The Devil Took Your Memory

Natalia didn't know if she should tell him the truth or not. She didn't know why but, for some odd reason, she was concerned about the well-being of this man. Someone she hardly knew. A complete stranger. Someone she didn't think she even trusted yet. And yet, she found herself worrying about him. Worrying that the truth might be a bit more than he could handle. But he needed to know, right? He deserved to know the truth. "1991."

[This is where the timeline in the comics gets slightly fuzzy for me, haha. I figured that I'd leave a big enough gap of time between them and the present so Natasha can be fairly young when she first meets Bucky. And I also know that the timeline is a lot different in MCU than the comics too, so yeah. ]

[It's fine I'll just go along with it all. How old is she in this?]

"1991..." Bucky repeated, his voice wavering slightly as the shock settled in. Cryo freeze hadn't been some delirious, concussion driven dream... It had been very much real. He was very much alive, and all for the wrong reasons. "Fifty years..." It was difficult to swallow, all this new information. Bucky had no idea what he had missed, or what had become of those he cared for. It was beginning to dawn on him that maybe his last hope, his childhood friend, wasn't coming for him after all... He didn't even know if Steve was alive. "I'm seventy-seven years old," He laughed hollowly, trying his best to find some sort of humour in the situation. In all honesty, all he wanted to do was drive his fist into the wall.

[Uhh...good question... Late teens, early twenties? I have no freaking clue ]

Natalia watched him closely, trying to gauge his reaction. He seemed shocked. How long had it been, and what had they done to him while he was here? Her eyes widened slightly when she heard what he'd said. "I'm sorry...fifty years?" She repeated slowly. She must have heard him wrong. Her English wasn't good, maybe she'd misinterpreted what he'd said or hadn't translated it properly. Because that, it wasn't possible. It couldn't be.

[I'd go with late teens... In the comic books she's even younger than that It's a bit weird.]

"Fifty," He repeated just as slowly, his tone suggesting that made he was trying to convince himself of such a fact, not her. How could he have stayed alive for fifty years? Now it all seemed impossible... Whatever Hydra had done to him, it couldn't be possible. Could it? He must have died when he had fallen from that train. "Пять десять." He could barely string together a sentence in English, let alone Russian... After a moment, the sense of rage and disbelief grew within him quicker that he could ever have imagined. The experimental plates of his arm whirred, and before Bucky even had a chance to attempt to calm himself down, he had pound his fist into the tiles of the wall.

[See, like I said, my knowledge of the comics only goes so far, haha. How young is she in the comics?]

She had heard him correctly. Natalia didn't know what to say or do. She'd been afraid before when she hadn't known where she was, but she was even more afraid now. Whatever they'd done to him made this possible. What were they going to do to her? She hadn't said anything for a couple of seconds, her mind racing with so many different thoughts. She jumped slightly though as cool metal slammed into the tiles of the wall. She didn't say anything though, watching him with wide eyes.

[I think I read somewhere that she's like... thirteen when they start training.]

His entire body was taken over with rage as he stood there, fist still firmly planted into the wall. The only audible thing in the room was his ragged breath, as he tried to regain some sense of sanity. The plates hummed once more as his arm relaxed, bending at the shoulder as he pressed his forehead against the cool tiles in the room. Cool was what he needed right now. The rage sent a heat through his body, one that he hadn't felt in a very long time... He was beginning to question himself, question just what he had done to deserve something like this...

[Damn, really?]

Natalia was unsure if she should say something. He was angry and, frankly, she was kind of terrified of him. But only in that moment. Before that, he hadn't given her any reason to believe that he'd harm her. He hadn't given her any reason to be afraid of him, and although she was afraid right now, she knew that they probably had more in common now than they realized. "Is...really possible?" She finally asked, wanting to know if, whatever they'd done to him, could have actually made this all possible.

[Yeah, and I don't really wanna go down the thirteen-year-old-girl/Lolita route ]

He shook his head, forehead still pressed against the cold slabs of tile. Every single inch of him wanted to believe that it wasn't true, that this was all just some sort of sick joke... But he was slowly beginning to lose it. Parts of the dignity and sanity he was holding onto were slowly slipping away from him... All of this was real. None of it was drug-induced hallucinations from whatever Zola had done to him. He hadn't suffered some sort of brain damage, and was experiencing all of this in a weird coma... He was there. He was alive, and breathing, in 1991. None of it felt like a blessing at all. "It has to be..."

[Yeah, me neither. She's in her late teens. It's settled. ]

Natalia felt sick to her stomach. If they'd done this to him, made this possible, what could they do to her? What would they do to her? She was absolutely terrified, and she honestly didn't think that she wanted to know the answer to that question. "...how?" She asked quietly. She didn't know if she wanted to know the answer to that either. She didn't know if she wanted to know what they'd done to him.

