Sorry I haven't updated D: I started my new job. Went in for orientation on Thursday and they were like "Here's your schedule." And then I worked Friday and Saturday. But this chapter kinda maybe sorta got away from me and is almost 1500 longer than I usually write so…

As always, please review with comments, questions, concerns, predictions, etc.

And don't forget to check out the BuckyxConnie oneshot my friend wrote. (I posted it for him, so check my profile :D)

Chapter 11

"Hey, wake up."

The words were barely decipherable in the haze of sleep, but he recognized the voice.

"C'mon, now," the voice said, pushing his shoulder. "I really wanted to let you sleep, but you need to eat something."

"Not hungry," he mumbled, still not thinking clearly.

A laugh echoed in the room. "You've eaten a good meal once in probably the last seventy years. Get up, we're going to the cafeteria. Then you can come back and sleep as much as you want to." Clara pushed his shoulder again until he was lying on his back, blinking into the light on the ceiling.

"I feel exhausted," he groaned, rubbing his face with his flesh hand.

"Well, you only slept for about two hours. But we had a late lunch and I figure there's probably no one in the cafeteria right now. Stark says they have hamburgers. You've had those before, right?"

"Yes." He sat up and made his way to the door, Clara close behind him. "About earlier," he started, not turning to look at her.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry," he said. He pressed the button on the elevator then finally looked over at her. She had her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, a smile on her face.

"I told you. It's alright." The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. He motioned for her to go ahead of them. Once they were inside and the doors shut, she looked up at him. "Do you regret it?"

"Yes," he replied instantly.

"That's progress. That's how you know Hydra has no hold over you anymore," Clara stated happily, watching the numbers change above them. "That's how you know you're healing."

He watched her carefully until the doors opened and she all but ran out and into the cafeteria. She was about the size Steve was before he'd gotten the serum and shot up several feet. But she looked like Connie. The familiarity was almost a little overwhelming.

Why did he trust her so much after having met her only a couple of days ago? Probably because there was nothing to lose at this point, he conceded. What would trusting her psychological advice do to him? The things she was saying made sense, for the most part. Regret hadn't been a part of him when he was with Hydra.

He followed Clara and let her help him get his food on a tray and make it to a seat in the corner at an empty table.

"So," Clara started when he took his first bite, eyes widening slightly. He stared down at his hamburger as he chewed and Clara smiled. "Good?"

"I remember these," he stated, taking another bite.

"Well, that's good." She took a bite of hers and they ate in silence for a few minutes until she got up the nerve to speak again, knowing it would only bring down his mood. "So, I have a suggestion you might not like."

He stopped eating for a minute then took a sip of his water. "What?"

"I really, really think you should talk to Steve."

"No," he refused quickly.

"Please—"

"No."

He wouldn't look at her now; he focused on the rest of his food. "Explain to me your aversion to seeing Steve. Please, because I'm lost," Clara said, trying hard not to sound as exasperated as she felt.

"Because of who Steve is and what I remember of him—what I've read," he explained between bites. "I remember the day I got drafted. I remember the feeling of dread—I didn't want to go to war. But I remember not telling Steve because he wanted nothing more than to serve our country."

"Because of his size and his health."

"I remember two different times I had to pull bullies off him. I know there had to have been more times, but that's all I remember. Steve doesn't like bullies."

"And you think that's what the Winter Soldier is," Clara realized.

"At an extremely basic level, yes."

Clara crossed her arms on the tabletop and waited for his to finish his water. "You think he'll hate you?"

"No, and that's the problem. The way he looked at me on the bridge, on the Helicarrier—when we were fighting on the Helicarrier, he told me he was my friend. I told him he was my mission. Then he told me to finish it. And he gave up." He leaned back in his chair. "I was shocked. My missions always put up a tremendous fight. No one wants to die. But Steve was ready to."

Clara pressed her lips together and looked down at the table. "You were his best friend."

"Let's put a little more emphasis on were."

"Yes—let's," Clara said. "Because last time he saw you—you were dead to him. The last time he saw you, you fell from a train."

"I remember," he growled quietly.

"So put yourself in his place—if Steve had been the Winter Soldier, had literally come back from the dead, would you want to give up on him?"

The man was silent. What would that be like? As if he hadn't thought of thousands of "what ifs" already. But the fact of the matter, the point his mind couldn't seem to get past was—would he have really behaved like Steve if their situations would reversed?

