Numbness was, by now, a welcome relief. Because to be otherwise was to hurt, to ache, and she'd had far too many months of that. It was easier to pretend, wasn't it? But somehow, the lines had become blurred and the grief she still felt wasn't just contrived for appearances sake.
She still sobbed herself to sleep every night after lights-out; she still refused to even entertain the idea of getting involved with anyone else (despite all of Stark and Carter's gentle urging), and she still soldiered on with her own goddamned mission, uncaring that she was single-handedly jeopardizing the fate of the entire world with her random little messages, sent here and there.
But one iron-hard fact remained: he was dead. James B. Barnes, killed in action during a retrieval mission in the Swiss Alps, falling to his death from several hundred feet along the mountain. Rogers and the other Howling Commandos hadn't been the only ones to take that failure like a hammer-blow. Bless him, Captain Rogers had tried to comfort her, to help her move along with her grief so he'd have a reason to deal with his own, but she'd refused any and all placations, preferring to throw herself into her work - clandestine as it was.
Then, perhaps eighteen months later - and the misery of loss no less sharp than it had been - she received a summons. Dropping her Allied guise was child's play, and in less than twenty-four hours, Natalia Romanova was entering a secluded HYDRA facility deep in the Siberian wasteland, reporting directly to Colonel Vassily Karpov, who received her with a look of profound annoyance, abruptly closing the file folder he'd been scanning.
"Come," was all he said, in guttural Russian, and having no other choice, HYDRA's Black Widow did so, descending further into the facility until they stepped into a large underground chamber, at the center of which stood a peculiar metal tube, hissing steam in the chill air. "Look," was the next command, but the Colonel pointed her away from the tube towards another corner, which housed a steel table upon which a body was strapped.
Almost dreading what she might see, Natalia approached the table warily, a hidden weapon at the ready, but nearly gasped aloud when she beheld the bluest eyes she'd ever before seen, and the same familiar, beloved features she'd memorized all those months ago. Her first instinct was to run to him, rip him free, and disappear, but brutal training and lethal pragmatism held her still.
But she couldn't help the smallest whisper of, "Dzheyms..." as she came to stand near the metal table, her very heart breaking as those haunted blue eyes held absolutely no recognition whatsoever.
He doesn't respond. He doesn't have a name, doesn't have anything to respond to. The redhaired woman means nothing to him other than she hasn't injected him with anything or tried to force him to do anything. She hasn't spoken to him or used those words so she is neutral for now, not an enemy.
The scientists are all enemies, though, and he eyes them warily. They hold the key to his mind and he hates it, hates every moment of it. Everything is pain and misery now and he doesn't know if there was ever a day without it.
"Who is Dzheyms?" he asks, the same cold Russian as the scientist.
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She still sobbed herself to sleep every night after lights-out; she still refused to even entertain the idea of getting involved with anyone else (despite all of Stark and Carter's gentle urging), and she still soldiered on with her own goddamned mission, uncaring that she was single-handedly jeopardizing the fate of the entire world with her random little messages, sent here and there.
But one iron-hard fact remained: he was dead. James B. Barnes, killed in action during a retrieval mission in the Swiss Alps, falling to his death from several hundred feet along the mountain. Rogers and the other Howling Commandos hadn't been the only ones to take that failure like a hammer-blow. Bless him, Captain Rogers had tried to comfort her, to help her move along with her grief so he'd have a reason to deal with his own, but she'd refused any and all placations, preferring to throw herself into her work - clandestine as it was.
Then, perhaps eighteen months later - and the misery of loss no less sharp than it had been - she received a summons. Dropping her Allied guise was child's play, and in less than twenty-four hours, Natalia Romanova was entering a secluded HYDRA facility deep in the Siberian wasteland, reporting directly to Colonel Vassily Karpov, who received her with a look of profound annoyance, abruptly closing the file folder he'd been scanning.
"Come," was all he said, in guttural Russian, and having no other choice, HYDRA's Black Widow did so, descending further into the facility until they stepped into a large underground chamber, at the center of which stood a peculiar metal tube, hissing steam in the chill air. "Look," was the next command, but the Colonel pointed her away from the tube towards another corner, which housed a steel table upon which a body was strapped.
Almost dreading what she might see, Natalia approached the table warily, a hidden weapon at the ready, but nearly gasped aloud when she beheld the bluest eyes she'd ever before seen, and the same familiar, beloved features she'd memorized all those months ago. Her first instinct was to run to him, rip him free, and disappear, but brutal training and lethal pragmatism held her still.
But she couldn't help the smallest whisper of, "Dzheyms..." as she came to stand near the metal table, her very heart breaking as those haunted blue eyes held absolutely no recognition whatsoever.
no subject
The scientists are all enemies, though, and he eyes them warily. They hold the key to his mind and he hates it, hates every moment of it. Everything is pain and misery now and he doesn't know if there was ever a day without it.
"Who is Dzheyms?" he asks, the same cold Russian as the scientist.