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   After a long, hot day down at the docks, fixing boats and supervising the new workers who were on probation, Bucky drove his motorcycle over to Dr. Raynor's office. 

   Bucky focused on the sound of the faint rush of cars on the street below as he leaned back on the sofa. Dr. Raynor raised her eyebrows at him with a little smile. "So, James. You came early. You're not even ten minutes late... something's changed. What happened?" 

   He looked down at his hands. "A lot,"

  Dr. Raynor took a deep breath. "Did you get triggered again?"

   "...Yes."

   "That must've been serious to have broken your two month streak. Do you know what could've triggered it?"

   "I saw someone from my past. A woman I trained while I was in the Red Room."

   If Nat had survived, it could've been her, too, that he took in. But she was gone.

   A lump formed in his throat. What would happen if he lost Yelena, too?

   Where were these thoughts even coming from?

   "Flashback?"

   "Y-yeah."

   "Right. It was obviously worse than the last one, then?"

   Bucky gulped. Just get through this, and after you'll go meet Yelena downstairs when it was finished, he thought to himself. He could do this. Somehow?

   "Way worse."

   "Okay. Why'd you see that woman?"

   "I was asked to deliver her queque. She was living in a crappy hotel, so I offered her a room at my place, the old family one."

   She narrowed her eyes. "Oh, so you live with her now? Did you not see this coming?"

   "Uh. Yeah. And... sort of." 

   "Okay then. Let's start small, James. Tell me one word that you'd use to describe that flashback, and then try to explain why you chose that word. Take your time,"

   They had done this excercise before, when he'd had other flashbacks. It helped last time, a little.He didn't want to talk about it, though. He didn't want to talk at all. 

   That flashback brought back memories he had forgotten. The pain from that night marked him in a way he wasn't sure would ever heal. What word would he choose? How could he ever narrow it down to one word?

   Everything, Karpov turned everything into agony. Peircing, crawling, stabbing, ripping, tearing him apart like an abandoned rag doll and sewing him back together like mismatched quilt peices. 

   "I have the word..."

   "Tell me,"

   "Everything."

   "...Everything?"

   "They made me feel as if Hydra were the only thing in the world, and I was just a toy. As if I belonged to them fully. But they didn't tamper with my memories like I thought they would, they left them inside me so that I was reminded of how far from home I was and how I'd never be that Bucky Barnes from before the war again. They one night, they took my world and turned everything into nothing... and everything into nothing." 

   "James, how is this girl linked to that pain?"

   "What? Oh... I smuggled her out of the Red Room, and they found out the same night. Felt like hell, but I didn't do it for me. She was only fifteen. Too young to die."

   "Why was she going to die?"

   Bucky took in a sharp breath, Natasha's face painfully vivid in his mind. Why was she going to die... "I saw the potential in each girl. After training them for years, I understood each strength and weakness in the girls. Natasha was destined to become the Black Widow. Yelena was trying, hard. But it wasn't for her, she didn't want that in any way. Fear drives you to do things, but Yelena isn't the kind of person to let fear motivate her like that.

   - I planned her escape for months, and when it finally came, she trusted me and left with my instructions. The punishment after was the worst I ever had from Hydra."

   "I see. I'm glad you're opening up so well these days. They didn't succeed in what they wanted, you understand that, right?"

   "I'm not sure if I do..."

   "You miss your family, and they tore you from them. You have every reason to feel weak and hurt... but you also have reason to feel hopeful and strong, because they didn't succeed. Trying to make you a puppet backfired on them, and those bastards deserved that. You have control, now, if you choose to accept that."

   "What do you mean, 'choose to accept that?'"

   "Your mind has been through a lot, and even with all of the therapy and healing you've gotten, this is the kind of trauma that sticks with you like chewing gum to hair.

