Looking Too Closely (Bucky x Stark!Fem!Reader) — part two
I’m backkk so sorry this took forever, my idiot/goblin brain wanted to hold onto this part for longer?? Anywho
Summary: The one in which you meet Bucky Barnes for the first time. Also the one in which you want to ram Tony Stark’s skull into the wall.
Warnings: angst, mentions of past violence, mentions of death, Tony is still pretty douchey (I know y’all don’t wanna hear this but he is a giant asshole 99% of the time)
Series Masterlist
You can’t sleep.
It doesn’t help that you haven’t had a real bed to sleep in — let alone one that has memory foam or whatever the hell that is on this mattress — for some time now. But the Tower is too quiet.
You can’t open your window and Tony must have the place basically sound-proofed because you can’t hear any of the city sounds that you’re used to. The late night traffic, the sirens, the footsteps, the voices, the fights, the snoring. You’re alone in here and it’s eating you alive.
You’re still wearing Wanda’s clothes. Pepper said she’d let you pick out some clothes today and they could be delivered. She offered to go shopping somewhere with you, but you don’t want anything fancy. You’ve never even been to a mall, not to shop, so that idea alone felt too much.
Grabbing a pillow from the bed, you move to the floor in front of the window. Laying on your stomach, you rest your elbows on the pillow, staring out at the city lights.
After some time, you give in and lay your head down, hoping it’ll bring sleep around. Luckily for you, it does.
Unluckily for you, sleeping on your stomach on the hard floor has your ribs feeling properly bruised by the time the sun rises. You roll over onto your back, letting your shoulder blades take the weight for the next couple hours.
By the time late morning rolls around, you open your eyes, feeling exhausted. Restless sleep is the only kind of sleep you know.
Dragging yourself off the floor, you head to the bathroom to brush your teeth. You’re not used to having one, but you’ll gladly use the toothbrush here. That’s one thing you missed more than the others while you were homeless.
You exit the bathroom and head out into the hall, down to the living area and kitchen. It’s quiet, so you figure everyone is gone or out.
You’re busy climbing on the counter to look in the top cabinet when you hear footsteps on the hall, but they’re sort of far away, or they sound muffled like they’re a distance away. You halt your movements for good measure of listening, and you definitely feel like someone is down the hall.
But, your stomach growls, so you go back to rummaging through the cabinet.
The person you sensed steps around the corner into the kitchen and freezes. He has no idea who you are, but you’re standing on top of the counter, and that’s when he realizes you’re standing on top of the counter.
This is around the same moment that you vaguely sense the same presence from the hall behind you, and you jump when you see someone is actually standing there.
He is next to the counter in a split second, holding his Vibranium arm out in case you fall. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Trying to get cereal, what the fuck does it look like?”
“It looked like you were about to fall on your ass.”
“Lucky me, I didn’t,” you snort, resisting the urge to kick his face. He’s at the perfect height for you to do it, too. “Who the hell are you?”
“Bucky,” he answers. “Who the hell are you?” He fires back.
“Y/N,” you reply, turning to go back to looking in the cabinet. It’s mostly random things, nothing you particularly care to eat. “Do you know where everyone is?”
Bucky leans back against the opposite counter, arms crossed over his chest. “Probably asleep. We just got back an hour ago.”
You hum. Right, Tony said a few of them were out. “Then why aren’t you sleeping?”
“Don’t want to mess up my schedule.”
“Hm.” You smell bullshit.
“What?”
“Nothing,” you huff, closing the cabinet and hopping down. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
As you’re making your way toward the hall, you’re stopped by Tony’s voice.
“Munchkin. Get back here. You and I have some things to discuss.”
You spin around. “What now?”
“What now is right,” Tony deadpans. “Come on. My office. And Barnes, go the fuck to sleep for once.”
Bucky snorts, flipping Tony off, but only you saw it. You grinned, mouthing thank you.
Bucky smiled boyishly in return.
+++
Tony conveniently waits until his office door has shut before he starts in on the questions.
“When did your mother pass away?”
“A month ago,” you reply slowly, really too exhausted to deal with this or Tony right now. “Why are you asking that?”
“Because I wanted to see if you’d continue to lie to me, and you have.”
“What are you talking about?” You gathered that he was a pain in the ass, but delusional, too? Jesus.
“She didn’t pass away a month ago. Her funeral was a month ago.”
“Okay? And? What the hell does it matter?”
“The funeral was delayed because the police think you killed her.”
Fuck. He found out. “Well I didn’t.”
Tony looks ready to scream at you. “So you knew there was a warrant out for your arrest?”
