When Lydia woke, the first thing she noticed was the smell of mould and rust. She didn't give any indication that she was awake, keeping her breathing even and her body relaxed. She could hear water dripping somewhere behind her, and someone breathing on her left – no, there were two people. The second one was breathing with a quietness that could only belong to someone who spent their life in concealment like she did. The Winter Soldier, she guessed.
She felt patchy leather on the parts of her back that were exposed. Her arms were resting on metal armrests, and a light weight on top of her wrists told her she was cuffed to them.
"She's awake," said the smooth voice with the Brooklyn accent.
Lydia sighed and opened her eyes. They were met with harsh, unnatural lighting. She looked to be in some sort of underground base. It was run down and dirty, and if she guessed correctly, out of the way. She could only hope that her team would be able to find her. There was a small table nearby. She saw her tiny earpiece lying there along with some tools. "You're good, Winter Soldier."
The Winter Soldier narrowed his eyes at her. He wasn't wearing his mask. The first time she'd identified him in the bar, he'd looked younger than she had expected, in his mid to late twenties. His face, also, surprised her. Even with the slight frown on his face, it was softer than she would have guessed for a highly achieved assassin. Almost too soft – as if he were empty. "So are you. I didn't suspect you for more than a minute." There was a tone of frustration in his voice as he said it. And – shame?
Lydia turned her eyes to the other man in the room. He was a nondescript type – blond hair, blue eyes behind glasses and slightly on the old side. However, he had an air of authority to him that Lydia would not underestimate. No doubt the reason that the Winter Soldier felt ashamed of letting her fool him was this man.
"Hello, Nancy – I doubt that's your real name, but it'll do." Lydia frowned at his American accent. Were they all Americans? So much for her Russian theory. "My name is Alexander."
"Jesus," muttered Lydia. "You're really gonna play nice?"
"I see no need to be uncivil if you cooperate," said Alexander.
"Don't hold your breath." And she said it with such conviction that all three of them in that room believed it.
Alexander stared at her. "That's disappointing. Are you sure? Well, Soldier, you know what to do."
The Winter Soldier uncuffed her hands and led her over to a basin of water. Lydia wrinkled her nose. "God, I hope that's clean. Probably not, with the state of this place."
"That's the least of your worries," said Alexander.
"No, it really isn't," muttered Lydia. "Dying from e-coli or whatever would be such a lame way to go." She took a controlled breath and allowed herself to be put under.
The Winter Soldier let her up quite quickly. Probably underestimated her abilities, Lydia thought proudly. "Who do you work for?" said Alexander. "C.I.A? S.H.I.E.L.D? Or perhaps another country?"
"Your mom," said Lydia insolently. She was glad that she'd kept up her American accent the whole time. This Alexander probably wouldn't greatly suspect Australia, and now her American accent would really keep him guessing.
This time, the Winter Soldier held her down for much, much longer. She felt herself involuntarily squirm they approached the two minute mark, by her count. She was kept underwater for almost thirty seconds longer than that, and by the time she surfaced she was truly gasping for air. "Who do you work for?"
After what had to have been an hour of continually dunking Lydia without any pause, without any budging from her, Alexander decided to change torture method. "Put her back in the chair," he said.
Alexander said something quietly to the Winter Soldier as he returned to his boss's side. Lydia felt her first shreds of apprehension when the assassin's face was shadowed by a look of doubt. He left the room, giving Lydia a view of an empty hallway outside. There appeared to be just two guards standing outside, although she had no idea about the rest of the building. She turned back to Alexander, keeping up her confident façade.
"What's next?" she jeered.
"Something very painful. Even the Winter Soldier can attest to that. Now's your last chance, Nancy."
"No thanks."
The Winter Soldier returned with a tangle of wires and a large box on a cart. Lydia noted the labels on the equipment. It seemed like Alexander was going with electrocution. "Gee, I wonder how exactly the Winter Soldier can attest to the pain of electrocution? Haven't you been a good boy?" said Lydia with a pout.
