Disclaimer: Everything belongs to their respectful owners.

A/N: I suggest you ignore any grammar or spelling mistakes that I managed to miss, because none of my stories are beta'd.

Pain.

That was all she remembered every time she woke up, the intense feeling burned deeply inside her mind that she would cry out as it then consumed her whole body, sending her into a state of shock after she was electrolyzed. They would wipe out the memories after each mission she had been participating for the past few decades, and then put her back into the hellish box to freeze her, and that was when after they had squirted some chemical in her bloodstream. The next day, they would wake her up and let her train inside a special room just for her, letting her destroy some machines out of unknown hatred and confusion.

There were times she tried to resist, to lash back at the madmen that tried to check on her metal arm during the first few years they had owned her, the purple star on it flashed brightly under the light as she buried her fist inside of their faces. It was satisfying to hear the sound of bones crunching under her knuckles, but her victory was short lived when they had forcefully pushed her head inside the machine, immediately pressing the button.

Her screams could be heard through the whole floor, bouncing of the dark walls that some workers would either cringe or sneer. It lasted for fifteen minutes, the thing that was roasting her brain, but the after effects lasted the whole day, causing her temples to throb.

What frustrated her most was that she couldn't remember anything, why had her head hurt, who were the people standing there in front of her while they had a look of succession they had tried to hide but failed to do so. She tried to let her mind linger on that problem, but didn't get a chance to when they send her to train and told her to hunt a few people.

Since it had been going on for so long, it was as if she was immune to the after effects. No longer did she had to go through headaches and nausea, but it still hurt when she was zapped, she still screamed when they tortured her. Even though she would forget the men that had done it, but somewhere in her had a distant feeling she had met this people, that she had seen their grim faces before.

Only she couldn't place it.

It happened again when she met her important target at California.

She didn't think too much on the topic when she first saw him, all she knew was to get rid of Captain America without any distractions. Stand in her way, consequences would be made.

It was when he opened his mouth she felt something in her churned.

"Reyna?"

He had said that word with full of amazement and hurt that she would have frowned if she wanted, because she was confused to why this enemy was suddenly interacting with her after he had grabbed her mask, and why she didn't went into action at once and exterminate him like all other missions she had done. She was so confused, she didn't manage to rein the words the moment it rolled off her tongue.

"Who the hell is Reyna?"

She watched as he only clutched onto the mask tightly that she was sure it would break. His mouth opened and close, as if he was about to say something when she was snapped back into reality, and anger boiled inside her. How can she be side tracked so quickly? He was her target and she got distracted because of him? Just when he was about to say a syllable, she whipped her weapon out and shot right at him.

Her frustration spiked when he blocked her attack with that shield of his, her bullets bounced harmlessly off it. The moment she ran out of bullets, she only managed to widen her eyes in surprise when he crashed onto her, his grip tight. For someone who looked big, he could be fast if he wanted to.

They rolled on the ground until she straddled him, striking a fist in his face.

"Reyna!" The blond had shouted, catching her fist with his bigger hand. "Reyna, It's me!" Miffed he could easily stop her, she arched her other arm, but he had quickly stopped her. "It's Jason!"

She felt a pang with familiarity with that name. Hadn't she heard it before? Furiously shaking her head, she sneered slightly. "I don't know you," She had declared with narrowed eyes. "And you don't know me."

Just when he was about to throw her off, the comm. in her ear crackled. "Soldier," A voice called out gruffly as she rolled into a crouch, her eyes kept on the super soldier in front of her. "A chopper has been send at your way," The voice continued as she whirled around, pumping her legs forward. "Retreat mission, I repeat, retreat mission."

"Copy," She muttered, her lips barely moved as she saw her ride coming in her line of sight from the corner of her eye, a rope ladder dangling for her to climb on. She pushed herself harder, jumping on the hood of an abandoned car and leaped towards the ladder, grabbing on it and quickly climbed on, not seeing the lost look on Captain America's face as she made her way up.

The moment she set foot on the chopper, a man that was ordered to wait for her spoke up. "We were given orders to delay," He explained when she stood up to face him. "There are some complications that are needed to take care of, and it requires your immediate attention."

She stared at him intently until he looked like he wanted to fidget. "Something more important than disturbing me from eliminating my target?" She asked smoothly.

He cleared his throat. "Just following orders, Soldier."

She dragged her eyes from him and walked deeper inside the chopper. "Aren't we all." She breathed out quietly.

She attacked him again on the next day.

