Bucky was good with cars. He was a fucking hotshot racer, okay, he was good with cars… but he was good at driving them, mostly. He knew a little, enough to keep the Challenger going, but he’d never had her in a downpour like this.
“What do you want?!” he shouted desperately at the engine.
The Challenger did not respond.
The rain was still pounding in his ears, and so was his heartbeat, and everything was wet, yet somehow still warm, how was it so warm? Bucky could feel every droplet of water sliding down the back of his neck, and the Challenger was getting soaked, and now he’d popped the hood and the rain was falling in and he probably shouldn’t have done that but what the fuck else was he supposed to do? He was clearly stranded in the middle of nowhere with a shitheap of a car that wouldn’t work and he would never make it to Houston in time and then Stark would kick him off the team and he wouldn’t be allowed to race for the Infinity Cup and all his hopes and dreams were shattered and on the ground and being washed away with the rain--
“Hey, are you alright there?”
Bucky turned around. Somehow, there was a truck pulled up behind him. The lights were still on, silhouetting whomever his saviour was in a foggy glow, but he could see the shape of a man, holding up a hand as if peering at him through the rain.
“Yes! I mean, no. No! We broke down. I broke down,” said Bucky, gesturing towards the car.
The man walked closer. “Beautiful car. Dodge Challenger?”
“Yes,” Bucky said, bewildered. This was not a man. This was an angel. An angel sent from heaven to rescue him and the Challenger. God was on his side, after all.
And then the man stepped into the light of Bucky’s torch, and holy fucking shit. Jesus. Oh God.
Because he wasn’t an angel at all, he was very much a man, a human man, with dark skin and bright eyes and huge arms and a t-shirt that was in the process of getting so soaked that Bucky felt he ought to avert his eyes.
“Seems like it’s your lucky day, then,” the man said. “You want a ride?”
“She’s not gonna start. Too wet. Gotta check the parts. We might have to change them.”
“Too wet,” repeated Bucky.
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