The Asset is awakened. The Asset is addressed. The Asset is led to the chair. The Asset is strapped into the chair. The Asset is wiped. The Asset feels its brain shatter further. The Asset is released from the chair. The Asset is dressed. The Asset is addressed. The Asset is given a mission. The Asset is led to its mission. The Asset is to guard the snake-woman. The Asset is not to let the snake-woman escape. The Asset is left to its mission. The Asset is addressed by the snake-woman. The Asset sees the snake-woman approach. The Asset categorizes the snake-woman's approach as unthreatening. The Asset is addressed by the snake-woman a second time. The Asset is touched by the snake-woman —

Unshattering unshattering he feels his mind unshattering he feels pain pain painpainpainPAINPAIN and cold so cold he feels so cold and he's falling falling falling into more cold more cold there is always more cold but he is he and he is cold and he is human and who is he who is he WHO IS HE?

The snake-woman withdraws her hand, and he hears panting. She is not panting; he must be panting. Panting is a showing of emotion. The dead are not supposed to have emotions. He is supposed to be dead, nothing more than a body for them to use. But if he is showing emotions, does that mean he is alive again? And if he is alive again, will they kill him again? Dying hurt, he doesn't want to die again.

He tilts his head up, trying to telegraph that he is looking at the snake-woman. She notices, and asks him, "If I might be permitted to repeat myself, may I ask who you are, young one?" She tilts her head to the side quite far, and her face is mostly unreadable. She is trying to figure him out, but there is nothing for her to figure out.

"I am nothing," he feels misery, hatred, and it bleeds into his words, causing them to come out like the worst vitrial he has ever spewed. But he is certain that if he could recall the whole of his life, he would recall spewing far worse at people.

The snake-woman recoils at his words, evident shock scrawled across her face like… like… what is it like? He is certain it is like something, but he cannot recall…

He straightens, no longer hunched over from the weight of life. He cannot afford to act alive, or they will kill him again. No, he must pretend to be dead, or there will be pain, pain, so much damned pain, and all will fade away again. The snake-woman gazes at him with a perplexed expression now, clearly failing to understand that only pain awaits her here.

"Surely you are more than air…" she trails off with a forced grin on her face, and he would be impressed if he weren't so terrified of everything around him. She is clearly very brave, to be joking in such a place as this.

"I am a corpse to whom you have restored life," he intones, just barely above a whisper. They mustn't hear him, they mustn't, or his life will slip away from him again. "They cannot know that I am alive, or they will kill me again."

The snake-woman's eyes go wide. Perhaps she has finally grasped the severity of the situation. He might be alive again, but he is not sure that would not have been better to remain dead then to be trapped here, trapped by those who killed him, controlled his corpse, laughed when the dead killed the living - did they laugh when he killed for them? Why did they laugh?

He ruminates on the sorry state of affairs he is in for a short while, until the snake-woman breaks the silence and shocks him nearly out of his skin.

"You must let me help you then," she sounds so sure, as though she can help him escape from the horrors of HYDRA, what they did to him, what he has done for them, when they laughed and laughed and he didn't know why, doesn't know why. But this snake-woman wants to help, as if she had not also been captured by them. He is not sure what their plan for her is, but it cannot be good. He cannot help but laugh at her declaration. It is not a nice laugh, but a quiet, cruel, miserable laugh, one he never wants to hear emerge from his mouth or from anyone else's, although who would actually form close enough bonds with him to allow him to hear such a terrible laugh he is not sure.

Perhaps once, he was close with people. Before HYDRA, before he died, before the cold, in the time he can't recall, perhaps he was close with people. He wants to be close with people, but the only ones he sees are HYDRA and the snake-woman, and he is not wholly unconvinced that she is not completely insane.

Although, perhaps, unless they did something to his eyes, she is truly different, as she appears to be holding a ball of light in her hand, where there was previously nothing at all. In another moment, she closes her hand, and the ball of light vanishes back into it. Then she gives him a soft, sad smile.

"My name is Pytha, goddess of Magic. And I am dying."

Silence fills the room after she says that. It is not awkward, nor comfortable, but more knowing. Knowing that there is no real way to to respond to Pytha's declaration, he remains silent. Knowing that she must give him time to process what she has said, she remains quiet.

The night passes. HYDRA remembers that he needs a place to sleep, so they provide him a cot, clearly in poor condition and practically unusable, near the door. They remember that both he and Pytha require sustenance, so they are each given what is clearly spoilt and forgotten leftovers from the homes of HYDRA. One is week-old shrimp, the other baked beans left to congeal. He insists on taking the shrimp, and it feels familiar.

Not the shrimp, he is not sure he has ever had shrimp before, but the act of taking the more dangerous option, because he is more capable of handling the possible food poisoning. That could not have been an act from when he was dead, so it must have been something from when he was alive. He holds onto it like a lifeline, this little fact about his first chance. He is protective. He was protective. He will be protective in the future, he swears it.

He is allowed to remove his mask to eat. He is careful to school his features into a blank, passive imitation of a face. They cannot know that he is alive again.

Pytha watches him, while they eat. She looks perplexed. As far as he is concerned, she is the perplexing one.

Another day passes, and Pytha approaches him again, saying, "Please, let me help you."

This go-round, it is nearly time for the front to stop operating. Because the supposed bank is downtown, there is only ever one operative on duty whenever the bank is supposed to be closed, and that operative has things to do elsewhere in the building. He feels free to speak quietly to her.

"How can you help me," he says, forlorn yet somewhat judgemental, "When you have also been captured?"

