'God damn it, Barnes! What in the hell?!'

They'd escaped the charge, found the trenches, Dugan and Jones. They'd even been holding off the attack. But then the eerie blue shots started taking out the others.

'What the hell was that?' They'd all wondered it, someone had just said it out loud. They stood, exposed from the trenches to investigate. What the hell was that? It just kept firing, lighting up the Krauts and disintegrating them.

'That looks… new.' Dugan had a way with words. But he was right. The ground shook, something was coming, something new. A massive tank rolled over the hill.

It paused on top, still directed at the dust that had been the enemy. Then, as he'd watched, its barrel had shifted, pointed directly at them.

'Down!' He shouted, they fell face first back into the trench, Dugan, he, and Jones. But it was too late from some. He watched members of his unit light up, then float away. He was going to be sick.

This was it. He was going to die, turned to dust, the last thing he saw, mud and pain. He was never going to tell Steve about that girl, the one in the pub with the strawberry blonde hair and green eyes. Boy, Steve would have liked that story. He would never see Steve again. Poor, little, Steve. Stupid kid in the alley never backing down. He'd get killed and it would be his fault, not being there to save him.

Damnit.

But then the firing stopped.

They all huddled on the ground as the boots over the trench sloshed. German bastards. They were barking something but Bucky couldn't understand it. He knew one word of German, it was 'halt,' stop. They weren't saying that.

They came over trench, a few at a time, carrying enormous guns, glowing blue. More death rays. But they weren't firing. They were shouting, kicking men. They kicked him in the gut, and again until he stood. Then they put a bag over his head. They were taking them prisoner. Nazis only did one thing with prisoners. Experiments.

He didn't remember being put on a table. The last thing he saw was the black of the inside of a bag and a few stars, the echoing crack of a rifle butt ringing through his skull. Now he could see. Mildewy tiled walls, metal and straps. Some unsettling instruments.

'Now, who are we?' It was a little man with a face like a fish and big bug eyes. 'American soldier, good. Strapping, tall. He is an acceptable specimen. Begin the procedure.'

The first injection stung. The eight more that followed burned like nothing he'd never felt before. They pried and poked him. Flashed lights in his eyes, made his ears ring with strange machines. They took blood, put it back. Cut his skin, struck his joints, left him alone for hours, maybe days. Eventually, starved and parched, he lost track of night and day. He forgot where he was or how he got there. He was going to die.

'James Barnes. Member of the 107th…'

'Bucky?'

'Bucky?!'

'Who the hell is Bucky?'

'Your mission is a threat to the order we've developed here. Make it look like an accident.'

That face. That face was familiar.

'Do I know him?'

He did. He knew he did. Something distant. Deeper, where it hurt.

'No. He's been in the papers. He's famous and a threat. Your mission. He'll be at these coordinates in two hours. An accident. It needs to look like an accident.'

An accident. The car. Just kick it off the road. Make sure it's in flames. An accident.

'But I know him.'

'Wipe 'em again.'

Pain. White hot pain burning away his mind. Then, just nothingness. The mission. Stark. An accident.

'You've had an accident. We must amputate the rest of the arm.'

Pain. Screaming. Cold, then nothing.

'Son, there's been an accident. I'm sorry but your mother passed away yesterday. Seems I finally broke her heart…'

That ring. His mother's ring. Heart-wrenching sobs wracked his frame. A sharp pain in his knees then a dull throb. They'd be bruised. His throat, his eyes, his face all hurt from crying, were all swollen. He could barely see the ring in his palm.

'Something physical to latch all that onto.'

Red, white, and blue. She was beautiful, awe-inspiring but distant. Like the stars.

'Leave her to me.'

He could speak Russian. She shot him in the eye. He shot her in the chest. Eye for a lung. Fair.

Red, white, and blue.

'You're my friend!'

'YOU'RE MY MISSION!'

He was gasping for air.

"NOT ANYMORE."

Where was he? Who was he? Whose voice was that?

"BARNES! HYDRA is exposed. You're free. You're Bucky."

He couldn't breathe. Something stung across his face. He wrenched open his eyes. Red. White. Blue.

"Barnes. Come out of it." It was a slap. She'd slapped him, and again.

"I'm putting him down, Nat."

"No. He's here. Look. Pupils normal and responsive. Barnes. Come back."

"You slapped me."

"She did more than that. Nice haircut, by the way." Barton was there. Clint. He hovered to his left. No he was being lifted by the unit, he was trying to hold the unit down.

"Why can't I breathe?"

"Because I have you in a choke hold, or what's supposed to be one." The pressure loosened around his neck and Natasha appeared right side up.

"She would have crushed any other man's windpipe with that hold. You, she could hardly close the hold at her knees."

"Super strength. Doesn't mean it didn't hurt." He tried to rub his neck but his arm was stuck.

