Finding Love in France (Alternate Version)

Part 50: Deprogramming

The next morning, Bucky woke up surrounded. "What the hell is going on?" He felt fuzzy from medication. "What the hell is she doing here?" He refused to look at Mila.

"She is going to try and save your sorry ass, pal..." Stark quipped. "You might want to try and be a little nicer."

"We're gonna try and rewire your brain, jerk." Steve chuckled as he sat down on Bucky's legs to keep him from trying to move.

"Get off me, Steve! Help!" Bucky screamed. "Help!"

"Settle down, Bucky. See those guys at the door?" Peggy pointed to the heavily armed MPs guarding the room. "One word from me and you'll be brought up on charges for what you did to Mila. Do we understand one another?"

"Who set this up?! Is this an ambush?! Who sent you?!" Bucky yelled, sweating and shaking at the thoughts creeping into his head. "Mila?! What the hell is this?!"

Mila stepped towards him and tried to maintain composure as she spoke, her heart breaking at his terror. "We are going to try and undo the damage, my love..." she took a deep breath. "...but you have to be willing to try and help us. This will not be pleasant, but if it works, you should have some relief from your mental anguish. Are you willing to work with us?"

"Why are you doing this?" Bucky asked blankly. "I'm not worth it..."

Mila stepped forward and slapped his face. The room fell silent. "How dare you?! We are all taking tremendous risks doing this for you, and you sit there sulking?!"

His eyes were popping out of his head in shock. Tears ran down his cheeks. He looked around the room, but no one else would look at him other than Mila.

"We are doing this because we love you,  shiezkopf (shithead)..." Mila scoffed. "Can we begin?"

"Yes, ma'am..." he whispered, eyes fixed on her.

Over the next few hours, Mila questioned him about everything she heard in his nightmares, Steve poured bleach into cups around the room to make the smell overwhelming, Peggy played Wagner obnoxiously loud on a record player, Howard threw cold water in his face, and more. They took turns asking him questions about his torture, letting Mila yell at him harshly in German as needed, trying to elicit any responses they could get. When he screamed or cried hysterically, Mila would dismiss the others for a few minutes and hold him until he calmed down. Steve would make him laugh with dumb stories from when they were kids. They worked through breakfast and lunch. By the time dinner rolled around, the group was exhausted. Mila thanked everyone for their help, then Howard took Steve and Peggy off base for a nice meal. The MPs were gone. It was just the two of them.

"How do we know if it worked?" Bucky whispered, completely drained from the day. "How do we test it?"

Mila was cleaning up the last of the debris from the activities. She sighed. "I'm not sure..." She sat down on the bed next to him. For the first time in days, he didn't push her away. She settled into his side. "All we can do is hope, my love." She looked up at him to see him quietly crying. "It's alot, I know..."

"No, Mils, it's not that..." he looked into her eyes. "...it's that I can't believe you did all this for me...and you got the others to help...after what I did..."

"They know it wasn't you. It was not your fault. You, my love, are a good man, no matter what those bastards did to you. We just want you to stop hurting, so that you can come back to us." She smiled weakly through her own tears. "Come back to me..."