Honesty ♧ Bucky Barnes

The Beginning

First thing's first (I'm the realest)

Though I am a Chemist and a Biologist, the stuff that Erin is working on is entirely beyond the realms of possibility in real life, so please don't leave messages telling me that 'that would never work in real life' because, even though it would be super cool if it did, I know. 

That said, I'll try my best to make most of the science in this fic (besides the magic mind-reading drugs, of course) as true and accurate as possible. Hope you enjoy. Also, as a warning, this chapter is full of science jargon, so you might get a tad bored through it. It's just so I can set a base for the story, it won't all be like that I promise haha x 

EDITED 03/07/2018

"Bucky?"

He looked up from his lap, the ghost of a smile fluttering around the corners of his mouth. He was never going to get tired of hearing people call him that.

"Yeah?"

She bit her lip and pushed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. She looked almost uncomfortable.

"Do you really not remember me?" 

The question was out before she could stop herself. The serum was still in his body, changing his subconscious and morphing his perception, and he gasped when she asked him, images and thoughts flowing through his mind like paint through water. He could hear her voice in his head, all those months ago, joking with him in a way that nobody else had. He couldn't make out the words, but her accent was unmistakable. And again and again, the same image flashed through his subconscious. Over and over again, those deep brown eyes that could stop a man dead in his tracks just by looking at them. He looked up at her, his mouth forming the words almost without his knowledge.

"I remember your eyes."

SIX MONTHS EARLIER

A formula that could induce truth-telling? Wasn't that a little far-fetched?

Erin pushed the negative thought from her mind and instead squinted her eyes, a wrinkle forming between her brows as she stared down her microscope with intensity. A single white blood cell squished its way across the glass slide, leaving a gooey imprint in its wake. Erin sighed and leant back in her chair, pushing the microscope away from herself and tucking the loose strands of dark blonde hair that had escaped from her messy bun behind one of her ears. She glanced at her watch wearily, her eyes blearing as they tried to focus on something that wasn't being seen through a light microscope at X1500 magnification.

The fuzzy hands came into focus, and she sighed to herself as she noticed that it was well past midnight. It was often that she worked late, but not usually this late. She removed her thick plastic lab goggles from her face and rubbed her sore eyes with her left hand.

"Tired?"

The deep voice came from her left. She turned and smiled as she saw Bruce Banner, twirling his glasses in one hand, looking at her with a mixture of confusion and interest. There was a pad of paper on his desk in front of him, filled with a mass of writing that Erin couldn't even begin to decipher. Erin rolled her eyes. Yes. She was tired.

"Shattered, yes. Thanks for asking," she said with a smirk.

Bruce chuckled and stood up from his seat, coming to sit next to her. The lab was empty apart from the two of them, the bright fluorescent lights juxtaposing the late hour. S.H.I.E.L.D. had a busy science department, but only those who were truly mad stayed in past seven O'clock, the lab's official closing time.