The Winter Soldier looked pissed off by her question, and Alexander looked unsettled by the Winter Soldier's annoyance. Wary. Lydia smirked to herself. It looked like their relationship wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. They hooked up a series of wires between the box and Lydia, who resignedly braced herself for the pain.
"A low voltage to start with. She's still a little damp and we don't want to kill her before we get answers," said Alexander.
The Winter Soldier twisted a knob, and the torture started.
"Who do you work for?"
Lydia tried to focus her eyes. The electricity flow had stopped, but she felt as if it was still going. Her body was still buzzing. She still felt the ghost of the pain now, almost indistinguishable from the real pain. After the last several shocks, she knew it wouldn't fade for a few minutes. She couldn't do this any longer. They were pumping her so full of electricity that she felt like even a small twitch of the Winter Soldier's hand would kill her.
"Some…some people who are…" she croaked out.
"Some people who are what?" demanded Alexander. He had long lost his civil front.
"Interested in…the Winter Soldier."
"Is that so?"
Lydia nodded. She could tell them her mission. It was failed now, what did it matter? But she had to leave out her country for as long as possible. That was the last thing she could do to protect her team. Trying to sound broken, she continued. "My team was gathering intelligence. Our mission was to apprehend him."
"Where is your team now?"
"I don't know." Lydia cried out as Alexander gestured for the Winter Soldier to turn on the electricity again. "No! Please, I don't know. They – they would've gotten Governor Moore to a secure place. Then they would have gotten out of here as soon as possible." A lie, but a plausible one.
"Without you?"
"We work for the greater good," said Lydia as flatly as she could. "Nobody is worth more than exactly what they can achieve. Nobody's life is worth more than the mission." She hoped that would swing it. It sounded like the sort of devotion mumbo-jumbo a secret criminal organisation could accept.
"So your team will continue the mission? With or without you?"
To be honest, Lydia wasn't sure. "Certainly under normal conditions," she whispered, turning her head slightly to face the Winter Soldier. "But after seeing what he can do…seeing whatever he is…"
"What did you know about him before?" Alexander said sharply.
"Not much," said Lydia. "He – he doesn't exactly leave many firsthand witnesses. There are just some reports from the last sixty odd years of a very efficient assassin. A lot of them seem unreliable beyond basic details."
"I want whatever details you have," said Alexander firmly.
Lydia took a deep breath. She genuinely was having trouble remembering. Her mind was still in a bit of a haze. "Originally worked for a Soviet organisation. Said organisation seems to have moved since. We guessed to America, seeing as this one sounds American."
"This one?"
"This Winter Soldier."
Alexander nodded. "All very good. But…" he nodded at the Winter Soldier, who turned the knob. He waited until he seemed to think Lydia was in more pain than she could bear. "You still haven't told me who you work for."
"Canada," blurted out Lydia. "Canada. C.S.I.S."
"Thank you," said Alexander, beaming. "See, not so bad. Now I can deal with them. Well, I have to get back to my day job. Soldier, you take care of all this." He waved at the wires and the box and walked out.
The Winter Soldier began packing up. He kept glancing over at Lydia. She would've rolled her eyes if her eyes didn't feel like popping out. He wasn't hiding it at all. "Is there something you want?" she hissed.
His eyes met hers for a second, dark blue and, for the first time since she'd met him, not completely blank. He dropped his gaze again to the voltage box, coiling a wire on top of it. "Is there something you want? Water?"
"Depends," said Lydia. "Will there be anything in it other than water?"
"No."
Lydia pursed her lips and nodded. There wasn't really any point in poisoning her. She'd already given them what they wanted. "Then yes, I'd like some water."
The Winter Soldier took the equipment out and five minutes later with a plastic bottle. He undid her handcuffs and gave her the bottle before moving to the other side of the room.