After waking up into another headache and strained muscles, she was ordered to attack the super soldier again, her familiarity with him had disappeared entirely over the night. But the pain in her temple throbbed longer than it had for the past decades, as if they were so keen on her to forget about her target from yesterday. And she couldn't ignore the fact that she felt some sort of annoyance that they didn't say anything when she had told them she had some distinction memory of him, and that quickly disappeared when they switched on the machine.

It was then every kick and punch Captain America and the Winter Soldier went through was a blurry of twisting bodies and swift movements of their hands and legs. The next thing she knew, she was under him, laying on her stomach with her hands behind her back, struggling against his hold. He rambled something that had to do with her past -their past it seemed- and a terrible pain and images she didn't remember flashed through her mind. Overwhelmed, she had managed to overpower him, fighting him much furiously than before because how dare he said those things to her, how dare he said those things as if it meant something to her, as if she should remember those moments but she couldn't, she couldn't remember, and she was going to keep it that way.

She realised he had brought her to his chest, and she took that small amount of time to actually look at him, her eyes landed on the scar on his upper lip that some sort of familiarity tried to untangle itself from the mess of lost memories. Next thing she knew, the was a prick of pain at her hip and she immediately collapsed that a snarl tore out of her lips, gripping his forearms to support herself as consciousness started to slip away. The last thing she saw before her eyelids fluttered close was blue eyes staring at her, those bright orbs shone with worry.

Her eyelids felt heavy as she ripped them open, the monotone beeping sound met her ears as she blinked away the blurriness that clouded her eyesight, the white ceiling greeted her with its bleakness.

Glancing around, she deducted that she was indeed at a different place, since it was too clean for it to be the torture chamber she had lived in for the past decades. She was bound to the cot, titanium bands pinned her wrists to her sides and her ankles that even her metal arm wouldn't break free from it. She should know, they had done it to her several times than she could count that she had no choice but just surrender to it.

The moment her eyes landed on the mirror to her right, she stiffen.

There was her attacker, sitting in a chair near it -she had a feeling it was actually a see-through glass from the other side- arms crossed over his chest, his suit dirty and wrong like it wasn't supposed to be that way. He leaned back, eyes closed as he breathed softly, his chest rose and fell with the rhythm. Even though he was sleeping, he still look tensed, his eyebrows scrunched slightly and she saw a twitch of his fingers. Even though his shield wasn't near him, she knew he was damn capable of fighting for himself, and he could try break her spine if he wanted to.

She looked away, curling her fingers into fists as pain suddenly spread at her temples, shutting her eyes tightly as she tried to let it subside. But it was getting harder by the minute as the pain grew, and she was already flinching without herself knowing, teeth gritted so that she wouldn't make a sound.

Then, warm hands grabbed her shoulders. Out of instinct, she was going to pounce on who dared touch her when she was held back by the bounds, and she merely settled for spitting at said person.

"Get away," She growled, the words were spoken in fluent Latin as she tried wrenching her wrists, but only hissed when the steel bit her skin.

"Reyna ," He swallowed, apparently couldn't say anything else as he tried to snap his long lost best friend out of this before she could hurt herself -because she was already broken as it is goddamn it-. "Reyna," He croaked out, grabbing hold of her face as he forced her to look at him, but she still had her eyes shut. "Look at me," She was surprised he had slipped into the same tongue as she had and snapped her eyes open, and regretted it when the sight of his face only caused more pain. And in that brief moment she thought he looked shocked he had spoken the language as well. "It will be fine," He continued, switching back into English, trying to talk over the lump in his throat. "No one is going to hurt you, I'm here, this time I won't leave," He swallowed. "Not again."

After what felt like hours to her, she relaxed on the bed again, her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath, as if she had been running for days without stopping. Without looking, she knew he was kneeling on the floor beside the cot, his hand just beside hers as he murmured some things to her she couldn't exactly hear. Glancing at the blond haired, he caught her gaze with one of his own, looking at her so intently she started to feel uncomfortable. He seemed to notice and stood up, taking a few steps back to give her space. She blinked at him, before staring blankly at the ceiling, mouth pressed into a straight line.

"Are you okay?"

She closed her eyes, feeling a tug at her gut at the familiarity of his voice, but she couldn't just place when and where she had heard it before. She didn't answer then, only clenching her jaw.

"Reyna?"

Something snapped inside her and she looked sharply at him, a scowl plastered on her face. "Why do you keep saying that?" She rasped out, ignoring the look of surprise he donned.

