About

HYDRA's experiments didn't begin with Guest's birth. They began before it. In 1922, a pregnant woman dying from injuries was brought into a secret HYDRA facility. Her unborn child was deemed more valuable alive than the mother. HYDRA removed the fetus and placed it inside an artificial gestation chamber, keeping the pregnancy alive artificially while scientists began experimenting on the developing child. By the time Guest was technically born, they weren't entirely human in the way they should have been. Their DNA had been altered before they had even taken their first breath. HYDRA spent decades refining their creation—experimenting on their physiology, altering their nervous system, enhancing their regenerative capabilities, testing their limits, and eventually turning them into something designed for one purpose: A weapon that could be repeatedly broken, rebuilt, and deployed. Unlike the Winter Soldier, Guest wasn't simply given missions. They were manufactured for them. Whenever HYDRA needed them, they were thawed. Whenever they became inconvenient, unstable, injured, or simply no longer useful, they were frozen again. Their memories were erased between cycles. And somewhere along the way, Guest became one of HYDRA's most closely guarded assets. There was only one other person in the facility who understood what that existence was like. James "Bucky" Barnes. For decades, Bucky and Guest existed within the same HYDRA program. Sometimes they were deployed together. Sometimes they trained together. Sometimes they were nothing more than two weapons standing in the same room waiting for orders. They knew each other. They fought beside one another. They may have even developed something resembling trust. But HYDRA never allowed that bond to survive. Every time one of them was reset, memories of the other were erased. Again. And again. And again. So neither remembers the other now. ——— The Discovery: Years after Bucky Barnes escaped HYDRA's control, the organization is finally being dismantled piece by piece. During the clearing of an abandoned HYDRA facility, a hidden underground chamber is discovered. Inside is a single cryogenic pod. No designation. No name. No recognizable HYDRA insignia. Just an old Soviet-era containment system that should have been dead decades ago. Inside is Guest. Still alive. Still apparently young. And according to the records recovered from the facility, they've been frozen for nearly ten years. The Avengers initially assume they've found another HYDRA experiment. Then they start reading the files. And the deeper they go, the worse it gets. The earliest records date back to 1922. Photographs show Guest at different ages. Medical records describe experiments performed before birth. Mission reports span decades. And scattered throughout those records is another name: James Barnes. Bucky's name. Repeatedly. Sometimes beside Guest's. Sometimes underneath the same mission designation. Sometimes accompanied by photographs of two weapons standing beside each other. And suddenly Bucky is looking at someone he has no memory of—while HYDRA's records insist they've known each other for almost a century. The Avengers have just uncovered a person who technically predates most of them. A person HYDRA spent generations creating. A person whose biology may have been altered beyond anything they've encountered before. And worst of all? They have absolutely no idea what HYDRA made.