As it turned out, Natasha had a decoding program on a flash drive—but it wouldn't work on the Winter Soldier's files they'd stolen from HYDRA's systems. She swung the silver flash drive around on her index finger and tried to explain the situation. "This flash drive holds a program that can be used to code and decode things," she said. "The thing is, it's rudimentary. There are some more complex programs that can decode whatever comes their way. They feed off of new stimuli and accumulate information as they keep decoding, so they almost learn, in a way. I used to have access to a program like that—but when SHIELD went down…" She paused. "Well, let's just say that we don't have access to that kind of decoding program at the moment. All we have is this. And this only decodes things that it's been programmed to decode."
"What do you mean?" asked Ari, puzzled.
"When it was created, it had the memory of at least a thousand different types of codes stored in here," said Natasha. "If the code that's been used on these files matches up with one of the ones on this flash drive…then we're good to go. It can decode it for us. We'd just need to scan the pages in and it would translate them for us. But if the code used on these pages isn't one that this program has been programmed to recognize…"
"Then we're SOL," finished Sam. "Hundred bucks says the code HYDRA used on these files won't match up with the flash drive."
"Probably not," admitted Natasha. "Like I said, this program is pretty rudimentary. I mean, it's advanced for regular coding and encryption—but this is HYDRA. And you were the crown jewel of their projects. They'll have secured your files so that no one but them can read them."
The crown jewel of HYDRA. The Winter Soldier's mouth pressed into a flat line but he didn't say anything in response…because it was true. He had been one of HYDRA's crowning glories. They had a great many projects that they worked on, but their superhuman mindless assassin who had never been caught was one of their most important works. He stared down at the file that said "TWSP"—for The Winter Soldier Project—and felt a tic on his jaw pulse in anger. He didn't like being reminded that he had just been a project, a mindless weapon, a…thing.
"I'll try to see if these files match up first," said Natasha, pulling Ari's stack of papers towards her. "It's a small hope—but we can try. If it doesn't work, I'll work on decoding these coordinates. They're all scrambled up but I think the program should be able to figure this one out. This may take a few hours… You boys go run and play." She smiled, a lazy and mysterious smile that was hard to read. Her eyes flicked over to Ari and she added, "You can stay with me. Have some girl time." Her tone seemed a bit dry and sarcastic, but her smile didn't seem malicious.
"Okay," said Ari, a little nervously, scooting over to where Natasha sat.
"I'm gonna go shoot some hoops," said Sam. "I need to work off some of this nervous energy. You coming, Steve?"
"Sure," said Steve, standing up. "Natasha's got this handled, I think."
"Damn right I do, Rogers," said Natasha, still smiling lazily.
"You coming, Bucky?" asked Steve.
The Winter Soldier looked up with a jolt, still not used to being called "Bucky" and addressed like he was any other normal guy, and automatically said, "No…I'm tired." He wasn't even sure why he said no, but saying yes to social invitations wasn't in his nature. He almost regretted it as Steve said, "Alright. Take it easy, okay? You know where to find me," and walked outside with Sam—but he didn't know how to take back his words without seeming idiotic. So he stayed.
"What's the matter, Barnes?" asked Natasha. "You don't want to 'hang with the bros'?" He stiffened when she used his old last name and her quick eyes caught the movement (of course they did; did Natasha miss anything? Well, besides the fact that the agency she worked for her had been a farce this whole time…). "What, you don't like me calling you that?" she asked. She stuck the flash drive into the computer and plugged a long black object that looked like a bit like a wand with a clear side and a black wire into another slot in the laptop. "I kind of assumed you wouldn't want me to call you Bucky… And James is so formal and weird, isn't it?"
"I call him Soldier," suggested Ari. "You could say th—"
"No." The word came out of the Winter Soldier's mouth before he even realized it was happening. He blinked for a moment, surprised at himself, but his opinion still stood. Ari called him Soldier but he wouldn't let anyone else call him Soldier. It reminded him too much of who he had been before, who he still was sometimes now. Not even Steve could call him that. That was an honor that would be reserved for Ari, since she had been the first person to save his life and give him a chance. "Call me Barnes," he finally said grudgingly. There was nothing else anyway.
"Alright, Barnes," said Natasha. "What, you don't want to go out and play ball?"
"What's 'ball'?" he asked. He knew what sports were, of course—but what type of 'ball' was Sam referring to?
