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saiilorstars · 3 months

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ch.13: The Lost Pieces

Steve Rogers x OFC fic • squeeze your eyes for a Bucky Barnes x (2nd) OFC

taglist: @ocappreciationtag @arrthurpendragon @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @gloryekaterina @averyhotchner @foxesandmagic @lenonizi @kmc1989

Story Masterlist • Seren’s Masterlist• Chloe’s Masterlist

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Maria Hill was the savior that no one had expected given their streak of luck lately. But she showed up with a game plan that she explained in a very rushed manner as they headed to some secret base not too far outside the city. She assured them that those inside were people they could trust, and she had to reiterate that to Seren when the latter saw a medic approaching them. Natasha was still nursing a bullet injury in her shoulder and given the severity of the blood she was losing, Seren didn't make it harder. Besides, she had other things to worry about.

"I need some tech — a control room — whatever you have to help me locate Chloe." She was right on Maria's tail and actively searching for a room before Maria even answered. "We need to find Chloe as fast as possible!"

"We'll find her, but I think you'll want to see someone else too," Maria said, sounding oddly confident too.

Seren didn't quite care for it right now, honestly. She couldn't find it to be confident with just about anything right now. Their track record as of late was just awful. "Unless it's God himself — because I have a few questions to ask him — I'm not quite interested, Maria. I need to find Chloe."

"Follow me, guys." Maria picked up her pace and said nothing more, leaving the group with no choice but to follow after her. They followed her down some dark corridors until they came into a dimly lit room where the last person they were expecting was lying on a bed in pretty bad shape...but alive.

Seren became a statue. It took two seconds for Steve to go from surprised to irritated. Natasha was relieved. The only one who didn't understand was Sam.

"About damn time," Nick Fury said to a room full of wide eyes.

There wasn't a word spoken for minutes except for the medic giving Natasha instructions for her injury. Eventually, Fury was the one to break the silence. He did so with a long list of his injuries.

"...lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache…"

"Don't forget your collapsed lung," the doctor reminded him, as if he needed it.

"Oh, let's not forget that. Otherwise, I'm good."

"Good?" Seren nearly snorted, still unable to pull herself together from the shock. She was trying to remember to be a decent person and not lose it like she very much wanted to.

Natasha was a lot more calm about the situation, and neither Seren nor Steve were surprised about that. She was always the best at controlling her emotions. She looked at Fury cautiously like he would disappear if she blinked. "They cut you open, your heart stopped…"

"Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it."

"Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?" Steve asked, despite already presuming what the answer would be. Like Seren, he was keeping himself calm and surprisingly was doing a better job at it than Seren. He kept glancing in her direction and she was actively avoiding all of their eyes.

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful," Maria replied.

"No," said Seren abruptly, shaking her head. "Even if that wasn't the endgame, you still wouldn't have told us anything. And that's the truth." Nobody could ignore the sour resentment in her voice. "Because another truth is that you only tell the full plan to those you trust and clearly," she let out a bitter chuckle, "we weren't on that list. Except for Chloe, of course, and even then..."

"Agent Soul—"

"I'm not 'agent Soul' anymore," Seren snapped. "I never was, apparently! Because SHIELD never existed! Because the whole time there were moles everywhere and even when you did know about them, you didn't tell anyone, Fury!"

"I couldn't tell anyone, Seren, because—"

"Because you didn't trust us!? Are you serious!? Me!?" Seren laughed. She saw Steve reaching for her shoulder but in her anger she stepped away from him. She focused all her attention on the one man who, from her perspective, had a lot of the fault right now. "I've worked my entire life for you and you didn't trust me enough? You doubted my loyalties!?" She started laughing again and brought a hand up to her mouth. "You must be kidding me right now! You gotta be!"

There was a long silence in the room after which everyone except for Seren looked at each other. Steve gazed specifically at Fury with a 'she's right' look. Fury all but rolled his eye and let out a big breath.

"Yes, alright, you have a point but I did what I could," he ultimately said, not that Seren appreciate it. It wasn't what she wanted to hear. I couldn't risk them taking SHIELD's highest agent."

"I could take care of myself," Seren muttered. "Obviously today I'm off my game for reasons beyond my control."

"But that's just it, Seren, I had no idea where to start," Fury said. "I didn't know who was part of the moles and who wasn't. Not even Atria could tell."

The mention of Seren's grandmother put the woman even more on edge. "Excuse me?"

