The Coffee Shop Girl ~ Bucky Barnes

Chapter 21

A few days had passed since the group had arrived at the farm and all in all things were going well. Bucky had quickly learned that children - Clint's at least - were loud, always moving, and surprisingly unscared of him. Lila kept approaching him with a variety of sparkly drawings of things she had seen around the garden, from butterflies to buttercups, and Cooper had spent an entire half hour giggling to himself as he stuck magnets to his metal arm. Little Nathaniel was really too young to understand that he should be scared of Bucky, and had latched his chubby little fingers around the man's metal fingers, babbling away for minutes at a time before he spotted Natasha and scooted away across the floor. Apparently his namesake was his favourite person, and the redhead looked surprisingly at home with the young boy wrapped in her arms.

It had taken a while for Clint to show them around the farm, interrupted as he was by his children trying to point out little things they liked about every area. Bucky had been amazed about the amount of space they had on the farm, and it was clear just how much work Barton had put into all of the buildings as many of the extensions looked new, the wood pale and unweathered. When the tour had finally been over, most of the group had moved back inside, affected by the cold air and wanting to warm up before they really made any plans for the day, not that it seemed anybody was bothered about having a plan.

Bucky had soon taken up place inside the barn with a pile of logs and an axe. Clint had assured him that they had plenty of wood to last them through the winter, but Bucky had been itching to do something and he knew that the punching bags in Clint's home gym wouldn't be strong enough to withstand the brutality of his metal arm. A six mile run around the farm each morning had removed some of his energy, but he needed something else to do and Natasha and Steve had both been too busy to spar with him most of the time. Clint had offered at one point and they had play-sparred for a while but it wasn't the same as using his complete strength, which he couldn't do with anyone other than the Russian or his best friend.

"Buck?" The voice echoed slightly through the barn and Bucky turned to see Katia standing in the doorway, one hand clutching the doorway whilst the other brushed her cane over the ground. "You in here?"

"Yeah," His voice was gravelly from misuse and he cleared his throat as he moved towards her, dropping the axe to the ground beside the freshly cut sticks.

"Great," Katia smiled. "I was wondering if you wouldn't mind helping me with something."

"What is it?" Bucky wasn't quite sure how useful he would be that morning. His sleep the night before had been even more broken than usual, and he had spent more of the night staring into the mirror trying to remember who he was than actually sleeping. Katia wouldn't be able to tell, but there were dark shadows resting beneath his eyes, and his hair was a complete mess, even in its shorter state.

"Well, Anthony gave me some tech to try out whilst we're here. He wants to see if any of it could be put into commercial production, so he thought test runs on the rougher terrain would be a good plan."

Bucky was feeling even less sure of himself now. After all, HYDRA had trained him in a variety of military standard machines, and he had a far better understanding of tech than Steve, but he still wouldn't be as well versed as any of the Avengers. If it wasn't related to tracking or assassination, then he probably wouldn't be of much use in working it, and he somewhat suspected that Stark wouldn't be putting weapons of such destruction into production.

"What type of tech?"

"Mapping software. It's the same type used in virtual reality, and he wanted to see if it could be used to help blind people, hence me using it. I don't really need help with the tech itself, I just thought it would be a good plan to have someone there to make sure I don't fall flat on my face in the middle of a field, and everyone else seems to be busy."