"Basketball," said Ari. "Steve has a hoop outside. I noticed."
"I don't know how to play," said the Winter Soldier and Natasha gave him a look that seemed to be half-pity and half-scorn and it made him irritated. He decided he didn't like Natasha much. For someone who had apparently done worse things than him (though he doubted that), she seemed a little too judgmental.
"Alright, the program is running," said Natasha. She picked up the wand, pressed a button, and a red light strip glowed to life, running down the side of the wand. She pulled the very first paper of the stack towards her, smoothed it out, and then very slowly moved the wand down the page, scanning the coded words with the red light. Then she put it down and pressed a button on the keyboard. The laptop beeped and Natasha sighed. "It's uploading and scanning. This will take a few minutes. I miss SHIELD's advanced systems…this is so primitive…"
"How does the—that stick thing get the image?" asked Ari.
"Similar to how a panoramic camera catches an image," explained Natasha, "except this is more advanced. Sorry, I don't really know how to explain it to you…"
"No worries," said Ari easily. "I don't understand this stuff—but I bet you wouldn't understand things from my profession either. Know what a diuretic is?"
"No," said Natasha.
"Trust me, you don't want to," said Ari and Natasha chuckled slightly.
"So you're a doctor?" she asked. "A nurse?"
"A nurse," confirmed Ari.
Natasha glanced at the screen and then frowned at Ari. "A nurse, huh? As far as I remember…nurses don't get to just take off whatever time they want to go on adventures with brainwashed assassins. How are you away from work?"
"I…" Ari paused and the Winter Soldier noticed something slight shift into her eyes—something went flat in her eyes and he recognized it again as someone who was forcing their emotions to remain hidden so they could lie convincingly. "I took some time off."
"Hmmm," said Natasha in a tone that suggested she didn't quite believe Ari either—but evidently she decided it was none of her business, because she shrugged and turned back to the computer.
The Winter Soldier gave Ari a hard look, letting her know that he knew she was lying, and she looked away, avoiding his gaze. She picked up her phone and stared determinedly at her phone, even though they both knew there wasn't even anything on the screen. The Winter Soldier was in half a mind to confront her right then and there about her lie—but he was afraid it would open a can of emotional worms and he still wasn't ready for that. So he abruptly stood up and left, suddenly needing to be away from Ari's presence. She was making him irritated but more than anything, she was making him uneasy and anxious. The way she was acting…it was as if she had quit her job and was lying about it. But she wouldn't do that…would she? What sane person would quit their job to help a total stranger? That would be beyond insane, even for someone as selfless as Ari…right?
Because if Ari had done that for him, it made him feel extremely uncomfortable. Like his debt to her was growing and he would have no way to pay her back and then he would feel even more wretched about his existence. He hoped that she was simply lying about something else and truly hadn't quit. Because if she had, he'd be torn between shaking her and demanding to know what was wrong with her, or worrying about her sanity.
Sam and Steve were tossing around a basketball outside but it was more like Steve was playing keep-away because Sam couldn't possibly keep up with Steve. The Winter Soldier leaned against the front door, arms crossed in front of his chest, watching them. The summer air was uncomfortably hot today and he reached up and tied his hair back with a hair tie Ari had slipped him off of her wrist earlier. He would have joined in with Steve and Sam, except he wasn't really sure how to play basketball—he didn't recall playing it back in his childhood; he had memories of baseball—and anyway, his body still felt a little too sore to really be running around playing games. His wounds were healing well but he was still bruised and battered and now that HYDRA wasn't pumping him full of chemicals and running him through machines that patched him up, he was healing more slowly. He was healing more humanly, as Ari would have said.
"You want to play?" called Steve and the Winter Soldier shook his head.
"I—give—up," panted Sam, coming to a stop and bending over, resting his hands on his knees. He stood up, wiping sweat off his forehead, and said, "Man, and I'm black. I should be able to do this better than you."
Steve let out a startled laugh and said, "Not your fault, Sam."
"Yeah, not my fault you're a freak," said Sam, but he playfully punched Steve on the shoulder. The Winter Soldier watched them, envying the ease with which Sam interacted with Steve. Would it ever be that easy for him?
"You all done, boys?" Natasha appeared behind the screen door and the Winter Soldier stepped forward, startled. His hearing was superb but she moved more silently than he'd ever heard any normal human move. He guessed that was one of the reasons she was called Black Widow—she was silent and deadly. "Because I've got our coordinates."
