Chapter 5

Rebecca 'Becca' Proctor, nee Barnes stared up at the ceiling wondering if she was dreaming or not on seeing her dead brother last night. Her hope warred with her dread until the smells of her mother's cooking drove her out of bed and down the stairs.

She tried and failed to ignore the half naked man who stared with dead eyes, not dead eyes but a alertness that never went away, even when her mother set down a heaping plate of food and coffee next to him. Becca slide into the last open chair in the dining room when her mother came out of the kitchen area frustration seeping out of every pore.

"Why exactly is my son not eating?" Winnie demanded of the redheaded woman whose eye were as sharp as kitchen knives. The other woman's eyes were almost as sharp but more like butter knives. Still deadly but in a different way.

"Whose not eating? This is delicious." Hattie said, as Howard Stark had wandered away from the table after two plates and three, no now four cups of coffee. Hattie thought he might be on his fifth as he went to his 'basement lab under the garage.'

"The statue outside in the entry that is my son." Winnie knew that the two foreign women knew what was wrong with him but were tight lipped as if any information would be dangerous to say.

Natasha sighed inwardly, 'Of course James got his sharpness from somewhere.' "Let me try something." She hoped this wasn't the case but it might be.

"Come and just watch."

Natasha ignored the curious crowd following her and approached the sitting Asset, no Jimmy, and smoothly sat down as she causally took her silverware still dripping with maple syrup and butter and stole some bacon from 'Jimmy's' plate. Letting him see that no the food wasn't poisoned, and using the spoon that came with the sugar and cream, that she carried out with her, loaded the coffee with sugar and cream. She licked off the remaining from the spoon, ignoring the way 'Jimmy's' eyes widen in fear or disbelief Natasha didn't know.

Natasha deliberately used 'Jimmy's' butter knife to stir the cup, and picking up his fork, she said in Russian making her sister wince, which was caught by the Barnes woman, "If we attempted to murder you or your target, there are other ways. They sent you, and your handler, no one else. If there was poison here, they would have told you."

Bite by bite Natasha and 'Jimmy' finished his plate and coffee, which to her amusement, he didn't like so much. Before they finished using all the silverware, Winnie appeared with another heaping plate and two cups.

A small thrill of pride went down Natasha's spine when 'Jimmy' abstractly muttered 'Thank you mom' a unconscious act that made the older woman jolt, thankfully without her burden. Winnie noted.

"Ok now that's done with,"Hattie said with false note of cheer in her voice, as she recognized some of what have been done with 'Jimmy,' and it boiled her blood, "It's colder than a witch's tits out there but we need to get the chores done. The animals won't feed themselves."

Howard Stark now that he was running on caffeine and up from the basement for his sixth cup, "You know you can always use the tunnel I built…" He trailed off at the glare that Hattie threw him.

"What tunnel?"

"The one that I did over the summer when I was here?"

"You didn't think to tell me?!"

As the two got into an argument that led to Stark giving Hattie a overview of what exactly Howie did to her property, the Barnes were left with questions as Yelena took over her sister's duties instructing 'Jimmy' to get cleaned up and dressed, not all the way though, meaning his endless weapons they found on his body last night as they had instructed him to disarm.

Once safely out of the way in the kitchen while 'Jimmy' took for once a hot shower after many years, Becca started on the dishes while her mother took point. "What the did they do? Turn him into Pavlov's Dog?"

Yelena's plain, "Yes." made Becca angry enough she almost broke a plate. Peggy was silent through breakfast and the little display out in the entry way but her eyes burned with a deep light of something that told the former Red Room agents that whoever hurt Bucky would be going down hard.

"What the hell can we do?" Winnie asked, false calm while her mind seethed, thankful that Becca was on dishes since she had a bit of a temper at times.

"Since he's not as far gone as I would have thought, maybe familiar sounds and settings could help him out of it, also we need to get rid of those words." Yelena knew what she meant, thankfully the word Sputnik wasn't one that was used yet. Nat and Yelena tested all of his conditioning words or at least the ones that they knew in the middle of the night once everyone else was asleep. It wasn't as bad as they once thought.

It helped that the main words were not all there. They had hope. Still when 'Jimmy' recited for his new handler all his mission details, starting with the woman in blue, he'll have a hard recovery once his mind was back.

"That's not going to be enough." Winnie shook her head, she didn't want to know all the details but if what her husband had gone through was hard enough, what Jimmy went through would be twice or worse.

"What do you mean?" Becca's small hope was beginning to crumble.

Winnie sighed. "I helped George work through his war experiences, and if that was anything to go by, then this, getting your brother back will be tougher. But we have time if this blizzard with temps below -10 is any indication, and we have us to help him out."

Winnie felt a grin appeared. "Now girls what do you think of having Crispie?" Peggy grinned at the suggestion.

"What's that?" Nat and Yelena asked together.

Winnie wasn't liking the picture she was getting from this 'organization' that held her son captive.

Author's Notes:

Winnie's talking about rice crispie's. Here's the recipe she'll probably would use since it's accurate to the time period.

Crispie marshmallow squares

Melt 1/3 cup butter and 1/2 pound of marshmallows in a double boiler. Add 1/2 teaspoonful vanilla, beat thoroughly to blend.

Put a box of rice crispies in a large buttered bowl, pour on marshmallow mixture, stirring briskly. Press into shallow, buttered pan. Cut into squares when cool.

Two ounces of melted unsweetened chocolate, or 4 ounces of melted bittersweet chocolate may be added to the marshmallow mixture just before pouring over the rice crispies.

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