Flashes of people. White masks. White hospital gowns.

Blood. There was blood too. Some of it mine, but some of it was different shades. Darker. Like it was old and dried.

The searing, immense pain was next. Starting in my left shoulder, then going into my head.

The doctors were mad. I thought the Avengers saved me. I thought they took me away from that prison I had called home for the entirety of my life.

No. There was something off.

These weren't present. These were memories; nightmares. These were the images that haunted me, plagued me into restless and sleepless nights. From when they started sawing my arm, to when the dull ache in my brain went out and there was no reversing it now.

But then the memories just started over. The pain started over. The hate started over. God I want -need- to wake up. This is too much, I can't do this anymore, I need to be freed, someoNE PLEASE WAKE ME UP-

I woke with a scream, and couldn't breathe. There was a strange tube down my throat that caused me to panic and to cough. The heart monitors started beeping out of control, and several doctors in light blue gowns and masks rushed over to me. They all made me lay back down and the tube was taken from my throat. I coughed hard; my throat was dry as sand and it was uncomfortable. There were no liquids nearby to relieve the pain. I guess I'd get used to it; I usually do anyways after Hydra is done with me.

"What's going on in there?" someone asked. It was a strong, feminine voice, and when I looked to where it came from, fiery, short red hair was there to meet my gaze. She walked in and some blue gowns scattered, other stayed to poke and prod me with their tools. At least it was friendlier than I was used to.

"She just woke up and had a small panic, but I think we are all good now," a doctor said. Black Widow nodded and the doctor who told her stepped back, and she walked out with the rest of the crew. Black Widow surprisingly stayed and sort of awkwardly lingered.

"Hey. Are you okay? Do you need anything?" she asked gently. I made a gesture to my throat and she handed me a cup of water with a straw. At the moment, I didn't entirely care about where it had come from. Quickly, I snatched it out of her hand and slurped it down in a not-so lady-like manner.

"Merci beaucoup," I said to her as I handed back the now empty cup. She shrugged and set it down on the table next to us. Maybe that's where it came from.

"So, how are you feeling?" she asked me. I sort of shrugged, but it was awkward. It was strange for starters having someone ask me if I was okay, but to hear it from the toughest Avenger? That was very intéressant.

"Alright I guess. Just a bit freaked out when I woke up. Thank you Black Widow, for saving me,  by the way. I never got to tell you," I told her. She smirked a bit when I called her Black Widow. I wanted to be respectful and didn't know if I should call her by her superhero name or by her real name that I didn't even know. Well I did, I just didn't want to seem like a stalker. This entire situation was new to me.

"Please call me Natasha. Or Nat. Either work. But Black Widow feels a bit too formal to me. And you're welcome for saving you. It's our job," she said. God she was awesome. She would be a great role model. I mean, that is one way that I looked up to her, but I also had my programming and constant reminders about the people who wanted me to hate her. But at the same time, they told me to look off her fighting style to use as future reference.

"Natasha, where will I go?" I asked her. I knew I probably wouldn't stay in the tower. It was an invasion of privacy, but I also didn't have any mindset for living out in the world. I'd fumble and not know what to say to people. It'd be one huge nightmare for me. Someone from Hydra could find me again as well, and I'd be sent back to a new base...the torture I'd ensue for escaping would be hell...

"Well, I don't know yet. I'm going to talk to Tony. I think Director Fury and Rogers wanted to do a quick debriefing on you, but that's about it," Natasha said. I simply nodded, and she left to go talk to, I assume, Tony Stark. Iron Man.

After a few minutes of me trying to recall all my information on the Avengers, just their names for privacy related reasons, the door to my hospital room opened again. This time, it wasn't a fiery red head. It was a tall blonde and a bald African American. They are Captain America and Director Nicholas Fury. They were leaders of this team. They were intimidating.

"So. You're a Hydra agent. Well I'm the head of SHIELD, and you're in my territory now, so you will answer my questions," the African American said, Director N. Fury, I deduced. The two men came and sat on both sides of me. I swore I caught a glimpse of some handcuffs or something that looked like restraints. I shifted in my hospital bed uncomfortably.

"Tell me what your mission is," Director Fury demanded. I looked at his face and saw no emotion. It was just hard, cold, and very serious. It reminded me of my old commander's face. The one that was shot and killed at the old base. This man had been to compared to him before. Oh god, I'm going to get punished if I don't listen, won't I?

I must've been panicking because the beeping on the monitor got louder and faster, which only freaked me out more.

"I...don't...know...you..." I squeaked out. I was terrified at the moment. Wanda and Natasha were off somewhere, and I was stuck with two men who could kill me at any moment.

Out of nowhere, the door opened, revealing Natasha again. "Nick what the hell!" she yelled at him, before rushing to the side of the bed Captain Rogers was on and made him move out of the chair, then sitting in it. She grabbed my hand to comfort me, which took me a second to register, but it felt like love. My breathing slowed down, and my heart rate went back to normal. I liked being cared about.

