Agents surround him. He sits in the chair. Someone is working on his arm, fixing where the girl burned him. Images come to his mind in flashes.

"Sergeant Barnes," someone says to him.

"Bucky, no!" the man on the bridge shouts — but he wasn't on the bridge then. He was on a train. But he was in open air. There's singing, laughter, footsteps, voices. He can't tell where they're coming from. His hair is tousled in the wind.

Who is he?

He's in the snow, looking at a different man. He hears the first man's voice, sees a trail of blood where his arm should be. "The procedure has already started." They're cutting into him. "You are to be the new fist of HYDRA." His metal arm grabs a man by the neck. The first man comes back. "Put him on ice."

He sees himself in a window, his hair shorter, feels his own panic as he freezes, as the memory stops.

Memory?

He jerks his arm away, hits the man working on it. He wants him gone — he wants them all gone. They aim guns at him, and he sits there, furious, frustrated, about to explode.

Who is he? Why is he here? Who was that man on the bridge? He knew him. Not the woman. There were two, but the first one disappeared. The other one had fire. No one told him that. Why did nobody tell him that? He felt the heat of her hand on his chest, trying to burn through, to kill him. The flames danced inches from his face. He felt real fear for the time since...

Since when? The last time they wiped him? He lost his arm? He fell, looking up at that man? The man on the bridge...

The woman. Focus on the woman. She's mad at you. You're mad at her. You don't know her. You can kill her. You'll be prepared next time.

"Mission report," Pierce says.

But the man on the bridge. You knew him. I knew him. Who was he?

"Mission report, now."

Not him, her. Not him, not him. Think about her. Think about fire. You should've used the knife on her, even if you had to get closer. You should've risked it. You-

Pierce slaps him across the face, a sharp sting on his cheek. His mind settles. Her.

"The woman," he feels himself saying.

"What woman?" Pierce asks.

Fire, orange, talking, hitting, heat. He breathes in. Why did no one tell him? "Flames..." Her hands were in flames. She burned him, could've scorched his skin. And yet she couldn't burn herself — at least not again. There were scars on her face, her hands, her arms. Her hair was a flame tied back. It stood out against everything. She couldn't hide for long, but she didn't want to.

"What about her?"

What about her? Everything about her. He shot her. She lived. She was... She said... "I... killed her boss," he says. What else? "Shot her friend." Something about... an alien? Magic? And that phrase... 'I could do this all day.' Why does that seem... significant? "She tried to burn me."

Pierce snorts. "Well, that's no surprise."

He looks up at him. He knows her, then, as more than just a target. He knows what that all means. He risks it. "Who was she?"

Pierce waves it off. "An annoying scientist."

"Not a spy..." he mumbles, remembering something she said. She talked too much.

"What about the rest?" Pierce asks.

The rest. There was the other woman. She hit him, she ran, took out his other men. He wanted to go after her, but the scientist stopped him. There was the other man. He kicked him, shot his men, that was all. But the one on the bridge.

He knew him.

Should he even ask? Would he get an answer? Pierce answered his question about the woman. Maybe...

It's nagging at him, pulling on a trapdoor in the back of his mind that won't open. He has to. "The man on the bridge... Who was he?"

"You met him earlier this week on another assignment."

"I knew him."

"Your work has been a gift to mankind," Pierce says. "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 do your part, I can't do mine, and HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves."

None of that matters now. "But I knew him."

Pierce sighs. "Prep him."

"He's been out of cryo-freeze too long," someone says.

"Then wipe him and start over."

He knew him. He knows he knew him. A long time ago. Why can't he know now?

They push him back, put the guard in his mouth. He tries to breathe as his muscles tense. Restraints lock around his arms. This — this he remembers. The device swings down, he can see it at the sides of his head, crackling. He wants out, he wants to go. Getting burned would be better than this. He wants to-

The pain starts, and he screams.

~_~_~_~_~

They're all around a table, discussing what to do next. Steve, Sam, and Nat are standing, while Fury, Hill, and Kate sit. Her shoulder aches, but other than that she could be worse. She had some pain meds, so that's probably why. Still, at least she finally knows what it feels like to get shot — it sucks.

Fury is across from her, alive, holding a picture of Pierce. They transferred a lot of necessary SHIELD files to this dumpy place. "This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize," Fury muses. "He said peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility. It's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

"We have to stop the launch," Nat says.

Fury sighs, opening the case next to him. "I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore."

"What's that?" Sam asks, looking at the three, square server blades in the case.

Hill turns her computer around, displaying scans. "Once the Helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites and become fully weaponized."

Fury nods. "We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own."

"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are gonna die."

