Eyes of the Father

Chapter 7. Trouble

The events in this chapter happen from about a month prior to the action in Captain America: Civil War movie up to the flight to Siberia. I have tried to minimize using dialogue from the movie but that is easier said than done so have paraphrased many segments or substituted my own dialogue. There are also some segments spoken in Romanian and Russian. They are in bold case.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One month previous, Bucharest.

"Iacob!" called the truck driver. "What are you looking at? These boxes won't shift themselves!"

Bucky pulled his attention back to the boxes in the truck and picked up several of them, stacking them on a dolly. He pushed the dolly into the book store while trying to figure out how a poster with Lacey's picture on it could be on full display in the book store window. There had been no time to read the blurb that went with the picture except for the name identifying her as L.C. Chapman. The driver followed him with his clipboard and together he and the book store manager went over the boxes. Satisfied at the count the manager signed the paper on the clipboard and the truck driver ordered Bucky to take the dolly back to the truck.

"You're distracted today," said the driver in Romanian as they both got into the cab of the truck. "I've never seen you this way. We have eight more stops this morning. Get your head on straight, Iacob."

Bucky nodded. "Sorry," he said. "I'll do better."

As the driver went on to their next delivery Bucky thought over the name. L.C. Chapman. Did she get married? Perhaps she chose a new pen name to keep her identity secret, especially if the Russians were still after her. Part of him still worried that he shouldn't have left her but he knew if he stayed the CIA or FBI would eventually catch him, or worse yet, HYDRA would. After work he would go to the book store and have a better look at the display, perhaps buy the book. Throughout the rest of the work day he kept his thoughts away from Lacey and just did the heavy lifting he was hired for. When the truck driver returned to his depot he handed Bucky his time slip and told him to go get paid. It was in cash, which was exactly how he wanted it.

As he jumped on the streetcar that would take him near the bookstore he kept his head down out of habit. His stop came up and he stepped off, walking towards the business, stopping to look closer at the poster now that he had the time to do it. The poster was in Romanian but at the bottom it did say they had English language copies for sale. He stepped inside and looked intently at the book display picking up one of the English copies. He looked at the author information page and was pleasantly relieved that nothing indicated she had married. It did say she suffered from agoraphobia and lived in rural Iowa. He went back to the front of the book and read the summary, smiling that the plot referred to Virginia Woolf. Then he looked at the dedication page and was startled to see the following:

To my brother Tom. I miss you all the time.
To B. Thank you for the inspiration.
        L.C.C. June 2015

He smiled and pulled out some of his cash, paying for the book and walking to the market with it in his arm. Waving at some of the vendors who knew him as a regular he stopped and picked up some vegetables, putting them into the string bag he always carried in his jacket pocket. He heard his name and turned to see the fish vendor. He had a fresh catch in so Bucky picked out a trout and paid for it. The vendor said his name again and handed him something, a picture of himself.

"My daughter was practicing her photography and she took this of you," said the vendor. "I apologize she didn't ask your permission first. Here, it is yours."

Bucky looked at it and nodded his thanks. He thought of asking about any negatives but decided against it. He had a good relationship with the fish vendor and didn't want to sour it over a negative that would likely be in the bottom of a box. Before leaving the market he checked his surroundings, ever on the alert for anyone watching him. Then he took a roundabout way back to the small flat that had been home for the past year and a half. It was still dreary in many ways but it was clean, dry, and so far no one had come looking for him. After preparing and eating his dinner he laid back on the mattress and started reading Lacey's new book. As he read it he remembered something and stopped reading, putting her picture inside the page to mark his spot. He pulled out a journal type book from under the mattress and put a colour coded sticky note on the edge of the page, marking it as a memory from a certain time in his life. It was a memory of him buying Orlando: A Biography at a college campus bookstore with a senior coed on his arm. Her name was ... Edna, and they had a pretty intense physical relationship for the two weeks it lasted. Then he said something critical about the book and she took offence, telling him she didn't want to see him again. He finished writing the memory down and closed the journal.