#winter13week

[faustiana]

Bucky dreads finals week, but not for the reasons anyone could easily guess.

Sure, he hates hunkering down in a corner of the library for hours, like any reasonable teenager would but there’s more to it. With finals week, his girlfriend Sharon downs cup after cup of coffee, with no regard for the consequences.

“Babe,” he hesitates, eyes widening at the speed at which she gulps down her scalding hot coffee. It’s her twelfth cup, today. “Maybe you should stop with the caffeine.”

She drags the back of her hand mouth, effectively wiping off any stray drops. “Butt out, Barnes,” she bites, circling answers with a red marker. “This is between me, God and my study techniques.”

Sharon’s the type of person to drop everything to help out her friends. She’s got a heart of gold that radiates kindness and a sense of loyalty that’s unparalleled. It’s one of the reasons why he loves her. (Although he doesn’t tell her that, it’s too early in their relationship to.)

She’s also got a knack for organising her schedule down to a T, juggling about a hundred different tasks at once. Her military precision is second to only Pepper’s, probably.

Case in point: In the last hour alone she’s made him vocab flashcards for his French exam tomorrow, set reminders to take breaks on Bruce’s phone, reorganised Sam’s AP Econ notes by importance of topic, gives Clint the lay of the syllabus, sends Nat relevant Quizlets and is currently grading Steve’s practice test for his English paper.

All this on top of her own studying to do.

“Rogers!” she yells, rolling up his paper and sends it flying across the room, smacking Steve’s face dead center. “You got a 69!”

Thor’s giggles are quelled from Sharon’s murderous glare and the sharp jostle of Bruce’s elbow to his ribs.

The stress of it all is maddening, and that’s without throwing caffeine in the mix.

Taking a minute to go over the highlighted areas of her own World History notes, she picks up Bucky’s stack of flashcards and starts quizzing him.

“Train station?”

“Uh, le gare?”

“Swimming pool?

“Le piscine?”

“La,” she corrects and he can tell from the set of her mouth that his pronunciation is laughably bad.

Bucky pouts, crossing his arms. “Does it matter?”

“It does when it gets you a passing grade,” she grouses, turning a page over her notes and reviewing them carefully. “Go over your verb conjugations next, I’ll be with you in a minute.”

It takes everything in him not to offer to quiz her and help ease the burden a bit. But the last time he did that, she’d cruelly laughed at the questions he’d picked out.

“What is mitochondria?” she’d scoffed, her tone mocking his. “I’m not a basic bitch.”

“You’re mean.” It was all he’d said in response.

He’s not sensitive but yeah, it feels like a slap to the chest when all he’s used to from Sharon are hugs, kisses and the occasional canoodling. He really hates final week.

When she’s off on her rounds in the library, checking in on their friends, he sees Nat slip her something from the corner of his eye.

His eyes grow wide when he realises what it is, knocking over his own chair in his haste. He rushes over to Sharon with the intent of knocking over what seems to be her thirteenth cup of coffee. “No!”

But she’s quicker on the uptake. With an expression that even God herself may fear, Sharon looks her boyfriend in the eye and empties the cup down her throat. Without breaking eye contact.

All at the same time, Bucky is horrified, in awe and strangely attracted to her right now.

Tossing the paper cup in the recycle bin, she grins savagely at him and warns, “You better have revised your conjugations, darling.”

Faster than he thought he ever could, he turns tail back to his spot at the table and squints hard at his textbook.

Bucky loves his girlfriend. He really does. But God, at what cost?

[@winter13-events]

[faustiana]

"There's someone I want you to meet," Bucky says, a fond smile spreading across his face.

They've been dating for a steady eight months now and had gotten the Meet-the-family-and-friends milestone out of the way pretty quickly since their social life overlapped with each other's extensively.

Sharon looks up from her Avengers themed colouring book, confused. It's a strange line to spring on her when she's currently colouring Tony's suit in Barney the Dinosaur colours, with the intent on snapping a picture and sending it to her cousin.