Answer? He might never know because he didn't know who he had been enough to know how he would have reacted.

He ran a tongue over his lips and crossed his arms. "What do I even say to him?"

"Whatever you want."

"I don't even know what we'd talk about," he sighed. He stood up and piled her trash on his tray, tucked her tray under his, and took both to the trash.

"You could tell him what you remember—let him help you fill in ay blanks you might have," she suggested as they made their way back to the elevator.

"I can't," he decided suddenly, mashing the up button for the elevator.

"You're just being stubborn, at this point, I think," she said. "Suck in your pride and talk to your friend. If you don't know what to talk about, let Steve do the talking—I'm sure he'll think of something."

There was silence in the elevator until it dinged at their floor and let them off. He headed back down the hall towards his room, but stopped suddenly, his back still to her. "When do I have to see him?"

"You don't have to do anything," she said, crossing her arms. "As your doctor I'm advising you to wait to see him until you're ready. As your friend, I'm telling you to talk to him, because he's only going to wait until the end of the week before he comes back here. That's as long as I could hold him off."

"Right." He didn't move, but she noticed him shift his weight from one foot to the other. "Friends? Is that what we are?"

"A friend is someone you have a mutual bond with," she defined. "I'd like to think we've bonded a bit."

Slowly he turned to her and jammed both his hands in her pockets, eyes watching her carefully. "Can I see him before the surgery the day after tomorrow? I have something I want to ask him about—something I want to check."

"Yeah, sure, I'll give him a call," she murmured, taken aback. "But can I ask, why the sudden change in heart? Literally five minutes ago—"

"I just remembered something. I want to ask him about it—to make sure it's mine," he explained. "Not Hydra's."

"Right. Okay. I'll call him tonight—you go back to sleep. Tomorrow we can take a trip to Brooklyn if you'd like."

The Winter Soldier nodded and made his way to his room, heart pounding in his chest. So many decisions he had made himself. It felt…good.

XXX

Clara stood in front of the elevators, but didn't press a button. "JARVIS? Where is Mr. Stark?"

"Mr. Stark left the building with Ms. Potts approximately two hours ago," came the response.

"Okay," she said, changing gears. "Well, do you happen to have Steve Rogers' mobile number?"

"Mr. Stark does not store that information on a server that you have clearance to access," the AI responded. Clara felt herself deflate. "But Dr. Banner is on the fiftieth floor, in lab number 8."

She smiled. "Thank you, JARVIS," she chirped, making her way down to the labs. When she got there, Bruce was hunched over a report, several of the monitors pulled close around him. He glanced up as she walked in as quietly as she could.

"I'll be with you in a second," he muttered distractedly. He taped one of the monitors and a few of the graphs she could see changed their values. He jotted down a few notes and then straightened up, taking off his glasses. "What can I do for you, Dr. Maitland?"

"Tony left for the night—I was hoping you had Steve's mobile number," she explained, leaning against the table.

"Yeah, sure," he muttered, pulling out his own phone and a scrap piece of paper. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything is as good as it can be for now, I guess," she told him, watching his scratch down the numbers. "He just agreed to talk to Steve, but he wants to do it before the surgery."

"Fair enough." He handed her the number and walked back to his station. "Let me know if you need anything else."

"Thank you."

She sighed and pressed her back into the wall, legs crossed beneath her. Papers were strewn out across the bed in front of her. The lamp on a small bedside table next to her gave off a dull yellow glow, but didn't offer too much assistance in the ways of actually reading the papers—though she knew what they all said.

Clara pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed the number on the slip of paper that was balanced on her knee. She glanced at the clock on the wall while it rang, hoping nine at night was not too late for him.

"Hello?"

"Steve? This is Clara Maitland."

"Oh." He sounded a bit surprised. "How are you? How is Bucky doing?"

She smiled at his enthusiasm. "Well, he told me he wants to talk to you before his surgery."

"The surgery to remove the tech in his head? You're sure he wants to see me?" He sounded skeptical and she couldn't blame him. But the sooner she could set this meeting in stone, the better. That way the soldier couldn't back down.

