UNCERTAINTY
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In medical psychology, there is a discussion referred to as the person-situation debate. Can behaviour be better predicted by knowing the person, or the situation- and which holds the most weight?

If Sadie had to predict the behaviour of Steve Rogers after the events in Vienna, she could make a fair guess based on both the person and situation. He wouldn't follow her advice, she knew it. He wouldn't stay in London and he wouldn't stay out of it.

It didn't mean she was any less angry to be flown to Berlin because Captain America and the Falcon were out playing street past curfew.

"Warmer than jail," she heard Tony call as she rounded a corner past the meeting rooms.

"Where are they?" Sadie asked him and Natasha as they passed each other, but she didn't slow down the speed of her swift walk.

"Down the hall," Tony said, and Sadie walked faster until soon enough, she spotted Steve and Sam, stood by the doorway, as if they'd done nothing wrong. "Be gentle!"

"Gentle my ass," she murmured, coming to a full stop before the two soldiers. "You want to explain?"

There was no answer at that, which only made Sadie's blood boil even more at their unapologetic expressions.

"I told you to stay in London," she reminded Steve, who only shrugged.

"I wasn't in London," he replied, nonchalantly. She shook her head, and turned to glare at Sam, next.

"You couldn't talk some sense into this idiot?" she snapped, and Sam raised his hands in defeat. "You just join in his antics?"

"If you're going to blame anyone, blame me," Steve said, before Sam could speak, and it was a knee jerk reaction to whirl on him.

"Oh," Sadie laughed, cold and bitter as she crossed her arms. "Oh, I'm blaming you, alright. This way."

She turned to lead them down the corridors to the office that that was equating their cell. Sadie didn't walk any slower either, barking at the men to keep up as their pace relaxed, and she could hear their low mumblings.

"You're in deeper shit than me."

"I'm not."

"You are, man. Your girl's about to beat your ass-"

"Sam," Sadie snapped, as she came to an abrupt halt at the office. "Trust me when I say, I'd be beating the crap out of the pair of you if it was allowed. In fact, I think there'd be a whole line of people waiting for their turn. But for now, we gotta make do with the naughty step."

The two of them hesitated by the door she held open, Steve scanning the room as if there was something that might be hiding behind the entirely transparent glass. Losing her patience, Sadie prompted him into the room with a sharp jab between his shoulder blades, and he took the cue to enter, Sam hot on his heels.

"Let me explain how this works," Sadie started, as they took their seats at the table. "You don't leave this room. You don't speak or signal to anyone outside of this room. There's audio-visual surveillance here, so don't bother chatting up a plan to get out, they're going to split you up soon anyway. Any attempt to leave will only put you somewhere even more secure."

"Would you get in our way if we tried to go?" Steve asked, his eye contact near uncomfortable. It was a loaded question, and it made her the bad guy.

"Yes," Sadie said, firmly. "Lucky, though, isn't it? Since you're not going anywhere."

"Not without my wings," Sam grumbled, and she raised an eyebrow.

"And whose fault is that?" she asked, turning to leave, when she felt Steve's grip on her forearm.

Sadie had told herself not to touch him, and make sure he didn't touch her either.

She knew that she'd lose all resolve if she got too close, and it was happening already as he turned her around, his hand gripping hers. He was so close that she would've been embarrassed Sam was so near, or that the walls were all glass, if Steve wasn't able to take all her focus the way he did.

"I don't want to fight with you," he said, quietly, and she sighed, nodding her head.

"I know," she said, shaking her hand free and stepping back. "So make it easy, and stay put, okay? I'm working on getting you a lawyer."

"A lawyer?" Steve frowned. "But that Commander-"

"Even if you're wrong, you still have rights," Sadie pointed out. "I texted Savannah. She's going to try and pull some strings at Cambridge."

Steve still didn't look satisfied at that, but she shook her head, reading his mind. She reached over to the microphone button, turned it off.

"I can't get anyone for Barnes," she explained. "Not after what he did, it's too much."

"Sadie, I don't think-"

"The rest of the world does," Sadie sighed. "The people at that conference..."

She swallowed down the anger in her stomach as she thought about the lives lost, the lives she could have saved if she was allowed to use her abilities that day. Instead, she was forced to stand by as people were hurt.

"The rest of the world thinks it was Barnes," Sadie repeated. "And frankly, so do I."

"What are they going to do to him?" Steve asked, his eyes drifting toward the surveillance footage outside the room.

