Day 2, 6:47
Bucky didn't so much awake as he regained consciousness. Several times he drifted in and out of sleep, and when his eyes finally were able to fixate on the dead lights above him, it took several more minutes until his mind caught up with his body.
Immediately the training Hydra had installed kicked in. He didn't move while his mind scrambled to regain as much information as it could. But instead of numbness or dread, he felt surprised. For one, he was lying on the floor, and could not remember how he had gotten there. That was the next thing. He remembered the day before, the doctor, him chasing her off. Then it became somewhat fuzzy. All he could remember was pain. But then, how could he not remember? He doubted he had passed out, not from the pain at least.
Confused he sat up. His body responded smoothly, like a well-oiled machine. Confused he scanned his limbs. They felt better than they had yesterday, obeyed his will in an instance, without complaint. What had happened that his body would feel different?
Only now did he notice the figure that rested scrambled together at the wall he had slept next to. The doctor. Panic surged through him. He knew that pose. Lifeless.
With a swiftness inhuman he shifted so that he was facing her. Afraid to touch her lifeless form he scanned her, looking for the injuries he had inflicted, trying to decipher how he had killed her. He found none. He inspected her more closely and found her chest moving. She was alive! Relief flooded him, and he brushed his hair out of his face to hide it from the swats and the cameras.
Bucky wondered why she was in here. The first reaction that came to him was hostility, but for some reason, he felt like she was no threat anymore, at least not now. He couldn't remember how she had gotten here, which worried him, but she was no enemy.
Her head rested on her arms which held her knees together. He brushed away the copper curls that shielded her face from his view and looked at her. He had tried not to look at her before, trying to seem as inhuman as possible, shielding himself from whatever she and her words might do to him, but now that she was helpless, vulnerable, he dared look at her. The first thing he noticed were the dark circles under her eyes. She was clearly not used to lack of sleep like he was, the effects showing immediately. He noted her exhausted expression. He knew it well, it was one he had learned to hide. Hydra did not care for exhausted soldiers. But they had no need for them either. He wondered how long she had stayed awake.
Well, it was no use if she slept there. Apparently, the swats did not care if she was in here, or they would have had plenty of time to tranquilize him and remove her. He shifted fluently to a stand, still amazed at how easily the movements came to him. Not that it had been hard before, but there seemed to have been a resistance he was only aware of now that it was gone. But he would worry about that later, maybe the doctor could even help him. For now, he tried to pry her arms from her knees as gently as possible. As her posture came apart, he picked her up and placed her on the bed. He wondered whether to put the covers over her, but let it be. The cell was warm.
He turned to find a position that would allow for comfortable sitting without staring at her. He chose the table and crossed his legs on top of it, leaning against the wall. He fixed his gaze on the green panel of the metal door that locked him in, staring at the overlapping thumbprints from across the room.
Dolores awoke from being cold. She wasn't freezing or shivering, but just not comfortable enough to sleep. She wasn't really surprised when she found herself in James' bed, she hadn't really believed that she could make it through the night awake. She was however intrigued by the peaceful look on his face. He was facing the door, sitting crosslegged on the table where she had sat yesterday. His face was relaxed and this was probably the most relaxed she had ever seen him. She was glad he found a way to relax himself like that and she almost didn't want to alert him of her waking, just to not disturb him, but she had invaded his privacy for long enough. She let out a quiet yawn, not wanting to startle him with loud noises. His eyes flew open and his body tensed just the slightest bit. Dolores pushed herself to a sitting position and got up.
"I am very sorry for stealing your bed. If you want, we can drop our morning session, or move it a few hours. Though there are some things I want to talk about with you." James didn't react, not that she had expected him to, but he answered as she turned to leave.
"It's okay, you don't have to move it." Dolores turned and nodded, a smile on her lips before she pressed her thumb to the pad to open the door.
"I'll just head home quickly, change and get some stuff. I'll make breakfast when I'm back."
...
Dolores sighed at the familiarity of her apartment, but didn't allow herself to dwell on it. She'd have to get stuff together for breakfast and there were also some other things she wanted to bring. James might have tried to give her as little as possible, but she had learned at least one thing. He didn't like being watched. It made him uncomfortable, knowing eyes on him. Which made complete sense, considering the conditions Hydra must have kept him. The Winter Soldier had been a tool, reactions were not required or wanted. It made sense that he was more likely to respond when she wasn't staring at him. So she packed some things to busy herself with. Her watercolors, brushes and some watercolor paper, obviously, but also the travel catalog she had been brooding over, and the book Steve had signed, some wrapping paper and some other things. She also took a few extra pens, pencils, erasers and paper for good measure.
