Chapter 4
“When is the last time you saw her?” Steve is pacing in front of where Bucky lies on the couch. There are about twelve blankets wrapped around him and all he wants to do is sleep but Steve is insisting on having this conversation.
Bucky shrugs from beneath his blankets. “Why does it matter? None of you believe me.”
Steve sighs and stops pacing. He sits down near Bucky’s legs and leans back into them. It’s a nice, warm weight against him and so Bucky doesn’t say anything about the contact. “It’s not that we don’t believe you, Buck. But it’s…it’s a little unbelievable.”
“And some skinny, asthmatic kid suddenly turning into the world’s greatest fuckin’ super solider overnight through some sketchy science isn’t? Like being a brainwashed, frozen fuckin' Soviet assassin for decades isn’t? Don’t throw that ‘unbelievable’ bullshit in my face just because some shrink thinks it’s easy to discredit me.”
His blood is boiling, he hates these people telling him what’s real and what isn’t.
“Okay, Buck, okay,” Steve says in a placating voice that only serves to irritate him further. “When was the last time you saw her?”
He thinks for a moment, shutting his eyes tightly. “After a mission. No, after they w-,” It takes him a moment to regain his composure. “After they wiped me. She was there. Like she always was. And I remember her letting me out of the metal around my head and my arm, pulling it away from me. She leaned down and kissed my hand, and then someone pulled her away. There was a lot of screaming. She was saying something. Maybe-,” I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Bucky! I'm sorry. I-
Watching his friend tremble beneath the many blankets, worries Steve. He lies his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, carefully, trying to comfort his friend. “Do you remember when this was? What year?”
“I don’t know. Not-not that long ago.”
“Why haven’t you looked for her before?”
Bucky’s head snaps up, “What?”
“While you were in Romania?”
“I didn’t exactly have the resources,” he growls. “I was afraid to move around. I was safe in Bucharest.” His voice softens, “And I didn’t know what they’d done with her. Whether she was killed or-or something else. I didn’t want to think about it either.”
Steve staves off the need to ask why though. Why had they kept this girl? No reports ever indicated that the Winter Soldier had been working with a partner.
He still asks. “Why was she there with you?”
“I’ve told you this before. To control me.”
“But-,”
“And to protect me.”
That gives Steve pause. “To protect you?”
“Yeah,” he nods, another headache overcoming him, nausea churning in his stomach. Remembering hurts. Remembering makes him physically sick. “They…that’s what they did to her. She had no regard for her own safety. She would do anything to protect me. Because the Asset was invaluable, something they couldn’t afford to lose.”
Steve mulls that over for a moment as Bucky continues to shiver violently. A frown tugs at the corners of his mouth. “How? How could they convince her to-,”
“They didn’t. They programmed her to. Like I was programmed to-,” He shivers again and clenches his eyes shut.
~
The girl stands again. The Soldier can’t figure out why, or more accurately, how. But she does, she stands and faces the agents.
She’s bloody and bruised and sick. There’s something wrong with her. She’s thrown up twice already. The room smells of vomit and sweat and something damp. A single bulb flickers above them.
“Stay,” comes the command. She goes deadly still, locked into place, feet firmly against the dirty concrete floor. A direct order of that kind isn’t easy to ignore and for the moment she doesn’t try to fight it.
They turn to the Soldier and he feels sick, because he knows what’s about to happen. “Stay,” they command him as well, even though he hasn’t so much as twitched in the last hour. His muscles are straining from the exertion that this stillness requires.
Then they turn to one of their agents. “Attack.”
He lunges immediately, grinning wickedly as he makes a grab for the Soldier. But, just as she’s been doing for hours and hours, the girl moves, despite the earlier command. One of the only commands she's capable of overriding, and only if the Soldier is in immediate danger. The agent is much stronger than her and easily has her on the ground. But she bounces back up, moves in front of the Soldier again. Over and over and over. Repeatedly, for several minutes, she’s tossed around like a rag doll, but each time she rolls to her feet and drops into a defensive position against the attacking agent.
On a mission, if he were incapacitated, she could feasibly protect him until the agents could retrieve him. Because the Asset, with his new shiny arm, is too valuable to lose. It also made a fun game for them, to see how many times she would get up, to see who could best her.
Eventually they call it.
They let her lie on the cold ground, chest heaving, as the Soldier stares at her. She protects him. He knows it’s because she has to but still, he wants to go to her. He wants to care for her. He knows her.
He knows her name. He knows she’s important. He knows he should protect her but his feet are seemingly glued to the floor.
The agents are discussing her performance and they seem to be satisfied for the most part. “I think she might be ready. I think they both are.”
“The Soldier could use more training. Discipline.”
Someone laughs. “You just want him to yourself!”
“Ah. Well. Can’t blame me can you? He’s a lot of fun. Very pliant.”
“No,” someone else hisses. “Soldat.” The Soldier snaps to attention. “Take her.”
It’s all the command he needs to stoop and pick her up. He turns toward the hall that will take them to their cell that they’re allowed to share in moments like these. It's mostly because they know the Soldier will care for her wounds and they won't have to.
Two guards follow closely behind them.
Once enclosed in the cell however, safely locked away, the guards leave. The Soldier says her name quietly, waits for her to open her eyes. “Zrobiłaś dobrze.”
You did well.
“Jestem zmęczony.”
I’m tired.
“I know.”
Gentleness should not be something one feels in their situation. The Soldier can’t even remember his name, and his back is aching from the white hot lashes that had been streaked across it mere hours ago. A punishment for something he already can't remember doing. But they’re allowed tenderness with each other, so long as the guards don’t see them.
“Bucky,” she murmurs. “That’s your name. Bucky.” Her lips touch his palm gently. "Bucky."
He agrees with a grunt and tugs on her shirt. His brain is itching with the sound of his name in his ears. It feels wrong and so he focuses on other things.
Her skin beneath her shirt is mottled with bruises, every inch of her skin marred with hurt and hate. “You always remember me.” Her ribs are broken but they'd heal soon enough.
“I can’t forget you. They don’t allow for it.”
“They’ll stop hurting you. I’ll make sure of it.” It’s a promise he can’t keep and they both know it.
“1953.”
He grunts again. Acknowledgement. They always brought the girl out first, no matter what, out of the cold. She got the date, if possible, and reminded him of his name. His dog tags had been ripped away from the both of them long ago. “Why do you speak Russian to me?”
He hadn’t even realized that he had been doing so. “I’m sorry.”
Slowly, drawing out their limited time together, Bucky patches her up with the terrible first aid kit they're given. He feels okay for a moment, human. Until she throws up again, sick pools on the ground of the cell. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs this time. “Really sorry.”
He spine stiffens. They'll come now.
The guards march in and drag her away. For a moment he has a grand ideal shining in his mind. Of fighting them off and taking this girl away from here. He manages to slam on of them into the concrete of the wall, crushing his skull.
But then one of them mutters, “Halt.” And he’s suddenly stuck, immobile. They drag her away. And that’s how he knows. Something hasn’t gone right. She isn’t supposed to be sick.
They messed something up. The serum isn't working the same way in her system as it does in his.
He worries before someone drags him back to the chair and it all goes away again.