As she said
You could be my kind of man
Will you do the best you can
And I could use a little time
I need to straighten out my mind
And I'm gonna break on, break on through
And I close my eyes and think of you


A guttural cry echoed out around the barren cell Bucky sat within but for the first time in what felt like an eternity, it wasn't him screaming. Instead, the man was what Bucky recognized as their latest venture, their newest project, and it was Bucky who stood watch over him to ensure their newest toy stayed precisely where they wanted him.

The man, much like Bucky, had metal grips and vices holding him down to the chair he sat upon but unlike him, this man struggled against his confines. He was one of the new ones, Bucky noted, he could always tell the new ones by just how hard they fought the first few weeks – and this one fought like hell.

From his dark corner of the concrete underground, he watched the man intently and waited. He waited for the man to give up the fight, to give up just like all of the others had but it had been days now and as the hours ticked on, the man continued to wrestle against any and all obstacles thrown at him.

Even then, as Bucky stood not ten feet away with a gun pointed in the man's face, the stranger paid no mind. He was much too hell bent on an escape to care about whether or not the Bucky would shoot.

After several minutes, the man fell back against the metal vices and breathed out a rather frenzied breath of air. His flaxen hair, once kempt, was now matted around in several different directions and the various wounds around his face were now turning into ugly black and red scabs that looked both raw and infected.

It was only then, despite how close Bucky truly was, that the man seemed to notice Bucky.

For a moment, the man said nothing. He simply continued to stare blankly back at Bucky through a pair of greenish grey eyes that were rimmed with red and sweat. It wasn't until the man glanced down at his confined arms that he finally spoke.

"You can keep staring at me with those dead eyes of yours but I'll be damned if it stops me from getting out of here."

Bucky said nothing to the man, simply continued to stand there wordlessly with his gun aimed and readied for the man's head.

"So, what are you?" The man asked Bucky, obviously not caring how one-sided the conversation was at this point. "Hydra's sheep dog? There if they need you to herd the sheep back to the slaughter?" Bucky didn't budge. "Got you on one hell of a leash though, don't they?"

It seemed to irk the man the longer Bucky remained quiet. It wasn't until the man, who had the words 'Subject 301' scribbled messily into the metal casing surrounding him, finally allowed his struggling arms to fall back flat against the bindings that Bucky could see just how exhausted the man truly was.

"Did Hydra cut out your tongue when they pinned your balls up to their flagpole or do you just not like me very much?" The man asked, his strange eyes hooded from his nonstop attempts at an escape. When Bucky didn't answer, the man only frowned. "Guess it's just me."

"Ah, I see you've met Mr. Quartermain." A deep voice cut in from across the room.

Bucky watched the man's eyes shift towards the unknown voice but Bucky's remained cast forward towards his subject. Ready to shoot if need be.

He was always ready.

"You've gotta be kidding me," the blonde man uttered. "Pierce?"

The name didn't strike a chord for Bucky, but as the man walked up to greet the pair, Bucky found he recognized the man only slightly. Just enough to know that he had seen him before – somewhere – but just where or how he had no idea.

The man who stood behind him, however, he knew quite well. He was the first face Bucky had seen every time he woke up from his 'sleep'. His presence was enough to alert Bucky that this man, the one called Pierce, was not to be harmed.

"Clay." Pierce greeted with a semblance of a smile on his aged face. "It's been a long time, old friend."

The man – Clay, Bucky gathered – struggled against the restraints even harder than he had only moments before and any bit of rage the man had experienced prior to this was moot compared to how he seemed now.

"You bastard!" The man's voice echoed and Bucky noted the distinct way his jaw clenched when he said those words. "I trusted you! We all trusted you!"

A very small sardonic smile graced the other man's lips. "Which is precisely why this works for me. For us." He signaled to the empty room. "What better way for Hydra to succeed than to crumble the very thing that holds it back? And to crumble it from inside its very flesh?" The man leaned against the base of the table that stood a few feet away from Bucky. "It's a beautiful thing, really."

Clay spat at the man but from his angle it barely reached Bucky let alone the man who stood behind him. "You'll never get away with it, Pierce."

Pierce only laughed and Bucky remained unmoving. It wasn't until he heard Pierce's footsteps approach that he was vividly aware of their close proximities. "And how will you stop me, Quartermain?"Another laugh. "Seems I have the upper hand here."

The man struggled, but the binds never budged. That was when the man's eyes met Bucky's. "Having one of your Hydra dogs point a gun in my face isn't having 'the upper hand' it's being a damn coward."

"Oh, don't worry Mr. Quartermain, your time too will come. He might be our best weapon, but I have a good feeling about you."

Bucky's left eye twitched, but he dare not say a word. Clay, on the other hand, had no issue speaking up.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Pierce only smiled. "You didn't think I'd skip out on the opportunity to get one of SHIELD's best agents backing Hydra, did you?"

