The World Keeps Changing

Chapter 26

We spent the evening eating leftover pizza and talking and watching TV and just being close to one another until we fell asleep on the couch, wrapped up together.

The next day we got a text update from Steve the team was headed to Johannesburg, Tony said we probably shouldn't plan on coming back to the Tower any time soon, and Nat said she would be sending some of our personal things. Clint asked if I'd seen the snake yet. I asked what he meant by that and nobody answered me. I asked Bucky if he had heard anything about it from Steve, or if he had seen anything in the commons. He said no, but something about the way he said it left me feeling skeptical. Like he answered my question, but I had asked the wrong one. But, then he decided to eat me out on the table in the breakfast nook until I forgot what I was trying to find out and damn near forgot my own name.

In the afternoon he showed me around the house and we went down to the training gym. He wanted to work out, and I tried to stretch and do some of my physical therapy exercises. Not much, due to how sore and stiff I still felt, but it helped to at least move around some. Eventually, I was just doing some very static stretches and watching him.

It had been a long time since I'd gotten to just watch him drill. All the Avengers moved differently when they fought. Nat was elegant, small and nimble and sharp. Steve was a brawler, all directness and power married to solid technique and competence. Bucky was effortless confidence. I knew a lot of the skills that lived in his head were a part of the thing he hated, the thing he would be rid of in a moment if he could. That didn't stop him from being beautiful to watch. I loved the way he moved when he sunk into his body and stopped thinking. It was like his entire body could move with that cocky smile he had sometimes. He moved with fluid confidence, quick and seamless, power only when and where it was needed.

And, with a knife in his hand... It flipped and twisted and switched hands with the grace of water. His hands had always fascinated me. I could watch him do knife drills or clean his guns for hours. Now I did it with my chest full of hot butterflies.

He noticed me watching and tried to teach me to throw a knife after that, but gave up on my lack of coordination after an hour. I was impressed he held out that long. Then I shoved him against the wall in the locker room and showed him there are other things my hands are very good at.

The following morning, after yet another Bucky-made breakfast, he finally took me on a tour of the Compound. A delivery van arrived with a couple of boxes of mine and Bucky's personal items, so he took me with him up to the main entrance to pick them up. The compound was expansive. He showed me around the soon to be main facility with S.H.I.E.L.D offices, he drove us around the larger grounds of the compound and in the early afternoon we went into town for groceries. It made me feel a little sad when he pulled on his leather gloves and jacket to hide his arm when we left the compound. Seeing it had become so normal for me. I had nearly forgotten that most people would feel uncomfortable about it.

I'd also forgotten I had three day old bumps and scrapes everywhere, even on my face, until I got some subtle questioning looks and safety signals while we were out, which I politely waved off, and a few really dirty looks at Bucky. He was damn near beside himself when I told him on the way home that the sweet-looking older lady by the cucumbers had subtly asked me if I was okay and if I needed help getting away from "that rough, angry-looking man".

"I couldn't help but laugh." I was telling him as we parked in front of the house and I got out. "I thanked her so much for caring enough to ask. I told her, 'I'm so glad there are people like you watching out for others. I was in a car accident a few days ago." We walked around to the trunk of the car to take the groceries inside. "'Drunk driver,' I said to her and 'No ma'am, it looks worse than it is. My boyfriend over there is still feeling very upset and overprotective about-'." He froze, and I gave him a questioning look. "What?"