   Picture this, James: You gotta cut off chunks of hair to remove the gum. It isn't pretty, and you don't want to do it because that would mean that eveyone can see, clear as day, what happened with the gum. That will feel emarrassing, humilitaing, even, when you admit your mistake of blowing a bubble too close to your hair. Now, you have already cut off strangs of hair, but the gum is persistant. It needs so much work and... it's time to cut that hair off again."

   Bucky's face scrunched up in confusion. "What?"

   She sighed. "I don't mean literally, James. Your hair is fine. But you know that you've gone through pitholes in your journey of trying to make up for your past. You've been set back, so to say, and need more help. Right now, your mindset is close to the mindset you had two years ago when you first started seeing me. 

   "Why? Because of the Winter Soldier. He stays with you, doesn't he?"

   He's told her that already. Bucky nodded. 

   "Well, he is sticking extra close today, just like that stubborn chewing gum, and you need to deal with him again. This flashback is messing with your mind, whether you see that or not. It changed you, James. Don't act like Hydra won... they left an impression on you after this last flashback, but I think there's more inside you than just that fight. Try and stay hopeful today," 

    "Try." Bucky repeated. Raynor nodded. "I can try, I think."

   The word try felt hopeful, but that wasn't what he loved the most about the word. 

   "You chose the word 'everything', James. You can transform that word into something good. But don't start with everything just yet. Cut off pieces of the gum little by little, and you'll succeed. You can go now,"

   He loved it because it reminded him of Yelena. 

   Yelena's breaths were shallow and fast as she raised her fists, ready to strike again. The punching bag swung lazily back over to her fists, wich pummeled it quickly. It sprung away fro mher, but she chased it, not giving herself a break. 

   She needed to get her feelings out... They were too complicated. Too much for her to handle. 

    Strike. 'Use the stance of your feet, glued to the ground, to give you stability and power in your punches. Harder, little Yelena.' Madame B's stern and hard-sounding voice reached out from her memories. It was like hand stretching it's way out of water, breaking the surface and becoming visible again. 

   Strike.

   And that hurt, too. She hated her past. She hated Bucky's past. She hated Natasha's death. She hated that Bucky was the way he was. She hated her feelings, which seemed to sprout like a plant when she was around him. She hated that he wanted her to stay at his house. She hated the way she couldn't lie to him. She hated that he made her feel good. 

   She hated the way he cried, and the way he made her cry. 

   Her hands fell away, and she stood in the middle of the gym, panting. What the hell was wrong with her (a question she tended to ask herself a few times a day)?

   Madame B's hand her memory was still there, and she still remembererd that sharp sting of that woman's slap. It made her shiver. 

   Bucky had never slapped her. She had seen the Soldier slap one of the girls before, hard, and only once. 

   The poor thing had had a dark purple bruise on her face for a week, long enough to be estranged from the other girls and to be made an example of.

  No one disobeys the Red Room. Not even Hydra. 

   That girl was dead, now. Her name was Rastova, and Yelena respected her, for what it was worth. Rastova had done something that took courage. Disobeyed her higher-ups. 

   His icy stares were enough to keep the girls in line even before that incident, so when Rastova disobeyed, the other girls had thought she'd gone absolutely insane.

   And no one disobeyed the Winter Soldier without repurcussions.

   She bent down and wiped the sweat off her forehead, then headed over to the showers and scrubbed herself down, washed her hair, changed into fresh clothes, let her hair down loose, and applied makeup. Silver eye shadow, or neutral?

   Both, both is good. She put on her favourite lip liner and gloss on, then grabbed her bag and walked out of the gym toward the address Bucky had sent her via text as to where to find him after his therapy session. 

   The streets were busy as usual, and she was ravenously hungry and craving pizza. 

   Finally, she found the right building and sat down in the lobby inside, where a couple of people milled about and secretaries sat behind a counter. 

   She waited and waited. The clock said that she was early by a few minutes, so Yelena pulled out her phone and checked her messages.

    Nothing new.

   "Hey," she heard Bucky's soft, deep voice say to her. She looked up as he stopped walking.

   He didn't look like he was in the mood for pizza.

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