#also she's missing the weird gold emblems from her dress but i think her cleavage speaks for their absence

[silkentine]

I wish I had a secretary like her.

[mrsdeanwinchester19]

Talk is Cheap

Written for @imanuglywombat​ 4k writing challenge

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Word Count: 4.2k

Summary: Bucky takes his wife on a second honeymoon after their first was cut short.  During the trip, an unexpected visitor arrives

Type: Fluff with some scary parts

Warnings: Gun violence, mentions of holocaust, mentions of sex trafficking, like 1 swear word

Author’s Note: The story mentioned about a Holocaust victim is 100% true, I know the woman personally

Prompt: Mountain moodboard/ Talk is cheap by Nick Murphy; Talk is cheap my darling/ When you’re feeling right at home/ I wanna make you move with confidence/ I wanna be with you alone

Actions speak louder than words.  It means jumping in front of a bullet, rather than just saying I would take a bullet for you.  This is a lesson I learned the hard way, but ironically, it also turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

My now ex-boyfriend David and I were at a bank on a regular day of the week, going to pull out some money out for a vacation fund. Five masked men came into the bank, armed and shouting for everyone to get down.  I got on my knees slowly and put my hands behind my head as they instructed us to do.  

One of the robbers walked up to the front counter and pointed his gun at the teller.  “Open the vault,” he says in a low voice.

“I can’t sir.  The vault can only be opened by a fingerprint scan and none of our fingerprints are registered in the system to open it.  I’m only authorized to pull out $15,000 at once,” she replies, close to tears.

“Fine then, get to work on that, and you-“ he says, pointing his gun to a young man standing next to the coin counting machine, “There has to be an override code for the vault somewhere in the bank.  Open all the offices for my men to look.  Ares!  Apollo! Go with him!”  Two of the men follow the man to the offices in the upstairs half of the bank, both pointing their guns to his back.  

While the teller was gathering as much money as she could, one of the men came over to my boyfriend and me.  “Give me your phone and your wallet,” he says to me.  

“I don’t have them,” I say honestly.  “You can check if you don’t believe me.”

It’s then that I notice the emblem on his jacket.  A red skull with six tentacles coming out of it. A symbol that always confused me, because a hydra has multiple heads, not tentacles like an octopus.  It makes sense now why the leader called two of them the names of Greek gods, considering the hydra is from Greek mythology.  However, as a historian and not a mythologist, it’s a symbol I learned about when we discussed Nazi Germany, where HYDRA got its start.  This isn’t just regular HYDRA then, it’s their small elite force that robs banks to pay for their diabolical schemes.  I let out an aggravated huff of breath when I realize who it is we’re dealing with, horrified that they’ve come back after Captain America took them down TWICE.  

“Stand up,” he says.  I slowly get to my feet.  “Turn around.”  I do as he says, a tear escaping my cheek as I realize he’s going to kill me, considering this is how many are executed when a socialist regime takes over a country.  I interviewed a woman once who fled Poland when they were invaded by the Nazis, and she spoke of a time when she was in the woods picking berries and saw a group of Jewish people in front of a trench, and Nazis shot them into the trench one by one.  

“And you, stand up,” he says, and from the corner of my eye, I see my boyfriend standing up as well.  We look over at him and I can see the same fear reflected in his eyes, though they don’t tell him to turn around.  “Lift her shirt up.”

My eyebrows furrow in confusion as I feel David’s hands grasp the hem of my red blouse and start slowing lifting it.  He lifts it up to where my bra strap is on my back, before the man stops him.  “Turn around again lady,” he instructs, before telling David to lift my shirt again. Now I understand what he’s doing, he’s checking to make sure I don’t have a phone, wallet, or gun hidden in the waistband of my pants.  He lifts it up to just under my bra again, but the man motions for him to raise it a little higher.  He brings it above my bra, showing my cleavage.  I close my eyes in embarrassment.  

“Women don’t actually keep money in their bras anymore,” I say bitterly once I’ve opened my eyes.

“Don’t get sassy with me miss.  You can put her shirt down now.”  He turns to my boyfriend.  “Where’s your phone and wallet?”

