“Would’ya look at that?” Bucky said, looking out over the sea of people dancing in the auditorium just below them, he and Steve standing over the skylight in the ceiling, watching everyone have a good time.

"Why did we have to sneak in this way again?” Steve asked, giving his best friend a slim raised brow.

“‘Cause, pal, it’s more fun this way. No one ever got remembered sneakin’ into a dance through the back door.”

Steve sighed, Bucky had a point, but they had already gotten in trouble once today, which was why they were kicked out from attending the dance at all.

“Trust me, Steve.”

Back from his first mission, The Soldier was escorted in, flanked by his nine armed guards, bound in cuffs, weapons removed. Boots clanked down the hall, behind him, beside him as they rounded the corner into the prep room. They stopped upon reaching it, the front guard saluting.

“Bring him in,” someone commanded in Russian, and the soldier was sat down in the chair, uncuffed and re-cuffed into it.

“Good, soldier, good. This will be your homecoming from now on. Do you like it?”

Electrodes were attached to his head, just as they had done many times before, during ‘therapy’ sessions. He looked up, and saw a glass dome, arched like a skylight. 

Homecoming. Homecoming.  The soldier started to panic, he knew the pain, but something about the skylight over him woke something in him for a brief moment. Thatsomething knew this wasn’t normal, this wasn’t okay . This wasn’t what homecoming meant. It couldn’t be a permanent fixture in whatever life he lead here. It couldn’t-

He began to thrash, and some of the metal on the cuffs around his wrists began to bend with the way The Soldier fought them. Every gun in the room was pointed at him, trained on the thrashing monster they’d made as he shouted wordlessly in a rage.

“Sputnik!” the lead technician said, breathless with urgency.

The soldier’s mind went blank, and he sagged back in the chair.

“Wipe him.”