Steve's eyes fell shut. This isn't getting any better...

"My grandmother knew about this?" Seren walked up to the foot of Fury's bed, eyes blazing with newfound anger. "She knew and she didn't say anything!?"

"She couldn't say anything if she didn't know anything, Seren," Fury said. "All she would have done is make you panic. If it's any consolation, she didn't know about this when she brought you on. It was until later and by that time, you were so deep in SHIELD that there wasn't any point."

"Oh, there would've been a point," Seren said. "Because if either of you had told me, maybe Chloe wouldn't be where she is now. With HYDRA."

"That's not on you, Seren," Natasha cut in. She thanked the medic for helping her out and slid off the bed to rejoin the group.

"Yes, it is! I brought Chloe straight to HYDRA! If I had known that there were moles, I would've done things very differently!" Seren's angry eyes were shining with tears. "But now she's out there, God knows where, and I need to find her!"

"We will find her," Steve assured her. He was finally able to claim one of her hands and held it tight. "We're going to find Chloe, we're going to find Bucky too, and this time we're going to make sure that HYDRA goes down."

"Winters was always a target but I never thought it would be like this, much less from who," Fury said. He shifted in his bed to sit up better. "My best guess was always the tech piece she absorbed."

"What could Hydra want with a Hivemind?" Natasha wondered. "Chloe was never able to fully understand them. Nor them to her."

Seren stiffened when she recalled Sitwell's words.

'Hydra lost one of the pieces years ago. The dormant piece can't be activated until they have the other.'

"There's two pieces..." She said with a heavy alarm. "Sitwell said Hydra lost the other piece years ago. The one that HYDRA has couldn't be activated without the other...and now they have Chloe..."

"Wait, wait, how would they activate that piece if Chloe's already absorbed the other one?" Sam asked. "She told me that SHIELD tried taking out her piece but it was impossible."

"It still is," Maria confirmed, having been present for many of those attempts.

"So if they can't take her piece out...then they're going to try to..." Seren gulped as dread filled her chest. "I need to find her!" She had only turned halfway when Fury called her to wait.

"We'll find her but we need to make a plan first," he said.

"With you?" Seren's sharp tongue wasn't something they heard very often. Then again, seeing Seren close to losing it wasn't a very common sight either. Today was an exception for many, many things. She now gazed at her former boss with ire in her eyes. "For what? You want me to work for you like the clueless puppet I've been all my life!? No!"

"Seren—"

"No!" Seren stopped Natasha in her tracks. "You always said that I needed a backbone and so here it is! Words cannot describe how awful I feel right now — how stupid I feel! I mean, how the hell could I have been so blind!? How could I have not seen it before!?" She looked at Fury again. "You just stood there and let all this happen! You couldn't trust SHIELD but what about the Avengers? What about the Initiative I worked my whole life for? The people you managed to get — you didn't think about telling us then!?"

"You were barely a team as it was," Fury reminded her of her own thoughts before. "Even Rogers was more than reluctant to join."

"But I was there!" Seren yelled. "I was always there, Fury! I saw the walls of SHIELD bases than my own home! But you let me keep working in the dark! You let me bring an innocent girl into this web and you let her stay in it! And now you want me to jump back into my role as naive Agent Soul? Ha, I don't think so!" She spun around and stormed out of the room.

For all the attention that Steve suddenly got when Seren left, he didn't really feel as awkward as the others. He gave a small shrug of his shoulders as he met Fury's gaze. "I would just be grateful she didn't go supernova..."

~ 0 ~

Chloe struggled every now and then with the agents behind her. Her wrists had been bound with special cuffs meant to negate her abilities. Apparently, while SHIELD had developed a special pair for Seren, HYDRA had been working alongside with the project on a similar model just for Chloe. Wasn't she just lucky...

"Where the hell are we going?" she demanded from the pair of agents. Of course, just like the last time she asked, nobody answered her. "Where did you take the others?"

No answer.

They pushed her into some building, a bank by the looks of it, where she found a much heavier load of agents waiting for her. As brave as she wanted to be, she couldn't deny her racing heart nor the fear that was growing inside her. She was outnumbered by the dozens. The thing about always being on the run is that she was not used to facing heavy numbers like this. Hell, she wasn't as skilled of a fighter as her friends, definitely not like Seren. She was a runner, Seren was a fighter.

Now here she was, facing the shadows that had been after her for so long. She had plenty of faces to match said shadows.

