Stranger Who Knows All My Secrets [A Marvel FanFic]

Chapter 21: Grumpy Old Shit

If there was one thing Elena had become very good at, it was making Bucky do things he had been putting off for ages. After an assignment in Egypt, she wasted no time dragging him to a phone store so he could finally upgrade to the digital age. Granted, she had only done it because she needed to get a new phone for herself since he had accidentally broken hers by tapping the screen too hard with his vibranium hand. It was entirely her fault for introducing him to Candy Crush though she had only done so to keep him from panicking about the cramped quarters of their economy seats on the flight back home because everything else she had tried to ease his claustrophobia had failed. 

Bucky really didn't mind getting a smartphone and he liked hers so that was the one he picked for himself but he almost put it back when he saw the price tag. If he didn't even want to pay for a $30 haircut, there was no way he was paying $700 for a phone. People were out of their damn minds and he must have sounded like a grumpy old shit in the bar as she set up the device for him, spewing out lines like back in my day and a pound of bread only cost you a dime. She just ignored him while she connected his email, laughing at how freakishly organized it was and downloading a few apps for him that he remembered liking. 

She got him Uber, Wordle, the app that let him order food without having to talk to anyone, the numerous ones he could watch movies on, and one that let her share all of her playlists with him which was awesome because now he could listen to music on his mornings runs again since the iPod he had met its tragic demise falling into a sewer grate when it fell out of the pocket of his sweatpants. Truthfully, Bucky could hardly use the iPod or the phone for that matter and whenever he was alone he struggled painfully to make it do what he wanted, often letting out a grumble whenever the thing would change his words or the suggested replies would pop up.

No, he didn't want to give a thumbs up to Sam being taken hostage on his most recent mission, and why the hell did the damn thing keep trying to make him send winky faces to Natasha and Steve? Bucky once accidentally sent Elena a picture of himself looking very confused which she thought was hysterical and ended up setting it as his contact photo on her own phone so whenever he called her, his blurry mug popped up on the screen. There were also numerous occasions when he found himself shouting at the infernal phone because the voice assistant would completely mishear him and he was finally understanding Elena's frustration with the GPS but thankfully she was a technical wizard always willing to help when he couldn't figure out something.

Natasha called him the moment she learned from Steve that Bucky had finally ditched his flip phone and the first time she called him on his new one, she practically screamed with excitement into his ear. It took her a few seconds to get him to realize it wasn't a regular call either, she had video-called him which was something he didn't even know his phone could do. Learning how to do that was admittedly pretty damn cool and that first time with Natasha she was up at Barton's place in Pennsylvania. She was drowning in his family, the two older kids annoying each other in the background leading to Laura scolding them while the littlest one, who wasn't really little but was probably around ten, sat in Natasha's lap crushing her and interrupting the conversation she was trying to have with Bucky all while Barton was chasing after the dog who was tracking mud across the living room.

It was chaotic but heartwarming and it reminded Bucky of many mornings growing up with his sisters, the squabbles over toys and privacy, the kitchen and living room smelling like his mother's cooking, the study like his father's cologne. Throughout the video call, Barton kept trying to convince Bucky to come up and visit for a weekend, even getting Laura to promise that she would make a good old-fashioned pot roast for dinner when he did. Bucky was overwhelmed by the time Natasha finally ended the call but he found that he liked seeing the person he was talking to better than just hearing their voice or even texting them. There was something so impersonal about it and the team realized that very quickly, always switching on their cameras whenever they wanted or needed to speak to him.