“Well, yes, but—” This time Tony does cut you off by a million cuss words, but you continue over top of him. “I thought they gave up!”
“You knew they were looking for you and you walked in here instead. I should turn you in right now. In fact, I don’t know why I haven’t called the police yet.” He’s waving his arms wildly, no doubt trying to control his anger at the absurdity of this situation.
You cross your arms over your chest. “They have no proof.”
“Clearly they have something or there wouldn’t be a warrant.”
“They don’t have shit, Tony. I wasn’t even near my house when it went up in flames, alright? I was a mile away.”
“Where? Where were you?”
“At a gas station.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Are you interrogating me?” Is he recording this? Your eyes search briefly for cameras before you remember he’s a tech genius, so his cameras are probably hidden.
“I’m just trying to get to the bottom of why you have a warrant and why you decided to waltz in here. Do you know how much trouble this could get me in?”
“I’m sure you could pay your way out of it.”
“Hey,” he snaps his fingers at you, “I’m being serious.”
“Me too,” you snap your fingers back at him, too fed up with him to care, “Mr. Billionaire.”
The two of you stare at one another, unblinking, unflinching, anger seeping through your skin. Tony has realized quickly that no matter how hard he pushes your buttons, you’ll push his right back, just as much if not more.
Maybe you are his.
“I’ll ask one more time,” Tony starts. “Did you start that fire?”
“I was too busy getting stabbed to start a fucking fire, okay?”
This has Tony reeling in shock instead of anger. “Stabbed? Are you fucking nuts? What do you mean you were getting stabbed?”
“I mean I was getting stabbed. What else do you think that means?”
Tony sighs tiredly, frustration making him clench his jaw. “Where?”
You gesture to your abdomen. “Just in a couple places.”
Tony’s eyes widen. “A couple— Alright, you know what, we can finish this later, because right now,” he points his index finger at you, “you need to get to MedBay.”
“What?”
“Yeah, that’s the thing about getting stabbed, munchkin. It can cause internal damage. And if you never went to the hospital—”
“I stitched myself up, it was fine—”
“Uh-uh, shut it,” he snaps. “Come on. Come with me.”
+++
You run into Bucky once again when you get off the elevator at MedBay. He’s talking with Steve who is checking on Natasha who is a little bruised, and all three of their heads turn when they see you dragging your feet behind Tony.
Bucky gives you a questioning look while Steve and Natasha look plain confused, both having not met you until now.
“FRIDAY,” Tony calls out. “I need a full body scan on Y/N.”
“Yes, Mr. Stark.”
You roll your eyes as Tony gestures you into a room. You can still see everyone through the glass walls as you step on a small circle in the floor, presuming it’s where you need to stand for the scan.
Steve asks the million dollar question. “What’s going on?”
“Got stabbed,” you reply with a shrug, making Tony’s blood boil even faster.
Natasha snorts at your nonchalance, Steve gives Tony a baffled look, but Bucky seems weirdly concerned. “You what?”
“It was a long time ago,” you tell Bucky.
“No, it was a few months ago. And she never went to a hospital,” Tony adds, right as FRIDAY finishes the scan. “What have we got FRIDAY?”
“Evidence of internal bleeding that has since stopped, but nothing else. Everything has healed properly.”
“Well thank god for that,” Tony deadpans.
You nearly flip him off right there, but you settle on a glare. “Are you done?”
“Yes,” Tony says. “But we’re not done.”
“For fuck’s sake, I did not start the fire!”
“Oh no, I believe you there,” Tony says. “I wanna know who stabbed you.”
“Some random idiots,” you shrug, walking out of the room and past Tony, back toward Steve, Natasha, and Bucky. “Leave me the hell alone about it. Goddamn.”
Tony lets you walk this time, watching you storm off toward the elevator. Meanwhile, he has two super soldiers and a spy staring at him like they just found out his darkest secret.
“It’s just like yours,” Steve fires back, raising an eyebrow.
Tony ignores him.
“Here’s my question,” Natasha says. “If she was stabbed that many times in that many places— How did it heal? That’s not normal.” And when Tony gives her a confused look, she adds, “You know what I mean.”
“Wait,” Steve catches on. “You don’t think she’s…” He looks over at Bucky.
“She knew I was standing behind the wall earlier,” Bucky says, a realization crossing his face. “She could sense me. I heard her, but I was too far away for any normal person to hear me.”
“Okay, let’s not jump to these conclusions right now,” Tony interjects. “It’s bad enough she has an arrest warrant and a habit of getting stabbed. I don’t need to worry about her being like you two knuckleheads.”
“It’s still worth looking into,” Natasha comments.
“Yeah,” Steve agrees. “We need to know if she is, Tony.”
