"It's over, I'm okay. I'm in cryostasis now, it's safer this way, please don't look for me. Find Steve Rogers, join his team, move on.

I love you,

B."

I was standing outside the abandoned factory building holding his card in my hands trying to gain some courage to enter by reading this 2 lines over and over.

The tears still welled in my eyes as I looked at his not so pretty handwriting and I heard him rushingly say the words in my head. I physically couldn't handle him being gone. I kept remembering when I last saw him in Bucharest where we hid out together for 3 months. We were parting ways at the market, he went to buy fruit for a pie I wanted to bake. I watched him touch and probe apples before he placed them into a plastic bag and unknowing I turned away to be on my way to the grocery shop. We agreed to meet at home when we finished, but as I reached the building I already knew. The police and Special Forces were everywhere, yellow tape line covering half the block.

He called me later from Leipzig, but since I was still on the run from Romania he only left a message on my voicemail, telling me about HYDRA still controlling him, and other soldiers of the winter, saving the world and I already knew I will never see him again. And then a few days ago, I got this note. He posted it from Moscow on a postcard, the address I was currently standing in front of scribed on it by someone else's handwriting, I assumed Rogers himself.

I wasn't sure I wanted to join anything or anyone just yet, I just wanted to know what happened to my Soldier.

- Want to come in, Miss? – a voice asked quietly from the door I didn't notice opening. A tall blonde man stood in the way with his arms crossed in front of his broad chest in a simple gray t-shirt and cotton sweatpants. Not the outfit I expected from any superhero.

- Not sure. I am looking for my partner's friend – I answered plainly, though I was pretty sure I was talking to said friend. James didn't talk much about him, but when he did I knew he had a strong bond with him.

- Who is your partner? – he asked knowingly.

- James Barnes. He sent me a postcard with this address.

- So you received it after all – he stepped out to the street seeing I have no intention to go in with him. Yet.

- I did. – I nodded sternly. Every time I thought about it I felt the sour taste of anger gathering in my mouth. He didn't even say goodbye properly. He sent a postcard knowing I will only receive it when all is done, helpless about it.

- You are not pleased with his decision, I take – he said in an understanding tone. – It's not easy, I know.

- How would you? – I snapped tiredly. I am not sure if it was his patronizing tone or the sting of him being with him in the end and not me that made me lash out. – You had the chance to say goodbye to him. I gave him a peck on the cheek thinking I would see him again in an hour and now he's gone!

- Come inside – he said calmly. He wasn't stupid to get into a fight with me when I was clearly too hurt to be reasoned with.

- Will you tell me what really happened? – I stepped forward.

- Yes – he nodded and opened the door for me.

We sat in a small, but cozy kitchen, opening the third round of beers as I was listening to his story of my soldier killing Tony Stark's parents and Zemo showing actual footage of the case to them which ended in Tony fighting the both of them. They escaped and rescued the team.

"He said he needs peace. He needs to be locked away, frozen back into a dreamless sleep until they can reprogram him or more like deprogram him. And as I see it that won't be anytime soon since Tony still didn't call me, Banner is missing and I don't know anyone more qualified than them I would trust with his treatment" he sighed ending the story.

- Where is he now? - I asked.

- Somewhere safe - he looked at me knowingly. James must have told him not to tell me so I won't be looking for him. - In peace.

- You were with him...? - I asked, my voice cracking from the tears I tried to hold back. To think he went back into that… state voluntarily, being alone, lonely, frozen through time.

- Till the end of the line - he said gently taking and squeezing my hand. As I looked up on his face I saw his eyes were wet too. He got his bottle with the other hand retracting the one he held mine with and took a long gulp of the ale. I did the same.

- So… How did you two meet? – he asked abruptly, forcing a smile on his handsome face. - He had no time to tell me more about you. He just said you were a real doll, saved his life.

- Well, he never told me he thought I was a doll – I chuckled to myself, though he often used words like this. Words from another century, another life. My smile faded away as I launched into our history. – We met a few years ago. I was barely out of college, I studied psychology and bioengineering in which I was considered quite good at and my father was a powerful HYDRA member – Steve raised an eyebrow. - , so I was high enough in their ranks to get my share of information about upcoming projects. I remember the very first time I heard about Project Insight. I was torn between excitement over thinking that protecting the world from extraterrestrial threats was a possibility now, but also horrified of the aspect of using the same technology to destroy innocent thousands. At the time things that not yet happened seemed unstoppable because all the small details were already set in motion and that terrified me the most.

- You knew about it before? – he asked in shock. I nodded but continued on.

- My father wanted me to take over his place one day in HYDRA, but for that, he needed me to prove worthy among the other members. He told me a mentally modified and unstable soldier would be involved in the execution of The Plan and he needs me to fix him up a bit after his years in a cryostasis chamber, meaning monitor his state and make adjustments deemed fit according to today's technology.

So I got a lab, I got a frozen killing machine and a team to work with. It was more than 2 years before the plan was actually set into motion, so I got plenty of time to estimate the efficiency of the Winter Soldier, who I was ordered to simply call Soldier. Also to speak only in Russian to him. My Russian was terrible at the time, but we conducted the first set of tests without any problem. First tests meaning medical checkups, shooting tests, fitness, hand-to-hand combat, reflexes, it was a normal entry examination we would have done with any other soldier joining Special Forces.

