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He had no idea how he had gotten to this little hokey town; he had started off from D.C. maybe a week ago and he definitely should have been in New York by then. It might have been the ride he hitched from the gruff, almost silent trucker the other day – he could have detoured further to the west than Bucky had intended to, although he appreciated the ride nonetheless. Rose Hill, Tennessee definitely wasn’t one of those places that he was supposed to pass through.
The temperature had started to drop as he headed north, but it was still muggy and Bucky often ended an exhausting day with a sleek film of sweat all over him. If he was lucky, he would come across a truck stop with a working shower in it, but that had only happened twice. He didn’t mind skipping a shower every once in a while, but after a while the grit and grime could amount to a lot. He scared a lot of potential rides away because of it, although there definitely wasn’t an axe or chainsaw in the duffel that he carried.
It didn’t help that his arm had started malfunctioning after just a day and a half of being on the road. Bucky had gotten used to having the arm attended to after every scrape he got himself into, and he never really managed to learn how to take care of it. He had pocketed a little screwdriver kit from a dollar store with the intent of using it on the arm, but he had a feeling he would only mess it up further. His arm just twitched and jerked, sometimes hard enough to throw whatever he happened to be holding in his hand. He didn’t want to know what would happen if he let the damage go further.
Bucky was relieved to find the square little structure on the outskirts of town. Sure, it was small, but it looked like enough to at least stay the night in.
But Bucky didn’t expect to be lobbed in the head by a stray potato upon entry.
The lights turned on, flooding the room and burning Bucky’s eyes for a few seconds.
A small voice sounded above him. “Who are you?” After a moment, Bucky’s eyes adjusted to the lights and he could take in his surroundings. He’d managed to stumble into a mechanic’s shop, to his surprise. And damn, some of this stuff was high tech, next-level, Stark-type stuff.
Another sharp hit to the back of the head. This time, not a potato. “I said who are you?” Bucky turned around sharply, poised to punch with his right hand. He was surprised, to say the least. A kid no older than eleven stood on the table, an empty potato gun aimed at his head.
“Your gun’s empty,” Bucky murmured. He leaned down to pick up the potato.
“I can still hit you with it,” the kid retaliated, pointing the gun down to match Bucky’s movement. He rose slowly, holding the potato in the air.
“Fair point. I’m James.”
“Harley. What’s up with your hand?” Harley tipped the potato gun towards Bucky’s left arm. The sleeve of his hoodie had dropped when he held up the potato, just enough to show his bionic arm. Shit. He shook the sleeve over his arm and instantly regretted it. He felt his arm clench all the way down to his hand and splat!
Pieces of potato stuck to Bucky’s hoodie and clung to his hair. He looked down at his hand, where most of the potato still lay. He looked up at the kid again; he had a few chunks of potato on his face and a huge grin.
“You have a robot arm? That’s so awesome!” Harley set the potato gun down and hopped off the table before grabbing Bucky’s arm and pulling back the hoodie sleeve, inspecting it. Bucky stood, shocked into a stilled silence. This kid was ready to beat him with a potato gun one second, and the next he was cleaning the potato off and admiring his arm? The arm that’s killed so many people? This kid probably didn’t even know who Bucky was, let alone what he’d done with that arm.
But Harley kept staring at the arm in awe, tracing the gears with his index finger. He came across one dislodged brackets, and then a deep dent, and frowned. “What happened to it?”
“I – I got into a huge fight.” So this kid really didn’t know.
“Is that it? It looks like you’ve got a lot of damage from being underwater for a long time”
“That, too.”
Harley let go of Bucky’s arm and walked away without a word. Bucky stayed planted, but watched Harley grab a couple of tools and a newspaper.
Harley flicked the front page of the newspaper and asked, “Been in D.C. lately?” On the cover was a grainy picture of Bucky from behind with the headline ‘Terrorists in Capitol???’ emblazoned above it.
Bucky wanted to run, and Harley must have seen that. For a kid, he could see a lot. He put his hands up, tools in hand. “Whoa, wait. I just wanna see your arm. Sit down.” He pointed to the threadbare couch, the grungiest-looking thing in the workshop. It looked out of place alongside all of the shiny new things.
Bucky trudged to the couch and flopped onto it while Harley shuffled over to the fridge in the back – seriously? A fridge? What didn’t this kid have in here?
“Do you want water?”
“Uh… Sure.” A few seconds later a cold bottle came flying towards Bucky’s head, and it would have collided if he hadn’t caught it with his left hand. Harley sat down on the couch, seemingly satisfied with himself.
“Well, it isn’t as bad as you think. You can mash potatoes like nobody’s business, but it looks like there’s just a few circuits that need to be rewired. Nothing too big.” Bucky was surprised by Harley’s professional attitude. He was also perplexed by the fact that he was helping him out, despite the fact that Harley knew who Bucky was.
“Why are you fixing it?”
“Oh, I’m not gonna just fix it,” Harley said, picking up a screwdriver casually, “I’m gonna show you how to fix it.”
“But why?”
Harley began unscrewing one of the dented plates, not looking at Bucky. “You don’t know how to take care of yourself, or at least your arm. If you don’t learn, you’ll just hurt yourself and other people.”
In the next half hour, Bucky learned not only how to rewire a circuit in his arm (“no, not that wire!”) but that Harley had a little sister that loved Dora the Explorer – whoever that was, and that his dad had skipped out on him, his sister, and his mom seven years ago. “We’re fine,” Harley insisted, “I just wish he would have said something. It messed Mom up. She’s good now, though.”
Bucky couldn’t help but feel for Harley. He couldn’t remember much about his own childhood, but there wasn’t a father anywhere in the picture. He remembered Rebecca, though. Not much else.
Bucky’s arm was fixed in no time, and Harley told him that he could shower and sleep it off while his clothes washed. Harley trudged back into the house and came out with a bundle of clothes for Bucky to wear for the time being. “They were my dad’s. Mom kept some of them, but I don’t think she’ll miss ‘em. I don’t know if they’ll fit, he was a bit bigger than you.”
“It’s fine,” Bucky replied as he took them. “Hey, Harley?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. A lot.”
Harley grinned. “No problem, James.” He turned to go back into the house.
“Bucky.”
Harley turned again. “What?”
“Call me Bucky. My friends do.” Harley giggled.
“You have friends?”
“Just one.”
“How about two?”
Bucky smiled at him. “Sure. Two.”
By the time Bucky had showered and changed, Harley had gone back in the house. The couch, however, had been laid out like a bed with a blanket and several pillows in an attempt to look cozy. For the first time in a long time, Bucky’s sleep wasn’t riddled with nightmares. It was nice.
He woke up early in the morning to a pile of his clean clothes on the coffee table in front of the couch and a map of the east coast with Rose Hill circled on it. Bucky changed back into his clothes and started to leave but stopped short.
He took a piece of scrap paper and a marker and wrote a short note before leaving.
Thanks, Harley.
Your friend,
Bucky.