My best friend, Alyssa had her body shifted to the right as she leaned against the door frame of my bathroom, her arms crossed. Her chocolate brown eyes were narrowed at me as I stood in front of my large mirror with a curling iron, my hair wrapped around it. "I'm not leaving until you tell me how the session with Dr Raynor and Bucky went." She pressed, walking over to me slowly, sitting on the long counter, beside my left sink.

She was quite short, her feet dangling over the ledge, a few inches off of the floor. When I told her who my protector was, she kept demanding that I told her what happened in the session - probably so she could get the inside scoop of what trouble I might have caused.

"Then I'll put your name on my lease. I have no problem with that." I replied stubbornly, before releasing my hair through the curling iron, letting the last curled strand fall to the side of my face. My head whipped towards hers and I saw the challenge dancing within her eyes. She wouldn't be letting this go until I spilled what happened in the session.

The two of us stared at each other challengingly, as we waited for one of us to give in. I would either spill my guts or she'd just get frustrated with me and walk off, not talking to me for the rest of the night.

The loser of this competition tonight was me, as I couldn't handle the deep stare she was giving me. I had enough off of that from Bucky. "Fine!" I hissed, flicking the switch of my curling iron off, setting it down on the counter before storming out of the bathroom.

Alyssa giggled in excitement, knowing she had won and she followed me downstairs and into the kitchen where I was pouring myself a glass of straight scotch, filling it to the brim and taking a sip of the burning liquid, letting it run down my throat smoothly. It filled my chest with a comforting warmth.

My friend plopped herself down on a bar stool I had behind my L-shaped counter, leaning forward and resting her elbows on the counter. Her fingers intertwined together as she looked at me eagerly but also a little bit worriedly. "It obviously didn't go great." I sighed, opening up to her and leaning against the counter across from her. I took another sip of my alcoholic drink, my fingernail tapping against the glass.

"What happened?" Her tone of voice was slightly wobbled. I couldn't tell if it was worry or nervousness about what my story would hold. Maybe it was both.

"Well first of all," I set my glass down, licking my bottom lip for the extra taste of the scotch before I got into my imitating mode. "He was all like I am no longer The Winter Soldier. I am James 'Bucky' Barnes and you're part of my efforts to make amends." I felt anger stir up within me slowly so I quickly swiped up my glass and brought it to my lips, taking another swig of the alcohol as my body yearned for another taste. "And then, well, I was just a total asshole and told him it would be a matter of time before he... strangled someone."

"So, he's taking the leap and trying to make amends with you. That takes a lot of balls," Alyssa praised, leaning back against the bracket of the bar stool, her arms crossing over her chest.

"Are you seriously praising him?" I reeled in astonishment.

"Look, I've seen him in Steve Roger's exhibit, (Y/N), he most certainly is not the man he used to be. I think you fail to remember that it wasn't him that hurt people and your family. He was brainwashed, held hostage by HYDRA who turned him into some..." She paused them, frowning as she tried to look for a word to use.

"Murderer?" I suggested.

"Super assassin." Alyssa counteracted, unimpressed with me. "No murderer would be sitting there trying to make amends with the woman he previously tried to kill. He'd try and kill her again. Don't you think?" She looked at me expectantly, her eyes dancing with triumph. "I also don't think Steve would put you under his protection if he thought Bucky would, you know." She ran her index finger over her throat, making a reference to his bloody past.

"You sound like his therapist." I scoffed before downing the rest of my scotch and slamming the glass down on my counter.

"Good. I'm your best friend, I'm supposed to sound like a therapist when you're being an idiot and not helping your case." Alyssa quipped, "Look, you have to learn to trust in him as Steve did. Who knows, maybe he'll just save your ass from getting into trouble. It never hurts to know that someone is watching over you and honestly? You need a bodyguard because you're always getting into trouble."

