Human or Soldier - [a Bucky Barnes story]

5. The apartment

Her eyes widened, 'So you are telling me that I'm turning 105 this year?! That I am currently 104 years old?!' The disbelief in her voice made Bucky chuckle a bit, 'And you still look damn good.' He looked at her proudly. 'Don't I look also relatively okay for a man who is even older than you?' Putting out his arms as a form of tada while smiling at her. She took him in, looking longer this time and more closely. His short brown hair, blue eyes. The wrinkles at the sides of his eyes when he smiled, his pink lips and stubbles of a beard trying to grow back. The sound of his chuckle filled the room, and it made Rosemary smile too. 'Yes James, you are very handsome too.' There it was again. Her calling him by his first name. It made him shy away a bit this time, fidgeting with his hands. She kept smiling at him, which caused him to short circuit and not know what to do. Suddenly he stood up, wiping his semi sweaty hands off on his pants. 'Right. It's quite late already, what do you want to eat?' He took out his smartphone, 'We can order anything you like, it is very easy these days.' Rosemary recognised the device from the song played in her cell. 'What can't you do with that flat crystal ball of yours?' Bucky looked at the screen and laughed to hide his embarrassment, 'trust me, I don't know half of the things this device can do, I am also still learning. It's difficult for an old man. Do you have anything in particular you want to eat?'

This made her stop to think, 'Food?' 'I know I must have had foods I like from before my capture, but I can't remember.' She said sadly. Bucky, who did not quite understand asked, 'Then what did you eat at the facility?' As if it was the most normal thing in the world, she looked at him and said, 'Three times a day I got a paste tube with all the things I needed mashed inside it. It had the most beautiful brown color.' The last bit was dripping with sarcasm. 'And sometimes, if anything extra was needed, I would get supplement pills.'

Bucky blinked and looked at her, not knowing what to say. 'We'll go with pizza. Sounds like a safe option.' He typed in the phone number of the local pizza place and ordered one cheese pizza and one peperoni. 'Can you also add one portion of mozzarella sticks?' He asked, finalising the order. 'Perfect, I'll pay cash when it gets here.' He turned to Rose, 'Now we wait, I have a feeling you are going to love this.' For a moment he had something childlike to him, the way he smiled at the thought of her tasting the food. 'Happiness looks good on him.' Rosemary thought to herself.