Legend's Apprentice

Relations

My hands are getting all sweaty and I'm nervous enough to jump out of my skin. Except that then I'd be walking up to a house just in a muscle-covered skeleton, which would be ick. Best to keep the skin on. What the hell, brain??? Why do you do this to me?? And for the record, I've never actually jumped out of my skin. Not once.

The house is cute. It's a Craftsman, with the inviting front porch boasting pots of pansies and a swing. Somebody loves flowers; there's barely any grass in the front yard. It looks like a fairy-tale house. The gate opens easily and there's a nice flagstone path up to the house. It's perfect, not misaligned, which, I've come to find, is not that easy to maintain. But maybe it's intimidated by the inhabitants of the house, too.

It wasn't that easy to find the address, but with patience, perseverance, and rather a lot of luck, I traced the owners of a holding company. And here I am.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. If my hands get any more nervous, they're going to drip. I should have hydrated before coming here. Maybe I should have waited until it got cold. No, then my hands would be cold and clammy and that would be so uncool. Crap. No, it would be... repellent.

Come on, we can do this. Why does it feel like a twenty, twenty-five foot long path is more like a mile long? But wait. All too soon, I'm at the stone steps. My soggy hands start to shake. Maybe nobody's home. For the life of me, I can't decide whether that would be good or bad. If nobody's home, I'd have to come back and do this again. Ok, let's hope somebody's home. I don't think I can do this again.

God, my parents are going to be so pissed if they find out I'm here. And they'll probably find out when the cops call them to tell them I expired from fright. This is not what they had in mind when they agreed to let me come to school here in New York. I'm supposed to be head-down in my studies at Midtown Science and Technology High School. They sent me here because my eight-grade aptitude tests showed a really strong aptitude for science and engineering. The guidance counselor explained my grades away by saying I wasn't being sufficiently challenged, so... here I am. I didn't really like the engineering class I took last semester, but the intro to organic chemistry is so cool. I can just see the electrons floating around, making all these bonds. You know, in my imagination.

I scrub my palms dry on my jeans and press the doorbell before a) I chicken out, or b) my hands start to sweat again and I manage to electrocute myself. After about four seconds, I decide nobody's home and I start to back away, but then I hear movement and force myself to stand still. Cue the hands.

The heavy door opens and a woman looks through the screen door at me. Shit. You think you're ready, but I'm so not. Preparation is no substitute for experience, and I am not prepared to come face to face with Emma Harrington. Harrington-Rogers-Barnes? I don't know.

"Can I help you?" She has a pleasant voice, but she looks sharper than anybody I've ever met. I swallow.

"I-i-is Mr Barnes home?" I ask. Damn the stutter. I worked really hard to get rid of it, and it doesn't seem like I was as successful as I thought.

"Not yet," she says, looking at me like I'm a specimen. Yep, I should definitely have hydrated beforehand. I scrub my hands again but can't control the shaking. "And who are you, dear?"

"A-a-alixzandrya B-b-barnes," I manage to choke out. "I-if Mr James Buchanan Barnes lives here, I'm his g-g-reat niece."

She looks fascinated. I don't know if that's good or bad.

"Bucky does live here," she affirms. She opens the screen door. "I'm his wife, Emma Harrington-Barnes. Come on in. He should be home soon." I try not to shake too obviously.

She leads me back to the kitchen. It's comfortable. She has soapstone counters in a reassuring creamy white, the paint is a bluish periwinkle, there's stainless appliances, blinds over the window, a little dog door in the door to the backyard. The cabinets match the counters, and the upper ones have glass doors. There's a round pedestal table with four comfortable chairs, and she sits me down before rummaging in the refrigerator. She moves around and turns back with glasses and a pitcher of what turns out to be a refreshing limeade, then hits the cookie jar for fluffy sugar cookies. They're delicious.