"Nick, that's not how you approach and talk to someone who's been tortured their entire life, and are used to get punished for stepping out of line," she scolded the Director. It was nice to see her care. I knew what she meant too, on a deeper, more personal level.

In her file, it said that she had grown up in the Red Room, which was a scary place. Maybe worse than Hydra. It sounded dreadful, having to kill others just so you could survive, and then possibly getting killed for showing any sign of weakness. Natasha had grown to know no attachments and pain her entire life. That's why I trusted her.

She understood.

"Merci," I whispered to her, before turning back to Director Fury. But I saw her little smile. "I don't have a mission. Well, I mean kind of don't. I was originally being trained to kill the Avengers, looking and studying their profiles and all the horrible things they did, but I couldn't see that." Director Fury looked very interested at this point. The blonde off to the side was also intrigued.

"I saw a group of outstanding people trying to save the public from threats that could kill them and hurt them. I saw a group of remarkable people who just want to make sure the world is safe from Earthen and alien forms. I saw a group of misfits who finally found a place to belong and who get along together because they understand each other. I of course couldn't let them know. You don't know what they'd do if I had gone against their orders." When I said that, shivers went crawling down my spine, and my body shook slightly. Even my hands turned cold. The memories of the torture became present in my mind again.

"Can we trust you?" It was the Captain speaking this time. I looked to him and he looked sympathetic, but also guarded. Good, he doesn't know how easy it would be to just look through everything in his mind. He might be guarded for physical threats, but not mental.

"You can. I swear. I have wanted to get out of that life for as long as I can remember, and when Natasha and Wanda broke into my cell and helped me out, I was so overjoyed. I might finally have a chance at having a normal life," I said. Tears formed in my eyes when I thought about all the things I missed out on. High school experiences, friends, big events that the rest of the world go to see while I was stuck in a tiny cell. It was hard for me to process that I had missed so much, even though I was alive.

"Alright. We'll talk it over as a team, for tonight you can stay in a guest room. Nat, can you take her to one?" the Captain asked her. She nodded and helped me out of the bed. I noticed I was still wearing my clothes from the base, but the right thigh had a hole in it, which exposed my stitches from the bullet. Natasha then went over and got some weird looking things from the wall.

"These," she gestured to the sticks in her hands. "Are crutches. You can use them to help you walk since you're not aloud to put pressure on your right leg." I nodded along and watched her as she showed me what to do. It looked simple, so I tried it out. It was actually a bit hard than expected, but I managed. Natasha was there with me when I accidentally tripped myself a couple times, and she helped me get into the guest room I was assigned, even going in this strange moving box. I was told that was an elevator.

"Alright, this will be your room. Tony, Wanda, Clint, and I's rooms are also on this hallway. The rest of the team in either above or below us," Natasha explained to me. I nodded through the whole thing and then she left me in my temporary room to do...nothing really. I couldn't really do anything.

So I took in my surroundings. There were somethings there I didn't recognize right away, but then I pieced some stuff together. There was a nice looking desk over in the corner of the room, next to window with no bars on it. I was currently sitting on a really comfortable bed, with a couple mini tables next to it? I didn't know what they were exactly. Then there were a couple other doors on the opposite side of the room from the main door. Hoisting myself up on the crutches, I carefully made my way to the first door. It led to a smaller room with cubbies, and some long metal sticks going from wall to wall. Closing that door, I opened the next one and found it lead to a very bright room, with white floors and gray walls, along with a gray ceiling. There were a lot of contraptions in there, like a thing hidden behind a curtain, then a strange white chair, as well as what looked like a sink? I had seen the doctors use that before torturing me once or twice. This seemed like a much fancier than what I had known.

After exploring everything and finding out the white chair was in fact a toilet (I had one that was a lot crappier in my old cell), I was back on my temporary bed, laying back and being left alone with my thoughts. Well, that never ends well, so I sat back up again and thought to practice with my powers. Lifting an object from the desk, I brought it over to me and looked at it. It looked like a book, but one that had lines on the paper and that you were meant to take notes in.

Suddenly, flashes from my past struck in my head. I was seeing the book the Hydra agents had used on me, the black cover and shining gold star sitting in the middle of it. It was my version of the book, and was designed that way to be distinguished easier from me and the Winter Soldier's book. The men using it on me started to fill my head, memories of when I lost control, and the mindless soldier took hold of the steering wheel. The horrified faces of my victims, the screams that became my own, the sadness and hurt all filled my head.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when I felt someone shaking my shoulders. "Shadow!" It was Wanda, trying to snap me out of the trance I was apparently in. I hadn't even noticed.