David’s eyes flitter to mine for a brief second.  “I don’t have mine either.”

“I don’t believe that,” he says venomously.

A new voice shouts, “Zeus, we found the manual key for the vault!”

They’re using code names, which means there’s a chance they’ll let us go, because we can’t identify their faces or give real names. However, once they get the money, there’s also a high chance that they kill all witnesses.  Or, if the teller pressed a silent alarm and the police are already here, they could keep us as hostages for hours.  

As the man pointing the gun at us is distracted by the person who found the key, David steps behind me, shoves me towards the man, and tries to run to the front door.  The person sees movement, shoots blindly, and an intense pain bursts from my abdomen.  I fall over, and the man shoots David in the back before he reaches the door.  

I hear someone outside shout “Shots fired!” and the doors burst open.  A familiar red, white, and blue shield comes through the door, followed by a suit of red and gold metal, and a man dressed in all black, a gun bigger than the robbers’ held by his metal arm.  The robbers don’t shoot the other few people in the bank, considering Iron Man has miniature missiles on his shoulders aimed at each of them.

“They say third time’s a charm, maybe you’ll actually stay dead this time,” Captain America says.

“Mmmm, not your best work,” Iron Man says to him.

Captain America ignores him, “Put down your guns.”  They put down their guns, but two of the men fall over.  They must still keep poison pills in their teeth.  The police run in and arrest the three men who didn’t kill themselves, while Captain America and Iron Man look at David to see if he’s alive.  The man in black rushes over to me and puts his flesh hand on my wound, causing me to groan in pain.  “She needs an ambulance!”

“You’re Bucky Barnes,” I say, recognizing him from my history classes.  

“Yeah, I am,” he says, clearly surprised I recognized him.

“I’m a historian…with a concentration on World…War II,” I say through gasping breaths.

“Alright doll, just save your energy, you can’t go to sleep,” he replies gently, as if he’s soothing a small child.  

“I always…knew…you were the good guy,” I say slowly before the world goes black.

 “Almost done packing babe?” Bucky asks, peeking his head into our room.  

“I just finished packing my clothes.  Did you pack the weapon bag?” I ask.  Some people think it’s weird that we bring a bag of weapons on vacations, but when your husband is an ex-assassin with 80+ years of enemies, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

“No, I told you this place is so safe we don’t even need guns,” he replies, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist.  

I sigh, “Alright if you say so.  I’m just happy we’re going on a relaxing vacation.  You’ve had too many missions lately and my job has been stressful as well.”  Columbia University asked museums in the area for a historian who could teach a class about World War II, and to apply for the job, we have to write a dissertation. Luckily, I have someone from World War II with me to answer any questions I have, but it’s taken up a lot of my time.

“Relaxing, but also exciting!”

“What?” I ask, exasperated.  “Bucky I need time to lounge around on a beach or cuddle by a fireplace in a cabin or something.  This is supposed to be our second honeymoon.”  

Our first honeymoon had been to Belize.  About halfway through our trip, duty called.  We called the rest of the Avengers and spent the rest of our honeymoon breaking up a huge sex trafficking ring.  We saved over 30 girls, and were happy about it, but our honeymoon was supposed to be our time to celebrate our marriage away from crime. And we love the team to pieces, but it was also our time to be away from them and the tower.  They say bad guys don’t take days off, but I had at least hoped the world could survive without my husband for a while.  I’m no agent or Avenger, but after Bucky and I started dating, he taught me over 100 different ways to defend myself, helped me train, taught me about guns and how to properly use them, and how to disarm a gunman within seconds.  I was able to help destroy the sex trafficking ring by being bait, which was scary, but I trusted Bucky and the rest of the team to keep me from harm; and they did.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head, doll.  It’ll be relaxing during the day, but exciting at night because I have a bunch of new things I want to try in the bedroom,” he says, nibbling on my earlobe.

It tickles and I giggle.  “You got some kinks you didn’t tell me about before we were married?” I ask jokingly.