And she was afraid. She was alone and so very afraid.

She dug her heels in the floor, forcing the agents behind her to physically push her forwards. She, in turn, put all her efforts to slowing their pace. "I don't want to go anywhere with you!" she yelled. "I want to see my friends! I want to see Seren!"

"Why, so we can blow her brains out right along with yours?" She heard Rumlow's voice ahead of her. She stopped fighting against the agents as he approached her.

Disgust etched across Chloe's face as she looked at him. "You wish you could get that close to her. She'd wipe the floor with you. And that's if Steve didn't get to you first." She smirked for a brief moment before Rumlow made to smack her across the face. She instinctively flinched but for some reason, Rumlow didn't go through with it. "Where...where are the others?"

Rumlow's lip curled into a deep scowl.

Ifthey'redeadthentherewouldbenoanger—

Chloe squeezed her eyes shut and groaned with the sudden blast of words in her head.

Hadtheybeenkilledtherewouldbeatotalsatisfactiononhisface—

"Stop, stop, stop," she whimpered.

—buttherewillbeaguaranteed100—

"I said STOP!" she yelled.

Rumlow laughed, making her open her eyes to see the grin on his face. "I always knew you were damn crazy, Winters."

"Shut up," she muttered.

"She's not crazy, Rumlow. She's gifted." Alexander Pierce arrived on the scene with his own flock of agents behind him. He smiled towards Chloe like she wasn't being detained against her will. "She took a little longer to be ready but that's alright. HYDRA is nothing if not patient, especially with its greatest assets."

"I am not your asset," Chloe spat. "Where are my friends? You didn't kill them. He" — she nodded at Rumlow — "would've bragged about it already. But instead he scowled."

"Did you deduce that on your own?" asked Pierce, eyes already studying her in a way she absolutely hated. "Or was it them?" For her own safety she would stay quiet. "Tell me, do you know what they are? Where they're from? It must be magnificent to have an entire race in your head."

"Not as much as you would think," she said. "It gets loud."

"Well, it's all your fault, really. Nobody asked you to stick your nose where it didn't belong," Rumlow said with a sarcastic smile. "But you've always been annoying like that, haven't you?"

"And you've always been second best, right?" she countered with a smug smile. "And in case you're wondering, I deduced that on my own." Rumlow's face fell before she finished. He made a move against her when Pierce shut him down.

"Stand down." Pierce's word was law by the looks of it. Now it made sense to Chloe why she wasn't really hurt (beyond the emotional trauma). Pierce wanted her for something. "Your friends, as you say, escaped but it won't be a problem. We have powerful weapons, after all."

Chloe stiffened. Her eyes roamed the hallway. It was abandoned judging by the dirt accumulating on the walls. But it was dead quiet. Her eyes started glowing blue. Pierce watched with an almost fascination. Up until now he had only heard from their infiltrators in SHIELD what their Hivemind looked like inside Chloe Winters.

And suddenly, the glow in Chloe's eyes faded and she was back in the present. Her eyes flickered back to Pierce with the sense of new knowledge. "You have him here, don't you?" She asked what she already knew. "This whole time, the ghost you had following me was the supposedly late Sergeant Barnes."

"The Hivemind again?" Pierce's lips stretched into another clean smile.

"I was there when his mask fell...but yes, the Hivemind helps connect the dots. He's here right now. So what do you want from me?"

"They haven't told you, then?" Pierce seemed to take extra satisfaction learning her disadvantage. "Let's walk," he motioned to her.

She raised an eyebrow at him, hoping that every part of her body was screaming that she hated him. The agents behind her, however, shoved her forwards. She stumbled a few steps until she was able to reclaim her balance. She swallowed hard and raised her head to walk alongside Pierce.

"The piece that you absorbed when you were a kid, didn't you ever wonder why you couldn't fully connect to the Hivemind?"

Of course she had but in the beginning, she was just terrified that she had a piece of tech in her body in the first place. "What the hell was it doing there in the first place?"

"Ah, mission gone wrong," Pierce rolled her eyes. "Decommissioned the agents who failed there. The tech pieces were left behind from an old mission in the 60s. It took us forever to find them but imagine my reaction when only one piece made it to my hands?"

Chloe suddenly felt a tiny bit of pity for the agent in charge of that mission. "What did you want with them?"

"It was HYDRA's hope that we would learn how to wield the pieces correctly. We didn't know they were part of a Hivemind until we examined the piece we had."

