The Soldier listened to the conversation happening around him, trying to follow the information that was being shared. Except none of it made any damn sense.

He pieced together some things; someone named Loki had invaded the Earth with an army of Chitauri, whoever they were. Except the Chitauri actually worked for this Thanos person, which meant Loki might have been working for him as well. The Handler had a sister who had, near as the Soldier could figure, watched movies that predicted the future. The Handler had not seen these future predicting movies, and only knew what she remembered her sister complaining about. Also, Loki had stolen something called the Tesseract, and the group wanted it back. Oh, and the whole group was on the run from Hydra and SHIELD, and the Soldier might not understand much else that they were talking about, but he knew enough about Hydra to know that that was a huge problem by itself.

I need more information.

Questions had always been discouraged, unless he was gathering tactical, need to know information. The Soldier was fairly certain that there was quite a bit of information that he still needed to know. Still, he didn't particularly want to ask in front of the whole group. He didn't like to make gaps in his knowledge obvious to more people than he had to; ignorance could be an exploitable weakness, and while the Handler said these men were allies, that didn't mean the Soldier actually trusted them.

Opportunity eventually presented itself. By the time dinner was drawing to a close, the Handler was covering yawns. Still tired, despite her long nap on the plane.

"I think I'm ready to turn in again," she said. "Could you point me to a room?"

Tony hopped off the stool he'd been sitting on. "Sure thing. In fact, if everyone wants to come, I can assign rooms now."

The group followed, and as they walked from the kitchen to the bedrooms, Tony pointed out various rooms of interest along the way. The Soldier scanned the surroundings as they went, making note of windows and doors and potential escape routes, as well as locations of nondescript cameras. There were a lot of cameras; it'd be tricky to try and sneak through the place unseen.

"Felicity, you can have this room," Tony said, gesturing to a door. "There should be some extra clothes you can change into too."

"Thanks," the Handler said. She moved to the door, and the Soldier followed.

"Woah, buddy, where do you think you're going?"

The Handler paused at the sound of Tony's voice – which was the only reason the Soldier bothered to stop as well. She glanced over her shoulder, and her eyes widened with a flicker of surprise when she saw the Soldier behind her. The Soldier didn't understand her surprise; his mission was to protect her, and the best way to do that was to stay as close to her as he could, especially given her tendency to teleport when frightened.

The Soldier glanced over at Tony, who was scowling at him. The answer to his question was obvious, so what he probably meant to ask was why the Soldier was following her. But that wasn't what he'd asked, so.

"I'm going with my Handler." The Soldier affected a tone that was just deadpan enough to be unclear if the answer was sarcastic or genuine. It was a tone he'd perfected over the years.

Tony's eyes narrowed, and he jerked a thumb to a door across the way from the one the Handler was staying in. "You can stay there."

The Soldier didn't argue. But he didn't move either.

"It's okay, we're safe here," the Handler said, turning to face him. "You don't have to stay right next to me."

"Switzerland isn't safe from Hydra," the Soldier said bluntly. There were some places that Hydra avoided, but Switzerland wasn't one of them. It wasn't a question of if Hydra would track them down. It was a question of when.

"In the highly unlikely event that Hydra tries to attack us here," Tony said, "I'm sure you could make it across the hall in ten seconds."

The Soldier stared, incredulous. Didn't he know that seconds could be the difference between life and death? Why were they so insistent on putting distance between him and the Handler?

The Handler sighed, running a hand over her face. "You know what, it's fine," she said. "He can stay."

"Are you sure you're okay with that?" Bruce asked.

"Yeah, it'll be fine," the Handler said, waving a hand in dismissal. "He's not going to hurt me."

And then it clicked; it seemed the other men trusted the Soldier as little as he trusted them. Not unreasonable, but their concern was misplaced. So long as she remained his Handler, she was probably the only person in the world the Soldier wouldn't be able to hurt.

