Project: TESLA || [The Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes ★ Fanfiction]

Land of Confusion

There's too many men, too many people
Making too many problems
And there's not much love to go around
Can't you see this is the land of confusion?

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we're given
Use them and let's start trying
To make it a place worth living in

-Genesis

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Tessa sat in her room, a blanket pulled around her slender frame. She was sitting with her back against the headboard and was staring at the bare wall directly across from her. Now fifteen, she had no idea what the life of someone her age should have. She had lived in Siberia and learned to harness what had mutated within her. Unlike others, she was treated better. She wasn't locked away in a frozen hell. Her brain wasn't scrambled up like the others. She was Alexander Pierce's only child; he wasn't going to let her be treated like anyone else in this place.

Over the last two years, she had been training, both in her mutant abilities as well as combat. When it came to hand-to-hand fighting, she was getting better, but she had a good trainer. When he wasn't out on a mission, in stasis or training the girls of the Red Room, The Winter Soldier was her teacher. As a bonus, he had longer time between his sessions in the chair, and that was preferable for Tessa. He was always on task, but he was softer toward her after the fact when he had some of his own personality peeking through.

Drawing her knees to her chest and letting her head rest upon them, Tess looked around her small room and offered a sigh into the silence of the place. She was bored and ready for the Soldier to return from Belarus and the Red Room. He'd been gone almost a month this time. Considering he was really her only friend, Tessa missed him a great deal.

There was a soft rap at the door followed by someone turning the knob and opening the door a crack. Tessa immediately looked up and swiveled that icy blue gaze toward who was visiting. A smile briskly spread over her lips.

"Dad," she said with an edge of excitement. It wasn't often that he got to visit these days, but they wrote to each other often. The blanket was abandoned as she got up, socked feet hurrying her into the embrace of her father's arms.

"Button," Pierce smiled and enveloped her in his grasp, one set of fingers curling softly into her fine, blonde hair. "I have missed you."

"I missed you too," she responded and pulled back enough to look up at the kind face of her father. "I wasn't expecting you until next week."

"There was a hiccup I needed to handle in Belarus."

Immediately, her face went somber. Her gaze searched her father's eyes. "Is the Asset alright?" She hated that name, truly, but there was too much emotion there for her to think it would go unnoticed by her father had she called her friend anything but that name.

Something ticked in Alexander's jaw before he gave his daughter a small smile. "He will be soon." And he left it at that.

Her brows knotted together in the center, and her head canted to the right a small bit. "What happened?"

Pierce sighed softly and knew that Tessa wasn't going to leave well enough alone. "He stepped out of line with one of the women."

Right about there was where Tess stopped listening and wished she hadn't asked. That kind of intimacy with anyone hadn't even been a thought in her head yet. A hand was raised to let her father know he didn't have to go on.

"Does he really have to get wiped?" There was only one punishment, really, that would be bestowed on the Soldier. It was always either being wiped to a clean slate by the chair or being put into cryostasis, sometimes in combination. If she could only pick one of the two, it would be just the chair, though.