Far From Home | b.b.
summary: Bucky Barnes hates you. You play music too loud in the morning, you’re cold and closed off, you’re selfishly selfless, you confuse the hell out of him—the list could go on and on. He hates you, but when you go missing, he can’t stop himself from spending every waking hour trying to find you. What was that old saying? A fine line between hate and love? Yeah, Bucky walks that line like a man who’s had three beers too many.
WARNINGS: swearing, mentions of addiction, vomit, angst, y’all HATE each other fr pairing: bucky barnes x stark!sister reader word count: 10.9k
a/n: written for @wkemeup and @captain-kelli who both achieved follower milestones!! congratulations, you two! :) both prompts are bolded below. enemies to lovers who are still enemies here we go! song inspo is far from home (the raven) by sam tinnesz
“How long?”
“Seventy three hours since last contact. Fuck, Steve. Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Last I saw of her was the party but for all we know she’s just sleeping in.”
“No. My sister is not a party animal. She would’ve called me. She knows to call me.” Beep. “What am I looking at, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”
“Last known footage of Ms. Stark. She signed some autographs in Miami before departing for an unknown location.”
The air is frigid as the room goes quiet.
Steve speaks first. “Tony—”
Who’s gonna tell Barnes?”
A beat.
“We can’t tell him. We don’t even know if she’s missing or not.”
Bucky stops at the edge of the entrance, his ears pricked as he presses himself against the wall. Tilting his head to the door, he waits for someone to say something.
“I’m telling you that she is. I know in my heart that there is something wrong and I say that she has been captured, or injured, and that she might be scared and Barnes…” A bitter, cold, laugh that sounds more like a scoff. “He’s not going to stop until he gets her back. I don’t know about you but I don’t want some brainwashed super soldier killing everyone just because he didn’t have the balls to—”
“You can’t say that, Tony. She’s gonna show up.”
“Shut up, Steve. She would’ve found some way to call me. That girl never has her phone on 0%. She doesn’t go off the grid. This is Y/N, not some bimbo who doesn’t know better than to call her brother.”
“She isn’t a kid.”’
“She is to me! She is a kid. She is the little sister I have failed over and over to protect so why don’t you shove that little righteous speech about how she’s a grown woman up your ass.”
“Except you’re not treating her like the adult she is. You know she can take care of herself.”
Bucky can hear Tony’s soft inhale, feel the intensity of the man’s glare directed at Steve. He shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but a twitch of muscle would be enough to alert both men that he’s here. With the amount of tension crackling in the air, a brush against the wall would be equivalent to a thousand cymbals crashing in cacophony.
“Tony, Afghanistan wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have changed what the Ten Rings did, to you or to her. You’re not responsible for that.”
“Someone has to be. Who put her there, huh?”
“Tony—”
“You know what, I’m gonna try the London center, and go by her cabin.”
“Tony, wait—”
A door slams shut. It rattles Bucky’s bones and he swallows down the bruising in his throat as he closes his eyes, tilting his head back until it knocks into the metal walls. Missing. You, missing, and suddenly his chest is heavier than mountains. He feels like he could drown in his own blood, like every rib in his chest is breaking.
“Buck,” Steve calls, and he opens his eyes to a sting of cold air. Something tastes like iron in his mouth as he pushes off the wall and enters the room. Steve is standing there, his fingers pressed against the table as he continues to stare at the door Bucky assumes Tony left through.
“Who said she’s missing?” Bucky asks roughly in a way he hopes sounds unaffected. Steve’s eyes drag towards him, his blue eyes wide like a puppy and Bucky narrows his own gaze. “You know how she gets when she’s pissed.”
“Yeah. I wish she was more like Tony that way,” Steve sighs, his other hand hooked on his belt. “Buck, I don’t know what to say. You know what’s going on with her?”
“Nope.” His expression twitching, Bucky silently curses as Steve’s eyebrows raise, lips parting. He seems to struggle with what he wants to say and Bucky’s eyes fall to his shoes like a scolded child. Searching the tile, he swallows down the knot in his throat.
“Bucky.”
His head jerks up and he meets his best friend’s gaze defiantly. “Steve.”
“What’d you say to her?”
His lungs feel like they’re about to bust. An urgency tugs at his chest, his gut flipping over as he looks away, at the wall, anywhere except Steve’s curious, insistent gaze.
“Steve, I swear to fucking god I didn’t mean it.” His eyes flutter shut at the memory and he lowers his head in shame, leaning against the table by his hand. Everything inside him lurches and he feels like he’s going to throw up as the sound of you echoes in his head. Fury incarnate, hell freezing over at your voice. “She just told me she was stepping back. I just—” His words catch in his throat, and he can’t continue. Anger and guilt fight within him like starving beasts caged for far too long battling over a juicy flank of deer. The meat of his memory bleeds into his bones. “We had a fight before the party. It just piled up.”
“You couldn’t be coolheaded about this?” Steve asks quietly and Bucky looks at him with a terrible devil lurking in his gaze. No one has ever known—especially Tony, especially Steve. No one knows. “She’s the only person I’ve ever seen you lose your temper on, Buck.”
“You’d be surprised by what she brings out in me,” he muses flatly, that terrible thing melting into his voice. A bitter twitch to his mouth, he looks up and thinks of all the places he thinks you would go to, just to spite him. Pulling out his phone, he half-hopes to see some message from you, even if it is a drunk text. You off the rails is better than you going dead silent.
The cabin in the woods. London. Miami.
Something inside of Bucky aches for release—aches to put a hole in the wall just to feel something other than pain, rage, hate, hate, hate.
“You’re her friend,” his blond, Captain America, broad-shouldered, symbol-of-America, friend Steve says, because despite what some people think that Steve and Captain America are two different personas, there will always be parts of Steve in the Avenger, and parts of the Avenger in Steve. They both want to believe in something good. They are, after all, one in the same.
Just as how Bucky and the Winter Soldier are the same man despite everything. HYDRA simply amplified the hate, fertilized the seeds of rage, curated the quiet thunder within his soul, within James Buchanan Barnes so that the Winter Soldier could thrive.
He has spent more than half his life believing the Starks are the enemy, and half of his waking moments, wondering if it’s true. Whenever he looks at Tony, he sees Howard—the title FRIEND crossed out with violent strokes, ENEMY written in blood. Whenever he looked at you, he felt something that walked a fine line.
“We barely tolerated each other.” Bucky brushes it off, pocketing his phone and turning away. He doesn’t want to think about your damned starlight eyes that sparked with rebellion, the rope of hair you always had pulled back in a ponytail, the smear of oil, the smudge of dirt, the raw scratch of your nails. Something so primal, unadulterated ecstasy.
