Bucky! Grab my hand!
NO!
Alpha wakes with a jolt. A memory, he thinks. He mustn't tell the Komandir. That, he reckons with himself, will only lead to The Chair. Alpha instinctively shivers at the memory of The Chair. No. He must hold onto the memory. It must have been important once. It must have been from Before.
There is no face associated with the memory. Only a shapeless body, clothed in deep blue. Alpha strains to remember more, but it is useless. Frustrated, he hangs his head in his hands.
"Soldat!" barks the Komandir. "Up!"
Alpha stands straight as an arrow, when he is bombarded with another thought from Before.
Hiya, Buck.
It is the same voice, from the previous memory. The same shapeless body. This shapeless body must be important.
Bucky, his memory tells him.
He needs to remember more. It is vital, he thinks, to find this Bucky. Bucky, his mind supplies. BuckyBuckyBuckyBucky
"Bucky," he whispers.
He immediately regrets it. The Komandir narrows his eyes in loathing. Alpha curses himself. This was important. A precious memory from Before, one that he couldn't afford to lose.
"Wipe him," snarls the Komandir.
Suddenly, hands are on him, forcing him into The Chair.
"BUCKY!" he screams urgently. "BUCKY! BUCKY!"
Hands clamp his mouth shut. He is resigned to his fate. Ultimately, he is disappointed. He wanted to remember more of this Bucky, who must have been important once.
As the restraints are positioned on his arms and legs, his mind supplies him with an image:
Steel blue eyes.
"Activate the chair," an aide says from somewhere offhand.
Alpha screams.
...
"Jesus Christ," Clint mutters. "It's like...like Hydra threw a party and instead of cleaning everything up, they just decided to trash the place."
"Hmm," Natasha hums noncommittally. She traipses across the debris of what appears to be a chair of some sort, with electrical wires strewn around it, as if it were being choked.
"Found some bodies, guys. Hydra goons, it looks like." crackles a voice over the comm.
"Where are you, Tony?" she asks sharply.
"At your three o'clock, Romanoff. Fourteen feet behind. Shit...the bodies are still warm. Looks like someone got here just before us."
"Who could have gotten here before us?" scoffs Clint as he rounds a corner. "We only found out about this facility yesterday. The only people who know about it are us, Fury, Coulson, and Hill. Besides, we don't know whether this facility…" he trails off as he noticed the cell, sitting loftily in the corner, as if Hydra wasn't sure whether to flaunt it or hide it. Inside were two chambers, doors ajar. They had been stuffed with Hydra agents, killed execution-style and covered in blood, bullets piercing their temples.
"Holy shit," Clint hisses.
"What?" asks Tony.
Natasha walks into the room, eyes ablaze, as she stops in front of the chambers.
"I know who these chambers belonged to," she said evenly.
Clint rounds on her. "Who?
"Anyone want to fill me in on what's going on?" Tony drawls sarcastically.
Ignoring him, Natasha continues. "Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe they exist. The ones that do call them the Winter Soldiers. They're credited for over two dozen assassinations in the last 50 years."
Clint raises his eyebrows at her, but doesn't press her. He'd heard of them once before, in a reconnaissance mission. He'd been the one to retrieve Nat after she'd been shot through the stomach. Fury'd made a calculated guess, that the sniper was one of them. He hadn't heard anything on the matter since, but, he surmises from the faint glint in Natasha's eyes, she had.
"How do you know that they were in these chambers?"
"These are cryogenic chambers, used to preserve bodies in cryostasis. The Winter Soldiers are believed to have received a version of the serum used in Project Rebirth, allowing them to be frozen and thawed. It would explain the long time period between kills."
"Okay, so where are they now?" Tony asks as he approaches the cell.
"Wouldn't surprise me if in the mess of things with the downfall of SHIELD, the guys assigned to them got careless, and they snapped. It would explain the bodies," Natasha says matter-of-factly.
Suddenly, footsteps approach. The three freeze, dead quiet, in fear.
"Fuck," Tony whispers. "You wouldn't think that would happen to be them, do you?"
With her gun drawn, Natasha tiptoes towards the corner, not daring to make sound. Usually, Clint was impressed by how silent she could be, but right now, there were more pressing issues.
