Vronsky. That name still sent pangs of cold shooting through Bucky's body. He'd heard it in passing a few times - mostly on trips to Russia with the others. Speaking Russian still made him feel wrong. And he didn't let anyone poke around with his atm but Shuri.

The Winter Soldier hadn't minded allowing everyone and anyone to sift around inside his head. Bucky would never allow it again. Being stripped of all his memories terrified him so deeply that he still kept a journal with every memory he could find.

The nightmares never stopped. It had been years, and he had never quite adjusted. The USSR was no more, and yet his scars persisted, just like HYDRA had hoped. He knew most of them were still out there. Still trying to pull strings.

That thought kept him up more often than the others.

The fear that someday HYDRA would come to collect him and no one would be able to stop them. That maybe he would be reduced to that emotionless weapon who had handlers and no free will. It was enough to leave him paralyzed after he awoke from a nightmare about it. After a while, he'd sink to his side and break down, tears sliding down his cheeks.

Part of him believed he'd never heal.

But there was one thing that his two halves agreed on, and that was that he wanted to try. For you.

You understood it. The nightmares, the fear, the trauma lurking just beneath the surface. You were from an offshoot of HYDRA somewhere in Brazil - VIPER. You'd escaped after they stole twenty years of natural life from you. You still looked the same as you had when they took you, at nineteen. He had been young, as well, bit he'd seen war. You were just a kid.

Seeing you after the team brought you back was like looking in a mirror. Scared. Confused, because of a full language barrier - unlike Bucky who had learned Russian after holding English knowledge in his head, you had grown up only speaking Portuguese. And most of all, wary.

The two of you had gotten very close, very quickly. Apparently you had been very outgoing growing up. You adjusted faster than he had, upon learning English, of course.

He was sitting with you now after a sparring match - which you alternated between doing with Steve and with Bucky, the only ones who could handle your immense physical strength. In the struggle to detain you, you'd crushed Bruce's wrist bones and unleashed the Hulk. So, you'd stuck to the other two. He was listening to you tell him about your day.

"And then what happened, doll?" He prompted as you paused to think.