It was the effect of you on his mind, his body.
“That’s not what Tony thought.” Steve’s words crawl after him as he turns to walk out of the room and Bucky pauses at the silence that follows. He knows Steve well enough to know when he wants to keep going. “What is it?”
“What I said?”
“No. Buck,” Steve sighs, his name echoing coldly against metal walls. Bucky turns to see him, nearly glaring daggers, “what is it between you and her?”
Anger. Grief. Hate. Lust.
“Nothing.” Bucky shrugs despite how much it feels like there’s a thousand pound weights on his shoulders. “If she ran away without telling Stark, he’s gonna be insufferable about it, but that’s not on me.”
“So you think there’s nothing to worry about.” Bucky turns to Steve who crosses his arms, leaning against the edge of the table. His eyebrows are still raised—he wants an honest answer.
If Bucky were an honest man, he would’ve told Steve everything since the beginning, but he hasn’t and he isn’t, and Bucky does not want to hide things from Steve, but he will always make and has always made exceptions for you.
“I’ll worry when there’s something to worry about.” Steve doesn’t believe him, and Bucky chews on his cheek, stepping back into the room. There’s something he has to prove to Steve, something that isn’t even real, and Bucky feels a million pairs of eyes bearing into his back. I will not slip, I will not slip, I will not slip. “Look, she can take care of herself. She’ll show up because someone picked a fight with her and lost, and then she’ll be fine.”
“Bucky. Come on.” Steve’s trying to appeal to the kindness in his heart but Bucky doesn’t have room for it with all the unbridled fear that lurks in his chest. It carves out a home in his ribs, sits on every crevice of his sternum, sinks its teeth into his flesh. He’s terrified even though he doesn’t show it: he can’t. He can’t. “You’re not even a little bit worried?”
“Nope.”
“Well, you can’t act like you don’t care when you care more than anyone.”
“I don’t.”
“Then what was London?” The protesters. “São Paulo?” The earthquake. “Vancouver?” Freezing cold water.
“Look, I care if Stark’s gonna run us over trying to find her. I care enough because she’s part of our team. Come off it, Steve. I know she can take care of herself. I’m gonna take a nap. Dr. Cho said no partying post-Singapore and what do you know, we throw the biggest party ever.” Stiff to the bone, he puts on a smile. “See you in a bit, pal.”
Steve sighs, and the sound follows him like a ghost as Bucky leaves the conference room. His flesh fingers curl into a fist and his nails dig in hard enough he draws blood as he walks the halls, the paths engraved into his head. He takes the longest route to his room, tries to scatter his thoughts of the words shackled with fury.
He walks past your room on the way to his and he does not spare it a glance as he walks into his room and turns on the tap. The water runs copper and the sting bites at his palm as he tries not to think. Tries to focus on the numbing cold that runs over his skin.
Don’t worry. I won’t.
It’s all he does now—worry. It consumes his mind as he stares at his own reflection and curses the way his eyes seem to shimmer from cold predator to docile prey. They are always at war within him. It wasn’t until he met you that he realized it was okay to be both.
.
The first time Bucky meets you, he is unkempt, exhausted, and probably smells of old laundry. Black moons are printed underneath his eyes and he doesn’t remember what the light looks like as he stares blankly at the wall, at the curtains drawn over windows. He hasn’t eaten in the past few days and neither has he spoken. He’s tossed and turned on his bed, his mind still hyper fixated, his blood still congealed in his veins. He’s too exhausted to get out of a room he’s been stuck in for the past seventy two hours.
It’s been two months since Steve brought him back here. Two months and he’s still so fucking tired.
“Buck,” said friend begins and Bucky doesn’t make a sound to give any indication he’s heard. He has a pillow shoved between his head and arm, staring at the analog clock that reads 3:29 PM. “I’m coming in, okay?” He closes his eyes, preparing himself for the inevitable stream of light that’s about to blind the shit out of him and he burrows his face into the pillow. The door slides open.
He can hear Steve take in a sharp breath at the state his room’s in. There are clothes strewn everywhere and the meals that’ve been sent up are lined up on the top of his dresser, untouched, and Bucky wishes he were asleep to avoid a confrontation he knows is coming. It always happens when Steve wants him to suck it up and get out in a gentle way, but this time, Bucky can’t scrub off the blood on his hands long enough to enjoy the fact that he’s alive.
Nah. All he can remember is every bullet fired, every news headline, every pair of eyes that have ever looked at him like he’s a monster. Beast. Feral.
“You gotta get up, Buck. Pull yourself outta this slump.”
“I don’t want to.” His voice is foreign, a terrible, growling thing that pushes out of his throat uncomfortably. “I’m tired.”
“Tony’s sister’s back from Somalia, and he went to the airport to pick her up.” Steve continues, walking around the room to clean up. He begins to fold clothes and throw dirty ones into the basket in the corner of his room before walking into the bathroom. Turning on the lights, he starts rooting around for something. “Gotta make a good first impression.”
“Why should I care?” He rolls over away from the light as Steve flushes the toilet and turns on the vent. It smells musty, the air thick with not enough oxygen and too much old. Bucky lifts his head from his pillow, squinting against the pale light of his bathroom.
“Because Tony loves his sister more than life itself and she’s great. You’re gonna like her.”
“If she’s anything like Stark, I doubt it,” he grumbles, letting his face fall back to the pillow for two more seconds before rolling onto the edge of the bed and sitting up. His head spins and black dots impede his vision as he rubs at his eyes blearily. Blood rushes down his body and he lets out a groan when his muscles stretch in his back.
“That’s the spirit, Buck,” Steve says. Bucky gets up on unsteady legs, his feet strangely stiff against the floor. “We’ve got some leftovers from lunch that you can have but first just get a bit cleaned up. Wash your face, brush your teeth. Promise you’ll feel a lot better.” Bucky’s lips twitch into an almost-smile but it fades just as soon as he realizes he has to look at himself in the mirror in the bathroom.
“Yeah.”
Steve nods, heading for the door. “I’ll heat up those leftovers.”
“Thanks.”
As a parting gift, Steve sets the lights in the room on a dim setting just for him. Bucky lumbers over to the bathroom and switches on the shower, the hiss of the water running white noise for his aching head. When he steps in, he just stands under the pelting hot rain, letting it wash away the oil in his head, the feeling of wearing someone else’s skin melting just a fraction.
He doesn’t know what to expect, but he does figure making a first impression is key.
He runs his fingers through his hair, scrubs the smell of sleep off his skin, and trims his beard until he’s happy enough with how it looks before changing into new clothes. He almost feels like new as he leaves his room. He tucks his hair behind his ears, walking mindlessly, just enjoying the languid stretch and bunch of his muscles.