Like the man dressed in a strappy black combat uniform with muzzle covering his face, wielding an automatic rifle.
Clint draws his bow, ready for an attack, when the assassin crumples to the floor. Behind him stands Agent Hill, with a dart gun hanging lazily in her left hand.
"Your backup has arrived," she says, smirking. "I tranqed him-Coulson got his partner."
"Why tranq? Why not, I don't know, kill them?" Tony demands.
"They're the ones who started to tear this place apart for us. Must have finally remembered that they were people, not killing machines. Funny little coincidence, that as soon as we want to destroy this place, the Winter Soldiers have already done it for us. Besides," she says, pausing to look at the soldier on the ground. "The enemy of the enemy is my friend."
…
As Tony helped pull the Winter Soldiers onto the quinjet, he couldn't help but stare longingly at the tech on the brunette's arm.
"Is his arm completely metal?" he asked Hill.
"It appears so."
Tony stared curiously at the two soldiers laid out in front of him, sedated for the ride. They were massive-freaks of nature, really. One was slightly larger, and had dirty blond hair that reached to his chin. The other, a brunette, had greasy hair to his shoulders and a bulky metal arm. Other than that, they were identical. They were dressed in identical tactical gear, carried identical weapons, and had identical goggles and muzzles that obscured their identities.
"Can they even breathe through those things?" Clint asked.
"Yes, their breathing levels are normal," replied an on-flight doctor.
"Take 'em off. I want to see what they look like," Tony said.
Maria looked at him pointedly. "We should really wait until we report back to Director Fury," she replied.
"Well, I think that it's important to see who we're up against. Y'know, to see if they have red eyes, or a Voldemort nose, or something."
Maria sighed. "Fine, but you have to keep watch over them first."
Tony grinned up at her. "Sounds like a deal, Agent. Romanoff, would you like to do the honors?"
She gingerly removed the goggles and muzzle off of both of them, making sure not to further injure them or aggravate the bruises they had sustained during the fight with Hydra.
With their faces bare, they looked...normal. No odd Hydra face tattoos or empty voids for eye sockets. Just faces that were littered in bruises and cuts, dark circles filling out under their eyes.
Something about them looked oddly familiar. He wondered if under the litany of scars and bruises, they would be recognizable. Tony frowned at the two, trying to discern where he had seen their faces. Christ Tony, he told himself. When would you have ever seen these men before?
Snorting to himself, Tony turned away from the two soldiers. "You've really lost it now, Stark."
...
He had heard a visceral scream. A scream, which only meant that they were going to put Alpha in The Chair. But, they couldn't put Alpha in The Chair, because that would mean Alpha getting hurt. Alpha getting hurt went against the voice in his head. The voice that told him, you protect this.
Alpha was important to him, once. He can't remember why.
Beta had charged through the cell, which the incompetent new aides had forgotten to lock.
Bless their hearts, the voice had said.
Beta had known that the voice wouldn't return. The Chair would make him lose the voice. But, how he longed for the voice. The voice provided comfort. Comfort that he hadn't always been this way. Comfort that he had been happy once. Comfort that the Alpha had been happy, too. The voice told him that the Alpha was warmth, was kindness. Was love.
And so, Beta had done what was required of him to do. What the voice insisted upon. He'd struck the man who had forced Alpha into the chair with his metal arm, and with his flesh arm, he'd shot at the aide who had put the wiring on Alpha's head. The chair thankfully had not turned on yet. Beta'd nodded to Alpha, who had rushed into the cell to obtain his weapons. Thankfully, the new aides had not thought to lock them away.
Beta had taken great pleasure in killing the people who had locked him away. He usually did not take pleasure in missions, but this was not a mission. It is free will, the voice had told him. He'd wrapped up The Chair tight in its wiring, so as to say to the Alpha, it can't hurt you anymore.
Alpha had returned from the chamber (cold, cold, so cold) covered in blood. Beta had reasoned that the new aides had met their expiration. The Alpha had nodded towards Beta, satisfied by the job he had done with the chair.
I had him on the ropes, the voice had said.
