Starting Anew

Darkness, boundless and infinite, stretching like a vast black ocean. He struggled to open his eyes, but only felt unseen currents rolling past his body. An immense gravity pulled from directly below, yanking at his ankles as if to drag him into an endless abyss.

White light flashed by from time to time, snatching away fleeting images like a slideshow flipping pages at double speed. Those were fragments of memory, long buried, fragments even their owner had believed to be completely forgotten, yet now somehow reawakened after so many years.

The shattered images surged in like a dam breaking. He saw a handsome, tall young man in a crisp military uniform, his face full of righteousness, vowing to do his small part for his country in the coming war. Then he saw that boy fall from a train speeding through the mountains, his best friend shouting his name from the rooftop, the sound quickly swallowed by the biting wind.

What came after grew blurry, but he was certain he had survived. In broken memory fragments, he was found, dragged for miles through the snow. He was taken somewhere, strengthened and remade. They emptied his mind, like formatting a hard drive. Then they instilled new beliefs, new content, told him who to serve.

Hydra.

For the past century, he had been frozen as their ultimate weapon, the cold preserving his cells, halting his aging, only thawed when a mission required him. He was like a sharp scalpel, cutting away anyone who stood in the way of Hydra's growth and interests. For a century, he had cleared countless obstacles for Hydra, eliminated countless key targets, never failing.

Until today.

A stabbing pain traveled along nerve fibers into the brain's central hub, jolting his mind like an electric shock. The memories once lost suddenly awakened under the intense stimulus, a flood of information pouring back into his mind.

A human brain is like a hard drive—its stored data can be deleted, formatted, but never so easily wiped clean. Hydra hadn't completely erased his personality and memories; they had just sealed them deep in his subconscious. Now, guided by some external force, those memories were resurfacing.

He remembered.

His name was Bucky Barnes.

He was a member of the Howling Commandos, Captain America's best friend.

The flashback ended. Bucky opened his eyes, his body springing up on instinct.

He began to warily survey his surroundings. White floor tiles, clean walls, surrounded by various high-precision instruments running automatically without any operator. On the other side of the room, not far away, lay a plush white carpet, a bookshelf with an eerie aura, and a collection of mysterious ancient artifacts that looked like a collector's prized possessions.

Half a minute later, a young man entered the room. He looked about twenty, casually wearing a T-shirt, his hair neatly combed, hands naturally in his pockets, his expression calm and composed.

"Did you sleep well, Sergeant Barnes?" Michael asked.

Bucky frowned. "You know my name?"

"Of course I do. In fact, it was with my help that you just recalled it yourself."

Bucky suddenly remembered something. "My brainwashing."

"Lifted." Michael walked over to the coffee machine on the left table, pulled a mug from somewhere, and poured himself a cup. "Honestly, it wasn't as hard as I expected. After all these years, Hydra's brainwashing methods are still so... direct and crude. Bury your memories and thoughts, then violently cram in new content, repeating the process regularly to ensure the effect doesn't fade over time."

He paused, not hiding his contempt. "No technical finesse, and easy to break."

He held up the mug toward the super-soldier in the room. "Want some coffee?"

Bucky shook his head.

"Why did you do this?" he asked, puzzled. "Do you expect me to work for you?"

"I can't say the thought never crossed my mind. But if that were really my motive, I wouldn't have gone to all this trouble to lift your brainwashing and restore your personality. You were already under my Hypnotic Spell—I had no less than a hundred ways to implant new thoughts and turn you into my puppet." Michael said flatly. "But I didn't, because you deserved better, Sergeant Barnes."

He set down his mug, pulled up a chair, and sat down in front of Bucky.

"I think you might remember how many people you killed for Hydra over the past century," he said. "Being forced into a completely different personality, having no choice but to fight for your former enemies, attack the country you once swore to defend... I can't pretend to understand how that feels, because honestly, I've never been through anything like it."

Sergeant Barnes pressed his lips together and said nothing.

"I know you hate them," Michael continued. "And you've probably already figured out that I have a bit of a score to settle with Hydra. We're at war now, and I'm cutting off their heads one by one."

He leaned forward slightly.

"Alexander Pierce is dead, but Hydra has other leaders," he said. "I'll wipe them all out, root and branch. You've already seen what I can do—you know I'm capable of it. And before that, I'm offering you a chance, a job, and an opportunity to join me and take your revenge. So the question is—are you in?"

Bucky Barnes met his gaze for a moment.

"If I say no," he said, "what would you do?"

Michael leaned back in his chair.

"Then I'd have to say I'm sorry," he said with a shrug. "But I'd let you go and continue the work myself. Of course, I'd have to erase this memory, make sure you don't remember this conversation at all. But beyond that, you'd be completely free. You could take on a new identity, start a completely different life, no more killing, no more being controlled—if that's what you want."

Sergeant Barnes narrowed his eyes, studying him cautiously, as if trying to read the truth in the young man's eyes.

As Hydra's most relentlessly trained killer, the Winter Soldier had also received specialized training in detecting lies. He could precisely catch every subtle micro-expression on a person's face, judge from tone, gaze, and slight body language whether someone was lying.

And every detail he caught sent back the same message—this young man was telling the absolute truth.

"You should know, I'm not Hydra. I don't force people to do things," Michael said. "So, Sergeant Barnes, what do you think?"

Bucky closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, the confusion was gone, replaced by a renewed sense of direction.

He asked, "When do we start?"