Dolores quickly showered and braided her wet hair into a bun, hoping it would tame it at least somewhat. She changed into a new jeans and shirt before throwing her jacket back on and grabbing the box she had filled with her shit to leave. Dropping by a supermarket to buy the stuff for breakfast, she made her way back to the compound. Her hand filled with groceries on the way to her car it was difficult to handle her phone, but she managed to call Ebert.
"Hello, Dolores. How nice to hear from you! How are you?"
"Fine, thanks. Look, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm calling because I need a shelf in James' room. Can you arrange that?"
"Sure. Is an hour okay? We'll just take one from the cellar."
"Thanks a lot! Look, I'm really sorry, but I have to go. I have all hands full right now."
"No problem. I'll be expecting your first report on the patient by the end of the week, okay?"
"Okay, good. Bye!" She hung up and threw the groceries into the box on the back seat. She sat down on the drivers seat and started up the music on her phone before starting the car. Familiar songs filled the car as her thoughts drifted off, back to the compound. She had noticed the shift in atmosphere when she had left James this morning compared to last night. She knew not to hope for too much, as it might have been nothing more of a momentary sentiment on his part. It did not mean that he was about to start working with her, or that he would not be hostile when she returned, but it was definitely noteworthy. Maybe seeing her so vulnerable had caused him to lower his defenses. She was just another doctor, a profession he had no good experiences with, and the video of his "escape" from the SHIELD glass box made obvious why he would fear the power of words. If she looked at it that way, she was everything he had learned to fear combined. But sleeping, she was no more a threat than anyone else. She made a mental note to jot her thoughts down in his file after the session, and to avoid wearing white or black to avoid him associating her with doctors or Hydra as she pulled into the parking lot of the clinic.
She tried to somewhat repair her brittle relationship with the door guard with a smile as she handed over her keys and showed her ID, but he didn't react. Rather than dwell on it, her mind moved on quickly and she busied herself with making breakfast. Not trusting her cooking skills when unguided by a recipe, she stuck with the things she had survived off during her time studying. There wasn't much one could do wrong when frying bacon, eggs and pancakes. She made coffee as well and for the first time in her life was glad for the experience she had gathered working as a waitress to pay off her student loans while studying. With a sceptical look the head of the swats offered his thumb to open the door and Dolores smiled a thanks at him while balancing her box and the tablet with breakfast towards the table.
James had moved back to his original position on the bed from which he watched her with amused interest. Only when Dolores turned to him did she notice that his move might not have been quite voluntary. His hands rested on his crossed legs, completely encased in metal. When he followed her eyes, the amusement vanished from his look. She noted that he was however not mad about the cuffs they seemed to have put him in while installing the shelf that now stood awkwardly in the middle of the room.
"You know, it really does surprise me that they still see you as such a threat. It's really amazing how nobody gets the point of all of this." She paused a moment to see whether he would answer. When he did not, she kept talking, simply thinking out loud to fill the silence.
"Well, we should eat while it's still hot." She moved towards the bed and James' whole body tensed, moving from relaxed to defensive.
"They have that thumbpad, I guess I can open them. Would it be okay if I did that?" She searched his eyes to see whether he would understand the implications of the question. There were two meters between them, if she wanted to open the cuffs, she would have to get closer. Not answering, he held his hands out to her, ensuring the distance between them to stay as great as possible. Dolores took the hint and steadied his hands by holding the metal of the cuffs rather than his arms, even though that wasn't really necessary, his posture was solid ice. The pad scanned her and with an audible click, the cuffs opened.
Immediately Dolores increased the distance between them, sensing his unease. She poured herself some coffee and grabbed her plate and a fork to go inspect the shelf, making sure to fully turn her back on the table with his plate. Like many times before in her life, she wondered whether other people really couldn't see the signs of nonverbal communication, couldn't read them or simply chose to ignore them.
Despite his silence, James was an open book. Maybe the Winter Soldier was different, but James was easy to read. Sure, about as easy as reading encrypted Russian would have been, but she got more than enough from him. For example how much he resorted to the training that made him a soldier. He would move as little a possible around her, because not seeing how he moved allowed her no estimate of the extent of his ability. So she enabled him to move to get his food without her watching by turning her back and pretending to be interested in the shelf.
