Never in a Million Years |N.R|

|23| I wish I could forget.

Thankfully, this time after showering I could change into fresh clothes instead of my dirty and ripped ones. Maria had picked up an extra set of her tactical gear. It wasn't quite my suit that Tony had made for me, but it was something. At least it let me move a little easier.

Natasha had been very nonchalant about my opening up to her, which was a great contrast to how I was feeling. I kept eyeing her from the side, expecting her to be staring at me confusedly or even disappointedly. But no. Every time I saw her she seemed relaxed, or as relaxed as the Black Widow could possibly be, and if she caught me looking she'd just offer a small smile. One of reassurance it seemed. But I still couldn't believe that my show of vulnerability hadn't changed her outlook on me, her opinion of my reliability and skills as an agent and fighter. I felt weak in her eyes, disappointing, despite the deep green of them showing nothing of the sort.

My mind was strong, especially when planting seeds of doubt in anything good I had or felt. It was both my biggest downfall and greatest strength, all dependent on whether it chose to twist the truth or leave it be.

At one point, everybody was sitting in silence as they either looked over their wounds from our recent fight or checked their weapons, and it all became too much. The quiet only encouraging my racing thoughts to grow louder, so I excused myself and rushed for the exit. My lungs were practically burning, my chest tight as I struggled to suck in any air. It felt like when I had my nightmares, except this time there seemed to have been no trigger at all, it was simply just my body's reaction to the goings on around me.

When I burst through the door I sucked in the fresh air, savouring its coolness. But my mind was still reeling so I let my feet wander, eventually ending up on the wall of the dam overlooking the green of the forest around it. If only I could've just stayed there, pressed pause on the world, even if only for five minutes to allow my mind and body to relax. But I would never be so lucky. Because not long after taming my breathing I heard two voices approaching, Sam and Steve.

In a panic I rushed a little further down the wall and crouched around a corner, just hoping that they wouldn't walk too far along. To my relief they stopped just about where I'd been stood, well within earshot. And what followed had me wondering whether that was a good thing.

"He's gonna be there you know." It was Sam, and I was almost certain that he was talking about Bucky. I'd tried not to think about him too much, frankly it was too painful seeing him like I had. That emptiness behind his eyes that used to be filled with such warmth.

"I know" Steve's voice was flat, as it had been ever since our fight. Since Bucky had failed to recognise him, much like he had me. Not that anybody had seemed to care much about how I knew Bucky, or what effect our run in with him had had on me. Not that I'd expected anyone too, but for the first time I actually felt disappointment at people not prying.

"Look, whoever he used to be and the guy he is now, I don't think he's the kind you save. He's the kind you stop." As much as Sam was speaking sense, his words stung, for more than one reason. Most of all, because Bucky was my friend, whether there was any of the him I knew left, and all I wanted to do was help him. He'd saved me more times than I could count, and so I was well and truly indebted to him. But also I was rescued from HYDRA, much to many peoples dismay, but I'd been given a chance. So how could he be so quick to make such a cut throat decision when Bucky and I were much and the same in terms of our history with HYDRA?

Maybe Steve had gotten to him. Filled Sam's head with all of those things he made me think about myself, convinced him that I was a lost cause and deserving of extreme punishment because I came from HYDRA. If that was the case, Sam's opinion made sense.

"I don't know if I can do that." But if Steve could think and feel all of those things about me simply because I came from HYDRA, why did he seem so accepting of Bucky? He'd take the first opportunity to put me down, but here he was pleading Bucky's case.