"What did you think they were before?"

"Nobody knew except that they were alien," Pierce said. "And you'll understand that anything foreign can always be of value if wielded correctly. HYDRA takes anything it can and this wouldn't be an exception. So even when we only had one piece, we made it a priority to figure out what the tech could do. But unfortunately, we soon realized that we didn't have anything without the other piece." Pierce finally looked at Chloe, who gulped. "It was even more unfortunate when we learned where the piece had gotten to — into. A clueless girl that one of our own agents brought to S.H.I.E.L.D."

Chloe looked away. Seren. Seren had unknowingly brought her to the very organization that would try to kill her later on. "You wanted to kill me—you tried to kill me several times. What, did you expect to yank it out of my corpse?"

"Initially," Pierce said without a care of Chloe's horrified face. "But that was before we got all your test results. When SHIELD conducted its initial tests on you, HYDRA learned how the piece had fused to your body. It is now part of your body, meshed with your DNA. Even if we had killed you, we wouldn't have been able to salvage the piece you absorbed. We would've damned ourselves."

That's why they stopped trying to kill me, Chloe realized. They needed me alive. "But...but you started following me? What for? And trying to kidnap me?"

"If we could not take the piece back, we had to at least make sure we could harvest its power regardless of its whereabouts. But you turned out to be one smart cookie." Pierce stopped in front of a gated door. "Fury never shared the statuses of your missions. There were no reports of it either. You were hard to find, Miss Winters, and that is very impressive for someone on Hydra's list."

"I don't feel very honored," Chloe moved her arms a bit to remind them of the very special clamps on her wrists. "In fact, I feel more like a prisoner which" — she bobbed her head — "I'm sure is what Sergeant Barnes has probably felt this whole time too."

"The cuffs are merely precautions," Pierce said with a smug smile Chloe wished she could wipe off with her powers. "You need to understand first."

"Forgive me if I don't understand the people who have made my life miserable for the past 8 years! I lost my family because of you people! I couldn't go back home anymore! They think I ran away! I lost everything!"

"For a good cause, our cause," Pierce remained uncharacteristically calm despite the shouting in his face. "You're young, you don't understand what we're trying to do."

"My age doesn't define whether or not I understand good and bad. I am more than competent to decide what I want and let me tell you that being here is something I don't want. What I would want is to get the hell out of here and see my friends—scratch that," she nodded towards the gated door, "I would like to take that poor man with me and get the hell out of here!"

"You're here to serve us now," Pierce's voice took a more natural hard tone. That's the one Chloe thought would be more his style. "You don't say 'no' to HYDRA. I know your limits, Winters. We've studied them right alongside SHIELD, make no mistake of that."

Chloe's eyes flickered to the agents surrounding them. "Why am I here?" she asked. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Connect the pieces, what else?"

"No," she shifted her gaze to the gate. Her eyes took on a soft blue glow. "That's not why I'm here. You could've done that anywhere. I'm here for another reason."

Peace. He's under duress. They cannot control him.

She straightened herself up and looked directly at Rumlow. "Open the gate," she commanded, much to his shock.

He scoffed at her. "In case you forgot, you're not in charge."

She cocked her head at him. "Open. The. Gate."

Just as Rumlow's face twisted with anger, Pierce spoke up. "Open the gate, Rumlow. She understands now."

Rumlow's head snapped in his direction. "But she's not—"

"Open it," Pierce reiterated, tone cold as ice.

Rumlow's jaw clenched but he went around the pair to open the gate. A scientist was coming up to the other side when the gates opened up.

"He's erratic, sir," he fumbled with Pierce, especially when he saw Chloe. "I-I don't know…"

"She'll know what to do," Pierce said with such a certainty that brought more nerves to Chloe. She sure hoped she could figure out that 'what' part in the span of the walk there.

Eventually, she was led into a room that couldn't possibly be filled with more agents and scientists. For a split second, she got the gist of Seren's fear of doctors. All the prodding and the experiments they could do with nobody to stop them. Only in this case, the "subject" wasn't a Celessian but a human man.

Not completely human, don't kid yourself Chloe.

She stopped as soon as Piece did—this would be the only time she would fall in line with him—and looked ahead. All the pictures in the world wouldn't compare to the sight of Bucky Barnes today. He didn't look a thing like the museums portrayed him as. Steve would always say that Bucky had the sharpest of looks and a charming smile. Chloe often agreed with him when she saw the pictures but not today. Today, he looked like a man with a blank slate.

