Pushing Daisies [BUCKY BARNES]

15

"There," I dusted off my hands and looked around, "home sweet home."

"This doesn't look very much like a home." James commented, standing to my right.

"Yeah, but it will be. We'll make it one."

It was a one room apartment, with a minuscule kitchen and no appliances but an oven and a stove. We had found an old mattress that someone was throwing out and some old blankets and had hauled them up to our seventeenth floor apartment. The lady down the hall said she would be getting a new fridge soon, and that we could have it if we wanted. And to think, we had bought it for only a hundred dollars.

"We should go get food. Are you hungry? I saw a market down the street when we came in." I looked over at the man next to me, but I don't think he fully registered what I had said.

"Yeah, sure." He had a faraway look in his eyes. He looked lost.

I placed a hand on his arm, "James-"

He flinched away and I recoiled, pulling into myself. I was only trying to comfort him, and for some reason his reaction brought on a feeling of utter despair. Something that I had never felt before, at least that I remembered feeling.

When he realized how his simple actions had affected me, though, he turned and placed an arm over my shoulders.

I automatically leaned against his shoulder, a feeling of comfort washing over me instead. "This is our home now, and it's all gonna be okay. We're gonna get all your memories back, and we're gonna make a life here."

"Yeah." He squeezed my shoulder, "yeah."

I bumped my head against his shoulder and ducked out of his grip, walking forwards and grabbing my small black backpack off the counter. "We should get together a grab bag while we're out, in case for some reason they do find us."

He nodded, picking up his backpack as well and sliding his hat over his shoulder length brown hair, following me from our apartment and locking the door behind him.

We were silent as we descended the stairs and entered the busy streets. People bustled past us, the thrum of a hundred voices echoing around us, while we resided in our own little bubble.

"Look," I pointed across the square to a vendor selling fruits, "they have plumbs. Plumbs help with memory. C'mon." I latched onto his hand tightly, tugging him along with me. To anyone else, we probably looked like a happy couple.

I smiled to the vendor, before searching through his wide array of fruits and vegetables. The kind elderly man across the counter smiled back and handed me a canvas bag. I accepted it gratefully, adding 6 carrots, 3 plumbs, 4 green apples, a head of lettuce, 4 potatoes, and a small watermelon to the bag.

I thanked the man, handing him a quatro lei bill and turning to James, smiling widely. He was conversing quietly with a little old lady in Romanian, nodding along and smiling to her stories. I placed a hand on his forearm, making him jump a bit, but he relaxed when he realized it was just me.

After a while Ivanka, the old woman, bade us goodbye and journeyed on to search for yarn to knit a blanket for her newborn granddaughter.

We continued on as well. "She was so cute, I love old people."

James nudged me, and when I looked up at him he winked. "I'm old."

I broke into a fit of laugher, grasping tightly to his arm as I doubled over. I could feel him shaking and I knew he was laughing as well. "You're an idiot, Barnes."

He just let his laughter die out and we continued on to the next vendor.

"Ooo!" I cooed, racing forwards to latch my hands onto a small pot. "We can make stew!" I spun to him, smiling brightly.

"Alright, sure." He fished in his back pocket for his wallet, and handed the vendor a bill.

I held tightly to the gumbo pot, smiling the entire time. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Not a problem." His face was still stoic, as it always seemed to be, but I was able to pick out the happy glint in his eyes. As the days passed it got easier and easier for me to see through the facade he put up.

/\/\/\/———————>>>

We ended up returning the small pot and got a bigger one. We also purchased a whole chicken, various spices, spoons and good knives, some plates, a set of towels and some shampoo, a decent kitchen radio, and a small 'home sweet home' sign that I had begged for.

We were quick to return to our apartment, James putting the shampoo and towels in the bathroom while I used a box of matches to kickstart our gas stove. After about fifteen minutes I had hot water boiling on the stove while James deboned our chicken.

"This is gonna be good," I smiled to the metal armed man who stood across the kitchen from me, the knife I held clicking against the counter as I chopped vegetables. "I've had this recipe forever. Spicy chicken gumbo."

"It better be good," Bucky joked, "or I'll throw you out a window."

I faux gasped, "you wouldn't!"

He laughed, "I would."

I swooned now, pretending to faint and fall into his arms. "Whatever shall I do to get back on your good side?"

"Make good gumbo."

We both heaved with laugher, clutching at our stomachs. I was glad he was laughing. I knew he probably hadn't laughed in a long time, and I was glad that he felt safe enough around me to laugh in my presence. That he felt comfortable enough to laugh with me.

He handed me the plate with chicken on it, and I turned to slide it into the pot. Sprinkling different spices into the boiling broth, I couldn't help but smile.

This little apartment, with our gross old mattress, and crumbling walls, and our mismatched forks, was anything but a house. It was far from it. But standing in that tiny kitchen, making gumbo in a pot that was probably older then me, singing along to songs we had found on the radio, I couldn't help but admit to myself that this place was more of a home then I had ever had before.