The young blond man was stood naked in the bathroom after a shower. He studied his reflection in the only mirror in the house, which was cracked and dirty. He had not shaved, and had a decent beard with thinner moustache, slightly darker than his hair. The facial hair was strange, so he could assume he had never grown a beard before, which was not surprising as he looked young. If he had to guess he was in his late teens. He was tall, a bit on the thin side, but with strong core musculature and flexibility. He had mid brown eyes, a strong straight nose, chiselled cheek bones but he could not recall if he took after his parents, grandparents or siblings. He was almost sure that he was an only child and an orphan.

As he dressed, Alex wondered on his current situation, living in an isolated farmhouse with a mysterious carer, who was not related to him; but was meticulously helping him cope with amnesia after an unspecified bad experience. The fact was Alex knew he had never gotten ill. That was one fact that was certain even though he had yet to recover any meaningful memories of his childhood or teenage years. He had brief, fleeting flashbacks of gut churning agony, absolute horror and the faces of his tormentors. He concluded he had suffered extreme trauma to induce his memory loss, not one but cumulative events. As he had no other point of reference, he watched James. The guy was his current obsession. Alex went over all interactions looking for clues. The dark haired man with the metal arm always knew when to hold him when his terrors took him and when to leave him to brood and sulk. James spoke sparingly of his own recovery at these times, reassuring Alex that he was getting there. The recovering invalid could only conclude that James Barnes was also a recovering amnesiac, one who also had night terrors.

Life was a routine, as James stated routine helped with recovery. Mornings were Alex's favourite time of day, as he could honestly say breakfast was his favourite meal. He now cooked the four meals the pair shared each day. It turned out he knew his way around a kitchen. Recipes came to him while looking at the various items in the refrigerator, freezer and the store cupboard. They both ate a lot. Alex was hungry within minutes of eating. The pair also exercised a lot as well. Not just for general fitness and wellbeing, but for flexibility, strength and stamina. They spared daily, hand to hand and with practice knives. It was all easy and natural. Each movement a reflex, a known response. James was surprised by his abilities. Alex could surmise they had not trained together previously.

Then came the hard fact of cryofreeze. It was like the boogyman to Alex. The mere thought of freezing struct terror into him. It was a block he could not get past. His memories were trapped behind that horror.

…

"Why do we share a bed?" Alex asked, puzzled by the simple fact that there were three bedrooms, but the pair stayed in the master bedroom together.

"Warmth and comfort. Helps keep night terrors away for both of us."

Alex watched as James paused and was lost in thought; obviously drawn into part of his own shattered past. "I spent most of my childhood sharing my bed with my best friend, Stevie. He got ill a lot, was a small and frail kid, permanently cold. Living conditions weren't great in our tenement. Stevie's mom worked nights, mostly. My mom was best friends with Sarah Rogers, so Stevie stayed with us on those nights. We were as close as twins. Had to be in a two bedroomed apartment. A room we also shared with my sister Becca."

James accent was unmistakably american. Alex could guess at his home city, "Was that in New York?"

"Brooklyn."

There was another fact to add to the list. Was Alex American as well? He knew better than to ask direct questions as James would not answer. Better he remembered on his own, at his own pace. That way Alex would be able to recognise real from implanted memories. Whatever had happened before he had been put on ice had been bad and his brain had been seriously messed about with.

…

The dream was not a dream, a nightmare fuelled from a real experience a memory of the utter vileness that he had lived through. He could hear James talking calmly and softly in russian, a litany of Alex's name, their location, the fact they were safe and there was only James here. Alex could smell the sharp tang of vomit. His throat was sore, but he could not recall that he had been screaming. The cool touch of the metal hand was rubbing circles on his bare back. The metal appendage was unique to James Barnes, this was real, he was real. There were no tormentors. Alex let out a huge sob and his wail of hurt and grief was hoarse. He had survived brutality, humiliation and casually inflicted horror. He was being hugged by James and that centred him. This man was his world. In a broken whisper Alex asked a direct question "They did that to you too?"

"Talk about what they did and I'll confirm it. You need to talk and then deal with your experiences or you'll go mad. Really, we both should be seeing a bunch of shrinks, but PTSD is a fact we both have to live with." James then loosened the hug. "Go have a shower, I'll clean up the bed and put the kettle on. We can compare our memories over tea and several dozen cookies."

The tea flowed that day. Black loose leaf tea, strongly brewed on the stove and served blisteringly hot and shockingly sweet. Two men talked of being sleep deprived, starved, deprived of water, beaten, being given the hope of escape only to be dragged back to be tortured, raped and humiliated over and over again.

Alex traced the lines of the metal plates on James left arm and smiled. "So you came and got me out. You saved me."

"Like Stevie saved me."

Alex was suddenly sharply jealous of James' BFF; but the decided to throw caution to the wind. He only had James, even if this was only a temporary arrangement, he had nothing to loose by confessing his emotional attachment. "I love you, James."

James Barnes smiled "I love you too, kiddo."

With a direct and unflinching stare, the blond man gripped the dark haired man's hand. "No, I really love you. More than brothers…. I…. I want you too."

