Lost Memories

Chapter 3

I feel warmer. I feel someone near me. I can hear them breathe. I hear them talking to someone. There is more than one person around me. I don't feel any restrains on me. It sounds like they are worried about my health. I open one of my eyes slightly and try to figure out where I am. The person next to me notices that I am awake but for some reason he just winks at me secretly and continues to talk to the others. I realize that this is the same person that was running towards me at the fortress. I start to listen what they are talking about.

"... I know, but we can't be sure if she is safe to have around. She could be one of them or...", says an older man but a woman's voice interrupts him. "We can't just leave her. She is hurt. You can see that they have tortured her in there. We need to take her somewhere safe."

"Maybe we should ask herself." The man next to me stops their argument and the whole place is silent. "You can open your eyes and sit up, if you feel strong enough.", he continues.

I open my eyes and sit up. I realize quickly that there is more than these three people around me. I stand up and look around. Who are these people and where am I? "Where are you taking me?", I ask from the man that was sitting next to me. He looks at me, notices that I am not standing strong and starts to get up but before he can get to me, someone behind me puts a hand on my back to keep me from falling. I realize I am in a plane, but not a normal airplane. It looks like an army plane, or something that I think an army airplane would look like from inside. I turn around. The man that was holding me up looks like he has been through hell. He stares straight into my eyes. He has dark green eyes that look sad and angry. He has long dark hair that frame his jawline that is hidden behind a black mask. I know he and everyone around me can see me looking at his body. His tall muscular body. And then suddenly I notice something. His arm. It is not flesh; it is metal! I look back to his eyes and I startle. I turn around. The man that was sitting next to me has now moved towards me. He looked like a complete opposite of the other man. Well, they were both muscular, stunning men, but this one had short light brown hair that was pushed back. Some threads of his hair were hanging on his forehead. He like many others in the plane looked like he had just been fighting someone. I can see that his lip was cracked a little bit and his right eyebrow looks like he just wiped some blood off it. He had strikingly blue eyes and he was smiling at me. "You might want to sit. It's going to be bumpy ride.", he told me while pointing at my seat. He then winks at me and continues, "My name is Steve. You are safe now."

I get back to the seat that I was just a moment ago lying on. They were all looking at me and I notice that these are not my clothes. I was barely wearing anything when I escaped and now, I could feel a warm sweater around my body. I had thick jeans on me and boots that made my toes feel incredibly toasty. I think Steve realized that I was thinking about who dressed me and he nodded toward the pilot seats.

"I am Natasha, but everyone calls me Nat. What's your name...", someone asked. "...and how did you end up there?", she continued. I realize it is the same woman that just moments ago was having my back in a conversation with someone else in the plane. Natasha stood up from her seat and I saw the man that was sitting next to her. He looked friendly. He was smiling at me. I opened my mouth to answer Nat's questions, but I didn't know what to tell them. To be honest I had no idea how I ended up there or how long I was there.

"I am Hailey. I don't know how or when I ended up in there. I don't even know where 'there' is." I could feel tears building up in my eyes.

"So, they were experimenting something. What and why?", asked the man that was little while ago throwing me under the bus. "By the way I am Tony, Tony Stark."

I was sitting quietly for some time, trying to put together the pieces. Steve told me that we were flying somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. For a while everything in my past seemed like the beige mush, that in the fortress they thought was food. While fiddling with a strand of my hair, I started to remember. I finally knew who I am and how I got to the place that will probably hunt me in my dreams for long time. I coughed and everyone turned to look at me. Without waiting for someone to ask me anything, I started to explain them everything that happened. "I don't still know how long I have been in there. But while I was in university, I was working in a biochemistry lab. We were trying to figure out how to grow food in extreme conditions like temperature and places. I wrote my thesis about it; 'Figuring out world hunger with chemically improved food supplies.' I think it was few years after I graduated that I got a call for a job interview. Apparently, I was headhunted because of my thesis. When I got to the interview, I met the doc and we started to talk. Someone that looked like his assistant, brought me some water, and I think he dosed it with something. I fell asleep and when I woke up, I was in that fortress, tied up and gagged. They forced me to do the research and once I found out what they were doing I refused to continue. I was put in one of their jail cells and used as a human experiment. There were others too. Other experiments."

I had to take a break. My headache was coming back, and I wasn't ready to explain to them about the flames that where surrounding my body last time I got a headache and was angry. I held my head with my arms and suddenly, a picture flashed in my eyes. "I remember! Red skull with tentacles.", said out loud without thinking about it. Everyone is now staring at me and in few seconds the silence was broken by the man that helped me stay up earlier.

"You were taken by Hydra. Trust me, you are lucky to be alive." The whole time he was speaking, he kept looking at the floor. He had taken away his mask and he was holding it in his hands. Then suddenly, he lifted his head up and looked at me. He walked up to me. Kneeled down in front of me, got really close to my face, and stared intensively into my eyes. I could see my own reflection from his deep dark eyes. In that reflection, I saw the flicker of flame in my eyes. I could feel his whole presence in front of me. Right then, for the first time in a long time, I felt like something inside of my body ignited. I think he also saw the flicker in my eyes. He slightly licked his lips, smirked and said, "I think she is safe. My name is James Barnes, but you can call me Bucky, doll."