[1] 𝘿𝙀𝙑𝙄𝘼𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉 | 𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙨

✰ 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞: 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐚𝐧𝐱𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞

➸ 2015
📍NEW YORK
tw: allusions to sexual assault & self-harm
╰─────────╯

TICK, TOCK.

"Galina, I asked you a question."

"And i'm choosing not to respond." she replied shortly, nails nervously scratching her arm through the material of her hoodie.

Her therapist, Linda, sighs heavily. "I can't help you if you don't talk."

"Good thing I don't want your help then." her anxious eyes continuously flickered up to the clock on the wall.

Tick, tock.

"Have you been hurting yourself?" she re-asked the question.

"Is this apart of your technique, Doc?" her head snapped up as she furrowed her brows sarcastically at her. "Badgering your patients? Maybe you chose the wrong profession. Maybe you should go into law enforcement instead."

It's been a whole year since HYDRA fell, a whole year of the mad goose chase in trying to find Bucky, and a whole year of trying to heal.

Except Galina's way of healing consisted of pushing everyone away, raiding Tony's liquor cabinet, and holding a flame to her thigh.

For a while, she wasn't in therapy until Steve caught her walking around at the edge of the rooftop of the Tower one night.

Though she assured him that she was fine and was just messing around, he wasn't buying it.

"You can't keep going on like this, Galina." she spoke sternly. "The pushing people away, being unnecessarily mean. You need to let someone in before no one wants in anymore."

She clenched her jaw in annoyance, rolling it. "You're a bitch, you know that?"

She ignored the insult. "Are you cleared for missions yet?"

Ah, yes, those god-forsaken missions.

The weeks after HYDRA was exposed, Tony had managed to pinpoint several hotspots which meant new missions to conquer as a fresh team.

Galina hasn't been on any of them, much to her delight and dismay because for one, she does not want to step into a HYDRA facility again...but to her dismay because she doesn't like people treating her as if she were fragile...

...even though she knows that she is because that's the main reason why Tony and Steve and everyone else isn't allowing for her to go anywhere.

The last time she went out in public, she had a mental breakdown.

She also completely ditched her suppressors, that lingering fear of being controlled again in the back of her mind every-time she thought about the medicine.

But it all wasn't too bad.

While everyone was off fighting Nazis, she caught up on Netflix shows and hacked several places around Europe to try and find Bucky.

Every-time she finds surveillance footage of a man seemingly of his stature, the lead always ends up at a dead-end and there's no doubt in her mind that it's him purposely diverting himself because he miraculously knows that someone is watching.