The only introduction she'd had to make was him to her Aunt Angie.

("So handsome!" her aunt had exclaimed, hugging Bucky in an attempt to be the world's worst wingwoman. Sharon had just stood there in background making slashing motions at her throat.)

It's even stranger when she realises that she's pretty much met everyone important in Bucky's life, in present day at least. Steve. Sam. Natasha. Herself.

She's yet to figure out a way to time travel back to the thirties to roast Bucky to the moon and back with his sister Rebecca.

"What?" she asks, scrunching up her nose adorably, prompting Bucky who can't resist, to immediately boop it.

"You'll see," he smiles cryptically. "Tuesday at 9. Dinner at my place?"

"Sure," she replies, pretending to be nonchalant when in reality her spy senses are working overtime.

Sharon hates surprises, so she stakes out Bucky's apartment in her spare time. A little overboard, sure? But a little due diligence wouldn't hurt.

She's ready to leave when she realises she's accidentally watched half the second season of Supernatural whilst spying on her boyfriend. Convinced, he's just trying to mess with her head a bit, she relaxes, stepping away from her perch on the fire escape.

Only to see a shock of white fur slipping in through the kitchen window.

It's a cat. He wants her to meet a cat.

Sharon's always considered herself a dog person. She'd raised a German Shepherd called Jack when she was a kid and was a favourite of Lucky, Clint's lab retriever.

Her track record with cats was suspect, at best.

Natasha's cat Liho was grumpy on a regular day but she makes it a habit to hiss nastily at Sharon, every single time she stays over at her best friend's apartment. Sharon hisses back to be polite and to also maybe, establish dominance.

The only other cat she's ever interacted with wasn't technically a cat.

Fury's orange tabby, Goose was a good partner to have on missions. Especially when she eats her opponents and their weapons and coughs them up in SHIELD's holding facility, no cleanup crew required.

(She's been relieved of her cat-sitting duties when she pulls the above stunt with Goose one too many times.)

The technical term is flerken but Goose still likes her. That counts for something, right?

On Tuesday, she’s outside Bucky’s door trying to calm her nerves down, an entire grocery bag of cat treats in hand.

“This is Alpine,” Bucky gestures to the snowy lump of fur sitting idly atop a stack of books that she knew were flea market purchases. “Don’t know if she’s mine but she’s been coming around here the last couple of months expecting to be fed by me so that’s comes pretty close.”

Sharon waves awkwardly at the cat, who’s too busy licking at its paw to notice.

“You knew?” Bucky frowns, reaching into the grocery bag and pulling out a tin of Fancy Feast. He raises an eyebrow at her.

“I kind of staked out your apartment a little to prepare myself, she admits, scratching the back of her neck sheepishly. “Only a little, if it helps.”

Bucky just tilts his head and chuckles. “That tracks.” He shakes the grocery bag and the food tins clatter against each other.

“Sorry, I cleared out near half the cat food aisle,” she apologises. “Didn’t know what kind she likes. He likes? I don’t want to look up the cat’s ass, we’ve only just met.”

Bucky laughs like a sunbeam on a cold winter morning. “She.”

He gives her a side hug and drops a kiss into her hair, as natural as breathing. “Dinner’ll be ready in a few minutes. I’m making chicken pot pie.”

“Okay,” she responds, plopping down onto the floor at the base of his couch.

He heads to the kitchen and shoots a look at the two of them. “Play nice,” he warns. Sharon and Alpine exchange wary glances.

Sharon and the cat sit in near silence until she can’t pretend not to notice how she’s been staring at her, in cold assessment.

This is what it feels like to be other end of an interrogation table, she thinks.

She tries not to leap out of her skin when suddenly Alpine leaps off her spot from the stack and begins to inch towards her, her gaze both studious and calculating. Sharon doesn’t dare move.

