatherly presence which Carol determined was different from her own father who she had resented for much of her life. Carol didn't know how to describe it but she could feel what the girl was feeling throughout these dreams. The girl always felt supported, loved, and comforted in the presence of the older man.

Carol felt jealous because her own father had never been so decent but at the same time she felt comforted by the fact. She didn't know the girl but Carol felt a connection to her. She felt like she knew her so she also hated the feeling of loneliness and fear she felt in some of the dreams because she knew that's what the girl felt.

There were other people Carol saw in the dreams.

A man with hair just as blonde as the girl's. Carol never saw his face clearly, the only face she ever saw was the man Carol assumed was the girl's father, but she sensed an overwhelmingly amount of respect and love the girl had for him. He walked with his shoulders straight and his head held high. The girl's posture resembled his own almost identically.

There was another man with mischief in his brown eyes who always seemed to tease the girl. The girl pretended to find him annoying but Carol knew she loved him just as she loved her father and the man with blonde hair.

Sometimes there were other people in the dreams too. A brunette woman with glasses, a teenage girl with frizzy hair, and a short woman with red hair and emerald green eyes but the girl's memories mostly focused on four men. The father, the blonde man, and the annoying one but also the fourth one.

The boy.

There was a teenage boy featured in the girl's memories almost as much as her father seemed to star in her memories. The feelings the girl felt for the boy were overwhelming. So much that Carol always felt winded after waking up from one of the dreams.

Carol had never been in love before.

The former Air Force pilot was much too focused on school and mischief when she was the girl's age. When she was older she was focused on making a name for herself in the Air Force. Then, of course, Carol got her powers and ever since then, her life had been busy. Too much to settle down with someone and fall in love.

Still…after sifting through the girl's memories, Carol knew what being in love felt like. It was an intoxicating feeling which explained why much of humanity was obsessed with it. Carol finally understood what all the hype was about because she knew it just wasn't about hand holding, kissing, cuddling, or even sex. It was more than that.

A partnership.

The answer to loneliness.

A reason to get up in the morning.

Blissful happiness.

It was all these things and more but for some reason Carol began to associate the notion of being in love with unbelievably beautiful warm brown eyes. Carol couldn't say if that was her honest opinion about the boy's eyes but she saw everything through the girl's eyes and that's what the girl saw when she looked at the boy.

Carol fell back against her pillow as she thought about the dreams more. She was still in the process of trying to figure out what they meant and who the girl was. If the girl was even real…maybe Carol was finally losing it, after all. It would make sense after all this time if she were to lose it.

Even so, Carol allowed a small smile to appear on her face.

It was funny to think there had been a time where Carol didn't even remember her own life let alone someone else's. There was a time where Carol remembered nothing yet decades later Carol had both her own memories as well as someone else's. Yes, tonight's nightmare about the girl had been particularly bad. It made her worried about the girl in question and everything she had been through in her life. On the other hand, Carol remembered all the happy dreams about the girl and she knew that wherever the girl was right now, she was happy.

Carol couldn't tell you how she knew the girl was happy but she just did. In her heart, she knew that the girl was happy and had moved on with her life. She could feel the girl's happiness in more recent memories where the girl was older than she was in tonight's dream. It might not have made any sense but Carol could feel the girl's happiness practically radiating from her.

Even from across the universe.

The thought of the mystery girl, from Carol's dreams, being happy put a smile on Carol's face.

Carol didn't even know the girl's name but she knew she was happy.