I Walk The Line (A Bucky Barnes Fanfiction)

Chapter 13

Watching Bucky adjust to the new, modern world had been... interesting. When we moved into our shitty little apartment, I'd bought us a radio. It sat on our dining table. I still remember the first time he saw it.

His eyes widened and he frowned, backing up a bit. "What's that?" He'd asked. I was sitting on a chair, setting it up. "It's a radio", I told him and turned it on. Only static came out, and it was pretty loud, making us both jump a bit. While I was trying to find the right frequency, Bucky sat down next to me and stared, almost in awe. Once I got it, some funky music started playing.

"Do you wanna hold it?", I joked. He, of course, didn't get it. The little radio was taken from my hands. He held it carefully on his metal palm and turned it around with his other hand, examining it. I smiled. "Pretty cool, huh?" He nodded in agreement, then set it down on the table.

"They used to be bigger", he explained. "And they didn't shine." His finger pointed towards the little screen. I laughed. "Not to scare you or anything, but that probably changed the least since your time." He just sighed in defeat.

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Next up: computers. I worked in an internet café, and Bucky would sometimes pick me up from there to go home together. When he first saw a computer, he got so confused he forgot my name.

I was counting my earnings for the day by the counter when I noticed him come in. I sat there, waiting for him to notice me. He looked around and his eyes stopped on a computer screen. Someone was browsing the Internet on it and Bucky just stared. One of my coworkers came up to him. "Hello, how may I help you?", I heard her ask.

He blinked a few times. "I, uh, I'm picking someone up."

"Who?"

"Uhh..."

That was my queue to jump in. "He's my friend, he came to pick me up. I'll see you tomorrow!", I smiled. The waitress waved bye and walked away.

"What was that?" Bucky asked as soon as we stepped out. He kept looking over his shoulder at the café.

"A computer."

He frowned even more and looked at me in disbelief. "No way, it's too small."

I laughed. "That's actually the biggest one out there right now."

He stopped walking. "Are you making fun of me?" His eyes narrowed.

I turned around, facing him. "Of course not! Look, a lot has changed, especially with technology. They found a way to keep enormous amounts of data in a way smaller space. I'm pretty sure like 10 of those could fit the entire HYDRA database in them."

I practically spent the next few days explaining the evolution of computers. I even showed him how it works when he came to pick me up. Even though it took him about 20 minutes to learn how to use a mouse, he was both amazed and a bit terrified.

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Getting him an iPhone, then getting him to actually use it is probably my greatest accomplishment to date.

I'd spent a few months putting off buying us phones, because that would be even harder to explain than computers, and because we were almost broke. I knew we needed them, so I tried finding an old Nokia brick for him, but I had no luck and I was too paranoid to order one online. Every phone shop had only touch screen phones. Finally, I got sick of not having a way to communicate. Once we saved up enough money, I took him to a local Apple store.

"Why do we need apples?" asked Bucky. I had to bite my lip to contain a laugh. "We're not getting apples, we're getting... you'll see."

Bucky's resting face was a frown, but when we walked into the store, his eyebrows furrowed even more. I put my hand on his metal arm right above the elbow and led him to the closest counter. "This is an iPhone", I showed him.

"A what?"

"iPhone. It's like a phone and a computer combined", I explained.

"Where are the buttons?"

"There aren't any. You control it by touching the screen." I swiped my finger across it, then clicked on a few apps. "You try."

He held up his hand slowly, pointing his index finger out. He poked at the phone and opened the calculator, which made him jump and pull his hand away. His lips stretched into a small smile. "Woah", he mouthed. I handed it to him so he could play around.

He poked at the screen with wide eyes. His lips were parted a bit. I showed him how to make a phone call, type out a message (it took him a while because the screen wouldn't register the metal hand), and a few other stuff.

I turned around just for a second to talk to a shop assistant when I felt a metal hand on my forearm. "I think I broke it", Bucky whispered in my ear. Looking down, I realized he opened the back camera. "No you didn't", I told him.

"It's see-through", he hissed. I guess it did look see-through. You could see the floor and his legs. It took all my willpower to refrain from laughing.

"That's a camera, Bucky", I explained. I took the phone from his hand and pointed it at him, snapping a picture. I showed it to him. "See? Here, now I'm deleting it." I clicked on the screen and the picture disappeared.

Bucky let out a small "oh". I smiled reassuringly. "Come here, Buck", I told him. He stood next to me, but he was a foot taller than me. "Down here." He leaned down so his chin was right above my shoulder. I opened the front camera and held it up in front of us.

"What the..." I heard him whisper and felt his warm breath on my ear. "That's the front camera and people use it to take selfies", I explained. He made a face somewhere between confused and amused, still looking at the screen. He looked kinda cute like that. I took a picture quickly, before he changed it.

I gave him the phone to look at the picture and showed him how to zoom in and out. The first thing he did was zoom in close to my face and show it to me, smirking. "Ha ha ha", I said sarcastically, which made him smile even more. 

"So, if I buy you one, you'll use it?" I asked.

"No no no, I'll break it", he immediately shook his head. I rolled my eyes.

"You won't break it, you just have to be careful." But he just kept shaking his head.

"We need keep in touch", I kept pushing.

He sighed. "Fine." I grinned at him squeezed his hand before going up to the shop assistant.