The three of us leave my little room with Steve in the front, me in the middle, and Natasha bringing up the rear. I notice the panel of one way glass that we pass that views into the room I was just in. I try to suppress wondering how long I'd been passed out in there and how long I'd been watched. We move down a long hallways, slowly since I'm practically shuffling my feet because I am still fighting against whatever it was they injected me with, but my escort seems to have all the patience in the world for the task. We pass several other windows into similar rooms, none of which are occupied.

"You guys sure know how to make someone feel welcome," I mutter, and get no response. It was only half-heartedly meant to be funny.

At the end of the hall we come to a set of elevator doors and Steve pushes the call button. Silence, for a minute, while the numbers descend with a speed that seems rather rapid to me. I wonder if I should be more worried than I already am. Though I'm not sure how that would be possible. The elevator is all glass with a small railing around the edge and we shoot up with alarming speed. I find myself gripping a railing as we rise and rise above the city and I get my first glimpse of something that orients me in the world.

As we ascend, I can see Central Park cutting a thick swath through the middle of the city and a part of me is relieved. I still don't know exactly where I am, but seeing that I am still within the confines of my hometown is a small comfort. Eventually the elevator slows and we're let off on another floor with a long hallway. So many hallways. More doors line the one I was behind. I put my hand out and start to lean into my fingers scraping down the wall, thinking I may drop soon if we don't stop moving.

Steve turns us into a door and we enter a lab of computers and consoles. Servers line the walls and I am taken aback by the sheer number and size of them. This is a central nervous system if I've ever seen one. Natasha sits down at one of the consoles and motions for me to sit as well. I gladly accept the chair offered ad scoot myself over to have a better look at the monitor that she is working on.

"This video was shot the night you were taken," she says. There's a smaller window on the screen and I recognize the security camera footage of the parking structure. She presses 'play'.

"There's you," she says, pointing to a figure walking towards a car. I recognize myself, glancing over my shoulder, tucking my bag closer to my body. I'm moving quickly, speeding up even, when suddenly someone appears from out of frame and rushes up behind me. They have an arm around my upper body in a fraction of a heartbeat and then I drop to the ground, limp as a child's doll. The person, a hulk of someone, stands over me for a moment before reaching down and slinging me over their shoulder to carry me off. They only make it a few steps before two more figures rush in.

I wince when I see myself dropped unceremoniously on to the concrete, still limp, and a quick but brutal fight ensues. I am not used to such images. It's over before I know it and the two late-comers have subdued my assailant, using something they must have injected him with as I was able to now see a jab from one of the two into the man before he falls.

"Wow," I whisper. It doesn't seem to do the moment justice.

"We replaced this footage with a loop of the parking lot. No one has seen this, and no one ever will," Steve says from behind me.

"Who is he?" I say. I can't stop staring at the monitor, which is frozen with the image of me lying on the ground. The reality of it and the pain in my body is starting to drive a feeling of panic in my back and it will wrap it's arms around me if I'm not careful.

"He's the man from the picture," Steve says and his voice is gentle. "His name is James Barnes and he's a soldier. We've been looking for him for the past six months and finally caught up to him when he came to the city. He was part of the group that was responsible for the incident in DC."

"Was?" I say. "What happened to them?"

"They were destroyed," Steve answers. "Disassembled from the top down. They used him as a weapon, manipulating him and then sending him off on missions to direct the course of history over the last fifty years. Stopping them meant leaving James Barnes in limbo, so now we're going to try and bring him back.

"His memory has been wiped," Steve presses on. He extends the file towards me and I take it gingerly, knowing it's a pandora's box that I could choose not to open. "I know the memory of who he was is still in there, and I need you to try and help him."

I remember the events that shook the country earlier in the year, and how it had sent shockwaves through New York with the memories of our own strange attack. And then it begins to click in my head where I am.

"Wait wait wait," I say. "This is The Tower, isn't it?"

The Tower, once Stark Tower and now rumored to be home to the Avengers, most people just called it The Tower. We are still struggling to rebuild from our own attack, the whole city was suffering one form of PTSD or another and here I am in the belly of the beast, the last place I could think that I would want to be.

But the look on Steve's face is not one of command, where he could order me to do what he wants, it's like he's begging me. I don't know what to say at this point, but I still open my mouth and am surprised by what comes out.

"Ok."

"Well, that explains what you meant about the MRI," I say with a sigh. I'm standing next to Steve in front of a window that looks on into a room that is nearly identical to the one I woke up in, except this one has a window to the outside and is occupied by James Barnes. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I see him, and while I still can't remember it, I can't get the images from the video out of my mind. Every so often he looks over at what I know now is one way viewing glass, and I swear he can see through to where Steve and I are.

"Yeah," Steve says, never taking his eyes off the man. "He's got some issues with magnets."

This makes me laugh and my body aches again in protest. I'm lean myself against the wall and keep my eyes on the man with the metal arm, wondering how he got it, wondering if I even want to know. I'm clutching the file Steve gave me and am staring at the man before me and try to reconcile him with the photograph I had seen.

"You'll have access to all his records," Steve says, never taking his eyes off Barnes. "Anything you need to make him better."

"I can't make any promises," I answer. "But I'll do my best."

"That's all I ask."

For a moment I feel like I step away from this problem, but the question of why it has to be me still lingers in my mind and I know that the answer to that question won't come from Steve and Natasha. It's buried deep within the man with the metal arm, that man who targeted me for some reason. And I can get to those answers myself.

"When do we start?" I say and Steve smiles down at me.

"We already have."