Beta had then leaned his forehead to Alpha's. You are safe now. I won't let you get hurt. He'd reached for Alpha's hand, intertwining their fingers.
"Safe," he'd whispered.
Nodding once more, Alpha had set off back to the cell, to see if there were more agents there.
Suddenly, Beta had crumpled to the ground in a heap.
…
Natasha watched carefully as the two soldiers awoke.
The brunette one awoke first. He gazed around disoriented for a few seconds, before hurtling himself at the wall of the confinement room. (Fury was adamant about not calling it a cell. They weren't prisoners; simply house guests in the basement of Avengers Tower.)
"Stand down, soldier," Fury commanded, glaring at the wild man.
The soldier did not stand down. He pounded the walls with his fists, howling, but not speaking. Never speaking. He looked at her with haunted eyes. She gave him a calculated stare in return.
She had been in that position, once. A brainwashed victim.
Stark had asked Fury why the soldiers were being kept. "What use could you possibly have for them?" he'd sneered.
"We have the opportunity to make great use of them, whether that be for their information regarding Hydra, or of their skills in the field," he'd replied.
But Natasha knew the real reason. It was because Fury had a heart-for better or for worse, he believed in second chances. He had for her.
She couldn't say whether it was the moral thing to do, but the information that the two possesed had the potential to save lives. When the Avengers became aware of HYDRA's stronghold within SHIELD, the disorganization and misinformation surrounding the situation had cost them at least a month. Agents that Natasha had considered trusting once before were revealed to be HYDRA, which her mandated therapist had said was contributing to her current state of distrusting everything. At this point, she was more inclined to trust the civilian she'd come across in DC than fellow agents, which is how Sam came into the Avenger's lives. He wasn't official, but he was a good resource. His VA experience could come in handy with the soldier's addled minds.
The blond soldier awoke a few hours after the brunette. He had a similar reaction. He'd pounded on the walls, screaming. The brunette, in the next room, had an immediate reaction, and pounded on the walls, trying to tear apart the cement. They had howled for hours, until finally Coulson had the decency to sedate them.
"Maybe we should put them in the same room," Phil suggested softly.
"Are you insane?" Clint asked. "They'd kill each other the moment they saw one another."
"I'm not so sure." Phil said. "Before...Before I tranqed the one with the metal arm, I saw him...embrace the other. I think they had a sort of...bond."
Fury looked bewildered, then looked at Natasha, seeking her opinion.
"I think that they should be together. Companionship could make their recovery quicker," she said.
It was settled; the two deadliest assassins of the 20th century were now roomates, Natasha thought wryly.
Through the next five days, the two did not speak. Instead, they communicated with each other in a series of taps. Natasha considered Morse code, but to no avail. She surmised it was a private language developed by HYDRA. It greatly confused the agents who guarded them.
Weekly, they were given a physical examination to take in the effects of the potentially decades of abuse. The initial exam showed almost no signs of physical trauma, which left the doctors astonished but almost confirmed Natasha's theory of the serum. The head doctor theorized that they were suffering through drug withdrawals, but their blood didn't test for anything. Bruce pointed out that it wouldn't with the serum. Throughout the whole medical ordeal, both soldiers regarded the doctors in a solemn, unfocused silence, which further worried the doctors. Whispers of PTSD and psychosis permeated through the med labs, which prompted Fury to send in a psychiatrist into the cell. The first day, the soldiers scared the psychiatrist away with their dual dead-eyed stares. She hadn't come back.
They took turns sleeping, presumably to keep watch of any threats. The cell was fairly well sized and allowed for two twin beds, but privately, Natasha thought two were a waste of funding when they were only using one. When they did sleep, one would curl his head on the others' thigh, in a gesture Natasha recognized as a cry of I'm here. We're safe. The other would stay stock still, barely blinking as he stared at the surrounding guards.
They would wake up with nightmares at least twice a night each. The process was like clockwork; the shaking would start, then the tormented bellows, until they were hoarse. Finally, the sobs would wrack their bodies, until the other would wake him up. They calmed each other down, patting the other awkwardly on the head until the sobbing had stopped.