"Oh, here, magnetic cuff. There." She freed his hand and slipped away from him. So did Clint, releasing the unit and backing away. "Where are you?"

He sat up slowly and gingerly felt at his neck. "Your safe house. I think. I'm not sure why Barton's here."

"Yeah, came back a couple of hours ago. I was afraid the dreams might get you like they did me." He shrugged down at him. "Standard brainwashing side effect."

"What happened?"

Natasha was wearing very little clothing. He hadn't noticed that before. She pulled down on her shorts and then crossed her arms. Her hair was a mess. She'd been sleeping. Clint looked like he had, too. Underpants, no shirt, hair like he'd hung his head out the window of a speeding car. Were they together?

He felt a pang of something unpleasant and pushed the thought from his mind. Natasha was speaking.

"…as mumbling. I ignored it, figured you were talking in your sleep. Then you started screaming, flailing around, too, by the sound of it. So, I came in to check. That's when you lunged."

"Mm-hmm," Clint picked up. "I saw you coming from the living room, but by the time I got to you, she'd already brought you down and was holding you. I cuffed your arms, this beast broke through its," he motioned to the unit, "so, I jumped on it. That mostly worked, though I think you broke one of my ribs."

Bucky winced. That was all very bad. "I'm sorry."

"Don't worry."

"Yeah, happens to the best of us."

He didn't feel like he shouldn't worry. He felt incredibly guilty, and like he didn't belong there. He was a threat. Threats belonged in cages. Or dead.

"You should lock me down."

"What?"

"I can't be trusted. This proves it. I should be restrained or I shouldn't be here."

"No, we handled it. Everything's fine." Natasha shook her head hard. Clint mirrored.

"It isn't. I don't want to be responsible for any more… bad in this world. That… what just happened was bad. And unnecessary. Restrain me, or I'm leaving."

"But-"

"I'm used to sleeping in a glass tube. I can handle some cuffs."

The two of them exchanged a guarded look and Clint turned away with a huff. Natasha nodded, kneeling in front of him, but few feet out of reach.

"We can cuff your human arm. The cybernetic we'll have to disable with an EMP."

"That's fine."

"It's going to hurt. And you might hurt yourself in your sleep."

"It's all fine."

Natasha sighed and took the magnetic cuff from Clint. "Okay, you'll have to sleep with your hand above your head."

He grunted with a nod and laid down on his back on the bed. The cuff was uncomfortable. She was right.

"Okay, I'm firing up the EMP."

It was a little black disk. He'd seen one before.

"You won't be able to feel your arm. It might even hurt constantly."

"The unit. It's fine."

Natasha pressed her lips tight, into a hard line and then set the disk on the unit's elbow. She was right. It did hurt.

"Thank you," he said, adding, "I'll go back to sleep now," when they didn't leave.

Natasha gave him a pained look and then marched smartly from the room. Clint lingered for a moment. He seemed to be going through some turmoil, maybe a mental argument.

"I'll be back in a few hours to release you."

Bucky nodded, but didn't respond. He didn't need Clint to hear the pain and self-loathing he felt in his voice. He didn't go back to sleep either. He couldn't. Instead he tried to piece together as many of his memories as he could. By the time Clint came back in to release him, he was pretty sure he'd met Natasha several times before. He discovered that he couldn't find a lick of sense supporting anything but that Steve Rogers had been exactly who he'd said. His friend.

"When can I see Steve?" He queried immediately.

Clint paused on the threshold and chewed on his lip. "Yeah… I don't know. Not my department. Natasha's the one who knows triggers and she said not for a while. Something about your past being dangerous."

He shrugged and sauntered on over to Bucky's right side to release the mag-cuff.

"But she's part of my past."

"What?" Clint seemed genuinely surprised. "Oh, you mean the whole shooting her thing. No, that's fine." He moved around to shut down the EMP.

Bucky persisted. "That wasn't the first time I'd shot her. I shot through her to kill a target and… something in Russian, I can't quite reach it. I knew her before. She was younger, much younger."

"At the KGB?" Clint dropped onto his knee to be eye to eye with him. "Is that it?"

Bucky thought about it. "Maybe. It's still very unfocused. I think I shot her then, too."

He looked back to Clint, and found his jaw set. He seemed out-of-character-upset. "Or you trained her. Oh, I bet you're him. Explains her soft spot." He stood up quickly and marched out, pausing again at the threshold. "Stay here. Please."

The conversation that followed was loud enough for Bucky to hear snatches of from the next room.

"-you tell me he was the American with the shitty Russian?!"

Natasha's response was calmer, Bucky couldn't make it out.

"I mean that he was there, he's the one you talked about meeting in your red days!"

Another period of silence must have been filled with her reply.

"It's not an assumption! He said he met you when you were younger! This is personal for you! You're compromised."

"It's none of your business."

"So you admit it?!"

At this point, Bucky had his ear against the wall.

