The Grumpy Sunshine Series

The Scary One

Originally Posted: 02/27/2022

"You set me on fire!" Bucky exclaims, poking at the burn hole in his shirt.

"I'm really sorry- I swear it was an accident. Can I kiss it and make it better?" you coyly offer, giving him your best doe eyed expression.

"Don't give me those puppy eyes, you set me on fire!" Bucky repeats in disbelief.

"What the hell?" Clint asks, watching the two of you walk into the conference room.

"We were training," you meekly explain. "Things got a little out of hand."

"A little?" Bucky asks, eyes comically widened at your definition out out of hand.

"You two were training- together?" Steve asks, then turns to you, "Are you alright?"

"Me?" you gesture to yourself.

"She set me on fire," Bucky reminds everyone. "Does no one care that she set me on fire?"

"I care," you offer, taking Bucky's hand. The two of you take your seats side by side in the conference room.

"Just look at the face," Wanda pokes at your cheek as she moves to take her own seat. "She wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Not a fly. Me!" Bucky exclaims.

"Aww... Come on, I said I was sorry." You reach over, gently pulling Bucky down and pecking his mouth. He sighs in defeat, already having forgiven you. He's mostly been teasing you, but now he's a little irritated at everyone else's reaction, or lack thereof. "And in my defense, you shouldn't have been training in the first place. Your side is still healing."

"Yeah, I'm sure adding third degree burns is going to help my side heal," Bucky sarcastically remarks.

"Okay, one: It was an accident. Two: if you hadn't noticed, I've been kind of on edge since you were stabbed. And three: I just barely set you on fire. It hardly went through your shirt," you add, studying the burn hole on Bucky's shoulder.

"You got beat up by a girl," Sam chuckles.

"You know behind those doe eyes and sunshine- she's the one you all should worry about. And I'm sure those guys SHIELD picked up from our last mission would agree."

"Her?" Tony asks, watching you fiddle with the Rubik's cube Bucky gave you earlier in the day. Your eyebrows furrow as you try to figure out how to fix the singular mismatched block. With an idea, you try to peel off the sticker to swap the two of them out. "We're supposed to be scared of her?"

"You're so dumb sometimes," Clint teases, watching you carefully peel off the sticker.

"If you want to live to see another day, Clint, I'd stop running your mouth," Bucky threatens. You gently pat Bucky's shoulder to remind him to ease his reaction. "Sorry," he grumbles to Clint.

"Oh yeah, she's the scary one," Clint sarcastically mumbles.

"You know what? I'm tired of this. I'm not the scary one in this relationship. And I'll prove it to you," he declares. "FRIDAY, play our last mission."

Then the video starts playing:

"What's the bad guys name?" you ask, handing Bucky a parachute that even though he claimed he didn't need one.

"I dunno. Why?"

You shrug. "It'd be nice to know their name. Maybe we can ask them nicely for the weapons back."

"You know, you have a lot of great ideas. This- it's not one of them," Bucky quips.

You playfully stick your tongue out at him. "Fine, then I'll give him a name. Zurg. Zurg sounds like a bad guy name."

"I'm shaking in my boots," Steve chuckles.

"Just wait," Bucky huffs. "Let me fast forward a little bit."

You two are on the boat, both fighting the surprising amount of crew on the small utility boat. You've both nearly fought your way through the crew, when you hear Bucky loudly grunt in pain. You turn around and see two things: Bucky clutching his bloodied side and his arm missing. Your gasp turns into something akin to a glower as you look Bucky's arm on the floor. "You took off his arm!"

"Ohhhh..." Bucky taunts, though you can hear the strain in his voice. "You messed up."

With one large swipe of your arm, the few remaining crew are knocked into the ice cold water. You pay no attention to the yelps as they hit the freezing water with no way to climb back on the boat.

"I'm going to need you to put the gun down and let him go," you furiously demand, the ridiculously buff bad guy holding Bucky in a tight headlock with a gun pointed at his head. The only reason the man got the upper-hand on Bucky in the first place was an underhanded knife to Bucky's side. And now, you were livid, just barely holding yourself back from burning everything down.

"Go home, little girl, before you get hurt."

"You should really listen to her," Bucky insists, noting the anger building in your eyes.

"I'm not going to ask again. Let him go or else," you grit, your fists tightly clenched.

"Or what?" The bad guy laughs, infuriating that much more.

"Or I'm going to burn this ship down. The entire ship down," you state so plainly that it's chilling. "Now let my boyfriend go."

"You're bluffing. You'd kill us all," the man sneers, tightening his grip on Bucky.

"Am I? Are you really sure you want to take that bet?" you rhetorically ask. "I wonder how long it would take for all those weapons and missiles to explode...b ecause I'm thinking that this entire thing would blow before you could even try to jump ship."

The man visibly pales, his eyes flickering between you and the flame burning in your hand.

"I can save the two of us. Can you say the same for yourself?" you cooly threaten, rolling the small flame between your fingers.

"Told you," Bucky mutters, looking oddly proud of your angry outburst.

"You wouldn't," the bad guy replies.

The small flame in your hand grows even larger. "You really want to bet on that?"

Bucky pauses the video triumphantly, feeling as though he's proved his point. "Told you. I'm not the scary one."

"Aww...she wanted to save you," Wanda coos.

"I give up," Bucky grumbles, throwing himself back into his seat.

You gently pat his hand. "I don't think you're scary."

"Hold on," Tony interjects. "I thought you two said that you weren't able to recover anything from that mission."

"We weren't," you guiltily mutter, averting your eyes away from Tony.

"But all the weapons were still intact in that video?" Tony points out, now staring you and Bucky down.

"And your point is?"

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose, slightly shaking his head. "Please tell me you didn't blow up an entire boatful of weapons with people still onboard."

"Okay," you agree, slightly nodding your head. "I won't tell you."

"I'm sorry, you did what?!" Sam exclaims.

"In my defense, I left them on a raft."

"You left a dozen arms dealers on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?"

"Well, SHEILD picked them up, and they were all fine- mostly," you cheekily assure them. "And honestly, they're lucky I left them the raft after they stabbed James. I had to stitch him up myself! And talk about cheap shots, they took his arm! Not cool. Not cool at all."

"This is why you two aren't allowed to go on missions alone," Sam comments, crossing his arms and shaking his head at the two of you.

"Nah, I still don't see it," Clint remarks, watching you closely. "I still say Bucky's the scary one."