You only faintly remember what happened afterward. A medic wanted to come over to you and bandage the wounds, but Pierce sent him away. Someone grabbed you and you must've passed out at that moment because the next thing you remember is you, lying in your bed.

You dreamt in the night. For the first time in... decades. Seventy years.

You saw the blonde man. People cheered at him. They loved him. He was everywhere. His face was plastered on brick walls, on theatre programs, printed in newspapers. His shield was the symbol of hope.

Captain America... Bucky knew him.

How could he have seen him?

A lot must have changed in the world. You have no way of knowing what's different. Maybe people live for longer than they should now. Seventy years have passed. Seventy. Seventy years of working for Hydra, seventy years of dark hallways, seventy years of pain and numbness. Seventy years of your life that you'll never get back.

Then you get out of bed because you don't want to get punished for oversleeping. You don't know what's going to happen. You don't want to know.

You wash yourself, like every normal day. But you avoid looking at your reflection in the mirror. When you do, you freeze.

There's a red star on your cheek. A star, made of cuts and flesh and blood and pain. Hydra's star. The wound is closed already and has started healing. You touch it with your fingertips. It hurts, but not as bad as yesterday.

You've never been hurt before. Not physically. You've seen people being hurt, being tortured, but you've never experienced anything like that. This is new and you don't know what to think of it.

Pierce is awaiting you in your lab. You see him before you walk in. Your body stops walking automatically and you clench your fists to suppress the trembling seizing you.

You don't want to walk in there. Walk to the man who's going to torture you until you confess. But you can't confess. What should you confess? He knows already. What does he want?

A guard shoves you inside and you almost trip over your feet. Pierce looks at you, his gaze hovering over your cheek longer than the rest of your body. You feel dirty under his gaze, like something that belonged in a sewer and not in this facility.

"My apologies, love. I reacted too impulsively yesterday," he says, as you walk closer to him. "You didn't know what you were doing, of course. I'm sure it wasn't your intention to let the most powerful weapon, someone can possess, go."

You stand there, staring at him, not being able to tell if he's serious. He has to be mocking you.

"Come on, love, take your seat." He means the chair. Bucky's chair, your chair, the Winter Soldier's chair. Your blood is still sticking to the black leather, dark and red. He didn't let anyone clean it. As a reminder, you assume.

Swallowing down your fear, you walk up to it and sit into it. What else are you supposed to do? They took away your working belt with all the weapons you had overnight. You may not be a normal human, you may have a serum in your blood, you may have lived longer than all the agents in this room, but you don't know how to fight. You don't know how to defend yourself.

The chair locks the second you lay your arms on the armrests.

"We're going to approach this a little differently, what do you think?" Pierce asks and stands up again. "I don't gain anything by hurting you."

The chair moves in a way you've seen it move a thousand times.

"I think we need to repair this chair. Yesterday, I asked a few of your trained mechanics to take a closer look at this. And do you know what they found?"

You shake your head slightly, even though you both know exactly what he's hinting at.

"They found out that the chair doesn't work as effectively anymore. And do you know what I asked them to do after they told me so?"

Your face goes pale, and you just stare at him. They won't torture you. They won't hurt you. They won't force you to tell them what you did. Because they already know.

"I asked them to restore the original capability. And maybe I asked them to make the procedure go faster than before."

You don't have enough air in your lungs. There's not enough space in the chair. Not enough space in your head, where the thoughts race around, trying to find a solution and screaming at the same time. Tears form in your eyes and your arms automatically begin to rattle the cuffs, trying to escape, trying to get away, trying to make everything better. It doesn't help. Of course, it doesn't. You know how strong the chair is.

"Oh, don't even try. You constructed this chair; you should know that it won't break that easily. And you should also know what comes next. Do you, love?"

Yes. Yes, you do. You watched Hydra set Bucky in this chair hundreds of times, watched him being wiped, watched him scream in pain.

"I figured, because you robbed us of our most important weapon, you'd have to provide a replacement. Fair, isn't it?"

Your grip tightens around the armrests. No. You have to remember. Remember Bucky. Remember Captain America. Remember the dresses, the shows, the newspapers. Remember why you need to get out of here.

The chair moves again and one of the medics shoves a black piece of plastic in your mouth. You're tempted to spit it out, but you can't make it worse.

Can it even get worse?

The top of the machine moves above your head, tightening around you. Two pieces of metal dig into your temples. While the machine moves, you can't help but replay the moment in your head when you built it. You remember the purpose of every single piece of the chair.

Then the pain begins, and you stop thinking, stop remembering.