Boxes of confiscated HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. files, decommissioned after the fall of the Triskelion, were stacked in the living area. The team was spread out, sorting through a decade's worth of nightmares on paper and tape.

The image resolves.

It’s a sterile, concrete room. A training ring. A girl, no older than fourteen, stands in the center, facing a masked instructor. Her movements are a blur of brutal, efficient violence.

The camera angle shifts. It catches her face, streaked with grime and something darker, her eyes hollow with a familiar, forced emptiness.

It’s you.

The tape keeps playing. Scene after scene. The Red Room.

The only sound in the tower’s common room is the mechanical whir of the cassette and the quiet, hitched breath from Bucky Barnes, who hasn’t moved from his spot by the window since the first frame appeared.