| A DATE SET UP |
"I hate this."
Grumbled Bucky, he was sat on the chair outside Dr Raynor's office. Cassie glanced over at him sympathetically, knowing how anxious he was. Just as she opened her mouth, Dr Raynor walked out of her room and scanned the hall for the brunette man.
"Good luck." She whispered, pressing a quick kiss on his cheek before he stood up and walked into her room.
Once Bucky was gone out of sight, the redhead pulled her phone out of her pocket to text Sam. She remembered how he had called her the day before explaining that he was giving the shield to a museum.
Of course, the redhead wasn't happy that the Captain America legacy was coming to an end, but what she learned at a young age was that nothing lasts forever, eventually everything has to end.
From the day Steve rescued her from the HYDRA base in1943, Cassie has just been waiting for the day he'd retire the shield. But she never thought she'd lose Steve, that was something she could never prepare herself to lose Steve.
She didn't get to send the text to Sam before Dr Raynor's door opened again. "Elizabeth, would you mind coming in here?" Dr Raynor huffed, making the English woman nod her head. Walking into the room Cassie instantly took a seat beside Bucky.
His hand quickly found her hand that was mannerly placed on her lap, "What is it?" Cassie looked between the two.
Bucky stayed still, his gaze drilled into the floor in front of the two. "He's not answering any questions." Unlike Cassie, Bucky wasn't as compliant when it came to the therapy sessions. "I thought he might open up with you in here."
Cassie nodded her head at the woman before looking over at Bucky beside her, "Jamie?" She whispered, trying to make the man look at her, but Bucky couldn't push himself to look at her in the eyes. "Buck." Cassie used her right hand to move his gaze towards her.
She had a smile on her face, "She's just being a bitch." The corner of Bucky's mouth curled up when his trained eyes caught onto Cassie's nose flaring, trying to hold back a laugh, but she also held a scolding face as well.
"James Barnes. You can't be saying that." Cassie scolded the man through their mind. She quickly smiled, not wanting Dr Raynor to become suspicious of the two. The redhead shifted in her seat to look back at the therapist.
"So tell me about your most recent nightmare." Dr Raynor repeated her question, hands joined as she sat in front of the couch the couple sat on.
Cassie briefly glanced over at Bucky, who shook his head. "I didn't have a nightmare." He shrugged, but it wasn't enough. Dr Raynor deeply sighed and pulled her notebook and a pen on her lap. "Oh come on? Really? Baby tell her, I didn't have a nightmare." Bucky looked over at Cassie was conflicted. "You're going to do the notebook thing? Why? That's passive-aggressive." He grumbled,
Dr Raynor just looked over at Cassie who sighed, "He didn't have a nightmare, Dr Raynor." Cassie lied perfectly. So well Dr Raynor nearly believed her.
"See the thing is, you're an excellent lier, Elizabeth. But James, we've been doing this long enough that I know when your lying." Dr Raynor paused, looking between the two. "So you don't talk, I write." She shrugged simply,
Bucky let out a deep sigh, "Okay, okay. I crossed a name of my list of amends yesterday." He admitted, but quickly added, "Don't worry, I used all of your three rules." Dr Raynor nodded for him to continue, "Senator Atwood. She was a HYDRA pawn for years, help her get into office when I was the Winter Soldier. But after HYDRA disbanded, she continued to abuse the power I gave her." Bucky looked over at the redhead who was beside him, she offered him a smile.
"So rule number one? You can't do anything illegal."
"All we did was give some intel to the aide to convict her. And we weren't involved in anything else." Cassie would have smirked as Bucky spoke, but she had to suppress it, impressed with his lying skills.
"Rule number two?" Dr Raynor questioned, hoping the man would remember.
Cassie shook her head with a sigh as her boyfriend played dumb, but she also couldn't help smile slightly. "What was rule number two?"
"Nobody gets hurt, it's a big one." Dr Raynor scoffed, like Cassie, she shook her head disappointed in the man who sat in front t of him.
"Then why isn't rule number one?" Bucky looked at Dr Raynor smartly, causing a disapproved look from Dr Raynor. "I didn't hurt anyone." He quickly responded to the therapist. "Promise."
"And what about rule number three?" Dr Raynor questioned, causing a baffled look from Bucky, "The whole point of making amends is to fulfil rule number three."
"You know, you're a cynic, Doc." Bucky stated calmly, "Of course I fulfil rule number three. I'm no longer the Winter Soldier. I'm James Bucky Barnes." Bucky had a half-assed grin on his face.
"So, you did it all right, but it didn't help with the nightmares."
"Well, like I said, I didn't have any." Bucky shook his head in denial, he didn't want to admit he had one, much like Cassie.
Dr Raynor hesitated before she spoke to the man, "Look... one day, you're gonna have to open up and understand that some people really do want to help you and that they can be trusted."
"I trust people." Bucky griped Cassie's hand tighter as he grumbled. "I trust Cassie."
"Yeah? Give me your phone." Dr Raynor placed her notebook and pencil on her table beside her chair before holding her hand out. Bucky groaned loudly, before moving to dig his hand into his pocket to get his phone and hand it to the woman. "You don't have ten phone numbers on this thing." Dr Raynor spoke after a few seconds of scrolling through the phone, "Oh, and you've been ignoring the texts from Sam."
"Look, you've gotta nurture friendships. I am the only person you have called all week. That is so sad." She slammed the phone closed before tossing it back to Bucky, who caught it effortlessly. "You're alone. You're a hundred years old. You have no history, no family-"
"Okay, I think that's enough." Cassie cut in mannerly, she could see how agitated Bucky was getting with Dr Raynor's words.