Eventually he makes it to the kitchen, sliding into one of the stools on the island. Steve’s just taking some glass container out of the microwave when he spots his best friend.
“Hey. Spaghetti and meatballs.” Sliding it over to Bucky, he also hands over a fork and Bucky stabs at the spaghetti. His stomach rumbles at the smell and thought of eating, but he still doesn’t feel hungry enough. He feels weak. Tired. He wants to go back to bed but he also wants to stay out in the sun for a few hours more. The sun kisses his skin through the windows and he squints against the blue sky, wondering.
“Thanks.” Turning his gaze back to the leftovers, he twirls a fork into the spaghetti just as the sound of F.R.I.D.A.Y. overhead catches their attention. He looks to Steve who’s drying a mug with a towel and he shrugs. Bringing a bite into his mouth, Bucky swallows with a relieved sigh as Steve sets down the cup and towel, heading out of the kitchen to meet their visitor.
Biting into a meatball, Bucky feels something uneasy in him coil around him tight. He knows he’s in no shape to meet new people but he’s not going to be rude about it. Practicing a smile, it feels awkward on his lips but he can’t do a thing about it as he tries to think of what to say. He knows about you from what he’s heard Stark say about you and his own digging on his teammates. You have your own Wikipedia page and everything, just like your brother, and he knows it’s an extensive article.
Just be polite. Be yourself. A voice inside him is telling him things he should know but instead, another thought whispers, But what is ‘yourself’? You barely know who you are.
“I’m tired. Guess that’s to be expected but it’s fine.” He hears you before he sees you. Bucky pretends to be as casual as he can as he listens to the four sets of footsteps approach the kitchen. He ducks his head, focusing on the spaghetti and trying to fill up his stomach to stop the uncomfortable growl that’s rumbling inside. “It’s good to see you.”
“A year is too long,” he can hear Steve say and he arches an eyebrow. Miss her that much? Bucky doesn’t want to think about it. He’s only been back two months, and it’s already hard readjusting to his own new life, not to mention Steve’s new one too. “Let me help you with your bags.”
“Thanks. Is Jenny around?”
“Girl misses you.” Stark. “It’s been hard without her sponsor, but we’ve, or more I, kept her on track. God, is this what it’s like to raise a teenage daughter?”
Sponsor. Huh.
“It’s what it’s like to sponsor a teenager who thinks she knows everything, so you’ll have half the challenge.”
“Oh, great. Hopefully, they’ll be more like Pepper.”
“I’m hoping for that, too.” Ms. Potts is here, too. Bucky pauses to listen for the telltale clicks of her heels, and when he does, he resumes eating. He’s seen her once or twice, and it’d been made clear she wouldn’t judge him for his state when she’s seen everything with Tony. That eases some of the burden from his shoulders.
“Thank you, guys. I hate leaving her here alone.”
“She’s a strong kid, Y/N,” Steve says. “Just like you.”
“Don’t suck up to my sister, Rogers. She’s been back for all of two minutes.”
Agreed. If she’s so great, just plant a kiss on her, Steve. God knows you’re the better of us now.
He raises his head just in time to see Steve enter with bags hoisted on his shoulders and a giant smile on his face. Following after is Stark in a pristine suit, not a crease in sight, and the man gives him a quick inspection before he pulls off his sunglasses and folds them, slipping them into his breast coat pocket.
“You want something to eat, G.I. Jane?” Stark asks, pulling aside and that’s when Bucky finally sets his eyes on you. His back goes stiff as he straightens up and Steve barely hides his smile as he sets down your bags. You stand there, holding on to Pepper Potts’ arm when the smile on your face fades as soon as their eyes meet. His eyes rake over your face and your body—black eye, split lip, no sleep, field uniform. They must’ve just pulled you out and by the way you try not to heavily lean onto the woman beside you, it’s medical related. Still, there’s a glint to your eye, a hunger, and he’s not blind enough to not realize you aren’t one of the most attractive people he’s ever seen.
“I’m good,” you reply, your voice no longer as light as it was. Instead, it sounds masked, fake, and Bucky nearly frowns before forcing a smile onto his face. You sound like your brother, and if Bucky wasn’t just as good at lying to oneself as you think you are, maybe he wouldn’t have noticed. It’s like you’ve donned on a façade, a personality the media loves to eat up. He can read it in the eyes. It hasn’t seemed that way but the few times he’s been out with the rest of them, he’s seen the effortless switch Stark can make between Tony Stark and just Tony. “Uh, care to introduce me?”
Right. He’s forgetting himself.
Bucky slides off the kitchen stool, quite sure that there’s no spaghetti sauce on his lip, and you soak in his haggard appearance, an appearance you seem to mirror.
“Hi,” he says, sticking out a hand but you only look at him, unimpressed. His fake smile falters but he still keeps on despite how uncomfortable this situation is getting. “I’m Bucky.”
“Oh, right.” Your voice is flat, uninterested, cold, as you stare at him. “You killed my parents.”
Shit.
“Right, anyway,” Pepper cuts in before Tony, Steve, or Bucky can say anything. “We should be going to bring her to her room. Tony, would you…” The CEO nudges her head in the way of you and he perks up, sliding into his wife’s place and looping an arm through yours. The two leave the kitchen, heads bowed together and Pepper grabs the bags.
“I’m sorry about that,” she says, eyes focused on Bucky. “It’s been a hard year, and—”
“It’s fine,” Bucky murmurs, turning to sit back down. His stomach growls and he grabs the fork, stabbing a meatball.
“Well, I’m glad to see you, Mr. Barnes,” Pepper adds softly, and she sends a smile his way before hoisting the bags up. “See you later, Steve.”
“Yeah.”
The woman leaves, and Bucky swallows, the lump of meat sitting like rocks in his gut.
“She hates me,” he says flatly and Steve looks at him with a gentle smile—a smile he doesn’t deserve.
“She holds grudges. She’s like Tony that way and he forgave you, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” Bucky sighs, looking down at his spaghetti just as Steve comes around the kitchen island, claps him on the back. “But I don’t think she’s like Tony.”
“Eat up. She’ll come around.”
.
You didn’t come around. Bucky thinks you never did as he leaves his room and stares at the one just across, to the left of his. How often has he tread the few steps needed to cross the hall and walk into that room often full of music or the sounds of frustrated yells?
Your room is quiet, still as the dead.
You never slept there unless it was mission-related and you needed some sleep, or Bucky really pissed you off. Sometimes it was both.
