𝔹𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕋𝕠 𝔹𝕣𝕠𝕠𝕜𝕝𝕪𝕟 | Bucky Barnes⁽¹⁾

16 | Feel Something

February 1943 – Austria

The gentle breeze wafting in from the open window sent a cooling chill through the office where Ella sat by a desk alone, waiting for Howard Stark. All over the walls, blueprints, maps, and rough sketches of various devices and machines overlapped one another, the papers littered with tiny holes where they had been pinned up and removed from various surfaces.

Her tired eyes were soothed a little by the low sunlight beaming in. Only 8:30AM on a cloudy day meant it wasn't too bright, the sky mostly hidden behind clouds. A clock on the wall behind her was ticking as the seconds went by, the repetitive noise being all Ella could focus on. She found herself counting with the minutes, visualizing the numbers in her head, one being added for every interval of sixty seconds she counted.

The thoughts were calculated and logical, though they made no sense to her. Her time in that dingy cell had been so lost on her as she rarely slept, and the lights were always left on. There was no concept of time in there, no way of telling if it was day or night. She just existed while time went on outside of those four rotten stone walls. So, even just hearing the ticking of a clock, listening, and counting as time passed her by, was something she would never take for granted again.

The door flew open behind Ella, startling her as the voices and footsteps of the workers bustling around in the lab outside suddenly got louder. Howard Stark strolled into the room, leaving the door open, holding a big pile of files in his arm.

"Elenora, good morning," he smiled a little too brightly. "Good to see you again."

"You remember me?" Ella's eyebrows raised.

"Oh, I never forget a pretty face," Howard charmed, taking a seat at the desk across from her. "That night back in Brooklyn was the last time I met a woman that didn't know who I was. Call me weird, but I liked that." His smile dropped a little as he added softly, "I only wish our second meeting was under better circumstances."

"Yeah, you and me both," Ella mumbled. Before she let the silence linger for too long, she straightened her back, asking, "So, you read the file Steve found."

"I did," Howard nodded. "And before I get into any of it, I just want to say how sorry I am that this all happened to you." Ella nodded gratefully, and Howard continued, "There's a lot I wanna go through, and a lot I want us to work on. It's some heavy stuff. Just know that you can stop me at any time."

Appreciatively, Ella sighed, "Thank you. Let's just get into it. Do you have any idea what they did to me?"

"Well, from your blood work, it looks like you were given some form of Erskine's serum – the one that Captain Rogers received," Howard glanced between Ella and the open file on the desk. "It explains the fast-healing cuts and bruises. We'll do some training exercises to see how much it changed your muscle mass. Do you feel any changes, or have you noticed anything?"

Ella thought for a moment, remembering the overpowering strength she felt when she first woke up after the procedure. "After I woke up, I broke the restraints that kept me on the table. And when the soldiers chased me, I ran half-way across the base. Barely felt tired. And I'm far from being a runner."

"So, it definitely enhanced your physical strength," Howard said to himself. "Then, of course... there's the Tesseract," he sheepishly added.

Ella visibly tensed in her seat, leaning forwards a little. The mention of the artifact made her nervous, taking her right back to that dreadful place. But she wanted – needed – answers.