Bucky wiped the steam off the mirror in the bathroom after getting out of the shower. He stood there, leaning on the sink clad in a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked at his reflection and had every intent of giving himself a pep talk.

His weekly therapy session was in a few hours. Bucky knew Alex was going to ask about the videos she showed him and expect an answer. What she had pointed out was something he had never thought anyone would notice; it was also something that he'd rather not talk about. He considered diverting the conversation onto another topic as soon as possible.

Bucky's mind then wandered to the rest of the time he had spent with Alex. It was an understatement to say that Olivia answering the door had been a surprise. Alex had never given the slightest indication that she had a child. He was glad that he stayed for dinner, even if it entailed having to share a seat with a stuffed animal and resulted in a slight reprimand.

He smiled as he remembered the way Alex's eyes sparkled as she rebuked him for eating Olivia's green beans. Alex still hadn't responded to his text that included the picture displayed on his refrigerator. The lack of response unsettled him a bit. While he appreciated all the technology available along with its immediacy, sometimes he wished it was 1943.

Alex sat at the desk at the front of the office and anxiously waited for Bucky to arrive. She hoped that he hadn't noticed anything off in her demeanor while he was at her home. Alex knew she had to get herself past this sudden unexpected interest in him. Becoming friends was one thing but anything more was crossing a line that could cost her a job at the very least.

When Bucky didn't show up at his appointed time, Alex began to regret mentioning the files and showing him the videos. It was possible she had approached the subject of the serum's effect on him too soon. She began planning how she was going to tell Fury that she had pushed too far and Bucky had bolted. No matter what she said, he would not be happy. The click of the door's latch, startled her from her musings.

"You're late," Alex told Bucky as he entered the room. The blue shirt he was wearing made his eyes seem even bluer. Now that she had noticed him, she couldn't un-notice him and she cursed silently.

He stood still and blinked a few times. It definitely wasn't the greeting he had expected, even if he was late. He walked over the couch and sat down. Bucky explained that Fury had called and he thought she knew.

"He's not big on sharing," Alex said and wondered why Fury would be calling Bucky. Any other thoughts she had concerning a blue shirt disappeared.

Before she could say another word Bucky asked, "Why did you request all that stuff on me?"

"I had… have a theory," she replied as she walked over to the other chair. While the session wasn't starting the way she had planned, she intended to get some sort of answer out of him.

"About me?"

Alex nodded. "I think Zola succeeded in replicating Eskine's serum... maybe even improved it."

Bucky shook his head. "Zola didn't succeed. He made an assassin."

"No, he didn't. He created the strongest super soldier."

"You're wrong," he stated angrily. Bucky then jumped up and started pacing in front of the couch.

"If all you were was an assassin, you would've taken out your entire regimen. You had the chance."

"I wasn't programmed by Hydra yet."

Alex had a small smile on her face. "You acknowledge they are two separate things; that's a start. Which one do you want to begin with?"

Bucky grumbled without stating his choice and sat back down.

"Might as well go chronologically," she said. "Zola experimented on you. Injected you with his version of the serum."

Bucky nodded, "I was really sick; I couldn't stop him."

"How did you survive? That stuff is powerful. Perfectly healthy people have died from it."

"He only gave me a little at a time."

"Were you exposed to the radiation each time?" Alex asked. While reading the files and watching the videos, she had done some research into how the serum was administered at that time. The Vita Radiation Eskine used was common knowledge. Zola's method took a bit of digging.

"The light was radiation?" Bucky asked his eyes wide.

"Actually, it was the Tesseract."

Alex shared what she had discovered in the files she had been given as well the bits of information she had tracked down online. Each fact she shared was met with a question from Bucky. He hadn't considered that the light involved in his experiments was radiation much less a powerful Infinity Stone. When his replies took on an angry edge, she advised him to stop reacting for a bit and just sit with it.

"Did you ever tell anyone what you went through?" Alex asked.

"I told Steve that they experimented on me but didn't go into detail. Why?"

"I get not wanting to re-live it again with total strangers, but that's your best friend."

"When he found me, I still wasn't myself."

"Okay," Alex allowed. "But after that, you never told him you were stronger, sharper... nothing?"

Bucky ran his hands over his head and exhaled before leaning forward. "Steve wanted to be a soldier so badly. And there he was… taller, bigger, and stronger than anyone would have imagined. He deserved the attention for once. Not me."

"You didn't tell anyone that Hydra gave you God knows what because you wanted your best friend to enjoy his moment?"

"Basically," he shrugged.

Alex slowly nodded. She bit her lip but couldn't hold back the grin that broke out on her face. Bucky asked twice before she would say what she was thinking.

"The world's most feared assassin, a trained sharpshooter who carried out the deadliest missions is a marshmallow underneath it all."

"I'm not a marshmallow," he argued with a stern look on his face.

"You sat through dinner holding a teddy bear," she reminded him with a giggle.

"Olivia would've been upset."

"Olivia gets upset when I take a ladybug that got inside back outdoors."

Alex knew if she didn't re-direct the conversation, they would continue to drift off topic. To get back to the subject of the super soldier serum, Alex asked him what happened after he fell from the train. He explained that he faded in and out of consciousness after the fall.