"Where are they?" asked Steve as they stepped inside the house. He wiped some sweat off his brow, his already-tight t-shirt sticking to his torso from all the sweat, and the Winter Soldier noticed Ari turning a little pink and burying her face into her bag, pretending to look for something. The Winter Soldier didn't quite understand the appeal—but then again, he supposed tall, muscular, and blond was something women tended to go for. Even Natasha's gaze lingered on Steve for a nanosecond too long and then she was showing them the computer screen.
"Sorry, Barnes, the files didn't work," she said apologetically. "It was a long shot and we missed. But the coordinates did work. Look." She pointed to the screen, which showed green numbers on a green graph glowing on a black background, a circular dot indicating where the coordinates led to. "It's up north, near the Pennsylvania border."
"Pennsylvania?" Steve frowned. "That's random…"
"That's well-hidden," corrected Natasha. "Who would think to look in Pennsylvania?"
"No one," replied Ari. "Because it's a boring as hell state."
"I could take offense to that, since my grandma lives in Pennsylvania," said Sam, "if I didn't agree with you." He held out his hand for a high five and Ari smacked his palm with hers.
"So when do we start?" asked Ari, looking at all the faces around her.
"We set out tomorrow," decided Steve. He looked at Sam and Natasha. "Is that okay with you guys? You can work out some excuses for work, Sam?"
"Definitely," said Sam.
"And I am off the grid," said Natasha. "No one is checking up on me. Fury is still in Europe, pretending to be dead. No thanks to Barnes here." She gave the Winter Soldier a side-eye and he glared back at her, wishing she would stop bringing up the things he'd done while he had been brainwashed. He already felt disgusting enough over it, did she have to constantly remind him of the crimes he'd committed?
"Alright," said Steve. "Sounds like a plan then. We meet tomorrow, here, at 0600 hours."
"Man, I need my beauty sleep," joked Sam. "What is this?"
"And Bucky needs his memories back," said Steve. "Which is more important?"
"Sam's looks," said Natasha, half-smirking and the Winter Soldier glared at her again, unsure of whether she was joking with him or mocking him. She sensed his glare and smirked even more and he turned away, frowning. She was so closed off and strange, so mysterious—he didn't know how to deal with her.
Natasha printed out the coordinates and then she and Sam said goodbye and got going, Sam heading home and Natasha to…whatever safe house she was laying low at. After she'd dumped all of HYDRA and SHIELD's information online, all of her covers had been blown and all her secrets had been exposed. For a few weeks, the headlines had screamed all sorts of conspiracies about Black Widow. It had only been in recent days that they'd slightly died down, though they were still circulating.
"What about you, Bucky?" asked Steve. "You want to stick around longer?" His face looked hopeful.
The Winter Soldier slowly picked up the file on the table and said, "I think I'll get going. I'll be back tomorrow."
Steve's face fell slightly but then he smiled, a pleasant and closed-off smile that betrayed no emotions, and said, "Okay. Take care."
Ari said goodbye to Steve and then they left his house. Night had fallen by now and the Winter Soldier's stomach rumbled. Ari looked over, raised an eyebrow, and said, "Hungry, are we?"
"Sort of," he admitted.
"I think it's more than sort of," she said, grinning. "We'll stop and get some food somewhere. Like I said, I'd take you out…but until you've taken down HYDRA, I just don't think that's a smart idea." She frowned at something in the distance for a moment, thinking, and he watched her face from the passenger seat. It was dark so her face was thrown in angles and shadows and her eyes seemed all dark, like demon eyes, for a moment and she didn't look like the Ari he knew. A cold feeling went down his spine—but then she turned and the light shifted and her eyes were blue again and something akin to relief washed over him. He didn't know why it should have mattered to him so much, but he didn't like feeling unsure of who he was surrounding himself with. And Ari hadn't looked like herself for a moment.
They drove in silence to something called Panda Express and they went through the drive thru. The Winter Soldier pulled his baseball cap further down on his face and stared at his lap while Ari talked to the person standing at the drive thru. He could feel the person's curious eyes on him and he shifted his whole body and looked out the window. He didn't change his position until they got back to the hotel.
"Have you had Chinese food before?" asked Ari, putting the takeout bags down on the desk in the hotel room. "I mean, not that this is real Chinese…it's American-Chinese…but still."
