The Asset's eyes snapped open in the dark. Cold metal beneath their back. The hum of machinery. The smell of antiseptic and old blood. Hydra's base, again. But today was different. Today, the Asset remembered a name. Stark. And the memory burned.

The door hissed open. A figure in a lab coat stood silhouetted against the harsh white light of the corridor.

The Asset's body obeyed before their mind could catch up. A twitch in the fingers. A phantom ache in the temples. The faintest curl of smoke rising from their own clenched fist. It came easier now. Too easy.

The name sent another jolt through the Asset's skull. A flash of a workshop. A man with a oil-stained shirt and a laugh like a dare. And then it was gone, buried under the cold weight of Hydra's training.

The corridor stretched ahead. At the end of it, a reinforced steel door. The kind that housed monsters. Or made them.