Lydia examined the bottle cap. It was completely sealed and showed no other signs of tampering. Cracking it open, she took a long swig. "Thank you," she said grudgingly. "Are you going to tell me what's got your knickers in a knot? Like, more than before? 'Cause I'm kind of getting the feeling it has something to do with me."
The Winter Soldier's eyes went briefly unfocused, but once he collected himself he looked at Lydia imploringly. "Do you know more about me than you told Alexander?"
"No."
"I'm going to be a lot harder to lie to than Alexander," he warned. "Nancy – whoever you are – I want to know."
"I don't know anything else."
He crossed the room in about one second. "Yes, you do. I want to know. I don't know who I am, or who I was before I was the Winter Soldier. I just want to know."
"How can you expect me to believe that?" snorted Lydia. "I'm disappointed, really. I've come to expect better of you, Winter Soldier. But maybe making up stories is just not your forte."
"I'm telling the truth," he hissed through gritted teeth. "After every mission, I – I have to go through that. The electrocution."
"What?"
"They use it to wipe my memories. Make me into a clean slate for every mission."
Lydia stared. Everything she'd just gone through, except after every mission? By the people he worked for? "That's – that can't be possible."
"It's true."
Lydia had heard of experiments on the brain using electroshock techniques, but certainly not in America for a long, long time. And she didn't realise someone had harnessed it so effectively that it could completely erase a person's sense of self – if the Winter Soldier was telling the truth.
"If you can't remember anything, how could you be telling me?"
"It wipes the details of each mission, but I still remember what I'm supposed to do. I remember what it feels like to get my memory wiped – I remember the pain. Sometimes a few specific things slip through. I never questioned them, but…" The Winter Soldier faltered, and the emotion in his voice scared Lydia. She had not been able to imagine him as emotional in any way. His personality hadn't even seemed human until now.
"But you're questioning them now."
"A three days ago I saw a newspaper. The man on the cover, he was blond and tall and it felt like I knew him. I don't remember knowing him, or his name. Nothing. But there was something about him. I need to find out."
Lydia wracked her brains, but could not for the life of her remember who may have been the front cover man the Winter Soldier was talking about. She wasn't a newspaper kind of girl. "He must be really important if seeing a picture of him makes you suddenly want self-discovery," she said suspiciously.
"I think he is." The Winter Soldier said quietly, and then his whole body tensed, and when he spoke again his voice was full of anguish and frustration. "I just want to know the truth. I want to know who I am." He took a deep breath. "Please help me."
Lydia looked at her hands. "I do know more than I told Alexander. Not much more, though. Not enough to give you the answers you want. But I do have some theories. I can give you a start."
He pulled out a long, sharp metal skewer of some sort. Lydia's eyes widened and she jumped out of the chair and across the room, away from him, frantically searching for something she could use to defend herself. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said. Slowly, he walked over, and tucked the item into her right boot. "I'm going to cuff you back to the chair. If you try to get away I'd have to stop you, but I'm leaving the building in ten minutes. I'll find you in the next couple of days before they–" He broke off. "I just want you to tell me everything you know."
Lydia nodded and barely dared to breathe as the Winter Soldier secured her back to the chair. He left without looking at her again, and she began to count the minutes. She waited longer than the ten, just to be safe. Then, she lifted her leg up to reach into her boot and took out the metal rod. It took her a few minutes to pick the locks of her handcuffs. Creeping to the door, she began to work on that lock. When it was done, she waited a minute. No sound from outside gave any indication that the guards had noticed anything. But they probably had guns, whereas she only had basically a sharp knitting needle. Her best was to get them before they knew what the hell was going on.
Lydia took a deep breath and swung the door open quickly. By the time the one on the left turned to face her, she had already stabbed the right one in the neck. The left guy quickly followed the fate of his colleague. She took both their guns and a keycard of some sort and crept up the hallway. She had no idea where she was and she had no idea what the layout of the building was. She wished the Winter Soldier had taken a second to tell her where to bloody go, but it was too late for that. She used her newfound key to unlock the door at the end of the corridor and cracked it open a sliver.
