Chapter Text
Sasha Parker had been trained to kill since she was eight years old. She had been taught to only repeat certain things during interrogation or torture, such as her designation. She had expected torture. She had expected Captain America to be cruel, and Tony Stark to be some kind of monster. She hadn’t expected both of them and James—Bucky, she heard the others called him—to be kind. Stern, yes, she was their prisoner, after all, but kind.
James stood in the doorway, watching her in the vibranium cell. Sasha sat cross-legged on the floor, hating the cold seeping into her pants from the metal. She had always hated the cold, especially water, but she preferred it to the former Winter Soldier’s glare. His gaze seemed to pierce her soul, and it made her feel young again. Like he was training her on the mats in Siberia all over again. Sasha looked up at the sound of footfalls. A young man with almost wavy brown hair came into the room, looking he was seeing things.
“Who are you?” Sasha’s voice was thick with a Russian accent, but her words were clear. He was strikingly familiar, but she couldn’t remember where she had seen him before. He had the build of a gymnast, and brown eyes that had flecks of gold due to the lighting from her cell.
“My name’s Peter.” The boy had a nervousness about him that made him strangely endearing. “Are you Sasha? I’m supposed to talk to you or something like that.” Peter glanced at James for conformation, to which he nodded. “Okay.” He cleared his throat awkwardly before walking over to the cell.
“You aren’t going to try to intimidate me?” Sasha asked, tilting her head in confusion. The glass separating them muffled her words. She studied him closely, wondering why he was so familiar. He walked with a slight limp, and she noticed his shoulders were broad enough to stretch his sweater a little. It was obvious he was stronger than he looked, which explained the baggy clothes. There was a faint scar on his nose, and his eyes had clearly seen things he wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“Why would I?” Peter sounded confused, squinting a little as he thought about the question. Sasha shrugged.
“Seems pretty on-brand for you people, unless you’re not associated with those—“ she gestured to the doorframe where James still stood guard. “— hero types.”
“Captain Rogers isn’t that bad. I’m not going to hurt you, or yell, or anything.” Peter almost looked offended at the idea of hurting her. “I do have to ask you some questions though.” Sasha nodded her compliance; she figured he didn’t want to do this any more than she did. “Okay, uh . . . . What do you remember before HYDRA?” Sasha looked him dead in the eye as she spoke:
“I remember snow. Something was burning as my father screamed for them not to take me away. There was a gunshot, and my mother screamed before I heard the second one.” Sasha forced the grief down, ignoring Peter’s look of horror as she continued. “The Winter Soldier helped me stand when it was over, and his handlers took me to their base. I was seven years old.”
“So you remember your mom and dad. Was there anyone else you remember?” Peter forced himself to ask the question.
“Please don’t ask me that.” Sasha lowered her eyes. Peter looked too much like her father for her to think of anything else. Peter, oblivious, apologized before asking her politely to keep talking. “I was trained by the Winter Soldier.” She glanced at James, but he gave her no reaction. “My parents were kept alive, but the doctors made them do terrible things. They always tested on rats and other creatures before preforming their experiments on me. They were not themselves when they had me injected with chemicals and venom and whatever else they put in me.” Peter looked genuinely horrified by what she was saying.
"I'm sorry." Peter mumbled. Sasha kept going, hating the doctors, hating the handlers, heating HYDRA with every second she kept talking. “They made sure I had a healing factor. They said it was just for tests, but they were really just wanting to see how many times I could get stabbed or scarred or buried in rubble before it kicked in. They tortured James by using me, sometimes.” Peter looked confused before realizing she called James by his given name. “I was on an undercover mission when Captain America and Iron Man found me. I had wanting to run for months, so I gave in. The captain knows I could have taken both of them down if I wanted to. Stark remains ignorant.”
“What do you know about the Avengers?” Peter was obviously hating himself for asking more questions. Sasha glared at him in silence for a moment.
“You want to know what I know about your heroes, Peter?” She spat the word at him before pulling down the collar of her turtleneck. Underneath it was something that made Peter’s blood run cold— a faint branding scar in the shape of Captain America’s shield. “This is what I know: They are cruel and heartless. They will corrupt and destroy anything they touch.” She let her collar settle back into place, satisfied at the horrified look on Peter’s face. “No more questions.” Sasha said, standing up and turning away. Peter nodded before he left the room.
“Sasha.” James spoke for the first time since he’d entered the room. She didn’t turn around. “Do you remember me?”
“You left me to die, James.” Sasha lifted her turtleneck to reveal scars tracing a path from her hip to her ribs. “You gave me these when they read your trigger words from that book.” Her fists clenched at the memory as she let the fabric fall back into place. “You didn’t fight it, even when I begged you to.”
“You would’ve been killed if I had.” James said. “I’m sorry, Sasha, I really am. I should have taken you with me, but I didn’t want you to have a life on the run.”
“Right, because running from HYDRA and being free of them even for a moment would have killed me from the shock.” Sasha said dryly. “I obviously don’t know how to handle myself out in the world. And I definitely haven’t been through enough undercover missions to understand basic things like family and slang and school.”
“You know slang?” James almost sounded impressed. Sasha heard Peter’s long gasp from the hall; so he hasn’t completely left. “Like, Gen Z slang?”