Mosaic (Bucky Barnes X OC / Winter Soldier x OC)

Chapter 10: Bucky Barnes - Reflections in the Windows (Part III)

"I'd be hung by my ears..." Valeriy laughed out.

Then the tools started moving on the screen. Moving as though they naturally knew what to do. Covering the metal eyes with the clear goop sprayed out of the thin straw.

"I don't think the school realized we switched out all the windows within a couple of months, and now it has a few ghost legends floating about. Perfect way of herding people where you want them."

"I still mess with the staff and students there.... Whenever I feel like some entertainment."

"Seriously got nothing better to do, Eve?"

"It's a school tradition at this point. Who am I to disappoint?"

"What did you two do when you snuck out?" I found myself asking.

'Hopefully not partying with boys and drinking.'

A foreign emotion clawing to the surface at the thought.

"Research? It's all we ever really did back then," Valeriy replied, sounding much like the geek she probably once was and not the lazy mask she now wore. "Snuck out to the la – "

"Headquarters."

"...or the estate to do more research. Stuff we probably shouldn't have in dorms. Like some of Amber's poisons and plants. She mostly worked with those back then and it still got pretty hectic. I even played Guinea pig to some of her anti venoms when we were impatient."

"Did you skip class?" The question blurted out before I knew it.

That foreign emotion shifting slightly into another equally unknown one. Something incomplete. Left unfinished.

"You sound like what I think parents should sound like," Valeiry chuckled, before sighing. "Mine pulled me out of class a bunch. For fancy parties and stuff. Faked illnesses left and right since usually only one faculty member knew who I really was.... Needed something to tell everyone else.... Amber called me out on the bullshit the first time I tried it. It's how I found out about her brains.

"But we attended all the classes when we weren't too ill or injured to. We had a few mishaps... or two... maybe a lot. But neither of us really had our minds at school...? Did the bare minimum work... and slept through most of class.... School kind of bored us out of our minds...?"

Irritation filled me. Some part of me longed for it. School. The thought of it, it felt... unfinished. But I had to make sure they were able to go. To finish.

'Who... who's they...?'

Within five seconds of the thought, the tweezers twisted free of the goop, and she drowned the whole thing with more. It wasn't long before she pulled the tools and camera out.

Valeriy flicked the pillow off my head and grinned down at me, half shooing me to sit up. "While we wait for that to do its thing, I'm going to check out the other thing too. Cover our bases, yeah?" And dove right into anchoring the snake camera onto the edge of a plate on the forearm.

"This looks lacking..." I noted. No wires sticking out of it. A little black box perched on a frame.

"Good, less work for me," she grinned, pulling the camera out of the arm and flinging her gloves into the farthest corner of the room. "We got about a fifteen minute break before I can do anything else." She rolled onto her side, curling up into a ball with her eyes closed. "And Bucky? Thanks for getting me out of my head. I needed it."

I hummed a response, half hooked on an episode of Mythbusters about homemade jetpacks. Currently, they were showing clips of the inventions of the past for personal flight. One of them an expensive hover platform intended for military use.