Where Winter Ends

Years went by.

Bucky and I continued on as mindless killing machines.

Hydra's best.

Sometimes, not often, he would recall things. Not whole memories, just flashes. Sounds, scents, the way certain people moved. Little things that sparked confusion in him. Disruption.

But it never escalated like before.

No more violent outbursts.

Just distraction, dangerous in our line of work.

The handlers didn't like that.

Still, his body remembered.

Muscle memory endured.

You can erase a mind, but the body always keeps score.

I'd catch him sometimes, scratching at the seam where the metal met flesh on his shoulder. Not aggressively. Just... unconsciously. As if deep down, some part of him knew that arm didn't belong to him.

They kept him covered. Always long sleeves, high collars, gloves.

Didn't want him seeing the scars.

Didn't want to risk it triggering something, some flicker of truth buried in the fog of his mind.

He never forgot how to drive though.

Or fly.

Or navigate a dozen weapons with deadly precision.

He could even read and write in languages I couldn't even name.

Sometimes, I envied him.

I wish I could forget everything.

Forget the screams.

The faces.

The pleading eyes that haunted me every time I closed mine.

The raw red of blood on my hands that never seemed to wash off.

The echo of every life I ended whispering back at me in the dark.

I could even forget myself.

The me from before all this. Remembering that, the taste of freedom.

Was nothing short of cruel.

He forgot everything.

His name. His past. Himself.

He was Soldat, nothing more.

He had no voice behind his mask, but neither did I.

Weapons don't need one.

In 2012, they woke me again.

Cryo was always disorienting.

Every time they brought me out, my brain took a moment to stitch itself back together.

Fragments of memory.

Jarring slivers of light.

But this time, something felt… wrong.

They didn't take me to mission prep.

Didn't hand me a mission file, or give me to a handler.

Instead, they led me to an exam room.

"Strip," they said.

So I did.

I laid back on the table, the cold steel biting into my skin.

Flashes of Zola's experiments raced through my mind, tubes, scalpels, drills, and pain. The sterile smell of bleach and blood.

Goosebumps prickled along my arms.

I shivered.

I was scared.

I screamed inside.

Not again.

But Zola was gone. Or… not gone.

Different.

A ghost in the machine.

A voice in the walls, blinking at me from glass screens.

He couldn't hurt me now.

Could he?

Sweat rolled down my temple.

How could I be sweating?

I was freezing.

Nerves?

Were my feelings actually… having an effect on my body?

Or was it just muscle memory again, my body remembering terror?

The door creaked open "When he's ready, just bring him in," a doctor yelled behind him as he closed the door entering.

He?

Who?

What was about to happen?

What more could they possibly do to me?

"Alright, 13. Legs in the stirrups. Bring yourself forward."

I blinked at the doctor's calm tone.

He wheeled over on a low stool, dragging a tray of glinting metal tools beside him.

I recognized a few.

My father had similar ones, before he went to war.

He had his own practice, doing home visits sometimes for pregnant women and new mothers.

I'd seen these tools used gently. Kindly.

But I was neither pregnant nor a mother.

And this was not kindness.

Cold metal entered me. Sharp. Unforgiving.

A gasp escape me.

I had endured electric shocks. Broken bones. Chemical burns.

But this?

This felt… violating.

Not violent.

Worse.

Personal.

I was naked.

Exposed.

Inspected.

What the hell was going on?

I felt the doctor rooting around inside me, as if searching for a mint in a purse. Then came another instrument.

More pain.

A groan escaped my lips as he continued.

The door opened again. Another doctor entered.

"Well?" he asked.

The man between my legs answered without looking up.

"Everything seems fine. But we won't know until we try."

Try what?

I wanted to scream.

This is my body! I deserve to know!

But the words never came.

Because deep down, I already knew that had stopped being a person a long time ago.

Now, I was a weapon and experiment.

"Alright, then let's get started. Soldat!"

The door opened again.

And Bucky walked in.

Like a weapon being drawn.

Silent.

Precision in motion.

He didn't look at me.

His eyes swept over the room and landed on the doctors. Awaiting orders.

I might as well have been the table itself.

"Strip," one of them said, as casually as if he were asking for a report.

I want to disappear.

To curl in on myself and evaporate into the air, dissolve into the darkness.

Instead, I laid there, legs spread in those cursed stirrups, exposed to the chill of the room and the unbearable warmth of shame.

A slight tremble in my legs, another emotion escaping out of me, a response beyond their control.

They didn't say what they were trying to do.

Why explain something to a weapon.

But I know.

 I'd heard whispers over the years

They couldn't replicate us.

Their experiments failed repeatedly.

My regeneration? A fluke. An anomaly.

One they couldn't duplicate.

Not unless…

Unless I created it again.

With him.

They wanted a child.

A born super soldier.

Something pure. Natural.

Bucky's strength. My healing.

A weapon they wouldn't have to build, they could raise it, mold it to what they want.

They want us to breed like animals, making their prize cattle.

I could hear the rustle of fabric and his metal arm clinking softly against the steel buckle of his belt. The sound of his zipper sliding down.

He didn't look at me.

But I saw him.

Not because I wanted to.

Because I couldn't look away.

He looked… hollow.

A ghost in his own skin.

His breath was even. Measured.

But his eyes, there was something there.

Panic?

Regret?

Fear?

Was he aware?

Was he in control?

Was some buried part of him trying to understand what he was about to do?

The doctor gave instructions. Cold. Clinical. Unfeeling.

"Proceed."

That was the word he used.

We were parts in a grotesque experiment.

Bucky hesitated.

His hand hovered above my thigh.

His brow twitched.

Then, he looked at me. His eyes meeting mine.

And for just a moment, I saw him.

The man I met before the mask.

The one who offered me hope.

Who saw me when I still remembered how to be seen.

"No," he whispered.

So soft I thought I imagined it.

Then, crack.

A punch to his face, sharp and sudden.

"Soldat! You have your orders. Obey!"

He staggered, the sound of his arm whirling as he formed a fist.

I saw it happen.

Something in him broke.

The tension in his body shifted.

His jaw locked.

His human hand trembled.

The other doctor stepped forward.

"This is for the greater good. It's not about you or her. It's about the future. Do as you're told."

The voice was gentler. Persuasive.

Like a salesman convincing you to drink poison.

Bucky looked at the doctor. Then at me.

His metal fist unclenched.

My heart slammed in my chest.

I wanted to fight.

To scream.

To push him away.

But I didn't move.

Couldn't.

My mouth sealed shut.

My voice gone.

He moved.

And I shattered.

My teeth clenched so hard I thought they might break.

My vision blurred.

A feeling of nausea welled up.

All I could do was retreat.

Deep inside.

To the only place they hadn't reached yet.

Where my sister lived.

Where the sun was warm.

Where we were barefoot on the beach, picking up seashells and laughing.

That part was mine.

Still mine.

And God help me, I would not let them take that too.