Chapter Three: Unknown

"All of us need to stop apologizing for how we choose to survive."

-Clementine Von Radics

Katherine had no idea what happened next. Even after the machines stopped working, even after her ears stopped buzzing, even after they pulled out the injections everything still hurt. She could feel herself being dragged back to her cell, her legs felt numb, her muscles ached, and her bones hurt.

Her brain and every part of her nerves were screaming.

If she could Katherine would have screamed or cried, her throat hurt from attempting to scream so much and she wasn't even sure if she had any tears left.

She had no idea what they had done to her, only that they had injected her with some strange liquid. Katherine soon fell unconscious.

When her eyes opened she raised her head and saw that Bucky or not Bucky whatever his name was eating something, some sort of round piece of bread in a clear plastic package. He held one to her as if she were a puppy and managed to slip one though the iron bars.

"Here, it helps." He simply said.

Katherine didn't know how to respond instead she tore the package with a simple tug, nearly shattering the bread inside it. She pulled back, a few days ago she struggled opening a jar of pickles and now she opened the package with some sort of weird super strength.

Katherine shook her head, she was probably imagining it. She ate the bread hungrily, nearly swallowing it in three mouthfuls. "What happened to me?"

"You just went through the first step of obtaining the super serum gene or something close enough." Bucky noticed the packed that Katherine had nearly ripped in half. "Which includes super strength."

"And what's next?" she could feel her own voice trembling, but she didn't care.

"Memory relocation." Bucky said without a hint of concern even as he watched Katherine's face grow paler. "They are going to modify your memories."

Steve was lonely.

He hated to admit that because Steve liked being independent, but he was lonely. He didn't really have any friends in the city and the Avengers were out of town most of the time, he didn't really have any hobbies, and felt lonely and confused in his lonely apartment in Fifth Avenue.

So he did what Steve did, mope and regret things from the past. He knew it was unhealthy, but he didn't know what else to do. He needed to find out answers, find traces even bits and pieces of his old life. Peggy was dead. Howard was dead. His old war friends were dead.

Everyone around him was dead.

Bucky.

Bucky's picture and file stared back at him, Fury had given him the file of his old companions once he had adjusted back to his own life and he would be lying if he hadn't looked at them at least twice.

He stopped in front of Bucky's file where the words MIA were clearly written even though Steve had seen him fall off the train to his death. Bucky had been more than his best friend, he had been his brother.

It was after his mother's funeral, Steve's mother a kind, and gentle woman had been a nurse during the war before she had been diagnose and died of tuberculosis. Steve had arranged a small funeral for her and only Bucky and a few nurses had attended. Now they were walking back home to his apartment.

"You know you don't have to stay in that big apartment by yourself," Bucky said. "Big place for a little guy, you could move in with me, we could have a long sleepover like when we were kids."

"Thanks, Buck but I can get by on my own."

Bucky smiled. "The thing is you don't have too." He patted his shoulder. "Because I'm with you until the end of the line."

Her cell gate was opened, freedom was basically calling her name. Katherine had no idea how many days had passed, what time it was or how she was even alive. She just felt weak, hungry, and powerless.

And then she saw it. Someone had completely left the door uncloak. It was her ticket to freedom. She struggled to get up, but forced herself.

Bucky looked at her strangely. "Don't. They will kill you."

"Well, I'm not going to die here." She snapped in a raspy voice. "Are you?"

Bucky didn't respond, he simply watched as she continued walking, trying to run as fast as she could, but with her aching limbs it wasn't enough. Bucky watched as she screamed, as she pleaded, as they knocked her against the wall causing her to bleed.

Bucky saw as they dragged her back into the cell, her face was bleeding and she was whimpering. Even though he wasn't supposed to feel, he felt an ounce of pity towards her.

He didn't remember when he had first been experimented on. He remembered the pain of course, but everything else was fuzzy. Somehow something the girl had said refused to leave his mind. "You're Bucky Barnes."

Bucky? Was that his name, Bucky?

-End of Chapter Three-