Finding Memories

Chapter Nine

"Hey," Steve nodded Bucky's way once he walked into the hallway of the med bay.

In front of them was the small window that peered into the assailant Y/N had put in this hospital bed. She was awake and had a nurse next to her checking her vitals and doing some tests.

"Hey," Bucky nodded back, joining his friend as they watched from the outside. "What has she said so far?"

"Not as much as you think," Steve sighed, his arms across his chest rising and falling with his breath. "She was a little freaked out when she woke up. Couldn't remember much at the moment."

"But it started coming back to her," Bucky put together. "She panic?"

"To put it lightly," Steve nodded. "Nurses had to sedate her some to calm her down. But she did rush out saying that she didn't mean to do it. She didn't want to do it. It was part of their plan."

"I'm going to assume we don't know who they are," he replied with a small hint of annoyance.

"We are 99% sure that it has to do with Y/N's previous captors, but we haven't got a real confirmation on that just yet." Steve hung his head before turning to Bucky finally. "I've seen fear and regret in more ways than one. I can say that whatever that girl did, there's a good chance it wasn't by her own will."

"Mind control? Manipulation?" Bucky listed. "Pure terror? What pushed her to ambush us at the museum?"

"That's what I hope we can figure out," Steve answered. "From what I gathered, I don't think she wanted to do anything she did."

"She was the muscle. If you saw the hold she had on Y/N then, you wouldn't think it wasn't intentional."

"The things mind control and threatening someone's life can do to a person's free will," Steve added, giving Bucky a look.

Bucky rolled his eyes and never looked his friend's way knowing he would have a look about him that showed he had to go into this without any biases.

He knew Bucky was a little close to the case with Y/N being the one attacked, but he also knew they weren't going to get answers if they didn't take a step away from the prejudice he held.

"When can we go in?" Bucky asked, sidestepping his intense stare.

"As soon as they finish the test," he answered. "Where did you end up finding Y/N?"

Bucky was happy about the change of topic, especially since he was trying to figure out the strange occurrence.

"She was in the gym with Romanoff and Maximoff," he answered, turning and giving him a confused look.

"Is that shocking?" Steve asked, confused why it would be.

"She was practicing self-defense with them," Bucky added. Again he waited for a reaction and Steve just blinked.

"And that's bad because..."

"It's not bad," Bucky groaned. "It's just surprising."

"Yeah maybe, but it makes sense that she would want to learn a few ways to feel safer after the surprise she encountered the other night. And wouldn't you prefer she knew how to keep herself safe if the situation was to present itself," Steve shrugged.

"I never said I didn't think it was a good idea, I'm just surprised it was her idea." He ran a hand through his beard, still staring at the glass window. "I guess the idea of putting herself in the same space where Nat would be throwing punches, just never occurred to me to be a situation she would want to put herself in."

Steve nodded, seeing where he was coming from, but like the friend he was, he knew how to make Bucky see both sides when he was struggling to.

"There is still a lot we don't know about her though, Buck. We don't even know what she did to make this woman forget whatever headspace she was in before," he motioned to the distressed woman in the hospital bed. "There are a lot of things we still have to figure out about her. A little over a week doesn't give us nearly as much information as we think."