The Darkest Path

3

On 7:37 AM Grace walked to her working space, ready for the day. At least, she had to be ready for the day.
    Last night it was hard for her to fall asleep. She was thinking over and over about the Fist and her father. When she would go out for a dinner with him and  the training schedule for the Winter Soldier.
    With sleepy eyes she opened the door, not noticing the guards that were standing close by the door.
How strange, Grace thought when she opened the door and saw that the lights were on. She was sure about it that she'd turned them off last night.
    She gasped in surprise and laid a hand on her chest, to calm down her shocked heartbeat. "Jesus." She did not expect that. Or him.
    "Good morning, doctor Pierce," said the Iron Fist of HYDRA and he gave a nod.
    To make the situation less tensed, Grace smiled at him and walked over to her desk. "I didn't expect you here. Not so soon, at least," said Grace and she smacked her heavy leather bag on her iron desk.
    "I'm sorry I scared you," he said, not mentioning her words. When that sentence rolled over his tongue, his expression changed. Thinking, maybe even sad.
    "It's fine," said Grace and smiled. "I just didn't know you would be here." Then she saw that he was studying the picture that was standing on her desk. He held the yellow picture frame in his right hand. "That's me," said Grace. "One of the happiest moments in my life."
    The Fist nodded, frowning. It was a picture of Grace, two years ago. She was on a holiday in Canada, sitting in a field full of wild flowers, surrounded by big trees and mountains. He carefully put it back at its place.
    "It seems nice there." He looked up at her and she nodded.
    "It was." She sighed for a moment and took a sip of her coffee. "But now I want to know why you're back." She raised a brow and glanced at his cybernetic limb.
    "My arm," he said. "I can't move it the way I want to."
    Grace frowned and gestured that he had to walk to her examination table. "Did you wake up with this?" she asked and the Fist automatically took off his protection and upper clothes.
    "I did, doctor Pierce." He kept standing, didn't break eye contact and Grace took his cybernetic hand in hers.
    "What do you feel when I do this?" Without a warning, Grace lifted his arm straight up to the air. As far as she could — he was a head taller.
    He growled and cocked his jaws, but stared straight ahead. "That's a flower, doctor Pierce." Grace grinned. So he remembered. Than this would be easy.
    "Is this a flower, too?" She moved it sideways.
    "A small one." She raised a brow.
    "So this a big flower?" Again Grace lifted his arm into the air. His eyes were like frozen water and he took a deep breath.
    "Pretty much," he squeezed out of his mouth. Grace let go of his arm and thought for a moment. She didn't expect him to come.
Dang, she didn't even know what to do next, or how long they would be working. The schedule wasn't ready yet, so it was useless. And besides, she didn't have the right tools.
Grace had to improvise and did the first thing that came to her mind. She took her pen out of her pocket and threw it to the other side of the room.
    "Oh no," she said. "I dropped my pen."
    The Soldier raised his brows high. Grace raised a brow too.
"You expect me to get it, doctor Pierce?" he asked softly, as he was afraid for the guards that would hear this. Grace didn't blame him.
"Yes please." With a fake movement she pressed a hand against her back. "Bad back, you know." She needed to suppress her grin — she never joked around like this with patients. But it felt like she could do it with the Winter Soldier.
Without struggling, he did what she had asked him wordlessly. Grace studied his movements as he reached out for the pen. He got up struggling and walked over to her with clenched jaws.
"There you go, doctor Pierce," he said as he handed over the pen. She smiled at him.
"Thank you, Soldier." She took the pen and put it back in its place — in her doctors coat, "Now, lay down on my table, please."
With stiff movements he laid down on his chest. Without a warning, Grace pricked in his back.
"This is the place. Isn't it?" He took a deep breath.
"It is." With her hands she followed the muscle. It wasn't that bad, if she knew what it was. He would get over it soon.
"So you woke up with this?" she asked again and pressed. He nodded.
"I did. I think I did not have a good posture tonight." Grace smiled— liar. She knew exactly what was going on. This wasn't caused by a bad posture.
"Possible," she said and pricked extra hard on the spot and the Soldier made an uncontrolled movement, "But not true. You didn't go to sleep yesterday, did you?"
"Well..." He clenched his fists when she pricked again, very hard.
"And you didn't listen to my advice, did you?" With her thumb the pressed so hard that he got up. With a confused and maybe even shocked look he glanced at her.
    Grace stared back without moving a muscle. "You didn't listen to me."
    His shocked and confused gaze dropped and showed some regret. The Soldier took a deep breath and looked at his cybernetic limb for a moment before he looked at her again.
     "No, I didn't," he said softly. "I'm sorry, doctor Pierce, that I didn't listen when I should've." He let his head down a little.
    Grace felt sorry for him — he always seemed so sad and alert, and she treated him like this. She knew it wasn't good that he didn't listen to her and she had to make that clear, but she couldn't let him leave with this feeling. That he did it completely wrong.
    "You'll listen to me next time?" she asked and he looked up.
    "I will, doctor Pierce." She smiled at him and she saw him relax.
    "What did you do?"
    Grace gestured that he had to lay down again and started to press at several places on his strong back. Now she didn't do it to make him confess, but to calm his muscles down.
"A long, rough fight." She could hear that there was more, but didn't say a thing.
"Nothing else?"
He growled for a moment when she hit a sensitive spot, but didn't say a word about it. Her other patients would've cursed or got up, but he didn't. And that was something that made Grace think all the time. Why was he so different?
"It's just..." The Soldier took a deep breath, "nothing."