Gold Rings ⚜️ Bucky Barnes X Reader

7: First Session

"Are you comfortable?"

"As much as I could be," Bucky shrugged. "So, how does this whole thing... Work? Like, do I just talk, or..."

"I like to start my sessions with an exercise." Okoye smiled, though her domineering stature made everything around her feel just as rigid. "Tell me your story."

Bucky scrunched his eyebrows.

"Your timeline. That timeline can start or stop or skip any point, but this just gives me a baseline. Plus, it can be therapeutic all on it's own."

Bucky nodded, though his concentrated stare nearly burned into the wall over Okoye's left shoulder.

"I guess I'd start at the start. Born March 10th, 1917 in Brooklyn. Most of my childhood is a blur, but I met Steve when we were in 5th grade. He and I got into some stupid shit as kids, like that one time we went to Rockaway Beach and spent all our train money on hot dogs and carnival games. We ended up having to hitch a ride home in the back of a freezer truck."

Bucky chuckled to himself. "Good times."

"Everything changed in 1941. We were in art class, Steve and I. Learned of the Attack on Pearl Harbor. Scared the shit out of me. We both felt that if they hit Hawaii now, they would hit New York next, which to be fair, was a bit self-centered of us. But considering at least half of the near world-ending events recently happened in New York, I don't think we were that far off.

"That's why, the next day, Steve and I skipped school to go to the US Recruiting and Induction Center. Steve wasn't accepted, I was. We trained at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin, where I got sniper training and eventually became a Sergeant."

"Sounds honorable."

"It was. I felt like a good guy, like I was doing the right thing. I eventually got shipped off to England. Let me tell you, I thought I was prepared for war? Hell no. None of us were. I remember telling Steve that war was more than a back-alley fight, but I don't think my own words clicked with me until I actually was on the front lines."

Bucky cleared his throat.

"That... the  troops at on the Italian Front. We were ambushed. The whole 107th Infantry was sent to work at a weapon facility in... Austria, I think? It's been so long. That was when I first realized we were fighting more than just the Nazis, though it took much longer to learn they were HYRDA."

Okoye nodded, jotting things down on her notepad. She glanced up to cue Bucky to continue telling his story, but his entire demeanor had changed. His jaw slightly open as if to say something, but all the rest of his joints were locked up. It was as if his own throat was working against him to stop from speaking.

"You can skip parts if you're uncomfortable'" Okoye reminded him.

Bucky simply nodded. After a deep breath, it seemed like the rest of his body returned to normal.

"The whole... Brainwashing thing. That's a story of its own." Bucky chuckled,  humor coating his tone. "I was freed by Steve the first time, but you know they always get their man somehow. Fell from a train, lost an arm, you know all that stuff."

"What about after the helicarriers were destroyed?"

Bucky's mind gears jammed up.

"... Project Insight?"

"Right! Yes, sorry. It's just - jeez, it's been so long... It feels like the last few decades have been years, and the last few years are decades." Bucky chucked. "You'd expect me to understand how this whole time thing works since I lived it, but cryofreezers really mess with your sense of time."