Every day, the psychologists insisted on removing them from each other's company for an hour, to try to shed their odd sort of codependency. Every day, they would meet incessant screams until they were hoarse. Privately, Natasha disagreed with this practice. They seemed to be codependent out of necessity. Sure, it was facilitated by HYDRA, but the soldiers seemed to enjoy each other's company. Every time, she wondered how long they had been each other's only company. Were there any other Winter Soldiers? Or were these two broken would-be men the only barriers between each of them going insane from lack of human contact?
If Natasha wasn't so heavily guarded with her emotions, perhaps she'd cry.
…
Alpha stopped screaming.
They had removed Beta from his cell again. They did it every day. Presumably in a form of torture.
For the first few days, Alpha had screamed the entire time he was gone. But yesterday, he grew hoarse long before Beta returned. And he had still returned. So, Alpha decided against screaming. To see if they would still bring Beta back. If he hadn't returned in an hour, he'd start to scream again.
A guard that he'd never seen before, who looked like a ghost from long ago, approached the cell.
"So, blondie, finally decided to stop screaming? Don't worry, they're not gonna do anything bad to Robocop over there. I'm Tony Stark, by the way. Pleasure to meet you."
Stark.
Don't worry, Steve, this old thing? It'll fly fine.
(who was Steve?)
"What am I talking about? You don't talk. Can you even talk? You sure can scream, so."
Alpha frowned. This man, the one who looked like a ghost from long ago, talked too fast.
"I can," the Alpha grumbled.
The man straightened up. "It's a pleasure to hear your voice. It's only slightly less gravely than an old driveway in Nebraska." He smiled indulgently. "You got a name, Blondie?"
(Steve?)
"I don't..don't remember," Alpha (Steve?) whispered.
"That's okay. We figured as much. Nat got a few files, yadda yadda yadda, basically we found out that the chair wiped you clean."
Alpha shuddered at the mention of The Chair.
"So, we're all dying to know...what happened over at the facility?"
Alpha (Steve?) paused, for several seconds.
"We were out of The Chair for too long. I started to remember," Alpha (Steve?) whispered.
Startled, the man who looked like a ghost from long ago looked down at him. "What did you remember?" he asked quietly.
Alpha swallowed, not knowing if this privilege, the privilege of sharing his memories, of keeping his memories, was allowed.
The man nodded encouragingly. Alpha darted his eyes around, and satisfied that there were no other eyes on him, continued.
"I remembered...Bucky. He was important to me once."
…
"Bucky," chuckled Tony. He glanced back at the translucent face before him, the pale blue eyes wide in confusion. "Not a very common name. Only Bucky I know of 's from history. Captain America's best friend."
The soldier cocked his head to the side, eyes widening.
Tony's father had loved to tell stories about the two. He heard the story so much, he'd rehearsed the spiel: Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers, two of the best men he'd ever met. They died tragically in the Alps, only a few months before the end of the war. His dad even helped create the shield that made Captain Rogers into Captain America. It was his greatest creation.
That's probably why Howard had indulged Tony of his obsession with the Captain America comics when he was young. He had the limited edition prints, the posters, and the underwear, if you took it from Pepper. He told everyone that he'd grown out of it once he'd turned eleven, but the obsession only turned into fascination. As his dad was friends with Peggy Carter, he always tried to pry the juicy details of Cap's life out, but she was always hesitant and guarded. The Commandos didn't like to talk about them, either. At first, Tony thought it was because they felt overshadowed, but as he got older, he realized it was the grief that constrained them.
It was crazy to think that these guys probably had a bastardized version of that same serum Captain America got..
Tony glanced back at the soldier in front of him. He even kind of looked like-
Tony felt his heart quicken. Blood pounding in his ears, he stared directly at the man in front of him.
He looked just like Captain America.
Trying to maintain some semblance of composure, he smiled at the Captain America look-alike. "It was nice talking to you, buddy, but I've got urgent matters. See you later, pal," he said quickly, the words burning on his mouth.
He was being irrational, Tony thought. Captain America died 70 years ago. He fell off a fucking mountain. There is no way in hell that is actually Captain America.
He caught sight of the other soldier, being guided back into the cell-
It was Bucky Barnes.