Finally, in the smoothest of moves that she thinks outshines the brightest of stealth agents, Alpine stretches onto Sharon’s lap and settles into the warmth of her thighs. Sharon freezes.

Alpine bumps her head gently on Sharon’s torso. The universal cat signal for pet me.

Hesitantly, Sharon reaches out and scratches the cat lightly under the chin. Alpine closes her eyes and purrs contentedly.

A quick learner, she figures out where Alpine loves being petted. Head. Between the eyes. Down her back and a bit of the tail.

She quickly establishes a petting routine that’s got Alpine’s stamp of approval. Slowly, she feels Alpine’s breaths turning even and guesses that she’s fallen asleep.

Alpine’s got pretty soft fur for a stray. It’s downy with an even finer coat underneath her fur. Sharon’s not versed in cat breeds enough to tell what kind she is.

But she feels a swell of love for this cat that isn’t mean to her. Probably the only one.

“Does this mean you like me?” she asks quietly, even though the cat’s asleep. Alpine just lets out a tiny meow. It looks like she’s caught in a happy dream.

“Dinner’s re-, oh!” Bucky stops at the sight of his girlfriend and his cat.

“Yeah,” Sharon smiles softly at him. “I’m not moving position anytime soon, babe.”

“That’s alright,” his smiles back, shaking his head lightly. “I’ll feed it to you, all romantic like.”

They watch the first few episodes of Supernatural’s fourth season, Bucky feeding Sharon and himself spoonfuls of pot pie, straight from the dish.

Later, Sharon too, quickly dozes off, her head on his shoulder and as much as he wants to scoop her up and take her to his bed, he thinks it’s best not to wake either of them.

So he wraps Sharon up in a blanket and props a pillow under her head, slowly manoeuvring her into a position that meant she was least likely to wake up with a crick in her neck.

He ghosts his lips on her forehead and pats Alpine softly a bit.

Selfishly, he takes one last look at them and smiles, before turning off the lights. His two best girls.

[@winter13-events]

[faustiana]

The November air in the Pacific-Northwest is crisp, smells like sugar and butter and punctuated by carnival music and the delighted shrieks of children.

Sharon pulls her coat tighter and checks her phone again. Bucky is running late.

Sharon and Bucky had shared a toe-curling kiss on the quinjet, following the resounding success of a mission hunting down some HYDRA lackeys.

And ever since, she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it.

(Friends kiss friends, right?” she asks Wanda later. “When it happens, in the heat of the moment?”

Wanda just shakes her head in pity. “You’re the one with the advanced degree in psychology. Figure it out.”

She hopes Natasha has better advice.)

So it’s comes as a shock when one day, Bucky had cornered her in the hallway between Hill’s office and the training deck. At first, he didn’t say anything at all, just stepped into her path, walking backwards as she slowed to a stop. Grinning, he pulled out a red velvet cupcake. “Go out on a date with me.”

“Wow, we’re skipping roses and heading straight to the cupcakes are we?” she’d asked, taking it into her hands. It was warm, fresh from the cafeteria oven.

“Noticed you skipped lunch. You work yourself to the bone Carter,” he’d said. Leaning in, he pointed to the cupcake and whispered, “Consider this a preview.”

Sharon snorted. “Am I to assume that our first date is at a bakery?”

Bucky’s grin turned wolfish. “Is that a yes, then?”

“It’s not a no.”

“I’ll text you the details soon Carter,” he promised, walking backwards again albeit in a different direction. Sharon’s not sure where he was headed.

It’s when she began to wonder how long she’s had feelings for this little shit. Was it before the kiss or after? Did the kiss trigger something that was always there or or did it just set off a need to be close to someone? The kiss had already changed things. They were going on a date now? Was this date going to change things?

Sharon put a stop to her questioning thoughts before she could bum herself out. Hopefully, the date would go pretty low key and they could still be friends. Friends that make out and probably do adult things on occasion.

