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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It didn't feel right.
I thought I was making a good decision. Logical. Rational. Objective. I was a scientist, after all. I knew that much even when I had no memories.
It still made sense to me to break things off with Bucky. There was mathematics to it. And everything else, every emotion I was feeling about him, was muddled and confusing and completely overwhelming. When I thought about him, it was like untangling a basket of yarn. When I tried to make sense of one memory at a time, I'd pull at the thread until I reached a point where it was knotted up with another ball of yarn entirely.
I clung to what I knew for sure.
I knew that my mother was dead. I knew that I was feeling something like grief every time a memory of her resurfaced. I knew that my friends were uncomplicated, and that Tony hadn't hurt me as much as he thought he had, and that my initial impressions were wrong. I'd thought everything else was confusing, and that Bucky was making things simple. I didn't believe that anymore.
I hadn't seen Bucky for a couple of days. I wasn't sure where he was, and I was afraid to ask anyone. I didn't want to know if he was avoiding me or if he'd left completely, because I wasn't sure which one of those options would be worse.
It was a Saturday morning. I was in the sitting area of the residential floor, waiting for Nat to meet me. We were supposed to have coffee together—that is, we had made plans to sit around sulking together, not addressing our problems. As I waited, I was trying to make my way through the list of books Bucky had written for me, but I felt guilty using it, and as I stared down at the familiar pages of Jane Eyre, the words kept becoming blurry and unreadable from tears.
"Hi," Steve said awkwardly, lowering himself cautiously onto the couch beside me. I looked up from my book. If I hadn't already remembered that we'd sat right here and talked about Bucky once before, I would've had serious deja vu.
"What, did you two make a deal?" I asked. "Did you send Bucky to talk to Nat? That's not gonna go well. Sam would probably be a better wingman."
"No," he said. "Bucky is—wait, Nat told you what's going on? What did she say?"
"I don't break that easy, Rogers. You're gonna have to trade me one of those monkey head eraser caps if you want the real gossip."
"What?"
"Like in elementary school? The monkey head eraser caps?"
"Grace, I went to school in the 1920's."
"You didn't have monkey head eraser caps?"
"No."
"Bummer. I just remembered them this morning. They were pretty cool."
He sighed. "Don't change the subject."
"What's the subject again? I wasn't even deflecting. I was just excited."
