James Bucky Barnes, the former soldier, doesn't think he's got any gentleness left in him. But Grace Juniper Cunningham, the former child prodigy, strongly disagrees.
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"𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯."
"𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴�...
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Grace's POV Three days passed. I started training with Nat in the mornings.
The basic self defense style that she tried to teach me made me feel like she was programming me, but I kept malfunctioning. I tried to think like a computer. There wasn't time to consider what I would do next, as she kept reminding me. I just had to do it.
I was terrible at it. Absolutely god awful.
"Stop! Thinking!" Natasha said between blows.
She swept my legs out from under me and I found myself staring up at the ceiling of the training room for the seventh time that morning.
"You sound like my old therapist," I said, not moving to get up.
"What were you even thinking about?" she huffed. "It definitely wasn't the fight."
"No. I was thinking about code, and then I was thinking about what it'd be like to think in code, and then I was wondering if Vision would let me ask him a series of rude and invasive questions."
"He would, but Wanda would throw you into the fucking sun." She pulled me to my feet.
"This isn't working, Nat," I said. "I'm untrainable."
"It's because you keep thinking."
"It's kinda what I do."
"Dr. Cunningham, Sergeant Barnes will be arriving in approximately thirty seconds," FRIDAY informed me.
"Well, it's been fun. See ya," I said quickly, before pausing. "FRIDAY, which door do I use to avoid him?"
"To your right, ma'am."
"Thanks."
"You're being ridiculous!" Natasha called after me.
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Bucky's POV
"You're being ridiculous!" Natasha's voice carried outside of the training room, but when Steve and I entered, she was alone.
Grace must've just left. She'd been avoiding me for three days, having FRIDAY warn her when I was coming. Once, she'd cut it so close that I could still smell her shampoo or perfume or whatever it was lingering in the room for just a second.
"Who were you talking to?" Steve asked. "Grace?"
"Yep." Natasha still seemed exasperated. Yeah, I thought, talking to Grace can do that to a person.
"How's she doing?" I asked. Steve had told me about her crying in a storage closet. He was trying to guilt me into dating her. It half worked—it made me feel guilty enough that I'd told Steve he could swing at me hard enough to knock me out, but it hadn't made me change my mind about dating her. Steve had refused to hit me, but I was pretty sure Romanoff was going to do it soon anyway without me having to even ask.
