Eight Months Pre-Snap.
"They've all been accumulated from different farms, so they need to re-establish their hierarchy within the new flock. It's nothing to worry about."
After witnessing an especially brutal butting, Bucky may have panicked; particularly when the black doe started limping after a round with the domineering white and brown one. He had called and she'd bemusedly stopped in on her way home to reassure her newest client that everything was fine (deduced over the phone from what he'd told her) but dropped in anyway just to be sure.
The White Wolf, still unaccustomed to the animals and their instinctive rituals as of yet, felt the suffocating grip of helplessness. What if he kept screwing up? What if the animals fell into such a state that the vet had no choice but to report his failure? Would they take the farm from him? Shoo him off, back to wherever when he was no longer their problem? Revoke his second chance at both normality and healing?
But to hear her, the expert, say it was nothing to worry about… Bucky's jolt of both relief and disbelief nearly buckled his knees; the crease of confusion in his expression silently endearing her as she kept pace beside him.
"Wait… So this is normal? I thought she was gonna kill her." Unperturbed, Elsa's bouncing strut continued unaffected.
"Mmhmm. Completely natural. They tend to sort it out themselves. As long as there are no serious injuries, you're best to just leave them to it. Otherwise you could get hurt too." The black goat, Bucky's primary concern, had been checked out and given a clean bill of health. In gratitude and warming in his own cautious way to the little vet, the ex-Winter Soldier opted to walk her back to the jeep. "Your brown and white looks like she's going to be your new queen-" New terminology, something else he would need to wrap his head around if he wanted to keep the farm. That said, he would try and be as vulnerable with it as little as possible but so far, she had exceeded his expectations with her patience and willingness to help.
"Queen…?"
"Leader of the pack, head honcho, that's what we call them: Queens."
Queens… If that doesn't remind me of New York, nothing will… Before Bucky could become too bogged down by diving head-first into that nostalgic rabbit hole (which he could do later in bed), she unwittingly rescued him with another piece of advice; albeit careful advice. It wouldn't do to upset or offend the new-ish arrival now, would it? Or sour his opinion of her when she was becoming fond of him?
"I know, with the heat and the weather, it may be tempting to favour sandals over steel toecaps-" She began, mindful of the already vast wealth of information he struggled to absorb. "…but I would recommend a good pair of sturdy boots. Steel toecaps, like these, if you can. An extra layer of protection, you know? Animals can be unpredictable at the best of times."
"Yeah, how d'you even walk in those? You're tiny-!" Lack of interpersonal interactions lately (or… in the last seventy or so years) led to a lacking in Bucky's filter or what not to say to a woman; one, more crucially, that he happened to like. He may not have noticed but Elsa, by the bark of unoffended laughter, had. "They've gotta weigh, what? Two? Three pounds each?"
"Something like that, but I'm well used to it. It's better than the alternative, let me tell you. Have you ever had a cow stand on your foot?" Bucky, cagey Bucky, felt the strum of uncertainty he had come to expect with this sweet brunette; the insistent niggle of: Why the Hell should she be bothered with me? She has better things to do and more important people to see than give me even a second of her time.
But… With assimilation proving to be more tempting than the regression into his dark, lonely days, Bucky plucked a nerve from somewhere. Fuelled by her placid tolerance of allowing him to walk her to her jeep and her receptive air that seemed standard to each of their interactions, the ex-Winter Soldier took his chance.
"Uhh… No. Sounds like a story I wanna hear though." That's it. Start a conversation. So, she told it. With a gusto and bright, captivating enthusiasm that should have vanquished his doubts.
"I had an exceptionally irritated cow voice her displeasure by stamping her hoof when her birth wasn't progressing as it should have been; poor darling didn't understand her baby was stuck. My foot slid in the amniotic fluid while I was trying to move the calf, under hers and, in her defence, I don't think she meant it. I was still in training at the time, barely twenty I think but I'll never forget the crunch." With absolutely no qualms or disinterest in satisfying his curiosity (despite how his own damaged brain badgered him that she would have), Elsa went on, clearly enjoying the throw-back (infecting him in the process) and Bucky had to clear his throat while remembering to blink as he enthrallingly watched her animated recount.
"Spent six weeks in plaster and crutches. As you can imagine, "Hop Along Cassidy" got thrown my way enough times!" He held his tongue, the words "Oh yeah, I saw that picture, great picture" almost included themselves in the exchange but he caught himself just in time. He looked, at most, thirty to thirty-five, so for him to chime in, admitting to seeing a movie made in 1935, may have seemed strange; not impossible, but strange. Then… Calling it a picture? No one called it that anymore, Shuri had assured him of it.