Of course that’s when he suggested they go to the carnival in Portland for their first date.

Just then, her phone chimes in with a text from Sam.

Sorry, my boy’s running a bit late. Got held up a while in Ohio. ETA: 2 minutes, I hope.

She looks up to see Bucky jogging towards her, an apologetic grin on his face and two sticks of cotton candy in his hands. “I brought apology snacks,” he says, barely out of breath. “Sorry.”

“It was only ten minutes anyway,” she shrugs, biting into the sugary confection. “I’ve been stood up worse.”

“They’re assholes,” he declares as the two of them weave between the crowd. Sharon is painfully aware of the way their hands brush when they walk close together.

“Do you want to go on that ride?” he asks, pointing at a rickety looking rollercoaster, she’s sure is not up to code.

With a skeptic glance she hedges, “We’ll try some of the safer ones first before getting on that death trap. Yeah?”

Bucky lets out a full-bellied laugh. “What? Scared you’ll hurl?”

“How’s it going to look when I survive crumbling bridges and explosions only to die on that?” Her lip curls at the thought.

“Pretty unlucky Thirteen,” he teases, chuckling. A sly grin sneaks it’s way onto her face and Bucky notices.

“We’ll see who’s unlucky when you’ll lose half the games to me,” she challenges. “I’m going to kick your ass.” His jaw drops in mock offense.

“Maybe,” he argues. “But I won’t go easy on you.”

Laughing, she grabs his metal hand and leads him to the nearest stall. She's glad he can't feel how clammy her hand is.

(Sharon beats Bucky, seven to five.

She’s an absolute beast at the shooting games but she doesn’t mind losing to Bucky at the High-Striker because she gets to see him roll up his sleeves and watch his sinewy muscles tense as he strikes the hammer.

She’s a pretty shameless ogler.)

As it turns out, they do go on the rollercoaster. Thrice. Bucky whoops through the whole thing while Sharon, master spy, dissociates all three times.

They have their second kiss atop the Ferris Wheel. They’ve both got smears of hot sauce on their faces from the turkey legs. And yet, it’s weirdly romantic and Sharon would like to do it again and again.

By the end of the night, Bucky’s got his girlfriend hoisted on his back.

(They strike a compromise. Sharon carries all of the prizes they’ve won each other, Bucky carries her. He’s not sure he’s got the fair end of that deal.)

“Ready to go home sweetheart?” he asks, smiling up at her. She smiles back, cuddling him tighter.

This is slightly different, she thinks giddily. Good different. She kind of likes that he’s her boyfriend now. Not that she’ll ever admit that to him.

She spots a funhouse in her periphery and steers him towards that direction, pressing a chaste kiss to the shell of his ear.

She wants more of this, for as how long she can get it.

“Absolutely not.”

[@winter13-events]

[faustiana]

"You can't fall in love with me."

It's one of the first things Sharon's ever said to Bucky. It was a line said in jest but he later finds out that everyone gets that line fed to them in the early stages of their friendship with Sharon. Even Natasha.

Since Bucky's never been particularly good at following orders, he goes ahead and does just that.

His crush starts small. He begins to catalogue the smallest things about her - the left corner of her mouth turning up first when she finds a joke particularly funny, the way she likes her coffee (black, three sugars, two shots of milk) and the smell of anise and lemongrass that she seems to have inherited from her aunt.

That’s when he starts to notice the more minute things about her. Things that no one else questioned, let alone notice. Things that seemed...off.

Sharon’s a solid agent. Maybe even the best of her class at SHIELD but that doesn’t explain how she gets Lukin, a senior HYDRA operative to break the locations of HYDRA’s unofficial sleeper cells. In two minutes.

Bucky remembers Lukin from his Winter Soldier days. Lukin is the kind of man to sit bored and yawn while his nails are ripped from their beds.

“Are you questioning my capabilities?” she asks, getting defensive when he brings it up with her.

