Author's Note: For those returning to this story, you'll notice that I changed the character's first name. For those reading it for the first time now, ignore this note. Have a nice day.

An accident, just one little mistake. That's all it took, all it took for Hell to turn loose. It all started with a smile.

"Get her down! Down let her move her hands! Not at all!" The Hydra guard shouted to the others.

The "Her" in question was in a strait jacket and a Hannibal Lecter-esque mask, but putting up a Hell of a fight. She, Caroline Gale Mortel, as her file read, was tugging and pulling and yanking against at least four guards as they tried to shove her into the wheelchair. She made muffled noises that would have been screams if her mouth hadn't been covered. That was a precaution they took because of her history of biting the guards. One had to have three surgeries to reconstruct his fingers after an encounter with her.

Running out of patience, the boss stepped up and cracked Caroline over the head with his baton and she fell to the floor for the rest of the guards to drag her back up and prop her up in the wheelchair. They quickly tied down her hands and feet while her now throbbing head dipped low to her side.

They wheeled her down, through the long corridors of the Hydra base, past the arsenals, the labs of human experiments, all the way through the filthy gray floors and to one prison cell in particular. Caroline's escorts came to a halt in front of the door.

"Now if you try anything…" a guard warned, flinging his gun about threateningly. Her mask was removed.

She kept silent, but glared at him with eyes that could burn through human flesh. Yeah, as if. You know if things were different, I could have you dead before you hit the ground, her thoughts screamed, urging to get out, but she kept herself in eerie calm.

The guards opened the cell doors to what Caroline would later name the most pitiful sight she had ever seen. Five or six more Hydra guards were beating down a man who looked like he had already been through Hell. His long dark hair was scraggly and windblown. He was panting for breath and drops of sweat flung off him as he tried to fight off the guards. What was worst, though, was that one guard held a long metal rod that surged with electricity and made the man groan in pain as it touched him. With his metal arm, he reminded Caroline of the Tin Man with the witch's flying monkeys terrorizing him. The Tin Man was always her favorite as a child. Caroline might have cried for him if she hadn't been so adamant about not showing any signs of weakness. Still, she found it difficult to hide the pain for him from her face as he tried to punch his way out, only to be hit himself.

Like her, though, he was putting up a good fight. Alas, Hydra was much stronger in numbers than these two.

"Put him down, now!" a guard shouted at Caroline.

"How?" she asked with a bit more bitterness than she should have as a person with a gun pointed at her face.

"Any way! Just make him stop! Knock him out if you have to!"

She was a little rusty with her power, but wanting to survive, she focused her eyes on the struggling man. All at once, he slowed down and returned the gaze. Caroline tilted her head a bit and tried focusing harder. The guards took their opportunity and dragged the man back to a chair against the wall.

Caroline took a few steps closer to him, causing the guards to raise their weapons defensively for a second, but they did not shoot.

"Wipe his memory," a guard ordered Caroline.

"What parts?"

"Any you can find."

"I've never done that before." True, though she had come close with a couple of unlucky guards before.

"You're special. Figure it out." He answered with snarky bite.

The Hydra scientists had tried to identify her powers many times before, telepathy, then telekinesis, then it was psychokinesis, until it eventually grew into a confusing mass of seemingly dissimilar descriptions that were only observed in isolated instances over the years. The truth was, they didn't fully understand her power, though they tried to make it seem like they did. And with equal truth, Caroline didn't completely understand her gifts, either. Especially since for the past four, five (she had trouble keeping track of time, being cut-off from the rest of the world and all) years, her powers had been more or less controlled by Hydra. However, Caroline knew deep down that if she had free range with her powers, she could have burned down the Hydra base years ago. Something in her, call it instinct, intuition, whatever, told her that her powers were getting stronger every day as she got older. The Hydra agents were very careful to try to control their thoughts around her, for they could never reveal the precious information that even they were unsure if they could hold her for much longer. That's why Caroline knew to keep just the degree of her power hidden, waiting for just the right moment to release them. She knew that if they knew that they could no longer keep her under control, they wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet in her head.

One day. One day her chance would come. She would just have to be patient. But she had been patient since she was fourteen.

Finally, she stood close enough to touch him. He recoiled a bit in instinctive fear, but she kept on approaching.

"It's okay. Just relax." She attempted at being calming, but she was a bit nervous herself. No. Nervous wasn't the correct word. Afraid? No, that wasn't right either. Of course, she was surrounded people ever-so-ready to shoot her if she didn't do her job right and she was face-to-face with their human weapon who was obviously unstable at the moment. Yet, fear wasn't the thing that was nagging at her. She pinpointed it: guilt.

She hated switching roles and helping keep someone else captive, but it's not like she had much of a choice. Even if she could use her power to defend herself (which could be difficult since bullets may fly faster than her powers worked), there would be no guarantee that this man would come out alive, too. For now at least, captivity was a better alternative than death.

"I need to touch him for it to work." She told the nearest guard.

The guard looked to his boss apprehensively. The boss nodded for him to go ahead. He began to remove Caroline's strait jacket. Only, another guard came forward and held his gun even closer, almost poking her in the back.

Caroline reached out to touch his cheek, a gesture that must have been so foreign to him since he couldn't take his eyes off her hand. He acted like she was holding a knife in front of his face.

Once skin made contact with skin, Caroline and the man looked to the ceiling as they shared visions from his past. It was mostly gunshots. He was Hydra's attack dog that they kept on a short leash while he did their dirty work against his will. Just like her. Her pity and agonizing empathy for him was almost overbearing, but she pushed it aside and pushed on.

Most prominently in his mind was confusion, but fear and pain were also noticeable, mixed in with a bit of anger, but that faded into the background of the larger scheme. All negative sensations, but Caroline also noticed just a hint of something else as she reached to the deeper recesses of his mind. She couldn't see any clear memories, except for a single word, a name: Bucky.

That was all she could get for now, but that was all she needed. It was just a little seed to plant that, with some nurturing, would hopefully grow. She sent the one-word message to his conscious mind. Their eyes met for just a split second and she knew that he, Bucky, had received the message.

"Well get on with it," rushed a guard.

Reluctantly, she began the process of erasing his memory.

His head sank lower and lower and his eyelids drooped as if falling asleep, but he remained conscious.

I shouldn't be so gentle, she told herself. She could have made the process painful. Showing any hint of affection for anyone or anything in this place was a danger. All they would do is use it against you. Still, she couldn't restrain herself from having a bit of a soft spot for this stranger. He was, after all, in the same position as her. She had to be at least a little sympathetic.

When it was all over, he sat there completely still like a living corpse. Yet, he took a breath that reassured that he was still a living human being. That was a little comfort to Caroline.

And there was one word on his mind: Bucky. Now he only had to figure out what that name meant.