Collection of One-Shots

》therapy

They had told her to use caution, to keep distance between them, to not force any memories to surface until he was ready. They had told her that he was dangerous, that he was a murderer; that he was to be trialed with a military tribunal, that he was an enemy of the state. They had told her many things about him, all of which she found to be mostly false. There was no denying that he could be dangerous, that there was always a certain and unspoken threat in his presence but he had not harmed her not had he ever showed any intentions of doing so.

Like all her patients, at first he was reluctant. Reluctant to talk. Reluctant to accept her advice. Reluctant to take the medication that would help him sleep better and keep the nightmares at bay. For the first month when the time came for the sessions he would be pushed into the room and the cuffs on his wrist would be undone, the door would quickly shut and be secured with a definite sound of a series of locks sliding into place. For the first month he simply sat in the chair and stared pensively at her, not saying a word and like she was commanded she forced nothing from him, but only goaded him with the basic questions that were printed out on the sheet of paper and stuck underneath the metal clip of her notebook.

Most of the second month passed the same way until one day when she asked the first question, he responded with his name. Granted she already knew it and had never asked it. He spoke slowly, as if trying to convince himself that was, in fact, his name. "James. Buchanan. Barnes." He had repeated his name three times over, each time the pursed frown on his lips grew deeper until he stopped speaking all together. Thinking that progress could be made she repeated the first question and against he responded with his name followed by a series of numbers. "32557038."

It wasn't the progress she needed, it wasn't what her superiors would want to hear but for the moment it would do. The next day she brought in a file, not on the Winter Soldier, but on James Buchanan Barnes. When the guards pushed him into the room and locked the door there was a different look in his eyes. One of resentment, but it wasn't directed at her or even the guards.

"Bucky?" He looked in her direction at the sound of his name, or what he thought was his name. "We're going to try something different today. I'm going to help you get back to Bucky." She smiled and like him this was all new territory. She was just a therapist and with this case it seemed she had bit off a lot more than she could chew.

"Bucky's dead." His voice was level and his eyes were cold, he truly believed that the person he was before the Winter Soldier was dead, erased, he was nothing but a shell of a person made for following orders.

"Well I don't believe that." The progress that had been made since that day was astounding, within her room he was a new man, or one that had remembered. There were still things that he couldn't think of, things that were lost to them and as they weren't in his file she was of no help in that department but eventually they would send in Captain Rogers.

A year had passed since these sessions started, he took the medicine; he took her advice and during one session answered all her questions, sometimes fumbling over words or speaking half a sentence in Russian but it was clear he was almost back to Bucky. The guards weren't necessary anymore, he came to the room without a fight or resistance, the door no longer had to be locked either.

He was allowed freedom to move about the compound so long as he was supervised, and though they did not necessarily like that most of the time it was just her, with meager combat skills and slower reflexes, they could not stop her. After a particularly hard day the next she pulled Bucky to an empty meeting room and drug out two chairs that would provide mediocre comfort. A pile of movies were stacked next to the projector and when there was a knock on the door it was popcorn and drinks that were being delivered.