He'd seen a lot of cells in his life. Concrete boxes. Rusted cages. Medical rooms with more restraints than furniture. But there was something about the white in this one. It wasn’t just sterile—it was surgical. Deliberate.
No shadows. No warmth.
He paced.
Behind him, the girl—what was she, seventeen? Eighteen?—sat curled tight in the corner. Her knees hugged to her chest, white-gloved hands trembling. The mask she wore was cracked at the cheek from the blast. Purple light still flickered at the seams, low and unstable, barely held in check.
He hadn't meant to drag her into this. Recon only, they’d said. In and out. But they’d been waiting for her. Not him. Her.
Bucky turned to face her. "Kid," he said gently. "You gotta breathe, alright? You’re burning energy. You’re gonna burn out."
She flinched at his voice.
Her shoulders shook, not from pain, but from sheer, primal fear. He knew the signs. Jaw clenched so hard she was gonna crack a molar. Short, shallow breaths like she was choking on air. Her eyes didn’t even meet his. Just stared—unblinking—at the window in the wall.
One-way glass.
They were watching her. Not him. Her.
He dropped to a crouch beside her, keeping his hands in plain sight. “Listen to me. I need to check your side, okay? You’re bleeding.”
She didn’t respond.
He reached out slowly, catching her wrist before she could phase away—or try to. It sparked instead, that unstable ghost energy sputtering at the contact.
She whimpered. Just a sound. Small. But it snapped something in him. He’d heard that sound before. Back when they called him Soldat.
His voice dropped, low and calm. “You’re safe right now. I’m not gonna let them touch you.”
Still no answer.
The wound at her side was worse than he’d thought. Plasma burn—clean entry, no exit. Shit. She needed out. She needed medical, not some cold box with no time and no name.
"Hey. I need you to take off the mask."
Her whole body jerked.
Bucky’s hand paused. “I’m not asking for your name. Just your face. You're overheating in that thing."
She shook her head violently. “No—no—can’t—they’ll see—”
“Who?”
He turned his head, looking up toward the window, and for the first time, he saw movement behind it. A silhouette. Two.
And then she said, broken and barely audible: “My parents.”
The words dropped like lead in his gut.
He stood, moving to the glass. “You sick bastards,” he snarled. “You set her up.”
They didn’t answer.
She was sobbing now. Muffled behind the cracked mask. He could hear her whispering through the breakdown, frantic, looping, terrified:
“I didn’t ask for this—I didn’t want to be like this—they said they’d fix it, they said they could fix me—”
Bucky moved back to her. Not fast. No sudden movements. Sat beside her, leaned his shoulder into hers just slightly—enough to feel the warmth through the suit.
“They’re not gonna touch you again. Not while I’m here.”
“You don’t know what they’ll do,” she rasped, “they locked me in a freezer when I was nine.”
That stopped him cold.
Nine.
He thought of Siberia. Of metal restraints that cut into skin not because they had to, but because they could. He thought of the cold.
“Then you know what they are,” he said quietly. “And you know they don’t get to win.”
Slowly, she turned to look at him. Her eyes wide behind the cracked lens.
He reached up—slowly—and unfastened the damaged mask. Her hands twitched in protest, but she didn’t stop him.
And beneath it: pale skin. Sweat-slick. Tear-streaked. The faint shimmer of ghostlight still clinging to the edges of her jaw. But her face—young. Terrified. Human.
He held her gaze. “You’re not broken.”
She blinked.
“You’re powerful.”
The door hissed open behind them.
Bucky stood slowly. His metal hand flexed.
They weren’t walking out of here.
They were breaking out.
And if her parents wanted to come through him to get to her again?
They’d learn exactly what kind of ghost he could be, too.