Same mission pt 2
Bucky Barnes x reader
Genre: enemies to lovers
pt 1
Summary: Forced to partner up for a high-stakes operation, the tension between you ignites into a complicated dance of rivalry, respect, and something dangerously close to attraction.
A/N: BOO! I even surprised myself in how fast im posting this part 2.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
The waiting was the worst part.
Not the field work. Not the split-second decisions with your life in someone else's hands. Not even the quiet moments after a mission when your hands wouldn’t stop shaking and your heart thumped like it had forgotten how to slow down. The hours ticking by with no orders and no movement, just static and silence and one very large, very irritating former assassin seated less than ten feet away from me.
We’d been stuck in the safehouse for three days now. Three days of eating takeout in silence. Three days of reviewing surveillance feeds, poring over maps and half-deciphered coded messages from SHIELD’s informants. Three days of knowing exactly what the other person was thinking and refusing to say it out loud.
The tension was oppressive. Like the air itself was holding its breath.
Five words. That was our average.
“Pass me that file.” “You done with the footage?” “Need the charger.” “Don’t touch my notes.”
We’d gone hours without speaking, entire afternoons wrapped in an icy détente, passing each other like shadows.
I was on the couch now, a thick file folder open in my lap, papers spread out across the cushions like I was building a nest of classified secrets. My legs were tucked beneath me, the space heater humming beside me, but I still couldn’t shake the chill that crept up my spine.
Bucky sat at the small kitchen table, staring at the laptop screen with a furrowed brow and the same unreadable expression he always wore. His fingers tapped lightly against the side of his mug always the same rhythm, three taps, then stillness. Three taps. Then nothing.
I wasn’t watching him. Not really. Not directly. But I noticed.
Every time.
Why did he always do that?
“I can feel you thinking,” he said suddenly.
I didn’t look up. “That’s called having a brain.”
He hummed not amused, not angry. Just… I don't know.
Which somehow irritated me more.
“You keep tapping your cup like it’s Morse code,” I muttered, flipping another page. “Are you sending messages to someone or just trying to make me lose my mind?”
He didn’t answer.
Silence.
Once again.
Good. I didn’t want conversation. Not with him. Not when every time he spoke, I either wanted to scream at him or-
I shut that thought down fast. It's the boredom talking, i'm going crazy.
He’s in the room. That’s it. It doesn’t mean anything. You’re trained for worse. You’ve been locked in cells and cages with people who wanted you dead this is just Bucky. You can handle Bucky.
Except it wasn’t just Bucky. It's Bucky in a way i've never seen him before.
It was Bucky with his sleeves rolled up and a shadow on his jaw, and that stupid way his eyes darkened when he concentrated. It was Bucky, quietly dissecting every feed from the gallery like he could see patterns I hadn’t noticed yet. It was Bucky remembering things I forgot to double-check and handing me a corrected blueprint without saying a word.
It was him proving, again and again, why he was one of SHIELD’s best.
And reminding me why I hated that he knew it. I glanced at the wall clock. 3:42 p.m. Another hour wasted.
“They’re stalling,” I said turning my head up at him.
He didn’t look away from the laptop. “You think?”
“I’ve been watching the feed from the art gallery all morning. Same patterns. Same faces. Same guards switching posts every twenty-five minutes. Hydra’s careful, but they’re not subtle. Something’s off.”
He closed the laptop and leaned back in his chair.
“What do you want to do? Kick the door in and see what bites?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I want a plan. A clean one.”
“You don’t always get clean,” he said quietly. “Not with Hydra. Not with anything real.”
That struck a nerve not just because he was right, but because I hated the way his voice softened when he said it. Like he wasn’t just talking about the mission. Like maybe he was talking about himself.
I quickly shut the file. “You want to say something? Say it.”
His jaw tensed. “I’m not here to fight.”
“No, you’re just here to second-guess me. Undermine me. Make sure the trigger’s always in your hands.”
"I miss one shot and now its the end of the world" I say through my teeth. Im tired of being undercut.
He stood suddenly, pushing the chair back. Not aggressively but enough to make the hair on my arms stand up.
“You really believe that?”
I held my ground. “Why wouldn’t I?”
He stepped closer. “Because if I didn’t think you were capable, I would’ve told Hill to pull you off the mission. But I didn’t. Because despite everything, I trust you. This isn't about some stupid shot”
I blinked, stunned. “You trust me?”
“You don’t believe me?”
I hesitated. The words were there climbing up my throat but they didn’t make it out.
Because yes, a part of me did believe him. But another part, a louder part, didn’t want to. It was easier to be angry. Easier to hold onto the resentment, the memory of that rooftop, the split second when I felt like I’d been made small.
So instead, I said nothing.