Lydia couldn't see much. It looked to be some sort of laboratory, filled with equipment she didn't care to try to name. About ten people were bustling around in lab coats, as well as three armed guards. Easing the door shut again, Lydia crept back to look for another exit. When she could not find one, she reluctantly moved back towards the door. With so many enemies, getting out would require everything she knew.
She walked through the door, holding herself casually, pretending that she belonged nowhere else but in that room. For her, it was a tried and tested trick and it worked like a charm. She shot the three guards immediately and with ease. They kind of sucked. Only one of them managed to get his gun even halfway raised.
Now, the scientists. Most of them had no idea what to do. A couple picked up guns, but they missed her by miles. They weren't trained for this stuff. Lydia ducked behind a desk and picked them off one by one. Satisfied, she advanced to the elevator at the other side of the room. She swiped the keycard again, smirking proudly at her amazing escape so far, and waited patiently for the elevator to bring her up to the ground floor.
When the doors slid open, she found herself in an abandoned old warehouse. How unoriginal. The place looked empty, but she was sure there were a few more guards lurking about. Staying hidden behind a collection of empty crates, she crept towards a glowing green exit sign on the nearest wall, keeping her eyes and ears peeled for threats.
She sensed the movement on the left before she saw anything, a prickling instinct born from spending her entire adult life in the field, and dove into a forward roll just in time. A bullet grazed her shoulder, and she heard shouting and the sound of running footsteps as she shot her attacker. She leapt to her feet and ran for the emergency exit as the footsteps drew closer and the shouts suddenly grew more frantic. She guessed they'd found their friend.
She burst into warm sunlight, but had no time to relish it. She sprinted down the street, which was full of similar abandoned warehouses. A few seconds later, she heard shouts as her attackers emerged onto the street. Lydia dove for the cover of an industrial garbage bin. It took several minutes of shooting and hiding back behind the bin, but Lydia got the job done. Thankfully she'd taken two guns from the guards, because one of them ran out of ammunition after a few shots.
By now, what with all of her physical activity, her bullet graze was started to bleed a bit. She would easily live, but she had to be careful of getting weak from blood loss. She pushed herself to her feet and continued at a jog, turning at the next street, all the while looking for any clue as to where the hell she was. She was still in Chicago, she presumed. On the outskirts, definitely. In the far distance, she could see the taller buildings of the inner city. She slowed to a walk once she'd put a good distance between herself and the warehouse and ducked into smaller streets and alleyways for concealment.
A van pulled up in front of her just as she exited one such alleyway. "Shit," hissed Lydia before turning and running.
"Lydia, wait!"
She froze in her tracks and spun around. "Claudia?"
The other woman jogged up. "Lydia, thank God. Come on, get in the car. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," said Lydia. "Just got a graze from a bullet."
"We've been waiting for hours. We couldn't get a signal from your tracker. Thankfully Daisy put it on an alert in case it did suddenly start transmitting – which it did, about half an hour ago. Led us all the way down here."
"I was being kept underground," said Lydia grimly. "You must have started receiving the signal after I got away and got above ground."
"What happened to you?"
"They spent all night trying to get information out of me."
"Did you tell them anything?" asked Claudia sharply.
"Nothing they didn't suspect or could guess. Just that we were trying to catch the Winter Soldier. Told them I was working for Canada. Gave them some bullshit that you guys would be far, far away from Chicago by now."
"Did it work?"
"They didn't question it."
"Who is 'they'? What do you know about them?"
"Not much," said Lydia sourly. "There was a guy, about sixty years old, called himself Alexander. He seemed like the biggest boss in the place, although to be fair he was one of only two people I didn't just kill on sight. The other was the Winter Soldier. Yeah, he was definitely in charge of the Winter Soldier. They were both gone by the time I escaped."