“Well right now, she’s being a hormonal teenager, so I don’t think I’ll be able to ask her about it,” Tony deadpans.
“She just lost her mom,” Bucky says, remembering when Steve told him, and his heart broke for you. “Give her a break.”
“If you want to talk to her Barnes, go right ahead.”
“I might,” Bucky retorts, already heading toward the exit so he can find where you went. “Just to apologize for your attitude.”
+++
It takes Bucky a full ten minutes of searching for you before he remembers he can just ask FRIDAY.
“She’s currently in her room, James, but it is on Do Not Disturb.”
“Can you override that for me?” Bucky asks the AI.
“One moment.”
Bucky has no idea why FRIDAY needs a moment, but he waits. He’s in the living area so your room is just down the hall, but knocking does no good when Do Not Disturb is live. He knows because he uses it every night. No sound gets in or out.
“Do Not Disturb overridden by Tony Stark.”
Bucky rolls his eyes. Of course.
He heads down the hall to knock on your door, but you don’t respond. Because of the circumstances, Bucky goes against his better judgement and opens your door.
He’s met with a pillow hitting his chest.
“Oh,” you say immediately after. Bucky is surprised to find you sitting on the floor in front of the window, facing the city skies with a blanket over your shoulders. “Sorry. FRIDAY said Tony overrode it so I thought it was him.”
“Nope, just me,” Bucky replies, holding out his hands. He reaches down and grabs the pillow, tossing it back on your bed. “What are you doing down there?”
“Looking,” you shrug, turning back around to face the city.
“Can I join you?”
“Sure.”
Bucky shuts the door. “FRIDAY, put Do Not Disturb back up please.”
“Of course, James. Do Not Disturb is now active.”
“It’s really weird,” you say. “Having an AI in this place. Doesn’t it creep you out?”
Bucky lets out a laugh when he kneels to the floor to sit a little distance away from you, putting his back to the window. “There’s a lot of tech I don’t understand. I kinda had to get used to it quick when I was in Wakanda, though, so nothing phases me anymore.”
“Right, you were...gone for a while,” you pause, not knowing how to approach the subject. “You and Steve both were, right?”
He nods. “Steve was frozen, I was brainwashed.”
He says it so bluntly that you don’t know how to respond at all.
“I’m not anymore,” Bucky continues. “But I did a lot that I’m not proud of. And I was framed for something I didn’t do.”
You half-hum, half-scoff at that. “So you know what it’s like.”
Bucky nods, leaning his head back against the window. “I do.”
“Who were you brainwashed by again?”
“HYDRA,” Bucky replies, tensing a little. “Why?”
“Just curious,” you shrug. “The name sounds familiar, though.”
Bucky lifts his head from the window. “How familiar?”
You shake your head, unsure. “I dunno. It was all over the news, though, right? That’s probably why.”
“Yeah, probably,” Bucky replies slowly. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.” You bring your knees up to your chest, hugging them.
“Do you know why you were stabbed?”
You don’t move a single muscle. You don’t even blink.
“Tony was an asshole,” Bucky says. “He shouldn’t force you to talk about something that recent.”
“Yeah.”
“But if you do ever wanna talk about it,” Bucky pauses, “I’m here. No pressure, though. I get it.”
You nod slowly, watching him from your peripheral vision. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Just not right now,” you continue, surprising yourself and Bucky. “Maybe later.”
“Whenever you want,” he shrugs. “I’ll give you some space, though. Do you uh...want your pillow back?”
You perk up a little. “Yeah, thanks. If you don’t mind.”
Bucky pushes himself to his feet, walking over to the bed to grab your pillow. He tosses it back to you gently.
You smile softly and hug it to your chest, but Bucky knows that once he leaves, you’ll lay down and sleep, right there in front of the window. Because your bed must be too soft.
"You don't ever think about something? Nor marriage - or whatever-but something, you know with a hunter. Somebody who understands this life?"
Life for hunters is hard. Always in the road. No place to call home. No guarantee that you'll live to fight another day. Attachments make it harder. And even that "something" with a hunter is messy and complicated. So the hardest part in this life is to look too closely. Into who you are and who've been. And who you want to be. What you long for at the end of the road. And admitting it all to that guy in the mirror that knows it better than anyone.
And I could be wrong about anybody else
But you're right there, right thete in the mirror
You don't want to hurt yourself, hurt yourself
By looking too closely
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Ellie Spencer is an original character character created by @girlshunttoo - Faceclaim Deborah Ann Woll Check us out on @violentdelightsproductions / @ddriverpicksthemusic / @girlshunttoo on Tumblr ♥