Tony blinked. Perhaps he was hallucinating. Yeah, that was the explanation. He was seeing the faces of his dead comic book heroes on these two sad sap prisoners who just so happened to have coincidentally the same serum pumping inside of them, and who sprung up just as Captain America and Sergeant Barnes died. Holy fuck. Tony broke into a brisk pace towards where Coulson had set up camp.
"Coulson. Fuck. I need to see your Captain America trading cards."
"Uh, why?" Coulson asked politely.
"Right now, Jesus H. Christ, Phil. Right. Fucking. Now."
Frowning, Coulson carefully handed a stack of cards to Tony. "These are mint condition. What are you going to do with them? If you're going to do anything, I need to come with you," he said insolently.
He looked down at the cards. There stared back the faces of the two captives, albeit much less haunted. He felt as if his heart was going to pound out of his chest. He was going to hurl.
"Come with me. Right now."
He sprinted towards the elevators, not caring about the stares he was getting.
"Floor 10," he heaved.
"What the hell is going on? You look like you're about to have an asthma attack," Coulson said worriedly.
He clutched the cards to him as he exited the elevator, Phil on his heels.
"JARVIS, scan this card and match it to detainee number one."
He saw Phil tense beside him.
"Sir, I have calculated that detainee one has 98% facial match to Rogers, Steven Grant," JARVIS said cheerfully.
If Phil looked five seconds away from a seizure or apoplectic fit, Tony had no idea what he looked like.
"Scan this card and match it to detainee number two," Tony breathed shakily, already knowing the answer.
"Detainee two has a 99% facial match to Barnes, James Buchanan."
What the fuck?
…
Nick J. Fury was proud to say that nothing could surprise him. Especially not after the whole Loki incident, and especially not after the whole "SHIELD is HYDRA" incident.
Well, until Tony Stark barged into his guest bedroom in Avenger Tower.
(Which, Stark owned. But still.)
"What the fuck?" spluttered Fury, startled by his sudden appearance.
He looked pale as a sheet, and Coulson, who was trailing him, looked no better. "You two look like you've seen a ghost."
"We've seen two," whispered Coulson.
"What the hell has gotten into you, Phil?"
"We've discovered the identities of the two detainees downstairs."
"And?"
"Captain Steve Rogers and Sergeant Bucky Barnes," choked Phil.
Nick squinted at Coulson. He couldn't believe Stark'd convinced him to play along with another prank. He would have expected Barton, sure, but with Barton out in Maine since Tuesday, he supposed the duties lie with someone else.
"Quit pulling my chain, Stark. Some of us have work to do."
"I'm not lying. It's really Barnes and Rogers."
Nick stared at him. He was really going to take this thing far. Sighing, Nick turned back to him.
"Barnes and Rogers died 70 years ago after they fell thousands of feet in the Alps. Frankly, I think it's disrespectful to use two national icon's legacies as a prank, especially to fool me into thinking that they were infamous assassins for decades. And I expect better out of you Phil, than to go along with a Tony Stark prank."
"JARVIS, replay back the results of the facial scan," Tony said breathlessly.
"Certainly. Detainee one has a 98 percent facial match to Rogers, Steven Grant. Detainee two has a 99 percent facial match to Barnes, James Buchanan."
Nick's mind reeled. It was impossible. Utterly impossible. Captain America, one of America's most beloved national figures, could not have turned into a brainwashed super-assassin by the very organization he strove to defeat. SHIELD could not have failed him and Bucky Barnes this much.
"The timeline matches up," Stark said quietly. "The kills are credited over the last fifty years. They both had the serum, probably survived the damn fall because of it, Hydra found them in the snow, and fucked them up."
Nick looked heavily down at his hands. They had failed America's Captain and his loyal sidekick. He'd grown up in a state of hero worship for the Howling Commandos, and a solemn respect for the two fallen soldiers. Hell, half the reason he'd joined SHIELD was because of Captain America. And here he was, a lost, helpless amnesiac, all because HYDRA was operating right under his now.
"Also," Stark continued, "I know it's them because detainee one… Steve Rogers told me that he started to remember Bucky. The memory...that's why they destroyed the facility," he concluded.