“No! No, it’s just that-”

“I’m the best when it comes to interrogation here, Barnes. And I have the track record to prove it.” Which brings that discussion to a firm dead end.

She also disappears for a day, every month, like clockwork. On ‘personal business’.

Bucky’s not the kind to pry but he follows her out one night, when the full moon lies languid behind wispy clouds. It’s the night before Samhain starts.

She’s a spy through and through, taking care to stick to alleyways and lesser used streets before she slips into her own apartment. He feels kind of stupid following her here especially because he knows where it is anyway.

After an hour or two of pacing outside her door, deliberating on what to do, he decides to ring the doorbell, which is answered by the creak of her door opening.

Bucky’s mouth falls open slightly. She’s glowing.

Sharon’s already impossibly gorgeous on a regular day. Bucky’s embarrassed to admit that his pulse spikes a bit every time he sees a flash of her golden blonde hair or feels her brown eyed gaze on him.

Now? He feels his lungs go clean out of air for a second. The hallway outside her door is dimly lit but she looks as if though a sunbeam clung to her skin like protective film.

“Sorry if it’s a bit messy,” she says, leading him into the living room, a sly smile painted on her face. “I haven’t quite gotten around to cleaning yet.”

Messy is a bit of an understatement. The curtains are drawn shut, there’s a silvery blue powder strewn all over the carpet, dozens of candles littered across the floor (some of them, not put out) and is that a half burned lock of her hair?

He’s not sure what the deal is on building safety codes in this century are but he’s pretty sure she’s violated some if not most of them.

Bucky gapes at her. “You’re a -”

“SHIELD agent? Check. Witch? Also check.” She grabs a bowl of candy off the counter and plops onto the couch, she holds out a chocolate bar towards him. “Kit-Kat?”

Struck dumb, he accepts the proffered candy and sits down next to her, more and more questions cropping up in his head.

“I knew you’d be the first to figure it out. Especially since the Lukin case,” she says, looking a bit impressed. “I’m the last of the Carter line of witches, but I think you might have known another? Aunt Peggy?”

Peggy was a witch too? Actually, that kind of tracks.

Bucky tries to remember all the stories about witches he’d ever been told. “So are you a part of a coven or something?”

She unwraps a peppermint. “Used to be. But after Aunt Peggy died, it seemed kinda pointless. I was never a good witch anyway, I’m a much better spy.”

“Is that why you take a day off every month?”

She nods giving him a dazzling smile. He wonders what it would feel like to poke at the dimple on her cheek.

“Every month, a witch has to perform a regenerative ritual to keep our powers and souls alive. Right after,” she gestures at the glow on herself. “I look like this. Best to not let Fury know I’ve got powers. I’m too smart to be an Avenger.”

“What are your powers anyway?” he asks. Now that he’s gotten over the shock of it all, it’s kind of cool.

“Persuasion. It’s what you saw me do with Lukin. It’s the only power I’ve got that doesn’t need a potion or a charm of some sort. I’m pretty bad at putting spells together, actually. Aside from this.” She points to the mess by their legs.

Bucky stops short. He remembers the line she slips everyone, himself included. “So is that how you get people to not fall in love with you?”

She stills, nearly choking on her mint. “What?”

“You tell everyone you meet not to fall in love with you. I’m assuming you use your powers on them. But why? Is it because you’re a witch?”

She stares at him for a good thirty seconds, turning over everything he just said in her head. Bucky just tries not to get distracted by her eyes.

Sighing, she pulls her knees up to her chin. “It’s not a witch thing. It’s a Carter thing.”

“Huh?”

“So this ancestor of mine, Clementine Carter had her heart broken somewhere in the eighteenth century. It was pretty brutal, even by present day standards. She cast a spell on herself to protect herself from heartbreak but like any spell born from bitterness and grief it morphed into a curse. Passed down through the generations.”

“Wow.”