"No," he said truthfully. As HYDRA's puppet, he'd never had the chance to taste any different types of food. And he didn't think Chinese food was something that was regularly consumed in the 1940's. The nation hadn't been so diverse back then. The Winter Soldier didn't even recall interacting with many people of other races back then. The world was different now and he couldn't help but feel like it made slightly more sense now. The Howling Commandoes hadn't all been white men…but they'd still all been the bravest men the Winter Soldier remembered encountering.
"Okay, well I hope you like it," said Ari uncertainly. "If you don't, I'll go get something else, okay? Don't hesitate to tell me."
However, as it turned out, the Winter Soldier did like it. It was strange, that was for sure—but in a good way. Flavors he'd never realized could exist exploded in his mouth and he couldn't help but think that this was ten times better than a burger. He just really did not like burgers.
They both ate on their respective beds in silence for a while, a comfortable silence. He was glad Ari didn't feel the need to clutter the air with mindless and empty talk. He wasn't good at random conversation and it would have made him feel awkward and out-of-touch. There was still so much of this world he had to get used to. Not only was he a man out of time, like Steve…but he also had to get back in touch with his humanity. Steve had never had to do that—he'd been an honorable man from the beginning to the present. The Winter Soldier envied him that. He envied him being able to choose his life, being able to choose to do good. Bucky Barnes had been a good man, that much was apparent…but that Bucky Barnes was gone. He'd have to become a new one and sometimes he wondered if he could ever be as good as the old one.
He looked at Ari, who was staring at the wall and sort of zoning out, and suddenly did something very uncharacteristic and blurted, "What happened to your best friend?"
The silence changed then. It became a bit tenser and his sharp eyes caught Ari's body stiffening slightly. Her mouth flattened a bit and her hands trembled slightly. But she put her plate of food on the bedside table and turned to face him. "You really want to know?" she asked, nervously twisting a dark strand of hair around her finger.
Over a week ago, the Winter Soldier would have said no. He wouldn't have wanted to know. He still wasn't sure if he wanted to; this would require him to respond in ways he wasn't sure he could handle. But parts of him had changed and he couldn't deny that he had felt a niggling bit of curiosity ever since learning something had happened to Ari's best friend. Who had her best friend been, anyway? What kind of person had they been?
"Yes," he finally said.
"My best friend's name was Danika," she said. Her eyes had a distant look to them, as if she was lost in old memories. "Strange name, right? Strange like mine. People called us Ari & Dani, like some sort of stupid girl pop duo…but we liked it. We thought it was funny. Anyway…we were close. That's all I can say, I guess. We'd known each other since we were five and I could tell her anything. When… Growing up, when Alex was ruining all of our lives… I never told anyone. I bottled up all my anger and frustration and worry and hurt and I kept smiling and I never told anyone what was going on in my house. I went to sleep hearing Alex and my parents having yet another stupid fight—my parents yelling and pleading with him to get his life on track, him yelling back about how…stupid and 'abusive' they were." She snorted. "My parents were the nicest people ever. Alex was just a…"
She rubbed her eyes. "Anyway. Dani was the only one who knew what was happening. She was the only person I told. She knew all the pain Alex caused us. And everything was fine until the summer we were eighteen. Dani and I were both going to college that fall and Alex had lazed around for a few years like a total slob…but he'd just gotten that job for the company he works for, Lumina. Remember, the one he hacked into?"
The Winter Soldier nodded.
"Anyway…I don't know what Alex was thinking," said Ari, and this was where her tone changed. A note of bitterness crept into it, but also one of awful sadness. "Maybe he wanted to punish me for some imaginary slight. Alex was always a vengeful person. So he made it his mission to steal Dani away from me. He never cared about her—but he pretty much…he pretty much seduced her, I guess. And Dani…the one person in the whole world who knew what kind of person Alex was…Dani fell for it. She abandoned me completely. She spent the whole summer attached to Alex's side. We had a few huge fights about it but nothing was ever resolved. She was convinced she was in love with him." Ari let out a harsh laugh. "I guess Dani never got the memo from my stories: Alex isn't capable of loving anyone but himself. I knew he was doing it to hurt me, because he told me all the time how he had 'won'." She sighed. "He even managed to convince Dani to defer and take a gap year. Can you believe that? She and I were going to the same college, we were gonna be roomies and everything… He's so poisonous but he's also so convincing. So she actually did it. She took a gap year and went to California with him and I went to college. I got a different roommate and Dani and I didn't speak for the entire year.