He spins me around to face him before gently pushing me on the bed.  “I didn’t want to scare you off before,” he says playfully, dropping onto me but not letting his full weight land on me.  He grabs my wrists and pins them above my head.  “Now that you’re legally bound to me, if you want to leave, it’s gonna cost ya.”   I laugh and he flashes a brilliant smile.  He leans his head down and starts kissing me deeply.

“Hey guys I-woah, sorry!” Steve’s voice says, panicked.

“Steve, you’re fine, Bucky’s just being silly.  We’re decent!” I say, pushing Bucky off of me and sitting up.

He walks back into the room, face flushed from embarrassment.  “Sorry, I just came to say that I filled your gas tank and took the liberty of putting your bags in the car, except that one,” he says, pointing to my duffel bag.

“Oh thank you Steve!” I say.

“Would you like me to take that one for you as well?”

Bucky replies before I do, “No, I’ve got it! You’re not the only gentlemen around here Steve.  I can be chivalrous too, she’s my wife.”

Steve raises his hands in surrender, gives a small smile, and backs away.  

“You didn’t have to be so sassy,” I say, lightly slapping his bicep.

“Steve always interrupts us right when things were about to get good,” he pouts.

“No, things were not about to get good.  The door was wide open and we need to leave so we can get there before dark.”

“You are excited, aren’t you?” he asks rhetorically.

“I’m just happy you’re actually taking me on this second honeymoon.”

“I said I would!”

“I know, I’m just used to people saying they would do things and then not following through,” I say, thinking back to David, who was always making empty promises.  I then compare it to Bucky, who has kept every promise he’s ever made me.  

I sit mostly upright in my hospital bed, mindlessly flipping through channels.  I stop Law and Order: SVU, but quickly change the channel when a character is shot. Baseball it is.  There are two small taps on my door.  “Come in,” I say.

A nurse walks in the door.  “You have a visitor here to see you.”  She walks back out the door, and Bucky Barnes takes her place.

“Hi,” I breathe out and a smile breaks out across my face.  “What are you doing here?”

He frowns slightly, but then fixes his expression. “You were pretty out of it in the ambulance, but you regained consciousness for a little while.  I told you I would come visit you in the hospital.  I hope that’s ok.  I brought you these,” he says, holding up a colorful bouquet of wildflowers.

“It’s completely ok, and thank you so much, that’s so sweet of you.”

“I figured you could use a little something to brighten the place up, but it looks like I’m not the only one who had the idea,” he says, gesturing to the three other bouquets that my family and my coworkers sent me.  

He sets the vase down on the bedside table.  I lean over a tiny bit take a deep breathe to try and smell them, since I can’t twist my torso over to them.  However, once I do, I grab my neck and start gasping for air. His eyes widen with worry.  “Sunflowers…allergic,” I spit out.

“Oh shit, I’ll go get a nurse!” he says, quickly standing up.

My gasping turns to laughing, and he stops, turning around.  “I was kidding.  You should’ve seen your face,” I say. I begin laughing harder when he pouts, but immediately regret it. “OW!” I put a pillow over my stomach to keep a little pressure on the wound.

He lets out an exaggerated sigh and rolls his eyes, but is smiling.  “At least you have a sense of humor.”

“They say laughter is the best medicine, though maybe that isn’t true when you have a GSW on your abdomen.”

“You’re just lucky it didn’t hit any major organs. How long is your sentence?” he asks.

“If this is jail, it’s a pretty nice one.  And they said at least two weeks, but it might go longer.  If it had hit major organs, they said it would’ve been 5 weeks, if not more.”  He hums in agreement but doesn’t say anything, so I continue. “Hey, if I ask you this, will you be honest with me?  Everybody around me has been walking on eggshells and avoiding answering this question, so I can probably guess what the answer is.”

He looks apprehensive but says, “I can try.  What’s up?”

“My boyfriend, David, is he dead?”

Bucky looks around uncomfortably, “Look, I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask this to…”

“If you’re worried you’ll break my heart with the news, don’t be.  Because whether he’s alive or dead, the relationship is over.”

“Why do you say that?” he asks, eyes narrowed in both suspicion and confusion.

