content warning: PTSD trauma, panic attacks

"James? James."

Bucky snapped back into his reality after reliving the events of telling Yori Nakajima the truth from a few weeks ago: that he was the one who killed his son as the Winter Soldier. The persona that he freed himself from years ago back in Wakanda. It was one of the final court-mandated sessions he had with his therapist, Christina Raynor.

He was telling her the story before getting a guilt-ridden feeling of anxiety that wasn't connected to the conversation. Like he was missing something. Someone-

"James, you seem a bit... off. Did something happen when you were making amends?"

"No... it's not- it's not that..." At this point, this was one of the rarest moments where Bucky was being genuine about what bothered him.

"Oh. Did anything else happen this week? Another nightmare or-"

"No. Not a nightmare..." Bucky squinted his eyes as he tried to find the answer. "It... it feels like something's missing..."

"Well, having the task to making up with people you've hurt... something that took you long to process and complete... and you finish it... it can make life feel like... empty brain fog for a while. Do you feel that way?"

Bucky took a few seconds to think. "Yeah, I think I do... I- never mind."

"James. I'm here to help you. Tell me what's on your mind."

"There's something else. Something deep down inside. And I don't know what it is. But all I know is that I feel guilty for it."

"For what, James?"

"I don't know."

With a sigh, Raynor then pulled out a brand-new notebook. A blue, miniature-sized spiral notebook. The old notebook Bucky used to have, keeping track of the people he made amends with, was found on top of Raynor's office with a thank note. But she even knew that there was more work to be done.

Bucky rolled his eyes at the sight of the notebook. "Oh, come on. The notebook. Again? I thought we were done with that."

"There will never be something "done," James... Done only works when you're dead. So I have something for you to do."

Still waiting for that day, he thought.

Bucky looked away from the therapist and towards the sunlight against the floor window on his right. It was only for a second before glancing towards Raynor, who gave him a look. "What?"

"James, do you know why you're still here?"

"Because you don't have someone else to ask these stupid questions?" Bucky remarked, feeling salty after the fact he was still here. Stuck. He wanted to be done with this. He thought he was.

Raynor sighed deeply, rolling her eyes. "You're here because I care, James. And you and I both know... Everything can't be simply fixed with the three rules I gave you."

"Don't do anything illegal, don't hurt anyone, and three... 'I am no longer the Winter Soldier. I'm James Bucky Barnes, and you're part of my efforts to make amends...'"

"That's right, James." She nodded before treading another question. "But you don't believe that, do you?"

Bucky was eerily silent as his face went into a deep frown.

There was a long pause before Raynor spoke up again. "We're going to try something different."

She raised the blue notebook for him to see. "In this notebook, I want you to track down everything that makes you feel strange, or anything that triggers you in any way. Listen to that voice in your head and write it down because it's telling you something. The brain is a complex thing so your thoughts may show signs differently but it's there. You feel it."

Bucky took a deep breath. "Fine."

"Good," Raynor said with a slight smile. "And don't take this as a way of saying you didn't improve at all. You have. But like everyone else, there's always work to be done."

"Yeah... right."

A few weeks passed, and still, Bucky was the same person he had always been before, since meeting with his therapist, with all of the mental images of sadness and the visuals of his time as the Winter Soldier. For murdering innocent people without remorse. For whom he tried to make amends toward their family members, from all the times when he was trapped inside himself as one of the most cold-blooded assassins in the century.

He did try the exercises Raynor instructed him to do: tracking every strange emotion and anything that triggered him. But everything seemed to trigger him: the black ring in the pit of his mug when finishing his black coffee, looking in the mirror, watching the morning news, breathing... The images kept reappearing more frequently and consistently. Again, again, again.

On his calendar, stamped on the refrigerator door with a magnet, he had listed a series of tasks for that day, one of which was to pick up some produce for a potluck this weekend back in Louisiana with Sam and his family.

He was in the middle of New Orleans, a little out where he lives now, after chickening out another session with Raynor in a row this week. In the supermarket, he goes straight to the produce section to grab red/green peppers, carrots, and a few peaches for himself.

A man walked past by to chase a toddler down, 3 years old at most, as she held a pinwheel in her hand. Her infectious giggles echoed eerily as Bucky was stuck here with the peach still in his metal, gloved hand. A few seconds in, the sound was so faint that he could breathe again.

He leaves the grocery store to go back home, after paying for his produce, with a sick feeling. A worse feeling than when he walked in. And there wasn't anything he could do to make it go away.

After a long day, Bucky laid down on the cold, wooden floor of his condo, sleep-deprived and cranky. It was hours after he forced himself to get to bed, and still, he had yet to fall asleep. He spent his waking moments staring at the blank, solid ceiling. Suddenly, his eyes grew heavy and inflamed. He then drifted off to sleep.

Bucky opened his eyes to see himself, with his short hair slicked back and wearing a suit and tie. He was sitting at a rounded coffee table with Steve Rogers. As the person he once was before his life was ruined.

Steve was smaller and skinnier, but his face was the same—younger. He looked at himself in the glass cup to see the reflection of the younger version of himself staring back at him.

"Hey, Buck?" Steve snapped him back from Bucky's fixation on his reflection.

Bucky fully stared at the man, his brother... who he always stayed with until the end of the line. "You're... You're supposed to be dead."

Steve chuckled as if he was joking. "What are you talking about? Do you hit your head or somethin'?"

"I saw you... I've been at your grave today." Bucky tried to rationalize as his pupils began to get glossy.

Steve then turned his head, completely disregarding what Bucky said, towards the backdoor of Bucky's old apartment in Brooklyn. "Speak of the devil. Your girls are here."

