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A Matter of Time

Chapter 32: Epilogue

Summary:

Give Bucky Barnes an Instax 2k18

Chapter Text

Shuri

 

“This was a stupid idea,” Barnes complained, fixing his hair in the mirror for the zillionth time.

“If you say that one more time …” Shuri threatened.

“...you’ll do what, exactly?” Barnes responded, calling her bluff.

Admittedly, her folding her arms and saying, “You don’t even want to know,” had probably warranted the response that followed:

“This was a stupid idea.”

She glared at his reflection in the mirror. He bared his teeth at her and yeah, okay, he would always win the murderous stare contests. Didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.

“You’re going to be glad you did it, and your Captain is going to light up like the morning sun when you give it to him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he conceded with a careless wave of his hand, full of attitude that she didn’t appreciate thank you very much. Then he took his hair out of the braid that he’d just made. Again.

“Oh my God do you want me to do it?” she sighed, realizing it was the inevitable end to this seemingly endless cycle of hair-up-hair-down.

He gave her his best puppy-dog eyes and a tiny smile. Why she was so soft on this cheeky pain-in-the-ass she would never understand. Huffing her frustration to let him know she would do it but she wasn’t happy about it , she pressed down on his shoulders so he would sit. He wilted under her palms easily. She suspected he’d been waiting for her to ask. Ugh. Americans and their damn politeness.

“Give me,” she ordered. He passed her the hairbrush she’d gestured for. She grabbed it, feigning reluctance and annoyance (very well, she might add) and started working through his hair. Gently, though. It was mostly untangled already, but she liked to do it. She never had a little sister. He closed his eyes.

She decided to do something more elaborate, beautiful braids in the front weaving like serpents into a bun on the back of his neck, the way her mother did for her at her coming of age ceremony. He didn’t open his eyes until she finished. When she finally pulled her fingers from his hair, a little line appeared between his eyebrows, already nostalgic for human contact. Poor thing.

“Okay, what do you think?” she asked, pulling him out of himself.

“You’re the best,” he said genuinely, all proud and peacocking, not taking his eyes off his reflection as he moved back and forth to inspect her handiwork. He checked himself out in the mirror often. When she’d asked Captain Rogers about it, he’d laughed reassuringly. That’s James Barnes for ya , he’d said.

“I’m glad you like it because I wouldn’t have re-done it even if you didn’t,” she sing-songed. Then she asked him to pose – this was Instagram story worthy.

Barnes might’ve been a hundred years old, but they joked like he was her age. And he’d never really gotten to be a real teenager, all things considered, so maybe it was alright.

“Okay, where are we doing this, then?” she asked, picking up the polaroid camera off the table. It was a white Instax she’d bought on Amazon. Could she have invented a better one? Probably. But as the Americans say: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Barnes taught her lots of sayings. Perhaps he was an old man after all. He sort of spliced different eras together, too; he was an enigma. He’s say groovy in the same breath as dope or swell. She’d flicked his ear when he told her a penny saved was a penny earned.

Secretly? It had reminded her of her father.

“By the lake?” he suggested like a question. Always self-doubting, this boy.

“That’s a long ass walk,” she argued. The lake was far. Couldn’t they take this picture, against, say, the wall?

“This is like my twenty-first century bar mitzvah. You can do it.” Dammit. How was he so good at playing the guilt card? And this wasn’t even the big guns. When he really wanted something, he’d kick at the floor and casually mention his seventy years of unbearable torture until she caved bitterly. It was always said like a joke, though. She figured he had to get it out of his system, humor as a coping mechanism and all that. It wasn’t like he could make POW jokes to Mr. Fifty-texts-a-day.

They walked to the lake together, the morning still cool and bright. Even as they chatted, she could see the muscles of his back twitch, the way his eyes scanned the grassland and his head jerked at any sound. But he’d stopped dropping to the Earth with his hands cupped over the back of his head like a 1940s bomb drill, so. Progress takes many forms.