Her lips thin in grief, “That’s not all. At one point, it was thought that the curse was beginning to wear off. Until Aunt Peggy. Not five days after Steve told her he loved her, he plunged into the sea.”

Bucky’s heart swells with a tiniest bit of hope. “That’s not the curse, that’s just Steve being a giant dumbass. Besides he’s still alive isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” her voice grows hoarse. “But Aunt Peggy isn’t.”

“Here,” he says, opening his arms wide. Her face crumples and she leans into the hug he gives her. He tries to pour every bit of strength, love and comfort he has within him into her.

“I grew up believing that I had to protect everyone else from myself. Besides,” she laughs humourlessly. “I can’t imagine anyone falling in love with me and that’s without all the witchiness.”

“Oh Carter,” he sighs into her hair. “I think it might be a bit too late for that.”

Sharon extracts herself from the hug and looks at him in disbelief. This cannot be happening. “No.”

“I’ve kind of liked you for years,” he finally admits. “I like like you.”

She makes a sound of protest. “But the curse-”

“Maybe exists. Or maybe it doesn’t. But we’ll figure it out together, if you want to.”

Sharon gives him a watery smile. “I want to,” she says, wiping the tears clean off her face. “I like like you too. I have for a while.”

“Good, do you want to start by watching a movie?”

She glances at the clock on the wall. It’s twenty minutes past midnight. Officially Halloween.

“Okay,” she says, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek before getting up. He’s sure his face has gone bright red, he can feel it. “I’ll get the popcorn. Hocus Pocus or Halloweentown?”

His gaze follows her to the kitchen. “What’s Halloweentown?”

She looks at him, surprised and smiles easily, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

(Bucky hogs the popcorn and Sharon complains about that. They kiss, momentarily forgetting about a possible curse that threatens to tear them apart. Besides, dying was already an occupational hazard and ninety years feels like a good track record.)

(Bucky feels pretty good about his odds.)

[@winter13-events]

[faustiana]

Halloween at Tony’s was always a huge affair. Sharon remembers begging her aunts to let her stay late at Tony’s because his parties were almost always on a school night.

His parties aren’t as wild as they used to be. Especially with Morgan on the way. “I’m a family man now Bear,” he announces, using his childhood nickname for her. He seems so happy, almost bursting at the seams with pride. “I’ve thrown out all the cheap beer.”

Later, Pepper quietly hands her an expired six pack of Keystone Lights which she disposes off quickly.

She’d never thought she’d ever say this but she’s a little too tired for Halloween this year. A month long special ops in Kiev rooting out black market arms dispensaries has hollowed a deep ache into her bones. An ache that kept telling her to crawl into the nearest bed and let go of her consciousness.

But Halloween is special, and even though she wanted to dress up as one half of the twins from The Shining, she knows from experience that last minute costume shopping is worse than anything Kiev threw at her so she pokes two holes in an old, white duvet, throws it on and calls it a day.

The party’s great. Tony and Pepper are dressed as Gomez and Morticia Addams, the snacks on the food table look appropriately macabre, JARVIS is playing his favourite Halloween playlist which just consists of various Monster Mash remixes and Bucky is there.

She’s glad that her costume hides the way her cheeks go bright red at his costume. Because he’s dressed as John Wick. Three piece suit and all. He looks good. Like really, really good.

Sharon’s made her love for Keanu Reeves pretty well known to anyone who knows her. Her favourite Keanu Reeves character?

“John Wick!” she yelled emphatically once when they were hanging out at the local bar, super drunk. “God, he literally goes on a killing spree to avenge his dog. Relatable!”

Okay,” Bucky had laughed, rubbing her back to calm her down. “We get it!”

(Which reminds her she still hasn’t gotten back the John Wick boxset she’d lent Peter.)

Bucky laughs when he spots her, a drink in hand. (On closer inspection, the drink is just chocolate pudding with gummy worms in it.)

