Sane // A Winter Soldier Story

chapter thirteen // breathe

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"In my cold arms, you stay." -Cold Arms by Mumford and Sons

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《Athena》

It had been over a week since Athena had talked with Bucky about his nightmare, but she still couldn't get the haunting images out of her head.

The way he'd described it -- the dark, the light, the lack of control -- she couldn't understand how he was able to survive everything he'd been through. She also couldn't even begin to understand exactly what had been done to him all of those years. The pictures that came up in her mind were terrifying enough, and she was positive that they were nothing compared to the real thing.

She was slowly breaking through the trauma, but there was just so much to uncover. There were too many gaps in what he spoke of.

She had tried to go over all of the information she'd collected from James since his arrival and analyze it for patterns, clues, hints -- anything that may point her towards a more successful approach -- but she had come up empty. The only thing she can really do in her present situation is talk to him more and more and get him to keep opening up. But that process is slow, and won't guarantee his freedom.

She was thinking about all of this at her desk in her office, staring blankly at her computer screen, when suddenly Dr. Caraway came barging through the door. His entrance was so sudden it made her jump.

"Uh, hello?" she greeted, looking at him in confusion. He looked slightly out of breath.

"My office. Now," he ordered, and then spun around, disappearing just as quickly as he'd appeared and leaving Athena even more confused than before. She sat frozen to her spot for a moment, trying to process what had just happened, before getting up quickly and hurrying to Mr. Caraway's office.

When she arrived, Mr. Caraway was sitting at his desk with a news article pulled up on the screen of his computer. He wordlessly spun the screen to face her.

International Terrorist James Buchanan Barnes, Who Was Illegally Placed in Psych Ward, Has Now Been Given Trial Date

Athena dropped her phone and stared at the screen with her mouth hanging wide open. She turned around after a moment of shock and slammed the door closed before whirling around to scream at Mr. Caraway.

"HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE TAKEN HERE WITHOUT A TRIAL! HOW CAN THEY GO BACK AND FILE NEW CHARGES?" She yelled, fuming with red hot anger. The world wasn't fair- it wasn't fair at all. "HOW can they do this?! He wasn't placed here illegally, was he?! Wasn't he put here through an agreement between the Avengers and the World Security Council?!"

"Athena, keep your voice down," Mr. Caraway chastised halfheartedly, spinning the screen back around to face him. He looked very stressed out. "I saw this article about an hour before I got an email from the Council about it. I didn't know if it was actually true until I got the email. Apparently, those people who had been protesting outside a week and a half ago are part of an interest group that believes that James deserves the death penalty. They've been successfully pressuring the government to charge James with first degree murder and multiple counts of terrorism rather than leave him in psychiatric care. They've been so successful, in fact, that the constitutionality of the original agreement made between the World Security Council and the Avengers has been challenged, and now the interest group is bringing us to court for placing him here without a trial."