You Get Me | A Bucky Barnes Love Story

Thirteen ~ Genius

October 27th

Bucky:

"C'mon Maya!" I hear from Natasha standing beside me. Steve decided it would be a good idea that Maya and I trained with the team today. So far it was going okay, but I felt a sense of panic when Steve had Maya in a back chokehold and Maya actually looked like she was struggling. I hear Maya grunt which draws me back down to earth, she looks me straight in the eye and I give her back a look of encouragement by raising my eyebrows. The look on her face quickly changes from one of struggling to one of determination. She quickly grabs Steve's forearms and flips him over as if he weighed nothing and Maya quickly backs up and gets back into her fighting stance. Steve groans a little before he leaps up from the ground and faces Maya from across the ring again.

And then the timer goes off. Steve and Maya both let their guard down.

"Good job Maya. You and Bucky should come train with us every week," Steve pats Maya on the shoulder a few times before stepping out of the ring followed by Maya. I turn around to pick up Maya's water bottle and when I turned back around Maya was already in front of me grabbing the plastic bottle from my hand.

"Thanks," Maya said.

"No problem," I respond. "You know a few more minutes in the ring and maybe you could've had him pinned," I joked. I then see Steve shoot a look at me for making that comment, which makes me smile even more.

"Right. Because it's so easy for someone who's five and a half feet to pin a 6'2 man who's almost twice her weight," Maya says sarcastically with a smile on her face. That made Steve and a few other people on the team laugh, including myself.

"I mean, I don't know, maybe; you gave Bucky a run for his money last week," Steve says smiling from the other side of the bench Maya and I were sitting on, Maya still slightly out of breath.

"Yeah and then he whooped my ass multiple times yesterday morning," Maya quickly responded.

"At least you're honest," Sam interrupts. The whole room goes silent, no one else wanting to contribute to our conversation. It feels like hours before someone walks in.

"Barnes, Alton, I have your lab results and our primary assessment for therapy!" Tony yells across the gym. Great, we were just about to find out how fucked up we really were.

~

"Barnes, Dr. Zeeman thinks you have severe PTSD, and she thinks that it's induced minor social anxiety. And I've concluded from my lab results from the past week that you have enhanced physical abilities, and some enhanced cognitive abilities," Tony said plainly as Maya and I were seated in his lab. "And Maya! Dr. Zeeman also thinks that you suffer from PTSD and anxiety in the form of panic disorder. And from the lab, I've figured out from your brain scans that you have many long cortical connections with your cerebral cortex. You also have much fewer dopamine receptors in your brain than average, and the amount of grey matter in your brain is off the charts," Tony finished.

"So what does that mean?" Maya asked, dumbfounded.

"It means you're biologically a genius. In a lot of tests I've run, I've found that these three traits in the human brain are very similar to people that were also considered to be geniuses. Your brain is very similar to that of people like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, even Beethoven," Tony said while typing wildly on his computer.

"So again, what does that mean for me?" Maya asked again.

"It means you might be in the lab with me a bit more. You're actually very good with computers, and you're great at physics, I might find you really useful. And if I do, we can talk about getting you and Barnes immunity," Tony said, with - what I think was - a hint of satisfaction on his face. I saw her eyes light up with those words, and that was the second time in a day that I saw Maya genuinely smile. It was one of the brightest smiles I had ever seen from someone. I then felt myself crack a smile. Maya looked back at me and we continued to smile stupidly at each other. Then it seemed that realization came over Maya.

"Wouldn't that be kind of hard, considering the circumstances? Both of our criminal records are... uh, extensive," Maya pointed out.

"I can pull a few strings."

A/N:

Hey everyone, (not that there's a lot of you) sorry I haven't been active at all. Everything in school has been really busy but it looks like it's going to clear up for the next few months. Thank you to the few of you that continue to enjoy this book. New chapters will be coming ASAP!