"Best way to not get your heart broken, is pretend you don't have one."

-Charlie Sheen

1964

20 Years Later

She awoke.

She was numb.

She was unaware whilst completely aware of everything around her.

She was scared.

"W-Where am I?" she asked with a groggy tone, as if she hadn't used her voice in years. Looking around at the grey-green walls that surrounded her, she narrowed her eyes. Where was she; she knew this place somehow, once in her life before.

Instead of answering her questions, then pulled the restraints from her body and two men tucked themselves underneath her arms to assist her. Legs unresponsive, she felt paralyzed from the waist down and gritted her teeth in pain. No familiarity, the woman began to wonder not exactly where she was, but what she was. Searching her own mind and not finding the answers that she was looking for, she tried to figure out her surroundings, but there was nothing familiar.

She began to feel again in her lower half, and she was brought to something that began to remind her of where she was. Ahead of her there was finally something familiar, but it was not something that evoked good memories. Grimacing but not fighting back as somehow she knew better, the woman let her eyes focus on the metal chair ahead of her that she knew was wired with high voltage electricity.

Just as she suspected, she was placed into the chair, strapped down for her own safety and others. Her eyes darted around frantically, but she otherwise remained statue-still. Breathing in through her nose to keep herself calm, something told her that it was better to accept this, to get through it with minimal complaints. Fragments of memory flitted into her mind in that chair, the metal head piece not quite touching her flesh, but close enough. When they placed the rubber mouth guard between her teeth, she remembered her name. Ophelia, but someone once called her O. Across the large, open but dank room, another cryogenic chamber was lowered, and there was a man inside of it. Masked like a feral creature, and restrained like a vicious dog, he appeared to be of malicious intent even though his eyes were only just opening.

But that was not what stirred up emotion inside of Ophelia; she recognized something about this man. Digging for information in her head, she recalled something about him. They had done missions together in the past; this was not her first time being woken from her icy slumber. As everything slowly became familiar again, she watched the man exit the chamber, stumbling slightly, guards assisting him. His head turned, his long brown hair tangled and messy, and his eyes locked on to hers. An expression that Ophelia failed to read crossed his face, and it was gone quicker than it had even showed up. Before she had a chance to process anything else in the room with her, she heard the whirring noises of this machine powering up.

It evoked fear inside of her, something innate and natural, but she refused to show it. The electricity began to pulse through her and she screamed in pain; the mouth guard did little to prevent her cries from bouncing off of the walls around her. When it finally stopped, though enduring it she thought it would go on forever, she did not breathe out in relief. Instead, a shuddering breath rippled through her. The pain subsided quickly when it was all over, but she felt fragile, as if all her bones were made of glass. One man stood in front of her, holding something in his hands; a book. Red with a black star upon the cover; she knew it, she'd seen it before in some distant past.

He spoke firmly, in Russian.

"Hunt. Twenty-Two. Winter. Dweller. Lie. Chrysalid. Nine. Idle. Prey. Relinquish."

He put the book down and walked over to Ophelia, pulling the rubber mouth guard. She looked up at him, studying the lines on his face that surely developed over a short period of time; stress-lines hidden only by light stubble. He stared her in the eyes, not afraid of her, but in control of her. Narrowing her eyes and taking a small breath, she replied, "Ready to comply."

"Your mission." He handed her a file after removing her restraints. Then he told her, "You must fire the bullet."

She gripped it tight, knuckles turning an off-white colour. Before following a guard to where she could dress in appropriate garb for the task at hand, and choose her weaponry, she looked back at the only man she recognized. Nothing in his eyes lit up when he saw she was looking his way again, and so she turned away. Behind her, she heard the clanking of more metal; the man with the metal arm was in the chair. His screams echoed her own from a few minutes ago, and Ophelia was forced to leave the room.

In a cell she vaguely remembered, there were clothes for her to change into. Even as she was able to wash, dress in new clothing, and feel fresh, there was a dark spot in her head that she couldn't shake. Something that told her what she was doing was wrong, and yet she sat upon the edge of the bed and read the mission at hand. She was compliant.

It was typical, easy. Her path-finding ability was going to be put to use, and she would lead the Winter Soldier to the man they were to assassinate. She studied the face, as she always did. Her fingernails were short; she ran her fingers over the photo. Ophelia did not need to read further into why she had to locate this man, she did not want to know. Once she got inside of the man's head, she would know so much about him that she didn't want to. Sometimes it was easier to target them, and try not to think about the memories of their family, the joy they felt. But every time she linked with someone, she felt everything they were feeling in that moment, and more often than not, these people thought about the things they loved when they knew that their life was in danger.

Another guard was standing at the door of her cell, which had been left opened, and she rose from the cot she had taken a seat upon. He handed her a single gun. Sliding it into her thigh holster, she turned her head up in a confident way. Following the heavily armed guard down the halls, the lights above still flickering, triggering a distant memory in her mind, Ophelia found herself face to face with the Winter Soldier once again. He towered over her, a solid nine inches taller than her. Dead eyes that had once been full of life looked down upon her, and Ophelia straightened up a bit more.