“Because he’s the reason I’m in this hospital bed. He pushed me towards the shooter so he could run away.   He’s a coward.  So if he is dead, then whatever.  I know it’s poor to speak ill of the deceased, but he did try to sacrifice me to save himself. And if he’s alive, it’s over.  He showed his true colors.”

He doesn’t speak for a few seconds.  Probably trying to figure out how to best phrase it, or find out if I actually mean what I said.  He very quietly says, “He didn’t make it.   The bullet hit his right lung and it collapsed; they weren’t able to save him. He went through 3 hours of surgery before his heart gave out.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“For what?”

“Being honest with me.  I’m a little tougher than people give me credit for.”

A small smile creeps onto his face.  “I’m sure you are.”

 “Talk is cheap, my darling.  Anyone can say something and not mean it.  My ma taught me never to break promises if I can help it,” Bucky says.

“Your mom sounds like a lovely lady,” I say, giving his cheek a kiss.  “I wish I could have met her.  I wish I could’ve met your father too.  And your siblings.”

“Steve is just as much my brother as my actual siblings were, so at least you met one family member of mine.  But my folks woulda loved you.  Ma would be happy to see I finally settled down with an amazing woman, and maybe a baby on the way soon?” he asks hopefully.

“Buck, I told you I want to wait until two years after we got married, then I’ll pop out as many babies as you want, as long as that number isn’t over 5.  5 is the absolute most I would have.”

“I think 3 would be good.  But I still want to get started as soon as possible!”

“Ugh, Bucky, what am I gonna do with you?” I rhetorically ask, laughing.

“I could make a list,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows. “But c’mon doll, I’m not getting any younger here!”

“Oh please, you’re over 100.  I think you can wait one more year.  They say waiting two years is good for your marriage when the stress from babies comes because then you have more happy times to look back on.”

“Oh screw the studies,” he says, sitting on the bed. He lightly grabs my hips and pulls me to stand between his legs.  “My parents got married and nine months later I popped out, and they were still married when I went to war.  It doesn’t matter how long you wait before having kids, it’s the people.  You gotta be willing to work through the hard times.”

“And you know I am,” I say, running my fingers through his hair.  “But we should get going.  We can continue this conversation when we’re back.  I want to be alone with you.”

-------------------- 

“Ok, this text from Steve says the key is hidden in the bear’s mouth,” Bucky says.  He grabs my hand and we walk up to the plain but nice cabin.  It’s sunset, so it isn’t quite dark out, but there’s not enough light to be outside.  There’s a small statue of a bear sitting on a stump on the front porch that says WELCOME. Bucky reaches in the bears slightly open mouth and pulls out a key.  “That’s deeper than it looks.”

He unlocks the front door and I’m about to walk in but he stops me.  “What? Tony said the place wasn’t booby trapped,” I say.  This is Tony’s cabin, but Steve acted as a mediator between Bucky and Tony.  Tony allows him on the team and to live in the tower, but he won’t go out of his way to talk to him.  Cordial but not friendly.

“No it’s not that.”  He suddenly picks me up bridal style.  “Gotta carry my wife across the threshold.”

“Oh please Bucky, that’s for when you move into your first house together, not a honeymoon redo.”

“I don’t care, I’m gonna do it anyways,” he says.  

“You’re ridiculous,” I say as he sets me down inside. As he shuts the door, I look around. An open concept downstairs area with a high end kitchen.  The living room has a vaulted ceiling and an enormous fireplace.  At the end of the living room there’s a staircase that leads to what I’m assuming is the bedrooms.

“So should we unpack tonight or wait until tomorrow and just go to bed?” Bucky asks.

“Bed?  But I’m not tir-oh,” I say when I see him giving me a suggestive look, biting his lip. “You know what, let’s go to bed.” He picks me up and starts running towards the master bedroom.

 --------------------

A loud bang wakes me from my sleep.  I lift my head, listening, and am about to go back to bed, thinking I imagined it when I hear the sound of glass shattering.  Is someone breaking in?  I sit up, holding the blanket to my bare chest and listen more. It’s silent for a few seconds but then thumps like footsteps are heard.  “Bucky,” I say, nudging my husband’s arm.  He grunts in response.  “Bucky!” I say, shaking his arm harder.  

