Unprofessional
Bailey gasped as she was abruptly woken. Her heart raced as she looked around her surroundings, at first she had no idea where she was but quickly recognised her place of work. She checked her phone, it was 3:30 am. She sighed, annoyed at herself for falling asleep in the apartment. Another scream echoed through the complex, it made her jump. She thought maybe the first was just a product of her dreams, but no, the screams were coming from Bucky's bedroom.
She whipped back the blanket from her legs and stepped over her shoes that were sprawn across the floor. His screams were blood curdling, they made Bailey wince and her heart ache at the psychological pain he was in every time he went to sleep. Carefully and quietly, she made her way to his bedroom door and slowly opened it.
Bucky was laid on his back in bed, his blankets were strewn around, his pillows damp with sweat. With the covers being tossed around, it revealed him to be topless and wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. Bailey felt wrong for seeing him so exposed when she was intruding in his personal space; she couldn’t help but look at his strong chest, his muscular legs, and the scarring around his arm. Bucky had the sheets gripped, his jaw clenched, and his teeth exposed. He screamed out in pain again, his whole body tensed up, his head was rising from the pillows before returning, he was panting and his chest raising erratically.
Bailed panicked, this response to his dream was strongly physical as well as mental. Where his mind was torturing itself, he was at risk of hurting himself, his teeth were gritted so hard like he was biting down on something. Bailey stood at the end of his bed, she felt like she had to do something. Bailey took a deep breath, she could always try, she thought. She had done it once before, but it was a long time ago, before she even understood what she could do. She pulled off her gloves and shoved them in her pocket before pushing her hair back from her face.
Bailey cemented her feet into the ground, rolled her shoulders back, and stood strong. She closed her eyes and took another steadied breath. With all her might, she concentrated, and forced her mind outwards. Bailey's face twisted as she pushed herself as hard as she could, she squeezed her hands into fists so tightly that her nails pierced her palms. Her breath started to quicken the harder she tried. She felt a burst and the tension ease, there was no longer any resistance. Bailey opened her eyes to them glowing white, signifying that her powers were in use.
Spreading forward was a similar white glow, a more transparent glow than that of her eyes, with electric-like currents charging through. Slowly it grew, rolling out from her head across to the bed where Bucky was writhing in pain. The radiance engulfed Bucky's feet, knees, thighs, when it got to his hips Bailey noticed him beginning to calm down. It rose up to his torso, arms, and chest before his shoulders, then finally his head.
Bucky was now within Bailey's mind cloud, she began to concentrate less on the growing of her power but more of the sense it held. She thought of anything that could be considered soothing; something that represents peace, calm, and kindness. She thought of the sun shining down onto a white sandy beach, where the sea was warm and the brightest of blues. Bucky's grip on the sheets loosened, his teeth unclenched, and his breathing turned rhythmic as he too took in the scene of the beach. The waves were shy and gentle, lapping the sand and wiping the beach clean of footprints to make way for more. The sound of the sea was subdued, pacifying any anxious thoughts or worries.
Bailey then concentrated on the sky, the blue just as bright as the sea underneath it, without a cloud in sight. The sun slowly edged its way down from high to low. As it did, it transitioned from blue, to yellow, to orange, to pink, then to purple where it stayed with the sun half submerged on the ocean's horizon. One by one, twinkling star lights dotted the sky, more and more appearing as moments went by. A light breeze blew across the beach, carrying a little bit of the sand. Everything felt refreshing and pure. Bailey began to count and breathe, the fresh air she thought of had a touch of iciness in her lungs as she took another deep breath. It was invigorating.
One, two, three, four.
Bailey began to fully submerge herself in her imaginary beach. A few meters down stood two tall palm trees, tied between them was a hammock. The vision she was presenting had been objectively third person, but it switched to first. Through her eyes, she stood on this beach, Bucky walked ahead towards the hammock. He wore a white t-shirt, burgundy shorts and no shoes. She looked down to his footprints in the sand and followed them, trying to fit her own feet into them. Bucky pulled off his shirt and dropped it to the sand before sitting into the hammock, he then kicked his feet up so that he was laying within it. He lifted his arm up and nodded for Bailey to climb in with him. She steadied herself with her bare hands on his bare chest as she got inside, she laid alongside him. The two didn't say a word and looked back up to the sky that had slipped into a deep, dark purple, the stars a bright silver.
From what Bailey could see, Bucky was now undisturbed by his nightmares, he was calm and relaxed. She counted back from four to one as she pulled back her power. The glow reduced from the top of his head all the way down to his toes, and returned to Bailey's mind. She closed her eyes as it came back to her, she felt dizzy and weak. She held onto a chest of drawers to steady herself. Bailey stumbled out of the room. She struggled but managed to quietly close the door behind herself before hastily making her way back to the sofa where she passed out.