And Bucky? He read it. All of it. And nodded once.
“Right,” he muttered. “Back to pretending we’re fine.”
He turned and walked toward the bedroom again, and I felt it all over the pressure in my chest, the guilt I didn’t want, the crack in my armor.
--
Night fell slow and gray.
I sat by the window after dinner, watching the rain tap against the glass. We hadn’t spoken in hours. I could hear him moving in his room, pacing like a caged animal. Or maybe that was just my projection maybe I was the one pacing inside my own head.
Because if I was honest truly honest I didn’t just hate Bucky Barnes. I envied him. Envied the way he could switch off. The way he could live with all the ghosts and still function. I envied his silence, his patience, the way he never reached for more than he needed.
And I feared him. Not because he was dangerous but because, deep down, I knew he saw through me. Always had. He saw what I tried to hide.
That underneath the competence, the cold exterior, the perfect agent’s mask I was still someone waiting to be seen.
And worse still waiting to be chosen first by anything... Anyone.
--
Next day
It was cheap and frozen half-burnt on the edges, soggy in the middle but it was food. And at this point, anything warm felt like a victory.
We hadn’t gotten our go-order yet. That meant one more night in this tomb of awkward silences and secondhand tension. The day was close we could feel it pressing against the walls but SHIELD hadn’t given us the green light. Too many variables. Too many unknowns.
And I was sick of sitting around.
Bucky hadn’t spoken to me since our last… well, “conversation” was too generous a word. More like our emotionally restrained shouting match over intel and trust. Since then, it had been nothing but silence and carefully avoided eye contact. We moved around each other like ghosts. Like we were afraid if we touched, we’d explode.
But tonight, I’d decided to try something different.
Not to make peace. Not to open up. Just… to not feel like I was sharing oxygen with a glacier.
I set the table two chipped plates, forks, and water. No ambiance, no soft music, no candlelight. Just civilian-grade safe house dimness and the ever-present hum of the surveillance monitors.
“Food’s ready,” I said, glancing toward the back room.
A long pause. No reply.
Then the door creaked, and Bucky emerged, same scowl, same guarded posture. But he sat at the table. Wordlessly.
I took the seat across from him. For a minute, the only sound was the scrape of utensils and the distant sound of a car horn outside.
“So...” I tried, keeping my voice light, casual, human, “if we both make it through tomorrow without strangling each other, I think we deserve hazard pay.”
No answer.
“Or at least a bottle of something expensive.”
He didn’t even blink. Just kept eating.
I played with the food on my plate letting my fork slowly poke through, letting out a slow breath. “You always this talkative before a mission?”
Still nothing.
The quiet stretched until it started to burn. My appetite dwindled, but I kept eating. Out of stubbornness, maybe. Or pride.
“You know,” I said more carefully, trying to strike some kind of middle ground, “I didn’t mean to undermine you earlier. I just… I don’t know. I’m trying here.”
His fork paused halfway to his mouth. Then he set it down, slow and deliberate.
“You’re not trying,” he said, not looking at me. “You’re pretending.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You think if you act normal for ten minutes, I’ll forget everything that’s happened since New York? Or the fact that you still look at me like I’m one mistake away from proving you right?”
“That’s not fair—”
“No,” he said, standing and picking up his plate. “It’s not. Admit you hate me for no reason.”
He didn’t yell. Didn’t slam anything. That somehow made it worse. He just walked to the sink, rinsed his dish, and disappeared back into the bedroom.
The door shut behind him with a soft click that felt louder than a gunshot.
And just like that, dinner was over.
I sat at the table alone for a while, swirling the remnants of my lasagna with the fork, my stomach a tight in a sour knot.
He was impossible.
One minute, I was his equal. The next, I was a threat. Then a stranger. Then a ghost.
Why did I even bother?
I told myself it didn’t matter. That his opinion and moods weren’t my concern. I didn’t need him to like me. I didn’t need his validation. This was a mission, not a friendship. We were partners on paper, and in forty-eight hours, we’d either be finished or dead.
I didn’t need him.
And yet…
He looked tired and I felt guilty.
Not just physically, but the kind of tired you don’t sleep off. The kind that lingers in the bones. The kind that made people pull away from warmth, from kindness, like they didn’t think they deserved it.
I’d seen it before. In the mirror, mostly.
I stood and cleared the table, ignoring the twisting in my chest. I turned out the lights, double-checked the locks, and threw a blanket over myself on the couch.
Let him sulk, I thought. Let him mope and wall himself off.
I didn’t care.
Not even a little.
I stared at the ceiling for a long time, my thoughts loud and unwelcome.
But when I finally drifted off, the last thing I imagined was the sound of his fork hitting the plate… and the look on his face when he walked away.
Not angry.
Just… tired.
