Honesty ♧ Bucky Barnes

Return Of The King (im so sorry im a lotr nerd)

I'm BACK an d W r ITinG !

HOPE YOU LIKE THIS CHAPTER

"And that's how the liver works,"

Erin concluded her PowerPoint, complete with poor quality animations and rainbow WordArt. Anything to try to make the hepatic system stick in the heads of her seventy-three undergraduate Biochemistry students.

"Any questions?" She wasn't surprised when no hands shot up. It was half past four on a Friday and the sweltering heat was exacerbated by the lack of windows in her stuffy lecture theatre. She glanced upwards from her desk at the sea of bored sweaty faces in front of her. The lesson wasn't supposed to finish for another thirty minutes, but she decided to let them go home anyway. There wasn't much else she could teach them in a room that felt like a sauna.

"Alright. Get out." She joked. There was a small murmur of a chuckle from the students as they packed away their laptops and notepapers into their bags, their minds already on the night ahead of them instead of the two-hour lecture behind them.

"And have a good Friday," Erin continued, switching off her own computer and unplugging it from the ancient projector that hung unceremoniously from the ceiling, "Try not to drink too much alcohol. Which the liver turns to...?"

"Ethanal." The resounding answer came. Well, at least they had remembered something.

"Which is then converted to...?"

"Ethanoic acid." A few more people spoke this time, beginning to wake up as they started to file one by one out of the lecture theatre.

"I'll make scientists out of you guys yet." Erin muttered to herself as they walked out, some saying a cheery, 'Bye!' to her, others leaving in silence until the room was completely empty. She packed all her equipment into her black rucksack and tied her hair up behind her head in a high ponytail, pulling a few strands out to frame her face before setting off.

She knocked the lights off with her elbow and pushed the door open, sighing as she stepped into the slightly more air-conditioned corridor. She's been in that stuffy room all day. It was nice to finally feel like she could breathe again.

It had been three months since the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Three months since she had found herself without a job.

Luckily for her, Bruce Banner knew a guy from the physics department at American University Washington and he had pulled a few strings and hooked her up with a teaching job. The hours were long and hard and it was a thankless job, but the pay was decent. She didn't have as much freedom as she had with S.H.I.E.L.D, however. There was no way that the University would approve her continuation of the MFCTS project. Not only would it cost money that they couldn't afford to lose, but they would deem forcing a human being to tell the truth regardless of the circumstances 'immoral'.

Erin guessed that they had a point but it didn't stop her annoyance at her greatest project being stopped before she really had a chance to start it.

The corridors were mainly empty as she walked down them, bag on her back. A low voice calling her name as she passed the University reception caused her to look back in curiosity. A tall man in a tight-fitted white shirt tucked into smart black trousers jogged down the hallway trying to catch up with her. His dark brown hair was styled in a just-got-out-of-bed look that had probably taken hours to perfect. She smiled, recognising him as one of the teachers in the Medical department. He wasn't unattractive, she noticed. He'd let his facial hair grow out into a small patch of stubble along his jawline and she had to admit that it suited him.

"Daveed, hi!"

The man finally caught up to her, hardly out of breath. He placed his hands on his hips and gave her a beaming smile.