Ghost of You

t h i r t y - s e v e n

I'm still stuck frozen in place as he makes his way across the field towards me. Even by the time he reaches me I haven't been able to shake myself out of my current state of complete shock. I'm dumbstruck. He looks at me expectantly but all I can seem to do is splutter out his name, well, part of his name.

"J-James..." I mumble out in an exhale of confusion, continuing to showcase my particularly intelligent conversational skills. I wish I could say I was able to pull it together from there. Instead I started full on glitching, so taken aback by his presence that I was sure there must have been a spinning wheel over my head as I struggled and failed to load a coherent thought. Clearly I was in desperate need of a reboot.

"But... but I... y-you...." I stutter, the last word coming out more as a question than anything else. "James Bu... Bu..."

"Buchanan Barnes Jr." He finishes for me, a hint of a smile pulling at lips. "You're a long ways from home, Jersey."

His sarcasm is apparently enough to snap me awake, at least enough to string more than one word together at a time because this time I actually do answer.

"I could say the same thing about you."

He doesn't say anything in response. Instead he just stares at me, so I stare back. I still can't believe I'm actually looking at him right now. My brain has started working in overdrive, trying to figure out how in the world I am running into him here, next to what has to be the largest heard of goats known to man kind. Is a group of goats even called a heard? Maybe it's a flock? No... no that's definitely sheep, not for goats but I don't think that-

"You aren't thinking about trying to arrest me, are you?"

His voice interrupts my train of thought which, of course, had not been about whether or not to arrest him but about farm animals, not that he needed to know that. His question did however make me laugh inadvertently.

"I don't think I have the power to do that anymore, even if I wanted to." I reply, and he's about to speak when I finally make the realization I should have made the minute I first saw him.

"Oh my god." I say, pointing to him. "You're why I'm here."

"It's rude to point you know." He comments, completely ignoring my previous statement.

"I didn't get why it had to be me to come." I continued anyway. "But you're the reason. This is all your fault."

"My what?" He looks at me innocently, well, as innocent as James Buchanan Barnes Jr. can look which is about as innocent as a dog that just came in from his backyard, trying to pretend like it wasn't him digging holes out there even though his paws are covered in dirt.

"You're why my name got pushed through." I answered, connecting the dots. "Ross was having such a hard time getting Wakandan officials to agree to having someone here. I couldn't figure out why my name was different from anyones else's but it's because of you."

"I don't know what you're taking about." He says, with a smirk.

I know he knows exactly what I'm talking about, even if he won't admit to it. It all makes sense now. They couldn't risk someone from Ross's division coming here to find the Winter Soldier. That would set back plans of peace and cooperation that had been promised by Wakanda, not to mention cause severe issues in terms of breaking international law. Given our history, they must have seen my name and known I was their best bet. That I was probably one of the only people Ross could send that wouldn't immediately rat them out for harboring a fugitive on every major wanted list.

I let out a sigh of relief. Of all the reasons my name would have been pushed through, this is one I can handle. This is one I can manage.

James Buchanan Barnes Jr. can apparently tell I'm not unhappy to have found him here, and from the smirk still residing on his face I know I've given him an ego boost that he most definitely did not need.