December 16th, 1991.

There was no fear in the darkness. No pain. No feelings. No thoughts.

Just a never ending darkness that stretched throughout his consciousness until it numbed ever single nerve in his body. Nothing could touch him there. Nothing could harm him and, while he couldn't remember why, that thought always filled him with relief when they left him in his glass coffin.

He was safe in the darkness. Safe from what exactly, he could never remember.

The cylinder structure they contained him in, when they had no further use for him, was his only true escape. The coldness allowed him to drift alone in the void in peace. But there was always a prickle of awareness, right as the glass tube lowered, that he shouldn't like this. People weren't meant to live in moments of consciousness and then lapses of complete darkness. They were supposed to actively avoid nothingness, not chase after it like a beaten dog.

So why was this emptiness better than living? The question always nagged at him until the cold stole his consciousness away from the living. What was so bad about being awake that he would seek out the nothingness the machine provided?

He could never recall what it was he needed to remember. It terrified him. It was always the last thing on his mind as the locks on the machine clicked into place.

He couldn't remember.

Anything.

It was as if his memory was a giant mirror that had been smashed into pieces. There were flickers of images in his mind, but they didn't make sense. They were too small and fleeting to hold onto. If he tried to put the memories together, tried to make a picture with the tiny pieces, it seemed like none of them fit together. He couldn't make sense out of them.

There was a short, sick man, but then he was tall and healthy. There was a small, brunette girl with a toothy grin, but then there was a tank and an explosion. There was a gun in his hand, but when he looked down at it, there was only a newspaper. A dark haired man had stood next to a floating car, but then he was giving him a blue jacket. A series of numbers, so clear in his mind that his lips moved to speak them before they fizzled away and were replaced by a giant tree, with letters carved into its thick bark.

It was a kaleidoscope of moving pictures, none of them in any order that made sense. But it didn't stop him from trying to sort the pieces, though it had proven to be impossible over the years. Even basic things, like his name, were lost in the fractured parts of his brain. He knew he had lost too much, so he clung to the things he did know. The three things he knew with absolute certainty.

One, he hadn't always been here.

At one time he had thought he had always been locked away in his glass cell. He couldn't remember much of anything, so how could there have been more? But as time passed, that thought had been proven wrong. Time itself was moving much faster than he could understand. Technology was shifting and his handlers had to get him up to speed with each new mission.

There had been one mission that had awakened him from the lies of his existence. He had been given the name of a mission and sent into a city. A city where buildings reached toward the sky by the hundreds and the people were constantly in motion. He had completed his task, had killed his mission, when something caught his eye. Whatever it was had been lost with time, but he remembered the feelings that had been awakened within him that day.

The day he had fled from his handlers.

Sadness. Guilt. Hope. Homesick.

It was a toxic cocktail of emotions that had left him scrambling. He had tossed anything that could be used to find him and had raced further into the city. He spent days wandering before he ended up in a rundown warehouse; hoping something would trigger the memories that were scratching at the back of his head, just out of reach. But they hadn't come. So he had slept in the abandoned warehouse, listening to the ramblings of a blind, crazy, old man whose voice soothed him.

He had gone with his handlers without protest when they had finally come for him. His brain had been too scrambled to fight back. He didn't know where he was or who he was, but he knew there was something more. After that day, even as the machine they used to wipe him worked its magic, a part of him always knew. It was his secret, the only tangible thing that was his in this place.

He hadn't always been here.

The second thing he knew was that he was really good at completing missions. He was well trained, even beyond what they asked of him at times. But he couldn't remember the last time he was trained by anyone. They always had him training others. He could remember blurry faces of kids, teenagers, and burly men that he was responsible to train.

So who had trained him and why? Because if he hadn't always been here, then he had been somewhere else.

He had been trained somewhere and by people who had needed him to be among the best. His handlers wouldn't want him here, wouldn't allow him to train others, and wouldn't fix his arm when it malfunctioned, if he wasn't worth it. He even attacked them sometimes. In hazy moments where nothing was right and everything felt too close to the surface, he'd lash out at his handlers, sometimes killing them.