When their feet hit sand, they took off their shoes.

“Well, you’re the photographer. Where do you want to stand?” she asked.

He looked around, mind working. And then he snapped into a new person she’d never seen before.

“Well, the best lighting is going to be indirect sunlight…”

“You remember so well,” she said, no hint of joking in her voice now. It was impressive. And fun. Why hadn’t they been doing photo shoots all along? She was still gaming to get that little blue check mark next to her name on her Instagram account.

“It’s like riding a bicycle,” he shrugged.

He stood where he wanted and directed her from there. Don’t cut off any of my limbs in the shot; I haven’t got any to spare. And be sure not to have a tree coming out of the top of my head. The focus should be on the eyes.

“I regret ever telling you your eyes were pretty.”

In perfect form, he stuck out his tongue at her.

“Okay, I’m ready,” he said, looking at her with a hard stare like a GQ model or something, arm straight at his side. He looked stiff and awkward if she was being honest.

“You look like you just ate a spoonful of mayonnaise right before a pigeon shat on you.”

He gave her a Barnes™ eye roll, complete with a head title and a face.

“Come on . This is Steve we’re talking about. At least pretend this isn’t your mugshot, jeez.”

He fumbled a little, genuinely not sure what to do with himself. The curse of always being the guy behind the camera.

For the love of Bast. Did she have to do everything herself?

“Okay, put your hand in your pocket.”

“This thing has pockets?!” God help this man.

“We’re not savages ,” she said, shaking her head as he elatedly sunk his right hand into the hidden pocket in the red fabric. He looked a little too jazzed about it. He left a little bend in his elbow. Good. It made him look relaxed. “Now fake laugh for me.”

“What?” he sputtered, ruining everything all over again.

“Fake. Laugh,” she repeated, annunciating each syllable. She was tiring quickly. And she thought her girlfriends organizing photoshoots for their lattes was bad. “Trust me.”

“What’s funny about being a mindless slave of HYDRA?” he said, eyebrows raised. Then she laughed, and he laughed, and as he bent forward, mouth open with laughter, looking out in the distance with light and life in his eyes, hand still in the pocket of his red linen pants, barefoot and carefree, she snapped the shutter.

“Hey!” he said, laugh still curled around his voice. “That’s cheating.”

“It’s smart. And candid,” she disagreed as the camera spit out a black photograph. “Here.” She handed it over.

“Shake it, shake shake shake, shake it like a polaroid piiicture,” he sang, shaking his butt and the photo in the shade.

She had to be more careful about what she put on his mixes.

“Facepalm,” she lamented, smiling despite herself. It was like going to the mall with your mom. Appalling at best. She wondered if anyone would find her body if she died of embarrassment out here.

“What’s that?” She flicked him. He grinned, eyeing the polaroid as his face came to life from the darkness.

“It’s when a white boy says something infantile.”

He nodded. Well, at least they agreed on something.

When the picture was done developing, they looked at it together, heads knocking a little.

“You like it?” she double-checked. They had a full roll of film after all.

He nodded, emotions caught in his throat. Aw. He breathed in deep through his nose before answering. “It’s the first photo of me – that I can hold, I guess – since the war. You know, the fairytales say that you can’t take a picture of a vampire. And I was a ghost story. Vampire-adjacent, you know? I’m just, uh, glad I showed up. It sounds stupid, I know, but uh, it makes me feel real. So, thanks.”

She put a hand on his shoulder.

“You can sign it if you like. Like the other one.” She knew he would understand that he meant Steve’s matching one – the photograph from the war. He nodded and plucked the pen she offered him out of her hands. With only one arm, Barnes needed a little assistance, so she held the photo as he wrote in his loopy handwriting, tongue poking out just a little from between his lips.

Not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. Dec. 2017. JBB. 

Steve was going to fucking love this. She couldn’t help herself from feeling a little emotional. And she hadn’t even cried at Titanic.