'Капитан? (captain)' she said, using the only name she knew him as. Her voice was trembling, filled with fear and agony. She called his name in Russian, as she had been forced to forget she had ever met him, and so she forgot that they had talked English earlier.

Yet Barnes didn't mind, and as he helped the Russian woman whom he didn't even know for sure if she was Russian, into the perfect spot so he could get her out of here, she fought back. It seemed that she wanted to stay, obeying any order HYDRA had given her.

'Держись крепче (hold on tight),' he said, instructing the hurt soldier to hold him tight. And as she followed orders, he jumped into the vent again, feeling the light breeze hit his skin has he inhaled the oxygen. The woman he held in his arms did the same, as it seemed she had not been outside for far too long.

She breathed heavily; the oxygen filled her lungs as she enjoyed finally being in the open again. Barnes smiled the way he hadn't done for months, the way nobody had made him smile. And as he clenched the body of the woman he had just saved, he felt how the energy came back into her veins.

Suddenly, she found her own strength again. She struggled and tried to escape the strong grasp Barnes held her in so carefully. The fresh air had done her no good, and when she continued pushing and moving her body, Barnes set her down, yet he know he would regret it soon after.

That was when she attacked, the assassin was ready for the woman to strike and while her fist rushed through the sky, he easily caught it. His eyes stared into hers to make her realize she would lose the fight she was about to start.

He understood the soldier would try to attack him, multiple times, until he said something about it. And while he remembered the woman listening to his advice earlier, he thought that it would not hurt any of them if he did it once more before figuring out how it worked.

His expressions were unreadable, his lips closed and his eyes giving not even a single hint about his feelings. They couldn't, as the murdered didn't even know his own emotions. And as his cold voice filled the space between them, the soldier seemed to relax.

'Не пытайтесь напасть на меня, не пытайтесь драться со мной и даже не думайте об убийстве меня(do not try to attack me, do not try to fight me and do not even think about killing me),' he said with his stern voice, ordering the woman his commands. He told her not to attack him, to not fight him and surely not even try to kill him, though he didn't told her that because he hated fighting people, he felt like he would hate fighting her.

She seemed to understand, as she moved her fist and stepped back. Her big eyes watched him turn around towards the helicopter, and she followed her captain into the big black machine. She was uncomfortable and yet at ease when she walked next to the Russian assassin.

-

She didn't know what it was about him, but it made her calm down just a little. She felt how her body relaxed, and even without a word spoken between the two soldiers, they seemed to understand each other perfectly, as if they had trained their entire lives together.

The wind was playing with her hair and she let it, she only wanted to feel alive again. And that was exactly what she was doing now. She inhaled loudly, gaining a quick glance from her captain, which didn't make her enjoy the fact she was free.

Even when a part of her didn't want to be away from HYDRA, still loyal to the people that trained and wiped her over and over again, she smiled with great ease at the beautiful sky up above, hoping to impress Mr Blue Sky up there.

'Ты говоришь по-английски (do you speak English)?' the savoir asked, wanting to know if she could talk English. And for some reason, she was fluent at that language, though she could only remember a life in which she spoke Russian, heard Russian, everything was Russian all around her.

'I can,' she said, feeling how much her lips had longed for this moment, speaking English again. She was forced to talk Russian, and she didn't care really. Yet having someone she could talk another language with made her feel even better about the man than she already did.

They came closer to the helicopter that had flown Barnes all the way towards Russian, and when her captain set down, awaiting her to sit next to him. She hesitated, as she had lived here for decades, though mostly frozen and unable to enjoy the nightly sky. Yet it was her home how strange it might sound.

She looked behind her back, watched how nobody followed them and climbed on the seat next to her captain, taking one deep breath of Russian air before the engine started and they took off to New York, which she knew but didn't remember.

Barnes looked at her, his blue eyes scanned her body for any weapons or bruises she might have gotten from HYDRA, yet he didn't find anything that could tell him she was in pain physically. Though he knew for sure she was armed to the teeth.

'What's your name?' his stern voice asked, being louder than the helicopter itself. And as his loud timbre filled the vehicle, her eyes shot a glare at him, a bit afraid and uncomfortable. Not only because she didn't know the answer he was looking for, but she was afraid to displease her captain.

'I –I don't know, captain,' she whispered softly, fixing her eyes on the sky again. She hated conversations, as she wasn't very good at them. No one really held up with her while she was talking, or they never listened. Plus they never got what she wanted to point out, something mostly obvious for her.

A shot of sadness filled his eyes before he concentrated on the helicopter again. She watched how his grip around the controller for the iron monster tightened and understood her answer was wrong, not understanding that there was no wrong answer she could give him.

'What do they call you?' his eyes didn't travel towards her anymore, and he stayed focused on the air. Conversations were hard for him too. His right arm that hadn't been treated flinched suddenly, scaring the soldier in her seat as she was so fragile. Her weapons still clenched her body, but her fingers were too weak to even get a hold of them, which made her realize that if someone would attack her, she'd loose.

'My team calls me sergeant, but HYDRA calls me soldier,' she said softly, not wanting her words to fill the space between them. His head turned her way, and his eyes stood heavy as if the burden of her sitting next to him was too much too handle. But it was the many sins and memories pushing so hard on the assassin's soul.

'That's all?' he didn't seem surprised, as he wasn't called anything other than soldier too. But he hoped so dearly that HYDRA had at least allowed them to keep their names. Just when her words rolled down her lips, Barnes realised that they did something so much worse. Every form of humanity the name Soldier had was taken away from her when she answered honestly: 'I know my numbers too. They – they tattooed them all over me.'

He clenched the only thing keeping them in the air even harder, sending a flame of pain through his right arm. He gritted his teeth, not wanting to take this information. He didn't want it to be true; he didn't want to hear those numbers because the woman sitting next to him was a human, not a device.

But he knew he needed to have that information, wishing that it would help him find out who this soldier was. And as he asked for her numbers softly, he felt how heavy those words laid upon his lips, not wanting to be said yet pushing to come out.

'What are the nu-'

'1791,' she whispered. Her voice shook as she so truthfully answered her captain. She hated telling people her secrets, talking about her suffering HYDRA had cost her, because if she got the change, she would directly rung back for the doctors that tortured her for decades.

'Fack,' Barnes slipped out, making the soldier look at her left. He knew that if his best friend would be here, he got a speech at not swearing and watching your language. Yet he didn't care about that right now, he only cared about those four numbers, echoing in his head over and over again.

'What's wrong, captain?' she asked, praying to all the gods that it wasn't her that made the murderer so displeased. She only answered honestly, which she had been forced to do for years. HYDRA didn't take lies, and ordered them to never lie, so she didn't. She couldn't.

Barnes thought about lying, yet he didn't see the point in that as the soldier had always been honest to him. Plus he knew she would never tell anyone, as a soldier never stabbed her captain in the back. So he answered her questions, his voice cold, trying to hide the fear freezing his veins.

'Those numbers are part of my trigger words,' he told her and she stared at him, obviously uncomfortable as she thought it was all her fault. She was always told it was her fault, therefore she was used to being blamed for things she hasn't done.

'Oh,' she just said. Her brown eyes stared at him as if they wanted to tell so many secrets, yet at the same time they couldn't as they were forced to stay silent. And as he promised himself then and there to always be there at the woman's side, he changed the subject asking: 'So what am I going to call you?'

'Soldier, I guess that would make the most sense.'

'I promise to find out who you are,' he said, choosing his words very carefully as he understood better than anyone how hard that was for her, not knowing her name or past. And every wrong word or sentence could let the always ticking time bomb explode.

'Don't waste your time on me captain, I'm not worth it,' she whispered before she set her eyes to the sun again, making the Russian ex HYDRA soldier know she didn't want to continue this conversation at all. And with that Barnes let the woman be stubborn, understanding why she was.