I remained silent, running my thumb over my bottom lip before pulling at it in thought. My brain and my heart considered the thought of trying to trust him but it just made me feel queasy inside and the constant image of him hurting me flashed in front of me. There was no hope of me trying to get along with him at this point. "I just can't."

"Try." Her eyes sized me up as she drummed her fingers along her forearm.

Anxiety crawled its way back into my body, sitting there. "How?"

She smirked then, uncrossing her arms and getting up off of the bar stool. Her feet took her around my counter and she swiped up my phone from behind me, slamming it into my palm. "Text him and apologise for acting like a complete bitch." She picked up the photo I had stolen of Steve and Bucky, and offered it to me, the photo sitting between her index and middle finger. "And look at this photo that you stole. The Bucky in this photo is trying to come back. The least you can do for Steve is try and believe that because he did."

I took the photo from Alyssa's fingers stared down at the happy photo of the two boys, kissing my teeth before shaking my head, having almost given in to defeat. "I'm not apologising for something I had a right to do."

"Dude!" Alyssa chastised, scowling at me like I was a child who drew on the walls right after their mother had cleaned it. "Do it."

Her eyes stared right into my soul, wanting to dominate this situation and I threw my head back letting out a whiny and childish groan before unlocking my phone. "Get his stupid number for me then. It's still in my jacket pocket... it's hanging up on the coat rack by the door." I huffed, "You're lucky I love you."

"I know." She smirked, sassing me before departing to get the number I had scrunched up earlier today.

While she was gone, I pulled my messages app up and began to type an "apology". My fingers clacked at the keyboard.

"I'm sorry that you're nothing but an evil human being."

I bit my lip in thought and deleted the line.

"I'm sorry that you don't have a normal arm."

Yikes. I deleted that line too and groaned silently to myself. Why was I so immature? Suddenly Alyssa came back with the piece of paper except for this time it wasn't scrunched up. She had unwrapped it and offered it for me to take. I glared at her, still not impressed with her making me apologise before snatching the paper out of her hand and looking down at the number Bucky had written down.

There was a slight shake to the numbers he had written with a black pen, showing me that he had been nervous the whole time we were in the office with Dr Raynor. My heart leapt into my throat as I once again felt a pang of guilt but I pushed it away, too cocky to want to deal with it.

I typed his number in the contact box, adding his number to my phone. I didn't even give him a name, I just slapped the metal arm emoji as the contact name which fuelled some satisfaction inside of me. I pressed the "text" option and forced myself to apologise maturely. Or.. try to.

"I'm sorry for being an asshole to you... :)"

The smiley face I added was with the intention of being a bit of a smart ass. My thumb hovered over the send button and I waited. What the hell are you waiting for? I let out a nervous exhale and pressed the green send button, my text popping up in the green speech bubble. The whooshing sound of the text being sent was heard and I immediately regretted texting him.

"I hope he replies." Alyssa piped up.

"Of course you do." I rolled my eyes, before sliding my phone into the pocket of my skirt. "You can go now. I have to leave for this date."

"Who's the guy?"

"No clue. It's a blind date." I shrugged, crossing my arms.

"Stay safe." Alyssa hugged me tightly, placing a gentle kiss on my cheek, "I'm proud of you for being the bigger person. I'll call you tomorrow." It took me a little bit to hug her back as I was still irked about her making me lose the debate we had but nonetheless, my arms wrapped around her and I hugged her back just as tight.

Her footsteps departed away from me and to the exit of my house, the door slamming closed. My hands moved up and rubbed my neck, feeling the tension of what happened today and just before build up within it, causing it to ache.

I deserved to have fun and not succumb to the worry of Bucky or my past.

I grabbed my bag off of the couch in my living room and looped it over my shoulders, holding the black strap tightly. "Let's see if I can turn this night into something good," I said loudly to myself, before grabbing my keys out of the glass bowl I had by my front door, making my departure.

The thoughts of The Winter Soldier and my past crept up into my mind but I pushed them back down as hard as I could.