My team also worked on fixing up his arm and updating the tech they used to reset his mind, but secretly I was working on sabotaging that very machine. I wanted to plant memories into his mind that survived any kind of wiping method. At the time, I thought about making him sabotage the whole mission by gathering intel about the big dogs up there and eliminating them.

- And why didn't you?

- Because I didn't think I would fall for the Soldier in the meantime – I smiled to myself stopping for a second to take a swig of my beer.

- Have you ever stood outside a beast's cage, a lion's for say and just wished you could touch them? That's how I felt about him at the beginning. Intrigued by his being, excited to explore his mind, how he worked, what he was. I knew he could snap anytime and break my neck in a second if he wants to, but it made it all the more exhilarating. I was a stupid little girl, whose daddy bought a tiger for her as a pet; I wanted to know if it will bite my hand off or purr if I caressed its stripes. – It was difficult to pour the story into words for Steve and only in doing so I realized that I was actually telling it for the very first time to anyone.

- What did you do?

- Do you really want to hear it? You will think I'm a terrible person – I warned him.

- My best friend killed thousands under HYDRA's control, did you make him do it? - he asked with a serious face.

- No. But I was supposed to help them do it.

- Just continue - he said encouragingly.

- Alright - I complied gathering my thoughts - I had private time scheduled with the Soldier when I was supposed to tend to his mental health and stability after each memory wipe, you see, so I decided to start at the very beginning.– Steve listened to me closely and my cheeks burned up from the confession I was about to make. – I ordered him to undress to briefs and I did the same, then I asked him to touch me – the captain leaned back on his seat crossing his arms, furrowing his brows. – I don't mean there! – I corrected myself immediately. – We just sat there and I traced my fingers around his many scars, his face, I combed them through his hair, it was all very innocent. I just wanted him to relax, to get comfortable with me and with a mentally unstable person I had no other way to achieve that. In the meanwhile, I guided his hand to touch me too, my scars, my neck, my skin, my hair. He wasn't used to be touched so gently, he was used to be hit and punched and kicked around all the time so his brain shut it all out and when he was caressed and handled so tenderly he started to come to his senses again.

It was all heartbreaking, watching him gain back some of his lost humanity but I knew I had to be willing to go deep and go all the way into this kind of therapy to make it work. So every day I would teach him where my heart was beating, where I had a mark of a childhood accident, run my fingers along the seam of his skin and bionic arm, then I gradually stopped giving orders on our sessions, started talking in English to him, tell him stories about myself, asking him sometimes, but he rarely remembered anything at all about his own person. He would come straight from the memory suppressing machine to sit across me in silence for minutes, then stand up and cross the room to toss his shirt on the floor and put my hand on his shoulder, asking me to start the session. Other times I asked if he knew where my old scar was and he would remember and show me. Later he came directly to me and wrapped himself in my arms, slipping his hand under my blouse just to touch my bare skin. I became his comfort in the terrible things they've been doing to him.

Strangely enough, he only acted like this when I was around, his eyes actively following me in a crowded medical room, from his cell as I walked by it; but he was still oblivious otherwise, just like before. He seemed to be stabilized in this state.

It went too far by the time I realized I was running out of time to execute anyone let alone let my Soldier face any kind of danger to do so. I thought it would be enough if I rid the plan of its executioner and run away with him.

- You failed – Steve stated the obvious, getting one more beer open after I declined.

- I did. 6 months before Project Insight launched a committee was sent to observe our work. They would ask who was working the most around him and my supervisor said my name. One of the men ordered him to start the memory suppressing. When the Soldier came to again, the man pointed at me and ordered him to kill me.

He grabbed me by the neck with his metal hand, I can still feel its icy touch around it, and squeezed hard. I could only open my mouth and call out to him "Soldier!" and he let me go. I fell to the floor and he stepped over to the committee taking the man giving the order and snapped his spine in one swift motion. – The blond man's mouth was hanging open in shock. - I can still hear the loud crack, the thud of the body on the floor, the others shouting around, barking orders, seeing them strap him back into the machine and wiping him over and over again. I couldn't stop them, they threw me into a cell too and for the next 3 months to come they only dragged me out for tests time after time. And by tests I mean the times they stood me next to one of my teammates in front of him and give out the order to kill either of us. I am still alive. They couldn't make him hurt me, but he wasn't there anymore, he wouldn't look at me anymore, he didn't decide intentionally to kill the other person, it was his subconscious remembering me. I sobbed every single time, begging him to resist them.

Then one night when I heard his steps outside as he was taken back to his cell, I called out to him again, in Russian, in English, I begged for him to remember me. I am not sure which one triggered his brain, but I heard struggle and then he was breaking the door, grabbing my hand and dragging me through the corridors, out to a snow dusted forest, running under the trees barefooted, not knowing where we were running, we just needed to get far. We both heard them coming after us, both knew who they were really coming for and who they will shoot on the spot. He suddenly stopped, folding me into his arms for a quick second, nuzzling his nose into my dirty hair, then pushed me away and told me to run and I did. He stayed behind to save me – My tears started to fall. – In a few hours I reached a small town, broke into a store, took some clothes, hair dye, money and took a room in the motel. The next morning I hopped on a bus, then a plane and didn't stop until Stockholm – I wrapped it up, smearing my tears away on my face.

