"No one is free; even the birds are chained to the sky."

-Bob Dylan

Barnes pulled against the restraints; Ophelia could see his muscles flexing against the bandages that covered his stomach and his shoulder. The last time she had gotten a look at the shoulder, it had been meaty and to Ophelia it was carnage; even with the new arm that took the doctors two days to properly attach, the shoulder was still a gory scene.

Groans of pain filled the room, and Ophelia looked away for a second. The blood had soaked through the gauze, and she would need to change them soon. After the orderly had locked her in with the American soldier she knew that she would be doing all the cleaning up, the feeding, the brainwashing. In return she would be given her dose of Rapture; the drug would consume her eventually, kill her, but she didn't care. However much she needed it, though, she had a strange feeling inside of her that told her going through with this plan to brainwash Barnes was a bad idea.

Forcing herself to look at Barnes again, she wondered what to call him; certain words would possibly trigger his past, and as the file suggested he had suffered only mild amnesia, she could not use trigger words. He had not been awake or coherent for long enough to know the full extent of the damage in his head, Ophelia had to be careful.

The pull of her need for the drug was always in the back of her mind, but somehow she had been able to push it to the far corners while she focused on the man stirring beside her. She decided to use his given name, as he usually went by Bucky by his close friends which meant it was the most prominent name he would identify with. Any reminder of Steven Rogers was off limits, she had been informed.

Ophelia took a calming deep breath and realized that she had never spoken to man who was not a guard or a target. Her voice nearly shuddered, but she held her ground. Her accented English rang through the room. "Your name is James. You suffered a terrible accident, but we have saved you."

"Accident?" He shut his eyes and loosened his pull against the restraints as he thought, probing the deepest recesses of his memory. He fidgeted for a minute, as if trying to figure out what had happened, where he could possibly be, why his body hurt in so many places. He looked disgruntled, tired and as if he had just stumbled out of the woods after being lost for a week. Sweat beaded upon his forehead as he strained a little harder. "I remember... a train."

"Yes, a freight train exploded, and you were launched from one of the cars," she said to him. "You fell down the mountain and nearly died."

"My arm... it hurts." There was confusion in his eyes. Those blue eyes looked so utterly lost.

"Your arm was damaged badly in the fall, I'm afraid there was no possible way to reattach, and further amputation followed. We have tried a prosthetic, though, and you will have full use of a functional arm in time," Ophelia said it smoothly; she had read the script. But it still felt wrong on her tongue; the arm they had given him was no simple prosthetic, and she didn't want to know what strength it had. What damage it could do to those who got in his way once he was... obedient.

He gritted his teeth and groaned in pain. Ophelia rose from her seat beside him and added a few drops of morphine to his system. Within minutes the pain would ease and he would be able to speak and think again. But more importantly, he would be able to listen to Ophelia again and hopefully, if she did her task well, believe her words. And if she did not succeed in her duties, she would not enjoy the consequences that followed. She was torn between the fear of what would come her way if she failed, and the lure of her drug. She had a desire to tell him everything, even though she knew she would be ripped from this room and probably shot if she did that; it was too soon to plead with James to cooperate for her well-being, for her sake. He had to believe that HYDRA was not the enemy, but even Ophelia knew that it was, and she knew nothing other than HYDRA. Twenty-two years living in this environment should have made her obedient without question, and yet there was always question in her mind.

"Where am I?" he asked through his gritted teeth; the morphine made the pain ebb, but the pain was so outstanding that it hardly did a thing on the grand scale.

"A military base underground," she said; she was not to tell him it was HYDRA yet, because it was a trigger word. She began to spew the utter lies she was forced to say. It was amazing how well the flowed off of her tongue when she thought about her drug. "We will take good care of you here, the doctors have already saved you from frost bite, hypothermia, blood loss, among other ailments and trauma."

"How can I trust you...? I feel..." He stopped and furrowed his brow. His mind was desperately trying to remember everything, he knew that he was lacking in information, and he knew it was somewhere in his mind. "I can't remember..."

"You suffered amnesia during the fall." It was partially true; the man had suffered a severe blow to the head and it was likely that he had lost some memories, but it was HYDRA that used his amnesia as a starting point and then washed his brain of all further memory. The deeper memories were harder to erase, and most mild amnesia was short term. HYDRA had done what it could to erase memories of the American Army, of Steven Rogers and of his roots.

Though, it would take more than chemicals and Ophelia's scripted words to truly change his allegiance, she had to try. She knew what it would take to convert James; severe electrical shocking. Somehow she was more worried about him facing that than her not getting Rapture. That realization sat with her, slowly burning inside of her.

She had seen it done before, the shocking. She'd had it done to her.

She did not want to see him suffer such fate.