It took a minute for him to answer. "It's your name," He explained calmly once he got hold of himself.

She could have scoffed if she wanted to, but only settled for looking away again. "I do not have a name." She declared darkly.

"Everyone has a name," He told her quite harshly, angry that she would even say a thing like that. He took a breath to calm himself, running his fingers through his hair.

"I do not even know you," She snapped, shooting him the same look of distrust the first time they met.

There was silence. "You do know me," He said quietly. He sat on the chair again, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs and fingers folded together. "You just don't remember." His eyes searched her face, but she already was staring at the ceiling again, refusing to look at him. "I think that was one of your episodes, and how I'm the cause that triggered them. Like your memory was trying to reveal itself to you, but you won't let it," He paused. "And there may be more to it."

She wanted to snap at him, she wanted to just impale him with one of her knives, she wanted to do anything that could bring him down, but of course, it was unlikely since she was trapped in -no doubt- the Avengers tower, since the name Valdez on the pad was quite visible, where highly made weapons and security system that surrounded the building were designed by the billionaire himself.

But then, she wasn't called the Winter Soldier for nothing.

There was a thunk somewhere beside her and she glanced up, where the blond man had a cup of water set on the bedside cabinet beside her, and she didn't realise her throat was sore until she saw the water sloshing in it. "I figured you'd be thirsty," He explained, a bit of cautiousness could be detected in his voice. He met her eyes unflinchingly. "I'm going to free your hands, so that you could drink," He informed her as he tapped a few buttons on the pad that was attached to the cot. "But you know what happens if you tried anything that could get yourself hurt."

She thought of sneering at his way, but then her wrists felt light without the weights of the steel. She slowly sat up, a cup shoved under her nose as he waited for her to take it. She drank until there was no more. Just as he reached out to take it from her, she swung an arm at his way, her fist made contact with his pelvis and he flew across the room, his back hit the wall. She grabbed the pad, quickly tapping on the screen with her nimble fingers, and she was free. Just when she was about to reach out for the door, an arm wrapped around her waist and slammed her to the door instead, trapping her with his body.

Her hands were in his vice grip above her head, while his other arm was at her neck, choking her slightly. He adjusted his position so that she wouldn't use her legs to hurt him, again, bounding her.

She hissed, pulling on her hands as she tried to move.

"Stop."

She ignored him, moving about as she continued to shake him off her.

"Reyna, please," He pleaded, not daring to tighten his grip more for fearing that it would break her bones. "I can help you, I can get you out of this nightmare, only if you let me."

"I don't need your help," She growled. "I don't need anyone's help," She gritted her teeth. "You are only a mission."

"I am your friend," He countered back, his bright blue eyes filled with determination as he hold her glare. "And I'm with you till the end of the line."

She hissed, her head throbbed as she lapsed into one of the episodes again. It drained her out as she started to shake, her nerves being pushed to the end.

"Reyna,"

She closed her eyes, bowing her head that the strands of her hair curtained her face, breaths being heaved out through clenched teeth. She stopped wiggling about, just standing there as she used the door and his hold as support, not caring at the moment when she only felt like as if she could fall onto the ground and not wanting to get back up.

Her mind was full of twisted images she couldn't really place, it was randomly vomited in her head like paint was being splashed all over the place, grins of happiness and the sounds of people screaming in pain at a distance. There were so many faces of horror she couldn't remember, there were a few times she saw flashes of her hands covered with blood, she could remember the last looks of their faces as she finished them off.

She also remembered some of the faces about the time before she turned into the monster she was now, friends, soldiers, and a few others that slipped from her mind. But she did saw the same face as the man in front of her now.

Reluctantly, she lifted her head, meeting his expectant eyes as he stared down at her, waiting for her to say or do anything. She opened her mouth. "I used to know you," She managed out quietly. "Before you were Captain, you were -" She cut herself off, shaking her head a little as she let her head drop. "Just let me go," She muttered out.

She could feel the disappointment rolling off him as he hesitated, before slowly backing away. She heard a click and raised her slightly, where cuffs were locked at her wrists. "I'm sorry," He murmured. "But you'll have to be like this for a while, until they could actually trust you to not hurt anyone," His breath feathered against her cheek as he sighed. "Until then, I'm going to move you to another place that doesn't look like a waiting room to greet death."

She couldn't care less, and he knew she was incapable of fighting him at the moment. For the first time in forever, she was tired, and she needed rest.