Chapter 37

She carefully keeps her body close to the ceiling as she enters the facility, so as not to brush against anyone. She wants to explore, but the feel of despair lingers in the air and draws her closer. Though those people have only a despair tinted with desperation. There's no panic or other signal that they're under danger or torture. Better to go where she feels those few people who are having their minds altered and knowing HYDRA and their tactics… Well, she's pretty sure they're trying to brainwash them.

It takes her a while to do so because, while she knows where the direction in which they are, she doesn't know how to go without losing herself in the process. This place is huge, after all. And she can't go in a direct line, destroying every wall to arrive to where she intends to go.

So yeah, it takes a while. But in the end, she manages.

And curses once again when she sees Bucky 'Winter Soldier' Barnes alongside other six guys, all on top of uncomfortable looking tables, staring blanking into the ceiling. She doesn't know if she's lucky now that she knows that she's close to where she remembers Steve debuting as the war hero, Captain America, or if she needs to curse her luck because this doesn't give her much time to think of her backstory. Because she needs one.

Ugh.

Looking down at their unfocused gazes, she wants to help them, but she can't wake them up without thinking about her story first. And not helping them makes her feel annoyed and guilty, so she needs to think quickly.

She looks around, seeing a couple of syringes on a plate and a big map on the wall. She looks closer and sees some coordinates written. May be important later on, so she takes note of it and looks around, her gaze falling on a small closet. She opens it slowly, trying to see if it makes a sound. When it doesn't, she opens it wider and sees a couple of lab coats and a couple of white shirts. The shirts are big, but maybe she can use one as a dress if she transforms into a human, but the pants are too big and there are no belts to use. She keeps looking around, but aside from the clothes she found, there are only a couple of lab instruments and other knickknacks.

She hums, unsure if she should show herself as a human or as a Mew turned into a Deoxys.

However, she remembers that while searching about the differences between her world and this one; she read some of Steve Rogers' story and hadn't found evidence of her Mew-self. Not that she was searching for that, but she doesn't think it happened as she has been known in this form for a while and the people of New York hadn't reacted in any outrageous manner, outside of the normal way one does when seeing a cat superhero.

Also, the biggest evidence to support her theory is Fury. He hadn't known anything about her original form, and she could know that he wasn't faking it because she felt his emotions at seeing her. That means Mew isn't known by SHIELD.

Also, how's it that it hasn't crossed her mind to her being here has already hanged the future? Well, she just knows this is the past of the future she came from. She doesn't know why, but the sky is blue, the grass is green, and she's sure she's in the past and not a parallel world.

Most likely, Celebi's fault.

So, with a sigh and a look around, she decides to momentarily transform into her human form so as to not frighten the soldiers.

Appearing naked as always, she jumps instantly and starts floating, not touching the cold floor anymore. Luckily, she isn't feeling as cold as one normally would. Still, she doesn't like cold feet. She's lucky there were a couple pair of socks in that small closet. She put them on because, while she can float, it will still look weird to do so if anyone sees her. She doesn't use the pair of shoes she's found because they're too big. Also, her curse from her old life has followed her and her shoe size is the smallest possible for an adult female, which sucks because it's hard to find nice heels in her size.

Shaking her head, she concentrates on the task at hand. Though it's weird how she has gotten used to being naked, so much so that she's no longer bothered to being like that in the same space with seven men. It's true they are unconscious, but she couldn't even be naked in front of her sisters in her previous life, so yeah, weird.

Anyway, now that she has some clothes to cover her modesty, even if she feels the drift between her legs, she can start working. At least the cold is easy to ignore when she's inside the building. How it would be when she's outside, she doesn't know. Hopefully, it's not that cold.

She doesn't believe herself to be that lucky, though.

With a deep breath, and an use of Amnesia to calm herself, she goes to where the soldiers are. She looks between the bodies before deciding to wake up Bucky first. Mostly because she wants to implement fail safes in his mind to safeguard it. Or at least try to do so, as she has never done before. So, while crossing her fingers, she puts both hands on the sides of his face. Why do so when she can just enter his mind without touching him? Well, first to get into the mood. And also, because she's found if she's touching anyone, it's easier to focus on their minds.

She exhales and dives in, listening to how he's trying to close himself from the torture he's been put by repeating what he remembers of his life, reciting it again and again. He's strong willed, she can feel it. He does not want to forget himself, but he knows it would still make him more susceptible to brainwashing later.

She helps him lock the brainwashing by putting the techniques used on him inside a box and covering it with better memories. She then tries to reinforce his mind by accentuating his normal memories so as to make it hard to forget. Also, in case he becomes the Winter Soldier in the future, she tries copying his memories and also putting it inside another box, in case they overwrite his original memories, she can always open this box and he can remember everything.

Let's hope it's unnecessary, though.

When she's done, she looks up and notices it has passed fifteen minutes, so it hasn't been that long. She almost sighs in relief, but then she looks down and sees Bucky looking up at her. She realizes then that her hands are still grabbing the sides of his head. Clearing her throat, she lets go, murmuring a quick, 'sorry.'

"Who are you?" he breathes out hoarsely.

She can't use 'Eva' as that's the name future-SHIELD knows her by, so she it's stalling time. "Lilith. Er, hi?"

At his continued look of confusion, she adds, "Look, you've been brainwashed. I'm just trying to help out."

She straightens up and goes to the next body, a blond guy with green eyes. "I'm going to help this guy out, now. If you can look out in case someone nears, I'll be grateful. We need to escape afterwards, after all."

As if to accentuate her words, she hears the sound of gunfire going out. She curses and dives into the mind of the next guy, being quick and not as throughout as she was with Bucky. Still, she makes sure there are no hiding orders inside his mind. Luckily, there aren't.

.

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So yeah, Friday and Monday are the chosen days.