"I'd never—"

"Oh, hush. I know you wouldn't." He clicked his tongue. "Much too loyal. Pity, really. But what we have planned doesn't involve much of you, per se. Not really."

Clay's strange eyes never left Pierce. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

A weight suddenly fell on Bucky's shoulder and as he moved his head just enough to gaze at it, he noticed it was Pierce's hand. "Our 'dog' over here was much like you once upon a time. Weren't you, soldier?" He gazed at Bucky with a glimmer of pride in his blue eyes before looking back at Quartermain. "Naïve. Useless." A grin stretched over his thin lips. "But we made him stronger. We made him better. He's limitless, really. And you will be, too."

For the first time since the man arrived, Bucky noticed a glimmer of something pass behind his eyes. But just what that was, he didn't know. He didn't care.

"I'll die before I become a weapon for Hydra."

Pierce nodded hopefully. "I'm counting on that. That's precisely part of it, really." He stepped closer to the man trapped in his confines and grinned. "You see, Mr. Quartermain, we've been working on something for a while now. A serum, if you will. But in order for it to work your body needs to be immersed into complete stress. That's the only way to activate it, really." Bucky noted the way Pierce moved around the man on the chair. "But don't worry, Clay. If we wanted to truly kill you – for good – you'd be dead already." The man placed a hand on Quartermain's shoulder. "At least this way it'll only be for a few minutes."

"I won't let that happen. Neither will SHEILD. You said it yourself, I'm a good agent – once they catch wind of—"

"I've thought about that and frankly I'm not worried. We're in Slovakia for starters and you're not much use down here, are you? You have no way to alert them, certainly, and should you escape? Well, I don't think you'll much like that outcome."

"Idle threats aren't really my thing, Pierce." The man growled. "You should know this."

Pierce simply hummed before looking at Bucky. "Bring me the file on that table, soldier." Bucky simply blinked, unsure of his next move. It wasn't until he slowly glanced down at the table and noticed a brown folder that he heard Pierce's quiet sigh. "Now, soldier."

Slowly, Bucky allowed his gun to lower so it hung beside his thigh before he picked up the folder and brought it to Pierce. He didn't miss the intense stare resonating from Quartermain as he did so.

"You see, this is no idle threat." He flipped open the folder to reveal a picture of a blonde girl closely resembling the blonde man. She couldn't have been any older than twenty and she wore a large smile on her face. "And even if it was, would you take that chance?"

Bucky noticed the man's attempts to break free were even wilder now. He thrashed against the restraints so hard that one of the many scabs ripped clear off and began to bleed.

"You'll stay the fuck away from her, you sick fuck!" Another violent lurch shook one of the metal frames and on instinct alone, Bucky's gun was back up and raised at the man's head. This time, however, the man truly paid no mind. "You stay away from my daughter!"

Bucky's heart was thrashing wildly in his chest as he jolted up in bed. Beads of sweat poured down his face and neck at the memory of the dream and for a moment all he could do was sit there and pant in an attempt to gather both his breath and his thoughts.

He knew he had seen that man before. The one from the file he had found at the makeshift base he had stumbled upon directly before the bomb went off but this memory was a new one. Without wasting another minute, Bucky stretched over to the small cabinet to his left and pulled at the small notebook.

Clay Quartermain – Captured by Hydra. Slovakia.

Timeline: 7-8 years ago

Charlotte Quartermain – threat? Known by Hydra.

He thought back to the picture of Charlotte he had seen in his dream. She looked much younger then and rightfully so. He recalled reading that Clay had died seven years prior which would have only made her twenty at the time of his death let alone his capture.

After scribbling down a few more notes and details from his nightmare, Bucky tossed the notebook across the stiff bed and sighed. He was tired, physically, emotionally. He couldn't recall what a decent night's sleep felt like.

Then again, these days he couldn't recall a whole heck of a lot, really.

He blinked and immediately was met with the image of him holding the gun to Quartermain's head. He truly had not felt as if he had killed that woman's father when he saw the picture in the file but how could he know for sure?

He suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He had honestly thought if any of his memories had come back it was those of the people he had killed over the years. For as truly horrifying as most of them were he almost relied on those memories as a crutch because if they could come back why couldn't the rest?

With an agitated growl, Bucky ground his molars together and clenched his jaw as his blood began to boil. He needed answers, hell, he needed something and sitting in the small hole-in-the-wall apartment was helping with neither. So, before he could talk himself out of it, Bucky threw his legs over the bed and slipped on a pair of jeans with a grey long-sleeved Henley before throwing on his worn jacket and gloves.

He needed some answers and that's exactly what he was going to get.


The smell of pasta sauce floated throughout Charlotte's small loft as she hungrily stirred the saucepan. The recipe had called for parsley but she had improvised and added a touch of oregano instead. Would it taste the same? Probably not, but as her stomach gave out a loud growl, she found she didn't care all too much. Homemade food, be it something as simple as pasta, was a godsend after all that hospital food she had consumed.