He seemed beyond exhausted in his chair. His eyes were low and detached. His bare shoulders rose every now and then with a visible breath but Chloe suspected that he was too tired for even that. His hair was long enough to almost reach his shoulders and it looked in dire need of care. Chloe's eyes lingered over his metal arm that rested idly on the arm rest. Whatever damage Natasha had done to it earlier was gone. But she still couldn't get past the ugly red that marked the connection between the metal and his flesh. She wondered if it hurt all the time...

"Has he been here the whole time? With Hydra?" she found herself asking as if she would be privy to any answers.

To her surprise, Pierce did give her a response. "His work has been a gift to mankind."

"He...he died," Chloe shook her head. "He's been dead since 1940 — you've had him since 1940!?" She was absolutely horrified at the idea of just how long Bucky had been (no doubt) tortured since then. "Decades..."

"He has a bit of a head-start than you, of course. But he'll be a great teacher. And you will make a good ally."

"A what—?"

"You can see the future!"

"I can't really—"

"You would help devise the Winter Soldier's plans and execute them. Together, you'd be unstoppable and thus make HYDRA invincible."

Chloe let out a humorless, loud laugh. "I will die before I become anything of HYDRA's!"

"Funny, that's what Barnes said in the beginning too. Least that's what the reports said."

Chloe swallowed very hard and whipped her head in Bucky's direction. He's a ghost of who he once was. It terrified her to think that she could end up like him. "N-no..." she took a step back and bumped into Rumlow. She turned and saw the other agents stepping towards her. They had surrounded her and blocked off the entrance.

"You are here to do a job, Winters," Pierce said. "One that you will do a lot in the future now. SHIELD kept a good record of that ability. Peacefulness."

Chloe sucked in a breath as the Hivemind started whispering in her head. The fight. It's left him troubled. Chloe glanced at Bucky again. He looked like he was in an endless struggle. "The fight...he's starting to remember, isn't he?"

"He can't remember what's not true," hissed Pierce.

Chloe's head snapped in his direction, looking rather indignant on Bucky's behalf. "You're joking right?" Now instead of fear, all she felt was anger. HYDRA was prepared to act like they didn't kidnap and brainwash a whole man for decades. If she had the power to give him even just a little piece of all those memories, then she had a duty to at least try. "I need my hands," she said firmly.

Pierce glanced at the agent holding the key and nodded at him to go ahead. Chloe was perfectly still as the agent stepped up to uncuff her.

"I'm sure the Hivemind will tell you that your chances of escaping here are very slim," Pierce warned when Chloe was free. "Rest assured if none of my agents catch you, he will," he gave a nod in Bucky's direction.

Chloe had no doubt about that. She took in a breath and stepped towards him. Her fingers danced on her sides the closer she got. "Sergeant," she decided to go with for the moment. She doubted he remembered his own name right now anyways.

"He hasn't been that in decades," Rumlow said.

"I don't think I asked for your opinion," she snapped and came to stand in front of Bucky, though leaving a cautious distance for the moment. "We met before at the attack on the bridge…"

At the mention of the bridge, Bucky's eyes finally lifted from the floor. Chloe held her breath for a moment. Even the shine of the blue eyes that Steve talked about were gone.

"The man on the bridge…" Bucky said, his voice gruff, "Who was he?" She would know. She was on their side. She was always on their side.

"Don't answer," warned Pierce on time because Chloe had been just about to do that.

"You send him to kill Steve and you don't even have the courage to tell him who he is?" She shouldn't be surprised. HYDRA were made up of cowards. "Maybe you're not as brave as you think."

"Agent Winters, you seem to think like you're in control but I assure you that you are not," Pierce's face hardened. "You figured out what you're here for, now do it."

Chloe turned away from them. She met Bucky's gaze and had a very limited time to think of what to do. It wasn't like she had options to begin with. "I'm Chloe." She said, maybe it would matter if someone gave him a name. After decades and missions like these, she doubted Bucky recognized any of the agents with a name. "I, um, I think we've already met...in a way. But, um, that fight on the bridge—"

"Agent Winters—"

"—left you very, uh...tired, right?" Chloe smiled nervously at Bucky. He, in turn, remained blank. "I can help you." It was harder to go on when all Bucky did was stare at her. He had to be calculating her moves. If only he knew that she had zero moves right now.