James looked at Alex and could see a reflection of himself, a man broken by life and being held together with nothing more than newspaper and string. Above all the recovering victim of Armin Zola's grand plan wished with all his heart for Steve to be here; as his big hearted, sensible best friend would know exactly the right way to handle the fact this messed up kid, who had become fixated on his rescuer. James Buchanan Barnes was the worst person in the world to consider an ally, never mind friend or lover. Only Alex was quite right to surmise that they were already emotionally compromised and taking the next step was a logical one. "Look, you are on the road to recovery, but you, well we both have, a way to go yet. I'm not in any position to get involved… not that I'm rejecting you or anything… its just I haven't been a 'person' for such a long time. I don't trust myself. Just so you know, my track record before HYDRA was that I put myself about and was a bit of a ladies man; but don't let that fool you 'cause I loved Stevie and never had the guts to tell him. You and I are a good match, its just I'm not ready for sex just yet."

Alex sat back, but did not break eye contact. "Yeah, we are a matching pair of ex-brainwashed, recently defrosted, trained killers, without full cognitive recall. HYDRA really did a number on us. I'm OK with the status quo and I'm not pushing for anything more. Its just you're a handsome guy and I'm a horny teenager.. and well, plus the fact its just us two, here." Alex then frowned and shivered. "I think you'd be the only person I'd even consider being intimate with after… them." With a deep breath he closed his eyes and rubbed his eyes. No one could ever mistake James for anyone but James, not with that amazing metal cybernetic arm. "Right, my diversionary tactics of jumping into bed and fucking rather than deal with all the facts I'm still missing has not worked; so now the hard questions. This place is a timeless bubble. No TV, no radio, no computers, no phones and no internet, not that I can find and I have looked. I get that's intentional due to my amnesia. What are you protecting me from? I'm worrying that we are the only two humans left alive?"

"No, the human race is doing just fine. Our isolation was intentional so no one can disturb us, while you recovered. So, what precisely do you remember?" James had been very careful not to derail Alex's recovery with too much information too fast.

"I remember my conditioning, but only fragments of anything before. I know who I am, Alexander John Rider, born in London on the 13th February 1987. I know that my parents are dead and that I never knew them. I guess I'm about nineteen. That's taking into account I was eighteen when HYDRA abducted me. I'm guessing they snatched me because I can't imagine willingly signing up for the whole becoming nothing but a weapon thing. However, my concept of time gets a bit hazy after that, months not weeks. I forgot my name, who I was. They wiped me clean. So, I guess it must be May or June in 2006, based on the assumption I was only frozen for a short amount of time."

James had always been subconsciously aware of loosing years in cryofreeze and being woken for training and assignments over decades before he escaped from HYDRA's control. Alex had never been utilised as an asset, only kept as a backup; as the Winter Soldier had remained operational and fully functional. Now was the crunch time to reintroduce Alex to the future and his stolen years. "Its time to pack up and for us to rejoin the real world. We'll get a newspaper at our new digs, which has a TV and all moderns conveniences."

…

Alex lay on the bed of the small apartment in Zagreb. James had left him to process everything that had happened while he had been on ice. He had yet to process the fact it really was 2014, even with the proof of five international newspapers and watching CNN on the TV. He had missed not one but two alien invasions, the fall of SHIELD and the fact he was 27, not 19. Not that any of that mattered because he still could not remember any friends or there was anyone to miss him. His mind was a jumble of images, snippets of conversations, tastes, smells and disturbing emotions. He could see Yasha in his minds eye, the man's uneasy mix of violence and beauty. Had they been lover's? Was he a killer? Were they both killers? Yasha had been. He could hear him say "I've killed lots of people" as a plain bit of unadorned truth. Alexander Rider had been close to a genuine psychopath.

Without context he could make up a million awful scenarios, where HYDRA's wiping of Alex Rider's personality was entirely justified. His thought path was broken, when James came into the room and placed a pile of four folders the bed. "HYDRA files on you and your family. Read, its important. What they did to you was not your fault. You are a victim, just like I was. Never forget that. Those bastards ruined everything."

Alex was then left alone with his homework.

First file - Department of War: Top Secret - Sergeant John Mitchell Rider, MC, DSO, 1st Battalion King's Own Royal Regiment, Lancashire (Honourable Discharge December 1943). Volunteer Project Ophion (January 1944- May 1944). Administered Phase 3 Serum 7/5/1944. Project Cancelled after project laboratory on Roundway Down, Wiltshire destroyed by Hydra Rocket direct hit 9/5/1944.

Everything boiled down to his grandfather, who had been a lab rat for a knock off version of Zola's or Erskine's superhuman serum.

Alex read his own, his father's and his uncle's files, noting a legacy of quicker reflexes, enhanced awareness, strength, stamina and healing. HYDRA had been behind Scorpia's repeated attempts to kill him and the successful termination orders on the loyal MI6 agents John and Ian Rider. He had survived to adulthood, for HYDRA to use one of their mole's in MI6 to gain control of a washed up teenage super soldier.

Had MI6 known about his semi-enhanced status? Was Ian's training part of an MI6 attempt to reproduced the KGB's Red Room? Was his whole life a failed experiment? Had his personal rejection of becoming a patriot resulted in HYDRA's change of heart to use him?

The blond ex-spy was lying on the floor surrounded by papers. Soft words in Russian being whispered, James offering comfort and reassurance. Alex was safe. He was free. The date, their location and that James was here to look after him. The metal hand stroking through blond hair and the soft reassuring presence of the other hand on Alex's back.

Alex shuddered and relaxed. "So, is this a thing now. Blacking out when everything gets too much?"

James sat back, but did not break contact. "I promise the seizures will stop. The reason we are here is that someone from your past is looking for you, a friend. Not an operative, but someone who you knew as a kid. They must have read the same files I did from the information dump after the fall of SHIELD. They never believed you were dead. We will go and see if you can recognise them. Hopefully it will help you recover the rest of your memories of happier times."