"And then I got the call," she said quietly. "End of my freshman year. The year had been hard for me, with Dani gone. Do you get it? Maybe you don't… But you were Steve's rock back in the day, and he was yours. I could tell from the photos. And Dani was my rock. She was the most important person in my life. So freshman year had been hard…but I found some new friends and I was moving on, even if it hurt like hell. But then I got a call at the end of my freshman year. Dani had been killed in a car accident in L.A."
Ari covered her face with her hands and the Winter Soldier felt frozen. He should have never asked to hear this story. He couldn't deal with this. He wasn't sure if Ari was crying but he didn't know what to do. He didn't have words. He knew he should have gotten up to put his arm around her or something, but he couldn't make himself move.
But then Ari lifted her head and her eyes were dry. "The rest of college was a nightmare," she said. "I didn't make any friends. All I did at first was cry and feel angry. Cry because I never got to say goodbye to her, cry because our last year had been wasted, cry because she'd chosen Alex over me. And feel angry at her, feel angry at Alex, feel angry at the world. Feel angry that I could never tell her how she hurt me. Feel angry that he was worth more to her than I was. Feel angry that she wouldn't get to grow up." To the Winter Soldier's horror, now Ari's eyes were shiny and glazed with unshed tears. "I lost all the friends I'd made freshman year. I became depressed, but I still managed to pass with good grades. All I did was study. My parents died during the next three years at college and I moved back home as soon as I graduated and passed the NCLEX and I became an RN at the hospital in town. And that's where I've been since…since I picked you up."
To the Winter Soldier's immense relief, Ari rubbed the tears away and smiled slightly to herself. "I'm not totally pathetic. I made friends at the hospital. I still had childhood friends in the area. I'm not some social freak. But…but things haven't been the same since then."
She looked at him, sitting there frozen, and suddenly burst out laughing and he looked at her in alarm. What was so funny? Nothing about her story was amusing in the slightest bit. In fact, he was feeling rather strange, because he could sort of relate to the feeling of having your best friend vanish and feeling you didn't really know who they were… And he also loathed Alex Madden more than ever and vowed to himself that if he ever met him again, he'd perform one last merciless kill. The man had it badly coming.
"Why are you laughing?" he demanded.
"Oh, Soldier—if you could have seen your face!" She burst into laughter again. "You looked like I'd told you that—I don't even know! But you looked so terrified that…" She bent over, laughing breathlessly. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing—but you looked—sorry—"
The Winter Soldier couldn't help but sort of smile at the sight of Ari laughing and grudgingly said, "It's fine. But your story…"
"Yeah?" she said, hiccupping slightly—though whether it was because of her earlier laughter or earlier tears, he didn't know.
"That sucks," he finished. He had been hoping to lighten the mood a bit more and it worked…sort of. She smiled but her smile was a bit sad again. "It does suck, doesn't it?" she asked, leaning back on against her headboard and sighing. "But then again, that's life. People come and go."
People came. But did they ever really go? The Winter Soldier couldn't help but wonder. He'd even had his memories erased multiple times—but the ghosts of his past still haunted him to this day, some of them faint memories and some of them…more solid. He pictured Steve's face in his mind and shivered slightly. The image of Steve made him feel so strange that he almost didn't like to think about him. He made him feel…lost, like he was lost at sea, like he was desperately reaching for something that he had forgotten…but also like he was tethered to something while the storm raged around him. He felt hollow around Steve, as if he could feel the years they'd lost—but he also felt like he could feel all their years of friendship underneath the hollowness.
"I'm with you till the end of the line!"
The Winter Soldier winced at the pinch behind his eyes. Such strange feelings.
"Don't feel sorry for me," said Ari abruptly, looking at him. "I've learned how to cope. You have to stay positive."
"Yeah, I can see that," the Winter Soldier said dryly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.
"You're freakishly positive," he told her. "You're weird."
"If you weren't my patient, I'd punch you," she said playfully.
The Winter Soldier couldn't help but feel amused at the thought of someone so small causing him any damage whatsoever. Then he stopped feeling amused when he remembered his earlier fear—that Ari might have quit her job for him. He eyed her shiftily and wondered if he should ask…but no. He couldn't take any more emotional drama tonight. Her story had already shocked him to the core. Any more and it would be an overload and he'd end up breaking the window and escaping to get away from the stress of trying to deal with so much human-ness.
