The Coffee Shop Girl ~ Bucky Barnes

Chapter 16

The silence filling the room was almost deafening as Bucky and Katia sat opposite each other at the small metal table. They had been there for almost ten minutes and neither of them had said a word since she had first entered the room and he had helped her to her seat. If it had not been for that short interaction, Katia was certain she would have believed he had never been there at all. His arm did not clunk noisily against the table and his boots did not shuffle uncomfortably across the floor as they sat there, whereas she was exhibiting all of her nervous tics, fingers rapping on the edge of the table in a repetitive manner and her breathing controlled to make sure she didn't send herself into a state of total panic.

"Natalia said you wanted to speak to me." The sentence was short and his words were clipped, making clear his discomfort regarding the situation. Katia did not miss the fact that he used her name for the woman they both called a friend, rather than referring to her by the diminutive form the woman more frequently went by around her American friends.

"Yes, I did- I do," Katia replied, trying to ignore the slight shake in her voice as she spoke, subconsciously biting her bottom lip harshly as she tried to find her words. "I just wanted to say that I don't blame you."

She could not blame Bucky for the moments of silence which followed her statement, knowing that she had stumbled over her words, running them together anxiously as she spoke. It would most like take him a few seconds to process her words without even thinking of responding.

"That does not matter," He dismissed after a couple of seconds, breaking the quiet which had filled the room. "It was still my fault."

"No it wasn't," Katia replied, her voice stronger than she had anticipated as she spoke. "You weren't in control of your own mind, and I chose to go back inside."

She could tell that her volume was rising, but she couldn't bring herself to care much as she faced him, her hands finding the top of the table almost automatically as she rose to her feet.

"It was my fault," Bucky insisted and Katia could feel a small bubble of anger rising inside her, something unusual for her. Normally, she was very good at controlling her emotions and she didn't get anything more than frustrated at the people around her, something she generally did her best to conceal.

"No it wasn't! You couldn't help anything you did as the Winter Soldier, you weren't in your right mind and they hurt you." She paused for a moment, breathing more heavily than usual as she looked in the direction she knew Bucky was sitting in, hoping he could see the desperation in her eyes. "They hurt you so badly that you did what you had to do, just to make sure they didn't take your memories again."

"How do you know they took my memories?" His voice sounded almost calm on the surface, but Katia could detect the hint of hidden, deadly rage hidden beneath what he was trying to product.

"Anthony told me," Katia informed him, taking her left hand off the desk and running it over her hair, suddenly feeling nervous again now that the adrenaline had escaped from her system. "Months ago before you even came to the café, when he was worried about your episodes of isolation. He wanted to know if I had any advice for him about how to help you."

Bucky's anger was almost audible as the two sat there, the small room falling into a strange sort of silence as they faced each other, neither knowing what to say. Katia started to bite her bottom lip nervously before she heard the scraping of the metal chair Bucky had been sitting on, the sound grating in her ears as she tried to stop herself flinching. The deep boom of his combat boots thudding against the floor, each echo of the sound making Katia curl further into herself as she waited for the door to slam shut behind her.