Pressing his flesh hand against the metal door, he clenches his jaw before letting it slide open with a soft swish. The absent smell of clean laundry and your perfume lingers in the air and he walks in, trying to find any difference between now and the last time he was here.
“F.R.I.D.A.Y., when was the last time she was here?” he asks aloud.
“Four days ago. The last recorded entry was just before her disappearance but she has asked me to delete all footage concerning her on that night.”
“But you kept it?”
“Mr. Stark implemented a protocol Ms. Stark is unaware of. Should I make a rational call and believe that she is in danger, I am programmed to save any and all evidence that could be vital in securing her.”
“Then why haven’t you brought this to Tony?”
“Ms. Stark has coded in her own loophole in my program that Mr. Stark is unaware of. It prevents me from releasing any information that may compromise Ms. Stark and any of her activities she would rather keep secret. Like you, for example. Because I am unaware of her motives, I am caught in a bind between my two protocols.”
“Thanks, F.R.I.D.A.Y.” Bucky shakes his head, heading into your bathroom and turning on the lights. All of your skincare and soaps are still there, your toothbrush untouched, and there’s a towel still hanging on the rack. Your first-aid kit is still on the counter by the sink, not clasped shut. Nothing here. Backing out, he switches off the lights and crosses his arms over his chest, frowning deeply.
“Did she take anything?” He spins around, eyes passing over your dresser, your closet. “Clothes, makeup, anything?” Walking by your made bed, he catches sight of your workbench and approaches it.
His hands brush over the screen surface and it lights up at the swipe of his fingers. The text lights up along with a login and password and he frowns thoughtfully, pressing a hand against the screen. A line scans his palm and fingers, and his eyebrows rise when it gives him access.
WELCOME BUCKY BARNES
“Run surveillance.”
The screen burns into his corneas as the feed runs and he leans over, watching as you enter the room. You’re still in that tight dress you wore to the party and you’re stuffing clothes into your bag with no rhythm or reason as you root through your dresser, through your closet. Your head isn’t turned to the camera but by the way you’re constantly wiping at your face, he wonders if you’re crying.
The timestamp tells him you took one of your suits home and he swallows when you finally zip up your bags, glancing around to see if you’ve missed something only you know you’re looking for. When you’re satisfied, you rush to the table Bucky stands at now and brings up a file, a keyboard spreading across the surface.
“What is she doing?”
“Analyzing now.”
You want me to find you, right? he wonders to himself. His mind is a whirlwind of thoughts, of why, and how, and I’m sorry, and he’s starting to feel sick as you plug something into the bottom of your workbench.
F.R.I.D.A.Y. makes a soft hum as she reruns the clip.
“A USB was inserted.”
“What was on it?” Automatically, his hand mimics yours and brushes against a slick black thing. Crouching, he spots the USB plugged in, blended into the metal of your workbench. Your initials are carved into the butt, jagged and so you.
“Scanning.”
Standing up again, he enlarges the surveillance feed. He looks down at your interface, at the suit designs you have saved in your files and mission reports you’ve yet to file. Steve was always on your ass about that before his eyes pass over to the feed again. It’s magnetic the way his eyes follow your movements, the dance of your fingers over an interface.
“It’s a collection of surveillance clips strung together. It appears Ms. Stark had a stalker.” The A.I.’s voice weaves into his ears as another voice streams through the workbench and Bucky frowns when a clip plays just as it does in the video.
“Can you play what she’s watching?”
The clip cuts to another and he looks at the time stamp and location. Three hours earlier.
Miami.
Shit. Bucky closes his eyes. He knows what this is. The audio continues to run and he pushes back, stung. He hears the sound of the slamming door and prays it’s the slam of the door when you walked away from him.
He is not so lucky.
“What the fuck was that?”
He stumbles back at the sound of his voice, his legs hitting the mattress. Bucky falls back, sinking into the bed, sucking in a huge breath as he stares up at your ceiling. You used to project stars onto the ceiling because it made your world so much bigger. He remembers, before everything got so fucking complicated, AKA the past week, he would spend hours next to you, pointing out constellations after he’d fucked you into the mattress.
How much simpler it was, then.
“What? You mean the reason I’m throwing a party in the first place?”
“Yeah. Yeah, the reason you’re throwing a party. This is what it’s for? Not because we just pulled off the fucking impossible?”
Your incredulous laugh: bitter, cold. “I’m allowed to choose I don’t want to do this anymore, Barnes. I’m allowed to fuck someone who isn’t you.”
“That’s not what this is about!”
“Isn’t it? That guy had his hands all over me and you couldn’t help but look like you wanted to punch his lights out. You just happened to want to talk to me the instant we started dancing. Just a coincidence, huh?”
“He is bad news.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do! It’s what you do when you’re sad. You latch onto people you think can give you the same high. It’s not healthy, robin.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are trying to control me? My fucking dad? Newsflash, you’re the guy who killed him and newsflash, he didn’t give two shits about who I really was. You think he saw me and thought I was a person? Fucking saw me as more than his perfect little charity case?”
“Y/N—”
“You have some fucking nerve thinking you have any say in what I decide to do with what life I have left. I’ve spent ten years trying to protect innocent people, and keep this together, but I can’t. I am miserable! I am so alone.” The cry in your voice splits Bucky in two as it did the first time he heard you, so weak, so isolated and little. You were cracking at the seams and he watched as you held yourself together in that room, sucking in a breath. “I am so alone except when I’m with you, and you know how much I hate that? I hate you!”
“I know, robin. I’m right here. Talk to me.”
A quivering breath—Bucky can hear your shaking through your voice as you clear your throat. “I just… I can’t, anymore. I can’t stand you. This needs to end, Barnes. I… I need to go after what I want, even if it means stepping away from this.”
“There are people who need you. I can help you—”
“I want a family. Kids, a guy who actually likes me more than my money.” He can imagine the tilt of your head, your ironic smile. His heart wilts at the thought of it. “Can you help me find a guy like that?” Pause. Your chuckle rings bitter. “Knew I wouldn’t be able to find it here.”
“So, this isn’t enough for you.”
Crackle. The audio cuts so quietly that Bucky almost thinks the footage has shorted but then he hears your voice, and he knows it’s not over. He can still replay the scene line by line, block by block in his head: straight out of a fucking movie.
“It isn’t.”
“Then, what was Singapore?” Quiet, remorseful, Bucky has never sounded so pitiful. It had been surprising in the moment, but now he only feels the wave of sorrow that slowly fills his lungs.
A moment, three beats of the heart. Bucky can almost imagine your brain turning in that small pause when everything inside his chest collapsed at the revelation that showed itself so clearly. And grief morphs into rage, if it is given the right rot to sink into.
