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Shuri's made a few changes to the last version she'd had him test, and has sent him back out with instructions to try smaller things with the new arm this time, as she is looking for fine nuance and haptic feedback results.

As a result, Bucky's decided to settle in the bar at the ends of the worlds for a bit with a good cup of coffee and see what he can figure out to test next.

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"Sure did."

She smiles back at him, pleased to have hit on a better topic of conversation. "Nice fella."

"He's the best," Bucky tells her, with absolute sincerity. "I'm really glad you met."

Zinda just smiles at him, wishing for his sake that meeting had gone just a little better – but, well, everybody has bad days. Could be she just caught him on one.

"He was tickled pink when I told him I recognized him 'cause of you," she says, absolutely honestly.

"I bet. Used to be he felt a little awkward coming here, there for a while," Bucky tells her. "Steve can be pretty self-effacing sometimes, and he got recognized a lot. But that's different."

Understanding flashes through Zinda's face, and her smile turns a whole lot warmer.

Well, that must be it. She'll just have to try again another time. "I remembered seein' him in the pamphlet you showed me," she says. "Tell him I say hi, will you?"

"I will," he promises. "Count on it." He's delighted at the thought of the two of them getting to know each other, and it shows.

"I'll keep an eye out for him next time I come in," she says. "Sharon, too."

Her tone's a little cooler with that second name, but – well – Zinda just wants to talk to her.

He can't fail to miss the shift in her normally warm, cheerful tone.

"Zinda."

"Well!" Zinda sniffs, just a little.

"Toyin' with your affections is one thing; turning you in to get jailed is a whole other story, and frankly neither of 'em sound all that good."

Edited 2021-10-13 00:00 (UTC)

"Toying with -- what?" He looks completely caught off guard by that.

"She didn't - she didn't do anything like that. And I told you, she had to turn me in."

"She made you think she'd gone for someone else, didn't she?" Zinda says, warming to her subject, then looks slightly mulish at his protestations.

"I'm sure she thought she did," she says, every indication being that she, Zinda, is sure there was some other possible way, one that didn't involve jail cells.

"I just think it wouldn't be such a bad idea for me to have a chat with her."

Somehow he's deeply certain that'd be a talk that would not go well, given how protective Zinda's acting, and that he knows Sharon still blames herself for so much of what happened in Berlin.

"Hey." He pushes his coffee aside so that he can turn to face her. "It wasn't like that. I could tell she and Steve were becoming friends, and I thought there was a chance there could be more. He's a better man than I am. I told her to think about it. I wanted her to be sure. And then--"

Belatedly, he realizes that explaining why he'd been so sure she'd made her choice might not actually help, and stops talking there for a second before he switches tracks.

"When I was activated - she nearly died trying to stop me, Zinda. She knew just how dangerous the Winter Soldier was. She had to keep me from hurting anyone."

Zinda's eyes narrow. "And then?" she prompts.

The rest – fine. Though she still isn't sure there would have been a problem if he hadn't been turned in in the first place.

"And then I was sure," he evades. "But it turns out I was wrong."

"Why were you sure?" Zinda presses.

It's not that she hadn't liked Sharon, or that she's forgotten the way his face lit up when she asked if he was happy, but...

He's too good a man to leave dangling on a hook, and that gal oughta know it.

Bucky sighs. "Because when she brought Steve's shield, and all the rest of the gear we'd need for what we were going to do, they kissed each other goodbye," he admits. "So I thought she'd made her choice, and that it was the right one. I was truly, truly happy for them both."

"Steve and I talked about it, later. Before - before anything else. He's my best friend," he says, simply. "I'd never do anything to hurt him."

Zinda's eyebrows arch nearly into her hairline.

Sure, it's one thing to be able to date around – she'd gotten a whole lot of pleasure reading up on Women's Lib when she'd gotten back home – and maybe, who knows, Bucky hadn't cared all that much.

But if he had – and she had the gall to be jealous of Zinda? "Uh-huh," she says. "I can see why you'd think so."

Edited 2021-10-13 01:04 (UTC)

He shrugs. "Anyway. It's okay, Zinda, it really is."

"Uh-huh," Zinda says again, looking unconvinced. She's wondering how exactly Steve Rogers fits into this whole thing, too – did he also think he'd been picked? Did he know he was competing against his best friend?

"Well, glad you ironed it all out in the end."

She's got to hope they'd at least managed that, surely?

She doesn't seem entirely convinced, and he spares a moment to hope that whenever she and Sharon run into each other again it'll all be sorted out, somehow.

"We did," he says, with as much certainty as he can put into the words.

She still thinks it sounds like Sharon had been playing both sides against each other, but that's something to take up with her, if they ever meet again, not him.

And anyway, what goes on between the two of them is for the two of them, not her. "Good," she tells him, though it lacks the deep approval she'd given before, and finishes her beer.

"So, this new arm of yours; how've you tested it so far?"

"This is the second round of testing," he tells her, accepting the subject change. Bucky takes another sip of the doctored coffee. "First was basic function, strength testing, things like that. This time I'm supposed to be trying smaller, more finicky things."

Something pert about learning how to knit or crochet rises to her lips, but she doesn't feel much like joking yet.

"How's it goin' so far?" she asks, instead, and sets her empty bottle back on the bar for it to be absorbed. "Seems like you're handlin' that cup just fine."

"I've only broken one so far today," he says, dryly. "But mostly it's going okay."

"Well, hey," she says, encouraging. "That's not so bad. Besides, I bet folks break stuff in here all the time by accident, even without metal hands."