SOOOOO…sorry it's been so long guys! I really have had to focus on school recently. I am graduating yay! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one and that you find it in your hearts to mayyyybbe MAYBE stop by and give a review for this chapter? Tell me what you think! Thanks guys!

As always…

C*~

Tony and Natasha watched from a room above in the Stark Tower. Anya had begged Tony that they give her a few moments with Bucky alone before they took him to Steve. She knew. Tony saw it in her eyes. She knew the instant he saw Steve she'd lose him. He knew that petrified look, it was a look of someone at the brink of falling apart, she had finally found him. It was too bad that she knew he needed Steve more than her. She just wanted these few minutes to talk to him. Alone. Tony had granted that telling Steve politely that they were bringing Bucky back over an intercom via Jarvis. The guy had come running into the main tower room where Tony was nearly giving him a heart attack. Natasha had been the one to calm him down enough to explain Anya's position.

They'd lied for the girl though, telling Steve that she had to debrief him like they used too when she'd been sent to retrieve him for Hydra. It was a way to calm him down and keep him from going berserk they'd said. He'd bought it easily enough, not being good at telling lies, and here they were watching. Steve had opted not to watch this and stayed waiting in another room. Tony had assured him that it probably wasn't good to see Bucky get upset if Anya couldn't keep him under control. Clint entered the room and strode towards the glass overtop of the two soldiers. Tony turned the volume to the room up below; there was a speaker system that he had access to in nearly every room. It had been a precaution after Hydra had turned out to be inside of Shield; nothing went unnoticed or un-bugged.

They watched Anya come closer to Bucky hesitantly.

"I…Soldet…" she started unsure of where to start. They hadn't spoken much on the way back to the Tower.

"How old are you now?" he asked suddenly eyeing her. He didn't take a step back but he did flinch away from her hand that she had outstretched. She let it hang there a moment before casting her eyes downward and sighing. It fell to her side. She let her back rest again the back of a couch in the room and just stared at the ground.

"22." She said then paused. "25...I'm not sure actually. Not older than 25 at most." She whispered not looking up. "I lost a few years when you went on hiatus, when they didn't need me."

"When is the last time I saw you?" he asked watching the way she wouldn't look up to meet his eyes. There was a small part of him that remembered her being like this. There had been a point in time when Hydra had melded her into an obedient whipping dog that was faithful and terrified of him. He couldn't quite recall the fuzzy memory but it was there. There were two very different versions of this girl; the one that would question him and he'd had to train and this version of her…the one that was submissive and quiet.

"When is the last time you remember seeing me?" she countered finally glancing up. Her eyes were soft and round. Bucky felt his eyebrows draw together as he thought about her question. It had honestly caught him off guard. When was the last time he remembered seeing her? His lips parted as if he were about to talk when a rush of air left his lungs. He had just barely noticed the gleam of light from her eyes and it was like it triggered something…

***(Flashback)***

There was something soft and warm fleeting against Bucky's neck as he laid curled against the ground. There was dirt caked rubbing into his arms and grains still mused through his hair. As his mind groggily woke he remembered being on a mission to take out a man living where…where was he…damnit. That feeling wouldn't stop. He stirred moving back just a hair to inspect the cause of the warmth against his neck and stopped. He stayed very very still staring down. Nestled against his body, tangled between his limbs, was the girl. Soldat was resting against his body her warm breath still sweeping against the hollow of his neck. Her hair was tangled and snarled like his fanned about her tiny head which was propped up by his other arm. All thoughts lost of trying to remember where he was, his mind was jumbled from being out of freeze so suddenly again, he watched as her eyes squeezed a little before opening.

"Ich bin zu mude, um zu behaupten. Sie erinnern mich an diesem Morgen. Soldat…bitte nicht ausflippen…" ("I am too tired to pretend you remember me this morning. Soldat…please don't freak out." ) her whispering voice lifted over the noises of the city outside. She was so close.

"Woher weib ich, ich sollte dich nicht toten?" ("How do I know I shouldn't kill you?") he asked and she sucked in a breath. He'd pulled a small hand knife on her throat pressing it against her jugular tightly.

"S-soldat…" she knew it would only take one wrong word. She needed to disengage him by saying the code word they had programmed him with to disarm against her. It was crucial for mission that required she go with him like this and she almost always had to use it when she woke him up. The problem was, this time, this one time was different. She'd been exhausted and they'd had to hide. There hadn't been many choices after they'd taken the shot and gotten the confirmed hit. They'd had to run. They'd ended up in a loft of an empty apartment complex that was as rundown as it had been cold. Normally they tried to stay away from each other with minimal physical contact except for training, it wasn't allowed…but when she'd started shivering he'd sighed. She was significantly smaller than he was and Bucky had known that her body temperature would have gone down in hours while they slept. He'd silently pulled her closer daring the runt to say a word to him. She'd kept quiet and fallen asleep against him.

"Vertrauen." Trust, she whispered. The code word was trust. A tension seemed to release from his shoulders just before the knife came away from her throat. However, as soon as the tension was gone, he began to dislodge himself from her body almost dumping her on the floor.

"Wei spat ist es? Wir zu berichten, wenn die totung bestatigt sind." ("What time is it? We are to report when the kill was confirmed.") he replied standing over her. She rubbed the back of her head which had hit the floorboards beneath them when he'd stood up so suddenly. He'd never tell her that it had been because of the breath he still felt ghosting across the skin just under his ear.

***(End flashback)***

"When we were in Russia." He said gently. "The snipe on the man from the hotel when we had to run…" her throat went dry. That had been only a few years back and one of the last missions she'd done with him.

"O-oh…" her voice faltered. She remembered it well too. She remembered waking up and feeling him surrounding her. It had been the most safety she'd ever experienced in her life.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (upstairs)

Tony watched the silent moment pass between the two when Anya asked the last time Bucky had seen her. There was tension between the two, hesitancy on her part, and frustration on his. Natasha nodded towards where Bucky stood below them through the glass.

"He's remembering something." She said softly. They listened to his answer about the hotel and the sniper shot. She noticed the way Anya's voice faltered in response.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (back to the room)

At first Anya wasn't sure that Bucky remembered everything about that trip. She was sure he didn't remember the way she'd had to disarm him the next day by putting a bullet in his leg and punching him with a bottle. She was sure he didn't remember fighting her because he was scared to go back to Hydra and she had to take him back or they'd kill him. She wasn't sure Bucky remembered that morning when they'd woken up and she was too scared to tell him what she remembered. She was sure that it hadn't mattered because Bucky wasn't trained to care about things like physical touches or emotional connections. Those had been stripped from him.

"You were freezing." He said glancing up at her. It was then that she knew he remembered.

"Bucky…" she started to answer him but the door to the right of the room slid open.

"Bucky." Steve said stepping into the room.

And Anya knew she'd lost him.

The way he looked, turning his body to face that voice, she knew it was over.

Natasha watched as the girl put a small smile on her face as the Captain crossed the room to stand in front of his best friend before hugging him. Bucky let him.

Anya sighed and made to head for the door Steve had come through. She was tired. She just wanted to be alone for a little bit…what good was it for Bucky to remember her when there was so much he needed to remember about his life before her? She knew it was important that Steve and Bucky repair this friendship, more than her making him remember their time together working for Hydra.

She wanted to sleep off the sting of needing to be forgotten after she'd just been remembered.