My name is James Barnes sergeant of the one-o'seventh...
Pain. Electrecuted again. You've been here for hardly a day and its already left its mark on you. But you will not give up.
My name is James Barn-aah!
This is what happens to you over and over agin, for hours on end. Your head hurts, your hands and legs are numb. Good thing Steve didn't get into the army.
My name is James Barnes, sergeant of the one-o'seventh-ghmmm...
No, they've finally cut the electricity. Now its drugs. This is when your head really starts to swing. Someone's reading something to you, you can hear that by the tone, but you don't understand, either because its German or because you can hardly think to yourself.
Finaly, you pass out. The darkness, though cold and silent, is as comfortable as a bed in a top-class hotel. But the bliss doesn't last.
Your woken by cold water thrown at your face. It hurts like hell to open your eyes, to orientate, to listen, but you do.
-Sprechen,- a cold voice commands. Still under the influence of the drug you obey.
-Mein name ist James Barnes, sergeant dei ei null seiben bataillon von der US army.
-Welches Jahr haben wir?
-Ein neun vier drei.
You don'r have a clue where you learnt to speak German, but it comes naturally.
-Gut,weiter,- the same voice says to whoever is beside you. The next thing you know, it starts all over again. Except now you know its not information they want, you're just a gerbil for an experiment. You can only hope they won't turn you into a spy. Once again, you are druged and when you float back to reality someone's asking you questions. Russian, French, Italian, Czech even Latin. By the end of the day you know three languages perfectly and four - enough to hold a conversation. The cold-voiced man comes again to inspect you and knocks you out with a bolt of electricity. Thank God Steve wasn't here.
Except he is. In a few days time he comes to rescue you. You're delighted, not only that he's...changed, but because he saved you from being their puppett. Except now you know several languages and have more stamina, you're stronger, faster, better, even quicker intelectually. And now you can't sleep well at night.
You're falling. A scream stuck in your throat, the train flying past you, the wind howling in your ears. There's a splash. You don't immediatly realise that it originated from you. The water is deep and that's what saves you. Impossibly cold and with a dissabled arm you climb out, lungs raw from the water you breathed in. He'll find you, you hope. But somewhere deep down you realise, this is it! You're dead! Either of the cold or of the lack of food, but most likely the cold. Or your arm, infection of the blood. Speacking of wich, your arm hurts like hell! For a moment all you see is white, then grey, then black.
You wake up on an operation table. At least that's what it feels like, the cold metal diging into your back. Turning your head you catch sight of gleaming metal wich now replaces your arm. You're still completely dissorientated. You apparantly converse with the Russian who comes up to your 'bed', an elderly man, who wears a medical robe over his military uniform.
The next thing you remember clearly is sparing room or a gym with a bunch of fourteen yearold girls standing in line at the far wall. They're all thin and dull except for one redhead, who stands in the middle and looks up at you. Something breaks inside you from that blue gaze. At the end of the lesson she's the best of them and it's her you train from now on.
Your sent on missions when she's about eighteen. You hardly remember any of them except for the red: blood, the star on your arm, her hair.
When she's twenty you're let out of the 'facility'. You get your own flat, just a couple of blocks away from her's, you get a few days off when you roam the city of Moscow. Amazingly you get to love it. The old streets, the river, the parks, the underground. Though you don't remember the states, you know that this isn't the best life, but something in it feels...bonded to you. By this time you know you're in love with that redhead but she's already married. And she seems happy. You're a good freind to her and her husband, you comeover for New Year's Eve, 23rd of February, 8th of March, 9th of May. Hell, you even wear the Georgian ribbon in the last spring month.
Soon enough you're sent to St. Petersburg. And that's when you fall in love with Russian cities. A complete opposite of Moscow, a grand city, built to stand centuries. The same year you visit the countryside duing the summer with Natasha. Her reaction bewilders you but only slightly when she runs through a feild, getting rid of her clothes, before jumping into the nearby river, but you soon follow her.
That autumn she turns up on your doorstep, drenched from the rain, half dead from shock. She falls into your arms and it's the first time you see her cry. She was strong, but she was still a woman and now a widow. That year she spends mourning, but only silently, when alone, when even you're not watching.
They put you in ice again and when you wake up you get a mission with her. That's when you start your affair with her. Only it doesn't last long. They make you forget her, yourself, letting you fall in love with Mother Russia again. Not with the goverment, with the people, with the landscape, with the cities, with Natasha.
Next time you wake up you remember everything. James Brnes, the Winter Soldier, Steve, Natasha, all of it. You don't come to terms with it immideatly but once more you get a chance. A chance to live, to feel and love.
You still celebrate 9th of May with Natasha. But only with her and an old soviet war-film. You love those evenings. All in all you still haven't figured who to blame for the mess you had to live through: Hydra or the Soviets. But there's one thing Steve, or anybody else for that matter, will probably not understand. The fact that he, hating the communist leaders, considers himself, like Natasha, a True Russian and, like Steve, a True American.