It had officially been five days since she had been out. Five whole days and that strange feeling in her gut was still ever present. She had died and though the doctor had tried to convince her that that type of thing happened quite often, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Terribly, terribly wrong.

It wasn't normal to heal so fast. Even the doctor had said that she was healing at an accelerated rate. Sure, she was still sore, but considering she had survived a bomb going off she was relatively unscathed with the exception of one deep scar running down her jaw. Everything else, her ribs, her ankle, everything was simply just a dull ache at this point. Sure, she did get the occasional pain reverberating through her ribs, but with the exception of that, she was fine and that just didn't seem right.

It didn't seem normal.

Something had changed that night of the blast but just what it was, she had no idea.

"Shit!" She cursed as her knuckles skimmed across the searing hot metal of the pan. Instantly, she dropped the wooden spoon that she had been using to stir and grimaced as an ugly red mark stained her skin. "Of course."

The lights in the apartment gave a low rumble and flickered for a brief moment just as she hobbled towards the sink.

Yet another irritation the week had to offer.

She had lived in the flat for two years but she had never seen the power flicker and fail as often as she had since she had been home. Had they changed the breakers while she was gone? She didn't think so but by mid-week when the seventh power outage happened, she called her landlord and gave him an earful.

This, naturally, was met with a half-assed inspection of the breaker, the control panel and her wiring but according to him, they found nothing.

"Assholes," she growled as she ran her hand under the cold water. "Couldn't even guarantee me a full day of power." As her irritation grew, the lights flickering above her head only got worse. "Oh, for God's sake!" She finally cried out as she slammed the faucet down.

Within five steps, she crossed her apartment, gathered her iPhone, and punched in the familiar number belonging to that of her landlord.

It went straight to voicemail.

Did she blame him? Not entirely as this would have been her third or fourth call of the week – she would probably screen her calls, too – but what choice did she have? Something was clearly wrong with the power and it technically was his job to take care of problems like that.

So, with that in mind, she waited to hear the tiny beep signifying the start of her message.

"Oh, hi Mr. Klausmann, it's Charlie again from 4b. I just wanted to let you know that the power is still flickering – even more so now, if that's possible – so if you could please either call me back or come on up when you have the time that would be great. Thanks!"

With an agitated sigh, she set her phone on the nearest table and took a seat on the chair facing the window.

What a week, she thought to herself as she tiredly leaned back into the plush, worn leather. Slowly, she lulled her head to the side to peer out the window but was distracted when she noticed the pile of Gabe's diaries on the table beside her.

Curiously, she reached for one and began to gently flip through the delicate pages. Right away, she noticed Gabe's familiar writing and, despite the situation at hand, she found herself smiling.

It wasn't until she flipped to a picture of the Howling Commandos that her smile slowly fell and was replaced by a curious frown. She had seen this picture before but as she looked closer at the picture of one soldier in particular – a one Bucky Barnes – something far in her memory piqued to life. She recalled seeing the picture back at the hospital with Gabe and though the man in the picture looked familiar then, but that feeling was tenfold now.

She was sure she had seen him, but how? Where? He was long dead by now, that much she knew, but even knowing that, the feeling of fluency never went away.

Suddenly the smell of smoke filtered into her nose and for a moment she froze. Immediately, images of her blurred vision beneath a pile of rubble and debris pounded through her brain. She could practically see herself lying there helpless and dying but it was that feeling in her lungs, that heaviness, that she recalled the most.

It felt claustrophobic.

Then a pair of arms were around her, hoisting her up and away from the carnage. She blinked several times in an attempt to see the person, the man, more clearly but her attempts were moot.

The memory of the explosion came and went the second her fire alarm began to sound from the kitchen. Immediately, her heart shot up into her throat and before she could think twice, she was running into the tiny kitchen where she noticed the wooden spoon engulfed in a small flame.

"Shit!" She screeched, running towards the sink to fill up a nearby cup. Thankfully, the fire was still very much contained and as soon as she poured the water on the stove, the flames doused and filled the small room with a thick, grey smoke that smelled awful.

With a shaky breath, Charlotte lowered the cup to the counter and observed the mess with trembling hands. She was furious – no, murderous and on top of everything her food was ruined.

You've got to be kidding me, she thought bitterly, but just as her anger began to pound so intensely that she swore she could feel the blood boiling in her ears, the lights above her finally cut and she was left in nothing but darkness.

"Amazing," she muttered beneath her breath as she stood there in the blackness of the kitchen. It took her a few minutes before she was able to grab her leather jacket and head towards the door. She knew her luck was running thin these days and chances of her landlord getting back to her in the next few hours was not likely. So, with that in mind, she grabbed her keys and her purse and headed out of the flat.

Maybe her luck would be better out of her power-free flat. At the very least, it couldn't possibly get much worse.

Or so she thought.