It didn't take long for Bucky to realize his current situation already had established several sets of patterns.

What felt like every night the ghosts came back for him and dragged him screaming from sleep. Doctor Frasier came not long after, inquiring whether or not he was alive and unhurt. She hadn't seemed to grasp that he wanted her to leave him be, despite how aggravated his answers became. Then, after a restless night, he'd drag himself to the kitchen to have a cup of coffee with Doctor Frasier before she went off to the hospital.

Each night she'd return, sometimes later, sometimes by dinner and she'd throw something together for both of them before inquiring about the journal she'd instructed him to write in.

The answer was always the same, a stiff no. Bucky had never bothered to open the notebook once. It had somehow gotten back into his room, but he'd never put a word to the paper. He still didn't see the point though Doctor Frasier seemed intent on the whole thing.

Though the routines offered a great deal more peace than what he was used to, Bucky was getting thoroughly sick of some aspects and tonight was the final straw.

"Have you-?"

"No!" Bucky exploded, cutting off that annoying question before the doctor could even complete it. "No! I haven't written in that stupid notebook! And don't you dare try and tell me you're my doctor either!"

Everything fell on him then, his nightmares, his past actions, his current situation and all the pain and frustrations that came with it. He'd had enough.

Bucky threw his hands out in front of him, needing some sort of outlet for the turmoil swirling inside. Both hands swept roughly across the coffee table and there was a crashing of glassware which was followed instantly by a stabbing pain in his right hand. He looked down instinctively and saw the knife he'd been using earlier slashed into his palm.

"Fuck," he growled, pressing his metal fingers to the wound to stem the blood flow.

"Don't do that."

Bucky looked up, distracted for a moment to look at Doctor Frasier. She was on her feet, carefully stepping around the shattered glass towards him.

"Stay away from me," he growled. "I'm fine."

"You could have glass in your hand too," was the curt reply. "And you need someone to check for that." She paused a moment and then spoke again. "Come on, let's go to the kitchen. I have what I need there and the light's better anyways."

Bucky stood up and shoved passed her. He was going to rise out the gash and wrap it in a dishtowel. Anything else was unnecessary as far as he was concerned. He'd had worse before.

He flicked on the light in the gleaming kitchen and strode over to the sink, ignoring the perplexed look Doctor Frasier gave him as she dug through a cabinet underneath the island. What she was looking for exactly Bucky wasn't sure, but he was sure it had come from the hospital she worked at.

In the four weeks he'd been here, he'd noticed that Doctor Frasier always seemed to have a suture kit somewhere on her person. To him it was a weird habit, but he didn't comment on it. He carried a knife and gun everywhere he went, who was he to judge?

He ran his bleeding hand underneath the faucet, watching as the water turned dark pink and swirled down the sink to the drain.

There was a slam of cupboard doors behind him and then he heard Doctor Frasier speak. "Let me see your hand."

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"No," Bucky repeated. "Do you need me to say it again in Russian? Or was the English version clear this time?"

"Turn around and show me your hand," the doctor repeated.

"Net," Bucky said, switching to Russian.

"James-."

"My name is Bucky," he snapped, turning off the water and wrapping the bloody towel back around the room.

"Whatever your name is you are acting like a child," Doctor Frasier said and Bucky felt a small hand grip his shoulder and yank him back. Ordinarily it wouldn't have moved him at all, but the unexpected gesture and strength behind it caught him off guard.

"Don't touch me!"

He shrugged off her hand and tried to move past her, but the doctor blocked his way, arms crossed, suture kit in one hand and a scowl on her face.

"You can leave once you let me look at your hand. Look at how it's bleeding," she pointed to the towel which was turning red. "You need stitches."

"No I don't."

"Are you a doctor?" she demanded.

"No, but I am an internationally wanted assassin." Bucky answered, contempt dripping off every word. "Might be a good idea to get out of my way and leave me be."

