Prologue
April 25, 2014 ~ Sokovian HYDRA base
It had always been the same. Day after day, year after year. Every one just like the last. Until about not long ago when her partner, the Winter Soldier, disappeared.
She knew better than to ask about it. Questions led to punishment, that had been drilled into her mind since...since...since Before. That's what she called it, the time before HYDRA. It was rare that she got memories, and sometimes they hurt so much the wiping was a relief, only from a pain she never knew she had, after it was gone.
Now wasn't the time to think about it, though. She needed to find out what had happened to Winter Soldier. It was the most unlogical time to disappear. She knew that the day he left was supposed to be HYDRA's great victory over the world, but everyone had suddenly gone into hiding. They used to operate out of Washington D. C., New York City, and many other large cities around the globe. Their main base was now a small building just outside the capital of Sokovia, a tiny Eastern European country.
She picked up that something was wrong when the cell across the hall was empty, his suit was gone from the gear room and they no longer trained together. In fact, the handlers acted like he never existed when they were around her. The only explanation was that he escaped. Somehow he must have gone rouge on a mission, and gotten the tracker in his arm destroyed. But the only way to do that would be near lethal, such as a large explosion, or a high fall into water
She was more intelligent than they believed. She heard glimpses of their whispery conversations. "...Been off the grid more than a month..." "...Can't launch a search for him with S.H.I.E.L.D. looking all over the world for us..." "They talk about maybe sending the Asset out to find him. She knows his techniques..."
She pulled at the metal collar and chain around her neck. It chafed at her skin, and even though the serums and chemicals in her veins gave her advanced healing, it always reopened the wounds. That was how they kept her from breaking out of her cell. For the Winter Soldier, large metal clamps around his forearms and biceps secured him to the wall. The chains allowed them both enough room to lie down, but that was it. Though she wasn't quite sure how, she knew it was abnormal for her to be chained this often.
She pondered all of this as she sat waiting between missions. Unlike Winter Soldier, she was not put in the cryogenic freezers, as it would stun her growth. So they just stuffed her in a cell. She noticed the missions were more often. They normally came every 2 or 3 months, but she had gone on two in six weeks. She heard bits and pieces from the guards' and agents' chatter about some Captain America.
The name was vaguely familiar, enough for her to know he was an enemy of HYDRA. She worried the Captain might have killed Zimney Soldat (Winter Soldier). She wasn't one to feel sorrow over death, with the many she had killed, but she still feared for him. He was... she didn't quite know the word... important to her? That might be right. He had been her only partner for a very long time (over a decade if anyone were counting), and she... missed him.
Was that the meaning? She was confused. She felt like she should know these words, these... emotions, but didn't. The voices got louder in her head. This had never happened before. Or had it? She wished she could remember. They were pounding, screaming in her mind. Don't other people remember these things? Wasn't she a person? Didn't she deserve these things, these memories? No, no, she wasn't a person. She was an Asset. But then, why did she feel this? Was there something terrible, that she didn't want to know? Why wouldn't all the pain just go away? Why couldn't she just remember? Why did she even want to??