If he wasn't worth the effort, they wouldn't keep him around after those instances. They would keep him locked in the darkness or they would kill him. He could be a threat and threats needed to be dealt with. He was called to deal with threats they couldn't, yet he was a threat they couldn't handle. The moment he decided he wanted to leave, the moment he had someplace to go, he could and they could do nothing to stop him.

But he had nowhere to go. That was the last thing he knew. There was nothing for him in the world that changed too quickly. He had no one. He had been alone ever since he could remember. Even if there had been people waiting for him at one time, they would have moved on as the time swiftly changed.

The images in his mind, of the people - the little girl with the toothy smile, a tall man with wrinkles around his eyes, a beautiful woman who smiled down at him kindly, the small but then big man - they had to have been real once. He hoped they had been real, but he couldn't be sure. He had seen families on his missions, had killed families and lovers alike. He couldn't be sure that he hadn't imagined them to make up for the guilt he sometimes felt after a mission.

Like the guilt he was feeling tonight.

There were fresh memories mixing in with the older. New memories not as shattered as the others. They wouldn't be broken a part until they placed him in the other machine once more. Until then, he found himself concentrating on them, trying to understand why these memories seemed to matter. Why this mission mattered.

There had been a car on a darkened road. The car contained his mission.

There were medical bags filled with blue liquid. The package he was required to bring back.

There had been an older man, slender with white hair, bleeding from his nose. A man who had become his problem.

But there had been recognition in the man's dark eyes as he stared up at his death. He had seen that look on so many faces; realization, fear, regret. It was the look his missions got when they realized death had finally come for them. But this man had spoken to him. Not to plead or beg, as so many of the others had before him. This man had asked him a question. No, he had said a name.

The look of acknowledgment in his eyes wasn't about facing death. He thought he knew him. He had been calling him a name. What had he called him? Why couldn't he remember the name? And, more importantly, why was guilt and remorse boiling in his stomach?

He had successfully completed his mission. The package had been retrieved and the scene cleaned up to look like an accident. So why was his mind screaming at him to remember? There was nothing to remember! The other machine always made sure the pieces got scattered before he could see the whole picture. What was the point in trying to put a moving puzzle back together when it would be forced to shift once more?

His arm was whirling in irritation as he couldn't let it go. What had the man called him? It hadn't meant anything at the time. There had been no reaction within him as the bloodied man's lips had moved and spoken that name. But now his mind was racing with possibilities. Had the man mistaken him for someone else? The breathless sound of disbelief on the man's tongue, as if he was staring at a ghost, had to mean something. Had he lost someone who looked like him?

But then his mind flashed to a more torturous thought.

Did the man actually know him? Was he the one who had been lost? He felt lost at times, like everything was spinning on the wrong axis. His actions seemed correct but the meaning behind them was wrong; corrupted. He hadn't always been here, so he had to have been somebody else once, right? He hadn't always been just the asset.

The Winter Soldier.

Death.

Could he have known the older man in his life before this place? It had to be possible. But then his breathing came in swallow gasps. If he had known the man then he had just killed a memory; permanently. Fear laced through him and he tried desperately to remember. The man was older than him so a parent? Grandparent? Uncle?

No, that couldn't be right, because the man hadn't called him a first name. Families called each other by their first names or nicknames and there had been a title in his words, too. Not just a name. Could the man have been the one that turned him into a weapon? Maybe the man had put a gun in his hand and taught him to shoot to kill. Was that why he had the blue liquid? Was he off to make more weapons like him? Bring more death to the world?

The hissing sound of his glass cage alerted him that time was slipping away. Darkness was fast approaching and he was no closer to the answers he sought than he was from stopping the cold that was seeping into his bones. He shut his eyes and willed the image of the man to stay with him. He tried to hear the words that he knew were somehow important. The temperature in his glass prison began to drop quickly and his body jerked in protest as he replayed the scene in his mind.

The man had been coughing up blood, scrambling to sit up after the wreck. He was muttering about his wife, wanting him to go to her first.

Worried. The man was worried about his wife. He wanted him to check on her, without knowing that he would. And then he would kill her, because she was his new problem. He hadn't been told about her when he had been briefed on the mission, but he would handle his new problem after he solved his first.

