James has told me many secrets, but the most important one he told me was that I'm a person.
I never knew how bad it really was, for us in Hydra, until he told me all the stories of the world he remembered outside of these walls. Whenever we are in the cell, during meals or just when we are lying down and trying to recover, James always tells us so many beautiful stories. Sometimes he says the same story more than once because it makes him sad as he remembers, but his words pull at my heart as I wish to have the same memories that he did.
I think James quickly realized that I don't know anything outside of Hydra and I think that made him really sad. He describes every little detail in the stories, from how the people looked to even how the sun felt that day and the length of the grass.
I have seen a few things, like the sun and the grass and people, when I am sent on missions. But, during that time, I never got to take a second to think about how I feel when the sun touches my pale skin and how soft the luscious green grass is at the time.
One day, he tells me, we will get out of here and I will show you everything in the world.
That was another one of our secrets.
Right now we were just eating breakfast, the small amount of slop that they give us that barely meets our metabolic needs. They tend to give us things that are just under so that we always have a perpetual sense of hunger and pain and are always just too weak to fight back.
Bucky continues telling his stories as we eat breakfast. He talks about the food he remembers eating before. Bread that was golden in color. Meats that were brown in color. Tomatoes that were red in color. He remembers foods with so much color and taste. I don't remember anything beside the gray food they throw onto a tray for us to eat. The stories he says somehow makes this food taste even better as I imagine myself eating the thing he calls a sandwich and burger.
I am so captivated by the stories that he says. I barely talk in the cell, I tend to act very shy and reserved, and I usually just listen to his stories. But his words make my eyes go wide in wonder and fill up a hole I never knew I had in the middle of my chest.
He calls me Little Spider and his words warm my heart. I have a name now. The guards call me Spider in a cruel and harsh way that makes me flinch and cower into submission. But he says it so gently and kindly that I lean into his soft touch and rest my face into his open palm.
No one has ever been nice to me, for as long as I could remember. And, for James, I don't think anyone has been nice to him since his time trapped in Hydra. He had a life before it – friends and family – but that had all been taken away and he was left to suffer in pain for his remaining years. I had nothing outside of Hydra. All I knew were these walls and there was never any kindness.
[Except Ben]
But James was nice.
My first friend.
Our friendship was hidden from the rest of Hydra, though. We couldn't afford for them to know that we are loyal to each other. That we love each other like brothers.
Not even like brothers, actually. I love James like a father I never had.
But because Hydra cannot ever know of our friendship, we act still and silent whenever we are beside each other. They still take us to fight and train each other. James trains me every day and we fight every fourth day to test my skills.
I still pathetically lose each day. But, hey! That's not my fault! How can they expect me to learn and master an entire new martial arts sector in four days!
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Not Anymore
FanfictionS-20 has only ever known one thing, Hydra, until one man came into his life and showed him that there was so much more. That man was his first friend. His older brother. But after one night, the two were ripped apart and S-20 cannot even remember hi...