Nick looked up at Tony. "Call the other Avengers down here. They'll want to hear this."
…
When Clint walked in the room after being summoned from Monhegan, he saw three faces, each one looking as if they were on the verge of tears or vomiting, or maybe both.
"What's goin' on?" he asked, glancing at Sam Wilson, who was standing to his left.
Gathered around the table were all of the Avengers, sans Thor. Probably dealing with his goddamn brother, Clint thought darkly.
"We've discovered the identities of the detainees," Nick said.
"Okay, so who are these assassins?" Nat asked with a raised eyebrow.
Fury exhaled. "Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. Better known as Captain America and the Fallen Commando."
Clint blinked. What. He was sure he had misheard Fury. "Like, their clones?"
Fury shook his head. "No. The real Cap and Barnes."
The group on the side opposite Coulson, Fury, and Stark went into mayhem. Hill blinked, unsure whether this was a joke or not. Sam's jaw fell open like a cartoon. Tasha's face remained surprisingly calm, but her eyes darted to each man opposite her.
"But how?" demanded Sam.
"Rogers told me that he had remembered Barnes when they had destroyed the Hydra facility. I guess he lashed out or something at the memory. He mentioned the name Bucky, and it just sparked my memory. I thought of Bucky Barnes, and then I noticed that Blondie looks just like my Captain America comics, so I got Phil's trading card and did facial recognition," Tony trailed off.
Clint looked at the floor. This was insane.
"We wanted to brief all of you so we could discuss what to do next. So, what's our play? We can't just keep two of America's greatest war heroes locked up in Stark's Basement," Coulson interjected.
"They aren't the same Captain America and Bucky Barnes that they once were, Phil. They are ghosts of their former selves. We can't forget that they are wired to be mindless killing machines," Natasha said, not quite warmly.
Clint agreed deep down, but he couldn't help but think wistfully of his Howling Commando heroes. Ultimately, his humanity won out.
"But, they're remembering. They know that they weren't always like that," Clint said.
"I'm not sure they'll ever fully recover," Banner said carefully. He had been overseeing the detainees' daily medical check-ins. "Their brains may not be able to fully heal from the damage done to the Hippocampus."
"Plus, remember what happened last time they 'remembered?' They snapped. Boom goes the Hydra base," Hill reminded them.
"They are prisoners of war. For 70 goddamn years. We have to at least help them remember who they were," Sam stressed.
Clint looked down at the table and picked at his nail bed. Here were two of the biggest heroes of the second World War, who also happened to be two of the greatest villains of the Cold War. It made him nauseous. He had to say something. He couldn't let Bucky Barnes, his role model in life for crying out loud, rot in a jail cell. No matter how cushy Fury pretended the cell was.
"I think we should help them. SHIELD failed them for 70 years. The least we could do is to help them," Clint said quickly.
Natasha glared at him. Then she softened. "Alright, I guess. But we have to ease them into their memories. If we tell them everything, it might overwhelm them, causing them to lash out."
Coulson looked as if his eyes were going to bulge out of his head. "Just...not tell Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers who they are? Just leave them to be confused over who they really are?"
Clint nodded. This. Is. Insane, he thought.
…
Beta awoke startled.
He'd had a dream from Before.
Usually, he had nightmares of The Chair, of The Chamber, of Komandir beating him bloody, or his henchmen baring their teeth at him, violating him in every way imaginable.
But, this time was different.
This time was a dream.
"I love you, Bucky."
(He had been loved?)
(Who was Bucky?)
(Was he Bucky?)
It was whispered by a small man, who looked immensely frail. Soft blond hair, piercing blue eyes-
And a face that looked just like Alpha's.
Beta sat up the cot, bumping Alpha on the chin in the process. He patted his chin in reassurement, then focused in on Alpha.
"I...I had a dream from Before."
Alpha whipped his head around. It was rare, that they communicated in anything but taps on the cot, repeatedly telling each other, you are safe. We are safe.
Alpha tilted his head towards the right, an invitation for Beta to continue.
"It was a man who had your face. But it wasn't you; this man was smaller."
Alpha's eyes widened as he whispered, "What did he say?"