But in truth he was placing her. She was the mission that he didn't understand right-away. She was the mission that, in a way, allowed him to rest. There was never any fighting for her missions, never any kind of encounter with someone. He just watched from a distance and reported back.

Now she's been captured. He knew what that meant for her...what could come next.

"...run." His quiet whisper managed to elicit a sharp gasp from Chloe. It even startled the rest of the room. The Winter Soldier hardly ever spoke when he wasn't addressed.

Chloe's shock wore off as she realized what he tried to do for her. Her expression softened. "I can't," she replied to him. She smiled sadly at him. "I...I have to stay here. But if I have to stay here, then I at least want to help you. I, um...I have an ability that, um, well...it's known to ease the mind. I won't look through any of your memories. I only want to help calm you down. I just need to touch your temples." She gestured to her own temples with her glowing blue hands. "May I?"

"Why are you asking? Just do it already," one of the scientists told her.

Chloe's eyes flickered to them. There was no point in being incredulous bug she couldn't help it. "Just because you all chose to violate his body and his every thought, doesn't mean I'm doing the same!" With that, she shifted her gaze back on Bucky.

He hadn't moved, not even an inch, he only stared. At the very least he could be trying to figure her out, which was a fair thing to do. She was a bit too bright for his usual interactions. As much as he thought, he couldn't understand what her purpose was. Everyone around him had a purpose, whether it was to fix him or give him orders, but everyone had a purpose. It all typically came down to make him more efficient.

"You have the Hive Mind..." He remembered, and watched her face pale. Was her Hive Mind like his metal arm? Her "advantage"?

Chloe wasn't surprised that he knew that. "I do," she nodded, "But I only want to help you. I know a thing or two about having your mind violated. And it's also because of these people."

Bucky's eyes flickered to the others. Chloe took that as a win. He was listening. She reached for his temples only for him to seize her wrists. She flinched then heard the shifts of the weapons behind her taking aim on Bucky.

"Stop!" she told them. She tried not to budge as much under Bucky's tight grip. He was rightfully suspicious of her. She doubted nobody before her had ever used a "good guy" tactic on him. His eyes frantically searched hers for any sign, a clue, of what she would really do to him if he allowed her to touch him. "If you don't want it, I won't do it," she eventually said to him.

For a second, he lost his grip on her. It was evident that he'd been expecting anything but that. He turned his head towards the others; the weapons were still on him.

Chloe followed his gaze. "Lower them," she ordered. "You want me to do this, then lower the weapons. Otherwise you'll have one dead Hivemind and bye-bye evil plans."

With that logic, it was only time before the weapons were gone.

It was almost bemusing to see the shock on Bucky's face when it happened. Chloe smiled slightly at him. "Can I?" She gestured her wrists still bound by his hands.

The shock wasn't enough to cover his expression when she asked for his permission. Because of that, Bucky gave a slim nod of his head. Now he was curious and that was a novelty. He hadn't been curious about anything in...he didn't know how much time had passed.

Chloe's smile widened with his nod. She just wished her hands wouldn't shake so much. You are way out of your element here. No matter. She had to push through.

Bucky was still as a statue when her hands reached him. As much as he despised foreign hands on him — he learned to hate it once he got the gist of what typically happened whenever somebody touched him — he still didn't move. He did note, though, how unusually soft her fingers were. And gentle. That was entirely distinctive from the others.

She looked at him with a light that nobody else possessed. It made him curious again — and the novelty came again — about what she would have to do for Hydra. It also made him feel sorry for what was to come because no matter what was coming, it wouldn't be good.

"Just think," Chloe whispered to him. She was very slow when it came to pressing her forehead against his, closing her eyes. Usually, she didn't do this step but given the amount of years Bucky had, she needed to go big. She often did it with Steve as well and he had that gap of 70 years in the dark. She was grateful that Bucky didn't immediately shove her away. She could feel his nervous breath and definitely felt the subtle moment in which he flinched at the closer connection. She just hoped that she could keep his trust going. "The uneasiness, the questions, think about that and feel the ease that I'll send through."

Bucky had not closed his eyes, wanting to be alert as much as possible, though it really didn't seem like Chloe was going to try anything. She seemed very different from everyone else — she was. All the scientists around him were always rough and brief with him. Yes, he was enhanced to withstand 'rough' but it didn't mean he liked it. Chloe was very far from that. Her fingers were so soft pressed against his skin. She smelled so nice too. And the best part? She genuinely wanted to help.

