Manipulation [Bucky Barnes Fic]

PART 2- Chapter 1

The bell rang with an annoying shrill I grew accustomed to. There was chatter all around me, it drowned my own thoughts. There was slamming and shoving, squeaking of shoes at every corner. A sea of bodies made me look invisible. A perfect cover.

High school is a pain like no other. Wait. Scratch that- Bucky leaving is a pain like no other. It's been four years and I still haven't gotten over it. I'm a Junior in a Manhattan school.

A few weeks after Bucky went under, Steve managed to clean up whatever mess he had with Tony Stark and he allowed us to stay in the tower with the other Avengers. Since I was fourteen then, I had to go to school. I tried homeschooling for a year, but I wasn't doing good and Steve said that I needed social skills, so they sent me to a public school.

It was rough for the first few weeks of high school, but I have grown accustomed to it since I've been here for three years now. I had to restart ninth grade since homeschooling didn't work out so well. I had some friends here and there, but I was an introvert. I never went to sleepovers or parties because of that, but mainly because I was not Ruth Costa.

Since I was involved with a fight of national fugitives, I had to change my name for the school. I now go by Rachel "Ray" Romans. Natasha, or Natalia Romans, and Steve, or Steven Roggs, are my "legal guardians." It was pretty funny because when I went to my orientation for ninth grade, they were being attacked by accusations that they were Captain America and Black Widow.

Steve now had a beard and thick hair and Natasha dyed her hair platinum blonde and cut it short. They still looked like the heroes the teachers and parents thought they were, but barely though. Natasha's defense was that Black Widow had red hair, not blonde. Steve just tries to say, "I get that all the time. Sometimes I think I'm his twin brother."

I blinked out of my thoughts by the bright lights from outside. Cars parked along the sidewalk and in the parking lot. I noticed Tony's red convertible out of the sea of greys, whites, and blacks. Tony tried to act like a father figure to me. He shown me to a boy named Peter Parker. By his squeaky voice, I knew he was the spandex boy, which was actually named Spider-Man.

I stepped down the stairs and walked between cars to the red convertible, avoiding kids that were already released before me. Tony had his glasses on as he was playing music, windows rolled down. I scoffed as I climbed in, shutting the door behind me.

"Do you like the attention or what?" I said.

"What? I want to listen to my jam!" He complained.

"Well, you can do that without having it on volume 84!" I screeched over the pumping music, grabbing the dial and turning it down almost until it was background noise.

"Party pooper," He complained as he turned on the car, backing out of the parking space.

He accelerated on the road, "Have any homework?" He asked.

"I finished it in class," I mumbled, looking out the window. Even though I was eighteen, I still have the reluctant attitude of a sixteen-year-old.

"Ray-Ray, what's the matter?" He cooed like he was talking to a baby.

"I told you to not call me that," I groaned.

"It's your fake name, you gotta get used to it, Ruth."

"I like my real name better," I mumbled, crossing my arms.

"That's not what the government thinks," Tony said, turning up the music until it filled the car, just under volume 35.

He started to sing along, making me cringe in my seat. Tony and I had patched up the fight at the airport. It was a rocky road though, at first we could barely stand eachother, but now we were closer than ever. I had to admit, I still feel uncomfortable around him since the fight four years ago, but his singing was worse. I had to sit in traffic listening to the voice cracks and off-key singing.

When we pulled up to the tower, I yanked my backpack out of the car and headed inside, bidding him a "thank you" for picking me up. I pressed the button to my floor in the elevator, feeling it go up each level. Elevators were weird to me, it felt like I was going up, but being pulled down at the same time. It made me feel strange in one.

The elevator opened to the living room, Steve talking to Wanda, who seemed to be teaching him how to cook modern-style meals.

"Hey, Ruth. How was school?" Steve asked me. Wanda looked at me too, smiling softly.

"It was okay." I sighed and went down the hallway to my room.