Taming The Ghost

Chapter 13

I entered the dining room that night with dread resting in the pit of my stomach. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Sam was a lovely guy, but I just felt so awkward being around him, what with his constant flirting and all. He saw me first and stood, almost to attention, straight up from the table, causing everyone in the room, including Bucky who was sat in his usual corner, to look up from their food to see what was going on. I felt so uncomfortable as I took my seat next to Steve and Sam sat back down on the opposite side of the table, giving me a toothy grin all the while. To be polite, I shot him a small smile before tucking into the steak and potatoes that had been set down in front of me in order to avoid the conversation. However, there came a time, after dessert, when conversation was unavoidable. Everyone was talking about what they had to do the next day and I was perfectly happy listening to them complain about how much paperwork they had to fill out and how many mission reports they had to write, but they I was dragged into it by Sam.

"What are your plans for tomorrow, Laura?" he said, propping his head up on his elbows

"Oh, I'm just going to be doing some more work with Bucky, since that's my job." I explained simply, trying to worm my way out of the conversation.

"You should take tomorrow off." Steve chimed in with a soft smile,

"That's kind of you, Steve, really, but I'm okay. I've still got a lot of work to do with him and I really feel like we're starting to make progress-" I tried to interject but him and Sam were having none of it.

"You deserve a break, Laura, c'mon. You work so hard, and I don't think Bucky'll mind if you take a break for one day."

"Yeah, it's just one day. You can come and train with me to take your mind off things." Sam suggested. There was nothing that I actually needed to take off of my mind because the only thing on it was Bucky and I couldn't forget about him; even if I could, I didn't want to. Eventually, I gave in to peer pressure.

"Fine, fine." I said, cutting the Captain short "I'll take tomorrow off to train, but who's going to take care of Bucky?"

"Nat, would you-" Steve attempted to speak, but before he could even finish, Natasha shot back

"Not going to happen. I have two mission reports to write."

"What if I say you only have to have him in the afternoon? You still have the morning and night to write your reports and Bucky doesn't get left completely alone tomorrow. Please?

"Fine," Natasha groaned "But you owe me." she finished before standing up and leaving to her new room.

"Well, now that's settled, I'm going to take Bucky back and get some sleep." I said, standing up and walking the short distance to Bucky's table, placing his cuffs back on both wrists and, with the guards trailing behind us, moving to leave the room, glad to be getting away from the situation. Just before we turned out of the door, Sam called out to me from the table

"See you tomorrow!" and I rolled my eyes, groaning and wondering what possessed me to agree to this.

When we got to the corridor leading down to the cell block, the guards stopped and moving aside to stand at their new posts whilst Bucky and I continued on to our rooms. I unlocked his door with my key card, as usual, and pushed it open, then I did something that wasn't so usual. I took off Bucky's cuffs while we were still stood outside his door. He looked down at me, confusion and shock written across his face.

"What are you doing? Shouldn't you put me in my cell before you let me loose?" he asked as I turned my key in the handcuff lock.

"'Let me loose'?" I chuckled, "You're making yourself sound like a wild animal. Which you're definitely not, by the way." By now, the cuffs were dangling from my utility belt

"Do you really trust me that much?"

"Well, you haven't given me any reason not to. So, yes, I do trust you that much." I smiled up at him.

"Thank you." Bucky said gently, smirking back as his face softened.

"It's okay." I replied in an equally soft tone, getting lost in his sea blue eyes for a moment or two before quickly realising where we were and what I was supposed to be doing. "Right," I said, breaking up the moment. I could have sworn we were closer now than we were before, I could feel his warm breath on my face.

"Um, yeah." he coughed awkwardly

"If you'd step this way." I said, attempting to guide Bucky into his cell without making the situation even more awkward than it already was. I think it's safe to say I failed. As soon as he was in there, I began to close the door and cut the situation short Before the door closed fully, Bucky called out

"Hey, um, Laura?" This made me catch the door to stop it from moving so I could hear what he had to say

"Yeah?"

"You don't need to hang out with that guy tomorrow. It's your choice, but I just... I don't trust him."

"Why not?" I was baffled. Bucky hadn't even met him properly, how could he not trust him? Then again, Bucky did have a pretty good reason not to trust anyone.

"It just seems like he's forcing you into this, and where I'm from, or when I'm from, a man who forces a woman to do anything against her will isn't worth your trust. I don't know. I'm just being old fashioned."

"Not at all. I understand where you're coming from and I appreciate your concern, but I can handle myself." I smiled empathetically

"I know you can, I'm just worried about you." When he said this, my heart jolted to a stop before going into overdrive. I had no idea why I was reacting like this to such a simple piece of sentiment. A lot of people were worried about me, co-workers and friends, it comes with the job, but Bucky being worried about me had an effect that nobody else had ever had on me before. I didn't understand it. I mean, sure, I like Bucky. He was sweet, and he was a great friend, had a great smile, good sense of humour (considering he'd been brainwashed and frozen for the last 70 years, and when you made him laugh it felt like a victory, his laugh was infectious as well. Oh, God. Maybe I did feel something more for him than friendship. But I couldn't. Not while I was still his therapist. Steve would kill me, I could lose my job. Realising that it had been a good minute or two since anything had been said between me and Bucky, I composed myself and smiled at him.

"Goodnight, James." I said before closing his door steadily. I had no clue why I called him by James instead of Bucky, I just felt like I should. It felt right. Before I could do any more thinking, I went into my room, changed into my pyjamas and got into bed, hoping that the next day would pass as fast as possible.