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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Bucky's POV
My head was foggy. Was that normal? When I thought about other women I'd kissed, my head got foggy too, but that was different, that was how all my memories from back then were. Grace just made me stupid. Her and her little fucking skirt. I kept thinking about a poem from school as a kid. There was a fairy that enthralled men until they died. Or were trapped. Or she drained their life or something. Actually, maybe I was thinking of a bunch of different poems and stories all combined.
Point is, Grace was like that fairy, but instead of singing, she just acted adorable, and instead of killing me, she just made me want to sit and listen to her talk about computers.
I wondered if Wanda had been in my head long enough yesterday to know I was wrapped around Grace's finger two seconds after meeting her. I hoped not. God, I hoped Wanda didn't hear anything after the first "pretty."
Because when I saw her, I thought something like Steve's friend? He's right; she's pretty—Really fucking pretty—He thought she'd be interested in me? and that turned into me making my footsteps silent to get through the kitchen without introducing myself to her.
Then, when I'd talked to her and she'd looked so anxious, trying to make herself even smaller than she already was, my thoughts started sounding like it'd feel really fucking good if she felt safe around me—if she laughs all sweet and shy like that again I'm gonna go find Rumlow and forget I'm on the straight and narrow—fuck I bet she'd feel so tight, and Wanda really had no business hearing any of that.
Now, I could still feel the ghost of her on my lips, hands, shoulders, lingering wherever she'd touched me. I was walking toward the stairs with no destination in mind.
I wanted her to be my girl. I'd never even thought about a relationship like that this century, but after meeting her yesterday, that was all I was thinking about. I needed to figure out how the fuck that worked now so I wouldn't mess things up. Needed to figure out how to get from Point A (a date) to Point B (her being mine, knowing every curve on her body, being the only person who gets to touch her, her talking to me all the time and telling me about her robots and her feelings (she has a lot of feelings, I thought, I should work on figuring those out too)).
Then Steve was jogging down the hall toward me. I wished I could ignore him and think about her longer, at least until the feeling of her wore off of my skin.
"Hey, Buck," Steve called out, as if I didn't see him already. "Hey, what are you doing on this floor? I've been looking for you, and FRIDAY said you were here."
I hated that AI. Why should the others be able to find me in the Tower whenever they wanted to? I felt like a dog that they'd microchipped.
"Thinking," I said, falling into step with Steve. "Do you remember reading stories about magical, beautiful fairy things that enthralled knights and killed them?"
