I first encountered him in a corridor. He carried the pungent stench of oil and cordite and was stained with the rusty bloodied scars of battle.

We thumped shoulders. He wiped me out to the floor, like a granite bowling ball striking down a ceramic pin. I flopped onto my knees and hands like a beached whale; bruising them as they smashed into the metal grid floor that lined the waterlogged facility. The crash snapped him out of his automaton daze and he broke the rhythm of his metronome perfect stride.

Six foot, short rugged filth speckled brunet hair and glassy Aegean blue eyes. But the metal arm was by far the most intriguing thing about him:

An abhorrent augmentation, a mechanical mutation, stitched onto his body like a toy soldier with discontinued parts. The Soviet star was branded onto his shoulder, but there was something far more Western about his chiselled jaw line and cleft chin.

Karpov stopped alongside him and the debriefing paused. The stranger with the robotic limb stared catatonically as I wobbled to my feet, wiping grime off my black trousers and rubbing my pain fizzling palms together.

His brow furrowed thoughtfully and his lips twitched in consideration. His fingers twitched as he itched to rush to my assistance instinctively, rocking back and forth on his feet in my direction. His moral debate was displayed on his scrunched face and he stole a timid glance at his handler. Giving into the possessing urge, he pivoted and inched forward a step, boot rattling the floor.

The moment Karpov saw his benevolent streak surface; he was snatched by the jaw, thrown against a brick wall and coshed across the face by a hand.

"Don't even think about it."

The macho demeanour that the stranger had held in his bearing from the moment he toppled me was shattered. Beneath that roughened and tough exterior was something I hadn't seen many dare to display since my arrival at the facility. Fear. He looked like an abused puppy, those wide blue orbs glossy with tears and his face hanging petulantly.

"What do you say, Winter?"

"Sorry, sir. Thank you, sir. He whimpered in an apologetic and submissive voice that was barely above a whisper.

"Leave the child. She was in your way. I'll see to it that she gets punished. Now, be a good little soldier and walk on." Karpov drawled, casting his beady hawk's eyes over to me and then they trailed back to 'winter'.

"It wasn't her fault..." He gritted out with a tearful snarl, in English.

He wasn't given a second's reprieve before a hand mashed his cheek again, fingers whipping his slashed cheek; sending fresh blood drizzling from the knife laceration. The American winced and screwed his eyes shut in agony. He sucked in a stuttering sobbing breath.

"You know better than to speak in that tongue! If you dare to address me, address me in Russian. I will not have you speaking in that capitalist pig language. I will have you thrown back into the machine if you even think about doing that again." Karpov was livid, I could see the hellfire burning in his ebony eyes.

And I could see the concentration plastered on the face of the other man as he attempted to follow the words. "I can't!" He objected. "I can't speak it!" He whined helplessly, a sour stinging tear trickling down his bloodied, hand printed cheek. It intermingled with the blood and a copper line was streaked down his face and dribbled down his neck.

"Learn to! Or I will see to it that you are lashed until you speak it fluently."

I saw the soldier tense and his piercing crystal blue eyes flicked open. Like a switch had been flicked in his brain, his face rearranged itself until it was blank again. The only clue to his emotional disposition was the slight quivering of his lips.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." He resolved, decreeing it like a mantra: eyes brimming.

Karpov finally unleashed his lapels and freed the dishevelled and beaten American. As Karpov's attention returned to me, the soldier cleared his throat and nipped his lip.

"Don't harm her," he pleaded disobediently, pained sympathy in his strained and wavering voice; unsure of quite why he felt so protective of me. I was confused too. "She's just a child. Five foot nothin', couldn't take a beatin' even if she wanted to." And with those words, which at the time were untranslatable to me, he had condemned himself to unthinkable torture, and saved my hide from being tanned.

"Since you're so fond of our resident Natalia, perhaps you'd like to take her beating for her. Seems to me like you're volunteering."

"I don't like bullies, sir..." The man gritted, eyes sharp and angry and pained all at once. "And I can't understand Russian." He pitifully admitted, nibbling his lip feebly. I'd never seen such a big man look so small.

"I will have you lashed, then put in solitary and then back to Zola. You understand now, yes?" Karpov ripped a pair of cuffs of his belt and snapped them onto his lacky.

"Not Zola..." The man breathed, the tears dwelling in his eyes flooding down his cheeks. "Please... Please? Not Zola! Please not Zola!" He screamed and struggled fighting being pushed.

"It seems you're in needing of reprogramming. Perhaps the last wipe wasn't strong enough..."

He howled and screamed all the way down the corridor, whilst I remained planted to the spot like I was rooted to the ground: watching as he writhed, taken to be tortured for me. I still attribute my survival to random acts of kindness just like that. I was always on the ledge, but when I was shown kindness, shown respect, my faith in mankind was restored - fleetingly - and I was lured a couple inches back from the edge.

As I aged, it took aeons of my time to maintain my peak fitness at the summit it had reached. I was the pinnacle of human evolution and I needed polishing like a rough diamond.

With the teen years came a sudden rush of emotions, existentialism and enervation; I was drowned under the destructive tsunami of these factors and distractions started to lure me away from my exercise. My focus strayed and my fitness began to crumble. And with trials for field work approaching, my hopes for survival were fading fast.