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You’re lying, because I know you, Y/N. I do know you, and you know me. You know I’m not afraid of you. You want a family? You got one right here.”
“Well, I don’t want this one.”
Ragged breathing. He swore he could hear I don’t want you bouncing off the walls.
Bucky wants to knock himself out to stop himself from hearing this torture, from reliving all the regret that comes down on him in waves but he can’t. He loves the pain that comes with you, the difficulty of knowing you. It has made his every day a welcomed challenge ever since he met you.
“Then what kinda family do you want, huh? Picket fence, apple pie on the weekends?” There is no answer. “Are you so incapable of recognizing what you want that you’ll jump into bed with any guy who shows the slightest bit of decency towards you? Because then you’re just setting yourself up for more hurt when you realize that you are not going to be happy with him.”
“I slept with you, didn’t I?”
In hindsight, Bucky knows it stings more than it did the first time around.
“And you hate me. And you’ll hate whoever you love who isn’t someone like us because he won’t understand the way you want him to. He will never understand you. You’ll hate yourself because you can’t love him the way you want to, the way he will love you, and you don’t deserve your own hate. You deserve better than that.”
“You have no idea what I deserve.”
He has a crystal clear idea of what you deserve. It is more than the world has to offer, it is more than he can ever give you.
“No.” Finality. The swing of a guillotine. Within moments, everything had fractured between you two. “I guess I don’t. I have no idea who you are, or your problems, or anything about your life. I don’t know you at all, so why not let me be honest since we’re complete strangers?” The sarcasm is dripping from his voice and you let out a disbelieving scoff.
“Oh, for the love of—”
“You‘re so terrified of opening yourself up again that the next time a guy hurts you, you’re afraid you’re not gonna make it. But you think you’re so riddled with problems that no one will ever love you. You’re so convinced that you’re unlovable.” Recording-Bucky pauses, watching your reaction. “Even though it’s not true.
“Yes, it is.”
“I don’t want to tell you for the billionth time that any guy would be lucky to have even a scrap of your attention, robin. I don’t want to keep telling you when you don’t even try to believe it. So, tell me, how are you gonna find your ‘dream man’ if you think you’re unlovable? Is he just gonna fly into your lap like a fucking angel? Do you even know what you’re looking for?” He waits, then: “I thought so.”
You exhale sharply, and it’s bitter against the roof of his mouth as delicate, fake niceties wave their way into your words. “You know what? I’ll figure it out without you, and I didn’t throw a party to be attacked by the one person who’s supposed to have my back. You don’t have to be happy for me, but you could’ve at least sucked it up and held yourself back from ruining my night. I’m leaving, whether you like it or not. Good luck with your new partner, Barnes.”
Fading clicks of heels that stop at his words.
“Oh, so now you’re walking away because I’m right?”
“Oh, no, I’m not walking away from your incessant need to be right. I’m walking away from you.” There is a moment of silence, as if to grieve what has come to pass, and when you speak again, you’re so incredibly sad that Bucky’s heart is in shambles in his chest. His lungs weep, his ribs ache, and he rolls onto his side, eyes closed as he lets the sound of words he still remembers wash over him. “You’re ridiculous. You know that right?” You laugh again, except it’s colder, more incredulous and shackled with sadness. He wishes he didn’t know you so well. “You’re fucking transparent.”
Echoing footsteps.
“If you walk away now, don’t bother coming back!”
Silence. Bucky can hear his own strained breathing, your soft sigh as you soaked in his ultimatum.
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
The door slams shut.
Bucky tells F.R.I.D.A.Y. to shut off the workbench and simply lays there on your bed for he doesn’t know how long.
He thinks he will simply shatter should he put his foot on the ground again.
.
You're cold, arrogant, and smarter than almost everyone in the room and you know it. You own it, and if Bucky didn’t hate that kind of person who thinks she’s better than anyone just because she’s rich, he’d admire both you and your beauty.
But you are rich, and entitled, and absolutely, in some way or another, the worst. You’re worse than your brother, spiteful, and quick to anger, but that might be because you hate Bucky in particular. That’s fine. Bucky doesn’t particularly have an inclination to be your friend either. In fact, he’d rather you stay away to avoid any clashes that have barely been prevented by your off-hand comment of him not being worth the energy and his talent for ignoring you despite how you get his blood boiling.
Unfortunately, your room is right across the hall from his, and what he gets out of you is a passing glance full of spite every morning to really start his day. Sometimes, he sees you and you’re on the phone or in the gym, running drills with Tony in the air, or just flat out ignoring him, but most of the time, you’re not even at the compound, and Bucky prefers this the most.
He supposes passive loathing is better than you, with your unlimited resources, actively trying to ruin his life. He can’t help but match your level of dislike when you blast music in the mornings and your rain noises at night.
He’s woken up to your music to shout at you to turn it down every day you’ve raised it above a decent limit, but you simply ignore him, close the door on his face, and emerge thirty minutes later for your morning jog.
Bucky can’t go back to sleep after, so he has no choice but to socialize with whoever’s awake at six in the morning who turn out to be Steve and Sam Wilson. He joins their gym competition, welcomes the stretch and pull of muscles in the early hours to wake himself up despite how hard it is to get his body to pull itself out of bed. Steve likes that he’s out of his room more often, anyway, so he supposes he should be grateful for small blessings, even if he doesn’t show it.
Whenever Steve brings it up, Bucky shoots back he can’t go back to his room because there is no existence of peace or quiet.
It’s on one such a morning that he’s standing outside, listening to the beginnings of some seventies jam pound through the walls, that he reminds himself of this fact.
“Open up, Stark!” he yells, telling himself if you don’t answer, he’s gonna pound that door down. “I’m not gonna ask again.” Something shuffles inside and he frowns, leaning in closer to try to listen in on the muffled voices before it swings open and he jerks back, face settling in a scowl his muscles are trained to do every time he sees you.
“What?” Your voice is sharper than the sharpest blade as you glower at him and the sight of you burns itself into its irises. He knows you’re put together. That’s the mask you like to put up—you’re a Stark, you have to be. Rarely has he ever seen your brother a mess around people he doesn’t know, but now you appear before him. You’re pale, in the clothes he’d seen you wear the night before, and everything about you reminds him of something fading away as you wait for him to speak.
“Are you alright?” he asks stiffly, and you merely stare at him blankly for a moment as if you were going to answer truthfully before the sound of someone throwing up catches both of their attention. Turning around, you disappear into your room, and Bucky stands outside awkwardly, waiting. The music is still blasting but he realizes it’s one he recognizes. Trouble Man of a soundtrack of the same name. Sam always recommends it to him whenever he mentions something even remotely related to music.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Come on, just get it out.” The sound of your voice, smooth and warm, draws him in and he tentatively walks into your room, eyes scanning his surroundings. Another bout of retching draws him to the bathroom where he sees a pair of legs sprawled over the tile. You hold a girl by her arm, the other scooping her hair behind her head.