- Project Insight commenced as planned in 2014 – I looked up on the face of the captain, but couldn't guess how he was feeling about me anymore. - , but it seems my actions had weakened the effect of the suppressing machine enough for you to trigger his brain into remembering some of his previous life. Several months after I saw on the news what happened at Triskelion, a man showed up at my house. I noticed he followed me to work, to the grocery shop, to the gym, he even stood on the pavement in front of my house at night. I thought he was a HYDRA agent sent to capture me or worse, to kill me. Then he just disappeared.

A few days later I got home after a long day and the man was waiting for me in the dark in my kitchen; I tried to escape, to fight him, but he was stronger than me, he pushed me to the floor easily, straddling me to keep me from moving. I thought I was going to die there, then he said my name: Dr. Denham, and removed his hood for me to see his face. It was the Soldier. It was James – I corrected quickly. – It took me some time to process that he is alive and he came to see me, that he remembered me at all, but he started to ramble about how he met you on a bridge, how he saved you from drowning, what he remembered about Zola and his hand. He went on about visiting the Museum to discover his real name was James Buchanan Barnes and that he was your best friend. As my surprise faded and I gained back my composure, he spiraled into panic, something he must have done many times before he came to see me. I had to sedate him just so he would let me hold him and he clung to me like I was the last thing keeping him sane. And I have to say I was. – I sighed remembering those months. - I was his therapist and his therapy in one person. He hurt me too a bunch of times when he got too deep into guilt, he had nightmares that he woke from while suffocating me, other days he tried to take his own life to end it all, but we got through it. We both went mad at times, it was taking its toll on me too to try to keep him in control. We had to move from Stockholm when he killed three guys on the open street just because they looked "hostile" to him.

We lived a year in Budapest after that. He started to calm down then, the guilt had eaten him up and spat him out to his anxiety to take over. He was terrified of being used again, of hurting me or anyone at all. This was the time we started to really fall in love, comfort each other, trying to do what normal people do: we went on big walks in the city, we dined in restaurants, went to the movies. He had flashbacks of not so significant things like a date with a girl called Penny ending with a kiss, a dance with Pauline, a movie he saw with you when you were young, the war, you being Captain America, having drinks after a mission. I really thought he was getting better, that we can fight his past and build a future together.

We moved to Bucharest just weeks before the explosion in Vienna. He said he knew of a safe house there and since we were running out of money it seemed like a good idea to rob a bank and skip town from Hungary to Romania and start fresh. He was finally stable, he even told me how he felt about me, that he loved me – I wiped my eyes without use. – That he wanted to make me an honest woman – I chuckled swallowing tears. – He… he just wanted to live – I choked out sobbing. Steve moved closer and pulled me into his arms and I let go of all breaks and just cried my heart out.

Honestly, I had never felt more helpless than I did in that moment in America's greatest hero's arms, crying over my lost love. Everything I planned for the future had crumbled around me leaving me on a track that led nowhere, into nothing. I could only think of getting him back, finding a way to fix him. I had resources, I had connections, hell, I was a scientist myself, I wanted to believe I was up for the challenge, but I wanted him by my side, I needed him to be there.

- He still loves you and he is alive, that's what is important right now – Steve said gently stroking my back. – We are going to get him back.

- How? – I pulled back from him, wiping my tears away.

- I am not sure just yet, but I know that we can do it. I mean you and us, together – he offered.

- I am not sure I want to stay – I said looking at him hesitantly.

- It's okay, I won't push you if you don't want to – he nodded standing up and cleaning up the empty beer bottles. – But you are more than welcome to stay as long as you feel comfortable leaving.

- I will think about it – I promised standing up. – I am just not sure I want to get back into this life after so much time spent in hiding and trying to forget what it was like.

- And you don't have to – he smiled. – Take as much time you need, we can always spare a room for you – he motioned for me to follow him down the corridor, leading me to a small room. It was really no big thing, just a bed with the sheets and bedding folded into a neat little stack on it, a dresser and a desk by the small window.

- It isn't much, I know… - he started, but I cut him off.

- It's perfect – I tossed my duffle bag at the end of the bed, smiling at him gratefully. – No distractions, just what I need. Thank you, Captain Rogers.

- Call me Steve, you are practically family – he warned with a grin.

- I wouldn't go that far – I laughed, though I wished it would be true.

- Good night…

- Kate – I helped him out.

- Kate - he repeated it with a shy smile.

- Good night, Steve.

He closed the door behind him and I made the bed, changed into a clean t-shirt and lay down. I was thinking about whether I should stay here with them or go on my own trying to find the solution for James's situation. I missed him terribly but dozed off thinking he was at least safe and sound somewhere far from HYDRA. Not scared and not running from his past anymore, so maybe neither should I.