The shocks they gave her allowed her to remember where she failed, and to understand how to do better the following time. It was only a matter of time before she would never had any flaws, but no matter how many years between shocks, she would always fear it. They never erased her memory, because she had no memories of a time before HYDRA owned her. From what she knew, she was here from infancy, raised to be their perfect hunter. They had called her that more than once before; the first time they had made her kill, she simply couldn't pull the trigger. They reminded her that no hunter did not take a life, and so it should have come naturally to her.

It never did.

"You didn't answer my question," James said through gritted teeth; the morphine was in his system, easing the worst of the pain, but not all of it.

She had to get back on track, she had no idea how much time she had with Barnes before they took him away. Ophelia sighed. "We saved your life, James. You are not in our debt, but we do expect that you stay with us until you are better. You cannot go into the world with no memories, no friends, and suffering broken and fractured ribs, and missing a limb."

"Then bring me to a hospital," he growled, pulling on the restraints again.

The gurney that he was on shifted on its wheels, one of them not locked in place, and a tray of bloody surgical tools clattered to the floor. The noise startled Ophelia, but not as much as James possibly breaking free did. Swiftly, in fear of having a HYDRA officer come punish her for taking too long with her task and for making a mess of things, she gathered everything up. Her hands were covered in Bucky's blood within seconds and she clutched the tools against her chest as she collected them. The scalpel used for more delicate slicing broke her flesh when she grabbed it and she winced in pain. James watched her with wide eyes, his writhing ceased as he began to realize that Ophelia was not here on her own will.

"Look at what you did!" Ophelia yelled without thinking.

James stared at her, confused. Ophelia blanched, all the colour drained from her cheeks, her green eyes and dark hair stood out even more now against her hollow cheeks. James asked, "What are you so afraid of?"

"Nothing," she lied, tossing the tools back on the tray and placing it on a table out of his range. She crouched down and locked the wheel of the gurney, and when she stood, she looked down at the cut on her palm. When she was wrapping it up with the gauze, she felt a James' eyes on her. She echoed her own words, "Nothing."

"Why am I prisoner here?" he asked, pulling at the restraints that held him down.

"You're not," she clarified, then changed the topic swiftly. "You must be hungry."

James said nothing, just studied her with his blue eyes.

Ophelia grabbed two of the pre-made trays and carried them over to James. She tried to speak as the guards spoke to her, with authority. But her words shook obviously. "I'm going to free your hands so you can eat. Try anything s-stupid and I will be feeding you, or you won't be eating at all."

"Alright." He sighed, his tone still resilient but revealing that he was no longer resisting to give her a break. He kept his gaze on Ophelia the entire time as she walked around, unbuckling the restraint on his right arm, and then again on his left. His hand flexed and he slowly stretched out the muscles in his arms. The metal arm was not active, he could not control it yet. However, he was able to sit up. Ophelia caught the wince on his expression as his ribs pained him. She made a mental note to change the bandage after he was done eating; already the thought of getting that close to him made her weary.

"Are you okay?" she asked; she was curious about the world, though she could not ask James about any of that.

She knew very little about the world outside of this base, even when she was on the field, she never knew exactly where she was. Location was not important, coordinates were; with her path-finding she could give exact coordinates, but she was not informed on the world itself. The only real human interaction she had was with HYDRA officials, and it was only to give her a mission or punish her. This was the first time she had a clean slate with someone, and she craved that. She could be anyone, but when she thought about that, she wasn't entirely sure she knew who she wanted to be.

"Yes," he answered weakly, lifting the plastic spork. He poked at the meal, and then dug in without anymore delay. The only thing that slowed him down was his wounds, but he downed the meal in seconds.

"You like this stuff?" Ophelia hated it, but she had to admit, the meal she was given today was different than the meals she was given in her cell. It was better tasting, fresher. They were trying to show James that he was not in prison, but he was not fooled.

"Army food is disgusting compared to this..." His eyes widened at his own words; something had been triggered in his memory. "Wait... I was in the army..."

Ophelia's heart fluttered in her chest; he wasn't allowed to remember his past or his affiliation with Captain America. "You may have been, but you cannot go back; look at your condition."

James stared at his food and then turned his head to the side to look at Ophelia. "You're a prisoner here, aren't you?"

"No." Her voice was not as stern and believable as she had hoped; it came out more like a whisper.

"Can you leave?"

He was diverting from her script, she was unsure of what to say. In the moment she was locked in a small room with James, locked in until the job was done. Or, until it was not completed and she was going to be dragged out and punished. Her voice was hardly audible this time, she worried HYDRA might hear her. "No..."

"Then we are prisoners."

"James, I am here to help you," she said, but his words stuck with her beyond measure. She had always been a prisoner here, and always would be. But HYDRA was the closest thing she had to family. Her eyes darted up to meet James's; they were sky blue. He had been friends with Steve Rogers, he had family, friends, people he trusted. Ophelia had none of that. Zola had been the closest thing to her family, but he was gone.

She was just a HYDRA puppet.

She was a prisoner.