(tw: mentions of abuse and SA)

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HYDRA Research Facility: Undisclosed Location

Date: September 14, 1994

Subject: PROJECT N-13

The cold was more familiar now.

At eight, she was no longer the fragile child who stared into the mirrored glass, waiting for something—someone—to notice her. She had learned what it meant to be both invisible and dangerous. The cold metal walls that once felt like a cage were now just a backdrop to her existence. A reality she couldn't escape.

Two years of endless testing, isolation, and manipulation had worn away the remnants of her past.

She was still her mother's child, but Maria Stark was gone. The warmth of her mother's voice was just a distant memory. Howard Stark, the man who'd kept her hidden from the world, had failed to protect her. HYDRA had found her, ripped her away, and twisted everything into something unrecognisable. She hadn't even seen it happen. She hadn't been with them that night—she had been playing with her little toys, safe in the shadows, when her world turned into a nightmare.

Her powers, the ones that had scared her father, were slowly being weaponised. They had made her do things she didn't understand. But each test, each phase of the project, she became more aware of what she was capable of.

In the past two years, HYDRA had moved to Phase II of their twisted project. They called Psychological Conditioning. Breaking her emotions. They had begun integrating her into testing her powers under extreme conditions. Her mutation—her ability to manipulate and control energy fields—had grown more volatile, but also more controlled. Her capacity to generate bursts of energy had been honed into destructive bursts. The scientists were thrilled.

Her mutation wasn't a curse. It was a weapon. And they were sharpening it.

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The man in charge of the project, Dimitri Ivanov was cruel. Every glance he gave her felt like he was assessing how much longer she could be pushed before breaking. He'd been the one to take her, the one to lead her into this prison with his cold, calculating eyes. He treated her like a piece of equipment. But unlike the others, there was something personal about his cruelty.

He had no children of his own, but he wanted her.

He took her into his home—a place far from the cold, clinical labs—where his wife, Irina Ivanova, a woman with an air of quiet gentleness, would care for her, though it was clear she was not allowed to truly care for her.

The house was always cold—just like him.

But Irina called her newfound daughter, Anya.

It was a name she had never been given by anyone else. Not N-13. Anya was the name that allowed her to remember what it was like to be a human—to be a girl.

Irina, with her soft hands, would tuck Anya's hair behind her ear at night, whispering foreign words she couldn't quite understand, but they sounded like lullabies. She was kind, in a way that only made Aurora—or Anya, as she was called now—feel less alone.

Dimitri was harsh, imposing. He would watch her with dead eyes as she was subjected to the tests. He wanted results. Efficiency.

And when his wife tried to show kindness, it was always quietly forbidden. A glance, a subtle tension in his voice, a threat veiled in the way he would snap his fingers and demand results.

Irina too was a victim of his abuse.

To Dimitri, his daughter was an experiment. Nothing more.

But Anya never forgot the softness in the way Irina held her at night. It was the one comfort she could remember.

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Then there was him.

He never spoke to her. But she knew he was always there.

The Winter Soldier, as she had heard them call him in hushed tones—though she never dared speak his name aloud—was always watching.

She knew when he was near by the cold that seeped through the walls of the facility, by the faint, distant clang of his metal arm against the floor. His eyes were always heavy with something unspoken.

At first, she had feared him. His presence was overwhelming, like a storm on the horizon. But over time, she had learned to recognise the subtle moments when he protected her. When the other scientists grew too rough with her, too intrusive, his eyes would flash from the shadows, like he was making sure no one went too far.

She never spoke to him. And he never spoke to her. But sometimes, in the dead of night, she would catch a glimpse of him as he passed her cell or stood just beyond the camera's view, watching.

And one day, she saw him kill a man.

It was Dr Gorski, one of the scientists who'd grown too bold with his experiments on her. He'd... touched her. In ways that left her skin burning, in ways that left a mark in places she couldn't explain.

Unwanted.

Violated.

A way no adult should touch a child.

When she cried out, he had laughed, saying she was nothing more than an asset.

But the Winter Soldier had heard her scream.

Anya had been alone in her cell when she heard the sounds—metal clashing against bone, the sickening sound of a throat being crushed.

And that was then she had found Dr. Gorski's body, slumped against the wall, killed by the Winter Soldier.

He was then gone, and no one ever spoke of it again.

But it was made clear that the Winter Soldier had a personal mission of his own.

Protect her.

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author's notes:

- before people get weird and ship bucky and aurora, do not. they will have a sibling relationship. he's going to be the big brother for her and protect her.

- make sure to vote and comment please!