"In that case," the one called Thor replied, "I shall take this room." He indicated the door across the hall where Tony had tried to put the Soldier. "I'll be nearby if you need anything, Lady Felicity." The words were said with a stern look in the Soldier's direction. The Soldier didn't react to the implicit warning; there was no advantage to gain by pointing out that if he truly intended to kill his Handler, he knew ways to do it that wouldn't involve any noise to alert them.

The Handler went in her room, and this time no one tried to stop the Soldier from following her. He quickly scanned the room, noting there didn't seem to be any cameras unlike other portions of the house. There was a wide window framed by gauzy curtains, and he moved that way to see how accessible it might be from the outside. The room was on the second floor, and too far away from any trees or the mountain's slopes to be easily reached by anyone who wasn't enhanced. But the Soldier saw at least two spots that could be used by snipers to target the room. He frowned, closing the blinds and curtains for extra measure.

"Um, hey?"

The Soldier turned to face the Handler, who seemed suddenly less relaxed than she'd been in the hallway. She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes darting to the bed and then him. "Where…where were you planning to sleep?" she asked.

Given her posture, the question clearly made her uncomfortable, though the Soldier wasn't sure why. Or why she wanted to know at all, for that matter.

"I'll sleep on the floor," he said. Not that he intended to take more than a few naps throughout the night. He didn't need as much sleep as most people, and the floor was hardly the worst place he'd ever slept.

"Oh," the Handler said. Some of the tension eased from her shoulders, and she bit her lip as she glanced at the bed again. After a moment's hesitation, she moved, scooping up the quilt off the end of the bed and grabbing one of the several pillows. "Well, here then. You'll need these."

The Soldier took them, because he couldn't exactly refuse her. But he also didn't really think they were necessities either. He set them aside on a decorative chair in the corner.

"I need additional information about the mission," he said.

The Handler frowned, her expression more puzzled than angry, he quickly assessed. Then her blue eyes widened. "Oh! Right, you weren't around for any of the beginning stuff. All of this has been confusing, I guess." She reached up and rubbed the back of her neck. "Though…I'm not sure an explanation will make it less confusing."

He didn't know how any explanation could make things more confusing than they already were. But he didn't snap for her to continue, just waited with a flicker of impatience for her to gather her thoughts.

"Okay, so, this is going to sound kind of insane, but I promise it's true."

She was right. Her claim of coming from another dimension where this world was a series of fictional movies did sound insane.

But she didn't seem to be lying; at the very least, she was no more nervous sharing the information than she normally was around him. And given the way the conversation at dinner had gone, the others with her must also believe her story was true. Given that evidence – and that she'd been able to locate him, even though she and her allies weren't associated with Hydra – the Soldier supposed it must be the truth.

Smart move, stealing me from Hydra.

The Soldier wasn't particularly bothered by the fact that his Handler didn't work for Hydra. He'd never felt any loyalty towards them or their ideals. He obeyed his Handler; if Hydra didn't want anyone outside their organization becoming his Handler, then they should have done a better job at guarding him.

Besides, previous Handlers assigned from Hydra were often predisposed towards violence; he could think of several who would have punished him for dragging them around the way he'd done with his current Handler back at the base, even if the point of the dragging along was to keep them safe. Not only had she shown no indication he was going to be punished for that action, she'd also made sure he got as much food as he needed at dinner. So far, despite her being a liability in any kind of fight, the Soldier preferred her to any other Handler he could recall.

"Do you believe me?" she asked.

"Yes," the Soldier said. Aside from the evidence that suggested she was telling the truth, it would be a truly absurd thing to lie about.

"Oh. Good," she said. She paused, studying him for a long moment. "Look, I don't know a ton about what happened in those movies, but I do know a few things about you. From before Hydra, I mean."

"There was nothing before Hydra."

The words were spoken automatically, leaving his mouth before the Soldier even knew what he was saying. The Handler drew up short, the words clearly surprising her as much as they did the Soldier. He didn't remember being trained to recite them; and, he realized abruptly, they couldn't possibly be true. It was impossible for him to have always existed as the Soldier. There had to have been a before.

She pursed her mouth, expression suddenly moving to something more clinical, studying him the way she had when he'd first woken up in the cryo chamber. "Okay," she finally said. "We'll try that again later."

The Soldier didn't know what that meant, and this time, he wasn't sure he wanted clarification.

We should be getting sleep. They'd all slept some on the plane, but Steve knew it wasn't the same as a full night's rest. Granted, Steve could keep going a while with only some naps for rest, but Tony and Bruce were only regular humans. Well, when Bruce wasn't Hulked out anyway.

But Bruce wanted to get his program running to track down the Tesseract, and Tony had agreed to help Steve go through whatever files Zola had had on Bucky, so the three of them settled in his lab to work. Thor probably would have joined them, if he wasn't sticking near Felicity and Bucky to make sure she'd be safe.

Steve didn't think Bucky would hurt her. But without fully understanding what Hydra had done to him, Steve couldn't be sure, and precautions needed to be taken.

"You really think the Tesseract will be in Sicily?" Tony asked as he got one of the computers going.

Bruce didn't look away from the screens he was working on as he answered. "It's just as likely to be there as anywhere else; Loki doesn't exactly have a home base to retreat to on earth."

"Yeah, that's going to have some spooky implications if Felicity was right," Tony said.

Steve frowned. "You think the Tesseract did more than just give her the ability to teleport?"

"I think," Tony said, "that we don't actually have any idea how the Tesseract works at all. Or what being dragged from one dimension to another can actually do to a person. Teleportation might only be scratching the surface of what kind of changes she's going through."

Steve looked over at Bruce, who met his stare with a grimace. "Tony is probably right. Though, given everything she's already dealing with, we probably shouldn't say anything until we actually have a way to figure out what's going on."

Steve wasn't sure he totally agreed…but, given the way she tended to teleport when overly stressed, maybe they had a point. Still, it didn't quite sit well with Steve to keep suspicions about Felicity secret from her.

"Okay, here we go," Tony said, distracting Steve from his thoughts as he refocused on the computer Tony was poking at. "The earliest records about Bucky that we got from Zola's computer. There's a lot of files about him, by the way."

Steve took a steadying breath. "Let's start."

The earliest file was a video; the footage was a grainy black and white, though considering the contents, Steve was almost grateful for the poor quality. A date in the corner marked the year as 1949. Four years after Bucky had fallen from the train. Four years after Zola had been captured. But there Zola was on the screen, obviously free. Anger curled in his stomach as he wondered for a moment just who it had been who decided it was a good idea let him go. Who had decided that any gain was worth letting him escape justice after everything he'd done? Steve and the Commandos had found plenty of evidence about the kinds of experiments Zola had been conducting at those Hydra bases; so far as Steve knew, Bucky was the only person who'd survived any of them.

Zola spoke to the camera. "I am recording the continuation of my Winter Soldier experiment."

"Jarvis, subtitles," Tony said. Steve guessed he didn't speak German; not that Steve was fluent either, but he'd at least learned enough from Jones to grasp the meaning of Zola's first sentence.

"The initial stages have been a success beyond my expectations," Zola continued. "The first doses of the serum allowed the subject to survive a fall from a moving train and being cryogenically frozen for four years. The resiliency it's granted him has been nothing short of astounding. I have great hopes that he will survive the second round of injections."

Zola moved away from the camera, finally allowing a view of the room. Steve didn't notice anything about it though, all his attention focused on the figure strapped to a surgical table.

Bucky.

The Bucky that Steve remembered, rather than the stranger with Felicity upstairs, still dressed in the tattered remnants of his uniform. He jerked against the leather straps keeping him in place, swearing up a blue streak as Zola approached.

He was still himself.