"Must've hurt."
"Mmhm. My father was less than pleased though, let me tell you. Clumsy, careless, distracted… A whole myriad of wonderful adjectives that having your foot engulfed by plaster is incomplete without hearing." New territory for Bucky to reflect on later: Her parents. Her father? Just from that snippet? Maybe not the nicest guy. But what about her mother?
"What about your mom? What she say?"
"Not a whole lot. She died when I was quite young." Shit! Immediately, he hastily retreated to internal self-kick mode where he felt progress crumble (or thought he did) along with the nerve he'd specially fished for to interact with her like this in the first place. Goddamn it, I put my foot right in it! She's gonna hate me, she's gonna get in that jeep and I'm never gonna see her again... That inner tirade against his own stupidity raged in the split second that it took him to scrape together a response that might make her change her mind about striking his farm off her client list forever.
"Oh… God… Sorry… I didn't mean-"
"Not to worry." Not unaffected, but certainly not spiteful or hateful like he assumed, Elsa's eyes dropped to her steps as she took them; partially hiding a soft, melancholic grimace from him. The sympathy and clear self-admonishment proved to be an endearing reaction for the little vet; something that prompted her to gravitate to his character if he feared upsetting or offending her so. To that end, it seemed only fair to assure him. "She had cancer and… from what I've been told… it was kinder to her in the end. My father did all in his power to try and help her, put her in touch with specialists in the field but… it wasn't enough. I was two… Nearly two and a half…"
Bucky was not given the opportunity to humiliate himself further or dig a deeper pit than he already had. Sensing it and reading the farmer's radiating embarrassment (and the glow from his cheeks), she gifted him that sweet, double-dimpled smile as they arrived at the jeep; all forgiven, though there had been nothing to forgive in the first place. Then… She changed the subject.
"How have the girls been getting on with the oats?" Grateful, with embarrassment dissipating, Bucky had to re-centre from his self-punishment to something in a far purer vein: the gift she had given his animals.
"Uhh… Yeah… Great. I didn't think they'd enjoy them as much as they do." He had not been the one to provide the oats, but he wouldn't deny the stroke of prideful excitement when the flock bombarded him, tails wagging, to get to the trough; like he was finally doing something right. "I almost got overrun when I poured 'em into the trough. Have to start rationing 'em if I wanna make 'em last."
"Have you gotten to the farmer's market yet? You would get a far bigger bag there and they're not expensive. The hay is a good start, but it needs to be supplemented and oats are probably one of the best ways to go about it. Otherwise, you're going to contend with a lot more constipation, among other things." James Buchanan Barnes still had plenty to learn, the anxious squirm in his stomach telling him so as he watched her sit into the jeep; their "appointment" drawing to a close.
Comfortable behind the wheel with sunglasses ferreted from the glovebox, Elsa returned her heed to the one-armed farmer with a past that should have sent her scurrying. Instead, she fixed him with the encouraging beam that forced him to drop his gaze and swallow so as not to stare.
"I think they're every Tuesday and Friday, I'll nail down the details for you and let you know."
"Thanks. 'preciate it."
"And now…" The key twisting in the ignition woke the beastly engine; the erupting roar protesting the disruption of its rest, but this would be the last time tonight. Elsa gave one last dimpled, ensnaring grin before calling over the howl of the engine: "Dinner and TV in bed for me! I'll be in touch about the market!"
The jeep descended the drive with a parting beep and a wave over her shoulder which Bucky returned half-heartedly with a doleful wince to match. In their few interactions, he had begun to feel the creeping of feelings he had not felt in so long. Feelings that, when the Winter Soldier died away after a mission and left a broken Sergeant Barnes in his place, he had hopelessly resigned himself to never feeling again.
This girl though… This kind, beautiful, gentle, patient, helpful, oblivious girl… What would she want with him? Why should he feel like his guts had entangled in the blades of a blender whenever she smiled, only for nothing to come of it? And nothing would come of it, he'd make damn sure of it. With all the stomach-churning secrets Bucky Barnes had, anyone in their right mind would run a mile when they heard them, Elsa included. But it wouldn't come to that, would it? He wouldn't allow it.
With everything going on in his delicate brain (freshly free of its Hydra bug, hence the fragility), the last thing he needed was succumbing to a weakness that would certainly only end in heartache. Laughed at, rejected, mocked. What else could he expect? Laying out feelings to someone so clearly beyond him? Of course she would brush him aside with a scoff and a roll of those utterly breath-taking eyes.
With all that well and truly ironed into his resolve, how the Hell was he supposed to know he'd marry her?