"What? What happened?" I asked, scared to get punished for what I might've done. I felt like I had just regained control after being the soldier. Suddenly, I thought that was what happened. "Did I lose control in anyway? Did I do anything? What happened-"

"Relax Shadow!" Wanda said, calming me down. "You didn't do anything. You were just looking into space and squeezing the life out of the little journal. Are you okay? What were you talking about?" she asked, sitting down besides me now. Yay, now I'd have to tell her about what happened to me. This could end in many ways, nearly all of them terrible on my end.

"Okay, but please promise me that you won't get scared of me," I said. There was no way I'd risk losing the first person I've felt comfortable with for the first time. She promised, and I flew into the story.

"At Hydra, they implanted these-these words into my head. When said, they triggered the soldier inside me and I'd lose all control over myself. I can still see and remember everything, but I couldn't control what I was doing. The soldier in me controls my moves, my thinking. It's absolutely terrifying. Like being in the passenger seat while the evil you holds the wheel. They also..." I trailed off, unsure of wether or not I could really trust her enough to tell her about my powers and arm.

"Also what? Shadow, you have to trust me. It's the only way you'll be able to work well with anyone here," she pleaded in a way. When I looked to her, she only showed kindness.

"You swear you won't be scared of me?" I asked her.

"Shadow, I swear," she replied.

I took in one more deep breath and looked to the floor. "I am not very...human anymore. I'm even more special than the Winter Soldier. I assume you've heard of him?" She nodded. "Well, I also have a metal arm." I took my left glove off and showed off my metal hand, then rolled the sleeve up a little to show her my forearm. She just looked at it, not showing any emotions. I rolled the sleeve back down and put my glove back on. "Also-"

The door burst open and Captain America strutted inside, looking between me and Wanda. "Tony looked through the files from the Hydra base, and thinks he found yours," he stated simply. But that was all needed, before I was getting up and getting on my crutches. The Captain led me down the hall, Wanda staying at my side to make sure I didn't put pressure on my leg, or fall over. He led us into what I heard was called the elevator, and pressed a button that suddenly started glowing.

"Lab floor." The voice scared me and I fell into the Captain and Wanda, who gladly caught me before I fell down to the ground.

"You alright?" Wanda asked as soon as I had gotten up and regained my balance on the stupid walking sticks.

"What was that voice?" I asked, frantic laced into my tone. She broke into a smile, and I thought a I even heard the Captain stifle a chuckle.

Wanda spoke first. "That was FRIDAY. She is a robot like thing that helps run the tower," Wanda explained as best as she could to me. She must've figured out that I really don't know what a lot of things are. I mean, she wasn't wrong.

We finally made it down to the lab floor, and I had sick feeling in my stomach. Being in room like laboratories gave me anxiety and PTSD from Hydra. The Iron Man was there, suit-less and in a t-shirt and jeans this time, looking over something on what I recognized to be a computer. "You're here! Good, I want to go over this stuff with our new friend," he said, very sarcastic when it came to the "new friend" part.

"Je préférerais ne pas être ton amis," I shot right back. Everyone looked at me, confused, before I realized I had spoken French. "Sorry, sometimes I just slip into French. It's what I'm used to speaking and I don't quite know all of the English words yet," I apologized. Wanda snickered beside you.

"FRIDAY, what did she say?" the Captain asked the strange building robot.

"I believe she said, 'I'd prefer not to be your friend,'" she responded. Wanda laughed out loud, and the Captain gave a little smirk. Mr. Stark, on the other hand, wasn't as pleased.

"Whatever. I'd like to take a look at your file Miss Reyna-Rose Silva," as soon as he said that name, I remembered it. I started to remember things. He continued on. "Born May 8, 1950, kept in cyro for about 20 years, then started training as the soldier, then went into cyro for about 7 more years. There is some more words on here that FRIDAY is struggling to translate because it's been scribbled out, but then it says cyro for 10 more years. When the Winter Soldier," the Captain's eyes widened slightly, and I could tell he was listening more intently now. Mr. Stark continued on, "came out of cyro period, Hydra waited a bit before taking her out and and started training the two to work together. They were partners for a long time, before she got moved to the station in Canada. But it says back to Canada, so I assume that's where you started." He finished his analysis of my file, and all eyes turned to me.

I decided to speak. "Yes, I'm sort of remembering now. I was in Canada originally, where I was taught English, French, Russian, and small bits of Dutch. They were the main languages the other soldiers spoke, so I needed to know them. I was moved around a good bit, especially after coming out cyro. I don't know why I was moved back up to Canada, though..." I trailed off in thought, trying to remember some things. But every time I tried, and searing pain would shoot through my brain. I grunted in pain, and brought a hand up to the side of my head to ease the pain a bit.

"Are you alright?" Wanda asked me, noticing and probably feeling the pain in my head, with her powers and all. My powers were strong and when I felt pain, could shoot out invisible beams to other power-possessing beings. I nodded and muttered a little 'maybe', before passing out.