"Just an eval," Sadie assured him. "They have this Swiss fella in, he's supposed to be a specialist."

"You can't do it?" Sam asked, from his seat, and she shook her head.

"I'm not a psychiatrist," she said.

"Can you sit in?" Steve asked. "Make sure none of it's... leading. Or at least check on him?"

"You want me to 'check on' the Winter Soldier?" Sadie scoffed. "Who's going to 'check on' me?"

"You know I wouldn't ask if..." he trailed off, looking back toward the footage before staring back at her again. "Please."

She bit her lip, thinking for a moment. She'd regret it, but she couldn't stand the worry in Steve's eyes, so she nodded, and he sighed in relief.

Sadie left swiftly before he could get her doing anything else completely insane, entering the elevator to head down to the lower levels, where she knew the psychiatrist would be getting ready to 'treat' Barnes.

It wasn't treatment, they all knew it. It was interrogation.

When she reached the lower ground, the office space buzzing with officials and soldiers, and yet it was hard to find any doctors in the crowd.

"I'm looking for Dr Broussard?" she called, over the room. "Dr Theo Broussard!"

"Here," she heard a voice call, and it took her a moment to trace the voice to a mousey looking man in the back of the room, bent over a briefcase which he snapped shut as soon as she got closer. "Dr Moore. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I want to observe your treatment of Barnes," Sadie said, confidently.

"Are you interested in the psychiatric arts, Dr Moore?" Broussard asked, but there was something other than playfulness in his eyes.

"Arts are subjective," Sadie said. "Medicine is a practise."

Broussard only shrugged. "I did not study philosophy. But I treat my patients only privately. Too many eyes in the room will... affect my results."

"Mm, yes, I understand," she mused, although she didn't. Something felt off. "You never work with students, Dr Broussard? You never have observations from the board of your hospital?"

"All due respect, Dr Moore," Broussard said, his accent thick. He wore an empty smile. "You are neither my student nor my superior. You can watch the footage like everyone else. Aceso."

Sadie hummed in response, snatching a pair of latex gloves from the box on the table and snapping them on. It was clear she was getting nowhere with Broussard, but maybe she could still get in there, find out if Steve really was right...

"I'll examine the patient while you prep," she said, casually.

The key to getting into places you shouldn't be, she learned, is to act like you should be there.

It worked. Broussard waved her away, going back to his papers, and so she made her way toward the heavy doors at the back of the room, flashing her ID to the guards as she went. It worked again. They opened the doors, no question, but they followed her every step.

Sadie didn't plan on getting too close right away- she held her hands glowing and ready at her sides as Barnes came into view. He was detained in a prison pod, looking down at the ground, hair hiding his face, and for a moment she thought he was asleep. Then he lifted his head- a simple movement, and yet it still made Sadie's heart jump in shock.

God, she was afraid. There were meters between them, and military grade confines around him, and still, she was afraid. She remembered what it had been like seeing the Soldier on that highway two years ago, remembered how even Steve had barely been able to keep up with him in a fight.

Barnes went back to staring at the ground, and Sadie's eyes wandered towards the CCTV cameras on the wall. She wondered if Steve was watching, and concluded that there was no way he wasn't.

There were more guards now, and they wouldn't back off her trail. They were there for her, she supposed, but seven of them? They didn't make her feel any safer, if anything they made her worry more.

Sadie wondered if they would have come in with Nat, or Tony, too. Yes, probably Tony- he's a valuable man, the face of all this, even if he can stand his own ground. But not Natasha, she didn't think they'd send in anyone with Natasha. The agent didn't need it.

But apparently Sadie did, because Sadie was the Avenger that needed protecting, the Avenger that was stabbed in broad daylight.

"Sergeant Barnes. It's James, right?" Sadie tried, gently. Barnes didn't look up again. "But Steve calls you Bucky. You mind if I call you Bucky?"

That seemed to have piqued his interest- Barnes actually gave her a momentary glance. Perhaps she'd overstepped- a man like him, should she even be asking for a first name basis? Should she even want one, after Vienna?

She put the thought out of her head, she should treat him like any other patient, hold no extra reservations, try to build rapport.

"You know him?" Barnes questioned, focusing back on the frame in front of him.

"I do. I've heard a lot about you," Sadie nodded. "We've sort of met before actually. You turned over a car I was in."

