—all new

dying is easy,

living is harder.

her heart stopped. Two years ago she was killed and brought back to life.

The Winter Soldier had brought the limp body of the ten-year-old girl to the physicians on the Siberia base, but none of them were able to save her, for she was already dead. Alexander Pierce wasn't the type of man who gave up easily though, especially on the now Romanova girl. So he sent the dead girl all the way to Warsaw, Poland, where they had a stone that had what it took to revive her.

The Soul Stone, or the "Magic Gem" as they called her, was brought to the HYDRA base in Warsaw at the beginning of 2012 by Artur Rusek, a scientist and now an agent of HYDRA. No one knew how, where or when he got, all they knew was that the small, orange stone was powerful. Knowing that, they decided to run experiments to test its capabilities and how far they reached. By far, not a single subject out of the twenty-one they had tried with had endured the power. Their bodies had crumbled and their souls had torn. That was, of course, before the corpse of the girl arrived.

Bella was something else. Something rare.

Her body had taken the energy of the stone and harnessed it to create enough power to built herself back together. It rested inside the girl like it didn't with the ones tested before.

She had no memory of the procedure. All she knew was that she woke up back inside a cell that wasn't the one she had in Siberia, with a fresh, vertical scar across her pale chest. The stone had darkened her sky blue eyes to an ocean blue. The stone also brought instability to her cells, making them shift from flesh to thin air.

It took her a while to learn how to master her new ability. Grunts and whimpers could be heard through the hallways near her cell as her body turned from solid to air continuously. When she first laid down on her thin mattress she phased through it and landed hard on the concrete floor. Whenever her hands reached out to gran something, that something would fall right through her hands. Things like those kept happening for a solid month.

As soon as she was mildly recovered they started training, making her walk through walls, drop from floor to floor and phase her hands through people and objects. Soldiers would shoot at her and bullets would fly by as she did her best to avoid or phase through them. A few of them grazed her skin when she wasn't fast enough to dodge them. Some even stuck inside her body when she couldn't stay intangible for too long.

During one training session, they found out Arabella could not only time herself intangible but could turn things intangible too. They made her phase objects and people, the first- human-subject of the test being a prison guard. She fainted after trying for hours to get him to completely phase through a wall, but at the end of the day, she did.

Phasing through things meant she could easily escape anytime, anywhere. So they built a shock collar for her that was always turned on, preventing her to put her power at use, the only exception being training sessions. Arabella despised the "jewelry", she felt even more trapped than she already was. But there was nothing she could do about it.

She had also met a silver-haired boy on a small mission in Sokovia. Initially, they weren't going to be paired together, the enhanced boy was going to complete the mission with his twin sister, but she had turned unstable and they had to sedate her. So, Rusek sent his asset to Sokovia to take the twin's place. They bonded through their shared trauma and the boy told her about his sister. Arabella told him about the Soldier, since he was al she knew as family.

Over the years, the Soldier and Bella had actually grown quite close. As close as a pair of assassins could be anyway. The Soldier would always look after the girl, and she was there after they brainwashed him, something she was familiar with. Brainwashing was a must whenever they remember something, as little as that memory was. They shared that, the pain. He understood what it was like. And Arabella even came to think of the Soldier as some sort of distorted father figure.

Pierce had sent her, accompanied by the Soldier, to a couple of missions after the experiments and training were held. Arabella became more skilled and useful than she already was thanks to the intangibility she developed. It was tiring, yes, but very useful when it came to avoiding getting killed. She would phase through walls and objects to get to her targets and take them down by surprise and without any complications. People started to call her the Phantom since no one had been able to catch sight of the young girl dressed in an all-black suit. But they knew it was her, they knew she was there. She, just like the Soldier, was a daunting ghost story no one had ever lived to.

they were the Phantom and the Winter Soldier, all suit up and kneeling on a roof next to each other with their weapons loaded. The Superior told them the mission was to eliminate a Level 10 target, no witnesses. Her job was to cover the soldier's back if things got messy but the one doing the killing was him.

The breeze swiftly moved her ponytail side to side while she tapped her fingers on the gun she was holding. She could see the city lights and hear the busy street. Something inside her longed for a normal life, free of killing, without Hydra appearing in the picture and maybe even with a family. For all she had known as a family was the Soldier. She wanted something like that for them too, especially the soldier who always looked like he was longing for something.