“Glad to hear you’ve begun to wake at a decent hour, Barnes,” you comment without turning your head away from the girl hunched over your toilet seat. Finally, she pulls back and collapses against you, and you grab at a rag above your head hanging on the countertop and pat at her forehead. “Get her into bed.”
“No…” the girl moans, legs curling underneath her as she pulls into a ball. Bucky’s eyes widen. She looks so small. “Don’t wanna move.”
“It’s alright, darling. He’s gonna carry you.” Your eyes find his again and he walks in, crouching by her waist. “On three.” Bucky’s hands scoop underneath her knees and the other goes underneath her back as you grab the trashcan and stack of towels.
“One, two, three.” With a gentle yet hasty lift, the girl is hoisted into the air and transported onto the bed. Bucky backs up as soon as she’s down and you rush in beside him. You begin to tuck her into bed, your movements practiced, and Bucky is struck with the realization.
“This is Jenny,” he breathes, and you turn to him, eyes narrowed. “What do you need me to do?”
“Get a basin, fill it with cold water, and more trash bags.” Nodding, he turns back to the bathroom, opening the cabinet beneath the sink to pull out a plastic basin. “Fuck, Jen. It’s okay, let it all out.” Over the stream of water, he pricks his ear to the sound of a sob-wrecked voice.
“‘M sorry, Y/N. Just wanted to feel better.”
“I know.”
“It was so hard.”
“I know. Hey, it’s okay. I’m glad you came to me, okay?” Turning off the sink, he walks back to the bed and sets the basin by your feet before procuring some trash bags and setting them by the trash can as well. You’re leaned over, dotting the girl’s brow as he takes the moment to look around your room. It’s messy, a mess of clothes and bags strewn everywhere, books on tables, forgotten cups, but it’s organized. He can see it. “Get some sleep, okay? You’re gonna feel pretty fucking shitty over the next few weeks.”
“I know.” Bucky’s gaze drags back to you as you pull back on your heels, standing up straight. Your eyebrows are drawn together still as you pull the covers up to the girl’s chin. Wiping at your own forehead with the back of your hand, you nearly back up into him and he holds out his hands to prevent you from bumping into him.
The instant his fingers make contact with your back, you whip around like a startled deer.
“You,” you breathe, sounding strangely spooked and he backs up, hands where you can see them. You swallow and the fear in your eyes washes away when you blink. Clearing your throat, you try to make yourself seem more presentable with a swipe of hair out of your face, a clearing of your throat, but he doesn’t know why it matters.
“Is she going to be okay?” he asks with a quick glance at Jenny who’s slipped away already. You brush past him, turning down the music from your phone, plucking a hoodie from a hook on the wall and jerking your head for him to follow.
“She’ll be fine.” Opening the door, you lean against the wall outside as Bucky steps into the pale, luminescent lights. It’s much cooler outside, the blue making the metal look cold as you pull on the hoodie and cross your arms over your chest.
You’re wearing an AC/DC hoodie, and Bucky counts himself lucky he hasn’t woken up to that yet. He gets enough from Stark blasting it as they take the quinjet on missions.
“Close the door a bit,” you say, but everything that comes out of your mouth sounds like an order. Still, Bucky complies before looking at you blankly. He’s come to expect nothing but hostility from you, and instead, you look almost relieved. “Don’t tell Tony why I brought her here. She texted me last night in the city and I had to pick her up.”
“I thought she was getting better,” Bucky says and you scowl. He knows you don’t like what he’s implying but he keeps his tone cool, even. “Stark took care of her the year you were gone, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, but she was lying.”
“To Iron Man?” It takes guts, and a whole lotta skill. Bucky narrows his eyes at you, but you stand upright, unafraid to stare back. Normally, a passing glance causes recruits to scatter, but you merely let the cold slide off of you. “What kinda kid does that?”
“She’s an addict. Addicts are good at lying, Barnes, for whatever reason they have.” You fiddle with your phone in your hand before uncrossing your arms and looking at the screen. “Fuck. It’s seven, already?”
“Miss your morning jog?” he retorts half-heartedly, and you shoot him a glare, pocketing the device and brushing past him.
“Yeah, actually. I had more important things to worry about.” Letting the door click shut behind you, he listens to you shuffle around inside your room, presumably cleaning up and goes back into his room with a slam.
At lunch, you come down to grab an extra bowl of stew for Jenny and Bucky offers to make up your run with one together in the evening as he hands you a bowl he’s ladled with extra beef and carrots. You tell him you’re busy and brush him off without a second look back.
“And Jenny?” he asks lowly, but you merely shoot him a look that tells him to shut up.
“I can take care of her myself,” you growl softly, snatching the bowl and disappearing through the doorway. Tony makes a comment about grudges, Steve doesn’t say a word.
Before he heads to bed, Bucky hears you whispering tired phrases over the sound of Jenny throwing up again and lets himself in. You’re in too big clothes that nearly swallow your frame and you’re exhausted as you run a hand down Jenny’s back who dry heaves until she collapses against the tub. You reek of coffee and Bucky wrinkles his nose at the smell of acid and regurgitated beef stew, watching your limp hand flush the toilet.
“Are you sure I can’t help?” he asks, and you glance up, eyes barely open. Lips curving down, you shake your head and fight to stay awake as Jenny curls into a ball against the tile. Your arms are propped up on your knees and your head dips as you let out a sigh.
“Get out,” you whisper. Bucky frowns, soaking in your words before stepping inside. He ignores your stink eye as he scoops up Jenny again, bringing her to your bed, and he lays her down, pulling the covers to her chin. A stale glass of water and an empty bowl lay on the bed stand while his foot kicks into the first aid kid tucked underneath the bed.
Turning to the bathroom, his feet barely make a sound against the floor as he spots you frozen in your spot, head dipped.
Bucky doesn’t need to be a super soldier to know you’re fast asleep. Crouching, he listens to your steady breathing, the soft mumbles under your breath and he gently pokes your arm.
“Wake up,” he whispers and you jolt awake, your back ramming hard against the cupboard with a painful gasp. Your leg jerks back, your knee to your chest and he flinches back, hands raised just as your foot collides with his solar plexus. The air pushed out of his lungs, he slams back into the tub with a painful slam, and he sucks in a huge breath, clutching his chest. “Fuck—”
“Don’t fucking touch me.” Your breathing is jagged, your chest heaving. Within your eyes, he sees something wild flare behind your irises and he sinks into the floor, slouched against the tub.