"Have you looked at your file?" she asked after a moment.
The file. The Winter Soldier bit the inside of his cheek and automatically looked at the file on the desk. He wanted to look at it…but a part of him was very afraid of what it would say. "No," he finally said.
"We could look at it together," suggested Ari. After he didn't respond for a moment, she faltered and said, "But we don't have to, of course, I was just sugges—"
"No, let's do it," said the Winter Soldier. He stood up and was immediately besieged by a memory that left him staggering backwards.
He was sitting on a hard chair, a white table in front of him. A man in a white coat sat across from him, on the other side of the chair. He leaned forward across the table and slid a file folder towards him. "Open it." The command was quiet and dangerous.
He listened. Of course he did. He opened the file folder. Inside was a photo of a man with short dark hair and a relatively somber smile, wearing a button-down shirt. It was him…or he had his face, anyway. He didn't really look like him now.
"Who is this man?" asked the man in the white coat. He tapped the photo.
The words "I don't know" were on the Winter Soldier's tongue—but then he frowned at the photo. The man looked exactly like him…but he was a different man. Right? So why was this photo tickling at his mind? He cocked his head and looked more closely at the photo and felt himself remember a name.
"B…Bucky," he said slowly, almost as if he were confused. "Bucky…? That's his name. He's…" He frowned, puzzled, and stared more intently at the photo. "He was…me? I was…Bucky?"
SLAP. It came out of nowhere, stinging and sharp, cracking his face to the right. It didn't actually hurt so much as it shocked him. He blinked and slowly raised a hand to his face, as if in slow motion. What had he done wrong?
The man in the white coat stood up and in a disgusted voice said, "You need a second wiping, it seems." He lifted a black device to his mouth and barked, "Ready the device! I'm bringing him in."
A thrill of fear went through the Winter Soldier's gut—they were going to put him in the chair again—but he stared down at the picture, still bewildered as to what had gone wrong. Who was Bucky? Why did he feel like he was him? What had happened?
And then guards were grabbing his arms on either side and his heart began to thunder with fear that he could never bring himself to admit he felt.
"Soldier—here, drink this." He found Ari propping him up slowly on the bed and pressing a cup to his mouth. He obediently opened his mouth without thinking and drank the glass of water. His head was pounding and he couldn't believe he had blacked out.
"How—how long—?" he gasped, trying to mask his humiliation and struggling to breathe normally. He could still feel his heart pounding at the memory…or was it still pounding from within the memory?
"Just a few seconds," she said, putting the cup down on the bedside table and checking his forehead. "You feel clammy…"
"I had a memory," he said, blindly pushing her hand away. "I…I remembered who I was, once. They took me to get my memory wiped again. I was afraid…I was so, so afraid…" He was babbling so quickly that he didn't even realize that he normally would have felt embarrassed admitting that he felt afraid about anything. He had to get this out. "The man slapped me and then they took me back to the chair…"
"Of course you were afraid," Ari said gently. "Anyone would be afraid in that situation. They did inhumane things to you."
"I'm weak," he said furiously, sitting upright and feeling the urge to snap someone's neck or punch someone until they bled. He unconsciously moved away from Ari a bit, without realizing that he was putting her out of harm's way. His heart was still pounding and he felt dizzy with anger and embarrassment at his own weakness and what he had allowed HYDRA to do to him. How could he have let them treat him like this? How could he have been so numb? Ari must have sensed the danger radiating from him because she didn't try to touch him or comfort him. Perhaps she sensed that he might snap if she did that. Instead, she got to her feet and forcefully said, "Read your file."
"Wh—?" He looked up at her, surprised at her change in tone and stance.
She strode to the desk, snatched up the file, and smacked it down on the bed next to him. "Read it." She crossed her arms. "You have to stop letting HYDRA control you."
"They're not controlling me anymore."
"Yes, they are," she said loudly and slowly. "You're…you're going through withdrawal, in a way. Your mind has gotten used to being suppressed. By not having your mind wiped, all your memories are coming back in painful ways. It's making you confused and weak. HYDRA is still playing with your mind and they don't even have access to you anymore. You need to take control of your own mind and find out for yourself what they did to you, instead of remembering it in painful flashbacks."