"Who put this here? Rhetorical question, I bade the director to put it there, I need a place to put all that shit," she pointed at the box with her fork. She had no idea where James was at the moment, as she was pretending to try to see whether the shelf was attached to the floor. It wasn't. James moved without a sound, another way to hide his skill from her. She had no idea how fast he could move, whether he was back on the bed or still grabbing his fork and knife. Not showing how impressed she was by his skill and subconscious training, she kept rambling.
"I mean, in the middle of the bloody room, really? Have any of these people ever decorated a house? Or like, ever been in one? The only furniture not bound to a wall is shit to sit on." While continuing her ramble, she started kicking the shelf at the bottom so that it moved over to the nearest wall, the one with the horrible mirror. Sure, only obstructed half of it, but that was the half directly opposed to the bed, so while not getting rid of the problem, it at least lessened it.
Dolores somehow managed to eat her pancakes without her knife, while continuing to curse around the poor quality of the shelf. When she finally turned back to James, he apparently hadn't moved, the barely touched plate on the table the only proof that he ever had. She pretended to take no notice and took the cup she had filled earlier.
"Coffee? It might be a bit strong, I don't know how strong you'd like it." Again he didn't respond, so she placed the cup back on the table, near the edge closest to him and filled the other cup. She turned back to the shelf, again having her back to him and shoved the box over to the shelf with her feet.
"I personally like mine stronger since I pretty much run on the stuff ever since my studying years." She crouched down and picked the first item from the box. The pencil case.
"Okay. I want to talk about yesterday. You don't need to answer if you don't want to. The cameras have no sound anymore, I made them shut that off, so the swats won't listen," she added. She placed the pencil case on the right side of the second highest level, mentally designating the middle level of the five as her own, all the other ones as theirs. She would have been a lot faster if she had put her cup down, but that was the whole point of the exercise. She picked up the scribbling pad next.
"Have you ever had that before?" She placed the pad next to the pencil case.
"No." Relief flooded her as he answered. His voice was quiet and steady, showing no emotion.
"Okay. Did it start slowly, or all of a sudden?"
"Slowly." Dolores wanted to sigh at the brevity of his answers, but she was glad he was talking at all. It would nevertheless be a very tiresome conversation.
"Are you in any pain now?" She picked up the small Bluetooth box she had brought along.
"No."
"Okay. In that case, I'd say we wait, for now, see if anything changes. Maybe it was just the stress getting to you." She didn't want to scare him with the prospects of even more doctors poking around at his skull. The box went on the third level, also right. The shelf was too big for the stuff she needed it for. Now, that all the questions about his physical wellbeing were over she got up and turned back to him. She had to suppress a surprised smile at seeing the coffee cup in his hands and locked her gaze onto his.
"Before we continue, I wanted to clear something up. I know that due to the events yesterday, I got closer to you that I know you are comfortable with. I just wanted to make sure you know that that was a one-time occurrence due to the circumstances." She bent down to pick up the two metal boxes with her watercolors at once and turned to put them on her shelf. Her movements stalled for a moment when James spoke.
"I don't care." Dolores tried to put her excitement at his sudden engagement aside and tried to concentrate on the placing of the cases and on her answer.
"You do. I mean, I have no doubt you could break my neck just like that, even with your right arm, but that's not what I meant. You're definitely not afraid, but it just as definitely makes you uncomfortable. No need to lie, it makes sense after all. The closer I am, the less time you have to react." She turned back to get the first book out of the box, catching the alarm in his look from the corners of her eyes.
"I mean, I won't attack you, I like both my job and my life too much for that, and I couldn't do any damage anyway, as you can see," she gestured at her short, not too fit figure.
"But you're a soldier, you've been at war almost your whole life, so of course you'd think like one. Especially with the extreme levels of stress and terror, Hydra put you under. Thinking like a soldier has kept you alive 'till now, so why change that." The book went onto the third shelf on the left side. She picked up the next two and took a sip of coffee before rising to place them on their spot. It wasn't strong enough.
"How can you know how I think? I haven't told you anything about me." Dolores pushed the books next to their kinsman and bent to get the last one. It was the one Steve had signed. It went to the top level. His voice was tinged with alarm.
"It's what I get paid for. And you're telling me a lot. No need to panic, there's nothing you can do about it. I tend to consider myself a little gifted with empathy, it makes it easier for me to read my patients, whether they want that or not. Of course, it's up to them how we work with what I learn."