The doctor's eyes flashed. "You do not scare me."

Bucky raised his eyebrows. "Really? Because I find that incredibly hard to believe." Over two dozen confirmed political kills and countless more low-profile victims. Gun, knife, bare-hands-all had been used to kill and Bucky could still use all them with maximum efficiency. His metal arm could rip off car doors. Hydra's brainwashing was still rolling around in his head, easily triggered the moment the words were spoken.

He was afraid of himself. The idea that the blonde doctor wasn't of the same opinion was laughable.

Doctor Frasier shrugged, the picture of calm and ease. "You do not scare me," she said again. "Now let me see your hand."

Bucky ignored the request. "You're a bad liar Doctor Frasier."

Her mouth quirked upwards and her voice was hard when she spoke again."Did you want to kill all those people?"

The abrupt shift in conversation rattled Bucky's temper. Had Sharon broken her promise and kept Melody in the dark about what had happened to him? About why he'd committed all those crimes? "No! Why would I? Why would anyone want to do the things I did? Hydra-!"

"You didn't chose to kill them," Doctor Frasier cut across him. There was a sort of fire in her eyes, it unsettled Bucky. He'd never seen it before. Doctor Frasier was always calm, always sure, but now she looked unsteady. "You never had a choice about the things you did, did you? Some mad scientist rewired your brain and made it so you never had a choice in it, didn't they?"

Doctor Frasier was half shouting now, her voice echoing off marble counter tops. That spark was still there in her eyes, adding to the out of control image she was projecting. "You never had a choice did you?" She demanded, glaring at him. "Did you have a choice?"

"No!" Bucky shouted back, feeling strength surge through his metal arm. He adjusted his stance as best he could, he didn't want to break the sink or something. "Why do you care about that anyway? I still did all of it!"

That was what it all came down to. He hadn't wanted to do any of it. It hadn't been his will that carried out any of the missions. And yet...he'd still done it. It had been his hands that held the knife, his finger had been on trigger and the blood had been on his hands.

Choice had no place in the fact that people were still dead because of him.

"You never would have chosen to do any of it if you'd had any say in the matter," Doctor Frasier replied, voice cold and sharp as steel. "That's why I care. Men who chose to do evil deeds-they're monsters. They are the things that terrify me. Men who never get a choice? They are the ones I pity. They're as much a victim as anyone affected. Now hold out your hand, hold still and let me do my fucking job."

She ripped open the suture kit with expert hands, her long, pale fingers sure and practiced as they worked to prepare her equipment. The anger and unsteadiness that had been coursing through her a moment before was gone-or so it seemed. She still had a sort of fire in her green eyes. Not the unstable anger that had been there moments before, but Bucky knew this one just as well.

He'd just seen it on the face of a different person. A young man back in Brooklyn.

The look said clearly: "I could do this all day" and Bucky gave up the fight.

When Doctor Frasier reached out with her free hand for his bleeding one Bucky didn't try to shrug off her grip and didn't resist as she began to pick at the wound with a tweezers. As it turned out, the wound had been holding several long splinters of glass and crockery. Melody had been right.

When she checked the wound again, she appeared satisfied there was no more glass and set the tweezers down on the counter.

"I think I was wrong," the doctor said quietly. "I won't need to stitch then, but it does need to be wrapped up. Hold still, this won't take long."

With practiced ease, Doctor Frasier spread some sort of antiseptic across the wound and then bound it with a bandage. The whole process took a grand total of five minutes and she paused only one moment to inspect her handiwork before letting go of his hand and throwing the bloody shards and towel into the trash.

"Be careful with that hand for a few days okay? It needs to scab over, keep it clean and for the love of God next time don't be so difficult."

She walked away then, grabbing the broom from the corner and Bucky heard the chink of glass sweeping across the floor. She was cleaning up his mess.

I think I know why Steve trusts you, he thought as he stared at his newly bandaged hand. He found someone just like him.

Thank you for reading!