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You fall, and on your way down you think of Steve, and you're happy. He will live, illness no longer a threat to him. He will live a life. You thought you were broken, after Zola, but now the ground will truly break you.
The ice consumes you and darkness floods your vision.
***
Ice and snow and blood; Barnes, James Buchanan; Sergeant; 32557038, ice and snow and blood; Barnes, James Buchanan; Sergeant; 32557038, ice and snow and blood and it's so cold again, when did winter come, and you should take extra hours at the dock to heat the apartment, gotta make sure Stevie doesn't get pneumonia again --
You're cold and bleeding; and you must be in hell; because there are soldiers and blood and you see Zola but that can't be he's only in your nightmares, this must only be nightmare.
***
A nightmare where the last thing you know is Steve's name, the last of James Barnes falls apart after you forget about Brooklyn and summer and a skinny blond with a loud mouth and a big heart. You forget, and you become something else entirely. You are the winter. You are a soldier. You will follow your orders.
"I am the asset. I will follow my orders. I must complete my mission."
A man slaps the asset's face.
"Say it in your nation's tongue, animal."
And the asset says it in his nation's tongue.
***
Mission then memory then cryo. A painfully simple cycle of torture. They did not create a villain, they created a weapon.
***
Dallas. Berlin. New York City. Paris.
***
Natalia.
Red hair and ballerina feet.
She teaches you to laugh a bit. You teach her to kill.
And for the first time in your memory, you don't feel like a weapon. It feels a little bit like something machines aren't capable of, something an asset shouldn't feel at all.
Then she is gone, and you are wiped clean and frozen. You don't have a memory to mourn.
***
London. Tokyo. Beijing.
Washington.
***
"But I knew him."
***
A crash into the Potomac. A wave of nausea and panic that creeps upon you as a ghost. Images of blond hair, a bloody nose, and a determined glare.
You are a shadow, and you run.
To the Smithsonian. To Brooklyn. To Russia. And back, back to Brooklyn.
Back to Steve.
***
You hide until you remember what the mission said. What Steve said.
"I'm with you 'til the end of the line."
***
The man with the wings is the one who answers the door. His eyes widen before he finally calls out:
"Steve, he's here."
The mission rushes to the door, where the winged man moves aside.
You say, "Help,"
And you are engulfed by Steve's arms. You know what love feels like, now.