___
"Hey, wake up drooling beauty." Steve prodded Bailey's back. "It's 8:45, your staff are going to be showing up for work any minute."
Bailey groaned and rolled over. She lifted her head from the pillow, drooling was right, she wiped the saliva from her face with the back of her hand. Bailey looked up to Steve who was towering above her, arms folded across his chest. She quickly jumped up, and readjusted her clothes, baggy and twisted from being slept in. As she did so, there was a sharp pain on her palms. Bailey looked to her hands to see four nail marks that had pierced the skin on either hand.
"What's this then?" Steve asked.
Bailey put on her shoes, "It's a 'I was so exhausted I fell asleep on the couch.' What does it look like?" she asked with attitude, she was still annoyed with him.
"It looks like a sleepover to me." He said as he raised his eyebrows suspiciously.
"Sleepover," she scoffed, "Wouldn't you have to find me in his bed to qualify as a proper sleepover?"
Bailey walked out of the living room, leaving Steve in there but he soon followed, regretting the way he began his conversation with her.
"Look, Bailey, I'm sorry for how I have been of late and going behind your back like I did. I did it only because I care. I care about Bucky more than anyone else in this world." He said honestly.
"You're not the only one that cares about him Steve, I care about him too." Something in Steve's face changed which made Bailey feel the need to explain herself further. "He is my patient, and I care about how he progresses, therefore I do not require you to undermine me. I can do my own job."
Steve looked a little timid before he spoke, "Are you sure he is just your patient though Bailey? I mean, I would kind of get it if it were to be something more as you are spending so much time with one another."
Bailey was stunned, "Of course I'm sure!"
She snapped at Steve out of embarrassment, she was mortified that he had found her on Bucky's sofa and that he was aware of something she was still refusing to admit to herself.
"I accept your apology Steve, I want to put this behind us and move on." She looked down at her clothes, "I need to go home and get changed."
She grabbed her phone and hurried out of the complex, leaving Steve before he could say anymore and save herself from further embarrassment. Bailey prayed she would make it out of the elevator and out into the city without bumping into any of her team who would be turning up for their 9am start. It would be rather apparent to anyone that she hadn't been home, her hair was slept on, she was in yesterday's clothes, and she imagined her heightened state would be a dead give away to her doing something she probably shouldn't have.
In the lift, left with nothing but the generic elevator music and her thoughts, Bailey thought about last night and how she and Bucky danced. They were so close, their faces inches from one another, the way they spoke, the way they laughed, none of it would suggest a doctor/patient relationship. Bailey felt like, professionally, she had crossed a line. Where it was true, Bucky made her relax and laugh, he made her have some well needed, genuine fun, but she shouldn't have had it with him.
She unlocked her phone and texted Patsy:
Emergency visit to the hospital, need to take the morning off. Please can you let the team know and tell Barnes I will be with him this afternoon. Conduct the one on one if you see fit. Speak soon x
Bailey felt guilty for using her grandma as an excuse to get out of work, but her actions of the night before were eating her up inside. The elevator made its ding noise as it arrived on the ground floor, Bailey hurried out of it keeping her head down. She knocked into someone's shoulder.
"Oh my god I'm so sorry!" She exclaimed.
"Don't worry about it," a familiar voice said, "Oh Bailey, where you off to?" Charlie asked.
Fuck, she thought. "Oh Charlie, sorry, yeah, I'm, um," she stuttered as she noticed him looking her up and down, "I was in early, but I've had a call from the hospital. Patsy will be taking the lead until I return. Sorry, got to go."
It was a terrible lie, Bailey was never early for work, she would never give Michaels the satisfaction of donating her time to his cause rather than a few more minutes in bed. If she had simply said the hospital, she imagined Charlie wouldn't have given it a second thought. But Bailey saw him look at her puzzled, he had to suspect something.
Bailey hurried off before Charlie could interrogate her further and trap her in her lies.
———
Dr Thomas was the first to arrive at the psych floor. He switched on the viewing window to see Barnes in the kitchen alone, there was no sign of Steve. Charlie put down his bag, hung up his jacket and made his way over to the window. On his way he picked up his tablet. He leaned against the wall, peering inside, not really knowing what he was looking for. He noticed on the back of a chair Bailey's jacket that she wore yesterday. He then spied the blanket on the sofa and the couch cushions misshapen as if they had been laid on for a considerable amount of time. Dr Thomas added it all up: he knew Bailey hadn't made it home last night.
He loaded up The Winter Soldier files and scrolled through. He knew what he wanted to find, he just wasn't entirely sure where it was. After some quickly scanning over paragraphs, Charlie flicked back a few pages and smirked. There it was.
Dr Thomas pressed down the microphone button, this beeped and Bucky turned around to see who was there, but only one side of the window was activated.
In his best attempt at Russian, Dr Thomas read out, "Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak..."