"I love you, Bucky. I think, I must have been Bucky once."
At that, Alpha jumped up, fists quivering at his sides. Face contorted in an almost unhuman-like haunted shock.
"That...that was the name I remembered. That name is from my before," he said, his voice wavering.
Beta stared. Was it possible, that he had once known Alpha? That Alpha was from Before?
Or, he thought cynically, was it a false memory that Hydra had implanted?
It wouldn't be the first time Hydra had done that. They had tried to make Beta believe that he had always been this way. Always been the asset.
But, then he had been out of the chair too long, and the voice had told him, No. You were a man once.
"I'm not sure if it was real," Beta said softly.
Alpha looked at him with silent disappoint, then nodded, and curled up to Beta's thigh. It was his turn to sleep.
Beta strained to remember, remember, remember.
Suddenly, a man walked in the cage. Beta tensed, prepared for a fight. He had stopped biting after the first few days, but was prepared to do anything if they were going to take him away from Alpha again.
Protect Alpha, screamed the voice.
"Hi," the man began. "My name is Sam Wilson. I'm a therapist specializing in Veteran's Affairs and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder management. I want to talk to you for a few minutes, get to know you. See how you're adjusting."
The man, Wilson, had a kind voice, and an outstretched hand. Beta decided that, no, he shouldn't bite him.
All the same, he shook his head. He could not leave Alpha. Alpha would be worried.
"It's okay," Wilson said gently. "We aren't taking you far. We definitely aren't separating you from your friend for long. It will only take a few minutes. Do you want to come with me?"
Beta stood up, wanting to comply. It was rare that he had a Komandir so gentle, so understanding.
He followed Wilson to a room fifteen meters from the cell and sat down in the wooden chair. The room was beige, and filled with synthetic plants. In one corner was a piano.
You used to play piano, the voice supplied.
All of the sudden, he was bombarded with another memory of Before. This time, Beta could not discern a face among the blurry image. Only a voice.
"When we get married, you have to change your name to Buck Rogers."
"Are you okay, man?" Wilson asked him, worry on his face.
"Yes," Beta said. "I...I just remembered something from Before. But I'm not sure if it's real."
Wilson nodded. "What was it, if you don't mind sharing?"
Beta thought carefully. How was he sure that he wouldn't be put back in the chair for sharing this memory?
Eventually, he looked up at Wilson. He could trust Wilson, Beta decided. He wasn't sure he had ever trusted someone. Besides Alpha.
"A...A man. He told me that when we got married, I would change my name to Buck Rogers."
Wilson was evidently surprised by that, but quickly schooled his face into a neutral expression. "What did you mean when you said you didn't think it was real?"
Beta paused for a few seconds to come up with a suitable answer. "Sometimes, Hydra implanted false memories into our brains. They told us that we had always been the assets. But that is not true. I remember that there was a time Before."
"What do you remember about the time before?" Wilson asked.
"I think it is a false memory," Beta said carefully.
"Still, I'd like to hear it, if you want to share," Wilson said, nodding his head encouragingly.
Beta looked up into his eyes. "It was a man. He was frail and small, but he had the other soldier's face. He told me, "I love you, Bucky." But I do not believe it to be real because the other soldier remembered the Bucky. And though the man in my dream had the other soldier's face, he did not have the other soldier's build."
Wilson nodded, his face unreadable.
Suddenly, Beta was bombarded with another memory. There sat Alpha, looking younger, with short hair. He had the same face as the frail man, but he had the same build as Alpha. Instead of dressing in his tactical gear, he had on a red, white and blue suit.
Draw me a picture, Steve?
Sure thing, Bucky.
Before he knew it, Beta (Bucky?) was out of the chair, sprinting out of the room. He had to find Alpha (Steve?).
He crashed into the cell, eyes trained on Alpha (Steve).
"I remember," Beta (Bucky) breathed. "I remembered you from Before. Steve."
"Bucky," Steve whispered back in a prayer. "That's who you are. You are Bucky."
"Steve," Bucky said. He moved his hand over Steve's face, wiping away the water on his face. "Steve."
"Bucky," Steve repeated. "Bucky."