"Right. He's doing…well, considering." She tucked the phone between her shoulder and her ear and flipped through some of the pages on the bed in front of her, a pinching sensation building in her eyes. "The file you gave me—some of the things they did," she choked out, embarrassed at the blatant emotion in her voice. "It was quite horrible. Electroshock therapy, cryo-freeze, intense conditioning…I don't want to go into detail over some of the sessions they wrote about because I don't want to step on his trust in me, but…"

"Don't tell me anything you're not comfortable with, as long as you're sure he won't hurt himself," Steve assured her gently, voice soft and assuring. This man led armies, she reminded herself.

She took a few breaths and put the papers back on the bed, running a hand over her face. "We're, uh, we're going to Brooklyn tomorrow."

"It's not the same," he responded sadly. "A few buildings here and there, but it's changed a lot. Not sure how much he'll remember about it."

"He remembers a bit about Connie," Clara told him, voice a bit stronger. "He remembers when they met."

"Oh," Steve sighed with a laugh. "I remember her. They were real sweet on each other. Longest girl he was with, I think. Kept trying to hook me up with her friends."

"She's my grandmother," Clara blurted. "She left diaries and pictures. When I was in the hospital for a cut after SHIELD collapsed, he was there getting his shoulder set. I recognized him from the photos." The emotion had seeped back into her voice, remembering the words in the diaries, the pure, raw emotion her grandmother had written about. "It was kind of confirmed when he called me Connie—he thought I was my grandmother."

Steve had been silent though her entire confession and she wondered in the back of her mind if he had hung up or if the call had dropped. But she continued to speak anyways, getting the words out could only make her feel better. She let out a loud breath. "I'm too emotionally attached," she stated firmly. "I shouldn't be his doctor anymore. I should talk to Stark about finding—"

"No," Steve interrupted. "Please, continue with what you've been doing. You got Bucky to agree to talk to me. That's an improvement, considering he was trying to kill me a few days ago."

"The file you gave me—this is downright horrifying to a degree I've never seen before," she muttered.

"Please, Clara. Hydra can be anywhere—anyone. Sometimes you just need to trust a stranger. Bucky did, and he found you. And you're helping," he explained quickly. "Please, just keep at it until he recovers from the surgery."

"Alright."

"Do you still have Connie's diaries?" Steve asked her suddenly.

Clara cleared her thought and looked towards her duffle bag in the corner. "Yeah. Way ahead of you—I brought a few relevant ones with me. I just needed something to compare with, to make sure it was him. I was considering giving them to him."

"It's up to you," he said, "but maybe it will help him. I'm just glad there's someone there to help him since I can't."

"He's remembering you," she assured him. "Slowly—some good, some bad. Just think before you say things in front of him to keep from upsetting him."

"What kinds of things has he remembered, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Like I said, he remembers a bit about Connie, he remembers you—you saving him and the rest of the 107th. He wasn't sure that one was real. But he was adamant that whatever they did to him in the lab that day was what saved him from the fall."

"So he remembers the train," Steve guessed, voice flat.

"Let him tell you what he remembers," she advised. "He said something about how he wanted to ask you something. Make sure something was his and not Hydra's."

"Any idea what that might be?"

"Not a clue. But the surgery is the day after tomorrow, I'll tell Tony to call you with more details—he's the one setting it all up."

"Thank you, Clara," Steve pressed. "Really. For everything."

"It's what I do. I'll see you then."

XXX

The Soldier was awake when she knocked lightly on the door around nine the next morning, poking her head in when he called out a quiet permission for her to enter. He was standing in front of a window across the room, shirt in his hand.

He could feel her eyes on him and quickly turned towards her, pulling on his shirt, fingers making quick work of the buttons.

"Want to ride around Brooklyn?" she asked, pushing the door open wider to lean on the frame.

He put his hands in his pockets and nodded. Clara led the way down the hall slowly. The Soldier noted that she'd pulled her hair back with a tie. In all of his memories of Connie—from their first meeting at the pub, numerous random memories of them dancing, laughing, and kissing, to their last night together at the expo, not once had Connie's hair been pulled back like that.

It was different, and he liked the distinction between the two.

"Hey, JARVIS," Clara called out and waited for a reply.

"Yes, Dr. Maitland?"

"What year was IHop founded?"

"IHop was founded in 1958 in Toluca Lake, California."

"What's IHop?" he dared to ask, seeing her face light up.

"Oh, this is going to be a great morning. You'll love it," she told him as they got on the elevator, a huge grin on her face.