May, 2014.

Canada.

The cabin was nice enough. Bucky explained that it had been covered in dust when he arrived, and there had been an eviction and auction notice on the door. The eviction was two months old, and the auction was another month away. We silently agreed to leave before that month was up.

It was small but clean and had everything a couple fugitives would need. Well, one fugitive and an off-the-grid former agent.

I woke up at three a.m. to take a shift watching out the window, as usual, and walked silently into the next room. Bucky was sitting at the little kitchen table with a set of mini screwdrivers strewn about. I found the coffee pot filled with powdered coffee and cold water and poured myself a cup of cold Joe. We were working with no electricity, which meant cold showers, dehydrated camping meals from Craigslist, and a whole host of other fun things. I took my coffee to the couch and watched Bucky fiddle with his arm. Upon closer inspection, he also had a soldering iron, pliers, and wiring that must have been ripped out of the leftover kitchen appliances.

"What are you doing?" I asked. He ignored me and continued prying at something. I took a drink of the MRE coffee and continued observing. It tasted just as bad I remembered.

He wedged one of the screwdrivers under a panel on his forearm and popped it off. He caught it with his right hand before it could hit the ground or the tabletop. I caught sight of his face as he reached for the pliers. He was biting his lip and sweating. I left the couch and sat down across from him, ditching my mug as I passed the kitchen counter.

"What are you doing?" I repeated. I reached for the tool in his hand, but he pulled it close to his chest. I stretched out and made another grab at it. He glared at me through the hair hanging in front of his eyes and went back to picking through the engineering under his metal skin. I leaned closer to look at it. "Is this the 2011 model?"

That got him to look up at me.

"Because if it is, then I've seen those schematics. And you know what that means," I said in a singsong voice. I tapped my temple and smiled at him. He wasn't amused. He was never amused. "May I?"

More glaring.

"Remember that talk we had yesterday about trust?" I asked. I knew he did just by the suddenly guilty look on his face. After a week of living with him, his paranoia began to grate on my nerves. So we had a come-to-Jesus meeting over a rehydrated dinner of vegetarian taco pasta and beef shredded in barbecue sauce.

"Yes," he answered sullenly.

"Then talk to me," I ordered. He stretched out his arm for me, and I took in the sight of it. My memory filed away the image without even trying, and I retrieved the last time I had seen the stolen schematics of the 2011 version. SHIELD had its own double agents within Hydra, but only so much information made it through.

"It's been twitching recently," he told me. "I thought I could fix it."

"I heard you got tazed," I mentioned.

"That was when it started," he said. "I don't know much about it, honestly."

"I only know what I saw and what I was taught about electrical and mechanical engineering at SHIELD Academy. Thankfully, I remember it all," I murmured. I took the panel he had removed and began fitting it back into place after checking to make sure he hadn't broken anything on the inside. "If the twitching was triggered by an electrical shock, then there's probably an issue with an electrical regulator."

"Why are you closing me up?"

There was panic in his voice as I stepped behind him.

"There's something similar to an alternator built into your arm, but it's in the shoulder," I explained. "Hand me the smallest flathead screwdriver you found."

He passed the tool over his shoulder and began trying to twist his head around to see what I was doing. I kept the mental blueprints at the front of my mind and began prying the screwdriver under very specific locations on the outer hull of his shoulder piece.

"For future reference, there are little keys and stuff around most of the panels. Hit the right ones, and you won't have to pry them off with a mini crowbar," I told him. I sat the panel I removed on the table. "Did that hurt?"

"Prying them off? Yeah," he said. "But whatever you did was okay."

I nodded and continued to work, explaining to him what I was doing.

"See, there's no internal power source, but it uses your body to power this thing," I said. "Your body runs on electrical signals, so the arm taps into those for navigation and propulsion basically. I think whatever zapped you may have screwed up the regulator between flesh and metal."

He nodded and tried to look over his shoulder again. I poked him in the cheek with the handle of the screwdriver to turn him back around.

"Just tell me if anything hurts, okay?"

"It's fine," he promised me. I found the pieces and part I was looking for and asked for the soldering iron. Bucky sat perfectly still as I tugged on the regulator and replaced it. His metal hand clenched into a fist and relaxed while I worked, and I was able to watch the inner workings do their best to mimic natural musculature. I reattached the regulator with a few carefully placed welds, the sight in front of me more closely resembled what was in my head.

"You'll have to let me know if the twitches come back," I said. He handed me the panel, and I replaced it. I hit the section with the heel of my hand, and Bucky jerked around. "What? I was making sure I got it in tight."

Bucky began gathering the tools up, and I went back to drinking my coffee. He tucked all of it into the backpack he always kept under the table. It was close to the window, which we still used as a back door.

"So, I'm going to call a friend of mine with a boat and see if he can get us out of Canada," I announced.

"Call someone?"

"On a burner phone. I'll drop it in the ocean after I make the call, don't worry," I told him. Bucky didn't seem thrilled by the idea, regardless of my safeguards. "But yeah. Even though Canada is very nice and welcoming, we need to get out."

"We?"

"Yes, we," I scolded. "We're a team, Barnes. I know way more friendly faces than you, and you need those friendly faces."

"I'm not worried about the friendlies, I worried about everyone else. You were SHIELD. Isn't the entire world after them?" he reminded me.

"I was SHIELD. I haven't been for over three years. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, I never worked for them," I said. "I'm not in their records."

"How? I didn't think anyone could get out of SHIELD like that. I know you can't with Hydra," he compared.

"Fury owed me a favor. In exchange for being his diary, I got out entirely," I told him. "I'm calling my friend. I'll drive while I do it, so it'll ping more towers in the area. I'll be back in less than two hours. I'll try to arrange to get out tomorrow morning, so get your shit together."

"Yes ma'am," Bucky said dryly. I accepted his snarky reply and began my climb out the window.

*

Author's Note:

Okay, so it's been more than a week, and I'm sorry about that. We're just getting started though, so I'm sure I can make up for it at some point.