"I don't know," It took a lot for Bucky not to yell at Natalia. He knew none of this was her fault, but it was just so overwhelming, and it felt like he was prepared just to take it out on anyone. There needed to be some sort of justice for what had happened to him, but it wasn't right to take it out on her. She was just as scared as he was, perhaps even more so. Straightening, Bucky finally pulled his fist from the wall. "I just..." His eyes stayed fixed on the hole he had managed to punch. He hadn't gone through the wall, they must have prepared for some sort of outburst like that. They were still trapped, and it felt more claustrophobic than ever. "Don't know."

Natalia was terrified. She'd been terrified before but now, knowing that they'd done something to James to make this possible, she didn't think that she'd ever been more scared in her entire life. "You...don't remember?" She asked slowly, not fully understanding. She didn't know what they'd done to him. She didn't know about Cryo or anything like that, and how could she? She'd only just gotten there. She didn't know what these people were capable of.

Bucky shook his head slowly. Was he supposed to remember? It all just seemed to be a blur in his mind... "They experimented," That's what he could gather from his hazy memory. That was before all of this... Before the fall, and the arm. It was when Steve had found him, when he thought it was all over. "And I guess they took my arm..." He laughed hollowly, trying to re-establish himself. He was trying to stabilise himself. There had to be a way out of all this, they couldn't keep them there forever.

Natalia frowned. She didn't understand. She understood what he'd said to her, but she didn't understand how anyone could do something like this to another human being. It was sick, inhumane even. And it made her feel sick. She didn't know what they were going to do to her. She didn't think she wanted to know. There had to be a way out of here. There just had to be.

For as long as he had been in there, Bucky had never thought about trying to escape. He had been too dazed, too confused... But when there was a way in, there had to be a way out. Wherever they were, it didn't look like the most high-tech of places. It was grubby, possibly an abandoned hospital of some description... Whatever it was, it was their prison. He doubted leaving would be as simple as walking over to the door, and letting himself out. But he'd never even thought to try it. He straightened, his eyes falling onto the door. It didn't look as if it'd be too sturdy, locked definitely. It had never occurred to him that maybe he'd be able to pull it off it's hinges.

"We need...to get out." Natalia said. She didn't know if it was possible, but it had to be, right? There had to be a way for them to escape. They just needed to plan ahead and make sure that they accounted for every single possibility. She still didn't fully know if she could trust James, but he was really all that she had right now. And she needed to make do with what she had. They could figure this out together.

Bucky nodded, his eyes quickly scanning the line of where the ceiling met the walls. If there was any security system, they needed to know about it... Anything that would give them away, like a camera, or a microphone. Attempting an immediate escape wasn't the wisest of plans. They couldn't go out there, underprepared and vulnerable. God knew how many people were waiting outside, just in case they did attempt to escape. "Did you see how they brought you in?" He asked after a moment, unsure if she had been blindfolded or not on her way in. "Anything that can tell us where we are?"

"No." Natalia frowned, shaking her head. "They...covered my eyes." They'd blindfolded her, probably for that exact reason. So she couldn't see how they'd brought her in or where they were. She looked around the room. Were they watching or listening at that very second? "Are they watching?" She looked to him, wondering if he knew. He'd been here longer than she had.

"I don't know." he wished he could give her answers, that he could tell her that everything was going to be okay. He wouldn't let anything happen to her... But there was no guarantee of any of that. Bucky didn't even know when he would next feel safe, or when he had last felt safe for that matter. It was bordering desperate, how much he felt the need to protect this girl... So much had been done to him already, he felt too far gone. But if he could stop this happening to just one person, he would. His next question was a delicate one, the struggle of how to phrase it showing on his face, "Did they..." His pursed his lips, unsure of how to ask her. To drag a soldier through the mud, and to bloody him was one thing, it almost came with the job description... But to attack a woman was an entirely different thing all together. One that he wouldn't stand for. They may have tortured and experimented on him, but he wanted to maintain her dignity for as long as he could. "насилие?"

Natalia shook her head almost instantly. "Нет." She responded just as quickly. She wondered what these people were capable of. If he thought that they could have harmed her, then who were they? And what could they do to her? She knew that they must've done terrible things to him, things that he couldn't remember, and it all seemed more and more terrifying by the second. "These...people...who are they?"

"Hydra," He murmured, as though he was slightly afraid that they would hear him talking about them. There was a lot he had come to know about them since his time in the war, fighting alongside Steve... It was some of the only information he could really remember. It was life before the fall, and then just a mist of confused information. "Nazis... нацистский. Left over from the war... I doubt anyone knows they're still operating... Or that we're here..."