“Okay,” he replies, quiet. He doesn’t want to wake Jenny up and the only sound is your desperate breaths, your hiccuping sighs. Your eyes are still wild, and you stare at him with an open fear he has not seen ever reside in your gaze. “Y/N—”
“Get out,” you whisper harshly between your teeth. He can tell it takes all your courage not to scream, your whole body taut with the urge to run. He stands up slowly, hands open so you can see his every movement. “Get out.”
“I’m going.” Leaving the room slowly, he feels your stare burn into your back and there’s a clatter of something against the floor tile. The sound of whales humming ushers him out and the door slams shut behind him as soon as he’s out the door. There’s a ravenous hole inside him, devouring him in bit by bit the longer he stands outside your door, and his judgement gets the better of him as he turns around with the deepest sigh.
Pressing his ear against the door, he closes his eyes and tries to listen past the whale crooning but he can’t. Besides, it settles on his skin uneasily—a thick coat of oil and discomfort that traps him in. He returns back to his room and doesn’t sleep right away as he usually does.
He’s breaking habits around you, whether he likes it or not. Pulling out a notebook Steve bought for him a few days after he found him, he picks a pen from his small collection, and begins to write.
.
“You haven’t seen her?” Bucky asks, running a hand through his hair. On the other end of the phone, Jenny makes a small noise that tells him no.
“Not since the last meeting. She was fine, but she looked tired. That’s all.” Flipping over the sleek USB in his hand, Bucky runs a thumb along your initials and sighs. “You… you don’t think—”
“If she went off the tracks, there would’ve been warning signs,” he assures her quietly. “We know that. No McDonald’s, no spending spree, no random gifts.” Leaning against the rails of the compound, he looks at the crowd of news reporters outside. Tony has a press conference in half an hour.
It’s been two days since the Avengers social media accounts released a statement regarding a mission you’ve gone off to. It’ll buy them time without anyone expecting you, but as always, the media is questioning what mission, where, why, how. They want all the details.
“Completely off the grid operation,” Steve had offered. Tony agreed for lack of a better idea. The man was out of his mind, eye bags Bucky had seen frequently drag at your eyes brushing his face.
“Did she ever tell you anything about a stalker?” He dips his chin to look at his cleaned boots. There’s still a mud scuff on the toe from his walk through the woods earlier to clear his head of you, but it’s nothing a few swipes with a towel can’t fix.
“No, why?” Jenny’s voice twinges and Bucky sighs again. He doesn’t have enough energy to breathe these days when it’s all spent on trying to find clues of what you’ve left behind. “At the last AA meeting, she talked about Afghanistan. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her talk about it around a bunch of people she doesn’t know.”
“She went into detail?”
“Not too much. Just ended with what she always says.”
“‘You can’t wait for someone to fly underneath you and save your life. I think you have to save yourself.’” As Bucky quotes it, he can hear your voice saying it, cold, dead, ravaged by tears you’ve never stopped unleashing. God, it was one of your go to excuses for ignoring help even when he thought you needed it. It infuriated him—it made him respect you, anyway. “Well, she can fly alright.”
“Yeah. It was her go to thing to say whenever I wallowed in my self-pity, and decided enough was enough. I always thought she was the worst person I’ve ever met.”
“You probably know far worse,” Bucky replies distantly. You know me. “But she did something right. You’re okay, now.”
“I only wish I could’ve helped her somehow,” she says. “Since the day I met her… hah, she was an angry person, Bucky. And lonely, and sad. And she never counted on anyone. Never asked for a thing for herself. Never trusted anyone except herself.” For a moment, Jenny doesn’t say anything despite him knowing she has something on her tongue. Bucky’s flesh hand wraps around the pole, feeling it cool against his hot palm. “That changed when she met you.”
Liked. Was. As if you are dead and he has failed you. As if they’ve ripped off every tooth and claw off of you, drained you of your spirit that has shattered and mended too many times for him to count. As if you are missing, and he has fucked up, and his tongue is heavy in his mouth as he clears his throat and his mind.
“Mhm.”
“I know she never said it, but she did. She trusted you.”
“Yeah, well,” he breathes with a shrug, twisting so he faced the railing. The coil inside of him pulls tighter, “we’ll figure that out after we find out.”
“She talked about her death so often, I feel like it’s real this time. Like she’s really missing and she doesn’t want to be found,” comes the hushed reply. “I don’t want to give up, Bucky, but—”
“I know.”
“Call me if you find anything,” Jenny orders, sounding a lot like you. Bucky agrees, lifeless. As if he wouldn’t.
“I’d feel better if you stayed at the compound.”
“Maybe I’ll come over later tonight. I’m gonna go watch the press junket, see what Tony says, and then go to class. Keep my mind off of it, and the possibilities.”
“Okay. Stay safe, and call me. I’m still here for you.” Jenny hangs up and Bucky groans, tilting his head back and bracing himself against the rail. You are much better at handling her than he is. Always was.
“Hard night?” He cranes his neck to see Natasha walking up to him in a pencil skirt and dress jacket. Huh. Black Widow all dressed up and no place to go.
“Harder day. You going to the junket?” he asks, arching an eyebrow at her outfit and she smiles but there’s nothing to it. He figures. Natasha loved you like a sister. Loved. He needs to not pick up the habit of talking about you like you’re dead. You aren’t.
He would’ve felt it if you were. He knows it.
“Yeah. Tony needs the support, and I’ll be there in case he needs me to take over. He’s losing his mind over this. You?”
“No. Stark’s good at playing the press and he doesn’t need me there when I’m pretty sure he hates me,” Bucky says and Natasha’s smile shrinks, leaning in beside him. “I’m always fucking his family over.” His poor attempt at a joke makes her chuckle wryly, the sound coming out choked and wet. “You okay, Nat?”
“I know we’re trying to be positive here, but… she said someone was following her. I told her it was crazy. That no one would fucking snatch her when we’re there, but…” Pinching the bridge of her nose, she closes her eyes and trails of tears race down her cheeks. “She was so worried about something else that I said I’d keep an eye out for her. If someone did catch her… and that’s why… I fucked up, James.” Her eyes meet his again, wide with fear, open to the softest spots of her. It’s rare and it alarms Bucky to no end. If Natasha’s scared, there’s a reason to be fucking terrified.
“We all did,” he murmurs, shoving his hands in his pockets. “You should probably head down there before they kill you.”
“Ah, yeah. Give me a sec.”
