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brekkingthebedwithbuckybarnes · 5 years ago

Text

James ‘Bucky’ Barnes

Chapter 2

Read Chapter 1 here.

OC x Bucky Barnes

Tagging: @vodka-and-some-sass thanks for beta-ing this and not laughing at my technological handicaps.

Disclaimer: (This is my first fic on here so I hope it isn’t too bad.) Fluff. Tiny bit of angst.

(Please reblog, comment and hit the like button if you like this fic. You can also send in asks, requests and even tagging requests. I’m new to this so I’d hate to disappoint, but would love conversations!)

Summary: Adonia is spent with work and exhaustion and missing her best friend. She also doesn’t want to deal with her growing affection for the man with the troubled past, whom everyone seems to be a little worried of. But alas.

Two hours. She’d slept for two whole hours without waking up even once. The rest of the night was spent in fits and bursts but those two hours… She felt like a miracle had been worked. It did nothing to dim the exhaustion she felt however, her bones feeling like lead encased in blood and flesh. But two hours…she glanced at the clock on the bedside table and stretched. It was mortifying how her spine cracked into place. 7 am. “Might as well get up now, Addy,” she thought to herself.

Groaning as her feet hit the chilled carpet, she stood from her comfortably mussed bed and plodded into the bathroom. “Adonia the Zombie” was what she’d named her morning look. Those dark circles under her eyes seemed to gobble up all the little enthusiasm she felt about the day ahead, out of bed. But she’d promised Bucky to figure out what had happened with him and she didn’t like to be a prick.

Half an hour later, Addy was curled up on the couch, armed with a humongous mug of coffee and muffin as she scanned her phone for texts. She had one from Steve asking her to let him know should she need anything. The rest were from the set-up at her work lab, updating her as and when it generated results. She’d been picking at her muffin when a deep voice slurred with sleep said from somewhere far above her head, “Need a hand with that muffin, darling?” Adonia immediately sat up straighter and almost wrung her neck as she looked up at Bucky, towering over her in his pajamas.

He took a seat next to her on the couch and sprawled across it, chuckling at her speechlessness. Taking a chug from his own coffee, he continued in the same drawl, “It’s not going to eat itself, Adonia.”

She realized she’d been staring and quickly averted her eyes, taking a sip. “Did you not look at the mirror before you came out of your room, Bucky?” His bed head coupled with the scruff shadowing the sharp lines of his handsome face made her feel like she was going to melt onto the floor. What a load of sappy shit, get a grip on yourself, Adonia! It didn’t help that he looked like he knew exactly how good his messy hair made him look and EXACTLY what reaction it would causeion her. It annoyed her to no end. “You look like someone ran a plough on your head.”

Bucky had the good sense to jump out of her way when she attacked him with her fists after his cocky “Fertile, aren’t I?” and, as a gesture of peace, offered to take her mug to wash.

As the sound of water filled the room, she watched him scrub his cup as he asked, “Do we go to the lab right after?” “Yeah, better get it done quickly or I’ll have too many theories confusing me,” Addy said as she approached him and perched herself on the counter beside the dish rack.

He hummed in response and went back to his washing. The silence felt comfortable, and the scene was so heartwarmingly domestic, it made Addy feel like the most at home she’d felt since coming to live at the compound. But there was no escaping the next few hours. “You know you can back out if you don’t want to do it, right? I won’t have you sit through it if you don’t feel like it.”

“I don’t see how I can back out if Stark and the others want an explanation for yesterday,” he replied without looking up.

“I don’t give a single damn about Stark or the rest. As you’re going to be the one prodded at, it’s damn well only your choice in the matter,” Addy replied firmly.

“I’ve never seen you prod, will it kill me?” Bucky joked, drying the mugs.

“No, but I don’t want you to…to have a flashback or something, to feel like you’re an irredeemable monster.”

Bucky looked up at the downcast bob that hid Adonia’s face. It was streaked with a burgundy shade that shone in the sunlight, just like her eyes turned to molten chocolate. He couldn’t explain the strange feeling spreading across his chest at her words and the sight before him. Addy saw his feet had turned to her but couldn’t bring herself to look up till she was sure the treacherous tears would not fall.

“Look at me, doll,” he said, his voice a choked whisper. “Come on, look at me,” he repeated more firmly. Gently tilting her chin, he held her gaze so she couldn’t turn away and brushed her hair away from her face. The touch almost made Addy sob. She hadn’t realized how much she’d craved human closeness.

“I know you worry for me. You try to hide it, and you normally do quite well, but I see it. I…I don’t know how to say this but thank you. I’m very glad I have at least one person who unconditionally believes I’m more than what they made me, more than just a monste-”

“You are NOT a monster,” Addy almost snarled out the word.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I’m not. Okay? I’m not,” Bucky quickly altered his words as Adonia resigned herself back to being morose.

“See, I know I am a pain in the ass and after Ames vanishing for months, you have a lot on your plate, but…the thing is, Adonia, I…I’m very glad you are my friend.” It was Bucky’s turn to look down at his feet as he let go of her and turned away. A fat tear splattered onto her sleeve and Addy realized she’d been silently crying.

