delicate; b.barnes

[23:] love is so short, forgetting so long.

Y/N almost jumped out of her skin. Jesus fucking Christ. She turned around.

"Hello?" she called to the figure walking towards her.

"Y/L/N? Is that you?"

It was her. It was the woman. She was alive!

Y/N stood. "Akane. You're alive."

"Very much so. Although I can see why you'd think otherwise, with all those people disappearing."

In all her glory, Akane stood in front of her. She didn't look much different from the last time Y/N saw her. She was older, early to mid-fifties. Pin-straight black hair ran down her back, with strands of grey framing her face and making their way farther back on her head. Pale skin and focused eyes that carried a sort of heaviness. She stood with composure, grace, and honor.

Akane stepped forwards and shook Y/N's hand.

"It's been a while," the psychologist said.

"It has," Akane mused. "But I suspect you are here with no good news."

"Is it that obvious?"

"No one ever comes to me with happiness They come because they require my service. Am I right to assume that you are, too?"

Y/N sighed. "I am."

"Then come. I can help you."

Akane guided Y/N toward one of the corners of the warehouse, and it looked like they were about to walk into a wall but then there was a strange whir around her and suddenly she was in a hallway that most definitely was not there before.

She didn't know why she didn't expect this. Of course it was hidden. The elder woman continued to walk down the hallway and into a big room.

"So, what can I do for you?" Akane asked.

"I need you to make me forget that I loved someone."

"I can do that. But I'm going to need a little more information."

-

Y/N explained everything. Wakanda, the therapy, the relationship that grew, the kiss, the sex. Bucky. Akane was dead silent as she described the whole endeavor. Y/N didn't tell her Bucky was dead, though; she didn't feel the need to re-live those moments. Instead, she ended the story at the part where she felt Wakanda.

"I don't need to forget knowing him or treating him," because she would rather die, "- because that was important work. I just need to forget how I felt about him... How I feel about him."

"Very well. I assume you know what comes next."

Y/N looked over to what she came here for: the Memory Overwriting Machine. It was a robotic-assisted neural micro-surgery they used to implant false memories on the subjects of the T.A.H.I.T.I. experiment. It was gone now, the original one they used. But not really.

Something like that never really goes away. Not with the power it holds... or the power someone who wields it can hold.

She took a deep breath. The machine looked, well, terrifying.