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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Steve called to tell me Grace was supposed to be discharged that afternoon. Because really, nobody in that hospital could do a damn thing for her.
She was going back to living on her own. She didn't need me anymore. I'd be surprised if there was anyone left outside of the Avengers Tower who even knew about the clones after the work we'd done this past month. Colin had been walking around just fine. So at least I could breathe knowing she was alive and safe.
Steve had found her a new apartment in her old building. Pulled some Captain America strings to get it so quickly, I assumed. He almost never did that.
When we had thought she was dead, someone needed to deal with the fact that she didn't have a will or any legal next of kin. Steve managed to stop everything she had from going to the state by pushing Colin as a blood relative. So it all went to him. But Colin just did whatever Steve told him to do with it.
Steve wanted me and Stark to go through her apartment and decide what to do with her stuff. Her personal stuff. Pictures and crochet projects and tech gadgets and journals. Stark and I were in silent agreement that we weren't fucking dealing with that, so Stark just had it all moved to a storage unit. It probably would've sat there indefinitely until Stark himself died someday.
I had to go back to the Tower when I learned she was going to be discharged. The stuff she used everyday, that she'd need now, was all in my apartment. Exactly how she left it. If it was hers, I didn't touch it. My bed was still the way she'd left it that last morning, when she'd caught me trying to kiss her forehead in her sleep.
Now I had to pack all of her stuff up and take it to her new apartment like we were going through a break up. We sort of were.
Her dresses were hanging colorfully in my closet, the rest of her clothes in the drawers I'd given her in my dresser. I put them all in her suitcase. Her perfume, her shampoo, her conditioner was all here. I thought those would be good for her to have—smell was a big memory trigger.
There was half of a dark red cardigan on the arm of my couch with a crochet hook still stuck in it. It was for Stark. It matched the one she'd already finished for Pepper. Grace had said she was pretty sure she could get Pepper to make him put it on.
I left it on my couch. I thought she'd be stressed out if I gave her an unfinished project.
I knew exactly where everything else of hers was too. I'd memorized it. Two tubes—pink lipstick and the stuff she used on her eyelashes (was that eyeliner or mascara?) were on my bathroom sink. Books—Villette was on my coffee table, Sonnets from the Portuguese was on my nightstand, and a couple nonfiction paperbacks about the ethics of AI were stacked beside my range bag. And a pair of her socks that she'd kicked off some evening and forgotten about were under my couch.
I packed all of that for her except the socks. I threw them in the laundry basket she'd been using. I'd have to wash a couple things and give them to her later.