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA. We need to get past them, insert the server blades, and maybe — just maybe — we can salvage what's left-"

"We're not salvaging anything," Steve argues, making Kate's heart sink. "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down SHIELD."

"SHIELD had nothing to do with it," Kate mutters. They can't have. She works for them — not HYDRA. Though, she was working for both without knowing it.

Steve sighs. "Nick, you gave me this mission, this is how it ends. SHIELD's been compromised, you said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."

"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave?" Fury replies. "I noticed."

"How many paid the price before you did?"

The question is heavy, and Fury, having been briefed while Kate was getting patched up, understands. "Look, I didn't know about Barnes." Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, somehow one in the same. The man who shot Kate, Nat, and Fury. The man with dead eyes. They were never dead in the pictures...

"Even if you did, would you have told me?" Steve asks. "Or would you have compartmentalized that, too?"

"Honestly, Steve, he probably didn't know a thing, and he would've said something if he did," Kate jumps in. She turns to Fury. "Unless he wants to admit to lying to me all these years? That was the one question I didn't get an evasive answer on. 'What do you know about Bucky Barnes?' 'Same things you do.' 'I mean after he fell off the train.' 'He's dead, Kate.'"

Fury rolls his eye at her horrible impression. "I don't sound like that."

"Okay, fine, I won't argue with you on that. But since we're on the subject, something isn't right here."

Nat raises a brow. "What do you mean?"

"There's something fishy going on." Kate shakes her head, a gut feeling nagging at her. "There's no way that was Bucky Barnes."

"No, I know it was him," Steve protests.

"I'm not doubting your story at all. I saw his face, too; it was him. But that can't really be... him. He can't be acting of his own accord."

"We don't know anything at this point," Fury says.

Kate rounds on him, counting her knowledge on her fingers. "No, we know that Bucky Barnes would never be with HYDRA willingly, would never fight Steve Rogers — let alone not even recognize him. And he wouldn't be..." An assassin? "He wouldn't do what the Winter Solider's done."

"Then how do you explain what just happened?" Sam questions.

She can't answer that with any amount of certainty, so she shrugs and suggests the first thing that pops into her head. "Maybe it was a clone."

Hill's eyes widen in incredulous shock. "It was not a clone-"

"You can't prove to me that it wasn't," Kate fires back, pointing at her.

Fury sighs heavily. "I'm sorry, Kate, but sometimes the love of your life doesn't turn out to be who you thought."

Kate, indignant now, retorts, "He is not...! You know what, I'm getting real tired of everybody trying to mess with my love life!"

"I never did that," Hill points out.

"Neither did I," Sam adds.

Kate points at each of them. "Hill, you're in the clear. Sam, you're at fault inadvertently."

"How?!"

"You exist," Nat replies.

"Look, the point is, I may not personally know Bucky Barnes, but I know enough," Kate continues. "I know his life story back to front. And, anyway, the number one source on him is sitting right here among us-" she gestures to Steve "-and he seems very surprised by this development."

Hill nods. "Because he was believed to be dead."

"Why? They never found a body; I've known practically my entire life that he wasn't dead. Never could find him, but it's hard when the only resources you have are just the ones the government wants you to have."

At that, she eyes Fury, who leans back, looking at the ceiling. "Did we revive me... for this?"

"Steve, shed some light here. Please. What do you think?" Hill asks.

Steve sighs. "Kate's right. I don't think Bucky could do everything he's done of his own accord. He didn't even recognize me."

"See?" Kate says.

Sam raises a brow at Steve, arms crossed. "So you're subscribing to the clone theory, too?"

"Evil twin is also on the table," Kate offers.

"What? No," Steve replies. "I'm just saying that something is wrong here. HYDRA, Zola — they've done something to his brain."

It hits Kate, and the realization is an indicator that maybe she needs a nap. Or the pain meds are getting to her. "Yeah, that makes more sense."

"Did they check her for a concussion?" Nat asks.

Kate rolls her eyes. "I am fine."

"Whatever happened to Barnes, he's with HYDRA now, which means he'll likely be a problem for us in stopping the carriers," Hill says.

Nat sighs. "Well... if it's possible to save him, we will. But everything else? There's not much left to save."

"SHIELD, HYDRA... it all goes," Steve declares.

"He's right," Hill says quietly. Fury turns to her, then Nat, who only looks back at him. Then, Kate.

There's a question in his eyes, and she hates her answer to it. "I don't think there's anything left, Fury. Aside from Sharon, at least, and what we have here. It's not enough. We're compromised."

He turns to Sam, who shrugs. "Don't look at me. I do what he does, just slower."

Finally, back to Steve. "Well, since Kate here has taken a trip to crazy town and nobody else is gonna do it... it looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain."