A Shared Cell Wall (Bucky Barnes X OC)

Insight

Upon their return to base after a mission completed, the two were immediately sent to be wiped. The pure anxiety and fear of forgetting all they had talked about and revealed to each other was at the front of their minds. Had they gone through all of the trouble to speak to each other just to forget everything the second they sat in those dreaded chairs?

Birdy had an urge to even retaliate to her handlers in hopes of getting to keep the memories she had made with Winter over the week-long mission. Winter himself had never felt so hopeless, the first connection he had made with a human being is about to be erased from his mind. All the progress, the hope he had gained would be gone.

The two stared at each other as long as they could until they were forced to sit in the machine and the electricity was surging through their minds, tormenting them in physical pain. However, when Winter felt the machine turn off, he knew the person next to him was Birdy. He remembered. Everything else about the mission is a blur but their conversations are locked into memories he has access to. His brain for once not betraying him and allowing him to remember the only thing that matters to him, Birdy.

Birdy knew her name, she knew her hums helped Winter sleep, she knew everything he had told her. She has never had to work so hard to hide a smile on her face when the handlers finally let them out of their seats and directed them to their cells.

The next week consisted of the two soldiers learning quickly that after lights out, they could use the crack in their shared wall as a way to speak to each other. Each night a few words were exchanged and it may not seem like much but for them, the freedom to speak even two words of their own manifestation had been a rarity for as far back as they can remember. The few words of 'goodnight' or 'everything okay' each day made their bond strengthen in a way neither of them thought it could have. The two had come to understand that the other was necessary for their own survival within the walls of hydra. If the other were to be removed, it was all over.

Each morning they had their own routine of ensuring the other was prepared for the day of torture and conditioning as always until they were to be put back under in the cryo chamber.

"Birdy." His voice would almost whisper on the other side of the wall signaling he was awake.

"Winn." She would respond to let him know she is awake and there with him. The simple gesture had occurred everyday, not once faltering in the consistency.

It wasn't long before hydra didn't seem to need them as frequently. In and out of the cryo chambers for what felt like endless years, their handlers changing every other time they were thawed out. The two soldiers became inseparable, even going as far as to physically retaliate when forced to train separately, encouraging the handlers at the time to allow them to be together for their own safety after a few deaths had occurred.

If Winter hadn't felt any guilt before with his kills, he definitely didn't when he ended the lives of those who were trying to keep him away from his Birdy. It was almost possessive. She was his and he was hers. They both knew this and neither complained, not once.

2014 breached the depths of time and the new squad leader who enjoyed being a handler at times, Rumlow, instructed for both the Stygian Soldier and Winter Soldier to be taken out of their cryo chambers

Birdy wakes with the same pains in her body, the stinging and burning slowly numbing as the frost melts off her skin. This time her chamber is different since being transported to the states, it's a yellow case that holds her in a tube, the temperature inside slowly being decreased gradually by a scientist just outside. She wiggles her fingers slowly trying to adjust to the new environment as she watches her breath come out in a ghost like fog.