𝔹𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕋𝕠 𝔹𝕣𝕠𝕠𝕜𝕝𝕪𝕟 | Bucky Barnes⁽¹⁾

02 | Coney Island

November 1938 - Brooklyn

In the two months since their first date, Ella and Bucky had been on several more. They agreed to take things slow, as neither of them wanted to take a step too far too quickly and risk anything going wrong, not that anything was going to. 

They hadn't put labels on their relationship yet, deciding to just say they were dating until they were both ready for the next step. They weren't 'boyfriend and girlfriend' yet - they were just together. 

Steve had been beyond thrilled for his two friends when they told him they were together, claiming he knew all along that they were gonna end up together. Bucky's fears that thing would be awkward for Steve were quickly diminished, as nothing had changed in terms of the three of them hanging out. It was better, even.

Ella put her pencil down and flexed her right hand as she sat back in the uncomfortable wooden desk chair and let out a loud sigh.

"Finally done."

"Can I read it now?" Bucky asked, standing behind her and reaching for the paper.

"Ah!" Ella smacked his hand away. "No, you cannot. You can read it in the paper just like everyone else. Oh, that's still fun to say!"

The meeting with Maggie's friend from the paper had gone way better than Ella could have imagined. The woman, Alison, talked to Ella for over an hour about the job, and said she had loved everything Maggie had shown her of Ella's work. She was offered the job there and then in the diner, and the young woman was beyond thrilled. She still worked some shifts at Porter's Diner, and Maggie and Joe would often let her work on her column during the quiet shifts.

"Come on, at least tell me what it's about," Bucky chuckled. He slumped down on Ella's bed and shuffled back until he was leant against the headboard.

"It is about going into adulthood and struggling with the pressure of being independent," Ella explained. "Seeing as I turn twenty-one in..." She glanced at the clock on the bedroom wall. "...nineteen minutes, it seemed like an appropriate topic."

"Can't wait to read it," Bucky smiled. "You really feeling under pressure?"

"Hmm, a little," Ella sighed, getting up from the desk chair and sitting across from Bucky, kneeling on her bed. "I know it probably sounds dumb to you. I don't have parents, it's not like I have anyone on at me to get a life."

Ella grew up with just her mother, Jane, who passed away with pneumonia when Ella was sixteen. She stayed with Steve and his mom, Sarah, for a few months and worked for Joe and Maggie at the diner until she could afford to rent the studio apartment, which she still lived in four years later.

"It doesn't sound dumb," Bucky replied. "If anything, it's harder. You got thrown into adulthood when you were still a kid. It makes sense that now you're actually an adult, you'd wanna move on with life."

"Yeah, I guess," Ella shrugged. "I just don't know what that is, you know?"

"C'mere," Bucky held his arms out.

Ella smiled as she crawled up the bed and moved to sit between his legs. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against his chest, a small chuckle escaping him when she turned her head to press a kiss to his jaw.

"That's better," Bucky whispered, and she giggled. "Now, how do you mean, you don't know?"

"Well, there's so much I do," Ella began, leaning her head back onto his shoulder. "I wanna go places. I wanna keep writing beyond the local paper. I wanna get out there, see the world, help people."