WINTER SOLDIER

Bucky Barnes rescued the Black Widow from the sleeper agent who had kidnapped and reconditioned her, and by every ordinary measure he won. In Winter Soldier Vol. 1 #14 (2013), the closing chapter of Ed Brubaker's run, the victory curdled: S.H.I.E.L.D. specialists restored Natasha Romanoff's mind almost completely, except for one surgical absence — every memory she held of Bucky himself had been permanently deleted.

The architect was Leo Novokov, the third Soviet sleeper agent Bucky had trained during his own years as a brainwashed weapon. An earthquake had woken Leo twelve years early and left his mind damaged, and he fixed his blame on the teacher who had since defected. His campaign in Winter Soldier #6–14 worked through intermediaries, an exploding motorhome ambush and a captured Professor Rodchenko before it ever reached its real target, which was never Bucky's life.

Leo had already forced Bucky into an impossible bargain, uploading conditioning that sent the old Winter Soldier after Daredevil while Natasha's fate hung in the balance, and allies including Captain America and Hawkeye had to intervene. When the fighting finally ended at Arlington Cemetery and Leo was captured, the delayed cruelty surfaced: Natasha was herself again, lucid and whole, and the man standing in front of her was a stranger she had never loved, never trained beside and never mourned.