"What do you know about me?" Dolores halted for a second, then she had the wrapping paper follow the last book. It had cupcakes on it. His voice was cold and hard with fear, despite his best efforts to hide it.
"James, you don't need to worry, okay? I'm not here to hurt you. I know you find it hard to believe that, but I actually am here to help you."
"How do you know what I believe?" His voice was hostile, and Dolores quickened her pace to get the rest of the things sorted in the shelf. The way this was going, he would want her to leave pretty soon.
"I don't know. I'm not a witch. But I'm good at guessing from the way you talk and move." Another quick glance showed her the confusion he tried to hide.
"For example, I can tell you still think like a soldier by the way you move, or rather, don't. Watching you move would give your enemy the chance to study you and estimate your abilities. By keeping still you eliminate that possibility. Also, you always sit in the same spot unless hindered, in the same position, but you never really relax. Therefore it's definitely not what you define a comfortable, but if you'd shift to sitting, say at the table, you'd show a preference, allowing an enemy further deductions." The box was empty and she turned to find him glaring holes into her skull.
"Why are you doing this?" Dolores sighed and took her cup with both hands. She didn't drink from it, not wanting to make him feel like his obvious threat had gone unnoticed, but she had to hold on to the cup to keep her hands from shaking as her heart raced at the sight of the soldier on the bed. For the first time, it really came to her mind how easily he might kill her and how dangerous he truly could be. She shook those thoughts out of her head.
"I want to help you. I want you to be able to sleep without nightmares and talk to people without inspecting them for weapons first. I want you to be able to live without having to be paranoid all the time, without hating yourself and with as little suffering as possible." She looked at him and forced herself to keep his icy gaze. Not shit they called him the Winter Soldier.
"I really want to help you. You think I'm one of them, those who built this cage as just another fancy prison for you to rot your life away, but I'm not. I want you to live. And if I can't get you out of here, I'll do my bloody best to make it bearable. But you're not giving me much to work with, and thanks to Mr. Stark, I have all the time in the world to think about every second of our meetings for the whole damn day. Like I said before: I know I got too close to you, and I'm sorry. But there's not much I can do about it."
The aggression had melted from his eyes and his posture and he looked at her thoughtfully. Dolores almost breathed a sigh of relief as the tension in the air somewhat lessened. She inspected him closer. He looked confused and it seemed like his mind was too busy to bother hiding it.
"Stark?"
"Yes, Tony Stark. He's a friend of sorts of Steve and he arranged that I only work with you, no other patients. Pays quite nicely." Suddenly the realization hit her. She understood the confusion. He had known Howard Stark. The name must have reminded him.
"You met his father before Hydra got you. He was part of the Team that made Steve a super soldier. He also made weapons for the Howling Commandos once they had been created." Dolores turned back to the shelf and got out the book Steve had signed.
"May I sit beside you? There are some pictures in the book." She observed his face, but he didn't react. But there was no hostility, no aggression anymore either, so she sat down on the other side of the bed and put the book between them, flipping thought pages upside down so he could see the pictures. She flipped through the foreword and the introduction until she came to the first picture. Steve at his second enlistment. She was always amazed at the change that had undergone his body, and today was no different. James too leaned forward and squinted his eyes at the frail Steve. Suddenly there was recognition in his eyes and his look wandered off while he seemed to remember something.
"Steve was sick a lot. I helped him when he came into trouble," he murmured. Dolores smiled and nodded.
"He was a bit too idealistic for his size and you saved him about every second day." She flipped through more pages until she came to the chapter describing Steve's life after Bucky had left. There was a picture of James all dressed up in his uniform, saluting at the camera.
"And look, there you are. You were drafted and shipped to England as a Sargent after your training." James stared at the picture and again she could tell he remembered something. He looked at the uniform with distrust, as if it was the picture of a wild beast that might leap at him from the pages. Quickly Dolores continued to the next part, which described Steve's experiment. There was the picture of Howard Stark she had been looking for. He had been a handsome man and Dolores recognized his son's traits in him.
"There, that's Howard Stark. He was a brilliant engineer if you can call it that. In that aspect, his son's just like him." James nodded.
"I remember." His voice was soft and rawer than usual with emotion. Dolores smiled at him and when he looked up at her, his eyes were friendly and tinged with gratitude.