Not the emotionless, brainwashed assassin guarding Felicity upstairs, but Bucky. His friend, his brother…

Zola seemed unperturbed by Bucky's swearing and threats, administering two shots of something. Whatever version of the super soldier serum he'd cooked up.

It didn't take long for the effects to start. It was first noticeable in the way Bucky went quiet. Then in the way they could see Bucky shaking, even with the poor quality of the video.

And then he started screaming.

Steve remembered vividly how intense the pain had been when he'd taken the serum. It was still the worst physical pain he'd ever experienced. But though it had felt like an eternity in the moment, it had actually been over relatively quickly, whether because Erskine's formula was more efficient or the vita rays added something that Zola's version was missing, Steve didn't know.

Bucky's wasn't. The screaming just kept going, and Steve felt sick to his stomach as he watched.

The sound cut out, video skipping ahead. Steve looked over at Tony who shrugged as he tapped buttons. "I don't think we're going to learn anything useful from that clip."

Steve swallowed, reminding himself of the goal. They needed to know how Hydra had brainwashed Bucky. They didn't have to watch Bucky going through the initial stages. It was a relief to be spared that much.

Not all of the files were videos. There were medical charts, and written logs about Bucky's condition that Jarvis helpfully translated for them, since neither of them could read Russian. There were schematics for the metal arm they'd given Bucky; Steve couldn't totally follow them, but they seemed to make sense to Tony, given the way he leaned forward and studied them intently.

"They upgraded his arm since this one," Tony said.

"Still not the information we're looking for," Steve said.

Tony grunted in acknowledgement, before moving the schematics into a folder Steve was certain he'd be examining more closely later. A few files later, and they finally found notes that were relevant.

June, 1949

Arnim has given me an interesting challenge. I have long since perfected my methods with the Red Room, but this Subject shall require me to adjust them. It is a different thing, to shape the mind of a grown man instead of a girl's.

"Red Room," Tony muttered. "That sounds ominous; you ever heard of that before?"

Steve shook his head. "No. That's new to me." Shaping the minds of girls definitely sounded like something they should be concerned about, but it was a concern that would have to wait. These notes had been written over sixty years ago; who knew if the Red Room – whatever it had been – was even still relevant? They had too much else to deal with to focus on that one.

The notes seemed like the most promising lead about what Bucky had been through, so they focused on those. They were signed by a Dr. Volkov, which wasn't a name Steve remembered ever hearing or seeing during the war. Dr. Volkov was a thorough note taker, but the contents made Steve feel sick.

They kept him isolated much of the time – in the beginning Dr. Volkov stressed the importance of making sure he didn't see sunlight. He didn't want Bucky being able to keep track of time. He was frequently denied food, and when it was given, it was done so at random times to help keep Bucky disoriented. His sleep was regularly disrupted. This was carried on for months, all with the intention of breaking Bucky down.

Once that had been done to Dr. Volkov's satisfaction, they started with the electric shocks.

February, 1950

I am finally ready to begin the next phase of the Soldier's conditioning. Arnim grows impatient, but he must understand that this is a long process. Given the resiliency the Soldier has shown, I would anticipate years before he is truly ready to comply. But I should not expect Arnim to fully grasp this; the man also expects me to make the Soldier loyal to Hydra. Hah! As if such a thing were possible. Hydra is an ideal, and you cannot force a man to follow an ideal.

But I can force a man to obey another, and that is what I shall achieve with the Soldier. Though I will face an additional challenge there as well – Hydra intends to use their Soldier for a long time, freezing him between missions when he is not needed. In this manner, they could potentially keep him for centuries. No handler will live that long. I must develop a way to transfer his loyalty from one handler to another.

Steve felt goosebumps on his skin as the words sank in to him.

It confirmed Felicity's theory about why Bucky listened to her and so easily betrayed Hydra. But it also implied something that Steve hadn't considered before.

"There's a way to change who he's loyal to," Steve said. He glanced between Tony and Bruce, his stomach sinking like a lead weight. "If Hydra finds him – they could steal him back."