“Carter?” He asks, unable to contain his laughter. Sharon frowns, but of course he doesn’t see that. “How’d you guess? I could’ve been Nat for all you knew.”

“Maybe,” he smirks, loving this. “ But I did see Nat earlier wearing that Catwoman costume. Like she does every year. Also I think you’re one of the few people who could pull this look off.”

She knows full well the trap she’s about to walk into because she’s the one who helps set it up. “How? You can’t even see my face!”

He’s failing at hiding his grin now. “Exactly!”. Sharon's foot darts from underneath the duvet to kick him lightly in the shin but she's grinning.

It’s not that Bucky is predictable. Quite literally the opposite. Their enemies never know where the Winter Soldier would strike them from and how. But Sharon’s been around Bucky long enough to know how conversations with him dip and swirl. They both give each other the conversational equivalent of doing the tango.

Maybe that’s why she loves standing there next to Bucky, trading barbs. Their banter has a solid roast to flirt ratio that’s got her brain trying to keep up with the increased pace of her pulse.

As the party goes on around them, Sharon sheds the duvet because it’s kind of weird having the thin cotton flutter about her face every time she breathes. She talks to Bucky about everything and nothing, tuning out the world around them. She doesn’t notice when Clint accidentally staples the ears of Happy’s bunny costume or when MJ straight up paints a black spider on her cheek.

She’s been around Bucky long enough to develop a godawful crush on him. While, Sharon isn’t the kind to not get what she wants. She wants the chips to fall where they may with Bucky, because she’s a bit too attached to what she has with him now.

She’s not even sure she had a type before Bucky. Suddenly, her type is tall, sometimes broody with an easy smile and would without question sit with her in the corner of the room, rating everyone’s costumes out of ten.

“Sam gets a two. His Nick Fury is average at best.”

Sharon rolls her eyes. “Barnes, please. Five is the average. Sam gets an eight on eyepatch accuracy alone. Steve gets a two. He’s going as Evel Knievel for crying out loud!”

Bucky folds his arms in disagreement. “Evel Knievel is an American legend.”

“So’s Nick Fury. Just a more quieter one.”

“Okay but Banner gets a solid eight for going as Bruce Wayne instead of Batman.”

She scoffs, “Um, I know for a fact Banner’s not in a costume. He’s just in a suit.”

Bucky’s expression becomes more defensive when he says, “No, because when I asked him what he was going as. He said “Bruce” and walked away and I thought to myself That’s a classic Bruce Wayne move.”

“Banner’s first name is Bruce, you dingus. Plus he told me he wasn’t going as anyone this year and he hates superheroes, present company excluded.”

“Oh, shit.” Bucky groans. Sharon tries to grin but a yawn catches her off guard. For all her crush on Bucky Barnes, she doesn’t notice the way his eyes go soft when she tries to soldier on with rating Vision’s costume. She doesn’t know he knows about how she headed straight here from Kiev and how tired she must be.

She doesn’t know he also happens to have a giant ass crush on her, probably far longer than the one she’s had on him.

It's why he's got the John Wick suit in the first place.

("Its quality flirting okay, Sam!" he'd defended himself that morning to Sam who'd only quirked a questioning brow)

He'd had plans on asking her out tonight. He even practiced what he was going to say in the mirror but Sharon is really tired. He's waited this long. He can wait a bit more.

“C’mon,” he says, sliding an arm around her. Sharon leans into the fireplace like warmth radiating off of him. He’s got her duvet folded and draped over his metal arm. “I’m taking you home.”

“Before you do though, do you mind grabbing that plate of spooky sliders?” she asks tiredly, inclining her head towards the snack table. Bucky gives her a smile that he reserves for Sharon alone.

God, he's so done for. At least, this way he gets to practice his flirting skills on the mirror a bit more. When he asks Sharon out, it will be nothing less than perfect.

“I’m already on it."

(@winter13-events)