I parked a couple of houses down, my car blending in with the others alongside the road. I had checked my mirrors several times on my way here, making sure one of Tony's affiliates- or even HYDRA's- weren't following me. I had stayed the night in a hotel under a fake name to throw off anyone looking for me, but first thing after I woke up I checked out and headed back into town.

Sam Wilson was one of the many people I had met when I was deployed. He had just become a pararescueman and was being assigned to the 58th Rescue Squadron. He was one of the men who had rescued me from the Ten Rings. He was discharged soon after I was.

Now, I wasn't so sure that whole story was true. When we had met after I woke up in the hospital back in DC, he hadn't said much. He kept diverting his eyes as though there was something more he wanted to say but he couldn't figure out how to say it. He told me of the condition I was found in and how they had destroyed the base after getting me out. Tony told me later that one of his closest friends had died on the mission before mine.

I took a deep breath and got out of my car, heading for Wilson's door. I had been here before, to give thanks to him after I was healed for rescuing me. His house stood only a few miles away from mine, and it was the least I could do for the person who had saved my life.

As I approached the door, I could feel my hands shaking as I raked one through my hair. I reached for the doorbell but before I could ring it, the door opened and Sam Wilson was standing in front of me, looking slightly confused. I stuck my hand out for him.

"Hi! Uh, I'm Phoebe. We met-" He cut me off, returning the gesture.

"After Sokovia. I remember. A mission like yours is hard to forget." He laughed lightly, not being able to look me in the eyes. He moved aside, gesturing for me to come inside. "How can I help you?" He closed the door behind me. I took in my surroundings for a moment.

"I got a message last night. From Fury." I informed him, he nodded and sighed under his breath. "I need to know about the Sokovia Recovery. I need to know everything." He led me to his living room, sitting in a recliner.

"I figured he would send you here. You might want to take a seat. This is gonna take a while." I nodded and sat down on one of the smaller couches, facing him. "How much do you know?" He asked, trying to assess where my memories laid.

"Well, I remember the mission. I remember the man that took me- the Winter Soldier. But Doctor Price, my therapist, left me a message as well. There was some sound- it made me remember something. When I was captured. They were going to question me. The soldier was there, too." I could feel my head start to ache as I strained to remember the dream I had just an hour ago. He nodded before speaking again.

"They told us we were to tell you it was the Ten Rings that took you. Fury said knowing otherwise would compromise you. Do you remember your time serving, Phoebe?" He asked suddenly. I rubbed my temples, thinking of my days in Special Ops.

"I try not to think about it much. I know we were following the Ten Rings. We travelled a lot and we destroyed different bases. The only thing I remember clearly is the mission I was taken on." I clasped my hands together in my lap, waiting for his response.

"When I first met you," He started, sighing and leaning back in his chair, "you were still in training. I had joined the pararescue team, but they had assigned Riley and I to the 58th Rescue Squadron. That was yours. Your training was different from what we were used to. We started asking around; why were they keeping you in a building separate from where we were working? That was when things started getting strange." He paused, waiting to see if I had any questions. I gestured for him to continue. "It was the day before we were supposed to leave on our first mission and we still hadn't met any of the team we were going with. We talked to Commander Mager about it and he told us that we were only going with one person. That was you.

"He didn't call you Phoebe, though. He called you Onyx. He gave us your file and told us to meet him in the mess in a couple of hours. The file had your real name in it, along with all your info. You were part of a new project. They didn't use the term 'sleeper' in it, but Riley and I could tell the difference.

"The project was named Intellect Service. They trained soldiers- willingly, though I doubt they were given a full debriefing of the process- to go under the radar and collect foreign intelligence. Riley and I would be there in case anything went wrong and you needed to be pulled out.

"But, they went one step further and made sure you wouldn't remember whatever you reported when they, for lack of better terms, woke you up." I could feel the pain surging in my head as I moved to rub my temples again. I was starting to get the same feeling I had after hearing Doctor Price's voicemail. Sam stopped speaking for a moment before asking, "Are you alright?" I nodded quickly.

"I just need a second, this happened earlier-" I couldn't hear his reply, suddenly a loud ringing began again and I clutched at my head, praying for it to stop, but it wouldn't. Before I knew it I was trapped in another dream- no, they were memories.

"Soldat?" (Soldier) I heard, my eyes snapping open and focusing on the men in front of me. I assessed the room around me. There was a man on each side of me as well as one in front.

"Gotovy soblyudat." (Ready to comply) I replied, awaiting the mission they would assign me to. My mind was blank, other than memorizing my surroundings.

"Excellent. Onyx, mission assignment." I nodded, awaiting the assignment. "Infiltrate HYDRA base Crown. Location: Tokyo." He read from a file he held in his hands, before reaching and handing it to me. "There will be an agent awaiting your arrival on the third floor with a file. Secure the file and return to base for a mission report. Ensure as few casualties as possible. Do not draw attention to yourself. Vy poniamayete?" (Do you understand?) He finished. I grabbed the file from his hands and tucked it under my arm.

"Ponyal" (I understand) I replied, waiting for my dismissal.

"Two pararescues will accompany you. You will wear a wire. If anything goes wrong, they will retrieve you. Vy uvoleny." (You are dismissed) I gave a salute to the commander and he moved aside. I walked to the door, where I was met by the men who would accompany me-

I gasped and clasped my hand over my heart, it felt as though it could beat out of my chest. I focused my vision and found Sam had crossed the room to kneel in front of me, worrying and asking if I was alright. "I remember. I remember the first mission." I told him. He nodded, but worry still creased his features.