Great. Fantastic way to build rapport. She tried not to trip back over her words when Barnes didn't respond. The atmosphere was still chilly. She decided it might be time for some candour.

"But, y'know, that ended up being exactly the sort of thing I needed at the time. A good ol' shake awake," she elaborated cheerfully, before pausing.

The statement sounded much more insane out loud, and it didn't help that her voice wasn't as steady as she would've liked.

"I'm Doctor Isadora-Michelle Moore," she said, confidently. "But I guess if I'm calling you Bucky, then you're calling me Sadie."

"I'm not calling you anything," he said. "Minding my business in this place."

Sadie tried not to take it personally. "Alright, Sarge. But there's not a lot of people on your side here-"

"And you are?"

Sadie paused, again. Barnes was staring straight at her then, his icy gaze somehow managing to make her feel interrogated, despite the fact that he was the one in the cell. She thought about his question, the trap it could potentially put her in. It was so similar to Steve's question earlier. No right answer.

"I'm a doctor," Sadie concluded. "I'm not on anybody's side when it comes to these things."

"You step into diplomacy, you can't step out," Barnes said, and something twisted in her gut to hear Steve's words coming from someone else.

But it wasn't just anybody else. For all she knew, the advice could have belonged to Barnes to begin with, and Steve had stolen the words. Or it may have come from somebody they both knew, a mentor, or a parent, or a friend.

Didn't change the fact that it made Sadie sick, somehow.

"Sergeant Barnes," she frowned, moving closer to the glass. She could see him properly now, and he didn't seem to be in pain. "Are you injured?"

No response. Sadie sighed, glancing back at the camera with a raised brow. What was Steve thinking, sending her down here? She found herself suddenly thinking of Vienna.

"Fine," she said, simply. "You might not want help, but the people in that building certainly did. So I won't waste any more of my time."

"I didn't set off that bomb," Barnes said, his voice slightly louder now.

"Then who did?" Sadie found herself asking.

There was no way she would get away with this for long, she didn't have clearance to ask these sorts of questions. But she needed this to make sense. Needed to know if Barnes was a liar or not.

"Who else has your exact face, Barnes?" Sadie marched forward, the guards still maintaining closeness. "People died in Vienna."

"I didn't kill them," Barnes said, again.

Sadie didn't let her gaze drop, and neither did he. It didn't fill her with confidence that his face was almost completely blank, as if he had said the lines a million times. She couldn't understand the connection between the man in front of her, and the mischievous soldier she'd heard so much about from Steve.

But still.

Sadie didn't think Steve was completely naive, and she didn't think Barnes was a liar. Even when she was so close to the glass, even when her tone had been so aggressive, he'd made no attempt to intimidate her. And she'd seen Barnes in action before.

This pod was no real match for him, so why wasn't he trying to break out?

"Shit," Sadie breathed, running a hand through her hair, as she turned on the spot, exasperated.

If there was anything she knew for certain, it was that even if Steve's judgement was flawed, it was sound judgement, based on moral.

Sadie was never one to believe that a friend of my friend is my friend. But she trusted Steve more than anyone in her life, bar her mother.

She knew he wouldn't have sent her down here if he wasn't certain that she would be safe with Barnes, and how could he possibly know that unless he knew the man was innocent?

"I didn't set off that bomb," Barnes repeated, snapping Sadie out of her thoughts.

Sadie heard the heavy doors open at the back of the room, heard the frantic voice of Everett Ross telling her to back away from the pod.

"Then whoever did is getting away with it," she said, until she was interrupted by a guard who stood between her and the pod.

"Who gave you authority to interrogate?" the Commander asked, and she turned to face him, smiling politely.

"No interrogation, sir," Sadie said. "Just seeing if the patient is injured."

"Prisoner," Everett corrected. "Prisoner, not patient. And certainly not your patient, Dr Moore."

"Well," she said, throwing up her hands and moving to leave. "I'll leave you all to prep for the evaluation."

...
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hi all!
hope you're all doing well, and I hope you liked this chapter! As you can tell, Sadie's thoughts and feelings are all over the place, she's still very much angry about Vienna, and shaken by the fact she couldn't help people there :(

some news for you all! I've posted a new story! It's called "Tarot Moon" and it's a 1940s Bucky Barnes fic. Remedy will still be main project with weekly updates, but Tarot Moon is going to be a story I'm going to really take my time with- check it out if you're interested!

let me know what you all thought of this chapter!

much love
-Amber.