Sane // A Winter Soldier Story

chapter seventeen // bruises

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"Remember, everything will be alright -- we can meet again somewhere. Somewhere far away from here." -Sign of the Times by Harry Styles

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《Athena》

THE NEXT DAY

"How is he?" Athena heard a voice ask behind her, and she whipped around to see Steve standing in front of her desk. She was up to her neck in paperwork and hadn't seen him come in.

She sighed. "He's still asleep. Hasn't woken up at all," she replied hoarsely, still not fully awake.

Yesterday had been one hell of a day. Bucky had, quite literally, been through hell and back, Athena had been in her first life or death situation, and Hydra had managed to infiltrate a world class facility just minutes from the nation's capital like it was nothing. Six of the psychiatric facility's guards had been killed; all of the Hydra guards had been killed or injured. The man that had led the attack had been taken into custody and was now in some high security prison far below the ground. And Athena was stuck cleaning up a great deal of the mess.

Even worse, right after Athena had used the deactivation code on James, he'd fallen into a deep sleep that he was now still trapped in. He'd been passed out ever since Athena yelled sputnik the morning before, and it worried her to no end. She had no idea if what she had done was the right thing -- all she knew was that Winter was no longer attacking them. To be on the safe side, several people (including Athena) had made the decision to confine James to a high security room in Ward 1, on the other side of the facility. He was currently laying in there, chained down and strapped tightly to a hospital bed, having his vitals monitored as he rested. No one was sure if Winter was completely gone, and they didn't want to risk it.

Athena hated that they wanted to tie him up, but she couldn't be certain that the Winter Soldier was fully gone, and this new room of his was so much better than his glass fishbowl. It hadn't even been hooked up to security cameras yet, so he could finally get some privacy in there.

And speaking of cameras, Athena was extra ticked off because Hydra had bugged every single camera in Bucky's cell prior to entering -- so she didn't even have any footage of the words being used against Bucky to use in court, and now had to, again, scramble to find evidence that would be admissible during the trial.

Steve nodded at her response, trying to cover up his disappointment. He put his hands in his pockets and sat down in the chair across from her. Athena, eyes back to scanning the papers in front of her, scowled.

"What's going on?" Steve asked her, and she sighed, still staring at the papers.

"Mr. Caraway has to deal with a lot of press nonsense and organize to have Ward 3 repaired, so he gave me the task of double checking that we have every single employee, guard, and patient accounted for. And on top of that, James' court date is coming up on Friday, so I have to prepare for it," she explained, running her fingers through her unruly hair. Today, she had ditched her typical dress and heels, springing instead for a white button up shirt and black slacks. She had even left her hair down, too tired to consider doing anything special with it. Still engaged in her work, she leaned down and highlighted the name of a person who hadn't clocked in to work today according to the online attendance book.

"They're not going to push it back because of all of this?" Steve questioned. Athena shook her head.

"Nope. If anything, people are more angry than before, and want this trial to happen ASAP," she remarked, and then angrily slapped her desk when her highlighter stopped working. Steve sensed her clear tiredness.