𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐄 | 𝐁𝐔𝐂𝐊𝐘 𝐗 𝐎𝐂

06

Steve slides into the drivers seat, reaching back and handing an ankle brace to Diane.

"She said you might need this."

Diane nods, thanking him and taking the ankle brace, eyeing it and moving it around in her hands. She had no idea how to put this thing on.

There were strings and two sets of straps. How did this thing go on? How could she tell if she was wearing it upside down or wrong in some other way?

All her injuries were dealt with by others when she was in HYDRA, and if they weren't, they were small things like cuts or easily stitched wounds.

Nothing as confusing as a sleeve with laces and straps. Apparently, Sam saw her internal dilemma, taking it from her. He rights it, unstraps it, and shows her.

"Goes on like this. Slide it on, lace it up, do the straps down over the front of your ankle, and then these ones," he grabs a separate pair of straps, "these wrap up. And then this goes on top of it all."

She nods, "Thank you."

He nods, handing her the brace. She slides off her left boot, putting it on. She pulls at the seatbelt a few times, the strap digging into her neck. When it's on and feels comfortable, she puts her foot back in her shoe.

She adjusts her position in her seat. Her ribs weren't hurting her that much, and her ankle had settled since the metal from the glass box had been opened.

Bucky looks at her, eyeing her ankle, "I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

Diane nods, giving a small smile to try and reassure whatever part of him was worried. She doesn't know how it works. She never got brainwashed, only trained in combat. And trained slightly in behavioral science in order to alter how she acted to match how others acted.

She didn't go through what he did. She went through hell, of course she did. But it was a different hell than what he had to go through.

She still wondered why that was. Why they didn't brainwash her as well. Why they didn't decide to do the same thing to her.

Sure, keeping her as a weasel for information was useful, but she could get the same information from people through brutality.

There was no plausible reason for her to be the only one not trained like that.

There were others like him. Trained like him. One of them was a girl. Why did she have to go through that, but Diane didn't? Why did they pick to spare Diane? Why did they pick Bucky and the others not to spare?

"Can we get ahold of my file? From HYDRA? After all of this is over, I mean." It was an abrupt statement, and as Diane said it, she started to regret it. She doesn't need to know.

Sam nods, and Steve clears his throat, "We have it."

"What?"

"When we were looking for you two, we got a friend to get us your file. Both of you. It would've helped."

"Can I see it?"

Steve nods, jutting his head towards the glove box. Sam opens it, pulling out two thick files, looking at both, and handing one back to her. He puts the other back in the glove box, closing it.

She looks at the cover. Slanted text in Russian, stamped on from an angle. She opens it, seeing a picture of her in cryosleep, a blue filter on the photo from the temperature. On the other side is a paper full of text, a picture of her from when she was 18 paperclipped to the bottom corner.

She unclips it, looking at the picture of herself. She was skinny, her hair was matted. Her clothes were ratty, she had a black eye, and her eyes were swollen and red from crying.

It was a week after Benny had died. She buried him in a ditch a few miles away from the alley she lived in. That week she had eaten close to nothing. She left her box behind the dumpster only to go to the bathroom or try to get money from men.

She puts the photo back, looking at the Russian text on the pages, the scattered handwritten notes.

Resists Treatments

Treatments Innefective

Seek Alternative Treatment

That's... something. She reads more of the file. Russian wasn't her strongest language, she was better at English, German, and French. Since her and Bucky moved to Romania, her Romanian had improved.

But Russian was one of the lowest on the list. Under Latin, even, which is a dead language. Nobody speaks it anymore. Yet, she can speak and read it better than Russian.

They tried to do it all to her. They tried a few times. She didn't listen well enough or care enough for it to work. Maybe her grief was too much, or she was in such bad condition that they found it impossible. It doesn't say.

They had been watching her before Benny died, waiting for the right opportunity.

They had pictures of her crouched down, helping Benny eat. Pictures of her holding his collar and curled up sobbing. Pictures of her picking through trash for money, coming back from men's apartments with brand new wounds.

Looking back at it now, it made her sick. Yes, just two years before she had been doing effectively the same thing, minus the wounds. But still, it made her sick. That she was so desperate for money to feed herself and Benny that she let men take advantage of her like that for money, only to be hit and thrown back to the streets.

When she turns the page, something falls out from the collection and into her lap.

She picks it up, squinting at it and rubbing dirt off of it.

B E N N Y

Her breath hitches and she turns it over, brushing the rest of the dirt off. It had her old address and her father's phone number. She puts the file down completely, just staring at the tag.

Diane feels her eyes start to sting and she closes her fist around the tag, looking out the window and taking deep, labored breaths.

She sees Bucky look at her through the corner of her eye and she looks at him, eyes her fist, and hands the old golden tag to Bucky.

He mouths, "You okay?" Diane nods, taking the tag when he hands it back to her.

"Can I keep this?"

Steve glances back at her before nodding, "It's your file. Anything in there is yours, now."

She nods, looking through the papers again. She continues reading, Benny's tag still held tightly in her hand. Multiple pages about what they had observed from afar, a few more on how the process of capturing her went. How she rejected all the brainwashing they attempted.

The only thing she had to live for then was gone. She was already emotionally unattached.

She closes the file, reaching to put in her bag when Bucky stops her. He takes the file, unclipping the photo of Diane.

"How long ago was this?"

"I was 18, so it was '63. So, 53 years, give or take."

"You looked..."

"Like shit. It was like 2 weeks after Benny."

He nods. She had told him all about Benny. About his personality, how even though he lived on the streets his coat was still shiny. How after he died, she blamed herself and starved herself. How she purposefully went to men's houses for the beatings.

He puts the picture back, handing her the closed file. She puts it in her backpack, keeping Benny's tag in her hand. She lets out a deep breath, leaning her head against the window.

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A/N -rip benny, you're very missed, and from now on, you'll be missed more <3