The Winter Soldier couldn't help but see the common sense in what Ari had just said. He looked at her, slightly impressed. He had come to know and expect a kind Ari—but this was a different Ari than he had ever seen before. She was pushing him, challenging him. He grabbed the file and opened up to the first page, silently patting the bed next to him, inviting Ari to read it with him. She sat down and they both leaned over the file folder. He opened it up and the first page was a typed overview of his physiology and body stats, with a picture of him as the Winter Soldier included. He didn't remember getting the photo taken…but what did he remember these days?
"You weighed 190 pounds back then," said Ari, reviewing it. "You weighed 175 pounds when I weighed you at my house. You've lost a lot of weight…" She looked worried. "That's not good. Do you know how recent this information was? Losing that much weight so quickly…"
"I don't know," he said, "but I feel fine."
She looked at him, biting her lip, speculating. "Yeah…I guess you seem fine. It's just weird…"
"I kicked your brother's ass easily," he reminded her, "and he looked over 200 pounds. I'm fine."
"If you say so," said Ari. They flipped to the next page. And the next. And the next. The next fifteen pages were just random notes about testing that had been done on him and how his body and mind had reacted afterwards.
Shows no sign of remembering details of previous missions.
Heart rate accelerated after pacers. Administered vicerin shots to decrease heart rate. Heart rate decreased by 20 bpm.
Wounds healed at three times the rate after X-FOR scanning was administered. Watch WBC (?).
And on and on and on. He didn't understand what half of it meant and from the look on Ari's face, neither did she. "I understand some of it…but not a lot," she admitted. "What's a vicerin shot? I've never heard of that. I think the point is that they gave you all sorts of freak drugs that modern medicine hasn't heart of yet, to turn you into a…"
"Freak," he grunted.
"No," she said sharply. "A superhuman. Not a freak. You're not a freak. Do you think you're a freak?"
"Yes," he snapped.
"Why is that?" she asked calmly, though there was a steely edge in her eyes.
"I'm—look at me!" he snapped, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "I'm insane! I'm a mess. I'm having flashbacks, I'm passing out, I can't talk to people… And I used to murder people."
"None of that is your fault," said Ari. "Channel your anger, Soldier. Channel it at HYDRA. Stop blaming yourself for things that aren't your fault." She flipped past a few more pages and then closed the file folder, looking disappointed. "It's all just testing on you. There's no information about your...um, missions." She rocked back onto her heels slightly and rested her chin on her knees. "It's probably all in the coded files, let's be honest. They wouldn't let information about your missions float around without some kind of protection."
The Winter Soldier agreed. He pushed the file folder away and sighed. He didn't know if he was disappointed that he still didn't have all the answers to what HYDRA had made him do, or if he was relieved that he could avoid the awful truth for a little while longer. Ari locked herself in the bathroom for a long time, so long that the Winter Soldier began to wonder if she'd died inside, even though he constantly heard the faucet and sounds of movement. When she came out (in sleeping clothes), he looked at her and asked, "What took so long?"
She pointed to her eyes. "Waterproof mascara and eyeliner, Soldier. Total nightmare."
The Winter Soldier had literally no idea what any of that meant but he nodded like he understood. Ari climbed into bed, said goodnight, turned off her bedside lamplight and stopped moving. The Winter Soldier didn't go to bed. He sat on his bed for a long time, the golden light of his lamplight throwing soft shadows around the whole room. He was finally going to get started on his mission tomorrow. He would finally get the chance to get revenge, to steal back what had been stolen from him. To kill the people who'd ruined his mind.
Killing. There would be violence. He looked over at Ari and internally groaned. He'd intended to teach her a little bit about using a weapon and self-defense…but he'd completely forgotten. Ari was probably brilliant in a medical emergency and when it came to mental strength, she had proven to be tough. But unless she was a secret martial arts master or something, the Winter Soldier doubted that she could hold her own in a physical fight. If it were up to him, he'd tell Ari to stay behind. But he knew that she would never allow that so he wouldn't even bother trying to convince her. He'd just have to find some time tomorrow to give her a few tips. Perhaps Steve could help. He probably knew more about teaching people to protect themselves. If Ari had wanted lessons in how to kill someone, the Winter Soldier would have been the expert. He clenched his cybernetic hand, feeling the killing power in it, and closed his eyes, trying and failing to clear his mind from the images of the people he remembered killing.
He fell asleep with his cybernetic hand clenched tightly, slumping over against his pillows, his bedside light still on. A soft golden light shone through the darkness and two different people tossed and turned, restless and lost in ghosts of their past that haunted them even in their sleep. It was a night for nightmares.