He had walked toward the man and grabbed him. Dark eyes widened in recognition as they scanned his face. Those eyes had then locked onto his and the breathless words, the name, had echoed into the night. What had he said?

Sergeant.

His eyes shot open. The title, Sergeant, that's what he had said. Hope burst through him, warming him, but it wasn't enough to fight against the cold. Had he been a Sergeant? The English word felt familiar. It sat heavy on his tongue.

His lips parted to speak the word in the privacy of his cell, but it was too cold. His teeth only chattered, unable to form the word in the biting cold. He was running out of time. Still he fought against the coldness, tried desperately to keep the darkness at bay just a little longer. If he could just remember the name he was sure that some of the broken pieces could fit.

But the coldness was seeping into his very soul. And why was he struggling so much? Even if he did remember, they would just take it from him the next time they came for him. The other machine never left anything in tact within his mind for too long. But they hadn't wiped him when he returned and that was new. Maybe they wanted him to remember. Maybe he hadn't kept his secrets as hidden as he thought, or maybe they liked to watch him struggle in vain.

Sergeant.

Sergeant.

Had he been a Sergeant? Or did he look like someone who once was? Sergeant meant military, right? Had he been in the military? Was that who trained him and, if so, who's military?

Maybe he was reading too much into this. What if there had just been a passing resemblance to someone the man had known? His body locked down as the cold wrapped around him; trapping him like a coiled snake. Sergeant. He needed to remember that word. If he repeated it, made it his mantra, maybe he'd remember it when he woke.

He felt a buzzing in his head and knew he was close to losing consciousness. His mind was trying to help connect the dots, but his eyes fluttered shut. The hairs of his eyelashes fused together almost instantly in the cold. Sergeant. Maybe he was mistaking an old man's confusion for more, because he needed to think there could be more than this cage he was trapped in. That there could be more than just the endless void in between his missions.

Sergeant Bar-

And then it all went black.

May 11th, 1997.

The metal door screeched as it opened. Two men stood outside the door in their gray uniforms, staring at the little girl from the entrance.

"Let's go 638," one of the men barked.

But she didn't move. She hadn't moved since they had dumped her on her hard cot the night before. The door of her cell had slammed shut casting her into the darkness of her barren room. She hadn't even flinched at the sound. Her entire body felt too weak to even roll over.

Yesterday she had been taken into the death room. It had been the name she had mentally given the room when she had watched 798, or Julia as she preferred to be called, gunned down inside of it. The blonde haired woman had been the closest thing she had ever had to a friend or parental figure. Julia had looked after her, taught her things; like the names of food and colors.

Neverland wasn't known for having a lot of color, or anything else other than death and brutality.

But for the short year she had with Julia, the woman had made the dull metal walls and floors come alive with talk of an outside world filled with color. An outside world where there was a giant ball in the sky called the sun that could warm you. A world where you could run around in something called grass that was the same green as 497's eyes. Under a blue sky the same color as her own eyes, Julia had once told her.

An outside world that Julia had decided was worth dying over for a chance to experience it again. The same fatal mistake so many others had made before and after. But 638 knew of no other world beside Neverland. The outside was just a story, a land of impossibilities that she could never hope to see. There was a freedom in not knowing, in not having experienced the outside world. The others panicked and fought, risked their lives for chance to see their world once more.

But Neverland was 638's world. The only place she had ever known, so she did not long for the world of dreams and hopes. She would listen to tells of others, watched their eyes lose focus as they spoke softly, glistening with the tears of all they had lost. But 638 had never lost anything by being here. Not until she lost Julia.

The cold, metal collars that were attached around all of the prisoners in Neverland, had kept Julia powerless the day she decided to run. Once attached, they could not be removed, no matter how many times some tried. They were all prisoners to be used in whatever new ways the scientists and guards dreamed up. They were left half starving, pumped full of new drugs, all in the name of a cure. The lack of food and experiments may take away their strength, but it was the collars that took away the real threat they could pose.