Chloe focused all her power on Bucky. Never had she tried so hard to make it work. While Bucky had no idea what was supposed to be happening, he felt it. It was strange. His mind, as fuzzy and conflicted as it was, started to shift. Every thought, no matter what it was, was dissolving to allow this wave of serenity to wash over him. How could this woman be producing that level of calmness? As much as he had planned to stay alert, his eyes fell shut. For the first time since he could remember, everything dark around him slipped away. He knew nothing but sweet bliss and calmness.

And it was in that sweet bubble that he saw flashes. They were quick, disappearing almost as soon as they showed up, and very fragmented. Voices filled his ears, unknown but at the same time very familiar. And then he saw him. The man from the bridge. He was smaller, but the same face. They were an old street—

"That's enough," came Pierce's order.

Chloe's fingers pulled away from Bucky's temples and she pulled back. She met his gaze sheepishly. "I hope it helped you," she said honestly. He seemed surprised, and a bit troubled again. Maybe she hadn't helped him...

Bucky looked at her with wide eyes. "The man on the bridge...I knew him. You...you showed him..."

"I didn't..." Chloe said nervously, glancing back at Pierce. The last thing she needed was for him to think she was showing Bucky images of his past life. "I can't — I can't actually do that..."

Bucky was sure of what he saw. "He was there. And..." The voices he heard now began to sound a lot like the man too. "Who was he?"

"You met him earlier this week on another assignment," Pierce answered him.

Chloe looked back at him, her eyebrows knitting together with incredulity. "You can't just wash this over, you know. He will figure it out."

"It's been seventy years, Winters."

"So this is the first time they met again and look at what's already happened?" Chloe gestured towards Bucky. He was clearly trying his best to remember. "As much as you can brainwash with your high tech, the brain is a complicated thing. It's surprising."

"I knew him," Bucky said, inadvertently proving her point.

Chloe very quickly confirmed it. "You did!" After that, she had agents coming to retrieve her. She thrashed and yelled at them to leave her alone.

Bucky watched her with new curiosity—it was almost becoming familiar to him in a way. Being curious. Despite her loud yells, she seemed confident about what she was saying. He did know that man.

Pierce walked up to him while Chloe was forced to stay a good distance back. "Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century, and I need you to do it one more time. Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning we're gonna give it a push. But, if you don't do your part, I can't do mine, and HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves."

"What!?" Chloe's face scrunched. She knew that it was in her best interest not to speak but when had she ever been prudent about anything? "What kind of bullshit is that—"

"ENOUGH!" Rumlow pulled out his gun and pressed it against her temple. "I swear to God, Winters, say one more thing!" Chloe naturally recoiled from the cool metal on her skin, but being restrained didn't help get very far. "You don't have to die but we can sure as hell find a way to shut you up."

The natural fear in her whimper brought Bucky to make his conclusion that she was most certainly not like the others around him. If that was the truth then she had no reason to lie. She said that he did know the man on the bridge.

Pierce cleared his throat to remind him that he was still waiting for a response. Bucky's eyes left Chloe to meet the man's. "But I knew him," he insisted. He hadn't been certain about anything in a while, but now he was. "I did."

Pierce shook his head. "Winters, your little act is going to cost you."

Chloe made a face. "But I didn't—!"

"Prep him," he ordered the scientists.

"He's been out of cryo-freeze too long," one of them said.

"Then wipe him and start over!"

Chloe watched the people around them hurriedly move to do whatever Pierce instructed them to do. "What...what are they going to do?" She could see that whatever it was, Bucky was no stranger to it. He seemed ready for it but with a deep, and genuine, fear. She got the idea why when clamps shut around his arms. "Woah, woah, woah, wait!" She pushed herself towards them, forcing the agents around her to hold her back. "Leave him alone! It's my fault! I did it — leave him alone!" Her eyes started glowing a radiant blue, causing the agents to scramble to cuff her again.

Pierce was out of patience. "Implant the other piece," he commanded.

"What!? No!" Chloe's eyes widened with horror. "N-n-n-n-no!" The agents started pulling her away and as much as she fought, she couldn't stop them. "NO! NO! PLEASE DON'T! NO! NO!"

Bucky heard her screaming as she was dragged out of the room. It triggered a few more memories of himself in very similar situations. Endless screams just before the torture began. It was his last thought before his hell started all over again.

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