Arabella shook her and focused on the Soldier's light blue eyes, they didn't show much emotion but she knew how to read him. He had his eyes on the target, a bald, middle-aged man with an eye patch. She knew having eyes on the target was crucial, but she didn't like to see the faces of their victims, so she saw through the soldier's eyes instead. Therefore, when he blinked and his brows dipped, she knew it was time. And, in fact, it was time. His fingers pulled the trigger three times, the sound of gunshots echoing through the air. Arabella clicked the safety of her gun off and placed herself in position to fire just in case, catching the sight of the man falling off his feet in the process.

"He's dead." The words came out muffled from the muzzle the Soldier had over his mouth.

The Soldier grabbed his rifle and placed it on his back. Arabella took this as the signal and got on her feet. She glanced at him for a brief second and they nodded sharply at each other, already knowing what to do. Both of them began running as fast as their legs could carry them, slightly fearing the chance of being caught. Arabella had no trouble with catching up with the soldier, yes, there was a big height difference, but she was as fast as he was. Plus she had a few tricks Pietro had taught her while training.

When they were about to get to the end of the roof, the Soldier wrapped his metal arm around the girl's small waist and jumped over the street to the other building. Arabella only opened her eyes when her feet landed in the cement roof and she didn't waste any time before starting to run back again. They were about to reach the edge of the roof when Arabella saw a glimpse of two shadows moving behind them.

"Two incoming." Her voice was gentle yet it felt rough against the midnight air.

Before she even tried to do anything, her ankles slapped together making her fall in the hard concrete, scratching her cheek in the process. Quickly, she pulled out a knife and cut the thick string around them. When she was about to stand up a body crashed on top of her. Arabella phased through the body and pushed its back to the floor with her boot.

She grabbed her gun and aimed but before she shot a piece of metal hit her on the side of her head making her stumble to the side. She followed the piece of metal as it flew to the hand of the girl crouched on the floor, wrapping itself around her hand.

Arabella's blue eyes meet with a pair of brown eyes. The girl was undeniably taller and had black shoulder-length hair. She looked at her with one emotion. One that Arabella knew more of than she wanted to.

Rage.

Arabella had killed what she supposed was a close friend, or something of those sorts, after all. She wasn't expecting any less.

Her dark eyes looked fiery as she stared directly at the girl with the metal glove ignited and glowing, ready to fire at the younger girl. Arabella wasted no time on launching herself to her, using her bended knee as an impulse to wrap her legs around the girl's torso, putting all her weight to the side. The older girl fell to the ground as Arabella landed graciously on top of her, restraining her legs with her own to prevent her from getting away. Her bony fist came in contact with the girl's cinnamon skin, leaving a bruise on her cheekbone. Not even half a second later, a light beam sent the small girl flying backward.

Arabella recovered rapidly and dodged another blow. She pulled the remaining two knives from her thighs and bent down, slicing the brown-eyed girl's right calf. A whimper escaped the girl's lips as her hand immediately covered her wound. Arabella straightened and raised her hand to stab her knife in the girl's chest, but she was, yet again, stopped. This time not by a little string or a piece of flying metal, but by a shield colliding her side.

As soon as the sharp edge of the shield hit the girl's right ribs she turned herself intangible. She turned around and threw the knife she had to the blonde man who had thrown the shield, it digging itself on his shoulder, all while the shield phased through her chest.

Then the sound was heard. Metal against metal.

The Soldier had stopped the shield with his metal arm, his eyes viciously looking at the blonde man. Arabella was already full force sprinting towards him, and for the fourth time that night, she was stopped.

A metal glove punched her face and knocked her down, once again hitting the hard concrete and scraping her cheek. Her forehead began to bleed but she didn't care. She had to get up to catch up with the Soldier. However, when their blue eyes meet, she knew what was about to happen.

He was going to leave her.

He had to leave her.

Pierce had told them that if she got injured or captured, he had to move on and abort the mission. He said they would rescue the girl later.

Her heart was beating wildly against her slightly bruised chest. He was going to leave her and only God knew what they would do to her. For once in a good while, she felt absolutely scared. And her eyes gave it out. He noticed.

The soldier only nodded, feeling guilty. But orders were orders. And he didn't fail. So he jumped.

But not before whispering an apology that didn't reach the girl's ears.

Hi! I know it's been a while since I last updated but I've had an awful writer's block, sorry. This is the beginning of part two which takes place during Captain America: The Winter Soldier and pre Age of Ultron. I'm really excited about this part honestly.

Also, with this coronavirus situation happening please stay safe. Wash your hands and take care.

I guess that'll be all, thanks for reading and sorry again for the wait.

I hope you stick around!

-love, lili