The scientists called them mutants, but they were nothing more than abominations according to the guards. The collars left their curses dormant as they wandered through the hopeless, twisting halls of the compound; moved from one tortuous device to the next. In between, they were subjected to the guards' sick games. Many of them involved turning mutant against mutant for just an extra bite of food or a cup of water. Those that tried to protest were subjected to horrific beatings as their collars beeped, suppressing the very powers that tried to come to their defense.

638 always wondered if her collar was broken. Since they had forced her power to manifest, a series of tortuous endurance tests that were designed to cause her body's stress response to mutate her cells, she had been collared. The director of the compound, a nightmarish man of cruelty and hatred, called Dr. Colcord, had declared her useless. There was little need for someone who could sense others' emotions and she had been quickly thrown into cell block 10.

The block reserved for unwanted mutants, who were being used to find the cure to stop the eradication of the human race. Others with more useful powers were being trained to hunt down other mutants and protect the compound. If they refused, they were shackled and collared, before being lead in front of a firing squad. On execution days, cell block 10 was lined up and forced to watch. Screams of horror and disbelief would echo around the room from the new faces. The rest just watched silently; understanding that they too would face death soon enough.

But even with her collar, 638 could still feel the emotions around her. The despair and depression traveled down the halls. The rage and contempt lurked in the darkened corners. The sorrow and grief poured out of the vents into her room. The desire for death was in the very air that filled her lungs with each breath. The emotions circled around her, coating her in a cold that was far worse than the freezing air they pumped into her tiny cell just for fun.

It was because of this defect that she knew Julia was going to do something on that fateful day. The overwhelming burn of confidence that typically laced the guards was pulsing off her as she had been brought into the cafeteria. 638 had tried to stop her, had begged her to just sit with her, stay with her. But something within Julia had snapped. Whatever medication they had given Julia that day had caused mental damage. 638 could feel it.

When Julia had taken off, she had followed behind her. Afraid of being alone again. Afraid of losing the only person she had. Afraid for what they would do to Julia.

She could feel the guards heading their way before they reached them. They opened fire the moment they turned the corner. 638 had flung herself into an archway and watched as the bullets pierced straight through Julia's pale skin. Blood spatter coated the walls and the floor as the shots rang out. Julia's blonde hair was left to soak in the darkened pools, dying it an eerie crimson. Her dark eyes, completely lifeless, stared into 638's. Wet, sticky blood, from the woman who had taught her everything she knew, had coated her face and hands.

The feel of it had made her scream.

It had been one thing to watch the only light she had extinguished at the hands of the guards. It had been devastating to feel the life force leaving Julia completely. It had felt like her soul was being ripped from her body and 638 experienced every flick of it with her. Pain and horror. Realization and sorrow. Regret and longing, until there was just nothing.

Nothing but a faded memory of a beautiful, blonde haired woman, who had taught her about a fantasy world outside of Neverland. Nothing but the tattered, grey gown she was still forced to wear, stained with the crimson color of Julia's dried blood. Just another daily reminder that the only escape from Neverland would be her death.

That day had forever scarred her. No sound had left her lips since she had been forced to stop screaming over Julia's dead body. The guards had made sure she had been silenced. She was beaten then dropped into the ice machine, where she spent hours in the freezing dark. Now she was just a shell. A ghost of a figure who was paraded up and down the halls for whatever experiment they had dreamed up next. Her eyes were open but never really seeing. She breathed, but she was no longer alive.

"Just get her, we don't have time for this," the other man huffed. Agitation rolled over her, but she couldn't move. "I am hungry."

The first man entered her cell, taking three steps before reaching her cot. His shadow leered over her and she let him grab her without protest. With ease he was able to lift her by her arm, dragging her off the bed and toward the entrance where the other man latched a hand on her other arm. Together they painfully dragged her down the twisting metal hallways until arriving at a new door.

A room without a name. A room she had never been in before.

Without a word they forced the door open and moved her toward a gurney. Men and women in lab coats buzzed around the room, paying little attention to the commotion of their arrival. Excitement vibrated in the room and her empty stomach clenched in fear. These emotions only ever meant pain. Quickly, they placed her onto the gurney and strapped her down much tighter than needed. There was nowhere for her to run, even if she wanted to escape.