She quickly wiped her face and spent the rest of the time it took for Bucky to dry the mugs in silence. Bucky, too, seemed to be in a turmoil of emotions in his head as he held out a hand to help her jump down from the counter. “Shall we go to the lab?”

Addy nodded her assent, still not trusting herself to speak, and led the way to the lab she’d been taken to yesterday to assess his situation. He watched her work, pulling out bottles and vials and syringes and only followed the short instructions she gave him to adjust his hand or sit somewhere else. She banished him from the lab in an hour, saying she had everything for analysis and would run the tests alone. She asked him to tell the rest of the team to be present at lunch so everyone would know if she found anything. Bucky only nodded and turned to leave. He couldn’t see Addy’s face as she watched his broad back walking away from her.

It was only as he had almost reached the door that he heard a whisper of a voice saying, “I’m very glad you are my friend too, Bucky.”

He whirled around at the door but she’d turned her back to him, picking up a vial. “See you at lunch, doll.” Bucky walked out to the elevator that would take him to the gym Steve was waiting at and looked back at the closed door behind which Adonia had already busied herself with science stuff. Nobody would have mistaken the wistfulness in his eyes as anything else.

*At lunch*

The whole team had come, even Peter had a holiday at school so his aunt had dropped him off at the compound before driving away with Happy. Everyone was being chatty, talking about Natasha’s mission. Steve caught Bucky picking at his food and gave him a good-natured jab with his elbow. “She always gets caught up in her lab, Buck, she’ll drop by soon.” Bucky gave him a half-hearted nod and went back to picking at his food. Tony, Steve and Sam shared a look of concern and all three checked out the empty seat opposite Bucky.

“You alright, Manchurian Candidate?” Tony called out, attempting at levity. He received a grunt in reply.

“Leave him to it, Tony. Don’t push,” Nat said from beside Bruce, who nodded with her. Even she looked concerned for Barnes.

All of them looked up at the door opening as Adonia walked in with a thin binder in her hand. She looked furious and frustrated. Bucky was almost out of his chair when she slammed the file onto the table and walked away to the bar to pour herself a drink. None of them dared say a word as she siphoned off the drink in one gulp, poured out another and walked back to the table. She sat down without a word but her eyes looked murderous as she served herself from the platters but didn’t take a single bite.

“Adonia? Is everything okay?” Steve tried out tentatively. Everyone else just watched with bated breath as Addy let out a long sigh, as if she was trying to release the pent up anger.

“That’s the thing. EVERYTHING is okay,” Addy finally replied after a while. Their foreheads creased with confusion. “Why is that a problem?” Tony asked. Bucky was staring at her with such intensity, he could have bored his way through her skull, it seemed.

“Nothing is wrong,” she said, chucking the file across to Tony who caught it and started flipping through the pages. “I did every single goddamn test I could, did his blood profiling multiple times, did a scan of his brain to see which neurons may have fired, if his amygdala had hyperfunctioned, but NOTHING.” She let out a string of expletives that caught everyone off guard.

“You mean to say, nothing had resurfaced?” Nat asked.

“His vitals that the AI had stored showed a sharp spike in his stress hormone levels just before he…did that, and his amygdala had gone into action too, but nothing like the programming. I found no trace of it. The Wakandans do their jobs damn well,” Addy replied, looking at Bucky who looked as if his greatest wishes were coming true.

“You say I’m not relapsing? I’m not?” Bucky’s eyes shone with happiness, and his shoulders stretched as if a great burden had lifted off them. Addy’s voice softened at him. “Nothing is wrong with you, Bucky. You are not a monster.” She smiled as he let out a bark of giddy laughter, at being told he was free.

Steve and Sam looked pleased that their friend was laughing, laughing like a free man. Nat and everyone else shared their pleasure but Tony still looked unsatisfied. “But what caused the outburst?” he asked Adonia, who shrugged. “I did all I could but I found nothing. He was stressed before that happened and he’s bound to have PTSD, we all do. I think we’d be better off checking what triggered it. It may have been something someone said. But neurologically speaking, the Hydra programme is gone.” She finally began eating her lunch as Bucky beamed at her from his side of the table. Tony sighed and said, “Well, we can rest easy for now I guess. We’ll figure it out sometime later. To Manchurian Candidate.” He raised his glass. The rest followed in the toast and everyone fell into easy banter. It seemed a gloom had risen off the group.

Nat started talking about how she’d been almost killed because she tripped on a toy horse in the senator’s house she’d been sent to scout around for information on the assassination attempt he was sponsoring that the CIA had received intel about and asked her to help them out in. Addy leaned in to ask Natasha a question when she noticed Bucky’s hands. He was smiling but the knuckles gripping his fork had gone white. Adonia looked up at his face and saw his eyes had gone stone cold. The unfathomably deep eyes looked like a midnight blue void swallowing up all the light that had shone there earlier. His mouth smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Everyone was too busy to notice it but she did. She was about to ask him when Thor laughingly asked if the assassination would have gone to plan without anyone knowing if they’d had someone who knew what they were doing when a loud thump sounded from right across her. They all looked at where Bucky’s fork was twisted against the table he’d crumpled it against while Addy looked at his face. It had drained of colour as he turned his eyes to her.

And she only saw death in them.

#Bucky Barnes #james buchanan barnes #bucky barnes fluff #fanfic #series #fluff #marvel

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