“Go back t’sleep,” he mumbles.  I grab my pillow and slam it on his face.  He wakes up immediately.  “What?” he asks, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“I think someone’s in the house,” I whisper.

“Babe, it’s probably just house settling noises.  Let’s cuddle until we fall back asleep,” he says, laying down and grabbing my waist in an attempt to pull me back down to the bed too, but I resist.  The distinct sound of a frying pan being dropped on the door makes him shoot up in bed. “Ok, nevermind, those aren’t house settling noises.  You stay here, I’ll go check it out.”  He climbs out of bed and grabs his joggers off the floor.  He quietly steps into those before going over to his nightstand and grabbing a knife.  He flips it in his hand before gripping it tightly.

“I thought you said no weapons,” I whisper.

“I said no guns, not no weapons.  Plus, this was already here; I left it here when Steve and I went on our fishing trip.”

As he walks out, I grab his t-shirt and my underwear and throw them on just in case we have to run.  I nervously clutch the sheets as I wait for Bucky to come back.   After about 15 seconds, the door noiselessly opens and Bucky walks through, looking oddly calm. He shuts the door behind him. “Y/N, call 911.”

I grab my phone from the nightstand and quickly dial 911. As I do that, Bucky grabs an armchair and puts it in front of the door.  

“911 what’s your emergency?”

Bucky pulls the phone from my ear because he didn’t tell me what’s wrong.  He starts speaking quietly.  “Hi, we’re in the Stark cabin out on 360th street.  There’s bears in our kitchen.”

Are you serious I mouth at him.  He nods his head.  I can hear the woman on the phone tell us to stay in our bedroom, stay quiet, and that officers will be right out.  He thanks her and hangs up.  He gently sets the phone down on the nightstand and sits down in front of me on the bed, facing away, blocking me in case the bear breaks into our room.  I wrap my arms around his bare waist and set my chin on his shoulder.  “How many bears are there?”

“Three.  There were two cubs pulling things out of the cabinets and I was planning to just scare them away when I saw momma bear coming through the door.  I came back up here after I saw her, and I’m not about to knife fight a bear.  I must not have closed the door fully when we got here.”

“You promised this trip would be safe, you broke your first promise.”

He turns around and gives me a disbelieving look. I shrug my shoulders and then give him a small smile so he knows I was just joking around.  I lift my hands from his flat stomach up to his shoulders.  “Bucky you’re really tense,” I say quietly.

“Because there’s a family of bears downstairs!” he harshly whispers.  

“But the police are on their way, they’ll take care of it.  They probably deal with this kind of stuff all the time.” I begin rubbing his shoulders and he relaxes a little, but just barely.

After about 10 minutes, and more sounds of things breaking, we can see red and blue flashing lights coming from the window, but no siren. They probably didn’t turn it on so the bears wouldn’t get agitated.  There are three distinct thuds heard.  A few minutes pass and someone calls out “You guys can come out!”

“I’ll go talk to them, you stay here, you’re not dressed and we left out bags in the car.”  He walks out the door and I can hear him greet the officer.  I decide I want to see what’s going on, so I grab a throw blanket and wrap it around myself before following Bucky.  He turns around when he hears me coming down the stairs and holds out his hand for me like Jack on the Titanic.  I grab his hand so I don’t trip over the blanket.  

I look around and see the entire downstairs in disarray.  The couch that probably cost my entire salary is shredded with stuffing hanging out everywhere and a broken lamp next to it.  Glasses are broken on the kitchen floor and pots have been pulled out of the cabinets. The fridge door is open and food is littered on the floor around it.  Chairs are turned over and the hardwood floors are scratched up.  I look outside and see all three bears in cages.

The officer is explaining what happened.  “When we arrived and shot the momma bear with a tranq dart, the baby bears freaked out and started tearing up the sofa.  We got them as quick as we could so that they didn’t destroy even more things.  They’ll be relocated and hopefully won’t come back to this house.”

“Thank you, officer,” Bucky says.  The officer bows his head and leaves.  

We silently look around for a moment before I say, “Tony’s gonna kill us.”

“Yep.”

“Well, you were right, this trip is exciting at night!”