"Ah, 638. Excellent. Now could you please get 889 for us?" An aging, dark skinned man asked with a quick glance toward the guards.

They huffed in annoyance but left to complete their task with a word. 638 stared up at the shiny ceiling, trying desperately to block out the humming of pleasure coming from the adults in the room. A woman came over to her, sticking various electrodes to her without care for her comfort. A finger brushed against her skin and she shivered as the woman's emotions intensely pooled within her. The sadistic pleasure that bubbled under her skin caused her throat to constrict and she let out a tiny gasp of air.

When she was finished, the woman moved away and the emotions dulled, leaving her to breathe once more.

A few minutes went by before 889's emotions tickled in the back of her mind. Her screaming protest echoed down the hall a few seconds later. 638 turned her head and watched as the bald headed girl, who wasn't even 10 years older than her, scratched and clawed at the guards as they forced her into the room. Her emotions sunk deeper into 638, filling her with a spark of defiance and a volcano of outrage.

638 felt a ghost of a smile wash over her as she took in the scene. 889 was made of fire; literally. Her mutation had given her control over fire, but had been deemed unworthy to train due to her attitude. Yet, the flames that burned through her veins were nothing compared to the inferno that lit her very soul. 889 would set the whole world aflame if given the chance. But the collar that wrapped tightly around her neck doused her blaze, rendering her just as useless as the rest of them.

She had been spared death thanks to the uniqueness of her gift and their desire to cure it. 889, however, would never go quietly. She tried to bite the guards as they forced her onto the gurney. She kicked and shook violently, trying to injury anyone within reach. There would be no quiet defeat from 889. Not like 638 who submitted willingly.

She wished she could be more like 889. Wished that she would scream and rebel with her last breath, but the image of Julia's dead body took the fight from her. There was no point in fighting back. There was no escape. Death would be the only chance they had to leave this place. 638 had learned that lesson. 889 seemed determined to learn it at the expense of her life.

They made quick work of 889, even as she yelled and spit at them. Within minutes, through all the yelling and biting, she was strapped in. Just as helpless as 638, but with a busted lip for her effort. There was no use in fighting the inevitable, in giving them more reason to hurt you. They would gladly take it and enjoy each second. Machines were hooked to each of them, the sounds beeping echoed around the room. Each girl was given a mouth guard and then the room began to empty out until just the sounds of their breathing and the beeping of the machines could be heard.

638 frowned. This was new. They had never been left in a room alone before. Suddenly a whirling noise caught her attention and she turned her head to see a giant machine coming to life. It shook as the whirling sound turned to a full roar. It grew until it blocked out all other sounds. A blinding white light appeared in its center, building in its intensity. The room itself seemed to brighten until 638 shut her eyes against the concentration of the light.

She could feel 889's rage turn to fear beside her. Her own heart rate had sky rocketed. The coldness, that was her existence, disappeared as the room turned warm.

Then hot.

Then boiling.

She bit down hard on the mouth guard as her skin bubbled under the harsh light of the machine. Her body began to thrash under the pressure and she cried out around the mouth guard. Next to her 889 gave a blood curling scream.

The light continued to strengthen, until she could no longer think under the pain. Nothing existed outside of the pain and the burning of her very soul. Her screams were hoarse from her extended silence. The searing heat tore through her skin while she convulsed on the table. Her heart pounded with the effort to keep her alive and felt as if it could burst out of her chest. She couldn't even feel 889 next to her anymore. There was nothing left but the scorching light that turned her entire body to ash from the inside.

The pain and burning increased until it hit its peak and her eyes flew wide open.

With a gut piercing scream, it threw her over the edge and into complete darkness.

Author Note: I posted a thing after years of not posting anything! So a few things to know about this story. 1. Civil War never happened. 2. I will be drawing on the comics, as well as the movies, to create my own spin and tale. 3. I own nothing but my dog and I will fight anyone over her, so don't try me Marvel! 5. This entire story is dedicated to my twinsie, Tanja. Without whom this story would not have been made possible. 6. All spelling and grammar mistakes are the result of a lack of coffee. Please have mercy. 7. Feedback is always welcomed and I hope you enjoy!