The Darkest Path

8

The Winter Soldier sat in the bank vault he was being kept in after he entered. The scientist worked on his metal arm.
    He was confused. The flashbacks he had kept playing in his mind over and over and over. A man bowed over him.
    "Sergeant Barnes..." The Soldier blinked with his eyes when the next one bubbled up in his head.
    He fell off a train, at the edge of a mountain. It was terribly cold and he was so afraid. The same man he had seen in the bridge was there, but in very different clothes. He tried to save him.
    "Bucky, no!" That same name again. What was that with the name?
    Now he laid in the snow, in the valley. He was so cold, it was a miracle that he had survived, even with the lost of his left arm. He was picked up by HYDRA agents.
    The doctor was there again. But not the doctor he wished to see, to be touched from. This was a different one. It made him think of a reptile. With his glasses and his bolding head. He was small and tubby. "The procedure has already started."
    The doctor was fascinated, as someone else amputated his left arm, what was left of it. The pain was killing him and he remembered how confused he was when he held up his metal arm. They replaced his biological arm with metal. Then those words.
    "You are to be the new Fist of HYDRA." The man said it as if it was something remarkable. Something with great honour. "Put him on ice."
    He remembered placing his hand, his metal hand against the glass when the terrible cold froze his body.
    Within a second the Soldier was back in the present, looked straight ahead. He was confused of the strange memories, but also about what happened a few minutes ago. He had expected for Grace to follow him, but she seemed unable to move a muscle.
    It was hard for him to remember why he was there. But of course he knew. He had to see her after what happened, she felt like a safe place to him. And the worst thing was that he had feelings for  her. The Soldier knew that it was wrong, but it already happened.
    She would never be safe with him. He could only want to touch her face and hurt her. He knew it deep inside.
    He looked up when Pierce entered. The man looked satisfied, like something good happened, but after a few seconds he looked disgusted.
    Why, he didn't know. He didn't even want to know. The Soldier glanced quickly at Rollins. The man pointed a gun at him — to make him stop to attack any further.
    When he came in he didn't know what to do, but he didn't feel safe. When they touched him and commanded him, he just lost it and got into a fight.
    "Sir, he's... he's unstable. Erratic," said the scientist as Pierce looked at him. Rumlow followed him, with some other HYDRA agents who gathered around him, like he was some kind of zoo animal.
    Pierce bowed towards him, his face on the same height. "Mission report," he commanded. The Soldier looked blank, he didn't respond. He didn't know how. He had failed his mission. "Mission report. Now." Pierce started to lose his temper.
    He moved closer to the Soldier and suddenly hit hard in the face.
    The Winter Soldier knew that he had to answer and his cheek burned, but he got worse hits that day. He couldn't keep quiet forever. He didn't have a choice — he had to tell the same thing as he told Grace.
    "The man in the bridge..." He got a flashback to the blonde man, calling a name he didn't know... or did he know? Bucky? "Who was he?"
    "You met him earlier this week on another assignment," said Pierce. The Winter Soldier wondered for a moment if he would help him. It was the first person that gave him... flashbacks of something. A life. What life?
    "I knew him." Pierce sat in front of him and the behind the door made of bars fast footsteps sounded.
    "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 your part, I can't do mine, and HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves." Pierce talked like he was facing a child.
    The footsteps came closer and became louder. It was if someone was running now.
    "But I knew him," was all he could say. He knew that man. He wanted to know who he was. Pierce got up, right at the moment Grace jumped onto the bars.
    "Don't!"