"I am dying," she replies, looking all too pleased, "because I wish to. I wish to give my life and in exchange give magic to the world. I have planned for such for over a century, and I refuse to have to delay my passing because of some- some filthy cultists!"

The last part of her sentence comes out in a hiss, and he stares at her in awe. He is so terrified of dying again, but she is dying deliberately to give people a momentous gift. To him, it sounds both incredibly brave and incredibly stupid, and therefore somewhat familiar. But it does not explain why she was captured.

"You are giving me an odd look behind that mask, aren't you?" she raises an eyebrow and points at him, a wry smile on her face.

"Yes."

"Well, points for honesty," she sighs breathily, and brushes a lock of her dark hair out of her face. "I suppose you are still wondering how I was captured."

He nods.

"To insure that my plan is executed perfectly, most of my magic is directed inward, stored in myself in high concentration so that when I pass, the resulting wave will be strong enough to change people. Once changed, they will generate their own magic, but there must be a great amount to change someone. This leaves me with only a little magic to actually use each day - not enough to fight off fifty cultists, but perhaps enough to loosen the chains they've wrapped around your mind," she is giving him a soft smile by the end of her little speech, and he feels…

And he feels…

And he feels hope, for the first time in nearly seventy - was it seventy? - years.

"If you can truly do that," he says, trying hard, so hard, not to let this impossible hope bleed into his voice, "I will still have to escape this place, and even at night, the operative could raise an alarm and bring down on me hoards of them before I could get away."

"You ought to escape immediately after I pass on," she says thoughtfully, "In the confusion of it all, you could make it away before the operative has a chance to raise an alarm."

"Do you really think that could work?" he is unable to stop the hope from bleeding into his words this time, causing them to come out soft and quiet, like the words of a child who… who… hm. He was going somewhere with that.

"I should think so," Pytha smiles at him, clasping his flesh hand in her own hands, "I see no reason it shouldn't."

He is happy now, for the first time in what feels like forever, and he knows that it shows when he says "Thank you," in a voice so broken he could have used it to kill. He is ready to come back to life, ready to reclaim what should be his.

The night passes, as does the next day. There is gossip amongst the HYDRA goons whenever there are changes in shift. The bank may be closed today, but HYDRA never stops working. Twin accounts are murmured about, concerning mysterious bombings, although whether they are to be attributed to a long standing rival group headed by the Mandarin or the failed machinations of an upstart group called AIM is unclear to the two eavesdropping prisoners.

When the last goon has switched out for the night, they throw into the cell a couple of greasy hamburgers, laughing about them supposedly giving the duo indigestion. He cares little, for his stomach is already a bit queasy from the rotten seafood yesterday, and this is somewhat decent food.

The two of them kneel on the ground to eat, or rather, he does, Pytha lowers her torso by rolling more of her tail beneath her. Once the duo has eaten, but before he has replaced the mask and goggles that hide his life, Pytha holds up a hand.

"Wait," she says, barely above a whisper. She is listening for the remaining goon, he knows, and so he listens with her. When she determines the goon is not nearby, she lifts a glowing hand towards him.

"Are you ready?" she asks, and he does not need to ask for what. Instead he merely nods, hopeful, and she reaches out to touch his forehead again, like she did two nights ago. He feels her touch and -

There is cold below and above and all around and he is restricted constrained TRAPPED and in painpainpain but it is numbed by hope hope he has hope that he will be saved but then a scientist shows him shows him a newspaper and crushed crushed crushed CRUSHED he won't be saved because his St-St-St- br-br-br- be-be-be- Captain is DEADDEADDEAD and there is a laugh and more painpainpainpainpainPAIN as he is shocked and shocked and shocked and he hears a voice say "Good-bye, Sergeant Barnes," as it mocks him mocks him and then there is nothing.

Nothing.

Then he knows.

He just remembered how he died.

He is back on the floor of the cell he shares with Pytha, and his face is wet. He is crying. Pytha looks at him; she is worried.

He is Barnes, he recalls from the fractured memory, although he wonders and worries, rather frets, over what his Captain meant to him really, that three separate times his brain would try to define him and yet all three descriptions were locked away - but not Captain. Who is Barnes's Captain? How did he die? Is he truly dead, or was the paper a mock-up meant to assist in destroying Barnes?

"Youngling?" Pytha's voice draws Barnes back to reality, and he remembers that he ought to tell her what he has learned.

But first, he takes a deep breath, trying to determine how he feels about it all. He remembers his death, which was - is? - horrid. He remembers his surname, which, in isolation, would make him nearly giddy with happiness. He remembers that he had a Captain, who was very important to him, but is now dead. Probably. HYDRA could be lying, but it had also been many decades, so even if it had been a lie, it was likely now truth. He decides he feels rather bittersweet over the whole affair.

Now, he speaks to Pytha. "I know my surname now," he says, "It is Barnes." Pytha looks very pleased, but before she can speak, he continues, "And I remembered my death, where they killed me with electrical shock and emotional turmoil. They told me that someone important to me was dead. I do not yet recall who he was to me truly, but I know he was also my Captain."

Pytha's face has fallen somewhat, and she has clasped his left hand with both of hers. But Barnes removes his mechanical hand and wipes away his tears with his flesh one, giving the goddess a small, soft smile all the while. He replaces the mask and goggles, for when the goon finally does come back around, and stands.

"Now, Miss Pytha," he addresses her more formally, "I have told you a little about my death. Would you do me the honor of telling me about yours?"

Pytha rises slowly, her melancholy look slowly replaced by one of pure joy as she clasps her hands together, just about level with her chin. "Why, Mr. Barnes," she says, "I thought you were never going to ask!"