We were all assembled in a dark warehouse where the gloomy lights flickered a little lighter and the floor was a little less damp. In the centre of the resonant hall, the one attraction in the cocooning cape of darkness, was a martial arts mat.

We were assembled there and told to crowd around, that our training was going to be tested. It wasn't athleticism, agility or hand-eye coordination that was truly tested, it was endurance: how many injuries you could take in your stride before you mentally conceded, or your body did for you.

We were pitched against one another, and it was when I eyed the entire squad that I knew I was at a disadvantage. Beefy and brawny women were crammed shoulder to shoulder with me as we spectated the beating of our comrades; "learning" as they called it. Most we're a whole head taller than me and broader as well as gainly. I was flimsy, I always had been, paper thin and crumpled just as easily, Ivan used to call me a "skeleton" and curse me for my unfairly high metabolism - but right now I really wish I had piled on some pounds.

If I wasn't bowled down by the first swing from one of the powerhouses stacked around me, I would be crushed under their weight if they pounced. And the way it looked, there was no segregation of classes in place for build or weight, it was all in luck of the draw.

"Romanova!" A voice ordered my residence on the mat.

My heart clogged my throat and pounded there. My breathing shuffled in and out like a tide and backwash; in and out like an asthmatic. Sweat beaded under my armpits and my hairline dampened.

I padded barefoot onto the squishy template for violence, kicking up splashes of water as I hesitantly trudged to attention. I was highlighted under the sizzling glare of the lights frying above me and thoughts of the Russian ballet stirred in the back of my mind, memories morphing with my reality; momentarily blurring the distinction between my thoughts and what is.

"Belova!"

A lean and spindly blonde sauntered up to the mark, living up to the title of a black widow with her beady ebony eyes and her endless long legs. She was by far the tallest of the candidates, but looked to be flexible as flax.

"на старт! внимание! марш!" Ready! Set! Go!

As soon as I had poised my limbs into balanced stance she was on me, striking like a coiled viper. Her high kick met my face with a flip of her toes and a snap of the ankle I went toppling.

Pain rang out in my mouth and I was suffocated by the stench of iron in my noise and the residual tang of the bodily substance pooling in my mouth. A concoction of spittle and blood dribbled from a corner of my mouth and my vision split into separate images - the world doubling. Pain throbbed across my bruised cheeks and in the cracked cartilage in my nose.

I was sprawled on my knees when she threw herself at me; flattening me to the floor and throwing her fist repeatedly at my face, bludgeoning my lip so my teeth sliced it open. My nose got a battering too and hot scarlet started to trickle from my nose like a leaky faucet, staining my alabaster skin a uneven copper, smeary and runny. The repeated knocks sent me spinning into a dizzied daze of concussion, everything vague by the agony in my hyperextended body and abused face.

As I lifted my arm to claw her away she pinned it with her weight. Her free hand not repeatedly knocking the sharpness out of my sight curled in my hair like an eagle's talons and ripped at the tangled auburn strands. I hung by my hair like a noose, emitting estranged gargles and whines as she punched me like a boxing bag, dangling their inanimately. My ears were ringing and the only clear thing was the formation of her lips spitting insults at me, daring me to concede. A fist went to my throat as I shook my head and I rasped. A bruise clogged the airway, putting an end to the travel of air.

I couldn't breathe. I gasped and my hazy eyes widened madly. Tears gathered in my glossy green eyes as I frantically fought for air, trying to drag it in through my faulty trachea. And slowly my consciousness faded, starved of oxygen and overwhelmed by the pain ringing out in my body.

I awoke in solitary confinement that night. And remained there for what must have been a week but felt like a decade. Sensory deprivation had a habit of driving you mad: blinding darkness, padded walls to mute the sounds, bland food, pure odourless air and sheer emptiness.

My fighting didn't improve, no matter how much I tried. And Yelena Belova reigned as undefeated champion over the rest of the team. Her wiry frame and limitless flexibility lent well to all movements, giving her the ability to dip and dive like a dolphin and she had a significant height advantage. I was just unlucky that I was her first contender.

But I lost so many fights. Trying to dart about, but my strides were far too meagre and carried me inches. My kicks fell short with my stubby legs and my arms didn't extend high enough to land any debilitating shots.

And when I fell behind, drastic measures were employed. My sleep hours were reduced and I was thrown together with an equally inadequate member of the organisation.

When I came into contact with that pair of piercing ice blue eyes and that towering body of a man, I was seized by a traumatic hope.

I rushed at him, bounding like a puppy being reunited with its owner and threw my arms around his middle like a lasso. Disgraced, he threw me off.

"Do I know you?" He asked, intimidated and backing away from the affectionate embrace.

A/N - So, in the comics, Bucky struggles to learn Russian and Nat teaches him, and vice versa Bucky teaches Nat how to use her build to her advantage. Cute right? I'm still shipping Clintasha and Stucky though.

Also, if you're wondering why Bucky is so freely disobedient, it's early days and I imagine at first the wipes weren't perfected, that they weren't as effective and as he had more and more, like a surface repeatedly cleansed, he lost layers of himself and became more stripped of his personality. It's midnight as I'm writing this, am I making any sense? Probably not.

*Dedication at a later date.