“Okay.” Bucky turns and leans back onto the railing again, letting a gentle silence rest over the two trained killers. He doesn’t say anything when Natasha lets out a soft, shuddering breath and wipes at her face with a tissue from a pack in her pocket. In turn, she offers him one. He declines. Natasha shrugs and wipes away smears of makeup that she somehow knows are there. Bucky never understood the magic of it all—you and Nat had such a talent for seeming so put together it made you both impossible to read.
Bucky likes to think he’s gotten better at it over the past two years, for the both of them.
His throat aches as he blinks, and the stinging in his eyes eases as he sucks in a cold breath. The heel of his flesh hand rubs at his face angrily, swiping away his grief and Natasha pretends not to see it, putting away her pack.
“She’s missing. I know she is,” Natasha says with dreadful confidence. “But I also know she doesn’t want you to give up on her, you know? She liked you more than anyone.”
“Yeah, that’s what people keep telling me,” he snaps, voice rough, grating. She doesn’t want you to give up, some part of his head notes, not doesn’t want ‘us’. Bucky’s gaze meets Natasha’s, and the woman merely smiles softly. She knows he’s caught her. “Funny way of showing it.”
“You know she didn’t hate you,” Nat whispers, a hand on his forearm. Bucky shakes his head, hair curtaining him away from his old student. “You know you didn’t hate her. It isn’t too late to make things right.” A pressure crushes him from the center of his head, a world placed between his shoulders as he struggles to hold up this façade you can wear for months on end.
He doesn’t hate you.
“It’d be much easier if I knew she was dead already. I know how to make peace with ghosts.”
It’d be much easier if he did.
Natasha’s mouth curls into a wry smile. “As if she’d ever make peace with you.”
.
The only time Bucky really is forced to spend time with you is when they run drills, and Bucky likes to think he works well with you if you can hold your tongue for more than two seconds. You’re a snarky little thing who can warn him not to bring up Jenny again with just a single glance and convey your intent to target with just the twitch of your lip. Then again, you’re easy to read on the battlefield. You make your objectives clear.
His knuckles ache wonderfully and he can hear a solid kick land a few ways off. Turning, he watches as you twist to launch a powerful sidekick at a dummy, letting it fly a few feet away before going to grab it.
“Where were you stationed?” he asks wearily as you wipe the sweat off your brow. Half of him yells for even approaching the beast, but he’s not afraid of you. You just piss him off so easily and by your arched brow in surprise that he’s talking to you, you know it. A call over the PA warns them of supper, and Bucky sighs, wiping at sweat with the back of his hand.
His muscle shirt is slick with the evidence of his labour as he hoists the dummies up to carry them back into the warehouse a little ways off. You pick up your own dummy and walk after him. “Before Somalia, I mean?” How did you get your own set of problems, he asks quietly to himself, because they don’t just start overnight and you don’t get help like everyone else. What is it with you? Pride?
“Former navy. Cryptologic linguist, two tours, then Afghanistan. I’m head of the Stark Relief Foundation, so I was touring with my brother at his insistence,” you say flatly. “It went wrong. That’s it.”
He stops along the track, meeting your eyes. You skid to a halt beside him. “Kidnapped?” Like your brother?
Your eyes are piercing but he doesn’t falter. He can tell no one really speaks your mind around you so when your eyes command him to shut up, he doesn’t. It might be pushing you a bit, but he has a feeling no one asks. Maybe they’re too afraid of you like you’re some princess, but he doesn’t care.
Bucky’s never met a princess quite like you before.
“None of your business,” you correct. He scoffs, rolls his eyes and meets your eyes again.
“You got a therapist?”
“Oh, you know what?” You put on a sickly sweet smile, dumping your dummy at his feet. “Put it away for me, won’t you, sarge?” The thing bounces against his shins, and the beginnings of his own smirk drop off his face as you begin to walk away.
“I don’t work for you, Stark. Clean up after yourself.”
He watches as your figure turns around, your lips turned in a mocking pout. “Oh, I do, but seeing as you’re about to become insufferable, I need to take a walk.”
“Can’t take it?”
“You’re the one with a million questions. Why don’t you figure anything out before you ask stupid questions like the paps? The internet exists for a reason.”
“I like to rely on the primary source,” he shoots back and you laugh. It sounds just as mocking as your pout looked and the sound strangles out any air in his lungs. His blood boils at your grin.
“As if the primary source is reliable. Which you should understand by the way.”
Your words work underneath his skin and his lips twist deeply into a scowl. “Thanks for the reminder. At least I’m getting help for my problems. When’s the last time you saw your therapist?”
“Don’t have one. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” Really? Liar. “Who’s the one with the chip, anyway? I think that’s fucking dealing.”
Who’s the one who needs one? Bucky wants to say in kind, but he doesn’t. “You know just as well I do that it isn’t.”
“I hate you,” you tell him plainly. “You have no idea what happened or what I’ve been through and you’re making these assumptions that I need to deal with something. I don’t.”
“Does anyone really know what happened to you?” he snaps, dropping his targets to the grass.
He expects you to jut out your chin, say yes, obviously. Your whole life is plastered on social media—Instagram, Twitter, the occasional Snapchat story—that you’re a book everyone and no one knows how to read.
“No.” Your voice colder than the antifreeze in his blood and his eyebrows rise at the shimmer of doubt in your gaze. “And I don’t want to talk about it with someone like you.”
“Which is?” He keeps his tone even despite the simmering, bitter sensation that cramps up his chest and urges him to throw himself forward and scream.
“A killer—” You walk up to him, eyes unforgiving— “who thinks there’s damage in everyone just ‘cause the world fucked up with you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Your eyebrows rise and fall as you shove your face into his. You’re tantalizingly close, and he frowns at the lick of fire inside his gut when you snarl, “I’m not fucking broken, Barnes. You don’t know shit about me. You don’t need to psychoanalyze me and try to figure out what’s wrong with the rich girl.”
“Something's always wrong with the rich girl,” he retorts, and you laugh. It’s empty, hollow, but still, you laugh and it makes him uneasy, cornered, prey.
“Not me. My life is fucking peachy right now. Hell, I’m talking to the guy who killed my mom and somehow not strangling him despite every thought in my head telling me to wrap my hands around your throat.” You tilt your head, and a saccharine smile somehow splits your face eerily. “Guess I’m the bigger person that way.” You begin to walk away from him and Bucky opens his mouth, his throat cinched shut as he tries to calm the rage inside him. “See you around, sarge.”
He waits until you’re gone before he begins the journey to the warehouse.
He has to make a return trip for the dummy you dropped at his feet, and he’s late for supper. Steve asks why he’s late, and Bucky doesn’t miss your sly smirk as you dig into your burger.
“No reason,” he lies. “Just decided to take my time from the warehouse.”
Two can play at that game.