"Are you lashing out at me, Doc? Because that's really unprofessional, you know? When did that start? Yelling at your clients?" Bucky cut himself off when Dr Raynor slammed her notebook back on her lap. "The notebook. That's great." Bucky sighed,
"Bucky." Cassie whispered, "It's fine." She offered him a smile.
"All right, give me a break. I'm trying, okay? This isn't..." He sighed again, "This is new for me. I didn't have a moment to deal with anything, you know? I had a little... calm in Wakanda. And other than that, I just went from one fight to another for 90 years."
"So, now that you've stopped fighting, what do you want?" Dr Raynor questioned the man softly, Cassie already knew what his answer would be, it's all he ever wanted- what the two of them ever wanted.
"Peace."
"That is utter bullshit." Dr Raynor scoffed with a chuckle, not believing the man.
"You're a terrible shrink," Bucky uttered to himself mostly but wasn't upset that the redhead heard him.
"I was an excellent soldier, so I saw a lot of dead bodies, and I know how that can shut you down. And if you are alone, that is the quietest, most personal hell. And, James, it is very hard to escape." She paused, looking at the pair who sat on the couch in front of her. "Look, I know that you have been through a lot, but you've got your mind back, you are being pardoned. I mean, these are good things. You're free."
"To do what?" Bucky questioned hoarsely,
*****
Cassie walked over to a table in the restaurant she worked in with a plate of sushi in her hand. "And that's sushi for you, sir." She smiled, at the group of friends in the back of the shop. "Can I get you anything else? Drinks? Sides?"
"No, we're fine, thanks. But could you give this to the other girl by the counter there?" One man smiled at the English woman before he passed her a folded piece of paper. Cassie smiled, took the paper and walked back to the counter. Izzy's was always busy, especially on a Wednesday. Wednesday was one of the busiest days.
So the bell over the door was constantly ringing, and the place was always loud with people chatting to each other. "Take a look. Nobody made it past 90 this week." Cassie instantly recognised the voice, it was Yori.
Bucky and Yori always went into Izzy for food on a Wednesday. "So young. Such a shame." Bucky joked while chewing his food and also looking over at Yori's newspaper.
"You guys didn't order the usual, huh? Feeling a little adventurous?" Leah was beside the two as she cleaned the counter,
Bucky looked up at the woman, but he looked over her shoulder at Cassie who was laughing at some joke one of her co-workers made. "Hey, Leah, I was supposed to give this to you." Cassie walked over to the woman, "A blond guy on table twenty told me to give it to you." She explained while handing the small note over.
"Oh." Leah confused, opened the folded paper and the two women read 'call me' and a phone number underneath.
"Looks like someone's got themself a nice date," Cassie whispered before Leah lowered her head to hide the blush. Leah was quickly pulled back into reality when she was to send another dish. "Hey, Yori. How are you?" Cassie smiled at the old man beside Bucky.
"I'm getting old. Don't let anyone tell you that being your age is hard. My age is hard." Cassie laughed at the old man, she shook her head at Yori's words. But she could see Bucky was smiling dreamily at her.
"Well, I'll keep that in mind the next time I complain about life." She joked, scratching her hand where the prosthetic connected with her normal hand. She eventually smiled at the two men before she went back to wiping the counter.
"You should ask her out," Yori whispered to Bucky, but Cassie's super-soldier hearing watched it. She smiled at Yori's sentence because for the past five months he's never spotted Cassie's engagement ring or never sensed the sexual tension between the two.
"Mm-mmm..." Bucky shook his head, Cassie and himself had made a fifty dollar bet on when Yori would figure out about the two or set them up for a date. Bucky had five days until he won the bet, and he didn't want to lose.
"He would like to take you out on a date. Maybe to bingo or a night of pinochle?" Yori spoke up, catching Cassie's attention. She just had her usual grin on her face, while she glanced over at Bucky.
"That sounds fun." Cassie's posh English accent had the sound smugly as she looked between the two men. "I like card games."
"I'm really sorry about him." Bucky apologised, sending a slight warning glare to Cassie in an attempt to make her turn down the date. But Cassie was just as stubborn as Bucky, she wasn't losing this bet.
"Why are you sorry? I'm in, I haven't played a card game in so long, especially pinochle."
"Wow," Bucky muttered under his breath, preparing himself for Cassie to lever let down the five-month-long bet.
"Tomorrow night, then?" Yori looked between the two, Cassie smiled at the brunette man,
"Tomorrow night's great." Bucky chuckled at Cassie smirk on her face.
"Just maybe not rummy." Cassie stopped smiling and shook her head. Rummy wasn't her favourite, she never particularly liked the game, she never understood why people enjoyed it.
"What's wrong with rummy?" Bucky knew exactly why Cassie didn't like the game, he was just teasing her about the fact that one of the main reasons she didn't like the game was because eall the times they played growing up they always lost.
"Yeah." Yori nodded looking at the woman confused, not seeing the tension between the two.
"I have a shift, but if you wanna come back here, I should be done around 10:00." She changed the subject when she heard the bell ring to bring another dish of food to a table. "See you then." She turned to see the dish and the table number nineteen.
"I can't believe you did that," Bucky whispered towards Yori, but Cassie was still eavesdropping into their conversation.
"It's a dance to these things."
"You can't... You gotta warm-up and I haven't danced since 1943...it feels like." Cassie chuckled at Bucky's words. "What's wrong?" Bucky spotted that Yori was being quiet and upset.
"私の息子...彼は赤豆餅が大好きです," Yori spoke sadly to Bucky.
(My son... he loves the red bean mochi.)
"Um..." He sighed, looking back at Bucky. "He had a job with a consulting company. And, uh, he was working abroad and he was killed. The police said 'Wrong place, wrong time,' but... I will never know what really happened to him. I felt it was strange. In here." Yori patted his chest just where his heart was.