When You Were Never Mine: Part 3

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

"So, Mr. Barnes, are you still having nightmares?"

"James, I asked you a question. Are you still having nightmares?"

"No."

"We've been doing this long enough that I can tell when you're lying. You seem a little off today, did something happen recently?" the doctor pressed further. "Is it (Y/N)? Did you connect?"

"No," Bucky replied flatly, a slight wince in his expression at the sound of your name, still staring straight ahead and avoiding Dr. Raynor's gaze. He couldn't let her see through him, to see the truth that he had been trying almost non-stop since you had walked away, leaving him in the excruciating pain of your disconnect that hadn't abated in nearly six months now. All that his memory would offer him of you was the emotionless look in your eyes as his last sight of you, before you turned away and never even considered looking back. When he had never felt like less and had never needed you more.

"Have you been trying?"

With that, Bucky went silent again, knowing full well that it did nothing but frustrate his therapist, but he didn't care all that much. He wasn't here by choice. This was ordered and put on him as a condition of making sure that he could walk the streets a free man; a free man but trapped in his own personal prison. A free man to wander alone, refusing to let anyone in when the one person he would even consider accepting had so readily cast him aside at the worst time of your life and not exactly his best, either.

Raynor continued to watch him, her own agitation growing with his lack of engagement in their appointment. She knew the one way to get him to say something, so she grabbed her notebook forcefully, staring the man down in challenge.

"Oh, come on, really?" he groaned. "You're gonna do the notebook thing? Why? It's passive aggressive."

"You don't talk, I write."

"Okay," Bucky relented, "fine, I'll talk. No...I haven't been trying to connect to her, but I have tried to call a few times just to see that she's okay. Just a friend checking up on a friend, that's all."

"Is she still your friend?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"She definitely didn't treat you like a friend when she all but ripped your heart out and walked away even as you begged her not to," Raynor challenged. "Does that sound friendly to you? Where was she when Steve left? Does she even know?"

"You know, you're a cynic doc," Bucky smirked, though sarcastic in his tone, "of course she knows. I hear that she stays in touch with Sam."

The doctor nodded and reached out, still having a hard time believing anything he offered, "give me your phone." Once it was in her hands, she opened it and began to search for something that might give her a truthful answer when she couldn't tell anymore from what his voice carried. "You've been ignoring texts from Sam, so how do you know that they've been in touch?"

"I can still read them even if I don't answer. Pretty sure he's doing it just to torture me," he scoffed, shifting in his seat to put his phone back once he got her to return it. "You can't blame me for not running out there like I'm eager to grab a beer with the guy."

"Ever consider that maybe he actually cares?"

Bucky paused and gave it a few seconds of thought, running the years of knowing Sam through his mind, replaying the good and the bad and the simply downright annoying. There were a few times when he might have bought into the idea, but they hadn't seen each other since Tony's funeral, and those few moments had faded away to a memory that barely rang true anymore.