2001
Day 20,088
The sound of his hand striking the skin of her face sounds in the silent room. Her head hangs. Some five figures stand around her, blurred in her peripheral vision.
"What the fuck was that?" He demands, and she knows better than to answer. His accent is American. "You were seen. You were shot." He grabs her roughly by the chin and forces her to look at him. "You left a witness."
A single bulb hanging above them is the only light provided to the pair. It catches her eyes, dry of tears. Void of emotion. She waits for him to speak again.
The man's hair is a shade between light brown and blond in the dim lighting, occasionally making a stray white strand shine brighter than the rest. Blue eyes squint at the bloodied woman before him. Her cheek has turned bright pink. Anger bubbles behind those eyes. You'll see what he wants you to, but it's hard hiding that much frustration.
He shakes his head and lets go of her chin. Nothing can change what has been done, and he can't afford to waste anymore time talking to a wall. He carries himself to the door, turning to face her when he reaches it.
"Don't let it happen again. Heil Hydra."
"Heil Hydra." She whispers in return. The way her 'r's roll is foreign to her voice. This accent is not her own. Though not much is anymore.
He nods. He leaves. The reinforced metal slams shut with a heavy thud. Another man has taken his place.
His hair has been grown out and shaped to a style that does not match the time. It's dyed a dark brown, stark contrast to it's formerly light color. His features have been altered somewhat to more resemble the man she once loved, when love was a word she knew. She could end him so easily. But not when his lips look like the ones she used to kiss. They thought it'd make her more perceptible to orders. It has.
He looks different, but you know him.
"Let's get you cleaned up." He says through a forced American accent. He tends to be kinder to the assassin, but he is by no means kind.
She stands, putting all her weight on her good leg. He offers her no assistance as she limps to the door. He doesn't even seem upset at her condition. She waits as he turns his key in its lock. They walk—or rather, he walks, and she barely manages to drag herself along— down a concrete walled corridor, through air that smells like winter and turns your breath to smoke. They stop in front of a door identical to all the others, apart from the word "медицинский"—Russian for "medical"—written in plain letters.
They enter. She sits willingly in the chair in the center of the room. It looks almost like a throne, though there's nothing regal about it. Through trail and many errors, they've perfected a method of short bursts of electricity that repeat over and over milliseconds apart to effectively erase one's memory, at least for a little while. Like blurring a picture and waiting for it to come into focus again. Some memories refocus, some don't. The more times it's done the more stays blurred, or right out gone. They're counting on this.
She and this chair know each other about as well as the sun knows the sky. They are not friends. She shares it with another, but they're both oblivious of this. If eyes were not tracking her now as she limps to it, she would slow, stop, and in all likelihood, cry. For all she forgets, she remembers this chair and the pain it entails.
But she is always watched. So she sits, because fear and resistance hurt more than this ever could.
He leans over her leg, running his hand farther than necessary up her thigh. She stares into the wall as he removes Romanoff's bullet. Disinfectant is slathered over the wound, followed by tight bandaging. Never any anesthetic.
Her mind leaves for a moment, seeing something new, something wonderful, she sees... she..
She..sees a face?
No...
...I see?
...I?
"AGH!" She screams, muffled by the rubber guard between her teeth. The machine crackles as it sends wave after wave of electricity through her head, ever unrelenting. Beads of salty sweat roll down her forehead and into her eyes. She's held still by thick metal bands clamped tight around her arms. Still, she writhes. Minutes, hours, maybe even days later it finally stops. The fiery haired assassin will live only in her nightmares from this point on. The dirt road smeared with their blood is jerked violently from her head, each leaf disappearing one by one. She leaves it all in that chair. Memories without a mind are effective erasure of history. All, in the end, goes according to plan.
Hydra has perfected chaos, shaped it into bullets, and handed her a loaded gun. She's just there to pull the trigger.
Her arms give out, falling slack. Her breathing is heavy. The bands release. She nearly falls limp from the chair, but he catches her. He brings her arm over his shoulders and again they walk through the frost bitten hallway. They stop and enter a familiar room. A tall, grey metal chamber sits at its center. It's the only place she gets any semblance of rest. He opens its door and she steps inside. His hands attach numerous wires to her like clockwork, they know the routine by heart. This part never changes.
Just before he shuts the chamber door, he kisses her bruised forehead, steps back, and whispers in gentle words;
"Sleep well, my Edelweiss."
YOU ARE READING
Edelweiss || Bucky x Reader
Fanfiction"A gift." One guard says to someone else in the room as he leaves. I groan in pain and scrunch myself into a ball, squeezing my eyes shut. Seconds later I hear shuffling and then someone is beside me. "Y/N?" Asks a voice. No- Bucky's voice. My whol...