"No. It's not your business either way."

"Oh my god, Natasha, just admit that he's him, he's the one you've been obsessing over finding."

"Fine. I didn't know it until I found the barcode behind his ear, but, yes, he's the American with the shitty Russian. He taught me how to handle a gun and then one day they took him away. End of story." She didn't shout but her even tone wasn't any less menacing.

"Why'd they take him away?" Clint asked more quietly.

"Something about assets not getting too attached. He took care of me one morning, something out of the way-"

"What?"

"Chocolate. He brought me chocolate." She paused, must have earned a look of confusion from Clint because she continued, "I was twelve years old and I hadn't ever had chocolate. So they took him away."

His knees buckled and he sank to the ground. He hadn't shot at her, he'd taught her how to shoot. He was going to be sick again.

Natasha came in as he was huddled over the toilet.

"Heard all that did you?"

"Yes," he croaked into the bowl.

"Sorry. You shouldn't have. The past's supposed to stay the past for now, not try to feel you up in a bathroom." She sighed as he retched again. "If it makes you feel any better, they had you train me in one of the periods when you'd been unfrozen for a while. You were very sweet. So much so, you almost had your personality back. That's why they took you away. That's why I thought I could help you, if you were him, because I'd been there when it almost happened before."

"You were just a child. I taught a child to kill." He was dry heaving by this point.

"No, you taught me to shoot a long range sniper rifle, among other guns. I already knew how to kill."

"A child," he murmured again, this time distressed over the 'feeling up in a bathroom' implications.

"Not anymore. Circumstances have changed."

He gagged again, this time shaking his head in disgust with himself. This earned a heavy sigh from Natasha.

She reached over and, grabbing a towel, tossed it to him.

"Okay, I'm not good at opening up, but listen. I was a kid who obsessed over a lost mentor and wanted to find a way to pay him back for an act of kindness, just one little nice glimmer among a sea of red. And I found a way, it just so happened that that way triggered some other, new responses. I grew up, you didn't. You're the same essentially, at the same time in your life. But me? The way I experience things and, in this case, my reaction to you has changed. I just figured, 'if I can help, why not get something I'd like in return?'"

She paused for a long minute. When she spoke again her voice was huskier, more vulnerable. "To be honest, I've probably been pretty smitten with you since that day. It's hard not to be when it's a nice guy, looking like you, bringing a girl chocolate."

Natasha cleared her throat and added quietly, "you made an impression."

"I understand you. I do." Bucky sat back and wiped his face, wishing she wasn't looking at him so hard. "But-but now I only see her. The little girl who never smiled with the bruises she wouldn't explain."

Sure enough, there she was before his eyes, pouting frown and shins black and blue. He looked away quickly and shook his head, but the image was stuck. What was more, he wasn't sure which was true, her pursuit of mission, the desire to pay back a favor, or her romantic inclinations. Maybe all? Maybe none. She was a good actress.

"I understand," her tone was tight, words clipped. "I'll have Barton take you to his place. Maybe I'll be able to thank you some other way, another time. Goodbye, Barnes."

She walked away and he watched her leave, a memory hitting him square in the gut, right on cue.

How can a kid grow up and never once have chocolate?

He tossed the small bar, wrapped in wax paper, in the air and caught it with his bionic hand. Such a little thing, something so easy. He'd nicked this one from a little shop a mile or so off base. They'd never notice, but Little Firecracker, she'd like it. A kid should have chocolate once in a while.

She was polishing her pistol, so small, so defiant. Never once had she given up in the range, not once. She reminded him of someone… he couldn't put his finger on it.

Here, he said in his halting Russian, for you. A kid should have chocolate.

She studied it carefully, blue eyes pouring over it with intelligence and caution beyond her years. Finally, she held it back out to him, determination setting her face.

What do I have to do for it, she asked in beautiful lilting words that made him feel pain where he normally couldn't.

Nothing. You just eat it. It's a gift.

She looked up at him wearing something nearly identifiable as a smile. Thank you, she whispered.

No problem, kid- he was cut off by the entrance of two officer-ranked comrades.

Operativnoye odin, ostanovka, vmestes nami. They had the cryo keys. He was going back to sleep.

Do svidaniya, nemnogo feyyerverk, he said one last time to her, standing on the threshold as her handler led her away.

At least she pocketed that chocolate in time.

Bucky came out of this memory shaking but lucid. It was pretty complete, as his flashbacks came. Sight, sound and feelings, the full sensory event. But it hadn't uprooted him, maybe because it wasn't Bucky's memory, it was Operative One's with a hint of Bucky peeking through.

"Natasha?" He leaned heavily on the jamb of the spare room, hoping his stomach would stop churning and the room spinning. "I have a request."

A/N: okay, as I'm sure you've noticed I don't actually know Russian so... yeah, bear with me there and apologies if I've mangled anyone's mother tongue.