"How did you escape?" Claudia's tone was perfectly normal, but Lydia hesitated, unable to help herself. She had agreed to help the Winter Soldier, but she had no idea how Claudia would feel about it. With the way she took the mission so seriously, and sometimes got angry, Lydia suspected Claudia had a serious personal grudge with the Winter Soldier. She'd never cared to ask, though, and now she felt like she was stepping onto a minefield.
"Let's just say they accidentally left a sharp object in the room with me."
Claudia's eyes narrowed. "Lydia, you may be the best here at reading body language, but that doesn't mean I'm an incompetent idiot. What are you hiding?"
Lydia slumped in defeat. "Okay, fine. The Winter Soldier purposefully left me with a sharp object."
"He helped you escape?"
"Yes."
"Why?" came a chorus of her teammates' voices, who'd been previously listening silently.
"He says he can't remember who he is. During the interrogation I said we've been gathering intelligence on him and he wants to know everything."
"That's the biggest pile of bullshit I've ever heard," scoffed Claudia. "He just wanted to know what we know! What else did you tell him, exactly where to find us and silence us?"
"No," snapped Lydia. "He let me go first. He said he would find me later."
"Well then, we've got to be ready," decided Claudia. "We need to figure out how to counteract his crazy fucking super-strength and we should be good. I contacted H.Q. They have acknowledged that it may be a little difficult to bring him in alive. They'll settle for dead."
"What?" said Lydia. "No, wait. We aren't killing him."
"Excuse me?" Claudia's voice could cut glass.
Lydia stared into her teammate's normally warm chocolate eyes, which had now frozen into something much more dangerous. "Claudia, please. Listen, I understand how you feel, but we need to hear him out. He said they brainwash him after every mission with some sort of electrocution and they make him forget everything. This is important information at the very least, and saving a man from all kinds of evil shit at the very most."
"Agent Holden, get a grip on yourself. How did you fall for that?" Claudia shook her head and added mockingly, "Did they brainwash you too?"
"I didn't believe it at first, but he explained it a little more to me and if you'd just listen–"
"You're being irrational, Holden."
"Damn it, Torres, you weren't there!" burst out Lydia. "You didn't see him, you didn't hear him! Compared to how he acts the rest of the time, it was like he was broken."
"So that's it. He tricked you. He just turned on the puppy eyes and you fell for it."
Lydia took a deep breath, resisting the urge to punch Claudia in the face. "I didn't fall for anything. You said not five minutes ago that's I'm the best at body language here. I don't fall for things like you're implying. I know what I saw."
"You're not infallible, Lydia. You've gotten overconfident. Don't forget that the Winter Soldier is also an expert of his field, so much that most people think he's a legend. He tricked you."
"I think we should trust Lydia's judgement," Kyle interrupted cautiously before Lydia could. Claudia spun her pissed glare to him. "You've always hated the Winter Soldier the most Claudia, and you're letting it cloud your judgement."
"You know what he's done. He a murderer. If half the things we've read are true, he's in the top five most ruthless and dangerous people on the planet. What is wrong with you two? Have you magically forgotten everything you know about him?"
"I trust Lydia too," said Daisy timidly. "And she seems very sure about this. He sounds like he's being used. And, well, isn't it our job to protect people? No matter what they do or what country they're from. And I think it's definitely our responsibility now to find out more about this memory wiping technology. It sounds too dangerous to leave in the wrong hands."
"Sorry, Claudia," said Leigh. "I don't think any of us have forgotten what we've heard about the Winter Soldier in the past. But it sounds like there's more to it than anyone knew."
Claudia slammed her hand on the side of the car door. "Have it your way. You can explain to HQ that you want to fuck up the mission because the Winter Soldier played the victim and you believed it."
Lydia smiled grimly. "That won't be happening."