"What?" Bucky looked up and saw a woman holding a seemingly three-year-old. With pale skin, hazel green eyes, and pouty pink lips against her hair as black as a raven, he grew a sense of anxiety from the eerily familiarity of this woman. Her hair was all done up with loose waves in a side part as she smiled with her teeth.

"Hi, honey. Everything's alright? You look sick." Her voice was raspy yet smooth like morning coffee. The little girl on her arm opened her eyes to reveal she had the same eyes as him. She stared at him intently.

"Who's that?" Bucky swallowed as he glanced down at the little girl.

The woman laughed as Bucky felt it echo in his ears, similar to screaming into an empty hall.

"Your daughter, honey. Maybe you're the one who needs a nap." Bucky clenched his jaw as he heard those words escape that woman's mouth.

"Will you hold her for a second? I'm about to start lunch." The woman asked, offering her child to him.

Bucky, terrified, hesitantly nodded to her request. "Sure."

The woman then placed the little girl in Bucky's gentle arms, softly to make sure she wouldn't wake up and start moving around. As he stared at the little three-year-old, who he had just informed was his daughter, she was wearing a polka dress with white dress shoes. His heart began to beat rapidly as he held onto her. His anxiety increased the further he saw the similarities between them.

Steve spoke up, "She looks a lot like you, Buck."

Bucky slowly looked up to see Steve with an appearance change. His muscles were more defined, and he looked like how Bucky remembered him last. The Captain America... but still his best friend. His eyes widened at the change as the voices in his head started to overlap with the dialogue he had, like a broken record player.

"I know..." Bucky responded, overwhelmed with the environment crumbling before him. "Hey, Steve?"

"Wha—" Steve disappeared out of the blue. Something flashed Bucky in the eyes, and he lost his balance.

Regaining his composure, Bucky's eyes fluttered open again to see Steve in front of him, with both of them standing. His face was furrowed more as if he was serious this time.

"Take care of her." Steve disappeared.

Bucky, taken aback, watched as the environment of Brooklyn, New York changed into a dark, slimy room, with the hue of greens and oranges highlighting the corners of the rusted baby crib. He looked down to see the little girl no longer in his arms as the air in his lungs started to escape his body.

After a few seconds, he heard the sound of a baby crying aimlessly. He lifted his head to an image of himself... The Winter Soldier... standing over the crib, watching the baby shout a loud cry. Bucky gets reminded of the memory so deep inside him, so well that he does not know of it. He was scared of what he would do... He hoped he wouldn't hurt her any further.

Bucky watched The Winter Soldier turn his back towards the crying baby, ignoring her cry for attention. He then sauntered towards the HYDRA officer, who was randomly standing against the door. He felt the sound grow louder and echo in his brain over and over again. Just when the door closes...

He woke up... In an empty living room, on the ground. He was only wearing his trousers and a white tee. His shirt was completely drenched, at this point, in sweat, as was his face. It was a dream... A horrible dream... but he pondered for a little about how much was... true... It wasn't true... right?

He suddenly realized that it was best to write it down. So he reached out to grab the blue spiral notebook he had next to him and started writing. For hours.

The very next day after the nightmare, Bucky anxiously strolled through the small town near his house. In an attempt to gather and calm his racing thoughts inside. Who was that girl? Who was that woman? Why was Steve there? Was it because he took himself to meet his grave for the very first time since... the funeral?

Who was that girl? Why did they look alike? ... Like father and daughter? Or why was that baby crying? And he turned away... back in that awful place... being that soulless, broken shell of a man... The Winter-

To his surprise, a woman, fairly very small and frail, bumped into him with a slight hint of force to pass by. Wearing a worn-down "Dodgers" baseball cap, her face was nowhere to be seen, but from the look of her dirty pair of Converse with the rips and tears in her oversized cargo pants, she didn't seem to be in the best shape in her life.

It stopped him in his tracks as he watched her walk away into the street. His eyes, wide as saucers, followed her direction. His heart pounded through his chest the more he stared at her. It was as if a switch turned off, making him sweat profusely and harder to breathe. By the moment he sees her slightly turn her head over towards his direction, he's already on the run.

Without a clue where he was going, he stopped to enter a random cafe. He sat down, burying his face deep in his hands. With each shortened breath, his voice was gone and shaking at the surface. He was desperately unfocused. Everything around him was all blurry and sounded like an echo from a mile away. He would do anything to stop it. To stop feeling like this. To stop feeling.

Bucky later returned to the house he settled in, closer to his best friend Sam, especially after Steve's funeral. He placed his pair of keys on the kitchen counter near the front door. The moment he turned on the ceiling light, mud footprints were spread all over the floor, heading toward the living room. He furrowed his brows in confusion and tension.

So he went to investigate, with his pistol in both arms, flesh and metal, aimed at whatever target he saw. As he inched closer to the living room, the air was filled with the scent of pine cones, must, and dirt. The smell grew more pungent and stronger.

He made his way into the living room, bewildered. It was the same woman wearing the same "Dodgers" baseball cap and holed-up clothing from his stroll today—the same woman who had caused his panic attack. His heart nearly stopped at the sight.

She seemingly stared, kneeling on the ground, at a specific frame next to the TV stand. It was a photo of him and Steve younger, back in the 40s. He knew from the glance of Bucky's smile that it took years to get back. It seemed so easy then.

"Who's there?"

The woman jumped up and turned with her bruised hands up in the air, dropping the frame. It broke into shards of pieces.

Bucky still didn't see the young woman's face. "Take the hat off."

The woman slowly removed the hat off her head, visibly shaken. She looked at him with the bluest eyes, glossy and pink from her obvious exhaustion. She breathed quicker, as if her heart was about to burst through her chest.

Bucky nearly drops his gun. Her eyes, her entire face... it was the little girl in his dream. His little girl.