"When I woke up, I had a metal arm and was different than before," Bucky said.

"Different how?"

"Stronger. I could feel that something had changed."

"They gave you more serum?" Alex asked and jotted a few words in her notebook. When Bucky questioned her about it, she assured him that nothing was currently being uploaded anywhere.

He nodded, "And they started the programming. You know, there's another super soldier besides Steve and me."

"And?"

"We fought. He took off half my arm," Bucky said and gestured to the cybernetic limb.

"The arm that represents Hydra to you... that's interesting. Were you really trying during that fight?" Alex asked. She knew her question was bound to provoke a response.

"What does that have to do with anything? Why don't you care about him?"

"I hope he's doing well, but I'm working with you. My goal is to get you to accept yourself as you are: arm, serum, past."

"What does it matter if I accept it or not? I can't change it," Bucky asked bitterly.

"It matters because you matter," she told him sincerely. "Are you trying to get yourself seriously hurt... or killed because after hearing that and watching all the footage, it sometimes seems that way."

"You don't know what it's like," he said. It was almost a shout as he jumped up from his seat.

"Then tell me."

Bucky spun around and looked at her with frustration. Alex remained placid. He attempted to vocalize what it was like to live everyday with all that he had experienced. She let him talk without interruption. The words came out in fragmented sentences as bits of memories. He calmed down as he spoke and sat back down.

"I murdered people. A lot of them. I may have been under Hydra's control, but I did it. If I keep myself in check people don't die," Bucky said succinctly, his reasoning for restraining himself now made clear.

"They played with your brain. Repeatedly," Alex told him. "What happened wasn't your fault. You survived. You fought your way out of it."

"I wasn't strong enough to stop it and sometimes, I can still feel it. The Winter Soldier may be deactivated but he's still in me."

"That's not a bad thing. He keeps you alive when you're fighting. The abilities; the awareness," Alex said. Bucky shrugged and looked down at the floor.

"What happens if what they did in Wakanda fails? What if the programming can be triggered again? Zemo tried."

"Then we bring you back. You won't have to fight and do it alone this time," Alex said in the hope of easing the fear that had been brought to light. "Zemo likes to play with people, don't forget that."

"I'll be fine. He has a code, strange as it seems, that he won't break," Bucky told her.

"What's more important to him, his 'code' or proving that the Winter Soldier never really went away? That would have a lot of people gunning for you again."

"Why do you care what happens to me? Aside from it being your job?"

The question was one Alex had gotten before, although her clients usually asked it much sooner. She was determined to keep her personal feelings out of her reply but she also knew he was probably expecting some rote answer.

"I know it's hard to believe but I haven't always been this mostly well-adjusted therapist," Alex said with a smile. Intrigued, Bucky leaned back and told her to keep going. She saw the spark of interest and teasingly asked if he wanted to borrow a notebook and pen.

"I was the teenager from hell. Drinking, some drugs, boys. I went all in," she said as she settled into her chair.

Bucky's eyes grew wider. He tried to conceal his shock which was partially due to his not having expected that answer and partially due to growing up in the 1930's. Alex looked over at him with shining eyes.

"One night, I was in a car accident with a friend on the way home from a party. I was sixteen. Neither one of us was hurt badly, but were taken to the hospital. My parents were done. They told me I had two choices. I could talk to someone and work out whatever it was, since I wasn't talking to them, or next time, if I ended up in juvenile detention or whatever, that was where I was staying."

"Therapy seemed like the better choice. I was told I had some abandonment issues and was acting out as a form of inducement. It's when a person sets up a situation to make others close to them feel the same way they feel. I had come to the very wrong conclusion that if I was bad enough, I could speed up the inevitable."

"Speed up what?"

"Everyone giving up on me. That my parents would decide they really didn't want me or love me. I'm adopted, and in my teenage brain it made sense in a way it doesn't now."

"Nothing is inevitable," he said quietly.

"Exactly," Alex nodded as their eyes met. "I had a great childhood. I had... have great parents. But I needed someone to show me things I wasn't seeing. Can't see the forest because of the trees, you know how it is?"

Without waiting for him to answer she continued, "Therapy wasn't an immediate fix, I'm a bit stubborn. Eventually... things slowly got better. And after floating around college for a year, not really sure of what I wanted to do, I decided I wanted to help people the way I was helped."

"I care because I know what it's like to feel you're totally alone, and angry, and unlovable, and all those other things you tell yourself when you go down the rabbit hole. It's not fun."

Bucky didn't know what to say next. He had expected some fluffy textbook reply and instead got a very personal history. Any doubts he may have harbored about her honesty in dealing with him dissipated. For her part, Alex hoped a sentence or two made an impression on him.

As they sat across from each other in silence, Alex told him she showed Olivia the picture he sent. She reached into her tote and pulled out another drawing from her bag. She then warned him that the child was planning on more. "I hope you have lots of space because you may be wallpapering with them soon."

A smile played around his mouth as he looked at the picture.

"You could've told me about her before I showed up at your door," he finally said.

"We're here to talk about you, not about my child who would rather eat pizza than green beans."

"We'd all rather eat pizza than green beans," Bucky pointed out.

"And, you are to never tell her that," Alex replied cheerfully and then proceeded to give him a few points to think about for their next session.