"Very good. All the stuff on the shelf is going to stay in here, you're free to use it. I thought you'd need something to busy yourself with while I work on files and order boring stuff. I'd just ask you not to use the watercolors in the silver case. Nessy gave them to me, so they're somewhat special. But feel free to use the other stuff. Especially the books, they're all about you and Steve, so you can read up a bit on your lives." James nodded, his eyes fixed on the five book on the shelves. Trying to estimate his state of emotions by the far off look on his face she started playing with the bracelet on her left wrist.
"I think we will postpone talking about last night until tonight. Would you mind if I stayed here to work here? I could use some company." Immediately his eyes shot up to meet hers, trying to see what she meant with that. When he just saw her open questioning face, he turned his attention back to the book and shrugged his shoulders.
"Thanks. I hate being alone in a room, I can't concentrate." She got up and took out the laptop from her backpack which she had dropped beside the table. She opened James' file and started typing up her thoughts from earlier, as well as the observations from this morning. She could feel his mistrustful stare on her, but when, after twenty minutes she was still typing and hadn't tried any assassination attempts, he relaxed somewhat and turned his attention to the book. For a while, all that could be heard was the sound of typing and the occasional rustle of paper when James turned a page.
"What else can you guess about me?" His voice was just barely above a whisper and Dolores sensed the mental debate that had gone into asking her the question. She looked up from her work and tried to summarize what she had learned till now.
"That Hydra had you silent. They wanted your head empty, but it wasn't. You managed to trick them, keeping silent, not showing anything, but it would only ever work for so long. Then they punished you, badly. They would sometimes give you bad food, making you sick. They always kept you underground so you wouldn't know where the base is. You had a small room with only a bed, it was monitored. Doctors took care of the punishing and all the other things they did to you, and you were not the first they tried to make into the Winter Soldier, only the first to survive. Also, you blame yourself for what you did under their control."
James stared at her, his expression half amazement, half disbelief.
"How can you know all that?" Dolores smiled, a little embarrassed at the terrified awe in his voice.
"I pay attention and guess, I'm good at that."
"But how can you guess where I was kept?"
"I watched the video feed of your arrival, you were blindfolded so you wouldn't know the layout or location of the compound. But you haven't asked where you are since, even though I'm clearly not in the position to keep that information from you. To me, that means you're used to the situation. You're not panicking about your location, even though that's usually the first thing someone asks if they don't know. You've been kept somewhere without windows, with no way to tell where you are. That's easiest to achieve when underground." James nodded.
"But how can you know what my cell was like?"
"You sit on the bed all the time. You do that to not give your enemies any clue about your preferences, therefore the bed must have been the most obvious sitting opportunity where you were kept. So no chair, no table. And when they saw no reason to give you a table or chair, why would they bother with a big room. That, plus you don't pace. The more nervous you are, the stiller you become. So I assumed you had no room to pace. Again, small cell."
"And how can you tell I am the first Winter Soldier?" Genuine curiosity weaved through his voice and Dolores tried not to let show how thrilled she was, hearing it.
"It's a guess. You are afraid of doctors. You hide it well, but you tense up whenever I enter the room. You were more relaxed when the swats brought you in than you are now. You have to consciously know by now that I'm no threat, but that doesn't change your reaction. So your subconscious has to have been trained to fear doctors. Therefore: long-term trauma. And I doubt Hydra would have been as careless as they seem to have been with you with their first experiments. No, my guess is that you were just another trial, you just happened to work." James looked at her for what seemed like an eternity, his thoughts hidden behind his dark eyes.
"Are you sure you are not some kind of agent?" Dolores laughed and looked back to her laptop screen to flee is inspecting gaze. For the first time, it was she who felt like she was being robbed of all her secrets.
"I took some self-defense course when I started studying. And yeah, you could consider Nessy an extensive apprenticeship on handling and reading difficult people. No offense," she added with a quick glance at James to check his reaction. She had expected him to retreat, but the hint of a sad smile passed over his face like the swift smell of dying roses in a gust of wind.
Silence enveloped them after that, but it was a comfortable silence. At some point, James got up and walked to the shelf to exchange one book for another. Dolores sensed his unease at the uncharacteristic action and made sure to keep her eyes glued to her screen. She kept working like that, the silence in the room spurring her onwards. Despite the lack of interaction, she was content here. Usually, she couldn't stand being alone. It made her anxious and depressed, knowing the apartment she was in, or the office she was working in was empty, that she was all alone. Even James' silence was more comfortable than that.