"Fury said you would start to recall information when we brought it up. What do you remember about it?" He asked, moving to relax into the couch.

"I woke up in a room with a few doctors. They called me Onyx. They debriefed me. It cut off after I met you and Riley. I think I can remember signing up for the project?" The memories were foggy but they were slowly filtering into my head. Holes in my memories of serving in special ops were being filled, albeit they were only the ones that had occurred before my first mission.

Sam nodded before continuing his story, "Commander Mager told us about the mission when we met him in the mess. He said you were being sent in to gather intelligence from a mole working at a HYDRA base in Tokyo. We thought we were working for the good side.

"When you received the file and drew back from the base, the weather was too bad to travel back to Afghanistan. We made it to Hubei, in China, and Mager told us to get holed up in a hotel. It kept biting at Riley that we didn't know what was in the file; he wouldn't stop asking you if he could see it. I left for maybe fifteen minutes to grab some food, but when I got back he wouldn't talk-," I felt another surge of pain in my head before my vision went blank, another memory infiltrating my conscience.

I sat on one of the queen sized beds, my eyes focusing on the wallpaper on the far side of the room. Sam had gone out to get food, despite my protests, and Riley had stayed behind to keep watch over me. I could feel pain coursing through my head, and it felt as though someone was invading my thoughts. I felt like I was losing control of my body.

Riley turned to me, as he had multiple times over the course of the day, "C'mon, you can't tell me you don't want to know what's in that thing?" He pointed to the file that laid next to me.

I grasped it in my hands again, scared that he would try to grab it while I wasn't looking. "That's not part of the assignment." I repeated. It wasn't. Commander Mager would have given me explicit permission had he wanted me to see the content of the file. My mission was to retrieve and return.

Riley gave an exasperated sigh and threw his arms up, walking in the direction of the bathroom before replying. "Whatever you say, Phoebe." With his reply, it felt as though something in my mind snapped.

I felt myself slouch to the side as I lost consciousness for a moment, before the invader in my mind took hold, thoughts and memories rushing through my mind and causing even more pain. "Shit." I heard Riley say. He rushed to my side, helping me sit up.

"You said my name." I told him. Mager had told me previously that, should anyone bring up my personal history, my mission would be compromised. I don't think he had told Riley that. I looked at the file in my hands, suddenly curious.

I knew Mager wouldn't want me to open it. But, I wanted to know why I had been sent to Tokyo just to receive a thick file. It seemed like an overexerted mission for something that only held information. "Let's look in it." I said, looking up to Riley. He had wrapped his arm around my shoulder to steady me, and he moved to grab my shoulder, making sure I was listening to him.

"We don't have to, Phoebe. We should probably reactivate you. I don't want Mager to find out I did this." I shook my head, knocking his hand off my shoulder. "I want to know. We can do the reactivation later. I won't remember. They won't find out." I pulled the string that held the file together, letting the covering on the front fall open.

I opened the file completely, tossing the cover to my side and focused my attention on the cover page. "The Winter Soldier Program?" Riley asked, moving to my side so he could read the file as well.

There was an older looking picture of a soldier at the top of the next page, clean cut and in his uniform. He was receiving his Sargent status. Below that was a picture of the same man. His hair was longer and the edges of the picture looked frosted around the edges.

"Is he-?" Riley started speaking before grabbing the page from my hand.

"What is it?" I asked, looking over his shoulder.

"It looks like he's in a cryogenic tomb. Like he's being frozen. His body is being preserved." His eyes were narrowed at the page, trying to pick up any other details from the picture. "Is this really the same guy?" He asked. I looked back down at the page in my hand. His height, weight, name and birthdate were listed, as well as a few personal facts. It was his military documents.

"There's nothing on here about another person." I said, turning the page. There was a picture of the man while he was unconscious.

He looked unnaturally pale and his lips were a blue color that couldn't be healthy. His left arm was missing, but there was a bandage around where the limb had been removed. I read the passage below the picture, my face paling at the description of the procedures they had performed on him. "Riley," I pulled his attention away from the picture in front of him to the page in my hand. "You're going to want to see this." I shoved the remainder of the file into his hand, standing from the bed and pacing the room.

I could see his features changing, a range of emotions flitting across his face. One of the components of my training for the Intellect Service program had been evaluating emotions, and Riley's were easier to read than anyone's I had seen before.

"Why are you gathering this information, Phoebe? What-,"

The memory stopped again, dissolving into a blur and processing along with the flood of memories that followed it. When I could finally remember where I was- still in Sam's living room- I felt his hands on his shoulders, shaking me lightly but also supporting me so I could sit up. I opened my eyes, searching for his own. I couldn't speak and he waited several moments before questioning me.

"What did you remember, Phoebe?" He asked slowly, removing his hands from my shoulders and let me sit straight on my own.

"I remember everything, Sam." I said, my eyes pricking with tears at the pain in my head. It was slowly reducing as the rush of the memories began to slow.


Alright, late again but here's chapter 7! Good news is, this is where it starts to pick up, so I'm going to try to post at least twice a week! (Or any time I can get to a computer, seeing as that's been my problem lately.)

Also, I had tickets for a photo op with Sebastian Stan at Chicago's comic con, but apparently his appearance got cancelled? SUPER big bummer for me, that was the most exciting thing I was supposed to do all summer. Sadly, I haven't had much time to work on the sequel but, when classes start again I will definitely have time for it!

Thank you for reading! Let me know if you find any mistakes and I hope you enjoy!