Nightingale (Sequel to Solider Boy)

Twelve

Three days passed since Scott had somehow been impaled with an arrow. Bucky had never bothered to learn the details on that one. All he knew was that it had been a training accident, which meant it wasn't an outside threat. That was all he really needed to know. Bucky hadn't stuck around to watch Melody patch him up either. Though it would have been entertaining to watch Scott try and have a conversation with her when she was working, Bucky had other, more important things weighing on his mind.

And so, while Melody had been absorbed in her work, he'd sought out one of the specialists in the lab, Doctor Phan what he and his team had come up with for another attempt at removing the brainwashing from his head. 

That had been three days ago and now, Bucky had a choice to make. Go back and try again or just stay where he was at. He still wasn't sure what he was going to do. He wasn't as smart as Melody-half of what Doctor Phan told him had gone right over his head. All he had was there word that this one looked promising. But Phan had said that every time before and each time nothing had changed. An obvious choice would be to take a leap of faith, trust the doctors had it right this time and hope, only problem was that Bucky didn't have much hope left in him. 

So, Bucky had one choice left to him: show the plan to Melody and ask her what she thought. Though neuroscience wasn't her foremost area of expertise, Bucky still had a feeling she'd grasp it well enough to make a solid judgement on it. As he stared at the manila folder, pouring over the contents for the hundredth time and still struggling to make heads or tails of it, Bucky made his choice. It was time to ask a professional.

He looked up at the clock on the wall and saw it was nine in the morning and frowned. He hadn't realized so much time had passed and what was more, Melody should've been here already. Sharon had banned her from the kitchen, so any time she needed coffee, she showed up to Bucky's apartment. Though she'd only been in Wakanda five days total, she'd already established a routine and showed up for her morning caffeine around seven-thirty every day. 

She was late.

Bucky frowned and got up from his desk, chair legs making a hair-raising screech against the wooden floors. He looked at the clock again, just to be sure he hadn't read it wrong. He'd slept badly again the night before and sometimes that impacted how he saw things later in the day. But when he looked at the clock face, the time still read nine AM. 

Don't panic, he thought instantly, but even so, his mouth went dry and his heart picked up speed as he processed that Melody was late and that was strange. Well, not really, he realized, as she often came home late when she was at work. But she was not at work at all right now. She was on vacation. She had no reason to be late to anything.

Bucky made his way out of his apartment, trying to keep his head. There was no reason to worry. Even without work, their could have been a hundred different reasons why Melody had not appeared when she normally did. She could be visiting with someone already, she might have slept in or gone for a walk and lost track of time. There were hundreds of possible explanations and none of them were dangerous. He was just being paranoid. 

These lines of logic didn't do much to calm him, however, when he knocked on Melody's door and got no answer. As he withdrew his hand from the door, he saw it was shaking. Calm down, he told himself sternly, but it was easier said than done. Bucky wasn't Melody, he couldn't just shut off his emotions and think without them. He couldn't do that, when he was himself, not the machine Hydra had created, he had to think around his feelings. Most of the time he was pretty good at it, but a few things in his life made it harder than usual and Melody was one of those things. 

Bucky made his way towards the lounge, Melody didn't frequent it as far as he knew, but it wouldn't hurt to look there anyways. At first when he ducked into the bright, sunny room, he thought his saw Melody.