After the events of D.C., The Winter Soldier escaped both HYDRA and SHIELD with barely his life and a mix of memories that he couldn't put back into place.
Boarding between the Winter Soldier and Bucky Barnes, he ends up in a small town that barely...
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chapter four Storm Clouds
It had been a week since the strangers moved in and it had been a week since Ray stopped talking to Cory. The pair ignored each other to the best of their abilities and in truth, it worked. The farm was huge and with Ray keeping to herself in her house and on the trails, they barely saw each other.
It was a good system that the two had come up with.
Cory spent his time in the fields, getting ready for the harvest later this year. He did the work that his uncle once did, before life's biggest threat took him over. With Jonathon aging and his dementia worsening, Cory knew that he would be taking over the Smith farm one day. And rightfully so. Ray never wanted it and Bailey would move on to bigger and better things.
So the farm would belong to him. And he was damn sure he'll inherit it on good terms.
Meanwhile, Ray fell into her daily routine. She woke up after everyone went to work, made her own breakfast and made sure her grandparents were enjoying their day, and then she would go out riding. She didn't have anything better to do.
With memories failing her before the age of seventeen, she never had that bond between her family the way that she must have before everything happened. The accident that took her parents life had wiped her mind. Not a single memory from before. She didn't even remember the accident.
And that pained her. She wished that she remembered her parents, her life beforehand. Instead the first year after the accident was just meeting her family for the first time and getting to know them. It was full of surgeries and fittings, medications and therapy. But still, the memories didn't return.
She wished they would, but she had long given up on the idea of it.
So she stayed low, minding her business. She felt bad; everyone else put their hands into the work that the ranch held. But this was her home, she sent money to Bailey and Cory while working two jobs and putting herself through law school. She deserved a few weeks to herself.
Mostly she was exhausted. She was exhausted from thinking and trying, she was exhausted from putting on an act and pretending everything was okay. She was exhausted from baths instead of showers, and the nightmares that always haunted her.
She needed a break.
Bucky Barnes watched her. And not in a harmful way, but in curiosity. He kept thinking about what he had heard Cory say and the argument they had in the barn. He kept thinking about the accident she was in, and how they were similar. He wondered if she couldn't remember things either.