He handed the keys to the Winter Soldier, and the two HYDRA weapons got inside of the truck. His eyes focused on her in the passenger seat, and she thought he was about to say something, only to realize he was waiting for her to give the coordinates of their target. Taking a deep breath, Ophelia searched the world for the man, though he was not too far. Locking onto his mind, she felt everything ripple through her. The thoughts in his head; he was afraid, already knowing that he was a target of HYDRA. He knew too much, and he had to be eliminated. A turncloak, and he had important information he was ready to expose to the world.

"Yakutsk." She breathed, and then relayed back the coordinates. The Winter Soldier turned on the engine, and the large doors opened, letting them leave. The darkness of the outside suggested that it was late, and the snow falling suggested it was early winter. Alone in the truck with this soldier beside her, Ophelia felt as if there was something unspoken between them. Her eyes constantly drifted to him, wanting to see something familiar, wanting him to recognize her somehow. But he did not know who she was; she didn't even know who she was.

But she knew what she was told to do.

They had only been on the road for fifteen minutes, not even off the mountain path yet, and Ophelia had a rush of courage. She closed her eyes, and focused on the man beside her. Locking onto his mind, she felt nothing at first, an empty vat. The memories were buried so far underneath the commands and the drilled in orders, that she struggled to find them. Being close to him helped, but she began to grimace as she dug. It was obvious that she was in distress, and the man looked over at her with a questioning look on his face. Ophelia found it, she found what she was looking for. Not only did she find his memories, but some of her own as they had shared ones once upon a time. Inside of his head, she found the reason behind the connection she felt with him the moment she had laid eyes on him.

"Bucky..." she said without thinking, and instantly she cleared her throat as if to cover her tracks. She pointed at the fork in the road that they had reached at some point when she wasn't paying attention. Hoping to get back on track, her hand shook noticeably. "Turn here."

"What the hell did you just say?" He slammed on the brakes, and the truck skidded on the muddy, dirty snow. When the truck came to a halt, he looked at her with a pained expression over his face.

"I said turn here," she repeated herself firmly. She fought the flood of memories of torture and pain, watching them drag away Bucky so many times. She remembered what it felt like to be hunted down, but most of all she remembered that he spared her so many times. That Bucky was gone, he wasn't in there right then, but he was searching for a way out.

The guards words rung in her head; she had to fire the bullet. This was a test, a test to prove that she could do what they demanded of her. When she glanced at the Winter Soldier through her peripheral vision, she knew she would do it, if only to spare him more blood on his hands.

Reluctantly, he made the turn, and they navigated down the road again. Ophelia shook in her seat, another slip up like that and she would be punished. The windshield wipers were moving quickly, and she focused on them, counting their movements to calm her mind. Every turn they made, she felt his eyes on her, boring into her to force her to speak up. Part of her wanted to talk to him, to tell him the things she had seen in his head, but she knew that HYDRA was listening. She recalled Bucky being tortured because of her, and would not let him go through that again. The rest of the drive was silent, but there was an unspoken discomfort between the two of them.

Their target was in his car, and the Winter Soldier pulled up right behind him; turning on the high beams to get the man's attention. The brake lights lit up at first, and then the car sped up. The Winter Soldier unrolled the window and gripped the matte-black gun, holding it out into the crisp, open air. Firing the shot at the tires, the car lifted off of the ground from the explosion, and when it crashed back down, it skidded for a few meters, and then rolled twice. The Winter Soldier slowed the truck to a halt, he looked at Ophelia.

"Stay here," he demanded.

"No," Ophelia retorted quickly. "It must be me."

He cocked his head to the side, a stoic look ever present on his features. Features that were so different when he smiled, she recalled distantly.

"It has to be me," she reiterated, then stepped out of the vehicle. The Winter Soldier got her here - she did not know how to drive - but the task was given to her, and her alone. Her legs wobbled as she stepped out of the truck and walked towards the wreckage.

Flashes of memory flitted through her head. They made her do this before, kill, to keep her a monster. Without glancing behind her, knowing The Winter Soldier was watching her, she told herself she was doing this for both of them. She had to fire the bullet because HYDRA told her to, but she would do it to spare him.

The man in the wreckage, the burning car, groaned. He slid out like a snake, and Ophelia noticed it was because both his legs were broken. Tendrils of blood oozed onto the road, mixing with the oil and gasoline, the glass dug into the man's flesh. He looked up at her, eyes pleading.

"Please," he begged, like Ophelia had begged so many times. But she was never spared, and so neither could he. She had to succeed, even if it tore something apart inside of her. She unholstered her gun, pulled back on the hammer, and fired the bullet.

Her stomach churned and she fought the urge to throw up as the bridge between her and the target ripped apart. It hurt every time. She was numb as she walked back to the truck where the Winter Soldier waited.

She got back into the truck, but he did not turn on the ignition. Instead, he glanced at her with a sense of wonder. And then he said, "I know you."