The Other Stark

Chapter 30

“Okay Buck, look…” Tory said, lab coat on, sitting opposite to the nervous looking man, trying her best to keep her voice calm.

Half the team stood outside the room, watching, carefully, every move they made through the glass window. Everyone on edge for what was about to happen.

They had waited one more week to start things with Bucky. Everyday Wanda helping through the anxiety that struck him, his hopes up for all this process to work.

Tony had given them the suggestion to do everything in a room where all of them could see inside, a room where people usually used for therapy sections. Bright white walls, shiny lights, no furniture, besides the stretcher the metal-armed man would be laying while Wanda worked on a chair, it was all too much for someone to calm down.

“This is going to be simple, okay? We don’t know the time it will take, but Wanda will get you unconscious first. When you’re relaxed, she’ll get started. I’ll be in the room if anything happens. I would suggest we do this in a more private, less flashy room, but if you want to stay here, no problem. You know our main goal is to erase the trigger words and the memories in which they were ever said to you…” Tory explained, with all the details, making sure he knew every step that would be taken the moment they began, knowing this would make him calmer.

“But, only if you’re up to and comfortable with, Wan can take away some of the terrible images that I know you relive every time you close your eyes or every time we are in a mission and all the blood starts to shed, even if it’s enemy’s blood. It will help you sleep, have fewer nightmares. Just the worst ones, I don’t know.”

She was silent for some minutes, letting him digest the information that was just given to him. Buck would most likely be thankfully accepting her proposition, but he didn’t think he deserved it. All these images reminded him of all the horror that he caused in the world. The families he killed. The children that were orphaned because of him. The parents that weren’t parents anymore. This was the worst part: the innocent. He could not have control over his actions, but he remembered every life he took away.

“I shouldn’t, you know why,” he answered after a long pause, looking into her eyes.

“Don’t get me started again on telling you how worthy you are. How you deserve all the happiness in the world with that big dork heart of yours and the silly jokes you tell sometimes. Even though a lot of people think you’re a monster, which you’re not even close to, their opinion doesn’t matter. They don’t know Bucky Barnes. They know the Winter Soldier, someone that will always be a part of you, we can’t deny that, but that’s not who you are now. Start redeeming yourself with the world by letting you enjoy the life that’s being given to you right now, not in the past.”

Letting him think about those words, she got up from the chair.

"Can I tell them you want to move somewhere else?"

He nodded. Tory lightly squeezed his shoulder to reassure everything would be okay, before walking outside to notify the team that they would do this in some spare room, where there was a comfortable bed, and the walls weren’t that shiny. The room would still be empty enough for him to concentrate.

“But we won’t be able to see,” Tony commented, pouting.

“Do you think this is some movie, where you can watch eating popcorn? While someone’s going through a hard time? Pfft. He deserves his privacy. This is not a reality show, Tony!” Tory countered to her brother, her patience running low with all the stress that was on her body, and the expectation they were all putting for this to work.

She walked past him, on her way to call Wanda, who was the only one that wasn’t watching Buck and her inside the room. It was time to begin.

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